Liberal Lawsuit

Episcopal liberals prepare for split
 
A liberal Episcopal group is crafting a strategy to disenfranchise about 16 conservative bishops if the denomination's pivotal General Convention next year in Columbus, Ohio, results in a church split.
 
Informally named the "Day After" for the aftermath of the June 13-21 event, the strategy outlines a way to file canonical charges against conservative bishops, unseat them from their dioceses, have interim bishops waiting to replace them and draft lawsuits ready to file before secular courts for possession of diocesan property.
 
The strategy was revealed in a leaked copy of minutes drafted at a Sept. 29 meeting in Dallas of a 10-member steering committee for Via Media, a network of 13 liberal independent Episcopal groups.

The memo assumes that the Episcopal Church will refuse to renounce its 2003 consecration of V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as the denomination's first openly homosexual bishop, an action many archbishops in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion have urged it to do.

If the 2.2-million-member Episcopal Church votes to uphold Bishop Robinson's consecration, conservative bishops are widely expected to walk out. Sixteen of them are affiliated with two conservative groups -- the American Anglican Communion (AAC) and the Anglican Communion Network.

The AAC condemned Via Media by calling the minutes a "planned coup of biblically faithful dioceses" (Duin, "The Washington Times," October 24, 2005).
 
[TBC: "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?" The same passage that discusses lawsuits also points out that "the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God...neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. And such were some of you..." (1 Corinthians:6:1Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
See All...;9-11).