Four months after his low-key election as the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas, the Rev. J. Scott Mayer will receive a high-profile ordination Saturday.
The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and the first woman elected primate in the Anglican Communion, will preside at the ceremony as chief consecrator.
The Rt. Rev. Sam Hulsey, who served the diocese as bishop from 1980 to 1996, and Mayer’s predecessor, the Rt. Rev. Wallis Ohl, who served from 1997 until his retirement on Jan. 1, will serve as co-consecrators.
At that time, Mayer responded to the fallout from the 2003 consecration of gay bishop V. Gene Robinson by saying, “I think we’re moving out of all that…..”I would say that right now unity is the biggest issue facing the Episcopal Church,” he said.
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I’m kind of befuddled by the apparent internal inconsistency of the above comment–what does the Bishop think was the immediate presenting cause of the current disunity?
“Mayer, 53, a native Texan and a 1977 graduate of Texas Tech, said when he was elected he was committed to the historical oneness of the church.
“At that time, Mayer responded to the fallout from the 2003 consecration of gay bishop V. Gene Robinson by saying, “I think we’re moving out of all that.” ”
It would appear that all the sand in that region of Texas has not gone to waste. This chap certainly seems to have his head buried well and deeply.
I think y’all have to know Scott to “get” these quotes. He’s been my rector and I breathed a sigh of relief when he was elected bishop because I feared an “activist” element would try to move the elections toward one of the liberal candidates from out-of-state. Will he take on TEC? No, he won’t. Will he preside over the proliferation of error and false teaching in our diocese? No, he won’t.
Scott isn’t a politician. He’s a deeply spiritual man, quiet and unassuming, who ministers to the needs of the people. I think I would be safe in saying that he will be far more concerned with nurturing the spirituality of the souls in his care than the issues du jour emanating from TEC. NYC is a LONG way from Lubbock, TX, and Scott is a Texan through and through. The people of Northwest Texas don’t really spare a thought for what TEC is doing — to them, the church is HERE. I don’t think that’s unusual.
Oh, and No. 2, we don’t have “sand” here so much as clay soil. Ohl pretty much neglected the diocese so it will be interesting to see what Scott may fashion from West Texas clay. No matter what, it won’t be a liberal vessel that TEC can fill up. West and North Texans are very conservative.
Oh, for anyone in or around Lubbock, I’ve heard that KJS is going to be visiting at St. Christopher’s in Lubbock on Sunday. FYI. If I could, I’d be interested in checking that out! Outside of a short reception after the consecration, she won’t be meeting with average folks on Saturday, from what I’ve heard.
From the comment section of the article:
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Mayer thinks that “we’re moving out of all that.” His optimism is misplaced if one looks at the numbers which show no sign that the decline is abating. The diocese lost 8.5% in membership last year alone! Sunday attendance for the entire diocese is now about 2,000. There is an average of only 57 in the pews of each parish of the diocese. Many parishes have fallen below viability, and many will close in the next few years. The diocese had only one candidate that actually had grown a church. They chose an insider who had not.
This summer, at general convention, the national church will most likely lift the moratorium on more Gene Robinsons and will start blessing same sex unions (officially – many have been doing it unofficially for years). It will be further disaster for the local diocese.
An important read can be found at http://tinyurl.com/Primer4PewSitters where it details the rapidly escalating costs of all Ms Schori’s lawsuits. She has deposed more bishops in her short tenure then in the entire history of the church. Make sure that your givings are not going to fund ungodly lawsuits!
Teatime, I stand corrected. Is should have said “dust” rather than sand. All those years in coastal Texas went to my head!
Maybe I just don’t speak Texan, but I can’t understand how this consecration will be “moving out of all that”: Bishops Schori (no comments nedded), Hulsey (who I believe was eager to help the Fort Worth TEC remnant), and Ohl (who was a good company man but his tenure was a train wreck). How could this group not remind those NW Texans of 16 percent less Members, 26 percent less ASA, and a loss of 18 percent in Plate & Pledge real dollars? And in 2007 there were 87 Infant Baptisms and 118 Burials. And it took 7,334 Members to produce those 87 baptisms or 84 to ONE. One highlight will be the PB presenting a runner-up award for her TEC Birth Control Contest. Statmann
LOL, dwstroud. I moved here from the coast myself! And I’m a big fan of our West Texas clay — I’m having a BLAST with gardening here!
Statmann, something that contributes to the stats is that this area is losing population. It’s VERY rural. The cities hold their own but there aren’t that many of them — the rural towns are dying. That could change, though, as West Texas is becoming a mecca for alternative energy. The wind farms are doing well and bringing lots of jobs here and there’s a clean coal plant trying to move into Sweetwater, TX.
The Episcopal brand isn’t big here and the diocese does precious little (if anything) with evangelization but the RCs don’t, either. The Baptists and Church of Christ are dominant but there is a lot of ecumenism and cooperation among Christians.
For some sense of the population shifts, these three Catholic dioceses should roughly cover an region similar to the EDNWT (with some overlap to West Texas (out of San Antonio). Lubbock, the middle link, has grown as a percentage of the population, probably due to the hispanic influx. As noted above, the other two dioceses are stagnant. 15-20 years ago, I was in Amarillo on several Sundays for work; the liturgies were stereotypically poor and celebrated in ugly buildings. I don’t know the other two diocese.
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/damar.html
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dlubb.html
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dsang.html