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SAGINAW, MI — As a federal judge weighs Michigan's gay marriage ban, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan issued a statement supporting the overturn of the ban. Bishop Todd Ousley on Thursday, March 13, stated that ending the ban, which U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman may do after hearing eight days of testimony during a trial for a Hazel Park couple's case against the state, would extend “justice and equality to all of God's children.” “My own experiences with same-sex couples and the experiences in communities and congregations across our diocese have show that there is holy...

[ . . . ] . . . Christian authorities need to stop thinking and writing as though the categories of homosexual and Christian can be joined—as though the Church could tolerate or accommodate, or speak gently of, much less bless or sanctify, anything peculiar to the garment stained by the flesh that those who come to Christ throw off in their baptism. In that baptism we become penitents, and as such divided from our sins. St. Paul tells us here that no penitent is to be named by, identified by, what he has abjured. Those injured people who have...

When evangelical preachers lose their way and turn their backs on biblical Christianity, why is it they end up in the Episcopal Church? As a preacher who traveled in the opposite direction and left the Episcopal Church 22 years ago—or I should say the Episcopal Church left me—I think I have a clue. On March 18, the Huffington Post reported that Rob Bell, the one-time evangelical pastor who rejected the core of Christian faith, has endorsed homosexual marriage. Where was that endorsement made? Surprise, surprise: Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal Cathedral of the Diocese of California. Grace Cathedral is located in...

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the Church of England on Tuesday said a vote last month that struck down proposals to allow women to become bishops had been "deeply painful", but that Christianity was still relevant in Britain despite falling numbers of believers. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who leads the global 80-million-strong Anglican Communion, said in his Christmas day sermon that the answer to the question of whether Christianity had "had its day" was a "resounding no". The Church of England narrowly voted against allowing women bishops last month - to the dismay of Williams and Prime Minister...

The Church of England's governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue. On Wednesday, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron told the Church of England to "get on with it" and reverse the decision now, not five years from now. And the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said on Wednesday: "We have – to put it very bluntly – a lot of explaining to do," he said. "Whatever the motivations...

According to a new study by the Pew Forum, Protestants are, for the first time in history, not a majority in the United States of America. I don’t think that’s anything for evangelical Protestants, or anyone else, to panic about. Several years ago, I pointed out here that studies were showing a declining Protestant majority, and projections were being made for this very reality. Now, the surveys says we have a 48 percent plurality of Protestants. I wasn’t frantic about that several years ago, and I’m still not. When working toward our “God and country” badges, my childhood Boy Scout...

Hitler's Muslim Nephew Comes to New York September 24, 2007 FrontPageMagazine.com Kenneth R. Timmerman What was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinking? Apparently the former Democrat believed that escorting Iran’s Hitler-wannabe president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the site of the September 11 memorial at Ground Zero would generate a terrific photo op. “Here I am with world leaders,” that type of thing. After all, Bloomberg has already made his appearance at the “World Leaders Forum” at Columbia University, so he was in the zone. And last year, U.S. News & World Report crowned him as one of America’s “best leaders.” But...

A 65-year-old Episcopal priest has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a boy when he served at a Somerville church. The Rev. Paul LaCharite of Boston was arraigned Monday in Somerville District Court on a charge of assault with intent to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. His bail was set at $10,000. A judge ordered him to wear a GPS monitor, stay away from his now-adult accuser and have no unsupervised contact with children. Prosecutors say the boy and his family attended St. James Episcopal Church, where LaCharite allegedly began in...

BOB FAW, Correspondent: In Bladensburg, Maryland, the Catholic service unfolds smoothly, a comfortable routine for priests and parishioners alike.But one year ago, members of St. Luke’s parish were devout, devoted Episcopalians. This is the first Episcopal church in the country to convert to Catholicism under Vatican rules designed to attract disaffected Episcopalians.If 20 years ago I had said you’re destined to be a Catholic priest, how would you have answered?FATHER MARK LEWIS: I would have thought you were crazy.FAW: Under a 2009 decree by Pope Benedict XVI, St. Luke’s, like all Episcopal churches that choose to convert, gets to retain...

The first thing to be said about Dr. Rowan Williams is that he is by common consent a subtle theologian, a sensitive pastoral priest, and a genuinely good and holy man, because a great many less flattering things will be said about him in the next few months, some of them further down this column. Dr. Williams announced last Friday that he intended to resign at the end of the year as Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore as spiritual leader of the Church of England and, by extension, of the 77 million–strong Anglican Communion around the world. His announcement came...

