Read the remarks of Bishop William White, generally recognized as the leading founder of PECUSA, as I reported them in this earlier post (with my bold, again):
. . . And there appeared [at that more general meeting in October 1784] Deputies, not only from the said three States, but also from others, with the view of consulting on the exigency of the Church. The greater number of these Deputies were not vested with powers for the binding of their constituents; and therefore, although they called themselves a Convention . . . yet they were not an organized body. They did not consider themselves as such; and their only act was, the issuing of a recommendation to the churches in the several States, to unite under a few articles to be considered as fundamental.
Moreover, at pages 6-7 the motion again reverses temporal order: “The Diocese [of South Carolina] came into existence as the Diocese when TEC’s Constitution was adopted in 1789.” This claim is metaphysical, not legal — if the Diocese did not have any legal existence before its authorized representatives signed ECUSA’s Constitution in 1789, then how could their signatures on the Constitution have been authorized? And why did they sign as “Lay Deputies from the State of South Carolina” if the Diocese (i.e., “State”) did not yet exist? (The “State of South Carolina” [in the political sense] was not the entity forming PECUSA. The word “State” was also used in an ecclesiastical sense, as the predecessor to the later word “Diocese” — which began to be used after the State of New York split into two “Dioceses” in 1839.)
The motion goes right on inventing new facts and claiming them to be true….
For more recent stories & commentary on the South Carolina Circuit Court Ruling, see here.
The usual teaching of the Episcopal Church is that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the church – as opposed to the Congregationalists, Baptists, etc. The appeal says that the fundamental unit is the national church and the diocese exists only as a subordinate unit of the church. O what tangled web we weave . . .
I expect TEC has no choice about doing this – other dioceses may be tempted to explore leaving now, and not just orthodox ones. It could just as well be a liberal diocese that is unhappy with 815’s mismanagement and rapacious demands for cash. And, they may not leave as such, just declare that they have the right to decide how much 815 gets paid, which would be just as bad for KJS.
Goodstein J’s judgment may be focused on the history of Dio South Carolina, rather than of TEC, but it still strikes at the heart of 815’s attempts to paint TEC as something akin to the Roman Catholic Church in structure.
#2, MichaelA: “It could just as well be a liberal diocese that is unhappy with 815’s mismanagement and rapacious demands for cash. ” Now that is a lovely vision: ECUSA splintering from the left as well as from the right. Dioceses that want gay marriage and want it right now could say they’re just not going to wait any longer. Sayonara, left coast.