In the gathering darkness

Posted by Ray Ortlund a few years ago:

Let us then as Christians rejoice that we see around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, see intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them. For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material, has been explored to no effect...and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out, it’s then that Christ’s hand reaches out sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring inexpressible comfort, then his light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever.

Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, 1980)

Then Christ's hand reaches out

"Both of them born to liberty..."

Chateaubriand (1768-1848) on two contemporaries:

A degree of silence envelops Washington’s actions; he moved slowly; one might say that he felt charged with future liberty, and that he feared to compromise it. It was not his own destiny that inspired this new species of hero: it was that of his country; he did not allow himself to enjoy what did not belong to him; but from that profound humility what glory emerged! Search the woods where Washington’s sword gleamed: what do you find? Tombs? No; a world! Washington has left the United States behind for a monument on the field of battle.

Bonaparte shared no trait with that serious American: he fought amidst thunder in an old world; he thought about nothing but creating his own fame; he was inspired only by his own fate. He seemed to know that his project would be short, that the torrent which falls from such heights flows swiftly; he hastened to enjoy and abuse his glory, like fleeting youth. Following the example of Homer’s gods, in four paces he reached the ends of the world. He appeared on every shore; he wrote his name hurriedly in the annals of every people; he threw royal crowns to his family and his generals; he hurried through his monuments, his laws, his victories. Leaning over the world, with one hand he deposed kings, with the other he pulled down the giant, Revolution; but, in eliminating anarchy, he stifled liberty, and ended by losing his own on his last field of battle.

Each was rewarded according to his efforts: Washington brings a nation to independence; a justice at peace, he falls asleep beneath his own roof in the midst of his compatriots’ grief and the veneration of nations.

Bonaparte robs a nation of its independence: deposed as emperor, he is sent into exile, where the world’s anxiety still does not think him safely enough imprisoned, guarded by the Ocean. He dies: the news proclaimed on the door of the palace in front of which the conqueror had announced so many funerals, neither detains nor astonishes the passer-by: what have the citizens to mourn?

Washington’s Republic lives on; Bonaparte’s empire is destroyed. Washington and Bonaparte emerged from the womb of democracy: both of them born to liberty, the former remained faithful to her, the latter betrayed her.

Washington acted as the representative of the needs, the ideas, the enlightened men, the opinions of his age; he supported, not thwarted, the stirrings of intellect; he desired only what he had to desire, the very thing to which he had been called: from which derives the coherence and longevity of his work. That man who struck few blows because he kept things in proportion has merged his existence with that of his country: his glory is the heritage of civilisation; his fame has risen like one of those public sanctuaries where a fecund and inexhaustible spring flows.

François-René de Chateaubriand, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave] Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, English translation by A. S. Kline

Dorothy L. Sayers and her faith

While searching online for something I recalled related to the last post I came across this: The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays. It will be published next week. I've pre-ordered it. From Amazon's description:

In this anthology, renowned murder mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers tackles faith, doubt, human nature, and the most dramatic story ever told.

For almost a century, a series of labyrinthine murder mysteries have kept fans turning pages hungrily as Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane discover whodunit, again and again.

Detective novel enthusiasts may not know that for almost as many years, Christian thinkers have appreciated the same Dorothy L. Sayers....

Now, for the first time, an anthology brings together the best of both worlds. The selections uncover the gospel themes woven throughout Sayers’s popular fiction as well as her religious plays, correspondence, talks, and essays. Clues dropped throughout her detective stories reveal an attention to matters of faith that underlies all her work.

Those who know Sayers from her nonfiction writings may wonder how she could also write popular genre fiction. Sayers, like her friend G.K. Chesterton, found murder mysteries a vehicle to explore the choices characters make between good and evil. Along with C.S. Lewis and the other Inklings, with whom she maintained a lively correspondence, Sayers used her popular fiction to probe deeper questions. She addressed not only matters of guilt and innocence, sin and redemption, but also the cost of war, the role of the conscience, and the place of women in society.

None of these themes proved any hindrance to spinning a captivating yarn. Her murder mysteries are more reminiscent of Jane Austen than Arthur Conan Doyle, with all the tense interpersonal exploration of the modern novel.

A good sign

From an address delivered by Dorothy L. Sayers in 1940 titled "Creed or Chaos?":

.... There is a great difference between believing a thing to be right and not doing it, on the one hand, and, on the other, energetically practising evil in the firm conviction that it is good. In theological language, the one is mortal sin, which is bad enough; the other is the sin against the Holy Ghost, which is without forgiveness simply and solely because the sinner has not the remotest idea that he is sinning at all. So long as we are aware that we are wicked, we are not corrupt beyond all hope. Our present dissatisfaction with ourselves is a good sign. We have only to be careful that we do not get too disheartened and abashed to do anything about it at all. ....

Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos?, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1949, p. 27.

Which of Narnia Chronicles should be read first?

Re-posted.

Should the Narnia books be read in the order they were written or according to their place in the chronology of Narnia? Opinions differ and dubious claims have been made that Lewis himself preferred the latter. Alister McGrath, in my opinion, argues persuasively for the former:

.... The most significant difficulty concerns The Magician's Nephew, the last in the series to be written, which describes the early history of Narnia. To read this work first completely destroys the literary integrity of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which emphasises the mysteriousness of Aslan. It introduces him slowly and carefully, building up a sense of expectation that is clearly based on the assumption that the readers know nothing of the name, identity, or significance of this magnificent creature. In his role as narrator within The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis declares, "None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do." But anyone who has read The Magician's Nephew already knows a lot about Aslan. The gradual disclosure of the mysteries of Narnia—one of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe's most impressive literary features—is spoiled and subverted by a prior reading of The Magician's Nephew.

Equally important, the complex symbolic structure of the Chronicles of Narnia is best appreciated through a later reading of The Magician' Nephew. This is most helpful when it is placed (following the order of publication) as the sixth of the seven volumes, with The Last Battle as the conclusion. ....

Alister McGrath, C.S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet, 2013

Christianity Lite

A Canadian pastor explains "Why I Abandoned Seeker Church." His first point (of seven):

1. Because you get what you fish for

The basic logic of the seeker sensitive movement was that we would get people in the door by playing contemporary music, singing contemporary songs, speaking contemporary jargon and addressing contemporary issues. Then at some unspecified point in the future we would transition into more meaty and substantial things.

It was your basic bait and switch operation and as you might imagine it never really worked out in practice.

The bottom line is that what you win people with is what you have to keep people with. If you market yourself as a church for people who don’t like church, then you can’t do churchy things without expecting significant pushback.

This is why most seeker churches never managed to exit the theological merge lane. If you sell them on Christianity Lite then you need to continue to offer Christianity Lite week after week after week. The logic of seeker church traps you in a spiritual reenactment of Waiting For Godot. ....

Why I Abandoned Seeker Church - The Gospel Coalition | Canada

"Waste Land"

"Elon Musk tweets that he wants us to read the end notes for T.S. Eliot’s famous poem 'The Waste-Land.'” He's been having a rough time lately and Kevin Williamson finds it interesting that he apparently "is seeking solace in poetry."

“The Waste-Land” is a famously obscure and recondite poem. It is part Grail lore, part social reportage, and part library. The poem, which was originally published with its end notes, is full of references to diverse works of literature, music, and philosophy. Its mood is bleak, and one of its themes is an isolation so deep that “loneliness” doesn’t really capture it — the belief that we are all prisoners inside our own minds (or souls), and that, being unable to pass beyond those walls, we are never able to truly know one another or to be known. It is good reading for the disconsolate and the forlorn, which even billionaires must be from time to time.

And Eliot is good reading for conservatives. (It is fitting that Russell Kirk gave The Conservative Mind the subtitle: “From Burke to Eliot.”) Eliot saw a fundamental divide in the West, “between the secularists — whatever political or moral philosophy they support — and the anti-secularists; between those who believe only in values realizable in time and on earth, and those who believe in values realized out of time.” (“Out of time” — no wonder Elon Musk is in an Eliotic mood.) Kirk dedicated an entire volume to the poet: Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century. Kirk on Eliot is far better reading than today’s 27th column on Paul Manafort, if you want to get one last light summer read in. ....

Elon Musk Seeks Solace in T. S. Eliot Poetry | National Review

Patience

Lord, teach me the art of patience whilst I am well, and give me the use of it when I am sick. In that day either lighten my burden or strengthen my back. Make me, who so often in my health have discovered my weakness presuming on my own strength, to be strong in my sickness when I solely rely on Thy assistance.

Thomas Fuller, 1608-61

To go blithely

The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces. Let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. Amen

Robert Louis Stevenson

"Refutation is no necessary part of argument..."

Alan Jacobs in "once more on generational thinking" concludes the post with:

I’ve been told that I think the way I do because I’m white, because I’m straight, because I’m a Christian, because I’m Southern — but rarely, to my recollection, because of my age. I’m pretty sure that’s about to change. In a few weeks I’ll turn sixty, and then I will have the rest of my life in which to enjoy having my ideas waved away because of the year in which I was born. Which ought to be fun.

