There is something beyond unseemly about a national church taking local churches to court. Certainly it's anything but Christian.

In spite of the Anglican District of Virginia's (ADV) repeated outreach and attempts to settle these cases with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, the Episcopal Church forced an abrupt break-off of settlement talks and launched a legal confrontation. This has forced the orthodox Anglican churches in Northern Virginia to devote time, effort and energy to raise millions of dollars strictly for legal defense. Time, effort, energy and money that could (and should) be used for spreading the Gospel, helping to strengthen families, and making missionary outreach to the lost, poor and needy in the local community and around the world.

The Episcopal Church has announced that it will bring all financial and legal resources to bear on forcing the Northern Virginia churches to come to heel, revealing its resources number in excess of $8 billion, while the Diocese of Virginia has announced it is planning to sell "non strategic" property to pay for the suit. What does the Episcopal Church want? It wants the property and buildings in which these faithful parishioners worship, claiming the property belongs to the national church and not the local churches even though some of these churches predate the Episcopal Church's formal existence in the United States. Virginia has a long history of deferring to local control of church property, and the statute at issue says that the majority of the church is entitled to its property when a group of congregations divides from the denomination.

Over the past several years, The Episcopal Church has set out on an increasingly prodigal path. It has steered away from Scripture and historic Anglican teaching - and it wants to take the property of these local churches with it. The local churches, which have found pastoral leadership and care under other churches in the Anglican Communion and the newly established Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), have been forced to defend their rights to their own buildings and property in the Fairfax County, Virginia Circuit Court.

These churches need financial help and support to see this battle to its end. Even if the local churches win in circuit court this year, the Episcopal Church has announced it will appeal to the Virginia State Supreme Court, extending the need for legal resources for at least another year and possibly longer.

In many ways ADV is at the vanguard of a battle for the soul of modern Christianity - not only in its own denomination but others as well. Similar conflicts have erupted over the years in the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations. Leaders and laypeople in all denominations across the country are attentively watching to see how this case plays out.

Individual Christians and their churches who, like ADV, hold firm to Scripture and the foundational teachings of the faith, are urged to help with any financial resources they can muster.

When a national church that claims to be Christian refuses to heed the words of Christ and chooses not to be at peace with their brethren over money and property, we have an obligation to our faith to ensure they do not prevail.

---Jim Oakes is the vice-chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia, an association of Anglican congregations in Virginia and part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA)