c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin, Calif., struck an urgent tone on Saturday (Dec. 8) when he urged his Fresno-based diocese to defect from the Episcopal Church.

“God’s timing is essential,” he said before the decisive vote to cut ties with the American church and align with the Argentina-based Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. “Delayed obedience in Scripture is seen as disobedience when opportunities and blessings are lost.”

But Saturday’s historic action _ San Joaquin is the first diocese to secede from the Episcopal Church and align with an overseas province _ was a long time coming, Episcopalians say, and may take even longer to finally resolve.

The dispute between San Joaquin and the Episcopal Church began decades ago, conservatives and scholars say, well before the consecration of a gay bishop in 2004, before the ordination of women in the 1970s, back to the 1950s, when liberal bishops were perceived as questioning core Christian tenets.

Now, years of battles in church and secular courts loom ahead, with both sides fighting over precedent and millions of dollars in church property.

“We really can’t put a time frame on anything,” said the Rev. Charles Robertson, an adviser to Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. “We’re in somewhat unprecedented territory. We have to take very careful steps.”

Robertson was hesitant to lay out those steps Monday, but he reiterated the Episcopal Church’s longstanding position that individuals may leave the church but congregations and dioceses belong to the national church.

In a statement, Jefferts Schori had said the diocese would continue “under new leadership,” which suggested she would install a new bishop to replace Schofield. She did not elaborate.

Robertson said Episcopal leaders had received an e-mail from “a spokesman for the Anglican Communion” that seemed to suggest that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion’s spiritual leader, did not approve of San Joaquin’s move.

Williams “has not in any way endorsed the actions of the (archbishop) of the Southern Cone, Bishop Gregory Venables, in his welcoming of dioceses, such as San Joaquin … to become part of his province,” the unnamed spokesman said.

Robertson said, “The Episcopal Church is very much alive and well in San Joaquin.”

But the central California Episcopalians who remain loyal to the national church say there is a long road ahead of them, too, in their bid to rebuild the church without the 42 churches and nearly 8,000 Christians who left.

Cindy Smith, a co-founder of the group Remain Episcopal, said there are five parishes that will stay with the Episcopal Church, but none near her home in Bakersfield.

Instead, she and about 30 other Episcopalians will gather Sunday evenings for worship in one another’s homes for the time being.

“Obviously, we would love to see things work out very quick, but we believe in playing by the rules,” Smith said. Some Episcopalians in San Joaquin have been waiting for decades for a bishop who would ordain women, she said.

“We welcome the chance to build a diocese that reflects the Episcopal Church, but we know that we have quite the chore in front of us,” she said.

On the other side, the Rev. Van McCalister said conservatives have been questioning their place in the Episcopal Church since the mid-1950s, when he said Episcopal bishops began to question the Virgin birth and the Trinity.

Those are “the very doctrines that define what Christian belief is,” McCalister said, describing conservatives’ exasperation.

Still, for all the history-making of the past weekend, McCalister says things will very much remain the same for at least the next several years, while legal issues are resolved in church and civil courts.

“I’m going back to work tomorrow and I expect to walk into my office like it’s business as usual,” he said.

KRE/RB END BURKE