Posted on 07/01/2003 4:06:52 AM PDT by kattracks
AMHERST — If Episcopalians ratify the election of an openly gay bishop of New Hampshire at a national convention later this month, it will trigger a defection of many parishioners who prefer a more traditional style of worship, a visiting bishop of the Anglican Church in America said yesterday.
Bishop George Langberg already had scheduled visits to two of his churches in Amherst and Holderness when the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elected the Rev. Gene Robinson as bishop, a move that has caused ripples in the Episcopalian community throughout the world.
Robinson’s election must be ratified at a Minneapolis convention late in July, and Langberg said part of his message to parishes he visits is that there is a church that keeps to traditional standards that homosexuals and women should not be in the clergy and the traditional language of the King James version of the Bible should be maintained.
“Some of the public has been asleep or sheltered and didn’t realize which way their church was heading until this election,” Langberg said yesterday. “Many have been drawn into this agenda and led into acceptance of it.”
What was initially tolerance of the gay lifestyle has transformed to acceptance, in violation of scripture in the Bible’s books of Leviticus and Romans, he said. Such tolerance and movement away from the Book of Common Prayer as a roadmap for worship render the Episcopal version of Christianity as a “manmade religion,” said Langberg.
As bishop of the Anglican Church in America, Langberg presides over seven New Hampshire parishes as well as others throughout New England and is the longtime rector of St. Elizabeth Church in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. On his weekend trip, he helped assist in services at St. Luke Church in Amherst and St. Michael Church in Holderness.
The Anglican Church in America began as an outcropping of a group of disenchanted clergy and laymen in 1977 called the Foundation of Concerned Churches and formally became a separate church in 1991.
“We’re already seeing substantial increases in attendance” since the election of Robinson, Langberg said. “We want to let those who are disenchanted know that we’re there.”
Langberg said the election of a man living a homosexual lifestyle with another man “has brought pain and embarrassment to the Episcopal Church.” Such a man “can’t serve as bishop of the whole church,” he said.
For homosexual church members, Langberg said his parishes offer “love and support to overcome temptation” but he admitted that “like an alcoholic, it’s tough to change.”
The movement away from the traditional prayer book, the roadmap for worship services, represents “the dumbing down of language” so as to be more accessible to the common man, he said. As a result, the traditional liturgy has been “stripped of beauty, dignity and the power of the word.”
Although Langberg said theology should be “adapted to the social climate, . . . the church is not the Kiwanis Club — it’s not man-made.”
“The Church’s role is to spread the good news of the Gospel, be true to our roots and not become part of the problem,” he said.
On the ordination of women, Langberg said that Christianity is “an apostolic ministry,” as Christ’s apostles were all men. “Over 2000 years, the clergy have been exclusively male,” he said, call the minister “an icon of Christ.”
Langberg said that straw polls indicate Bishop Robinson will be ratified at the Minneapolis convention and for those who don’t want to go along with that decision, “we’re here and available to them.”
“We have parishes in New Hampshire, and we’re setting up new ones,” he said.
For those who want to find out more about the Anglican Church in America, Langberg recommends visiting the church Web site at www.acahome.org.
Agree-This is so sad. I was Episcopal, a long time ago (Family); I cannot believe what has been happening, and how this and so many other sects have been destroyed and corrupted. Some are simply Raving Leftist Looney cults, now, like "The Holy Church Of Gun Control", or social organizations, like the (God Optional) Unitarians.
The only thing that could possible stem this tide if the Anglican Churches in the 3rd world who are largely evangelical speak to this nonsense.
This is the problem with a lot of mainline churches. They have tons of real estate and an income (from the estates of long-dead people who never dreamed what these churches would do with it) and they don't care, frankly, if the pews are empty. Just so long as there's enough to support a left-wing gay clerical "couple."
The Third World Episcopals should use the ideology of the wreckers against them - they should call for the wealthy congregations of the First World to sell all they have and give to the poor and underprivileged Christians of the Third World.
They should continually remind the wreckers of their obligation to the poor and publicly lambaste them for their hypocrisy and luxury in the face of the starving millions.
The wreckers would have no effective answer to such a campaign.
I can see why. With the English Mass, the differences between it and the old High Church fade away. With a little less veneration of Mary, and of course the presence of the Pope, the High COE I attended could have been mistaken for RC by the Easter-only attendee. Why, we even had monastaries. (Soc. of St. James.)
At historic Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia--the place where my ancestors are buried, where George Washington had a pew, where Robert E. Lee was baptized!--I was explicitly told that as a conservative I would not be welcome there. I was so angry I considered writing to the suffragan bishop. Then I remembered that the suffragan bishop was a pinko sow who devoted all her energies to suppressing conservative dissent and making everyone toe the party line.
We (Catholics) have a variety of theological reasons for maintaining an exclusively male ordained ministry (deacons, priests, bishops). But there's also the practical reason: most of the women who want to be ordained are the very last people who should be in earthly charge of any Christian church. Lesbian, communist, gaia worshipping nuns are bad enough.
You mean the "United Communist Church?"
Shows you how long I've been away ..
I didn't even know that they'd formally renamed it.
8')
I think "most" is too strong, because I know some wonderful women who are great in a pastoral role. But some nuns and other Catholic women seem to have a positive lust to be priests, in particular. If what they really want to do is minister to people's spirits and show them Christ, then they don't have to perform all the offices and rites of the priest to do that. So I think a lot of the women who are so noisily screaming for ordination as priests are merely hungry for power and trying to destroy the dicta and the missions of the Catholic Church as it has existed for two millenia. And yes, it's no coincidence that a lot of them are lesbians and other forms of leftists, nonchristians, abortion supporters, and so forth.
For a long time I'd thought that if I couldn't endure what's been going on in the Episcopal Church I'd become Catholic, because I love the Catholic Church and the hero pope. But now I'm in a splendid nondenominational church filled with joyous people of every conceivable race, ethnic group, and religious background. Christ is preached there and the sermons are so powerful and meaningful that the church is growing at a log rate. This may be the future of religion in America--a polarization between the dying old churches and the energetic, Spirit-breathed new ones.
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