ACNA Archbishop to Face Trial on Three Charges//TEC has Plateaued//New ABC Embroiled in Safeguarding Issue//Scottish Woman Bishop Accused of Bullying Again//ACNA Faces Criticism over Leadership//
- Charles Perez
- 1 day ago
- 12 min read
QUOTES OF THE DAY
The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve. --- John R.W. Stott
Half of Episcopal churches have an Average Sunday Attendance under 50. On the other hand, five percent of the nation’s congregations contain 30 percent of Episcopalians, and these tend to be the churches with the largest endowments. – TLC
The grand finale regarding Catholicism—that “only Catholicism is 100% biblical”—rests on the notorious “30,000 denominations” trope, a sociological statistic with no doctrinal relevance. Historic Protestantism is unified on creed, gospel, and Scripture. The deeper issue is untouched by slogans: the New Testament nowhere teaches a perpetual Petrine office, nowhere grants Rome unique succession, and nowhere grounds the church’s indefectibility in a monarchical episcopate. Christ, Scripture, and the Spirit uphold the church, not a chair that the Bible itself never builds. – J Neil Daniels
ChatGPT has an astonishing 800 million weekly users, and over a million of them talk to ChatGPT about suicide.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
December 12, 2025
BREAKING NEWS… ACNA Archbishop to Face Trial on Three Charges. Archbishop Steve Wood, who is under presentment will now go to trial for violation of Canon 2 following three charges: They are:
Violation of Ordination Vows (Canon IV.2.1.3);
Conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power (Canon IV.2.1.4); and
Sexual Immorality (Canon IV.2.1.6).
The Board of Inquiry found that there is probable cause to present Archbishop Wood for trial.
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The Episcopal Church (TEC) has plateaued post-COVID, says demographer Ryan Burge, but It could be the calm before the storm. A deep dive into the flailing denomination from their 2024 Parochial Report, which came in a PDF file, revealed a church in free fall well before COVID-19. Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) was 724,845 in 2009 and had dropped to just 547,107 a decade later. In percentage terms, that’s a 24.5% decline. But then the lockdowns in 2020 threw a wrench into all attendance-related statistics.
First things first — they don’t have any membership data in this update. Their rationale is: “The committee experimented with new ways to ask about and count total churchwide membership, and the data collected revealed confusion in how churches understood and reported this topline number. The presiding officers are collaborating to devise a process that provides clearer data on total membership in future years.” There’s still plenty of analysis to dive into.
By 2021, ASA had fallen to 292,851. That was undoubtedly the low-water mark. There has been a nice rebound in attendance over the last couple of years. There was a big recovery in 2022 as people began returning to normal rhythms of life, and attendance has crept up since then. It was 410,912 in 2023, and the most recent figure is 413,034.
“I think it’s more than fair to say that any type of COVID bounce is now over,” writes Burge. “Overall, ASA was up just half a percentage point — a little over 2,000 attendees — across the United States. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if attendance doesn’t move much over the next couple of years. It could even begin to decline again in the 2025 data.”
Of course, the church is declining. There are multiple factors. The church does not do evangelism or discipleship. Most Episcopalians are pay, pray and obey, they do not lead people to Christ; more than likely to DEI. The average age of an Episcopalian is well into the 60s and their children have long since given up on church. As reported earlier half the churches have an ASA under 50 and cannot support a full-time rector. Only those with endowments can call a rector. Dioceses are beginning to merge as the cost of a full-time bishop with fancy headquarters and near empty cathedrals predominate. The whole homosexual agenda has failed to bring in new converts, with gay marriage being a non-starter for church growth. Raging on about racism has similarly failed to bring in new converts. Whatever the church cares about, even about immigration, it has failed to ignite the masses. There are just over 348 million Americans, which means less than 1.5% of the population even knows about the Episcopal Church or cares what it preaches.
By 2030 TEC will be suffering from late arterial ecclesiastical sclerosis, and by 2040 just a small handful of dioceses and large churches will still be around waiting for the ecclesiastical sclerosis to metastasize. Mission will be defined to provide low-cost housing as churches close, which is undoubtedly designed to please the Almighty. The Great Commission permanently sidelined.
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She hasn’t been full installed as the next Archbishop of Canterbury and Sarah Mullally is already embroiled in a safeguarding issue. Lambeth Palace and Bishop of London have both issued statements about an individual known as ‘N’ who submitted a complaint in 2020 against the Bishop of London under the Clergy Discipline Measure. The complaint was not taken forward or appropriately followed up. The Bishop of London was unaware of the matter, said a release from the palace.
The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, said: “N has been let down by the processes of the Church of England. While his abuse allegations against a member of clergy were fully dealt with by the Diocese of London, it is clear that a different complaint he subsequently made against me personally in 2020 was not properly dealt with. I am seeking assurance that processes have been strengthened to ensure any complaint that comes into Lambeth Palace is responded to in a timely and satisfactory manner.”
The whole safeguarding business has been an enormous unresolved mess in the CofE. The Archbishop of York should have stepped down over his safeguarding failures but did not. Justin Welby laid down his crozier over failed safeguarding issues by a sadistic bottom beater in the person of John Smyth. Lord George Carey faced disciplinary action over his failed safeguarding in the case of John Smyth, and the former Archbishop of York John Sentamu faced disciplinary actions due to his handling of safeguarding issues during his tenure. He was stripped of his preaching powers by a bishop after refusing to apologize for his comments regarding the importance of safeguarding and the impact of church-related abuse on survivors.
Now comes word that Pope Leo and Archbishop Mullally are birds of a feather in a very unchristlike way. Canon Gene Thomas Gomulka reports that after recently reporting how new information strengthens allegations that Pope Leo XIV covered up sexual abuse in his Diocese of Chiclayo and spearheaded the laicization of a canon lawyer who accused him and other Peruvian bishops of covering up abuse (”Should Leo Resign Due to Sex Abuse Cover Up?”), a new article was just published entitled, “Next Archbishop of Canterbury accused of mishandling abuse complaint.” (see above). You can be sure that neither leader will be held to account.
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Anne Dyer is the first female Bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church when she was appointed more than seven years ago. But since then, accusations of bullying and misconduct have dominated her period in charge - even for a time leading to her suspension and calls for her resignation.
Bishop Dyer denies any wrongdoing, while the church itself acknowledges there are deep wounds within the diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney.
Now File on 4 Investigates has discovered new complaints against the bishop, which she says are "totally without merit". You can hear more here: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/m002n7qw
Now you know why Anglo-Catholics and a number of evangelicals have problems with the ordination of women. The Church of England is about to be run by a woman; a lesbian runs the Church in Wales, and the Bishop of Orkney has been accused of bullying!
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The Anglican Church in North America is deeply mired in doodoo even as Archbishop Steve Wood faces a trial following presentment charges. The show is being run for the moment by Bishop Julian Dobbs of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word. REC Bishop Ray Sutton begged off citing health issues.
The province kept issuing updates that read like a menu at a high-class restaurant with cognac to finish the meal. Well, that became unacceptable to a “Concerned Anglican” who wrote; “Make no mistake, the ACNA’s future stability depends on the decisions made this week. A province that loses millions in an avoidable lawsuit, allows faithful leaders to be destroyed by anonymous accusations without defense, refuses to acknowledge its own canonical failures, and fails to address its deeper cultural dysfunction will struggle to maintain credibility or unity.” You can read his full report here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/urgent-call-for-stability-what-the-acna-college-of-bishops-must-address-this-week
To date it has had close to 3,000 reads clearly concerning a lot of ACNA laity.
Another priest, Randall Graf, weighed in with criticism that the ACNA bishops were sounding more like risk management players rather than true shepherds of the flock. He bemoans what he calls a "significant deficit of trust" toward the College, a failure in the sacred trust of oversight, and a lack of clarity in our disciplinary canons. Its effort at confession is deeply undermined by its method of communication, he says.
“Where we needed specific admissions of procedural failures, suppressed information, or concrete acts of omission, we received vague, internal descriptions. By offering these abstractions, the College of bishops performs a nebulous confession. And a nebulous confession, by definition, cannot lead to authentic self-examination or meaningful healing.” This is must reading. His scathing condemnation of the bishops can be read here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/when-repentance-sounds-like-risk-management-a-call-for-a-covenant-of-courage-from-the-acna-bishops
To cap off ACNA’s problems the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy (JAFC) is threatening to sue ACNA for millions of dollars over Bishop Derek Jones’ inhibition. This week Jones held out an olive branch to the ACNA and wrote this; “At the request of the ACNA, the JAFC attorneys have sent an 'offer of compromise subject to Rule 408 of the Federal Rules of Evidence’ on December 2nd, and we await what we pray will be a positive response." So far, the JAFC is winning the legal battle and VOL was told that two thirds of the JAFC bishops have remained with Jones and his bishops.
If ACNA screws this up it could be the beginning of the end for the ACNA. This situation is way over Dobbs’ head to resolve. Dean Chuck Collins, an historian with decades in church ministry believes that ACNA bishops need to hire outside independent church trauma experts to openly assess the cases in front of hem and advise the church on its disciplinary canons, “there might be hope for our future.”
“Bishops disciplining bishops behind closed doors is a silly unworkable solution. And the next time we elect a primate, we must call it an assembly, not a conclave. We are electing a leader, not a pope.”
Another open ACNA wound is the Bishop Stewart Ruch imbroglio which has carried on for six years. In May 2019, a nine-year-old girl in Illinois reported to her mother that Mark Rivera, a volunteer lay leader at Christ Our Light Anglican Church in Big Rock and neighbor to the girl, had sexually abused her. Rivera is in jail for his sins and Ruch faces allegations of mishandling sexual abuse allegations in the Upper Midwest Diocese and is presently on trial. This should not have taken six years to resolve.
