Don’t Blink Now!
Ask Your Bishop To Hold The Line
It is absolutely essential that you contact your bishop before September 19th and encourage him or her to “hold the line” against the primates’ unreasonable demands. Insist that there be no backsliding on full inclusion of the LGBT faithful. Write, e-mail, or call your bishop today! Here are some points to make”¦
”¢ The primates’ of the Anglican Communion do not have authority over the Episcopal Church.
Ӣ The House of Bishops cannot set policy for the entire Episcopal Church.
”¢ The Executive Council has already rejected the primates’ ultimatum on behalf of the entire Episcopal Church.
Ӣ The Episcopal Church cannot abandon its LGBT members for the sake of continued membership in the Anglican Communion.
We can’t abandon justice to maintain unity.
Why is it all these little InfoLetters sound like nothing more than a political party “action alert” for the party faithful?
Because that is and always has been what it is.
Because that is how they perceive it. You see, it is all about THEM and THEIR desires…not about GOD and HIS desires.
It will be a miserable and sad day at the Final Judgment when they are confronted with God’s “unreasonable demands”.
This political action group inside the Epsicopal church will not rest until it has achieved all its goals. I am pessimistic about how this will turn out. Their power has carried the day. But I do not think TEC will prosper in its heresy… As for the Reasserters: The “Jeremiah” wing of the church will continue to proclaim God’s word inside the church at great personal cost. The “Moses” wing will flee to the promised land at great personal cost. Both wings will be under the Lordship of Jesus.
What’s a “trans Episcopalian” please?
#4: Jeff: Maintaining charity while speaking the Truth is what both wings must practice. It ain’t easy, is it?!? Blessings, friend.
Trans means trans-sexuals.
Well, the war is on and this will be bitter and to the end. The homosexual’s groups and the homophiles are going to press this “full-inclusion” approach to a live-or-die conclusion. This is too bad because no one I know of is arguing tht the church’s psiritual operations be refused to homosexuals. And if they win, scripture will have taken a terrible body blow because social novelty will have gone head to head with clear scripture and scripture will have lost. This will mean that there is nothing in scripture that cannot be overlooked, provided the organized pressure is strong enough. LM
I frankly can’t help but admire Integrity for being straightforward. I disagree with their agenda, but it is an agenda they make no bones about at all.
Thanks Larry. The first thing that came to mind was that it was short for transitional Episcopalian, perhaps an apt description for many these days.
I thought the same thing too Biff; I wish all of TECs bishops would clearly state their beliefs. Let’s see – a couple hundred bishops plus the 1931 members of Integrity should have their desires trump those of the 77 Million Anglicans worldwide. (Justice and fairness for all)
“The primates’ of the Anglican Communion do not have authority over the Episcopal Church.”
Apparently God does not have authority over the Episcopal Church, either.
The real question they need to have answered is who DOES have authority in TEC?
So an Executive Council can act for the [b]Episcopal[/b] Church, but the House of [b]Bishops[/b] cannot. Got it.
[blockquote]Here are some points to make…
• The primates’ of the Anglican Communion do not have authority over the Episcopal Church.
• The House of Bishops cannot set policy for the entire Episcopal Church.
• The Executive Council has already rejected the primates’ ultimatum on behalf of the entire Episcopal Church.
• The Episcopal Church cannot abandon its LGBT members for the sake of continued membership in the Anglican Communion.
We can’t abandon justice to maintain unity.[/blockquote]
But if they were arguing the property rights issue instead of the LGBT issue, don’t you think that would be saying exactly the opposite with regard to the HOB, General Convention and Executive Council?
Come on DonGander – whatever body is pushing for full inclusion has authority – any structure or body resisting full inclusion has no power and no authority. Come on dont you know that nothing can resist the “Holy Spirit” when it does a “new thing”. 🙂
I agree with the Integrity memo. We cannot abandon justice to maintain unity.
But I disagree with their definition of Justice. To me, Justice begins with God, not with human beings. God’s justice is greater than any devised by mankind. In God’s justice, we are to treat all people charitably with God’s love and grace, but we are still to call “sin” “sin” and not call it blessed. So, should we kick out all the people in the church that experience homosexual orientation? Absolutely not! Where else can they find life and healing? Should we raise up as leaders men and women who continue to state that their sin is not sin? No, we should not. So, justice is done when we follow God’s laws and His design for our lives. Justice is not done when we tell others that their “sin” is really ok.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
15. Philip Snyder (Dallas):
Of course I agree with you. We humans are unable to define “justice”. When they try to do so, I have begun calling it the sin of Eve. To Eve the fruit looked good, smelled good, tasted good, and she judged the result of eating to be desired. The only problem was that she was not capable of such judgement, and thus, the command of God not to eat. But she obeyed her own justice rather than God’s and the result was alienation from God and the resultant spiritual death.
So TEC suffers from the same sin and fate of Eve.
I just pray that we learn the lesson.
I’ve been meaning to comment on the “LGBT” issue, particularly the “B” issue. If the Gay position is supported based on the presupposition that “but for” society’s laws and historical Christianity discriminating against Gays being in a committed (marriage) relationship, why do Gays in the Church support Bi-Sexuals who by definition cannot truly be involved in one committed relationship? Don’t the term “Bi-Sexual” involve more than one sexual partner? Does TEC and her bishops now support multiple sexual relationships within and outside of marriage? To me, that’s what happens when you throw in the “B.”
15. Phil:
Very good point. In fact, I had posted the following on S.F. along the lines of this same topic:
[blockquote] “The word “justice†does not embody a universally accepted set of conclusions. In fact, one person’s application of “justice†can well result in profound “injustice†for others.
Case in point, the term “Justice at the end of the rope†may translate into a form of “justice†for one group of people, while most certainly resulting in just the opposite for everyone else. In other words, everyone is for “justice,†and who wouldn’t be? On the other hand, the concept of “justice†tends to find its home in some very subjective understandings of what “justice’ means.
Frankly, I’m of the opinion that the word “justice,†as uttered by outfits such as Integrity, has rendered the word to be little more than just another cliche’. [/blockquote]
Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi spoke at St. Peter’s Tallahassee last night. What a powerful and humble man of God! He took time out of is very busy schedule to visit Christ Classical Academy and greet and talk with the children this morning. The contrast between this man and the leadership of TEC is quite astounding. I am glad Integrity is pushing for honest clarity. I hope the TEC bishops deliver honest clarity to the ABC. It can only hasten the realignment where the orthodox will be pastored for a season by men like Orombi while we get our sea legs under us, and godly bishops like Geurnsey (who accompanied Orombi) take over the pastoral and episcopal care of parishes.
17, good question. I have asked it in the past and never gotten a clear answer. I doubt that you will either.
#17, bisexuals are ATTRACTED to both sexes, some moreso towards the same sex, some more towards the opposite. This doesn’t necessitate that they be in a multiple partner relationship. Polyamorous would be the common usage term for those folks.
So Chris how does the Church bless and approve bisexual relationship? It’s ok if you do it with one partner of either sex at a time?
Polyamorous? How about objectively disordered?
#13,
that was my initial thought as well. In the property dispute in CA, the appeals court used the heirarchical status of the church as it’s main reason why it was allowed to pass rules that it may essentially take property away from parish ownership. And yet here we have an admission that the House of Bishops (the heirarchy) apparently can’t set any policy at all.
# 22 – yes, as long as you’re serially sincere.
Br Michael, I’m sure you know that the lgbt folk – OK, the homosexual people, because that’s what the initials really mean, they just multiply them to make themselves seem more numerous than they are – don’t actually believe in ‘chastity’ (no sex) until a ‘committed relationship’, but they have to *sound conservative enough. Like the heterosexual public (but more so), they have numerous brief sexual relationships and encounters (the men especially), until settling down (if they do). And Christian practising homosexuals are not really any different. Why else have so many of them (priests included) died from Aids?
