The Episcopal Church filed suit Tuesday to regain control of Fort Worth-area church buildings and other property held by a breakaway contingent led by Bishop Jack Iker.
“We’re stewards of property that has been given for generations to the Episcopal Church. We can’t just let people walk off with it,” said Kathleen Wells, chancellor for the reorganized Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
The suit was filed in Tarrant County district court and names Iker as a defendant, among others.
“”We’re stewards of property that has been given for generations to the Episcopal Church. We can’t just let people walk off with it,””
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Well, I guess that they have to try to be “stewards” of something, they, i.e. ECUSA, are obviously not faithful stewards of “…the Faith once given….”
These lawsuits certainly establish ECUSA’s priorities.
Money and property are much more important than the “Faith.”
That a group of people can enter an historic church, defy its teachings, re-write its doctrines, ignore it’s sacred teaching concerning sexuality, embrace mult faithed agendas, water down the Gospel, invent women priests fracturing the entire communion in the process, promote a woman to high office who teaches abortion is ‘blessed’, consecrate an active Bhuddist, consecrate a divorced and active homosexual, speak of Jesus as ‘one way to the father’….
…..and then to have the bare-faced cheek to suggest they are ‘defending something historical’ and doing something ‘decent’ by suing those who in conscience refused to go along with the unscriptural and blasphemous changes, is nothing short of a great spiritual evil. The devil must be laughing at all this pain and mess….caused by those who would have the church submit to the world, and not the world submit to the Lord Jesus.
SHAME on you who do this, deep and tragic shame. I pray for you.
[Comment deleted by Elf]
If, as is reported here, the “constitution and canons prohibit dioceses from breaking away” I would ask that the specific articles of the Consitution and Canons (C&C;) (The “canons” are the laws by which the Church operates) be cited.
FYI, I’ve read through the 2006 C&C;and they are silent on the issue of dioceses leaving the Episcopal Church (TEC). There is quite a lot about dioceses joining TEC (actually, entering “union” with the General Convention). So, if I diocese must first joint the TEC, that must mean that the diocese exists prior to it being part of TEC. If it existed prior to joining TEC, then it should be free to leave TEC (barring other restrictions in the C&C;).
Phil Snyder
Phil,
You are correct. The Dennis Canon addresses Churches in Dioceses, but the Canons do not address Dioceses leaving. Plus, if you understand how a diocese is formed and joins the EC, then it is clear the reverse is also true.
What the EC and the PB fails to address is that the Constitution and Canons of the EC are being violated by the leaders of the EC, especially the PB. As such, a terrible precedent is being set that will be hard to counter. Bishops and Standing Committees need to take a stand against these uncanonical actions but seem to just give them a pass. I see this as a serious mistake…but no one seems to be listening.
Welcome to the Hotel Episcopalian … you can check out, but you can never leave! (insert evil laugh over guitar rif).
Our diocese is under attack from the national church. My great hope and prayer is that our bishop and other clergy will keep citing:
They very fact that you have lawsuits among you means
you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather
be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you
yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your
brothers. ( 1 Cor. 6:7-8)
I believe that our bishop’s conscience is clear, since he has done and is doing all that he can to meet the legitimate claims of congregations whose majority wishes to stay under the GC and
TEC’s wings. As for me and my parish, we will not engage in inflammatory response to former members of our parish who will inevitably be drawn into the position of plantiffs attacking us as illegal squatters on “their” property. We will continue to pursue our parish’s mission, and let the diocesan lawyers gird up their loins to respond to the legal atttacks. And, if by long odds, we were to “lose” the legal right to our property, I would consider us to be in the blessed position of those who can renounce this worlds goods in order to follow Christ. For those whose consciences are clear in this matter, it’s a “win/win” scenario, whatever the secular courts decide. If we “win” in court: we must still use our lives and property to pursue our mission in Christ. If we “lose” in court: we must still use our lives to pursue our mission in Christ. So, the responsibility is the same, the vocation is the same, and the Lord of the Church is the same! And, if we are true to Christ, the decision of the world’s court system is of secondary and passing importance.
Without a doubt, the communities in which our parishes and missions serve will be scandalized by the resulting legal battle.
