The biggest problem with the rainbow elephant inhabiting our parishes today is that both clergy and laity have yet to admit such an elephant even exists, because shepherds and laity don’t want to talk about it, much less deal with it.

Until then:

Our churches will remain filled with unaware, unprepared, and unequipped parishioners against an increasingly hostile pagan cancel culture, will continue to come under the culture’s influence (rather than the other way around) and be at ever greater risk to submitting to it. This is the way of apostasy.

Such blinders will continue to undermine your credibility as capable shepherds that parishioners can turn to for leadership, or as trustworthy role models of faith and courage under fire, capable of publicly proclaiming the truth in love.

You will be seen as preferring to sit on the sidelines of comfort and safety, as people pleasers, or simply indifferent to the destruction happening outside your parish doors. https://orthodoxreflections.com/an-open-letter-to-our-shepherds/