Episcopal Church

Conservative Anglicans U.S. Propose England Clergy Swap

Conservative Anglicans in North America are inviting priests in the Church of England to take part in a clergy swap as a show of solidarity.

Formed last year by conservative Anglicans who broke away from The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church in North America is proposing the swap in the wake of the consecration of TEC’s first partnered lesbian bishop last Saturday.

ACNA said the clergy swap would be an opportunity for Church of England parishes and clergy to express their solidarity and friendship with ACNA churches.

According to the proposal, participating clergy would be matched to churches with similar preaching and ministry styles and serve the pulpit for a period of three to four weeks in January and July or August next year.

In a letter of invitation to Church of England clergy, Paul Perkin, chair of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and Chris Sugden, executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream, said the swap would be of “mutual benefit.”

“We are writing in the wake of the letter from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to the Primates of the Anglican Communion that her consecration of a woman in a partnered same-sex relationship represents the mind of the majority of elected leaders in the Episcopal Church,” wrote the conservative Anglican leaders, referring to the letter from Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

“Institutionally the CofE seems to be sitting on the fence. The Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the worldwide Anglican Communion) has said that the consecration of Mary Glasspool in TEC is ‘regrettable’; yet the CofE has not fully embraced ACNA,” they added.

“An important contribution at this stage will be for parishes and clergy to express solidarity and friendship with clergy and parishes in ACNA,” they concluded.

Following the consecration of Glasspool as one of two new suffragan bishops in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Anglican Mainstream said The Episcopal Church should withdraw or be excluded from the Anglican Communion’s representative bodies.

The consecration of Glasspool has forced traditionalists in the 77 million-member global Anglican body to further distance themselves from The Episcopal Church – the U.S. arm of Anglicanism.

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Universalism: Gospel Message of Emergent & New Age Spirituality

by Sola Sisters

One of the greatest misconceptions today is that the New Age Movement of the 80’s and 90’s is (1) a thing of the past and (2) has nothing whatsoever in common with Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth on either count. Let me explain.

Most Americans today have sort of an eye-rolling, amused response to the phrase “New Age.” Perhaps their minds are conjuring up an image of Shirley MacLaine on the beach, talking to the sky, a spiritual eccentric who became the punch line of many jokes for her interest in reincarnation and channeling. Perhaps they think that, like Shirley MacLaine, the New Age has passed gently into history, much like the rubix cube and Duran Duran. Well, the truth is that the New Age is still very much with us today. It never really went away, it just went mainstream. New Age practices or beliefs that were once considered borderline occultic or kooky are now widely accepted and embraced, including yoga, mantra meditation, muscle testing, acupuncture, reiki, sustainable living and going green. Don’t believe it? Just pick up any newspaper or popular magazine today (Reader’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal, Parade) and you will most likely read at least one, usually multiple articles, on the benefits of these practices. Heck, even my husband’s Golf World had a lengthy article in the February 2010 issue on how golf courses around the country are trying to “go green.”

So just how did this New Age worldview get so powerful so fast? The short answer is that although it’s actually been around for a very long time, it got its greatest push into the mainstream through America’s most beloved talk show host, Oprah Winfrey. For some reason, people think that this New Age Spirituality direction that Oprah has taken is a new thing. It is not. I know this because I was on the same path that she was for a very long time, and at about the same time. Along with Oprah, I became completely immersed in New Age beliefs and practices, about 20 year ago, and yet at the same time used Christian terminology for all that I was doing. But the catch was this: all the Christian terminology I used had been redefined to fit the theology of my New Age belief system. And this is exactly how Oprah has made the New Age worldview palatable to the average Americans who were watching: she was using the same terminology that many Americans were. We were still, at least at that time, a “Christian” nation, and by that I mean, the majority of Americans made some kind of Christian profession and had at least some knowledge of the Christian faith. So although Oprah was going in a distinctly occultic, eastern direction spiritually, she was using words like “Holy Spirit,” “God,” “Jesus,” “atonement,” and “salvation.” And because Oprah was using terminology that everyone was familiar with, everybody’s guard went down….and that’s how the deception flooded in. Not to get too creepy about it, but this is exactly how many cults “reprogram” their new recruits. Same terminology, redefined terms.

