Stand Firm has published a letter from the Episcopal Bishop of Forth Worth, Rt. Rev. Jack Iker, to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Bishop Jefferts Shori had written Bishop Iker last week noting various consequences of his announced intention to lead his diocese out of the Episcopal Church. The full text of Bishop Iker’s letter is available on the Diocese of Forth Worth website, but a couple of passages are particulartly interesting to me. The first is a bit of lawyering, to wit:

I have received your letter of November 8th and am rather surprised by your suggestion that I have somehow abandoned the communion of the church and may be subject to ecclesiastical discipline. Such a charge is baseless. I have abandoned nothing, and I have violated no canons. Every year at our Chrism Mass, I very happily reaffirm my ordination vows, along with all our clergy, that I will be “loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” (BCP, pages 526 and 538)

Of course, Bishop Iker is attempting to invoke a higher law than the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church. Those who are familiar with Bishop Iker’s language will recall his fondness for the expression: the faith once delivered to the saints. But it is also interesting to note the bloviation that characterizes Bishop Iker’s letter (indeed the letter’s long second paragraph contains nothing but bloviation), in the course of which he styles himself and his diocese aggrieved parties. I think I may not be the only reader to link the good bishop’s sound and fury with this claim:

While I do not wish to meet antagonism with antagonism, I must remind you that 25 years ago this month, the newly formed Diocese of Fort Worth voluntarily voted to enter into union with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. If circumstances warrant it, we can likewise, by voluntary vote, terminate that relationship.

Bishop Iker echoes the secessionist rhetoric of Bishop Robert Duncan, a good analysis of which may be found here. And I may not be the only reader who understands this secessionist claim to include reference to a document entitled, How real property is held within the Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth. As noted by the Episcopal News Service, “Fort Worth’s diocesan convention, meeting November 16-17, is set to consider the first reading of a constitutional amendment that would remove accession to the Constitution and Canons of General Convention, as well as several canonical amendments that eliminate mention of the Episcopal Church.” Bishop Iker’s claim seems to be that his diocese existed prior to its creation by the Episcopal Church, a claim that may be worth about as much as the rest of the confederate money the good bishop is passing around. Time will tell. Fr. Mark Harris has a worthwhile analysis of the Forth Worth porperty claim.

Meanwhile, I’ve just been in Fort Worth and had the singularly distasteful experience of watching my brother accused of impropriety from the pulpit because he attempted to inform his fellow parishioners about views of their diocese and of the Church at large that do not accord with Bishop Iker’s views. In response to a sermon preached in his Fort Worth church a few weeks back that retailed all the current right wing cant about the Episcopal Church (i. e. how the Church teaches a new religion which is somehow also a pagan religion, has abandoned the one true faith, has flauted the authority of scripture, etc); in response to this sermon my brother, who was then editor of the church newsletter, published a newsletter issue containing an essay about Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a letter critical of Bishop Iker, and a couple of other pieces critical of schism. The interim priest of his church ordered my brother to retract the newsletter. When my brother refused, the priest fired him as newsletter editor, attacked him from the pulpit, and ripped his lay ministry license from the church wall. He has followed up these actions by canceling the midweek service at which my brother was accustomed to lead worship.

I don’t know what the fate of my brother’s lay ministry license will be, but I don’t expect Bishop Iker to countermand the action of his priest. I tell the story because I think this series of events comments quite cogently on Bishop Iker’s claim that Bishop Jefferts Schori “would have [him] prevent the clergy and laity” of the diocese of Fort Worth “from openly discussing [their] future place in the life of the wider Anglican Communion.” Bishop Iker’s claim that he favors ecclesiastical democracy in contrast to the presiding bishop’s “aggressive, dictatorial posturing” is just so much confederate money.

More . . .

Tobias Haller has written an analysis, entitled Where We Are, that seems to this aging layman to be a fair and balanced account of the aspect of sexual politics in the Episcopal Church that is most in the news. Here are a few excerpts.

About the church as a whole:

It is very easy, in a liberal parish in a liberal diocese to come to think that The Episcopal Church as a whole is much more liberal than it really is. This applies to the Anglican Communion as well.

About the House of Bishops:

The House of Bishops as a whole — even with the “Network” bishops missing — is not as liberal as its most liberal members. When they gather, something between the Hive Mind and the Stockholm Effect takes place. The whole is often less than the sum of its parts.

About Bishop Robinson’s ordination:

The consent to the election of Gene Robinson was a “false dawn” — and was not the celebration of gay and lesbian equality it was perceived to be. The consent had more to do with Gene’s superb personal qualities and track-record as an excellent priest than with his sexuality and his partnership. The consent was given in spite of, not in affirmation of, his private life. The consent to his election thus made it appear both to us and to the world that we were moving faster than we actually were.

In the commentary that follows, Elizabeth Keaton says, “While I agree that this is a fair assessment of where we are, it’s decidedly not where we were last March,” and asks, “Why, do you suppose, that is the case?” Haller replies:

I think the main difference between March and September was that the March meeting dealt with something really gear (sic) and near to the Bishops hearts — polity and property — and you will note that in the present statement that is where their strongest language is placed.

Another issue of sexual politics, one about which I haven’t seen much discussion, is the HOB endorsement of the presiding bishop’s “plan to appoint episcopal visitors for dioceses that request alternative oversight.” I’m less disturbed by the presiding bishop’s endorsement–she seems a person of great faith and generosity of spirit–than I am by that of her colleagues. But both endorsements make me wonder how serious my church’s real commitment is to the ordination of women.