Archives

Special Report By David W. Virtue VANCOUVER, BC--Nine clergy from six biblically orthodox parishes and a disciple-making enable us to have relief and move forward in mission while the wider Anglican Communion works out how to deal with false teaching in its midst, and the impending re-alignment." NINE CANADIAN CLERGY OBTAIN SPIRITUAL SHELTER FROM REVISIONIST BISHOP Special Report By David W. Virtue VANCOUVER, BC--Nine clergy from six biblically orthodox parishes and a disciple-making ministry from Calgary, Alberta, have been granted adequate episcopal oversight, albeit temporary, from four Anglican Primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion. They are: The Revd Charles Alexander, Timothy Institute of Ministry, Calgary, Alberta; Dr David Bowler, Comox, Vancouver Island, a Church Plant; Revd Paul Carter, Immanuel Church, Westside; Revd Ron Gibbs, St Simon's, Deep Cove; Revd Ed Hird, St Simon's, Deep Cove; Revd David Hollebone, Living Waters Church, Victoria, Vancouver Island; Revd John Lombard, St Simon's, Deep Cove; Revd Barclay Mayo, St Andrews, Pender Harbour; Revd Silas Ng, Emmanuel Church, Richmond. The clergy, churches and ministry are in two dioceses - New Westminster, BC and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The offer of pastoral help to these parishes and clergy comes at a time when eight of the clergy are under siege from New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham because they refuse to support the Diocese of New Westminster in its decision to bless same-sex unions. They say it is in violation of, and contrary to, Holy Scripture. "This alliance of Anglican Primates has heard the plight of those who have been in a state of 'impaired communion' with their own diocese since the decision to bless same-sex unions was handed down in June of 2002-a divisive and unprecedented move that was vigorously denounced throughout the Anglican Communion," said the Rev. Paul Carter, a spokesman for the group. The Primates include the Most Rev. Bernard Malango of Central Africa, the Most Rev. Fidele Dirokpa of Congo, the Most Rev. Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, and the Most Rev. Datuk Yong Ping Chung of South East Asia., who will serve as Chair. The Archbishops have asked the Rt. Rev. Thomas W. Johnston, bishop in the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA to provide oversight and be the representative for the four Primates on practical matters. The Canadian clergy sought oversight out of religious conscience and this was extended to them on a temporary basis until a more satisfactory solution is found for those who dissent from the Anglican Church of Canada's growing acceptance of pansexuality. "The offer effectively allows those congregations and clergy to remain connected to the global Anglican Communion," said Carter by phone from Vancouver. This temporary and emergency offer of assistance by four international Anglican leaders insulates these churches and clergy in Canada from the often abusive power structures that have worked against them for the last 20 months, said Carter. "Bishop Michael Ingham of the Diocese of New Westminster has already closed one church and brought significant pressure against the others because of their stand for the orthodox Christian faith and their desire for oversight from an alternative bishop and renewed structures," he said. When the synod made its novel decision in June of 2002, representatives of eight churches walked out of the meeting, declaring that by its action the diocese had strayed from its Christian roots and was in 'impaired communion' with them and the rest of the Anglican Communion, said Carter. The eight churches formed the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW) and began to seek alternative Episcopal oversight-an arrangement whereby a bishop from outside the diocese would provide spiritual covering and oversight with full jurisdiction for their ministries. This type of alternative oversight has been consistently opposed by Bishop Ingham and the Canadian House of Bishops. Because of the disregard by Ingham of the pleas of leadership from around the Anglican Communion, several internal attempts to find a Canadian solution have failed. The situation in Canada and the Diocese of New Westminster, in particular, has created tension throughout the world-wide Anglican Communion. At 1998's Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops gathered from around the world, it was overwhelmingly declared that homosexual practice was incompatible with Scripture, and that the church was not free to bless such unions. The move by the Diocese of New Westminster to flaunt this directive has been denounced at the highest levels of the Anglican Communion, including two successive Archbishops of Canterbury. Last fall in a global meeting of the Primates, the New Westminster crisis was once again on the agenda, and a statement issued at the conclusion of that meeting declared that the actions of the diocese were divisive and contrary to the mind of the Communion. "We're extremely grateful to the Primates for this gracious and long-needed offer," said Carter, whose parish, Immanuel Church, Westside, (Vancouver) is not officially recognized by Ingham. The Rev. Carter's license was not renewed by Ingham. "We have been without a bishop for almost 20 months. Our people and clergy are in great need of Episcopal oversight. People of deep religious conscience are tired and disillusioned with the system that many are leaving Anglicanism altogether. When our internal efforts failed, we were on the verge of having to leave Anglicanism completely. This will now enable us to have relief and move forward in mission while the wider Anglican Communion works out how to deal with false teaching in its midst, and the impending re-alignment." END

David Virtue Sun, Oct 26, 6:22 PM (20 hours ago) to me By David W. Virtue MOREHEAD CITY, NC--All Saints' Episcopal Church is a "miracle church" according to its leaders and laity. By any human standard it should not exist. Its birth grew out of a former Episcopal parish - St. Andrew's - which split from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of East Carolina. After a bitter legal dispute over property ownership, Bishop Clifton Daniel III got possession of the church property, and a treasury of over half a million dollars. But at the end of the day he kept only 25 parishioners, had to put in a new parish priest, and has been forced to reduce the parish to mission status. In time it will die. In the meantime the Bishop is stuck with the bills. The new All Saints' parish, which is a member of the Anglican Mission in America has over 300 members and goes from strength to strength, according to its rector and parishioners. Mary Lena Anderegg, whose husband David is on the vestry tells the story. "When we left, our brethren and sisters in Christ in Morehead City reached across denominational and congregational lines to encourage and support us. Seven churches offered to share their facilities with us to worship, even offering to adjust their own worship schedules," she told Virtuosity. "The first week we were out of St. Andrew's building we had Sunday night praise and worship at a Baptist Church; a Wednesday prayer and communion was held at a medical facility; an interdenominational men's prayer group met at Catholic church, a 10am Sunday service was held at a Methodist church and other Sunday morning services were held in an elementary school gymnasium. One pastor even took a day of his vacation to worship with us the first Sunday we were out of the building." "We didn't lose the church we gave up the building and kept Jesus," said Anderegg. Then they were offered a rental warehouse property at Westridge Center on Highway 70. It has three bays of a warehouse, an office complex, sanctuary, and it has been set up permanently for us. "We have adjoining offices for Sunday school rooms, and it's ours till we find land to buy and build." Things immediately kicked into high gear, said the Rev. H. G. Miller who took over as the rector following the retirement of the evangelical Rev. C. King Cole. No one could still the excitement or stop the growth. "People came from all over. We were offered four church organs, and people who only worshipped with us occasionally ponied up another $135,000 in interest charges on the treasury (money held in escrow for legal fees) which the court required. It looked like Bishop Daniels had won. "The usurious interest payment of $135,000 was money that was taken from us. St. Andrew's Church Treasury had $400,000 which we had to turn over plus the interest of $135,000. It was paid off in10 days. They got the money but we kept Jesus." "But one bank loaned us money for 'start-up expenses' even though we had no physical assets for collateral. Another bank gave us office furniture. A private school gave us classroom equipment and furnishings for our Sunday School and generic office supplies and equipment. "A lady called and offered us two bishop's chairs from an old church, a lectern as well as donations of fabric for banners, chairs, lumber and foam. We began to collect silver pieces and jewelry to melt to replace the chalices and patina we had to leave with the building. Three Catholic brothers in Christ gave us an ingot each for the chalices because 'we want to be a apart of what you are doing'." City planners worked with the new church and towage was provided to move the granite rock on which is engraved the church's mission statement. A 'paint day' drew 70 people with non-members and summer folk coming out to help. "What was sown in tears (receipt of the Appellate Court's decision) has been reaped with songs of joy with a coming together of God's people for his glory. We have finally come home." Anderegg said she has seen other church splits over a 40-year period, but it was never like this. God has done and is doing a miracle each day. The church holds three services on Sunday plus a praise and worship on Sunday night with a youth group of over 200 attending. The church now has 320 members, more than it did before the split. The new pastor, the Rev H. G. Miller (he took over from the retired C. King Cole) came from Phoenix Valley Cathedral. He was leading a Pentecostal Church which became an AMIA church when the leaders decided they wanted oversight of a bishop. Of those who remained in the old church, Anderegg had only this to say, "they are lovely people who just don't get it." NOTE: If you are not receiving this from VIRTUOSITY, the Anglican Communion's largest biblically orthodox Episcopal/Anglican Online News Service, then you may subscribe FREE by going to: www.virtuosityonline.org. Virtuosity's website has been accessed by more than 900,000 readers in 45 countries on six continents. This story is copyrighted but may be forwarded electronically with reference to VIRTUOSITY and the author. No changes are permitted in the text. END

