J’Accuse Episcopalians, Presbyterians, et al.
Dean
My buddy Jerry Kaufman has a powerful piece up by Martin Peretz of The New Republic. Quote:
In England, Anglican clerics were part of the establishment gambit of fascist sympathizers disguising themselves as anti-war idealists. These were the folk who soiréed at Cliveden, read and wrote in the London Times, chatted wittily at All Souls—appeasers all, as seen in the movie, The Remains of the Day. And the Anglican Church also had its devotees of Stalin, the most noteworthy (or notorious) of whom was Dr. Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean of Canterbury," who wrote the adoring agitprop volume, The Socialist Sixth of the World. He was a luminary in Henry Wallace’s pro-Soviet campaign for president of the United States on the Progressive Party ticket. Among Wallace’s most notable supporters were bishops and other high churchmen from the mainstream American Protestant denominations.
He goes on to say more--a lot more--about the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, and others who back Islamic fascism over Israel. You can read it here.
Related Posts (on one page):
- J'Accuse II
- J’Accuse Episcopalians, Presbyterians, et al.
I'm not that dumb, guys.
Good-bye to the church I spent my thirty-nine years in, that I was baptized in, whose service I love, and the many people who are good. Good-bye to the creeping evil that is fouling it.
It's a beautiful day, though. Time to think of something less depressing.
To my knowledge the PCUSA tends to the more libertine while the PCA tends to be more strict, with the EPC being somewhere in the middle.
I would certainly like to know which denomination(s) it is that are divesting in Isreal. What little I've found in the last 15 minutes accusses only the PCUSA while defending the others. Anyone found any more information on this?
BK
The United Church of Christ [UCC] is considering [or has passed] divestment last I heard. Paul Burgess might answer that better, as well as for the Presbys.
There is also a Lutheran effort aimed at divestment, IIRC. If so, that covers most of the "frozen Chosen".
Those of us (or I should say a lot of us) who are Southern Episcopalians have not strayed so far left. But in the article, I felt the Church was painted as a monolith. The author did little to explain how this and other issues are not settled and not widely shared by a decent portion of the laity.
Besides, divestment from Israel is a secular cause that has saddly crept into several denominations. The article makes it seem like the Episcopal church invented and promoted the idea--rather than just being an ignorant follower of it. There's a difference there.
Peretz is quite right about the moral and spiritual decay within the Anglican/Episcopalian church and many other churces as well. William F. Buckley, commenting on support for the Communist "nuclear freeze" movement within certain churches, remarked:
"There is something subversive, something objectively on the side of slavery, in contemporary Christianity. Mr. Nietzsche, you are wanted at your office."
Profoundly true. Manning Johnson, J. B. Matthews, and many other conservatives have been warning against Communist infiltration in Christian churches for a very long time.
As to the Anglican/Episcopalian church, I have long had very mixed feelings about it. Back in the early 1980s, after listening to James Keiffer's brilliant arguments for the Christian God in the light of Ayn Rand (his tapes on "Objectivism and Theism"), I was seriously contemplating the possibility of becoming "an orthodox, traditional, High Church Episcopalian" as he was. My best friend is an Episcopalian also and describes himself as "a doctrinal Christian". But I asked my friend if his church had statues of Mary as do Catholic churches, and he, sadly, said no. Therefore, I could not myself join such a church if I were a Christian. If I were a Christian, I would have to be a Catholic -- or else TMC+A.
John Henry Newman was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement in the late 19th century to restore "Anglo-Catholicism", the high theology and sacrament, within the Anglican church, but in the end he found that only the Catholic church of Rome held the true Christian doctrine, and he became a Cardinal and wrote his Apologia Pro Vita Sua. G. K. Chesterton made a similar pilgrimage.
The "Red Deans", the Cliveden set, the phony "Broad Church" bishops like Pike or Spong, have plagued the Anglican church for a long time, but the problem lies, I am afraid, at the very source, the very origin of that church, which was the tyranny of Henry VIII, who demanded that the Catholic church place her imptimatur upon his adulteries, his divorces -- and then divorced himself and his country from the Catholic church when she refused to do so. Then he looted the monasteries and executed those who remained faithful to the old faith -- all the while continuing to call himself "the Defender of the Faith"! Not an auspicious beginning.
Give me the Old Time Religion, the Old Time Power, instead. I will continue to worship the Most High Goddess, the Queen of Heaven, and I will not water down my holy dogmas in order to be "progressive" or for any other reason. I oppose any recognition of Communist tyrannies and I support Israel 100%.
You're quite right that the form of church government is an important part of Presbyterianism. Though for many folks in the PC(USA) (such as myself) theology is also an important part of what it is to be a Presbyterian.
Mark:
Yes, sad to say, you're correct about the Presbyterian General Assembly and its endorsement of Israel divestment. As for the UCC, I can't say off the top of my head— said head is still spinning from the UCC General Synod's recent endorsement of same-sex marriage.
And that's all I have to say for the moment: to be honest, I'm emotionally exhausted right now from another comment about liberalism and the Presbyterian Church, which I posted in another DW thread earlier this morning. The burden of which was similar to Alan's comment above: not all Presbyterians can be lumped together. Many of us are still theologically quite traditional. And many of us are not at all out in left field politically.
IIRC, PC(USA) has no problem with female ordination while the PCA prohibits it. The EPC leaves it up to the individual congregation to decide for itself. Thus, while we are all Presbyterians, you can't say Presbyterians believe X about female ordination the way you can about Baptists or Catholics.
"Yes, sad to say, you're correct about the Presbyterian General Assembly and its endorsement of Israel divestment. As for the UCC, I can't say off the top of my head— said head is still spinning from the UCC General Synod's recent endorsement of same-sex marriage."
This is yet another example of the absurd "package-dealing" in today's politics. Same-sex marriage and anti-Israel have absolutely nothing to do with each other, yet they are lumped together all the time by the "progressives". The "Palestinians" on whom they fawn routinely torture homosexuals to death.
People on the Left are so consumed with excoriating the real and imagined sins of America and the West that they see no evil in those who oppose America and the West. For them, Israel, a democracy that gives civil and political rights to Palestinians that they do not get in Arab countries, is an outpost of Western liberal civilization and something of a stand in for the USA. Hence, they excoriate Israel for doing anything to defensd itself while excusing all beastly behavior by Palenstinians b/c they are sainted "victims."
If these churches don't get back to Christianity and leave the lightweight leftism to the Nation and NPR they will have 25 members left by 2020.
Very good.