Former Dallas Dean Envisions Resuscitating a Dead Episcopal Church

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

May 19, 2025 

AS The Episcopal Church sinks slowly into the sunset, attempts to spin its future grow quantifiably by the week. Hope springs eternal in the progressive breast even as church doctors and journalists declare the patient dead and the undertakers are at the door waiting to remove the body.

Such is the recent pronouncement by Kevin Martin in a piece

Revisioning the Church in a Post-Progressive Society, in the latest issue of The Living Church.

“We are living in a time of monumental change, both politically and          culturally, in North America. This can be an opportunity for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to rethink our mission to and role within our respective contexts,” he writes.

Describing himself as a priest educated primarily in classical liberalism, a social moderate, but a Prayer Book Catholic steeped in the creedal faith of traditional Anglicanism, Martin, who has served 50 years in ministry acknowledges that progressives have had a major effect on our society and especially the Episcopal Church.

“The latest information from the Pew Research Center points out that the progressive left is a very small portion of the electorate and is predominantly white and wealthy. The Episcopal Church maps onto this demographic; we are 85 percent white, and our main diversity is gender identity. The best way to describe progressives in both our society and in the church is that they are influencers.”

Progressivism and the Episcopal Church

“If progressivism, as a political and social ideology, has been set back in government, it has not been set back in the Episcopal Church. Progressives hold almost all offices of our denomination and continue to be advocates for the justice mandates they uphold. I believe Progressives will remain a significant voice in the Episcopal Church because they are supported by Boomers and GenX who are now in their 50s to 70s and still remain active leaders. Why not?”

Martin says he does not identify as a progressive, but readily admits that progressives and their concerns for the justice mandate of Scripture have made contributions to Anglicanism. I believe the recent statement from the House of Bishops about immigration is important and fits with many scriptural statements and Jesus’ concerns for the vulnerable among us. It is appropriate, biblical, and consistent with much of the church’s mission.

We are at a significant moment, he says. He talks of decline in numbers, loss of influence and a need for reassessment. “Because of our decline in numbers and loss of influence in our society, our church has already, before the election, begun a reassessment of our life. This is simply repeating what our new Presiding Bishop has said. Bishop Sean Rowe was elected on the first ballot of the House of Bishops and has a very clear mandate to carry out this reassessment of past assumptions and which was called for in two previous General Conventions.”

Martin called for a “big tent vision,” and cited the Protestant Reformation; The Welsh and English evangelicalism of Wesley and Whitefield with its adjunct social consciousness represented by Wilberforce; The rediscovery of patristic faith and Catholic order led by the Oxford Movement; The ecumenical Social Gospel Movement; The post-World War II Ecumenical Movement; The Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement of the 1970s and 80s; The Civil Rights movement that was supported by many of our courageous leaders, such as Presiding Bishop John Hines and the Progressive/social justice of recent decades.

“This Big Tent image is consistent with worldwide Anglicanism which incorporates many of these. We are not a win/lose community,” he says.

Nowhere does Martin mention the horrible mess homosexuality and the passage of a gay marriage resolution into canon law has done to TEC, or the birth of the Anglican Church in North America which came out of that horrific decision to ordain a practicing homosexual to the episcopate.  Not a word. Nothing about all the bishops and hundreds of priests who fled TEC and lost their parishes and pensions over this unbiblical decision. Martin remained in the safe and secure mostly evangelical Diocese of Dallas which stayed in TEC. (Is the diocese evangelical anymore?)

TEC is in a win/lose community. TEC lost. While recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, it is not recognized by the vast majority of the Anglican Communion – at least 80 percent. TEC and the Global North is dying while the Global South is rising.

Martin says the church has two paths before it. The first option and the dominant voice right now is to “join the resistance,” double down specifically on our DEI commitments, and remain a small, declining community that has lost much of its influence. 

“The second option is a re-centering of our mission and our self-narrative. We can recapture the wider voices of Anglicanism, especially those of the Global South. Anglican Churches of the Southern Hemisphere are mostly fast-growing communities that appeal to a much wider demographics of their various countries. How might we speak to the growing diverse communities of our country in our context?”

One wonders if Martin has read the 1998 Lambeth Conference Report or the Jerusalem Declaration (2008) or the GSFA communique issued at the 2024 First Assembly meeting in Cairo which railed against the division caused by those Provinces of the Communion which have departed from the historic faith. The Assembly took an historic step forward to strengthen faithful Anglican unity and witness.

Does Martin know that the GAFCON archbishops and bishops have already severed ties with Canterbury and the GSFA bishops no longer recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares.

The GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans said the communion was now torn asunder, and they published the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship to counter the moral evil that had invaded the communion. Martin has completely glossed over the “tear” in the communion. In the eyes of the orthodox and majority Anglican Communion TEC no longer exists.

The real issue is that the Episcopal Church has completely lost the plot over gospel proclamation in favor of a bucket load of woke issues that don’t touch souls or save lives. It is doubtful that a single Episcopal priest could defend or preach justification by faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the cross. Failing that you have kissed your church goodnight and all the money in the Church Pension Fund won’t keep the church going or save it.

Furthermore, no one really cares what other people think about TEC and the positions it holds. Do you think Trump or his MAGA followers give a fig about TEC’s General Convention views on sodomy or gay marriage?

Another path for the church is to reach out to the MAGA types with a message that just as they changed the culture, they can change the church.

The first path maintains our isolation and refusal to engage our wider community for the sake of the Gospel proclamation, says Martin. What gospel proclamation? There hasn’t been “gospel proclamation” since before Presiding Bishop John E. Hines died, the last theologically conservative PB who opined; “I have loved the Church more than I have loved the Lord of the Church.”

Martin wants a “revisioning” of TEC that includes the Global South, but the Global South bishops have already blown off TEC and the CofE and they won’t listen any more to what TEC thinks, says or preaches. They are history.

Marriage is not written in stone and all homosexuals will eventually die along with their lesbian cohorts. And if they resuscitate a dying church, they can reap the benefits or if not, at least share in the spoils of its liquidation.

Martin is living in a delusionary world; a world of ecclesiastical make belief; his revisioning of TEC is the stuff of fiction and a B grade movie.

The apostle Paul wrote; “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” Gal. 1:8-9 (NIV)

TEC has been under a curse (the judgement of God) for at least 40 years, perhaps longer, and death by a thousand cuts will be its epitaph.

END