“We’ve only had 10 bishops in 143 years,” said Bishop Irish in a prepared statement. “I am delighted to see this slate of extremely gifted finalists and feel a sense of vision and strong leadership that any one of these priests will prayerfully serve the Episcopal Church in Utah.”

The finalists include the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe, canon for Congregational Ministries in the Diocese of California; the Rev. Canon Scott B. Hayashi, canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Chicago; the Rev. Canon Juan Andrés Quevedo-Boscho, rector of the Church of the Redeemer in the Diocese of Long Island; and the Rev. Canon Mary C.M. Sulerud, canon for Deployment and Vocational Ministries in the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

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In searching for its 11th bishop, the Diocese of Springfield describes itself as “more conservative than liberal” philosophically and theologically, “although several parishes likely would describe themselves as more liberal.”

A survey included in the diocesan profile [PDF] reinforces that description, but with some unpredictable results.

The Rt. Rev. Peter H. Beckwith was the diocese’s 10th bishop from 1992 until February 2010. In addition to his diocesan duties, Bishop Beckwith served as vice president of the American Anglican Council and as chairman of the AAC Bishops Network.

The diocese’s election committee says 846 people completed the survey. That number “constitutes 40.61% of the diocese’s average Sunday attendance of 2,083 taken from the 2008 parochial reports.”

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We conclude with these observations about the fundamental facts of our polity:

1. The Presiding Bishop’s office is regulated by the constitution and canons and exists historically for the good order of the church. It is not a metropolitical office. The title ”˜presiding Bishop’ was chosen with care and inheres with the notion of good order when the wider church gathers. It is not an office with independent political authority.
2. The existence of diocesan canons in The Episcopal Church is a departure from the model typically followed in the polity of other provinces of the Anglican Communion. The existence of these canons goes hand in hand with the history and sovereignty of the diocese in The Episcopal Church as the basic ecclesial unit of catholic Anglicanism.
3. That no mandate exists that can be enforced by canon law for dioceses to pay assessments beyond the good operating of their own affairs is likewise evidence of the catholic and missionary integrity of the dioceses of this church.
4. Diocesan Chancellors exist to assist the Bishop and Standing Committee of the Diocese in maintaining the legal good operating of the Diocese and the undertaking of its internal affairs.
5. General Convention resolutions as such have no canonical force. They represent the mind of those gathered and are not legislative in character.
6. As a province, The Episcopal Church has no single authoritative voice, but exists with a dispersed character at the provincial level, involving individual diocesan Bishops, diocesan conventions, a triennial General Convention, House of Bishops meetings, and the office of Presiding Bishop.

We fully support Bishop Lawrence and the diocese of South Carolina in their defense of these principles.

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Please, please do not link to this story or email it without sending Lydia Evans’ letter already posted earlier also.

originally was missing the word NOT between did and think. That is, in the originally published version Steve Wood was depicted as saying he DID think Mark Lawrence would pursue legal action, whereas Steve said in fact the OPPOSITE. It is because of errors of this magnitude, as well as the complete misprepresentation of the US Supreme Court situation, that I was unable to post this artiucle and the second smaller related article yesterday. It would simply have caused too much confusion. Please do not add to the confusion yourselves–KSH.

Bishop Alphonza Gadsden was one of two Reformed Episcopal Church Bishops, and three Reformed Episcopal Church leaders, who attended and processed in the Eucharist at the recent diocese of South Carolina Convention.

This letter, from the letters section of today’s local paper here, is so important that it is reproduced below in full:

As a member of the standing committee conversant with the facts regarding recent events with the Diocese of South Carolina, I write to clarify several misleading statements contained in two March 30 articles.

