I have the ultimate respect for those who take a stand. My gripe is with those who take a stand and, while they’re at it, take church property with them.

Klaxon,
Who purchased that property?  Who improved it?  Who built buildings?  Who paid the utility bills, the repairs, the gardening, the taxes (where applicable)?
I’d have far more respect for TEC’s “it’s our property” song-and-dance if it bore the burdens of ownership instead of just claiming the benefits.  Real “hierarchical” churches (like the Mormon Church and RCC) do just that.  Every Mormon building, facility, church, and so forth is owned by the Corporation Sole back in Salt Lake; and when a hurricane tears the roof off the building, a check arrives from Salt Lake.  In TEC, the local church is apt to get the answer, “have a bake sale, or at most, we’ll give you a loan.”

Klaxon:  The question, of course, is “which church’s property is it?”  Just because one organization unilaterally declares itself the owner of another’s property does not make it so.  It will be up to the secular courts to decide.

I can’t access the link, I get the message
Bad Gateway
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.

I’ll try later from another computer.

Well #1, I think the Vatican feels the same about St Paul’s, Lambeth Palace, Westminster and no small measure of parishes dotting the English countryside.

——-

Bless you +Duncan, may the Lord give you the grace to remain faithful to those words.

#4, I posted the brief, but pointed, response HERE

Bravo!  A man of few words.  His actions speak so much louder than his words!  I’m not a sheep of his fold but I’m next in line along with many others.
Does this reminded you of Bishop Stephen H. Jecko who would not compromise his faith in THE One Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?  May his soul rest in peace. 
jj

Here I stand. I can do no other.

I don’t get it - is he becoming a Lutheran?

If we follow leaders like Bp. Duncan, we need to do it having read the Gospel for All Saints’ and taken it to heart.  The blessed and faithful way is costly and painful:
http://northernplainsanglicans.blogspot.com/2007/11/pretty-ugly.html

Thanks, Jeffersonian! 

Brian
with his “pax et bonum” it sounds as if he’s becoming FRANCISCAN!
(That’s their salutation, in case one didn’t know.)

#8, +Duncan is standing clearly on theological grounds which are the basis of Christian faith.  He has chosen not to engage by hiding behind today’s understanding of canons and secular constructs.

As has been said by others, brevity is the soul of wit.  It is also in this case, the soul of truth.  It leaves nothing to spin, or try to read into the text.

God Bless you Bishop Duncan. 
The Rev. David Terwilliger

Two rives come together Protestant and Catholic ... now in this symbolism which is the Ohio, I wonder?

# 8: ‘I don’t get it’
Dixisti.

#13 David Terwilliger+
Are you related to + Robert Terwilliger, one time Suffragan Bishop of NY?

# 11; the Tec (San) Franciscan (values) ‘salutation’ in reply is ‘pox et ban ‘em!’

#8I don’t get it
Maybe that’s because you’re not truly listening.

It was a joke people!

I wish soon to be Mr. Duncan well!

Geez.

Let’s lighten up, Folks.

Let me enlighten (and earn my name):

Brian is refering to the opening of the letter: “Here I stand, I can do no other” which is a quote from Martin Luther’s concluding remarks at the Diet of Worms in May, 1521.

KAR’s remarks of the “two rivers coming together” is in response to my adding “Pax et Bonum” is the salutation of the Franciscans (originally only a Catholic, but as Br. Michael can attest, has found a following among Episcopalians as well recently) .

Thus, Luther and St. Francis, together in one dynamic statement—both of whom were reformers of a corrupt church in their times.

Pax et bonum!
Jim <><

one correction:
originally only a Catholic order.

close to going home time, so I’m typing faster then usual

Hier stehe ich. Ich kann keinen anderen tun.

I don’t necessarily approve of (or completely understand, legally and ecclesiologically) what +Duncan wants to do in leading his diocese out of TEC, but God bless him, he’s got some guts!

Randall

Reading the letter from the presiding bishop, it is clear she is asking Bishop Bob not to pass canonical amendments. Never in the letter does she ask him to recant his faith, to change is critisism, to stop advocating to reform. Instead it is a plea not to do something that might jepordize both the diocese Bob leads and his standing as a Bishop in the church that made him one.  The jepordy is not about his faith it is about property, ownership, and the bounds of canons all of which Bob has been operating under for decades. The presiding bishop is keeping order as she is expected too.  She has given him a choice not to act illegally against the canons of the church he made vows to uphold.