Reflecting on the situation, Dr. Kendall Harmon, a canon theologian bemoaned the situation and said, “What we are looking at here, brothers and sisters, is a colossal mess which has so many things out of kilter one hardly knows where to start.”
The question now is how it will all end.
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The Lilly Foundation is throwing money around like a drunken sailor.
A number of TEC dioceses have been the recipient of most of the money, but recently Trinity Anglican Seminary got $10 million, the largest amount ever given to an Anglican institution. The grant is to establish the Anglican Formation Network, which aims to strengthen Anglican ministry formation across North America. This initiative is a collaborative effort with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and several regional formation centers. One can only imagine the gnashing of teeth at TEC HQ. Virginia Theological Seminary was awarded a $5 million grant to help revitalize faith by sharing personal narratives. The grant, which is the largest in the Seminary’s history, is funded through Lilly Endowment’s National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life.
Other awards Lilly has made since 2023 include:
The Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida received a $500,000 sustainability grant to continue its clergy mentoring and development programs through 2028, building on a previous $1 million grant that fostered emotional, spiritual, and professional support for clergy.
(One can only imagine a progressive priest sitting in a therapist’s office complaining that his parish is slowly disappearing with more parishioners in columbaria than pews, and the therapist asks, “and how does that make you feel?”)
The Episcopal Diocese of Albany received $1,250,000
The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa received $1,250,000
The Episcopal Diocese of Spokane received $1,244,259
The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont received $1,168,637
One wonders why and who the deep thinkers are at the Lilly Foundation who are throwing good money after bad at dying Episcopal dioceses. Is no one reading the statistics on the church’s decline and inevitable demise?
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On a brighter note, an ACNA missionary couple working in Middle East Muslim countries report tens of thousands of converts from Islam to Christ.
In an exclusive interview, Jerry Kramer reports that we are living in the midst of the biggest move of God in history…
“What we’re seeing is unprecedented. And it’s happening all over the planet, largely in the same way. Through what we are calling Disciple Making or Kingdom Movements. Our little team, over the past three and a half years, now has a network of over 4,000 churches. In ten countries. And we’ve reached 14 generations of disciples and church plants. A disciple who has made a disciple who has made a disciple … to the fourteenth generation. A church that has planted a church that has planted a church … to the fourteenth generation. In three and a half years. That’s what Movement looks like. But this move is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
You can read more of my interview with Jerry here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/we-are-living-in-the-midst-of-the-biggest-move-of-god-in-history-an-exclusive-interview-with-the-r
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In keeping with the growth of the church in the Global South, GAFCON announced that former Bishop John Guernsey of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic has been appointed the new Chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GFCA), whose Trustees govern and support the ministry of Gafcon and the Global Anglican Communion. In this governance role, Bishop Guernsey will lead the board of trustees, who continue to work with the General Secretary Bishop Paul Donison, to provide administrative and logistical support for the Primates Council, under the leadership of its Chairman, Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, Primate of Rwanda.
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On a sadder note, Dean Michael Guernsey (Bishop John Guernsey’s son) has resigned as dean of Holy Cross Cathedral. Over the past several months, concerns from staff and parishioners (and former parishioners) were brought to the attention of Diocesan Leadership and the Cathedral Chapter regarding various aspects of parish leadership, communication, and Fr. Michael’s overall health and wellbeing.
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With a lesbian archbishop in place in the Church in Wales, a road map for same sex blessings is now in the works. There will be no stopping it of course, but it is always nice to pretend that folk have a choice and the voice of the remnant orthodox will be heard…and then ignored.
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There’s a huge mess brewing at Incarnation Anglican Church in the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, and its bishop, one Chris Warner is handling it so badly that an inquiry is being requested into his behavior.
Incarnation Anglican Church in Williamsburg, VA has experienced a series of crises, one result of which is a request for a formal inquiry into Bishop Chris Warner’s conduct under Title III, Canon 8 to determine whether his actions constitute canonical violations, abuse of authority, or neglect of episcopal duty. Part of the battle is over a woman priest foisted on the church that has been described as “a battle between the women and the men.”
If you want to read the full story, click here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/inquiry-requested-into-dom-bishop-chris-warner
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A feud has broken out in the usually bucolic Province of Rwanda. GAFCON Chairman Archbishop Laurent Mbanda is in the midst of a feud with retired bishops blasting the GAFCON leader over ‘uncanonical’ conduct. You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/gafcon-chairman-archbishop-laurent-mbanda-s-feud-retired-bishops-blast-gafcon-leader-over-uncanoni
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Should we support gay marriage? No says Wolfhart Pannenberg. “Can love ever be sinful? The entire tradition of Christian doctrine teaches that there is such a thing as inverted, perverted love. Human beings are created for love, as creatures of the God who is Love. And yet that divine appointment is corrupted whenever people turn away from God or love other things more than God.” You can read his full take here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/should-we-support-gay-marriage-no-1
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