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TEC Faces Continuing Decline*Mollegen’s Grand Strategy*Pittsburgh Bishop Allows S-S Blessings

Diversity and harmony. The church as a multi-racial, multi-cultural community is like a beautiful tapestry. Its members come from a wide range of colorful backgrounds. No other human community resembles it. Its diversity and harmony are unique. It is God’s new society. And the many-coloured fellowship of the church is a reflection of the many-coloured (or ‘many-splendoured’, to use Francis Thompson’s word) wisdom of God. --- John R.W. Stott

Promises fulfilled. The true fulfilment of the Old Testament promises is not literal but spiritual. They are fulfilled today not in the Jewish nation, as some dispensationalists hold, nor in the British or Anglo-Saxon people, as the British Israelites teach, but in Christ and in the people of Christ who believe. We Christians are Abraham’s seed, who inherit the blessing promised to his descendants ... all the promises of God to his people in the Old Testament become ours if we are Christ’s. --- John R.W Stott

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
August 15, 2014

There is a sense of desperation in the air these days as The Episcopal Church faces a summer of discontent.

TEC watchers are beginning to see legal losses in court property fights in South Carolina, Ft. Worth, and Quincy. Millions of dollars are being needlessly spent. It is not over and still the Episcopal Church cannot claim total victory.

One senses that TEC is like the German army facing Leningrad, waiting for the final push; when all of a sudden, General Zhukov, under orders from Stalin, sweeps into save Leningrad because if the city fell, 11% of the national economy and the invaluable wealth of the Hermitage Museum and the palaces of the Russian tsars from Peter the Great onwards would be in the hands of the enemy.

The Anglican Church in North America has swept in and overtaken the Anglican Church of Canada and now waits patiently for the next move in the battle for the soul of Anglicanism in North America.

Still TEC leaders keep trying to prop up a dying church. This week Ted Mollegen offered up a Grand Strategy to save The Episcopal Church.

A 11 times alternate or deputy veteran to General Convention, Mollegen released a 66-page presentation urging the Episcopal Church to develop a grand strategy to reverse numerical decline, attract more money for development, and improve the church’s mission.

“The restructuring planned for [General Convention] 2015 won’t turn around TEC’s negative growth trend — unless it incorporates the church growth/redevelopment principles of this document,” Mollegen srote. “Cost-cutting is clearly necessary for TEC, but it basically consists of treating only the results of decline, not the root causes. TEC needs to find and counter the root causes of decline, while concurrently taking action to get positive growth going again.”

Will it work? VOL took a hard look at his strategy and we believe it came up short.

He isn’t the only one taking a hard look at TEC’s future. George Clifford, an ethicist and Priest Associate at the Church of the Nativity, Raleigh, NC, conducted his own analysis of the situation. He noted that TEC started only three new churches in 2012, the last year for which data is available, according to research by the Rev. Susan Snook.

So why has the Episcopal Church planted so few new churches? He says there are two factors, one demographic and the other theological.

“First, the US population grew from just under 180 million people in 1960 to 308 million in 2010. That significant growth suggests that a flourishing church would also have been a growing church during those five decades. Yet the increase in US population sharply contrasts with TEC’s decline from 3.4 million members in 1960 to fewer than 2 million today. In other words, during the last five decades, the US population increased about 70% and TEC’s membership declined by roughly 42%,” wrote Clifford.

“Second, God calls Christians to be a missionary people. In previous generations, the missionary impulse may have derived much momentum from people believing that the only way to experience the fullness of God’s love was through Christ. Thankfully, many Episcopalians no longer believe that Christ is the exclusive path to God.”

There you have it. No exclusive pathway, lots of talk about diversity and inclusivity, push pansexuality, and, hey presto, watch your church head towards the cliff.

