2009 Episcopal Year of Litigation

David Virtue of the Anglican blog VirtueOnline coined the title of our post. In one of his recent Viewpoints, which are summaries of the previous weeks Anglican events, David writes:

"2009 promises to be the Episcopal Year of Litigation with four dioceses feeling the wrath of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her attorney David Booth Beers, not to mention smaller legal battles waging inside dioceses like Connecticut, Colorado, Pennsylvania to name only a few."

In December 2008, the national Episcopal leadership lost a major court decision in Virginia regarding the ownership of disputed property. The national Episcopal leadership has pledged to appeal the ruling.

David further notes:

"Last year, four retired bishops asked the Presiding Bishop where the money was coming from and never got an answer. Why make the Diocese of Dallas think they will get one? The only way to get this information is to bring a civil action to compel disclosure.

Meantime, the Presiding Bishop, fearful perhaps that she might not be able to spring money loose from the church's endowments, wrote a letter to members of the ST. IVES GUILD of the Diocese of New York asking for funds 'to litigate and defend and protect Church property against those who wish to secure the property on behalf of a foreign province.'"

For those unfamiliar with the ongoing schism among American Anglicans, David's post is a good summary of what has happened and is scheduled to take place during the coming year. Go read.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
John 13:34-35

UPDATE

We wrote this post before Christmas and scheduled it for New Year's Day. Amazingly, today we read in that another Episcopal parish has left the Episcopal Church. Milwaukee Bishop Steven A. Miller has reiterated the "party line" that members can leave a parish, but parishes can't leave the diocese. Uh,yeh. Expect litigation by the diocese and national church to commence in Spring 2009. It seems the congregation owns the land and rectory but is uncertain about the church. I expect the diocese to claim it owns everything.

Looks like Kate Schori will go down in history as the Primate holding the hot potato or lacking a chair when the music stops.

Related Posts:
Episcopal Church Decline Continues
The Shrinking Church of England

Source: Viewpoints : Skeleton Dioceses Reconstitute...PB Pleads for Funds to Sue Dioceses

Episcopal Church Decline Continues

As many CAS regulars know, we read widely among the Christian blogosphere. The major news event of the past week for our Anglican and Episcopal brothers and sisters in Christ is the continuing decline of the Episcopal Church in the USA. The Episcopal Church released its 2007 membership statistics and the Anglican blogosphere is ablaze. CAS readers may not be aware that a second Episcopal diocese, Pittsburg, voted to break communion with the Episcopal Church and join with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America.

Matt Kennedy of Stand Firm penned:

"According to the latest statistics (for 2007) released last week (and now mysteriously taken down from the Episcopal Church website) only four dioceses out of 111 experienced growth."

David Virtue of Virtue Online recently stated about the Episcopal diocese of Michigan:

"The Episcopal Diocese of Michigan is in free fall.

The liberal diocese is faced with declining church attendance, and dwindling income. The diocese is going to launch a plan aimed at revitalizing the "diocesan household."

A report at their website said the diocese must face stark realities. A task force says that "the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan is in steep decline." Charts included in the document reveal that average Sunday attendance has declined by 22% since 2000. During the same time period, "pledge and plate revenues" for all congregations combined has decreased by approximately $2 million, when adjusted for inflation."

The term "death spiral" is being used with increasing regularity.

Amidst the hand wringing, various reasons for the decline are discussed. Chief among these are unbelief, ordination of an actively gay bishop, heavy handedness of the Presiding Bishop, and demographic winter. We at CAS see things more holistically and find multiple contributing causes.

That said, the largest contributing cause is likely the turn the Episcopal Church took afollowing the 1930 Lambeth Conference when Anglicans reversed centuries of doctrine and allowed artifical birth control by married couples. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Episcopal children were never born.

Discussing the low Episcopalian birth rate, Presiding Bishop Katharine Schori has previously opined that Episcopalians are not much interested in breeding. Mrs. Schori said:

"[Episcopalians] tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."

Decisions have consequences, as countries and now ecclesial communities are discovering long after the unintended results.

CAS would like to remind readers that this is not the time for un-Christian triumphalism. Please pray for your Anglican brothers and sisters in Christ.

Related Posts:
The Shrinking Church of England
Why More Catholics Than Protestants
Demographic Winter


Source: The Shrinking Episcopal Church

Book of Common Prayer for E-Sword

CAS receives a steady stream of Anglican visitors seeking a digitized copy of the Book of Common Prayer for e-Sword Bible software. "The Book of Common Prayer is one of the major works of English literature. Since its introduction in the mid-1500's it has exerted enormous influence on the religious and literary lives of all who speak the English language."

The Book of Common Prayer is on many e-Sword users' wish lists. While I don't recall seeing a complete copy in e-Sword format, part does exist.

1662 Lectionary from the Book of Common Prayer

Andrew on Esnips offers the 1662 Lectionary from the Book of Common Prayer. Andrew doesn't offer much of a description, so that's about the limit of our knowledge on his file.

Converting the Book of Common Prayer to E-Sword

As the Book of Common Prayer already exists in in digital text form, no one needs to scan and spell check the Book of Common Prayer. All one really needs to do is start with a blank e-Sword topical (.top) file and copy an existing version of the Book of Common Prayer into it and format the text as desired. Its not an overnight project, but it is possible, especially since there are 70 million Anglicans worldwide and 2 million are here in the United States. Surely there is one dedicated Anglican or a small group of Anglicans willing to transform the Book of Common Prayer into e-Sword format.

There's about 360 pages in the version of the Book of Common Prayer I reviewed online, so that means a lone dedicated Anglican could convert the entire Book of Common Prayer into e-Sword format in one year at a rate of one finished page per day. Up the standard to two finished pages per day and the project is done in six months. Throw a small team at it and the project could be done in a month or less.

e-Sword files are simply Microsoft Access databases with the .mdb extension changed to one of the many e-Sword file extensions. Using Access one can easily import and append tables. If every one on a team had clear understanding of their start and end points, each member could work on their own portion. One team member could be responsible for importing and completing the assembly of the final file.

I will leave comments open on this post to facilitate anyone wishing to undertake the holy quest of converting the Book of Common Prayer into e-Sword format.

Source: Book of Common Prayer

God Pie

Thanks to the Anglican blog Stand Firm, I was made aware of a very good video that effectively demonstrates how we treat the "pie" that God has gifted to us. Please watch and tell others.



Source: http://youtube.com/watch?v=upmyrinWq64

The Shrinking Church of England

The Rev. Lee Proudlove, chief muser at Anselmic’s Place, has written a ery good post entitled The Shrinking Church of England. Rev. Proudlove has delved into past COE statistics, done some analysis in Excel, and presents some astounding figures and trends. The chart at the left depicts the downward trend in Sunday attendance in the Church of England, from 1968 to 2006.

Rev. Proudlove discusses three trends in the Church of England,:

1) Declining Sunday attendance, at least since 1970.

2) The ratio of Anglicans to the rest of the population.

3) The graying of the Church of England, the decline about to get worse.

While reading the Rev. Proudlove's timely post, I am reminded of a passage in the Gospel of Matthew...

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Matthew 16:18

So, if the gates of hell should prevail and the Church of England becomes no more, what does that say about the Church of England and King Henry's disobediance and schism from the ancient Church?

Source: The Shrinking Church of England