The Diocese of South Carolina’s annual convention will consider five resolutions on March 26, three of which stress diocesan authority amid conflicts with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
In proposing one resolution, the diocese’s standing committee calls it a “Response to Ecclesiastical Intrusions by the Presiding Bishop.” That resolution refers to the diocese’s “legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church,” adds that “the Presiding Bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this Diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina,” and demands that she “drop the retainer of all such legal counsel in South Carolina as has been obtained contrary to the express will of this Diocese.”
Another resolution proposed by the standing committee would add a diocesan canon that says the bishop — or, in a bishop’s absence, the standing committee — is “the sole and final authority with respect to any dispute concerning the interpretation of the Constitution and Canons of this Diocese.”
A caonical revision, also proposed by the standing committee, grants the diocese’s bishop (or standing committee) the authority to “provide a generous pastoral response to parishes in conflict with the Diocese or Province, as the Ecclesiastical Authority judges necessary, to preserve the unity and integrity of the Diocese.”
An explanatory note on that resolution says: “We’ve experienced now as a diocese, in the All Saints, Pawleys Island litigation, the destructive force of such litigation; how it has created animosities and divisions that are not easily healed. It has failed as a positive cohesive force for maintaining the unity of the church and has in fact had precisely the opposite effect. Christians are suing Christians (1 Cor. 6:1-8); the reputation of the church is marred, and vital resources are diverted from essential Kingdom work. None of this is honoring to our Savior.”
A fourth resolution is proposed by 13 clergy, including the canon to the ordinary and the canon theologian. That resolution says the people of the diocese “declare to all that we understand ourselves to be a gospel diocese, called to proclaim an evangelical faith, embodied in a catholic order, and empowered and transformed through the Holy Spirit” and that they “promise under God not to swerve in our belief that above all Jesus came into the world to save the lost, that those who do not know Christ need to be brought into a personal and saving relationship with him, and that those who do know Christ need to be taught by the Holy Scriptures faithfully to follow him all the days of their lives to the glory of God the Father.”
A fifth resolution removes the diocese from selecting the board members for Baskervill Ministries, a ministry among the poor that has been “reorganized under the leadership and guidance of Holy Cross Faith Memorial parish” in Pawleys Island.
2 Comments
God Bless the diocese of SC as it resists the assimilation and intimidation process that is now being manifest. We are meant to be a Church, headed by Jesus Christ, not a religious society directed by the Spirit of the Age. Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of pottage. SC is determined to stay true to the Gospel and to Jesus Christ.
I was thrilled with the language and pointedness of the fourth resolution:
"declare to all that we understand ourselves to be a gospel diocese, called to proclaim an evangelical faith, embodied in a catholic order, and empowered and transformed through the Holy Spirit" and that they "promise under God not to swerve in our belief that above all Jesus came into the world to save the lost, that those who do not know Christ need to be brought into a personal and saving relationship with him, and that those who do know Christ need to be taught by the Holy Scriptures faithfully to follow him all the days of their lives to the glory of God the Father."
Would that each diocese of TEC would subscribe to the above.
The curious case of the Diocese of South Carolina just gets curious-er by the day. But then, after all, this is South Carolina. For years the conservative (orthodox, or choose your own term) leadership that absolutely monopolizes the apparati of the diocese has severely denounced and condemned its own denomination as being in sin and error and distanced the diocese as much as possible from the Episcopal church. Last year it was nullification of the national church decisions. This year it is the proclamation of local sovereignty over the national entity. And now its victimization by Northern aggression. Interestingly, in this case, as opposed to 1860, not one other locality in the entire southeastern United States has come to the aid of the Lowcountry. Not even their closest allies in the region, the Diocese of Central Florida, has gone that far.
Meanwhile the long-suffering and good church people in lower South Carolina wonder where all this turmoil is leading. The most conservative elements are unhappy that the bishop has not called for realignment with another primatial authority. The moderates and liberals are bewildered and saddened at having to endure the unrelenting denunciations against their own church. The bishop is trying the magic trick of repudiating the national church while staying in it, of encouraging local parishes to break away while still staying in the diocese. No wonder people in the diocese and out are adrift in a sea of confusion.
The crux of the present crisis is, of course, the Episcopal church property. So far the diocese is stonewalling the presiding bishop's request for documentary sources on diocesan actions and on local parishes. In time, the records will be revealed. And if it turns out that the bishop has not followed rules on church property, then one can expect that the presiding bishop will recommend to the house of bishops that the Rt. Rev. Lawrence be removed as bishop of the diocese. Then perhaps everyone will be happy. The conservatives will be ecstatic at the long hoped-for union with the ACNA. The rest will celebrate the reorganization of the Episcopal diocese in tune with others in the region and the nation. And the bishop can remind everyone that he kept his word that he would not voluntarily lead the diocese out of the Episcopal church. It's a slow-motion train wreck.