I have two thoughts about resolving this problem: 1. They can move up here, to Upper SC, where they will undoubedly be very happy. 2. Bishop Lawrence and Dorsey can make a deal to let DUSC plant a church in Mt. Pleasent and DSC can plant a church in Greenville, which would make me very happy.
Ken, pretty sure it is funded solely by the liberals in Dio. of SC. Perhaps some parishes like Grace and All Saints Hilton Head throw some $$ their way too.
I must say, their attempt to tie this to slavery, civil rights and role of women, etc., smacks of desperation. Notice too how the ad gives no reason why the SC should remain in full participation with ECUSA, only the typical scare tactics. Is that because there is no good reason to remain fully connected? And I’ll predict right now, it won’t work, the amendment will pass, in fact easily I would think.
Kendall spoke at an Episcopal Forum event on the heels of the VGR consecration, it was an interesting exchange of views to say the least…
Check out the “Why I joined” comments. Dismay about the Network and the “ulta-conservative clergy” with their “literal interpration” of Scripture and fear of the DoSC being “hijacked”.
As an outsider looking in it’s still difficult for me to understand the Episcopal notion of “unity with diversity”. I don’t mean to be critical as I can understand how different denominations hold to different teachings but what boggles me is how one denomination can embrace diverse teachings, alternate interpretations and methods of worship (low church/high church).
I know I’m just another close-minded RC blindly following the Magesterium’s direction on Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition but doesn’t your BCP and your Canons serve in the same capacity and if not why not?
In my view I know there are Catholics who disagree with Rome and Catholics who disobey Rome but there remains only one teaching from Rome. How did things get so complicated within TEC?
#5, it’s more than diverse teachings, it’s contradictory teachings. 🙁
there have been a number of threads here over the years about “how things got so complicated” – the consensus, I think, it that ECUSA allowed several bishops to teach unsound doctrine in the 60s, without consequence, and the younger people who learned from those bishops have been in positions of leadership for the last 20 years or so.
#5 One of the problems over the years is that there is no one who has any authority. Granted the PB is the top and has taken a lot more authority than she is actually given by the canons. But there is no one who has the authority to say “stop, your theology is wrong, turn around and go the other way.” The ABC could, but she would not listen and there are no consequences.
What if a pope was elected that had views differing from what has been taught for 2000 years?
Already left [#7], let’s turn your question around: What if a president of the American Medical Association were elected whose medical views conformed rigorously to those taught 2,000 years ago?
Oh, never mind; there’s no point in rehashing the same arguments yet again.
The BCP does not provide a magesterial function. Even before the ’79 book relegated the 39 Articles to “Historical Documents”, there were many Episcopalians who blatantly rejected several of them in favor of Anglo-catholic understandings. You will find in Anglicanism varieties of opinions on what Catholics would consider core issues. Two Episcopalians can kneel side-by-side and receive Communion, one believing they receive the Body and Blood of Christ, one believing it’s only a memorial. Some regard this as the glory of Anglicanism, but, honestly, it’s gone viral. Spong, who is not an aberration as some claim, actively denies a plain understanding of the Creeds. He remains a bishop of the Episcopal Church, invited into many dioceses to teach his new doctrines.
4. Chris wrote:
[blockquote]Ken, pretty sure it is funded solely by the liberals in Dio. of SC. Perhaps some parishes like Grace and All Saints Hilton Head throw some $$ their way too.[/blockquote]
I’m sure that’s what they want you to think. Full page ads in newspapers don’t come cheap. Follow the money. No just for the add, but for the whole group. They are producing conference DVDs. They’ve got a website–that’s a domain name, server somewhere and probably a web designer. There’s also a page from them on Crew’s website, and we now know where some of that crew’s funding comes from. Who know what else they are doing that costs $$$.
I’ve repeatedly advocated the ACNA and its allies to buy ad time on the Golf Channel, the Food Network and space in the Wall St Journal so that the pew potatoes know what TEC is really up to. An ad in SC saying that the Episcopal Diocese is filled with mean conservatives cannot be very effective.
