One of the best places to start for a history of the fall from grace of the Episcopal Church is an article that appeared in Harper's Magazine thirty years ago, in October of 1978.* The article, "Trendier Than Thou: Manners and Morals in the Episcopal Church," by Paul Seabury, uses the then recent decision of the ECUSA to ordain women as the means to point to much deeper problems in the Church of which the controversy over women's ordination was but a symptom. That deeper problem, as identified by Seabury, is the Church's abandonment of the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints. Seabury is careful to point out that this abandonment occurred not in the majority of Episcopal parishes, but in the Church in Convention and the Church's hierarchy. Interestingly, Seabury is not in the least sympathetic to the new directions of the ECUSA. Seabury chronicles events at two of the largest Episcopal Cathedrals--St. John the Divine in New York and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco--as typical of the attitudes of the Church in its national convention and the Church hierarchy. The events chronicled are shocking, even when read at a distance of thirty years. Here's just a sampling, beginning with the New York cathedral and the then Bishop of New York, Paul Moore.

1. In 1970, Bishop Moore helped finance a group of Puerto Rican militants in an illegal seizure of church land that had been designated for the construction of an Episcopal home for the aged.

2. Bishop Moore housed near his office a deposed Roman Catholic priest and his homosexual companion hair dresser.

3. The Cathedral was made available for Shinto religious rites and classes in Sufi Dervish dancing. Sufism is a branch of Islam that, like all Islam, denies the deity of Christ and his atoning work for sin.

4. The Cathedral was used to mount a preformance of a Norman Mailer play complete with foul language and pot smokers in the audience, all at the behest of a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

5. Shortly after the vote in 1976 by General Convention to allow the ordination of women, Bishop Moore ordained the openly Lesbian Ellen Barret.

6. In 1976 General Convention goes on record as favoring abortion.

7. Barbara Walters interviewed the first woman ordained in the Episcopal Church and asked her if she considered herself a woman of strong religious faith. Her reply was, "No, I do not. But I do believe in caring, and that's what religion is all about, isn't it?" It's not a-typical in the Episcopal Church that people with no Christian commitment can be ordained to the priesthood.

8. By the early 1970s, the Episcopal Church had dispensed literally millions of dollars in missionary funds collected from local parishes to militant Black Power groups, Puerto Rican Nationalists, Marxist film makers, and Third World Liberation movements--also either covertly or openly Marxist.

9. Bishop Kilmer Myles of California opened the doors of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, to various pagan rituals and, in 1971, a nature ceremonial hosted by poet Allen Ginsburg where he consecrated then Senators Alan Cranston and John Tunney as godfathers of animals. During this event, many members of the audience smoked marijuana.

10. The late Bishop James Pike of California not only denied the Trinity but pioneered the right (and "rite") of clergy to dissolve their own marriages, a right he practiced in both senses.

11. In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, one marriage rite was introduced devoid of religious content.

(From my own experience at this time--the late 1960s--I remember an incident related to me by my father, an incident that had him quite incensed. Jailed in Pennsylvania was a man who had been convicted of killing his wife by shooting her with five hunting arrows. While in prison he was ordained an Episcopal priest. He received the nick-name of "Father Five Arrows." However, I don't remember the man's name, the date of the incident or what diocese he served. If anyone who reads this has more information on the incident, please contact me.)

Seabury notes that rather than the Bible, the world now sets the agenda for the Episcopal Church. In more recent years, the Episcopal Church has become even more ambivalent about its Christian mission, entertaining paganism on an equal footing with Christianity. In 2004, a Wiccan or Druid "communion service" appeared on the national Church's website under the heading of "A Woman's Eucharist: Celebrating the Divine Feminine." The text of this service can be found here,

When the press got wind of the posting, it was quickly removed from the server, but not before it was widely copied.

On the Women's Ministry page of the national Church's website, bibliographies on spiritual and theological subjects recommend a number of works on feminist paganism. For example, one such recommended work is Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom, Bride of God. The website describes this book somewhat innocuously as, " This is the story of the feminine face of God through the ages. It is a challenging read that brings us to the present and our issues in the search for the sacred feminine." The description that runs on Amazon.com is a tad different:

