You have to hand it to Bob Malm, Sugarland Chiow, the Grace vestry and the diocese: None of them have half the common sense God gave a goat. Not Christian ethics, not Christ-like behavior. Just good old-fashioned common sense, like don’t stick your finger in a light socket. Or don’t dive into a swimming pool if you’re not sure there’s water in it. Or don’t wander around in the dark if you don’t know where the stairs are.
Specifically, I’m thinking of my conflict with Bob Malm. Both Bob and the parish would have been far better off had Bob heeded my July 2014 warning to quit the fun and games. Or if they had taken me up on my offer in 2015 to settle our dispute in exchange for nothing more than an agreement to leave me alone; through Sugarland, Bob refused my offer.
Then there’s the matter of our previous ceasefire. Bob specifically agreed that he understood that our agreement only extended to me. Not to Mike, not to Mom, not to others. Yet in no time flat he was back to his fun and games, trying to manipulate people on all fronts.
Then there’s the matter of Bob Malm’s perjury. Did he really think that was going to work? His daughter Lindsey allegedly called the police over a post on Fairfax Underground that she didn’t like, and next thing you know Bob has pulled the parish in right behind Lindsey. Smooth move, Bob.
Then we got to Sugarland’s inflammatory rhetoric and courtroom fabrications. Because court filings generally are open to public inspection, much of that is now a public record, available for all the world to see. Did he really think calling me a “domestic terrorist” was going to help the church? Folks seeing that sort of nonsense wind up rolling their eyes and heading for a church with a slightly more, um, Christian ethos. Or leaving church altogether.
And of course the diocese has trashed its own reputation by claiming that clergy perjury is okay unless criminal charges are involved. Facially amoral positions such as this make clear that the diocese is nothing but a badly run nonprofit. Same for the blind eye the diocese turned towards Bob Malm and his efforts to drag a dying woman into court. Did anyone really think that would end well for Bob, the parish or diocese?
In short, there’s nothing even arguably Christian about Bob, the parish or the diocese. One has only to look at their conduct to realize that the Episcopal church is morally bankrupt and mired in the filth of its own hypocrisy. As a result, I predict that, absent a sea change, the forecast that TEC will have no Sunday worshippers in 30 years will come true much sooner for Grace Episcopal and the diocese.
There’s simply no longer any good reason to be a member of The Episcopal Church.