Why the Episcopalians Voted for Gay Marriage

If you study English church history you will see that the Anglican Church since then has lurched from one internal crisis to another. Different factions within the Anglican and Episcopal Church are constantly at war. The Anglo Catholics and the Evangelicals, the Evangelicals vs. the Liberals, the Liberals vs. the Conservatives, the feminists vs the traditionalists, the homosexuals vs. the marriage supporters.

In virtually every case the Anglican-Episcopal church is also struggling with her response to the trends in the secular world. Because the Church of England was founded by a monarch and is the established church in England she (and her sister churches like the Episcopal Church) will always be inclined to follow the lead of the state and never to challenge the establishment view.

Of course particular Anglian-Episcopal leaders will speak out against some secular trend, but you can bet that when it comes to the vote the Anglican-Episcopals will always wet their finger in the wind and go with the way the secular world is going.

These two problems then, are at the foundation of the Anglican-Episcopal church: 1. an unwillingness to conform to the moral authority of the Catholic faith and 2. their subsequent foundation by a secular power which continues to make them beholden to the secular power.

As a result, the more the secular powers in England and the United States go down the path of secular atheism, be assured that the Anglican-Episcopal church will follow. Do you struggle with the idea that a body that presents as a Christian church would adopt a secular, atheistic worldview? It already has.

You have to understand that what they do is dress up their secular atheism in religious language. Just like they dress up like Catholic priests and bishops, so they will don the garb of the religious believer and mouth those words, while all the time they have “re-interpreted” those words.

Thus a typical Anglican-Episcopalian will say he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnate. What he really means is that Jesus was such a good man–even a perfect human being so that when we see him we see what God is like. He will say he believes in the Virgin Birth, but what he means is that “in some sort of marvelous way the girl Mary was especially pure and innocent” On Easter Day he’ll say “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” What he means is that “Isn’t it wonderful how, despite his tragic death, the teachings of Jesus continued to live on in the lives of his disciples…”

You get the idea.

The Episcopal decision should therefore surprise no one who understand the worldview of the Anglican-Episcopal Church.

Despite this, I should add that there are still many good Christian disciples in the Anglican Episcopal Church. We must pray that they will soon find a home in the Ordinariate which was erected to provide them a secure passage and a cabin in the barque of Peter.