Why We Left the Episcopal Church

January 08, 2007

Today’s Washington Post carries an essay by The Rev. Dr. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church (TFC), and Os Guinness, Christian author, speaker, apologist and sociologist and TFC parishioner.  In it they explain why they left the Episcopal Church.

Fundamental to a liberal view of freedom is the right of a person or group to define themselves, to speak for themselves and to not be dehumanized by the definitions and distortions of others. This right we request even of those who differ from us.  . . .  The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world.  It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow.  The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers.  Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith -- saying that traditional theism is “dead,” the incarnation is “nonsense,” the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is “a barbarous idea,” the Bible is “pure propaganda” and so on.  Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed.

Read it all.