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is Rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado. He holds a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University and is an accomplished violinist and scholar. He was interviewed by VIRTUOSITY on the crisis in the Episcopal Church. By David W. Virtue VIRTUOSITY: First of all, thank you Dr. Radner for agreeing to be interviewed. I realize this cannot be an easy time for you. You have taken quite a few hits from clergy and a couple from two well-respected Primates and an ECUSA bishop. I suspect you are still reeling. So let me begin by asking: has anything been written in response to what you have written that has caused you to change your mind about why conservatives should not leave the ECUSA? RADNER: Well, David, there has certainly been a good deal of—to keep with your boxing metaphor, but to Paulinize it a bit—"beating the air" going on. What we could all do with a little more is some "pummeling" of our "own body and subduing it, lest after preaching to others we ourselves should be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:26f.). If anything, the past few months since General Convention—with all their internet, email, conferences, and journalistic interchanges—have solidified my sense that what we are being called to is a renewed "discipline" in the face of our church's (and many other churches' and our larger culture's) stubborn assault upon and demanded dismantling of the Gospel tradition. But discipline here is for all of us: for those within the church who are undermining the evangelical witness and teaching for which we are responsible, for those within the church who are trying to resist this and offer an alternative witness, and for those within the larger communion, in Anglican and ecumenical terms, who are charged with constraining by and in counsel the actions and witness of the rest of us. Discipline represents the formative act of grace by a loving God—it upholds, it nourishes, it prunes, it humbles, it transfigures. To this degree, it is part and parcel of the reality of "communion" about which so many of us talk. Our failure within the church to discipline each other, and our failure to discipline ourselves, are both contributors to the disintegration of communion. Within the thing we call "the Anglican Communion", we are seeing the fruit of such failures propagating themselves before our eyes. We are not without hope, however. One of the foremost practical goals I would encourage us to pursue in the present moment is to help the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission to understand this reality, and to take hold of the calling to discipline: disciplining ECUSA as an ecclesial structure and within the legitimate framework of our relationships within the Anglican Communion; and holding each of us accountable to the glorious duties of communion in Christ that permit such discipline to be edifying in the first place rather than merely punitive. If we shirk this goal—considering it beneath us or too hard or too relationally demanding—we have also skirted one of the critical means by which the Church of Christ is renewed and transfigured. VIRTUOSITY: You wrote in, "Why we will not leave: A conservative reflection," that amidst the recent turmoil within the Episcopal Church is the fact that the vast majority of "conservative" and intentionally "orthodox" Episcopalians are remaining in the Episcopal Church. Are you concluding from this that numbers matter and that the majority is, by definition, right? RADNER: The issue is not numbers, obviously; it is the integrity of our witness before the eyes of the world (and of each other!). There has been a good deal of disdain cast in the direction of purportedly "conservative" Episcopalians who have committed themselves, in some fashion, to remaining in the church: they have been charged with venal concerns like "keeping property" and the rest. In fact, however, many people intuit rightly that the fragmenting of this church—ECUSA—does little to promote the Gospel's compelling witness even if done for the sake of a clear truth, in large measure because the Christian Church's history of division has already so sullied the image of Christian commitment and solidarity that further fragmentation does less to instill than it does to disgust people with a notion of the truth's integrity. By contrast, a responsible, accountable, and steady defense of the truth within a context of engaged dispute and straight-forward testimony, aiming at discipline rather than schism according to the forms of our Lord's own teaching and example, is a critical gift to offer not only a divided Church as a whole, but a horrendously fractured world. The world does not trust the Christian Church for a host of reasons—Jesus himself tells us this over and over. He also tells us how it is that "the world may believe" (John 17:20ff.). There is nothing sentimental in this; because the "oneness" to which his own prayer aims his divine heart is something that goes through the Cross. VIRTUOSITY: You wrote: "There have been struggles over doctrine and discipline, to be sure, but pursued within the church community, they have not been without positive effect. In short, our leaven within the common work of the diocese, here as elsewhere, continues to be a witness to the Lord's Kingdom." Are you saying that there is never a time for believers to leave what many judge to be an apostate church? Should one always stay? RADNER: I feel sometimes that this question is a little like the one posed to Jesus by the Pharisees: "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" (Matthew 19:3). Jesus doesn't really answer the question directly: he says that Moses permitted divorce for some reasons—"hardness of heart"—and that under at least one condition ("unchastity", whatever exactly that is), divorce and remarriage is not the commission of adultery it would otherwise be. However, he makes it clear that God "from the beginning" did not will divorce. As we know, people have argued endlessly over this response. And through it all, they have gotten divorced and managed to justify it almost every time. With respect to the question of ecclesial separation, I would say this: Christians will divide, since they always have (cf. 1 Cor. 11:18). And there will be all kinds of reasons for doing so. Furthermore, people will positively offer a host of justifying reasons for doing so, based on this or that Scripture or moral argument, just as people find plenty of good reasons to get divorced. But how could we ever "commend" such a thing (Paul certainly doesn't)? The Church herself, through her theologians and leaders, ought to avoid casuistry on this matter altogether, and stick with the simple "from the beginning"; in the case of division, they must always ask the simple question, "is Christ divided?" (1 Cor. 1:13). If they do not, and we continue to whittle down the details that justify division in answer to the anxious, just as with divorce (and here I include the generalized fiction of annulment used by the Roman Catholics), the Church will find that she has offered so many rationalizations that the very purpose of her critical indulgence—pastoral care of the broken—is subverted because there is nothing whole left to maintain. VIRTUOSITY: You say that part of our decision to stay in the Episcopal Church explicitly derives from traditional Christian commitments themselves. Staying represents a "higher calling" than leaving. It is a "higher calling" in the traditional Anglican sense of being a "safer path to salvation", a more certain grasp at the health of the soul in its accountability before God. It is "higher", "safer" and "more certain" because it is aimed at the simple following "in the steps of the Master", and these steps, we know, are ultimately pointed towards a Kingdom of great light, for which the world longs. My question is, there are many who point to specific Scriptures, especially from Paul's letters that would indicate that lines should be drawn, specifically Galatians about "another gospel" being proclaimed, unequal yoking and so forth. How do you answer those critics? RADNER: Paul obviously holds himself out as a model for all Christians, whatever their role or ministry. His own particular ministry, however, is specific: that of "apostle". And it might be helpful to view his relationship with erring Christians and with false leaders within the church from the perspective of this apostolic role, a role that later became paradigmatic for the episcopacy (would that all bishops took Paul as their model!). It is from this position that Paul encourages Christians to keep clear of false teaching, false teachers, and immoral persons. He urges them to do this as members of his flock, within a given church. He does not urge them to leave churches and to divide congregations—for they are his in a special way!—but rather to exercise within their own ranks the "discipline" necessary to maintain a clear witness and godly context of common formation. This is the whole burden of his Corinthian correspondence in its focus upon moral purity: maintain the integrity of your common life. Paul's personal relationship with teachers he judges to be in error, however, is slightly different than it is with individual members of his congregations. In this case, he is speaking to them if not exactly as ministerial "equals", at least as colleagues of a sort do. Paul can argue with them, berate them mercilessly, "oppose them face to face" as with Peter (Gal. 2:11), and encourage his flock not to follow their errors. But he is very careful to maintain the integrity of the church's common life, even as it is somehow engaged with a broad range of other teachers. Each teacher, he insists, is responsible before God for his or her own teaching (cf. 1 Cor. 3:10–15). Indeed, the "curse" that Paul promises to preachers of a false Gospel, in Galatians 1:8f., is probably pointing to just such final accountability, and not to some formal "ban" from the local or larger church (it is, after all, aimed at "angels" not just guest preachers!). In any case, Paul never asks that congregations split over their adherence to this or that teacher, however false they may be. (This is clear in his argument with the "pseudo-apostles" in 2 Corinthians.) For all his fulminations and even claims to be morally autonomous of them, he even maintains his connections with the Jerusalem church and its leaders, and indeed labors tirelessly to embody these connections materially and physically, to the point of risking and suffering final arrest because of it. The reason for all this is fairly simple, I think: his congregation and its people are a trust he has been given. While they may be "foolish" and "bewitched" (Gal. 3:1), they are his "little children", and he their mother, "in travail until Christ be formed in" them (Gal. 4:19). As a parent to them, he is responsible for his charges, and accountable for their lives unto the end, however wrecked or veering towards wreckage they may be. Even his urging that the Corinthians banish one of their immoral members from their midst is done for the offender's ultimate salvation (1 Cor. 5:5). Like Jesus' own parable of the Lost Sheep, Paul is a shepherd who leaves those who are well in order to find the one who has wandered astray. At their most recalcitrant and hostile—as with the Galatians and the Corinthians—Paul speaks to them as his "brethren" (cf. Gal. 1:11). And at his most severe in terms of demanding discipline, he promises it for "building up and not for tearing down" (2 Cor. 13:10). Much could be said about particular passages and about the evolution of the practices of discipline and even of excommunication in the developing Christian Church. These are serious and complex matters, often poorly understood by historians. And they should not be dealt with cavalierly, as they tend to be in the midst of present argument. My point is simply that, from the perspective of one who is a steward of the Church of Christ, and of its people, the line between division deemed "necessary" and actual abandonment of the larger flock is not one that can be drawn with much degree of certainty, on a Scriptural, let alone a broadly spiritual level. We should beware. VIRTUOSITY: You point to "centuries of church tradition" to justify your position. But didn't the early Church Father St. Cyprian specifically say we should not follow disobedient bishops? And more than that, that we should try every effort to remove them? RADNER: The appeal to someone like Cyprian, David, is greatly mistaken. This 3rd-century North African bishop was, by all critical accounts, one of the great contributors to the "juridical-canonical" understanding of the Western Church's structures and unity. Even someone like Hans von Campenhausen—no happy promoter of this development in the Catholic tradition—is forced to admit this about Cyprian. Cyprian was a great disciplinary rigorist, of course: he argued strongly for strict penances and even what we would call "excommunication" for those who had compromised with the State's enforced idolatry during persecutions. This applied, in his mind, especially to priests and bishops—using the "contagion" model of immorality and heresy, he believed that church leaders who failed in their person to uphold the faith needed to be separated from the body. He was not, for instance, willing to accept the validity of "heretical baptisms". But two important things need to be said about this. First, Cyprian's notion of clerical "infection" was eventually ruled unsound by the larger Church, something Augustine in his controversy with the Donatists classically articulated. The Anglican 39 Articles (#26) concur. Second, Cyprian was adamant that the "separation" of people from unfaithful clerical leaders was a form of ecclesial discipline and therefore could only take place legitimately within the unified structures of the church as a whole, people, clergy, and bishops working together. No individual or individual congregation or individual bishop, according to Cyprian, had the right to impose such discipline on another individually—they could do so legitimately only by acting in counsel. Thus, in a letter often cited these days to support "separation" (i.e. #67 in some enumerations), Cyprian urges that two "lapsed" bishops in Spain be deposed; but he insists that the "whole brotherhood" exercise "suffrage" in this matter, and that bishops of the province in question make the decision and be involved in its disposition. On several occasions he labels those who rise up against their bishop outside of these conciliar disciplinary frameworks to be "like Korah" of