Friday, October 19, 2007

The Power of the Blogosphere; or, A New Friend Appears Online

Your scribe went to his mailbox this morning, and found a new comment relating to the "Guess Who's Coming to Greenwich?" post of several weeks ago. The writer is "Pastor Laura", who apparently is a "young female clergyperson" and mother living in the New York City area. Her comment follows:

Laura C said...

a few weeks later... just curious as to how the whole weekend with Tewell went. He preached not too long ago at my parents' church, and they were very impressed. As a young female clergyperson, I'm constantly amazed at the kinds of things a middle-aged male clergyperson with a gift for preaching can get away with, and still be asked to come serve as a guest preacher somewhere. I'd also be interested in finding out how the Greenwich church has talked about the Stearns controversy since he left.

And your scribe responded in turn:

Hi, Pastor Laura,

Thanks for your follow-up query. Personally, although I tried to keep an open mind, I found Tewell's performance - for such it seemed to me to be - facile and in very poor taste. You can read more of my reactions in the post for October 3, 2007 ("Of Shoes - and Ships - and Sealing Wax").

As a young female clergyperson, I'm constantly amazed at the kinds of things a middle-aged male clergyperson with a gift for preaching can get away with, and still be asked to come serve as a guest preacher somewhere.

That makes two of us (except that I'm not a young female clergyperson, of course). It's just not right, IMO.

The Saturday night dinner was poorly attended, I hear, and at least a few of the regular attendees stayed away on Sunday morning. But to hear the "buzz", Tewell walked on water. I, of course, do not agree, based on what I saw and heard.

As for Stearns, the Greenwich way is to try to sweep things under the rug and pretend everything is Disneyland-perfect. The session bascially tried to hush everything up and send him off as though to a well-deserved "retirement".

Personally, I do not agree with such behavior, which of late has created so many problems in the Roman Catholic Church, for example. But hypocrisy is high on the list of favored civic virtues here in Greenwich, and if you have ever read Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress", you will realize that the town he calls Vanity Fair is an exact spiritual prototype of Greenwich, Connecticut.

Please stay in touch!

Then it was time to visit Laura's blog, which is highly to be reccomended. Vicki, I think you in particular will find it enjoyable and inspirational. May I have the honor of introducing you two?

Gotta run...miles to go, and all that...but I wanted to get this up before the day gets any older.

2 Comments:

Blogger Vicki said...

Thanks for the introducion. :) I went to Laura's blog and left a comment. You're right, I very much enjoyed it.

Hope your weekend is great!!!

October 19, 2007 1:31 PM  
Blogger Bill Clark said...

Good work, Vicki!

And I hope your weekend is wonderful as well! The trees here are finally starting to turn, but the weather is still mild, so it's autumn at its best. Guess I'll be spending time hiking in the woods and leaf-peeping - while there are still leaves to peep at! :-)

October 19, 2007 1:51 PM  

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