We are fast approaching the point in the Anglican Communion where a crisis can no longer be averted by acceptance of covenants, reports (Windsor), communiques and high flying talk of diversity, inclusivity, reconciliation and healing. It has become apparent that a parting of the ways is inevitable. The test will be how Archbishop Rowan Williams proposes to handle it. Truthfully he is in a no win situation. He is being cursed by American and British Anglican homosexuals for "betraying" them by caving into "homophobic" African bishops.

At the same time, Western Anglican liberals and revisionist bishops have made it abundantly clear that compromise of any kind is not on the books, whether it is talk of primatial or alternative oversight for besieged dioceses and parishes or compromising on a range of sexuality issues. Conservatives, Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics who are far more civil in the culture wars are hoping and praying that Dr. Williams will do the right thing as the day of decision draws closer.

VirtueOnline learned this week that the Presiding Bishop's attorney David Booth Beers and Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori, are 100 percent committed to keeping all properties in TEC and will fight to the finish through the courts to keep them from fleeing the Episcopal Church. Orthodox priests and their parishioners will be spared no quarter in the church's efforts to keep them in the Episcopal fold. Therefore one should expect an ecclesiastical (and financial) blood bath in dioceses like San Joaquin and the Rio Grande where orthodox bishops are sympathetic to departing parishes as well as in dioceses like Virginia where the bishop is supported by the national church. The national church has made it clear that they will fight for those parishes, which depart and threaten the bishop even though the national church has no real power to keep a diocese from leaving. The Dennis Canon only applies to fleeing parishes, but presentments will be issued to orthodox bishops who do not make every effort to keep those parishes from leaving the diocese and the national church.

Mrs. Schori is proving to be tougher on property issues than her predecessor the Rt. Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold who kept Beers on a short leash. Mrs. Schori has unleashed Beers with a take no prisoners' policy. The dual message is that the national church has both the money and the determination to fight to the finish any parish or diocese who opposes them. The name of the game is power and money. The powers that be at 815, the denomination's national headquarters, believe they have the Dennis Canon securely on their side. They believe the canon gives them the sacred right to sue and take possession of any property they believe belongs to them. There will be absolutely no compromise. The issue of 'the faith once delivered to the saints' is a non-issue; it is all about property (even empty ones) and who owns them. It is for the next generation of Episcopalians to fill the pews, even if there aren't any to fill them, say the church's liberals.

New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson hinted darkly in a letter to Newark Bishop Mark M. Beckwith that liberal bishops should refrain from blasting Williams for his failure to stand up to narrow-minded, neo-Puritan archbishops like Nigerian primate Peter Akinola. Robinson he is convinced that there is a lot of diplomacy going on between the Archbishop's office and the American Church, "which may - or may not, create a different ecclesiastical climate and result in invitations to all bishops in good standing in the church," including, presumably CANA Bishop Martyn Minns.

Clearly Bishop Robinson doesn't understand the depth of feeling and seriousness Global South bishops take the authority of Holy Scripture and the mandate of the gospel call for repentance and amendment of life. They will not compromise under any circumstances. Neither apparently will Robinson.

While more Lambeth invitations are likely (the Anglican bishops is not complete), it may not matter in the long run if the CAPA bishops as a bloc say they won't go. Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, an influential Global South leader, has said he and his contingent will attend. Ultra-Liberal Washington bishop John Chane said he will probably skip the conference out of loyalty to Robinson, but one doubts his staying power not to go if pressured by Mrs. Schori.

Here is a statement from the CAPA bishops delivered in February 2006: "The current situation is a twofold crisis for the Anglican Communion: a crisis of doctrine and a crisis of leadership, in which the failure of the "Instruments" of the Communion to exercise discipline has called into question the viability of the Anglican Communion as a united Christian body under a common foundation of faith, as is supposed by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Due to this breakdown of discipline, we are not sure that we can in good conscience continue to spend our time, our money and our prayers on behalf of a body that proclaims two Gospels, the Gospel of Christ and the Gospel of Sexuality."

There is no point, said the group of African Primates "in meeting and meeting and not resolving the fundamental crisis of Anglican identity. We will definitely not attend any Lambeth Conference to which the violators of the Lambeth Resolution are also invited as participants or observers."

Barely a week ago, The Archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, re-stated that 2006 decision saying that it wasn't just the error of the Episcopal Church for consecrating V. Gene Robinson, an openly homosexual bishop but also of those who consecrated him.

It is difficult to know how the CAPA bishops can attend Lambeth if this is what they truly believe and are prepared to stand by!

The African bishops are on record as saying that they want assurances from the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury that this crisis will be resolved before a Lambeth Conference is convened. To date they have not received such assurances. It would seem then, that it is not going to happen even after the HOB has met in New Orleans late in September.

Presumably too, the prohibition would include the Bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham who attended Robinson's consecration and who is proving intractable, demanding that his diocese's policy to allow ceremonies for same-sex unions continue even though the Canadian Anglican Church has yet to ratify the same. (There is a remarkable silence from B.C Metropolitan the Rt. Rev. Terry Buckle these days, over the antics of Ingham.)

It is irony stacked upon irony that Ingham a flaming revisionist, hater of orthodoxy and persecutor of his orthodox wing, should get an invitation to Lambeth while the godly Bishop of Recife, Robinson Cavilcanti does not!

The CAPA bishops also said they are frankly angry that the announced plans of the Lambeth Design Team avoided any discussion of Communion order and discipline, which have been clearly strained to the breaking point. "We are disappointed that the central issue of an Anglican Communion Covenant is not front-and-centre on the agenda of the Conference. If any group should be expected to consult on these most important issues, it should be the assembled bishops of the Communion."

The lines then have been drawn and the die cast.

Echoing similar sentiments of frustration in The Episcopal Church, Fr. Bill Ilgenfritz, St. Mary's, Charleroi, PA. said this, "We can't wait any longer. I don't believe anything today that I didn't believe 40 years ago. Then I was smack-dab in the mainstream. Now I'm on the outside looking in."

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, a Colorado-based priest and theologian offers the perspective that a "council may choose to invite or not, on the basis of discipline or not - none of this validates or invalidates a council. These are prudential decisions, not matters of faith. Does one sit at council with those who have betrayed previous councils?" Radner points to the Council of Nicea, where, following Nicea, an entire array of Arians and related "heretics" continued to agitate and in fact often "triumph" ecclesiastically through episcopal establishment and numerous new councils, both local and wider. Many, although not all, of these subsequent councils were attended by "orthodox", who knowingly came to gatherings in which they were outnumbered, deceived, and mistreated. Their attendance, where possible, was based on the courage, calm, and faith granted them by the Holy Spirit, not on juridical realities."

Radner continues: "My own view (and that of others) has long been that TEC's behavior has been so brazenly destructive of the Communion's conciliar life on a number of levels, that the entire American church's college of bishops should not be invited to Lambeth at all. Without some major, formal, and agreed recommitment to the character of conciliar life, TEC's participation in the Communion's gathering threatens to be subversive, not edifying, inevitably confusing, not clarifying. The Anglican Communion is not "the Catholic Church" tout court, by a long shot, and requires a kind of conserving energy that goes beyond whole-sale pneumatic openness-within-order. Individual TEC bishops might, if they so chose, petition Canterbury and the Primates for a seat at Lambeth on the basis of affirming a commitment to the principles the Primates themselves laid out in their recent Communique (the "Camp Allen Principles") although this is not wholly clear -- or at least a commitment to previous Lambeth resolutions, whose imposing legitimacy has now been clearly affirmed by the interlocking agreement of other Anglican Communion synods."

Auburn Traycik, Editor of The Christian Challenge magazine, keenly observed that sending out the invitations now to the U.S. liberals, especially those who consecrated Robinson and/or allowed same-sex blessings, undercuts/ignores Lambeth 1.10, Windsor, the primates calls, and pre-empts the Sept. 30 deadline. It doesn't prevent the primates as a whole from pronouncing on TEC's status in the Communion after Sept. 30. Williams did raise the possibility that some invitees could be rescinded. One could also argue that he threatened the latter to try to encourage TEC bishops to come into line before Sept. 30. "I think the overall effect of what he did was to act as if critical admonitions from Communion leaders did not exist, and to treat as equivalent those undermining the faith and those merely undermining Anglican protocol." Traycik makes an excellent point.

The very agenda of Lambeth itself is all about the amelioration of human suffering, not ignoble in and of itself, but it fails to address the very issues that are tearing the communion apart!

This is like a blind man walking into a blazing house fire while firemen yell at him to walk in the opposite direction. Even as the blind man feels the heat and the fumes overwhelm him, he keeps walking straight through the front door as beams from the second floor collapse on his head.

The Africans have other legitimate complaints as well. They note the huge expense of such an event. "Our African churches are asked to divert funds from much needed work of evangelization and charity to a 3-week meeting which has no authority and which is blatantly ignored by '"autonomous'" member churches. In some cases, poorer provinces are "assisted" by donors from the West who have a deliberate agenda of buying silence from these churches. We conclude that if a regular all-bishops' conference is to continue in the Anglican Communion, it should be held in the Global South, where the costs are much less and the local economy can benefit; that it be shorter in duration; and that every church be required to pay its own way." The CAPA bishops added that they would take care of their own genuinely needy members.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, has called for a summit meeting of "Anglican Union" partners to form a "separate ecclesiastical structure (from The Episcopal Church) of the Anglican Communion" in the U.S., which Anglican leaders in the Global South had earlier proposed. The timing is interesting. It is scheduled just days before the Sept. 30 deadline, but after the House of Bishops have met in New Orleans with the Archbishop of Canterbury present. They will hold the meeting after The Episcopal Church gives its response to the request of the Primates to make an unequivocal pledge not to authorize same-sex blessings and confirm another openly gay bishop. This HOB has given no indication, in fact quite the opposite, that they will change their course of action.

