Open Letter Calls on ECUSA Clergy to Repent

I was forwarded the following letter from a Reformed Episcopal minister to his ECUSA (Episcopal Church in the United States) counterpart in the same city.

Dear _______,

I watched via the Internet and news broadcasts the General Convention of ECUSA with great interest.  I am very sorry for the results.

Several of the resolutions that passed in Columbus will impair our fellowship.  Specifically, those resolutions calling the Holy Scriptures anti-Jewish, anti-women, and oppressive of people by their race, class gender, and sexuality.  Are they?  If the Scriptures cannot be seen as the rule by which Christians judge their actions, then what is the alternative ethically, theologically, personally?

Then, the failure to heed the Primates and their pastoral call to repentance, and refusing the meet the demands of the Windsor Report.  Isn’t this rebellion?  Why should your parishes listen to you or your Presiding Bishop?  Doesn’t this make ECUSA little more than well-dressed Baptists, or worse?

But most importantly, ECUSA’s rejection of Jesus Christ in His unique and exclusive claims of salvation (Acts 4:12?).  And, refusing to affirm His substitutionary atonement on the cross for us. (Isa. 53?)  And, refusing to affirm the responsibility of the Church to evangelize in Jesus’ name.  It seems that ECUSA was seeking it’s own Mars Hill, and it’s own altar to the Unknown God, unlike St. Paul.

While I would enjoy discussing General Convention with you, your church has taken a position like Peter by the fire, prior the crucifixion; of denial of the Christ.  Such good could have come from our Christian fellowship.  I am, as I said at the beginning, sorry.  For now, following the Primates in repentance seems the wisest course.

Your friend and brother,

________

American Episcopals and Presbyterians Dump Christianity

In the early 1980’s, Steve Taylor blew the doors off the Christian music world with his six-song album I Want to Be a Clone. One of the tracks on this release was Whatever Happened to Sin?

I heard the reverend say
“gay is probably normal in the Good Lord’s sight
what’s to be debated? Jesus never stated what’s right”
I’m no theology nut, but the reverend may be a little confused
for if the Lord don’t care and he chooses to ignore-ah
tell it to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
Call it just an alternate lifestyle, huh? morality lies within
consciences are restin’ please repeat the question again

whatever happened to sin?

I often hearken back to the lyrics of this song when I witness the hypocrisy and heresy that were on display this last weekend by the both the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Churches.

Each group in their own way extended their middle finger to God, Holy Scripture, Orthodox Christianity and many of their parishioners. Each group, if they hadn’t already, formally broke with being identified as “Christian”.

Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender. 

By embracing homosexuality and female clergy Americas largest Episcopal group has denied both the nature of sin and the Authority of Holy Scripture. In effect the Episcopal Church has rejected any pretense of being “Christian”. They are now just another heretical sect. They follow their own lusts and have followed after other gods made in their own image. They are modern Samaritans.

The Anglican Communion is now left with no choice but to turn the ECUSA group over to Satan in hope that God’s judgment will lead to repentance.

The Presbyterian Church has chosen a similar fate. They have decided to give the doctrine of the Trinity a politically correct makeover that formally makes them a heretical group that is no longer “Christian”.

The divine Trinity _ “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” _ could also be known as “Mother, Child and Womb” or “Rock, Redeemer, Friend” at some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) services under an action Monday by the church’s national assembly.

Besides “Mother, Child and Womb” and “Rock, Redeemer, Friend,” proposed Trinity options drawn from biblical material include:
_ “Lover, Beloved, Love”
_ “Creator, Savior, Sanctifier”
_ “King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love.”

Lest you think I am being too harsh, you are welcome to read the Athanasian Creed, which appears below in its entirety. Along with the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, these Creeds comprise the backbone of Christianity. To reject these Creeds is to reject Christianity.

The Athanasian Creed

Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all else, hold to the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not keep this faith pure in all points will certainly perish forever.

Now this is the true Christian faith: We worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God, without mixing the persons or dividing the divine being. For each person—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—is distinct, but the deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory and coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, so is the Son, and so is the Holy Spirit.

The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three who are eternal, but there is one who is eternal, just as they are not three who are uncreated, nor three who are infinite, but there is one who is uncreated and one who is infinite.