The qoute from Luther ““Here I stand, I can do no other” was in refrence to a time when Luther was being forced to recant his critic of the church. Btw, it ends with,  “God help me.”

From the Francis- Pax et Bonum, is a refrence to someone who sought to reform the church by serving the poor (MDGs anyone?) and greeting everyone on the road by this salutation.

I greive for the church and for the diocese of pittsburgh.

I’m not getting something here. When I was taking adult confirmation classes way back in the fifties, I was told pretty forcefully that Jesus Christ was the head of the Episcopal Church. Take heart all who, like Bishop Duncan, are being attacked. May the words of St. Thomas Aquinas give courage to all true believers:
“Oh saving Victim open wide
the gate of heaven to all below;
our foes press on from every side;
thine aid supply; thy strength bestow.
All praise and thanks to the ascend
for evermore blest One in Three;
O grant us life that shall not end
In our true native land with thee.”

Clearly +Duncan believes that his flock is endangered.  I do not agree with that assessment, but the fact that he could get here says a good deal about the condition of the church.  Its not like he is alone in his conclusions.

Plainsparsons analysis is worth considering.  All I can say is that those that call on Luther in such a public way take a heavy, heavy burden on themselves.  I would not presume to say that +Duncan does not understand that.

Randall

+Duncun’s flock is cleary endangered by TEC’s theology.  +Duncun clearly believes that his oath to the Faith Once Delivered and TEC are incompatible (and they are).  A resignation would be an abandonment of his duty to his flock.  He is attempting to lead them and others to a safer place theologically speaking.  TEC will of course act in a heavy handed fashion and let loose the dogs of war -twas always so with leftists with power.

It feels like July 1914.  The General Staff at 815 is even now mobilizing its legal army to implement the Schlieffen Plan.  War is inevitable and no one quite comprehends the consequences except that they will be terrible.  The outcome is uncertain, and temporal victory is by no means assured.  And yet ‘beyond the dim unknown standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above his own.’

carl

BCP28 writes, “Clearly +Duncan believes that his flock is endangered.  I do not agree with that assessment, but the fact that he could get here says a good deal about the condition of the church.”

Maybe you need to head over to Stand Firm and see the videos of Bp Andrus participating in the pornographic parade. The probability of a child raised in the worldly Episcopal church maintaining his faith into adulthood is approaching an infinitesimally small chance. A church that can’t even keep their (very few) children from turning away is certainly doomed. So yes, Bp Duncan’s flock is very much in danger.

Plainsparson is absolutely correct. Schori’s letter was all about canon law and property. Bp Duncan’s reply was all about maintaining faith and caring for the spiritual welfare of the Christian souls in his charge.

I think the Vatican feels the same about St Paul’s, Lambeth Palace, Westminster and no small measure of parishes dotting the English countryside.

I think we are pretty much over it, KAR, although if you guys want to sign the buildings over… well, I don’t think we’d say no. 

I saw the video of + Andrus.  The reality is that he is in San Francisco, not in Pittsburgh.  My family is from about 4 hours south of Pitt, and they could care less about the gay-friendly American Baptist churches out there.

Yes there is a difference between Baptists and Episcopalians, I am here for a reason, after all, but you do have to keep some kind of perspective about this.

My undestanding was tht there is no proof tht Luther actually said the Ich kann nicht anders business. Am I wrong about this? In any case, the bishop’s remark stuck me as pretentious and a little precious. To be sure, if I had been in his shoes, I would surely have had said something much stronger, but the brevity of response is admirable. 
LM

plainsparson :

I note, with a little bemusement that you didn’t choose to swear on this site as you just did on SF.  Interesting.

Re:  Delineation -

Yes, well said.  PB Shori is all about canons and law and B. Duncan is all about standing for the Gospel of Christ - couldn’t have said better myself.  It is the entire problem between TEC and the rest of the Anglican Communion in a nutshell.

And now Lady MacBeth doth plan the demise of our good Duncan.

God bless and keep you, Bishop Duncan. This is the first time in quite a while, I’ve felt optimistic about the Episcopal Church. The Holy Spirit is at work…..in Pittsburgh.

