A Letter to the Church from Clergy of the Diocese of Pittsburgh

http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/5775/#more

[TitusOneNine] 12 Sep 2007--We are ordained leaders in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and we write to our fellow Anglicans across this Church in this season of great importance concerning our future. We are glad followers of Jesus Christ, working for the mission of his Gospel, and have for decades labored for the reform and renewal of the Episcopal Church under Holy Scripture and through the Holy Spirit. We are deeply thankful for this call upon our lives; we love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we love this Church.We write in a season where it is evident that differences of faith and practice have torn our Church and our Communion, perhaps beyond mending. We have all experienced this rending in painful and personal ways. The presenting issue is the question of human sexuality, but underlying issues go deeper, to the very heart of our faith, including our understanding of the Triune God, the devastating impact of the fall upon human nature, the unique work of Jesus as the only Savior of the world, our understanding of God’s Gospel mission to the world, the interdependence of our Communion, and – above it all – the final authority and full trustworthiness of Holy Scripture guiding us through these matters. Though our faith is in concert with the majority of our Communion and the historical roots of our Church, we now find ourselves fundamentally divided from the majority of the leadership in the Episcopal Church over these issues of first importance.