Remembering 9/11

Our prayers and hearts are with those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.  We also pray for peace of our world and for the courage to forgive those who hate us.

Synod Statement on Syria

We are deeply concerned about events in Syria. We grieve for our brothers and sisters who have suffered so deeply for so long. We yearn for an end to the bloodshed and renew our call for a cease-fire and a mediated process involving all parties to provide new choices for all Syrians.

We condemn the use of chemical weapons. Regardless of who perpetrated the attack, such a usage violates a longstanding international norm.  We recognize the authority and the responsibility of the United Nations Security Council to deal with this violation of international law. We call all nations to encourage the Security Council to address this illegal and immoral act. We do not doubt that justice is needed, but question the unilateral and inevitably selective role the United States has too often played, too often leading to greater violence, terrorism, and instability.

We call upon the President and the members of Congress to follow the example of other strong leaders in the past by exercising the courage and wisdom to refrain from military action that is likely to escalate the conflict further, and to bring our country directly into another war in the Middle East.

We applaud the President’s efforts to consult widely, conferring with international leaders and with Congress.  Now we ask him to spend time over this holiday weekend listening to what Americans want and fear.

Now is not the time to feed the violence and instability that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Syrians, driven 3.4 million Syrians from their country, and displaced an additional 6.8 million Syrians from their homes. Most people affected by the conflict are noncombatants. Expanding the conflict will increase the suffering of the innocent. 

Now is the time to heed the voices of our church partners who pray and call and work for peace. Our partners look to us to challenge policies of our government that help to fuel conflict in Syria and proxy wars across the Middle East.

Now is the time to reflect on the lessons of 12 years of involvement in conflict in the Middle East by the United States. Limited engagement is never truly limited.

Now is the time to support the peacemakers of Syria who seek to end the violence and build a future. In any Congressional deliberations, we urge that nonviolent forms of intervention be considered, and that next steps beyond military force be grounded in defensible cooperative goals for the region.

Now is the time for all outside parties to cease all forms of military intervention in Syria. States and and non-state actors must stop feeding the conflict in Syria by sending weapons to the government and to opposition forces.

Now is the time to renew the efforts for a diplomatic solution. The United States must work with the United Nations and other governments to contain the violence, restore stability in the region, provide humanitarian assistance, and encourage the building of an inclusive society in Syria that protects the rights of all its citizens.

Now—in the grimmest of situations—is the time to build a coalition of nations and peoples willing to do the long, hard, and essential work of establishing interfaith relationships of respect and understanding.

Now—for Syria and all its neighbors—is the time to seek a new vision of cooperation and nonviolence that will support an intervention with the power of impartial justice that will lead to a just and lasting peace.

Now is the time to pray for wisdom for leaders, for courage to turn from violence, for grace to build and nurture relationships, for justice to roll down like waters, and for peace to prevail in Syria.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” For the people of Syria, may it now be a time for peace.

Congregational Episcopal Church USA Synod

USA Presbytery Puritan Church 

 

Christmas and Easter Directive

The synod of the USA has voted in favor of the following directives concerning the use of liturgical calendars, seasons (ie: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and so forth) and the celebration of Christmas and Easter in churches.




With a majority of parishes, clergy, and bishops deciding:

In keeping with our continual reformation around scriptures we the Puritan Church in America (Congregational Episcopal Church) do ordain the following.

The use of liturgical calendars needlessly divides the year into repetitive celebrations each year that have no basis in scriptures. Each minister, pastor, deacon, and bishop has the needed knowledge of scriptures to perform their duties as preachers without the unneeded crutch of calendars, seasons, and so forth.

Seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Whitsunday, and so forth have no scriptural basis and are an outdated tool of a time when the faithful had neither education nor personal used Bibles. These seasons are simply contrary to what reformers of our Puritan faith taught and preached to reform the church as a living body. Repetition of readings make for a lazy and uninventive church. Ministers of the Gospels need no such seasons to conduct their services, and the faithful need no such seasons to lift their hearts to God. These seasons are repugnant to faith.

As Christmas and Easter have been overly celebrated with a secular lean, which has found its was into Christian churches, these holidays are no longer recognized as "holy days" or as feasts in the church. Pastors are advised to treat these festivals as any other Sunday. There is no need to mark special services for such pagan festivals in the church when those called as saints need no special days for celebration being saved by the Lord Jesus other than the Sabbath.

Our Puritan Tradition and Mission

The Congregational Episcopal Church.  Puritan in roots, faith, and traditions.

As a church body of united Christians we hold to our Puritan traditions although we are formed from former Episcopalian, Anglican, Congregational, Disciples of Christ, and Church of Christ communities.  We hold to the need to first purify the church and thus purify our lives.  

We are Christian people who have grown discontent with mainstream Christian churches and work towards religious, moral and societal reforms.  Christianity has become a product of political struggles and man-made doctrines.  Women are not to be ordained ministers, homosexuals re to be denied marital status and ordination to ministry, transgender is a man made blasphemy of creation, and the family is to be protected and preserved as one man and one woman with authority over their children.

