With some regret we write to tell you that we have discerned that it is time for us to leave The Episcopal Church, which means that we must leave the Church of the Holy Family, our church home for the past twenty years.<\/p>\n
As most of you will know, this decision is not undertaken lightly. It follows on several years of prayer, thought and discussion, of searching the Scriptures under the guidance of catholic tradition, all as we watched The Episcopal Church as a whole move toward what we and many in The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion and the wider Church Catholic believe to be an unfaithful representation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There has been what Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina recently described as \u201ca common pattern in how the core doctrines of our faith are being systematically deconstructed\u201d\u009d, those core doctrines concerning the nature of God and the liturgical use of the trinitarian Name, the uniqueness of Christ and of the necessity of salvation through him, the authority of Holy Scripture, the theology of baptism, and the right understanding of the nature of our humanity (of which human sexuality, the presenting issue in the current crisis in the Anglican Communion, is a part). The Episcopal Church has consistently and repeatedly acted in a manner that has defied the wider discernment of both the Churches of the Anglican Communion and of the Church Catholic, and the actions of our General Convention and of our bishops over the past six years have fractured the bonds of affection throughout the Anglican Communion.<\/p>\n