Diocese of Pittsburgh Historic Decision Will Reverberate Around Anglican Communion
Commentary
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
9/30/2008
The Diocese of Pittsburgh will make an historic decision on October 4, 2008. The diocese will ask itself if it will remain a constituent member of the Episcopal Church USA or vote to come under another jurisdiction, in this case the Province of the Southern Cone and Archbishop Gregory Venables.
If they vote to leave, and all the indicators are that they will, the cries of anguish, anger and bewilderment will reverberate around the Anglican Communion, indicating one more time that The Episcopal Church fabric has been irrevocably torn and that realignment is now a fact of Anglican life. (Since his deposition, Bishop Duncan has been personally received into the Province of the Southern Cone).
This is the second diocese following the Diocese of San Joaquin to leave the Episcopal Church, which brought down the wrath of litigation upon the head of Anglican Bishop John-David Schofield by Presiding Bishop Jefferts-Schori and her attorney David Booth Beers.
The Episcopal Church, under the heretical leadership of Jefferts-Schori, has left no room at the table for orthodox Episcopalians. They are slowly but surely being shunted out. By the end of this year, if the dioceses of Ft. Worth and Quincy vote to leave, and all the indicators are that they will, then it will be the end of Anglo-Catholicism in The Episcopal Church. True, there will be isolated parishes here and there, but to all intents and purposes, traditional catholics in The Episcopal Church will cease to exist.
What happens next to evangelicals remains another question.
In a reflective observation of the deposition of Bishop Duncan, the Bishop of South Carolina, Mark Lawrence noted that it was "a rush to precipitous action.... the wrong canon, the wrong action, and the wrong time to proceed with this deposition," he wrote in a letter to his diocese. http://tinyurl.com/4gfffo
Lawrence went on to say, "All of this leads me to believe that the challenges that lie before a predominately conservative diocese like South Carolina have now been enormously increased if only because of the perception of our parishioners and clergy-but, more pertinently from what I fear is a failure of the present House of Bishops to realize just how far from historic Christianity our church has drifted."
Will Lawrence be forced inevitably to the conclusion that his diocese can no longer stay in TEC? He has said dogmatically that he is going nowhere, but so did Bishop Duncan. In 2001, Duncan supported Archbishop Carey against the formation of the AMiA saying, at that time, "I am deeply grateful that Archbishop Carey chose...to voice support for...our decision to remain in the Episcopal Church."
That was before the Robinson consecration and a number of general convention resolutions affirming homogenital behavior. A couple of years from now, perhaps even sooner, when a new North American Anglican province has been formed and the Global South primates declare they are no longer in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lawrence may be forced, along with his Standing Committee, to declare that they, too, are out the door. Will the dioceses of Albany, Western Kansas, even Dallas and Central Florida, now adamantly committed to staying in TEC, be forced by sheer circumstances and historical events to consider other options?
With all the fluidity in the Anglican Communion and everything is on the table, the only certainty is uncertainty.
This weekend will see the day of the long knives emerge. [GJ - Where have I heard that before?]
Leading the charge against any move by the diocese to leave the Episcopal Church will be the Rev. Harold Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, a pro-gay institutionalist rector whose hatred of Bishop Duncan has quantifiably grown as the day has drawn closer for the diocese's possible departure.
He has litigated several times in order to have The Episcopal Church seize diocesan and parish properties, even if Bishop Duncan and the majority decide to leave. He is supported by groups like Across the Aisle which incorporates Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP). Their key leader is The Rev. Dr. James Simons in Ligonier, rector of St. Michael's of the Valley. He chairs the steering committee of Across the Aisle, a theologically diverse group of Pittsburgh clergy and lay people committed to remaining in the Episcopal Church.
As time and tide wait for no man - where Death is speaking about certainty - then it is a certainty that the death of The Episcopal Church through liberalism is as certain and sure as the new life about to be generated in a diocese, free at last from the clutches of a doctrinally, morally and perverse church that has truly lost its way.
NOTE: VOL will be present at this historic occasion and will post stories immediately after the diocese announces its decision. VOL will also syndicate Anglican-TV's video of the occasion, as well.
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