By Jay L. Greener Jan 8, 2004   In a resounding display of shared conviction, the parish of All Saints Church in Pawley’s Island, SC, voted tonight to sever ties to the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and to align itself with another Province of the AnglicanCommunion. Over 500 were in attendance to vote on two resolutions that will alter the church’s core documents. A congregation that claims over 1,000 parishioners and deep roots to its founding in 1745, All Saints officially amended its charter to reflect a revised statement of purpose, as well as its official affiliation. The vote affirmed the unanimous decision of the church’s vestry, made in October. The church joins nine international Anglican provinces that recently severed ties to the ECUSA an institution whose revisionist and liberal actions are increasingly placing it at odds with much of the rest of the Anglican Communion.     On two separate ballots, those present voted overwhelmingly to declare a new identity and affiliation as a church. On the first, which called for all references to the Episcopal Church to be removed from All Saints’ charter, the vote was 464 in favor, 42 against, and 1 abstention. On the second ballot, nearly 94% of those present voted to remove All Saints from the Episcopal Church and transfer its canonical residence to another Province within the Anglican Communion.     That other Provinces will most likely be the Province of Rwanda, and its missionary movement in this country, the Anglican Mission in America. That decision will be finalized at a parish meeting later this month. As people were leaving the meeting, they had opportunity to transfer their letters of membership individually, and the response was overwhelming.     All Saints’ Rector Emeritus, the Rt. Rev. Charles Murphy, addressed the gathering before deliberations began. He made it clear that it was not a regular parish business meeting, but a special meeting of the corporation concerned with amending the church’s official charter, adopted in 1902. His comments embraced the following points:     *The Episcopal Church USA of today is very different from the Protestant Episcopal Church of 1902 under which the original charter was drafted;   *The Episcopal Church has produced, by its actions, a major realignment in the Anglican Communion whereby two-thirds of the world’s Anglicans are now in a state of broken or impaired communion with ECUSA;   *All Saints Church has resisted the revisions of the Episcopal Church for years, working for renewal and change from within;   *The Episcopal Church has, in effect, abandoned the Faith and Order of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.   *There are now two strategies for addressing the international crisis: either to remain inside the ECUSA and become part of an orthodox ghetto, or move outside in order to come out from under coercive structures and canons, which is the strategy of the Anglican Mission in America.   The members of All Saints obviously agreed with their longtime leader, voting to follow an outside strategy from this point on.     All Saints and the Diocese of South Carolina have had strained relations for the last three years, due to actions on the part of the Diocese to claim interest in the church’s property, refusal of the Diocese to allow All Saints to vote at recent conventions, and recent efforts on the part of the bishop, Ed Salmon, to take over control of the parish. South Carolina’s Judge Breeden has twice ruled that the Diocese has no interest in the property, which was deeded many years before the Episcopal Church even existed. All Saints will continue to worship in their current facilities, even as the diocese continues its efforts to remove them through the courts.     Overall, it was a ˜peaceful’ meeting where a few people spoke on each side of the issues, with one person observing that ˜the church was ready for this moment.’ In a recent statement, the leadership of All Saints reasserted its commitment to its members, the inhabitants of Waccamaw Neck Region, the worldwide Anglican Communion, and Christ’s Great Commission to His Church.   END

The following graphic image is a province map of ECUSA, showing the believed current status of each diocese regarding the consecration of Gene Robinson, and the believed relationship of the dioceses to the new confessing network. The dioceses who have endorsed the network, or probably will, are shown as purple. We recognize that this is a dynamic map, and it will be corrected, changed and redistributed as needed. It is offered to further the understanding of how the politics of the current situation is affected by geography.     END

By Kelly Marshall The Sun News Myrtle Beach     The congregation of All Saints Waccamaw Episcopal Church will take a historic vote Thursday night when members decide whether to split from the Episcopal Church USA or join the conservative Anglican Mission in America. The move comes during a turbulent time for the 264-year-old Waccamaw Neck church.     It has been engaged in a three-year fight with the diocese over ownership of church property and a recent attempt by Bishop Edward Salmon to remove 12 church leaders.     While other churches have disagreed with the appointment of an openly gay bishop in August and many have threatened to separate from the Episcopal Church USA, All Saints was one of the first churches in South Carolina to vote to leave and operate under an archbishop from a different province.     I’m not aware of any other parishes that are doing that, said Bruce Mason, spokesman for the American Anglican Council. Churches have been amazingly patient. We’ve been encouraging parishes to hang in there a little bit longer.     We want to find a way for them to network with one another. There has not been a mass flight.     Members of All Saints disagree with the liberal stance taken by the Episcopal Church USA, said church spokesman Russ Campbell.     The bishop learned last month the church would vote to leave the union. He tried to remove 12 church leaders after he said they participated in schismatic actions. He said the church cannot remain part of the diocese if they are not part of the Episcopal Church USA.     The move was not successful because Salmon could not prove All Saints was a distressed or troubled parish, Campbell said.     Salmon also objects to a change in the church’s charter reflecting its split from the national church.     Representatives from the diocese met Monday with leaders from All Saints, said Craige Borrett, president of the diocese standing committee.     He said the leaders discussed ongoing issues in the church. He does no t know if they will attend Thursday’s meeting.     I’m praying that God will work through the leadership to resolve this situation, he said. I think the atmosphere at Monday’s meeting was very positive and helpful to everybody.     If the congregation votes to leave the national church, Campbell said he does not know when the split would happen. After Thursday’s vote, the church members will possibly change their church mission statement to reflect their split with the Episcopal Church USA.     By leaving the communion, we leave the bishop in America and go to an orthodox bishop, Campbell said.     The church also is still battling an attempt by the diocese to claim 50 acres of church property. That dispute went to court, which ruled in favor of All Saints, saying the diocese and Episcopal Church have no legal interest in the property.     All Saints was formed in 1745, before the Episcopal Church and the diocese were established, Campbell said.     The diocese appealed, and both sides await a ruling from the state appeals court.     END

Statement of the Bishops of the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo on homosexuality and blessings of same-sex unions within the Anglican Communion.     We, the Bishops of the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (DRCongo) gathered in Kinshasa, its capital city, on behalf of the clergy and laity from the DRCongo, take this opportunity to officially express our unhappiness regarding the issues which have recently arisen pertaining to the issues of homosexuality and the blessing of same-sex relationships which we believe are contrary to Holy Scripture, and to moral law in the Third World. We therefore strongly condemn:     - the consecration of Canon GENE ROBINSON, a divorcee and an actively gay bishop of the US New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church on 2nd November 2003;     - the access to priesthood of actively gay and lesbian people;     - the use of the newly devised Prayer Book published by the Diocese of New Westminster/Canada for the purpose of officiating the blessing of same-sex marriages.     We believe that the above-mentioned acts clearly and deliberately misinterpret:     a) the Word of God   b) the resolution 1:10,98 of the Lambeth Conference of 1998 prohibiting homosexuality, an act contrary to Christian calling in Holy Scripture. In its position of moral keeper, the Church must do all in its power to prevent immorality and itself avoid being corrupted and in turn corrupting the whole world.   c) the work of the Commission established to study in depth the issue of homosexuality. The findings of this Commission initiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to try and establish proper solutions to homosexuality in the Church is due in October 2004. The bishops from the Third World opposed the consecration of Canon GENE ROBINSON as bishop in their meetings at Lambeth Palace, London in October 2003.   We knowingly declare that:     1. the Anglican Province of Congo strongly condemns homosexuality and wishes to disassociate itself from relations with Dioceses and Parishes involved in homosexuality. Therefore, it disapproves the confirmation and consecration of Canon GENE ROBINSON, a man living openly in a homosexual relationship, as bishop in God’s ministry.   2. The Anglican Province of Congo is in fellowship with all Parishes, Dioceses and Provinces of ECUSA and of the Anglican Church of Canada in opposition to homosexuality. It is happy to support both morally, pastorally and spiritually all Christians from every part of the world within the network of theologically orthodox churches and Dioceses in opposition to homosexuality.     3 The Anglican Province of Congo condemns every immoral act which promotes active homosexuality as a cultural norm. The Gospel purifies all culture and must be in agreement with Holy Scripture.     4 The Anglican Province of Congo rejects the newly published New Westminster Diocesan Book of Prayer promoting the blessing of same-sex union. It calls upon each and every woman and man of God to think about God’s Word relating to marriage in Genesis 1:27,28 and encourages abstinence as the appropriate way for those who are not called to marriage. The Anglican Province of Congo therefore invites any person knowingly involved in homosexuality to repent from his/her sin and return to the fullness of relationship with Christ. (Lev.18:23; Mat.19:4-6; Romans 1:23-27).     5 The Anglican Province of Congo seriously warns any of its Dioceses or Parishes that have fellowship with any such groups that are involved in active homosexuality for the purpose of material interest and support.     6 The Anglican Province of Congo calls upon all goodwill Christians to refrain from criticizing, judging or remaining silent on issues pertaining to active homosexuality ravaging the western world and to seriously pray for their return to God in true repentance.     7 The Anglican Province of Congo invites all within the network of the theologically orthodox Anglican Communion to remain firm of faith and be involved in a fellowship based on spiritual, moral, material and/or financial support to each other.     8 The Anglican Communion is a precious gift from Christ Himself that needs to be jealously protected and promoted by each and every faithful Anglican Church.     Kinshasa, 20th December 2003     For the House of Bishops   The Most Revd Dr DIROKPA BALUFUGA Fidele Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Congo   END

My consecration will never affect the average Episcopalian. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop-elect of New Hampshire at GC2003   Special Report   By David W. Virtue   The Bishop of New Hampshire is in for a rude awakening. His consecration is affecting not only the entire Anglican Communion causing whole provinces to disassociate themselves from the ECUSA, it is drying up funds to The Episcopal Church from orthodox dioceses, and now it is beginning to affect local parishes as well. Here are the consequences to one parish in America’s Heartland. A lay leader in a conservative congregation in a liberal diocese sent the following report.     The question was raised at a recent parish meeting, where is the Episcopal Church going?     We are really going through a difficult time as a result of the Gene Robinson consecration, he wrote to Virtuosity.     Since September, both our attendance and our giving has declined by at least 20 percent.  We are more than $8,400 in arrears to the diocese--not because we want to withhold it--but simply because we can’t pay it.  In pledges for 2004, we only have about $75,000 which is about half of what we had in 2003 from half as many households and not enough to keep a full-time priest, and part-time secretary, organist-choirmaster, and sexton.     And that’s not all.     He writes: I think everybody on the vestry and about 95 percent of the congregation opposes what the Episcopal Church has done.  The rector tells me there are three or four individuals in the parish who think it was a good thing.  He wants to find a way to hold the parish together and remain in the Episcopal Church, but what are we to do?     Last Sunday the rector told him that four families had recently left the church.  They told him basically, We stayed until the end of the year--liked you asked--but nothing has happened and so we’re leaving.     I wish Gene Robinson could come and look this congregation in the face on Sunday morning to see what he hath wrought.  Even for those members who supported his consecration, it still affects them because of what is happening to their parish.     If nothing happens--if the powers that be do not provide an alternative for congregations like ours--I fear that we will dissolve and most members will leave before the end of the 2004. At best, I think most people will still leave and we will become a mission congregation with aid from the diocese.  But I have also heard that this same thing is happening in several other parishes in our diocese.     Gene Robinson’s consecration affects little congregations like ours in America’s Heartland because we have been told all of our lives that we are a [capital] Church and we do things together and what one diocese or person does affects the whole Church.     Bishops and theologians have told us all our lives that we are not like those ‘congregational churches’ where congregations and pastors ‘do their own thing.’     Now we are learning the truth, our Anglican theology is coming home to roost.     END

By Ted Schroder January 4, 04     Last week I received a letter addressed to the churches of Amelia  Island Ministerial Association from Claudia Sovilla, of the Amelia  Island Genealogical Society. She was extending an invitation to the members of the churches, who are interested in genealogy and history to attend the Genealogy Course and Mary Fears program in January. She wrote, The Churches have great resources for information and members with stories of their ancestors. This area is rich in history. Tracing  roots has transformed genealogy from a methodical past-time to a raging passion for mill ions of Americans. Wondering who am I, where I came from, and a missing link to the past and heritage. Joan Hackett and Mary Nelson will be instructors        My parents were not much interested in their antecedents. When I asked them questions about the family they gave vague answers that obscured rather than illuminated. It made me wonder whether I was descended from a long line of undesirables! But I doubt whether they were that interesting.     I have cousins on both sides of my family who are the keepers of  the family histories. They supply me with information when I need it. I am gathering material to write a fictionalized account of four generations of my family. In discovering what might have happened to them I understand better what formed my parents and grandparents, and influenced me.   Some years ago I participated in a continuing education program on Family Systems Theory, which explored how the dynamics of family histories can repeat themselves in the lives of each generation. The exercise of drawing up a genogram of your family history, which identifies the patterns of marriage, children, divorce, births and deaths, can throw considerable light on your own experience.   None of us is self-made. None of us is a stand alone. Each of us Comes from somewhere. We have continuity to the past. We are the product of generations and our own choices. Erik Erikson describes the stage of Integrity in the Life Cycle as the acceptance of one’s own and only  life cycle and of the people who have become significant to it as something that had to be and that, by necessity, permitted of no substitutions. It thus means a new different love of one’s parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, and an acceptance of the fact that one’s own life is one’s own responsibility. It is a sense of comradeship with men and women of distant times and of different pursuits, who have created orders and objects and sayings conveying human  dignity and love. (Identity and the life Cycle, p.104) Erikson placed Integrity as the last stage in the life cycle.     I am presently reading The Hornet’s Nest, a novel of the American revolutionary war in Georgia and the Carolinas, by Jimmy Carter. In writing about those times former President Carter is also trying to understand his continuity with his family members who settled in Georgia. By writing about that period he is getting in touch with what it must have been like for his ancestors. Some of the characters are based on them. He said that he began to study his family history in 1998. It was the 100th birthday of his ancestor who moved to southwest Georgia. As he started study the history he got interested in the period.     In Matthew’s account of the early childhood of Jesus (Matt.2:13- 23) we find that Jesus experienced this continuity with the past. Like his ancestor Joseph he was taken to Egypt. Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel by his sojourn in Egypt. Like Moses he was saved from certain death at the hand of the king of his day. When the time was come to return, the holy family left Egypt and traveled to Nazareth. Israel discovered its identity in Egypt , and the exodus from Egypt was the central point in the history of the nation.     Pharoah tried to destroy the people in Egypt, but Moses brought them out into the land of promise. Just as Pharoah failed to kill Moses, Herod, the new Pharoah, failed to kill the Savior. Eventually, Moses brought the children of Israel out of the land of bondage and death, and Moses’ successor was to bring the people out of a worse bondage and a worse death, the death of sin. Jesus is seen as the successor of Moses: he came to save his people from their sins. Jesus is going to rescue us. He is going to usher in the new exodus.     Matthew sees Jesus as fulfilling the Old Testament’s predictions. The history of God’s children is recapitulated in the history of God’s Son. As Israel of long ago was led down to Egypt, so was Jesus. As Israel came out, so did Jesus. He embodies and fulfils the history of the people of God in his own person.     Michael Green, in writing about these stories about Jesus’ childhood, concludes: Matthew makes it plain that God works through both surprise and continuity to bring about his purposes. The story of Jesus is utterly continuous with Abraham, with David and with the whole history of the chosen people. Bu t it also bristles with surprises. Perhaps this is to encourage us to expect God to be working in our lives steadily and continuously, making sense of our past history, but also to be on the lookout for God’s surprises in our lives, ready to grasp them and follow through their implications when they come. (The Message of Matthew, p.74)     Joseph was surprised by the angel of the Lord appearing to him in a dream and directing him to escape to Egypt. Yet in so doing he fulfilled he prophecies, and repeated the history of his family. When Herod ordered the mass acre of the boys under two years old he didn’t realize that he was repeating the sin of the Pharoah who opposed Moses. At the right time the angel directed Joseph and Mary back to the land of Israel. There they were warned in a dream not to settle in Judaea but to go to Galilee.     How often do we repeat the history of our ancestors? Sometimes we slip into committing the same sins as they did. Joseph was enabled to survive and flourish, to take care of his family, and to move on toward fulfilling divine destiny because he obeyed the guidance that was given him.   God is working in our lives steadily and continuously. He encourages us to make sense of our family histories, to discover patterns of behavior that are to be either avoided or embraced. We are also meant to be on the look out for God’s surprises in our lives, and be willing to grasp them and follow through on their implications when  they come.     What surprises will God have in store for you this coming year?  Whatever they are, they are meant to be for your good. When you respond  to them positively you will find that you will be fulfilling your divine  destiny.     The Rev. Schroder is the rector of the chapel on Amelia Island  Plantation. He is an Episcopal priest.     END

The group was formed in protest to the approval of an openly gay Episcopalian bishop.     Tampa, Bay Florida   The group was formed because of disagreement about the approval of a gay bishop. Episcopal churches in the Bay area are now part of a new breakaway network of dioceses.   The new group was formed because of disagreement about the approval of an openly gay Episcopalian bishop.     Mark Sholander, a church leader of the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Polk County, says the approval has left his parishioners feeling that their church has been hijacked by a small group of innovative thinkers.     It’s a very small, but very vocal minority who is trying to impose upon the ancient church new belief systems, so it’s frustrating, said Sholander.     Sholander says the network is a way to preserve their beliefs that have existed for more than 500 years. Leaders of the network want to eventually be recognized as the authentic Episcopalian church by Anglican bishops overseas.     END

BY SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS The Wichita Eagle About 40 members of an Episcopal church in east Wichita have established a n ew congregation within the Orthodox Church, citing their disapproval of the decidedly liberal drift of the Episcopal Church in recent years. The Rev. John Flora, 57, retired rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, will lead the new congregation, which will begin worshipping at St. George’s Orthodox Christian Cathedral in Wichita at 10 a.m. on Sunday.     Flora said he and the group of former St. Stephen’s parishioners have grown frustrated with the Episcopal Church, including its approval of its first openly gay bishop in August.     When I found the Episcopal Church in college, I really believed I had found something that was connected to the ancient church and was going  to remain steadfast, Flora said.     But my experience in the past 31 years as a priest is, there’s been a slippery slide into theological relativism, and that’s not where I’m at.     Officials with the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, including Bishop Dean Wolfe, were out of town for the holidays and could not be reached for comment.     Melodie Woerman, spokeswoman for the diocese, said that news of Flora’s new church mission was a surprise, and that church officials would be unlikely to make a comment until they learned more about the situation. The new church, St. Michael the Archangel Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, will be the first Western Rite Orthodox parish in Kansas. It will join a growing number of Orthodox congregations that use a Western  form for their liturgy, rather than the more characteristic Byzantine Rite.     The liturgy of the new church will be similar to that of the traditional Anglican Book of Common Prayer, Flora said, with some additions to make it conform to Orthodox theology. Becoming an Orthodox priest, which he plans to do on Easter, will complete a personal and theological evolution for Flora.     During seminary, he participated in a dialogue group between Anglican and Orthodox churches, and he has been interested in Palestinian issues and Orthodoxy ever since. For now, the new St. Michael parish will hold worship services in the chapel at St. George’s Cathedral, 7515 E. 13th St. But Flora hopes the congregation will grow and eventually have its own facility.     Leaving the 2.4 million-member Episcopal Church was a real hard decision, Flora said, but one I felt I had to make.     Other parishioners planning to join Flora agreed. This has nothing to do with St. Stephen’s itself. It has everything to do with the Episcopal Church USA, said Bill Anderson, head of the St. Michael parish council.     My belief is that we have not left the Episcopal Church; it has left us, he said. This is not a decision we took lightly, nor is it something that just happened.     END

By DAVID BROOKS THE NEW YORK TIMES December 30, 2003     George W. Bush was born into an Episcopal family and raised as a Presbyterian, but he is now a Methodist. Howard Dean was baptized Catholic, and raised as an Episcopalian. He left the church after it opposed a bike trail he was championing, and now he is a Congregationalist, though his kids consider themselves Jewish. Wesley Clark’s father was Jewish. As a boy he was Methodist, then decided to become a Baptist. In adulthood he converted to Catholicism, but he recently told Beliefnet.com , I’m a Catholic, but I go to a Presbyterian church.     What other country on earth would have three national political figures with such peripatetic religious backgrounds? In most of the world, faith-hopping of this sort is simply unheard of.     Yet in the United States, we simply take it for granted that people will  move through different phases in the course of their personal spiritual  journeys, and we always have. Nearly 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville was bewildered by the mixture of devout religiosity he found in the U.S. combined with the relative absence of denominational strife, at least among  protestants. Americans, he observed, don’t seem to care  that their neighbors hold to false versions of the faith.     That’s because many Americans have tended to assume that all these differences are temporary. In the final days, the distinctions will fade away, and we will all be united in God’s embrace. This happy assumption has meant that millions feel free to try on different denominations at different points in their lives, and many Americans have had trouble taking religious doctrines altogether seriously.     As the historian Henry Steele Commager once wrote, During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, religion prospered while theology slowly went bankrupt. This tendency to emphasize personal growth over any fixed creed has shaped our cultural and political life.   First, it’s meant that Americans are reasonably tolerant, generally believing that all people of good will are basically on the same side.     In London recently, President Bush said that Christians and Muslims both pray to the same God. That was theologically controversial, but it was faithful to the national creed. Second, it has meant that we relax severity. American faiths, as many scholars note, have tended to be optimistic and easygoing, experiential rather than intellectual.   Churches compete for congregants. To fill the pews, they often emphasize the upbeat and the encouraging and play down the business about God’s wrath. In today’s megachurches, the technology is cutting-edge, the music is modern, the language is therapeutic, and the dress is casual. These churches are seeker-sensitive, not authoritarian.     The small groups movement, from which President Bush emerges, emphasizes  intimate companionship and encouragement. Members of these groups study the Bible in search of guidance and help with personal Challenges. They  do not preach at one another, but partner with each other. The third effect of our dominant religious style is that we have trouble sustaining culture wars.     For some European intellectuals, and even some of our own commentators, the Scopes trial never ended. For them, the forces of enlightened progress are always battling against the rigid, Bible-thumping forces of religion, whether represented by William Jennings Bryan or Jerry Falwell.     But that’s a cartoon version of reality. In fact, real-life belief, especially these days, is mobile, elusive and flexible. Falwell doesn’t represent evangelicals today. The old culture war organizations like the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition are either dead or husks of their former selves.     As the sociologist Alan Wolfe demonstrates in his book, The Transformation of American Religion, evangelical churches are part of mainstream American culture, not dissenters from it. So we have this paradox. These days political parties grow more orthodox, while religions grow more fluid. In the political sphere, there is conflict and rigid partisanship.     In the religious sphere, there is mobility, ecumenical understanding and blurry boundaries. If George Bush and Howard Dean met each other on a political platform, they would fight and feud. If they met in a Bible study group and talked about their eternal souls, they’d probably embrace.     END

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN THE NEW YORK TIMES   The decision this year by the Episcopal Church USA to ordain an openly gay bishop has set off a wave of church switching, according to dozens of interviews with clergy members and parishioners across the country.   Some lifelong Episcopalians have left their churches, saying the vote to affirm a gay bishop was the last straw in what they saw as the church’s long slide away from orthodoxy.     Many of these people have started attending Roman Catholic churches. It breaks my heart, said Shari de Silva, a neurologist in Fort Wayne, Ind., who converted from Episcopalian to Catholic this year. I think the Episcopal Church is headed down the path to secular humanism. Some Episcopal parishes, meanwhile, are welcoming clusters of new members, many from Roman Catholic churches, who say they want to belong to a church that regards inclusivity as a Christian virtue.     The newcomers include singles and families, gay people and straight people. I don’t see how and why God would want his church, his worshipers, his sons and daughters to become carbon copies of each other, said Youssef El-Naggar, a former Catholic in Front Royal, Va., who recently joined an Episcopal church there.     While the switching is not always between the Episcopal and Catholic Churches, this appears to be the most common kind. Episcopal and Catholic Church officials say it is too early for them to tally the gains or losses. At the start of the year, the Episcopal Church USA claimed about 2.3 million members, the Catholic Church about 65 million.     It was only in June that the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elected the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, who has been openly living with a male partner, to be their next bishop. In August, Bishop-elect Robinson was approved by delegates at the church’s general convention (who also affirmed that some dioceses are celebrating gay unions).     After months of controversy, he was consecrated in November. The Catholic Church has reiterated its position on homosexuality, one that is a stark contrast to the Episcopal Church’s. In July, the Vatican denounced homosexual acts as deviant behavior and said the church could not condone gay marriage or adoptions by gay couples.     In September, the American Catholic bishops said they would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. While it is too soon to assess the fallout, some Episcopal clergy members told of an unusually high rate of arrivals and departures in recent months.     They said the newcomers were far different from casual church shoppers checking out a Sunday sermon. Many of the new arrivals say they intend to join, and some have already been confirmed or received into the church by their bishops. They’re not coming in as they used to even three years ago announcing, `I’m just church shopping, I’m just looking around,’  said the Rev. Elizabeth M. Kaeton, rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chatham, N.J. The people I’ve seen recently have come to me and said, `Sign me up, I’m ready.’  Ms. Kaeton, who is openly gay, supported the ordination of Bishop Robinson but said she had not dwelled on the issue in her church.     She said her parish of about 300 families had recently gained 15 new members, many of them from Catholic churches, and lost one to a Catholic church. Even for some heterosexuals, the Episcopal Church’s stance on homosexuality was the main reason for switching.     Mr. El-Naggar, a retired C.I.A. officer and college instructor, said that when he read the news about the church’s decision to back Bishop Robinson, he got out the Yellow Pages and phoned the closest Episcopal church.     He said he was pleased to discover that the rector at Calvary Episcopal Church was a woman, because he had always questioned the Catholic Church’s opposition to ordaining women. He now attends Calvary Episcopal and said he had been stunned at the open theological debate there over homosexuality and other issues.     I am trying to be a good Christian, and I have never felt that spiritual freedom I feel now in the Episcopal Church, Mr. El-Naggar said. Some new Episcopalians also mentioned that the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church had caused them to rethink their affiliation. First came revelations that some bishops had covered up abuse, then some Vatican and American officials suggested that gay priests were to blame for the problem.     We felt increasingly alienated by the Catholic Church, said Robert J. Martin, 56, a lawyer in Philadelphia who lives with his partner, Mark S. Petteruti, 45, a horticulturist. Both men were cradle Catholics. Until 1988, Mr. Martin was a Catholic priest in the Augustinian order.   This year a deacon at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia invited them to join a small group of gay church members who meet once a month for dinner. The couple soon began attending Sunday services at St. Paul’s, which is directly across the street from the Catholic church where, 30 years ago, Mr. Martin was ordained a priest.     What was most impressive was the fact that the straight people were welcoming us as a couple, and as potential members of the congregation, Mr. Martin said. We felt included and affiliated almost immediately.     In Fort Wayne, Dr. de Silva moved in the opposite direction. She was raised Episcopalian and was bringing up two adopted children in that church. But, she said, she could not accept the church’s stance on homosexuality because it violates the first commandment, to be faithful to God. She said she objected when her children were taught about gay rights in church Sunday school.     She began attending St. Elizabeth Anne Seton Catholic Church. She has read the catechism cover to cover, she said, and has already been confirmed. The advantage of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that there is a central authority that tends to hold the church together, and unfortunately the Anglican experiment, which was a wonderful experiment for almost 500 years, lacked that, Dr. de Silva said.     For many the move between the Episcopal and Catholic Churches is a natural transition. The Episcopal Church, which is the American branch of Anglicanism, is considered the bridge between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity. For three decades, these two denominations have seen plenty of back and forth, said Robert Bruce Mullin, professor of history, world mission and modern Anglican studies at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York. As the Episcopal Church began ordaining women and dropped the ban on communion for divorced people, Professor Mullin said, conservative Episcopalians began to leave, while many socially liberal Catholics began to join.   It’s hard to remember that 30 years ago, the Episcopal Church was one of the more conservative churches on issues of social morality, he said. Since the 1970’s, when Episcopalians began building a network of churches that agreed to be open and accepting toward homosexuality, gay Catholics have been quietly joining Episcopal parishes.     Among clergy members, it is not unusual to find Episcopal priests, especially women, who are converts from Catholicism. Clergy crossovers also go in the other direction.     A small number of married Episcopal priests are now allowed to minister in Roman Catholic churches that lack their own clergy members. But the pace of church swapping among parishioners appears to have picked up this year. In some cases, whole groups have jumped.     About 25 percent of the congregation at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Dallas recently left after the votes on homosexuality, said the rector, the Rev. David M. Allen. Those who left included some of the church’s bedrock, like its secretary and the two men who used to volunteer to mow the lawn every Tuesday, Father Allen said. All but one left for Catholic churches, he said.     The exodus, Father Allen said, was the result of years of dissatisfaction for many parishioners. St. Francis, which had about 300 members, is known as an Anglo-Catholic parish, meaning that in worship style it retained Catholic traditions like a devotion to Mary, the rosary and a solemn high Mass with Gregorian chant.   For members long opposed to the ordination of women, a gay bishop was the end of the road. I think many people in this parish came to the conclusion that there was the apparent absence of any kind of authority that operates to restrain the Episcopal Church in any way, Father Allen said. They wanted to be part of a church which they saw as being bigger than American culture, which had an authority which went beyond our cultural conventions.     END

Dear Brothers and Sisters,   WELCOME TO 2004!     First of all I want to thank all of you who contributed so generously to the ministry of Virtuosity during this past year. I am grateful that it meant so much to you, and that you allowed me to travel to get the news that you needed and wanted to read. Thank you for your support. I am deeply grateful.     VIRTUOSITY’S readership grew by leaps and bounds in 2003 with more than 500,000 (560,000 by year’s end) folk going to the website and reading the news. This is most gratifying. The greatest jump in readership occurred at General Convention with more than 300,000 ‘hits’ since September Virtuosity’s website is being accessed at the rate of more than 60,000 hits per month and that figure is climbing so my webmaster tells me. Hundreds more sign on to get the digest directly into their computers well before daybreak and breakfast. (The digest downloads at 4am Eastern Standard Time.) I am told that the figure of one million readers will access the website by July.     I am truly grateful Virtuosity is meeting a need. From the beginning it has been this writer’s intention to give you the unvarnished no spin zone truth about what is going on in the Episcopal Church and in the wider Anglican Communion. I have coupled that with stories that reflect the culture wars going on in the church and in the wider world. In many cases the two overlap.     