On the matter of taking or leaving property from the earliest posts on this string:
Those who put their trust in the Dennis Canon need to remember that it didn’t exist until about thirty years ago.  It is an unholy tool of intimidation from its origin to the present.  Its original purpose was to intimidate parishes, not dioceses, and the presenting cause was WO.  Of course, the canon was predicated on the notion that Episcopalians value their property more than the Christian Faith. For many in TEC the canon works; stuff matters more than truth.

The good news is that at least some Episcopalians value truth over property so much that they are willing to leave their property if they must.  But, why should they roll over just because someone says so.  It is so tiresome to hear about property being stolen; settling the matter by negotiation or in court finally determines ownership.  I don’t have a personal stake in church property anywhere; I’ve served in too many places.  I prefer the approach to settle or walk away. Vestries and communicants are a different story; they have paid the bills for decades and even centuries—long before the very clever lawyer-bishop Dennis thought up the implied trust.

I can remember Bishop Bill Wantland saying, about the Dennis Canon many years ago, “If someone you barely know walks up to you on the street and says: ‘Hi, I own your house and your bank accoun!’ are you going to give them to them because they say so?”

I doubt that the Dennis canon, or Katherine Schori’s corrupt tribunals are in Bishop Bob’s thinking tonight.  Bless you, Bob.  Thank you.

#29. I really have to disagree with our assessment. Nothing terrible is going to happen tht has not happened already. There will be no blitzkrieg. The lawyers will lawyerate, money will change hands, dioceses will leave or not leave,and this particular world will end, not with a bang but with a whimper.
Schori does not have the army, the power or the generals to muster a bloody war, and her conscripts are leaving, some taking their guns and uniforms with them. To be sure, the hot air generated iin the past will not lessen - it may increase - but it will burn no one very much. The issues at stake here - esp. the issue of what to do with homosexuality - which is country wide and of real cultural importance -  will tell us whether America still has the power to discipline itselfm but TEC itself is now a matter of no consequence. They have marginalized themselves, and there is no returning to the center. LM

Re #29 May 815 have the same ultimate outcome as von Schlieffen.

“Pax et bonum” is indeed Franciscan.  The TEC hammer will fall heavily on Bishop Duncan and the Diocese of Pittsburg.  I do wish them “Peace and all that is Good.”

jamesw #3: I agree with you in every respect!

“Just because one organization unilaterally declares itself the owner of another’s property does not make it so.  It will be up to the secular courts to decide.”

#30 Among the children to which you refer are my own.  I would match their holy, unassuming, compassionate, and joyful faith against your bitter self-righteousness any day.  The only danger is in deluding our children into believing that those like Bsp Duncan are heroic examples and champions of the faith.

Bishop Duncan is a Mensch!

#2 Ouroboros:
You ask interesting questions:

Who purchased that property?  Who improved it?  Who built buildings?  Who paid the utility bills, the repairs, the gardening, the taxes (where applicable)?

But you do not ask the relevent question: Who owns the property?

#42, “The only danger is in deluding our children into believing that those like Bsp Duncan are heroic examples and champions of the faith.”

And how is it a delusion to believe that Bsp Duncan is not representing the Faith?

One wonders who is really delusional…

Let’s not get too personal, please.

Elves,  you are right.  I should not have drudged the depths the other posters have. It wasn’t helpful.

However, my question still stands for Makersmarc.

Larry

The full quote is supposed to be:

Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me.  Amen.

Modern scholars believe that of these words attributed to Luther at the Diet of Worms, only God help me.  Amen. were actually spoken.  The reasoning is that those are the only words cited in contemporary accounts.

Rolling Eyes

You asked a different question.

Makersmarc claimed that to consider +Duncan’s actions to be heroic is delusional.

Your question (I’m assuming you meant to ask how is it not delusional) relates to +Duncan representing the Faith.

Sorry, Elves, but when you begin drawing children (which include mine) into the discussion in something other than a rhetorical way, it gets personal.  I know #30 made a general reference, but that’s always part of the problem; it’s a gross overgeneralization, but still includes my own kids who are beacons of the light of Christ.

Slightly edited by elf. Don’t push your luck with such negative remarks about Bp..Duncan.

#49: “You asked a different question.”

And it wasn’t asked of you.  With all due respect, I think Makersmarc is capable of responding on his own.

The question, of course, is “which church’s property is it?”

Funny! They’re never interested in getting their hands on the Church cemeteries . . . unless they’re in downtown Manhattan. They’ve already gotten their money out of the people who are interred there.

