Breaking Up is Hard to Do The Christ Church Stories Part Two, Episode 2

The Episcopal Church. A Painful Exit. And Signs of New Life

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Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

The Episcopal Church. A Painful Exit. And Signs of New Life

There are only two kinds of churches in the world: congregational and hierarchical.

At least, that’s what Luke—an attorney on our Vestry—once said during a particularly difficult meeting. He had been silent most of the time, but when he spoke, everyone listened. “David,” he said, “congregational churches govern themselves. Hierarchical churches are governed by someone above them. Those are your two choices.”

He paused. “Unless,” he said, “you’re Anglican. Then you’re both.”

That observation was simple, profound, and timely. Because our Vestry was facing the most difficult decision in our church’s history.

Would we remain in the Episcopal Church? We weren’t the first to ask the question. And we would not be the last.

Year after year, people had been leaving the Episcopal Church in droves. Attendance patterns for ECUSA were in irreversible decline. Some graphs below show the collapse of the once-proud denomination that boasted more presidents as members than any other.

Long-time Episcopalians might remember that ECUSA (or more modern and less US-centric acronym, TEC) had more Presidents of the United States as members than any other denomination. From George Washington to George W Bush, 10 of the 47 presidents were either Anglicans or Episcopalians.

This denomination had become a shadow of its former self. 1958 appears to be the high-water mark.

What happened in 1968? Stay with The Anglican. I’ll tell you very soon.

In other words, the people of our vestry were not the only ones to ask the question: should we stay or should we leave TEC? But as I mentioned previously, breaking up is hard. There is no canon for it. It is frankly not done. The Episcopal Church doesn’t know how to split. It only knows how to dwindle.

I shouldn’t mislead the jury here. Anyone can leave the church. It is a free country. And any priest can leave the Episcopal Church and serve elsewhere, or enter the secular job world.

How to Leave

The real question is this: Can a congregation leave the denomination? The answer was yes, also. It is a free country. The bishop and chancellors of the diocese would simply say, “Goodbye. Just leave the keys to the building on the table and leave all cash in the bank, vestments in the closet, crayons in the Sunday school rooms, and diapers in the nursery.”

No, the ultimate question was whether a congregation could leave the Episcopal Church and keep its building, cash, vestments, crayons, diapers, and everything else it owned.

That remained to be seen, and Christ Church was going to test the limits of the leadership of the Episcopal Church USA, the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, and the word of Bishop James Stanton, a friend and ally to the cause.

It was 2006. We had survived Minneapolis in 2003—the vote to consecrate Gene Robinson as bishop had split the church in spirit, if not yet in structure. I had resigned from the General Convention floor in protest, and we had hosted the Plano Conference in response. But the real break came three years later, at the next General Convention in Columbus, Ohio.

That’s when the bishops elected Katharine Jefferts Schori to serve as Presiding Bishop for the next nine years.

Katherine Schori elected as Presiding Bishop

Her election was mystifying to me, and to many. Perhaps a better word is “Surprise!” There was no spiritual warrant for her election: no record of teaching the historic faith of the church, no writing that showed a classical Christian mind, and no rootedness in the apostolic faith. How on earth did she get elected?

What the Hell?

Several bishops—conservative ones—confided in me privately before the election that they were voting for her. “We’re sending a signal,” several said. “Her election will show the wider Anglican world, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, how bad things have gotten in the American church. We just need to get this over with.”

I was stunned and furious. I told the bishops who confided in me that voting for Schori was one of the most irresponsible things they could do. They weren’t just playing politics—they were playing Russian roulette with the souls of congregations and the ministry of the clergy. I said, “You are bishops. You should be like Nehemiah’s men—building with one hand, battling with the other. You cannot lay down your sword.”

They did anyway.

At least two bishops told me of their plan to vote for Schori, and both said there were others. But after the vote, I couldn’t find any bishop who admitted to it.

She was elected, and it was talked around that this was further evidence that God was doing a new thing.

It is not difficult to find statements and quotes from the first female Presiding Bishop that sound dated and silly.¹

At an Earth Day celebration, her choice of a processional hymn included “God, you are womb of all creation.”

She said salvation is a cosmic act about all creation “not simply a few human beings”

“Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children.”

Remember, the chief role of a bishop is guardian of the faith.

It was going to be a long nine years.

The following day, progressive delegates wore pink lapel buttons that read It’s a Girl!, as if the church had just delivered a baby, not elected a chief guardian and overseer of doctrine, worship, and order. Their joy in that moment wasn’t about ecclesial faithfulness. A statement had been made. A woman had been elected to a man’s position. It was about a cultural breakthrough.

