Church of Scotland: Wealthy Churches Quit Over Gay Ordination

Funds lost as wealthy churches quit in new gay protest

Brian Donnelly

Senior News Reporter

Wednesday 16 April 2014

TWO of the wealthiest Church of ­Scotland congregations are quitting the Kirk just weeks before the General Assembly over the issue of gay ordination.

TWO of the wealthiest Church of ­Scotland congregations are quitting the Kirk just weeks before the General Assembly over the issue of gay ordination.

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BRIAN DONNELLY

      

The move is a new cash blow with the two congregations contributing £315,000 between them to the Church.


One of the congregations has already left, with the second negotiating terms.


The departure of St Catherine's Argyle, in the leafy Grange district of Edinburgh, and New Restalrig in Willowbrae, also in the Scottish capital, comes as almost 1000 key figures are due to gather for the annual meeting of the Church in the city in May.

The two confirmed breakaway congregations are in the "higher givings bracket" and so among the wealthiest in terms of donations.


Reverend Robin Sydserff, minister at St Catherine's Argyle, is understood to have strong support in his congregation - which generated income of £200,000 a year - in objecting to the direction of the debate over the issue sparked by the appointment of openly gay Reverend Scott Rennie to an Aberdeen church in 2009.


A move was made to allow ­the ­ordination of gay ministers at the General Assembly last year, sparking a number of resignations by congregations. Reverend David Court, formerly of New Restalrig, whose congregation donated £115,000 a year, has also now officially signed off, or demitted, from the Kirk and has become a member of the Free Church of Scotland.


His flock of more than 100 now worship in a mission hall in Craigentinny in the city, with New Restalrig under the guidance of locum minister Reverend Peter Nelson.


Although Mr Sydserff is said to have support, one Kirk source said the flow of worshippers can vary in urban presbyteries, adding that St Catherine's Argyle had "long been a magnet" for evangelicals.
A locum minister will also be appointed for the Grange church and the St Catherine's Argyle parishioners who stay with the Kirk.


Parish census records showed 700 Kirk-affiliated worshippers at St Catherine's Argyle, while more than 2000 were Kirk-affiliated in New Restalrig.


For the rest, see:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/funds-lost-as-wealthy-churches-quit-in-new-gay-protest.23979045

Wash Po, 11 Mar 14: SCOTUS Won't Hear Appeal in 2200-Member Falls Church Anglican, DC

Supreme Court won’t hear appeal of dispute over Episcopal Church’s property in Va.

Katherine Frey/The Washington Post -  The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Virginia Supreme Court ruling that the 2,000-member congregation did not have the right to keep the sprawling property known as the Falls Church.

By Michelle Boorstein,   Published: March 10 E-mail the writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/supreme-court-wont-hear-appeal-of-dispute-over-episcopal-churchs-property-in-va/2014/03/10/8f22e72a-a886-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html?tid=hpModule_99d5f542-86a2-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394 

Seven years after 15 conservative Virginia congregations made global news by breaking away from the Episcopal Church — and refusing to give up tens of millions of dollars in property — the Supreme Court on Monday ended the complex legal dispute by declining to take up an appeal by the last remaining plaintiff.

The Falls Church Anglican, a 2,000-member breakaway congregation, had asserted that the nearly 300-year-old sprawling property belonged to the Anglican group because the Episcopal Church “left” its umbrella Anglican tradition by becoming more liberal in interpreting scripture and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy.


While Monday’s action ended the conflict by ensuring that the Episcopal Church can keep the property, it left both congregations to focus on rebuilding.


For the breakaway Anglicans, that means eventually moving their huge congregation from a large high school gym and several other borrowed locations to a property of their own — once they find one. For the Episcopal congregation that remains, it means trying to grow its 200-person community into one worthy of the large and valuable property it now gets to keep.


“In some ways, it’s like a divorce. There are good things about divorces, but by and large, divorce is not a good thing,” said John Yates, rector of the breakaway group. “It’s been sad, but I would not go back. . . . We’re moving forward.”


The splits, which happened in late 2006 and early 2007, in some cases divided families and longtime friends who disagreed in particular about the Episcopal Church ordaining openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Both sides at times described the conflict as embarrassing — to see churches spending so much money on lawyers instead of on the needy.


The cases drew global attention for a few reasons. One issue was the size and wealth of some of the breakaway congregations. The multiple properties sit on a 30-acre compound and are valued at about $40 million. The conservatives decided to place themselves instead under the leadership of a controversial anti-gay Nigerian Anglican archbishop. And the conflict reflected standoffs occurring across American religious communities about issues such as the divinity of Jesus and what the Bible intends about human sexuality.


As the case made its long way through the courts, the country became much more open to gay equality. Philip Jenkins, a prominent religious historian at Baylor University, said “the basic landscape” in how Americans think about sexuality, gender and Scripture is changing quickly.


For example, he said, many traditional Christians who a decade ago wouldn’t consider gay equality now embrace it in terms of how people deserve to be treated in civil society, even as they remain closed to redefining Christian marriage.


However, he said, both the Episcopal Church — of which he is a member — and the breakaway movement of conservative Anglicans are not strong. Liberal religion, such as Episcopalianism, “is in steep decline,” he said. The breakaway movement of conservatives from mainline Protestantism “plateaued.”


The case began in late 2006, when traditional Virginia congregations, from tiny ones in Leesburg and the Northern Neck to the large Falls Church Anglican in Falls Church and Truro in Fairfax voted to split from the Episcopal Church. Steeped in history and tradition, Truro and the Falls Church were formed before the denomination existed. George Washington was a member of the vestry at the Falls Church.


As soon as the breakaways made clear they weren’t leaving the properties, the two sides headed to court and remained there. Eleven congregations were involved in the initial litigation, but over the years, congregations settled with the diocese and moved on.


Meanwhile a few small congregations of Episcopalians hoping to return to their buildings set up homes in borrowed churches.


In 2012, the Virginia Supreme Court ordered the breakaways to turn over the properties, including the money, to the diocese. Eventually, only the large Falls Church remained in court, meeting in alternative spaces as the case continued.


On Monday, both sides said it was unfortunate to spend so many millions on legal bills but seemed to think it was worth it.


“It’s regrettable when someone decides their differences are so great they have to work apart. I honestly miss those colleagues who chose to walk apart from us. They diminish our diversity,” said the Rev. John Ohmer, pastor at the Falls Church.


During the litigation, the Falls Church has been subsidized by the diocese and the national denomination but will have to find a way to maintain the large property despite its small congregation. Ohmer said he was confident it would be able to grow.


Yates acknowledged how the American conversation has changed on sexuality since the topic animated many church discussions in the early 2000s.


“Instead of trying to say, ‘We believe this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong,’ I think we’re trying to go back and understand God’s intention for sexuality from the very beginning. We’re trying to look at it in a fresh light. While we still believe marriage is a heterosexual union for life, we realize this is under intense scrutiny in the culture and we’re trying to talk about it in ways that people will understand and think about,” Yates said. “We’d not want our identity to hinge on those issues.”
Ohmer said the Episcopal Church had also put a great deal of thought into how to interpret Scripture before embracing gay equality.


