"Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be brave. Be strong.
Be loving in everything you do." - I Corinthians 16:13-14
 
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All is Well™ Around the World

Bishop Gene Robinson joined Bishop William Swing of California in celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Episcopal gay advocacy group (I know, I know... redundancy alert) Oasis. In a statement released by Oasis, Robinson is sure to get a lot of run from his remarks that gays and lesbians will one day win the battle for "full inclusion" in the Episcopal Church. Lodged squarely between his remarks about inclusion, though, is this observation about the non-crisis:

"When the dust finally settles, lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual people will be fully included at every level of our church," the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church said. "We know what the end looks like and our enemies do too," he added. "What we are really arguing about is timing, not the final outcome."

In related news, six Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Florida have left ECUSA, but not because there's a crisis. Bishop Howard wrote his diocese about the events, acknowledging that everything is just bubbles and lemondrops. A letter from the six churches kindly implies that Bishop Howard is lying through his teeth, while the folks at Calvary Anglican announce they're handing over the keys. (Meanwhile, three parishes in Los Angeles moved closer to winning their property suit with the diocese, not that anything's wrong out there). And orthodox lay organization Anglican Alliance of North Florida agrees that everything is hunky-dory, feeling the love and releasing this statement.

And finally, over in Cairo, they're sending flowers and boxes of sweets to ECUSA and Canada. Meanwhile, don't forget about our annual stewardship drive, and there's coffee and danishes in the parish hall...

Posted by Greg Griffith at October 31, 2005 09:15 AM (GMT -6:00)
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Meanwhile, the Methodists have somehow managed to get their car out of the ditch. Money quote:

Mark Tooley, a conservative Methodist at the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, said the rulings show that Methodism "is not moving in the direction of the Episcopal Church and declining liberal Protestantism in the West." Rather, he said, it "is moving in the direction of global Christianity, which is robustly orthodox."
# Posted by: Wilson at November 1, 2005 06:42 AM