A “B: bishop would comply with the biblical directed to have only one wife. So what if there is more than one same sex blessing.
“We can’t abandon justice to maintain unity” —Integrity
What about justice for all the faithful priests deposed by Integrity-friendly bishops and their institutionalist allies?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“These little InfoLetters sound like…a political party “action alert†for the party faithful” —Chris Molter
That resemblance also jumped out at me.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“So an Executive Council can act for the Episcopal Church, but the House of Bishops cannot” —Ed the Roman
Exactly. The Executive Council is the Episcopal Church’s Presidium and Politburo. It runs the empire between meetings of the Supreme Soviet. It also runs the Supreme Soviet, but that’s a separate story.
Justice here means civil justice, that which is protected by the Constitution. This is simply another case of weasel-word-itis. They use the single word for its emotional content, its connotations, for this allows them to avoid making careful distinctions. They wish to bring all homosexual issues under the umbrella of civil relationships so that they can appeal quire correectly to the Constitutiton. Larry
Well, the whole thing reminds me of the book my mother read to me long long ago: The Emperor Without Clothes. I thank God that finally it is being said that he ( the emperor —-ie: integrity, TEC, the whole lot ) has NO clothes.
There is nothing Biblical supprting what “they” are doing.
They are clearly false prophets, leading the weak astray.
The lake of fire is going to be hot, I mean really hot for them.
The light is now upon their misdeads–so all the world knows.
I thank God for TitusOneNine, Kendall Harmon, and all the Faithful
Servants who have had the guts to stand up and call a spade a spade.
bl
Integrity has not changed, since Day One, how it has framed this issue. The battle is lost, and the re-asserters are still arguing and making debating points over the language the other side is using.
I GUARANTEE that this whole thing will be a university case-study in activism some point down the road. People will “go to school” on how effective groups like Integrity have been.
#30 – yes, it has been a classic Gramscian march through the institution by the Baby Boomers, whom history will curse.
Well put, LTN. I am also confused (well, it’s all about confusion, ain’t it?) by the “T” in LGBT. If B seems to be dithering, the T is really out there. I assume there are no “rules”, so one may be in one gender camp then another at any given minute, hour, week or year? Actually the T’s must win Anglican sympathy, for the theology of Anglicans is always a moving target.
32, I assume it means TEC will have no problem in consecrating a bisexual, cross-dressing, in transition to male (or female), person who likes to use the restroom of the other gender. As well as sprinkling holy water on them in blessing.
“• The primates’ of the Anglican Communion do not have authority over the Episcopal Church.”
They have authority to decide whether or not TEC is still a part of the AC or am I misunderstanding something?
What this asks is for the TEC/ECUSA to cease being a part of the Church of Jesus Christ on this earth and become a Social Action Organization, which has been happening since the sixties. Now we can see how cleverly the dark side works on the hearts of God’s people by small steps at a time none of which seem obnoxious and are sold as reality. Suddenly, we are faced not with questionable arguable changes like WO and BCP Revision, but serious breaches of the Faith, like Abortion and now GLBT “Rights†both of which contradict the Sacrament of Marriage.
Our society is in a mess! People are confused over all this talk of rights which must be settled in the secular part of society. As for me, I will vote against Civil Unions of homosexuals for it won’t help society as a whole, even though there might be some equity in property division for partners. But let the marches and demonstrations demanding homosexual rights be held in the streets and settled at the ballot box, not in the Church where a far different standard is in play.
