You can find all the latest official news from the Diocese of South Carolina here and all T19 posts about the conflict in South Carolina using this link TEC Conflicts: South Carolina category

Videos for Mere Anglicanism 2013 are here

LATEST:
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Newspaper is now available, April 20, 2013
A.S. Haley—An Overview of the Complex Situation between TEC and the Dioc. of S.C. in South Carolina, April 18, 2013

Full chronological entry listings are continued here and Click below to see an index of Key Entries and all the recent stories and documents.

[Note: due to capacity limits on this entry, the chronological list of past entries has been moved to a dedicated separate post here - most recent entries are still available below]
George Conger Unpacks the South Car. Legal Fracas and the recent WSJ article’s poor Coverage Thereof, April 17, 2013
A copy of the Letter the New TEC Bishop in South Carolina sent to Diocese of S.C. clergy, April 16, 2013
(WSJ) South Carolina Episcopal Church Fight Heads to Court, April 15, 2013
(Christian Post) Bishop of new TEC in S.C. Diocese Sends Letters to Various Ordained Ministers, April 14, 2013
A Video of the Four Anglican Bishops visiting Charleston, S.C., this past week, April 13, 2012
Anglican Bishops Express Strong Support for Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina, April 12, 2013
(The State) South Carolina Episcopal dispute may play out in two courts, April 10, 2013
Big Night for the Diocese of S. Carolina—An Evening with Bishops from East Africa, April 9, 2013
An ENS Article on the Ongoing Legal toing and Froing in South Carolina, April 5, 2013
Local paper—New TEC Diocese in South Carolina asks for federal jurisdiction, April 5, 2013

Local Paper Article—Countersuit filed in [South Carolina] Episcopal dispute, April 1, 2013
TEC counterclaim filed on Maundy Thursday in South Carolina case, April 1, 2013

Clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina Renew their Vows, March 20, 2012
TEC Lawsuit Asks Federal Judge to Overturn State Court Order and Strip Diocese of SC of its Identity, March 16, 2013
Diocese of SC Convention—Remain Steadfast in Faith, Firm in Conviction, Resolute in Will, March 13, 2012
Bishop Keith Ackerman’s Sermon at the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, March 12, 2012
Bishop Mark Lawrence’s Address to the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, March 11, 2013
[SC Now] The Diocese of South Carolina Holy Eucharist for the 222nd meeting of the convention, March 11, 2013
(SCnow) Diocese of South Carolina—Without TEC, but not without hope, March 10, 2013
A Prayer for South Carolina’s Convention Today, March 9, 2013
[SC Now Morning News] Episcopal diocese kicks off convention with flair despite national divides, March 8, 2013
Please Pray for the Diocese of South Carolina 222nd Annual Convention today, March 8, 2013
Allan Haley: ECUSA’s Desperation in South Carolina Knows No Bounds, March 8, 2013
222nd Annual South Carolina Diocesan Convention to be Held in Florence, March 8-9 later this week, March 5, 2013
Three More Diocese of S.C. Parishes Join in Suit to Prevent TEC from Seizing Property, March 2, 2013
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, February 28, 2013
Old Saint Andrew’s Parish in Charleston, S.C., Votes to Align with Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese, February 24, 2013
“In, But Not of, the World” How Far Would You Go to Preserve the Faith You Love so Much?, February 16, 2013

KEY ENTRIES (including those that were formerly "sticky" at the top of the blog)
A Video of the Four Anglican Bishops visiting Charleston, S.C., this past week, April 13, 2012
Anglican Bishops Express Strong Support for Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina, April 12, 2013
TEC Lawsuit Asks Federal Judge to Overturn State Court Order and Strip Diocese of SC of its Identity, March 16, 2013
Diocese of SC Convention—Remain Steadfast in Faith, Firm in Conviction, Resolute in Will, March 13, 2012
Bishop Mark Lawrence’s Address to the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, March 11, 2013
Three More Diocese of S.C. Parishes Join in Suit to Prevent TEC from Seizing Property, March 2, 2013
TEC Agrees to Injunction that Prohibits Them From Using Diocese of SC Identity, January 31, 2013
Unaffiliated TEC Group in South Carolina Still not Complying with Court Order, January 25, 2013
Circuit Court Blocks the Use of Diocese of South Carolina Identity By Anyone Outside of the Diocese, January 23, 2013
Another 15 South Carol. Parishes Join the Diocese Suit to Block TEC from Seizing Local Property
Diocese of South Carolina—Diocesan Identity/Legal Response Requested to unauthorized email, January 9, 2013
A.S. Haley—DioSC in Preemptive Strike against ECUSA’s Attempted Identity Theft, January 5, 2013
A Message to Clergy in the Diocese of South Carolina Regarding the Declaratory Judgment, January 4, 2013
Bishop Mark Lawrence Writes Regarding the Declaratory Judgment, January 4, 2013
S.C. Diocese Seeks Declaratory Judgement to Prevent Episcopal Church from Seizing Local Parishes, January 4, 2013
The Diocese of South Carolina is the Only Authority to Convene a Convention in the Diocese, December 22, 2012
Global South Primates Steering Comm. Recognizes Mark Lawrence’s Oversight in S.C.and the Communion, December 16, 2012
The Diocese of South Carolina Responds to the Announcement of a January TEC Meeting, December 10, 2012
Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church coming to SC in Jan. 2013 for “Special Convention”, December 8, 2012
AnglicanTV Interviews South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence about Recent Developments, December 6, 2012
South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence Writes Regarding his Alleged “Renunciation”, December 6, 2012
A.S. Haley—The Presiding Bishop Flouts the Canons Again, December 5, 2012
Presiding Bishop Says Mark Lawrence Says what he did not Say, right out of George Orwell, December 5, 2012
The Bishop of Upper South Carolina’s Pastoral Letter for Advent 2012, November 4, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—An Open Letter to the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, November 28, 2012
Diocese of South Carolina Announcement in Today’s State Newspaper (Columbia, South Carolina), November 25, 2012
(Anglican Ink) Church of Eng. will not make any “premature” statement or judgment re:South Carolina November 20th, 2012
Diocese of South Carolina Turns the Page; Looks Forward, November 17, 2012
Bishop Lawrence’s Address to the Special Convention, November 17, 2012
Kendall Harmon—Attempted Liveblog of Bishop Lawrence’s Diocesan Convention Address, November 17, 2012
Please Pray for the Diocese of South Carolina Special Convention to be Held Tomorrow, November 16, 2012
A Message from Bishop Mark Lawrence to the Diocese of South Carolina, November 15, 2012
(Anglican Communion Institute) Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina (Part Two), November 14, 2012
11 New Posts About Developments in the Diocese of South Carolina, November 13, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina, November 12, 2012
Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) Primates Council Writes in Support of Bishop Lawrence, October 31, 2012
Letter of Support from Global South Primates Steering Committee to Bishop Mark Lawrence October 25, 2012
Frequently Asked Questions About the Assault on the Diocese of South Carolina October 24, 2012
South Carolina Diocese Releases Statement Regarding Disassociation from the Episcopal Church October 20, 2012
Local Paper page 3—The Episcopal Church Abandons South Carolina Bishop and Diocese October 19, 2012
Episcopal Church Takes Action Against the Bishop and Diocese of South Carolina October 17, 2012

***
COMPLETE INDEX:

Obviously the latest events are part of a long running series of attacks by the national office upon the dioceses and the constitution of The Episcopal Church and the index posts relating to
1. the earlier attacks on South Carolina may be found here, and
2. the attacks on the Communion Partner Bishops and dioceses and Dr Philip Turner [still unresolved officially] here, and
3. General Convention 2012 resolutions and events here

You can find all the latest news from the Diocese of South Carolina here

Key Documents from the Diocese of South Carolina
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Newspaper is now available, April 20, 2013
A Video of the Four Anglican Bishops visiting Charleston, S.C., this past week, April 13, 2012
Anglican Bishops Express Strong Support for Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina, April 12, 2013
Clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina Renew their Vows, March 20, 2012
TEC Lawsuit Asks Federal Judge to Overturn State Court Order and Strip Diocese of SC of its Identity, March 16, 2013
Diocese of SC Convention—Remain Steadfast in Faith, Firm in Conviction, Resolute in Will, March 13, 2012
Bishop Keith Ackerman’s Sermon at the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, March 12, 2012
Bishop Mark Lawrence’s Address to the 222nd Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, March 11, 2013
Three More Diocese of S.C. Parishes Join in Suit to Prevent TEC from Seizing Property, March 2, 2013
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, February 28, 2013
South Carolina Rectors Speak Out Against TEC’s Attempt to Seize Local Property; “Hijack” Identity, February 4, 2013
TEC Agrees to Injunction that Prohibits Them From Using Diocese of SC Identity, January 31, 2013
Circuit Court Blocks the Use of Diocese of South Carolina Identity By Anyone Outside of the Diocese, January 23, 2013
Another 15 South Carol. Parishes Join the Diocese Suit to Block TEC from Seizing Local Property
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, January 11, 2013
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Newspaper is now available, January 11, 2013
Diocese of South Carolina—Diocesan Identity/Legal Response Requested to unauthorized email, January 9, 2013
A Message to Clergy in the Diocese of South Carolina Regarding the Declaratory Judgment, January 4, 2013
Bishop Mark Lawrence Writes Regarding the Declaratory Judgment, January 4, 2013
S.C. Diocese Seeks Declaratory Judgement to Prevent Episcopal Church from Seizing Local Parishes, January 4, 2013
The Diocese of South Carolina is the Only Authority to Convene a Convention in the Diocese, December 22, 2012
The Diocese of South Carolina Responds to the Announcement of a January TEC Meeting, December 10, 2012
Reminder in the Midst of the TEC Disinformation Campaign—Can a Diocese Legally Withdraw from TEC?, December 9, 2012
Spokesman for Withdrawn S.C. Episcopal Diocese Disputes Renunciation Order, December 8, 2012
AnglicanTV Interviews South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence about Recent Developments, December 6, 2012
South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence Writes Regarding his Alleged “Renunciation”, December 6, 2012
Diocese of South Carolina Announcement in Today’s State Newspaper (Columbia, South Carolina), November 25, 2012
Diocese of South Carolina Turns the Page; Looks Forward, November 17, 2012
Bishop Lawrence’s Address to the Special Convention, November 17, 2012
Kendall Harmon—Attempted Liveblog of Bishop Lawrence’s Diocesan Convention Address, November 17, 2012
A Message from Bishop Mark Lawrence to the Diocese of South Carolina, November 15
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, November 11
(Diocese of SC) Group Attempts to Mislead Clergy; Unauthorized Use of Diocesan Seal and Name, November 8, 2012
+ Frequently Asked Questions About the Assault on the Diocese of South Carolina October 24, 2012
+ South Carolina Diocese Releases Statement Regarding Disassociation from the Episcopal Church October 20, 2012
+ Episcopal Church Takes Action Against the Bishop and Diocese of South Carolina October 17, 2012
+ Episcopal Forum Members Initiate Attack on South Carolina Bishop October 20, 2012
+ Local Paper page 3—The Episcopal Church Abandons South Carolina Bishop and Diocese October 19, 2012
+ A.S. Haley Analyzes the Changes Signaled by the Latest Charges against Bishop Mark Lawrence October 19, 2012
+ The 14 names of those who Brought Charges Against Bishop Mark Lawrence October 19, 2012
+ One South Carolina Parish Rector writes his Parish about recent developments October 19, 2012
+ Please Pray for the Diocese of South Carolina Clergy Day to be Held Tomorrow October 18, 2012


