Gravel instead of the Bread of Life

Membership in the Episcopal Church has dropped below two million.

Key quote:

For the first time in 75 years, The Episcopal Church's total membership dipped below the two million member mark. TEC's just-released official 2014 stats show worldwide church membership standing at 1,956,042. The last time Episcopal Church membership was below two million was in 1939 when there were 1,996,434 Episcopalians.

At the close of World War II, the Episcopal Church had a high water mark of 7,894 congregations; following the war, with the glut of baby boomers, The Episcopal Church grew and and climbed over the three million mark in 1958 with 3,126,662 members. TEC's membership peaked in 1966 with a 3,429,153 baptized souls.

From 1967 until 2003, when gay Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson (IX New Hampshire) burst upon the scene, the Episcopal Church's membership ebbed and flowed -- up one year and down another. Once Bishop Robinson joined the House of Bishops, TEC's worldwide membership has steadily declined from 2,419,562 (2003) to 1,956,042 (2014), a loss of 463,520 souls in just a little more than a decade.

I am sure that defenders of the Episcopal Church respond that other denominations are losing members as well. But pointing out this broad loss of membership cutting across all denominations, while accurate, skirts a major issue raised back when the Episcopal Church began its very public self-immolation. Rejecting the Gospel in favor of trendy progressive positions was supposed to arrest this decline, or so we were told. What happened?

In his 1990 book Living in Sin? retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong made the claim that traditional Christian views on marriage and sexuality were driven by ignorance and misogyny. The Christian church could only be saved if it adapted to the prevailing culture and embraced behavior it once called sinful. Bishop Spong's book is an interesting mixture of Biblical illiteracy and wishful thinking, so perhaps it is not surprising that his prescription has failed.

Thanks to false teachers in the Episcopal Church such as Bishop Spong and Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori the Episcopal Church traded the Bread of Life for a handful of gravel.

I believe the decline in Christianity in western nations is not because of a failure to adapt to modern progressive culture (sorry, Bishop Spong), but is actually the result of the culture's profoundly totalitarian nature. Modern progressivism has a pronounced hostility to any authority except its own and is willing to destroy those it deems Enemies of the People. The rise of the Twitter mob (McCarthyism on steroids), campus speech codes, so-called "hate crime" laws are ways this worldview is enforced. Are you reluctance to embrace the homosexual lifestyle? You must be a homophobe! Does feminism leave you uneasy or abortion make you squeamish? Obviously you hate women! Think Bruce Jenner is just an overexposed celebrity? Hater! The list of thoughtcrimes grows daily, and collaborating with the culture (as the Episcopal Church has done) will not spare you in the end.

This is a depressing point of view, but can anyone reasonably argue otherwise? And if it is correct what should Christians do?

Obviously, we cannot respond in kind. You cannot fight a Twitter mob with another Twitter mob, or craft "hate crime" laws that punish critics of Christianity, or any other type of retaliation. Only the devil wins that kind of battle.

Instead we must pray. Pray to God for forgiveness for own sins and the sins of our nation. Pray that we are spared the coming persecution, but even so pray that God's will be done.

Choose the Bread of Life. Accept no substitutes.

The incredible shrinking church

Over at The Federalist Alexander Griswold has a good article about the decline of Christian denominations which have discarded the clear teaching of Scripture to embrace much of the homosexual agenda.

Opening part from the article:

By now, we’ve all heard the refrain that U.S. churches need liberalize their teachings on sexuality and homosexuality or rapidly decline. The logic behind the argument is simple: more and more Americans are embracing homosexuality and same-sex marriage, including growing numbers of religious Millennials. So long as churches remain the face of opposition to gay marriage, those churches will shrink into irrelevancy when gay marriage (inevitably, we are told) becomes a settled political issue.

These arguments often see church acceptance of homosexuality as a carrot as well as a stick. It isn’t so much that denouncing homosexuality will drive people away from church, but that embracing it will also lead people into church. LGBT individuals and their supporters, many of whom hold a dim view of religion after a decades-long culture war, will reconsider church if denominations remove their restrictions on gay marriage and ordination.

But a number of Christian denominations have already taken significant steps towards liberalizing their stances on homosexuality and marriage, and the evidence so far seems to indicate that affirming homosexuality is hardly a cure for membership woes. On the contrary, every major American church that has taken steps towards liberalization of sexual issues has seen a steep decline in membership.

Griswold goes on to describe the declining fortunes of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the United Church of Christ (UCC), and the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA). My wife and I are former members of the ELCA who chose to leave after the disastrous 2009 decision to ordain non-celibate homosexual clergy and to bless homosexual unions, so this news strikes home in a significant way. Griswold's article well worth reading, especially for its detailed information about the rate of decline of each denomination.

However, I have one problem with the article. Griswold seems to suggest that the effort to change the church's stance on homosexuality is primarily to recruit new members and arrest overall decline of Christianity. In fairness to those who succeeded in changing the ELCA's position in 2009, I do not think this is necessarily so. Increasing the ELCA's membership was one stated reason for pushing for the change, but in my opinion it was not the primary one.

Instead, the proponents of the 2009 changes seemed to make three basic arguments:

Scripture is not being properly translated/applied. Regarding homosexuality as a sin is nothing more than a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Bible really says.

Lack of proper scientific understanding. The Bible was written in an era before modern psychology, so the early writers lacked a true understanding of homosexuality.

Social justice. Any religion which regards homosexuality as a sin is false and must be changed. The old attitudes towards homosexuality are on the same moral level as racism and sexism, and need to be ended.

There was some inconsistency in the reasons that proponents gave for the 2009 changes. How (for example) is it possible for Scripture to be both misinterpreted and wrong? How can the Bible actually permit homosexual behavior and be the flawed product of writers who were ignorant of modern science and how it relates to homosexuality? The argument made by the proponents of the 2009 changes could be quite murky at times.