A classic from the day it was published in 1991, Sophia: The Goddess of Wisdom is an intensely scholarly yet highly poetic work. Modern history (his story) may have buried the Great Goddess under suffocating layers of denial and revisionism, yet as we move deeper into the "sophianic millennium," scraping away the fallow ground of patriarchy, She emerges anew. Author Caitlin Matthews unveils the veiled Black Goddess (the primal manifestation of the Divine Feminine) in her many hiding places over the last several thousand years. Disempowered and hacked to pieces, she has survived in the major Western religions, philosophies, and mystery schools in many guises. With the aid of the author's trained and intuitive eye, the reader tracks Her faint footsteps through the long dark night of the feminine soul. Along with The White Goddess by Robert Graves, this book is a must-read for those who wish to understand why the Goddess fled, where She went, and how we can reaffirm Her as the giver of practical and spiritual wisdom--celebrating Her primacy in the manifestation of all things. --P. Randall Cohan

Another recommended book is, Goddesses Who Rule. The description from Amazon.com again describes the pagan nature of this work:

Goddesses often are labeled as one-dimensional forces of nature or fertility. In examining a number of goddesses whose primary role is sovereignty, this volume reveals the rich diversity of goddess traditions. Drawn from a variety of cultural and historical settings, the goddesses described here include Inanna of ancient Sumer; Oshun of Nigeria; and Cihuacoatl of pre-historical America.

Neither of these offerings seems to have anything of a Christian character. The offering of these "resources" for Christians and their pagan character has been document by Christianity Today.

In 2004 two Episcopal priests, William Melnyk and his wife, Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, both pastoring parishes in southeastern Pennsylvania, were found to be practicing druids. Melnyk even wrote a pagan "rosary" which can be found at:

They also co-authored a Wiccan Lunar Ritual that can also be found at the above site. Charles Bennison, Bishop of Pennsylvania, refused to suspend the two, blaming the whole incident on right-wing forces that wanted to embarass or "destabilize" the Episcopal Church. Melnyk eventually resigned from his parish. His wife was discovered to be the authoress of the aforementioned Woman's Eucharist that had appeared on the Episcopal Church's website for Women's Ministries. As of July 22, '08, she still pastors St. Francis-in-the-fields, Malvern, Pennsylvania.

In 2007, the Rev. Anne Holmes Redding, directoress of faith formation at Seattle's St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, claimed to be both a Christian and a Moslem, worshipping at a Mosque on Fridays and the Cathedral on Sundays. The Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, Geralyn Wolf, who ordained Redding, suspended her ministerial offices, but only for one year. However, Redding has never repented of her actions and it's not known what will happen at the end of her one year suspension. She will more than likely continue practicing as an Episcopal priest and Moslem. It should be noted in this regard that Moslems openly deny the atonement and deity of Jesus Christ and the Koran urges the killing of non-Moslems by Moslems.

Writing in a document that served as a primer for GAFcon, The Way the Truth and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future (May 2008: The Latimer Trust, London), Bishop Peter Akinola makes the following observation about both North American Churches.

The leadership of The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) seem to have concluded that the Bible is no longer authoritative in many areas of human experience, especially those of salvation and sexuality. They claim to have `progressed' beyond the clear teaching of the Scriptures, and they have not hidden their intention of leading others to these same conclusions. They have even boasted that they are years ahead of others in fully understanding the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the nature of God's love. (p. 11, emphasis added)

To support the Bishops observations, we note the following. In July, 2000, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved resolution D039 affirming and acknowledging relationships other than marriage to be recognized "...in the Body of Christ and in His Church." The resolution also affirmed that those who disagree with the traditional teachings of the Church on sexuality will continue to act against those teachings. The decision to develop rites for unions other than marriage was only narrowly averted.

In 2003, resolution B001 was introduced in the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. The resolution affirmed the authority of the Bible and other basic, orthodox teachings of ancient Christianity. These orthodox teachings were drawn from the 39 Articles of Religion and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886 and 1888 as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, "Historical Documents of the Church." The resolution was easily defeated by the House of Bishops (66 "yes," 84 "no," 8 abstentions). At this same convention, openly homosexual Gene Robinson was elected Bishop of New Hampshire.

The 75th General Convention (2006) also proposed a list of "Rites of Passage" for experimental use in the Church. These can be found in a document called "The Blue Book" containing experimental liturgies. The Rites included are for such mundane activities as:

1. Reaching Puberty
2. Earning a Driver's License or Permit
3. Dating Relationships (the sex of the dating "partners" is left open)
4. Graduating from High School
5. Going to College
6. Joining the Workforce
7. Going on a Pilgrimage
8. Moving from the Family Home

which will now be accorded the status of religious rites. A prayer for the godly expression of sexuality was deleted as was a prayer for the call to military service. The latter was replaced by a more vapid "Call to National Service."