Sodom and Gomorrah

In the ancient bible story, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their vulgar immoral ways.

Check out this story about the Washington DC Capital Pride Parade and it's "sponsorship" by the Episcopal Church here.

Forget a moment about biblical admonistions against homosexual activity. What about decency? None of that is observed here in this event.

That an Episcopal parish (St. Thomas) would take part in the parade is bad enough. That the Bishop of the Diocese of Washington was a participant is beyond the pale.

It is hard to believe that God is pleased.

A Vacuum Waiting to be Filled

The picture above is of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC)in America. This is the Church derived from the Church of England, or Anglican Church. In America's founding history it played an important part as many of the original settlers and leaders of this country were Anglican.

Katherine Jeffert-Schori as Presiding Bishop is the leader who is presiding over the decimation of TEC. As one who embraces fondly every liberal kook tendency in modern culture, she has almost totally divorced the church from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and substituted a Gospel of norms made up by the elite of the church. Eh, by the way, this has pretty much alienated anyone who has read the bible and caused a huge hole in their budget.

Here is a recent commentary from her on the recent Gulf oil spill.

Pure blather, pure liberal rhetoric, and by the way, a total lack of pastoral response for the 11 men who were killed while working to help supply the oil this nation needs to thrive and to fuel the jets Ms. Schori routinely flys off in to do her bidding.

The Job Market for Church Clergy

Here is a subject I am actually somewhat familiar with on a first-name basis. The employment market for clergy is difficult right now. As this Wall Street Journal Article suggests, the Recession/Depression has had a marked impact on the number of clergy applicants for open clergy positions at various churches.

But there is more.

Non-denominational bible churches are struggling for the first time with a downturn in giving. Previously they could "pass the basket" and it would be filled without fail. Not so today.

Protestant churches are in an even bigger bind: human sexulaity is a big issue in most mainline protestant churches. So, an applicant can have all the academic and lifetime experience any church may want; but if he/she is on the wrong side of the sexual divide for a specific parish, NO JOB!. Actually that is good, because a mismatch marriage on this issue is the kiss of death just waiting to happen.

Is there any tranquility out there: yes, in the Roman Catholic Church. RC is still RC.......everyone might want to think about that.......

Reason 1001 that The Episcopal Church must Die!

In Asheville, NC, the diocesan cathedral allows wiccans and other assorted creatures to celebrate the pagan rites of season changes in an Episcopal Church! The ways that this does profane the holy ground of the church are almost beyond counting.

That the Bishop and Dean of the Cathedral (I vow to uphold the faith of the Church) allow this is beyond belief. It also says a lot about why this whole denomination that used to be part of the Christian Church needs to go find its way among all the other pagan sects which have died over the centuries.

The Face of Evil

See that nice looking church? It used to be an Episcopalian Church. Then it became an Anglican Church when the congregation could no longer live with the heresy of The Episcopal Church.

Then The Episcopal Church took the Anglican Church to court to retain the property for The Episcopal Church. The court sided with The Episcopal Church and then tossed the Anglican Church out of the property and the Rector and his family had to abandon their house.

So what did The Episcopal Church do with their property? Did they start a new Episcopalian congregation? Did they sell it back to the Anglican Church?

Tsk, tsk, heavens mercy no: they sold the former Christian Church to the muslims.

And there is the face of Evil. Read more here and here.

The Episcopal Church: Cult of the "New Thang"

As reported in Episcopal Life, The Rev. Mary Glasspool, bishop-elect in the Diocese of Los Angeles has received the necessary number of consents from Bishops and Diocesan Standing Committees in order for the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church to declare that her ordination and consecretion as Bishop will proceed on May 15. Glasspool is the second openly gay partnered priest to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

The ordination of openly gay partnered persons to clerical orders overthrows two thousand years of tradition and plain biblical teaching in the Christian Church Universal. The move by The Episcopal Church to ordain only gay, partnered bishops has proceeded against the will of most of the Anglican Communion (global churches attached to the Church of England, The Anglican Church) and has caused a deep split among members within the United States of America.

More on the Diocese of South Carolina.......

More in-depth analysis of the situation in the Dio SC is available here.

Basically, the National Church Office may be laying a case against the Bishop that by not aggressively pursuing legal action against individual churches in his diocese leaving The Episcopal Church, the Bishop is guilty (in the eyes of TEC) of abandonment of communion. This then lays the groundwork for the National Church to get rid of the Bishop and install one of their cronies.

That strategy is awful enough, but read the linked article to get all the nuances of how this has apparently been done to appreciate how really dirty this business is. And all of this is possible only because the National Church is pouring incredible amounts of money into these legal thrusts. This is money spent to sue and brow beat Christians who don't agree with them. This is money that people give to the Church (in the name of God). This is money that people have left to the church in their estates, for good works. And this is where it is going.

I am betting that those in the National Church are going to have a lot to explain one day to the Big Guy upstairs. And I don't think it will be a very pleasant conversation to say the least.

The Episcopal Church: ugliness knows no bounds

Early in the wars between the social justice advocates and the orthodox bibilical authority advocates in The Episcopal Church, the National Church Office (New York) took recalcitrant churches to court if they tried to leave the national denomination and take their buildings and money with them.

Later on, the National Church Office started to accuse targeted orthodox clergy of no longer being faithful to the church and tossed them out, in essence revoking their ordinations so they could no longer act as clergy.

Now we see the culmination of this roughshod strategy where the National Church Office is apparantly laying the groundwork to go after a whole diocese that is still within the National Church Organization simply because that diocese has stated its opposition to what the National Church Office is doing. So we see that the Diocese of South Carolina has delayed its diocesan council (convention) as it seeks to grasp just what the National Church Office is up to.

This is truly awful. Bishop Marc Lawrence has done nothing to take his diocese outside the TEC family. Yet clearly the diocese is in the sights of TEC with legal action underway. What's next? Wire tapping, hacking clergy computers?

Perhaps this is the last desparate effort of an organization that has taken itself far too seriously, has no sense of perspective, and certainly shows nothing of the Christian beliefs it professes to espouse. This very ugly situation may prove to be the undoing of TEC.

More to come for sure.......

When Institutions become Corrupt: The Episcopal Church

It is one thing to watch the National or International political scene and see abuses of power. These are secular organziations and we expect some people to be power-hungry above all things.

When such things apply to the institution of the church we attend or serve, it is shocking at another level.

The American Anglican Council released a report which is "an accounting of how The Episcopal Church (TEC) has spent millions of dollars in over 50 lawsuits, deposed or inhibited 12 bishops and more than 400 other clergy, and violated its own canons numerous times. The paper, titled "The Episcopal Church: Overbearing and Unjust Episcopal Acts," chronicles each of these subjects and a number of other abuses or injustices committed against faithful Anglicans in the U.S.

Further, "The Episcopal Church is systematically targeting, intimidating, suing, and ultimately persecuting orthodox Anglicans throughout the U.S." said the Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, President and CEO of the American Anglican Council. "This paper illustrates the lengths to which TEC leaders will go to silence the voices of orthodox Christians in the Anglican Communion - Anglicans whose only offense was to stand for the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and Anglican Communion teaching."

Most of what is chronicalled in this paper has taken place on the watch of the current Presiding Bishop, Katherine Schori. The membership in the church is declining, contributions are declining, churches are closing, and the next crisis that is coming is that whole dioscesan groups may go into bankruptcy or may be forced to merge with other dioscese. The outlook is grim and the current path offers no hope of a turn around.

The Anglican Covenant and Occam's Razor

The Anglican Communion Institute, in this article, talks about the current difficulties in the proposed Anglican Covenant and its application as an instrument of Unity in the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Community certainly needs something to bind it together after the disastrous events in the Episcopal Church. The actions of TEC beginning especially with the consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire have critically strained the communion over a fault line of biblical authority.

But, is the Anglican Covenant as currently formulated the best way forward? We have discussed this issue previously, here.

There is a principle of logic which the current draft of the AC is at odds with. And this principle is called "Occam's Razor", which says, "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one". Read here for more on this concept.

The means by which the AC will seek to impose "discipline" upon the Communion, contained in section 4 of the draft will make the average persons eyes cross with complexity. And it is that complexity and obtuse language that both weakens the AC and reveals its true purpose: to achieve institutional unity, not unity based on fidelity in faith to the faith delivered to the Fathers (Jude 3).

Will the Covenant become the standard of the Communion? Will it really mean anything if it does? Time will tell.

Only in the Episcopal Church!

It's a bird! No, it's an angel! No......who or what the hell is it??????????

Fear not, it's only the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in something that can only be described as spring plumage for the consecretion of Bishop Benchase in the Diocese of Georgia.

Don't you wish you had been there to see that???????

Third Sunday after the Epiphany

From the 1979 Book of Common Prayer Lectionary, Year C

Psalm 113

Nehemiah 8: 2-10

1 Corinthians 12: 12-27

Luke 4: 14-21

Collect: Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our
Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News
of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive
the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Episcopal Church Begins Official Work on Same Sex Blessings

At it's last trienial convention in the summer of 2009, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution to begin the development liturgical blessings for same sex unions. While this stops short of same sex marriage rites, it amounts to the same thing from a secular, legal standpoint.

The ongoing committee charged with this work has sent out letters to all diocesan bishops asking for examples of blessing liturgies they have instituted or authorized in their diocese.

While the Convention in Los Angeles pushed full steam ahead for this work, the average person sitting in the pews and putting money in the collection plates is not going to be happy to hear what is happening behind their backs.

Where will this go? No doubt many of those pewsitters will continue to head for the exits.

NJ Senate defeats Gay Marriage Bill: NH Bishop full speed ahead

As the NJ Senate unexpectedly defeats the Gay Marriage bill in New Jersey, just up the road (so to speak), Bishop Vick Gene Robinson pushes full speed ahead with a Lesbian Marriage ceremony.

Robinson was "ground zero" in the current crises over Biblical Authority in the Anglcian Communion. At its 2009 triennial convention, The Episcopal Church in the US declared its intention to thumb its nose at the rest of the Communion and push full speed ahead with the blessing of homosexual unions. It is fitting that Robinson would be in the forefront of the movement.

Time Passes on: Bishop Jenkins retires

On January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany in the Anglican Church, my dear friend, sometimes spiritual advisor, and the Bishop who ordained me, The Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins, 10th Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana retired from his Episcopate. Before being consecreted Bishop, Charles was the rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, LA. This is where I met him in the late 1980's during a particularly rough patch of time in my own life. Charles welcomed me warmly to St. Luke's and he provided an atmosphere of prayerful contemplation and spiritual direction which led me to believe that I was called to ordained ministry in the Church. By the time I had worked my way through the "process" and was ready for ordination, Charles had become Bishop of the diocese and I was the first Vocational Deacon whom he ordained in his Episcopal ministry.

I saw Charles and his wife Louise recently at a reception in his honor in Baton Rouge. Although he looked a little older (don't we all?), the good things about this man which drew me to him initially were still there and it made my heart feel good to chat with him again. I wish him and Louise all the best in their new house and home they are building up in the St. Francisville area. I asked Louise if they were going to have a phone installed, and she said "yes", but with a very private number.

One Episcopalian to another: Where did my Church Go?

This little question is whispered between faithful church attending Episcopalians more than we know. Maybe before the service, maybe afterwards, maybe at the coffee hour, maybe in a friend's home. Every one who asks this question wishes for some type of clarity on where their church has gone. They are not necessarily talking about the church they are currently attending. They are really asking about the church they grew up in, the church they were baptized in, where they received Confirmation and took their first communion. It was a safe place, a place where you were taught right from wrong, where the Rector was kindly and concerned about you. And it was a place where you felt that you were like everyone else and everyone else was like you.

And now you don't have that feeling. You read of things going on in your church that you would never have ever spoken of. Your church supports abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and condemns you if you don't support them too.

So you ask, what happened to my church?

Herewith, is a little history about what happened to your church.

Exodus from The Episcopal Church

The actions of The Episcopal Church (TEC) at last summer's triennial convention combined with recent episcopal elections of a non-celibant lesbian Bishop-Suffragan in Los Angeles and liberal revisionist Bishops in the Diocese of Louisiana and Upper South Carolina, have strengthened predictions of a exodus of members and whole churches from the denomination.

And here we see exactly that. The largest single parish in the Diocese of South Carolina, under orthodox Bishop Mark Lawrence, has decided to move to the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). No doubt these will continue and may accelerate. One can wonder what losses the above dios of Louisiana and USC will experience?

Heard on the street yesterday

My wife and I were blessed to be in Baton Rouge yesterday to attend a reception for outgoing Bishop Charles Jenkins and his wife Louise. First, we stopped by St. Luke's Church (where I used to serve as deacon) and were spiritually nourished by a beautiful Advent Lessons and Carols service. Fr. Brien Koehler, et al, are doing tremendously good work at my old church and it is heart warming to see.

While at the reception for Bs. Jenkins, a former parishioner of mine pulled me into a corner to talk about the Diocese of Louisiana and the Bishop-elect. She asked me plain and simple, "are we in trouble?"

To which I simply replied: "yes"

Best wishes to Charles and Louise as they start their new life in a new home tucked away in one of the most beautiful areas of south Louisiana.

Diocese of Upper South Carolina takes a hard left

Over the weekend The Diocese of Upper South Carolina elected Andrew Waldo from Minnesota as its next bishop. Following in the path of Louisiana (Morris Thompson elected last week), DUSC has decided to jump on the liberal Revisionist train to hell. Like Thompson, Waldo is "charming" and a people person who talks in generalities about a new church and a new way.

Like Thompson, Waldo was elected on the third ballot. This means support gathered quickly to winnow the field of candidates to the final choice.

The "new way" is banking on their "gospel" filling the pews with those who apparantly don't like the "old gospel" and are waitng for a more inclusive church to come along. On the surface it is appealing: all that old talk about sin, repentence is replaced with a gospel which essentially says "you are good no matter your walk in life because God created you". And as the church, we won't talk to you about sin, rather we will bless your walk in life.

Visual Feast: The Ceremonial of the Liturgy

In the Roman, Eastern Orthodox, and high-Church Anglo-Catholic traditions, there is a genuine and deep respect for the ceremonial of the liturgy. In these traditions, the omnipotence, the majesty, the mighty character of almighty God is conveyed through the senses and the soul by virture of the ceremonial.

The video clip from St. Matthew's is but one example of this mode of divine revelation.

Enjoy.