Free Republic

RNS) — Ten minutes into a new documentary on the battle for women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church, a short archival clip shows the first time women were seated as full voting members in the denomination’s House of Deputies. But even as women took that minor step forward, they were introduced by a male priest who described the women deputies as “bringing us something the House has needed desperately for a long time — some beauty.” Such were the belittling attitudes toward women four years before a group of 11 seminary-educated female deacons challenged their church to accept them as...

The Episcopal All Saints Church in Pasadena, California, in line with the growing trend of churches around the world abandoning Christianity altogether while still calling themselves “churches,” has placed controversial ideologies at the heart of its pulpit. As illustrated by a recent youth-led service overseen by Pastor Michael Kinman, the church platforms children in the pulpit to openly endorse LGBTQ rights and abortion ahead of the upcoming Pride Month. The utilization of the church’s sacred platform for propagating these views is less an alarming departure and more an unmasking of an ongoing apostasy within the Episcopal denomination. The church should...

Resurrection Anglican Church South Austin plans to leave the more conservative Anglican Church of North America to affiliate with the Episcopal Church. It is the second church in the last year to do so. According to a post on the church’s website by the church rector Shawn McCain Tirres, the parish voted in favor of the change by more than 80%. Tirres said the church’s decision deepens its commitment to “be the kind of place that could welcome everyone in our neighborhood to encounter the love of God.” Resurrection Anglican Church South Austin, also referred to as Rez Austin, was...

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 80th General Convention denounces the work of Crisis Pregnancy Centers, also known as Pregnancy Resource Centers; and be it further Resolved, that the 80th General Convention apologizes for the Church's previous support of Crisis Pregnancy Centers as detailed in Resolution 1994-D105.

[Episcopal News Service] The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 upheld a Mississippi law that outlaws abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, effectively overruling Roe v. Wade, the almost 50-year-old opinion that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote, in his 79-page majority opinion. In the past, the Supreme Court has held that the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees “some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution,” Alito wrote, “but any such right must be...

Petertide — the days around the feast of St. Peter on June 29 — is traditionally one of the most joyful seasons for the Church of England, a time for ordination of new priests and deacons. But this year’s Petertide has been marred by what many have interpreted as an attack on the future of Anglican priesthood itself. As Britain’s national church prepared to gather for its General Synod, which begins Friday (July 9), one of its most senior clerics submitted a paper for discussion arguing that the future lies not with clergy in the pulpit, but with worshipping communities...

The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, who in 2021 was elected to become the first female bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.he Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, which is still in the midst of a yearslong legal battle with a breakaway group over several church properties, has elected its first female bishop. The Rev. Canon Ruth Woodliff-Stanley won the election on the second ballot at a special meeting of the convention held by the diocese on Saturday, beating out four other candidates. On the second ballot, Woodliff-Stanley received 13 votes in the Lay Order, which required at least 10 votes...

Another Episcopal Church diocese appears poised to enact same-sex marriage rites following the announcement of a change in leadership. The Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota will be led by retired Bishop of Vermont Thomas Ely, a long-standing advocate of same-sex marriage rites. Ely will serve first as Assisting Bishop and, following an expected vote of approval by the diocesan convention on February 6, as Provisional Bishop according to a January 2 announcement made by the diocesan standing committee. Ely will be the only nominee on the ballot. Provisional Bishops are customarily retired diocesan bishops that serve in a transitional capacity...

Among the holiest days in the Christian calendar, Christmas celebrates the nativity of Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God. But that didn’t stop one of the most prominent revisionist parishes in the Episcopal Church from re-styling it with Islamic reading and a liturgy that aimed as much as possible to employ gender-inclusive language. All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California routinely modifies language from both the Book of Common Prayer and the biblical text in order to better accommodate revisionist ideology. The liturgical innovations point to a trajectory rocketing past redefinition of sexual ethics and on to the...

Conservative Christians are using religious liberty as a basis to oppress the marginalized as well as traumatize parents of children who identify as LGBTQ, according to a retired Episcopal Church bishop and a filmmaker. Retired New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson and filmmaker Daniel Karslake were hosted for a discussion by the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), an unofficial United Methodist LGBTQ caucus, on July 15. The bishop and the film producer equated God’s purposes with intersectional identity politics of the Left. Robinson was the first man openly in a same-sex partnership to be consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church and...

