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| ELCA's new presiding bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, will be another Jefferts-Schori, but WELS and LCMS will continue to follow Mammon rather than the Holy Trinity. |
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=18024#.UjhdoNJtiSo
The Paradox of Episcopal Pansexuality
Declining income, UTOgate, Islamic intrusion, recent court decision reversals reveal a church in free fall
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
September 15, 2013
The paradox is startling if not exactly noticeable or obvious to Episcopal Church liberals. It is this.The more the Episcopal Church caves into and embraces the culture of pansexuality, the more their churches continue to wither and shrink. Millenials, a group most churches don't have much idea of how to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ, are almost completely tolerant of homosexuality, and homosexual marriage. They are not shocked by the medical facts of homosexual behavior; they see the issue as one of equality and justice. They do not reflect on the cosmology or ontology of gay marriage; live and let live is their motto.
Those who are orthodox in faith and morals must now admit that they have lost the culture wars on gay behavior, gay marriage in society and, tragically, most mainline Protestant churches.
The sexual blitzkrieg has been swift. The Maginot line of traditional moral values has been breached. The collapse of a biblical worldview is now almost complete.
Ironically, liberal and revisionist Episcopal dioceses are not reaping the rewards of their slavish capitulation to these behaviors. Gays and lesbians are not rushing in to fill the pews. Thousands of small parishes continue to die with the gay community blithely uninterested in all the heartfelt efforts to include them. More than a third of all Episcopal parishes are now without a full time priest, overseen by part time or non-stipendiary priests. Unless there is a turnaround, that figure will reach 50% in the next few years.
At the most, TEC has about 2000 gays and lesbians, including a handful of bishops, but their influence is disproportionate to their numbers. They have seized the reins of ecclesiastical power and twisted the church into a sexual pretzel.
The truth is there never was a grass roots movement for homosexual acceptance like the civil rights movement or women's vote. It was started by a small band of strident homosexual imperial elitists in the church who convinced a group of bishops starting with Edmond L. Browning and his "no outcasts" motto carried on by Frank Griswold who pushed even harder in the name of ongoing "conversation". It morphed into "Indaba" under Jefferts Schori proclaiming to the entire world that sodomy was good and right in the eyes of God.
The unsuccessful lobbying of global south Anglican leaders proved TEC's downfall and its ultimate estrangement from the Global South as well as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Orthodox Anglicans have stood united, unconvinced by the pleadings of the North American Episcopal Church and Church of England homosexuals that God now approves of what the Scriptures have never approved.
At the local level, however, thousands of small parishes with less than 70 members increasingly held together by non-stipendiary priests, the issue is not discussed; the dozens of resolutions passed at General Convention lie fallow, unread and unacted upon. In short, most parishes don't care what goes on at the national level. They only care about what goes on in their parish and the importance of the altar guild matters more than they care about Bishop Gene Robinson's outrage at what he perceives to be global homophobia. Most parishes don't want to talk about sex, especially as the average age of an Episcopalian approaches 65. They are more concerned with their own survival and whether or not the church remains open long enough for them to be buried in the parish's columbarium. While most of the older generation has "gone along" with the Episcopal Church's changed mores, many long for the older Prayer books (1929 and 1662) and mourn their loss, even as they accept what the culture and now the church sexually embraces. Go along to get along is the order of the day. Few pew sitters could make the biblical case against homosexual behavior as pulpits are now largely bereft of "sound teaching".
Katharine Jefferts Schori's incessant call to social action is largely greeted with a yawn. Most Episcopalians are willing to drop a few extra bucks in the plate, but how they live their lives remains unchanged. Most are too old to do much of anything. The Presiding Bishop's response is to suggest that God is actually pruning his church without realizing that she is one of many dead branches being pruned.
United Thank Offering Grab
However the national church's recent grab for the United Thank Offering boxes is something that resonates deeply with average Episcopalians. Even usually compliant liberals are baying at the blatant power grab by the church's leaders for its money. This might well be the straw that breaks the camel's back of "liberal" fascism.Who knows how the money, said by The Living church to be some $14 million with about $1.5 million annually coming into the church through the UTO boxes, will be spent. Despite assurances from House of Deputies President Gay Jennings that Episcopalians have nothing to fear, that life for the UTO will go on as normal, anyone who is familiar with the church's grim financial picture -- even the national headquarters facing the chopping block to pay the millions of dollars in legal fee s-- knows that this money could disappear into the bottomless law firm of David Booth Beers.
One has only to witness the restructuring going on in the church. The truth is TEC can no longer afford 815 2nd Avenue NY and it is busy renting out floors to cover its own costs. Furthermore, no one looking in from the outside is fooled by three week long general conventions every three years at some exotic location that costs several million dollars to pass resolutions most Episcopalians will ignore. They discover that these conventions are really about moving the pansexual marker down the road another mile, fools no one looking from the outside in. Who's fooling who?
The vast majority of Episcopalians are still broadly conservative. Their loyalty is to their local parish not to the national church or Jefferts Schori who will be replaced, hopefully by someone who has actually had a theological training of some note and can affirm basic doctrines of the faith. Don't count on it, however. No one following her could possibly be orthodox in faith and morals; they would not have a snowballs chance in hell of getting the nod. Think black, think gay, think diversity, but don't think inclusivity except if you're one of those groups just cited. Can you imagine a Communion Partner bishop actually becoming the next Presiding Bishop. The heavens would open and God might be heard to yell, "This is my beloved believing bishop; elect him; he has MY approval; hear ye him." It's not going to happen. The Episcopal Church will roll along on its predestined path with a new vanguard of bishops perhaps more centrist than old ideologues like Spong, Righter, Bennison, Shaw, Gepert, Griswold, Bruno et al but they will not change the direction of the church. They WILL toe the line.
