The Bosque Boys

A Chicago church has become the first congregation in that diocese to split from the Episcopal denomination. Article here. The pastor of this parish confounds the usual stereotype of conservative religious leaders.

The Rev. George Byron Koch, a former civil rights leader and corporate executive, leads a West Chicago church that proudly welcomes creative types, free-thinkers and people who don't worry about dressing up.
. . .
A longtime member of the NAACP and a former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Koch rejects the view that his church's stance is bigoted.

The issues are Episcopal blessing of same-sex marriage and practice, and the opinions of prominent Episcopal leaders that the Resurrection may be merely a metaphor.

The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, is splitting over the issue of same-sex sex. Now, it appears that the world-wide Anglican Communion may itself be split by the U.S. and Canadian liberal positions. Story here.

The Presbyterian Church PCUSA continues its decline as shown by a new round of budget cuts and staff reductions. The Berkley Blog covers and interprets here. Link from The Layman.

Another evangelical church leaves the PCUSA for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). Covenant Presbyterian in Omaha, Nebraska. Article from The Layman here. Covenant Presbyterian's website here.

To paraphrase Ron White, its not that the mainline denominations are losing, its what the mainline denominations are losing. Dynamic congregations that bring energy and growth into a movement.

The Anglican Primates (archbishops acting as national church leaders) at their recent meeting in Tanzania demanded that the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, stop blessing same-sex marriages. My post here.

Last week the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (sort of the U.S. primate) gave her response. Katharine Jefferts Schori told staff at the national headquarters

. . . the Episcopal Church is called to ensure that the conversation about the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church continues in the Communion. “It is part of our mission as a church,” she said. “This conversation that has been going on for at least 40 years is not going away. God keeps bringing it back to us.” Jefferts Schori said that she understands that some people feel that the primates’ recommendations are a “hard and bitter pill for many of us to talk about swallowing.” But, she said, worldwide attitudes about the inclusion of gay and lesbian people are changing and “I don’t expect that to end.” “We’re being asked to pause in the journey. We are not being asked to go back,” she said. “Time and history are with this Church.”

Full article from the Episcopal Church website, includes a link to the audio of the address. (More below.)

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As I posted earlier, Anglican primates met last week in Tanzania in closed session. Perhaps the major issue to be addressed was the actions of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism. Most Anglicans are now from the Third-World and are much more conservative than the U.S. denomination. Monday they issued a statement, from Fox News. Opening paragraph:

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Anglican leaders demanded Monday that the U.S. Episcopal Church unequivocally bar official prayers for gay couples and the consecration of more gay bishops to undo the damage that North Americans have caused the Anglican family. In a statement ending a tense six-day meeting, the leaders said that past pledges by Episcopalians for a moratorium on gay unions and consecrations have been so ambiguous that they have failed to fully mend "broken relationships" in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of world Anglicanism, must clarify its position by Sept. 30 or its relations with other Anglicans will remain "damaged at best."

The American Anglican Council has the full text here. (More below.)

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I have posted before about the slow schism in the Episcopal Church, and the tensions between the Episcopal Church and the world-wide Anglican communion, of which it is a part. For example, here. Especially upset are third-world Anglicans, particularly in Africa, where the U.S. branch of Anglicanism is views as heretical.

This coming week the Anglican Primates (Archbishops serving as national leaders) will gather in Tanzania. Perhaps the focal point will be the address by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. From an article on the upcoming meeting:

A group of conservative Episcopalians, who represent about 10 percent of the 2.2-million member Episcopal Church, is angling to be recognized as the true U.S. branch of the communion.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, who has been invited to address the primates in Tanzania, said he will argue that the Episcopal Church has actually walked away from traditional Anglicanism. The 10 dioceses and 900-odd U.S. parishes in his Anglican Communion Network, meanwhile, have remained orthodox, Duncan said.

Full story from the Dallas Morning News here. I'll be surprised if anything so radical happens quickly. But, the numerical center-of-gravity of Anglicanism has shifted to Africa, and the African Archbishops will expect to be heard. What they will have to say will not please the Episcopal Church.

In media reports, the current breakup of the mainline Protestant denominations such as Presbyterian, Episcopal, UCC, often is presented as conservatives versus liberals. This characterization is not exactly accurate.

While "conservative" is a relative word, I think it is misleading to term the present insurgents among mainliners conservative. "Moderate" would be better. Why do I say this?

Consider one of the more recent Presbyterian (PCUSA) congregations to begin the process of leaving their denomination, the 2,000-member Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church near Chattanooga, Tennessee. (website here) They are leaving because they perceive themselves to have a "a stricter view of Scripture than that held by the greater portion of the PCUSA." Article from the Chattanooga Times Free Press here.

But note that they are moving to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) denomination. Not the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

Signal Mountain Presbyterian elder Diane N. Mizell said the session examined many different denominations with a Presbyterian form of government before choosing the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. A key reason they chose the denomination was because it permits women as ministers, session members and deacons, she said. "That was important to us," Ms. Mizell said.

Those congregations which are very conservative, I think, have already left the mainline denominations. The current wave of defections are mostly moderate churches. The liberal power structures of these denominations have made a serious mistake if they are unable or unwilling to keep the moderates on board.

A regular attender at an Episcopal congregation described in the Washington Post writes to criticize the coverage. Here.

For most reporters churches are strange and foreign lands beyond their know world and so illustrated with mermaids and dragons.

Mainline Protestant denominations, which have declined sharply since their heyday in the 1960s, lost hundreds of congregations during 2006 and possibly are poised to lose even more in 2007.

Three of the denominations – the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church (USA) – lost nearly 300 congregations after their national governing bodies began abandoning their historic ban on ordaining practicing homosexuals.

The largest loss occurred in the United Church of Christ, a congregationalist denomination that – unlike the PCUSA and ECUSA – allows its churches to leave with their property.

Read the entire article from the Layman.

Over the past months, I've posted several times on the ongoing problems within Mainline American Christianity. For example here and here and here. (The term itself is now out-of-date since these denominations have been losing strength both in relative and absolute terms since the 1960s.) Those in favor of liberalization of the church, which means for the mainline denominations those in the power positions, tend to refer to all fervent opposition to their agenda as schismatic. That is, they accuse their opponents of rending the Body of Christ by causing splits. But, who are the real schismatics? I would argue that it is those who break faith with historic Christianity who have split the church. Expressing this idea better than I can is the Bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin, Episcopal, +John-David Schofield here. Read also the letter of support farther down the page from the Moscow Patriarchate.