Unfortunately, it can’t be read unless you suscribe to the Charleston Post and Courier.

I opened the full artice and I do not subscribe. I did not read it though as I would have thrown up my breakfast.

The article makes it seem as if the Diocese of South Carolina is somehow in the wrong because it believes that scripture contains all that is necessary for salvation.  Err ... isn’t that article VI of the 39 articles in the BCP?

“Most human communities, from churches to governments to families, function more effectively in response to shared decision-making,” Jefferts Schori said. “Over and over again, we’ve discovered that better decisions are made when they’re made in communities with appropriate checks and balances. Power assumed by one authority figure alone is often a recipe for abuse, tyranny and corruption.”—correct me if I am wrong, but did not the laity and clergy of the diocese of SC pass overwhelmingly those resolutions which led her to inhibit Bishop Lawrence and all this mess?

If she is saying that TEC is another human community, then I agree with her for a change.

Jefferts Schori: “Power assumed by one authority figure alone is often a recipe for abuse, tyranny and corruption.”

This from the woman who has consistently violated canon law and the constitution of TEC in order to abrogate to herself metropolitan powers?  I guess she is the current expert on how to put oneself into a position to depose fellow bishops, and rain abuse, tyranny and corruption upon the church.

“...our work is God’s work…”- a very telling turn of phrase.  As opposed to: God’s work is our work.

The way she phrased it, the General Convention (or maybe she meant herself and Gay Jennings) decide what work needs to be done, and God gets about the business of carrying it out.  Even Jake and Elwood Blues knew they were on a mission from God, not the other way around.

Were those from “continuing parishes” (those parishes that are staying with the original Diocese) authorized to do so by those parishes? I know that Holy Comforter in Sumter did not authorize anyone to speak for our parish at this so called special convention.

LOL, oops, in #6 above, I of course meant to say “...aggregate to herself metropolitan powers….”, not “abrogate.”

#3, Terry Tee, yes, but then ECUSA has been moving away from the Thirty-Nine articles for a long time.  This news article makes it sound as if the Diocese of SC (+Lawrence) rejects Tradition and reason.  They have somehow become Baptist fundamentalists in the eyes of the ECUSA folks and this reporter.

The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, president of the church’s House of Deputies, told attendees that comprehensiveness is a gift from God, citing the Anglican “middle way.”

“Follow the Anglican middle way and it will guide you between extremes in the company of Christians from all walks of life and all gifts of the Spirit,” she said. “The middle way is seldom the easiest path. It is easier to walk apart, surrounded by people who look like you, and think like you, and believe like you. But if you travel the middle way, you will find the fruits of the Spirit.”

Unfortunately, the middle way Gay is following is looking extremely homogeneous and incomprehensible to this observer.

I would like top thank her (Gay) for providing an additional entry to the Revisionist Dictionary, comprehensiveness. My only problem is that the revisionist definition of comprehensiveness might be incomprehesible to all but the most tortured thought processes.

New diocese, first bishop. Exactly.

Liberals of every kind, and practicing homosexual couples, will flock from all over the Low Country to be part of this new thing, and I’m sure that the diocese, its missions, and its parishes will be self-sustaining by next week.

#8 makes an interesting point. Were those official delegates? I suppose that if they were seated without objection, then that makes them official. If I were the rector of a DioSC parish, and if I were to learn that a parishioner had falsely represented the parish at the TEC-fest, I would call him/her into my office to discuss why he/she should not be excommunicated from the parish.

I wonder what Bonhoeffer might say to the PB about the need for “inclusiveness and accommodation… in a changing world.” I wonder how long she would last in a debate with Eric Metaxas. Perhaps, 10 seconds.

Also Ralph, how did they arrive at what constitutes a quorum? If they would lay claim to DSC’s churches, then many of those delgates would have needed to be present to have a quorum would they not?

Terry Tee (@ comment #3),
You are precisely correct in your observation. I have just been the first person to post a comment to that very effect at the newspaper’s online version of the article. Due to my haste in typing there are a few typographical errors, but the sense of my comment is, I believe, still quite clear.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Blue Cat Man (@ comment #1),

I have no subscription, have never before read or purchased so much as one copy of the paper, yet I was able both to read and to comment on the article. Perhaps that has something to do with my geographic location being far to the WNW of Charleston (namely, in the Seattle area, and readily determinable on the ‘net).

