Second Episcopal bishop leaves denomination
Posted March 30, 2007
For the second time this week, it's been announced that an Episcopal bishop is leaving the denomination. Daniel W. Herzog, the retired bishop of Albany, has left the ECUSA and converted to Catholicism. Now, William J. Cox, the retired assistant bishop of Oklahoma -- under fire from colleagues -- has resigned and joined an Anglican province in South America.
According to The Living Church, Cox was facing a ecclesiastical trial "on charges that he illegally performed sacramental acts without the permission of the local Episcopal bishop."
To read more from The Living Church, click below:
Bishop Cox Leaves The Episcopal Church The Living Church 3/30/2007 Concerned that his presentment trial would be a financial and public relations disaster for The Episcopal Church, retired Bishop William J. Cox informed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on March 29 that he had left The Episcopal Church and had been received into the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone. “I don’t want a fight amongst Christians,” Bishop Cox told The Living Church. “I don’t hold a grudge against [Oklahoma] Bishop [Robert] Moody or [Kansas] Bishop [Dean] Wolfe for bringing charges against me. “I would hope this transfer will enable me to be of service to congregations in this country that have already affiliated with the Southern Cone, but that decision will be up Archbishop [Gregory] Venables." Bishop Cox, who served as Bishop Suffragan of Maryland from 1972 to 1980 and assistant Bishop of Oklahoma, 1980-1988, said there are three congregations under the oversight of the Southern Cone in Tulsa, where he lives with his wife, Betty. There are around five others in Texas and several more Southern Cone congregations in California.
Comments
Misleading? No, accurate. The realignment continues.
Such behavior from two petulant HoBgoblins. No such behavior is expected from any bishops in the Province of the Souther Cone.
God bless the continued ministry of this apostle of Jesus Christ.
Bishop Herzog was raised Roman Catholic. The good bishop has made it clear that he is leaving TEC because TEC has become heretical and apostate. In his letter to Bishop Love, Bishop Herzog stated that his decision came after more than three years of prayer and study. Herzog wrote, “My sense of duty to the diocese, its clergy and people required that I not walk away from my office and leave vulnerable this diocese which I love.” When an orthodox TEC bishop leaves his post, there is the risk that a revisionist will take his place, especially since orthodox bishops can't get approval by the required number of standing committees or if they do, the Presiding Bishop will declare the election null and void. Herzog also stated, “I believed that it was my responsibility to provide for a transition to the future. Your subsequent election and consecration discharged that duty and has given me the liberty to follow my conscience, and now resign my orders and membership in the House of Bishops.
Some may recall that Bishop Herzog blasted Stacy Sauls over Sauls' far from collegial handling of Tory Baucum's visit to Albany. You can read about that here: http://mcj.bloghorn.com/1482
I said in an earlier comment that TEC is completing its transformation into a very rich but antiquely historic version of the Unitarian-Universalists.
The orthodox Christians should have separated out from the dominating liberals decades ago. Francis Schaeffer once wrote that once the seminaries and denominational beauracracy is lost, fighting a rear-guard action is a waste of time and resources.
So true, Jack. But those of us who have fought in the Anglican wars have learned some things about spiritual warfare and are now better prepared to defend the Church in other branches of Christianity.
Okay, so we have Jack Brooks, a reform-church protestant, and Alice Linsley, a newly minted Eastern orthodoxer, who theoretically shouldn't be able to agree on what day it is, agreeing on something.
Of course, what they agree on is that, despite the differences in theology between them, the Episcopal Church is wrong.
How sweet. It's this type of ecumenicalism that drives Christianity today. No matter the doctrinal differences between any two Christians, they can always find someone else with whom they both disagree.
I love America.
(Grin) Any chance of Frank starting up a thread about the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, you think, Caleb? It might restore the status quo.
That's just what I was thinking, Prester John, or something even more divisive, like the doctrine of purgatory (which the eastern church accepts) or that business about the language in the Nicene Creed they used to fight about all the time.
That would separate the wheat from the chaff.
People who love the Lord Jesus have HIM in common and nothing, I repeat nothing, else matters.
But, Alice, I love Jesus and you love Jesus and you judge my beliefs all the time, basically condemning me and my church. If it doesn't matter, why do you do that?
I do not condemn you and I never have, James. God alones knows your heart. If your heart is like mine, it is deceitful and needs the Holy Spirit's constant correction. I speak against The Episcopal Church because it is preaching a false gospel and leading many astray. (If you believe in the eternal soul, the stakes are high.) Speaking against TEC is not the same as condemning TEC. TEC's leaders brings condemnation upon themselves when they defy or ignore the Apostles' teaching.
If we don't define "Jesus" solely on the basis of Scripture (since that is the sole source of information we have about Him), then the "Jesus" we pretend to love is a creation of our empty imagination; a hollow shell, a dressed-up projection of ourselves, inflamed by our self-love, into which we pour secular hopes and gnostic dreams. In other words, we are no more Christian than Mohammad, Shirley MacLaine or the Buddha.
"TEC's leaders bring condemnation upon themselves when they defy or ignore the Apostles' teaching." Okay, when did this occur? Just recently and over this one issue? Thomas More and John Fisher figured it happened with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer not too danged long after Henry VIII saw Anne Boleyn and figured she had a nice pair of "dukkys" (Henry's word, not mine). The question has been batted around for years among historians as to whether Henry would have tried to bring the English Church back into the Roman fold after Catherine of Aragon's death and Anne's beheading, if he hadn't had to give back all the revenue he had seized from English monasteries. For all I know, Cardinal Newman and G. K. Chesterton may have felt exactly the same way as did More and Fisher. Besides that case, Martin Luther and John Calvin both wrote and preached that the Roman Catholic Church had departed from the teaching of the Apostles and could quote both Scripture and the Early Fathers to prove their points. But then again Luther called Copernicus a fool for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun too. So who are you going to believe? As for myself, Alice, I completely agree with your one statement: "People who love the Lord Jesus have HIM in common and nothing, I repeat nothing, else matters." And to me that means exactly what it says with no qualifications.
Jack: so then, does this mean that you mean you can't use any ancient document to define Jesus that was not recognized as canonical by St. Athanasius in 367, the Council of Rome in 382, the Synod of Hippo in 393 and the 397 and 419 Synods of Carthage? Does this automatically disqualify the Q document, if an actual papyrus or parchment copy should ever be found somewhere?
Your headline is a little misleading, Frank--this bishop was under presentment and chose to leave to avoid a trial. That's a little different than a bishop choosing to leave for purely philosophical differences.
Editor's note: I've added a sentence higher up to clarify the point about ecclesiastical charges. It was stated in the original post, but you had to click on it to see it. It's better to have it right up at the top, so I've revised it.
I don't think the headline is misleading, but if other readers think it is, I could be persuaded to change it...