He is writing about the logical fallacy sometimes called Bulverism, a term coined by C.S. Lewis in an essay that can be found in God in the Dock, Part III, Chapter 1. From Lewis:

You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.

In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.

Bulverism - Wikipedia

Crime and the Western

I recently discovered a site called CrimeReads. I've enjoyed it and believe anyone who reads crime/detective/mystery novels would too. Today, from "Where The Western Meets Crime Fiction":

Crime novels. Westerns. Most of us think of these two genres as grossly different: one tends to feature detectives-types solving mysterious felonies, while the other prefers to focus on rough-riding cowboys behaving badly. ....

Both are about the triumph of good over evil. Early in a novel of either genre, we will see our protagonist encounter an injustice, usually the victim of crime (who may or may not still be breathing). Both novels will end when the scales of justice have finally been righted; the perpetrators of evil have met their due punishment. In a crime novel, justice usually comes in the form of a court of law. In the western, justice tends to be delivered by a bullet through the heart.

Both genres are propelled by strong-willed protagonists who rub the establishment the wrong way. The crime novel’s detective will often push the boundaries of investigative practices, even after her boss threatens her job. The western’s protagonist is usually someone with little faith in the legal system to begin with; during the quest for justice, the law usually levels its sights on our hero. ....

The writer then offers nine examples from the genre including authors both familiar (J.A. Jance, C.J. Box, Elmore Leonard), unfamiliar (Louis Owens, Anne Hillerman), and known but unread by me (Cormac McCarthy, Craig Johnson). Anne Hillerman is Tony Hillerman's daughter and "The Spider Woman’s Daughter shows that Anne Hillerman is now the bearer of the family torch."

Open Season is the first in a series about C.J. Box's protagonist Joe Pickett, a game warden in Wyoming. I have thoroughly enjoyed those books.

Where The Western Meets Crime Fiction | CrimeReads

“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

GetReligion is a site concerned with the media coverage of religion in America. Today Terry Mattingly writes about "The must-cover 'Big Ideas' at heart of the complex Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis" and wonders whether you have noticed the coverage of these things in the news you have been reading or viewing:

When candid liberals and conservatives agree on core facts, I pay very close attention.

I will emphasize elements of the scandal on which these men agree, ranking these Big Ideas according to their importance (as I perceive them, after nearly four decades of reading).

I: The key to the scandal is secrecy, violated celibacy vows and potential blackmail. Lots of Catholic leaders – left and right, gay and straight – have sexual skeletons in their closets, often involving sex with consenting adults. These weaknesses, past and/or present, create a climate of secrecy in which it is hard to crack down on crimes linked to child abuse.

II. Classic pedophiles tend to strike children of both genders. However, in terms of raw statistics, most child-abuse cases linked to Catholic clergy are not true cases of pedophilia, but are examples of ephebophilia – intense sexual interest in post-pubescent teens or those on the doorstep of the teen years. The overwhelming majority of these cases are adult males with young males.

III. One of the biggest secrets hiding in the bitter fog from all of these facts is the existence of powerful networks of sexually active gay priests, with many powerful predators – McCarrick is a classic example – based on seminaries and ecclesiastical offices. Thus, these men have extraordinary power in shaping the lives of future priests.

It seems to me that Madison's Catholic bishop, Bishop Robert Morlino, got it exactly right writing to his diocese in response to the scandal (from which I borrowed the title of this post).

 The must-cover 'Big Ideas' at heart of the complex Catholic clergy sexual abuse crisis — GetReligion

Howard Pyle

The other day I noted that Howard Pyle is one of my favorite illustrators. Here are three of his works. The first is from a book he both wrote and illustrated, Otto of the Silver Hand (1888). The others are illustrations from his pirate stories that were collected in Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921).

In the middle of the narrow way stood the motionless, steel-clad figure (1888)

Attack on a Galleon (1905)

Walking the Plank (1887)

Conservatism

Another book I need to buy is Roger Scruton's Conservatism: Ideas in Profile. I think conservatism will survive Trumpism since it has survived worse. From a review online:

Sir Roger Scruton’s new book on Conservatism: Ideas in Profile is a 176-page treat for anyone who is interested in ideas. .... Conservatism: Ideas in Profile is a page turner. I hung on every syllable, every word, every oxford comma, and every semicolon (isn’t the semicolon the femme fatal of the punctuation world?).

The blue and white cover of this book is pleasing to the eye, and when I turned to the inside sleeve, Sir Roger is described as ‘the man who, more than any other, has defined what conservatism is’. Indeed, this is quite right since perhaps Edmund Burke. Burke who quite rightly has a prominent place in the book is seen as the founder of modern day conservatism. ....