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

tjmcmahon (@ comments 6 & 7),

She is simply demonstrating, yet again, that my characterization of her in 2008 was, on the whole, an accurate assessment: Measured by her actions (i.e., the fruits of her work) she is an autocrat, a flouter of the law (not to mention of the very concept of the Rule of Law), and a brigand. There are really no surprises in this latest incident.

Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer

Forget the 39 Articles (nearly everyone has): what about the pledge at ordination in the 1979 BCP?

“I solemnly declare that I
do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to
salvation;”

Nope. No can do. Tried again. Up pops a box saying that you need suscribe to the Charleston Post and Courier. Perhaps they know we are part of Bishop Lawrence’s diocese and as such are forbidden access.

Most papers are now allowing a certain number of page views per month.  When you exceed that number, they want you to subscribe.  Those of you in SC may have already clicked on enough Post and Courier articles this month to put you over the limit.  Those of us outside your area only click on their links when Kendall links to a story which is interesting to us, so we are able to see this one.

i got in no problem- try using privacy mode in your browser.

17.  James Manley, neither the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion nor the pledge of ordination in the 1979 BCP mean anything to Katharine Jefferts Schori and the rest of the ruling clique of TEC.  The Thirty-nine Articles went into the trash can years ago, and ditto for the ordination pledge.

Two comments here. I was once in the employ of the board of a fairly large university and the reporter’s comment about the existing Diocese and scripture and reasons relating to departures from the Episcopal Church brought to mind a remark the university’s president once made to me concerning reporters who would always be present to cover open sessions of university board meetings. The president mentioned that reporters were generally not that interested in some matters—he referred in particular to budgetary of financial matters—that were of great importance to the university and the entire state. Such matters simply didn’t seem as exciting to the reporters as other matters, and, consequently, those matters would not elicit the attention they deserved. The president’s remarks were confirmed to my satisfaction when I remember watching one reporter during some board discussions and, as I recall, watching him leave the room once during a budgetary discussion, my impression on his return was that he did seem to reflect a boredom with the matter under discussion. Although I have no knowledge of Mr. Parker’s background or interests relating to the article, I did find that his treatment of the “other side” of recent events relating to the diocese and the Episcopal Church was so terse and close to dismissive in nature as to cry out for supplementary coverage.

In addition, I find Bishop von Rosenberg (sp.?)‘s statement regarding a “wide” tent covering the Episcopal Church akin to a verse from a nostalgic, forgotten old ballad that’s now just a blip on the musical radar. There may indeed by some sort of a tent involved here (there certainly is indeed something creating a stifling atmosphere) , however, it’s more apropos to note that the widest item one notices in today’s Episcopal Church is the exit door for the “unwelcome” of so many who seek to express and/or acting on beliefs. It’s one thing, of course, to be proud of a theoretical freedom of belief (doesn’t Screwtape even come to mind here?), but isn’t the rub really how one is treated when it’s a matter of expressing and/or acting in accordance with one’s beliefs?

#13, my guess is that a quorum is what the president of the meeting declares it is, unless challenged from the floor.

IMHO, they ought to have waited a week. While I suspect that the TRO will be affirmed on Friday, I suppose there’s a small chance that it will not. If it were to expire, then would be the time to have the meeting.

As it is, they seem to have organized an entirely new diocese of TEC, and elected its first bishop. As others have noted, that would seem to have weakened their position immensely.

#23 Ralph,

I don’t guess they will apply for membership as a new Diocese in TEC at the next GC. That would be the right thing to do from a TEC rules and regs point of view, but would weaken their arguments in court further.

Until they are legally recognized by TEC as a new diocese two and a half years form now, I guess they are operating extra-provincially as well, and should by their own definition they have removed themselves from the Anglican Communion.

Pity.

Too many typos… Sorry elves…

RE: “Liberals of every kind, and practicing homosexual couples, will flock . . . “

Well . . . those liberals and non-celibate gays who are interested in a spiritual vision of the world, and in some sort of organization associated with liturgy. 

In other words, very very few liberals.

If there’s one thing that TECusa and other denominations demonstrate it’s that there is a very very very very teensy “market” for their particular customized little gospel.

Sarah is spot-on.  I am sure a great many liberals of the “spiritual but not religious” variety will be very pleased and some may even write letters to newspapers praising the new tolerant, inclusive and liberal church body.  But then….well, they are “spiritual and not religious” and really have no interest at all in joining a church.