The Episcopal Struggle
Here is a rather comprehensive explanation of what's at stake in the internecine disagreements plaguing the Episcopal Church.
It was interesting to read how graciously Bishop Peter James Lee of Virginia has treated the conservative parishes, because the sort of tolerance he has extended has been very much the exception, rather than the rule.
More typical is the attitude of the Church's current presiding bishop. According to the linked piece:
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in an e-mail response to a request for an interview that such splits reflect a polarized society, as well as the “anxiety” and “discomfort” that many people feel when they are asked to live with diversity.
That pretty much typifies the way the liberals have treated the conservatives within the church. Unlike Bishop Lee, who has acknowledged that people of good will can disagree, the unbelievably arrogant Schori is insisting -- as many of her ideological brethren do -- that conservatives resist "change" within the church not because of valid theological objections, but because of hateful bigotry.
Her attitude is simplistic and insulting -- and it helps explain how matters in the Church have come to such a pass.
It was interesting to read how graciously Bishop Peter James Lee of Virginia has treated the conservative parishes, because the sort of tolerance he has extended has been very much the exception, rather than the rule.
More typical is the attitude of the Church's current presiding bishop. According to the linked piece:
The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in an e-mail response to a request for an interview that such splits reflect a polarized society, as well as the “anxiety” and “discomfort” that many people feel when they are asked to live with diversity.
That pretty much typifies the way the liberals have treated the conservatives within the church. Unlike Bishop Lee, who has acknowledged that people of good will can disagree, the unbelievably arrogant Schori is insisting -- as many of her ideological brethren do -- that conservatives resist "change" within the church not because of valid theological objections, but because of hateful bigotry.
Her attitude is simplistic and insulting -- and it helps explain how matters in the Church have come to such a pass.
posted by LadybugUSA at 3:40 PM
5 Comments:
As stated before in earlier posts on the topic, the United Church of Christ, of which I am currently a member, is dealing with the same problem. In a move that shows it's lack of feeling for it's more conservative members, the UCC has recently welcomed into the fold a Texas congregation considered to be the largest gay congregation in the world. Since it's last Synod, wherein the UCC passed a resolution to support gay marriage, the UCC has lost over 100 congregations that insist the Synod resolution was the reason they left. I suspect more will leave as they learn of the Texas aquisition. Very sad that a denomination that prides itself on diversity forces such a contentious position on all it's members without regard to opposing opinions.
Please, Carol, consider this your open-ended invitation to cross the Tiber. There's really only one divorce separating us.
How very few Christians there are in America.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
40 years ago, when the Prayer Book was first being changed, my father left the Episcopal church for an Anglican one. He said -- this is only the first step, it will end up with women priests and bishops and homosexual priests and bishops.
People said he was a crackpot, a paranoid, even a segregationist. (This last, even though half the Nigerian immigrants in the city went to our church.)
So here we are in 2006 - women priests and bishops and homosexual priests and bishops - and the church is breaking up.
Diane,
Based on previous comments by you, I doubt you'd know a Christian if he was praying right in front of you. Your idea of what a Christian should look like is exactly the type of distortions that has caused the rifts we see in both the Episcopal and UCC denominations. There are bascially two types: those who view things from their own perspective (including Scripture), and those who view things from God's perspective (as explained in Scripture). Those of the first group tend to condescend toward the second due to the absolutes to which they no longer subscribe. It is not logical to say that someone is not acting Christian because they adhere to Scripture. At the same time, it isn't logical to say that these "progressives" are "more" Christian when they are blatantly straying from Christian teaching. But it is the least logical that someone who reports for "Hell's Newspaper" would understand such things.
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