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TULSA, Okla — Another flagship congregation in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. has left the denomination over the issue of biblical orthodoxy and the denomination’s stand on homosexuality. The leadership of Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulsa met with Oklahoma Bishop Robert Moody in late May to discuss the withdrawal. Church leadership said they hoped for an amicable parting of the ways. Steve Juett, senior warden of the Church of the Holy Spirit, told the Tulsa World the decision to leave the Episcopal Church was not based solely on the gay bishop issue, but was the culmination of many things...

The Anglican Church of Kenya has severed links with the Episcopal Church of America and demanded its expulsion from the global communion.The announcement at the end of a three-day meeting in Nairobi was made amidst revelation that the head of the parent church in England, archbishop Rowan William would be visiting Kenya on July 20.The church made the move over ECUSA’s endorsement of Dr Gene Robinson, a 59-year-old homosexual bishop who divorced his wife to live with a male partner.Besides foregoing unspecified financial aid, the Kenyan Church would also not send its clergy for training at churches that recognise lesbianism...

THE Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its central administrative council formally asked the Churches of Canada and the US to go. Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both Churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homo- sexual bishop and authorising same-sex blessings, members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees. Although the motion invites the Churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion. The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham Univers-ity yesterday,...

An amended resolution asking the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw voluntarily from all “official entities” of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) until Lambeth 2008 narrowly passed in Nottingham, England June 22 following two hours of council debate in closed session. A coalition of delegates from Southeast Asia, Nigeria, Congo, Kenya, the Southern Cone, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, England, Pakistan and the Sudan originally submitted the resolution to committee on June 18. It was released from the resolutions committee June 21 and presented to the delegates the next morning with 30 delegates voting in favor and 28...

​​​​NOTTINGHAM (6/23/2005)--In what is undoubtedly the toughest statement yet to emerge from the Anglican Consultative Council meeting here, the lay delegate from South East Asia, accused the North American Churches of dragging the Communion to a slow death over homosexual behavior. "The Anglican Communion is on trial. Let there be no pretence about this. The survival of the Communion from this trial depends on the will and courage of the rest of the Communion to deal with the recalcitrance of ECUSA and Canada, correctly and firmly in the quickness of time," said Mr. Stanley Isaacs, lay delegate and lawyer from...

Anglicans 'expel' Canada Clergy barred from key bodies over gay marriage Bob Harvey; with files from Natalie Alcoba CanWest News Service, with files from The Daily Telegraph NATIONAL POST Thursday, June 23, 2005 The fierce battle within the Anglican Church over homosexual clergy and same-sex marriage has brought the Canadian and American branches of the faith to the brink of banishment by the Church's ruling bodies meeting in England. The controversy flared up at the Anglican Consultative Council session in Nottingham yesterday, pitting the liberal, pro-homosexual Canadian and American congregations against a hardline coalition of African and Asian wings...

Sen. Richard J. Durbin's comparison of the treatment of al Qaeda prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Nazi and Soviet gulag atrocities was sharply criticized by constituents and newspapers in his home state. Mr. Durbin's accusations drew a storm of voter complaints in Illinois, his home state, editorial rebuke by its biggest newspaper and an uneasiness in his party over the potentially damaging political fallout. One state Democratic operative called the charges "inflammatory." The fiercely negative reaction forced Mr. Durbin late Friday to say that he regretted making the comparison, but his remarks remained a source...

Dwindling attendance and money problems behind diocese's reason When Jane Chynoweth looks around St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church, memories flood her mind. The church is where she raised children, socialized with lifelong friends and worshiped for more than 40 years. Now it is closing. ... The church — one of two Episcopal congregations in Modesto — owes $150,000 to the Fresno-based diocese, parishioners and clergy said. The closure is based on dwindling attendance — and giving — at the Carver Road church, which draws about 50 Sunday worshipers. ... ... Duke Golden, chief financial officer for the diocese, confirmed the church...

... "If I read this to you, and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said. By Thursday, conservatives' anger at what they portrayed as a comparison between the U.S. and some of history's most murderous regimes was boiling. "I think the senator's remarks are reprehensible," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh...

Seven Florida Churches to Request Alternative Episcopal Oversight from their Bishop Source: Anglican Fellowship of Florida (Diocese of Florida Network of Churches) Date: June 16, 2005 Dear Friends in Christ, As you know, we have been working with other congregations to find the best way forward for us in the light of the continuing departure of ECUSA leaders from the faith once delivered to the saints. Now that the Florida Annual Convention has come and gone, the time has come for action. Clergy representing the seven congregations mentioned below are meeting with Bishop John Howard today at 2:00 pm to...