“There’s been a debate in the Episcopal Church for 50 years [over how to read the Bible,] but it was only recently when some people unfortunately decided to separate themselves,” he said. The change in the denomination’s stance, he said, “wasn’t because we weren’t reading our Bibles but precisely because we were reading our Bibles.”

Mr. (Rev.Dr.Prof.) Robert Gagnon & Duck Dynasty

Mr. (Rev.Dr.Prof.) Robert Gagnon on Duck Dynasty, minutes 1 to about 18.

12 Historical Quotes Against Sodomy That Every Christian Should Know

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=18381#.UrUGycKA1jo

12 Historical Quotes Against Sodomy That Every Christian Should Know
By TFP Student Action www.tfpstudentaction.org
December 14, 2013

For millennia the Catholic Church has consistently opposed unnatural vice. Here is a brief sampling of useful quotes from Saints, Doctors of the Church, Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers who condemn homosexual vice in their writings.

1. Athenagoras of Athens (2nd Century)

Athenagoras of Athens was a philosopher who converted to Christianity in the second century. He shows that the pagans, who were totally immoral, did not even refrain from sins against nature:

"But though such is our character (Oh. why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the proverb, 'The harlot reproves the chaste.' For those who have set up a market for fornication and established infamous resorts for the young for every kind of vile pleasure - who do not abstain even from males, males with males committing shocking abominations, outraging all the noblest and comeliest bodies in all sorts of ways, so dishonoring the fair workmanship of God."1

2. Tertullian (160-225)

Tertullian was a great genius and apologist of the early Church. Unfortunately, after an initial period of fervor, he succumbed to resentment and pride, left the Church and adhered to the Montanist heresy. Because of works written while still in the Church, he is considered an Ecclesiastical Writer and, as such, is commonly quoted by Popes and theologians. His treatise On Modesty is an apology of Christian chastity. He clearly shows the horror the Church has for sins against nature. After condemning adultery, he exclaims:

"But all the other frenzies of passions–impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes–beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities."2

3. Eusebius of Caesarea (260-341)

Eusebius Pamphili, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine and the "Father of Church History," writes in his book, Demonstratio Evangelica:

"[God in the Law given to Moses] having forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men."3

4. Saint Jerome (340-420)

Saint Jerome is both Father and Doctor of the Church. He was also a notable exegete and great polemicist. In his book Against Jovinianus, he explains how a sodomite needs repentance and penance to be saved:

"And Sodom and Gomorrah might have appeased it [God's wrath], had they been willing to repent, and through the aid of fasting gain for themselves tears of repentance."4

5. Saint John Chrysostom (347-407)

Saint John Chrysostom is considered the greatest of the Greek Fathers and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church. He was Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, and his revision of the Greek liturgy is used until today. In his sermons about Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans, he dwells on the gravity of the sin of homosexuality:

"But if thou scoffest at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration....

"Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time.... For that rain was unwonted, for the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who hath pandered himself, or what more execrable?5

6. Saint Augustine (354-430)

The greatest of the Fathers of the West and one of the great Doctors of the Church, Saint Augustine laid the foundations of Catholic theology. In his celebrated Confessions, he thus condemns homosexuality:

"Those offences which be contrary to nature are everywhere and at all times to be held in detestation and punished; such were those of the Sodomites, which should all nations commit, they should all be held guilty of the same crime by the divine law, which hath not so made men that they should in that way abuse one another. For even that fellowship which should be between God and us is violated, when that same nature of which He is author is polluted by the perversity of lust."6

7. Saint Gregory the Great (540-604)

Pope Saint Gregory I is called "the Great." He is both Father and Doctor of the Church. He introduced Gregorian chant into the Church. He organized England's conversion, sending Saint Augustine of Canterbury and many Benedictine monks there.

"Sacred Scripture itself confirms that sulfur evokes the stench of the flesh, as it speaks of the rain of fire and sulfur poured upon Sodom by the Lord. He had decided to punish Sodom for the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment he chose emphasized the shame of that crime. For sulfur stinks, and fire burns. So it was just that Sodomites, burning with perverse desires arising from the flesh like stench, should perish by fire and sulfur so that through this just punishment they would realize the evil they had committed, led by a perverse desire."7

8. Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072)

Doctor of the Church, cardinal and a great reformer of the clergy, Saint Peter Damian wrote his famous Book of Gomorrah against the inroads made by homosexuality among the clergy. He describes not only the iniquity of homosexuality, but also its psychological and moral consequences:

"Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices.... It defiles everything, stains everything, pollutes everything. And as for itself, it permits nothing pure, nothing clean, nothing other than filth....

"The miserable flesh burns with the heat of lust; the cold mind trembles with the rancor of suspicion; and in the heart of the miserable man chaos boils like Tartarus [Hell].... In fact, after this most poisonous serpent once sinks its fangs into the unhappy soul, sense is snatched away, memory is borne off, the sharpness of the mind is obscured. It becomes unmindful of God and even forgetful of itself. This plague undermines the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, destroys the bond of charity; it takes away justice, subverts fortitude, banishes temperance, blunts the keenness of prudence.

"And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out."8

9. Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Commenting upon Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, explains why the sin of homosexuality is so grave:

"Given the sin of impiety through which they [the Romans] sinned against the divine nature [by idolatry], the punishment that led them to sin against their own nature followed.... I say, therefore, that since they changed into lies [by idolatry] the truth about God, He brought them to ignominious passions, that is, to sins against nature; not that God led them to evil, but only that he abandoned them to evil....

"If all the sins of the flesh are worthy of condemnation because by them man allows himself to be dominated by that which he has of the animal nature, much more deserving of condemnation are the sins against nature by which man degrades his own animal nature....

"Man can sin against nature in two ways. First, when he sins against his specific rational nature, acting contrary to reason. In this sense, we can say that every sin is a sin against man's nature, because it is against man's right reason....

"Secondly, man sins against nature when he goes against his generic nature, that is to say, his animal nature. Now, it is evident that, in accord with natural order, the union of the sexes among animals is ordered towards conception. From this it follows that every sexual intercourse that cannot lead to conception is opposed to man's animal nature."9

10. Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

Saint Catherine, a great mystic and Doctor of the Church, lived in troubled times. The Papacy was in exile at Avignon, France. She was instrumental in bringing the Popes back to Rome. Her famous Dialogues are written as if dictated by God Himself:

"But they act in a contrary way, for they come full of impurity to this mystery, and not only of that impurity to which, through the fragility of your weak nature, you are all naturally inclined (although reason, when free will permits, can quiet the rebellion of nature), but these wretches not only do not bridle this fragility, but do worse, committing that accursed sin against nature, and as blind and fools, with the light of their intellect darkened, they do not know the stench and misery in which they are. It is not only that this sin stinks before me, who am the Supreme and Eternal Truth, it does indeed displease me so much and I hold it in such abomination that for it alone I buried five cities by a divine judgment, my divine justice being no longer able to endure it. This sin not only displeases me as I have said, but also the devils whom these wretches have made their masters. Not that the evil displeases them because they like anything good, but because their nature was originally angelic, and their angelic nature causes them to loathe the sight of the actual commission of this enormous sin.10

11. Saint Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444)

Saint Bernardine of Siena was a famous preacher, celebrated for his doctrine and holiness. Regarding homosexuality, he stated:

