Updated Saturday morning
The Diocese of South Carolina today approved six resolutions that the diocese said represent “an essential element of how we protect the diocese from any attempt at unconstitutional intrusions into our corporate life in South Carolina.”
See the ENS report SOUTH CAROLINA: Convention approves ‘protective’ resolutions.
[The Presiding Bishop said:] “I grieve these actions, but I especially grieve Bishop Lawrence’s perception of my heartfelt concern for him and for the people of South Carolina as aggression. I don’t seek to change his faithfully held positions on human sexuality, nor do I seek to control the inner workings of the diocese. I do seek to repair damaged relationships and ensure that this church is broad enough to include many different sorts and conditions of people. South Carolina and its bishop continue in my prayers.”
The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the South Carolina diocese, told ENS that the convention’s action is “significant … in that it enables us to pursue the bishop’s vision of making biblical Anglicans for a global age while resisting the national leadership’s attempts to change our polity in violation of own constitution and the basic principles of justice and due process.”
See the diocesan news release about this: Diocese Votes Overwhelming in Favor of Resolutions; Lawrence remarks on Opportunities and Challenges
And the full text of Bishop Lawrence’s address is here.
For background on this, see the earlier article today, and also this previous report.
The diocese also announced the appointment of Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali as an Assisting Bishop in the diocese. TA understands that this is not a full-time appointment, but rather that Bishop Michael will spend periods of time in residency in the diocese, where he has been a regular visitor in the past. He will be “Visiting Bishop for Global Anglican Relations”.
Here is the text from the diocesan website:
Michael Nazir-Ali—Visiting Bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Development
In May of this year, the Reverend Dr. Kendall Harmon and I traveled to Nashotah House to meet with the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, retired Bishop of Rochester in England and one of the most respected figures in the Anglican Communion. We discussed the possibility of forming a relationship between him and the Diocese of South Carolina. Then in September the Reverend Jeffrey Miller and I met with Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali in Washington D.C. to clarify the details of such a relationship. It is my great pleasure to announce at this Reconvened Annual Convention that he has agreed to be Visiting Bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Relationships. Thus along with periodic visits here in the diocese for teaching and relational support, he will represent this diocese on his travels around the world. This creative and vital relationship will give us further opportunities to strengthen existing and form new and abiding missional relationships with others in the emerging Anglicanism in the 21st Century. It gives legs to our vision.
So now we understand what +Michael Nazir-Ali meant when he resigned the See of Rochester to come to the aid of persecuted Christians. He meant he would take up an appointment in the U.S. state of South Carolina, “the buckle on the Bible Belt.”
Positively Orwellian.
I wonder if Canon Dr. Chris Sugden will do the same?
What can one say?
Lord have mercy.
Begin the presentment.
God bless the Episcopal Church—God bless the faithful Episcopalians in the (soon-to-be-reforming) Diocese of South Carolina!
The real meaning of orthodoxy?
Bishop lawrence claims to be of the Anglo Catholic tradition… Nazir Ali, a former Roman catholic , is evangelical in his Churchmanship. Indeed I remember him writing an article in the Church of England Newspaper condemning the Orthodox for their unscriptural views on the Eucharist, icons and intercession of the Saints.
Look how these persons stretch their views of orthodoxy to fight the gay agenda in TEC!
Can I draw attention to the detailed announcement about Bishop Michael that I have just added to the article. This is a very part-time appointment, and should leave plenty of time for his other activities.
Wondered, when Nazir-Ali quit his day job, if he was doing a Sarah Palin.
I always felt it would turn out like this. He always seemed agin TEC. But the liberality of TEC led to his acceptance as bishop. It’s always the liberal issue isn’t it ? Be liberal, but don’t expect your liberality to be noticed, appreciated or reciprocated.
A real dilemma.
The PB just gives and gives. And part of that is her courage in saying how she sees it, and holding boundaries.
“Can I draw attention to the detailed announcement about Bishop Michael that I have just added to the article. This is a very part-time appointment, and should leave plenty of time for his other activities”
Oh goody. I am tired of these meddlesome foreign prelates. Too bad Homeland Security didn’t make one of their occasional misidentifications of overseas travelers and sent him back as a terrorist.