By his pronouncement, Bishop Duncan and his Common Cause partners are formally saying that the Episcopal Church is officially broken, irreparable and a new structure is needed to go forward for orthodox Episcopalians. Is this a tenth Province or a 39th Province, he doesn't say.

Some five bishops and their dioceses - Ft. Worth, Quincy, Springfield, Pittsburgh and San Joaquin are ready to pull up stakes and leave TEC, VirtueOnline has been told. Unnumbered churches and pastors are set to go as well. However, this will merely kick David Booth Beers and Mrs. Schori into legal high gear to prevent these dioceses and parishes from keeping their properties. A better language or way of disengagement must be found if whole dioceses and their properties hope to remain in their ecclesiastical care.

The much ballyhooed document the "Communion Matters: A Study Document for the Episcopal Church" put out by the Bishops Theology Committee, is designed once again to stall putting off the inevitable by arguing that the bishops "cannot act unilaterally". "We needed to take counsel with the people of the Church in responding to the communique". This will be too little, too late; the remnant orthodox will be on their way out the door. Discussion on the "study document" will be among liberal bishops, along with any interested laity, talking to themselves, answering themselves and agreeing with themselves. This is "blessed conversation" with a twist - no argumentation, no talk back, just full agreement.

TEC will have chosen to walk apart. The Archbishop of Canterbury must then decide what he will do. Duncan is the now recognized leader of Western orthodox Anglicanism.

"By contrast, I expect our gathering to signal a new level of 'walking together' both with each other and with the wider Anglican world," Duncan said. Archbishop Akinola has already placed his imprimatur on Duncan, recognizing him as the Episcopal Church's unofficial leader even as he recognizes Martyn Minns as his personal emissary to disaffected Episcopalians in the U.S.

The "Common Cause Partnership," of orthodox groups committed to working together for "a biblical, missionary and united Anglicanism in North America," have put out a statement saying that they will consider, among other things, if a permanent Common Cause College of Bishops will be created, in order that ever greater levels of communication, cooperation and collaboration can be built; and initiate discussion of the creation of an "Anglican Union" among the partners.

This will be perceived as a red rag to Mrs. Schori and the HOB. You can be sure they will have much to say about this should it eventuate. Conservative Anglican leaders in the Global South proposed last September in their Kigali communique that a separate Anglican body accommodating opponents of the consecration of openly homosexual bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions in the United States should happen.

Orthodox Anglicans have always made it clear that they "want to remain faithful members of the Anglican Communion" and feel they cannot do so within The Episcopal Church. Continued fragmentation among Continuers does not strengthen their case for public Anglican unity. Duncan acknowledged in his invitation that the Council of Bishops "lacks the voice of the laity" and is "not a full synod of the Common Cause Partners. "[B]ut it is the next step agreed upon by the Common Cause Roundtable," he stated. "While it is not the end of our journey, it does continue the trajectory of ever greater unity and ever closer cooperation between those of us who know Jesus as the only Lord".

Williams wants everyone to downplay their more extreme philosophical impulses and work to preserve Anglicanism's unique assets. God, he says, intends that members of a church "have something to learn even from the people we most dislike or instinctively mistrust." Will it be enough to stop a split? Williams concedes he is not "absolutely confident" that the whole structure of Anglicanism can be kept together. But--by the help of God, no doubt--he's trying.

As the realignment unfolds two things are clear - the Global South, by far the most significant and numerous block of Anglicans have made it clear they won't attend under the present circumstances. The liberal Episcopal Church bloc, for the moment, still says they will attend en mass, but after September 30 they could change their minds.

The Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics within the TEC will receive no quarter from Mrs. Schori and her legal pit bull, David Booth Beers, if they should decide to leave and attempt to take their properties with them. Mrs. Schori has already sent that message to Bishop John-David Schofield (San Joaquin).

It will be a martyrdom of a sort, for the losers, writes the Very Rev. Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl in his booklet "Re-Alignment and the Episcopal Church", with the winners showing no concession or mercy.

Zahl observes that we may have to give it all away. "We have to be prepared to give away our love affair with things English, with Gothic stone churches (peaceful, tranquil), with needlepoint kneelers and cherry wood pews and alter pieces, with robed pomp and more."

"Grace means exactly this: giving way for the victor's side and preparedness for self-offered death from the losers."

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