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ECUSA: Leader Says They Won't Participate in War They Started

ECUSA LEADER SAYS THEY WON'T PARTICIPATE IN WAR THEY STARTED

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

Dan England the communications director for the Episcopal Church said at the recent meeting of the church's Executive Council in Tampa, Florida that "some people seem to want to start a war, but we're not going to show up."

He was parroting the Very Rev. George Werner, president of the House of Deputies who first coined the phrase after the last General Convention.

It is in the same category of foolishness and naivete that convinced the American people that they could remain neutral in World War II before Pearl Harbor.

Mr. England wants you to believe that either no war is going on, or if there is one, he and his leftist pals aren't going to show up. The truth is there IS a war, it has been going on for some time now and sooner or later there will be a winner and a loser. A draw, it seems, is not on the cards. The Eames Commission may try and make it look like a draw with everyone winning, but it is doubtful the Global South will buy anything less than a complete repudiation of sexual behavior outside of heterosexual marriage and the public disciplining of Frank Griswold for his participation in the consecration of V. Gene Robinson.

Or to put it another way, a split will occur that will leave the two sides looking at each other across an irreconcilable divide.

The revisionists in ECUSA started this war back with Bishop James Pike, then Jack Spong set about making theological nuclear bombs with his 12 theses, then there followed the ripping of the fabric of the church over the illegal ordination of women, later sodomy was affirmed by ordaining openly homoerotic priests (the first one died of AIDS), then followed the promotion of same-sex unions, capping it off with the consecration of a non-celibate homosexual priest to the episcopacy. And England wants you to believe that this is all an orthodox illusion and the Holocaust never happened either.

If you believe Mr. England, the orthodox are simply making it all up. It is a fiction of their imagination. If they just stopped believing there was a problem it would go away. Right. So the church can't even affirm Bishop Keith Ackerman's Resolution B001 on a couple of basic doctrines of the faith once delivered and this is okay? The church consecrates a divorced homoeroticist living with another man, and this is not declaring war?

Fourteen Primates representing some 50 million Anglicans declare themselves either in impaired or out of communion with Griswold and ECUSA, and this is not war?

You reduce the Bible to myths and stories and remove the ancient Prayer Book and tell them all they have left are the church's canons and constitutions and this is not war?

And when you have stripped the orthodox of all their cherished beliefs, called them 'fundamentalists' and 'homophobic' for even suggesting that anal sex may actually be bad for your health, not to mention God's disapproval, and then tell them you are not going to show up for war, while you hurl 16inch rounds from 500 or 3,000 miles away, is fatuous beyond all belief.

And then when you have finished beating them up on Omaha Beach, tell the orthodox that if they even think about leaving with their properties because they don't want to jeopardize the souls of the faithful, they will see a side of the bishop they never knew existed. He will "shoot" the rector, invoking Canon 4 or 10 and bury the poor parish priest with more law suits than there are 39 Articles, and then sit back using Diocesan Trust Funds to obtain the best legal counsel he can find and hammer the poor bastards into the ground. Talk to Fr. Eddy Rix or Fr. David Ousley in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. They have stories to tell about the way Bishop Charles Bennison has treated them. Bennison is at war with orthodoxy in his diocese.

New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham is at war with 11 parishes in his diocese. Ed Salmon (South Carolina) is at war with one parish in his diocese, and John W. Howe (Central Florida) has filed suit against a parish in his diocese. The list could go on and on.

And what about individual orthodox bishops who are at war with revisionist clergy and laity in their own dioceses. Ask Bishop Terence Kelshaw about what Via Media, the leftist group in his diocese is doing to promote a pro-sodomite candidate of their own to succeed him. They literally stole the whole Diocesan mailing list and used it to promote their pansexual agenda.

Or talk to Bishop Bertram Herlong in the Diocese of Tennessee about how the Episcopalfreespeech.com crowd is using anonymous names to stoke up a presentment against him on some phony charge or other about his lack of inclusivity.

Or why Florida Bishop Steve Jecko and San Diego Bishop Gethin Hughes retired early because they couldn't stand the political pressure any more and wanted out.

And this is not the effect of a war?

Or the sneaky way revisionists in the Diocese of North Dakota tried to push one of their own by dumping five candidates on the unsuspecting diocese without ever asking them the "S" questions. The orthodox put up one of their own in at the last minute, but he didn't have a prayer, judging by the final statistics reported in The Living Church.

That the Episcopal Church is at war with itself is painfully obvious to even the most unenlightened. Across the country biblically orthodox parishes and their rectors are waging courageous battles against revisionist bishops. From New Westminster, to North Dakota, from Montana to Tennessee, from Southern Virginia, to Albany and even in New Hampshire, the battle rages. No diocese is unaffected. And the result? The loss of millions of dollars in revenues as Episcopalians close their check books. Funds are being withheld at record levels. And this is not war? (And this while the stock market is roaring upwards.)

And England says, "I think that message (convincing the press that the church is not going to split) and our focus on reconciliation is starting to get through."

What reconciliation? The American Anglican Council, the new Network, (NACDP), two Plano gatherings, endless diocesan dogfights between Left and the Right, the relentless growth of the AMiA, and he smells reconciliation in the air?

This is fiction of the highest order.

England again: "We are not going to strike back at anybody." Really. Pray tell me what David Booth Beers, Griswold's personal attorney is doing running around the country putting the fear of God (or Frank) into diocesan chancellors instructing them not to let parishes walk away from ECUSA or he will invoke the Denis Canon if they do. This is not striking back? This is not, at the very least coercion? This is not war?

It's time for a novel, "My life with Frank…the untold story".

The national church is losing funds left and right from dioceses both orthodox and heterodox and by all accounts it is going to get worse. And there would seem to be no way back unless legal threats of coercion are made and ecclesiastical action is taken by revisionist bishops whose final recourse is the Canons and Constitutions.

And this is reconciliation?

ECUSA's biblically orthodox are under siege from one end of the country to the other. The Anglo-Catholics have almost been wiped out and Evangelicals who are growing like crazy are only tolerated because they bring in much needed cash to keep revisionist bishops in travel to HOB meetings where they mock them and call them homophobic for not getting in line behind Vickie Gene. But you had better write out the checks or we will come after you.

"We think the controversy is beginning to die down," says England.

In his dreams.

If it is tell that to Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan who would love to hear that news. Or maybe Griswold should send a note to Canon David Anderson of the AAC and tell him that he is really on the right side of the angels after all, and we love you and want your perspective on things.

Then he should send a telegram to Fr. David L. Moyer in Philadelphia and apologize to him for all the nonsense he has had to put up with from Bishop Bennison and if he [Bennison] gives him any more trouble, he'll refer Bennison to the Title IV Review Committee.

All this will happen when the proverbial hell freezes over.

Then to cap off his spin, England writes, "But even if it doesn't, we intend to use the bad press to get our message across. If it goes well, that will be like free publicity."

Oh my Lord. England, desperate for any shred of dignity he and his boss can salvage from Vickie Gene's consecration says he plans to use the bad press to get the national church's message across.

And what message is that? Inclusivity of bizarre sexual behaviors like ordaining a transsexual deacon! Diversity that DOESN'T include biblically orthodox folk because they have narrow uninclusive views about the limits of sexual expression, and believe sin and salvation have been rubbished by the deep thinkers at 815 or twisted beyond all Biblical recognition?

Or perhaps ECUSA can convince the world that our new found Doctrine of Inclusivity means that the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton (Newark) can regularize "holy one night stands" and include them in The Book of Occasional Services, Lesser Feasts and Fasts, how to Enrich Our Worship. Or perhaps Oklahoma Bishop Robert Moody can elevate history's first ordained transsexual deacon (Paul to Paula Schonauer) and offer her/him to be the next bishop suffragan of Newark, NJ. They'd love to have him/her. Louie will cast the first vote. Croneberger and Schonauer perfect together.

No, there is a war and it is ongoing, and to drive the point home, some 13-revisionist ECUSA bodies are meeting next month in Atlanta to find a way forward (or strategy) to defeat the AAC and NACDP. The national church will send three representatives. They hope to get 40. Plano got nearly 4,000.

Whatever "free publicity" England hopes to salvage from this negative publicity defies all human logic.

The Apostle Paul said, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers", he just never figured that the latter would be inside The Episcopal Church, and that the world, the flesh and the devil were making nice in the majority of ECUSA's dioceses, and that the barbarians were now firmly within the gates being enabled by nine of the church's 11 seminaries.

Every day in every way, from the loss of millions of dollars to parishes leaving and thousands of Episcopalians walking away from the denomination, the Episcopal Church is slowly dying. The ECUSA hulk is on a sandbank, flopping about like a dying whale. The only question is can it be rescued in time.

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END

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