BabyBlue Online picked up on this one. While dioceses like CNY have significantly redefined the Christian faith, in the public view it is churches that have steadfastly continued to proclaim the Gospel that are "breakaways." Never mind that pecusa is walking further and further away from the Anglican Communion. Never mind that three significant parishes in the DCNY have realigned with other parishes that still proclaim the true gospel. In today's world to leave an apostate and heretical denomination is the greater sin. What pecusa is most afraid of is that the new province in North American, the ACNA, gain acceptance in the mainstream of the United States and Canada. So, a public relations war rages and the word "breakaway is affixed to any parish or diocese that wishes to remain true to the Gospel and joins the ACNA. ed.
from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith
If you read the proposed resolutions for the upcoming special South Carolina diocesan convention, it's easy to see that the diocese is announcing in formal terms that it is not going to head down the new trail being blazed by the national church. If you look at the Diocese of South Carolina versus the national church today compared to, say, the 1950's, you see that aside from women's ordination, no terribly significant changes have been embraced by the diocese. It proclaims the same Gospel today it did then.
The history of the national church could not be more different. It has met very few fads it didn't embrace, and as expressed today by General Convention, Executive Council, the office of the presiding bishop, and a plurality of bishops and dioceses, it is syncretistic at best, neo-pagan at worst, and consumed by radical homosexual perversity from its highest executive and episcopal levels down to its shrinking and increasingly irrelevant parishes.
So when the diocese's proposed actions are characterized as its "breaking away" or "splitting from" the national church - a characterization previously applied to Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Joaquin and Quincy - I'm reminded that this is one of the great public relations failures of the orthodox side of this debate. Sure, we know that we have been the ones proclaiming the same faith while the national church and more liberal dioceses have been the ones remaking themselves into new-age cultural wind vanes... but that's not how the news media and, sadly, many of our fellow orthodox believers, look at the events in the church.
Here are two examples from the Charleston Post and Courier. The first is from reporter Adam Parker, who mis-characterizes the nature of the proposed resolutions, while offering - at best - a highly questionable interpretation of their implications:
If the assembly votes in favor of these resolutions, the diocese will be the fifth to vote to sever its ties to the Episcopal Church -- after the dioceses of San Joaquin, Calif.; Quincy, Ill.; Pittsburgh; and Fort Worth, Texas. Technically, the "diocese" remains in place, and those who do not wish to leave the national church may remain part of it; it is the individuals who break away.
Hmmm... wonder where he got those talking points. That ephemeral concept is not something most people - least of all reporters who write hundreds of stories a year - tend to come up with all on their own.
Then there is this letter to the editor from Ann M. Stirling of Charleston, who writes:
I am a cradle Episcopalian. My father and brother were Episcopal clergymen. My other brother taught for years at the Episcopal-supported University of the South. My sister is the senior warden of her parish, and I have been very active in parish work.
I don't know Ms. Stirling, but I can already guess that she falls somewhere between slightly-left-of-center and all-out-revisionist. It's a common rhetorical ploy by liberals who wish to couch their radical advocacy in warm, comfy traditional tones. She continues:
I love the Episcopal Church. When we travel, we almost always find an Episcopal/Anglican Church where we can engage in worship that is familiar, comforting and deeply connected with God. This is, has been and always will be important to me.
One of the beauties of the Episcopal Church, is that not only do we have a Book of Common Prayer and, therefore, are as one in worship no matter where we are, but we also (until recent steps by various dioceses in America) have tolerated differences in theology. There are different ways of reading and interpreting the Scriptures. This was not only honored but even expected.
Yep - there we go: "Interpretation." Tolerating "differences in theology." We're all united by the Prayer Book.
Historically we have been encouraged to think for ourselves. It was never required that our honestly-held beliefs comport with those of our priest, bishop, presiding bishop or even the archbishop of Canterbury. It was inconceivable that one group in the Episcopal Church would say to another something akin to: 'I have read the Scriptures and I know what they mean and you are dead wrong.' I am heartbroken that this seems to be the tenor of the current 'debate.'
That's right: If you "think for yourself," then by definition you can't take any action that opposes TEC's New Thing. And pluriform truth is what we're really here to proclaim.
It is, therefore, with great sadness that I read Bishop Mark Lawrence's address to the clergy of this diocese. I feel a sense of dread about the upcoming Diocesan Convention this month. I gather the bishop's preference is for our diocese to begin withdrawing from bodies connected with the national Episcopal Church. This would include, I presume, not sending official delegates to the General Convention, which meets every three years.
Because the Episcopal Church is also a democratic institution and its lay representation is so important, this goal is deeply distressing. I believe that a great number of lay Episcopalians across our diocese, while not necessarily agreeing with some of the votes at the General Convention, do not want to begin an official separation from the Episcopal Church. Episcopalians are bound by the Nicene Creed, our love of Jesus, assuredness of his resurrection and our joint acknowledgment of the same, and our worship with the Book of Common Prayer.
Ms. Stirling, I believe, presumes correctly: DioSC will no longer be sending representatives to General Convention. But the Diocese of South Carolina is a democratic institution too, and we shall see how many of them want to begin withdrawing from General Convention. As far as what Ms. Stirling claims all Episcopalians are bound by, she obviously knows nothing of the sufis swirling in our cathedrals, the Buddhists constructing their mandalas, Marc Andrus riding in gay pride parades, the Office for Women's Ministry publishing pagan liturgies, Oakwyse the Druid priest, the Islamo-palian priest, Genpo the Buddhist would-be bishop, and the thousand other offenses to the faith the Episcopal Church has committed in just the past few years.
Or perhaps she does know.
In any event, there is nothing resembling unity in the Episcopal Church and there hasn't been in years, despite the glowing reports by liberal bishops and deputies at General Convention of the lack of rancor and disagreement at this year's meeting. And, there is no other characterization of denomination's current state than an institution whose top levels of leadership have been commandeered by radicals who have lurched heavily leftward, leaving constituent dioceses, parishes and individuals struggling with questions of how they can live their faith with integrity - the real, lower-case "i" kind. We may not have lost entirely the battle for communicating these plain truths, but we are losing now, and we have been losing for years. Granted, it's only one battle of many, and perhaps not even the most important, but we'd do well not to forget that Adam Parker and Ann Stirling represent more than just one reporter and one parishioner, and to tune our p.r. efforts to convey the real truths of what's happening in our church.
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