Stations of the Cross - Without the Cross

For those who want to do something for Lent but are scandalized by the Cross, or lack faith in Christ, quasi-Christians have an answer: the Stations of the Cross, without the Cross. Where did this idea come from? Where else? The Episcopal Church (TEC):

The church's Episcopal Relief and Development agency created a liturgy based on the United Nations plan to eliminate extreme poverty and other global ills, and sent e-mail to church leaders encouraging its use "in lieu of the traditional Stations of the Cross service."

...At the end of each station, the group is to pray a modified version of the Eastern Orthodox prayer known as Trisagion in which "Have mercy on us" is changed to "Transform us / That we might transform the world."

Wow, butchering two liturgical traditions at once; only in TEC.

Still, some anti-Western Rite ravers may like this: it doesn't encourage meditation on the Passion of Christ, and it does have (a form of a) Byzantine prayer. Perhaps this is why one writer (and priest) declared the 1979 BCP and Vatican II liturgy were "based on sound liturgical scholarship." (Roll eyes.)