Can you divorce your mom? No, not really. Divorce happens between married couples. But, what about a church that divorces its “mother church”?
The Episcopal Church in South Carolina did that very thing. It was largely over the Episcopal Church’s position on homosexuality. South Carolinian’s are more conservative morally than the “mother church.” The Diocese of South Carolina filed suit against the Episcopal Church, wanting to leave it.
The “mother church” says they can’t divorce! The leaders of the Episcopal Church say the diocese doesn’t have the authority to leave. Just a second – where is the biblical authority for an “Episcopal Church”? Where is the biblical authority for a “diocese”? Oh, there’s not any.
But the affair doesn’t just involve homosexuality. Diocese churches want to keep their own property, including some of the oldest churches in the country. Other denominations have also split over homosexuality and the “mother churches” got to keep the property of the children. The Diocese of South Carolina has asked a judge not to allow that to happen until everything works its way through the court system.
A “bishop” for the Diocese, Mark Lawrence, said the group wants to practice their faith “as we see fit, not as it is dictated to us by a self-proclaimed religious authority who threatens to take our property unless we relinquish our beliefs” (World, January 26, 2013, pg. 10).
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Just a few thoughts… If a preacher of a congregation in Mr. Lawrence’s diocese of Episcopal churches decided to start teaching that baptism was: 1.) for adults; 2.) immersion; and 3.) for the forgiveness of sins, do you think he would relinquish his “self-proclaimed religious authority” and let the preacher preach as he “saw fit”? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Really, the whole idea of a hierarchy is unbiblical. We can see from this illustration why God made each congregation autonomous under the oversight of a body of mature men. If one congregation leaves the faith, it cannot dictate – either through finances or peer-pressure or otherwise – to other churches as to what they can believe or practice. Elders are to be in every congregation (Acts 14:23), which they superintend (1 Timothy 3:1, 5:17).
If the Episcopal Church would return to the New Testament and do Bible things in Bible ways and call Bible things by Bible names, they would (among other things): 1.) Stop being Episcopal and 2.) stop having a hierarchy. Then it would not matter what the “mother church” did. They would have no need to divorce.
–Paul Holland
