.@ACNA and @Church of the Rez:
Yes, I am an âoutsider.â
But my Christian friends who are in/supporting/corroborating @ACNAtoo?
They love the Church. Deeply. Even though you have wrought destruction on them and, in many cases, their families.
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Devoured. My faith in the Church and its leaders is in shambles. My childrens' faith itself now extremely fragile and unstable. They have watched all that the leaders have said and done. Alan Hawkins, I wasn't alone when you spoke to me, my children were nearby.
A number of my dear friends have been in @ACNA for years or decades.
They are devastated. They still love Jesus. They cannot reconcile their love of Jesus with what you are doing to âthe least of these.â
They are crying out, and youâve rebuffed them by scapegoating me.
You can tell yourselves that I am evil, a tool of Satan, out to burn down the Church.
But unless Iâm a truly brilliant mastermind whoâs single-handedly bewitched all these intelligent, sincere, highly ethical Christian peopleâŚ
âŚtheir devastation is on you.
And I am far more upset on their behalf than I am on my own.
I know Iâm just a scapegoat. It hurts, but I can handle it. In part because I have these incredible people around me, Christian people who love the Church but love Jesus and me and their children and each other, more.
They are the examples of Christian love that you *could* be.
You, leaders of @ACNA and @Church of the Rez, simply further confirm the reasons I am glad I left the Church.
You care well for some while devouring others.
And you have devoured my friends. And their children.
I see their tears. I hear their laments. I watch their hearts break again and again.
They were my Good Samaritans, and I try to be theirs.
And you, the leaders, keep hurrying by, off to church to divvy out your selective love and care.
I do not know if there is a Final Judgment.
But you believe you will stand before God and answer for your actions.
Are you prepared for God to confront you with these stories of my devastated friends?
To ask you if you would have done the same to Jesus as you did to them?
Do you think about what you are doing in the provincial and diocesan halls of power and imagine God saying, âWell done, good and faithful servants, you have preserved the reputation of @ACNA at the very low cost of some wounded sheep and that one unruly goatâ?
I take these sheepâs wounds very personally, @ACNA and @Church of the Rez. It kills me that I can only do so much to help them.
And as many as I know, there are many more out there with similar wounds, because you love your institution more than the people it is supposed to serve.
You spread rumors that I seek to destroy @ACNA.
Bp. Stewartâs lawyer wrote that I seek this, in a letter to @Archbishop Foley Beach.
But youâre the ones destroying my friends, and in doing so, the church.
Even if I sought to, I could never accomplish the destruction you have.
I was the original public messenger, and you can shoot the messenger, if you like.
But the message stands. The wounded sheep keep bringing it back to you.
And pointing at me wonât distract them, because they donât follow me. They follow Jesus.
#ACNAtoo