I am very supportive of the efforts of Anglicans to preserve the historic faith and the realignment, even with its imperfections. So, please no one take this as an attack or criticism. As I recall, Mark Lawrence was confirmed by the TEC dioceses on the grounds that he not lead the diocese out of TEC as long as TEC remained within the Anglican Communion. At the time, TEC’s future membership was in doubt at least in the minds of many conservatives. But, now that there appears not to be any threat of expulsion by Canterbury, I am wondering if a move away from TEC at this time is a reneging of Bp. Lawrence’s earlier commitment or is this a response to some other more recent development.
A a Catholic, I don’t personally have a dog in this race though I delight in the triumph of the truth whenever and whenever the Spirit brings it about.
#5 said:
[blockquote] I know I’m just another close-minded RC blindly following the Magesterium’s direction on Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition … [/blockquote]
nice, Roman! Myself, I try to follow the Magisterium with my eyes wide open, but sometimes it’s easier with a squint.
Ken, I’m in the website business – the stuff you mention is not expensive, a couple thousand $. Just a few members of the Forum, who no doubt have some resources (and I know a few of them actually), could easily cover these expenses…
#12 (Ken). I’m a member of The Episcopal Forum (although I’m not speaking for the group in this post). Do you really think that a newspaper ad, “producing a DVD” and having a domain name and space on a server is out of reach of a local group that collects dues? Heck, any good- sized parish church can do all three of these things–mine does.
So why the implication that lots of liberal out-of-state money is pouting into Forum? That allows for the narrative I keep seeing on T19 regarding The Episcopal Forum: There only have 500 members! And it must be northeastern liberals that are behind this! They’re just an arm of Integrity! There can’t be significant progressive presence in the Diocese of South Carolina!
That insistence—that it is impossible to imagine a few hundred (or dare I say, after this membership drive, a few thousand) Episcopalians in South Carolina want to stay Episcopalians—is just cognitive dissonance. I know we’re outnumbered (I feel is most Sunday mornings!) and I know how easy it is to slip into adversarial roles, even though we claim to follow Christ. What can I say? If wishing away the TEC institutional liberals in South Carolina gets you through the night…be at peace.
Will this ad stop the resolutions from passing? No. The Bishop made it clear that the same delegates who passed anti-TEC resolutions at the last Diocesan Convention could be sent to this special convention–I suspect their orthodoxy is solid.
But it is a long game, and if the The Episcopal Church is to continue in South Carolina, if Bishop Lawrence’s “in but not in” strategy is simply a holding pattern, we’ll need new structures–new vestries, new standing committees–for when the Reasserters move on down the road. I’d rather Bishop Lawrence and his clergy stay on in TEC, even as dissenters from the national direction, but if he goes, those of us who are left will need the rudiments of a Diocese-wide organization that the Forum currently provides.
Heck, I’d be fine if we were attached to Upper SC. And I’d be fine with the orthodox in my town took the church building and everything in it—they’re my friends and I don’t begrudge them a building in which to worship (and there’s an evil part of me that hopes they’ll use the kneelers instead of high-fiving each other once they “win†whatever stupid lawsuit 815 sends their way). I’ll miss the space and my rector, but that’s a big ole mortgage, and if there really are only a few hundred reappraisers in all of South Carolina, and we’ll be unable to attract new members because we’re apostates who are being subsidized by rich out-of-state liberal money…well, what would we do with all those churches anyway?
the problem, Mr. Ennis, is that your fellow institutionalists in ECUSA (the ones in power at least) do not share your views on property. If they did, there could be an amicable divorce.
True, Chris, but since the Diocese of South Carolina institutionalists joined forces with the ECUSA institutionalists to sue an AMIA parish a few years back let’s assume that by the end of this divorce both the liberals and the orthodox will happily “reappraise” 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 as often as necessary.
It is tough to know what to do with a tithe these days–if I send it to the national church it’ll end up in some attorney’s hands. If I put it in the local plate it helps fund things like Special Conventions to denounce TEC. How sad that secular charities seem like a better bet to do God’s work….
#8. D.C. Toedt,
[blockquote]What if a president of the American Medical Association were elected whose medical views conformed rigorously to those taught 2,000 years ago?[/blockquote] If this were the case maybe the Hippocratic Oath would be reconsidered for graduates of medical school.
RE: “That insistence—that it is impossible to imagine a few hundred (or dare I say, after this membership drive, a few thousand) Episcopalians in South Carolina want to stay Episcopalians—is just cognitive dissonance.”
Well . .. it’s not impossible at all. Most Episcopalians in SC wish to remain in TEC. Of course . . . “most Episcopalians in SC” is not what the Forum consists of. The Forum consists of the out and proud progressives in the lower diocese — the big percentage from the 4 progressive parishes in that diocese. The four we folks up here know to stay away from on our beach trips.
Just to cross post from an earlier comment I made about the Forum’s *real issue*: [blockquote]”I think the good news about the attempted “re-interpretation†by the Episcopal Forum of Bishop Lawrence’s and the Diocese’s proposed resolutions regarding distancing and differentiating themselves from the actions of TECs national bodies without actually leaving TEC is that . . . the Episcopal Forum is clearly feeling 1) pointless and in need of a cause and 2) threatened by the proposed differentiation and direction of Bishop Lawrence.
That’s what these latest stories and misdirections are about. In need of some kind of emotion and cause and publicity—and irritated by the differentiation—the Episcopal Forum is attempting to whip up a frenzy and misdirect from Lawrence’s purpose. I predict that 1) it won’t work, and 2) most of the resolutions will pass, and 3) the Episcopal Forum will go silent again post convention until they can discover some new misdirection and re-interpretation to try to get the attention of folks outside the diocese.
I do think it’s a good sign of “just right†action that they are so threatened by these proposed actions, though.[/blockquote]
#20:
1.. You don’t have the standing to diagnose the emotional state of a group of hundreds of people.
2. I would say it is never a “good sign” that a church action makes folks feel threatened, and it is not a good thing if the idea of people being threatedned pleases a fellow Christian.
This ran as a full page ad on page 4 of the first section of Wednesday’s local paper.
I have two thoughts about resolving this problem: 1. They can move up here, to Upper SC, where they will undoubedly be very happy. 2. Bishop Lawrence and Dorsey can make a deal to let DUSC plant a church in Mt. Pleasent and DSC can plant a church in Greenville, which would make me very happy.
Who is funding The Episcopal Forum of South Carolina?
Ken, pretty sure it is funded solely by the liberals in Dio. of SC. Perhaps some parishes like Grace and All Saints Hilton Head throw some $$ their way too.
I must say, their attempt to tie this to slavery, civil rights and role of women, etc., smacks of desperation. Notice too how the ad gives no reason why the SC should remain in full participation with ECUSA, only the typical scare tactics. Is that because there is no good reason to remain fully connected? And I’ll predict right now, it won’t work, the amendment will pass, in fact easily I would think.
Kendall spoke at an Episcopal Forum event on the heels of the VGR consecration, it was an interesting exchange of views to say the least…
Check out the “Why I joined” comments. Dismay about the Network and the “ulta-conservative clergy” with their “literal interpration” of Scripture and fear of the DoSC being “hijacked”.
As an outsider looking in it’s still difficult for me to understand the Episcopal notion of “unity with diversity”. I don’t mean to be critical as I can understand how different denominations hold to different teachings but what boggles me is how one denomination can embrace diverse teachings, alternate interpretations and methods of worship (low church/high church).
I know I’m just another close-minded RC blindly following the Magesterium’s direction on Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition but doesn’t your BCP and your Canons serve in the same capacity and if not why not?
In my view I know there are Catholics who disagree with Rome and Catholics who disobey Rome but there remains only one teaching from Rome. How did things get so complicated within TEC?
Sincerely curious.
#5, it’s more than diverse teachings, it’s contradictory teachings. 🙁
there have been a number of threads here over the years about “how things got so complicated” – the consensus, I think, it that ECUSA allowed several bishops to teach unsound doctrine in the 60s, without consequence, and the younger people who learned from those bishops have been in positions of leadership for the last 20 years or so.
#5 One of the problems over the years is that there is no one who has any authority. Granted the PB is the top and has taken a lot more authority than she is actually given by the canons. But there is no one who has the authority to say “stop, your theology is wrong, turn around and go the other way.” The ABC could, but she would not listen and there are no consequences.
What if a pope was elected that had views differing from what has been taught for 2000 years?
Already left [#7], let’s turn your question around: What if a president of the American Medical Association were elected whose medical views conformed rigorously to those taught 2,000 years ago?