Other Key Documents
A copy of the Letter the New TEC Bishop in South Carolina sent to Diocese of S.C. clergy, April 16, 2013
Old Saint Andrew’s Parish in Charleston, S.C., Votes to Align with Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese, February 24, 2013
Unaffiliated TEC Group in South Carolina Still not Complying with Court Order, January 25, 2013
Global South Primates Steering Comm. Recognizes Mark Lawrence’s Oversight in S.C.and the Communion, December 16, 2012
Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church coming to SC in Jan. 2013 for “Special Convention”, December 8, 2012
Spokesman for Withdrawn S.C. Episcopal Diocese Disputes Renunciation Order, December 8, 2012
More from A.S. Haley on South Carolina—But sue, TEC certainly will, December 7, 2012
(Anglican Ink) South Carolina’s sorrow and pity for Katharine Jefferts Schori, December 7, 2012

A.S. Haley—The Presiding Bishop Flouts the Canons Again, December 5, 2012
Presiding Bishop Says Mark Lawrence Says what he did not Say, right out of George Orwell, December 5, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—An Open Letter to the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, November 28, 2012
(Anglican Ink) Church of Eng. will not make any “premature” statement or judgment re:South Carolina November 20th, 2012
A.S. Haley on the Meeting in South Carolina and Two Bishops Letters recently Released, November 16, 2012
(Anglican Communion Institute) Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina (Part Two), November 14, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina, November 12, 2012
Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) Primates Write in Support of Bishop Lawrence, October 31, 2012
Letter of Support from Global South Primates Steering Committee to Bishop Mark Lawrence October 25, 2012


Letters from Bishops and Clergy
Peter Mitchell Chimes in on the Presiding Bishop’s recent South Carolina Sermon, February 1, 2013
One S.C. Parish Rector Writes about recent Developments, January 23, 2013
Saint Andrews, Mount Pleasant, S.C., Writes about the recent Lawsuit by S.C. Against TEC, January 23, 2013
One South Carolina Parish Rector writes his Parish about the new Protection Initiative taken Friday, January 5, 2013
One South Carolina Rector writes his Parish about Recent Events and Questions about them, December 19, 2012
Global South Primates Steering Comm. Recognizes Mark Lawrence’s Oversight in S.C.and the Communion, December 16, 2012
Mike Clarkson, the Rector of our Saviour, John’s Island, S.C.—Where I Stand on the Diocese of S.C., December 9, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—An Open Letter to the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, November 28, 2012
Shay Gaillard on the Diocese of South Carolina Misreporting—Who Is Welcome in the church?, November 27, 2012
A Message from Bishop Mark Lawrence to the Diocese of South Carolina, November 15, 2012
Statement from the Communion Partner Bishops on the South Carolina Situation, November 15, 2012
Presiding Bishop issues Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of South Carolina, November 15, 2012
One South Carolina Parish Rector writes his Parish today about recent developments, November 15, 2012
The Bishop of Springfield on the Diocese of South Carolina/Mark Lawrence Developments, October 29, 2012
The Bishop of Georgia on the Diocese of South Carolina/Mark Lawrence Developments October 29, 2012
Bishop William Love of Albany—Response to the Inhibition of Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina October 29, 2012
Another South Carolina Rector Writes his Parish About recent Developments (2) October 26, 2012
Another South Carolina Rector Writes his Parish About recent Developments October 26, 2012
The Rector of Saint Michael’s Charleston, S.C., writes his Parish About recent Developments October 23, 2012


