I normally don’t post things like this, but I think it’s an important reminder of how far off track we’ve come as a denomination. Hopefully, you can read through the polemic. (I don’t think the Presiding Bishop is the one left holding the bag on this one. The blame falls squarely on the General Convention and the wider leadership of our denomination. If anything, Bishop Curry has tried to demonstrate a different way forward regarding these issues.) Bishop Love stands accused of violating his ordination vows and as such, is in jeopardy of being defrocked. (This means he will no longer be a clergyman in the Episcopal Church. In a word, he gets fired.) And what has he done? The columnist writes: “Bishop Love stands accused of believing what most Christians – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, Evangelical, and indeed Anglican – believe, and have always believed, about sex and marriage. His crime, if one can call it that, is not to permit same-sex marriages in his diocese.”
Bishop Love’s trial has much larger ramifications for those of us in the Episcopal Church who hold to a biblical definition of marriage as espoused by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. If he is found in violation of his ordination vows, it will have implications for those who are currently clergy and those who take the oath to ‘conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church’.
Please pray for Bishop Love and the Diocese of Albany. Pray for the Episcopal Church. And pray for Christians everywhere who suffer for their convictions.