SOUTH CAROLINA: Diocese asked to consider withdrawing from church's governing bodies

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, August 14, 2009 [Episcopal Life Online] Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence wants the diocese to "begin withdrawing" from all Episcopal Church governing bodies that have taken actions he terms contrary to the Bible, to "the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them," to Lambeth resolutions, to marriage rules contained in the Book of Common Prayer, and to the church's canons "until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions."

Lawrence and the diocesan Standing Committee have called a special diocesan convention October 24 to consider this and other proposals. Lawrence issued the call during an address to the diocesan clergy August 13.

The bishop told the clergy that the Episcopal Church is threatened by "a multitude of false teachings" on the Trinity, the uniqueness of Christ, biblical authority, baptismal theology "detached from biblical and catholic doctrine," and human sexuality as well as changes that "subjugate" the church's prayer book and constitution and canons to a "new gospel of indiscriminate inclusivity."

When Lawrence was first elected bishop in September 2006, he faced numerous questions about whether he intended to attempt to convince Episcopalians there to leave the church. In a November 6, 2006 letter to the church he wrote that he would "work at least as hard at keeping the Diocese of South Carolina in the Episcopal Church as my sister and brother bishops work at keeping the Episcopal Church in covenanted relationship with the worldwide Anglican Communion."

During a subsequent interview with Episcopal News Service, Lawrence said that "this demand for promises to Constitution and Canons when many of the great teachings of the faith are up for grabs strikes me at times like a theatre of the absurd."

Lawrence did not receive the required consents to his consecration in 2007 because some standing committee consent forms were canonically improper. He was subsequently re-elected, received the consents required for all bishops-elect and was consecrated January 26, 2008.

Near the end of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, Lawrence told reporters that during a meeting of conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians in Jerusalem a few weeks earlier he had witnessed a "new prince" being born.

Lawrence said he knew that his role is now to "hold together as much as I can for as long as I can that when he comes to his rightful place on St. Augustine's throne in Canterbury Cathedral he will have a faithful and richly textured kingdom."

Among the other proposals Lawrence said will come before the special convention in October are ones to approve a statement that would be read by each person being ordained as a priest that could limit the person's required adherence to the Oath of Conformity. The convention also may vote on whether to accept the yet-to-be-finalized Anglican covenant. "If that’s too ambitious a time frame," Lawrence said, the vote must take place no later than the annual diocesan convention in March 2010.

Lawrence also proposes that the diocese encourage like-minded dioceses, bishops, clergy and laity to band together in "Dioceses in Missional Relationships" and he encourages South Carolina congregations to create "missional relationships" with "conservative parishes and missions in dioceses where there is isolation or worse."

In his address, which Lawrence anchors in the actions of a Charleston Anglican priest during the Revolutionary War, the bishop said he sees "struggle and suffering before each of us."

"While I have no immediate solution to the challenges we face, it is certainly neither a hasty departure nor a paralyzed passivity I counsel," he said.

Lawrence said that "those who refer to ourselves as reasserters, conservatives, Anglo-Catholics or Evangelicals, or sometimes under the sweeping moniker of 'orthodox' have often felt ourselves driven, if not out, then to the margins of this Church." And they see decisions made by the church's leaders and governing bodies "as problems we have to react to, and believe we know what it is we are fighting, or are in conflict with."

Insisting that in South Carolina "we are the Church: The Episcopal Church," Lawrence added that "it is only as I’ve allowed my Lord to remove the anger toward these 'institutions' of the Church that I can recognize with greater clarity what it is I need to engage -- and even fight against."

At the end of his address, Lawrence acknowledged that not all South Carolina congregations will agree with his sense that he is called to "lead in such an assertive manner." "Pastoral sensitivity suggests I should give space to those who feel they need it," he said, adding that he will work with such congregations to help them find "alternative episcopal care."

Citing "the rubric of love," Lawrence also told the clergy that no one in the diocese should encourage prejudice or deny the dignity of "those who believe themselves to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender."

"We have no business fostering unexamined prejudice; so few of us are free from scars of sexual brokenness," he said.

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

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