BEDFORD, Texas (AP) _ The pastor of an evangelical megachurch has told Episcopalians splitting from their national church in a dispute about gay clergy that they need to love people but not the world’s values.
Pastor Rick Warren spoke yesterday to about 800 Episcopalians at St. Vincent’s Episcopal Cathedral Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Bedford.
The California megachurch leader who delivered one of the prayers at President Barack Obama’s inauguration never mentioned gay priests and encouraged churches to reach out with ministries.
His sermon came a day after the formation of the conservative Anglican Church in North America.
The new province is an alternative to The Episcopal Church, the liberal-leaning U.S. branch of the Anglican fellowship.
In his opening address yesterday, Archbishop-elect Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, said members of the new entity had “come out of bondage” and escaped from a church that “got cut from its moorings.”
He said though the journey took its toll, deliverance has been “very sweet, indeed.”