Episcopalians loyal to the national Church in New York have formed a second Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth at a special convention held Feb 7.
The new diocese, formed around five congregations and individual Episcopalians who declined to follow the majority out of the Episcopal Church into the Province of the Southern Cone, invited the Bishop of Kentucky, the Rt Rev Edwin Gulick to serve as its provisional bishop for the next six months, and elected diocesan officers.
In November, the Synod of the Diocese of Fort Worth voted by a margin of 80 per cent to 20 per cent to quit the Episcopal Church for the temporary oversight of Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables and the Province of the Southern Cone. US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori responded by removing Bishop Jack Iker from the ordained ministry, saying she had accepted his voluntary renunciation of orders. However, Bishop Iker denied having given such a renunciation.
Ah, yes … the Monday Morning Spin Machine … this time The Gospel According to George Conger. Revisionst history notwithstanding, there is no “new” Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth — there’s just new energy in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth now that the Anglican Separatists have opted to leave and start a new church.
God bless them, everyone. And now, let’s get on with Lent.
[i] And now, let’s get on with Lent [/i]
What exactly do radical reappraisers [i]do[/i] during Lent?
Think about it: if you have a low harmatiology; if you regard individual repentance and amendment of life as superseded by your Baptismal Covenant; if you depict the Atonement as a pernicious doctrine of “cosmic child abuse†in which “God murders his son for the salvation of the world†(to use words approvingly quoted in Ms. Russell’s parish newsletter) . . . what do you make of Lent?
On the face of it, Conger’s description of the situation is correct. We had a Diocese of Ft. Worth and a few parishes extra. Now we have those parishes organized and claiming to be a diocese.
Good to notice what posts provoke the counting-coup reflex.
Well, Susan has finally admitted that we “Anglican Separatists” are really Anglican and have formed a “new” Church! It really is the same Church….minus the modern-day revisions of TEC. It is a Church, which I hasten to remind her, has been recognized and accepted as Anglican by so many of the Primates…..though not yet as a province. And I might also remind her that our faithful bishops have been recognized as bishops of the Anglican Communion. Right, Susan?
My best “guesstimate”, based on 2007 data, is that the TEC diocese will have about 25 percent of the former diocese’s Membership and a little over 20 percent of its Plate & Pledge. Statmann
Statman –
I have been playing with the numbers for awhile and came up with about 27% 0f membership and 20% ASA in the TEC diocese (didn’t do plate and pledge). I suspect the membership total will be closer to 30%, depending on how “clean” the rolls are; presumably, inactive people will stay in TEC by default.
That was based on the congregations listed here:
http://episcopaldiocesefortworth.org/churches.htm
I took numbers of those meeting at their own addresses, took out 20% (the percentage voting against secession at council), then added 20% of the numbers from those groups listed as meeting at other locations. The raw ASA number was about 1400. Local folk with more specific information have been guessing between 1350 and 1500, so I’m probably in the ball park. The big caveat is that the Parker County ASA should be 60 by my formula, but it was 20 when they got started up. Which is to say that it’s a crap shoot what their real numbers are, and I wonder if we will ever know.
By the way, the list of TEC congregations has grown since I looked last. There are two very small parishes: St. Mary’s, Hillsboro, and St. Elizabeth, Fort Worth. Christ the King, FW, now has a congregation meeting at another location.
#2 … Thanks for asking! Here’s [url=http://inchatatime.blogspot.com/2009/02/q-what-exactly-do-radical-reappraisers.html] one of the things we do for Lent [/url]
Ooops … messed up the URL post. Mea culpa!
[i]easily fixed Susan, never fear[/i]
Susan is right–and wrong (as we all can be). What she’s wrong about is who left. TEC left those orthodox believing true Christians and they found an Archepiscopal wing to shelter under. It is the TECies who are the Anglican Separatists. The Diocese of which she writes is a faux diocese, incapable of sustaining itself or of maintaining Faith and Order.
Dumb Sheep. (I’m giving up TEC for Lent, and forever. I want someday to stand before the Throne and hear “well done…..”)