the book of Numbers rebelling against Aaron, and thus worthy of God's wrath. Cyprian, in this sense, was precisely a precedent for "discipline within communion", exactly the kind of thing I insist we must pursue, for the sake of our common life in Christ and the integrity through accountability of our mutual witness in the truth, and exactly the kind of thing that we are in fact pursuing through the common work of the Network, Primates, Commission, and Archbishop of Canterbury together. And, to this degree, Cyprian stands in complete coherence with what became the standard notions of conciliar discipline outlined in the canons of the great Ecumenical Councils, canons that, I would emphasize, demand to be read authoritatively in concert with the conciliar Creeds. VIRTUOSITY: You point to Jesus, in his relationship with his (often wayward) people, arguing he was a "stayer", not a "leaver". Given the present debate, this fact is crucial above all other claims. In mission and ministry within Israel, Jesus met error, rebellion, and faithlessness by proclaiming his Gospel, upholding the authority of the Scribes and Pharisees (who "sit in the seat of Moses"—Matthew 23:2), and maintaining table-fellowship with his enemies. And then you say that had he left, and formed a separate community of "purity", like the Essenes, [Jesus] would probably have survived into a longer ministry. This seems to beg the question that if ECUSA bishops consistently preach heresy, should orthodox laity place their souls in jeopardy, perhaps even permanently corrupted, by listening to that which is not true? RADNER: I don't think this "begs" the question at all: it addresses the question straightforwardly. If we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, where does that lead us in the face of religious leaders who are teaching error? Abandoning the Temple? Out into the wilderness? Separation from the Pharisees? The point is pretty simple, David: all the Scriptures and the Law are "fulfilled" in Him, and the shape of our life, even in these particular decisions, is being called into Him and into the form of His own self-giving. Of course, this calling isn't easily accepted and pursued. That I will agree with. The apostles themselves didn't have the stomach for it, initially anyway: standing up, speaking the truth, engaging honestly but persistently, rebuking where necessary, allowing for one's own failure of power, trusting in Another's power… It is almost inhuman, I realize. And so, when you speak of "souls in jeopardy" and of their "permanent corruption", it's hard to know exactly what this might mean—corrupted because they cannot do what Jesus asks of us to do? What I have certainly seen are souls that are exhausted in the face of the battle against error and disobedience. I have felt exhausted myself. And I am not about to judge those whose exhaustions can only find some rest in "going away", in finding some more peaceful avenue in which to journey. And, I realize also, the Episcopal Church isn't exactly "the Temple of the Lord"! Still, the footsteps of Jesus are not thereby erased because we all at some point meet the limits of our strength. Separation has its exhaustions too, as many who have pursued it will attest. What is certainly not acceptable is to brand those whose choices are at least to try to follow such traces of the Lord as they mark a resolute adhesion to Israel's people with a kind of failure in pastoral responsibility or even of disloyalty to the Gospel. This simply makes no sense. VIRTUOSITY: Jesus finally abandoned Israel, "how often would I have gathered you but you would not", and Paul takes his message to the Gentiles because the Jews were too hard-hearted to hear the message. Does this not indicate an exasperation point can be reached to which the dust must be kicked off one's shoes and one moves on to more fertile spiritual ground? RADNER: The notion that Jesus "abandoned" Israel is nonsense, David. Indeed, a very pernicious nonsense, if I may state it so strongly. Jesus died for Israel, in the form of Israel, and tied to Israel. The passage you cite (Matthew 23:38) expresses the sorrow of Jesus at Israel's rejection of his love, not his own rejection of their person. The Parable of the Vineyard (Mat. 21:33ff.) speaks, in the end, of the Kingdom of God "being taken away" from one set of tenants and given to another; but only after the death of the householder's son sent to them, who remains with them even through his maltreatment and murder; and who these "others" are and in what fashion the "kingdom" is "taken away" is left unclear. Jesus died for the world as well, of course, but only through Israel. "Salvation is of the Jews", he tells the Samaritan woman (John 4:22), and he means it. His is Israel's "flesh" (Rom. 9:1ff.). The classic Scriptural commentary on this matter is, of course, Romans 9–11. It's complicated and murky, but one thing it is clear about is that Israel is not "abandoned"—"Has God rejected His people? By no means!" (11:1)—nor is Israel's present rejection of the Christ to be a kind of anathematized consignment to Gehenna (11:26, 32). The relationship between Jew and Gentile is one of mutual provocation, judgment, jealousy, humility, fruitfulness, and grace. The Christian Church's subsequent adoption of a radically supersessionist view of Israel is in fact historically tied to the promotion of separatism and schism within the Christian Church itself, something that has obviously had sorry effects not only on Christian vision and practice, but more materially on the life of Jews. No one should think that the moral stakes of this argument throughout history, and perhaps even now, are limited and intramural. VIRTUOSITY: You write: "We do not, quite simply, find in Scripture a way of 'following' our Lord that leads away from the people who reject him, for they remain always 'his' people." Many feel that ECUSA's revisionist clergy and bishops are not "his" people. They are false teachers who corrupt the flock, like Bishop Spong? How would you respond to that? RADNER: The appropriate response to error among church leaders is communal discipline. The separation and division of a church over error is an admission somehow that the community is incapable of applying discipline. The question then is "why?". It is possible right now, and quite easy in terms of getting the numbers, to request presentments for virtually every bishop who voted for Robinson's consent. It would certainly be legal and probably appropriate. Why don't we do it? The assumption many hold—based on a single attempt with an assistant bishop, charged not even with teaching but with an ordination, viz. Bp. Righter—seems to be that discipline is pointless. But it has only been tried once! (Philip Turner's essays on the history of all of this are illuminating; not least of all because they emphasize the sharing of responsibility for ECUSA's state among all stripes and parties over the past decades.) And, after all, discipline only makes sense within a context in which it has some kind of expected and habituated forms and demands and is tethered to accepted spiritually informed limits. Here is where work needs to be done, however slowly and patiently. I want to be clear, however, that what is needed is in fact discipline, and not dialogue. Dialogue is useless at present, because there is little shared basis of evangelical commitment upon which to follow the persuasive compulsion of argument. Actually, I am myself convinced that we are not really dealing simply with "error" and "false teaching" within ECUSA. Rather, we are dealing with something akin to madness. I believe, that is, that the church is, in a real sense, possessed by a spiritual illness, where otherwise intelligent and self-consciously and religiously committed people are being led, because of our sins, somewhere through the providence of God that has placed leaders in the grip of strange and destructive powers. I have had my own personal, and certainly much pastoral, experience with mental illness, and I see all the analogies at work in our common ecclesial relationships of the moment. It is not possible, for instance, to convince a deeply depressed person, no matter the incontrovertible realities on display as proof, that the world is not falling apart; it is not possible to counter the misapprehensions of reality that a schizophrenic holds by pointing to something more rational. And so in our situation: "Scripture in its plain sense, its accepted authoritative sense, its use within the Church and churches over time; authoritative teaching, saintly and godly testimony, natural reason, conciliar decision—all point to the error of your choices and teaching", we say; but it's as if the words are gibberish and the argument nothing but wind. We are talking to people in another world. One's responses to this kind of situation are limited: to argue endlessly and with increasing vitriol; to sullenly acquiesce; or to shut up altogether, suffer the encounter silently, and then walk away. This dynamic has been in existence within ECUSA and other denominations now for decades. It is the way people deal with madness, and I have seen it in many a family. And its final endpoint is not unusually a separation of life altogether, simply for the sake of holding on to depleted energies. This is, surely, where many of us are. But it is not, it seems to me, where the nuptial character of Christ's own marriage to the Church (Eph. 5) would lead us. There is, after all, yet another way to deal with madness. To move forward simply with what is real and true, to do so decisively and with the willingness to place practical limits on the irrational behavior and claims of the other partner (i.e. a kind of discipline), to live within these limits for oneself with the other as best one can (thus discipline becomes a kind of self-offering) and to let time and the grace of God bring healing if that is His will. VIRTUOSITY: Should not a man like Spong have been publicly rebuked and tossed out of the church? RADNER: In brief: rebuked: yes; disciplined: yes; if impenitent, permanently stripped of his authority and office (such as it is in retirement): yes, yes, yes. VIRTUOSITY: You cited the French Revolution and the Roman Catholic Church response, which, by staying, won the day. But what of the Reformation? Are you saying that Martin Luther was wrong to fight the ecclesiastical corruption of his day? He never wanted to split the Church, he wanted a pure church, or at least a better one. Out of it was born Lutheranism and the three great truths, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia and Sola Scriptura. Was Luther wrong? RADNER: Wrong about what? The truths you enumerate were and are the Church's truths, and Luther articulated and promoted them brilliantly at a time when they had been forgotten or twisted by many. None of this is in dispute, at least for me. I know that there are those who would like somehow to tar me with the brush of being "disloyal to the Reformation". But what does that actually mean? We are living in the 21st century, not the 16th. And "the Reformation" isn't a current reality; we have, rather, ideas, habits, cultures, and the rest which have been left behind by the 16th century and which have evolved out of that period and movement. Including Anglicanism! It is hard to be disloyal to the past, unless of course, you believe in the Communion of Saints in a rather tangible way; which, of course, I do. But in that case, you are also bound to loyalties that go far beyond particular national and temporal movements: Luther, for instance, must be heard, learned from, and responded to within the extent, the embrace, and the constraining grace of the Church Universal. My interest, in a scholarly way, has been with the fruit of Christian division, not with the integrity of this or that Christian leader (like Luther) in the course of this or that struggle. And my critical focus has been on, among other things, the way that the Catholic-Protestant divisions of the 16th century and beyond actually created modes of thinking theologically and of reading Scripture that obscured rather than illuminated certain basic realities of the Gospel (the figural reading of the Scriptures as a unity of Testaments embracing the life of the whole Church, the character of charity and communion as a vehicle of truth, the shape of the Holy Spirit's work, the nature of conversion, and so on). Like it or not, we are heirs of these modes of thinking and reading, we are "bound" to them. Is it possible to "get outside our skins" in this regard, and see ourselves more clearly and thereby hear our vocation more honestly? One of my contentions is that we both should try to do this, but that it is also deeply difficult to succeed at doing so within a state of multiple and divided