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SOUTH CAROLINA: Episcopal diocese votes to join ranks of NACDP

Episcopal diocese votes to join ranks of protest network
Delegates want panel to explore ways to reconcile

By Dave Munday of The Post and Courier Staff

CHARLESTON, SC--The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina at its annual convention Friday joined a controversial network formed to protest the election of an openly gay bishop.

Delegates also voted that the diocese should form a commission to try to keep the church from splitting over the issue.

The vote to join the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes had been expected because S.C. Bishop Edward Salmon Jr. was one of the founding members and because the diocese's standing committee and executive committee had each voted unanimously to join.

But a couple of delegates spoke against it at the meeting at the North Charleston Convention Center.

"I believe this resolution would continue the divisiveness ... because it would institutionalize a movement that not all parishes agree with," Andy Brack, a lay delegate from St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Charleston, told the 296 clergy and lay delegates before the vote.

Brack suggested that individual parishes, rather than the diocese as a whole, should vote on whether to join the network.

Herbert Drayton III, another lay delegate from St. Stephen's, announced he would boycott the convention because the resolution reminded him of the way the Episcopal Church treated women and blacks in the past.

"I can certainly tell you, bishop, as an African-American, I certainly do not want to go back to yesterday," Drayton said before walking out.

Salmon endorsed the resolution in his annual address before the business session.

"Endorsement does not mean that individuals and congregations who do not agree are thus co-opted against their will," he said. "As a diocese, over the years, we have had a number of initiatives endorsed by the diocese and supported by many and ignored by others. It does mean that this is not just the personal position of the bishops."

The resolution to join the network passed on a show of hands, with about two dozen voting against it.

South Carolina is the seventh of the denomination's 108 dioceses to join the network, and bishops from another five have endorsed it, according to a tally kept by the American Anglican Council. It's not a move to leave the denomination, Salmon said.

The network was formed in January to oppose changing the church's standards on sexuality, to funnel money to other missions and to remain in fellowship with other Christian bodies who say they can no longer deal with the Episcopal Church since the denomination's General Convention accepted the election of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, a divorced man with a gay lover, as bishop of New Hampshire last summer.

A second resolution calls on Salmon to form a Reconciliation Commission. The commission is supposed to try to keep Episcopalians who are divided over the ordination of Robinson and same-sex blessings from formalizing the growing split.

Salmon also endorsed that resolution in his address. The problem in the church is not just that the two sides don't understand each other but that they "often don't even talk the same language," Salmon said.

Geoff Place, a lay delegate from All Saints Episcopal Church of Hilton Head Island, introduced the resolution on the floor.

"How can we start to address some of these differences ... that are starting to negatively impact God's work in the church?" Place asked. "I suspect ... the road ahead of us is going to be long and very bumpy."

The Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the diocese and a priest at Christ St. Paul's on Yonge's Island, lauded the resolution's goal. But he said reconciliation would be possible only if those who caused the schism by voting for Robinson recognized the seriousness of their actions. He proposed that the resolution be amended to include references to "profound ecclesiastical and theological differences" and a "deep divide."

Place agreed with the changes, and the resolution passed with only a couple of hands raised in opposition. The commission is supposed to come up with a plan to address the differences by Oct. 1.

A third resolution, also offered by Place, calls on the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops to talk about ways to bring the two sides together when the bishops meet March 19. Salmon also endorsed that resolution in his address. Harmon proposed the same changes, Place agreed, and the resolution passed overwhelmingly.

Salmon reported a number of major church expansions since the last convention. He said half of the $1.5 million needed to build the first Episcopal church on Daniel Island has been raised. Since 1990, the net disposable income of churches in the diocese has grown from $9.6 million to $26.2 million, Salmon said in his address.

He endorsed the work of Agape Ministries on Charleston's impoverished East Side. The ministry is led by the Revs. Dallas Wilson and Jimmy Gallant, who grew up in Calvary Episcopal Church. The diocese recently accepted them as postulants, or candidates for ministry.

Salmon proposed that the diocese affiliate with Healing Farm Ministries, which supports families with developmentally disabled members. It's led by Mary Tutterow, a member of St. Michael's Episcopal Church.

END

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