“This vote demonstrates that when people have an opportunity to study the facts, they realize that the information disseminated by the ultra-conservative leadership of the diocese was misleading,” said the Very Rev. Robert Dedmon, the cathedral’s dean, on a website established by a group working to reorganize the diocese within the Episcopal Church. “Now this parish must get on with our Christian mission and ministry.”

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When the Diocese of Fort Worth voted Nov. 15 to become the fourth American diocese to leave The Episcopal Church, the leadership of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) scheduled a constitutional convention in the Chicago area Dec. 3 to form a new North American Anglican province. The event will be followed by “a province-by-province visitation and appeal for recognition of the separate ecclesiastical structure in North America.”

Significant details about the plan were revealed in a short AnglicanTV internet video clip containing remarks delivered by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Bishop Bill Murdoch, a missionary bishop to the U.S. consecrated by the Anglican Church of Kenya.

Read the whole thing and please take the time to view the video interview here.

The departure of Quincy and three other conservative dioceses raises questions about the future of the Episcopal Church. The church, led by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, represents the U.S. branch of the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. However, leaders of the conservative breakaway dioceses are pushing for a second province in North America. Approval of an additional province by the archbishop of Canterbury would be unprecedented and pose a strong challenge to the Episcopal Church.

“You have some significant, traditionalist Episcopal dioceses that no longer feel that they have a future in the Episcopal Church. That’s a tragedy,” said Rev. Kendall Harmon, a theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. “Now, we also have a bigger group that’s trying to organize, link with the Global South and compete as Anglicans within the same territory. It will be interesting to see how the leadership of the Anglican Communion responds to this.”

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Greg Griffith: So not just from a conceptual standpoint, but really from an official standpoint, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is not a creation of General Convention.

Bishop Iker: Not at all. If it’s a “creation” of anything, it’s a creation of the Diocese of Dallas, which decided for missionary and church growth purposes that they would divide the diocese in two. Two-thirds of the geographical area remained the diocese of Dallas. They wanted to create a new diocese which at the time didn’t have a name; it was referred to as the “western diocese,” so the first convention had to, among other things, choose our name – it wasn’t given to us by someone else. There were several proposals, and the vote was that we call ourselves the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

Greg Griffith: Provided the resolutions at your convention pass, you’ll be joining Bishop Schofield and San Joaquin, Bishop Duncan and Pittsburgh, as well as the diocese of Quincy, which voted yesterday, in a realignment with the Southern Cone under Archbishop Venables. I think we have to be candid and say that’s probably it for the near term – that’s probably all the dioceses that will be aligning with the Cone for the time being.

Bishop Iker: I think so. It’s interesting, though, that historically to form a new province it’s been customary to have 4 dioceses.

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Along with ending its affiliation with The Episcopal Church during its annual synod last weekend, the Diocese of Quincy established a protocol for clergy and parishes that do not wish to join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

The Rev. Canon Ed den Blaauwen, president of the diocesan standing committee, was named vicar general by Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone. Canon den Blaauwen announced that members of the clergy would receive a certificate indicating they are members in good standing of the South American province. Clergy who wish to remain with The Episcopal Church were asked to write the word “rejected” on the certificate, sign and date it, and return it to the diocesan office.

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Five years ago, General Convention threw a match onto a gasoline-soaked garage floor, instigating a chain of events of which the secession of Quincy is now the latest link. At the very least, we are witnessing a series of rebellions that might plausibly be interpreted as one Big Rebellion in several parts. The hope of dioceses like Quincy (along with San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, and Fort Worth) is that they are part of a larger movement of realignment within Anglicanism, the end of which will result in a new Anglican province on North American soil, one that will be institutionally unconnected from both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. Several other Anglican provinces are cooperating with this movement: the Southern Cone, obviously, by providing a temporary insitutional haven, but also all the groups that fall under the umbrella known as GAFCON (from their initial gathering in Jerusalem this past summer, the Global Anglican Futures Conference). This big tent includes the Anglican Mission in American (AMiA, connected to Rwanda), the Convocation of Anglicans in North American (CANA, connected to Nigeria), and a smattering of parishes that have come under the aegis of Uganda.

So far, then, what we have is a rebellion in progress. But the hope of what we might call the realignment community is that it will continue to grow”“both by continuing to peel off dioceses and parishes from TEC (and its Canadian equivalent) and by growing their parishes, both in size and number”“and that TEC will continue to decline (by ongoing loss of dioceses and parishes and by stagnation in spiritual and financial vitality) to an envisaged tipping point, at which it will simply be a fait accomplait, with or without any official pronouncement from Canterbury or elsewhere, that TEC has been replaced as the holder of the Anglican franchise in this country.

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Fallout from the weekend decision by the Diocese of Quincy, Ill., to leave the Episcopal Church of the United States may include litigation over millions of dollars’ worth of property and assets.

“We pray there will be no litigation,” the Rev. Ed den Blaauwen said Monday. Den Blaauwen, the rector of Christ Church in Moline, is also the newly appointed vicar general of the diocese that is now aligned with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.

Church resources would be better used for Christian activities than in the courts, he added.

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[The Rev. John] Spencer said the church recognizes the decision was not unanimous. By a separate action, the synod made provisions for a nine-month grace period during which members can withdraw from the diocese in order to stay in the national Episcopal Church.

“It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination,” Spencer said.

The Rev. John Throop, a local Episcopalian minister, said he anticipated the breakaway and transferred to the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago last year for that reason. Throop does not consider himself an extreme liberal, but he said his new diocese is more accepting of his point of view.

“I’m grieved that it has come to this, but I knew it was coming, and there was nothing I could do to persuade leaders to think otherwise,” Throop said. “I pray for God’s grace to be with them.”

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Following the unexpected resignation of Quincy Bishop Keith Ackerman, which was effective November 1, the synod convened without a sitting bishop. The Rev. Canon Edward den Blaauwen, rector of Christ Church, Moline, and a member of the Standing Committee, was appointed to preside at Synod’s business meetings.

At the opening session of the synod on November 7, which was closed to the public, Spencer reported that Ackerman was on hand to ceremonially “pass the gavel” to den Blaauwen.

Following the votes to realign, a letter was read from Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Southern Cone, in which he reported that he had appointed den Blaauwen as Vicar General of the new diocesan unit, in the absence of a sitting bishop.

Den Blaauwen who also serves as executive administrator for Forward in Faith North America, of which Ackerman is president, attended the Global Anglican Futures Conference in June. He also accompanied Ackerman to the Lambeth Conference this past summer.

Spencer noted that no plans have yet been made for a search for a new bishop.

“Our focus has been entirely about just getting through this synod for now,” he said.

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(A press release received via email).

The Annual Synod of the Diocese of Quincy’s meeting November 7-8 in Quincy, Illinois, has voted by strong margins to realign itself with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, breaking its ties with The Episcopal Church in the US. On two key votes more than ¾ of the clergy and lay deputies voted in favor of the realignment.

The move came after several years of prayer and discernment about the diocese’s relationship with The Episcopal Church. Many in the Quincy Diocese, both clergy and lay people, have been at odds with the national leadership and other dioceses over the authority of the Bible, church order and discipline, and the church’s moral standards and teaching on Christian marriage.

On the vote to disaffiliate from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 75% of the clergy and 82% of the lay deputies voted in favor. On the subsequent vote to realign the diocese with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone the vote in favor was 92% in the clergy order and 87% in the lay order.

“This decision was not made lightly,” said Fr. John Spencer, press officer for the diocese. “We have talked and prayed about this for a very long time. But we take our relationship to the Anglican Communion very seriously. Since 2003, over half the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been in a state of broken Communion with The Episcopal Church. By realigning with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, we are now back in full communion with the majority of over 75 million Anglicans around the world.”

Canon Ed den Blaauwen, incoming President of the Standing Committee, said the focus of the diocese will remain on mission. “Our churches and our diocese will continue in mission and ministry locally and around the world. We feel much at home under the oversight of Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, who has warmly welcomed us into affiliation with that Province,” den Blaauwen said. “We are once again back in full fellowship with our brother and sister Anglicans.”

Shortly after the votes were taken, Canon den Blaauwen, who acted as chairman for the Synod, read a letter from Archbishop Venables welcoming Quincy as a member of the Province of the Southern Cone.

Bishop Keith Ackerman who retired from leadership of the diocese on November 1, spoke to the gathering Friday afternoon just before the synod convened. Quoting the Epistle of Jude, he encouraged them to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ and the historic faith of the Christian Church as they considered the momentous decisions before them.

“While the votes show there was very strong support for this decision,” Fr. Spencer said, “we realize this was not a unanimous decision.” By a separate action, the synod made provision for a nine months grace period during which a congregation or member of the clergy might consider withdrawing from the diocese in order to stay in the Episcopal Church. “It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination,” Spencer said.

The Diocese of Quincy’s governing synod has voted resoundingly to leave the national Episcopal Church.

The announcement came Friday afternoon during the group’s meeting at Quincy Country Club. In the past five years the Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy and some of the other conservative-leaning dioceses around the nation have threatened to leave the Episcopal Church to join other Anglican bodies.

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Update: An ENS article is here.