Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A Church Out Of Control

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/11/13/a-church-out-of-control/

[Anglican Mainstream] 13 Nov 2007--Anyone who lives in the Episcopal Church these days has probably already recognized himself (or herself) to be a victim of the (purported) old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” However, the last two weeks have seen the times get even more interesting than usual.

First, there was the news item: “Presiding Bishop reaches out to bishops attempting to withdraw dioceses“-such a compassionate sounding title for an article conveying that the PB had sent letters threatening disciplinary action against the bishops in question! As one commentator put it, “The Episcopal Church is probably the only place where ‘being reached out to’ means being threatened, deposed, and sued.” These threats against bishops of dioceses come on top of the numerous places around the country where the Episcopal Church is involved in legal action against departing parishes.

A concurrent development with the escalating legal tensions over the past year has been the repudiation of the General Convention 2006 resolution (B033) urging restraint in giving consent to the election of a bishop “whose manner of life might present a challenge to the larger Communion”-in other words, a gay bishop. This call for restraint has now been repudiated by various dioceses, a partial list of which includes: Los Angeles, New Jersey, California, Rochester, and (just the past weekend) Chicago.

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