In the culture of the West, almost everything that marriage once brought together has now been split apart. Sex has been divorced from love, love from commitment, marriage from having children, and having children from responsibility for their care. --- Lord Rabbi Sacks of England

When Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, announced, "I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," he substituted a privation of the good for the good itself. This is a metaphysical travesty. I wonder if an alcoholic, as he ambled into a bar, would say, 'I'm proud to be an alcoholic and I consider alcoholism among the greatest gifts God has given me.' Of course, if he is a reformed alcoholic and his struggle has led him to a deep spiritual life, he could consider the privation from which he suffered a kind of good in the same way that Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "bless you, prison" about his horrible experiences in the Soviet Gulag. --- Robert R. Reilly

"The world system, that is, human life organized without reference to God, expresses the values of fallen humanity and reinforces and gives them social sanction. Thus people are blinded to their plight and trapped in their sins." --- Thomas A. Tarrants, III, Director of Ministry at the C.S. Lewis Institute

The son of PC speech is now called "Hate Speech," and it has taken on the force of law in many differing but exacting ways. Hate speech has made its appearance on the national stage as the main weapon in advancing sodomy as a form of marriage. --- Michael Voris

In the light of the clear teaching of the first two chapters of Genesis and John about God, creation, humanity, sin and salvation, the concept of "same sex marriage" simply does not fit. As Professor Robert Gagnon has pointed out, it would require an alternative creation narrative. --- Andrew Symes of Anglican Mainstream

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
www.virtueonline.org
June 5, 2015

And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the Irish referendum's huge majority for gay marriage, and the dancing: and Moses' alarm was palpable...

And he took a copy of the Pink Paper and, flourishing it, said, 'We have to stop and have a reality check, not move into denial of the realities.

'I appreciate how these naked revelers feel on this day. That they feel this is something that is enriching the way they live. I think it is a social revolution.

'We need to find a new language to connect with a whole generation of young people,' the prophet concluded; then, casting off his garments, Moses said, 'Hey, lead me to the coolest gay bar in the camp.'

Don't laugh. With a couple of adjustments for updated circumstances, I am quoting the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, almost verbatim. The archbishop was responding last Sunday to Irish people's endorsement of gay marriage by a margin of almost two to one. Thus writes gay atheist Matthew Parrish in The Spectator.

So how come a gay atheist gets it and Christians don't. Parrish went on to berate Christians. "Even as a (gay) atheist, I wince to see the philosophical mess that religious conservatives are making of their case. Is there nobody of any intellectual stature left in our English church, or the Roman church, to frame the argument against Christianity's slide into just going with the flow of social and cultural change?"

Of course, as a gay man, no one is going to call him homophobic. He gets a pass there, but he is right, nonetheless.

62 per cent in a referendum does not cause a sin in the eyes of God to cease to be a sin.

He writes, "Can't these Christians see that the moral basis of their faith cannot be sought in the pollsters' arithmetic? What has the Irish referendum shown us? It is that a majority of people in the Republic of Ireland in 2015 do not agree with their church's centuries-old doctrine that sexual relationships between two people of the same gender are a sin. Fine: we cannot doubt that finding. But can a preponderance of public opinion reverse the polarity between virtue and vice? Would it have occurred for a moment to Moses (let alone God) that he'd better defer to Moloch-worship because that's what most of the Israelites wanted to do?"

Another round of applause for Mr. Parrish.

*****

For almost ten years now, The Episcopal Church (USA) has had an out-of-control litigation budget. It is a scandal of ineffable magnitude. It must -- and hopefully soon will -- be brought to a halt, writes Canon lawyer Allan Haley.

The Episcopal Church (USA) has spent, and further committed (in its adopted budgets) to spend, a total of $42,675,466 on suing fellow Christians in the civil and ecclesiastical courts over the first eighteen years of this century. When one adds in the estimated additional amounts spent by individual dioceses on such litigation, the total amount exceeds Sixty Million Dollars, he says.

"Since September 2010, when I put up an analysis, based on ECUSA's monthly statements and their annual audited statements through 2009, I have kept track of how much ECUSA and its major dioceses has spent on attorneys' fees and other costs associated with all of the 90 or so lawsuits against former Episcopalians to which it (or one of its dioceses) has been a party. In 2010, it was only 60+ lawsuits but the Church continues to sue everyone who leaves it, whether the law is against it or not."

