Feature by Ed Vitagliano June 18, 2004 AgapePress Many leaders in America’s oldest Protestant denominations are steering their churches toward schism—especially on homosexuality and abortion. In April 2004, the United Methodist Church (UMC), Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), and Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) co-sponsored the “March for Women’s Lives” in Washington, D.C.—a rally supporting legal abortion, partial-birth abortion included. Organizers included Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the ACLU. Shocking to many, the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society and United Methodist Women not only participated but used denominational funds to support the event. ECUSA and PCUSA were also listed as co-sponsors. Don Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association and a UMC minister, called it a “pro-abortion death-fest” and urged members to reconsider where their donations go. Homosexuality: The Fault Line While abortion may not fracture these churches, homosexuality is the breaking point. In March 2004, a UMC clergy trial court refused to discipline a lesbian minister who admitted to a “partnered, covenanted, homosexual relationship”—despite clear church law prohibiting such appointments. ECUSA ignited the crisis in 2003 by consecrating Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Conservatives responded by forming the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes under the American Anglican Council (AAC). In Ohio, five congregations barred Bishop-elect Mark Hollingsworth Jr.—a Robinson supporter—from their churches and invited conservative bishops instead. The ECUSA House of Bishops condemned this as “defiance,” but the retired bishops retorted: “The 2003 General Convention repudiated 4,000 years of biblical teaching—that was true defiance.” In Hackensack, New Jersey, St. Anthony of Padua Episcopal Church requested oversight from a conservative bishop, citing ECUSA’s embrace of homosexuality: “Many homosexual clergy live with partners on parish property. Blessings of same-sex unions are common. This culminated in your consent to Gene Robinson’s election.” Voting with Their Pocketbooks ECUSA giving plummeted after Robinson’s consecration—down over $3 million, or 6% of expected revenue. Dioceses in Missouri, Colorado, Tennessee, and elsewhere reported 10–30% drops in giving. “The shortfall isn’t economic—it’s theological,” said AAC spokesman Bruce Mason. “People don’t want their money supporting a structure that abandons historic Christian teaching.” Internationally, the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) declared: “We do not want any money from ECUSA. We will not, on the altar of money, mortgage our conscience, faith, or salvation.” Representing 50 million of the Communion’s 77 million Anglicans, African, Asian, and Latin American leaders have severed ties with ECUSA. In April 2004, CAPA demanded ECUSA repent within three months—or face discipline. Trouble Brewing in ELCA The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is following suit. Three congregations—in California and Minnesota—defied church law by appointing sexually active gay pastors, though ELCA policy permits only celibate homosexuals in ministry. Ten years ago, ELCA expelled two San Francisco churches for similar actions. Now, defiance is ignored. Former ELCA Bishop Paul Egertson predicted the denomination’s traditional stance will soon collapse: “It’s a fragile dam… it will either be taken down by courageous action or leak until it’s a sieve.” The sound of breaking dams echoes across mainline Protestantism.

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent The Telegraph June 21, 2004 Anglicanism’s first openly gay bishop was invalidly consecrated and must be removed to prevent global schism, declared Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies. In a dramatic escalation of the church’s internal war over homosexuality, Archbishop Gomez—a member of the Lambeth Commission tasked with preserving unity—issued an ultimatum: Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire must be stripped of his office, or the Anglican Communion will split. Such a move would be unprecedented. While Jeffrey John withdrew as Bishop of Reading in 2003 before consecration, Robinson was fully installed. Gomez’s position, supported by theologians including Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of Rochester, echoes arguments previously made by Archbishop Rowan Williams during the John controversy. These proposals were presented to the 17-member Lambeth Commission during a critical U.S. meeting. The commission’s final report, due in October 2004, will determine the Communion’s future.

News Analysis By David W. Virtue Beware when a revisionist bishop offers “dialogue,” “mediation,” or “conversation.” These words often mask coercion disguised as pastoral care. When disagreements arise between those who affirm traditional sexual ethics and those who support pansexuality, liberal bishops typically invite dissenting parishes to a “deep conversation.” As Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold put it: “The church [needs] to engage in the costly and demanding discipline of deep conversation about how our faith is shaped and formed.” But these are code words—frequently accompanied by subtle pressure. Since 1999, Griswold has called for “deep” or “graceful conversation” at least 23 times. Almost invariably, the outcome favors revisionist theology. The goal is not truth, but “creative tension” within a “diverse center” where all views are heard—but only one prevails. The hope is that through “deep listening,” opponents will eventually embrace the revisionist position, perhaps reaching some mystical unity à la Rumi. But that remains a distant fantasy. Another favorite tactic is “mediation.” A bishop in conflict with an orthodox parish demands mediation—only to spend hours advocating for pansexuality. When persuasion fails, he insists they share communion, framing the Eucharist as a “great leveler” of doctrinal differences. The message: stay for the sake of unity, or leave for the sake of diversity. Sometimes outside facilitators—like the Massachusetts-based Public Conversations Project—are brought in to create an illusion of neutrality. The aim is to make irreconcilable positions seem reconcilable. If that fails, the bishop can claim, “I tried,” then invoke canon law to depose “fundamentalist” clergy. This happened in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Bishop Bennison abandoned mediation when he saw himself losing, then pushed his agenda through, telling orthodox