The numbers really start to get interesting, however, when one looks at the geographical spread of the data, and considers the level of each diocese’s 2007 contribution to the TEC budget. Here is where the data starts to be telling: it shows that Bishop Duncan was deposed by a combination of the dioceses that are the biggest contributors overall to TEC, as well as by those that are in what has been called, in the political arena, the “blue-county corridors.” (Click here for an animated map of how these areas have changed in the presidential elections from 1960 to 2004. Are we surprised?)
Total contributions to TEC by “Yes” dioceses: $20,593,549 (72%)
Total contributions to TEC by “No” dioceses: $ 6,237,162 (22%)
Total contributions by unrepresented dioceses: $ 1,621,881 (6%)
Do you begin to see how TEC is run by the wealthiest players? Only fifty-four percent of the dioceses voted to depose Bishop Duncan, but they contribute 72% of the funds coming to TEC from all the dioceses.
I guess this just proves that rich dioceses can afford to pay more people to hang out at HoB meetings. The obvious way to reverse ecusa’s descent into irrelevance is to pack the HoB. I wonder if Fort Worth could hire about 250 of them?
;-> (I think…)
It’s the Golden Rule: “Him who has the gold makes the rules.”
Isn’t this also what’s going on in the Communion as a whole, and allows a minuscule but wealthy heretical group to tie the whole Communion into knots?
Yes, I guess packing the HoB would solve the Lambeth problem as well… if the packings could stand doing indabas for three weeks every decade.
With all due respect, I think y’all are confusing cause with effect to some degree. Part of the reason that the “No” dioceses contribute less to TEC than the “Yes” dioceses is that it is precisely these dioceses (and/or their parishes) that are withholding payments for reasons of conscience. It would be more interesting to look at the diocesan (or, better still, the aggregate parish) budgets in the two groups. Without doing the math myself, I suspect that the “No” dioceses are collectively as rich as the “Yes” dioceses by that measure. They just aren’t sending as much of their wealth to 815. This isn’t a question of “those who have the gold make the rules,” but of “no representation without paying taxation.”
I see Dale beat me to the punch.
This has to be the biggest misinterpretation of statistics that I have seen in a long time.
First, it’s just less than honest to exclude numbers from Dallas, Forth Worth and San Joaquin, (and others?) who don’t pay anything. Putting those in alone, (assuming 21%) bring the percentages 69%, 25% and 6% by my rough calculations.
But secondly, counting the total money contributed by those dioceses is not a measurement of wealth. Those dioceses gave more because there are [i]more people[/i] in those dioceses. Look, let’s take the vote of 88/35/4 of yes/no/abstain. That’s 69.3 % yes, 27.5 % no and 3.1 % abstain. If every single bishop there had the [i]same[/i] amount of money to contribute then the [i]money[/i] contributions would be 69.3 %, 27.5 %, and 3.1 % also – not reflecting any money advantage per bishop – just reflecting [i]more people voting that way.[/i] And these numbers are remarkably close to the 69/25/6 division above.
To me, the most interesting aspect of those numbers is the fact that, of an DFMS annual budget of almost $50 million a year, only between $28-29 million comes from current contributions–people in the pews, giving to their congregations, who funnel the money to their dioceses, and thence to DFMS. That means that over 40% of the revenues funding the DFMS budget come from sources other than diocesan funding…investment income, rent from the otherwise unutilized space at 815 (I think that was budgeted at $75,000 per year for the current triennium), etc.
As the percentage of revenues that can be traced to live, corporeal believers becomes a steadily decreasing portion of total funding for the budget, how does that effect the attitude of upper management toward those “boots on the gound?” (or maybe, “knees on the nave floor?”)
Sidney (#5), I respectfully submit that it is you who are twisting the numbers. By including the ten retired bishops in your “yes” tally, when they have no diocesan jurisdiction, you are skewing the percentages to favor your view that “these numbers are remarkably close to the 69/25/6 division above.” (You are also biasing your numbers by treating abstentions—which block a “Yes” vote just as effectively as a “No” vote—as something statistically different from “No” votes.) But the main objection is that you cannot mix retired bishops with diocesan contribution statistics—and the Curmudgeon went out of his way to favor your position by including four dioceses who were not in fact represented in their vote by their diocesans.
Also, I would point out that while Dallas was counted in the tally, Ft. Worth was not, because there was no one present voting on its behalf. And San Joaquin was counted in the numbers for deposition, which was charitable, to say the least, given the irregularity of +Lamb’s installation.
You might wish to re-examine your assumptions before jumping to your conclusions.
#7 Chancellor, go ahead and make those adjustments. The numbers tell a similar story, and my point stands: the fact that those ‘yes’ dioceses contribute much more money can be explained by the fact that they have many more people in them.