Unholy death warrants.
By Mark Tooley
Early in January, just in time for the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Episcopal Church reaffirmed its membership in an abortion-rights coalition.
During its January 9-12 meeting in Des Moines, the executive council of the Episcopal Church voted to clarify and affirm its membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC).
Future Grim as General Convention Draws Closer
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
Two things are becoming abundantly clear as the Episcopal Church heads towards General Convention in June.
The first is that the Presiding Bishop and his fellow revisionist bishops have no intention of repenting of their actions in consecrating V. Gene Robinson to the episcopacy as the first homoerotic Bishop of New Hampshire, and secondly they will not step away voluntarily from the Anglican Communion unless forced to do so.
Pastors Parsley, Johnson exploited pulpits to play politics, ministers’ complaint alleges
Monday, January 16, 2006
Mike Harden and Joe Hallett
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
ADAM CAIRNS | DISPATCH
Eric Williams, senior pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ, tallies up petitions that ask the IRS to investigate political-campaign activities of two central Ohio churches.
The complaint alleges churchsponsored events have
showcased Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell.
The Rev. Rod Parsley, left, and the Rev. Russell Johnson have been accused of using their churches for partisan politics.
More than 30 local pastors last night officially accused two evangelical megachurches of illegal political activities.
In a rare and potentially explosive action, the moderate ministers signed a complaint asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate World Harvest Church of Columbus and Fairfield Christian Church of Lancaster and determine if their tax-exempt status should be revoked.
The grievance claims that the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church improperly used their churches and affiliated entities — the Center for Moral Clarity, Ohio Restoration Project and Reformation Ohio — for partisan politics, including supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidacy of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.
Terry Mattingly
In the beginning, there were humble Nativity pageants for the kids and Christmas choir extravaganzas for the grown-ups.
As the decades passed, some big Protestant churches began hiring orchestras and buying advertisements, creating a music-ministries arms race that pitted the Baptists against the Pentecostals and the Presbyterians against the Methodists. Some prosperous churches even began moving these performances on stage or outdoors, adding elaborate sets, costumes and lights.
But the leaders of these churches agreed on one thing — big Christmas events were supposed to be held on the Sunday before Christmas. Most of the faithful stayed home to fill their roles in the big shows in their churches and then hit the road.
“Going to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day was something the Catholics did and all the people in those other churches that followed the church calendar,” said John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College.
Free Congress Foundation Paul Weyrich December 9, 2005
The scene was at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California on the Sunday before the Presidential election. Reverend George F. Regas preached a sermon entitled, “If Jesus debated Senator Kerry and President Bush.” Father Regas, it would seem, gave the debate to Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) because in that priest’s view Kerry’s views were more in line with those of Jesus Christ than were those of the President.
Someone complained to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the IRS has threatened to take away the tax- exempt status of All Saints based upon that sermon. The Internal Revenue code states that section 50l(c)(3) organizations (such as a church) are “prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or opposition to, any candidate.”
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New York Times NEELA BANERJEE November 12, 2005
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 11 – Conservative leaders of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and their Anglican counterparts from overseas intensified their warnings Friday about the possibility of a schism in the Anglican Communion if the Episcopal Church did not renounce the consecration of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.
About 2,400 Episcopal Church and Anglican bishops, clergy members and lay leaders from around the world gathered here Thursday for a three-day show of solidarity in preparation for a general convention of the Episcopal Church next June in Columbus, Ohio.
While Episcopal and Anglican conservatives have warned before of the possibility of a split in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion over these issues, powerful primates of national and regional Anglican churches from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean said Friday that a break was all but inevitable if the Episcopal Church did not vote to change course at the Columbus meeting.
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By Michael Conlon
Mon Oct 31,11:26 AM ET
The United Methodist Church’s top court has ordered a lesbian minister defrocked, overturning a lower panel’s ruling that had reversed the penalty, the church announced on Monday.
Elizabeth Stroud “was accorded all fair and due process rights” and an appeals committee that reversed her removal from the ministry in April erred in saying church officials had failed to define what a “practicing homosexual” was in terms of church law, the ruling said.
The decision by the nine-member Judicial Council is final. A church spokeswoman said Stroud could ask the panel to reconsider, but the quest would be heard by the same panel, and only two members dissented.
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Wall Street Journal BRET STEPHENS AND JOSEPH RAGO Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Ever since it became clear that three of the four jihadis who bombed London on July 7 were born and bred in England, the British have been taking a hard look at their Muslim neighbors: Do they share the same values? How do they fare economically? Whom do they cheer when England plays Pakistan at cricket? And how many more would-be bombers are among them?
As it happens, Her Majesty’s government was well clued on these questions before the bombers struck: A 2004 Home Office study showed, for example, that British Muslims are three times likelier to be unemployed than the wider population, that their rates of civic participation are low, and that as many as 26% do not feel loyal to Britain. By contrast, the U.S. Census Bureau is forbidden by law from keeping figures on religious identification (although it collects voluminous information on race and ethnicity), so there are no authoritative data on the size and nature of America’s Muslim population. Yet if the U.S. is ever attacked by American jihadis, we will no doubt ask the same questions about our Muslim community that Britons are now asking about theirs.
[Read more…]
Breakpoint Allan Dobras
Episcopalians Defend the Consecration of a “Gay” Bishop
The Episcopal Church has been flirting with a disastrous schism for the last thirty-five years, and now a formal breakup seems inevitable following an unapologetic June 17–22, 2005, appearance before the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Nottingham, England. The purpose of the meeting was to hear the church’s defense of its consecration of “gay” Bishop V. Gene Robinson.
Over the years, the denomination continued to hang together as it blundered through several divisive issues while causing its rolls to plummet by about 1.3 million congregants, or nearly 40 percent of its membership. Remarkably, the church had managed to survive clergymen like Bishop John S. Spong, who institutionalized heretical teachings in the denomination, the failed heresy trial of Rt. Reverend Walter Righter, who opened the church to the ordination of homosexual deacons, and the church’s persistent embroilment in leftist politics.
Now, ramifications from the consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson are sending shockwaves through the Anglican community, and the denomination is on the brink of imploding. The June 2003 election of Rt. Reverend Robinson to the office of bishop was the final straw for the traditionalist-minded American Anglican Council (AAC) and a number of conservative prelates—primarily from Africa—who put pressure on the Worldwide Anglican Communion to respond to what they thought to be contrary to church doctrine.
Ed. These guys get it. Note Feder’s comment below.
Front Page Magazine
By Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation
Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation | April 27, 2005
The announcement of the formation of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation (JAACD) came at a press conference yesterday (April 21st) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Present were JAACD President Don Feder, and several members of the group’s Advisory Board — syndicated columnist Mona Charen, popular talk-show host Barry Farber, Rabbi Joshua Haberman, and Rabbi Yehuda Levin.
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