Many Christians grow up in church, but never grow in Christ. They know hymns, but they don't know "HIM" -- Michael Brown

God would never permit evil, if He could not bring good out of evil -- St. Augustine

Research shows the most productive decade of your life is 60-70, the second is 70-80 and the third is 50-60. Caleb was still as strong at 85 as he had been in his youth --- Nicky Gumbel

Modeling the Future of Religion in America. If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades -- Pew Research

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
September 16, 2022

The Pew Research Center isn't ruling out a future religious revival in America," writes Daniel Silliman, news editor for Christianity Today. "But given the country's steady trends away from faith affiliation, experts don't know what it would look like to see a return."

"We've never seen it, and we don't have the data to model a religious reversal," Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer told Christianity Today.

"There are some who say that revival never happens in an advanced economy. After secularization, you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. But we don't know that. We just don't have the data."

The data they do have, from 50 years of research by the General Social Survey and Pew's own survey of 15,000 adults in 2019, indicates the current trend is inexorable. People are giving up on Christianity. They will continue to do so.

And if you're trying to predict the future religious landscape in America, according to Pew, the question is not whether Christianity will decline. It's how fast and how far. The fastest growing group are Nones, people without any religion, but sometimes with a vaguely defined spirituality.

These are sober and somber words.

Lifeway Research analyzed church data from 34 Protestant denominations and groups and found that 4,500 churches closed in 2019, while about 3,000 new congregations were started. Not a good sign, but not fatal either.

Perhaps all is not lost. Many of the churches that closed ought to close, they had no business staying open. They no longer preached a clear apostolic gospel; they embraced homosexuality and homosexual marriage expressly forbidden by scripture. The churches were demographically old with no young people coming forward as the next generation of believers to fill pews. The pastors of these dying churches were doing little more than playing out an end game waiting for their pensions.

The churches that are forming are doing so because of the vision of one or more persons with the ability to draw like-minded people around them ready to take the plunge and plant a new church.

Full disclosure, my wife and I are involved in a new church plant in upstate New York with a former Hispanic Methodist minister who got kicked out of his church for all the wrong reasons.

After getting over the shock, he and his wife, along with their four small children moved into high gear and are starting over. They will meet in a home for a few months. The pastor has built a website, pushed the news of the opening on social media and estimates when the doors open on Sept. 25, some 30 people will walk in. That's chutzpah. It's also prayer, Bible studies, looking at the neighborhood and believing God is still doing a new thing in the wreckage of churchianity in America.

Pastor Rick Warren, formerly of Saddleback Church in Southern California said that during the pandemic, Saddleback members led over 16,000 people to Christ. "We're in revival. We're averaged about 80 people a day coming to Christ -- 80 people a day." Most of that, he added, came through one-on-one evangelizing, not by his sermons.

The Anglican Church in North America was born out of the morally dissolute Episcopal Church and is thriving. Its members are committed to evangelism and discipleship. There are ministries within the ACNA like the America Anglican Council assisting priests and churches to grow with REVIVE weekends. There are ministries like EKKLESIA reaching out to Global South bishops and archbishops, helping to feed their people both physically and spiritually. A New Wineskins movement provides education, participating in Christ's life as it bears upon various forms of cultural engagement for the sake of individual and community transformation. And there are ministries like Anglican Frontier Ministries and Love for the Least that are reaching unreached people with the gospel. They make new disciples in house churches that form in Muslim countries closed to the gospel. Most of it is under the political radar.

The church is growing in China, with an estimated 100 million Christians which will, in time, prove to be a bigger headache for communist authorities than the Uighurs. Africa is booming with gospel proclamation. Southeast Asia is coming alive and South America is seeing renewal through Pentecostal awakening. There is even talk of African evangelists re evangelizing America. Well, rock on I say.

Yes, America is in trouble, but the Lord is not going to listen to a handful of wealthy, overweight evangelical preachers rage on about the End Times, predicting the Lords return because America and the West is in trouble. We made our problems, God didn't, and maybe he is saying to us 'get your house in order', read your bibles and pray; I have reserved unto myself 7,000 ready to do my bidding.

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The big news of the last two weeks is, of course, the death of Queen Elizabeth
II; King Charles III now reigns and all eyes are fixed on how he will rule. I have posted a summary of global Anglican responses to her passing which you can read here. https://virtueonline.org/queen-elizabeth-ii-dies-tributes-pour-around-anglican-communion and here: https://virtueonline.org/passing-queen

The NYTimes took a swipe at the queen's passing about her empire and commonwealth wanderings and got push back from Canon Chris Sugden and Indian born missionary Vinay Samuel. You can read what they had to say here. https://virtueonline.org/queen-elizabeth-ii-empire-commonwealth-and-christian-faith

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Some people seem to like punishment. Charlie Holt has once again thrown his hat in the ring to become the next bishop of Florida. On the first time he won, but sexual revisionists shouted voting irregularities in the voting process, and got the election nullified. That was really just an excuse to invalidate Holt's win. Behind it was the truth that Holt is an evangelical who doesn't buy homosexual marriage. That brought out all the bottom feeders and ultra-liberal theologian, Diana Butler Bass raging that Holt was unfit for the task. Never mind that Holt got an endorsement from black church leaders. A new election is planned for November. Holt's name is back on the short list of three this time. He is clearly the best qualified, and if he wins this time round, his life will be made a living hell by the pansexual mob. He might want to have a come-to-Jesus talk with the former Bishop of Albany, Bill Love, or the former bishop of Central Florida John W. Howe before he raises his hands to heaven in thankfulness that justice triumphed. Of course, it remains to be seen if the HOB gives its consent or is bullied by PB Curry and the mostly revisionist HOB to reject him.

