St. Andrews-in-the-Pines church in Peachtree City has bolted from the Episcopal Church in favor of a more “traditional” Anglican church.

The church is joining a nationwide movement of other churches who have separated from the Episcopal Church, which has come under fire since appointing Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop. But David Wardell, senior warden of St. Andrews, said the main issue is the “practice of reinterpreting scripture, especially being driven by social change.”

The move was ratified by a two-thirds vote of the church just over a week ago. The church has chosen to align with CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

Since Robinson was appointed bishop in 2003, St. Andrews began losing members at a significant rate as that issue and others stemming from it divided parishioners, Wardell said. Prior to that, the church had experienced a tremendous rate of growth, he added. “Some of them (who left the church) didn’t think we were traditional enough, and those on the revisionist side, well, they left,” Wardell said.

The church’s vestry, which is its chartered governing body, is elected by parishioners, although the Episcopal bishop made a last-ditch effort to remove members from the vestry to quell the vestry’s leanings, Wardell said.

But the vestry notified the bishop that it was too late, as Sunday’s vote severed all ties with the Episcopal Church. “We basically disagree with the philosophy of the Episcopal Church,” Wardell said.

There is an outstanding issue between the Episcopal Diocese and St. Andrews: what happens to St. Andrews’s church property. The Episcopal Diocese is listed on the deed of only one of three tracts on the church campus, which includes a preschool, Wardell said. The other three deeds list St. Andrews as the owner, he said. But there is a religious doctrine in play that the Episcopal Diocese holds the land in trust in perpetuity, Wardell added.

St. Andrews representatives met with the bishop Friday to work towards an amicable settlement of the property issues, Wardell said. The most recent expansion of the church is still being paid off in a mortgage by St. Andrews, not the Episcopal Diocese, Wardell said.

St. Andrews got its start in the 1970s when the diocese bankrolled the original construction loan on the facility, Wardell said. That loan has long since been paid off, he added.

The dispute is “unfortunate, really, because we agree on a lot of things but we disagree with some of them,” Wardell said.

One of the areas of disagreement lies at the very heart of what Christians say they believe, according to a news release from Wardell last week announcing the split.

“We simply want to continue to worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in the way that we always have,” one church member said after Sunday’s vote, according to the news release.

“The vast majority of us still have faith that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that Jesus is the one true Son of God, born of a virgin, crucified until dead, and then resurrected to life. All of that is contrary to what a majority of TEC leadership believes. The authority of Scripture and the issue of Jesus as THE Savior are important to us.”

Senior Warden Wardell said the parish intends to retain its property.

“Our decision to disaffiliate is a reflection of our commitment to the biblical faith, which is now in direct contrast with the belief and practice of the majority of TEC’s leadership,” Wardell said. “However, the vestry has a strong willingness to work together with the diocese and Bishop Alexander so that this separation can occur with Christian charity, not hard feelings or hostility.”

“The downward spiral of The Episcopal Church (TEC) came home to Peachtree City, Ga., [when the] local parish voted 145 to 67 (or 68 percent) on Sunday, Feb. 4, to separate from the national church and the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. The church’s vestry, or governing board, subsequently voted to honor the parish’s overwhelming desire to depart from TEC,” the news release said.

The vestry also voted to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) – the U.S. missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria – in order to maintain the parish’s ties to the worldwide Anglican Communion.

According to the news release, “The Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, the Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander, tried to short-circuit the church’s internal voting process ... by sending a letter to all parishioners that was clearly intended to disrupt the church’s efforts and sway or prevent the vote. The letter attempted to discredit the church’s plan for a fair and impartial decision by stating that the vote would have ‘no official standing.’”

The release continued, “Bishop Alexander, who is well known for his embrace of theological revisionism, also threatened to remove the entire church vestry and replace it with a group that he would hand-pick.

“St. Andrew’s joins approximately 250 other Episcopal churches that have split from TEC since 2003 for similar reasons. More than two dozen of those churches have also joined CANA, which is experiencing rapid growth and emerging as a forerunner in the realignment of North American Anglicanism,” the release said.

Founded in 1975, St. Andrew’s has a current membership of 350 and is presently without a permanent priest since the recent retirement of Father Dan Brigham.

