Word: pikes
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...many ways, this was one of the most unpleasant and nerve-racking meetings in the 177-year history of the house. Although the bishops faced a heavy agenda, all other business was overshadowed by discussion of the heresy charges against Pike, raised by South Florida's Henry Louttit and subscribed to by more than 30 other prelates. To top it off, Wheeling turned out to be a city without bars, and church officials had to set up a private commissary, with Scotch at $7.50 a fifth...
...presentation of the heresy charge, Presiding Bishop John T. Hines had named an ad hoc committee to prepare a general statement that would reflect the consensus of the house. The committee was headed by the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun, 74, the retired Bishop of Washington who, in 1946, ordained Pike to the priesthood. Dun's committee proposed rebuking Pike instead of trying him. The debate on its recommendation became in effect a trial by rhetoric-not so much of Pike as of the church itself...
...host of Pike supporters took turns deploring the severity of the statement. The Rt. Rev. John P. Craine of Indianapolis argued that "This is far too precipitant an action. The accused was not allowed the privilege of sitting on the committee." Pike's successor in California, the Rt. Rev. C. Kilmer Myers, declared that the tone of the report "suggests that we are already at trial." Perhaps the most eloquent defense came from Washington's Suffragan Bishop Paul Moore Jr. "Why is it that the house has not censured any of the rest of us who have spoken...
Vulgarization? Nonetheless, the bishops, by a vote of 103 to 36, approved the statement, with two minor deletions. The statement rejected the "tone and manner" of Pike's theologizing as "highly disturbing within the communion of the church," criticized his writings as being too often "marred by caricatures of treasured symbols." The criticism of Pike was apparently good enough for Louttit; at a caucus later, he and his fellow bishops on the "Committee for the Defense of the Faith" agreed to drop their demand for a trial...
...Pike was irate at the report. Calling upon a seldom-used Episcopal canon, he petitioned Hines for a formal investigation of the "rumors, reports and allegations affecting my personal and official character." Hines countered by allowing a cooling-off period before naming an investigative committee. Softening the blow against Pike, the house then voted to set up a council to "help rethink, restructure and renew the church" -something that Pike has been proposing for years...