We all felt something break, for sure. It was loud and clear.

This time around, I wasn’t a deputy. I was an observer at the General Convention. And because Christ Church had become a lightning rod for the biblically historic view, I felt it necessary to provide daily blogs and briefings for a growing email list back at Christ Church.

It felt like I was a war correspondent.

At Home in Plano

I returned from the Convention to Plano knowing that something had to give. I told my bishop I couldn’t keep Christ Church together much longer. The tensions in TEC (The Episcopal Church) were so severe that there was no room for nuance. You were either on one side or the other.

I remember saying to him over the phone before I flew back from Columbus, “Bishop, this cannot hold. One of us has to leave. If, as a bishop, you leave TEC, we will follow you. If you don’t, I must.”

Our Vestry met to talk, pray, and discern. Tension was mounting. We had always tried to be generous in our posture. I had never once preached a sermon about the core issues that were front and center in the church.

We took a position that we believed could buy us time: we would remain under the authority of our diocesan bishop, not under the national leadership of the Episcopal Church. It was a compromise, but it felt like a roomy place to stand.

But it would not last. There was no room to stand in a pastoral middle place. The center was not holding.

A few weeks later, the Diocese of Dallas asked me to resolve the ambiguity. It was time to leave. I knew we had reached the edge of something monumental.

Here is what happened next:

I still had deep respect for the office of the bishop. For better or worse, in my eyes, their purple shirt was the equivalent of an American flag or an officer's uniform. I loved the office, or at least the idea of the office of bishop. But the episcopacy—the role of bishop—was now the very reason we had to leave.

To be a faithful church, we needed to be under faithful bishops.

And that was no longer something we could guarantee within the Episcopal Church. I remember saying to our Vestry that if we stayed in the Episcopal Church, we would need to change every program and every ministry.

Why? Remember the rock in Galilee? Remember the phrase from the Great Commission that jolted me, changed my mind, and gave me energy and direction for the congregation back in 1994: Go, teach everyone, it said.

Given where the Episcopal Church was and where it was heading, I felt we could no longer make disciples on behalf of the Episcopal Church.

That was our mission, but I knew we were no longer in a family that accepted it as their mission.

We met with the bishop.

“Are you sure you need to leave?” he asked.

I said, “If you leave first, we will follow. But if you do not, I don’t know how we can stay.”

A Way Out

We negotiated a way out. He offered a five-year payment plan—$500,000 in year one, decreasing by $100,000 each year, for $1,500,000 paid out over five years.

I couldn’t negotiate a thing. It was all too personal. I was self-aware enough to know this was not a simple business deal, a property transaction. There were (for me) family of origin issues and deep spiritual values involved. The Episcopal Church had been my family when I hadn’t had one as a young boy and teenager.

I asked my Senior Warden, a brother in Christ and a man of great integrity, to finish the negotiation.

Mike countered with a single, upfront payment of $1.2 million, accounting for the time value of money. The Diocese agreed.

Before I left the room to let Mike bring it across the finish line, Bishop Stanton asked for one more thing: “Do you remember how much money the Diocese gave Christ Church back in 1985?”

The bishop said he was trying to negotiate a deal that wouldn’t trigger a lawsuit from a member of the diocese. He had to show some fiscal responsibility. He couldn’t just give the property. He had to reclaim as much of the money from us as possible, exclusive of my salary. In other words, he asked if Christ Church owed any money to the diocese that could be repaid.

I knew the answer to his question. I knew it as a point of pride. The diocese paid my salary for six months and gave our new church some start-up capital in 1985.

“I do,” I said. “The diocese gave me a budget of $10,000. I spent $7,500.”

He blinked. “That’s all?”

“That’s all. We were self-sustaining within six months.”

He nodded. I can’t remember if we had to pay that back or if the diocese just wrote it off. I prefer to think they just let it go.

There is a little more to the story that needs to be told.

Three-Way Trust

Jim Stanton, our bishop—my bishop—saw that Frank Griswold's resignation at the Columbus Convention and the start of Schori’s term in September had created an opening. There was a six-week window during which no Presiding Bishop was in office. That was a unique opportunity. An opening. We would take it.

Three signatures were needed to authorize Christ Church’s departure from the Diocese of Dallas and the Episcopal Church. One was mine—or rather, ours as a Vestry. Another was Bishop Stanton’s. And because the property was held in a three-way trust between the congregation, the diocese, and the national church, a third signature was required from an officer of the national church.

My understanding is that Bishop Stanton personally carried the papers to New York, explained the situation to the powers that be, and secured the final signature.

