Why We Left the Episcopal Church

Washington Post ^ | 8 January 2007 | The Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness

[shrinkermd]

When even President Gerald Ford's funeral at Washington National Cathedral is not exempt from comment about the crisis in the Episcopal Church, we believe it is time to set the record straight as to why our church and so many others around the country have severed ties with the Episcopal Church.

...The core issue in why we left is not women's leadership. It is not "Episcopalians against equality," as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it. It is not a "leftward" drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical -- though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.

The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow. The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith -- saying that traditional theism is "dead," the incarnation is "nonsense," the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is "a barbarous idea," the Bible is "pure propaganda" and so on. Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed.

It would be easy to parody the "Alice in Wonderland" surrealism of Episcopal leaders openly denying what their faith once believed, celebrating what Christians have gone to the stake to resist -- and still staying on as leaders. But this is a serious matter.

[mel]

bump for later reading

[mel]

I liked your post also

[dirtboy]

I'm a lapsed Episcopalean.

I was watching a TV broadcast of the Christmas service from the National Cathedral and was appalled when some twit woman priest had a small group of kids and was asking them leading questions and making approving comments such as "economic empowerment!" and "social justice!"

I turned to my wife and said this sure as heck ain't the church I attended when I was a kid. I was ready to puke that they couldn't leave the politics at the door at least one day of the year.