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Calling the Episcopalian dissenters “conservatives”
The media’s description of the Episcopalian dissenters as “conservatives” is a misnomer. These are the same Episcopalians who went along with the ordination of women and other liberal reforms of recent decades, so they’re hardly conservative to start with. It’s just that now the Episcopal Church has gone so far left, ordaining a practicing sodomite and thus ceasing to be Christian altogether, that Episcopalians who still believe in Christianity have been forced into a contrarian stand. Instead of being called conservative Episcopalians, they should be called Christian Episcopalians. Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 09, 2003 02:40 PM | Send Comments
This process is complete among Unitarian-Universalists. There are “Christian” UUs, pagan UUs and atheist UUs. Of course, American UU derives from breakaways from the liberal strain of Congregationalism in New England. Of the old Unitarian (before the 1960 union with Universalism) churches in New England, almost all were Congregational Churches, excepting King’s Chapel in Boston which was Anglican. Posted by: razib on October 9, 2003 6:38 PMRazib is right. A church can go left and left, and still retain just enough orthodoxy to go on calling itself Christian, as the Episcopal church has done over the years. But there are finally definitional lines which, when crossed, mean that it has stopped being Christian. Some participants at the dissenting conference this week said “The Episcopal church is dead.” In another interesting development, the Pope has sent a letter of support directly to the dissenting group, the American Anglican Council, bypassing the Episcopal hierarchy. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35013 Posted by: Lawrence Auster on October 10, 2003 12:50 PMA quote within the article linked in Mr. Auster’s comment: “The Episcopal Church is now a church where people are officially led away from Christ. This is why we need a realignment.”
Mr. Auster’s comment brings to mind the message of Christ to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. He has stern words of rebuke to all but 2. To the remaining 5, He proffers serious warnings of the discipline He will undertake if they do not repent of various misdeeds and doctrinal errors. For example, to Pergamos: “Repent therefore, but if not I come to thee quickly, and I will make war with them with the sword of my mouth.” And especially pertinent here is Ephesus, where the Lord says, “But I have against thee that thou hast left thy first love.” He then warns them, “Be zealous therefore, and repent, and do the first works, but if not I am coming to thee, and I will remove thy lampstand out of its place except thou shalt repent.” The 7 lampstands John saw symbolized the seven churches. For the Lord to say He would remove their lampstand would seem to infer that they would no longer be a _church_, just basically a social club. He warned Laeodicea that, “I am about spew thee out of my mouth.” Doubtless some ‘churches’ believe they are above such warnings, and that they shall continue in their presumed authority and situation no matter what they do, but the Lord Jesus evidently sees it otherwise. All churches in all cities have Him to account to. Posted by: Joel LeFevre on October 10, 2003 2:24 PMPerhaps the Episcopal Church crossed the line long before Mr. Robinson was ordained as a bishop. For a view along these lines, see http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/17.2docs/17-02-019.html |