Several years ago, an Episcopalian confronted a left-wing Episcopal bishop and blamed the management of the Episcopal Church for the drastically decreased membership in the denomination. In reply, the bishop lectured, “Jesus said, feed my sheep, not count them.”

(Article by Daniel Oliver republished from AMGreatness.com)

To which the proper response is: yes, but also, when only one of the ten lepers He had cured returned to give thanks, Jesus asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Turns out, Jesus could count after all. Who knew?

The Episcopal Church has been in free fall for decades. And nowhere has that fall been on display more spectacularly than at the post-inauguration interfaith service held in January at the Washington National Cathedral. During the service, the Bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, lit into President Trump:

In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We’re scared now. [“We?”] The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. [Hmm: if they have violated the immigration laws, they are criminals. If they’re not citizens and therefore don’t have proper documentation, how do they pay taxes? And if they don’t pay taxes, then, when, e.g., they put their children in schools or use medical facilities, they are freeloading on the hardworking people who do pay taxes. Is that being a good neighbor?] Etc., etc.

The “sermon” (a lot of left-wing claptrap) was, to put it mildly, highly inappropriate.

Bishop Budde is a problem—and she has a problem, or more probably has many problems. A quick look at her autobiography reveals a sad tale.

“When I was a junior in high school, my family life fell apart. It was never strong to begin with, and part of me knew the fall was coming.”

We can feel sorry for Budde, but we have a sense of foreboding: she is going to take out her unhappiness on… the rest of us.

“Then the day came when my father took me aside to say that he was leaving my stepmother.”

That’s not good. Her “family” had already fallen apart: where was her real mother?

“I was welcome to come with him, he said, and I’m pretty sure that he expected me to say yes, but there was no way I was going anywhere with my father alone. I didn’t know then what clinical depression was, or alcoholism for that matter, but I saw their manifestations in him.”

Not good.

“The story of our parents’ divorce when I was an infant and subsequent custody battle when I was eleven is painful and messy.”

She remembers it—who wouldn’t?—and she obviously can’t ever let it go.

“When we met with a family judge in his chambers, [my mother] remained uncharacteristically quiet while I exaggerated stories of our life in New Jersey, thinking how that would please our father. He was indeed pleased when the judge awarded him custody of us both, citing what I said as a determining factor in his decision. Our mother was shattered, as she had been years before, by the divorce. Looking back, I’m stunned by my capacity for cruelty. Why did I say those things to hurt our mother? I knew that she loved us.”

You can’t miss the dysfunctionality of her “family” when reading just those few snippets of her biography—and you can’t help feeling sorry for her.

But growing up dysfunctional just doesn’t seem like a good recommendation for going into the ministry. A clinician might say, “Research suggests that growing up in a dysfunctional environment increases the risk of carrying forward certain patterns.”

And might add: “Studies show that individuals who have suffered abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction as children have a greater risk of mental health issues, substance abuse, and difficulty in relationships.”

A useful rule might be: The more important a position is, the greater should be the reluctance to fill it with someone whose childhood was as dysfunctional as Bishop Budde’s was.

Appointing Budde as the Episcopal Bishop of Washington is the real scam here. Her history (see above) is troublesome, and her manners (see above) seem disqualifying. She and the Episcopal Church went after Trump, but he can have the last laugh.

He should announce that he will not be attending any services at the National Cathedral while Bishop Budde remains there.

Washington’s a big city. There are other churches and cathedrals.

Not all the sheep and not all the shepherds are leftwingers.

Read more at: AMGreatness.com