In the same way the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty. And yet they are not three who are almighty, but there is one who is almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord; yet they are not three Lords, but one Lord.

For just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually to be God and Lord, so the true Christian faith forbids us to speak of three Gods or three Lords. The Father is neither made not created, nor begotten of anyone. The Son is neither made nor created, but is begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And within this Trinity none comes before or after; none is greater or inferior, but all three persons are coequal and coeternal, so that in every way, as stated before, all three persons are to be worshiped as one God and one God worshiped as three persons. Whoever wishes to be saved must have this conviction of the Trinity.

It is furthermore necessary for eternal salvation truly to believe that our Lord Jesus Christ also took on human flesh. Now this is the true Christian faith: We believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and Man. He is God, eternally begotten from the nature of the Father, and he is man, born in time from the nature of his mother, fully God, fully man, with rational soul and human flesh, equal to the Father, as to his deity, less than the Father, as to his humanity; and though he is both God and Man, Christ is not two persons but one, one, not by changing the deity into flesh, but by taking the humanity into God; one, indeed, not by mixture of the natures, but by unity in one person.

For just as the reasonable soul and flesh are one human being, so God and man are one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, and from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will rise again with their own bodies to answer for their personal deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, but those who have done evil will go into everlasting fire.

This is the true Christian Faith. Whoever does not faithfully and firmly believe this cannot be saved.

Crazy News Week

This Week has been a real wonder.

God is given a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Facing the Giants is too evangelical for a “G” rating.

The head terrorist in Iraq is sent straight to Hell by the US military.

Democrats in the US Senate proved once again that their strength is in their perversity as only one could vote in favor of traditional marriage and only because he is up for re-election this year.

In Tuesday’s Primary Election we saw Rob “Meathead” Reiner and his Socialist proposal for universal pre-school get soundly rejected even after a 23 million dollar campaign of taxpayer money on its behalf.

The “Greek Mafia” and Organized Labor spanked Steve Westley and gave us another stereotypical liberal to run as fodder for the Terminator in Novembers General election.

Matt Rexroad places first in Yolo County Supervisor’s race with less than 2,300 votes. Most people running for Republican Central Committee in Sacramento County got better vote totals than Rexroad did in his Yolo County race. Plus County Clerk, Freddie Oakley managed to hose the results on election night and she gets rewarded for another four years after running unopposed.

Craig DeLuz ran a slate for Republican Central Committee in Sacramento and had mixed results. Had the slate been a major factor in the outcome, surely Craig would be one of the winners; especially after his previous campaigns for other offices. Instead he places fifth in District 1.

Support the Platform Slate results from Sacramento County Elections

Bishop James West

Bishop James Cortez West Sr.
January 28, 1944 – May 28, 2006

Bp. James West collapsed prior to leaving for church on Sunday morning. Despite the noble efforts of the EMT’s, they were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced by the doctors at the hospital. He was the Ordinary of the Diocese of the Southeast, and lived in Summerville, SC. He is survived by his wife Miriam B. West of Summerville, SC; and was father of James C. “Jay” West, Jr. of Charlotte, NC and Candace L. West of North Charleston, SC. This marks the first time in decades where an Ordinary in the REC died in office. He was a great pastor; greatly loved in his diocese. We will be missed in the whole of the church.

Thoughts on June Primary

With the June Primary less than a month away, you would expect that the political mud would to be slinging to and fro on the airwaves of every television and radio station in the State. However, with the exception of the gubernatorial race in the Democrat Primary there is silence. It is almost as if this is either a stealth election where the advantage is to the most grassroots organization that a candidate can muster or we are in such a state of secure incumbent districts that there are just no competitive electoral races in our area. Maybe it is a strange combination of both.

Since Democrats have more reason to get to the polls and make a choice for governor, it would seem that the two measures on the ballot both stand a good chance of passage. Both advocate the Democrat axioms of more indebtedness and taxation.

The first initiative is Proposition 81. This bond measure is for library construction and renovation. It offers the promise of increased literacy in exchange for 1.2 billion dollars in taxpayer money. This measure assumes that brick and mortar libraries like those thirty years ago will be the same for the next thirty years. Do you really believe that the library of 1976 will be unchanged by the year 2036? Dream on!

