Los Angeles Times Charlotte Allen July 9, 2006
Out-of-the-mainstream beliefs about gay marriage and supposedly sexist doctrines are gutting old-line faiths.
The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn’t simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.
Wall Street Opinion Journal Mark A Knoll Friday, July 7, 2006
In 1911 the English-speaking world paused to mark the 300th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, with American political leaders foremost in the chorus of exaltation. To former president Theodore Roosevelt, this Bible translation was “the Magna Carta of the poor and the oppressed . . . the most democratic book in the world.” Soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson said much the same thing: “The Bible (with its individual value of the human soul) is undoubtedly the book that has made democracy and been the source of all progress.”
Townhall.com Ben Shapiro June 21, 2006
Brittany McComb, valedictorian of Foothill High School in Clark County, Nevada, stood up at her graduation and began to speak. A few paragraphs into her speech, school administrators cut off McComb’s microphone. She didn’t tell a dirty joke. She didn’t curse. She didn’t insult her classmates or her teachers. Brittany McComb committed the egregious sin of attempting to thank God and Jesus. “I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech,” McComb stated. “God’s the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior.”
Christianity Today Rob Moll September 2, 2005
“How can you worship a homeless Man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?” said the sign outside St. Edward’s Cathedral in Philadelphia. Inside, a group of 40 homeless families were joined by students from Eastern University to protest the eviction of women and their children from the abandoned Kensington neighborhood church. In 1996, the story was all over the news as a community activist group and a crowd of Eastern students fought the eviction by living in the church, sleeping on pews, and worshiping each Sunday. Shane Claiborne and other students left Eastern’s campus in St. Davids, drove the 20 miles into Philly, and unpacked their things in the nave.
. . . more
USA Today Richard W. Garnett 4/16/2006
Religious leaders have long tried to sway their congregants to take sides in political battles. That might offend some, but believers, not the state, should decide when faithful activism crosses the line, says a Notre Dame law professor.
Does politics have a place in the pulpit? Should places of worship be homes for engaged and unsettling activism — or tranquil havens, sealed off from the rough-and-tumble of today’s bitter partisan debates?
NCC PRESIDENT URGES COMMUNICATORS, TAKE ON ‘FALSE RELIGION’
New York, March 30, 2006–The president of the National Council of
Churches, the Rev. Michael Livingston, strongly urged church
communicators to, “Tell our story. By any means necessary.”
“Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches have been pounded
into irrelevancy by the media machine of a false religion,” Livingston
said. He described what passes as religion to be, “a political
philosophy masquerading as gospel; an economic principle wrapped in
religious rhetoric and painted red, white and blue.”
Pastors Parsley, Johnson exploited pulpits to play politics, ministers’ complaint alleges
Monday, January 16, 2006
Mike Harden and Joe Hallett
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
ADAM CAIRNS | DISPATCH
Eric Williams, senior pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ, tallies up petitions that ask the IRS to investigate political-campaign activities of two central Ohio churches.
The complaint alleges churchsponsored events have
showcased Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell.
The Rev. Rod Parsley, left, and the Rev. Russell Johnson have been accused of using their churches for partisan politics.
More than 30 local pastors last night officially accused two evangelical megachurches of illegal political activities.
In a rare and potentially explosive action, the moderate ministers signed a complaint asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate World Harvest Church of Columbus and Fairfield Christian Church of Lancaster and determine if their tax-exempt status should be revoked.
The grievance claims that the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church improperly used their churches and affiliated entities — the Center for Moral Clarity, Ohio Restoration Project and Reformation Ohio — for partisan politics, including supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidacy of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.
Terry Mattingly
In the beginning, there were humble Nativity pageants for the kids and Christmas choir extravaganzas for the grown-ups.
As the decades passed, some big Protestant churches began hiring orchestras and buying advertisements, creating a music-ministries arms race that pitted the Baptists against the Pentecostals and the Presbyterians against the Methodists. Some prosperous churches even began moving these performances on stage or outdoors, adding elaborate sets, costumes and lights.
But the leaders of these churches agreed on one thing — big Christmas events were supposed to be held on the Sunday before Christmas. Most of the faithful stayed home to fill their roles in the big shows in their churches and then hit the road.
“Going to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day was something the Catholics did and all the people in those other churches that followed the church calendar,” said John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College.
New York Times NEELA BANERJEE November 12, 2005
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 11 – Conservative leaders of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. and their Anglican counterparts from overseas intensified their warnings Friday about the possibility of a schism in the Anglican Communion if the Episcopal Church did not renounce the consecration of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions.
About 2,400 Episcopal Church and Anglican bishops, clergy members and lay leaders from around the world gathered here Thursday for a three-day show of solidarity in preparation for a general convention of the Episcopal Church next June in Columbus, Ohio.
While Episcopal and Anglican conservatives have warned before of the possibility of a split in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion over these issues, powerful primates of national and regional Anglican churches from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean said Friday that a break was all but inevitable if the Episcopal Church did not vote to change course at the Columbus meeting.
[Read more…]
By Michael Conlon
Mon Oct 31,11:26 AM ET
The United Methodist Church’s top court has ordered a lesbian minister defrocked, overturning a lower panel’s ruling that had reversed the penalty, the church announced on Monday.
Elizabeth Stroud “was accorded all fair and due process rights” and an appeals committee that reversed her removal from the ministry in April erred in saying church officials had failed to define what a “practicing homosexual” was in terms of church law, the ruling said.
The decision by the nine-member Judicial Council is final. A church spokeswoman said Stroud could ask the panel to reconsider, but the quest would be heard by the same panel, and only two members dissented.
[Read more…]