Just north and west of Newark lies the town of Bloomfield. From its beginnings as a Presbyterian settlement in the 18th century, Bloomfield was always a hard working place that rewarded its inhabitants with a decent, but unpretentious standard of living. According to the last census, about 70% of the employed residents work at low-level management and white collar jobs, with another 18% doing blue collar work.
In 1997, the Diocese decided to close two of Bloomfield's three Episcopal Churches. Blakeney hasn't been able to learn anything about one of them (Ascension) , but has come across some interesting facts about The Church of the Advent, on William Street. Advent was founded in the first half of the 19th century, and was housed in an unusual clapboard church which sat on a rather large piece of property. During the baby-boom years, the congregation expanded and built a seperate, modern church on the rest of the property. Under Bishop Spong, the traditionally minded congregation shrank, and retreated to the original church building.
Even this vestige of tradtionalism had to be wiped out. While the parish was more than willing for the diocese to sell off the larger part of the property, the Diocese insisted that the old building had to be put up for sale,too. The parish was declared extinct, and sold to an evangelical church.
The proceeds from the sale were $531,000. Almost one-third of this amount was used to buy a house for the "Oasis Missioner". Oasis is the GLBT ministry of the diocese; at that time the missioner was Elizabeth Kaeton, one of the most radical priests in ECUSA. Most of the remaining money was used to help construction costs at the Diocese's new headquarters.
The happy part of this story is that the evangelical church seems to be flourishing in the newer part of the Advent property. However, it appears that the old building the Diocese refused to spare, is still standing empty.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
An Observation from a friend
Remember that more people probably kept silent than yelled 'Crucify Him' on Good Friday.
It's time to speak.
It's time to speak.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
They only gave us a week.....
Blakeney has received an additional, chilling detail to the story of Trinity Church in Montclair.
The parish had been borrowing money from the diocese in order to remain open, so the diocese did have the right to the parish down. However, according to an active parishoner, the Diocese gave the parish exactly one week's notice.
If this person's account is correct, the Diocese planned to simply shut the parish down, without any attempt to memorialize it or continue its ministries. The parish was a strong and faithful supporter of the North Porch, a shelter for battered women and their children, which is a charity of the Diocese, in company with several other Protestant churches.
We hope that other Trinity parishoners can corroborate this story, or provide more details. We can absolutely confirm that the whole thing occurred with indecent haste, and that the Diocese insisted on inventing a new procedure, in order to avoid a formal merger.
The current occupant of the former parish is Petra Baptist Church, who had previously rented the sanctuary from Trinity. We have been told, however, that the Diocese is planning to sell the building to a commercial developer. We'll be watching this one.
The parish had been borrowing money from the diocese in order to remain open, so the diocese did have the right to the parish down. However, according to an active parishoner, the Diocese gave the parish exactly one week's notice.
If this person's account is correct, the Diocese planned to simply shut the parish down, without any attempt to memorialize it or continue its ministries. The parish was a strong and faithful supporter of the North Porch, a shelter for battered women and their children, which is a charity of the Diocese, in company with several other Protestant churches.
We hope that other Trinity parishoners can corroborate this story, or provide more details. We can absolutely confirm that the whole thing occurred with indecent haste, and that the Diocese insisted on inventing a new procedure, in order to avoid a formal merger.
The current occupant of the former parish is Petra Baptist Church, who had previously rented the sanctuary from Trinity. We have been told, however, that the Diocese is planning to sell the building to a commercial developer. We'll be watching this one.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
A Confession of Silence
Karen B. is one of the many workers in vineyard of Anglican renewal. A missionary in Africa, Karen also helps run a wonderful prayer blog called Lent and Beyond.
It seems that that Karen grew up in our Diocese, and attended St. Peter's Church in Essex Fells. Yet even this valiant lady felt silenced while she lived here. She writes today, in a post at Stand Firm:
.
Blakeney is SO right about the tendency towards silence in Newark. If I’d stayed there, I’m quite convinced I would have left without making waves or taking a very visible stand. When in Newark, I did at one point write my rector with some concerns, and I seem to also recall writing a letter to the editor of the Voice following Spong’s publication of his 12 theses. (But the letter wasn’t published...)
It seems that that Karen grew up in our Diocese, and attended St. Peter's Church in Essex Fells. Yet even this valiant lady felt silenced while she lived here. She writes today, in a post at Stand Firm:
.
Blakeney is SO right about the tendency towards silence in Newark. If I’d stayed there, I’m quite convinced I would have left without making waves or taking a very visible stand. When in Newark, I did at one point write my rector with some concerns, and I seem to also recall writing a letter to the editor of the Voice following Spong’s publication of his 12 theses. (But the letter wasn’t published...)
