Head over to Anglican TV - they are discussing postponing the election of deputies to General Convention. Kendall Harmon has requested the the election be postponed until the next Diocesan Council so that the Diocese can decide if/how many deputies to General Convention. The concern was that "business as usual" is pushing through. Right now the Bishop has taken the floor to oppose Kendall's motion. The Bishop's concern is that it will get the new bishop's episcopate off on the wrong foot. It's rather unprecedented to have the bishop take the floor during a debate. He must be worried. Go here and watch the proceedings.The initial vote they took appeared to be even split. The Diocesan Chancellor has now taken the floor. It appears that the diocesan brass oppose the postponement. Kendall is willing to stand-down if there is a guarantee that this discussion will happen. You can see that they want to trust the brass. But it's quite obvious that South Carolina is split.
It has now been withdrawn. Once the bishop spoke against it, the air went out of the tires. Very interesting. Watch that space.
3 comments:
Actually I wouldn't say that we were as "split" as it looked. What we actually saw were people who reacted quickly to the question and people who would like a bit more time with the question. The Bishop's comments convinced many of us, before the resolution was withdrawn, that this convention was not the time to have this vote as it would really dump a huge load on the new bishop the day before his ordination.
But the ratio of reasserter to revisionist in the room was not by any means 50/50. More like 90/10.
Confessing tiger,
I'm going to say "your diocese", because you said "many of us.." If that's wrong correct me, OK?
My impression of what bb was saying does not include the presumption that a "split" in the diocese automatically means between reasserters and revisionists. Your diocese is overwhelmingly "reasserter" so your 90/10 ration reflects that properly. But the other ratio is a difference between reasserters and reasserters, probably something like the concom/fedcom contrast (or whatever those cons, feds, coms, etc. are).
The danger is that voting to not elect General Convention deputies will include all those who want South Carolina to leave TEC, because "why waste the effort", and "let's send a message." But not because they have any intention to discuss the matter from the point of view of what South Carolina's ongoing relationship with TEC will be. Discussion for them is over!
On the other side, your 10% revisionists would vote against the motion not because they want to talk about whether or not to send deputies, but because they want to resist any notion of any kind of resistance to TEC.
The reasserters who want to stay and fight it out, or more properly from Salmon's and Lawrence's comments, those who want to stay and deepen the roots of True Christianity in the soil of South Carolina,would be the only ones who would actually engage in teh kind of discussion Kendall is espousing without further agenda.
Whatever the vote would be it would not reflect an accurate measure of the revisionist/reasserter ratio. A "split" would be between reasserters of various kinds, and further it would drive an unnecessary wedge between them.
Or, because the Bishop and Bishop-elect asked us to wait; we decided to wait. I stood up quickly in the affirmative when asked to vote on this, but then when asked to wait by my bishops, who are Godly men who follow a long line of Godly men in that office, I heard God's call to wait. Above all, since the 17th century, we are Anglicans Christians. CT
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