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Julian Dobbs, interim leader of the Anglican Church in North America, denied claims and said he was cleared of alleged financial wrongdoing.   EXCLUSIVE   By Ian Shapira THE WASHINGTON POST December 30, 2025   The interim leader of the Anglican Church in North America — who suspended the denomination’s archbishop over allegations of sexual misconduct — was himself previously investigated over two separate allegations of financial impropriety, according to a federal lawsuit and a global charity’s internal records.   Bishop Julian Dobbs was appointed on Nov. 15 as the dean of the Anglican Church in North America, assuming the duties of Archbishop Stephen Wood. The next day, with the consent of five other bishops, Dobbs, 57, “inhibited” or suspended Wood for 60 days after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced by two women, one of whom was a church employee. The woman said Wood, a married father, put his hand on the back of her head and tried to kiss her inside his South Carolina office in April 2024, shortly before he was elected archbishop.   Dobbs’s appointment, approved by the denomination’s College of Bishops, comes at a critical moment for the conservative church of 128,000 members and 1,000-plus congregations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Its bishops gathered this month for a quickly arranged meeting in Texas, where they addressed how they’ve “lacked attentiveness or care for the flock committed to us,” according to a church report. “It was clear throughout our deliberations that there is a significant deficit of trust toward the College of Bishops,” the letter said.   But the bishop tasked with leading the church out of turmoil has faced his own allegations of wrongdoing. A recent federal lawsuit against the Anglican Church in North America accused Dobbs of having “absconded” with about $48,000 from a chaplaincy that has long endorsed Anglican chaplains to the military and other institutions.   In a separate matter, Barnabas Aid, a global Christian charity based in Britain, investigated Dobbs and his wife in 2018 over more than $28,000 in questionable expenses, according to the internal records of the charity, for which Dobbs and his wife worked. The charity also accused Dobbs and his wife of running a “secret and undisclosed” nonprofit with a similar mission out of a Barnabas Aid office. That nonprofit received donations from supporters on the Barnabas Aid mailing list, Barnabas Aid contended.   Dobbs told The Washington Post that all the financial misconduct allegations against him are “unsubstantiated.” He said the chaplaincy’s claims were “false” and were refuted by multiple investigations — one by his diocese’s attorney and treasurer, another by an independent auditor hired by his diocese, and a third by the denomination. The denomination’s inquiry into the Barnabas Aid allegations, he said, also absolved him of any wrongdoing.   “All of the allegations against me have been thoroughly investigated and proven to be unsubstantiated,” Dobbs said in a statement. “I have never misappropriated funds and any such claims that I have done so are baseless, feckless, and without merit.”   Asked about the Barnabas Aid allegations, his wife, Brenda Dobbs, provided The Post with a statement: “The highest standards of financial integrity were maintained throughout my tenure both professionally and personally.”   Dobbs, who lives in Manassas, Virginia, is one of the denomination’s more high-profile figures, in part because of his public warnings about Islam over the years. In a 2022 letter on his website marking the “Islamic terror attacks” of Sept. 11, 2001, he wrote that the violence was carried out “in the name of a religion that is still intolerant” of people practicing different faiths. He also has appeared on a radio show formerly hosted by Sebastian Gorka, an ally of President Donald Trump who is now his senior director for counterterrorism.   Dobbs helped lead Barnabas Aid USA, then based in McLean, Virginia, from 2006 to 2018 — first as executive director, later as a board member and then as chair or president, according to tax filings and his resignation letter. His wife worked there as an office manager. The nonprofit raises money for its global umbrella organization.   The charity compiled a 102-page investigative file — a memo, emails and other records — that was sent in early 2019 to the Anglican Church in North America and obtained by The Post. According to the memo, the charity asserted that Dobbs and his wife engaged in “deliberate acts of misusing Barnabas Aid liquid assets to benefit either themselves or another ministry.” The memo also alleged that they misused funds for travel and other expenses, some linked to Dobbs’s duties for the church and his personal life.   Foley Beach — who served as archbishop when both sets of financial misconduct allegations surfaced — told The Post that all the claims were “thoroughly investigated” and that the inquiries determined that Dobbs “did nothing wrong.” Beach circulated a letter on Dec. 12 to the College of Bishops saying the accusations were deemed “without foundation.”   Turmoil at the top Born in 2009 after a split with the Episcopal Church over its 2003 confirmation of an openly gay bishop, the Anglican Church in North America brands itself a refuge from the “state of brokenness” of its former theological home. The denomination’s official stance on sexuality calls same-sex relationships a sin. It also doesn’t permit women to become bishops or archbishop.   Now, the 16-year-old denomination is grappling with a leadership crisis.   This month, a church board of inquiry found probable cause to put Wood, the archbishop, on an ecclesiastical trial. Wood, 62, also faces accusations that he bullied and demeaned colleagues and plagiarized sermons. He has denied trying to kiss the female employee and declined to comment on the second woman’s accusation. He has called the other charges meritless. If found guilty, he could be defrocked.   Separately, Stewart Ruch III, a Chicago-area bishop, was acquitted this month by an ecclesiastical court after being accused of mishandling a sex abuse case and allowing men with criminal convictions to worship, work or take leadership roles in his diocese. In the trial’s run-up, Ruch denied the canonical charges, which ranged from violation of ordination vows to bringing “scandal.” The court’s seven members ruled that the prosecution didn’t provide sufficient evidence. ACNAtoo, a watchdog group, declared in a blog post that the court’s final order — which sidestepped some core elements of the case against Ruch — was “rife with easily refutable claims” and “confirms survivors’ fears that the [denomination] will give bishops a free pass.”   Bishop Stewart Ruch III leads worshipers in 2017 at a church in suburban Chicago. (Obtained by The Washington Post)   The denomination is also contending with a federal lawsuit filed by the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, an Alabama-based nonprofit religious organization that for years has endorsed chaplains to the military. The suit, which seeks at least $7 million in damages, accused the denomination of staging “a failed corporate takeover” when Wood suspended the chaplaincy’s longtime lead bishop, Derek Jones, “without authority” in September. Wood announced that the suspension came after accusations that Jones abused his ecclesiastical power and after he refused to cooperate with an investigation — allegations Jones denied to The Post. Jones now faces an ecclesiastical trial on four church charges.   A British charity’s allegations Dobbs, the denomination’s new interim leader, was born in New Zealand, where he served as a rector, hosted a Christian television show, and helped run Barnabas Aid’s local office. In 2006, he immigrated to the United States and began helping oversee Barnabas Aid USA, whose mission was to aid persecuted Christians. By September 2011, Dobbs was consecrated as a bishop to lead a diocese in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a founding “jurisdiction” of congregations in the Anglican Church in North America. About 2½ years later, Dobbs was appointed the convocation’s head bishop.   Even as Dobbs led the convocation, he continued to help run Barnabas Aid USA.   In 2018, the British-based Barnabas umbrella organization began investigating Dobbs and his wife for claiming unauthorized, unjustified or unexplained expenses, in some cases related to their phones, travel or meals, according to the memo and correspondence in the Barnabas investigative file.   In an August 2018 email to Dobbs and his wife, the charity’s then chief executive, Hendrik Storm, wrote that the expenses over the previous two years totaled about $28,200.   “If left unexplained, it breaches the faith inherent in the working relationship and certainly appears to be fundamentally and directly inconsistent with the obligations you had to Barnabas Fund, perhaps could even be construed as tantamount to fraud,” Storm wrote, using the charity’s older name.   Nearly three weeks later, Dobbs replied: “Never has there been any deception in any of our expenses. We have been completely forthright with these submissions and are committed in being individuals of honesty and integrity in our personal and public lives.”   