Tobias Haller writes about two of the topics of the moment in the Episcopal Church, the movement by the Diocese of Fort Worth to separate from the Episcopal Church, and the trial ongoing in Virginia to block similar actions taken by a group of parishes to associate with Anglicans connected to Nigeria.
He writes of the Fort Worth situation:
“The Diocese of Fort Worth is in the process of considering a resolution that includes a clause ‘dissociating itself from the moral, theological, and disciplinary innovations of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.’ What form this dissociation might take remains unknown, although there has been a move afoot to realign the diocese with the Church of the Southern Cone.
There is a procedure for clergy to transfer their membership to other provinces of the Anglican Communion. Many have made use of this in recent times. There is also a procedure for a priest or deacon or bishop to renounce the Ministry of The Episcopal Church. There is no procedure for a diocese to do so. It appears that the intent of the Bishop and some of the clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth is to separate the diocese itself from the discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church. This has all of the appearance of renunciation and abandonment on their part — not of the faith of the Church, but, as the Canon says, ‘the Doctrine, Discipline, or Worship of this Church’; that is, The Episcopal Church. Two out of three appear to be at play in this current proposed action.
The Bishop and Clergy of Fort Worth cannot have it both ways. They are either under the discipline of TEC, or they reject it; and rejection, in this case, constitutes abandonment.”
And of the situation in Virginia and the arguments being made in court regarding the act of division in a congregation (which is a legal concept under Virginia state law):
It appears to me that they have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick — or the branch. The statute uses “division” to refer to decisions made by a church hierarchy to split itself into two or more denominations — as happened during the Civil War with a number of American churches, though, significantly, not with The Episcopal Church, which never recognized the separate establishment of a Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America any more than the Congress recognized the legitimate establishment of the Confederate States themselves.
The dissident parishes are claiming that the word “division” can be applied to the present state of disagreement in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. This argument, which I find it hard to believe anyone could take seriously, would, if applied consistently, lead to the total dissolution of any church in which there was any significant level of disagreement on any given topic.
Read the rest here.