On the Brink (Female ECUSA priest leaves)

As per my request, the documents came today from Bishop Stacy Sauls. I opened the envelope at the Post Office and read his cover letter. The tone was so darned triumphant that I was tempted to toss the lot into the nearest trash receptacle. I would have, were it not apparent that renouncing my ordination vows and severing ties with ECUSA is my God-directed path.

Ironically, one page has the name of a different woman. That’s the page that I am to sign before a notary, but now I will have to return it to the Diocese of Lexington for the bishop’s secretary to correct the name. I don’t know the women named there, but she must have asked for these same papers sometime before me and the secretary forgot to change the name.

Yes, I thought that too. Add inefficiency to the ECUSA’s errancy, but that’s not fair. ECUSA has never been efficient nor is it careful with people’s lives. But her secret (if it is a secret) is safe with me.

It is strange that people have commended me for being courageous. I consider myself a coward. Numinous dreams, Scripture, great prayers of the Church, and the lives of saints reveal that our Holy God is to be feared for He can destroy the soul. I often question the health of my soul and realize that I must take responsibility for my spiritual condition. That truly is a fearsome task. No one cares if my soul is sick, estranged from God and destined for the fire. People don’t care because most think that this way of speaking is a joke. Gone are the days when the priest cared about the cure of souls. Today one must resort to spiritual directors or saintly nuns for discipline that preserves the soul. And so as I leave ECUSA and the priesthood, I set my mind with fierce determination to go deeper into the Divine Mystery of obedience and love, and to new vows that only the Spirit can confirm.

The Church is an icon of the fullness of God’s kingdom and in that Kingdom present gender restrictions may not be necessary. But the kingdom talks of a King and in a kingdom everyone serves the One who is sovereign and servants have roles to play. When the kingdom comes under attack from the enemy the King may deploy his subjects differently. This is how I perceive of what is happening to me. His Majesty is deploying me differently. I have packed away all the vestments and stoles. Now I am waiting for Sauls to release me officially … if he can get the name right.

I trust that God will have significant work for me … somewhere, and I ask your prayers.

The Rev. Alice C. Linsley is an ordained Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Lexington

I had never heard of Alice Linsley, before this post, so I did a little research. She seems well worth listening to.

Apparently Rev. Linsley resigned as a priest when Robinson was made a bishop.

Just to clarify in the instance of Alice Linsley, who got the inhibition letter from Sauls because of her "association" with St. Andrew's Anglican--She is not a priest there--not officially or unofficially. She has a civilian job and just worships there and teaches an adult ed Sunday School class. So Sauls is inhibiting her from something she is not even doing because of this "association" i.e. attending an Anglican church for worship. # Posted by: BettyLee Payne at January 27, 2005 11:10 PM

It is odd reading about myself on this blog. Bettylee Payne is correct. I am inhibited for something I'm not even doing and have no intention of doing, that is, functioning as a priest. Sauls will defrock me, of that I am confident. It will be a complete waste of his time. God is my boss, not Bishop Sauls. I stand with the Africans who, I believe, have an authentic reading of the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament. The African bishops in question speak a language that is cognate to Hebrew, and the cultural context of Abraham's people was African so no wonder they resonate with the biblical text. # Posted by: Alice C. Linsley, Priest at March 3, 2005 08:20 PM

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/mt/archives/000532.html

Salt the Children, Save the Nation
The Rev. Alice C. Linsley
March 10, 2005

The disintegration of the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) is tragic and telling of a crisis of leadership. The crisis comes as a result of moral decline in our nation. The moral decline results from two seemingly opposite cultural developments in Western Civilization: relativism and absolutism. Bible believers play a significant role in salvaging American society by teaching to our children the moral absolutes that can help them to become great future leaders....(continued at: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/digest/digest_2005-14.php )

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