Oh, never mind; there’s no point in rehashing the same arguments yet again.
#7 Sorry to cop out with a link but I hope it covers your question.
http://www.cpats.org/_WebPostings/Answers/2008_04APR/2008AprArePopesImmuneFromDecreeingHeresy.cfm
Peace
#8, are you really suggesting that biblical truths are in no way different than advancements in medicine? really??
the Roman –
The BCP does not provide a magesterial function. Even before the ’79 book relegated the 39 Articles to “Historical Documents”, there were many Episcopalians who blatantly rejected several of them in favor of Anglo-catholic understandings. You will find in Anglicanism varieties of opinions on what Catholics would consider core issues. Two Episcopalians can kneel side-by-side and receive Communion, one believing they receive the Body and Blood of Christ, one believing it’s only a memorial. Some regard this as the glory of Anglicanism, but, honestly, it’s gone viral. Spong, who is not an aberration as some claim, actively denies a plain understanding of the Creeds. He remains a bishop of the Episcopal Church, invited into many dioceses to teach his new doctrines.
4. Chris wrote:
[blockquote]Ken, pretty sure it is funded solely by the liberals in Dio. of SC. Perhaps some parishes like Grace and All Saints Hilton Head throw some $$ their way too.[/blockquote]
I’m sure that’s what they want you to think. Full page ads in newspapers don’t come cheap. Follow the money. No just for the add, but for the whole group. They are producing conference DVDs. They’ve got a website–that’s a domain name, server somewhere and probably a web designer. There’s also a page from them on Crew’s website, and we now know where some of that crew’s funding comes from. Who know what else they are doing that costs $$$.
I’ve repeatedly advocated the ACNA and its allies to buy ad time on the Golf Channel, the Food Network and space in the Wall St Journal so that the pew potatoes know what TEC is really up to. An ad in SC saying that the Episcopal Diocese is filled with mean conservatives cannot be very effective.
I am very supportive of the efforts of Anglicans to preserve the historic faith and the realignment, even with its imperfections. So, please no one take this as an attack or criticism. As I recall, Mark Lawrence was confirmed by the TEC dioceses on the grounds that he not lead the diocese out of TEC as long as TEC remained within the Anglican Communion. At the time, TEC’s future membership was in doubt at least in the minds of many conservatives. But, now that there appears not to be any threat of expulsion by Canterbury, I am wondering if a move away from TEC at this time is a reneging of Bp. Lawrence’s earlier commitment or is this a response to some other more recent development.
A a Catholic, I don’t personally have a dog in this race though I delight in the triumph of the truth whenever and whenever the Spirit brings it about.
#5 said:
[blockquote] I know I’m just another close-minded RC blindly following the Magesterium’s direction on Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition … [/blockquote]
nice, Roman! Myself, I try to follow the Magisterium with my eyes wide open, but sometimes it’s easier with a squint.
Ken, I’m in the website business – the stuff you mention is not expensive, a couple thousand $. Just a few members of the Forum, who no doubt have some resources (and I know a few of them actually), could easily cover these expenses…
#12 (Ken). I’m a member of The Episcopal Forum (although I’m not speaking for the group in this post). Do you really think that a newspaper ad, “producing a DVD” and having a domain name and space on a server is out of reach of a local group that collects dues? Heck, any good- sized parish church can do all three of these things–mine does.
So why the implication that lots of liberal out-of-state money is pouting into Forum? That allows for the narrative I keep seeing on T19 regarding The Episcopal Forum: There only have 500 members! And it must be northeastern liberals that are behind this! They’re just an arm of Integrity! There can’t be significant progressive presence in the Diocese of South Carolina!
That insistence—that it is impossible to imagine a few hundred (or dare I say, after this membership drive, a few thousand) Episcopalians in South Carolina want to stay Episcopalians—is just cognitive dissonance. I know we’re outnumbered (I feel is most Sunday mornings!) and I know how easy it is to slip into adversarial roles, even though we claim to follow Christ. What can I say? If wishing away the TEC institutional liberals in South Carolina gets you through the night…be at peace.
Will this ad stop the resolutions from passing? No. The Bishop made it clear that the same delegates who passed anti-TEC resolutions at the last Diocesan Convention could be sent to this special convention–I suspect their orthodoxy is solid.
