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IS IT ALL OVER FOR THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION?

IS IT ALL OVER FOR THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION?

Commentary

By David W. Virtue

LONDON (10/20/2004)--The dust is still settling on the Windsor Report. Responses are rolling in thick and fast from around the Anglican Communion. Hope and hopelessness are reported almost in the same breath. There is glee in some quarters, anger and despair in others.

For Bishop V. Gene Robinson, around which this report was really written, it was a "miracle" and a "masterful job", he told the Philadelphia INQUIRER. He gets to keep his job without so much as a wrist slap. The careful wording in the report leaves "wiggle-room" to continue blessing same-sex couples, the bishop said. He is, regrettably, right.

For the world's orthodox Anglican believers though it is nothing short of The Great Betrayal. The hope that at last justice would be done, that relief would be on its way for beleaguered orthodox parishes and dioceses did not come true. It was betrayal of the worst kind, done by all the charm of an Indian snake charmer, in this case by an Irishman known for his ability to charm everyone into stupefaction. He succeeded.

From Vancouver Island to Long Island, from Alaska to Texas pansexual revisionist bishops will continue the steamroller at an even greater pace, driving out, or, at a minimum making life unbearable, for any orthodox priest who stands in their way, the bishops knowing they are safe from any public opprobrium for their behavior.

"The report lacked both teeth and timetable as to the means of resolving the deep
crisis that has come upon our communion. These deficiencies were extraordinarily concerning," wrote ECUSA's leading orthodox bishop and NETWORK head Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan.

The 126-page report, dubbed The Windsor Report buried the last hopes of evangelical and catholic expectation for revival, renewal and 'A Place to Stand' in this generation. As a godly institution the Episcopal Church is finished, it is on an evil incline from which there is no return unless there is confession of its sin and full repentance.

Archbishop Greg Venables said of the report that an expression of regret "is like an adulterous husband saying to his wife: 'I'm sorry I hurt you,' the report doesn't deal with the underlying issues", he said. He is right.

Archbishop Akinola called the report "patronizing". It "fails to confront the reality that a small, economically privileged group of people has sought to subvert the Christian faith and impose their new and false doctrine on the wider community of faithful believers," he told the BBC.

Ironically Archbishop Bernard Malango praised the report. He wrote, "I welcome the publication of the Windsor Report. I was privileged to be part of the Lambeth Commission, and despite some very honest exchanges, we were able to come together as a Commission to offer what I believe represents a genuine way forward for the future of the Anglican Communion."

Did he really read the report? It condemns him for crossing diocesan boundaries and rescuing Fr. David Moyer and other North American priests. The Windsor Report specifically condemned such actions in the loudest terms while only mildly slapping Griswold for consecrating Robinson?

The leader of the largest Continuing Anglican jurisdiction, Archbishop John Hepworth wrote probably the most damning indictment when he said, "In creating an Anglican gulag, an invisible and nameless group who cannot in conscience accept Anglicanism's abandonment of Catholic order and sacramental practise over the past thirty years, and the Report owes more to Stalin than to Christ. Those who are already under persecution-- the priests being expelled from their parishes (or already expelled) and the people driven from their parishes--find absolutely nothing in this Report - not even an awareness that they exist. It is an invitation to further marginalisation for those still within the Anglican Communion, and a fierce rejection for the Continuing Churches who exist beyond its borders."

Ruth Gledhill of the London Times said she saw one serious flaw in it. "The chastisement of those bishops who have breached provincial boundaries seems more than unfair, and they certainly do not deserve to go in the same dock as those who prompted their actions. It is like making the man who commits a crime in self-defence as guilty as the man who provoked the defence. Imagine a burglar who breaks his leg when he falls through a glass window during illicit entry into a house. In the Windsor report scenario, the householder is fined for not making his glass strong enough, while the burglar is merely asked not to do it again."

What all this means is that we will now see the quickening pace of departures from the Episcopal Church as we have not seen them before. For tens thousands of Episcopalians the last line in the sand has been drawn. Is it over? Frank Griswold will limp to retirement wounded but unbowed and Rowan Williams may now preside over the death of a once proud denomination (Perhaps he will be offered a chair at Harvard or Yale he can flee too.) We shall see.

But if they go, orthodox priests and congregations should not just leave quietly in the dead of night. They have a duty to fight the evil empire and to take their property with them. At least they should give it a shot as the Rev. Paul Walter of Good Shepherd in St. Louis, MO did last week. He lost but he will take most of the congregation with him and he will hold his head high. The theologically hollow Bishop George Wayne Smith gets an empty shell of a church and the flotsam of a dying congregation. So be it.