Also posted at Stand Fim: 
Bishop Duncan, Sir, great and awesome hosts of the church triumphant and militant stand with you and the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  Please inform us how we can best serve and aid in battle with you all.  In signo crucis vinces.

Klaxon—the question of property ownership is complicated; it will differ from state to state and even parish to parish.  Deeds differ from parish to parish.  SCOTUS gives state courts the right to decide whether they will apply church law or neutral property law.  The Dennis Cannon has yet to be upheld by any state court—even in NY, where the law is extremely favorable to the diocese, , the state court has refused to uphold the Dennis Cannon.  In short, there is no reason for departing parishes to meekly follow the pronouncements of David Beers and abandon what may well turn out to be legally theirs.  Even by secular standards, this is a situation that cries out for compromise, or perhaps mediated arbitration, rather than 815’s claims of “Mine, mine, all mine!”.

In Newark #54:
From what I have experienced, it is only a fraction of the cries of “Mine, mine, mine!” that emanate from the national church. My Episcopal parish now worships in borrowed space, graciously lent to us by a church of another denomination, because the repeated claims of “Mine! Mine! Mine!” by my former rector and vestry forced the congregation to take up the song.

She has given him a choice not to act illegally against the canons of the church he made vows to uphold.

Gee, 815, the P.B. and the HOB have been telling us all that “Conventions make policy, not the Bishops.”  Why, ++Katharine herself stated that she was powerless to enact anything demanded of TEC by the Primates. If I’m not mistaken, +Bob Duncan can only act upon that which the Diocesan Convention authorizes, in much the same way as the P.B.‘s claims her relationship is with the TEC G.C..

What has he done that’s illegal?

#56

You’re mistaken.

From what I have experienced, it is only a fraction of the cries of “Mine, mine, mine!” that emanate from the national church. My Episcopal parish now worships in borrowed space, graciously lent to us by a church of another denomination, because the repeated claims of “Mine! Mine! Mine!” by my former rector and vestry forced the congregation to take up the song.

How’d they force them to do that?  Guns?  Knives?  I’d like to be sympathetic, but since we were sued out of our building by a heretic bishop, the milk of human kindness has dried considerably.  Our former building used to host an ASA of 110-120, now down to 35 or so.  To think of the drain it must present to the diocese brings a smile to my lips.

#58 Jeffersonian,

It sounds as though you and I have both experienced the loss of our buildings, yours by the actions of a heretic bishop, mine by the actions of a schismatic priest.

BCP28,

That’s nice that your children in Western Pennsylvania don’t care about American Baptist churches.

But how can you say in one breath that there’s a reason you don’t live in SF and then say essentially that OF COURSE Andrus has to support the Pride Parade?  There are children in SF, too<joke>, and they might not both have careful parents</joke>.

Zounds!

It sounds as though you and I have both experienced the loss of our buildings, yours by the actions of a heretic bishop, mine by the actions of a schismatic priest.

Who was apparently armed, along with the vestry.  Tell us, what was the vote tally?

Praise God for men like Bob Duncan! 

I am VERY thankful that my nieces & nephew - children to whom I am pledged by vow to uphold in the faith - are loosed from this burndensome yoke of the ExCUSA.  My parents can now rest easy that all their grand-babies are spiritually safe.

Actually, Praise God for women like Kathy Schori, too - if she had not been so blastedly arrogant with her letter earlier this week, the vote would never have been by such a wide margin.  She succeded brilliantly in pushing fence sitters firmly into Bp. Duncan’s camp!

An aside - the Commonwealth has spoken on the matter of property.  It belongs to the diocese.  Period. 
Besides, Duncan has already told any parish that does not wish to go that they may stay and keep their property.  Much fairer than any revisionist bishop, IMO.

That the letter of KJS pushed fence sitters into Bp Duncan’s camp is being echoed elsewhere by other Dio of Pittsburgh-ers. Bp Howe wrote a scathing remonstration to KJS for her letter which is found here. (I love his signing it “Warmest regards in our Lord”.)

I will give thanks tonight for Katherine Jefferts Schori when saying my bedtime prayers.

I think my sentiments are most similar to those of Bishop Howe.

And while I am a little concerned at invoking Luther (some of my ancestors were Protestants from Worms!), if I were +KJS, I’d have trouble sleeping after playing the role of Charles V.

