Hope; the Episcopal Church's Failed Fallback Position

It is not hope in the salvation Jesus offers, it is hope in an inclusive God who rejects no one, and in doing so nullifies the cross of Christ that makes inclusion possible, but ONLY on the basis of repentance. Easter is just a word.

Even as Bishop Love, a godly bishop, is kicked to the curb and four parishes and their priests announce they plan to hook up with ACNA Bishop Julian Dobbs and the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, the Albany diocese expresses hope for a future that won’t exist in another decade. TEC is running out of people, even as its money continues to flow to weak global south bishops in an attempt to influence them to TEC’s pansexual vision.

Albany’s Standing Committee said the last few months have been “tough.” Well, really. Who made it tough? It certainly wasn’t Bishop Love, a sweet man, who hates confrontation, loathes division and wants everyone on the same page with Jesus.

It wasn’t so “tough” when they publicly burned Bishop Love’s letter because he said he would not allow homosexual marriages in his diocese. (see photo). Love’s eight-page letter labeled homosexuality “sinful and forbidden,” and cast the long-simmering Episcopal debate over same-sex marriage as a kind of existential crisis for the church, which he argues, has been “hijacked” by a powerful, secular “Gay Rights Agenda.” So, burn, baby, burn.

Another Albany bishop also fled the TEC coop. Bishop Dan Herzog announced he was out the door, following Bishop Love. One bishop fleeing is a tragedy, but two bishops fleeing is a total disaster, never mind the fact that the two bishops put 24 years of episcopal ministry into the diocese and almost 80 years of ordained ministry. Add it all up and over the past few months, four bishops have fled TEC over that Church’s attempted legitimization of homosexual marriage, a totally unbiblical view of human sexuality and marriage that the universal Church of Jesus Christ has neither entertained, accepted or approved of in 2,000 years.

And TEC Has no one to blame but itself. No one.

Diocesan leaders said they were saddened by the news that both retired bishops indicated their decision to leave The Episcopal Church. So why aren’t they dancing in the streets with joy that they got rid of two bishops standing in their way for full pansexual inclusion!

A number of the Albany’s progressive priests hated and loathed Bishop Love for his stand against resolution B012. Love banned homosexual marriage. The diocese turned around and told him to get lost.

And they finally nailed him during Holy Week. With heartfelt hypocrisy they said, “we continue our relationship as brothers and sisters in Christ engaged in the ministry of the Great Commandment and Great Commission.”

GARBAGE

The Jesus TEC worships is not the Jesus of the New Testament, but the faux Jesus of homosexual inclusion, a Jesus that not even Jefferts Schori could imagine; a Jesus walking through walls and whose resurrection body might not be quite what the New Testament writers believed. In a video, the former presiding bishop openly and publicly denied that Jesus is the only way to salvation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IxG96wpx60

But hope, any hope that Curry’s “beloved community” is supposed to spring eternal is more truly transient if not ephemeral.

The revisionist remainers then went on to liken their “discouragement” to that of Jesus’s followers during holy week, and said that Jesus’s resurrection assured them to live in both “victory and hope”.

A few observations here. Many Episcopal bishops and clergy no longer believe in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. It doesn’t conform with physics or some other scientific discipline they say. It’s all spiritual, so it doesn’t really matter whether his body rose from the grave; we have the Eucharist for that.

But then you’ll love this interpretation of the prophet Jeremiah put out by revisionists; (I refuse to call them progressives.)

In the book of the prophet Jeremiah, God proclaims to the exiles: “I know the plans I have for you … plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (29:11). Many Christians have found this verse to be a source of great comfort and courage — and rightfully so. God indeed does have a plan for our future. He has not, and will not, abandon us.”

But all the indicators are that God already has. ACNA was birthed out of the heresies of The Episcopal Church and is thriving.

The remainers then described themselves as “exiles” based on Jer. 29:12-14a.

But the true “exiles” are the hundreds of priests tossed to the curb by revisionist bishops because they wouldn’t go along with Gene Robinson’s consecration.

“As the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Albany, we strongly believe that, despite any differences that may exist, there is a way forward for the diocese united in the mission that Jesus gave us. We are committed to finding that way forward for the continued propagation of the gospel in northeastern New York.”

Really! But the Albany diocese is not “united in mission” because TEC and the ACNA have two very different understandings of mission. One is gospel proclamation, calling people from darkness into light; the other includes every bizarre sexuality you can come up with that has nothing to do with spiritual conversion. Transgender anybody!

If it is really about JESUS ALONE, as the remainers contend, Bishop Love would never have been forced out of TEC. For revisionists it is always Jesus plus sodomy, Jesus plus homosexual marriage. Jesus must also approve of what they say he should approve of. They falsely believe they can change God’s mind for Him.

If the gospel was central, Bishop Love would never have had to resign. It is precisely because the Standing Committee believes in “another gospel” as St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, that Love was forced to leave.

Albany’s Standing Committee will reap what it has sown, and it will reap the whirlwind. That too, is in Scripture.

END

Hope; the Episcopal Church’s Failed Fallback Position

Parishioners at St. Andrews, Albany, burned Bishop Love’s letter while it was being read at church. PHOTO.

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 2, 2012

When all else fails in the Episcopal Church, and this seems to be a recurring theme of late as whole dioceses fall into the hands of the Anglican Church in North America and TEC bishops scramble for the doors, the theme cry is always one of hope.

First it was property wars in the diocese of Ft Worth. TEC lost, but expressed hope for the future. We saw it yet again this week, this time in the diocese of Albany, after its bishop, one William Love announced that, following his forced resignation, the diocesan Standing Committee would take over, echoing the theme of hope as it did so.

Hope springs eternal we are told, but hope is ephemeral in TEC. It is not hope in Christ’s substitutionary atonement, His life, death and resurrection. It is hope in Curry’s endless “love” talk, cancel culture, anti-racism training, promoting homosexual marriage, and pushing back on orthodox views on faith and morals.