By Hilary White
RICHMOND, Virginia, August 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A move to depose 20 clergy by Episcopal Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia has been rebuffed as irrelevant by the ministers in question, who said that Lee has no authority over them. The group representing the clergy said, “This announcement from the Diocese of Virginia is like an employer trying to fire someone who has already quit.”
Lee said he was defrocking the ministers because they refused to adhere to the Episcopal Church’s newly adopted acceptance of homosexuality, and over differences in “theological interpretations”.
Dailypress.com quoted Rev. Jack Grubbs saying, “The reality is it doesn’t have much effect on us.” Grubbs is the rector of one of 19 Virginia churches that have split from the Episcopal Church and sought the oversight of more conservative Anglican bishops in Africa through the organisation CANA, a missionary branch of the Church of Nigeria.
A newly formed organisation, the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), to which the 20 clergy belong, called Lee’s move “divisive.”
“We are sorry that Bishop Lee would seek to make such a public announcement when the clergy are no longer under his jurisdiction. The clergy he seeks to depose include a bishop-elect in the Province of Uganda, as well as a number of other ordained men and women who have faithfully carried out their pastoral duties as priests in the Church,” said ADV Vice Chairman Jim Oakes.
Oakes quoted a decision by a meeting in February at Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania where the bishops of the Worldwide Anglican Communion declared the US Episcopal Church to be out of step with the rest of the Communion for its insistence on normalizing homosexuality. The bishops told the US and Canadian bishops to reform their views to adhere to traditional Christian understanding or be expelled.
The Worldwide Anglican Communion has been shaken to the breaking point since the US branch in 2003 approved the ordination of an active homosexual, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, at international meetings of bishops, clergy and laity a deep rift has been exposed in Anglicanism between traditional elements adhering to Christian doctrines, and the groups wanting to adopt the mores of postmodern secularism.
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Anglican Hierarchy ~ US Anglicans Have Seven Months to Shape up or Ship Out
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/feb/07022007.html