2014: Seizing the Moment. How Episcopalians and Anglicans Will Fare
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
January 7, 2014
he year past ended with one of the worst and most litigious years in the history of the Episcopal Church. At a time when congregations are shrinking and closing, millions of dollars are being spent on lawyers to take back church buildings that will inevitably be sold off to other (evangelical) church groups, to Muslims...anybody except to orthodox Anglican churches that could keep them open as places of Anglican worship.
The Episcopal Church is now more dysfunctional than ever and more and more people, especially Millenials, are simply not interested in The Episcopal Church and its constant rants about the need to accept pansexuality as a prevailing cultural issue. Talk of inclusion and diversity has not stirred them to suddenly fill Episcopal churches. Pews are emptying and will continue to empty with no salvific message of redemption and hope being heard from pulpits.
Endless preoccupation with social and "justice" issues, whether it is about the Middle East or women's rights to abortion, or gay marriage, will not and is not, making churches grow. People are spiritually starving and hurting. There is more pain out there than ever before. Suicides are up, divorce is still rampant and perhaps the biggest single unaddressed issue in America today is loneliness. Millenials are not committing themselves to much of anything and, apart from occasionally "hooking up", they are not committed to life-long marriage. I recently heard a wedding vow in which both partners said "till love do us part" not death.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
January 7, 2014
he year past ended with one of the worst and most litigious years in the history of the Episcopal Church. At a time when congregations are shrinking and closing, millions of dollars are being spent on lawyers to take back church buildings that will inevitably be sold off to other (evangelical) church groups, to Muslims...anybody except to orthodox Anglican churches that could keep them open as places of Anglican worship.The Episcopal Church is now more dysfunctional than ever and more and more people, especially Millenials, are simply not interested in The Episcopal Church and its constant rants about the need to accept pansexuality as a prevailing cultural issue. Talk of inclusion and diversity has not stirred them to suddenly fill Episcopal churches. Pews are emptying and will continue to empty with no salvific message of redemption and hope being heard from pulpits.
Endless preoccupation with social and "justice" issues, whether it is about the Middle East or women's rights to abortion, or gay marriage, will not and is not, making churches grow. People are spiritually starving and hurting. There is more pain out there than ever before. Suicides are up, divorce is still rampant and perhaps the biggest single unaddressed issue in America today is loneliness. Millenials are not committing themselves to much of anything and, apart from occasionally "hooking up", they are not committed to life-long marriage. I recently heard a wedding vow in which both partners said "till love do us part" not death.
Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org
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