That's My Church!

The local secession of the Falls Church and Truro from the Diocese of Virginia made the front page top-of-the-fold of the WaPo this morning. I think this Truro parishioner summed up nicely the internal conflict a lot of us conservative Palies are feeling over all this:

"In one sense there is a sadness because this feels like a death," said Mary Springmann, a soft-spoken stay-at-home mother who worships at Truro and plans to vote to split when a week of voting begins Sunday. "Like someone who has been gravely ill for a long time, you keep hoping there's going to be a recovery. And at some point you realize it's not going to happen. Right now . . . there is a feeling of hope and expectancy about where God is going to lead us next. It's kind of exciting."

Meanwhile, the Colossus sends along an account of the Diocese of San Joaquin's decision to leave. One 'graff there caught my attention:

The vote by the diocese is one more step in a carefully planned strategy by conservative Episcopalians in the United States and primates of Anglican provinces, many in the developing world, to unite the conservatives, claim the mantle of Anglicanism and isolate the Episcopal Church, the 2.3-million-member American branch in the Anglican communion, which claims 77 million members worldwide.

This is pretty typical of the press coverage to date, suggesting that everything in the Church was going along swimmingly until those wild-eyed, tongue-swallowing conservatives started making waves. It cannot be pointed out too often that, while this may indeed be a carefully orchestrated movement, it is a defensive one. Even after the ordination of Bishop Robinson at the '04 General Convention, I believe the majority of conservatives were still willing to try and work out some kind of compromise provided all views were respected. But the elevation of a moonbat an extremely liberal High Priestess and the non-apology apology to Canterbury of the '06 GC made plain that there's a new Order in the Church, and if we don't like it we can just deal with it. Well, we're dealing with it.

The crisis is now on us and things are going to get much worse shortly. Representatives of the Communion as a whole will be meeting at Lambeth in 2008. The ECUSA is already on a kind of probation with the Communion, having had certain voting rights and other powers temporarily suspended in the aftermath GC '04, such suspension to be reviewed next year in light of the ECUSA's behavior since then. Personally, I think the Church has supplied more than enough rope to hang itself with the Communion.

What begins to worry me is the almost total lack of acknowledgement of any of this at my own church. I've begun sounding out parishioners and vestry members about what steps we ought to be taking now: if nothing else, it seems vital to me that we (meaning the entire congregation) keep fully up to date on the matter and begin a kind of rolling assessment of our own options and the questions we ought to be considering in evaluating those options. So far, the responses I've received suggest that the rector simply does not want to discuss the issue, that he does not want the church to become politicized and that there is no need to talk until after the fact, if at all. This is basically the approach that was taken when Robinson became bishop, and he could get away with it then in a kind of Uncle Owen "It's all such a long way from here," way. But the rector can't simply walk in one fine Sunday and announce, "Oh, by the way, we're no longer part of the Anglican Communion."

I've grumbled before about my dissatisfaction that all our vestry seems to be concerned with is fund-raising. Perhaps it's turning out to be my "calling" to take the lead in agitating for greater awareness about these apostolic matters among our little flock. Note that I say "awareness" - in this role, I'm not so much concerned about what choices the parishioners make as I am that they fully comprehend the stakes and do not simply go quietly where the rector tells them to. They're going to have to make such choices, whether they or the rector like it or not.

UPDATE: Her Graceness responds to the San Joaquin rebel scum:

I lament the actions of the Bishop and Convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin to repudiate their membership in the Episcopal Church. While it is clear that this process is not yet complete, the fact that the Bishop and Convention have voted to remove the accession clause required by the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church would seem to imply that there is no intent to terminate this process before it reaches its full conclusion. Our task as the Episcopal Church is God's mission of reconciling the world, and actions such as this distract and detract from that mission.

I deeply lament the pain, confusion, and suffering visited on loyal members of the Episcopal Church within the Diocese of San Joaquin, and want them to know of my prayers and the prayers of many, many others.

I continue to consult with others involved in responding to this extracanonical action.

Presiding Bishopress, the more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.