Now that it is looking much clearer that Mitt Romney will win the big stoush in America, we can turn our attention to the smaller stoush going on in TEC between ++Katharine Jefferts Schori and +Mark Lawrence. And stoush it is. Mark Harris of Preludium says +Mark is a liar. A.S. Haley of Anglican Curmudgeon says that TEC's Board of Discipline is hopelessly compromised. I haven't time to go through all the blogs, but they are stoushing!
From far away it is difficult to know what is the chicken and what is the egg here. Possibly the egg is the Diocese and a plan to breakaway from TEC, possibly even begun before Mark Lawrence was consecrated +Mark, he being chosen to be the lion-hearted leader to assist with the breakaway. The chicken is then TEC wising up to the breakaway and acting, as it has now, to discipline the errant bishop. Flaw: the decision-making has been Diocesan rather than episcopal. Will TEC take 'the Diocese' to court?
Against this scenario is the implausibility of a Diocese promulgating action to leave a church of good standing in the gospel and in the grand tradition of Christian orthodoxy. So an alternative egg is TEC itself. Bit by bit pushing the limits of what passes for recognisable orthodoxy, leaving the Diocese of SC with no alternative but to become the chicken that walks away to a different future.
Which is which?
Courtesy of a correspondent, these links may help get the whole picture: here, here and here.
".." the 2012 General Convention placed an unbiblical doctrine of humanity into the Canons of the Church. The doctrine, discipline and worship of TEC were all fundamentally changed in a fashion most of our clergy cannot and will not comply with. Bishop Lawrence and a majority of our deputation left the Convention before it concluded as a result."
ReplyDelete- Canon Kendall Harmon
(re Diocese of S.C.) -
From just these two sentences, one can understand why TEC had to accuse Bishop Lawrence of wilful 'Abandonment of TEC'. At his consecration to become Bishop of South Carolina, Bp. Lawrence promised to obey the polity and governance of TEC. By electing to ignore the official polity - at and before the General Convention - and leading his diocese out of collegiality with General Convention, it would seem that TEC had no choice but to impeach both the Bishop and his Standing Committee.
In fact, the efforts made by the bishop and others in the diocese to legally alienate properties of the Episcopal diocese from the custody of TEC, seem already to have signalled the bishop's clear intention to 'abandon' The Episcopal Church.
It is sad that accusations of 'infidelity' by the Bishop and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina - against TEC; should now be claimed as the reason for the bishop's infidelity against his sworn canonical duty to TEC.
Ron; the crux however is just this: what exactly constitutes "the polity and governance of TEC"?
ReplyDeleteYou naively assume a hierarchical church, of which the Presiding Bishop may act as a CEO. Yet it is this very interpretation of the history of PECUSA that is being debated so forcefully. Nor may the secular courts actually help too much here, since they too often have their own prejudices - not reading the actual history (particularly of each State), but assuming certain formats of what they deem 'church structure' should look like in their eyes!
So it's a real mess ... And really rather tragic.
"It is sad that accusations of 'infidelity' by the Bishop and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina - against TEC; should now be claimed as the reason for the bishop's infidelity against his sworn canonical duty to TEC."
ReplyDeleteNot at all. The bishop and his diocese owe a duty to God that transcends any duty to TEC - unless you see TEC as God?