++Duncan: Nashotah House invitation to Schori is "a tragic and unwise decision"

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2014

++Duncan: Nashotah House invitation to Schori is "a tragic and unwise decision"

The Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the Most Reverend Robert Duncan, has weighed in on Nashotah House's invitation to Katharine Jefferts Schori, calling it "a tragic and unwise decision that threatens the future of Nashotah House."

++Duncan's comments were published in an article at Juicy Ecumenism, the blog of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). The Archbishop is a member of the Nashotah House board of trustees but he, along with Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence, all of whom have been targeted for deposition and subsequent hurful litigation by Schori, were attending the GAFCON meeting in Nairobi and were not present at the board meeting in which the invitation was discussed. +Iker issued a statement yesterday announcing his resignation from the board in protest.

Also included in the article by Jeff Walton were extensive comments from retired Bishop Edward Salmon, Dean of Nashotah House, who was responsible for extending the invitation.

In a phone interview with IRD, Salmon explained that the invitation to Jefferts Schori originated when Deacon Terry Star of North Dakota, a student at Nashotah and member of the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council, shared that Bishop Jefferts Schori had advised him against attending the seminary. Star was joined by two other female Episcopal students at Nashotah who indirectly received the same advice.

“All three said she [Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori] should be invited to come and see ACNA and TEC in harmony,” Salmon explained. “No one here is fighting with anybody.”

The retired bishop of South Carolina said that the invitation would give the seminary the opportunity to witness to the Christ-centered life.

People think that inviting her here is an endorsement,” Salmon said. “We are a clearly rooted orthodox community – rooted in Jesus.”

With all due respect to Bishop Salmon, his rationale is weak and reflects an unhelpful desire to accommodate the sub-Christian ethos now enshrined in Katharine Schori's religion. It really amounts to little more than pandering to a woman who has abused her office, inflicting untold pain and suffering on faithful bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people. If Nashotah House is "a clearly rooted orthodox community - rooted in Jesus," then it need not fear the intrusion of a notorious heretic. But that begs a rather obvious question: Why invite the intrusion in the first place?