He also noted that the claim that TEC has a shortage of clergy is a bogus explanation of why TEC is failing to plant new churches. “In 2009, TEC had 17,868 clergy compared to 9079 in 1960, or about twice as many as when we had one-third more members. In spite of a sizable number of clergy retirees, we still have ample numbers of active clergy. However, TEC does have a clergy distribution problem. Rural and small town TEC congregations often struggle, both to raise the funds needed to pay a full-time priest and to find clergy willing to serve in those locales (a majority of our clergy, based on their choices about where to reside, apparently prefers to live in more urban areas).

“Although we have plenty of congregations, they, like our clergy, are maldistributed. Our approximately 6,700 congregations – if they had an average of 750 members – would comprise a Church of five million. Unfortunately, the US is experiencing significant internal demographic shifts. These changes have left many Episcopal congregations in locations with a static or even diminishing population. Meanwhile, numerous areas with growing populations lack a conveniently located TEC congregation.

“So, why doesn’t TEC plant more new congregations to proclaim the good news to the growing US population? Scripture plainly depicts Jesus enjoining his disciples to make disciples. At least two impediments exist.”

Clifford maintains that it is about an inefficient and ineffective use of resources. “We waste much effort and money keeping small congregations in geographic places with diminishing populations on life support long after any realistic hope of revitalization has faded away. Well-intentioned efforts to develop alternative approaches to theological education to staff these dying congregations will only prolong the misery and drain additional resources. Closing these outposts can cost a great deal of political capital, but not closing them will only expedite TEC’s demise.”

VOL believes that the bigger problem is the message or lack thereof. Loyalty to location or one’s Episcopal identity does not trump gospel proclamation, but that is precisely what has happened. Loyalty to tradition makes average Episcopalians no better than Pharisees who loved to dress up and look good in the market place.

We are called to fidelity to the gospel first, and then worry about our particular Anglican identity. Jesus first, Anglican identity second. Grasp the gospel first, then worry about liturgy and form later. In short, TEC has no message that is substantially different from that of the world. Therein lies the problem.

If TEC priests and bishops only offer up the six o’clock news with a schmear of religion, it simply won’t do. The church has always been a counter culture, but the message is not sinking in.

Blaming the numerical decline on either the ordination of women or the 1979 Book of Common Prayer constitutes a red herring. TEC’s serious numerical decline did not begin until the 1980s, well after both of those changes.

Pouring the wine of pansexuality into new wineskins is not working. Gene Robinson’s consecration is a case in point.

But why does it still continue on even though the figures prove it doesn’t work to make churches grow?

Clifford concluded, “Many Episcopalians, clergy and laity alike, thus choose an easier option. We find a cause to support: we fought poverty, we fed the hungry, we campaigned for civil rights, we supported the full inclusion of women in church and society, and now we work for justice for gays, lesbians, the transgendered, and bisexuals. In short, we walk some of the Jesus path. We do good things and we should keep doing them; none of those worthy tasks is yet finished. Meantime, we avoid giving too much thought to disturbing questions about who God is, how we connect with God, and how we can discern God’s presence and activity in our midst. We love our neighbor, but we do so incompletely because we ignore our post-modern world’s pervasive spiritual hunger. We are most faithful and best incarnate the body of Christ (i.e., be the Church) when we integrate loving God explicitly and consistently into our efforts to love our neighbors.”

*****

A case in point was the announcement this past week that the relatively new Bishop of Pittsburgh, one Dorsey McConnell would allow his clergy within the diocese to sign civil marriage certificates between same-sex couples. He confirmed this in an open letter to the diocese. The action builds on Bishop McConnell’s decision in November 2013 to allow clergy to conduct blessings of same-sex relationships.

When Dorsey McConnell was elected the new Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, he rode in on a ticket of evangelical certainty and change, based on his strong personal testimony of sound conversion to Jesus Christ from agnosticism that he had experienced through a charismatic parish in Manhattan.

So what happened? Simple, he caved into the zeitgeist, thus confirming in Bishop Bob Duncan’s mind that he did the right thing all those years ago in leaving TEC and forming the Anglican Church in North America.

