Follow-up: +Ackerman in Springfield

Posted yesterday on VirtueOnline is a brief report from comments by Bishop Ackerman to VOL regarding his call in Springfield.

"I am an assisting bishop and I have no intention of performing any canonical or sacramental acts in the Diocese of Springfield.... I will do spiritual retreats for clergy but nothing that would interfere with the fact that I have retired from The Episcopal Church. This position does not require consents from the House of Bishops."

Bishop Ackerman told VOL that he and his wife are selling their home and will shortly move to Texas where he plans a ministry revolving around Dove Tracts, writing and spiritual direction.

Doing what he enjoys... His "retirement" will be a blessing to many, though I will very much miss his presence in Peoria.

+Ackerman to Springfield

The Living Church is reporting that Bishop Keith Ackerman, who retired as Bishop of Quincy last month, has been called to serve as an assisting Bishop in the Springfield Diocese.

The Rt. Rev. Peter H. Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield, said the Presiding Bishop’s office had been notified that the new position would become effective Dec. 1....

Appointments to assistant bishop positions require consent from the annual synod of the diocese and a majority of the House of Bishops, but the position of assisting bishop, which is not defined in the canons and constitution of The Episcopal Church, is at the discretion of individual diocesan bishops unless otherwise constrained by local diocesan bylaws.

I'm guessing that this call can be something like my mother's 20-some years of service as a teacher's aide. The holder of a lifetime teaching credential from her teaching days before I was born, the principal at Hamlin St. School several times sought to bring her on staff as a full teacher. Mom wasn't interested. As an aide she got to teach children -- which she loved doing -- while not having to worry about all the other things teachers have become responsible for.

Now Bishop Ackerman can be a Bishop -- preaching, teaching, administering the sacraments, dwelling in the word and prayer -- and leave the administrative minutiae to others. May the Lord bless his new ministry.

QC Times: Episcopal Property Conflict?

From today's Quad City Times:

Episcopal Church split might turn into conflict over property

By Deirdre Cox Baker | Monday, November 10, 2008 11:12 PM CST

Fallout from the weekend decision by the Diocese of Quincy, Ill., to leave the Episcopal Church of the United States may include litigation over millions of dollars’ worth of property and assets.

“We pray there will be no litigation,” the Rev. Ed den Blaauwen said Monday. Den Blaauwen, the rector of Christ Church in Moline, is also the newly appointed vicar general of the diocese that is now aligned with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.

Church resources would be better used for Christian activities than in the courts, he added.

The Episcopal Church will protect its history and heritage, said the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon to the presiding bishop of the national church in New York City. Church officials will not give away property to a foreign province, he said, adding, “This is our heritage and, more than that, the heritage of those who have not even come our way yet.”

Well, given TEC's recent history, particularly since the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop, such a hard line is not surprising.

The Episcopalian [sic] Church still exists in the Quincy Diocese, Robertson stressed. “Our first concern for followers is that they know that our church continues,” he added.

New alignments

Lines are being drawn in the church between liberal or moderate factions and traditional or conservative ones. Arguments center on the national church’s decisions to allow women in the clergy, which occurred in the 1970s, and to promote an openly gay minister to a bishop’s post in 2003.

Well, those are the flash points that reveal a deeper division over the place of the Scriptures and Christian doctrine in the Church's contemporary witness. But what do you expect when describing a debate over fundamental Christian truth in only one or two sentences?

The schism widened when the national church appointed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to the job. The Quincy Diocese, which numbers 24 churches (including those in Moline, Rock Island, Silvis, Geneseo and Kewanee) and 1,800 members, has never allowed women or gays to be part of the clergy.

“We are working to assist in the reorganization of diocesan affairs,” Schori said. It now appears that four churches, including St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Peoria, Ill., the largest in the diocese, will continue to align with the Episcopal Church....

Yes, that fits with some reports I heard. Things are going to get, uh, interesting here in Peoria.

