In a two-part series "Follow the Money" in The Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, editor James Naughton excoriates the network of conservative groups, "their donors and the strategy that has allowed them to destabilize the Episcopal Church...The groups represent a small minority of church members, but relationships with wealthy American donors and powerful African bishops have made them key players in the fight for the future of the Anglican Communion to warn deputies that they must repent of their liberal attitudes on homosexuality or face a possible schism."

The two-part story is a mixture of truth, half-truths, innuendo, conjecture, and misinformation.

As one orthodox Episcopalian noted when liberals organize it's just good activism and political savvy but when conservatives organize it's evil.

Naughton examines IRS documents of contributions made by Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., the savings and loan heir, and five secular foundations that have energized resistance to the Episcopal Church's decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop and to permit the blessing of gay and lesbian relationships.

The article sets contributions to organizations such as the American Anglican Council (AAC) and the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) in the context of the donors' other philanthropic activities which include support for conservative political candidates, think tanks and causes such as the intelligent design movement.

The foundations have provided millions of dollars to the IRD which, in a fundraising appeal in 2000, said it sought to "restructure the permanent governing structure" of "theologically flawed" Protestant denominations and to "discredit and diminish the Religious Left's influence."

Naughton then writes in a second article, "A Global Strategy," using internal emails and memos from leaders of the AAC and IRD to examine efforts to have the Episcopal Church removed from the worldwide Anglican Communion and replaced with a more conservative entity. The documents surfaced during a Pennsylvania court case. The article also explores the financial relationship between conservative organizations in the United States and their allies in other parts of the world.

The IRD was established in 1981 by neo-conservative intellectuals hoping to counter the liberal public policy agendas of the National and World Councils of Christian Churches.

Naughton also takes a swipe at two other key conservative organizations, the Ekklesia Society and the Anglican Communion Network, and bemoans the fact that he could not obtain financial information from them because they are not required to file Forms 990 as they are classified as religious institutions.

He writes: "Since the 1970s, charitable foundations established by families with politically conservative views have donated billions of dollars to what the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, has called "an extraordinary effort to reshape politics and public policy priorities at the national, state and local level." "When the General Convention of the Episcopal Church meets in Columbus next month it will do so in a politically charged atmosphere, created in some measure by conservative organizations supported by a small number of wealthy donors."

Naughton says that because the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay man with a male partner as bishop and permitting the blessing of same-sex relationships, (the Network) have aimed at establishing a parallel American province for Episcopalians who differed with their Church on the nature of same-sex relationships.

At the Dromantine conference in Northern Ireland, the Americans and their international allies collaborated with an unprecedented openness, in an attempt to force Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take a harder line against the Episcopal Church.

Naughton accuses the orthodox of "investing in upheaval" with millions of dollars to mount a global campaign to destabilize the Episcopal Church and break up the Anglican Communion. The donors include five secular foundations that have contributed heavily to politically conservative advocacy groups, publications and think tanks, and one individual, savings and loan heir Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., who has given millions of dollars to conservative causes and candidates, he says.

Naughton says that to challenge the elected leadership of the Episcopal Church, the IRD instituted an in-house effort called Episcopal Action. More significant, it nurtured an alliance with Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. who for the last ten years, has significantly - and for much of that time secretly - underwritten internal opposition to the Episcopal Church's policies on homosexuality.

Naughton traces money passed through the Ahmanson Foundation to the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Communion Network and the Ekklesia Society, run by the Rev, Canon Bill Atwood, "to foster international alliances within the Anglican Communion."

Naughton then says, quite falsely, that "one year later, they achieved one of their most important goals when the 1998 Lambeth Conference passed Resolution 1.10, declaring that same-sex relationships were incompatible with Scripture."

Naughton documents enormous amounts of money to conservative episcopal organizations like the AAC who rely heavily on donations from wealthy individuals. "Of its $565,647 in revenues in 1997, $67,000 came from membership dues, while more than $497,000 came in large donations from unnamed individuals, according to data the AAC provided to the Internal Revenue Service. Of that total, $230,000 came from one person. That funding pattern is still in evidence."

