The Rt. Rev. Mark Joseph Lawrence, the Episcopal bishop of South Carolina, fears for the future of his church.
One week after the U.S. Episcopal Church overwhelmingly voted to approve a provisional rite for blessing gay unions and the ordination of transgender people, Bishop Lawrence said in an interview with NBC News that his denomination is moving too far out of the mainstream.
“Do I think that these two decisions will cause further decline? I believe they will,” Bishop Lawrence said. “I think we’ve entered into a time of sexual and gender anarchy.”
Lawrence’s comments come amid a growing debate over the future of so-called mainline Christian churches: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, some Lutherans and more. These denominations, which are generally more liberal than their evangelical counterparts, have been in decline for decades, a trend some observers attribute to their supposed leftward drift.
[blockquote] “”I still believe there is a broad and silent middle [within the Episcopal Church], I just don’t know what it would take for them to stand up with moral courage and say, ‘We don’t believe this,'” Bishop Lawrence said.” [/blockquote]
The MSM are really interested in this. And they aren’t interested in talking to has-beens like Katherine Schori or Bonnie Anderson.
Now its NBC that is asking the questions of +Lawrence, and he is giving them straight answers:
[blockquote] “I had an issue of conscience in which I believed that a line had been crossed in the church’s teachings, that I could no longer pretend that nothing significant had happened,” Bishop Lawrence said, adding that the departure of the deputies should not be understood as a departure from the Episcopal Church.
“It’s not merely a matter of adapting the Church’s teachings about Jesus Christ, about salvation, about right and wrong to the culture,” he said. “The culture is adrift in sexual confusion and obsession.†[/blockquote]
There is definitely a “broad, silent middle.” They are the ones who think “it can’t happen here,” and point to their conservative priest. Well, guess what. Even the most God-fearing of priests don’t live forever, or want to work forever. Sooner or later, these ostriches in the pews will need an new rector, and guess what the revisionist bishop of their diocese will offer them?