DELEGATED EPISCOPAL PASTORAL OVERSIGHT IS HOB FUDGE

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

The Episcopal Church House of Bishops has adopted a covenant which they believe will resolve all the problems that now exist between revisionist bishops and biblically orthodox parishes.

After three days of closed door meetings at Camp Allen, Texas where even cell phones didn’t work and guards were needed at the gates, in order, one presumes, to prevent anyone wanting to run in and steal the pluriform mind of Frank Griswold, the 100 or so bishops have come up with a plan.

It is so convoluted and confusing that one doubts that even the mystic Sufi Rumi could make sense of it if they all met on a plain in NJ’s Meadowlands. Furthermore one seriously doubts the Holy Ghost had much to do with the compromise either. After all the Spirit of Truth will never compromise on sexual sin, that at least is one truth that is absolute.

Griswold said the decision shows the hierarchy’s commitment to reconcile the two sides. “We are coming to a new place of mutual discovery and trust,” he said.

One orthodox theologian said the Navasota plan is “dead on arrival. It doesn’t even come close to recognizing the crisis we face,” he said. He is right.

The American Anglican Council came out with a statement declaring it to be “inadequate,” scoring it as a failure in terms of “reconciliation.” It is impossible to achieve reconciliation without repentance. It is impossible to affect reconciliation when this Church has fragmented itself and will not address the ensuing emergency.

The House of Bishops has proven once again their dysfunction and inability to acknowledge, much less address, the crisis of the Episcopal Church. From a format of “process,” small group discussion and multiple revisions, they have produced a plan for episcopal oversight that is undeniably and woefully inadequate.

Two opposing ideas were on the table. One was supplemental episcopal pastoral care, proposed by liberals and revisionists, which allowed the diocesan bishop to invite the visitor (an orthodox bishop) but that he (the revisionist bishop) remains in pastoral contact with the congregation. It was understood to be a temporary arrangement, the ultimate goal being the full restoration of the relationship between the congregation and their bishop.

The other side said no deal. What they wanted was Alternative Episcopal Oversight with an arrangement not dissimilar to the Forward in Faith UK plan to allow flying bishops to come in and the diocesan to stay right out of it forever.

But that dog will never hunt, because it is not allowed by the canons and constitutions (that’s the official excuse), but because it would see a diminishing of the power of the revisionist bishops who are already watching their dioceses in congregational free fall.

So the House of Purple came up with a third way. They recommended something called Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO).

[Summary process steps omitted for brevity—already detailed in full “Caring for All the Churches” text above.]

On first reading there is a silver lining in this DEPO plan for the orthodox and it is this:

They can run this process out for months, possibly years and never have to see a revisionist bishop ever again.

In the meantime they can take their confirmands to an orthodox diocese for confirmation (that’s canonically legal). As one orthodox bishop said to VIRTUOSITY, “if a priest presents confirmands to me at one of my churches and asks me to confirm them, I will do so, there is no canonical violation.” The priest can then return and keep the “process” for DEPO running on indefinitely.

Of course all this is about strategy not truth.

The notion that you can reconcile homoerotic behavior with holiness and revealed religion with pansexuality is the biggest lie of all. It will never happen, and that is why, at the end of the day, this plan, like all other plans of compromise, will fail.

END