News and Analysis
A.S. Haley—An Overview of the Complex Situation between TEC and the Dioc. of S.C. in South Carolina, April 18, 2013
George Conger Unpacks the South Car. Legal Fracas and the recent WSJ article’s poor Coverage Thereof, April 17, 2013
A copy of the Letter the New TEC Bishop in South Carolina sent to Diocese of S.C. clergy, April 16, 2013
(WSJ) South Carolina Episcopal Church Fight Heads to Court, April 15, 2013
(Christian Post) Bishop of new TEC in S.C. Diocese Sends Letters to Various Ordained Ministers, April 14, 2013
A Video of the Four Anglican Bishops visiting Charleston, S.C., this past week, April 13, 2012
Anglican Bishops Express Strong Support for Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina, April 12, 2013
(The State) South Carolina Episcopal dispute may play out in two courts, April 10, 2013
Big Night for the Diocese of S. Carolina—An Evening with Bishops from East Africa, April 9, 2013
An ENS Article on the Ongoing Legal toing and Froing in South Carolina, April 5, 2013
Local paper—New TEC Diocese in South Carolina asks for federal jurisdiction, April 5, 2013
Local Paper Article—Countersuit filed in [South Carolina] Episcopal dispute, April 1, 2013
TEC counterclaim filed on Maundy Thursday in South Carolina case, April 1, 2013
[SC Now] The Diocese of South Carolina Holy Eucharist for the 222nd meeting of the convention, March 11, 2013
(SCnow) Diocese of South Carolina—Without TEC, but not without hope, March 10, 2013
[SC Now Morning News] Episcopal diocese kicks off convention with flair despite national divides, March 8, 2013
Allan Haley: ECUSA’s Desperation in South Carolina Knows No Bounds, March 8, 2013
“In, But Not of, the World” How Far Would You Go to Preserve the Faith You Love so Much?, February 16, 2013
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, February 12, 2013
South Carolina Episcopal diocese headed to Florence for its Convention, February 11, 2013
(Living Church) Eric Turner—Speaking of Reconciliation, February 8, 2013
Jack Cranwell offers Thoughts on the South Carolina Episcopal Church Conflict, February 7, 2013
James Ueberroth Chimes in on the Presiding Bishop and her recent South Carolina sermon, February 6, 2013
Anglican Unscripted Episode 64, February 4, 2013
(Hilton Island Packet) St. Mark’s Chapel visited by new Episcopal bishop of new S.C. TEC Diocese, February 4, 2013
Lowcountry bishop wins skirmish over Episcopal diocese name, January 2, 2013
(AP) Judge makes order permanent in SC Episcopal schism, January 1, 2013
Peter Mitchell Chimes in on the Presiding Bishop’s recent South Carolina Sermon, February 1, 2013
A.S. Haley on the Latest in the Ongoing South Carolina Episcopal legal Battle, February 1, 2013
Bart Gingerich—Two Very Different Episcopalianisms Meet in Charleston, January 31, 2013
An Anglican Ink Article on the Presiding Bishop’s recent sermon in South Carolina, January 29, 2013
(Christian Post) ‘Continuing Episcopalians’ in Breakaway Diocese Elect Temporary Leader, January 29, 2013
A.S. Haley on the Latest in the Ongoing South Carolina Episcopal Church Mess, January 29, 2013
The AAC’s Phil Ashey Comments on the Presiding Bishop’s recent sermon in South Carolina, January 29, 2013
An ENS Article on the new TEC Diocese and its First Bishop, January 27, 2013
TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Sermon from Yesterday, January 27, 2013
Article from The State Newspaper on the New TEC Diocese in South Carolina and its First Bishop, January 27, 2013
Local Paper Article on the new TEC affiliated South Carolina Diocese and its first Bishop, January 27, 2013
A.S. Haley: An Open Letter to my Fellow Episcopalians in South Carolina, January 26, 2013
Bagpiper outside St. Philip’s Charleston SC, January 26, 2013
Frank Larisey—The Episcopal Church conflict in South Carolina is not (primarily) about sex, January 26, 2013
An ENS Article on the South Carolina Order to Refrain from Assuming the Diocese’s Identity, January 26, 2013
Malicious prosecution warnings for Episcopal clergy from a prominent Lawyer and Lay Leader, January 26, 2013
(Ang. Ink) South Carolina TEC loyalists defy ban on using diocesan name and shield, January 26, 2013
(Christian Post) Episcopal Leader to Visit ‘Continuing Episcopalians’ in SC Diocese, January 25, 2013
(AP) Presiding Episcopal Bishop coming to SC, January 25, 2013
Local paper—Judge issues restraining order against Episcopal Church, January 25, 2013
(RNS) S.C. Episcopal diocese claims a victory in theology and polity struggle, January 25, 2013
A.S. Haley—SC Circuit Court Issues Temporary Restraining Order to Protect Diocese’s Identity, January 25, 2013
(Living Church) Deference vs. Neutral Principles, January 24, 2013
(Anglican Ink) 15 more parishes join South Carolina lawsuit against the Episcopal Church, January 23, 2013
Saint Paul’s, Summerville, S.C., joins suit against Episcopal Church, January 18, 2013
St. Matthias joins South Carolina lawsuit against The Episcopal Church, January 16, 2013
Anglican Unscripted Episode 63, January 14, 2013
(AP) Bishop of SC diocese that disaffiliated from TEC says split brings clarity for followers, January 12, 2012
In Total Contrast to TEC, a Presbyterian Story of a genuinely gracious Parting, January 1, 2012
An Article from the Local Paper about the proposed new Leader for the yet to be formed TEC diocese, January 11, 2012
(AP) Bishop nominated for parishes seeking affiliation with TEC in the yet to be established Diocese, January 10, 2013
(ENS) Charles vonRosenberg nominated to be Bishop for a Diocese that Does Not Exist Yet, January 10, 2013
(Onenews Now) Diocese of South Carolina Seeks to Preserve its Freedom, Faith and History, January 10, 2013
An ENS Story on the Lawsuit Between the Diocese of South Carolina and TEC, Jnauary 8, 2013
Dean of Charleston, South Carolina’s, Cathedral discusses lawsuit against Episcopal Church, January 8, 2013
Myrtle Beach, Conway parishes join lawsuit against The Episcopal Church, January 6, 2013
(Anglican Ink) South Carolina fires first salvo in legal battle with TEC, January 5, 2013
A.S. Haley—DioSC in Preemptive Strike against ECUSA’s Attempted Identity Theft, January 5, 2013
(Orangeburg, S.C. Times and Democrat) South Carolina Episcopal diocese files lawsuit over property, January 5, 2013
Local South Carolina Story on the Diocesan Action Yesterday to prevent a Hostile Takeover, January 5, 2013
(AP) SC Episcopal diocese files lawsuit to protect beliefs, people and heritage, January 4, 2013
RNS Quote of the Day: Episcopal Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, January 4, 2013
(Ang. Ink) Global South Coalition states Jefferts Schori’s actions toward S.C. of no legal account, December 21, 2012
(CEN) South Carolina schism descending into farce, December 14, 2012
Peter Carrell [NZ]: Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, December 11, 2012
Anglican Unscripted Episode 59, December 11, 2012
(The State) Lowcountry S.C.congregations wrestle with whether to stay or go, December 11, 2012
(ENS) Presiding bishop to visit South Carolina diocese, December 11, 2012
Phil Ashey—Canons are Made to be Broken: Anglican Perspective, December 10, 2012
(Anglican Ink) A Note of clarification from the Bishop of Upper South Carolina, December 9, 2012
Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church coming to SC in Jan. 2013 for “Special Convention”, December 8, 2012
Spokesman for Withdrawn S.C. Episcopal Diocese Disputes Renunciation Order, December 8, 2012
More from A.S. Haley on South Carolina—But sue, TEC certainly will, December 7, 2012
(Anglican Ink) South Carolina’s sorrow and pity for Katharine Jefferts Schori, December 7, 2012
A.S. Haley—The Presiding Bishop Flouts the Canons Again, December 5, 2012
Presiding Bishop Says Mark Lawrence Says what he did not Say, right out of George Orwell, December 5, 2012
The Bishop of Upper South Carolina’s Pastoral Letter for Advent 2012, November 4, 2012
Anglican Unscripted Episode 58, December 2, 2012
Anglican Ink: Loyalist meeting learns Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is behind them, November 29, 2012
A.S. Haley on The Episcopal Church—Dysfunction Everywhere, November 29, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—An Open Letter to the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, November 28, 2012
Another Christian Post Article on the diocese of South Carolina—but please note my correction, November 26, 2012
Robert Barnett isn’t pleased with Bishop Mark Lawrence, November 26, 2012
(The State) As South Car. Episcopalians move toward split, questions and painful decisions remain, November 23, 2012
An ENS story on those in the Diocese of S. Car. opposed to Bishop Lawrence and the recent decisions, November 21st, 2012
(The State) As South Car. Episcopalians move toward split, questions and painful decisions remain, November 22, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute: South Carolina: A Communion Response, November 21st, 2012
(Local Paper) Roy Hills on the Dio. of South C.—Diocese has long history of moving away from church, November 18, 2012
(Local Paper) Peter Mitchell on the Dio. of South C.—‘diverse like me’ mind-set is killing TEC, November 18, 2012
Local Newspaper Article on the Diocese of South Carolina Convention, November 18, 2012
(ENS) South Carolina convention affirms decision to leave Episcopal Church, November 17, 2012
A Christian Post Story on South Carolina’s Special Convention today, November 17, 2012
A Sumter, South Carolina, Item Story on today’s Special Convention, November 17, 2012
(AP) South Carolina diocese meets after break with national church, November 17, 2012
A.S. Haley on the Meeting in South Carolina and Two Bishops Letters recently Released, November 16, 2012
An RNS Article on the Diocese of South Carolina Situation Heading into Special Convention Tomorrow, November 16, 2012
AP Article—Clergy and parishes meet; national bishop writes South Carolina Diocese, November 16, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina, November 12, 2012
Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury—Taking the pulse of a diocese in conflict, November 16, 2012
(Anglican Communion Institute) Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina (Part Two), November 14, 2012
Anglican Communion Institute—Consumed By Litigation: TEC In South Carolina, November 12, 2012
The Latest Edition of the Diocese of South Carolina Enewsletter, November 11, 2012
(CEN) Global South backing for the Diocese of South Carolina, November 11, 2012
A Beaufort Gazette Ad from those who Oppose Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of S.C., November 3, 2012
(RNS) S.C. Episcopalians say split goes beyond Debate on Same Sex Unions, November 3, 2012
Edward Gilbreth—South Carolina Episcopal schism: Predictable, Understandable, November 3, 2012
(Living Church) Mark McCall on South Carolina—Dumbing Abandonment Down, October 31, 2012
(CEN) South Carolina expelled from the Episcopal Church October 26, 2012
Two Letters to the Editor of the Local Paper on the Diocese of South Carolina Situation, October 24, 2012 at 6:15 am
+ Bishop Mark Lawrence’s April Address given in England - Transcript October 22, 2012 at 12:54 pm
+ Local Paper front Page—Episcopalians on both sides of the schism feeling the pain October 22, 2012 at 7:29 am
+ John Stott on how opposition to Christian truth unfolds October 22, 2012 at 7:00 am
+ Episcopal Church Hits Bottom, Keeps Digging—Robert Munday on South Carolina Developments October 22, 2012
+ (One News Now) Bible-believing South Carolina Episcopal Bishop Penalized October 22, 2012 at 5:30 am
+ A.S. Haley—Once Again, Conflicts Galore on the Disciplinary Board for Bishops October 20, 2012 at 1:02 pm
+ (Island Packet) “Local Episcopal churches bracing for possible switch to Anglican banner” October 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
+ Church Times article on the Action Taken Against S.C. Bishop Lawrence and its Results October 20, 2012 at 7:45 am
+ A Christian Post Story on the Diocese of South Carolina Developments October 20, 2012 at 7:30 am
+ Local Paper Front Page—Episcopalians react to ongoing church conflict October 19, 2012 at 7:30 am
+ A Longer AP Story on the Action Taken Against the Bishop and Diocese of S.C. and its Results

[Earlier entries are being reconstructed]

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * South Carolina • * Theology

The Rev. Whayne Hougland, Jr., was elected at a special electing convention May 18 to be the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan.

Hougland, currently rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Salisbury, N.C., was elected on the eighth ballot out of a field of four candidates. To be elected, a candidate must have received a majority of the votes in both the lay order and the clergy order. He received 87 of 139 votes cast in the lay order and 34 of 65 votes cast in the clergy order.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils

One of the Ten Commandments is "thou shall not steal," but an Episcopal priest has been suspended for allegedly lifting more than a dozen Sunday sermons verbatim from a book.

The Rev. John E. McGinn, 65, who has led the 300-plus families at St. John's Episcopal Church since 1993, was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that he plagiarized sermons dating back to 2006, said the Rev. Mally Lloyd, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a position equivalent to the bishop's chief of staff.

As many as 15 sermons have been identified as direct copies, Lloyd said.

They were allegedly taken from a book called "Dynamic Preaching," which can be accessed only with an online subscription.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Judge then, young Gentlemen, into what depths of degradation the race of young ministers to which you are to belong must sink, if you not only remain deaf to the voice of conscience, to the admonitions of history, and to the strivings of GOD'S Spirit, but also to the voice of your age and of your country, which is calling you to high and noble things in your ministry. To go forth from this most highly-honored seat of sacred learning in our Church, with low attainment and without studious habits—to enter upon your ministry in this energetic and driving age, without zeal and perseverance—and to place yourselves upon the great missionary field which our Church presents from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, without being animated by the missionary spirit—how certain the fall, how deep the dishonor, how terrible the curse, to which you must inevitably be reduced!

The fathers, the clergy, the friends of the Church, look with increased anxiety and greater hope to each successive class graduating from our theological seminaries. They have a right to expect better scholarship, as the ability of teachers, the number of books, and the aids to study are daily increasing. And surely, as the wants of the Church are better known, and the extent of the missionary field, both at home and abroad, is better understood, they have a right to anticipate a great increase of missionary zeal. A young clergyman, some twenty years ago, might have made many a reasonable excuse for his lack of that holy, self-sacrificing zeal, a want of which would now be utterly inexcusable. What! shall young men just commissioned to the holy office, be deaf to the calls of their country, of the Church, and of her Divine Head, to make full proof of their ministry, and sink down into criminal listlessness, or addict themselves to unworthy worldly pursuits? What! when the cry of souls ready to perish is borne on every wind, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, shall they take counsel of their love of ease, their taste for human literature, or of their worldly-minded friends, and refuse to go to any part of the missionary field to which GOD shall call them?

Remember, young Gentlemen, that the great Head of the Church has placed you under influences more favorable for the formation of a high ministerial character, than with others has been the case perhaps for ages. You may, if you will, unite in yourselves more learning, more pious active zeal, more of a spirit of humility and prayer, than any of your predecessors, it may be, since the Apostles' own times. What you may become, the Church, the world, the Saviour of man-kind, [14/15] all expect that you will become. And yet this kind goeth not forth but by prayer and fasting. You cannot even succeed well in your studies without prayer. Much less can you grow in humility, and in a spirit of benevolence and self-sacrifice without much and fervent prayer.

Read it all from the Bishop of Kentucky, Benjamin Bosworth Smith.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

The court order, which comes at what could be the end of a series of court battles over three church properties on 32nd Street, was reaffirmed Monday by Judge Kim G. Dunning.

