This will be a great celebration in many ways. It will provide CANA and the Church of Nigeria with additional bishops to minister to the growing flock of Anglican Christians in CANA who are part of the growing orthodox realignment within the larger communion. A second way this celebration is significant is that these consecrations will be (by permission of His Grace Peter J. Akinola) not in Nigeria as is the custom, but in Northern Virginia, in the heart of where one of the great battles for Christian Anglican orthodoxy is underway.

Many former Episcopal Churches have left the liberal and revisionist Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and in an important theological and practical division have formed new churches under various overseas provinces. Even now the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and the national Episcopal Church are involved in a massive litigation offensive, suing these faithful churches who have left the heresy of TEC's Virginia diocese.

These CANA consecrations build on the ones recently done in Kenya and Uganda and look forward to the ones in January with AMiA/Rwanda. All are a part of the orthodox family of God equipping the army to go forth and spread the Good News. It is appropriate therefore that in the heart of the Virginia battleground the faithful church gathers to consecrate four new bishops to carry on the defense of the faith.

There will be a five day spiritual retreat for the soon-to-be-bishops and their wives preceding the consecration, and as one of the bishops-elect, I look forward to it as a chance to catch my breath and center in on the entirely new life and task before us.

The division in the church over faith and morality is spreading from parishes to dioceses and even to the provincial level. As we have seen parishes leave TEC to realign with other faithful provinces, now several TEC dioceses are preparing to do the same. Within the global Anglican family severe divisions on the provincial level are also developing, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is approaching the time when he also will have to choose which path he will walk: one of orthodoxy and faith or one of heterodoxy and accommodation. Even now leaked memos from secret Lambeth meetings mention the possibility of officially sanctioning foreign overseas bishops to come into English bishops' dioceses and perform episcopal acts for specific inviting congregations, with or without the explicit permission of the local bishop. If that is approved it would likely avoid the litigious and contentious scene that we see in the USA.

Speaking of contentiousness, there is breaking news within the American Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has finally acted on complaints against Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania, complaints that go back many years, pertaining to his purported complicity in keeping the sexual molestation of a child in his church by Bennison's own brother quiet and the information suppressed. It is further alleged that Bishop Bennison, knowing his brother was being ordained a deacon and then a priest, did not divulge the information or cause it to be known.

Why has Jefferts Schori waited until now to inhibit Bennison and start his trial process? The most probable answer is to convey a picture of evenhandedness - for having signed the Bennison papers she wrote Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh a threatening letter, letting him know that unless he stopped his diocese from passing a change in their canon law allowing Pittsburgh's departure, she would inhibit and depose him (although she says it in formal language: "If your course does not change, I shall regrettably be compelled to see that appropriate canonical steps are promptly taken to consider whether you have abandoned the Communion of this Church - by actions and substantive statements, however they may be phrased - and whether you have committed canonical offences that warrant disciplinary action.")

This threat to Bishop Duncan on the eve of his diocesan convention was, I would assert, the reason why Bennison was inhibited at THIS time, so she can say, "See, I am fair - I discipline the bad boys on both sides equally." What this actually says is fairly horrendous, however. What she is actually saying is that there is parity between being an orthodox, faithful bishop and being involved in child molestation.

In reality Bennison was a convenient sacrificial lamb for Jefferts Schori to use in her attack on Bishop Robert Duncan, and by extension on Bishop Jack Iker and Bishop John-David Schofield, whose dioceses will be taking votes in the near future on their continued relationship with TEC.

I have a mental picture of Captain Schori of the ship TEC Titanic, brandishing an armload of writs, inhibitions and threats, trying to drive people away from the life boats and proclaiming "you must go down with the ship!"

Pittsburgh's diocesan convention is this weekend. Pray most earnestly for Bishop Duncan and all other orthodox leaders.

It is a historic time we are living in. Each night as I say my prayers and close my eyes I wonder "What will tomorrow bring, and what will God do next?"

In Christ,

Bishop-elect David C. Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council