Posted on 11/04/2007 3:06:06 PM PST by sionnsar
John Howe strongly urges Katharine Jefferts Schori to think again:
Saturday, November 3, 2007
The Presiding Bishop
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Dear Katharine,
I have read with great sadness your letter to Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh. And, since you have chosen to make your letter to him public, I will make this one public, as well.
I have stood shoulder to shoulder with Bob in the efforts of the Network to reverse the course of The Episcopal Church with regard to recent decisions regarding human sexuality. I part company with him in his decision to abandon the commitment we made when we formed the Network, to work "within the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church."
But, Katharine, I cannot support your thinly veiled threat to resort to litigation if the Diocese of Pittsburgh rescinds its accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.
Dioceses voluntarily join (accede to) The Episcopal Church. And they can voluntarily determine to separate from (withdraw their accession from) The Episcopal Church.
During the Civil War, the Dioceses within the Confederate States withdrew from The Episcopal Church without penalty. They were reunited when that terrible war ended. Perhaps there will be a reunion of presently seceding Dioceses at some point in our future, as well.
But just now, to threaten litigation, especially in the face of the unanimous exhortation from the Primates in Dar es Salaam (an exhortation you agreed to) to end such litigation, is deeply troubling.
I beg you to stand down.
This can only harm our relationships as fellow members of the Body of Christ and our witness to the outside world.
Warmest regards in our Lord,
The Right Rev. John W. Howe
Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida
1017 East Robinson St.
Orlando, FL 32801
Strong words particularly coming from someone who, as he states, has no desire to split from the Episcopal Church. This letter suggests that other moderate bishops might not support litigation and that a "let them go in peace" sentiment might prevail. One wonders, though, what Howe will do when, as seems likely, Schori and the radicals completely ignore him and plunge ahead anyway.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. In so doing they have left the church open to the cynical political maneuvering of the left.
Now the bill is coming due. Howe and Duncan can say what they ant. It can even be the right thing to say. It will make no difference. Since the end of John Allen term, they have made sure that the primatial cross was in the hands of liberals. They made their bed.
I'm not so much saying, "The devil take them," as I'm saying,"Who can be surprised? 'They called upon Tash; Tash has come.'"
"Yes," said the Dwarf. "And this fool of an Ape, who didn't believe in Tash, will get more than he bargained for! He called for Tash; Tash has come."
Lewis taught me a lot, and not least about how the wrath of God is merely His saying, "Okay then, YOUR will be done,(but you won't like it)" to those who insist upon it."
The Episcopal Church has chosen for a long time to will apart from God's will, and now they find that without His will they have no will at all, and without His communion there is no communion to be had.
It was a lesson they could have learned as children, or if they had welcomed the grace and gift of the mind of a child. But they esteemed scriptural and theological sophistication higher than orthodoxy, and bishops who were well versed in group dynamics and management techniques were more to be prized than pious, learned, and holy men.
Scripture and tradition are replete to the point of tedium with the lessons they refused to learn and examples from which they disdained to profit. Why, recent history alone is instructive!
PB Browning tells dioceses and parishes to institute accounting controls, and then his prize assistants embezzle him blind, because he considers his office to be above the prudence required of underlings and lesser folk.
Before him, Hines hands Convention over to some pet black revolutionaries, and they bite and then mock the hand offered them -- injury AND insult! Then PB Allen hires cynical fund raisers for "Venture in Mission" who advise bishops (I know, I saw the letter) to hit up this or that rich widow when she's drunk because she's more likely to give then. Her soul's health isn't mentioned, while her bank account is coveted, to fund a massive effort to distract the church from what it has done in the rush to ordain women.
At Port St. Lucy the House of Bishops finds its manhood, momentarily, and rears back on its hind legs to declare the ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven to be invalid, but within a few months, the women, without either ordination or a formal accounting and repudiation of the Port St. Lucy statement are allowed to function as priests.
Then one of them says that, of course, she's a Lesbian, but what are ordination vows when the role of women in the church is at stake?
Then Spong, the great and terrible, goes his own way, and within a few years the church decides to follow the self-willed, disobedient, and forsworn bishop rather than consider that even when blindness is self-inflicted, the blind are poor pioneers.
Viewed after more than a dozen years on this side of the Tiber, it all seems like a frenzy, like madness, like a defect of will rather than mere frowardness. I read once that a scorpion upon whom whiskey has been splashed will sting itself to death. Now I am watching it.
If Howe lets those two conservative churches go, it’s only a matter of time until Schori and Beers come after him.
Ouch. A Narnia quote.
What ever Robert Pittsburgh and John Central Florida say, Dr. Jefferts-Schori seems to be utterly intent on pursuing any parishes who wish to remain true to TEC’s (or whatever it’s calling itself these days) history and unchanging values.
As Dawg hauls out the ultimate weapon ......
Do you have timeframes for all this? I am guessing it was after I left ECUSA because none of the names (other than Spong) are familiar.
It was under Browning that the nat Church backed down when a judge threatened a cleric with contempt if he didn't talk about what he'd heard in the confessional. That was what actually pushed me into the water. I called 815 and some clerical chiquita told me, "That's how we make thoelogy in the Episcopal Church."
Thanks. I hadn’t even heard of the last.
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