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Women make up Two-Thirds of Episcopal Church new Survey finds*Washington Bishop Budde fires National Cathedral Organist*CofE Gay Leader Stymied over Church's lack of Inclusion*Abortion is "doing God's work" say TEC leaders

We have a whole generation of young people who are clinging to politics and to politicized visions of sexuality for their belief system. They see nothing but politics, but politics is tiny. Politics applies only to society. There is a huge metaphysical realm out there that involves the eternal principles of life and death. --- Camile Paglia

Not only negative joys. Popular Christian devotion has perhaps concentrated too much on the negative joys of heaven, that is, on the promises of the Revelation that there will be no more hunger or thirst, no more scorching heat or sunstroke, no more tears or pain, no more night, no more curse, no more death. Thank God for these absences. But thank God even more for their cause, namely the presence -- the central, dominating presence -- of the throne of God! --- John R.W. Stott

"The Mass Media is the primary corrupter of minds and hearts and consciences." --- Cardinal Raymond Burke

The power, immense power of the media, creates ideas and images in men's minds. Those images overwhelm the weaker among us and weaken the power of the will. They darken the intellect, and with will and intellect so ravaged, sin and evil move in. --- Michael Voris

What more do we need to know? There is no need for us to speculate about the precise nature of heaven. We are assured on the authority of Jesus Christ that it is the house and the home of his Father and ours (there are twenty-two references to the Father in John 14), that his home is a prepared place containing many rooms or resting places, and that he himself will be there. What more do we need to know? To be certain that where he is, there we shall be also should be enough to satisfy our curiosity and allay our fears. --- John R.W. Stott

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
August 7, 2015

For several months, VOL has been engaged in learning just how deep and wide is the influence of women in the Episcopal Church. As you know, we now have some 21 women bishops in TEC. The first to be consecrated was Barbara Harris in 1989; the last is Audrey Scanlan who will be consecrated the XI Bishop of Central Pennsylvania in September. There are hundreds of women clergy. In fact a survey of over 7,000 parishes, conducted by a research team, revealed that some 32% of all clergy in TEC are women, but the big news is this. Nearly two-thirds of all congregations, some 62%, are made up of women with the remaining 38% being mainly men over 60 with just a sprinkling of young people.

This raises many questions, foremost of which is what have women achieved by way of church plants or church growth, and secondly, what is the long-term health and future of the church?

The answer to the first question is obvious: women bishops and women clergy have not made churches grow, even putting aside the ecclesial question as to whether women ought to be priests. They simply cannot and do not attract men or families to continue the Episcopal species. The Episcopal DNA pool is drying up.

And the long term health of the Church is also in question. Where is the next generation of Episcopalians to keep the doors open? Women bishops and women clergy, as well as openly gay and lesbian priests, are not draw cards, despite Bishop Gene Robinson thinking it would be. Brokering sodomy into the church has been a singular failure at attracting either the LGBTQI crowd or straight families. Clearly heterosexual families don't want their children exposed to a behavior that could deny them grandchildren even if the Boy Scouts now think otherwise.

Deep down people have a natural revulsion to homoerotic acts even if the culture continues to beat them over the head that "being gay" is perfectly normal. It is not and people know it. Most Americans, that is a simple majority, have drunk the Kool-Aid. Through a massive public relations campaign and a sympathetic president, they have been brow beaten into believing that they are just like us...a lie that will go on and on till the last pansexualist dies.

The survey took several months to complete. It is today's lead story. Read, learn and inwardly digest.

You can also read it here: http://tinyurl.com/ouucmed

*****

Once again, controversy envelops the troubled Washington National Cathedral.

According to several Cathedral sources, in early July, Mariann Edgar Budde fired the respected Cathedral Senior Organist and Associate Director of Music Christopher Betts. He had graduated from Oxford University as an organ scholar at Magdalen College. He played at several cathedrals in the UK, before serving the 5,000-member First United Methodist Church in Lubbock, Texas He led a popular 41-member choir called the Cathedral Voices. At the same time of the firing, Budde also disbanded the volunteer choir.

