As one example of the financial crisis brought on by the majority of bishops endorsing sodomy, the Episcopal cathedral in the Diocese of Western Michigan, built in 1969, had to be sold to a new and biblically faithful non-Episcopal local church.

Did the national Episcopal Church headquarters in Manhattan devote any of its income or trust funds to try to help avoid the loss of this cathedral in Michigan?

There was no mention of any such national assistance in what the national church headquarters paid $51,897 for - a quarter-page ad in the New York Times.

Episcopal reporter and online columnist David Virtue - who is quite definitely not an employee of this rapidly splitting denomination - wrote at length about this expensive Episcopal-Church-headquarters ad.

Among other things, Virtue wrote:

"According to the ad, St. John's Church in Greenwich Village is 'a meeting place for gay and lesbian action following the 1969 Stonewall uprising,' but makes no mention of ordinary families or the place of single heterosexuals who might be looking for spiritual solace from the Episcopal Church. The ONLY gender focus is on homosexuals.

"The fact that dozens of large parishes and their priests have fled the Episcopal Church because it can no longer affirm Scripture as authoritative for the church's life and witness is not mentioned. Neither does it state that thousands of orthodox Episcopalians have fled the Episcopal Church in dioceses like Florida and Los Angeles, with 4,000 in one parish alone in the Diocese of Dallas; and that one, or possibly more, whole dioceses will leave the Episcopal Church after Sept. 30 if the Episcopal Church does not fall in line with the rest of the Anglican Communion over sexuality issues.

"There is no mention in the ad of the pain revisionist bishops have inflicted on priests, (dozens of whom have been inhibited and deposed - or unfrocked) who don't agree with them; the slanderous slights against bishops and archbishops who don't agree that sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God; or the forced appearance of orthodox archbishops on American soil to rescue godly parishes marginalized by liberal bishops who hate them for their stand for the truth of the transforming message of the Gospel - redemption but no inclusion.

"... the ad is a vast waste of money. The much-vaunted hope of doubling church membership by 2020 is now a distant dream. Every week Episcopalians tumble out of Episcopal churches never more to return. By October of this year that could turn into an avalanche."

The ad, produced by Episcopal headquarter communications officers Robert Williams and the Rev.Jen Nonley, mentions:

"You may know us as Washington's monumental National Cathedral, site of historic services and ceremonies, or the Cathedral of St. John the Divine of New York, still unfinished, but already the largest cathedral in the world."

The real intent of the ad becomes clear near the end when it states:

"Episcopalians struggle with the same issues that trouble all people of faith: how to interpret an ancient faith for today ... how to maintain the integrity of tradition while reaching out to a hurting world ... how to disagree and yet love and respect one another.

"Occasionally, those struggles make the news. People find they can no longer walk with us on their journey, and may be called to a different spiritual home. Some later make their way back, and find they are welcomed with open arms.

"But the Episcopal Church is also Boston's Old North Church, founded in 1723 and made famous by serving as the beacon for Paul Revere's revolution-spurring 'midnight ride.' And Philadelphia's Christ Church, home parish of 15 signers of the Declaration of Independence, host to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1785.

"It's Trinity Parish on Wall Street in New York, formed in 1698, and St. Paul's Chapel just down the street, frequented by George Washington and the spiritual healing center of Ground Zero since Sept. 11, 2001.

"It's also Epiphany Church in Los Angeles, where Cesar Chavez rallied the United Farm workers. And Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Maryland, whose basement was a major stop on the Underground Railroad to freedom for enslaved African-Americans. It's a parish in Iowa. A campus ministry in Georgia. A mission in Dinetah- the Navajo Reservation. A cathedral in Utah. Even a house church in Vermont."

Virtue also notes:

"Formation of the Anglican Mission in America or the more recent Convocation of Anglican Churches in North America as safe spiritual havens for tens of thousands of former Episcopalians, now Anglicans, who believe their souls are imperiled by staying in the Episcopal Church, is not mentioned.

"Also not mentioned is the fact that it is the liberals and revisionists who have moved away from historic Anglicanism, not the orthodox. The latter state that the new religion is emptying churches, not filling them."

END