Two takes on activities in the Diocese of San Joaquin this weekend

From EpiscopalLife Online [boldface mine]:

Hundreds of people—from as far south as San Diego and as far north as Seattle—packed the historic Church of the Saviour in Hanford January 26 in joyous celebration and support for remaining Episcopalians who are "Moving Forward, Welcoming All" and claiming their status as the official Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.

"You are the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin," House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson told more than 350 people amid sustained applause and a standing ovation. The Saturday gathering was organized by Remain Episcopal, a group of Episcopalians who are reconstituting the diocese after 42 of 47 congregations voted to leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) at a December 8 convention.

Cindy Smith, president of Remain Episcopal, said the organization has received generous financial, liturgical and emotional support from all over the country, including from clergy from across the nation who willing to serve congregations on an interim or permanent basis.

Organized in 2003, Remain Episcopal is "planning for the day we cease to exist, a day the renewed leadership of the Fresno-based Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin can once again continue the reconciliation, work and mission of the church," said Smith, who called for patience as the way forward as communities of faith continue to form and grow and the future of the Central Valley churches continues to unfold.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent both written and videotaped greetings to the gathering. "We expect to work next to clarify the status of members of the clergy in the Diocese of San Joaquin, and the status of any former diocesan leaders who wish to remain in The Episcopal Church," she wrote in a letter read by the Rev. Canon Bob Moore, the designated interim pastoral presence for the diocese.

Jefferts Schori added that financial and other support is forthcoming. "We are already working to ensure continued salary for mission clergy who were recently removed from their posts by John-David Schofield," she wrote. "We will similarly work to continue diocesan functions such as ensuring insurance coverage for congregations and clergy.". . .

"Once the ultimate status of John-David Schofield is adjudicated by the House of Bishops, and if he is deposed, I will seek to gather the remaining members of the Diocese in a special convention to elect new leadership and make provision for an interim bishop. I will work with diocesan leaders to clarify ownership of the personal and real assets of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin," the Presiding Bishop's letter said. . .

Remaining Episcopalians face complexity and chaos, [House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson] said. Some are willing to litigate to keep church property while others aren't. Still others "voted to remove the Episcopal Church from the diocesan constitution but have now indicated they are willing to stay, and some who are simply on the fence, … some have disavowed themselves and no longer consider themselves Episcopalian. A fifth group of people simply want things to get back to normal so they can worship without all this disagreement.". . .

National and provincial representatives also attended the gathering. Executive Council members Dottie Fuller of the Diocese of El Camino Real and Hisako Beasley, of Seattle, were on hand to offer support.

"It's important to be here, to offer support," said Fuller, who added that she spent the night in a motor home in the church parking lot.

The Rev. Charles Ramsden and Holly McAlpen of the Church Insurance Corp. fielded property and other questions. San Rafael attorney Michael O. Glass, who represents several local congregations and individuals, was also a featured speaker during an afternoon question and answer session to which the media was not invited. . .

Leslie Watson said she had been unchurched since moving from San Jose five years ago, until she discovered the Remain Episcopal Bakersfield Faith Community.

"We were affiliated with St. Philip's, San Jose, and when we moved to Bakersfield we visited churches there but discovered at the very first meeting it wasn't anything like what we were used to," she said.

Joining the Bakersfield faith community changed all that, said Watson, enthusiastic about the gathering's strong turnout and future prospects. "What we're doing is historic, avant garde," she said. "We're meeting in hidden places like the first century Christians, it's like Luther nailing the theses to the door.

Meanwhile, the way forward includes organizing donated liturgical and worship resources for developing faith communities and an upcoming March 1-2 workshop on growing the church will feature the Rev. Dr. Dennis Maynard, author of "Those Episkopols.". . .

Read it all, and next check out Billy Ockham [boldface mine]:

. . . Remain Episcopal is a group of members of the formerly Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. San Joaquin voted last month to leave the Episcopal Church. Remain Episcopal has organized to leave the Diocese of San Joaquin. There are five churches that form the core of Remain Episcopal. In 2006, these churches had a combined membership of around 1,400 with an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 470.

Yesterday, the Episcopal Church held a pep rally on behalf of Remain Episcopal. It devoted a fair amount of resources to the effort (buses and satellite feeds aren't exactly cheap). According to the official organ of the Episcopal Church, The Episcopal News Service, around 350 people showed for the service.

The diocese of San Joaquin is not especially large, geographically. It takes about three hours to drive from one to the other (you may easily gauge how quickly I drive from this). Despite this and despite being advertised, transportation provided and the best efforts of the organizers, 350 people officially showed. Think about that. That figure includes a significant number of people who were never part of the diocese in any way.

No matter how you look at it or try to spin it, the attendance was pathetic. Judging from the photos, the crowd was older and white. The demographics do not favour Remain Episcopal. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that when the dust settles and everyone has declared their allegiance to either the Episcopal Church or the Diocese of San Joaquin, then the Episcopal Church will be looking at closing some of the Remain Episcopal churches. The rule of thumb for churches is that you need an ASA of around a hundred to remain viable. Three hundred and fifty people, even assuming they all are from the area, yields three and a half viable churches.

If you go to the Remain Episcopal website you will see six churches listed. The five churches I have already mentioned and a sixth, St Nicholas, which is shown as a mission. There's a reason they're keeping St Nicholas around, even though it was dissolved by the bishop earlier. Article V.5 of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church require a diocese to have six churches before it can apply for membership. Retaining St Nicholas, despite it's manifest unhealth, gives Remain Episcopal six churches. This keeps the options open as to whether the Reamin Episcopal churches are a new diocese or the faithful remnant of an old one.

Make the most of 'incredible moment,' House of Deputies president tells South Carolinians

From EpiscopalLife Online [boldface mine]:

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson urged a group of Episcopalians in the Diocese of South Carolina November 3 to take advantage of an "incredible moment" in the life of that diocese to begin talking to people "whom you may not have talked to recently" so that together they might develop new models for mission.

The moment to which Anderson was referring was created when the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence, the diocese's bishop-elect, recently received the canonically required consent to his ordination and consecration from a majority of the standing committees of the Episcopal Church dioceses and from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction.

"You have some opportunities for newness," Anderson said told nearly 150 who attended the "Connecting with the Episcopal Church in 2007" event sponsored by the Episcopal Forum of South Carolina for which she was the keynote speaker. The meeting took place in Charleston at the Inn at Middleton Place. . .

South Carolina Bishop Ed Salmon spoke during the day-long gathering and participated in a question-and-answer panel that closed the day. Forum President Lynn Pagliaro read the letter of greeting from Lawrence in which the bishop-elect said in part that it was his "firm conviction that in Christ's reconciling work we shall find the key to our unity."

The day was marked by discussions of mission, canon law, the organizational behavior of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and the implications of the current tensions in the Episcopal Church. Anderson has been visiting the small number of dioceses whose leadership is at varying stages of positioning their dioceses to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church. Not all of the members of the dioceses support their leaders' plans. She had spent time in the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Rio Grande, and San Joaquin before her trip to South Carolina.

Connecting Richard Hooker to community, mission

Anderson urged the lay people present, whom she said are the "largest order in the church," to remember their baptismal vows and their call to participate in the ministry of the church. She called for a circular model of ministry in the church rather than "an ideological triangle" that places bishops at the top, followed by the clergy and then laity. . .

Saying that Episcopalians and all Anglicans are related to each other through Hooker, a 16th-century Anglican theologian who argued that scripture, tradition and reason are the threefold Anglican sources of authority, Anderson said "we take strength from the community of saints, and from our community represented here."

"God has given us each other and this peculiar life that we find ourselves in," she said. "This peculiar life that draws us to each other and in some peculiar and holy way tangles us up with the Holy Spirit in a community and relationships that we probably would not choose, prods us into living out our religion and spirituality in that context and then, somehow makes us one."

Salmon, who described himself as trying to live "graciously" as an Episcopalian "on the short end of the stick," acknowledged that there is "profound disagreement" in the Episcopal Church and in his diocese, and predicted that no solution will make everyone happy.

He said he is convinced that the Episcopal Church will not change its stance and that people on all sides of the issues are "deeply convicted about the Gospel upon which they stand."

"What we need to do is deal with each other on that basis," Salmon said.

Facing the communion's challenges [the Rev. Francis] Wade [a member of Anderson's Council of Advice and the recently retired rector of St. Alban's Episcopal Church on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral] told the gathering that one can think of the Anglican Communion as an "amphictyony," a term which means "dwellers around" and describes a kind of community that is formed when various people gather around a common religious center. Saying that both the Hebrews of the Old Testament and the Anglican Communion have such a structure, Wade said that amphictyonies have little glue to them and are fragile when they come under pressure.

The response to pressure is often to attempt to make the center more solid, he said, citing the example of Israel during the times recorded in the Old Testament books between Joshua and Judges. First, he said, the Israelites wanted a prophet and then -- much to God's initial displeasure -- a king. He suggested that attempts to give more authority to the leaders of the Anglican Communion's provinces are another example of this sort of effort.

Wade reviewed the course of the Anglican Communion's consideration of issues surrounding human sexuality and suggested that those who pose the debate's questions in terms of orthodoxy or the authority of Scripture ask the wrong questions. Orthodoxy, he said, is not a constant, but instead "has a growing edge." Questions on the authority of Scripture are often more focused on the authority of the persons who would enforce their own applications of Scripture, he said.

The right question, Wade suggested, is: "is God calling us to a new understanding of human sexuality?" While Wade said he is not certain how to answer that question, he noted that people of faith often arrive at such new understandings "slowly" and "badly," in part because "the language of religion...draws its power from pastoral certainty" often despite "substantial evidence to the contrary."

"What we need to do is to listen to each other and that's very hard to do because our conversations are not dispassionate," Wade said, adding that "God does call us to new understandings, but every new understanding is not God's.". . .

