A Digger Looks At Our Polity.

The Episcopal Church (tm) is always claiming that one of the reasons there is such a fuss in the Anglican Communion is that foreigners do not understand our Church's "unique polity." Well, one Mr. Edwin Byford, of Coolamon, New South Wales, Australia, read this article in Episcopal Life Online, and seems to understand our new, post-2006 polity all too well:

Perhaps it is that I am an Anglican from the other side of the Pacific but the description of the method of appointing committees of the General Convention looks like just about the most undemocratic possible.

In a Church that used to be renowned for its broad based democratic processes how is it that all committee appointments fall to just two people — Bonnie Anderson and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori? Surely it is the Convention, itself, that should appoint its own procedural committees.

What has happened, that such power is concentrated in so few hands? Since some sort of formal establishment of the modern Anglican Communion a century and a half ago Anglicans have been determined to have power dispersed. We have not wanted magisterial power at the center of our international or national lives. We have seen the diocese as the fundamental building block with the unilateral power of the bishop extremely limited by synods and standing committees.

But the American Church seems to be concentrating more and more power in the center and removing power from dioceses and even the deputies of the General Convention.

I thought you guys fought a Revolution to make sure that you were never ruled by a king and his flunkies.You divided power and made sure it was not concentrated. From Australia your system for appointing committees looks very un-American, and most certainly very undemocratic.

I agree, but I am not surprised. The Former Bishop of Nevada and her cohorts don't want any surprises as they complete their purge of those that still believe that God is, well, God - and not what the UN and 51 percent of General Convention says He is.

Episcopal Life notes that Mr. Edwin Byford is an Archdeacon in Australia. Were he a Deacon here in the States and wrote that letter, I suspect his Bishop would likely have had a stern phone call. Or two.