Posted on 03/03/2012 5:04:13 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The Church of England is facing a damaging rift over the appointment of gay bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has given his backing to a deal intended to prevent a split between the Church’s traditionalist and liberal wings, by effectively preventing openly gay clergy from becoming bishops.
However, last night the proposed Anglican Covenant stood on the brink of failure, after worshippers and clergy rejected it in votes up and down England. Two bishops voted against it.
Supporters of Dr Williams said that a defeat would be a “devastating” blow to him after he staked so much of his authority on the Covenant.
When Dr Williams unveiled the document in 2010, he urged the church to endorse it or risk seeing the “piece-by-piece dissolution” of the Anglican Communion.
The Bishop of Sherborne, the Rt Rev Dr Graham Kings, warned that rejection of the Covenant would cause the worldwide church to “disintegrate”, and added: “Rowan Williams has put his whole weight behind this ... For anyone in his position it would be devastating [if it failed].”
In 2003, a split in the church emerged when Gene Robinson was appointed as the first openly gay Anglican bishop, elected by the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church in the US.
Conservative clergy, including Anglican leaders in Africa, protested against the move, leading Dr Williams to set up a commission to find ways to heal the divisions.
The 2004 Windsor Report recommended that ties between Anglican churches around the world should be made “explicit and forceful”.
The Covenant, drafted in 2009, does not deal explicitly with the question of gay bishops, but says branches should take into account the views of the wider Anglican church when doing anything that “may provoke controversy”.
Under the proposed regime, a branch of the church
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I don’t think we should any longer refer to Christians and Christianity in the same breath (or writings) when discussing the Episcopal Church. Anyone still affiliated with the Episcopal Church is defacto going along with its destruction. These people should refer to themselves as Churchians because their “church” means more to them than their belief in our Savior. All sinners are welcome to become Christians, but they must repent from their sins.
Promoting the man who divorced his wife, left his family, and brough his boyfriend into the rectory should have been the final blow. The world is upside down. Brave New/Old World is upon us.
I don’t think we should any longer refer to Christians and Christianity in the same breath (or writings) when discussing the Episcopal Church. Anyone still affiliated with the Episcopal Church is defacto going along with its destruction. These people should refer to themselves as Churchians because their “church” means more to them than their belief in our Savior. All sinners are welcome to become Christians, but they must repent from their sins.
Promoting the man who divorced his wife, left his family, and brough his boyfriend into the rectory should have been the final blow. The world is upside down. Brave New/Old World is upon us.
Rowan is a very stupid, misguided and evil man.
But for the many trusts and legacies, and all the inherited real estate, this man would count for nothing. He is a church official trapped in the present, enjoying all the blessings and honors of past, without a clue how to deal with the future and its demands. He has abandoned the timeless counter-cultural, other-worldly nature of Christianity and its eternal perspective and is now captive to the limits of abilities. He will reap what he has sown.
“I had my sister visiting from the east and found out she was associated with the Epicopalians and wanted me to donate to planned parenthood. How sad for me.”
We are not all of that ilk.
I was an Episcopalian, and I live in ground zero - New Hampshire. Apart from a funeral last week, I have not been in the Episcopal/Anglican church for ten years.
But I cannot accept Gene Robinson as “My Bishop”.
I am doing fine, worshiping with my wife in the the local Russian Orthodox church.
But, I miss the Anglican service, more than words can say.
Those bastards stole my church!
yitbos
Prophetic, not?
That should go over very well when London becomes Londonistan in the Islamic Republic of the British Isles.
"Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them."
Ephesians 5:8-11
Works good in politics, too.
yitbos
The whole purpose of his cause has already been defeated by the presence of "gay clergy". ANYONE should be welcomed as a member of a church - they need to be a bit more selective in who gets to stand in front of the laity to preach the Word.
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