"No sin in the world grips the soul as the accursed sodomy; this sin has always been detested by all those who live according to God.... Deviant passion is close to madness; this vice disturbs the intellect, destroys elevation and generosity of soul, brings the mind down from great thoughts to the lowliest, makes the person slothful, irascible, obstinate and obdurate, servile and soft and incapable of anything; furthermore, agitated by an insatiable craving for pleasure, the person follows not reason but frenzy.... They become blind and, when their thoughts should soar to high and great things, they are broken down and reduced to vile and useless and putrid things, which could never make them happy.... Just as people participate in the glory of God in different degrees, so also in hell some suffer more than others. He who lived with this vice of sodomy suffers more than another, for this is the greatest sin."11

12. Saint Peter Canisius (1521-1597)

Saint Peter Canisius, Jesuit and Doctor of the Church, is responsible for helping one third of Germany abandon Lutheranism and return to the Church. To Scripture's condemnation of homosexuality, he added his own:

"As the Sacred Scripture says, the Sodomites were wicked and exceedingly sinful. Saint Peter and Saint Paul condemn this nefarious and depraved sin. In fact, the Scripture denounces this enormous indecency thus: 'The scandal of Sodomites and Gomorrhans has multiplied and their sins have become grave beyond measure.' So the angels said to just Lot, who totally abhorred the depravity of the Sodomites: 'Let us leave this city....' Holy Scripture does not fail to mention the causes that led the Sodomites, and can also lead others, to this most grievous sin. In fact, in Ezechiel we read: 'Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and the poor. And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me; and I took them away as thou hast seen' (Ezech. 16: 49-50). Those unashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this never sufficiently execrated depravity."12

Note: These quotes are taken from Defending A Higher Law: Why We Must Resist Same-Sex "Marriage" and the Homosexual Movement.



1. Fr.. B. P. Pratten, trans., A Plea For The Christians, Chap. 34, www.newadvent.org/fathers/0205.htm [back]
2. Fr. S. Thelwall, trans., On Modesty, Chap. 4, www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-19.htm [back]
3. W. J. Ferrar, trans., Demonstratio Evangelica, Book 4, Chap. 10, www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers/eusebius_de_06_book4.htm [back]
4. Book 2, no. 15, www.newadvent.org/fathers/30092.htm [back]
5. Homily IV Romans 1:26-27, www.ccel.org/fathers/NPNF1-11/Chrysostom/Romans/Rom-Hom04.html [back]
6. Book III, Chap. 8, no. 15, www.newadvent.org/fathers/110103.htm [back]
7. Morales sur Job, Part III, Vol. I, book 14, no. 23, p. 353. (Our translation.) [back]
8. St. Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah, Pierre J. Payer, trans., (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1982), pp. 63-64 [back]
9. St. Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam B. Pauli ad Romanos, Cap. 1, Lec. 8, www.una1v.es/filosofia/alarcon/amicis/cro016.html. (Our translation.) [back]
10. St. Catherine of Sienna, The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1925), p. 255 [back]
11. St. Bernardine of Siena, Sermon XXXIX in Prediche volgari, pp. 896-897, 915. [back]
12. St. Peter Canisius, Summa Doctrina Christianae, III a/b, p. 455 [back]

Lutheran Blues: ELCA Has Biggest Split in American Church History

ELCA Has Biggest Split in American Church History
by Rev. Kevin Vogtshttp://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=31542
July 12th, 2013

Since shortly after its formation in 1988 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been fixated on deviant sexual behavior, culminating in the endorsement of homosexual pastors in 2009, homosexual "marriage" in 2011, and the election last month of their first homosexual bishop. Dr. James Nestingen, a highly respected scholar and retired ELCA seminary professor, recently concluded that promoting acceptance of deviant sexual behavior has actually replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the primary mission and message of the ELCA.

Those within the ELCA demanding these radical changes asserted it is necessary for the ELCA's very survival. Supposedly, they simply must move into the 21st century on these issues, or otherwise they will be so out-of-step with modern society that it would mean the demise of their denomination. By the way, this is the same deceptive reasoning behind similar disturbing changes recently in the Boy Scouts of America.

However, the ELCA has now released some startling statistics that show the exact opposite has actually happened:

When the ELCA was formed in 1988 they had 5.2 million members, but they are now down to only 4 million members–a staggering loss of over 1.2 million members, or 23% of their membership. They have also lost 1,500, or 13%, of their congregations, from approximately 11,000 to 9,500. As they "celebrate" this year the 25th anniversary of the ELCA, the fact is that during that time they have lost more members and congregations than make up many entire denominations.

Of these losses, over 500,000 members and 1,000 congregations have left the ELCA in just the last four years, triggered by their endorsement of homosexuality beginning in 2009. This is actually the biggest denominational split in American church history, and is directly attributable to that decision.

Another measure of the ELCA's decline is that in 1988, 2.1% of all Americans were members of the ELCA, but by 2011 that figure had fallen to 1.3%. The National Council of Churches reports that the ELCA has "the sharpest rate of membership decline" among all mainline Protestant denominations. Like Avis car rental which used to advertise "We're Number 2–But We Try Harder." the LCMS has historically always been the second-largest American Lutheran church body. However, at the ELCA's current rate of losing members–nearly 6% in 2010–in just a decade the LCMS will surpass the ELCA as the largest American Lutheran church body, and a few decades after that the ELCA will cease to exist.

Even among those congregations remaining in the ELCA average weekly worship attendance from 2003 to 2011 dropped 26%. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod has 2.3 million members and the similarly conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod has 300,000 members, yet even with our smaller combined membership of 2.6 million the LCMS and WELS have more people actually sitting in the pews each Sunday than the ELCA with 4 million members.

Donations to the ELCA on the national level were $88 million in 2008 but plunged to only $40 million in 2011.

Luther Seminary, the ELCA's largest seminary, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, announced that last year they had a $6 million operating deficit on a budget of $27 million. This was due largely to a recent sharp decline in donations to the seminary, reportedlyincluding a couple that for many years had given $1 million a year to the seminary but stopped their donations after the ELCA's endorsement of homosexuality. The seminary was forced to cancel many of its programs and lay off a third of the faculty and staff.

Since the ELCA's endorsement of homosexuality, many other Lutheran church bodies around the world have severed their historic ties with the ELCA, and are instead seeking new relationships with the LCMS. This includes many of the largest and fastest-growing Lutheran church bodies in the world, such as the Lutherans in Ethiopia with over 6 million members–nearly as many as all American Lutheran church bodies combined. The center of world Lutheranism is shifting from Europe and America to Africa, Asia, and South America, and the LCMS is becoming the theological leader of these growing Lutheran church bodies. While the ELCA is becoming increasingly isolated in world Lutheranism, at our national convention this month the LCMS will enter into formal fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia, Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Lutheran Church of Togo.

The Lord warns:

"There will be false teachers among you, who will surreptitiously introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful, licentious ways." (2 Peter 2:1-2)

"As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you formerly had when you lived in ignorance. Instead, just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:14-15)

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2)

These passages show how misdirected and sinful it is to accommodate the church's doctrine and practice to the world's wicked ways. It is also foolish and futile.

On the one hand, the world will never be satisfied–until Christians completely renounce their faith. More importantly, the Lord will never bless such unfaithfulness to Him and His Word.