Haley says that ECUSA does not make it easy to discover the amounts it spends on litigation -- the leadership at 815 Second Avenue would obviously prefer that those who sit in the pews every Sunday and contribute their pledges not be aware of just how many millions have been squandered on ECUSA's scorched-earth litigation policy.

You can read his full report here. http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-is-ecusa-spending-on-lawsuits.html

It is a devastating indictment against a church that no longer believes in saving souls, but maintains an image of upwardly mobile, mostly white, middle class people who don't ask too many questions, who like a good show and are prepared to tolerate the intolerable in the name of inclusion and diversity.

*****

So where's Maryland Episcopal Bishop Eugene Sutton these days? He's been awfully quiet especially following the killing of a black man by a number of mostly white cops. Stung by an avalanche of bad publicity following the tragic death in police custody of Freddie Gray on April 19, the Baltimore police have retreated, booking half as many suspects as they did last year, say news reports.

The result: In the first month after Mr. Gray's death, 30 Baltimore homicides were recorded. Over Memorial Day weekend, despite the indictment of six police officers in Mr. Gray's death, 28 shootings left nine more dead. All black on black shootings.

So where is the Bishop Sutton's outrage over these senseless killings? Why has he not called a summit of Black leaders in Baltimore to address these needless murders? So, it's okay to go after six cops, but let multiple deaths go un-responded! Black privilege has its obligations, Bishop. Or does it?

*****

What does one do to raise money after one has turned Virginia Theological Seminary into a revisionist liberal multicultural TEC stronghold, and built a new $25 million dollar chapel after a mysterious fire caused by incense coals in a trash basket destroyed the old historic traditional chapel? Find the most conservative Republican you can stomach in one of the last conservative parishes and give her the Dean's Cross for Servant Leadership.

And so it came to pass that The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary, and the Rt. Rev, James Shand, chairman of the board of directors at VTS, awarded Mrs. Barbara Bush the Dean's Cross for Servant Leadership in Church and Society Award during a Mother's Day service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas.

One can be disappointed that many Republican Episcopalians have not left the Episcopal Church despite its questionable radical innovations. Pretending to be orthodox while entertaining one of America's premier Republican families is hubris piled on hubris.

*****

A trial scheduled for this week for former Maryland Episcopal bishop Heather Cook, charged in death of a bicyclist, has been postponed until September.

In the half-year since the bishop struck and killed a bicyclist on a suburban Maryland roadside, much has changed. A husband and father has been buried. Heather Cook has been charged with manslaughter and drunken driving and has been defrocked. The Episcopal Church has launched conversations about addiction and the process of choosing clergy.

But silence continues to surround Cook herself, a popular 58-year-old, raised in a prominent Baltimore church family, who has been in treatment for addiction since her Subaru struck Thomas Palermo on Dec. 27. She has said nothing publicly. Details of what happened that day, or in Cook's life in the months and years previously, have remained relatively thin.

Cook's silence continued Thursday in a Baltimore court when a judge agreed to Cook's request to postpone the trial until September, according to the office of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby. According to a Baltimore Sun tweet from the courtroom, Cook's attorney David Irwin said he had been making "the earliest of plea considerations."

Irwin said his client was driving the car that hit Palermo. A bicyclist near the accident scene reportedly tailed her severely damaged car before she returned to the scene.

*****

In the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane Bishop James E. Waggoner, Jr., 67, announced he is retiring. He has been in the job for 15 years. During that time the ASA for the diocese has gone 2,770 in 2003 down to 1,924 in 2013, clearly rescuing the perishing was not on his bucket list. The diocese will now search for a successor. One wonders at the present rate of decline if the diocese will be viable in 5 years. He says he'll stay on the job till a new bishop is called.

*****

According to the June issue of Anglican Montreal, The Rev. Donald Boisvert has been appointed as the new principal of the Montreal Diocesan College. Of course, it goes without saying that he is an out, proud and very gay man.