You are exactly right, Fr. Smith! But the sad part is those remaining in TEC don’t care about not following the Gospel injunctions, scandalizing the church and community, or anything else except the property & money! It is sad, sad, sad. With faithful warriors as +Iker, yourself and the many clergy in our diocese, we will prevail to continue our mission….whether with or without the property. You are much more “in the thick of it” than we are down a bit south of you, but we will continue to stand strong together.
Reply to #7.
Well stated Stuart!
Let ECUSA be seen ‘for what it is.’ )r in semi-legal parlance, “Let the facts speak for themselves.”
Anecdotal comments regarding why people turn away from ‘the church,’ regardless of the denomination, repeat again and again that ‘non-Christian conduct’ on the part of Christians is a primary factor. When Christians behave in a manner that is seen as being hypocritical, they are through their conduct damaging “the Body of Christ” that is the church.
ECUSA may win judgements in court, but what ‘Final Judgement’ awaits its leadership? And what is more important to that leadership, a temporal victory regarding property or the ultimate victory of Eternal Salvation?
Rugbyplayingpriest [#2] writes, [Comment edited by Elf]: “That a group of people can enter an historic church, defy its teachings, re-write its doctrines,…” (Emphasis added.)
RPP, I’m sure all would have remained to your liking if the right-thinking folks who dominated the church circa 1972, or 1925, or 1662, had not inconveniently grown old and died. When you figure out how to make that process stop, so that there’s no longer any need for new people to ‘enter an historic church,’ by birth and otherwise, then by all means do let the rest of us know.
#9 —
are you trying to say that TEC’s lawsuits against departing congregations/dioceses is placing their “Eternal Salvation” in jeopardy? that would seem awfully presumptuous to me…
[Comment deleted by Elf]
Elf
You have got to be kidding me. You can have the height of hiprocisy and a series of one liners, yet when I use the Scripture to point out the hypocrisy, tou delete it?! You could have edited the Bible if you find it offensive. But it does not suit the agenda promoted.
#10 I am struggling to believe you do not realise that my point of complaint is not the ‘entering of the church’ but what I list subsequently that it the reason for my lambast.
[Comment edited by Elf]I kindly suggest you answer the point rather than split hairs over the structure…
[Please note that comments which refer to other commenters or people in offensive or abusive terms will be edited or deleted as appropriate as will comments arguing with decisions of Elves.]
Reply to #11..
Youngadult,
I was not being presumptuous. I believe that if I were to do the same thing, that I would be placing myself in the same jeopardy.
It wasn’t a judgemental statement, but a statement, akin to “If they place their hands on that hot stove burner they will burn themselves.” I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the fact that the lawsuits are unChristian, just as I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the danger of a hot stove.
I believe that the lawsuits against orhtodox Anglicans are lawsuits against those who follow “…the Faith once given…” and as such, are attacks upon the church, the Body of Christ, by revisionists who are not following “…the Faith once given….”
Also, the focus of the revisionists on lawsuits reveals a concern for money and property rather than Chrisitian brotherhood.
There is ample Scripture to support an argument against the lawsuits.
RPP [#13], I agree with you to the extent that those having a major problem with the church’s way of thinking (if I can put it that way) shouldn’t try to bulldoze their way in with a view to disrupting it.
On the other hand, people’s thinking does sometime evolve; the church implicitly recognizes and even encourages this. Cf., e.g., the post-baptismal prayer asking that God give the new Christian “an inquiring and discerning heart.”
And there’s no gag rule in the church’s constitution, canons, or initiation covenants — if a member’s thinking does happens to begin deviating from received dogma, he (or she) is perfectly free to try out his new ideas with others.
To insist otherwise would be tantamount to denying — blasphemously, I’m sure you’d agree — that the Holy Spirit could ever have in mind that we view things differently than the church fathers did. That doesn’t mean the Spirit does in fact have that in mind. But to rule it out categorically, by way of railing against honest inquirers, seems like a good candidate for the sin against the Holy Ghost.
