14th January 2004   The Most Revd. Datuk Yong Ping Chung Archbishop & Primate - Anglican Church in South East Asia The Fourth AMIA Winter Conference Destin, Florida     Opening Address     Theme: Rediscovering the ancient/future Faith:  Setting My People Free   Readings: Genesis 3:1-19,  Romans 5:6-11,  St. Johns 1:1-14   Praise God, from whom all blessings flow Praise Him, all creatures here below Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.   We gather in Destin, Florida tonight at this opening service of the 4th. AMIA Winter Conference to worship God. We join the heavenly hosts and all the saints in every generation to sing the songs of ever-lasting praises and thanksgiving as recorded in Revelation chapter 5:   Holy Holy  Holy Lord God Almighty Who was and is and is to come You are worthy, O Lord To receive glory and honour and power For you created all things and by your will They exist and were created, You are worth to take the scroll And to open its seals For you were slain, And have redeemed us to God by your blood. Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, You have made us kings and priests to our God And we shall reign on the earth.   We gather to proclaim to the whole world. Blessing and honour and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne And to the lamb for ever and ever.     We gather here tonight to testify to the great and mighty works that God has done in our lives as individuals and as a Mission. Indeed we testify that there have been renewal and revival taking place over and over again among our churches in AMIA. We want to praise and thank God for His loving kindness and wonderful grace.     We gather as a community of faith, redeemed through, and set free by, His precious blood, to wait upon the Lord for His words. With eager and sure expectation, in the context of vibrant worship, warm and intimate fellowship we want to explore the theme of this conference: Rediscovering the Ancient /Future Faith: Setting My People free     Our theme for this Conference was prayerfully chosen to draw our attention, to provoke our thoughts and to challenge our spirits.  It is a timely theme, especially in a time like ours. When the whole of Christianity is being challenged undermined and attacked, the people of God need to rediscover once again the essence of our faith, the truth about God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the reality about ourselves and the world we live.     John in the Island of Patmos was bewildered by what was going on around him. He asked what would happen to the church, God took him back to where it all started - the Throne Room in Heaven - Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. (Revelation 4:1) But before that at the end of chapter 3 of the same book He says - He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Church     The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, which Jesus promised His disciples and all of us who are His followers. He said in John 14:26- 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, We, the people of God must be reminded that our beliefs and actions must be judged solely by the Word and the Spirit. We must never trust in ourselves alone neither should we allow our interpretations to rule our lives and our church.  Jesus Christ and His Word are the ultimate authority for us and for His Church. What has happened to our Churches is that the absolute authority of the Bible the centrality and the uniqueness of Jesus have been so camouflaged by many man made elements through the history of the church.   We have allowed the contemporary cultures, the secular human desires, the worldly philosophies, together with the Canons and constitutions and whatever, to blind us of the Faith that was once for all entrusted to the Saints. Today we are here to rediscover the truth and the essence of our faith. We want to pray that this Winter Conference 2004 will help us to rediscover our ancient /future faith. We pray the TRUTH will set all our people free to declare that:     Our God is greater than any of these. Our God is Sovereign.  He is GOD.   Let me illustrate from the culture I know best, i.e. the Chinese culture.   In the Chinese culture the dragon is a very prominent feature.  The Chinese dragon holds a very important position in the hearts and minds of the Chinese. Consequently it has great influence in the arts, literature, music architecture, etc.  Basically, in the Chinese mind the dragon represents what is powerful, prosperous, glorious, strong and authoritative.   The Emperor was considered the direct descendant of the dragon and therefore he was responsible to heaven for the harmony on earth.  If you look at the aintings of the dragon in each Dynasty you will see the gradual evolution of the dragon.  Bit by bit as the years went on you see different elements added on to the dragon.  Today, you will find that most dragons would have the claws of an eagle, the paws of a tiger, the ears of an ox, the head of a camel, the neck of a snake, the horns of a deer, the scales of a large fish and it even has the eyes of the devil. You can almost see the Chinese imagination and the Chinese superstition joining forces to create a vivid symbol that was to be worshipped and adored. What men desired and longed for they added onto their object of worship. What they themselves have invented and created was used to fulfill their own desire and longing.     Eventually they cannot separate the real from the imaginary. They are enslaved by their own understanding and followed their own desires of the flesh and they lived according to it and gave their lives for it.  If you start stripping off all the added features of the dragon, interestingly there remains a tiny little seemingly harmless snake. Unfortunately for them, the symbol of their hope and aspiration was so camouflaged that many could not see the evil they were building on and the hopelessness of what they worshipped.  As they get deeper and deeper into it they get more and more trapped in it.  There seems no way out.     Isn’t this exactly what the world has done to Christianity?   They have camouflaged our faith so much that they are not able to see the truth that belies them all. Through out the centuries, people have added their own opinions of what they thought Christianity should be. Again and again the invasion of contemporary cultures and the eagerness of the church to accommodate the cultures slowly alters the essence of our faith. Hence elements are added according to what they thought Christianity needed. They have set out formats and rituals that were once used to enhance the worship of God and made them the main focus of worship. They have distorted the Scriptures.  Some, like those picked up in the Book of Jude, have: changed the grace of our God into a license for immorality and denied Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.     While others have added rules and regulations that bind the churches to certain earthly establishments and they have allowed that to be the authority of the church.  We need to go back to our roots - the ancient faith.  We need to strip off all the added parts of man-made Christianity and rediscover once again the essence of our faith.  We need to once again see God as He is, in all His splendor and His glory.  We need to go up to the heavenly throne room, as John did, to fill our eyes with the awesomeness of His holiness and to surrender totally to His perfect sovereignty and to experience personally His wonderful, compassionate and unconditional love for us.     We need to go back to the beginning.  Even before the world was created, God was already there. Our faith begins with God.  Right from the first chapter, the first verse of our Scriptures it says, In the beginning GOD. Everything that God created was good.  He was pleased with what he made. He made man and woman in His own image and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life.  He loved them and wanted them to respond to His love.  He gave them the gift of Free Will so that they can make choices and to respond to His love freely and to enjoy the creation in which He has put under their care. All these God did because He loved us.  Man responded to Gods love. But man also took advantage of Gods love and misused the gift of Free Will.  He deliberately turned away from God and desired his own glory and followed the desires of his own flesh. In another word man rebelled and sinned against God.  We saw how it all started in our first reading of Genesis 3 tonight.  It is still here today.  We need to strip off the fluffs of the worldly euphemism and acknowledge the Doctrine of Sin. The Bible is very specific and clear. It calls SIN by its true name.     For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Roman 3:23)   In Romans 6:23 it also says the wages of sin is death. Indeed Sin separates us far from God and traps us into eternal damnation and death.     Let’s face it; we need help! We cannot set ourselves free. We need a Saviour to deliver us out of our bondage and set as free.  God, in His marvelous plans, has already provided us that help.     For God so loved the world that he gave  s one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)     God sent His only Son Jesus into the world so that the world can have hope again.  Jesus quoted the Scriptures and declared His mission on earth.  He said in Luke 4:18-19:-     The Spirit of the Lord is on me, Because he has anointed me To preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim Freedom for the prisoners And recovery of sight for the blind, To release the oppressed to proclaim the year of  the Lords favour.     Jesus did this by dying on the cross for our sins. In him we have redemption through his blood,  the forgiveness of sins.  (Ephesians 1:7)     But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)     Once again through the blood of Jesus our relationship with God is restored and once again we can call God Abba, Father.     Jesus said: I am  the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  (John 14:6)   He is the only way because salvation can be found in no one else.  He is the truth, and the truth shall set us free.  He is the life, for He has the key to eternal life. This is Good News.  And His command to us is: go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of  the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18-19)     Yes, the World needs Jesus. The Anglican Communion needs Jesus AMIA needs Jesus, your church needs Jesus, you and I needs Jesus. We all needs to be set free from the bondage of sin. And Jesus is the only answer.     Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are here precisely for this.  The Mission of AMIA is to go and tell the world about our wonderful Saviour. Go and tell everybody that there is hope.  Plant new churches for the love of Christ Let us strip off all the fluffs of the man-made Christianity and let us rediscover our ancient Faith together for the future for our children and children’s children. I pray that each one of us while we are here will experience the awesomeness of the presence of God among us.  We truly be so inspired by the Spirit of God that we want to fall on our knees and join the heavenly host and sing, Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty Who was, and is, and is to come,..     I pray that we will experience the love of God so intimately that His love will compel us to live our lives in responds to His love.  And His love will give us boldness to witness for him and truly be the light and the salt of the world.  I pray that we will be filled with His compassion for the lost that our desire in life is to share with others the Good News of Jesus and to see others come into the Kingdom of God. I pray that we will faithfully proclaim Jesus Christ and faithfully pass on the faith to the next generation.     Through the rediscovery of our ancient faith God wants us to be set free to move forward for the future. This is His promise for us when we take the step of faith:   Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland to give drink to My people, My chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim My praise. (Isaiah 43:18-21)     Let us pray:     Thank you our Father in heaven for this wonderful promise Thank you Lord Jesus for setting us free from all the bondages of sin and the hindrances of our time.     Thank you Holy Spirit for reviving us, renewing us and empowering us. Almighty God Father, Son and Holy Spirit send us out from this AMiA Winter Conference2004 to win this nation and all the nations of the world for you .In Jesus precious and mighty name we pray. Amen.

by: Ephraim Radner     One of the most egregious failures of the ECUSA’s recent General Convention, and of the many of the leaders and bishops engaged in its decisions, has been their demonstrated rejection of Christian accountability as an essential virtue defining the life of the institutional church.   The actions of General Convention itself, in consenting to a non-celibate gay man’s election as a bishop and in affirming the legitimacy of local same-sex blessings around the church, and subsequent actions by the Presiding Bishop and other bishops and dioceses in affirming these decisions, have all deliberately repudiated the constraining power of the common mind, pleas, admonitions, and moral persuasions of both the Episcopal Church’s past commitments, her traditions and historic foundations, and her brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion around the world.     The world stands and wonders, as do many Episcopalians, what then are you accountable to, if not to the authorities of your common life? The rejection of Christian accountability -- mutual, charitable, ordered, and founded in the demands of Christ’s own Body -- represents one of the great assaults upon the promises of God in our age.  The press to ecclesial anarchy characterizes a common rebellion, in which we are all complicit. The current unraveling of the Anglican Communion, and the disintegration of the ECUSA itself stands as a judgment upon our shared desire to dispense with being held accountable and calling others to a reciprocal posture of responsibility.     In view of this spreading failure, it is important at least to note that a faithful response to its evangelical ravages cannot be to embrace some alternative autonomy and to add to the overturning of structures that hold us answerable to each other as a communion, however tottering they may now seem.  The case of the AMiA (The Anglican Mission in America) represents an exemplar of succumbing to autonomy’s encouragement and to communal accountability’s subversion, all in the genuine desire to protest autonomy’s attack upon the Christian faith.     Having rightly identified the spiritual dangers of a disintegrated evangelical witness within ECUSA, and of the weakening of the historic faith and order that ought to be binding American Anglicanism’s life with the larger Communion, the AMiA chose to move unilaterally to set up alternative parish and episcopal structures, only tenuously tied to and approved by a tiny minority of leaders of the larger Anglican Communion and positively rejected by most orthodox Primates, and to call this a form of testimony against the failures of the Episcopal Church.     The clear problem in this response was that it set out to address ECUSAs rejection of Christian accountability through a process that itself refused to be held accountable to anyone else.  The fruit of this project has, predictably, been to hasten the demise of the historic faith and orderof Anglicanism in the United States altogether, a process whose ill effects are seeping into the international community itself.     To take but a local example, let us consider what took place in Colorado. In this moderately conservative diocese, already struggling three years ago to maintain some center of evangelical witness, the AMiA recruited and encouraged the defection of at least 15 clergy from ECUSA, and ended by splitting 9 congregations (closing one altogether).   All of these clergy and congregations were in fact conservative in their commitments and life. Whether deliberately or not, the process involved in these splits proved divisive amongst friends and colleagues, led to mutual accusations and recriminations, and fostered a deep sense of mutual mistrust and even betrayal among former allies in the faith.    In the midst of these discussions and arguments, meetings and counter-meetings, to what authority could one appeal?   Not to the local bishop, of course, whose theological leadership was in dispute;  not to existing bishops within the AMiA, because initially they had none in America, and were acting under the self-appointed direction of concerned priests ;  not to the common mind of the Anglican Communion, whose body of Primates, among the conservative as much as anyone, refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the AMiAs self-ordering.  And when the AMiA next chose to consecrate their own bishops, the question of self-justification was embodied in a process by definition of  ecclesial and episcopal self-invention.     The fall-out in Colorado was predictable and, in many instances, devastating.  The voting ranks of conservative clergy were depleted, conservative congregations were debilitated, and in several cases their clergy replaced with non-orthodox priests.  Further, the image of the conservative witness was, in the eyes of moderates and other conservatives, deeply tarnished by what many regarded, rightly or wrongly, as deceit, manipulation, and the self-promoting tactics of AMiA leaders. In the space of 2 years, Colorado went from being a mildly conservative diocese, to being one with an effective liberal majority in terms of leadership and direction.   There is no question but that the current ability of conservative clergy and laity to stand as a force of orthodox confession in the diocese is not only severely weakened, but considered fruitless by most, in large part because of the wreckage left by the AMiAs pursuit of the autonomous in order to punish autonomy.   It is not clear what the force of the AMiAs own evangelistic witness is within the state, but it is not certainly visible as an alternative example of clarion success.     On a wider scale, the AMiAs effect on the dynamics of Communion decision-making are no more constructive.  The AMiAs episcopal consecrations flew in the face of agreements made between Global South Primates and leaders earlier at Kampala, and there was felt by many around the world who were sympathetic with the doctrinal concerns of the group a deep sense of betrayal and division.  What was viewed therefore as a refusal by the AMiA leadership and supporters to abide by the common mind of the Communions sympathetic leadership - that is, a refusal to be held accountable - ended by rupturing trust among many Global-South Primates, and ruined the image of conservative/orthodox witness within the Communion in the eyes of more moderate leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose advisors have explicitly described the AMiA as a retreat into the impossibly autonomous.  This remains the case, and stands as one of the great obstacles to a forceful response to ECUSAs current rebellion.  There is a (mistaken) fear among some Primatial leaders, looking at what has happened with the AMiA, that decisive and courageous action now is equivalent to prideful self-assertion.    And all this for the same reasons as in the local compass of a diocese:  the experience of a rejected call to mutual and responsible accountability -- with all of the interior resentments involved in such an experience --  has made many people around the Communion abandon confidence in the integrity and effectiveness of conservative witness as a persuasive direction for others to follow.  In the name of maintaining Anglican unity in the truth, the AMiA has embodied practices of autonomous self-promotion to the detriment of communion, and thereby rendered suspect the very vision of a common faith and discipline that many have tried so hard to further.     Not all AMiA clergy or leaders, or certainly laity, can rightly be touched by this general evaluation - surely most are people of integrity of faith and vision, who made difficult choices, often sacrificial ones, for the sake of what they saw to be the substance of their vows before God.  But the general evaluation still holds because of the overall direction of leadership that has refused  to place its decisions within an arena of common accountability within the Communion, all of which encouraged and even upheld the many instances of perceived moral failure that mar the internal debates of Anglican conservatives now more than ever.  In all this, the AMiA represents, therefore, one aspect of ECUSAs and the Communions internal malaise.  It is a symptom of spiritual disease, not an instrument of healing.     This is a parable of warning.  Warning even against the paths we have already set down to follow.   Whatever happens to the Anglican Communion, or to Anglicanism within North America, or to individual Episcopalians who desperately seek some renewed clarity of witness to the Gospel that they can be sure is held in common with their church, the decisions and choices we make must be in favor of mutual accountability in Christ, and not against it.  This will not be easy, simply because the choices we make in testimony of the historic faith and order of the Christian Church will be opposed by some, perhaps by a local majority; and the temptation will be to press our testimony into a realm of individual freedom, cut loose from the constraints of blasphemy and persecution we so acutely feel around us.  The danger, however, is that we will soon find ourselves floating in a sea of competing testimonies and freedoms, and mutually assaulting claims.  And the faith and order we set out to defend will be lost amid in the debris.     The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is rector, Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado      END

The Presiding Bishop sees the denominations current path as the only way--because its truthful.   Interview by Deborah Caldwell - Beliefnet.com   Since last summer, Frank Griswold, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, has been in the vortex of his denominations controversy over its election of an openly gay bishop. Yet during the church’s August convention and into the fall, Griswold has remained out of the limelight.     In the last few weeks, dissident members of the church--those opposed to the church’s liberal stance on homosexuality--are increasingly threatening to circumvent the bishops authority in order to replace the Episcopal Church with conservative leadership. This week Griswold sat down to talk with Beliefnet. During an interview in his New York office, Griswold said he receives frequent private letters of support from bishops around the country and the world--including those who--publicly--strongly oppose the church’s actions. He said secrecy is the devils playground, suggesting that those who want to accommodate homosexuality behind the scenes while publicly condemning it are the ones encouraging sexual aberrance. He disputed the claim by conservatives that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams supports their actions and suggested that conservatives are fighting Griswolds proposal--to be discussed by the denominations bishops at a March meeting--to accommodate their needs because, paradoxically, it is workable. He believes conservatives want to keep the fight going NOTE: The full text of the story can be found at the following link. http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=26

DATE:          January 16, 2004   TO:               The Members of All Saints Parish, Waccamaw   FROM:           Bishop Salmon       Dear Friends in Christ,     The opening chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians provides the greeting to you for this letter. I never stop thanking God for all the graces you have received through Jesus Christ (I Cor.4). in the same chapter St. Paul appeals to the Corinthians for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ to make up the differences between you (I Cor. 1:10). In that spirit I write you all this letter. In all the recent events around All Saints Parish and the Diocese of South Carolina, a number of Public statements have been made about our relationship. It is my intention in this letter to present the position that I have taken and offer documentation to support that position. Having heard both sides, you may then draw conclusions, as you are so led, which conclusions will I pray move us closer together rather than apart.     When Bishop Murphy was consecrated in Singapore in an irregular consecration in 2000, I was not in favor of the consecration because I believed that it would be divisive to orthodox unity. I believe it has. I could not change the fact that it had taken place.  Since Bishop Murphy was no longer under our Canons, I had no control over the exercise of his ministry. The hope and expectation was that  All Saints Parish would remain a faithful part of the Diocese of South Carolina.     When the Vestry in Moorehead City, N.C. voted to leave the Diocese of East Carolina they first transferred title to the church property to another group, and then informed the bishop that they were leaving the Diocese of East Carolina. Because of this the Chancellor advised me to record in the Georgetown County Courthouse, the Canons of the Diocese reflecting the requirement regarding property under which all congregations operate. In the North Carolina suit AmiA claimed that because the Diocese of East Carolina had not done so, the Diocese had no claim on the property. In the suit filed against the Diocese, the claim has been made that because the Diocese of South Carolina recorded the applicable canon, we had placed a cloud on the title. Bishop Murphy has stated that it was similar to building a swimming pool over a property line. It must be removed by legal action.     The facts are the opposite. If permission of the Bishop and Standing Committee are not given the title is clouded. Ross M. Lindsey, Parish Chancellor, admitted in his deposition, that in a transaction in 1986 the bank itself asked that such permission be sought. I am enclosing a letter written by Bishop Murphy, when he was a member of the Standing Committee, asking permission for All Saints to borrow money from the bank in 1988. The canons require such permission and not to seek permission clouds the transaction. I am also enclosing a sample page from the Standing Committee records showing similar permission requested by St. Peters by-the-Sea and the Church of the Holy Communion in 1965 as standard operating procedure for the Standing Committee. This has been a part of our common life for well over a hundred years.     When All Saints Waccamaw sued the Diocese ( we are the defendants) over the recording of the applicable property canon, they claimed, in a deposition, that they were not under the canons, and kept them as a matter of courtesy. The Chancellor ruled that a church could not be not under the canons and in union with the Diocese at the same time. The convention, hoping for some reconciliation, voted to give All Saints Parish seat, voice, not a vote.     In the meantime, Bishop Murphy has continued to live in the rectory, meet with the Vestry when he is in town, appoint a vicar to represent him, and generally to be in charge. Tim Surratt who, until now, has been the only clergyman canonically resident in the diocese, has been the supposed interim rector. He has, as of January 12, asked to be transferred to Rwanda. I plan to do so.     Because of the legal action, I have not met with the Vestry or made a visitation. Bishop Skilton has been to All Saints, for a visitation once. I discovered, by happenstance, that the All Saints vestry had voted to amend the 1902 Charter which the then serving Chancellor had assisted the parish in securing. By way of background, the granting of the 1902 Charter by the Secretary of State was followed by the Trustees of the Dioceses conveying the title to the church property to All Saints Church Parish by quit claim deed dated 1903. Because of the actions of the vestry, I immediately informed the Chancellor and notified the then Wardens and Vestry that they had in fact voted to leave the Church and could not longer be considered the vestry because by leaving they were no longer communicants in good standing, and thereby did not qualify to be vestry members. I did not excommunicate them as has been said. They are free to receive communion whenever and wherever they choose. They cannot vote to leave the church and at the same time be the vestry. I am enclosing copies of the letter and documents sent to them.     I called a meeting of the Standing Committee and informed them of my actions. After considerable discussion, the members of the Standing Committee decided to talk directly with the vestry. I gave my full support to such discussions. I am enclosing the report of their meeting written by the president of the Standing Committee. I told the Standing Committee that I was more than willing to consider and implement their suggestions, but that I was not willing to drop the appeal because (1) it had already been heard (September 10) and we were simply waiting for a ruling. I reminded them that (2) because of the original ruling no one now owned the property and this issued needed to be settled.     The basic issues on the table are those of lawlessness and the stability of the Diocese itself. We have no theological issues with All Saints. If any parish in the Diocese can unilaterally decide to not be under the Canons, appoint vicars, do what they want to when they want to, our strength as a Diocese is soon destroyed. There is no authority, only individual choice. That is exactly why the Episcopal Church is in the mess it is in. Bishops have individually acted without accountability, believe or not believe as they choose. That is lawlessness. It is my duty to oppose it.     I have met with members of All Saints who are loyal to the Diocese. It was my decision to treat the loyal membership as a parish rather than a mission. We have organized and elected wardens. We plan to meet again as All Saints Parish Waccamaw under the Canons of the Diocese. We have notified the Secretary of State that there is a new vestry representing All Saints Parish, and Articles of Correction will be filed with the Secretary of State giving notice that the original charter of All Saints, Waccamaw remains unchanged.     It is my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will give us all a way to Godly solution to this situation, which is painful for all concerned. You are in my prayers. I cherish yours.     May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all(II Cor. 13:13)     Yours Faithfully in Christ,   Edward L. Salmon, Jr. Bishop of South Carolina, XIII   END

January 16, 203     Bishop Donald Johnsons deeply troubling January 15, 2004 Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of West Tennessee raises serious questions of freedom of association and freedom of speech as well as abuse of the office of bishop by dictating the conscience of Episcopalians in his diocese. Bishop Johnson wrote his pastoral letter (which he posted on the Diocese of West Tennessee website) in response to a draft document of an American Anglican Council (AAC) subcommittee outlining plans for adequate episcopal oversight.  Bishop Johnson falsely accuses the AAC of deceitfulness and subversive sabotage and vows to purge his diocese of association with the AAC. We are deeply concerned about the individuals, clergy and congregations in West Tennessee who are affiliated with AAC, and we stand in  full solidarity with them.   We urge Bishop Johnson to refrain from punitive action, harassment or intimidation of the people under his care who uphold historic Anglican faith and order and whose affiliation with AAC provides them a place to stand Bishop Johnson emphasizes his desire to preserve the church as it currently exists. Here are the facts about the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) as it currently exists.  It is a Church that is no longer in relationship with the majority of Anglicans worldwide.  It is a Church that no longer turns to Holy Scripture for its guidance. It is a Church that has chosen the ways of man over the ways of God.  It is a church that has undermined the institution of marriage. It is a church with which many worldwide Christian denominations have broken relations.  It is a church that has lost its heart and soul and its commitment to making disciples and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.     We must ask: Is this truly the Church that Bishop Johnson wishes to preserve?     The AAC has long worked for the reformation and renewal of the Church. This is still our desire. We have NEVER said that we are leaving. We have not moved anywhere. We are still in full relationship with the worldwide Anglican Communion and we are resolutely determined that orthodox Episcopalians will remain so.  For years we have spoken of the need for adequate episcopal oversight.  It has been one of our goals, and it will continue be one of our top priorities.  In October, the Anglican Primates unanimously called for this oversight to be provided within ECUSA, and we are committed to finding a way for it to be delivered, even if the leadership of ECUSA is unwilling.     In this time of crisis, we must first and foremost pray; we must repent and ask God’s forgiveness. We must also move forward with the mission and ministry of the Church -- whatever the cost.   -----   The American Anglican Council is a network of individuals, parishes, specialized ministries and Episcopal Bishops who affirm Biblical authority and mainstream Anglican orthodoxy within the Episcopal Church. For more information on the  AAC, please visit http://www.americananglican.org .   END

From The Rev. Don Armstrong Rector, Grace & St. Stephens Colorado Springs, CO   Much is being made of a leaked American Anglican Council strategy memo and a Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Western Tennessee. I would say that this is all much to do about not much.  Bishop Johnson is simply over reacting. Remember, it is the revisionists who have misbehaved, those of associated with the AAC and our own ACI are simply and obediently maintaining the historical faith and order of the Anglican Communion--something I consider a creedal necessity. The revisionists will try to spin this memo to turn the tables--and I for one don’t want to empower that parlor trick by paying it too much attention. There was nothing particularly startling in the AAC memo--the revisionists broke communion by disobedience to the expressed position of the Church’s instruments of unity, which then caused ECUSA to be in violation to its own constitution and canons. This has resulted in more than half of the Anglican Communion severing ties with our province. The AAC memo simply states that it is serious business to reorder the church--and that we are prepared to take the necessary steps to which faithfulness calls us.     The statements' contents have been vocalized in many ways and are not illogical if compared to the Global South's Disciplinary statements that can be found on the ACI web site.     I think the important thing to remember is that this is not a one size fits all response that the AAC has articulated. There are dioceses that will respond as a whole, there are parishes that will leave for a new structure which we are currently developing, there are parishes that will just hide out (which for them might be the only option given the givens) and there are congregations who will stay in ECUSA, but with a strong and networked presence of commitment to the truth (certainly this is where Grace Church, Colorado Springs will be).     On January 19 and 20 I am participating as a regional (Mississippi to Rocky Mountains) representative to the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes official organizational meeting in Plano at the personal invitation of Bishop Duncan. We will be developing ways to address, articulate and support all four of the above possible responses to the oppressive posture of the revisionist Episcopal Church and its leadership. I can report more fully and knowledgeably when I return.     I do believe it will be our combined witness and resistance from our various circumstances that will in the end reestablish faith and order to a broken and dysfunctional Anglican presence in the United States. Certainly that is my hope and prayer.   END

By The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner Senior Fellow, The Anglican Communion Institute     The only thing surprising about Bishop Johnsons pastoral letter is the level of vituperative hostility;  the content itself represents a consistent ignorance about the Anglican Communion and a willful denial about ECUSAs standing, externally and internally, with respect to its canonical legitimacy in the eyes of both that Communion and many of our own members. As I have noted elsewhere, the outrage over this leaked memo of the AAC is either a sign of disingenuousness or of numbed consciousness.     The basic outline of this strategy has been public for some months, largely because it represents the Proposal of the Primates of the Global South for disciplining ECUSA (and New Westminster) that was presented at the October Lambeth meeting (this proposal is available at anglicancommunioninstitute.org ).    In brief, the Proposal calls for the larger Communion, along a certain timetable, to withdraw its recognition of those bishops who consented to Robinsons election, participated in his consecration, or supported the local option resolutions regarding same-sex blessings;  it also calls on the Communion to maintain its recognition of those bishops and others who opposed these measures as the legitimate representatives of the Episcopal Church.   These recognized leaders would then be affirmed as those capable of acting by rights according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.     The AAC -- through its leaders and individual members, both present at Lambeth and subsequently -- have affirmed the thrust of this Proposal. We didn’t need a publicity splash to know this.     In case Bishop Johnson and others hadn’t noticed, even though the Proposal was not officially accepted by the Primates meeting as a whole, it has been put into place by individual Primates in their relationships with ECUSA already, albeit in an uncoordinated fashion.  The process for deciding who is the real Episcopal Church is well underway;  and thus far, the weight is stacking up in favor of the AACs contention.   This is a process that the larger Communion has set in motion quite independent of the AAC, and its implications and outcome are tied to the center, not the periphery, of ECUSAs leadership legitimacy.     If any of this comes as a surprise to bishops of ECUSA, it can only be because they have once again closed their eyes to what the majority of the Anglican Communion is actually saying, doing, and committed to being.   Then again, such willful blindness no longer strikes people in the larger Communion as odd, since it seems to have characterized all the decisions and actions people like Bp. Johnson claim were done publicly and above board: the public trashing of the Scriptures, of the historic faith and order of the Church, of our Constitution, of the previous commitments of the General Convention, of Communion teaching and agreements, of the bonds of our common life -- that this constitutes established means of peaceableness over against the deceit of those upholding the teaching and witness of our historical faith is damning statement of Bp. Johnson's own stunted moral vision.     In short, nothing new.  The AAC is not an outlaw organization;  membership in and support of its work is not a breaking of communion with ECUSA;  no one should be frightened by Johnson’s bluster.   END

January 15, 2004   Dear fellow Episcopalians in West Tennessee,   As the Bishop of The Diocese of West Tennessee, it is my privilege to serve beside you in witness to Christ. In this particular circumstance, I do so now as one who must uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Church I have sworn to defend. No matter what one's opinions are about the more controversial decisions reached at our last General Convention, one has to admit that they were done publicly and above board. Using the long established means to reach decisions as a Church gathered in Convention, the outcome and resulting actions were literally done before the eyes of the world.     Loyal opposition and honest dissent to such actions are legitimate and should be honored by all. I have been careful to do so. However, deceitfulness and subversive sabotage justified in the name of serving Christ cannot be overlooked. To this point, I direct your attention to an article in the January 14, 2004 issue of The Commercial Appeal outlining publicly the American Anglican Councils confidential game plan for the destruction of The Episcopal Church U.S.A. by becoming a replacement jurisdiction, even if it means disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis as deemed necessary. At this time I have in my possession the full text of the confidential letter cited in the article. In as much as what has been done in darkness has now been brought into the light, I urge you to read for yourself this document that lays out the American Anglican Councils plan of destruction.     I do not endorse, nor will I have this diocese in any way associated with this effort, and I will use all the power of my office to see to it that our clergy and congregations will not be in any formal membership arrangement with this or any other such group seeking to destroy the Episcopal Church. To this end, I am taking the following initial steps:   First, I am posting in its entirety on our diocesan web page ( www.episwtn.org ) the letter from the American Anglican Councils representative, the Rev. Geoffrey W. Chapman, who writes on behalf of the American Anglican Council and their Bishops Committee on Adequate Episcopal Oversight. It is their response letter to Episcopal congregations across the country who have requested what they describe as Adequate Episcopal Oversight. Specifically, this letter refers to oversight by a bishop who has bought into the American Anglican Councils plan to sabotage The Episcopal Church. This secret plan is very different from AACs public statements to the effect that it would work within The Episcopal Church under its Constitution and Canons to bring about change in Church policies.     Second, I have called a special meeting of the Standing Committee. I am asking for its advice and counsel concerning what next steps need to be taken by my office regarding our clergy and congregations formally affiliated with the American Anglican Council and, implicitly, with its agenda.     Third, while it may be obvious from the tone of this letter, I want to go on record in saying that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the American Anglican Council. Further, I do not endorse, support or condone their plan to methodically create anarchy in the Church.     Fourth, until the American Anglican Council made explicit what many already thought was their real agenda, I have spoken with respect for the bishops, members of the clergy and lay persons who have found in this organization a place to express their honorable dissent and loyal opposition. It is to you that I address the following:     It is my firm belief that most of you who have associated with the American Anglican Council did so for honorable reasons with no idea that their avowed actual goal is to destroy The Episcopal Church as it currently exists. However, according to their own documents, they seem to advocate whatever means necessary to innovatively move around, beyond or within the canons to do so. I know that not everyone associated with the American Anglican Council is of one mind. However, these revelations that have just come to light may help clarify your thinking about their agenda. As such, I hope that you will see this as an opportunity for you and your congregation to rethink and officially disassociate with this organization.     I ask your prayers for our Church, our Diocese and for our clergy and lay leaders who will be asked to help me be faithful in accomplishing this ministry for Christ's witness and love. To that end, I remain   Faithfully yours,     The Rt. Rev. Don E. Johnson Bishop of West Tennessee   (As provided for in Title III, Canon 24, Section 5, this Pastoral Letter is to be read at each service on either Sunday, January 18th, 25th, or February 1st, 2004, or announced as being available, and a sufficient number of hard copies should be provided to those requesting them.)

Archbishop calls for greater evangelistic efforts to reach US for Christ   By David W. Virtue    DESTIN, FL (January 14, 2004)-More than 900 packed the ballroom of the Hilton hotel here last night, in the largest gathering yet of the fast growing Anglican Mission in America - a movement spawned from the dying river of the Episcopal Church and its embracive apostasy. The joy was palpable as the mostly former Episcopalians worshipped, drawing energy from a hundred voice choir, raising holy hands, invoking an orthodox Trinity to bless the fruit of their labors, as the 4th annual winter conference got underway.     Who is the Lord of your life, cried the Rev. Mike Hesse, Destin area rector of Immanuel Anglican Church, an AMIA parish.   JESUS roared the crowd. A Shofar sounded as an instrument of warfare and pending victory. The AMIA-ites sang, we will follow ancient paths and discover future faith, we'll embrace Christ's mystery that will set the people free. HE will set his people free.     This theme seemed to echo the freedom many now found no longer being  associated with the Episcopal Church.     Those gathered here included African Archbishops Bernard Malango (Central Africa), Emmanuel Kolini (Rwanda), and Balufuga Dirokpa (Congo) while Archbishop Metelemele (Tanzania) sent Archdeacon Npiruka as his official representative and the Primate of India J. K. Samuels met with Bishop Murphy and gave his endorsement. Also present was a Nigerian bishop John Rucyahana, Bishop of Shiyra, Rwanda and from South East Asia, Archbishop Yong Ping Chung. There was also two ECUSA bishops and more than 100 AMIA priests and several ECUSA priests weighing their options as they consider their future outside ECUSA.     They sang we must stand against the tide...and keep your Word, a reminder that the church they had left no longer applied or was relevant to their spiritual needs.     In his opening sermon Primate Yong Ping Chung told the assembled crowd that they were gathered to testify to the great works God has doing in their lives as individuals and as a mission, only 4 years old. There has been renewal and revival taking place in our AMIA churches.     The theme  of the conference is Rediscovering the Ancient/Future Faith.     The hope of Christianity is being challenged and attacked, Christian people need to rediscover the truth about God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the world in which we live. Our actions must be judged by the Word of God and not let our interpretation rule our lives. Jesus Christ and his word is the ultimate authority for our churches.     We have allowed the temptations of our cultures and secular human desire, worldly philosophies together with canons and constitutions of the church to blind us to the faith that was once entrusted to the saints.     Today we are here to rediscover the truth and essence of our faith, to rediscover our ancient/future faith and truth that will set people free. Our God is greater than any other, our God is sovereign and he alone is God.     The world has camouflaged our faith, people have added their own opinion, the invasion of the contemporary culture and eagerness of the church to accommodate the culture has altered the essence of our faith. Elements are added because they thought that was what Christianity needed. They have distorted the scriptures, they have changed the grace of God into license about immorality and denied Jesus Christ’s own sovereignty and Lord.     We need to go back to our roots and ancient faith, and discover once again the essence of our faith, to see God in his entire splendor and his glory. We need to go back to the beginning. Before the world was created God was there. Our faith begins with God...in the beginning God.     We need to strip off the fluff of worldly euphemisms and acknowledge our sin. God is very specific and clear, and calls sin by its true name...for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, he said.     His command to us is to go and make disciples of all nations...baptizing them in the name of the Trinity. The Anglican Communion needs Jesus, the AMIA needs Jesus; We all need Jesus. We need Jesus to set us free from the bondage of  sin.     The archbishop said the AMIA should reach out to the lost 130 million in the US who do not yet know Jesus. We desire to win lost souls for Jesus, it is the desire of our hearts and life to bring Good News to all those around us. Let us make it our commitment, he concluded.   END

Episcopalians remain conflicted over US Mission     News Analysis    By David W. Virtue     By any standard, the recent fourth annual winter conference of the Anglican Mission in America was a home run.     Nearly 900 attended including 137 clergy from 34 states and the District of Columbia with conferees coming from 14 countries. There were four Primates, plus a representative from another, a record. Others present included African bishops, numerous observers and seekers, among whom could be found a number of ECUSA clergy weighing their options as they see the Episcopal Church wracked by schism and dissent.  A contingent from Canada was also present. With some 60 parishes and 15,000 members, the Anglican Mission is still small, but they are growing fast. They are no longer functioning in reaction to The Episcopal Church, we have moved on, says Bishop Chuck Murphy, AMIA leader. There are 130 million unchurched Americans who need to hear the gospel and find a spiritual home and we want to welcome them and introduce them to the Anglican Way.     Orthodox Episcopalians still remain uncertain with some openly hostile towards the AMIA.     But there is something freeing about these Anglicans. They are not fretting over sodomy or agonizing over unbiblical notions of inclusion, or defining diversity as something which it is not. They are not dumbing down morality.    They’re also not perfect, they sin, but they call it for what it is and they believe in repentance.   Bishop Thad Barnum is fast becoming one of the best preachers in America. He has soaked himself in Scripture, is a fan of the late British pulpiteer Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, and he preaches with conviction and power. His preaching, more perhaps than anything else might keep the mission on track and give it the constant kerygmatic adrenaline rush it needs.     He calls sin by its name, and even when he is preaching to the converted, he appeals for a deeper commitment, telling his audience that they should not sit back and talk about their conversion decades earlier, but to ask, are you now living in the presence of Christ with clean hearts, forgiven and restored. It never hurts to take stock.     Of course he could not help but take a few jabs at Frank Griswold, but hes in good company, so have a lot of people, including a number of world religious leaders, indeed some of his own bishops.     This group is Protestant to the core, Forward in Faith Anglo-Catholics would not necessarily feel comfortable with their quasi-charismatic approach, but they are gospel driven and they and the Anglo-Catholics are working off the same page with the basic message of repentance and faith. The AMIA have also issued a theological statement on Women’s ordination, opposing it, which puts them in the Anglican mainstream, (unlike the ECUSA who never did its homework on the subject). It was an issue of civil rights not biblical enquiry that informed their actions.     A concordat with the Reformed Episcopal Church is also in the works with the Anglican Mission.     AMIA and AAC     The AMIA have a lot in common with the American Anglican Council (AAC) the orthodox wing of the Episcopal Church - in truth they are both working off the same theological and spiritual page, but they have different ecclesiologies. They see things differently over the doctrine of the church and how to respond to it. The American Anglican Council is staying in the ECUSA to fight for what they believe is a church that is reformable, or to provide a safe haven for orthodox ECUSANs with a church within a church.     The Anglican Mission believes it is no longer possible to pour new wine into the old wineskins of ECUSA. Bishop Murphy asks rhetorically, can a house divided against itself stand?     But schism comes with a high price. The Episcopal Church has seen schism before; first in 1870 with the Reformed Episcopal Church and then in 1976 when women’s ordination was accepted at their General Convention, and Prayer Book revisions were done in 1979, prompting the St. Louis Convention that saw thousands leaving the ECUSA.     But the net effect has not yielded great returns. The splits from ECUSA have not produced massive church growth with much evangelistic zeal. Most of the Continuers as they are called are mostly Anglo-Catholic and they have remained small, frozen in time, still living in reaction to the ECUSA. Some groups have more purple than people.     Many of them have experienced splits among themselves, forcing one to ask the question, where is the fruit of schism? By any measurable standards little has been achieved by the multiple splits and plethora of groups spinning off from the ECUSA.     All the while the Episcopal Church just keeps rumbling along, losing members, but keeping the facade of a mainstream church with new notions of pluriformity, sexual inclusivity and diversity becoming the buzzwords of a new Episcopal world order. The ECUSA has remained the country’s church of choice for liberal intellectuals and cultured secularists who still would like to say they believe in the Apostles Creed while reading (and sometimes believing) The DaVinci Code. Howard Dean, till he left the Episcopal Church, epitomized the Episcopal mindset, one doesn’t have to believe much or too sincerely, but Gods existence (whoever He or She is) should be affirmed if for no other reason than it is good form, perhaps even politically necessary. Being a Boston Brahmin or a New England Episcopalian is a comfortable bed to lie in, sustained by wealth, a liberal education with a side order of sodomy affirmed by Massachusetts Bishop Thomas Shaw. But talk of discipleship is the ravings of fundamentalists and Pentecostals, not Episcopalians. Another gin, bishop?     As one watches the AMIA at work, there is a palpable sense that discipleship does matter. It is at the core of their mission. They want converts to Christ first and for them to become Anglicans second. They are biblically driven.     The nagging question still remains, can they achieve it? Their leader, Chuck Murphy is a single-focused man - make disciples in the US and plant new churches. Grow, grow, and grow. His fellow bishops are loyal, faithful and driven. He has given up much to be where he is. He has taken numerous hits, and, depending on whom you talk too, is loved and despised with equal vigor.     Those orthodox who have remained in The Episcopal Church are either jealous of his success, or believe he is on some sort of a power trip. Those who know him intimately reject the latter interpretation. That he is spiritually gifted is without question. That he has drawn around himself men and women of like minded vision and faith is also without question. He has never been interested in playing the corporatist ecclesial ECUSA club game. He views the kingdom in way bigger and decidedly different terms than that, and sees the ECUSA House of Bishops as conducive to spiritual inertia not spiritual life and health.     Murphy is a big man, imposing, handsome, and spiritually fixated on what he thinks the church should be up and doing. He has pacemaker which, at age 56, doesn’t seemed to have slowed him down too much, but he delegates authority more easily these days.   But still the question remains. Is the AMIA the answer to ECUSAs apostasy? If you listen to ECUSA theologian and author Dr. Ephraim Radner you get a quite different perspective. He sees the AMIA as a retreat into the impossibly autonomous, arguing further that it stands as one of the great obstacles to a forceful response to ECUSAs current rebellion.     There is a (mistaken) fear among some Primatial leaders, looking at what has happened with the AMiA, that decisive and courageous action now is equivalent to prideful self-assertion, he writes.     Radner argues for a common accountability within the Communion, at the many instances of perceived moral failure but says the AMiA represents one aspect of ECUSAs and the Communions internal malaise. [The AMIA] is a symptom of spiritual disease, not an instrument of healing.     There is the temptation to press our testimony into a realm of individual freedom, cut loose from the constraints of blasphemy and persecution we so acutely feel around us. The danger, however, is that we will soon find ourselves floating in a sea of competing testimonies and freedoms, and mutually assaulting claims with the faith and order we set out to defend will be lost amid the debris,writes Radner.   A brilliant analysis, but it begs the question what would Jesus or Paul say and do if they happened to stumble upon the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City where Episcopal priests hold New Age services with Buddhist priests invoking strange gods, through a cloud of Episcopal incense, while on the cathedral wall hangs a naked brass rendition of Jesus with female breasts. Or what does one say to Frank Griswold who regularly invokes Sufi Rumi, inviting theologically and morally conflicted Episcopal priests and bishops to meet him on same plain or other beyond good and evil!     Tossing the money changers out of the Temple looks positively mild compared to what Jesus might do today. After he had tossed out the Episcopal priests he might just do what a Russian Orthodox Bishop did to a parish that married two homosexuals burn the church to the ground and bulldoze the remains into powder and then walk away never to return.     The age-old question of which is worse, living with heresy or coming out from among them still remains. Jesus also made it clear that the wheat and tares would grow up together and everyone would have to wait till the harvester (Jesus) did the final sorting out at the Last Judgment.     Whatever the answer is, Episcopalians in good faith will make decisions they think are right for them, often based on where they live, their experiences and much more; and also how deeply the issues trouble them. For the most part it comes down to that.   We must ultimately await the judgment of history.   END

An Exclusive Interview with Bishop Charles Murphy     By David W. Virtue     PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC-The leader of the fast growing Anglican mission to America wears a heart pacemaker these days, but that hasn’t stopped the pace of growth of his mission to bring the gospel to Americans who want something more than Evangelical Lite in worship and spongy feel-good sermons. The 56-year old leader is laid back, though still imposing, bearing in mind that he was once offered the job as rector of the largest Episcopal Church in the US (in Houston) and was offered a chance to run for Bishop of Florida. He turned down both offers. Chuck, as he is known by friend and foe alike, is a former Episcopal priest who is, by any standard of measurement, on a roll. But he is not without his detractors. Mention his name and you get one of two responses. He’s either the devil incarnate who left the Episcopal Church when he should have stayed to reform it, or he is the savior of Anglicanism in the US by offering a safe place for Episcopalians who can no longer abide the church’ s leftward swing to revisionist thinking in faith and morals.     His detractors say he is a renegade Episcopal priest with powerful ambitions to have his own show; that his Anglican Mission is a jump start operation to split the ECUSA. He would argue, as do his followers and not a few Episcopal bishops and Anglican Primates that he is merely responding to the 40-year breakdown in the ECUSA and the cry of thousands of laity who want an alternative place to practice the Anglican expression of their faith. Oddly enough it is not just the Episcopal Church’s revisionists like Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold who hate him, a goodly number of Evangelicals dislike what he is doing as well.     His more immediate problem is a clash he is having with the Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina, Ed Salmon, over the property the AMIA headquarters shares with All Saints Waccamaw, a 1,000 person evangelical Episcopal church that was, till recently, a parish of the diocese and the Episcopal Church.     I interviewed the bishop recently in his office in Pawleys Island.     VIRTUOSITY: The Bishop of South Carolina, Ed Salmon, has declared All Saints Waccamaw a mission. He has excommunicated the vestry and put in his own vestry. Where does that leave you?     MURPHY: We had a special corporate meeting last Thursday night. We had 500 adults present, two-thirds of the adult membership. 42 voted against changing the church’s charter and 38 voted against leaving the ECUSA. 462 overwhelmingly voted for consensus. It was very positive. We are severing all ties and coming under the oversight of another province.   The membership wants to come under the oversight of the AMIA and to transfer their canonical letters to the Episcopal Church of Rwanda.     In short we have moved on. Bishop Salmon has appointed another vestry with four new families. Ed [Salmon] is moving forward to set up a shadow vestry, a mission committee, and reduce the church to a mission.     VIRTUOSITY: The parish voted overwhelmingly to end its relationship with the Diocese. Have you heard from the Bishop? What has been response?     MURPHY: He met Friday at a local hotel with 10 people and appointed a senior warden, a junior warden, and the rest of the committee and the new mission committee. He will write and present his side and take out a full page parish advertisement.     VIRTUOSITY: Will you walk away from the properties if you have too? MURPHY: Yes we will. The reality is the Dennis Canon can be used retroactively. If it happens, the congregation will leave. This is the cost of discipleship.     VIRTUOSITY: The courts have determined that the dioceses and national church had no interest in this property. Even though Ed Salmon appealed, Judge John  Breeden Jr. said a second time under a motion that the diocese had no interest. He issued a summary judgment saying in effect that it was not worthy to be taken up and made a trial over. Ed Salmon has gone to the Appellate court to get a ruling.     On Sept 19, 2000 the diocese filed a notice in the public records of Georgetown, SC, which states that the subject property is held in trust for the Episcopal Church and the PECUSA in the Diocese of South Carolina. The filing of this notice precipitated this action. It was all initiated by Ed Salmon. He filed using the Dennis Canon; it is in the records of the Georgetown Courthouse.     If the Dennis Canon wins it would set legal precedent and hurt everyone. That is regrettable.     It troubles me to be in litigation because of 1 Cor. 6. At the same Paul also appealed to Caesar because he could not get justice from the religious courts and he appealed to the secular courts. If you have good cause in the ecclesiastical setting, I think it is right to appeal.     VIRTUOSITY: Do you think that the AMIA could be the evangelistic arm of the new Network of Confessing Dioceses and Parishes?     MURPHY: It is too early to know. The Network has not sorted out the specifics.     VIRTUOSITY: With the emerging creation of this Network on the horizon why do you believe it would still be best for orthodox parishes to leave the ECUSA?     MURPHY: I believe that there are two strategies among the orthodox that are presently being implemented. There is the inside strategy which argues that the best way forward is to fight within the system. This is about either reform and correction of the ECUSA which idea may now be largely abandoned, or at least a safe haven, shadow-government church within a church - an orthodox ghetto.     The outside strategy is to go offshore, seek canonical residence in another province, appeal to the international Primates for backing and support and get out from under the coercive structures and canons of the Episcopal Church so we can move forward with the mission.     All Saints, Waccamaw has chosen the outside strategy. On Thursday night All Saints said they can no longer remain a part of the ECUSA and will seek canonical residence off shore in another province, in this case Rwanda. They are applying for affiliation in the AMiA.     VIRTUOSITY: Why are you doing it at this time?     MURPHY: We believe that a house divided against itself cannot stand and therefore the creation of a shadow government or another house within a house is a failed strategy. It may take years, decades, but it will happen. Just the strains in the Anglican Communion show that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The real solution is an outside strategy, inside the Anglican Communion but outside the ECUSA.     VIRTUOSITY: Would you like to be recognized by Canterbury?   