“The Diocese of South Carolina and I face a very different set of challenges and opportunities, and l’m looking forward to how we can affect positively the life of the Episcopal Church,” [Mark Lawrence]… said.
He said that, with the exception of a couple of occasions, he has not preached church politics from his pulpit at St. Paul’s.
“I use the pulpit to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.
He did, however, at one time defend “the San Joaquin Diocesan Standing Committee’s posture for an appeal for an alternative primatial oversight,” by a leader other than Jefferts Schori.
“That was not a move to leave the Episcopal Church,” Lawrence said. “That was the overture that seven or so dioceses were asking from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“At that time, the question was, ”˜How can we differentiate ourselves in such a way from the leadership in the Episcopal Church in order that we may maintain our place within the Episcopal Church?’” he said.
Mark Lawrence asks, “How can we differentiate ourselves in such a way from the leadership in the Episcopal Church in order that we may maintain our place within the Episcopal Church?” Internal differentiation is a sham because I do not believe those called to it do not have the fortitude to carry it out in anything but differentiation “gestures”. I am not sure they have the fortitude to even do this. The complete capitulation of the non-CCP Camp Allen bishops in New Orleans casts doubt whether they could even wear a black ribbon on their lapel (black ribbon on a black lapel so it is hardly noticeable). Mark McCall wrote,
[blockquote]qually challenging, however, is “differentiation†by non-CCP bishops. This seems precisely what they are unwilling to do. Apparently they cannot even bring themselves to vote “no†in the HOB on a resolution that even Rowan Williams recognizes to be inadequate (or if one credits the several bishops who claim the sole audible “no,†to differentiate in anything other than a whisper). And how is pleading with the ABC to relent and invite Gene Robinson to Lambeth “differentiation� To date, “differentiation†seems to be the exclusive preserve of those bishops who walked out in New Orleans, who happen to be of course the CCP bishops.[/blockquote]
I wrote that a good place to start would be to limit invitations to the ordination only to those not participating in lawsuits. Of course, Bp Salmon is involved with a lawsuit with AMiA, so perhaps they could simply not invite Katherine Jefferts-Schori. Of course, they won’t do this. The diocese of South Carolina is fated to have a Bp Smith or Bp Lee as their next bishop, locking their children or grandchildren out their churches and selling the churches for night clubs.
RE: ” . . . The complete capitulation of the non-CCP Camp Allen bishops in New Orleans . . . ”
I agree with this. But I wonder whether you know Bishop Lawrence’s long and distinguished record at General Conventions and in other arenas, Rob Roy. I have a feeling that you will see a distinct difference between Bishop Lawrence and other non-CCP bishops formerly known as “Camp Allen” bishops.
There was a reason why all the stops were pulled out to prevent Bishop Lawrence from becoming bishop of South Carolina.
I do believe that you will be surprised . . . although I don’t think that any step of “internal differentiation” will make you happy.
; > )
RE: “The diocese of South Carolina is fated to have a Bp Smith or Bp Lee as their next bishop, locking their children or grandchildren out their churches and selling the churches for night clubs.”
And by the way, were you one of the ones who made repeated and bold predictions that “South Carolina would never be allowed to have the bishop of their choice?” Have we moved on to the next prediction, which is . . . . “oh, okay, after [i]this[/i] bishop, South Carolina will have a Bishop Lee for their bishop.”
One of the tragedies of our time is the complete naivete and capitulation to revisionists that I see in conservatives. Over and over, I’ve seen them make terrible decisions — even after having been repeatedly warned by more experienced conservatives — but they have, with determined confidence and innocence, blundered onward, and then after decision after decision after decision of incompetence been surprised and shocked to see that the revisionists have won yet another battle.
Tennessee fought hard for a good bishop, and they got one. I have seen parish after parish after parish in terribly revisionist dioceses make the right decisions, rid themselves of their revisionist rectors and snag conservative rectors . . . but it takes a lot of wisdom, experience, and courage.
Sadly . . . it seems that there are plenty of conservatives in ECUSA who don’t have a lot of any of those characteristics.
A just brickbat swung at some of us reasserters, Sarah.
