Editorial
By David W. Virtue MCS, DD
www.virtueonline.org
February 24, 2014
.jpg "Bishop Edward Salmon")
Bishop Edward Salmon, Dean and President of Nashotah House, the flagship Anglo Catholic seminary in Nashotah, Wisconsin should resign, having forfeited his right to continue to lead the seminary following an invitation to Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to address the student body there.The theological views of the Presiding Bishop have been well documented. She has, over the course of seven years, made un-Biblical statements about the person of Jesus Christ, the authority of the Bible, heaven and hell, the Resurrection, attributing a demon to St. Paul and made the statement from the 2009 General Convention that the "great heresy of Western Christianity" is the belief that one can have a personal saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
That he acquiesced to the request of three students to invite Jefferts Schori to "come and see" and then attempted to wash his hands of the event has been typical of the history of this bishop. He once famously said to his clergy, when he was bishop of South Carolina, that if TEC ever allowed the gay agenda to take hold he would take the diocese out of the Episcopal Church. He didn't and later denied saying that he ever said it. It was up to his successor Bishop Mark Lawrence to take that action.
In this latest debacle Salmon has revealed himself to be a prevaricator, a fence sitter and useful idiot for the episcopal administration.
In this ecclesiastical conflagration he has been called out by his predecessor Dean Robert Munday who says that what he did was totally contrary to the faith we are called to believe and teach.
"One of the things that saddens me most about this whole affair is what it models for students at the House. These students are no longer being taught to be valiant for truth and to take risks for the sake of the Gospel, they are being led by example to 'go along to get along,' and that dialogue with heretics and even having them in your pulpit is a good thing if it promotes better relationships."
Salmon is on record as saying, "The name of leadership is relationships - people connecting with each other and working together. Our broken relationships in the Church are a testimony against the Gospel."
Not true, wrote Munday. "The heterodoxy of the Episcopal Church, in general, and of Katharine Jefferts Schori, in particular, is a testimony against the Gospel. We are called to separate ourselves from false teachers; and a shepherd, whether of a diocese, a parish, or a seminary, is called to protect his flock from wolves. In the words of the ordination vows Bishop Salmon took: 'Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the same?' To lead a seminary like Nashotah House in these days, and to fail to keep that ordination vow, is to see your seminary turn into another Seabury-Western, or General, or worse."
What is doubly ironic is that the Presiding Bishop has spoken vigorously against students wanting to study at Nashotah House. The Presiding Bishop specifically told one of her Executive Council members not to seek his theological education at Nashotah House. This negative advice was also delivered to two other co-ed students while they were in discernment about their seminary training at The House.
Now ask yourself a question. Has the much ballyhooed "doctrines" of inclusivity and diversity ever led a liberal Episcopal seminary to invite an orthodox bishop to give a lecture on say the Trinity or a biblical view on human sexuality? It would be laughable to think that the "married" lesbian president of the Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts would ever make such an invitation. Hell would freeze over before that happened.
And the truly stupefying truth is that for over 30 years orthodox bishops in the Episcopal Church have drawn one line in the sand after another in order to appease liberals. I recall Central Florida Bishop John Howe voting for Resolution D039 that allowed homosexual fornication in the name of "holy love" to become part of the sexual fabric of the church. Other resolutions followed, orthodox bishops drew more lines in the sand till one day Bishop Barbara Harris stood up and demanded that all dioceses must ordain women to the priesthood (in the name of women's rights) thus nullifying the consciences of godly bishops like Keith Ackerman, William Wantland, Donald Davies, John-David Schofield, Clarence Pope, Edward MacBurney and Jack Iker and, with a stroke of the pen, forced them all out of the church they had spent most of their lives in.
And now Bishop Salmon thinks he can do it again. No you can't. That day is done. There are no more lines in the sand to be drawn. There is a new world ecclesiastical order. Jefferts Schori is a heretic and the NT is abundantly clear in several places that we should have nothing to do with them. St. Paul writing to the Galatians 1:7-9 is absolutely clear, "As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." This is strong language that seemed to have slipped Bishop Salmon's mind.
As one blogger observed The Presiding bishop's Gospel can be defined as the acquisition of property by law, defrocking for disagreement, homosexual marriage and the holiness of the spirit of divination?
We must ask as Dean Munday did, "what were you thinking Bishop Salmon?" The days of go along to get along are long gone. What you did was not only reprehensible but you opened your orthodox academy to the "spirit of divination" that would have allowed any theologically weak students (and there are always one or two) to "hear" the Presiding Bishop and conclude that far from being a heretic she is a "nice person" who is either misunderstood or has a point of view worth hearing.
I have watched this woman in action at press conferences at General Convention and she can parse her way through anything and anybody with answers that leave one scratching one's head, but NOBODY is prepared to challenge her. The last bishop to say anything was South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence who stormed out of the House of Bishops at the last General convention never to be seen again. Jefferts Schori went right along as though nothing had happened. Later the litigation began in earnest and continues to this day.
You, Bishop Salmon have failed the seminary, your supporters, some of your board members in the name of a false "inclusivity". You have no business running this seminary. You should do the honorable thing and resign.
END
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GJ - The soi-disant Intrepids are more famous for their silence than for their speaking out. They silenced themselves:
1. When Rick Techlin was excommunicated for telling the truth about Ski/Glende/Engelbrecht.
2. When Paul Rydecki was kicked out with his congregation for teaching the truth about justification by faith.
3. When everyone finally realized, at least five years late, that Thrivent is in bed with Planned Parenthood abortions.
4. When police raided the WELS headquarters for Hochmuth's man/boy rape graphics, after Mark Schroeder publicly absolved Hochmuth, and when Hochmuth offended again after displays of faux-repentance.
5. When Mark Schroeder went to Fox Valley to cut a deal with Engelbrecht, Glende, Ski, and St. Peter in Freedom.
