Conversation Between Ted Logan and Ridley's Own

From my understanding, there was an assigned time limit for his tenure as locum tenens. And it was because of the extenuating circumstances.

That's interesting; I'm less surprised by the older gentleman and more surprised by the diocese allowing an associate to take over. That's usually very frowned upon. There's been a sharp refocus on mission in TEC in the past year or so, but on the local level that kind of resistance can be debilitating to clergy. Then again... The rector just died, so there's probably a whole lot of grief, trepidation about change, etc., getting bound up in that argument.

They definitely needed the kick in the pants. When the rector died, the associate (recently ordained, fresh from seminary) was made Rector Locum Tenans, and I watched as he appeared to wilt over the next year. The mission statement included "to carry Christ into the world," which would have been great except that no attempt to do so was actually made. One day, I overheard an older gentleman arguing loudly with him, saying we should take the clause because "we ought to worry about the people who are already here!" The rector locum tenens tried to point him to the Great Commission, the commissioning in Acts 1:8, etc., but he would have none of it. Most people weren't that combative - they just weren't much of anything. Not that I was much of anything, either.

Yes, exactly - just like C.S. Lewis.

Merely Christian? I suppose that's where you end up if you add High View of the Sacraments, High View of Grace/Jesus, and a Low View of hyper-Thomism and divide by three....

Flibbertygibbets.