First of all, the lead article misquoted the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Mount Pleasant. Regarding future litigation, the Rev. Steve Wood had, in fact, stated his belief that the Bishop of South Carolina was not interested in pursuing legal action against the parish. The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence has exercised considerable forbearance in diocesan matters, consonant with his role as the ecclesiatical authority in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

Also on Tuesday, in a separate article regarding the resolution of the All Saints-Pawleys Island litigation, Adam Parker suggested that last week’s settlement with the AMIA congregation was predicated on a recent action by the Supreme Court of the United States. Clearly, the author failed to account for the protracted nature of the SCOTUS appeals process, as the petition for writ of certoriari had been filed less than six weeks earlier.

In point of fact, last week’s settlement originated with the vestry’s decision to withdraw the petition. I view the conciliatory agreement between parties as a reflection of St. Paul’s counsel that the church in Corinth ought to seek reconciliation rather than litigation.

Finally, an earlier article in The Post and Courier (March 27) included comments which I believe misrepresented the tenor of the 219th Diocesan Convention.

I take issue specifically with Barbara Mann’s characterization of the convention as ‘antagonistic’ and ‘angry.’ Perhaps her misconstrual is due to the fact that she was not actually present on the floor of the convention.

Likewise, Grace Church parishioner Steve Skardon was quoted as suggesting the situation is merely a ‘shadowbox war.’

While Skardon is quick to offer his opinion in print, he chose not to bring his concerns to the floor of Friday’s convention.

As a lay leader, elected by the diocese and present at Friday’s gathering, I can witness to the spirit of concord and conciliation evident in our desire to stand together under the authority of God and in solidarity with our bishop.

For a number of years, some members of the Episcopal forum have adopted a posture of confrontation and discord.

During this Holy Week, I invite them to take a second look at their brothers and sisters in Christ ”” the Episcopal Church in South Carolina welcomes you.

Lydia Evans

The Very Rev. Robert S. Munday, Ph.D., Dean and President of Nashotah House preached on the Lord’s Prayer during a service of Holy Eucharist. Dean Munday told listeners that the ultimate thing for which they should be praying is the power of the Holy Spirit. “God wants to give the power of the Holy Spirit to empower his Church,” he said.

Mark Lawrence, XIV Bishop of South Carolina, began his address to the convention quoting Saint Paul, “My spirit is troubled,” he said. “When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit was not at rest….” 2 Corinthians 2:12-13a Lawrence noted that though there are doors open to us (for gospel work) we must, instead, turn our attention to the “distractions that come from the decisions others have made within The Episcopal Church.”

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A South Carolina diocese has declared itself “sovereign” within the Episcopal Church, the latest salvo in a long-running skirmish between the conservative diocese and the denomination.

The Diocese of South Carolina, which covers 47 parishes in the eastern and coastal parts of the state, voted on Friday (March 26) to assert the local authority of Bishop Mark Lawrence, particularly in dealing with breakaway parishes.

Concerned that Lawrence would not fight to keep conservatives from seceding with church property, the Episcopal Church hired its own lawyer earlier this year. The 2.2 million-member denomination maintains that local parish property is held in trust for the regional diocese and the national church.

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Though the Diocese of South Carolina remains affiliated with The Episcopal Church, the two are waging a battle over Scripture and polity.

South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence was not hesitant this week to express his continuing frustrations with the national church body’s “false gospel” and ongoing pursuit of litigations.

“The distractions that come from the decisions others have made within The Episcopal Church have created restlessness in my spirit,” he said at the diocese’s 219th annual convention which concluded Friday.

“Like those in the Church at Corinth with whom St. Paul was confronted, many within the leadership of The Episcopal Church have grown willful,” he lamented. “They will have their way though it is contrary to the received teaching of God’s Holy Word, the trustworthy traditions of the Christian Faith, and the expressed will of the Anglican Communion.”

