Homosexuals in the Church

The Episcopal Church has debated the "normalization" of homosexual practices, same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals, for two decades. Episcopal Bishops have come perilously close to approving ordination of homosexuals and recognizing homosexual "marriage" at previous triennial conventions, setting up a schism between the Episcopal Church and the World Anglican Communion, and prompting a growing number of Bishops, both domestic and international, to view the Episcopal Church leadership as apostate. Thus, many Bishops have declared the U.S. a mission field for reseeding, and several Archbishops in the World Anglican Communion have been ordaining American Bishops and Priests under their authority since 1997.

At the World Anglican Communion's decennial Lambeth Conference in 1998, Bishops representing 77-million Church congregants worldwide overwhelmingly passed a resolution reaffirming that homosexual ordination, same-sex marriage and homosexual practices were "incompatible with Scripture." But a significant number of Bishops representing the 2.3-million member Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.

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English: St. Magnus Episcopal Church, Lerwick The ...

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(ECUSA), the American branch of the World Anglican Communion, strongly objected.

Once the most powerful Protestant church in America, Episcopal flirtation with heretical causes in the last three decades has driven many Christians away from the church -- its current membership of 2.3 million is down 33% from 1965, despite the ECUSA's recent "Decade of Evangelism."

At its 74th triennial General Convention in August of 2003, the Episcopal House of Bishops voted, by a two-thirds majority, to confirm an unrepentant homosexual as Bishop of an American Diocese, the first such confirmation in the history of the Anglican Church. This action is arguably heretical, a willful violation of Scripture and the historic faith, order, tradition and governing canons of the Anglican Church, and codified the breach between the Episcopal Church and World Anglican Communion.

ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold has defended the...