Posted on 05/05/2014 3:07:30 PM PDT by NYer
The Episcopal Church is in a death spiral.
Why is the Episcopal Church near collapse?Prominent bishops are pulling out. Convention-goers were told headquarters had spent $18 million suing local congregations. Members are leaving at a record rate. This is no longer George Washington’s church – once the largest denomination in the colonies.
The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it.The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue annulling marriages to any wife who failed to bear him sons, is in trouble.
Somehow slipping out of the headlines is a harsh reality that the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses out of the American church and align with conservative Anglican groups in Africa and South America.
U.S. Catholics out-number the Episcopal Church 33-to-1. There are more Jews than Episcopalians. Twice as many Mormons as Episcopalians. Even the little African Methodist Episcopal denomination -- founded in in 1787 -- has passed the Episcopalians.
FYI, ping!
OK, my brain is in the gutter.
Goodbye Episcapelicans.
Its much more likely they are putting it in.
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, may be a hope for growth of the Anglican Church in Great Britain. I saw a different article than this one in the Daily Mail about him and his ideas on faith and the future of the Church of England. It was quite positive and he is a near opposite of his predecessor. Rev Rowan Williams.
Good riddance to bad rubbish...and with Notre Dame denying traditional marriage, Rome can’t be far behind. I see the Tiber gathering more garbage by the minute.
He had a successful career as a eloquent speaker, keeping to rote memorization of the Book of Common prayer: which replaced the Bible.
I sought a group of Christians that humbly taught the Bible to whoever showed up. It has made all the difference.
I love it - a protestant who reads the article and actually thinks he’s coming out on top.
Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam
Lol!! Just can't pass up an opportunity to attack the Catholic Church. Notre Dame is NOT the Catholic Church, nor vice versa.
Notre Dame doesn't tell the Vatican what to do.
Unfortunately, it also doesn't seem to work in the opposite direction, either.
My uncle is a bishop of a MAJOR US city. He doesn't know the Bible. At all. Basic fundamentals. He had a successful career as a eloquent speaker, keeping to rote memorization of the Book of Common prayer: which replaced the Bible.Bingo! It is amazing how little Christians know, but it is a scandal how little some clergy know about the Bible.
In where? That's the question.
FMCDH(BITS)
When I was a kid in the 50s, they had plenty of Bible study (I got my Twelve Year Pin!) and pretty good sermons. Of course, I also still have a good chunk of the BCP committed to memory -- but if you dig a little deeper, you'll find that most of that content is Scriptural, although its structure is based on the Lectionary (which is also Scriptural with the addition of a good number of traditional hymns).
We were at the High Church end of the spectrum, so when they lost their minds at GC 2006, we just paddled 'cross the Tiber.
I have got to say, though, that Cranmer's masterly translation of the Psalter is far superior to the translation which is used in the Catholic Church. Hopefully they will follow up the new translation of the Mass (which is a significant improvement) with a new Psalter and then find a replacement for the NAB.
I used to catch my ECUSA pastor out from time to time because he knew neither Latin nor Greek. He didn't know Hebrew either, but I never got past my aleph-beis . . . fortunately there's always the Septuagint.
By the way, I don't think it's fair to say that the BCP 'replaced' the Bible, since the one is a prayer service and the other is the Word. Even the BCP provides for three Scripture readings on Sunday, plus a Psalm, and you have to have the Bible on hand since the readings change every day.
The Anglican Church in North America is growing quite rapidly because they were abandoned by the Bible-despising Episcopalians.
The ECUSA lost me over 15 years ago. I had been senior warden of the oldest (1832) Episcopal church in west Tennessee.
It seems that the elegance of the Episcopal Church is quite attractive to homosexuals.
I considered them once. And then, even before the mess with Gene Robinson, I realized they had people getting to be bishops who’d consider the baptismal vows to be trick questions (looking right at you, John Spong). Yeah, forget that.
The full article is worth it.
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