Within a week or so of our meeting, the deal was done. Christ Church retained legal title to its land and buildings after we wrote a check to the Diocese of Dallas for $1.2 million.

Driving Home

Mike and I walked out to the parking lot at the Diocesan office. I gave him a bear hug and thanked him for getting the ball into the end zone.

I drove home in silence. When I walked through the door, I collapsed at the kitchen table.

This was never what I wanted. It felt like death. Fran was there to console and comfort me. I wept—loudly—as I retold the final story of that meeting and my last visit to the Bishop’s Office in Dallas. It was an office I had entered so many times to strategize, to pray, to serve. But this time, it felt like the end.

I felt fired. Terminated. Shown the door.

Some readers may quarrel with the language. They may say, “You weren’t forced. You had agency. You could have stayed. You could have downshifted, pulled back, and remained a loyal, true-blue Episcopalian.”

Yes. That’s true.

But had I done that, I would have lost Christ Church—and failed my calling.

I prayed deeply through these monumental events. I sought counsel from trusted friends and elders. But let the reader remember this: I had been rescued by God early in my ministry. I had tried the path I was trained in—liberation theology, progressive theology. I brought it into the real world of church ministry. And like Paul might have said, I found it to be a gospel without power.

At home, I wandered into my study and pulled a guitar off the wall. Somehow, my fingers found the frets and strings to one of the most haunting and beautiful carols of the Christmas season. Every time I hear the song sung or played in Advent or Christmas, it takes me back to my study in September of 2006 in Plano, Texas.

The words float back into my memory, too.

Of the Father's love begotten
Ere the world began to be
He is Alpha and Omega
He the source the ending, He
Of the things that are and have been,
And that future years shall see
Evermore and evermore.

Then the third verse:

He was found in human fashion,
Death and sorrow here to know,
That the race of Adam’s children,
Doomed by law to endless woe,
May not henceforth die and perish
In the dreadful gulf below—
Evermore and evermore.

The third verse speaks of the Gospel I felt in Israel when I sat on that monument stone in the Galilee. It is the Gospel I preached for 21 years at Christ Church. And I believed it with every part of my mind and heart. It is a hymn to Jesus. My Lord. My Savior. My King.

The ancient tune filled the room, and in the playing of it, something lifted. The tune and the words I knew by heart ministered to me deeply. We were free. Christ Church was my life’s work, and I had sacrificed so much to secure its future.

But I was not the only one who had sacrificed, far from it. Our staff had endured these days. Lifelong Episcopalians were confused. Some would leave Christ Church. I was close to a few families who had homosexual children. Their loving relationships were challenged. In short, the political and callous way by which all of this had come down did not account for the human, very personal toll that many people would pay.

I was not insensitive to this.

Other churches—hundreds of them—would choose to leave, but only a handful would secure the title to their property. Their stories are known to tens of thousands of Episcopalians across the US and Canada.

Why all this drama and trauma?

Because bishops matter. Because theology matters. Because polity is not an ornament; it is the structure of how disciples are made.

If a bishop is faithful, a church can flourish—even in difficulty. If a bishop is unfaithful, the damage is incalculable. That’s what makes episcopal oversight both a gift and a burden. And that’s why the Vestry and I—after months of prayer, grief, and discernment—chose the path of costly faithfulness.

Later That Same Day

Later that afternoon, I needed to get out and walk. Exercise always clears my head. As I walked along the Bluebonnet Trail in Plano, my mind was racing. It was processing the earthquake that had happened. I hated it. I couldn’t imagine it. But I felt God leading us through. But I felt the pain and loss.

Eventually, I had a sense of peace.

There was a monument sign on the church property which read Christ Church - Episcopal. I walked by the sign and remembered the black letters were glued on. I stopped and thought for a long few minutes. Then, I started to pull them off, one by one. E P I S C O P A L. Both sides of the sign were edited. I carried the letters home.

When I came into the kitchen, I threw the letters on the table like they were toy jacks. I started spelling other words. Did you know that EPISCOPAL can also spell PEPSI COLA? I smiled at the revelation. It was a welcome bit of levity.

Postlude

We left the Episcopal Church in 2006, nearly twenty years ago. The impact was massive. While the congregation was more or less unified, it started to shrink, and attendance contracted.

Next time on The Christ Church Stories: The Day After: Rebuilding

Grace and Peace,

David Roseberry ☩
The Anglican

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The Anglican is the Substack newsletter for LeaderWorks, where I share insights, encouragement, and practical tools for clergy and lay Christians. I’m also an author of over a dozen books available on Amazon.

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1. https://juicyecumenism.com/2013/04/25/katharine-jefferts-schoris-cosmic-earth-day/