Ted Byfield
PING!
Posted on 07/03/2006 11:44:27 AM PDT by GMMAC
Once-great churches are falling apart
By Ted Byfield
Calgary Sun
Sunday, July 2, 2006
It's a sad state of affairs, one has to admit, but news of the last week makes it hard to doubt Canadians are currently watching the demise of two great churches -- the United and the Anglican.
The United Church is currently condemning Israel as a "rogue nation."
Among the Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury is pronouncing his worldwide church as two churches -- those that accept sodomite clergy and those who don't.
Both initiatives are so bizarre they seem to foreshadow only one thing -- some kind of final disintegration in which both churches become essentially congregational.
That is, the ultimate authority determining what the church believes is not a pope, or a primate, or an archbishop, or a council of bishops, or even a conference or synod of clergy and laity.
Rather, each congregation will decide all questions, moral and theological, for itself.
And this, of course, if you can believe the talk of local clergy and laity, is already well under way.
No sooner, for instance, did the United Church announce its astonishing assessment of Israel than letters began appearing in the newspapers from the shocked and bewildered members of that church, most of them pointing out the obvious.
All over the world, Christians are suffering persecution.
In China, the persecutors are the Communist government. Almost everywhere else, it's the Muslim fundamentalists.
Today the most powerful bastion against this aggression is Israel.
That's why Islamic states want to destroy it. Now they have an ally in the United Church of Canada.
The mind reels.
Meanwhile, over on the Anglican front, the controversy is portrayed as one of morality -- is sodomy morally wrong? But behind that question stands another.
The Church through the ages has always condemned it. That teaching is now being rejected.
We should note that the Christian church has never condemned the inclination towards sodomy, only the yielding to that inclination.
They equate it, that is, with other sexual practices -- adultery, pedophilia, bestiality, rape, incest and so on.
Now in the 20th century, we are being asked to believe all the other centuries erred, and this particular form of conduct is not sinful.
Why? Because some individuals are prone to it.
But then some individuals have always been prone to them all.
So what have we discovered in the 20th century that we didn't know before?
One thing for sure. We've discovered it can lead to a very deadly disease. But this surely argues for strengthening the prohibition, not for abolishing it. I have never heard this question answered.
Instead all we get are paeans about human rights, tolerance and "inclusiveness."
So the Anglican Church marches to its ruin. And over what issue? Sodomy. Again, the mind reels.
And what will happen now?
Both institutions will cease to exist. The process will be gradual, of course. Synods and conferences will become less attended and less heeded. The news media will lose interest.
Few will know what strange things the General Conference of the United Church decides because so few will care.
Even now, is the Israel decision likely to make one iota of change to Canadian foreign policy? It will not, and for two reasons. First, very few church members make up their mind on any question on the basis of what some church body decides.
Second, the numerical strength of these churches is dwindling. Wherever there is an instance of growth, it's because of the church's spiritual work. Its political stands can be ignored.
As for the Anglicans, the story will be much the same. Increasingly the local congregation will become the centre of allegiance.
The bishops, most of them pro-sodomy, will of course try to discredit and dismiss those clergy who remain loyal to the faith and whose congregations reflect growth. But very soon contributions to the diocese will diminish and the power of the bishop will diminish with it.
The pro-sodomy set within the Anglican church, we should note, is confined to North America and Great Britain. In other parts of the world, the Anglican church is growing and healthy, and if the church survives at all, it's from there the leadership will come.
Ted Byfield
PING!
Rejoice liberals! Wake up people!
As a non-Catholic with very religious, Catholic in-laws, I have long defended the Catholic church as I felt it was often targeted by the drive-by media for criticism.
After listening to the recent church's proclamation that the United States has no right to control it's borders (by seeing immigration as a human rights issue), I have lost all respect for the heirarchy.
It simply flys in the face of Christ's teachings to simply ignore the rule of law.
Don't blame to entire Church hierarchy for the follies of many of the American bishops. The magesterium of the Church doesn't teach this. But mealy-mouthed, leftish bishops and cardinals continue to be an embarrasment to Catholicism.
