BETHLEHEM: Letters of Diocesan Standing Committee and Bishop with Reply

On April 23, 2004, the President of the Standing Committee and the Vice-Chair of Diocesan Council in the ECUSA Diocese of Bethlehem wrote to each parishioner of St. Stephen's Church, Whitehall, Pennsylvania.

On May 2, 2004, the rector and vestry of St. Stephen's convened a special parish meeting to discuss the letter and to offer a response. The letter from the diocese and the response of the parishioners of St. Stephen's are as follows. The letter of response was adopted by unanimous vote of the parishioners.

April 23, 2004

To: The Parishioners of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Whitehall, Pennsylvania

Dear brothers and sisters,

We want you to know about letters that have been sent to the lay and clergy leadership of St. Stephen's Church. Your senior warden received a letter signed jointly by the Rev. Henry Pease, president of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Bethlehem, the Rev. W. Nicholas Knisley, vice-chair of Diocesan Council, and Bishop Paul V. Marshall. That letter is enclosed. Diocesan Council and the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Bethlehem consist of representatives elected by your sisters and brothers in some 66 other churches of the Diocese of Bethlehem.

Bishop Paul sent a separate letter to your clergy.

We have asked the following questions in our letter:

Does the Parish of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Whitehall, consider itself still to be part of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem?

Does the Parish of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church consider itself still to be in communion with the Bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem and under his canonical jurisdiction?

The leadership of your congregation has significantly decreased the parish's participation in the mission and ministry of our wider community, even to the extent of informing Diocesan Council that your parish would not meet its constitutionally mandated financial assessment. Your leadership has also ignored several attempts by elected representatives of our diocesan community to enter into conversation about what they intend and how they understand the relationship of St. Stephen's Church and the Diocese of Bethlehem.

We will be interested in how your lay and clergy leadership responds to these questions. We have decided to keep you informed because we suspect you, too, will be interested. We have resorted with some regret to formal communication by letter only after attempts to invite direct conversation with the vestry and parishioners of St. Stephen's about the leadership's apparent movement of the parish away from the diocesan community were rebuffed by the rector and senior warden.

For the sake of your sisters and brothers throughout the 14 counties of the Diocese of Bethlehem and for your own sake as parishioners of St. Stephen's, we seek clarity about whether the leadership of St. Stephen's considers the parish to be part of the diocesan family, i.e., whether they are willing to live within the traditional understanding of what makes a church "Episcopal."

In the Episcopal church, congregations exist as such only in relationship with a duly elected bishop, specifically the bishop of the diocese where the congregation is located. The relationship of congregations among themselves and with the wider church community is defined by a diocesan constitution and canons developed and approved at one time or another by representatives of those congregations.

Suggestions by the leadership of your parish that the current problem is about homosexuality or the ordination of a gay bishop seem little more than attempts to distract from the matter at hand: governance and relationships within the Episcopal Church. Any congregation and its leaders are free to disagree on issues without risking their position in the diocesan community. The Episcopal Church in the United States does not focus on beliefs held by individual members.

We are bound together not by our imperfect understanding and expression of our beliefs but by our worship of God in Christ. "It is part of the reality of the Episcopal Church," our presiding bishop said recently, "that we live with divergent points of view regarding the interpretation of scripture and understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church... There is no neutral reading of scripture. We interpret various passages differently while seeking to be faithful to the mind of Christ. It is therefore important to recognize that people of genuine faith can and do differ in their understandings of what we agree is the Word of God."

May no one distract us from our unity in Christ expressed by our coming together in diversity as a faith community—the community of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem and the Episcopal Church USA—worshipping God and allowing God's work to be done by the body of Christ we are.

We have asked your parish leadership to respond to these concerns by May 5.

Sincerely yours,

The Rev. Henry Pease

President, Standing Committee

The Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely

Vice-Chair, Diocesan Council