The meeting of the House of Bishops will be the most defining moment in the history of The Episcopal Church since its founding in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

The boil of forty years of apostasy and heretical utterances will be publicly lanced for the entire world to see. It will not be a pleasant sight.

The final line in the sand will be drawn for beleaguered orthodox parishes and dioceses in The Episcopal Church, many of whom face nasty legal challenges over ownership of their properties by liberal bishops. The jettisoning of the biblical, traditional Anglican expression of the Christian Faith, which has led thousands of orthodox Anglicans to leave the Episcopal Church, will ratchet up to a higher level following the failed Sept. 30 deadline set by the Primates in Dar es Salaam for TEC to mend their Episcopal nets.

The legal and ecclesiastical ugliness that will follow this meeting cannot be fully imagined.

Southern Cone Archbishop Gregory Venables has said on two occasions, the first in Bedford, Texas, and more recently in Nairobi, Kenya, that the Primates are not an Anglican Curia, but are the logical center of authority for the Communion in difficult times. He also said the Anglican Communion doesn't have written rules so that one can say what one likes about the Primates authority without fear of contradiction. "That is the problem" and "I don't see the Anglican Communion finding a place to solve that problem" at the present time.

"We've got authority, we've got structure, we've got canons, we've got rules, up until that level," Bishop Venables said.

The Reverend Canon Robert J. Brooks, a priest in the Diocese of Connecticut and former Director of Government Relations for the Episcopal Church from 1988 to 1998, believes that only the Anglican Consultative Council [ACC], which has a written constitution unanimously adopted by the provinces of the Anglican Communion, can expel The Episcopal Church. Brooks concludes that expulsion would require a constitutional amendment ratified by the General Synods of two-thirds of the provinces. In other words, 26 of the synods in Anglican Communion provinces would have to vote to expel the Episcopal Church.

Without a curia or pope to resolve the communion's problems, schism is assured. What happens next is uncertain. Following are some possible scenarios:

* Dr. Williams, along with the Anglican Consultative Council, will hear out the HOB. After "listening," they will reassert the Report given in Tanzania that TEC has complied with "significant" parts of The Windsor Report. That fudge will enable the TEC "Windsor" bishops to say that they will attend the 2008 Conference, if they so desire.

* At the HOB meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury will push hard for a Covenant that all provinces can sign off on to keep the Anglican Communion together. But as shrewd London Anglo-Catholic cleric Fr. Geoffrey Kirk observed, "It is futile to list principles of formal unity before you have declared the parameters of common faith."

There is also a Catch-22: if the Covenant is strongly worded, it will be unacceptable to the Americans, Canadians and others; if it is ambiguously worded, it will probably be unacceptable to the Africans. In either case, it will be unable to deliver the unity it promises. As Kirk observes in New Directions (August 2007), "If peradventure, it is so drafted that both parties can agree to it then all that is affirmed is the status quo."

* An attempt to find common hermeneutical principles to interpret thorny Scriptures will also fail. Orthodox Anglicans will point up the historical/grammatical method; Western liberals will play up culture and diverse interpretations (of the Apostle Paul) to justify post-modern understandings of human sexuality.

* With no resolution for orthodox Episcopalians in New Orleans, the fragmentation already well under way will continue at a faster and higher pace.

* Dozens of parishes and a number of dioceses that have waited patiently for this moment will begin the slow but inevitable march out of The Episcopal Church. Tens of thousands of orthodox parishioners will announce they are leaving. Five dioceses led by the Diocese of San Joaquin will also indicate they are ready to part company with The Episcopal Church.

* Litigation costs for those parishes and dioceses willing to fight for their properties could rise to more than a quarter of a billion dollars. Many Evangelical parishes will simply walk away trusting God to provide for their future. David Booth Beers, Mrs. Schori's attorney, will add more attorneys to his roster for the long legal battles ahead.

The Episcopal Church will simply ignore all requests about how lawsuits are being funded unless someone actually calls the Attorney General's office to demand disclosure as to which Trust Funds are being raided to make it happen. The Church Pension Fund will not be touched. Even liberals want to retire in comfort.

* Following the New Orleans debacle, the Network and Common Cause groups will meet in Pittsburgh to plan their future. If they decide that a North American Anglican Province is the only viable way forward, they will probably announce it raising the anger of Mrs. Schori and the HOB to new heights. Levels of vitriol and bile will reach new levels and overflow from liberal and pansexual Episcopal bloggers the likes of which we have never seen. The HOB/D listserv will spearhead the outpourings of venom.

* If a new province is forthcoming, with or without the approval of Dr. Williams, you can be sure it will announce linkages with the African CAPA bishops, CAPAC (West Indies), Sydney, Australia, the Southern Cone, the Indian Ocean and possibly, but by no means certain, South East Asia, along with parts of the Middle East.

* Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola will emerge as the Archbishop of the newly formed orthodox Anglican Communion with Bishop Bob Duncan as the new Presiding Bishop of the North American province. The 11 newly anointed offshore Evangelical bishops will form his House of Bishops. The AMiA, REC and those respectable Continuing Churches will be allowed to join. The ACA/TAC will have to decide whether Rome or a new orthodox Anglican province is to their liking. This will be a hard choice for Australian-based Archbishop John Hepworth, but he will have to consider bishops, like David L. Moyer, who live in North America and have fought valiantly against overwhelming odds to keep their spiritual and ecclesiastical integrity. Forward in Faith can be counted as "in".

* One mystery that remains is what orthodox dioceses like Central Florida, Albany, Dallas, Rio Grande and South Carolina will do. (Bishop Bill Love of Albany has said he will call a special Diocesan convention if all fails in New Orleans.) These dioceses are basically orthodox, but have small vociferous, highly litigious, liberal contingents with which to contend.

Windsor bishops like Texas Bishop Don Wimberly will fold their cards and go with TEC. The Diocese of South Carolina and its newly consecrated bishop Mark Lawrence (with or without the approval of the national church) will be truly isolated and must decide what to do. If he stays, he will be sidelined and his voice made irrelevant. His presence will be about as relevant as having one orthodox voice on the Executive Council. With establishment theologian Canon Kendall Harmon in residence, pensions will triumph over sound doctrine and SC will probably stay with TEC as a token conservative diocese. The diocese will prove too irresistible for 815 not to want to undermine. All out efforts will be made to make sure they stay in The Episcopal fold. Threats from David Booth Beers will help. Lawrence has said he will stay in TEC but wants also to remain part of the Anglican Communion. His vagueness and loyalty will be challenged. He and the diocese will have to make a decision which way to go.

* In retaliation, the Episcopal Church will announce that some 16 provinces, visibly present with flags at GC2006, will form the backbone of a liberal Anglican Communion. If the Episcopal Church is forced to "walk apart" or chooses to walk apart, is TEC poised to become a rival Anglican Communion? Not impossible. It is no secret that Episcopal hierarchs have a "Plan B" for just such a contingency. The 16 flags that formed the backdrop of the dais in the House of Deputies (GC2006) gave ample evidence of just such a possibility. (There was no cross as at previous conventions - geography trumps the faith).

Joining them will be Canada, Church of England liberals, Europe (Bishop Pierre Whalon fell off the Anglo-Catholic bandwagon when he become bishop), New Zealand, Australia (without Sydney), Haiti, Brazil and Mexico, to name a few. The Episcopal Church already owns Central America.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will either agree to lead this or become irrelevant. If he declines, he will retire to academe. The bellicose Archbishop of York will rail at conservatives for being schismatic, but he will also become irrelevant. The Global South bishops has never trusted him, but he makes good theater in a British context. He's a lawyer by training and will go with the liberals.

* The five TEC dioceses - Ft. Worth, Springfield, Quincy, San Joaquin and Pittsburgh -- will face costly uphill battles if they choose to leave TEC and can count on lawsuits from within their dioceses for control of their properties. (This has already begun in the Diocese of Pittsburgh). Court battles for control will be long, nasty and protracted. There will be no winners. Massive, multi-million dollar lawsuits, already in progress in the Diocese of Virginia, will prove a major testing ground.

* That the Diocese of Chicago would even consider the Very Rev. Tracey Lind, an open and partnered lesbian, as a nominee for Bishop of Chicago demonstrates the hardness of heart by TEC's pansexual lobby. This has not gone unnoticed by Episcopal conservatives and Global South Primates.

As IRD Director of Anglican, Action Ralph Webb observed, "Unfortunately, the denomination gives little hope that it will rise to meet the needs of not only the Communion to which it belongs, but the entire body of Christ."

Either way the clock is running out on the Episcopal Church.

Whatever happens in New Orleans, the Episcopal Church will never be the same again, and neither, it seems, will the Anglican Communion.

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