...A new alignment called the Common Cause partnership is working to establish an Anglican province in the United States, according to the Rev. John Spencer, the press officer for the Quincy Diocese. That would include the alignments with the Southern Cone and other U.S. churches that have aligned with an organization including Anglican churches in the African nations of Nigeria and Rwanda.

The timeline for the new organizational structure would involve some kind of provisional recognition in late December or early January, he said. Formal approval of the new North American Anglican Province may come by early February, after the worldwide Anglican council meets in Egypt.

Read it all here. A prayers that cooler heads might be found and prevail.

Quincy Realigns

This is official, from the Diocese of Quincy

PRESS RELEASE
The Diocese of Quincy, Peoria, IL
November 8, 2008

Contact information:
Fr. John Spencer, Media Officer
The Diocese of Quincy
Email: qunews@mtco.com
Cell: 309-264-7489


For Immediate release
November 8, 2008

Diocese of Quincy Realigns With South American Province

The Annual Synod of the Diocese of Quincy’s meeting November 7-8 in Quincy, Illinois, has voted by strong margins to realign itself with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, breaking its ties with The Episcopal Church in the US. On two key votes more than ¾ of the clergy and lay deputies voted in favor of the realignment.

The move came after several years of prayer and discernment about the diocese's relationship with The Episcopal Church. Many in the Quincy Diocese, both clergy and lay people, have been at odds with the national leadership and other dioceses over the authority of the Bible, church order and discipline, and the church's moral standards and teaching on Christian marriage.

On the vote to disaffiliate from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 75% of the clergy and 82% of the lay deputies voted in favor. On the subsequent vote to realign the diocese with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone the vote in favor was 92% in the clergy order and 87% in the lay order.

"This decision was not made lightly," said Fr. John Spencer, press officer for the diocese. "We have talked and prayed about this for a very long time. But we take our relationship to the Anglican Communion very seriously. Since 2003, over half the Provinces of the Anglican Communion have been in a state of broken Communion with The Episcopal Church. By realigning with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, we are now back in full communion with the majority of over 75 million Anglicans around the world."

Canon Ed den Blaauwen, incoming President of the Standing Committee, said the focus of the diocese will remain on mission. "Our churches and our diocese will continue in mission and ministry locally and around the world. We feel much at home under the oversight of Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, who has warmly welcomed us into affiliation with that Province," den Blaauwen said. "We are once again back in full fellowship with our brother and sister Anglicans."

Shortly after the votes were taken, Canon den Blaauwen, who acted as chairman for the Synod, read a letter from Archbishop Venables welcoming Quincy as a member of the Province of the Southern Cone.

Bishop Keith Ackerman who retired from leadership of the diocese on November 1, spoke to the gathering Friday afternoon just before the synod convened. Quoting the Epistle of Jude, he encouraged them to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ and the historic faith of the Christian Church as they considered the momentous decisions before them.

"While the votes show there was very strong support for this decision," Fr. Spencer said, "we realize this was not a unanimous decision." By a separate action, the synod made provision for a nine months grace period during which a congregation or member of the clergy might consider withdrawing from the diocese in order to stay in the Episcopal Church. "It is a matter of allowing everyone to follow their consciences in these very difficult times, without recrimination," Spencer said.

- 30 -

Pastor Zip missed the discussion and votes, but from conversations I had with friends after my arrival both pro and con moving from TEC to the Southern Cone, the report on Episcopal Life Online seems accurate:

During the 45-minute debate on the resolution to leave the Episcopal Church, some speakers suggested that they could have a greater witness by "working from within," but the majority of speakers expressed disgust at the Episcopal Church, saying that what they were leaving did not represent the church they had been born into or once joined.

The final speaker, a woman who was not fully identified, said "We need to make a choice. Is Jesus Christ our Savior or not?"

"I don’t feel like I’m leaving TEC, instead I feel like I am moving forward. I am convinced that by not leaving TEC, I will brand myself with the same heretical views of those who are running TEC now. This is the end. Right here. Today," she said.

