Episcopal Leaders Ok Gay Bishop

[VanHooty]

You know, if I remember things correctly, wasn't it the Anglicans who opened up the floodgates for Protestants to take up contraception as acceptable in the '20s or '30s?

Then again, as much as I am wary of Fundementalists, I do not see the likes of... say... Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson endorsing homosexuality anytime soon.

[rachael]

oh boy....

[MC Just]

Kofi Annan has just endorsed homosexual marriage and believes rights such as homosexuality and abortion should be written into the hUMAN rIGHTS ACT. We're coming up on a time of persecution folks, break out the swords and seize the crowns of martyrdom.

Mc-Just is ready to pull out the Sword along with rosary beads,holy water, scapular.etc... I will fight for the truth even unto death. I will especially fight for the un-born being murdered by the millions around the world.

[cmotherofpirl]

Election of Gay Bishop Prompts Walkout

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By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

MINNEAPOLIS - Episcopal conservatives protested the election of the denomination's first openly gay bishop by walking off the floor of their national legislative meeting Wednesday as they called on Anglican leaders worldwide to intervene in what they called a "pastoral emergency."

AP Photo

AP Photo

Slideshow: Episcopal Church OKs Gay Bishop

Episcopalians Elect 1st Openly Gay Bishop

(AP Video)

Some delegates turned in their convention credentials and left for home. Others refused to attend voting sessions. Another group dropped to their knees and prayed as one of their leaders denounced the confirmation of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson.

Robinson was confirmed Tuesday after he was cleared of last-minute misconduct allegations that threatened to delay the vote.

The number of protesters Wednesday was unclear. Donald Armstrong, who turned in his credentials, said about 100 people out of more than 800 clergy and laity in the House of Deputies planned to do the same, but far less than that number could be seen leaving the session.

Although conservatives and like-minded overseas bishops have said confirming Robinson would make them consider breaking away from the denomination, the protesters Wednesday insisted they remained within the Episcopal Church and were simply protesting the General Convention vote.

In an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, Robinson said he hoped his critics would not leave the church, though he disagrees with their view that gay sex violates Scripture.

"I think they're wrong about this," he said. "I think they'll come to know that they are wrong, in this life or the next one."

But Robinson said he values diversity within Anglicanism and hoped his critics will, too.

Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, who voted for Robinson, cautioned against interpreting the protests as a sign that a split in the church is imminent.

"Patient waiting is essential without jumping to any conclusions about who will and who will not remain in the Episcopal Church," Wolf said.

Bishop Stephen Jecko of Florida, a conservative who opposed Robinson, refused to participate in the House of Bishops session Wednesday. He said one of his 77 parishes told him that they will withhold their donation to the diocese because part of the money goes to the national church.

"My main priority now is to keep my diocese together," Jecko said.

After Tuesday's 62-45 vote, more than a dozen conservative bishops walked to the podium of the House of Bishops, surrounding Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, who read a statement saying he and the others felt "grief too deep for words."

Some convention delegates who opposed Robinson left the meeting in tears.

"This body willfully confirming the election of a person sexually active outside of holy matrimony has departed from the historic faith and order of the Church of Jesus Christ," Duncan said. "This body has divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians around the world."

The Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member global Anglican Communion. The American Anglican Council, which represents conservative Episcopalians, planned a meeting in Plano, Texas, in October to decide their next move.

Duncan called on the bishops of the Anglican Communion and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the communion, to intervene in "the pastoral emergency that has overtaken us."

"May God have mercy on his church," Duncan said. Eighteen other bishops signed his statement.

The leader of the Anglican Church of West Malaysia, Bishop Lim Cheng Ean, said Asia's bishops might consider cutting their ties with the U.S. church because of Robinson's appointment. But the head of Australia's Anglican Church, Primate Peter Carnley, considered a liberal, said he didn't think it would be "a communion-breaking issue."

Williams issued a statement saying it was too soon to gauge the impact and appealing to opponents not to react rashly.

"It is my hope that the church in America and the rest of the Anglican Communion will have the opportunity to consider this development before significant and irrevocable decisions are made in response," he said.

Gay rights advocates, meanwhile, claimed Robinson's confirmation as a major victory. Robinson said he attended a gathering of gay Episcopalians Tuesday night where some were in tears, saying their gay children had called to tell them they would now return to the church.

"I was blown away for what this meant to those who were gathered there," Robinson told the AP.

Later this week, the Episcopal convention is expected to consider a measure on drafting a same-sex blessing ceremony.

The church has been debating the role of gays for decades. In 1998, a worldwide meeting of Anglican leaders approved a resolution calling gay sex "incompatible with Scripture," but the denomination has no official rules — either for or against — ordaining gays.

The confirmation of Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two, was nearly derailed by allegations that surfaced at the last minute.

David Lewis of Manchester, Vt., e-mailed several bishops, saying Robinson had inappropriately touched him. Bishop Gordon Scruton, who investigated the claim, said Robinson briefly put his hand on the man's back and arm while engaged in a conversation at a church meeting in public view.

Robinson, who helped write church procedures for dealing with such allegations, has apologized if he made Lewis feel uncomfortable, and Lewis said he did not want to file a formal complaint.