Sir Roger explores a plethora of conservative thinkers and the thoughts of great people such as Thomas Hobbes, Michael Oakeshott, Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Salisbury, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher among others.

The book is arranged over six delightful chapters starting with 'Pre-History' and concluding with 'Conservatism Now'. Furthermore, there are chapters on 'The Birth of Philosophical Conservatism', 'Cultural Conservatism', the ‘Impact of Socialism' and 'Conservatism in France and Germany'. The chapter on Conservatism in France and Germany (which also includes the Spanish thinker José Ortega y Gasset) is a great strength of this book. The inclusion of great German thinkers such as Kant and Hegel, and the French Joseph de Maistre, is a demonstration of conservatism’s wider and deeper intellectual roots beyond the anglosphere. ....

I would suggest that the most interesting chapter is on cultural conservatism, which focuses on the anxieties over the loss of religious roots in society, the worrisome dehumanising effect of the Industrial Revolution, and the consequential damage that was being inflicted upon the settled way of life. In this chapter, Sir Roger explores the thoughts of Coleridge, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, and T.S. Eliot among others. These thinkers shared a revulsion towards the new forms of so-called ‘progressive’ opinion, which they found disconcerting. Scruton also explores the worry expressed by the aforenoted thinkers regarding ‘progressive’ opinions’ propensity to treat questions of morality and law as mathematical puzzles to be solved, which of course they are not.

The book comes to its conclusion, its cessation, its climax, on a chapter called 'Conservatism Now'. In this chapter, Sir Roger suggests that the most recent attempts to define conservatism has been to define it as the champion of Western civilisation against its enemies. These two main enemies are: political correctness and religious extremism, especially the militant Islamism promoted by the Wahhabi–Salafi sects. ....

Conservatism: Ideas in Profile Review | The Conservative Online

Reading

Transported made me think of other illustrations I've liked about young people reading:

 

It is enough

As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of Thy face from me. Yet, if I may hold Thy hand in the darkness, it is enough. Since I know that, though I may stumble in my going, Thou dost not fall. (translated from the Gaelic)

Seeing the world for what it is

V.S. Naipaul died a week ago. I haven't read him and probably won't although I probably should. From David Pryce-Jones' "V.S. Naipaul: In Memoriam":

The winds of change had blown away the British Empire by then. The imperial past was presented in universities and the media as nothing but a criminal enterprise. As someone from a colony, Vidia [Naipaul] was generally expected to write briefs for the prosecution. The Middle Passage and The Loss of El Dorado show that he had no illusions about the past but was not willing to judge it by the standards of the present. Vidia was different. For him, The World Is What It Is, a definitive phrase of his that Patrick French rightly used as the title of his otherwise rather aggressive biography. Seeing the world for what it is means an end to wishful thinking about how the world ought to be. Human nature with all its virtues and vices is constant and no revolution, no electioneering, no amount of tinkering, is going to change that fact. The grim consequences that befall characters who for one reason or another fail to take the world for what it is give Vidia’s fiction its power.

Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.

.... On the morning when the Swedish Academy announced his Nobel award, I rang to congratulate him. “Oh, you’ve heard of my little spot of luck, have you.” Nadira and he invited me to accompany them to Stockholm. The moment we reached the hotel, Vidia was swept off to a television studio. On the program with him were two previous Nobel winners, Nadine Gordimer and Günter Grass. They were agreeing that poverty is the whole motivation of Islamist terror. Vidia shot back that like millions of others he came from a poor family and did not commit terror. ....

V. S. Naipaul: In Memoriam | National Review

"Not by what we say but by what we do"

Via Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO. Gregory of Nyssa (4th c.):

When we consider that Christ is the true light, having nothing in common with deceit, we learn that our own life also must shine with the rays of that true light. Now these rays of the Sun of Justice are the virtues which pour out to enlighten us so that we may put away the works of darkness and walk honorably as in broad daylight. When we reject the deeds of darkness and do everything in the light of day, we become light and, as light should, we give light to others by our actions.

If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life. 

Out of the ether

The Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v Wade decision overturned every state law outlawing or limiting abortion. Madison, Wisconsin's current Isthmus includes "The crazy uncle in the attic" by a "pro-choice" supporter on that decision. He, Michael Cummins, on Roe:

.... The framers of the Constitution went to great pains to enumerate lists of both federal powers (Article I, Sec. 8) and protected rights (the Bill of Rights). Roe is the culmination of a Supreme Court habit, developed in the middle of the last century, of treating certain parts of the Constitution as catchalls for unenumerated powers and rights. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), for example, discovered a right to use contraception within an enforceable “zone of privacy” in the “penumbras“ emanating from the enumerated Bill of Rights. In concurring opinions, a couple of the Griswold justices located the right instead in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment: “No state shall…deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (See it? Me neither.)

