Conservative Priest Plans to Ignore ECUSA Bishop's Attempted Discipline
by Jim Brown
September 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - "An act of arrogance by yet another revisionist bishop in the Episcopal Church" -- that is how an Anglican priest is describing a decision by the Episcopal Bishop of Kentucky to take disciplinary action against him. Bishop Ted Gulick, Jr. of Kentucky has issued an "inhibition" -- a form of ecclesiastical discipline that temporarily prohibits a priest from performing any duties as a priest in the Episcopal Church -- against Kent Litchfield, rector of Holy Apostles Church in Elizabethtown. Gulick claims Litchfield can no longer function as a priest or conduct services in the church.
Litchfield says he plans to ignore the inhibition because he already left the Episcopal Church. He says he is now under the authority and sponsorship of conservative Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia. The Elizabethtown minister retired from the Episcopal denomination in June, after determining that it was driven more by liberal social issues than by the gospel.
Now Litchfield believes Gulick wants to make him a scapegoat. "The bishops are losing territory, they're losing power, they're losing clergy, they're losing congregations, and the most bottom line is, they're losing money," the rector explains, "and they want to stop this hemorrhage. So they're doing all they can in their power to stop the hemorrhage of the church of people, of clergy, and of money. And everything they do exacerbates the situation and, I believe, makes it worse."
In fact, Litchfield feels Gulick may have inadvertently helped to remind or prove to members of his biblically orthodox congregation that leaving the Episcopal Church was the right move. "They kind of think the reaction of the bishop is a joke," the rector notes. "He's actually played into our hands a couple of times."
For instance, the pastor of Holy Apostles Church recalls, "The last Sunday that [Bishop Gulick] was at the church when I was there, after I'd announced my retirement, he denigrated me significantly, and that irritated a lot of people. And so they said, 'Well, this is not going to happen; this isn't right.' And if anybody was on the fence, they came over with us."
Litchfield says he plans to ignore the inhibition against him. His congregation, he asserts, is under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Diocese of Bolivia, not the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
