I am reliably informed they all passed–take special note of R-2 and R-3 and read them though.

In addition to continuing his ministry to people who grew up without religion or who have had bad experiences with church, [Gene] Robinson said he plans to become more involved in public policy issues. Religious people on the political left, he said, need to speak more loudly ”” and provocatively ”” on behalf of the poor and vulnerable.

“Jesus was constantly upsetting people,’’ he said in an interview at the diocesan offices in Concord last week. “If we started proclaiming what Jesus did, which is our love for the marginalized and the outcast, and started demanding legislation and money that helped these people, there would be hell to pay. And that’s exactly the kind of Gospel trouble I think we should be in.’’

Robinson, whose election seven years ago created a rift in the Anglican Communion, surprised many when he announced last month that he would retire in early 2013, more than six years before he will reach the mandatory retirement age of 72. His mention of death threats among the many reasons he cited for leaving led to speculation that he felt chased out.

But Robinson said that is not true. Being the focal point of so much controversy has been stressful, he acknowledged, on top of a job that is fast-paced and demanding. But he said most Episcopal bishops retire in their mid-60s, and by 2013 he will have served as bishop for nine years. It seemed, he said, like a reasonable time to pursue other interests.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

How do you come up with an extra $10 million in a budget which you are already slashing by $2.1 million? “Voodoo economics” is a term which Episcopalians may have to revive to apply to the solution for the hurting Diocese of Haiti which the Executive Council finds in this particular situation. Once again, I am somehow certain that whatever that solution turns out to be, it will not involve the settling of any pending lawsuits . . .

And then today, we have ENS’s next item about the Executive Council Meeting, which reports — among other things — the opening address to it given by the Presiding Bishop. I hesitate to criticize the ENS reporter, who is an experienced professional, and has always has done her job superlatively. Therefore, in copying that reporter’s exact words in what follows, I leave it to the reader to determine whether what is reported is, shall we say, more or less coherent:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori challenged the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council Oct. 24 to avoid “committing suicide by governance.”

Jefferts Schori said that the council and the church face a “life-or-death decision,” describing life as “a renewed and continually renewing focus on mission” and death as “an appeal to old ways and to internal focus” which devotes ever-greater resources to the institution and its internal conflicts.

Does anyone else besides this Curmudgeon perceive in these words a certain parallel — not exact, I grant you, but close enough to be exceedingly troubling — with a certain situation involving a sinking ocean liner, whose Captain is urging everyone, while facing a “life-or-death decision,” not to spend too much more time rearranging the deck chairs, and instead to scramble for the lifeboats?

Read it carefully and read it all.

…the first dean of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the Very Rev. Hudson Stuck, was well versed in the precedents of church history. “For consider that every organized diocese is essentially an independent, autonomous portion of the church, having all that is necessary for a church,” he wrote in 1895. Statements like this were not made to defeat a “national church,” as none existed then on the terms we now see being proposed. They were made out of enthusiasm for spreading the gospel, because Dallas was complete as a diocese and so suited for the challenge. To quote the Rt. Rev. James Stanton, sixth Bishop of Dallas, sovereignty in the context that Stuck and Garrett used it did not mean going it alone. Garrett made this clear when he said that the “fullness of the apostolic power, to which I have referred again and again as the great deposit of authority, resides not in each individual bishop, but in the complete apostolic college. It resides in the whole body of bishops.”

The revisions to Title IV enacted by General Convention at Anaheim in 2009 turn the principles of the founders of the Diocese of Dallas and those of the entire Episcopal Church on their head. As neatly summarized in the excellent article on this subject written by Alan Runyan and Mark McCall, these amendments inflict a broad range of damage that should be of grave concern to Episcopalians across the entire political spectrum. They enable a bishop (and the presiding bishop) not only to serve as policeman writing the citation, but also to sit as a member of the three-person board (or grand jury) that will be appointed to replace a duly elected standing committee.

Any resemblance to due process as we understand it in this country has been eliminated from Title IV, including protection of ordained clergy against self-incrimination. Clergy must now “testify and cooperate”; they must “self-report” an offense; and they will no longer hear Miranda warnings. As rewritten, Title IV works to the advantage of those who currently hold authority within TEC. With a change in regime, however, it could easily become an instrument of control by those they oppose. Good law should serve all parties, not simply whichever group may be in power.

