Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Sunday, April 4th, 2010
We at ACI have often written in recent years about the autonomy of dioceses within the constitutional polity of The Episcopal Church. Indeed, as we have noted elsewhere, TEC’s polity mirrors that of the Anglican Communion as a whole. That is, the churches of the Communion are autonomous in the sense that they are self-governing, but by tradition, now articulated in the Anglican Covenant, they are bound one to another by mutual subjection in the Lord. In The Episcopal Church our dioceses, by constitution, are autonomous. What we all too often have not practiced either in our internal or external relations is mutual subjection.
This is not a new problem. In his volume on TEC’s governance in “The Church’s Teaching” series, Canon Dawley, who recognized that the “independence” of the diocese and its bishop “in respect of the rest of the Church is almost complete,” went on to caution:
While there may be many good reasons for not changing the constitutional arrangements which have resulted in this diocesan independence, it must be recognized that at times it has seriously handicapped the effort of the Episcopal Church on the national level. Parochialism, or the absorption of the people of a parish with their own affairs to the exclusion of their responsibilities to the whole Church, is a common temptation every Christian community must face; there may also be an equally self-absorbing ‘diocesanism.” (p.116.)
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April 04 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
In his recent address to his diocese, Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina identified a challenge confronting both his diocese and the wider Episcopal Church:
an entirely new challenge has surfaced: A constitutional question about the ability of a diocese to govern its common life in a way that is obedient to the teaching of the Bible, the received heritage of The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and in accordance with The Constitution & Canons of The Episcopal Church….
It is a challenge to how for over two hundred years The Episcopal Church has carried out its mission and ministry. It is one of the ironies of this time that we in a diocese like South Carolina, which has been one of the most vigorous critics of the “national” church, should be the ones that are called to defend the polity of TEC—to defend the way Episcopalians have for so long carried out their mission. But history is full of such paradoxes. In standing up and protecting our autonomy or independence as a diocese in TEC, in protecting the diocesan bishop’s authority to shepherd the parishes and missions of his diocese, and in defending the bishop and, in his absence, the Standing Committee as the Ecclesiastical Authority, we are in fact defending how TEC has carried out its ministry and mission for these many years. Every Diocesan Bishop, every Standing Committee, indeed every Episcopalian ought to know that if this is allowed to stand, that if The Presiding Bishop and her chancellor are allowed to hire an attorney in a diocese of this Church, to look over the shoulder of any bishop or worse dictate to that Bishop or Standing Committee how they are to deal with the parishes and missions under their care, imposing upon them mandates or directives as to how they disburse or purchase property then we have entered into a new era of unprecedented hierarchy, and greater autocratic leadership from the Presiding Bishop’s office and his or her chancellor.
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April 03 2010 | Articles