WHO ARE THE REAL ANGLICAN BULLIES?

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
4/29/2007

Most children, at some point in their lives, are forced to face a schoolyard bully. It goes along with growing up. Somehow you learn to survive. The trouble comes when the tables are turned, and the bullies themselves get beaten up. When that happens, they run to their parents and cry foul.

This is precisely what is happening in The Episcopal Church (TEC), the Anglican Church of Canada and the Church of England today. Episcopal and Anglican Church leaders behave like bullies and cry foul over perceived interference from bishops outside North America. Then they beat up on African archbishops and bishops for being backward and for not buying into the Episcopal Church's new sexuality preferences.

Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, is complaining mightily about the arrival next week of the most powerful African Anglican on the planet, The Rt. Rev. Peter Akinola, to lay hands on a number of Anglicans in Virginia, saying "it puts a strain on the fragile relations on the Anglican Communion." This is while the TEC has done more than any other Anglican jurisdiction to aggravate and violate the wishes of the greater Anglican Communion.

What we have is the classic combination of the ecclesiastical bully and the crybaby! It goes along the lines of "How dare you cross jurisdictional boundaries" (the bully) and "Why the hell can't you buy into anal sex?' (crybaby) because it really is filling up our churches. Not.

Rich North American Episcopalians, using dead men's money, have figured out that they can buy loyalty from 15 or so provinces by dropping money into African laps on that continent in the name of helping HIV/AIDS patients.

When African Anglican leaders tell them they won't take their money because it is tainted with sodomite acceptance - an acceptance that has eternally damning consequences -- the Americans cry foul and say how can you let women and children die over sex. It has not dawned on the enlightened ones at 815 2nd Ave., New York City, that it is precisely because of the misuse of sex that people have contracted HIV/AIDS in the first place!

So there you have it, the ecclesiastical bully and the whining crybaby. The "how dare you" with the "why can't we all have sex with whomever, it's so much fun" and God (whoever He or She is) really doesn't mind, because our gender neutral higher power wants us all to live fully unto ourselves, and be who we are, sexually fulfilling ourselves with whomever we happen to find ourselves with, while reaching for the communion wafer.

The Anglican Church of Canada has a first class bully. His name is Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster, who has come by his award as Bully First Class for the way he has treated departing orthodox parishes. His carrot and stick approach (very big stick, very small carrot) with fleeing parishes has made him a legendary bully. Here are a few examples.

* He controls all diocesan synods to the point of ordering the microphones shut off if someone gets up to speak against him...

* His own people at synod have total control and get all the principal speaking time, bullying any and all who go against the bishop's agenda...

* He forces clergy who stand against him out of their churches, fires the duly elected lay officers, replaces both with his own people, and changes the locks on the doors... (This writer was in North Vancouver the day this actually took place.)

* He acts unilaterally in pressing his own agenda on the international Anglican Communion, without regard for the truth or well being of that communion...

Ingham also threatens people with his principal back-up, lawyer George Cadman, the diocesan chancellor. While Ingham has ingratiated himself with all the local and provincial political leaders the truth is, he has people cowed and afraid of him. His clergy are afraid to speak up on moral issues because they can be fired and have their pensions trashed. Said a source to VOL; "no real born again conservative Christian would be ordained by Ingham in the Diocese of New Westminster. If Ingham's so wonderful, why are most real Christian clergy fleeing the diocese?" Indeed.

The American Episcopal Church has several A1 bullies, foremost among them is John Shelby Spong. He has made it his lifetime work to pour scorn on, ridicule and denigrate evangelicals in TEC (he started out as one). He took particular delight and pleasure in using his considerable skills blasting African bishops at Lambeth 1998 for their backwardness on sexual matters. He has also taken major pot shots at Archbishop George Carey and most recently at the ailing John R. W. Stott, who has singled-handedly upheld the faith in England, indeed across the globe. If he had not done so, the Church of England would be an even bigger mess than it is already.

Another vile bully is the Bishop of Long Island, Orris Walker. He has made it his lifetime work to destroy the ministry of every Anglo-Catholic priest in his diocese. He has made their lives a living hell, yelling and screaming at them about what Prayer Book to use, while promoting a horrible, sexually warped priest who appeared naked in PENTHOUSE magazine under a banner headline, "The Boys from Brazil." He ripped up his Dean the same week the Dean lost his son to suicide. The handful of Evangelicals have quietly slunk away, still too afraid to talk to VOL about their experiences with this horrible bishop who may well be dying of AIDS.

The winner by far, is the Bully of Pennsylvania - Charles E. Bennison. In his ten-year career, this sociopathic bishop has cut a swathe across the diocese. He lied to the 'seven sisters' Anglo-Catholic priests about alternative oversight, then set about ripping them apart one by one till there was no one left standing (or preaching). The last to go was Fr. David Ousley who was thrown out of his parish; was inhibited and deposed; and, the doors to the parish were locked. Another priest, Fr. David Moyer is still standing. He is now under another jurisdiction and is fighting the bishop in the secular courts for justice and equity. Bennison has bullied evangelicals who remain cowed and stay as far under his radar screen as they possibly can. He has bullied his Black clergy into submission and is responsible for the death of one Black clergyman, according to the priest's wife, who is also a clergyperson. He has written a Visigoth rite to be used by any sexual combination that walks through the cathedral doors wanting to be married. He could not uphold certain basic doctrines of the faith when asked to do so by a priest, spent millions on failed diocesan programs, covered up his brother's sexual sin (the abuse of a 14-year old girl) and is so hated by the Standing Committee that they have filed presentment charges against him with the National Church. He has even lost the support of his liberal base, a dangerous thing to lose in times of spiritual battle, but still he insists on staying so he can go on bullying whoever stands in his way so he can accomplish absolutely nothing except the death of a diocese. He is even worse than his father, also Charles Bennison, the Bishop of Western Michigan who built a cathedral (read monument) to his enormous ego, a cathedral that is now being sold at half its original cost to erect - the legacy of an ecclesiastically and theologically worthless life and ministry.

Other bishops worthy of mention include Tom Shaw, Bishop of Massachusetts, John Howard, Bishop of Florida, and J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of Los Angeles. Bruno is a huge bully of a man who feels it is his bounden duty to blast anyone who dares to stand in the way of Mrs. Schori being recognized by the Anglican Communion. He has gone after the former Bishop of Texas, Ben Benitez, while at the same time legally trying to trash five parishes and their priests in his diocese, time and time again because they won't conform to his religion.

Every day orthodox Anglican priests get a little bit closer to the true life story of Meshack, Shadrach and Abednego, three courageous Hebrews who stood in the midst of the fiery furnace refusing to defend themselves., "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter." (Dan 3:16) So it is with the Rev. Don Armstrong who faces a Kangaroo Court this week by his former Bishop Rob O'Neill. This court will undoubtedly find him guilty of cooking the books even though there has not been one single tangible piece of evidence that the evangelical rector has had his hand in the parish till. Armstrong will not attend this farcical court loaded as it is with O'Neill's yes men and women. He will not defend himself and he will emerge unscathed from the burning fire of O'Neill's wrath.

How many times has the Rt. Rev. Bob Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, been trashed by V. Gene Robinson in House of Bishops meetings with the nodding approval of liberal and revisionist bishops? These bishops would love to see Duncan overwhelmed by the Rev. Harold Lewis, a revisionist priest in his diocese, and a group of so-called Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh who would love to dump Bishop Duncan legally in the courts, if they could. It is bullying without end.

One of the most egregious cases of bullying took place in the Mid-West. The Bishop of Kansas, Dean E. Wolfe, pulled a Tony Soprano and put a gun to the head of the priest of Christ Church Overland Park and said that for 10 large a year for ten years (that's $1 million bucks) he could keep his parish property. The priest agreed.

When the same priest arranged for a transfer of jurisdictions, he got a Godly octogenarian Episcopal Bishop, William Cox, to perform the business. Suddenly, up jumped Wolfe and fellow Oklahoma Bishop Robert Moody (a man who allowed a wannabe deacon to have a sex-change operation). Together they tag-teamed the faithful old bishop and filed presentment charges against him. Undaunted, the 86-year bishop shifted his allegiance to the Province of the Southern Cone.

The bullying is not all focused exclusively in the U.S. and Canada, it has gone international.

When it was first announced that Dr. Rowan Williams would become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England's homosexual community lauded the Bearded One as enlightened, progressive and a supporter of homosexuals. Around the world, orthodox Anglicans and Episcopalians went into quiet despair, hoping and praying that, as the leader of nearly 80 million Anglicans he would change his mind. They saw hope when Jeffrey John failed to get a bishopric and were hopeful that he would see how united African Anglicans were along with orthodox remnants in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Then everything changed. When the primates met in Tanzania earlier this year and delivered a time line for liberals in the US to repent, Britain's homosexual community suddenly went ballistic. Led by the interminably pro-homosexual sycophantic religion writer for the Guardian newspaper, they hissed and snarled at Dr. Williams, saying he had betrayed them and worse. Many, including the Canadian Archbishop, called his leadership weak and inept. The ABC promptly announced he was taking a three-month sabbatical.

On the surface, the bullies are winning. They are trashing all before them, taking the spoils of war, which include properties, endowments and much more. The numbers are now running into the tens of millions of dollars. In the end they will lose, because they will never ever own the hearts and minds of faithful priests and laity who believe in Jesus and His gospel and not the progressive pansexual "inclusive" gospel of liberals and revisionists. Across the country they are walking out parish doors leaving behind the spoils to the victor, but the victories for these bishops are entirely pyrrhic. If there is no one to fill the pews, will the bishop be able to hang onto the properties? The answer is no, because across this great land of ours, parishes are being sold to clothing boutiques, x-rated porn shops, upstart independent evangelical congregations, etc.

One diocese (San Joaquin) has announced it will probably leave The Episcopal Church fostering the question, will there be more? Three bishops have fled the HOB, one to Rome, one to CANA and a third to the Southern Cone. Priests and parishes are fleeing like scattered sheep in all directions. CANA and AMiA are scooping them up like beached whales.

God is not mocked. The liberals and revisionists are reaping what they are sowing, and they are sowing to the whirlwind of God's wrath as churches empty and the money slowly dries up.

A Day of Reckoning is coming when judgment begins, and it will begin first with the household of God.

END