One of the things that’s most offputting about the Episcopal church is the hypocrisy of its clergy and members.
With that in mind, above is a recent Facebook post from Valerie Hayes, rector of Calvary Episcopal in Front Royal.
And below are the brush off and defamatory content that Hayes sends to third parties when someone asks her to actually address injustice and oppression. And we’re not really digging Hayes claiming to be someone else in her complaint — or maybe she’s so damned stupid she can’t understand the form. Either way, best not to waste time on fake real Christians of this ilk.
It’s this sort of hypocrisy that causes people to leave the church and never come back. As in, “Take me off this email list immediately and cancel my pledge.”
Meanwhile, folks in TEC don’t realize that laity isn’t stupid. We know hypocrisy when we see it. And folks like Hayes talk a good game, but there is zero substance.
Nothing but a bunch of empty Jesus-babble.
And here’s Hayes’ effort to shut down my calling her out for her hypocrisy.
While we’re on the topic, how many months does it take to update the church’s website? Given that most websites should be updated every two to three years, it’s been about a year since Calvary announced it was updating its site. Another 12 months or so and the church can just move on to its next website. But then, given that the parish has reported zero ASA for the last two years on its parochial report, that and the littered front steps might explain a lot of things.
What are your experiences with hypocrisy in TEC? Let us know in the comments below.
As a priest, my observation is that the church overall is profoundly exclusive. Everything gets whitewashed with a layer of churchy-nice, but behind the scenes there’s a ton of passive-aggressive behavior, including gossip, innuendo, manipulation, and more. Even worse, because the church often is the ultimate narcissist, it actually believes its own rhetoric about being inclusive.
Being an Episcopalian my entire life, I unfortunately have learned more about how to treat people with dignity and respect from people, groups, and organizations outside of the church.
Regrettably, many of us have had that experience.
I’m so sorry.
Thank you for acknowledging it.