Back room deals will now be a thing of the past. The time for meetings and statements is over; the time for action is now. The CAPA bishops meet in Lagos in a few days and Archbishop Akinola has made a lot noises about the future of the Communion and his condemnation of the Windsor report. Will he follow through? The Primates will meet next February and they will shout at one another, but will anything change?

Speaking on behalf of the Nigerian Church Archbishop Joseph Fearon said in London that his province will never leave the Anglican Communion, but it is up to the Episcopal Church to leave, or face the possibility of schism.

But Frank Griswold will not leave either. He has no reason too. The Windsor Report was a mild slap on his wrist. A "regret", no apology, no repentance, Griswold did not even have to get to first base. He hit a home run by saying he was sorry for the pain he caused the African Church, but was not remotely interested in apologizing for his action in consecrating V. Gene Robinson, that, was not even on his radar screen. Furthermore he said he would continue ECUSA's policies and allow activist non-celibate homosexuals access to all levels of ministry. He slithered like a snake right round the issue in true pluriform style. It was done with quintessential Griswoldian charm and a Sufi smile. Just smile a lot, and use a lot of language that says absolutely nothing. And nothing it was.

Griswold will not leave the Primatial table because he doesn't have too, you see he has Rowan Williams on his side and that is all he cares about. Rowan and Frank perfect together, except that Rowan is ten times smarter and he needs ECUSA's money from time to time for his pet projects. (He raised $400,000 in Connecticut recently for one of them), and they are both in total agreement about homosexual activity. So why should Griswold leave? There is no incentive or push for him to do so. The orthodox Primates can argue all they want, but at the end of the day what will be different? Williams will demand they all have communion together and they probably will, Akinola's huffing and puffing notwithstanding. Talk is cheap. There is no legal or juridical way to get Griswold out of the Primatial club and Williams would never let it happen, never. He doesn't like "punishment," (his word), he wants "healing and restoration" but restored to whom? If there is no perception that Griswold is a false teacher or shepherd or an heretical bishop then what is all the fuss about? Smack a little bottom if you must but no pain please, unless you are into bondage.

When the ECUSA's House of Bishops next meet Griswold will be hailed as the conquering hero who saved the day for the majority of ECUSA's revisionist bishops. They will worship and adore him for his adroitness at 'holding the line'. They will send a mild note of regret to Williams and Eames for the pain they caused the rest of the communion and then it is on with business as usual. They should send Archbishop Eames a big fat collective check for manipulating the process so well.

The dozen or so Network bishops led by Bob Duncan who had hoped for relief from the Windsor report regrettably got nothing. They will demand that ECUSA stand by the Covenant, but that's a joke, it will never happen. David Booth Beers will never sign onto any Covenant that takes away ECUSA's legal control over its dioceses and parish properties.

Phrases like "mutual reciprocity" and "forbearance in the body of Christ"..."a bishop shall be a visible sign of unity..." in THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH? Who are we kidding? You can count on one hand the number of bishops for whom the above phrases are remotely true.

Duncan said at a press conference in London that he will not ask Griswold to resign, so the end result will be the same, nothing, it seems, will happen. The revisionists will smirk behind closed doors and Griswold will loftily opine how much we miss their (Network bishops) presence at the HOB, but the Network is not going to leave ECUSA.

Duncan opined at a press conference that he wants the Network to get on with the business of mission. But who is going to listen to anything a handful of orthodox Episcopal bishops have to say about the gospel? The ECUSA is now the official Protestant Queer Church of America, (PQCA) and who is going to join us pray tell? Parents with children just waiting to get a lecture on sexual inclusivity from Louie Crew or Otis Charles or Gene Robinson? And the figures are against him. According to the latest statistics put out by the Church Pension group from 2002 to 2003 the Episcopal Church lost an estimated 30,221 members, equivalent to the size of the Diocese of Colorado. In that same year, the ECUSA declined 21,640 in average Sunday attendance. That's like losing all the worshipping Episcopalians in the dioceses of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont put together. And this information came directly from the diocesan administrators meeting recently in New York. And that figure will only double this year and next, Virtuosity has been told. So who is the Network going to impress or convert?

