I am wondering if in the 42 years you were a priest and then bishop, how many you led to Christ, or even proclaimed the Good News of God's salvation in Christ, by grace through faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the cross. I'm sure they must be taped and recorded for future Episcopalians, even seminarians to hear and grow spiritually. I will ask around.

What I do recall is what you called a "meditation" you wrote to the church complaining mightily about the slate of candidates, one of whom would likely be the next bishop of Virginia to succeed you. The trouble, you said, was that the four candidates were all white guys, not a black or queer among them. And this bothered you mightily. A little reverse racism perhaps!

Clearly, it made you mad. Nothing, it seemed, could contain your anger and rage at such a violation of the new found TEC doctrines of inclusion and diversity, a standard trope these days.

You wrote. "There is an 800-pound gorilla in the room. A two-ton elephant. A fire-breathing dragon. Everywhere we turn, there it is. As I name it in this Monday meditation, I ask you to hang in with me...Let's ask some healthy questions about the state of our Diocese and the wider Church, and let's listen for what the Holy Spirit might be up to."

Well, apparently what the Holy Spirit was up to was to put in place a white male who, while nominally orthodox, has agreed to go along with the pansexual agenda of the church. He says okay to homosexual marriage and more, so the diocese will continue to move away from the gospel, except it won't be with a white woman, or a queer, but a white man leading it, a difference without a distinction in the same direction.

The statistics as to your tenure as bishop is a dead giveaway as to just how disastrous your time was in the diocese.

When you began your "ministry" in 2012, the diocese had an average Sunday attendance of 24,706. By 2020, attendance had dropped to 17,237 a decline of 30.2%. Between 2019 and 2020, it dropped 16.9%.

And to think they paid you handsomely as a bishop to preside over this decline. If the Diocese of Virginia was traded on the NASDAQ, it would be a penny stock and no one would buy it.

Episcopalians are probably the dumbest theologically on the mainline church spectrum, though Methodists seem to be following close behind and may have caught up by now. People will throw money at you because they don't know any better. Trust me, if they knew how bad your tenure was, they wouldn't give you a red cent. However, sympathy over your departure will open checkbooks.

Sorry, but I won't be sending you a gift for your Retirement and Travel Fund so you can trot around the world pushing TEC's sexual agenda where you can.

The good news is that you are out. The bad news is that there won't be any purse of money at the Last Judgement. You can fool and fudge people, but God won't be fooled at all. Not for a moment.

END