While the expectation of visitation is referenced in a canonical change since Dawley’s work, the Constitution nowhere authorizes such action. Furthermore, the lack of juridical powers remains directly and unambiguously supported by our Constitution. Thus the constitutional and polity concerns, among others, I had upon discovering that the presiding bishop’s chancellor had retained in South Carolina an attorney who presented himself as “South Carolina counsel for the Episcopal Church.” Her lack of juridical powers within an independent diocese made the hiring of an attorney without my permission an unconstitutional act. The stated defense for this incursion was the protection of church property to the point of choosing the coercive power of civil courts as the best way to resolve challenges TEC faces over profound questions of doctrine, morality and discipline, regardless of local issues or the decisions of the diocesan ecclesiastical authority.
This is a profound overreach of the presiding bishop’s authority. Though certainly there are many within TEC who strongly disagree with my theological commitments, or my vigorous statements of how TEC continues to tear the fabric of the Anglican Communion, the thing we are confronting now is of a different nature. It is a challenge to our polity: Of how for 200 years the Episcopal Church has carried out its mission and ministry. It is one of the ironies of this time that the Diocese of South Carolina, which has been one of the more serious critics of the “national” church, should be among those defending the polity of TEC and its Constitution. But history is full of such paradoxes.
In protecting our independence as a diocese in TEC, in protecting the diocesan bishop’s authority to shepherd the parishes and missions of the diocese, and in defending the bishop and, in his absence, the standing committee as the ecclesiastical authority, we are in fact defending how TEC has done its work since its conception.
Nicely written article that neatly addresses a few of the problems of TECUSA today. Bishop Lawrence’s article puts a different slant on these problems. Perhaps a slant many Episcopagans will not immediately understand nor value ?? I am quite surprised that this was allowed to be published in the Living Church. VERY, VERY surprised!
#1 – Full disclosure: I’m on The Living Church (TLC) Board of Directors. Nevertheless, are you sure you’re not confusing TLC (which has consistently been in full agreement with everything Bishop Lawrence says herein) with Episcopal News Service? TLC is completely independent of TEC and quite traditional in its outlook. Reasserters are hereby strongly encouraged to support the ministry of TLC.
With respect to the article, while I wish Bishop Lawrence had explored his old growth metaphor a little more, he still makes the point and is quite right to tie together the varied assaults on TEC polity (particularly by a group styling itself as defenders of that which they are so wantonly destroying). I particularly appreciate his keeping alive the wildly illegal “deposition” of Archbishop Duncan. Thanks to the lawlessness of the House of Bishops, he is still canonically the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, having neither resigned nor been legally deposed. Interestingly, whenever the matter comes up, HOB types consistently talk only in personal terms – we treated him well and didn’t dislike the guy. Yeah fine, but that’s not the point. They didn’t follow their own stinkin’ rules – or come anywhere close to doing so. And the justification given for violating said rules amounted to sophistry unworthy of a ten-year-old.
It’s one thing to be a gaggle of unspeakably vapid and lousy theologians. It’s another thing to be a gaggle of vapid and lousy theologians whom nobody in his right mind would trust. It’s far, far beyond sad.
I am still surprised that this article was published anywhere related to TECUSA other than this diocese’s own newspaper. I am used to seeing our Bishop’s letters/articles in our own newspaper but somewhere else is a real shocker!