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The Episcopal News

WWW.EPISCOPALNEWS.COM SERVING THE SIX-COUNTY DIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES AUGUST 27, 2017

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The Very Rev. Ian Markham, dean and president of Virginia Theological Semi-nary, will speak on “Liturgical Life

Principles: How Being an Episcopalian Helps You Live Longer” at St. Michael & All Angels Church, Studio City, on Saturday, Sept. 23.

Markham’s talk is offered as part of the parish’s celebration of its patron saint, the Archangel Michael. All are invited.

The program will begin with a light breakfast, co-sponsored by Deanery 2, at 9 a.m., and will conclude at 12 p.m. There is no

cost, but reservations are requested by Sept. 15: call the parish office at 818.763.9193 or email to administrator@stmikessc.org. St. Mi-chael’s Church is located at 3646 Coldwater Canyon Avenue, Studio City 91604.

Markham, a British-born priest of the Episcopal Church, has served as dean and presi-dent of Virginia Theological Seminary since August 2007. A scholar of Christian ethics, he is author of some 12 books, in-cluding Against Atheism: Why Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris are Fundamentally Wrong. ?

VTS Dean Ian Markham to speak at Studio City parish on benefits of being an Episcopalian

Citing binding legal contracts and a need to avoid litigation, Bishop Coad-jutor John H. Taylor announced Aug.

14 that diocesan leadership will allow the sale of church property in Newport Beach used by the previous congregation of St. James the Great to proceed.

In a letter to the diocesan community, Tay-lor wrote that the diocese is obliged to honor the contract between Bishop J. Jon Bruno and Burnham-Ward Properties/Burnham USA, a major commercial property owner in Newport Beach.

“In prayerful discernment, we opened our hearts to a variety of possibilities for recon-ciliation in Christ and healing for St. James and our whole community,” Taylor wrote. “But Bishop Bruno has entered into a binding contract to sell the property. The buyer has the legal right to expect the seller to honor the contract. Much as we might wish it were otherwise, we do not believe that it would be in the interests of the diocese or consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities to endorse any steps leading to breaching or threatening to breach an enforceable contract that could lead to further expense and litigation.”

Rooted in his desire to strengthen funding for the diocese’s overall mission, Bruno’s ef-forts to sell the Newport Beach property, be-ginning in 2015, led St. James’ members to file a presentment, or charges, against him with the Episcopal Church. After formal proceedings, a hearing panel concurred with the members’ allegation that Bruno had not been honest with the congregation, had sold consecrated church property without prior authorization from the Standing Committee, and had behaved in a manner unbecoming a clergy member. The hearing panel issued an order calling for Bruno to be suspended from ministry for three years. The order is final un-less and until Bruno files an appeal with the Court of Review for Bishops. ?

More on this story appears in the Late Summer 2017 issue of The Episcopal News: visit episcopalnews.com.

Sale of Newport Beach property to proceed

Ian Markham

Summer wraps at Camp StevensSummer sessions at Camp Stevens have ended for 2017, leaving myriad memories for hundreds of young people, ages 8 to 15. At top: Campers enjoy the sunset during an evening hike. Above from left: Seminarian Joey Courtney and chaplain Greg Larkin lead the Eucharist; a camper learns to play the ukelele; teens work together to scale the climbing wall.

Politicians and pundits who so egre-giously split hairs over the Nazi flags, white supremacist slogans, and deadly

violence in Charlottesville on August 11 have taught a sobering lesson to everyone who proclaims Jesus’s gospel of love. We can work with politicians, and we should. We can pray for them, and we must. But we often can’t de-pend on them to get God’s work of justice, equity, and reconciliation done as scripture commands. Instead, this is the work of the Church of Christ, sometimes holding those in power to account, other times doing the work ourselves.

This reality should be part of Christians’ DNA. Poor political leadership was norma-tive for most of the Christian era. In Jesus’s own time, anyone who said it was the king’s job to love and be decent to his people would have been laughed to scorn. Herod? Pilate? Herod Antipas? As an alternative to the pre-vailing corruption of kings throughout all the centuries in which the scriptural can-on was formed, God gave us the law, the prophets, and Jesus Christ.

When someone says hate, the gospel, and theoretically all gospel people, sing love. As governments have become relatively more enlightened, Christians have come to expect secular leaders to sing along. And sometimes they have. At other times, the grim politics of leveraging and scapegoating prevails. In re-cent years, candidates all too often have cho-sen to succeed by inflaming voters’ grievances instead of singing a song of unity and com-mon purpose and unleashing hearts of love.