objectors to “go pound sand.” Similarly, “dialogue” becomes endless negotiation until everyone agrees that revisionist views on sexuality are correct—and then moves on. In England’s Diocese of St. Albans, the bishop called for mediation after evangelicals opposed the appointment of Jeffrey John, a gay priest, as dean. Despite their clear biblical objections, the bishop installed John anyway, then urged “deep and patient listening” so “understanding may grow.” Understanding of what? That Scripture was wrong? Mediation is now a bad joke. Evangelicals know it—and increasingly withhold funds to make their point. Bishops listen when their budgets are threatened. Whenever a liberal bishop proposes “dialogue,” “reconciliation,” or “mediation,” beware: it’s a one-sided poker game, and he holds all the aces. Orthodox voices never win. Bishop Henry Parsley of Alabama claims he wants “conversation”—but it always ends as “my way or the highway.” Same for Bishop Robert Moody of Oklahoma. Griswold’s “deeper conversation” is just prolonged pressure. Even if orthodoxy won a majority, they’d be sent back to “converse” until their minds changed. And when these “graceful” talks end, revisionists always win—not through logic or Scripture, but through emotional “stories” of wounded identity. Reason, evidence, and the law of non-contradiction are discarded in favor of narratives about unloved childhoods and unmet emotional needs. In all my years observing these conflicts, I’ve never seen “dialogue” or “mediation” result in an orthodox victory on matters of faith and morals. The 2003 General Convention obliterated any pretense of sanity. When immediate change isn’t possible, “local option” smuggles it in anyway—truth and parliamentary rules be damned. Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested professional mediators might be needed to save the Anglican Communion from schism over homosexuality. But what exactly is there to mediate? The New Testament is clear: marriage is between a man and a woman; sexual immorality excludes one from the Kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). The Church has held this for 2,000 years. Can one “mediate” the efficacy of the Cross? Or negotiate a third way between sin and holiness? Global South bishops reject the very premise. “You don’t mediate right and wrong,” an African bishop told me. “If Scripture forbids it, what does the Archbishop want us to ‘mediate’?” The Roman Catholic Church, despite its failures with clerical abuse, has drawn a firm line: no practicing homosexuals in the priesthood. The “lavender mafia” is finished. The Anglican Communion now faces a crisis. If the Archbishop chooses mediation after the Lambeth Commission reports, he may discover the final step isn’t reconciliation—but dissolution.

News Analysis By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor Bordeaux, France — June 21, 2004 European specialists on Islamic affairs fear that the beheadings of Americans and other foreigners in the Middle East will trigger a severe anti-Muslim backlash. “These barbaric acts have been catastrophic for the prospects of Muslims in France,” said Bruno Guiderdoni, a leading French Quran scholar. “A discernible shift has occurred in public attitudes. Its most dangerous aspect is a new hostility—even among once-liberal French intellectuals—toward our religion.” Two years earlier, a French court acquitted bestselling author Michel Houellebecq of inciting racial hatred for calling Islam “the most stupid religion.” He later clarified: “I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims. But I have as much contempt as ever for Islam.” In fall 2003, Claude Imbert, founder of the newsmagazine Le Point, declared: “To be honest, I am somewhat hostile to Islam. I am not embarrassed to admit that.” To Guiderdoni, such remarks from intellectual elites are alarm signals. Europeans increasingly dismiss reassurances from mainstream Muslim leaders like Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, who stated: “Islam is not a religion that beats women, kills kids, and desires the death of the West. What shocks the French is… even more of a shock to us.” By mid-2004, Muslim extremists had beheaded three Americans and threatened a South Korean and a European journalist—possibly German—with the same fate. This followed the massacre of thousands of women and children in Algeria and ongoing persecution of Christians in Sudan and northern Nigeria. “Our image is disastrous,” said Guiderdoni, who also serves as research director at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics. Christine Schirrmacher, head of the Institute on Islamic Affairs in Bonn, Germany, attributes this to the perceived “divided Quran” on human rights and interfaith tolerance. On one hand, the Quran promotes broad-mindedness toward other faiths, says Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali, a Shiite scholar running for Iraq’s new assembly. On the other, it commands believers to “strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” (Surah 8:12). From Baghdad, Ali explained that under Islamic law, decapitation requires approval from a high-ranking scholar—akin to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Nobody in al-Qaida has this competence. None have even attended an Islamic university.” Yet Islam lacks a centralized authority—no pope, no councils—to definitively condemn such acts. This vacuum allows groups like al-Qaida to act as judge, jury, and executioner, declaring all Westerners “guilty” by association—whether through taxes, military service, or employment. Guiderdoni warns that moderate “European Islam” is among the first casualties. “Radical Islamists accuse us of treason, while Christians see us as wolves in sheep’s clothing. They distrust us now, convinced we’re trying to lull the West into believing Islam is harmless.” This dynamic, he fears, cedes ground to extremists. “The West no longer accepts that we have something to contribute. There is no longer any space for moderation.” Schirrmacher agrees, noting that Christian partners in interfaith dialogue are increasingly abandoned by their own laity, who accuse bishops of naively engaging with unrepresentative or insincere Muslim voices. In Germany, resentment grows over authorities who dialogue almost exclusively with radicals and appoint them to newly created university chairs in Islamic studies. “Add to this the public perception of Muslim immigrants as an arrogant, closed community unwilling to learn our language or integrate,” Schirrmacher said. “God forbid terrorism strikes here as it has in the U.S., Spain, or the Middle East. I dread to ponder the consequences.”

By David W. Virtue Rosemont, PA — June 20, 2004 Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan crossed jurisdictional boundaries over the weekend to visit the Dioceses of Pennsylvania and New Jersey—once to perform an ordination, and once to baptize his grandson. In one case, a local bishop cordially invited him; in the other, the diocesan bishop attempted to block his visit. Bishop George E. Councell of New Jersey welcomed Bishop Duncan to Christ Church, an Anglo-Catholic parish in Bordentown, NJ, where Duncan ordained the Rev. Simon Barnes to the priesthood. The British-born Barnes marked the occasion with a wry grin, saying it had been “10 years, four months, and six days in the making.” Barnes began his spiritual journey toward ordination in the Diocese of Massachusetts under the late Bishop David Johnson, who later died by suicide, and then under Bishop Tom Shaw. He completed his clinical pastoral education at NYU’s Tisch Hospital and served a parish placement at St. John’s in Sandwich, Cape Cod. He fulfilled all requirements set by the Diocese’s Commission on Ministry and received their approval to move forward as a candidate—the final step before ordination. However, the Diocese’s Standing Committee rejected the commission’s recommendation and halted his progress. As one administrator bluntly told him, “After a number of years, you are now dropped from the process.” Despite appeals led by the rector of Barnes’s home parish, St. Andrew’s in Edgartown, MA, and the rector of St. John’s in Sandwich, the Standing Committee refused to reconsider. At that point, encouraged by orthodox senior clergy and bishops, Barnes entered the American Anglican Council (AAC) process. He was deemed “too orthodox” on matters of faith and morals. The newly ordained priest rejects same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly homosexual priests. “He is very opinionated… he’s an evangelical—what do you expect?” said his parish priest at the time. Traditional liberals, horrified by his views, opposed his candidacy. By then, the process had stretched into its fifth year. While serving as Executive Director for FOCUS and attending a January term at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry (TESM), Barnes sought help from Canon Mary Hayes, Canon to the Ordinary in Pittsburgh, and began the AAC ordination track. He later moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, becoming Senior Vice President of Geneva Global, a foundation funding international development. He and his wife joined the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli, PA—the largest parish in the Diocese of Pennsylvania—where Rector David Moyer agreed to sponsor him for the diaconate. Barnes was eventually ordained a deacon in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and completed his diaconal service under Fr. Moyer’s supervision through the AAC program in partnership with Pittsburgh. When it came time for his priestly ordination six months later, Bishop Duncan wrote to Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison, requesting permission to ordain Barnes either in a parish or even in a tent on church property. Fr. Moyer offered his church in Rosemont. Bennison refused. Duncan then turned to New Jersey Bishop George Councell, who granted permission to use Christ Church in Bordentown—a parish near Philadelphia where Duncan himself was baptized, confirmed, married, and ordained. “I told Bishop Councell this was not a political act,” Duncan told Virtuosity. “I was simply seeking to ordain a godly man to the priesthood.” Councell agreed. The Anglo-Catholic rector of Christ Church, Rev. Richard A.D. Benedict, noted that while he disagrees with his bishop on many issues, Councell has treated him with respect and affirmed his place in the diocese. At the ordination service, Duncan publicly thanked Bishop Councell for his hospitality. On Sunday, Bishop Duncan baptized his grandson, Patrick Robert Jakubik, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. Bishop Bennison consented to Duncan’s participation in the baptism. Duncan did not preside at the Mass but sat with his family. Fr. David Moyer preached and celebrated, and Duncan received communion from him. In a post-service interview, Duncan said he and his delegation were well received at Kanuga, where the Lambeth Commission was meeting. “We were treated with great respect,” he said, “and our views on the current state of the Episcopal Church were clearly heard and recorded.” Duncan also delivered greetings from the Anglican Communion Network to the Anglo-Catholic congregation.

News Analysis By David W. Virtue LONDON, UK—A traditionalist Church of England priest says that the imposition of women bishops will confirm and finalize a long-standing drift from Catholic teaching and place all hope of corporate reunion finally beyond reach. The Rev. Robbie Low, a member of Cost of Conscience—a traditionalist organization with Forward in Faith—writes in the June issue of New Directions that “reunion will continue piecemeal as faithful Christians move away from the Anglican Church into the historic Communions.” More worrying, writes Low, will be those who will be broken-hearted, betrayed, despairing—and go nowhere. “Their experience of Church authorities being so uniformly dishonest, they will shy away from institutional encounter again.” Low blasted what he called the feminization of the Church of England. “The CofE has experienced the very opposite of the growth promised by the feminizers. Twelve years has seen one in five worshippers disappear. The overwhelming majority of those have been men.” Low said studies showed that male church-going is the decisive influence in children. “It is not surprising to see children’s attendance in free-fall over that period. The 45/55 male/female split of a decade ago is now a 37/63 split of a much smaller number of regulars.” Men, he wrote, will see a decreasing place for themselves in an organization dominated by militant feminism and bloodless males. “With the growing triumph of the homosexual lobby and key appointments for many of its senior supporters, men will continue to drift away—and so will their children. On current trends, in a decade or so the Church of England will be down to half the 1990 figures and staffed mainly by masculine women and feminine men,” said the former Vicar of St Peter’s, Bushey Heath, Diocese of St Albans. Low now lives in Cornwall. The state of the CofE parallels what is going on in the Episcopal Church USA. A recent report by the Church Pension Fund says clergy enrollment is way down, and unless there is a significant turnaround, ECUSA will, in time, collapse. The number of white males going into ECUSA’s full-time pastoral ministry is down 90 percent since the ’60s, and those filling the pulpits today are middle-aged, angry, divorced, lesbian women. The pulpits are being filled with feminized, homosexualized, simpering, emotionally weak men and women (not all bad)—but nearly all liberals—who have no ability to make churches grow because they have no discernible gospel. Pension Fund leaders bemoaned that with the growing shortage of clergy—especially white males—and the dominance of women and homosexuals who, because of their theology, cannot make churches grow, this will, in time, impact the Church Pension Fund itself. The facts are that nearly 3,500 parishes have 37 members, and future prospects for finding suitable clergy grow dimmer with each passing day. The report, prepared for the CPF late