Ruling has implications for Stockton diocese suit

From the Stockton paper implications for San Joaquin-

The California Supreme Court ruling on U.S. Episcopal Church property could set major precedent in a case involving the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.

In December 2007, Bishop John David Schofield led the majority of 47 Valley churches to secede from the U.S. Episcopal Church to align with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. It is known as the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin.

Like the Southern California case, Schofield and his contingent were displeased with the Episcopal church's liberal leanings toward ordination of gay ministers.
The Stockton Paper on the implications for the Diocese of San Joaquin-

After the split, lawsuits over ownership rights of millions of dollars worth of church real estate and other property have been filed.

Schofield's office was not available for comment Monday. A secretary said all clergy able to talk about the case were on retreat.

Leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, however, said they were pleased with the Supreme Court's decision Monday.

"It certainly establishes the principles that we've been stating all along in our lawsuit that individuals can't just walk away from the church but take the real estate with them," said Rev. Mark Hall, former pastor of St. Anne's Episcopal Church in north Stockton.

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090106/A_NEWS/901060311/-1/A_NEWS

California Supreme Court says breakaway parish can't take national church's property (Roundup)

Big News from California. This is from the LA Times. My understanding is that Pennsylvania property law is similar to that of California. More links to other stories follow -

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles -- Rebellious congregations that part ways with their denominations may lose their church buildings and property as a result, the California Supreme Court said Monday in a unanimous ruling.

The state high court decision came in a case involving the Episcopal Church, but lawyers said it would apply to other denominations as well.

Several Protestant denominations, including United Methodists and Presbyterians, have faced upheaval over gay rights issues. Monday's ruling, along with similar victories that the church leadership has won in other states, is expected to dampen enthusiasm for such separations.

In a decision written by Justice Ming W. Chin, the court said the property of St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach was owned by the national church, not the congregation. The congregation split away after the national church consecrated a gay man, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

"When it disaffiliated from the general church, the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it," Chin wrote for the court.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-episcopal6-2009jan06,0,1820285.story

Reuters-

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5045IF20090105

Associated Press -

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jr6G76cGuIzNG9hWbFeSkICsYDfwD95HCAU80

Washington Post-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503142.html

Palm Springs Desert Sun

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090106/NEWS01/901060318/1026/news12

Fresno Bee-

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1108468.html

St. John's members bolt Episcopal flock

If you're going to leave this is the way to do it. From the Diocese of Upper South Carolina-

Members of North Augusta's St. John's Episcopal Church severed ties with the national congregation Sunday, rejecting a shift toward a more progressive theology that has led to the blessing of same-sex marriages and gay leaders in the church.

They are now calling themselves the Church of the Holy Trinity and are aligned with the Anglican Church in North America, an alliance created in December that presents itself as a conservative alternative to the Episcopal Church.

To avoid a legal dispute with the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, the Holy Trinity congregants abandoned the St. John's sanctuary on Belvedere-Clearwater Road and will hold their first service next Sunday in a converted warehouse near Interstate 20.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2009/01/05/met_506567.shtml

EPISCOPALIANS: Pressing on after a split in the local church

Update on the TEC diocese in Fort Worth from the local paper- The Star Telegram. (I guess that's where Santa goes to unwind. That hat doesn't fool me)

North Texas Episcopalians and those observing recent activities in our diocese can be forgiven for some confusion.

A quick update is that the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is alive and well and doing ministry and mission everywhere from Gainesville to Wichita Falls to Brownwood to Hillsboro and back.

(snip)

While those who have gathered themselves around Iker still insist they are the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, it is simply not possible to leave the Episcopal Church and then claim to be still part of it. And while they still occupy property that belongs to the Episcopal Church, they have no legal rights to it, according to the church’s canons.

All this will in due course be sorted out, most likely in the courts.

Meanwhile, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth continues its ministry as an integral part of the Episcopal Church.

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/1112908.html

Episcopal Church Needs Evangelicals

Richard Mouw , President of Fuller Seminary encourages conservatives to stay as a witness.

