Those seeking a divorce fall into three categories. Six of the dioceses want alternative primatial oversight; one diocese wants direct primatial oversight from the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, and an eighth diocese has expressed solidarity with the other seven but hasn't made a full commitment to leaving owing to the fact that they are in the midst of changing bishops and it would be inappropriate for an outgoing bishop to make a commitment for an incoming bishop. Furthermore Griswold is coming in September to attend/lead the consecration of the Rev. William Love,in the Diocese of Albany, and waiting allows more time for him to determine his own path. Also both liberals and conservatives in the diocese have a "wait and see" posture, and therefore the money will continue to flow in. But the Via Media will not remain silent forever.

However, Canon Love, who is publicly opposed to gay priests, gay marriages and the whole gay enchilada, did, with the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Albany release a statement this week saying, "We stand in solidarity and deepest sympathy with our sister dioceses that have found the actions and inaction of the 75th General Convention to require an appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Panel of Reference for various aid and relief." Will they be the eighth to flee ECUSA?

The benchmark issues that have caused this now fatal rift is the failure of General Convention to comply with the Windsor Report; the inadequate last minute brokered response to the Windsor Report in resolution B033; the election of a pro-gay, pro-abortion woman to lead The Episcopal Church; sundry inadequate theological statements, and the final line-in-the-sand that gay New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson's consecration is a fait accompli, and more like him will be elected bishops. Calls for ecclesiastical "restraint" are little more than vain attempts to refloat the Titanic with a fishing line.

It would also seem that the new Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori has resigned herself to the inevitable. When she was asked by a reporter in an interview with the Oregonian about how far you can stretch (the Episcopal Church) she responded by saying: "We're all human beings. We all have our limits. I don't know what mine are."

We will soon find out. For about 130,000 Episcopalians, in seven very viable dioceses, that answer has been delivered.

At a parish and personal level the most recent estimates indicate that as many as 6,000 active, dues paying Episcopalians have left The Episcopal Church since the end of General Convention, with one parish, Christ Church, Plano, in the DIOCESE OF DALLAS accounting for more than 60 percent of the total.

And it is still early days. VOL has received dozens of e-mails from now former Episcopalians who have drawn the final line in the sand with the inaction of the recent General Convention to engage the Windsor Report and have walked out the door of their Episcopal parish, never to return. At the root of it all is the mocking of Holy Scripture as authoritative to faith and life.

New Anglican congregations from Roanoke to California are popping up like mushrooms in a forest. Several Episcopalians from the Diocese of Nevada (Schori's diocese) wrote VOL asking for other Episcopalians who might want to meet to form an authentic, believing, Prayer Book Anglican congregation.

BUT it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who waded into the Episcopal maelstrom with yet another statement issued while the General Synod of the Church of England was assembled, and issued a head-scratching statement that offered a 'wait and see' approach, while admitting that ECUSA's General Convention resolutions left a number of unanswered questions, requiring "careful disentangling of what they say and what they don't say."

He also said he had written directly to every Primate to ask for a preliminary reaction from their province. But the ECUSA General Convention was barely over before the Province of Nigeria and its leader Archbishop Peter Akinola lit into ECUSA and the Archbishop of Canterbury saying two things: that the recent resolutions of the General Convention had not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report..." demanding ECUSA be reprimanded, saying that it was little more than a cancerous lump in the body and should be excised, as it has defied every known cure. "To attempt to condition the whole body to accommodate it will lead to the avoidable death of the patient." String words indeed. They then said that if matters were not resolved biblically they would have their own Lambeth Conference in 2008! The next Primates' Meeting in February of 2007 to "to digest what emerges from all this," could be cataclysmic.

Not surprisingly the UK Evangelical organization, Church Society came out in support of the Nigerians and issued a statement expressing "gratitude" with the recent statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria. They particularly called attention to the apparent underlying assumption made by the Archbishop that unity is more important than truth. "The theological divisions now affecting the Anglican Communion are a result of people and churches trying to distort plain biblical teaching. The Bishops' analysis of this as a "cancerous lump" which will kill the body is entirely correct, they said.

"It is our fervent hope that over the coming months, orthodox leaders within the Anglican Communion will work to ensure that our world-wide fellowship of churches is not destroyed by false teaching, immorality, inaction and indifference."