Christian communities and churches. This is both a sociological and a spiritual contention. That is, there is a dynamic at work in the Christian church today, embodied in our divisions, that is in fact tied to the work of God in our judgment. It's not just a matter of getting our structures right, or of getting our ideas right, or of being on the right side—although we are not free to disregard the obligation we have to make faithful decisions in this regard. What is at stake, at this point, is yet more profoundly how we are going to act "under the hand of God", what posture we shall take. And this is the posture in which we should be making our decisions about structures and ideas and "sides". My commitment to "hearing the Scripture in communion"—i.e. in the communion of the larger Church as best as we are allowed to be a part of it, in all of its strange and blurred contours—and my sense that we are called to exercise our difficult mutual responsibilities and accountabilities within an ordered process of discipline that reflects that communion, all of this is informed by my sense of "posture" as a penitent before God, demanded by the very history of our churches. None of us, to my mind, have been placed in the "true church" among other churches; at least, not so that we could discern it. With respect to Anglicanism, we have been placed here and not somewhere else; and while placed here, we have been entrusted with a wealth of riches, theologically, liturgically, ethically, intellectually—from the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Fathers, the Puritans, the Restoration, and so on. We are bound to receive these with humility, gratitude, an ordering of priority even, and the critical spirit of a penitent heart seeking God in the midst, especially now, of assaults upon the Gospel and spiritual wreckage wrought by confusion and unfaithfulness of an extensive kind; and to do so knowing that we are called to something bigger than the preservation of a way of divided life in Christ. For however good God has been in providing us with blessing in the midst of division—and God has been good indeed, far beyond our deserving—there is no "renewal in division", only the hard hand of God, gloved with unmerited mercy. Scripturally, our divisions are simply contrary to the Word of God, the prayers of Jesus, and the mind of His self-offering (cf. Philippians 2:1–11). I know that not everybody agrees with this, nor should they in any prima facie fashion. But my argument is borne out on a number of historical fronts I believe, and it would be helpful if people attempted to approach it critically, rather than ideologically (which has tended to be the case). VIRTUOSITY: You say that a second reason why conservatives are staying in the Episcopal Church is their institutional loyalty and obedience. This, you said, was branded as "legalistic", "mechanistic", and "structural"—somehow beneath the spiritual depth of truth-seeking? Are you saying that there is never a time for believers to leave a corrupt institution that preaches against the very things it is supposed to uphold? Should one forever be "loyal and obedient" to a corrupt institution? RADNER: I would prefer to use the word "subjected love", in the sense of Paul's usage in Ephesians 5. Jesus himself was, at least in the minds of the religious authorities, "disobedient" on matters like the Sabbath law. However, he was subject to their power, in the ultimate way of willingly allowing himself to be arrested, unjustly condemned, and finally executed. We are told—rather "called"—to "follow in his steps" and to "trust to him who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:21ff). The whole developed philosophy of "conscientious objection"—which can be deeply subversive of unjust structures, as well we know—is rightfully and in fact historically linked with this reality. It would be odd if Christ were to have bequeathed to the wider world (including Hinduism) a way of life Christians no longer themselves judge worthy of their spirit. VIRTUOSITY: What if ordinary people sense that their very souls are being jeopardized by staying in a morally and theologically compromised church, what if the Spirit is saying, "begone, the lampstand has been removed, I have gone." RADNER: The situation you describe is also described in the book of the Prophet Ezekiel. It would be interesting to draw potential similitudes between the experience of a pneumatically abandoned people like Israel placed into captivity and subjected to exile, with our own vocation today. Indeed, that is precisely what I have encouraged us to do. And one response is this: you cannot escape the judgment of God upon your people by trying to find another people more worthy of your affiliation. The accepted and even deliberately pursued division of the church is, ultimately, a way to remain irresponsible. VIRTUOSITY: You appeal to both Catholic and Reformed traditions, the submission to the "order" and "law" of institutions, especially those of the Church, is a necessary "bridle" upon the innate tendencies of individual pride that lead to sin. Without this submission (or at least acknowledged presumption of subjection), even in cases of individual conscience, the passions of autonomy and rebellion will and must eventually destroy the very means by which truth can be established. Is submission and acquiescence the same thing in the end? RADNER: Is the Cross of Jesus Christ a form of "acquiescence" to sin? There are certainly those who believe it is. But not the Christian Church. VIRTUOSITY: You talk about legal safeguards by which the "rights of the accused" are protected. In the ECUSA the "rights of the orthodox" seem to be anything but protected. Can you draw a direct analogy here? RADNER: There is a need for the freedom of worship, teaching, and deployed leadership of "orthodox" Christians within our denomination to be respected and protected. That is a moral obligation of any church, obviously. And it is one that the Primates, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have formally and publicly upheld, to the point of placing their own authority behind its guarantee. This is a promise we must hold these leaders accountable to keep, and to do so with all the persuasive and importuning means we have. VIRTUOSITY: You say the Archbishop of Canterbury is lifting up the supreme value of jurisdictional canons within Anglicanism, but is not thereby diminishing the value of the Gospel's truth in relation to some merely human and self-serving structure. He is rather acknowledging that the truth cannot emerge as determinative, without securing its freedom from the depredations of individual striving and delusion, a security given only in the social contours of a stable institutional life. But what if, at the end of the day, the Liberals triumph in the area of morals and try to push pansexuality onto the rest of the communion and they balk, what happens then? Should provinces like Nigeria and Uganda stay? RADNER: David, you raise one of the more sobering speculative possibilities that we are facing. For the moment, I believe, the Archbishop is indeed working to maintain a context in which the truth may freely be apprehended, shared, and proclaimed within our Communion. His support, and indeed formative encouragement of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes is real and has made a difference to this group's ability to move forward in the face of much opposition within the 815 crowd; his work in keeping the Primates working together, not simply to avoid a problem, but to address it as far as possible within accepted, because historically rooted, commitments and values of Anglicanism, is critical in assuring the edifying outcome to their work for the sake of the Communion as a whole. I could go on, and should, because there are many people working very hard, and providing depths of theological and intellectual resources to this work, much of it going on quietly and persistently. One day, I hope they will be thanked. Still, it could all come to naught. In such a case, we will see the end of the Anglican experiment of non-centralized and non-coercive Scriptural catholicity in mutual subjection and mission. It has been a grand experiment, I need to say. Marvelously grand! And its failure will be a deep disappointment, not only to day-dreaming individuals like me, but to the nations, who have longed for a testimony to this possibility of life together, and whose salvation is tied to the God who might make such life possible. In the face of this hope now shattered, they will see the visage of God's re-ordering judgment. But if this happens, the question will be for individuals, not for "churches" as a whole to answer. There will be nothing for Nigeria or Uganda to "stay in". They will go their own way and call themselves what they will. But to individuals I would say: "The Anglican Church is dead! Whatever you do, wherever you go, do not call yourself by that name any longer. It has become a byword among the nations." VIRTUOSITY: You write: "A third reason why most conservative Episcopalians are staying in the Episcopal Church is related to the previous one. To speak bluntly, it is because we have tasted the fruit of unbridled separatism, and the fruit is bitter indeed." Are you referring to the Continuing Churches in this statement that flowed from St. Louis in 1979? RADNER: I am not pointing to anyone in particular, but to all of us and each of us together. VIRTUOSITY: You seem to take particular aim at the AMIA. What is your basic beef with them? They seemed to have made off with some 8 parishes in the Diocese of Colorado? RADNER: I don't have a particular animus against the AMiA. My worry, as is crystal clear, is with the whole habit of division and separatism that permeates our culture, ecclesially and in secular terms, and for reasons I have already enumerated. I believe that the AMiA—like the rest of us!—embodies aspects of this culture. The point you are raising is related, of course, to the fact that these embodiments are known and immediate, and not theoretical. And my concern, in an immediate and deep sense, has been primarily pastoral. The AMiA didn't "make off" with some 8 parishes in Colorado at all. They formed, from the division of these parishes, new congregations, so that where there was one in each case (by and large), there became two. (The particulars of each congregation's history are not at issue here.) That, in itself, is not even problematic: many churches grow through mitosis, as it were. But these divisions were of the "divorce" kind: leaving in their wake hurt, anger, mistrust, mutual recrimination, charges and counter-charges, weakened witness, scandal and so on, among conservatives and the unchurched alike. And, as with many divorces, we can list a whole host of "good reasons to separate". But it hardly seems reasonable to go the next step and encourage the multiplication of divorce, which is exactly what our culture has done (with the churches happily following along). The disagreement that has become public between myself—along with others!