Clergy At Odds Over ECUSA’s Using Pagan Rite

Jim Brown and Jenni Parker, Agape Press

November 2, 2004

A leading conservative Anglican minister in the United States says he is “deeply saddened and outraged” that a pagan Eucharist is being promoted by leaders of the Episcopal Church USA.

Last week, Christianity Today reported that the ECUSA was promoting pagan religious rites directed toward pagan deities through its Office of Women’s Ministries. The magazine noted that the office’s website had featured a druid liturgy submitted by a female Episcopal minister from Pennsylvania, which urged women to make raisin cakes to the “Queen of Heaven.” The article also called attention to the equally non-biblical “Liturgy for Divorce” featured on the site.

David Roseberry is the rector of Christ Church in Plano, Texas, the most highly attended Episcopal church in the United States. He says the “Women’s Eucharist: A Celebration of the Divine Feminine,” written by Episcopal rector Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, is essentially liturgizing the Da Vinci Code. And although the pagan rite has been removed from the Episcopal Church’s official Internet site, the conservative Anglican minister describes the denomination’s apparent promotion of the pagan liturgy, however brief, as “a travesty and a tragedy.”

Roseberry calls the pagan liturgical service offered up by the church’s administrative offices in New York is an “embarrassment” to the denomination. “There are individuals in the Episcopal Church who are way left of center,” he asserts, “and indeed, [they are] outside of the boundaries of what you’d call Christian. And, unfortunately, they have positions of influence in our leadership.”

The Texas clergyman believes recent trends toward blurring or crossing the lines of biblical doctrine and ignoring established church practice have created an atmosphere of increasing lawlessness in the Episcopal Church. As a result, he feels some liberal denominational figures in positions of power tend to exploit the situation.

“If the Episcopal Church does not have any boundaries or any discipline,” Roseberry warns, “then it really will believe anything, and its leadership at the hierarchical level, the main office in New York, will promote just about anything that they have a personal interest in.”

It would appear to the conservative rector that there are ideas among the church leaders in New York that are clearly at odds with biblically orthodox Christianity. “And obviously,” he says, “somebody up there has a very deep personal interest in feminism and Druidism and pagan religions.”

The Episcopal Church’s Response

Ruppe-Melnyk and her bishop, Charles Bennison, both declined interviews with American Family Radio News concerning the “Women’s Eucharist.” However, the Episcopal Church’s director of women’s ministries, Margaret Rose, assured AFR that the Episcopal Church “neither promotes idol worship nor the worship of pagan deities.”

But Rose criticized Christianity Today’s initial report on the liturgy, characterizing the report as a “hate article.” Her office has issued a statement in response, noting, “There is quite a difference in presenting resources for people’s interest and enlightenment and promoting resources as official claims of the Episcopal Church. Only General Convention has this authority.”

The Women’s Ministries director contends that in order for women to move from mere representation to true inclusion in the Episcopal Church and beyond, the church must find ways to embrace the experiences of women pastorally, ritually, and liturgically. Toward this objective, her office has been working to develop and offer woman-affirming materials for use by individuals and groups in the church.

Rose points out that the “Women’s Eucharist” was sent “in good faith” as a response to a recent call for resources from the Women’s Ministries Office, and was only removed from its website when the office discovered that the material was copyright protected.

Christianity Today’s Weblog has since pointed out that the pagan material was indeed lifted from a rite of Tuatha de Brighid, a modern druid clan. However, CT notes, the liturgy was not plagiarized, since that rite was written for Tuatha de Brighid by Ruppe-Melnyk, the same Episcopalian minister who submitted it as a feminist Eucharist to the Episcopal Church.

Clergy at Odds Over ECUSA’s Using Pagan Rite