No Deus Ex Machina: Why The Same Sex Trial Liturgy Will Pass

Well, I’d be all for Deus springing down from the clouds and saving all of us.

It’ll be interesting to see how they pull this off.

Sarah,

Any chance that the now re-worded “provisional” rather than “trial” use label has already passed muster from David Booth Beers, and will no longer require the super-majority # of votes to pass?  I’m no attorney or expert in canon law, but that one particular change seems to me to be very curious.  Any words from the Curmudgeon on that change?

Fr. Will McQueen

The Presiding Bishop will simply rule from the chair that a majority of all the Bishops (i.e. >150) actually means a majority of those Bishops present (i.e. >75). I think that she has done this before in deposing somebody.

Then based on your certainty, Sarah, I’m firing up my popcorn machine and pulling up a comfy chair to watch and see how they pull it off.  It would be great entertainment if it wasn’t so tragic.

Bishop Buchanan, the parliamentarian, has explained this before.  In order to be eligible to vote, you must be at convention. Since half of the bishops are not at convention, they are not eligible to vote.  Therefore, it is half of the bishops eligible to vote who are actually at convention.  Buchanan get this ruling at a House of Bishops meeting when the rule was invoked in order to stop a vote on declaring that a certain group of bishops had abandoned the communion of this church. 

Whether you agree or disagree with this tortured reading of the canon, there is a precedent for Buchanan’s interpretation.  I have no doubt the precedent will be followed.

I agree (sadly) with Sarah. They will bring it back on the last day (everyone will be out of their black and collars and into their windbreakers…or whatever they wear to airport hop), and they will push the votes through. Anyone who objects or tries to call a ‘point of order’ will be declared ‘out of order’ by Her Imperial Majesty. They will do this not just for same-sex unions, but for KJS’s budget and a whole list of items as well. (And they’ll dismiss the HoD’s resolution to sell 815.)

Thanks for the post Sarah, this should save me a lot of time.  I’ve received several emails in the last few days, from folks who are all excited over how the super-majority requirement will block TEC from jumping off this particular cliff.  And now, instead of responding at some length to each one, I only need send them the link to your post.

Amazing to me how many of the current crop of “experts” seem to think that TEC history began last week Thursday.  Having watched the machinations for the last 5 decades, I can’t believe there is ANY way they will leave Indianapolis without this particular piece of legislation being completed.  Not wind, nor rain, nor heat, nor fire, nor pestilence, nor plague of locusts, nor rivers running with blood, nor boils, nor Aragorn leading cursed undead warriors will prevent them from bringing this one home.  To think that a parliamentary maneuver by a couple of CP bishops will hold this up is to deny history.

Worst come to worst, KJS will employ the old urban political machine method, and have some dead bishops vote.

#3 - spot on.  Been there, done that.  It’ll pass…unfortunately.

Welcome, officially, to the gay church!!

I’d be all for fire pouring down from heaven and consuming the altar at General Convention’s final service.

  Or, as the ENS story will have it, “Spirit alighted on the heads of the presiding bishop and executive council members as tongues of fire.  Unfortunately, one of the EC members was so overcome by Spirit that he fainted and some of the altar cloths caught fire.”  There will be no mention of the crater around the altar, or that 9 bishops near the center of the blast zone went unscathed.

Agree with Sarah.  There is absolutely no way this could fail to pass absent fire from on high or the earth swallowing them up.

They own the stage and the human behind the curtain operating the Deus Ex Machina device so I agree; it will not be activated by the hands of man.

That won’t stop me from praying for a divine intervention, but I am guessing that we are seeing divine condemnation at work through the machinations of TEc.

Prayers for General Convention

#4, given the possibility of fire from heaven consuming the altar (like in Raiders of the Lost Ark…) perhaps marshmellos and hot dogs are a better choice? 

However, comfy chairs are always a good idea though…unless…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnS49c9KZw8

‎SSB’s in House of Bishops vote: 111 Yes, 41 No, 3 Abstentions

The only reason to hold this GenCon was to pass SSBs.  Rules are for suckers.

14- Did they actually do a roll call, or just count hands?

Yes they did a roll call as I gathered from a tweet. Looked like some. Hanes their vote while at the mic. from the sound of the tweet.

I wouldn’t want to be working the laundry room at the convention hotel tomorrow.

Looks like the NY Diocese has other things on their mind today.  Like trying to silence this guy who was seduced by his priest:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/urgy_clergy_YtM095881meXqCtJPbSMVM?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Local

41 said no?

When will we have a headcount of who voted how?

111 was not enough. Did anyone try to call a futile ‘point of order’ for old times sake?

