The fight for the soul of the Anglican Church is growing hotter all the time. And here, from David Virtue's excellent web site (Virtue Online), are just a few of the illustrative reports of that conflict.* A Virginia judge has ruled in favor of a group of 11 churches who had liberated themselves from the increasingly bizarre and heterodox Episcopal Church, choosing instead to align themselves with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a group that yet treasures Scriptural authority, including the proscriptions against homosexuality. These 11 churches desired (quite naturally) to keep their property but had been denied this right by the Episcopal Church.
* In the wake of the above development, the Episcopal Bishop of Florida brazenly fired 22 priests. It was the largest single group of priests to be deposed in the history of the Episcopal Church. The reason for this dramatic and unprecedented action? As Virtue explains, all of them had "challenged the Episcopal Church on pansexuality and the church's ordination of an avowed homosexual to the episcopacy, the formal acceptance of homosexual behavior for clergy, the blessing of same sex unions, same-sex rites, and the abandonment of the authority of Scripture. They believed the church had moved beyond the bounds of Scripture to endorse behavior that endangered their souls and those of their parishioners."
* Finally, Virtue has an enlightening essay on how the abandonment of historic Christianity by Church of England officials has precipitated their sad decline in numbers, influence and ability to attract the young. And the contrast Virtue describes between the proud but decaying Church of England and the enthusiastic, evangelistic and startlingly successful Anglican Church in Africa is profound.
