Yes, there is a lot of arguing about the goalposts. But, I don’t think there has ever been a time that we have not argued about them. We’re constantly reevaluating our situations, our creeds, and our ability to merge the two. Some do it much better than others. Anglicans have never don’t it especially well, corporately speaking. But, I don’t think that’s a reason for abandoning it as a tradition. There’s a lot that Anglicanism has to offer for addressing cultural situations that neither Eastern Orthodoxy nor Roman Catholicism has been especially eager to confront. Anglicanism has always offered a (collective of) unique spirituality. And, in the ways that Orthodoxy will be a helpful model to the Covenant process, I think Anglicanism will (hopefully) be a helpful model in years to come for talking about human sexuality, etc…

Yes, there is something about images and art and prayer, but in the end what I was looking for in Anglicanism, I found in Orthodoxy. And we too are the church of the drunks, the dandys, the homos and the dreamers, and a lot of other things besides.

If there were any things I might have missed about Anglicanism, I think I’d still be missing them, because most of the Anglicans tossed them out years ago. One thing I won’t miss, though: the endless arguments and discussions about what the Christian faith actually is.

And the lists, yes, the endless lists (written on newsprint with a felt-tipped pen). The endless meetings about theological education, when we would gather from all over the country for three days, and about halfway through someone would say “But what is a priest?” Well, that’s important, because if you’re training people to be priests, you need to know what a priest is, so out would come the newsprint and the felt-tipped pens.

At one meeting I was bored with the whole affair and asked if anyone had saved the newsprint from the previous meeting, so we could just pick up again where we left off, and move on. No, we couldn’t do that. We had to start from scratch, making a list of things about “What is a priest?”

In the Orthodox Church we make a mess of training priests (and deacons and bishops). We sometimes ordain highly unsuitable people, but at least we know what they are supposed to be doing even if they don’t manage to do it properly. We are incompetent players, and we often kick the ball and miss the goal, but when I was an Anglican we were too busy arguing about where the goalposts should go to practise kicking the ball.