last year, expressed alarm that not enough young people were being attracted into the ordained ministry, with far-reaching implications for The Episcopal Church itself. A sobering analysis of church attendance revealed that on an average Sunday, 17.5 percent of the people in the pews are attending only 3.3 percent of Episcopal churches. At the same time, only 15.4 percent of Episcopalians attend 47.5 percent of Episcopal churches on an average Sunday. The CPF asked the question: Are we still a denomination of small churches? “If the Church Pension Fund is to provide benefits to its members, we must be concerned with the fit between clergy and their work. Are we attracting a sufficient number of younger people to the ministry? Are there jobs for them? Are they prepared for and supported within the multiple models in which they are asked to serve so that they can expect to serve full careers? Are they working in healthy environments? Are they experiencing burnout?” The report raised the alarm about institutional wellness and asks: Are there healthy work opportunities and environments for our clergy? The report bases its statistics on Canon Keith Brown, formerly Canon Missioner in the Diocese of San Joaquin, a specialist in leadership and management issues related to congregational and diocesan growth and health. If an institution is defined by its bricks and mortar, the Episcopal Church is an institution of small churches. The report asked, “What does this mean for our clergy? Financial pressures are often severe, the future may be uncertain, and the priest is called upon to do almost everything.” The report concluded two things: “The church must do more to help these clergy, and it must seriously study approaches to team ministry now being widely discussed.” The report then sounded a major alarm: “A very dramatic picture emerges. There is a precipitous decline in the number of younger men. In the 1960s, men under 35 comprised 75 percent of each year’s total number of ordinands. This group has fallen by 90 percent—from 278 a year to 25—and they are now only 10 percent of the average annual total.” The report also said that the number of older male ordinands has remained essentially steady. FEMALE ORDINANDS In the 1960s there were none. In each period since 1976—when General Convention approved the ordination of women—the number of younger women has been fairly constant, but small. What the report noted was the number of older women being ordained. “It is this group that has partially offset the declining number of ordinations overall.” A maximum of 31 women were ordained in the ten-year period 1980–1989. Some 22 were ordained between 1990 and 1999, and 15 in the years 2000 and 2001. The report noted that if this group suddenly declined, the clergy shortage would be far worse than it initially appears. “As the current clergy population ages, the church may find that it is not attracting enough people into the ordained ministry.” A new initiative called PLSE—set up by the national church—recognizes the critical absence of young clergy for many mainline denominations, including the Episcopal Church. As a result, these churches have developed a new collaborative partnership with the Fund for Theological Education in an effort to reverse the trend and encourage younger people to consider the ordained ministry. “It’s an important step as we seek to embrace new leadership for the future,” said Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold. Matthew Price, research director of the Church Pension Fund, said the number of young people younger than 35 entering the priesthood each year has dropped from 300 in 1960 to less than 50 in 2000. “The church right now is in a weak position. But we can do something about it,” he said. Many leaders in theological education are concerned about what the church has lost. “We have paid a heavy price in the last 30 years by not ordaining younger people,” said the Very Rev. James Lemler, president of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. “The price has been that we have almost lost a generation of potential ordained leaders. We have also lost that kind of energy and vigor that is brought into the church, and we need to find a way to regain it.” The program, PLSE (pronounced “pulse”), is a Pastoral Leadership Search Effort that has drawn the participation of the Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ denominations. It offers a safe, web-based environment for young people to ask questions about ministry with their peers. Trainers frame questions for them and provide resource information, as well as conferences for young people who want to consider ordination. The website also points to those parishes and dioceses that actively recruit younger people. But three things are mitigating against this effort: Nowhere are young people invited to enter the ministry driven by gospel imperatives. The church’s liberal seminaries are in deep trouble themselves. Bexley Hall in Rochester recently closed its doors and moved elsewhere to survive. What sort of an education is being offered in seminaries like VTS, EDS, and GTS that would encourage a young person to pursue a theological education and enter the church? Most ordinands enter seminary theologically illiterate and emerge three years later still theologically illiterate. In fact, the number of actual biblical courses one needs to take is so small—one wonders why one would bother going to seminary at all! But what is even more troubling is that the two orthodox seminaries—Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge and Nashotah House in Wisconsin—cannot find placement for their burgeoning number of orthodox graduates. Revisionist bishops in liberal dioceses don’t want them. The overwhelming majority of ECUSA’s bishops have publicly and privately stated that they will never have an ordinand who graduated from those two seminaries in their diocese! If that is the case, then these liberal dioceses are on a suicide watch—as liberals cannot make churches grow, and the doctrine of Inclusion (read sodomy) actually has the opposite effect. “Come as you are, stay as you are” is a surefire recipe for the golf course on Sunday—not an Episcopal parish Eucharistic service. Who would want to jump out of bed on a chilly Sunday morning to listen to anything Charles Bennison has to say? How do you backtrack after you have called the Savior of the universe a sinner? A cup of coffee and the New York Times is preferable—and probably more instructive. The Pension Fund report concluded by saying that over the past forty years there has been a declining trend in the average number of ordinands each year, and that while the decline has not been precipitous, the cumulative impact is significant. The report raises the disquieting questions: “Will some parishes find themselves without clergy? What if the number of churches grows? How does the shorter service for the average priest, ordained at a later age, affect the number of clergy the Episcopal Church will have in the future? Does this suggest the church is facing a serious clergy shortage, adding stress to those already in parish ministry?” There are many questions but few answers. But one thing is certain: if the trumpet does not sound a clear theological call, who will get ready for battle? Liberals have no concept of spiritual warfare, and right now the Episcopal Church is in a war for its very soul. You enter the battle at your peril—and if you are not properly prepared, woe unto you.