The Diocese of Albany is also looking for a new bishop. Based on their history, nobody would dare run who did not uphold Resolution B012, so it's a pretty well forgone conclusion that whoever wins will appease the small handful of pro homosexual priests. The diocese for the most part is Anglo Catholic, but no one expects an uprising if the new bishop embraces homoerotic marriage.

The evangelical Diocese of Central Florida will also be looking for a new bishop following an announcement that Greg Brewer is heading into retirement. Who will replace him will either do what the bishop of Virginia did and announce that God had come of age and now accepted homosexual marriage, or he'll get the same treatment Charlie Holt got. If the wily George Conger throws his hat in the ring, he will have to do theological contortions to hold onto the job in the face of the diocese's Episcopal gaystapo.

***

In the department of will it ever end, the Episcopal Church and The Episcopal Church in South Carolina filed a Petition for Reconsideration and Rehearing with the South Carolina Supreme Court, asking the Court to reverse their ruling regarding the property rights of two parishes whose rights they had affirmed in their August 17 ruling.

Those parishes are: Old St Andrew's, Charleston, and the Church of the Holy Cross, Stateburg. Additionally, The Church of the Good Shepherd, Charleston, whose property rights the Court denied in their August 17 ruling, filed a Petition for Rehearing asking the Court to reconsider that ruling.

The new Anglican bishop of South Carolina Chip Edgar bemoaned the situation and said, "With me, you are likely tired of the back-and-forth and wondering if this will ever end. It will. Someday, in the not-too-distant future, I trust these matters will be behind us, and we will move forward--whatever the outcome--into ministry without this distraction."

***

The latest TEC figures will be coming out at the end of September, but we are told that ASA (average Sunday attendance) will not be included. "2019 will now be the last year of this particular iteration (ASA) of the parochial report," say TEC wonks. Word is that Covid skewed the figures so we can't be sure the numbers will be accurate. Membership numbers tell us nothing, of course, because the average Episcopal church sees about one third attendance of those on the books. It shouldn't be too difficult to extrapolate attendance.

***

The Episcopal Church's largest diocese, The Episcopal Church in Haiti is in big trouble.

Two men who belong to the diocese have been arrested for arms trafficking to Haiti. The intense arms trafficking to Haiti has implicated various members of the Episcopal Church. Haitian authorities arrested the accountant of the Episcopal Church of Haiti for a case of arms and ammunition trafficking at the dock of the National Port Authority (APN) involving the Church.

The Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste notes that it learned from police sources that they had arrested an accountant for the Episcopal Church, Jean Gilles Jean Mary. "His arrest came after he signed, between 2017 and 2021, several documents authorizing the disbursement of funds from the account of the Episcopal Church to the account of an international arms dealer, wanted by the DCPJ," the newspaper indicates.

This message came 48 hours after the hearing and custody of Father Frantz Cole by the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) "for arms and ammunition trafficking, smuggling, tax evasion, tax fraud, crimes of enrichment and laundering of assets resulting from serious crimes." You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/another-religious-man-arrested-arms-trafficking-haiti-episcopalian

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AN UPDATE ON THE MATTERS IN THE DIOCESE OF THE UPPER MIDWEST

Husch Blackwell has informed the Province that it is nearing the end of its investigation into the handling of sexual abuse allegations in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest and their report is expected to be released within the month.

On July 8, 2021, the Diocese of the Upper Midwest requested the Province take on oversight of its investigation. Husch Blackwell was hired by the Anglican Church in North America after selection by a unanimous vote of the Provincial Response Team (PRT) and majority vote of the survivors who participated in the firm selection process.

Our contract with Husch Blackwell stipulates the production of a "full public report that redacts names and identifying details to protect survivors and witnesses as appropriate." Husch Blackwell will deliver the report, and it will be relayed by the Anglican Church in North America through public communication channels upon reception.

As previously stated, Husch Blackwell has been committed to working with alleged victims and witnesses according to their preferred level of confidentiality while informing the participants of the limitations of using confidential and anonymous testimonies.

***

GAFCON chairman and ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach delivered a broadside to Archbishop Justin Welby over the recent creation of a new extra-provincial diocese in Australia -- the Diocese of the Southern Cross.

In his letter to the Anglican leader, Beach said the action taken was not done out of rebellion or defiance, but out of genuine pastoral concern and care for the clergy and congregations whose beliefs, reading of Scripture, and theology will not allow them to go along with the unbiblical and immoral practices allowed and encouraged by bishops of the Anglican Church of Australia.

"We will continue to offer safe harbor for those in Provinces whose leaders walk away from the moral teaching of the New Testament, the Church Fathers, and our Anglican heritage."

Beach went on to say that "some may unfairly slander us as schismatics, but you know that in reality it is those who depart from the established teaching of the Church who are causing the division (Epistle of Jude 18, 19). I implore you to call us all to repentance and to return to the Apostles' Teaching of the Bible."

You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/gafcon-chairman-sends-message-archbishop-welby-over-new-australian-diocese

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It is this writer's belief that western Anglicanism will be forced to capitulate to the Global South. At some point in the not-too-distant future, it will dawn on Archbishop Justin Welby that he no longer owns the Anglican communion; he no longer has the moral authority to throw his weight around with the vast majority of Anglicans failing to care what he thinks or says.

His two-prong approach to pansexuality at the recent Lambeth Conference was a logical, cultural, spiritual and theological farce. As a result, Welby has lost the last vestiges of whatever spiritual authority he had, slipping finally into irrelevancy progenitors paved for him by former archbishops Rowan Williams, Robin Eames, (of Windsor Report fame) Frank Griswold, (the "listening" Presiding Bishop), all leaders of its eventual demise. Such archbishops who led the slow dissolution should not go unrecognized. Welby inherited the mess and will go down with the ship.

Of course, it was hastened by former Nigerian primate Peter Akinola who wrote the book, Who Blinks First? Biblical Fidelity Against the Gay Agenda in the Global Anglican Communion. That book was a slam dunk at Rowan Williams, who told the African primate he would blink first over the Anglican Communion's inevitable acceptance of homosexuality. It never happened. Both sides became more entrenched in their views.

Justin Welby got major push back at the recent Lambeth Conference by a Sudanese and Indian Ocean archbishop who revealed the thorn in his side. Welby has been limping along ever since, hoping that individual provinces will confirm his notion that the "call" on homosexuality will work magic where resolutions have not. But Lambeth 1:10 remains the biblical standard. There is no going back. There will be no magic. You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/western-anglicanism-will-be-forced-capitulate-global-south

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The newly divorced and remarried Archbishop of Wales, Andrew John, recently offered his support to Pride Cymru. In a statement to the diocese, John said, "The Church in Wales has long supported Pride Cymru and each year we take part in the Faith Tent celebrations. It's important that the Church in Wales offers its full support to LGBT+ communities across Wales because justice is one of the hallmarks of the Christian faith and there is no place for discrimination in society.

"It has been 12 months since the Church in Wales passed a Bill to allow same-sex blessings in our church buildings and I am proud of this achievement. My episcopal colleagues and I fully support our LGBT+ friends.

"During the past year, we have called for a ban on conversion therapy, campaigned against a proposed law in Ghana which would penalise LGBT+ people and called on Lambeth Conference to redraft a document that we felt subverted the dignity of LGBT+ people. I was also delighted that the Bishop of St Asaph and the Bishop of Monmouth presided at an Open Table Eucharist service for LGBT+ Christians in Wales."

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HOW THE CHURCH IN AMERICA ALMOST DESTROYED CHRISTIANITY. In 2020, 47% of Americans said that they belonged to a church, down from 70% in 1999.

When the full history of American Christianity in the 21st century is written, some of the regurgitated headlines will read:
Methodism implodes amidst litigation
The Great Episcopal Church Robbery: 6,400 Congregation Properties Heisted by Radical Clergy
Largest group of Mennonite churches leaves denomination...over homosexuality
America's Oldest Denomination Faces Split Over LGBT Issues
Fit bodies, fat minds, why evangelicals don't think and what to do about it.

Of course, it will all be too late. Evangelicals now have fat bodies and are deemed to have little or no mind. As the late Anglican scholar Dr. J. I. Packer observed, "Evangelical minds are 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep."

We are fast approaching the point in which the Church of Jesus Christ in all its myriad forms in America will be viewed as the single biggest reason for its collapse. You can read more here: https://virtueonline.org/how-church-america-almost-destroyed-christianity

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A NEW BOOK, jointly written by myself and former Episcopal layman Brad Hutt with input from canon lawyer Allan Haley, titled The Great Episcopal Church Robbery: 6,400 Congregation Properties Heisted by Radical Clergy is out, and I am offering it to readers for a tax-deductible donation of $30.00 or more. This book follows my earlier book THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

The Great Episcopal Church Robbery tells the story of the purposeful take-over and co-opting of the Episcopal Church by radical clergy. As active participants of this 45-year-old Episcopal church dispute, the co-authors witnessed Dioceses, parishes, and congregations struggle to maintain Biblical orthodoxy and keep their church property in the face of an aggressive Episcopate hell bent on making the Episcopal church over in their own image by:
Ordaining women and homosexuals in violation of scripture.
Forcing churches to bless same sex marriages.

As the voice for Anglican orthodoxy - the Gospel is unequivocally central. We make no apologies for our views.

You can make a tax-deductible donation for the book and to keep the news coming to you. You can donate here by check, credit card or PAYPAL.

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