“The parish has a predominantly orthodox membership, unlike TEC, which has been pursuing a course of increasingly radical theological revisionism for over four decades, during which time the church has lost approximately 40 percent of its membership,” the release said.

“Like St. Andrew’s, a majority of the Anglican Communion’s other 37 provinces remain at odds with the direction and top leadership of TEC, which faces the possibility of being disciplined at the upcoming Primates’ Meeting ... in Tanzania,” the release said.

The church’s vestry voted to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) – the U.S. missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria – in order to maintain the parish’s ties to the worldwide Anglican Communion, according to a blog post at The Living Church Foundation Web site.

The church is located at 316 North Peachtree Parkway in Peachtree City.

St. Andrews-in-the-Pines church in Peachtree City has bolted from the Episcopal Church in favor of a more “traditional” Anglican church.

The church is joining a nationwide movement of other churches who have separated from the Episcopal Church, which has come under fire since appointing Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop. But David Wardell, senior warden of St. Andrews, said the main issue is the “practice of reinterpreting scripture, especially being driven by social change.”

The move was ratified by a two-thirds vote of the church just over a week ago. The church has chosen to align with CANA, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

Since Robinson was appointed bishop in 2003, St. Andrews began losing members at a significant rate as that issue and others stemming from it divided parishioners, Wardell said. Prior to that, the church had experienced a tremendous rate of growth, he added. “Some of them (who left the church) didn’t think we were traditional enough, and those on the revisionist side, well, they left,” Wardell said.

The church’s vestry, which is its chartered governing body, is elected by parishioners, although the Episcopal bishop made a last-ditch effort to remove members from the vestry to quell the vestry’s leanings, Wardell said.

But the vestry notified the bishop that it was too late, as Sunday’s vote severed all ties with the Episcopal Church. “We basically disagree with the philosophy of the Episcopal Church,” Wardell said.

There is an outstanding issue between the Episcopal Diocese and St. Andrews: what happens to St. Andrews’s church property. The Episcopal Diocese is listed on the deed of only one of three tracts on the church campus, which includes a preschool, Wardell said. The other three deeds list St. Andrews as the owner, he said. But there is a religious doctrine in play that the Episcopal Diocese holds the land in trust in perpetuity, Wardell added.

St. Andrews representatives met with the bishop Friday to work towards an amicable settlement of the property issues, Wardell said. The most recent expansion of the church is still being paid off in a mortgage by St. Andrews, not the Episcopal Diocese, Wardell said.

St. Andrews got its start in the 1970s when the diocese bankrolled the original construction loan on the facility, Wardell said. That loan has long since been paid off, he added.

The dispute is “unfortunate, really, because we agree on a lot of things but we disagree with some of them,” Wardell said.

One of the areas of disagreement lies at the very heart of what Christians say they believe, according to a news release from Wardell last week announcing the split.

“We simply want to continue to worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in the way that we always have,” one church member said after Sunday’s vote, according to the news release.

“The vast majority of us still have faith that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that Jesus is the one true Son of God, born of a virgin, crucified until dead, and then resurrected to life. All of that is contrary to what a majority of TEC leadership believes. The authority of Scripture and the issue of Jesus as THE Savior are important to us.”

Senior Warden Wardell said the parish intends to retain its property.

“Our decision to disaffiliate is a reflection of our commitment to the biblical faith, which is now in direct contrast with the belief and practice of the majority of TEC’s leadership,” Wardell said. “However, the vestry has a strong willingness to work together with the diocese and Bishop Alexander so that this separation can occur with Christian charity, not hard feelings or hostility.”

“The downward spiral of The Episcopal Church (TEC) came home to Peachtree City, Ga., [when the] local parish voted 145 to 67 (or 68 percent) on Sunday, Feb. 4, to separate from the national church and the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. The church’s vestry, or governing board, subsequently voted to honor the parish’s overwhelming desire to depart from TEC,” the news release said.

The vestry also voted to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) – the U.S. missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria – in order to maintain the parish’s ties to the worldwide Anglican Communion.

