Conservative Episcopalians Warn Church That It Must Change or Face Split

NYT: Conservative Episcopalians Warn Church That It Must Change Course or Face Split
By NEELA BANERJEE
Published: November 12, 2005


PITTSBURGH, Nov. 11 - Conservative leaders of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and their Anglican counterparts from overseas intensified their warnings Friday about the possibility of a schism in the Anglican Communion if the Episcopal Church did not renounce the consecration of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.

About 2,400 Episcopal Church and Anglican bishops, clergy members and lay leaders from around the world gathered here Thursday for a three-day show of solidarity in preparation for a general convention of the Episcopal Church next June in Columbus, Ohio.

While Episcopal and Anglican conservatives have warned before of the possibility of a split in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion over these issues, powerful primates of national and regional Anglican churches from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean said Friday that a break was all but inevitable if the Episcopal Church did not vote to change course at the Columbus meeting.

"The primates will decide" if they consider the response of the Episcopal Church "adequate," said Archbishop Drexel Wellington Gomez, primate of the West Indies. He said, however, that he expected no change in the stance of the Episcopal Church, the American arm of the Anglican Communion, when it comes to gays....

***

The Episcopalians and Anglicans were joined by well-known American evangelical Christians, most notably the Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and author of "The Purpose-Driven Life." Mr. Warren gave encouragement to conservative church dissidents who are trying to break with the Episcopal Church but who have often been stymied by disputes with their dioceses over ownership of church property....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/national/12episcopal.html

I regard this as a hallow threat.

Nice pun, though!

Sorry, but the Anglican/Episcopal Churches put up the money for the land and buildings, and the majority seems to be moving into the 20th century on gender and sexuality issues. If those who want to remain in the 14th century want to leave, let 'em. And let 'em hold bake sales and whatever other fundraisers they need to hold to buy the buildings they want.

They could be in worse shape... Henry VIII could have never gotten tired of Katherine of Aragon.

Interesting.

The rcc kicked me out because i refused to tow the conservative line and i am a natural dissenter. Do I gotta go church shopping again? :sarcasam:

the majority of the ECUSA supports the consecration of Gene Robinson. They are working toward same-sex ceremonies, and only temporarily holding off in deference to a planned meeting on the subject next year.

This is a small, obnoxious, well-funded, loud minority. They may split, and the communion may very well take the coward's way out. We, however, will remain the Episcopal church.

---The Bible says, "Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of Knowledge". The Church of Reality says, "Who's hungry?"---

http://www.churchofreality.org/wisdom/welcome_home/

OR you could try the FFRF (Freedom from Religion Foundation). It kicks ass!

http://www.ffrf.org/

and, as the article points out, many Anglicans in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean agree with evangelicals on social issues. The national U.S. Episcopal church has, so far, not only not taken dictation from evangelicals, but not agreed with them on much of anything.

Howard Ahmundsen and Paul Weyrich are behind this whole thing. Howard has been bankrolling a lot of this.

although well-funded and loud, this is most definitely a minority.

They do not speak for the church as a whole. They are in rabid disagreement verging on schism with the church as a whole.

I did a site visit to a faith based NGO last week that does a lot of relief work overseas (particularly medical services), and it was pretty amazing how much they've been influenced over the past 10 years by the far right evangelicals.

These are predominantly Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans- but the dogma that I was hearing- both expressly and between the lines- reflected a lot of the garbage coming out of the Southern and Midwest protestant churchs.

It's really sad to see.

One reason, I suppose, for my bias against those regions- they seem to be reseviors that just proliferate anti-scientific and intolerant attitudes.

I say let the conservatives go their own way and let the chips fall where they may. I'm tired of churches acquiescing to the more conservative among them. I gave props to the Episcopalians for taking a stand on the issue of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.

...Are trying to kick out the pastor because he supports civil unions for gay couples. :banghead:

the bombing of innocent Iraqis based on Lies from the bushevits?

Iraq War Not Justified, Church Leaders Say
Heads of U.S., British Organizations Make Appeal to Bush and Blair
By Alan Cooperman

A coalition of church leaders on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday urged President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to pull back from the spiral toward war with Iraq, saying the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, though real, is not imminent enough to justify military action.

The heads of more than 60 Christian organizations issued a statement opposing a preemptive war on both moral and practical grounds. They included leaders of Bush's and Blair's own denominations -- the United Methodist Church and the Church of England, respectively -- as well as other major Protestant groups, Catholic men's and women's orders, humanitarian agencies and seminaries.

Several religious leaders said they were hoping to spark a much more vigorous public debate after failing this week in a last-ditch effort to persuade Congress not to authorize the use of force. About 450 ministers, priests and nuns from across the country had fanned out on Capitol Hill in the three-day lobbying and prayer campaign, according to former representative Bob Edgar (D-Pa.), a Methodist minister and general secretary of the 36-denomination National Council of Churches....

***

John B. Shane, the Episcopal bishop of Washington and one of the signers, told reporters that just-war theory makes a distinction between "anticipatory self-defense, which is morally justified, and preventive war, which is morally prohibited." In this case, he said, "I don't see the threat from Iraq to the United States as an imminent threat, so . . . military action against Iraq is inappropriate."...

***

Some of the religious leaders lashed out at both the Republican administration for advocating war and Democrats in Congress for lacking the courage to oppose it....

http://www.bread.org/media/articles/2002/wash_post_oct_12.html

Time for the churches to come out STRONG AGAINST IT NOW, TOO!

In previous eras, a church would split and the dissidents would go somewhere else and start their own church. This works particularly well in Stone-Campbell churches because of their autonomy.

But very few parishoners can really afford to go elsewhere and build their own church from the ground up. The more likely scenario is that dissidents will leave the Anglican communion and join the Catholics.

Of course, Catholics are arch-rivals of Anglicans. Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbytarians are almost as liberal as the Episcopalians.

The truth is, there's not many places to turn - except the evangelical Stone-Campbell churches, and that would be a MAJOR change for Anglicans.

when they leave, their church property stays in the possession of the diocese. They leave with their feet, and that's it.

From my reading of the Catholic World News site http://www.cwnews.com

Many of the most extreme posters there are recent converts, usualy from the Anglican church. There is quite a bit of Anglican bashing that goes on at that web site. That is the ultra-conservative side of Catholism, but it is growing and the moderate to liberal Catholics are shrinking in number as more litmus tests appear and the Vatican is behind the new "pray and pay" movement for many reasons.

I was raised a Southern Baptist, so I know how petty these things can get. I saw a church split over a cookie recipe. That’s why you find a First, Second, Third Baptist Church in almost every town down South. Beyond that, the splitters seem to abandon the Gold/Silver/Bronze hierarchy scheme for a location-based naming scheme. I mean, who wants to come in fourth and beyond when so much is presumed to be at stake when their God has already picked his favorites and his chosen people don’t even believe in the deity of Christ?

This is simply “country-club” politics overlaid upon the pagan superstition of a boogieman and the result is the ultimate dysfunction of organized religions. Its all about exclusion rather than inclusion. Maybe I misunderstood some of Christ’s teachings, but I thought it was open to everyone. Oh, but there’s that undocumented cookie recipe that could have been lost in countless translations and re-purposed for political gain.

Oh, puh-lease. (Was that gay enough? My intent was to be reactionary.)

If you still believe in the concept of good and evil then you are probably human. We know what we do. If we’re good, we feel bad. If we’re bad we feel nothing. It comes down to what we choose to believe to be good or evil. And yes, not all cookies are good, but the King James Bible is not a guide to modern times just as much as it wasn’t then.

Prayer and go home. The liberal Anglicans aren't the ones who question the inclusion of the evangelicals or conservatives in the communion.
Twenty five years ago, it was the ordination of women. Now it's the acceptance of gays as God's children. It's always something.

Tandalayo_Scheisskopf is right about the bankrolling too. Ahmundsen won't be happy until the Episcopal Church USA conforms to his own version of the catechism. He'd do everyone a favor by taking his silver to another church.

:thumbsup::applause:

She has a gay son, so you can imagine the arguments she's gotten into there. She stormed out one day after a heated discussion in her group over gay marriage and one woman followed her out to the parking lot and said "it's okay, we're sorry if you are upset, you are free to be whatever you are" (she mistakenly interpreted my mother's defense as being that my mom was gay)...which set my mom off even more! This is why I detest organized religion--it sets people AGAINST one another!

their own way. They have held us back for too long.

others, who flocked to my liberal Episcopal Church in my hometown back in the 80's, and that lovely church changed in such a negative way (it moved right) over the next few years that I stopped attending. I didn't (and still don't) understand why the conservative crowd didn't remain in their own churches instead of ruining mine.

Now I'm wondering if that "influx" might have occurred nationwide. :shrug:

it's GOOD NEWS to me.

the church will survive and thrive once unconstrained from those who need to catch up on the evolutionary ladder.

just get it done -- and stop the agonizing.

the episcopal church is a GREAT place -- full of loving wonderful people, gay, straight, and some i'm not even sure{and that's just fun!}.

i'm sure the conservative african churches will still take liberal money -- they will just have to be there own church is all.
but they might have to explain that some of that money is coming from gay folk they hate so much.

and I don't like that.

I know the better course is understanding and working toward holding the communion together. I know my bishop is fighting hard to see that human rights win while keeping everyone in the fold.

I'm just not feeling like doing that. I'm feeling like "screw 'em." They're so looking for a fight. They're so backed by Mellon and Scaife money. They're so eager for publicity and to take the ECUSA apart. And yet, somehow we're to believe that the rest of the church is the guilty party.

