Stand Firm

Who Signed The Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing?

Did a word search on “rt.” to find the bishops. The usual suspect (Otis Charles, Charleston, Robinson, Righter, etc.) Saw William Fowell retired from Central Florida.

/sarcasm/ Are you serious? Are you telling me that 253 clergy, staff and seminary faculty out of 13,000 in The Episcopal Church signed this? /sarcasm off/

And while Ms. Haffner is getting her message out, we need to pray that God keeps the ears of our youth protected from such things.
We all need to lift our pastors in prayer and ask that God strengthen those who stand with Him.

Fr. Rob,
I am confused by your comment, even with the “sarcasm” warning. Are your saying by your comment that you are not surprised that only 253 clergy etc. out of 13,000 signed the statement?

The FACT remains that this document, however old, has gone unchallenged and the signators in the church have not been disciplined and told to repent, recant or be removed.

These people still priss around in collars and purple, taking God’s money, spouting their heresies and immoral agendas and no one has the guts to deal with them in the correct and Scripture-mandated way.

Statements advocating baby-killing and perversion attract Episcopalians like flies.

“And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man’s nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances.” Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941

The progressive moral evolution of man’s nature is an article of faith in liberal religion. They presume it just as surely as we presume Original Sin.

When it was originally released in 2000, the “Declaration” had around 850 signatures (see here) and has now grown to include more than 3,200.

This looks like an old list on which an update has been attempted. Clearly, some of the names have long since left the positions with which they are identified. But others are relatively new in their positions, so there is a disconnect. The name listed near the beginning as at the “Episcopal church” in Angels Camp, CA is especially an eyebrow-raiser. Angels Camp is in the territory of the Diocese of San Joaquin—in fact, in the area that was part of the area in which I served as Rural Dean from 2000-2007. There was never an Episcopal congregation in that town during my time, nor do I recognize the name of the individual. This leads me to believe (without taking the trouble to look it up) that we’re talking about a recent plant by the Lamb regime.

fwiw, Rwanda is the most densely populated nation on earth. I recently visited. Kigali is the cleanest city in Africa. Everywhere you looked, new construction was going up. I heard two different figures—last year, the GDP grew either 7 or 12%.
They grow most of their own food. Every Rwandan I saw looked well fed. Their diet is far superior to ours—all fresh produce.
A fiberoptic cable is being laid from South Africa to Rwanda, and will be completed in September. They are being positioned to be the telecommunications hub for Africa. A new airport will be completed in 2013, which will make them the transportation hub for Central Africa. They will commence non-stop flights from America, thus bypassing a European layover.
Pro-choice arguments based on population density ring hollow in light of the facts.

This “declaration” has been around for a long time already. I remember seeing a version of it somewhere in the handouts at GC 2000, Denver.
So I did a little Google search.
Here is the original press release from January of 2000:
http://www.adherents.com/misc/siecus_press_rel.html

and here is another press release that gives further background, including when the declaration was first circulated, and which Episcopalian bishops signed on first:
http://www.wfn.org/2000/02/msg00004.html

Dale, I’ve known you to ask very intentional questions for clarity, but I’ve never known you to be particularly confused about anything. Here’s a comment without sarcasm markers:

Isn’t one of Alinsky’s rules to mock? These folks now claim around 5000 signatures, from 50 religious groups, limited to ordained, professional, seminary faculty, etc. That averages out to 100 per religious group. 200 plus such folks from TECUSA should not surprise anybody. In fact, is that all they’ve been able to get to sign on? What a miniscule representation. Now, if you were to add up the numbers of clergy from just the Christian mainlines (say 10 of those 50 different religious groups), do you know how many clergy that would be? 100,000, more? 5000 signatures sure sounds like a lot, but it is a pittance in comparison. Do you think if we had a declaration around online for 9 years, and now a non-profit to back IT up and promote it constantly, that is, to advocate marriage and abstinence outside of marriage that there wouldn’t be at least 235 clergy and professional types to sign on? Well, in fact, how many clergy types belong to and advocate either T1:9 or Stand Firm?!
Political activism is a long game. We’ll figure that out here in just a little bit….

Dan,
Backlund belongs to Northern California. Not sure in what capacity, i.e. residency. He is supposed to be a PhD therapist, but for a few years noted as an (non-stip?) associate with St. Paul’s (uh-huh), Sacramento. They don’t list him any more on their website, though. When he signed as “..Backlund, Episcopal Church, Angel’s Camp”, I think he was listing his name, his denomination, and domicile, not that there is a recognized outfit in Angel’s Camp. Could be, I suppose, a small group or whatever, but I haven’t seen anything official.

