Anglican leaders around globe decry ordination of lesbian bishop

In response to an openly gay woman being ordained a bishop in the Episcopal Church on Saturday, Anglican leaders from around the world decried the action as “gravely concerning and wrong,” with some adding that the move has “hurt and alienated” many within the Episcopal community, reports Catholic News Agency.

Fifty-five year-old Mary Glasspool, an openly parterned lesbian, was ordained a bishop at Long Beach arena on May 15. Some 3,000 people attended the ceremony which featured a procession with liturgical dancers in bright colored outfits, costumed dragons and drums, according to Virtue Online.

This recent move by the Episcopal church in the U.S. has caused tremendous controversy within the global Anglican church, prompting Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to issue a statement of caution when the announcement of Glasspool’s ordination was first made last year. He urged church leaders at the time to consider the “implications and consequences of this decision.” Archbishop Williams wrote in March that the Episcopal leaders’ later confirmation of Glasspool’s election as bishop-suffragen was “regrettable.”

Several world leaders within the Anglican community denounced Saturday’s ordination.

“The decision of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America to consecrate as a bishop a woman in a sexually active lesbian relationship is gravely concerning and wrong,” said Rev. Dr. H. William Godfrey, bishop of the the Anglican Church of Peru on May 15.

“It is impossible,” he added, “to know by what authority the Episcopal Church is taking this action. It is disobedient to the Word of God, to the teaching of the Church, and deeply hurtful and damaging to their Christian brothers and sisters.”

“It appears,” the bishop observed, “that their decision is being taken in accord with their instincts and feelings, and the ways of the liberal society in which they live, and that they have forgotten the moral values and teachings of the Holy Scriptures and their Church.”

A coalition of Evangelical Anglicans in Ireland issued a joint statement expressing support for those within the Episcopal community who feel “hurt and alienated” by Glasspool’s ordination.

“Many Christians of all traditions and denominations will share our sorrow and see Mary Glasspool’s consecration as a defiant rejection of pleas for restraint and, even more importantly, as a rejection of the pattern of holiness of life called for in Scripture and endorsed by believers over the centuries,” they wrote on Sunday.

Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti, Bishop of the Diocese of Recife in Brazil, said in a statement on May 15 that the ordination was “lamentable” and that it has caused “a de facto rupture” within the Anglican community.

The bishop of the Diocese of Caledonia, Rev. William Anderson, added that he “can only hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury will finally accept that bishops and national churches who choose to willfully ignore the teaching of the Anglican Communion and Holy Scripture, ought to suffer the natural consequence of choosing to go their own way – which is to say, that they ought to be considered to have left the Anglican Communion.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Lutheran denomination splitting after gay pastor vote

The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination is splitting following a controversial decision at its August conference to allow noncelibate homosexuals to serve as pastors, reports Baptist Press.

It will take months to determine how truly significant the change to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA) is, but a conservative group of Lutherans calling themselves Lutheran CORE already is calling for the more orthodox churches to leave the denomination. Lutheran CORE leaders voted Nov. 18 to form a new Lutheran body, and churches nationwide are now taking sides in the dispute. It takes a two-thirds vote for a church to leave the ELCA and join Lutheran CORE, which has formed a committee that will draft a proposal for how the new church body will function. The committee’s recommendations will be released in February and voted on in August.

The ELCA claims 4.8 million members and 10,500 churches.

"Many ELCA members and congregations have said that they want to sever ties with the ELCA because of the ELCA’s continued movement away from traditional Christian teachings," Lutheran CORE chair Paull Spring said. "The vote on sexuality opened the eyes of many to how far the ELCA has moved from Biblical teaching."

Meeting in Minneapolis in August, delegates to the ELCA’s biennial conference voted 559-451 to allow openly practicing homosexuals to serve as pastors. It became the largest denomination in America with such a policy. The Episcopal Church, a smaller denomination, has a similar stance.

The Minneapolis conference was followed by a meeting of 1,200 Lutheran CORE supporters Sept. 25-26 in Fishers, Ind., where delegates to that meeting voted to authorize the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee to "initiate conversations among the congregations" toward a possible "reconfiguration" of Lutherans. That steering committee voted Nov. 18 to begin the process of forming a new denomination. The word "CORE" is an acronym for "Coalition for Renewal."

Neither side is predicting how many churches will leave or stay. In Erskine, Minn., 80 percent of Rodnes Lutheran Church members voted Oct. 18 to leave the ELCA, the INFORUM.com website reported. But in Waseca, Minn., Nov. 22, 77 percent of Grace Lutheran Church members voted to stay, the Waseca County News newspaper reported.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, believes the issue of homosexuality eventually will divide all mainline denominations.

