PEARSON TO START A NEW CHURCH,
Appeals to people of the Advent to follow him
Today (18 May), parishioners (unknown if some or all) of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent began receiving a letter sent yesterday from the former dean, Andrew Pearson. He appealed to the people of the Advent to follow him into a new church. We wondered what Pearson would do after he left the Advent. Now we know. Here is the letter (click on for enlargement):
Here are the salient points that I see:
---The letter is from Pearson and dated May 17, 2021, the day after his last day as dean at the Advent. He preached his last sermon there on May 16, 2021 (see on YouTube).
---It is addressed to "Friends." I am trying to find out if this letter went to all parishioners of the Advent or just certain ones.
---He is staying in the Birmingham area.
---He is leaving the Episcopal Church. Destination not identified but temporary residence in St Peter's, the ACNA church in Mountain Brook, an upscale suburb of Bham. St. Peter's occupies a prominent property on Montevallo Road vacated by the Mormons. A few blocks away in Mountain Brook stands St. Luke's Episcopal Church, one of the largest, wealthiest, and most important parishes of the diocese.
---"our calling is to plant a church."
---This "church" is unidentified as is its affiliation.
---In the summer, Pearson and wife will gather weekly with followers. To his "friends" at the Advent: "consider joining us."
---Pearson and wife appeal to parishioners of the Advent for one-to-one meetings.
Thus, it is clear that Pearson's plan is to start a new church in Birmingham led by himself and peopled by "friends" from the Advent. He is reaching out to the parishioners of the Advent to follow him out. Yet, he gave no specifics of where he would lead them. The Advent has more than three thousand members.
I will provide more information on this as I receive it.
It remains to be seen how this quasi-schism will play out. One interesting point is that Pearson cannot say he was driven out of the Advent by the Episcopal Church authorities. In fact, the past few Episcopal bishops of Alabama went out of their way to be lenient with him and the other clergy of the Advent. Some might say they went too far. Substituting one's own liturgy for the authorized services of the Book of Common Prayer is pretty serious. Bringing in clergy who did not have Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church is pushing the envelope a long way too. Nevertheless, the bishops next door in Carpenter House looked the other way on these and other eye-rollers in the Advent.
What this means is that Pearson cannot now play the victim card the way Mark Lawrence and others who bolted the Episcopal Church did. In SC, Lawrence and his followers claimed he was mistreated by the national church, something that was untrue but still widely believed. The victimization theme in SC caused many parishioners of the diocese to rally around their supposedly beleaguered bishop. This was key in getting the majority of the people to go along with this illegal and illegitimate schism. Their testimonies in the 2014 trial spoke loudly to this. In the present case, Pearson does not claim, cannot claim, to be a victim of the Church. What effect the absence of victimization will have on the group dynamics around Pearson remains to be seen. It does seem that he is starting out with a rather weak claim for independence.
