What's a PB to do?

What's a PB (not Peanut Butter) to do when Bishops and Dioceses leave TEC?

A) Send out letters of inhibition. The letter is here.

B) File charges to depose the Bishop and let the HOB solve your issues. (This assumes also that you have authority to do so)

C) File lawsuits against the Dioceses. (This would ignore the scriptures relating to Christians sueing Christians)

D) Consider all this as formal housekeeping of TEC, even though every Sunday you pray for all Bishops and Ministers and the catholic Church. Talk about double Speak!

E) Do the Christian Thing and say we agree to disagree here - but go and serve the Lord and proclaim the Gospel - (This one assumes that you have had enough Christian rearing to know the Christian thing, that you might be a Christian, and understand the Great Commission.)

I did find Bishop Iker's response to his inhibition interesting - some might say it was flipant - others would say it was direct and dead on .... either way - he doesn't mince his word here.

Two responses are being issued at this time. From Bishop Iker:
Katharine Jefferts Schori has no authority over me or my ministry as a Bishop in the Church of God. She never has, and she never will.
Since November 15, 2008, both the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and I as the Diocesan
Bishop have been members of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. As a result, canonical
declarations of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church pertaining to us are irrelevant
and of no consequence.

And from the Standing Committee of Ft Worth:

The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth is a member of the Province
of the Southern Cone as of November 15, 2008. Bishop Iker is a member in good standing of
the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone.
We wonder by what authority the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United
States presumes to inhibit a bishop of the Province of the Southern Cone. We do not recognize
the authority of the Presiding Bishop over us. We regret this illegal, unconstitutional, and
uncanonical attempt to interfere with the rights and ministry of a diocese of another province of the Anglican Communion. We call upon her to desist from any further actions in our diocese and that she refrain from any further border crossing.

No mincing of words from either as best I can tell! Interesting that the SC used the old rhetoric of Border Crossing ....

Some have asked me what Parish's are involved there ... according to the statement :

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth consists of 56 congregations. The major cities in the diocese include Fort Worth,
Arlington, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Wichita Falls, Grand Prairie, Richland Hills, Brownwood, and Stephenville, Texas. The
Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker has served as the third Diocesan Bishop of Fort Worth since 1995. The diocese enjoys companion
relationships with the Dioceses of Northern Malawi and Northern Mexico.

Katie Girls Vision - One year ago

From the San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 2007

"All people - including gay and lesbian Christians and non-Christians - are deserving of the fullest regard of the church," the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori declared during an hourlong discussion before services. "We're not going backward."

Jefferts Schori said these are the views of the church's bishops as well as its lay members - who have increasingly affirmed rights for same-sex couples. As such, Jefferts Schori's comments served as the punctuation to a historic day.

The 27,000-member Diocese of California, based in San Francisco, has ordained more gay and lesbian clergy than any other. Priests in the diocese - which includes San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa counties and part of Santa Clara County - have blessed same-sex unions for more than three decades.

Those practices, once on the margins of the Episcopal Church, have become the mainstream.

Jefferts Schori said on Sunday that she sees the path of Christ in a different manner.

"Jesus hung out with people on the margins," she said. "He hung out with people who were unacceptable to the Judaism of his time.

"He didn't spend a great deal of his time seeking to throw people out. My sense of what it means to follow Jesus is to love the image of God in our neighbors and respond to the needs of the image of God in our neighbors."

Jefferts Schori is skeptical of the fate of any breakaway churches or diocese, saying Duncan's efforts would be the latest in a line of splinter groups that failed.

Well, here we are just one year later Katie Girl .... I think you will eat those last words above, in that Satan has been trying to kill the Church since Christ was born (earlier actually) ... Satan has used puppets like Herod to try and Destroy Christ's Church. Your actions as a puppet are bringing the Anglicans of this country into unison, with a purpose to evangelize as the Great Commission calls us to do. A church without Christ at it's center will fail, just as the ancient worship of Baal ... Katie you may captain the ship of Apostasy onto the shores of doom, but the believing faithful of this country will bandage your wounds and pray for your recovery, much like the Samaritan cared for the beaten and trodden. Those that leave your direction - in the Spirit - will NOT FAIL!

You don't need to follow me!

Maybe Monty Python et. al. were Episcopalians .... hmmmm is That Katie Girl Schori in Black?

Liberals Gearing Up Already

AS mentioned below, with conservatives leaving TEC in Dioceses (vs Droves), the liberals are now ready for THEIR AGENDA push ... It would be funny if it were not so serious .... This will leave small conservative Parishes on the brink of financial destruction as people ease on out the door to other denominations - or more likely the New Anglican Province ... Having been one of those people that have stayed despite the national views, its becoming more difficult every week to not consider the move myself.

From Atlanta:

The council handled seven resolutions, two of them sending a message to the 76th General Convention next summer that the Diocese of Atlanta supports "development of appropriate rites for the celebration and blessing of sacred unions for gay and lesbian persons" and the repeal of General Convention Resolution B033, which, authors said, had "run its course" and brought pain to the gay community. Hearings held on both matters revealed few objections, and the resolutions passed without floor discussion by substantial margins.

And from Central New York:

Diocese of Central New York
RESOLUTION SUBMISSION

Resolution #

Subject: Openness of Ministry

Submitted by: The Very Reverend G. Thomas Luck

WHEREAS there has been much discussion and study around The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion on the subject of human sexuality and the participation of diverse people in the lay and ordained ministry of this Church; and

WHEREAS this diocese has not stated its view on this subject through Diocesan Convention; and

WHEREAS the General Convention of the Episcopal Church will take place in Anaheim in the Summer of 2009

BE IT RESOLVED that this Convention of the Diocese of Central New York states unequivocally our belief that all orders of ministry, lay and ordained, should be open to all persons regardless of sexual orientation or marital/partnered status, all other canonical requirements being met;

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all lay and ordained members of this Diocese are full and valued members of this Diocese regardless of their theological views on this subject, and in no way shall anyone’s ministry suffer negatively if they disagree with this statement.

Bishop Duncan Speaks

Bishop Duncan - heavily rumored to be the head of the Anglican Province in North America ... speaks a magnificent sermon this week at Anglican Awakenings 2008 .... This is a 50 minute talk .... so plan your time, use your pause button when needed - or simply write down the time elapsed from the lower left of the screen and come back and scroll the bar to that time .... well worth listening to more than once - as he speaks to us as Christians and what our call is now during this time in the Church.

Duncan sets the Date for new Province...

This is from David Virtue

The Anglican Communion will get a new province called the North American Anglican Province - its 39th.

Its new archbishop will be the deposed Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan.

The formation of this new province comes hard on the departure of four orthodox dioceses from The Episcopal Church, three Anglo-Catholic - San Joaquin, Quincy and Ft. Worth, with Pittsburgh being Evangelical and Evangelical Catholic.

In each case, the vast majority of Episcopal priests and laity voted to leave The Episcopal Church because of its abandonment of the historic Christian Faith in faith and morals, its acceptance of pansexuality, and violating both Holy Scripture and Church History.

The Episcopal Church is in numerical free fall. Recent 2007 figures catalog that the Median Average Sunday Worship Attendance is 69 (it was 77) and the net change in Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) from the previous Year was down 37,504.

In real terms, that's the equivalent of losing 543 "median-sized" congregations in 2007 or 1.5 congregations (median ASA) departing every day.

Between 1993 and 2003, The Episcopal Church lost 95,195 in Average Sunday Attendance. That averages a decline of 23,799 in ASA per year over the last four years, or an average decline of 2.9% per year.

The event will be followed by "a province-by-province visitation and appeal for recognition of the separate ecclesiastical structure in North America."

The creation of a new province, deemed unilateral by liberal provinces, comes two months before the scheduled primates' meeting in early February and leaves Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams with little or no room to maneuver.

Here Comes The Anglican Province in North America!

As was alluded to by Bishop Iker in the interview listed below - following the pull out of Fort Worth from TEC a new Anglican Province will be set up, beginning Dec. 3, 2008...

3 Leave and 1 to Go

We now have 3 diocese's of the Episcopal Church that have voted to leave TEC. San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy all moved to the Southern Cone for now - under Anglican oversight - albeit this is likely temporary. Incidentally 2 of these Bishops have been deposed by Katie girl, and one chose retirement just prior to the vote of their convention.

Traditionally it takes 4 Dioceses to form a new Anglican Province. The 4th will likely come from the Diocese of Forth Worth, which will vote this weekend. This is of course expected, and likely Bishop Iker there will be presented with charges of abandoning the Church next week, and deposed at the next House of Bishops meeting next March.

Before I link to a great interview with Bishop Iker.... let me ponder for a moment what this will mean.

The Episcopal Church, which has been on the far left of religious views for years will now become even more left - and I think rapidly. With fewer conservative Dioceses, there will be fewer conservative delegates, which means that the leftist agenda will be promoted faster, and with larger margins of votes than in the past. With all the "leftist" views that have already been put in place by TEC, I can see rampant and unchecked leftist agendas passing readily at future conventions.

This of course leaves conservatives in moderate and left leaning Dioceses with an extreme minority, starting at the next General Convention. This leaves us that have stayed all these years, worshiping in a church whose views do not align with those of Holy Scripture. While I think there may be a "rush" of Parishes to align with the new and coming Province - I see very few Dioceses leaving, but as Parishes re-align the same effect in Diocesan Conventions will take affect as I have described above for the National Conventions.

To read Bishops Ikers interview - click here.

Anglican or Episcopalian?

This weekend my prayers are with the Diocese of Quincy - whose General Synod is meeting - and likely vote on it's relationship continuing - or not with TEC.

For me it is becoming more and more clear - I have not left the Church - but the Church left me - leaving me wondering without direction, and worse yet - they left without saying goodbye.