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
HORROR STORY # 1
The Bishop of SouthEast Florida has a new theory about why ECUSA membership has declined so much over the years.:
He says : But they forget to mention that the main exodus from our denomination was not because of Prayer Book changes or the ordination of women or the acceptance of gays and lesbians, but it was mainly due to the departure of white persons who refused to worship next to a black person who had dared to enter into their beloved homogeneous, culturally friendly environment through cracks that were being made by our clergy and laity to end segregation and discrimination.
Some of you may wonder how he could argue that a church where everyone was enlightened enough to joyfully accept every new innovation, was also a church where most people were so backward and racist that they wouldn't sit in the same pews as people with darker skins. The answer lies in Newark.
Newark is cutting-edge, the home of Episcopal innovation. Newark requires an exceptionally large group of active laity --even lay readers -- to take mandatory anti-racism training. But Newark also loves to kill mostly black parishes where people tend to adhere to traditional faith, and don't have the means to fight back.
In 2005, Rev. William Guthrie, the rector of one of the Diocese's larger black parishes (Christ Church, East Orange) , wrote a letter to the Bishop and Presiding Bishop, about how much the black Episcopal community felt alienated by ECUSA's obsession with the gay & lesbian agenda.
Courageously, Rev. Guthrie allowed the letter to be published on a widely read conservative site, Titus One Nine. In part, Guthrie said:
After the widely publicized decisions of the 2003 General Convention, we lost five stalwart families (who could no longer walk with us because of these decisions) at Christ Church, East Orange. The giving that year in terms of the stewardship campaign and the every member canvass plummeted by $20,000 as people voted with their feet and their pocketbooks regarding the general direction in which ECUSA is moving.
Christ Church, East Orange seems to be OK--at least for now. But just a few miles away lie the corpses of what, just a year or two ago, were three integrated, black majority parishes, who favored traditional worship.
The first to go was St. Mark's in West Orange. One of the oldest parishes in the diocese, St. Mark's had a large building badly in need of repair, but with an endowment that would cover the expenses. Because they were only allowed to draw on the income, the parish went to court in order to change the terms. In the meantime, the diocese loaned the parish money for repairs, but at some point, it tired of the arrangement, closed the parish, sold the building (built 1827) --and of course, pocketed the remaining endowment.
Less than two years later, the Diocese closed two mostly black High Church parishes. All Saints was in Orange, one mile east of St. Mark's, while Trinity Montclair was just over 3 miles to the west. All Saints was shut down in October 2006; Trinity followed in February 2007. The diocese could, logically, have merged these two similar parishes. Had it thought ahead (and had that endowment not been so tempting!) three parishes could have been merged. The sanctuary at St. Mark's was more than big enough, and the proceeds from selling the other buildings would have paid for a lot of repairs.
Here's what the Dicoese did instead-- First, All Saints was merged with Holy Innocents in West Orange, a small, affluent, liberal parish that had spent years under a feminist rector, recently retired. Shortly after the merger, it was announced that the combined parishes had chosen a partnered lesbian as their interim.
In the meantime, Trinity was put through an " innovative, informal merger" with Christ Church,Bloomfield/ Glen Ridge. The Christ Church-Trinity connection actually makes some sense. They are near each other, they are both traditional, and have complementary demographics. Christ Church has a huge sanctuary, but no rector, and no money to pay one. Trinty had a much beloved rector from Nigeria or Uganda; its property was small, but in a good location and the income from the proceeds would have paid a rector's salary for many years.
Would have paid--for the Diocese insisted that the merger be kept "informal." Thus, Trinity was declared extinct, the Diocese will pocket the proceeds, Trinity's rector has had to leave the Diocese to find work, and the combined Christ Church/Trinity parish remain in the iron grip of a very clever, very revisionist interim. The traditionalist chair of the search committee was barred from making a report to the Vestry and resigned in frustration. The current search committee chair has a several-generations long connection to the parish, and does not believe the Nicene Creed.
He says : But they forget to mention that the main exodus from our denomination was not because of Prayer Book changes or the ordination of women or the acceptance of gays and lesbians, but it was mainly due to the departure of white persons who refused to worship next to a black person who had dared to enter into their beloved homogeneous, culturally friendly environment through cracks that were being made by our clergy and laity to end segregation and discrimination.
Some of you may wonder how he could argue that a church where everyone was enlightened enough to joyfully accept every new innovation, was also a church where most people were so backward and racist that they wouldn't sit in the same pews as people with darker skins. The answer lies in Newark.
