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BY Carl R. Trueman FIRST THINGS June 18, 2026 H. Richard Niebuhr famously denounced the liberal church of his day, summarizing its theology in a single withering sentence: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” What he did not note—but perhaps implied—is that such theology typically manifests in worship that is infantile, offering a pastiche of the wider culture’s predilections that would qualify as kitsch, if its purveyors had the wit to see it as such. The progressive church is always a poor imitation of what the world considered cool the day before yesterday. Walking through the streets of London in early June, I encountered a first-class example of such third-class theological life, courtesy of Pride Month, Anglican style. Pride Month has had a lower profile in recent years. The Pride flag is still there, of course—most visibly at Canada House on Trafalgar Square—but there seems to be some confusion over which version to fly, with the trans-inclusive design appearing less frequently than in previous years. Perhaps the coalition has overplayed its hand. It strains credibility to claim marginalization when you are the only group with an entire month devoted to celebrating you, with your symbols displayed everywhere from high street stores to corporate headquarters to government buildings around the world. No other group can claim such annual privilege or cultural power. And Pride now runs well ahead of public taste. Call me a Victorian reactionary, but I suspect that the increasing prevalence of queer furries in Pride parades is unlikely to broaden the rainbow coalition’s popular appeal. Yet there is one place where Pride remains dominant: progressive parishes in the Church of England. Wandering back to my hotel from a visit to Hatchards bookshop, I was struck by a church noticeboard advertising not merely a month of Pride-affirming liturgics but a whole year’s worth. A Q&A with “the next generation of queer priests” in March (tickets available for a mere £5); a queer movie night in April; an evening of LGBTQ questions for clergy in May, followed by a screening of the film Pride; a Pride service in June; a drag performance and then another queer service in July; a Drag Sports Day in August; another Pride service in September; an evening denouncing conversion therapy in October; another queer movie night in November; and in December, a queer Christmas Carol Service where the public is invited to join the congregation to “celebrate the Nativity through song, blending its beauty with iconic queer anthems—from Cher to Ariana, Bowie to Gaga—for a truly unforgettable night.” A month is clearly not enough for this parish as it hijacks the rainbow from God’s promise to Noah and attaches it to human confusion for a whole year. This is a dramatic but tragic example of what happens when Christianity loses sight of its transcendent purpose. It is one of the ironies of progressive theology that however sophisticated its intellectual articulation, its liturgical expression tends toward childishness. Another irony is that churches that try to ape the tastes of the day in order to speak to the times typically fail to do so. They simply offer the standard fare of the surrounding culture in a cringe-inducing religious idiom and often with an enthusiasm that aspires to be shocking but is merely out-of-date. Pride rises in progressive Anglicanism in London at the very moment its grip on June appears to be weakening. Further, under the guise of prophetic courage, these churches are actually demonstrating cowardice, preferring to affirm the fashionable falsehoods of the sexual revolution to the truths of the faith they claim to adhere to. Christianity does not affirm the values of the earthly city, left or right, and then seek to blend them seamlessly into celebrations of the most disruptive moment in human history—the incarnation of God himself. Instead, it points beyond, to things above, to something better. Rather than calling people back to a true vision of humanity, progressive churches offer the fraudulent answers of a culture that will do anything but face up to its mythology—the cult of human autonomy, expressed most pungently in the sexual revolution. This is not the gospel of Christ; it is the mendacity of the age. What was striking about the noticeboard was that neither God, Christ, nor the cross were mentioned. So perhaps Niebuhr needs updating: “No god, wrathful or otherwise, brought men, women, or those of alternative genders without sin to a drag show without judgment through the ministrations of no Christ and no cross.” The situation has not improved. Even the linguistic idioms of the faith, gesturing as they did toward orthodoxy, have finally been abandoned—apparently in favor of such theological giants as Bowie, Grande, Cher, and Gaga. And this raises the question: What is the Church of England for? The first event of this parish’s liturgical calendar, the Q&A with “the next generation of queer priests,” poses as its topic: “What is the future of the Church of England?” I will answer that (and waive my own £5 fee): If Pride Year is allowed to stand as a liturgical reality in any parish, that parish should not call itself a church. Indeed, as I read this parish noticeboard, the words of Oliver Cromwell came to mind: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

PRESS RELEASE June 17, 2026 BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Anglican Reformed Catholic Church (ARCC) convened its inaugural Synod in Birmingham, Alabama, from June 10–12, marking a milestone in the formation of this new ecclesial body rooted in Classic Anglicanism. The opening Eucharist on June 10 featured the Consecration of the Venerable Andrew Hayler to the Episcopate. Bishop Hayler was elected in June 2023 by the Special Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy to serve as a Suffragan Bishop. He and his wife, Marissa, currently reside in Japan and will soon return to the United States. Acting under the appointment authority the House of Bishops hold over Suffragan Bishops, Bishop Hayler will provide episcopal care to the Diocese of St. Martin of Tours until an ordinary is either identified or elected. The Synod also marked a significant transition in episcopal leadership. The Right Reverend Mark Nordstrom was elected and elevated on June 10 to serve as the second Bishop of the Special Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy, succeeding the Right Reverend Derek L. S. Jones, who founded the JAFC in early 2007. The Right Reverend Marshall MacClellan was installed as Coadjutor of the Special Jurisdiction. Until Bishop Nordstrom's election, Bishop Jones had served simultaneously as Bishop of the JAFC and as the Administrative Bishop overseeing the formation of the ARCC. Ten days before the Synod, Bishop Jones and the ARCC Executive Committee received four churches into the ARCC, forming a new diocese: the Missionary Diocese of St. Simon of Cyrene. "We have been receiving requests from Anglican churches at a rate of about three per month since January but have been careful not to admit anyone until this past week," said Mrs. Samantha Vance, Chairman of the ARCC Executive Committee. ARCC leadership had held applications pending until the Constitution and Canons reached a provisional state. Notably, at least two additional churches, after watching the opening Eucharist online, immediately reached out expressing a desire to join what the ARCC describes as its "restorative" work. The Reverend Canon Rob Jackson, serving as a U.S. Army Chaplain and as the Canon to the Ordinary for the Special Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy (Anglican Chaplains®), called it a landmark gathering. "This was our best gathering in the nearly nine years I have been with Anglican Chaplains® — everyone was excited, downright ecstatic, about approving our Provisional Canons. It doesn’t surprise anyone that there is such a high level of interest in what the ARCC is doing and what Classic Anglicanism is about." Several dignitaries attended the Synod as observers and were given voice and, in some cases, full participation in ARCC proceedings — an unusual gesture of welcome. One visiting Archbishop who leads a small continuing communion, and who has been in dialogue with the ARCC since February, entered a formal concordat with the ARCC. A formal announcement will be released soon. The ARCC House of Bishops also responded with their thanks to several Anglican provinces who quietly conveyed their prayers and support. Asked about these conversations, Archdeacon Kenneth Gillespie, Dean of the ARCC, remained measured: "We have been purposeful not to discuss publicly any current dialogues in progress – we’ll not disclose any of the ministry and partnership work the ARCC is currently developing until an appropriate time." The ARCC also remains resolute in its decision not to respond to the plethora of misleading and outright false statements being published in tabloid news and on social media. In a capstone moment for the Synod, the House of Bishops elected Bishop Jones to serve as the ARCC's first Archbishop. While the “laying on of hands” has already taken place, a formal Installation Service will be scheduled to celebrate this milestone. POC: Mrs. Sherry Richmond, Director of Communications, Send inquiries to: Communications@TheARCC.org

ADOSC Bishop praises newly adopted canons. Calls for greater transparency By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 16, 2026 ACNA Archbishop Steve Wood has been denied his motion to dismiss the canonical case against him. The presentment includes three formal charges: violation of ordination vows, conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, and sexual immorality. The Diocese of the Carolinas confirms these correspond to specific canons — Violation of Ordination Vows (Canon IV.2.1.3), Conduct Giving Just Cause for Scandal or Offense (Canon IV.2.1.4), and Sexual Immorality (Canon IV.2.1.6). A supplementary motion to dismiss was also denied. The court further ruled that no statute of limitations exists under ACNA's canons for charges brought in the presentment of a bishop or archbishop — foreclosing what appeared to be one of the defense's strategies and clearing the way for the trial to proceed on the merits. The province's motion asking the College of Bishops to observe the trial was denied. A motion for an in camera (closed) trial, however, was granted. Disciplinary Canons Reform Draws Praise In other ACNA news, Diocese of South Carolina Bishop Chip Edgar praised the newly adopted canons making it easier to bring disciplinary charges against a bishop or priest. "Such canonical requirements, absent until now, contributed to the level of distrust and frustration marking our province today," Edgar said. "I completely support these revisions and have been impressed with the rigorous and transparent process the province undertook to get us here." Edgar said he was particularly focused on a proposal to ratify — through a second and final vote — a change first approved by last year's Provincial Council: elevating the Governance Task Force (GTF) into a permanent Provincial Constitution and Canons Committee, written into the Canons themselves rather than left as a matter of province policy. He added that his own diocese has put forward two resolutions for Provincial Council's consideration. The first calls for public release of the transcript from Bishop Ruch's recent trial, with redactions as necessary to protect witnesses. The second calls for public release, once complete, of the final report from the Lathrop investigation into the process leading up to that trial. "Our goal in proposing these resolutions is simple," Edgar said. "We hope to see trust that has been deeply eroded over the past few years restored in the province as it continues to navigate challenging waters." A province that asks the watching world to take its confession of Christ seriously cannot afford to try its own bishops in the dark. Sunlight, not secrecy, is what will tell us whether ACNA still means what it says. David W. Virtue DD writes about Anglican issues from an orthodox perspective. His website can be accessed here: www.virtueonline.org His Substack on the Middle East can be viewed here: davidvirtue2.substack.com

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD I www.virtueonline.org I June 15, 2026 Efforts to reframe and restructure the Anglican Communion are little more than rearranging chairs on the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) deck and will not bring about the unity their architects hope to achieve. The Rt. Rev. Glenn Davies, bishop of the GAFCON Diocese of the Southern Cross, has delivered a stinging critique of the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, arguing that the historic understanding of the Communion as a fellowship bound together by Holy Scripture is being sacrificed on the altar of provincial autonomy. At the heart of the dispute lies the redefinition of marriage by revisionist provinces—a departure from both Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer that Davies says the report largely ignores. Writing ahead of ACC-19, which meets in Belfast later this month, the former Archbishop of Sydney acknowledged the considerable work undertaken by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO). Yet he contends that the Commission's central premise is flawed. By focusing on what Anglicans still share rather than confronting the doctrinal boundaries of Anglican orthodoxy, the report minimizes the very issues that have fractured the Communion for more than three decades. Davies argues that the proposals fail to address the fundamental crisis surrounding marriage and sexuality. Instead, they seek to preserve institutional relationships while avoiding the theological questions that have driven provinces apart. The bishop reserved particular criticism for the proposed revision of Resolution 49 of the 1930 Lambeth Conference, long regarded as the defining description of the Anglican Communion. While welcoming the reduced emphasis on communion with the See of Canterbury, he believes the revised language weakens the Communion's doctrinal foundation. The original resolution spoke of churches that "uphold and propagate" the Catholic and Apostolic faith. The Nairobi-Cairo revision proposes that member churches merely "seek to uphold and propagate" that faith. Davies sees the change as far more than a matter of wording. "Clearly, this is an admission that not all Churches do uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order," he wrote. He further argues that what earlier generations assumed—that Holy Scripture is the ultimate standard of faith and doctrine—has been diluted by an increasing emphasis on provincial autonomy. Provinces that have authorized same-sex marriage and blessings have, in his view, departed from both Scripture and the teaching of the Book of Common Prayer while remaining within the structures of the Communion. Davies also addressed proposals to broaden Communion leadership beyond the Archbishop of Canterbury. While sympathetic to concerns about the Communion's colonial legacy, he questioned whether governance reforms address the real issue. Changing who chairs meetings, he argues, cannot resolve a crisis rooted in doctrine. For Davies, the Communion's divisions were not caused by administrative structures but by theological departures from historic Christian teaching. Strip away the language of renewal, reconciliation, and walking together, and the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals amount to a simple proposition: doctrine divides, so lower the doctrinal bar. Davies will have none of it. The crisis in the Anglican Communion was never Canterbury. It was never colonialism. It was never governance. It was the rejection of biblical teaching by provinces determined to rewrite Christian doctrine on marriage and sexuality. The proposals do not solve that problem. They accommodate it. ACC-19 should reject them. For more stories click here: www.virtueonline.org. My Substack on the Middle East can be viewed here: davidvirtue2.substack.com

"Schism is not the one who leaves, but the burden of the one who causes the schism." — Chuck Collins "Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, even impossible. There can be no life without the life-giver, no understanding without the Spirit of truth, no fellowship without the unity of the Spirit, no Christlikeness of character apart from His fruit, and no effective witness without His power. As a body without breath is a corpse, so the church without the Spirit is dead." — John Stott "Late-modern Western culture assumes every individual's path to meaning and purpose is equally valid. It rejects any ultimate public framework for truth other than its own secular relativist one. Many faithful members of local churches have been shaped by this cultural ideology without even recognizing how deeply it contradicts the gospel of Jesus." — Dwight Zscheile Dear Brothers and Sisters | www.virtueonline.org | June 12, 2026 TWO RELIGIONS WEARING THE SAME NAME Is it possible to hold together two fundamentally different understandings of Christianity within the same institutional structures? Attend an ACNA service and then a TEC service and you will encounter two starkly different visions of the faith. One is supernaturally oriented, anchored in personal transformation and costly discipleship. The other is fixated on this world — social justice, ending poverty, housing for all. In one vision of ministry, the priest calls people to give their lives to Christ, to "put on Christ," to follow him wherever that leads — and more boldly still, to subsume their life entirely into the life of Christ. In the other, the vision of ministry amounts to helping people find their "divine spark," to "encounter mystery beyond themselves," to see God's love in everything. Jesus becomes buddy and companion, never judging, inclusive of absolutely everybody. In that moment you might want to stand up and sing "Kumbaya" as the closing hymn. The truth is, we are not merely describing the same faith with different language. We are describing two fundamentally different religions. The Episcopal Church — indeed, mainline Christianity broadly — has become primarily fixated on activism, inclusion, and human flourishing detached from any concrete claims about who Jesus is and what God has done through him. If that is the case, TEC is little more than Unitarian Universalism, minus the embarrassing God-talk of historic Christianity. And it is one reason TEC is dying. Demographics suggest that by 2040, TEC will be either out of business or so irrelevant that society will scarcely notice it exists. The bishops will be deeply offended that no one cares what they think. All the sincerity and compassion in the world will not change that. The theological center has shifted so far that we are no longer talking about the same faith. ACNA: THE RUCH TRIAL AND THE TRANSPARENCY PROBLEM ACNA's Governance Task Force meets in Tulsa in July, where it will address "concerns" about the upcoming Provincial Council. Among the agenda items: a request for the release of the Ruch trial transcripts and a third-party review. Whether those transcripts will actually be released remains to be seen. The Rev. Dr. Matthew Wilcoxen, theologian and ACNA leader, has been advocating for reform of the denomination's Title IV disciplinary canons to improve fairness, pastoral care, and transparency in clergy discipline. His Substack (wilcoxen.substack.com) makes the case carefully. Wilcoxen argues that the current framework is "good but not finished" — it provides a structure but lacks sufficient safeguards for due process, pastoral sensitivity, and transparency. His proposed amendments aimed to strengthen procedural fairness for accused clergy, improve pastoral care for all parties, and increase transparency in proceedings — including public release of key documents, as the Diocese of South Carolina has pushed for in the Ruch case. His amendments were declined. They never reached the floor, were not acted on by the legislative committee, and died at the close of Convention. Which immediately raises the question: are Title IV reforms there to protect the laity, or to protect bishops? What we have so far is Bishop Phil Ashey's clumsy attempt to spin Title IV by claiming the charges against Archbishop Steve Wood would have been quashed — a claim he later walked back when confronted by interim ACNA leader Bishop Julian Dobbs, publishing a retraction of sorts. But not before revealing that he may already be calculating his own exposure under Title IV. ACNA leadership looks more and more like TEC — without the gay sex. In my recent report on proposed changes in the ACNA, I received word that corrections needed to be made of a technical nature. VOL: “ACNA's Governance Task Force meets in Tulsa in July, where it will address "concerns" about the upcoming Provincial Council.” ACNA: The Governance Task Force has no plans to meet in July. The annual meeting of the ACNA Provincial Council will be held in Tulsa this coming week, June 17-19, 2026. Information about this event is available at ACNA’s website: https://anglicanchurch.net/provincial-council-2026/ VOL: “Among the agenda items: a request for the release of the Ruch trial transcripts and a third-party review. Whether those transcripts will actually be released remains to be seen.” ACNA clarification: Two resolutions submitted by the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina (ADOSC) will be presented from the floor. The first is “Resolution #1 calling upon the Court for the Trial of a Bishop to release a full transcript of all of its actions in the Ruch matter.” The second is “Resolution #2 calling upon the Executive Committee to release the final written report of the investigation of the Ruch matter.” The Council will consider and vote on these matters. The decision and sole authority to make a decision about releasing court transcripts remains with the Court for the Trial of a Bishop. The format for the final report reviewing the administration of the Ruch trial has not yet been determined by the Subcommittee appointed to oversee that review. VOL: “The Rev. Dr. Matthew Wilcoxen, theologian and ACNA leader, has been advocating for reform of the denomination's Title IV disciplinary canons to improve fairness, pastoral care, and transparency in clergy discipline. His Substack (wilcoxen.substack.com) makes the case carefully. Wilcoxen argues that the current framework is "good but not finished" — it provides a structure but lacks sufficient safeguards for due process, pastoral sensitivity, and transparency. His proposed amendments aimed to strengthen procedural fairness for accused clergy, improve pastoral care for all parties, and increase transparency in proceedings — including public release of key documents, as the Diocese of South Carolina has pushed for in the Ruch case. His amendments were declined. They never reached the floor, were not acted on by the legislative committee, and died at the close of Convention. Which immediately raises the question: are Title IV reforms there to protect the laity, or to protect bishops?” ACNA: The Rev. Dr. Matt Wilcoxen is one of many members of our Province who have participated in a robust ten-month public review of the proposed new Title IV reforms that will be considered at Provincial Council this week. Like many others, he has been thoughtfully engaged and has identified revisions he believes will further strengthen the proposed canons. We are grateful to all of the members of our Church, including Rev Dr. Wilcoxen and his supporters, whose feedback has significantly strengthened and refined the proposal that will be presented this week. The only concern that has been discussed regarding the proposed Wilcoxen changes is on procedural grounds, given that the suggested amendments came in after a widely publicized deadline. PRIDE MONTH AND THE CHURCH OF AFFIRMATION June is Pride Month, and no denomination throws itself into it more enthusiastically than the Episcopal Church. In cathedral after cathedral, flags go up; gay Eucharists are celebrated; bishops march in Pride parades and urge their people to join them. Celebrating sexual sin is no longer a pastime — it is now deeply embedded in the soul and canons of the church, even as few gay people actually appear in the pews. Read more: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/episcopal-church-proudly-proclaims-pride-month-even-as-church-continues-to-decline TEC'S TITLE IV: BROKEN BY ITS OWN ADMISSION ACNA is not alone in its Title IV crisis. An analysis of Episcopal clergy disciplinary outcomes reveals universal dissatisfaction and damaging results across the board. Anglican Watch, the unofficial TEC watchdog, reviewed processes and outcomes in 32 diocesan-level cases and 24 cases involving bishops. Their findings: an almost universally broken and dysfunctional clergy disciplinary system. Both complainants and respondents reported intense dissatisfaction with outcomes. An overwhelming percentage of complainants left not only the Episcopal Church but organized religion altogether as a result. Affected communities reported consistent and irreparable harm to the reputations and relationships of all parties — an outcome inconsistent with the process's stated objectives of seeking "justice, restitution, amendment of life, repentance, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation." Alleged offenses ranged from matters not actionable under church canons to allegations of felony conduct by clergy. The geographic distribution mirrored the church's broader footprint, with the majority of cases in the mid-Atlantic region. Unsurprisingly, most respondents were white, cisgender, heterosexual males. Of the cases with adverse outcomes, only three involved an LGBTQ+ respondent — and in all three, the underlying accusations involved clear violations of sexual boundaries. Read the full analysis: https://www.anglicanwatch.com/analysis-of-episcopal-title-iv-clergy-disciplinary-outcomes-reveals-universal-dissatisfaction-damaging-outcomes/ THE POPE, "PELVIC THEOLOGY," AND WHAT HE GETS WRONG Pope Leo XIV apparently wants to get his church off the subject of what he calls "pelvic theology" — a dismissive phrase for those concerned with sexual ethics, from abortion to LGBTQ rights to traditional chastity. The implication is that such concerns amount to a morbid obsession, possibly a psychological disorder. Theologian Carl Trueman thinks otherwise. Writing in First Things, Trueman argues that the sexual act is — biblically and historically — both a key social bond (Gen. 2:24) and part of the mandate given to human beings (Gen. 1:28). Indeed, sexual intercourse, with its creative potential, is the human act that makes us most God-like. Attitudes toward sex lie at the heart of what it means to be human. The Old Testament surrounds sexual activity with taboos and rituals of purification even for legitimate acts. The New Testament continues this. St. Paul argues that the man who sleeps with a prostitute has committed a particularly heinous sin — not only because he has sexually exploited a woman, but because he has sinned against his own body. The Didache, one of the earliest post-canonical writings, makes rejection of abortion a central identity marker for the Christian community. Trueman's argument cuts to the chase: if you use the term "pelvic theology," you must also use "pelvic justice." To refuse to do so is to reveal your hand. You are not making a serious theological point about the body — you are performing as a useful idiot for the sexual revolutionaries who have already wreaked such havoc on our societies. Sex is not one human act among others. It touches the heart of what it means to be human. To trivialize it — theologically or judicially — is to trivialize humanity itself. The pope should take note. And in time, this debate will filter down into Protestant circles and become the new battleground over sexuality. TEC is already almost there. THE POPE IS ALSO WRONG ON JUST WAR Pope Leo XIV apparently doesn't much like the concept of a just war either. He has declared it dated and no longer relevant in modern warfare — with his eye fixed on Iran and America's role in that conflict. He publicly stated that the war against Iran does not qualify as a just war under Catholic teaching. "I believe it has been already declared clearly," Leo told Italian journalist Franca Giansoldati of Il Messaggero. "There is no just war there." The remark came in response to Vice President JD Vance, who invoked just war theory in April to justify the military campaign against Iran. Vance pointedly told the pope to "be careful" when venturing into theology. He was right. Pope Leo writes in his encyclical like a liberal Protestant of the 1930s — with faith that war can be abolished in this fallen world, that all we need is to listen and reason together, and that bodies like the United Nations can broker peace between civilizations. Only someone with his head firmly in the sand would say such things in 2026. If the pope is wrong about "pelvic theology," he may well be wrong about just war theory too — a tradition that has served the church for over a thousand years. Read my full take: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/pope-is-wrong-on-just-war-iran-would-annihilate-israel ORTHODOXY ADVANCING IN NORTH AFRICA In a move that strengthens orthodoxy in the global south; retired Nigerian Archbishop Ben Kwashi has been licensed as the area bishop of Chad, under the ecclesiastical authority of North African Bishop Ashley Null. Three major events drew 9 workers from Chad, including four priests, one priest from Libya, one from Algeria and two from Tunisia to the diocese of Cameroon: a three-day joint clergy retreat between North Africa and Cameroon, led by Archbishop Kwashi and Bishop Null; the annual one-day North African diocesan synod and the licensing service for Archbishop Kwashi, over which the Most Rev. Samy Shehata, the Archbishop of the Episcopal/Anglican Church of Alexandria, presided. The Rt. Rev. Dibo Elango, Bishop of Cameroon, was the host for the week-long event. He led the Bible studies during the retreat and also put on a wonderful Cameroon cultural night. In a phone call to VOL, Bishop Null spoke glowingly of how things were developing spiritually across North Africa and foresees much growth in the coming months, especially in Chad under the dynamic leadership of Archbishop Kwashi, a well sought after evangelical speaker in the West. THE CHURCH IS EMPTYING — BUT MOVEMENTS ARE MULTIPLYING How do we evangelize the next generation for Christ? Clearly no denomination has figured it out. Churches are emptying faster than a politician's promise after election night. But new movements are arising — bottom-up rather than top-down — and some of them are producing astonishing results. Jerry and Stacy Kramer are two unlikely Anglican missionaries. Together they bring nearly a quarter century of ministry experience through their Love for the Least (L4L) ministry, which has seen 15,000 new church plants built on a one-on-one discipleship model that has no equal. Their vision is to ignite Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs) among the world's least-reached and most vulnerable peoples — through a fusion of radical compassion, frontier mission, and obedience-based discipleship. Their aim is not to build an organization but to catalyze Kingdom movements that multiply far beyond any single ministry. They have no vision for a global denomination, no desire to be "large," and prefer to go unrecognized. "We want people to see Jesus, not us. He's far more attractive and interesting." What separates the Kramers from traditional missionary approaches is their DMM strategy: multiplying disciples and planting churches that plant churches — not programs. Their work is anchored in the Discovery Bible Study (DBS), developed by their mentor David Watson, known as the "Father of Modern Movements," with its core engine of Training for Trainers (T4T). The paradigm shift is threefold: obedience-based discipleship over knowledge-based teaching; identifying and developing local leadership from the start; and missionaries exiting early. "The only metric for success is generational growth — disciples making disciples to the 10th, 12th, and 14th generation," Jerry told VOL. They are now part of a network with 14 generations of churches and disciples. Jerry and Stacy are catalyzing and stewarding two official and five emerging DMMs across 12 countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa. Their original prayer captures the urgency: "God, give us a DMM or let us die." They prayed for one movement and now have seven. And they are pressing for more. Read Parts 1 and 2: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/the-changing-world-of-mission-strategies-part-1 https://www.virtueonline.org/post/two-anglican-missionaries-are-part-of-the-changing-face-of-missions If you are serious about reaching Generations X, Y, and Z, this is probably the most effective approach I have seen. I have traveled to Iraq and Turkey and watched it in operation. The old top-down models — bishops and clergy calling the shots — have run their course. They no longer work. OS GUINNESS HONORED FOR A LIFETIME OF CULTURAL CLARITY An old and dear friend, Dr. Os Guinness, English author and social critic, received the 2026 William Wilberforce Award at the Colson Center National Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, on May 30. It is a thoroughly well-deserved honor. "I think Guinness is in the tradition of Wilberforce, also of Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson — basically helping the Church think clearly about the moment by thinking about the past, and looking ahead toward the culmination of all things: the Kingdom," said John Stonestreet, president of The Colson Center. Read more: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/os-guinness-receives-william-wilberforce-award-for-work-in-post-christian-age-it-can-turn-around CATHOLICS LOSING, PROTESTANTS GAINING — BUT THE NUMBERS ARE COMPLICATED Christianity has lost more believers than most other faith groups worldwide in recent years — but the two largest branches of the faith have diverged sharply in terms of "faith switching." According to research published by the Pew Research Center, Catholicism has lost significant numbers to switching in many countries, while Protestantism has gained. The research, published in April by Kirsten Lesage, William Miner, and Rebecca Leppert, was drawn from 2024 surveys of thousands of Catholics, Protestants, and non-religious people across the globe. "Switching" is defined as having been raised in one faith or denomination and either leaving or changing as an adult. ARCHBISHOP MULLALLY RAISES THE ALARM ON AI AND ABUSE Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally has warned Parliament that current artificial intelligence regulations are "wholly inadequate" to prevent significant harm to human dignity. Citing a recent Durham University report, Dame Sarah raised concerns that chatbots are facilitating roleplays of rape, incest, and child sexual abuse — with few safeguards — risking the normalization and legitimization of such abuse. Speaking at the opening of an AI debate in the House of Lords — a topic she personally selected — Mullally called for a "pro-human framework" for AI development. Whatever one thinks of her leadership on other matters, she is right to sound this alarm loudly. SUPPORT VOL If you value what VOL writes, please consider a tax-deductible donation. This work is a labor of love, but we have bills to pay. There are no salaries — but daily writing continues, and a webmaster, researcher, and overseas journalists must be supported. VOL has brought on new writers with clear insights into Scripture and culture. We have no mega-donors and no grants — only faithful readers who believe in what we do. We are now read in over 100 countries by tens of thousands of readers who trust us to cover the most pressing issues facing Anglicanism today. Only a small percentage contribute. We have proven ourselves over more than 35 years. Online: virtueonline.org/donate By check (tax-deductible): VIRTUEONLINE, P.O. Box 111, Shohola, PA 18458 Thank you for your support. David W. Virtue, DD

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD I www.virtueonline.org I June 15, 2026 Archbishop Sarah Mullally has set herself an impossible task. She wants to reconcile what cannot be reconciled, and short of a miracle — a commodity in increasingly short supply in the Church of England — she will not succeed in shaping the Communion into her own image. In time she will sit down with the provinces sympathetic to her vision: those still tethered to Canterbury, still willing to play by the old Instruments of Communion, still hoping that enough goodwill and careful language can paper over a chasm that has already become a canyon. That chasm was made unmistakable in Abuja, Nigeria, this past March, when 347 bishops and 121 lay and clergy leaders from 27 provinces — hosted by the Church of Nigeria, the largest province in the Communion — gathered for the G26 Bishops Conference. What they affirmed was not novel. It was ancient: the authority of Scripture, the centrality of the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Bible as the living heart of the Anglican Communion. There is not a single progressive Western province that could honestly sign its name to that statement — and everyone on both sides of the divide knows it. What the revisionist provinces of the Global North offer instead is "inclusion," a word that quietly nullifies the Great Commission. Inclusion means the freedom to ordain men and women in active same-sex relationships to every order of ministry — deacon, priest, and bishop alike. It means treating any call to repentance and conversion as narrow-minded and unwelcoming. The Great Commission says go and make disciples. Western inclusion says there is nothing to be converted from, and therefore nothing to disciple anyone into. Archbishop Laurent Mbanda, the Rwandan primate now chairing the newly formed Global Anglican Council, put it bluntly when GAFCON leaders gathered in Abuja: "the future has arrived." With those words, GAFCON announced it would no longer treat the Canterbury-centered Instruments — the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates' Meeting — as the defining structures of global Anglicanism. In their place stands the Global Anglican Council: primates, advisors, and guarantors from 27 provinces, bound not by an address in Lambeth Palace but by a shared confession, the Jerusalem Declaration. These are not ceremonial words. Archbishop Mbanda chairs a movement that, by GAFCON's own reckoning, now represents the majority of the world's Anglicans. When he asks for prayer, he is asking on behalf of a global fellowship holding the line and contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. The work of the Global Anglican Council is anything but abstract. It is: Theological education for the next generation of orthodox pastors, many serving where sound biblical training is scarce or actively opposed. Frontline mission among the unreached — church-planting partnerships stretching from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East and beyond. Relational infrastructure holding together 27 provinces across deep cultural, linguistic, and national divides — bound not by institutional power or property settlements, but by a shared confession of the Jerusalem Declaration. By contrast, Western Anglicanism — the Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and their fellow-travelers — offers task forces, listening processes, and liturgies for blessing what Scripture calls sin. It offers declining attendance, shuttered parishes, and bishops more fluent in the language of diversity and inclusion than in the language of the Great Commission. It offers "walking together" as a euphemism for walking apart, and "good disagreement" as a euphemism for surrender. Archbishop Mullally inherits a Communion that has, in every meaningful sense, already reordered itself without her. She can convene conversations and speak of unity. But unity built on anything other than a shared confession of Scripture's authority and the Lordship of Christ is not unity — it is merely proximity. The Global South said so in Abuja, in 27 voices speaking as one. The Global North has yet to admit it is preaching a different gospel — and until it does, no archbishop, however well-intentioned, will reconcile what God himself has already divided along the fault line of truth. For more on my take on the Anglican Communion click here: www.virtueonline.org My Substack on the Middle East can be viewed here: davidvirtue2.substack.com

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 9, 2026 Pope Leo has again declared that the war against Iran does not qualify as a just war under Catholic teaching. "I believe it has been already declared clearly," Leo told Italian journalist Franca Giansoldati of Il Messaggero. "There is no just war there," he said, referencing the conflict. The remark came in response to Vice President JD Vance, who invoked just war theory in April to justify the military campaign against Iran. Vance pointedly told the pope to "be careful" when venturing into theology. He was right to say so. In the Gaza war — which has been systematically misrepresented by the Western media — the IDF routinely dropped leaflets and sent text messages before strikes to warn civilians. They do not intentionally target civilians. John Spencer, the American military scholar and firsthand observer of the Gaza war, has testified repeatedly that the IDF has done more than any military in history to avoid civilian casualties. But because Hamas deliberately embeds itself within civilian homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques, it invites attacks that will necessarily produce civilian deaths. That is a war crime — Hamas's war crime, not Israel's. Israeli forces consistently try to avoid civilians. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the IRGC purposely target them. This is the central moral disparity the mainstream media refuses to report. The joint American-Israeli strikes were not aggression. They were prevention — protecting the world from nuclear war and nuclear blackmail. The true Augustine would call this a just war. The Just War Tradition Just war theory has a long and distinguished pedigree. Its roots lie in classical Roman philosophy, particularly Cicero, who argued that war must be declared by proper authority, waged for a just cause, and conducted with restraint. Christian theology absorbed and deepened those principles. Augustine gave them their first coherent theological framework. Aquinas systematized them. Medieval and early-modern legal thinkers extended them into the foundations of international humanitarian law. The through-line across twenty centuries is consistent: war can be morally justified, but only under strict conditions, and its conduct must remain bound by moral law. The conditions are well established: just cause, right intention, legitimate authority, last resort, probability of success, and proportionality. Iran's theocratic regime — which has enshrined "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" as state policy, which funds proxy armies across the Middle East, which has launched direct missile strikes against Israeli territory, and which openly pursues nuclear capability for the purpose of annihilation — meets the threshold for just cause by any honest application of the tradition. If this does not constitute just cause, one must ask the pope what would. Jews and the Question of War It is worth noting that just war theory, as a formal category, is a Christian construct. Jewish religious tradition approaches warfare differently — not from abstract philosophical principles but from concrete, historically conditioned reasoning rooted in Torah and rabbinic law. The Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts do not traffic in philosophical categories. Jews did not engage in systematic philosophical thought until the Middle Ages, and their tradition is marked by patterns of reasoning that diverge sharply from both Christian and Islamic frameworks. Jews have no Augustine. A more practical reason explains the gap: between 70 CE and 1948, the Jewish people existed in diaspora. Without political sovereignty, they neither needed nor had opportunity to develop a theology of warfare. The question was largely theoretical for nearly two millennia. Judaism's approach to violence is governed instead by the principle of self-defense and the priority of preserving life — pikuach nefesh. It is neither bellicose nor pacifist. The biblical narratives of conquest have historically been treated by mainstream Judaism as bound to their specific historical context, not as templates for contemporary statecraft. Modern Israel has changed that equation decisively. The IDF operates under a formal code of ethics — Tohar HaNeshek, purity of arms — that draws in part on Jewish tradition. In practice, this means warning civilian populations before strikes, accepting operational risk to avoid non-combatant casualties, and maintaining legal accountability for battlefield conduct. Critics may dispute Israel's execution of these standards. But the standards exist and are enforced. No equivalent framework governs Hamas, Hezbollah, or the IRGC. The contrast is not subtle. The Pope's Blind Spot Pope Leo writes in his encyclical like a liberal Protestant of the 1930s — with faith that war can be abolished in this fallen world, that all we need is to listen to one another and reason together, and that world bodies like the United Nations can broker peace between civilizations. Only an observer with his head firmly in the sand would say such things in 2026. There is nothing in his encyclical about Communist totalitarianism or terrorist governments ruled by religious fanatics. As if a seminar room with the IRGC, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, and Benjamin Netanyahu might produce world peace. Israel may not use the language of just war. But that is precisely what it is waging — a war of survival against adversaries who have stated plainly and repeatedly that their objective is annihilation. Pope Leo's statement is not merely mistaken on the merits. It reflects a failure of moral imagination. He appears not to have reckoned seriously with what Iran actually is — a regime that calls for the erasure of a sovereign nation, that arms terrorists, that fires ballistic missiles at civilian populations, and that pursues nuclear weapons for purposes it has never disguised. To declare that resisting such a regime fails the test of just war is not a sophisticated theological position. It is a category error wrapped in the language of peacemaking. It also reflects a failure of historical memory. The Jewish people carry within living memory the systematic murder of six million of their own. They have watched a genocidal ideology arise again, this time wrapped in Quranic language and backed by state power. The pope's sympathies, if not his theology, appear to lie elsewhere. That is his prerogative. But he should not expect Jews — or the many Christians who stand with them — to follow. I am willing to die for Christ. I am not willing to stand aside while Islamic fundamentalists determine the fate of the Jewish people or the free world. Neither, it seems, is Israel. The pope would do well to reconsider. History will not be kind to those who called a war of survival unjust. David W. Virtue, DD, is the founder and publisher of VirtueOnline (virtueonline.org), one of the most widely read orthodox Anglican news and commentary sites in the world. His Substack on the Middle East: davidvirtue2.substack.com

By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 8, 2026 Jerry and Stacy Kramer are two unlikely missionaries. Pass them on the street and you might wonder if they were looking for a hot meal and a place to lay their heads. Jerry is an ordained Anglican priest who doesn't wear a dog collar. He’ll snipe that he can’t remember where he put it. You would be hard pressed to know what he was about — until you see him and his wife in action. Together they bring nearly a quarter century of ministry experience in the Middle East and Africa. Their ministry — Love for the Least — is by any standard small, but it does more to advance the Gospel and bring converts into the Kingdom than 95% of the organizations and ministries operating today. The Kramer's Vision for Love for the Least Jerry and Stacy’s vision for Love for the Least (L4L) is to ignite Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs) among the world's least-reached and most vulnerable peoples through a fusion of radical compassion, frontier mission, and obedience-based discipleship. Their aim is not to build an organization but to catalyze Kingdom movements that multiply far beyond any single ministry. They have no vision for global denomination, do not want to be “large” and prefer to go unknown. “We want people to see Jesus, not us. He’s far more attractive and interesting.” The Core Mandate: "The Kingdom for the Least" The Kramers define the least as those who are unreached, unseen, or unwanted — widows, orphans, refugees, trafficked women, and Muslim people groups with little or no Gospel presence. They have worked with ISIS-displaced refugees in Northern Iraq, with orphans and widows in East Africa, gone into combat in Syria several times to reach and help refugees and with trafficked and abused women in conflict zones. Their primary focus remains Unreached Muslim peoples across the Middle East, the Swahili Coast and Central Asia. There are 3.4 billion people with no access to the Gospel, including two billion Muslims. That’s 42% of all People Groups. Only one out of thirty missionaries goes to the 3.4 billion Unreached. 87% of the world’s Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will never meet a Christ follower in their lifetimes. What separates the Kramers from traditional missionary approaches is a Disciple Making Movement strategy: multiplying disciples and planting churches that plant churches, not programs. Their work is anchored in Disciple-Making Movements — rapid, generational multiplication of disciples and simple churches. The Discovery Bible Study (DBS), invented by their mentor David Watson, the “Father of Modern Movements” has at its core engine Training for Trainers (T4T). The big global paradigm changes and shift is to obedience-based discipleship rather than knowledge-based teaching, identifying and developing local leadership from the start, and in missionaries exiting early. "The only metric for success is generational growth — disciples making disciples to the 10th, 12th, and 14th generation," he tells VOL. They are part of a network that now has 14 generations of churches and disciples. Jerry and Stacy are catalyzing and stewarding two official and five emerging DMMs in 12 countries across the Middle East, Central Asia and East Africa. Their original prayer captures the urgency: "God, give us a DMM or let us die." They prayed for one Movement and now have seven. And are gunning for more. Prayer as the Work, Not Support for the Work At the heart of L4L is prayer, fasting, and what the Kramers call "failing forward" — learning from setbacks, persecution, and martyrdom. “You have to make mistakes. That’s how you learn. Americans are allergic to failure. Our mentor, David Watson, told us, ‘You will have to become experts in failure before you become experts in success.’ We tell our new young team members, ‘Get out there and fail. That means you’re actually doing something.’ If you’re not failing, you’re not trying and not learning.” Prayer for the Kramers is not support for the work; prayer is the work. They consider their intercessors, “The Dream Team,” the engine and far more important than they are. Movements are spiritually birthed, not strategically engineered. Their local teams are trained in extended fasting and intercession, bold prayer for the sick, and listening prayer for strategy. “I’m not an idealog,” says Jerry. “I don’t really care how we get to movement as long as it’s faithful. There are folks out there who insist you have to do it ‘this way.’ All we do is see how and where God is working and join Him. We pray for God to move His hand. Only God can move Movements. Simple.” The Kramers reject the false choice between social action and evangelism. L4L integrates both without apology. They call it, “Breathing with two lungs,” mercy ministry and evangelism/discipleship. The two are both expressions of the Kingdom and cannot be separated. To date, the ministry has brought relief to over one million war-displaced refugees, provided care for hundreds of orphans in East Africa, cares for 400+ orphans in East Africa and delivered trauma support for widows and abused women — all while making disciple-making and church planting among 49-plus unreached people groups a simultaneous priority. "Compassion opens doors; the Gospel transforms lives," jerry says. Some 15,000 new churches have been formed in their broader network. Frontier Focus: Going Where No One Has Gone The Kramers would never call themselves apostles, but their vision is unapologetically apostolic — pioneering new work among people groups with zero known believers. “We go to zero or worse,” said jerry, “More on fire the better.” Recent frontier initiatives include the remote Muslim tribes in East Africa, war torn Syria and diaspora Iranians in Central Asia. And they are catalyzing what they believe to be the biggest Movement in the Anglican world, certainly among numbers. If they know you, they’ll give you a great deal of information not for public record. “We don’t fear the Muslim Brotherhood. The biggest killers of movement are denominations and money. Denominations can do it but they have to think and act differently. We hide largely from American Evangelicals who will swoop in and kill it. You cannot fund the church side of the work. That will make the locals dependent on money: when they run out of money they run out of mission. Their money goes for mercy ministries and discipleship training. The Kramers think beyond the local and the immediate, seeing L4L as part of a historic realignment in global Christianity. They are fully aware that the center of gravity in the Anglican Communion — and in world Christianity — has shifted decisively to the Global South. The Anglican Communion today is primarily Black, under 30, and female. The Western church, by contrast, is over 60, white, and male. The latter will flame out in a generation. “The face of global Anglicanism,” notes Jerry, is a “Young Nigerian woman.” Movements, Jerry notes, are spreading fastest in the Muslim world, with Western missionaries shifting from leadership to catalysis. "The future belongs to indigenous, rapidly multiplying movements," he says. “You should be at a minimum of three to four generations in five or so years. Our role is to help establish the locally led, self-multiplying, self-correcting, self-disciplining, self-funding indigenous church. Then get out. I always tell the big leaders, ‘I’m not your bishop. I’m not your boss. I’m not your pastor. I’m your friend. Friends walk alongside and talk. It’s Jesus’ Church led by them. I don’t have a title and don’t want a purple shirt that’s been on offer. We work from influence not authority and position.” The Stakes Could Not Be Higher Their ultimate vision is seeing the Gospel of the Kingdom through bringing hope where there was none and making self-sustaining, Spirit-driven waves of disciples reaching the least-reached until the Gospel has taken root where it has never gone before. “If a People Group is more than 4% reached, that’s not for us,” notes Jerry. “We pioneer and break hard ground, not sustain or maintain.” That vision is not romantic. It is purchased at the cost of displacement, danger, martyrdom, and decades of grinding faithfulness in places most Western Christians cannot find on a map. Jerry and Stacy Kramer have paid that price — and they are not finished. In a church age defined by institutional decline, celebrity pastors, and strategic retreats, they represent something rarer and more costly: the apostolic edge, still cutting. Love for the Least Ministry can be accessed here: https://lovefortheleast.org/

EDITORIAL By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 5, 2026 It is Pride Month, and the Episcopal Church—already at odds with most of the Anglican Communion’s Global South on sexuality issues—is boosting the issue in churches and cathedrals across the country, hoping perhaps to entice homosexuals who show no interest in passing through their red doors. In Washington, Bishop Mariann Budde presided over a "Pride Eucharist," draped in a rainbow stole that seemed to weigh heavier than her crozier, declaring the diocese a sanctuary of inclusion while her parishes report yet another year of precipitous attendance drops. In Erie, PA, the cathedral hoisted flags so massive they obscured the very cross atop the building, a fitting metaphor for a denomination that has allowed cultural politics to eclipse the Gospel message. It is a textbook case of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. While the hierarchy focuses on intersectionality and rainbow liturgies, the faithful are walking out the back door. The strategy is baffling: by pandering to a secular culture that views organized religion with increasing indifference, the Episcopal Church is effectively abandoning its theological birthright for a mess of pottage. They are chasing a demographic that, statistically, isn't looking for what a dying mainline denomination is selling. The irony is palpable. In their desperate bid to remain "relevant" to the shifting whims of the 21st century, they have rendered themselves spiritually irrelevant to the very people they claim to serve. As they celebrate their open-mindedness, they are presiding over an ecclesiastical collapse that no amount of bunting can disguise. END

What Does Discipleship Look Like Today? By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 4, 2026 If you were raised in the post-World War II era, church was simply what families did. Soldiers came home, pews filled, and preachers didn't have to press the case. The mainline denominations were flush — with people, with money, with confidence. Missions committees were formed, checks were written to favorite ministries, and consciences were duly salved. The institution ran itself. That world is gone. The top-down model — bishop to clergy to laity, with the laity dutifully doing what they were told — has collapsed. If a parish sees its bishop once in three years, it counts itself fortunate. The priest is on his own. Churches have shrunk. Thousands have closed. Denominations have fractured over sexuality, with most congregations barely sustaining double-digit Sunday attendance. The pension funds that once seemed the reward for faithful institutional service now look like the real reason some bishops hang on. The picture is grim — and it is getting grimmer. The tendency, nonetheless, is to keep doing things the same way. Hold a conference. Hire a growth consultant. Listen to the latest renewal guru. It all sounds wonderful until Sunday morning arrives and the priest looks out at twenty faithful, grey-haired souls waiting — as Beckett put it — for someone who never comes. In all likelihood, that congregation will close within a few years. The bishop will express regret, note that the property is well-situated, and quietly calculate the sale price. Failing a buyer, the building becomes luxury condominiums, with perhaps one or two units set aside for low-income residents as a sop to the diocesan conscience. Mission, redefined as real estate. It doesn't have to be this way — but the honesty required to admit that is itself in short supply. The problem cuts across theological lines. For theological liberals, the Great Commission has become the Great Omission, replaced by advocacy, therapy, and social programming. For conservatives who still believe in the Commission, the question is harder: they affirm the mandate but cannot seem to implement it in a culture that has moved decisively away from them. THE DATA IS DAMNING The numbers make the case plainly. A recent survey of American adults found that despite a modest uptick in interest in Christianity and church attendance in recent months, the number of people who hold a coherent biblical worldview remains critically low — including just 1% of Gen Z. Only 4% of Americans overall possess beliefs and behaviors consistent with biblical principles, a category the researchers called "Integrated Disciples." Ten percent qualify as "Emergent Followers," whose faith is heavily syncretistic. The vast majority — 85% — are classified as "World Citizens," people who may hold scattered religious opinions but whose governing framework is something other than Christianity. That category has grown by 16 percentage points since 2020. Among evangelical churchgoers specifically — the people most likely to be the target of renewal efforts — the rate of "Integrated Disciples" has fallen from 21% in 2020 to 11% today. The church is not merely failing to reach the culture. It is losing the people already in the pews. What this tells us is stark: the top-down discipleship model has not merely underperformed. It has failed. Not recently — it has been failing for a generation. DOING THE SAME THING LOUDER Anglican bishop Phil Ashey has been making the rounds with a message of mission and renewal — launching Revive weekends in Arizona, San Diego, and Los Angeles, calling congregations to deeper missional engagement and emphasizing that "there is no revitalization without renewal." It is a worthy message, sincerely delivered. But it begs the decisive question: how? How do you engage people who aren't coming through the doors? Where do you find them? My own congregation has been experimenting with something called Pub Theology — renting space at a local pub, buying food and drinks, and opening up conversation about the questions of the day from a biblical frame. People engage. Some have said they'd come to church. Many have been burned by the church, abused by it, or simply concluded that the institution is not worth their Sunday morning. They don't hate Jesus. They hate what has been done in his name. Pub Theology works, in its modest way. But it is not a strategy. It is an adaptation — one congregation finding a workaround. The structural problem remains. A DIFFERENT WAY Here is an irony that ought to stop every Western church leader cold: the United States, Canada, and Europe are home to the fastest-dying churches in the world. Iran — a nation wracked by war, 95% Muslim, actively persecuting its Christian minority and hunting down what few Jews remain — is home to the fastest-growing church in the world. How is that possible? The answer, in part, comes from people like Jerry and Stacy Kramer, Anglican missionaries who have worked in the Middle East for nearly twenty-five years. Their model of discipleship is mission-driven, Kingdom-focused, and deliberately movement-oriented. It is not about filling seats. It is about making disciples who make disciples who make more disciples — reaching the least, the forgotten, the unreached — and doing so in ways that are sustainable, transferable, and rooted in the New Testament pattern of the early church. The Kramers define discipleship not as a program but as a way of life — a movement, not an institution. They describe what they call Disciple Making Movements as the engine of the global Christian revival now unfolding across the Global South and the Middle East. Their work has resulted in over 15,000 churches in ten countries, reaching fourteen generations of disciples and church plants in just three and a half years! For the Kramers, "the least" is not an abstraction. It means forgotten widows, orphans, refugees, trafficked girls, and unreached ethnic groups — the people institutional Christianity has largely written off as too hard, too distant, or too costly. Discipleship, in their framework, is simultaneously spiritual and practical: trauma care for ISIS survivors, refugee recovery centers, orphan care with education and skills training. The Gospel made flesh in the most desperate circumstances on earth. They operate as a movement, not an organization, with minimal overhead and a relentless focus on empowering local believers. No top-down hierarchy. No bishop who visits once every three years. No pension fund to protect. Stacy Kramer speaks often of small acts of daily obedience — the conviction that discipleship is not a conference you attend but a life you live, one obedient step at a time. THE VERDICT ON THE OLD WAY The Western church's institutional model has had decades to prove itself. The verdict is in. Cascading membership losses, shuttered buildings, a generation of clergy who were never taught to make disciples because their seminaries didn't know how, and a denominational apparatus more concerned with its own survival than with the mission it was created to serve — this is the inheritance of top-down, program-driven, conference-attending Christianity. The Kramers' model is not a novelty. It is closer to the New Testament than anything the institutional church has produced in generations. It works in Iran under persecution. It works among refugees and trafficking survivors. The question is whether Western Christians have the humility to learn from people who have nothing — no buildings, no budgets, no denominational cover — and yet are watching the Kingdom of God advance at a rate that shames every diocese in North America. The old strategies are not merely failing. They are finished. The only real question is whether the church will bury them before they bury the church. — Part 2 will examine the Kramer model in detail and ask what genuine replication would require of Western congregations.

By Jon Brown I Christian Post Reporter I June 04, 2026 English author and social critic Os Guinness received the 2026 William Wilberforce Award during the Colson Center National Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, on May 30, 2026. | Screenshot/YouTube/The Colson Center English writer and theologian Os Guinness recently received the 38th annual William Wilberforce Award from The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview to honor his decades of helping Christians make sense of their calling in a post-Christian cultural moment. "I think Guinness is in the tradition of Wilberforce, also of Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson, basically helping the Church think clearly about the moment by thinking about the past, and looking ahead toward the culmination of all things: the Kingdom," John Stonestreet, who serves as president of The Colson Center, told The Christian Post. Stonestreet, The Colson Center and Focus on the Family worked with the 84-year-old Guinness last year on Truth Rising, a documentary about his worldview and life's work, which has included authoring more than 30 books, co-founding the Trinity Forum Society and serving as a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies, as well as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. 'How should we then live?' The award Guinness formally received last Saturday at the 2026 Colson Center National Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, was named for William Wilberforce, the British politician whose work was born from his Christian faith and ultimately led to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the 19th century. Noting Guinness has been "a prophetic voice for decades," Stonestreet told CP that The Colson Center determined him to be a worthy recipient of the prize because of "his ability to have really clear insight on the moment that we're in." He said Guinness shares with Wilberforce an ability "to understand what really mattered at the time and place he was in." Born in 1941 in a Chinese village where his parents were serving as medical missionaries, Guinness saw firsthand during his childhood the ruinous consequences of communism, war and utopian attempts to establish the Kingdom of Heaven without God. His family was swept up in the 1943 Henan famine that killed millions in three months, including two of his older brothers. From roughly ages 5 to 10, they lived in Nanjing, where he witnessed the climax of the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949 and the beginning of Mao Zedong's reign of terror. By 1951, they were among the many Westerners who were expelled from China amid communist pressure. They returned to England, where Guinness would go on to be educated in London and Oxford. During the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, he studied at L'Abri in Switzerland under the late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, whose mentorship Guinness described as "revolutionary" as he was attempting to make sense of his generation's place in history. In his seminal 1968 book, The God Who Is There, Schaeffer emphasized that Western civilization was entering a post-Christian era, having drifted from belief in biblical absolutes to the embrace of subjective morality. Pursuit of "personal peace and affluence" had become the animating force amid existential despair, Schaeffer said, and his famous question to Christians living in such a cultural moment was: "How should we then live?" 'There are no little people' In The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever, his first book published in 1973, Guinness built upon Schaeffer's observations by arguing that both the secular humanism of the Western establishment and the 1960s counterculture had failed to give humanity true meaning, leaving historic biblical Christianity as the only viable "Third Way." In his 1997 bestselling book The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, Guinness wrote that God calls Christians to find meaning in their primary calling as followers of Jesus Christ, which infuses purpose into whatever other roles and stations they may have in life. During a scene in Truth Rising, Guinness and Stonestreet discussed how the West's civilizational crisis of meaning has noticeably worsened over the past generation, leading to consequences that Stonestreet said are "now being felt on an individual and personal level." "You're seeing all the chickens coming home to roost, and so people really feel now that things are degenerating rapidly, and they are," Guinness said. Os Guinness presents John Stonestreet with a copy of William Wilberforce's "Practical Christianity" during a scene in the 2025 documentary "Truth Rising." | Screenshot/YouTube/Colson Center Presenting Stonestreet with a historic signed copy of Wilberforce's classic 1797 book Practical Christianity, Guinness noted that it also contained a handwritten letter Wilberforce wrote to share his faith with a young couple, just months before he died in 1833. Guinness observed that by spending his final days ministering to others, Wilberforce had offered an example of how Christians ought to live amid evil days. "So the great man is still fighting slavery, and it was abolished three days before he died. But he's still reaching out in terms of his faith," he said. "And that is the best of the Christian faith, the best of evangelicalism: people who are actively engaged in life through their callings, but also prepared to share their faith in a wonderful way." Guinness remembered Schaeffer's line that "there are no little people." "In other words, every single one of us counts. We all matter, everyone made in the image of God; everyone, everywhere, in everything. It can turn around," he said. "We all think, 'Well, I'm no Wilberforce. There's not a real difference that I can make,' but that's just not true," Stonestreet said. "We can make a difference in the world, and we're in this time and place in history because God wanted us there." Faithfulness in little things In a video shown at the award dinner last Saturday, Guinness stressed the importance of personal faithfulness in daily life, especially during a time of civilizational crisis. He dismissed the utopian notion that Christians are called to single-handedly change the world by pursuing worldly fame and power. "I was brought up as a missionary kid in the China Inland Mission — Overseas Missionary Fellowship, as it is now — and the founder was Hudson Taylor, a great missionary," he said. "And he had a wonderful saying: a little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a big thing. And I think we need to remember that." "There's far too much heroism, the greatest of all time, and hall of famers, and all that sort of nonsense in this country. Who cares about celebrities and monuments and any of that? We're just called to be faithful in terms of who we are." Guinness noted the Bible shows God mightily uses the quiet faithfulness of ordinary Christians to accomplish His Kingdom purposes. "Am I being as faithful and enterprising and creative and sharing my faith as much as I can be? That's all that's up to us. You think of the boy with the loaves and the fish. Five thousand were fed. Who knows what the Lord will do with our lives if we just live faithfully to Him and give it back to Him?" Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post.

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org | June 3, 2026 Despite all the hoopla about an inclusive, diverse church open to absolutely everybody, dioceses led by gay and lesbian bishops have failed to grow. The numbers say so plainly. The latest available statistics are from 2023 — TEC has yet to release full 2024 figures — and they show continuing decline across nearly all dioceses, with losses running especially deep where gay and lesbian bishops hold the reins. Eastern Carolina. Incoming Bishop Sarah Fisher, an avowed lesbian elected November 15, 2025, will inherit a diocese already hemorrhaging members. In 2014 the ASA stood at 6,360. By 2023 it had fallen to 4,432 across 67 parishes with 14,233 members — a 30 percent drop. She has yet to prove she can reverse it. Maine. Bishop Thomas Brown, who is in a gay marriage, took the helm in 2019 with 59 parishes, 11,238 members, and an ASA of 3,537. By 2023 parishes had shrunk to 57, membership had fallen to 8,400 — a loss of 2,838 — and ASA had dropped to 2,695, a decline of 842. Total loss: 32 percent. Michigan. Bishop Bonnie Perry, who is in a lesbian marriage, began her episcopate in 2020 with 75 parishes, 14,901 members, and an ASA of 5,081. By 2023 parishes had dropped to 70, membership to 13,311 — a loss of 1,591 — and ASA to 4,003, a loss of 1,075. Total loss: 30 percent. Missouri. Bishop Deon Johnson, a Black gay bishop in a gay marriage, took office in 2020 with 42 parishes, 9,455 members, and an ASA of 2,994. By 2023 parishes had fallen to 39, membership to 8,745 — down 710 — and ASA to 2,443, a loss of 551. Total loss: 31 percent. Connecticut. Bishop Jeffrey Mello, who is gay, began his episcopate in 2022 with 153 parishes, 37,322 members, and an ASA of 8,211. By 2023 one parish was gone — St. Paul's Darien, the diocese's leading charismatic congregation — membership had slipped to 36,763, and ASA had fallen to 7,383, a drop of 828. Total loss: 22 percent. Los Angeles / New York. Retired lesbian suffragan Bishop Mary Glasspool began her Los Angeles tenure in 2010 with 144 parishes and 59,527 members. By 2016, when she transferred to serve as Assistant Bishop of New York, parishes had fallen to 128 and membership to 50,323 — a loss of 9,204 — with ASA dropping from 19,027 to 15,250, a 30 percent decline. The largest single-diocese loss in this survey. In New York she witnessed further carnage: 195 parishes became 191, membership fell from 51,309 to 41,888 — a loss of 9,421 — and ASA dropped from 9,866 to 6,947, a loss of 2,919. Total loss: 24 percent. New Hampshire. V. Gene Robinson — the retired bishop whose 2004 consecration as an openly gay, divorced man lit the fuse for the entire sexual revolution inside TEC — began with 49 parishes, 15,531 members, and an ASA of 4,746. By 2013, his final year, parishes had fallen to 46, membership to 12,740 — a loss of 2,790 — and ASA to 3,810, a drop of 936. Total loss: 28 percent. Robinson did not start the fire; he simply struck the match that burned the house down. Massachusetts. The late Bishop Thomas Shaw, SSJE — a celibate monk — presided over the largest absolute numbers. Diocesan records show 198 parishes and 91,465 members in 1995, with an ASA of 22,940. When he died in 2014, parishes had fallen to 183 and membership to 60,130 — a loss of 31,465. ASA had dropped from 22,940 to 16,024, a decline of 6,916 or 27 percent. The verdict is in. Diocese after diocese, bishop after bishop, the experiment has failed on its own terms. The promise was a bigger tent. What they built was an emptier one. Inclusion, it turns out, is not a growth strategy — it is an epitaph. David W. Virtue, DD is the president and Managing Editor of Virtueonline, the Anglican Communion’s most widely read orthodox Online News Service. www.vuirtueonline.org You can subscribe at no charge and receive updates as the stories are written. David’s Substack on the Middle East can be accessed here: davidvirtue2.substack.com