South Carolina Episcopalians
Bearing Witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ through the Episcopal Church
News from The Diocese of South Carolina...
over Four Rebellious Parishes
February 12, 2010
Isolated Diocese resists requests for legal documents
and Standing Committee minutes
Lawrence responds by postponing 2010 Convention
__________________and Standing Committee minutes
Lawrence responds by postponing 2010 Convention
"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and
though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized
by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were
all given the one Spirit to drink.” -- St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians
“I am the only bishop with canonical jurisdiction here… This action is an unjust intrusion into the
spiritual and jurisdictional affairs of this sovereign diocese of the Episcopal
Church.” -- Bishop's Letter to the Diocese of South Carolina
__________________
In a series of muddled communications among lawyers, the Bishop and Standing Committee sandbagged requests from the national Church for legal documents related to the Diocese's response to efforts by Trinity in Myrtle Beach, St. Luke’s on Hilton Head, and St. John’s on Johns Island to delete references to the Episcopal Church in their corporate charters, and St. Andrew’s in Mt. Pleasant to leave the Episcopal Church entirely.
Church leaders are specifically asking for parishes' bylaws, founding documents, charters, deeds, and other financial documents, along with Standing Committee minutes since Bishop Salmon's retirement.
All of the documents are related to the legitimate legal interests of the Episcopal Church.
In an overly dramatic letter to the people of the Diocese, Lawrence claimed the diocese is “sovereign” and questioned why the leadership of the Episcopal Church was trying to find out what he is doing. He suggested that “perhaps the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor, if not the Presiding Bishop herself, is trying to build a case against the Ecclesiastical Authorities of the Diocese (the Bishop and Standing Committee) and some parishes.”
Lawrence said he is especially steamed by the news that the Chancellor of the Episcopal Church (its lawyer) had retained Charleston attorney Tom Tisdale to represent the national Church in “local matters”.
Lawrence claimed that Tisdale’s retention and subsequent requests for information from the Diocese was a violation of authority granted the Presiding Bishop in the Church’s Constitution and Canons. Tisdale is a lifelong Episcopalian, and the son of a longtime, much-beloved priest in the Diocese of South Carolina.
To heighten the drama, the Bishop announced for no obvious reason that he and the Standing Committee were postponing the 2010 Diocesan convention slated for the first week of March.
Included among these red herrings was a complaint by Lawrence that the Presiding Bishop had not personally called and asked him what he was doing about the undisciplined parishes. The current tempest was apparently ignited by a conversation between the lawyer for the Presiding Bishop, who was trying to find out what the Diocese was doing about the rebellious parishes, and the lawyer for Bishop Lawrence.
Lawrence has apparently made no effort to communicate with the House of Bishops or the Presiding Bishop about his dealing with the four parishes since they disclosed their plans in December. In fact, he and his lawyers are claiming that none of the parishes are planning to leave the Episcopal Church.
_____________________
Three SC Parishes Prepare to Distance
Themselves from the Episcopal Church
Themselves from the Episcopal Church
December 21, 2009
Three large congregations in the Diocese of South Carolina are lurching forward with plans to either leave or otherwise legally distance themselves from the Episcopal Church. Their actions are forcing the hand of Bishop Mark Lawrence, who sympathizes with their motivations, but has taken an oath to defend the interests of the Diocese and the wider Church.
St. Andrew’s in Mount Pleasant announced this week it had completed a “discernment process” it claims supports a decision to abandon the Episcopal Church and join the so-called Anglican Church of North America, a loose affiliation of dissident parishes not recognized by the Anglican Communion or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The other parishes, Trinity in Myrtle Beach and St. Luke's in Hilton Head, are reported to have taken steps to remove references to the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of SC from their charters.
According to the Charleston Post & Courier, Lawrence says he has been aware of the situations at Trinity and St. Luke's and "they are not seeking to leave the Diocese." He offered no further explanation, but went on to say, "We will keep the lines of communication open and clear." (Read P&C full story)
The actions of all three parishes will be a challenge to Lawrence's leadership and a test of his commitment to the Episcopal Church.
The challenge for Lawrence is that he is the head of the Diocese and the representative of the Episcopal Church. As such he is morally and legally bound to take all necessary action to defend the interests of the Church and act as a faithful steward of Diocesan assets.
Should he fail to do so, he would risk being deposed.
