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The Episcopal Church filed suit Tuesday to regain control of Fort Worth-area church buildings and other property held by a breakaway contingent led by Bishop Jack Iker. "We're stewards of property that has been given for generations to the Episcopal Church. We can't just let people walk off with it," said Kathleen Wells, chancellor for the reorganized Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. The suit was filed in Tarrant County district court and names Iker as a defendant, among others. -snip-

WASHINGTON -- The Obama family attended Easter services Sunday at St. John's Episcopal Church across from the White House -- but still have not picked a new spiritual home. In what was probably the most painful episode of President Obama's quest for the White House, the Obama family quit Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ at the end of May 2008. Obama dropped his membership in the church where he was married and his children baptized because of swelling controversies involving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright peaking as Obama was closing in on the Democratic primary nomination over Hillary Clinton. The...

The announcement that the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, has chosen a lesbian, pro-abortion president to lead the seminary has sent shock waves around the Anglican Communion. The appointment of Katherine Hancock Ragsdale highlights a week that also saw TEC bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester replace a reading from the New Testament with a reading from the Quran at St. Paul's Marquette, Michigan. One wonders what Episcopal boundaries and barriers have yet to be crossed that the dying embers of historic Christianity could possibly fan into life. That the Diocese of Massachusetts has a functioning transgendered priest complete with a...

When it comes to church, President Obama can't avoid trouble. As the First Family attended an Easter Sunday service at St. John's Church across from the White House Sunday, the Rev. Luis Leon unleashed a vicious and unholy attack on New York. He insulted the Yankees. With the Obamas sitting in the sixth row, Leon told congregants that "baseball season has started" and that the church's drummer is a huge Yankees fan. Leon then said he wanted to remind everybody that the Orioles have beaten the Yankees twice so far, and therefore, "The world lives in hope." "I'm a fairly...

Like millions of Americans, President Obama today put on his Sunday best and headed to church with his family. And, like millions of Americans, it was the first time in a while. The last time he went to church was a dozen Sundays ago, before he took the oath of office. In January, the president-elect told ABC News' chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulous he hadn't chosen a new church yet. "One of the things that Michelle and I will be doing is probably visiting some churches and seeing what's comfortable," he said in an interview broadcast on ABC's "This Week."...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and his family are celebrating Easter at St. John's Episcopal Church across from the White House.

On a stormy Sunday morning in Charlotte, N.C., latecomers were still shaking off wet umbrellas and streaming into a rented chapel at a local Catholic high school as Anglican minister Filmore Strunk led the congregation in reading Psalm 19: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold." For this congregation, those words ring especially true: Less than 15 months ago, the 300-member group was worshipping with more than 1,000 other parishioners in a 22,000-square-foot, gothic-style sanctuary on a prime piece of property in a growing...

Thomas Shaw, the Bishop of Massachusetts: “I am thrilled with the appointment of Katharine Ragsdale as the president and dean of EDS. She brings a wealth of small parish ministry to her new position and it is critical that the new president and dean be able to train and form parish priests for the growth of progressive parishes across the country. She brings a wealth of experience, talent and creativity to this new position.” Dr. Angela Bauer-Levesque, acting academic dean: “I am elated to have the Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale join EDS as its first woman president and dean....

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Ann Holmes Redding has what could be called a crisis of faiths. For nearly 30 years, Redding has been an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. Her priesthood ended Wednesday when she was defrocked. The reason? For the past three years Redding has been both a practicing Christian and a Muslim. "Had anyone told me in February 2006 that I would be a Muslim before April rolled around, I would have shaken my head in concern for the person's mental health," Redding recently told a crowd at a signing for a book she co-authored on religion....

How radically pro-abortion is Katie Rags? This radically pro-abortion: And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion - there is not a tragedy in sight -- only blessing. The ability to enjoy God's good gift of sexuality without compromising one's education, life's work, or ability to put to use God's gifts and call is simply blessing. These are the two things I want you, please, to remember - abortion is a blessing 254415_f520.jpg...

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember – abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done... The announcement on Monday, March 30 that The Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale was appointed as the sixth and newest president of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge, MA, has orthodox and pro-life Episcopalians shaking their heads. Ragsdale, who is an outspoken advocate...

