Bishop Lawrence Reports on the House of Bishops' Meeting, September 17-19, 2008

http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/000376.html

[The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina] 30 Sep 2008--Once again within a few months the landscape of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion has changed—as if Gafcon and Lambeth were not enough. What does this deposition mean? Frankly, it is still unfolding, but I offer the following reflections:

• The House of Bishops whether intentionally or not has enhanced the power of the Presiding Bishop. With consequences far beyond the deposition of The Rt. Reverend Robert Duncan, this vote by interpretation and application of Title IV.9, has established invasive reach for the PB. It is now possible for a sitting bishop of TEC to be deposed without prior inhibition or trial, rendering superfluous the role of the three Senior Bishops of the House. Beyond this is the quizzical ruling that it takes more votes from the House to receive the resignation of a retiring bishop then to depose a sitting one! Then there is the curious fact that it takes a two-thirds vote of the house to overturn a ruling of the chair, thus when combined with rendering moot the role of the senior bishops and the plain reference to a needed “majority of the whole house entitled to vote” in Title IV.9—there is enhanced power to the PB regardless of who may hold the chair, now or in the future. A development mercurial indeed, when one considers the PB and House of Bishops have repeatedly declined the authority to speak on behalf of The Episcopal Church when queried for commitments by the Communion’s Instruments of Unity; deferring instead to the authority of General Convention.

• I fear that however reasoned or temperately the members of the House of Bishops or the Presiding Bishop’s Office explains this deposition it will further trouble the waters of discord. There are several reasons for this: While Title IV.9 mentions a bishop abandoning the communion by open renunciation of the Discipline of this church, (which is ostensibly the clearest rationale for why the presentment was brought against Bishop Duncan), it is also clear from the same canon that prior to mentioning renunciation of the Discipline of the Church there is the reference to the Doctrine of the Church. Many from within TEC itself, as well as those in the various provinces of the Anglican Communion, are not unaware that there have been more then a few bishops of this Church who have in public settings and in published writings, renounced or at least denied the Doctrine of TEC. Others have allowed rites of worship, which if not having actually crossed the authorized boundaries in their approval of pastoral liturgies for same-sex blessings, have all but done so—doing pirouettes on a knife’s edge. Doesn’t the House of Bishops look as if it is being selective in holding its theological “conservative” bishops and dioceses accountable in matters of the Church’s discipline (i.e. the Constitution & Canons), while having no will to hold “liberal” bishops, retired and active, accountable on matters of doctrine and worship? And even in this matter of the Church’s discipline we may look selective: For instance what does the Presiding Bishop and the HOB’s intend to do with those bishops who contrary to the canons allow or even invite open communion of the unbaptized?