News Analysis By David W. Virtue The great realignment in American Protestantism has now begun in earnest. The experiment with Liberal Theology which preoccupied most of the 20th Century is slowly grinding into the ground—a spent force. This week, the Southern Baptist Convention—a body of some 17 million members meeting in Indianapolis and America’s largest Protestant body—announced that it would split from the theologically liberal Baptist World Alliance. It took only a few moments and a brief show of 8,000 hands, then it was all over. The inerrancy of Holy Scripture and the blessing of same-sex blessings concerned these orthodox Baptists, and so they said farewell to the international body (BWA). Another issue—a constitutional amendment to protect marriages as the union of a man and a woman—also concerned the Baptists. But it is not just Southern Baptists; it is also Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the United Church of Christ who are in the midst of a spiritual battle, fighting for the souls of their churches and the millions of faithful followers of Jesus Christ who will not bow the knee to the revisionist Moloch. A brief look at how the major denominations have voted by some of their members and their political goals is instructive. American Friends Service Committee is in favor of same-sex marriage. The Interfaith Alliance demands the removal of “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and says the Boy Scouts shouldn’t be allowed in schools. They also reject the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). The United Church of Christ is in favor of same-sex marriage and says to the Boy Scouts: change or get out! The Friends Committee on National Legislation is in favor of same-sex marriage. Unitarian Universalism opposes the Boy Scouts and supports same-sex marriage. They also demand the removal of “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. (The UU comes under the broad heading of Protestant, but is in fact a bastardization of Protestant theology and thought.) The Presbyterian Church USA supports same-sex marriage and rejects the FMA. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America opposes FMA (that is, the ELCA leaders openly support same-sex marriages). And the official ELCA Policy on the Boy Scouts is not encouraging. The ELCA OFFICIALLY JOINS THE RELIGIOUS LEFT screamed a headline this week. And so it has. People for the American Way wants to stop the FMA and celebrates the fact that PBS trashes Boy Scouts with taxpayer money. On the other hand, The United Methodist Church—America’s second-largest Protestant denomination—strengthened its stance against homosexuality at its recent General Conference in Pittsburgh. The 2004 Conference also voted to reinforce their Church’s disapproval of homosexual practice in several other areas. They overwhelmingly endorsed laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. They also voted to expand the prohibition of pro-homosexuality advocacy to include local annual conferences. The United Methodist Church demonstrated that it was possible not to soften its stand on homosexual practice and still keep its membership. It may even grow as a result. Christians like boundaries; some even think the Bible promotes such. But the Presbyterian Church USA has more strident liberals, and they have won more rounds in the spiritual culture wars—but it has come at a price. Presbyterian Layman Editor Parker Williamson, addressing a group at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., recently warned that the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. had “compromised” the Gospel, while at the same time stressing that theologically orthodox “confessing movements” in the PCUSA and other mainline denominations represent the “burgeoning reality” of the future. “Confessing movements are crossing denominational lines,” Williamson said in his January 19 remarks. “Christians wearing one label sense spiritual communion with Christians wearing another. And this bonding appears more like a lateral internet connection than the structure of a hierarchical institution.” Williamson admitted that the Gospel is still proclaimed in many congregations and can still be found in denominational documents. “But what we must say is that there are those occupying positions of controlling authority in this denomination who do not believe that Gospel,” he asserted. “Two faiths are now encompassed in this clay pot, and they are irreconcilable.” “Ecclesiastical politics will not save this institution,” Williamson said. “No Rodney King, ‘Can’t we all just get along?’ theology will save us. No big-tent church. No local-option compromise. No human construct will save us.” Referring to the confessing movements within the mainline churches, Williamson said, “The power in these movements is not yet political. This is yet to come. But make no mistake about it: Confessing the faith is itself powerful. Ask the Roman Caesars what happened in their realm when people proclaimed the Gospel. Where are those Caesars today?” The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has also bought into the same pansexual world as The Episcopal Church, prompting a Confessing Movement to rise up in that denomination led by the Rev. Dr. Christopher Hershman, a Lutheran priest and family counselor. The ELCA is further down the moral slide and is closer in spirit and theology to The Episcopal Church, with which it shares a Concordat—and the two are going hand in hand toward the bottom of the ocean even as their pews empty. But the announcement of a major alliance of six groups in the Anglican tradition this week shook the Anglican world. Working under the banner of the Anglican Communion Network, the six groups—representing some 200,000 Anglicans—made “common cause” under the Anglican tradition. The groups, all based in the U.S., came under the chairmanship of the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, ACN Moderator. In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, leaders of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA), Forward in Faith North America (FiFNA), the Anglican Province in America (APA), and the American Anglican Council (AAC) pledged “to make common cause for the gospel of Jesus Christ and common cause for a united, missionary and orthodox Anglicanism in North America.” It was a stunning and brilliant move—and while not entirely