One example of these redefined terms is a teaching from A Course In Miracles on the “atonement.” For those not familiar with A Course In Miracles (ACIM), it is a book that was originally published in 1976. The teachings of this book were channeled by a demonic entity to a woman named Helen Schucman who transcribed them. New Age author Marianne Williamson brought the teachings of ACIM into the mainstream after being enthusiastically endorsed on the Oprah Winfrey Show in the early 90s by writing her own book about ACIM and helping to explain its principles in laymans’ terms, sort of “A Course In Miracles for Dummies” (its real title: “A Return To Love”).

Click here to continue reading at Sola Sisters (courtesy of Lighthouse Trails Research )

Stay tuned on this issue, as an upcoming interfaith conference called Sacred Awakenings features Marianne Williamson (mentioned above as the New Ager who brought A Course In Miracles into the mainstream) and John Shelby Spong, both espousing more of the all-paths-lead-to-God view of Universalism. Since this also seems to be the view held by Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt and other emergent leaders, one has to wonder: how long before New Age Spirituality and Emergent officially merge together?

Inexcusable Irreverence and Ingratitude (1)

“They are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.” Romans 1:20-21

This first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is a dreadful portion of the Word of God. I should hardly like to read it all through aloud; it is not intended to be so used. Read it at home, and be startled at the awful vices of the Gentile world. Unmentionable crimes were the common pleasures of those wicked ages; but the chapter is also a striking picture of heathenism at the present time. After a missionary had gone into a certain part of Hindostan, and had given away New Testaments, a Hindoo waited upon him, and asked him this question: “Did you not write that first chapter in the Epistle to the Romans after you came here?” “No,” replied the missionary, “I did not write it at all; it has been there nearly two thousand years.” The Hindoo said, “Well, if it has not been written since you came here, all I can say is, that it might have been so written, for it is a fearfully true description of the sin of India.” It is also much more true, even of London, than some of us would like to know. Even here are committed those vices, the very mention of which would make the cheek of modesty to crimson. However, I am not going to talk about Hindoos; they are a long way off. I am not going to speak about the ancient Romans; they lived a couple of thousand years ago. I am going to speak about ourselves, and about some persons here whom my text admirably fits. I fear that I am speaking to some who are “without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.”

I. The first charge against those who are mentioned in my text is, WANT OF REVERENCE. “They knew God,” but “they glorified him not as God.” They knew that there was a God; they never denied his existence; but they had no reverence for his name, they did not render him the homage to which he is entitled, they did not glorify him as God.

Of many this is still true in this form, they never think of God. they go from year to year without any practical thought of God. Not only is he not in their words, but he is not in their thoughts. As the Psalmist puts it, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not at all in his thoughts.” The marginal reading is very expressive: “All his thoughts are, There is no God.” Whether there is a God, or not, makes no practical difference to the wicked; they have so little esteem for him that, perhaps, if we could prove that there were no God, they would feel easier in their conscience. There must be something very wrong with you when you would rather that there were no God. “Well,” says one, “I do not care much whether there is a God or not; I am an agnostic. “Oh!” I said, “that is a Greek word, is it not? And the equivalent Latin word is ‘Ignoramus’.” Somehow, he did not like the Latin nearly as much as the Greek. Oh, dear friends, I could not bear to be an “ignoramus” or an “agnostic” about God! I must have a God; I cannot do without him. He is to me as necessary as food to my body, and air to my lungs. The sad thing is, that many, who believe that there is a God, yet glorify him not as God, for they do not even give him a thought. I appeal to some here, whether that is not true. You go from the beginning of the week to the end of it without reflecting upon God at all. You could do as well without God as with him. Is not that the case? And must there not be something very terrible in the condition of your heart when, as a creature, you can do without a thought of your Creator, when he that has nourished you, and brought you up, is nothing to you, one of whom you never think?

These people, further, have no right conceptions of God. The true conception of God is that he is all in all. If God is anything, we ought to make him everything; you cannot put God in the second place. He is Almighty, All-wise, All-gracious, knowing everything, being in every place, constantly present, the emanations of his power found in every part of the universe. God is infinitely glorious; and unless we treat him as such, we have not treated him as he ought to be treated. If there be a king, and he is set to open the door or do menial work, he is not honoured as a king should be. Shall the great God be made a lackey for our lusts? Shall we put God aside, and say to him, “When I have a more convenient season, I will send for thee: when I have more money, I will attend to religion,” or, “When I can be religious, and not lose anything by it, then I will seek thee”? Dost thou treat God so?” Oh, beware, this is high treason against the King of kings! Wrong ideas of God, grovelling thoughts of God, come under the censure of the text, “When they knew God, they glorified him not as God.”

