From the American Anglican Council:
February 20, 2010
Beloved in Christ,
For those of you either in or out of The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States, if you have been following the ecclesiastical news for the last seven years you will probably agree that the news goes from the unexpected to the unbelievable to the absolute bizarre. Having been in the Anglican world all of my 65 years, and an actual Episcopalian for 62 of those years, I never could have imagined, ever, the state of affairs in TEC today.
I remember when there was a healthy balance of power in most dioceses between the parish vestry's rights and power, the rector/incumbent's rights and power, and the diocesan bishop's rights and power. In the old Episcopal Church there were many "good government" provisions and protocols that gave everyone some sense of due process and governance. Then, gradually, I noticed an erosion of both the vestry and rector's rights and powers in favor of the diocesan bishop. Like the proverbial frog in water brought slowly to a boil, I don't think we noticed any one incident as remarkable, but over several decades the changes added up.
Nevertheless, in those days the Presiding Bishop was not the Archbishop, nor did he, later she, have Metro jurisdictional authority to override individual diocesan bishops. If they broke the canon law they might be tried (or maybe not), but they still had a good deal of authority within their dioceses.
This changed in a very obvious way in 2006, when quite a few churches in Virginia voted to leave both the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church. The Diocese of Virginia's Standing Committee and the Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Peter Lee, had worked with the dissenting congregations to agree on a Protocol stating how the congregations and the diocese would proceed if departure were to happen, without resorting to civil courts of law.
Then, according to sworn testimony given in court proceedings, Bishop Lee's phone rang, and it was Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on the line. She asked if Lee was going to sue the congregations and he said he was not. She advised him that if he didn't sue them, she would sue him. According to both her testimony and his, she concluded with the remark, "There is a new sheriff in town." What was new in this wasn't a church or churches wanting to leave TEC - what was new was a Presiding Bishop threatening to sue a seated diocesan bishop if he didn't take certain specific action. From the date of this conversation in 2006, there was indeed a new sheriff in town, and the functional power, if not the canonical power, had shifted to New York City.
This fairly outrageous threat to a bishop who had been a champion of what he himself termed the "Center Aisle," and his full capitulation to her demands, marked the real change in The Episcopal Church. Now, not only conservative bishops were subject to threat and intimidation, but one of the senior, moderate bishops of the church was threatened with the 815 cudgel. And he completely caved in, promptly walking away from the mutually agreed upon Protocol and filing suit against the churches and individual vestry members personally. Later, when Jefferts Schori's anger turned toward Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh, it was clear that canon law in its plain reading wasn't going to hold her back. Twisting canon law, she deposed him for what she was convinced he was going to do in the near future, and the House of Bishops, fully in her grip, rubber stamped it.
Now Jefferts Schori has turned her attention to Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina. If news reports are to be believed, one or two parishes are giving serious thought to leaving TEC, and, if the diocese remains in TEC, leaving the diocese as well. To date, however, none have taken a final vestry vote to leave, or filed departure papers. Lawrence is trying hard to work with his diocese, but he is being threatened by Jefferts Schori, who, rather than converse directly with him as peer to peer (since she is, after all, not Queen but the Bishop who presides over the House of Bishops), chooses to use a lawyer she has hired in South Carolina to send demand letters to the diocesan chancellor. Please take the time to go to the Diocese of South Carolina website and read each of the letters posted there pertaining to the Bishop, Diocese and Presiding Bishop.
The problem with this type of controversy is that some folks standing off at a distance can see it as just "he said, she said," and their attorneys' exchange of letters begins to look like mud wrestling. However, there is a right and a wrong in the chain of events that have been unfolding in The Episcopal Church, and you need to read the actual letters and see the Presiding Bishop's lawyer's intent in gathering information preparatory to launching an attack on Bishop Lawrence. His crime seems to be that, unlike now-retired Bishop Lee of Virginia, he won't cave in to her uncanonical demands. He doesn't accept her self-described role as the "new sheriff in town."
To switch to a military metaphor, it appears that General Jefferts Schori instead of General William Tecumseh Sherman is about to lay seige to Charleston. Her inquiries are all about setting range and distance for her cannons, as she means to teach Bishop Lawrence a lesson about the new-found power of the Presiding Bishop.
Bishop Lawrence, in the face of these threats, has moved his Diocesan Convention about a week further out. She may well strike out at him before then by inhibiting him and suspending the entire Standing Committee, or she may wait until after the Diocesan Convention, to see if the meeting generates any additional ammunition for her attack - and all of this during Lent, no less.
Pray for the Diocese of South Carolina and all of their orthodox laity, clergy, congregations and bishop.
Blessings and peace in Christ Jesus,
----The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr. is President and CEO, American Anglican Council
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