Naughton notes that the AAC spent $248,000 on its presence at the Episcopal Church's 2003 General Convention. By contrast, Integrity, the gay and lesbian organization which was the AAC's principal adversary on sexuality issues, spent some $60,000.

At Dromantine, Griswold became angry when the primates assembled for a meeting and found on their tables a document alleging various abuses of conservative Episcopal clergy and congregations by liberal bishops that Griswold said could only have been prepared by American activist.

Leaders of the conservative wing of the Church have worked since at least the 1990s to develop international alliances; those efforts first bore fruit at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, where the bishops in attendance passed a resolution declaring that physical intimacy between members of the same sex was incompatible with Scripture.

However, their efforts took on added significance during the crisis precipitated by the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire November 2, 2003.

The backlash against the Episcopal Church provided an opening for its adversaries to attempt to remove it from the Anglican Communion. The church's removal would have diminished its stature, and its membership, as 10 dioceses and several dozen parishes had expressed a desire to break with the church and remain within the communion. In addition, without the generally liberal voice of the Episcopal Church, the Communion would take on a more theologically conservative cast.

The crisis also created an opportunity for several influential primates in the developing world who wanted to move the Communion, composed of autonomous provinces, toward the centralized curial form of government advocated by the authors of the Ekklesia Society-sponsored publication To Mend the Net.

American conservatives responded with a two-pronged strategy: pressuring Williams to expel the Episcopal Church and replace it with Duncan's Network, while arguing that crisis required the primates to exercise authority that the Communion had never granted them.

Conservative leaders agreed on their strategy at a meeting in London on November 20, 2003. In attendance were Duncan, several American conservatives and several primates sympathetic to their cause. According to Duncan's notes, those present secretly agreed that the primates who supported the Network would announce their support to Williams, urge him to recognize the Network as the true expression of Anglicanism in the United States, and "Tell Rowan that if he will not recognize the Network they will separate from him."

Network leaders asked the primates to inform Williams that "in the present crisis the issue of boundaries is suspended," meaning that bishops could claim the right to minister uninvited in one another's provinces and dioceses.

The Network also requested that the primates refuse to recognize any bishop who had participated in Robinson's consecration. This, in effect, would have rendered 13 American sees, including the Diocese of Washington, as vacant.

Network leaders also asked that Duncan be regarded as Griswold's equal at all international gatherings. In addition, Duncan's notes say: "We commit to the guerilla warfare of the next year."

Duncan and the AAC maintained publicly that they were working to "realign" the Anglican Communion from within the Episcopal Church. But on January 14, 2004, The Washington Post published a story headlined, "Plan to Supplant Episcopal Church USA Is Revealed."

"Alternative oversight"

The article was based on a letter from the Rev. Geoff Chapman, rector of St. Stephen's, Sewickley-one of the larger parishes in Duncan's diocese-who said he was responding to an inquiry on behalf of the AAC and its "Bishops Committee on Adequate Episcopal Oversight." 10 The letter, dated December 28, 2003, was leaked to Post reporter Alan Cooperman.

In the letter, Chapman wrote that the AAC's "ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil" resulting in a "replacement jurisdiction." He added that conservatives would "seek to retain ownership of our property as we move into this realignment."

Into this chaotic atmosphere, the Windsor Report on Communion was released by Williams and the primates; its charge was to point a path away from schism without revisiting the issue of sexual morality, but rather by focusing on issues of governance and authority.

The commission chastised the Episcopal Church and called for an expression of regret and a moratorium on the future consecration of gay bishops. But it also chided bishops and primates who had authorized or participated in boundary crossings, and asked that they, too, express regret, and refrain from such actions in the future. Crossing diocesan and provincial boundaries "goes not only against traditional and often-repeated Anglican practice (as reaffirmed most recently by, for example, resolutions at Lambeth 1988 and 1998), but also against some of the longest-standing regulations of the early undivided church," the report said.

In October 2005, a number of primates from the Global South released a letter that was sharply critical of Williams, who had recently addressed them at a conference in Cairo. Several of the primates sought to distance themselves from the letter, and in the process, provided another glimpse of American advisors prodding southern primates to do their bidding.

Another blast came this week from someone called Daniel Webster a writer with THE WITNESS, a liberal Episcopal magazine that died and morphed onto the Internet as a cyber magazine. In an article, "This Schism Is Brought to You by the IRD", Webster admits that June 2006 may be a turning point in the history of the Christian church in America and in one branch of Christianity worldwide.

Then he opines, "Many believe a schism in the Episcopal Church USA and the worldwide Anglican Communion is inevitable after this summer. If it does occur it will not be about homosexuality or Gene Robinson or the blessing of same-sex unions. It will have been planned, plotted and engineered by the IRD and its very rich, ultraconservative henchmen (some women, but mostly men) who have targeted the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the United Methodist Church (UMC) and the Episcopal Church for nearly 25 years. Sexuality was just a hot-button issue the IRD could exploit along with "radical feminist theology" and what the IRD judges to be an abandonment of "biblical Anglican theology." In other words the IRD has little to do with religion, except for control and contempt of it, and everything to do with democracy and demagoguery.

It is not without its significance that Naughton's media report and The Witness report should be released at this time just weeks before General Convention 2006.

The question is why? First of all his report recognizes that there is spiritual warfare going on the Episcopal Church that will not be swept under the cathedral carpet, and that the minority orthodox who have been rolled over for 40 years by revisionist bishops and their pansexualists apparatiks will no longer play dead, be ignored, or worse, be treated as dumb. Over the years the orthodox have drawn more lines in the sand than there are rings around Saturn, and they have watched as the Episcopal Church has slowly withered with one outrage after another, starting with Bishop James Pike, right up to Bishop John Spong's recent outrageous statements, and the filtering of all this through the seminaries and into the pulpits via a growing cadre of liberal and revisionist bishops.

Secondly, Naughton's blitzkrieg attack on the orthodox begs the question as to why it is wrong for the orthodox to have serious financial backers when liberals have professional bagmen like George Soros who have poured billions of dollars into liberal organizations for the opposite reasons! Naughton is strangely silent on this and doesn't address it.

Thirdly, the orthodox have been rolled over for so long that when they finally (and perhaps too late) have gotten their act together they are eviscerated for doing so by revisionists who believe they should remain silent!

Fourthly, the liberal and revisionist leaders in the Episcopal Church do not speak for the vast majority of Episcopalians who remain basically orthodox because the Prayer Book and Scripture do not allow them to advance beyond that, and if they are not active in getting involved in the looming battle it is because (a) they are not being informed by their bishops and diocesan newspapers, (b) they don't want to rock the boat (c) what goes on in California, New York or New Hampshire 'is not our concern and we don't care anyway,' (d) we love our church and the graveyard where we plan to get buried, (e) the average size of an episcopal parish is 77, the average age is 66 and most are too old to fight, (f) they like the rector and have usually forgotten what he preached about 10 minutes after the sermon has been delivered and can't wait for coffee, tea and gossip in the hall later, (g) they are happy to pay their tithe because they see the bishop only once in three years and even if he is a sociopath like Bishop Charles Bennison, he is in and out so quickly, they have forgotten what he looks like five minutes after he has gone. (h) Most Episcopalians couldn't defend substitutionary atonement but they like the stations of the cross and all the nice statues and pictures on the wall of the sanctuary and they have seen Mel Gibson's movie and don't understand what Frank Griswold's problem is about all the blood that Jesus shed. Most Episcopalians have the general idea that this has something to do with their sins and the need for salvation, though that does sound awfully Baptist. Finally as they don't understand what Griswold is saying anyway, it is safe to say that after the second Scotch and soda he is irrelevant. He is.

Fifthly, Naughton conveniently overlooks the fact that there are two very distinct warring sides that have formed, and in Columbus, Ohio will see them in pitched battle.

On the left, the House of Deputies, made up largely of liberal and revisionist clergy and laity and their sycophants in the House of Bishops who are too afraid to vote against the people who pay their salaries. Other groups and individuals include: Via Media, Integrity, Every Voice Network, Frank Griswold, V. Gene Robinson, The Witness, and all manner of sexual varieties under the rubric LGBT - lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered and/or transsexual. Also included will be their straight camp followers who are pro-homosexual, and who preach inclusivity, diversity, anti-racism, more women bishops, the need to blast homophobia and who hate the orthodox with a living passion and shout "oppression" every time they open their mouths and believe that the gospel is about transformation not about inclusion.

Arrayed on the other side is the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), 900 clergy, a dozen or so bishops; the American Anglican Council (AAC); Anglicans United, Ekklesia, Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC), SAMS, FOCUS, CtSix, Anglican Alliance of North Florida, VirtueOnline (VOL) and a small group of orthodox listservs and Blogs.

Naughton just wishes the latter would go away or be absorbed by the Episcopal Borg.

It isn't going to happen. There are also some 22 orthodox Anglican Primates rooting for ECUSA's faithful to win a few rounds this summer, or hear a word of solid repentance from the revisionists. They should be so lucky.

Furthermore Naughton fails to address the fact of how we got into the mess in the first place! He completely (ohmygod) forgets the fact that it is not the orthodox that have moved, but he and his liberal pals who have twisted and distorted the gospel and caused the dissension which has reached global proportions!

He fails to address the fact that of the $152 million dollar ECUSA budget being spent this year, not a penny is being spent to advance The Great Commission, it is all about Frank Griswold's "mission" which is socio-political in nature, advancing UN resolutions for peace on earth without reference to the Prince of Peace! Griswold also has Imam fever and wants us all to get along and blames America for what happened on 911. He also thinks Cuba's economic problems are caused by American foreign policy and not Fidel's folly.

Naughton also flat out lies when he implies that the African vote at Lambeth '98 (527 to 69) was bought by chicken dinners and revives, by implication, the old VIOC saw - (Vast International Orthodox Conspiracy) which bishops like Barbara Harris resurrect on occasion to rip into the orthodox.

Bishops like Washington bishop John Chane admit that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are engaged in a bitter internal struggle and reiterates the fiction that this struggle by the leaders of the global communion of 77 million members is about the pastoral concern for gays and lesbians. Nonsense. It is about their BEHAVIOR that bothers the Global South Primates. No one has ever questioned the need for pastoral care for gays. What is embarrassing is why orthodox ECUSA dioceses have not put into place ex-gay movements like EXODUS to help gays flee their abominable sexual attractions.

Naughton and The Witness both want to blame the IRD, ACN and anyone else for the crisis in the Episcopal Church; a crisis of faith and morals that is reaching into all the major American mainline denominations.

But the real issue is not all the grumble about who is financing whom, but about the 'faith once delivered to the saints' and the truth is the revisionists can't defend the theological issues because they have no faith to proclaim, so they resort to blasting the orthodox about money.

At the end of the day, if the revisionist agenda sweeps all before it at GC2006, the temporary winner will be the ECUSA, but the victory will be entirely short-lived and pyrrhic. They may vote in a gay or lesbian bishop in California, elect another revisionist Presiding Bishop, but the majority of Global South Primates will raise a mighty fuss, and a newly invigorated orthodox Rowan Williams may "disinvite" ECUSA to Lambeth 2008; and then it will be a case of the Episcopal Church being on the outside looking in, and there is nothing worse than being a scorned bride, especially when you thought that money could buy you a permanent seat at the Anglican table of the Lord.

For the full two part Washington Window report click here: www.edow.org/follow

For the Witness story click here: http://www.thewitness.org/article.php?id=1058

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