VIRTUEONLINE Digest - 3 Aug 2007 to 9 Aug 2007 (#2007-36) Thu, 9 Aug 2007 There are 22 messages totalling 1376 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Table of Contents 2. VirtueOnline Viewpoints - August 09, 2007 3. It's The Anglican Communion, Not Just The Episcopal Church That Is Lost 4. TEC: Episcopal Theologians Fight Over Staying Or Leaving 5. COLORADO SPRINGS: Orthodox Priest Found Guilty of Financial Misconduct 6. WIKIPEDIA DELETES ACCOUNT OF BISHOP BENNISON'S ASSISTANT OVER SEX COVER-UP 7. FT. WORTH: Bishop Clarence Pope Returns to Rome...Again 8. ENGLAND: Deadline for responding to Lambeth Invitations extended 9. VIRGINIA: Episcopal Church deposes separation ministers 10. LONG BEACH, CA: Church fight may head to High Court 11. ATTLEBORO, MASS: Episcopal diocese settles lawsuit 12. CALIFORNIA: Anglican Churches Petition Ca. Supreme Court over Property Dispute 13. PCUSA documents on property: 'true church' vs. 'schismatics' 14. DALLAS: St. Michael and All Angels' new leader opposed gay bishop 15. SOUTH CAROLINA: Diocese re-elects Mark Lawrence as bishop 16. NEW HAMPSHIRE: Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop endorses Obama 17. On Moral Clarity - John Becker 18. Why Canon Anderson Got it Wrong - Arun Arora 19. Reply to Philip Turner from Stephen Noll 20. The New Paganism and the Culture of Death 21. Greater China: Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia 22. Presbyterians Flee Presbyterian Church (USA) - Mike McManus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:13:06 -0400 From: Robert Turner Subject: Table of Contents 1. VIEWPOINTS: Anglican Communion in Danger..More Legal & Ecclesiastical Action in TEC Dioceses 2. It's The Anglican Communion, Not Just The Episcopal Church That Is Lost 3. TEC: Episcopal Theologians Fight Over Staying Or Leaving 4. COLORADO SPRINGS: Orthodox Priest Found Guilty of Financial Misconduct 5. WIKIPEDIA DELETES ACCOUNT OF BISHOP BENNISON'S ASSISTANT OVER SEX COVER-UP 6. FT. WORTH: Bishop Clarence Pope Returns to Rome...Again . 7. ENGLAND: Deadline for responding to Lambeth Invitations extended 8. VIRGINIA: Episcopal Church deposes separation ministers 9. LONG BEACH, CA: Church fight may head to High Court 10. ATTLEBORO, MASS: Episcopal diocese settles lawsuit 11. CALIFORNIA: Anglican Churches Petition Ca. Supreme Court over Property Dispute 12. PCUSA documents on property: 'true church' vs. 'schismatics' 13. DALLAS: St. Michael and All Angels' new leader opposed gay bishop 14. SOUTH CAROLINA: Diocese re-elects Mark Lawrence as bishop 15. NEW HAMPSHIRE: Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop endorses Obama 16. On Moral Clarity - John Becker 17. Why Canon Anderson Got it Wrong - Arun Arora 18. Reply to Philip Turner from Stephen Noll 19. The New Paganism and the Culture of Death 20. Greater China: Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia 21. Presbyterians Flee Presbyterian Church (USA) - Mike McManus END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:31:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: VirtueOnline Viewpoints - August 09, 2007 On the Episcopal Church: "It doesn't take a majority to wreak havoc, just a totally committed minority" -- John Becker, orthodox Episcopal Layman. On homosexuality: "Perhaps there is no sin which so deeply shows the depravity of man as this; none which would so much induce one 'to hang his head, and blush to think himself a man.'" –-Nineteenth-Century Christian Commentator Albert Barnes describing the "shameful sin of Sodom," as condemned by the Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans. On the resurrection of the body: The Christian hope is not the immortality of the soul (a shadowy, disembodied existence), but the resurrection of the body (a perfect instrument for the expression of our new life). ---From "The Authentic Jesus" John R. Stott Dear Brothers and Sisters, www.virtueonline.org 8/9/2007 The question this week that begs for an answer is this: Is it just The Episcopal Church that has lost its way or is the Anglican Communion so severely compromised that a more radical realignment is needed? In Dallas at a recent meeting of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, ACN moderator and convener of Common Cause, said this, "What is needed is a completely new structure. Lambeth is failing, Canterbury is failing, the Anglican Consultative Council is prejudiced in a Western way and the primates are sadly divided north and south. We'll leave and they can take the stuff with them to hell, because that is where they will take it. This is Good Friday and we have to face it." You can read my full analysis of this here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/39zfpw ***** AROUND the Episcopal Church the actions of revisionist bishops grow more strident, angry and vicious as they come down hard on orthodox priests who want to leave with their properties - properties that neither the diocese nor the national church had a hand in building. In the DIOCESE OF COLORADO, an Ecclesiastical Court of the diocese found the Rev. Don Armstrong, former Episcopal rector of Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, guilty on all counts of financial misconduct, to no one's surprise. Armstrong had expected it to happen as did the church. Armstrong also expects the bishop to depose him. "This was no surprise to us and frankly of no interest either--this is just all the Episcopal Church has left, with no theology to debate those of us who have made a case for tradition, they have to resort to kangaroo courts ginned up in the their quickly failing club house," Armstrong told VirtueOnline in an exclusive report. "The charges are bogus. O'Neill spent $1,000,000 with the very people who defended Kobe Bryant on rape charges, and what O'Neill got for that was a fancy report that itself admits it never saw my tax records, and never interviewed me, my staff or the vestry--and yet assumed I didn't pay my taxes and that the parish leadership didn't give my children scholarships for college. "Included in the charges about my discretionary fund misuse, for example, is reimbursement $259.00 for bibles we gave the graduating Seniors--I can see where that would violate Episcopal sensitivities and be thought to be malfeasance." You can read the story here or in today's diges t: http://tinyurl.com/24glde In the DIOCESE OF VIRGINIA, Bishop Peter James Lee made it official and deposed a dozen clergy, thus purging these orthodox priests from diocesan rosters as a blatant act of intimidation. Lee's argument: the specious claim that they "had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church." The clergy members said the move is meaningless, they all belong to CANA and they are fully part of the wider Anglican Communion even if they are no longer with the the Episcopal Church. They have abandoned nothing. You can read that story here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/2tw3s8 Whined Lee, "We must protect and preserve our heritage for future generations." In the DIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES, three Anglican Churches petitioned the California Supreme Court to review their church property dispute. The three churches are St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints' Church in Long Beach, and St. David's Church in North Hollywood. In July 2007, the California Court of Appeals, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, reversed the Orange County Superior Court's prior ruling that the three former Episcopal churches, which ended their affiliation with the national denomination in 2004, did not forfeit their property by changing their affiliation to another Anglican church. This division of the appellate court broke with nearly thirty years of California church property law applying "neutral principles" (i.e., who holds the deed, who bought or donated the property, and whether the local church ever agreed to turn over the property), and instead ruled that denominations can take over local church property by simply passing an internal rule - even if the local church separately incorporated, bought and maintained the property, and never consented to the rule. You can the full story in today's digest. In the DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS, St. Paul's Anglican Church in Attleboro settled a lawsuit with the diocese over money and can now grow in peace to love and serve the Lord at a new location. You can read that story here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/3746uk All this proves that the national church is using a nationwide litigation campaign to intimidate the faithful orthodox remnant. Church officials say they are simply trying to protect their patrimony, which begs the question, whose church is it anyway? ***** In the DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY things are getting so desperate that St. John's Episcopal Church in Elizabeth has had to sell off its Tiffany windows. According to a liberal Episcopal blogger, thousands of jobs have been lost in Elizabeth, N.J. Now even churches are desperately trying to survive economic adversity. St. John's is responding by trying to sell off one of their most prized possessions: their stained glass windows. You can follow the story here: http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/08/04/a_church_in_need.html However, according to official NJ Statistics, the City of Elizabeth is the economic engine for the state of New Jersey, leading the way as a hub for transportation, shipping, industrial and retail opportunities. Businesses interested in coming to the City will find a solid network of public and private partners in place, ready to assist with any needs. One such partner is the Elizabeth Development Company, designed to serve as a "one stop" shopping center for businesses. ***** This past week saw a new development we have not seen before - orthodox Episcopal theologians fighting among themselves. In a most unseemly display of "he said", "he said" the group fought over whether flight or fight was the order of the day. The war of words broke out on the Internet among the theologians as to whether dwindling conservative Episcopalians should stay or leave as they face inhibition and worse. They could not agree. Only one theologian, Dr. Stephen Noll said it was time to flee the apostate Episcopal Church. He wrote in an open letter to Anglican Communion Network bishops and Common Cause Partners, "The time has come for full and final separation between those in TEC who hold a false gospel and those who hold fast the truth revealed in Holy Scripture and the evangelical and catholic faith of the Church. I find it hard not to conclude that any bishop who still hopes for reform and revival from within the current structure is in a state of denial." He went on to say, "There is no hope and a future for any diocese or parish that remains connected to TEC. The Mark Lawrence case and various abuses of the canons should make this clear. This is a spiritual fact: TEC is terminally ill and the cancer will eventually spread to every part of the body." You can read what all the players said including Noll, the Rev. Dr. Philip Turner and the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner who takes a contra position, in today's digest. ***** Just when you thought you couldn't get enough of the antics going on in the DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA, Wikipedia editors suspended Barbara Alton, Bishop Charles Bennison's personal assistant, from posting to the online encyclopedia. They accused her of vandalism, for the third time, because she keeps trying to delete information about Bennison's cover-up of his brother's sexual abuse. Wikipedia editors had enough and deleted her account. You can read that story here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/32uptd ***** Yet another bishop scooted off to Rome this week. BISHOP CLARENCE POPE, the former Bishop of Ft. Worth made his third pilgrimage back to Rome. You can read that story here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/38boyn The Rt. Rev. Dan Herzog, former Bishop of Albany, recently crossed the Tiber to return home to the bosom of Rome. Are we seeing the beginnings of an epidemic of bishops and priests looking to cross the Tiber? Not necessarily, but clearly dissent is in the air. We will see a lot more moves by former Episcopal bishops in all directions before the great realignment of the Episcopal Church ends. ***** In YUMA, ARIZONA the parish of Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church is on the march. The Episcopal diocese might be a desert wasteland but not this parish, a VOL reader reports. The parish has called its first rector, the Rev. Josh Acton who will begin his duties on September 1. He comes from St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Dallas, TX. He is also the former executive director of the Center for Christian Healing, a diocesan Ministry he founded in 2004. He has served parishes in Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. He comes to Yuma with a love of the desert; he and his wife grew up in the California Desert. Christ the Redeemer had its first service on February 4, 2007, and has been growing by leaps and bounds ever since. ***** A VOL reader, the Rev. Fred-Munro Ferguson, SSC made an interesting historical observation in the many discussions on the connection between the issue of the ORDINATION OF WOMEN and the promotion of the HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA in TEC. He said, "From 1974 to 1980 I served as personal secretary to the Right Rev. Wilbur E. Hogg, VI Bishop of Albany. When he returned from the General Convention (his first as a Bishop) which 'approved' the ordination of women, he told me of the tremendous pressure placed upon the House of Bishops to allow this innovation, pressure to which he did not yield. The pressure favoring the ordination of women came from three principal sources, Bishop Hogg stated. They were (1) NOW (National Organization of Women, (2) Integrity and Louis Crew and (3) various feminist groups within the Roman Catholic Church. In the conversations between NOW and Integrity, the women promised the homosexual group that, if they (Integrity) would actively and fully support the ordin ation of women, the women, in turn would actively and fully support Integrity's agenda. We have lived to see the fulfillment of that promise. TEC is fulfilling a conspiracy now more than thirty years in the making. And what about the Port St. Lucie Resolutions? It certainly diminishes the claim of the House of Bishops to omniscience, certainly in any eternal sense. Perhaps this is a sign of hope. Might it be that thirty years from now General Convention and the House of Bishops will work just as hard to reverse the actions of the same bodies during these early years of the 21st century? Of course, this assumes that the GC and the HoB are still in existence thirty years from now." ***** At the recent SPANISH MISSIONS gabfest funded by Trinity Episcopal Church Wall Street there were five African Archbishops present. They were West Africa, Southern Africa, Congo, Central Africa and Burundi. Only one - Southern Africa is an outright liberal; the rest are orthodox. This is a typical example of how money can buy, at least temporarily, the loyalty of faithful men. ***** From the DIOCESE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE comes this word from a VOL reader who attended St. James Church in Keene, NH last week. "As you know, Gene Robinson endorsed Barack Obama in the press on August 2. He stated it was 'as a private citizen'. I happened to be visiting friends in NH and I attended St. James Church on Sunday, Aug 5. The 'sermon' for the day was the reading of Robinson's letter that he had written to the clergy explaining why he endorsed Obama. The Rev. Peter Coffin, the rector, made it very clear that if Gene thought Obama was the right candidate, then we should seriously consider that choice! Now this is interesting for a number of reasons. Endorsing candidates from the pulpit can get you into trouble with the authorities. Witness what happened at All Saints' Pasadena last year, a pro-homosexual liberal church that endorses all things liberal and publicly condemned some of Bush's policies. They were hauled up and their non-profit status was called into question. N ow just think what would happen if a conservative bishop endorsed Mitt the Mormon, we would never hear the end of it." ***** IN CANADA this past week, Edmonton Bishop Victoria Matthews announced she was resigning, saying "God is now calling me in a different direction." Matthews, who was elected in 1993 as the first female bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, said in a pastoral letter that her resignation is effective November 30. "Some will wonder if I have health concerns, and others will ask if I am angry at the Anglican Church. The answer to both questions is 'no'," said Matthews in the letter. "I am well and I love our church. I am an Anglican and hope to always minister in accordance with the grace and mercy of Christ our Saviour." She says she is saying yes to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and following God's will. The odd thing is that she isn't saying WHERE or IF she is still an Anglican and where God's will is taking her! This year, she was again nominated for the office of primate and was a close second in the voting at General Synod 2007 in Winnipeg. Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Nova Scotia was elected on the fifth ballot. She is not an overt liberal, but more of an Affirming Catholic in style and substance. A knowledgeable insider says that Matthews has come under the gun a lot for her stand (or waffle) on the same-sex issue. "Here in Canada this issue is going to bury bishops before it's over. I think Matthews just doesn't want to handle the heat anymore. I think she knows she should have won the brass ring, but her last minute waffle on same-sex buried her, and Hiltz benefited. Matthews' supporters had already popped the cork on the Champaign bottle in anticipation of a win. Her win was a given -- a sure thing, as we say on the racetrack. When the votes were in, Hiltz was the winner. Why? Because a lot of heavy lobbying was done by the gay/ lesbian mafia before the final vote was taken. Old V ictoria was hung out to dry. AND SHE KNOWS IT!" He concluded, "I've noticed that when churchmen want to skip out or find a convenient reason for changing horses in mid-stream, they invoke the Spirit of God as the EXIT DOOR." ***** ON A FORGIVING NOTE, THE Church of Uganda Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi has urged the Acholi people of Northern Uganda to forgive the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and Uganda Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) soldiers for the crimes committed against them. "When you forgive, there will be freedom in your hearts other than remaining a prisoner. You begin to know what paradise, peace and freedom are," Orombi told displaced persons at Omiya-Anyima camp in Kitgum district on July 28 according to a report in Kampala's New Vision newspaper. The conflict in Northern Uganda began soon after the then-National Resistance Army (NRA) of former President Museveni took power in 1986. Remnants of the previous government's forces fled into northern Uganda and southern Sudan and formed the Ugandan People's Democratic Army (UPDA). Several splinter groups emerged out of the UPDA and the story of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began. The LRA's grim trademark has been the abduction and forced subscription of children. Orombi said the insurgency had impacted negatively on the displaced persons. "You are familiar with nakedness in the north like Jesus who was naked on the Holy Cross where he was humiliated and exposed. Are we not humiliated? Are our girls not raped, children abducted and killed? Jesus was crucified between two thieves. People in the north are lonely like Jesus," he said. "Where is the love the late Archbishop Janan Luwum preached?" Orombi, who was flanked by Kitgum Bishop Benjamin Ojwang and retired Kitgum Bishop McLeod Baker Ochola, was on a five-day visit to the district. ***** IN AUSTRALIA, a brouhaha has erupted over who owns the Forward in Faith name. A group calling itself "Forward in Faith International (Australasia) Inc." has claimed support from FIF/NA, but it is using the "Forward in Faith" name without the approval of the international FIF movement, writes the Rev. Canon Warren Tanghe, Vice-President of Forward in Faith North America. Resolutions passed by Forward in Faith North America have tried to correct that, he said. You can check their website: www.forwardinfaith.com ***** THE BISHOP OF RECIFE, the Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavilcanti ordained two priests on July 27 in Gainesville, Florida recently. According to the Rev. Michael La Cagnina, Cavalcanti was the Celebrant in what can only be described as an exceptionally unique service. This service of ordination is believed to have been the first ordination of the Anglican Communion to be conducted in the city of Gainesville. There were ecumenical overtones to the service as it was held in the premises of the Vineyard Church, a non-denominational fellowship that purchased the church building from the Methodist Church and offered the use of the building to the congregation of Servants of Christ Anglican Church, which is a church in the Diocese of Southern Nyanza of the Anglican Church of Kenya, Africa. The unity of Orthodox Anglicans was revealed in the fact that there were numerous dioceses in the worldwide Anglican Communion represented by both laity and clergy (including dioceses in the Provinces of th e Southern Cone and Nigeria) as well as from orthodox clergy and laity who remain in The Episcopal Church (TEC) but who are committed to the faith once delivered to the saints, as opposed to the revisionist doctrines that are being espoused by TEC. The Reverend Henry Morris from St. Charles Parish, Poulsbo, Washington, was ordained as a priest and will work closely with St. Charles Parish as it plans the formation of a new congregation in the state of Washington. The Reverend Michael La Cagnina will be the Minister in Charge of the Anglican Church Mission of Christ's Church in High Springs, Florida. Over 30 clergy, vested in white robes and red stoles, participated in the procession. The Reverend Christopher Leighton, rector of St. Paul's Church, Darien, Connecticut preached with the Rev. Jim McCaslin, Dean of the Anglican Alliance of North Florida also participating. ***** Perhaps the real problem with aging liberal Episcopal churches is that have no gospel to proclaim which is why they are selling their assets. No gospel, no people, certain death. Sell the assets. ***** VIRTUEONLINE digests come to your e-mail 52 weeks of the year regardless of rain, hail, snow, slow servers even "vacations" we attempt to have. There is a personal and a financial cost to keep them coming. No one is getting rich off of VOL. There are four people on the payroll and a website to maintain and travels to be made. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to keep it all coming to you. These digests represent 70-80 hours of work over 6.5 days a week! We have never let you down. Please don't let us down. You can help by sending a tax-deductible donation to: VIRTUEONLINE 1236 Waterford Rd., West Chester, PA 19380 Or by using PAYPAL at the website: www.virtueonline.org Thank you for your support. All Blessings, David W. Virtue DD ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:32:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: It's The Anglican Communion, Not Just The Episcopal Church That Is Lost IT'S THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION NOT JUST THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH THAT IS LOST News Analysis By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 8/9/2007 Increasingly strident Anglican voices are being heard around the world indicating that it is not merely the Episcopal Church that is lost, but the Anglican Communion itself is so severely compromised that it too must split in order for truth, purity and holiness to be reinstated. In Dallas recently at a meeting of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan ACN moderator and convener of Common Cause said this, "What is needed is a completely new structure. Lambeth is failing, Canterbury is failing, the Anglican Consultative Council is prejudiced in a Western way and the primates are sadly divided north and south. We'll leave and they can take the stuff with them to hell, because that is where they will take it. This is Good Friday and we have to face it." Earlier in the month the Rt. Rev. John H. Rodgers expressed similar sentiments in an interview with VOL. He said this, "I think a major division of the Anglican Communion is likely." When asked if eventual schism in the whole Anglican Communion with evangelicals in Africa and the West simply saying "we have had enough" and will go their own way, with TEC announcing that it has 15 countries lined up that will be their communion, Rodgers said, "yes, that seems most likely to me in the not so long run." After exposing the Archbishop of Canterbury's real views on homosexuality in an article entitled "Williams Stealth Endorsement of Gay Agenda revealed in S.P.R.E.A.D. document" http://tinyurl.com/2knr5p the new interim Dean of TESM commented, "What a shocking mess spoken publicly in defense of the orthodox in the United States. The cost is his office. To lose that historic office is a cost of such magnitude that God must be doing a new thing." The aura of instability that now surrounds the communion is being heightened by the threat of 12 Primates to not attend Lambeth next year and by Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney suggesting an alternate Lambeth be held in London. Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola is also thinking of a gathering on African soil. The CAPA bishops lead by Akinola maintain that the fabric of the Communion has been irreparably torn. This was borne out by many of the orthodox primates refusing to take communion at the recent primates' meeting in Tanzania. In a statement called the Road to Lambeth, the CAPA bishops said that if those bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson were invited to Lambeth they would refuse to attend. West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez told this writer that if there is a large group who do not attend it will change the structure and significance of the Lambeth Conference. It might well signal the end of the Anglican Communion. Gomez opined, "The big question is how can you have a meeting of the leaders of the communion in one place while refusing to address the issues that are tearing the communion apart and preventing the Anglican Communion from moving forward?" The thoughtful archbishop, who desperately wants to keep the communion together, said that if the 12 Primates don't show up or only a small portion does, it means that half of the bishops representing two-thirds of the communion won't be represented. "The decisions of Lambeth represent the mind of the communion. We are seriously challenged by the present situation," said Gomez. A coalition of orthodox Primates from the Global South, meeting in London recently, said that a fourth Global South Encounter is needed if the break up of the Anglican Communion is to be averted. The real test will come when the US House of Bishops meets in New Orleans in September and the Archbishop of Canterbury makes a cameo appearance. At this point in time, Williams garners little respect from the Network bishops although he commands authority from the Windsor bishops, who have privately said that they would be prepared not to attend Lambeth next year in order to keep the Episcopal Church in the communion. On all sides there is a sense of betrayal. Conservative Episcopal theologians are divided, stretching and straining friendships over whether the apostasies and heresies of the Episcopal Church are worthy of flight or fight. Dr. Williams, the upholder of homosexuality and homosexuals, has balked over the consecration of more openly homoerotic bishops and same-sex rites much to the anger of both British and American homosexual advocates. He is promoting a universal Covenant to hold the communion together. Many believe it is too late for that. Now orthodox leaders like Bishops Duncan and Rodgers believe Williams is seriously compromised and will not acknowledge their orthodoxy or the pain they are going through as faithful Episcopalians who want only to uphold the faith once delivered for all to the saints. They feel horribly let down. Williams has done nothing to intervene as one Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic priest after another in the Episcopal Church gets ecclesiastically slaughtered, inhibited, deposed, and sued with their pensions being stifled by revisionist bishops. He is blind or indifferent to their plight; his silence leaves them feeling deeply betrayed. If nothing of significance happens in New Orleans, when the Common Cause Partners meet in Pittsburgh at the end of September they may well signal that they too will not attend Lambeth along with many Global South bishops and archbishops. It will make schism inevitable. September 30, 2007 will mark the day and year that will go down in Anglican history as the single greatest schism since the Reformation and the Archbishop of Canterbury will have no one to blame but himself. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:33:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: TEC: Episcopal Theologians Fight Over Staying Or Leaving EPISCOPAL THEOLOGIANS FIGHT OVER STAYING OR LEAVING TEC News Analysis By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 8/6/2007 September 30, the Day of Reckoning for the Episcopal Church (TEC), is drawing ever closer. At that time TEC must give an account of its moral and theological stewardship. A war of words has broken out among orthodox Episcopal theologians as to whether dwindling conservative Episcopalians should stay or leave. More than 700 Episcopalians flee the Episcopal Church each week. Massive litigation has been instituted against many parishes, from east coast to west coast, both large and small. At the same time orthodox theologians cannot agree on what should be done. The war of words, which has been simmering for some time, erupted recently when the Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll, former TESM theologian now V-P of Uganda Christian University (UCU) in Mukono, Uganda wrote an open letter to Anglican Communion Network bishops and Common Cause Partners arguing that the time had come for full and final separation between those in TEC who hold a false gospel and those who hold fast the truth revealed in Holy Scripture and the evangelical and catholic faith of the Church. "I find it hard not to conclude that any bishop who still hopes for reform and revival from within the current structure is in a state of denial." He went on to say this: "There is no hope and a future for any diocese or parish that remains connected to TEC. The Mark Lawrence (wannabe Bishop of South Carolina) case and various abuses of the canons should make this clear. This is a spiritual fact: TEC is terminally ill and the cancer will eventually spread to every part of the body. "Network bishops must prepare for separation as best they can and stay united in fellowship with each other and their Common Cause partners. Don't wait for the 'Windsor bishops.' Once there were 60 Irenaeus bishops, then 40 AAC bishops, now there are 20 'Windsor Bishops' and a dozen (and counting down?) Network bishops. Unless you are prepared to act and act in concert, you and your clergy and dioceses will be picked off one by one." Noll ratcheted up the ante by saying that Network bishops and dioceses must be prepared to lose their rank and property. "Many faithful priests have already paid this price as a matter of conscience and been summarily deposed. Congregations have walked away from their sanctuaries and now worship in schools. It is now time for the Network bishops and dioceses to take this risk by breaking communion with false and lukewarm colleagues in TEC. Remember the fires of Oxford accord with God's will for our troubled Church and our troubled Communion. I do not believe it does." Turner responded angrily, "The first and most baleful effect of anger is sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation-an attempt to brand one's opponent with a damning epithet. 'Apostate' is one of the most common used by people who share our common concern for the theological and moral errors now common within TEC. 'Heretic' is another!" Turner then held out an olive branch arguing that the phrase "hold a false gospel" as a reference to our common opponents is a better way to put the matter. "These people now control the levers of power within TEC, and are prepared to use those levers to propagate and on occasion enforce their convictions." Turner admits "anger and frustration have brought significant numbers of people to conclusions similar to yours." The former Yale scholar then offered a ten point declaration arguing why separation was wrong. He argued that the reform and renewal of Israel lay in the hands of God and that it was the job of the prophets of Christ to call for repentance placing their lives in the service of God's way for his people. He then argues that a faithful witness, suffering, and patient endurance all generated by faith, hope, and love rather than separation on the part of a self-declared "faithful remnant" are the proper means of addressing error and conflict within the Church. Turner also ripped what he called "a continual state of division" arguing that reform and renewal were indeed possible. Turner acknowledges that come Sept. 30 TEC will "walk apart" unrepentant and the Anglican Communion will "morph into another creature altogether." He added, "I do not believe a hazy horizon is sufficient reason to found a rival Anglican presence within North America prior to reaching that horizon." He also called Noll's "leave now" policy a "declaration of defeat" before Sept. 30. "Need I say that a strategy such as this carries all the marks of a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Turner cautioned that "a state of anarchy within our Communion" will not further the future under God. Turner then blasted the Network and "Windsor Bishops" asking if they are willing to stand and be counted in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury to show that there is, within TEC, an alternative presence to its current structure? "I am unwilling prematurely to declare all hope for such eventualities to be no more than a chimera." Commenting on Bishops of the Global South, Turner said it was far from clear that they expected an "incipient alternative Anglican Province within North America." Turner then turned on Noll saying that breaking communion with "false and lukewarm colleagues" might just include himself. He also said he owed his readers an explanation about who is a "faithful remnant" that they should remain in communion with. He then accused Noll of not doing the "hard theological work" demanded of us. "We have become the mirror image of those whom we believe to be in error." Noll then fired back a letter to Turner. "You ask, 'Is the degree of hope for renewal and reform an adequate reason to separate from a part of Christ's body?' To which my answer is 'Yes', as such hard judgments are often required as a matter of spiritual discernment and Christian prudence. "Many people have left the Episcopal Church over the past decades in grief and as a matter of conscience, convinced that their souls or the souls of their families and flock are in mortal danger from continued association with a false gospel. It seems ironic that these people are then accused of not embracing the way of the Cross when they are the ones who have been leaving behind their church buildings and graveyards. Many North American Anglicans have concluded that their church has 'morphed into another creature altogether,' to use your phrase. They conclude that the Lord has removed, or is about to remove, the lamp stand (being part of Christ's Body) from this particular ecclesiastical entity (Revelation 2:5). This is why they feel they have the right to salvage their church property if possible and why they seek recognition from international Anglican Primates. "Many who thought the Episcopal Church would stop short of formal endorsement of the gay agenda are now convinced that that agenda will soon become the canon law of the Medes and Persians. Many who thought the formation of the Anglican Mission in America precipitous in 2000 have now joined it." Responding to Turner's personal accusation that Noll was "taking the risk of breaking communion with false and lukewarm colleagues in TEC," Noll writes: "I do not retract it, but I shall try a clarify it. 'False and lukewarm' refers to two groups, not one. There are those who have lapsed into heresy (which I think is identifiable whether or not it is declared so by a Church council). There are others who 'tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet.' Many of us have been quite willing over the years to work within a church that included worldly leaders and comfortable pew sitters. We even tolerated the Pikes and Spongs, thinking we had the historic tradition and formularies on our side. This is no longer the case. Jesus uttered a paradoxical pair of statements when he said: 'He who is not with me is against me' (Matthew 12:30) and 'whoever is not against us is for us' (Mark 9:40). The time is coming and now is, I think, when the Spirit will dictate that only one of these courses is faithful. Hence it will be necessary to break communion with - not to judge the eternal destiny of - those who hold a true gospel while remaining in the Episcopal Church." Noll then criticized Turner saying that it was not helpful to suggest a moral equivalence between Bishop Duncan and Presiding Bishop Schori, as if to call down a pox on both their houses. "If it so turns out that TEC remains standing in the councils of Lambeth after September 30, then I trust we can say together– again with Lincoln - the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And at that point contingency will become reality for us all." Also weighing in on the debate, ACI senior fellow the Rev Dr. Ephraim Radner and now professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe Theological College in Toronto, Canada, affirmed Turner's position and promptly resigned from Anglican Communion Network. In his statement of resignation Radner wrote saying that the Network was no longer an instrument of renewal but one of destruction. "Bishop Duncan has now declared the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference -- two of the four Instruments of Communion within our tradition - to be 'lost'. He has said that God is 'doing a new thing' in allowing these elements to founder and be let go. I find this judgment to be dangerously precipitous and unfair under circumstances when current, faithful, and hard work is being done by many to bolster these Instruments as servants of our common life in Christ. "Bishop Duncan has, in the end, decided to start a new church. He may call it 'Anglican' if he wishes, though I do not recognize the name in these kinds of actions that break communion rather than build it up - for such building is what I have long perceived to be the 'thing' God was 'doing' with the earthen vessel of our tradition." Radner accused Duncan of not working for the healing of our broken Body, but repeating the mistakes of Christians in the past. "I cannot follow him in this way." Nashotah House President, the Rev. Dr. Robert Munday weighed in on the debate saying that Radner's "resignation" was nothing less than an unwarranted public attack on Bishop Robert Duncan. "Radner acts as if the direction the Network is taking is due to Bishop Duncan alone. Bishop Duncan is not a Pied Piper leading naive children. "The members of the Network Council who met this past week are bishops and elected representatives of the several dioceses that comprise the Network, along with representatives of regional convocations composed of several thousand Episcopalians and other Anglicans in parishes that are not in Network dioceses. These elected leaders are members of diocesan councils and standing committees, deputies to the Episcopal Church's General Convention--delegates with many years of experience at all levels of the Episcopal Church. These bishops and diocesan leaders re-elected Bishop Duncan as Moderator of the Network by acclamation. Dr. Radner, on the other ha nd, was elected by no one and speaks for no one other than himself and possibly the other scholars of the Anglican Communion Institute." Munday went on to say that many of the Global South Primates and a growing number of bishops in Rowan William's own province have come to the conclusion that the Lambeth Conference may be lost as well. "If it is ultimately lost, it will be for no other reason than the ineffectual leadership of the present Archbishop of Canterbury." Other former Episcopal Church theologians including the Rt. Rev. Dr. John H. Rodgers, now TESM dean and the Rev. Dr. Robert Sanders have left The Episcopal Church and joined with the Anglican Mission in America (AmiA), believing the Episcopal Church is lost and beyond hope of redemption. They cannot be discounted. The Rt. Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison (S.C. ret), while still remaining in TEC, has joined Pawleys Island based AMiA tacitly acknowledging that TEC is beyond hope of redemption. He has laid hands on bishops within that Anglican mission. The ACI theologians in the affirmative have clearly answered the argument that schism is worse than heresy. Other theologians who believe that heresy must be countered by schism do not share that view. One wonders, if the ACI theologians who believe so passionately in unity, why they have not returned to the bosom of Rome, whose pope recently declared that all who do not belong to the one true church, his, hold invalid orders and whose churches are not true churches at all! Meanwhile tens of thousands of orthodox Episcopalians and hundreds of clergy are answering with their feet by leaving The Episcopal Church. Perhaps that might be the best barometer of all. While theologians argue in their ivory towers and theological institutions, the great unwashed see the handwriting on the wall and declare that God has written Ichabod (the glory has departed from it) and have walked sorrowfully away never to return. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:34:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: COLORADO SPRINGS: Orthodox Priest Found Guilty of Financial Misconduct COLORADO SPRINGS: Orthodox Priest Found Guilty of Financial Misconduct Rev. Don Armstrong says Charges are Bogus News Analysis By David W. Virtue www.episcopalian.org 8/9/2007 The Rev. Don Armstrong, former Episcopal rector of Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, was found guilty on all counts of financial misconduct presented to an Ecclesiastical Court of the Diocese of Colorado. It is now in the hands of Bishop Rob O'Neill as to his punishment. Armstrong expects the bishop to depose him. "This was no surprise to us and frankly of no interest either--this is just all the Episcopal Church has left, with no theology to debate those of us who have made a case for tradition, they have to resort to kangaroo courts ginned up in the their quickly failing club house," Armstrong told VirtueOnline. The court had been reviewing the evidence since July 31. A preliminary judgment was made public August 8 by the five members of the Ecclesiastical Court who unanimously found Armstrong guilty of diverting $392,409 from the parish's operating fund and committing tax fraud by not reporting $548,000 in non-salary income and benefits to state and federal tax authorities. "The charges are bogus. O'Neill spent $1,000,000 with the very people who defended Kobe Bryant on rape charges, and what O'Neill got for that was a fancy report that itself admits it never saw my tax records, and never interviewed me, my staff or the vestry--and yet assumed I didn't pay my taxes and that the parish leadership didn't give my children scholarships for college. "Included in the charges about my discretionary fund misuse, for example, is reimbursement $259.00 for bibles we gave the graduating Seniors--I can see where that would violate Episcopal sensitivities and be thought to be malfeasance." Said Armstrong: "The bishop's own investigative auditor admits that, 'As of the date of this report, we have not requested nor had access to Father Armstrong's personal income tax returns...We have not obtained all information needed to complete our investigation...We have not had the opportunity to discuss these findings with Father Armstrong, the Wardens, the Treasurer and /or the Vestry of Grace Church (or their respective attorneys) to obtain their explanation of the concerns we have outlined herein.'" The hearing also found Armstrong guilty of receiving illegal loans totaling $122,479.16 in violation of Diocesan Canons; unauthorized encumbrance and alienation of Grace Church's real property; violation of the temporary inhibition placed on Armstrong; the improper use of clergy discretionary funds; and failure to maintain proper books of account. The three-hour evidentiary hearing was held at St. John's Cathedral in Denver July 31, and featured testimony from Sheri Betzer, a tax fraud examiner and former IRS agent who investigated parish financial records ranging over a 10-year period, and Karl Ross, an attorney and co-executor of the Clarice C. Bowton Trust, established to fund seminarian scholarships, which accused Armstrong of misusing for personal purpose. Armstrong retorted that it had been reported to him that the clergy on the court were people who themselves were hanging by a thread in fear of not making it to pension eligibility. "One of the lay members, I have been told, left her family, changed her name, and announced that she was a lesbian--what chance does an orthodox priest stand in that system? "I noticed that among the charges is one that we borrowed 4.5 million dollars with permission for only 2.5 million---what they did was to add the temporary construction loans we had on our renovation together with the amount of the final consolidation loan...anyone, especially an accountant, ought to be able to understand that one ...misuse of the discretionary fund includes checks clearly marked benevolence...and our discretionary fund is a church checking account, annually audited, requiring two signatures." Armstrong said he hoped that with this behind them the standing committee might resume their required fiduciary responsibilities and do some sort of intervention for a diocese that is running an operating deficit. "Spending $1,000,000 to hunt down a priest, regardless of your long term resentment and desire to get even, isn't a good idea," he said. "In the end we are a CANA parish and I am a CANA priest. The accusations made by O'Neill are being fully investigated by CANA at my request--so I can reclaim my good name that the Episcopal Diocese and Bishop of Colorado have slandered." Armstrong says he has more than 500 people in church every Sunday at the parish's property and has a fully funded budget that includes legal expenses. A group who left the church to stay with the diocese continues to meet at nearby First Christian Church until a civil lawsuit over ownership of Grace Church, filed with the El Paso County District Court, is decided. Armstrong's spokesman, Alan Crippen, said that the findings are no surprise. "We have far more confidence in the civil justice system in the state of Colorado and would be happy to meet the bishop and the diocese there anytime," Crippen said. "We have supreme confidence the good name of our rector will be exonerated." END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:35:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: WIKIPEDIA DELETES ACCOUNT OF BISHOP BENNISON'S ASSISTANT OVER SEX COVER-UP WIKIPEDIA DELETES ACCOUNT OF BISHOP BENNISON'S ASSISTANT OVER SEX COVER-UP By David W. Virtue www.episcopalian.org 8/6/2007 The editors of WIKIPEDIA, the online encyclopedia, have deleted the account of Barbara Alton, personal assistant to Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison, for vandalism, saying she repeatedly tried to delete information about a sex scandal involving his deposed brother. The Wikipedia editors cited a "conflict of interest re: Charles Bennison" and said repeated efforts by her to edit out Bennison's cover-up of his brother's sexual abuse of a minor as their reasons for deleting her account. Following VirtueOnline's breaking story, which may be accessed at: http://tinyurl.com/2jo8kt the Wikipedia editors suspended Barbara Alton's account three times. Every time she was allowed to return, she frantically tried to delete information about Bennison's sex cover up. Each time she was suspended again. Ref: http://tinyurl.com/26jg8j The Wikipedia editors finally deleted her account last week: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=User:Barbaraalton In May VOL broke the story that Bennison's cover-up had been ordered expunged from Wikipedia on orders from Mrs. Katherine Jefferts Schori, The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop. At that time, Alton claims she was told by Mrs. Schori to remove the sexually explicit references to the bishop's cover up. Bennison faces both ecclesiastical presentment and civil fraud charges. The ultra liberal bishop goes to court in September.. The Rev. John Bennison, Bishop Bennison's brother, was forced from his parish and resigned from The Episcopal Church when sexual allegations emerged in the Diocese of California. He avoided prosecution because of the Statute of Limitations. At the time of the abuse, he was sharing a home with his brother Charles. The scandal came to Philadelphia when family members of the abused girl presented their case in a series of town hall type meetings around the diocese. The sex abuse scandal eventually found its way into the widely read on line encyclopedia. People searching for "Charles Bennison" on google.com are immediately confronted with a very exhaustive section on the scandal. The first thing to come up is a history of the sex scandal, which apparently caught the attention of the Presiding Bishop's office. Here is an example: "Exec Asst to Bishop Bennison again deleted inflammatory and libelous text. 17:26, 21 May 2007 Barbaraalton External Links - The links about scandals must be deleted per order of the Presiding Bishop in her address to ECCP in New York available on podcast. She requires us to focus on the mission of the church." Alton then removed all the references, many of them related to VirtueOnline stories about the bishop's behavior. VirtueOnline sent the Wikipedia sections to Mrs. Schori, but has not received a response. Click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Bennison&action=history The request to delete various entries regarding Bennison and the sex scandal go back to November 2006 and take up several pages in Wikipedia. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:36:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: FT. WORTH: Bishop Clarence Pope Returns to Rome...Again FT. WORTH: Bishop Clarence Pope Returns to Rome...Again By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 8/7/2007 The Rt. Rev. Clarence C. Pope, Jr., 76, former Bishop of Ft. Worth, Texas announced this week that he is returning to the Roman Catholic Church. He is the second bishop in as many months to leave The Episcopal Church for Rome. The Rt. Rev. Dan Herzog, Bishop of Albany recently renounced his orders following his retirement and returned to the Roman Catholic Church. This is the third time that Pope has left the Episcopal Church and gone to Rome. Ft. Worth Bishop Jack Iker sent a notice out to the clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth: "BISHOP CLARENCE POPE telephoned me this morning to let me know that Martha and he have returned to membership in the Roman Catholic Church, in full communion with the See of Peter. We certainly wish them well and want to uphold them with our love and prayers at this important time in their pilgrimage. They both gave ten years of faithful service and witness here in the Diocese of Fort Worth, and we give thanks to God for their continuing friendship and ministry. Bishop Pope wanted to assure me that he remains very attached to us and that his affection for the people of this diocese remains unchanged. Do join me in thanking God for both of these faithful Christians and praying His continued blessing upon them in the years ahead." The Rev. Clarence Pope was received into full communion with the Catholic Church in the mid-1980s. According to a Roman Catholic priest who followed the bishop's wanderings, Bishop Pope, facing surgery, returned to the Catholic Church. This lasted a few months but again his ordination was delayed longer than he had expected and he returned to ECUSA. "This second return to the Catholic Church was kept very quiet, however; very few people seemed aware of it, and a priest on the staff of Saint Luke's in Baton Rouge adamantly maintained that the bishop and Mrs. Pope were at the altar rail there consistently every Sunday. During that time Msgr. Graham Leonard and his wife were in the USA for a regularly scheduled assembly of Roman Catholic converts, and were guests in the home of the Popes; it was Msgr. Leonard who confirmed to a Washington-based journalist that during this second period Bishop Pope had been a Roman Catholic layman awaiting the rescript from Rome that would permit his ordination. "At the time, he was expecting quickly to be ordained to the Catholic priesthood. This took longer than he had expected, and he had some sickne ss to deal with as well. Mutual friends had brought to the attention of then Presiding Bishop Ed Browning that he was not well and Browning was very solicitous, ultimately making it easy for him to return to ECUSA. Pope then left The Episcopal Church in October 1994. He denied then that he was leaving right up until the day he left, said a source. "When he made the announcement, he said he planned to seek ordination as a Roman Catholic priest. He told us he had known for the previous two years that he would go to Rome," said Katie Sherrod, a liberal in the diocese. The New York Times reported his 1994 announcement like this: "The 65-year-old bishop, who is married, said he had come to believe that the seat of Christian church authority had been divinely placed in Rome from the time of the Apostle Peter. He said that he had long prayed for a reunion of his church with Rome, but that possibility had foundered after the Episcopal Church, and the related Church of England, began ordaining women." It quoted Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning as saying, "It saddens me that this breach has occurred. I pray that this new chapter in his life will be an occasion for grace." Ten months later, after Pope discovered that Rome would not recognize his Episcopal orders, he returned to TEC, saying it was simply too painful to not have his orders recognized. The first time around, Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston, officially received Pope in a highly publicized event. Pope was received into the Roman church at St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church, a parish whose priest and congregation had been part of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth until 1991, when they all became Catholics and their priest was re-ordained as a Roman priest. Bishop Pope allowed them to keep the church buildings. He was very sympathetic to their wish to leave, which they attributed to anger over the ordination of women, the new prayer book and fears of what new heresy The Episcopal Church might commit next. The Times also reported on Pope's return to The Episcopal Church in 1995, quoting the parish priest's son as saying the congregation "was stunned by Bishop Pope's reversal. 'They were very dismayed,' he said. 'I think many of us feel betrayed.'" The same Times story reported that the week Pope announced he had returned to The Episcopal Church, he publicly took communion from the hand of an Episcopal priest, saying in an interview that he had left the Catholic Church and abandoned plans to enter its priesthood. The article quoted him as saying "he had succumbed to a 'growing unease' about his original decision. His unease, Bishop Pope said, lay in his feeling that he could not give up his status as a bishop, which he would have to do to be re-ordained as a Catholic priest. He described the rank of bishop in mystical terms, saying it was 'God-given' and not for him to surrender. 'I could not shake the image of my consecration,' he said, recalling the event at which his spiritual authority was signaled by a laying on of hands by his fellow Episcopalian bishops. 'I thought I could lay it aside. I couldn't.' "He also said he felt a gnawing guilt at having left his role as a leader of Episcopal traditionalists, who oppose the ordination of women as priests." Presiding Bishop Browning received him back into the Episcopal Church. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:37:06 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: ENGLAND: Deadline for responding to Lambeth Invitations extended ENGLAND: Deadline for responding to Lambeth Invitations extended Sydney "cannot give an answer until later in the year" Church of England Newspaper August 10, 2007 THE DIOCESE of Sydney's six bishops has told the Archbishop of Canterbury he will have to wait to find out if they will attend nextyear's Lambeth Conference. While they were grateful to receive an invitation to attend the Conference, they said they would not decide until they know the course of action taken by the American bishops to the demands made by the Primates in their February Dar es Salaam communique. In a letter dated July 30 addressed to Archbishop Rowan Williams, Archbishop Peter Jensen and his five suffragans regretted that they could not give Dr Williams their answer at this time. "Unfortunately the timing of the invitation has proved difficult," they explained as they were first 'looking for the response' of the American House of Bishops to the Primates' February communique before they could give him their final answer. Sydney indicated it would follow the lead of the African churches and decline to attend the conference should the bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson or who have authorised local rites for the blessing of same-sex unions be invited to attend. "In view of the real hesitations that we experience in joining with those who have consecrated Bishop Gene Robinson, and with others who have allowed for the blessing of same-sex unions, and giventhe significance of these events, we feel that we cannot give ananswer to your kind invitation until later in the year," they stated. A spokesman for the Anglican Consultative Council, whose generalsecretary Canon Kenneth Kearon serves as the Conference secretary told The Church of England Newspaper the invitations toLambeth had been "coming in, in their hundreds." The Rev Canon James Rosenthal stated the Conference organisers did not have an exact count as of yet as to who would attend the meeting, and noted the July 31 deadline to respond had been extended, as some overseas bishops 'have stated they had not received their invitations yet.' END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:38:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: VIRGINIA: Episcopal Church deposes separation ministers VIRGINIA: Episcopal Church deposes separation ministers By Michelle Zimmermann Times Community Newspapers http://tinyurl.com/2jtqwq 8/7/2007 Several local ministers who have been removed from the rosters of the clergy by the Episcopal Church are calling the move an uncalled-for act of intimidation. Clergy members of several area churches that voted late last year to separate from the Episcopal Church were effectively "fired" late last week by Bishop James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia. A statement on the diocese's Web site states that the decision was made to depose the clergy because they "had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church." Clergy members said the move is meaningless. When the assortment of 11 churches voted to leave the Episcopal Church late last year, they aligned themselves with the Anglican District of Virginia (ADV). That group is a member of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), the missionary arm of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. "I'm saddened by Bishop Lee's unnecessary action," said Rick Wright, rector of The Falls Church in the town of the same name. "It demonstrates not only the division in the diocese between us and them, but between the Episcopal Church and Anglican community." Jim Oakes, vice president of ADV, echoed Wright's comments, saying it seemed the diocese was following a "scorched-earth policy." Diocesan spokesman Patrick Getlein said the move was merely procedural, as the churches' decision to leave the Episcopal Church set in motion a six-month process. At the end of this process, if the clergy in question have not retracted their decision to leave the church, they are removed from ordained minister status. "They were priests of the Episcopal Church," Getlein said. To align with something other than the Episcopal Church would mean they are no longer priests of that denomination, he added. The entire dispute stems from a decision by the Episcopal Church to ordain a homosexual bishop in 2003. Oakes said member churches voted to leave the Episcopal Church to stay true to their orthodox priorities. "Bishop Lee could have taken another course, and could have recognized the reality of what's occurring in the church," said Jack Grubbs, pastor of Potomac Falls Church in Sterling. "This action has no practical impact on our ministry." Though the group of 21 clergy members says the action has no effect on their ministries, what it may affect is pension funds of those nearing retirement. The traditional retirement plan to which ministers contribute only allows full disbursement upon reaching 30 years with the church. What has already been saved, though, is still available, according to Getlein. Wright said several on the cusp of that threshold stand to lose a great deal. "For a few of the clergy, it has a significant consequence," he said. Again, Getlein said those consequences should have come as no surprise to the clergy in question. "Bishop Lee made it clear to them, the potential outcomes of their decision," Getlein said. "This is not new information." END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:39:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: LONG BEACH, CA: Church fight may head to High Court LONG BEACH, CA: Church fight may head to High Court All Saints', other breakaway Episcopal churches battle diocese over control of property. By Greg Mellen, Staff writer Press Telegram http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_6560641?source=email 8/6/2007 LONG BEACH - An ongoing legal battle and property dispute between the Episcopal Church and three breakaway parishes could land in the California Supreme Court. The three churches, including All Saints' Church in Belmont Heights, filed petitions Monday with the California Supreme Court in an effort to reverse a ruling that could force them to relinquish their buildings and property to the Los Angeles Diocese of the Episcopal Church. The diocese has 20 days to respond to the petition, after which time the High Court will decide whether to hear the case. In July, Division Three of the Fourth District of the California Court of Appeals upheld a claim by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles that it held rights to the properties of the dissident churches. The decision by the three-judge panel overturned a 2005 ruling in Orange County Superior Court in favor of All Saints' Church, St. James Parish of Newport Beach and St. David's of North Hollywood. The three churches drew national coverage in 2004 when they broke from the Episcopal Church over disputes in church doctrine, including the ordination of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and the blessing of same-sex unions. The three churches subsequently aligned themselves with an Anglican diocese in Africa. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the worldwide Anglican Union. Although the breakaway churches bought the land and have maintained the churches - All Saints' Church at 346 Termino Ave. dates to the 1920s - the Episcopal Church claimed that, according to its canons, the property was held in trust for the larger church. Attorneys for the breakaway churches say the parishes are not bound by canon law and that so-called "neutral principles" of property law should be adopted. None of the breakaway churches list the Episcopal Church on their property titles or deeds. Eric Sohlgren, an attorney representing the breakaway churches, said the decision by the appeals court breaks with 30 years of precedent in California law and is in direct conflict with decisions by other state appellate courts. There are six appellate districts in the state and three divisions in the fourth district. "It's important for churches in California to have clarity," Sohlgren said. He added that if the latest appeals court ruling is correct, then churches that think they own their property may be mistaken. John Shiner, who represents the Los Angeles Diocese, was in Houston and said he had not read the petition as of Monday evening. However, he disagreed that the appellate court reversed precedent, but rather clarified opinion and based its decision on precedent set by the California Supreme Court. The High Court could decide by November whether to hear the case. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:40:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: ATTLEBORO, MASS: Episcopal diocese settles lawsuit ATTLEBORO, MASS: Episcopal diocese settles lawsuit Breakaway group returns some funds By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff The Boston Globe http://tinyurl.com/ys2mrm August 7, 2007 A group of former Episcopalians from Attleboro has agreed to return an undisclosed amount of money to the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts to settle a lawsuit alleging that the group, who broke away to protest the denomination's approval of an openly gay bishop, took cash and property belonging to the diocese. The lawsuit was one of several around the country between Episcopal dioceses and departing members in an escalating dispute over the ownership of parish property. Conservatives have charged that the denomination is using a nationwide litigation campaign to intimidate them; diocesan officials say they are simply trying to protect their patrimony. In Massachusetts, where the courts in the past have repeatedly ruled that parish property in hierarchical denominations belongs to the denominations, the two sides decided to settle just five weeks after the litigation was filed. Neither side would disclose the details, but both said that the departing parishioners, now worshiping as All Saints Anglican, returned a handful of books and some money to their former parish, All Saints Episcopal, where the diocese is trying to establish a new congregation of people who remain loyal to the Episcopal Church USA. "Both sides were looking for a way to move on," said John F.D. Jacobi III, the lawyer for the breakaway parishioners. "There was a legitimate difference of opinion, which we resolved, and both sides felt that it was fair and equitable." A diocesan official said the diocese recovered "a respectable" fraction of the $180,000 that was in dispute. "Everything has been settled to our satisfaction, and the parties will now go their own way and conduct their missions as they see fit," said the Rev. Gregory A. Jacobs, staff officer for urban congregations and ministry development at the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. "We're happy because we did recover monies to help us move forward with mission and ministry." The departure of the Attleboro parishioners and the lawsuit were elements of a global dispute within the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a province, triggered by the Episcopal Church's decision to approve the election of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. A number of conservative parishes have broken away from the Episcopal Church as a result. The American Anglican Council, an umbrella organization for members opposed to the direction of the Episcopal Church, has become increasingly critical of the litigation and is now circulating a petition demanding that the national church explain how it is financing the lawsuits. "The Episcopal Church has adopted a policy in the last six months to a year of suing all the parishes that would like to leave, and the situation in Attleboro is part of that battle, where the diocese is trying to raise the stakes higher for anyone thinking of leaving," said the Rev. David C. Anderson, president and chief executive of the American Anglican Council. "Many dioceses are using litigation as part of a terror tactic, by suing mom and pop, who are vestry members, to frighten them." But Jacobs denied that the national denomination pressured the Massachusetts diocese to file suit or contributed any money for the litigation. "Dioceses are naturally talking to each other about what they have done in these situations, but the diocese pays the legal costs, and the diocese is determining what is in the best interests of the diocese and its congregations," he said. The Massachusetts diocese is facing another departure this month, of members of a conservative congregation in West Newbury, but both diocesan and church officials say they hope to be able to avoid litigation there. The church's departing rector, the Rev. William L. Murdoch, is planning to be consecrated a bishop by the Anglican Church of Kenya and says he will leave to the Massachusetts diocese the congregation's buildings and its million-dollar endowment. END Praise Report from All Saints Anglican Church in Attleboro, MA By Lance Guiffrida August 4, 2007 "Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of the great multitude, for the battle is not yours but the Lord's...You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you," 2 Chronicles 20:15-17 In so many ways, today belongs only to God, and we thank Him for His goodness and mercy towards us. We thank Him for the opportunity over the last eight months to see His promises and His words fulfilled in such an outstanding way. After we voted to affiliate with the Anglican Mission in America and move towards a new future and ministry there had been a level of uncertainty as we tried for an amicable separation from our former church. After negotiations failed we were evicted in January of 2007 from the church we had been worshipping in. We were able to rent space at Fisher College on a short term basis while we began searching for a new church home. We entered into negotiations for the purchase of the Hebronville Church in Attleboro and shortly after we had a signed Purchase and Sales agreement, we were notified that the Episcopal Diocese of MA had filed a lawsuit against us. It seemed the future was more uncertain than ever. However the Lord continued to offer us both words of encouragement and teaching. (Jer. 31:3-6). Then on July 31st, 2007 we completed the purchase of the Hebronville Church (soon to be the home of All Saints Anglican!) and on August 1st, 2007 we reached a settlement agreement with the Diocese of MA. In a shorter time than seemed possible, God has removed every obstacle from our paths and the battle has truly belonged to Him! We are now beginning the process of renovations at the church so we can obtain an occupancy permit. On September 8th, 2007 we will hold a Block Party for the church and neighborhood and celebrate the consecration of our new home with Bishop Thad Barnum. We are also planning on reinstituting our outreach programs to the city of Attleboro and expanding into Seekonk. We look forward to serving the area families as the Lord leads and needs determine. We are ramping up our youth outreach with a family night and an ecumenical Youth retreat called RAYV that starts this Winter. We know that we could not have accomplished any of this without God, our dedicated leadership and the support of our parishioners, area churches, professionals and friends in the community. Thank you for standing by us. See you on September 8th!!!!! ---The Rev. Dr. Lance Guiffrida, 54, is the parish rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Attleboro, Mass. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:41:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: CALIFORNIA: Anglican Churches Petition Ca. Supreme Court over Property Dispute CALIFORNIA: Anglican Churches Petition Ca. Supreme Court to review Church Property Dispute NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - August 6, 2007 - Three California Anglican churches today announced the filing of petitions with the California Supreme Court to settle a church property dispute case that affects countless churches and their members throughout California. The three churches are St. James Church in Newport Beach, All Saints' Church in Long Beach, and St. David's Church in North Hollywood. In July 2007, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, reversed the Orange County Superior Court's prior ruling that the three former Episcopal churches, which ended their affiliation with the national denomination in 2004, did not forfeit their property by changing their affiliation to another Anglican church. This division of the appellate court broke with nearly thirty years of California church property law applying "neutral principles" (i.e., who holds the deed, who bought or donated the property, and whether the local church ever agreed to turn over the property), and instead ruled that denominations can take over local church property by simply passing an internal rule - even if the local church is separately incorporated, bought and maintained the property, and never consented to the rule. "Californians respect property rights, and no one, especially a big church bureaucracy, should have the right to confiscate someone else's property just by passing a rule. For nearly thirty years, and based on U.S. Supreme Court precedent, California courts have respected the property rights of church members who have bought and maintained their property," said Eric C. Sohlgren, legal spokesman. "By turning the clock back to cases from the 1800's, the court's opinion has given big institutional churches a power greater than eminent domain, and thrown this area of law into turmoil and uncertainty. California courts, religious corporations and church members are now left with a patchwork of conflicting court decisions governing ownership of church property," Sohlgren said. St. James, All Saints' and St. David's, as the sole property owners, never agreed to relinquish their property to the Episcopal Church upon changing their affiliation, and they have consistently maintained that they have the right to use and possess the property they have owned and maintained for decades. "We are asking the Supreme Court to intervene and declare explicitly that California courts are to apply neutral principles of law in resolving church property disputes," Sohlgren added. The churches also seek the Supreme Court's guidance on a California statute which allows courts to expedite cases where people are sued for exercising their free speech rights, known as the anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute. The statute subjects to early scrutiny cases filed by large private interests to deter individuals from exercising their political or legal rights to free speech or to petition the government. Attorneys for the three churches argued that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Los Angeles are large, wealthy and powerful religious organizations that sought to stifle these fundamental rights when church members spoke out about their disagreements with the Episcopal Church, including through the act of disaffiliation itself. * * * A Brief Recap The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles brought lawsuits against St. James, All Saints' and St. David's Anglican Churches and their volunteer board members in September of 2004. Subsequently, the national Episcopal Church intervened into the lawsuits against the three local church corporations and their volunteer board members. On August 15, 2005, the Honorable David C. Velasquez of the Orange County Superior Court ruled in favor of St. James against the complaint brought by the Diocese of Los Angeles. In October 2005, Judge Velasquez issued a similar ruling in favor of All Saints and St. David's. The Diocese of Los Angeles appealed the rulings to the California Court of Appeal. In August 2005, the Complaint in Intervention filed separately by the national Episcopal Church ("TEC") was still pending in the Orange County Superior Court. In Fall 2005, the Court granted the three Churches' challenges to TEC's original Complaint in Intervention, but gave TEC an opportunity to amend the Complaint (but only if it could do so in good faith). TEC filed a First Amended Complaint in Intervention, which rehashed many of the church-rule arguments the Court had already rejected in prior rulings. The three local churches filed another challenge (called a demurrer) asking the Court to dismiss the First Amended Complaint without further leave to amend on the ground that even if all of the factual allegations were true, they did not state a legal wrong under California law. TEC also appealed that ruling to the California Court of Appeal. In July 2007, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, in an opinion authored by Presiding Justice David G. Sills, reversed the Orange County Superior Court's prior ruling that three church corporations which disaffiliated from the national denomination did not forfeit their property. This division of the appellate court broke with nearly thirty years of California church property law, and Division Two of the Fourth Appellate District, by ruling that general churches can take over local church property by simply passing an internal rule - even if the local church is separately incorporated, bought and maintained the property. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:42:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: PCUSA documents on property: 'true church' vs. 'schismatics' PCUSA documents on property: 'true church' vs. 'schismatics' Denomination lawyers call for hardball tactics (There are parallels here with what is happening in The Episcopal Church USA) By John H. Adams The Layman Online August 9, 2006 The Presbyterian Church (USA) has selectively disseminated two "privileged and confidential" documents by denominational lawyers calling on presbyteries to use draconian measures when claiming local church property. The tone of the documents is reflected in the words they use to describe the parties: the "true church" - meaning those who submit to the government and decisions of the PCUSA - versus the "schismatics" - meaning those who believe the denomination has abandoned its Biblical and Reformed roots. One recommendation for presbytery representatives is to portray themselves as the aggrieved party embattling the ungodly - "keep the presbytery in a 'defensive' secular legal posture. (Let the schismatics seek Caesar's help.)" That proposal is interesting in that most litigation in church property disputes is begun by presbyteries filing civil complaints and congregations having to defend themselves. 'Spiritual language' The documents also suggest that presbyteries use "spiritual language" in staking their claims to local church property. They call for aggressive administrative and/or legal measures designed to intimidate dissenting congregations from attempting to leave the denomination with the property paid for by their members. The documents suggest that if the presbytery learns that a congregational majority is inclined to leave the denomination, it should look for a "loyal minority" in the congregation and declare it the "true church" with rights to the property. If a loyal minority cannot be found, denominational lawyers suggest that the presbytery can simply declare the congregation dissolved and take the property. One document is titled, "Church Property Disputes: A Resource for those Representing Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Presbyteries and True Churches in the Civil Courts." Authorship is attributed to the PCUSA's Office of Legal Services, but the name of Eric Graninger, general counsel to the PCUSA, is also listed at the top of the front page as a contact person. The second document is described as "Processes for use by presbyteries in responding to congregations seeking to withdraw." It concludes with a notation that it was prepared in September 2005 by Mark Tammen, director of the Department of Constitutional Services in the Office of the General Assembly. Tammen, a Presbyterian minister and a lawyer, is Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick's right-hand legal aide. 'Privileged and confidential' Both documents include the following underlined and capitalized statement at the top right of their front pages: "PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL ATTORNEY WORK COMMUNICATION." The 27-page "Church Property Disputes" document also states, "This is a legal strategy memorandum. Do not copy or circulate. Call Eric Graninger, General Counsel, at 1-888-728-7228, x 539 if you have questions." The two documents were mailed anonymously and without comment to The Presbyterian Lay Committee. Contacted by telephone this afternoon, Tammen said he was familiar with documents as decribed on the front pages of those received by the Lay Committee, but he said he would not comment on or validate those copies. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has selectively disseminated two "privileged and confidential" documents by denominational lawyers calling on presbyteries to use draconian measures when claiming local church property. The tone of the documents is reflected in the words they use to describe the parties: the "true church" - meaning those who submit to the government and decisions of the PCUSA - versus the "schismatics" - meaning those who believe the denomination has abandoned its Biblical and Reformed roots. One recommendation for presbytery representatives is to portray themselves as the aggrieved party embattling the ungodly - "keep the presbytery in a 'defensive' secular legal posture. (Let the schismatics seek Caesar's help.)" That proposal is interesting in that most litigation in church property disputes is begun by presbyteries filing civil complaints and congregations having to defend themselves. Presbyteries are already clamping down However, some of the recommendations in the documents have already been implemented by presbyteries. The Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma filed affidavits in the county courts where its congregations are located asserting ultimate ownership of the local church properties. Through an administrative commission, the Presbytery of Charlotte recently tried to force First Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, N.C., to revise its articles of incorporation to acknowledge that the congregation held its property in trust for the benefit of the denomination. After the congregation voted overwhelmingly not to revise its 39-year-old charter, the interim minister serving the congregation wrote a column in the church's newsletter claiming the vote violated the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). There is no constitutional requirement that a congregation acquiesce through its incorporation papers to the property trust clause in Chapter 8 of the Book of Order. Upon learning that the congregation of Riverside Presbyterian Church in Lynn Grove, Iowa, had voted unanimously to leave the PCUSA, Richard Francis, the presbytery's moderator, called a special meeting with the purpose of appointing an administrative commission, possibly to take over governance of the church. A threat to the universal Church? The document described as "Processes for use by presbyteries ..." includes the prevailing view of both works: "The Office of the General Assembly is aware of Presbyterians who feel compelled not only to abandon their vows and promises, but who are willing also to rend the fabric of the church and sinfully threaten the peace and unity of Christ's Church." How Presbyterians leaving the PCUSA might "sinfully threaten the peace and unity of Christ's Church" - meaning the universal Church - by affiliating with a more Christ-centered, Biblically grounded alternative is not explained. Neither does either document address the Reformation, which gave birth to Presbyterianism and other Protestant bodies whose adherents left the Roman Catholic Church. But one thing is made emphatically clear in both documents. For purposes of property control and discipline, the documents repeatedly assert that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a hierarchical church and its members must follow the dictates of its governing body. The papers do not use a theological justification for staking claim to local property or to hierarchical rule. But they do propose psychological tactics - including one that might be used to divide a local congregation into two camps, the newer members and dead members. "Demonstrate to the court it is the presbytery that keeps the faith with Presbyterians who, in the past, gave their monies, work and hope to create a Presbyterian Church in this place to perpetuate the faith of the Presbyterian Church ... It is improper and unfair to let present members 'break the chain' between founding Presbyterians of the past and those of the future." Because of massive membership losses - including a record 48,484 in 2005 and the denomination's projected 85,000 loss in 2006 - the PCUSA is becoming grayer and depending more on the past gifts of Presbyterians who gave their money long before such provoking issues as those approved by the 2006 General Assembly. Lawyers for the denomination know they will never testify that their gifts are now being used contrary to their wishes. The scavenger hunt On pages 12-13 of the "Church Property Disputes" document, the writers recommend that presbytery officials conduct a scavenger hunt for evidences of a congregation's past and present identification with the denomination. They list 22 different things to check - ranging from deeds to hymnals. Others include: Is Presbyterian etched into the cornerstone of your church? Have you used the Presbyterian logo on your letterhead? Did you use Presbyterian hymnals, attend Presbyterian camps, pay per capita, acquire benefits from the presbytery (funds for building, lower insurance rates), etc. There is even reference to worship style as a measure of keeping faith. Presbytery officials are asked to determine, "Are the worship activities of the local church consistent with those of the general church? This factor is challenging within the PCUSA because of the diversity in worship styles." Apparently, although unstated, this list would be used as evidence in court as to whether a congregation has been historically identified with the PCUSA. Distinctives in two papers While the two papers emphasize a common purpose - protecting the denomination's claim to local church property - they do have their distinctives. "Processes for use by presbyteries ..." focuses on administrative and disciplinary provisions in the Book of Order and disputes that have been handled by higher governing bodies and their judicial commissions. The overriding issue in "Church Property Courts" is preparing presbyteries for litigation. It calls for preparation to build a civil case, hiring the right kind of attorney, picking the right kind of judge and compiling evidence favorable to the denomination's claim. The document gives brief summaries of key U.S. Supreme Court rulings and other civil court decisions in property disputes. Most of those rulings are also reviewed, and more thoroughly, in the new Reformation Press book titled A Guide to Church Property Law: Theological, Constitutional and Practical Considerations. In both cases, the two denominational documents spin their assessments in a way that is most compatible with chapter 8 of the Book of Order, which includes the property trust clause. Points made in 'Processes' Some of the points made in "Processes for use by presbyteries ..." include: * "The purpose of the Trust Clause is to support the purposes and mission of the particular church as a part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)" Page 1 * "The Office of the General Assembly recognizes that currently there are deep and profound differences of conviction on a variety of topics in the church. When it comes to voicing those differences, we have previously drawn a clear distinction between dissent, which is always constitutionally protected; and defiance, which is never, ever protected." Page 2 * "There are also times when an individual finds it impossible to go along with the majority." If that individual finds his conscience will allow him neither to "actively concur with or passively submit to" a decision, he ... shall peacefully withdraw from our communion without attempting to make any schism." * "If schism is likely, use an administrative commission." Page 3 * "he presbytery should be clear that the commission may assume jurisdiction of the session upon some triggering event or action of the session." Page 7 * "The presbytery can often identify an action that would further steps toward schism and direct the minister not to do them." When a minister "persists in a work disapproved by" the presbytery, the presbytery "may assume the minister has rejounced the jurisdiction of this church." Page 8 * "If a minister has already engaged in an active advocacy of schism ... then the presbytery must proceed to appoint an investigating committee" to consider disciplinary action. Page 9 * "If there is a schism within the membership of a particular church and the presbytery is unable to effect a reconciliation or a division into separate churches within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), the presbytery shall determine if one of the factions is entitled to the property because it is identified by the presbytery as the true church ..." Page 12 * Working with its administrative commission, the presbytery has a number of options for dealing with congregations in property disputes: It can dissolve the congregation, and use the assets for "starting a new immigrant fellowship;" it could enter into a "long-term lease with the schismatic group;" it can sell the property to the "splinter group." Page 14 Points made in 'Church Property Disputes' * "The majority vote of a congregation is presumed to control, except in a hierarchical church the majority may be overcome where the church charter or denominational constitution has established a property trust or other means to decide the issue." Page 2 * "f your state follows a basic hierarchical deference rule, then it will be most important to demonstrate the PCUSA as a hierarchical church and show the court the central authority of the presbytery in making church property decisions. If your state applies the neutral principles doctrine, then it will be important to note all hierarchical references in the deeds, the local church charter and especially emphasize the church property trust ... If your state applies the third option rule, it is an uphill battle." Pages 2-3 * "The Office of the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly has some funds available to assist presbyteries when a church is in schism or its property is being used contrary to the Constitution." Page 3 * "When a schismatic faction has failed to appeal the rulings of the presbytery, point this out to the court." By not exercising their right to appeal rulings, local congregations fail to exhaust available agency and administrative remedies. "Because this is a common concept in the civil law, judges should understand this is a reason to dismiss the case as against the schismatics because they failed to exhaust their remedies ..." Page 4 * "Certainly, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PCUSA) does not refer to itself as a hierarchical church. When speaking to a civil court, however, it is important to use the language the court uses. ... Firmly present the PCUSA to the court as a hierarchical church." Page 5 * The document offers the denomination's interpretation of G-8.0701, which allowed congregations to approve an exemption from some provisions of the property chapter. "Bear in mind, churches that exercised the option opted out of G-8.050 and did not opt out of the property trust clause (G-8.0201) or the balance of Chapter VIII. Neither the UPCUSA or the PCUS ever had provisions whereby a congregation could unilaterally leave with church property." Page 10 Most of the remaining pages in the document are brief synopses and assessments of court decisions. ***** The PCUSA's property documents, called "The Louisville Papers" can be accessed at these links: http://www.layman.org/layman/news/2006-news/legal-strategy-memo.pdf http://www.layman.org/layman/news/2006-news/processes-for-use.pdf END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:43:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: DALLAS: St. Michael and All Angels' new leader opposed gay bishop DALLAS: St. Michael and All Angels' new leader opposed gay bishop (A nice turn around for this parish) By SAM HODGES The Dallas Morning News samhodges@dallasnews.com August 3, 2007 After a yearlong national search, St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Dallas has called the Rev. Robert S. Dannals as rector, the priest in charge of the parish. He has been rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Greenville, S.C., for the last 10 years. "Dr. Dannals has a passion for evangelism and teaching, an impressive record of visionary leadership, and a proven ability to lead large, complex organizations," David Martin, senior warden at St. Michael and All Angels, said in a written statement. Dr. Dannals, 51, is a graduate of Florida State University and Virginia Theological Seminary. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1982 and later earned doctorates from Drew University and the Graduate Theological Foundation. In 2003, Dr. Dannals voted against Gene Robinson, an openly gay, noncelibate priest, to be bishop. The election of Bishop Robinson has roiled the Episcopal Church USA and strained relations between it and other churches of the Anglican Communion. Posted on the Web site of St. Michael and All Angels is an interview with Dr. Dannals in which he says his Greenville, S.C., church worked through its divisions on the gay bishop controversy and continued to grow. At St. Michael and All Angels, Dr. Dannals will succeed the Rev. Mark Anschutz, who voted in favor of Bishop Robinson's consecration and retired in 2006. Dr. Dannals is to start at St. Michael and All Angels on Oct. 10. He will be joined in Dallas by his wife, Valerie, and their 14-year-old daughter, Mary Blair. The Dannals' older daughters, Danielle and Kaleigh, attend college in Florida. Founded in 1945, St. Michael and All Angels, at Douglas and Colgate avenues, is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country, with more than 7,000 members. Staff writer Jeffrey Weiss contributed to this report. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:44:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: SOUTH CAROLINA: Diocese re-elects Mark Lawrence as bishop SOUTH CAROLINA: Diocese re-elects Mark Lawrence as bishop By Mary Frances Schjonberg and Matthew Davies August 04, 2007 The Very Rev. Mark Lawrence was re-elected as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina August 4 at a special electing convention held at St. James Church on St. James Island, South Carolina. Lawrence was the only candidate in the election since no petitions to add other names to the slate were received by the July 11 deadline. A majority of bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan Standing Committees must now consent to Lawrence's ordination as bishop within 120 days of receiving notice of the election. Lawrence, 56, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bakersfield, California, in the Diocese of San Joaquin, was first elected September 16, 2006 to be South Carolina's 14th bishop. On March 15, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori declared that election "null and void," saying that a number of the consent responses did not adhere to canonical requirements since Lawrence's election did not receive the consent of the majority of diocesan standing committees. Episcopal Church canons, which govern the procedures for the election of bishops, call for consents to episcopal ordinations from standing committees to be "signed by a majority of all the members of the Committee. (III.11.4 (b))" Further, the canon states (on pages 101-102) that standing committee members must sign in their own handwriting: "In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this (blank) day of (blank) in the year of our Lord (blank)." Where the signature requirement had not been met by standing committees, the consent forms for Lawrence's election were rejected for not complying with that part of the canon. Canonically adequate ballots were received by South Carolina from 50 diocesan standing committees of the 56 required. Several other standing committees were reported to have consented, but no signatures were attached to their ballots, or the ballot itself was missing from South Carolina's records, Jefferts Schori reported in March. Any committee that did not respond to the diocese's consent request is considered to have voted no. Lawrence's election did receive the canonically required consent of the majority of Episcopal bishops with jurisdiction. On June 9, clergy and lay delegates to the reconvened 2006 annual convention in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina overwhelmingly approved two measures to permit the diocese to suspend normal bylaws and convene a special electing convention. In a letter sent to the diocesan clergy earlier this year, South Carolina Bishop Edward L. Salmon, Jr. said that the electing convention would be convened "for the purpose of re-electing Lawrence." South Carolina has been without a diocesan bishop since Salmon reached the mandatory retirement age of 72 (Article II, Section 9 of the Episcopal Church's Constitution) in January 2006. He has continued to serve as acting bishop at the invitation of the South Carolina Standing Committee. Salmon said in the letter that the diocesan standing committee will "implement an intensive effort to receive the consents during the 120 day period." "Since a majority of Standing Committees intended to approve in the first election, the Standing Committee has a clear field in which to work," he added. "This process will allow a consecration date to be set so that when consents are in, we may proceed to consecrate Fr. Mark Lawrence as the 14th Bishop of South Carolina." Salmon also reported that South Carolina's standing committee had concluded that "the Holy Spirit had spoken in the election of Fr. Lawrence" and that "Bishops and Standing Committees had intended to consent to the election even though technicalities had prevented it." In the weeks following Lawrence's September election, questions arose about his intentions concerning the diocese's continuing membership in the Episcopal Church. Two affiliated groups issued statements of advice to the bishops and standing committees, and other individuals expressed concern either privately to Lawrence and the diocese or through postings on web sites. Some diocesan standing committees announced their intention not to consent, and some publicized their decisions. In December, Lawrence sent a letter to standing committees and bishops in response to several inquiries about his stance on certain issues. In early February a letter, signed by the Rev. J. Haden McCormick, president of the South Carolina Standing Committee, addressed questions about Lawrence's and the diocese's intentions to remain part of the Episcopal Church, the participation of Jefferts Schori in the South Carolina consecration, and concerns about the diocese's request for "alternative primatial oversight." On March 8, Lawrence again wrote to the Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church to clarify his position about the diocese's continuing membership in the Episcopal Church. "I have been told that some diocesan Standing Committees have graciously offered to reconsider their denial of consent to my election as the XIV Bishop of South Carolina, if they only have assurance of my intention to remain in The Episcopal Church," he wrote. "Although I previously provided assurance of my intention, this has not been sufficient for some Standing Committees, which are earnestly seeking to make a godly discernment." "As I stated at the walkabout in Charleston on September 9, 2006, and again in a statement written on 6 November 2006, I will make the vows of conformity as written in the Book of Common Prayer and the Constitution & Canons, (III.11.8). I will heartily make the vows conforming '...to the doctrine, discipline, and worship' of the Episcopal Church, as well as the trustworthiness of the Holy Scriptures. So to put it as clearly as I can, my intention is to remain in The Episcopal Church." -- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent of Episcopal News Service. Matthew Davies is editor of Episcopal Life Online. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:45:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: NEW HAMPSHIRE: Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop endorses Obama NEW HAMPSHIRE: Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop endorses Obama despite differences on issues By Philip Elliott ASSOCIATED PRESS August 2, 2007 CONCORD, N.H. - The Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president on Thursday, even though they don't share the same views on issues critical to gays and lesbians. "Frankly, I don't think there's any major candidate that is where we in the gay community would hope they would be on our issues," V. Gene Robinson said in a conference call with reporters. "That being said, I would say the senator has been enormously supportive of our issues. We appreciate his support for civil unions." The continuing repercussions from Robinson's 2003 election as bishop of New Hampshire threaten to break up the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is part. His supporters hail him as a role model and civil rights pioneer. He stressed that his endorsement was as an individual, not as bishop. "I will not be speaking about the campaign from the pulpit or at any church function," he said. "That is completely inappropriate. But as a private citizen, I will be at campaign events and help in any way that I can." Robinson said he hopes to persuade Obama to embrace marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Obama supports civil unions and rights for gay couples, but stops short of supporting gay marriage. Robinson, a registered independent and opponent of the war in Iraq, said he was drawn to Obama because of the Illinois senator's experience with racism and discrimination, which Robinson also has experienced. "I think it would be hard to be a person of color in this country and not be on the receiving end of that," he said. "I think we make a mistake when we think there has to be an act of hatred from one person to another for racism to occur, where our whole culture is set up to benefit one race over another." END Can campaigns and clergy mix? by Manya Brachear Chicago Tribune http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2007/08/can-campaigns-a.html August 2, 2007 After triggering a debate that threatens to divide the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire has stirred another controversy. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, has endorsed Barack Obama to be the next U.S. president. Robinson praised Obama's galvanizing approach and predicted he would be able to "bridge the old divides and make this country one again." "As my work shows me every day, leadership means bringing people together and inspiring them to live out their values," Robinson said in a statement released by the Obama campaign. "Barack Obama sees beyond the partisanship and hopelessness that have dominated in recent years, and the movement he's building is bringing vital new energy and optimism into our democratic process." Some Episcopalians resent Robinson, believing that far from "bringing people together" he has driven a wedge between liberals and conservatives in the Episcopal church. Some have left the church because they believe Robinson's relationship violates Scripture. Some churches in Africa and Latin America also have severed ties with the Episcopal Church and threatened to leave the leave the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the American arm. The ringing endorsement also did not ring well in the ears of at least one interfaith organization. In a letter sent Thursday, The Interfaith Alliance wagged its finger at all Democratic and Republican presidential candidates for seeking endorsements from clergy. "I encourage candidates to talk about the proper role of religion in public life, and I strongly defend the right of religious leaders to speak out about the important issues we are facing in the world today," the alliance's president, Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, said in a statement. "However, when candidates turn religious leaders into political tools, they have crossed a line." Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, dismissed those concerns. She praised Robinson for his work to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa and to increase access to health care, promote the development of affordable housing, and combat racism and homophobia in New Hampshire. "Bishop Robinson represents the best of American values: a generous faith, a commitment to fairness and respect, and an abiding belief in the possibilities of every individual," Obama said in a statement. "I look forward to his support in this groundbreaking campaign." Next week in Los Angeles, Obama will join Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) in the first-ever televised campaign forum devoted to issues of interest to gay voters Psaki said that as long as Robinson does not claim to speak for his denomination or diocese, he has a right to endorse a presidential candidate he believes in. Do you agree? Does Robinson have that right? Or does it seem he's being used? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:46:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: On Moral Clarity - John Becker On Moral Clarity By John Becker Special to VirtueOnline www.virtueonline.org 8/9/2007 We live in an era when moral clarity has become an evanescent and dwindling commodity. Multiculturalism has so eroded all reverence for traditional values, all sense of our heritage as Americans and as Christians, that we have reached a point where nothing anymore is sacred, where all "lifestyles" are equal, all religions equally valid, all traditions interchangeable, and where morality is whatever the great "EGO" declares it to be. That self appointed Martin Luther of our glorious new age, Jack Spong, has made it his life work to destroy every vestige of true Christianity within the Episcopal Church, and with his Bishop's Cross anointed Louie Crew as the flag bearer for the dissolution of traditional Anglicanism, and the launching of his new religion under the mantle of TEC. We have been bludgeoned and terrorized for years with accusations of "Homophobia" and now we hear a growing chorus of cries of "Islamophobia". We are caught in a whirlpool of "Phobio-phobia" in which we are terrified to have anything with the suffix "phobia" attached applied to us, and all rationality and commitment to the founding principles of our church and our nation have been tossed to the wind. Because of this moral blindness we are totally unable to recognize the horrendous degree of the threat to our faith and our nation posed by the rapidly growing radical wing of Islam, which has declared war on everything Christian and everything American, and has committed itself to the re-installation of a world-wide Muslim caliphate under a system based on the universal observance of Sharia law. And what do we offer in its place? A mishmash of spineless concepts of which the dominant theme is not the glorification of Jesus Christ, but the deification of sexual hedonism. We are being led like lemmings over the cliff of moral relativism, in hot pursuit of our Pied Piper, a gay bishop. What can we do about it? Nothing, until we have the moral clarity to see how far off our course as Christians we have strayed, and summon the moral fortitude to make a meaningful course correction. We need to look at ourselves not as protagonists of this or that side of a futile and irrelevant argument, but as bearers and custodians of the central truths proclaimed by Jesus Christ as the way to transform the appalling decadence and the gathering storm of the religious war of the modern age. ---John Becker is an Episcopalian, a parishioner and former vestryman in the Diocese of East Carolina. He was a Deputy to the 2003 General Convention in Minneapolis. He was born and educated in England, but is a U.S. citizen. He is a professional portrait painter. His website can be accessed here: http://www.portraitpainter.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:47:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Why Canon Anderson Got it Wrong - Arun Arora Why Canon Anderson Got it Wrong Arun Arora responds to The Revd. Canon David Anderson August 5, 2007 Most people who have ever entered into an online debate will be familiar with the concept of Godwin's Law. This law - formulated by Mike Godwin in the 1990s - suggests as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes inevitable. This is not to say that the comparison will be right or justified, but rather that at some point the comparison will be made. A rather similar law feels like it is taking shape in the debates over the future of the Episcopal Church in the United States. As the discussions grow longer, the probability of a comparison with Bishop John Shelby Spong becomes inevitable. The comparison may be unjustified or incorrect but as debates rage, the invocation of Jack Spong becomes inescapable. So it is that in his article criticising the Archbishop of York The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson dabbles in futility by turning to the long retired Spong in proposing a tortuous thesis that Dr. John Sentamu, on the path to the Lambeth Conference of 2008, has fallen in amongst a group of liberal bandits. In furtherance of this claim, and in addition to Spong, David Anderson turns to another eminence grise called out of the retirement home in the shape of former diocesan Bishop of Los Angeles, Fred Borsch, who is quoted, along with his successor, in an attempt to demonstrate how The Episcopal Church has begun a slow shift away from a belief in the divinity and redeeming nature of Jesus Christ. Anderson's article goes on to argue that there is a crisis of belief in TEC - not (for once) over sexuality which Anderson suggests elsewhere in his weekly update as no more than a "tertiary issue" - but rather over "core doctrine and belief: who Jesus is and what authority Holy Scripture." Anderson's beef is that there are senior figures in TEC who don't believe in Jesus and don't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Is it really such a radical claim to argue Jack Spong is among them ? To place Dr. John Sentamu in such company is unwise indeed. Anderson couldn't be further away from the target in trying to pin his ass's tail on the Archbishop of York. At about the same time that Canon Anderson was writing his article, the Archbishop of York was addressing a multi-faith gathering in the diocese of Perth, Western Australia where he began his address to the assembled audience of Bahais, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs: "I belong to a missionary faith which holds Jesus Christ as its Lord and Saviour. It is my sincere hope that by end of my speech many of you will join me in that belief. Should you find my invitation difficult, the same Lord and Saviour I serve wants me to continue loving you, attentively listening and respect you." To the Muslim college, a day later, the Archbishop began his address to those assembled by saying: "I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ who to you is a prophet but for me is the Saviour of the world." So much for Anderson's charge of syncretism In his excitement over the issue of the exclusivity of Christianity, Anderson could have done worse than to look up Dr. Sentamu's public stance on the issue. Delivering the Presidential address to the General Synod in July 2006, the Archbishop quoted Lesslie Newbegin in explaining his own approach to his issue: "Bishop Lesslie Newbigin is, for me, a great interpreter of the three things we must say about Christ and salvation today in England; how we relate Christianity to an England that has other faiths present. He says we must be: 1. Exclusive in the sense of affirming the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but not in the sense of denying the possibility of salvation to those outside the Christian faith. 2. Inclusive in the sense of refusing to limit the saving grace of God to Christians, but not in the sense of viewing other religions as salvific. 3. Pluralist in the sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but not in the sense of denying the unique and decisive nature of what God has done in Jesus Christ." Canon Anderson's objection to Dr. Sentamu rests on half of one sentence made in an hour long interview with the Daily Telegraph: ".I haven't found that in ECUSA (sic) or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics." Anderson's objections lie not in the consideration of the mainstream of TEC but rather by reference, by and large, to its extremities. By using such a broad brush to attack the Episcopal Church as a whole, Canon Anderson conveniently whitewashes the testimony daily offered up by all those faithfully reciting the creeds and liturgy that bear evidence to those doctrines which he alleges have been abandoned. The orthodox voice of the multitude is drowned out and ignored in Anderson's analysis in favour of selective quotation from the fringe. Where Anderson & Sentamu do agree is the place of Christ at the centre of doctrinal statements. Hence the Archbishop of York's recent comment to a newspaper that: "the thing that unites all Christians is our faith in the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and what makes us Christians is that we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ" would likely be agreed with by Anderson who argues that there are those in The Episcopal Church who cannot be relied upon to share such a belief. However even Anderson's doctrinal core is insufficient for another of Dr. Sentamu's critics whose rush to criticise the Archbishop of York with almost indecent haste led David Phillips of the Church Society to re-write his original piece criticising Dr. Sentamu . Yet even in his re-written article Mr. Phillip's belief that sexual ethics are "core doctrinal issues" puts him directly at odds with his American counterpart Canon Anderson, who believes such issues to be "tertiary" at best. This ideological inconsistency between the critics of the Archbishop of York demonstrates that in their rush to say something (anything?) that will place TEC upon the top of a heretical bonfire, Messers. Anderson & Philips cannot even agree amongst themselves upon the importance (or not) of sexual ethics within the current malaise or upon what constitutes core doctrines of faith, belief or the Church. Until such time as they can, perhaps they would be better off refraining from making any comment at all. ---Arun Arora is Director of Communications to the Archbishop of York END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:48:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Reply to Philip Turner from Stephen Noll Reply to Philip Turner from Stephen Noll To: The Very Rev. Dr. Philip Turner http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/08/reply-to-philip-turner.html August 3, 2007 Dear Philip, Greetings in Christ! Thank you for responding to my "Open Letter to the Network Bishops and Common Cause Partners Regarding the Future of Anglicanism in North America" (posted on this blog) with an Open Letter of your own to me (posted at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/). I have ever valued openness of theological exchange and wish to keep dialogue alive among genuine partners, even when it leads to different recommended courses of action. You and I are both senior priests and theologians of the Episcopal Church with experience of the wider Anglican Communion. That grants us a certain standing to be heard, but obviously not as the voice of God. I agree with you that at the end of the day discerning God's will is our common aim and prayer. But it is also the case, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, that the prayers of all cannot not be equally answered. Thank you for not including me among those who may react to this or that current news in haste and anger. I have been saying much the same thing for many years, in reasoned prose I hope, and the only real change in my position reflects my pessimism over the rapid deterioration of the Episcopal Church and my increasing concern that this deterioration will spread throughout the Anglican Communion. You ask: "Is the degree of hope for renewal and reform an adequate reason to separate from a part of Christ's body?" To which my answer is Yes, as such hard judgements are often required as a matter of spiritual discernment and Christian prudence. The framing of your question seems to suggest that there is a superior spirituality to those who remain joined to a hopelessly gangrenous part of Christ's body or, to use Ephraim Radner's image, who lash themselves to the mast of a sinking ship. I do not think this is necessarily so. Many people have left the Episcopal Church over the past decades in grief and as a matter of conscience, convinced that their souls or the souls of their families and flock are in mortal danger from continued association with a false gospel. It seems ironic that these people are then accused of not embracing the way of the Cross when they are the ones who have been leaving behind their church buildings and graveyards. I do appreciate your reference to the Episcopal Church as "a part of Christ's Body," for it is at best only that. Whether the church catholic has ever been a monolithic entity I wonder, but surely in our day, the form in which we encounter the Church is manifold. It has been noted for years that virtually half of the clergy of the Episcopal Church began their Christian lives in other denominations, and we Episcopalians have never batted an eye in receiving "converts" from Catholicism or Baptistry as having chosen the better part. The current situation, however, is more drastic. Many North American Anglicans have concluded that their church has "morphed into another creature altogether," to use your phrase. They conclude that the Lord has removed, or is about to remove, the lampstand (being part of Christ's Body) from this particular ecclesiastical entity (Revelation 2:5). This is why they feel they have the right to salvage their church property if possible and why they seek recognition from international Anglican Primates. The question of whether and when that state of affairs in the Episcopal Church - call it losing its lampstand or call it walking apart - has become an irreversible reality, is a matter of "discernment of spirits" and prudence. I believe that we are obliged to discern God's will for the Church - what the Spirit is saying to the churches - both individually and corporately. This kind of discernment has been happening in TEC with snowball-like momentum over the last decade. Many who thought the Episcopal Church would stop short of formal endorsement of the gay agenda are now convinced that that agenda will soon become the canon law of the Medes and Persians. Many who thought the formation of the Anglican Mission in America precipitous in 2000 have now joined it. The one criticism you make of my Open Letter that I find particularly painful relates to my call to "take the risk of breaking communion with false and lukewarm colleagues in TEC." I do not retract it, but I shall try a clarify it. "False and lukewarm" refers to two groups, not one. There are those who have lapsed into heresy (which I think is identifiable whether or not it is declared so by a Church council). There are others who "tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet." Many of us have been quite willing over the years to work within a church that included worldly leaders and comfortable pewsitters. We even tolerated the Pikes and Spongs, thinking we had the historic tradition and formularies on our side. This is no longer the case. Jesus uttered a paradoxical pair of statements when he said: "He who is not with me is against me" (Matthew 12:30) and "whoever is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:40). The time is coming and now is, I think, when the Spirit w ill dictate that only one of these courses is faithful. Hence it will be necessary to break communion with - not to judge the eternal destiny of - those who hold a true gospel while remaining in the Episcopal Church. The exercise of prudence - a virtue which I know from your writings you value highly - always involves making a judgement call. I am making such a judgement call in my Open Letter. It appears you are doing likewise when you state that after September 30, if TEC retains its status unreformed by the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury, then the Anglican Communion will have "morphed into another creature altogether." So you yourself seem prepared to set a make-or-break date for the completion of the Windsor process and the sealing of the fate of the Anglican Communion. I agree. I do not think there is anything in my Open Letter that conflicts with that timetable. I am quite content to wait until September 30 to see what happens. That date is less than two months from now, and I don't see what further division can happen in that time anyway. What I do think we need to do is to consider the outcome that the September deadline will come and go and no decision will be made at the Communion level. That nothing will be done seems likely from two realities: the adamantine stubbornness of the Episcopal Church hierarchy and the apparent unwillingness of the Archbishop of Canterbury to take the necessary steps to discipline it. The House of Bishops, I am sure you will agree, will not change course, even as it effuses about its desire to remain in the Communion. You may be more hopeful than I about the Archbishop of Canterbury's taking final action after TEC has been given its full measure of indulgence. I see little evidence of willingness from his actions and statements since the February Primates' Meeting - especially if the recent statement of Archbishop of York reflects the view at the top. We shall know soon enough. There is nothing in my Open Letter that preempts the Windsor Report as qualified by the Primates' Communique from Tanzania. There is nothing that precludes the Anglican Communion Network and Common Cause partners working within the formal structures of the Anglican Communion if the Episcopal Church walks apart; indeed, it is my hope and prayer that they may be recognized and enabled to do so. But I also believe, with you, that if Canterbury fails to lead, then the Anglican Communion will cease to be a coherent Christian body as it has been in the past. If this comes to pass, the North American remnant, allied to churches of the Global South, will inherit the torn mantle of Anglicanism. I find it odd to deny the label "Anglican," as Dr. Radner has done recently, to those, whether in North America or Africa, who may find themselves abandoned by and separated from Canterbury. Anglicanism without Canterbury will indeed be a diminished force, but what is the alternative? Episcopalianism with Canterbury? The same question was faced by the Marian exiles, and they voted with their feet. So the main difference between us, as I see it, is the matter of contingency planning. You seem to suggest that for conservatives to plan for the certainty that TEC will not repent and the more or less likely possibility that Canterbury will punt is somehow unspiritual and unfaithful. I just don't see that. Planning for eventualities is a part of Christian prudence and stewardship. One could even say that not to plan is unfaithful in that it is based on the fear that the perception of planning to separate will be dangerous politically. I recently heard of a conservative bishop who was asked "What if we are forced out of TEC?" and he rejected any such thinking on the grounds that "if they find out we're talking like this, they will use it against us." That advice may be true, but it does not carry any spiritual superiority to what I am urging. Indeed, it may be helpful for the Archbishop of Canterbury to know in his deliberations what the consequences of his actions will be. You seem to want to draw an opaque firmament across the horizon until September 30. I am counselling that we look beyond. No matter what vicissitude befalls us, I cannot see how loyal North American Anglicans can long remain in TEC as it is now constituted. Nor can I see the Episcopal powers-that-be accepting any solution from Canterbury and the Primates that would allow us to coexist within the legal framework of the Episcopal Church. I think the descent into the abyss of leadership over the past thirty years, which you have ably charted, bears me out. So I think we are not so far apart as it seems, Philip. I do not think it is helpful to suggest a moral equivalence between Bishop Duncan and Presiding Bishop Schori, as if to call down a pox on both their houses. If it so turns out that TEC remains standing in the councils of Lambeth after September 30, then I trust we can say together– again with Lincoln - the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And at that point contingency will become reality for us all. May God bless you and your witness during this difficult time. Your brother in Christ, Stephen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:49:07 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: The New Paganism and the Culture of Death The New Paganism and the Culture of Death: "False gods always demand innocent blood" by ROBERT P. GEORGE Toward Tradition http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0443.html August 8, 2007 Let no one imagine that the temptation to idolatry and paganism is a matter of the distant past when primitive peoples offered sacrifice to the sun or prayed to stone outcroppings and golden calves. Remember: false gods always demand innocent blood. The evidence that a culture is descending into paganism is always manifest in the body count. This was true in ancient Babylon and it is true in modern America. Who can deny that everywhere today the false gods of liberal secularism are exacting their toll of carnage? The great Milton Himmelfarb has summarized the matter in a single sentence: "Judaism is against paganism." Jews honor, as do Christians, a transcendent God who governs the universe and providentially superintends the affairs of men. While no one can fully comprehend God's purposes, we know that God's acts are not without purpose. And so faithful Jews, as well as Christians who understand the continuity of their own faith with the religion of Israel, have always asked: What is God's purpose in His election of the Jewish people? The greatest rabbis and theologians have wrestled with the nuances of this question. Yet the Almighty has chosen to reveal even to the simplest of the faithful the essence of what he wishes us to know on the subject of this wonderful mystery. Kitvei ha-Qodesh, in the books of prophetic witness, teaches us that God elected Israel as his covenanted community (keneset yisrael) to be "a light unto the nations." And this, I submit to you, remains the mission of faithful Jews - a mission shared by Christians who would join with their Jewish elder brothers in fidelity to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. And so I again recall Milton Himmelfarb's great summation: Judaism - and let us say also Christianity - are against paganism. And I say that the God of Israel whom we Jews and Christians worship is the Lord of Life. He is the author of the comprehensive and absolute commandment: "Thou shalt not kill the innocent and just." He is the God who says to Israel: "Today I have set before you life and death, choose life to be the unwarranted taking of a 'life within a life,' and it is the same prohibition for gentiles as it is for Jews." And Rabbi Novak does not hesitate to call to mind the Shoah in his discussion of the protection owed to unborn human life: "Because of our recent experience of being the prime victims of a world view that excluded many lives from the sanctity of human personhood, thus rationalizing murder, we Jews should realize that our strictness on the question of abortion is for the sake of greater not less inclusiveness in the human community." Now I must raise a subject that is sensitive, to be sure, but simply cannot be avoided. A particular threat to the integrity of Jewish teaching on the sanctity of life is posed by Senator Lieberman's support for the legality of partial birth abortion. His nomination for the vice-presidency is an event in which Americans of all religious persuasions can take great pride. And all can applaud his personal piety and willingness to speak openly of his faith. But his support for partial birth abortion undermines the Jewish witness to the sanctity of human life, just as Mario Cuomo's support undermines the Catholic witness and Al Gore's support undermines the Protestant witness. It does no good - indeed, it does grave harm - for those who proclaim themselves men of faith to permit their positions on issues of fundamental morality to be dictated by the political and intellectual fashions dominant among an elite whose members long ago traded in Biblical morality for liberal secularism . My friends, abortion is not alone among the manifestations of the neo-pagan culture of death. The forces of assisted suicide and euthanasia are abroad in our land offering death as the remedy of life's hardships and tragedies. And it is not only the frail elderly and terminally ill who are to be afforded their ghoulish "compassion." Those who offend our sensibilities, who place demands upon our care and resources - the seriously handicapped, the mentally retarded - are now to be defined out of the category of human "persons" whose right to life is to be respected and protected by law. Notable academics now openly embrace the cause of infanticide of handicapped newborns. They would revise our fundamental law to have us treat these precious children as inferior beings, human nonpersons. Ladies and gentlemen, we have been down this road before. The Nazi killing began with the eugenic murder of the handicapped. The way was paved by "sophisticated," "progressive" doctors and lawye rs, such as Binding and Hoche - not themselves Nazis - who, having abandoned the sanctity of life principles of Jewish and Christian faith, devised the neo-pagan doctrine of leben unswert leben. To those who would today revive this vile notion in the name of a false compassion, let us say with all our hearts, "Never again"! "Never again"! Joshua of old gathered the leaders of the tribes of Israel together to confront the choice before them. "Whom will you serve?" he demanded to know. "The gods beyond the River?" "The gods of the Amorites?" "As for me and my house," Joshua declared, "we will serve the Lord." And the leaders of the tribes of Israel responded: "Far be it from us to forsake the Lord God of Israel to worship other gods. It was the Lord who led us out of the land of Egypt. He it was who led us from slavery to freedom. We, too, will serve the Lord." Jews and Christians alike, at this hour, in this nation, face Joshua's choice. Whom will we serve? The false gods of liberal secularism? Or the Lord God of Israel? Let us declare that we, in this House, in this Nation, will serve the Lord. Let us remember that Judaism is against paganism. Let us not forget that the God of Israel, the Lord of Life, is the enemy of the culture of death. Let us not shrink from the task of defending the lives of the innocent. Let us work tirelessly to build the culture of life. Let us not be intimidated by the prestige or influence of those who pervert the honorable concepts of liberty and equality to enlist them in the cause of killing. Let us confront those politicians, those pundits, those professors who seek to impose on this nation a pagan ideology that mocks America's founding principles. Some will step forward to remind us, and they are not wrong to do so, that although our nation was founded on the great principles of divinely grounded equality and natural rights, it was stained in its very founding by the sin of slavery. But let us also recall that great men like Adams and Lincoln rose up to oppose that monstrous pagan practice, and to this end they exhorted the nation to be true to the Biblical principles of the founding. Even if slavery's abolition would require that "every drop of blood drawn by the lash be repaid by one drawn by the sword," still, Lincoln declared, "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Lincoln knew, and we must not forget, that America, too, is against paganism. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT George, Robert P. "The New Paganism and the Culture of Death." Toward Tradition Convention (Washington D.C., September 10, 2000). Reprinted with permission of Toward Tradition THE AUTHOR ---Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is the author of Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (1993) and In Defense of Natural Law (1999), and editor of Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays (1992), The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism (1996), and Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality (1996), all published by Oxford University Press. He is also editor of Great Cases in Constitutional Law (2000) and co-editor of Constitutional Politics: Essays on Constitution Making, Maintenance, and Change (2001), from Princeton University Press. His most recent book is The Clash of Orthodoxies (2002). Robert George is a member of the Advisory Board of the Catholic Educator's Resource Center. Copyright Copyright 2000 Toward Tradition ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:50:08 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Greater China: Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia Greater China: Christianity finds a fulcrum in Asia By Spengler Asia Times Online Ltd August 7, 2007 Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the National Catholic Reporter's veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history. If you read a single news article about China this year, make sure it is this one. I suspect that even the most enthusiastic accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East. China, devoured by hunger so many times in its history, now feels a spiritual hunger beneath the neon exterior of its suddenly great cities. Four hundred million Chinese on the prosperous coast have moved from poverty to affluence in a single generation, and 10 million to 15 million new migrants come from the countryside each year, the greatest movement of people in history. Despite a government stance that hovers somewhere between discouragement and persecution, more than 100 million of them have embraced a faith that regards this life as mere preparation for the next world. Given the immense effort the Chinese have devoted to achieving a tolerable life in the present world, this may seem anomalous. On the contrary: it is the great migration of peoples that prepares the ground for Christianity, just as it did during the barbarian invasions of Europe during the Middle Ages. Last month's murder of reverend Bae Hyung-kyu, the leader of the missionaries still held hostage by Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan, drew world attention to the work of South Korean Christians, who make up nearly 30% of that nation's population and send more evangelists to the world than any country except the United States. This is only a first tremor of the earthquake to come, as Chinese Christians turn their attention outward. Years ago I speculated that if Mecca ever is razed, it will be by an African army marching north; now the greatest danger to Islam is the prospect of a Chinese army marching west. People do not live in a spiritual vacuum; where a spiritual vacuum exists, as in western Europe and the former Soviet Empire, people simply die, or fail to breed. In the traditional world, people see themselves as part of nature, unchangeable and constant, and worship their surroundings, their ancestors and themselves. When war or economics tear people away from their roots in traditional life, what once appeared constant now is shown to be ephemeral. Christianity is the great liquidator of traditional society, calling individuals out of their tribes and nations to join the ekklesia, which transcends race and nation. In China, communism leveled traditional society, and erased the great Confucian idea of society as an extension of the loyalties and responsibility of families. Children informing on their parents during the Cultural Revolution put paid to that. Now the great migrations throw into the urban melting pot a half-dozen language groups who once lived isolated from one another. Not for more than a thousand years have so many people in the same place had such good reason to view as ephemeral all that they long considered to be fixed, and to ask themselves: "What is the purpose of my life?" The World Christian Database offers by far the largest estimate of the number of Chinese Christians at 111 million, of whom 90% are Protestant, mostly Pentecostals. Other estimates are considerably lower, but no matter; what counts is the growth rate. This uniquely American denomination, which claims the inspiration to speak in tongues like Jesus' own disciples and to prophesy, is the world's fastest-growing religious movement, with 500,000 adherents. In contrast to Catholicism, which has a very long historic presence in China but whose growth has been slow, charismatic Protestantism has found its natural element in an atmosphere of official suppression. Barred from churches, Chinese began worshipping in homes, and five major "house church" movements and countless smaller ones now minister to as many as 100 million Christians. This quasi-underground movement may now exceed in adherents the 75 million members of the Chinese Communist Party; in a generation it will be the most powerful force in the country. While the Catholic Church has worked patiently for independence from the Chinese government, which sponsors a "Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association" with government-appointed bishops, the evangelicals have no infrastructure to suppress and no hierarchy to protect. In contrast to Catholic caution, John Allen observes, "Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs." Allen adds: The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as "Back to Jerusalem". As Aikman explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they believe, it's their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world. Aikman reports that two Protestant seminaries secretly are training missionaries for deployment in Muslim countries. Where traditional society remains entrenched in China's most backward regions, Islam also is expanding. At the edge of the Gobi Desert and on China's western border with Central Asia, Islam claims perhaps 30 million adherents. If Christianity is the liquidator of traditional society, I have argued in the past, Islam is its defender against the encroachments of leveling imperial expansion. But Islam in China remains the religion of the economic losers, whose geographic remoteness isolates them from the economic transformation on the coasts. Christianity, by contrast, has burgeoned among the new middle class in China's cities, where the greatest wealth and productivity are concentrated. Islam has a thousand-year presence in China and has grown by natural increase rather than conversion; evangelical Protestantism had almost no adherents in China a generation ago. China's Protestants evangelized at the risk of liberty and sometimes life, and possess a sort of fervor not seen in Christian ranks for centuries. Their pastors have been beaten and jailed, and they have had to create their own institutions through the "house church" movement. Two years ago I warned that China would have to wait for democracy. I wrote: For a people to govern itself, it first must want to govern itself and want to do so with a passion. It also must know how to do so. Democracy requires an act of faith, or rather a whole set of acts of faith. The individual citizen must believe that a representative sitting far away in the capital will listen to his views, and know how to band together with other citizens to make their views known. That is why so-called civil society, the capillary network of associations that manage the ordinary affairs of life, is so essential to democracy. Americans elect their local school boards, create volunteer fire brigades and raise and spend tax dollars at the local level to provide parks or sewers. China's network of house churches may turn out to be the leaven of democracy, like the radical Puritans of England who became the Congregationalists of New England. Freedom of worship is the first precondition for democracy, for it makes possible freedom of conscience. The fearless evangelists at the grassroots of China will, in the fullness of time, do more to bring US-style democracy to the world than all the nation-building bluster of President George W Bush and his advisers. Notes 1. The uphill journey of Catholicism in China, August 2, 2007, National Catholic Reporter. 2. See Luke Wesley, "Is the Chinese Church predominantly Pentecostal?" in American Journal of Pentecostal Studies 7:2 (2004). 3. China must wait for democracy, Asia Times Online, September 27, 2005. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) The uphill journey of Catholicism in China By John L Allen Jr Weekly Created Aug 2 2007 - 15:45 All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr. Friday, Aug. 3, 2007 - Vol. 6, No. 48 If there were any lingering question about whether there's a spiritual boom in China today, it now has a two word answer: Yu Dan. A 42-year-old female talk show host and pop culture icon, Yu Dan is the author of Notes on Reading the Analects -- a sort of Confucian Chicken Soup for the Soul -- which has sold somewhere between 3 and 4 million copies, making it one of the biggest best-sellers in China since Mao's "Little Red Book." Dan's success illustrates that China has become, according to writer Zha Jianying, the "largest soul market" in the world. With a population of 1.3 billion, China is trying to fill an ideological void left by the collapse of Communism as anything more than a system of political control, and the dislocations of astonishing but uneven levels of economic growth. Friends of NCR Dear Reader of All Things Catholic, We need your help. We are pleased to make available -- at no charge -- All Things Catholic by John L. Allen Jr. But we cannot do all we need to do without your financial assistance. Please take a moment to consider contributing to the Friends of NCR campaign. National Catholic Reporter is a nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax-deductible in the United States. Contributions can be sent to: National Catholic Reporter 115 E. Armour Blvd. Kansas City, MO 64111 USA Make checks out to: NCR If you wish, you can print a form for submitting your donation by check or credit card. Print a Form Or Donate Online "There are so many wounded, helpless souls that are desperate to find something to believe in and to hold onto after these drastic changes," Jianying told Reuters in May. Dan's post-modern Confucianism is not the only spiritual option riding this wave. In northwestern China, an estimated 20 to 30 million Muslims are also in the grip of a revival. According to a 2006 report in Asia Times, new Muslim schools are opening with a strong accent on Islamic orthodoxy, young Chinese Muslims are studying across the Middle East and bringing new missionary energies home, and rising numbers of Chinese Muslims are making the annual hajj to Mecca. China's post- Deng Xiaoping economic opening has expanded opportunities for Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia, to fund Islamic enterprises in China. Perhaps the most remarkable burst of religious energy is in China's Pentecostal Christian population. At the time of the Communist takeover in 1949, there were roughly 900,000 Protestants. Today, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, which puts out the much-consulted World Christian Database, says there are 111 million Christians in China, roughly 90 percent Protestant and mostly Pentecostal. That would make China the third-largest Christian country on earth, following only the United States and Brazil. The Center projects that by 2050, there will be 218 million Christians in China, 16 percent of the population, enough to make China the world's second-largest Christian nation. According to the Center, there are 10,000 conversions in China every day. Religious data is notoriously imprecise in an officially atheistic state, and not everyone accepts these eye-popping estimates. In the 2006 update of his book Jesus in Beijing, former Time Beijing bureau chief David Aikman put the number of Protestants at 70 million. Richard Madsen, a former Maryknoll missionary and author of China's Catholics, told me he would put the number still lower, at 40 million. That's in line with the CIA World Factbook, another widely consulted resource. Even those conservative estimates, however, would mean that Protestantism in China experienced roughly 4,300 percent growth over the last half-century, most of it since the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s. A four-part video series issued in 2003, called "The Cross: Jesus in China," and produced by Chinese documentarian Yuan Zhiming, interviews many of the leaders of this revival, whose evangelical drive is palpable. Notably, Protestantism took off after the expulsion of foreign missionaries, meaning most of the expansion has been home-grown. Curiously, this booming "soul market" seems largely to have bypassed the Catholic church. In 1949, there were 3.3 million Catholics. The most common estimate today is 12 million. Over that time, China's population increased by a factor of four, which means that Catholicism has done little more than keep pace. A half-century ago, Chinese Protestantism was three and a half times smaller than Catholicism; today, it is at least three and a half times larger. In a 2003 interview, then-Bishop Joseph Zen of Hong Kong (now a cardinal) said that Protestants are "winning" the contest for the souls of the Chinese. Of course, given the harsh persecution of Chinese Catholics, the fact that the faith survived at all is in some ways a miracle. Those persecutions continue into the present; just last week, three Catholic priests were arrested in Inner Mongolia for refusing to submit to China's state-sponsored Catholic association. The heroism of Chinese clergy and laity is without a doubt one of the most inspirational chapters in church history. Yet persecution has not fallen on Catholics alone. Protestants, Buddhists, Daoists, Muslims, the Falungong, and others have similar stories of martyrdom to tell. One Protestant pastor told Aikman, "Chinese prison is my seminary. Police handcuffs and the electric nightstick are our equipment. That is God's special training for the Gospel." Despite similar experiences, Catholicism seemingly has not experienced the same recent surge. Why not? Veteran China-watchers generally offer four explanations. (1) Lack of Ecclesial Infrastructure According to a 2005 analysis by Maryknoll Sr. Betty Ann Maheu, there are 6,000 Catholic churches in China but 3,000 priests, which would mean that roughly half the Catholic churches in the country lack a resident priest. Overall, the priest-to-Catholic ratio in China is about 4,000-to-one, better than Latin America (where it's 7,000-to-one) or the Caribbean (more than 8,300-to-one,) but considerably worse than in Europe (1,100-to-one) or the United States (1,300-to-one). A significant number of Chinese priests are also in jail or placed under other forms of supervision. Maheu says that in the short term, the priest shortage in China is likely to deepen. There was a vocations boom in the early 1980s, she said, but today numbers are dropping, as expanding economic opportunities makes recruitment and retention more difficult. Madsen says that even in Shanghai, normally held up as the most dynamic urban Catholic community in the country, most seminarians come from rural Catholic villages whose populations are in decline. China has 110 dioceses and 114 active bishops, which in theory means that most dioceses should have a bishop. At least a dozen bishops, however, are in jail, under house arrest or subjected to severe surveillance. Because of doubts over the legitimacy of bishops who have registered with the government, their leadership is often contested. Given chronic tensions between China and the Vatican, dioceses sometimes remain vacant for extended periods. Some of the youngest bishops in the world today are in China, many appointed in their early 30s, in part out of fear that the opportunity to name another one might not roll around again soon. Maheu notes that there are more than 5,000 religious women in China, saying the growth of religious life has "great potential" for the church. (2) The Sociology of Chinese Catholicism Historically, Catholicism in China was almost entirely a rural phenomenon. Madsen says that despite run-away urbanization, 70-75 percent of Catholics are probably still concentrated in largely homogenous Catholic villages, especially in Hebei and Shanxi provinces in the northeastern area around Beijing. Even the urban footprint of Catholicism, he said, is largely composed of villagers who have relocated to the city, and experience suggests it's sometimes difficult for them to maintain the faith in this new environment. The tenacity of these Catholic villagers is the stuff of legend. China's Catholics tells the story of a village in Shanxi Province where a family planning team arrived in 1985 to try to distribute contraception in accord with the state's "one-child" policy. Villagers surrounded their car, and when the team retreated to their living quarters, the villagers hurled rocks through the windows. Eventually the team had to be rescued by the police, and fled the area. Yet the rural character of the church also means that it is handicapped in terms of missionary expansion, since preserving Catholic communities is often a higher priority than making new converts. Catholics are under-represented in urban areas, which are creating the most vibrant "growth markets" for new spiritual movements. The insularity of some rural communities, Madsen says, also means that many reforms triggered by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) never really arrived. Even in cosmopolitan Shanghai, the first Chinese-language Mass wasn't celebrated until 1989. (Ironically, this is one point upon which Chinese Communists and Catholic traditionalists agree. Both prefer Mass in Latin, in the case of the Communists because it means that most people won't understand it.) (3) Internal Division Chinese Catholicism is deeply lacerated over the question of cooperation with the Communist regime. For the most part, China-watchers say, Catholics who tolerate state oversight do so not out of enthusiasm for the official project of a "self-governed, self-funded, self-propagated" church, but rather because it seems the best survival strategy. Nonetheless, Catholics who reject this option out of unwavering loyalty to the pope, and who often endure prison, harassment, and discrimination, frequently regard "open" Catholics as compromised. In their most extreme form, the divisions can turn violent. In 1992, an "open church" priest in Henan was murdered by a disgruntled seminarian who claimed that he had been denied ordination because of his ties to the unofficial church. The priest collapsed and died after drinking from what was literally a poisoned chalice at Mass. Recent years have seen significant efforts to heal this breach. Conventional estimates are that as many as 90 percent of bishops ordained without the authority of the pope now have received Vatican recognition. Catholics from both the open and the unregistered church often worship together and receive the sacraments from the same clergy; it has become a mantra that "there is only one Catholic church in China." Yet the bitterness is hardly a museum piece. Pope Benedict XVI released a "Letter to Chinese Catholics" in May, which called for unity and pledged that Catholicism is not an enemy of the state, but also insisted that the church cannot accept interference in its internal life. Notably, Benedict revoked faculties given in 1978 for "underground" bishops to appoint successors and to ordain priests without contact with Rome. Fierce debates broke out over how to interpret the letter. One testy exchange has been between Belgian missionary Fr. Jeroom Heyndrickx, a frequent Vatican advisor on China, and Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, an outspoken critic of the Communist regime. In early July, Heyndrickx published a commentary on the pope's letter with the Union of Catholic Asian News, stressing that it called for dialogue and unity. Among other things, Heyndrickx suggested it would be desirable for unregistered bishops to come out into the open. Zen published a tough response on July 18, which began by saying that Heyndrickx has lost the "vast consensus and positive regard" he once enjoyed among Chinese Catholics. "Fr. Heyndrickx's every initiative needs the approval of Mr. Liu Bainian, of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, and has to be carried out according to conditions imposed by him. Mr. Liu's prestige has thus been steadily built up," Zen wrote, referring to the official state regulatory body for Catholic affairs. Zen went on to argue that there is still a need for the clandestine church in China, and that in many, if not most, cases, bishops should not apply for registration. Those who act without the authority of the pope, he said, should be subject to canonical sanctions. Heyndrickx shot back on July 20: "I have learned that it does not take much courage to use the media to prove one's own views and criticize others, while it takes a lot of guts to sit down with those who disagree with you and have long personal dialogues to overcome differences and seek the common ground." Whatever one makes of this exchange, it illustrates the tensions that course through Chinese Catholicism, making it difficult to exploit new missionary opportunities. (4) Missionary Strategy Much Catholic conversation about evangelization in China is usually phrased in the subjunctive: "If China were to open up on religious freedom ..." or "If the Holy See and China were to establish diplomatic relations ..." The implicit assumption is sometimes that structural change is required before Catholicism can truly move into an expansion phase. Pentecostal talk about mission, on the other hand, is very much phrased in the simple present. Most Pentecostals would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive evangelization programs. The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as "Back to Jerusalem." As Aikman explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese Evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they believe, it's their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world. Most experts regard that prospect as deeply improbable; Madsen said he doubts more than a handful of Protestants in China take the "Back to Jerusalem" vision seriously. Aikman is more sanguine, reporting that as of 2005 two underground Protestant seminaries in China were training believers for work in Islamic nations. In any event, it's revealing as an indication of missionary ferment. One exception to the general Catholic hesitancy is Bishop Jin Luxian of Shanghai, a controversial figure because of his willingness to register with the government, but someone who enjoys the respect of many senior Catholic leaders internationally. Luxian, the subject of a flattering profile in the current issue of The Atlantic, is revamping his cathedral to draw upon traditional Chinese aesthetics, part of a larger program of forging an authentically Chinese expression of the Catholic faith. "The old church appealed to 3 million Catholics," he said. "I want to appeal to 100 million Catholics." The Future By universal consensus, China is an emerging global superpower. Its economy grew at an average annual rate of 9.4 percent over the last 25 years, and today has a GDP of $11 trillion, making it the second-largest economy in the world after the United States. Foreign companies have poured more than $600 billion into China since 1978, far eclipsing what the United States spent rebuilding post-war Europe in the Marshall Plan. China now has a middle class of 200 million people, 80 million of whom are quite well-off. The country exports more in a single day than it did in all of 1978. How things shake out religiously, therefore, is of tremendous strategic importance, even for people who don't feel any particular spiritual stake in the result. If Christianity ends up at around 20 percent of the population, for example, China could become an exponentially larger version of South Korea (where Christians are between 25-50 percent of the population, depending upon which count one accepts) -- a more democratic, rule-oriented, basically pro-Western society. On the other hand, if dynamic Muslim movements create an Islamic enclave in the western half of the country, with financial and ideological ties to fundamentalist Wahhabi forms of Islam in Saudi Arabia, at least that part of China could become a wealthier and more influential Afghanistan. If growing religious pluralism in China becomes fractious, it could mean that a well-armed and wealthy superpower is destabilized by internal conflict, posing risks to global peace and security. Catholicism could potentially offer a positive ingredient in China's new spiritual stew. In part, the church could realize significant numbers of new members, even if mere statistical growth is not an end in itself -- as Benedict XVI said recently, "statistics are not our divinity." Perhaps more importantly, Madsen believes, a dynamic and growing Catholicism could be an important force in building a healthy civil society in China. For that to happen, however, the four liabilities outlined above would somehow have to be addressed. At present, it's difficult to see that happening. As Maheu said in 2005, "Short of a series of miracles, the journey of Catholicism in China will continue, in my opinion, to be uphill in the foreseeable and even distant future." One key to Pentecostalism's worldwide expansion, however, is that Pentecostals live in constant expectation of just such a series of miracles. Perhaps rather than waiting for the "one step forward, two steps back" ballet between Rome and Beijing to reach conclusion, Chinese Catholics will steal a page from the Pentecostal playbook, and embrace a vision of "the future is now." It would be fascinating to watch them try. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:51:08 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Presbyterians Flee Presbyterian Church (USA) - Mike McManus Presbyterians Flee Presbyterian Church (USA) by Mike McManus August 8, 2007 Start with three facts. In 1965 the Presbyterian Church (USA) had 4.25 million members. In 2006 there were only 2.26 million, a hemorrhage of 47%. An average of 45,000 fled the PCUSA annually in the last five years. Where have they gone? By 1983 when northern and southern branches of Presbyterians merged after being separated by the Civil War, more than 1,000 conservative southern churches, who opposed abortion supported by the PCUSA, created the Presbyterian Church in America. PCA churches, who also support the infallibility of Scripture, now have 350,000 members in 1,640 churches. A smaller spinoff began with 12 northern churches who also opposed abortion and backed Scripture's authority, created the Evangelical Presbyterian Church that now has 75,000 members in 188 churches. (PCA churches do not allow women to serve as clergy, while EPC churches do.) These defections account for only a minority of PCUSA losses. More than a million members simply fled to join other evangelical churches... A more recent issue has been gay ordination. The 1978 PCUSA General Assembly placed into the constitution a declaration that clergy must be chaste outside of marriage and faithful within it. That proscribed homosexual behavior as contrary to the teachings of Scripture. However, liberals have pressed for change, resulting in no less than three national referenda on whether to ordain active homosexuals. By increasing margins, including 73 percent in 2001, Presbyterians affirmed the constitutional standard of chastity and fidelity. The debate wearied hundreds of thousands and prompted them to switch to America's growing evangelical churches. For many the final blow came with the 2006 General Assembly's approval of a report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, which declared that the constitutional ordination standards were "not essential." That allowed any local presbytery to approve gay ordinations. Setting aside the national constitutional standard, affirmed by three national referenda - was hardly a strategy to promote peace and unity. A new wave of churches are voting by 90%+ to abandon the PCUSA. In the past year, 27 congregations with 15,000 members voted to leave the PCUSA, requested to be dismissed or have sought to have their congregation declared the owner of their property. Real property is at stake. PCUSA, like the United Methodist and Episcopal Churches, has a clause in its denominational constitution stating that all property of the local church is held in trust for the denomination. As I reported in this column several months ago, a very bitter and costly fight is being waged by a dozen former Episcopal churches in Virginia who now call themselves Anglicans - and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Although some of those churches date back to the colonial era, before an Episcopal Church existed, it demands their property. A similar Presbyterian legal battle is underway. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that though a Presbyterian church is an eccelesiastical body, it is also a corporation charted in a particular state and the law should view the owning of property with "neutral principles of law." That gives churches who want to leave the denomination some leverage. A lawsuit involving Central Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Ala. was settled when the church agreed to pay $250,000 to the local presbytery by the end of 2010. Settlements are possible. However, PCUSA presbyteries are playing hardball. In Oklahoma the presbytery "filed secretly an affidavit claiming our property in a midnight run, alleging that they were the owners of our property via a trust," charged Dr. Tom Gray of Kirk of the Hills Church in Tulsa, OK. The church filed a counterclaim noting that in the church's deed, no denomination is mentioned. They are three months from going to trial. Negotiation? No. The presbytery wanted millions for the 2,700 member church. "This is ransom money," snaps Gray. Of the 27 PCUSA churches who have begun to leave, all but one hope to become part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In fact, there are 160 PCUSA conservative churches who are part of a group called "New Wineskins." They had been fighting for conservative reforms within PCUSA, but after the "Peace and Unity" declaration, virtually all are considering leaving. The EPC voted to welcome them. New Wineskins churches are evangelical and larger than average. Together they have 90,000 members, which would more than double the size of the EPC. And that may be only the beginning. Parker Williamson, Editor Emeritus of "The Layman," a conservative newspaper with 440,000 circulation, told me, "We are not recommending that people leave the denomination, but we take a strong stand in defense and support of any congregation that makes that decision." END TXT Copyright Copyright 2007 Michael J. McManus ---Michael J. McManus is a syndicated columnist. He writes on "Ethics & Religion". He is President & Co-Chair of Marriage Savers. He lives with his wife Harrriet in Potomac, Md. ------------------------------ End of VIRTUEONLINE Digest - 3 Aug 2007 to 9 Aug 2007 (#2007-36) ****************************************************************