Conservative Episcopals win: Christians Everywhere Lose

Christians should pay more attention to the Bible.
First, let it be said that I am in sympathy with those conservative Episcopalians who want out of The Episcopal Church. The actions of that denomination are out of accord with the Bible.

With that out of the way, I wish those theological conservative had paid more attention to I Corinthians 6, which speaks of not going to court against other brothers, but rather solving it out of court. Or that these conservatives had taken heed of Matthew 5:38-41, which reminds us that if someone wants our tunic, we should give them our cloak as well. This idea of meekness and not going to the courts with disputes has not been heeded by Episcopalians, and now we may all pay the price.

I speak of the court ruling that went largely unnoticed on Apirl 5th The conservatives who voted to leave the Episcopal Church found a Civil War era law that allowed them to get the state involved in the property dispute. The state has rule, of course, that it can and will get involved and those who have withdrawn can continue to use the property until the final settlement is reached. This is all despite the fact that church law clearly states the property never ever belongs to the local congregations, but rather to diocese as a whole. I am not endorsing this sort of church hierarchy, but it is their rule and no one had a problem with it until they wanted to take their church with them. It is still possible that the law will be ruled unconstitutional and it is still possible that maybe the conservatives will lose, but it is a bad first sign.

The problem of course is that now the government is going to override church laws and rules. This is a disaster waiting to happen. It will take less than a year before liberals use this against conservatives to make sure women get to vote in congregational meetings or become ministers or allow homosexuals ordination. Once the government rules that it can come in and override church law no law is safe. It will not be limited to property for long.

It seems in today’s world that the First Amendment that is supposedly designed to keep Congress and the Government out of church business no longer works. The ‘wall of separation of church and state’ that liberals talk about so much is apparently a wall that keeps the church out of the state, but lets the state walk right into the church.