#16 When examining the workings of the Holy Spirit, I submit that one should keep in mind page 853 of the BCP. “Q. How do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit? A. We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures” This means the Scriptures whole, not a few convenient bits taken out of context. In order to do this one has to actually have read them–all of them.
In thhe Faith,
Northwest Bob
NW Bob [#17], I’ve read the Bible cover to cover, and have studied numerous portions in some detail. I don’t want to start us down well-worn side trails of argument, but there are enough inconsistencies among the Bible’s various writings that it would be irresponsible to elevate it as the exclusive measure of spiritual Truth. And besides, as my then-12-year-old daughter once put it — unprompted — “a thousand-page book can’t possibly contain everything God will ever have to say to us.”
D.C.
Your daughter is partly right. As the saying goes:
Everything in the Bible is what God has said, but not everything that God has said is in the Bible.
The half that is left out:
But God’s truth will not contradict itself.
There is NO POINT OF DOCTRINE in the scriptures that is contradicted by another part of Scripture. For example, the Bible is consistent on the nature of God, the depravity of Man, the need for atonement, etc. On matters of morals, the Bible is also consistent. The ‘inconsistencies’ in the Bible are explained by careful study, as you should know, and touch no matter of faith, salvation or morals.
LibraryJim [#19], I’m not going to follow you down that path (we’ve debated, for example, the slavery issue ad nauseam already).
DC,
The problem is not that you believe that a thousand page book does not contain everything that God has said. The problem is that you do not believe in a God who speaks, and the thousand page book rather says too much. You certainly do not believe that God has spoken through the prophets or apostles who wrote the Bible. Of course, there may be some good bits here and there. As you remind us every once in awhile, you’re rather fond of Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor–assuming he actually said that. But for the rest? Not so much.
D.C. – You suggest I would agree with you in #16. I do not and in the strongest of terms. God does NOT do U turns. That is why we can trust the fathers and be confident in the truth.
Jesus is the revelation of God’s truth and the FULL revelation at that. To say God would ‘change his teaching’ would be to:
1) water down the faith of the apostles
2) reduce the divinity and trustworthiness of Christ
3) make holy Tradition unreliable
4) Elevate societal thinking to the role of Spirit utterance
I suggest your views are heretical sir, and would have been deemed so by every generation of Christians since Christ himself
P.S. Elves apologies you felt you had to edit my post. It did not directly insult but was certainly strong in that I felt that somebody was deliberately misunderstanding my points to nit pick.
RPP [#22], it’s fascinating that you deem yourself, or anyone, competent to declare that “God does NOT do U turns.”
Moreover, you seem to rule out the possibility that God might have different instructions for us at different times or in different circumstances, with the instructions seeming to be contradictory but they really aren’t.
Consider this: If you’ve got kids, you know that when children are very little, doctors tell parents not to give aspirin for a cold or flu, because of the potentially-fatal risk of Reye’s syndrome. Yet decades later, doctors tell (many of) those children, now aging adults, to take a baby aspirin a day to reduce the risk of heart attack.
Is that a U turn? Of course not.
Concerning your points 1 through 3, what should matter is not how well our views conform to a human-imagined ideology — an ideology now featuring the conceit that the various humans who came up with its component ideas were infallibly inspired — but instead how well our views ‘map to’ the reality that God actually wrought.
As to your point 4, I’ll go even farther: I believe we should give “societal thinking” (as distinguished from, say, a herd mentality) a far greater weight in our decision-making than we give to “Spirit utterance.” The former has the mirror virtues of utilizing the brains God gave us while keeping in mind our fallibility; the latter elevates the product of human imagination and wishful thinking to divine status.
Feel free to call my views ‘heretical’ if you wish. Heresy should be a meaningless concept, however, to anyone who takes the First Commandment seriously.
It is not I who call your views heretical but the doctrines of the church throughout the ages.
We do not ‘progress’ my friend. God came to us FULLY revealed.