I am deeply grateful to Virtuosity’s columnists, Mike McManus, Terry Mattingly Frederica Mathewes Green, Ian Hunter, Uwe Simon-Netto, Lekan Lotufodunrin (Nigeria) who wrote stories from a biblical world view to address issues of the family, faith and culture. Virtuosity’s resident theologian Dr. Robert Sanders also took some long hard looks at ECUSA’s theological bearings and saw them askew. And a special thanks to all those sources who sent me story tips and quotes, and who could not reveal their names for fear of reprisal from their revisionist bishops, I thank you. Without you a goodly number of stories would never have been written. My special thanks for your bravery in writing to me.     I also want to thank all those who sent me stories that I used from all over the world. You are too numerous to name in person. I was glad to hear from NZ, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Singapore, England, Nigeria, Uganda, Sweden, Europe, the old Soviet Union and many more. My deepest thanks to you and I hope you will continue to send me stories in 2004.   I also want to pay tribute to the growing group of orthodox women who are emerging in leadership roles in The Episcopal Church, particularly Jan Mahood, President of Episcopalians for Traditional Faith, Chris Fouse, Forward in Faith, US; Diane Knippers, IRD; Diane Stanton for her work with the Uganda Christian University; Theologian Edith Humphrey and so many more. It is a pleasure to be associated with you and to receive your news. I am in your debt.     This year also saw the addition of Mr. Robert Turner to Virtuosity’s staff. He took responsibility for Virtuosity’s website. For those of you who access the website you will notice a whole new look for 2004. I am indebted to Robert for making this happen.     Finally, a special note of thanks to my attorney Mr. John H. Lewis, Jr. who kept me from going over the edge so many times, often working long into the night, when most of you slept, checking and editing my stories for legal niceties and much more. A note of thanks also to my board for their unfailing support of my ministry, especially to TK. Thank you.     IN TODAY’S DIGEST you will read my six-part: 2003 - YEAR IN REVIEW. It is somewhat detailed, perhaps more than you would care to read, but there are some important historical landmarks that cannot be lightly passed over. Please feel free to float this around to your Episcopal friends and encourage them to join Virtuosity so they will no longer be in the dark about what is going on in the Episcopal Church. Pass the torch around.     The Year 2004 will I believe, be even more traumatic than 2003, if that is possible. But events are shaping up in the Anglican Communion that will reach boiling point. There will be no going back, no more compromises with truth, no more talk of pluriform truths. The Global South is a sleeping giant no more, and they have the numbers. They also have a clear fix on the nature and content of the gospel. They will continue to flex their muscle in the face of the revisionist West, and they will no longer tolerate apostasy and heresy in faith and morals. That day is done.     What is at stake is the very ‘Faith once delivered’ nothing less. What is involved is the very truth of the gospel, a gospel that promises redemption and grace, forgiveness and hope, (that no so-called inclusionist ‘gospel’ can begin to offer) - with lives changed forever by the power of the Holy Ghost, redeemed by the Son and brought into right relationship with the Father of lights - God himself.   In the US we await the outcome of a church within a church a parallel church of orthodox believers who will stand against the Moloch ECUSA, which has sold its soul for bad sexual practices, compromised theology and much more. We are in for a long, bumpy ride, and those laid-back Canadians will continue to bear the brunt of anger from The revisionist bully bishop Michael Ingham and show us all what it means to stand.     There will also be new alliances as the Anglican Continuum grapples with its own place under the Anglican sun. We will not be able to ignore the growing influence of the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA) as it continues to gobble up thriving ECUSA parishes. There would seem to be no let up in sight there. Virtuosity will report on it all.     You can also be sure that, as their influence diminishes, revisionist bishops and their parasitic homosexualists will continue their quest for greater power, because that is all they have left in their armory. They have no faith, no transforming gospel, only raw naked power propped up with trust funds - dead men’s money - accumulated in the years of plenty, but will now surely diminish in the coming lean years.     NEW  VIRTUOSITY WEBSITE. Today Virtuosity introduces a brand new website that can still be reached at www.virtuosityonline.org . It has a whole new look with easier access to articles, faster downloading and a front page that will have a new story posted every day. There will be places for readers to comment on stories, an interactive discussion forum, a Guestbook and Frequently Asked Questions.     Our new website will provide the foundation for Virtuosity to distribute news on a more frequent basis. Please explore the FAQ section of the new site where you will find information and instructions on searching for articles, contributing to the discussions and how you can support Virtuosity’s ministry. We appreciate your  comments and look forward to hearing from you. Comments, questions and concerns about the new website can be sent to Webmaster@Virtuosityonline.org .     THIS PAST YEAR saw a new Archbishop installed in Canterbury, an openly homosexual priest consecrated a bishop, an emergency meeting of Primates and much more. It is all posted in a six-part YEAR IN REVIEW that you can read today. I am posting a number of end-of-year stories and columns which I think will be of interest to you.     The growing and widening influence of Virtuosity is by no means the doing of this single writer, it is the collective wisdom and writings of many, with the profound belief that God has raised up this ministry for such a time as this. I could not exist without your prayers and financial support.     I do hope you will continue your prayerful and financial support in 2004. Please note that I am in the process of sending out personal letters for tax purposes to those who made donations. Please be patient while I attend to this. I am doing this between heavy writing schedules.     Later this week I will be attending the ACI conference in Charleston, SC following which I shall be going to the AMIA Conference in Destin, Florida.     Please support this ministry with your tax-deductible donation. You can send a gift through PAYPAL at the website www.virtuosityonline.org , or you can send a gift by snail mail to: David W. Virtue, VIRTUOSITY, 1236 Waterford Road, West Chester, PA 19380. Thank you for your support.     All Blessings,   David W. Virtue DD   END

