Pollyanna Assessment of an Invitation.

It would appear that the Standing Committee of Fort Worth is gladly and cheerfully headed down the path to accepting the invitation from the Province of the Southern Cone. They are glad for the invitation, glad that everything in the Southern Cone is orthodox and wonderful, glad to be rid of the Episcopal Church. Glad, glad, glad.

You can read the whole of the report HERE, and HERE, and HERE.

Or you can read a few corrections to the gladness of the day, here:

They said in the report, "The leadership of TEC has threatened us with false claims of canonical power to correct and discipline us while condoning or even promoting in other dioceses false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture."

The fact of the matter is the leadership of TEC, that is the Presiding Bishop and her staff, have not threatened but rather have pointed out the implications of actually withdrawing from union with the General Convention. That was done prior to Fort Worth taking their first vote so that it would be clear to all that voting to leave the Episcopal Church was canonically invalid. The accusation that the leadership of the Episcopal Church is "condoning or even promoting....false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture" is rot.


The Standing Committee reports, "We have now had opportunity to review the Constitution and Canons of the Province of the Southern Cone; an English-language edition of those documents is being edited and will be released shortly. Based on our review, we have concluded that the structure and polity of the Province of the Southern Cone would afford our diocese greater self-determination than we currently have under the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. This autonomy would be evident most specifically in the areas of property ownership, liturgy, holy orders, and missionary focus."

We might presume that what is being done to the Constitution and Canons of the Province is not that they are being edited, but being translated. The good people of the Diocese of Fort Worth might want to read that Constitution and those Canons with some care and in as exact translation as possible. The Constitution and Canons of the Province of the Southern Cone are being compared to being "under the General Convention of The Episcopal Church." I presume they mean the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church. There is a strong and misguided bit of foolishness in all this: dissenters want to talk now of "The General Convention Church" as if somehow this is a polity unheard of in Christendom. This is rot. I look forward to seeing the Constitution and Canons of the Southern Cone. I suspect they are subject to revision by their Synod just as ours are by General Convention.

I find it fascinating that the Stnding Committee is interested in greater autonomy than can be afforded by The Episcopal Church. The stretch to get that autonomy flys in the face of the equal stretch to have greater purity and unity among dioceses related to the real bonified new improved Anglican Communion. What happens when their autonomy runs up against the demands of a new Anglican Patriarchy? Stay tuned.

The Standing Committee contends that joining the Southern Cone "...would allow the Diocese to concentrate on the call of Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel and make new disciples, while at the same time assuring our continued place in the mainstream of Anglicanism, an assurance The Episcopal Church is unable to give." This continues the false claim that the Southern Cone's inclusion of dioceses in jurisdictions of an already existing Province of the Anglican Communion is in any way in accord with the mainstream of Anglicanism.

What the Standing Committee means is a mainstream of conservative, orthodox Anglican prelates who are poised to make over the Communion in their image. Mainstream means what the Global South Steering Committee means it is, and nothing more.

So the Standing Committee is off in la-la Anglican Land, a place where "mainstream" Anglicanism has little to do with relating to the See of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion as we know it, or autonomy in community. It has to do with not wanting to be in a church that ordains women and where they can without fear continue to elect a bishop who will not conform to the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church that says ordination is not limited to persons who fit one set of physical descriptors.

They are glad, glad, glad... everything in every way goes better with the Southern Cone. They have chosen a new and improved ice cream cone. Be careful when it melts.