Read it all.

The Diocese of South Carolina synod has revised its bylaws in a bid to protect itself from legal predations from the national Episcopal Church. Meeting on Oct 15, at St Paul’s Church in Summerville, South Carolina adopted six resolutions that ended the diocese’s automatic accession to the national church’s canons.

At the close of its March meeting, Bishop Mark Lawrence postponed the 219th annual meeting of the diocesan convention, after US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori engaged an attorney to represent the Episcopal Church in South Carolina. The diocese requested an explanation for what it saw as an unlawful usurpation of authority by the presiding bishop, and postponed the adjournment of its synod pending a response.

The presiding bishop declined to respond, but as it waited the diocesan leadership began a review of the national church canons enacted at the 2009 General Convention covering clergy discipline.

“What we found was shocking,” Canon Kendall Harmon told Anglican TV, as it “violates due process” and natural justice.

Read it all.

“Whether a target’s on my back or not on my back is not my chief concern,” [Bishop Mark Lawrence] said. “I believe we should get on with the mission to which God has called us in the Anglican Communion.”

The bishop said that energy for mission is moving away from institutions, whether the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity, and toward more direct relationships, such as the diocese’s new arrangement to welcome the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, the retired Bishop of Rochester, England, as “visiting bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Development.”

“Out of these relationships, I believe, the solutions will emerge,” Bishop Lawrence said. “We’re living in a world in which inhibitions and depositions can intrude into a vision.”

Lawrence added that he does not see himself as violating his ordination vows to conform to the doctrine and discipline of the church. Instead, he said, bishops who approve unconstitutional canons or who revise church teaching on sexual morality have violated their vows.

“We’re increasingly in a world in which people expect a bishop to swear fealty to every resolution of General Convention, regardless of its theological foundations,” he said.

Read it all.

On the eve of Columbus Day, when some Americans will remember the Italian explorer kindly and others won’t, the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon is calling attention to the Doctrine of Discovery, the philosophy that fueled European claims to the riches of the New World without regard for the indigenous people who already lived there.

At its 2009 General Convention, the Episcopal Church voted overwhelmingly to repudiate the doctrine and called for its elimination from “contemporary policies, programs and structures.” In Portland, the Rev. Albert Krueger, First Nations missioner and vicar of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in North Portland, is organizing a gathering Sunday so people can learn more about the doctrine and its implications globally and here in Oregon.

Read it all.

“We wish to call to your attention the recent actions … which we believe are accelerating the process of alienation and disassociation of the Diocese of South Carolina from the Episcopal Church,” the [Episcopal] Forum [of South Carolina] wrote in a letter to the Executive Council and House of Bishops.

Diocese officials say the resolutions, if approved, would assert the authority of Scripture and be a step toward realizing a vision of “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age.”

Bishop Mark Lawrence said the Forum was resorting to fear tactics.

“With this latest attack, the Episcopal Forum continues its weary institutional approach to God, as if you can keep people in a church by fear.” Lawrence said. “What we are seeking to do in the Diocese of South Carolina is to hold fast to the best of our Episcopal heritage while sharing Christ’s transforming freedom to the needs of people today.”

Read it all.

At the Clergy Conference held at St. Paul’s, Summerville, on September 2, Mr. Alan Runyan, legal counsel for the Diocese, presented a report detailing revisions to the Title IV Canons of the Episcopal Church, which were approved at the 2009 General Convention. These Canons deal directly with issues of clergy discipline, both for priests and bishops. The impact of these changes is profound. It is our assessment that these changes contradict the Constitution of The Episcopal Church and make unacceptable changes in our polity, elevating the role of bishops, particularly the Presiding Bishop, and removing the duly elected Standing Committee of a Diocese from its current role in most of the disciplinary process. The changes also result in the removal of much of the due process and legal safeguards for accused clergy that are provided under the current Canons. For a detailed explanation of these concerns, members of the diocese are encouraged to review the paper co-authored by Mr. Runyan and found on the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) website.

In response, the Standing Committee is offering five resolutions to address the concerns we have with these changes. View the resolutions. Each represents an essential element of how we protect the diocese from any attempt at un-Constitutional intrusions into our corporate life in South Carolina. In the coming weeks these resolutions, along with an explanation of the Title IV changes, will be discussed in the Deanery Convocations for delegates, as we prepare for Convention to reconvene on October 15th. By these resolutions, we will continue to stand for the Gospel in South Carolina and pursue our vision of “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age.”

