For those of you who said they were headed that direction…
So check this out; the Episcopal Church of America is now officially encouraging idolatry.
I’m not kidding; read it for yourself. This page on the ECA website has a liturgy on it where women are to pray to Mother God, whom they refer to as the “Queen of Heaven,” and then share raisin cakes.
I personally have no problem with recognizing God’s feminine side. Trouble is, the "Queen of Heaven" referred to in Jeremiah 44 is a pagan god which the women worshipped in defiance of their male relatives and Yahweh. This liturgy actually makes reference to the defiance of ancient women towards their male relatives, but skips the bit about defiance of Yahweh. Twisted.
How clueless is the pastor who made up this ceremony? …Or, God forbid, she’s not clueless and is trying to lead astray every Christian who doesn’t read the prophets, which is unfortunately most of us.
Is it any wonder why so many Episcopals in America are leaving the U.S. Church and joining the African Church?
New developments: I checked the Christianity Today website to see the latest on it. Certain Episcopal Church leaders are a little annoyed at Ted Olsen, the guy who edits Christianity Today’s weblog, for accusing them of idolatry. They took down the pagan liturgy, so I changed my link above to refer to Christianity Today’s report on it.
According to Olsen, the pastor who wrote the liturgy is also a Wiccan. I know; how can you be both a Christian and a Wiccan? Well, some of the leaders of the Episcopal Church are flexible like that. From the sounds of it, they’re more annoyed at the bad publicity than that idolatry had slipped past them.
Of course, you could see this coming. There are a lot of churches that are willing to accept all kinds of behavior and practices that God has specifically forbidden, then claim it’s because they’re being tolerant or open-minded. Thus they twist these words. Christians are supposed to be tolerant so we can speak relevantly to everyone; we’re supposed to be the most open-minded people in the world so that God can lead us places we’ve never expected. These words, properly understood, don’t justify idolatry. But like every other word, they can be abused and reinterpreted until they don’t resemble the original.