I know exactly that feeling. I left one of those mentioned churches after being a member for 21 years, because of the anti-Christ slide...
Rubbish. To have called for changes in immigration law is a far cry from asserting that the US has no right to have such laws.
I have lost all respect for the heirarchy.
Let's unpack this: You say you used to respect the Catholic bishops, but now have zero respect, because of disagreement over a single point of politics.
Wow.
IOW, all the esteem you held for them, and all the reasons you had to hold them in esteem, are more than cancelled by a single issue. Do you write off other people this lightly -- and what would you think of others whose high regard you enjoy, were they thus to blow you off? Wouldn't you be tempted to think them shallow, unreflective, maybe even obsessive?
Beyond that, have you considered what this suggests about your spiritual life? When you attach more weight to a single question of politics than to everything else that makes up the life of a Catholic bishop, aren't you making a single worldly question the focus and organising principle of your life? At what point does a strongly-held belief (which you're perfectly entitled to hold) metastasize into a false god? I'm just asking.
The Bishops have long sounded like an organ of the DMC. That is because of their average age. When they were young orthodox and anti-communist Catholics still ruled a powerful labor movement. Now we have socialist minded leaders who have only contempt for Christian orthodoxy who dominate the public employee and the old industrial unions. Times change and aging bishops like McCarrick and Mahoney have not changed with them.
I feel extremely lucky that my church takes absolutey no political stances and is solely focused on the important matters of faith and the tenants of christianty (I know that is somewhat vague but would take a great deal of typing to explain).
If what you are saying is true that a single Bishop was responsible for making the statements regarding immigration then I guess the question would be is if the entire church hierarchy shares this view or not.
I guess my entire point is that (and again, in just my opinion) a church is better off staying away from social engineering and politics and betters serves its community by focusing on sharing the message of salvation through Christ.
In the end, thank you for the conversational nature of your reply rather than a flame war.
Iceman, speaking as a Catholic, I don't see how Christians can be invited to embrace faith but not be challenged to act on it. Faith without works is dead, after all, and we have the Lord's own word for it that on the last day whatever we'll have done for the poor and suffering will be judged to have been done for the Lord himself. Faith can't be privatised and isolated from the world.
I'm willing to bet that your church does take a stand on political matters. Not narrowly partisan questions, perhaps. But questions that've always been viewed as settled matters of natural law -- abortion or homosexuality, to name just two -- are now up for grabs in the political arena. Sooner or later everyone of us is going to be called to some act of witness.
I'm not saying that the immigration statement came from a single Catholic bishop; my understanding is that it was a joint statement, voted upon by all of the Catholic bishops in America. But a call for justice is not the same thing as calling for passage of, say a highway bill. I know that some bishops are far more liberal than others, and many don't know where the line should be drawn, but secular dhimmitude isn't an acceptable answer.
I appreciate your courteous tone as well, and wish you a pleasant 4th.
*Sigh* We Catholics TRIED to solve the Muslim problem, ya know. But NNooOOOooOOoo, Martin Luther had to attack the defense budget. Damned liberal. ;^D
I think the issue of the border is just the issue of sympathy for the individual poor person and the collectivity of poor people. One poor person you would sympathize with and could, at least marginally, help. But if you go hard over on giving alms, you will not spread wealth but poverty. Note that Warren Buffet's fabulous fortune - if divided equally among the poor - amounts to something like $10.You know the saying, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and suddenly he needs nylon filament, a fancy reel, lures . . . " </humor>
In reality, "Teaching a man to fish" means hiring him to do a job which produces value. Not pie-in-the-sky education about jobs that usta exist in the good old days, but a concrete job that actually pays money because it is profitable to pay him to do it.
Having someone come from Mexico to learn by doing things that are profitable is all well and good. Having the nation of Mexico come north is a different phenomenon, raising the question of why Mexico is such a great place to be from, and what might change Mexico into a great place to live.
No wonder, then, that the Catholic Church is growing in America.
**People are turning to more traditional messages of truth and spirituality, rather than the feel-good church of nihilism.**
So ture.
Sadly they have closed up shop.
That's very interesting. Thanks for letting me know!
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