Please follow both links and read all the material carefully–KSH.

* “The revisions certainly will change the character of the disciplinary process making the disciplinary landscape appear less formal, speedier and more pastoral. However, these goals mask other very unsettling realities of the new disciplinary process, more suggestive of another pastoral analogy: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15 (ESV).”

* “The increased scope of Clergy offenses is breathtaking.”

* “There is no better encapsulation of the sweeping nature of the changes than the wholesale introduction of new terminology. Indeed, many of the most profound changes are introduced by re-defining terms, a practice rightly criticized for its lack of transparency in the corporate legal world.”

* “No longer must the accuser have some knowledge with a reasonable basis ”“ anyone can and must report anything that “may” constitute an offense.”

* “The Bishop has gone from virtual exclusion to virtual control of the initial Clergy charging process.”

* “However, what new Title IV gives the Bishop Diocesan with one hand, it effectively (and stealthily) takes away from him with the other.”

* “Given the breadth and substantive nature of these changes, one is forced to wonder how this could happen. Why was there no outcry from liberal, moderate or conservative Clergy about what can only be termed “excesses?”

* “The deafening silence about these revisions forces us to believe that the sheep’s clothing strategy has been successful.”

* “One cannot help but be both simultaneously saddened and angered by the extensive revisions masked with soothing rhetoric like “pastoral reconciliation.”

Read it all very carefully.

From here:

Bishop Lawrence has called for a meeting of all parochial clergy of the diocese who have seat, voice and vote at the Convention for Thursday, September 2, 2010. The meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m. at St. Paul’s in Summerville. In preparation for the meeting clergy are asked to review a copy of the Title IV canon changes passed at the last General Convention. This will be central to tomorrow’s discussions. View the document. Clergy are encouraged to bring a printed copy of the document with them to the meeting.

From here:

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Virginia has declined to consent to the election of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Los Angeles because, in the view of a majority of the Committee, her election is inconsistent with the moratorium agreed to by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. That majority believes that, at this time, failure by individual dioceses to respect the Church’s agreement to the moratorium would be detrimental to the good order of our Church and bring into question its reliability as an institution. The committee found no other reason to withhold its consent to the election of Canon Glasspool.

(The above is my title, you can see his by going to the link below–KSH)

The Christian churches in the United States are in trouble for all the usual reasons ”” human sinfulness and selfishness, the temptations of life in an affluent society, doctrinal and moral controversies and uncertainties and on and on and on ”” but also and to a surprisingly large degree they are in trouble because they are trying to address the problems of the twenty first century with a business model and a set of tools that date from the middle of the twentieth. The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date.

Without even questioning it, most churchgoers assume that a successful church has its own building and a full-time staff including one or more professionally trained leaders (ordained or not depending on the denomination). Perhaps no more than half of all congregations across the country can afford this at all; most manage only by neglecting maintenance on their buildings or otherwise by cutting corners. And even when they manage to make the payroll and keep the roof in repair, congregations spend most of their energy just keeping the show going from year to year. The life of the community centers around the attempt to maintain a model of congregational life that doesn’t work, can’t work, won’t work no matter how hard they try. People who don’t like futile tasks have a tendency to wander off and do other things and little by little the life and vitality (and the rising generations) drift away.
At the next level up, there is another level of ecclesiastical bureaucrats and officials staffing regional offices. When my dad was a young priest in the Episcopal diocese of North Carolina back in the late 1950s the bishop had a secretary and that was pretty much it for diocesan staff. These days the Episcopal church is in decline, with perhaps a third to a half or more of its parishes unable to meet their basic expenses and with members dying off or drifting away much faster than new people come through the door ”” but no respectable bishop would be caught dead with the pathetic staff with which Bishop Baker ran a healthy and growing diocese in North Carolina back in the 1950s. (Bishop Baker was impressive in another way; he could tie his handkerchief into the shape of a bunny rabbit, put it flat on the palm of his hand, and have it hop off. I was only six when he showed me this trick, but it was clear to me that this man had something special to offer. Since that time I’ve traveled all over the world and met bishops, archbishops, cardinals and even a pope ”” but none of them made quite the impression on me that Bishop Baker and his jumping handkerchief did.)

Bishops today in their sinking, decaying dioceses surround themselves with large staffs who hold frequent meetings and no doubt accomplish many wonderful things, although nobody outside the office ever quite knows what these are. And it isn’t just Anglicans. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, UCC, the whole crowd has pretty much the same story to tell. Staffs grow; procedures flourish and become ever more complex; more and more years of school are required from an increasingly ”˜professional’ church staff: everything gets better and better every year ”” except somehow the churches keep shrinking. Inside, the professionals are pretty busy jumping through hoops and writing memos to each other and grand sweeping statements of support for raising the minimum wage and other noble causes ”” but outside the regional headquarters and away from the hum of the computers and printers, local congregations lose members, watch their buildings fall year by year into greater disrepair, and in the end they close their doors.

Read it all.

From the Diocese of Dallas website:

Download the full, final text of both resolutions as adopted by Special Convention delegates.

Things are calmer these days in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida.

Following the 2003 election of openly gay priest Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, the largely conservative diocese was in turmoil, contemplating whether to join other dioceses in leaving the Episcopal Church to create a new, traditionalist Anglican church in America.

Under the leadership of Bishop John Howe, the diocese decided not to split from the Episcopal Church, as at least two other dioceses have done, and those in the Central Florida diocese who were advocating for the split mostly have gone. Both clergy and laypersons say the diocese is healthy and moving forward

The diocese will hold its annual convention Saturday at The Lakeland Center, and in an interview earlier this week, Howe predicted the meeting would be calm.

Read it all.

Please note: A list of resolutions to come before the Convention is here.

Read it all (30 page pdf).

From here:

Dear Colleagues:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I trust this finds each of you well as we begin our shared journey into the new year, and in these days following the Epiphany. This is being written after much prayer and reflection, and is sent as an expression of my personal concern. Please know this is not an attempt to speak on behalf of my companion Communion Partner Bishops, nor any of those who signed the Anaheim Statement at General Convention 2009. I speak for myself.

This week we began receiving a flurry of “consent forms,” and I have found this to rest heavy on my heart, due to the fact that this present process is impacted by the integrity of the Anaheim Statement. As many will recall, this statement was made to express with “the same honesty and clarity” of the House, our position with respect to the life of the Church and the wider Anglican Communion. In the statement, we shared in making a commitment of reaffirmation with respect to our place within the Communion and the preservation of these relationships; to the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them; our commitment to the three moratoria requested of us by the Instruments of Communion; the process that has lead to the recent release of the Anglican Communion Covenant with our hope of working towards its implementation; and to “continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship.”

A reading of the Anaheim Statement will provide a fuller understanding of the breadth and depth of that which we presented before the House of Bishops on July 16, 2009, and then made witness to by virtue of our signatures. [A copy of the Anaheim Statement including the names is attached in two different formats.]

Why am I raising this before you this day? Sadly, there has been action taken of late with respect to some episcopal elections, that in turn are an affront to what has been expressed through the Anaheim Statement. I trust each of you will review the statement as you prayerfully make your decision on the consents before you. This having been said, please know that I cannot and will not consent to the elections before us that are in contradiction to that which we have affirmed, and in the words of Jude, I appeal “to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” [Jude 3]

Faithfully in the Light of Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Bruce MacPherson is Bishop of Western Louisiana

…true encouragement comes from honesty before God and self and the strength of purpose to serve in the face of disappointment or uncertainty. Or so it should. I know a young person who sneered at the faith of an Episcopalian ”“ a more conservative person ”“ who chose to leave TEC for another set of ecclesial structures. “You would do such a thing”, this young person said to him: “yours is the generation, after all, who invented no-fault divorce”. In fact, in this case, the complaint was less directed at a purported hypocrite, than at what he perceived to be the witness of an impotent God, unable to garner the sacrificial steadiness of His adherents. But either way, faith is scandalized by those who do not have the strength, nor certainly seek the strength, to stand in the face of upheaval.

I will come back to this at the close of my remarks: honesty need be neither angry, miserable, nor defeatist. It should be the seed for hope, because it is the first and necessary turn to God who alone saves.