[blockquote]Heresy should be a meaningless concept, however, to anyone who takes the First Commandment seriously.[/blockquote]
It is precisely because we take the First Commandment seriously that heresy is a necessary concept. The God of the First Commandment is not a voluntarist potentia absoluta, whose unlimited freedom can will one thing one day, and something exactly the opposite the next day. Of course, not even DC believes this, I hope. DC presumably does not believe that God might decide tomorrow that the commands of the second table of the law were all abrogated, so that beginning on April 17, 2009, precisely at noon Greenwich time, the cannibalism of newborn infants was now a virtuous activity, and theft, mendacity, and refusing to pay lawyers was now a prior prerequisite to attain eternal life.
The God of the first commandment is the God who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and no other God. It is precisely because he alone rescued Israel that he alone is to be worshiped.
The God of the first commandment is also the God who created the world, including creating humanity as male and female. In giving his commandments, the God of the first commandment reveals not only his will, but his nature, and his will for the world he has created. God could no more change his mind about his intentions for his creation than he would change his mind about such things as gravity. It is precisely because we can trust God to be constant in this way that we worship him as worthy of worship. A mere arbitrary godling, willing one thing one day, and something else another, would not be worthy of worship.
But again, the question comes to mind: Does DC believe that Yahweh actually rescued Israel from Egypt and really gave those commandments at Sinai? From past discussion I would imagine that he would point out that Moses and the people of Israel who purportedly escaped from Israel were not available for court room cross-examination, and so the historical account was intrinsically unlikely to have happened as recorded.
DC appeals to the first commandment because he finds it a convenient way to make another point instead–the god he believes in approves of just the kinds of things that enlightened affluent Westerners approve of. And this god knows his place. This god always gets with the agenda just as soon as those “in the know” decide what “new thing” needs his blessing.
Next to last paragraph should read: “. . . who purportedly escaped from Egypt . . .”
Back to scheduled programming.
Rugbyplayingpriest [#24] and William Witt [#25], the certitude reflected in your responses brought to mind [url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102984398]a chilling story[/url] about drug addiction in Afghanistan that I heard on NPR just a few minutes ago:
I put it to you that these comforting but unsupported meta-beliefs you insist on — God never changes and never tells us anything ‘inconsistent’ with what he said before; he came to us FULLY revealed [sic]; we need never worry that the faith-and-morals doctrines of the church will be out of date; etc. — are different only in degree from the heroin cigarettes smoked by these unfortunates.
RE: “are different only in degree from the heroin cigarettes smoked by these unfortunates. . . . ”
I can completely understand your believing that about Christians, DC. We all recognize that that’s what you believe about the faith and about those who have that faith. No real surprise or big deal there.
How that is any different from your first comments here years ago, I’m not certain . . . except that it does eliminate some of the pretensions from your early comments and is refreshingly more honest and straightforward.
But then we come to the question of why bother with any response beyond “that’s nice, DC — and thank you so much for sharing your impressions.”
Wm Witt [#25] writes: “Does DC believe that Yahweh actually rescued Israel from Egypt and really gave those commandments at Sinai? ”
I’m agnostic on that issue, but in itself that should be of no particular interest to anyone. The question should be: How big a change would DC be willing to make in the way he lives his life on the basis, without more, that Yahweh actually rescued Israel from Egypt and really gave those commandments at Sinai? (Given the extant evidence, for me the only possible answer is: None.)
Sarah [#38] writes: “We all recognize that that’s what you believe about the faith and about those who have that faith. No real surprise or big deal there.”
Please re-read my comment more carefully, Sarah. It’s not the faith per se that is “the opiate of the people,” it’s the certitude of some of ‘the faithful’ that their beliefs need never — and may never — be reexamined or even questioned.
D.C I thank you for attempting to move me out of what you presume is my ignorance. Though I think you seriously misunderstand who I am and what I beleive. Unlike the poor addict I am uterly set free by my faith and live a happy, functioning life.
But let me bring this back to my original point: What you state shows without doubt that your beliefs fall well wide of what mainstream Christianity has taught throughout the ages. Fine – that is your right and I salute it, if suggest you are very misguided in many of your premises.
Now had you, KJS, Vicky Gene, Bhuddist Genpo, the abortion blesser and all others like you- set up your OWN religion, gathered funds, built churches and preached tirelessly your gospel for today’s generation I would say fair enough.