McConnell had a moment when he could have stood up and said that he believes that Scripture, the gospel, and the history of the Church forbids such actions. He would have stood tall against the pansexual steamroller and perhaps suffered for it over the screams and yells from Louie Crew, Susan Russell and the Integrity crowd. He would have won plaudits from the Global South and God.

Oddly enough, McConnell, 58, had a record of standing up for theologically conservative concerns within liberal dioceses, while remaining committed to the Episcopal Church. Not any more, he has rolled over. In doing so, he has left his friend, Bishop Greg Brewer (Central Florida) wondering who he can trust to stand with him against the pansexual onslaught.

*****

The world is increasingly becoming an unsafe place. If orthodox Anglicans feel under pressure, think about Christians being persecuted for their faith in countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The “Vicar of Baghdad” Canon Andrew White is refusing to leave Iraq, despite Christian persecution by ISIS. He wrote, “I have just returned from a secret visit to Qaraqosh – once the largest Christian town in Iraq, but no longer.

“Today, Qaraqosh stands 90 per cent empty, desecrated by the gunmen of the fanatical Islamic State terror group now in control. The majority of the town’s 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred.

“The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches.

“My visit, under the noses of the gunmen, was frightening – but that is nothing to the terror of the poor souls left behind.

“Since I went to St George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad in 2003 – the only Anglican church in the city – I have seen countless terrible things. Many of my congregation have been killed or mutilated in the years of violence.

“But I have never witnessed anything on the scale, or which has affected me quite so dreadfully as on this visit to the north of Iraq

“In the nearby city of Irbil, I found many of those Christians who had fled. Some 30,000 refugees are packed into the Kurdish capital, forming a new Christian suburb.

“I spoke to one woman who had survived the massacres in Qaraqosh. She had a bandaged left hand. When IS soldiers could not remove her gold wedding ring, they had simply hacked off her finger. She wept as she told me.

“The refugees are now penniless, robbed of their homes and possessions. Christian houses were daubed with the letter ‘N’ for Nazere and given to Muslim families.

“I met Hana, who used to be the caretaker of my church in Baghdad, and fought to stay dry-eyed as he told me the fate of his youngest son, aged five. The boy was chopped in half in front of Hana’s eyes during an IS attack.”

Iraq's Christians have perhaps suffered more than any other group since the Islamic State formerly known as ISIS rose to power, but Christianity is in decline all over the Middle East. Just 5% of the region's population identifies as Christian. That figure is still dropping.

The Christian residents of Mosul, Iraq, have been under blatant attack, as the Islamic State distributed flyers in July giving them three options: convert to Islam, pay a fine, or be killed. Many of their abandoned homes are now labeled in black lettering, "Property of the Islamic State."

Canon White estimates that his flock used to number around 6,000 people. In the last decade over 1,200 have been killed, according to CNN's Arwa Damon.

"One of things that really hurt was when one of the Christians came and said, 'For the first time in 1,600 years, we had no church in Nineveh,'" he told Damon.

See their conversation in the video at this link...
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/08/05/pkg-damon-isis-christian-threats.cnn.html

The Archbishop of Canterbury was interviewed about the Iraq crisis in Australia recently. During the interview, he noted there is "a sense of near despair at the fact that we've got to this point, and a longing to be able to do something because that’s always our instinct".

He added, "I was noting this morning when I was praying about that sense of helplessness and looking at one of the Psalms speaking about, the Psalmist saying to God: ‘Where are you? What are you doing?’"

The Archbishop repeated his backing for the call made by three CofE bishops last week for the Government to offer refuge to Iraqi Christians.

Pope Francis is sending a Cardinal to Iraq to offer support to Christians fleeing the country amid intensified persecution from Islamic militant group ISIS.

Cardinal Fernando Filoni, a former papal nuncio to Iraq, will go to the country to "show the Pope's solidarity with the suffering of the population," spokesman Federico Lombardi announced, according to the American Foreign Press.