But it is a long game, and if the The Episcopal Church is to continue in South Carolina, if Bishop Lawrence’s “in but not in” strategy is simply a holding pattern, we’ll need new structures–new vestries, new standing committees–for when the Reasserters move on down the road. I’d rather Bishop Lawrence and his clergy stay on in TEC, even as dissenters from the national direction, but if he goes, those of us who are left will need the rudiments of a Diocese-wide organization that the Forum currently provides.
Heck, I’d be fine if we were attached to Upper SC. And I’d be fine with the orthodox in my town took the church building and everything in it—they’re my friends and I don’t begrudge them a building in which to worship (and there’s an evil part of me that hopes they’ll use the kneelers instead of high-fiving each other once they “win†whatever stupid lawsuit 815 sends their way). I’ll miss the space and my rector, but that’s a big ole mortgage, and if there really are only a few hundred reappraisers in all of South Carolina, and we’ll be unable to attract new members because we’re apostates who are being subsidized by rich out-of-state liberal money…well, what would we do with all those churches anyway?
the problem, Mr. Ennis, is that your fellow institutionalists in ECUSA (the ones in power at least) do not share your views on property. If they did, there could be an amicable divorce.
True, Chris, but since the Diocese of South Carolina institutionalists joined forces with the ECUSA institutionalists to sue an AMIA parish a few years back let’s assume that by the end of this divorce both the liberals and the orthodox will happily “reappraise” 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 as often as necessary.
It is tough to know what to do with a tithe these days–if I send it to the national church it’ll end up in some attorney’s hands. If I put it in the local plate it helps fund things like Special Conventions to denounce TEC. How sad that secular charities seem like a better bet to do God’s work….
#8. D.C. Toedt,
[blockquote]What if a president of the American Medical Association were elected whose medical views conformed rigorously to those taught 2,000 years ago?[/blockquote] If this were the case maybe the Hippocratic Oath would be reconsidered for graduates of medical school.
RE: “That insistence—that it is impossible to imagine a few hundred (or dare I say, after this membership drive, a few thousand) Episcopalians in South Carolina want to stay Episcopalians—is just cognitive dissonance.”
Well . .. it’s not impossible at all. Most Episcopalians in SC wish to remain in TEC. Of course . . . “most Episcopalians in SC” is not what the Forum consists of. The Forum consists of the out and proud progressives in the lower diocese — the big percentage from the 4 progressive parishes in that diocese. The four we folks up here know to stay away from on our beach trips.
Just to cross post from an earlier comment I made about the Forum’s *real issue*: [blockquote]”I think the good news about the attempted “re-interpretation†by the Episcopal Forum of Bishop Lawrence’s and the Diocese’s proposed resolutions regarding distancing and differentiating themselves from the actions of TECs national bodies without actually leaving TEC is that . . . the Episcopal Forum is clearly feeling 1) pointless and in need of a cause and 2) threatened by the proposed differentiation and direction of Bishop Lawrence.
That’s what these latest stories and misdirections are about. In need of some kind of emotion and cause and publicity—and irritated by the differentiation—the Episcopal Forum is attempting to whip up a frenzy and misdirect from Lawrence’s purpose. I predict that 1) it won’t work, and 2) most of the resolutions will pass, and 3) the Episcopal Forum will go silent again post convention until they can discover some new misdirection and re-interpretation to try to get the attention of folks outside the diocese.
I do think it’s a good sign of “just right†action that they are so threatened by these proposed actions, though.[/blockquote]
#20:
1.. You don’t have the standing to diagnose the emotional state of a group of hundreds of people.
2. I would say it is never a “good sign” that a church action makes folks feel threatened, and it is not a good thing if the idea of people being threatedned pleases a fellow Christian.
RE: “You don’t have the standing to diagnose the emotional state of a group of hundreds of people.”
Of course I have the standing to have an opinion about the emotional — not to mention theological — state of a group of people.
RE: “I would say it is never a “good sign†that a church action makes folks feel threatened . . . ”
Well of course you would. But often doing the right thing makes others “feel threatened.”
RE: ” . . . and it is not a good thing if the idea of people being threatedned pleases a fellow Christian.”
Well of course it’s sometimes a good thing when some people feel threatened by good actions of others.