STAFFORD, Texas \u2014 Father Tony Tripi\u2019s new church is called Tri-City Fellowship, a businesslike name that fits in among the signs for oil-tech firms, furniture warehouses, computer pros and everybody else that\u2019s floating in the sea of office complexes that encircles Houston.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a fellowship and we serve Stafford, Sugar Land and Missouri City,\u201d said the Brooklyn-born priest, who in October led 300 of his parishioners out of the Episcopal Church of the Advent. \u201cSome people were surprised that there isn\u2019t a saint in the new name \u2013 like St. John, or St. Mark, or whatever. But right now we\u2019ve decided that we just need to say what we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cTri-City Fellowship\u201d sounds like one of the legions of user-friendly, entrepreneurial, freelance churches that have changed the face of modern Protestantism. But that\u2019s just the first part of the name. The second part is \u201cA Christian Community in the Anglican Tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In other words, Tripi\u2019s church claims that it is \u201cAnglican,\u201d yet free of the legal structure and authority of the Diocese of Texas. As such, his parish resembles St. Andrew\u2019s Church in Little Rock, Ark., a controversial mission that has defied its local shepherd and now claims ties to a Rwandan bishop. Tripi\u2019s flock is linking up with Archbishop Moses Tay of Singapore.<\/p>\n\n
Both of these cases are signs of the tensions between First World progressives and Third World traditionalists that dominated last summer\u2019s Lambeth conference in Canterbury. But the Tri-City Fellowship story also resonates throughout mainline Protestantism. It\u2019s becoming more common to see United Methodists bucking the United Methodist system to defend what they believe are core Methodist beliefs. The same thing is happening with Presbyterians, Lutherans, Disciples and so forth.<\/p>\n\n
At some point, said Tripi, doctrines must be more important than denominations.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cMy telephone keeps ringing with calls from people throughout the mainline world,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are saying, \u2018We are right where you are and we\u2019re having to look at doing exactly what you\u2019ve done.\u2019\u2026 They\u2019re all caught up in systems that have become oppressive and that aren\u2019t getting the job done. \u201c<\/p>\n\n
Obviously, Houston Bishop Claude Payne disagrees with this analysis. He notes his conservative record on evangelism and morality, including hot-button issues of sexuality. He considers Tripi a rebel who has abandoned his altar \u2014 leaving behind the parish\u2019s property, assets and sizable debts. But he also disagrees with the priest\u2019s conviction that orthodox bishops must attack those who want to revise church doctrines. The bishop believes that is too negative.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cChrist needs no defenders. \u2026 Many portions of our church that are issue-driven continue to decline,\u201d he wrote, in letter to Tripi\u2019s parishioners. This is true on left and right, because those on each side get \u201cso possessed and obsessed with fighting that they are hardly attractive to those who are lost. It is tragic, each struggling so desperately to \u2018uphold the truth\u2019 as they understand it, that they cease to be in a posture of sharing the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Sadly, the bishop said he must lead efforts to defrock this priest because \u201cfailure to do so would undermine the structure that enables us to be an Anglican Church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Tripi admits that he\u2019s \u201cguilty, as charged\u201d of rebelling against the Episcopal Church and he is willing to endure a trial to \u201cmake a public witness\u201d about why he took this stand. The key, he said, is that when bishops are consecrated each takes a vow to \u201cguard the faith, unity and discipline\u201d of the church.<\/p>\n\n
So defending church unity does require bishops to defend the faith of the ages, said Tripi. This is true even if it causes division in the present. Meanwhile, his freeborn church already has 500 members and is preparing for life in the crowded and confusing church marketplace.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI am an Anglican priest,\u201d he said. \u201cI also believe that our church stands with other Anglicans around the world. There will be a short season in which folks like us have to be separated. We will have to step aside and leave the Episcopal Church. But we are going to be brought back under the same umbrella soon \u2014 I think sooner than anyone can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STAFFORD, Texas \u2014 Father Tony Tripi\u2019s new church is called Tri-City Fellowship, a businesslike name that fits in among the signs for oil-tech firms, furniture warehouses, computer pros and everybody else that\u2019s floating in the sea of office complexes that encircles Houston. \u201cWe\u2019re a fellowship and we serve Stafford, Sugar Land and Missouri City,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n