—and the leadership of the AMiA is one that helpfully brings into profile in part what is at stake in our larger Anglican conflict: are we a mutually accountable communion, bound by the ordering virtues of Scripture's common hearing and individual deferral? If we are not, there are of course many different paths we could still follow, which would still pit conservative and liberal against each other. But if we are, then this particular doctrinal and ethical conflict we are in must be pursued within a special context of its own—conciliar, communal, with the patience that bespeaks passion. And since I believe we are such a communion, I also believe we are making a serious mistake, as I have said over and over, if we do not resolve this conflict within the conciliar context that explicitly defines communion. As I have also said over and over, the AMiA is filled with faithful and self-sacrificial Christians; certainly no less faithful than anybody else; and far more faithful than I in many respects! I pray that someday there will be an ecclesial reconciliation among us all. I would pray too that none of us make the eternity of such a prayer necessary by our own actions. VIRTUOSITY: You write: "Finally, driven by passions for success and rapid advance, and unbridled by the slow structures of ecclesial canon, leadership has been recruited and thrust forward without prudent testing, formation, or accountability. This is the bitter fruit of impatience." Are you saying this of the AMIA or of all separatist vagante groups that have left the ECUSA? RADNER: The issue of formation is fundamental if we are to rebuild a faithful church. Bp. Allison has long drawn out attention to this truth. And failure to get straight the rigorous demands of selection, formation, and accountability have crippled many movements of protest and reform within the church, separatist or not. I have been a student, as you know, of 17th- and 18th-century Jansenism, a reform movement within French Catholicism. It was a movement filled with spiritual and theological geniuses, with ascetic virtuosos, and with courageous confessors and martyrs. Their greatest influence came within the limited efforts of their educational and formational ministries; their more extensive failure can be tied directly to the fact that these efforts were as limited as they were, and that the call to formational rigor soon gave way to the more immediate satisfactions of polemical displays and sacrifices. We dare not fall into this trap. One, by the way, that our greatest Reformation teachers did not. VIRTUOSITY: You say the search for order is ultimately liberative. Many of those who leave ECUSA for the AMIA and other groups say THEY feel liberated, no longer under the curse of apostate bishops. What would you say to them? RADNER: I'm certainly not in a position to judge how other people "feel". The "liberative" gift of ecclesial order's genuine search is not a subjective reality in the first place, but one that describes the actual character of the spirit formed into the image of Christ through a "sharing of His sufferings" (cf. Philippians 3:10), something St. Paul places squarely within the experience of seeking a "common mind". The "freedom for which Christ has set us free", as he writes in Galatians, is governed by a Spirit whose gifts provide fruit, nourished and grown within well-ordered common life (cf. Gal. 5:1, 16ff.). At some point, surely, what the Spirit makes of us, becomes the very thing we are grateful to have become. Then our freedom is turned into the subjective heart of thanksgiving. There is certainly no virtue in feeling bad; nor is there any in feeling better. Virtue lies in the image of Christ. VIRTUOSITY: What is the correct response to false teaching? What of our Lord's admonition to "take heed that no one leads you astray" (Matthew 24:4). And Paul's injunction about "preaching another gospel" and being declared "anathema". Does this not imply that separation might be necessary in extreme circumstances? RADNER: I encourage people to read the Pastoral letters of St. Paul—1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—especially in answer to this question. Chapter 6 of 1 Timothy, for instance, provides a wonderful outline for how to teach in the face of falsities and dissension. The outline, furthermore, is tied to the shape of Paul's own life and body, about which I have already commented. VIRTUOSITY: How far can we accommodate sin in the church before we say enough is enough? RADNER: It is God, I believe, who says that "enough is enough". We have been accommodating sin all over the place over the centuries. Not necessarily to our credit, mind you. But the "line in the sand" is a wonderfully adjustable measure, more frequently used for self-protection than for the building up of neighbor. What we are asked to do is provide clarity and example, and discipline where needed, in face of these shifting sands. VIRTUOSITY: A recent study by the Barna Research Group painted a devastating portrait of the Episcopal Church as scoring at the bottom of the heap of American denominations as to the accuracy of the Bible, sharing the faith with others, the importance of religious faith to them, that Christ was not sinless, and their commitment to Christianity. It would appear that the ECUSA is capitulating to the culture. Can this go on without separation at some point? RADNER: The details of Barna's picture are indeed dispiriting. But Barna's research indicates a whole range of religious inefficacy that runs across denominations including many evangelical groups. We are in a time when Christianity itself is losing ground in America, and it isn't primarily because of ECUSA that this is so, although she is part of the trend. The response, furthermore, to this trend is not obviously to start new churches as opposed to reforming and renewing current ones. Indeed, the decline of Christianity as a proportion of the American population has taken place when there are actually more denominations of Christian churches than ever before. Numbers aren't the issue anyway, as you point out earlier. Rather, the integrity of our witness is. And the context of that witness informs its integrity in ways I have been trying to underline. One of the greatest religious turn-offs for young people is the divisive infighting among Christian communities. That is not to say that we are called to avoid conflicts that are over critical matters; rather we are to testify to a way of upholding the truth that can overcome easy division and embody the true form of Christ Jesus. This witness is one that young people yearn after. In fact, they hardly know that it is possible, so distant has its realization been among the churches for so long. VIRTUOSITY: Thank you Dr. Radner.

Press Release 12 February 2004 As the members of the Council of Forward in Faith North America we offer greetings in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Mindful of the sacrificial labors of many of our members over several decades; the vision cast in 1989 (in the structure of the formation of the Episcopal Synod of America); sharpened in 1997 (in the Rosemont Statement); we rejoice that vision is now being recast in the cooperative efforts of the emerging clarity provided in our partnership in the Network of ACDP. The circumstances at Good Shepherd, Rosemont in September 2002 provided an opportunity for new cooperation between Forward in Faith, the American Anglican Council, Ekklesia, many Primates and the former and present Archbishops of Canterbury and offered a providential foreshadowing of our emerging common life. In response to the specific call from the Archbishop of Canterbury, visionary leaders of the Household of Faith are collaborating in the Network, which is drawing counsel from the deepening relationships among the international Primates. Just as they have faithfully and charitably modeled common life recognizing differing theological perspectives we are encouraged by the maturity of their relationships and seek to manifest the same steadfast commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the Church. This charity is “the very bond of peace and of all virtues without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before Him.” The Network’s commitment to the ongoing integrity of Forward in Faith’s succession in Holy Orders reinforces our confidence in our common future for orthodox, unified, and missionary endeavor as longstanding divisions are healed to the Glory of God. We commend the Network and our common life to the prayers of all faithful people. The structure and purpose of the Network is virtually identical to that framed by the ESA in 1989. The Rosemont Statement: “We continue to ‘be the church. We are not going anywhere.’” Efforts by the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Jr. to remove The Revd David L. Moyer as Rector of Good Shepherd by attempting to depose him were thwarted by cooperation and collaboration among agencies and international leaders. Varying theological perspectives include evangelical, catholic, and charismatic, as well as differences concerning the ordination of women.

By David W. Virtue JACKSON, TN—St. Luke's, an Evangelical Episcopal parish that was ripped apart by a tornado last May, has suffered another tornado, this time a human one. Sixty-five of its most active members and 22 young people, including half the vestry, have upped and left to form All Saints Anglican Church in Jackson because of General Convention's twin decisions to approve a homosexual to the episcopacy and same-sex blessings. St. Luke's became another casualty in the doctrinal and moral wars in The Episcopal Church. "It's painful", the Rev. Chuck Filiatreau told Virtuosity. "Bishop Don Johnson's pastoral letter was the straw that broke the camel's back. An inclusive church has no place for these orthodox people, and now they have gone." The double tragedy is that the Rev. Filiatreau is thoroughly orthodox himself, making it all the more painful. "When I try to tell him [the bishop] he listens but never says anything", said the Evangelical rector. "The greatest feeling I have is sadness. The tornado that destroyed us was a piece of cake compared to what General Convention did to our church." Bob Hudson, a leader in the breakaway movement said that a gathering of eighty-five adults and children had left and had begun meeting in a member's home in late November. "Word spread and we increased in size by 75 percent. The moment of truth for many came in mid-November when the Vestry of St. Luke's Episcopal Church voted down the following resolution: 'The Episcopal Church has grievously erred in consecrating a non-celibate homosexual as Bishop and has thereby wounded the Body of Christ.'" "People could no longer standby and watch their witness go up in smoke. The choices were limited: go to another denomination, or drive 160-miles round-trip to church each week, or form our own Anglican Church. So that is what we did," he told Virtuosity. The founding members are in the process of establishing their Anglican affiliation, obtaining a worship space, conducting time, talent and treasure surveys, establishing teams to deploy the gifts and talents of the parishioners within the community and all those other necessities of being a church. "We are actively looking to buy a church." "We have looked at the Anglican Mission in America but we are also considering coming under a bishop in Bolivia or Kenya," Hudson told Virtuosity. "The National Church (ECUSA) has continued its path toward irrelevance by turning its back on the faith, order practice and discipline of the catholic faith. As a result there are families and individuals that can no longer 'wait and see', they are called to action, to step out in faith. I just couldn't stand by anymore and let the church destroy my witness and what I believe," he said. The ECUSA spiral of tragedy gained speed last summer when the national church chose to depart from 4,500 years of Judeo-Christian teachings by elevating sin to being "good" and "acceptable"; as opposed to that Christian doctrine which has been believed "everywhere, always, and by all" to be against God's Holy Law and desire for his children. ECUSA further held itself above the pleadings and wishes of the world's Primates when it proceeded with the consecration of V.G. Robinson in November, said Hudson. "Symptoms of the national church malaise are now seen more broadly in West Tennessee in the January 16 Pastoral Letter of Rt. Rev. Don Johnson, and his invitation to the Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, Bishop of Maine and one of the Co-consecrators of V.G. Robinson, to be the keynote celebrant and homilist at the 23rd Annual Diocesan Convention on February 20." This was unacceptable, he told Virtuosity. The founding members of All Saints Anglican Church were all members in good standing of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Jackson, some for as long as 72 years. "The energy and calling of these individuals in the service of the Lord has been phenomenal. The gifts and the talents include outreach (both local and international), pastoral care, Christian education, Sunday School teachers, bible study leaders, choir and choirmaster and organist, vestry service, senior and junior warden, chalice bearers, lectors, lay readers, acolytes, altar guild, youth advisors, as well as Alpha course team leaders and intercessory prayer leaders." The parish of All Saints looks forward to sharing the transforming word of God in Jackson and beyond to all of God's people. "Our movement forward is not about us. It is about God." When someone asks, "Will you all be okay? Will you be able to make it?" We believe our mission statement answers that nicely: Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we will be disciples for Christ, said Hudson. Fr. Filiatreau noted that the Diocese of West Tennessee had seven of the finest orthodox priests still active in the diocese, four of them rectors, "and they have their heads on the line because they are standing up for the gospel." The rector said the toll in income will be substantial. We have not rebuilt following the tornado that struck us, and our average attendance is about 200 with some 504 on the roles. "Our budget will be affected. Because of General Convention we were already down $30,000, now we expect a deficit of $70,000. Overall the budget has gone from $500,000 to $250,000. I expect my salary will be affected. We were looking for an associate but now we can’t fund it."

Special Report By David W. Virtue EVANSVILLE, IN—In what might be the first test case of Adequate Episcopal Oversight in the Episcopal Church, a fellowship has been formed in the Diocese of Indianapolis, under the oversight of the Diocese of Springfield that is drawing parishioners from four parishes primarily in the Dioceses of Indianapolis and some from the Diocese of Kentucky. "It is the first of its kind," said the Rev. Robert Todd Giffin, 33, an orthodox priest who will lead the 60 plus parishioners under the banner of Faithful Anglicans in the Heartland (FAITH) Inc. They are meeting at Evansville's West Side Fairfield Inn, but its future location will be the former St. Andrews Presbyterian Church on Stringtown Road. Faithful Anglicans in the Heartland confirmed it had successfully bid $150,000 on the church. The newly formed fellowship, which has the blessing of the orthodox Bishop of Springfield, the Rt. Rev. Peter Beckwith is drawing people from liberal parishes in St. Paul's Henderson, Ky, St. Paul's Evansville, In; St. Stephen's, New Harmony, Ind. and St. John's Mt. Vernon, Ind. The decisive issue for these Episcopalians who left their Tri-State churches was the confirmation of an openly homosexual bishop to the ECUSA episcopacy as well as the promotion of same-sex blessings by General Convention. The two dioceses of Indianapolis and Kentucky have revisionist bishops unacceptable to this new group of parishioners who are crossing diocesan lines to attend the FAITH parish. The Rev. Robert Todd Giffin is the new Episcopal priest for the 60 orthodox Episcopalians. They will now worship under the banner of Faithful Anglicans in the Heartland (FAITH) Inc. Giffin said he expects the number to swell to over 150 in the next few months. The new members of the group have decided to change their memberships from liberal dioceses and parishes to the Diocese of Springfield and to worship as a satellite fellowship of the adjoining, more traditional diocese. Fr. Giffin said that one parish priest, Fr. Phil Lewis, formally of the Diocese of Albany at St. John's, Mt. Vernon in the Diocese of Indianapolis is orthodox, but the revisionist Bishop of Indianapolis, Catherine Waynick was forcing these people to look elsewhere for spiritual leadership. The Rev. Giffin is presently in charge of two missions in eastern Illinois - St. Mary's in Robinson, Ill and St. Alban's, in Olney, both under Bishop Beckwith. "This new group is meeting on a Saturday, so it won't conflict with my other duties," he told Virtuosity. Giffin will continue his two-hour commute to his church, operating the Evansville center as a satellite of his parish. "I am functioning with the full authority and blessing of the Bishop of Springfield, The Rt. Rev. Peter H. Beckwith. We are offering pastoral care to those in southern Indiana and the Tri-State area that feel estranged from their church since General Convention. This is a temporary provision being offered to faithful Anglicans in this region until adequate Episcopal oversight is accomplished through the Network of Communion Dioceses and Parishes," he told Virtuosity. "Up till now diocesan boundaries were defined by state lines," now that is changing. "We're excited to get Fr. Giffin," said John Lippert, a member of the new fellowship's steering committee. Lippert is listed as the sole incorporator of Faithful Anglicans in the Heartland, according to the nonprofit domestic corporation application through the Indiana secretary of state. Giffin, originally of Indianapolis and now a Newburgh resident, said he was unaware of the traditional Episcopalians until he read about them in the newspaper. "The intent was to remain who they were and what they believe and worship the way they did last year," said Giffin, whose diocese has rebuked the confirmation of openly gay New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Members of the new fellowship - they are careful not to call themselves a church, which could bring opposition from both diocesan leaderships in Kentucky and Indianapolis - said they represent the true worldwide Anglican Communion. "This is not a group of splintered Anglicans or a breakaway group. This is the mainstream," Giffin said. "This is not a reactionary movement or an aggressive movement. ... No one has broken away from anything." "Not everyone in FAITH Inc. will transfer," Ward said. "These people will move, though. If they don't, they still will be welcome." He said patience will be key to the group's success. "God called the Israelites to walk in the desert a long while," Ward said. "This is hardly a challenge. There's a lot of work that needs to be done and now we can do it." Bishop Beckwith was unavailable for comment.

By David W. Virtue The Bishop of the Diocese of Puerto Rico of the Episcopal Church, David A. Alvarez, has escalated his persecution of two orthodox priests, by submitting formal accusations against them to the Standing Committee.   The Rev. Dr. Dennis Paris told Virtuosity that the Rev. Dr. Manuel A. Rivera and he had received letters from the president of the Standing Committee summoning them to appear before the committee on February 19, to defend themselves against the bishop’s accusations.   Dr. Paris wrote a book against the arguments given to favor the consent for Gene Robinson and presented it at the University of Puerto Rico, where he is a full time graduate professor, teaching Counseling and Human Sexuality courses. A day before the local Diocesan Convention, which was held last October 25, Bishop Alvarez sent Dr. Paris a letter inhibiting him in the diocese, for writing and presenting the book.   The Rev. Dr. Rivera and another priest, the Rev. Pedro Balleste, were also inhibited on the same day, for participating in a panel discussion of the book, at the University of Puerto Rico. Dr. Paris shared with us that “the Rev. Balleste, a senior cleric, submitted his resignation a few months ago and now Bishop Alvarez is looking to depose Dr. Rivera and me, to use us as examples to intimidate any other dissenters amongst the priests in the diocese,” he told Virtuosity. At this point in time, deposing the two priests is a strategy used by the Bishop to send a message to other dissenters and serves no other purpose, since Dr. Paris and Dr. Rivera are not participating in any way with the Diocese of Puerto Rico. Bishop Alvarez waited three months to submit the charges, so the new Standing Committee would deal with the accusations. Most of the new members on the committee are more favorable to his views than previous members.   This is just another example of the “killing time strategy” used by ECUSA revisionists, to wait for a favorable tide. Dr. Paris is currently translating his book from Spanish into English and hopes to make it available this year. He has also made arrangements with a local Evangelical Church, to use their facilities to start the Anglican Mission of the Resurrection, in San Juan, under the oversight of the Anglican Mission in America. Dr. Paris sent a letter to the Standing Committee with the following reply: LETTER TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE February 9, 2004 To The Standing Committee Diocese of Puerto Rico Episcopal Church of the United States of America Dear members of the Standing Committee: I have received a letter from your president, the Rev. Fernández-Pola, summoning me to appear before the committee on the 19th of February, to defend myself against the charges brought upon me by your bishop, David A. Alvarez.   I have read the account given by Mr. Alvarez, in support of the charges, with great sadness. The inclination to meet with you and offer proof of how the truth has been distorted, is one that, I must confess, has made me think considerably. Even so, I have come to the conclusion that our encounter would be of little use, considering our respective situations. In your case, the committee, by itself, is perfectly capable of establishing the lack of truthfulness in the arguments presented by Mr. Alvarez to fabricate his case. The accusations against the Rev. Dr. Manuel A. Rivera and me rest on the violation of a supposed agreement to limit the discussion of the consent for Gene Robinson, to internal meetings, where the matters discussed would be kept secret.   Members of the Standing Committee who were not present at that meeting, where Mr. Alvarez claims such an agreement took place, can consult any of the more than two dozen clergy that were present. Unless they subscribe to the notion that truth is relative, they will have to admit that the oath to secrecy never took place. Mr. Alvarez himself was the first to speak to the press, on the radio and to write in the Church magazine, defending his position.   He also distributed, free of charge, a pamphlet justifying his position, which was published with funds from the diocese. Most of these things happened after the imaginary agreement to have closed doors discussions on the matter. On the other hand, it seems to me that the committee will definitely have a hard time believing that the Rev. Rivera agreed to the secret conversations in that first meeting, since he was not present, despite Mr. Alvarez’ claims to the contrary.   How can a person agree to something at a meeting where he was not present? I am sure the Standing Committee can answer that, without my help. To determine what is true and what is false in Mr. Alvarez’ arguments, you do not need my help either; and if, by any chance, you do not want to arrive at the truth, then you definitely do not need my help. As to my current situation, I will be clear and honest.   