Randall

Brian from T19 (#49):

“Modern scholars believe…”

Are you saying that those who do attribute all of the quote to Luther are not modern?
I agree that evidence to attribute the whole quote to Luther is not overwhelming, but I am skeptical of statements that begin “modern scholars believe…”  It has the hints of an ad hominem fallacy and tries to give the impression that there is a consensus when there is not.

The final legal disposition of church properties does not confer on any moral victory.  Its actually sort of amusing that TECs litigious approach to disaffiliation will actually act to retard any incentives to affiliate and if I might have the temerity to suggest “evangelize” and grow the faithful.  So, I wish you luck with that strategy.

Klaxon:  My point was deliberately made to be ambiguous.  It is silly to speak of one side “stealing” property without reference to actual state law.

It all comes down to whether the courts require the Church to follow the same property rules as everybody else (known as the neutral principles of law approach) or whether they agree to enforce a Church’s heirarchy’s version of its polity to overrule ordinary secular property law (known as the church heirarchy approach).

It is my belief that the second approach is a gross violation of the Constitution of the United States, but it is currently the predominant approach taken by the courts.  But I have a hunch that this latest round of TEC litigation might swing the balance towards the neutral principles approach.

It actually doesn’t matter if the quote was made by Martin Luther, or merely attributed to him. 

What is important is that by making the statement and quoting the quote, +Duncan is indicating his position is with those in the past who chose to stand FOR the Gospel and AGAINST the corruption that had infected the church.

for what it’s worth, I also hold ‘Modern Scholarship’ in some question, and don’t accept ‘their’ opinion as more than “their opinion”.  Listening to Modern Scholarship contributed to the mess of the situational ethics of cultural relevancy that brought us to this point in the first place!

Only time will tell if +duncan is truly representing the faith.  I have no idea.

But the letter is kitschy at best, reflects a bit of self-importance and ... a lack of creativity.  He could have alluded to Luther while writing something himself.  As far as corruption goes, good luck to him cleaning it up.

#42, Makersmarc,

In calling posters who disagree w/you bitter are you being holy, unassuming and compassionate?  Or are you being just as bitter and judgemental as you accuse people who disagree w/you of being?

This Evangelical Lutheran priest who hung around with Franciscans throughout seminary can only say:
God bless Bishop Duncan.

spt+

Hmmm.  Duncan is clearly invoking that radical reformer, the “wild boar in the Lord’s vineyard,” the dread Martin Luther.  Wouldn’t it have been more politic of him, and more in keeping with the soft and kindly language of TEC, to simply respond in kind—y’know, “more dialogue blah, blah, blah,” “increase TEC’s diversity blah, blah, blah”, “we believe Christ’s church should support the full inclusion at every level not merely of those who reject the faith, but also of those who accept it” blah, blah, blah.  How simplistic of him, just to state a position so clearly like that!  Clearly not one of the TEC’s elect.

Speaking as a parishioner in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, tonight’s news is bittersweet.  I’ve never been prouder of our bishop and clergy, who have shown us they are willing to place all they have on the line for the sake of Christ and in doing so give us courage to do the same. 

Please keep praying for this diocese—our faith and our witness will survive without the properties if need be—but we don’t want to lose people, whether they be leadership, laity, or those the Lord would have us reach.

~Soli Deo Gloria~

Peg

[#38] Mr Morse,
Your post illustrates my point.  No one in July 1914 envisioned what would become the Western Front.  No one foresaw the Marne or Verdun or the Somme.  I do not think anyone really knows how this war will play out.  But make no mistake.  TEC is going to fight a war.  Their object is to destroy this nascent competitor before it grows strong enough to threaten its franchise.  And they will be ruthless.

TEC has money.  Money buys good lawyers.  And I have little confidence that the courts will not side with their cultural allies at 815.  Parishes will be destroyed.  Individuals will be financially crushed.  There is no guarantee the Dioceses will win in court.  In the end, the orthodox remnant might collapse under the pressure.  Either way, TEC will remain.  It will have surrendered only what it is going to lose anyways.

You are corrrect that TEC is irrelevant to the wider culture.  It deludes itself with fantasies of cultural leadership.  But in the limited arena of this temporal war is by far more powerful then its enemy.  And for the sake of its fantasies, TEC will use all of that power to win.  Do not underestimate TEC’s leadership.  They want more then just to maintain their hold on power.  They want to crush us, drive us before them, and hear the lamentations of our women.  This is their true happiness.

carl

Even so I remember “Greater are those with us then those that are with them”

John Wilkins - I disagree with you completely.  I think +Duncan’s words are brillant.  Clear, concise, gracious and left no one who read them in any doubt where he stood - especially +Katharine.