Leaders’ encouragement of people’s resent-ments set the stage for Charlottesville. Justice is losing ground as a result. As our society becomes more divided along socio-economic lines, millions of us still fail to face up the per-sistence of racism and privilege-based inequi-ties in our country. That’s why for people of faith, for all who proclaim the gospel of love, August 11 was back-to-school day. Our as-signments are accountability and action. Our God in Christ beseeches us to stand up and work in the public square on behalf of our core baptismal value: the dignity of every hu-man being.

In the region enclosed by our diocese, dig-nity-denying barriers to equity and justice abound, each an opportunity to witness for

our Lord Jesus Christ. Remembering cen-

turies of slavery, Jim Crow, continuing dis-crimination and ra-cial profiling, and the Nazi flags of August, we proclaim, as Jesus does, that #BlackLives Matter.

We advocate, as Jesus would, for commu-nity policing, rigorous fairness in the appor-tionment of resources for public education, and shelter for the homeless and working poor.

We work for food justice and sustainability as our Lord would have us do, especially in economically-stricken communities. This is the good work of Seeds of Hope, The Abun-dant Table, and Camp Stevens as it welcomes less-advantaged campers to the mountains each summer thanks to its generous camper-ship donors.

Because hope is the paramount Resurrec-tion virtue, we insist that our government rededicate itself to policies that help give ev-eryone an equal chance for good work with decent pay and benefits.

Singing hope when our government breeds fear is also the work of Sacred Resistance, another ministry of our diocese. The federal government has persistently failed to enact immigration policies that conform to what every Southern Californian knows. Our econ-omy depends on immigrant workers from Mexico and South and Central America. Deacons, laypeople, and priests throughout our diocese are responding by offering ICE’s targets and their families sanctuary, legal ad-vice, and other services.

When Jesus told Pontius Pilate that he had come to testify to the truth, Pilate replied with moral relativism that sounds a lot like what we heard from some quarters after August 11. “What is truth?” Pilate said. When the powerful equivocate, in Charlottesville and in our own neighborhoods and workplaces, it’s time for the Jesus Movement to testify to the truth and stand up for love. ?

Episcopal News WeeklyEditor: Janet Kawamoto, editor@ladiocese.org 840 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90026 • 213.482.2040, ext. 251

THE VOLUME 6, NUMBER 27

F R O M T H E B I S H O P S

Standing up for loveBy John Harvey Taylor, Bishop Coadjutor

— SUNDAY, AUGUST 27 —5:30 p.m. Eucharist in the Style of TaizéSt. Columba’s Episcopal Church1251 Las Posas Road, Camarillo 93010Information: 805.482.8831

— MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 —9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Labor Day Harvest & FestivalThe Abundant Table FarmMcGrath Family Farms1012 W. Ventura Blvd., Camarillo 93010Information: bit.ly/2uq6oIV

— FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 —7 p.m. Episcopal Night at Dodger StadiumDodger Stadium1000 Vin Scully Avenue, Los Angeles 90012(Tickets are sold out: to buy regular-price tickets, visit www.dodgers.com.)

— SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 —3 – 5 p.m. ‘Ancient Vedic Living in the Modern World’Presented by The Guibord CenterInternational Society for Krishna Consciousness9701 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles 90034Information: conta.cc/2wIWn6f

— FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 —9:30 a.m. Dedication: Konrad A. Reuland Memorial FieldSt. John’s Episcopal School30382 Via Con Dios, Rancho Santa MargaritaInformation: 949.858.5144

— SUNDAY, OCTOBER 1 —4 p.m. Concert: Requiem, by Rick England Grace Episcopal Church 555 E. Mountain View Avenue, Glendora Information: 626.335.3171

— SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7 — 6 p.m. Lobster FestSt. Mark’s Episcopal Church10354 Downey Avenue, Downey 90241Information: church@stmarksdowney.org

For more events and program details, visit www.ladiocese.org and select “Calendar.

A R O U N D T H E D I O C E S E

When the powerful equivocate, in Charlottesville and in our own neighborhoods and workplaces, it’s time for the Jesus Movement to testify to the truth and stand up for love.

The Episcopal News: New issue is online

The Episcopal News, Late Summer 2017 is-sue, is now online. Visit www.episcopalnews.com to read about the

consecration of Bishop Coadjutor John Taylor; a report on immigration activists in the diocese; L.A. Diocese representation at the Episcopal Youth Event; this year’s Red Shirt Pilgrimage; and more. ?