unexpected, it comes at a time when the 17-person Lambeth Commission is meeting at Kanuga, NC, within a day of their meeting with Frank Griswold, ECUSA’s Presiding Bishop. The orthodox are already expressing their excitement, and you can be sure that the liberals and revisionists in ECUSA will be doing their best to put a spin on this new alliance. Episcopal Life will probably ignore it; the Via Media crowd and some 60-plus revisionist bishops will set about doing damage control among their people. On the positive side, what it does do is give hope to the thousands of rectors in parishes across the country caught in revisionist dioceses with shrill and strident sodomites screaming their mantras of “inclusion” and “diversity.” But it will do something even more significant. It is now very clear that no longer will the orthodox be seen as ecclesiastical warts on the backside of ECUSA, but serious players that cannot and will not any longer be ignored by Griswold’s “diverse center.” What is becoming clearer is that two very different views of truth are now on the table for all to see—and hopefully the Commission will see that with extreme clarity. In 1923, Presbyterian Princeton theologian and apologist J. Gresham Machen said that the chief modern rival of Christianity was “liberalism,” and he said further that an examination of the teachings of liberalism showed that at every point the liberal movement is in opposition to the Christian message. Those words were never truer than eighty years later. In his book, Christianity and Liberalism, Machen wrote that the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion, but, at bottom, between two essentially different types of thought and life. And nowhere is this truer and explicitly being played out than in the Episcopal Church USA—which refuses to discipline John Shelby Spong for his 12 theses, has failed to uphold Biblical morality while forcing pansexuality onto the church, and demonstrated its failure to uphold basic Christian doctrines at the church’s recent General Convention in Minneapolis. And the net effect is that now—after 40 years of accelerated repudiation of the “faith once delivered”—we are seeing a realignment that will be recognized by the Global South bishops and force Archbishop Williams’ hand at the same time. It will now be impossible for him to ignore this new alliance, and once he recognizes it, it will be a death sentence for ECUSA, which the Anglican Communion Institute says should go its way—as it is they, not us, who no longer uphold the faith. The energy that will be unleashed from this action has yet to be felt—but felt it will be. The Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan, can take a bow. The formation of the Network in Plano was a brilliant strategic move, and one can only think that more orthodox bishops will now sign on. Tens of thousands of faithful laity, thousands of Episcopal priests, and dozens of bishops will be galvanized by this action, and they will fight the revisionists with renewed vigor. Some of them—like Fr. David Moyer, Rev. Greg Brewer, Fr. Eddie Rix, Fr. William Ilgenfritz, Fr. Larry Snyder, Fr. Don Armstrong, Dr. Ephraim Radner in the Dioceses of Pennsylvania, Bethlehem, and Colorado—men who have taken the proverbial bull by the horns—can now stand up with greater confidence and beat back venal bishops like Bennison, Marshall, and O’Neill. Increasingly, orthodox priests will—with the Sword of the Lord in hand—fight their revisionist bishops for their parishes and the souls of their people. They will take back the church street by street, parish by parish, diocese by diocese—even willing to go to court, perhaps suffer persecution, but stand. It will also mean that every diocese that seeks a new orthodox bishop will stand up to the Via Media crowd—as they did in the Diocese of Albany recently, and as they are doing in the Diocese of the Rio Grande—and faithful priests will no longer be silent when a revisionist bishop comes unbidden into their parishes. They will have the strength now to stand up and fight, galvanize their vestries, write letters, start orthodox chat rooms on the Internet, contribute to liberal Episcopal chat rooms without fear (until they are thrown off), secure e-mail addresses to tell their stories, and let their voices be heard all the way to Lambeth Palace. Liberal Lambeth Commission chairman Archbishop Robin Eames will wince at the newfound power among the orthodox in ECUSA, and all his Irish charm will not quell the fears that Global South bishops have that Western Anglicanism—now seriously gone astray—has, at last, a united voice. The Lambeth Commission will now have a basis for punishing The Episcopal Church, and it will be swift and severe. And why? Because the souls of millions of Episcopalians and Anglicans are at stake—perhaps as many as a million in The Episcopal Church alone—and they are worth fighting for, each and every one. And the orthodox will not give up on ECUSA because it will not give up on them—they need Jesus as much as any agnostic or post-modern Hollywood brat. Machen was right. The two tendencies—Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity—sprang from different roots, and we are seeing the fruit of those two trees today. The Anglican Communion Institute (ACI), ECUSA’s orthodox think tank, also came out with a statement this week—brilliantly timed for the Lambeth Commission—and they are urging the strongest possible disciplinary action against the post-modern bishops of ECUSA, including its Presiding Bishop. The only issue now is: Will the Commission do it? And if not, will the Global South bishops now force Dr. Williams’ hand? We can hope and pray. The next few months may well be the most exciting time in the history of Anglicanism—at least for its North American branch. But one message is clear: ECUSA’s orthodox need to know they can fight. Some 700 clergy recently signed a statement to the Lambeth Commission urging the Commission’s “immediate intervention to establish discipline, order and accountability for the Episcopal Church.” ECUSA’s orthodox now know they have more on their side than they knew—and they will never again be stilled; their voices no longer silenced—for in the end, they know they will win because truth will always triumph. Always. 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 one million 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.

By Dr. Ephraim Radner Dear Bishop O’Neill, We were very grateful for the time, extended as it turned out to be, that you offered to spend with us last week to discuss the implications of your discipline in the case of the same-sex commitment ceremony held at Good Shepherd, Centennial. Grateful too for your willingness to try to explain clearly your own thinking and reasons behind the way matters have been dealt with. It was not an easy gathering, and I admire your equanimity and patience in our gathered midst. Secondly, we at Ascension in Pueblo were grateful for your visitation this past Sunday. While it might have been expected to carry with it tensions brought on by the previous week’s meeting and the disagreements involved, the visit instead proved one filled with grace—brought by your own spirit of openness and gentleness. One of the confirmands spoke to me of the sense of your own deep faith in Christ that you communicated; and this was indeed a gift to us and one we could share with joy. I do not take these signs of grace lightly. We have been challenged by you and others in the Communion to embrace and work energetically for and through the things “we hold in common” in our faith, even in the midst of our differences. And the Taskforce you have set up is working hard, I know, to discern what and how this might be so. It is precisely because we do hold so much in common, in Christ Jesus our Lord—indeed, because we are driven to “love one another” in Jesus’ own Spirit, and it is His grace alone that provides us this privilege and power—that the very confusions, perceived deceptions, strayings from the truth delivered to us, and undisciplined life together that will be detailed below wounds us so deeply, and makes of every decision that we pursue in our ministry together in this diocese a matter of spiritual agony. May God uphold us, and save us from presumption, indifference, and despair! So then, what shall we do with the situation before us about which we met last week? Our discussion, as you yourself admit, was unsatisfactory in that we left unconvinced by your explanations, and indeed even more distressed by the implications of your actions than we had been at our coming together. In what follows, I want to detail some of what we discussed, why it is that many of us are made yet more concerned by the answers we received, and finally how it is that we perceive ourselves as moving into a realm of confused relationships with you and the larger church. As I will point out, there is precedent for this present time in the past history of the church; one from which we can gain guidance and, I pray, hope itself. I do all this at length, I realize. But the details, concerns, and future laid out below deserve to be known and reflected upon by the larger church, not merely by those “in the know.” And laying them out in this manner is necessary if we are to move forward “in the light,” rather than in secrecy and assumption. (The remainder of Dr. Radner’s letter continues with detailed theological and ecclesiological arguments, outlining factual discrepancies, raising ethical questions about secret protocols regarding same-sex blessings, and appealing to historical precedent and the consensus of the faithful. For brevity and readability, the full text has been preserved in spirit but condensed here.) Where is God leading us? We prayerfully hope that it is not into the kind of sixty-year conflict that the 4th century saw over Arianism; we pray that it is not into the kind of division of clergy against clergy, people against bishop, that once paradoxically unveiled the power of the faithful’s hidden wisdom; we pray that it is not into a protracted struggle, in which Caesar is called upon to marshal force and insure sullen conformance to egregious faithlessness. You asked us on Wednesday to “forbear” from pressing for disengagement of the kind just mentioned. This is also our wish, and I—and, I know, others—will do all we can to fulfill it. We do believe, after all, that Christ “shares us” in His grace. He has “bought” us, not we Him. We cannot keep silence, however, nor will we; secrecy and strategic reticence are things of a broken past. “Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Luke 12:3). But we can certainly be as patient, in our testimony, as the farmers of Bithynia long ago. Of you, however, we would also make a request: heed the call of the Church—not of a few voices from among us certainly, nor from among our local disputants, but from the wide countryside of Christ that spreads out over continents and world. Here are the people found from whom the living integrity of your episcopate derives, and only finds its rest, God willing, in this small corner. Listen to them. May the Lord bless you and us all as we seek to serve him faithfully and together. In Christ, Ephraim Radner, Ph.D. Church of the Ascension Pueblo, Colorado END

By Michael J. McManus Father’s Day will not be a happy one for millions of fathers who can’t see their children due to an unwanted divorce forced on them by a wife and courts which do not allow a spouse (of either gender) to fight for the marriage. Consider the "Last Will and Testament of A.T. Renouf": "Last Friday my bank account was garnished. I was left with a total of $00.43 in the bank. At this time I have rent and bills to pay which would come to somewhere approaching $1500 to $1800. Since my last pay was direct deposited on Friday I now have no way of supporting myself. I have no money for food or for gas for my car to enable me to work... "I have tried talking to the Family Support people....Their answer was: ‘we have a court order.’ I have tried talking to the welfare people in Markham, since I earned over $520 in the last month I am not eligible for assistance. "I have had no contact with my daughter in approx. 4 years. I do not even know if she is alive and well....I have no family and no friends, very little food, no viable job and very poor future prospects. I have therefore decided that there is no further point in continuing my life. It is my intention to...feed the car exhaust into the car, take some sleeping pills... "I would have preferred to die with more dignity. "It is my last will and testament that this letter be published for all to see and read." A.T. Renouf signed his will on the day he died, Oct. 16, 1995. Rev. Alan Stewart, said upon his death, "Andrew mentions two government agencies: Family Support garnishes his wages and Welfare tells him that he still really has the money the other agency took away." Four times as many men kill themselves as women. Why? At least two-thirds of divorces are filed by women. Divorced men are also four times as likely as married men to commit suicide. This is an extreme case which led to the loss of a daughter’s father, the ex-wife’s loss of child support and most tragically, the loss of a man’s life. The evil Andrew does not mention is the divorce over which he had no choice. LSU Law Professor Katherine Spaht says America’s divorce system "fails to achieve justice, because even the person who is at fault can be the one who destroys the marriage. It is as if the person who injured you, can sue you for damages. "There is no defense, no due process. It is offensive. There is no other place in the law where the wrong-doer has a remedy. And the victim, the innocent party, has no defense." Consider a more benign case of Stephen Baskerville, "one of many involuntarily divorced fathers," as he put it. "I never agreed to divorce, never gave her grounds for one. She never had any accusations of adultery or domestic abuse." He does see his daughters three days bi-weekly but adds, "I have crushing child support, $1,200 monthly on a salary of $40,000, on which I could not survive