Loading ...Support Church Unity: Hire a Lawyer
flockwoodThe Episcopal Church is offering supporters an opportunity “to support the Church’s unity” — by footing some of the denomination’s multi-million-dollar lawsuit tab against breakaway parishes and dioceses. According to this description on the church’s Web site:
“The St. Ives Fund
The St. Ives Fund, named in honor of the patron saint of lawyers, was established to support the Church’s unity, to preserve the Church’s heritage, to provide financial support for the legal costs associated with property litigations, and to decrease demands on the Church’s budgets for mission and ministry. In addition, the Fund serves as a vehicle for the support of the Church, generally, by lawyers, judges, law professors and others who may wish to participate.
In the past few years, the Church has been forced to pursue litigations to defend and protect Church property against those who wish to secure the property on behalf of a foreign province. In each case, the Church takes this action in order to ensure that the heritage of the Church will be preserved for the Church’s service to God’s mission, both now and for generations to come. The cost of such litigation can be significant, and the St. Ives Fund is an effort to alleviate the pressure that these legal actions has placed on the Church’s financial resources.”
The St. Ives Fund is classified as part of the Episcopal Church’s “Mission Funding.”
September 25th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
This is another manifestation of the ugly, loveless church I can no longer break bread with.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
That’s assuming that those communion wafers are bread . . .
September 26th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Say that five people live in a house that you own. One of those people decides that they don’t like you anymore BUT still wants to live in your house AND give YOUR house to the neighbor down the street.
Would you not try to keep YOUR house for yourself and the other four people who live there?
If you want to move out of the house… go ahead. But you can’t take MY house with you.
September 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
The phrase sounds a lot like “Preserve the Union” back in the mid-19th century.
It’s worth remembering that the legal struggle is over church property. Any member is free to leave the Episcopal Church at any time. As for those who demand that the Episcopal Church weaken its mission by ceding ownership of church property to the secessionists, “ugly” and “loveless” sound about right.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
It is sad that The Episcopal Church in America is breaking away in a time when Christianity has been declining with the pressure from atheist and non-believers of Christ. It is truly painful division which came out from a particular sexual behavior which has been forbidden since creation but reinvented with modern science as holistic, oppose to sinful with spiritual knowledge perceived by Apostle Paul who was transformed from a terrorist to servant of Christ thru a road accident while traveling to Damascus from Jerusalem.
One of the objectives of “St. Ives Fund” is to preserve Church’s heritage of Biblical teaching. So in that sense funds could used to maintain tradition of biblical teaching. Episcopal Church is organ of Universal Church (Catholic) “Anglican”, where Jesus Christ is head of the Church. Instead of spending huge litigation cost, Episcopal Church should go to corporate head “Anglican Church” to resolve the property issue with win-win situation for both parties to glorify God. Cost savings could be used serving Christ by serving poor and hungry people of the world. There are 38 provinces under Anglican Church around the world and almost 70 million communicant members. Almost 1 billion people eat once a day only. Please pray.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Julian, a couple of points. First, the Episcopal Church is not breaking away from anyone or anything. Conservative members of our church are breaking away to form a new church, one not sanctioned by any known rule or canon of Anglican governance. Trust me, Julian, we old fashioned Episcopalians are far more distraught at having to talk about money, something most of us were taught NEVER to discuss, than any outsider could be. But, as Jose points out, one can hardly let these dissenting members take property that was lawfully pledged to the Episcopal Church.
Second, you’re right about the number and character of members of the Anglican Communion worldwide. And, what you didn’t say is that nearly every Anglican diocese in Africa is heavily supported by the US Episcopal Church. In fact, the Anglican communion would grind to a halt but for the funding it receives from us. So, let’s not be too unkind to the US church.
Finally, the official church web site on St. Ives says nothing about the Bible or about a tradition of biblical teaching. It says that one of the purposes of the fund is to preserve the heritage of our church. That heritage certainly includes an element of biblical teaching, but the bible is hardly the sole factor; I won’t give my canned Anglican three-legged stool analogy again, but remember that the bible is only one leg of that stool, and a stool cannot stand on one leg.
We are not an “organ” of anything; rather, we are an independent church that is a member of the worldwide Anglican communion. The Anglican church is our umbrella organization, but it is not our “corporate head” by any means. However, having some type of mediator from the Mother Ship to sort this out wouldn’t be a bad idea.
As for your views on gays and lesbians, Julian, suffice to say that they would not be shared by most Episcopalians, just as the views of most American Christians fifty years ago concerning African-Americans and other minorities were not shared by Episcopalians then, and are not shared by them now. There is a tremendous amount of hatred of gays and lesbians out there today, just as there was hatred of and discrimination against blacks and other minorities by many Christians in the US for hundreds of years.
It is sad to see someone from a developing region of the world espouse views that separate us rather than unite us, Julian. Surely today we can set aside our prejudice against gays and lesbians, just as we have tried to set aside our racial prejudices of the past.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
If, as Julian says, the objective is spend more church money on mission and less on litigating then there is a very easy solution. Those who no longer wish to be members of the Episcopal Church should drop their lawsuits immediately.
September 28th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I can where a dying, high-church, universalist sect that deliberately threw away any meaningful connection with the Christian religion four decades ago might consider soliciting funds to sue actual Christians out of their meeting houses to be a form of “mission.”
September 28th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Let’s sidestep all the moral and ethical arguments… there are clearly different views on that represented here… but from a purely pragmatic standpoint does this make any sense? The St. Ives Fund, even if hugely successful, is likely a fund to achieve a Pyrrhic “victory.” Every cent going to pay for lawyers and court costs is a cent not spent on mission- by either those departing or those remaining.
I walked past a beautiful old church building to day… the kind of stone church building that people long ago must have been proud to build and dedicate to God’s worship.
It’s now a Tanning Salon and Gift Shop. This I fear is a harbinger of the end result of these senseless property disputes…
September 28th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Caleb, It is good to know from the teaching of the Bible that after our bodily death our souls would not be marked by origin of country, whether from a developed or from a undeveloped country or from a rich or poor family or in any kind of social status in any country. Thanks are to God for poor Lazarus who was on lap of Abraham, in Christ’s parable. Mater of facts I am citizen of America and live in America and have been affected by this renewing of meaning of sexual origin with changes in modern knowledge as well as with socio-political changes in American society. But God’s Kingdom of Heaven does not rely on socio-political changes in global powers.
Episcopal Church, under umbrella of Anglican Church, is comparable with United Nations of 192 independent member states, organized under UN charter. We believe in Trinity, and as each one of Godheads is inseparable, so do Bible is inseparable to your other two legs. Hate crime for same sex people is indisputably punishable by both country laws as well as God’s laws found in the Bible. That the Anglican Church did not support historically for the freedom of slave, prejudice on minority or women’s priesthood are not same character comparable with acceptance of sinful behavior that contaminates our spiritual life. Homosexuality is one of them as prescribed by words of God in the Bible. Integrity of The Bible would be in question believe it or not if homosexuality is transformed into virtue rather than vice as perceived in the past. Off course I understand it is matter of faith and believe, as Shakespeare stated that there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Only time would speak about truth of word of God found in the Bible.
Parishioners, their fathers and forefathers built church property for propagation of God’s ministry based on believe that homosexuality is sin. Now deviating from core value by majority vote in council meeting and depriving from property right for dioceses or parishes of majority people who want to retain their conservative value would not bring justice for all as preached by Episcopal Church. As God is fair and balance, lets Church be fair and balance to those parishes where majority wants to retain conservative value on sexuality. Let us not fear of how a church would be maintained. God’s kingdom would be spread no matter what and Anglican Church would continue to pray God’s Kingdom in earth as it is in heaven.
September 29th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
“Parishioners, their fathers and forefathers built church property for propagation of God’s ministry based on believe that homosexuality is sin.” I suppose that’s true, Julian, but many of them also built church buildings with the belief that Jews and Muslims were going to hell, blacks were inferior to whites, and that the churches they built would be used only by white Anglo-Saxons. Do we have to give the money back to their heirs, given that even the most right wing schismatic would not agree with these beliefs today?
But, more than anything else, they built these buildings believing that the buildings would forever be used by the Episcopal Church, whatever that church’s views happened to be at the time. They didn’t build them thinking that some breakaway schismatic right wing group would be able to steal their handiwork. And, Julian, that’s what this is, theft, pure and simple.
It’s easy to say that these schismatic groups more closely believe what the builders believed, but is that really true? I suspect that if you were able to quiz most of the builders of these churches, you’d find that their views on most anything differ from those of both the mainstream Episcopal Church and from the right wing schismatics. But one thing they would no doubt agree with is that there is a church hierarchy to make decisions of this nature. And that hierarchy has spoken. If the conservatives don’t like what the majority is doing, they are more than welcome to try to influence the majority to do something different, just as people are welcome to vote out the party in power politically.
And, Julian, you say that the church should be fair and balanced. Fine, and I certainly hope that it IS more fair and balanced than the news organization that uses that theme. But that fairness and balance derives from the rules that govern the Anglican Communion. Those rules do not permit prelates from other nations to come to America and found churches, dioceses, or provinces. And yet that is what these folks have done. Where is the criticism and backlash against that?
