“I write you at this time to repeat and emphasize several important realities,” Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, leader of TECSC, said in a pastoral letter Wednesday. “First, we believe that this action is an indication that justice has been delayed.
“As we celebrate Black History Month, we are reminded that the history of African-American witness, along with others, is that delayed justice simply calls us to persevere in our efforts. That certainly is our intention at this moment. We will persevere as we seek justice, even though the personal and financial costs will be significant. The present cause requires us to respond in this way.”
But the Rev. Jim Lewis, the Charleston-based diocese’s canon to the ordinary and a close aide to Lawrence, said he believes one man’s perseverance “may be another man’s persecution.”
“They have known from the beginning that the law in South Carolina was against them,” he said Wednesday. “But they drug us through this knothole and will persist to drag us through more knotholes.”
Read it all from the State newspaper.
I do not believe that there is a respect for a differing opinion or any place in TEC for those who disagree with the direction in which the organization is heading. I know it is the good bishop’s story and he is sticking to it.
It strikes me as rather offensive to equate the efforts of TEC to take other parishes’ and diocesan properties away from them (they already are in undisputed possession of properties of parishes choosing to affiliate with TEC) to the struggle for equal rights for Americans of African ancestry.
Agree. But this is consistent with the identification of LGBT rights with civil rights. TEC still does not understand why African Christians do not get it.