Piety Hill Musings

The ramblings of the Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church of Detroit. Piety Hill refers to the old name for our neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed a great deal in the over 160 years we have been on this corner (but not our traditional biblical theology) and it is now known for the neighboring theatres, the professional baseball and football stadiums and new hockey/basketball arena.

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Location: Detroit, Michigan, United States

Friday, June 23, 2006

So now what???

General Convention 2006 is over, and it appears to us traditionalists to be an unmitigated disaster. The delegates refused to submit to the requirements of the Windsor Report, instead substituting at the last minute a half-hearted resolution which doesn't put us in compliance on the issue of homosexuality (ordination or marriage) as required by the primates of the Anglican Communion. Additionally, GCO6 elected a woman to be presiding bishop (her gender being problematic to much of Anglicanism and to the majority of the Universal Church), and she then turned around and on her first day as PB elect gave a sermon calling our Lord "Mother Jesus". She is also a vocal supporter of this unbiblical sexual deviance. The Convention refused to undo the Executive Council's actions of affliating ECUSA with a pro-abortion group NARAL, and refused by a huge margin to take up legislation affirming the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and the only name under heaven by which you can be saved. As I said in the June Eagle - every three years I am deeply ashamed to be an Episcopalian.

BUT - God is still in charge. As the gospel song goes, "The Battle is not yours, it is the Lord's." And as I posted last week, St. Paul predicted these things would happen. As he said (in this more modern translation).

“I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

And so as the smoke clears and the bishops begin to make sense of all this, we continue to preach the Word to correct, rebuke and encourage - with GREAT PATIENCE (this is perhaps the hardest part - Patience) as it is all sorted out.

At St. John's nothing changes. We still worship and glorify his holy name, strive by grace for the holiness he desires for us, and seek to share the good news with others and bring them to Jesus.