SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA: Bishop spins parish departure
History recall flawed, says orthodox priest
Bishop Neff Powell offers public support and "condolences" to VA bishops
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org 1/6/2007
TheRight Reverend F. Neff Powell, Bishop of the Diocese of SouthwesternVirginia, has written a letter to his priests saying that he fullysupports fellow liberal bishops Peter James Lee and David Jones ofVirginia in their actions to take back parishes who have severed tieswith that diocese, and then he says that in talking to bishops aroundthe U.S. whose congregations have fled the TEC, that "in every singlecase the clergy led the move to leave."
"Votes to leavetypically followed years of preaching and teaching against theEpiscopal Church, our polity and our theology," he wrote.
In a"Dear Colleagues" letter, Powell said he called Bishop Lee to offer hiscondolences and full support and then recounted his own personal storyof the departing Church of the Holy Spirit, the largest parish thatfled his diocese six years ago over bad faith and morals.
Powell,who voted "yes" on the blessings of same-sex unions (C051) and who gaveconsent to the consecration of V. Gene Robinson (C045) at GC2003,finally forced the Rev. Quigg Lawrence and his Holy Spirit congregationto face the fact that the diocese and the national church no longerstood for the historic Christian Faith and were out of sync with thevast majority of Anglicans in the Anglican Communion over biblicalmorality.
"Early in my episcopate, Church of the Holy Spirit,Roanoke, voted to leave us and join with the Anglican Church of Rwanda.The congregation had built a new building and had set up a dummycorporation to hold title to the property so that they could leave atany time. We decided not to contest the matter in court. The rector wasdeposed from the priesthood. This whole event was one of the mostpainful experiences of my episcopate," wrote Powell.
But theRev. Quigg Lawrence whose parish is now under the Anglican Mission inAmerica, wrote VOL to say that "time has a way of fogging people'sminds when it comes to facts," and then blasted Powell for rewritinghistory.
"The Church of the Holy Spirit in Roanoke went toBishop Heath Light in the early 1990s to see if our very new, fastgrowing parish could get any help (money or low interest loan) from theDiocese to assist us in getting out of the school we were meeting inand getting our own place to worship. We were not looking for a fancybuilding - a store front, an old supermarket or church, anything woulddo. We were just tired of the school telling us when we could and couldnot worship during the week."
Bishop Light told them that the diocese had no money for the new parish only $3000 in a "wheel chair ramp fund."
"Hesuggested we write the National Church and see if they could help (itwas by the way the Decade of Evangelism and we were the newest churchplant in our half of the state!)
"The National Church offered usa high interest loan of "up to $100,000" which was about 1% higher thanour local banks were offering and not nearly enough money to buy even amodest facility.
"Knowing that the diocese had seized ("kickedout") several "1928 BCP parishes" when they refused to switch to thenew 1978 BCP, some business people in our church said they would bewilling to raise the money as long as it would not be vulnerable toseizure. They contacted their friend, Rio Grande Episcopal Bishop TerryKelshaw and he told them how they could do this.
"When these menstarted the process of forming a foundation, the senior warden and Iwent to tell Bishop Light what the vestry was thinking of doing -renting a facility from a foundation made up primarily but notexclusively of church members. We would rent from the foundation, whichwould be a legitimate, legal, I.R.S. approved foundation whose solepurpose was to raise money for churches.
Bishop Light said hehad no problem with that, that it was "really no different than rentingfrom North Cross School or anyone else," he said.
"A year passedand finally the Terumah Foundation paperwork was completed. Terumah wasrecognized by the I.R.S., completely legal and ready to loan our churchthe start up money. Even though we did not have to, the senior wardenand I went back a second time to Bishop Light to keep him well informedand be open and honest. After all he had told us he approved of what wewere hoping to do."
"At the point of our second meeting (a yearlater) Bishop Light told us that a church in Pennsylvania had rentedfrom such a foundation and was leaving their diocese and that he didnot like what we were doing," Lawrence wrote VOL.
"I do not likeit but there is nothing I can do to stop it!" he said. He definitelyhad changed his tune from what he told us the year before, but he didnot forbid us to rent from the Terumah Foundation. So we did."
Lawrence then ripped the present diocesan bishop Neff Powell for re-writing history.
"Thebishop should refresh his memory. He asked our church to considerleaving the diocese and ECUSA. Apparently we were too conservative, tooout of step with most of the diocese or did not give enough money.Whatever his reasons, he did ask us to leave."
"We wereshocked," Lawrence told VOL. "So much for the big-tent of the EpiscopalChurch and what Bishop Powell says is ECUSA's "long tradition oftolerance". We were being asked to leave. We said we would seek theLord and earnestly pray about it. I had been an Episcopalian my entirelife, graduated from an Episcopal Seminary and could not imagine beingasked to leave MY church. So we prayed."
"About a month into ourprayer and discernment, we were asked to give a voluntary proportionalpledge to the diocese for the New Year. We told the bishop that weneeded to decide whether we were going to leave ECUSA (as he had askedus) or were we going to stay. Following the scriptural mandate to "letyour yes be yes and your no be no," we did not want to make our pledgefor the new year until we had reached a decision to stay."
"Withina week we were sent a letter pronouncing us out of the denomination anddiocese. There was no trial; there were no canon law hearings. Hesimply pronounced us out! He told us many things in his letter but thebiggest one was that if we wanted to rejoin ECUSA we would have to givethe diocese our land and building. This of course was impossible sincewe did not own it. We could not give him something that we had no legalright or claim to."
Lawrence said that would be illegal, muchlike if the bishop had ordered CHS to hand him the title to the localKroger Store. We were leasing from a legitimate, IRS sanctionedfoundation. You cannot give away or sell something you do not own.
"Thebishop wrote all the diocesan clergy (except me) and informed them thatour parish had "chosen to leave the Episcopal Church" and that "hehoped we would one day return and if we did, he would perhaps even killthe fatted calf" WHAT A DISTORTION! He had pronounced us out withouttrial! It was a gross abuse of power and misuse of God's word."
Sincebeing kicked out in the Year 2000, Lawrence says he has planted two newmissions. "We are averaging almost 800 a week in attendance, ourmission in Botetourt, VA is averaging around 400 and our brand newchurch plant in Blacksburg is averaging around 80. We have paid forfive 500 seat stone churches in China and one in Cuba. We continue tominister in our local high schools and serve the poor in our city. Wehave given money for the entire food budget to the Roanoke RescueMission which has served 300,000 meals in two of the last three years."
"Forthe bishop to spin our leaving the diocese and the TEC as though wewere to blame is outrageous. We are not the devious devils and dividersBishop Powell intimates. Come and see!"
To read the bishop's letter click here:
http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2006/12/bishop-powell-speaks.htmlTo access the Church of the Holy Spirit's website click here:
http://www.coths.org/index.cfmEND
