The Episcopal Church’s Disciplinary Board for Bishops Nov. 28 said it cannot certify that Diocese of South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence has abandoned the communion of the church.
“Based on the information before it, the board was unable to make the conclusions essential to a certification that Bishop Lawrence had abandoned the communion of the church,” the Rt. Rev. Dorsey F. Henderson Jr., board president, said in a statement e-mailed to Lawrence and reporters. (Henderson said he informed Lawrence of the board’s conclusion by telephone as well.)
The board met Nov. 22 via conference call to consider information given it by a group of communicants in the diocese.
Under Title IV, Canon 16, a bishop is deemed to have abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church by an open renunciation of the doctrine, discipline or worship of the church; by formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the church; or by exercising episcopal acts in and for a religious body other than the church or another church in communion with the church.
“Applied strictly to the information under study, none of these three provisions was deemed applicable by a majority of the board,” Henderson said in his statement.
In the Nov. 28 statement, Henderson said that the disciplinary board faced what he called a “basic question” of “whether actions by conventions of the Diocese of South Carolina, though they seem — I repeat, seem — to be pointing toward abandonment of the church and its discipline by the diocese, and even though supported by the bishop, constitute abandonment by the bishop.”
“A majority of the members of the board was unable to conclude that they do,” Henderson said.
Henderson, the retired bishop of Upper South Carolina, noted that it is “significant that Bishop Lawrence has repeatedly stated that he does not intend to lead the diocese out of the Episcopal Church — that he only seeks a safe place within the church to live the Christian faith as that diocese perceives it.”
“I speak for myself only at this point, that I presently take the bishop at his word, and hope that the safety he seeks for the apparent majority in his diocese within the larger church will become the model for safety — a “safe place” — for those under his episcopal care who do not agree with the actions of South Carolina’s convention and/or his position on some of the issues of the church.”
Lawrence told the diocese Oct. 5 that he was being investigated for abandonment. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the House of Bishops were not involved in making the claims, Henderson said at the time via a “fact sheet.”
The package of documents alleging his abandonment of the church that Lawrence said he received Sept. 29 from Henderson, is posted here on the diocese’s website. The documents contained 12 allegations of when Lawrence’s “actions and inactions” sought to abandon the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church.
Those allegations cited five specific diocesan convention resolutions that Lawrence supported. In addition, the allegations also claimed that Lawrence has removed all references to the Episcopal Church from the diocesan website and noted that half of the congregations with working website have done the same or offer links to breakaway Anglican organizations.
“The bishop appears to have done nothing to stop other parishes which are outwardly moving in the direction of withdrawal” from the Episcopal Church, including parishes that have sought or obtained legal advice on those moves, allegation seven said.
Three allegations referenced comments made by Lawrence about what he calls the Episcopal Church’s “false gospel of indiscriminate inclusivity” and his description of the church as a “comatose patient” that has slowed down Anglicanism in the 21st century.
It is also alleged that missions are being planted in the diocese but Lawrence has not recognized “a congregation of loyal Episcopalians” as a parish or mission.
The 12th allegation surrounded the circumstances of the ordination of Lawrence’s son.
The diocesan leadership has engaged in a series of moves to distance itself from the Episcopal Church, ultimately stemming from disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation. In October 2009 the diocese authorized Lawrence and the Standing Committee to begin withdrawing from churchwide bodies that assent to “actions deemed contrary to Holy Scripture, the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them, the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference which have expressed the mind of the communion, the Book of Common Prayer and our Constitution and Canons, until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions.”