"I did this because we were reaching people who were not going to church, had not been going to church, evangelizing them, standing up and preaching one gospel while the Episcopal Church preaches another gospel," he told VirtueOnline. McCurry has been received into the Province of Rwanda by Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini. His local (interim) bishop is T. J. Johnston.

"It was time to go," said McCurry who had just returned from the AMIA's annual winter conference in Myrtle Beach, SC. "At the conference I saw how strong the organizational structure was and how much their beliefs and ours were in line, it was a natural fit. The AMIA offers blended evangelistic and charismatic worship with ecclesiastical and liturgical order. We are still Anglicans and we want to remain part of the Anglican Communion."

When asked why he did not come under an overseas orthodox Primate, McCurry said he had had discussions with Bolivia Bishop Frank Lyons, "but at the end of the day AMIA was for us." McCurry said he and his congregation were members of the Anglican Communion Network.

McCurry said he discussed his decision with the vestry before hand and met with each individually and told them he would make a pronouncement that week. "We had a strong response and a lot of people from the congregation. I made the announcement on January 23. The people said they knew this day would come, but there was still a surprise element."

Asked why he did not wait till after the Primates meeting in Ireland before making the decision to leave, McCurry said the property would still have been an issue. "We were not in a Network diocese. Bishop Henry Parsley is an institutionalist. He keeps saying 'what is biblical orthodoxy' - we know the answer to that even if he doesn't. He keeps quoting that overused line, "schism is a greater sin than a heresy." Parsley voted against the consecration of homosexualist V. Gene Robinson and against same sex unions.

McCurry said he and Parsley met and talked. "He told me that what I was doing was difficult for the church and why couldn’t we work something out? He said I was different from the rest at Trinity, another church in conflict with him. He also said homosexuals were born and couldn’t help themselves."

"Parsley asked me to resign my orders. I said I would not. He said he would release me from my orders. I expect he will inhibit and depose me." McCurry is a graduate of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and was ordained in 1996. He came to Christ Redeemer in 2000 after holding parishes in Valdosta, Georgia and Austin, Texas.

McCurry said the issue of his leaving had been brewing since before GC 2003 when he met with the rector of Christ Church, Mobile and discussed the possibility of joining the AMIA at that time, but the time was not right. "I got heavily involved with the NETWORK. I did not have a Network bishop and Parsley had given us a pastoral directive to get out of the Network and had I not done so we would have been in trouble. We had reached an impasse."

"Christ the Redeemer became a congregation after the Dennis Canon in 1981 and freely
deeded the parish to the diocese. To fight for the property would have been an enormous cost to the congregation both financially and spiritually."

McCurry said he was committed to remaining friends with those that choose to stay. "It is not an acrimonious split. We have a leadership team in place, and we have incorporated."

But senior warden Julian McPhillips who is staying with the remnant said the decision by McCurry to leave the diocese and the Episcopal Church came as a surprise. McPhillips was a co-founder of the congregation in 1980. "We had agreed at a vestry meeting earlier this month to discuss this further and to meet with the church body in two town hall meetings and further to see what would happen in February with the Primates meeting in Ireland. This was circumvented by a unilateral decision of the rector McCurry after he returned from an AMIA conference."

A week earlier we had been talking about expanding the church plant and we had never been doing so well as a congregation, he told VirtueOnline. "It took us by surprise. The unfortunate thing is he (McCurry) challenged the congregation as a test of faith to go with him. I am a faithful person and I did not see this as one person making a decision for all of us."

"There had been a lot of talk about succession and if we could take church property worth between $5 and $6 million and I feel we could have won the case for the property had we all stayed together and waited for the Primates to act."

McPhillips said he had no great loyalty to the bishop but only to Christ the Redeemer church. "It has been holy ground, we have seen sudden and dramatic healings and we didn’t want to walk away from it. This was not a split on the theological issues underlying the Episcopal Church, we know what the ECUSA stands for on gay issues and we don't like it at all. The only split was the solution and what to do about it. We feel that what McCurry did was unnecessary and unwise at this time. In time had he the patience we could have kept the church body together and the property."

McPhillips, an attorney, is the subject of a book, "The People's Lawyer" and has won a lot of historic cases against the government involving constitutional rights."

END