(ENS) During their opening remarks, both Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson spoke about the calls for changes in the structure and governance of the church.
Jefferts Schori said she encounters many people who are “eager or at least willing to entertain those conversations.”
She said she sees “a really significant rise in readiness for mission and connections to the need and concerns of people beyond our immediate congregations,” adding that she sees that readiness “as a sign of enormous health ”¦ [and] renewed investment in the core work of the church.”
“People are not focused inward by large; they are focused outward which is where the church is supposed to be,” she said.
Anderson suggested that the church will not “find our way forward by debating questions whose answers are important primarily to people who live and breathe church governance — as lovely as we all are!” Instead, she said, “we need to devote our energy to enabling the church to realize the possibility of real change — courageous, life-giving and life-altering change — for Episcopalians, for seekers, and for the lost and hurting and hungry in our midst.”
One must question the sustainability, financially and spiritually, of any of the reorganizing dioceses. However, to consolidate any of them with another diocese would be a tremendous loss of face for the TEC leadership. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
What they’re saying is “We’re in bad trouble, and we’ve gotta figure out out a way to get out of this mess we’ve made. Any suggestions?”
How about deciding what the mission of the church is? What about learning from places where the church is healthy such as DSC? They really do not want to know because they just might be wrong.
Is anyone surprised that they are discussing changing “the structure and governance of the church”? The changes in the Title-whatever and the increase of power for the PB are mere precursors of the changes to come. She’s setting herself up to be the pope of TEC.
Now that Mrs Schori and her cabal have enacted the principle that dioceses can’t depart, she has the problem of what to do with them. To eliminate these money-losing propositions will take an action of GC, no less. They can add on other unsustainable dioceses like Eastern Oregon and Navajoland when doing their cleanup.
“Good evening, my lords and gentlemen, my name is Katherine, and I’m the events coordinator this evening on the RMS Titanic. For your enjoyment, we will be cleaning up the chunks of ice you see scattered around the upper deck here, and then rearranging the deck chairs into pleasing shapes and patterns.”
375 ASA in the faux diocese of Quincy–wow! Why hasn’t it been attached to another diocese already?
I dunno: if they can even bring themselves to talk about eliminating Quincy, I think they’ll do it.
“She said she sees “a really significant rise in readiness for mission and connections to the need and concerns of people beyond our immediate congregations,” adding that she sees that readiness “as a sign of enormous health … [and] renewed investment in the core work of the church.”
Talk about dodge-and-weave: That “readiness” may be spun as a sign of health, but I don’t think attendance numbers(or lack thereof) in the loo are a “sign of health”.
Follow the money. That’s what will determine everything here. They will start to close dioceses down one by one once they find the right way to spin it. Have no fears.
The interesting conflict will be Bonnie Anderson and her “Sturmabteilungen” against KJS and her “Shutzstaffel.” Masses in the street vs concentrated power. How will those two coexist?
carl
Carl,
Have you considered what a former victim of the SS reading a comment like that – and for all we know there are some on T19 – would make of such an analogy? I suppose when the Diocese of Quincy intervened to prevent St. John’s Church from joining the Continuum in the early 1990s that was also an example of jackbooted tyranny?
12. Jeremy Bonner
I know this about the SS, Jeremy Bonner. On August 6, 1944, my father was almost killed fighting them. Otherwise, no, I simply made an analogy. And a strikingly good analogy it is, which is why I made it. Normally I would draw from the history of the Soviet Union for such analogies because it fits so nicely with the attitudes and actions of the progressive world view. Funny how no one seems to worry about victims of Stalin when I make such analogies – that same Stalin whose victims numbered (oh) five times the victims of Hitler. Funnier still that no one seems to worry about the victims of the SS when I am called a fascist. As I routinely am. Or at least was when I still ventured onto progressive blogs.
carl
It’s very simple, and it has been done several times before during the life of TECUSA (Eastern Oklahoma, Duluth, Western Colorado, The Platte/Laramie/Kearney/Western Nebraska, not to mention all the dioceses that were ours handed over to other Anglican jurisdictions).
The current C and C allow for two variables: an unsustainable diocese asks their mother diocese to agree to be reunited, and 2) a new diocese may be created from two or more already existing dioceses. Both pass convention resolutions, it goes to a consent process, and that’s it.
In option 1, San Joaquin would rejoin California. In option 2, San Joaquin would join up with Eastern Oregon, Spokane, Nevada, etc., to create a really large geographical diocese, managed by an Ordinary and a couple of Suffragans (or a Coadjutor from existing bishops, and Assistant bishops).
Carl (#13),
For the record, I wouldn’t find a comparison with the OGPU or the NKVD any more commendable. Aside from anything else, what is an Anglican in Zimbabwe or Sudan to make of such North American Anglican laments about tyranny and persecution? Anything that you or I might experience pales into insignificance by comparison.
15. Jeremy Bonner
I wasn’t making a comment about tyranny and persecution. I was making a comment about the political struggle for power between Bonnie Anderson and KJS.
carl
Well, yes, #2, I DO have a suggestion. Larry
Carl. the Night of the Long Knives comes to mind. Ernst Roehm certainly had a bad night.
Please raise the level of commenting on this thread – Elf
I think the idea of TEC losing [i]anything[/i] is anathema to them, so if they do consolidate or eliminate failing dioceses, they’ll do it very reluctantly while not admitting that they’ve made any mistakes. That, too, is anathema to them.