"I give thanks for the culmination of this marathon litigation, and I pray this action will settle the fact that people can disagree but cannot take property that has been entrusted to the Episcopal Church for ministry," Right Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the six-county diocese, said in a statement. "I give thanks to God that, after these cases spanning more than eight years, we now can proceed with the continuing ministry of the Episcopal Church in Newport Beach."

St. James leaders said they were "obviously disappointed by this ruling."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Los Angeles • TEC Departing Parishes • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

The Rev. William Stokes, who has been an advocate in Florida for immigrants and the poor, was elected yesterday to be the bishop of New Jersey, the sixth largest diocese in the Episcopal church.

He will replace Bishop George Councell, who announced earlier this year, that he would pass on his mantle after nearly 10 years.

“I am humbled beyond expression and deeply honored to have been elected as the Twelfth Bishop of New Jersey. I am grateful to the people of the diocese for their confidence, support and prayers,” Stokes said in a church press release.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

Guidelines have been established for same-gender blessing ceremonies to be performed in Oklahoma Episcopal churches, a state leader with the denomination said.

The Rt. Rev. Ed Konieczny, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, said three parishes already have expressed interest in starting the process so they can conduct such ceremonies, although he does not believe “there are large numbers of people out there waiting for this.” He declined to name the interested parishes, as they have yet to request formal approval.

“I don't expect that this is going to be a floodgate of things. We will make it available and people will take advantage of it according to who they are,” he said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Oklahoma Episcopal Bishop Edward J. Konieczny, who once strongly opposed stricter gun control laws, is changing his views.

Konieczny will participate Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church in an adult forum on gun control titled "The Thin Line Between God and Guns."

A former police officer, Konieczny discussed his changing views on gun control in a recent CNN Belief Blog that drew national attention.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • History • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, which includes Worcester and surrounding communities, said today that he is against the proposal to locate at $200 million slots parlor on the former Wyman-Gordon Co. parcel in Green Island.

"For those who have little, the illusory chance that they can gain much, even in a game stacked against them, is tempting and ultimately destructive," said Bishop Douglas J. Fisher. "Our churches stand with the economically poor of our society, and that always means taking a stand against gambling establishments in our cities."

Bishop Fisher is the latest prominent church leader to take a stand against the proposal.


Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Gambling • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

While a number of lawsuits between dioceses and parishes have gone to state supreme courts, with the diocese prevailing in many of them, in South Carolina the state supreme court ruled the other way and held the church’s national property rules, called the Dennis Canon, were of no legal effect in South Carolina. In other words, if a parish has clear title to its property in South Carolina, it can take it with it if it leaves its diocese or denomination. Omitting this crucial legal precedent in the story was most unfortunate.

It should also be added that the appellate courts have not adjudicated the issue of whether a diocese may withdraw from the national church. Attorneys for the national church have argued the legal precedents from outside South Carolina governing the relationship of the parish to the diocese should govern the relationship of the diocese to the national church. The diocese’s lawyers in South Carolina have argued this relationship is not comparable.

One might also add, contrary to the assertion in the article about declining membership, that until these lawsuits erupted the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was one of the few Episcopal diocese to see a growth in membership over the past decade.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Media • * South Carolina

In 2006, [Henry] Parsley was nominated for presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, coming in second in the General Convention balloting to the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, who was elected. He retired as bishop in 2012.

“The last 10 years have not been the easiest for the Anglican Communion or the Episcopal Church in America,” he said, with bitter debates over human sexuality and other issues. Nevertheless, he added, “I think we've turned a corner. We're learning to live more comfortably with differences. The hallmark of Anglicanism is the way of comprehensiveness, to bring in as many people as possible.”

He hailed the installation of Justin Welby as the new archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, calling him “a reconciler.”

“For me,” he said, “the heart of the Gospel is reconciliation.”

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Poetry & Literature

You can read the names of nine nominees here and there. Also, for those interested, there are videos available there. Finally, you can get the whole election booklet in English there (a 28 page pdf). The walkabouts start next week and the election is May 4th.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

A prayer service with Holy Eucharist is being planned for Tuesday, April 16 at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (138 Tremont Street) in Boston, with Bishop Gayle E. Harris presiding (assuming downtown conditions and transit have regularized). All are welcome.

Downtown church personnel reached so far report chaos in the Back Bay area and limited mobility.

Trinity Church in Copley Square was closed today for the Marathon; Marathon runners on Trinity Church's charity team are reported safe....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism

Episcopalians along the South Carolina coast are battling in court to determine which of two factions owns an estimated $500 million in church buildings, grounds and cemeteries, following an acrimonious split last year over social issues.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The Litigation Lottery for the parishes of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin continues in the courts of California. I mentioned in an earlier post that as a result of a poorly reasoned decision by a trial court judge in Bakersfield, which granted summary judgment to Bishop Talton's rump diocese, two parishes in Kern County had decided to move out of their church buildings rather than carry the fight on to the appellate level -- even though the decision was so obviously wrong.

Now comes another trial court decision -- based on exactly the same underlying facts -- which denies summary judgment to Bishop Talton and his diocese. The Superior Court of Tulare County ruled on Tuesday of this week that there were disputed issues of fact remaining with regard to the ability of St. John's in Porterville to disaffiliate from ECUSA.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture

It was sad to read the public comments of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington denying the importance, or need for the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, going so far as to imply this teaching was “outlandish. ” More on that in a moment, but first some background.

Some time ago I brought a former Episcopalian into the Catholic Church who, after the Rite of Reception gave a great sigh of relief and said, “I know the Catholic Church is not without problems, but at least I know the Bishops actually hold the Christian faith. It is such a relief to be in the harbor of truth.”

I remember at the time wondering with him if that wasn’t a bit of an exaggeration of how bad things were in the Episcopalian denomination (this was about 1990). But he showed me a scrapbook of article after article of dozens of Episcopal “Bishops” denying quite publicly the divinity of Christ, the Virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, that there was any inherent conflict between Christianity and Unitarianism, etc., not to mention a plethora aberrant moral stances.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Christology • Eschatology

Someone once asked me if I thought the resurrection was necessary. He meant it in the most sincere way, as a person of both faith and doubt who wondered if we needed to be bound by so unreasonable a proposition that Jesus’ tomb was, in fact, empty on that first Easter morning.

I hesitated in answering, because there seemed to be layers of argument behind the question. My answer was yes, resurrection is the foundation of Christian faith, but probably not in the way he meant it.

To say that resurrection is essential doesn’t mean that if someone were to discover a tomb with Jesus’ remains in it that the entire enterprise would come crashing down. The truth is that we don’t know what happened to Jesus after his death, anymore than we can know what will happen to us. What we do know from the stories handed down is how Jesus’ followers experienced his resurrection. What we know is how we experience resurrection ourselves.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Theology: Scripture

An official with the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina said Monday he believes the dispute over who has the right to claim the centuries-old diocese name and properties in the Lowcountry should be decided in state court, not federal.

“We believe the issues belong in state court,” the Rev. Jim Lewis, Canon to the Ordinary, said. “We certainly have plenty of state precedent in our favor....”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Read it all and you can find A.S. Haley's comments on this there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The Episcopal bishop for Arizona joined several religious and union leaders urging that family-unification policies be included in any comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Bishop Kirk Smith said that the family is the “chief social unit in society” and protecting and keeping immigrant families together should be paramount as federal lawmakers consider reform.

“This is one thing that we do all agree on, and that is support of the family, because we consider that to be an imperative that’s given to us by our religion and by our God,” Smith said on a conference call with the other officials.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Immigration • Politics in General • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Less than a month after sponsoring an event for Virginia Episcopal clergy featuring a speaker who denies both the afterlife and unique divinity of Christ, Bishop Shannon Johnston of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has presided over a service featuring a similarly controversial figure.

In a Good Friday service at historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, retired Bishop John Shelby Spong decried the Nicene Creed as “a radical distortion of the Gospel of John,” asserted that several of the apostles were “mythological” and declared that Jesus Christ did not die to redeem humanity from its sins.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology

The vote total I am told was 189 to 64.

You can find the parish website here. Please note that on the front page of the website there are four separate links for your perusal, Discernment Schedule, Discernment Meeting January 13th, Discernment Meeting January 20th, and Bishop Lawerence's Remarks. You may also be interested in the parish newsletter which you cand find there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

From a letter to the editor in the local paper:

As a 74-year-old lifetime Episcopalian, I am totally disappointed in the direction of our church. For years I've prayed for our local and national church and for Presiding Bishop Katharine [Jefferts] Schori. Like many other national churches they have been taught God winks at sin.

The 39 articles of religion clearly teach that the positions of the national church are wrong. I am personally a "grace Christian," but clearly God does take sin seriously.

God's will is perfect. We all need forgiveness of sin, and all are called to be new creations.

Repentence and revival is the only hope of the national Episcopal Church.

I will continue to pray for my Bishop Mark Lawrence and hope and pray for a spiritual awakening in the national Episcopal Church.

Jack Cranwell Charleston

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

From a letter to the editor in the local paper:

While not in The Post and Courier's coverage of the activities on Jan. 26, it has been reported in other sources that Katharine [Jefferts] Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, made several pronouncements in her sermon during Saturday's "convention" which I find to be highly inflammatory and quite offensive.
First, she has labeled my bishop, who was duly elected to the office and removed from same by a trumped-up ploy, a "tyrant." I have heard this man preach, watched recorded interviews with him and followed his actions. If I may be audacious and paraphrase Piiate's words - I find him to have done no wrong.
Second, as an Episcopalian who has spent his entire life in the faith - choirboy, acolyte, vestryman, member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and an elected delegate to a diocesan convention, I feel I am not only well-grounded in the faith, but have grown through the years in my faith which remains relevant in today's world. I am highly offended that because I do not view the world through her skewed vision, nor accept her warped goals for the future, I am to be labeled a member of the ovine species.
Following her nefarious actions of October 2012, I have moved on and have found a far greener and acceptable meadow for grazing and growing my spiritual well-being.

James Ueberroth, Charleston

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Read it all (an almost 40 page pdf).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils

In his address, Gray also announced a discernment process which congregations may voluntarily enter in order to gain his permission to bless same gender unions. He compared his process to the one implemented by the Bishop of Texas.