He said his expenses were discussed in advance and regularly submitted. He noted that his diocese “was solely responsible for the majority of these costs over many years, significantly benefiting” the charity.   The next day, Storm replied: “We have no record of what you are claiming.”   Reached by phone, Storm, who now helps run another global nonprofit, declined an interview but confirmed the authenticity of the emails and memo.   The memo also accused Dobbs and his wife of running another Christian aid charity called Katartismos Global out of the Barnabas office without informing Barnabas officials. The memo characterized the arrangement as “dishonesty and deception by not declaring this clear conflict of interest.” It said Katartismos’s donations came from supporters on Barnabas Aid’s mailing list, “almost certainly diverting away to their own charity donations that would have been given to Barnabas Aid.”   In February 2019, the charity’s investigative memo and emails were sent to the Anglican Church in North America. Eight months later, Beach, then the archbishop, wrote to Barnabas trustees defending Dobbs and citing the conclusion of the denomination’s inquiry:   “As to the Right Rev. Julian Dobbs, we do not find any [credible] evidence of willful wrongdoing by him, and therefore find no basis for any disciplinary action against him under the canons of this Church,” Beach’s letter said. He defended Dobbs’s expenses, saying “each reimbursement was reimbursed with fund[s] which were written and signed by someone in your organization,” according to the letter, obtained by The Post.   But the charity pushed back, according to an email obtained by The Post. Chris Sugden, an Anglican priest acting as a liaison between the denomination and Barnabas, wrote Beach reiterating that the Dobbses had not obtained authorization from the head office for “all their expenses and other payments.” Although the charity accepted Beach’s decision to consider the case closed, Sugden also said that the charity would like its disagreement with the church’s conclusion “noted for the record” if the IRS or another authority investigated.   Sugden confirmed to The Post the authenticity of the email exchange.   Asked about the allegations against Dobbs, a Barnabas Aid spokesperson said: “None of the current executive team were around when these matters were alleged to have taken place.” Michael Hewat, the board chairman of Barnabas Aid International, said he was a trustee when the allegations surfaced. But he said he hasn’t seen the charity’s internal records that supported its claims of wrongdoing. “On the basis of what I have seen and know, I have no cause to doubt Julian’s integrity,” Hewat wrote.   Claims from a chaplaincy Shortly before Beach cleared Dobbs in the Barnabas matter, Dobbs faced separate scrutiny for his leadership of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.   In the latter half of 2019, the convocation’s chaplaincy requested an investigation of Dobbs “for missing funds not reported on the financial statements” of the convocation, according to the chaplaincy’s lawsuit against the Anglican Church in North America. Shortly afterward, the denomination said it appointed three people to investigate the chaplaincy’s allegations about the convocation’s financial accounting, including a bishop, a denomination lawyer and a forensic accountant.   Although Dobbs is not a defendant in the chaplaincy’s lawsuit, the allegations concerning him are chronicled in a document attached to the court file known as a “declaration,” written by Derek Jones, the bishop who helped establish the chaplaincy.   The chaplaincy had donated tens of thousands of dollars to the convocation from 2014 to 2019, but the convocation could not account for the money, Jones told The Post.   By April 2020, according to Jones’s declaration, the chaplaincy contacted the IRS concerning Dobbs. When the denomination’s investigation wrapped up, it found “no financial impropriety, misappropriation of funds, or misuse of designated gifts” by Dobbs, according to Beach’s letter to the College of Bishops.   In March 2021, the lawsuit alleges, Dobbs “was found to have absconded with approximately $48,000” of the chaplaincy’s money — a determination made by the chaplaincy, Jones clarified to The Post. But Beach, then the archbishop, told The Post that the allegation was “false and unfounded.”   Dobbs said that he tried to reconcile with Jones in a formal statement addressed to Beach. Jones told The Post that the letter, dated March 22, 2021, was part of an agreement between the denomination and the chaplaincy to move on.   “I regret and apologize for my part and on behalf of my staff, for the confusion in [the convocation’s] financial accounting practices … and for any harm brought to the ministry of the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy,” according to Dobbs’s letter, which the denomination provided.   The letter, Dobbs said, was “not an apology or acknowledgement about my alleged mishandling of finances.” Instead, he said, his letter was meant to “acknowledge the inconvenience that resulted from a perfectly legal” change in his convocation’s accounting practices.   Dobbs’s step toward reconciliation was pivotal. That same day, according to a letter the denomination provided The Post, the chaplaincy’s attorneys told Jones that Dobbs’s apology met their requirements to move on: “We will consider this closed and agree not to initiate an investigation of, or action against Bishop Dobbs with any federal or state authorities.”   END

Rowan Williams: To Understand Believers, Understand Unbelievers By Robert Stowe England The Christian Challenge Washington, DC March 30, 2004 WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told a packed house at a lecture delivered at Georgetown University that one can better understand believers in other faiths and even atheists by understanding what others disbelieve about one’s own faith. In turn, their understanding of your unbelief can help them. The lecture was delivered as part of a “Building Bridges” interfaith seminar between Muslim and Christian scholars that began last night and will continue through Wednesday. It is the third such “Building Bridges” conference, following on the heels of similar gatherings in London in 2002, hosted by Williams’s predecessor, Lord Carey, and Qatar in 2003. Williams, who delivered his lecture in an authoritative, polished style, argued that interfaith discussions can be helpful if they find “the appropriate language in which differences can be talked about rather than used as an excuse for violent separation.” His learned discourse illustrated why so many consider him a towering intellect. The Archbishop used the occasion to criticize a proposal in the United Kingdom to require that religious instruction in schools include the “non-belief systems” of atheism and humanism. While he agreed religious instruction and faith can benefit by looking at criticisms of the faith, he rejected the notion that atheism is a fully developed system of its own outside the context of the faith systems it rejects. Williams began by recalling the story of Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who was arrested, charged with being a Christian, and brought before a magistrate in 156 A.D., when he was an aged man in his 80s. The magistrate admonished Polycarp he could save his life by renouncing his faith and acknowledging the divine spirit of the emperor by saying ‘Away with the atheists.’ In this instance, “atheists” was used to refer to Christians and others who did not take part in the civic cult of the Roman Empire, and did not perform public religious duties and take part in the Roman festivals, Williams explained. Polycarp, though, looking around at the noisy mob in the amphitheatre gathered to witness the fights of the gladiators and public executions said, ‘Away with the atheists.’ The magistrate grasped what Polycarp meant and he condemned him to be burned alive. Various atheistic approaches in Western societies are “not intelligible apart from a specific context of thought and image, representation and misrepresentation of specific religious doctrines,” Williams said. The Archbishop then described several varieties of modern atheism to illustrate his point that they are simply responses to a belief system and not a system in and of themselves. He named, among others, the “protest atheism” of Bertrand Russell, who found Christianity conceptually inadequate, and the “supreme intellectual detachment” of atheists who see the intellect “as a mechanism for processing checkable information only, with everything else reduced to emotive noise.” The Archbishop also noted that atheists like Marx and Nietzsche who claimed that religious talk is ideological and “an instrument of social control whose surface conceptual structure is designed to obscure its real function and to divert thought, emotion and energy from real to unreal objects.” The Archbishop faulted the UK proposal to teach atheism and humanism as belief systems, noting such proposals are based on “the pervasive assumption of modernity that the intellectual default position is non-religious.” Williams warned that such instruction could “end up treating atheism as the only position not subject to critical scrutiny and the construction of a proper intellectual genealogy: not a welcome position for a rationalist to be in.” Even