The resolution said leaders of the Episcopal Church and actions of its General Convention "have failed to uphold the teaching and authority of Holy Scripture, have challenged or belittled core doctrines of the Christian faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican Communion, and have rejected the godly counsel of the leaders of the Communion."

The sermons preached at the Synod -- at Evensong by Bishop Peter Beckwith of the neighboring Diocese of Springfield shortly after the vote and at the Eucharist the next morning by Quincy Bishop-retired Donald Parsons -- wrestled with what the Synod had done, both pointedly lifting up that faithful Anglicans in the US, while deeply opposed to the leadership and direction of TEC, remain divided over staying in vs. leaving the Episcopal Church, at least as long as it remains the province of the Anglican Communion in the United States. Hopes are that a new, more orthodox province will be established fairly soon for North America.

Quincy is the third Episcopal Diocese, following San Joaquin (in central California) and Pittsburgh, to seek refuge in the Southern Cone, which is Anglican province covering Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The Diocese of Ft. Worth will be voting to join them later this week.

+Ackerman and Forward in Faith

More on Bishop Ackerman's retirement from Forward in Faith, one of the reasserter/traditionalist groups in the Anglican Communion:

Bishop Keith Ackerman will remain as President of Forward in Faith North America
Oct 30, 2008

Further to the announcement yesterday of his retirement as Bishop of Quincy, The Right Reverend Keith Ackerman SSC wishes to make it clear that he will be remaining in office as President of Forward in Faith North America. Indeed, it is his intention during his retirement to devote himself more fully than has been possible hitherto to this ministry.

Stephen Parkinson
Secretary
Forward in Faith International

Bishop Ackerman Retires

Just caught this shocking news a few minutes ago on Stand Firm:

The Right Reverend Keith L. Ackerman, VIIIth Bishop of Quincy, has announced to the Standing Committee his retirement as Diocesan Bishop effective November 1st, 2008. Bishop Ackerman has reached this decision after much thought and prayer. The Bishop and his wife Jo conferred with his physicians, many trusted friends, and the Standing Committee before making this decision.

While Bishop Ackerman is retiring from his administrative duties as executive officer of the Diocese, he plans to remain in the area of the Diocese for some time and will make himself available, under arrangement with the Standing Committee, to perform Episcopal acts and provide spiritual counsel to members of the Diocese, as have Bishop Donald Parsons and Bishop Edward MacBurney, the VIth and VIIth Bishops of Quincy.

Under diocesan canons, the Standing Committee will continue to act as the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese, as they have since the Bishop’s sabbatical began in late August. Day to day operations of the diocese will continue to be handled by the various officers and department heads.

Bishop Ackerman wants to assure everyone that he has no intention of abandoning the diocese but will continue to provide spiritual and pastoral support as asked by the Standing Committee.

According to TitusOneNine, this is a message from Quincy's Standing Committee.

Bishop Ackerman has been on sabbatical since the Lambeth Conference, and has not been in the best of health for well over a year. I won't even begin to speculate on the meanings of this. The Quincy priests I know love and respect him very much and cherish his ministry. How well they have been prepared for this, I don't know -- but there was no hint of anything like this at the Peoria Deanery's pre-Synod convocation a week ago Sunday.

Observers will note that the agenda of the upcoming Synod (the end of next week) includes votes to disassociate from The Episcopal Church and associate with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone until a new, more orthodox Anglican province is established for North America.

As for my personal regard for Bishop Ackerman, click the Quincy category label on the right column. And do join me in prayer for a godly bishop and and a faithful diocese. This is very difficult news. Yet we remain in Christ's care.

Our Bishop Ackerman on International Stage

There is nothing in the Lutheran church quite like the Lambeth Conference, that once-a-decade gathering of all the Bishops in the entire Anglican Communion. Actually, to follow the news of what has been happening in the Anglican Communion (that TitusOneNine link in my Blogs for Faithful Churchmen is one good place to do that), it looks like there isn't anything quite like the Lambeth Conference in the Anglican Communion, either, as a goodly number chose not to attend as part of the continuing protest over Gene Robinson being Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese.