The other concern was an indirect link from the Web site of an outreach group for gay and bisexual youth that Robinson helped found. Scruton said the clergyman ended his association with the organization in 1998 and "was not aware that the organization has a Web site until this convention."

If conservatives do decide to break away, it was unclear what that would mean for the Episcopal Church. Some parishes could split from their dioceses and refuse to recognize clergy who support homosexuality, but stop short of a complete separation.

A full schism would trigger, among other things, bitter fights over parish assets and undercut the global influence of the U.S. church.

Bishops from Africa, Asia and Latin America, representing more than a third of Anglican Communion members worldwide, severed relations this year with a diocese that authorizes same-sex blessings — the Diocese of New Westminster, based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

___

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[jasJis]

What is the most disgusting is the belief that this is only a 'gay rights' issue.

The man is a divorced father of two who's been living and having sexual relations with another man outside of marriage.

It doesn't matter if he's living or sleeping with a man, woman, horse, or snake. It's sexual immorality that denigrates the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage, denigrates the sanctity of sexuality, and denigrates the importance of the family.

[cmotherofpirl]

Yes. So of course the media has reduced it to a gay rights issue.

These are the people who accept abortion on demand, contraception, invitro fertilization, divorce, serial monogamy, and whatever else the culture offers them. You can be whatever you want in this country except a God-fearing person.

Do you really expect anything else?

[Jake Huether]

Not to bring this up again.

I just read the thread regarding this issue on the greenspun forum.

Someone brought up a good point, that has seemed to slip my mind till now.

The gay Bishop WAS a gay priest. Now there's all this whoot and holler about the "gay Bishop". And there's "going to be a big split". Well, why didn't this happen when he was ordained a priest!?

If they were okay with him being a priest, then what's the big stink about him becoming a Bishop?

I don't get them! The aren't "becoming" lost, they have always been lost!

[Good Friday]

jasJis and Cheryl -- I agree with you that this is much more than a gay rights issue. As Bill O'Reilly said on his show several times, this isn't even about the man being openly gay. This is about him leaving his wife and children when his children were very young so that he could sleep with men. Rather than seeking psychological help for his problem (we're not sure it could have helped, but it couldn't have hurt), he just abandoned his family. This is what liberal Episcopalians (AKA the vast majority) want from their priests and bishops.

Jake -- I have to say that I'm more outraged over his ordination to the episcopate than I am over his ordination to the priesthood, though neither is acceptable. But his ordination to the episcopate presents a much bigger problem. Now that he's a bishop in the Episcopal church, he will be able to order the other priests in his diocese to do certain things (possibly perform same-sex blessings), and he will be able to affect policy changes in the Episcopal church and in the Anglican Communion as a whole. He is much more dangerous as a bishop than he ever was as a priest. Consider the possibility that (God forbid) an active gay man is elevated to the Episcopate in the Catholic Church. Could you imagine what destruction he could do to the American Church and the Universal Church? The same is true in the Episcopal church.

However, I don't know what anyone expects from a church that was founded on an egotistical king's desire to commit adultery. Shouldn't it be expected that the Anglican Communion would eventually turn to extreme sexual immorality since it was founded on sexual immorality?

I think, though, that we need to be careful of calling them "lost." They're not lost 'till they're dead, and we should never give up by referring to them as the "lost" as if we are somehow the "saved" -- because we don't know for sure yet if we are saved. There is still time for their conversion to the Catholic Faith, and even without it there is still the possibility that some Episcopalians are imperfectly united to the Church and will still be saved at their deaths. But rather than referring to them as "lost," we should strive for their conversion. I'd imagine many of them are ripe for conversion right now.

[jesterforlife]

hey rember back when the catholic was under crisis?.....................................well guess what its the anglican episopal chuches time n next r the protestants because if and when the there is an anglican split it would be best for all the churches if catholism anglican n protestism had a meeting n agreeed to merge n i have a feelin that were this may be going

[hyperdulia again]

i'd say a catholic king leaving his lawful and sacramental marriage to a god-fearing catholic woman to shack-up with a protestant harlot who he then murdered is already extreme immorality sexual and otherwise.

[Good Friday]

True enough, that was extremely immoral, as was the beheading of his many wives. But after that, the Episcopal church was fairly normal until its acceptance of contraception, when it reverted back to its extreme immorality -- which includes the acceptance and promotion of contraception, abortion, active homosexuality, etc.

[cmotherofpirl]

Maybe we should just refer to them as wandering in the sea of relativism, or a ship without a sail, or the barque without Peter at the helm.

[hyperdulia again]

or perhaaps we should say, "There, but for the grace of God goeth we."

[God Conquers]

amen

[Dave]

But after that, the Episcopal church was fairly normal until its acceptance of contraception, when it reverted back to its extreme immorality -- which includes the acceptance and promotion of contraception, abortion, active homosexuality, etc.

True. But we also can't underestimate the negative effect ordaining women has had on the Episcopal Church. In the book "Call to Action or Call to Apostasy?" Brian Clowes says that if heterodox Catholics had their way and women were ordained, orthodox Catholic women would want no part of being ordained. As a result, the result would be a flood of untrained priestesses who would support things like abortion and homosexual activity and condemn the remains of the "patriarchal" church from the pulpit. Clowes added that this is exactly what the Episcopal Church has been experiencing and that we should also note the sad result of ordaining women in "mainline" Protestant churches.