Why I am an Episcopalian and Why that Frightens Me

Oh, yes, you are so right. I became an Episcopalian 32 years ago. I have been in the same parish, 5 different priests, last two women, but very good.
I only became conscious of what was going on in the last 4 or 5 years.
I just knew I loved my parish and still do.
Please don't bother to tell me that I am a heretic by staying in the church. (Unless, of course, you left the United States when Clinton was President and the dems were in charge.)

altura, I'm not sure what I said that provoked this, but please believe me that I do not label those still in ECUSA as heretics! By some others' standards perhaps, maybe due to the lack of instant dissassociation (and how "instant" must it be? 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day, 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second, 1 millisecond, 1 microsecond, 1 nanosecond, 1 femtosecond? -- I know, this is the Western "legalistic" approach and not the Eastern "we are already disassociated" -- yet even the Orthodox can remain and fight against heresy, I understand).

But there are those I personally know in ECUSA who are staying and fighting the good fight. +John-David Schofield, for example. No heretic... though he hasn't yet run away from the church screaming.

But those I am least ready to accuse are people like you. I know from personal experience how the reality of the situation is kept from parishioners. I went from parishioner to lay reader/chalice bearer (non-ordained ministry) to Vestryman with no real recognition of what was going on at the time. And the issues I did see, the debate over the ordination women and the opposition to the '79 BCP, were all sucessfully painted as the work of extremists.

My departure was triggered, after all the above was saif and done, by my attending a diocesan convention (the Diocese of El Camino Real) and seeing there what really< went on.

I am minded of a couple I know here, tireless Republican campaign workers, who tell us that just a few years they (as teachers) were Democrats. Until they attended a Democrat convention. Wherein they saw they nothing whatsoever in common with the party in which they'd spent their lives as members. After which -- they bacame the staunchest, hardest-working conservative Republicans you'd want to see. (And if all local Republicans each put in 1/100th the effort these two do, WA would be a red state.)

" altura, I'm not sure what I said that provoked this, but please believe me that I do not label those still in ECUSA as heretics! By some others' standards perhaps, maybe due to the lack of instant dissassociation (and how "instant" must it be? 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day, 1 hour, 1 minute, 1 second, 1 millisecond, 1 microsecond, 1 nanosecond, 1 femtosecond? -- I know, this is the Western "legalistic" approach and not the Eastern "we are already disassociated" -- yet even the Orthodox can remain and fight against heresy, I understand)"

Perhaps it was my comment about universal salvation and open communion on another thread which prompted altura's remark. If so I am very sorry. Being a member of a parish or a diocese which is in communion with others which teach heresy does not make any given individual or diocese for that matter, ipso facto a heretic or heretical. It is the acceptance, promulgation and teaching of the heresy which does that. Staying and fighting is always an option (indeed it may be an obligation), at least for the Orthodox, but that can be a very dangerous path, spiritually, if one has options. On the otherhand, options frankly aren't commonly available in the real world until things get very, very bad.

Remaining in communion with heretics, however, is an equally dangerous course because, at the level of the hierarchy, it can cause scandal and confusion among the faithful. I suspect that consideration played a major role in the decision of the Southern Cone hierarchs to refuse to attend a liturgy with Griswold. In any event, if the definition of The Church of +Ignatius of Antioch still holds, then issues of communion are matters between bishops, properly, and not the lower clergy or laity except in a most extended way.

"I've been pondering the "communion" definition question, and I suspect that among some "communion" is being confused, or blended, with "ecumenism.""

You know, I'd never thought of that, but you may well be right. There are those who say that ecumenism of necessity is a heresy. I don't share that opinion at all, by the way, but to the extent that ecumenical fellowship extends to syncretism, I can see how that would be a bad thing. In the sense that the term "communion" seems to be used by some Anglicans/Episcopalians, it probably is being seen as an exercise in ecumenism and thus is being used in a very different way from that in which I have been using the term. By the way, for Orthodoxy communion would be the result of ecumenical dialogue, not a tool to foster that dialogue.

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