Just as the atheist Richard Dawkins discloses he doubts God's non-existence, Richard Holloway, Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, asserts his doubt in the Deity's existence. The atheist and the bishop have wound up at the same place. In the case of the world's most outspoken non-believer, the step is progression, but in the case of the leader in the Scottish Episcopal Church, the step is regression. "I can't be sure God does not exist," said Dawkins, crusader against belief in God, during a debate with the Archbishop of Canterbury February 24. The next day Holloway was quoted as saying he can't...

More than 400 people witnessed the first same-sex civil union in Delaware on New Year's Day, a ceremony one guest called "absolutely beautiful." Lawyers Lisa Goodman and Drewry Fennell were joined in the union by the Rev. Patricia Downing, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Wilmington, where the afternoon ceremony took place.

What does the Bible actually say about "gay marriage"? That question is the title of a a recent op-ed piece in the Huffington Post written by Lee Jefferson, a visiting assistant professor of religion at Centre College. According to Jefferson the answer is: "Nothing," or at least "Nothing negative." Jefferson used the recent passage of "gay marriage" by the New York legislature as a springboard from which to denigrate appeals to the Bible against homosexual practice. I will use Jefferson's article as a springboard from which to answer the question that he and many others have raised. It is of...

[caption id="attachment_5697" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Hank Millstein"][/caption]   Hank Millstein is a practising Roman Catholic in San Francisco. He also serves on the National Committee and the Religion Commission of the Communist Party USA. To Hank, Easter isn't about the Resurrection, or even Easter Bunnies. Its about revolution, and "its already on its way". From the latest Peoples World Easter isn't about Easter bunnies - or even about going to church in Easter bonnets. The real message of Easter speaks powerfully to everyone, whatever their religious belief or unbelief.Easter got started when, after the revolutionary preacher Jesus was executed by the...

NEW YORK (AFP) – Here's heavy metal music that won't give you a headache: a French-built organ with more than 6,000 steel pipes that has just started thundering from a New York church. The organ, built by master artisans in France, draws on centuries of French organ tradition, creating an authentic Baroque sound that other makers just can't copy, according to organist Dennis Keene. "It reminds you of Versailles at the king's arrival. We don't have this kind of sounds in the US," Keene enthused. The instrument, comprising a staggering 6,183 pipes in 111 ranks, will be officially inaugurated in...

Across the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, congregants and clergy today reacted with heavy hearts to word that Bishop V. Gene Robinson is retiring. Robinson, 63, whose consecration seven years ago as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church divided the Anglican Communion worldwide, yesterday announced at the annual convention of the New Hampshire diocese that he plans to retire in January 2013, short of the mandatory 72-year-old retirement age for Episcopal bishops. He cited death threats and the considerable strain that the worldwide rift has placed on him, his family, and the church.

Anglican leaders in the Global South have been encouraged to reconsider their relationships with The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada "until it becomes clear that there is genuine repentance." Some of our Provinces are already in a state of broken and impaired Communion with The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada. Their continued refusal to honor the many requests made of them ... have brought discredit to our witness," said some 130 Anglicans from 20 provinces at the conclusion of the Fourth Global South to South Encounter in Singapore. They condemned the two...

According to numbers released in December by the Episcopal Church, that denomination’s membership dropped by 3 percent in 2008. That doesn’t sound like much, but I am a bit of a demographics junkie, plus I researched and examined a lot of church membership and growth data in writing my book A Lover’s Quarrel With The Evangelical Church. I can tell you that I have never heard of a major denomination that has ever lost 3 percent of its membership in a single year. What’s even more interesting about these numbers is that the Episcopal Church now says it has only...

A "Progressive" Anglican church in Auckland New Zealand paid to have this billboard placed near their parish. Here are some excerpts written by the Vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy on the church's website touting what he did. ________________ To make the news at Christmas it seems a priest just needs to question the literalness of a virgin giving birth. Many in society mistakenly think that to challenge literalism is to challenge the norms of Christianity. What progressive interpretations try to do however is remove the supernatural obfuscation and delve into the deeper spiritual truth of this festival. Christian fundamentalism believes a...

ROME (CNS) -- Dissident theologian Father Hans Kung criticized Pope Benedict XVI for his recent opening to discontented Anglicans, charging the pope was "fishing" for the most conservative Christians to the detriment of the larger church. Father Kung said the invitation to traditionalist Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church went against years of ecumenical work on the part of both churches, calling it instead "a nonecumenical piracy of priests." The pope's basic message is: "Traditionalists of all churches, unite under the dome of St. Peter's!" Father Kung wrote in an editorial Oct. 28 in the Rome daily La Repubblica....