The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34 In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit.

“Human beings have a long history of discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even evil.  That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and often, war.  Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept apart or on the margins of human communities.”  Just as the forces of historical inevitability led to the ending of industrial slavery, so too would the march of progress lead to a change in attitude towards homosexuality, she argued.

She concluded her sermon by stating that we are not justified by our faith but by our respect for diversity.

“Looking for the reflection of God’s glory all around us means changing our lenses, or letting the scales on our eyes fall away.  That kind of change isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s the only road to the kingdom of God.”

Salvation comes not from being cleansed of our sins by the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, but through the divinization of humanity through the work of the human will. “We are here, among all the other creatures of God’s creation, to be transformed into the glory intended from the beginning...  Celebrate that difference – for it’s necessary for the healing of this world – and know that the wholeness we so crave lies in recognizing the glory of God’s creative invitation.  God among us in human form is the most glorious act we know.”

"Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it.  It gets him thrown in prison.  That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that [the slave girl], too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does..."

Salvation is a cosmic act about all creation “not simply a few human beings,” according to the Episcopal Church’s top bishop. Speaking April 21 at the Washington National Cathedral, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori gave an Earth Day sermon on becoming “effective shepherds and pasture tenders for the whole creation” but seemed to downplay mankind’s preeminent position in creation, placing humanity on equal footing with microbes.

The Presiding Bishop’s sermon illustrated the interconnectedness of all life with an examination of how humans coexist with bacteria.

“Microbes are part of us, in a very real sense our intimate neighbors or members, and the task is to learn how to manage the system for better health as a whole and in all its parts,” Jefferts Schori proposed.

“This work is about consciousness of our connection to the whole, and tender care of the other parts of that whole,” Jefferts Schori intoned. “It is simply another form of loving our neighbor as ourselves, for the neighbor is actually part of each one of us.”

During the processional hymn “God the sculptor of the mountains” congregants sang of “God the potter of the land: you are womb of all creation.”

If Katherine Schori is any example of what women do as leaders, the RCs and Orthodox won’t be ordaining women for another hundred years. Taking a declining church and pushing it even further left (as in “off the cliff”) is hardly a star in any leader’s crown. Want to bet that Christians in the next century won’t even know the name of this woman who doesn’t believe in salvation but does believe that landfills and carbon footprints are core concerns of the faith?

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Schori apparently doesn't comprehend that a demonic confession is not to be confused with faith freely given. Nor does she appreciate the irony of the story—an irony that echoes similar situations found in the Gospels: the demons acknowledge the true identity of Christ and his followers, but those who are intent on clinging to their power and position refuse to hear the message preached and, in fact, attack those proclaiming the kingdom. As Jesus said: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Mt 12:28).

It makes much more sense to recognize that Paul knew that once he cast out the demon, he would be subjected to persecution or worse, and so he waited as long as could to confront the demon. He was willing to be attacked and imprisoned for confronting evil, for standing up to spiritual and temporal powers that rejected the Gospel, and for freeing a slave girl from both demonic and human oppression. Alas, Schori's attachment to the ideology of the present age and the fads of political correctness blind her to what should be obvious to someone professing to be a Christian.

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The look on her face will be epic and horrible when she stands before the King of Kings.

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Has the Episcopal church said anything about her?

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So there is no body in the Episcopalean church that says "You are preaching against our doctrine - change your ways or you're gone"?
 

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The article includes a detailed account of her criticism of St Paul, which is brazen in its depravity, literally saying that the Apostle deserved to be thrown in prison for preaching a non-inclusive faith.

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Wow. I didn't realize that the religion was run by committee.
Kind of makes me glad that us Catholics have those old fogeys in the Vatican to keep us in line and not fall prey to this kind of nonsense.    

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So there is no body in the Episcopalean church that says "You are preaching against our doctrine - change your ways or you're gone"?
 

"All these people brought Christianity to us, but now the church is growing here [in Africa] like wildfire, it's spreading everywhere, while the church in England is withering, the church in the States is going completely, and there has been a cry, 'Why don't you come? You should have come here a long time ago to evangelize,' " said Archbishop Bernard A. Malango, the Anglican primate of Central Africa. "We need to send missionaries, even to Britain; we need to send missionaries to the United States, and we need to send missionaries to Canada, because those who brought the church here have lost what their intention was, and the same Bible they brought to us is being misinterpreted. We find it very odd."

Malango was one of seven Anglican primates, as the archbishops of regional provinces of the Anglican Communion are called, who gathered in Nairobi last Thursday to consecrate as bishops of the Anglican Church of Kenya two former Episcopal priests, including William L. Murdoch of Massachusetts. Then, many of those same primates, from the developing nations of the Southern Hemisphere, went to Kampala on Sunday to consecrate a third American as a bishop of Uganda.

The significance of the consecrations is hotly debated. Episcopal Church officials and their defenders say that most Episcopalians are comfortable with their church's theological direction, and that only a small fraction of Episcopal congregations - 45 of 7,500 - have departed over the controversy. Some liberals go further, saying that the Global South primates are being manipulated and used by American right-wingers who are bent on creating a schism and are exploiting unease over homosexuality to drive a wedge between liberals and conservative Episcopalians. And some liberals argue that the momentum for schism has diminished since 2003, when the uproar ensued over the Episcopal Church's approval of V. Gene Robinson, a gay priest living with a man in a long-term relationship, as the bishop of New Hampshire.

Just before Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori convened delegates of the remaining Episcopal Church parishes and missions at a special convention Jan. 26, the breakaway group was granted a temporary injunction banning the remaining Episcopalians from using the name of the diocese. That injunction remains in effect.

The order by Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein forced local Episcopalians to temporarily adopt a working name for their diocese so they could conduct business without violating the injunction. At their special convention they chose the name “The Episcopal Church in South Carolina” to use until the issue can be resolved.

The lawsuit by Lawrence and counterclaims by the Episcopal Church and the continuing Episcopalians followed a series of actions in later 2012 that resulted in the Lawrence-led group leaving the Episcopal Church.

In December, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she and her Council of Advice agreed Lawrence had renounced his orders by way of his actions and statements by him in the fall of 2012.

[The] “schismatics” aren’t those who feel compelled to separate. Those who fracture the Church are those who have repeatedly tested the patience and good will of the Church by ignoring canons, giving a pass (if not a blessing) to anti-Nicene, Christ denying teachings, and those who have elevated their own spiritual journey above the established teachings of the Church (again found in canons). Just look at a recent small sample of this schismatic behavior. Bishop Spong’s Newark diocese declined about 40% during his tenure, but he was invited by a Virginia diocese to preach at a Good Friday Service, during which time he treated the listener to such personal revelations as how Thomas and Nathaniel (Bartholomew) were likely mythical characters who “may have no more reality than Jane Eyre or Harry Potter.” Or how about the Bishop of Washington DC who recently blogged about the Resurrection that:
“To say that resurrection is essential doesn’t mean that if someone were to discover a tomb with Jesus’ remains in it that the entire enterprise would come crashing down. The truth is that we don’t know what happened to Jesus after his death, anymore than we can know what will happen to us”.
Facts are hostile witnesses; and today’s new media will not cover these types of leaders well for very long. Now, who is the schismatic: the one who holds the faith as taught by this Church and wants to retain the work of their own labor (property), or the leaders who wield control to shape a Church led by their own personal revelations who receive no restraint or discipline from their own colleagues?