Complainants say acquittal is based on incomplete evidence and secrecy in a process that was irreparably flawed from the start COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org December 17, 2025 Survivors of sexual abuse in the trial of ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch III say they feel "denied and crushed" by the verdict that found the bishop not guilty of multiple charges. "It is devastatingly clear that if an abuse victim wants to report abuse in the ACNA, they must now bear the additional burden of ensuring they are not perceived as being 'captured' by narratives the ACNA deems illegitimate," they said in a statement responding to the verdict. The trial found Ruch not guilty on four charges: habitual neglect of episcopal duties (Canon IV.2.10), conduct giving scandal including abuse of ecclesiastical power (Canon IV.2.4), violation of ordination vows (Canon IV.2.3), and disobedience to canons (Canon IV.2.9). A Six-Year Wait for Justice Survivors say the verdict is rife with easily refutable claims. "This verdict comes 6.5 years after Rivera's nine-year-old victim initially disclosed her sexual abuse. This girl, now 16, has waited more than a third of her life for closure from a church system and leaders that repeatedly failed her. She could not even participate in the Husch Blackwell investigation because the ACNA refused to commission an investigation that did not jeopardize her criminal case against Rivera." The survivors honored "the courage, painful sacrifice, and tenacity of all survivors who have persistently asked for justice within the church but have been, and continue to be, denied and crushed," including many who could not or were not allowed to participate in the province's investigation. They assert that ACNA has relegated survivors' own stories to the category of propaganda, demonstrating how the province views those it claims to protect. Three Flawed Investigations Bishop Ruch's trial followed three problematic investigations, according to the survivors: The Grand River Solutions investigation did not include survivors and was quietly handed over to the Province. The Husch Blackwell investigation excluded at least 10 Rivera survivors, did not result in a properly redacted public document, and was not permitted to include recommendations to prevent future abuse. The Telios investigation inaccurately reported numerous interviews and concluded in secrecy. To date, no public report has been released. According to the verdict, the trial relied primarily on this undisclosed investigation. "The drawn-out process only benefits the ACNA as an institution, not Bishop Ruch or the survivors," they stated. Both the accused and the complainants would benefit from a truly independent third-party investigation with a published public report. "It is the only way to vindicate people who are unjustly accused or faced with distorted allegations." "An acquittal based on incomplete evidence, lies, and secrecy does not benefit Bishop Ruch. It merely confirms what many people already know: the process was irreparably flawed from the start." Institutional Failure The verdict sends a clear message to ACNA survivors that bishops receive special treatment, the survivors say, as the denomination remains unwilling to address abuse effectively at the institutional level. "Its decentralized governance structure and inadequate canons do not provide the authority needed for real accountability, particularly when allegations of abuse or mishandling are brought against ACNA bishops. Even the proposed changes to Title IV include dangerous provisions for survivors who might bring a presentment against a church leader." Conflicts of Interest The ACNA's disciplinary bodies are riddled with conflicts of interest, survivors charge. Insular relationships between clergy and bishops have repeatedly served to protect clergy instead of abuse survivors. Laity and clergy are kept uninformed yet told to trust a process that is never clearly laid out or followed. The concerns they raised have been repeatedly ignored. "This verdict confirms survivors' fears that the ACNA will give bishops a free pass. It reassures Bishops Jones and Wood that their positions will protect them from accountability as they head into their own trials. It tells countless survivors across all 28 dioceses that the ACNA is not a safe place for them." A Bleak Future ACNAtoo has shared best practices from leading trauma and investigative experts on handling a church culture that enables and covers up abuse. "We've dedicated thousands of hours to educating people on abuse dynamics, church policies, canon law, and how to care for survivors around them. We've offered plenty of suggestions, but the question remains: why are leaders' hearts so hard against victims of injustice and survivors of abuse?" "Does the ACNA actually want to learn from its mistakes and change? We don't believe that it does. Instead, this verdict is captured by the narrative Bishop Ruch and his supporters have woven since 2021, one which has worked tirelessly to undermine the voices of the powerless and divide survivors." The survivors fear that the College of Bishops has doomed the ACNA to a speedy demise by structuring itself as "a black box of self-protecting authoritarianism." When organizations go through crises, they note, two camps tend to emerge: those who want to ensure that the trauma doesn't happen again to others, and those who want to ensure the trauma of the crisis doesn't happen again to themselves. "Despite the good intentions of Title IV revisions, the canons still prevent lay people from participating at every level of Anglican governance and solidify bishops as gatekeepers of investigations and trials." The survivors concluded that the verdict mocks the One who raises up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things. END

The Fathers and the Faith: How the Early Church Interpreted John 14:6   The Rev. Dr. Ronald Moore Dec 17   “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” — John 14:6 (NKJV) The words of Christ in John 14:6 form the heartbeat of Christian theology, but they are also the foundation of Christian spirituality. The early Fathers did not read this verse as a philosophical axiom to be dissected—they received it as revelation, to be believed, lived, and adored. What we find in their writings is a unified chorus: Jesus Christ is not merely the teacher of divine things, but the divine thing itself. He is the Way we walk, the Truth we confess, and the Life we receive. Augustine of Hippo (354–430): The Road and the Destination In Tractates on the Gospel of John (Tractate 42), Augustine writes: “Walk by the Man, and thou shalt come to God. For by Himself, who is God and Man, He is the Way whereby thou goest, the Truth whereto thou goest, the Life wherein thou abidest.” For Augustine, Christ’s humanity is the Way—the path of obedience, humility, and love that draws us upward. His divinity is the Truth and Life—the goal and rest of our pilgrimage. The Incarnation is not an incidental act of compassion but the very road on which creation returns to its Creator. Thus, salvation is not an ascent we engineer, but a journey we are carried upon. As Augustine said elsewhere, “God became man that man might become God”—that is, restored to communion with the Divine Life. Key insight: Christ is both the journey and the destination. To walk the Way is already to enter into the Life. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407): The Exclusive Mediator In his Homilies on John (Homily 74), the golden-tongued preacher insists: “He saith not, ‘I show the way,’ but ‘I am the way’; not, ‘I teach the truth,’ but ‘I am the truth’; not, ‘I bestow life,’ but ‘I am the life.’” For Chrysostom, this language could belong only to God Himself. The prophet may speak truth; the Redeemer is Truth. The verse therefore establishes both Christ’s divinity and His uniqueness. All other paths—whether pagan devotion or self-made righteousness—are shadows and imitations. Chrysostom connects the saying to the tearing of the Temple veil: what was once hidden in the Holy of Holies is now open, for the curtain is replaced by a Person. Key insight: Christ alone is the meeting place of heaven and earth—the living Holy of Holies into which all must enter. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444): The Word Who Is Life Itself Cyril, the defender of Nicene faith, reads John 14:6 through the lens of the Incarnation’s mystery: “He is the way of access to the Father because He is by nature the Truth and Life of the Father.” In Christ, the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3) becomes the bridge by which the created returns to the Creator. To know the Son is to participate in the very communion between Father and Son. For Cyril, “truth” is not mere accuracy—it is ontological revelation: the unveiling of what is truly real. To be “in the Truth” is to dwell within the divine relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit. Key insight: Salvation is not a transaction but participation—our adoption into the life of the Triune God. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274): The Triple Cure for the Human Soul A millennium later, Aquinas distilled the Patristic consensus into scholastic clarity. In his Commentary on John and the Summa Theologiae (III q.1 a.2), he writes: “Christ is the way by which we go to God; as man He leads us, as God He brings us to the end. He is the Truth, teaching all that leads to eternal life; and He is the Life, bestowing grace that makes us live spiritually.” Aquinas taught that Christ restores the whole human person. As the Way, He heals our will, teaching us right conduct. As the Truth, He illumines our mind with divine knowledge. As the Life, He renews our very being by grace. The human creature, fractured by sin, is made whole again in the threefold gift of the Redeemer. Key insight: The verse expresses not only who Christ is, but how grace heals us—mind, will, and life reunited in God. The Unified Voice of the Fathers From Augustine to Aquinas, the Church reads John 14:6 as the axis of all theology—the Incarnate Word as both path and goal. The pattern emerges clearly. Christ is the Way because in His Incarnation and mediatorial work God has bridged the divide between Himself and humanity. He is the Truth because He perfectly reveals the Father, showing us reality as it is. He is the Life because He draws us into the divine life itself, sanctifying us by the Spirit. In these three titles the Fathers saw the whole of salvation history compressed: God descends in the Incarnation to raise us up (the Way), reveals Himself fully in the Son (the Truth), and shares His own being with us through grace (the Life). This Trinitarian and Christocentric reading became the soil from which later Christian thought—Eastern and Western alike—would grow. The verse is no ornament to the Gospel; it is the Gospel, rendered in six words. Conclusion The Fathers never treated John 14:6 as a claim to be softened or relativized. They treated it as the Church’s charter. Christ is not one among many roads to God; He is the road that God Himself laid down in His own flesh. Every sacrament, every creed, every act of faith depends on this reality. To read the verse as they did is to stand in the apostolic stream: to believe that salvation is neither a ladder nor a labyrinth, but a living Person. Next in the series (Part III): Hooker to the Caroline Divines—how Anglican theology and worship made “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” the living rhythm of the Church.   The Rev. Dr. Ronald Moore is the Vicar of St. Luke's Anglican Church in Corinth, Mississippi. He is also associated with Saint Michael and All Angels, where he serves as a member of the clergy.

by J. Budziszewski “Are you Professor Theophilus?” I turned. “That’s me. Come in.” “My name’s Lawrence. I’m gay. I came to complain about your talk about constitutional liberties yesterday. It was bigoted and homophobic. I’m filing a formal protest to the people who run the Student Union speakers series.” At least he’s direct, I thought. I waved him to a seat. “Help me out, Mr. Lawrence. How could—” “Just Lawrence.” “Thank you. Now how could my talk have been ‘bigoted and homophobic’ when it didn’t mention homosexuality?” “I didn’t actually hear the talk itself. I came in during Q&A.” “I see. And what did I say during Q&A?” “You said gays have sex with animals.” I’m used to this sort of thing, so I merely observed, “I’m afraid you weren’t listening carefully.” “I remember distinctly,” he declared. “A girl asked your opinion of laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and you said gays have sex with animals.” “No, What I said was ‘sexual orientation’ can mean many things. Some people are ‘sexually oriented’ toward the opposite sex; others toward the same sex; others toward children; others toward animals; others toward cadavers. I said that I wondered where this trend will end.” “Then you admit that gays don’t have sex with animals?” “You brought that up,” I reminded him. “I have no information on the point. I’m only suggesting that not all ‘orientations’ are morally equivalent.” He said nothing, but showed no inclination to leave. “Do you think all ‘orientations’ are morally equivalent?” I queried. “I won’t even dignify that question with an answer,” he said. “But I know what you think of my orientation. I’m sick of you phony Christians with your filthy hypocrisy about the love of God.” “So you’ve heard that I’m a Christian.” “Who hasn’t? The holy, the sanctimonious, the Most Excellent Professor Theophilus of Post-Everything State University—what else would he be? The whole school reeks of you, of you and the other so-called Christian so-called professors. That’s why I walked in on your Q&A. I wanted to see you spit venom.” “My goodness. Have I said anything venomous?” “It’s what you’re thinking that’s venomous.” “I see,” I smiled. “Why don’t you stop being bashful, and tell me what’s bothering you?” “You must think you’re funny.” “I’m serious. Tell your complaints one by one, and I’ll answer them.” “You couldn’t answer them. I have too many.” “Try me. I’ll give short answers.” He cocked his head and peered at me. “You mean it, don’t you?” “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” “One at a time?” “One at a time.” “All right, here’s the first. Christians are hypocrites. You’re always running down gays, but what about the other things your Bible condemns, like divorce and remarriage? It’s other people’s sins that bother you, not your own.” I laughed. “If you’d spent any time around me, you’d know that I’m just as hard on the sins of heterosexuals as on those of homosexuals. Easy divorce is a prime example of how one bad thing leads to another—in our case the loss of the ability to make any distinctions about sexual acts at all.” Ignoring the reply, he went on to his next complaint. “You’re intolerant. You reject people like me just because we’re different than you.” “Me reject you?” I said. “Aren’t you the one who rejects what is different than yourself? Don’t you reject the challenge of the other sex?” “I don’t need the other sex. I have a committed relationship with my partner.” “Research shows that homosexuals with partners don’t stop cruising, they just cruise less. When they don’t think straights are listening, gay writers say the same.” “So what if it’s true? There’s nothing wrong with gay love anyway.” I spoke quietly. “Tell me what’s loving about sex acts that cause bleeding, choking, disease and pain,” I suggested. “You might start by explaining the meaning of the medical term ‘Gay Bowel Syndrome,’ or how people get herpes lesions on their tonsils.” “You’re—how can you even say that?” he demanded. “How dare you tell me who to love?” “I don’t think I am telling you who to love.” “Oh, no? Then what are you telling me?” “That there is nothing loving about mutual self-destruction.” “You must think my relationship with my partner is just dirt!” “No, I respect friendship wherever I find it—your friendship with your partner included. It’s just that sex doesn’t make every kind of friendship better.” “Why not? Are you anti-sex or something?” “Not at all,” I said, “but would you say that sex improves the friendship of a father with his daughter?” Seeing from his face that he didn’t, I continued. “You get my point. Nor does sex improve the friendship of two men.” “That’s where you’re wrong. Gay sex is just as natural for some people as straight sex is for other people.” “What’s ‘natural,’” I said, “is what unlocks our inbuilt potential instead of thwarting it. One of the purposes of marital sex is to get you outside your Self and its concerns, to achieve intimacy with someone who is Really Other.” Was he listening to any of this? “I’m sorry, Lawrence—I really am—but having sex with another man can’t do that. It’s too much like loving your reflection. That’s what I meant before about refusing the challenge of the other sex.” I was about to go on, but abruptly he changed the subject: “It’s attitudes like yours that killed Matthew Shepard.” “Surely you don’t imagine that the thugs who killed Matthew Shepard were Christians, do you?” I smiled at the absurdity of the thought, but seeing that he misunderstood my smile I made my face serious and tried again. “Lawrence, I deplore the violence that killed Matthew Shepard, and I’m glad those men were caught. But shouldn’t we also grieve the urge which caused Matthew Shepard to be sexually attracted to violent strangers?” He said only, “You hate me.” I paused to study him. Did he really believe that, or was it a smokescreen? “I don’t hate you,” I said. “I love you.” I paused. “I’d like to be with you forever, in heaven.” Lawrence’s face displayed shock, as though he had been hit in the stomach. Then he looked confused. The _expression of confusion was instantaneously replaced by an _expression of anger. For one split-second, it had looked as if the shutters were open. “God in heaven,” I thought, “I need help.” How could they be pried back up? “My love isn’t really the issue for you, is it?” I asked. “What do you mean?” “It’s God’s. God’s love is the issue for you.” For a few seconds there was no reaction. Then it came. “You’re bleeping right God’s love is the issue for me,” he said. “Your God’s love. The lying God who says He loves man, but who hates me for loving men.” “Do you think God hates you?” “Doesn’t He?” “What makes you say that?” “Doesn’t your Bible say that? It calls people like me an abomination.” “It calls what you do abomination. There’s a difference.” “There’s no difference. I do what I am.” I considered his point. “Could it be,” I said, “that you want God to love you less?” “Less!” he spat. “Yes. Don’t you know what love is?” “Acceptance.” “Acceptance of what kills you? Consider another view: Love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person.” “What?” “I said love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person.” “I don’t get what you’re saying.” “Sure you do. The lover wants what’s good for the beloved.” He hesitated. “I suppose.” “Good. Now think. If that’s what love is, then a perfect Lover would want the perfect good of the Beloved. Do you see what that means? He would loath and detest whatever destroyed the beloved’s good—no matter how much the beloved desired it.” I couldn’t read the look on his face, so I plowed on. “That’s what sin does—it destroys us. Yours destroys you, mine destroys me. And so the Lover doesn’t ‘accept’ it; He hates it with an inexorable hatred. To cut the cancer out of us, He will do whatever it takes—like a surgeon. No, more than like a surgeon. If you let Him, He will even take the cancer upon Himself and die in your place.” Still inscrutable, he kept his eyes in front of him, just avoiding my own. I asked “What happens, then, if you refuse to let go of what destroys you? What happens if you say this to the divine and perfect Lover who wants your complete and perfect good—if you say, ‘I bind myself to my destruction! Accept me, and my destruction with me! I refuse to enter heaven except in the company of Death!’” Neither of us spoke. Lawrence rose from his chair and walked out the door. Professor Budziszewski earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1981, and specializes in the relations among ethical theory, political theory, and Christian theology. The focus of his current research is natural law and moral self-deception. His books include The Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (Cornell, 1986), The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues (Cornell, 1988), True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment (Transaction, 1992), Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (InterVarsity, 1997), The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (Spence, 1999), and What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide (Spence, 2003). A good representation of his shorter work is “The Revenge of Conscience” (First Things 84, [June/July 1998], pp. 21–27). Read more from the Professor at www.boundless.org/common/authorlist.cfm?aid=jb END

From the Office of the Bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Florida January 21, 2004 Dear Friends in Christ, Unfortunately, there is confusion regarding the reported involvement of the Bishop and the Diocese of Southwest Florida in the establishment of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. It is my conviction that these are extraordinary times demanding clarity from all those engaged in the leadership of the Church. Due to recent comments by members of the American Anglican Council, it is unclear to me as to the long-term intentions in forming another network within the Episcopal Church. Because of this lack of clarity, the Diocese of Southwest Florida is not currently a member of the network. I have been clear that I do not intend to leave the Episcopal Church. I cannot condone any congregation of this diocese acting to leave the Episcopal Church even though I know that individuals who are deeply troubled by the actions of our Church may find it necessary to join other ecclesial communities. I think that it is also important to clarify why I believe that this confusion has occurred. In order to support conversations between conservative leaders in our Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury, I joined 12 other bishops in signing a Memorandum of Agreement in late November 2003. The Memorandum grew out of a deep concern for those who are unable to accept the implications of the consecration of Gene Robinson. My decision is a reflection of my own convictions regarding justice within the faith community and my pastoral concern for those who find themselves in a minority in our Church. It did not bind the diocesan community to any particular course of action. In early December, I chaired a meeting of Canadian and American bishops, as well as theologians from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Our task was to prepare a theological statement for a confessing movement within the Episcopal Church. This was in response to a suggestion made by the Archbishop of Canterbury in an earlier meeting with conservative leaders of our Church. Our hope was that this document would provide a common statement for those who dissent from the actions of the General Convention in relationship to the Diocese of New Hampshire. The document is a call for the reform and renewal of the Episcopal Church from within. It is also a call for the whole church to confess the sins that threaten the unity of the Episcopal Church. I believe that this Theological Confession is an accurate statement of the foundational faith and witness of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. I believe that it provides a vehicle for our continued engagement with one another. I urge its study by our congregations. I have great respect and a strong theological kinship with those bishops who have acted on their conscience and convictions regarding this network. If the intention of this network is to support the reform and renewal of the Episcopal Church and to work for reconciliation within the Episcopal Church, I pray that God will grant a successful resolution to these efforts. May God grant each of us a spirit of charity and forbearance as we seek to live faithfully our proclamation that Jesus Christ is Lord. In Christ, +John Lipscomb Southwest Florida IV

Why the Realignment of Anglicanism is Sadly Necessary Part 4: The Bible: Relevant or Irrelevant? by the Rev. David A. Handy, Ph.D. The first three parts of this series have set forth some of the many reasons why the dramatic realignment now underway in Anglicanism is so sadly necessary. In this, the fourth segment, I will begin to drive home my main thesis: the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside and overturned on the basis of dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience. In other words, my central claim is that by giving official approval to the notion that homosexual behavior is not sinful, the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada have flagrantly violated both Scripture and Tradition in a way that is completely unwarranted, totally unjustified. As a result, the Primates have rightly rejected these scandalous actions and they have properly made provision for orthodox bishops, clergy, laity, and parishes to realign themselves with the orthodox majority of the Communion. Up to this point, I have taken for granted the validity of the initial part of my main thesis, namely that the condemnation of homosexual behavior in both Scripture and Tradition is “clear and consistent.” But given the importance of this point, I will now point to some of the overwhelming evidence that demonstrates the truth of this claim. While it is true that homosexuality is a minor and peripheral matter in Holy Scripture, there is a good deal more in it that is relevant to assessing the morality of same-sex behavior than is often recognized. Once again, Robert Gagnon has provided the fullest and most adequate treatment. For instance, as he demonstrates, the familiar story of the gross sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 can’t be dismissed as irrelevant. After all, this story is the reason why homosexuality is called “sodomy.” Although the story indicts the inhabitants of those two wicked towns for conspiring to brutally rape Lot’s guests, the fact remains that the gang rape they intended to carry out was the rape of what they thought were other men (though actually they were angels). That clearly compounds the heinousness of the crime in the eyes of the biblical writer (just as in the similar story in Judges 19). As Gagnon has also pointed out, the enigmatic story of the cursing of Ham for his vaguely described crime against his father Noah (in Genesis 9:20–27) makes the most sense if it is likewise taken as a story about homosexual rape, this time compounded by incest as well. This helps justify the extreme severity of the curse on Ham, the mythic ancestor of the flagrantly immoral Canaanites. Moreover, while all the above passages are attributed by scholars to the so-called J source (the putative Yahwistic writer), the same completely negative attitude toward homosexual behavior is implicit in the many references to male “temple prostitutes” in the Deuteronomistic or D tradition (see Deut. 23:17–18; 1 Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46). These men were not so much “prostitutes,” however, as symbolic representatives of the god of that shrine, and their sexual services were as much for religious purposes as for financial gain. As we know from other ancient Near Eastern documents, these qedeshim (Hebrew) were religious professionals who served other men, not women, as part of pagan religious rituals of union with the shrine deity. Such pagan orgiastic rites were an unthinkable abomination for those in covenant with the unique God of Israel, who alone among the ancient gods had no divine wife and allowed no such obscene practices. Thus the D tradition also was intensely hostile to homosexual practice, especially because of its pagan associations. Finally, of course, there are the absolute prohibitions of homosexual behavior in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, representing the priestly tradition (the so-called P and H sources). These two legal passages have been subjected to much sneering criticism by liberals who scoff at the absurdity of the ritual laws in Leviticus in general. Thus the laws about prohibited sexual behaviors are commonly lumped with obscure parts of the priestly purity system such as the prohibition on wearing clothing made of more than one kind of fiber (Lev. 19:19). William Countryman and Dan Via are particularly outrageous examples of this modern bias. It seems to be conveniently forgotten that the great commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18) comes from this same part of Leviticus (falling midway between 18:22 and 20:13). It is found nowhere else in the Old Testament. Thus the J, D, and P traditions are united in their vehement rejection of homosexual behavior, condemning it unconditionally as a pagan practice. But liberals conveniently downplay the fact that the New Testament makes a firm distinction between the laws about sexual morality (which were kept) and the ritual laws in general (which were not). Thus the Jerusalem Council decided to prohibit Gentile converts from practicing porneia (Greek, “sexual immorality,” Acts 15:29). This passage seems to be based on the ancient rabbinic understanding that the Mosaic laws in Lev. 17–18 (including 18:22) were originally part of the so-called Noahic covenant that applied to all the descendants of Noah. All four of the things prohibited in Acts 15 are likewise proscribed in Lev. 17–18, where the laws specifically apply to resident aliens as well as Jews. Moreover, our Anglican tradition makes the same distinction between the moral and the ceremonial laws, upholding the former (see Article 7 of The 39 Articles). Furthermore, the fact is that the emphatic rejection of homosexual behavior in Scripture and Tradition is absolute and unconditional. As Gagnon has shown, it would likely make little or no difference to St. Paul, for example, that two men (or women) were involved in a long-term consensual relationship and that they both sincerely believed that their powerful attraction to the same sex was innate, or beyond their control. Paul