UPHOLDING THE FAITH ONCE DELIVERED

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As this tumultuous year draws to a close in the life of the Anglican Communion we might well reflect for a moment on why it is necessary to uphold the Faith once delivered.

We are not playing word games here. Words have meaning and they change how we think and view the world. Think what Das Kapital and Mein Kampf did to a generation before us Words matter. They change the way we think, influence our decisions and more. We act upon words every day of our life. We make decisions for good or ill on what we hear and learn, and words influence what directions we will take, what we support with our money and much more.

Virtuosity’s whole purpose is to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is practiced within the context of the Anglican Way. There is nothing particularly new or startling about this, no mind-shattering revelations or illuminations, just the solid, defense of something that is true for us today as it was 2,000 years ago. It is a message that has not changed with time, the passage of history, passing cultural

fashions, the findings of science, advances in education, the new morality, or more.

Human nature we now know has not changed appreciably over aeons of history. Regardless of how well-educated we might be, however advanced in our understanding of how the mind and body works that intractable thing we call the ego rears its ugly head and we sin.

For the good that I wish, I do not do but I practice the very evil that I do not wish, said the Great Apostle, and he is right. The pull of power, the urge of libidos, and the false security of money pulls us down to equalize us all. None of us is exempt, including this writer.

I love words. I love what they do, how they influence lives, and more. Perhaps one day when I come to die someone will carve on my tombstone, He used words well. I should be so lucky.

For most of you who have endured VIRTUOSITY for another year, will note that many of my writers and contributors, essayists and columnists have used words far better than me, for they are better writers than I am, and know their subjects better than I do.

I am truly grateful for each one of them. I suffer from the sin of envy (among other sins), that God has enabled them to put together sentences more illuminating than my own, more powerful in their ability to persuade, and so I sit in awe of them. Still we must press on.

Virtuosity is a calling and a ministry and it will go on into the New Year vigorously proclaiming, defending, and building up, at the same time pulling down strongholds of satanic influence. We will leave no stone unturned in the search for truth and exposing the lies and half- truths, the pomposity and venality of revisionist hegemony found in The Episcopal Church. We will reveal, expose and bring to the light, those things which we have done and those which we ought not to have done.

That does not mean that this writer comes covered in a mantle of perfection, far from it. I will make my own mistakes and hopefully you the reader will tell me so I can correct them. I expect that. I would be shocked if I did not hear from you.

IN TODAYS LEAD STORY we continue to look at the implications of what a New World Anglican Order could look like if the Episcopal Church becomes, in effect, two churches. A church within a church or para-church, a church that is, that comes alongside the main body, drawing the good from it and leaving a dead carcass behind.

Events are shaping up fast. Two conflicting views over the future of the ECUSA is beginning to emerge and you can read the substance of that in today’s lead story.

TED MOLLEGEN, the point man for The Episcopal Church’s hoped for growth with General Conventions 20/20 has written a propaganda piece at those who opposed Vicki Genes consecration. I have taken this apart for your edification. This man has managed to turn truth so violently on its head that cranial damage has ensued and now seems permanent. His blasphemous attack on orthodoxy and those who defend it is exposed for all to read.

ONCE AGAIN, THE DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA LEADS THE WAY. The Rev. Douglas G. Scott, rector of St. Martins Church, Radnor has issued a stirring call to action on page 28 of Episcopal Life. It is an outrage, he writes, that Christianity seems to have little tolerance for the suffering fat. We should ask the obese to share with their faith community what it means to be at the margins of societal acceptance and learn from them.

I kid you not. The obvious solution, Virtuosity believes is to consecrate an openly fat man who is in a committed relationship with his refrigerator. Do you Douglas take Kelvinator to be your awfully wedded significant other, to have and to hold, till high cholesterol do you part... Dear friends, it is utterly impossible to out-satirize this stuff. With the removal of the twin sins of gluttony and sodomy it just gets easier and easier to become an Episcopalian. Will we abandon the Prayer Book in time? Perhaps we will all live long enough to see a fat bisexual with bestial proclivities who has a hankering for non-neutered Dalmatians publicly consecrated in a NYC bathhouse. Frank Griswold will preside. ECUSA has become a lunatic asylum and the lunatics are in charge.

And our Bible reading today is taken from First Bennison (Pennsylvania Episcopalian Page B) chapter 1 verse 1 Moses smashed the tablets brought down off Mount Sinai to free the Word of God to be heard not seen.  How long will the Standing Committee put up with this lunatic?

IN A RECENT NEWS ARTICLE THE PRESIDING BISHOP Frank Griswold gave some instructions to his Executive Council on the relationship between truth and community. This is what he said: Truth is discovered in communion. Schism is the shattering of communion. In order to discover God’s truth, everyone has to be at the table.

The Rev. Lawrence D. Bausch, rector of Holy Trinity Church, San Diego, begs to disagree. He argues the exact reverse. He offers four examples when leaving the table has occurred because truth had been discerned and not agreed to.

First, the calling out of Abraham and his descendants as followers of Yahweh, separating them from their neighbors. This is a recurrent theme throughout the Old Testament. Secondly, the separation of Christians from Jews over the identity of Jesus. Third, the conciliar definitions including the creeds and canon of Scripture which determined acceptable parameters for communion. And fourth, the English reform under Queen Elizabeth I, which resulted in separation from the Catholic Church.

Its amazing how much rubbish Griswold manages to get away with unchallenged by his fellow bishops.

RECENT REPORTS in newspapers like the Church of England newspaper and on the Internet that Anglo-Catholics and groups like the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) are ready to run to Rome are exaggerated and premature. In discussions with various leaders in Episcopal Anglo-Catholic circles, word is that while talks and visits to Rome have been undertaken no one is going anywhere. The TAC under the leadership of Archbishop Falk and more recently the newly anointed Archbishop John Hepworth admit that while seeking unity to the fullest degree is desirable no one is going to abandon the Anglican tradition. Merger with Rome is not imminent. Furthermore, Rome never acts in a hurry, even to embrace hurting Anglicans under siege from revisionist forces. All in good time.

THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH has had a defection. Bishop Gregory

Hotchkiss has resigned over the RECs stance against gay marriage. Even the most orthodox of jurisdictions are not immune, it would seem, from all this craziness over homo-erotic behavior.

SPRINGFIELD BISHOP PETER BECKWITH reports that no presentment charges have been made against him despite coming under heavy fire from a group of hard-line revisionist gay and lesbian priests and laity in his diocese who want him gone. (Virtuosity exposed their tricks in a secret chat room where they used anonymous names to blast the bishop).

Beckwith wrote to VIRTUOSITY, I have heard there has been some interest/desire/attempt to present me for 1) Teaching against the doctrine of the Church and 2) Abandoning the Sacrament of the Church.  I’m told 1 is because I will not recognize Gene Robinson’s ministry, allow blessing of same sex relationships or likely to welcome clergy into the Diocese who would.  I’m told 2 is because I did not visit a new mission initiative in our Monroe County before I pulled the plug on it.  After 15 months of preparation, we were aiming at having 200 at the first service.  20 showed up.  In the seven weeks of operation, it was reported between 13 and 20 people participated per service.  We had about 80K left to invest after which the congregation would have to raise the 100K annually to support the operation.  That seeming most unlikely led to my decision. Frankly I consider their efforts to present me laughable! Thank you Bishop.

AND IT WILL COME AS NO SURPRISE, that the Religious Newswriters Association picked the Gene Robinson consecration as the top news story

of the year.

But it is very revealing that not one of the bishops who supported Robinson has expressed any concern that he accepted a Person of the Year award from a gay soft porn website, PlanetOut, and a gay magazine, The Advocate.

Second top story is Michael Inghams attempted slaughter of 11 godly parishes in the Diocese of New Westminster. They are still open for business and thriving.

And in the DIOCESE OF COLORADO the bishop there one Jerry Winterrowd now expresses regret for supporting the election of the nation’s first openly gay bishop. He says the church was not ready. Winterrowd, who retires on Dec. 31, said he went into Augusts General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA intending to vote against the election of Gene Robinson as New Hampshire bishop. His rationale Robinsons election would fly in the face of the church’s desire to delay setting policy on blessing same-sex unions. But Winterrowd said he became convinced that each diocese had the right to elect its own bishop. Subsequently, I would say that I am on very thin ice there, Winterrowd said. Indeed, you are a bishop. Very thin.

