[conspire] Schools WTFery

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> My OR contact told me that one of the hot spots is a rather isolated
> rural community in north east OR.   A church had a big social event
> which set off a lot of cases.  Major churches like the Catholics and
> Episcopalians consult with the local health people and give
> instructions to their parishes.  These organizations have a history
> of dealing with past plagues and pandemics.    

I'm way out of my wheelhouse, being an outsider to Christianity, but 
have at times in the past taking running leaps at taxonomy, and one of
the major category differences is between denominations that are
hierarchical and ones that are not.  The latter style is called
'presbyterianism' (small-p).  _Some_ hierarchical denominations are
further described as small-e episcopal, meaning governed by bishops,
e.g., the two you cite, but that's from an outsider perspective a fine
point:  It's still hierarchical, even though in other denominations that
are _called_ hierarchical (JWs, the Mormons, The Salvation Army) the
Grand Panjandrum isn't called a bishop but rather something else
(president, overseer, etc.).  

My hypothesis in relation to response to plagues and epidemics is that
the hierarchical churchs (whether their muckity-mucks are called Bishop
So-and-So or something else) are by structure better able, and more
likely, to have a systematic response to a major challenge like a
society-threatening disease.  So, I'm not surprised that the Catholics
and the Angicans^W Episcopalians show leadership, here.

And it's also a relevant point that they have a much longer history than
most of the others, hence they've dealt with these things in the past.