He welcomed my first question, "What is the Network really about?"

SALMON: It is, first of all, anchored in the Episcopal Church.

SWING: To paraphrase, he stated that it was an organized way for Episcopalians who disagree with the General Convention 2003 homosexual decisions to offer mutual support, to have their voices heard, and to stay in community with the Anglican Communion.

SWING continues: That sounds reasonable. In a House of Bishops where over ninety percent of the conservative, liberal, and moderate diocesan bishops are in good standing with each other perhaps it is tolerable to have a network of bishops who opt out. The body might be able to abide this fracture for a time.

Swing then opined that he wished he could have had all of his questions answered before getting on their respective planes. So he asked the following questions in an e-mail that VirtueOnline received.

We at VirtueOnline are happy to provide the bishop with the answers he seeks and perhaps ask him a question or two about his own activities. For example how can he be a bishop in good standing in the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion when he heads up something called the United Religions Initiative, a Gnostic, pan-everything grab bag of religious impulses and "spiritual" weirdo groups whose worldview incorporates New Age beliefs and is a million light years from anything remotely Anglican or biblical?

The mission and scope of the United Religions Initiative (URI) support for religious syncretism has at least two grave flaws: It stands in opposition to Christian orthodoxy and Christian evangelism, and the URI support for religious syncretism is an effort to create a United Religions, a world parliament of religions, a permanent assembly, with the stature and visibility of the United Nations - a one world religion.

Swing's help in forming the (URI) puts him at the forefront of a movement that stands in complete antithesis to Anglicanism, and has given him the title of moon beam bishop, tres chic avocado California, the completely quintessential vacuous syncretist, without thought of how this affects the historic Christian Faith and Anglicanism worldwide.

SWING: Someday before I retire I hope bishops of the House can be honest about our life together and apart. If we ever get around to telling the truth, I would like to know from "the Network bishops:

QUESTION: Why do you usually avoid House of Bishops meetings? And why will you not go to the altar rail and receive Communion alongside your sister and brother bishops?

VIRTUEONLINE: If the Network bishops avoid the HOB it is because they see it operating outside the scope of Christian orthodoxy on faith and morals and because it is fast developing a religion that does not look anything like Christianity. In fact many of us would ague that there are two religions in the Episcopal Church and there is little contact point between either of them. However we can point out the orthodox will be in attendance at the next General Convention, but it is doubtful they will break bread with their fellow heterodox bishops.

Secondly, to go to the altar rail with men and women who have a different understanding of what it means to be both Anglican and Christian means they would be damaging to their own souls by participating in a common cup where there is no commonality of faith and life.

You will recall Bishop Swing that in Dromantine, Ireland recently the Primates could not have communion together because Frank Griswold had participated openly and disobediently in the consecration of an avowed homosexual to the episcopacy and this was a bridge to far for the majority of the Global South bishops. They could not break bread with men who they saw had departed from the faith. Koinonia perhaps, but certainly no communion.

SWING: Rumor has it that you receive lots of money from private foundations and give it to support African bishops who, in turn, will attack the Episcopal Church. Is there an audit of your receipts and disbursements? Could I review it? What are the goals of the foundations that financially support you? What African bishops receive your money? What American Episcopalians whom you know are on the staffs of African bishops?

VIRTUEONLINE: Money is certainly received from private foundations in the same way that liberal foundations support liberal causes in the Episcopal Church. Much is made of the Ahmanson Foundation (he's an Episcopalian) funding conservative causes like the Institute for Religion and Democracy, the American Anglican Council and other orthodox groups as well. There is talk of sinister efforts by Mr. Ahmanson to undermine ECUSA's liberal bias. Really. One wishes he had that sort of power. He doesn't. And talking about what American Episcopalians who are on the staff of African bishops let me tell you that it was Frank Griswold who sent gay "missionary" Ted Karpf, an American-born assistant for HIV/AIDS to be on the staff of Southern African Archbishop Ndungane!

Is Bishop Swing aware that the Washington-based Soper Fund was raided by Episcopal Bishop Jane Dixon to the tune of nearly $1 million dollars to get rid of one single orthodox priest - the Rev. Samuel Edwards out of her diocese? Or what about software entrepreneur Tim Gill of the Gill Foundation in Colorado - a nonprofit philanthropic organization providing grants to nonprofit organizations, for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities that make up American society. Since its inception, the foundation has invested nearly $40 million in nonprofit organizations throughout the country, with a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and HIV/ AIDS organizations. With an endowment of approximately $200 million, the Gill Foundation is the country's largest funder of LGBT organizations. Does ECUSA's Integrity org. get money from the Gill Foundation and where did the $300,000 war chest come from that was used to push the PR campaign for Robinson's confirmation at GC2003? Inquiring minds want to know?

SWING: If the bishops of the Episcopal Church are not invited to Lambeth Conference 2008 but the Network bishops with Bishop Robert Duncan as head are invited, will you attend?

VIRTUEONLINE: We can't speak for Bishop Salmon and as he will have retired by then, so probably not. But if he did so he would be welcome and in step with the vast majority of the Anglican bishops and feel right at home. VirtueOnline hopes he attends, he has every right.

SWING: What are the names of Network bishops who have consulted lawyers to ascertain the possibilities of someday separating "Network properties" from "Episcopal Church properties?"

VIRTUEONLINE: We know of at least two bishops who have consulted lawyers, probably more. And the issue of properties is a very real issue because of the Dennis Canon, which many of the bishops feel cannot stand up to scrutiny in the civil courts and ought to be challenged. It has been challenged successfully in California. To clarify, there are NO Network Properties as you put it. The Network owns nothing. Its own ability to stay financially afloat comes from the American Anglican Council. It has no assets of its own. Episcopal Church properties that leave the ECUSA are doing so on their own, they are fed up with revisionist bishops slaughtering them and demanding obedience over the Robinson consecration.

SWING: In what situations around the USA is the Network in conversation with individual congregations, strategizing as to how the congregation can leave the Episcopal Church, take its assets, and join the Network?

VIRTUEONLINE: First of all there has not been a single case where a congregation has left the Episcopal Church to join the Network. The Network is a loose structure that has made common cause with a number of Anglican groups. When individual parishes leave ECUSA they usually join the AMIA, a Continuing Church, or come under an overseas Primate. These churches may or may not be a part of the Network, but the Network has taken no assets of any one congregation. Furthermore Bishop Bob Duncan is negotiating to allow a liberal parish in his diocese to have DEPO which no other revisionist bishop has yet to allow happen to an orthodox parish without that bishop wanting to retain complete control.

SWING: It is stated that Bishop Duncan is on record as promising "to wage guerilla warfare on the Episcopal Church." Is this true? Also on the House floor he has been accused of paying lay people of his diocese to go to a neighboring diocese to try to persuade conservative members to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Network. Is that true?

VIRTUEONLINE: If Duncan is waging "guerilla war", take a look at what revisionist bishops are doing to orthodox priests and their congregations. I think Bishop Swing that the war you talk about is being waged by those on your side of the ecclesiastical fence, not the orthodox. Look at what is happening in dioceses like Lexington, Alabama, Los Angeles and Connecticut to name but a few. As far as people paying lay people is concerned this is totally false, no money has ever changed hands to pay anybody to do anything. And let me reiterate conservative members are not encouraged to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Network, the Network is not a denomination; it is a movement of orthodoxy WITHIN the Episcopal Church. If churches leave the ECUSA it is so because of the actions of revisionist bishops. Let us be clear about that.

Furthermore some see it as a tragedy that the Network is doing nothing to help orthodox priests and parishes in revisionist dioceses. It would be good if in fact some warfare was being done, like Salmon, Duncan et al getting in a bus and going to the churches of the "Connecticut Six" priests under attack by Bishop Andrew Smith!

SWING: When I carry around these questions in my heart and don't speak up, I live with the assumption that the Episcopal Church is in deep denial. We stand quiet while forces within our body seem intent to destroy this body. Yes, most of the Anglican world is furious with us. That's not the point. We knew they would be furious. We knew also that many Episcopalians would find our stance to be intolerable. Good people would leave. But what we didn't count on was what seems to me to be the Grand Plan. Funded by silent, wealthy ideologues, the Grand Plan would produce a sexually pure, globally recognized alternative Episcopal Church with Robert Duncan as Presiding Bishop. A revolution of staggering significance appears to be unfolding in our midst led by hirelings who were put in office to be shepherds. In the past we could always count on loyalty among bishops. Today we can count on disloyalty to the Episcopal Church among a few bishops. Or so it seems. All the while we are mute and excruciatingly polite.

VIRTUEONLINE: First of all the Episcopal church IS in complete denial, so much so that most Episcopalians don't even know that Frank Griswold has been kicked off ARCIC talks with the Roman Catholics and both they and the Orthodox churches are unwilling even talk to him. Furthermore he is not welcome in most of Africa's Anglican provinces. So who is destroying the church certainly not the orthodox, it is the liberals and revisionists who have steadily over the course of nearly 40 years going back to Bishop Pike been eroding and undermining the 'faith once delivered'. The notion of some 'Grand Plan' as you put it is a total fiction. The Primates of the Communion have been reacting to Frank Griswold's push for pansexuality going back over at least six primatial gatherings. It is he not they who have been trying to change the Church's received teaching on human sexuality, it is Griswold who has steadily and relentlessly been advancing the cause of pansexual behavior.

Now you talk about loyalty among the bishops. How can you have loyalty when you have two very different understandings of the Christian Faith at work? One is orthodox the other is, by any standards heretical and apostate. And talking about "politeness" and being "mute", since when were bishops like Jack Spong or Barbara Harris ever "polite" or "mute." These bishops have been on a tear for 25 years in the HOB. The orthodox bishops have been "mute" and "silent" as you put it, having drawn more lines in the sand on orthodoxy than there are rings around Uranus.

And for the record bishop you have voted for just about every innovation the Episcopal Church has come up with. You signed Spong's Koinonia Statement. You voted to insist on women's ministries in every diocese, which hurt Bishop Keith Ackerman of Quincy. You signed "A Pastoral Statement to Lesbian and Gay Anglicans" from some member Bishops of the Lambeth Conference. You voted for the blessing of same-gender unions to be added to Book of Occasional Services (8th resolve to D039), recognized and affirming fidelity in relationships outside (D039) and consented to the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. So why would any orthodox bishop believe they are in communion with you?

SWING: Perhaps there are good and honest answers which will prove my fears false and point out that I have maligned innocent bishops in my silent heart. In that case I would readily apologize. But in the meantime while no one is speaking to tell the truth, a lot of us are left only to sniff an aroma and surmise the source of the smell.

VIRTUEONLINE: Damn right there are "good and honest answers" Bishop Swing and we have just provided you with a few. And a small number of us have been "speaking to tell the truth" you just don't want to read us, and yes you have maligned "innocent bishops" and yes you should apologize, but if you do so please don't offer up the pathetic "regret" for the pain you have caused the Global South primates over Robinson's consecration. A full throated apology and repentance is needed, not that weak namby pamby "regret" being offered up by bishops like you. We hope you can tell the difference, it could mean the difference of your own eternal destiny.

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