Anyone know the actual source of Bishop Howe’s response to the Presiding Bishop linked from #64 above??  Verification needed, please.  Thanks.

As to Bishop Duncan’s words and actions—watch now as other faith defenders arise in similar fashion!  An ecclesial light show headed our way, I sense….  The battle is well and truly joined.

on the subject of buildings and ownership-
The buildings are clearly houses of God. They were built to support the mission of the Church, now if those in authority deviate from the message of scripture and ‘overtake the church from within’ ..it stands to reason that they are not the inheritors of those who built them in the first place. More akin to pirates taking over the ship.

It is GOD’s house and thus fitting to be used by those faithful to HIS word.

Mark Harris at his reappraiser blog has this to say about Bp Duncan’s letter:

It is classic Duncan. Invoke Luther (so we know this is the second reformation); take a hit on a quote from Jude, who was against a wide range of perversions even if he was filled with folktales as examples; touch on Jesus’ admonitions about caring for the sheep (most of which were directed to Peter); and top it off with a touch of Franciscan humility with the Latin goodby [sic]. Reformed, Pure, Catholic, humble. All in three sentences.

The drug paraphernalia “take a hit” is fairly crude, but that is the opinion of this prude who never partook.

I parrticularly like the elves threat, “Don’t push your luck…” I am beginning to think I can see elvish differences, different elvish pesonalities. We have seen this Iron Hand before.
  CArl #75. While you are right about the references to the war battles, the case still seems to me to be quite different. Yes, this is a battle to the bitter end, but I expect no Battle of the Bulges, so to speak, because Shori et al have shown a different strategy, that of indirection, qualification, vacillation, ambiguities, masked falsities and the like. Her letter to ++Duncan is atypical and not likely to be repeated because she gave him the moral high ground… and she must know it now.

This strategy of postpone and qualify will continue, even as the money and momentum continue to wane. Rather, she will increasinglytake the course, as to those who leave, that getting rid of the dissenters will produce a small but solid core of True Believers from which she will regrow TEC. This is possible because there are so many, in the general public, who pander to homosexuality and all things civil-liberty-ish, but I think that in the life of institutions, TEC has passed the point of no return. She may have a small core of True BElievers, but she will not be able to recruit because Schori and TEC will become… so yesterday. Live by fads and die the same way.  Larry

On Modern Scholarship

There is a modernist tendency to doubt just about everything but itself.  It is a running joke between my wife and I that if you think something happened in the distant past, then it was obviously made up.  If one reads Diarmid MacCulloch’s book on the Reformation you find that Luther did write the 95 theses and stand at the Diet, but the great drama is mostly legend.

Well, I for one like the legend, and could care less if some scholar thinks it really didn’t happen.

16. “miserable sinner”
Yes. Though how close I am not altogether sure.

The courts are going to have to straighten out some property issues, and no one will be completely happy at the end of the day.  But I will be very much surprised if any lives are lost.

[#77]  Please stay within the metaphor.  I never said any lives would be lost.  But I think that TECs legal strategy is going to be much more effective then people might hope.  They have good lawyers.  They have had a great deal of time to plan a national strategy.  And that strategy will be financially punitive.  They are going to try to destroy those orthodox pastors and parishes that defy their will.  Intimidation is a marvelous and effective tactic.  I am also concerned that judges will let thier natural affinity for 815 affect its resolution of the legal battle. Justice is not blind.   

[#81]  I hope you are right.  And I agree completely about the future of TEC.  It will become a small, irrelevant, geographically-isolated church.  In a way though, that is a source of strength in this fight.  TEC knows it must contract.  It can always fall back onto its core.  In the end that is all it will possess.  So it doesn’t need to worry about losses because those losses are inevitable in any case.  If Pittsburgh goes out, TEC doesn’t need to worry about permanently holding that ground.  TEC only has to deny it to the enemy.  It’s a matter of taking the property and reducing the leadership to destitution.  And I fear they will meet with great success in these endeavors. 

So will the dispossessed start over, or will they scatter?  TEC is betting on the latter.

carl

“Here I stand” is pathetic grandstanding.  It isn’t humble; it is addressed not so much to the PB as it is to the T-19ers and Stand Firmers who like to use stirring militaristic imagery to glorify what is a petty sordid and sad affairs amongst some very small people. 

