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ECUSA: Analysis of the Presiding Bishop's Meeting with the Lambeth Commission

PRESIDING BISHOP MEETS WITH THE LAMBETH COMMISSION

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue

When the Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold met with the Lambeth Commission in Kanuga this week this is what he said: "We sought to give a full and accurate picture of the present state of our church, and to dispel a number of misapprehensions. As Presiding Bishop of the whole church it was important for me to make sure that I, along with my colleagues, sought honestly to represent the breadth of views and the depth of feeling that exists in different parts of our household. At the same time, we sought to make clear that the overwhelming reality of the Episcopal Church is the diverse center in which differing
views are held in tension because of our common desire to live together in the communion of the Holy Spirit, and to manifest Christ's reconciling love to our divided and broken world."

This is complete and total spin. It is also a lie.

First of all Griswold no longer represents (if he ever did) the "whole church" as he puts it.
Far from it. He represents a smaller group of aging Episcopalians with each passing day.

He does not represent the tens of thousands of members who belong to the American Anglican Council or the Anglican Communion Network, with nine active bishops and several retired bishops and about 200,000 Episcopalians under its pastoral care, nor does he speak for anyone remotely associated with the Anglican Communion Institute or Forward in Faith, North America.

He also does not represent the three Anglo-Catholic dioceses, Ft. Worth, Quincy and San Joaquin who do not ordain women, and he certainly doesn't speak for thousands of believing rectors and their parishes caught in revisionist dioceses.

So who does Griswold speak for? He speaks for pray, pay and obey Episcopalians who are biblically illiterate, read Episcopal Life, don't read the Internet (and he hopes to God they never will), old fashioned liberals, many of who are horrified by the tactics of revisionist bishops. He also speaks for revisionist bishops who are busy destroying themselves and their dioceses like Orris Walker, Tom Shaw, John Chane, Robert Ihloff, and Charles Bennison. These bishops are also busy doing their best to eviscerate orthodox priests from their dioceses. He also speaks for the church's pansexualists who grow more strident, tyrannical and demanding with each passing day.

That is who Frank Tracy Griswold speaks for. And they are on the left, not the "diverse middle."

To say he speaks for the "diverse middle" is a flat out untruth, because he does not speak for any orthodox person in the Anglican Communion. For them he is an acute embarrassment and he has been shunned by 22 of the world's primates, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

In short Frank Griswold has become a pariah in the wider Anglican Communion because of his actions in consecrating a self-avowed homoerotic priest to the episcopacy.

The Anglican Communion Primates have not forgotten and they won't forgive him. He lied at Lambeth about his intentions over what he would do with V. Gene Robinson, and now the Global South (CAPA bishops) don't want him ever to set foot on African soil again and he can keep his money as well.

That is NOT the diverse center.

Now Griswold took with him the Very Rev. George Werner, President of the House of Deputies; AKA "flash George" because he smiles a lot. But his chief "success" was to spend several millions of dollars on refurbishing the cathedral in Pittsburgh when he was Dean there. But the truth is the cathedral never became a magnet for people in the city under his watch and then when it was discovered the finances were going into a bottomless pit they had to get rid of the choir, some staff and re-evaluate their priorities. Like all incompetents in ECUSA, Werner rose like a phoenix and now heads the House of Deputies.

Also accompanying Griswold was the Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins, the President of Griswold's Council of Advice. Bishop Jenkins is in a writing contest with retired Bishop of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison over what constitutes truth in the Episcopal Church. Is it the canons or Scripture? You get that one wrong and you go straight to hell and you don't collect $200.00.

And then there is David Booth Beers Esq., Griswold's chancellor. Don't ask for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee, if thou, oh bishop, verily do not lay claim to parishes that attempt to flee your jurisdiction. For if you do cut them any slack, I, David Booth Beers will invoke the Dennis Canon and verily I shall have thee up before the courts and Frank, my friend, will deliver unto thee a presentment and have thee removed henceforth from thine bishopric. Just try me.

And then there's Barbara Braver, a member of Frank's staff who sycophantically does exactly what she is told and never returns phone calls, because she is scared that if she said anything, say, like the truth, she would lose her job.

Said Frank to the Commission: "I very much hope that our several voices were able to convey some of the ways in which we in this church are seeking to live honestly and respectfully with divergent views within our own province."

All the "voices" Griswold brought with him said the same thing - that shows the lie of the "diverse" center. There was not one single orthodox voice in Griswold's entourage.

"The work of the Commission is indeed difficult and therefore its members need the support of our prayers," quoth Frank.

And when it is all over Frank will be toast, and there won't be enough prayers to save him.

END

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