There are some people who won't ever leave the Episcopal Church. For example, they may have ancestors buried in the church yard and just can't bear the thought of going anywhere else no matter what. Some joined the Church for its bricks and mortar, so they're going to stay with them. And there are many in the Episcopal Church who actually believe the doctrines that it now espouses (however foolish that may be). But many–perhaps even the majority–of those currently attending the Episcopal Church disagree with its new doctrines and yet they continue attending. This is perplexing to Evangelicals in...

Even as a Brown University student, Ann Holmes Redding was never far away from controversy. She was barely into her freshman year in 1968 when she joined a black student walkout to get the university to admit more blacks — a move that resulted in a near quadrupling of the number of black students to about 250 the following year. And after students staged a strike that effectively closed down the university to show their opposition to the Vietnam War, Redding was part of a “blue ribbon” delegation from Brown that went in the spring of 1970 to Washington to...

A Sudanese priest recently had an eye-opening introduction to the U.S. Episcopal Church. John, a clergyman from the Episcopal Church of Sudan, sent an inquiry to the "justice missioner" on the website of the Diocese of Newark. The justice missioner responded to John's email and informed him that her focus was advocacy for people with disabilities, people of color, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community. Although fluent in English, John found this language incomprehensible. He knew Americans talked openly about homosexuality, but he was bewildered by the terms "transgender" and "intersex." John asked the justice missioner if...

ROME (CNS) -- If using dolls to practice the baptismal ritual is a humbling experience for seminarians, one can imagine what it was like for someone who already had baptized hundreds of babies. Father Jeffrey N. Steenson, the former Episcopal bishop of the Rio Grande, prepared for his ordination to the Catholic priesthood with seminarians from Rome's Pontifical North American College.

I use the phrase "Strategically-Minded" deliberately, for that's what I am. I'm a conservative Episcopalian, staying in TEC, and interested in doing more than just sitting around and saying "ain't it awful." Here's my question. If there were to be a day-long [no more than six hours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.] gathering/meeting of like-minded conservative Episcopalians who are staying in The Episcoapl Church for the forseeable future, and who are interested in discussion, sharing of issues and struggles and solutions, and fellowship together, would you be interested in attending such a gathering? If so, please email me using...

Washington, DC—An Episcopal priest who has received a Buddhist lay ordination has been elected bishop in the Diocese of Northern Michigan. The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who has served in the diocese since 2001, was elected on the first ballot and received 88 percent of the delegate votes. *** Forrester, who has been identified by his former bishop Jim Kelsey as ‘walking the path of Christianity and Zen Buddhism together, is not the first Episcopal clergyman to practice dual faiths. In 2004, Pennsylvania priest Bill Melnyk was revealed to be a druid; while in 2007 Seattle priest Ann Holmes Redding...

A two-year-old church property dispute between Episcopalians and Anglicans appears to be on its way to the Virginia Supreme Court. On Feb. 3, The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia together filed an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court hoping to overturn a Dec. 19 decision by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows in favor of the Anglican District of Virginia, known as ADV. On Feb. 10, the Episcopal appeal was followed by a motion asking for an exception to the Supreme Court's limit of 35 pages in appeal cases. The property dispute originally arose as a result of...

BabyBlue has the story here and here. The entire resolution reads as follows: R-4a Integrity of Committing Relationships RESOLVED, that the Diocese of Virginia recognizes our responsibility to respond to the pastoral needs of our faithful gay and lesbian members in a spirit of love, compassion and respect, and in doing so seek to fulfill our baptismal commitment to respect the dignity of every human being; and be it further RESOLVED, that accordingly the 214th Annual Council of the Diocese of Virginia affirms the inherent integrity of and blessededness of committed Christian relationships between two adult persons, when those relationships...

Members of All Souls Anglican Church had to walk away from their home in 2007, after the Episcopal Diocese said they could no longer worship there. Now the diocese is walking away from the empty 5.3-acre All Souls campus in Mandarin, putting it up for sale for $2.8 million. But the former occupants say "no thanks" to coming back as they hone in on a new, permanent home nearby.