While a general ban on the blessing of same gender unions remains in place, he will allow congregations which self-select and undergo a thorough process to move toward blessings of same gender unions.

Clergy and vestry – the elected lay leaders of a local congregation – will be free to enter into a process of prayer and study on the matter. They will be asked to submit the design and results of their study and also to explain to the Bishop how the blessing of same gender unions would enhance the congregation’s missional efforts. He said he would also require those congregations discerning such a call to describe how they would prepare couples for the blessing liturgy. Congregations would also be required to report back on their experience in time for the 2015 General Convention.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

St. Mark's Chapel in Port Royal took a step closer to its goal of joining the national Episcopal Church on Sunday when a newly appointed bishop visited the congregation and performed the first confirmations of his tenure.

The Right Rev. Charles vonRosenberg, who recently was appointed provisional bishop of the South Carolina parishes remaining with the national church, joined in the service at Union Church on 11th Street and was celebrated afterward at a reception at The Shed in Port Royal.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

The Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma recently gathered for the installation of the new leader of a prominent downtown Oklahoma City church.

The Rev. Justin Lindstrom was installed as the dean of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral on Jan. 26 in a ceremony that highlighted the diversity of the diocese, among other things.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

The Episcopal Diocese of New York has installed a new bishop in an elaborate ceremony at a cathedral in Manhattan.

The Rev. Andrew Dietsche became the 16th bishop of the diocese Saturday in a service at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in Morningside Heights.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

The Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Mississippi announced Friday that he will allow some congregations to bless same- sex unions.

The Right Reverend Duncan M. Gray III made the announcement in his opening address to the 186th Annual Council of the Diocese of Mississippi in Jackson.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Update: We are told the bishop will use his address to the annual council tonight at 8:00pm to announce that he will allow same-sex blessings under a plan similar to the one in the Diocese of Texas. Parishes wishing to perform same-sex blessings will need their vestries to pass a resolution, which the rector may present to the bishop, who will have the final decision.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

[Bishop Mark] Lawrence spokeswoman Jan Pringle said in a statement that the injunction will remain in effect until the court rules on the property dispute “to protect the Diocese’s real, personal and intellectual property and that of its parishes from a TEC takeover.”

While Lawrence's group viewed the decision as a validation, the TEC congregations noted, "This was done with the consent of all parties, and either side has the right to have a hearing on the matter with 14 days' notice.”

"This is not an unusual development, and it signifies only that these issues remain to be decided at a future time," said Holly Behre, communications director for The Episcopal Church in South Carolina.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein issued a permanent injunction Thursday ruling only churches that left The Episcopal Church last year may use the name the Diocese of South Carolina.

The use of the name and the diocesan seal has been in dispute since parishes in the eastern and lower part of the state left the national church in a dispute over the ordination of gays and other issues.

Following the split with the national church, the Diocese of South Carolina sued, seeking not only to protect its name but also a half-billion of church property it says belongs to the diocese, not the national church.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Central New York • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

This is a highly unusual development, and will doubtless sow consternation among the SCEpiscopalians and their ilk: It shows that Chancellor Tisdale can read the writing on the wall, and knows that ECUSA cannot succeed in any plan to assume the DSC's identity through its own actions. Since the injunction now accomplishes nearly all of the objectives Bishop Lawrence had when he authorized the lawsuit (all that remains is a judgment declaring that his Diocese is the lawful and exclusive owner of the registered marks), it will be interesting to see whether or not ECUSA stipulates to the entry of such a final judgment in the weeks ahead. In short, there is nothing left worth litigating. Yes, ECUSA reserved the right to request a modification in the injunction, but at most it would be only to tinker with the fine points (and I can't think of any). That stipulation was probably included to assuage Mr. Tisdale's clients.

Where things will go from here is now the question. Bishop vonRosenberg has his work cut out for him -- he has to walk a tightrope between keeping the Presiding Bishop happy, and not violating the injunction in any way.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

The heads of the Catholic and Episcopal churches in south central Pennsylvania on Wednesday struck contrasting reactions to findings of a poll that shows voters would be in favor of approving gay marriage legislation.

The Rev. Joseph McFadden, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, decried the narrow favoring for gay marriage, while the Rev. Nathan Baxter, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania welcomed it as good news.

The Quinnipiac University poll found that Pennsylvanians narrowly favor gay marriage -- 47 percent of voters indicating they would approve gay marriage, and 43 percent opposing it. The poll found greater disparities along religious lines.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone is about the decline of community in our culture. Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort is about the division of communities into little clusters of like-minded people, what Robert Bellah calls “special interest enclaves.” No wonder we listen to Garrison Keillor’s stories of Lake Woebegone with a kind of longing. We miss human community and it isn’t just nostalgia. Human community is an incarnate expression of the unity and diversity of God, of Reality itself, represented theologically by the Trinity. To fracture into a society of scattered individuals is to lose touch with our authentic human nature, the nature of God, and the imago dei.

So for me prayer these days is about connection. It’s about caring for the well being of my “poor earthbound companions and fellow mortals.” It’s nothing to write home about. But my longing for human bonds of affection is laced with hope.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Last week, Circuit Court Judge Diane S. Goodstein issued an order stopping the continuing Episcopalians from using the diocesan name and seal. Jeff Walton, Anglican Program director at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, told CP that the continuing Episcopalians are free to find new leadership.

"Those who have chosen to remain connected to the national denomination are entitled to organize a new diocese and elect their own leaders – this is not in dispute," said Walton. "What continuing Episcopalians cannot do is attempt to assume the identity of the departing Diocese of South Carolina. The Diocese is a legally incorporated entity with its own elected officers, registered names and seal."

Regarding whether or not the temporary order would become a longer term injunction come a hearing on Friday, Walton told CP that he felt the breakaway Diocese's case was strong. "In some churches, this would be resolved as a disappointing but ultimately civil divorce. Unfortunately, the national Episcopal Church has adopted a 'scorched earth' policy with litigation against any parish or diocese that chooses to depart the denomination," said Walton.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

The Episcopal Election Committee is pleased to submit the names of the following persons to be nominated for election as the 12th Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey at the Electing Convention.

The Reverend David Anderson
The Reverend Dr. Joan Beilstein
The Reverend Dr. Allen F. Robinson
The Reverend Canon Melissa M. Skelton
The Reverend Canon William Stokes
The Reverend Martha Sylvia Ovalle Vásquez

Read all about them here (a pdf of some 16 pages).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

Every day more than 1.5 million Ohioans, nearly 14 percent of our population, wake up without health insurance coverage. As a result, many of them go without treatment until their condition becomes more severe and more costly to address. Often when they do seek treatment, it is in the most expensive way possible: through emergency rooms and hospitals. The cost of caring for the uninsured falls to everyone. Those with health coverage pay more in treatment costs, and we all pay more in taxes to support local and state public health programs.

This budget cycle the Governor and legislature have an opportunity to control health care costs for the benefit of all Ohioans by expanding our Medicaid program, as provided for in the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). To do so is consistent with Gov. Kasich's efforts over the last two years to transform Medicaid in Ohio - reducing costs and improving the program's efficiency.
As Christian leaders, we hear the call of Jesus to reach out to the poor and those on the margins of society. We believe that Medicaid Expansion will help stabilize health care to the poor and marginalized among us. We are leaders of a faith community that believes all are equal in the sight of God.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Budget • Medicare

In a lengthy interview, he said it's very important that he urge the local members of the Episcopal Church to get involved in spreading Christ's message through community engagement and involvement.

He said the church sits on a three-legged stool that is made up of the scriptures, tradition and the wisdom of holy men and women.

Bishop Fisher said he believes that small churches and even a single individual can impact the community.

“After all, Jesus changed the world with just twelve disciples,” he noted.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * South Carolina

On Saturday, the delegates representing Lowcountry congregants conducted business under the name “Episcopal Church in South Carolina.” Lawrence and his diocesan followers have also filed a lawsuit seeking to retain about $500 million worth of church properties. Lawrence has not affiliated with any organization, although he said he considers the breakaway congregations part of the Anglican Communion. Von Rosenberg said the Communion has not acknowledged the congregations as part of the Communion.

Von Rosenberg, like Jefferts Schori, chose not to focus on the unspoken uncertainty that ripples beneath the surface, instead reminding congregants that the coming rebuilding effort should be based on a foundation of humility and love, realizing that those who have left the U.S. church also believe they are following Christ.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

The Rev. Jim Lewis, canon to the ordinary of the independent Diocese of South Carolina, attended the convention as an observer and reiterated the need to keep identities distinct.

“Today’s special convention was clearly a source of great joy for those attending, and understandably so,” Lewis said in a statement to The Post and Courier. “As we have often said, The Episcopal Church is more than free to establish a new diocese in South Carolina. What the court ruling this week says, though, is that they can’t do that and claim to be us.”

At a news conference Saturday, Jefferts Schori would not speak about current litigation or future court battles over property that are almost certain to ensue.

“The challenge is always to recognize that our work is God’s work,” she said. “The work of the courts is to help resolve differences when faithful people haven’t done that themselves.” Church property, she said, “is a legacy, it’s a trust” that transcends generations and particular conflicts.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Ecclesiology

In retirement, Shaw said he hopes to continue his work on health and education projects in Africa. He will spend more time with his monastic community. And he will work on his pottery, a favorite hobby.

Asked about his impetus for political activism, Shaw cited the life of Jesus.

“He was very out there in terms of critiquing a society that didn’t recognize the dignity of human beings,” Shaw said in an interview. “And so I think because I’m a follower of Jesus, that’s my responsibility as well — I’m supposed to speak up on issues that diminish people’s dignity.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

22 January 2013

Beloved in Christ,

The Apostle Paul teaches us that we must not expect to pursue our mission for the glory of Christ and the evangelization of the world without opposition. Since our separation from the Episcopal Church three years ago, we have enjoyed serving Christ together largely free from the unnecessary distractions that had come to characterize life within the Episcopal Church. We have planted and revitalized churches and even facilitated the creation of a new diocese.