Was surprised to see Folwell of Cent. Fla. on this list. But was not up on “politics” back when he was in…only that my parish was told we don’t have to worry about that here. This could explain a lot.

I see Fr. Backlund’s name listed in the Aug 2009 newsletter for St Paul’s: http://www.stpaulssacramento.org/Epistle/2009August/August2009Epistle.pdf
He signed a petition for Marriage Equality several years ago and listed “St Paul’s Sacramento, Angels Camp, CA” after his name. Maybe he has a practice or residence there.

Fr. Eaton, regarding your comment #17, if we had a petition up for nine years could we get as many bishops and executive council members to sign it as Haffner did?

I found the list helpful as two names (not famous people at all) are familiar from the past and I had hoped to speak with them about missionary support - I will now not bother. So far as I am concerned they have gone to the dark side.
As a for what it is worth - missionary support raising has been really difficult among what used to be the Episcopal community as so many are either over on the other side, or churches that remain are so strapped financially that they are just in survival mode. On the other hand some of the Anglican communities, though small, are really building mission into their DNA and have been very generous.
Interesting times!
Fr. Ian

Eewww… there are five Roman Catholic priests on there. Think I should send emails to Ordinaries?

Just curious about Rev. Kaye Fox (formerly Rev. Ken Fox) Episcopal/URMCC. What is that organization? That’s a new one for me.

I wonder if any of the Baptists I see listed are SBC. When I get home on a better web browser I think I’ll do a search on the list.

I’m from a mostly conservative diocese and the only name from here that I could spot is someone who died a couple of years ago.

Ralinda,
I was responding to Fr Dan Martin’s speculation, and since he trusts me to come up with the right stuff when I know it, I was helping him out.
When I used the word “residency”, Fr Dan would have known that “in what capacity” would have defined “residency” as a canonical matter, that is, his canonical residency, where he is officially listed as his diocesan “home”.
Re: St. Paul’s, Backlund has been listed as an “Associate” there for several years, but as of recently, no longer, at least on the webpage. The diocesan webpage still lists him as an associate at St Paul’s; diocesan webwardens don’t always keep current. The title associate gets used inconsistently across the Church, paid or non-paid assistant clergy, active or retired, so that’s hard to say. But the whole point was to say to Fr Dan that Backlund is a Northern California priest, even though he does live in Angels Camp, which is within the boundaries of San Joaquin, and would not be a recent plant.

Utah Reclamation Mitigation Conservation Commission? Tracy Lind signed this “thing.” That almost makes me ashamed to say I am from Cleveland. Sometime I wonder what people are thinking or do they even consider the implications of their actions?

#15, Unbridled sex combined with the chance to show off impeccable social skills (all those “thank you” notes.) No wonder such a practice is so popular with these Episcopalians.

urmcc or uFmcc? Which there is one of those close by.
In any case, St. George’s, Summerville, SC, is in the good hands of Fr. Rick Luoni.

Dear Ralinda (21),
I hear your skepticism re: my comment in #17. To take your question seriously, there have been Exec Council members over the last nine years who have signed on to certain statements out there, or who would have signed such a document as I posited, that would mark them as “reasserters”.
The reality, though, is that there have been way more members of Exec Council who are or who might have signed on to the declaration noted in this post. And so you are right in that challenge.
My point would be that if “conservatives” had put in the same amount of political activism as revisionists (symbolized by “Haffner”) have done in order to engineer the election of conservatives to Executive Council, then
then there would indeed have been that many over nine years who would have signed our own declaration if we had had one like this.
Now back to you: What can God do through his People?

Once again, there is a combination of words in the title that reveals the real agenda. One would usually think that “Sexuality Morality” would mean things like chastity and marital fidelity but when combined with the words “justice” and “healing” there is an entirely different spin on the phrase Sexual Morality. It concerns me that words are co-opted and given new meanings to portray what is wrong as right and to intentionally obfuscate the intent of the communication.

I wonder…do George Michael’s hookups in public restrooms fit under this bar? What if he thinks so?

#31 Fr. Eaton,
What can God do through his people? Anything and everything. And He is certainly bringing the ugly truth to light so the faithful will wake up to their responsibility to teach and defend the faith. Thank you for being one of the guys who wasn’t snoozing!

Dear Ralinda,
Well, I was actually thinking of Ephesians 3:20,21 (“Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine;.....”).
But “anything and everything” will do in a pinch.
And thank you for your diligence, as well.

This may have nothing to do with the subject, but I feel suddenly led to share this with you:
Interesting, isn’t it, that the Blood of Jesus - where blood is hardly transparent - brings the Truth to bear and darkness into light.

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