What is the difficult thing to speak, honestly? It is this: the Episcopal Church, as it has been known through the past two centuries, is no more, in any substantive sense. TEC is simply no longer the church filled with even the strength of purpose we saw only 10 years ago ”“ yes, even then, a church with a good deal of vital diversity and disagreement; but a seeming sense of restraint over pressing these in ways that overwhelmed witness and mission. And as a result, even then, it was church that was growing in outreach and faith. That church, shimmering still with some of the vibrancy of love spent for the Gospel seen140 years before, even 90 years before, is now gone. And TEC will not survive in any real continuity with this past and its gifts.

This is something we must face. To be sure, I am not speaking here of this or that diocese or bishop or congregation or clergy person within TEC: there are many through whose service the Gospel shines bright and the witness of the Kingdom flourishes. I am speaking of an institution as a whole ”“ not even in terms of its legal corporation, but in terms of its character and Christian substance given flesh in the Spirit’s mission.

Read it all carefully.

I want to stress, please, that people in the comments interact with what Ephraim is arguing for and actually saying. Comments not doing so will be dispacted into the ether. Many thanks–KSH.

A Statement from the Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church
Accokeek, Maryland
August 2009 (Made earlier but released now–KSH)

Christ Church was established in 1698 and has consistently sought to be faithful to the teachings of the Church catholic””as found in the Scriptures, the Creeds and the Book of Common Prayer””as this Church has received them.

We reaffirm our commitment to the teaching of human sexuality as revealed in the Holy Scriptures and affirmed by the Church catholic: sexual intimacy is a gift and mystery which God has designed to be expressed solely in the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. All are called to chastity; some are called to celibacy. Consequently, all who are ordained are likewise called to live according to
these standards. We also reaffirm our commitment to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed to Accokeek and the whole world.

Therefore, we reject resolutions D025 and C056 of General Convention 2009. Whether prescriptive or descriptive, they will not repair the broken bridges in the Anglican Communion, whose fabric is torn at its deepest level. They demonstrate an unwillingness to observe two of the moratoria which all four Instruments of Unity have asked for. They violate the explicit teaching of the Communion regarding human sexuality, especially as expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution 1.10. They ignore the consensus of Christians throughout all time. They stand in contradiction to the explicit teaching of Scripture regarding human sexuality. And in particular, C056 violates the Episcopal Church’s own canons concerning the Covenant of Marriage. Therefore, we repudiate these resolutions and dissociate ourselves from them and their consequences.

We emphasize that we believe we are upholding the teaching of human sexuality which God has revealed. This teaching is entirely harmonious with the proclamation of the good news of God in Jesus Christ: that God’s love for all people””whether male or female, rich or poor, gay or straight””is ferociously manifest in Jesus’ cross and resurrection.

Lastly, we commend the work, at various levels within the Communion, on the Anglican Covenant and welcome the opportunity to review, study and sign its final draft.

The Rev. Mary Glasspool, 55, became the first openly partnered lesbian to be elected as an assistant bishop in the church, a move that continues to press a worldwide debate over how to reconcile homosexuality with Christianity.

“We ought not be surprised when gay and lesbian Christians are elected to leadership roles in a church that believes in the inclusive love of God,” the Right Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, bishop of the Ohio Diocese, said in a prepared statement following Glasspool’s election.

Hollingsworth was instrumental in adopting a gay-friendly resolution at the church’s international convention last July. The resolution effectively lifted a moratorium on electing openly gay bishops.

The moratorium was put in place following the election in 2003 of an openly gay, partnered man, Gene Robinson, as a bishop in New Hampshire.

Read it all.

NPR: So the bottom line is it fair to say that at least the door has been opened for gay and lesbian bishops in addition to Bishop Robinson.

KJS: The door has been open for many years.

NPR: So if an openly gay or lesbian person were to make it through to the stage where he or she could be consecrated bishop you would go ahead with that.

KJS: It is my duty, my canonical duty as Presiding Bishop, to take order for the consecration of a bishop whose election has been affirmed by the consent process.

NPR: The Archbishop of Canterbury said that we need to have a real thorough exploration of all of this and we need to have a wider consent within the communion in order to go ahead with either the consecration of gay bishops or blessings of gay unions. He said that does not exist in the communion right now. How do you feel about that?

KJS: The conversations been going on in The Episcopal Church for 45 years. The reality is that same-sex unions are blessed in many churches of the Anglican Communion. Not just in the United States or Canada, but in the Church of England. Not officially but that is reality.

