With these words, The Rev. Sam Candler, the ultra-liberal Dean of St. Philip the flagship cathedral in Atlanta, makes the clearest statement on the trajectory of The Episcopal Church (TEC). Though not a bishop, this statement may well earn him a miter at some future date in a liberal, perhaps even a conservative diocese, where consents for an orthodox bishop are unlikely to be obtained by an overwhelming majority of liberal diocesan standing committees.

Around the church, liberal bishops are starting to weigh in on what they saw and heard at Camp Allen. What it boils down to is this.

The first observation is that the Episcopal Church will not reverse itself on full inclusion for practicing homosexuals and lesbians to all positions in the church, and that saving the world for God via Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) is far more important than who sleeps with whom and what organs go into what bodies. Sexual conduct is far less important than saving people with HIV/AIDS even if the catching of this disease is obtained through sexual behavior outside of marriage. Mrs. Jefferts Schori says she wants the TEC to save the world for God, but her policy will neither save the world nor the souls of those who follow her.

The second observation is that The Episcopal Church expects to stay at the Anglican Communion table on their terms and no one else's. They especially won't be dictated to by a bunch of semi-literate, fundamentalist, homophobic Africans who are still living in the sexual Dark Ages. Furthermore, the scholarly Rowan Williams had better figure out who'se side he is on. If he does not side with Western post-modern views on sexual liberation and make his private views on sodomy conform to his public views, there will be no money from the TEC for Lambeth 2008.

Of course, the liberals must make sure that, in order to win their arguments, it is important to slash and burn the blogs and media reports (read VirtueOnline) before one enters the pure unadulterated air of official Episcopal news reports that tell the unvarnished truth.

The Rt. Rev. Gary Lillibridge and the Rt. Rev. David Reed of West Texas made that point in a letter to the people of their diocese. Here is what Lillibridge said: "We have just returned from the House of Bishops' Spring Meeting, March 16-21, at Camp Allen in the Diocese of Texas. By now, you've likely read about or heard about the resolutions and statements issued by the bishops. We encourage you to read them yourself, carefully, not relying solely on media reports or bloggers. The documents are available to you at ..."

There you have it. Stick with the institution. The Episcopal Church's official statements will tell all. In fact, the documents VOL posted were the official ENS reports; however, they required interpretation. If I am not mistaken, that is precisely the advice given and demanded by totalitarian regimes. Joe Stalin would have heartily approved. Mr. Mugabe is doing precisely the same thing in Zimbabwe. There, a free press is dead.

The West Texas bishop went on to opine that Mrs. Schori encouraged her fellow bishops to be "gracious, generous and adaptive" to the Primates' requests, not reactive. As events transpired, the HOB was about as "gracious, generous and adaptive" as a Hummer full of U.S. soldiers driving over a landmine in Baghdad.

However, the two bishops did admit, presumably after a couple of stiff drinks, that "while the House of Bishops technically made no 'final decision' regarding the Communique, the two of us are deeply concerned that the actions and tone of the House have great potential to further our divisions." A moment of sheer luminosity. The light bulbs, however, flickered only briefly and died.

Mrs. Schori had written to the bishops asking them "to pray and reflect together, and begin a longer process of listening to our church and the movement of the Spirit in this season."

Of course "listening" in the Episcopal Church (now also in the Anglican Church in Canada) has one objective - listening to the whine and stories of sodomites (no one wants to listen to the "whine" of Anglo-Catholics or Evangelicals being hounded out of revisionist dioceses) with a view to brokering them and their behavior into the Anglican mainstream. We will be made to listen until Jesus returns, if that's what it takes, to get the whole Anglican Communion on board for anal sex. One can only imagine what an Augustine, Athanasius, Origen, Calvin, Luther or Wesley would make of it all if they were to rise from their graves.

The "Mind of the House" resolutions and the Statement from the House of Bishops -- addressing a Pastoral Scheme suggested by the Communique -- were unanimously passed (was there any doubt). The Archbishop of Canterbury was duly invited to a three-day prayer meeting, no doubt to bless the Holy Spirit's fresh enlightenment and new understanding, by a bunch of badly (theologically) educated, post-modern bishops, who might offer Jesus a dollar bill if they saw him, shabbily dressed in sandals, on a street corner in Boston.

To complete the farce, the two bishops said they thought the letter to the Archbishop and the Primates' Standing Committee was "gracious and seeks the opportunity for bridge-building in the hope of reconciliation within our Communion." Shades of Neville Chamberlain. Clearly, these bishops do not know the Primates like I do. THEY will see "bridge building" like the Bridge over the River Kwai with Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola ready to fall on the plunger. If he should miss, and that is most unlikely, then the Most Rev. Gregory Venables (Southern Cone) will be there to make sure the bridge goes up and the TEC train rockets off the end of the shattered structure.

It was not just Bishop Lillibridge who spun the events at Camp Allen. The uber-revisionist Bishop of Massachusetts, Tom Shaw, a man mightily conflicted about sexuality himself, has put his own spin on Camp Allen.

In a piece for the Boston Globe, Shaw invoked the fight against AIDS in Africa in order to deflect away from heresy in The Episcopal Church. He wrote: "The bishops approved resolutions affirming our desire to continue in the discernment process with the wider Communion about our church's place in it." Then he stuck the knife in by saying, "but not at the expense of our polity, which is part of our church identity, and not at the expense of gay and lesbian members seeking full inclusion."

