It was a beautiful service. The story says that the church has 25 members, but I can say that the only time there have been as few as 25 worshippers when I have led worship there was for a service this summer. I believe that their average attendance on Sundays is higher than what is stated in this article.
Bishop Adams is reported to have said that the two CANA churches in CNY and two other churches that have left the DCNY are a minority of pecusa. Actually, we are not associated with pecusa and while our numbers are smaller than pecusa at present, we are growing while pecusa is losing a thousand members a week. Bishop Adams fails to embrace in his perspective that there are reasons that make a thousand members leave pecusa every week. For us who have left, embracing heresy and walking apart from the Anglican Communion are not ways of faithfulness to God. We do not believe God is accepting of the "diverse theological perspectives" that pecusa embraces; God has said as much in His Holy Scriptures. If Adams could try for once to stop acting on feelings and attempt to do some thinking maybe he could be part of the solution for pecusa rather than continuing to contribute to the crisis in Anglicanism.
It is a shame that a bishop of the church does not know where he is headed or where he is leading his people. If he embraced the Scriptures rather than "diverse theological perspectives" he would have a firm understanding of where he is headed and where he is leading his people. By the grace of God, he might even wake up, turn around, and lead his people into righteousness. And now, onto the story... ed.
From the Syracuse Post-Standard:
Ordination spotlights church rift
Group that broke from Episcopal Diocese ordains a priest today in Geddes.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
By Renée K. Gadoua
Staff writer
Jeffrey Altman will be ordained an Anglican priest today in a ceremony that reflects Central New York's role in the nationwide growth of a separate Anglican church in the United States.
Altman will lead Sunday services at Westside Anglican Fellowship, a Geddes congregation of about 25 people who began worshipping together after their former congregation, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Syracuse, split from the local Episcopal Diocese. They meet at Syracuse Vineyard Church.
It is one of dozens of breakaway congregations that have started Anglican communities in the five years since the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop. Four groups from three churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York have split from the 2.2 million-member national Episcopal Church.
The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the 80 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.
The breakaway groups have aligned themselves with orthodox Anglican branches, most of them in Africa.
Earlier this month, the Diocese of Pittsburgh left the Episcopal Church. The Diocese of San Joaquin, Calif., has also done so, and at least two more dioceses expect to vote to leave the denomination.
Most of the groups leaving the denomination oppose the ordination of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, who recently entered into a civil union with his partner of 20 years. These groups consider homosexuality to be incompatible with Scripture.
But Altman, a psychology professor at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, said the split from the Episcopal Church runs deeper than the hot topics of opposition to ordaining a gay bishop or opposition to ordaining women.
"They are symptomatic of the larger problem, which is really one of the true foundation upon which the church rests," he said. "Where does truth come from? Do we make it up or should Scripture guide us?"
Altman, 62, is married. He and his wife, also a college professor, have an adult daughter and a new grandson.
He said his path to ordination began with a pull to become an Episcopal priest in his 20s, but "other events intervened."
For about 30 years he worshipped with the United Methodist Church. "I enjoyed it, but at heart I'm an Anglican in the broadest sense," he said.
He earned a bachelor's degree from Roberts Wesleyan College, a master's of divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky and a doctorate from the University of Rochester.
Altman was ordained a deacon in May by Bishop David Bena, who will preside at today's ordination. Bena is the former assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany; he is now a bishop in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, an Anglican missionary effort in the United States sponsored by the Church of Nigeria.
Raymond Dague, a Syracuse lawyer who is a former member of St. Andrew's Church in Syracuse and a lay leader at Westside Anglican Fellowship, said today's service is a turning point for the congregation.
"It's big for us," he said. "He's (Altman) a good guy and a good fit for us."
Dague is also assistant chancellor to the Episcopal Diocese of Albany.
Syracuse Bishop Gladstone "Skip" Adams, spiritual leader of 93 parishes from the Pennsylvania border to the St. Lawrence River and from Utica to Waterloo, agreed that the developments at Westside Anglican Fellowship reflect the shift in the American Episcopal Church.
"I give them my best wishes and blessings as they seek to be faithful in the way they feel they need to be," Adams said Friday.
But he said he's sad that three congregations - St. Andrew's in Syracuse, St. Andrew's in Vestal and Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton - have left the diocese and the denomination. He also noted the dissenters locally and in the United States represent a minority of the U.S. Episcopalian Church.
In addition to Westside Anglican Fellowship, another group from the former St. Andrew's in Syracuse, St. Andrew's Anglican Church, has aligned itself with the Anglican Church of Rwanda and continues to worship.
"I continue to believe from my perspective there is no need for people to be leaving," Adams said. "We as a church are very embracing and open to many and diverse theological perspectives."
Altman said he and the congregation bear no ill will toward the local or national Episcopal Church.
"My expectation is we're on a journey together and none of us really knows where it's going to come out," he said. "We're just doing what we feel it is right to do."
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