Into the abyss

One of the reasons (though certainly not the only reason) for the decline in so-called mainline Christian denominations is their obsession with sexual matters. Now comes word that the Episcopal Church is breaking new ground in this area. Or (depending on your point of view) the Episcopal Church has hit bottom and is now blasting and digging.

An interesting quote from the link:

Patrick Cheng, an ordained minister in the majority-homosexual Metropolitan Community Churches and an openly homosexual faculty member at [Episcopal Divinity School], attempted to claim biblical characters such as the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 as examples of transgenderism.

“That’s the first queer person of color in the Bible,” Cheng said of the Ethiopian eunuch. Cheng also named Joan of Arc, Saint Perpetua, and early church theologian Origen as people who defied traditional gender expectations: Joan for her use of male clothing, Perpetua for her visions of gladiatorial combat, and Origen for reportedly castrating himself.

“There’s a lot of work being done on the transgendered Christ,” Cheng revealed, producing several different books that either focused upon or addressed the notion of Christ as transgendered.

Wild speculation unencumbered by fact, a near-complete ignorance of Biblical scholarship, and a blatant in-your-face blasphemy. This is the sort of pseudo-intellectual pap the modern Episcopal Church goes bananas over.

It will be interesting to see if the ELCA follows the Episcopal Church over this particular cliff. In many ways the Episcopal Church is the spiritual/political mentor of the ELCA. It seems that whatever the Episcopal Church does the ELCA mimics sooner or later.

Or maybe not. My own experience with both denominations (I taught at an Episcopal school for several years) leads me to believe that the Episcopal Church fancies itself the intellectual savior of Christianity. Like the ELCA, the Episcopal Church has an unhealthy involvement in left-wing secular politics that has driven away many confessional Christians. But the Episcopal Church seems more interested in gaining acceptance for its crackpot theology than in manipulating the political process. By contrast, the ELCA worships a god of secular politics, and is obsessed with using "social statements" to fashion a secular political platform that is often at odds with Christianity.

Put another way: the Episcopal Church is deeply interested in how many angels (or, in Rev. Cheng's case, transgendered spiritual beings) can dance on the head of a pin. The ELCA is concerned about the angels' gender, sexual orientation, age, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, and whether dancing on the head of a pin causes cultural imperialism, deforestation, anti-immigrant xenophobia, or global warming.

When I read articles like the one in the link above I feel like a shipwreck survivor. At the time I was involved with the ELCA and the Episcopal Church I was uncomfortable with what seemed to be many excesses and weird ideas in these denominations. But I believed that the leaders of these denominations were my brothers and sisters in Christ and kept my misgivings to myself. Now I realize that many of these leaders - perhaps most of them - are false prophets and teachers who are trying to trick others into abandoning the Word of God for purely secular teachings.