The Episcopal Church in West Virginia will bless same sex unions, Bishop Michie Klusmeyer announced Saturday.
Klusmeyer said he gave the issue much thought and prayer before making the decision, which he announced in Flatwoods at a three-day convention of the Diocese of West Virginia.
Since 2001, the Diocese of West Virginia has gone from 4000 ASA to 3000 — a stunning implosion that will, if continued, kill TEC quite quite dead in that state.
Obviously, this decision will hasten the death.
Or, continue its “purification,” in the current leadership’s mindset. Ironic, eh?
Much thought and prayer, eh, … to whom or what spirit? (Zeitgeist!)
This bishop complained to my bishop when I celebrated communion for a congregation near Charles Town, WVA. The net effect was that some Episcopalians left this church for another.
As an infant, teen, and young adult I was raised in WV to attend church or Sunday School at the closest church I could walk to, finally baptized at Trinity in Parkersburg when I was about 10, confirmed there a few years later by Bishop Strider, attended Trinity in Morgantown while at WVU, and so on. Mountaineer to the end, and first most favorite song remains John Denver’s rendition of Almost Heaven. With that background I can assure you that TEC as now constituted is DOA in that state. Yet another rump diocese amongst other rump dioceses. Soon the number of those with pointy hats and inhabiting the House of Bishops will outnumber those that they supposedly care for.
And yet ACNA hasn’t established much in WV to correspond with the TEC decline. There are three Anglican churches, but they are all along the Ohio river. I wonder if there are any church planters considering Morgantown or Charleston?
I realize that WV was settled historically by the Scotch-Irish, and therefore Presbyterian, but there has been some migration (especially in the Eastern panhandle) from northern Virginia. Besides, a good chunk of my parish are people who used to be Presbyterians, so it isn’t that big of a leap to a low-church parish.