A large proportion of the responses I received were personally insulting. But I will not respond to those. I will, however, respond to the more substantive objections to my article and by extension criticisms of the case for remaining in the Episcopal Church.

Criticism #1: Jerry, the Bishop of Pittsburgh did not forbid congregations to pray for the Presiding Bishop.

Response: Some, including Bishop Duncan's wife, have rebutted my claim that we were instructed to omit the prayer for "Katharine, our Presiding Bishop." The bishop's wife in particular made the point that the language was replaced by a prayer for "all primates." But many of Jefferts Schori's critics deny her right to the office and so in their view the prayer still wouldn't apply to her. More to the point, if the prayer was meant to include Bishop Katharine, then why any change at all? A bishop who is actively trying to remove himself and his diocese from Bishop Katharine's oversight removes her name from his personal services and replaces it with a general prayer for church leaders, (although the prayer book already has a general prayer for leaders in the church). Yes, I'd say Bishop Duncan has omitted her.

Criticism #2: Omitting the prayer for the Presiding Bishop was a suggestion, not a mandate.

Answer: That's not entirely true. In diocesan events, it's a directive. The bishop runs the show and this is the language he said should be used. In non-diocesan events, there is some confusion. Our parish was sent the new language which we were told should "replace" the language in the prayer book for our "readers" (note the plural). In fact, we were instructed to 'paste' the new language into the prayer book. The diocese has clarified and said that it did not intend for that to be a mandate on all services, but only those "under the control of the bishop." I accept them at their word, but I have to say that it is still disturbing to me that the bishop would insist that the prayers for Katharine not be offered at his services.

Criticism #3: African Bishops don't tolerate polygamy.

Answer: This is a debatable point. The Primate of Kenya is reported to have published an article in Transformation in 1988 defending the practice of ordaining polygamist priests. Perhaps he didn't ordain any, or perhaps they've all either died or become monogamous since then. Perhaps the numerous missionaries who have reported that this is a problem in some of the African provinces were lying. You'll have to make up your own mind about that one. Since none of my conclusions rested on the question which I asked about this topic in my original article, I'll leave it be.

Criticism #4: Jerry, you're wrong -- we're not leaving the Episcopal Church; it's leaving us.

Answer: This is really a reach. After the split, the church remaining will have well in excess of 90% of the parishes, the church buildings and (most importantly) it will have well in excess of 90% of the Episcopalians. It will have the recognition of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It will have institutional continuity with the entity that has been here since the first colonies in North America. Despite all of this, the secessionists will claim that they are the real Episcopal Church. The leaders of all schisms, fragments and splinter groups talk like that. They are the only ones who believe it.

Criticism #5: Conscience requires us to leave.

Answer: I respect that. Resign your office and leave. I'm not sure how conscience requires you to take a diocese along with you when you do.

Criticism #6: The Bible requires us to secede.

Answer: Where? Some objectors cited passages which seem to be inappropriate. For example, one blogger cited Christ's command in Matthew 10 that when his disciples encounter a city which does not welcome them, they should 'shake the dust from their feet' and depart the city. Somehow this is used to prove that faithful believers should leave unfaithful churches to which they formerly vowed obedience and that they should take the diocese with them. This is very strange exegesis. First of all, the disciples were instructed to leave personally, not to take part of the city with them. Missionaries who were rejected were to simply move on, which is not remotely the same thing as fomenting some kind of exodus or civil war. This is just silly.

Others have quoted sections of Paul's epistles about church discipline such as 1 Cor 5. However, this makes no sense. In this particular case, Paul instructs the church to expel a man who is having sex with his stepmother. First of all, the critics miss the monstrosity of the sin. Paul goes out of his way to say that this sin was worse even than the sins the gentiles committed. Could the same really be said about Gene Robinson and his partner? Secondly, the man committing incest is the one to be expelled. He leaves, not the faithful members. After all, this incestuous situation had been tolerated by the church leadership and yet Paul nowhere instructs some alleged "faithful remnant" to leave the Church at Corinth because its "apostate" leaders have tolerated gross immorality. Even more so, he nowhere instructs other churches to sever their relationships with Corinth because of their toleration of the sexual depravity.

The secessionists point to similar passages in the New Testament and make the same mistake. They take passages which advocate removing a member for heresy or gross immorality and turn them inside out, using these passages to drum-up support for the opposite course of action -- removing themselves.

Criticism #7: You people who are choosing to stay in the Episcopal Church are choosing mammon over Christ

This is interesting framing of the issue -- following the schism is likened to following Christ. Keeping your vow to submit to the canons of the Church is following Mammon. Doesn't that assume the point at issue, which is that Christ is calling his faithful followers to leave? Doesn't it assume that we can't follow Christ in the Episcopal Church? Why can't we? We followed Him into it.

Also this argument implies that paying attention to things like property and pensions is somehow unspiritual. But if property and pensions are unspiritual why did we acquire them in the first place? Why not just renounce them now rather than fight for them, if they're not important?

The simple fact of the matter is that these things are important. Priests who leave substantial unvested pension assets behind should carefully consider Paul's commonsense teaching that men who fail to provide for their dependants are worse than unbelievers (1 Tim 5), especially if the burden will fall upon an already overworked wife and mother. In light of this passage, seceding bishops should give careful thought to what will happen to the wife and especially the children of a priest who follows the bishop away from a paying rectorship and into an unfunded start-up.
 
And what about widows? Women typically outlive men, and are dependent on the husband's pension. Let's say that the separatists are right and the priests who remain in the Episcopal Church are partly motivated by concerns about pensions and endowments. Is it really fair for separatists to harshly condemn them, given Christ's very strong condemnation of status-hungry religious separatists "who devour widows' houses"? I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt on this one.
 
Criticism #8: By leaving the Episcopal Church we will choose Christ over the Canons

Are they in conflict? The Biblical pattern is to obey authority except when it commands you to disobey God. The new wave of separatists has changed this principle into "disobey authority, when it disobeys God," which sounds great until you realize that all authorities disobey God to one degree or another, and that the Biblical instructions of respect for authority were given to people in the context of some of the most loathsome and corrupt civil and religious authorities in human history -- Nero, Herod, Caiaphas -- not because God sides with tyrants, but because there is no tyrant worse than anarchy.