Can Dr. Williams hold it altogether? We shall see.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND was not without its problems this past week. The C of E voted at its York General Synod to ordain women as bishops, a major liberalizing step in a church that faces schism over homosexuality. Although it could be years before the first woman bishop is named, the wrath of both the Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals descended un-dovelike upon the church. Forward in Faith wants a third province to get out from under any more churchly innovations and Reform, the evangelical wing of the church also decried the vote. "The bible insists that both at home and in the Church there are differences between the role of men and women," said Rod Thomas, spokesman for the Evangelical group Reform.

And to heighten anxieties 111 priests, opposed to the ordination of women wrote saying that when the General Synod agreed to ordain women, it acknowledged that there were theological objections that were sincerely held and that meant that some would not be able to accept the innovation. In the Synod debates, opponents were assured of a permanent and equal place in the Church of England. "We were promised an open period of reception and, with the Act of Synod, provision was made for extended episcopal care. It is essential that the promises made in 1992 continue to be honored," they said. "It would be a betrayal of trust if the Church of England did not provide all that is necessary (including alternative jurisdiction) for us to remain and to exercise the ministry to which we have been ordained."

THE Roman Catholic Church in Britain is facing its greatest threat since the Reformation, according to new research. Over three decades, Mass attendance has slumped by 40 per cent, baptisms by 50 per cent, Catholic marriages by 60 per cent and confirmations by 60 per cent, writes Ruth Gledhill of the London Times.

The 260-page study of the Church indicates that the number of adult converts fell by 55 per cent and first communions by nearly 40 per cent, described as the "greatest pastoral and demographic catastrophe" since the Reformation of the 16th century. The study covers the period from 1963 to 1991. But more recent figures, from 2004, indicate little improvement.

In The Future of the Catholic Church in Britain, author Tom Horwood wrote: "The Church in Britain is suffering from a terminal decline in membership, irregular commitment among the remnant, and, in the wake of persistent child abuse scandals, a leadership of bishops and priests that has toppled from its pedestal with a mighty crash."

The publication of the two reports comes after weeks of international attention on the difficulties of the Anglican Church, which has 85 million members, a fraction of the 1.2 billion members of the Catholic Church worldwide.

IN IRELAND, The Rev Michael Burrows, the Dean of Cork, was consecrated Church of Ireland Bishop of Cashel and Ossory this past week by the Archbishop of Dublin John Neill in Christ Church Cathedral.

Sources tell VOL that Burrows is a straight forward revisionist. "I've spoken to someone in Ireland who thinks that he might cause a split in the Church of Ireland with his less than traditional beliefs." The new bishop takes charge of scandal-hit diocese that saw is predecessor Peter Barrett, resign suddenly as bishop six months ago after being involved in an affair with a Catholic married woman.

On the other hand an Archdeacon predicted that the new bishop would play an important role in the Anglican Communion's worldwide efforts to avert a schism over gay bishops. "At a time when the very existence of the Anglican Communion as we have known it is under threat from dislocating forces and questions, it is good that the new bishop will be already up to speed."

The DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA is a sinking ship. Priests are leaving in droves. Trust for revisionist bishop Charles Bennison has eroded to zero. The bishop even lost his secretary and her priest husband this past week. They are fleeing to Connecticut. The diocese continues to be in turmoil. In the diocese, there is an epidemic of denial over how desperate the diocesan financial situation is and how ill many of the congregations are. Present figures show that less than 20% of pledged income to the diocese has been received. Over 100 congregations (out of 155) are statistically in decline. (Last year there 162 parishes). The Standing Committee continues to call for the bishop's resignation. And recently two parishes were deconsecrated. Most of the diocesan staff has been let go for lack of funds; and yet diocesan council and the bishop continues to float the message that things are not that bad! The leadership fiddles while the diocese burns.

On the subject of AIDS a VOL reader, Mr. Preston Osborne, from Southern California sent this in. "Episcopalians have been on the slippery slope for a long time...This latest move (by General Convention) that rejects the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven is not surprising. I had two male cousins that were openly homosexual. One died a very painful death due to AIDS; recently the other one committed suicide. Their "priest" had told them that they were OK. That wasn't very "Christian" of "her" was it? What about the state of their souls?"

