San Joaquin: A coup, Episcopal style

Church governance dispute leads to seizure of Church property
June 18, 2008

The dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin and the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin has become a range war. Bishop Jerry Lamb of the Fresno-based Episcopal diocese has seized an Anglican mission church in Taft (in Kern County, south of Bakersfield) and dismissed the priest-in-charge.

Last December, then-Episcopal Bishop John-David Schofield, along with a large majority of both lay representatives and clergy of the San Joaquin diocese, voted to leave the U.S. Episcopal Church and join a South American Anglican jurisdiction on account of the Episcopal Church’s toleration and promotion of homosexuality and other issues which, says the Fresno-based diocese, depart from biblical orthodoxy. Schofield’s diocese now calls itself Anglican.

According the Anglican San Joaquin diocese’s web site, Schofield allowed individuals and parishes that wanted to remain with the Episcopal Church to do so and to keep all their real and personal property. the rest