Religion gone wrong

I read one of the ugliest things about "Christian" religious groups this morning I have ever had the displeasure of being exposed to. Here is how the article, Twenty-First Century Excommunication, starts off...

When the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, N.Y., left the Episcopal Church over disagreements about what the Bible says about sexuality, the congregation offered to pay for the building in which it worshiped. In return the Episcopal Church sued to seize the building, then sold it for a fraction of the price to someone who turned it into a mosque.

It goes downhill from there. You may wonder why an ostensibly Christian organization would sue to take possession of a building only to sell it to the followers of a pagan religion? Simple. Conservative breakaway Anglicans compete with the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church is having none of that.

In 2009, breakaway Episcopalians in the U.S. and Canada formed the Anglican Church in North America, which now reports 100,000 members in nearly 1,000 congregations. This group has been formally recognized by some Anglican primates outside of the United States.

Bishop Jefferts Schori says this new Anglican group is encroaching on her church's jurisdiction, and she has authorized dozens of lawsuits "to protect the assets of the Episcopal Church for the mission of the Episcopal Church." The Episcopal Church has dedicated $22 million to legal actions against departing clergy, congregations and dioceses, according to Allan Haley, a canon lawyer who has represented a diocese in one such case.

Now the Episcopal Church has upped the ante: It has declared that if congregations break away and buy their sanctuaries, they must disaffiliate from any group that professes to be Anglican.

$22 million to legal action against other Christians. So much for 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. Ms. Schori has a unique read on the calling of a bishop (besides the whole gender thing)...

"We can't sell to an organization that wants to put us out of business," said Bishop Jefferts Schori, who added that her job is to ensure that "no competing branch of the Anglican Communion impose on the mission strategy" of the Episcopal Church. Indeed she has no complaint with Muslims, Baptists or barkeepers buying Episcopal properties—only fellow Anglicans.

Well I should think not! That is right in the "Pastoral Epistles" in the qualities of an elder: Guard your brand of Christianity against any other Christians who might be trying to "put you out of business". It is right there in the text, I am sure of it.

This is easy to poke fun at this even though it is not very funny. While it is a particularly grotesque example of it, we do see this same attitude reflected in far too many denominations and local churches that see fellow Christians as competitors that are trying to "steal their sheep" and "put them out of business". Just look at the marketing material many churches put out and change the religious terms into a consumer product and you get what amounts to little more than run of the mill marketing. Some churches tout their worship music or youth programs, others that they are "KJV-Only, Independent, Fundamental, Bible-believing, Soul-winning" churches, others that they hold to one of the Reformed confessions or the "Three Forms of Unity". All are marketing methods designed to get you to come to "their church" instead of "that church". Many of these groups see the problem with the methods of others but are quite blind to their own marketing methods.

When will we get to the point that we stop seeing our co-laborers in Christ as competitors to be viewed with caution and start seeing that the field is ready to harvest and there is plenty of harvesting to go around? There is no need for us to squabble over attendance and money, we should have plenty to keep us busy in reaching the lost all around us.

I think you might have the order backwwards here

Ah, some wise counsel from "Presiding Bishop" Katharine Jefferts Schori....

The Episcopal Church should respond with "prayer and discernment" to the recent election of a lesbian priest as an assistant bishop of the Los Angeles diocese, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Saturday.

Instead of worrying about how to "respond", I think maybe you should have engaged in prayer and discernment (and perhaps some reading of the Scriptures. Just saying.) before you elected a lesbian as "assistant Bishop".

If you are going to embrace sin, do it all the way!

Here is a shocking bit of news. The Episcopal Church-USA has elected another homosexual as a "bishop" (well, an "assistant bishop" whatever that is). Open and unapologetic lesbian Mary Glasspool was elected by a sizable number of delegates in Los Angeles.

This was the most telling part:

"One of the reasons she is so the right person for this is that she knows who she is and she knows she belongs to God and she knows everything else falls in place when you keep that central," ("Bishop" V. Gene Robinson) Robinson said in a phone interview. "She's no stranger to people who think she shouldn't be a priest because she's a woman, or think she shouldn't be a priest because she's a lesbian."

Well that makes so much more sense than what Paul wrote about what someone the "right person":

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (1Ti 3:1-7)

I mean who wants someone like that when you can have someone like Mary Glasspoool, someone who is so "self-aware". The whole point of the Gospel is for you to feel good about yourself, embrace your sin and find yourself. Kudos to the Episcopal Church for another courageous stand against that great enemy of Christianity: the Bible.

Missing the point

The "bishop" of the Episcopal Church has warned the Church of England to not encourage more churches to leave the Episcopal church for the newly formed Anglican Church in North America by formally recognizing these churches. She went on to say:

She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the "pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who have gone and people who have stayed."

"Recognition of something like ACNA is unfortunately likely only to encourage" further secessions, she said, reminding the Church of England that "schism is not a Christian act."

Here is the problems with those statements, especially the last one. Schism may not be a "Christian act" but these churches haven't left the faith, the Episcopal church has. If anything these churches are rejoining the church, not causing schism. The true break came when the ECUSA started rejecting the explicit command of Scripture and ordaining women which leads inexorably toward ordaining open homosexuals as "bishops". If you are going to start willfully ignoring Scripture, it can only end in one place, complete and utter heresy which is where the ECUSA finds itself.

While another denomination rushes headlong to embrace heresy...

For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. (Titus 1:7-9 KJV)

These words clearly no longer hold any meaning within the Episcopal church and haven't for a long time. That was pretty evident in the ordination of women, in the permitting of homosexuals to serve openly, in the ordaining of a "bishop" in New Hampshire who divorced his wife to live in a filthy relationship with another man. Now yet another example of what happens when we stop "Holding fast the faithful word". I heard about this on the Albert Mohler show and it piqued my interest having lived for a while in Northern Michigan...

Bishop-elect worries some Episcopalians

As priest, he altered prayer book, says evil exists but Satan doesn’t

LITTLE ROCK — The Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester denies that Satan exists. He doesn’t believe God sent his only-begotten son to die for the sins of the world. He says that the Koran is sacred, he has taken a Buddhist middle name and he teaches that many paths lead to the divine.

As an Episcopal priest, Thew Forrester altered the denomination’s prayer book, including its baptismal vows and the words of the Apostles’ Creed. Now he’s been elected to become a bishop - a successor to the Apostles - by the Diocese of Northern Michigan.

If a majority of the Episcopal Church’s bishops and dioceses give their consent, Thew Forrester would inherit a seat in the House of Bishops, a ceremonial shepherd’s staff and an awesome task - to “guard the faith, unity and discipline of the Church.”

When you read the whole thing, it really is striking that a man who in almost any other time in the history of Christianity would be rightly called a heretic is potentially going to be ordained by what used to be a Christian church as a bishop. Granted, on any given Sunday less than 700 people show up in Episcopal churches in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan in the "Diocese of Northern Michigan" But the fact reminas that the very idea of someone who clearly needs to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to him is instead being called upon to guard that Gospel is heartbreaking.

It does sound like he may not be confirmed or whatever they call it by the other bishops, but the fact that his confirmation is even in question shows how far the Episcopal Church has strayed.

Further signs of schism

As a denomination, the Episcopal Church has been a mess for a long time. Really it long ago ceased to be an active branch in the Church of Christ by abandoning the Gospel and the core doctrines of Christianity. There are still plenty of churches and individuals who show fidelity to the Gospel, but they do so in spite of, not because of, their membership in the Episcopal church. (note: I understand that one's standing in the church universal is not determined by denominational membership)

Now there are reports that the Episcopal Church has suspended one of their Bishops, preventing him from giving sermons or officiating any religious ceremonies. Finally, some church discipline in the Episcopal Church right!

Wrong. The Bishop in question, Bishop John-David Schofield, is guilty of high crimes including calling his denomination back to Biblical Christianity, and calling on his diocese to withdraw from the Episcopal Church due to it's flaunting of Biblical truths and embrace of all manner of heresy and perversion:

"demonstrated that Bishop Schofield has abandoned the communion of this Church by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church."

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the "Presiding Bishop" of the Episcopal Church at least should get some credit for showing some spine, even though she stands on the wrong side of Biblical Christianity on this issues, as is true with so many others.

Bishop Schofield doesn't seemed cowed by "Bishop" Schori's threats and discipline:

The bishop gave no signs of changing direction in a statement issued late Friday by the diocese.

"It is the primary duty of bishops to guard the faith and Bishop Schofield has been continually discriminated against for having done so," the statement read. "How is it that over 60 million Anglicans worldwide can be wrong and a few hundred thousand in the American Church can claim to be right?"

Good for him. At least he seems to have read the Bible and recognize what the role of a Bishop is (along with the qualifications for that office, qualifications that "Bishop" Schori fails to meet in several areas)

It is ironic that the Episcopal Church under Schori embraces homosexuality and all manner of deviant theology with a smile, but frowns upon and censers those who dare speak a word of Biblical reproach and a call for repentance.