For a local angle on this international stage, catch this section of a report from the BBC:

After the service as hundreds of bishops milled around in the cathedral close, I spoke to two.

Keith Ackerman, bishop of Quincy, Illinois, came because, as he put it: "An empty chair can't speak": he thought it important that the conservative view was represented.

He voiced the unease of many traditionalists when he accused liberals, in effect, of trying to rewrite the Bible.

"Why is it that people are determined to change the faith delivered to the saints?"

The conservatives feel the ground shifting beneath them and they find it deeply unsettling.

"The faithful of yesterday have become the dissidents of today," in the words of Archbishop Greg Venables.

He was one of the 200 Anglican bishops and primates who met in Jerusalem a few weeks ago and founded what is, in effect, a breakaway organisation - the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

Though he came to Canterbury and participated in the service, he was one of several bishops who did not take communion, arguing that he is no longer in communion with many of his colleagues.

Picnic

Two hours later on the outskirts of Canterbury, the man whose ordination as bishop of New Hampshire helped create the present crisis was at a picnic and open-air service organised by gay and lesbian activists in the Church.

Gene Robinson has explicitly not been invited to the conference itself for fear that his presence would be divisive.

But he was here on the conference fringe, accompanied in a show of solidarity, by many of his fellow North American bishops.

The priest who presided over the service, Colin Coward, was unambiguous in his response when I put to him the traditionalist argument that the Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality as a sin, and that an avowed sinner should not, could not, be a bishop.

"I just don't believe it; we are all men and women, straight or gay, created by God."

Read it all here. Thanks to TitusOneNine for bringing this to my attention.

A Godly Bishop

My title comes from a recent thread on ALPB Online. But I think it a fine way to introduce the following tribute from a young Anglican priest to his Bishop.

It is meet, right, and salutary to note first two things:

1) that I first heard about this young priest when he was in seminary from his proud grandmother, who was then playing piano for the monthly worship services I've lead for over 5 years at Liberty Village Estates, a retirement center here in Peoria; and

2) that I have known his Bishop to be a truly godly Bishop and one for whom this tribute is most appropriate.

The occasion was the 13th Anniversary of the Consecration of Keith L. Ackerman as the 8th Bishop of Quincy, which was last Friday. So, with Fr. Drummond's permission:

Tribute to a Bishop

Today is Friday. Presumably, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding will be at Mosque for prayers today. But I wonder if she'll also go to Mass today, on this Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The Church is built on the confession of St. Peter: "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Islam explicitly teaches that God does not have a Son. Yet Dr. Redding believes that the two faiths are compatible at the most basic level. What is "the most basic level?" Peter's confession is the rock upon which the Church is built. In other words, it's the foundation. Or, to put it still differently, it's the Church's belief "at the most basic level." Sorry, Dr. Redding, it is at "the most basic level" that Christianity and Islam are irreconcilable. Just as tragic (if not more) is the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, who "accepts" Redding as a priest and is "excited about the interfaith possibilities." This man is no successor to the Apostles. Certainly not St. Peter and St. Paul.

While Dr. Redding goes to mosque in Seattle, and Bishop Warner pats himself on the back for his broad-mindedness, a small group of Catholic Anglicans in Illinois (and beyond!) will observe this Feast with Divine Offices and Divine Liturgies, as the Church has always done. Many of their prayers and thanksgivings on this day will be offered on behalf of a man who thirteen years ago on this day came among us to be set apart. For him, being elevated to the Episcopate meant being driven to the ground to wash feet. For him, being a Bishop meant guarding and proclaiming the Apostles' teaching, not altering and "improving" it. For him, being a Bishop meant not only wearing a pectoral cross but also bearing the paschal Cross. It still means these things to this day. With St. Peter, Bishop Keith Ackerman confesses boldly that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God." With St. Paul he suffers the burden of the "care of all the churches."

