Mood:  cool

Wow! I wish I could write as well as Richard F. Hollaway. My initial impression of the book is that the author went through a (negative) transformative experience at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, when a solid majority bloc of Bishops repudiated gay people; that experience appears to have set Hollaway on his present course, away from creedal Christianity.

Now it is obvious is that, to quote Hollaway when he was Rector at the Advent in Boston, "dust is not always up to the mark," and, historically, as Hollaway undoubtedly knows, ecclesiastics and churches have done terrible things, repeatedly; the Crusades and the Inquisition come to mind. It is not clear why this particular experience was the catalyst.

The other obvious thing is that Hollaway's present stance — he calls God a human construct and objects that religion drags God into history — is inconsistent with both Judaism and Christianity. Hollaway seems to think that God has *not* acted in history, i.e., no Incarnation, no deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt, that house of bondage. So it is not just Christianity, but any revealed religion, indeed, revelation itself, that Hollaway rejects, and that is very serious business.

Given Hollaway's stance, he did well to resign from his position as Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. I am reminded of an event I only read about. When the Boston College theologian Mary Daly (is she still with us?) decided she could no longer be a Christian, she preached a sermon to that effect at the Memorial Church (truly a grand setting) in Harvard Yard and then led a procession out of Mem Church. That is what principle looks like. And Hollaway's abrupt resignation from his highly-placed position in Scottish Anglicanism was also a principled act, which should be applauded. 

(More later: I just needed a break from editing a proposal at work.)