Look what we have to put up with:
Pic is from a greenie rally sponsored by the usual gang of idiot radical priests. If you can stand it, look at the slide show. It's like a rogue's gallery of everything you don't like about the Episcopal Church.
Posted on 08/24/2003 7:47:01 PM PDT by Mr. Mulliner
Evangelicals poised to take over the Church
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 25/08/2003)
Evangelicals, dismissed as a vociferous minority by senior liberals during the Jeffrey John affair, are now poised to take over the Church of England.
A new study suggests that, if current trends continue, evangelicals will make up more than half of all Sunday church worshippers in 10 years' time, up from about a third now.
As they grow quickly, Liberals and Anglo-Catholics continue to decline, says Dr Peter Brierley, a former government statistician who heads Christian Research.
Moreover, all but a tiny proportion of the new breed of evangelicals will be theologically conservative, viewing sex outside marriage, including homosexuality, as outlawed by Scripture.
According to the new analysis, they are consolidating their grip on the Church's income, contributing a significant amount of money to church funds.
Also, half of all ordinands training to be the next generation of clergy are attending evangelical colleges.
The combined effect could be to provide the evangelical wing of the Church with an unprecedented power base as long as their numbers are reflected in the membership of the General Synod and the Church's leadership in future years.
Dr Brierley's projections are expected to alarm liberals, who have portrayed them as fringe fundamentalists whose influence is out of proportion to their numbers. His analysis indicates that, based on several national surveys by Christian Research, about 35 per cent of churchgoers in 1998 were evangelicals and that proportion could rise to half by 2010.
Of this, he estimates, just eight per cent will be "broad" or "liberal" evangelicals, who are relaxed over issues such as homosexuality. The remainder will be mainstream or charismatic hard-liners.
Another survey, detailed in this year's Religious Trends handbook, indicates that the total giving of evangelical churches is already about 40 per cent of the Church's national income.
The latest Church statistics show that for 2001 the total income of parishes was £650 million. Evangelical worshippers put an estimated £250 million of that into the collection plate.
Their financial muscle was demonstrated during the crisis over Canon Jeffrey John, the openly homosexual cleric who was forced by evangelical pressure in June to withdraw as the Bishop of Reading.
Many evangelical parishes, which include most of the largest and wealthiest in the country, were planning to withhold a significant proportion of the quotas they pay to central funds if Canon John had been consecrated.
"These figures show that mainstream evangelicals are a larger group than most others already, and they are still growing," said Dr Brierley. "If these trends continue, they could become the largest group in the Church within a decade."
His findings belie comments by liberals like the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, who said in July that Canon John had been forced to stand down by a minority who made "a noise out of all proportion to their size".
The Rev Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney, admitted that liberals could have underestimated the influence of "fundamentalist" evangelicals, and it was worrying for the future of the Church.
"The truth is that they have learned the techniques of marketing, how to sell something," he said. "It's a very simple message. But it's like selling soap powder. I think that way of simplifying and marketing is verging on idolatory - putting God into a box."
Gordon Lynch, a theologian from Birmingham University, said that Dr Brierley's analysis was too simplistic and did not allow for shades of opinion and people's changing views. He conceded, however, that socially conservative evangelicals were becoming a "considerable influence".
"They represent one of the few groups in society where people who are drawn to that kind of social conservatism can actually find a home," said Dr Lynch.
"Perhaps the Conservative Party used to provide a kind of structure for those people, but it seems to do that less and less now. So there is a danger that the Church does drift towards an increasingly conservative position."
Technically, the articles of religion in the prayer book state Election and predestination as part of the faith.
But I am very strongly considering leaving. That is no light matter, considering that I am a lifelong 48 year member (we're nearly the same age!) and a third generation Episcopalian (if you don't count my ggg grandfather who was born in London and baptized in St. Giles Cripplegate, the church where Milton was buried and Cromwell married. But his children all became Methodists.)
Here's the deal right now. My husband (who is the voice of reason in our marriage - I'm the one who wants to Do It Now) says wait until October, when the orthodox bishops will meet in Plano TX and the Archbishop of Canterbury has called an emergency meeting for the 16th (IIRC). The buzz is that the bishops are going to ask Canterbury to declare the general convention of ECUSA "out of communion" with Canterbury and recognize the orthodox bishops as the "true" Episcopal church. Failing that, the orthodox bishops will ask for a separate province within the U.S. The reason for this is that it will allow the orthodox churches who go with the orthodox bishops to keep their property (there's good legal authority for orthodox DIOCESES to keep their property if they leave as a unit). They may work out something like the PCA/PCUSA split, where churches had one year to decide which way to go and still keep their church buildings, endowments, pensions, etc.
Depending on what happens in October, we will join an orthodox parish approved by Canterbury, a breakaway Anglican parish (of which there are many under various umbrellas), or one of two Catholic parishes here in town. If the Catholics are paying attention and step up their Anglican Use Rite recruitment, we will have yet another option.