Jill [12],

Thanks for the Ex. 32 prayer.  I truly don’t know how to pray, other than with “groanings too deep for words.”  It seems Radner and Reno were somewhat prophetic when they wrote about “fragments” and “ruins.” 

When I read this:

Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky

what came to mind was this:

And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
(Matthew 3:9 ESV)

and this:

  O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
      and you will not hear?
  Or cry to you “Violence!”
      and you will not save?
  Why do you make me see iniquity,
      and why do you idly look at wrong?
  Destruction and violence are before me;
      strife and contention arise.
  So the law is paralyzed,
      and justice never goes forth.
  For the wicked surround the righteous;
      so justice goes forth perverted.
  “Look among the nations, and see;
      wonder and be astounded.
  For I am doing a work in your days
      that you would not believe if told.
  For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
      that bitter and hasty nation,
  who march through the breadth of the earth,
      to seize dwellings not their own.
(Habakkuk 1:2-6 ESV)

“Thanks for the post Sarah, this should save me a lot of time.  I’ve received several emails in the last few days, from folks who are all excited over how the super-majority requirement will block TEC from jumping off this particular cliff.”

I suppose the positive part of this is that there are still people in TEC who will be appalled and disgusted when SSB liturgy is passed.

Well—SSBs passed, but not by disregarding the constitutional supermajority requirement in Art. X for rites for “trial use throughout this Church.” The victory for the Constitution here is that the drafters recognized they could not use the words “trial use”, or provide that the rite was for use in every diocese, without needing any authorization from the ecclesiastical authority in that diocese. Otherwise, they would have had to come up with a supermajority to pass the Resolution, and not even ensuring that +Otis Charles was there for the vote was enough to do that.

So the Constitution, at least survives to face another day, and another House of Bishops.

But the Church itself? Surviving?

Sure—just like the Cathars.

I don’t know who pushed for the language “provisional” but I do know who on the committee demanded the conscience clause that is in the resolution.  See John Burwell’s + webpage for the rest of the story about the conscience clause. In case you don’t know David Thurlow+ is a deputy from the diocese of South Carolina.

I agree. TEC surviving in its present form…... highly doubtful.  The Church will survive but TEC????

RE: “The victory for the Constitution here is that the drafters recognized they could not use the words “trial use”, or provide that the rite was for use in every diocese, without needing any authorization from the ecclesiastical authority in that diocese.”

I understand, Allan.  My only point was that the liturgy would pass.

And it did.

Their was simply NO WAY that they were not going to pass it; they were going to figure out a way for it to get done.

So, did they come up with a word for it that was not in the constitution or the canons? If so, that is a neat trick but probably unconstitutional too. Allan?

Pewster- They appear to have changed the wording from “trial rite” (which would require approval under Title X, but which would have given the rite the same authority as a BCP rite for the 3 years of the trial usage) to “provisional rite” or, in one copy I saw, “provisional trial rite”.  Whether this is constitutional or not, they passed it.  Given the liturgical chaos of recent years- let’s face it, if you can substitute the Koran for the Epistle, or replace the Psalm with a poem or Buddhist chant, and get away with it,, or use the NZ replacement for the Creed, sing songs not in the Hymnal, or, admittedly, just use the Roman or Greek liturgy instead of the BCP, and generally make it up as you go along EVERY Sunday, you can argue that almost all rites in TEC nowadays are “provisional.” 

The main difference apparently between “trial” and “provisional” is that the provisional does not have the authority of a BCP Rite.  The provisional still requires the consent of the local bishop to perform it.  Now, I am willing to bet that there will be some revisionist clergy with revisionist bishops, who will go to South Carolina or Dallas and use this “provisional liturgy” regardless of permission of the local bishop, but that sort of thing falls more under the revisionist hobby category.  The “moderate” bishops had something of a concern over making sure that the bishop had the final say, I think because they want some time to “prepare the diocese” (that is to say, influence a couple orthodox rectors of cardinal parishes to retire so they can be replaced with revisionists) before they permit their first official SSB (note the recent comments by Waldo, for instance).

Of course, this isn’t over, because the HoD now gets a whack at this legislation, and may amend some of the wording back to the original “trial” wording, or otherwise change provisions and kick it back to the bishops.  So the situation cannot possibly get any better, and most probably the final legislation will be worse.

UP (#28) and tjmcmahon (#29), you already noticed, but for those who didn’t—I have a separate post up now on the unconstitutionality of what they tried to do.

Dear Sarah,

This is your finest hour of blogging!  Excellent piece.

In the Faith,
NW Bob

And, as it turns out, spot on!