2003 YEAR IN REVIEW - Part Four

(Part 4)

By David W. Virtue

THEN ANOTHER BOMBSHELL EXPLODED.

On Saturday, June 7th, the Rev. Canon V. Eugene Robinson was elected by the Convention of the Diocese of New Hampshire to succeed the current diocesan bishop. A practicing homosexual canon who left his wife was the favorite to be the next Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. Canon Gene Robinson, 53, the second most senior figure within the diocese of New Hampshire beat out three other candidates and was elected bishop coadjutor. He replaced the retiring Rt. Rev. Douglas E. Theuner. Canon Robinson was described as the most dangerous man in the American Church. Seminary Dean Dr. Peter Moore (TESM) opined that the election of an openly gay man to be the bishop of New Hampshire would provide comfort and encouragement to a tiny minority within the worldwide Anglican Communion. Revisionist Washington Bishop John Chane said the election of Robinson would be a challenge to the Holy Spirit.

Canon Bill Atwood of EKKLESIA said the Global South majority of Primates and bishops were so offended by the conduct of Canada, UK, and ECUSA in the last ten days, they were no longer going to be willing to have parallel jurisdiction. I’m guessing, he writes, that what will emerge is replacement jurisdiction. By doing so it will not allow for the cancer to continue without being addressed.

The Brazilian Diocese of Recife promptly declared itself out of Communion with both the Diocese of New Westminster and New Hampshire.

Bishop Robinson Cavilcanti in a letter to VIRTUOSITY said the acts by those two dioceses was contrary to Scripture and the Lambeth Conference resolution.

And in the ECUSA the first parish in the DIOCESE OF TENNESSEE left the Episcopal Church for the AMIA. It was the 51st Episcopal Church to  leave the theologically fractured denomination. The new congregation took the name Faith Anglican Church. The parish located itself in the rapidly growing suburb of Memphis.

The 15th Annual Assembly of FORWARD IN FAITH, NORTH AMERICA met in Rosemont, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, near Philadelphia and announced that the creation of an orthodox Province of the Anglican Communion in North America was just around the corner. The group also called for the immediate consecration of two orthodox bishops. The Assembly was held at the Evangelical Anglo-Catholic parish in Rosemont, whose rector, Fr. David Moyer has been deposed by ultra-liberal Bishop Charles E. Bennison. Among the dozen bishops from the Church of England, Africa, the Southern Cone, Australia and the Continuum were five bishops from The Episcopal Church including the Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman, (Quincy) Rt. Rev. William Wantland, (Eau Claire, ret) Rt. Rev. Donald Parsons, (Quincy ret.) Rt. Jack Leo Iker (Ft. Worth) and the Rt. Rev. Edward W. MacBurney (Quincy, ret.). 

Meeting under the   

Banner We have This Gospel to Proclaim - Good News for Today’s World, delegates heard leaders tell them that now was the time for the creation of an orthodox Province of the Anglican Communion in North America. The province must exist and must exist now, said Australian Archbishop John Hepworth, the new leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, (TAC) a continuing Anglican group that broke with the ECUSA at St. Louis in 1978. We want to consecrate bishops because we are going to the same place and we have the same destination. FIFNA and the TAC have resolved one way or another, to have an orthodox province of Anglicans in the world. The Rt. Rev. John Broadhurst, chairman of Forward in Faith International and Bishop of Fullam (UK) said the situation was just another nail in the coffin of unity. We are divided over women bishops and moral teaching, which different people hold passionately. It is gospel unity verses passionately held beliefs.

The CHURCH PENSION GROUP issued a blockbuster report mid-year expressing alarm that not enough young people were being attracted into the ordained ministry, with far-reaching implications for The Episcopal Church itself. A sobering analysis of church attendance revealed that on an average Sunday, 17.5 percent of the people in the pews were attending only 3.3 percent of Episcopal churches. At the same time, only 15.4 percent of Episcopalians attend 47.5 percent of Episcopal churches on an average Sunday. The CPG asked the question, Are we still a denomination of small churches?

