According to Fr. Tobias Haller, at In a Godward Direction, the problem of the missing listing for the Episcopal Church in the Church Directory at the website of the American Bible Society has been solved: ...the Episcopal Church now shows up as a "specific denomination" under the general denomination heading "Anglican" at the For Ministry "Find a Church" utility.
Thank you, Ms. Autumn Black, at the American Bible Society, thank you, Tobias, for your efforts to help set things right, and thank you, Dr. Bones at Openly Episcopal in Albany, for calling the problem to our attention.
It's like the Academy Awards. I must make sure not to leave anyone out of the "thank yous".
UPDATE: The plot thickens. What worked yesterday, does not seem to be working quite the same today. See Tobias' latest post.
Such an easy mistake to make. Must happen all the time.
ReplyDeleteYeah, sure...
ReplyDelete;=)
Mischtake...
Don't forget your parents and Jesus and your eighth-grade English teacher.
ReplyDeleteThere are new developments... see my latest blog post.
ReplyDeleteTobias
I was about to call you all a skeptical lot until Tobias' comment came in. I added an update linking to the latest post.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Paul, for calling my omissions to my attention.
Am I correct in my understanding that even when the links are working properly, which they were when I checked earlier this evening, the American BS has downgraded TEC from a General Denomination to a sub-sect of Anglicanism? If so, wonder whose agenda the change would serve.
ReplyDeleteLapin, I don't know. That's why I did not want to be the one to answer Ms. Black's question in the comments to the earlier post.
ReplyDeleteAs it now stands, TEC shows up on the Find a Church directory as a Specific Denomination under "Anglican" chosen as the General Denomination. This was my initial concern, and it has now been fixed. At some point the Episcopal Church, which had been in the list of denominations, was removed. It's now back, and categorized properly as Anglican.
ReplyDeleteHowever, on the screen where a parish enters its own information for the directory display, the two drop-down data entry boxes refer to "primary denomination" and "secondary denomination." There is no listing for just plain "Anglican" on either of these ( they appear to be identical). So an Episcopal parish should you just choose "Episcopal Church" as the primary denomination. There is no way, using these fields, to indicate any connection with the Anglican Communion. (My suggestion to the ABS would be to add "Anglican Communion" to the denominational list.)
If an Episcopal parish wants to indicate that it is Anglican on its directory display, the answer is to add the word Anglican to the parish description. Making reference to the Anglican Communion in descriptions of Episcopal parishes was commended by general convention, if I'm not mistaken in 2006. I have done this for my parish using the tagline "The Anglican presence in Fordham since 1853."
That seems to be the state of things; my primary concern has been addressed; and as to who it was removed the Episcopal Church from the listings in the first place (if this was an intentional act)... well, truly they have their reward.