Newark is cutting-edge, the home of Episcopal innovation. Newark requires an exceptionally large group of active laity --even lay readers -- to take mandatory anti-racism training. But Newark also loves to kill mostly black parishes where people tend to adhere to traditional faith, and don't have the means to fight back.
In 2005, Rev. William Guthrie, the rector of one of the Diocese's larger black parishes (Christ Church, East Orange) , wrote a letter to the Bishop and Presiding Bishop, about how much the black Episcopal community felt alienated by ECUSA's obsession with the gay & lesbian agenda.
Courageously, Rev. Guthrie allowed the letter to be published on a widely read conservative site, Titus One Nine. In part, Guthrie said:
After the widely publicized decisions of the 2003 General Convention, we lost five stalwart families (who could no longer walk with us because of these decisions) at Christ Church, East Orange. The giving that year in terms of the stewardship campaign and the every member canvass plummeted by $20,000 as people voted with their feet and their pocketbooks regarding the general direction in which ECUSA is moving.
Christ Church, East Orange seems to be OK--at least for now. But just a few miles away lie the corpses of what, just a year or two ago, were three integrated, black majority parishes, who favored traditional worship.
The first to go was St. Mark's in West Orange. One of the oldest parishes in the diocese, St. Mark's had a large building badly in need of repair, but with an endowment that would cover the expenses. Because they were only allowed to draw on the income, the parish went to court in order to change the terms. In the meantime, the diocese loaned the parish money for repairs, but at some point, it tired of the arrangement, closed the parish, sold the building (built 1827) --and of course, pocketed the remaining endowment.
Less than two years later, the Diocese closed two mostly black High Church parishes. All Saints was in Orange, one mile east of St. Mark's, while Trinity Montclair was just over 3 miles to the west. All Saints was shut down in October 2006; Trinity followed in February 2007. The diocese could, logically, have merged these two similar parishes. Had it thought ahead (and had that endowment not been so tempting!) three parishes could have been merged. The sanctuary at St. Mark's was more than big enough, and the proceeds from selling the other buildings would have paid for a lot of repairs.
Here's what the Dicoese did instead-- First, All Saints was merged with Holy Innocents in West Orange, a small, affluent, liberal parish that had spent years under a feminist rector, recently retired. Shortly after the merger, it was announced that the combined parishes had chosen a partnered lesbian as their interim.
In the meantime, Trinity was put through an " innovative, informal merger" with Christ Church,Bloomfield/ Glen Ridge. The Christ Church-Trinity connection actually makes some sense. They are near each other, they are both traditional, and have complementary demographics. Christ Church has a huge sanctuary, but no rector, and no money to pay one. Trinty had a much beloved rector from Nigeria or Uganda; its property was small, but in a good location and the income from the proceeds would have paid a rector's salary for many years.
Would have paid--for the Diocese insisted that the merger be kept "informal." Thus, Trinity was declared extinct, the Diocese will pocket the proceeds, Trinity's rector has had to leave the Diocese to find work, and the combined Christ Church/Trinity parish remain in the iron grip of a very clever, very revisionist interim. The traditionalist chair of the search committee was barred from making a report to the Vestry and resigned in frustration. The current search committee chair has a several-generations long connection to the parish, and does not believe the Nicene Creed.
BREAKING THE SILENCE
A few years ago, I sent an e-mail to Greg Griffith, the redoubtable webmaster of StandFirminFaith.com. He wrote back, "You're kidding me! We just figured there were no orthodox Anglicans left in Newark any more."
His surprise was understandable---traditional Newarkers are a very silent bunch. We live and worship in what may be the most in-your-face-let's-embrace-the-Holy-Spirit's-New-Thing diocese in the church, and we never say a word. Not to the outside world, not to our clergy, and usually, not even to the other people in the pews.
Still, the numbers--ECUSA's own numbers--show that we are still here. Given the huge number of traditionalists who had already left under Bishop Spong, you would think there would have been no one left to be disturbed when Gene Robinson was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire.
You'd be wrong. In the year after Robinson's consecration, when the church as a whole lost
3.3% of its membership, this Diocese lost 4.4%. In the home diocese of Louie Crew, where gay and lesbian clergy have become as unremarkable as a tie-up on the Garden State Parkway, where a bishop who built his celebrity on denying every basic tenet of Christianity, was followed by a kindly-seeming man who couldn't bring himself to say 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit", we still lost more people after GenCon '03 than dioceses like Indianapolis, Texas, Southern Carolina,
Kentucky, or Louisiana. And nobody noticed.
