Beyond all this, Baskerville also sees signs of hope in cultural developments such as Bill Cosby's comment on family morality and his call for African American males to reassume responsibility as husbands and fathers. Similarly, the political ground is truly shaking when voters in Massachusetts--by an 85-percent margin--called for fathers to be given equality in custody decisions.

I am an evangelical and traditional Christian, a church warden in the diocese of northern California. My church, Christ the King, was the first in the diocese to join the AAC. My wife and I have been happily married 40 years. Margaret is to me the most precious sign of God's love for me. I was one of more than a dozen persons who nominated Canon Beisner to be a candidate for bishop and I voted for him at the election convention.

For decades, the Episcopal Church has been declining. A recent Gallup survey shows that Episcopalians are the least likely Christians in America to attend church regularly. Only one in three Episcopalians attends church weekly. Quite simply, the Episcopal Church is so politicized, so politically correct and so confused about its identity that its members aren't interested in participating.

The irony is that while Jesus loved his disciples he expected a great deal from them and sought to transform them a great deal before they were qualified to actually fully take on and continue his mission, and the process of change, transformation, and growth would continue after they had begun the work. Peter had to come to grips with his cowardice, egoism, impetuousness, dissembling and denials.