Bishop Jack Iker: What it truly means to ‘remain Episcopal’

In bold caps the headline of the e-mail message that I received some weeks ago cried out to me:

“REMAIN EPISCOPAL.” Eagerly I began to read on, hoping it might be from someone who, like our own diocese, wants to remain faithful to the historic faith and order of The Episcopal Church as she originally received it, faithful to the beliefs and practices of The Episcopal Church as we once knew it, deeply rooted in the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer. I hoped that it would follow upon the declaration of our own diocese that we will continue to be what we have always been, believe what we have always believed, and do what we have always done.

But my hopes were dashed when I discovered that this was not at all what the sender of the e-mail had in mind. Instead, the author and those he represents were quite clear that they want The Episcopal Church to change into something it has never been. They support all the changes that the revisionists have been making in our Church over the past 30 years and are eager for more. In reality, they favor updating The Episcopal Church to make it more acceptable to popular norms and contemporary times, rather than having it remain faithful to the historic faith and practice of the ancient catholic church. Instead of wanting to remain Episcopal, what they really want is to “remain under the authority of the General Convention church,” no matter what – even when it violates the teachings of the Bible and happily changes the Biblical teaching on sexual morality. In our liturgy they want to get rid of those masculine images for God – like Father and Lord and King – and replace them with inclusive language images that revise the biblical revelation. Far from wanting to “Remain Episcopal” and to be loyal to the church we have known and loved and served over the ages, what they are striving for is a new, improved, and up-to-date version of The Episcopal Church.

The revisionists, like those represented by the e-mail I received, are clearly in control of this new Episcopal Church, and there seems little hope of reform. Not to be deterred nor turned back from their agenda, they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the church’s unity in order to achieve their goals. If we should continue a formal relationship with the New Episcopal Church, our diocese will ultimately be destroyed, and we will be no different than the rest of this new church. We must resist the changes being thrust upon us in order to remain truly Episcopal. We must separate – we must realign, in order to remain orthodox.

We shall continue to stand for the truth and fight the good fight with all the saints of old. As Hymn 287, “For All the Saints,” puts it so well:

And when the strife is fierce, the war-fare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.

Let us remain brave and strong in the Lord!

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
link