Many of the old guard are now jumping ship, like Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana who pled PTSD following Katrina though he never got his feet wet. More recently, there was Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem who mysteriously resigned years before he had to because these bishops know their failing dioceses have no future without a transcendent gospel to proclaim. They long ago rolled over to the Episcopal pansexual zeitgeist and have seen the fruit of its capitulation. But a pension is a pension and a golf course is a golf course and none of them believe for a moment "that judgment begins first with the household of God". These men and women are practicing universalists for whom salvation is for all regardless of what you believe, so long as you are vaguely sincere.
Islam to the rescue
Witness the latest Episcopal outrage. This past week the Bishop of Connecticut, Ian Douglas announced that Christ Episcopal Church in Avon is being handed over to a Muslim group in the name of "interfaith partnership." The church dwindled from 110 to 35 families and had become unsustainable when 64 congregants left for safer spiritual pastures. Fr. Ron Gauss, a converted Jew who lost his property - Bishop Seabury in a legal battle with the diocese said, "It is truly a sad day, when we have to shut down a church, and 'lease' it to another religion. If the Diocese of Connecticut wanted an interfaith relationship then they needed to work with the Roman Catholics, The Lutherans (Missouri Synod, ELCA,) The Presbyterians, the Evangelicals, or Orthodox Anglicans." This is nothing more than TEC giveaways to Allah's army, he noted.This is the second time that an Episcopal diocese has sold out to Islam. The last time was in Binghamton, New York where The Church of the Good Shepherd was sold off to an Islamic Awareness Center for $50,000. The parish had declared itself independent of TEC who refused them the option to buy it.
The irony should not be missed. It was this past week that we learned that a Nigerian Anglican Archbishop was kidnapped in southern Nigeria by Islamic extremists and is being held for ransom. Note this is not Boko Haran who would have macheted and shot him on sight. These are more "moderate" Muslims who only want money. (The archbishop was later released unharmed).
At All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California recently the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) addressed the topic of radicalization in the wake of the Boston bombings. Their leaders said there is a "crisis" of "Islamophobia" in America. MPAC denounced violence but said terrorism is a response to the U.S. "aiding and abetting oppression" at the behest of the military-industrial complex. What safer place to announce this than in the gayest Episcopal parish in America complete with its own whiny lesbian priest. Islamophobia and homophobia perfect together.
So American Muslims are playing the victim card blaming "Islamophobia" in the same way gays yell and scream "homophobia" if anyone dare criticizes their behavior.
The truth is liberalism cannot defeat Islamism. Ultimately, it is forced to capitulate to it and all its demands. It's all about numbers. When Muslims are only a small percentage of the population, they are acquiescent. When they reach 40% or more, they demand Sharia Law. It's downhill from there. Witness what has happened in Egypt recently where the Muslim Brotherhood almost gained the political upper hand. In a brief civil war, some 60 Christian churches were destroyed and hundreds of Christians died defending freedom. Christians in Iran are regularly arrested on trumped up charges of evangelism. In Syria whole Christian villages have been torn apart with Assad's army freeing many of them from the clutches of Al Qaeda terrorists.
The actions of a revisionist bishop like Douglas are an affront to orthodox Episcopalians (now Anglicans) who have lost their churches in court battles with the diocese. The "Ct Six", as they were called, are history, having lost their properties and moved on leaving expensive properties to be taken over by Islamists in the name of "interfaith" alliances. But recent TEC defeats in the courts in Ft. Worth, Quincy and South Carolina indicate that the pendulum might now be swinging in the opposite direction. It is the Episcopal Church that is now on the defensive.
The circle of life for TEC is a circle in need of life support. Witness the ongoing series of discussions on the governance of The Episcopal Church where some interesting statistics have emerged that must give the hierarchy true pause.
The Executive Council Budget Subcommittee issued its report on the results of the survey on the diocesan asking formula that was sent to bishops and deputies in August, to help the committee prepare the proposed 2016-2018 triennium budget. The figures were hardly encouraging.
With a total of 221 bishops and deputies responding, some 60% believed consequences or restrictions should be imposed on dioceses that do not meet the full asking request. This is like beating a dying horse in the hope that if you hit him hard enough and long enough he'll struggle to his feet and thank you for hitting him.
Nearly 89% believe that dioceses in financial distress should have a process to seek relief from paying the full asking amount. This includes the Diocese of Newark, the home of Louie Crew the 'high priest' of sodomy, the founder of Integrity and the scourge of orthodoxy. Nearly 58% believe that the current diocesan asking formula should be reduced with only 40% believing it should remain at 19%. Do the words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN ring a bell here?
The millions of dollars that could once be found at the end of the Episcopal rainbow are no longer there. The Episcopal well is drying up with millions unnecessarily spent on litigation for properties. Mission, (the Great Commission) is not on anyone's radar screen. The average pew sitter has no idea just how bad things are. Wringing money from the faithful to pay for lawsuits even as a third of all parishes cannot even afford a full time priest should give Episcopalians pause. Apparently not. The church's leadership does whatever it wants to do with impunity. No one dares challenge Katharine Jefferts Schori, she knows too much about the lives of bishops to get rid of her.