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What started off as a rocky relationship between the Episcopal and Roman Catholic bishops of San Francisco got even worse on Thursday (Oct. 4) when Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus said he was denied entrance to the installation Mass of the new Roman Catholic archbishop. Andrus said he arrived at St. Mary's Cathedral 30 minutes before the installation Mass of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was scheduled to start, but was kept in a holding area with an employee of the Catholic archdiocese until after the service started. After other local clergy had processed in for the 2 p.m. Mass, Andrus said the...

According to a recently released survey, support for same-sex marriage among Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members and pastors has considerably increased since 2005. In research conducted by Presbyterian Research Services and published in October, the number of PC(USA) members and pastors supporting the denomination redefining marriage grew. In 2005, 23 percent of PC(USA) members supported same-sex marriage; in 2012, the number had increased to 34 percent. Among pastors, support for same-sex marriage in 2005 was at 35 percent; in 2012, it is at 49 percent. Jack Marcum, coordinator of Research Services at Presbyterian Mission Agency and author of the published findings,...

Commentators at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times may decry the Episcopal Church as a place offering pet funerals but nothing for the faithful or failing to provide anything one cannot get from purely secular liberalism. These traditionalists appear to bemoan the loss of a 1950s-era church that promoted an Eisenhower-era civil religion replete with the cross draped in the American flag. While they wax nostalgia over a past that largely existed only in TV Land,.the Episcopal Church made history at its 77th triennial General Convention by passing two gender nondiscrimination resolutions. Led by a grassroots coalition...

New numbers reveal that the collapse of the Episcopal Church dramatically accelerated in the last ten years. The denomination is literally falling apart, with attendance down 25% between 2000 and 2010. For a link to the PDF file with the numbers, and for Rod Dreher’s comments on them, look here; but it’s important to note that the effect of these numbers on the life and the well being of local churches is even greater than the raw figures might suggest. Many mainline Protestant congregations today are stuck with an infrastructure built in the 1950s and 1960s. There are buildings to...

Two days after he was consecrated as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, Gregory Brewer was marching Monday with the crowd demanding justice for Trayvon Martin. He was the only white clergyman to address the Sanford City Commission inside the Civic Center that evening, urging city leaders to address the concerns of the black community. "I thought it was very courageous," said Andy Searles, a pastor with Aloma United Methodist Church in Winter Park. "It would have been very easy for him to sit in his office and organize the paperwork on his desk, but he made a...

A jettisoning of the faith, one mis-action at a timeLittle by little, the foundation of faith in The Episcopal Church is being reduced to ruins and the once grand colonial church of the Reformation is being progressively transformed into a social action agency. The latest proposed element to chip away at core Anglican beliefs is the Diocese of East Oregon's desire to offer Holy Communion to anyone who approaches the altar rail with their hands upraised. Baptism would not be a prerequisite. The Diocese of East Oregon has made it a matter of Communion without Baptism. Apparently, it was the...

Berwyn, IL — After years of declining membership, two Lutheran churches in Berwyn recently were forced to merge. While the new church faces many issues as it struggles to adapt to modern society, no one seems to have any qualms about the new pastor, the Rev. Julie Boleyn, who was ordained Jan. 14. Calm, charismatic and serene in the strength of her faith, Boleyn also is the first lesbian to be ordained in the Greater Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For several years, both the United Berwyn Lutheran Church and the First Lutheran Church of...

Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church in Gig Harbor voted Sunday to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), primarily because the denomination changed its constitution to allow noncelibate gay men and lesbians to be ordained as clergy and lay leaders. With 1,660 members, Chapel Hill Presbyterian is one of the largest mainline Protestant churches in the South Sound region. The Rev. Mark Toone, senior pastor of Chapel Hill, said his congregation reached a “tipping point” last spring when a majority of regional governing bodies, called presbyteries, voted to change the church’s ordination standards, permitting openly gay people to be ordained. “For 30 years,...

This is no nursery rhyme but rather the cast of characters lining up to appear at the 2012 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh. ACT I: An assault on marriageThe chameleon:  This character will attempt to lead commissioners to see marriage differently than the Church has historically defined it. Separating marriage from the Biblical narrative of creation and the Biblical witness of Jesus' affirmation between one man and one woman, the assembly will be asked to see a "new normal" that is inclusive of gay marriage. Presented plainly, the redefinition of marriage will arrive at the assembly through...

One of the oldest Presbyterian churches in Syracuse — First Presbyterian Church United – this month decided it will close in April 2012. The Near West Side church, founded in 1826 and located at 620 W. Genesee St. since 1904, will have its last service on Easter, April 8, 2012. The church has been steadily losing members over the years and is financially strapped, said Nancy Wind, associate for congregational life at the church. There are about 100 church members; of those about 40 attend worship services, she said. “We’ve been running a deficit budget for at least a decade...