Betts came to the Washington National Cathedral about three years ago. This popular choir had been singing for the 9 AM service for about 9 years. One choir member described Chris as a "masterful" director. Another choir member described him as both "Christian" and "musical."

Betts' choir mourns his unhappy departure as well as the sorrow of the choir's own demise. One choir member wrote on social media how even a portion of the large salaries of Budde and Dean Gary Hall could have saved both Betts' job and the choir. Together this part of the music program cost about $150,000. Choir members state there was no discussion about these aggressive actions. Dean Hall has planned a meeting about this after church services on August 9.

Betts was "one of the top organists in the country." Complaints about the leadership of Budde and Hall abound. One member said, "Their priority is catering to the tourists." She continued and said and this was "very short sighted to eliminate a volunteer choir." Another stated that this takes away much of the substance of the Cathedral congregation.

You can read the full story in today's digest.

*****

Is the Church of England quietly pushing back against the gay steam roller of pansexual acceptance? You might well think so if you listened and read what its leading pansexualist said this week. The Rev. Colin Coward, Director of Changing Attitude, expressed frustration at what he called the Logjam in the House of Bishops, lamenting that, "We still don't have one single gay, bisexual bishop come out of the closet."

The leader of the Church of England's most strident pansexual organization launched an attack on the Church this week expressing his frustration that things are worse now than ever for homosexuals. He said there is far more conflict and insecurity at Lambeth Palace and the House of Bishops to commit themselves to doing the right thing.

He said things are worse now than they have ever been for LGBTQ persons despite what has been achieved at the political level by both labor and conservatives with marriage equality. The Church of England is not keeping up with the times, he added.

"What have we achieved? Last year the HOB voted 22 bishops in favor of equal marriage, one against, and 23 abstained or were not there. The majority did not approve of equal marriage," he bewailed.

Expressing three parts outrage, indignation, and despair, Coward opined, "We still don't have a single gay/bisexual bishop that has been able to come out and reveal themselves." He described the situation as "extraordinary" and a "huge problem for the Church."

Not really. Members of the CofE's House of Bishops can read tealeaves. They know full well that they are outnumbered globally. If they cave in to sodomy, the GAFCON and Global South Primates will rise up (and not call them blessed) and possibly take the next step beyond "impaired communion" and declare themselves fully OUT OF communion with the CofE. They don't want to see that happen, especially as the GAFCON primates met in London under Archbishop Welby's nose to declare once again that 'the faith once for all delivered to the saints' was not up for expansion or contraction.

Lambeth 1:10 hangs like a Damoclean Sword over Welby's head.

You can read my analysis of Coward's remarks here or in today's digest. http://tinyurl.com/og97ks9

PS. This week Coward, after 20 years at the helm of Changing Attitude, announced he is retiring.

*****

The former Vicar of Newport, England, the Rev. Canon Stephen Palmer (68) was jailed for assaulting a 17-year old girl 40 years ago. The Portsmouth Crown Court sentenced the priest to 39 months imprisonment for sexually abusing a girl in 1975-76 whilst he served as curate of Holy Rood Church Stubbington, Hampshire.

A former Naval Chaplain, he was appointed Chaplain to the Queen in 2008. Following his conviction on six counts of assault in May, a diocesan spokesman said: "We were distressed to hear that a former vicar from this diocese, the Rev Stephen Palmer, had been convicted on charges of indecent assault. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim, who has had to live with the consequences of these assaults for many years.

"Since the 1970s, safeguarding procedures and policies have been transformed in the Church of England, as well as in society generally. The safety of the children and young people in our care is paramount. Each of our parishes is required to follow detailed safeguarding policies to ensure that our children and young people are kept safe."

*****

Led by its arch supporter, [the Rev.] Susan Russell, Episcopal Church leaders continue their gadarene slide with the announcement that abortion has God's approval.

