Well, I suppose he would, wouldn’t he?
A new North American group claiming to embrace “traditional Anglican values” will not last long, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop has predicted.
Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual man living openly with a partner, whose 2003 consecration as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire created a backlash among traditional believers within the U.S., church, told Ecumenical News International he does not believe the new Anglican grouping has long-term viability.
“A church that does not ordain women or openly gay people – I don’t see a future for that,” Robinson told ENI after delivering a sermon on 28 June at the First Presbyterian Church in New York City during the city’s annual gay pride festivities.
I think there needs to be a little fact checking on that, but never mind. What I found particularly interesting comes at the end of the article:
“Despite the ACNA’s grand words, the new organization is being built largely with assets belonging to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. It is unclear what Christian moral principles can be invoked to justify this,” said Kenneth Stiles, a Pittsburgh attorney and vice president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh.
Now, this betrays a certain way of thinking that views the ‘assets’ that build the Church as being property, endowments and suchlike. Check that against Bishop Ron Ferris’s thoughts. A world apart, no?
Actually I think he was talking about TEC and the ACoC – just got a bit mixed up in his thinking. Oh well, he can dream.
The folks across the Tiber have been thinking that way for a lot longer than Anglicans and I suspect they still have quite a future left.
A church that doesn’t ordain women or gays has no future? Has anyone told the Pope? Why, the Catholic Church has even gone back to “mumbling in Latin with the priest’s back to the congregation,” and is growing faster than ever!
Maybe the 1928 prayer book, celebrated in a fairly High manner, by a male, would do what fifty years of secularism have failed to do.
But don’t tell Gene Robinson. He claims for himself the infallibility he denies the Pope.
It is the future that God sees – ordained rather – that counts.
I cannot understand how that man thinks. He says the most bizarre things…
“Despite the ACNA’s grand words, the new organization is being built largely with assets belonging to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
I think the “assets” being used to build the ACNA are the faith of its members and the blessings that God gives his Church. They will continue, buildings or no buildings.
Mr. Robinson has lied so much and so often, and gotten away with it. It has been said “tell people lies often enough and eventually they start believing you”. Unfortunately for Mr. Robinson, he now believes his own lies, and is no longer able to see the truth.
The truth is simply this. Those denominations that remain the most steadfast to the Holy Bible are growing. Those denominations that have drifted away from God’s Holy Word are declining. Even within the Worldwide Anglican Communion we see this happening Province by Province.
And for him to say “Despite the ACNA’s grand words, the new organization is being built largely with assets belonging to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada” shows his complete ignorance about how God works. Churches are not built on earthly wealth. They are built by the Grace of God, and by truly Faithful Christians. Take away the “assets” and the Anglican Church in North America will continue to grow. By the way, his statement also completely ignores the fact that half of the Anglican Network in Canada’s Parishes are entirely new, having never been part of the Anglican Church of Canada. (But in all fairness, I would not expect Mr. Robinson, being an American who is obsessed with his own agenda, to be knowledgeable about what is happening in Canada).
“Despite the ACNA’s grand words, the new organization is being built largely with assets belonging to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. It is unclear what Christian moral principles can be invoked to justify this…”
Well, here’s one possibility: ACNA is rescuing those material and financial “assets” from being closed and turned into dance halls on the one hand, or spent out of existence on the other; in short, used for purposes their Christian donors never intended. How’s that for starters?