ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold has expressed regret that so many in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have reacted adversely to the actions of the 2003 General Convention and the subsequent consecration of practicing homosexual Gene Robinson as the bishop of New Hampshire. He has not expressed remorse for the actions of the General Convention or for having himself presiding over the consecration of Robinson after agreeing not to go ahead with it. The House of Bishops parroted Griswold’s “regret” at its Salt Lake meeting. But it took no action on the recommendations of the Windsor Report, saying that it would have to study the document further. The House of Bishops disingenuously claimed that the General Convention had expressed its mind on the matter of Robinson and same sex blessings and they were bound by its decisions. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold has appointed a commission to prepare a theological case for the ordination and consecration of sexually active homosexuals and the blessing of homosexual liaisons that he plans to present at the Anglican Primates Meeting later this month. The revisionist bishops of the Episcopal Church are clearly unrepentant. This week Thomas Shaw proposed that the Episcopal Church’s General Convention should sanction gay marriage.
Unless the Primates takes strong measures against the ECUSA and the Archbishop of Canterbury excommunicates Frank Griswold and the Episcopal Church’s revisionist bishops and no longer recognizes the Episcopal Church as a member church of the Anglican Communion, this month’s Primates Meeting will accomplish nothing. Whatever happens the persecution of orthodox clergy and congregations in the Episcopal Church will go on. The Episcopal Church will continue to hemorrhage orthodox clergy and congregations. Worship attendance and giving will continue to decline. The Episcopal Church’s revisionist bishops will continue to inhibit and depose orthodox priests, threaten orthodox parishes, and attack the remaining orthodox bishops in the Episcopal Church. The Primates Meeting will bring no respite. Orthodox Episcopalians will have to make up their minds at to whether they want to remain a part of a heretical church and acquiesce to the apostasy that now hold the Episcopal Church in its thrall. As Archbishop of South East Asia Moses Tay observed, Satan has raised up a throne in the Episcopal Church. He has established a stronghold and he is set upon using this stronghold to launch an attack upon the Anglican Communion which is experiencing explosive growth in the global South. He has already taken the hearts and minds of many Episcopalians captive. Many Episcopal priests have abandoned the faith once delivered to the apostles. They have turned away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and are preaching a “different gospel.” This goes beyond unworthy ministers preaching the Word of God and administering the sacraments. They are spreading erroneous and strange doctrine that is contrary to God’s Word and are encouraging their flocks to believe this doctrine. From the perspective of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion – a foundational document of Anglicanism – many Episcopal churches have ceased to be the visible church of Christ in which the pure Word of God is preached and in which the sacraments are rightly administered according to Christ’s command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration. This is no longer a question of the evil being ever mixed with the good but of land that produces thorns and thistles and is worthless and in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned. “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. [Hebrews 6:4-6, NIV]
The Book of Hebrews goes on to tell us:
“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”[Hebrew 10:27-31, NIV]
Many Episcopal priests are trampling the Son of God under foot. They are denying the atoning power of the cross and are insulting the Spirit of grace. Those who sit at their feet are doing likewise. Those who choose to remain in the Episcopal Church do so at the jeopardy of their souls.
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