Former Glendale Priest Leads New Conservative Episcopal Group

A nationwide, theologically conservative organization has been formed within the Episcopal Church, spearheaded by Bishop James Stanton of Dallas, a former Glendale parish priest who says liberals are diverting the church from its Anglican heritage.

As the 2.5-million-member denomination heads to its triennial convention in July that may consider gay wedding rites and other changes, the new American Anglican Council says it will emphasize faithfulness to traditional beliefs. But the council will not try to create a rival ecclesiastical body or encourage more conservatives to leave the church, its creators say.

When the Episcopal Church approved women priests and revised the Book of Common Prayer in the 1970s, many parishes and clergy left the denomination to join independent Anglo-Catholic dioceses or create new church bodies.

Episcopal conservatives have been upset by proposals to permit ordination of gays and lesbians and to authorize wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples.

“We are trying to provide an alternative way of linking together orthodox parishes and ministries, and we have no intent to set up a para-church,” said Stanton, who was rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale from 1987 until 1992, when he was elected a bishop.

Stanton, president of the council that grew from a small meeting in December 1995, said that like-minded Episcopalians will create a network to oppose efforts to “promulgate a new teaching on sexuality.”

At the same time, parish priests identifying with the council are urging conservatives to stay in the Episcopal Church.

“Many of our people are being discouraged by what’s going on in the church, but we don’t think leaving the church is the answer,” said the Rev. Jose Poch, rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in North Hollywood.

About 190 people met at St. David’s in January for the inaugural meeting of the council’s Los Angeles chapter, including 37 of St. David’s members and about 50 from St. James parish in Newport Beach. In all, they came from 19 of the 147 parishes and missions in the five-county Los Angeles Diocese, Poch said.

Since then, the Rev. William Thompson, rector of All Saints parish in Long Beach, has been elected to head the chapter and the Los Angeles chapter’s mailing list has grown to 400, Poch said.

Nationally, about 150 parishes and nearly 20 church-wide groups have affiliated with the council, including missionary societies, the charismatic Episcopal Renewal Ministries, and issue-oriented groups such as Episcopalians United and the Episcopal Synod of America, according to Roger Boltz of Dallas, the council’s executive director.

Boltz, tapped by Stanton from the Ohio-based Episcopalians United to run the council, said that the organization was not formed simply to rally the troops at the July 16-25 Episcopal convention in Philadelphia. “Of eight task forces we have, only one is dealing with the General Convention or church legislation,” he said Friday.

The Rev. George Regas of Pasadena, who headed the successful 1976 drive to ordain women, said that he believes “the American Anglican Council has a place in the church” despite his own commitment to work for ordination and same-sex wedding rites for gay and lesbian Episcopalians.

“If the Episcopal Church is to survive, grow and prosper, it has to have room in it for radically different positions,” said Regas, who retired a few years ago as rector of the large All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. “If the idea at Philadelphia is to get everyone to bow down to the same understanding, we will blow ourselves apart.”

Regas contended that “the best decisions we made at All Saints came out of a very strong advocacy from a variety of viewpoints.”

He predicted that the upcoming Episcopal convention would allow bishops and their dioceses to ordain gay or lesbian priests and bless same-sex unions, on a local-option basis.

“I feel confident this is the direction the church is heading, and the Jim Stantons better find a way to live within that context,” Regas said.

After the 1976 convention approved ordination for women, the Episcopal bishops ruled that no bishop could be forced to go against his understanding of Scripture and church tradition to ordain a woman seminarian.

But Stanton is concerned that the convention may pass a rule change to force the hands of the four remaining bishops who refuse to ordain women.

“We can’t go back on our promise not to penalize people who in conscience cannot accept ordination of women,” the Dallas bishop said.

Though he is “realistic about political realities--that they [liberals] may win,” Stanton said the American Anglican Council is optimistic about its future, in part because “the church [membership] is weary of the struggle and much more interested in being faithful to the teaching of the church.”