Why I have been quiet!

July 13, 2005, a message from Peter Toon

I have seemingly been silent for the last month or so. No tracts have gone forth from my computer to my list of friends and interested parties.

The truth of the matter is that I have been working very hard. Now I break my silence as to what I have been doing

First, in preparing sermons for delivery in St Thomas Parish, Houston (to read and to hear them visit the website of the church, www.stthomashouston.org ) ;

Secondly, in re-writing my book of 1992 entitled, Knowing God through the Liturgy. In its new form it will be entitled, Worship without Dumbing Down: Knowing God through Liturgy (Prayer Book Society USA and Edgeways Books UK, late August 2005).

Thirdly, in writing a substantial reply to the book offered to the whole Anglican Communion by the Episcopal Church of the USA in explanation of its latest innovations in sexual relations and ordination. The book, from Bishop Griswold and his team and published by the Episcopal Church, is entitled, TO SET OUR HOPE ON CHRIST, which is based on 1 Peter 1:3 and is, I regret to say, a total misuse of that verse.

My reply is entitled: SAME-SEX AFFECTION, HOLINESS AND ORDINATION. A RESPONSE TO PRESIDING BISHOP FRANK.T GRISWOLD. You may read it on the website of St Thomas Church or on the website of the Prayer Book Society (www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928 ) from July 13.

It will be published as a booklet of 64 pages by The Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the USA in mid-August for $7.50, postage included. There will be special prices for orders of 5 and more. Call 1-800-727-1928 from August lst to order.

I show (a) that the innovatory doctrine of the Episcopal Church is not a genuine development of doctrine, but the very opposite; (b) that its claimed scriptural basis is non-existent; and (c) that the theological method used by the Bishop and his team is of such a kind as to lead to heresies and errors. I appeal to them to reconsider their position and to examine carefully the received teaching of the Catholic Church on chastity, celibacy and marriage, and also to change their theological method, which exalts contemporary “experience”.

The Prayer Book Society hopes that this response will demonstrate to Episcopalians in the USA and to Anglicans overseas that not all those who call themselves Episcopalians or Anglicans in the USA have accepted the innovations in doctrine and morality that the Episcopal Church has adopted since the 1960s. Of these, the doctrines that same-sex affection is holy before God and that persons in same-sex unions may be ordained as priests and consecrated as bishops are but the latest, and, of course, the ones in which the media has the greatest interest.

The Society also hopes that concerned Episcopalians will help to distribute this substantial booklet far and wide as a testimony for Basic Christianity and traditional Christian teaching on sexual relations between male and female. After all, the classic Book of Common Prayer is the Liturgy of Basic Christianity, its faith and morals.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)