By Julia Duin THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published January 5, 2004   The direction of the Episcopal Church is increasingly being determined not by its clergy or church institutions, but by a group of determined Internet jockeys whose reach encircles the globe.   They are men who spend 12 to 14 hours a day sending out posts to message boards, fielding replies or overseeing blogs, or journals on the Internet, about the conflict tearing the 2.3-million-member denomination apart: the Nov. 2 consecration of the first openly homosexual Episcopal bishop.     On Aug. 5, the Episcopal General Convention meeting in Minneapolis confirmed Canon V. Gene Robinson’s election to the episcopate. The vote was delayed a day because of an Internet message calling attention to the bishop-elect’s connection to a youth ministry Web site that had links to hard-core pornography.     David Virtue, founder of www.virtuosityonline.org and the originator of that message, said a conservative bishop had called him at midnight the night before he posted it.     He said, ‘You’ll take the lid off the church if you do this,’  Mr. Virtue says. I did do it, and the lid came off. The article about the bishop’s ties to the youth site, posted at 4 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 4, triggered an emergency meeting of Episcopal leaders a few hours later. By early afternoon, TV camera crews were pouring into the convention’s conference center.     Although Mr. Robinson was cleared a day later of having any connection to the pornographic links, the lesson was clear: any self-appointed Web master could influence an entire denomination.     Since then, more activists have taken to their keyboards. Very few have any journalism training and most say they make no money at it. All say it’s a spiritual calling to get the news out.     When Bishop Michael Ingham of the Diocese of New Westminster near Vancouver, B.C., decided to shut down a conservative mission church four days before Christmas, one of his fellow Canadian priests sprung into action.     Within hours of the Ingham story appearing on the Web site of the National Post, a Toronto-based newspaper, the priest had sent copies around the world.     Traditionally, the institution has controlled church news, said the priest, a man in his 30s whose Internet nickname is Binky the Web Elf. Now the Internet supercedes regular media. This news about New Westminster would not have appeared in a church newspaper for a month, [but via the Internet] what a bishop says in North America can be read by a bishop in Central Africa in a few hours.     He gets 1,500 to 2,000 visits a day to his site, Classical Anglican Net News, also known as www.anglican.tk . So much news is pouring out from various Episcopal-related sources from around the world that he posts two daily briefings.   People are hungry for this, so they come where it is, he says. Even [Episcopal News Service director] Jim Solheim wrote us, saying he checks us daily.     The ordinary people may not have the theological tools to stand up to their leaders. They often don’t have that extra bit of information that allows them to say this is their church, too. Now through the Internet, their story is being told.     Not that bishops are taking this lying down.     I have drawers full of hate mail. The Internet has enabled the technological equivalent of drive-by shootings, Bishop Ingham told a Canadian magazine, MacLean’s. I’ve had to learn to deal with a level of malevolence and sheer hatred that I frankly didn’t know existed in the church.     Washington Bishop John B. Chane, another church liberal, termed Mr. Virtue mean-spirited in a June 22 sermon.     We’re not as creative or direct as David Virtue at sharing our side of the story, he confided. We have to break that noose.     The church’s leading liberal Internet activist is Louie Crew, founder of the Episcopal homosexual caucus Integrity.     Mr. Crew, 67, who nicknames himself Quean Lutibelle posts items like Queer Eye for the Heterosexual Imagination and other offerings at http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/rel.html .     The site, which gets about 800 hits a day, has 3,000 pages of Episcopal minutiae: history, lists of diocesan contacts, links to other Episcopal sites, articles, essays, photos, statements, audios of sermons, even an invitation to a renewal of vows for him and his partner.     A retired English professor from Rutgers University, Mr. Crew says he spends 12 hours a day processing material.     Before the Internet, he says, There was spin. Now there’s counterspin. We have to listen to points of view we don’t like. I have convictions and support them, but don’t want to be an ideologue.     Atop his Web site is the queen of spades, a title bestowed upon him by Mr. Virtue. In return, Mr. Crew awarded Mr. Virtue the title of joker.     Mr. Virtue, 59, a New Zealand native who lives in West Chester, Pa., began writing investigative articles for Episcopalians United, a conservative group, in the mid-1990s. Finding church politics habit-forming, he created his Internet site in 1998. To date, it has received 500,000 hits, 300,000 since the General Convention.     He also sends out a news digest several times a week to 100,000 readers.     He estimates he works 70 hours, seven days a week. Contributors send in about $80,000 a year, he says, which, after expenses, ends up at $35,000 a year. All of his postings are first checked by an attorney.     It’s what I feel called to do, he says, to bring the light of the Gospel on the revisionist nonsense of the Episcopal Church and to show it’s morally bankrupt. To do this, you have to bring the sludge to light.     Some of Mr. Virtue’s material gets distributed by the Rev. Richard Kim, 76, a retired Episcopal priest who runs an informal news service out of Detroit from an America Online account.     He searches newspapers, secular wire services and church Web sites all over the English-speaking world for documents and articles to circulate. He also has an extensive network of church contacts who send confidential reports to him.     Nothing’s a secret anymore, he says. Bishops in the church can no longer do things quietly. Anything that’s put out quickly goes around the globe. The Internet has allowed people to challenge assumptions, critique them and given ordinary people a chance to raise questions that would not ordinarily be raised.       copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc.   END