Nearly 50 percent of the churches are in the family group with an average Sunday attendance of one to 75 people. FOR SOME 3,465 CHURCHES THE ACTUAL SUNDAY ATTENDANCE WAS 37, a startlingly low number, the report said. By contrast there are only a handful of really big churches. In what the CPG calls there source category, those churches with an average Sunday attendance of over 400, there were only 245 churches.

Further lamentations about the election of a gay bishop in the Diocese of New Hampshire came from the Bishop of Albany, Dan Herzog and the Bishop of Tennessee, Bertram Herlong.

 VIRTUOSITY wrote at the time that the battle for the soul of the Anglican Communion, which had been simmering for some years in the Anglican Communion, had now broken out into full-scale war.

Revisionists and Evangelicals were now locked in fierce combat over the Church doctrine on what constitutes true morality.

 The injunction against the former Accokeek rector, the Rev. Samuel L. Edwards was lifted bringing closure to that nasty little battle between the former Bishop of Washington Jane Dixon who had filed a lawsuit against the ECUSA Anglo-Catholic priest. Edwards left ECUSA and joined with the Anglican Province of Christ the King.

TWENTY-FOUR orthodox bishops of the Episcopal Church signed an open letter to the primates of the Anglican Communion stating that a crisis of faith and order now existed in The Episcopal Church and they called on them to address the situation under your leadership. In their letter they state that the election in New Hampshire of a man who openly confesses an active homosexual relationship to be Bishop Coadjutor, and the inclusion of a measure affirming the blessing of same-sex unions on the agenda of the upcoming General Convention, served as symbols of a desperately confused, errant and disintegrating Anglican province. At stake were the fundamental doctrines of apostolicity and of marriage.  Separation was now a conceptual reality in The Episcopal Church. The 24 bishops also declared themselves out of communion with the Diocese of New Westminster and Bishop Michael Ingham.

GENERAL CONVENTION loomed on the horizon with promises of moral and theological strife. No one was disappointed.

An Ad Hoc Committee sponsored petition calling for the rejection of homosexual marriages and the election of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson garnered 52 Episcopal Church Wardens and 1,000 laity, but it failed to move the powers that be.

A meeting of six Primates, 15 orthodox ECUSA bishops, several theologians and a number of concerned clergy met at Truro Episcopal Church in northern Virginia to discuss a strategy if ECUSA General Convention passed either one or both resolutions concerning rites for same sex blessings and consents for Gene Robinson to be the next Bishop of New Hampshire. An official press release said that a constitutional crisis and dramatic realignment would take place if the ECUSA House of Bishops passed either of these two resolutions.

Virtuosity was told by Charles Nalls, who heads the Canon Law Institute that at least 100 large ECUSA parishes are seeking legal advice and turning over tough decisions regarding their future. These are parishes with no fixed churchmanship. They range from Evangelicals to Anglo-Catholics, said Nalls.

Seeing the crisis facing him PB Frank Griswold plead for understanding in a Letter to the Primates on July 22. The polity of our church places the election of a bishop and the nomination process which precedes it entirely in the hands of the electing diocese.

Rowan Williams expressed his own concern and in a letter to the Primates he said anxiety threatened the Anglican Communion common life. He raised the question whether the communion wanted to be a Communion, or just a federation of local churches.

The archbishop launched into the Episcopal Church mess urging Episcopalians not to pick a gay bishop. In a private letter to his fellow primates, Dr Rowan Williams urged individual provinces in the worldwide Anglican Church to delay unilateral decisions that could destroy its unity. His plea was seen as an 11th-hour attempt to persuade the Episcopal Church, the American version of the Church of England, to prevent Canon Gene Robinson becoming Bishop of New Hampshire. His appeal fell on deaf ears.

GENERAL CONVENTION OPENED with deep foreboding. The bishops quickly approved a procedure for Robinson to get consents and after all the politicking was over the votes were in from both the House of Deputies and House of Bishops, and Robinson was confirmed among the elect.

This despite charges that Robinsons OUTRIGHT website for homosexually oriented youth, exposed by VIRTUOSITY, was only a click away from hard core porn. Robinson also managed to weather sexual harassment charges, paving the way for his election to be the next Bishop of New Hampshire.

Following his confirmation some 20 orthodox ECUSA bishops lead by Bishop Duncan decried the confirmation and with deep emotion in his voice he read a statement that said the Episcopal Church would be subject to discipline, and had divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians around the world. But the outcry and outrage from Primates and orthodox bishops from within ECUSA over his election would rage on for several months.

WEST INDIES archbishop Drexel Gomez wrote to Frank Griswold saying that you seem not yet to have taken the full measure of the destructive potential General Convention affirmation of a new teaching and order with respect to homosexuality will have for the communion God has granted us, nor do you seem to acknowledge sufficiently that the divine gift itself comes as something with a defined nature for whose integrity we are responsible, individually and collectively.  Griswold ignored his pleas.

Some 4500 petitions were received from several conservative ministries opposing same-sex unions and the nomination of Gene Robinson to be the next Bishop of New Hampshire were received at General Convention. This petition is an expression of the grave concern that the overwhelming majority of Episcopalians feel for the items that have become central to this convention over the last 30 years, but do not connect with the real issues of how to keep marriage and family together in the parish.

Another story by-lined Gay Rites Would Not Bless Ecumenism Could also Impair Anglican Work Overseas, said that Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and the formularies of every mainline Protestant denomination except for the United Church of Christ opposed blessings same-sex unions or allowing non-celibate gay clergy.

Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan expressed his grief and a Statement from Anglican Mainstream greatly regretted the vote to confirm the appointment of a gay bishop.

The Bishop of the Diocese of Nelson, New Zealand issued a statement condemning the confirmation and Australian Archbishop Peter Jensen noted with profound regret the confirmation of the election of Canon Gene Robinson. He said it violated the clear traditional teaching of the Christian Church, which is based on the clear teaching of the Scripture.

The Anglican Communion in New Westminster made up of 11 biblically orthodox priests and eight congregations came out in support of Anglican Mainstream over the confirmation of Robinson. The whole Communion roiled in turmoil.

Four ECUSA dioceses - Springfield, Florida, Central Florida and South Carolina held special Diocesan Conventions to discuss the crisis in ECUSA. The withholding of funds to the National Church became the new game in town.

In a Virtuosity interview with AAC PRESIDENT CANON DAVID ANDERSON, the mainstream president said he would convene a meeting in Plano, Texas on Oct 7, 8, 9 for leaders of dioceses and parishes who are biblically orthodox to come together, take counsel and seek God leading. He also applauded the Archbishop of Canterbury for calling an extraordinary meeting of the worldwide Anglican Primates in London in October. Bishop Duncan, Chairman of the AAC Bishops Network wrote, I am confident that the Archbishop will make adequate provision for mainstream Anglicans in North America.

FORWARD IN FAITH wrote a press release with a headline that screamed ECUSA HAS IGNORED CANTERBURY.  Fr. David L. Moyer said the revisionist majority had taken the Episcopal Church out of the Christian religion and severed it from any claim to uphold Biblical, Catholic, Apostolic, and Evangelical Faith and Order. The Episcopal Church had ignored and dismissed the counsel of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and has rejected the mind of Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church as a denomination had willfully created a new religion.

Following Robinson election a raft of international primates, bishops and orthodox diocesan ECUSA bishops came out with statements condemning the actions of General Convention.

The most potent came from the Anglican Church of Uganda.  Homosexuality will not be tolerated, said its leaders. Canon Jackson Turyagyenda, the provincial secretary at Namirembe cathedral  said we protest the inclusion of gays in church activities, let alone as church leaders.

Our position has not changed, we are not ready to have communion with those who ordain or bless marriages of gay people.

In Uganda as in numerous African Provinces and diocese their leaders were furious.

Peter Steinfels wrote in The New York Times that the Episcopal Church tottered on the brink of schism even self-destruction, theologically and ideologically fractured, like many American religious groups, over homosexuality and other issues prominent in the nation's culture wars.

In a no brainer vote, George Werner handily defeated Louie Crew two to one to continue his role as president of the House of Deputies.

