This departure and many more like it across North America represented the greatest rupture in Christianity since the Reformation with fundamental disagreement over basic Christian beliefs resulting in a de facto schism of Anglicans into two camps, orthodox and liberal, with those holding to historic, Bible-based beliefs being in the vast majority. They are mainly to be found in the Global South.

Following its departure the St. John's Vancouver Anglican congregation aligned itself with the mainstream global Anglican Communion through the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) -- a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) rather than continue as part of the revisionist Diocese of New Westminster. The decision by this congregation and sister parishes resulted in frozen bank accounts and a court action forcing the congregation to leave their property.

Ingham continued to push his agenda on the broader Anglican Communion appearing at Lambeth Palace requesting that Rowan Williams, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, whom he might recommend as the Rev. David Short's replacement.

The first replacement priest, a former RC priest tossed out of Rome for being an avowed sodomite who is now dying of AIDS, was replaced by a former tobacco king from Philip Morris recommended by Dr. Rowan Williams to jump start the evangelical parish. That has not succeeded in making the congregation grow. It has continued to shrink. Fr. Short took his 600 members off to a Seventh-day Adventist church where they have grown and prospered.

For Ingham, it was a seeming triumph of his progressive revisionist views later taken up by the Episcopal Church and their equally triumphant revisionist bishops. They continued the march of progressivism led by bishops like Walter Righter, Jack Spong, Charles Bennison, Tom Shaw, Gene Robinson, Otis Charles, Frank Griswold and the ultra-liberal Katharine Jefferts Schori. Some have died but their legacy continues. Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz continues the liberal legacy in Canada.

The fallout has been costly with whole dioceses fleeing The Episcopal Church and millions of dollars spent on lawsuits to keep properties in TEC, some with barely double digit parishioners. Some parishes have been sold off and turned into Mosques, others to denominations, mostly with an evangelical theological bent. Out of the rupture In Canada the ANiC was born as was a sister Anglican group, The Anglican Mission in Canada.

It was in Vancouver, BC where the pain was first and mostly deeply felt by orthodox Anglicans, forcing a godly priest into a temporary nervous breakdown, and the loss of a $20 million property. On the surface, it looked as though he and his congregation had lost big time. Some very serious Anglican players, like the Rev. Dr. J. I. Packer, were deposed and driven out of the church. Other notable Anglicans included Canadian historian Dr. George Egerton.

The vibrant evangelical parish property, strategically located near the heart of Vancouver and the largest parish in Canada, was torn from its members, lawsuits were lost, with the courts declaring that the diocese was entitled to legal fees, sticking the knife in even deeper to the departing congregation.

On the surface it appeared the parish had lost and lost badly. Score one for Ingham and his revisionist theology and his despicable behavior towards the Rev. David Short and his congregation of faithful Anglicans.

But history has not been kind to the existing St. John's Shaughnessy. An Anglican blogger who has watched the church says today it is like a mausoleum. The parish (once the largest Anglican parish in Canada) has gone downhill. Sunday attendance has dropped from 850 to between 3 and 13; the parish is running a deficit of $20,000 per month. And who is paying for this deficit, you might ask? The well-known philanthropist, Bishop Michael Ingham. "It's been a triumph of Pyrrhic proportions for Bishop Michael Ingham," wrote the blogger.

VOL wrote to the Rev. David Short with some questions. What he wrote back fulfills the simple truth that what looked bleak and hopeless has resulted in much good. In truth, God has restored, in the ensuing years, what the locusts (Bishop Ingham and his revisionist diocese) had eaten. The diocese continues to decline with closing and marginally existing parishes, now run by a woman bishop recycled from the American Episcopal Church. There is not a scrap of evidence that she can turn the diocese around.

The congregation of St. John's still worships in the Seventh-day Adventist church, where they have been joyfully received. Short writes, "Yes. They are gracious hosts and have welcomed us warmly."

The church is also debt free, says Fr. Short. The mega Anglican parish, now a member parish in the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) has also planted a new congregation in downtown Vancouver - St. Peter's "Fireside" -- which meets in a theater led by the Rev. Alastair Sterne, lead pastor, and Mike Chase, pastor under the watchful eye of Fr. Short. It is one of three missions sponsored and supported by the new St. John's, Short told VOL.

Here is what one surprised aging Anglican, a man badly beaten up by the Anglican culture wars, found when he visited the church with his daughter, unsure he would ever see justice done in his lifetime. "I accompanied my daughter to St. Peter's and it was here that I found the answer to my question, Where is the justice of God when everything around us seems to have collapsed and vanished?" Like many new downtown Evangelical congregations, St. Peter's rents space in a theatre-like setting.

"As an old line Anglo-Catholic the format of the service was not exactly to my taste, but my objections melted away as I listened to some very competent musicianship and witnessed the fixed attention of the congregation as they entered into a reverential worship.

"I found myself surrounded by an enthusiastic group of young people, with a few oldsters like myself interspersed. There were young couples with infants and children, all fully engaged in what was going on. The lead pastor came out in clerical collar and blue jeans to guide the worshippers in what was clearly Sunday Matins. And though he was very low key in his preaching, a charismatic undertow in his personality betrayed his laid back style."

The man later told VOL that he counted nearly 200 people at the service.

"At the end of the service there was a discreet altar call, very like the ones I knew as a young fundamentalist so many years ago, when I assisted at small town revival services."

Would such a church have ever come into being if it had not been for the actions of Michael Ingham?

Short told VOL that during the crisis the Lord was kind enough to enable him to plant three other churches.

Fr. Short concedes that like every congregation that has had to move, he has faced unique challenges and his own parish lost a few folk. The new plants, however, make up for the losses.

"The younger church plants are going well across the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC.) Our clergy conferences are times of remarkable fellowship and unity. Synod is now a highlight, particularly as Bishop Charlie Masters has developed a vision for the next few years. His vision immediately engages local congregations and is wise and forward looking."

What a revisionist bishop meant for evil, God meant for good.

The original story on this remarkable transformation can be read here: http://www.virtueonline.org/appearance-versus-reality-examination-real-presence-or-absence-god