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Resolution R-2 2010 Convention

Offered by: The Standing Committee

Subject: Response to Ecclesiastical Intrusions by the Presiding Bishop

RESOLVED, That this 219th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina affirms its legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church, and be it further

RESOLVED, That this Convention declares the Presiding Bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this Diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, and be it finally

RESOLVED, That the Diocese of South Carolina demands that the Presiding Bishop withdraw and terminate the engagement of all such legal counsel in South Carolina as has been obtained contrary to the express will of this Diocese, which is The Episcopal Church within its borders.

From here:

All five resolutions proposed prior to the 219th Diocesan Convention were approved. Resolution two was approved with an ammendment which further strengthened its resolve.

Pray for the the worship, the bishop and the bishop’s address, the voting on the resolutions and other common activity as it arises.

As a reminder, you may find the proposed resolutions here–KSH.

Wyoming Episcopalians elected the Rev. John Smylie of St. Mark’s Episcopalian Church in Casper as their ninth bishop during an election convention Saturday.

Smylie has been the rector of St. Mark’s since January 2007. Before that, Smylie held various positions at Episcopal institutions in Washington, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, according to the Web site www.wyomingbishopsearch.org.

He received a Bachelor of Arts at Syracuse University in 1975 and a Master of Divinity at the Episcopalian Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., in 1981.

“Spring has arrived and today we begin a new season in the life of the Episcopal diocese of Wyoming,” he said through a spokesman Saturday.

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Another resolution proposed by the standing committee would add a diocesan canon that says the bishop ”” or, in a bishop’s absence, the standing committee ”” is “the sole and final authority with respect to any dispute concerning the interpretation of the Constitution and Canons of this Diocese.”

A canonical revision, also proposed by the standing committee, grants the diocese’s bishop (or standing committee) the authority to “provide a generous pastoral response to parishes in conflict with the Diocese or Province, as the Ecclesiastical Authority judges necessary, to preserve the unity and integrity of the Diocese.”

An explanatory note on that resolution says: “We’ve experienced now as a diocese, in the All Saints, Pawleys Island litigation, the destructive force of such litigation; how it has created animosities and divisions that are not easily healed. It has failed as a positive cohesive force for maintaining the unity of the church and has in fact had precisely the opposite effect. Christians are suing Christians (1 Cor. 6:1-8); the reputation of the church is marred, and vital resources are diverted from essential Kingdom work. None of this is honoring to our Savior.”

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See what you make of it.

One of the more effective evangelical tools right now does just that ”” it goes into the places where people spend time, at work and at leisure, and it gathers people who want to ask significant spiritual questions. Asking questions is actually something that sets Episcopalians apart from a lot of other traditions, particularly the ones who say there’s only one right answer and doubt is a sin. Remember that bumper sticker, “Question Authority”? I’ve never been sure whether it’s a description of somebody who’s good at asking questions or a challenge to keep asking difficult questions of the powers that be. But asking questions is a central part of our tradition. We don’t insist that doubt is a sin; we see doubt as necessary to growth.

Young people are hard-wired to ask questions ”” why? is the most characteristic word out of the mouth of a healthy developing child. ”˜Why should I do that, why is the stove hot, why aren’t girls and boys always treated the same, why are some people poor, why has your generation left the world in such a mess, how can we bring peace to the world?’ When we stop asking questions like that we begin to die ”” spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and probably physically.

Building communities where young people can ask the really big questions is one of the most important kinds of evangelism we can do ”” and the other important kinds of evangelism are about building communities where others can do the same thing. Theology on tap is a prime example ”” it offers welcome and hospitality, including a brew (caffeinated or spirited), conversation, and community. It is happening in bars. It is happening in coffeehouses. It is happening where people gather. There are ways to gather questioners, a number of them focused on faith in the workplace. We have always gathered to ask questions. The women’s guilds and men’s guilds in the church did similar work, but they expected people to show up in the church building to gather. We need to leave home and go out there to provide hospitable places for questioners!

Read it all.