In other words, we expect to stay at the Anglican table, feast on its goodies, which we in large part pay for, demand to be fully accepted by Rowan Williams and the Primates, but we won't be told what to do EVEN though the preamble to the church's constitution reads: "The Episcopal Church . . . is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

That is a bit like going through the Police Academy, completing a full course of training, swearing an oath of allegiance to uphold the law, and then going out and telling people, "Oh, by the way, I will not uphold and protect...and if you get in my way I will shoot the good guys and let the bad guys go."

One Anglican writer called the Camp Allen accords breathtaking in its arrogance. To drive home the point, Shaw said the House of Bishops is an autonomous body within the larger Communion representing fifteen sovereign nations, the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Micronesia. INTERPRETATION. You blow us off and we can form our own communion. As U.S. President Ronald Reagan, said, "Go ahead make my day."

"For the first time since our separation from the papacy in the 16th century, it [the proposal] would replace the local governance of the Church by its own people with the decisions of a distant and unaccountable group of prelates," writes Shaw.

Nonsense. What it says is that there is a common body of truth found in Holy Scripture and the Prayer Book to which all Anglicans since Cranmer have subscribed. If you cannot subscribe to it, either go to Rome or join a Protestant sect, but DON'T call yourself an Anglican. If you have become as theologically and ecclesiastically detached from mainstream Anglicanism as the American and Canadian Anglican Churches have become, then you have become apostate and heretical and do not deserve to be a part of the Anglican Communion. Shaw and his ilk cannot have it both ways. If they want to use money as leverage then the bulk of the Anglican Communion should tell the TEC to go fly a kite.

The Early Church, with nary a brass farthing to its name, used the catacombs as places of momentary refuge for the celebration of the Eucharist during the persecutions. The Church in China today, facing similar persecution, is growing by the tens of millions without real money. So is the Anglican Church in Nigeria.

Bishop Shaw wants openness for the TEC's sexual sins and he wants the Global South bishops to roll over with him. They will not do it. He calls for "transparency including the airing of differences, as important to the life of faith lived in community, saying that it is through this type of conflict and discussion that we understand how God is calling us into the future and how the church will respond to the contemporary world."

Really, then perhaps he can explain his own heavy handedness with parishes that want to flee his jurisdiction, and the tyranny and "transparency" he displays when Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals disagree with him. Just ask Dr. Jim Hiles or the Rev. Lance Giuffrida, whose flock now meets in the basement of the Fisher College building in North Attleborough what they think of Shaw's ability to "respond to the contemporary world."

Shaw said that public attention was being channeled on "the perceived differences among parts of the Anglican Communion!" PERCEIVED DIFFERENCES. What fiction. They are actual differences. Real and revisionist bishops like him are slaughtering orthodox flocks because they will not roll over to his and the church's explicit sodomite agenda. This is a first order lie that needs to be exposed as such.

"Bishops from other parts of the Anglican Communion did not readily understand this structure. At the same time, the House of Bishops pledged the Episcopal Church's commitment to remain a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, continuing to engage in dialogue with our sister churches throughout the world and working to strengthen bonds that allow us to live out the Gospel in mutual mission," writes Shaw.

This is pure hogwash. The Primates understand, only too well, what our structure is about. I have spoken to many of them at length and they know perfectly well how we are constructed. They also know that to be a "constituent member of the Anglican Communion" has consequences that the TEC is not prepared to acknowledge.

Then Shaw plays the social justice card. "Our resolutions state that membership in the Anglican Communion gives us the great privilege and unique opportunity of sharing in the Anglican family's work of alleviating human suffering in all parts of the world." He then talks up the TEC's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations, "which call upon nations to work together to alleviate poverty, suffering and disease, to ensure environmental sustainability, to eliminate discrimination, and to develop global partnerships."

The African bishops aren't buying this baloney. They know about poverty, and their churches are growing by leaps and bounds despite their poverty, corrupt governments (which African Anglican leaders rail against) and more. They will not sacrifice Scripture's clear mandate that sexual sin has salvific implications and that to die in your sin is far worse than dying with an empty stomach, (though they would prefer to feed and clothe everyone). They are not going to go against Holy Scripture for Mrs. Schori or Tom Shaw, not if it means going to Hell (a place that the Pope affirmed this week as real and eternal).

Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee wrote to his Diocese echoing the same concerns: "We served notice that we cannot accept intervention in the governance of our Church by foreign prelates. We affirmed very strongly our passionate desire to remain in communion with other Anglican churches across the world." (Ironically Lee voted against Resolutions #1 and #3).

The "ties of affection" so bally-hoed by the American HOB are a fiction. They have long since been dissolved. Every new AMiA and CANA congregation gives living witness to that. Every new bishop - Murphy, Barnum, TJ Johnston, Minns, Bena -- is overwhelming proof that the TEC has corrupted the gospel. Every time an orthodox archbishop or bishop, like Yong Ping Chung, Henry Luke Orombi, Benjamin Nzimbi, Frank Lyons et al, visit these shores, they give proof of The Episcopal Church's lies.

Lee says he wants to "protect the integrity of the Episcopal Church as an independent, autonomous and undivided church." If he wants to protect a church that has become so morally and theologically corrupted, making up its own religion as it goes along; then he is welcome to it. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord...and so are tens of thousands of fleeing Episcopalians who believe the gospel can never be compromised without losing their own souls. That is a "bridge" too far, and a price too high to pay.

END