The Episcopal Church USA is a denomination in statistical free fall. The recently released 2005 Episcopal Church Annual shows the numbers of "Baptized Members" reached an historic high of 3,615,643 in the year 1965 but by the end of 2003 that figure had dropped to 2,284,233, a drop of 1,331,410, a decrease of 37 percent. The number of baptized members in 2002 was 1,902,525, in 2003 that figure had dropped to 1,866,157 a decline of nearly 36,000. The number of actual new baptisms reported in 2001was 52,535 but by 2003 that number had dropped to 49,316 a loss of 3,219....

LONG before the Lambeth 2 and the divisive marriage of the American gay bishop Gene Robinson broke the Anglican Communion, Uganda's infant Christian community had to deal with today's hot potato. Ugandan converts were thrown headlong into "the issue of the 21st century". How do Christians respond to state-sanctioned homosexuality in light of its apparent contradictions with culture, faith and nature? For the early church, it was a literal "baptism by fire" experience. Mwanga's homosexuality is an issue we tip-toed about for fear of offending the Buganda monarchy which abhors homosexuality. But all historical accounts of the martyrs agree that...

Twenty Episcopal bishops at odds over homosexual clergy will attempt to reconcile their differences next month, but church conservatives say the meeting's real business is to start discussions on how to divide their assets in the event of a split. If differences between Episcopal liberals and conservatives are quickly determined to be "irreconcilable," says retired Diocese of Florida Bishop Stephen Jecko, the discussion will switch to engineering a breakup without running up millions of dollars in lawsuits. The Los Angeles gathering would be the first admission of schism by the 2.2-million-member denomination. "It'll be who gets the money and who...

Richmond, Va. — The Christian theocrats are said to be running amok in Red America, rousing the rabble with their strange beliefs and perhaps stoking the dungeon fires as they finalize their hit lists. Of course it doesn’t take much to be accused of religious intrigue and assault these days: An Air Force cadet who sent an e-mail containing a Christian message was last week accused of harassment. It seems we are in the midst of a new Red Scare — with Commies being replaced by Red State Christians and their allies in the Blue zone. Yet in the course...

Though the sanctuary of Christ Church Midland may have been void Sunday of plush pews, elaborate paintings and other features, what was present were the sounds and spirit of worship. The estimated 324-member congregation gathered for its first worship service at Midland Classical Academy after the church split over dissention of Biblical teachings, including -- but not limited to -- same-sex marriage blessings and the denomination's appointing an openly gay bishop.

“I am myself convinced,” Ephraim Radner stated well over a year ago, “that we are not really dealing simply with ‘error’ and ‘false teaching’ within ECUSA. Rather, we are dealing with something akin to madness.” I can think of no better diagnosis of the present Episcopal Church than that offered by Dr. Radner—madness! What else can explain a church that abandons its foundational theological principles and giddily jumps off the ecclesiastical cliff in an act of spiritual and institutional suicide. Like the early Bolsheviks, our Episcopal revisionists really do believe in their revolution. Man the torpedoes! Full-speed ahead! Consequences be...

A discussion and Prayer starter… Here is a question that we cannot avoid asking: How is it that faced with the same REALITY (ECUSA in 2005) clergy & laity, claiming guidance by two UNIQUE REALITIES (God & Conscience), do not all go in the same direction (to stay within or to leave ECUSA, and if the latter, do not choose the same option)? To help to answer it, here are some considerations: While the progressivism and revisionism are very strong at the center of ECUSA, they are weak in some dioceses and strong in others. The experience of the new...

TULSA, Okla. (AP) Nearly two years after the Episcopal Church USA elected a gay bishop in New Hampshire, members of a south Tulsa Episcopal church have decided to withdraw from the denomination. The leadership of Church of the Holy Spirit Episcopal met with Oklahoma Bishop Robert Moody last week to discuss details of the withdrawal. A congregational meeting was held Sunday to explain the situation to members. Steve Juett, senior warden of the Church of the Holy Spirit, said the decision to leave the Episcopal Church was not based solely on the gay bishop issue, but was the culmination of...

Members of St. Nicholas' Episcopal Church and supporters from churches around the city, state and nation began to fill the pews nearly an hour before Sunday's service. By 7 p.m., chairs spilled out into the sanctuary's foyer until there was standing room only. It was the final Sunday many of St. Nicholas' parishioners would gather together in the building they built only four years ago. Nearly 90 percent of the congregation is leaving St. Nicholas' to begin Christ Church Midland (Anglican Communion) after Bishop Wallis Ohl of the Episcopal Diocese of Northwest Texas told those who were dissatisfied with the...

The current crisis caused by the consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson is a mere distraction. Our Church’s terminal condition is not a result of this decision stamped with approval by the 74th General Convention. For many years a cancer has been insidiously growing in our Church and it is found in the number .82 percent. This number has been uncovered by the Lilly Foundation-sponsored National Study of Youth and Religion, which was conducted from July 2002 to March 2003. Its researchers surveyed by phone 3,370 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 and their parents, and...