US Presiding Bishop deposes Church of England Bishop Wednesday, 28th January 2009. 12:01pm By: George Conger. The Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church has announced that she has deposed a bishop of the Church of England from the ordained ministry. On Jan 23, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced that she had accepted the voluntary renunciation of ministry given to her by the Rt Rev Henry Scriven, Mission Director for South America of the newly merged South American Mission Society (SAMS) – Church Mission Society (CMS) and removed him from the ranks of the ordained ministry. Under the terms...

The Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, who has been bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia for 24 years, announced today that he will step down Oct. 1 to make way for a successor who was named in 2007. The diocese, which covers northern and eastern Virginia and includes 80,000 members, is one of the largest in the Episcopal Church, the U.S.-based branch of the global Anglican Communion. Starting this fall the diocese will be overseen by the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, 50, an Alabama native who has worked in dioceses in the South and is known for his work...

The Rev. Canon J. Edwin Bacon Jr. from Southern California has made it no secret that he supports gays and lesbians and same-sex marriage. But his recent pro-gay comments on the Oprah Winfrey show have stunned even the popular talk show host herself. "Being gay is a gift from God," Bacon declared in an episode that aired Jan. 7. Appearing shocked, Winfrey responded, "Well, you are the first minister I’ve ever heard say, 'Being gay is a gift from God,' I can tell you that." Bacon's controversial statement sparked a fiery debate on Winfrey's website, leading the talk show host...

Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, gave the opening prayer for the inaugural festivities in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. Ignoring the theme of unity set for the inauguration, Robinson gave not a prayer but a political speech, one worthy of a college sophomore hot to tweak his parents. Robinson explained his non-Christian "prayer" by saying he thought previous inaugural prayers were "aggressively Christian." In hope of excluding no one, he excluded Christ. Except, he mentioned God, so he left the athiests out in the cold. Oh, well. By Robinson's own logic, he should not have been allowed to pray...

President-elect Barack Obama promised to make his inaugural events the most inclusive ever -- and he is making good on his promise. Just over two weeks after gay rights activists condemned his choice of Saddleback pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the ceremony itself, the President-elect and his inaugural committee announced the choice of Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly-homosexual Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, to open the mass event at the Lincoln Memorial with prayer. Predictably, the committee insisted that the invitation has nothing to do with the furor over naming Warren, who angered homosexual activists and their...

THAT WAS a nice save by President-elect Obama to invite Gene Robinson, the openly gay New Hampshire Episcopal bishop, to give a prayer at the pre-inauguration celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. Obama riled many people, including me, by inviting mega-church pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration. Warren endorsed the successful California ballot measure to ban gay marriage, and suggests that evangelicals who believe life begins at conception consider abortion a holocaust. (snip) It is more than a step. Though it was secondary news, it was a leap beyond Robinson's sexual orientation. Robinson will not deliver an...

<p>January 13, 2009 Warren Applauds Obama's Invitation to Gay Bishop Sarah Pulliam Rick Warren complimented Barack Obama's invitation to openly gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson to pray at the inaugural kick off event on Sunday.</p> <p>“President-elect Obama has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground,"</p>

US President-elect Barack Obama has invited gay bishop Gene Robinson to lead prayers at the opening of celebrations next Sunday leading up to his inauguration next week. The invitation will go some way to placate liberal critics in the US who condemned his invitation to the anti-gay evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration itself. Bishop Robinson was himself among those who attacked Mr Obama over the choice of Rick Warren, describing it as a "slap in the face". Bishop Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 was met with worldwide protests from the conservative wing of the...

(January 12, 2009)-- The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado has ended its so-called "period of restraint" on ordaining homosexual priests. Bishop Robert O'Neill ordained Mary Catherine Volland to the priesthood during a ceremony on Saturday at St. John's Cathedral. Volland, a longtime Colorado resident and partnered lesbian, had been a candidate for ordination in the Diocese of Minnesota. She will serve at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver. The issue of gay priests has splintered the church nationwide. Stokes, spokeswoman for the 30,000-member Colorado diocese, said O'Neill had suspended gay ordination out of sensitivity for church factions strongly opposed to it....

