Largest Episcopal Parish Plans to Leave Church (Buh-bye …)

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Anglican, Anglican Communion, Episcopal Church

The rector and vestry of Christ Church Plano have announced that the parish intends to dissasociate itself from the church (hat tip: T19). CCP is a 21-year-old Dallas-area congregation that has grown to become the largest in the Episcopal Church. Commenters expect other radical-traditionalist parishes, and perhaps even entire dioceses, to do likewise in the near future.

I won’t say good riddance to CCP, because that’d be uncharitable. But neither can I say I’m sorry to see them go. Their rector is one of those dangerous people, found in every religion and every political persuasion, who insist that the only possible "right thinking" is that which conforms to their own. Pray for them anyway, and seek the best for them — but keep them and their kind away from my kids’ schools and Sunday school classes, please. [CLARIFICATION: I don’t mind these folks presenting their views to my kids; quite the contrary. What I mind very much is when they present their own views as irrebuttable truth while permitting no other views to be heard.]

Comments

6 responses to “Largest Episcopal Parish Plans to Leave Church (Buh-bye …)”

2006-06-26

David Huff

Heh. You must have been posting this just as I was mentioning it in the comments thread of your previous post 🙂
…but keep them and their kind away from my kids’ schools and Sunday school classes, please.
Which was the primary reason I convinced my family to leave that parish three years ago. I’m orders of magnitude happier at our current parish 😀

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2006-06-26

gdb in central Texas

…but keep them and their kind away from my kids’ schools and Sunday school classes, please.
Funny, D.C., I was just think that about you.

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2006-06-26

J. R. A. Merrick

Sure, no one wants narrowmindedness. But just because you stand for the truth and do it in such a way that contradicts cultural assumptions does not mean you’re anti-intellectual.

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2006-06-26

Scott

Sometimes I wonder, DC, whether there is any source of Truth that you would accept contra your own beliefs, convictions, views, etc.? If Christ himself came and told you that you were wrong, that the Catholic Church was truly His One Church, would you be willing to sacrifice the pride-of-place of your will and intellect to his instruction? Or would you respond “well, that’s one point of view, Christ; but…”
At some point, there is a line between what is true and what is false. Maybe Christ Church Plano has it wrong, too (I think that most do). But to deny that fundamental distinction… well, I guess I don’t see the point of belief in that case. It all comes down to personal judgement, then, at which we have made our decision to serve mammon. Can we really consider nothing normative? (I think I already know your answer…)

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2006-06-26

D. C.

Scott writes: Sometimes I wonder, DC, whether there is any source of Truth that you would accept contra your own beliefs, convictions, views, etc.?
Scott, I accept nothing, absolutely nothing, as “a source of Truth” with a capital T — not my own beliefs, convictions, views, etc., and certainly not someone else’s. I do, of course, accept a very wide variety of sources of provisional truth (with a small t), or putting it another way, sources of assertions on which I’m willing to take my chances. I’m far more likely to take my chances on assertions that have been successfully tested against observations of God’s creation; cf. Deut. 18.21-22.
Scott writes: If Christ himself came and told you that you were wrong, that the Catholic Church was truly His One Church, would you be willing to sacrifice the pride-of-place of your will and intellect to his instruction?
Jesus’s recorded teachings are extremely high among the assertions on which I’m willing to take my chances. (Well, most of them anyway; it’s indisputable that he blew it in predicting his imminent return at the end of the world, if indeed he made that prediction.) That’s because I’m persuaded that Jesus put his finger on some very fundamental things about how the world works.
Would I blindly take Jesus’s word for something if he were to come to me and tell me? That would depend in part on how consequential the assertion was. Suppose Jesus were to appear and command me to kill all the redheads in the world because they were the spawn of Satan. There’s not a chance I’d accept that assertion at face value. At a minimum I’d want to satisfy myself that it wasn’t the result of a brain-physiology hiccup of some kind. And even then I’d refuse.
If Jesus were to tell me that the Catholic Church (I assume you mean more than just the RCC) were the One True Church, I don’t think I’d be capable of accepting that at face value. I’d have to have a lot more more explanation — and justification. Yes, Jesus would have to justify his assertion to me, because I happen to believe that each of us is accountable for our own decisions; we can’t fall back on the discredited excuse that “I was only following [Scripture, or whatever].”
Scott writes: Can we really consider nothing normative?
Sure — so long as we accept (i) that all knowledge is provisional, and that includes the assertions we call norms, and (ii) that the degree to which we can accept any assertion as normative will again depend in part on how consequential it is.
Thanks for commenting, Scott.

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2006-06-28

David Huff

BTW, it looks like Da Bish intends to allow Christ Church to keep the parish property – at least as far as this article from the Dallas Morning News relates:
Plano Episcopal church to pull out
Have no earthly idea of the legal consequences of this, but the mind reels…

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