The Episcopal Church, like other cherished institutions, is indwelt by a transcendent force that promises life beyond the grave for its present membership: namely, the massive financial contributions squirreled away by its ancestors -- the enormous inventory of tax exempt properties, bank accounts, trust funds, artifacts and other historic treasures of generations long deceased. In this Church the dead could go on burying their dead for generations to come before anyone noticed. This is what it means to trade in dead men's money.

What an exquisite irony that today's leftward leaning elites, who make up the leadership class of The Episcopal Church, must vent their contrived fulminations in deserted palaces built by feudal barons and industrial tycoons, now maintained by Capital. In light of this the present generation of prophets can be seen for what it is: a species of scavenger feeding off the rancid meat of its own decaying carcass, all the while complaining about a sour stomach. This also explains the tortured conscience of today's "prophet".

Some critics opine that the "new religion" being preached in the old churches is just that -- a new faith. They insist that the faith of TEC today, for example, is demonstrably not the same faith presupposed in that Church's formative charters and documents. Archbishop Drexel Gomez in his recent visit with the clergy of Central Florida noted the bitter irony that dead orthodox Episcopalians, who subscribed to the same faith as orthodox Episcopalians now living, were now underwriting lawsuits by revisionists who seek to capture the property along with the name of The Episcopal Church. While the Archbishop winced when I mentioned from the floor that this "might be a form of theft", he agreed without hesitation that "the question of property is a moral one."

The present drama over property reveals the power of dead men's money.

It is indeed ironic that orthodox Episcopalians must go into a form of exile, abandoning the properties of their orthodox forbears, as a price paid simply to maintain their orthodoxy; and that documentation can be produced by novices and rabble rousers to make this transfer a form of "justice". That is not the crowning irony. Just as the present generation of TEC's leadership is stealing the property of an old religion, along with its history, so now are they are laying claim to its soul.

Today The Episcopal Church is using dead men's money to sponsor a campaign to rewrite the history of these honorable dead, in order to create the perception that TEC is the same historic entity that occupied their properties four centuries, or even four decades, ago. In the security of its massive endowments TEC, a denomination in rapid numeric decline, invested $51,000 from its operating budget for an ad that appeared in the New York Times on May 7.

On the surface, the purpose of the ad was to defuse the perception that something is rotten in the state of TEC, referring to "family struggles" that "occasionally make the news." There are other more subtle strategies in place. By the time TEC is expelled from The Anglican Communion the American public will have been introduced to The Episcopal Church as a rival communion, found "in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as... in Belgium, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guam, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Micronesia, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela, and the Virgin Islands." One worldwide organization cannot be kicked out of another worldwide organization. When it finally happens sometime later this year or next, it will appear as a simple non-sequitur from the point of view of the general public. It will leave no impression.

The ad is a classic example of revisionist history making. The long term purpose of the article is to enable TEC to reinvent itself, by claiming a direct line between the Jamestown pilgrims in 1607 and Greenwich Village lesbigay activists in 1969. I'm sorry -- the ad didn't call them "pilgrims" as they are commonly known, but "a small but hopeful group of English Christians", thus removing every trace of historical context. The real pilgrims of course were English Calvinists, who fled to this continent to escape the first Episcopal Establishment.

These hopeful generic Christians did not come here to "engage" the Bible in some leisurely quest, but braved a hazardous journey and a harsh environment in order to fashion their lives by its text. Nor did they consider their historic lineage as a "heritage" (the language of demographics), but as a spiritual lineage with Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the Apostles. These first Virginia secessionists have more in common with today's Virginia secessionists than they do with the Established Church.

The rest of the ad is an attempt to amalgamate today's limousine leftists with the Daughters of the American Revolution. Cesar Chavez is cut from the same cloth as Paul Revere. The signers of the Declaration, the original American elite, are linked with today's campus elites. And by implication those who would oppose TEC's pansexual agenda today are of the same spirit as those who a century and a half ago sought shut down the underground railroad.

Episcopalians have a right to be proud of their heritage in radical politics. These were bold and costly adventures that did enormous good for the greatest number of people in human history. What is offensive about the New York Times ad is that it sponges off the righteousness of earlier generations to establish a fictitious righteousness for the current generation of Episcopal pretenders. And it does this to justify future dissembling, at the heart of which will be legal battles, where the sympathy of an unwitting public will be an important strategic asset.

This is trading in dead men's morality, which itself is an act of a moral nature, and not merely the outworking of lifeless capital. The heroes named in the pirated history appearing in the Times earned their stature by heroic action. They were not rabble rousers on the dole of glutted institutions. These were men and women who spoke real truth to real power and without exception paid a real price for it. They were not dissembling narcissists who needed to erect a cover for future dissembling.

Today's Episcopal elites have denigrated at every opportunity the American exceptionalism for which these same heroic characters are typically cited. The comments about upholding the age old tradition of "valuing diversity", and the self-congratulatory "welcoming with open arms" dissenters who return to the fold, are brazen lies. Ask Susan Russell how happy she is to be part of an organization that "includes" Keith Ackerman, and how fervently she will pine for his return when the time finally comes for him and "his kind" to leave.

The greatest lie of all is that TEC is committed to justice. Whether or not departing Episcopalians fight to retain their properties, they must refuse to yield the tradition of Christian social witness to the present generation of usurpers. For the sake of the justice that has been hard won over the years by sincere Christians who were also proud Americans they must refuse to give the justice talkers a pass.

Today's orthodox Episcopalians must turn the present argument on its head: the next time the scavengers shriek and whine about "justice", ask, "Show me the justice since 1976. Not samples of letterhead with female clerics, nor the 'diverse' nationalities of leaders in an historic Anglo church. Show me healthy churches, filled with people who care enough about their faith that they are driven to give it away.

They don't feel guilty about the Great Commission, nor do they need to be initiated by a fictitious 'baptismal covenant' into the UN and its gospel of Millennium Goals in order to feel 'saved'". Where people are coming into faith, reconciliation is happening, stewardship is being practiced, money and service are being given away, shattered lives are being restored -- all this whether ministerial careers are advanced or not.

In recent years TEC has made a career of talking justice while walking cheap politics and cheesy power games. At most they have achieved a "symbolic justice" -- that is, an ecclesiastical bureaucracy that plays war games on paper. While these are useful for setting up the next prophetic outburst, their gradual effect has been to demoralize the church, adding further to its demographic decline. While there are generous acts of service offered in liberal congregations, the numbers of these are dwindling along with the congregations themselves. Evangelical Christianity generates more Christians, and thus is a more effective engine for generating the raw materials for restored lives than is its liberal counterpart. For this they should be praised by the "justice" crowd, if world transformation is really what they care about.

The moral capital of an historic institution and of a nation is being squandered before our eyes, while the public are taken for chumps. That is the strategic meaning of the ad on May 7. TEC elites are mobilizing for their own clandestine future. A chapter of revisionist history was published by one of the world's great newspapers so that the present leadership of another great institution can bury the dead while laying claim to their spiritual treasure. This is the first thing in a long time dead Episcopalians didn't pay for. We did.

---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline.