There's going to be an elite, you might call the elite, the poet bureau, or you might call it well, the establishment, but nonetheless, there's an elite somewhere and in the United States, in the Anglo-American tradition, in the tradition of English-speaking civilization, well, the Episcopalians were at the very top of that pyramid, and even as I say, they didn't have that many numbers, they had all kinds of influence. If you look for example, at the denominational identification that's associated with members of Congress throughout the last, say 200 years, outsize influence for the Episcopal church. When you look at the big Eastern establishment in the United States that basically ran the country for the better part of say almost 200 years, you're looking at Episcopalians sitting very much in the driver's seat, the Episcopal church being the epitome of the Protestant elite in the United States, which was dominated by a Protestant culture.

And thus, when we're talking about the so-called seven sisters of the old Protestant mainline, we're talking about the old seven brands of American Protestantism in which was certainly concentrated cultural authority, political power, and economic might in the United States. Those seven sisters of the old Protestant mainline, by the way, were the Episcopalians, the Congregationalists now called the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterians, particularly what's now the PCUSA, the United Methodist, the disciples of Christ, Northern Baptists, and the more liberal Lutherans in this case known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

And those historic churches had outsize importance in shaping the culture. The word mainline wasn't an accident. They were the mainline religious establishment in the United States, but they're not now. And that shift is of enormous consequence for the United States of America, but there still are signs that that old establishment used to be there.

One of the signs is the fact that the passing of a former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church U.S.A. was given virtually a half page in a recent print edition of The New York Times. That's very rarefied journalistic real estate. That tells you something. Now that's particularly true when you fast-forward to the present time and see that all of those denominations, yes, all of them, have been in precipitous decline and they have been so for quite a while now. The culture has been secularizing. And what made those churches main line was the fact that they intended to move with the culture, and they did. They basically decided to secularize with a secularizing culture and all have been effectively in the hands of theological liberals for so long that it's hard to remember a time when they were not, at least in terms of the elite in the denomination and the leadership, monolithically progressive, if not just outright, undeniably heretical. Those denominations still punch above their weight.

And when it comes to media attention, this obituary is a recent sign. The obituary was for the former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold III, and the headline in the obituary described him as a bridge building bishop. Now I think it's important to note the Bishop Griswold must have looked like a presiding bishop sent by central casting in Hollywood. He had attended the ultra elite St. Paul School in New Hampshire, originally a school for boys. Then later, co-educational. It's the elite of the elite. He then went on to Harvard. He was already aiming for the Episcopal ministry. After Harvard, he studied at General Theological Seminary in New York City, but he received his basic theology degree from Oriel College at Oxford, just making the Anglophile tradition all that more apparent. Before Bishop Griswold was Bishop Griswold, two of his fairly close relatives were already or had already been prominent bishops in the Episcopal church.

And of course Bishop Griswold would serve as presiding bishop of the Episcopal church from 1998 to 2006. That's the top of the heap at the top of the heap, but those dates turn out to be really important. Let's think about the years 1998 to 2006, what was going on? Well, it's important that we recognize at least most urgently what was going on in the Episcopal Church. It was in the year 2003 that the Episcopal Church made headlines all over the world by consecrating the first openly gay bishop of the entire history of Anglicanism.

Furthermore, it's basically the first consecration of an openly gay bishop in all of we'll say the history of bishops going back about two millennia, and that led to disastrous consequences for the Episcopal church, but it didn't come out of nowhere. The Episcopal church had already been moving in such progressivist and liberal circles that this just became the next inevitability. But the leadership at the time made it inevitable and Bishop Griswold was very much a part of that leadership.

In 2003 with the full support of presiding Bishop Griswold, the Episcopal church elected the Reverend V. Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop of the church. Now again, back then that still made headline news, the elevation of an openly homosexual man as bishop reversed 2000 years of church teaching and practice through the world of churches claiming Episcopal succession into turmoil and basically tore the Anglican communion asunder. That's no small thing. It turns out that the date 2003 is lasting in importance and it's not accidental that Frank T. Griswold III was the presiding bishop of the Episcopal church. Now, at the time, the presiding bishop said that when it came to Bishop Robinson or Bishop elect Robinson or select Robinson, he saw in his words no impediment to the consecration of Gene Robinson to the episcopate.

