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There's that unholy trinity again: the "doctrine, discipline, and worship" of the Episcopal Church".

Last week Bishop John-David Schofield (San Joaquin) was excoriated -- or "ex-Schoriated" -- by the new Presiding Bishop in condescending tones about his laxity in upholding the DDW's (doctrine, discipline, and worship) of the Episcopal Church. The tone was added to distract observers from the fact that the DDW's which Schofield had sworn to uphold were very different from the ones he was now accused of violating. It was a safe bet, from the PB's point of view, that no one would think to evaluate the actual doctrine, discipline, and worship that Bishop Schofield had vowed to uphold. She assumed most Episcopalians, when they think of "doctrine, discipline, and worship", think of the Faith delivered within the past 30 minutes -- like Domino's Pizza.

A few days ago Bishop Peter Lee (Virginia) issued a sobering, and slightly intimidating, letter to the rectors, wardens and vestries of parishes in the Diocese of Virginia that had recently elected to disaffiliate from the Diocese and from the Episcopal Church. He delineated their obligations as trustees of ecclesiastical property and their potential liability in attempting to depart from the institutional Church with their properties. And of course he referred once again to their pledge to uphold DDW's. Everything he said was accurately, clearly and fairly stated. As the diocesan chancellor put it in an accompanying statement, "We are concerned that these congregations may not fully understand the potential legal consequences of their actions. The decision to leave the Diocese should be a fully informed one."

How fair-minded and above board.

What neither the bishop nor his chancellor happened to mention was the one thing that is relevant from a religious point of view -- namely, that the Christian Religion as practiced in the Episcopal Church is not the same as it was when the parishes in question were incorporated, and for that reason the reference to "doctrine, discipline, and worship" is in fact meaningless, except perhaps as a means of intimidation.

Up until very recently "doctrine, discipline and worship" made up a single, relatively static category. "Discipline" -- the laws and customs of the Church or of local churches -- changed periodically, but always as the practical means for realizing the same "doctrine and worship" which constituted "the faith once delivered to the saints".

DDW's have recently gone the way of Hooker's Three Legged Stool. In the latter case Episcopalians typically refer to "scripture, tradition, and reason" when what they really mean is "reason alone" -- or rather, that honorary fourth-and-only stool, "experience alone". Similarly, "doctrine, discipline, and worship" has become a quaint expression meaning "discipline only", by which is meant canon law. As the laws naturally undergo periodic changes, we are to understand that the Faith does as well.

Thus today's ordinands, in presenting themselves before their bishops, put themselves in an awkward position. If the Faith they have "sworn" to uphold can change at any moment, the oath to uphold "the doctrine, discipline, and worship" of the Episcopal Church is a pompous charade. The ordination vow is simply an oath of fealty to the person of the bishop. As the occupant of the office changes, so does the object of the vow.

This is one of the ways that a faith is stolen: break the will of the faith's representatives, so that they no longer represent the faith, but a local institution or arrangement of institutions. To put it another way: make it so the one thing the minister represents is saving his own professional skin.

The second way is even more insidious and has to do with earthy stuff like bricks and mortar. It has to do with the manner in which a counterfeit faith is given substance through the legal title of church real estate.

What has transpired throughout the past thirty years in the Episcopal Church is nothing less than the theft of one religion and the covert setting up of another.

It reminds me of a sci-fi "B" movie I saw several years ago, where aliens invaded planet Earth. Their plan was to take over the world by gradually taking over the bodies of human beings, until more and more people were taken over. At the end all the bodies were intact, but the spirits in the bodies were different. The bodies survived, but the people didn't.

Since the property has come under the control of a different party of "believers", the ancient iconography of the Christian religion -- the stained glass, statuary, paintings, hymnody -- now "houses" a different legion of spirits. They tell a different story of the relationship between God and man. They proclaim "another gospel". As a new generation grows up in the new faith, a new spirit possesses the bodies of the faithful.

Churches that have made the decision to leave the Episcopal Church have discerned that to remain in communion with this Church is be in communion with other spirits. This they refuse to do. They will not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons and pretend they can't tell the difference.

The argument raging in the Anglican Communion about the limits and nature of communion (koinonia) has not yet named this particular elephant in the room, because to do so would shatter the pretense that some worthy goal awaits our efforts at "reconciliation". Paul, who was fixated more on saving souls than on salvaging an institutional status quo, named it a long time ago in the form of a rhetorical question: "What koinonia has light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:15)

I don't believe today's bishops are willfully scheming to undermine the Faith. Their actions demonstrate more a dullness, or desensitizing, of spirit -- the kind that comes from mixing Christ and Belial in the same cup one too many times and telling themselves over and over that there's no real difference.

---The Rev. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon in charge of Pastoral Care at St. Luke's Cathedral in Orlando, Florida. He is a columnist for Virtueonline.

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