Posted on 05/05/2005 8:07:10 AM PDT by sionnsar
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "The people of St. Nicholas' love all of God's people, no matter what their sexual preference. But the overwhelming majority at St. Nicholas' want to remain true to Biblical faith no matter what the cost -- even if means having to leave our church building"
Amen! The church is not the building, it's the people.
Obviously this was never really about inclusion. It appears it was about replacing conservatives with liberals.
ahh..the old "our way or the highway" approach by the unnamed "diocese officials".
The church membership should not cave in to these heretics.
They've got their heart set in the right place. It's on God, not postmodern tolerance.
A decent person would realize the damage that they are doing and would resign.
But Genie Robinson is not a decent person. To him, the promotion of homosexuality is more important than the unity of the church he claims to care about.
There are a lot of ECUSA leaders who are giving up a whole lot (souls, members, finances, credibility) just so little Genie can stick his weenie up another man's hiney.
I think they should fight ECUSA over this. It's their property, not ECUSA's, and I think they have a good case.
I'm not Episcopal so it is okay to just say it's none of my business. That said, instead of fighting over the building, just split it between a liberal and conservative congregation.
Have two congregations share the building with a neutral committee managing and scheduling the facilities. Sunday schedules should be rotated each year to prevent one congregation from monopolizing "prime preaching time". Let each congregation pay half towards the building maintenance and let each congregation pay its own clergy. Require the diocese to support the congregations in proportion to each congregation's record members. Then let each congregation survive on its own.
Hopefully when the diocese goes bankrupt next year, the church will be able to buy back their building back cheap at the fire sale.
At least there is no ambiguity as to which side Ohl has chosen. I'm still waiting to see what folks like Stanton do when the issue gets to a 'conservative' bishop.
He is the only reason our parish remains Episcopal.
Ufortunately, if they turned over the property per the Denis Canon, they might not have a good case.
It happens.
There is an APCK church that did just that. Of course, when the (historic) building first went on the block the ECUSA diocese wouldn't sell it to the APCK church -- they sold it to somebody who turned it into an upscale Chinese restaurant! 5 years later it was on the block again, but the university wanted it. Turned out the earthquake codes prevented the university from buying it, and so the APCK church, whose members had left the ECUSA church years before, were able to buy it back.
St. Augustine's, Chico, CA.
I suppose justice would also be served if it ends up being bought by one of those "evangelical fundamentalist" churches ECUSA so despises.
Bummer. They build the church with their own resources and the diocese gets the property.
I am not episcopal either, but I think you are missing the point. It would be like a divorced couple living in the same house.
You are right but otherwise it appears that 89% of the members will have to walk away from their investment because the 11% are supported by the liberal leadership. It would only work if everyone agreed on a live-and-let-live policy.
My church regularly has two to three congregations that share the same physical facilities and keep everything else separate. In fact, once in my city, five congregations of about 300 people each shared one building for about two years until a new one could be built. Now three congregations share the old building and two share the new (smaller) one. Sundays, during those two years, there were meetings going from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m., nonstop. But everyone was committed to making it work and there were no doctrinal disagreements.
You are right to be skeptical. And it is none of my business. I am just drawn towards win-win situations wherever possible.
This is my church.
I go to the 8:00 am service (Rite 1).
I was part of the 89%.
Bishop Ohl has no intention of cooperating. When the cogregation went to talk with him, he had his little cabal of gnostics with him.
Ohl is all about power. I am beginning to doubt whether he is even a Christian.
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