Lynn Carol Bowling, award-winning author, columnist, and frequent conference coordinator has written three other books on challenging life issues.  Wife, mother, stepmother, and grandmother, Lynn and her husband, George, reside on the Gulf Coast of Florida where they are both active in ministries of their church and community.

When Truth Matters…

and the bravehearts who defended it from apostasy

By Lynn Carol Bowling

ow could and why would a congregation known as St. Andrew’s By the Sea, Destin, Florida, reach the point where they would depart from the property of their ancestors and the handiwork of their members to be a church under the authority of a third-world bishop?

In When Truth Matters, the award-winning author offers insights and observations—both hers and others, recapping a chronology of comments, documents, and events, as explanation of how and why St. Andrew’s and other congregations moved from the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) to other parts of the greater Anglican Communion.  It is perhaps a true microcosm of the 21^st century’s reformation of the church, a glimpse of the raging battlefield where loyal conservative and orthodox believers fought traditionalists, ending with the election of the first openly gay bishop of ECUSA.  The Very Rev Peter C. Moore, D.D., while dean and president of Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry said this: “Some of you will wonder how such a state has come to pass.  If you are one who thinks that way, then I suspect that you have been ill informed by the very people who should have enlightened you to the real issues.  The Episcopal Church has fought over sexuality for the past 30 years.”

            When elected in 1997, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, the apostle of "pluriform truth," said, "Truth is, as the Chicago theologian David Tracy put it, pluriform.”  In 2000 Griswold said, “Since there are many truths, all personal, subjective, and in need of enlargement, perhaps there can be many gods, all equally true.”  Bowling brings first-hand evidence that to one congregation, then, to one after another, biblical truth is not relative; truth does matter.  Relative truth leads to a departure from scriptural authority, ultimately affecting the very life of the church, as this story relates.

            While the book, When Truth Matters, specifically addresses activities within the Episcopal denomination, virtually all mainline denominations are experiencing like problems and reactions at the turn of the millennium.  Change the names, places, and denominational faces, and you will likely observe similar battlefield stories.  The author tells this particular tale in order that others may learn from history, from the moves and mistakes of those who have already been there. 

For more information on this book go to http://whentruthmatters.net/