And in the DIOCESE OF CENTRAL NEW YORK there was some good news this week for ousted priest Fr. David Bollinger. The New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Tait issued his decision and found that two parts of the complaint against the Diocese of Central New York and Bishop "Skip" Adams are actionable - Intentional Infliction of Emotional Harm and Loss of Services and Consortium. Attorney David Gouldin issued the following statement: "We were pleased Judge Tait held that the intentional infliction of emotional harm claim stated a viable cause of action. We are sorry that he did not feel that the current state of New York law would permit him to exercise jurisdiction over claims that Bishop Adams breached his fiduciary duty, no matter how meritorious such claims might be. Father Bollinger will be looking at all of his options, including review by an appellate court." The revisionist bishop of Central NY is not going to be let off the hook.

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION. The Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola found his face overlaid with four Islamic terrorists on Louie Crew's website. Akinola found himself on a list of TIME magazine's Top 100 list, but that didn't stop Crew from pillorying the orthodox archbishop. This is one of the worst examples character defamation this writer has seen. So much for tolerance and the much ballyhooed inclusivity talk of liberals.

JUST when you thought that things couldn't get better in the DIOCESE OF MASSACHUSETTS, a new conservative path is being offered for Episcopal Church ordinands at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, an independent Evangelical seminary in Massachusetts. Michael Paulson, of the Boston Globe wrote a story (see today's digest) announcing that the evangelical Protestant seminary on the North Shore is launching a program to train Episcopal priests who don't want, or cannot, in conscience attend the ultra-liberal Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. As the ECUSA faces possible schism because of its 2003 approval of an openly gay priest, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as the bishop of New Hampshire the number of orthodox seminaries is now down to two - TESM and Nashotah House. This will provide a much needed boost in the Northeast.

Naysayers who have been quick to shoot the idea down on the grounds that Gordon Conwell can't possibly provide the sort of background training that Anglicans need, might consider that Regent College's Anglican Studies Program on the campus of the University of British Columbia has been a resounding success. The Regent College Study Program in World Anglicanism Regent College, Vancouver and Wycliffe Hall, a Permanent Private Hall of Oxford University, have partnered together in theological education. These schools offer a program which enables prospective ordinands the opportunity to experience Anglicanism in two different cultural contexts: Vancouver and Oxford. The term "world Anglicanism" has been chosen to indicate that Anglicanism is a world-wide communion, and also out of the conviction that an appreciation of the global nature of this communion is especially important for Western Christians who are often unaware that world Anglicanism has shifted so that its centre of gravity is now non-Western and non-Caucasian. Gordon-Conwell will be an excellent addition to that list.

A LESSER RESOLUTION (A087) passed at the recent General Convention got the attention of Christian Challenge editor Auburn Traycik. You will recall my and Auburn Traycik's post-convention story suggesting that TEC might opt to create a rival Anglican Communion? Perhaps we're just getting too caught up in our conspiracy theory, but we wondered if a tad bit more evidence to support our line of thinking can be found in Resolution A087, adopted by the convention. This calls for a church commission to "explore the possibility of a new definition for 'Missionary Dioceses,'" with an explanation stating that, in TEC's constitution, that term is based on a geographic definition. The commission is to "explore the possibilities of other definitions of 'diocese' that would take into account the changing demographic situation in the world and consider new ways in which [TEC] could carry out its mission." Any proposal along these lines would have to come to the 2009 General Convention. But we wondered if the ability to set up a non-geographical Missionary Diocese to serve a particular community might not come in handy in a situation in which TEC sets out to gather liberal Anglicans around the world into its alternate communion; this would be helpful, for example, for liberals in provinces that would not join the new fellowship. It seemed that such a provision also might serve to prepare for rebuilding in areas where conservative bishops and dioceses have pulled out of TEC (if indeed any of them do). Watch this space. VOL will keep you informed if this begins to take shape.

I am posting a number of personal reflections on the current state of The Episcopal Church and one story on how to stop homosexual activism in The Episcopal Church. Follow this person's advice and things could still turn around.

CORRECTION: In my last digest I mentioned that the Church of the Holy Trinity in Garland, TX, would seek to officially separate itself from the ECUSA. The rector of the parish wrote to say this was not true. VOL therefore offers this retraction and an apology to this parish and its priest.

All blessings,

David W. Virtue DD

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