People who get converted are going to Assemblies of God, and thousands of independent evangelical churches, they are not going to rush to the Episcopal Church. A few will go the AMIA and REC, some to Orthodoxy and Rome but Anglicanism is tainted collectively by the sin of sodomy. It might even be time to drop the word Anglican as well as Episcopalian altogether if the Network wants people to come on board.

And here's another truth the Network bishops might want to consider - the Via Media crowd emboldened by the Windsor Report smell victory. They will spend their waking hours going after orthodox bishops' big time. They will hound and harass them till these bishops grow tired of the fight, retire and be replaced by a revisionist or gay bishop. The Network won't have any time to evangelize they will be too busy watching their backs the whole time.

And if you don't believe me look at the agenda of the upcoming Diocesan chancellors meeting called by David Booth Beers in Orlando. If you want a new definition of 'mena mene tekel upharson' here it is. The orthodox have been found wanting, and if they try to leave the Episcopal Church with their properties, they will experience hell on earth emboldened by the Windsor Report. Just ask the Rev. Paul Walter who lost his parish, Good Shepherd last week in St. Louis, Missouri in a dogfight with Bishop George Wayne Smith. The courts said the church belongs to ECUSA. Of course the victory isn't much for Smith. The bishop gets a handful of people and an expensive property to maintain, but he'll be given the money from someone, somewhere for sure. Nothing changes.

And what about the American Anglican Council (AAC) the Episcopal Church's evangelical foot soldiers. The truth is they have no guns and no bullets, and when you have neither you have two options - surrender or flee.

Canon David C. Anderson, AAC's president publicly admitted in London that he has lost some of his family to the Methodist Church; so the question is, if his family won't stay why should anybody else's?

And what about all the so-called moderate fence sitting bishops like John Howard Bishop of Florida, John Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida and the newly anointed Bishop Jeffrey Steenson of the Rio Grande. They will all roll over. I am not wrong. Steenson only got elected because the Via Media knew they could manipulate him better than Martyn Minns. And if Minns had gotten the job then it is highly doubtful he would have gotten consents from the HOB anyway.

Howard will roll. He has already called in his evangelical cardinal rectors for a 'talk' about money. You pay or you're gone is the message they got. Lipscomb got a wake up call in Africa when he went there, but at the end of the day he won't hold up against the revisionist steam roller of the HOB. He will fold his hand. Wimberley of Texas has already folded despite his protestation that he is orthodox. Nonsense. He's a corporatist to the end.

But the raw naked truth must now be faced, the orthodox have little or no leverage. Dozens of parishes will now leave ECUSA for the AMIA the TAC or come under overseas Anglican jurisdictions. Two more did in the Diocese of Olympia this past week.

The truly bad news is that the average age of the average Episcopalian is 66 and half the 7,500 parishes have less than 37 members. Hundreds of churches will close over the next five years, or kept open by Diocesan Trust funds and endowments. Increasingly, part-time worker priests and retirees will be called in to run these parishes.

I spoke with the Rev. David Short in London, rector of the largest church in Canada, St. John's, Shaughnessy in Vancouver. He was in his cupcakes about the report's conclusions. He is a good and godly man, one of the best. Bishop Michael Ingham has already screamed that there would be no change of direction for the diocese when the report came out, basically ignoring its findings, and why should he, has nothing to fear from Rowan Williams or his own Canadian archbishop. Short fears the worst for the dozen or so orthodox parishes in his diocese.

In an interview Virtuosity did in London (see website) with Bishop Robinson Cavilcanti of the orthodox Diocese of Recife in Brazil, this godly bishop said he saw no hope for himself and his diocese from the ravaging encroachments of his Primate Orlando Santos de Oliveira. The Primate is withholding money given by the ECUSA from the diocese thus pushing the diocese into the arms of another jurisdiction - most likely that of Archbishop Greg Venables of the Southern Cone. "I am fleeing and taking my whole diocese to another jurisdiction," he told Virtuosity. The report gave him no hope, it never saved him.

If you have no clear discernible gospel to proclaim, no mission statement that one can grasp and work with, then you are simply beating the air with your words, and the revisionists, already throwing up their pansexual vomit to all and sundry will destroy the very thing they were told to uphold.

The good news is this; in Athanasius' time it appeared that it was all over. But Nicene Christianity triumphed, because devoted Christians remained faithful. We should do the same.

It is time now for resistance. It is time for orthodox bishops to cross diocesan lines; it is a time for defiance not acquiescence. Orthodox bishops both active and retired can at least risk their titles for the defense of the faith. No one is throwing them to the lions. God does not require that we win; all He requires of us is that we be faithful.

END

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