But no servant of Christ can expect such tranquility to last forever. Recently, the Episcopal Church took hostile actions against the Diocese of South Carolina, removing its Bishop (+Mark Lawrence) from ministry and threatening to aggressively litigate for property. The Diocese of South Carolina has filed a request for a declaratory judgment in Dorchester County, S.C. that seeks relief from such actions. As of Jan 21, the vestry of St. Andrew’s Church Mount Pleasant voted unanimously to join in this request for declaratory judgment.

Two words of clarification are in order. In this action we are not seeking anything from Episcopal Church other than our peace. The legal vehicle of a declaratory judgment action filed by the diocese offers us the opportunity to gain clarity and, in turn, peace from the threats voiced by the Episcopal Church against us. We have appealed to the court system, as Paul appealed to Caesar (Acts 25.11) asking the courts to prevent the Episcopal Church from acting in a manner for which they have no claim. Second, and more importantly, we will refuse to be consumed by this process – keeping the “main thing” the main thing – and encourage all involved to do likewise. No servant of Christ can expect to go through this life without opposition, but no servant of Christ can use opposition as an excuse to become distracted from the mission. At St. Andrew’s we exist to “Connect people to the presence and power of Jesus Christ.” By God’s grace, we will continue to do so.

Friends, in your thoughts, prayers, and actions think on Christ and how He may be glorified, maintaining your focus on Him who holds all things in His mighty providence. In these things we have the victory.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev’d Steve Wood, Rector
Mary Graham, Senior Warden
Andy Breaux, Junior Warden
Forrest Foshee, Secretary
Robyn Frampton, Treasurer
Angie Clarke
Marilyn Hendrix
Kyu Lee
Caroline Lesesne
Mikell Murray
Martha Senf
Bruce Wallace
Tim Winkler

(Emphasis is theirs--KSH).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

A spokesman for the presiding bishop on 18 Jan told Anglican Ink the national church had no comment to make about the litigation. However, Executive Council member, the Rev. Canon Mark Harris noted on his blog the “proposition that people who leave The Episcopal Church have a right to take the property and stuff with them” was false. The Episcopal Church was “hierarchical enough so that when you give something to The Episcopal Church (locally St. SaltyBottom in the Swamp) it stays with The Episcopal Church (on the most local level possible).”

The diocese, however, argues the belief the Episcopal Church is hierarchical body with the dioceses subordinate to the national church was historically false and legally suspect. “In fact, the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina helped to create the Episcopal Church in 1789 as a confederation of sovereign dioceses,” the diocesan statement said.

“The Diocese chose to disassociate from The Episcopal Church, but we did not leave behind more than $500 million in intellectual, personal or real property that was paid for by members of the Diocese through the 228 years of our existence,” Canon Lewis said.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Courage...is the indispensable requisite of any true ministry.... If you are afraid of men and a slave to their opinion, go and do something else. Go make shoes to fit them. Go even and paint pictures you know are bad but will suit their bad taste. But do not keep on all of your life preaching sermons which shall not say what God sent you to declare, but what they hire you to say. Be courageous. Be independent.

----Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, the 1877 Yale Lectures (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), p. 59

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics

O everlasting God, who didst reveal truth to thy servant Phillips Brooks, and didst so form and mold his mind and heart that he was able to mediate that truth with grace and power: Grant, we pray, that all whom thou dost call to preach the Gospel may steep themselves in thy word, and conform their lives to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer

St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin will bless a same-sex couple next month, possibly becoming the first Episcopal church in Texas to perform the groundbreaking liturgical rite....

Texas does not recognize same-sex unions, and the Episcopal Church stressed that the new rite does not “create or solemnize” any marriage, civil union or legal relationship.
Episcopal churches must request permission from the bishop and then complete a study program to offer same-sex blessings, according to Carol Barnwell, a spokeswoman for the Episcopal Diocese of Texas.
Barnwell said the bishop authorized St. David’s and St. Stephen’s to first offer the rite to see what the church could learn about improving the process through their experiences. She said she expected only about a handful of Episcopal churches, out of 153 in the diocese, will request permission to perform the ceremony.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

For more than 50 years, Bishop David Ball has visited the sick and dying in local hospitals, offering them healing prayers, a gentle touch and often a funny story to cheer them up.

Now, after a fall in July that broke the 86-year-old Episcopal prelate's neck but not his spirit, he finds himself in the unaccustomed position of being on the receiving end of so much proffered grace.

"I'm grateful and amazed by the kindness and skill of the care I'm receiving here," Ball said Friday afternoon at Albany Medical Center Hospital during a pause in a physical therapy session

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine

As the Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, I support the bill before the General Assembly that would allow same-sex couples to marry in our state, not in spite of my Christian faith, but because of it.

Episcopalians are not unanimous in our views, but in the Episcopal Church we find our unity in common prayer, not in common opinion. Even so, through many years of prayerful discussion, the majority of Christians in the Episcopal Church have come to believe that it is possible, and even common, for two people of the same-sex to live covenanted, faithful lives together in service to God, just as people in traditional marriages do. We have also learned that it is possible to protect the consciences of those who disagree within our church and still live together in community.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Noting that he is now in his 19th year as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE today announced his call for the election of a bishop coadjutor to succeed him upon his retirement. The proposed date for the electing convention is April 5, 2014.

“I love being your bishop and it is an honor to serve you,” Shaw said in a letter announcing his decision, sent today to diocesan clergy and leadership. “These years have been some of the richest years of my life. All of you and this work have taught me much about myself and the nature of our loving God for which I will always be grateful. I am full of gratitude for all that God has given us to do: the challenges God has offered us, the opportunities and all the experiences of God’s abundance which we have experienced in our life together.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

Citizens Against Casino Gaming and two area organizations are urging the City Council to pass a resolution to have a vote on the casino issue on the November municipal election ballot.

The Springfield-based anti-casino group was joined by The Council of Churches of Greater Springfield and the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts in seeking the November vote.

Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and the city’s chief development officer, Kevin E. Kennedy, have said that a casino vote is anticipated sometime between June and November.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Gambling • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

When the Episcopal Church voted last summer to allow the blessing of same-sex unions, many clergy and faithful in Wisconsin and the nation saw it as a major step toward the full inclusion of gay and lesbian members in the life of the church.

Six months later, the prior ban on same-sex blessings remains in effect in the southern third of the state covered by the Diocese of Milwaukee. Bishop Steven Miller has yet to decide whether he'll allow the provisional rite approved by the church to be used in its parishes. And the lack of a decision is frustrating many in a diocese that strongly supported the change.

"I have people here in my parish - faithful, committed Christians - who are partners in same-sex relationships and long to have their re lationships recognized by the church they love. So I'm really anxious to be able to do that," said the Rev. Andy Jones of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Madison, echoing the concerns of several pastors in the diocese.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Bishop Michael L. Vono of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, which includes El Paso, said the liturgy is an issue of human dignity that breaks barriers for the gay community.

"I'm very positive about it," he said. "We live in an age where there is still a lot of judgment, still a lot of discrimination that happens within Christianity. We exclude people that are not like ourselves.

"So this may be the Jesus thing to do in our age because Jesus forced the issue that no one is rejected by God and that all people are loved. And if you have two responsible people, whether heterosexual or gay, who love in a Christian way -- which is responsibly and exclusively monogamous and help each other and forgive each other -- what more can we ask for?"

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

With years of angst and controversy now done, the split of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina from the national church has brought clarity and allows the faithful to look to the future, Bishop Mark Lawrence said.

"We as a diocese can begin to dream," he said recently in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press. "We can dream of how God would have us fulfill our vision. We can dream of planting new churches and strengthening existing churches and working with Anglicans around the world."

The diocese in eastern and lower South Carolina, one of the oldest Episcopal dioceses in the nation, left the more liberal national church after years of disagreements over doctrine including the ordination of [non-celibate] gays.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * South Carolina • * Theology • Anthropology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology

When [my sister] called on Monday, December 10th to inform me that my mother was failing very quickly Allison and I immediately booked a flight for the next morning. We flew to LAX arriving just before noon, rented a car and made the three plus hour drive up the coast, all the while praying that we would arrive in time.

When we got to my sister’s house in Santa Margarita my mother (having insisted my sister have her up) was sitting on the couch with our daughter Adelia, who lives nearby. We spent an hour and a half together talking and laughing. She was lucid and in possession of her faculties, though it was an effort for her to speak. Around 5:00 p.m. she requested to go to bed. Our daughter later told us she thought my mother was going to die some 45 minutes before we arrived but she gently shook her awake and said, “Hold on grandma they are nearly here.” Later I went into her room and read some psalms to her. My brother-in-law soon joined me—I sitting on one side of the bed and he on the other as I read one psalm after another. At one point George and I began to talk about the current challenges the diocese and I were facing with the Episcopal Church. It soon became obvious my mother was listening. I had told her of the various developments in the past months so we she was aware of the challenges. I should tell you I grew up at Trinity United Methodist Church. My mother had been “Mrs. Methodist”—a delegate to District and National Conferences, President of her United Methodist Women and a recipient of the Bishop’s Award. So I looked at her and with a smile jokingly said—“Mom, I guess you were right, I should have stayed a Methodist!” She looked up at me with that knowing look, unable to say much, gave only nod. After dinner I went in and prayed with her the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, parting Prayers, and kissed her good night. As Allison observed later her body was entirely spent. By 5:00 a.m. the next morning, December 12, 2012 she had passed through the curtain that separates this life from that which is to come and into the glorious company of the saints in light.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * South Carolina • * Theology • Eschatology • Pastoral Theology

From here:

Replace Title IV, Canon 1—Ethical Standards
The proposed change would replace the current text of Title IV, Canon 1

Ethical Canon Draft Revision for the Diocese of Georgia’s Title IV, Canon 1 (“Ethical Standards”) currently reads: “Marriage between a man and a woman or abstinence from sexual activity are the only acceptable forms of sexual behavior for a Deacon, Priest or Bishop in the Diocese of Georgia.”

The proposed substitute from the Committee on Constitution & Canons is as follows:

Deacons, Priests, and Bishops in the Diocese of Georgia are called to be wholesome examples to the Church exhibiting the teachings and virtues of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Their personal lives must manifest faithfulness, monogamy, life-long commitment, mutual caring, and the healthy care of themselves and their families. Their public lives must show financial honesty, confidentiality as required, respect of interpersonal and professional boundaries, and the avoidance of fraud, deceit, or deliberate misrepresentations.