would still regard it as reprehensible and “contrary to nature,” in the sense of being clearly contrary to God’s intentions in making us male and female in his image. Contrary to modern sensibilities, Paul insists that although we are all subject to innate sinful impulses that are beyond our control, we are still accountable for sinning by giving in to those seemingly overwhelming impulses (see Romans 5 and 7). Liberal scholars (including Wink, Brooten, and Via) are increasingly willing to recognize this reality (albeit grudgingly). At least as a matter of biblical exegesis, when trying to discern the original meaning of the text (a matter of historical criticism), there is growing consensus among liberal and conservative biblical scholars alike that Paul was against all forms of homosexual behavior, consensual or not, even if same-sex attractions are not freely chosen. The question remains, of course, whether or not Paul was right. That is, the disagreement is now mostly about whether or not this complete condemnation in Scripture and Tradition is binding on us today (a matter of “hermeneutics” in the narrow sense). The real dispute, in other words, is not about what the biblical writers meant, but about what it means today, i.e., how it applies to our present situation. The same issue arises when it comes to weighing the significance of the Tradition of the universal Church. There is no denying that a strong abhorrence of homosexual behavior has been characteristic of the moral teaching of the Church from the start. The issue is the contemporary relevance of this relentlessly negative tradition. There are two main ways that Liberals attempt to write off that totally negative biblical teaching as simply mistaken, but both are seriously flawed. First, they frequently claim that people in ancient times were simply unacquainted with the idea of “sexual orientation.” But this is historically untenable, as Robert Gagnon has amply shown. Of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as the Jews, lacked our modern psychological sophistication, but they were certainly aware that a certain minority of men (and even less women) were habitually attracted to their own sex. Indeed, the malakoi (Greek, “soft men”) Paul refers to in 1 Cor. 6:9 are very likely examples. There is widespread agreement now among scholars that malakoi probably refers to men who habitually took the female role in sex (of being penetrated), just as some gay men do today. If, as we know, Philo of Alexandria was well aware of men with a virtually exclusive attraction to other men, it is highly likely that his younger contemporary Paul was aware of this also. After all, he was a cosmopolitan Jew too. Second, it is often claimed that the forms of homosexual behavior known in the ancient Mediterranean world were abusive and inherently exploitative. Pederasty was indeed common among the Greeks, but committed relationships among adults were by no means unknown. There were several well-known examples in Greek history and literature of famous gay lovers, who had very much the same kind of long-term “committed” loving relationship that gay advocates like to imagine is a modern innovation and a credit to our enlightened age. Moreover, Paul’s scathing denunciation of homosexual behavior in Rom. 1:24–27 actually stresses the mutual culpability of both partners. Likewise, Leviticus calls for the death penalty for both parties. Thus, the much-repeated liberal assertion that the Bible simply wasn’t addressing homosexuality as we know it today is just that, an unfounded assertion. It glosses over too much ancient evidence to be convincing. It is an example of what C. S. Lewis aptly called “chronological snobbery.” To borrow the language of the popular Alpha Course, is the clear and consistent teaching of the Bible on homosexuality “boring, untrue, and irrelevant?” To quote the indignant reply of St. Paul to similar questions, me genoito! That is, “No way!” Part 5: Homosexuality: Natural or Unnatural? In this final segment of the series I will seek to drive home the truth of my thesis: the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside and overturned on the basis of dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience. In the previous installment I attempted to substantiate the first part of this thesis: namely, that the teaching about homosexual behavior in Scripture and Tradition is “clear and consistent.” I also insisted that it is overwhelmingly negative and, more importantly, that it is by no means irrelevant today. What then of the second part of my main thesis? In what ways are the liberal grounds for setting aside and overturning this clear and consistent biblical and ecclesiastical tradition completely unjustified because they are based on “dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience?” First, as I argued in parts 1–3, the liberal arguments are undermined by the fact that they depend on a highly selective and biased interpretation of modern experience, namely the experience of unrepentant gay men and lesbians, while ignoring the contrary experience of the growing number of ex-gays whom God has miraculously healed. There is no logical reason why we should pay more attention to the experience of Louie Crew and Gene Robinson than to that of ex-gays like Alan Medinger and Mario Bergner. That is, at the very least, the argument from experience is based on conflicting evidence. Secondly, as noted especially in part 1, the purported scientific evidence that is commonly thought to indicate that a homosexual orientation is innate and immutable is actually quite weak. In fact, the scientific tide seems to be turning. A few early studies that seemed to point toward a biological origin for a homosexual orientation have not been replicated. The search for the hypothetical “gay gene” has failed, as is increasingly admitted by geneticists. Instead, scientists with differing biases are acknowledging the bewildering complexity of this matter. It is likely that multiple influences, not all benign, shape our sexual identity and behavior. That is, the supposed scientific evidence for an innate homosexual orientation is dubious at best. It is certainly unproven. Third, there is now irrefutable evidence that, at least for some homosexuals, perhaps most, there is real hope for such profound healing that first their gender identity and then even their orientation itself can be divinely transformed. I’ve seen this miracle in the lives of my brother-in-law, Joe Hallett, the founder of Outpost, an ex-gay ministry in Minneapolis, and several friends I know. Ministries like Desert Stream in Anaheim, California (and the popular Living Waters Course designed by its founder Andy Comiskey) and Redeemed Lives in Wheaton, Illinois (led by Episcopal priest Mario Bergner) have helped hundreds of Christians struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions and behaviors to overcome them. Of course, not all are healed, any more than all the people we pray for to be healed of cancer are healed. But that doesn’t mean we should stop praying fervently for their healing. After all, we don’t conclude that since many cancer patients aren’t healed, therefore cancer can’t be so bad. Fourth, there are several undeniable facts that stubbornly stand in the way of the liberal attempt to justify homosexual behavior as simply the natural thing for a certain minority of people. One is the fact that several identical twin studies have shown that it is rare for both twins to be gay. Since identical twins share exactly the same genes, if a homosexual orientation were primarily genetic, then we would expect both twins to be the same, either both gay or both straight. Yet the most recent and most reliable studies show that only 10–15% of the time are both identical twins gay. This strongly suggests that whatever biological influence there may be, other factors are even more important. Another such stubborn fact that liberals overlook is the indisputable fact that the actual incidence of homosexual behavior varies enormously among cultures. In some cultures, ancient and modern, it is virtually unknown (as for example among the ancient Jews). In other cultures, ancient and modern, it is much more widespread (as among the ancient Greeks). Greenberg’s massive cross-cultural study of this matter, The Construction of Homosexuality, provides ample evidence of this highly significant fact. Once again, this is very difficult to account for if homosexuality were mostly genetic, but much easier to explain if environmental influences outweigh whatever genetic predispositions there may be. Finally, while the genetic studies may seem forbiddingly complex to scientific amateurs (like myself), the facts of human anatomy are obvious to all. The plain fact is that the great majority of homosexuals are men, and the primary way they engage in intercourse is by penetrating the anal canal. Unfortunately for them, anal intercourse is extremely unhealthy, because, unlike the vagina, the anal passageway is thinly lined. Thus frequent penetration of the anus leads to the extremely high rate of serious infections that afflict gay men. This is an indisputable medical fact that any doctor who treats a significant number of gay patients can confirm. The truth is that the medical risks of homosexual behavior are not by any means limited to AIDS and STDs. If you will pardon a graphic reminder of some crude biological facts, the reality is that the frequent bruises and tears in the anal passage caused by their sexual behavior make gay men highly vulnerable to any germs that invade their bodies through that route. Of course, given that the purpose of the anal canal is the elimination of waste products from the body, this means constant exposure to toxic elements. Condoms do little to prevent this bruising and tearing. This helps explain the disturbingly high mortality rate among gay men, even when AIDS is completely discounted. The average lifespan for gay men is only 49, a shocking fact that is one of the best-kept secrets of the gay community. To condone such an extremely unhealthy practice as anal intercourse is not the way to show love to our gay neighbors! Indeed, it is quite the opposite. All this clearly shows that Paul was right all along. Homosexual behavior is indeed “contrary to nature” (para physin, Romans 1:26–27). Thus, even apart from the clear and consistent condemnation of it in Holy Scripture, the practice of such an unnatural and unhealthy lifestyle is extremely imprudent. It violates the way our human nature is constituted as male and female, and it puts gay people at great risk. It is not simply that, to put it crudely, the vagina was designed for sex and the anus wasn’t. Rather, the politically incorrect reality is that men and women were designed to complement each other in many ways, including emotionally as well as physically. It is no accident that so many relationships among gay people are very short-lived. This is not primarily because social taboos and laws make it impossible for gay men or lesbians to be married. Rather, it is what any reasonable person who is well-informed on these matters would expect. Gay relationships are inherently defective because of their imbalance between the masculine and the feminine dimensions of our common humanity. The fundamental theological problem with same-sex intimacy from a natural law perspective is that it involves the futile attempt to find sexual completion in someone who is sexually the same, rather than a sexual opposite. In a real sense, psychologically speaking, it is pursuing the fantasy of sexual narcissism (or conversely, an unreasonable fear of one’s gender opposite, or aversion to it). The profound and moving creation stories in Genesis 1–3 emphasize this male-female complementarity very strongly. “It is not good for the Man to be alone.” Therefore, the Creator forms Eve to match Adam, and the well-known conclusion of the story in Genesis 2 establishes an implicit norm for sexual relations: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Both Jesus and Paul affirmed this without the slightest reservation or qualification. All this shows that the attempt by liberal revisionists to overthrow the clear and consistent teaching of Holy Scripture and the consensus of the universal Church for 2,000 years is totally unwarranted. The approval that the Episcopal Church has recently given to the revolutionary notion that homosexual behavior is not sinful after all may be politically correct, but it will never be theologically or morally correct. It’s not even pastorally correct. It is not only wrong, it is provably and catastrophically wrong. Theoretically, of course, both Scripture and Tradition could be wrong. But before the Church could validly overturn its traditional unconditional reprobation of homosexual behavior, both Scripture and Tradition would have to be proven wrong. This is such a momentous change, they would have to be proven wrong beyond a reasonable doubt. And that is far from being the case. Not only is there “reasonable doubt” about the correctness of the revisionist position, there is very substantial doubt. Indeed, the revisionists can’t even claim a preponderance of the evidence. The liberal case is actually much weaker than most people suppose. The evidence from reason and experience that the revisionists have so far put forth to overturn Scripture and Tradition is both dubious and conflicting. The clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside in such a cavalier manner. Therefore, the dramatic realignment of Anglicanism is, alas, a tragic necessity. The Rev. Dr. David A. Handy is in the Diocese of Southern Virginia as a non-parochial priest. His license has not been renewed by Bishop David C. Bane because his theological views are considered too narrow.

Why the Realignment of Anglicanism is Sadly Necessary Part 1: Politically Correct or Theologically Correct? Why It’s an Either/Or by the Rev. David A. Handy, Ph.D. Years ago the great church historian Jaroslav Pelikan made the famous comment that the Protestant Reformation was “a tragic necessity.” Protestants, he noted, who take the necessity of the Reformation for granted, tend to underestimate what a terrible tragedy it was. On the other hand, Pelikan said, Catholics, who take the tragedy of the Reformation for granted, often fail to appreciate just how necessary it was. In a similar way, I suggest that the dramatic realignment of Anglicanism that is now underway is likewise “a tragic necessity.” With so much at stake and emotions running so high, it’s easy for all of us to lose sight of both aspects of our complex situation, its sad necessity as well as the more obvious tragedy of it all. My conversations since General Convention with clergy and laity alike suggest that many people are having trouble seeing why we can’t just “agree to disagree agreeably.” This is true not only of those on the liberal side, or the muddled majority in the middle, but also of many conservatives who strongly disapprove of homosexual behavior yet wonder whether it is worth dividing the church over it. I submit that, alas, the division has already taken place. Though we had been drifting along with our culture in this direction for decades, we made a fateful decision in August in Minneapolis to give official approval to the idea that homosexual behavior is not sinful. Now that Gene Robinson’s consecration has taken place in New Hampshire, the practical fallout is just starting to become evident. Some twenty of the Primates of the Global South have fiercely denounced this momentous act for what it is, a scandalous betrayal of biblical faith and a perversion of Anglican doctrine and discipline. The leaders of the American Anglican Council insist that we are not leaving the Episcopal Church. We are staying behind. It is the majority of the Episcopal Church which has departed from the Anglican Communion. It is the revisionists who have hijacked the Episcopal Church and recklessly taken it into heresy and schism. I argue that the acceptance that General Convention gave to homosexual practice may be politically correct, but it will never be theologically or morally correct. My thesis in this five-part series is simply this: the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside and overturned on the basis of dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience. Yet that is exactly what the Episcopal Church has done. In our haste to be “inclusive” and “prophetic,” sure that the tides of history were running our way, we arrogantly refused to wait. Despite the repeated warnings and earnest pleas from the Primates as recently as May, and an appeal for patience from the sympathetic Archbishop of Canterbury just before the Convention, we heedlessly plunged ahead. Over a cliff. We have drifted with our relativistic culture, right over a waterfall. Now we must pay the price: the breakup of the Anglican Communion as it crashes into the rocks below. Soon we will all be forced to choose sides, whether we like it or not. Drastic realignment, with all the deep and bitter estrangement it brings, has tragically become not only inevitable, but proper and necessary. Here’s why. First and foremost, the realignment of Anglicanism is indeed necessary because the main issue at stake really and truly is the supremacy of biblical authority within Anglicanism. Despite liberal claims to the contrary, this is not merely a dispute over hermeneutics. That is, the debate is not simply over the proper interpretation of the few biblical passages dealing with homosexual behavior and a quarrel over their contested relevance today. More on this crucial point will come in Parts 2 and 3. Rather, the conflict genuinely is over whether or not the Scriptures are to be the decisive factor in settling this long and wearisome dispute. Which will carry the day in the end, the Bible or modern experience? And to echo the great proponent of virtue ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre: whose experience? whose science? Whose experience is to count most, that of (unrepentant) gays and lesbians, or the contrary experience of “ex-gays,” of whom there are now verifiably hundreds, if not thousands. Why do we pay more attention to the experience of V. Gene Robinson and Louie Crew than to that of Alan Medinger and Fr. Mario Bergner? I wish I could make the latter’s dramatic testimony, Setting Love in Order, required reading before people presume to pontificate on whether or not a homosexual orientation can be changed. Why is it that more Episcopalians don’t know that we have actually produced some of the great heroes in the ex-gay movement? Why does the experience of Leanne Payne and Alan Medinger not count when they have successfully ministered healing to so many struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions? Leanne’s books, including The Broken Image (1981) and Crisis in Masculinity (1985), have been around a long time and sold tens of thousands of copies in the conservative Protestant world, yet remain almost unknown among her fellow Prayerbook Christians. Medinger is the founder of Regeneration, one of the earliest and most influential ex-gay ministries in the country (first in Baltimore, now expanded to DC). So why do we not give credence to their testimony? Could it be that the dominant worldview among Episcopalians rules out the plausibility of such miraculous things? Liberals love to talk about the need to listen to the marginalized. But the truly marginalized ones today are ex-gays. Furthermore, contrary to what is so widely supposed, the scientific evidence in support of the popular notion that some people are “born gay” is actually quite weak. And time is not on the progressive’s side, as they vainly imagine. The tide among scientific researchers now seems to be running against them. For example, the famous identical twin studies done by Michael Bailey in the early 1990s seemed to show that there was a significant genetic link to homosexuality. But his small data base (110 male identical twins where at least one was gay) was compromised by the fact that he solicited volunteers for his study from gay publications, distorting the results. His later and far more reliable work using a random sample (almost 5000 Australian twins) not only failed to replicate his earlier results, it largely invalidated them, as he himself now admits. In other words, the liberal or revisionist position is based on a very shaky foundation. The scientific evidence is far from proving that homosexuality is merely a natural trait for a certain minority of people. And while the experience of gay men and lesbians is indeed important, we must also pay careful attention to the conflicting testimony of the growing number of men and women who have experienced such profound healing that not only their behavior, but also their gender identity and sometimes their very orientation itself has been transformed. I contend that what we are witnessing today is an inevitable clash between two contradictory and mutually exclusive worldviews. It is a “clash of orthodoxies,” to use the apt phrase of Robert George (a renowned professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and committed Catholic). The obvious orthodoxy is of course the traditional Christian worldview, a time-tested orthodoxy rooted in divine revelation as enshrined in Holy Scripture and upheld by millions of believers throughout the ages. This familiar orthodoxy, so disdained by the “cultured despisers” within and without the Church, is locked in fierce and unavoidable conflict with its modern/postmodern rival, which I will call here simply “Liberalism.” I mean this in John Henry Newman’s sense, liberalism as an ism, as an ideology (and thus I do not by any means intend a blanket condemnation of all liberal tendencies). Liberalism in this sense rejects all dogmatisms, except its own. This seemingly sophisticated worldview that exalts tolerance as the greatest of virtues and condemns intolerance as the worst of vices is actually highly intolerant of the truth claims of orthodox Christianity. That is why today, as in Jeremiah’s day (see Jer. 6 & 8), though many are urging “peace, peace,” there is no peace. Nor can there be. Part 2: What will be dominant: Scripture or Experience? In Part I: Politically Correct or Theologically Correct? Why It’s an Either/Or, I recalled the famous line of church historian Jaroslav Pelikan that the Protestant Reformation was a “tragic necessity.” I suggested that the painful and costly realignment now underway in Anglicanism was likewise both deeply tragic and utterly necessary. My contention is that the bitter disputes we are now witnessing are the inevitable consequence of the fact that what is happening is nothing less than a clash of two opposing and mutually exclusive orthodoxies, which I call for convenience, Christianity and Liberalism (to borrow the title of Machen’s famous book from the 1920s). In the first installment I advanced the claim that in the end this battle really is about the place of the Bible in the life of the Church. Although many would agree with the Presiding Bishop that the debate is not so much about the authority of the Bible as about its proper interpretation, I will now try to indicate why this claim is bogus. I do not, of course, deny that there are many who sincerely believe that this dispute is actually about hermeneutics. Many world-class scholars, such as Victor Furnish and Robin Scroggs, have made this claim for years. My point is simply that they are wrong, disastrously and demonstrably wrong. To put it sharply, liberal interpretations that assert that the clear and consistent condemnations of homosexual behavior in Scripture simply don’t apply to our modern situation are so deeply flawed and misleading that they amount to mere rationalization and wishful thinking. In other words, the liberal case is so weak that it amounts to little more than a house of cards. It doesn’t take a big bad wolf to huff and puff and blow this fragile house down. All it takes is the courage to think outside the box and defy the skeptical prejudices and relativistic values of the dominant culture in the secularized Northern world. That is why the issue really is about the Bible’s authority in the life of the Church. The crisis we face in the post-Christendom West is finding a way to recover the primacy and supremacy of biblical authority when it comes to sexual morality. I maintain that the vast majority of bishops got it right at Lambeth in 1998 when they flatly declared homosexual behavior to be “incompatible with Holy Scripture.” More importantly, I firmly believe that St. Paul got it right when he took it for granted that gay sex was “contrary to nature” (Romans 1:26–27). There is increasing agreement among biblical scholars that Presbyterian seminary professor Robert Gagnon, the leading defender of the traditional Christian stance, is persuasive in his conservative exegetical conclusions. What remains fiercely disputed is his application of them. Gagnon’s massive study, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon, 2001) argues convincingly that the Bible’s negative views about same-sex behavior are “absolute, pervasive, and strong.” The question is whether or not the Bible is right. I repeat here my chief thesis: the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside and overturned on the basis of dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience. A historical review of how these various authorities have vied with each other for dominance over the last few centuries helps to put our present controversies in proper perspective. Granted, we Anglicans have never accepted the Protestant principle of “sola scriptura,” that is, taking the Bible as the sole authority for settling church disputes. As is well known, we have (at least since the time of Richard Hooker in the 1590s) generally held that Scripture, Tradition, and Reason were our basic authorities. Sometimes we have spoken of this as a three-legged stool, or to use a biblical image, that these three formed a three-fold cord that is not easily broken (Eccles. 4:13). But contrary to what many suppose and teach nowadays, the classic Anglican position has always been unmistakably clear on the fact that these three are not on the same level. Rather, Holy Scripture, as “the Word of God” has always been held to be the supreme and primary authority, with Tradition and Reason (or as Hooker would say, Reason and Tradition) as secondary authorities that help to settle disputes as to the proper interpretation and application of the Bible (e.g., Articles 6, 19, 20, and 34 of The 39 Articles). Not so well known is the fact that John Wesley added Experience to the classic triad of authorities in the mid-1700s, forming what Methodists love to call “the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” Many Anglicans, including myself, are sympathetic to this clarification and enrichment. In any case, from a historical standpoint, the last half millennium of church history can be helpfully seen (very broadly) as a series of struggles over which of these various authorities will be dominant. As we all know, at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century the great struggle was to restore the primacy and supremacy of biblical authority after it had been subordinated, for all practical purposes, to that of church tradition. Later, during the Enlightenment or so-called Age of Reason, beginning around the time of our own American Revolution (and the rise of modern science), the great rival to the Bible’s authority became Reason. Today the battleground has shifted once again. Now the chief challenge to the authority of the Bible comes from Experience. In our day, in the wealthy Northern world, especially among academics and the well-educated, “postmodernism” is rapidly supplanting “modernism” (i.e., Enlightenment rationalism). This sea change in the culture has brought a new and dangerously appealing foe of orthodox Christianity to the fore. Now the great threat to the supreme authority of the Bible comes not from Reason and science (whose limits are increasingly recognized) but from Experience. The cynical rejection of all universal, objective norms so typical of postmodernism has led to the embracing of the notion that experience is self-validating. In such an age, all appeals to some presumed universal moral standard are held to be an unwarranted imposition of mere moral preferences on others. The only absolute in our day is that there are no absolutes. The most popular biblical text has become “Judge not, lest you be judged,” instead of John 3:16. Modern attempts to evade the fact that the Bible’s view of homosexual behavior is unremittingly negative are increasingly admitted by many liberal scholars to be just that, evasions of the facts. Thus Walter Wink, Bernadette Brooten, and Dan Via, for example, all readily admit that the biblical strictures against gay sex can’t be explained away. Instead, they frankly admit that we must squarely face the fact that the biblical writers (including St. Paul) would condemn all homosexual behavior, whether between consenting adults in a “committed relationship” or not, and regardless of the fact that gay men and women don’t choose their sexual orientation. But, these liberal scholars would hasten to add, the biblical writers were simply wrong. Today we know better. How? Because of the experience of gay men and lesbians who claim to have known God’s grace and blessing in the midst of and through their “committed” relationships. I was present in Minneapolis as an AAC volunteer and I was often struck by how those who spoke for the liberal/revisionist view in public hearings or floor debates appealed mostly to the experience of gay men and lesbians as if that settled the matter. There was little attempt to cite scientific studies to support the notion that a homosexual orientation is innate. There was little attempt to counter the conservative claims that the Bible ruled out same sex intimacy. Instead, they relied on the telling of heart-felt stories, with justified confidence that those stories would not be subjected to critical analysis. My problem with so many liberals is not that they are such critical thinkers when it comes to interpreting the Bible, but that they are such uncritical interpreters of modern experience. I wish they’d be more consistently critical. Why do we accept without question the validity of the personal witness of gay men and lesbians about their experience that God has blessed their relationships? It seems that many simply take it for granted that such experiences are self-authenticating. As such they neither need validation (according to the progressives) nor are they subject to critique by critical reason and scientific testing. Much less are such experiential claims subject to scrutiny in their eyes because of the clear and consistent condemnation of homosexual behavior in Scripture and the moral consensus of the Church for 2,000 years. This illustrates how far apart and mutually contradictory are the Christian and Liberal worldviews. The revisionists believe God is “doing a new thing” by throwing open the door to gay people in our day as the Lord flung wide open the door to the Gentiles in the first century. How do they know this? By experience. But the New Testament writers urge us to test such claims. Thus Paul says, “Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:20–21). And 1 John admonishes, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). The problem is not the revisionists are too skeptical and critical; the problem is that they aren’t critical enough. Part 3: Which Unity Shall We Preserve? Unity with the Church of All Ages or Unity with Our Decadent Western Culture? In the first two parts I’ve tried to lay the groundwork for my claim that the realignment of Anglicanism now underway is indeed “a tragic necessity” (as Pelikan said about the Reformation). All of us in the Anglican tradition are now faced with a series of momentous choices. In the first part I argued that we must choose whether we will seek to be politically correct or theologically correct. In this case we can’t have it both ways, for unlike the preceding controversy over women’s ordination, there is absolutely no biblical support for the liberal position. In the second part I contended that the key issue is whether we will choose to give Scripture or modern experience the decisive role in settling this dispute. I further argued that we must choose whose experience will count most in this debate, the dubious claim of gay men and lesbians to have experienced God’s blessing in their relationships or the contrary evidence from the growing number of ex-gays that God has healed them and set them free. In this third installment, I highlight a third fateful choice that we must all make. That choice is not so much between truth and unity, as some suppose, but rather we are all going to have to choose which unity matters most to us. Will we choose to preserve our unity with the majority of the Episcopal Church and its institutional structures, or will we choose instead to preserve our unity with the majority of the Anglican Communion around the world? Once again, there is no possibility of a “both/and” solution here, as the Global South Primates have made abundantly clear. In biblical terms, “Choose you this day whom you will serve, the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion?” All I can say is, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Anglican Communion.” One reason why this choice is so difficult for us is because we aren’t used to having to make such wrenching choices. Up until now, for us in the United States, to be Episcopal was to be automatically Anglican, and vice versa. Alas, those days are over. In a similar way, I contend that the real issue we must all face is which unity we are going to value most. Will we seek to maintain our unity with the Church of all times and places or opt to preserve our unity with the decadent, permissive culture in which we live? We can’t have it both ways. Neither our fellow Christians around the world nor the aggressive secularists in our midst are going to allow us to delude ourselves into thinking we can serve two masters. The aggressive attempt to eliminate open displays of Christian commitment from the public square in America leaves little doubt about this. Whether it’s removing the Ten Commandments from public places, or simply eliminating them from the public school curriculum, there is no doubt which way our culture is heading. Western civilization is in a moral free fall. And the moral relativism that reigns among the academic and media elites is powerless to stop our slide into ever greater moral degradation. The liberal revisionists imagine that they are being “prophetic.” But they are merely endorsing the direction the culture is already going (with the hedonistic Boomer generation leading the way). If you want to be truly progressive and countercultural, take to heart the delightful maxim of G. K. Chesterton almost a century ago, “Break the conventions—keep the Commandments!” The powers that be in North America now show a growing anti-Christian bias. In the post-Christendom West/North, the process of secularization has moved beyond the separation of church and state; we are witnessing the divorce of Christianity and culture. We can’t escape the fact that ours is a “culture of disbelief” (in the apt phrase of Stephen Carter). But we can choose how to respond to that stern challenge. We can simply give in and become complicit in this cultural flight from the rigors of Christian faith and morality, or we can choose to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). That scriptural admonition (in Greek) is on the seal of Virginia Theological Seminary, which has historically been proud to associate itself with evangelical Christianity (broadly defined). But today, VTS allows gay faculty and students to live with their “partners” on campus. Some will doubtless see this as an example of fearlessly following the truth wherever it may lead, and hail it as a contemporary fulfillment of our Lord’s promise, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). After all, the VTS library bears a justly famous inscription beside its entrance, “Seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will.” My contention in this series, however, is that in this case, “the truth” about homosexuality and the classical Christian position on it are one and the same. In this case at least, the best scholarship (represented by the library with all its tomes) is on the side of orthodoxy. Today, the fearless ones are those who dare to resist the seemingly unstoppable liberal tide, which will eventually and inevitably ebb. In our time, the truly courageous ones are those priests who choose to uphold the truth that homosexual behavior is inherently sinful, as Paul plainly says, even at great cost to their careers. It will be the lay and ordained leaders of those rare churches that are willing to give up their property rather than compromise on this issue that will be lauded by the generations to come. I repeat here my central thesis in this series: the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture and Tradition must not be set aside and overturned on the basis of dubious and conflicting evidence from reason and experience. It is grossly unjust to accuse all of us on the orthodox side of being ignorant, or blinded by prejudice against a misunderstood and oppressed sexual minority. Rather, whether we are African or American, ethnic Chinese Anglicans from Southeast Asia or WASPS in Vancouver, many of us are genuinely compelled to take our stand not only by our convictions, but by the state of the evidence. We aren’t governed by our emotions, but by the facts. Ever since the father of Protestant Liberalism, Friedrich Schleiermacher, tried to salvage what he could of Christianity by jettisoning its “outdated” beliefs and practices (in the eyes of its “cultured despisers”), the well-intentioned adherents of ideological Liberalism have sought to accommodate Christianity to the prevailing winds of change among the cultural elite. Thus Schleiermacher infamously relegated the doctrine of the Trinity to the appendix of his controversial summation of systematic theology, The Christian Faith, in 1835. Episcopal bishops James Pike and John Shelby Spong are only the latest and most notorious in the long line of heretics and compromisers who have thus watered down the apostolic faith in futilely trying to retain some measure of loyalty and respect from Christianity’s sophisticated skeptics. It hasn’t worked. The decline of Christianity continues in the wealthy, educated Northern world. Meanwhile, as is ever more apparent, the orthodox Christian faith goes from strength to strength in the poor Southern hemisphere. As Philip Jenkins (an Episcopalian who teaches at Penn State) has demonstrated so convincingly in his widely-acclaimed book The Next Christendom, the future of Christianity clearly lies in the Global South. There are far more Anglicans (over 5 million) in small Uganda than in the USA and Canada combined. There are far more Anglicans actually in church on Sunday in Nigeria (where there are over 17 million regular worshippers) than in all England (where less than 1 million bother to show up each week). The liberals imagine that the future will vindicate them. But it is merely wishful thinking. The future of Anglicanism, and of Christianity as a whole, clearly lies with the Global South, as Rome understands very well. To dismiss the vehement opposition to Robinson’s confirmation on the part of virtually the whole Global South as merely reflecting how “backward” and unenlightened these poor countries are is an insult to our brothers and sisters there. They often pay a heavy price for being faithful to Jesus Christ in a hostile environment. We have much to learn from them about what it means to suffer for the sake of the gospel. The truth is that many of the Global South Primates are highly educated, some more so than Frank Griswold or Michael Peers. Many of those Primates carefully studied the impressive 60 page case for rebuking and disciplining the Episcopal Church produced by the Anglican Communion Institute. Called Claiming our Anglican Identity, this well-researched and cogently argued paper was commissioned for the Primates by three of their own, Drexel Gomez (Province of the West Indies), Peter Akinola (Nigeria), and Gregory Venables (Southern Cone, i.e., of South America). It was written by a team of top scholars, including Professor Christopher Seitz and Philip Turner. The liberal side has yet to produce anything of comparable quality. I doubt they ever will. The fact is that the Global South is sure to win this war for the soul of Anglicanism. They will win it, not simply because they have the numbers on their side. They will win it because they have the truth on their side. Most importantly, they will win it because they have God himself on their side. So whose side do you want to be on? END OF PART ONE

By Dr. Joseph P. Murphy “Some of the last shall be first and some of the first shall be last,” easily grips us as poetically just, one of the many ironies of the spiritual life as the human approaches the divine. Recently the Episcopal theologian Ephraim Radner has written a Parable of the AMiA, in which he refers to the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) as a movement in the Church seeking autonomy without accountability, even as it seeks to be obedient in the face of the spurning of God's Word carried out by the Episcopal Church the USA (ECUSA) in their General Convention of 2003 approval, and the subsequent consecration of the active homosexual Gene Robinson as a bishop in the Church. However, Dr. Radner views as simply prosaic what I see as greatly ironic. Surrounding the creation and establishment of the {AMiA} has been charge and countercharge, innuendo, deceit, treachery, gossip, backbiting, lawsuits, and more. Substitute just about any initiative of value that you'd like in between the braces { } in the sentence above, and chances are it will still be true. To prove this point, and for fun, gather a roomful of Roman Catholics and Orthodox folks, and say out loud, "Henry VIII is the beloved founder of our Church." Not only are the origins of the movements of God's Spirit surrounded by controversy evident in the life of Jesus, Athanasius, Luther, Cranmer, Wesley and Whitfield, and many more; it is trivial to stoke their embers back to life. The motivations and promptings of the Spirit revealed to us in the Book of Acts weren't clear in the marketplaces of the early Roman Empire. "Don't you know what kind of criminal Jesus was?" "Don't you know what criminal activities His followers practice, their preachers drawing away disciples after themselves?" Today, we believe that the truth of the matter was very different. Yet why do the epistles correct, rebuke, and warn those early churches so vigorously? Human activities are ugly, fraught with sin, because we all are. The Church is called to be different, because Jesus clearly was and is different. But that call does not purify us immediately, not back then, not now. For more than thirty years John Spong has been unrebuked in the ECUSA. Yet the AMiA in its short life of 3 years has been rebuked over and over by members of the ECUSA, though AMiA is not part of it. Remaining in organizational communion with Spong for decades was acceptable, but affirming our fellowship in the Spirit with AMiA is not? What's wrong here? I asked myself that question in course of the 2000–2001 school year as an Anglican Studies student on the campus of Virginia Theological Seminary. I saw ECUSA seminarians who could not passionately give a personal testimony of Christ, passionately respond against the founding of AMiA. I saw students who openly and unabashedly admitted that they did not understand what all the bloody sacrifice in the Book of Hebrews was about, denounce the founding of the AMiA with great conviction. This has convinced me of one thing: such conviction and antipathy has nothing to do with knowledge of the truth. Should a Christian hesitate to join the AMiA because of the furor surrounding it, whipped up beyond previous such examples to a far greater degree by the internet age in which we live? As in every case of innovation and change, it is difficult, if not impossible, to lay blame appropriately without incurring it ourselves. If one needs to know the truth underlying the internet noise, it may be a lifetime before a winner declares the truth of it. Personally, on the grounds of the Scripture's teaching about human nature, I assume the worst of all parties, and proceed from there. Jesus' teaching on forgiveness, seventy times seven times, strongly suggests that you and I, no matter who we are, do err and stray in many ways, in thought, word, and deed. A sound ecclesial body formed during this time of human redemption in Christ, is not formed on the righteousness of actions which it has achieved and maintains, but partially on its members’ response of forgiveness to the failings of their brothers and sisters to achieve such actions. The Church cannot survive—it does not even exist—without forgiveness. After all, the Rock upon which the Church is founded is both our example and our source for forgiveness. A sound ecclesial body is also partially founded on its vision and mission, that to which we are called, again, Christ Himself. The Church, comprised of the very same sinful men and women we encounter in this troubled world, has this one distinctive: we are responding to a call beyond ourselves. The tension of that upward call in Christ to us who are bound by selfish desire to this world, allows the light of His glory, however small, to shine through us to our colleagues lost in darkness, but only as we obey that call. The force of those bonds are always present in this life, even when we choose to obey the voice of God instead of self. Lapsing back is a constant potential, but God's grace is sufficient for us all. His grace is not as some would suppose, merely forgiveness, although it overflows with that. His grace trains us to renounce ungodliness and the passions of the world within ourselves (Titus 2:11–12), even as forgiveness is lavished upon us. The path of obedience to that upward call, then, is critical for the Christian life. To whom do I submit as unto the Lord? This is the question that we face in the most ultimate way if we seek to obey the upward call of God in Christ. For me, the answer rests not in any ecclesial organizational genesis, but in the body of its faith, the clarity of its vision and mission, and its current practice, all of which connect it, or not, to the only true Genesis of the Church. Current practice can never be an absolute determiner, because of the great need for forgiveness. Clergy and members become so, not because of their church’s purity of practice, but in spite of it. When I was ordained in the ECUSA, though, with but minor irritations, I embraced the faith, vision and mission of the Church as it was expressed in its Prayer Book and Historical Documents, which point so clearly to the Scriptures and to our Lord. The practice of the ECUSA, embodied in canon and resolution, at places struck discordant notes for me. One pertinent example has to do with its internal policy regarding discipline and Church property in relation to its external policy in regard to ecumenicity. Any casual observer can see that Anglican Continuing Churches in the US, for example, are far closer to Episcopal faith and order than are Lutheran and Moravian churches. Yet, the ECUSA has entered into formal relations with the latter, not the former. Sharing clergy and sacraments with Lutherans and Moravians, we demonstrate unity with them, praying for them in our services. We wish their success. Yet, if a congregation wishes to leave ECUSA to join those of far more kindred faith and order than the Lutherans, such as an offshoot of the ECUSA among the Continuing Churches, the Dennis canon seeks their property back, as practically seeking their demise as housing the poor is practically seeking their welfare. Looked at in terms of its rational consistency, the Dennis canon is bad enough. But it becomes monstrous when one recalls that we are called to keep the unity of the Spirit which has been given to us (Eph. 4). Twenty-first century Christians know that such unity is not merely organizational. Formally, the ECUSA's relationship with the ELCA and the Moravian Church acknowledge that it is not. Brokenness is the profoundly sinful context of the Church in our time, as Ephraim Radner and Rusty Reno have described so well. Encouraging and perpetuating that brokenness cannot be healthy and good. So, Ephraim counsels us to stay where we are ecclesially, suffering the destruction, maintaining our witness, humiliated under the mighty hand of God as that which must be destroyed is destroyed around us and in us. Yet, we find ourselves one in the Spirit with our brothers and sisters in other churches, and faced with some of the most egregious instances of gnosticism in the history of the Church within the ECUSA that remain unrebuked by the Church, while its Prayer Book, enshrining the Creedal rebuke of gnosticism by the early Church, remains contradicted in daily practice and pulpit teaching. Is this not the irony Jesus describes in Matthew 23:29–32, that the fathers are esteemed for all but the truth they died for? What did our fathers practice in regard to false ecclesial leadership? Athanasius tells us that, "...while the ministers of the Church are under persecution, the people who condemn the impiety of the Arian heretics choose rather thus to be sick and to run the risk, than that a hand of the Arians should come upon their heads." (Epistola Encyclica, 5). The numbers in Athanasius’ day were wholly stacked against him. By force of truth, he fought until victory. That inspires us today, but we easily forget that the Church had deeply intertwined connections with State and Society that we no longer have. There will be no State executions as a result of the AMiA. Society will not be in chaos, if it even notices. The Church has only to answer to its Lord, none other. If Athanasius faced down the Arians so boldly, why must we obey the Church canonical order when we know it is wielded by heresy worse than Arianism, which accepted the Scripture as it is(!), and nothing in Society or State rests on it? “We are the Church,” as the heretics say. Why does the Church not act like it, having nothing to do with those who do not submit to Jesus as Lord, submitting only to those who do? Again, irony: the Church fails to be the Church when it plays Church. If I as a presbyter in the Church proclaim the gospel of Christ, calling all who hear to partake of the grace of God in Christ through faith and repentance of worldly passions in obedience to the Scriptures, but my ecclesial colleague on the next corner dismisses such repentance for his or her hearers, what unity do we share? Is the Spirit Who authored the Word of God through men that we preach an idiot? Or should that be "Idiot," a new vision of irrationality in the Godhead? Does God know what He wants, or did we make the Scriptures up? Theology from above, and theology from below have met in the Episcopal Church. Only one is of God. For those who practice theology from below, any and all contradictory theologies can be held within the Church, never violating its unity, because its god is merely the image of humanity. For orthodox Christians, maintaining ecclesial unity in the ECUSA as it now stands in 2004 is tantamount to affirming such idiocy in God. It is a denial of the revelation of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit "...with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change..." (James 1:17 ESV) that we find in the Scriptures, as we are guided in our reading of it by the Creedal tradition of the Church. Now by its formal practice the ECUSA denies what the God of the Scriptures is like, in Whose image we are made. The Church’s need for apologetics has always been to explain to the world why the wisdom of God in Christ appears foolish to it. Today strenuous apologetics are needed to explain to those who come to Christ why the ECUSA does not believe the gospel they have believed. Babes in Christ can see that there are two spirits present in ECUSA's leadership and membership, speaking two divergent visions and missions, two gospels. Can one hand over a new Christian to be discipled by the neighboring ECUSA priest? The biblical injunction to maintain the unity of the Spirit does not apply to the ECUSA per se—it applies to the Church of Jesus Christ. Ironically, thinking outside the box is ordinary orthodox Christianity. It is the box of denominational order that imprisons souls when that order no longer expresses the sole Order in the Church, that of its Lord. Human beings are amazingly inconsistent, doing the best things for the worst reasons, and the worst things for the best reasons. Not only must I consider the "Parable of the AMiA" as Ephraim Radner has told it a misreading of the phenomena, but I must refrain from dismissing brothers and sisters who are acting out of faithful obedience. That does not mean, however, that the best motives are matched by theologically and rationally coherent actions. All of our actions are open to critique, where our motives are known only to God. I remain convinced that Jesus alone is our Lord and Shepherd, and it is He Who works in and through all shepherds that He appoints, to which we are called to submit in ecclesial life. As He is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name, and as He rules through His Word, all of us are united to Him through faith, and are able to obey and submit to Him. Seeking autonomy, as described by Ephraim, sounds like rebellion. But is it? The irony here is that rebellion to the authority of God through His word is now embraced by submission to an ecclesial order that has lost connection to the Head of the Church. Dr. Radner, while denying the Reformers' concept of an invisible Church (see his The End of The Church), views the Episcopal Church as now having vacant sees where revisionists have voted for Robinson (expressed in his recent lecture at the Charleston 2004 ACI conference). Instead of breaking visible ties with those who violate the invisible Church, he refuses to break visible ties, and maintains that violators of the visible Church in its leadership are themselves invisible! Such an ecclesiology is incoherent. If the visible Church is only that, it is only that, and the ECUSA has all its bishops intact, and is apostate. If the Church is invisible, and is only approximately expressed in our sight, then the visible ECUSA has lost the marks of that Church. The Church can also be viewed as the future reality of the eternal kingdom of God here in the present. Internal contradictions of that future reality in terms of the Church's purity and witness to Christ temporize it, cutting it off from the eternal. The ECUSA has affirmed that what we perceive ourselves to be, is what we were made to be. It has embraced an anthropology without a fall, a past that is one with its present. In so doing, it has embraced a future that is one with its present, a heaven without a hell. "As I feel now without repentance, so must I ever be, only better." That lie is now the core of the ECUSA's mission statement of inoffensive welcome, in which no upward call exists to bring us out of that into which we have fallen, toward that which we shall become through repentance and faith. In contrast, we must maintain the renunciation of sin, the devil, and the world common to all Christian witness. In so doing, we must submit to an ecclesial body where the gospel is maintained in its integrity as the word of Christ, our sole Authority, a word not divorced from the Scriptures or contradicting them but opening their given meaning and showing their fulfillment in Christ. Any spiritual authority under Christ's Lordship in an ecclesial body must maintain the vision and mission of the Church that Christ has given it, to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that He has commanded us (Matt. 28:14). The AMiA in its vision and mission preserves the integrity of the gospel. Its current practices, difficult to discern through internet ranting, appear to me certainly no worse than what I have known in the ECUSA, and quite possibly a good bit better. Certainly in respect to tolerance of heresy, it is an improvement demonstrating the repentance never seen in the ECUSA. In personal interaction, I sense unity in the Spirit in a common gospel vision and mission, with all the variations of perspective, emphasis, and understanding common to people bound by a call to obedience to Jesus. Until the Lord returns, there will be need for forgiveness for the members and leaders of the AMiA. The same applies to the ECUSA and the American Anglican Council (AAC), no? The AMiA is also convinced of how much we are in need of forgiveness, that our very desires are untrustworthy in the sight of God. In a contrary affirmation of the innate purity of desire, my ECUSA bishop voted for Gene Robinson. To submit fully to him, I would disobey the Lord. To obey the Lord by disobeying that bishop, I would violate Anglican order. To submit to the AMiA I would violate Anglican order. Yet, there is no Anglican order that specifies how to violate Anglican order. Any action, therefore, that is disobedient to the ECUSA as it now stands, is a violation of Anglican order. Who decides which violation is best? Any theologian, leader, other diocesan bishop, or group of them directing us to violate Anglican order, does so without the authority of Anglican order. That leaves each of us having one decision to make which is either to obey God, or man, and in that decisive action viewed in relation to the authoritative structure of the Church—but without viewing it in relation to God(!)—we are self-appointed. Yet Dr. Radner describes the establishment of the AMiA as a warning lesson because self-appointed priests led the way to autonomy, as if anything but self-appointment characterizes AAC leadership overriding ordinary diocesan order. Self-appointment in a time of crisis of order due to corruption of duly ordained order cannot be unquestioningly construed as an evil. One could ask, who appointed the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI, formerly SEAD) to counsel the Primates? Who appointed the leadership of the AAC? Certainly not the Church in authoritative council. What is construed as service in one context, may be viewed as self-appointment in another. Motive lies hidden to us, but what of authority? Are all actions that do not arise in committee self-appointment? Can they not come with the authority of God the Holy Spirit? Or is the Church a closed system of canon and constitution such that not even God can break through? If Jesus is present where two or three are gathered in His name, and they are Primates, must a constitutional quorum and majority consensus exist among Primates first before they can act in the name of Jesus in a manner consistent with His Word against glaring denials of His Word? Do human politics ultimately trump divine authority itself? John the Baptist anointed Jesus in baptism, but, "The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?" (Matthew 21:23–27) The sovereign prompting of the Spirit of God, the Lord, is not self-appointment—not at least, if we hear Jesus’ question. It may well be that the AAC is led by the Spirit. It may be that the Spirit has led the ACI to offer its counsel to the Primates in an effort to mend the net of the Anglican Communion. That makes both efforts no less self-appointed in terms of existing ecclesial order than the AMiA, when they direct faithful Christians to "faithful disobedience to the canons of the Episcopal Church," a phrase used by Geoffrey Chapman of the AAC. May it not be that the AMiA is led by the same Spirit? Or are we to believe that 12 dioceses out of 114 (10.5%) constitute an appropriate structure of accountability while 2 Primates out of 38 (5.3%) do not? Ephraim says of the AMiA consecrations that they were, “only tenuously tied to and approved by a tiny minority of leaders of the larger Anglican Communion and positively rejected by most orthodox Primates.” Are we to conclude that there is at the heart of this argument a Kabbalistic divine calculus? Since 5 Primates supported the 2004 AMiA conference, does that change the will of God? As Christians in the Anglican Communion in America, does our obedience to God exercised through ordered structures of accountability boil down to correctly playing the numbers, and then, only the very latest numbers? No, the validity of leadership in this time of crisis does not derive from Anglican order but from God Himself, from Whom alone all valid authority comes. What is clear here is that any counsel of faithful disobedience does not stem from existing order, but from outside it, because the order itself is corrupted. No political culture bearing the appearance of accountability can hide that fact. The arguments against the self-appointment of the AMiA over against the self-appointment of the AAC reduce to the all too familiar, "Not made here," a form of spiritual immaturity admonished by the epistles to the first churches (I Cor. 1:10ff). If one is to obey Christ in rejecting false teachers and prophets who are in ecclesial authority, seeking apparent autonomy in terms of visible Church authority is an ironic necessity in order to submit to God. I Peter 2–3 immediately comes to mind to counter this thought, urging us to suffer unjustly if need be in our submission to all human institutions. But if the Church is merely a human institution, and Peter's logic applies to it thoroughly as well, why did he not submit by ceasing to preach in the name of Jesus, unless such submission itself was wrong? (Acts 5:28–9) Further, a thoroughgoing application of this reasoning would have us first return to Rome since the Reformation was wrong, then return to the synagogue, since leaving it was wrong. Then, as new members of the synagogue, we would presumably in obedience to the gospel mandate do all in our power to turn the synagogue into the Church. Such "members" would have all the integrity of John Spong, professing one thing by membership, and something very different in thought and intention. Unity is not a matter of some common beliefs, much less a common structure, but of the heart, with its faith, vision, and mission. By the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, through Christ, as citizens of another Kingdom, we are able under that Authority to act without rebellion, though we disobey any fallen ecclesial structures in this world. Ephraim's vision of Christians acting in faithfulness to the Word of God but without the mutual accountability of existing structures is one of chaos. But it is not a lack of accountability to those who fail to submit to God's Word that brings chaos, but failure of submission to the One Who orders all things. On the other hand, accountability to those who do submit to God's Word is accountability to that Word, not in the first instance to His human servants. Shall we entrust ourselves to the uncertainties of Episcopal politics? We see where that has led. Shall we entrust ourselves to the uncertainties of Primatial politics, taking care not to upset the apparently delicate "dynamics of Communion decision-making"? Do higher echelons cleanse the presence of sin and error from the Church? We know it does not. No, our trust can only be given to the One Whose right it is to rule. In the mystery of Christ, He exercises His authority through our fellow man, and when He speaks, His "…sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers." (John 10:4–5 ESV) For the record, what we have heard by voice of authority from the gathered leadership of the Anglican Communion is a condemnation of homosexual practice, a voice consistent with the voice of God in the Scriptures. What we have heard from many individual Primates and their Provinces is a breaking of communion with the ECUSA who have ignored that voice of authority. We have heard non-authoritative opinion about the genesis of AMiA from individuals, which may include sour grapes, and if so, it is murmuring against the Lord’s anointed—which isn’t the AMiA, but the Primate they serve. We have not heard any authoritative statement from the Primates or the Communion regarding AMiA. Consequently, as things now stand, a member in AMiA is under the godly authority of Primates in good standing in the Anglican Communion. A member of the ECUSA in a diocese without an orthodox bishop stands under authority rebellious to God, maintains communion with the ECUSA when orthodox Provinces do not, and so is spiritually at odds with the Communion, with the Scriptures, and therefore with God. Members in the ECUSA who affirm the AAC and seek to follow it, but who are not under the ordinary authority of an AAC bishop, violate Anglican order by following the AAC over their ordinary bishop, seeking a yet-to-be-established Anglican order, but having no order to do so, humanly speaking, but only self-appointment. Members in the ECUSA who come under the authority of the AMiA violate Anglican order in similar self-appointed transition, but only to remain in Anglican order. All such talk of self-appointment, however, ignores the leading and sovereignty of the Lord, the Spirit, Who acts consistently with Himself, the Author of the Scriptures through the agency of men. While Dr. Radner and others attempt to aid the Anglican Communion to mend nets, the AMiA is fishing. While the former is necessary, the latter is the Church's mission. Indeed, one could ask whether it is a Church structure that catches lost souls, or the proclamation of the gospel. The Celts, from which our Communion derives, went about successfully with the gospel, blissfully unaware of their structural “problem.” It is the primacy of obedience to the direct authority of God in the life of the Christian expressed through Scripture that has been rejected by the ECUSA. The restoration of that obedience will only come, in my estimation, from rebuilding the Church’s spiritual foundations that have been washed away, through uncompromising submission of our individual lives to Jesus Christ. Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. I embrace the vision put forth by Bishop Duncan at the first Plano conference, of a uniting of all orthodox Anglicans in North America. I pray that his vision is soon realized, and commit to seeing it come to pass, praying with those faithful in the ECUSA who are being led by the Spirit. For my own part, I consider Dr. Radner's Parable of the AMiA inadequate in the very least, and his apologetic for remaining in the ECUSA unconvincing, incoherent with the biblical vision and mission of the Church of Jesus Christ. An ironic reading of the phenomena of the AMiA is surely far closer to the truth, offering a very different Parable. Most importantly, I consider entirely rejecting what appears to be autonomy, as spiritually dangerous on the side of failing to recognize the actions of God (Matt. 12:22–38), as is rebellion to Him on the other (Psalm 19:12–14). I understand how congregations united in protest against General Convention 2003 in the ECUSA wish to retain their Church property. Not being in that position, I can see no warrant whatsoever to remaining within its institutionalized disobedience. Consequently, in order to fulfill my own ordination vow, I have now followed the voice of our Lord to serve Him in the AMiA under the Anglican Province of Rwanda. Recognizing the authority and leading of one Lord, I understand this to be a faithful, Anglican response to the heresy of the ECUSA, as is rightfully violating its order to cross diocesan bounds to join with the emerging network. No matter which path we choose, what aspects of Episcopal life and culture are safe to keep, and which will prove to be household idols smuggled into the new edifice, like those of Rachel when she left her father's house with idols hidden under her saddle? In reflection upon the culture of the ECUSA of which I have been a part for 15 years, I consider the lack of a corporate culture of heart submission to the Word of God to be the critical issue demanding our repentance. In a recent issue of the Anglican Digest an article purports to tell us what the Church expects of each of us as faithful Episcopalians. There is not a single mention of the Scriptures in the entire article. Why is it that such an omission goes unnoticed? They are no longer part of Episcopalian culture—the Scriptures have become just a liturgical object. Without a Church culture formed by His Word, in which heart submission to Him through His Word is cultivated, we will only succeed in rebuilding what must be torn down. The sacrifice of all for the sake of the gospel, leaving everything behind, is a tried and true, divinely ordained method that can reestablish a culture of genuine discipleship because it partakes of it; many in the AMiA have followed this. There is also divine warrant for leaving Egypt with its plunder, but not for refashioning it into its gods. My prayer for safe journey goes with the AAC. My plea to the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner in this time of crisis is to focus not on what constitutes orthodox faith and practice structurally, but spiritually, from which only, unshakeable structure can arise. ©2004 The Rev. Joseph P. Murphy, Ph.D. Carol Stream, IL

By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org December 16, 2025   Mount Pleasant, SC - The Court for the Trial of a Bishop has issued its verdict in the ecclesiastical trial of The Rt. Rev. Stewart Ruch III, Bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest. The Court unanimously found Bishop Ruch not guilty on all four charges, citing the prosecution’s failure to meet the canonical burden of proving the charges by clear and convincing evidence. The 70-page final order with verdict, which details the Court’s rationale for its decision, is available here. https://anglicanchurch.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/FINAL-ORDER_12-16-25_Signed_Redacted-1.pdf   The disciplinary proceedings against Bishop Ruch originated from the disclosure in May 2019 that a Lay Catechist serving in Bishop Ruch’s Diocese of the Upper Midwest had sexually abused a child. The Catechist, Mark Rivera, was subsequently charged in criminal court in May 2022 on multiple counts of child sexual abuse. Questions about how this and other matters were handled within the diocese, and later by the province, led to increasing public scrutiny, and in December 2022 three bishops signed a presentment against Bishop Ruch. In June 2023 a second presentment was filed by several clergy and lay members from the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.   The trial, which began July 14, 2025, addressed four canonical charges brought in the two presentments:   Habitual neglect of episcopal duties (Canon IV.2.10) Conduct giving scandal, including abuse of ecclesiastical power (Canon IV.2.4) Violation of ordination vows (Canon IV.2.3) Disobedience to canons (Canon IV.2.9)   The trial was temporarily delayed on July 20 when the Provincial Prosecutor abruptly resigned. It resumed on October 8, 2025 and concluded proceedings on October 13, 2025. Additional information about the context, background, and details of the trial are available on the ACNA website.   The ACNA and its dioceses and congregations remain committed to continually improving their safeguarding practices, training, and enforcement to better prevent and address all instances of misconduct and abuse.   END

In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. The recent unilateral actions of the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) in consecrating a bishop who is sexually active outside marriage, and the recognition of same-sex blessings have created a deeply painful and divisive situation and devastated our Christian witness. In the light of Tradition, it reveals a misinterpretation of the clear witness of God's Word and a deaf ear to the heartfelt pleas of the entire Communion. When the economically powerful church in America acts, it attracts worldwide attention; and despite repeated warnings, ECUSA's leaders have shown selfish indifference to the difficulties and confusion their actions have now brought this and other provinces. Their action is a clear departure from the moral teaching, practice and common understanding of the Anglican Communion, clearly expressed by the Lambeth Conference of 1998. Following the example of Jesus we are open to all people, but we reject as sin those acts which separate us from God and from each other. ECUSA's action has forced painful division in the Communion and is a schism of their own making. Because by its precipitous action it has fomented needless division and denied the Tradition of the Church catholic, we believe that ECUSA cannot represent the Anglican Communion in any legitimate or moral sense. As a consequence, this Province now shares only a profoundly impaired communion with ECUSA and, in faithfulness to the Word of God, we cannot accept this consecration as a valid one. Impaired communion means that we cannot share fellowship, ministry, Eucharist or gifts with those who have affirmed or participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson, nor with those who perform or permit blessings of same-sex unions outside historic Christian marriage, nor with any clergy who are sexually active outside marriage. We give thanks to God for the bishops, clergy and laity of ECUSA who have stood firm against these unacceptable acts. We remain in full fellowship, ministry and Eucharistic celebration with them. At the same time we are deeply concerned about increasing reports of pressure and persecution against those who hold fast to the Scriptures and the historic faith through retributive applications of canonical and secular legal procedures. Missionaries desiring to serve in our Province must reject the erroneous decisions of ECUSA and must affirm traditional scriptural norms. It is our hope and earnest prayer that ECUSA will come to its senses, repent and turn back from its schismatic actions; but without renouncing their present position there is little hope of it. As a Province we believe institutional unity in meaningless unless it is based in the truth of the Holy Scriptures. May God have compassion on His church.

