I am sorry to say that I can’t share my friend Phil Terzian’s pleasure that a court in Virginia has ruled that the Episcopal Church can reclaim property from a so-called breakaway Anglican group.
Phil says: “If people want to abandon the Episcopal Church, they are free to do so; but they cannot take historic Church property with them, or deprive Episcopalians of their parish homes.”
But who has abandoned the Episcopal Church? I would argue that the real abandoners of the Episcopal Church more rightly include those who have kept the miters and want to keep the property but have ditched all semblance of doctrine.
Of course, the Episcopal Church always had a certain latitude regarding faith and morals (good taste, not so much), but sadly it has become in many ways a post-Christian institution. This was most recently and outlandishly manifested in the first sermon given by the Rt. Rev. Marianne Budde in her capacity as spiritual leader of Episcopalians in the nation’s capitol. The bishop took as her text a poem by New Age poet David Whyte and referred to “Jesus and all of the great spiritual masters before and after him.”
Long ago, back when I was an Episcopalian, Christ was the Son of God, which ranks even higher than a “great spiritual master.” I have many dear friends like Phil who are hanging in there with the Episcopal Church, and I don’t want to offend them. I know the love that the Episcopal Church inspired in all of us. I will always be grateful that my parents — the two least literary people you’d ever meet — gave me the gift of hearing Thomas Cranmer’s English as a living thing.
But I am willing to bet that the people buried in historic cemeteries on Episcopal Church property would hardly recognize what their church has become. They might even hope that those who stand for the Church’s historic character be allowed to have the historic properties.
Of course, property is a matter of law, not sentiment. I am only sorry that the Episcopal Church has decided to spend so much money suing for property. I wish the church as a whole would follow the path of the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, the highly orthodox bishop in South Carolina who has sent quitclaim deeds to all the churches in his diocese. That way parishes get decide about the property — in all likelihood bought and endowed by their ancestors — rather than Episcopal HQ in New York.
I must admit that I suffered greatly when I had to give up the old Book of Common Prayer (the ’28 version!) upon swimming the Tiber. But now Pope Benedict XVI has given it back to us with his invitation for groups for former Episcopalians to bring our beautiful patrimony into the Catholic Church.
Speaking of which, may I invite you to join the St. Thomas of Canterbury Anglican Use Society in a festive Evensong to celebrate the erection of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter for former Anglicans and Episcopalians and the appointment of the new ordinary, Father Jeffrey Steenson?
Evensong is one of the most beautiful and characteristically Anglican of liturgies. Ours will be at St. Anselm’s Abbey, January 21, at 4 p.m. I can promise splendid music and reverent language, and, being former Episcopalians, we will lay on something more exciting than coffee at the coffee hour immediately following the service.
Thank you so much, Charlotte. You truly understand. Those of us who have left will continue with joy, letting "goods and kindred go" but the injustice of the situation rankles terribly.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnglican, Indeed, "Who do men say that I am?" is the important question and you have answered it faithfully. Those who will need to sell the now empty churches to finance their retirements have gained the world, but at what price? Not for me to know for sure, but I strongly suspect these ones will be arguing with the Lord about how un-Christain He is as He closes the door on them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Episcopal Church congregations that have voted to leave the organization are the ones that have raised the money and and spent the time to maintain these properties. And usually are descendents of the members that raised the money and spent the time to erect the buildings!!
In New York, a bitter liberal Episcopal Church was sold to Muslims who painted the red door Green when they converted it into a mosque rather than SELL it to it's own congregation that broke away and WANTED to buy it when the liberal organization put it up for sale from under them. The "Church" decided they'd rather let the heresy-of-a-heresy Mohammedans turn it into an abomination instead. That's your "Christian" organization.
Potemra should be ashamed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA friend of mine is the Rector in Binghamton who experienced that harsh treatment by ECUSA. I wrote about it here: External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. For those of us that grew up in the Episcopal Church, the linked picture of the familiar red door painted green with the sign Islamic Awareness Center is a more devastating commentary on the fallen state on the denomination than all the written reports (and there are many).
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Potemra should be ashamed."
Indeed he should. After taking the church building from Father Kennedy's congregation, the Episcopal church closed down the soup kitchen he had been providing for the poor, turned down a higher offer from traditionalist Anglicans to re-buy the building (I believe it was $200,00), and *then* sold it to the Muslims for a much smaller sum (I think $50,00).
The Episcopal Church is indeed a post-Christian organization, with a genuine, profound post-Christian dislike for traditional Anglican belief and practice.
They also have a passionate propensity for acquiring property that they do not need (and which will be a continuing burden to them) in order to handicap the growth possibilities of traditional Anglican parishes who have left the TEC out of despair at the increasing heresy at the top.
The traditionalist breakaway groups, however, while often meeting in strange and inconvenient places, while their former buildings sit empty and unused, are indeed growing rapidly.
In a beautiful irony, American traditionalist Anglicans are being supported by the missionary zeal of African primates like Uganda's Henry Orombi and many others; who daily risk their lives for the faith and who are orthodox to the core.
Presiding Bishop K. J. Schori considers their faith to be childlike and under-developed.
I believe there is a passage in the Bible about the faith of little children.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe liberal Lutheran ELCA is doing the exact same thing. As this church moves quite far to the left (supports gay marriage, abortion, Yasser Arafat and his successors), people want to leave it. They are making it hard for a congergation to leave, and those that do, they try to keep the church building, even if the vote to leave is overwhelming.