so, Williams argued, religious faith can be strengthened by intellectual skepticism and criticism. The Archbishop, however, questioned the tendency in current religious instruction to teach about “finished systems for which questions have been answered rather than (to borrow Alastair Macintyre’s phrase) ‘continuities of conflict,’ in which the moral, spiritual and intellectual tensions constantly press believers towards a fuller, more comprehensive statement of their commitments.” To build his case for a more critical assessment of faith, Williams cited the Zen dictum, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” Such a command is made to illustrate the point that “any shape given to enlightened awareness (the Buddha) will take its shape from the unenlightened awareness.” The Archbishop transferred the analogy to the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He cited the work of Simone Weil, who, he says, concluded that “when the human ego says ‘God’, it cannot be referring to any reality to which the name might be truthfully applied. Because the ‘I’ that says ‘God’ is always self-directed and so wedded to untruth, God cannot properly be spoken of.” Continuing the analogy from Weil, Williams added, “Any God my selfish mind can conceive is bound to be a false, non-existent God. The true God is known only in ways that cannot be reduced to theory or third-person language. If you meet God (in the language of systematic theology or metaphysics), kill him.” Williams then began a tutorial in how certain statements from each of the Abrahamic faiths that are disbelieved by one or both of the other two can illuminate each of the faiths. He noted, for example, that Jews disbelieve the proposition that “God is free to disregard or rewrite the solemn promise made to a specific people at a point in history.” Christians disbelieve the proposition that “God needs to be persuaded by our virtue to love us or to act on our behalf,” Williams said. Muslims disbelieve the proposition that “god is the compound of several distinct divine agents,” as in the Trinity, Williams said. The Archbishop noted that it is important to understand that the belief systems of one of the Abrahamic faiths is not a rejection of an opposite point in each of the other two faiths. “[O]ne of the darkest and most tragic parts of our history in relation to other faiths… is the construction of the other as the opposite,” Williams said. Williams argued that the differences between groups in dialogue can help those participating in the dialogue to clarify their fundamental points of view. For example, he noted, Christians view the church as a separate body from the political community while Muslims see the religious and political world intertwined. “But this does not at all mean that [Muslims believe that] ‘religious’ authorities must dominate the state, or that the free exercise of different faiths is unthinkable,” Williams said. Williams contended that “the issue of voluntary abandonment of Islam is a subject that needs to be looked at with nuance.” He noted that to Muslims, this is a political offence, but he added that it was not clear that Muslim jurisprudence required an extreme political penalty, such as death. Christians see this Muslim view as a denial of human liberty. Discussions between Christians and Muslims on the issue of voluntary abandonment of Islam, he suggested, could lead to “a deeper recognition of the logic of free submission, and the unavoidably paradoxical nature of a political community governed by law which also assumes that loyalty and obedience to this community cannot be secured by external sanctions that seek to constrain the will by threat.” The Archbishop said the interfaith dialogue does not have to be condemned “to the sterile and abstract task so often envisaged for it, of identifying a common core of beliefs.” This approach is built on the misunderstanding that the points of agreement are, indeed, the important points of the three faiths, Williams said. “The exercise I have been describing is not about finding a common core at all; it is about finding the appropriate language in which difference can be talked about rather than used as an excuse for violent separation.” Williams said. “[I]n the interfaith conversation, we can continue to make the claims we make out of conviction of the truth, but seek to break through the assumption that everything can be reduced to whether people say yes or no to a set of simple propositions,” Williams said. “Only in the wake of such a move can true dialogue proceed.” Williams’s Letter to Griswold (first reported by VIRTUOSITY) THE AUTHOR BRIEFLY TALKED with Rowan Williams at a reception after the lecture. While Williams was cordial and discussed topics not currently in the news, he declined to answer any “hard questions” about alternative episcopal oversight in the United States or the state of the Anglican Communion. Williams’s press secretary, the Rev. Jonathan Jennings did, however, provide some comments about the ongoing claims and counterclaims about a recent letter Williams sent to Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold. Jennings confirmed that Williams sent a letter to Griswold ahead of the recent meeting of the House of Bishops in Texas, urging that an effort be made to provide alternative Episcopal care for parishes at theological odds with their bishops. He said that the verbatim quotations Griswold read to the bishops in Texas was an accurate reading from the letter. However, no transcript of those quotations has been made public, so the exact text is not widely known. According to various news reports, Griswold claimed the letter stated that Williams said that alternative Episcopal oversight should occur within the parameters of the Province’s canons. But, it still remains unclear if the news reports accurately reflect what Griswold read from the letter since it was a closed meeting, and all reports have been reported second hand. Jennings did make it clear that the quoted remarks read by Griswold from Williams’s letter could not be construed as a direct comment on the confirmations by five visiting bishops in Ohio in the week ahead of the House of Bishops meeting. “The [Archbishop’s] letter went out before that happened,” Jennings noted. Jennings stated the Williams’s position is that ECUSA authorities and those who wish to set up alternative Episcopal care should work together to find a solution. Beyond that, he would not comment. END

WIDENING RIFT, GROWING ANARCHY IN ECUSA’S HOUSE OF BISHOPS News Analysis By David W. Virtue If the armed sheriffs who stood outside the gates of Camp Allen, Navasota to greet ECUSA’s House of Bishops is anything to go by; either the mostly revisionist bishops feared a vast right wing orthodox conspiracy requiring an armed put down, or worse, that the unbiblical decisions made by the HOB might be overturned by a Nazarene wearing prophetic robes with nail prints in his hands, carrying a large crook, announcing the judgment of God. The Lamb of God would never have gained admittance however, because he would have failed the photo identification test at the gate. “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any one hears my voice…” takes on a whole new meaning. In any event Frank Griswold and Vicki Gene Robinson felt safe enough with armed guards at the gate not to wear bullet proof vests (they both did at Robinson’s consecration), a leftist paranoia designed to scare the orthodox, in the same way ECUSA’s pansexualists occasionally scream “they are trying to kill us” when all the evidence points to the exact opposite. It is this writer’s contention that God will keep Louie Crew and Jack Spong alive long enough to see the damage they have wrought over 35 years—a more fitting end cannot be imagined. One can imagine that, at the Last Judgment, both informing the One who died for their sins (here God will pause and replay the Passion in heavenly DVD) that all they were trying to do is update His sexuality clauses in the 10 Commandments. In Spong’s case, he will tell the Father of Light that the Apostle Paul was really a self-loathing homosexual and could not be trusted to tell the truth about human sexuality anyway. Behind them both, waiting his turn for judgment will be the fey figure of Frank Griswold in deep “conversation”, talking “graciously” with Sufi Rumi and 61 revisionist bishops trailing behind both men. His and their fate sealed long ago. The words “depart from me I never knew you” waiting to be uttered with all due solemnity. By all accounts, news of what actually transpired at Camp Allen signaled growing anarchy among the House of Bishops. Four bishops from the Network of Anglican Communion Diocese and Parishes (NACDP)—the Rt. Rev Keith Ackerman, Bishop of Quincy, the Rt. Rev Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth; the Rt. Rev. Terence Kelshaw, Bishop of the Rio Grande and the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin—did not attend the august gathering of purple. Two other orthodox bishops, Peter Beckwith of Springfield and James Stanton of Dallas left before the debate on the oversight plan began. Only Western Kansas Bishop James M. Adams and Central Florida Bishop John W. Howe stayed for the duration and voted for DEPO. One bishop, Ed Salmon of South Carolina left after voting no on the Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight plan and Bishops Daniel Herzog of Albany and Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh left before the vote was even taken, according to The Living Church magazine. But among the orthodox bishops there was no unanimity. Howe described the document as “workable” while Bishop Schofield said it was “a sham” and the meeting of the bishops “four wasted days.” Albany Suffragan Bishop David Bena said it was “half a loaf” and therefore better than none. What we now know is that DEPO basically keeps power in the hands of the diocesan bishop with jurisdictional rights for the diocesan. On the plus side, an orthodox priest can argue and appeal his case for months, possibly years thus keeping a revisionist bishop out of his parish indefinitely. Truly God is not mocked. That the HOB is showing increasing strain and disarray might also signal a fatal implosion waiting to happen. How long can this false “unity” continue without some layperson, or maybe an archbishop who can see over Lambeth walls yelling, “look the ECUSA bishops have no theological clothes”? That the House of Bishops is largely a house of smoke and mirrors held together by a vague bonhomie when most of them cannot affirm the Nicene Creed, agree on the substance of the ‘faith once delivered’, the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and believe sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God, points up the fiction that they are united. What disunites them is greater than what unites them. An Insane Asylum is more unified. Consider how impotent they really are. They are incapable of disciplining any bishop either orthodox or heterodox. I wrote, over a year ago, that it would require the equivalent of a blinding transfiguration to raise up any bishop or group of bishops to bring an action of presentment against erring episcopii. The canons are now so unwieldy as to bring doctrinal charges against a bishop and making them stick, almost impossible. Since the 1970s, John Shelby Spong (Newark ret.) has consistently flouted the House of Bishops with one repudiation after another of the historic faith culminating in his 12 Theses which repudiates everything the Christian Church has stood for, for over two millennia. Nothing collectively has ever been done to even attempt to bring Spong to trial even though individual bishops have taken a swing at Spong. In fact the Presiding Bishop, when asked why he has not acted against Spong, told the retired Bishop of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison that Spong was responsible for many people staying in the Episcopal Church. So Spong’s outrageous repudiation and regular trashing of the witness of Scripture and 2,000 years of church history goes undisciplined by an impotent House of Bishops. And a third rate theological wart called Bishop Walter Righter was presented against but the case never went to trial because the charges were dismissed against the thrice-married bishop, based on a massive legal fudge—no one could agree whether the canons spoke to the issue of homosexuality. The church’s canons were clearly held to a higher standard than Scripture. More recently the former Bishop of Iowa has been performing ecclesiastical acts in some six parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh without Bishop Duncan’s approval. We will wait and see if the HOB will act this time. Don’t hold your breath. But the HOB could not even act when Pennsylvania Bishop Charles E. Bennison and Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan were asked to explain themselves to the HOB over a “deposed” Anglo-Catholic priest Fr. David Moyer. Bennison has been trying to unseat Fr. Moyer by fraudulently using the wrong canon and then using a variety of bullying tactics. Bishop Duncan took the priest temporarily under his wing, and when a number of international primates were brought into the arena the whole thing wound up at a HOB meeting where each bishop was asked to explain himself. After a mea culpa from Duncan and the refusal of Bennison to back down, the HOB just whisked the whole thing away in a pathetic display of “we don’t know what to do, because we don’t know whose side to take because we don’t want to hurt collegiality.” But then the HOB said that bishops’ valid depositions should be recognized by all. They stuck it to Duncan but then did nothing to Bennison who then felt vindicated by what they said and didn’t do. Bennison claimed victory, but it was not a victory at all. No one is recognizing the “deposition” except Bennison. And the end result? Nothing happened. The whole thing was fobbed off onto a committee where it disappeared without trace. Most of ECUSA’s bishops are absolutely convinced that either God has changed his mind about sexual behavior, or they are changing it for Him, snubbing Holy Scripture as largely dated or irrelevant. The former Bishop of New York, Richard Grein divorced his wife with other women cited. This same bishop gave the word “abuse” a new meaning in the way he dealt with orthodox priests, firing one woman priest from a parish to put his close “personal friend” in her place. And the bishop walks away from 39 charges against him! Frank Griswold saw to that. And then there was Jane Dixon the former suffragan Bishop of Washington known as “jack boot Jane”, who violated the plain reading of the canons in the Accokeek bludgeon of a single Anglo-Catholic priest and escaped any penalty for it. In fact the review panel concluded that both Dixon and Christ Church, Accokeek’s interpretation of the canons was reasonable. Then Bennison reappeared on the radar screen and said Jesus was a sinner—against all the witness of history and the testimony of Scripture, and no bishop has ever issued a presentment against him. When I inquired of an orthodox bishop as to why not, he said simply and truthfully, that it would never stick and probably never make it out of the Title IV Review Committee. He’s probably right. The Pennsylvania Standing Committee is also impotent and won’t act against Bennison, most of them wouldn’t know Jesus if he walked across the Schuylkill River with a sign saying I AM THE MESSIAH. The House of Bishops is sick unto spiritual death. They may dress up in fine clothes, strut their stuff like so many turkeys, parade around in embroidered gowns even, and on occasion look pious, while dancing the Circle Dance of Dispossession—but it is all a big sham and lie. And the worst offender sits at the top of the purple heap—Frank Tracy Griswold—whose theological opinions have been labeled by the Rev. Dr. Robert Sanders as “mystic paganism”—a man out of theological touch with the Faith as revealed in time, space and history and with historic Anglicanism. And neither Griswold himself nor a single bishop has stepped forward to repudiate one word of Dr. Sander’s brilliant analysis of the Presiding Bishop. How could they? It is a terrible and sad indictment of a once proud church that boasts 11 presidents, dozens of senators and community leaders, but has over the course of 40 years trashed its spiritual heritage for immorality, perverse sexual behaviors and plain doctrinal unbelief. And what is deeply troubling is that there is absolutely no sense of the judgment of God by these bishops. None. All the talk is about accepting whatever sexual perversion you may choose, of feeling good about yourself and fulfilling yourself, with nothing about dying to the self, repentance and faith, justification, sanctification or the Last Judgment. Truth is now defined as ‘my story’ and ‘my experience’ it is no longer faithful affirmation or objective. It is “thinking good thoughts” not prayer. The gospel, in most dioceses, is barely recognizable, while anti-racism training supplants true repentance for such sin, while anti-Semitism creeps in by the back door. And there’s a $2 million dollar fiction circulating around ECUSA that the church will double by 2020. The only question is where and when will it all end? Frank Griswold has one job, as he sees it, to keep ECUSA together come hell or high water, and he will do it by lying, playing off sides against each other, ducking and weaving, prevaricating and occasionally raising his voice in temper tantrums and self-righteous anger. But the glue will not hold forever. Sin cannot hold a group of men and women together if lies and subterfuge lie at the core of an institution. The center cannot hold when truth is severely compromised. In March 2002 the House of Bishops met in Camp Allen, Texas, and the call went out for sustained pastoral provision and Episcopal care to be made for those conservative parishes primarily of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic churchmanship. Two years later not much has changed. Now we have DEPO and it is still a basic win for revisionist bishops, especially Bennison who says he plans to ignore it anyway. The cry has gone up, lead by the AAC and NACDP, “How long, Oh Lord, how long”. The answer is no longer blowing in the wind, it is blowing through the House of Bishops, which, like a Baghdad bomb will implode one day leaving the HOB with body parts scattered all over the Retreat floor. And when it happens no one can blame a Vast Right Wing Orthodox Conspiracy, the HOB will have done it to themselves. END

