December 15, 2003

An open letter to Richard Godbold,

the Vestry, and the congregation of

St. Pauls Episcopal Church,

Evansville, Indiana.

Dear Friends,

When I married Dennis in 1999 I became an Episcopalian to be with my husband.  You all welcomed me and made me a part of your church family.  I thank you for that.  I embraced the church and became a caring and active part of the church.  I love each and every one of you. 

However, I now believe that the time for parting is at hand.  I believe in the Bible as the Word of the Lord:  All ot the Bible not just the parts that are comfortable for me.  I know I have sinned.  I have repented.  I know that as a human I will continue to sin, but I am not given free license to sin without repentence and striving to sin no more.  Gods love is for us all.  He gives it freely.  But like any parent he expects us to obey him.

It would be easy to act, in light of this new humanistic approach to Holy Scripture, by hunkering down in my comfort level until the smoke blows over and then go my merry way as before because, After all, it doesnt really affect me.  But the truth is that I DO NOT believe in following any direction other than that of Holy Scripture.  I DO believe in the validity of Holy Scripture as taught for 2000 years.  I do NOT believe in the feel good humanistic approach to the Bible that is now being proported by false teachers.

I have taken two of the scriptures that might better explain what I believe:

             Matthew 7:13-27

Enter through the narrow gate.  For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Watch for false prophets.  They come to you in sheeps clothing, but instantly they are ferocious wolves.    Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Corinthians 11:3-4, 13-15

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpents cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.  For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.  Their end will be what their actions deserve.

I do not preach to you, nor do I judge you - that is not my place:  Nor is it your place to judge me.  I only state my belief.  I mourn the loss of my choir and church family who have become so extremely important to me, but I must follow the faith of my father and the fathers before him all the way back to the Apostles.

Dennis and I have a framed version of the following prominently displayed in our living room, and I believe it says it all: 

Joshua 24:15

 As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Please move my membership to St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Mt. Carmel, Illinois, Diocese of Springfield, The Right Reverend Peter H. Beckwith, Bishop.

In Christ,

Nancy V. Noon

Cc:          The Rt. Rev. Peter H. Beckwith

Tenth Bishop of Springfield

Springfield, IL

The Very Rev. Brant V. Hazlett, Rector

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church,

Mt. Carmel, IL

Cate Waynick

Bishop of Indianapolis

Indianapolis, IN

AN OPEN LETTER OF RESIGNATION

TO THE PARISHIONERS AND VESTRY

OF ST. PAULS EPISCOPAL CHURCH,

EVANSVILLE, INDIANA

Dear Vestry and Parishioners of St. Pauls,

I am saddened, shocked and amazed at how quickly we have turned away from God and now follow a foreign religion that does not conform to the Holy Scriptures nor the Anglican Communion.  I fear for us as our minister and bishop and presiding bishop lead us into the morass of this new revisionist theology, which rejects notions of hell, damnation and separation from God; and embraces a simplistic theology of inclusion and celebration - without repentance or amendment of life.

God is Holy.  God hates sin!  Jesus crucified, Gods son dying on the cross, is proof of how much God hates sin.  And yet, we are sinners in the hands of this Holy God who hates sin, even unto the sacrifice of His own Son.  Jesus speaking in Luke 13 says,  But unless you repent, you too will all perish.  How dare we presume to claim Gods forgiveness, if we have not repented of (turned away from) our sins and asked God to forgive us on the merits, sacrifice and death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, Go, and sin no more.   We are to stop sinning.  How then can we accept among us, those who practice sodomy and/or call blessed that which is called an abomination in the sight of God?    How can we continue in a fellowship that has perverted the Holy Scriptures and embraces  unnatural affections - men with men, and women with women?  How can we allow this perversion to be visited upon our children in the Sanctuary of Gods Church? 

Some Diocese of the Episcopal Church, including Indianapolis, have begun actively recruiting homosexuals, gays and lesbians to fill the pews.  Not to minister to them and to bring them into the health of repentance, amendment of life and Gods healing; but to marry them into their sinful and deadly lifestyle and into eternal damnation.  Same-sex blessings already meet the approval of the bishop of Indianapolis and will soon be taking place at St. Pauls in Evansville.  What then?  Will we go along to get-a-long?   Bishop Waynick has already installed a homosexual priest and his gay lover at the Episcopal Church in Richmond, Indiana. Will we continue to condone this heretical Bishop?  Will we continue to compromise our beliefs and our knowledge of the plain truth of scripture?  I can no longer!

^{Matthew 11:20-23}

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent     And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies?  No, you will go down to the depths (Hades).  If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.  But I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom on the Day of Judgment than for you.

Dear friends, the time has come for us to repent of our sins of omission as well as commission.  We have failed our brothers and sisters and our Lord in not calling each other to repentance.  I urge you to consider that God is not pleased, and is likely angered, with the sodomizing of His Church.   I dont know what course you will take but as for me, I know that I must flee from St. Pauls and this diocese.  I hereby resign from the vestry and the congregation of St. Pauls immediately and move my membership to St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Mt. Carmel, Illinois, in the Orthodox Diocese of Springfield, The Right Reverend Peter H. Beckwith, Bishop.  I ask Gods forgiveness for my complicity in the decline of His Church. 

In Christ,

Dennis A. Noon

Cc:       The Right Reverend Peter H. Beckwith,

                Tenth Bishop of Springfield

                Springfield, IL

             The Very Reverend Brant V. Hazlett, Rector,

                St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church

                Mt. Carmel, IL

             Bishop Catherine Waynick

                Diocese of  Indianapolis

                Indianapolis, IN