Weeks after videos emerged showing Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price of fetal organs, and with new videos being released by the California-based Center for Medical Progress on a daily basis, over a dozen states and two U.S. House of Representatives' committees have launched investigations into the practices of Planned Parenthood.

Episcopal Church officials have been silent about the controversy, but several prominent Episcopal clergy have outrageously affirmed the abortion giant as "doing God's Work." The Planned Parenthood Clergy Advocacy Board counts among its 14 members: Episcopal priests David A. Ames of Providence, RI, Gawain F. de Leeuw of White Plains, NY and Susan Russell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, who serves as Vice Chair of the board.

Russell's notoriously liberal activist congregation, which describes itself as a "prayerfully pro-choice church," even hosted a signup table for parishioners to support the pro-abortion clergy board in a letter to California's U.S. senators this past Sunday.

Shameful -- but hardly surprising. The Episcopal Church has long been an affiliate of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), an ostensibly religious organization funded by secular philanthropies and providing a veneer of religious support to abortion-on-demand.

As IRD President Mark Tooley wrote, "These clergy outrageously claim God's endorsement of Planned Parenthood but avoid mention of abortion or trafficking in baby parts, a seeming acknowledgement of the unsavory nature of Planned Parenthood's grisly work.

"Every denomination these clergy represent unsurprisingly has rapidly declining numbers," Tooley observed. "Clergy and churches should defend the vulnerable, not excuse their destruction. By embracing Planned Parenthood, these clergy serve an amoral deity of their own design, not a loving and just Heavenly Father."

Before she was let go from her position as president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass, Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, a lesbian, once screamed, "Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done."

*****

The Archbishop of Kenya and chairman of the GAFCON Primates' Council, Eliud Wabukala, condemned the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) and the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) for amending their marriage canons to accommodate so called "gay marriage."

He warned they were becoming increasingly bold in listening to the world rather than listening to the Scriptures and the witness of the Church through two millennia.

In a pastoral letter, the Kenyan primate also condemned TEC resolution AO51, passed at its 2015 General Convention in "Support of LGBT African Advocacy," which mandates the Church spread its ideas to Africa.

"In the light of this resolution it is increasingly difficult to see what purpose the dialogue of Continuing Indaba and associated projects such as Bishop Graham Kings' 'Mission Theology in the Anglican Communion' project can serve except as a means, even if unintentional, by which TEC can promote further confusion and division around the Communion."

You can read his full letter in today's digest.

*****

North Carolina Bishop and Presiding Bishop elect Michael Curry got a rude wake-up call this week when he learned that a new Anglican parish was formed out of an Episcopal parish under his care. After years of discernment (about the rudderless direction of TEC) by many at St. Thomas, Sanford, NC, a sizable group of almost 100 pulled up stakes and formed St. Francis Anglican Parish.

*****

Replacing the Gospel with Interfaith Collaboration in the Anglican Church of Canada.

If Jesus is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, the only way to the Father, the propitiation for our sins, God's only Son, the Logos who is eternally pre-existent, begotten not made -- if he is who he claims to be -- then all religions other than Christianity fall disastrously short of being true.

The Anglican Church of Canada, an organization that has been uncomfortable with undiluted truth for decades, is offering $10,000 grants to anyone willing to water down the Gospel with just about anything so long as it bears no resemblance to Christianity.

Canadian blogger Samizdat reports the following from an ACoC press release:

"Echoing principles laid out in the Marks of Mission, the Anglican Foundation of Canada (AFC) is offering five one-time grants of $10,000 each for new community service or outreach projects that involve interfaith collaboration. Requests for proposals are due Sept. 1, 2015.

"The grants are part of a new tradition for the Foundation, which beginning in 2014 pledged to set aside $50,000 each year to encourage and fund innovative ministry-related projects through a request-for-proposals process.

"This year's interfaith focus is designed to meet human need through loving service. Projects eligible for the grant will be new initiatives undertaken in 2016 that involve collaboration between Anglicans and individuals or groups from at least one religion other than Christianity."