But you and yours did not do that. Instead you inflitrated a church, claimed its seats of power, used worldly political strategies to enforce an agenda and now peddle your message- dishonestly using the name Anglican – to gain you power, influence and credence. Furthermore you gain access to funds provided by generations of the departed who beleived not on shred of what you claim in the name of their religion. And THEN you have the bare faced cheek to sue those who shout ‘heretic’ and take their people away.
There is a name for what the new age liberals have done. It is PIRACY
RE: ” . . . it’s the certitude of some of ‘the faithful’ that their beliefs need never — and may never — be reexamined or even questioned.”
Nonsense. Christians reexamine and question God, Scripture, the sacraments, tradition, all the time. They just haven’t come to the same conclusions as DC has. And of course there is a difference between “certainty” — which as you know has a particular connotation — and “confidence.”
Further, the meta-beliefs are certainly “supported” [you made a mistake, there, in your philosophy by using the word “unsupported”] — just not to the extent that DC needs for DC’s confidence.
And finally, those meta-beliefs often aren’t comforting at all — sometimes they are discomforting. My confidence in the Christian faith often means that I experience unhappiness, and certainly my nerves are often not calmed in the least by my submission to those truths and to a relationship with the God behind those truths.
RPP [#31], we didn’t ‘infiltrate’ a church, we grew up in it (or in my case, grew up in it, fell away, then married back in). As the father of two young adults, I’ve had to accept that the next generation doesn’t always grow up to think and act exactly as their parents might have hoped. To think the church is somehow exempt from that law of nature seems a bit over-optimistic.
BTW, referring to +VGR as “Vicky Gene” is not cool. His obviously-dysfunctional parents saddled him with that first name. He chooses not to use it. For others to use it to mock him suggests cruelty and spite on their part.
[blockquote]The question should be: How big a change would DC be willing to make in the way he lives his life on the basis, without more, that Yahweh actually rescued Israel from Egypt and really gave those commandments at Sinai? (Given the extant evidence, for me the only possible answer is: None.) [/blockquote]
Yes, precisely. Which is why your attempt to justify your comment by appealing to the first commandment was entirely disingenuous. The context of the First Commandment is provided by the narrative statement of the preceding verse: “”I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This, and this alone, is the God of whom the next verse says “You shall have no other gods before me.”
If one does not believe that this God brought Israel out of Egypt and gave his commandments at Sinai, then, by definition, any god that one worships is “another god” whom one is putting before this one.
That follows from simply being able to read a text.
How one would know whether this alternative god was wanting people to have different moral standards about such things as sexuality I would have no idea, since such a god does not communicate, and has no track record of indicating that he has any desires whatseover, beyond late modern post-Enlightenment self-projection. I assume that this is how one knows his will. A nose count of those who share one’s own cultural and socio-economic status, and with whom one finds oneself in general agreement means that it must be so.
DC,
I think you should have put a period after the first two words of your response in post #29. 😉
Based purely on past comments and your website, of course.
Wm Witt [#34] writes:
You’ve stepped onto a bit of slippery slope there, WW. Extending that reasoning, if one does not believe that God began six days of Creation by saying, verbatim, “Let there be light,” then any god that one worships is, likewise, another god whom one is putting before the one who spoke those words.
———
WW writes:
Assuming God cares at all about our moral standards — an assumption worth examining, instead of merely taking it as a given — one simply would not “know”; one would be forced to look for clues in the effects of natural selection on particular cultural practices (cf. Rom. 1.20).
For example, other things being equal, people who — for whatever reasons — practice altruism and sexual monogamy, and who teach those practices to their offspring, appear to be at least somewhat more likely to be survived by children, and eventually grandchildren, who also adhere to these practices. As a result, over the millennia, altruism and monogamy have become pretty widespread in human culture, to the point where those practices have come to be thought of by many as moral imperatives.
In contrast, the practice of child sacrifice seems to have conferred no comparative advantage at all on its practitioners. Not surprisingly, it’s hardly to be found anywhere, and is certainly is not thought of as any kind of moral norm.
See generally Robert Wright’s books The Moral Animal and Non-Zero,, and (I imagine) his forthcoming The Evolution of God.