We see from the sad example of what's happened to the ELCA–the biggest split in American church history–that whatever churches and other organizations such as the Boy Scouts imagine they will gain by giving in to the world is dwarfed by what they will surely lose.

END

David Virtue, Global Internet Rips on TEC, and the Delusional GC 2012

David Virtue, the internet, websites, and blogs continue to rip the TEC effectively.  The level of self-deception and blindness in the TEC leaders continues to stagger close observers.  Oh what 10 years has brought them, a 23% decline in attendance (2000-2010) with no let-up in sight.  It's a difficult issue for older folks.  (Never mind, there aren't many youths these days.)

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=16326

Dear Brothers and Sisters www.virtueonline.org
July 20, 2012

The Anglican/Episcopal drama is quite possibly the most riveting story in contemporary Christianity. The power of the Internet via websites, blogs and social media including, VIRTUEONLINE www.virtueonline.org, has brought this vividly to light, most recently at the Episcopal Church's 77th General Convention held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Never in history has the little media guy had a chance to rise up and challenge the ecclesiastical powers and ask if the emperors (read bishops) have legitimate theological clothes. Never before has it been the place to challenge those in authority over us and to ask the hard tough questions. We at V OL won't settle for easy answers.

With the help of the Internet, Anglicans in African provinces can get the word instantly and spread the word that there is an alternative to the revisionist Episcopal Church. Although the ACNA and other Anglican bodies have their issues, that they exist at all in the strength they have–including old Episcopal congregations and dioceses, with or without the property–is a testament to the power of the Internet and our persistent voices.

At General Convention this past week in Indianapolis, I challenged the new incoming House of Deputies president, Gay Jennings who had raged on and on about how we need to get the youth back in the church and promote them. I stood up at a press conference and point blank asked her why the youth of the conservative Diocese of Dallas had not attended the last five years of national Episcopal Youth Events. They feel alienated, been publicly abused, called homophobic and other names because they are evangelicals and believe in the authority of Scripture. She almost strangled on the question and fobbed it off. Later, Bishop Leo Frade of Southeast Florida came up to me to say he was ashamed that was the case and that he would look into it.

When I asked Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori at another press conference why the national church headquarters might have to be sold off to pay the $37.5 million mortgage owing on it for legal fees, she replied that the building was worth substantially more than that. (815 2nd Avenue costs $8.7 million annually just to maintain.) Of course she didn't reply to the deeper question as to why endless lawsuits are being fought and litigated over property that most bishops can never hope to maintain even if they win them. Is it any wonder there is a huge disconnect between what goes on in parishes and what bishops and clergy pass at General Conventions?

Can anyone imagine 99% of Episcopal parishes deliberately hiring a transgendered priest? "Hi, I'm Laura, I used to be Lauren. I had a sex change operation two years ago and the Bishop of San Diego said I was fit to be a priest, so I want to be your priest. Let me in." You can't parody this stuff. Malcolm Muggeridge once told me that when he was editor of PUNCH magazine, they had a parody edition planned on the Soviet Union's collectivization being the Kingdom of God of Earth, when up jumped Dean Hewlett Johnson and actually said it was. They killed that edition.

The real hero of this General Convention was not the adoption of a long list of resolutions including asking the U.S. Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), rejecting the Covenant, voting for gay marriage, seriously reducing funding to the Anglican Communion Office, providing rites for pet funerals, the need for new structures owing to lower income into church coffers, the passage of the predictable provisional liturgies for same sex marriage or even the possibility that PA Bishop Charles E. Bennison will hire a trannie, as a priest of say, St. Clements, Philadelphia. The true face of courage came from one single bishop - Mark Lawrence of South Carolina who, in the face of the mostly revisionist House of Bishops and the 22 Communion Partner bishops stood up and said, "We here by repudiate, denounce and reject any action of The Episcopal Church which purports to bless what or Lord clearly does not bless. We declare any rite which purports to bless same-gender unions to be beyond the authority and jurisdiction of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and without force or effect."

It was an unprecedented shot across the bows of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and her cohort of sycophantic bishops who would not oppose her even if the Holy Spirit hit them over the head with a 1928 Prayer Book.

All week long, Bishop Lawrence had been a voice crying in the wilderness. He and his colleague, Bishop William Love of Albany, were the only two Episcopal bishops who put up a scrap in the House of Bishops when their brother and sister bishops debated Resolution D002 which called for the inclusion all of persons to all ministry regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, thereby embracing transgenderedness. At one point, the newly anointed Bishop of Central Florida, Gregory O. Brewer rose to say that the passage of Rites for same sex marriage would impact Global South evangelistic efforts, perhaps even endangering lives. This had zero impact on the self-absorbed, narcissistic openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson who continually bewailed the endless homophobia of those who oppose his behavior.

The good bishop of South Carolina voiced his disapproval over similar Resolution D019 calling for the total inclusion of all persons regardless of the sexual orientation, gender identity or expression in the life, worship and governance of the church.

Bishop Lawrence's pleas fell on deaf ears and hardened hearts and "T" -- transgender -- was added to the list of The Episcopal Church's protected sexual deviations: LGBT.

Altogether the passage of Resolutions D002 and D016 along with the concurrence of A049, the Convention's spiritual decay became just too much for the sensibilities of the South Carolina delegation. On Tuesday night, the entire membership of the deputation, including Bishop Lawrence, walked out. He left behind just two members to say that his diocese had not left The Episcopal Church. He is now consulting with his diocese on how he will move forward.

As he has won in the courts over property issues and has offered a "quit claim" to parishes to decide their own future, would anybody really be surprised if he and the diocese upped and left TEC? Time will tell. For the moment, he says he has no intention of leaving The Episcopal Church.

Ironically, what emerged from this litany of evil resolutions has been the excoriation of TEC by the secular press of TEC's actions. That in itself is unprecedented.

Take for example what Ross Douthart wrote in the New York Times: "the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don't seem to be offering anything you can't already get from a purely secular liberalism, which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world. Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die."

Or consider what William Murchison of Creators Syndicate wrote: "The mistake of Christian bodies like the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, and even the Roman Catholics has been to woo the culture by pretending that Truth at bottom is just personal opinion; that religious viewpoint admits prejudice more often than heavenly light."

Jay Akasie of the Wall Street Journal wrote in an article, What Ails the Episcopalians. A sub head ran, "Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful."

He ripped her a real one when he said, "Bishop (Jefferts) Schori is known for brazenly carrying a metropolitan cross during church processions. With its double horizontal bars, the metropolitan cross is a liturgical accouterment that's typically reserved for Old World bishops. And her reign as presiding bishop has been characterized by actions more akin to a potentate than a clergywoman watching over a flock.

"In recent years she's sued breakaway, traditionalist dioceses which find the mother church increasingly radical. Church legislators have asked publicly how much the legal crusades have cost, to no avail. In the week before this summer's convention, Bishop (Jefferts) Schori sent shock waves through the church by putting forth her own national budget without consulting the convention's budget committee-consisting partly of laymen-which until now has traditionally drafted the document." He had much more to say which you can read in today's digest.

This was the final straw for the newly anointed Gay Jennings, President of the House of Deputies who rushed out a piece for the Washington Post in which she opined that Episcopal churches are really short on politics, sexuality debates and long on Jesus. Such fictional writing defies everything that this and previous General Conventions are about. 99% of all resolutions passed never mention Jesus (except to use him to support whatever lunacy they have in mind) and will mercifully be forgotten except, of course, the sexuality ones that will continue to drill holes directly into the underwater hull of the SS TEC.

