A Stormy Week in the Episcopal Church

by David Virtue

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It was another stormy week in the life of The Episcopal Church as the ship tossed and turned, the timbers of the Communion boat creaked, the winds showed little sign of calming. The Communion, as one theologian put it, has been hit by a tsunami, and we are salvaging what we can and hoping things have not gone beyond the possibility of repair.

One can but hope. Another rally drew 3,000 orthodox Episcopalians at what was billed as Plano East, following the highly successful Dallas meeting last year, and the troops were once again fired up to hold fast the faith and not abandon the ECUSA ship, as help was on the way. There was no battle plan; no strategy was laid out, just a giant pep rally, and a promise of good things to come. A new strategy will be revealed unto us on January 19-21 when the deep thinkers in the The Network of Anglican Dioceses and Parishes within the Episcopal Church, (and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury) will meet in Plano, Texas. A public statement of major proportions affecting all the orthodox in the Episcopal Church will be forthcoming. Conclusion - There must be a realignment in Anglicanism.

In the meantime nothing will really change until two events occur: The first is the willingness of a substantial number of priests to stand up to their diocesan bishops and refuse to recognize their sacramental authority, and secondly that biblically orthodox Diocesan bishops are willing to enter the Dioceses of revisionist Bishops and perform sacramental acts without the permission of Bennison et al.

Put another way, nothing will happen unless the orthodox bishops and priests move from speech to action. D-Day approaches.

IN ANOTHER CONFERENCE with the eerie title, Does the Anglican Communion have a Future, and attended by Virtuosity in Charleston, SC saw several hundred conferees listen to an array of theologians attack the subject. Dr. Chris Seitz, president of the Anglican Communion Institute said that any talk of a federation must be rejected. We are a Communion, unlike the Lutheran World Federation, which consists of independent national churches. Anglicanism has found its life and mission in a genuine Communion of accountability and interdependence. Within the US, we have tried to emphasize this with the language for a network now forming: Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.

While the American Anglican Council focused exclusively on The Episcopal Church’s problems, the ACI sought to set the conflict in the larger context of the Anglican Communion, arguing that splitting up was also not the answer and sticking together through thick and thin, with the help of the Holy Spirit was the way to go.

In the midst of their deliberations and papers, the parish of ALL SAINTS CHURCH, WACCAMAW announced it was pulling out of the DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA and the Episcopal Church and aligning itself with the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA), provoking anguish from the Bishop Ed Salmon and the parish of St. Philips where the ACI conference was being held. They issued a statement, which you can read in today’s digest.

The bishop had previously fired the vestry and put in his own forcing a confrontation and a vote in the parish as to what they should do. It was a slam dunk for the parish. By an overwhelming vote the All Saints, parish comprising 507 eligible voters, voted 468 voted to leave with 38 voting no and one abstention.

The Standing Committee promptly urged Salmon to drop the appeal to the lawsuit, recommend that seat, voice and vote be given to All Saints at the upcoming Diocesan Convention, that the Vestry be reinstated and the parish restored. At this time of writing no one knows what Salmon will do. He has said if the national church ever voted to legitimize homosexual behavior he would take the diocese out of ECUSA, but he has backed down from that position. Uncertainty reigns.

In the meantime, the Anglican Mission in America goes from strength to strength, scooping up plum Episcopal parishes around the country. They meet in Destin, Florida this Thursday for four days. Virtuosity (who will be there) was told that more than 1,000 have so far signed up to attend, significantly more than last year.

BUT THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER UNEXPECTED TURN this week when two orthodox ECUSA parishes in the DIOCESE OF ATLANTA announced they were seeking episcopal oversight from the Province of the Southern Cone and its Primate Greg Venables.

This is a first. To date Episcopal parishes wishing to stay in ECUSA have sought cover from African Primates, but this time they turned to the Bishop of Bolivia, Frank Lyons for help. One reason is that one of the parishes has a large number of Hispanics. One parish split almost down the middle with the rector staying and more than half the parish leaving; the other rector announced he was leaving ECUSA over its bankrupt morality and theology and taking three-quarters of the parish with him. Needless to say the bishop, one Neil Alexander is not amused. The financial loss to the diocese will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can read those stories in today’s digest.

BUT FINANCIAL LOSSES TO REVISIONIST DIOCESE are increasing at a rapid pace. Following my story on one parish in Americas heartland, I got a note from a parishioner in an ultraliberal parish in Annapolis, MD. In Tieline, the parish newsletter for St. Annes, pledges for 2004 are only 500,000 dollars against a goal of 800,000 dollars and last years numbers of 710,000 dollars. So its not just affecting orthodox parishes who leave and take their people, it is going on in revisionist parishes where, it was thought, the dyke would hold. Not so. VIRTUOSITY has repeatedly said that Episcopalians are far more conservative than their liberal priests and revisionist bishops. And now these bishops will learn a bitter hard truth - no money, no mission. We will see more and more parishes being reduced to mission status and, over time, many closing their doors. It IS only a matter of time. Oh see what Vickie Gene hath wrought...and the fun has only just begun.

BUT NOT TO BE OUTDONE REVISIONISTS ARE CLAWING THEIR way up diocesan ladders looking to take over the reigns of power wherever they can in order to push their sodomite agenda.

In the orthodox DIOCESE OF THE RIO GRANDE where the biblically orthodox bishop Terence Kelshaw has announced plans to retire, the process of replacing him, and the politics have already started.

The rector of an Albuquerque church obtained the confidential mailing list of the Diocesan newspaper, and did a mailing under the Via Media label (the new tactic of revisionists to position themselves in the middle). As a result, Kelshaw wrote every member in every parish a letter explaining what had happened, telling them in no uncertain terms that the Via Media mailing was not official and not from the diocese. The revisionists will stop at nothing to get power even as the ship sinks.

And in the DIOCESE OF NORTH DAKOTA, recently vacated by the godly Bishop Andy Fairfield the revisionists are trying to wedge one of their people in their as well. But voters in that diocese will now have six candidates instead of five to choose from when they select a new bishop next month, angering the liberal selection committee who had stacked it with five liberals. Three clergy and three lay persons nominated the Rev. Henry Thompson III of Coraopolis, Pa., through a petition process. He joins five others picked by a selection committee. None of the five candidates had directly expressed their views on the recent confirmation of the openly gay New Hampshire bishop.

And in the DIOCESE OF PITTSBURGH, Bishop Robert Duncan withdrew a measure that would have left each church in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in control of its own property and buildings in a rift over the consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. The resolution introduced by Bishop Robert Duncan, leader of the diocese, prompted a lawsuit by a revisionist Episcopal parish in Pittsburgh against Duncan and the dioceses board of trustees to prevent the transfer of any church property. A headline in a local newspaper screamed: Attorneys withdraw Episcopal land-grab resolution. You can read that story today.

And in the DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK, the Bishop there, Michael Garrison told an orthodox congregation to go pound sand, declaring, you have your opinion, you will not change mine. These were the words spoken repeatedly by the revisionist Garrison as he visited St. Bartholomew’s in Tonawanda, NY. on January 8^th