The Right Rev. Philip C. Linder resigned Thursday as dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, ending a saga that began more than two months ago when the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina suspended him from his post.
The cathedral Friday made public the resignation in a two-sentence announcement, saying: “On Thursday, September 23, the Reverend Philip Linder tendered his resignation as dean of Trinity Cathedral. The Trinity Vestry voted unanimously to accept the resignation, which took effect immediately.”
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Over the last few months, I’ve read these articles about Mr. Linder
and his travails, but haven’t been able to figure out why he was
being ousted. That he was under, and possibly violated, a gag order
from his bishop is clear. What is not clear is the nature of the
original conflict; there seems to be a strong reluctance to
clarify this matter. My guess is that there is some pettiness involved,
which if exposed, would make one or more parties to this fracas look
venal and squalidly ludicrous.
Gotta love the Church, which could care less about due process–the one gagged, or gagged the most, was the accused whilst everyone else was busily running their mouths about it without penalty.
They can spin until they’re nauseous–the truth always comes out, and it will come out.
Trad Lady–The truth is Linder started in 2003 supressing any dissent, or even discussion about VGR/GC/TEC in a conservative/orthodox congregartion. His liberal bishop, and TEC lapdog, Dorsey Henderson stroked his ego by telling all the rest of the diocese how wonderful he was for getting on with mission and ministry, and not letting all those “bad people” talk about the theological drift of TEC or the actions of GC in Minneapolis. Those “bad people” who were concerned about the turning away of TEC from traditional Christianity and whom he suppressed with Dorsey’s assistance, ended up taking over the vestry. Then three other things happened. First, Linder went to GC and became the local poster boy for radical TEC theology. After that the Trinity budget tanked. After that he apparently became mentally unstable. As a combination of all these things, the vestry went to Dorsey who refused to hear their complaints because Linder was his “golden haired boy”. They had to wait until Waldo was consecreated. I do think Waldo probably botched the matter, but between Linder’s ego and Henderson being in the tank for TEC/KJS, once Gene Robinson was approved in 2003, this sad episode became inevitable.