Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press<\/em><\/p>\nNovember 2, 2004<\/p>\n
A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \u201cdeeply saddened and outraged\u201d that a pagan Eucharist is being promoted by leaders of the Episcopal Church USA.<\/p>\n
Last week, Christianity Today reported that the ECUSA was promoting pagan religious rites directed toward pagan deities through its Office of Women\u2019s Ministries. The magazine noted that the office\u2019s website had featured a druid liturgy submitted by a female Episcopal minister from Pennsylvania, which urged women to make raisin cakes to the \u201cQueen of Heaven.\u201d The article also called attention to the equally non-biblical \u201cLiturgy for Divorce\u201d featured on the site.<\/p>\n
David Roseberry is the rector of Christ Church in Plano, Texas, the most highly attended Episcopal church in the United States. He says the \u201cWomen\u2019s Eucharist: A Celebration of the Divine Feminine,\u201d written by Episcopal rector Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, is essentially liturgizing the Da Vinci Code. And although the pagan rite has been removed from the Episcopal Church\u2019s official Internet site, the conservative Anglican minister describes the denomination\u2019s apparent promotion of the pagan liturgy, however brief, as \u201ca travesty and a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roseberry calls the pagan liturgical service offered up by the church\u2019s administrative offices in New York is an \u201cembarrassment\u201d to the denomination. \u201cThere are individuals in the Episcopal Church who are way left of center,\u201d he asserts, \u201cand indeed, [they are] outside of the boundaries of what you\u2019d call Christian. And, unfortunately, they have positions of influence in our leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Texas clergyman believes recent trends toward blurring or crossing the lines of biblical doctrine and ignoring established church practice have created an atmosphere of increasing lawlessness in the Episcopal Church. As a result, he feels some liberal denominational figures in positions of power tend to exploit the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Episcopal Church does not have any boundaries or any discipline,\u201d Roseberry warns, \u201cthen it really will believe anything, and its leadership at the hierarchical level, the main office in New York, will promote just about anything that they have a personal interest in.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would appear to the conservative rector that there are ideas among the church leaders in New York that are clearly at odds with biblically orthodox Christianity. \u201cAnd obviously,\u201d he says, \u201csomebody up there has a very deep personal interest in feminism and Druidism and pagan religions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Episcopal Church\u2019s Response<\/strong><\/p>\nRuppe-Melnyk and her bishop, Charles Bennison, both declined interviews with American Family Radio News concerning the \u201cWomen\u2019s Eucharist.\u201d However, the Episcopal Church\u2019s director of women\u2019s ministries, Margaret Rose, assured AFR that the Episcopal Church \u201cneither promotes idol worship nor the worship of pagan deities.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Rose criticized Christianity Today\u2019s initial report on the liturgy, characterizing the report as a \u201chate article.\u201d Her office has issued a statement in response, noting, \u201cThere is quite a difference in presenting resources for people\u2019s interest and enlightenment and promoting resources as official claims of the Episcopal Church. Only General Convention has this authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Women\u2019s Ministries director contends that in order for women to move from mere representation to true inclusion in the Episcopal Church and beyond, the church must find ways to embrace the experiences of women pastorally, ritually, and liturgically. Toward this objective, her office has been working to develop and offer woman-affirming materials for use by individuals and groups in the church.<\/p>\n
Rose points out that the \u201cWomen\u2019s Eucharist\u201d was sent \u201cin good faith\u201d as a response to a recent call for resources from the Women\u2019s Ministries Office, and was only removed from its website when the office discovered that the material was copyright protected.<\/p>\n
Christianity Today\u2019s Weblog has since pointed out that the pagan material was indeed lifted from a rite of Tuatha de Brighid, a modern druid clan. However, CT notes, the liturgy was not plagiarized, since that rite was written for Tuatha de Brighid by Ruppe-Melnyk, the same Episcopalian minister who submitted it as a feminist Eucharist to the Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2004, Agape Press; \u00a9 Copyright 2002, Crosswalk.com. All rights reserved.
\n
Thanks for FWD from Fr Victor Potapov.<\/em>
<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \u201cdeeply saddened and outraged\u201d that a pagan Eucharist is being promoted by leaders of the Episcopal Church USA. Last week, Christianity Today reported that the ECUSA was promoting pagan religious rites directed toward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is "deeply saddened and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is "deeply saddened and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orthodixie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html\",\"name\":\"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/d5bf33688ce82b0237d72999929e581c\"},\"description\":\"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \\\"deeply saddened and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA’s Using Pagan Rite\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/\",\"name\":\"Orthodixie\",\"description\":\"Southern, Orthodox, Convert, Etc.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/d5bf33688ce82b0237d72999929e581c\",\"name\":\"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b7878a8545fe0cab706af168e9ade0ec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b7878a8545fe0cab706af168e9ade0ec?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/author\/orthodixie\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite","description":"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \"deeply saddened and","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite","og_description":"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \"deeply saddened and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html","og_site_name":"Orthodixie","article_published_time":"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00","author":"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html","name":"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA's Using Pagan Rite","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00","dateModified":"2004-11-05T01:25:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/d5bf33688ce82b0237d72999929e581c"},"description":"Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press November 2, 2004 A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is \"deeply saddened and","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/2004\/11\/clergy-at-odds-over-ecusas-using-pagan-rite.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA’s Using Pagan Rite"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/","name":"Orthodixie","description":"Southern, Orthodox, Convert, Etc.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/d5bf33688ce82b0237d72999929e581c","name":"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b7878a8545fe0cab706af168e9ade0ec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b7878a8545fe0cab706af168e9ade0ec?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Fr. Joseph Huneycutt"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/author\/orthodixie"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/orthodixie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}