2 October 2015 A.D. Bishop Jefferts Schori’s Spite
2 October 2015 A.D. Bishop Jefferts Schori’s Spite
A 2-year old article that is still informative.
Dreher, Rod. “Bishop Jefferts Schori’s Spite.” The Amerian Conservative. 17 Dec 2013. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/episcopal-spite-bishop-jefferts-schori/comment-page-1/.
Accessed 2 Oct 2015.
Around
the country, congregations who wish to leave the
Episcopal Church are being turfed out of their church buildings — and they
aren’t even being allowed to buy them from TEC, even if they’ve already paid
for them once. Excerpt from World magazine’s report:
A
scorched earth policy. That’s how Anglicans who have left The Episcopal Church
(TEC) and its endorsement of unbiblical beliefs and actions often describe
TEC’s response. From depressed Binghamton, N.Y., to affluent Newport Beach,
Calif., TEC leaders have fought dozens of court battles to force congregations
leaving the denomination to forfeit the buildings they, their parents, and
their grandparents paid for.
Here’s
one example: Church of the Good Shepherd stood for nearly 130 years on a main
road through Binghamton, a former manufacturing hub that now has a high
unemployment rate. Members were long concerned about theological drift, and the
consecration of a homosexual bishop in 2003 by TEC’s General Convention was the
last straw.
Binghamton
rector Matt Kennedy began a conversation with the bishop of central New York,
telling him the church would likely leave TEC to seek oversight of an Anglican
bishop in another province. Kennedy says the initial meetings were productive,
and the congregation offered to buy its building from the diocese for $150,000—but
TEC hierarchs rejected the offer. After the congregation disaffiliated from TEC
in 2007, the diocese filed suit for the building.
Kennedy
says the congregation considered walking away, but would have had no resources
to continue. Plus, the rector said: “We thought it would be good for outsiders
to see that those who claim to be about tolerance and inclusivity really aren’t
about those things. It’s really more a kind of tyranny.” In 2009, though, a
judge ruled against the congregation, which had to leave immediately.
Kennedy
remembers “one of our more stoic men standing in front of a plaque bearing his
father’s name, tracing the inscription with his finger.” The plaque would have
to stay. In 2010 the diocese sold the church to local Muslims for $50,000,
according to Virtue Online, three times less than what the departing Christians
had offered. The Muslims used a crane to remove the cross. A sign on the
building now reads, “Islamic Awareness Center.”
Think
about that. The congregation’s ancestors had already paid for the building, and
the congregation was offering to pay for it again. But the spiteful diocese
refused, and was willing to sell it to a non-Christian congregation for a third
of what they could have gotten from the departing congregation, who would have
kept it as a house of Christian worship, as it always had been.
President
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the enforcer of the hard line:
The
campaign has peaked under Katharine Jefferts Schori, who became in 2006 the
first female presiding bishop within the Anglican Communion. Before her
consecration, some departing churches offered payments to their dioceses for
the properties they had built and maintained, but Jefferts Schori intervened
and said TEC would not sell to congregations that intended to remain Anglican.
TEC has sold buildings to Baptists, Methodists, Jews, and—in at least two
cases—Muslims.
Eleven
churches in northern Virginia were among the victims of the new policy. They
were negotiating buyouts with Virginia bishop Peter Lee, who said he was ready
to accept the offers—but with Jefferts Schori’s hard line cratering
negotiations, the diocese of Virginia sued the parishes and won the properties
(see “A great divorce,” June 16,
2012). The AAC reports TEC leadership has initiated at least 78 lawsuits
against parishes and departing dioceses. (Five dioceses have left TEC.) Some
lawsuits include multiple parishes.
A
TEC spokeswoman said Jefferts Schori wasn’t available for an interview for this
story. Allan Haley, an attorney representing two of the departing dioceses,
estimates TEC has spent nearly $26 million on litigation: “It’s a policy of
wearing people down by outspending them.” Many of the lawsuits include
individual rectors and vestry members by name. Some seek punitive damages. Most
suits demand church property and everything inside, as well as money in parish
bank accounts.
The
story goes on to report good things some congregations have learned and
experienced from having lost their beautiful buildings. Read the whole thing.
I
understand why TEC would want to fight hard to keep these parishes from
leaving. But at a certain point, these tactics are purely spiteful. When a
diocesan bishop and the church’s Presiding Bishop would rather sell a church
building at a big loss to a non-Christian congregation than accept payment from
a departing congregation, and when it spends millions defending its property
rights over the spiritual and moral health of the congregation, you’ve got to
wonder just which Lord these people serve.
UPDATE: I should say that I would rather than
building be used by a Muslim congregation than turned to secular use. At least
it’s still being used to worship God.
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