According to the news release, “The Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta, the Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander, tried to short-circuit the church’s internal voting process ... by sending a letter to all parishioners that was clearly intended to disrupt the church’s efforts and sway or prevent the vote. The letter attempted to discredit the church’s plan for a fair and impartial decision by stating that the vote would have ‘no official standing.’”

The release continued, “Bishop Alexander, who is well known for his embrace of theological revisionism, also threatened to remove the entire church vestry and replace it with a group that he would hand-pick.

“St. Andrew’s joins approximately 250 other Episcopal churches that have split from TEC since 2003 for similar reasons. More than two dozen of those churches have also joined CANA, which is experiencing rapid growth and emerging as a forerunner in the realignment of North American Anglicanism,” the release said.

Founded in 1975, St. Andrew’s has a current membership of 350 and is presently without a permanent priest since the recent retirement of Father Dan Brigham.

“The parish has a predominantly orthodox membership, unlike TEC, which has been pursuing a course of increasingly radical theological revisionism for over four decades, during which time the church has lost approximately 40 percent of its membership,” the release said.

“Like St. Andrew’s, a majority of the Anglican Communion’s other 37 provinces remain at odds with the direction and top leadership of TEC, which faces the possibility of being disciplined at the upcoming Primates’ Meeting ... in Tanzania,” the release said.

The church’s vestry voted to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) – the U.S. missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria – in order to maintain the parish’s ties to the worldwide Anglican Communion, according to a blog post at The Living Church Foundation Web site.

The church is located at 316 North Peachtree Parkway in Peachtree City.

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OPINION

What are American churches doing affiliating with African bishops?

By Dr. John A. Sparks

Editor’s note: The Episcopal congregation in Peachtree City, St. Andrew’s in the Pines, this month voted to withdraw from the national church governing body and to affiliate itself with a Nigerian Episcopal group.

Stranger things may have happened in the annals of church history, but the recent lopsided votes in several Virginia Episcopal congregations may qualify as among the strangest at first glance.

Why? They voted in favor of leaving that denomination’s Virginia Diocese and coming under the leadership of two African Anglican archbishops: Nigeria’s Peter Akinola and Uganda’s Henry Orombi.

Liberal Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee, whose diocese has been diminished by the votes, was shocked. He is reported to have exclaimed that the Virginia churches were now being “occupied” by Nigerians.

Is the whole affair simply bizarre, or is it merely the culmination of a startling reversal of roles between modern Western Christendom and the orthodox native African churches that the West planted long ago?

To answer that question, a short history lesson is in order. During the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century, Christian missionaries of all denominations (including the Anglicans) evangelized Africa in an effort to convert Africans to Christ. In most cases this meant that the converts had to give up traditional paganism and its religious, social and sexual practices because they were contrary to biblical teaching.

Many Africans who became Christians renounced local gods, polygamy and sexual cultish practices. Their spiritual descendants, the so-called “indigenous” African Christians, while often tempted by the tug of traditional paganism, have continued to take the Word of God seriously on the subjects of social arrangements and human sexuality.

The Western missionaries of the past, especially the Anglicans, were intent upon raising up native church leaders who would be uncompromising where traditional pagan culture was in conflict with Scripture. They succeeded.

At the same time that Christian church leaders in Africa remained orthodox, many Western mainline church leaders gradually abandoned their biblical convictions and accepted portions of modern or post-modern views of social and sexual practices contrary to biblical teaching.

Of course, the immediate cause of the Virginia congregational votes was the Episcopal Church USA’s official endorsement of practicing homosexual Gene Robinson for the office of bishop of New Hampshire. But the larger question is the authority of God’s Word in the face of cultural pressures.

Ironically the “secessionist” Virginia parishes, which are resisting modern neo-paganism, found as their allies those African churches that have had a long history of opposing traditional paganism.

It is a matter for rejoicing that these Virginia Episcopalians have found new church leaders who possess strong spiritual backbones. On the other hand, it is sad that Virginia Christians have had to go half-way around the world to locate leaders who are willing to stand firm against anti-biblical cultural pressure.

Dr. John A. Sparks is dean of the Alva J. Calderwood School of Arts & Letters at Grove City College, Grove City, Pa., and a fellow of the Center for Vision & Values.

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