The VA Episcopal clash: Martin Minns vs. Bishop Peter Lee

[kwassa]

The Washington Post did extensive profiles on both last week. Minns is the head of the conservative faction, Lee the Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia, biggest in the country.

The funny part is that Minns advocates the charismatic practices that have nothing to do with traditional conservative Episcopal practice. Conservative, indeed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501975.html

Va. Traditionalist Represents Developing World
Martyn Minns

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page B01

excerpt:

Minns has quickly become one of the best-known, most colorful conservative Episcopal figures in the United States, leading 11 Virginia congregations -- including 1,300-member Truro -- in the past few months to leave the Episcopal Church to join the Church of Nigeria. In a twist on the paradigm, the congregations joined a Nigerian "mission" set up in the United States for conservatives; Minns is its bishop.

To his supporters, Minns's alliance with charismatic, deeply traditional African Christians is the way of Christianity's future, linking followers to the part of the world where Jesus is very vibrant -- not the coldly intellectualized God of the West. Minns ecstatically plays tambourine in church and is comfortable with faith healings and speaking in tongues.

But to his detractors, Minns is a divisive figure, exploiting a romanticized, oversimplified version of the developing world to pump energy into a conservative, anti-gay theology

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501972.html

Voices of Episcopal Split
Moderate Bishop Takes Unexpected Turn
Peter James Lee

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page B01

(excerpt)

If the Episcopal Church has been a rocky boat in recent decades, Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee has been one of its anchors.

Liberals and conservatives alike have described the white-coiffed Southerner -- one of the most senior bishops in the U.S. church -- as a moderate statesman. When a conservative group of parishioners split from his North Carolina church in the 1970s over women's ordination, he was in the front pew when members opened their new church. Although he wouldn't approve same-sex commitment ceremonies in Virginia, he encouraged clergy to bless couples' homes instead.

But as the genteel bishop prepares to retire after almost 40 years, he has become a national lighting rod while leading the diocese in a bitter property dispute with a handful of breakaway conservative congregations. Suddenly a foe of traditionalists and the commander of an unsightly legal battle, Lee, a 68-year-old former newspaper reporter, is facing an unexpected closing chapter to his legacy.

[Evoman]

1. This kind of stress is not good for a 68 year old man.

He should be retiring and living a calm life of introspection, not fighting property battles.