Any legal action against the parishes would also constitute a first test of the state's Supreme Court's recent decision in the Pawleys Island case in which it denied the hierarchical nature of the Episcopal Church, and therefore appeared to make such departures by individual parishes more likely.
Over the past three years, Federal courts have been ruling fairly consistently that Episcopal congregations who vote to leave the Church can’t take their property with them. They have upheld long-standing precedent that Christian denominations like the Episcopal Church are "hierarchical" in their governing structures, and therefore own local church property, which they hold in trust for local parishes.
In the next few years, these cases are likely to make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of course in South Carolina, our state courts pay little heed to the direction of the Federal courts and, at least, for a while the state's Supreme Court decision in the case of All Saints, Pawleys Island is going to allow this kind of mischief.
However, another option is negotiation in which the dissenting parishes work out an arrangement with their bishops and standing committees in acquiring their properties. In a diocese like South Carolina, where the bishop is generally sympathetic to the dissenters, unhappy parishes might have a chance at cutting a deal and picking up their former properties on the cheap.
The Anglican Church is North America is not particularly Anglican nor is it clear who is bankrolling it.
ACNA is an unlikely coalition of mostly small congregations bound together by their more literal interpretation of the Bible, fear of gay people and, to a lesser extent, opposition to women in leadership roles in the Church. Their link to Anglicanism is a tradition of worship and an apostolic lineage, currently being passed along mostly by anti-gay Anglican Primates in Africa.
ACNA's claim that its brand of 21st century fundamentalism is an "orthodox" version of Anglican theology is more rhetoric than reality, scholars claim.
The leader of the ACNA is the controversial Robert Duncan, who was deposed last year by the Episcopal Church and is not recognized by the Anglican Communion.
Duncan, who is described by the ACNA as an "archbishop", used his position as Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh to attack the Episcopal Church using funds from extremely wealthy right-wing philanthropists. It is also rumored that he is taking money from arch-conservative African primates like Henri Luke Orombi of Uganda.
Duncan was widely discredited in an incident in 2006 when a secret memorandum to meddling African primates revealed that he was essentially talking out of both sides of his mouth, telling his Diocese that he did not intend to leave the Episcopal Church while plotting with the Africans to do just that.
ACNA's finances are mostly secret and not available to the public.
Duncan coincidentally will be attending a conference in Charleston in January while the St. Andrew's vestry is considering its next move .
St, Andrew's has never been much of player in the work of the Diocese such that its departure is not likely to have much a material impact.
In recent decades, St. Andrew's has not been part of the mainstream of the Diocese. It has generally taken its own course, and not been particularly supportive of Diocesan work. It does, however, maintain an active social outreach, youth program, and Christian education program that attract many non-Episcopalians.
The parish's charismatic and hyperbolic rector, The Rev. Steve Wood, is considered by his clergy colleagues as a loose cannon. He was a unsuccessful candidate for Bishop of South Carolina at the same convention that elected Mark Lawrence.
Wood's approach to national Church issues has never been subtle, or particularly effective outside his own congregation. Two years ago, after the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church made a personal visit to his parish, he suggested in his online blog that she is "the Anti-Christ."
Last summer he likened the Episcopal Church to a "whore".
After the "whore" incident, he made an internet name for himself when he actually castigated the leaders of the Episcopal Church for employing extreme and hostile rhetoric.
Claiming nearly 3,000 members, St. Andrew’s is the largest parish in the Diocese and at one time claimed to be one of the fastest growing in the Episcopal Church. If true, less than one-third of this membership participated in the parish-wide survey this month and, of that number, 93% are said to have indicated they wanted to leave the Episcopal Church.
Anticipating the outcome of its "discernment" process, last summer the parish quietly transferred property worth $3-plus million to a land trust for the purpose of establishing an "orthodox Anglican ministry center." It is not clear that transfer was legal or approved by the bishop and standing committee.
However, it raises doubts about whether the discernment process was unbiased or its outcome unanticipated.
The parish’s vestry says it will meet in January and to plot its next move.
____________The other parishes, Trinity in Myrtle Beach and St. Luke's in Hilton Head, are reported to have taken steps to remove references to the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of SC from their charters.
According to the Charleston Post & Courier, Lawrence says he has been aware of the situations at Trinity and St. Luke's and "they are not seeking to leave the Diocese." He offered no further explanation, but went on to say, "We will keep the lines of communication open and clear." (Read P&C full story)
The actions of all three parishes will be a challenge to Lawrence's leadership and a test of his commitment to the Episcopal Church.