When Newarkers leave, they leave silently. They remain at their posts on Vestry, or altar guild, or choir--and then one day, they are gone. They have found a different parish, or (more likely) a different church --or no church. They don't tell anyone about it---that would be rude, divisive, making waves....unEpiscopalian.
We behave like abused spouses, "playing ball" with people who explain away the Creeds, and preach sermons that are full of abstractions about the Gospel, but have no room for Gospel stories. If we're good, the blow won't be too hard, and we'll still be able to put our souls between the abusers in white collars and our children, and it will look good outside and we'll still be part of the Church, to which we long to be obedient.
Like abused spouses, we don't notice that the strategy isn't working. The Diocese is terrible shape financially, yet it continues to winnow out people and parishes who actually believe all that stuff in the Prayer Book. It uses the search process to grab control of less-than-wealthy parishes, putting one roadblock after another in the path of the search committee, until the now dying parish is willing to grasp at anyone the diocese offers who will be a "real" rector.
The time has come to stand up and display our injuries. We need to show them to each other, so that we know that we' re not alone. We need to show them to faithful Anglicans/Episcopalians in the rest of the church, so that they can pray for us, and strengthen and refresh us. We need to show the true face of the oh-so-tolerant and anti-racist diocese of Newark, so that everyone will understand the full horror of what can happen when a church bureaucracy worships "inclusion" and "social justice" instead of the One who died to redeem us on the Cross.
If you or your parish, as traditional (or even moderate!) Anglicans, have been manipulated or abused by the Diocese or its clergy, please send your stories to bishopdoane@yahoo.com.
All names will be kept confidential.
Blakeney
A few years ago, I sent an e-mail to Greg Griffith, the redoubtable webmaster of StandFirminFaith.com. He wrote back, "You're kidding me! We just figured there were no orthodox Anglicans left in Newark any more."
His surprise was understandable---traditional Newarkers are a very silent bunch. We live and worship in what may be the most in-your-face-let's-embrace-the-Holy-Spirit's-New-Thing diocese in the church, and we never say a word. Not to the outside world, not to our clergy, and usually, not even to the other people in the pews.
Still, the numbers--ECUSA's own numbers--show that we are still here. Given the huge number of traditionalists who had already left under Bishop Spong, you would think there would have been no one left to be disturbed when Gene Robinson was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire.
You'd be wrong. In the year after Robinson's consecration, when the church as a whole lost
3.3% of its membership, this Diocese lost 4.4%. In the home diocese of Louie Crew, where gay and lesbian clergy have become as unremarkable as a tie-up on the Garden State Parkway, where a bishop who built his celebrity on denying every basic tenet of Christianity, was followed by a kindly-seeming man who couldn't bring himself to say 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit", we still lost more people after GenCon '03 than dioceses like Indianapolis, Texas, Southern Carolina,
Kentucky, or Louisiana. And nobody noticed.
When Newarkers leave, they leave silently. They remain at their posts on Vestry, or altar guild, or choir--and then one day, they are gone. They have found a different parish, or (more likely) a different church --or no church. They don't tell anyone about it---that would be rude, divisive, making waves....unEpiscopalian.
We behave like abused spouses, "playing ball" with people who explain away the Creeds, and preach sermons that are full of abstractions about the Gospel, but have no room for Gospel stories. If we're good, the blow won't be too hard, and we'll still be able to put our souls between the abusers in white collars and our children, and it will look good outside and we'll still be part of the Church, to which we long to be obedient.
Like abused spouses, we don't notice that the strategy isn't working. The Diocese is terrible shape financially, yet it continues to winnow out people and parishes who actually believe all that stuff in the Prayer Book. It uses the search process to grab control of less-than-wealthy parishes, putting one roadblock after another in the path of the search committee, until the now dying parish is willing to grasp at anyone the diocese offers who will be a "real" rector.
The time has come to stand up and display our injuries. We need to show them to each other, so that we know that we' re not alone. We need to show them to faithful Anglicans/Episcopalians in the rest of the church, so that they can pray for us, and strengthen and refresh us. We need to show the true face of the oh-so-tolerant and anti-racist diocese of Newark, so that everyone will understand the full horror of what can happen when a church bureaucracy worships "inclusion" and "social justice" instead of the One who died to redeem us on the Cross.
If you or your parish, as traditional (or even moderate!) Anglicans, have been manipulated or abused by the Diocese or its clergy, please send your stories to bishopdoane@yahoo.com.
All names will be kept confidential.
Blakeney
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