‘If you want me to stick my neck out, I think I would say that if the Church were officially to approve homosexual partnerships as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriage, this so far diverges from biblical sexual ethics that I would find it exceedingly difficult to stay. I might want to stay on and fight a few more years, but if they persisted, I would have to leave.’ (John Stott, Balanced Christianity, p. 63)
Some advocate strongly for staying in denominations which are being sucked into the black hole of contemporary morality. John Stott is cited as someone who would support this today. Others have come to a place much more like that expressed in the quote above – it is time for us to realign for our spiritual health, for the extension of the kingdom and in obedience to the Lord.
The strong gravitational pull of a denomination makes it very hard to leave it. The energy required to escape that hold is so great that few in the end are willing to even try. Fear of loss, the comfort of job security and the possibility of promotion all serve to keep people in place in the face of poor episcopal leadership and destructive false teaching. Obedience to bishops has taken on a new emphasis which results in few church leaders publicly resisting the revisionism of bishops.
