Posted on 08/19/2005 8:47:11 AM PDT by sionnsar
From StandFirm:
To answer your question: “Were you to become an indisputable minority you would still remain a part of ECUSA in order to be with the folks who are fighting the good fight with you?”
I *am* an indisuptable minority, if what you’re referring to is someone who used to be asleep, but now is awake, and is begging others to wake up too, see the trouble we’re in, and help try and turn this church around.
As far as how long I’ll stick around, I can assure you I won’t be here forever. In Washington, D.C. in 1982, a plane crashed into the partially-frozen Potomac River. There was a man who survived the crash and was in good enough shape that he was able to help others grab the line that dangled from the rescue helicopter, which towed them to safety. Time and again the helicopter returned, and each time the man was there to guide the line to other people. Then there came a point where he was the only remaining survivor. When the helicopter returned to rescue him, he was gone, along with the tail section of the plane onto which he had been hanging, and which had served as a rescue platform for all the other survivors. You can read about the crash and the man who gave his life to save others here.
In an obviously less dramatic and less heroic way, I’m trying to help people off the plane - not by encouraging them to leave ECUSA - but to help them grab the lifeline of faithful, orthodox Christianity. Sometimes that means leaving ECUSA, sometimes not.
Now imagine that there are people on this crashed plane who don’t want to be rescued. My hope is that I will at least get a sense of who they are, soon enough to grab the line myself and be towed to safety. I will not go down with the tail section of this plane, that’s for sure, because it’s not just me alone risking my (eternal) life - my wife and child are hanging on, too, watching me as I repeatedly pass the line to others, while things get progressively more grim here on the tail section.
Already they are both paying a huge price for my involvement in this fight. Nasty words have been directed at her and me, and rumors and spiteful things have been said behind our backs. Other attempts to ostracize us have been made here and there.
Not to say that everything is thoroughly unpleasant - there have been surprising sparks of decency and goodness from the unlikeliest people. But overall it’s a distressing experience to go to church, and that’s not at all what my wife or my child signed up for, and certainly not what they deserve. I expected harsh words, nasty emails, and such, so when I started getting them I wasn’t surprised, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the spiritual drought it would inflict on my family. It is rewarding to hear from people in person and via email - friends as well as complete strangers - who thank me for helping them see the light and leave, or see the light and stay, or see whatever I’ve helped them see and find some peace in whatever decision they make; but they’re juxtaposed against the slumped shoulders, the heavy sighs, the downcast looks, from my wife when we talk about church-related things that should be at worst emotionally neutral, at best celebrations of our lives together as Christians.
Not a day goes by that I don’t long for the release of being rid of this.
Amen brother.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Vox clamantus in deserto!
In the wilderness indeed! This is for those who've chosen to stay and fight -- or to help the others off the plane.
What's the point in staying there. I left that God-forsaken denomination years ago because it cares more about appeasing atheists and secularists than anything else.
And I left over 22 years ago.
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