More Episcopal congregations flee Liberalized denomination

From the Associated Press...

Two of the most prominent Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival denomination in the U.S. 

Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the church. 

Truro rector Martyn Minns was consecrated a bishop by the Church of Nigeria earlier this year to lead Akinola's Convocation of Anglicans in North America.... 

Four other Virginia parishes have left, and eight more are voting or will vote soon whether to follow suit, according to the Virginia diocese. None is as eminent as Truro and Falls Church, however. 

A lengthy and expensive legal fight is expected over those historic church properties, which are worth millions of dollars. "We fully intend to assert the church's canonical and legal rights over these properties," Lee said in a news release, calling it a "sad day for the church."

As I've pointed out before, one of the distinctions denominations provide is organizational structure. The top down structure used by the Episcopal church, as well as the Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and many others, provide some strength for smaller churches as funding is pooled, but, as can be seen in this case, weakens the ability of the local congregation to assert independence from regional or national leadership that abandons acceptable Christian practices. Denominations that use a "Congregationalist" structure, (from the bottom up) would be Southern Baptists, Evangelical Free, Church of Christ (the conservative one, not the Liberal one that keeps putting out the offensive commercials) to name a few. When Liberals attempted to wrest the Southern Baptist Convention away from Conservatives a while back, they had the problem of not being able to control the levels of authority (national, state, county, local) because they each were autonomous, and derived power from the smaller groups they were made up of. Even in states where they were able to do the most damage, like Texas, they still couldn't control local congregations or county associations, because the power came from the bottom up, not the top down. Ultimately they lost, and left to create their own Liberal version of the SBC, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

We may see a move toward a more Congregationalist organizational structure within some parts of the Anglican Communion as Liberals within the Episcopal denomination exploit the top-down power structure of the denomination to wreak vengeance on local congregations that refuse to submit to the authority of unrepentant sodomites posing as bishops and priests.

Posted by Danny Carlton at December 18, 2006 5:38 AM