Well it is now official: The Episcopal Church (TEC), a province of Anglican dioceses in the USA (and some neighbouring countries) has declared that it doesn't care what the vast majority of the Anglican Communion believes to be the teaching of the Bible concerning sexuality. It simply does not care. It is committed to the novelty of sanctifying sexual relations between males, as well as between females, elevating that sexual sin into the ranks of ministers of the gospel, including bishops whose special task it is "to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word."
The Anglican Communion "rejects homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture" (1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10), a resolution reaffirmed a year ago by the Primates of the Anglican Communion, including the Presiding Bishop of TEC (!), as "the position of the Communion." This is consistent with the uninterrupted teaching of the church of God for two thousand years, as well as that of the prophets of the Old Testament. Yet TEC does not care, as evidenced by last week's announcement by the Diocese of Los Angeles that the requisite majority of bishops and standing committees within TEC have given their consent to the election of Canon Mary Glasspool to become a Bishop Suffragan of the Los Angeles.
Of course the writing was on the wall last July when the General Convention (Resolution C007) removed the restrictions of a 2006 resolution (B033) which had called for restraint to be exercised in consecrating practising homosexuals and lesbians. The consent to the election of Canon Glasspool is merely the logical and inevitable outworking of the TEC's position, which is contrary to Scripture and contrary to the teaching of the Anglican Communion. The "ambiguous stance" of TEC, as perceived by the Primates in 2007, no longer lacks ambiguity.
While the Primates have exercised much patience themselves since the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003, and while the Archbishop of Canterbury has commissioned Reports, set up a Panels of Reference and despatched pastoral visitors, it is all to no avail. It surely must now be clear to every orthodox, Bible-believing Primate that enough is enough!
In 2007 the Primates called upon TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw voluntarily from the work of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) leading up to Lambeth 2008. This they did, in order that the recommendations of the Windsor Report might be properly addressed. However, their exclusion seems to have done little to encourage them to mend fences and return to the Bible's teaching, as accepted by the Anglican Communion as a whole.
Now is the time for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates to exclude the TEC from the ACC altogether. There is no time for voluntary withdrawal, for that has effectively been accomplished by their consent to Mary Glasspool's election. Let them reap the whirlwind of their actions and follow their own pathway beyond the pale of the Anglican Communion.
As the Primates' prophetically declared in October 2003:
This will tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level, and may lead to further division on this and further issues as provinces have to decide in consequence whether they can remain in communion with provinces that choose not to break communion with the Episcopal Church (USA).
While we grieve for those faithful bishops (who withheld consent) and many faithful members of the TEC, who have little room to move under the coercive and litigious regime of TEC when it comes to real estate. Yet there are times when the people of God may suffer the plundering of their property for the sake of the gospel (Heb 10:34).
