La Crescenta parish splits from Church

St. Luke's of the Mountains aligns with Ugandan diocese, citing differences.LA CRESCENTA -- St. Luke's of the Mountains Church announced Tuesday that it has severed ties with the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of Los Angeles, citing deep theological differences with the larger church as the reason for the split.

The La Crescenta church has dropped "Episcopal" from its name and will now be under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of Uganda, Diocese of Luweero, its pastor, the Rev. Ron Jackson said. The move reaffirms St. Luke's membership in the greater Anglican Communion, which represents 77 million people in 164 countries around the world, Jackson said.

"This decision was not made lightly or quickly, and it is something that we have been struggling with for many years," Jackson said. "But things have come to a point where we felt, sadly, that to maintain our integrity as a parish, we needed to make the move that we did. What we are doing is standing with the wider Anglican Communion, maintaining the teachings of the communion and, if anything, becoming more strongly connected to those teachings."

St. Luke's main point of contention with the Episcopal Church is in the way Jesus Christ is viewed.

"Put it simply, many people in the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church say that Jesus might be their way, but He is not necessarily 'the' way, that He is one way among many," Jackson said. "And while we need to respect people of all faiths, we do feel that [Jesus] is 'the' way and that His death on the cross and His rising from the dead was good news for all people."

Although the the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church USA in 2003 was a factor in his church's decision to secede, it was not the principal reason, he said.

"The consecration of the bishop of New Hampshire was a symptom of some of the underlying concerns having to do with differences in our understanding of the authority of scripture and how we interpret the gospel," Jackson said. "But the real issues go much deeper than that."

The choice to join the Ugandan diocese was a natural one for the 260-member La Crescenta congregation, Jackson said. The church has long-standing ties with Uganda, having helped build a school and clean water system for villages in the African nation, and many of its members have served as missionaries there.