Shiflett goes on to visit with Orthodox, Catholics, Southern Baptists, and other traditionalists who still believe in the unchanging, omnipotent God who revealed Himself in infallible Scripture. The same God who was preached in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. "Such old-fashioned, rigid beliefs should marginalize their adherents in our open-minded, indulgent culture. But people are flocking to such churches, even if they don't agree with everything that is preached there. People obviously prefer a powerful God."

Shiflett concludes that people will not go to church on Sunday to sit on a hard pew to hear what they could hear from their television or read in a newspaper while sitting on their comfortable couch. For religion to capture their interest, it must have a higher standard than the nightly news. It must demand something of them; it must impact their entire lives.

Mr. Shiflett is absolutely right. Listening to the drivel and whine of ECUSA's revisionist bishops, clergy and liberal seminary theologians spouting pluriformity, diversity, tolerance and a misplaced compassion for homosexual behavior, is bringing about the denomination's demise and sowing the seeds of its eventual downfall.

The result is Episcopalians are leaving the church in droves. The last official statistics we have are that the church lost 36,368 confirmed members in 2003. That is an average of 100 PER DAY! The average Episcopal Church has 77 members, most over 60. The loss then is quite significant.

Of course that is not happening in orthodox dioceses, some of which are actually growing, but the overall trend is not good. It would not be out of the realm of possibility that while the Diocese of Albany continues to grow and expand with spiritually healthy, mature bishops like Daniel Herzog and David Bena; the Diocese of Central New York, on the other hand, could go down the drain with its revisionist bishop Gladstone "Skip" Adams who seems bent on destroying orthodoxy in his diocese.

One need only compare say a spiritually healthy diocese like South Carolina with a dying diocese like Newark to see the difference. Jack Spong gutted Newark; Ed Salmon is planting new churches.

And the more ECUSA's apostasies and heresies are shouted through the Internet, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and occasionally from pulpits, and the bludgeoning and tyranny by revisionist bishops of orthodox clergy (and VirtueOnline exposes) continues, the more we will see the lines harden and ecclesiastical and civil lawsuits increase.

It seems to this writer that what is happening is not dissimilar to that of Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened by God to allow the temporary persecution of his people the Israelites, but then at the end God moved in and destroyed Pharaoh and his armies. It was a 100 per cent no contest wipe out at the Red Sea.

God, it appears, is hardening the hearts of ECUSA's revisionist bishops(modern day Pharaohs) and by their use and misuse of the canons they are bringing the wrath of godly lawyers (yes there are some) down on the heads of these bishops and they are being forced into civil courts where, in a number of cases they are losing not only parishes, but legal fees as well.

It was reported to VirtueOnline that in the Diocese of Los Angeles, Bishop J. Jon Bruno has said that it has cost the diocese, so far, between $1 and $1.5 million dollars in legal fees to fight three parishes, with one parish, St. James, Newport Beach winning an $81,000 anti-SLAPP judgment in its favor.

A source told VirtueOnline that these cases could drag on for 3 or 4 years with the bishop paying an estimated $6 million to a high-priced LA law firm to try and win back these parishes, and there is no guarantee that he will.

Is it any wonder then that some 28 bishops met for a private powwow in Puerto Rico recently to try and figure out what to do. In its infinite wisdom the House of Bishops created a 10-member task force of attorneys and other experts to help defend the Episcopal Church and its dioceses against attempts by congregations or other dioceses to secede from the Episcopal Church with their property. In short they want the properties for a future generation of Episcopalians who may not even exist.

High church evangelical and Prayer Book leader the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon stated it well when he said, "When a whole Church is in apostasy, it is infected with a particular contagious disease that has moral and spiritual dimensions. And all the members, clergy and laity, have this disease whether they approve or disapprove of the latest innovations in apostasy. Now the signs of the disease may be prominent or hidden but the disease is there affecting all, for all belong to the One Body and have much in common (not least being the health schemes and the pension plans). And like the diseases of original and actual sin, all those who have this disease of apostasy are guilty before God. In fact no member of the ECUSA is without this disease and so all partake of the guilt it brings."

Toon continues, "There is much about apostasy in the Old Testament, especially in the prophetic descriptions and denunciations, as the covenant people are called to forsake their evil ways and to engage in repentance and faith. And there is not a little in the New Testament in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles about apostasy (which was relatively common even in the apostolic age!), calling the people of the new covenant to return to their first love and then mature in this pure faith."

"Apostasy includes such terrible sins as rebellion against God, his revelation and his laws, pride instead of humility, untruths instead of truth, immorality instead of morality, affirmation of sinful man instead of the magnifying of the Lord our God, the love of this world and its ways instead of the love of Christ and his kingdom of glory."

And then Toon ripped its bishops saying, "The ECUSA has systematically, democratically and knowingly set aside much of its holy inheritance in terms of dogma, doctrine, teaching, worship, pastoral care, and godly discipline, as it has sought to be relevant to the modern world and to reflect the concerns, priorities and values of the secularized society in which it exists. It has attempted to be in this world and for this world by being of this world, looking for peace and justice, understood in modern terms."

Whether we are inside or outside of the ECUSA we need HEALING of our diseases, both individually and corporate, by the God of our Salvation and the Healer of our souls and bodies, writes Toon.

Which brings us back to why Americans are fleeing liberal churches for conservative ones; they are doing so because their souls are hungry and they cry out for spiritual bread not stale husks.

The Episcopal Church has sown to the wind and it is reaping the whirlwind and unless it truly repents, as called for in the Windsor Report, it will continue to decay and decline and Hosea 8:7 will be the epitaph of a once proud denomination.

END