The Episcopal Church as Abused Wife

In their excellent book Proverbs of Ashes, authors Rebecca Ann Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock take on atonement theology and how it can be twisted to encourage folk to continue in abusive relationships because pointless suffering is supposedly "redemptive."

In one of many examples of tolerating the intolerable, the book recounts the harrowing story of a wife convinced by her priest to return to her violent husband, who then stabs her to death in front of the couple's toddler.

Suffering? In the extreme. But redemptive? No fucking way!

Parker and Brock go on to make a case for faith in salvation despite such suffering, so go read it. You will not emerge unchanged.

Expanding our view from individual to institution, is it possible that the Episcopal Church as a whole has bought into abuse at the hands of the Global South goons? Have we swallowed the notion that suffering such fools is "redemptive?" Are our leaders acting the part of the good submissive wife, soon to be gutted with a butcher knife?