But a little reported on RESOLUTION B001 revealed the true state of the ECUSA. It came before the House of Bishops, authored by Bishop Keith Ackerman of Quincy, asking the HOB to affirm their continued belief in two things. The first was the statement found in the Articles of Religion, the church constitution, and in the Ordination Services that we believe The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to contain all things necessary for Salvation. The resolution was voted down. Stunned, Bishop Ackerman asked for a roll call vote. One by one the bishops rose and were counted.  Eighty-four of them refused to affirm that scripture contains what is needed for salvation. Eighty-four of them refused to affirm the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral.  Only sixty-six voted for these core truths. The failure to pass what Scripture and the Prayer Book affirmed spoke volumes more than the issue of sexuality it touched the very core of Anglican faith and practice. Its defeat truly signaled the end of ECUSA as a Christian denomination.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams republished an essay affirming committed homosexual relationships a move designed to ratchet up the anger in the Anglican Communion, making schism seem inevitable.

PRIOR TO THE EMERGENCY LAMBETH CONFERENCE a group of Southern hemisphere Primates met in Nairobi. The conservative archbishops were increasingly confident that they could force the expulsion of the American Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion over its liberal line on homosexuality. Rowan Williams, contemplated for the first time the possible break-up of the 70 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion.

When things looked like they couldn’t get much worse for Griswold, two letters suddenly appeared in Virtuosity written by Griswold to Charles Bennison Bishop of Pennsylvania over Fr. David Moyer saying that Bennison heavy hand in dealing with the Anglo-Catholic priest was autocratic and monumentally unpastoral. Griswold cited Gerry Wolf and her willingness to let Keith Ackerman make a visitation to her orthodox parishes as an example. The letter fell on deaf ears.

A second letter by Griswold to Bennison only ratcheted up the pain on the PA revisionist bishop. Griswold wrote [The Archbishop of

Canterbury] made it absolutely clear to me that he regards the

situation as very serious in the life of the Communion. He also said

that your stance serves to justify the actions of Rwanda and Singapore in the eyes of many around the Communion.

THE FALLOUT FROM THE ROBINSON BEGAN TO REVERBERATE with whole dioceses and individual parishes beginning to withhold monies. Griswold himself wrote in a desperate plea to his fellow Primates of the crisis saying,

my own sense is that one of our Anglican gifts is to contain different theological perspectives within a context of common prayer. This is not a matter of compromise but of acknowledging that the truth as in Jesus is larger than any one point of view. The Global South Primates did not buy it.

IN THE DIOCESE OF NEW WESTMINSTER, the eight orthodox ACiNW parishes welcomed three Primates from Africa, India, and South American to a special service to celebrate their unity a special service on September 7, in Tsawwassen, British Columbia. Some1600 attended from across the globe came to celebrate, covenant and commission and to move forward in faith and hope, praying for the sweeping fires of spiritual revival in Canada. They also came to support the Rt. Rev. Terry Buckle the Bishop

of the Yukon who was providing ecclesiastical cover for the ten

besieged parishes.

It was payback time and New Westminster Michael Ingham invoked a rarely used church canon and fired the wardens, trustees and entire parish Synod delegation of St. Martins, a traditionalist parish in North Vancouver, saying the church had an irresolvable pastoral crisis. He attempted on Saturday to change the locks on the doors of St. Martins parish while the conference in Tsawassen was in progress and then sent his archdeacon to read a statement from himself to the congregation in which he alleged the parish was in  turmoil because of its failure to replace a biblically orthodox priest who resigned over the Bishops approval of same sex blessings. Bishop Ingham promptly named his own replacements for the parish positions. The Primates promptly condemned his actions. The Yukon bishop was commissioned by two primates to serve

the ten orthodox parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster under siege by their bishop.

BACK IN NEW YORK a group of ECUSA bishops met with Griswold and gave him an earful about disaffected parishes leaving the ECUSA. He was told a massive rally of orthodox Episcopalians would meet next month in Dallas to consider their future in ECUSA. Griswold responded in letter on the meeting saying that the Robinson decision clearly caused pain, confusion and disbelief in many parts of the church, and a sense of rightness in other parts. He further said the meeting was very helpful to me in thinking about how we can assist our church in living through this time in faithfulness, taking care not to lose sight of the mission we share as members of Christrisen body, and the fact that our church is everywhere filled with life and a deep desire to embody the gospel. It was total rubbish that nobody was buying.