He said it was yielding to the vote of the diocese of New Hampshire. When Robinson was installed as Bishop Bishop Griswold who was presiding, literally, he was presiding, he stated, "As Anglicans, we are learning to live in the mystery of communion at a much deeper level end." Well, we might say some Anglicans were. Other Anglicans, not so much. The consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson was the final straw for many Anglicans around the world. Soon after Bishop Robinson's election, I sat between two Anglican archbishops from Africa at dinner. They were bold to accuse Bishop Robinson of heresy and the Episcopal Church of apostacy. They minced no words and they never recognized him as a bishop.

And furthermore, this led to recent developments in the Anglican communion in which several of the African churches have stated they no longer even recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury. Within a few years, the entire global Anglican communion would be divided and the Episcopal church would see the defection of many of its more evangelical and traditional Episcopal parishes they would seek and they would find communion in new Anglican circles and in new churches.

What about the scriptural teachings on sex, gender, marriage and ministry? Well, Bishop Gene Robinson, who by the way, had divorced his wife and he eventually married a man later divorcing him too. And so in most historic Christian denominations, there would be frankly no end to the reasons why he would not be selected as a bishop.

But nonetheless, Bishop Gene Robinson had an answer to Scripture. This is what he said, "We worship a living God, not one locked up in the scripture of 2000 years ago" now, I think you understand why I wanted to look to this issue today. We sometimes just need to see reality framed in such clear language. Here you have the bishop of a church, clearly apostate, who basically describes orthodox biblical Christianity as having locked God up in the scripture of 2000 years ago.

Here's the great dividing line in religious institutions, and in particular, in historic Christianity. You have one group that decides with historic Christianity and another that has basically invented a new religion to put in its place. I just want you to look back at these words from Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Church, the first openly gay bishop, "We worship a living God, not one locked up in the Scripture of 2000 years ago."

Now methodologically, let's just understand that if you are saying that God is no longer to be understood solely and definitively and sufficiently in terms of his self-revelation in scripture, then you're basically just inventing God as you go along. And that's the great experiment of modern liberal theology. It's the invention of a new God, simply using the language and claiming the authority, wearing the investments and, in many cases, installing the bishops as if this is the same church. It isn't.

Now, what about Bishop Griswold? What was he saying about all of this? Well, at one point he said that he saw human sexuality is, "A free ranging force that can overwhelm reason and is therefore dangerous." That's a very Anglican kind of statement, but he went on to say this, "Some people feel that if sexuality isn't carefully circumscribed, it will subvert all sorts of things."

Well. I'll simply say that that sounds precisely like the sort of thing taught in Scripture. That is to say that sex, gender, marriage and all the rest is precisely defined, and denying that does indeed subvert all sorts of things, including not only the institution of marriage but the entire order of creation. And you also have to consider the fact that the denominations that have gone down the liberal road on these issues, they can't stop at LGB. They're enthusiastically now giving themselves to T. And of course remember that there's a plus sign at the end of that because there has to be. Even they don't know what's coming next, but therefore it.

Bishop Griswold thought he had a way out of this box. He made this comment, "In the gospels, Jesus said, 'I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.'" He said that suggests to him that God's truth is always unfolding. He continued with these words. "If we can accept that there are new truths that science brings us or new discoveries in medicine, why is it when it comes to sexuality, there is no new truth?" Now, it's just important sometimes for us to hear words like that and understand what we are looking at in those words. We're looking at a theological revolution. If indeed the church is to be looking to new truth that's always unfolding even when it comes to something as basic as gender human identity when it comes to marriage and human sexuality, then Christianity, to use the words of another philosopher, simply isn't a thing. It's not a thing at all.

It's many things and theologically that means ultimately it is no thing. By now it has to be clear to all that there's no masking the divide between biblical Christianity and this new religion that blesses all things LGBTQ plus. That divide comes down to whether or not you see God as a constantly updateable divine metaphor that in the words of Bishop Robinson rejects a God locked up in the Scripture of 2000 years ago. Those words were a strange admission. I think we have to see this. Those words were a strange admission that the new religion of sexual liberation requires a new god.

That new religion requires the rejection of Scripture and the elevation of modern gender and sexuality ideologies to the driver's seat. Now, note this very carefully. The Episcopal church did not start down its liberal free fall in 2003. A lot of barriers had to fall, a lot of steps had to be taken, a lot of doctrines had to be bent. A lot of texts of Scripture had to be denied before the events of consecrating an openly gay bishop in 2003.

But that act of consecration was a clear and determinative crossing of a bar. Now, here's another very humbling realization. As yet, as yet, in the year 2023, there is not a single historic Christian denomination that has gone down this road of theological insanity that is returned to the biblical faith. Without a full return to biblical authority there is simply no way back. We just need to understand that. There is no way back but a return to the Scriptures.

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