So says the Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, one of as many as eight Episcopal churches expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to leave the Episcopal Church.
The trouble in the Episcopal church has been brewing for about 30 years and covers a variety of issues from ordination of female bishops to gay marriage to basic church tenets like whether Jesus is the only route to salvation.
If the churches vote to secede, there could be a battle over who gets the property. Both sides claim the law is on their side.
Like a messy family fight at Christmas that has been brewing for years, no one in the Episcopal community will walk away unaffected.
“It’s a huge amount of mess,” said the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina, who is aligned with the conservatives. “As these two sides fight, a lot of people in the middle of the Episcopal Church are exhausted and trying to hide, and you can’t. When you’re in a family and the two sides are fighting, it affects everybody.”
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