The Kangaroo Court Should Resign in Toto

In the wake of the resignation of Ms. Josephine Hicks as Church Attorney on the +Mark Lawrence matter, Bishop Dorsey Henderson, President of the new Title IV's Disciplinary Board for Bishops, has sent the following announcement to his members (H/T: Doug LeBlanc, Living Church):

Sisters and Brothers,

This message comes with the prayer that you are all well and joyful.

Because I believe that time is of an essence, I have made a command decision and today requested that J.B. Bur[t]ch assume the work of the Church Attorney in the matter of Bishop Mark Lawrence only; Josephine Hicks continues to work with the other allegations on our “docket.” Mr. Bur[t]ch has accepted.

J.B. held the equivalent position with the Review Committee under the previous version of Title IV. As “Lay Assessor” to the Review Committee, he did the same work that the “Church Attorney” now does for the Disciplinary Board. While in that position, he did preliminary work on the Bishop Lawrence information, so he is already more than familiar with that information and the task which is now ours.

I have informed Ms. Hicks and she will be in communication with Mr. Burch to arrange for an orderly transfer of that labor and ministry.

Faithfully yours in our Lord,

+Dorsey Henderson

Thus Bishop Henderson previously worked with Mr. J. B. Burtch (h/t to Milton Finch for correcting the Bishop's misspelling of Mr. Burtch's name) when Bishop Henderson served on the former "Title IV Review Committee" (of which Bishop Waggoner was the chair). And in that capacity, Bishop Henderson tells us, "he did preliminary work on the Bishop Lawrence information . . .". [UPDATE 10/17/2011: On page 801 of the "Blue Book" for the 2009 General Convention, one may read the following: "The Title IV Review Committee, with the assistance and advice of its Lay Assessor, J. B. Burtch, Jr., Esq. (Virginia III), meets as necessary to discharge its responsibilities under Title IV of the Canons of the General Convention with regard to the ecclesiastical discipline of bishops."]

What are we to make of this? It indicates that the so-called allegations of "abandonment" against Bishop Lawrence were on the docket of the former Title IV Review Committee until that body ceased to operate as of July 1, 2011. But if that is the case, they must have been presented with the allegations in June 2011 or earlier -- possibly (as I indicated in an earlier post) as long ago as last September. To read more, click here.