References for above:
The ordination rite of the BCP
Title IV, Canon 4

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • TEC Polity & Canons • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

If you have not seen this material, you need to. Read it all (16 page pdf).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Media • * South Carolina

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons

“Catholic teaching maintains that marriage is a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman joined in an intimate partnership of life and love—a union instituted by God for the mutual fulfillment of the husband and wife as well as for the procreation and education of children.

“Partnerships of committed same-sex individuals are already legal in California. Our state has also granted domestic partners spousal-type rights and responsibilities which facilitate their relationships with each other and any children they bring to the partnership. Every person involved in the family of domestic partners is a child of God and deserves respect in the eyes of the law and their community. However, those partnerships are not marriage—and can never be marriage—as it has been understood since the founding of the United States. Today’s decision of California’s high court opens the door for policymakers to deconstruct traditional marriage and create another institution under the guise of equal protection.

Read it all (note it is my emphasis) and check out the comments and look at the related postings here,here, here and there. Also, check out this valuable posting and the comments also.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

A tentative settlement has been reached in the “Fort Worth 7” and “Quincy 3” cases, sources close to the proceedings report. Details of the agreement will not been released until all parties endorse the agreement, the sources report, but the disposition of the dispute is being characterized as “amicable” AI has learned.

If the agreement is ratified, the settlement will conclude the largest mass disciplinary proceeding launched against bishops of the Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Polity & Canons

When Father Scott Hurd, vicar general of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter — a home in the Catholic Church for former Episcopalians and Anglicans — reflects back on 2012, he points to a period of rapid and exciting growth marking its first year of existence.

On New Year’s Day 2012, Pope Benedict XVI erected the ordinariate, which allows former Anglicans to retain certain treasured traditions within the Catholic Church. It was created in accord with Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Pope’s apostolic constitution permitting former Anglicans to come into the Church corporately instead of as individuals.

On the same day, the Holy Father named Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, a married Catholic priest and the former Episcopal bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande, as the first ordinary.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology • Ecclesiology

The Washington National Cathedral had been ready to embrace same-sex marriage for some time, though it took a series of recent events and a new leader for the prominent, 106-year-old church to announce Wednesday that it would begin hosting such nuptials.

The key development came last July when the Episcopal Church approved a ceremony for same-sex unions at its General Convention in Indianapolis, followed by the legalization of gay marriage in Maryland, which joined the District of Columbia. The national church made a special allowance for marriage ceremonies in states where gay marriage is legal.

Longtime same-sex marriage advocate the Very Rev. Gary Hall took over as the cathedral’s dean in October. Conversations began even before he arrived to clear the way for the ceremonies at the church that so often serves as a symbolic house of prayer for national celebrations and tragedies.

Read it all.

Update: An LA Times article is there also.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

A conciliation meeting concerning complaints involving the Episcopal Dioceses of Fort Worth and Quincy will be held on January 8 and 9 in Richmond, VA...

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Polity & Canons

The announcement comes six months after the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved a liturgy enabling priests to bless same-sex relationships with the approval of their bishops. The blessings are allowed both in states where same-sex marriages are legal or, as in the case of New Mexico, where they are not.

“It’s not a marriage in any way,” Vono said in an interview Sunday. “It’s not a legal marriage. It’s not a marriage in the church. This is a recognition of a commitment, which is a covenant, of two people who vow to live their lives in a monogamous relationship.”

The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande includes close to 60 congregations in New Mexico and part of western Texas.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

The trust and conviction behind these pastoral guidelines reflect the belief that the faithful, loving, and lifelong union of two persons of the same sex is capable of signifying the unconditional and never-failing love of God in Christ. I have come to both trust and believe that such unions can be sources and signs of grace and reconciliation not only for the church and the world, but also for a faithful couple seeking a covenanted spiritual life together in Christ. All baptized persons who confess the faith of Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior appropriately need to be surrounded by the prayers, witness, love, and fellowship of the Christian community. The body of Christ is one in witness to the Church’s baptismal promises. Diversity of perspectives and contrary mindedness on any particular contemporary or historic church issue does not divide us, but rather reveals the unique Christian charisma of our oneness in Christ within our diversity. As St. Paul teaches, the body can only function as wholeness within its unique differences.

For more than a century an historic shift and change, not unlike others in Church History in discerning Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, intentionally has been under way. Holy Scripture and human sciences have been in serious dialogue in addressing the mystery of human nature, human relationships, and the moral and ethical dignity of Christian intimate behaviors. The blessing of same-sex unions represents a shift from centuries of what the church and various societies in their cultural contexts have judged to be unacceptable. Yet, as we are all well aware, there have been several other highly historic controversial shifts in our church and world culture. In hindsight, these shifts have come to be seen as faithful responses to a deepening understanding and revelation of what it means to be human. These shifts revealed how God in Christ is reflected in loving human relationships and in community.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Episcopalians in Eastern North Carolina will soon be choosing a new bishop.

The Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniel III, bishop of the Episcopal Church’s East Carolina diocese since 1997, resigned Friday to become bishop provisional of the diocese of Pennsylvania. His resignation becomes effective Feb. 28.

“I do love and treasure our Diocese of East Carolina and count it as a privilege to serve as your bishop for these years,” Daniels said in a statement posted Friday at the diocese’s website. “I have confidence in the leadership of the standing committee going forward and in the skills and abilities of a wonderful and dedicated staff at Diocesan House.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

A number of S.C. Episcopal parishes, including Trinity Myrtle Beach and St. Paul’s Episcopal in Conway, joined the Diocese of South Carolina and the Trustees of the Diocese in a lawsuit filed Friday seeking to stop The Episcopal Church from trying to take the Diocese’s real and personal property as well as that of the parishes.

The suit also asks the court to stop The Episcopal Church from infringing on the protected marks of the Diocese, including its seal and historical names, and to prevent The Episcopal Church from assuming the Diocese’s identity.

“At its heart,” said Jim Lewis, the Diocese’s canon to the ordinary, “this is about freedom of religion.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina • * Theology

A South Carolina court has been asked “Who and what are Episcopalians and how is that church organized?” after the Diocese of South Carolina filed a lawsuit yesterday against the national Episcopal Church. The 65-page complaint asks the court to issue an injunction banning Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies in South Carolina from using the name or presuming to act on behalf of the diocese and further asks the court to affirm the legality of the diocese’s secession from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.

Filed on 4 January 2013 in the First Judicial Circuit Court in Dorchester County by the trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and 16 parishes, the complaint asks the civil courts to adjudicate the same general questions currently before the Texas Supreme Court in the Diocese of Fort Worth case. South Carolina has asked the court to... [legally scrutinize] Bishop Jefferts Schori’s claim the Episcopal Church of the United States of America is a hierarchical body with final authority vested in the national church.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

January 4, 2013

Dear Christ-St. Paul’s Parish Family,

Today we joined with the Diocese of South Carolina and the Trustees of the Diocese and some 20 plus other congregations in a lawsuit filed today in a South Carolina Circuit Court seeking a declaratory judgment against The Episcopal Church to protect the Diocese’s real and personal property and that of its parishes, including Christ-St. Paul’s. The parishes participating in the suit, along with the other supporting parishes, represent 74 percent of the members in the Diocese.

The suit asks the court to prevent The Episcopal Church from infringing on the protected marks of the Diocese, including its seal and its historical names, and to prevent The Episcopal Church from assuming the Diocese’s identity, established long before The Episcopal Church’s creation.

Our vestry unanimously voted to join in this action to not only protect our property, but the properties of the Diocese and the other congregations. When the Diocese disassociated from The Episcopal Church it didn’t become a new entity, The Diocese of South Carolina was established in 1785 as an independent, voluntary association that grew from the missionary work of the Church of England. It was incorporated in 1973; and adopted the current legal name, ‘The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina. While the Diocese has disassociated from The Episcopal Church, it remains a part of the Anglican Communion.

The Episcopal Church has spent more than $22 million on legal action, filing at least 75 lawsuits against the four other dioceses and 200 congregations that have disassociated from the church. The suits have sought to seize the property of local parishes. Today’s suit is pre-emptively filed to protect diocesan and parish property in the wake of our disassociation.

As you know the Episcopal Church has already begun an effort to adopt the Diocese of South Carolina’s identity by calling for a convention to identify new leadership for the Diocese and creating a website and other material using the Diocesan seal.
We joined with our Diocesan family in taking this legal action to protect the legacy of generations of faithful Christ-St. Paul’s members and especially for future generations of worshipers, who want to follow Jesus, place their trust in His Word and remain faithful to His teaching as we received them in our Anglican heritage. Unfortunately to do that, we must do so outside The Episcopal Church.
This Sunday we will have a special Adult Forum following our Big Breakfast, where I, our chancellor, and members of the vestry can address any questions you might have. I ask your continued prayers for Bishop Lawrence, the other clergy and congregations in our Diocese, our vestry, Fr Kendall and me.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

(The Rev.) Craige Borrett is rector, Christ Saint Paul's, Yonges Island, South Carolina.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

The Diocese of South Carolina is made up of 71 parishes with approximately 30,000 members. It says the parishes participating in the suit, along with the other supporting parishes, represent 74 percent of the members in the diocese.

Orangeburg’s Church of the Redeemer is one of the parishes that has signed on to the lawsuit.

“In 1857, the parishioners of the Church of the Redeemer built our first building on Boulevard across from the railroad tracks. In 1891, they put the church on logs and rolled it to its present site on Russell Street,” said the Rev. Dr. Frank E. Larisey, rector of the Church of the Redeemer....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina

WCIV-TV | ABC News 4 - Charleston News, Sports, Weather

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * South Carolina

Officials of the Diocese of South Carolina said Friday that they filed a lawsuit against The Episcopal Church, saying it needs to protect its property from the national body.

A statement from the diocese said the lawsuit was filed in South Carolina Circuit Court. It also seeks to prevent The Episcopal Church from infringing on the protected marks of the Diocese, including its seal and its historical names.

"The Episcopal Church has every right to have a presence in the area served by our Diocese - but it does not have a right to use our identity. The Episcopal Church must create a new entity," the Rev. Jim Lewis said in a statement.