Trump visited St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington to hold up a Bible straight toward the heavens, a completely natural way to hold a Bible, in a clearly authentic demonstration of his faith and definitely not a staged photo op. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, though, was nonplussed, saying she was confused by the strange book Trump had brought to church. "What is that weird book? We've literally never seen one before," she said in a CNN interview. "No real Christian reveres a book like that. Well, maybe the Communist Manifesto or something. But not...

The Michigan diocese of the Episcopal Church is about to welcome its first female and first openly lesbian bishop this weekend. The elevation of the Rev. Bonnie A. Perry to bishop in Michigan comes as some Christian denominations in the U.S. struggle with issues of same-sex marriages and gays or lesbians in church leadership roles. Perry was elected last June at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Detroit and her ordination will be held Saturday in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson became the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop in 2004. Episcopal conservatives opposed...

Home at Last: Church of the Apostles Ready to Reach A New Community Thanks to David Harper, shepherd of 26 years; Nick Braunschneider, our new Joshua; & especially Joe Acanfora, our Moses. During the service of consecration and thanksgiving for Church of the Apostles’ new church home in Fairfax, Virginia last month, I was surprised and filled with joy when I closed my eyes. Remaining behind closed eyelids was the image of the cross that was against the back wall of the chancel. I suddenly remembered how I used to love “seeing” that cross while praying at Church of the...

“This church has about 30 more years before it is dead,” stated one young man at a 2016 forum at the Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) in Alexandria, Virginia, as quoted in the recent book The Seduction of the Episcopal Church. Therein Anglican author David Virtue, a longtime critical observer of worldwide Anglicanism, reviews the Episcopal Church’s decades-long fall from grace in an exposé of Christian folly in accommodating a secularized, sexualized modernity. Virtue tells the depressing, detailed “story of a once proud Christian denomination that stood as a landmark church in a nation that has seen presidents, senators and business...

The Rev. Katherine Ragsdale will soon become the first female president of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Openly lesbian, the outgoing chief of a liberal think tank that monitored the Religious Right, and best known for her abortion rights advocacy through the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Ragsdale maybe the perfect icon for untrammeled liberal Episcopalianism. But a rather vigorous two-year-old abortion sermon by Ragsdale, assertive even by her standards, has overshadowed her recent appointment. "Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done!" she repeatedly exclaimed at a rally in defense of an abortion clinic...

The Albany Episcopal Diocese bishop who vowed to continue prohibiting same-sex marriages in defiance of the church's orders will face a disciplinary hearing, the Episcopal Church announced Wednesday. In November 2018, the Rev. William H. Love spurned Episcopal Church Resolution B012, which had been passed earlier in the year and ordered bishops not to impede same-sex weddings. In an eight-page letter, Love wrote that Episcopalians who embraced same-sex relationships had been deceived by Satan, and said the Episcopal Church and "Western society" had been "hijacked by the 'Gay Rights Agenda.'"

300,000 miles on horseback -Francis Asbury, Circuit Riding Preacher "one of the builders of our nation" The King of England was the head of the Anglican Church from the time of Henry VIII. Beginning in 1535, all English subjects, including those in English colonies, were required to the Oath of Supremacy: "I (state your name) do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience, that the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm ... in all Spiritual or Eclesiastical things ... So help me God." For most of England's history from 1535 to 1829, not to take the...

Episcopalians in Maine took part in the consecration of their new bishop this past weekend, the first openly partnered gay man to be installed as a diocesan bishop in the U.S.-based Episcopal Church since Gene Robinson in 2003. The Rt. Rev. Thomas James Brown was consecrated Saturday as the 10th bishop of the Diocese of Maine at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Portland. The service was led by the Most Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. A video posted on the diocese’s YouTube channel showed participants, including Brown, calling the Holy Spirit a “she” during...

A chapel named for retired Episcopal Church Bishop Gene Robinson was dedicated Thursday as part of the consecration of a newly redeveloped Washington, D.C. church building. St. Thomas’ Episcopal Parish chose to honor the former New Hampshire bishop who was the first openly partnered gay man to be consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion. The chapel is envisioned as a pilgrimage site for youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). Robinson’s 2003 consecration as bishop was one of several contested actions fueling a broader Anglican realignment in North America and beyond....

The head of The Episcopal Church has issued a partial restriction on the ministry of a New York bishop who recently refused to allow same-sex wedding ceremonies at his diocese. Bishop William Love of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany released a pastoral letter last year stating his refusal to follow a recently passed resolution mandating that all regional bodies in The Episcopal Church perform same-sex marriages. A spokesperson for The Episcopal Church directed The Christian Post to a statement released Friday by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who supports same-sex marriage and leads the mainline Protestant denomination. “During the period of...