This is a complicated issue for many of us who worry about the theological direction of the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA). For one thing, I hate to see conservatives leave over women's ordination. What that means, among other things, is that they are abandoning many dedicated women clergy who are themselves conservative on the other two issues: biblical authority and homosexuality.

But we do have to be clear that it is not enough to say that the departing conservatives are simply setting up "a separate denomination." In this case they are aligning themselves with the growing majority of Anglican churches around the world--an alignment that liberal Episcopalians are choosing to abandon by their recent actions. For me, though, there is a further complication.

The evangelical seminary that I lead was founded six decades ago to counter the "separatism" of much of the evangelicalism of the day. One of the founding purposes, then, was to prepare persons for evangelical ministries in mainline denominations. While I respect and support those who sense God's call to depart from a denomination like ECUSA, I also want to respect the call of those evangelicals who choose to hang in there. I don't want to see ECUSA left without an evangelical presence.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/richard_mouw/2008/12/wrong_to_leave_episcopal_churc.html

Witnessing theology from inside

Report on the situation in Virginia and one of the parishes that decided to stay in TEC and why.

"I respected the congregation's wishes," he told me. "I struggled with the decision to stay in the Episcopal Church. As things dragged out, we were late in taking that vote."

St. Peter's ended up losing 50 percent of its members. Mr. Koth went on a leave of absence, then left the church in December 2007. By that point, the congregation was down to 150 members.

"We were a small mission church," Mr. Koth said, "so they didn't have the strength to withstand what happened."

In April, he was hired at the Falls Church, the largest of the 11 departing congregations. Amazingly, the 11, now part of the Anglican District of Virginia, have won a series of legal battles with the diocese to keep their property. A fourth and final court decision comes out Friday.

Marvin Lawley, senior warden at St. Peter's, told me things there are looking up and that 14 new families have arrived.

"We made more impact by staying than by going away," he said.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/18/witnessing-theology-from-inside/

Pity the poor Anglicans? They'll decline. (The offer)

From the Vancouver Canada paper-

The threat of schism in the worldwide Anglican communion, focussing on dust-ups in the U.S. and Canada, has been much in the news for almost a decade. The media and some Anglicans have created a sense of overwhelming crisis in the 70 million-member denomination.

It's enough to make you pity the poor Anglicans.

But I think most would decline the offer.

Many don't seem to want pity, which can have a condescending quality. They recognize some shifts are happening in global Anglicanism, not to mention global Christianity. But most Anglicans just want to get on with the "business" of being a vibrant, caring church. Many congregations around the world, including in Canada and the U.S., are doing just that.

There was media fanfare in early December when the Common Cause Partnership, a group of 700 conservative Anglican congregations in the U.S. and Canada, announced they're want to create their own "province" of the Anglican church. It was no small event, but such "news" now has a certain tiredness for most Anglicans.

It's also not the whole story in the Anglican church, including in Metro Vancouver, which has been one of the Anglican denomination's hot spots, with its years-old debate over same-sex blessings.

Even the Religion Newswriters Association, which represents almost 300 religion writers at secular news outlets in North America, added a "reality check" to the Anglican "crisis" this week.

Worth Reading the rest here-

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2008/12/16/pity-the-poor-anglicans.aspx

New Mexico diocese votes to stay Episcopal

The Diocese of the Rio Grande votes to leave the Network and stay in the Episcopal Church. (Now those are hats!)

Episcopalians in New Mexico have voted to leave a conservative umbrella group and "reaffirm" their commitment to the Episcopal Church rather than join a new rival Anglican province on U.S. soil.

The Albuquerque-based Diocese of the Rio Grande on Thursday (Dec. 11) said it could not support plans to launch a new Anglican Church in North America and voted to end its four-year membership in the Pittsburgh-based Anglican Communion Network.

The Anglican Communion Network is one of 11 conservative groups that joined together to launch the new province on Dec. 3. Four Episcopal dioceses that belonged to the Pittsburgh group and have already left the national church plan to join the new province.

