Fr. Strawn earned his Associate in Science Degree at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas and his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Texas at Tyler. His Theological education was done at The Anglican School of Theology in Dallas, Texas.I'd read elsewhere the accusation that Bp Strawn's seminary training was from a mail order school, so I began researching the Anglican School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. After extensive inquiry, I received the following e-mail from St Matthew's Episcopal Cathedral in Dallas:
Thank you for your inquiries. The Anglican School of Theology no longer exists. It closed numerous years ago. In its place we have the Stanton Center which holds classes for lay ministers or those who want to become a Deacon, etc. in the church.I also spoke via phone with an individual associated with the successor Stanton Center, who said that the Anglican School of Theology had closed in spring 2005, as a result of difficulties encountered in securing accreditation from the State of Texas; the school had never been accredited. She said that only a few priests had ever been ordained as graduates of the school.
The St George parish bio for Bp Strawn also says,
Bp. Strawn was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. In 1981 he married Annette Monier, also of Dallas. A year later they moved to the small East Texas town of Malakoff where they lived 21 years raising their four daughters, Angelique, Christine, Tiffany and Miranda.Texas divorce records are available on line. These list a divorce for a Stephen D Strawn, born in 1958, from a Tonya A Strawn. The marriage took place in 1977 and was dissolved in 1980. While this is the 21st century, and many marriages now end in divorce, a divorce is more problematic for a bishop in any denomination (and of course, a Roman Catholic bishop may not marry at all). A report on controversy surrounding the election of Daren Williams as ACA Bishop of the West includes a reference to Williams's own divorce as a potential impediment, and this also raises the question of whether the delegates who'd elected Bp Strawn were aware of his divorce.
This may also have been one reason for Bp Strawn's reversal on the 2007 Portsmouth Declaration, whereby the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion/Anglican Church in America signed a letter to the Holy See that read in part:
3. We accept that the most complete and authentic expression and application of the catholic faith in this moment of time is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium, which we have signed together with this Letter as attesting to the faith we aspire to teach and hold.Bp Strawn was in favor of this until he was against it. It's reasonable to infer that one reason for his change in heart would be that on any sort of reflection, he would have recognized that if the TAC/ACA had in fact entered the Catholic Church as a body, his theological education would almost certainly not have been sufficient to allow his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest, and his divorce, unless he were able to secure a declaration of nullity for that marriage from the Church, would be an obstacle to his even being received as a layman.4.Driven by these realizations, which we must now in good conscience bring to the attention of the Holy See, we seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment. We seek the guidance of the Holy See as to the fulfillment of these our desires and those of the churches in which we have been called to serve.
But this brings us to the whole issue of the TAC, the Portsmouth letter of 2007, and its relationship to John Hepworth, its now-expelled primate.