Missionaries will be certified for orthodoxy The Most Reverend Frank Tracy Griswold Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA 815 Second Avenue New York NY 10017 USA 8th January 2004 Dear +Frank, This comes with a prayerful greeting from the Southern Cone in Jesus' name. As you can see from the attached statement, the decision of ECUSA to consecrate Gene Robinson, a person sexually active outside marriage, and to declare by resolution that same-sex blessings are "in bounds," has left us no choice but to recognize the situation which you have created. That is one of a profound impairment of communion. Our deep sadness comes on two fronts. First of all, you have done what you had no right to do. You have represented as God's blessing your promotion of an unbiblical agenda. You must know that the overwhelming majority of the people in this province view that as absolutely scandalous. Our concern is very great for those who embrace the deception you foster. Spiritually, it is a terrible place to be. In addition, you should know that many of us in the provinces you obviously consider to be of little consequence are also deeply offended at the arrogant, strident and unilateral action ECUSA has taken. This is doubly problematic because you personally have been so critical of your own government's failure to be collaborative in international affairs. Is stridence only a problem when you happen to disagree with the action? Could you not at least have discussed your convictions and underlying principles with your fellow primates before the final steps were taken? With deep regret, I must also inform you that the Province of the Southern Cone is designing a process for certification of missionaries. Candidates will have to demonstrate their commitment to orthodoxy in order to be acceptable for ministry here. Surely by now, you must see the folly of what you have done. The implications are staggering. Hardly a day goes by without international mention of more consequences. It is my fervent hope that you will repent. The mercy of Jesus knows no limit. I continue to pray that you will turn away from the course you have taken and turn to the "faith once delivered to the saints." With great sorrow, The Most Reverend Gregory James Venables Primate of the Southern Cone

By John Yates The following sermon was delivered before several thousand orthodox Episcopalians at the recent Plano East gathering in Virginia. January 10, 2004 At the very heart of the conflict within the Episcopal Church is a single, simple question that all who believe in Jesus Christ must answer for themselves. Are the Scriptures true? Can we be assured that what we read in the Bible is true? When the original authors wrote the various portions of Scripture, did they write the truth? Are the Scriptures we read today the same as the original? Episcopalians say that we believe in the authority of the Scriptures but what does that mean? The best-selling novel, The DaVinci Code, of which there are over 4 million copies now in print, is written on the premise that our New Testament is false, that other documents prove that Jesus was, in fact, a married man and that Mary Magdalene was his wife. This is clearly not true, according to our four Gospels, but millions believe it anyway. Is the Bible true or not? I want to lay out for you two principles which help us have confidence in the trustworthiness of the Bible. The first has to do with the words the text of the Bible. The second has to do with our Lord Jesus own attitude toward the Scriptures. First, the text of the Bible. Each of us has available for our use several fine translations. This is the most studied, translated book of all time. But behind all these translations is the text of the New Testament in Greek, and the Old Testament mostly in Hebrew. We do not, of course, have the original documents, the autographs, but we do know that the text of the New Testament from which scholars work today is essentially exactly the same as when the words were first penned by Paul, John and the others. How do we know this? There are thousands of ancient Greek and Latin portions of the New Testament, which have been preserved since the 1st century all across the world, first in churches and monasteries and then later in libraries. We have portions, for instance, of John Gospel, that we believe go back to the very generation in which it was originally penned. The originals were written down, disseminated and copied with utmost care, and gradually spread throughout the early Church, until eventually there were hundreds and thousands of copies. While, of course, many were lost we still have an unbelievable treasure trove of early New Testament manuscripts, all of which have been studied repeatedly, compared, contrasted by textual and literary critics from all around the world. This is an exacting science. And the conclusion of their research is that the standard Greek text we now use for New Testament studies upon which our modern translations are based, is as close as it could possibly be to the original without being the original. Why is this important? It means that when we read the New Testament we are reading 99.9% exactly the same thing as first century Christians read. The words of Jesus, the words of Paul, that we read, these are the very words read by Christians in Corinth, Rome and Palestine. We hear nowadays about some New Testament scholars sitting around casting colored marbles, to decide if this or that portion of the New Testament is genuine. But friends, these are the extreme fringe of so-called biblical scholars. The great mass do not question the authenticity of the text. Oh, there are variations in the early manuscripts but no essential doctrines are impacted by these. When we turn to the Old Testament, we do not, of course, have a bulk of manuscripts coming from the centuries before Christ. In fact, until the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in a cave overlooking the Dead Sea in 1947, the earliest Old Testament manuscripts we had came from the 9th or 10th century A.D. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, however, showed us that our modern Hebrew Bible, passed down, copied from generation to generation, is similarly, astoundingly close to the Old Testament, which Jesus himself read. The Dead Sea scrolls contained portions of the Old Testament, from the very time of Jesus himself, and the startling sameness between them and the later manuscripts with which scholars worked until we found the Dead Sea scrolls, which were a thousand years newer, is just astonishing. They were copied and transmitted reverently with painstaking care by hand over a thousand years with virtually no changes. We can only conclude that God has wanted and willed that 21st century students be able to read what was originally penned by the biblical writers. So, when we read our Old Testament we have good reason to believe it is virtually the same as the Old Testament that Jesus himself read and taught, and when we read our New Testament, it, too, is essentially exactly the same as the original autographs. That is important. Because the text is authentic, when we read the New Testament we see what the first century followers of Christ believed and what they understood Jesus to have said and done. We see Jesus as they saw him, the unique, wonderful, powerful Son of God. When we consider the risks taken by the Apostles to proclaim these New Testament truths, we are hard-pressed to conclude anything other than this they were utterly convinced of what they taught. What they wrote, they died for, and what we read, is what they were utterly convinced of. The Jesus they present to us is the historical Jesus they knew. The only way we know Christ is through what they wrote in the New Testament. We believe that what they wrote is true this brings us to the second point. How did Jesus view the Scriptures? We look at Jesus own attitude toward the Scriptures as described in the New Testament by those who knew him best, in order to understand the authority of Scriptures for ourselves. And here is what we see first in regards to the Old Testament: Jesus was completely committed to the authority of the Old Testament, and he submitted to the Old Testament in his own personal conduct, he submitted to the Old Testament in regard to his own sense of mission and purpose, and he submitted to the Old Testament in his controversies and debates. For instance, he met each of the temptations of the devil by reminding himself of the appropriate biblical response, which addressed Satan temptations. He also seems to have come to an understanding of his own life purpose and role as Messiah from a careful study of Old Testament Scripture. He knew from his unique relationship with God and from his study that he himself was the fulfillment of both Isaiah Suffering-Servant prophesies and Daniel Son of Man statements. This, of course, enabled him to accept that he could only achieve his life purpose through the path of suffering and death, and it explains why repeatedly he made statements such as, Mark 8:31, in which he said, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected. He must be killed and after three days rise again. He was convinced of this because Scripture said so, and he put himself under its authority. Even after the resurrection he was still of the same opinion, he said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, did not the Christ have to suffer these things, and then enter his glory? This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:26, 44). Whenever Jesus entered into controversy or debate, he continually submitted to the Old Testament as his authority. What is written in the law? he would ask. How do you read it? (Luke 10:26) Or from Mark 12: Haven't you read the Scriptures? Over and over again he criticized the religious leaders for their disrespect for Scripture. The Pharisees added to Scripture additional rules and regulations, while the Sadducees subtracted from it. Over and over again he affirmed scripture cannot be broken. In the Sermon on the Mount he said, I tell you the truth, until Heaven and Earth disappear, not the smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. You will not find an example of Christ ever contradicting the divine origin of Old Testament Scripture. All the evidence available affirms that Jesus Christ both assented intellectually and submitted volitionally to the authority of the Old Testament, and it is hard to believe that we, his followers, should have a lower view of it than he did. He trusted the Old Testament. He certainly believed what Paul, his apostle, taught, that, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproach, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Now, of course, our Lord way of endorsing the New Testament was quite different, for none of the New Testament books had yet been written during his lifetime. Clearly the Old Testament was not the final revelation of God. Some of the Old Testament law and ceremony came to an end in Jesus because he was the fulfillment of it. Much of the Old Testament teaching was incomplete and he gave us the complete meaning. He himself, Christ, was the final revelation of God, and his message and the meaning of who he is had to be communicated to future generations. There had to be an authoritative record and interpretation of who he was and what he revealed, so Jesus made provision for this very thing. How? All the records agree that, after careful thought and lengthy prayer, he chose and appointed and then went on to train and authorize the 12 Apostles to be his representatives, just as God had chosen the prophets in the Old Testament. The Apostles of Christ were, of course, a small, restricted circle, made up of the original 12, and then Matthias (who replaced Judas), Paul, James, the Lord brother, and perhaps one or two more. It important to understand the meaning of the word, apostle. It means one sent by a person who is as the person himself, a person who speaks with the authority of the person who had commissioned him. Not too long ago the Washington Post had a headline that said, Bush Vows Action. However, when you read the article, you saw that President Bush had not yet actually commented publicly on the situation, but that actually it was Scott McClellan, Bush Press Secretary, who made the statement. It is interesting that McClellan words are equated with those of the President himself. This is similar to the sense of the word apostle. Jesus chose these apostles, deliberately gave them this title, and they were to be his personal representatives endowed with his authority to speak in his name. And when he sent them out he said to them, He who receives you, receives me. These men knew the Lord personally. They had a personal call and authorization by him. They had unequaled opportunities to hear his words, to talk with him, and to see his deeds, so that they might later on bear witness to what they had seen and heard. He said to them in John 15:27: You must testify for you have been with me from the beginning. He promised to them an extraordinary inspiration by the Holy Spirit for their tasks. We see this in the conversation recorded by St. John, in which Jesus said to the 12, All this I have spoken while still with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I have said to you. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. When he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you in all truth. (John 14) Now, the primary application of these verses is to the Apostles who were gathered around Jesus in the upper room. Only to them could he say, All this I have spoken to you while still with you, and I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. What he promised to the 12 was this: that the Holy Spirit would remind them of the teachings he had given them, and also that he would supplement this, leading them into all the truth which they could not yet understand. The major fulfillment of these promises, of course, was in the writing of the Gospels and the Epistles in the New Testament. Now, you will point out that Paul, for instance, was not one of the original 12. He was, however, a witness of the resurrected Christ in his encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, and it seems clear that from his time spent with the Apostles and the three years he spent in Arabia, he was also guided, as he said, by revelations from Jesus Christ, which were intended to compensate him for not being with Christ during his years of public ministry. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes, I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. The other Apostles certainly recognized this as true. God demonstrated the unique calling of these Apostles through miracles that accompanied their work, and we see it by their own self-conscious awareness of apostolic authority. The apostle John, for instance, in dealing with the threat of many false teachers, used the plural of apostolic authority, saying, We are from God and whoever knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of falsehood. (I John 4:6) In other words, John readers could discern between truth and error by examining the teaching to see if it was in accordance with John himself teaching. False teachers would reveal their own error if they were not in agreement with John, while the true Christian would demonstrate his authenticity by submitting to the Apostles authority. What John taught was what Jesus had taught. The Apostles humbly recognized one another letters as inspired by the Holy Spirit. There is even the very famous passage in which the Apostle Peter refers to the letters of Paul (II Peter 3), in which he describes dear brother Paul, commenting on the wisdom given to him by God and fully equates Paul letters with Scripture itself. The early Church recognized the unique authority of the Apostles. For example, around 110 A.D., soon after the last Apostle St. John had died, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch sent letters to several of the churches in Europe and Asia Minor, and in his epistle to the Romans, Chapter 4, he wrote, I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles. I am but a condemned man. The apostolic writings were accepted as authoritative, right alongside the Old Testament. They emanated the authority of Christ and the Christians recognized them as truth. Later in the fourth century, when the Church came finally to settle which books should be included in the New Testament Canon, the test they applied was whether a book came from the Apostles, whether it was written by an Apostle or, if it was not written by an Apostle, whether it came from the circle of the Apostles and had the endorsement of their authority. This would have been true, for instance, of Luke or Mark or James. The Church in the fourth century was not conferring authority on the canonical books. It was rather simply recognizing the authority that they already possessed. The false Gospels such as the so-called Gospel of Thomas, were rejected not because the church was trying to control what people believed as it implied in The DaVinci Code, but because they were obviously spurious had never been recognized as true. So according to the Apostles, Christ endorsed the authority of the Old Testament, and he made provision for the New Testament by authorizing the Apostles to teach in His name. If it is our claim to submit to the authority of Christ, we must submit to the Scriptures authority as well, and because of Jesus Christ, we submit to both the Old and the New Testaments. The ultimate issue of authority in the Church hinges on the Lordship of Christ. If He is our teacher and Lord, we are under His authority. We have no freedom to disagree with Him or disobey Him. We bow to Scripture because we bow to Him. This is not always easy. There are passages that are difficult we are not always completely certain as to what is to be taken literally or figuratively. We must read the poetry and the allegorical sections as just that. Some passages almost offend us some seem to be in contradiction with others. John Stott has a helpful observation in this regard: To accept the divine origin of the Bible is not to pretend that there are not problems. To be candid, there are many problems literary, historical, theological and moral. So what shall we do with them? Is it compatible with intellectual integrity to accept the unique authority of Scripture when so many residual problems remain? Yes, indeed it is. We need to learn to do with the problems surrounding Scripture exactly what we do with the problems surrounding any other Christian doctrine. Every Christian doctrine has its problems. No doctrine is entirely free of them. Take as an example the doctrine of the love of God. Every Christian of every conceivable hue believes that God is love. It is a fundamental Christian doctrine. To disbelieve this would be to disqualify oneself as a Christian. But the problems surrounding the doctrine are massive. What, then, do we do when someone brings us a problem touching God love, a problem of evil or of undeserved suffering, for instance? In the first place, we shall wrestle with the problem and may be granted some fresh light on it. But we are not likely to solve it altogether. So then what? Must we abandon our belief in the love of God until we have solved all the problems? No. We shall maintain our belief in the love of God, in spite of the problems, for one reason and for one reason only, namely that Jesus Christ taught it and exhibited it. That is why we believe that God is love. And the problems do not overthrow our belief. So with Scripture. Someone brings us a problem, or we stumble across one ourselves, maybe an apparent discrepancy or a question of literary criticism. What shall we do? To begin with, it is essential that we wrestle honestly with biblical problems. It is not Christian to bury our heads in the sand, pretending that no problems exist. Nor is it Christian to manipulate Scripture in order to achieve a forced, artificial harmonization. No, we work at the problems with intellectual integrity. During this process some problems, which at first seemed intractable, are satisfactorily solved. To others, however, we can see no immediate solution. So then what? Must we abandon our belief in the Word of God until we have solved all the problems? No. We shall maintain our belief in God Word, just as we maintain our belief in God love, in spite of the problems, ultimately for one reason and one reason only, namely that Jesus Christ taught it and exhibited it. It is no more obscurantist to cling to the one belief than the other. Indeed, it is not obscurantist at all. To follow Christ is always sober, humble, Christian realism. (from Understanding the Bible, Zondervan Publishing, 1999) Some passages, such as the famous section in Job where his friends give him erroneous counsel, are not intended to be taken as God wisdom. We wrestle with scripture. We devote ourselves to understanding scripture. We look to previous generations of Christians and how they understood it. But over and above all of this, scripture is our authority it is our deep, settled conviction that it is true. Therefore, we never assume we know better. We do not dare tamper with it. We love the Holy Scripture because through the words of men, God has spoken his true words to us and God word is Holy. Turn away from scripture and we turn away from Christ. Twist the Scripture towards our own ends and we become a heresy or a cult. We dare not say with one of our bishops, of the scriptures, we wrote them we can rewrite them. Or with another, what we need is a new Christianity for a new world. There is only one Christianity the Christianity of Scripture. Every generation of believers is tempted to turn away from the uncompromising, muscular demands of Jesus, from the radical doctrine of the New Testament church and to embrace the trendy ideas of the day. They do not realize they are in danger of sawing off the very branch of faith upon which they are sitting. The church has always through the ages sought to submit to scripture as God authoritative guide. Often we have erred and reformers have had to call us back and say, Sola Scriptura our tradition, our reasoning, and our experiences are fundamentally important, but in Christ and with Christ, we must renew our belief that in the Scriptures God has spoken and they are true. They are our infallible guide. Over the last two generations, our denomination has tolerated leaders and teachers who have jettisoned historic doctrines of the Church many believers have left the Church in disgust. We have stayed. Now a General Convention decision has clarified starkly for all of us that the Episcopal Church has moved even further away from scripture. 92 bishops, a devastating majority refused to endorse a resolution reaffirming Holy Scripture as the foundation of authority in our church, reaffirming the historic statements of Anglicanism concerning scripture. It is clear, we have to say, enough we can go no further. The ultimate issue is one of authority it is that of lordship of Christ. You call me teacher and Lord, he said, and rightly so. For that is what I am. We have no liberty to disobey or disagree with him. We bow to the authority and total trustworthiness of scripture because we bow to the authority of Christ. The Rev. John Yates is the rector of The Falls Church, Virginia

"Episcopal Church has begun a new religion" "Ecclesiastical action against me logically incomprehensible" By the Rev. Joseph P. Murphy Ph.D. January 21, 2004 To: The Rt. Rev. Peter J. Lee The Rt. Rev. David Jones The Rt. Rev. Francis Gray Mayo Memorial Church House 110 W. Franklin St. Richmond, VA 23220 Dear Bishops Lee, Jones, and Gray, At the gathering of clergy you convened this past fall at Christchurch School to discuss the actions of General Convention 2003, I made clear to you all my understanding that the Episcopal Church no longer holds the teaching of the Christian Faith that it had received, thus making void the vow of ordination that I, and all Episcopal clergy, have taken. I repeated this to Bishop Lee in person later that month. That I am not alone in such an understanding is clear from Claiming Our Anglican Identity: The Case Against the Episcopal Church, USA, a paper commissioned in 2003 for the Primates of the Anglican Communion by the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, and the Most Rev. Gregory Venables (pages 13-14). Further reflection and consideration of the action of the Episcopal Church, and the responses from Anglicans all over the world, have only deepened my conviction that the Episcopal Church of the United States of America has departed from the Christian faith in a substantial manner. By reading Scripture in such a way that its ethical imperatives no longer address personal desires where they conflict with Scripture, the Episcopal Church has now formally adopted a spirituality that is not subject to the Word of God. Without its life rooted in submission to God Who speaks, its theology and liturgy are cut off from the source of all life in the One God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You may view such a judgment on my part as extreme. However, if Christian disciples cannot be taught that all of our lives are to be submitted to Jesus Christ without reservation, that all of our thoughts and desires are to be brought into obedience to Him such that He alone determines what pleases Him, and that determination comes through what He has spoken to us all publicly through the writings of the Hebrew prophets, the teachings of Jesus, and the writings of His apostles and their immediate disciples, then such "discipleship" as results from such restricted teaching will not know the freedom for which we have been created. It is not worthy of the name Christian. Truly, by formally relaxing the demands of discipleship on the entire self, the Episcopal Church has begun a new religion, one in which we determine what is necessary to please God. Of course, that determination rests in what pleases the majority of us, reducing our grasp of He Who is wholly Other than us to our political consensus about Him. Rather than ruling over us, He is effectively tamed. It is the call of Jesus to lay down one's life for Him, or lose it. To reduce His call for radical discipleship at the level of the thoughts, desires, and intentions of our hearts to merely bearing with one another's "opinions" as if the Church were merely a body politic, is to not only misconstrue the nature of the Church, but to fail to hear Jesus' call to discipleship at all at the level where His cross—which differentiates Christianity from all other spiritual ways—becomes evident, that of personal obedience to Him where our desires run contrary. The issue at hand is not merely a social issue, or even an ethical issue. It is a question of the gospel itself, and of the reality of the acts of God in the life of humanity—since words are acts. It is a matter of the differing ways we read scripture, but that is of the most profound importance, as that reading instantiates, brings into being, who we are. God's Word is alive, as are those who submit their hearts to Him through it. The Episcopal Church has chosen to deny His words by granting itself the right to read them in such a way that they do not address our sinful condition. What is left is a message, a "gospel," indistinguishable from the ways of the world, and frankly, better served by abandoning the vestiges of Scripture and tradition that can be retained under its new understanding. Cut off from its power to address the sinful self as God has chosen to, Scripture as contextualized in the new ethos of the Episcopal Church is no longer the Word of God, no longer the conduit for His Life that our Anglican tradition affirms. I applaud the efforts of the American Anglican Council, and look forward to the day when a single Anglican Church will faithfully serve our Lord here in the United States. Until then, however, due to the actions of the Episcopal Church, I find the conclusion inescapable that violating Anglican order in some way is a necessity if Episcopalians are to remain obedient to the Lord. In my observation, the ethos of the Episcopal Church in large part is ignorant of, and resistant to the teachings of Scripture, evidencing processes long under way and only brought to fruition in the decisions of 2003. While many congregations demonstrate exception to this observation, so many do not that I am convinced that the Church cannot reform itself. As I mentioned to all of you prior to the General Convention while urging you to help avoid the current crisis, the Episcopal Church is now in so many ways akin to the Donatist Church of the fourth and fifth centuries, that I believe its only hope is intervention from the wider Anglican Church as that Church's salvation came from the universal Church. Consequently, to remain faithful to my ordination vow to serve as a presbyter in the Church of Jesus Christ proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, I hereby submit myself to the Anglican Province of Rwanda in the Anglican Mission in America. I do so in order to fulfill my ordination vow, maintaining my desire to serve the Lord in the Anglican Communion as it has historically existed as catholic and evangelical, proclaiming Christ in both Word and Sacrament. Further, since the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda on September 5, 2003 declared that "the Episcopal Church, USA has departed from the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as the Church has received them," and that "by these actions the Episcopal Church, USA has placed itself out of communion with other member of the worldwide Anglican Communion" by this letter I do hereby declare that any action taken against me as a presbyter under authority of Title IV Canon 10 of the Constitutions & Canons of the Episcopal Church of 2000, as revised by the General Convention of 2003, by the Diocese of Virginia (1) to be legally and logically incomprehensible given the loss of status in the Anglican Communion of the Episcopal Church which is assumed in Title IV Canon 10, and (2) to be null and void in the Anglican Communion by virtue of the Episcopal Church's loss of its communion with other Anglican Communion churches. It is my understanding that by this action I remain a presbyter in the Anglican Communion, whereas by my remaining in the Diocese of Virginia of the Episcopal Church, I would not. By my stating what I deem to be the truth in regard to the Episcopal Church as it now stands, I imply nothing in regard to yourselves or any other clergy or members of the Episcopal Church. We each answer to our Lord alone. However, I urge you and all Episcopalians, by the mercies of our Lord, to give ear to His voice anew. Sincerely yours in Jesus Christ, The Rev. Joseph P. Murphy, Ph.D. Formerly rector of St. Mary's - Fleeton, Reedville, VA