Episcopal Same-Sex “Weddings” Coming Your Way?

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The Episcopal Church General Convention this past Summer approved a “generous pastoral response” towards same-sex couples that effectively green lighted same-sex weddings in Episcopal churches. Some liberal dioceses are anxiously moving ahead!  Interestingly, the Diocese of Maine has had to retract its same-sex plans.  After Maine initially legalized same-sex marriage, the Diocese initiated guidelines on how clergy might conduct such rites.  Now that Maine voters have overturned same-sex marriage in their state, the Episcopalians have cancelled their guidelines.

Read Jeff Walton’s article here.

How sad when the Church of Jesus Christ pegs its deepest convictions onto the latest laws or fashions.  Christians and Jews traditionally have believed that marriage as man and woman was part of God’s original order of creation.  But supposedly trendy church officials think that secular culture should redefine for the Church what marriage actually is.   These faddish church prelates, striving to be relevant, always end up making themselves, and their churches, irrelevant, as they float endlessly with the tide, unmoored to any anchor.

Aren’t we as Christians supposed to be tied to The Anchor, which is Jesus Christ, and to His Word?

Ignoring the Church’s traditional beliefs about marriage is often accompanied by, and even preceded by, ignoring Christianity’s historic teachings about the sanctity of all human life.  Liberal church groups, including the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, eagerly joined in an abortion rights press conference here in Washington, DC to protest the U.S. House of Representatives having prohibited government funding of abortion in Obamacare.  Please read my article here. They are demanding that the U.S. Senate version of Obamacare, which they support, include government funded abortions.  And here’s our news release.

The United Methodist lobby office, along with the lobbies of the United Church of Christ, the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians (USA), all belong to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), which adamantly defends unrestricted abortion rights, including government funded abortions. These abortion activists, employing the church’s name, and using church collection plate money, openly side with a culture of death. For them, human life does not seem to have any objective value because it’s created in God’s image. Rather, human life is utilitarian and has value only if it is “useful.” This pernicious culture of death threatens not just the unborn but also the aged, the terminally ill, and the incapacitated.

Some day, I envision a United Methodist lobby, an Episcopal lobby, and Presbyterian lobby offices that affirm the sanctity of all human life. Let’s pray for that day!

You may not have read about it, but voters in Switzerland recently approved a constitutional prohibition against minarets for mosques. These towers for Islamic worship places were seen as aesthetically and culturally obtrusive by many Swiss. The vote result surprised many, and liberal church groups are denouncing it. Of course, the Swiss and many other Europeans are increasingly worried about Islam’s growing influence. But European church groups, many of them representing mostly empty churches, do not want to admit there is any cause for concern. They simply celebrate multiculturalism and pretend that growing Islam does not have potentially disruptive consequences for Western democracy. Banning minarets may not be the best answer, but the European churches, just as the mainline churches in America, are not summoning the courage to address the real issues. Why not?

Problems, problems everywhere, in our nation, world, and churches! But we still have much to celebrate this Christmas Season, above all, that God in Christ has dwelt among us. Christ still reigns supreme, and we must trust that His grace and love will prevail.

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