Today is Friday. Today, as on every Friday, we commemorate the death of our Lord on the Cross for our redemption. We commemorate the deaths of Sts. Peter and Paul, who laid down their lives for the Faith they proclaimed. We commemorate the consecration of The Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, who knows and loves Jesus Christ, still believes the faith of Sts. Peter and Paul, and pours out his life as a "drink offering" in the service of Christ and the Faith of his Apostles. Glory to God for all things, and thanks be to Him for giving us a true Shepherd!

Many years, Bishop Ackerman, many years!

Amen, Father! Amen!

And you can read more of Fr. Drummond at his Things Above blog.

Central Illinois and the Anglican Crisis

I have long counted the Bishop of Quincy a father in Christ, colleague in ministry, and friend. My association with Bishop Keith Ackerman began when he arrived here in Peoria through our mutual participation in local observances of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity arranged by the former Peoria Clergy Fellowship. Later we discovered we had much in common, including a Swedish heritage and mutual friends in the Society of St. Birgitta. Zion was privileged to have him preach and celebrate the Lord's Supper at our 110th Anniversary celebration in 2004, the first (and, thus far, only) time in the history of Zion that a non-Lutheran presided at Holy Communion (thanks to the full communion agreement between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church).

Bishop Ackerman is, of course, smack in the middle of the various controversies that beset the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Those of you who read Canon Kendall Harmon's titusonenine blog (linked as one of my Blogs for Faithful Churchmen) or otherwise keep up with the news will be aware of an increasingly-likely split of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion over the place of homosexuals in the Church's ministry. Last week's Peoria Journal Star quoted Bishop Ackerman's distress over the House of Bishop's response to the communique of Anglican Primates to the Episcopal Church.

Quincy Bishop Keith Ackerman said the resolutions are "an absolute rejection of everything that was envisioned in the communique."

Ackerman, surprised action was taken, said, "What is very, very sad, though, is that first of all they had indicated they would not make a decision at this meeting but wait until the September meeting."

The Quincy bishop, based in Peoria, also said that the resolutions, in essence, say that "we want to be a part of the Anglican Communion, now here are the conditions by which we're willing to be in the Anglican Communion."

Ackerman said Quincy's leadership will not take any action in response to the resolutions since the statements don't have legislative power. "It would be unwise for us to do anything precipitous without taking counsel of other Anglican provinces," he said.

Read the rest here.

Last Monday, the Journal Star's Mike Miller offered more from his interviews with Bishop Ackerman and Springfield Bishop Peter Beckwith in his Faithfully Yours blog:

From Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy:

“I believe it’s an absolute rejection of everything that was envisioned in the (Dar es Salaam) communique, and it’s an absolute rejection of everything that the majority of (Anglican) primates have agreed to. What is very, very sad, though, is that first of all they (the bishops) had indicated they would not make a decision at this meeting but wait until the September meeting. This is very, very surprising that this action was taken.

“It does call into question the presiding bishop’s willingness to work with all the points of the communique. She agreed to it, and then came back and only said that she would present it to the bishops. The other condescending feature is that it makes reference to the fact that the other primates don’t understand the unique polity of the American province. The vast majority of the overseas bishops” are quite knowledgeable about polity.

“The real embarrassment is that it’s not only poorly written in terms of academic and theological structure, but that it also says we want to be a part of the Anglican Communion. Now here are the conditions by which we’re willing to be in the Anglican Community.

“It’s a bit of an embarrassment to read that and then to see that it lacks so much of the polish and the poetry that comes from overseas bishops, for whom English is not a first language.”

Read it all here.

Zion regularly prays for Bishop Ackerman and the Diocese of Quincy, and for Bishop Beckwith and the Diocese of Springfield. It seems (as we used to say in Holy Communion) "meet, right, and salutary" that the faithful should pray for the faithful leaders in sister churches.