With regard to your article entitled Dissident Anglican Parish back in fold, I wish to clarify the situation.  Bishop Michael Ingham, through his appointed wardens, is forcing the parish to rejoin the diocese.  The last parish vestry meeting clearly instructed the elected trustees and wardens, who have since been dismissed by the Bishop, to continue allegiance with the ACiNW.  The Bishop will not hold another vestry meeting because he knows that a clear majority of parishioners would vote against him.  He must be held accountable for his actions.     Florence Wilton,  St. Martins Parishioner     As a member of St. Martins for the past 25 years, none of Bishop Ingham’s appointed wardens speak for my wife and I or the majority of members of St. Martins. Bishop Ingham has disobeyed the House of Bishops, the worldwide Anglican Communion, and breached the obligations he swore to when Consecrated - specifically, to be an instrument of unity in the church’s, and uphold the teachings of the church.  He answers to no one.  He has portrayed the dissenting parishioners of St. Martins as homophobic and divisive rebels, even though we are in keeping with what Anglicans believe around the world.                                                                      Gordon & Erica Barrett     I am rarely moved to write letters to the editor, but I find that I simply must protest Douglas Todd’s article today.    Regardless of what the Diocese of New Westminster may be claiming, the majority of parishioners at St. Martin’s have NOT agreed to the things which the bishop’s warden may be suggesting.  They have not been allowed to express any opinion in a democratic fashion since the bishop took over, so how these claims can be made as though they were the will of the parish defies any definition of truth .  It is quite clear, if the facts are investigated, that a handful of diocesan appointees are making unilateral decisions on behalf of the diocese, and claiming that these are the decisions of the parish.  The diocese may make whatever claims it wishes, using whomever may be willing to be used as their spokespersons, but that does not establish those claims as true.          In fact, the leaders chosen by the legitimate vote of the parishioners have been systematically removed and replaced since the diocesan takeover.  Every person in any position of leadership or authority (right down to the Sunday school teachers) who do not agree with the bishop or the diocese have been removed or barred from exercising ministry in the parish.  The parish has not been consulted regarding their wishes, nor have they been afforded any opportunity to make decisions about the future of the parish.          It is difficult to Imagine how this could be construed as a way forward .  When the expressed wishes of the people are being ignored, when their right to be consulted about the future of their own parish is being denied, and when they are being dictated to by unelected leaders appointed to do the will of the diocese it is difficult to Imagine how any sort of wonderful sense of community can possibly be built.       Sincerely, Linda Seale chairperson of the ACiNW media committee.   ----------------     For Douglas Todd to say that the lay leadership of St. Martins has decided to return to the fold by restoring relations with the Diocese of New Westminster is to Imply that Lindsay Buchanan (cited in the article) and the other wardens appointed by Bishop Michael Ingham somehow have the moral and legal authority to make such a decision. However, these wardens do not enjoy the support of the majority of parishioners of St. Martins. If they think they do, they should call a vestry meeting to see if they can persuade others to their point of view. Fat chance.       Gerry &; Linda Taunton St. Martin Parishioners North Vancouver, BC     For Douglas Todd's report in the Vancouver Sun, Fri. Jan. 16, to truly be factual &; complete, the following items must be included. I presume this to be your mandate to your readers.   On Sept 7, the Bishop FIRED the entire elected Church’s Committee, as well as the Newsletter Editors, Roster of Collection Counters, Telephone Coordinator &; even the Youth Pastor. He then Imposed a form of MARTIAL LAW.     How could these actions help St. Martins?   On Sept. 28, an ALL Parishioners Vestry meeting was held. Trustees were confirmed, Wardens, Treasurer and a full slate of committee members democratically elected, but are ignored.   The Lay leadership consists of an Interim priest & the three (3) Imposed Wardens. This in spite of the fact they represent 22% of the Parish, while 78% Orthodox/Conservative Parishioners are being told to follow me or leave.     Since when does the Minority rule - only in the Diocese of New Westminster you say!   John Hopkins North Vancouver B.C.   *****

by: BOBBY ROSS JR. Associated Press Jan. 17, 2004     PLANO, Texas - The Rev. Canon David Roseberry has built the congregation he started in 1985 with 13 members into the Episcopal church’s that boasts the largest attendance in the nation.     His success with the flourishing Christ Church’s Episcopal - which draws 2,200 worshippers each weekend to this Dallas suburb - has helped make him a national leader in the conservative revolt against his denomination's consecration of an openly gay bishop.   I feel like a very unlikely leader for all of this, said the 48-year-old rector, whose churches will welcome a constituting convention of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes next week. Yet the upcoming meeting puts him, once again, in the thick of the debate over homosexuality within his denomination.   The convention's aim will be to produce a church’s-within-a-church’s arrangement, so that Episcopal conservatives - estimated by opponents as roughly 15 percent of the denomination's 2.3 million members - can work together directly. Its relationship to the Episcopal Church’s national structure is still emerging.     Bishops, clergy and lay delegates from as many as a dozen conservative dioceses plan to develop an organizational charter and a theological platform during the two-day session, which starts Monday.     Roseberry’s high-profile role doesn’t surprise the Rev. Alden Hathaway, a former Pittsburgh bishop who became the priest’s mentor after a chance meeting in Tucson, Ariz., two decades ago.     He’s a natural leader, said Hathaway, now retired and living in Tallahassee, Fla. I think one reason why is the way he sees himself. He doesn’t have any aspirations or any ego or any need to put himself forward at all.     When Hathaway first met Roseberry in the early 1980s, the recent seminary graduate was divorced and out of sorts, unsure what he believed. After two years of ministry in his native Arizona, Roseberry said, he was out of gas and had no strength.     I was preaching a kind of open-ended, God-loves-you, easy gospel, and I realized that people weren’t changing.     Hathaway challenged him to take a giant leap of faith and trust the Scriptures.   Roseberry said emphasis on the Bible as the error-free word of God was a new concept for him and changed his approach to ministry. When he started Christ Church’s, he said, he wanted a parish as rooted in the Scriptures as ceremonial tradition.     His vision of a Bible-believing church’s plays heavily in his opposition to the Episcopal General Conventions approval last August of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as New Hampshire bishop. Robinson has lived openly with his male partner for 14 years.     There are fewer subjects about which the Bible is more clear than homosexuality, Roseberry said.     For those on the other side, however, the issue is far less clear-cut.     The Rev. Canon Mark Harris, a Delaware priest, said he finds it offensive when conservatives such as Roseberry so easily dismiss progressive interpretations of the Bible.     I’m glad (Roseberry) is struggling with Scriptures, said Harris, past director of the Global Episcopal Mission Network. It just happens when I struggle with them, I come out in a different place as to whether gays and lesbians ought to have a place in the church.     After the General Conventions vote in Minneapolis, Roseberry resigned as a delegate and booked a flight home.     In October, his church hosted a meeting of 2,700 Episcopal traditionalists at a Dallas hotel. Roseberry moderated the meeting and helped take the groups concerns to Anglican Communion Primates in London.     As he has spoken out, his own past has drawn scrutiny. A Dallas Morning News columnist noted that Roseberry’s divorce would disqualify him as a minister or even deacon in many churches.     I confessed my sin, Roseberry told The Associated Press. God gave me a new chance.     He and his second wife, Fran, married 20 years ago. He adopted her two children and they had two of their own.     Christ Church combines the liturgy and communion of Roseberry’s youth with a biblical emphasis that he suggests most Episcopal church’s lack. The musical program ranges from the 18th century All Hail The Power of Jesus Name to the 21st century Here I Am To Worship.     The mix of sacred rites and evangelical-style preaching drew John Bock, who grew up Roman Catholic, and his wife, Melody Bock, who was raised Southern Baptist. An estimated 75 percent of parishioners had no Episcopal ties before joining Christ Church’s.     God didn’t call me to be Baptist, Methodist or anything else, said Melody Bock, 44. He called me to be his child.     But while denominational labels mean nothing to many of Roseberry’s parishioners, the Episcopal rift deeply troubles their priest.     The Episcopal Church’s that I’ve given my life to and that really raised me has a rip in the hull that is going to send it to the bottom of the ocean in just a matter of decades, he said. I don’t want to have wasted my life on a sinking ship.   http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/7731919.htm     *****

Dissident Anglican parish back in fold   By Chris Young      Vancouver Sun January 17, 2004     This latest move at St. Martin's Anglican Church in North Vancouver has been carried out by Bishop Michael Inghams wardens only, without authority, and has not been backed by a vote of the people of the parish.     The parishioners who voted to stop paying the diocese and to withdraw from Communion with the Diocese of New Westminster have not even been consulted about this recent move. This is yet another repression of the majority that has been pushed upon us by the renegade bishop who is out of communion with the majority of Anglicans in the world.     North Vancouver   How to beat the Revisionists in ECUSA   Dear Brothers and Sisters,   If the orthodox in ECUSA want to beat the revisionists there is one  simple way to achieve that. There is a strategy that will work. They must pick a certain Sunday and 50 orthodox bishops, (active and retired) and acting together, cross diocesan lines and go into claiming faithful parishes against the local revisionist diocesan bishop.     If that happens there is no way that all 50 bishops would be presented against, (the HOB couldn’t present either Bennison or Duncan, they are constitutionally impotent), and there isn’t enough money in all those diocesan coffers for bishops to sue to take the parishes back in the likelihood the rectors would be deposed and inhibited. In short it would be a slam dunk for the orthodox. Alternative Episcopal Oversight (AEO) becomes a reality and not the wishy, washy pastoral care notions currently being floated by Frank Griswold to the Anglican Communion, and rejected by the American Anglican Council. Why wont it work? Because there is no way the orthodox bishops could or are able to get their act together or focus on a single strategy and agree on a date and time. (So far only 13 bishops have signed on to the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.)       But the simple truth is, it could work. Power lies in numbers. We know that. Over the years the revisionists went from a minority to a majority and they are using their power now to ruthlessly extirpate the orthodox while making sure that in the process the orthodox go on paying the bills for their liberal agenda even as they are being pushed out the door. (Please leave your buildings, the key and endowment at the front door as you leave). Have a Nicene day.       It is brilliant, clever, devilish and ultimately from the pit. It is the strategy of Satan in the human form of 62 revisionist bishops, with hundreds of priests fed from seminaries that have a reductionist gospel with no Good News to proclaim except for something called inclusion and diversity and by extension the failure to preach that gospel declare those in opposition as homophobic.       THE AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL statement is not without its errors. There are two fundamental mistakes in the AAC statement attached to the Bishops letter. In the Frequently Asked Questions portion, there is a reference to Philadelphia and to not declaring that you have abandoned the communion of the church’s. This apparent reference to Father Moyer is completely incorrect. Father Moyer never abandoned the communion of the church’s. Bennison falsely and fraudulently used the abandonment of communion canon to deny Father Moyer a trial. Secondly, the AAC needs to recognize that Father Moyer was right and that AAC  priests have the duty to reject the sacramental ministry of revisionist bishops. The present strategy of one bishop crossing lines to rescue one parish only leads to confusion, despair, the danger of presentment against that one bishop and inhibition and deposition of the priest. Power lies in the numbers.     