Eight Congregations Split from Episcopal Church in Northern Virginia

Causation or Correlation? Homosexuals are taking over the leadership of the Episcopal Church. And the main stream church is losing membership.

Rodney Stark in The Victory of Reason reminds us that the Episcopal Church lost 55% of its membership from 1960 to 2000.

Gary Bauer emails,

For the Episcopal Church, the breaking point was the 2003 ordination of an open homosexual as a bishop and the willingness of other church leaders to embrace same-sex “marriage.” For those who believe in the church’s historical teachings on human sexuality, teachings firmly rooted in the Scriptures, this was a bridge too far, and it set in motion what appears to be a major schism within the church.

The Reverend John Yates, rector of the 275-year-old Falls Church, told his congregation, “This whole situation isn’t about us. It’s about the next generation and the next and the next. … For the sake of the children, we must be faithful to Christ.”

The Yoest’s visiting Truro Episcopal Church December 2005

Mainstream churches, like Mainstream media are declining and dying. But not conservative churches such as the Presbyterian Church of America. Of which we are members, of course.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Karl Rove mentioned in off the record remarks heard by Your Business Blogger, that he read and recommends Rodney Stark’s book. Which would be another reason liberals will hate it. And normal people will love it.

See the Washington Post.

More on Rodney Stark at the jump — he’s proof that something good can come out of the University of California, Berkeley.

From notconformedthough,

In Western culture today it is all too common for Christians to be marginalized and looked down upon as being “ignorant”. We are often painted as being against progress, science and cultural arts. Obviously nothing could be further from the truth, but that has not changed the world’s perception of us. This book, though, helps the discerning reader understand that it is only through the Christian faith that such progress is even possible. This is a message the world needs to hear and understand. Rodney Stark does a great job presenting it clearly and thoroughly, covering all of the different angles in painstaking detail. Indeed, I only wish other Christians understood their heritage and legacy like Stark does.

and points us to this memorable Stark quote,

To sum up: the rise of the West was based on four primary victories of reason. The first was the development of faith in progress within Christian theology. The second victory was the way that faith in progress translated into technical and organizational innovations, many of them fostered by monastic estates. The third was that, thanks to Christian theology, reason informed both political philosophy and practice to the extent that responsive states, sustaining a substantial degree of personal freedom, appeared in medieval Europe. The final victory involved the application of reason to commerce, resulting in the development of capitalism within the safe havens provided by responsive states. These were the victories by which the West was won.