Here is one:

Proposed Resolution R-2 2010 Convention

Offered by: The Standing Committee

Subject: Response to Ecclesiastical Intrusions by the Presiding Bishop

RESOLVED, That this 219th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina affirms its legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church, and be it further

RESOLVED, That this Convention declares the Presiding Bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this Diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, and be it finally

RESOLVED, That the Diocese of South Carolina demands that the Presiding Bishop drop the retainer of all such legal counsel in South Carolina as has been obtained contrary to the express will of this Diocese, which is The Episcopal Church within its borders.

Read them carefully and read them all.

(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.

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From the Diocese of Dallas website:

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

The Rt. Rev. Gary R. Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas, concentrated on the Anglican Covenant during his address to the diocese’s annual council. The council met Feb. 18-21 in Corpus Christi.

The bishop cited the 76th General Convention’s Resolution D020, which encouraged dioceses to the consider the Covenant “as a document to inform their understanding of and commitment to our common life in the Anglican Communion.”

“The Covenant will not, and indeed cannot, solve all of our problems. Nor was it designed to do so. We should not look at the Covenant in terms of a political victory or a political defeat,” the bishop said. “Many times in the world, particularly in political systems, if you can win the debate and get the votes, you claim victory. Of course in politics this may be true, but it’s usually only true until the next election. But this approach certainly does not serve the church well. Just think for a moment where all the lobbying, posturing, scheming, planning, debating and voting in the church has taken us up to now. I said a few years ago in my address that I’m not interested in winning. I’m interested in healing. I think this is what Jesus is interested in, and it continues to be my focus.”

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This is an update to the entry immediately below, which commented on a then-proposed Annual Council resolution according honor to same-sex relationships and stating that God is made known in and through such relationships. The resolution, modified in some details from the version proposed by the diocese’s resolutions committee but still to the same effect, was approved by vote of the Council on February 13.[1] Somewhat surprisingly, it passed with the support of several clergy generally identified as having a conservative view, who signed on as named proponents of the resolution alongside the five proponents (three clergy and two lay) of the original resolutions submitted to the committee. All five of these new proponents are clergy from Houston, two of them being rectors of the Diocese’s largest two parishes. Four of the five are listed on the Communion Partners web site as Communion Partner Rectors[2]and one of these four is listed as a member of the Communion Partner Clergy Steering Committee. These new named proponents of the resolution do not include any laypersons, and accounts of the Council meeting published on the diocese’s web site do not indicate that any laypersons identified with the conservative side spoke from the Council floor in support of the resolution. The text of the resolution, the names and parish identifications of the proponents and a summary of statements made from the floor appear at http://161council.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-council-actions-and-elections_16.html (scroll down to Resolutions).

Read it all and please follow all the links.

In 2010, I will also be putting together a special task force to review the issues that may arise from General Convention in 2012 and to create a strategy with a means of leading into the following Convention as opposed to reacting to it.

Such a strategy will help us navigate what is already a turbulent time, with a steady course. This will help us to live within a relationship of mutual affection for both the structures of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Moreover, we must discover how we in the Diocese of Texas are going to move through these next few years together for the sake of the Gospel, Christ, all of God’s people, for justice and for peace, and for the mission of the Church. Let me be clear, we have got to learn to live together, how we discern the outward and visible signs of that life together, and the daily living out of Church, as our common work ”“ not only the work of your bishop.

We will be tempted by cynicism to say this work can’t be done; but the scripture reminds us of God’s desire to gather us all under his wing. We will be tempted by our ego to say we cannot work with the enemy; but the scripture tells us go with a friend to our brother and sister and be reconciled one to another before offering a sacrifice at the Lord’s Table.We will be tempted to say I have tried to speak but they will not hear, but we must be reminded of Christ’s model of listening first to the other. We will be tempted by our fear to say it’s just better if we don’t talk about it at all; but we know “to you all our hearts are open, all desires known, and no secrets are hid.”