The deeper truth is that her piece shows that TEC leaders feel a need to respond to the sudden negative media attention. Elite Episcopal leaders like Jefferts Schori and V. Gene Robinson are accustomed to secular praise for their brave and "holy" stands. Ridicule from the likes of VOL is one thing, but public ridicule from outside the church is new territory for them. They don't like it one little bit. In the coming days, will we see an op-ed piece in the New York Times coming directly from Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori on the progressive stance of her church in the face of its orthodox despisers?

The one man who must surely be enjoying all this is, of course, the shadowy figure of David Booth Beers, Jefferts Schori's attorney who picks up millions of dollars in legal enough fees from every property lawsuit. Even if TEC sells the national headquarters, he will go on colleting his legal pound of flesh...in the name of (property) inclusivity of course.

Kevin DeYoung: Why No Denomination Will Survive the Homosexuality Crisis

http://www.christianpost.com/news/why-no-denomination-will-survive-the-homosexuality-crisis-78296/

Why No Denomination Will Survive the Homosexuality Crisis

By Kevin DeYoung , CP Guest Contributor

July 16, 2012|10:31 am

There is no way, short of a miraculous and full-scale changing of hearts and minds, for North American denominations to survive the homosexuality crisis. Denominations like the PCUSA, ELCA, RCA, UMC, and Episcopal Church will continue. They won't fold their tents and join the Southern Baptists (though wouldn't that be interesting!). I'm not suggesting most of our old, mainline denominations will disappear. But I do not see how any of these once flourishing denominations will make it through the present crisis intact.

And the sooner denominations admit this sobering reality the better.

Every denomination is different. The percentages on both sides of the issue and the official positions are not identical. But the basic contours of the problem are quite similar.

On one side you have liberals who want to see the church open its doors to the GLBT agenda. They want homosexual behavior welcomed and affirmed. They want to perform gay marriages. They want gays and lesbians to be ordained to church office. Liberals (or "progressives" or whatever-I'm trying to use neutral labels) see this as a justice issue. They believe conservatives are simply on the wrong side of history and that one day we will look at our traditional attitudes toward gays and lesbians like we look at old attitudes toward African Americans or our old attitudes toward women's ordination. We will be embarrassed to see that we could have been so blind and bigoted for so long.

On the other side you have conservatives who want to see the church maintain purity and biblical fidelity. They want homosexuals to be loved and treated with respect. But they believe the behavior cannot be tolerated as Christian behavior. They see this as a gospel issue. They believe liberals are simply on the wrong side of the Bible and one day will be embarrassed to see how much we dishonored God by capitulating to our culture. To cave on this issue is not only to reject the plain teaching of Scripture, affirmed for two millennia of church history, but it says to people "peace, peace" where there is no peace.

In the middle are those who want both sides to get along. Maybe these third way folks are liberals willing to let conservatives keep doing their thing for awhile because they believe today's conservatives will slowly evolve or die off. Maybe they are institutional loyalists who want to preserve the denomination at all costs. Maybe they consider homosexuality a relatively minor issue, one not worth fighting over and dividing the church over. Or maybe, as is often the case, those advocating for a third way are conservatives who don't want to be the meanies who put up a fight.

These are the three main parties in this controversy-left, right, and center-and there is no way to make each of them happy. There is no way for mainline denominations to broker a compromise that everyone can live with.

What If

Let's say denomination XYZ adopts a full blown official open and affirming policy. Conservatives and many middle of the roaders will leave. How can they not? The denomination, as they see it, is calling "good" what God calls "sin."

If the XYZ tightens up a conservative stance, the liberals will be livid. The denomination, as they see it, is telling their friends, their family members, their partners, and some of them, that they are not welcome any longer. The liberals could then leave, or, more likely, continue to fight or simply ignore the denomination.

At which point, the conservatives, if they are willing and able (and they are probably neither), can engage in case after case of church discipline, until the liberals leave or have been defrocked.
Apart from discipline, however, assuming the liberals continue to push against the stated position, eventually the denomination will just let them be and allow for what they technically say they won't allow.

Or, before that happens the conservatives will say enough is enough and leave a denomination they believe is no longer reformable and no longer demonstrates the third mark of the church.

Third ways don't work either. It may sound like a brilliant compromise to deploy another study committee, but this merely kicks the can down the road. It says "pass" on the crisis, only to push the crisis into someone else's lap a few years later. The denomination must fish or cut bait. It must decide what it really believes. And if it decides to never decide but just keep studying, then many folks will conclude, rightly I believe, that the denomination's de facto position is "let's just agree to disagree." This will be unacceptable to conservatives.

If denomination XYZ goes one step further and allows for a "local option" or puts homosexuality in the category of "conscience" this is a decision of its own. It says that homosexuality is such a minor issue or such an ambiguous issue that we shouldn't take a firm stance. This too will be unacceptable to many conservatives. Over time, it will be unacceptable to liberals too, who would probably view such a "compromise" (though they might not say it out loud) as training wheels meant to help the denomination ride through a difficult time until the progressive position seizes the day.

Admitting the Obvious, Proposing the Unthinkable

I understand that many good Christians love their denominations deeply. I love mine too. I don't want to see the RCA crash and burn, or fall apart. I recognize that many Christians are loathe to consider any option that involves anything less than staying together no matter what. They want to hope against hope that everything will work out and there will be some way for everyone to get along. But it is no virtue of Christian hope to trust God for contradictions. He cannot make circles to simultaneously be squares. We are not losing confidence in our almighty God if we admit that many of our denominations face intractable problems. We can't "unify" our way out of this mess or press people to stop having mutually exclusive convictions for the sake of our institutions, pensions, or pride. The fact is there is no third way, no fourth way, no tenth way out of this controversy that leaves all the pieces in the same places they are now. Groups will split. Bodies will rearrange. Parts will realign.

Maybe not this year. Maybe not on your watch. But soon enough.
So my plea is for these denominations to make a definitive stand. Make it right, left, or center, but make one and make it clearly.

Insist that member churches and pastors hold to this position. And then graciously open a big door for any pastor or church who cannot live in this theological space to exit with their dignity, their time, and their property. Because sometimes the best way to preserve unity is to admit that we don't have it.

This article was originally posted here.

Joel Osteen on Homosexuality

 

Kevin Deyoung is the Senior Pastor at University Reformed Church (RCA) in East Lansing, Michigan, and a Council Member of The Gospel Coalition.

Midwest Conservative Journal: Sound-off Against TEC GC's 2012

The TEC thinks they should be central, vocal and visible.  Well, they are.  Institutionally, they are run by "egopapists." Or, blind narcissists, self-evidentely. Or, meglomaniacs without reasons.  Or, "Gasbags" for cause and with merit. This is TEC's theological and cultural legacy.  MCJ offers a reasonable screed here, one of justifiable frustration.  We recommend following MWJ and linking to it.

http://themcj.com/?p=33537

BACK TO THE BIBLE

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

Ross Douthat of the New York Times looks at the precipitous decline of the Episcopal Organization and other manifestations of liberal Christianity and wonders whether liberal Christianity can be saved. Although regular visitors here know that the argument about when the Episcopal Organization began to go south is a perpetual one, Douthat begins with a certain megalomaniacal old gasbag:

In 1998, John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark, published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure — during his career, he dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition — but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church has spent the last several decades changing and then changing some more, from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States.