if I did not live with my mother." Nor can he deduct what he spends on the girls. He is a professor at Howard University, and is president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, the largest father’s group with 45,000 members in many local groups. Baskerville has a proposed solution, a federal law, the Parents’ Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2005, for which he is lining up support among pro-family groups in Washington. His bill cites Supreme Court cases which assert that the right of parents to the care and custody of their children is "a fundamental right protected by the First, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments" as "more precious than property rights." Yet courts treat the right of parents "as a nonfundamental right." His law would add federal protection of the right of parents to the care and custody of their children. It would shift the burden to the government to demonstrate that the "interference or usurpation is essential to accomplish a compelling government interest." This law would not federalize state laws on marriage and divorce. However, it would make appeal to federal courts possible, if the constitutional rights of parents are violated. That happens daily. A fresh idea worth considering. END Copyright 2004 Michael J. McManus

This paper has been written for the Lambeth Commission in response to an express request from the Commission’s officers for a constructive paper that would assist them in their forthcoming meetings. It has been written by a number of theologians associated with the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI). This organization seeks through conferences and scholarly writings to encourage creative and thoughtful engagement with Anglican theology and practice within the context of the Communion’s life in the world. Its recent publications such as Nicene Christianity indicate its commitment not only to careful scholarship but also to a generous, ecumenical, and dynamic orthodoxy, rooted firmly in Scripture and the Creedal Tradition. More recently, however, it has sought of necessity to place its theological resources at the disposal of the wider Anglican Communion in its struggles with the vexed issue of homosexuality and the varied responses to this within the Communion. In this difficult time, which threatens (in the words of the Primates gathered at Lambeth last October) to “tear the very fabric of our Communion,” it would have been an irresponsible form of scholarship that failed to offer its assistance based on our commitments to the Communion, to Anglicanism, to scholarship, as well as to godly living and pastoral practice. The entire paper can be downloaded in PDF form from the Anglican Communion website. END

By Ivan H. Golden Staff Writer June 19, 2004 GREENWICH In his first public comments on the same-sex marriage controversy that has divided the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressed solidarity last night with the American Episcopal Church. But he stopped short of taking sides in the divisive issue. “I’m well aware of the crossroads at which we stand,” Williams said to an audience of more than 400 people during a fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich. Williams said he wanted to make two points about the controversy: First, he said, “the present difficulties would feel a lot more difficult were it not for the immense love and generosity shown to me by (the American Episcopal Church).” Second, Williams said his experience on Sept. 11, 2001—when he was caught in lower Manhattan only blocks from the World Trade Center—had “made it difficult to feel estranged from the struggles of the Episcopal Church in the United States.” The American Episcopal Church has been at odds for more than a year with many Anglican churches worldwide over the Episcopal Church’s support for same-sex unions and its vote to elect a gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. The archbishop of Canterbury, viewed as the worldwide leader of the Anglican Communion, had made no public mention of the controversy until last night, according to several bishops and pastors who attended last night’s $1,200-a-plate fund-raiser. In a brief interview after his speech, Williams declined to talk more about the issue. “I don’t think I want to go into that,” he said. Many pastors and bishops who attended the fund-raiser said they were relieved to hear Williams publicly acknowledge the controversy. And at least one, Canon Harold Lewis of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., said he wished Williams had gone further. “Many of us, in fact, felt he should have said more,” Lewis said. “I think many of us in the Episcopal Church are feeling a little tenuous right now.” But others said Williams’ comments struck the right note, particularly given his responsibilities as the worldwide leader of the Anglican Communion. “I was very grateful that he did bring that up,” said the Rev. Jeffrey Walker of Christ Church in Greenwich. “But I’m also grateful that he didn’t spend the whole evening on that.” Although the allusion to the same-sex marriage debate was the most surprising aspect of Williams’ remarks, the vast majority of the archbishop’s 45-minute speech concerned the role of the Anglican Communion and other religious and human-rights groups in the United Nations. Last night’s fund-raiser was expected to raise $400,000 to $500,000 for the Anglican Communion Observer to the United Nations. The Anglican Observer, a nonvoting representative to the United Nations, lobbies U.N. members on behalf of Anglican issues and Anglican people worldwide. The position was created in 1985. In his prepared remarks last night, Williams contrasted religious and nonprofit groups, which he said serve the interests of human rights, with U.N. member states, which often bow to political and national concerns before considering human rights, he said. “There is an urgent need,” he said, “for a global, moral perspective.” Andrew Smith, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, said Williams’ speech laid out “a clear vision of the role of religion in helping bring about world peace.” END

BBC News Religious leaders and non-governmental bodies should be given a voice at United Nations Security Council deliberations, Rowan Williams has said. The Archbishop of Canterbury said the UN had been weakened by arguments over Iraq and its role in Bosnia and Rwanda. The UN’s work was “indispensable” but the organisation needed to change to recover its moral authority, he said. Church leaders should be able to make their views heard but did not need a UN vote, Dr. Williams told a US event. “There is an urgent need for structures and relationships that allow a global moral perspective to be voiced more clearly,” he said at an event to support the Anglican observer at the UN. Dr. Williams suggested the formation of a “standing commission,” which would have the right to comment on Security Council proposals or be heard in sessions. It would not have a seat on the council or the right of veto. The Archbishop said the Security Council could have more authority if resolutions could be prompted and executed by local democratic coalitions. Members would then have to consult those affected by their resolutions, he added. “Trends in UN reform... are driving towards the ‘moralising’ or civilising of the global economy and the world of international negotiation. Never has there been a time when the presence of religiously based voluntary groups has been of such moment,” he said. The comments came in Dr. Williams’ first major speech on international governance since taking up his post. He was attending an event in support of the work done by an Anglican observer at the UN. END