Episcopal churches see cut in donations By Carolyn Thompson The Associated Press BUFFALO — Some Episcopal parishes opposed to the confirmation of a gay bishop last summer are withholding financial gifts to the diocese, causing a budget deficit that has already forced one layoff, Bishop J. Michael Garrison said Friday. “The protest is real. It affects real people and that’s sad,” said Garrison, who said parishes had withdrawn an estimated $100,000 in pledges to the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York. Nationally, donations to the Episcopal Church are down about $3 million, or 6 percent, since the confirmation of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, officials said. Elsewhere in New York, dioceses reported none of the hardship being felt in Buffalo, where at least five parishes are withholding most or all of their financial pledges. An additional 22 parishes have not yet submitted pledges or have pledged less than the diocese had hoped for. Coupled with the poor economy, Garrison said the diocese’s $1.1 million budget has a $200,000 hole. An office manager was let go this week. “By June we will have to cut a couple more positions,” Garrison said. In Rochester, diocesan spokeswoman Carolyn Lumbard said giving was down in some parishes hurt by the hard times befalling Eastman Kodak Co. and other employers, but no parish has withheld or reduced their gifts in protest of Robinson. “It’s not that we’re not having the discussion,” Lumbard said. “We do have some folks who have left the church. But more have come into the church.” In Albany, diocesan treasurer Jerry Carroll said there had been no financial fallout from the confirmation of Robinson, who was first confirmed by the Episcopal General Convention in August. A call to the Diocese of Central New York in Syracuse was not immediately returned. Garrison attributed the action in his diocese to an older, more conservative population. “But I know that what we’re facing is a collision of a couple world views, that more conservative Biblical interpretation and a more progressive, I believe,” he said. He added that the majority of the diocese’s 63 parishes are continuing to give “and are welcoming and affirming of gay and lesbian Christians in their midst.” The more than 7,000 congregations of the Episcopal Church receive $2.14 billion in offerings a year and forward a portion to the national church. Individual dioceses are asked to send 21 percent of their income. As of February, about half of the dioceses who had made their financial pledges to the national church pledged less than 21 percent. The Rev. Jan Nunley, a spokeswoman for the national church, said it was difficult to tell how much of the drop is attributable to protests by parishioners and their dioceses and how much the economy has affected giving. END

WESTERN NEW YORK BISHOP FACES FINANCIAL BACKLASH TO ROBINSON CONSECRATION By J. Michael Garrison The Fair Share is the means this diocese has chosen to support the Episcopal Church beyond the level of the parish. Each annual convention of our diocese approves the specific amount of money asked of our various communities for the support of the programs and commitments that carry out the work of our community of faith both here in Western New York and beyond. We believe that this support is vital to the mission of the Church. Our parishes and missions have been most generous over the years in making our giving a sign or sacrament of the generosity of our God in giving us all that we have. The system has worked well because all make an annual commitment to continue to support it. We have come now to a place of crisis in our life together as this diocese. The decision of General Convention to confirm the election of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has angered a number of our members. Some are choosing to withdraw their giving from the Church or, often at their clergy’s urging, choosing to divert their giving away from the Diocese of Western New York. This saddens me greatly. The parishes of St. Stephen’s, Niagara Falls; St. Bartholomew’s, Tonawanda; St. Michael and All Angels’, Buffalo; and St. Mary’s, Salamanca; have decided to send the diocese a pittance, rather than a “fair share”. Saint Mark’s, Orchard Park, has reduced its pledge by one third. These, and smaller cuts by others, mean that our projected budget will be short by at least $135,000*. I have urged us to remain one Church in Western New York, one Church of interdependent parishes and missions. Our interdependence is made real by the commitments that our annual budget supports. When one or more of our communities of faith are unfaithful to the “fair share”, it means that the rest of the diocese must make up the difference, or that basic commitments must be eliminated. Our interdependence is meant to be a reflection of our relationship in the Body of Christ. All of the parts of the body need all of the other parts of the body. None should say to another, “I have no need of you,” or “Your interests or commitments are not important to me.” So what is the effect of these actions taken by some of our congregations? Will the General Convention be effected? The answer is, “No.” Will our deputies and myself who voted to confirm Bishop Robinson be “punished” for voting as we did? Again, the answer is, “No.” What will happen? Our diocesan staff will be reduced and/or the diocesan program will be cut. So, who will be punished? Those members of our staff who will lose their jobs, and their families, will be, as will the diocese as a whole because services and resources that have been provided in the past will no longer be provided. What will also be punished is the mission of this diocese. I believe there is a sad spiritual arrogance connected to actions that are meant to punish one another in the Body of Christ, especially for actions that resulted from much thought, much prayer, and much deliberation by bodies constitutionally chosen to make such decisions. Money does have power in our society’s life. Sharing what we have been given can be the sign of our response to our wondrous God’s generosity in giving us all that we have. Withdrawing it can be the sign of wielding power both to harm and injure, rather than to build up and empower. I believe some of our members have chosen to do the latter, and it saddens me greatly. The image that has come to my mind is that of a child who takes his or her toys and runs away from playmates because they are not playing as the child wants them to play. In our Baptismal liturgy parents and godparents are challenged to help their children “grow up into the full stature of Christ.” In other words, we are called upon to become mature Christians. I believe that withdrawing support from our diocese is a childish act that does not represent a mature Christian perspective on the use of time, talent, or treasure. I am writing to our protesting communities and reminding them that the long name of our Church is the “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” Our Church was born in dissent and protest, and I fully support all of our members’ and communities’ right and duty to protest the actions of General Convention or the actions of the leadership of this diocese. However, I do not believe that the action of the parishes mentioned above is about protest. For me, it is a sign that we are in a profound period of being disconnected as the Body of Christ. I have made myself available to hear the protests of the people of the above parishes and all our communities. I believe that we have had frank exchanges of our respective points of view. After my visits with two of the above congregations, I have been surprised at the written assessment of the gatherings. I have felt vilified for my attempt to go and listen and allow others to share their perspectives on our decisions. I feel that I come as a person of good will and a person who believes very strongly in God’s love and yet I have been likened to Satan in the comments of some of our members. I mention all this as a prelude to asking this: How in the midst of this time of dissent in our Church’s life will we model what Jesus would do? For me, the great sign of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He reminds them that the fruit of God’s Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” If the “fruit of the Spirit” is not present, how will we learn to disagree agreeably? When will we learn that in the midst of our disagreement we are meant to hold each other and cherish each other as beloved children of our God? The Epiphany season challenges all Christians to remember that God’s life and love dwell within each Christian. We are called upon to let the light of that life and love shine for one another and for the world. The bottom line for those of us who supported the decision made in Minneapolis is that we believe we have internalized the call of the Baptismal Covenant to strive for justice and to respect the dignity of every human being. We believe that we have acted prophetically as a Church in our stance on issues of human sexuality. God, in God’s time, will provide the ultimate answer to our questions and debates. In the meantime, let us remain in the way of Jesus. Shalom, The Rt. Rev. J. Michael Garrison Diocese of Western New York This number ($135,000) was derived from figures available as of press time. Final figures had not yet been reported by all congregations. — from Church Acts, the diocesan newspaper for the diocese of Western New York.

PRIESTS FORCED TO REVEAL SEXUAL PAST By James Murray, Religious affairs editor THE AUSTRALIAN April 01, 2004 PRIESTS in Australia’s largest Anglican diocese are being forced to fill out a detailed and highly personal questionnaire about their sexual history, including relationships outside marriage, as part of a crackdown on child abusers in the church. The Sydney diocese questionnaire also asks about any involvement in the occult, whether priests have been cruel to animals, their attitudes to alcohol and any convictions for driving offences. The use of internet chat rooms and pornography comes under scrutiny in the eight-page document approved by the diocese’s professional standards committee, a copy of which has been obtained by The Australian. Under a section called child protection and criminal conduct, priests are asked whether they have ever been charged with an offence or been the subject of an investigation, faced a traffic offence in court, had their driver’s licence revoked or suspended or been the subject of an apprehended violence order. Other questions include any history of gambling, homosexual relationships or charges of sexual misconduct with persons under the age of consent. Compulsory for prospective priests and those transferring to the diocese, the questionnaire, introduced in recent weeks, will also be given to priests and deacons wanting to renew their licences to preach and administer the sacraments. Applicants answering yes to some of the questions could be rejected. The questionnaire has been criticised by some bishops as being too intimate and precluding any thought of repentance, forgiveness and healing, as well as fears it could lead to dishonesty rather than frankness. Philip Gerber, of the child protection committee of the Anglican General Synod, said the Sydney diocese thought it best to introduce the questionnaire “sooner rather than later”. But he said not all of the 23 Anglican dioceses in Australia would follow suit. A police check of prospective priests is common practice even in states where the law does not make it obligatory, especially if they will be working with children. A debate on the recommendations of the General Synod’s working group will take place in October, and an attempt made to have a unified national approach. It is expected some dioceses will want modifications, but general agreement is expected. The questionnaire comes after the National Council of Churches called 60 representatives together in Canberra recently from the Anglican, Catholic, Uniting, Lutheran, Salvation Army, Greek Orthodox, Quaker, Churches of Christ, Coptic Orthodox, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist and Presbyterian churches to discuss sexual abuse. Council general secretary John Henderson said the churches were “now ready to come together around the table and tell their stories, listen more intently to victims, and to develop a positive culture in which abuse and misconduct will not take place”. END

By Jonathan Petre, and Graham Tibbetts Daily Telegraph 3/23/2004 British Muslims reacted with anger yesterday at an attack on Islamic culture delivered by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Muslim leaders said his claim that moderates had failed to condemn suicide bombers was totally unjustified, and rejected his assertion that Islam, over the past 500 years, had displayed a “strong resistance to modernity”. Dr. George Carey: claim totally unjustified. In a public lecture in Rome on Thursday evening, Dr. Carey had also criticised the “glaring absence” of democracy in Muslim countries and said Islamic culture had contributed “no great invention… for many hundred years”. Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Federation of Muslim Organisations in Leicester, said Dr. Carey’s statement was “disastrous” for relations between Christians and Muslims. “He has fallen prey to the campaign tactics of racists in this country,” he said. As to the suggestion that Muslim leaders were not doing enough to criticise terrorists, Mr. Moghal said it was “nonsense”. “We condemn suicide bombers, we go on radio, on television, we have made statements. What more can we do? We cannot be responsible for the criminal actions of others—they are not under our control. The former archbishop has got it wrong.” Dr. Zaki Badawi, regarded as a moderate voice in Muslim circles who has been consulted by Tony Blair on a number of issues, said he was “quite upset” by the comments. “I think Dr. Carey made a rather unfortunate statement at a time when there is about to be dialogue between Muslims and Christians in America,” said Dr. Badawi, principal of the Muslim College in Ealing, west London. He said that Dr. Carey’s view of Islam was historically inaccurate and failed to recognise that the West had undermined democratic revolutions in Iran and Egypt in the 19th and 20th centuries. The speech also omitted any mention of the British Empire, which colonised Muslim countries, said Dr. Badawi. He added that the West’s recent dominance of technology was more to do with geography and development than religion. “I have great affection for Dr. Carey but it is unfortunate he delivered this lecture,” he said. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, was swift to dismiss the former archbishop’s words, denouncing them as “myopic”. He said: “Frankly, one is dismayed by Lord Carey’s comments. One is surprised to find Lord Carey recycling the same old religious prejudice in the 21st century.” Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, said: “We hope that the current Archbishop Rowan Williams—who is very different—will condemn these views.” But Lord Carey defended his speech yesterday on BBC Radio 4’s The World At One programme. “It is meant to provoke a reaction. In the same way I look at the West and Christianity and am equally critical,” he said. “I’m looking at the way we build stereotypes of each other and the way we must transcend this and I think that a person looking objectively at the entire speech—five and a half thousand words—will see there’s a balance there… So to twist it as an attack on the Islamic world would be far too simplistic and sadly it does suggest how polarised the world is at the present moment. The positive is that I believe we can do more together. Two great faiths, Christianity and Islam, working together against extremists on both sides. That, in fact, was the thrust of my message.” Dr. Carey’s remarks came just before his successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, leads talks between Christian and Muslim scholars in New York, which start on Monday. Although Lambeth Palace would not be drawn into a reaction, the Bishop of Southwark, the Right Rev Tom Butler, attempted to calm emotions. He said: “Sometimes opinions will be expressed robustly in either direction; if this can be handled with maturity and mutual respect, understanding can be deepened and our dialogue can emerge strengthened.” Dr. Carey received encouragement from the leader of an organization which supports Christian missionaries working in Islamic countries. Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Fund, said that Dr. Carey’s lecture had taken “great courage”. “He has spent years establishing dialogue with Islam. Now he recognizes that the core of Islam must be radically changed if there is going to be any change in their attitude towards suicide bombing and so on. This is a departure for the Church,” he said. “He is going to get a lot of flak from the Muslim community, who will feel that he has betrayed them, and from the liberal wing of the Church of England who will feel that he has stepped out of line.” END

Muslim culture has contributed little for centuries, says Carey By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent THE TELEGRAPH 3/26/2004 Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, launched a trenchant attack on Islamic culture last night, saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving. He attacked the “glaring absence” of democracy in Muslim countries, suggested that they had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries and criticised the Islamic faith. Dr. Carey’s comments, in a lecture in Rome, are the most forthright by a senior Church leader. He was speaking on the eve of a seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars in New York, led by his successor as archbishop, Dr. Rowan Williams. He acknowledged that most Muslims were peaceful people who should not be demonised. But he said that terrorist acts such as the September 11 attacks on America and the Madrid bombings raised difficult questions. Contrasting western democracy with Islamic societies, he said: “Throughout the Middle East and North Africa we find authoritarian regimes with deeply entrenched leadership, some of which rose to power at the point of a gun and are retained in power by massive investment in security forces. Whether they are military dictatorships or traditional sovereignties, each ruler seems committed to retaining power and privilege.” Dr. Carey said he was not convinced by arguments that Islam and democracy were incompatible, citing the example of Turkey. He urged Europeans and Americans to resist claims that Islamic states were morally, spiritually and culturally superior. “Although we owe much to Islam handing on to the West many of the treasures of Greek thought, the beginnings of calculus, Aristotelian thought during the period known in the West as the dark ages, it is sad to relate that no great invention has come for many hundred years from Muslim countries,” he said. “This is a puzzle, because Muslim peoples are not bereft of brilliant minds. They have much to contribute to the human family and we look forward to the close co-operation that might make this possible. Yes, the West has still much to be proud of and we should say so strongly. We should also encourage Muslims living in the West to be proud of it and say so to their brothers and sisters living elsewhere.” Dr. Carey said that, while Christianity and Judaism had a long history of often painful critical scholarship, Islamic theology was only now being challenged to become more open to examination. “In the case of Islam, Mohammed, acknowledged by all in spite of his religious greatness to be an illiterate man, is said to have received God’s word direct, word by word from angels, and scribes recorded them later. Thus believers are told, because they have come direct from Allah, they are not to be questioned or revised. In the first few centuries of the Islamic era, Islamic theologians sought to meet the challenge this implied, but during the past 500 years critical scholarship has declined, leading to strong resistance to modernity.” Dr. Carey said that moderate Muslims must “resist strongly” the taking over of Islam by radical activists “and to express strongly, on behalf of the many millions of their co-religionists, their abhorrence of violence done in the name of Allah”. He said: “We look to them to condemn suicide bombers and terrorists who use Islam as a weapon to destabilise and destroy innocent lives. Sadly, apart from a few courageous examples, very few Muslim leaders condemn clearly and unconditionally the evil of suicide bombers who kill innocent people. We need to hear outright condemnation of theologies that state that suicide bombers are martyrs and enter a martyr’s reward.” Christians, who shared many values with Muslims, such as respect for the family, must speak out against the persecution they often encountered in Muslim countries. “During my time as archbishop, this was my constant refrain: that the welcome we have given to Muslims in the West, with the accompanying freedom to worship freely and build their mosques, should be reciprocated in Muslim lands,” he said. Dr. Carey, who initiated several top-level meetings between Christian and Islamic leaders during his time at Lambeth Palace, urged the West to tackle the Palestinian problem and other inequalities in the Muslim world. “It will do us little good if the West simply believes that the answer is to put an end to Osama bin Laden. Rather, we must put an end to conditions, distortions and misinformation that create him and his many emulators.” Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that Dr. Carey’s comments “saddened” him. “He should be well aware that mainstream Muslim organisations have consistently condemned terrorist acts but their statements are often ignored by the media,” he said. “Dr. Carey is trampling on a very sensitive area by referring to the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet.”

Canadian Catholic Bishops Warn Homosexual Hate Crime Bill Could Silence Church OTTAWA, March 26, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) — As the homosexual hate crime bill C-250, proposed by homosexual-activist Svend Robinson, readies for final debate and vote in the Senate, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has issued another warning over the legislation. In a letter sent yesterday, CCCB General Secretary Msgr. Mario Paquette warned the Senate that: “Participation in the current public debate on marriage has demonstrated there are individuals who believe that Catholic Church teaching on homosexual behaviour is hatred. We remain concerned that this Bill as presently drafted could be used in an attempt to silence Church teaching in this regard.” The letter explained that the Catholic Church “teaches that hatred is a sin” but also teaches “that sexual conduct between people of the same sex is morally wrong.” The CCCB proposed an amendment to the bill. “We suggest that one way of doing this could be to add a section that clearly exempts, from the hate propaganda provisions, the communicating of statements about the morality of sexual conduct,” said the letter. “The Bill could also be used to preclude comment on homosexual behaviour by people who do not profess any particular religious faith,” but find homosexual conduct to be morally wrong. Recalling the failed governmental promise over previous legislation that homosexual benefits would not lead to a redefinition of marriage, the CCCB said, “It would be very helpful for Senators to take the time to make sure that the guaranteed rights of freedom of religion and freedom of expression are not overridden.” Janet Epp Buckingham, the director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said senators have told her they are “getting a ton of phone calls and e-mails opposing the bill,” but said there is also “quite a bit of momentum for the bill to pass.” The evangelical fellowship said that if C-250 is passed, it will endanger faith groups’ freedom to read, preach and distribute sacred texts, and to publicly discuss and comment on sexual morality. END

LIBERAL EPISCOPALIANS UNITE IN ATLANTA MEETING ATLANTA (3/28/2004)- Liberal Episcopalians from 11 dioceses across the United States have joined together to promote unity within the national church. The alliance, named Via Media USA, represents laypeople and clergy from grassroots organizations that hold diverse opinions about many issues facing the church but are solid in their desire to remain in communion with The Episcopal Church of the USA and the worldwide Anglican Communion. The name - "via media" means middle way - reflects the group's focus on preserving the church and its traditional openness to differing interpretations of scripture, tradition and reason. "There is room for everyone in the Episcopal Church," said The Rev. Michael Russell, Rector of All Souls' Episcopal Church in San Diego, CA, and a member of Episcopal Way of San Diego. "We believe that the Christian way is to love, work and worship together - to resolve disputes within the church without tearing it apart." The 12 groups, from California, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Texas, South Carolina, and Florida, met for three days of worship and fellowship during which many members talked about specific concerns in their dioceses. Most of the groups are in the minority in the leadership of their dioceses, many of which have joined a newly formed network. Via Media USA has ongoing concerns that the network's actions may ultimately result in schism within the national church. "We learned about and from each other, drawn together in fellowship," said Dr. Joan Gundersen of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. "Some people who were feeling isolated now feel supported. This meeting has helped us move closer together and has given us a better working relationship." The organization of Via Media USA is in its preliminary stages and all of the represented groups will be consulting with their own members in coming weeks about how to move forward. Two observers from The Episcopal Church's Executive Council attended the meeting and Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold sent a letter that encouraged the group's efforts to promote unity. "The diverse center is the overwhelming reality of our church and its voice is urgently needed, both within the church and in our fractured and polarized world," Griswold wrote. END

