The Latest from the Episcopal Organization

Ad Orientem:

The High Church wing of Unitarianism, sometimes known as the Episcopalians, are holding their General Convention and have approved three significant new resolutions.

1. They have forbidden any discrimination against transgendered persons seeking ordination.
2. They have approved rites for homosexual unions.
3. They have approved communing persons who have not been baptized, albeit with the caveat that baptism should normally precede the reception of Holy Communion. But they made it clear that the act is now permissible.

I wish I could say that I am shocked, but I’m not. The TEO ceased to be Christian in all but name sometime ago. They jumped off the cliff in the late 70′s and have been in free fall ever since. But that fall is now gaining speed. We can bicker about some of Metropolitan Jonah’s actions but one thing I think almost all Orthodox can agree on is the wisdom of his decision to sever all ecumenical dialogue with that body.

I have said this in the past, with as much delicacy as I could muster. The time for delicacy is over. If you are a member of the Episcopal Organization… GET OUT!

Now I see that the Diocese of South Carolina has walked-out of the General Convention in protest. May they keep on walking!

 

Episcopal Church Approves Ordaining Transgender People

The Episcopal Church on Monday overwhelmingly voted to allow the ordination of transgender people.

At its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, the church House of Deputies approved a change to the “nondiscrimination canons” to include “gender identity and expression.” The move makes it illegal to bar from the priesthood people who were born into one gender and live as another or who do not identify themselves as male or female.

The church, which has 1.9 million members in the U.S., currently has rules against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disability and age for Episcopalians who want to become priests.

There are transgender priests in some Episcopal dioceses and transgender people have been discouraged from becoming priests in some areas. Transgender advocates have campaigned for an official denominational policy.

The vote by the House of Deputies — which includes lay people and clergy — followed Saturday’s approval of the non-discrimination clause by the church House of Bishops. Both groups have to approve new legislation.

“We are filled with joy for this clear affirmation that the Episcopal Church welcomes and values the ministerial gifts of transgender people, lay and ordained. We are also delighted by the strong support and broad understanding of trans issues shown by deputies representing a wide range of regions and generations in this church. As the church steps boldly into new frontiers in various facets of its light, we are proud to be part of this spirit-filled movement,” members of TransEpiscopal, a organization of transgender Episcopalians, said in a statement…

The House of Bishops on Monday also approved a provisional standard liturgy for priests to use in the blessing of same-sex relationships. Bishops approved the liturgy 111 to 41 with three abstentions…

The rest is here.

Run, run, as fast as you can…

 

The First Openly Transgendered Minister

Is there anything left that the Episcopalians have not been ‘first’ in? Meet the minister who was a she. She is now a he!

Pondering a gender change began with his doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School in the ’90s. “I was out as gay at that point,” he recalls. The run-up to his change was not the turmoil-filled time you might expect. “I’m not a huge fan of the trapped-in-the-wrong-body narrative” of some other transgendered people, Partridge says. “I know it’s true and real for some folks, but I never felt like God made a mistake. I’ve not had a problem with God about this, I really haven’t. I just had a sense of this growing—discomfort, disjunction.” With the change, “I felt like I was able to kind of reclaim the body that God had given me.”
Seeking a unisex name, he was stumped until he went for take-out sushi one day when he was still a woman and the clerk misheard the name, asking, “Cameron?” Partridge looked the name up and learned it meant “crooked,” just the name, he thought, for someone who believes gender is not linear.
As for his agenda as chaplain, he’s exploring ways to involve students in environmental justice, an interest that has come up in conversations with them.

Read it all.

He/she could have at least ironed his/her shirt for the photo!

God’s blazing judgement on the apostate Episcopalian whatever (for a Church it no longer is), cannot be far…