C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Excerpt from sermon “Inexcusable Irreverence and Ingratitude” delivered on Sunday, July 13, 1890.

Vatican: Shared Ecumenical Catechism

Cardinal asks dialogue partners if an ecumenical catechism might work

By Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican official has floated the idea of a shared “ecumenical catechism” as one of the potential fruits of 40 years of dialogue among Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and members of the Reformed churches.

“We have affirmed our common foundation in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity as expressed in our common creed and in the doctrine of the first ecumenical councils,” Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told representatives of the churches.

Opening a three-day symposium at the Vatican to brainstorm on the future of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper said it is essential “to keep alive the memory of our achievements” in dialogue, educate the faithful about how much has been accomplished and prepare a new generation to carry on the work.

He said the members of his council “proposed an ecumenical catechism that would be written in consultation with our partners,” but “we do not yet have any idea how such a catechism could be structured and written.”

One thing for sure, he said, is that there is a need for “an ecumenism of basics that identifies, reinforces and deepens the common foundation” of faith in Christ and belief in the tenets of the creed. The churches may hold those positions officially, but if their members do not hold firmly to the basics of Christian faith, the dialogue cannot move forward, the cardinal said.

Cardinal Kasper, a theologian who will be 77 in March and has led the council for nine years, also said that ecumenical dialogue “is perhaps in danger of becoming a matter for specialists and thus of moving away from the grassroots.”

He called for “a people-centered ecumenism” that would support and give new energy to the theological dialogues.

The symposium was a follow-up to the publication in October of “Harvesting the Fruits,” a book complied by Cardinal Kasper and his staff summarizing the results of 40 years of official Catholic dialogue with the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Methodist Council and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

As for questions that still must be tackled in order for Christians to reach full unity and be able to share the Eucharist, the cardinal identified two basic areas: a common understanding of the church and its structure; and a common approach to applying the Gospel to modern social and moral concerns without falling into relativism.

Ethical issues, such as homosexuality and women’s equality, not only divide churches, he said, they raise more fundamental questions for modern and post-modern society, such as, “What is man, and what does it mean to be a man or woman in God’s plan?”

February 8, 2010

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Spurgeon Quotes on Homosexuality

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrha are bright as the sun goes down. The inhabitants are merry with boisterous laughter, there is plenty in the barn, there is luxury in the hall, for the plain of Sodom was well watered and lacked for nothing. Down went the sun upon a disastrous eve, never to rise upon the most of those who were in that doomed city. At day-break, just as the sun is beginning to shine upon the earth, angels had hastened Lot and his family out of the city, and no sooner had they reached the little city of Zoar than straightway the heaven is red with supernatural flame, and down descends a terrific rain, as if God has poured hell out of heaven. C.H. Spurgeon

This once brought hell out of heaven upon Sodom; God sent down fire and brimstone because of the lusts of the flesh that made Sodom to stink in his nostrils; the harlot and the adulterer, and the fornicator, shall know that they sin not without provoking God very terribly. C.H. Spurgeon

Shall the bestial vice of which Sodom was guilty never be checked? Why, if this should spread amongst the sons of men, it would bring in its infernal train ten thousand times more damage than the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sin itself is infinitely worse than the fire which burned it up. C.H. Spurgeon

Methodist Church: Return to Church of England

Anglican Covenant

Methodist President and Vice-President in addressing the General Synod today affirmed commitment to a covenant relationship with the Church of England.

“We are prepared to be changed as a Church if that will serve the needs of the Kingdom.”

The President and the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference addressed the Church of England’s General Synod this morning, expressing the Methodist Church’s commitment to a covenant relationship with the Church of England and answering questions from synod members in a discussion following their address.

Revd David Gamble and Dr Richard Vautrey said that the Covenant relationship was a “serious, deeply committed relationship” and “not an irrelevant extra”. They said that responses to the challenges of the Covenant should be driven by a desire for mission.

February 11, 2010

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