And humans are never, ever deceived by what the perceive to be a pattern? Since I fit the pattern, you have decided my motivation. Unfortunately, you are incorrect in this case.
Its not all about you. Have you been doing the Westboro Two Step that I explicitly pointed out as illustrative of #NotAllChristians? No. Has someone else on this thread illustrated it perfectly? Yes. #NotAllChristians is frequently appropriate in conversations like this thread and is being demonstrated in this thread. You were getting the full expansion because you were saying that the term itself was invalid. No, you personally haven't demonstrated #NotAllChristians. You haven't brought up the Westboro Baptist Church to deflect attention and then claimed that pointing out the actual behaviour of actual Christian leaders of all the largest groups amounted to bashing.
I will make this request only once - please stop telling me why I say things. Don't make Charisma your dump stat.
And I will make the following request only once. Please actually respond to what I am saying rather than what you imagine me to be saying and making strawmen by doing so. Don't make Wisdom your dump stat.
In recent days you've twice attempted to correct me through pedantry (once on this thread by your comments about the exception proving the rule and once about the meaning of exponential) - and in both cases I have demonstrated I meant exactly what I said and it was factually accurate to do so. Pedantry in the first place is generally a failed Cha check - and incorrect pedantry a failed Int check. A third time in about the past week you seem to have had a problem with the idea I might be saying what I meant and my deliberate illustrations that I didn't mean more meant I
must be insinuating malice precisely because I said I wasn't.
That tells us *how* they came to change, but doesn't tell us *why* they changed. Why is the ECUSA "liberal", while the CoE is more "conservative"? I'm asking about root cause, here.
And I have been pointing out for several posts now that the premise of this is invalid. The ECUSA is
not socially liberal when you put it against the backdrop of mainstream American society. The ECUSA is not leading so much as it is taking its moral cues from the surrounding society. Indeed it is socially
slightly conservative by the standards of mainstream society.
Now, the correct question to ask is "Why is the ECUSA taking its cues from mainstream American society while the CofE is taking its cues from itself?"
And the answer to that is that the ECUSA is not a major denomination. (Which is where my correction to your illustration comes in). The ECUSA claims that it had 1.55 million communicant members in 2013 - or approximately 0.5% of the population of the USA (and this includes lapsed members who were confirmed as a teenager but haven't darkened church doors in years). It's certainly not a major denomination by numbers. Further it doesn't have a Salt Lake City style heartland or many Megachurches (Wikipedia claims it has one) that make it a major denomination in a specific region. This means that almost all American Episcopalians know many more non-Episcopalians than they do Episcopalians so most of them take their cues from the society they know.
Or to put it simply, by being such a small denomination (the numbers aren't directly comparable, but in North America, the Unitarians may be bigger and given relative reporting dates so might the Jehovas' Witnesses) the Episcopalians don't have a critical mass in America. Which means that in the absence of a specific doctrinal/societal push they float towards the centre of America rather than feed back into themselves.
Of course the waters are muddied by the historic disproportionate influence of the Episcopalian Church and the fact that it's frequently used as a bridge by Christians who reject Christian Shibboleths.
Oh, well, that's simple. I reject the premise. Christianity isn't morally good.
Fair enough. I'm not sure even if you are a Christian - but if you are, what is the point of Christianity if it doesn't lead to goodness?
Moreover, large organizations are powerful, but typically slow and clumsy tools, They have inertia, especially when their definition is partly based on following tradition. We would expect them to generally lag behind the environments they come from. It may well be that the organization *must* lag behind the environment - organizations don't lead.
On the other hand organisations can encourage certain practices. It surprises a lot of people to discover that the late Archbishop Ramsay (Archbishop of Canterbury 1961 - 1974) was a major advocate for the decriminalisation of homosexuality and used his platform to push this. How different from today. (IMO Archbishop Runcie's approach of "nailing his colours firmly to the fence" was preferable to any of his three successors).
Organisations don't lead, but the people in charge of them do. Or they can behave like anchors.
We may be seeing this with the Catholic Church now, with Pope Francis. It is very clearly he who is leading, not the church as a whole.
Pope Francis is very clearly at odds
with the Curia. That's a different story - I'm not sure whether he's leading or playing catchup with respect to the Catholic in the pew to stop the haemoherrage in Europe and America. He's also not actually changing any doctrine; what he represents is more of a change of emphasis from "We should condemn these people ... and treat the poor well when we have time" to "We should treat the poor well and condemn these people." It's a welcome change of emphasis, granted. But the changes in doctrine are minimal.
As Danny has noted - many Catholics do not know their Augustine. Perhaps in the CofE, it is given lip service more than actual practice? Then, why? What's the difference between the organizations?
Most Christians don't know much theology and are far more likely to folow those of people teaching than their own guesses. But a huge difference is that in America the Episcopalian Church claims 2 million baptised members. In Britain the Church of England claims 26 million baptised members, and has a central organisation and free seats in the House of Lords. Which, especially allowing for local variation, allows many more feedback loops. As I said, major denomination. In England the CofE is one.
(Before you mention various other groups, major denomination is far from the only toggle here. It's just one of the few that gets turned on by default).