I haven’t posted in ages because there really seems to be nothing new to say — this is really Fort Sumter redux … & re: “liberals” — wasn’t it Robert Frost who described someone as being so liberal that he wouldn’t even take his own side in an argument? Allowing someone else to have the opinion that you should be utterly destroyed might be a a sound philosophical and Gospel principal, but it is not without its dangers …
The Diocese of South Carolina has indicated that it will not abide by title changes it believes are unconstitutional. The Bishop of San Diego says there is probably a serious discussion to be had about that, but then refuses to have one. This, on the grounds that even if SC is correct, it is wrong to tie this to a strategy for diocesan autonomy. And that, he concludes, is what SC is doing. Well, if title changes are indeed unconstitutional, and chancellors of dioceses advise their bishops, standing committees and diocesan conventions that this is so, then it would be… Read more »
As we like to joke about in this part of the U.S., “South Carolina: too big to be an insane asylum, too small to be its own country.” ;->
I think it is a real danger Prior Aelred. A dilemma.
goodbye, at this point Bishop Lawrence has not announced that he has functionally joined an ecclesial body that is not the Episcopal Church, nor that he nor South Carolina are leaving the Episcopal Church – at this point. He may well do so, or he may not. At this point the Presiding Bishop has no grounds to bring charges.
However, other bishops and/or faithful Episcopalians in his diocese may find that they have – say, for example, for violating the discipline of the Episcopal Church as described in *both* Constitution and Canons.
“In May of this year, the Reverend Dr. Kendall Harmon and I traveled to Nashotah House to meet with the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, retired Bishop of Rochester in England and one of the most respected figures in the Anglican Communion. We discussed the possibility of forming a relationship between him and the Diocese of South Carolina.” – South Carolina Diocesan web-site – On e seriously begins to wonder what future the 3 persons indicated in the above statement on the S.C. web-site presently hold within the world-wide Anglican Communion. ‘Respect’ is not usually associated with ‘rebellion’, which is what… Read more »
“In May of this year, the Reverend Dr. Kendall Harmon and I traveled to Nashotah House to meet with the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, retired Bishop of Rochester in England and one of the most respected figures in the Anglican Communion. We discussed the possibility of forming a relationship between him and the Diocese of South Carolina.” – South Carolina Diocesan web-site – One seriously begins to wonder what future the 3 persons indicated in the above statement on the S.C. web-site presently hold within the world-wide Anglican Communion. ‘Respect’ is not usually associated with ‘rebellion’, which is what each… Read more »
Goodbye’s rhetoric is interesting. Beginning with a statement like “the odds are very good that” then converting it into a fact within a few sentences. An old trick in the poisonous world of politics, of course.
I have no further use for any of this. Let the dead bury their dead. As of right now, I am giving up on all of you.
Ugly politics, ugly religion. All ugly, all sad, all useless.
Nazir-Ali may be part time, but you can bet he is being well paid for his services!
SC is not leaving TEC. But this will not be the grounds for presentment/deposition. The PB does not need SC to ‘leave’ in order to depose its Bishop. She can claim he has renounced his orders — as with +Henry Scriven. Come July 2011, she can claim he is disturbing the good order of the church, a la Title IV. She has dispatched an attorney to represent the national church. She believes the actions he is presently taking — which are taken, ironically, so as to remain in the church according to its constitution and not leave — are grounds… Read more »
@ the aptly named “goodbye”: how can we miss (x)Lawrence if he just won’t go? But seriously, goodbye: I gotta hand it to you. That was an extremely well-constructed piece of spin! …and if I stand on my head and hold my breath long enough, your Bizarro-world declarations (where “leaving” equals “staying”, and “changing SC’s diocesan canons”—to SEPARATE itself from TEC and the authority of the *General Convention* {not your bete noir of ++KJS}—equals “protecting the continuing relationship of the diocese w/ TEC”) might begin to make some sense! But sans asphyxia and vertigo, goodbye, your dramatic apologia reads for… Read more »