IN CANADA, the Bully of Vancouver, Michael Ingham closed down the fledgling mission parish of Holy Cross in Abbotsford, BC. The timing of the Anglican Bishops pre-Christmas closure of the church is ironic. In attempting to include new ideas, the Anglican Church is making sure there is no room in the inn for traditionalist thinkers. The parishioners must defend their faith. If this was happening in another country, Holy Cross would be listed under the persecution of

Christians. That it should be persecuted at the hands of its own infrastructure is alarming, wrote one priest.

The parish priest James Wagner remains committed to his congregation, saying, we will continue to worship, even though were apparently not recognized formally. We hear a lot about tolerance and diversity and how diverse views should be respected. It seems to me a strange way to resolve conflict, said a parish layman.

Holy Cross is a mission church, which is distinct from an incorporated parish. Holy Cross voted by overwhelming majority to accept the offer of Bishop Terry Buckle of Yukon to lead them. The Bishop later withdrew.

Ten years ago when the small parish of St. Georges Anglican Church in Hamilton, Ontario, was disestablished, it was re-born immediately as St Georges Reformed Episcopal Church and functions as a traditional Anglican parish. It is flourishing. There is hope.

And this from WASHINGTON BISHOP JOHN CHANES KORANIC CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses? And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad? And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?

Virtuosity thinks that God thinks that Bishop Chane should be tossed out of his bishopric for talking rubbish.

DEMOCRATIC FRONT RUNNER HOWARD DEAN was once an Episcopalian in Vermont. But owing to a squabble about the construction of a pathway on a nine-mile stretch of land along Lake Champlain opposed by a group of Episcopalians, he left the Episcopal Church. Apparently the much vaunted Doctrine of Inclusion hit a snag and the wannabe next president  left the ECUSA.

I WROTE TO CANON PATRICK MAUNEY, the Episcopal Church’s Director of

Anglican and Global Relations this week asking if the Episcopal Church was still planning to go ahead and send money for the poor Gulus in Uganda, even though Frank Griswold has been disinvited to attend the consecration of their new archbishop. I got no answer. Unless Virtuosity hears otherwise you can safely assume the gift will not be going out to these poor starving Ugandans, which goes to prove that money and politics are inextricably twined in The Episcopal Church.

THE BISHOP OF OHIO CLARK GREW went on the offensive this week about a group of parishioners who left a parish in Hudson, Ohio. This is what he said on radio WKSU I think the tension I feel is, and I don’t want to devalue the authenticity of scripture claim that people make that this is a matter of scriptural authority, but I think, deep within that posture is a deep-seeded homophobia and an inability for people to see gay and lesbian people as children of God. Other members on the panel took him to task and you can read the he said/she said into todays digest. He has some very revealing thoughts about a parallel jurisdiction in the ECUSA.

RE CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION article. I received a mountain of e-mails expressing anger and disgust at the turn the article took in the latter quarter of the four-part series in its attack on Orthodox and Catholic Christians. Virtuosity regrets such attacks and maintains that the thrust of the article, which is that without Christ we would not have Western Civilization, as we know it, still stands. I am publishing a number of LETTERS reflecting various views on the article, and

Virtuosity invites anyone with a knowledge of the origins of Western Civilization to write a contra piece for publication.

I HAVE POSTED A NUMBER OF STORIES today for your interest and edification.

This will be the last digest for the Year 2003. When next I write it will be in the first week in January with a YEAR IN REVIEW story.

With that will come a new website makeover for 2004. It will be easier to navigate with a full explanation coming from Virtuosity’s webmaster, Mr. Robert Turner.

I WANT TO THANK ALL OF YOU who contributed so generously to Virtuosity this past year. By doing so you made it possible for me to travel and write the stories you needed to read to keep abreast with events as they unfolded in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. I am indebted to all of you who supported me with checks both large and small. Thank you.

The year 2004 will be even more turbulent Virtuosity predicts than this past year. It will certainly be breakpoint for The Episcopal Church.

What will all the alphabet soup of groups do within and without ECUSA? How will they coalesce? Will they? Who will still be standing at the end of the day? Will it be full-blown schism or a parallel church within a church? We shall know more in due course. Stay tuned.

Please keep this writer in your prayers, and if you can support this ministry, please do so either by going to PAYPAL at my website www.virtuosityonline.org, or by sending a donation via snail mail to VIRTUOSITY, 1236 Waterford Rd., West Chester, PA 19380. Thank you for your support

God bless you all and have a very happy New Year.