The Episcopal Church is Unable, as Usual, to See the Beam in Its Own Eye

Their Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe repeats history:

Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain. Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.

In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.

…says the Leader of a denomination whose own demographic is overwhelmingly white and which has, in spite of a half century of obsession with “social justice,” been unable to become the preferential option of the poor (which would shift the ethnic balance) and just content to posture as having the preferential option for the poor.

It’s another one of those “red letter moments” that falls flat:

And why do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye, while you pay no attention at all to the beam in your own? How can you say to your brother ‘Brother, let me take out the straw in your eye,’ while you yourself do not see the beam in your own? Hypocrite! Take out the beam from your own eye first, and then you will see clearly how to take out the straw in your brother’s. (Luke 6:41-42 TCNT)

He also overlooks the fact that the current regime in Pretoria is doubtless pleased that the United States is taking these people off of their hands, so that they can build their own vision for South Africa without interference. But their next challenge is greater: can they replicate what their East African colleagues, inspired by their own “yes we can” moment in history, have done?