The Bishop of South Carolina, the Rt Revd Mark Lawrence, is cur\u00c2\u00adrently under investigation by the disciplinary board of the national Church on charges of having \u201cab\u00c2\u00adandoned\u201d\u009d the Episcopal Church (News, 14 October). He is charged with a variety of omissions and commissions, includ\u00c2\u00ading failure to take legal action against a parish in his diocese which had realigned itself…<\/p>\n
The Church\u2019s crusade against conservative dis\u00c2\u00adsenters is pointless, wasteful, and self-destructive. And, although Dr Jefferts Schori has defended her actions as necessary to protect the Church\u2019s assets, it is hard to understand what material benefits the Church\u2019s programme could reasonably achieve. If the Episcopal Church retains the properties of departing congregations, it will be stuck with church buildings that the few (if any) remaining loyalists cannot afford to maintain. In the best-case scenario, it may be able to offset the cost of litiga\u00c2\u00adtion by selling them for use as mosques or saloons.<\/p>\n
The Episcopal Church has plunged into a maelstrom of institutional turmoil and litigation, alienating some of its most committed constitu\u00c2\u00adents. Representing less than one per cent of the American population, it has not affected the at\u00c2\u00adtitudes of the general public, or benefited gay men and women, who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. And it has not impressed the secular \u00c3\u00a9lite, who are as contemptuous of the Episcopal Church, for all its political correctness, as they are of all Christian groups, whose members they regard as superstitious ignoramuses.<\/p>\n