The opinion portion of Roe consists, in a nutshell, of a detailed world history of abortion back to ancient times (provided for reasons unclear), a few approving citations of Griswold and similar cases, and then a declaration that first-trimester abortion is within the supposed zone of privacy. As Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe puts it, “one of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”

Roe’s deficiencies are an open secret among America’s liberal intelligentsia. Even legal scholars who enthusiastically embrace the concept of a flexible Constitution seem to regard it, among the family of groundbreaking mid-century Court decisions, as the crazy uncle in the attic. University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt writes, “you will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor…who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether.” ....

As pro-choice Brookings Institution senior fellow Benjamin Wittes points out, “lots of fundamental rights are protected by legal authorities other than the Constitution. For instance, the right not to be fired by a private employer because of one’s race or religion is statutory, not constitutional.”

Indeed, most of our rights are cognizable only at the statutory level. Adults, for example, have the statutory right to move about freely in their cars, so long as they comply with certain requirements. Our elected representatives maintain statutes that support that right because it is popularly recognized as such. The Constitution has nothing to do with it.

To be sure, some set of rights should be protected from majority rule. Instead of being limited to the Constitution’s enumerated rights, Roe asserts that the set of protected rights is open-ended, and that its expansion is the prerogative of the Court. Had the framers thought through the protocols of judicial review, they would certainly have rejected the unlimited power this implies.

We should reject it, too. ....

If Roe were ever overturned by the Supreme Court the legality of abortion and the extent of its legality would once again be up to state courts and legislators as it always had been before Blackmun's incoherent opinion in 1973.

The crazy uncle in the attic - Isthmus | Madison, Wisconsin

“I don’t do organized religion.”

In "Willow Creek, the Catholic Church, and Perils of Organizing Religion" Chris Gehrz writes about the necessity of accountability — necessary but obviously not sufficient:

“Sorry, I don’t do organized religion.” That’s what a friend of mine says whenever faith comes up in our conversations: “I don’t do organized religion.” ....

...I wrote about the importance for people in my Christian tradition of reading the Bible communally, as a way of checking the limitations of our individual understanding. “None of us,” explains my denomination, “has the breadth of experience, intellectual skill, social sensitivity, or spiritual depth to interpret the Scriptures alone.” Among the many other complicated benefits of Christian community, seeking to understand God’s word together “creates a culture of mutual openness and generosity among us and among our diverse cultural contexts. This in turn creates the kind of spiritual maturity that helps us live with the ambiguity often present in our life together.” ....

So no, I wouldn’t want to seek after the community of our Triune God without being part of the community of the Church. I don’t trust myself enough to do that.

Instead, I find myself enchanted with Christianity precisely because it is organized.

But right now I’m also feeling more disenchanted than usual because we’ve seen so clearly the dark side of organizing our religion.

Consider two terribly disturbing stories from the two largest groups in American Christianity: Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants. I’ll start with the second....

For irreligious skeptics like my friend, I’m sure the Hybels case confirms their belief that organizing religion only enables the abuse of power. But to religious onlookers like Katelyn Beaty, a “healthy reckoning with power in Christian communities” actually requires an organizational solution:

Churches must seek leaders who are accountable and vulnerable, not just charismatic and driven. Every leader, no matter how spiritually mature, educated and gifted, must submit to normal structures of unbiased accountability on multiple levels. This would mean, at least, a board of elders who are chosen independently of the pastor’s preference; a larger denominational body or regional pastors network that governs local affairs; and a supportive setting in which pastors can share vulnerably about all dimensions of their spiritual growth and challenges.

It’s not the only way of creating systems of accountability, but one of the most venerable solutions is to embed clergy and congregations within a denominational structure. ....

Time for the other story, which, I’m sure you’ve guessed, has to do with clerical abuse in the Catholic Church. ....

...[T]he layers of organization meant to provide accountability betrayed the trust of the faithful. In theory, the existence of a hierarchy above the local church and its pastor could have provided safeguards lacking in a case like Willow Creek’s. Instead, concern for the reputation of the larger organization apparently led many such officials to conceal the truth and suppress justice. Several were rewarded with even more authority and responsibility in the process. The angry frustration of the grand jurors is palpable:

…despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.

[more]

Willow Creek, the Catholic Church, and Perils of Organizing Religion