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Diocesan officials also addressed a $4 million line of credit ”” of which $3.5 million has been spent to date ”” that it has taken out to fund a three-year lawsuit against 11 conservative churches that left the diocese in 2006 and early 2007. When market conditions approve, the diocese will sell parcels of unconsecrated land to help pay the $3.5 million.

The diocese seeks to win back millions of dollars of property taken by the departing churches, which left over liberal trends in the denomination. After the conservatives won the lawsuit at trial, the diocese appealed. The case will go before the Virginia Supreme Court this year.

The departure of the conservatives, which reduced the diocese’s membership by about 10,000, was referred to several times Saturday as causing much “pain” to the remaining Episcopalians. However, a last-minute amendment to form a “reconciliation task force” between Episcopalians and former Episcopalians failed for lack of time to consider it adequately.

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The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia hedged on recognizing same-sex unions Saturday, instead voting to form a committee to set standards for church-sanctioned blessings of such unions once they are approved by the entire 2-million-member Episcopal Church.

About 346 delegates to the dioceses annual council meeting at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria narrowly voted — by a show of hands — to form the committee.

It was a less radical choice for the 80,000-member Virginia diocese, the largest in the Episcopal Church. A substitute amendment suggesting the diocese allow openly gay clergy and same-sex blessings failed after a lengthy debate.

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In [Peter] Beckwith’s absence, the diocese’s standing committee, made up of four clergy members and four lay people, will carry on day-to-day activities, according to the Venerable Shawn Denney, the diocesan archdeacon. The standing committee has also begun the election process, with guidelines and nomination forms going out last week.

A nominating synod will whittle the list to four or five candidates, who will meet with clergy and church members at several locales in the diocese. An electing synod, made up of clergy and lay delegates from the various congregations, is scheduled to convene in mid-September to finalize the choice.

The candidate is then put on the national stage, to the bishops and dioceses’ standing committees.

Carlinville’s Bettman said he hopes the diocese doesn’t get a re-play of what happened in the Diocese of South Carolina in 2007. The electing synod’s first vote to name the Right Rev. Mark Lawrence, a conservative, was declared void. Lawrence was subsequently re-elected, approved and consecrated bishop in 2008.

“It’s hard to come up with a majority sometimes,” said Bettman. “It’s not necessarily an easy thing to do. “People have deep-held beliefs (about their candidates.)”

Denney said the timeline is realistic and that the process is not being rushed.

“We have everything lined up,” he said. “There’s no reason the selection of the bishop can’t take place.”

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You and I are no strangers to fear, frustration, confusion or embarrassment. We know that fear can leave us unable to move, that frustration and confusion can blind us and make us lose our way, and that shame will eat us up. It’s hard for us to make progress when we feel like the wind’s been taken out of our sails, when it seems like we don’t know who we are anymore, when all we want to do is hide.

Yes, I am talking about the Church; thank you for wondering. Yes, I am talking about our beloved Episcopal Church, embroiled in and paralyzed by the Great Controversy of the Day. Most of us are confused, all of us are frustrated, many of us are afraid, some are even embarrassed. How can we sing the Lord’s song, how can we share the great Good News of the love of God in Jesus Christ, when we are confused, frustrated, fearful or ashamed? Nobody likes to be embarrassed.

Maybe one place to find an answer is in the story of Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, and then found that it wasn’t about what he had to lose, but what he had to gain. Our hope, the hope we share with one another in a wide variety of theological assumptions and preferences, is that we are most fully who we are when we come together in God’s call to us in Christ.

We are not called to uncomplicated certainty; we are not called to hold opinions because they are shared by all or because they protect the status quo. You and I are called to truth, even when it’s complicated, even when it’s inconvenient, even when our neighbors don’t understand or approve. Because what Nicodemus saw and heard in Jesus is also offered to us and through us: love without conditions, redemption beyond our deserving, the invitation to put ourselves aside in His love and service ”“ Amazing Grace.

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Read them carefully and read them all.