Episcopal Church Says Criticism of It Violates 1st Amendment And Separation of Church and State

RESOLVED, That the Diocese of New York affirms the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion, which includes the right of churches to choose their own clerical and leaders according to their own rules and criteria without interference from governments, private citizens, or other religious groups, and..

I was not going to post on this because I could not believe urbane New Yorkers of the Episcopal Diocese of New York would pass this resolution as worded.

I WAS WRONG. It passed by it appears a huge margin.

Yes folks vocal criticism of the Episcopal Church USA is a unconstitutional violation of of the 1st amendment regarding the Free Exercise clause or what people often call "the separation of the Church and State.

MCJ alerted me to this last week at BOOGIE MAN.

A reformed Pastor really tears into this resolution that proclaim the activities of Institute on Religion & Democracy is a violation of the 1 st amendment at his great post WAHHHHHHHH!

For the record the IRD says they are not involved in funding lawsuits as to Church's leaving the Episcopal Church.

Getting to the absurd wording everyone knows who those related groups that are mentioned also are!! Those are Anglican and Episcopal breakaway groups from Episcopal Church USA that are quite vocal in their criticism.

Now I am not getting into if the actions of the IRD and if these breakaway groups are right or wrong.

However I hate to tell the Episcopal Church USA but, we Catholics have always had faith communities, and average citizens directing attacking and criticizing us in organized ways since we got here. In fact one can argue it is far worse today in many ways. That was not a violation of the 1 st amendment in most cases then and is not now.

It's ironic that it is easy to imagine that some of these New York City delegates to the Convention were laughing at the supposed ignorance of O' Donnell on the Delaware Senate race on "separation of Church and State" just a few weeks ago. Now they produce this. However what is really going on here.

First off sadly this not some wacky resolution from some far flung nutty Episcopal Diocese. This is NEW YORK and NEW YORK CITY at that. It is the heart of the TEC mother ship.

The Headquarters of the TEC resides in this Diocese. So I think it is very likely the leadership at the THE EPISCOPAL USA Headquarters in Manhattan very much approved of this. Which means this resolution sadly will be approved at the national convention.

Now what is interesting here is that these is the second time in a few weeks the Methodist and Presbyterians(in which now they seem to want an alliance with) have been perhaps alluded too by Episcopal Church USA.

A few weeks the the leader of the Episcopal Church USA said :
Jefferts Schori said that some of the issues the council might face include questions of whether the church still needs a large office building in Manhattan, whether the church can share ministry with other denominations, whether dioceses be challenged to do more together and whether seminaries can collaborate to serve the wider church.

Now it is my outsider view Episcopal Church USA's current civil litigation campaign against breakaway Episcopal Churches and Diocese has been a disaster. It makes no sense.

Now what is important here is not the IRD which I think is a red herring. It is the these "related groups" that go unmentioned. From a part of the resolution:

RESOLVED, That the Diocese calls upon the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to authorize creation of a joint task force of the affected denominations to:

1) Assess the threat to religious freedom posed by the activities of the IRD and related groups
2) Develop recommendations to mitigate such threats, and

3) Ascertain the cost to the three denominations to date of litigation to prevent the alienation of church property and other assets.

Wow!! In other words perhaps Episcopal Church USA is running out of money suing former Episcopal folks so can we can some perhaps Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian money to help out.

In would indeed be interesting to see who in the Episcopal Church USA has been talking to whom in these other faith communities about this project.

Regardless of these internal Church issues my main objection is the wording given by a serious Church body that active proactive criticism of it and it's leadership is somehow against our founding document. At the very least I hope the national conventions edits that OUT.