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Published: June 18, 2008

A coup, Episcopal style

Church governance dispute leads to seizure of Church property

The dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin has become a range war. Bishop Jerry Lamb of the Fresno-based Episcopal diocese has seized an Anglican mission church in Taft (in Kern County, south of Bakersfield) and dismissed the priest-in-charge.

Last December, then-Episcopal Bishop John-David Schofield, along with a large majority of both lay representatives and clergy of the San Joaquin diocese, voted to leave the U.S. Episcopal Church and join a South American Anglican jurisdiction on account of the Episcopal Church’s toleration and promotion of homosexuality and other issues which, says the Fresno-based diocese, depart from biblical orthodoxy. Schofield’s diocese now calls itself Anglican.

According the Anglican San Joaquin diocese’s web site, Schofield allowed individuals and parishes that wanted to remain with the Episcopal Church to do so and to keep all their real and personal property.

The Episcopal House of Bishops, meeting in Texas on March 12, voted to depose Schofield from ordained ministry. Subsequently, the parishes and individuals that opted to remain with the Episcopal Church formed the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and approved the Right Rev. Jerry Lamb as their provisional bishop. In April, the Episcopal diocese filed a lawsuit against Schofield in Fresno County Superior Court to reclaim the possessions and real property, including the diocesan chancery office, still in possession of the Anglican diocese.

According to the Anglican San Joaquin diocese, in March, St. Andrew’s Mission in Taft was one of the churches to sign new by-laws declaring itself Anglican. But, in late May, 11 of the mission’s members held a reportedly unpublicized meeting with an representative of Lamb’s, and a majority of those present (9-2) voted to join the Episcopal diocese. The mission’s junior warden said he did not know of the meeting until one hour before it occurred. After the meeting, both the junior warden and the mission’s treasurer resigned.

Many of the mission’s members did not know the meeting was taking place, according to the Anglican diocese’s web site. Lamb did not follow established protocols, said the release, and “only those who could be counted upon for affirmation were notified of the meeting and called upon to vote accordingly.” In 2007, the mission averaged 18 in attendance on Sundays, said the release.

According to the Episcopal diocese, Lamb received a statement from 25 of St. Andrew's "pledging members," saying they wished to remain part of the Episcopal diocese.

On June 1, Lamb dismissed St. Andrew’s priest-in-charge and, on June 2, the locks on the church building were changed, “preventing Anglican members from entering freely as they had been able to before,” according to the Anglican diocese. The Episcopal diocese says the locks were changed because the Anglican vicar had said he would "rent the building to another congregation."

Earlier this month, the Episcopal diocese reported that Lamb has received an invitation from the archbishop of Canterbury to attend the Lambeth Conference, the meeting of worldwide Anglicanism in London in July. The invitation affirms, said the Episcopal diocese’s web site, “that the Anglican Communion recognizes the Diocese of San Joaquin of the Episcopal Church as the only Anglican Diocese in central California.” But Schofield, who received the same invitation in March, before his deposition, will also be attending the Lambeth Conference, the Rev. Canon Bill Gandenberger, canon to Schofield, told the June 2 Anglican Living Church Newsservice. Gandenberger said he had no knowledge whether Schofield had received further correspondence from Canterbury.

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