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...The core issue in why we left is not women's leadership. It is not "Episcopalians against equality," as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it. It is not a "leftward" drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical -- though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone.
The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow. The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith -- saying that traditional theism is "dead," the incarnation is "nonsense," the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is "a barbarous idea," the Bible is "pure propaganda" and so on. Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed.
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And here's another one from here...
One example of the depth and destructive nature of revisionist belief and teaching is this: Many in the Episcopal Church, including the Presiding Bishop, openly and publicly deny the assertion of Jesus, recorded in John 14:6, where he says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In the Episcopal Church, at the very top of it’s clergy leadership and in direct contradiction to Scripture, Jesus is now being presented as one of several ways to reach God. This assertion flies in the face of long-held Christian beliefs and could not be overlooked by this body of Anglican believers.
Yet that is but one of several examples of a church that has abandoned the historic, orthodox faith and was increasingly pressuring everyone to adhere to these ungodly teachings. Another example—and a particularly insidious one—is the Bible being presented and augured as a man-written book, which can be modified as the church see fit. Again, from some in that church leadership, we read comments such as “Man wrote the Bible, man can change it.” This is a gross misunderstanding of Holy Scripture and is unacceptable teaching in the Christian belief system. This congregation, now Holy Trinity Anglican Church, continues to receive the Holy Scriptures as “God-breathed and inspired by God Himself. Not only do we, this congregation, make that assertion but our own Articles of Religion state that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”
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Aren't these issues raised by former Episcopalians as the reasons for their leaving their church, the very same reasons dissident theologians like Richard McBrien want the Catholic Chruch to infuse in our teachings as a way of "updating"? Isn't this proof that the Anglican Communion and the dissidents' praise of their type of "collegiality" that is now breaking up the Anglican Communion?
Now why in the world would dissident "Roman Catholic" theologians still push the issue?
Faithfulness to the Orthodox teachings of the Church...
Obedience to the Successor of St. Peter...
How hard can it be?
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