NPR: Do you think there is scriptural basis for what the convention did and what is it.

KJS: The scriptural basis for what the convention affirmed about our discernment process is that each human being is made in the image of God.

Read it all (I posted the audio link a while back).

In July of this year, the 76th General Convention adopted resolution C056, “Liturgies for Blessings.” It allows that “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”

Your bishops understand this to mean for us here in the Diocese of Massachusetts that the clergy of this diocese may, at their discretion, solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, beginning Advent I. Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate. This provision for generous pastoral response is an allowance and not a requirement; any member of the clergy may decline to solemnize any marriage.

While gender-specific language remains unchanged in the canons and The Book of Common Prayer, our provision of generous pastoral response means that same-gender couples can be married in our diocese. We request that our clergy follow as they ordinarily would the other canonical requirements for marriage and remarriage. And, because The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage in The Book of Common Prayer may not be used for marriages of same-gender couples, we ask that our priests seek out liturgical resources being developed and collected around the church. We also commend to you the October 2008 resource created by our New England dioceses, “Pastoral Resources for Province I Episcopal Clergy Ministering to Same-Gender Couples,” available at www.province1.org.

We have not arrived at this place in our common life easily or quickly. We have not done it alone. This decision comes after a long process of listening, prayer and discernment leading up to and continuing after General Convention’s action this past summer.

Read it all.

Good morning. What I have been asked to do this morning is to report on where we are at this point of time in the Anglican Communion. It’s a fairly complicated picture so I hope I will be given the gift of clarity as I talk to you about this. Since the last time I reported to Synod on these matters, six things have happened. I want to delineate those six things and comment on them and then conclude by talking about a situation which at the moment is absolutely no threat to the Uganda Link but is a potential cause of difficulty in relation to our relationships with the Church of Uganda.

Read it all

Read it carefully and read it all.

The work given to the Episcopal Church by the July meeting of General Convention in Anaheim, California, has begun.

Nearly 270 volunteer members of 24 of the Episcopal Church’s so-called interim bodies, the Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards (commonly know as CCABs) are having their first meetings here Nov. 17-20. The meeting included an orientation session the morning of Nov. 18.

Each CCAB will also have 18 hours meeting together here. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson commissioned the members during a Eucharist at the end of the orientation session.

Read it all.

Finally, after much prayer and consultation, I have decided that the time has come for Southern Ohio to adjust its policy regarding the blessing of same-sex unions. As you all know, in the forums that preceded my election as your diocesan bishop, I was very clear that I thought the church should bless the godly, faithful and life-long union of two persons of the same sex. Moreover, my views on this matter have been expressed in two published books. So my own views will not be a surprise to anyone. At the same time, as I also stated in the forums, I do not wish to act in isolation from the Episcopal Church. So since I became a bishop I have upheld the policy I inherited, which did not permit the blessing of same-sex unions under any circumstances. It is my view that the recent General Convention resolutions D025 and C056 have altered the terrain, by reasserting the possibility of godly unions between persons of the same sex, and by inviting bishops who have jurisdiction in states that have offered some form of civil union to gay and lesbian couples to exercise “pastoral generosity” in offering the church’s public ministrations to such couples. In so doing, the Episcopal Church has effectively acknowledged that the godly union of two persons of the same sex ”“ by which I mean the union of two persons who have vowed lifelong fidelity to one another, and accept accountability to the faith community as a faithful household ”“ can be blessed by the church. I am convinced that in fairness to our fellow Episcopalians who have entered into such unions or who desire to do so, we must move deliberately toward the implementation of a policy that will permit and govern the blessings of such unions in Southern Ohio. On this basis, I am lifting the prohibition on the blessing of same-sex unions in this diocese, effective Easter 2010.

I am aware that there are some in this diocese who will be unhappy with this change in policy, and that there are clergy who cannot in good conscience officiate at such blessings. It is important to underscore that no priest within the Diocese will be under any obligation ”“ now or at any time ”“ to perform such blessings, and the position of those who wish not to perform any such blessings will be respected and honored. I wish to do whatever I can to allay any fears on this score.