I will not belong to a Church that has abandoned the faith. This is what your bishop did, abandon the Christian faith, when he disregarded the witness of Scripture, twenty centuries of Christian tradition, the consensus of present day Christendom and the clear and direct teaching of the vast majority of the Bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and the Primates of the Anglican Communion.   By commission or omission you have all followed your pastoral leader on this road to schism and apostasy. Some of you believed the situation would end with Gene Robinson’s consecration. It has not; three months after, there are, already, more than 38 million Anglicans in impaired or broken communion with you. Ecumenical dialogues between you (ECUSA) and the Russian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox Churches have been suspended.   The ecumenical dialogue between Anglicans and Roman Catholics has been postponed. Many have left ECUSA and a good number of those who have stayed are torn by the doctrinal deviations of a denomination that has decided to follow the world, instead of the Lord.   All this has occurred because of the position taken by men like your bishop. Even so, I am afraid that the worse is yet to come. In your case, people in Puerto Rico are now waiting to see when your diocese will officially bless same sex unions. Impossible? I’m afraid not. In conclusion, I will not stay or follow the way you have chosen.   As of January 22, 2004, I have been licensed by the Anglican Mission in America, to work as an Anglican missionary in Puerto Rico. I am soon to be received in the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda, of the Anglican Communion, which is under the leadership of Archbishop Emmanuel Mbona Kolini. The Province of Rwanda has broken communion with the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. With all respect and charity, I must inform your Standing Committee that I am no longer under the authority of your bishop or of any other organism of your Church. I will not attend your meeting on the 19th of February. Know that you are all in my prayers.   Sincerely in Christ, The Rev. Dr. Dennis Paris Anglican Priest Cc The Right Rev. Alexander Greene The Bishops of the Anglican Mission in America The Rev. Dr. Manuel A. Rivera All interested parties

Cover photo of the September 1996 issue of the Christian Challenge. (NOTE: Gary Gloster announced in a letter on the eve of the 188th NC Convention, that he planned to resign, and thus begin retirement, as Bishop Suffragan as of the 31st of August 2004. The cover of the Challenge had a photo of the bishops wearing a big red clown nose.) Is Your Church Run By These Guys!? Send in the Clowns? It had to be the ultimate in liturgical changes. The solemn rites for the consecration of the Rev James Gary Glosser as suffragan bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina began normally enough in Duke University's chapel July 27, with nine splendidly vested bishops taking part, including Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, Michigan Bishop Stewart Wood, Southern Virginia Bishop Frank Vest, and North Carolina Bishop Robert Johnson. But soon there began to be some indications that the 'fix' was in - apparently with the new suffragan's full cooperation - for an unusual service. Finally, following the presentation of traditional elements of a bishop's garb - pectoral cross, crozier, mitre, and so forth - a group of clowns and children, 'symbolizing the importance of laughter and play and faith,' came forward to present their gifts. At this point, reports The (Durham) Herald-Sun, a clown put a red nose on the new suffragan, and Gloster, 'who enjoys humor and clowning...turned to the bishops standing behind him and stuck big red noses on many of them, including Browning, who smiled broadly through the unexpected turn of events and seemed to be having as much fun as Gloster, the children and the clowns. "Applause broke out. The laughing bishops began to congratulate Gloster and clown around ever so slightly. The congregation greeted each other in the passing of the peace." It was Bishop Johnson who finally recalled the gathering to the sacramental context. "There's never enough peace," he was quoted as saying, "but that's enough." The report said Gloster had also clowned around, so to speak, when elected suffragan for the 45,000 member diocese in March. In his speech to the diocesan convention, "he started with references to God's grace and the need to share. But by the end, he was talking about humor and the importance of not taking yourself too seriously." He urged his listeners to 'join together, being fools for Christ.' Then he put on a clown nose. Presiding Bishop Browning also has taken part in at least one other bit of intra-ritual 'comic relief.' A recent college graduate who attended an Episcopal Youth Event in Missoula, Montana several years ago told TCC that after Browning appeared in full episcopal regalia to celebrate Holy Communion for the gathering, he pulled a 'super-soaker' out from under his cope and squirted the now excited congregation of young people, later reassuring them that they had been 'blessed': reportedly, the super-soaker contained holy water. ++++ The Christian Challenge Auburn Traycik, Editor Christian.Challenge@ecunet.org http://www.orthodoxAnglican.org/TCC

By David Phillips With an afternoon devoted to sex it was intriguing that in many respects the most contentious part of the business at today's General Synod was the first item on the future use of the Church Commissioners' funds. This was an unusual exercise. The Commissioners are formally answerable to Parliament and therefore this debate was part of the consultation exercise by the Commissioners regarding its proposals. The Commissioners are proposing to fund directly some of the mission initiatives outlined in Mission-shaped Church. To achieve this they are wanting to transfer some of their current responsibilities to do with Bishops and Cathedrals to Dioceses. This will have the knock-on effect of making the Bishops and Cathedrals more accountable to. There is a lot of hostility to the proposals from many of the vested interests. The Church Commissioners provide a total of £160m per year to the Dioceses although only a small fraction of this is under consideration in this review. Following a lot of passion regarding the possible removal of funding to Cathedrals and Bishops the Synod voted to adjourn the debate on the Commissioners' Funds. The idea appearing to be that there will be opportunity for vested interests to twist arms. Next in the day was the Doctrine Commission report 'Being Human'. This is a helpful resource looking at a range of issues to do with being human today but as with the later report on sexuality its handling of scripture is incompatible with the Anglican formularies and therefore the reports opens the way to erroneous conclusions. Synod took note of 'Being Human' but there was no substantive motion. In the afternoon with a fairly full house and gallery the Synod began debate on 'Some Issues in Human Sexuality'. This report from a sub-group of the House of Bishops aims to give a guide to the debate on homosexuality. This appears to be part of the strategy to keep discussion of this issue until the church changes its position. An analysis of the report is available from the Church Society website. The Bishop of Oxford gave a good summary of the report and stated that it attempts to set out all the different views within the church and to critique it. The take note motion went through without opposition and three amendments that would have skewed this in a pro-homosexual conduct direction were rejected. The substantive motion making the report available as a resource for debate was passed. There was a brief foray into some wide ranging changes to the Synod's own standing orders but they are otherwise unworthy of note. In the late afternoon the Synod voted on a York Diocesan Synod motion on 'cohabitation'. Whether deliberately or not this motion is badly worded and if it goes through will be understood by people at large as an acceptance of sex outside marriage. On behalf of the Mission and Public Affairs Committee the Bishop of Southwark moved an amendment which spelt out what the motion was trying to achieve whilst affirming marriage. There is a good amendment from the Bishop of Southwark (on behalf of the Mission and Public Affairs Committee) that raises the concern behind the motion whilst affirming marriage and not appearing to endorse immorality. Two further amendments that would have made strong statements about the importance and centrality of marriage were rejected ostensibly on the basis that this distracted from the original focus of the York motion, that is social justice. However, it is clear that there are many on the Synod who do not want to do anything to support the exclusivity of marriage. The Synod voted to accept the motion from the MPAC which affirms marriage but recognises that there are issues of hardship and vulnerability for people whose relationships are not based on marriage. David Phillips is General Secretary, Church Society General and Synod Representative for St. Albans Diocese.

