The Episcopal church has jumped off the cliff
This week the Episcopal church voted to allow the ordination of active homosexuals to the episcopate. This was expected, as most conservative members of their community have left it in recent years. However, this is in direct violation of the world-wide Anglican communion’s moratorium on such ordinations, and thus puts them at direct odds with the rest of the Anglican Communion.
N.T. Wright, one of my favorite scholars and a bishop of the Anglican church, is known to be very careful with his words. Yet he says that this action marks a “clear break” with the Anglican Communion and formalizes a “schism”. Strong words.
Unfortunately, this day has been long in coming, but I still find it sad that a supposed “Christian” body would so willingly conform themselves to the world instead of striving to be transformed by Christ. Pray for all Anglicans, and especially all Episcopals.
It’s not news. Discreet unbelief has been normal there since the ‘Enlightenment’ routed the English Calvinists: check out the beliefs of America’s founding fathers. But it’s still officially a Christian church… for now. And they’ve been ordaining openly practising gays at least since the first lot of Episcopal women priests.