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The audit clearing the Rev. Donald Armstrong, former rector of Grace and St. Stephen’s Parish in Colorado Springs, raises serious questions about the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado (“Church audit of clergyman comes up dry,” Oct. 24).
According to Robert D. Johnson, a certified public accountant, “the six counts against Armstrong had reasonable explanations and financial transactions.” If that is the case, the diocese may be hard pressed to prove its allegations in court.
The Episcopal Church has fallen away from its traditional teachings in recent years and embraced what may be called “another gospel.” Grace and St. Stephen’s is one of many parishes that have not acceded to the radical social agenda of the national church regarding homosexuality.
Ironically, the Episcopal Church appears more concerned about preserving its social agenda than defending its conservative priests. The Colorado Springs parish is a case in point.

Brian Stuckey, Denver

READER COMMENTS

It doesn't matter how much $$ he took (that's called the "prosperity gospel" isn't it?) as long as he's not gay.

THE CHURCH OF WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW:

"Chaos results when you trade-in your moral compass for politics."

The Rev. Leroy

Hank, it is not politics that creates chaos, it is the bureaucracies that politics create. And, everytime there is money involved bureaucrates of every kind, including those of religion, are corrupted by the inherent power of it.

Money and power are the at the core of every corruption be it economic, political, religious or societal. If those who know this are allowed to continue spreading money around in legislators and public officials offices, we have only ourselves to blame if our elected representatives ignore the best interests of the public in favor of the special interests of those who use their money to interfere with legitimate government business and in the process corrupt them.

The Bible does speak about those preaching "another gospel" and "false prophets". There is something rotten in the state of the Episcopal Diocese. Instead of dealing with a theological issue as Christians, they bore false witness.

One can only hope that this signifies the end of the Episcopal Church altogether..

Thanks for the good news Stuckey..

The problem with the Church is that it does not know what it believes:

The fundamentalist question, “Do you believe in Jesus?” is usually satisfied by a simple yes—or offended by a simple no—but the question is not really so simple. There are many differing beliefs involved. For example, do you believe that Jesus was a god-begotten, virgin-born, yet somehow human miracle-worker who died long ago, yet still lives, and will return to earth when the world ends, which is going to happen any day now?

Or, do you believe that Jesus was the only-begotten son of a cruel Father who demanded his painful death? Was he god or human? Both? Neither? Did he really live? Did he really die?

Do you believe that Jesus may have been a martyr to his own beliefs, thinking that his blood would magically confer immortality and that his self sacrifice would make him a god? Do you believe that his biography has been accurately reported, even though none of the reporters ever knew him, often contradict one another, and their texts have been variously altered and amended for 15 centuries? Do you believe that Jesus’ words have been accurately quoted, even though they have been found in many sources older than Jesus’ time: Or do you believe that Jesus was actually a composite of pagan saviors, created from an assortment of similar myths that were popular at the time? Or was he, like many other cult heroes, an obscure fanatic whose frustrated ego led him to style himself a supreme incarnation of the divine?

The truth is that we will probably never know what Jesus was, or even if he was. But it is fairly clear that he was connected with the mythos of pagan saviors, who were mostly nature deities, representing the eternal cycles of life and death. In this respect, their myths might point toward an updated
religion more firmly founded on the realities of this world.

Once the Jesus myth is more widely understood as a composite relic of a credulous past, we may be able to go forward toward a more satisfying set of spiritual hopes and insights, and leave behind the simplistic magics (sic) of a less enlightened people. We have “modernized” nearly every other aspect of our Western culture. Perhaps it is time to modernize its religion into a form that enlightenment may embrace without insulting its own intelligence.

Preposterous Paul (St. Paul) wrote much about a "jew" he never met or met anyone who knew the transmogrified "jew" into a Christian anti-Semitic god.

RG, that was a wonderful synopsis.

Perforce: My third posting pursuant to the moderator's mandate to scan for inadmissible posting:

Thanks 01:00; however, I can't send you a check since I steal from myself who steals from others though I agree with you on the quality of the synopsis wishing it had come from me.
http://www.geocities.com/r22037/think.html

Deicide Corner: Gross ignorance in yesterday's 11/3 daily: Reverend Herbert Daughtry is petitioning the mf "jew" from the "loins of David" for intervention in his daughter's happiness in her new job as newly elected CEO of the Democratic National Convention

Note: mf means evil and despicable in dictionary.com as so does wretch, what Christians call themselves: "Amazing Grace how sweet it is that saved a wretch like me...."

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