Bishop: Episcopalians must focus on mission

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/10940892.htm

[Lexington Herald-Leader] February 19, 2005--Lexington Bishop Stacy Sauls called yesterday on the Lexington Episcopal Diocese to move beyond the schism plaguing the church and to focus instead on bringing new people in.

"The controversy around homosexuality has occupied an enormous amount of my time as your bishop and a great deal of our time as a diocese," Sauls said in his address to the Lexington Diocese's annual convention. "It is time that this issue cease to distract us from mission."

Since the 2003 General Convention revisionist bishops like Sauls have been repeating the mantra that the homosexual debate is a distraction and the church needs to get on with its mission. But what mission is that, Bishops Sauls? Spreading the gospel of radical inclusion? Or making disciples of Jesus Christ and teaching them everything that he commanded? Did not Jesus command that his disciples should seek to be holy as God is holy. Does not our Lord emphasize sexual purity in his teaching and identify pornia which includes homosexual activity among the evils that come from the human heart?