I believe in:

The Supreme Authority of Holy Scripture

The bedrock of the Evangelical Tradition is absolute confidence that Holy Scripture is the supreme authority in matters of life and faith. Without reservation or obfuscation the Evangelical Anglican affirms "Holy Scripture containeth of things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation."

An insistence on biblical integrity, however, does not necessitate an abandonment of the tools of clarification and interpretation that have guided the Church since the Apostolic Age. As the search for greater understanding of Holy Scripture should be an impetus to scholarship rather than a constraint, Evangelical Anglicans never treat honest and thorough biblical scholarship as a threat to the Faith. To the Evangelical Anglican, solid scholarship marked by genuine faith will lead to neither the endless skepticism of the extreme liberal nor the sterile recapitulations of the severe fundamentalist.

for more info on Evangelical Anglicanism click here.

Gays and the Church

If you’ve been watching the headlines over the past six months, you may have noticed the incredible surge of interest in affirming homosexuality. Whether it’s at the heart of a religious scandal, political corruption, radical legislation, or the redefinition of marriage, homosexual interests have come to characterize America. That’s an indication of the success of the gay agenda. But sadly, when people refuse to acknowledge the sinfulness of homosexuality—calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20)—they do so at the expense of many souls, perhaps even their own.

How should you respond to the success of the gay agenda? Should you accept the recent trend toward tolerance? Or should you side with those who exclude homosexuals and decry the sin? The Bible calls for a balance between what some people think are two opposing reactions—condemnation and compassion. Really, the two together are essential elements of biblical love, and that’s something the homosexual desperately needs.

Homosexual advocates have been remarkably effective in selling their warped interpretations of passages in Scripture that address homosexuality. When you ask a homosexual what the Bible says about homosexuality—and many of them know—they have digested an interpretation that is not only warped, but also completely irrational. Pro-homosexual arguments from the Bible are nothing but smokescreens—as you come close, you see right through them.

God’s condemnation of homosexuality is abundantly clear—He opposes it in every age.

In the patriarchs (Genesis 19:1-28)

In the Law of Moses (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13)

In the Prophets (Ezekiel 16:46-50)

In the New Testament (Romans 1:18-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Jude 7-8)

Why does God condemn homosexuality? Because it overturns God’s fundamental design for human relationships—a design that pictures the complementary relationship between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:18-25; Matthew 19:4-6; Ephesians 5:22-33).
Why, then, have homosexual interpretations of Scripture been so successful at persuading so many? Simple: people want to be convinced. Since the Bible is so clear about the issue, sinners have had to defy reason and embrace error to quiet their accusing consciences (Romans 2:14-16). As Jesus said, “Men loved the darkness rather than the Light, [because] their deeds were evil” (John 3:19-20).

As a Christian, you must not compromise what the Bible says about homosexuality—ever. No matter how much you desire to be compassionate to the homosexual, your first sympathies belong to the Lord and to the exaltation of His righteousness. Homosexuals stand in defiant rebellion against the will of their Creator who from the beginning “made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4).

Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by homosexual advocates and their futile reasoning—their arguments are without substance. Homosexuals, and those who advocate that sin, are fundamentally committed to overturning the lordship of Christ in this world. But their rebellion is useless, for the Holy Spirit says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; cf. Galatians 5:19-21).

So, what is God’s response to the homosexual agenda? Certain and final judgment. To claim anything else is to compromise the truth of God and deceive those who are perishing.

As you interact with homosexuals and their sympathizers, you must affirm the Bible’s condemnation. You are not trying to bring damnation on the head of homosexuals, you are trying to bring conviction so that they can turn from that sin and embrace the only hope of salvation for all of us sinners—and that’s through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Homosexuals need salvation. They don’t need healing—homosexuality is not a disease. They don’t need therapy—homosexuality is not a psychological condition. Homosexuals need forgiveness, because homosexuality is a sin.
First Corinthians 6 is very clear about the eternal consequence for those who practice homosexuality—but there’s good news. No matter what the sin is, whether homosexuality or anything else, God has provided forgiveness, salvation, and the hope of eternal life to those who repent and embrace the gospel. Right after identifying homosexuals as those who “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” Paul said, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

God’s plan for many homosexuals is salvation. There were former homosexuals in the Corinthian church back in Paul’s day, just as there are many former homosexuals today in faithful churches around the country. Do they still struggle with homosexual temptation? Sure they do. What Christian doesn’t struggle with the sins of their former life? Even the great apostle Paul acknowledges that fight (Romans 7:14-25). But former homosexuals sit in biblical churches throughout the country praising their Savior, along with former fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, coveters, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers. Remember, such were some of you too.

What should be your response to the homosexual agenda? Make it a biblical response—confront it with the truth of Scripture that condemns homosexuality and promises eternal damnation for all who practice it. What should be your response to the homosexual? Make it a gospel response—confront him with the truth of Scripture that condemns him as a sinner, and point him to the hope of salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Stay faithful to the Lord as you respond to homosexuality by honoring His Word, and leave the results to Him.