By David Phillips The morning of the second day of the General Synod (Tuesday 10 February) was taken up with changes to the composition of the General Synod. The initial work had been done several years ago by the Bridge Commission and although some recommendations had already been implemented most of them had to wait until now. There were over 70 items on the agenda paper although many of them were interlocking. It was agreed to reduce the number of Suffragan Bishops on Synod by 2. A radical suggestion by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds to allow the Bishops in each Diocese to decide who would represent them was rejected, but not without significant support, on the grounds that Diocesan Bishops needed to be part of the Synod in order that they hear what everyone else has to say. It was agreed to reduce the number of Deans on the Synod who have a special electoral constituency. The proposal to create a special electoral constituency for Archdeacons was not agreed. Presently there is at least one Archdeacon on Synod for every Diocese, one is ex-officio. An amendment from the floor was passed that Archdeacons should stand as part of the ordinary clergy but that at most one Archdeacon can be elected from each Diocese. It was agreed that the number of Laity be reduced by having a lower upper limit for those elected from each Diocese. A further proposal to cut the special representation from clergy in Universities was defeated. In all the Synod will fall by about 90. In the afternoon the Synod discussed the report Mission-shaped Church. There was a good crowd in the chamber and gallery for this debate. The Bishop of Liverpool stressed that this report was largely about recognising creative ways of being church that have grown out of the grass roots of the Church. The report aims to set out an integrated strategy for both neighbourhood (parish churches etc) and network church as a response to the mobile and diverse environment of today. The report was well received and many of the suggestions within it are already shaping other business before the Synod this week. There were several amendments passed most of which are worthy although they make the final motion cumbersome and complicated. There followed a report entitled A Measure for Measures that in many ways builds on Mission-shaped Church. This document contains a large number of recommendations that will have a significant impact on the shape of the Church. The proposals do make a self-conscious shift to the Diocesan level away from the national. Following on from this they will make it far easier to restructure Dioceses and to look at the numbers of Bishops. A single new measure for Mission and Ministry is proposed dealing with Diocese, Neighbourhood and Network and Church Buildings. The Measure will recognise and facilitate the variety of fresh expressions of being Church. It will also cover issues to do with church buildings and particularly streamlining the procedures when buildings are no longer needed for worship. The Pastoral (Amendment) Measure prompted some technical discussion. It allows for parts of church buildings to be leased whereas at present they have to be used under licence. The final debate of the day was the twice re-convened debate on Gender Neutral titles. This would have required that several pieces of legislation should be revised to remove words such as chairman and replace it with chair. An amendment that was accepted by the proposers from Birmingham Diocese was passed to provide that no past legislation would need to be revised but rather in all future legislation of the synod gender neutral titles would be used. END

By JILL LAWLESS February 11, 2004 Associated press Writer LONDON (AP) - Church of England leaders issued a plea Wednesday for more understanding and less acrimony in the divisive debate over homosexuality in the church. The church's governing General Synod endorsed a report by bishops calling for "interpretive charity'' between reformers and conservatives - and a balancing of biblical teaching with social reality - in the debate that is threatening to split the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion. "Christian tradition is dynamic and not static,'' said the Rt. Rev. Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, who introduced the report to the Synod's thrice-yearly meeting at Church House in London. The report, "Some Issues in Human Sexuality,'' calls itself "a guide to the debate'' about the church's attitude toward homosexuality and stops short of advocating changes in church policy. Compiled by Harries and three other bishops after several years of research and consultation, it says the debate on sexuality will not go away, and urges Christians to remember that "real people really do have homosexual and bisexual desires.'' The consecration of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire last November has divided the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch. Conservatives in the Episcopal Church launched a new organization that plans to defy church leaders and may well wrestle with them for control of parishes and dioceses. It has gained support from church leaders in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the Anglican communion, has appointed a commission to study the crisis. The church's official line rejects homosexual practice as "incompatible with Scripture.'' Harries said that while religious scholars agreed on the Bible's disapproval of homosexual behavior, "debate about the interpretation of biblical texts has to be understood in the wider context of the societal shifts that have caused attitudes towards sexuality and sexual behavior to change in the modern era.'' Brian McHenry, a lay synod member from London, said the church was "perceived by many to be homophobic, hypocritical and discriminating.'' Saying neither side in the debate was likely to prevail, he called for "legitimate diversity'' within the church. But deep-rooted differences remain between reformers and conservatives. The Rev. David Banting, chairman of the church's evangelical Reform group and an advocate of strict adherence to the Bible, blamed "widespread disturbance and even schism'' on pro-gay members of the church. "I cannot be enthusiastic about a debate that seeks to change church teaching,'' he said. The Rev. Richard Kirker, general secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian movement, said the sexuality document was "very deficient.'' "No self-respecting gay or lesbian person has put their name to it. It talks to, rather than with or about, gay people, in any meaningful sense,'' Kirker told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Wednesday. The synod voted to recommend the sexuality report to church members "for study and reflection.'' Delegates rejected amendments that would have strengthened the report to "recognize that faithful Anglican Christians hold differing views on the issues of homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexualism.'' Last year Canon Jeffrey John, a gay but celibate clergyman, was appointed Bishop of Reading in England, but withdrew in the face of protests. That controversy was soon overshadowed by the appointment of Robinson, who has a male partner. END

The following is a letter to Bishop Gladstone Adams written by the Rev. Doug Taylor-Weiss, Convenor of the Confessing Anglicans of Central New York (CACNY). It was sent in response to the bishop's notice to the CACNY that he would allow same-sex blessings "on a case by case basis." -- O God, who, by the preaching of thine apostle Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine through-out the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord. —Book of Common Prayer My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. — Jeremiah 2:11 I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. —Romans 16:17-18 Q. How do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit? A. We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures. —The Catechism Dear Bishop Adams, Thank you for responding to our letter regarding your policy on same-sex marriage in the Diocese. I understand that the consultations you describe might take some time, accounting for the delay in your re-sponse. It is a pity that you did not consult the unequivocal teaching of the bishops assembled at Lambeth in 1998, or the Constitution of the Episcopal Church, or the Holy Scriptures, or biology and physiology, or the unbroken moral teaching of the Church from the 1st century until the 21st. It makes no difference that your blessing ceremonies will not look like weddings. In fact, I bet they will. There will be special clothes, aisle-walking, receptions with dancing and cake, rice thrown and so forth. Of course they'll look like weddings, your liturgical distinctions notwithstanding. More importantly, you yourself admit that you see them as marriages when you state that they must intend "monogamy." Doesn't monogamy come from monos, "alone," and gamos, "marriage"? But these are the "blessing of a friendship/relationship," you say. Really? I have a good friend here at SS. Peter and John named Tom. We are of the same sex. We have a relationship. How exactly are Tom and I to have a "monogamous" relationship since both of us are already married? You are essentially saying that a same-sex "friendship/relationship" is fine, but that when it includes sodomy and mutual masturbation, then it rises to a new level of goodness becoming something to be blessed by the Church: it becomes a gamos. Your belief, then, is that sodomy and other stimulations imitating true sexual intercourse are part of God's intention for creation, designed for the purpose of human flourishing. A blessing ceremony reserved only for those "friendship/relationships" that sexually imitate marriage can mean no less. I warn you to remember this: these rites will instruct the youth of the Episcopal Church exactly what you mean by "friendship/relationship." Young people will understand what you are now teaching as "gospel" in your church, even though you yourself may try to deny it. They will conclude that gay sex is good, that gay "marriage" is equivalent to marriage and that God doesn't care what we do with our sexual powers so long as we have what we feel is "integrity." Read Mark 9:42. By the way, since you include sodomy in God's intentions for humanity, mustn't you finally argue that the Lord's original, creative intention was that it be performed without condoms? This, too, you will be teaching our children. You tell me that it is not your perspective that this "is about overturning 'the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and of the saints of God throughout Church history…' Well, your doctrine of marriage is in fact an overturning of the teaching of the Bible and of the ages. While it may well be your perspective that what we are debating is not "about" such an overturning, you cannot deny that you are in fact overturning the faith, unity and discipline of the Church which you have sworn to guard. Of all the matters disputed among Christians for 2000 years, never have any of our forebears in the faith endorsed sodomy as good and holy. If you dispute this, show me the evidence. Not a single sentence in the Scripture suggests that homosexual activity is godly. Instead, both the New Testament and the Old consider it an abomination. So, whether or not this little exchange of ours is "about" your rejection of the Church's moral teaching on sex, you and your diocese do in fact reject it. You are obviously convinced that you are free from the constraints of accountability to the worldwide Communion, to the witness of the Scriptures and of Church tradition, as well as to our Ecumenical partners because you are instead "living more fully into the Gospel of Christ and his intention for all humankind." I find it strange that Christ's intention for all humankind would be that we turn away from the objective good of two complementary sexes that create families into which children might be born toward a world in which subjective sexual desires govern what is counted good and where anything that fulfills one's fantasies and inclinations can, in time, be construed as good. But, then, once you sever yourself from the clear Word of God in Scripture and from the Church's unbroken interpretation of that Word, I suppose anything at all might be considered as "the Gospel of Christ." I join you in calling for "the interpretive principle for all Scripture and the moral response we make to those Scriptures" to be "Jesus and his life." This is the New Testament's principle of interpreting the Old, and it is the principle used throughout Church history. Saint Paul is using that principle in writing Ro-mans. "In the Gospel," he writes "the righteousness of God is revealed." (Rom. 1:17) Looking through the lens of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ he writes, "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. . . ." in Romans 1:26-27. Paul was not writing to condemn, but so that the world might be saved through Christ, saved by seeing the folly of its dishonorable passions and brought in repentance to the cross of our salvation. Apparently, that is no longer an interest of the Diocese of Central New York. Is Paul somehow forgetting about the life of Jesus when he writes that men who lie with males (the arsenokoitai of Lev. 18:22) will not inherit the kingdom of God? (1 Cor. 6:9) Is he writing to condemn such people? Certainly not, but rather to warn them and, even more, to warn the Church against giving them a false view of God's mercy. "Such were some of you," he writes, "but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:11) This is not some regrettable lapse where Paul forgets to interpret the Scriptures according to "Jesus and his life." Instead, it is the Scripture's call to holiness addressed to the gentiles of Corinth who now through Christ belong to the children of Abraham. Corinth, by the way, was well-aquainted with socially-acceptable forms of homosexual practice very like those in our own day. The "moral response" we are to make to these Scriptures is precisely to love those who are living contrary to the holiness of God, to warn them, to call them to righteousness and to assist them through their many dangers, toils and snares. I confess that I have failed miserably in my ministry to love those trapped in same-sex desires enough to warn them, to call them and to assist them. I have feared rejection. I have been satisfied with the pale "love" of "inclusion," thinking that having them sit on the Vestry counted as love. I repent. I don't mean to play dumb. I know you are saying that somehow "Jesus and his life" means assuring eve-rybody that they are loved (which is true enough) and then further assuring them that our late-industrialized culture's view of "integrity" will do for a Christian sexual morality. In true gnostic fashion, you are saying that bodies don't matter, but only our inner intentions, our "integrity," our "friendship/relationship." The actual Jesus said instead, "from the beginning of creation God made them male and female." He answered the question about divorce not with warm assurances of inclusion, but with a harsh exclusivism. (Mark 10:11-12) He did not say, as we would, "Ah, well, we all lust a bit now and then. After all, we're only human." He said, "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell." (Matt. 5:29) Nowhere, nowhere does Jesus relax the Old Testament's sexual ethic. Furthermore, he says to us, "Do not think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matt. 5:17) This does not sound very far from St. Paul's, "For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you." (1 Thess. 4:7-8) Your implied notion that "Jesus and his life" somehow entails an attenuated sexual ethic and a gnostic departure from the moral significance of our bodies is incoherent. You have never shown any evidence why this should be the case other than that you wish it were so. I continue to hold you in my prayers, asking God to bring you to repentance, that you might return to the solemn promises you made at all three of your ordinations. —The Rev. Douglas Taylor-Weiss is rector, Saint Peter and Saint John, Auburn, New York END