IN CANADA, the 11 parish priests in The Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW) who have successfully been holding Michael Ingham the revisionist Vancouver bishop from acting against them are growing weary with the six-year old battle. Time is running out. Half of the priests are here in Destin at the AMIA conference trying to figure out their future. They hold no hope for the Task Force set up by the Canadian House of Bishops to save them and they are probably right.     Furthermore, Ingham is ratcheting up the pain by moving against two parishes, Holy Cross in Abbotsford and St. Martins in North Vancouver. He destroyed Holy Cross and has taken back the other. The lay leadership of St. Martins parish in North Vancouver has decided to go through official Anglican channels to hire a replacement priest and to stop its protest of withholding annual dues to the diocese, according to a newspaper report. Ingham had thrown out the original vestry, retired the rector, locked the doors, and cajoled the parishioners so they either left or gave in. As most are fairly old and have nowhere to go they give up the fight. The bully Ingham won.     The big crisis will erupt when the remaining nine decide what they will do. But even they are divided. Big parishes like St. Johns Shaughnessy have multi-million dollar properties, endowments and more to protect and don’t see the AMIA as their savior. A Chinese Anglican congregation, on the other hand, meets in a warehouse. They have little to lose. But some of the other parishes do see the AMIA as their hope. We shall know more soon.     BUT THE BIG NEWS THIS WEEK OCCURRED when a bombshell was dropped over a private memo written by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman an AAC board member and leaked to the Washington POST and picked up by the Associated Press and blasted around the Internet. (It is on Virtuosity’s front page www.virtuosityonline.org .)     What he said was this. The AACs ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values, and driven by Gospel mission. We believe in the end this should be a replacement jurisdiction with confessional standards, maintaining the historic faith of our Communion, closely aligned with the majority of world Anglicanism, emerging from the disastrous actions of General Convention (2003).     But Chapman does not speak or make policy for the AAC and their media man Bruce Mason stepped up to the plate to say as much. But the damage was done and reactions flowed think and fast. Louie Crew, ECUSAs First Sodomite likened it to Watergate and I have weighed in on Crews false assessment.     Bishop Don Johnson of West Tennessee falsely accused the AAC of deceitfulness and subversive sabotage and vowed to purge his diocese of any association with the AAC. The AAC fired back saying, 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. The American Anglican Council wants a church within a church which is not a parallel jurisdiction. This is just one more case where the ugly head of revisionism has reared its head.     But a lay person wrote crying Help! We in West Tennessee are now under attack. Our Bishop has been constantly reminding us that he voted No in Minneapolis, but his real agenda is now apparent. I wondered how long it would take. We have some scripturally faithful clergy in this town, but they don’t stand a chance. Another layman, a doctor, who knows the bishop said Johnson cried when he said he voted no at GC2003, he felt he had betrayed his gay brothers and sisters. It was the timing he didn’t like.       AND IN VERSAILLES, KENTUCKY, Bishop Stacy Sauls outdid himself in stupidity when he dismissed the leadership of St. John’s Episcopal Church’s in that town because he thought the parish was going to split over the consecration of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson. He downgraded the church’s from a parish to a mission. But the dismissed members of the parish’s vestry said they never planned to take the assets and weren’t preparing to abandon the denomination. All they wanted was alternative episcopal oversight from a more conservative bishop. And the result: The move split the church’s and led to the creation of a new, independent congregation. Sauls should see a brain surgeon.       HERE IN DESTIN, FLORIDA WHERE THE AMIA is holding its fourth annual winter conference, Kenyan Archbishop Benjamin M. P. Nzimbi sent his greetings saying, God is in our midst in all we are doing. He knows our struggles. God wants us to walk in the light. Be encouraged brothers and sisters. Put your faith in God and you shall not be moved. Brothers and sisters here in Kenya are praying for you. The AMIA now has seven Primates on board, and while not formally endorsing the AMIA, their presence here and letters of support should give Frank Griswold heartburn.     And Bishop Thad Barnum turned up the heat on Griswold at an evangelistic worship service before 900 folk. He said he was not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you can see his tail. He has spit upon our Savior. Indeed.     And in the ongoing struggle about who owns the property of All Saints, Pawleys Island, it would appear that Bishop Salmon may have overplayed his hand in dumping the vestry and appointing his own. On Friday morning after the overwhelming vote by the parish to secede from the diocese was passed, someone from the new parish went down to Atlanta and filed the new corporation papers in the State Dept. A State Dept. official stated it validating the new corporate entity. If the bishop wants the parish he will now have to sue both the state and the new corporation. This comes hard on the heels of two rulings by Judge John Breeden that the diocese had no interest in the property. I am running Bishop Salmons letter to the parish in todays digest, but there will be further commentary on it at a later date. This is a messy complicated business, but it would seem that in the near future the parish is safe in the hands of the AMIA until the next round of court action.       IN AUSTRALIA, The Anglican Church’s of Australia faces a major change of direction in the wake of Archbishop Peter Carnley’s announcement that he intends to retire as primate next year. The church’s evangelical wing - based in the biggest diocese, Sydney - has its best chance in years to elevate a member to the top job. At 59, Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen is a relatively youthful bishop and could win. If he does it would be the first Western province to have an openly orthodox primate running it. Don’t pop the champagne cork yet, there are more liberal archbishops than orthodox in that country and the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.       AND VIRTUOSITY has learned that there will probably not be a meeting of the Primates in March this year. They are waiting for the outcome of the  Eames Commission report in September. Then they will decide if they are going to meet. When I asked primateYong Ping Chung (South East Asia) if Frank Griswold turned up what he and his fellow orthodox Primates would do he said, We have broken communion with Griswold and we would not break bread with him. Walking out is a real possibility. The wild card is NigerianprimatePeter Akinola and he IS the biggest player in town. What he decides could swing all the other orthodox provinces.     Word has also been received that if the Communion does break up after the Eames report, the conclusion being unsatisfactory for the orthodox Primates, then it won't be a federation (touted by Rowan Williams) but a new Anglican Communion with Africa, South East Asia, Southern Cone (and Australia if Jensen wins Carnley’s job). Now I wonder who will tell the Queen. Your majesty we have some bad news for you. Dr. Williams is history and Lambeth Palace would make a nice hotel. Oh and by the way the next Lambeth conference will be held in Lagos, you are welcome to come...and yes we do have Liptons tea bags, but bring your own water, ours leaves much to be desired.     The Organizing Convocation of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes will be held next week on Monday, January 19 and Tuesday, January 20, 2004, at Christ Church, Plano, Texas. The Network is being formed within the Episcopal Church’s and the Convocation will include representatives from 12 Episcopal dioceses. Virtuosity will be there.     I am posting a number of stories verifying what I have written today. The power plays we now see issuing forth from revisionist bishops only highlights the fears they have that without a gospel to proclaim they have to resort to vicious underhanded political tactics to maintain their power over orthodox parishes and their rectors. Regrettably it will only get worse.     I do hope you will make a donation to VIRTUOSITY. The coming months are going to be crucial in the life of the whole communion. 2004 will be a decisive year. I will be traveling the globe to bring you the stories. PLEASE send your tax deductible donation to VIRTUOSITY, 1236 Waterford Road, West Chester, PA 19380, or you can make a donation through PAYPAL at my website www.virtuosityonline.org . Thank you.     All blessings,   David W. Virtue DD     *****

BY DOUGLAS LEBLANC January 23, 2004     The name does not trip off the tongue, but maybe that’s just as well. There is nothing easy about the task that the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes has set for itself.     The fledgling organization held its inaugural meeting this week in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, attracting about 100 people--roughly half laity and half clergy, including 11 bishops. The Rev. Kendall Harmon of Charleston, S.C., a participant, said that the delegates, at first, felt insecure and anxious. But by the second day they managed to agree on a founding charter. What happens next is unclear. The network is the latest expression of resistance to the Episcopal Church’s novel approaches to theology and ethics. When the General Convention, the Episcopal Church’s  governing body, last summer approved Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in Episcopal history, it did so despite warnings that this would separate the American churches from Anglicans world-wide. There was even the possibility that conservative Episcopalians might break away.     Such a breaking away hasn’t happened, of course. But is the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes a sign it will? In the shorthand of many religion reporters, the networks raison d’etre is--ominously and only--to unite dissidents who reject Mr. Robinsons consecration as a bishop. Some go further, saying its founders want to foment a schism within the world's 77 million-member Anglican Communion.     These feverish theories found some support last week when the Washington Post discovered a strategy memo by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman of Sewickley, Pa., a member of the new network. The memo discussed, as a form of protest, the faithful disobedience of canon law.     Father Chapman did not define that phrase precisely, but in the same document he referred to conservative bishops crossing into liberal dioceses to perform services and alienated parishes withholding money from the parent churches. (Liberal bishops have engaged in their own civil disobedience for the past few decades by ordaining gay priests and blessing gay unions, but they claIm the mantle of social justice, so no one seems to mind.) In response to the Post piece, Bishop Don E. Johnson of Memphis, Tenn.--who had actually voted against confirming Mr. Robinson--wrote a scathing pastoral letter to Episcopalians in his diocese, urging any with ties to the American Anglican Council to sever them. (The new network has arisen from the Washington-based AAC.) All this served as a backdrop to the gathering in Plano, creating a certain tension among the participants, who had to wonder just what kind of organization they were forming. In fact, the network has divisions within itself. By the end of the inaugural sessions, various factions had agreed to disagree about, for instance, the ordination of women. And various concerns were smoothed down, like those of Bishop John W. Howe of Orlando, Fla., who had worried aloud that the network could become a shadow province within the Episcopal Church’s.     Still, the group’s conservative purpose is clear. It approved Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh as its first leader. The day after the network adjourned, he boarded a jet for Uganda, where network members will be the only Episcopalians welcome to celebrate the enthronement of that nation’s newest Anglican archbishop.     The inaugural sessions also made clear that the networks dissent has to do with more than sexual ethics. The Rev. Steve Wood, rector of St. Andrews Episcopal Church’s in Mount Pleasant, S.C., is typical of many members. He feels increasingly alienated from the Episcopal Church’s Image as Trinitarian on paper but Unitarian in practice. Like others, his greatest concern is for the authority of Scripture in Christians daily lives. Critics of conservative Episcopalians claIm that some are guilty of Donatism, a heresy in which Christians question the validity of sacraments, such as Holy Communion, if a priest or bishop teaches errant doctrine. Im not questioning whether the sacraments are still valid, Father Wood says. Im questioning whether we worship the same God.     The network will face various tests in the months ahead. It will contend with Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold about what sort of pastoral care he can provide--i.e., what sort of protection--to conservative congregations that may suffer under punitive liberal bishops. And the network will undoubtedly form liaisons with Global South archbishops--the orthodox clergy in the Third World--who no longer consider themselves in communion with the Episcopal Church’s. Some critics may have hoped to bury the network as stillborn this week. Instead, it seems to have emerged as a newly baptized baby--with, naturally, an uncertain future.     Mr. LeBlanc is an associate editor of Christianity Today magazine.   *****

AS EYE SEE IT:  By John Donnelly     Like many people, I am often quite bewildered by the many, many conflicting messages that conservative/orthodox Episcopalians are receiving from our opponents in ECUSA.     The other day, I received a piece of hate mail from an Episcopalian in my diocese.  I have never met the person. He had heard about us from others in the diocese (Diocese of Newark), and had read our web site. He had heard that I am antigay, and was appalled at the Robinson election.  He suggested that bigots like me should leave the Episcopal Church’s.  For many of us, such love letters are a common occurrence. However, we receive a mixed message from others in the same c.  They say, We value you...we love you in God...please stay and dialogue with us Or, You may leave, but not with your property.   Maybe we conservative Episcopalians should pick up a daisy, and pull off the pedals, one at an item, asking, They love me?...they love me not?     For the tIme being, I personally do not wish to leave ECUSA.  But I resent the kiss and slap mentality of the liberal Episcopal community.   Coming up at 130th Diocesan Convention, the Diocese of Newark will be voting on a resolution to promote the Unity of the church’s in the Spirit of the Gospel. [Resolution 2004-11   http://www.dioceseofnewark.org/convention/resolutions.html ].   This resolution commends the Diocesan Convention of Upper South Carolina for setting a tone of reconciliation by voting to set aside all of these  divisive General Convention resolutions. They did so not because they believe in the actions of General Convention, but because they did not want polarization around these issues further to interfere with the ministry, mission, and unity of the Diocese. Through their resolution, they are committed to seek deeper unity, more profound love, and more faithful discipleship.     Does anyone else see the irony here?  The Diocese of Newark has led the charge in these battles for years and years, and now they commend a diocese for not polarizing the churches.  Where is the truth in this resolution?     The Rev. Canon John Donnelly co-Rector, St. Michaels, (Wayne, NJ) An American Anglican Council affiliate in the Diocese of Newark     END

Church of England Newspaper   Since the start of the Millennium the Church of England has maintained an average loss of 54,000 once-a-week-church goers per year.   Average weekly attendance figures for 2000 fell by more than 100,000 to an average of 1,166,000 in 2002, according to the latest provisional attendance figures, announced on Monday. The Church’s tried to counter the news of decline by focusing on a rise in monthly attendance figures among young people, but it is getting harder to encourage clergy in the face of pew drains such as those in Dioceses such as Lichfield and Liverpool where average weekly attendance went down by 4,700 and 3,000 respectively.     Signs of growth were highlighted in a statement accompanying the latest figures, pointing out that although regular weekly attendance among children remained static on the whole, the Dioceses of Manchester, Peterborough, Ripon and Leeds, Southwark, Southwell and Winchester all reported increases in each of their Sunday, weekly and monthly attendance levels for children and young people.     Whether this trend could grow to fill the reported loss of 108,000 churchgoers over two years is yet to seen.     The new figures also show the result of new measures to gauge more accurately the role of the country’s churches. Parishes were asked to start recording the number of young people attending activities other than worship over a typical month. These non-worship statistics could widen the goalposts in the future as churches eager to push up these figures find new ways of getting involved in their communities.     During 2002 a total of 162,000 under-25s attended non-worship activities and 41,000 adults are working with young people aged 11 and over.   END

By The Rev. Danny Janes Kalamazoo Gazette Friday, January 16, 2004   In response to the Rev. Cynthia Blacks Jan. 1 Viewpoint on Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson – I’m sad that so many people gloating over this election still don’t get it.   While they celebrate Bishop Robinson as an icon of inclusion, their denomination continues to suffer the hemorrhage of members who are fed-up with their pandering to the gay community. Wake up! How many years of loss and decline is the Episcopal Church’s going to overlook until they awake to the realization that they’re alienating the base of their constituency?   I speak from experience as a pastor. A few years ago, a lovely lady started visiting our churches from a local Episcopal congregation. We had not visited, contacted or solicited her in any way. She sought us out because she was aware of the historic connection between the Anglican/Episcopalian Churches and the Methodist Church’s. She knew that we were far less liturgical and more evangelical, but shared a common historical root through John Wesley.     Upon getting acquainted with her, I learned that she had been a devoted Episcopalian for many years. When I asked her why she had stopped  attending, she told me that she had struggled with the liberal drift of the denomination for a long time. The final straw was the appointment of an openly gay priest as pastor of her local parish. She said, I’m just too old, too tired and too fed-up to keep fighting the powers-that- be!     Please understand, I’m not out recruiting disgruntled members of other church’s. There are enough people who don’t know Jesus Christ in the community to fill every church around here.   The question is: Do you just keep dismissing these people as intolerant and unenlightened malcontents, or do you ever admit how terribly out-of- step you are with the grassroots majority? You can produce all the polls you want to prove your support -- but how many of those polls are filling your pews?     I don’t celebrate Gene Robinsons appointment as bishop. I grieve for a denomination that would elevate a man living an immoral lifestyle to its highest office of leadership. Forget the issue of homosexuality for a moment.   If I were to leave my wife and children for another woman, and be living in an adulterous relationship, would I be qualified for leadership in the church? Not in the churches I’m a part of! But apparently, it's all right for Bishop Robinson to have a relationship with his live-in lover precisely because he’s gay. We don’t dare criticize the promiscuousness and immorality of gays without suffering the accusation of being homophobes. The last time I checked, the Bible  condemns sexual promiscuity for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike! (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)     Rev. Black proudly stated, The fact that a mainstream Christian denomination, guided by the Holy Spirit in a democratic process, can affirm the ministry of a man who happens to be gay and ordain him as a bishop, means that all who are marginalized are affirmed. I beg to differ.   In my opinion, the fact that a drastically declining denomination, guided by a liberal agenda in a politically correct pursuit, can excuse the lifestyle of a man who advertises that he is gay and ordain him as a  bishop, means that all who disagree can take a hike.     My condolences to the faithful men and women of the Episcopal Church’s who still happen to believe that Biblical authority trumps bureaucratic tyranny.   The Rev. Danny J. Janes is senior pastor at Kalamazoo Wesleyan Church’s. New Anglican Churches begun in Atlanta and Rome, Georgia by CEEC     As events unfold in the life of the Episcopal Church’s USA, other Anglican and Episcopal jurisdictions are actively at work to establish new parishes where the orthodox faithful can find a home.  In recent weeks, two new Anglican church’s have been established in Atlanta and Rome that are receiving Episcopal oversight from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Church’s.  The CEEC seeks to blend the liturgical, evangelical, and spirit-filled aspects of the Holy Church’s.     All Saints Anglican Church’s in Rome, Georgia, is a mission’s outreach of the Archdiocese of the Holy Trinity, Province of Christ the Good Shepherd.  The Most Reverend Max Broussard, Archbishop, has appointed the Very Reverend Mark C as Vicar of the mission.  All Saints is now meeting at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church’s in Rome and has been warmly received there.  The web site for All Saints is www.allsaintsac.org .     Church’s of the Trinity in Acworth, Georgia (Cobb County) was formed by a group of families who left the Episcopal Church’s USA over the recent issue of the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.  While the parish has not yet formally affiliated with any jurisdiction, it is also receiving Episcopal oversight from the Province of Christ the Good Shepherd.  Rev. C is now serving as Priest there as well.    The website for Church of the Trinity is  www.church ’ softhetrinity.net . Both churches are growing as word spreads of our existence, said Rev. C.  We intend to be churches where the faithful can hear the Word of God expounded and taught in depth without compromise, where the ancient Creeds of  the Church’s are adhered to, and where Anglican orthodoxy is maintained.  We  have an emphasis on community and building one another up in the faith.  We hope  to establish more parishes in the surrounding area.     The Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches is a member of the new Anglican Federation.  Rev. C is also the Abbot General of the Company of Jesus, a Franciscan and Benedictine third order religious community.  The COJ is an affiliate ministry of the American Anglican Council.   For more information, please contact Rev. C at 678-794-7826 or email him at frmark@companyofjesus.net .   END

By Elizabeth Bryant, Chronicle Foreign Service San Francisco Chronicle January 14, 2004   Lagos, Nigeria -- Obarou Adjarhu carries a Bible under one arm, and he knows his scripture. It says, according to Adjarhus reading, that homosexuality is a sin. Today, tomorrow and, as far as the 32-year-old Nigerian businessman is concerned, forever.   Those are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, he declared on the steps of this city’s Anglican cathedral, which is an island of calm amid the skittering traffic and jam-packed sidewalks of Africa’s largest city.   For a bishop to come out openly and say he is gay is a sin before God and man.   The bishop in question, Gene Robinson, was consecrated last year as an Episcopal bishop, over the objections of the mother Anglican church’s. Though Robinson lives in far-off New Hampshire, he is no stranger to this congregation or to Nigeria’s Anglican hierarchy, which is leading a growing international rebellion against accepting gays in the church’s.   The controversy exposes a fault line between the conservative Christianity flourishing in many developing countries and the more liberal doctrines preached elsewhere. It also underscores a long-standing intolerance of homosexuality in Africa, which carries important health-care implications.   In a continent that accounts for more than 70 percent of the 40 million people worldwide with HIV/AIDS, homophobia makes it more likely that gays will be denied the prevention and treatment programs available to others -- even as anti-AIDS drugs are becoming more accessible.   Gays are certainly not welcome in Nigeria’s 17 million-member  Anglican church’s, whose primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, condemned the consecration of Robinson as bishop, calling it a satanic attack on the church’s of God. He even issued a statement on behalf of the Primates of the Global South -- a group of 20 Anglican primates from Africa, the West Indies, South America, India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia -- deploring the action and, along with Uganda and Kenya, formally severed relations with Robinson's New Hampshire diocese.   Akinola has emerged as the most vocal spokesman for conservative Anglicans who oppose the stance of the U.S. church’s -- which welcomes gays as parishioners and even, in some cases, as clergy -- and has warned that the issue may cause a schism in the Anglican church’s. If there is a break, many believe Akinola would be the driving force behind it.     The views of Anglicans in Africa are all-important to the church’s. The U.S. Episcopal Church’s, with 2.3 million members, is a small branch of the much larger Anglican church’s, with more than 77 million members worldwide. More than half of all Anglicans live in Africa, and many are vehemently anti-gay. Only South Africa, with its progressive gay rights legislative record, stands as an exception on the continent.   Homosexuality is a deviation from the scriptures, said Adebola Ademowo, archbishop of Lagos, which is home to the world’s largest Anglican province, or congregation. And we are not alone in this relief. All the other denominations here are just enthused with our stance. They are praying with us.   There is little outward evidence of Nigeria’s gay community. A fledgling gay rights group, Alliance Rights Nigeria, advertises no office address and its president goes by a pseudonym, Erilou.   Though out of sight, the number of gays is widely considered to be growing.   I think homosexuality is becoming more rant here, said Bisi Tugbobo, deputy country director of Pathfinder International in Lagos, a group working to combat HIV/AIDS. You hear about it. You read about it in the papers. But people don’t want to talk about it. Not in the churches. Not in the mosques.     As in many African countries, homosexuality is illegal in Nigeria, branded as a Western import or the work of black magic. Sodomy carries a sentence of up to 14 years, although jail terms are seldom meted out.   Homosexuality is a spiritual sickness, said Patience Fehintola, 62, another parishioner at the Lagos cathedral. It needs first of all repentance and soul cleansing. I’m disappointed in the American Anglican community.   Such condemnations are echoed widely among both Christians and Muslims in a country where religion permeates everyday life. Dilapidated trucks painted with slogans like Jesus is the Only Way stumble down the nation's pitted roads. Prayer grounds the size of football fields line the highway between Lagos and the southern city of Ibadan, packing in thousands who listen avidly to success tips from evangelical prosperity preachers.   In northern Nigeria, where a dozen states have adopted Islamic Shariah law, Shariah council head Hakeem Baba-Ahmed said accepting homosexuality will lead to a further erosion of our accepted principles of morality.   But Erilou, the president of Alliance Rights, says homosexuality has long been quietly tolerated in Nigeria. In a 2002 interview with Radio Netherlands, he noted that in northern Nigeria there are people called Dan Daudu, a name in the Hausa language that means men who are wives of men.   No accurate statistics on homosexuality exist in Africa. AIDS experts list it as a minor variable in a tangle of high-risk activities on the continent, starting with unprotected heterosexual sex.   But some AIDS activists fear that Nigerias entrenched homophobia and reluctance to address sex may undermine their battle against HIV. Nearly 6 percent of Nigerians, or 8 million people, are infected with the virus, according to government estimates. Health workers believe the real figures are far higher.     Not surprisingly, Nigerian religious leaders, who are beginning to preach HIV/AIDS awareness to their congregations, generally shy away from discussing homosexuality and instead stress celibacy.   Homosexuality is a very divisive issue for the church’s, said Samuel Kobia, the new head of the World Council of Church’s and an ordained Methodist minister in Kenya.   The government also turns its eyes away. Adenike Adeyemi, head of the federal government's reproductive health unit, said she does not know of any awareness campaigns specifically focusing on Nigeria’s gay community.   Homosexuality is not a taboo subject, but we have so many problems to deal with, she said. Well get to it. Probably.   The need to recognize the country’s gay population, despite opposition from the religious community, may become more urgent as the country grapples with its growing AIDS epidemic. A 2002 report by the U.S. National Intelligence Council ranked Nigeria – Africa’s most populous nation -- among five countries expected to drive the worlds rising number of HIV/AIDS cases in the coming years.   It's the hidden face of the iceberg, said Dr. Elisabeth Szumilien, of the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, who works on HIV/AIDS issues in southern and eastern Africa. We can’t target homosexuals (for treatment) because we don’t see them.   Copyright 2004 SF Chronicle

News Analysis   By David W. Virtue   The dirty tricks at Watergate did not bring Richard Nixon down.  He did that himself by denying his association with the plot once The Washington Post brought it to light.  Any leader of AAC who wants to survive in a position of vital influence in TEC should leave the AAC and apologize for the harm the dirty tricks have done to all, not just to TEC and the communion, but to faithful people with genuine dissent. Louie Crew, The Episcopal Church’s First Sodomite.     Louie Crew doth protest too much. For more than 35 years he and his pansexual pals have whined, pleaded, cajoled and subverted General Convention resolutions by using local option to press the homosexual agenda into the Episcopal Church’s, against all Episcopal history, the wisdom of the ages, 6,000 years of biblical history, the entire corpus of Holy Scripture, the Canons and Constitutions of The Episcopal Church’s, the Lambeth resolution and more.     Now he has the audacity to liken the American Anglican Councils recent public disclosures to Watergate.     Meanwhile his uberboss, Frank Griswold has lied and deceived his fellow Primates by signing a pastoral document he had no intention of following or keeping, then consecrating an openly gay bishop with Crews eminent delight and approval, and now he is watching while his lies and duplicities are slowly gutting the Episcopal Church’s, risking its ecumenical integrity with leading Christian denominations and emptying Episcopal pews.   The lies and hypocrisy of Frank Griswold would fill a book.   Episcopalians who oppose the consecration of a gay bishop are said to be preparing to engage in widespread disobedience to church’s law in 2004, according to revelations revealed in a document written by the Rev. Geoffrey Chapman, an AAC board member that outlined its strategy in a confidential document.     The document, which was leaked to the Washington Post, makes clear that traditionalist ECUSA leaders intend to severely challenge the authority of Episcopal bishops, and expect that both civil lawsuits and ecclesiastical charges against dissenting priests will result.     However, the AACs media director, Bruce Mason, said Chapman is not a policy spokesman and the council does not intend to supplant the current structure of the Episcopal Church’s. He did say it is the conservative forces who are remaining faithful to the Anglican Communion while the Episcopal Church’s is not.     