Conservative TEC leader concedes defeat in America’s sex wars: The Church of England Newspaper, October 11, 2013 p 5. October 15, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Christopher Seitz, Wycliffe College
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One of the leaders of the conservative remnant within the Episcopal Church has called upon traditionalists to acknowledge their defeat in the church’s wars over sexuality and seek a negotiated peace.
In a powerful address given last month to a conference marking the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Toronto Pan-Anglican conference, the Rev. Canon Christopher Seitz, Senior Research Professor at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto and a scholar with the Anglican Communion Institute said “the question for conservatives [now] is about encouragement. Will we be allowed to walk the well-worn paths of the faith,” he asked “or must we follow the trailblazers”, the advocates of change.
The culture and the majority faction within the Episcopal Church held a different moral worldview. It was “no longer a matter of saying the new ways are wrong. That point has passed. “
“We are in a new time. It is now here. We can see a before or after” in the Episcopal Church since the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003 and in the rise to power of Katharine Jefferts Schori in 2006. “Traditional Anglicans have lost a battle.”
There is now “no single understanding” of the faith. New Prayer Books will emerge that will solemnize gay marriage. Prof. Seitz noted the question for conservatives is not whether they can stop this but if the majority will allow “two rites [to] exist side by side.”
Encouragement for the conservative remnant “would be allowing the status quo ante. Not a new church allowing traditional Anglicans” a home, but the existing churches giving conservatives “the moral space and right to exist.”
“Will dioceses and parishes be permitted to do what has been done before,” he asked. Will we be given the “moral space to conserve our traditions? Can bishops let go of parishes? Can dioceses choose to say no? Can we [as Episcopalians] remain a valued and trustworthy expression of the church catholic?”
To do this “it may be necessary to change the office of Presiding Bishop, reform the General Convention, rewrite the Book of Common Prayer” or enact other “constitutional reforms”, he said.
But “if reforms are not enacted it would end the conservative presence” in the Episcopal Church, he said.
Seek peace with honor in the TEC wars: Anglican Ink, October 6, 2013 October 6, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Christopher Seitz, ecclesiology, Wycliffe College Toronto
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Toronto: Conservatives should seek terms for a negotiated peace to the Anglican wars, the Rev. Canon Christopher Seitz, Old Testament Scholar and Senior Research Professor at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto and a leader of the Anglican Communion Institute told a conference marking the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Toronto Pan-Anglican Congress.
The battle had been lost leaving conservatives as “strangers in their own church,” he said, and “the question for conservatives [now] is about encouragement. Will we be allowed to walk the well-worn paths of the faith,” he asked “or must we follow the trailblazers?”
While engaged in the preparation of a commentary on the Book of Jeremiah while on a study leave at the University of Tubingen, Prof. Seitz stated it was his custom to tread the paths in the forests surrounding the town. Warming upon this theme, he told the conference participants gathered at St Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto that traditionalists are being told the “paths of our fathers are wrong paths” and our understanding of God’s plan for salvation has reached its “sell-by date.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Political test for new bishops proposed: Anglican Ink, May 28, 2013. May 29, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Ephraim Radner, House of Bishops Committee on Pastoral Development, James Waggoner Jr, Philip Turner
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New bishops in the Episcopal Church should be vetted for their political orthodoxy, a paper released by the House of Bishops’ Standing Committee on Pastoral Development has proposed. The call for conformity came in a 29 April 2013 letter released under the signature of the Rt. Rev. James Waggoner, Jr., Bishop of Spokane and was sent to the church’s bishops and standing committees.
However some of the questions were “so egregious” and so “thin in its substance as to be silly”. Dr. Ephraim Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute told Anglican Ink.
In his covering letter Bishop Waggoner wrote the committee had noticed “two extremes” in recent years of “intense scrutiny” and “uninformed consent” in the consent process for newly elected bishops. The ten questions offered by the committee were designed “to be an additional resource in your decision-making process.”
While the first seven questions elicited little comment, the final three appeared to inject the divisive politics of recent years into a process already regulated by canon law, critics have charged. The asked:
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Communion sponsored mediation proposed for South Carolina: Anglican Ink, November 21, 2012 November 21, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church, Windsor Continuation Group.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Bernard Ntahoturi, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi
Resolution of the South Carolina standoff would best be served by an international intervention of the type proposed by the Anglican Communion’s Windsor Continuation Group, the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) said last night in a paper released on its website.
