Let's play: Guess who said this?
"We will find a way to sort this out as Anglicans, so we have a common future. But whenever you’re in a badly broken relationship, the first thing you need is space," he said. "If they take away the space of a diocese of being able to choose its own leader, they send a signal that the Episcopal Church intends to move totally contrary to the Anglican Communion."
Need a little more time?
Ready for the answer?
Kendall Harmon in his comments on his blog, titusonenine
I kid you not.
Take a minute to let it sink in and then ...
Help me understand how it makes any sense that the "space of a diocese of being able to choose its own leader" should stop at the border of South Carolina while other dioceses -- let's just start with New Hampshire and Newark for the moment -- don't qualify for the same "space."
This one not only "makes the heart sad" it makes the head spin!
3 comments:
And it makes my blood pressure shoot right straight through my head .. and my head is pretty hard on some issues.
Can I say WHAT BRAZEN ARROGANCE .. is it okay to say that here?
soft spoken, gentle hearted Will :-)
A gander is the male form of a goose.
It will be interesting to see whether the traditional reticence to blocking an election on grounds other than a failure to follow proper proceedure holds now that we have B033 suggesting consents be withheld for those who's election puts a strain on the rest of the church.
Jon
Kendall's response:
Dioceses elect Bishops for the whole church, Susan, which is why Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction need to consent to their election. The choice of a diocese needs to be respected but within the overall framework of evangelical faith and catholic order. The problem with the New Hampshire choice is that it violated both.
In 1955 or 1956 the Diocese of Colorado elected C. Norman Middleton as their Suffragan Bishop. He was later rejected by the House of Bishops because he had been divorced and remarried many years previously. They later had to elect someone else. This is an example of the overall framework of evangelical faith and catholic order limiting diocesan choice, it is autonomy-in-communion as it used to operate in our own Province (Hat tip Bishop Bill Frey who this week emailed me with this information).
South Carolina made its choice based on its own discernment and in accord with evangelical faith and catholic order. We are a diocese which seeks to follow the teaching and practice of the Anglican Communion. If the diocesan choice here were to be rejected because of its electee’s theology, it would be a tragic decision to signal to the communion that current Anglican teaching and practice is longer approved in the episcopate of this Province. It would further be a hypocritical lack of application of the same standard that was purported to be exercised in approving other reappraising dioceses elections of bishops to the situation in the reasserting diocese of South Carolina–KSH.
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