The following report is a press release from The Episcopal Church, on May 16th:
In affirmation and celebration of The Episcopal Church’s LGBTQ+ members, the Office of Communication is pleased to unveil a new Pride shield available online for churchwide use.
The design retains the upper-left blue corner of The Episcopal Church’s shield logo and incorporates elements of the traditional Pride flag as well as the Progress Pride flag and Philadelphia Pride flag. In their use of black, brown, pink, and light-blue diagonal lines, the latter two flags represent intersectional progress in acknowledging people who are often overlooked by the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement: communities of color; the transgender community; and the many thousands harmed by anti-LGBTQ+ policy—from those who lost their lives in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s, to those still disproportionately impacted today.
As a longtime ally of LGBTQ+ people, I was so excited to work on this Pride shield for The Episcopal Church. I hope many more people feel seen and included by this new graphic as we enter Pride month.
said Melissa Walker, senior graphic designer
For half a century, Episcopalians have been working toward a greater understanding and radical inclusion of all God’s children. Resolutions from General Convention in 1976 recognized LGBTQ+ people as children of God with an equal claim to the pastoral care of the church and equal protection under the law. In 1994, General Convention amended the church’s canons to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, providing equal access to the rites and worship of the church, including ordination. In 2015, General Convention voted to amend the canons that regulate marriage, permitting any couple the rite of holy matrimony.
In June 2023, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry issued a video message of encouragement to “all of my LGBTQ+ family members,” noting, “I believe deep in my soul that God is always seeking to create a world and a society where all are loved, where justice is done, and where the God-given equality of us all is honored in our relationships, in our social arrangements, and in law.”
Last month, the church announced the hire of its first gender justice staff officer, a new position called for by the 80th General Convention and dedicated to justice, advocacy, and inclusion work focused on women and LGBTQ+ people.
In the United States, the bodily autonomy of women and trans people is under attack, and fully 50% of LGBTQ+ Americans live in poverty. I am grateful for the care and intention that went into designing this new Pride shield as it not only represents the LGBTQ+ community more fully, but also lifts those who, out of sheer necessity of survival and dignity, have fought the hardest and sacrificed the most for the thriving of all of us.
Said Aaron Scott, gender justice staff officer.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Malachi 3:13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? [14] Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? [15] And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.
The Episcopal Church – better known as “Catholic Light” – was already a sorry lot to begin with, and they’ve been working with Rome’s Jesuits to promote all this sodomy and “wokeness” for many years now. Just an embarrassment and shame.
Proverbs 16:5 Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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What a travesty
The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.
Isaiah 3:9
Judgement begins at the house of God (SEE: 1 Peter 4:17) and with very good reason!
The Methodists are also pro-sodomite and her sister the Pentecostal cult of course will soon follow suit.
The Lutheran Catholics already having a drag queen in their satanic pulpit as well.
The Baptists are too preoccupied with having enough jello at the church picnic (SEE: Philippians 3:18-19)
The Lord is pleading with this nation to repent but the judgement is about to get extreme, brothers and sisters!
There has always been a nagging shortcoming in the Protestant world, from its inception.
The term used to define the movement already betrayed its deliberate limitations; namely, it was called “Reformation”.
Now, etymologically the word may mean re-forming, forming again, but the general understanding suggests correction, improvement, change.
The religious outcome in Europe bore the fruits of its own doctrinal self-imposed constraints.
Lutheranism re-established the truth about salvation, but carried over from Romanism trappings of Church doctrine and practice, such as infant baptism, for example.
The Church of England, ditto.
Continental Calvinism and British Presbyterianism followed a similar path.
What should have been a Restoration (of the Biblical Faith) was left hanging in the balance as a Reformation (of Romanism)
Such developments also allowed for the establishment of political Protestantism – which turned out to be little better than political Romanism.
Such Laodicean-like process easily permitted the World to dictate terms of believe and conduct, since many of its adherents mingled with outright infidels
within the same church community.
Each generation answers for itself, of course, but error at the beginning will be carried over through the generations, and generally towards degradation and not towards cleansing and purity.
And we have seen also that non-conformist denominations have been following the path of general apostasy from the latter part of the 1800s.
Today, only a handful of local churches in Europa adhere to the whole counsel of God in doctrine and practice – with a few more in the US – but the vast majority of the Protestant world in the West are following the way of Balaam:
2 Peter 2:15 “Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness”