GAFCON has been viewed in numerous media reports as an anti-homosexual movement. Is that the case?
In the media there is usually a desire to boil everything down to a couple of attention-grabbing sound bites. And sex and money are the two things that grab people’s attention the fastest. Certainly there is a factor of human sexuality among the issues that are before the Anglican Communion. But they are not primary. They are secondary at best. The primary issues have to do with other questions: Who is Jesus Christ? What did he really do? Was his death really necessary? Did he really rise from the dead? And what authority does he have over men and women today?
And then there is the issue of Holy Scripture. One American bishop has been widely quoted as saying, “The Church wrote the Bible and the Church can rewrite the Bible.” That point of view would represent a number of TEC bishops, although most might be wise enough not to say it so clearly.
On the other hand we have the New Testament scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed.” There’s a world of difference between those two statements. A big part of the Anglican Communion has chosen to line up with the Episcopal Church, believing that Jesus is optional and that the Bible can be reformulated to suit the culture. That said, it should surprise no one that difficulties arise in determining what is a proper sexual standard.
“How many North American churches have left the Episcopal Church?
That is a difficult number to arrive at because the Episcopal Church (TEC) only counts churches that have lost their property or have lost court cases and have no recourse. If a case is pending in court, the Episcopal Church will not acknowledge that the congregation is gone. If the congregation walks away from its property but four or five people remain behind, TEC will maintain that they still have a congregation there, even though it may be four walls and a janitor. So they won’t admit to the hundreds of churches that have departed.
When you add it up, between 200 and 300 churches have left, including some of the largest congregations in the Episcopal Church. Some individual churches, like Falls Church, Virginia, have a membership exceeding that of many entire Episcopal dioceses.”
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That isn’t what Ms Schori says.