I’m a progressive, but I starting to think “a pox on both your houses.”  The reasserters have their preening firebrand, we reappraisers have our mushy equivocator.  Neither is helping me be a better Christian.

This is no war for souls; it doesn’t have the dignity.

touch on Jesus’ admonitions about caring for the sheep (most of which were directed to Peter);

So the church can ignore them? What the heck does he mean by that?

Only 20% of people will call themselves Christian in about 50 years.  I suppose TEC might become irrelevant, but the conservatives will be irrelevant and angry.

Jackie, the problem is that Duncan’s words aren’t Duncan’s words.  They were Luther’s.  I admit, I had hoped Duncan had the intellect to write something direct himself. 

But plainly, he’s leading his diocese into disaster.  And it doesn’t need to be that way.  Noone is forcing him to bless gay marriage, or the priests to consecrate - or approve of- a gay bishop.  He essentially wants to tell TEC what to do. 

In the end, however, we’ll take good care of the clergy pensions.

#70:  John Wilkins, Bishop Duncan didn’t need to write anything more…....Luther’s words said everything quite well.

Only 20% of people will call themselves Christian in about 50 years.  I suppose TEC might become irrelevant, but the conservatives will be irrelevant and angry.

Mr Wilkins
Actually in 50 years time, much fewer than 20% in the US will call themselves Christian, and conservative Christians are already irrelevant.  The ascendent culture has adopted a view of morality that is predicated upon human autonomy.  It rejects revealed truth, and abides no one making claims against its liberty.  It does not want to hear from us.  It wants only to shut us up.  And increasingly it is acquiring the legal means to do just that.

(contined)
But I am not angry Mr Wilkins.  The US is like any other nation.  God raised us up, and God will cast us down.  On the last day, no one will remember or care about the flag that I served.  I will be burned like everything else.  It is however painful to watch the slow degeneration and death of something that you love.  Perhaps like Jeremiah, we see the coming judgment so clearly, and are helpless to stop it.  Stiff-necked men will not listen and turn and be healed.

carl

should be:
On the last day, no one will remember or care about the flag that I served.  It will be burned like everything else.

I wept when I read Bishop Duncan’s letter. His courage and forthrightness stand out like a watchfire in this age of gathering darkness. May the Lord bless and guide Bishop Duncan and all his flock. And as for the bricks and mortar, remember that it is not the buildings that are the prize, but the Kingdom, itself.

“Who owns the property?”

God does.  He owns the buildings.  He owns the grounds.  He owns
the chalices and the patens. He owns the choir robes.  He owns the hymnals and the prayer books and the organs and the pianos and the guitars.  He owns the kitchens and the coffee pots.  He owns
the paper cups and napkins used to serve coffee at Fellowship Hour.
He owns the small tables and chairs used in Sunday School.  He owns the bowls and spoons used to feed the hungry at Soup Kitchens.  He owns the church vans.  He owns the mops and buckets in the sextons’ closets.  He owns the craft materials and sports equipment used at summer camp/VBS.  He owns the baptismal fonts.  He owns the pews and the kneelers and the pulpits.  The TEC doesn’t own them.  Those choosing to step away from the TEC don’t own them.  The dioceses don’t own them.  Presiding Bishops and bishops and clergy and congregations don’t own them.  God does.  And all the legal maneuvering in the world is not going to change the fact that God owns it all.  So for me…a mom, wife, daughter, sister-in-Christ sitting in one of those God-owned pews and asking Him, each day, to show me how to share the Gospel with those who are are lost and hurt and broken…The question isn’t “Who owns our property?” but rather “Who owns our hearts?”
And if our hearts aren’t owned by Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter who owns the property…It’s worthless.

Carl, perhaps it is Jonah, not Jeremiah, that we might compare ourselves to.  Nor do we reject revealed truth.  We do, however, believe that truth is one, and that science is a part of that.  We believe that our views about sexuality need interrogation, as the view that the sun revolves around the earth.  We are skeptical of the hypersexualization of marriage that the conservatives participate in, by reducing gay marriage to genitalia.  We have not rejected the word of God any more than conservatives who still take loans from banks.  In the end, it is little about God, but about our inability to speak with one another.

writingmom15143: AMEN!!!

#79 AMEN, Rugbyplayingpriest!! You said it rightly, succinctly and forcefully!