From The Christian Century-
While I never suffered the childhood trauma of parents getting divorced, I know as an adult what it is like to suffer with a divided family. That is because I am an Episco palian. As everyone knows—the late-night arguments and breaking of dishes have been audible since spring 2003—the Episcopal Church teeters on the edge of a breakup.
If you zoom in from the denomination level to individual parishes, you see that divorce has already occurred in many parts of the family. According to at least some of the people who have separated from the Episcopal Church, there isn't a single parish in America unaffected by the turmoil. And surely it's on the parish level that the family fight hurts the most. That is where it really comes, well, home.
A while ago someone suggested to me that the best way to choose a congregation is to ask oneself: Are these the people I want to bury me?
And I thought, Yes, there's something deeply right about that. But I have probably 20 or 30 years before my death. Will there then still be an Episcopal Church, or my particular Episcopal church, to bury me? What a shame that such a thought might be the first to occur. Children need a par ental union that will undergird their childhood, and a Chris tian needs a church that will outlive him or her.
More here-
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6896
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