WITHHOLDING FUNDS became the new pastime. The DIOCESE OF FLORIDA and the DIOCESE OF DALLAS both said they would withhold funds from the National Church as did a slew of orthodox parishes around the country.

THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN RWANDA issued a statement on the actions of the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church saying the life style of a homosexual relationship is not expected of the character and qualification of an ordained man or woman Bishop, Priest or Deacon.

The DIOCESE OF FLORIDA decided to uninvite Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold for the much- anticipated consecration of John Howard as our Bishop Coadjutor. He replaces Bishop Stephen Jecko.

And the DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA passed three resolutions critical of the Episcopal Church. One declared the Episcopal Church under significant judgment by God because of its drift away from orthodox Christianity, as evidenced by the General Convention approving an openly gay bishop and accepting same-sex blessings. The second called on the top leaders of the Anglican Communion to require Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold to explain why he lobbied for the approval of the Rev. Gene Robinson, who is in a homosexual relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire. The resolution accused Griswold of leading the Episcopal Church into an entirely new teaching of the church in the area of human sexuality and called on the primates of the Anglican Communion -- the top leaders of the Episcopal Church parent body -- to ask him to explain his position.

The third resolution promised to help non-Western church leaders who lost financial support for speaking against the Episcopal Church’s approval of homosexual behavior.

And in what must have been one of the most interesting newspaper turns, the Philadelphia Gay News, featured a front-page story on Charles Bennison the revisionist, pro-gay Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. In a three-column banner headline, Bishop Warned Not to Remove Priest, the Associated Press article blasted Bennison for attempting to remove Fr. David Moyer from his parish - the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, PA.

THE INTERNATIONAL ANGLICAN FURNACE continued to heat up. The feisty hard-headed Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola has taken on Archbishop

Ndungane of Southern Africa, and blasted him saying, Isn’t it a paradox that the Archbishop of Southern Africa sees no arrogance in those whose flagrant disregard of the stand of the entire Anglican Communion has plunged us into this sad and avoidable controversy.

Akinola also made it clear he would not be influenced by Western money, and he was prepared to cut ties with Western liberal dioceses and provinces that disobey Scripture. Archbishop Akinola was elected president of the Council of African Provinces of Africa (CAPA) this week.

IN THE ECUSA itself, in one diocese after another, special diocesan conventions revealed more hidden anger than was ever known. Griswolds notion of graceful conversation was now a bad joke.

In the DIOCESE OF CENTRAL FLORIDA five resolutions were unanimously passed overwhelmingly in support of Bishop John W. Howe’s opposition to the confirmation of Gene Robinson and same-sex blessings.

In the DIOCESE OF ALBANY, Bishops Dan Herzog and David Bena got resounding affirmations from their people in holding the line on same-sex unions and against the confirmation of Gene Robinson. Five resolutions were overwhelmingly passed. An attempt by an alternative group of clergy and laity to reverse the bishop’s vote, and diocesan thinking, was shot down by orthodox voices at the special diocesan convention.

And in the DIOCESE OF VIRGINIA, Bishop Peter Lee, a one-time moderate and now firmly in the camp of ECUSAS’s revisionist bishops got an earful from biblically orthodox clergy and laity living in the northern half of his diocese about the way he voted for Robinson at GC2003.

AND IN THE SPIN FROM ECUSANATIONAL HEADQUARTERS about the effect of lost monies from orthodox dioceses, the revisionists who run the church said that if funds were withheld the national church would cut its budget that benefit children, women, the poor and the underprivileged. Nasty is as nasty does.

And in an evangelical Anglican conference in Blackpool, England Oxford theologian Dr. Alister McGrath ripped into New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham, telling more than 2,300 Evangelicals gathered at a four-day conference on mission, that he had lost the theological war and was forced to use canon law to get his way in the diocese. Ingham should be awarded the Spong medal for liberal bravery in the face of overwhelming theological arguments, he told an approving audience. Ingham would win the award in spades, he said.When I was younger, liberals and conservatives respected each other. In New Westminster we have an intellectually bankrupt liberal, and in desperation he is forcing his will on believing evangelicals, said the Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, an evangelical college that trains ordinands for the ministry. This is the unacceptable face of liberalism and it exposes the harshness, bullying character and dogmatism of this man.

END OF PART FOUR

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