Friends all, Often when speaking to US Christians before my baptism, they told me that the best route for a traditional Christian is the Lutheran Church. If I even mentioned Episcopalianism, they didn't even react - the whole subject was just ignored, and closed off. Why has the Episcopal Church of the United States of America become a byword for "heresy" or "error"? Is there anything actually in its constitutions, declarations, and beliefs that constitute heresy by the Scriptures, Fathers, Councils, and Creeds? Is it really "the gay church"? Extreme Environmentalism? Arianism? Adoptionism? Gnosticism? Secularism? What exactly is it? Also, what is the order of things now that Summer is settling down and the General Synod is passing into memory (and implementation)? Even if we can detect no official denials of the faith, we can pray for people like Adam Warlock, who are having a huge trial of crisis of faith under the darkening skies.
Odd since Lutherans are in full communion with the Episcopal Church! Anytime you have a huge organization be it a religious institution or anything else you're going to have a few weirdos. The Episcopal Church is going through a time of change as it responds to issues that are hard to deal with. Issues that have really just become issues in the recent past. Issues like same sex marriage. Things have become rather rocky, and there are a lot of disagreements among Episcopalians. However, I don't know of anything in its constitutions, declarations, or beliefs that would constitute heresy.
Well if that's the case, why is there such a hubbub about bad bishops, and the Church floundering? Is it because the hierarchy does nothing to stop them, or agrees with them, or something else? If a Church's official teachings are not against, but for the holy Gospel, it is no condemnation of their ideology if some bishops ignore and hate it. Then again, you have the "bad trees yield bad fruits" argument. Hmm!
There are some bad bishops currently. More needs to be done about that. Why not much seems to be done about bishops like Spong I don't know. I'm just not one to throw the baby out with bath water.
Is it possible that they were talking about the LCMS? The ELCA is similar to TEC in many ways (as Andrea pointed out). Yeah, as far as I know, the problem is that bishops and priests can often get away with strange beliefs. Activism seems to be a preferred trait right now. There isn't really a penalty for disagreeing with the established doctrines in favor of fringe stuff like Spong or the Jesus Seminar.
I'm just wondering if this is widespread enough that you (or Protestants or Episcopalians) believe it has utterly compromised the entire Church. After all if the Gospel is still around in the official laws and decrees, it is possible to teach and live them and still remain Episcopalian. Now maybe if the laws and rules were all anti-Christ, we could say the American Anglican Church was gone... but that isn't so, is it? Do a few gay marriage and weird equality canons make the whole church apostate or heretical? The people I spoke to were referring to LCMS, yes. So, what do ELCA, TEC, and maybe liberal Presbyterians/modernists have all in common? Is it enough to pervert the Truth wholly?
Well, as veterans here know, I've definitely wrestled with that one. What I ultimately decided is that I am not called to leave my parish. And our bishop, thankfully, always says that we have "an important and necessary witness" in the diocese. I'm not a fan of many of his decisions, but he's not an evil man & he's not a liar. The local bishop and diocese are an important aspect of Anglicanism. Our bishop believes in sin and in Christ as the way to salvation. Our diocese doesn't have gay "marriage." We don't have drag queens in the pulpit. We don't have clowns trying to consecrate the Eucharist. I guess I realized that if I let every single error in any TEC body get to me, I'd never be happy in a parish to which God clearly called me. So no, to answer your question, it has not fully compromised our Church. The Episcopalians on this forum are a strong witness to that!
Here, now! Just because Rome's in vile error and heresy doesn't mean you can just go making stuff up! All the famous "clown mass" videos I've seen have been Episcopalians; but then again, that explanation might've been Catholics trying to deflect the humiliation.
They're not in vile error & heresy, and they did probably 99% of the clown masses. I'm not making anything up.
I was sure the most famous video on youtube with a clown mass was Episcopal. Catholics probably use that propaganda because they know people wouldn't find it unbelievable, sadly...