WASHINGTON -- Once a flagship denomination of American mainline Protestantism, the U.S.-based Episcopal Church has for the first time in decades reported membership below two million.Self-reported statistics provided by the denomination this month show that the church has dropped from 2,006,343 members in 2009 to 1,951,907 in 2010, the most recent reporting year. The loss of 54,436 members increases the annual rate of decline from 2 percent to 3 percent, outpacing the most recently reported declines in most other mainline churches. The church's 10-year change in active members has dropped 16 percent.A branch of the otherwise fast-growing 80 million member worldwide...

A Wisconsin man is expected to become the first openly gay candidate ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) since the church opened ordination to gay candidates earlier this year. ...“It’s hard to believe it’s finally happening,” Anderson said in a released statement on Friday. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) officially began allowing the ordination of openly gay and lesbian candidates on July 10. n May, Twin Cities Presbyterians cast the historic vote to allow openly gay and lesbian members to be ordained ministers. Presbyterian leaders say the Twin Cities vote was the action needed to end the 2.1 million-member denomination’s national...

“[We must] talk of hard financial issues and church decline and growth, to address elephants in the room, and to speak truth to one another in love." Executive Council of the Episcopal Church A month long investigation by Virtueonline into the numerical state of The Episcopal Church reveals that more than one third of all 6825 Episcopal parishes in the U.S. have an average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 40 or less. VOL believes that the figure of 2.3 million Episcopalians, regularly stated by TEC leaders and officials, does not reveal the true state of church attendance. More than two-thirds of...

After decades of debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Tuesday struck down a barrier to ordaining gays, ratifying a proposal that removes the celibacy requirement for unmarried clergy, in the latest mainline Protestant move toward accepting gay relationships... Differences over the Bible and homosexuality have split Protestant groups nationally and worldwide for years. Within the Presbyterian Church, about 100 of the 11,000 congregations had already broken away ahead of the vote, but a group of large theologically conservative congregations, which calls itself Fellowship, has decided to remain in the denomination for now. Top Presbyterian executives issued a statement to the...

As of March 1, Rev. Gerald Miller, the senior pastor of St. Martin's Church, stepped down from the role he filled for 17 years.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Responds to Veto of Resolution on Israeli Settlements 11-019-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, said he is "dismayed" the U.S. government today vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that called on Israel to stop illegal construction of settlements on Palestinian land. The U.S. veto stopped the resolution, which had the backing of 14 other members of the U.N. Security Council. "I now am concerned that this action will increase a despondent mood about the future of such talks and will possibly strengthen extremist voices in...

The historic marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, took place today at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.The Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts began 2011 by solemnizing the first lesbian marriage - of two senior Episcopalian clergy - at Boston's St Paul's Cathedral Saturday (January 1). The marriage of Episcopal Divinity School, dean and president, the Very Reverend Katherine Hancock Ragsdale and Mally Lloyd, Canon to the Ordinary, was the first lesbian marriage solemnized by the Right Reverend M Thomas Shaw SSJE, Bishop Diocesan...

In its 2009 Churchwide Assembly in August of 2009 the Evangelical Lutheran Church took the momentous step to allow for the blessing of gay and lesbian unions as well as for the ordination of gays and lesbians in partnered relationships. It was the first major confessional church to take those steps. In anticipation of much disagreement about its decisions, the church struck what it thought was a compromise so that we could “journey together faithfully” even though there was no consensus on these issues. The instrument for compromise was the “bound-conscience” doctrine. Realizing that we now had no authoritative teaching...

OGDEN -- There may be some congregations that are leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for other Lutheran sects, but the state of the church is good, even locally. This was the message Sunday delivered by Bishop Allan Bjornberg of the Rocky Mountain ELCA Synod when he paid a visit to Ogden's Elim Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Rocky Mountain Synod includes 175 congregations in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. He is currently chair of the ELCA Conference of Bishops. Bjornberg said the synod continues to open new congregations. "There are always more opportunities than there...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recommended constitutional amendments to the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly regarding a 3-year cycle for churchwide assemblies, council membership, eliminating program committees and strengthening interrelationships. . . . David D. Swartling, ELCA secretary, said a committee of the "Living Into the Future Together: Renewing the Ecology of the ELCA" task force, proposed the four constitutional amendments on structure and governance. The council adopted the amendments and sent them to the 2011 Churchwide Assembly, which must approve amendments to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws and Continuing Resolutions. The council...