Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, has written to the Diocese of South Carolina’s General Convention deputies with her concerns about resolutions that the diocese will consider at a special convention on Saturday.
 
In a letter dated Oct. 22, the president wrote of her concern that “some in the diocese are seeking through these resolutions to move the diocese out of the full life of the Episcopal Church and perhaps even see the resolutions as steps preliminary in attempting to separate the diocese from the church.”
 
President Anderson told The Living Church that she writes to every diocese’s General Convention deputation before respective diocesan conventions. Such letters are part of a broader communication pattern that includes a public website, an email list for deputies, a moderated forum for deputies and personal birthday greetings for each deputy.
 
“It creates a dialogue with the deputies,” she said about her frequent communication. “Deputies write me very often. It’s an opportunity for deepening relationships and getting to know each other.”
 
“This isn’t out of the ordinary, although the content of it is out of the ordinary,” she said about her letter to deputies in South Carolina.
 
She said her intention in writing to the deputies from South Carolina was to preserve their presence in the House of Deputies.
 
“I could see them throughout the whole convention,” she said of South Carolina’s deputation to this summer’s General Convention. “I appreciated the depth of their involvement.”
 
The Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian to the Diocese of South Carolina and a four-time deputy to General Convention, objects to the letter as an intrusion in the deliberations of the special convention.
 
“I am interested in the issue of precedent,” said Canon Harmon, who published the letter on his weblog, TitusOneNine. “I can’t name a time when a House of Deputies president intervened in a diocese before a convention like this.”
 
These are the president’s further concerns about the resolutions that South Carolina’s convention will consider:
 
• Her sense that one resolution paraphrases too loosely from the preface of The Book of Common Prayer. The full sentence from that preface reads: “This Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline or worship; or further than local circumstances require.”
 
“Without the omitted language, someone reading the resolution could come away with the idea that no departures from the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Church of England are permitted at all when the expectation has always been that alterations would be made,” she wrote.
 
• Disagreement about what constitutes the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church. “The Episcopal Church’s Doctrine, according to the Canons, is to be ‘found in the Canon of Holy Scripture as understood in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds and in the sacramental rites, the Ordinal and Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer,’” she wrote. “The documents listed in the proposed understanding do not fall within this definition. The Church’s discipline, according to our Canons, is ‘found in the Constitution, the Canons, and the Rubrics and the Ordinal of the Book of Common Prayer.’ Again, the listed documents are not included in our definition of discipline. The proposed understanding is inconsistent with the definitions we have of doctrine and discipline and attempts to add matters to the Church’s doctrine and discipline that are not a part of them.”
 
• The authority of General Convention. “All dioceses must make an unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church,” she wrote. “The General Convention is the governing body of the Church and the authority of all other entities and offices comes from General Convention. So, adoption of a resolution declaring an action of General Convention null and void is itself, a nullity. Actions of General Convention are binding on dioceses regardless of whether their bishops and deputies voted for or against them, agree with them or even participated in General Convention.”
 
As the president moved toward her conclusion, she pleaded with the diocese not to withdraw from the councils of the Episcopal Church.
 
“The resolve in proposed Resolution 2 to begin withdrawing from bodies of the Church is likely counter-productive. The views and voices of the Diocese and Bishop will be absent from the Church’s continuing discussion and discernment of these and other issues,” she wrote. “Priests and Bishops are called to be part of the councils and government of the Church, not to withdraw from them. We believe that the Holy Spirit works through the councils and gatherings of the Church. I encourage the Diocese of South Carolina to stay involved, stay active, and participate in the full life of the Episcopal Church, including its governance structures, so that we may embody the unity we all share in Christ to the greatest extent possible.”
 
If the diocese chooses to withdraw its deputation from General Convention, she told The Living Church, “I would do everything in my power to not exacerbate feelings of alienation. … I am not about trying to alienate or point fingers at anybody.”
 
The president posted a subsequent letter on Friday in which she apologized about one aspect of her letter.
 
“My desire to keep you within the councils of the Church was at the heart of my letter,” she wrote. “I also felt that it was important, in the spirit of open dialog and mutual accountability, to let you know that my interpretation of the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church [is] quite different than the interpretations which inform the resolutions that will come before your special convention. After talking with [the Very Rev. John] Burwell, I can see that discussing this point at such length may have obscured my primary purpose for writing, and for that, I am truly sorry.”
 
Douglas LeBlanc
 
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