Boisvert is the author of "Out on Holy Ground" that includes this gem on phallic worship and the holiness of gay sex. One notes with interest that the usual reference to stable, long--term, committed relationships has been supplanted by the more accurate, if less edifying, unknowable anonymity:

"As the dominant masculine symbol, the phallus acquires many characteristics of the holy. This is not a particularly modern interpretation. Phallic worship is as old as human civilization, and perhaps as controversial today as it was in the past. It has always been transgressive, associated with disorder and excess, with riotous freedom and wanton sex. .... I call gay sex "holy sex" because it is centered on one of the primal symbols of the natural world, that of male regenerative power. The rites of gay sex call forth and celebrate this power, particularly in its unknown and unknowable anonymity. Gay men are the worshippers paying homage to the god who stands erect and omnific, ever silent and distant."

That is until you get HIV/AIDS and "anonymity" flies out the window while a whole bunch of straight people take care of you as you breathe your last.

As one Canadian blogger commented, "it is a paradigm of contemporary Western Anglicanism."

The June issue of the Quebec Diocesan Gazette also featured an art sculpture of a crucified woman. And you wonder why the Anglican Church of Canada is in BIG trouble.

*****

Female Priests Propose a Major Change to the Way God Is Referenced. There's a new debate brewing within the Church of England as a group of female priests are asking that God be referred to as "she" as well as "he" in an effort to battle sexism -- a proposal that has sparked a fair bit of controversy.

The main argument that the female priests use to defend their pronoun proposal is that exclusively using "he" creates an environment in which it appears as though the Almighty is closer to men than to women, the Daily Mail reported.

Some female priests have already stopped using male pronouns altogether when speaking about God -- something they believe will lead to increased equality among the sexes.

"When we use only male language for God we reinforce the idea that God is like a man and, in doing so, suggest that men are therefore more like God than women," the Rev. Emma Percy, chaplain of Trinity College, in Oxford, United Kingdom, told the Sunday Times. "This means that women can see themselves as less holy and less able to represent Christ in the world."

She continued, "If we take seriously the idea that men and women are made in the image of God, both male and female language should be used."

In a recent speech titled, "Women Bishops: What Difference Does it Make?" Cotton said that sexism continues in the Church of England and that women serving as bishops will make a key difference "only if God is she as often as she is he -- because this is such a formative aspect of our church life, and a real bastion of sexism."

Not everyone is on board: Ann Widdecombe, an author and former conservative politician who left the Church of England after female priests were admitted, called the proposal the "work of a few lunatics," according to the Daily Mail.

This is the same church that won't be around a generation from now, says former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. And you wonder why.

*****

In a letter to the editor of the Irish Times regarding the recent yes to marriage equality referendum in Ireland, The Very Rev. Tom Gordon Dean of Leighlin, Co Carlow who is in a civil partnership had a letter published in the press calling for a north/south split. This is a significant change in rhetoric/narrative away from 'unity' and 'broad'.

Here is what he said in summary, "During the marriage referendum, the stance of the Church of Ireland bishops of Cashel and Cork, Michael Burrows and Paul Colton, was alone among senior church leaders in giving a Christian perspective to the Yes argument. As is now clear, their voices authentically resonated with the overwhelming majority who voted Yes. Included in that majority are churchgoers with deeply held Christian values, many of whom are members of the Church of Ireland.

And yet the formal stance of the Church of Ireland and the majority of its bishops is that of an exclusively traditionalist view of human sexuality. This was underlined in the resolution passed at the 2012 general synod, which was in the aftermath of my entering into a civil partnership with my partner of over 20 years. As a response to the outcome of the last Friday's referendum, this traditionalist view has now been restated by the house of bishops in what many regard as a crude and graceless press release.

In the light of the referendum, there can be no doubt that the Church of Ireland faces a crisis. With dramatically declining numbers, its soul in recent years has been captivated by a conservative agenda which we now know to have little resonance in this State, perhaps even among its own adherents.
If the Church of Ireland in the Republic is to survive, part of its own "reality check" will be to address the cul de sac into which it has been led by a highly vocal element within it. In this regard, it may be time for the Church of Ireland in the Republic to reflect on the seismic differences which now exist between its southern and northern constituencies.