"You either approve gay and lesbian sexually active pastors and clergy or you don’t," he told Baptist Press. "Opinion is divided enough in the mainline denominations that if you approve it, then you’re going to have conservatives leaving and if you don’t, then you’re going to have liberals leaving. I believe that this issue will end up reconfiguring the entire mainline Protestant landscape. It is in the process of dividing the Episcopalians. It’s dividing now the Lutherans. It’s in the process of dividing the Presbyterians, and it eventually will end up dividing the Methodists."

Land asked, rhetorically, referencing the ELCA’s namesake, "Does anyone have any doubt what Martin Luther believed about this? The question is whether you’re going to be under the authority of Scripture or not. And, clearly, there are large chunks of mainline Protestantism that have decided they are going to stand in judgment of Scripture."

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

Media speculates: Vatican will receive Anglicans into Catholic Church

Several Italian newspapers speculated today that the Vatican may possibly welcome a large number of members from the Traditional Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church on Tuesday. The group previously separated from the Anglican Communion due to issues such as the ordinations of both women and sexually active homosexuals, reports Catholic News Agency.

According to Giacomo Galeazzi from the Italian daily La Stampa, the press conference to be held tomorrow at the Vatican press office by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, Secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, will be the occasion in which the reception of the Anglican group, which claims to have some 500,000 members –among clergy and laity- will be officially announced.

“The news story, already anticipated by some Australian media, could be finally confirmed during the press briefing that was announced this afternoon by the Vatican press office,” Galeazzi wrote on Monday.

Galeazzi also claimed that the Traditionalist Anglicans have already signed a document of adherence to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and have symbolically deposited it at a Marian shrine in England.

“Once reunited with Rome, they may keep most of the Liturgical celebrations according to their tradition, which is closer to the Tridentine Mass,” La Stampa explained, adding that they would also “keep their married clergy but not married bishops.”

The Italian Vatican reporter also noted that since the Anglican priestly ordination is not valid, those who want to remain priests within the Catholic Church would have to be ordained, most likely after passing a theological exam.

The move by the Traditionalists could have a significant impact on other Anglicans who still remain within the communion, but are extremely frustrated not only with the ordination of women as Anglican priests and bishops, but especially with the decision of the American Episcopalians – members of the Anglican communion- to ordain sexually active homosexuals as priests and bishops.

The ordination of Eugene Robinson as the first actively homosexual bishop in 2004, sparked an unprecedented division inside the Anglican Communion.

According to Galeazzi, the group of Anglicans that could be received into the Catholic Church on Tuesday may be erected as a personal prelature, which has the same canonical status held by Opus Dei.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

God "rejoices" over abortions says Episcopal priestess

The Episcopal Church has to clarify God’s official position on abortion – at least so says a priestess of the church, who claims that a proposed rite for post-abortive women conflicts with church theology and that the Deity “rejoices” when women elect to abort their children, reports Peter J. Smith, LifeSiteNews.com.

Rev. Nina Churchman wrote a letter to Episcopal Life Online expressing her outrage upon learning that her church has developed a healing rite for post-abortion women sorrowful over their abortion that seems to have language alluding to “sin” and “guilt.”

Churchman said she “was sickened to discover that the rite for abortion is couched wholly in terms of sin and transgression.”

The priestess also took particular umbrage with the words, “I seek God’s forgiveness” and the words “God rejoices that you have come seeking God’s merciful forgiveness.”

“The Episcopal Church, by resolution, has long held that women have the freedom to choose an abortion,” asserted Churchman. “It is not considered a sin.”

The Episcopal Church’s “long held” position permitting abortion dates back to 1967, when the church began to lobby for abortion in limited cases (i.e. rape, incest, fetal deformity, health of the mother), which by 1994 had become a full-blown defense of a right to an abortion. The church’s previous position on abortion, had lasted much longer. As late as 1958 the church had expressed an unequivocal defense of over 1900 years of Christian tradition against abortion, stating, “Abortion and infanticide are to be condemned.”

“Women should be able to mourn the loss of an aborted fetus without having to confess anything,” declared Churchman.

“God, unlike what the liturgy states, also rejoices that women facing unplanned pregnancies have the freedom to carefully choose the best option – birth, adoption or abortion – for themselves and their families.”

“The wording of this liturgy focuses solely on guilt and sin instead of the grief and healing that may accompany a very difficult but appropriate decision to terminate a pregnancy,” said Churchman.

Instead Churchman expressed her determination that the church should reject the rite at the next General Convention and do away with the references to “sin” and “guilt.”

The proposed post-abortion healing service had been the idea of Georgette Forney, president of Anglicans for Life, who had obtained an abortion when she was 16. Forney had asked the church to create a healing service for women like herself seeking healing, and the Episcopal General Convention had approved the development of the project.

