CANA has just put up a new website. Looks nice. Attractive, useable, informative. But as I looked it over, I got the feeling that there was something missing. Then it hit me.
Take a look. Let's see if you notice. Cruise around. Come back when you're done. I'll wait.
[insert canned music here.]
Back? So, did you see it? More accurately, did you notice what you did not see?
I'll give you a hint. Look here. See what I mean?
Is it just me or is there something missing?
Nowhere on the entire CANA web site is there a single list of congregations! There is no way that I, assuming I was looking for a true-blue, red-blooded, Biblical, reasserting congregation that is more-or-less in Communion with some Anglican bishops, could find out where one could actually go to church!
There is not even a way of asking if there is a friendly CANA church just waiting to welcome me. No list. No maps. No links. No place to inquire. Maybe if one goes to the installation of Bishop Minn, they'll hand out maps.
In all seriousness, I find this little omission most telling.
Look at what the site tells us: We know all about the Bishops. We learn a little bit about how they work. We know about their connections to AMiA and the Network.
Through this site, you are only two clicks away from learning how to transfer canonical residency (btw--there is no warning that any cleric filling out that form is in fact renouncing his orders in the Episcopal Church), and how your congregation can apply to join CANA (again, no warning about the potential legal consequences). They are even womping up a form to be a postulant or ordinand in their new church. How nice.
But no where is there a clue as to how an actual Christian lay person can go to an actual congregation. That's very strange for a group that claims to be so concerned about fulfilling the Great Commission.
Reading about the "miracle of CANA" in their website, they refer to all these churches that are now apart of their fellowship. How come no list and how come no links?
My guess is that there is no list, no map, because it would emphasize how few actually belong to CANA compared to the rest of the Episcopal Church. Or maybe their lawyers told them not to. Or maybe it's just easier to have a church without any pesky laity.
(See Mark Harris' take on this: "What's wrong with this picture?")
3 comments:
Andrew,
All of this stuff and bother has less to do with parishes and parishioners and EVERYTHING to do with clerics and bishops. From the outset (and I would suggest that the outset was really 30 years ago with the Conscience Clause)is a clerical movement of those who cannot see the writing on the wall.
The thing that I DO see and bridle at is the use of the Anglican Compass, the symbol of the Anglcian Communion. As Mark Harris points out at Preludium CANA is NOT a part of the Anglican Communion and should not be permitted to use the Compass. But is it worth going to court about? -- because that is what it will take
Lauren,
Exactly. It's about power.
It is about building power around people's fear.
Andrew
A comment received by e-mail, posted by atg+:
"What I noticed when I checked the CANA website was where are the women, the kids, the families? Maybe in the back of the church in the 'crying room.' This group feels soulless, even with smiling faces.
It makes one want to weep -- for lots of reasons.
Br. Chad-Anselm, OSB"
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