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Church History: America once an Episcopalian nation
Daily Citizen ^ | Friday, April 27, 2007 8:43 PM CDT | anon

Posted on 04/28/2007 2:30:05 PM PDT by fgoodwin

Church History: America once an Episcopalian nation

http://www.thedailycitizen.com/articles/2007/04/28/news/features/features05.txt
http://tinyurl.com/383b4f

Friday, April 27, 2007 8:43 PM CDT

Statistically no group of Christians held a greater influence over the founding and initial direction of the United States of America than the Episcopal Church. According to the website www.adherents.com, fifty-five percent of the founding fathers were Episcopalian. In addition, Episcopalians comprised thirty-two percent of all Supreme Court Justices and more than twenty-five percent of all presidents in the past two and a quarter centuries of American history.

The Revolution may have been a “Presbyterian Parson's War,” as King George referred to it, but Episcopalians populated the fledgling nation. This is quite natural: the Episcopal Church was the Anglican Church, the national Church of England. Anglicanism was the official church of five colonies and held sway in most of the others. English appointed governors, military leaders, and land grantees were often required and usually quite happy to maintain membership in the Anglican Church when immigrating to the Colonies. Quite happy, that is, until the Declaration of Independence called for the end of British sovereignty over the colonies. Membership within the Anglican Church calls for submission to the British monarch. National independence led to the reorganization of Colonial Anglicans into the semi-autonomous Episcopal Church.

Comprising just under two-percent of the United States population, it would be easy to write off the Episcopal Church as a church whose power day is past. Yet, it remains a bellwether organization. In 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated the openly homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese. This event broke open a torrent that had long been an undercurrent within the Anglican Communion. First, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams issued what amounts to a cease and desist against the Episcopal Church. Then, in their 2006 “Message to the Nation,” the leaders of the Anglican Church of Nigeria made clear their position by declaring their “commitment to the total rejection of the evil of homosexuality which is a perversion of human dignity.” And now, perhaps most telling, is the exodus of conservative Episcopalians to the Reformed Episcopal Church (founded in 1873) and several new Episcopal bodies seeking the blessing and oversight of the British and Nigerian Church.

So, what is in store for the Episcopal Church? Schism, according to a recent article (http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=676). Jordan Hylden writes that their continued rejection of the advice and discipline of the broader Anglican Church is nothing less than an

“Episcopal Declaration of Independence” leading to the inevitable division of the once great church: “Schism, which so many had hoped to avoid, is today closer than it has ever been. And it does not appear that anything will be done to stop it.”

Further, as American Episcopalians falter, the Anglican Church of Nigeria is taking up their mantle of influence. Paul Zimmerman, professor of History at New York University, describes this irony as “a sign that former missionaries did their job well.” In the March 3, 2007 edition of the “Cleveland Plain Dealer,” the professor wrote, “That's why African Christians stand so far to the right of their brethren in the West, on a host of religious and cultural questions. And that's why they're starting to evangelize us, to the chagrin of many Americas. The battle inside the Anglican Communion is only the first of many struggles that Americans can expect in the next few years, pitting conservatives from the Third Word against liberals in the West.” For almost half a millennium, Christians from the West told the rest of the globe how to think, behave and believe. Now, for the first time, we're getting a taste of our own medicine. For liberals, especially, it might be a very bitter pill.”


TOPICS: Current Events; History; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: apostasy; apostates; ecusa; episcopalchurch; episcopalians; gaybishop; heresy; heretics; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; homosexuals; tec
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1 posted on 04/28/2007 2:30:08 PM PDT by fgoodwin
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To: Huber

Please ping your Anglican List.

Thanx


2 posted on 04/28/2007 2:35:03 PM PDT by fgoodwin (Fundamentalist, right-wing nut and proud father of a Star Scout!)
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To: fgoodwin; sionnsar
Comprising just under two-percent of the United States population, it would be easy to write off the Episcopal Church as a church whose power day is past. Yet, it remains a bellwether organization. In 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated the openly homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese

Interesting choice of words: Bellwether. A wether is a castrated ram, and a bellwether is a wether who leads the rest of the flock (and who therefore wears a bell).

3 posted on 04/28/2007 2:36:14 PM PDT by Rytwyng (Mr. Bushbachov, close down this border!!!!!!)
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To: fgoodwin

I find this rather hard to believe.

How many colonies had, as their official church, the Episcopal church?


4 posted on 04/28/2007 2:47:31 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
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To: fgoodwin

Didn’t the Episcopalians eventually comprise most of the Federalist Party, and weren’t they, for the most part, opposed to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson prior to and during his presidency?


5 posted on 04/28/2007 2:48:09 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
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To: fgoodwin; G S Patton; Gumdrop; trustandhope; MarkBsnr; pblax8; oakcon; newbie 10-21-00; Bloc8406; ..
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic Ping List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to all note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.

There has been a long and often close relationship between
the Anglican and Catholic Churches. In certain situations
there remains a mutual recognition of the validity of key
doctrines, liturgies, and practices. And the Catholic
Church continues to hold the faith and moral teachings as
taught by the Apostles.

I understand that there is also an Anglican Use liturgy
within the Catholic Church, wherein the Book of Common Prayer
is used for the Mass (with minor updates). So there is no need
to lose the liturgy Anglicans may be familiar with.

Resources for those interested in the Catholic faith:

Catholic Answers
www.catholic.com
A superb site for clearing away the myths propagated by too many.
Offers free on-line library that examines all the major issues,
free on-line archive of over 1,500 hours of radio/audio material,
plus magazines, books, pamphlets, tracts, videos, and more.

