The shattering of the Anglicans

My Friend, and former Episcopal priest, Taylor Marshal makes some good comments about bishop Jeffrey Steenson --actually they are comments about the commentators. Bishop Steenson, if you didn't know, is stepping down from his post, leaving the episcopate, and leaving the episcopal church to go to Rome. Such moves are not unusual in Christendom, but when a bishop does it, it can be quite shocking.

There are a lot of conservative Anglicans who are angry over his declaration to depart. They feel deserted, and they have a point. If all the conservatives would have stayed back when The Episcopal Church (ECUSA) changed their prayer book, then they might have had more influence today, but some left. Then when ECUSA decided to throw out 2000 years of scripture and tradition for a new reason many more conservatives left (yours truly include).

Taylor is right about compromise. Everyone compromises to one degree or another. Although ECUSA is filled with beauty and tradition, she is also filled with a lot of dung. ECUSA happens to be the champion of compromise it's just a matter of how much smell you can tolerate.

Many conservative churches hire non-believers for their choirs. Churches which allege to support "one man+one women" allow divorce, even among the clergy. Even that golden glimmer of Anglican hope in Plano Texas has a rector who is divorced and remarried. According to scripture he is disqualified from the priesthood, but, hey, he's such a nice guy!

A huge compromise that most Christians -- even the self righteous evangelicals protestants -- support is contraception. No one wants to have children. Apparently children are a curse, especially for women. I could write a lot on this subject but my point is: I actually met ONE Episcopal priest who knew this compromise-- just one --It was a day of great encouragement for this father of eight (happened to be between Christmas Eve services). I was sad when that priest left the Episcopal church and went to Rome.

When spiritual leaders "change", when they step away from their post, weather they commit some awful sin or decide to convert to something else, people feel hurt. Lay people are entitled to be wishy washy, we can go from here to there, but our ministers are supposed to be solid. So blame the lay people :) A portion of our faith is placed in the leader (even if it's not supposed to be). When the shepherd leaves the flock the flock gets confused. The sheep don't know what's happing, or why. Maybe the shepherd is actually trying to lead his flock to greener pastures, or maybe he has decided that he would rather join the wolves.