The next measure (Proposition 82) is the universal pre-school initiative that will be paid for by the wealthiest Californians. This scheme is being projected to generate 2.1 billion dollars annually in an economic vacuum. It is called a voluntary program for all four year olds. Yeah, sure! Compulsory for taxpayers now, compulsory for children later.

There are two fallacies with this initiative. First, those paying the tax get no benefit from this confiscatory initiative. Those who are taxed would likely never turn their four year olds over to the State. Secondly, there is no proof that there is any lasting benefit to children by taking pre-school. In fact, a recent study done at UC Davis proved that any benefit that could be had from pre-school was gone by third grade. I’m not going to say that no children would benefit from pre-school but the expectations attached to this program are exaggerated.

One fault with this type of hype is that advocates of a measure can claim anything they want without repercussions because ballot arguments are not legally binding. They can be well intentioned or bald-faced liars and they are safe from any recriminations for their claims. In the final analysis, those supporting or opposing a measure are both unelected and unaccountable to the voters. Let the voters beware!

Ray Sutton Coming to Elk Grove

Ray R Sutton was one of many young lions on the theological frontiers of Christian Reconstruction in the 1980’s. He was part of the Tyler Texas group of prolific writers put together by Gary North. Sutton was not one of the core leaders of the group, which included David Chilton, Greg Bahnsen and others, but his contributions were significant.

Sutton’s book, That You May Prosper, was important to much of the later writing of the group in Tyler. In this book Sutton analyzed the biblical covenant model and went light-years beyond the work of Meredith G. Kline.

In the intervening years, Sutton has only published one book. His spiritual journey from Presbyterian minister to Bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church has not been a public one. It can be assumed that some of his views have been modified during this period by his life experiences but he remains theologically conservative.

Sutton has apparently channeled the heat of his fiery days in Tyler and directed it into light for the larger church. He is a lead representative and spokesman for the Reformed Episcopal Church. For many years he has been involved in the theological training of the RE seminaries. Since involving himself in the RE, he has also received his doctorate from Oxford.

He will be speaking in Elk Grove, CA on Saturday, May 20th on the Uniqueness of Christianity. I invite you to hear his presentation. Best of all, he has three scheduled times during his presentation for questions and answers. It would be worth it just for the Q & A periods. (Plus the location is two doors down from one of the best microbreweries on the West Coast.)
Click here for details.

Bibliography

Books
That You May Prosper.

Second Chance.

Who Owns the Family?

Tracts

Covenant: What is it Anyway by Ray Sutton (.pdf)

A Tract on the Covenant by Ray Sutton (.pdf)

A Covenental View of Blood by Ray Sutton (.pdf)

Imagine there’s no Hillary

One of the stupidest songs ever recorded has to be Imagine by John Lenin. It is a ballad about the creatures finally ridding themselves of the implications of the Creator and setting up a “Worker’s Paradise” on earth.

Only people running from the Cross of Jesus Christ seem to relate to this song. Like the proverbial vampires with no soul doomed to live in eternal darkness, the fans of Imagine have a common bond of despair in this life and no hope of anything better in the life to come.

In the midst of the generation that gave us Imagine, is a shrill voice screaming for attention. A woman with no core values, only pompous words designed for the itching ears of her immediate audience. Yes, it’s the junior Senator from New York State, madam carpetbagger herself, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary, the woman who would be President in 2008, has tried to explain her humble path to a political life. According to an article in Newsday, Hillary had other ambitions but due to her lack of physical ability, intelligence and a hostile men’s world, she ended up going to law school to find her path in the world.

According to the Newsday account, Senator Clinton first imagined herself becoming an Olympic Athlete but she couldn’t run fast enough. Then she tried to visualize herself becoming an astronaut but NASA said they don’t take girls. Then she dreamed of the medical field but she got “woozy” at the sight of suffering (except for unborn children being dismembered on the altar of choice which is the blessed sacrament of Liberalism). Mrs. Clinton also pictured herself as a mathematician or a scientist but she didn’t have the grades. As a last result she opted for law school.

Now she gets to impose her version of Lenin’s utopia on the rest of us. She too will feel our pain because she will be the cause of it. Thus proving that Those who can work, those who can’t pass laws to get even.

Bugs in Internet Explorer 7

I downloaded Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 yesterday. Some bugs were encountered quite soon after installation.

