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THE ATTACK ON SOUTH CAROLINA IS AN ATTACK ON ALL MORAL EPISCOPALIANS

UNIDENTIFIED DISSIDENTS within the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina submitted "evidence" to the Disciplinary Board of Bishops in September 2011 which they believe shows that their bishop, the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, has "abandoned" the Episcopal Church (TEC). Lawrence is cited most notably for presiding over his diocese's 2009 convention, which voted to "begin withdrawing from all bodies of the Episcopal Church that have assented to actions contrary to Holy Scripture, the doctrine and worship of Christ as this Church has received them, the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference which have expressed the mind of the Communion, the Book of Common Prayer, and our Constitution and Canons, until such bodies show willingness to repent of such actions." (The primary issue, of course, is the homosexual agenda and, secondarily, abortion.)

The charge does have a certain logic, since, if the General Convention, TEC's highest legislative body, approves the "gay marriage" proposal to be presented to it in 2012 (as is certainly anticipated), South Carolina might be expected to withdraw from that body. But the implication of this action is horrendous: Any discipline of Bishop Lawrence over the issue would indicate that TEC authorities maintain that one cannot be a TEC member in good standing unless he/she endorses, or at least tolerates, sodomy and abortion. And who has the last word in defining the requirements of church membership, other than these very authorities?

What of the other Episcopal dioceses that approve of South Carolina's stand on these moral issues? They are, first of all, the five among the 2004-2008 Anglican Communion Network dioceses that, along with South Carolina, did not go into the new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) in 2009: Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Rio Grande, and Springfield (IL). Secondly, these 6 plus 8 additional dioceses have diocesans who are currently in the morally "straight" Communion Partners grouping: Fond du Lac (WI), North Dakota, Northern Indiana, Rhode Island, Tennessee, West Texas, Western Kentucky, and Western Louisiana. TEC's liberal leaders do not seem very worried at this point that an attack on Lawrence and South Carolina will alienate these 13 other conservative dioceses (out of TEC's total of 107 real ones, i.e., 111 minus the 4 which left for the ACNA). But neither have they shown much concern about the 20 Global South primates (archbishops) (out of a total of 38 in the Anglican Communion) who are already miffed over the American Church's moral (or rather, immoral) stance.

For additional information on the South Carolina issue, see the October 2011 edition of The Anglican Voice (Anglicans United), (800/553-3645).

ORTHODOX ANGLICANS STILL FRACTURED BUT MAINTAIN IDENTITY, STRENGTH

WE HAVE COMPARED current jurisdictional websites and other relevant sources with the data reported in the FCC's November 2007 Directory of Traditional Anglican and Episcopal Parishes and find that we have a slight increase in parishes that we could identify as orthodox (1,146 over and against 1,027), if one uses support for the historic all-male priesthood as a key criterion. However, we also find that orthodox Anglicans remain fragmented, with some 30 jurisdictions noted, though a number of them (and generally those with larger parish totals) can be found within 3 of 4 umbrella groupings of orthodox Anglican bodies: original derivatives of the post-1976 Continuing Anglican movement, the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas (launched in 2006), and the (new) Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), established in 2009. Indeed, the first major change since publication of the last Directory was the formation of the ACNA, wherein we find 337 parishes (out of a current total of 686) to be orthodox (i.e., opposed to the priesting of women). The second major change was the defection to Rome by 29 of the 41 Anglican Catholic Church of Canada (ACCC) parishes we listed in the 2007 Directory; 23 out of 95 parishes listed for the Anglican Church in America (ACA); 3 out of 92 orthodox parishes within the Episcopal Church (TEC); and 1 out of 23 parishes of the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC).

Some of the biggest orthodox gains over the period appear to be in the Reformed Episcopal Church, which added 49 parishes, and in the (ACNA) Dioceses of Fort Worth and Quincy, wherein 38 parishes not previously noted as orthodox identified themselves more clearly as such by their decision to follow the dioceses' orthodox leadership out of TEC. As well, we find 34 new parishes in the Anglican Mission (AM, formerly the AMiA) since 2007, and (tentatively) 22 in the new ACNA Dioceses of Cascadia and Western Anglicans not previously identified. Also added were now-claimed parishes of the following not included in 2007 Directory tallies: Southern Episcopal Church (SEC), 22; Holy Catholic Church-Anglican Rite (HCC-AR), 18; Orthodox Anglican Church (OAC), 15; and Anglican Orthodox Church (AOC), 11.

At present, as earlier indicated, we might group orthodox Anglican/Episcopal parishes as presented below. The following tabulation endeavors to provide the year each body named came into being; other information (where warranted) about its origins; the body's current number of parishes; and (in parentheses) the number of parishes it was reported as having in our 2007 Directory.

BISHOP DAREN WILLIAMS TAPPED BY FCC BOARD

The Rt. Rev. Daren K. Williams, Bishop of the West within the Anglican Church in America (ACA), was selected by the FCC Board to fill the vacancy left by Episcopal Missionary Church priest William Bauer, who resigned following his decision to enter the Roman Catholic Church.

He came to that post from the rectorship of the ACA's Church of the Incarnation, Williamsport, PA. The latter had been formed in 2004, when Williams and about 60 parishioners left TEC's Christ Church in that same city. That departure was due, among other things, to the local Episcopal bishop's objection to the parish's affiliation with the traditional Anglican organization of Forward in Faith, North America.