As far as the Church of our Lord is concerned, no matter how many marches, how many votes are cast in favor of the GLBT agenda, and how much ruckus is raised in the press, the Law of God is not up for vote! No matter how much +KJS, 815, diocesan Bishops, Priests, and Lay yell and scream for this “justice†to be practiced in the church and perverse reading of Scripture, it better be suitable to God not TEC’s whims. Peoples souls are at stake! And Integrity is not the judge. By the way, people had better be careful when saying “that the Holy Spirit told me to vote for these changes,†for it may be blaspheming the Holy Spirit which puts their souls in even more danger, whether they wear pointy hats or not.
#17 LTN says:
Someone who is bisexual may be sexually attracted to many people of both genders (although not necessarily in equal numbers.) Heterosexual people are, commonly, sexually attracted to many people, all of the opposite gender. That doesn’t stop the church from saying they should pick only one of those people they find attractive to have a sexual relationship with. Why would you think that bisexuals would be any different in that regard?
Ross, because it follows from the GLBT arguments. Otherwise they do not need to be mentioned at all. So you tell us, what is the agenda for bisexuals and the transgendered? Why can’t we simply refer to the GL.
#34 the roman says:
They might have that authority in practical terms, but it’s never been put to the test.
Of the Instruments, the ACC is the only one with a written constitution, a written list of members, and a formal procedure for adding or removing members. Is the ACC membership list definitive for who is in the Anglican Communion? Again, so far as I know that’s never been put to the test in the negative sense, but it’s quite possible that it would be accepted that way.
As for the Primates, if a majority of the Primates’ Meeting voted to eject a province, I think practically it would depend on what the Primates who voted “No” on the expulsion did afterwards. If they said, “Oh, well, we’d hoped that would go the other way; but we lost,” then I think most likely that the Communion in general would accept that. On the other hand, if the Primates who voted “No” — or a substantial number of them — said, “We disagree, and our provinces remain in communion with this province you wish to expel”… well, then you’re effectively looking at schism in the Communion.
As it was originally conceived, the Primates’ Meeting was not a legislative body — is was an opportunity for the Primates to gather and get to know each other. The Meeting’s purpose has clearly been evolving over the years, but the result of that is that different players in the Communion have different concepts of what the Meeting is for and what it can and can’t do. At the moment, lacking a written constitution or covenant, the Primates Meeting has authority over anyone who is willing to listen to it and obey what it says. That’s a lot of people — the ABC, for instance, clearly takes the resolutions of the Primates’ Meeting very seriously, although it’s not clear that he considers them binding on him per se — but it’s not necessarily all the players involved.
Ross you also say: “That doesn’t stop the church from saying they should pick only one of those people they find attractive to have a sexual relationship with.” Why and upon what basis? And don’t quote scripture because you have dispensed with that.
Thank you Ross #38 for the explanation. Interesting points.
Other points of interest: Of the 2.2 million (and, sadly, dropping) Episcopalians in the US, 1,953 are members of Integrity, and they are hoping for 2,500.
And their main objective is sadly not to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but to overturn B033.
Finally, no mention of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Bible, fidelity, or disciple in this communique.
[blockquote]So Chris how does the Church bless and approve bisexual relationship? It’s ok if you do it with one partner of either sex at a time? [/blockquote]
Well, there really isn’t any such thing as a monogamous “bisexual relationship”. That would require four people to be truly “bisexual” since each person involved would have to have at least one member of each sex as a partner. As for blessing such a thing, the Church is very clear about marriage being between a man and a woman.
[blockquote]Polyamorous? How about objectively disordered? [/blockquote]
You’ll get no argument from me on that. However, I’d also add that the common practice of serial monogamy and the cycle of multiple marriages/divorces/remarriages is just as disordered, Biblically speaking.
Chris, we may agree. But you say: “As for blessing such a thing, the Church is very clear about marriage being between a man and a woman.” That’s the point. No, it isn’t. That what same sex blessings are all about.
I suspect that bisexual arangements and transgender issues are not discussed for tactical reasons. Once same sex blessings and marriages are normalized then these issues will come up.
Admiral Farrgaut once said “..D*m* the torpedos full speed ahead..”. Is the TEC going to try it?