Katie Sherrod's Blog

Commentary on life, love, laughter and [sometimes] the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas.

January 24, 2004 Hijacked!
Help!
I have been hijacked into the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and I can’t find a way out. The Diocese of Fort Worth always has been a strange unhappy place, but it’s getting more like Alice-Through-The-Looking-Glass every day -- a place where, as Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I chose it to mean, neither more nor less.” “‘The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make a words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” Around here there is to be no question. Bishop Jack Iker is master.

Bishop Iker stated in our local newspaper, one either supports the Network or one “embrace(s) the gay agenda.” But while I know I do not support the Network, I don’t know whether I support “the gay agenda” or not. I’ve never been able to find out what it is and none of my lesbian or gay friends know either. I do happen to support the actions taken by General Convention in Minneapolis regarding consenting to the election of Gene Robinson and acknowledging that same gender blessings are happening in some dioceses. But many of my friends in several Fort Worth parishes aren’t yet sure what they think of all that. They ARE sure, however, that they do not support the Network. So where does Bishop Iker’s statement leave them?

Bishop Iker accuses those in the diocese who oppose him of spreading “disinformation,” yet he and the Network work in such secrecy that one practically has to resort to reading runes to figure out what’s going on. This is especially challenging when words don’t always mean the same thing from one day to the next, ala Humpty Dumpty. The leaders of the new Network keep emphasizing that their main goal is to provide “adequate episcopal oversight” for “isolated congregations” that disagree with their bishop on key issues. They claim this is necessary because some parishes in some dioceses are “experiencing persecution” while others are “being marginalized” in other dioceses.

This concern for these parishes stands in stark contrast to Bishop Iker's open and expressed outrage when General Convention sent a Task Force to the diocese to help find a way to accommodate those parishes that do not agree with him on the issue of the ordination of women. He made it clear that such “interference” in his diocese was outrageous, unacceptable, rude, etc. etc. Bishop Iker was quite willing to interfere in the Diocese of Washington when Sam Edwards was having his standoff with Bishop Jane Dixon in Accokeek. But that was not interference, according to him. That was responding to a cry for pastoral care. Got that?

The Rev. Thomas Hightower, one of the attendees at the Plano meeting where the Network Charter was adopted, spoke at my parish on Thursday about the new Network. Asked if adequate episcopal oversight was a two-way street, he said, “Yes,” that Bishop Iker “has always said” that if a parish has "irreconcilable differences" with the bishop, that parish can ask for alternate episcopal oversight. But heretofore, that's been in the context of women's ordination, i.e.; a parish wanting to call a woman as rector. Bishop Iker called it “the Dallas Plan.” This would put the female priest under Bishop James Stanton of Dallas but keep the parish (and its money) in the diocese of Fort Worth. The parish would still have seat, voice and vote at the diocesan convention, but the woman priest would not. But now, since Stanton is making Dallas part of the Network, I'm not sure what Hightower means and he would not explain. But I’m pretty sure that if a parish wanted to invite, say, Bishop Dixon in for adequate episcopal oversight, Bishop Iker would not agree. Besides, according to Hightower, a parish cannot opt out of the Network without opting out of the diocese.

But while the Network and the diocese are inseparable, the American Anglican Council and the Network are totally separate entities and should be judged as such. He became most exercised on this point when challenged about the infamous leaked memo from an AAC leader that made clear a willingness to disobey the canons and to disrupt the church. He was shocked! shocked! that anyone could suggest such a thing of the Network.

The Network will work within the Constitution of ECUSA, he said again and again. But the Network charter omits any mention at all of canons of the church, so one can forgive my suspicion that more word games are being played here. Bishop Iker and our diocesan leadership, which includes Hightower, have been flouting the canon on ordination as it applies to women for years. And it’s been made clear that the national canons are to be selectively obeyed. Indeed, in November of 1997, our own diocesan convention passed a constitutional amendment saying that this diocese will pick and choose which actions of General Convention are acceptable, although how this is to be determined has never been articulated. ARTICLE 1 of our diocesan constitution on AUTHORITY OF GENERAL CONVENTION now says, “The Church in this Diocese accedes to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church, and recognizes the authority of the General Convention of said Church provided that no action of General Convention which is contrary to Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Teaching of the Church shall be of any force or effect in this Diocese.”

Several of the other dioceses that have signed on with the Network have adopted similar resolutions. Then there’s the whole issue of Bishop Iker’s membership in Forward in Faith, formerly the Episcopal Synod of America. Forward in Faith is a signatory to the Network, even though they are opposed to the ordination of women and the rest of the signatories approve of the ordination of women.

According to the FiF website, acceptance of the ordination of women as priests or as bishops “is a schismatic act, impairing communion between provinces by subverting the interchangeability and mutual recognition of orders between them.” So Bishop Iker has now formed common cause with a group of schismatics that have caused impaired communion between provinces in order to reform the Episcopal Church, which the Network says is responsible for impairing communion between provinces. I am indeed caught in a strange place.

Posted by Katie Sherrod at everyvoice.net on January 24, 2004 03:31 PM