The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin hasn’t officially separated from the national church, but they’ve taken the first steps. I’m really impressed with the coverage in the Reuters article. The AP’s piece, however, left me underwhelmed.
The Fresno-based Diocese of San Joaquin voted Saturday to affirm its membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion, in what diocese leaders called a first step toward a formal break with the national church over the ordination of gays and women.
If only that were the truth of the matter. Reuters hits it dead on with this:
“Homosexuality is just one symptom of how the church has lowered its view,” said McCalister. “The key issue, however, is the ecclesiastical structure that recognizes the authority of the Bible, as it has for about two millennium. We’re not bringing in anything new.”
This is the heart of it. The upper echelons of Episcopal Church authority have begun to set the Bible’s “lesser teachings” aside in favor of a policy that goes something like, “Love your neighbor, even if that means ignoring some of Jesus other commands.” I don’t know what other issues will arise in the future, but right now we have a large number of Christians who believe everyone on earth is saved, regardless of their acceptance or rejection of the Gospel; many who believe that the idea of Jesus’ divinity was added in later. This break isn’t about ordination, it’s about theology and the position of the Bible in the church.
The Bishop Schori has a wonderfully deceptive response:
“Our task as the Episcopal Church is God’s mission of reconciling the world, and actions such as this distract and detract from that mission,” she said.
But who’s really “breaking away” here?
The Episcopal Church is a branch of the 77-million member Worldwide Anglican Communion, a loose federation of national churches around the world. Jefferts Schori leads 2.4 million followers in the United States.
At the San Joaquin diocese’s convention on Friday, Bishop John-David Schofield said, “The Episcopal Church walks apart from the Anglican Communion, but accuses us of leaving the church.”
The ECUSA is abandoning the centuries old view of the Bible as the infallible Word of God. As a Christian, that should be tantamount to apostasy.
I hate to use attendance statistics to suggest the health of a church, but if you check out the “growth” reports about the Episcopal Church from 1992-2004, you’ll see that only one diocese increased it’s membership relative to the population. Many actually lost members despite 10-20% population gains. That is not a good sign in a country that generally views Christianity as a good thing, with anecdotal evidence that points to a growth in overall church membership.
Like I said though, that’s not the way to determine whether a church is doing God’s will…just a fun fact. In the end what matters is this: The only tangible connection we have with Jesus’ teachings is the Bible. We have the Spirit and we have prayer, but those things are intangible. If we are to believe in him we have to trust the Bible to guide us to him.
Even Luther says in his Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ that when a dispute arises between our perception of the truth and the Bible’s declaration, the Bible’s language should prevail. The church fathers went to Scripture to guide practice. And Scripture testifies to itself, the Bereans searching the Scriptures to be sure the Apostles teaching was correct. I hope the leadership of the Episcopal Church remembers that, before the cookie falls apart in their hands.
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