I will be mailing certified letters to the bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Richmond and the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2014. The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is planning on their national reunion in Richmond in 2015 and in Richmond, TX, a suburb of Dallas, in 2016.
The letters are fairly similar to the letter in this blog posting of the letters to St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, VA. The Dallas letters don't discuss the UDC.
http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2014/02/letter-to-rectors-vestry-and-ministers.html
The Dallas letters don't discuss the UDC.
With the series of letters I am writing the Episcopal Church, they are going to become aware that their workings with neo-Confederate groups are acquiring visibility. They may or may not say something about the issue, but I don't think the Episcopal Church wants to be publicly identified with the Confederacy or have any controversy regarding either the Confederacy itself or neo-Confederate groups. The SCV will just find that churches aren't available from the Episcopal Church though various reasons might be given.
As always if you go to
www.templeofdemocracy.com/churchesoftheconfederacy.htm you can find the documentation on the campaign or links to other pages with documentation on the issue. Sometimes there will be a lag between a blog posting and updating the web page.
I will be writing the Roman Catholic bishops next. I am going to write the major denominations which host neo-Confederate groups first for all the upcoming national conventions for the UDC and SCV. First the Episcopal Church, then the Roman Catholic Church, then the United Methodist Church and finally the Presbyterian Church.
After writing the national leadership of the Episcopal Church and the conservative Anglican group, I will be writing the Archbishop of Canterbury. At some point I will be writing Pope Francis if action is not forthcoming from the Roman Catholic in America.
Again these churches might not have anything they want to say on the issue, but I don't think they want to be involved with controversy.
This is just the beginning. There are the interfaith groups in each city. There are social justice groups in these denominations. There are African American organizations within the denominations. There are social justice groups in these cities outside the denominations. Gradually awareness of the issue will get out there.
I will be writing national leaders of each denomination or the next level up.
At some point one denomination may take a stand. If any denomination takes a stand it will focus attention on the others.
Even then there are additional actions after this. I am curious what African Methodists will think of the United Methodist Church in America hosting neo-Confederates. What will the Episcopal Churches in Africa think about the fact that the Episcopal Church in America hosts almost half of the neo-Confederate national convention services. It very well might not be of great immediate or practical importance to them, but I can't but feel that it will mean something when they reflect on it in a quite moment between the day's busy affairs. Some African nations have historic sites about the slave trade. What would they think about American churches that host neo-Confederate churches?
I really can't and won't write Africa until I have exhausted writing letters to the leadership of the denominations in America and they do nothing.
Beyond this I will be writing scholars on the issue of race and religion both in the United States and elsewhere.
Basically as denominations realize that the letters will never stop and that through one way or another this issue will get before the public, they will have to consider what will their record on the issue will have been.
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