Spokesman Neva Rae Fox said Friday that The Episcopal Church has not received the lawsuit and cannot comment.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

What is God like? God is like Christmas! It’s just like God to get the good news to the shepherds first. Who were these guys? They were working the late-night shift. Day laborers but at night. Guys trying to make a buck. No pedigrees. Outside of the city.
Outside of the system.

That’s who gets the light show, the angelic choir concert and the word first. By right the announcement should have happened in the temple, with all the people like me standing around. But it doesn’t. And we can’t tell God how God should be God. Isaiah said it best, “Our thoughts are not his thoughts; neither are our ways his ways.” What can God possibly be up to by this? It has to be that God wants to jar our sense of order so we might finally be open to his order, “to a more excellent way.” And new ways and new openness are born in the imagination. God wants our imaginations. That’s got to be it.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics

he stage is sizzling. The crowd is howling and stamping its feet. The energy makes your skin crawl.

What do you do when your act follows that of a rock star? If Robert Hirschfeld knows one thing, he knows not to imitate the last act.

Hirschfeld becomes the full-fledged 10th Episcopal Bishop for the state of New Hampshire on Saturday in an investiture ceremony that will include several Episcopal bishops, including his predecessor, outgoing Bishop Gene Robinson.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals

“Part of the sadness of this conflict is that a lot of people of different stripes felt themselves abused and weakened,” [Dorsey] McConnell said, adding that he will “strive less for grand theological consensus than for basic pastoral care.”

“I want people to know I love them and I pray for them and I don’t want anyone ostracized from any conversation.”

The new bishop is enthusiastic about the city that has called him as its first non-provisional bishop since Bishop Duncan helped found the ACNA.

“Pittsburgh has become a very young and cool place. There’s a wide open mission field,” he said. “Everybody out there is looking for two things: they’re looking for mercy and they’re looking for hope. I’m definitely a missionary bishop and this is a missionary diocese.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Pittsburgh • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

Pulling into the filling station on my way to Newtown in the early afternoon last Friday, the woman at the gas pump next to me asked: "How do we make sense of all of this?" She was a young mother, with tears in her eyes, on her way to our local elementary school to collect her children. She noticed my clerical collar and felt free to engage me about the horror and tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

My response to the young mother's question was that there was no way we could make sense of what had happened. No explanation or rationale could assuage our shock, pain and grief. As a religious leader, I knew that my job was not to try and make sense of what had happened. Rather my job was to be there, simply be there, with those who had lost loved ones in the terrible rampage.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theodicy

There was a time, early in my episcopate, when it looked like the choice was either inclusion or communion. It looked binary, with no gradations between these two poles, and it looked as if it might be that way for a long time. The season after General Convention in 2003 was fractious, to say the least. Now, however, it looks like both inclusion and communion are available to us, at least provisionally. There are still issues of maintaining unity, both in our common life in this Diocese and in the lives of many of our congregations. I know this. And we must keep an eye on the horizon of the Anglican Communion.

But things are also changing, and changing much more quickly than I could have imagined. In the eighteen months following General Convention in 2003, for example, issues of human sexuality took over my life. Letters, phone calls, meetings, and email. Oh my the email. After Mary Glasspool’s election and consent to become bishop suffragan in Los Angeles in 2010, only seven years later, I got exactly one email. One. No one even took the trouble to ask me if I gave consent, or not. Something had shifted.

Read it all if you did not last time.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Ecclesiology

The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, received a letter of support, dated December 14, 2012, from the Steering Committee of the Primates of the Global South of the Anglican Communion. The show of support, signed by The Most Revd Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East; The Most Revd Nicholas Okoh, Primate of All Nigeria; The Most Revd Ian Ernest, Primate of the Indian Ocean; The Most Revd Datuk Bolly Lapok, Primate of South East Asia; The Most Revd Stephen Than Myint Oo, Primate of Myanmar; The Most Revd Dr. Eluid Wabukala, Primate of Kenya and The Most Revd Hector “Tito” Zavala, Primate of the Southern Cone recognizes Bishop Lawrence's Episcopal orders and his legitimate Episcopal oversight of the Diocese of South Carolina within the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Primates • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • Global South Churches & Primates • * Theology

Dear Friends in Christ:

We are shocked and overwhelmed by the horrendous tragedy of the school shooting in Sandy Hook. We hold the victims, their families, and all who are affected by the shooting in our thoughts and prayers for healing and strength. We pray that those who have died will be held in the arms of our loving God whose heart aches for those affected by this tragedy.

We bishops have been in touch with the Rev. Mark Moore, the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Sandy Hook which is adjacent to the school were the shooting took place. We have also communicated with the leadership of Trinity Church, Newtown, and we understand that the Rev. Kathie Adams-Shepherd, rector of Trinity Church is on the scene ministering to the bereaved.

We are departing immediately for Newtown/Sandy Hook to be of whatever assistance we can. We will be in contact when we have additional information.

We invite all clergy to open our churches for prayer.

Please keep all who have died, the one who has perpetrated the shooting, and all affected by this incident in your prayers. May the God who we await this Advent season bring us hope and new life in Jesus the Christ.

Faithfully, Ian, Laura and Jim

The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens
The Rt. Rev. James E. Curry

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Children • Education • Violence

"I support blessing same-sex unions, but some of my faithful fellow Episcopalians do not," Rowe said in a statement. "The Episcopal Church in northwestern Pennsylvania is a place where people of good conscience can disagree charitably about such matters. We respect and love each other, and we are united in the hope and healing of Jesus Christ."

Read it all and see the diocesan guidelines there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

This is a difficult time for the wider church, not just St. George's. The diocese is looking at all of our ministries and what our response might be to the world in which we now find ourselves witnessing. One thing is certain, the way we have done church the past 200 years is not working now.

Given your family history at Spesutia Parish, I can only imagine how this must feel. Just as your ancestors were the leaders who made decisions in their time, this is our time. We are the leaders who have been entrusted with the stewardship of the church. As the chief steward of the diocese, the bishop takes very seriously his charge.

That episcopal stewardship extends to all property in the diocese. Each parish holds its property in trust for the diocese and each diocese, in turn, holds all church property in trust for The Episcopal Church. That is a matter of canon law.

Read both letters carefully.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship

The decision to allow same-sex blessings did not surprise St. James Episcopal Reverend John Mark Wiggers.

"Our church was moving in this direction for a while and so I expected this to happen, that we would approve a rite of same-sex blessing," he said.

He said the church's evolution has also impacted whether some of it members stay loyal to its teachings.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships

A committee has been formed to create recommendations for how Oklahoma Episcopalians will respond to a same-sex liturgical blessing approved by the Episcopal Church USA earlier this year.

The Rt. Rev. Edward Konieczny, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, said he created the committee of clergy and lay people to ensure that Episcopal parishioners across the state have a say in how the same-sex rites are administered in the diocese. The committee is set to meet for the first time in a retreat Friday through Dec. 15....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Bishops • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Founded in 1872, Louisville’s Woodcock Foundation has given scholarship money to needy college students for the past 50 years.

With assets that once totaled about $1.5 million, the Episcopal-church-affiliated charity gave away nearly $500,000 in the past five years alone to 60 to 70 students a year.

But now the foundation — named after the third bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, the Right Rev. Charles Edward Woodcock — has only $8, and students who were awarded scholarships last year never got their money.

Makes the heart sad--read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Law & Legal Issues • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Bishop Lawrence and his family are requesting prayer for the Bishop's mother, Bertha Ann Lawrence, who is gravely ill. We are also asking for traveling mercies for the Lawrences as they travel to be with her.

Almighty God, look on this your servant, Bertha,
lying in great weakness and comfort her with the promise of life everlasting,
given in the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • Children • Health & Medicine • Marriage & Family

From here:

Following the announcement that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church plans a trip to Charleston for a January 25-26 convention of those wishing to re-associate with the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of South Carolina released the following statements:

“They are certainly free to gather and meet, but they are not free to assume our identity. The Diocese of South Carolina has disassociated from the Episcopal Church, we’ve not ceased to exist. We continue to be the Diocese of South Carolina – also known, legally as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina and as the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, of which I remain the Bishop. We are eager to get on with the ministry of Jesus Christ to a broken world! I suggest that the Steering Committee of this new group will want to do the same. A good first step for them would be to select a new name or choose another Diocese with which to associate.”

The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence
XIV Bishop, Diocese of South Carolina

“I would like to make a point of clarification for those who think we became a new entity upon our disassociation. A brief history lesson seems in order. We were founded in 1785 (prior to the founding of the Episcopal Church). We were incorporated in 1973; adopted our current legal name, “The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina,” in 1987; and we disassociated from the Episcopal Church in October of 2012. We did not become a new entity upon our disassociation. A new entity will need to be created by those who choose to leave the Diocese and re-associate with the Episcopal Church.”
The Rev. Canon Jim Lewis
Canon to the Ordinary, Diocese of South Carolina



“They insist on what others must do yet there is no written standard to support them, and at the same time they run roughshod over their own constitution and canons. They have created a tails we win, heads you lose world where the rules are adjusted according to their desired outcomes--no wonder we dissociated from a community like that.”
The Rev. Dr. Kendall S. Harmon
Canon Theologian, Diocese of South Carolina

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

I have been asked by our Vestry and a number of our members to publically state my position on recent events between the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and the national Episcopal Church. For the past four years I have attempted to teach and clarify issues as objectively as I could as they arose between the Worldwide Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church and our Diocese. I will continue to do that in the two upcoming congregational meetings. So there will be no confusion however I will now make a summary of my own thoughts clear.

Read it all (page 6 of pdf).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * South Carolina • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • * South Carolina

Read it all and there is more here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: South Carolina • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils • TEC Polity & Canons • * South Carolina • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Episcopal priests soon will be authorized to perform church weddings for gay couples in Washington – the latest example of the American branch of Anglicanism striving to be more inclusive and diverse.

On Friday, a day after the first same-sex couples received marriage licenses in Spokane County, the top leader of the Episcopal Church arrived in Spokane to begin a three-day swing through the Inland Northwest.

“I know it’s something that many people in the church and beyond the church have been working for for a long time,” the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the church, said in an interview Friday.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology