Her text was peppered with the familiar sophistries of an urbane clergy. For example, as she retold the familiar stories of Captain John Smith and Pocahantas, she made a point of telling the "real story" behind the familiar legends. Intellectuals have to keep reminding us that they know something the rest of us don't. Her interpretation of Scripture was a bookish word study unveiling the "real meaning" behind the word translated "devil" in 1 Peter 5:8 as "one who is given to malicious gossip". Thus she was able to debunk a well known text while asserting a more erudite pedigree of faith than her listeners were accustomed to.

Keep in mind that Christian revisionism is all bluff. Revisionist preachers and scholars must constantly project themselves as superior -- not only superior to their listeners and readers, but also to the texts and traditions that legitimize them. Most people can be easily intimidated by those who call constant attention to their own cleverness.

Keep in mind also that the revisionist bluff is not necessarily an outright con. Revisionists are often quite taken with their own histrionics. The payoff for true believers is far greater than for shrewd, cynical con artists. In the present case, the Presiding Bishop is able to project her air of superiority with a certain innocence.

In spite of her innocence and poise Katharine Jefferts Schori seemed driven by an instinct to make the simple complex. For fifteen minutes she unpacked a dense concept of "humility" as the appropriate Christian response to the moral ambiguities that try the souls of Americans 400 years after the settling of Jamestown. She spoke with a seriousness and a foreboding that suggested she was out of touch with her audience.

"We are presently engrossed in a national search for the meaning of this place, a search that ebbs and flows, and is only tangentially connected to numerical anniversaries." Who was presently engrossed? This was billed as a festival of celebration with an appearance by a national celebrity. People didn't come to watch academicians wring their hands over how poorly nations conform to utopian ideals. And who ever heard anyone refer to soul searching as something "tangentially connected to numerical anniversaries"? Does that mean something?

"What does it mean to be a Christian in this nation?" she asked, oddly imagining that was the question weighing on her listeners the way it haunts today's elite. I'm sure most of her listeners were quite happy with the notion that being a Christian in this nation means whatever they wanted it to mean. Or perhaps it means nothing at all. Either way it was not a question that hung heavy in the air.

"Our task is to humbly search for the good news of the seeds planted here 400 years ago." Apparently she couldn't think of any off the top of her head. She couldn't bring herself to say that in the ledger of history the good resulting from the Jamestown Experiment might outweigh the bad. People in her position don't believe that, even though they have benefited far more from that Experiment than those who flock to hear them speak. A Lady Primate standing in the line of the English Church that settled in Jamestown is a shining example of what is great about the American Experiment. Still Katharine Jefferts Schori is ashamed, and for fifteen minutes she tried to hide her personal shame behind a façade of "humility".

"The last episode of national soul-searching related to Jamestown coincided with the Viet Nam war. That is no coincidence." No coincidence indeed! Here the good Lady shows more than she knows. This is the voice of the Baby Boomer generation who never left the good old days of the American Dream turning bad. The message of that generation has been ever since, "There will always be something to feel guilty about." The way to discharge this guilt has always been through some public display moral indignation.

"In the next century, God will call on us all in humility to redeem the evil deeds of the past." What does it mean to redeem the evil deeds of the past? As she mentioned in her sermon, the history of slavery was "not yet fully redeemed". Presumably it was partly redeemed, as evidenced by the presence in the front rows of descendents of former slavers from Liverpool sitting alongside descendents of former slaves from Ghana. Perhaps humility is what enables someone like Schori to maintain her composure while continuing to reap the benefits of yesterday's injustice. Marxist academicians call this "complicity with oppression".

The descendents of the white ruling class are now CEO's, professors and bishops, just like they were in the years following Jamestown. While their ancestors capitalized on the old colonialism of tobacco and sugar cane, their descendents capitalize on a new form of colonialism -- the management of an exploding underclass. It is a kinder, gentler colonialism for sure, but there is a similar co-dependency between the ruler and the ruled. Economist William Easterly calls this the transition "from colonialism to postmodern imperialism1," and cites this as the psychology underlying Millennium Development Goals. The observable result is a proliferation of experts and their attendant bureaucracies. Oh yes, and more of the same dysfunction that marked the growth of the underclass from the beginning.

The 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, like her recent predecessors, has a strategic role to play in managing the industry of social salvation. This is both an exhilarating and a sobering moment. The Madame Primate is painfully aware of the potential of her position for doing good, and yet she still she feels guilty about something. Apparently she doesn't know what, so she ducks behind a laborious humility based on a flawed exegesis. It is all a lot of defensive posturing and an attempt to draw attention to her good intentions.

According to a well worn cliche the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This saying needs to be declassified as a cliche and registered as the next Christian doctrine for which there is ample empirical evidence -- the status G. K. Chesterton once conceded to the doctrine of original sin. The civilized world has been poisoned by the failed ideas of leftward leaning intellectuals, whose main motivation has been massaging their own angst. Multiple generations have grown up in the laboratory of social theories that were tried before they were tested; then, once tested, proven not only to fail, but to bring in their wake untold misery. The only response by the same utopian architects was to strengthen their own job security. In other words, the social service industry now has an interest in maintaining social dysfunction.

In the church the cliche becomes a literal fact. Liberal denominations have traded the gospel of salvation from a literal hell for a metaphor of social improvement -- one which has consistently failed even on that level. The only response to failure has been to strengthen the institution in its newfound vocation as chaplain to social dysfunction. The historic doctrine reminds us that eternal salvation still hangs in the balance. The churches' only concern has been to showcase their good intentions and try to feel good about them, even while proclaiming that the world is going to hell. It would appear that today's church leaders have a vested interest in the "partial redemption" of their people. They claim to be outraged about all the oppression their forbears have perpetrated, but which they are now so bold as to point out. On another level they may sense that the status quo is made to order.

If I were the American Primate, I would want to hide behind something too.

1 William Easterly, "The White Man's Burden", Penguin Books, 2006.

---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline.