The article mentions that "the Diocese of South Carolina has joined fewer than 10% of all Episcopal Dioceses in an alliance, The Anglican Communion Network." What the members of the Forum apparently want to ignore is that the Episcopal Church, which claims 2.3 million members, is barely three percent of the 78 million-member Anglican Communion, the overwhelming majority of whose members are theologically orthodox. In fact, it is those of us in Network Dioceses who are part of the spiritual majority in the worldwide Christian community. The non-Network dioceses of the Episcopal Church, including our neighbor dioceses, are part of a very small minority in the Anglican world.

The Forum fails to mention that the Network was organized by several American Bishops, including our own Bishop Edward Salmon, in response to the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury that theological conservatives in the Episcopal Church find a way to support each other. The Forum claims several sinister proposals for the "alliance," including the diminishing of "our democratic tradition of governance." This is an odd statement to describe the Network, an organization that clearly states its real purposes in its "Memorandum of Agreement."

"The purpose of the Network is to bring together those dioceses and congregations which hold to the centrality and authority of Holy Scripture and, in keeping with the Preamble to the Constitution of ECUSA, to be faithful in upholding and propagating the historic faith and order; pursuing the apostolic mission to a troubled and fallen church, nation, and world."

The Network's Memorandum continues, "The Network shall be formed and shall operate in good faith within the Constitution of ECUSA." The Forum also fails to mention that the Diocese of South Carolina joined the Network as a result of a democratic vote by an overwhelming majority of deputies to our Diocesan Convention.

The article expresses the Forum's concern that the Network will "narrow the permissible understanding of Scripture." This can't mean that the Forum recognizes no limits to the interpretation of scripture, because, in a later paragraph, the article mentions that "faith, as understood in the Episcopal Church, is based on the centuries-old Anglican understanding of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason."

Members of the Forum, as good Anglicans, clearly recognize that tradition and reason have always posed some limits to biblical interpretation. Could it be that the Forum's fear of limiting "permissible understanding of scripture" stems from their devotion to an authority higher than tradition or reason? For some Forum sympathizers, personal faith experience is more important than biblical revelation. The Forum article explains, "There will always be those whose experiences in faith will be different from our own."

Does giving authority to everyone's personal faith experiences mean that one person's opinion about a Bible passage is as good as the next reader's point of view? Apparently, Forum supporters think so. Could that be why they seem worried about narrowing the permissible understanding of Scripture? Unlimited, self-serving interpretations of the Bible will further fragment our denomination. What will enrich our common life is faithful adherence to the teaching of Holy Scripture, as the Church has traditionally understood it over the ages.

The Forum article hints ominously that participation in the Network will lead our Diocese to place its members "under the authority of appointed leaders, some from other countries and cultures."

The article doesn't actually mention African archbishops, but the thinly veiled racism in their warning hardly seems to fit the inclusive worldview claimed by Forum sympathizers. Further, while warning about the threat of appointed leaders, the article fails to mention that alternate primatial oversight, has been requested by the Diocese of South Carolina and six other dioceses. We are asking for orthodox spiritual leadership. No one is forcing us to submit to any unwanted authority.

The Forum article asserts that "we are a vibrant national church." How can that possibly describe an organization that has lost more than a third of its members in the past forty years? While there are undoubtedly many local examples of exciting Gospel ministry taking place in Episcopal congregations across the country, the statistics released by our denominational headquarters tell a different story. We are a dying church, and smiling denial can't change the diminishing number of baptisms and confirmations and the crisis of many parish and diocesan budgets relying on dwindling endowments.

How interesting to note that the Forum apparently believes that "a Constitution and Canons (the body of Ecclesiastical law)...binds us together in our common mission and ministry." It seems that when we can no longer agree on the basic tenants of the Christian faith, canon law is the only unifying factor we have left. In many dioceses, bishops are using canon law to hold onto orthodox congregations that want to leave and to get rid of faithful clergy who want to stay and care for their people. It is our tragic lack of a "common mission and ministry" that leaves us unhappily shackled together by "a body of Ecclesiastical law."

The members of the Forum demonstrate an astonishing ignorance of current events when they say "We can always trust the leadership of The Episcopal Church to make a place for those who are not in agreement with it direction." This has certainly been true in the Diocese of South Carolina, but have the Forum supporters not read the articles in church publications and the secular media that document case after case of Episcopal bishops across the country filing charges against biblically orthodox clergy who disagree with the theological direction of their diocese?

If the priest and lay leaders of an orthodox Episcopal congregation refuse to give financial support to a revisionist diocese or to arrange for a biblically skeptical bishop to come for a Confirmation service, the priest might soon find himself charged with abandoning the communion of the church. That canonical charge allows the bishop to remove a disagreeing priest without a formal trial. Orthodox clergy across the country have learned to doubt their leaders' promise of "inclusivity," and many have kept silent in order to survive.

When the Forum article proclaims the "We can have confidence that the Episcopal Church affirms Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord," it's not telling the whole story. What is left out are the words, "for us." Many Episcopalians believe that Jesus is Savior and Lord for us, because we grew up in a Christian environment, but it's not necessary for people who faithfully practice other religions to believe in him. The article claims that the Episcopal Church at last summer's convention did not reject Jesus' lordship as an "essential article of our faith." Here are the facts.

The Convention voted to be discharged from consideration of a resolution that read, in part, "Resolved, the House of consenting, that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church declares its unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved (Article XVIII), and be it further resolved that we acknowledge the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all persons when we hear his words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." By voting to be discharged from considering this resolution, the Convention chose not to reaffirm "this essential article of our Faith." To say Jesus is our Lord but not necessarily Lord for the whole world is to deny the unique nature of the Son of God.

The Forum article concludes with the statement, "The Episcopal Church welcomes all with love, leaving judgment and rebuke to our Lord's great mercy." What's missing here is the mature recognition that "welcoming with love" means more than sentimental acceptance of each other. God welcomes us just as we are, but because he loves us, he is not content to leave us captive to ideas and attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that are unhealthy for us. He calls us to become holy, as he is holy, and this means helping each other face the need for repentance and renewal. God's Word judges between right and wrong. We are to help each other yield to that Word with patient exhortation and encouragement. To try to remove a splinter from somebody else's eye while we have a log in our own is clearly wrong. But it's also wrong to pretend that the splinter we see won't quickly make our neighbor blind and helpless unless we help him do something about it. Tolerance of behavior the Bible calls wrong is not love. It is shortsighted moral isolationism and long-range cruelty.

In their effort to promote a kinder, gentler brand of Christianity, the members of the Episcopal Forum have turned their backs on what the Bible calls "the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). They have told part of the truth about the issues at stake in the upcoming election of a new bishop and have ignored or deliberately concealed other information that does not support their cause. Some members of the Forum might be ready to follow the current national leadership of the Episcopal Church while they walk away from the orthodox provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, but most members of the Diocese of South Carolina want to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the heritage of faith in which we stand.

---The Rev. Richard I.H. Belser is rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Charleston.