The result was a rite addressing “the pastoral needs of women and men and who have experienced miscarriage, abortion or other trauma in the childbearing or childbirth process” in a book called, “Rachel’s Tears, Hannah’s Hopes: Liturgies and Prayers for Healing from Loss Related to Childbearing and Childbirth.”

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church will consider and vote on the rite when it convenes July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

 

NOTE: My Thoughts on the Above Article

The above article surely highlights some serious issues relating to the Episcopal Church in America, from a Biblical perspective.

1. The area of church leadership is of concern, even leaving out the issue of priests, what is a woman doing in the place of leadership within the church. Surely the Scriptures are clear on this.

2. The Episcopal Church in America has landed on the wrong side of the abortion debate. Abortion is a crime against humanity and a sin. I wouldn’t have thought this was a difficult position to reach for Bible believing Christians, but perhaps that is the real essence of the problem – perhaps these are not Bible believing Christians?

Conservative Anglicans officially form new church group

Leaders who defected from the Episcopal Church completed the formation of a conservative branch of Anglicanism in North America Monday by ratifying the constitution of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), reports Charisma News Online.

The document was signed during ACNA’s Inaugural Provincial Assembly, which drew some 800 participants to Bedford, Texas, this week. Pittsburg Bishop Robert Duncan, who on Wednesday will be installed as the group’s first archbishop, said the formation of ACNA reflects a return to orthodox Christianity that is happening both within the 77 million-member Anglican Communion and beyond.

“Our God is up to something very big, both with us and with others,” Duncan said Monday. “The Father truly is drawing His children together again in a surprising and sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. He is again re-forming His church.”

On Tuesday, Saddleback pastor Rick Warren addressed the assembly, encouraging them to love one another but not the world’s values, the Associated Press reported. Other non-Anglican participants include Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church, the Rev. Samuel Nafzger of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas. The assembly ends on Thursday.

The formation of ACNA, said to represent some 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes, is the latest response to liberal moves within the Episcopal Church that culminated with the ordination of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Since then, roughly 200 congregations have left what had been the only U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, ACNA leaders report.

Most of the defectors, including several charismatic parishes, have aligned with conservative dioceses in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, where Anglicanism is experiencing the most growth.

To read the full story, click here.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

UK TRADITIONAL WING OF ANGLICANS TO LEAVE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

There are effectively two religions being practised in the Church of England, a leader of the evangelical or traditionally Protestant wing of the Anglican Church said this week, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com. On one side are the theologically ultra-liberal leadership who support not only women’s ordination but homosexuality, while on the other are those who hold to traditionally Christian and biblical principles.

The Rev. Rod Thomas was speaking to the annual conference of the Reform movement in London this week. Thomas said that at least twenty-five parishes, representing up to 3000 practising Anglicans in the UK, are already seeking alternate oversight from bishops not associated with the ultra-liberal theological trends that dominate the Church of England.

“We are actively going to take forward the agenda of alternative episcopal oversight. We are no longer able to sit back and wait to see what happens,” Rev. Thomas said.

“The most radical scenario which I don’t discount, but neither am I saying we are pressing for, is where you have a shortlist of names and ask overseas persons to consecrate them so they cater for individuals in this country.”

The Reform movement was founded in 1993 to oppose the ordination of women as clergy in the Church of England and represents the established Church’s traditional protestant or “evangelical” wing.

Thomas urged support from Reform Anglicans for the Fellowship of the Confessing Anglicans, a body set up by the bishops who attended this summer’s Global Anglican Futures Conference in Jerusalem.

Thomas said that the group believes in remaining within an “an Episcopal church for good theological and pragmatic reasons.”

“However, where the teaching and actions of a bishop promote an unbiblical way of thinking, then we simply have to look elsewhere for a bishop.

“If we fail to do this then our congregations will not see us taking New Testament teaching seriously and the process of accommodation will continue,” he said.

This summer’s Lambeth Conference issued instructions for Anglican congregations not to continue to seek “cross-border” oversight from bishops outside traditional Anglican episcopal boundaries.

Meanwhile traditionally Christian congregations in the US are winning their cases in courts to retain their parish properties while at the same time removing themselves from oversight by the Episcopal Church of the US (ECUSA). In the Diocese of Virginia this week, a judge ruled that a parcel of land given by Christ the Redeemer Episcopal Church was properly deeded to Truro Church, a traditional church, and that the diocese has no claim to it. The diocese has recently lost three times in lawsuits to retain some dozen church properties.

Conservative Anglican writer and commentator David Virtue wrote, “The Anglican Communion is coming apart at the seams while Dr. Rowan Williams tells a London reporter that he admires the atheist [Dr. Richard] Dawkins.” Dr. Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, was reported to have recently said about Dawkins, “There’s something about his swashbuckling side which is endearing. I invited atheism’s high priest and his wife to a Lambeth Palace party last year. They were absolutely delightful.”

Report from the Christian Telegraph