The challenge for Lawrence is that he is the head of the Diocese and the representative of the Episcopal Church. As such he is morally and legally bound to take all necessary action to defend the interests of the Church and act as a faithful steward of Diocesan assets.
Should he fail to do so, he would risk being deposed.
Any legal action against the parishes would also constitute a first test of the state's Supreme Court's recent decision in the Pawleys Island case in which it denied the hierarchical nature of the Episcopal Church, and therefore appeared to make such departures by individual parishes more likely.
Over the past three years, Federal courts have been ruling fairly consistently that Episcopal congregations who vote to leave the Church can’t take their property with them. They have upheld long-standing precedent that Christian denominations like the Episcopal Church are "hierarchical" in their governing structures, and therefore own local church property, which they hold in trust for local parishes.
In the next few years, these cases are likely to make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Of course in South Carolina, our state courts pay little heed to the direction of the Federal courts and, at least, for a while the state's Supreme Court decision in the case of All Saints, Pawleys Island is going to allow this kind of mischief.
However, another option is negotiation in which the dissenting parishes work out an arrangement with their bishops and standing committees in acquiring their properties. In a diocese like South Carolina, where the bishop is generally sympathetic to the dissenters, unhappy parishes might have a chance at cutting a deal and picking up their former properties on the cheap.
The Anglican Church is North America is not particularly Anglican nor is it clear who is bankrolling it.
ACNA is an unlikely coalition of mostly small congregations bound together by their more literal interpretation of the Bible, fear of gay people and, to a lesser extent, opposition to women in leadership roles in the Church. Their link to Anglicanism is a tradition of worship and an apostolic lineage, currently being passed along mostly by anti-gay Anglican Primates in Africa.
ACNA's claim that its brand of 21st century fundamentalism is an "orthodox" version of Anglican theology is more rhetoric than reality, scholars claim.
The leader of the ACNA is the controversial Robert Duncan, who was deposed last year by the Episcopal Church and is not recognized by the Anglican Communion.
Duncan, who is described by the ACNA as an "archbishop", used his position as Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh to attack the Episcopal Church using funds from extremely wealthy right-wing philanthropists. It is also rumored that he is taking money from arch-conservative African primates like Henri Luke Orombi of Uganda.
Duncan was widely discredited in an incident in 2006 when a secret memorandum to meddling African primates revealed that he was essentially talking out of both sides of his mouth, telling his Diocese that he did not intend to leave the Episcopal Church while plotting with the Africans to do just that.
ACNA's finances are mostly secret and not available to the public.
Duncan coincidentally will be attending a conference in Charleston in January while the St. Andrew's vestry is considering its next move .
St, Andrew's has never been much of player in the work of the Diocese such that its departure is not likely to have much a material impact.
In recent decades, St. Andrew's has not been part of the mainstream of the Diocese. It has generally taken its own course, and not been particularly supportive of Diocesan work. It does, however, maintain an active social outreach, youth program, and Christian education program that attract many non-Episcopalians.
The parish's charismatic and hyperbolic rector, The Rev. Steve Wood, is considered by his clergy colleagues as a loose cannon. He was a unsuccessful candidate for Bishop of South Carolina at the same convention that elected Mark Lawrence.
Wood's approach to national Church issues has never been subtle, or particularly effective outside his own congregation. Two years ago, after the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church made a personal visit to his parish, he suggested in his online blog that she is "the Anti-Christ."
Last summer he likened the Episcopal Church to a "whore".
After the "whore" incident, he made an internet name for himself when he actually castigated the leaders of the Episcopal Church for employing extreme and hostile rhetoric.
Claiming nearly 3,000 members, St. Andrew’s is the largest parish in the Diocese and at one time claimed to be one of the fastest growing in the Episcopal Church. If true, less than one-third of this membership participated in the parish-wide survey this month and, of that number, 93% are said to have indicated they wanted to leave the Episcopal Church.
Anticipating the outcome of its "discernment" process, last summer the parish quietly transferred property worth $3-plus million to a land trust for the purpose of establishing an "orthodox Anglican ministry center." It is not clear that transfer was legal or approved by the bishop and standing committee.
However, it raises doubts about whether the discernment process was unbiased or its outcome unanticipated.
The parish’s vestry says it will meet in January and to plot its next move.
