National Cathedral, a Nest of Vipers

National Cathedral, a Nest of Vipers

Well, the National Cathedral in Washington is at it again! Recently they announced that they would remove two Confederate flags from their stained glass windows in their effort to rewrite history. Might as well, since they, in effect, rejected, rewrote, then removed the Bible a long time ago.

In November of 2014, they hosted a Muslim prayer and preaching service that a Tennessee lady interrupted by shouting, “Jesus Christ died on that cross. He is the reason we are to worship only Him. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. We have built enough of your mosques in this country. Why don’t you worship in your mosques? … America was founded on Christian principles… Leave our church alone!” She was ejected and scorned while the Christ-hating Muslims were entertained and succored. This may be an example of God using a woman because no man was willing to be used to deliver the message.

The National Cathedral in D.C. is a magnificent gothic building, but it is full of dead men’s bones. Christ’s comparable term was “whited (whitewashed) sepulcher.” The official name of the church is Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, but I’m afraid Peter and Paul would not be welcome in their pulpit.

The Dean is the Very Rev. Gary R. Hall who came to the church in 2012. Hall’s father was Henry R. “Huntz” Hall, an actor who played one of the looney, tough-talking street urchins in the Bowery Boys movie series. I think his dad had more sense than the Rev. Hall.

Hall is a religious rebel without a cause other than the cause of apostasy. He said, “No sex before marriage is not realistic.” He did not try to prove that fornication was Biblical. He has even opened the cathedral for homosexual nuptials. He really jumped into a cauldron of confusion when he opined, “It is not only just OK to be gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. It is good to be that way, because that is the way God has made you.” Hall even invited a “transgendered priest” to preach in his pulpit recently. Wonder if he would invite me to preach for him!

However, every sane, honest person knows that God never made a homosexual. He created man and woman and they were to marry, have children, and live together until death.

Hall identifies himself as a “non-theistic Christian,” but that is a silly statement, not scholarly, and certainly not Scriptural. Hall continues to expose his heresy and rejection of Bible truth by saying, “Jesus didn’t try to convert. He just had people at his table.” I should think the head of America’s major Episcopal cathedral would know that Christ said, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Moreover, Christ told Nicodemus that he “must be born again” in order to enter Heaven.

Hall even identified himself with the teaching of New Atheist Richard Dawkins when he told him, “I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either.” So, the “Nation’s cathedral” has a non-Christian as its leader. Since he doesn’t believe the Bible he should do the principled thing and resign rather than accept an outrageous salary and perks from a “Christian” ministry.

So why haven’t traditional Christians at the National Cathedral, if there are any, thrown Hall into the street on his derrière? While Episcopal churches do not have congregational rule as did early New Testament churches, the members could refuse, reject, and remove him if they threw a religious fit. However, the problem is that most professing Christians don’t know what they believe or don’t have any convictions that demand action. Every sincere Christian at that church should leave immediately and seek a church where Christ is honored and the Bible is preached. When enough people leave, the church could be turned into a bowling alley, fast food joint, or maybe a Beer-Burger-Bible center now popular with shallow youth.

Hall has distanced himself from Peter, Paul, and all the other New Testament authors. Peter spoke of preachers such as Hall in II Peter 2:1, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” Hall and other mainline preachers are deceptive false prophets wearing sheep skins to hide their wolf features underneath. They are nests of vipers far more dangerous than rattlesnakes on the floor of a nursery. At least rattlesnakes, by nature, warn potential victims of danger. False prophets do not.

The Washington National Cathedral website declares it is called “to serve as the spiritual home for the nation. The Cathedral is a national treasure and an architectural feat, a place of stunning beauty built to inspire.” No one asked me to vote on its being “the spiritual home for the nation.” It might be rude or even crude for me to remind my readers that the Episcopal Church was the major opponent of our War for Independence. More than half of their Colonial ministers left their pulpits in disagreement with our demand for a break with England.

During our fight for independence from King George III, all Episcopal ministers had taken vows of loyalty to the King of England and the royal family. And the king was head of the church, another unscriptural entanglement. So, during that time over half the Anglican priests in America gave up their ministries rather than go against their promise to serve the king, while some even supported the British forces. Other ministers revised the Book of Common Prayer to eliminate all references to the king.

While the Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and even some Quakers were highly dedicated supporters of the War for Independence, the Episcopal leaders were the most vocal opponents of our cause. Jonathan Odell was the Episcopal rector at Burlington, New Jersey and became a confidant of traitor Benedict Arnold and scourged the Patriots with a sharp, satirical pen. His poorly rhymed attack on Presbyterian preacher John Witherspoon (who signed the Declaration of Independence) contains the clumsy couplet: “Whilst to myself I’ve humm’d in dismal tune, I’d rather be a dog than Witherspoon.” Odell accused his fellow Anglican ministers, who supported the American cause, of apostasy.

Witherspoon was the most important “political parson” of the Revolutionary period. As president of Princeton, Witherspoon was accused of turning the institution into a “seminary of sedition.” A strong opponent of the Roman Catholic Church, he spent some time in a Scottish prison as a young preacher. One of my heroes.

Bishop Jonathan Mayhew was an eloquent proponent of the idea that civil and religious liberty was ordained by God and he considered the Church of England as a dangerous enemy of that personal freedom. The top of the bishop’s staff with a snake emerging from it represented his view of the Anglican hierarchy. Mayhew was a “snake killer” who had theological problems but he was a dedicated patriot.

Hall should become a genuine believer and take some lessons from early American preachers and have a snake-killing service at the National Cathedral or he could ask me to do it for him. I would be honored.

Poor Rev. Hall. He has no knowledge that he has no knowledge and someone who is unaware that he is unaware is pathetic.