MURPHY: I believe there is a realignment going on in the Communion and I will need to know where Rowan Williams ultimately lands before I am able to answer that question. Ultimately, the answer to that question must come from our two overseeing archbishops. We are going to meet with Williams in March and perhaps we will get more clarity in answer to my question.     VIRTUOSITY: Do you think the Episcopal Church is the answer the AACprayer for continued unity? MURPHY: I believe that a house divided against itself cannot stand. We should have had discipline and correction in the House of Bishops 30 years ago.     VIRTUOSITY: Some have said you are calling yourself a Presiding Bishop?     MURPHY: No. I am a Bishop and the chairman of the Anglican Mission.   VIRTUOSITY: There is a group, the Anglican Communion Institute, calling for acquiescence in the face of revisionism. They argue that the orthodox, though opposed to revisionist actions, should just wait, pray, be humiliated and let the Holy Spirit lead. Do you believe in such a strategy?     MURPHY: Thank God for pacifism, and I am so glad there are few of them. There are four Ps: Power, position, properties and pension, but we cannot let those four Ps be the determining factors. I don’t think it is bad to have four things necessary for a vibrant organization, but it is regrettable if those 4 Ps become the ultimate determining factor. All Saints, Pawleys, though is concerned about property, but for All Saints those 4 Ps are not ultimate. We have to risk our jobs to keep our jobs.     VIRTUOSITY: There is implicit in this argument that those who stay no longer think the Reformation was a good thing. How would you respond to that?     MURPHY: I would not be an Anglican if I thought the Reformation was bad. I would be a Roman Catholic.     THANK YOU   END

Statement to the Parishioners of St. Johns Church in Versailles, Kentucky   In August, 2002 our previous rector Alan Hansen left the parish. The bishop met with the vestry and recommended that the vestry be frozen until a new rector was called. We have remained in place in an effort to keep the wheels on and I think we have been successful in doing so. When Alan left, we were in a critical financial crunch, and the effects of 9/11 added to the crisis. The vestry worked diligently to reduce operating costs, and with the involvement of our dedicated parishioners, we were able to turn things around. Our year-end balance sheet shows assets of:     $246,165.48 in checking, money market, and investment accounts $1,056,972.58 in buildings and property $561,383.59 in restricted funds/trusts Total Assets of $1,864,521.65.     In December, the vestry made the following charitable contributions to   various, deserving, outreach ministries:     Salvation Army - $2,000.00 Food For The Poor - $5,000.00 St. Agnes House – 3,000.00 Shoes For Kenya - $1,500.00 10 Scholarships for Youth Quake - $1,800.00 ACTS 29 Ministry - $1,000.00 Woodford Ministerial Association (Food Pantry) - $1,200.00 Woodford Educational Endowment Fund - $1,000.00 Woodford Project Graduation - $500.00 Tuition to Asbury Seminary for Youth Minister Ron Garner - $2,500.00 For a total of $19,500.00     The budgetary surplus for 2003, after meeting our entire diocesan pledge amounts to $39,961.66. This alone should indicate how seriously this vestry has taken its stewardship responsibility. There can be very few churches in this diocese able to make a similar claim.     In August, 2003 after the National Convention, a letter was written to the bishop, stating clearly that the vestry was in disagreement with his vote in favor of the consecration of an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions. We subsequently had four meetings in our church regarding differing viewpoints on what had transpired at the Convention, including one at which the bishop shared his opinions. In November, the vestry sent out surveys to see how each parishioner felt on the issues and in what direction they wanted our church to move. Of the 300+ surveys sent out, over 170 were completed and returned. A compilation of results told us that over 75% of St. John's parishioners were in disagreement, that they would not be pledging as in the past, and that over 60% were in favor of aligning with an orthodox bishop within ECUSA, if it were a possibility.     A small group of parishioners went to the bishop to complain about what the vestry was doing. They clearly thought that we were planning on bringing in a new rector who would take us out of the diocese and the Episcopal Church. We were, in fact, searching for a rector who fit our parish profile, and we had hoped that eventually there would be adequate alternative oversight available. Never have we considered taking St. Johns out of the Episcopal Church. In fact, I wrote to one of this small group to explain that in a worst-case scenario, what would likely happen was that the vestry would resign at some point, leave St. Johns, and form a new mission church under an orthodox, biblically centered, Anglican affiliation. I further stated that we were not interested in seizing the property of St. Johns, and were certain to leave the church in better financial condition than that in which we had found it. I defy anyone to demonstrate where this vestry has been anything other than completely devoted to the care of our congregation, deliberate and honorable in our search, true to the majority opinion of our congregation, and above reproach in the administration of our fiduciary duties to this parish.     On December 9, 2003, the vestry submitted the name of our chosen candidate for rector. The bishop replied December 9 that he was happy to give consideration to our candidate. On December 13, the bishop convened a meeting of the Executive Council to request that St. Johns be reduced to mission status. The vestry was not made aware of this meeting, and in fact, was hopeful that the bishop would initiate his background check and plan meetings with our candidate. On December 18, the bishop contacted our candidate and suggested that they meet January 5th and 6th, 2004. After cordial, but fruitless meetings, we awaited the bishops answer. On the evening of January 6th, records of the Executive Council meeting of December 13 were found, quite by accident, having been posted on the diocesan website. Vestry member, Judge Wilson met immediately the next day with the bishop, and was invited to the Executive Council meeting held that same evening, January 7. At this meeting, Judge pleaded with the bishop and the Executive Council to reconsider their actions. After facing a grueling session of questioning and intimidation, Judge left completely devastated. The Executive Council ended having granted the bishops request to reduce St. Johns to mission status. The vestry is to be removed, and the bishop is to take control of this church.     For 156 years, St. Johns has been aligned with the Protestant Episcopal Church. St. Johns is a corporation registered in the state of Kentucky. All property is titled to the senior warden and vestry of St. Johns Church. We have been asked repeatedly over the years to hand over the deed to this church to the bishop, but we have never done so. We have never borrowed money from the diocese. Clearly, the only way that the bishop can take over the property is by removing us from our elected positions and putting in place those persons who would be willing to turn the property over to him. The only concern the bishop has had throughout the process of the Executive Council meeting was in regard to the property and assets of St. Johns. In explaining the outcome of the meeting to me, Fr. Jay Pierce said those words to me verbatim.     Under the administration of this bishop, within this diocese, you can find 5 churches without rectors. Having bought a huge, old house in Lexington for use as an office, at a cost to the diocese of over a million dollars and restoring it at an additional cost of another half million dollars, this bishop now finds it necessary to extend his credit line from $100,000 in 2003 to $500,000 in 2004. He is taking money from trust funds to pay operating expenses, and is finding that pledges have diminished, making a budget impossible. As a result, he has enacted Canon 28, calling for an assessment of 18% of annual parish revenues. Based on our 2002 revenues, this assessment would total $64,213. An initial, adjusted assessment (to make it more palatable) brings our bill to $33,404 this year.     You now have the facts before you. I urge you to consider them carefully, before you allow this bishop to take control of your church. There is so much at stake here. The actions of this bishop toward St. Johns have been destructive to individual families within our parish, to the unity of the parish family, and the diocese as a whole. Our fate is to serve as an example for all the other parishes in this diocese. As a bishop, this man is expected to lead his flock, not beat it into submission.     We have asked for alternative Episcopal oversight as set forth by the Primates of the Anglican Communion. We are not, nor have we ever sought to be anything other than faithful, orthodox Anglicans. One of many examples is that for a decade, we have been a primary advocate of the Alpha Course throughout the state. Alpha is a uniquely Anglican approach to evangelization enthusiastically endorsed by the past and current Archbishops of Canterbury. The only reason we can imagine why this bishop would act in such an uncanonical and unethical manner towards us is his deep animosity towards evangelical and orthodox Anglicans.     I am saddened by the prospects for my church. Serving this church alongside such dedicated people has been a great honor. However, the effort has become a heavy burden. Our lives have been filled with fear, pain, anger, and ultimately, great sadness. That is not what God intended for his people. We will continue to pray for each of you, and always for our beloved St. Johns Church.     In His service,     Mr. Thomas J. Thornbury Sr. Warden, St. Johns Church, Versailles, Kentucky     A Stormy Week in the Episcopal Church – by David Virtue     Dear Brothers and Sisters,     It was another stormy week in the life of The Episcopal Church as the ship tossed and turned, the timbers of the Communion boat creaked, the winds showed little sign of calming. The Communion, as one theologian put it, has been hit by a tsunami, and we are salvaging what we can and hoping things have not gone beyond the possibility of repair.     One can but hope. Another rally drew 3,000 orthodox Episcopalians at what was billed as Plano East, following the highly successful Dallas meeting last year, and the troops were once again fired up to hold fast the faith and not abandon the ECUSA ship, as help was on the way. There was no battle plan; no strategy was laid out, just a giant pep rally, and a promise of good things to come. A new strategy will be revealed unto us on January 19-21 when the deep thinkers in The Network of Anglican Dioceses and Parishes within the Episcopal Church, (and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury) will meet in Plano, Texas. A public statement of major proportions affecting all the orthodox in the Episcopal Church will be forthcoming. Conclusion - There must be a realignment in Anglicanism.     In the meantime nothing will really change until two events occur: The first is the willingness of a substantial number of priests to stand up to their diocesan bishops and refuse to recognize their sacramental authority, and secondly that biblically orthodox Diocesan bishops are willing to enter the Dioceses of revisionist Bishops and perform sacramental acts without the permission of Bennison et al.     Put another way, nothing will happen unless the orthodox bishops and priests move from speech to action. D-Day approaches.     IN ANOTHER CONFERENCE with the eerie title, Does the Anglican Communion have a Future, and attended by Virtuosity in Charleston, SC  saw several hundred conferees listen to an array of theologians attack the subject.   Dr. Chris Seitz, president of the Anglican Communion Institute said that any talk of a federation must be rejected. We are a Communion, unlike the Lutheran World Federation, which consists of independent national churches. Anglicanism has found its life and mission in a genuine Communion of accountability and interdependence. Within the US, we have tried to emphasize this with the language for a network now forming: Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.     While the American Anglican Council focused exclusively on The Episcopal Church’s problems, the ACI sought to set the conflict in the larger context of the Anglican Communion, arguing that splitting up was also not the answer and sticking together through thick and thin, with the help of the Holy Spirit was the way to go.     In the midst of their deliberations and papers, the parish of ALL SAINTS CHURCH, WACCAMAW announced it was pulling out of the DIOCESE OF SOUTH CAROLINA and the Episcopal Church and aligning itself with the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA), provoking anguish from the Bishop Ed Salmon and the parish of St. Philips where the ACI conference was being held.   They issued a statement, which you can read in today’s digest.   The bishop had previously fired the vestry and put in his own forcing a confrontation and a vote in the parish as to what they should do. It was a slam dunk for the parish. By an overwhelming vote the All Saints, parish comprising 507 eligible voters, voted 468 voted to leave with 38 voting no and one abstention. The Standing Committee promptly urged Salmon to drop the appeal to the lawsuit, recommend that seat, voice and vote be given to All Saints at the upcoming Diocesan Convention, that the Vestry be reinstated and the parish restored. At this time of writing no one knows what Salmon will do. He has said if the national church ever voted to legitimize homosexual behavior he would take the diocese out of ECUSA, but he has backed down from that position. Uncertainty reigns.     In the meantime the Anglican Mission in America goes from strength to strength, scooping up plum Episcopal parishes around the country. They meet in Destin, Florida this Thursday for four days. Virtuosity (who will be there) was told that more than 1,000 have so far signed up to attend, significantly more than last year.     BUT THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER UNEXPECTED TURN this week when two orthodox ECUSA parishes in the DIOCESE OF ATLANTA announced they were seeking episcopal oversight from the Province of the Southern Cone and its Primate Greg Venables.     This is a first. To date Episcopal parishes wishing to stay in ECUSA have sought cover from African Primates, but this time they turned to the Bishop of Bolivia, Frank Lyons for help. One reason is that one of the parishes has a large number of Hispanics. One parish split almost down the middle with the rector staying and more than half the parish leaving; the other rector announced he was leaving ECUSA over its bankrupt morality and theology and taking three-quarters of the parish with him. Needless to say the bishop, one Neil Alexander is not amused.     The financial loss to the diocese will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can read those stories in todays digest.   BUT FINANCIAL LOSSES TO REVISIONIST DIOCESE are increasing at a rapid pace. Following my story on one parish in Americas heartland, I got a note from a parishioner in an ultraliberal parish in Annapolis, MD. In Timeline, the parish newsletter for St. Annes, pledges for 2004 are only $500,000 against a goal of $800,000 and last years numbers of $710,000. So its not just affecting orthodox parishes who leave and take their people, it is going on in revisionist parishes where, it was thought, the dyke would hold. Not so. VIRTUOSITY has repeatedly said that Episcopalians are far more conservative than their liberal priests and revisionist bishops. And now these bishops will learn a bitter hard truth - no money, no mission. We will see more and more parishes being reduced to mission status and, over time, many closing their doors. It IS only a matter of time. Oh see what Vickie Gene hath wrought...and the fun has only just begun.     BUT NOT TO BE OUTDONE REVISIONISTS ARE CLAWING THEIR way up diocesan ladders looking to take over the reigns of power wherever they can in order to push their sodomite agenda.     In the orthodox DIOCESE OF THE RIO GRANDE where the biblically orthodox bishop Terence Kelshaw has announced plans to retire, the process of replacing him, and the politics have already started.     The rector of an Albuquerque church obtained the confidential mailing list of the Diocesan newspaper, and did a mailing under the Via Media label (the new tactic of revisionists to position themselves in the middle). As a result Kelshaw wrote every member in every parish a letter explaining what had happened, telling them in no uncertain terms that the Via Media mailing was not official and not from the diocese. The revisionists will stop at nothing to get power even as the ship sinks.     And in the DIOCESE OF NORTH DAKOTA, recently vacated by the godly Bishop Andy Fairfield the revisionists are trying to wedge one of their people n their as well. But voters in that diocese will now have six candidates instead of five to choose from when they select a new bishop next month, angering the liberal selection committee who had stacked it with five liberals. Three clergy and three lay persons nominated the Rev. Henry Thompson III of Coraopolis, Pa., through a petition process.   He joins five others picked by a selection committee. None of the five candidates had directly expressed their views on the recent confirmation of the openly gay New Hampshire bishop.   And in the DIOCESE OF PITTSBURGH, Bishop Robert Duncan withdrew a measure that would have left each church in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in control of its own property and buildings in a rift over the consecration of a gay bishop in New Hampshire. The resolution introduced by Bishop Robert Duncan, leader of the diocese, prompted a lawsuit by a revisionist Episcopal parish in Pittsburgh against Duncan and the dioceses board of trustees to prevent the transfer of any church property. A headline in a local newspaper screamed: Attorneys withdraw Episcopal land-grab resolution. You can read that story today.     And in the DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK, the Bishop there, Michael Garrison told an orthodox congregation to go pound sand, declaring, you have your opinion, you will not change mine. These were the words spoken repeatedly by the revisionist Garrison as he visited St. Bartholomew’s in Tonawanda, NY. on January 8th. It was a bitter cold snowy evening when members of all ages (from babies in arms to those in their late 80s) filled the sanctuary for a scheduled meeting to tell the Bishop of their concerns regarding his vote in favor of the consecration of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. St. Bartholomew’s, a godly parish of over 1100 members, with a godly rector has long been known as a faithful congregation who both know and love Holy Scripture. You can read what that vicious bishop said to these People then he demanded more money from them. You can read that story today as well...and weep.     HARVEST U.S.A. is a ministry to a hurt and sexually broken world.  HARVEST has been ministering to men and women afflicted by pornography, same sex attraction, and other forms of sexual brokenness. There are countless, wonderful witnesses to the healing power of Christ for those who have been healed from their sexual problems and are now living in the light of Christ. If you live in or near Philadelphia and would like to attend a luncheon and hear about this ministry then call 610 944-4040 at Church of the Good Samaritan, Paoli, PA. Luncheon is set for Thursday, January 22 at 12 noon.     I AM POSTING A NUMBER OF STORIES including an exclusive interview with the Primate of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez who publicly blasted Frank Griswold, ECUSAs presiding bishop, calling him duplicitous. There are a number of stories coming out of the ACI conference in Charleston.   WEBSITE. Most of you are aware of the new VIRTUOSITY website that can be accessed at www.virtuosityonline.org . New stories are posted daily.   Register for a user account on the website and you can configure it to be notified when news stories are posted. Up to 30 people are visiting the website at any given time. More than 2,000 people are visiting the website every day.     VIRTUOSITY depends totally on the support of its readers for this vital news service. If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to VIRTUOSITY you may do so in one of two ways. The first is through PAYPAL at the website: www.virtuosityonline.org or by snail mail: David W. Virtue, VIRTUOSITY 1236 Waterford Rd West Chester, PA 19380. Thank you for your support.     All blessings,   David W. Virtue DD