For me, the journey was in two distinct, and unconnected, phases. Disassociating from the church formerly known as ECUSA came slowly, when I could no longer distinguish between the week’s sermon and the latest DNC press releases. The final straw was when my bishop, Hays Rockwell, stood in our pulpit and said that Christianity was all well and good, but if we really wanted to know the mind of God, we needed to also look at Hinduism, Islam, Shintoism, Buddhism and whatever other trendy saltlicks the port-side herd had stampeded to that week. I think I’ve been in a (T)ECUSA building once since then.
After wandering the wilderness for a year and a half, trying Catholic, Lutheran (LCMS) and Orthodox churches on for size, we found our current AMiA parish and haven’t looked back. As politically correct as our old rector was, ours today is orthodox. As faithless and heretical as our former bishop was, ours today is humble and true to God’s teaching.
It wasn’t so much a matter of cowardice or lack of bravery that made us leave as it was a desire to be free of the false teaching we and our children were subjected to.
RE: “It wasn’t so much a matter of cowardice or lack of bravery that made us leave . . . ”
Hi Jerffersonian, please note that my comments about wisdom, experience, and courage were not about those who are leaving ECUSA but about those who have stayed and are staying — in other words, my own set! ; > ) If folks are going to stay and proclaim about how they are going to “resist” and “differentiate” then they had better quickly develop wisdom, experience, and courage — and I speak to myself as well.
Thank you for that, Sarah. I cannot fathom why an orthodox parishoner would remain within TEC and [b]not[/b] fight. Just remember that the boats of Dunkirk are always here for you.
#4-6 I think the major determinant on which occurs (leave or go) rests with the clergy and vestry at the lowest local level.
I can still recall my parish nodding in unison with +Pike’s sermon in PA in the late ’60s. I was a teenager then, and recall thinking that the sermon was tripe back then. But what did I know? The rector of course had snagged Pike to come, with the blessing of whomever +PA was then. That for me explains 99% of what has happened to PA since then, along with my mother saying that Good Shepherd, Rosemont (which had the inappropriately primeval George Rutler+ as rector!) and Good Samaritan, Paoli were the haunts of fundamentalist fanatics. Both of those parishes, now, are of course reasserting bastions and my mother moved to Canada to see how real revisionism works its implosive wonders.
But the issue rests on how that leadership can or cannot do its local mission within the larger diocesan context. At some points priests such as Rutler+ or even +Steenson say ‘enough!’ and leave completely. Others lead whole parishes out to other provinces. Others do exactly what Sarah prescribes. These facts can only be seen in the local context no matter what ++Rowan or Schori might intone as being appropriate for whole gaggles of readers.
In a sense, the time for uniform reaction to these facts on the ground are gone, because the symbols that held together the larger church have been corrupted or destroyed. Those symbols had a real truth to them, but now are seen as “pluriform” in meaning, or whatever local subjective variant the bishop sees as a’ la mode du jour. Jeffersonian’s recall of Rockwell+ is exactly the case across the country. We pay for these seminarians to go and learn what it is to be a priest, and they come back 20 years later and tell us it don’t mean anything at all. So I don’t see any uniform response being feasible to expect, short of singing “O come, oh come Immanuel” in a minor key and hoping for the Second Coming. Yeats was right.
Rockwell+ typo ==>> +Rockwell
RobRoy,
The diocese of SC has settled its lawsuit with All Saint’s AmIA. The diocese lost. Now if Bishop Salmon had listened to the then Chancellor of the Diocese Nick Ziegler (now recently retired Chancellor), things could have been different.
Personally, I am looking forward to his leadership. He has been interviewed at least once for the Jubilate Deo (Diocesean Newspaper) and I have enjoyed reading his comments. One comment that he made that I remember is that he is looking forward to being here because this is one of few Dioceses where
things are going fairly well. According to clergy friends he has been in the Diocese a few times already. He made a smart decision by being on sabbatical in NC during the time period when Dio. of San Joaquin was having their convention. So he could literally say I was not there! There was some unease/speculation when San Joaquin made their decision before his consecration [Can you think consecration cancelled due to the technicality of his being canonically resident in SJ and having the PB say sorry but he is no longer an Episcopal priest therefore- sorry no consecration].
He and his wife Allison should be moving to SC very soon. As he said ” I have had my luggage on that eastbound train for a long time”. [I think that is pretty accurate. The Jubilate Deo is on the website as a PDF file. The Dec/Jan issue where his interview was published can be downloaded at: http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/cat_jubilate_deo.html
SC Blu Cat Lady