The American-based church think tank has proposed the national Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina take up the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group formed by Dr. Rowan Williams.
The ACI stated the WCG recommended that in cases of theological dispute between a diocese and province “a provisional holding arrangement” for the diocese be crafted that would “enable dialogue to take place and which will be revisited on the conclusion of the Covenant Process.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
ACI leader under investigation: Anglican Ink, July 5, 2012 July 5, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Uncategorized.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Diocese of Central Florida, Diocese of Dallas, Ephraim Radner, Philip Turner
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Allegations of disloyalty have been leveled against one of the leaders of the Anglican Communion Institute and may lead to his being charged with misconduct.
In an email published on the website Titusonenine, the Very Rev. Philip Turner, the former Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale reports that he is being investigated for having executed an affidavit in the Diocese of Quincy lawsuit and had endorsed the Anglican Communion Institute’s amicus brief in the Diocese of Fort Worth case before the Texas Supreme Court. On 29 June 2012 nine bishops received emails from the Rt. Rev. Clayton Matthews informing them they were being investigated for their views on the issues under dispute in the two lawsuits.
Dean Turner wrote that “I enquired as to whether a complaint against me had been lodged with my diocese. I was told by an unimpeachable source that in fact a complaint against me had been received. I have not seen the complaint. I do not know what the complaints are or who the complainants are.”
First published in Anglican Ink.
Seven more TEC bishops charged with misconduct: Anglican Ink, June 30, 2012 June 30, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Fort Worth, Property Litigation.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, D. Bruce MacPherson, Daniel Martins, James M Stanton, John W. Howe, Maurice Benetiz, Paul Lambert, William Love
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Seven bishops have been charged with misconduct for having endorsed a friend of the court brief prepared by the Anglican Communion Institute in the Diocese of Fort Worth case.
On 28 June 2012, the Rt Rev Maurice M. Benitez, retired Bishop of Texas, the Rt Rev John W. Howe, retired Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt Rev Paul E. Lambert. Suffragan Bishop of Dallas, the Rt Rev William H. Love, Bishop of Albany, the Rt Rev D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana, the Rt Rev Daniel H. Martins, Bishop of Springfield, and the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas were informed they had been charged with misconduct.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Episcopal Church polity under scrutinty by the courts: The Church of England Newspaper, May 13, 2012 p 7. May 21, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Property Litigation.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Bruce McPherson, Christopher Seitz, Daneil Martins, Diocese of Fort Worth, Ephraim Radner, Jack Iker, James Stanton, John W. Howe, Maurice Benetiz, Paul Lambert, Philip Turner, William Love
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Seven bishops of the Episcopal Church have filed a legal brief with the Texas Supreme Court urging it to reject the theory that the General Convention or the presiding bishop holds metropolitan authority over the church’s dioceses.
In an amicus brief filed on 23 April 2012 prepared by the Anglican Communion Institute in the case of the breakaway Diocese of Fort Worth, seven bishops and three leading Episcopal scholars argued the trial court misconstrued the church’s constitutions and canons by holding that the Episcopal Church was a hierarchical body with ultimate power vested in the General Convention.
The 29-page brief stated that attorneys for that national Episcopal Church sought “to establish an alternative authority to that of the diocesan bishop” in their pleadings, which they said was contrary to the church’s Constitution and Canons. Attorneys for the national church have argued the Episcopal Church possesses a unitary polity, where dioceses are creatures of the General Convention.
The ACI disagrees, citing the church’s history and constitution and canons. Its friend of the court pleading follows upon their 22 April 2009 paper endorsed by 15 Bishops entitled Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church that stated the “fundamental structure of the Episcopal Church from the outset has been that of a voluntary association of dioceses meeting together in a General Convention as equals.”
Signing the document were the Bishops of Albany, Springfield, Western Louisiana, Dallas, the Suffragan Bishop of Dallas and the retired Bishops of Central Florida and Texas, along with the Rev. Christopher R. Seitz, the Rev. Philip W. Turner, and the Rev. Ephraim Radner from the ACI.
Canon lawyer Allan Haley observed the amicus brief filed in the Fort Worth case “must be both an embarrassment, and also no small irritant. After all, if the “Church” is at the top of the ‘three-tiered hierarchy,’ why can’t the “Church” keeps its bishops and clergy in line?”
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Conger 