The bottom line, Julian, is that the Episcopal Church has advanced morally and intellectually beyond the types of beliefs held by the schismatic conservatives. If Canterbury wants to throw us out of the Anglican Communion over that, fine. But something tells me they won’t.
As far as this St. Ives thing, it’s a tempest in a teapot. The Episcopal Church has plenty of money with or without the fund, and I imagine the conservatives do, too; there aren’t many poor conservatives (at least not many poor Episcopal conservatives).
September 29th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Caleb, I tried to focus my whole point on to teaching of the Bible. The Bible is the guiding tool for determination, whether any statement comes out of God’s wisdom or from wisdom of the world. Such as sex revolution during sixties brought the concept of new meaning of sexual orientation, doubt on equality of sex established on scripture etc., etc. No where in the Bible discrimination was encouraged because of color, wealth or faith? When it rains it rains for everybody that is the Bible teaching.
“My believe” is that if all religious people could come to the “Kingdom of Heaven”, then Christ would not need to say that He is the way and the truth, and that He died for many (not all) who repent and believe Him, that He set up Church entrusting on Peter, when Judaism was the state religion, and that there is no other God than God Himself as stated in ten commandment. Because of slackness in believe many Episcopalian believe a priest could be both Christian and Muslim or a Bishop could be both Buddhist and Christian and even bishop believes historical Jesus was not resurrected. In any case reasoning is no more important for unity than peaceful dissolution with less cost by win-win situation so that both groups could glorify God and further separation in other parts of the world could learn lesion from US Church.
September 30th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Julian, first of all, while you are certainly free to believe that the Bible is the be all and end all of theology, that’s not an Anglican position. In the Anglican Communion, we see the Bible as one factor to consider theologically, along with church tradition and reason. The considered view of the vast majority of Episcopalians in the United States is that the Bible does indeed teach that when it rains it rains on everyone, including gays and lesbians.
The problem is that so many people who called themselves Christians in the past believed that the Bible supported, if not mandated, both slavery and segregation of the races, and some American churches, such as the Southern Baptists and the Mormons are less than a generation away from some of these beliefs. My firm belief is that in the future, gays and lesbians will be welcomed into all the mainstream churches, just as they are in the more progressive churches today.
Julian, do not make the mistake that those racists made forty years ago. Forty years ago, many progressives, including many members of the Episcopal Church, preached out against racism in our society and against segregation. Looking back on it, it would seem impossible that the racists didn’t know that their racial ideas were dying out and integration was inevitable. When Faulkner made his famous speech in the ’50s, urging Southerners of good conscience to “speak now against the day” when, in the future, society would ask them what they did during the great civil rights struggle, he was simply saying that justice will triumph, people will be free, and when they are, they’re going to ask you what you did in the struggle. And if the answer is that you did nothing but hold up progress and hold on to the hateful ideas of the past, you may not feel very good about how history remembers you.
And that’s where people like you are today, Julian. You began this exchange by saying that people from the beginning of time had believed that gay and lesbian relationships were sinful. Well, people from the beginning of time also believed that slavery was just and that racial segregation and discrimination were normal parts of life. And today we know better, just as we now know better about gays and lesbians, too.
So, the question, Julian, is twenty or thirty or fifty years from now, when all this will seem as silly to people then as segregation does to us today, and gays and lesbians are fully integrated into the life of our churches, what are you going to say? When someone asks you (or your children or grandchildren) what you did to achieve equal status for your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, are you going to be listed among the Bull Connors and George Wallaces, or are you going to be listed among the Martin Luther Kings and Thurgood Marshalls?
Julian, the answer is up to you, but parroting what the Bible says is not going to do you any more good then than quoting the Bible did for Jerry Falwell and his cohorts in the ’60s: It just makes them seem sillier today.
October 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Caleb, The Bible is source of knowledge about God (Spirit and Truth), same as any text book is source of knowledge of the world, (non-spiritual). Any one refers Bible for spiritual justification, as President of America take oath putting hands on the Bible, in inaugural day. Divine authority is ultimate choice after death; where as people’s vote is final while alive. Which should we care a life of 100 years in this world or an eternal life after bodily death, as promised only in the Bible?
Answer to the first choice (100 years) justifies your statement for Jerry Falwell stated above. Who should we believe on holiness of same sex, Apostle Paul, who leveled acts of same sex as sin and he was transformed from terrorist to slave of Christ by the light from the sky, or Bishop Robinson who was married with children as well as at the same time had improper relationship with a man?