NEW YORK – Barack Obama and his message of change will get a ringing endorsement on Inauguration Day from 12 bells at a church near ground zero. "Change ringing is a way that we express the joy of our community, and I think much of the nation is joyous about this inauguration," said Jeremy Bates, a Manhattan lawyer and former Obama campaign worker who will be among the 12 ringers pulling on sturdy ropes in the church's bell tower to mark the historic occasion. Change ringing is far more common outside the United States. Most cathedrals in England have sets...

US president-elect Barack Obama has invited the world's first openly gay Anglican bishop to offer the prayer that will mark the beginning of the inauguration festivities. In an email sent to a US blog yesterday the Right Rev Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, said it would be an "enormous honour" to offer prayers for the country and its new president at the Lincoln Memorial. He wrote that he was "humbled and overjoyed" at the news and took the invitation as a sign of Obama's commitment to being "president of all the people".

What did you expect of the un-Christian clergyman? Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was "horrified" at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.�"I am very clear," he said, "that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won't be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer."Bishop Robinson said he might address the prayer to "the God of our many understandings," language that he said he learned from...

Gay bishop to kickoff Obama inauguration13th January 2009, 9:21 WST A gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, is to give the opening prayer at festivities to kick off US president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration, the organising committee says. The selection of Robinson for the opening party on Sunday came after weeks of criticism over Obama's choice of conservative pastor Rick Warren to deliver the religious invocation on Tuesday, January 20, the day Obama is sworn in to office. Robinson, who is the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, will pray at the star-studded event to be broadcast on national television...

Associated Press Concord, N.H. (AP) - The first openly gay Episcopal bishop will offer a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural event for President-elect Barack Obama. The selection of New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson for Sunday's event follows weeks of criticism from gay-rights groups over Obama's decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Jan. 20 inauguration. Warren backed the ban on same-sex marriage that passed in his home state of California on the November ballot. Robinson said last month the choice of Warren was like a slap in the face. In an...

CONCORD, N.H. – The first openly gay Episcopal bishop will offer a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural event for President-elect Barack Obama. The selection of New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson for Sunday's event follows weeks of criticism from gay-rights groups over Obama's decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Jan. 20 inauguration. Warren backed the ban on same-sex marriage that passed in his home state of California on the November ballot.

PITTSBURGH - The Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh is asking the court to secure $20 million in assets it says were wrongfully taken by conservative parishes that chose to breakaway from the liberal diocese.

San Francisco (AP) -- The state's high court has prohibited three Southern California parishes who left the U.S. Episcopal Church over its ordination of gay ministers from retaining ownership of their church buildings and property. In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that the property belongs to the Episcopal Church because the parishes agreed to abide by the mother church's rules, which include specific language about property ownership.

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. - The Vicar of St. John's Episcopal Church in North Augusta stepped down Sunday. He says it is because he does not agree with the direction the National Church is taking. Now dozens of his congregants are following him to a new church and new denomination. -snip- Now much of Hartley's congregation is following him to The Church of the Holy Trinity which is forming under the Anglican Church in North America but it is far from easy especially for St. Johns older members.

A Newport Beach parish split from the U.S. Episcopal church because of a gay bishop. The state high court rules that 'the local church did not have the right to take the church property with it.' Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles -- The California Supreme Court decided unanimously today that churches that break away from a national denomination may not take the church assets with them. In a ruling written by Justice Ming W. Chin, the state high court said the property of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach is owned by the national church, not the...

It is increasingly difficult to escape the fact that mainline Protestantism is in a state of disintegration. As attendance declines, internal divisions increase. Take, for instance, the situation of the Episcopal Church in the United States. The Episcopal Church’s problem is far more theological than it is moral—a theological poverty that is truly monumental and that stands behind the moral missteps recently taken by its governing bodies. Every denomination has its theological articles and books of theology, its liturgies and confessional statements. Nonetheless, the contents of these documents do not necessarily control what we might call the “working theology” of...

The bishops of the Church of England have agreed to admit women to their ranks in a compromise that also aims to accommodate traditionalists. Under the plan, female bishops would be equal to their male colleagues, The Times of London reports. But the church would also have a class of subordinate "flying bishops" to serve parishes who do not accept women's ordination as priests. Several churches within the worldwide Anglican communion ordain women, including the Episcopal Church in the United States, which began in the 1970s and now has a female presiding bishop. The Australian church recently consecrated its first...