Pope Francis has been vocal about his support for Christians being persecuted and has called for the Catholic Church to offer help however it can.

The majority of Christians in the region are Chaldeans, which is part of the Catholic Church. In 2003, prior to the U.S.-led invasion on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, there were around 1.5 million Christians in the country. That number has declined rapidly over the past decade amid intensifying persecution. It is now estimated there are just 350,000 to 450,000 Christians remaining in the country.

"The Holy Father is following with deep concern the dramatic news reports coming from northern Iraq, which involve defenseless populations," Father Lombardi said in an official statement yesterday. "Christian communities are particularly affected: a people fleeing from their villages because of the violence that rages in these days, wreaking havoc on the entire region."

The Anglican Church in North America’s new Archbishop, Foley Beach described the situation in a recent statement:

“In Iraq, hundreds of thousands of believers have fled their homes, reducing the Christian population to a quarter of the size it was in 1990. Many took refuge in Syria or Lebanon, while others are internally displaced in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which once provided relative peace and stability. But Iraqi Christian refugees are no longer safe in Syria, as anti-Christian violence threatens all Christians in the country, while Iraqi Kurdistan is now also seeing escalating tensions; Christians also struggle to find work to support themselves there. Recent events in Mosul have seen the city's Christian population totally exterminated by murder or the evacuation of Christians...

“First, please join us in praying for our brothers and sisters suffering displacement and persecution in Iraq. Cry out to God for an end to the violence, comfort for families who have lost loved ones, and hope for those whose lives have been shattered by this conflict.

“Second, consider making a donation to one of the many organizations offering help to refugees. ARDF is partnering with Archbishop Mouneer Anis and the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East to offer direct aid to refugees who are in dire need of food and shelter through the local Anglican Church.”

Please click the link to donate to this effort through ARDF. http://anglicanaid.net/can-help-iraqi-christians/

*****

There is growing outrage among sailors and religious liberty advocates over a directive that calls for the removal of Bibles from lodges and hotels run on U.S. Navy bases. The directive comes after an atheist group filed a formal complaint earlier this year over the placement of Bibles in the rooms.

"The current direction is to remove all religious material from Navy Lodge guest rooms," read an email to a Navy chaplain from The Navy Exchange Service Command (NEXCOM). "For those Navy Lodges with religious materials currently in guest rooms, the Navy Lodge General Manager will contact the Installation Chaplain's office who will provide guidance on the removal procedure disposition of these materials."

The American Family Association received an exclusive copy of a similar directive from NEXCOM, the organization that manages the lodges.

"The Navy Lodge General Manager should advise the Installation Commanding Officer of our intention to work through the chaplain's office to determine what installation policy is and the method to remove religious material currently in the guest rooms," read a directive approved by Michael Bockelman, the vice president of NEXCOM and the director of the Navy Lodge Program.

In other words, they've got to figure out a way to dispose of God's Word.

Martin said the directive will impact about 40 Navy lodges around the world.

"We looked at our policy -- and realized there wasn't a consistent policy regarding Navy Lodges," she told me. "We decided we needed to have some consistency and be consistent with the Navy."

I figured I would try one more time. Yes or no -- will the Navy allow Bibles to be placed in Navy lodges? Martin refused to answer the question.

The Freedom From Religious Foundation hailed the order. The FFRF had filed a complaint with the military -- claiming the presence of the Bible "amounts to a government endorsement of that religious text."

*****

MORE NEWS FROM EPISCOPAL PEWS. “This week I gave it just one more shot, just in case. I took my three kids to a DIFFERENT Episcopal Church. What I found was NOT ONE MAN under the age of 45 (except for me). LITERALLY an entire (yet near empty) church (granting that)...but not ONE MAN aged between 18-45!”

*****

Vicky Beeching, the Christian commentator and former worship leader who has come out as gay, says her absolute faith in God has not wavered.

