LET MY PEOPLE GO!

Editorial

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org

The Episcopal Church is imploding.

In one diocese after another, parish rectors and their parishioners are quietly, and not so quietly, leaving the Episcopal Church.

In some cases the rector hands over the keys and checkbook and takes the vast majority of his congregation and begins again at a nearby hotel. The priest is inhibited and deposed, but not before he has come under some other ecclesiastical jurisdiction, thus ensuring that, while he may have left The Episcopal Church, he has not renounced his orders and thus continues to be validly ordained to the priesthood.

Hard line Michigan Bishop Wendell N. Gibbs told orthodox priest the Rev. Allen Kannapell, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church that he had to vacate his church, which he did, but not before taking 95 percent of his congregation with him, and fleeing to a local Holiday Inn to worship the One, true God, and not the pluriform god of Frank Griswold.

But the Rev. Phil Ashey got his license revoked by the revisionist Bishop of Virginia, Peter James Lee, resulting in that liberal bishop getting into a nasty little exchange with Ashey's new boss Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda, who wrote an open letter publicly criticizing the Virginia Bishop. Fr. Ashey resigned from the diocese but not the priesthood, thus ensuring continuity and the validity of his orders.

In the Diocese of Los Angeles, three parishes have left the diocese and the Episcopal Church and, because the local secular laws favor them, they are managing to hold on to their properties, much to the anger of the bishop, J. Jon Bruno who, while breathing the air of reconciliation, has sought three times unsuccessfully to reclaim the properties.

Property ownership trumps prophetic gospel proclamation for liberal and revisionist bishops, who believe that buildings matter more than the message being proclaimed inside them.

A sodomite bishop like V. Gene Robinson would sooner hear a message on sexual inclusion by his priests even if they cannot pay their assessment to the diocese, because for him, the all important thing is the 'new thing' God is doing in the church.

If, on the other hand, an orthodox parish says it will not abide by that teaching, arguing that the church has no business changing the church's received teaching on human sexuality and wishes to leave, all hell breaks loose.

In the Diocese of Florida, an orthodox priest who has fled the diocese and its Bishop John Howard for greener spiritual African pastures, told VirtueOnline this week, that when it is all over, some 28 parishes and more than one third of the entire desire will have fled, with massive litigation over property ownership just waiting to be heard in the civil courts. Howard's end will come not with a bang but a whimper...and lots of legal fees. Ditto for the Dioceses of Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

All in all, what is unfolding in one diocese after another, is a nightmare that will only get worse with time.

When I asked an orthodox priest in the Diocese of Florida why he and his fellow orthodox priests were fleeing now rather than say, after General Convention this summer where they might have more of the moral high ground when the ECUSA refuses to repent, remaining, as it will, disobedient to the Windsor Report recommendations, his response was classic: "I am losing my people now. They don't want to stay in a church that is now scornfully known as that 'gay church.'"

Furthermore parents don't want their children infected with a pro-gay message that could ruin their lives and bring about early death from sodomite sexual experimentation. Wives of priests that I have spoken too are even more determined, some even angry that their husbands won't take a stand, and it doesn't take much arm-twisting for the husband/priest to get the message.

PFLAG, the pro-gay organization for parents with children who are gay, sounds magnanimous, open and affirming enough, till the midnight call comes with the terrifying news that their son or daughter has been infected with HIV. The nice, affirming, liberal party is over. The long, or short road to death, awaits. Everyone knows that so-called committed gay relationships are, for the most part, fictional. (My brother-in-law died of AIDS, as did his partner a few weeks later. Both were together for 11 years.) Better to belong to PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), a non-profit group representing family members and friends of homosexuals and lesbians, which promotes unconditional love of gay men and women without demanding that any American affirm or accept homosexual behavior. Here the message is one of transformation not inclusion.

Revisionism, that religion which refuses to believe in the unique character of Jesus Christ, his salvific message and atoning work, and the distinctive, exclusive claims of the Christian message is now so far gone from the Episcopal Church, that the cry of Moses must now be the cry of every orthodox priest, 'Let my People go'.

Revisionist bishops like Shaw, Robinson, Walker, Smith, Bennison, Ihloff and Howard, to name but a few, have about them the spiritual odor of death.

As these modern day Pharaohs go about their business of deconstructing the gospel, they are creating havoc for those who believe in the unique and distinctive claims of Jesus Christ. By leaving, orthodox priests are saying with clarity and conviction that they no longer wish to compromise their souls. It's as though a girl, born in a whorehouse of a prostitute, wants to retain her virginity, but is told by the procuress that if she leaves she takes her chances on the street, but if she stays, she will lose it anyway, but she has the consolations of a bed to sleep in, with food and clothing provided.

Orthodox priests are choosing life, not death, and what they are asking for is the right to stay where they are without disrupting their people, and a fair shake for those who have invested their lives and bank savings in the properties they have built and paid for. If the Bishop of Kansas could do it, why can't every other bishop!

As General Convention draws closer the cries of orthodox priests and their parishes to be free will only grow more strident and stronger.

The Red Sea ECUSA will pass through at GC2006 will open and then close over them when the Episcopal Church openly defies the findings of the Windsor Report, refusing to repent of its evil ways. Many believe it is too far down the heretical turnpike to turn back, and God has given the institution over to Satan, with the Lord of Hosts in the form of the Global South ready to declare them anathema.

Let my people go! It's not too much to ask for, and it is not less than what the orthodox deserve.

--For more stories on the Episcopal Church and The Anglican Communion go to www.virtueonline.org.

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