Posted on 06/20/2006 12:59:42 PM PDT by Abathar
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Episcopal clergy and lay delegates Tuesday rejected a demand from fellow Anglicans that they temporarily stop electing gay bishops, leaving little chance the proposal could be revived at a national church meeting.
Anglican leaders, angered by the 2003 consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, had asked the Episcopalians pass a moratorium — at least for now — on homosexuals leading dioceses.
But in a complex balloting system, a majority of the Episcopal House of Deputies voted against the measure, which church leaders had seen as critical to keeping the embattled Anglican Communion together.
The critical debate in the Episcopal Church came on a day when another American Protestant denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), coincidentally planned to decide on whether to allow leeway on the ordination of gay clergy and lay elders and deacons.
Mainline Protestant groups, including the Methodists and the largest U.S. Lutheran branch, have been struggling for decades over the traditional Christian prohibition on gay sex as lesbians and gays push for full inclusion in their churches. The issue has frequently dominated debate at national Protestant assemblies.
The Episcopal General Convention ends Wednesday, and the House of Bishops could still try to resurrect the ban on gay bishops. But such a measure would still need the approval of the very same deputies who have now rejected it.
The Anglican church I attend occasionally is just going to get more and more conservative and separate from the rest of the church. And that's fine with me.
So does this mean the World Wide Anglican Communion divests itself from the Episcopal church?
I saw Satan laughing with delight,
Some prefer to live in the rectory, while others prefer the rectum.
Sadly we are watching the last death throws of a once great church. The liberals, GAYS and Lesbians have succeeded here just like they are trying to do to the Boy Scouts.
Oh, great. Now I'll have "American Pie" stuck in my head.
Ridding the Anglicans of this group of gnostics and heretics will strengthen teh Anglican Communion greatly.
Kind of like beating RINOS in the primaries. May lose one general election, but you'll win two more.
I guess the schism is a pretty much done deal, then.
"We don't care what the Bible says, we don't care about what the rest of the world says, we're going to make a church that is all about US!"
I wish they would change their names to the "First American Episcopal Association of the Great Mother Sophia" or some such...
If baptists ever even have this debate Ill be looking for another denomination that doesnt try to change the truth
to fit their perverts.
On a related topic on the Presbyterian Church USA convention in Birmingham, I heard a Birmingham radio report this morning that PCUSA also was going to allow flexibility in how the trinity is described or something. Instead of Father, son, holy ghost they would allow other descriptions such as mother, child and womb. I swear I heard that. I haven't found this in print and couldn't believe my ears - I thought it was a joke at first. Anyone else hear this? (sorry - not trying to hijack this thread but haven't found an article posted about the PCUSA conf in Birmingham)
It's all turned me against organized religion and I only occasionally attend our Anglican Episcopal church which is so conservative they have an American flag near the alter and regularly discuss relatively patriotic issues. For an English church, I find this fascinating.
Church of the apostasy
oooooooooooh! zinger!
The exodus was many years ago for me. The original Common Book of Prayer ranks second to the Bible to me, but I had to leave the Church when it departed in actual reality from the Common Book of Prayer AND the Bible. Mother always said, "Beauty is as beauty does," and she was right.
It seems only just that a church founded on Henry VIII's fixation on Anne Boleyn's vagina is falling apart on Gene Robinson's fixation on his partner's anus.
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