But other Episcopal dioceses that supported the Pittsburgh group, like Rio Grande, do not plan to join the new province and are likely to remain in the Episcopal Church, officials said.

"The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande disaffiliates from the Anglican Communion Network and rescinds its motion of support … and reaffirms the Diocese of the Rio Grande’s commitment to the Episcopal Church," the diocese’s elected leadership said in a unanimous resolution.

http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/2849

With regrets, several hundred local worshippers leave Episcopal Church

If you have to leave this is the way to do it. From near my wife's hometown of North Tonawanda, not to be confused with Tonawanda or in this case the Town of Tonawanda.

Don and Gladys Miller worshipped weekly for 53 years in the sanctuary at 1064 Brighton Road.

But Sunday, the Millers walked away from the Town of Tonawanda church building they’ve known as their spiritual home since 1955.

“We’ve been here a long time, and it’s hard to leave,” said Don Miller, dabbing at tears. “We decided a long time ago that we would move with the church.”

The Millers are joining an expected several hundred parishioners of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in a highly unusual journey: Not only are they moving into a new facility, they’re also leaving the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Western New York.

(snip)

The membership chose not to contest ownership of the property in court and instead purchased the former Temple Beth El for $750,000. The congregation will celebrate its first liturgy in the new sanctuary this Sunday.

The Episcopal diocese will continue to operate a parish called Church of the Holy Apostles at 1064 Brighton Road. Bishop J. Michael Garrison will host a meeting and compline service at 7 p.m. today.

http://www.buffalonews.com/494/story/523522.html

An Hysterically Relevant Cartoon

If you can't read it here's the link-

http://www.arcamax.com/agnes/s-453235-526030

Anglican Communion Network to Morph into New Province

The Network announces that is going to become the infrastructure of the "new province". Those offices are already just down the hall from those of the Southern Cone Group in Pittsburgh.

Delegates to the Anglican Communion Network’s fifth annual council meeting in Overland Park, Kansas, voted today to begin handing over ministries as well as financial and administrative support services to the forming Anglican Church in North America.

Network members spoke of how much the organization has meant to them since its founding in 2004. “This has been my lifeline. Without the Anglican Communion Network and you all, I don’t know what would have happened,” said Episcopal Church Bishop Jim Adams of Western Kansas.

During the approximately six months the hand over is expected to take, the Network office will continue to provide key organizational, administrative and other services for Network members and the Common Cause Partnership as it completes the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.
The hand over will not be complete until the summer of 2009. When it is complete, the Network as it is currently configured will cease operation.

http://www.acn-us.org/archive/2008/12/celebrates-prepares.html

Quote of the day

"I think we're on the downhill side. I think by far the majority of those who are going to seek a spiritual home elsewhere have done it. I don't see any other diocesan leaders on the sideline about to do this. I think we're past the worst of it."

-- The Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, on the departure of some conservatives who say they are forming a rival organization, the Anglican Church in North America. (She was quoted in the Los Angeles Times.)

http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/12/quote-of-the-day-364.html

St. Paul's Kittanning Votes to Stay in TEC

I've been notified by the leadership of St. Paul's Kittanning that the vestry voted Thursday night to remain with the Episcopal Church. The former rector of the parish, who left in June, is the current President of the Standing Committee for the Southern Cone group and a strident supporter of the realignment.

This brings the total number of congregations, in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, publicly declaring to stay to 22. In the past several weeks, Christ Church Indiana and St. Peter's Blairesville have decided to stay. More will be coming. For the reorganizing convention next Saturday 27 congregations have, so far, registered to send deputies.

Lemming Pledge #13

Another Lemming (I think his name is Kittanning) Sees the Light

Breakaway Anglicans Aim for Less Division with New Province

More double speak. Division brings unity? This is from Christian Post. The link doesn't seem to work.

"Division has been there since 2003 (when The Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop). There is a division in the [Anglican] Communion," Minns said. "We're trying to find a way to overcome that and become less divided."