Although it will take some time to work out all the details of this policy, here are a few parameters which I will be imposing from the outset. No blessing of a same-sex union shall occur without my written permission. I will consider each request individually and will require 60 days notice in each case. I expect that at least one of the two persons seeking a blessing within this church will be a confirmed or received Episcopalian in good standing, and that adequate counseling with the officiating priest (or an agreed-upon substitute) will be required prior to the blessing. I acknowledge that these requirements may seem discriminatory to some. They are however necessary at the present time, in order that I may exercise pastoral oversight as we venture into this new territory for the diocese. Similarly, I will be expecting parish priests who wish to perform such blessings to engage in significant conversation with the congregation or congregations they serve before they move in this direction. In asking for this, I do not intend in any way to suggest that the appropriate exercise of the priesthood is subject to any other oversight than that of the bishop’s, but to ensure this policy be a matter of open conversation, and that all local voices be heard.

Read it all (pdf).

This local program won an Emmy award recently and just taped a whole program on the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. Those of you who have Comcast and can get it, here are the times:

* Weekdays
* 11:30am
* 5:30pm
* 8:30pm

* Weekends
* 9:00am
* 3:30pm
* 8:30pm

I believe it will start airing this Saturday and it will run for about a week. The show lasts 1/2 an hour. Guests include Al Zadig, rector of Saint Michael’s, Barbara Mann, of the Episcopal Forum, Peet Dickinson, Dean of the Cathedral in Charleston, Father John Johnson, an Episcopal priest who taught at General Theological Seminary in New York and who is a Jungian analyst, yours truly, and Adam Parker, religion writer for the local paper, the Post and Courier. The show is hosted by Andy Savage who is a very high profile local lawyer.

This show is entirely focused on the upcoming Special Convention and the reason for the growing tensions between the diocese and TEC’s National leadership and its theology.

Q: You (and others) have said that the national church is walking apart, that it’s abandoned in part or whole its doctrines, canons and traditional practices and therefore has relinquished its authority over the Diocese of South Carolina, which remains true to the original canons. And you have said you are ready to re-engage with the national church if it repudiates its recent actions and returns to the Anglican fold. Do you think there is any chance the national church will do so? If yes, why have you called for a withdrawal from it?

A: Actually, the term “walking apart” was used by the Archbishop of Canterbury and many others around the world. What I have said is the authority of national entities in The Episcopal Church has a limited and defined role within a diocese. But ”¦ relinquished its authority? No, I never said that. What I have said is that the Constitution and Canons are what gives the General Convention its authority. When it passes resolutions contrary to those canons or without changing them, it has entered into a theatre of the absurd. Into an irrational way of legislating — that is what General Convention did when it gave bishops permission to allow same-sex marriages without changing the canons that define marriage as between a man and a woman. Along with being unscriptural and confusing to the laity, it is a dysfunctional way to run a church.

Whether The Episcopal Church will repudiate its recent actions is doubtful at best — but this is not about reading tea leaves. God has called me as a bishop of the church to proclaim the gospel in season and out of season, regardless of what others will or will not do. This includes protecting the faithful from false teachings.

Read it all.

(Please note: the inaccurate original article to which this offers corrections may be found here).

While I appreciate Adam Parker’s attempt to understand the larger issues surrounding the upcoming Special Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, his recent article titled “Diocese to vote on split” in the Oct. 4 Post and Courier was unfortunately marred by errors of fact.

These errors are all the more troubling because they relate to the effect of the proposed resolutions, should the convention vote in favor of them.

The errors are doubly troubling because a simple phone call to the bishop or the diocesan staff could have quickly corrected any misunderstanding.

The issues are so complicated that I can understand why such errors might be made. Nevertheless, I believe that it is important to correct misimpressions that the article may have produced.

Read it carefully and read it all.

After all the dedicated work of the bishops and deputies at General Convention, Straub reports that only 19 resolutions were not acted upon at the General Convention 2009.

Of the 19, Straub said, most were duplications of those that had been submitted and parts had been incorporated into resolutions that were considered. “Legislative Committees routinely ask to be discharged from considering further this kind of resolution, but by the end of Convention, committees are meeting only to vote on resolutions that have been amended by the other house,” he explained. “These were left behind.”

He added, “Five resolutions were incomplete: that is, they were perfected by a legislative committee, debated and voted on in one house of convention, but for one reason or another (usually time), the matter never came to the second house.”

Read it all.