A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

This is a tale of two churches. By any standard, they would be considered successful. Both churches are large with significant ministries. Both are wealthy and both are powerful forces in their communities. One is old money, one is new. They are landmark churches in their dioceses, and at least one rector is the apple of his bishop’s eye.

Their rectors are known nationally and each is respected for their work and ministry in the circles they travel.

But now all that is changing.

Recent events in the Episcopal Church—the consecration of an openly homoerotic bishop—is profoundly affecting the unity of the church and the polity of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It has also affected both these churches, but in vastly different ways.

Here are their stories.

The Very Rev. Samuel G. Candler is the Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip in downtown Atlanta. The cathedral is an historic landmark erected in 1848 and was consecrated as the first Episcopal Church in Atlanta. It is much respected for its place in the community.

The cathedral is also the epicenter of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta’s pansexual community. Furthermore, Dean Candler is an extremely vocal advocate of the church’s doctrine of inclusion of homosexuals and has done yeoman’s work in the diocese and in cathedral publications justifying his views. He has traveled extensively around the Southeast speaking his mind on the issues and has the ear of Bishop J. Neil “Heresy is better than schism” Alexander—this bishop voted last fall in favor of Robinson’s ordination and consecration.

But the effect of Dean Candler’s push for homosexual acceptance has come with a large price tag. His cathedral is in financial free fall. As one observer noted, “Candler’s gas allowance is about to go down, as the downtown homosexual community hasn’t been able to make up for the financial losses from the few remaining orthodox members at the cathedral.”

In the cathedral newsletter, Candler whines about the church’s declining finances and asks the question: Is the Cathedral a Rich Church?

He asks, “Will our parish be able to make ends meet in 2004?” The answer it would appear is no.

Pledges, he says, are down 3.5% from last year. “This is more than disappointing to me.” As a result, there will be no general staff raises, a reduction in requested diocesan pledging, and no replacement of vacant staff positions that he says “are desperately needed.”

Furthermore, several staff positions will remain vacant—including an administrative assistant, registrar, and information technology—so “our staff will continue to work with the discouraging squeeze of more demands and less support.”

Candler then went on to cite increased expenses, including increased property insurance of $54,000 (and more to come), utility increases of $36,730 (and more to come).

Then he drops the big news: he says that the cathedral has lost more than $200,000 in reduced pledges from folks upset with the Episcopal Church General Convention’s actions on sexuality. “Some of those folks have told me that they want to make a financial protest.”

Candler then says, “But that statement does not directly affect places like New Hampshire—it directly affects the spirit and the life of our parish.”

There you have it. The sins of New Hampshire are visited upon Atlanta, and Candler is feeling the pain.

And to add fuel to an already blazing fire, Candler announced that he needs another $70,000 in pledged income to meet new interest costs on new construction. He whines that the church has no “sugar daddies” and says that the problem might be that the church is perceived as rich in “both material and spiritual resources”—but it is only a perception, with the result that people are spiritually lazy, he says.

In 2003, the budget was $3,647,000, with expenditures and costs $3,515,000. The year ended with a surplus of $132,000. Average Sunday attendance for 2003 was 1,262. But now all that is crashing and burning.

The church has built a whole new wing that has cost $17 million. So far the church has raised $10 million and needs $7 million to complete it. A source said that it is very unlikely that he will ever get that kind of money again. It is believed that Candler’s family money is Coca-Cola.

The interest alone is causing a headache for the church.

But what Candler won’t admit is that it is not just demographics and an aging Episcopal Atlanta population that is doing him in—but his theology on human sexuality. He just doesn’t get it. Blessing sodomy is not a draw card for white or black middle-class, upwardly mobile Atlantans. They like their sexuality straight up—and, er… straight.

Now consider another church in another part of the country. This church is growing and thriving because it has a different theology and a different understanding of sexuality and mission.

This one is in Plano, Texas, and it is called Christ Church, and its rector is Canon David Roseberry.

Roseberry is making a name for himself, having sponsored the Plano gathering earlier this year that drew several thousand orthodox Episcopalians following General Convention’s affirmation of Robinson’s unbiblical lifestyle and his elevation to the episcopacy.

But unlike the Cathedral of St. Philip’s in Atlanta, the Robinson consecration has not affected Christ Church, Plano, because Canon Roseberry has a different gospel—with an age-old message that he won’t change to suit the passing fashions of our times.

“The Robinson consecration has galvanized the church to take a biblical stand for orthodoxy,” said Roseberry to Virtuosity.

“If there is one thing I have learned about ministering in a large church, it is that large churches thrive on clarity and Christology. We have to be clear about who Jesus is and the effect he has on personal life transformation. That is what the Good News is.”

People come to church to find out what God has to say about pressing social issues, said the canon—one of Bishop James Stanton’s outstanding priests. “The Bible is very clear on what the most important subjects are. People can find out what the world believes from magazines and a newspaper rack—but what God believes in, what Holy Scripture declares, is a wholly different matter. The church has a theology and a moral responsibility to share that Good News with its people.”

And as a result, his church is growing nicely and his budget is up. “Attendance figures are up. Week by week we see 2,200 people coming to four services. Our projected giving for the whole year will be $4.2 million.”

According to figures released by the church, in 2003 the total pledged budget was $2,950,000. In 2004, pledges will reach $3,362,000, said Roseberry.

Total giving will be over $4 million, making it one of the most prestigious and powerful parishes in the Episcopal Church. The parish income alone is bigger than some whole dioceses.

“The average donation in 2003 was $4,545.00; in 2004 it will be $4,865.00—and that is in a down economy,” said Roseberry.

So why is one church successful and the other failing? “To the extent that we are faithful, people will come. God will always send His people where they can be cared for,” said Roseberry.

That might be a lesson Dean Candler could learn as he watches pansexuality ravage his cathedral.

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FAREWELL TO THE FOURTH CRUSADE

News Analysis

By Uwe Siemon-Netto

UPI Religious Affairs Editor

WASHINGTON, April 15 (UPI) — In the face of the contemporary challenge by radical Islamists, Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism are bidding farewell to the hatred caused by the Fourth Crusade exactly 800 years ago.

The spiritual leader of the Orthodox faithful formally accepted an apology Pope John Paul II offered in 2001 for the three-day sacking of Constantinople in April 1204.

The city, until then the wealthiest in Christendom, never recovered from this event, which permanently weakened the Greek Empire—a bulwark that had protected Europe for centuries against Muslim incursions.

“The spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred,” said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople during a liturgy attended by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, France, considered to be a potential successor to the present pope.

“We receive with gratitude and respect your cordial gesture for the tragic events of the Fourth Crusade,” said Bartholomew, the titular head of Orthodoxy.

Referring to the Easter season, Bartholomew added, “The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection incites us toward reconciliation in Christ.”

Two years ago, the pope had asked for God’s forgiveness for the “sins of action and omission” Catholics had committed against the Orthodox—including the destruction of Constantinople, an event whose cruelties ended all attempts to overcome the great schism between the Western and Eastern Church 150 years earlier.

Much of the Vatican’s contrition over this butchery has to do with the appalling comportment of Catholic clergymen during the siege of the center of Eastern Christianity.

The Crusaders were reluctant to attack fellow Christians, but the clergy convinced them that the Orthodox Byzantines were almost as bad as the Muslims. They had allied with Saladin against the Third Crusade and had done nothing to aid the Second Crusade; they should be punished for their lack of support.

During the rampage—in which even the Crusaders’ cooks participated, wearing their pots as helmets—ancient works of art were annihilated. The Crusaders returned to Europe brimming with plunder, including a novelty for the West: wallpaper, a Chinese invention that until then had made its way to Constantinople, but no further.

“Between the plunder and the fire… Constantinople was ravaged so badly that it never recovered,” writes Ellis “Skip” Knox, who teaches history at Boise State University in Idaho. “It would not return to anything like its former glory until the Ottomans had conquered it and turned it into a great Muslim city.”

“Maybe recent events (meaning terrorist acts by Muslim extremists) have lent urgency to recent attempts at healing the rift between the Eastern and Western Church—including the pope’s apology and now its acceptance by Bartholomew I,” Knox suggested in a telephone interview.

The Rev. Emmanuel Clapsis, dean of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology at Brookline, Mass., was even more outspoken.

“We have to see to it that the Christian Church reconciles and recovers its broken unity,” he told United Press International Thursday. “That’s the will of Christ. Christianity’s division is a scandal.”

“The Church must breathe again with both lungs,” said Clapsis, using a term John Paul II had coined during his pilgrimage to Greece in 2001.

The pontiff’s encounter with Greek prelates went surprisingly well, as did his subsequent meetings with Orthodox prelates in Syria, the Ukraine, and other countries.

However, the intransigence of the Russian Church has so far proved to be a seemingly insuperable hurdle in the pope’s quest for Christian unity.

A recent visit by Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenical officer, with the Russian hierarchy “accomplished nothing,” according to Claus-Peter Clausen, publisher of a Catholic newsletter in Germany and a specialist on the tensions between Rome and Russian Orthodoxy.

The main obstacle is the existence of Catholic “uniate” churches, which are loyal to Rome but have maintained rites identical to those of the Orthodox denominations.

The uniate have been around since the 16th century. “But with the liberation of Eastern Europe, their existence created unexpected difficulties,” said Clapsis, one of Orthodoxy’s foremost ecumenists.

“However, I am very optimistic that by God’s grace and our determination we will overcome these temporary obstacles,” he added. “If we allow God’s grace to overcome our human reservations, we can resolve problems even with Russia.”

“After all,” he went on, “both the Holy Father and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew are committed to the unity of the Christian Church.”

Could this happen during this pope’s lifetime—which may not be very long anymore?

“This is an active and real possibility,” the Greek Orthodox scholar replied. “Unexpected things may occur—since we are in the sweep of the resurrection.”

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