DCNY: Dark forces are at work

From the St. Barnabus Blog of Fr. Edward Tomlinson:


The ongoing saga of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York has much to tell us about the spiritual health of the Anglican church in North America. The saga began several years ago when the thriving congregation at the Good Shepherd decided to withdraw from the Episcopal Church because they could no longer stomach the liberal and non biblical direction which the national church was heading in.

There then began a bitter legal wrangle concering the ownership of the Church building. The Episcopal Church pumped a fortune into legal fees in order to claim that those wanting to depart were abandoning the faith of the church founders. They won the court case and were able to claim the property, funds and fabric of the church. What was deeply unpalatable at this stage was the manner in which the Diocese served very short notice on the priest, a family man with four children, to vacate the vicarage. Why was this so cruel? Because they had no need for the property prefering to leave it padlocked and empty than support a Christian family in crisis. For details of that sorry episode you can click here.

Rather wonderfully the Catholic church came to the rescue offering the abandoned congregation a place in which to worship. That congregation has since doubled, a clear sign of God’s blessing, wheras the church that remained has dwindled and died. Now for the really revealing part of this very shoddy episode….

…having claimed that those leaving were not able to uphold the desires of the church founders the Diocese of New York has spitefully sold the building, at a third of the cost the congregation were offering, to the Muslims! How truly shameful that the Episcopal authorities were so full of hatred and malice that they could stoop to such depths. This is undoubtedly the first ever instance of a major Christian body throwing a thriving congregation from their church building only to sell it to a non Christian organisation. Am I alone in thinking that those involved are exposed as being very little people, easily threatened and lacking in grace and charity? Why could they not allow the people to remain in the building they had maintained and cared for? Why did they refuse to even sell the building too them instead adding a legal caveat on the sale of the property barring the new owners from doing business with the original congregation? After all they did not need the building and could have supported a Christian presence for the community.

Thank goodness I have much, much more confidence in my own Diocese to behave much more honourably should such a situation ever arise. But let every reader ponder what this story teaches us. Those who powerfully roll out a feminist and pro-homosexual agenda in the Anglican church would prefer that Muslims occupy a house of prayer than orthodox Christians. That is what we are increasingly up against within the Anglican church and it is the reason I would echo +John Broadhurst’s claim that the devil is in residence amongst the Anglican authorities. But remember that this is ultimately a happy story for, despite every effort of the New York Diocese, the church of the Good Shepherd is growing and thriving. God provided when it was needed and the Gospel continues to be preached.

Hat tip: Fr. Dick Kim