"I think God has very much walked me through this, hand in hand. I do not feel I left God in back there, in the evangelical church. I feel like he's become closer and closer. I feel I was in the desert, making this decision, and he's been in the desert with me, that this is something he's led me towards, something I am supposed to do."

Beeching described an intense emotional struggle and even illness which needed chemotherapy. The illness developed after years of hiding her sexuality within the charismatic evangelical movement, where her musical skills and gifts of leadership meant she quickly rose to prominence.

She has been attracted to women since she was a young teenager, but only came out to her parents at Easter this year, she has told The Independent. Now 35, she says she has never had a relationship and did not even meet an outted gay person until she was 30.

She said the impetus to come out was turning 35, and the vote to consecrate women bishops in the Church of England. The vote meant the women issue was "done and dusted" and the Church will now have to confront its problems with sexuality.

*****

Singer Cliff Richard’s house was searched this week following sex abuse claims at a Billy Graham rally. Detectives searched the singer's Berkshire home after allegations that an underage boy was abused at a faith rally in Sheffield in 1985.

Richard's property in Berkshire was searched on Thursday by detectives investigating the claim that the boy, aged under 16 at the time, was abused by an adult at a faith event held by the US pastor in Sheffield, Yorkshire, in the 1980s. The rally was held at Bramall Lane, the home of Sheffield United Football Club.

Police said they wanted to speak to the owner of the property that was searched, but would not say whether that was as a suspect or a witness or in another capacity.

Richard, who is currently in Portugal, said the claim was "completely false" and that the raid on his Berkshire property came without notice.

He said in a statement, "For many months I have been aware of allegations against me of historic impropriety which have been circulating online. The allegations are completely false.

"Up until now I have chosen not to dignify the false allegations with a response, as it would just give them more oxygen.”

*****

LGBT adults in the U.S. are considerably more likely to identify as non-religious than their non-LGBT counterparts, Gallup found in an August 2014 survey. Forty-seven percent of LGBT adults say they are non-religious, compared to 30 percent of non-LGBT adults, and the difference only increases between LGBT women and non-LGBT women -- 46 percent to 25 percent, respectively.

Gallup identified the highly religious as those who say religion is an important part of their daily lives and attend religious services roughly every week, while nonreligious Americans say roughly the opposite. Moderately religious Americans constitute either those who attend services without feeling any real connection to religion or those who say religion is an important part of their lives but that they do not attend religious services.

The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published a study in February that found that one-third of millennials who left the religion they grew up in due to "negative teachings" or "negative treatment" regarding the LGBT community.

LGBT issues, rather than faith, has played a major role in pushing people away from the church, PRRI found. Gallup's findings may suggest the same, as within the "moderate" category the percentage of LGBT and non-LGBT respondents meet.

Twenty-nine percent of both LGBT and non-LGBT adults qualify as moderately religious, and 11 percent of LGBT respondents and 12 percent of non-LGBT respondents attend religious services roughly once a month.

*****

Two women bishops from the United States will take part in a conference in Cardiff next month as legislation allowing women to be ordained as bishops in Wales comes into effect.

The Rt Revd Geralyn Wolf, former Bishop of Rhode Island, will be the keynote speaker at the Crossing The Threshold conference on September 4. She will also become the first women Anglican bishop to preside at Llandaff Cathedral when she takes part in the conference service. The Rt Revd Gayle Harris, the Suffragen Bishop of Massachusetts, will also attend.

The conference marks the opening of the rank of bishops to women following legislation passed by the Church in Wales which comes into effect on September 12 – exactly one year after the historic vote. The delay was built in to allow the Welsh bishops time to prepare a Code of Practice to accompany the new law.

*****

The tragic death of comic actor Robin Williams brought VOL reader David Duggan who knew Williams personally as they grew up together out of hiding. He wrote today’s devotional in light of his death.

*****

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In Christ,

David

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