As a rule, I have tried to avoid slanging my former faith, in large part because of those family and friends still associated with it.  However, there are times when posts simply write themselves, and this is one of them.

We received in the mail today the latest edition of the Virginia Episcopalian, the diocesan newsletter.  And damme if a front page article didn’t begin:

How can General Convention not be fun when Mickey Mouse and Goofy will be right across the street?  Thousands of Episcopalians will converge next month on a convention center in Aneheim, Calif., next to Disneyland, with all its irresistible symbolism.

How, indeed?  I can only assume that while the author of the article intended to be funny, he didn’t intend to be funny in the way that this passage really is funny. 

According to Wiktionary, to “Disneyfy” something means  ”to make something (especially a location) more acceptable or marketable by removing potentially distasteful or controversial elements, particularly at the cost of its historical nature.”

Can you think of a better definition of TEC these past 30-odd years, and especially in the past 10?  I sure can’t.  

The punch line is that TEC New Hampshah Bishop Gene(!) Robinson was quoted the other day as predicting that the recently-formed Anglican Church of North America, which rejects “rejecting the cost of its historical nature,” was doomed – doomed! – because it refuses to “remove potentially distasteful or controversial elements” by not ordaining openly gay or women priests.

This is especially hy-larious in the non-Disney sense in that a) TEC, never that big to begin with, has been bleeding members these past ten years and b) the largest faith in the same geographical area, the (ahem) Catholic Church, happens to follow exactly the same practice condemned by Gene!, and yet still out-numbers TEC by something like 35 to 1.

Heh, indeed.

(Oh, I should confess that I found the Mickey image at Fr. Austin Murphy’s Jesus Goes To DisneyWorld, so I’m not saying anyone is perfect.   I can understand the good Father’s efforts to find faith in popular culchah, but I simply cannot imagine Jesus approaching our current nihilistic, self-centered, plastic, celebrity-driven system with anything but horror.)