What this does is basically ensure that the most of the Primates of the Anglican Communion will break communion with ECUSA. A schism, in other words.
Many American parishes will be left to decide whether to reject this General Convention's authority and remain in communion with the (orthodox) world; or to acknowledge the validity of this General Convention, and thus accept schism.
The middle way is to remain as legal members of the ECUSA, but to ignore the Convention -- instead focusing ourselves on following, and supporting the spiritual leadership of Orthodox Anglicanism. The basic tactic will be to focus on doing God's work, leaving it up to the bishops to force the issue of homosexuality onto the parishes -- something they cannot afford to do.
The focus for that effort is in something called Anglican Mainstream.
We are living in momentous and difficult times. I believe this tidal wave of support for homosexuality on the part of “clergy” and denominations is a sign of the apostasy; the “falling away” of the church described in scripture that precedes the day of the Lord.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 says, “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.”
Three times in Matthew 24:4 Christ warned of the deception of those who come in His name He also speaks of what will occur before the Abomination of Desolation, the event in which the Antichrist will place a throne in the midst of the re-built temple in Jerusalem and declare himself to be god.
When the disciples asked the Lord Jesus, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” ...He said that “lawlessness” would “increase”, and “most people’s love (for God) will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:3, 12).
Regarding the apostasy of the church Paul proclaims:
“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,” 1Timothy 4:1 – 2
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
holding to a form of godliness, (i.e. having the outer appearance without possessing the spiritual dynamic/reality) although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,
always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.” (2Timothy 3:1 – 8)
The scriptures are consistent in regard to what God has to say about homosexuality.
Homosexuality is an illicit lust forbidden by God. He said to His people Israel, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22). "
"If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them." (Leviticus 20:13)
In these passages homosexuality is condemned as a prime example of sin, a sexual perversion. The Christian can neither alter God's viewpoint nor depart from it.
God's Word is consistent concerning the sin of Sodom;
"Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;
and they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with (“know” kjv) them.”
But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
and said, “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. “Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
But they said, “Stand aside.” Furthermore, they said, “This one came in as an alien, and already he is acting like a judge; now we will treat you worse than them.” So they pressed hard against Lot and came near to break the door.
But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
They struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway. (Genesis 19:4-11)
The Hebrew word for "know" in verse 5 is ya„da`, a sexual term. It is used frequently to denote sexual intercourse (Genesis 4:1, 17, 25; Matthew 1:24, 25). The message in the context of Genesis 19 is clear. Lot pled with the men “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.” God’s word states that homosexuality is wickedness and must be recognized as such.
The church and those who genuinely know Christ have a responsibility to be faithful to the scriptures, not to changing social mores or pressures.
In regard to marriage the Word of God states marriage is a divinely ordered institution designed to form a permanent union between one man and one woman for one purpose (among others) of procreating or propagating the human race. That was God's order in the first of such unions (Genesis 1:27, 28; 2:24; Matthew 19:5). If, in His original creation of humans, God had created two persons of the same sex, there would not be a human race in existence today. The whole idea of two persons of the same sex “marrying” is biblically untenable. Although some clergy and denominations might “bless” a homosexual marriage, God does not and He will hold all involved accountable.
The simple fact of the matter is this; any evil condemned in Scripture cannot be honoring to God and that includes homosexuality. Today, sexual perverts masquerading as "Christian" clergy are plentiful and a sign of the times. These so-called "religious leaders" practicing and promoting homosexuality are attempting to negate the truths of scripture regarding the issue by perverting Christian terminology and concepts like love, justice and acceptance. While euphoria predominates throughout their movement to normalize and accept homosexuality within Christendom, God is not in it. He is immutable; He does not change and He has declared homosexuality an abomination and that is His position, no matter what clergy or denominations may say. Practicing homosexuals are engaged in evil forbidden and condemned by God Himself.
If we are genuinely born again, love and understand the Bible as God's revelation to mankind, we cannot and will not condone an evil that God Himself condemns.
"If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him". (I John 2:29)
"Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.’”(II Timothy 2:19).
Romans 1:24-27; I Timothy 1:10 and Jude 7 consistently proclaim that homosexuality is evil and sin. The Romans passage is unambiguously clear. Paul attributes the moral depravity of men and women to their rejection of "the truth of God" (1:25). Because they refused "to retain God in their knowledge" (1:28), thereby dethroning God and deifying themselves.
While the Old Testament clearly condemned homosexuality, in Paul's day there were individuals who rejected its teaching. As a direct result of their rejection of God's commands He punished their sin by delivering them over to it.
Romans 1:26-31 lists twenty-three punishable sins, homosexuality leads the list. Paul wrote,
" For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error." (Romans 1:26, 27).
These verses clearly state that homosexuals suffer in their body and personality the inevitable consequences of their wrong doing. |It should be noted that the behavior of the homosexual is described as "degrading passions" (1:26).
The Greek word translated "degrading" (atimia) means filthy, dirty, evil, dishonorable. The word "passions" in Greek is pathos, used by the Greeks of either a good or bad desire. Here in the context of Romans it is used in a bad sense. This is a degrading passion, a shameful lust. It is interesting to note that God’s word condemns as sin both the desire (lusting after) and the act of homosexuality.
In these dark days the church is to be "salt and light in the world". Born again Christians, now more than ever before we have a responsibility to "NOT be conformed to this world" but to be "transformed by the renewing of our minds". (Romans 12:1 - 2) This transformation comes about as we saturate our minds and hearts with the Word of God and let it (rather that the changing social mores of our times) be the determining factor in what we believe and how we live our lives.