*****

Robert Sherwood Morse, the retired Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Christ The King, died peacefully, at age 91, on Thursday, May 28 at 2:25 a.m. in his house in Berkeley. His wife, Nancy Morse, and their daughter, Nina Gladish, were at his bedside. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer.

You can read more here:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sfgate/obituary.aspx?pid=174986893#sthash.IB2a1Oex.dpuf

*****

A trial that pits a $340 million left-wing group against a small Jewish non-profit ministry, aimed at helping those with unwanted same-sex desires, could result in the closing of all counseling services in New Jersey.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is using New Jersey's strong Consumer Protection Act to sue a group called Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) that refers men and women to psychological counselors working in the field known as "sexual orientation change efforts."

SPLC claims JONAH defrauded four men by telling them their same-sex desires could be treated and they could become purely or largely heterosexual. The case that will be heard over the next month in Superior Court for Hudson County, New Jersey, focuses on the claims of four men who voluntarily approached JONAH to help them with unwanted same-sex attraction. None of them self-identified as gay at the time and each wanted the attractions to end. JONAH, which works from what it calls "Torah values," referred the men to counselors who treated them.

SPLC is now claiming that JONAH made promises that do not comport with scientific findings about the permanence and changeability of homosexuality and that the treatment they underwent was odd. SPLC also claims that homosexual desires do not need to be "cured" and that it's impossible, anyway. All this adds up to consumer fraud, according to the suit that has been going on since 2012.

JONAH founder Arthur Goldberg and his colleagues, along with many noted psychiatrists, hold that same-sex desire is a result of stunted emotional growth that can be treated and overcome. They also see it as counter to the will of God and therefore something incumbent on religious believers to overcome.

I have met Arthur and know of his ministry. His colleagues range from Catholic to Jehovah's Witnesses so this is not primarily about religion, though Arthur uses the Torah as part of his therapy. It will be a terrible blow if they are closed down. No one who goes through reparative therapy is coerced in any way shape or form. If an alcoholic can admit that he/she has a problem, why can't a homosexual? There is no known genetic basis for homosexuality and people can change, it happens all the time.

If you would like to help in their defense fund you can make a payment here: http://jonahweb.org/payment.php

Religious freedom is on trial in New Jersey.

*****

Passionate but peaceful protesters gathered outside St. George's Anglican Church in downtown Guelph, Ontario, last Sunday morning to send a message to the church's bishop.

As parishioners filed into the Woolwich Street church, roughly 25 members of two south end community groups handed out literature and marched on the sidewalk with signs critical of Bishop Michael Bird of the Anglican Diocese of Niagara.

While the protesters made it clear they have no issue with St. George's Church itself, they felt it was another way to try to pressure Bishop Bird to meet with them and discuss the sale of property on Kortright Road that is the home of the former St. Matthias Anglican Church.

And while the behaviour was cordial and polite, the signs and words of the protesters were a little more barbed.

"I think the bishop should meet with the people. Jesus met with everybody, sinners and non-sinners, so why would the bishop not meet with the people," said Bruce Taylor of Citizens for Community action.

The Bishop was not at Sunday's service.

*****

A scurrilous report, published by a member of the gay Anglican organization Changing Attitude, suggested this week that Forward in Faith UK has changed its mind about homosexuality. Someone calling themselves Keith Rogers wrote saying that Forward in Faith UK has apparently changed its official view on the subject. "This is ironic -- as we've all known for many years that FIF-UK has a huge contingent of actively gay priests in its ranks -- yet officially regarded homosexuality as a sin. Now Bishop Jonathan Baker has gone along with the majority view of the Pilling report and as editor of the FIF magazine "New Directions" endorses blessings of gay unions. This move could scuttle the unholy alliance of evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics."

The Rev. Dr. Colin Podmore, Director of the Anglo-Catholic Forward in Faith UK movement, says the story is not true and that his organization has not dropped its opposition to same-sex marriage. It was alleged that the June edition of New Directions contained an endorsement of the Pilling Report which recognized same sex unions.

