In the past few months I have read several agonized reports on the supposed death throes of the Episcopal Church. I have not studied the statistics or interviewed masses of people. However, I have traveled in the opposite direction from those who have left the Episcopal church, and am glad that I have.
I've been an Episcopalian for a little over a year. I found a church home with strong preaching, a loving community, and attention to scripture, reason and tradition. The liturgy moves me, the clergy challenges me, and I am both inspired and heard. After 10 years as a Baptist, it has been a welcoming new home.
Yes, I do understand that membership numbers are down. Much of that, of course, is because a number of congregations and many individuals left the Episcopal Church when it accepted gay and lesbian clergy several years ago. Being among the first major denominations to resolve this issue, though, is both a blessing and a curse -- yes, some people left in anger, but I also know where the church will stand from this point forward, and I agree with that position. The wrenching dislocation of that question is resolved. There is a blessed settledness to that.
"But," some of the alarmists cry, "isn't accepting gay priests (and gay marriage) an abandonment of the church's biblical understanding of marriage?" If the bare language of the Bible indeed should be a bright line, then we crossed it long ago in accepting previously married and divorced people to be married in Episcopal churches -- because that is something that Jesus directly condemned (unlike gay marriage).
However, if we have erred, we have erred on the side of love -- and did so long ago, at about the same time most denominations stopped worrying about commerce on the Sabbath. This change does not trouble me. The theology of Christ was defined, after all, by who he loved, not by who he condemned. Episcopal congregations have traditionally been named for Christ as gracious savior (i.e. Christ Church), for martyrs (i.e. St. Stephens) and for the Holy Spirit (i.e. Holy Comforter). No one ever named their church Christ the Condemner.
What I found in the Episcopal Church in the post-Gene Robinson age was the spirit of one of my professional heroes: Thurgood Marshall, an Episcopalian who was not afraid to talk in moral and even religious terms, and who was relentlessly optimistic about his fellow man. For example, in voting to strike down the death penalty in the case of Furman v. Georgia in 1972, he wrote this:
As the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Powell point out ... capital punishment has been with us a long time. What purpose has it served? The evidence is that it has served none. I cannot agree that the American people have been so hardened, so embittered that they want to take the life of one who performs even the basest criminal act knowing that the execution is nothing more than bloodlust. This has not been my experience with my fellow citizens.
The Episcopal Church is ready for me, and I am ready for it.
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David M. Gordis: Conserve or Transform: Religion's Dilemma
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: How Christianity Is Being Saved
Rev. Peter M. Wallace: Jesus' Unexpected Presence: A Meditation on John 6:16-21
There are those who need to point to others and condemn in order to reassure themselves of their own salvation. This is as old as the stories Jesus told about the Pharisees. I think of this as the kind of BS you see in middle school. Once your faith is mature you don't need to drag anyone else down to look good. On the contrary, we are charged with showing God's love and acceptance instead. Hopefully, the judgmental can someday grow past a child's understanding of faith.
Let's take the rest of the statement: the writer contends he knows whether the ECUSA will stand on this (and presumably any other serious) issue from now on. I know! It's a stultifying statement, ridiculous and illogical on its face, but please, permit me to explain precisely why. The state of affairs demonstrates quite the opposite: not a snowball's chance in hell at identifying the "settled" issues within the ECUSA. Thirty years ago I'm sure most Episcopalians would tell you they're just oh so happy that the issue of openly gay clergy was "settled" - in the other direction.
If I wanted constancy in my life, I'd have to be delusional to seek it out in that wreck of an institution, something most Episcopalians with neurons have gotten hip to. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming about ECUSA hemorrhaging
1Co 6:9 ¶ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
According to God's word as spoken by the apostle Paul , the people in the above verse "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Can they inherit the kingdom of God? Yes, they can, but not as "fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind," There must be a change in their life. What change?
John 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
1Peter 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
Not these half-assed heretics who talk so much about helping the poor, needy, and outcast and ignore the rest of Catholic doctrine handed down since the Apostolic Age.
Yes, you come from kindness and Christian compassion which is admirable, but Not when your Episcopalian Church confirms people in their choice to Sin and flaunt their homosexuality, in immoral fornications, in endorsing adultery, in validating Abortion. How can this be? To accept and tolerate under the name of Christ and Christian love, but to advocate for sinners and their immoral ways. Do not think that bishops or priests or Catholic laypeople are perfect, no one is. but all people including you and me are called to a life of Holiness. And those who reject such for the sake of cultural trend of the day is doomed to the Son of Perdition.
You say that these are political agendas and rather focus on helping the sick and the poor.... all are important and merit a moral obligation to uphold and define.
There are many good and faithful pastors, priests, and congregations in the Episcopal Church.
And then, like any church, there are those less concerned with the gospel of Jesus Christ and more concerned with saving the world and political agendas.
And, of course, there's that being touched by the proper fingertips requirement that is basically an add-on to Christ.
But, nobody's perfect.
In the core of his teaching, Jesus had little interest in doctrine and Bible quoting. Instead he asked what is really going on deep in your heart, which is where he said that the Kingdom of Heaven was. He said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter there. If your stuff owns your heart, sell it all and give the proceeds to the poor he said. He went so far to make a point that he said that If your eye is the problem tear it out.
Now the Episcopal church is not perfect and I have criticized it more than most. But what it does have is an open and often loving community. It that is important to you, seek such a community. To paraphrase Jesus: What you seek is what you will find.
-- Sorry about all the preaching. It's a habit of mine.: Fr. Gareth Scott Harris -
All under the pretense of "Christ-like". Isn't that the mantra used in Episcopalian Churches? I attended one for 25 minutes. Unbelievable at how they have mocked the Church and her liturgy through schismatic preachings.
Which, of course, makes you an expert. =LOL=
Stop your lies and tell the truth, or better yet do an academic biblical scholarly research before you make such an unChristian comment. People are you are the reason why Catholics are confused on doctrine with poor Catechism, and fall for heresy dead on!
I could give many examples of this from scripture, history and reason, but I think the story of the woman caught in adultery illustrates it best. When the people were about to stone her, Jesus forgave her and did not condemn her. But the last thing he said to her was - "Go and sin no more".
Should God punish me for speaking his Biblical word, i know that my soul gambled well for the Lord.
Sure... keep calling others out as heretics and apostates. At least I'm exercising my free will and conscience with which God had blessed me. It's because of overzealous, dogmatic apologists like you that I left. Good riddance! At lease I don't feel shameful for just being myself anymore.
Also, I never blamed the RCC for anything. Do you respect and agree with all the stances that come from the Vatican? Just because I don't, doesn't make me a bad Christian. I know my heart. Do you also impugn your fellow Catholics who feel the way I did about certain things and still commune?
I think the RCC needs to address their issues of homosexual clergy, because the priesthood has long been a refuge for Catholic men who have struggled with their sexuality. People can love the Lord with all their hearts regardless. Two individuals, regardless of their sexuality, can be devoted to one another in a holy and sacred way. I know gay couples who have been committed to each other for 20, 30, 40 years even, far longer than most married couples can make it through to today.
If you're going to take the view that the Scriptures were written in stone, then slavery would still be permissable today. The Bible is the 'Word' of God, not the words of God. Truth doesn't change, but our understanding of it does.