We believe that the Bible is God's true law, and that it provides the only plan for salvation and for living. The established churches of today describe access to God possible only within the confines of "church authority". We strip away the traditional trappings and formalities of Christianity which have been slowly building throughout the previous 2000 years. 

We are not a small group of people. In England many of our persuasion sit in Parliament.  In the USA we have members in Congress and on the Supreme Court.  We have congregations in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, South Africa, Kenya, and Latin America.  We have plans for missions in Asia, specifically China, Japan, and Hong Kong.

Our common unity strengthens the community.  Our spiritual bond make us sympathetic to each other's needs.  Each church congregation is  individually responsible to God, as is each person. Our elders, "bishops", merely offer support and guidance.  The New Testament is our model and our devotion is to give praise to Christ and Christ alone.  While we are tolerant of other faiths and denominations we shall always hold that Christ is the only way to salvation.

True holiness is to be found in Christ alone.  No person is holy until resurrected in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Our salvation comes only as grace from God and is not earned or purchased.  God saves those He wishes and saves not those He wishes.  Hard work is an honor to God, but not a sign of salvation.  Good works honor God, but hold no persuasion of salvation.  Salvation is found only in the acceptance of Christ as savior, worship of Christ alone, and true repentance of sins.

We hold that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.  Divorce is permissible only in cases of adultery and even then rare.  It is the responsibility of a man to provide for his family and especially his children.  Society holds no responsibility for supporting families, that falls solely upon the family.  The more government is kept out of churches and families the better it is for church, family, and government.  

Religious freedom implies freedom from religion.  Religion is best preserved and fostered in churches, in the home, and in private.  As government does so let it be done.  As Christ does it is done on earth as in Heaven.  The highest power falls to Christ and His church which no power can impede.

In all questions the Gospels and the scriptures are the final answer.

Concerning Supreme Court Gay Marriage Ruling

Wednesday was a tragic day for marriage and our nation. The Supreme Court has dealt a profound injustice to the American people by striking down in part the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Court got it wrong. The federal government ought to respect the truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, even where states fail to do so. The preservation of liberty and justice requires that all laws, federal and state, respect the truth, including the truth about marriage. It is also unfortunate that the Court did not take the opportunity to uphold California’s Proposition 8 but instead decided not to rule on the matter. The common good of all, especially our children, depends upon a society that strives to uphold the truth of marriage. Now is the time to redouble our efforts in witness to this truth. These decisions are part of a public debate of great consequence. The future of marriage and the well-being of our society hang in the balance.

Marriage is the only institution that brings together a man and a woman for life, providing any child who comes from their union with the secure foundation of a mother and a father.

Our culture has taken for granted for far too long what human nature, experience, common sense, and God’s wise design all confirm: the difference between a man and a woman matters, and the difference between a mom and a dad matters. While the culture has failed in many ways to be marriage-strengthening, this is no reason to give up. Now is the time to strengthen marriage, not redefine it.

When Jesus taught about the meaning of marriage – the lifelong, exclusive union of husband and wife – he pointed back to “the beginning” of God’s creation of the human person as male and female (see Matthew 19). In the face of the customs and laws of his time, Jesus taught an unpopular truth that everyone could understand. The truth of marriage endures, and we will continue to boldly proclaim it with confidence and charity.

Now that the Supreme Court has issued its decisions, with renewed purpose we call upon all of our leaders and the people of this good nation to stand steadfastly together in promoting and defending the unique meaning of marriage: one man, one woman, for life. We also ask for prayers as the Court’s decisions are reviewed and their implications further clarified.

We stand united with our Southern Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, and Assembly of God brothers and sisters in refusing matrimonial rights to any couple except single men and women.  Let the civil and secular powers marry who they wish, we stand on the Gospel of Christ.  We still live our Puritan tradition by proudly being Protestant (people of protest).

Christian Marriage

The Congregational Episcopal Church sets forth the following as doctrine in order to be married in service or to be considered married after membership.

Marriage, by definition, is a lifelong union between one man and one woman. The Church does not recognize, even as a civil marriage, a contracted relationship between two men or two women.  This is keeping with the Gospel as preached by the Lord Jesus Christ:

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.  Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.  Mark 10: 6-9

From this it is very clear that marriage is to be between one man and one woman.  The Congregational Episcopal Church refuses to redefine marriage even as a civil contract to be anything other than what Jesus Christ defined marriage as.

Let it be known that any minister or deacon of this Church shall be defrocked and excommunicated for performing any marriage ceremony other than as defined above. 

Congratulations Pope Francis

Pope Francis Elected 13 March 2013

The US Synod of the Congregational Episcopal Church would like to extend its prayers and congratulations to Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio being elected to Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.  As Pope Francis we pray that the division among Christians may be healed.  We stand behind Pope Francis in defending traditional family values, resisting abortion, and advancing the Gospels of Christ to the nations.  We wish to extend our prayer that Pope Francis be courageous in his preaching and be true to the foundation on which Christianity was founded - the Apostle Peter. 

May the Lord bless Pope Francis with clarity of vision and the splendor of truth.  We give our best wishes and prayers for his Papal mission.

In Christ, Bishop Peter Morimoto

Presiding Bishop US Synod of the Congregational Episcopal Church