Meeting in Kanuga, NC the Episcopal communicators drew fellow journalists from England, Australia, El Salvador, Ghana, Kenya, Haiti, Panama, South Africa, and Wales. The theme of the conference was deliberately planned to "listen" and called for a more intentional approach to local, national and global church communications, said its leaders in a press release following the meeting.

Now "listening" has become a much favored word used by ECUSA's liberal elite. Behind this word is the idea of keeping an open mind, usually indefinitely, with the sin being to close it on anything substantial. God forbid. By keeping an open mind one can, presumably, allow anything to go in and out at random without stopping on the way to examine if in fact it might be true - the issue of sexual boundaries being a case in point.

The conference listened to how communications ministries are being practiced in different parts of the world and heard some of the challenges of fellow brothers and sisters in the Anglican/Episcopal family.

The Rev. Sipo E. Mzimela, an Anglican priest from South Africa who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, addressed the conference June 3, delivering a sobering account of the international perception of the United States. He said he "sensed a radical shift in how South Africans think of Americans." Opponents of democracy now point to the invasion of Iraq and ask if that is what they want South Africa to be. "You cannot imagine," Mzimela said, "the impact this war is having around the world."

Perhaps, but what has American foreign policy got to do with the Anglican Communion and how it is being torn apart, and what is the connection between the two? Whether America is loved or hated by others is the business of national and international politics, the President and the State Department; it has got nothing to do with how the Anglican Communion and its communicators is or should be conducting its own affairs. Bush bashing by ECUSA's liberals is now a favorite pastime.

In a question and answer session following Mzimela, remarks flowed about the role and makeup of the international community. The divisions and boundaries we place on one another are artificial, he said. Really, and how is a South African living and enjoying the benefits of this country to make any sense of that.

"In the final analysis, there is no Iraqi, no American, no South African....we are one family, one people...We need a new world: a world where we understand that truth. We are one."

And how does one create "oneness" through endless UN resolutions and voting out a Republican president? The truth is sick and fallen man has no ability to make one out of many, only the Son of Man can do that. Liberal fantasies like this need to be shot down.

In the end Mr. Mzimela has no ability to change anything but himself and through the preaching of peace through the Prince of Peace can any kind of real hope and reconciliation be found.

Priorities in Jerusalem

Nancy Dinsmore, an American missionary and director of development in the Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East made up of 7,000 Anglicans in five countries: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel offered up that the diocese is losing its young people to emigration, as extended families move away from the areas of strife and violence.

That is true, but who is most responsible for that? The truth is that nationalist Arab groups, Islamic hard liners, a corrupt Palestinian Authority and not just the Israelis have caused Arab Christians to flee the State of Israel and Palestine. Both sides bear responsibility for Arab flight.

Despite the catalogue of eminent social services that are being offered, the failure to address the rock bottom causes of the pain in the Middle East were simply not addressed.

Dinsmore said that her highest priority as director of development was the initiation of long-term relationships, working with the "living stones," the people of the region. Characterizing her work and the work of the diocese, she said, "Peace isn't only possible, it's our only choice." Indeed it is.

Listening and understanding

In a workshop led by Katerina Katsarka Whitley on Communicating Across the Cultural Divide, Ms. Whitley focused on how to listen with intelligence and understanding to people of other cultures. Whitley, an adjunct professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, explained that everyone is brought up ethnocentric. "It is only education that brings about this change and eradicates the preconceived motions," she said. "Everyone has prejudice; the difference is how much and how we control it."

Highlighting the differences between individualism and collectivism, Whitley, who was born in Greece and moved to the United States at the age of 16, described the U.S. as a "supremely individualistic culture." Because of that, she said, it doesn't understand collectivistic culture. "Individualistic cultures are very impatient, ambitious, longing to make money and very direct in communications to one another," she said. "Collectivistic cultures think of 'we' rather than 'I' and decision making affects the group and community rather than the individual." Whitley urged the workshop to remember this when thinking of the struggles in the Anglican Communion.

Ms. Whitley should know better. The last great "collectivist" experiment was the Soviet Union and it collapsed under the weight of 70 years of collectivist thinking, then abandoned by its leaders as a total failure.

Furthermore the struggles in the Anglican Communion have nothing to do with American individualism, it has everything to do with bad theology and morals, something Ms. Whitley either knows nothing about or was too coy to mention.

The different value systems in societies also contribute enormously to misunderstandings and misinterpretations between cultures, Whitley explained, contrasting the honor/shame system that exists in Arab culture, and Western society, which is based on the concepts of right and wrong. "If we shame the Iraqis we will never be forgiven," she said.

In case Ms. Whitley doesn't remember, shame arose as a result of a certain incident that took place in a Garden several thousand years ago. After an illicit fruit picking incident, good and evil became firmly established, and we have each individually ratified the Fall ever since.

Whitley described how we all have a "perceptual set" of values, beliefs and attitudes and how this changes from culture to culture. This, she explained, is why there is more respect for a bishop in African society than there is in the US, adding that America is a "low context" society, whereas Asia and Africa are "high context" societies.

This is nonsense. If there is no respect for bishops in North America it has nothing to do with culture, but everything to do with what the fact that the majority of ECUSA's and Canada's bishops no longer believe 'the faith once delivered' and are relying on the canons to enforce conformity to their unbelief.

Biblically orthodox priests despise heterodox bishops precisely because they don't believe anything, and get paid vast sums of money for actually dissembling the faith and confusing the faithful who pay their bills.

Bishops in Africa (and I have been there) are loved precisely because the bishops are shepherds of their sheep and they feed the sheep and the sheep look up to them. And why not? The majority of American bishops have no gospel to proclaim, and they feed nothing but their own bank accounts, and the more money they make the less they believe. They are secure knowing they have pensions right to their graves.

Furthermore the "values" of Christians in the US and those Christians in Nigeria are almost the same. Our "values" arise out of our belief systems. Orthodox believers in North America are completely at home with orthodox Nigerians...there is not a sliver of difference in "values", faith or anything else.

Finally, Whitley pointed out the difference between listening as intentional and hearing as unintentional and involuntary. "Critical thinking is asking questions and only then can we become constructive, which is the highest rung of the listening ladder," she said. "We have to understand the differences within the context. We have made so many mistakes because we didn't understand the culture. We have so much educating to do."

The truth is culture has little to do with it. When I travel to countries with cultures different from my own, (in India you eat with your right hand only) what unites me to my fellow brother Nigerians is not the difference in the color of our skin, the car I drive (the bishops have better ones), or the kind of food we both eat. What unites us is a common faith in Christ and everything else is subsumed or made largely irrelevant to that central truth. The Nigerian struggle is between Islam (Shari'a Law) and Christianity, and between the biblically orthodox driven Nigerian Anglican Church versus the Western heterodox Episcopal Church. Those are the struggles, they have little or nothing to do with "culture." Culture is vastly over-rated.

And on the issue of "critical thinking" let us say this. The African bishops are in the midst of the most critical thinking of their lives, and they are thinking critically about Western pluriformity and pansexual behavior which is ripping the church apart. And they will have none of it.

They have "listened" to Frank Griswold whine about sodomy at every Primates meeting since 1998 and they are sick to death of it. And if he doesn't repent of his actions for consecrating the sodomite bishop of New Hampshire they may well shun him from the Supreme Club of Purple.

The African bishops are in the business of saving souls...by the millions, while ECUSA becomes more "inclusive" and "diverse" succeeding only in emptying churches with a false doctrine of come as you are, stay as you are.

Now one of the biggest fantasies of this meeting was The Episcopal Church's new Episcopal Ad Campaign being promoted by Dan England, director of communication for the ECUSA.

He gave a presentation about the "National Ad Campaign", which is actually designed to work as a local ad campaign. ECUSA's last General Convention authorized $750,000 for this fantasy. (That money could do more fighting AIDS in Africa than puffing ECUSA through a phony public relations campaign.)

The idea here is to jump start The Episcopal Church even as it is divided by heresy, is in free fall with parishes closing, money drying up and is being whacked by 22 Global Primates about once every week, facts that are not even mentioned in Episcopal Life, the church's national newspaper.

But these "communicators" did have a workshop about "How to get an Online Presence given by Nicolas Knisely". No word on what Mr. Knisely said, but this writer would have been delighted to tell them how...and how effective it is.

Reflecting on the Global Anglican Communion, Canon James M. Rosenthal, director of communications for the Anglican Communion noted that "in these difficult times the highest degree of unity for the sake of God's people should be our aim."

But unity has a price tag, and for the Global South that price tag is way too high to sell the faith short.

But a couple of attendees from very liberal dioceses in Australia opined that, "We work in an environment of misinformation which makes it difficult to make informed decisions." No word on WHO the misinformer is, but we can guess. But an Australian woman communicator did say one thing that rang true, "the power of Christian media can be used to change public opinion." Virtuosity couldn't agree more.

"It is important to make the effort to cross the miles," she said, "so that we can together get the strength, energy and clarity to combat this misinformation." Indeed it is. Virtuosity is glad to oblige.

Bringing greetings from CAPA - the African bishops - an African communicator observed the cultural differences, particularly in spirituality, between Africa and America. "There was a lack of talking about Jesus," he said. "Maybe faith is more of a private thing in the US but I think we need to be talking about Jesus' message." Really. One hopes these messengers (communicators) of Anglican enlightenment were "listening".

In their final worship, the Rev. Dan Webster, director of communications for the Diocese of Utah, said one of the biggest challenges is "looking at what is compromising us," adding that we should not delude ourselves by "compromising for the sake of peace" but should seek "comprehension for the sake of unity."

Indeed we should Mr. Webster, and perhaps it could start with Episcopal Life mentioning the crisis the Episcopal Church is having with 22 Primates for ordaining an avowedly homoerotic bishop, and whether ECUSA will still be part of the Anglican Communion once the Lambeth/Eames Commission has finished its work.

Now that will be worth "listening" for. We wait with baited breath.

END