The Very Rev. Robert S. Munday, a priest within The Episcopal Church who has friends in breakaway groups, says the best way to preserve unity "is to allow the American church to divide (which is happening anyway, whether anyone likes it or not) and to recognize two North American provinces," according to his blog.

Otherwise, the Communion will be lost, he says. There are several different breakaway and conservative Anglican groups, representing 100,000 Anglicans, that are coming together to comprise the new province, which may be officially established in the middle of next year.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20081202/breakaway-anglicans-aim-for-less-division-with-new-province.htm

How to build better leaders ... An engineer's recipe

An excellent and thought provoking opinion piece on the essential qualities of a leader. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette today. Those of you in The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh may want to filter the current situation through this lens. Worth taking the time.

The world is starting to go through some of the harshest times of the past 75 years. The global economy is sinking, wars are ravaging countries and peoples, climate change is threatening the entire planet, optimism and hope are at very low levels. As the "leader of the free world," the United States is uniquely positioned to drive a multinational effort to overcome all these challenges. Will Barack Obama be capable of taking on this tough leadership role? Can we even say he is a leader at all? For that matter, how can we tell whether any given person is a leader?

Over the years I thought about this problem as I observed the many people I worked with. I came to the conclusion that most so-called leaders were undeserving of the title. I believe that true leadership is about much more than simply having authority or influence.

Now I am not a linguist, so I have difficulty expressing what leadership is in, as my big friend Alberto would say, 25 words or less. On the contrary -- I am a robotics engineer, and I need some kind of tool to "measure" how much of a leader one is.

Several years ago I engineered a "recipe" to forge a leader, consisting of five "ingredients."

Its all here-

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08335/931524-109.stm

Lemming Pledge #12

Looks Like at least one of them is hedging his bets !

Church's separatist stance ignores much bigger issues

The Rev. Tom Ehrich in the Indianapolis Stars opines about The Diocese of Quincy "leaving" the Episcopal Church.

I doubt that much sleep was lost, in heaven or on Earth, when the tiny Episcopal Diocese of Quincy, Ill., recently voted to secede from the national Episcopal Church for being too liberal.

With 1,800 members scattered over a large area bordering the Mississippi River, the diocese has long been a recalcitrant outpost of the fading Anglo-Catholic wing of the Episcopal Church. Its stern refusals -- no to women as priests, no to gays, no to theological diversity -- have played poorly in Peoria.

Its 24 congregations have an average membership of 75. Its 7 percent decline in membership since 2006 is the worst among Episcopal dioceses in its region.

But Quincy's debate over leaving the national denomination was illuminating.

With the nation caught up in its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, focusing a church convention on denominational politics showed an odd detachment from reality.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20081129/LIVING09/811290394/1111/LIVING09

Police raid Grace Church & St. Stephen's

From the Colorado Springs Gazette

Colorado Springs police detectives raided Grace Church & St. Stephen's on Wednesday morning to seize paper financial records and computers as part of a theft investigation launched more than a year ago. More than 20 officers cordoned off the blocklong church complex at 601 N. Tejon St., evicting its controversial pastor, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, who wandered the sidewalk in clerical garb, a copy of the warrant in his right hand.

The raid focused on records tied to allegations from the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado that Armstrong embezzled $400,000 from Grace Church & St. Stephen's Parish, the congregation he headed before he and his followers broke away in early 2007 to affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Colorado Springs police Lt. David Whitlock said officers were searching for evidence of theft and fraud. Police also searched Armstrong's Colorado Springs home Wednesday.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/police_44066___article.html/church_grace.html

Dueling resposnes in Ft. Worth

The Diocese of Ft. Worth issues a response to the Presiding Bishop's inhibition on Jack Iker here-

http://www.fwepiscopal.org/downloads/reFortWorthBishopInhibition.pdf

Those staying in the Episcopal Church from Ft. Worth have their statement here-

http://steeringcommitteente.org/inhibition.htm

Living Church article on all of this is here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/11/24/bishop-iker-describes-action-by-pb-as-irrelevant