[sionnsar]

"The failure of the Episcopal Church or its decline into near irrelevance will be the jumping off point for attacks on other churches until there no longer exists a moral authority which can challenge the elevation of human desire and experience."

Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.

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Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15

[xJones]

Wow! That was great, and the best overall summary I've read to date.

[Kolokotronis]

This fellow is a Man, a Good Christian Man! AXIOS!

[Raycpa]

Since my wife and I left with our family last year, we always wanted to write a letter explaining why we left. This letter does it well. I just might send it to our ex-church family.

[Rosie405]

This is absolutely brilliant! I wrote a similar - but much shorter - letter, explaining to my former parish why I, a cradle member, no longer considered myself an Episcopalian. I will attend my first RCIA class this week. As with this person, the big issue was not only the "new thing," but also the complete and total unwillingness to discuss anything related to it, or to take a stand. So many Episcopalians are reluctant to speak out. The rhetoric displayed towards those who disagree has been so biting, so accusatory, and so ungracious. Who wants to subject themselves or their family to it? Whether we write a letter such as this one or not, we are nonetheless slowly driftng away, one by one, family by family.

[hiho hiho]

"Most changes - like women's ordination - come about by the presentation of theological arguments that show how they line up with Holy Scripture. No such case has been made for the Episcopal Church's "new thing." They simply did it "with good intentions" by a vote at a convention."

This confuses me -- what are the "theological arguments" for women's ordination? Was this not the beginning of the present problem? Does the church now have the right to tell the next "oppressed" group that the theology and traditions of the church will not change for them like it did for women?

I personally have changed my mind about women's ordination, it was easy then to get into the argument of rights without understanding how it was just a continued step away from the gospel.

The Episcopal church will split in to many fragments, I fear the age of "Common Prayer" is over.

[gscc]

"You should know that at that same convention in Minneapolis in 2003, 60% of the Episcopal church's bishops voted against - yes, against - a resolution to reaffirm the beliefs of their ordination vows and the agreements of belief of the Anglican Communion signed by our presiding bishops over the years."

The real problem is that if you asked these Bishops if the Bible is the unerring and inspired Word of God you will find that at least 60% will say no. If you do not believe the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, in it's 66 books from Genesis through Revelation, is the only verbally inspired written Word of God [I Cor. 2:7-14; 2 Pet. 1:20,21], and is without error in its original autographs [Matt. 5:18; 24:35, Psalm 119:89], that it is the full and complete revelation of God's will for the salvation of man, and the Divine and final authority for Christian faith and conduct [John 10:35; 16:12-13; 17:17; 1 Cor. 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 4:12]; If you do not believe that the Bible is God's objective [Exodus 17:14] propositional revelation [1 Thessalonians 2:13], and is verbally inspired in every word [2 Timothy 3:16], then you can believe and preach anything. You can make up it up as you go along - after 2000 years you can find it sound doctrine to ordain women, or openly unrepentant homosexuals. Never forget - the only way to come to these conclusions is to ignore scripture as inspired.