Bishop Jefferts Schori says this new Anglican group is encroaching on her church’s jurisdiction, and she has authorized dozens of lawsuits “to protect the assets of the Episcopal Church for the mission of the Episcopal Church.” The Episcopal Church has dedicated $22 million to legal actions against departing clergy, congregations and dioceses, according to Allan Haley, a canon lawyer who has represented a diocese in one such case.
Now the Episcopal Church has upped the ante: It has declared that if congregations break away and buy their sanctuaries, they must disaffiliate from any group that professes to be Anglican.
Rather than agree to this demand to disaffiliate from Anglicanism, Pittsburgh’s All Saints Episcopal Anglican Church last month walked away from the building it had inhabited since 1928. The congregation called the Episcopal Church’s demand “mean-spirited” and an attempt to deny “the freedom of religious affiliation.”
From the article:
“Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she’d rather have these properties become […] saloons than continue as sanctuaries for fellow Anglicans.”
Nice.
How can spending more money on lawsuits than said properties are realistically worth in the current market be said to be protecting assets?
#2–Its called “scorced earth.” My bigger question is why don’t we just give her the buildings? (This is a rhetorical question and and I nether expect or desire to hear any more whining about the reasons we ought to keep the buildings). Until we can walk away from the trappings, we continue to worship the church more than the Lord of the Church–not to mention, if everybody walked away we would bankrupt TEC. I am in a new AMiA plant which is meeting in people’s houses. I have never felt so liberated in my life.
No. 3, I completely agree. The Church is the people not the building. While it is sad and to a degree a travesty, if God is truly calling a congregation to leave, God will indeed provide.
MY GOSH PEOPLE!!! GO TO THE RELATED VIDEO ON THA PAGE!!!
(sorry I yelled…it just came out that way). :>)
Please move this story to the top, also!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203476804576614932308302042.html#
Wall Street Journal video located here.