First, I am using MSN Messenger to manage a Hotmail account. My computer at work keeps asking me if I want to install Windows Messenger every time I check my e-mail. This never happened until I installed IE 7.

Secondly and more importantly, I can’t get links on some websites to function. I tried to make my son a doctor appointment today but was unable to do it because IE 7 could not navigate on the Kaiser website.

In the first screen shot, you will see ranges of the alphabet that are clickable in previous versions of IE but will not function using IE 7.

To get to this screen go http://www.kp.org
Click on A Member
Select your Region select Northern California and click continue
From pulldown menu go to Locate our services and select Facility Directory

In the second screen shot, the departments should be links to another page but they also will not work. This example can be reached by selecting Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center.

When these issued are resolved I will be sure to let my readers know the fix is available.

04-27-2006
Additional Bug
In Hotmail, when I select Print View, the window that it brings-up does not have a print icon on the menu. I found that pressing Control and P key simultaneously will bring-up this print menu.

Republicans: Heat and Light

While there is little hope that the majority of Republicans in Congress will see the light, there are signs that they are at least beginning to feel the heat. Some are at last beginning to act as if Hugh Hewitt’s warning in Painting the Map Red has been heard in the halls of power.

Following the return this week from the Easter Recess, the Senate has started to move several languishing judicial nominees to a vote and allocated more money for border security. Congress is trying to get more energy production under way and once again is looking to end the “Death Tax”.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that the GOP can turn things around. Their best advantage is the incompetence of the Democrats. As long as Democrats are motivated by hatred of President Bush and opposing every Republican idea without offering any of their own they are a doomed party. They have nothing to offer but fear itself. Doom and despair don’t win elections.

Republicans need to give their base an incentive to vote or many will just stay home this year. It looks like this reality is provoking some politicians to take action to energize the base. If Republicans would start acting like the majority party then they would make gains in this off year election.

Unfortunately, senators like McCain and the Northeastern liberal Republicans are the worst enemies of Republican victory in 2006. My hope is that if Republicans can do well enough this year, these Senators will no longer be able to hold the rest of their party hostage to their stupid socialist ideology.

Meanwhile, President Bush is making hopeful changes in the White House. The realities of illegal immigration are being brought to his attention. He seems to be getting closer to making borders more secure before implementing amnesty for illegals that are already here. His personnel changes in the White House seem like good moves.

The most discordant sign has been Republican efforts to try to blame oil companies for the high costs of gasoline instead of the Democrats for their obstructionist policies and idiotic environmental regulations.

Microsoft Office Kills Windows XP Professional x64

Just when I though that I had conquered all the pitfalls and perils of my 64-bit Windows XP Professional, I found the mother of all incompatibilities. Microsoft Office will not run on Microsoft’s cutting edge XP Operation System!

Let me explain. My computer is running Office 2003 with the basic office suite of programs and it runs just fine, but on Friday I tried to install my Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Frontpage off of my Office 2000 CDs. This attempt at installation ended in completed disaster. My computer failed to respond properly after the installation went bad. So just like Microsoft has trained me to do, I rebooted my computer. Oops! I got the error that my Registry is corrupt and I needed to repair it.

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

This message is worse that the dread blue screen of death. Thankfully, I used my wife’s computer and went to work on the Knowledgebase at Microsoft. I found a five page procedure to follow to restore the registry. Basically you need a coordinated attack using the XP installation disk, Microsoft’s handy support article and a floppy drive.

1 Delete Corrupted Registry
First boot to Repair screen using the XP installation disk. Next run batch file created by cutting and pasting text file from Knowledgebase article to floppy disk. Run text as batch file per instructions.

2 Restore Original Registries
Then reboot into Safe Mode. Copy and rename back-up copies of Registry files from Restore Point to temporary location. This puts computer back to condition at original OS installation.

3 Restore Previous Good Restore Point
Run second batch file created on the floppy per instructions. Now computer can see existing Restore Points.

4 Restore Point
Then reboot into safe Mode. Select System Restore to select previous Restore Point.

Then reboot normally. You will probably be prompted to register your copy of Windows prior to successfully booting the computer.

This procedure to recover the Registry also works with 32-bit versions of XP.

I went looking on Microsoft’s website for an explanation why my computer died. It was then that I discovered
Note Microsoft Office 2000 has not been tested on any 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems.