The chair of Executive Council’s National Concerns Committee has written to the Bishop of Mississippi informing him that while The Episcopal Church does not support every action of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), Executive Council has no intention of withdrawing its membership.
The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray, III wrote council April 13 noting that at the most recent annual meeting of the Diocese of Mississippi, clergy and lay delegates had approved a resolution objecting to the decision by Executive Council in January 2006 to join RCRC on behalf of The Episcopal Church.
“Its position of advocacy, both in terms of legislative initiatives, and organized opposition to specific Supreme Court nominees, unnecessarily disrupts our Church’s carefully balanced and nuanced position on abortion as articulated by General Convention,” Bishop Gray stated.
We’d rather stone the Christians in Nigeria for supporting a bill which might limit advocacy of same-sex marriage than do anything which might put and end to or even curtail the slaughter of innocents in our own country.
The Church does not need a “carefully balanced and nuanced position on abortion.” The Church needs a biblically based position on abortion that supports “the least of these.”
Along with “…I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” I can see the King saying: “I was weak and you helped me. I was defenseless and you fought for me. I was about to be killed and you defended me.” The reverse can be true for the Goats – and it seems that TECUSA’s EC is looking very goatish on this issue.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Yet another godless, nihilistic cause that the national church can’t seem to resist.
Of all the loony tune stuff that the Church does, such as weeping and wailing over benefits that TEC may have received from slavery over 140 years ago, the most egregious is membership in an abortion advocacy group. An unborn baby is the most vulnerable of all members of society.
Even more stupidly, the excuse is that TEC did not advocate for or against Supreme Court nominees. As much as I detest TEC getting involved politically at all, I would rather the TEC protest a Supreme Court nominee, and be against abortion.
Even if these left wing imbeciles cannot bring themselves to be against the killing of unborn babies, at least they could be neutral, and not belong to overt abortion advocacy groups.
I am waiting for the reappraisers to express their outrage at this breach of church/state separation.
Amen, brother Phil. Yet another reason why I will not allow one red cent of my tithe to go to the folks at 815 (which makes my a “bad person” in the eyes of our thoroughly revisionista suffragan). To belong to RCRC and then say, “well, that doesn’t mean we agree with their political pronouncements against court nominees” reminds me of “being just a little pregnant” (pardon the irony).
I pray that the sacrifices to Moloch will one day cease; Lord have mercy on his wayward bride!!
When my wife and I became Episcopalians in 1992, I recall my confusion at the NOEL (National Organization of Episcopalians for Life) organization that was in our church and how they advocated against abortion. I thought “How incredibly redundant that is – kinda like having a Christian advocacy group in the church. How absurd it is to think that ANY Christian church would ever endorse abortionâ€.
Oh how naive I was…
Comment delted per request of commenter.
So, even though I was a member of the Nazi party, since I never personally advocated the massacre of 7,000,000 Jews, don’t look at me. Come on. If we don’t advocate what they do why are we members? The answer is that EC does support what they do just as the Nazis supported extermination of the Jews.
is ECUSA a member of any pro life groups? If not, where is the “balance” +Gray speaks of?
Those challenging TEC’s membership in RCRC must be armed with a copy of Gonzalez v. Carhart, in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. The RCRC and its constituent churches appeared as amici curiae to oppose the ban, with seven TEC bishops specifically putting their names on the brief that the RCRC filed: +Chane, +Creighton, +Cronenberg, +Dixon (of EDoW), +Harris (of EDoW), +Jelinek, and +McLeod (Vermont (retired)). Here is an excerpt from the Court’s opinion in which a nurse recounts the procedure that TEC defended:
Who honestly believes that putatively Christian churches should be spending resources on lawyers to argue that such a procedure must be kept legal?
Comment deleted per request of commenter.
Comment deleted per request of commenter.
To: Titus19 Elves
From: AnglicanFirst
Please delete my comments #12 and 13.
I am currently under a heavy anti-biotic for what appears to be some sort of flu infection and I am afraid that the combination of the infection and the anti-biotic adversely affected my judgement.
They are not the sort of comments that should appear on T19.
Thank you
“unnecessarily disrupts our Church’s carefully balanced and nuanced position on abortion”
Is that like the balanced and nuanced procedures of chemically burning a baby to death and leaving it to die in a trash can when the operation is a “failure” or hacking a baby to pieces in the womb and suctioning out the dismembered body to dispose of it, or the infanticide of stabbing a baby in the barely exposed back of the head, which is the only part not yet born? Inquiring minds want to know, although it’s Executive Council who acts more like their brains were suctioned out a long time ago. Kyrie Eleison!
AnglicanFirst, I agree with your antibiotics! 🙂
And since when is supporting open season on the unborn “appropriate for the Church�??
All the arguments TEC uses to support its policies on supporting normalizing homosexuality would contradict their support of any pro-abortion organization. The leadership, by its actions, proves again and again its motives and inspiration are not Christian but of the spirit of this world. It cannot be put any other way but to say that the leadership of TEC is led by the Deceiver, the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy.
If one studies all the statements about abortion emanating from the House of Bishops, General Conventions, and other official bodies of the institution formerly known as ECUSA for the past forty years, one will discover a single coherent moral principle (not necessarily Christian) which undergirds the “carefully balanced and nuanced position” regarding abortion of the institution formerly known as ECUSA: Majority vote wins. Such intellectual simplicity characterizes so much of the thinking in the institution formerly known as ECUSA that this “church” can justify anything. One can only marvel at the elegance and universality of the principle especially as it applies to faith and morals. It’s why so many intellectuals consider the institution formerly known as ECUSA as the “thinking person’s church”.
AnglicanFirst,
I salute you for your request to remove posts you believed inappropriate, even though I did not see the posts.
I will keep you in my prayers for a speedy recovery!
God bless!
Jim Elliott
“Executive Council has recognized that the Church belongs to many coalitions, such as the National Council of Churches, without participating in and/or agreeing with every action of such coalitions,†he stated.
Excuse me but did someone just see a turnip truck roar off and why does my head hurt? The Religious Coaltion for Reproductive Choice exists for one reason only. To support the killing of preborn children in the womb. It is an attempt to give moral legitimacy to cutting up preborn persons suctioning them out of the womb and tossing them out like offal. Their actions all have one end in mind. The continued practice of abortion.
If you join this group it is not because they sometimes have garden teas in museum atriums. It is not because they offer scholarships to minority children. It is not because they have fund raisers to help unwed moms. No you join this group because and only because you believe abortion is a constitutional right. That the killing of a preborn child is a necessary sacrifice to the gods of equality and empowerment. You join because the order of the priests of Moloch never did get off the ground and this is an acceptable alternative.
So spare me the bit about we don’t agree with all their actions. Be honest and say “ hey killing the preborn might be a bad thing. But the secular liberal feminisint culture supports it and we know what side our bread is buttered on. Donations are down quite enough thank you. So just shut up about it.â€
PS. Father Jake provided this link at Stand Firm to a document titled ” Words of Choice” which I urge all to read. http://www.rcrc.org/pdf/Words_of_Choice.pdf
I think I should clarify that Father Jake opposes the decision by the Executive Council and provided the link to show some of the workings of the RCRC. Thanks.
Well, here’s a question for my fellow T19 readers. It’s clear that there are many people upset and outraged that the executive council would affiliate with the RCRC, reasserters and reappraisers alike. Even if we can’t agree on some aspects of human sexuality, is there a way we can unite and organize to get this membership revoked? Just curious…
In the RC church you may be excommunicated for supported the slaughter of the unborn.
In ECUSA you can be a bishop!!
You tell me?!! If the C of E were to show a similar pro abortion stance I would fight it with every breath I had.
Please forgive my faulty memory, or perhaps my misunderstanding of the sacred processes of our polity, but I don’t understand the statement that “…previous efforts at General Convention to withdraw The Episcopal Church from the RCRC have been unsuccessful.”
As I understood it, previous efforts at remaining apart from RCRC, which was formerly known by another acronym (NARAL?), have been quite successful. As I understand it, joining RCRC was an unrepresentative, unilateral decision by the Executive Council. And if efforts to withdraw were unsuccessful, it’s only because GC2006 ran out of time to consider the resolution to dissolve our relationship with RCRC, due to the much larger brouhaha over the Windsor “process.”
Am I all wet on this?
Jody+ Re: #22
Last year a number of resolutions were proposed at GC06 to try and deal with the RCRC membership. I just did a very quick search of Lydia Evans’ blog since she posted several blog entries on the RCRC debate. (Lydia was a deputy from SC and was active in the RCRC discussions)
http://generalconvention2006.blogspot.com/index.html
In the one post I found by searching on RCRC (I know she had other relevant entries, however) I found the citations to 3 resolutions that were proposed:
http://generalconvention2006.blogspot.com/2006/06/diverse-center-is-in-my-shower.html
So, a strong effort WAS made to deal with the RCRC membership at the level of ECUSA’s highest governing body, but it failed utterly.
You can look up the text of the GC resolutions cited above here.
http://gc2006.org/legislation/
Elvish folk, 😉
Thanks for the links, but I was aware of the resolutions that were proposed at GC. I guess what I was thinking about was a more sustained effort to inform people about this issue specifically and encourage resolutions at Diocesan conventions to disassociate from RCRC. I know there have already been several Dioceses that have done so. No doubt procedure and technicalities will be used at the national church level to prevent any movement on this, but there may be other ways to deal with it… Just a thought.
More background on the RCRC membership and what happened last summer at GC can be found in George Woodliff’s excellent article for Stand Firm.
There was an associated petition that 800 readers signed in order to publicly state that they disassociated themselves from the RCRC membership.
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/jaccuse.php
And in reply to #24, about GC06 “running out of time” No way. They rejected (tabled) one of the three resolutions. Two were not acted upon, but GC found plenty of time to approve the resolutions it wanted to approve, such as these which had nothing to do with the Windsor process or pressing business. GC approved what it wanted to approve, with perhaps a few exceptions where it truly ran out of time (like MDG stuff)
Immigration:
http://gc2006.org/legislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=21&type=CURRENT
Multiple GLBT affirmations:
http://gc2006.org/legislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=101&type=CURRENT
http://gc2006.org/legislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=208&type=CURRENT
Global Warming:
http://gc2006.org/legislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=188&type=CURRENT
End the war in Iraq:
http://gc2006.org/legislation/view_leg_detail.aspx?id=252&type=CURRENT
etc etc etc.
So, ECUSA had time to deal with the question of the US war in Iraq, but not whether its own EXEC COUNCIL had the right to affiliate the whole denomination in RCRC.
Just reviewing the list of GC resolutions today makes me realize again just how horribly broken ECUSA really is. Wow.
–elfgirl
Jody+
yes, you’re right, a few dioceses have tried to take a stand on this. Mississippi, Tennessee and San Diego come to mind. There have probably been others…, and as I cited above, last summer George Woodliff’s petition got 800 signatures. I’m glad some are trying to keep this issue in view. But am not personally optimistic that there will be any success in pressuring 815 / Exec Council / GC09 to overturn it.
But if there’s any way to help dioceses mobilize and take a stand on this issue, we’re all for it and will help with finding any info, or help network folks.
NOEL, now named Anglicans for Life, has been working on this for years. Georgette Forney, their director, was a great help to those of us trying to get something through GC06, although she was realistic about the chances. They have been in the trenches on this for a long time and deserve our support. Check out Anglicans for Life.
It is a sin to invite people to join a church that advocates fetal human sacrifice.
The new doctrine and practices of TEC will come nigh your door. Don’t think your conserving parish can hide for much longer, especially when it comes time to call your next rector.
“What Would Jesus Do?”
He certainly wouldn’t suck the brains out of a baby. So, why would any respectable Christian elect to engage in such an action?
Altars with stirrups…coming to a TEC church near you…