The Episcopal Civil War Gets Personal

The schism in the Episcopal Church got personal recently when the rump diocese of South Carolina – a.k.a. those Episcopalians who chose to stay with the national church – released a list of their enemies.

Specifically, this list included the names of 103 Episcopal priests and deacons in the Palmetto State who, according to the rump diocese, have “abandoned the church.”

(You can access the list here, if you’re interested).

Last November, a group of churches led by bishop Mark Lawrence of Charleston, S.C. seceded from the national Episcopal Church over a dispute regarding the blessing of homosexual unions and the ordination of openly gay clergy.

The national church supports these policies, the local bishops do not …

We’ve been following this drama for some time. In fact FITS was the first media outlet to report on this brewing schism back in October of last year. Also, we wrote not long ago on some of the bizarre comments made by the national Episcopal church’s leader – liberal bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori.

Anyway … as we’ve said from the beginning of this drama, we don’t care if churches sanction gay marriage – or if they let homosexuals preach from their pulpits.  We don’t support either practice – but we believe such decisions should be left to individual congregations.

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