Of all the reasons used to support changing the ELCA's stance towards homosexuality in 2009, only one - the social justice argument - seemed to me to be the primary motivation. Even before the disastrous decision to discard Scripture in favor of secular wisdom the ELCA had shown an obsession with political activism masquerading as Christianity. The Gospel continually took a back seat to political pronouncements and lobbying elected leaders.

And here is where the seeds of destruction were sown. The Bible clearly regards the homosexual lifestyle as sinful and contrary to God's plan for His creation. But the powerful homosexual lobby decried this attitude as homophobic. So the false teachers and prophets of the ELCA rejected the Gospel in favor of secular political activism and goals. They have rejected the true God, and are working on making another god in their own politically correct image. It is no wonder the ELCA is hemorrhaging members.

But (the counter argument will go) what about gays and lesbians who felt alienated and unwelcome by the church's previous negative stance towards homosexuality? Should we not rejoice in the fact that at least some of them will now come to church and embrace Christ?

My response is this: are these new brothers and sisters in Christ being given the Bread of Life - or the spiritual junk food that the world offers and which can only harm them? All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and we need a Redeemer to save us from the consequences of our sins and reconcile us to God. By discarding the clear teaching of the Bible the ELCA is telling us a hellish lie: we get to decide what is sinful and what is not. Put another way: we get to veto God's commandments and replace them with ones we find more suitable. Two thousand years ago Jesus warned us about leaders who would do such a thing:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23:15 (NIV))

To my Christian brothers and sisters who are still in the ELCA, I beg you: do not let the false teachers and prophets of the ELCA succeed in dragging you into hell. I will not put myself in the place of God and tell you to leave your church - God will make it clear if He wants you to leave or not - but be aware that the false god the ELCA is creating for itself is a jealous god, and wants to separate you from the real God if it can. Your soul belongs to the One who loves you, and not the one who tells you to conform to the ways of the world.

Come home

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's openly gay bishop, is divorcing his husband Mark Andrew (h/t: Don Surber). This comes after he divorced his wife of 14 years to marry Andrew.

I have a plea to those who remain in the Episcopal Church: there is still time to escape from false prophets and teachers such as Robinson who have laid waste to your denomination. Free yourselves those who selfishly seek only their own gratification and glory, and return to the One who truly loves you.

God is not proud; He stoops to conquer. There is no sin that you have committed that He will not forgive.

But to claim the rescue God has sent to you - a rescue bought through the precious blood of Jesus - you must be willing to let go of the past. Will you do it?

It's time to come home.

Decline and fall of the Episcopal Church

Walter Russell Mead has an interesting essay on the decline of the Episcopal Church (h/t: Instapundit).

Key quote:

It used to matter what the Episcopal Church thought of this or that social issue. Other mainline Protestant churches and many social and political leaders followed its theological and political debates. Now, basically, no one outside the dwindling flock in the pews really cares what The Episcopal Church says about anything at all. General Convention can pass a million resolutions, and nothing anywhere will change. No one is even really angry anymore at anything the Episcopal hierarchy does; at most, there is a sigh and a quiet rolling of the eyes. Soon, there will not even be that.

It’s an extraordinary decline in an institution that a generation ago was still one of the pillars of American life. At this point the disaster appears irretrievable; those running the church are determined to run it into the ground and it is hard to see how that can change.

This is what happens when a church (liberal or conservative) places political activism above obedience to God and His commandments. While I do not advocate Christians washing their hands of politics entirely, a bit of humility would not be a bad idea. We Christians cannot usher in God's kingdom through petitions, social statements, demonstrations, and marches on behalf of secular political causes. We can only proclaim its coming.

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.

Giving up Christianity for Lent

Again, this is not an article from The Onion:

Episcopal cleric tries Islamic rituals for Lent

Rev. Lawler's Lenten project may get him defrocked, which is a bit strange. Bishop George Wayne Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri frets that Lawler's actions might be seen as mocking Islam. Perhaps the good bishop is worried that the multicultural Left will go bananas, although deranged hatred is multiculturalism's normal state. Bishop Smith might also be concerned that someone from the Religion of Peace will do to the Episcopal Church what Faisal Shahzad tried (and failed) to do to Times Square last year.

But whether it is multiculturalism or Islam that Bishop Smith fears the most, it is clear that Rev. Lawler will not be defrocked because of turning away from Christianity. A denomination that elevated Gene Robinson to the position of bishop is not in a position to criticize Rev. Lawler's apostasy.

(h/t Cyberbretheren)

Global South gaining in influence

A study done by Oxford Analytica shows that Christian leaders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America are gaining influence in Catholic and Protestant churches.

This should surprise no one, since churches from the Global South are on the front lines (literally) of the conflict between Christianity and other religions. In many parts of the world to be a Christian is to make yourself a target for persecution, torture and death. Contrast that situation with many Western denominations, which have become lazy and complacent in the freedoms unimaginable to many Christians worldwide. Some Western denominations like the ELCA and the Episcopal Church USA are essentially post-Christian, concerned primarily with secular political redemption rather than the Kingdom of God.

The news is not all good, however. Some Christian leaders from the Global South are deeply involved in the heresy of "liberation theology". For the most part, liberation theology is a thuggish variation of the social gospel that is still popular in dying mainline Protestant denominations. The difference between the social gospel and liberation theology is that the latter is unquestionably more bloodthirsty in persecuting "enemies of the people" than the former.

For better or worse, the center of gravity of Christianity seems to be shifting away from America and Europe and towards Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It is not out of the question that one day the Global South will be sending missionaries to the unbelieving West. Given the growing unbelief in many mainline Protestant denominations this will probably happen sooner rather than later.