Now let us go back in time. When the Episcopal Church’s was orthodox, who challenged the authority of the church’s when women’s ordination was illegally brokered into the church’s as a civil right when the church’s had not only not approved, it had not even entered into theological discussion over its validity?     Or homosexual misbehavior. What General Convention has ever passed a resolution approving the ordination of active homosexual priests to the priesthood? Its never happened. But its been going on for years. Furthermore priests and laity have entered into committed same-sex relationships in parish after parish with many a revisionist bishops approving blessings (under the altar) and Walter Righter walked away declared not guilty for ordaining an openly homosexual to the priesthood because the church’s said it had no canons against it.     Long before rites were approved at the last General Convention, they were going on in revisionist parishes with a wink and a nod from revisionist bishops. Whenever anybody said a word or raised an alarm, screams of homophobia echoed across the Internet and in diocesan publications. Thou shalt only feel pain, thou shalt not criticize. If you do, it is off to the Gulag you shall go for reparative therapy in sodomite acceptance. If you need help throw in some gay porno movies, Sewanee seminary will help you make the selection, (and we still want your checks to keep coming in.)     ECUSA theologian Dr. Ephraim Radner put it well when he wrote, 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 ).     And the Rev. Don Armstrong a biblically orthodox priest in the Diocese of Colorado said the leak was much ado about nothing. It is the revisionists who have misbehaved, those of us associated with the AAC and the Anglican Communion Institute are simply and obediently maintaining the historical faith and order of the Anglican Communion--something I consider a creedal necessity. 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.     Louie Crew wants the leaders of the American Anglican Council to repent of their actions as though viable dissent has a prayer of working in the ECUSA. It doesn’t now and hasn’t had in more than 25 years.   Orthodox Episcopalians have drawn so many lines in the sand their backsides have developed permanent rashes as they have moved further away from ECUSAs apostasy and repeated accommodationism.     Faithful people with genuine dissent as Crew calls them, have been tried on, ridiculed, spat at, reviled, yelled at for being homophobic, uninclusive and lacking pluriformity, as to make their dissent a total mockery.   No. It is not the orthodox who need to repent, it is Crew and his sodomite pals and Frank Griswold who needs to repent of his actions that numerous Primates have asked him to do for consecrating V. Gene Robinson.     The folk at AAC have no intention of leaving ECUSA, they are fighting to take the church’s back from 40 years of theological and moral disorder, and because their plans were exposed, it changes nothing.     As far as dirty tricks goes, one only has to look at what clandestine Episcopal website revisionist priests and laity are up to in trying to destroy orthodox bishops like Bishop Peter Beckwith. Better still ask the priest in the Diocese of the Rio Grande who belongs to something called via media who tried to subvert the process for electing a new bishop to replace Terence Kelshaw by using mailing lists he had no business using to push for a new pro-sodomite bishop.     Or the sleazy way the selection committee in the Diocese of North Dakota tried to slip five pro-gay candidates into the process to select a new bishop and got found out when a sixth candidate was offered who said he was against same-sex rites.     The disorder in ECUSA didn’t start with the AAC, it began with Pike, Spong, Crew and his crowd, and before they try to take out and demand the leadership of the AAC repent they should remove the beam from their own eyes before trying to remove the splinter in the AACs.     END

14th January 2004   The Most Revd. Datuk Yong Ping Chung Archbishop &; Primate - Anglican Church’s 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 everlasting 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 church’s 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’s, 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 Churches.   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’s.  Jesus Christ and His Word are the ultimate authority for us and for His Church’s. What has happened to our Church’s 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’s.   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 paintings 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’s 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 church’s to certain earthly establishments and they have allowed that to be the authority of the church’s.  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 His 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’s 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 church’s 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.   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’s.   These recognized leaders would then be affirmed as those capable to acting by rights according to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church’s.     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’s 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’s, 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.     Rev. Don Johnson - Concerning The AAC Memo & Bishop Johnson   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’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’s--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 Souths 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’s, Colo Spgs 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’s 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.

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’s I have sworn to defend. No matter what ones 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’s 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’s 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’s. 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’s. This secret plan is very different from AACs public statements to the effect that it would work within The Episcopal Church’s under its Constitution and Canons to bring about change in Church’s 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’s.   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’s 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’s, 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.)     END