The Sermon Was in Arabic A revitalized, if nervous, Christian church in Baghdad. BY FRED BARNES 3/26/2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq--Pastor Jule's church is new and not easy to find. For more than a decade after selling his business, he devoted his life to preaching about Jesus Christ, but not in public in overwhelmingly Islamic Iraq. In 1999, he started an underground Pentecostal Christian church in his home. And when Saddam Hussein was toppled a year ago, he opened an above-ground church in Karrada, a residential and retail district across the Tigris River from the heavily guarded "green zone" of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The surfacing of his church may not seem like much of a breakthrough. Iraq is 3% Christian at most, and Saddam used to brag about his tolerance of Christian churches. But they were mostly churches where tributes to Saddam crept into sermons; they were no threat to his regime. Pastor Jule's church is different. It elevates faith in Christ as one's personal savior over any worldly obligations to the state. The church has ties to the Assemblies of God in America. Services at the church, though conducted in Arabic, would be familiar to any American evangelical or Pentecostal. I went to the Wednesday evening youth service, which attracted about 250 young people. It began with "praise" music in which stanzas of worship songs were repeated over and over. That was followed by a Bible teaching from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Then came intense prayer. The joyful mood of the young people was familiar too. They sang enthusiastically. They hung around after the service, both in the sanctuary and outside on the sidewalk and street. Several sought advice from Pastor Jule. Men and women appeared to have equal standing. Not only did Pastor Jule's wife deliver the Bible teaching, but a young woman led the singing. You may wonder why I haven't used Pastor Jule's last name. He asked me not to. Since Saddam's fall, Iraq "has been an open country for the Gospel," Pastor Jules says. His church has grown to roughly 500 parishioners, and it has a new building, paid for by members who donated money and jewelry. But he's apprehensive about the future once Iraqis are handed sovereignty by the American-led coalition headed by L. Paul Bremer III. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the interim Iraqi constitution signed three weeks ago. But it also gives considerable autonomy to regional districts that might frown on visible expressions of Christianity. And if Pastor Jule follows through on his plans to plant new churches around Iraq and start a small Bible college, the Christian presence in Iraq will grow in visibility. There's also a potential problem with the permanent constitution that will be drafted by an Iraqi government to be elected by the end of January 2005. Shiites, the majority in Iraq, may be in a position to shave back on the protection of minority religions such as Christianity. For now, Pastor Jule is happy. He met recently with an evangelical group from Atlanta called EQUIP, which wants to train pastors in Iraq and provide them with Christian books and tapes. But he had a bad experience when interviewed by phone on Christian radio in the U.S. Pastor Jule was asked what he considered to be awkward political questions. He eschews politics. When I spoke with him, he was reluctant to talk. He refused to be interviewed by an American reporter who attended a recent Sunday service at his church. Yet he has expressed his gratitude to America for the ouster of Saddam. "God used coalition forces to destroy Saddam and give us freedom," Pastor Jule told his American evangelical friends. "I thank God for the courage of the American soldiers who have paid a great price for our nation to be free." Now he wants American forces to stay until an elected government dedicated to ensuring religious freedom is in office. "We have a big vision," Pastor Jule says. It's bold as well. Christian missionaries from America and Europe have found Muslim countries the hardest to evangelize. Pastor Jule, however, is working from within. That may make all the difference. Mr. Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.

What does 'Judeo-Christian' mean? By Dennis Prager Townhall.com March 30, 2004 The United States of America is the only country in history to have defined itself as Judeo-Christian. While the Western world has consisted of many Christian countries and consists today of many secular countries, only America has called itself Judeo-Christian. America is also unique in that it has always combined secular government with a society based on religious values. But what does "Judeo-Christian" mean? We need to know. Along with the belief in liberty -- as opposed to, for example, the European belief in equality, the Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern belief in social conformity -- Judeo-Christian values are what distinguish America from all other countries. That is why American coins feature these two messages: "In God we trust" and "Liberty." Yet, for all its importance and its repeated mention, the term is not widely understood. It urgently needs to be because it is under ferocious assault, and if we do not understand it, we will be unable to defend it. And if we cannot defend it, America will become as amoral as France, Germany, Russia, et al. First, Judeo-Christian America has differed from Christian countries in Europe in at least two important ways. One is that the Christians who founded America saw themselves as heirs to the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, as much as to the New. And even more importantly, they strongly identified with the Jews. For example, Thomas Jefferson wanted the design of the seal of the United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt. Just as the Hebrews left Egypt and its values, Americans left Europe and its values (if only those who admire Jefferson would continue to take his advice). Founders and other early Americans probably studied Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, at least as much as Greek, the language of the New. Yale, founded in 1701, adopted a Hebrew insignia, and Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787. The words on the Liberty Bell, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land . . . ," are from the Torah. Vast numbers of Americans took Hebrew names -- like Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather (kattan in Hebrew means "little one" or "younger"). The consequences included a strong Old Testament view of the world -- meaning, in part, a strong sense of fighting for earthly justice, an emphasis on laws, a belief in a judging, as well as a loving and forgiving, God, and a belief in the chosenness of the Jews which America identified with. The significance of this belief in American chosenness cannot be overstated. It accounts for the mission that Americans have uniquely felt called to -- to spread liberty in the world. This sense of mission is why more Americans have died for the liberty of others than any other nation's soldiers. It is why those who today most identify with the Judeo-Christian essence of America are more likely to believe in the moral worthiness of dying to liberate countries -- not only Europe, but Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. That is why America stands alone in protecting two little countries threatened with extinction, Israel and Taiwan. That is why conservative Americans are more likely to believe in American exceptionalism -- in not seeking, as President Bush put it, a "permission slip" from the United Nations, let alone from Europe. The second meaning of Judeo-Christian is a belief in the biblical God of Israel, in His Ten Commandments and His biblical moral laws. It is a belief in universal, not relative, morality. It is a belief that America must answer morally to this God, not to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world. That is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values lead the fight against redefining marriage. We believe that a pillar of Judeo-Christian values is to encourage the man-woman sexual and marital ideal, and to provide children with the opportunity to benefit from the unique gifts that a man and a woman give a child, gifts that are never replicable by two men alone or two women. That is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values are unmoved by the idea that the war in Iraq is moral if Germany, France, China and Russia say so, but immoral if they oppose it. We ask first what God and the Bible would say about liberating Iraq, not what Syria and other members of the U.N. Security Council say. That is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian values believe that war, while always tragic, is on more than a few occasions a moral duty. Nothing "Judeo" ever sanctioned pacifism. Of course, the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah yearned for the day that nations will beat their swords into plowshares. But another Hebrew Prophet, Joel, who is never cited by those who wish to read the secular value of pacifism into the Bible, said precisely the opposite: "Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, 'I am strong!'" And that is why those who want Judeo-Christian values to disappear from American public life affirm multiculturalism, seek to remove mention of God from all public life, and make Christmas a private, not a national, holiday. The battle over whether America remains Judeo-Christian or becomes secular like Europe is what this, the Second American Civil War, is about. END