I try to be Christian for 2nd choice (eternal life); believing Bible is whole truth from God. If any people change the meaning from original, they would be accountable to God. Let us not be ashamed of declaring whole authority of God as described in the Bible. Your writings imply that The Bible is less important or dependable than general consensus of contemporary world. Please correct me if I am wrong.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Julian, it appears that we’re coming at this from different directions. As I indicated in my last post, while Anglican theology considers the Bible important, it does not consider it either inerrant or the sole source of moral guidance. So, in that light, yes, I like the Apostle Paul as well as anyone, but if the Apostle Paul (or someone in his name) wrote something that might have made sense in his day, but doesn’t make sense in ours, I don’t think we should follow it. And, I suspect that business about the bright light never happened; that appears only in the book of Acts, a book not known for its accuracy, and the incident was never mentioned by Paul in his letters, and one would think that, of all the things that Paul DID say about his history, he’d have said that, too.
And, let’s face it, we don’t follow all of what Paul says anyway. Paul also suggested that women be quiet in church, but wear hats, a position we have abandoned. St. Paul suggests that people should not get married, but remain celibate as he apparently was, a position we’ve also abandoned. Even he gave some wiggle room on that one, suggesting that if we really really really couldn’t keep our clothes on, it was okay to get married, but it’s hardly the endorsement of the institution one would like. St. Paul supported the existence of the institution of slavery, a position we have also abandoned.
And this has been the church’s position on the Bible in general. The Bible clearly says that usery, the charging of interest on debts, is a sin, but we’ve abandoned that idea to the point where bankers (the equivalent of the moneychangers in Jesus’ day) are among most congregations’ biggest supporters. The Bible condones divorce only for adultery, and is less than clear on whether remarriage is possible. We’ve abandoned that position as well.
I suppose I have two points here. First, churches today decide what portions of the Bible they take seriously and those they don’t. And it’s not just the Episcopal Church, either; there are far more Baptist and Methodist and Presbyterian bankers in the South than Episcopal ones. I realize that some churches have a more stringent standard on divorce than we do, but I don’t know of any church that would excommunicate you for being divorced (though the Catholics do deny you communion, something they don’t do for child molesters, even if the child molester was a priest), though some won’t remarry you. The Episcopal Church will usually only remarry you once, and you need the bishop’s permission if you’ve been divorced at all.
Second, given the above, and the fact that the Bible is only one of three factors to be examined by Anglicans, the question is whether to use rules contained in it that simply do not appear to large segments of Christ’s people to be Christlike. As one of my seminary professors liked to say, Jesus didn’t write a book, he founded a church. The Jewish faith is based on a book, as is the Muslim faith. The Christian faith is not. The Christian church existed hundreds of years before we adopted the New Testament as we know it today, and the only reason we have the Bible we do today is because the church decided what to put in it.
Jesus founded a church, and he founded it in a way that did not tie its hands. Under the Anglican doctrine of the Apostolic Succession, the bishops today are the heirs to the apostles, and are empowered to govern Christ’s church as they believe Christ would want — not based on something written for another time and another set of problems. So, in that sense, yes, I do think an analysis of the current situation, made by the bishops put in place by Jesus to make that analysis, guided by the principles of the Bible, but not shackled by specific rules, is more important than the Bible. As I suggested above with examples other than this one, this has been the process among all churches concerning all moral issues anyway.
Let me ask YOU a question: What do you think is going to happen here? Do you really think that gays and lesbians are going to abandon the gains they have made in their drive to seek equality over the past five decades? Do you think the progressive churches are going to wake up one day and say, oh no, we made a mistake; gays and lesbians are not real people after all?
That was the question faced by the segregationists in the ’50s and ’60s, and ultimately their answer was “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.” That forever lasted less than ten years after that statement was made, and I expect the same will be true for those who want to demonize gays and lesbians. So, the issue is, as they used to say in the mountains during the union violence of the ’30s, which side are you on? There were no neutrals in Harlan County, and there are none in this battle.
October 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Why argue? TEC is dead. The decline in membership and attendance is directly related to the views championed by Mr. Powers. The only question now is who gets the real estate.
My advice to Episcopalians to to just leave. Run while you are able to make that choice. I used to be a member of TPC. All they talked about was their unhappiness with the liberal leadership of the church especially on the issue of homosexuality. When I stepped back and really took a look around I discovered the service to be a group of people reciting dead prayers.
There is a TEC in my neighborhood. They do good works. That’s wonderful but it doesn’t assure me that I will be with Jesus when I die. I now attend Times Square Church in Manhattan. I feel the presence of he Holy Spirit there.
Julian- Run as fast as you can to seek Jesus. Tell your friends to forget the building. Get together and worship in each other’s homes or rent out something. The Holy Spirit is within you. You know that. What we know as truth seems foolish to the world. This world has nothing for us.