So basically, the ELCA would rather have church members leave for a different church and have the congregation die out, then let that church leave the ELCA.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCheck out this story. External Link
I'm sure there are two sides to every dispute, and being part of a denomination must involve some sort of submission and agreement to the denomination...
But it concerns me that this seems a trend...taking debt free churches under a less than appropriate reason.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI was going to post on the subject of the parish being sold to be made into a mosque but someone beat me to it.
The parish in question is in Binghamton and was only a few miles from where my mother grew up; the parish congregants were offered use of some empty Catholic parish buildings.
I find it appalling that a Christian denomination would wage scorched earth tactics against its own congregants at the same time the church hierarchy has abandoned most every semblance of its religious heritage in favor of "openness" and "love." Note that with utterances such as those of the Rector of the Wash. Cathedral that the Episcopal Church has essentially abandoned the Nicene Creed and become heretics.
It's just not the Episcopalians. My father is going back on session as an elder after an absence of some 25 years. When I mentioned to him the weakening of the PCUSA sexual conduct policy he simply couldn't and wouldn't believe it.
The long-term solution to this issue is quite simple and in fact on-going. Separation by the faithful into either breakaway or other denominations leaving the ongoing heresies to wither and die due to fallow doctrine and low birth-rate. In a few generations there simply won't be anybody left in the EPUSA or PCUSA. Just because His Church is eternal doesn't mean the Presbyterian or Episcopalian Church has to be.
David Goldman has written about a similar phenomena with the Reform vs. Orthodox Jews. Perhaps liberal Christianity, like it's political cousin, is a self-liquidating phenomena.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"When I mentioned to him the weakening of the PCUSA sexual conduct policy he simply couldn't and wouldn't believe it."
And anyone who doesn't think there is some kind of agenda at work would do well to look at the history of this issue in the PCUSA. The libertines deteminedly chipped away, despite rebuff upon rebuff, at the PCUSA for twenty five or more years before they finally got what they wanted. They could have just gone elsewhere. They never really belonged in the PCUSA in the first place. But their goal was to change the PCUSA. And they didn't give up until they succeeded.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you for your comments. I walked out of the Episcopal Church in Virginia the day they confirmed Robinson as a bishop (a man that left his wife to live with another man) and don't intend to go back. You are right, the left-wing, increasingly gay "leadership" of the ECUSA has left its flock and cares not a whit for God.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suspect that the children of the boomer socialite Episcopalians who have been running the show will prove to be too disinterested to continue this path. The church will get worse before she gets better, but I think entropy will defeat the would-be heirs. They don't even bother showing up on Sundays.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePC(USA) is fighting the same fight as it loses congregations to the EPC.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a former member of The Falls Church, where I was confirmed as an adult, I can only say this decision is sickening. The Virginia Diocese should be ashamed of themselves. This Church serves thousands each week both in the DC area and around the world. Very classy Bishop. You have stolen property from your so-called brethren. A pox on you.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"But who has abandoned the Episcopal Church? I would argue that the real abandoners of the Episcopal Church more rightly include those who have kept the miters and want to keep the property but have ditched all semblance of doctrine."
Amen, sister. And regarding your interlocutor Mr. Terzian, I can't believe anyone considered intelligent and principled enough to write for NRO would be unable to understand and appreciate the blindingly obvious fact you state here. Ah well, Phil, "I love you in the Lord," as we evangelicals like to say, just the same. But, really, dude, do some thinking. And some praying.
One other point that isn't brought up either by Mr. Terzian or Ms. Hayes: I don't know about the legal ins and outs. The court may have decided the law rightly. But there never would have been any court action in the first place if the Episcopal authorities really believed in all the "love" and "freedom" to which they pretend! The Episcopal Church simply did not have to go to court to retain these properties. In Christian love, and out of respect for the spiritual freedom of their former congregants, they could have, whoops! should have just let them go. Instead, they are going to hang onto the church buildings. I hope they will do so for the sake of establishing new congregations, but the truth is that they are selling many of these churches to real estate developers who will turn them into condos and restaurants and theaters. Our Lord went ballistic over moneychangers in the temple. The Episcopal authorities are going one step further and exchanging the temples for money. That's what's happening to alot of these great old Episcopal church buildings. Truly sad for architecture, truly sad for the congregants that worshipped so many years in these places, and truly disgusting for a body that pretends to be spiritual shepherds of the faithful.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI (a priest in the Anglican Church in North America) thank you and NR should thank you -- you saved them a subscriber.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have been a member of a church since I was 13 years old.
The laws governing the relationship between members and church have been in place at least since that time, 1967. The church I belong to resides upon a corner lot of real estate that is nothing if not prized. I've kept my eye on the market, and the church, since. If there was ever a rumble that the property were to be sold, I'd renew my membership in a heartbeat.
But isn't that the beauty of law? It should be constant. Whether or not the members would allow me to re-join is a question. But, it would be a question decided by the member. This is old and settled law.
Next?
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I have been a member of a church since I was 13 years old.
The laws governing the relationship between members and church have been in place at least since that time, 1967. The church I belong to resides upon a corner lot of real estate that is nothing if not prized. I've kept my eye on the market, and the church, since. If there was ever a rumble that the property were to be sold, I'd renew my membership in a heartbeat.
But isn't that the beauty of law? It should be constant. Whether or not the members would allow me to re-join is a question. But, it would be a question decided by the member. This is old and settled law.
Next?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse.
What it comes down to is, Phil Terzian thinks it important that the Episcopalian Church keep its "historic" property (even when it means taking it from the people who actually, historically, used it and paid for it), but not so much its historic religion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThank you Ms Hays! Your article is SPOT ON!
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