I think you can make a plausible case for the Episcopal death spiral, while perhaps not starting with the megalomaniacal old gasbag, at least becoming inevitable with him. Over the years, a number of Catholic and Orthodox commenters here have quite correctly pointed out that any church that did nothing whatsoever about the megalogmaniacal old gas bag has no business protesting Gene Robinson.

After all, Robbie, as homosexual as he might be, is still a paragon of Christian and evangelical virtue compared to the megalomaniacal old gasbag. The Episcopaltanic may have struck the iceberg long before anyone ever heard of the megalomaniacal old gasbag. But the water didn’t start pouring into the ship until TEO refused to do anything about him other than hope that he went away.

As a result, today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.

Another point that I’ve been making for many years. The Episcopal Organization gets the publicity that it does not because of anything it has to offer. The media plays up the Episcopalians because Episcopalians look Roman Catholic, what with their pointy hats and hooked sticks and Latin terms in their prayer book and saints and whatnot.

Those stories about the Episcopal Organization really have nothing to do with the Episcopal Organization. They’re a backhanded way for the leftist American news media to tell Rome, a church that actually still matters, “Do you see how respectfully we’d cover you if you’d back off the abortion talk, ordain women and gays and generally agree with us? And it would benefit you; these days, the Episcopalians are thriving!!”

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.

Not that conservative Christianity in any form has done much better.

Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message.

But the left has done WAY worse.

But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic Church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves.

And it does you absolutely no good to pretend that you’re perfectly fine when all the evidence says that you’re grievously ill.

Liberal commentators, meanwhile, consistently hail these forms of Christianity as a model for the future without reckoning with their decline. Few of the outraged critiques of the Vatican’s investigation of progressive nuns mentioned the fact that Rome had intervened because otherwise the orders in question were likely to disappear in a generation. Fewer still noted the consequences of this eclipse: Because progressive Catholicism has failed to inspire a new generation of sisters, Catholic hospitals across the country are passing into the hands of more bottom-line-focused administrators, with inevitable consequences for how they serve the poor.

Then Douthat makes a point that is far more profound than I think he realizes.

But if liberals need to come to terms with these failures, religious conservatives should not be smug about them. The defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life. No one should wish for its extinction, or for a world where Christianity becomes the exclusive property of the political right.

In the 1800′s, anti-slavery was considered a “liberal” cause probably because you could find no end of conservative theologians, particularly in the southern United States, who lamely attempted to provide a biblical basis for chattel slavery.

It’s significant that one of the most savagely anti-slavery voices among the Christian clergy in that century was the great British Baptist Charles Spurgeon, a man who was, as far as I’m concerned, the single greatest preacher of the Gospel in the English language up to and including Billy Graham, the man from whom I learned who Jesus was in 1969.

Did Spurgeon eventually turn into some kind of Christian proto-leftist? Hardly. Here’s a little something on what was called the Down-Grade Controversy. Long story short, Spurgeon cut ties with British Baptists because he felt they were becoming too liberal.

And that’s basically what Douthat hopes happens. That liberal Christians remember that they are, or at least call themselves, Christians.

What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence. As the liberal Protestant scholar Gary Dorrien has pointed out, the Christianity that animated causes such as the Social Gospel and the civil rights movement was much more dogmatic than present-day liberal faith. Its leaders had a “deep grounding in Bible study, family devotions, personal prayer and worship.” They argued for progressive reform in the context of “a personal transcendent God … the divinity of Christ, the need of personal redemption and the importance of Christian missions.”

Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that per haps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.

Otherwise…what’s the damned point?

Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.

In one respect, atheists are right. You don’t need religion in order to do “good.” Or if you want yourself “spiritual,” you certainly don’t need the Christian religion to do good. Jews certainly do much good while one of the pillars of Islam is charity. Indeed, it’s probably impossible to find any religion anywhere that does not have the care of the less fortunate as one of its foundations.
Or if you want to “do good” and “spirituality” doesn’t matter to you, you can always join the Optimists, the Rotary Club, the Freemasons or any other service club that happens to strike your fancy.

So can liberal Christianity reconnect with its religious basis? Rediscover its Christianity, if you like? Theoretically it could, as the example of Charles Spurgeon mentioned above. The question is whether or not it wants to.

At Stand Firm, Tim Fountain put together a list of other resolutions recently passed at the Episcopal Organization’s recent General Convention. Notice anything peculiar about them? The ones that passed all skew to the left, backing this or that secular leftist cause. Many of the ones that didn’t were more centrist or provided possible cost-effective alternatives to actions TEO was already determined to take, particularly in the area of health care.

And do any of you remember this?

Resolved, That the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further

Resolved, That this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

That was Resolution B033. Frank Griswold pushed that through at the 2006 General Convention. It’s since been thrown into the garbage can of Episcopal history but what I recall the most about it was the absolute outrage it engendered among the Episcopal left.

If I remember correctly, people like Liz Kaeton burst into tears at its passage. Something like twenty bishops immediately issued a statement saying that B033 was dead-on-arrival in their dioceses and you couldn’t read a leftist Anglican blog that wasn’t either blazing mad or rhetorically sobbing on its fainting couch.

And over what? A resolution that was never going to be observed by liberal bishops anyway? Resolution B033, the bravest example of actual leadership in the Episcopal Organization that I’ve ever seen(whether Frank knew what he was doing or not), represents what the Episcopal Organization and other mainline Protestant churches must do in order for the rest of us to take them spiritually seriously again.

Here’s a thought experiment for you. What if the Episcopal Organization consecrated Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool, “blessed” same-sex relationships but completely reversed itself on abortion, deciding in convention that the Catholics had it right and that abortion was a great(but forgivable) eviI?

Not only did the Episcopalians now consider abortion to be a great(but forgivable) evil, but any Episcopalian who disagreed with this teaching was unworthy of Episcopal ordination on any level and that any already-ordained Episcopalian who publicly disagreed with the church’s stance was liable to be deposed.

Yeah, I know, you write great science fiction, Johnson. But if the Episcopal Organization had had the reputation of being fiercely anti-abortion in 2003 but consecrated Gene Robinson to its episcopate anyway, would you still have left? To be honest with you, if that had been the case, I would probably still be an Episcopalian.

Because I would understand that while I had been baptized into a liberal Christian church, many of whose stances I know longer agreed with, I would also know that my church knows how to do something actual liberal Christianity has forgotten, or no longer cares to know, how to do. Say no to the secular left.

Otherwise, I’m going to come to the conclusion that I came to in 2003. My “church” is nothing more than a purely secular and entirely political body that utilizes Christian terminology and rites in order to slap a thin coat of “spiritual” varnish over whatever purely secular and entirely political cause is current this week.

By the way, Douthat’s column seems to have struck a nerve. Click here. But if you read nothing else today, make SURE that you click here where the prevailing attitude among Jim’s commentariat seems to be, “The megalomaniacal old gasbag? Never heard of him.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Confronts Obama's Views on Homoerotic Unions

          Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Chief of Chiefs in the Roman communion, responded quickly to Obama’s declaration supporting homoerotic unions.  In doing preliminary research, it appears that—nationwide—many Roman bishops are doing the same thing.   The Roman communion is responding more clearly and with defintion than Western Anglicans.  Here’s an update from the “Catholic News Agency.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-dolan-obamas-gay-marriage-support-undermines-society/

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Cardinal Dolan: Obama's 'gay marriage' support undermines society 

By Michelle Bauman 

Washington D.C., May 10, 2012 / 02:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan is charging President Barack Obama with undermining the “very cornerstone of society” by supporting “gay marriage.”

Cardinal Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, described the president’s endorsement as “deeply saddening.”

The bishops “cannot be silent in the face of words or actions that would undermine the institution of marriage, the very cornerstone of our society,” he said in a May 9 statement. “The people of this country, especially our children, deserve better.”

Cardinal Dolan said that the announcement was “not surprising” based on the Obama administration’s previous actions, which “erode or ignore the unique meaning of marriage.”

He called for prayer and efforts to “promote and protect marriage” in order to “serve the true good of all persons.”

In an unprecedented move, Obama announced his support for “same-sex marriage” in a May 9 interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts.

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” he said.

The announcement came just days after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told NBC's David Gregory that he is “absolutely comfortable” with the idea of homosexual couples marrying.

Previously, Obama had stopped short of endorsing “gay marriage,” saying instead that he opposes discrimination against gay individuals but that his views on the question of marriage were “evolving.”

However, his actions as president have won the praise of gay advocacy groups.

His administration announced in Feb. 2011 that it would not uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for federal purposes.

He also signed a law repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military.

Obama’s latest statement places him in firm disagreement with presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has signed a pledge to uphold marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Romney was quick to voice his opposition to Obama’s stance.

"I have the same view on marriage that I had when I was governor and that I’ve expressed many times,” he said at a May 9 campaign event in Oklahoma. “I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.”

He explained that states can “make decisions with regards to domestic partnership benefits, such as hospital visitation rights,” but “marriage itself is a relationship between a man and a woman.”

Acknowledging that the issue is “a very tender and sensitive” one about which “other people have differing views,” Romney reiterated his own conviction, which he has held “since running for office.”

Several political commentators have suggested that Obama’s support for “gay marriage” does not reflect the views of the American people and could have a significant political impact in the November 6, 2012 election.

“Marriage was created long before any government came into existence,” said Catholic Advocate president Matt Smith.

He warned that if Obama’s advocacy for same-sex “marriage” succeeds, “Catholic institutions could be forced once again to violate our beliefs.”

“Many faithful Catholics were fooled by clever political rhetoric in 2008,” added Smith. “This year, the anti-Catholic record of the Obama administration should inform their vote.”

So far, 30 states have passed constitutional amendments banning “gay marriage,” including North Carolina, where voters approved such a measure by an overwhelming margin on May 8.

Tony Perkins, president of the D.C.-based Family Research Council, pointed to the recent North Carolina vote as evidence that “redefining marriage remains outside the mainstream of American politics, especially in the critical battleground states and among minority voters.”

He observed that the North Carolina amendment received over 60 percent of the vote in majority-black counties.

A Pew Research Center survey in April 2012 found that only 39 percent of African Americans are in favor of “gay marriage.”

Perkins noted that 10 of 16 key battleground states have passed amendments to protect marriage. He said that Obama’s announcement “ensures that marriage will again be a major issue in the presidential election.”

Dr. Horton's Walk to First Base: "Should We Oppose Same-Sex Marriage"

          The Rev. Dr. Michael Horton, a systematics professor, at Westminster Seminary—California, offered a second response to homoerotic unions or same-sex marriages.   We covered Mike’s first response at:  http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2012/05/homerun-by-dr-michael-horton-same-sex.html A Christian Response to Same-Sex Marriage.  We think the first response was a homerun.

          Professor Horton’s second response is at http://networkedblogs.com/xxjqq.   His response is cautious, judicious, but tepid and unsatisfying.   Mike’s answer will not please theonomists and reconstructionists.  However, Mike is commenting about “law” that is beyond his pay-grade.  At least Mike recognizes that.  In our experience, most theonomists never evinced legal training while making assertions with full throats and heated hearts.    At the level of biblical interpretation, Mike makes some good points.  But, this second response is not satisfying.  We view this second response as a "walk to first base, not a single, but a `walk.'"

          North Carolina, where we live, passed Amendment One on 8 May 2012, prohibiting a redefinition of marriage.  It passed by 61% to 39%.   It passed in my Marine-based county, Onslow County, NC, by about 75% to 25%. Amendment One will invoke legal challenges.  On 17 May 2012, an Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court will be in town.  We intend to ask the Justice about the potential legal “constructs” or “issues” at bar. 

          At the federal level, a former Solicitor General, Ted Olson, is preparing to challenge California’s Proposition 8 using the 14^th Amendment.   Time will tell.

          Here is Michael’s second bite on the apple.  I appreciate Mike’s caution and struggle with the issue.  Loving homoeroticists, whatever their views, is always necessary.  But, we fear Mike has not pressed the issue of the Divine Essence, being holiness and the retributive divine wrath against manifold sins and wickednesses.  John Knox would agree.   We know "the old Anglican Prayer Book" agrees.

Should We Oppose Same-Sex Marriage

May 11, 2012 by Michael Horton

As a minister of the Word, I am not only authorized but commanded to speak in God’s name where he has clearly spoken. The authority of the church’s speech is undermined either by saying too little or by saying too much. Ironically, when we respect the limits that God has placed on our public speech in God’s name, we dig more deeply into our own scriptures and are better enabled to exhibit a different pattern of living that, for all of its inconsistencies and hypocrisy, points not just to a better argument that still trades on the assumptions of this fading age, but points to the new creation.

With that in mind, I’m following up my previous post (“Same-Sex Marriage Makes Sense”) with a few thoughts about how we as Christians should ground our corporate beliefs about marriage as a witness to the powers, rulers, and authorities of this age without becoming their servant.

In my last post I suggested that same-sex marriage makes sense within the moral framework of a universe in which I am the center, my individual choice is absolute even over nature and nature’s God, and whatever role God might have is defined by my story, not his. In that light, the same-sex marriage debate is just the tip of the iceberg. Our own traditional marriages-indeed, Christian ones-fall short of the glory of God. The issues cut deeper than the assault on marriage or crumbling marriages or even pornography and other perversions of God’s order. Yet even to fall short of something is to have something to fall short of. And if there are no longer any sins to confess, then there isn’t any guilt to be forgiven by a gracious and loving God “who is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ” (Rom 3:26).

What Really Matters? How Our Lives Reflect our Worldview

As I argue at length in The Christian Faith, our lives are shaped by the intersection of the specific drama, doctrine, doxology, and discipleship that unfolds in Scripture. First, the drama. We go back to this basic story to make sense of the events that otherwise would seem atomistic and meaningless. Second, this plot becomes meaningful to us through the doctrines and commands. So how should I respond to this story? The drama has to mean something first, before it “means something to me,” but the latter is the special concern of doctrine. Israel knows that God is faithful because he has proved it in the historical drama. The gospel story is that Jesus was crucified, buried, and raised, but a remote history becomes our story when we hear that “he was crucified for our sins and was raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25). If the doctrines arising from this drama lead us to faith in Christ, then the commands elicit our obedience. The doctrines and commands connect us here and now to the story then and there. Faith breaks out in thanksgiving and praise. Twice, right after teaching God’s unconditional grace in election and redemption (in Romans 8 and 11), Paul is led to outbursts: “What shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”; “For from him and to him and through him are all things, to whom be the glory forever. Amen.” In this mode of praise and thanksgiving, faith bears the fruit of good works: “I urge you, therefore, in view of God’s mercies, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice…” (Rom 12:1).

Every worldview consists of a founding drama, a narrative plot, whether it’s creation-fall-redemption-consummation or the self-caused and self-sustaining evolution of energized matter, the unfolding of Absolute Spirit, the education of the human race from medieval superstition to modern (or postmodern) self-sufficiency, or class warfare, and on we could go. Each story yields distinctive doctrines. If our origin and death have no transcendent meaning or purpose, then our reasonable response is to have faith in ourselves and try to make something work here and now. If the “meaning of history” is the survival of the fittest, then my neighbor is a competitor and the weaker they are, the better. If it’s the worker’s victory over the bourgeoisie, then our daily actions will be oriented to that goal. Doxology follows. We’re wired for praise. In fact, we’re created as the being that leads the whole creation in a symphony of tribute to the Triune God. Even when we praise idols, including ourselves, we praise. It’s interesting that Paul identifies original sin with being “no longer thankful,” worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. Then there’s discipleship-living out the story that we have internalized as our own. Taken together, these are the coordinates of a worldview that animates us-and that often, quite literally, move armies.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

The bedrock convictions of the Christian complex of drama-doctrine-doxology-discipleship are summarized in the ecumenical creeds. Triune God is the only God, the “Almighty God, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible.” This God is revealed in the law and the prophets and supremely in the person of Christ, as he is disclosed in the apostolic writings. The God who created us also became flesh to redeem us, fulfilling the law in our place, bearing our curse, and being raised on the third day as the beginning of the new creation. The Spirit-”the Lord and Giver of Life”-is sent to baptize us into Christ, giving us faith to embrace the remission of sins. Though still sinful and full of error, we are gathered into Christ’s body: justified and being renewed day by day. At the end, the ascended Christ will return “the judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.”

Whether we’re thinking about issues like same-sex marriage or traditional marriage, we are called upon to repent of the nihilistic narrative of the autonomous self, the dogmas of self-founding and self-transformation, the worship of ourselves, the market, the state, the family, morality, happiness and security, political ideologies, and peace of mind. We burn the script we’ve written for our “show about nothing.” We stop singing Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” And a strange thing happens. As we turn our back on lords that cannot liberate but only tyrannize, we embrace in faith a Father who welcomes us in his Son and calls us by his Spirit to a feast. Once outcasts and strangers to God and his covenants, we become co-heirs with Christ, seated with companions-brothers and sisters-we did not choose for ourselves.

Contract or Covenant?

This biblical story opens and closes with the work and word of the Triune God. “For from him and to him and through him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” He made us in his image, establishing a relationship by way of covenant and related us to each other covenantally as well. Here, covenantal responsibilities come before abstract rights. Even my right to owning property is not grounded in autonomy, since “the earth is the LORD’s and everything in it” (Ps 24:1). In his providence, God has apportioned to me times and places, but they are ultimately his and I am accountable to him for how I steward them. So it’s not so much my right to private property, but my neighbor’s responsibility not to steal from me, that is basic to biblical ethics. It is not a universal principle that each sovereign self legislates for himself silently within, but a voice from the One who made us all, that summons, “Cain, where is your brother?” And I dare not use sophistry, replying with the rich young ruler, “Who is my neighbor?”

The most significant covenants between God and humanity are the covenant of creation and the covenant of grace. Under the first we are condemned “in Adam” yet still accountable to the law. It rings in the conscience of every person, coming from God, not from the individual or the state. Under the second, we are divorced from Adam’s cursed tree and grafted onto Christ, the Living Vine.

Among the most significant covenants that God established between human beings is marriage. Marriage is not a sacrament. Ordained in creation, before the fall, it is not a means of grace. Furthermore, not everyone receives it and yet God blesses their lives, too, in his common grace. Yet marriage is also not a contract. It is not simply an agreement between two autonomous selves to form a useful corporation for individual self-fulfillment. Though it isn’t sacred, it is solemn. And in a Christian marriage, the holy and the common intersect as the Lord maintains his covenant faithfulness from generation to generation. The children even of one believing parent are holy (1 Cor 7:14). The family, as God ordained it, is the building block of both cult and culture, the holy church and common society.

Marriage, then, is both a medium of the law and the gospel. Why should we be surprised at same-sex marriage when for generations now we have accepted the idea that unfettered choice brings happiness and law is the opposite of love? Not only in Israel, but especially in Israel, ancient political relationships between the ruler and the ruled were expressed not in contractual terms (a formal agreement to exchange certain goods and services), but in terms of loyalty and love. To love the king is to obey or “walk after” the king. The law merely stipulated what that love entailed. Moses summarized the law this way, as did Jesus when he said that the two tables of the law can be summarized as love of God and neighbor. Throughout the epistles, the call to love is not left suspended in mid-air as a romantic emotion that comes and goes, but as a commitment to love and serve each other according to the pattern of specific commands.

We are so used in our culture of entertainment to infidelity having a happy ending. We accustom ourselves to the idea that “I have to be happy and if I’m not happy with so-and-so, but with this other person, then I’m really not fulfilling my end of the bargain either to myself or to my wife-I just don’t love her anymore.” Even Pat Robertson suggested infamously that a husband should not have to stay by his wife with Alzheimers but should be free to flourish again with someone else. The portrait of a person hanging in there, not “till the money runs out” or “till neither of us is really happy anymore” or “till it just not working”-instead of “till death do us part”-may seem quaint to some, but even in this culture I wonder if it wouldn’t arouse a little tenderness, a different way of imagining life, where duty to nature and nature’s God were actually treated as the essence of love.

But finally, Christian marriage is uniquely an evangelical ordinance. It is not our faithfulness to God or to each other, but God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises, that keeps us going even through rough marriage-and-family experiences. It’s a wonderful thing when the Spirit draws those “far off” into Christ’s fold through the gospel. It is also a wonderful thing when the Spirit unites sinful children to Christ through the gospel as it is passed down from generation to generation. We dare not idealize the “Christian family.” We too are sinful, and our families are carriers of our universal contagion as well as its peculiar manifestations in our own lives. Nevertheless, it is not what we make of it, but what it makes of us-or rather, what God makes of us through it-that the covenant home becomes, despite its weeds and diseases, a garden blooming in the desert.

You Are Not Your Own-And That’s Good News!

Despite whatever unfortunate quotes one can find from some church fathers too influenced by pagan notions, the biblical affirmation of sexual purity in the marriage of believing spouses has nothing to do with ascetic disdain for the body and sexual pleasure. On the contrary, it’s precisely because our bodies are too important to the biblical drama that they can’t be exempted from biblical discipleship. Here is an example of that point from the Apostle Paul:

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’…Flee from sexual immorality…You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:13-20).