He stated:
1. The policy-making Council of Forward in Faith has not discussed any proposal that FiF should endorse "same-sex blessings", and I am not aware of any proposal that it should do so.
2. The Editorial in the forthcoming June edition of New Directions does not touch in any way on the issues of homosexuality, "same-sex blessings" or "equal marriage".
3. "Articles are published in New Directions because they are thought likely to be of interest to readers. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or those of Forward in Faith" -- and indeed we regularly include articles by people who are not members of FiF and do not agree with us.
4. There is no article in the forthcoming June edition of New Directions that in any way addresses these issues.

"I think the lesson is not to believe everything one reads on the Facebook page of Changing Attitude -- if indeed one feels moved to read it at all!" Dr. Podmore observed.

*****

Take a look at this list of countries: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg, and Ireland. In all of them, the Roman Catholic Church has more adherents, at least nominally, than any other religious denomination.

All of them belong to the vanguard of 20 nations that have decided to make same-sex marriage legal. In fact, countries with a Catholic majority or plurality make up half of those where two men or two women can now wed or will soon be able to.

Ireland, obviously, is the freshest addition to the list. It's also, in some ways, the most remarkable one. It's the first country to approve same-sex marriage by a popular referendum. The margin wasn't even close. About 62 percent of voters embraced marriage equality. Irish voters nonetheless rejected the church's formal opposition to same-sex marriage. This act of defiance was described, accurately, as an illustration of church leaders' loosening grip on the country.

But in falling out of line with the Vatican, Irish people are actually falling in line with their Catholic counterparts in other Western countries, including the United States.

They aren't sloughing off their Catholicism -- not exactly, not entirely. An overwhelming majority of them still identify as Catholic. But they're incorporating religion into their lives in a manner less rooted in Rome.

*****

The Church of England is "one generation away from extinction" after a dramatic loss of followers. Meantime, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the UK.

The Church of England has lost nearly two million followers in the last two years and is on the brink of "extinction", it has been warned. The number of people in the UK who describe their beliefs as being Church of England or Anglican dropped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent between 2012 and 2014 -- a loss of around 1.7 million followers. The number of Anglicans in Britain is now thought to stand at around 8.6 million.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has warned that unless urgent action is taken, the Church is just "one generation away from extinction."

The figures were revealed as part of the NatCen's British Social Attitudes Survey, the UK's longest running poll of public opinion.

Over the same period, the poll found that the number of Muslims in Britain grew by close to a million making it the fastest growing religion in the UK. 4.7 per cent of Britons now describe themselves as Muslim, amounting to 2.4 million.

When asked about their religious belief, the survey found that the most common response was having no religion. 49 per cent of people do not describe themselves as having any belief.

*****

A church in Indiana that claims to worship marijuana has officially been granted tax-exempt status from the IRS. The First Church of Cannabis has now been recognized as a religious non-profit, according to Fox News.

59-year-old Bill Levin, who said his goal is to smoke in fellowship with other disciples, founded the church. The marijuana church does not yet have a meeting space, but plans to hold its first service on July 1, the day that Indiana's religious freedom law takes effect.

According to the church's Go Fund Me page, the church stands for love and faith; cannabis is its "sacrament." No word yet on whether TEC's ecumenical arm will reach out to them.

*****

CORRECTION. The Diocese of Central Pennsylvania has a new bishop. She is Bishop-Elect Audrey Scanlan. Canon Scanlan was elected Bishop on March 14. VOL incorrectly reported that it was the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe. We regret the error.

*****

The ongoing support VOL receives is very gratifying to us. We are humbled by those who give to us so unstintingly.

While we are not overflowing with riches, we are able to pay our bills and work the long hours to bring you the unvarnished news you won't read anywhere else.

Team VOL will head out the door to Salt Lake City and General Convention later this month; I will have two other reporters, my trusty Texas-based researcher, and Colorado copy-on editor to keep me humble. Later in July, I will be attending the International Catholic Conference of Anglicans in Ft. Worth, Texas.

We really do appreciate your support. If you can consider a donation we would be most grateful. You can write us a tax-deductible check and send it to:

VIRTUEONLINE
570 Twin Lakes Rd
P.O. Box 111
Shohola, PA 18458

Or you can make a contribution through VOL's PAYPAL link here: http://www.virtueonline.org/support-vol/

Thank you for your support.

In Christ,

David