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5). The world settles into winter, at least in the northern hemisphere, and life to many seems increasingly bleak. Foreclosures, layoffs, government bailouts and financial failures, continuing war on two fronts, terrorist attacks, murders of some identified only by their faith -- this world is in abundant need of light. We know light that is not overcome by darkness, for God has come among us in human flesh. Born in poverty to a homeless couple, to a people long under occupation, Jesus is human and divine...

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Nearly a dozen conservative church congregations in Virginia have won a lawsuit in which they sought to split from the U.S. Episcopal Church in a dispute over theology and homosexuality. The final rulings came Friday from a Fairfax County judge who said the departing congregations are allowed under Virginia law to keep their church buildings and other property as they leave the Episcopal Church and realign under the authority of conservative Anglican bishops from Africa. Several previous rulings had also gone in favor of the departing congregations. The diocese said it will appeal. Eleven Virginia congregations...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has joined seven other dioceses in passing a resolution asking the church to let lesbians as well as homosexual men become bishops. The vote at the diocesan convention rejected the Episcopal Church's de facto moratorium on electing homosexual bishops since its 2003 consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who lives with his same-sex partner. The resolution will be considered at the Episcopal Church's national convention next July. The Los Angeles diocese also expressed support for homosexual "marriage" with the creation of the "Sacramental Blessing for a Life-long Covenant."

L.A. Episcopal Diocese Wants Gays to be Bishops Sunday, December 7, 2008 11:31 AM RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has joined seven other dioceses in passing a resolution asking the church to let gays and lesbians become bishops. The vote Friday at the church's 113th annual Diocesan Convention rejected the Episcopal Church's de facto moratorium on the election of gay or lesbian bishops. The resolution will be forwarded for consideration at the July 2009 national convention in Anaheim.

Tom Williamson prayed, bowed, sang, clapped and rejoiced during a recent Anglican prayer service in Wheaton. But this was no ordinary ceremony. About 500 conservative Anglicans from across the United States, Canada and Africa gathered Wednesday to celebrate the formation of a new Anglican province created because of the alienation many feel toward the liberal stance of the Episcopal Church. "My wife and I thought it was important to be here today," Williamson said. "It's a very momentous occasion." Just before the prayer service, conservative leaders held a press conference announcing the formation of the new province they are calling...

WHEATON, Ill. — Theological conservatives upset by the liberal views of the Episcopal Church are forming a rival denomination. The new Anglican Church in North America will include four Episcopal dioceses that recently split from the U.S. church, along with breakaway Anglican parishes from Canada. The announcement Wednesday in Wheaton, Ill., comes after decades of debate over what Episcopalians should believe about issues ranging from salvation to sexuality. Tensions erupted in 2003 when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop. The world Anglican Communion is a fellowship of churches with roots in the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is...

LONDON, November 24, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During his presidential campaign Barack Obama consulted repeatedly with Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual whose appointment as an Anglican bishop has divided the worldwide Anglican Communion. According to an interview published by the Times Online, a division of London's Times newspaper, Obama's campaign actively sought out Robinson, and Obama met on three separate occasions with the controversial bishop.Robinson told the Times that Obama compared his own groundbreaking candidacy as the first black nominee of a major political party to Robinson's appointment as the first Anglican bishop who lives openly with his same-sex lover."One of...

Members of the area’s largest Episcopal congregation have established a new religious corporation and purchased a former synagogue in the Town of Tonawanda, as they move ahead with plans to split from the Diocese of Western New York. =snip= St. Bartholomew’s Christian Church paid $750,000 for the 37,000-square-foot facility and expects to make another $125,000 in changes and improvements, said the Rev. Arthur W. Ward Jr., longtime rector of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. =snip= Ward and other parish clergy have asked Bishop J. Michael Garrison of the Diocese of Western New York for a transfer to the Diocese of Argentina,...

Much of the Christian world has prayed fervently and mourned grievously as members of the global Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church have suffered from the wounds against the ancient faith occasioned by the internal struggles between orthodox, heterodox and heretical members of that Christian community. Many Catholics have noted with great interest the growing number of Anglican Christians who have approached the possibility of coming into full communion with the Catholic Church. These overtures have occurred in several diverse ways; from the growth and expansion of the Anglican Use provision to the exciting overture made at the international level...