FLY, YOU FOOLS!!

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Yesterday, Mark Lawrence, the Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina, met his clergy to discuss the deteriorating situation vis-a-vis the Episcopal Organization. The diocese’s lawyer thought that the Episcopalians would go for the jugular:

Lawyer Alan Runyan then made a presentation based on his best understanding of what canonical process seemed to be being used by those in national leadership. It would appear they are proceeding under the abandonment canon with its fast track. Based on what has happened in other dioceses, a deposition of the bishop would be followed by attacks on diocese and the parishes. The picture painted was an ugly one of expensive litigation, confrontation and acrimony in which all involved significantly lost.

And with all due respect, I really don’t need yet another reminder that the house is on fire. I’ve known that for almost ten years. I need to know, what, if anything, anyone intends to actually do about it.

Two themes underlay the whole discussion. First, the Episcopal Church is in a constitutional crisis in which its own polity is being radically altered in violation of its history and founding documents, yet with no structural provision for a means of resolution when just such foundational disagreements occur. That such a deep dispute has arisen with one of the Episcopal Church’s founding dioceses only adds to the unfortunate environment into which all have been plunged.

And a mournful question by the Rev. Jeffrey Miller, past President of the Standing Committee…

The Reverend Jeffrey Miller, past President of the Standing Committee stated during the gathering, “The question is not whether we can stay; it is whether they will let us stay and follow what we believe.”

…has a simple answer. No.

Part of that is your own fault. Why do you insist on remaining a part of an organization that teaches precepts that are diametrically opposed to what you say you believe? Does that not fatally compromise your witness? Seems like it might.

I’m well aware of what Bishop Lawrence said a few years ago about not leaving the Episcopalians. And look where his promises seem to have landed him. As far as TEO is concerned, Lawrence’s policy of putting as much distance between Charleston and New York as he possibly could is exactly the same thing as declaring for the Anglican Church in North America.

But if Lawrence is deposed, South Carolina will just elect another traditionalist in his place. Not when Mrs. Schori can waltz in, fire the Standing Committee, appoint a compliant committee in its place, appoint her usual simpering toadie of a temporary bishop and stack a convention, they won’t.

And even if South Carolina somehow managed to elect another conservative, does anyone seriously believe that he will receive consents? Me neither.

The Curmudgeon:

But what to one’s surprise: Canon IV.16 provides only for summary action by a simple majority of the eighteen-member Disciplinary Board. They “certify” the fact of “abandonment” to the Presiding Bishop; she slaps a restriction on the abandoning bishop (inhibits him from exercising his office), and gives him sixty days to retract or deny his acts of abandonment. If he does not do so, or if the Presiding Bishop in her sole judgment decides that any denial is not in “good faith”, then she presents the matter to the House for a resolution to depose the abandoning bishop.

Under this procedure, and contrary to the peremptory language of Canon IV.17, no appeal exists from any restriction imposed by the Presiding Bishop, or from any resolution adopted by “a majority of the whole number of bishops entitled to vote” (which the Presiding Bishop and her Chancellor interpret — wrongly, as demonstrated in the series of posts linked at this page — as meaning “a majority of those present and voting”). So despite the Canons saying what they do, we once again are witnesses to the Church’s higher authorities deciding that they do not mean what they say.

But now Bishop Henderson has made it official: despite all the fanfare about the supposedly “more humane” character of the new disciplinary canons, when it comes to “abandonment”, it is business as usual in the Episcopal Church (USA). If the Disciplinary Board certifies the flimsy acts spelled out in the document published on South Carolina’s website as constituting “abandonment”, it will have acted even worse (if that is possible) than did the old Title IV Review Committee in the case of Bishop Duncan. And for the second time in its history, the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops will have decided to remove one of its own members, a sitting and functioning bishop, from his diocese without any overt act on his part of renunciation or departure — indeed, in spite of all his protestations to the contrary.

All of which suggests that Church Center has wanted this fight from the start. If this travesty goes ahead and Lawrence is deposed, then there is no longer any reason for Charleston to avoid joining ACNA. South Carolina had better be prepared to fight hard, fight long and make any Episcopalian “victory” as pyrrhic as it possibly can.

Is it unseemly for Christian churches to be involved in these sorts of disputes? Yes. But only one of the churches involved in this particular fight is Christian in any meaningful sense of that word. So there’s that.