Monday, September 22, 2008

Money Talks in TEC

The Anglican Curmudgeon (A.S. Haley) has written an terrific analysis of the recent Episcopal Church House of Bishops vote to depose Bishop Robert Duncan. I recommend that you read it all, but here is a snippet:

The numbers really start to get interesting, however, when one looks at the geographical spread of the data, and considers the level of each diocese's 2007 contribution to the TEC budget. Here is where the data starts to be telling: it shows that Bishop Duncan was deposed by a combination of the dioceses that are the biggest contributors overall to TEC, as well as by those that are in what has been called, in the political arena, the "blue-county corridors." (Click here for an animated map of how these areas have changed in the presidential elections from 1960 to 2004. Are we surprised?)

Total contributions to TEC by "Yes" dioceses: $20,593,549 (72%)
Total contributions to TEC by "No" dioceses: $ 6,237,162 (22%)
Total contributions by unrepresented dioceses: $ 1,621,881 (6%)

Do you begin to see how TEC is run by the wealthiest players? Only fifty-four percent of the dioceses voted to depose Bishop Duncan, but they contribute 72% of the funds coming to TEC from all the dioceses.

Read it all here.

(Editor's Note: Crew roosters about TEC's victories as one obsessed with a single cause. Talk about narrow-minded!)

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