[Sally] Johnson [chancellor for the House of Deputies] reviewed how the Episcopal Church determines membership of dioceses in the wider church, parishes in dioceses and people in parishes. The General Convention votes to accept dioceses into union with it or to allow them to leave, dioceses do the same for parishes, and members take actions to have their baptisms recorded in an Episcopal parish or transferred to another parish when they want to move.

While the General Convention has at times allowed dioceses to leave, Johnson said it is "highly, highly unlikely" that Convention would allow the dioceses currently in dispute with the Episcopal Church to break their union with it.

General Convention, she noted, holds much of the authority in the Episcopal Church, in large part by approving changes to the Constitution and Canons and The Book of Common Prayer. Convention cannot, however, change the doctrine of the Episcopal Church, she said. . .

Read it all.

South Carolina: Episcopal meeting stresses unity

From The State:

Episcopalians from South Carolina’s two dioceses are set to gather in Charleston today in an effort to strengthen connections with the national Episcopal Church.

The conference, sponsored by the nonprofit Episcopal Forum of South Carolina, will feature Bonnie Anderson, president of the church’s House of Deputies. Anderson holds the denomination’s highest lay office.

Lynn Pagliaro, a forum board member, hopes the meeting will ease conflicts, particularly in the more conservative Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, which represents 75 Lowcountry parishes.

That diocese, soon to be under the leadership of Bishop-elect Mark Lawrence, sought alternative leadership within the national denomination after the 2003 election of a practicing gay bishop.

“Our goal is unity with our bishop and the national church,” Pagliaro said. The forum takes no formal stand on issues. But it is supportive of a broader understanding of theological issues, including the thorny controversies surrounding ordination of gay bishops and same-sex blessings, as it works to avoid schism within the national denomination.

“We point to the diversity that exists within the national Episcopal Church,” he said.
Pagliaro said about 150 people are expected at the Middleton Place Conference Center, including 15 from the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina, which represents Episcopalians in the Midlands and Upstate.

Read it all.

Via Media Fort Worth: Legal help requested

From Katie Sherrod's blog, a plea for legal help for those wanting to stay in ECUSA in the Diocese of Fort Worth. Interesting comments on the lack of help from 815 [boldface mine]:

. . . I confess to being baffled at how much difficulty we are having getting legal advice on all this from the national church. What’s more, they don't say, "Well, we can't help until you get your own lawyer," or "Here are the steps you need to take before we can help you," or "Jump through these hoops to prove you are worthy of our help."

We would gladly do whatever we need to do -- if we had the slightest idea what that is.

We are not canon lawyers. The lawyers we are talking with are not canon lawyers and will have to do research on this. Texas courts are very reluctant to intervene in a church fight and, we are told by lawyers here, they always defer to the canons of hierarchal churches. Well, that sounds good. But nothing I've been able to find talks about what to do when a bishop is trying to take everything in a diocese with him.

That changes the dynamic in ways 815 doesn't seem to grasp.

Everyone tells us it will have to be fought out in court. OK. But when? And by whom? And with what money? And what should we be doing in the meantime?

Most of the clergy here are in the bishop’s pocket. Those who are not are few, and pretty beat up.

So it is us lay people [basically Fort Worth Via Media] who are struggling to find ways to stay in TEC. We do not have diocesan resources to help us, and few of the parishes are willing to use their resources to help us. Trinity, my parish, is clear it wants to stay in TEC but it’s not getting any more help than FWVM is getting.

Other parishes whose congregations might want to stay in TEC are being led by clergy in Bishop Iker's pocket and so those people are essentially being told to sit down and shut up. . .

. . . Of course, most priests in charge do not allow any open forums on it either. There is almost NO DISCUSSION on this that is not tightly controlled by the diocese. And the local newspaper is not covering this well at all.

So we've been writing letters to the editor, sending out personal letters to various people, having meetings in private homes, and announcing FWVM meetings as widely as we can. We are making contacts in every parish that we can.

We are bringing Tom Woodward on Oct. 29 to speak and there will be a Q&A session after that. We are buying ads in the newspaper to publicize it.

We will be handing out information at every opportunity, which, of course, the bishop will attempt to stop.

This is all incredibly labor intensive and EXPENSIVE.

We know that all this will pass at diocesan convention -- although by a much slimmer margin that the bishop expects, I think.

Then, of course, we have to have a second convention to pass it all again.

So, here we are -- a bunch of lay people who are struggling to stay in TEC.
Does TEC care?. . .

(Maybe it's just me, but it seems oxymoronic to state in your profile: "[Katie] has been given many awards for her consistent advocacy of women's reproductive freedom and for her 25 years of writing about efforts to combat family violence." I don't know about you, but I'd call abortion "family violence.")

The one reader comment on this posting ends thus:

. . . The more I see B033, the NOLA statements, and the rest of the mess from 815, the more I realize we need some serious house cleaning after we loose the fundamentalist heretics to Africa.