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FLORIDA: Orthodox Vicar Blasts Howard in "Word from the Bishop" statement
by Claudia Beth Cluff Kalis
December 4, 2005
Dear Bishop Howard,
I have read with a certain interest your "word from the bishop" which appeared in the November Diocesan. You state, upfront, that you "want your people to have the true facts directly from you." Immediately after declaring your intention to set the facts straight, you make a statement that is absolutely NOT true.
You write: It saddens me that what divides some of us is not the theological truths of our faith, but rather the identity of those with whom we are associating." This is NOT a true fact. In fact, it is disturbingly dishonest and you are as well aware of this as those of us who have departed and those who are planning to depart. You know as well as anyone else, that the innovations of the ECUSA have called into question whether there are not indeed many who have denied the faith.
The FACT is that our divisions are nothing but theological. The FACT is that Holy Scripture is adamant throughout, from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation, that those who profess Jesus are to take up the cross and follow HIM and HIM alone, living sacrificial lives and demonstrating our adherence through obedience to His word.
Scripture is repeatedly clear that we cannot, must not, be in fellowship with other gods and/or with those who worship other Gods. It is clear throughout the world and virtually all of Christendom that the ECUSA is worshipping a very different god than the One God and Father of all revealed through HIS word.
The Israelites did not alone fall into disfavor because they ceased to worship Yahweh, but because they embraced other gods in addition to Yahweh. Oh yes. Those within the ECUSA who are orthodox believers but are willing to flirt with other gods are compromising the very salvation of God's people. Time and again, the Lord warns His people of the dangers of accommodating other gods, false teachers, false teachings.
In FACT, such association inspires God's wrath and even today places our very salvation on the line.
Secondly, it is the ECUSA that has departed from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith to begin a new church of another denomination which has a greater semblance to Unitarianism and secular humanism than to Christianity.
ECUSA is in impaired and/or broken communion with much of the Anglican world. Those of us who long to maintain our adherence to Anglicanism are not establishing "another denomination," we are solidifying our adherence to the denomination from which the ECUSA is resolving to depart.
You have misrepresented the truth as fact to your people. May God have mercy upon you and us all.
--The Rev. Claudia Kalis is the former Vicar of St. Bartholomew's, High Springs. She was deposed by Bishop John Howard and received as priest in good standing by The Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti, Diocese of Recife starting Anglican Fellowship - High Springs.