This is why I turned my back on the christian church. When they try to force conservative ideals down your throat. Maybe I'll try church again when it isn't some backwash propogandist cult for politics.

They just keep digging their own graves by condemning any and everyone that doesn't abide by their hatred.

agree with their bible laws you will be punished/put in jail. This is on different than the Islamic Taliban. Remember the phrase if you are not with us you are against us.

Yuk, yuk, yuk.....

.. get any play at all.

Which sinners benefit? The churches are wasting precious time ...

<edit: typo>

the Lutheran and Episcopal churches are splits from the Catholic Church and their ceremonies are basically the same, so why don't they go back to the Catholic Church. I had a Lutheran minister tell me that one dream of his branch of Lutheranism was to come together with the Catholic Church one day. I say the sooner the better. I went to an episcopal lecture on the feminine within the church (I unenthusiastically went with a friend) I was shocked that the teacher (he was not the Bishop, but was higher up in the church) suggested us to read "The Chalice and the Blade." I had already read the book, but that it was suggested. Then he said he sometimes prays to the goddess or the feminine aspect of the creator and sometimes the god or masculine aspect, depending what type of aid he needed. Believe me I was FLOORED--that's the type of church I could get into.

One of my friends who attended General Convention a few years ago said that most of the votes against gay rights come from retired bishops, who retain the right to vote in the House of Bishops, which serves as a kind of Senate for the Episcopal Church.

My church was one of the hosts of the General Convention where Gene Robinson's consecration was approved. After General Convention was over, it got a couple of hate phone calls and e-mails--and 84 inquiries about joining.

At present, the membership includes several gay and lesbian couples that I know of (and probably many more that I don't know of) and at least one transgendered person.

Every Episcopal Church I've ever been in, beginning in 1973, has been similarly matter-of-fact about sexual minorities.

The anti-gay types can leave and join the few dozen parishes that left over the ordination of women. I accidentally attended one when I was church shopping in Portland. The whole sermon, a couple of years after their secession from the diocese, was about "We're right. All other Episcopalians are wrong." I thought, "Get over yourselves already."

...and another such schism would be appropriate.

in the religion section, from pastors of several local Methodist churches, expressing their commitment to put an end to GLBT discrimination in their sect. I'm sure they're upset by the defrocking of the minister who went public about her sexuality.

This is going to split churches all over if people can't get over their bigotry. I'm glad the supporters of the gay community are sticking with this.

the Anglican church. And you're right -- it's a battle that must be fought. The teachings of Jesus, whatever one believes about who or what the man was, indicate only one way to look at this issue. If there is one thing I have gleaned from my readings about this man, it was his insistence on acceptance of, and inclusion of, all people, every "sort and condition" of man.

The liberal wing will have better music in services, since many of the choir directors and organists are gay. The old farts will get hymns played on a crappy old piano.

(My only reason to be in churches is the music. The rest of the stuff they can keep. Guess that is why I am finishing a Master's in music history. Give me my Bach, or a 15th century polyphonic mass.)

wonderful music in Episcopal churches, much, if not most, of it from gay choir directors, musicians, and vocalists.

And if it comes to that, I'll not play gigs for a bigoted church. I already refuse work in fundy churches...except for a couple of gigs where I was unaware of the rabid rightwing mindset that prevailed when I agreed to play.

They repeat these threats over and over and over again over nothing more than ONE gay bishop - as if that alone is so insulting to the hetero white racist hierarchy that God HIM/HERSELF must be deeply wounded.

These churches just need to shut up and GO - this attempt at bullying over such a long period of time does nothing but attempt to hurt people. There is no need for them to repeat over and over and over their bigotry. They are bigots. They hate gay people. They hate America and they hate GOD. So TELL their whiny-ass butts to go affiliate with some Third World country church that was Euro-colonized a hundred years ago and celebrate how they successfully imposed their superstitions over the African peoples.

Someone...ANYONE...needs to stand up to these bigots and just say: "I'm sorry, but these children of God are no longer going to be thrown into the volcano to satisfy your damned need for human sacrifice."

Unfortunately, the ringleaders of this effort are mostly African, Asian, and West Indian bishops.

What really gets to me are the Thirld World Bishops who should know a thing or two about discrimination. They are the WORST ones about homophobia. I hate to play the $ card, but $ from the U.S. Episcopal Church is largely what keeps their asses above water. If they can't handle the ordination of gays, let those fuckers support themselves and sink.

issue of whether the church is Anglo-Catholic or Protestant. I really don't know how these two schools of thought have ever gotten along. If you ever go to an online religious forum, you will see constant bickering about validity of the 39 articles, the proper role of the deuterocannon, importance of "early church fathers", whether women's ordination was a good idea (a lot of Anglo-catholics think that it would interfere with a possible reunion with Rome or the EO church)

I could easily see 4 churches come out of the ECUSA. Left wing Protestant, Left wing Anglo-Catholic, Right wing Protestant, and Right wing Anglo-Catholic.