*****

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis, Bishop of the Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Egypt has praised the opening of the new Suez Canal project. The original channel has been widened and deepened; an extra parallel canal -- 34 km long -- was dug in order to allow two-way traffic between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

The Old Suez Canal was the idea of the French Engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps; its Construction began April 25, 1859. It was completed and opened on Nov. 17 1869 after 10 years of construction. It allowed ships to travel between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa, thereby reducing the sea voyage distance between Europe and India by about 7,000 kilometers (4,300 mi). One million Egyptian workers dug the desert to create the canal; 100,000 Egyptians died while digging it manually.

This new project started on August 2014. Using the biggest dredgers in the world, tens of thousands of workers worked around the clock to complete the expansion in record time. The expansion is expected to double the capacity of the Suez Canal from 49 to 97 ships a day. This is considered to be the largest canal project in recent history.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi launched the expansion saying it would help bring prosperity to Egypt. He also invited all Egyptians to invest in the canal. People responded positively to the challenge and queued in front of banks to help fulfil this National dream. Funding was arranged by issuing interest-bearing investment certificates exclusively to Egyptian entities and individuals; the target amount was collected over only eight working days. In one week, Egyptians were able to pay 66 billion Egyptian pounds (8.4 billion US Dollars). This reveals how much Egyptians trust their leader and how much they are keen to build their country.

Egypt is now ready to receive Presidents, Kings, and Representatives from all over the world. They will come to share the joy and the hope of Egyptians this day, said the archbishop. "Please pray for Egypt at this time when they work with one hand and fight terrorism with the other hand."

*****

The Canadian Council of Churches (CCofC), of which the Anglican Church of Canada is a member, has published a resource to gently guide church members to vote for the right party in the forthcoming elections. Make that the left party. Actually, there is no major Canadian party that is far enough to the left to satisfy the nudging of this resource, writes Samizdat a Canadian Anglican blogger.

For example, to deal with ISIS, what is needed, we are told, is less military intervention and more diplomatic effort; after all, ISIS has responded to diplomacy so positively in the past:

"Informed by deeply rooted beliefs in the sanctity of human life and dignity, the need to protect vulnerable people from atrocities, and concerned about the ineffectiveness of international military interventions in the region in the past, church leaders have urged the Prime Minister to strengthen diplomatic efforts, increase further humanitarian assistance, provide robust support for refugees, support civil society organizations, reduce the flow of arms and focus on the protection of the rule of law and respect for human rights," said a blurb from the CCofC.

It goes without saying that the "deeply rooted beliefs in the sanctity of human life" do not run deeply enough to recognize the sanctity of human life in the womb: there is no mention of that anywhere in the document.

*****

OBITUARY. The Rev. Canon Clayton Kennedy Hewett (1927 -- 2015), who gained prominence in the 1960s as a civil rights activist in Philadelphia and its suburbs, and later was one of the first orthodox Anglicans to resist the movement of the Episcopal Church toward ordination of women, died August 1, 2015, in Waterville, Maine.

In 1954 he experienced a call to serve in the ministry of the Episcopal Church; he attended and graduated from the Virginia Theological Seminary in 1958. He went on to serve parishes and various ministries in Morton, Pa., Chicago, West Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del., and the East Falls section of Philadelphia.

In June 1959, he and his family were featured in "An American Family" article in the Ladies´ Home Journal. A true evangelical catholic priest, he had, by 1960, become deeply involved in desegregating suburban housing while he rebuilt the Church of the Atonement in Morton and connected it with various evangelistic ministries in West Philadelphia, serving as a Canon Missioner of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. From 1964 to 1967, he became further involved in the civil rights movement in Philadelphia to help leaven it with an emphasis on conversion to Christ and Gospel living. In the mid-1970s, he began a long period of support and encouragement for emerging jurisdictions of traditional, Bible-believing, orthodox Anglicans throughout the United States, one of whose dioceses is headed by his son, Bishop Paul Hewett. Father Clayton Hewett was involved in numerous church organizations, including the American Church Union and the Society of the Holy Cross.

