John the Baptist made the same criticism of his contemporaries, who presumed upon their "institutional" connection with Abraham rather than a heartfelt commitment to do the will of God. What today we call "religious institutionalism" or "nominalism" is as old as the Bible.

Let's substitute another term for "temple of the Lord" and see if any new instances of pernicious religious institutionalism come to mind.

It did not of course come about in isolation but instead in the context of the current crisis of TEC and of the Anglican Communion. We may need to remind ourselves of how this crisis came about. It is rooted in the infiltration into TEC and other western churches over many decades of such cultural values as self-expression and of personal experience, which are to be relied on more than biblical authority or the traditions of the Church.

Today a 10-member Covenant Design Group, headed by Archbishop Drexel Gomez, is meeting in this country to make a determination on the aberrant sexual proclivities of Anglicans in the United states and Canada, two of the denomination's largest provinces, which supports same sex marriages and has sanctioned the consecration of an openly homosexual bishop. A report is to be made to the leader of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams.

Chane shared with the national television audience that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have "holy books and texts" that "are very similar," and "they all focus on the issues of peace and tranquility and brotherhood." He also waxed eloquent: "We share far more in common than we do that divides us. And that which divides us, we can disagree with."