Taking Out the Trash

If you've missed Mark Harris' reflecting on "Taking Out the Trash" it's highly recommended reading.

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Here are some candidates for trash to be taken out at the end of the day in Anglican-land. (see my previous blog "The limits of Provisionality.")

Bishop Schofield's remarks (please note, not the Bishop. He is not trash, he is a child of God):

He said this,

"This enables us:

1) to receive the protection contemplated by the Primates in Dar Es Salaam that was originally agreed to by the Presiding bishop, but later rejected by the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church;

2) to remain a diocese with full membership within the Anglican communion where the orders of our clergy are recognized; and,

3) to assure that we remain within the Anglican Communion through a Province in full communion with the See of Canterbury.

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According to well-informed sources, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been fully informed of the invitation of the Province of the Southern Cone and described it as a "sensible way forward." Indeed, it is the sensible way forward and a decision by the Diocese to move in this direction is by no means irrevocable as was seen during the 1860's when the Dioceses of the Southern States left the Episcopal Church and at the conclusion of the Civil War returned to the Episcopal Church without punitive action.

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As the Southern Cone invitation makes clear, the Diocese may return to full communion with the Episcopal Church when circumstances change and the Episcopal Church repents and adheres to the theological, moral and pastoral norms of the Anglican Communion, and when effective and acceptable alternative primatial oversight becomes available."

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This is trash on several counts:

section 2…the diocese is already a 'full member within the Anglican Communion' and even if the Episcopal Church were bounced that would not mean orders would not be recognized;

section 3…moving on to the Southern Cone does not assure that they remain within the Anglican Communion.

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The deposed bishop of Recife went to the Southern Cone with his followers and is not invited to Lambeth. The riff about the dioceses in the Southern States is bogus and an unhelpful example. What makes the bishop think that "dioceses may return to full communion with the Episcopal Church" on the clarity of something said by the Province of the Southern Cone? And, as icing on the cake, the notion that repentance by the Episcopal Church and effective and acceptable alternative primatial oversight becomes available are linked as both being needed, is absurd.

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Bishop Jack Iker produced trash as well:

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"...Our plan is not only to disassociate, then, from the Episcopal Church, but to officially, constitutionally re-affiliate with an existing orthodox province of the communion that does not ordain women to the priesthood. These conversations are very far along but cannot be announced until the province that is considering our appeal has made their final decision public."

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The deal is, the Diocese of Fort Worth did not affiliate with the Episcopal Church, as if it were shopping around for a convenient place to land, it was created by act of General Convention on the recommendation of the Diocese of Dallas. So it can't "re-affiliate." No matter that conversations with the Southern Cone are in progress, no matter that the bishop and many if not most people are prepared to move on. The Diocese of Fort Worth is a diocese in the Episcopal Church and is not up for bid, re-affiliation or unilateral whatever.

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