From 1977 onwards, he severed all ties with the Bishop and the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and related instead with the new dioceses of the ACC and the APCK. When the Diocese of the Holy Cross was formed, he was supportive of it. No action was ever taken against him, because no one at Church House wanted the kind of publicity that would have ensued.

*****

Sparks are flying in the Roman Catholic Church. The German bishops have declared independence from Rome on same-sex marriage: how far will the rot spread now?

Have the German bishops moved decisively towards an Anglican-style (or maybe perhaps a Gallican-style) secession from the doctrinal authority of Rome?

Are we witnessing an international liberal-Catholic campaign towards the Church's acceptance of same-sex marriage?

On July 30, the website of the German Bishops' Conference reported that a woman, who heads a Caritas Day Care Centre in Bavaria, had been asked in April to leave her position due to her announcement that she was going to "marry" a woman. The decision has now been rescinded.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of the Diocese of Munich, has agreed to implement immediately new regulations approved by the German Bishops' Conference at the end of April 2015, drastically liberalizing the Catholic Church's disciplinary rules in Germany. In the past, employees who deliberately and persistently did not live according to the Church's moral teaching would (as at first happened in this case) have been asked to leave their position in institutions of the Church. Not all German bishops accept these new rules, though most do: three contiguous dioceses have declared that they will not implement these decisions: those of Passau, Regensburg, and Eichstätt (still, it seems, Ratzinger territory).

Most German dioceses, however, are moving towards declaring independence from the Magisterium. The German bishops' conference has also expressed support for Cardinal Kasper's campaign to allow the administration of Holy Communion to civilly divorced and remarried Catholics.

Another German bishop, however--crucially, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith-- has declared that doctrinal, or even disciplinary, decisions regarding marriage and family are not up for determination by national bishops' conferences.

And you thought that we Anglicans had all the problems over same-sex issues.

*****

Church of England parish churches set a record £953 million in 2013 as the amount raised from a combination of regular and one-time donations, investments, and legacies.

The amount is an increase of £24m over the 2012 figures and, with expenditure down, saw the parishes achieve a combined surplus of £33m.

The money has been used to fund the work of the C of E at parish, diocesan and national level; as well as £46m which has been used to support other organizations working around the world in areas from food banks to children's charities and international aid appeals.

"With the latest financial statistics, we've seen average weekly giving rise in 2013 to our highest ever level," the C of E's national stewardship adviser, Dr. John Preston, said. "We rely on the generosity of our committed church members to support the mission and ministry of the Church. Post-downturn, people have really looked at what is important to them and found a sense of community and belonging within the Church."

The figures show that average weekly giving amongst those who subscribe to tax-efficient giving schemes has continued to rise year on year, to £11.60. And the average weekly amount given per church member rose to £7 in 2013 -- matching the peak level last achieved in 2009.

The average "church member" contributed 3.3 per cent of their income to the church.

*****

We are sending out our formal August appeal. We hope you will chip in with a few dollars to keep VOL afloat. Our needs are not great, but they are continuous. Each month, we have bills to pay that are only being met at the moment by a small handful of donors. This is not right. Thousands of you go each day to VOL's website, read the latest news and then leave. That's okay. But think about the story you read today about the current make-up of the Episcopal Church -- two-thirds women -- and ask yourself do you think TEC's leaders, bishops and spin doctors would tell you that? Of course not. They don't want you to know that the "new thing" or "winnowing" of his church that God is allegedly doing is not true...that the old Episcopal barque is taking on water and is slowly sinking.

Or who would tell you, for all its talk of inclusivity and diversity, that TEC is one of the most un-diverse churches in America?

Yes, TEC still has lots of money and it has one of the best pension plans in the country, but they are running out of people. Nearly half of all parishes can't afford a priest any more.

So please consider a tax deductible donation. You really can help and you really can make a difference.

You can send a tax-deductible check to:

VIRTUEONLINE
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Or you can make a contribution through VOL's PAYPAL link here: http://www.virtueonline.org/support-vol/

Thank you for your support.

In Christ,

David

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