Coming Home Network
www.chnetwork.org
Provides fellowship, encouragement and support for Protestant
pastors and laymen who are somewhere along the journey or
have already been received into the Catholic Church.

Biblical Evidence for Catholicism
www.biblicalcatholic.com
Dave Armstrong's monster site. Eclectic, fun, exhaustingly
detailed, personal, moving, and more.

And may God bless your journey where ever it takes you.

posted on 08/05/2003 5:19 PM PDT by polemikos

6 posted on 04/28/2007 2:49:33 PM PDT by narses ("Freedom is about authority." - Rudolph Giuliani)
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To: Huber

FYI


7 posted on 04/28/2007 2:57:46 PM PDT by ken5050
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To: fgoodwin
In 2003, the Episcopal Church consecrated the openly homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese. This event broke open a torrent that had long been an undercurrent within the Anglican Communion.

Polite speech for a homosexual seminarians' conspiracy to overthrow the church.

Politically active homosexuals have worked for 50 years to obtain by fraud the moral endorsement of a mainline church for their paraphilia. They're after the Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans, too. They know they won't get Rome.

8 posted on 04/28/2007 3:23:53 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: fgoodwin; ken5050; ahadams2; sionnsar; Alice in Wonderland; BusterBear; DeaconBenjamin2; Way4Him; ..
Thanks to fgoodwin and ken5050 for the ping.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.

FReepmail Huber if you want on or off this moderately high-volume ping list (typically 3-9 pings/day).
This list is pinged by Huber.

Resource for Traditional Anglicans: http://trad-anglican.faithweb.com
Humor: The Anglican Blue

Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15

9 posted on 04/28/2007 3:36:55 PM PDT by Huber (And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. - John 1:5)
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To: fgoodwin
more than twenty-five percent of all presidents in the past two and a quarter centuries of American history.

Does that number include President Davis, who was Episcopal?

10 posted on 04/28/2007 3:49:22 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: ConservativeMind
How many colonies had, as their official church, the Episcopal church?

Virginia did, and it remained established after ratification of the Constitution. (And disestablishment was a slug in the financial guts.) Mind you, my impression is that one could believe a lot (or a little) and still be an Episcopalian. It wasn't a very theologically specific church.


Crusader Bumper Sticker

11 posted on 04/28/2007 3:57:50 PM PDT by Mad Dawg (Jesus loves me, this I know, for his Mother tells me so. (and the Church and the Bible too))
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To: lentulusgracchus
They know they won't get Rome.

Then you get that weirdness like the Church funeral for Versace.

12 posted on 04/28/2007 4:14:38 PM PDT by TradicalRC ("...this present Constitution, which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever..."-Pope St. Pius V)
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To: fgoodwin

“America once an Episcopalian nation”

And the West was once Orthodox Christian!!!!

http://www.orthodoxdetroit.com/


13 posted on 04/28/2007 8:10:02 PM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: Honorary Serb; fgoodwin

And the Southwest was Catholic. ;-)


14 posted on 04/28/2007 8:22:30 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: kiriath_jearim
Didn’t the Episcopalians eventually comprise most of the Federalist Party, and weren’t they, for the most part, opposed to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson prior to and during his presidency?

Most Churches opposed Jefferson, because he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. He was not a Christian.

15 posted on 04/29/2007 12:26:39 PM PDT by Andrew Byler
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To: fgoodwin

Demography is destiny.

To populate is to govern.

The decline of the Episcopal Church (and the similar decline of the Congregationalists in New England) is a radical example of what happens to those who practice birth control.


16 posted on 04/29/2007 12:27:59 PM PDT by Andrew Byler
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To: fgoodwin; wideawake
"America once an Episcopalian nation"

It just goes to show that there's more to conservatism than adhering to the religion of one's founders! Look where we'd all be today if we were still an Episcopalian nation!

17 posted on 04/29/2007 12:34:52 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Please pray for the refu'ah shelemah of Yehudah Ben Rivqah, father of Binyamin Jolkovsky.)
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To: narses

As an Episcopalian, can I receive the Eucharist if I attend Catholic Mass?


18 posted on 04/29/2007 12:47:03 PM PDT by MHGinTN (You've had life support. Promote life support for others.)
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To: fgoodwin
They were the Church of England, so if you were English, it was considered to be your church unless you explicitly belonged to another denomination. It was the default setting, so to speak.

But so many other denominations arose and grew because ordinary people didn't feel the Anglican/Episcopalian establishment spoke for them. It looked distant, unconcerned, and tepid about religious faith, so people became Baptists or Methodists or joined another, more evangelical church.

Right now, there's some controversy among historians over which tradition was more important in American history: the older, more established churches like the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, or more evangelical, enthusiastic, and proselytizing denominations.

19 posted on 04/29/2007 12:55:30 PM PDT by x
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To: Zionist Conspirator
It just goes to show that there's more to conservatism than adhering to the religion of one's founders! Look where we'd all be today if we were still an Episcopalian nation!

Codswallop. The problem of the Episcopal Church today is the problem of America's schools, colleges and universities. All of these are administered by leftists. In college students get indoctrinated in deconstructionism, Lacanianism, feminism, queer theory, multiculturalism, and identity politics. Students take these ideas with them when then enroll in seminaries. Theology then reflects this nonsense.

Until the schools are reformed, the moral relativism of the educationists will continue to infect every institution in America, whether secular of religious.

20 posted on 04/29/2007 1:24:44 PM PDT by stripes1776
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