Members of St. John's Episcopal Church in Fallbrook, back in their old building after winning a legal fight with dissident parishioners, have picked an appropriate day to resume services there – Easter.
“It will be a resurrection Sunday for sure,” said the Right Rev. James Mathes, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego.
Mathes said he will lead the 10 a.m. service, which he expects will draw worshippers from throughout the county.
“This is a wonderful group of Christians who are gathering for Easter in their historical home,” he said. “I wouldn't miss it.”
Friday, April 10, 2009
New start in Fallbrook
From the San Diego Union Tribune:
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9 comments:
It is always good to be home
Is it any closer (than the Cathedral) to your place, IT? [Then again, the distance between "back in TEC" and "completely LGBT-affirming" may still be considerable, regrettably... :-/]
Happy Easter to BP, and you her tag-along, IT! ;-)
congratulations from Colorado Springs, you'd better have the folding chairs and some extra bulletins ready.
James
No, JCF, further away. Not just geographically; it's quite a conservative area up there! We actually hve a parish church very close to us. It is very nice and quite friendly. But there is something special about the Cathedral, its community and its ritual, that has hooked BP.
BP was EPiscopal for Good Friday (the rest of this week her RC folk choir is busy, and they rely on her contralto/tenor). So I was not a Catholic Widow last night. It was a very contemplative service. BP liked it. but alas for me tonight's vigil she will be Catholic.
OT (as usual!). T1:9 has posted the link to the Statement of the Iowa [Roman] Catholic bishops regarding the Iowa Supreme Court decision.
I find it a very curious document. It says what one would expect it to say, of course. But there's nothing whatsoever in it about religion, God, or the Bible in support of their position. It could have just as easily been promulgated by the Iowa Atheists Against Same-Sex Marriage.
I think the bit about "wisdom of thousands of years of human
history" would indicate a non-atheist origin. Admittedly not all atheists are the same but the above phrase would also justify following one of the long established religions and most atheists would be aware of this.
Yse, no doubt they are referring to the thousands of years in which women were property given by their fathers in contracts, or perhaps the polygamy of the old-testament, or perhaps the Taliban-esque style of women being sexually available to their husbands at all times. The fact is that modern marriage as we know it in concept is only a couple hundred years old if that.
IT
A contrasting approach was taken by the Episcopal bishop of Iowa -- A Pastoral Response to the Iowa State Supreme Court Ruling on Equal Marriage.
He is an increasing supporter of the rights of gay and lesbian people in the church. He thinks that that the state and church definitions of marriage now differ so that, under the current canonical and prayer book defintion of marriage, a priest cannot sign marriage licenses but couples should have a state official sign the license and then have the priest bless the couple. (Personally, I've thought for a long time that this ought to be the rule for everyone -- let the state do the legal thing and let the church do the religious thing.)
Yes,and the Vermont Bishop was explicitly supportive of gay marriage here. Importantly, both are echoing that civil marriage is not a church issue--and importantly, does not infringe on religious liberty.
Maggie Gallagher is really pushing this idea that allowing gays to marry attacks religious freedom. I like this bishop's argument that rather, it liberates the churches. I wish he would be as heard as Maggie is with NOM.
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