The six candidates for Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia will be at the Church of the Good Shepherd, 2230 Walton Way, from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Friday.
The meeting is one of several held across the Diocese this week to introduce candidates to replace Georgia’s ninth Bishop Henry Louttit, who is retiring.
This is an important election to watch.
The present bishop is just on the conservative side of moderate, and despite a gamut of theological beliefs and understandings, the diocese has held together pretty well.
One of the candidates is a flaming revisionist who offers open communion and does SSBs in his current parish.
Hopefully, someone will be able to make a recording of the meeting and post a transcript.
That diocese shares much of its border with DioSC, and some with DioUSC. The outcome of this election is very important.
Ralph,
Three out of six of the candidates are flaming revisionists.
???
Two are just simple revisionists who *might* — for a few years anyway of their tenure — leave the conservatives alone.
Georgia has a lot of small mission churches and strong leadership is really needed. Like #2 I feel that there is only one choice here and I am afraid He will not make it.
More details, of course backed by evidence, might be good. This is an important election, and one would guess that the candidates will be on their best behavior.
My wife went to the Savannah meeting but left after the first two were questioned. They went in alphabetical order. All questions had to be submitted before the meeting and only one of mine made the cut. Both candidates said that the historic creeds were still true. I almost submitted the ten Alpha questions.
RE: “More details, of course backed by evidence, might be good.”
Uh.
Not sure what that means.
You’ve got the Integrity chapter at one guy’s parish and the speech about repealing B033, nicely linked at another blog. You’ve got the partnered gay staffer at anothers, along with the communion of the unbaptized and the ssu’s.
You’ve got the Louie Crew talks on Crew’s website. You’ve got first-hand comments from a parishioner of one of the nominee’s parish about his essentially going along with the all gay all the time stance of the bishop.
You’ve got the actual answers to the questions of the search committee — pretty revealing for the priest in the upper part of Georgia.
I mean . . . maybe published writings on websites, Integrity chapters, parishioner’s first-hand observations, comments from acquaintances, and answers to diocesan questions aren’t “details” or “evidence” that is acceptable to some in Georgia.
And that’s certainly for them to decide as they conduct their own research and do their own carefuly digging and reference checking in dioceses and of course visits to the parishes of the nominees to hear first-hand.
[blockquote] “Questions can be e-mailed to parker.j@comcast.net or submitted in writing just prior to the meeting”[/blockquote]
What? No questions from the floor? Why bother to attend? Who picks the questions anyway?
Sarah1 writes, “Not sure what that means.”
Just what I said. They need good, objective information for each candidate, so that what they say at the meetings, can be verified. Your post is a good start.
Has anyone been to the other meetings? Not allowing questions from the floor suggests a railroad job in progress.
The reporter works for the Augusta, GA, newspaper and indicates an interest in the Upper SC process, especially as it touches N. Augusta and Aiken. I tried to register to tell her to jump in, but kept getting error messages.
I hope Georgia’s traditional Episcopalians get a bishop who actually believes what the Nicene Creed is trying to get at and who will lead them in proclaiming the Gospel as understood by the Church for centuries. I hope the same thing for Upper SC.
The Georgia format of questions submitted beforehand doesn’t bode well for them. I have been assured that the questions in the Upper SC walkabouts will be free and open. The bishop election process where I observed questioning vetted by a select group (and secret one) was useless. None of the questions were about hard issues. We have hard issues facing us, from sticking with Windsor Report requests to diocese staffing and budget.
Jim Workman
Easley, SC
RE: “Your post is a good start.”
Again — not sure I understand. That kind of information is well and now-long established from months back. So no, it’s not a good start — it’s an old old old repetition of the mounds of information that already was.
RE: “Just what I said.”
Well what you said was “More details, of course backed by evidence, might be good” and since those details and evidence are long established and therefore were “good” long ago, I suppose it was simply a meaningless throwaway line.
Ah well — mystification shall be my punishment.
I heartily agree that the submitted [and tossed out] questions to “parker.j” so that nobody knows what questions were or were not submitted, were or were not accepted, were or were not asked, is just a sham of a Q&A or open process.
One thing that the conservatives might do, given that kind of control-freak behavior, is to go ahead and publicize all of their submitted questions in advance on a blog, so that everyone can know which ones were *not* asked or selected by the “screener.”
Another important point would be to have good note-takers at each meeting to carefully keep track of what questions are asked and what each candidate answers.
I don’t see the point in submitting the questions in advance. For crowd control? You can count on Episcopalians to be civil. I do think it’s important that a parishioner can ask his or her question and then one follow up to make sure his or her question is answered.
In my experience — when the questions have to be submitted in advance, it means that some authority or authorities does not wish for certain questions to be asked, and so they need the opportunity beforehand to screen those publicly asked questions out.
Really a sad display.
Yeah, post em on a blog so we can see which ones get tossed out. Or why not give each candidate a thread to take the questions and answer them in a blog format? I think that could be done.
#10 writes, “That kind of information is well and now-long established from months back.”
Sarah1 may well be much better informed than many of the clergy and laity of DioGA, or others who have an interest in the outcome of the election. Yes, I’ve seen some scattered comments here and at Stand Firm.
It would be useful for someone to collect everything up and post a detailed summary of what is known, and what is not known, about each candidate. All in one place for anyone and everyone to review.
Yes, this should include notes (preferably verbatim transcripts) of the question-and-answer meetings, as well as any informal chit-chat.
Beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing! We don’t not wish for Georgia to elect someone who APPEARS to be conservative, but turns out to be a radical liberal. That diocese would fracture, and the shock wave would extend throughout the South.
The point of having questions in advance is the same point as doing a diocesan assessment. They are done so the candidates can craft their answers in advance to what the diocese wants to hear; and not risk saying anything that might hurt their chances at election. We’d probably be better off if we cast lots.
#16 David,
Isn’t that how Matthias was chosen?
Acts 1:24-26
#5 Pb………..
Please excuse my ignorance but what, exactly, are the ten Alpha questions?
The Alpha course is designed to answer 10 questions for people who know nothing or little about Christianity. i.e. Who is Jesus? Why did he have to die? Who is the Holy Spirit? I suspect they are on the Alpha web site.
Got it………thanks for the guidance
RE: “It would be useful for someone to collect everything up and post a detailed summary of what is known, and what is not known, about each candidate. All in one place for anyone and everyone to review.”
Well maybe the conservatives in the Diocese of Georgia will do that while they are in the process of researching.
I do wish them the best and whatever they decide will I suspect seal the future of that diocese, and greatly affect many others around them.
A slate packed with revisionists certainly increases the odds of electing one. Pray that the DioGA comes down on the side of the angels. Pray, also, that DioUSC learns the lesson well.