Not only my husband but also our local orthodox parishes are counseling patience and caution. I'm trying! But one thing's for sure -- we are GONE from our current parish. The rector was intellectually dishonest and condescending in his defense of General Convention's decision - so he's lost us for good. He just doesn't know it yet (he probably will get the message when we revoke our pledge.)
There are no 10 "lost tribes" of Israel.
...at least not in the sense usually meant. The 10 Northern Tribes went into the Assyrian exile in the 700's BC, where they lived until modern times. In the 1950's, hundreds of thousands of Jews, descended from these tribes and mixed with the other tribes, fled to Israel amid the Arab anti-Israel hysteria that exploded in 1948.
They are "lost" only in the sense that due to breaks in recorded geneologies, they are not able to trace their line back to any specific tribe. The only Jews who can trace their line back are some of the tribe of Levi (the priestly tribe). Jews named "Cohen, Levi, Levy, Levinthal, Gershin, Gershwin, Gerson," etc. are of the priestly tribe. By this reckoning, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin are also "lost" as it is not possible for any Jew today to trace a patrilonial or matrilineal back to these tribes either. The geneologies have been lost.
I cannot help but conclude that the governing of our church in all other matters can be anything but corrupt, scripturally speaking.
The thing that keeps me there is I can still help teach others in my local church. For example, just this past week the sunday school teachers met. One of them expressed a desire to bring up that other non christian religions were just as good and valid as ours. I responded that if I were asked to do that I would have a tough time explaining to the children why Jesus had to die on the cross. I think my comment made a light go on in her and others mind. If I leave it could affect those who stay.
I would stay and fight, but I have two children and do not want them brought up in that atmosphere of "anything goes".
Williams v. State, 126 Ga. App. 350, n.4:
n4 As this opinion began with a Hebrew word and ends on a reference to Scotland, it should be noted this is not inappropriate because many historians have traced the Scythians or Scuthae, who populated Scotland, to be descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Time magazine issue of August 31, 1953; "The Ten Lost Tribes -- Facts and Fictions" -- H. Sol Clark, LX The New Age 621.
Judge Clark is Jewish himself, BTW. He is famous for his discursory footnotes which usually have little if anything to do with the case. It lightens the reading for judges and lawyers, though.
I'm on vestry and was the SR Warden for the 3 prior years. Our prior minister was female and I was SR warden, treas etc for her so I don't consider myself a total literalist but this recent action goes beyond my ability to rationalize.
Our current priest seems upset and is mostly concerned that he will be forced to do gay marriages, a line that he won't cross (but pensions and family obligations could affect him I'm sure) . Our Bishop is a cheerleader whose justificaton is "The Church has spoken". (Like the body can speak for the head ? )
If nothing changes my wife and I are considering becoming members of a local evangelical free church and continue to periodocically attend our old church as missionaries.
Our daughter is in her SR year and has asked that we not change until she goes to college. Its a valid request. Our next child is 13 and he has just enough time to get some solid relationships for he reaches the drifting age. Our youngest is 8 and has enough chrasma to start his own church.
I haven't opened negotiations with anybody yet, but those will be among the questions I ask. If we cross the Tiber, I hope we can persuade the parish priest to let her do adult RCIA rather than confirmation because she would be so much older than the other confirmands. One of the Catholic parishes we have our eye on does allow female altar servers - the other is a Latin Mass parish and does not. She excels at it - quiet, reverent, efficient - and she just got promoted to second server (inside the rail).
The broad churchmen have compromised everything away incrementally - in England as well as in America - so they shouldn't be surprised that the evangelists are stepping up to the plate . . .
Yes. My wife and I have attended several ordinations as well as his. The interesting thing is we had bad feeling's about him without knowing his theology.
Look what we have to put up with:
Pic is from a greenie rally sponsored by the usual gang of idiot radical priests. If you can stand it, look at the slide show. It's like a rogue's gallery of everything you don't like about the Episcopal Church.
Here it is.
Your insightfull.
And what is it with ALL these Episcopal priests suddenly popping out in BEARDS? They were all clean shaven except for the "Father Strum-a-Tune" types until about 5 years ago. Now the BISHOPS are sprouting facial fungus?
I don't like this. It may influence my husband to shave, and I LIKE his beard!
What I said was "many of these controversies would cease to exsist."
There will be conflict within local churches. The Bible also addresses how these controversies are to be handled.
Take the example of gay bishop in the Episcopal church. If a local church apponted this man as bishop it would not effect the other local churches. As it is now it becomes a problem for all Episcopal churches under that central authority.
No outside checks? That is why there is a plurality of elders/bishops in the local church so no one man can corrupt it. If there are not at least two men within the local congregation qualified to be elders then the local church will appoint no elsers until such a time the two are found to be qualified. This is the way it is handled where I attend.
Even in the time of Peter and Paul, they were like a governing body that instructed the local churches- as all the Epistles show. So a truly independent church is actually not biblical.
Peter and Paul as well as the other inspired men who gave us the scriptures that we have today are not the same as the governing bodies we see in denominations today.
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