"Who's Next?"

Am taking a brief hiatus from my retreat with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to visit the Sacred Shrine of Starbuck's and a T-Mobile link to post this press release issued earlier today by Integrity on the Panel of Reference Report issued yesterday. Further commentary will wait til I'm back in the office on Friday but for now, pray for the church.

Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it it in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of the one who died and rose again, Jesus Christ your son our Lord.

INTEGRITY PRESS RELEASE:
STANDS WITH EPISCOPAL WOMEN DISMAYED BY PANEL OF REFERENCE REPORT

"Who's Next?"
January 9, 2007

Because Integrity is committed to the full inclusion of all the baptized in the body of Christ, it stands in solidarity with the distress expressed by the Episcopal Women's Caucus at the Diocese of the Fort Worth report issued yesterday by the Panel of Reference.

The Reverend Susan Russell, President of Integrity said, "This confirms what Integrity has long maintained--that scapegoating of gay and lesbian vocations and relationships is part of a wider agenda of discrimination and is antithetical to the Gospel message of Jesus. We believe that excluding a percentage of the baptized from a percentage of the sacraments grieves the heart of God. Whether that exclusion is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity, we believe it misses the mark of God's will for God's church. Therefore we do not accept discrimination as a valid theological position; rather we name it as sin."

Russell continued, "Substitute the word 'homosexuals' for each instance of 'women' in the report and the dovetailing of these efforts is clear to anyone familiar with the attacks on LGBT people in the church. The real question now is who is next? It's is not only impossible to predict just how>far such efforts to 'purge' the church will try to go, it is impossible to ignore that such actions are patently contrary to the comprehensiveness of classical Anglicanism."