(RNS) “Like our colonial forefathers, we are pursuing the freedom to practice our faith as we see fit, not as it is dictated to us by a self-proclaimed religious authority who threatens to take our property unless we relinquish our beliefs.”

– Episcopal Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, after filing a lawsuit to keep the national Episcopal Church from laying claim to more than $500 million in church property and assets after the diocese disaffiliated itself from the national church.