Posted on 08/06/2003 8:17:24 AM PDT by kattracks
The US Episcopal church's first openly gay bishop predicted that other churches would soon follow his denomination's example in welcoming gays into their leadership.
"I suspect that before too very long, other denominations will also follow and welcome openly gay and lesbian people into leadership positions. That's my prayer," Gene Robinson told ABC television on Wednesday.
A majority of the church's House of Bishops on Tuesday voted 62 to 45 to ratify Robinson's appointment as bishop of New Hampshire, church officials said, ending three days of contentious debate.
Conservatives within church ranks, many of whom have fiercely opposed Robinson's election on the grounds it violates Biblical teachings, were quick to express their disapproval, and a group of 24 bishops threatened to resign if he were elected.
"Well, anytime anyone decides to leave the church, it's a very sad thing. And I certainly have been praying and will be praying every day that such a thing does not happen," Robinson said. "Indeed, I don't think it needs to happen."
"The Episcopal Church in this country, and the Anglican community worldwide, the great gift we bring to the world is we are able to maintain a wide diversity of opinions on various issues while holding our faith in Jesus Christ as central and the thing that binds us together as the body of Christ. So I think there's no reason for us to come apart," Robinson said.
The Episcopal Church, the US branch of the Anglican Church, has more than 2.1 million followers, making it the 10th-largest Protestant church in the United States.
It sure is. But then, the entire thing is blasphemous, how else could anyone attempt to justify it except through utterubg more blasphemy?
I may have erred in not mentioing 1 Thessalonians 4 as the beginning point for the idea of a rapture, but Revelation plays the larger role in development of that novel teaching. One needs the Tribulation mixed together with 1 Thessalonians 4 to derive an eschatology having Christ coming for believers, then returning later to defeat Satan, then returning still a third time for judgment. (And I once read something about a fourth coming, but I can't recall how that was combed out of Left Behind novelty.)
Thanks for the clarification and God BLess!
Free will is an astonishing thing. That God would entrust it to us is a loving and dangerous and wondrous matter. We can open oursleves up to Him and harness our will to His, or we can drift off with our pride into oblivion. You are absolutely correct.
We must pray for the Episcopal church, especially for those who plainly are teaching morality that will lead many away from Christ. We must pray that none will be lost forever because of the false teachings now making a grand appearance. God bless you!
Fun quiz: God has even used the jawbone of an ass to accomplish his purposes. Whoever finds that Scripture first is the winner!!! :D
"I think the various denominations spend entirely too much time dissing each other."
Bill / Hil'ry Clinton: "I think the Republicans spend entirely too much time engaging in the politics of personal destruction."
1 Cor. 11:19
HiTech RedNeck: "Name the evil, whatever it may be, and it is possible that someone has arrived there due to the love of money. Similarly, name the person, whoever it may be, and it is possible that he or she is destined for heaven."
I agree. "It is possible".
You may want to read my quote you excerpted above a little more carefully.
I'm waiting to see how long a statement like this will take to be yanked... yeah, the devil preached that to me years ago but now I don't believe in it
That's what he wants. The principled people have to stay and support him. After all, it's above their petty concerns.
The real Episcopalians need not to quit: they need to fight to get their church back from the conspirators, and make them quit, if they won't lay down their heterodox "reconciling" agenda that was rejected at the last Lambeth Conference.
I think that's what you're looking at in the Episcopal and some other mainline churches more generally -- closeted gays secretly conspiring to knock over the church's teaching on homosexuality. The split of the bishops' vote tells you, I suspect, how bad the problem is. The bishops are trying to baby their congregants along, but this break with doctrine has been in the cards a long time.
Time to find out whether Episcopalians have the moral grit for a good, old-fashioned ecclesiastical power struggle, like the one with which the conservative Baptists took control of the Southern Baptist Convention and its seminary schools from the modernists who were quietly retailing more liberal theology. I think Criswell and Patterson and the rest may have smelled the gays coming, was why they went after the divinity programs. It certainly appears that some other mainline churches have been gotten at through their seminaries. The Methodists come to mind, who had a bishop die suddenly -- of AIDS, it turned out -- several years ago. The bishop was well thought of; his congregants had no idea and were shocked, but suddenly his doctrinal liberalism was explained -- and unfrocked.
No wonder the Catholics persecuted the Presbyterians.
Have a nice day.
Feel free to send it to someone you *love*.
...thanks goes to joanie-f for the link, btw.
WOW! What a round-about way of dissing the beliefs of America's Founding Fathers!
"What else do you call the teaching that God positively wills the damnation of people regardless of their actions?"
Those who were interested, and emotionally able to objectively read my posts #48, 110, 152, 306, and #309 know that by making that statement you disengenuously set up a strawman. Your whole "defense" in this post is built on that false strawman argument.
Why do you continue to insist on embarrassing yourself in front of those capable of critical thought?
Any "straw dummy" objections you could have were already dealt with point by point in #306:
I hope you don't mind, but I'll hop out of your boat now --- it only goes in emotion-driven "straw dog", non-productive circles.
That's God's business.
And regardless of what Arminians choose to believe, Jesus himself tells them this:
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand." [John 10: 26-29]
"..NONE can come to me UNLESS it is granted to him by my Father." [John 6:65]
And of course, as the Apostle Peter says in 1 Pet.1:2,4, Jesus is talking about the ELECT, who were "chosen before the foundation of the earth":
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.... ." "...to an inheritance incorruptable and undefiled that does not fade away, RESERVED IN HEAVEN for *you* [the elect]."
Fight with God about it if you don't like it.
Quite a revealing statement you made there.
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