"O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble."
Isaiah 33:2

• A Message From Bishop-elect Anderson
• Anglican Leader Urges Church To Find Accord Amid Turmoil
• Archbishop Mouneer Anis Addresses the House of Bishops
• WALES: Archbishop warns proposed Anglican covenant could lead to exclusion
• St. Clement's, El Paso Votes to Leave Episcopal Church

A Message From Bishop-elect Anderson

Beloved in Christ,

With the news last week of the election of four new CANA suffragan bishops, one of them myself, the American Anglican Council and I have been receiving both congratulatory notes and questions. Because I am the President and CEO of the AAC, some have worried that I would be stepping down from this role as I begin work as a CANA bishop. The answer is no, I will not be leaving the AAC. The founding president of the American Anglican Council, Bishop James Stanton, was both bishop of Dallas and AAC President for the first four or five years of the AAC's life.  As a priest I have been president since January of 2001, approximately seven years by the time of the CANA consecrations, and after that point the AAC will once again have a bishop as president. I will not be leaving the AAC; we simply come back again to having a bishop as the AAC president.

The TEC House of Bishops is in session in New Orleans and everyone who is able is straining to hear what is transpiring down in the bayou. One of the first documents distributed is a proposed Mind of the House Resolution submitted by Bishop Pierre Whalon. He picks up the mantra of the pundits at the Episcopal Church Headquarters in New York in a number of areas, one of which is how few orthodox churches are really leaving and therefore the subject may be dismissed as a minor tragedy. In using TEC’s numbers, however, his choice of words actually brings him closer to the truth than he might intend. He says, “...numbers of parishes seeking to leave TEC is around 160.” What he meant, we presume, is the number who HAVE LEFT. That number would actually be closer to 200, but he is right that about 160 more parishes, excluding those in orthodox ACN dioceses, are seeking to leave. Many of them are talking to the AAC.

Why do the numbers vary so much? One factor is how the counting is done.  For example, Father X asks his vestry to vote on leaving TEC. Later 80 per cent of the parishioners vote to leave, so the priest, vestry, and most members pack up and move to a school lunch room for Sunday services. Left behind are a few parish members loyal to the liberal bishop, so the bishop has four walls, a janitor, a handful of people (and often a mortgage on the building). The bishop sends in a supply priest and pays for his/her salary and the utilities and mortgage. The bishop asserts he has not lost a parish, no not one. Others would count the new parish which has most of the people and strong leadership as being a parish which left TEC. So TEC says no parish lost, we say one parish lost, and therein is some of the difference in how the loss across the country is counted.

Bishop Whalon goes on to note that Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) was offered by TEC to the orthodox “at great cost.” It is perplexing to know what “at great cost,” means since it appears that generally it was a failure.

In addition to Whalon’s offering, as predicted by a previous Leaders’ Update, Presiding Bishop Jefferts-Schori offers up a doctored Primatial Vicar program using eight bishops presumed to be acceptable to those who have left TEC. How does she know they would be acceptable? Certainly not by asking. Both TEC and Lambeth palace tend to use the too-little-too-late approach, waking up to ideas that three years ago might have been marginally acceptable, but now are ridiculously outdated. According to The Living Church (LC), some of the eight "episcopal visitors" who spoke with the LC were uncertain of the scope of the proposal or how it would be implemented.

The text of Archbishop Mouneer Anis’ speech to the HOB has been released and it is worth a careful read. It is graceful but forceful and lays it on the line. Speaking to TEC, he advises "choose you this day which path you will follow, your path or the Communion’s path." Well done, Mouneer!

For those within the Episcopal Church struggling to remain orthodox and free to believe and worship, beware of the many proposals that may be put forward. At the end of the day they are designed to help you with the immediate pain, but still leave you firmly embedded in the increasingly deviant Episcopal Church and under the episcopal authority of a Primate whose own statements indicate her own departure from orthodox Anglican Christianity. The real test for the orthodox in TEC is to NOT be pulled into a Vichy-type collaborationist relationship with a regime of corrupted faith and theology. Do not yoke yourself with any except those who firmly are committed to the person and ministry of Jesus Christ as singular Lord and Savior, and to the authority of Holy Scripture as the revealed Word of God. As important as sexual morality is in the discipline of Christian living, it is secondary to the person of Jesus and the authority of God’s Word, and all three are important in the orthodox journey of faith.

Blessings and Peace in Christ Jesus,
Bishop-elect David C. Anderson
President & CEO of the AAC

Anglican Leader Urges Church To Find Accord Amid Turmoil
Source:  The Washington Post
Date: September 21, 2007

...The appearance of Archbishop Rowan Williams yesterday and today in New Orleans at the biannual bishops' meeting of the Episcopal Church, the Communion's U.S. branch, underscores the gravity of the confrontation between worldwide Anglican leaders and bishops. The bishops are discussing "requests" the leaders made in February that the U.S. church backtrack from its increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians. A response was requested by Sept. 30.

The meeting began yesterday and ends Tuesday...

...No one expects the mostly liberal Episcopal Church to fully give in. Although thousands of Episcopalians have left the U.S. church in recent years -- including those in 19 Virginia congregations -- to join more conservative branches of the Communion based overseas, U.S. church leaders have generally dismissed them as a dissident minority.

But four U.S. dioceses recently said they might try to leave if they don't like what happens at the meeting in New Orleans. At least a half-dozen bishops sympathize with that position. These are mostly bishops who have echoed conservatives' concerns that Jesus' primacy is being watered down but who think the global debate about how to read the Bible is an enduring one. The fence-sitting bishops have been the target of an intense lobbying campaign.

Hoping to keep the Episcopal Church from losing many more members -- and to keep it in the good graces of the Communion -- liberals have been courting the middle-ground bishops. Written drafts that attempt to stake out a theological middle ground have been circulating, insiders say.

"They are getting phone calls from folks on the progressive side," said Peter Frank, spokesman for the Anglican Communion Network, a group of 10 Episcopal dioceses with almost 200,000 members whose goal is to "ensure an orthodox Anglican Province in North America." However, Frank said, "this has defied . . . a middle point. That's what's been so hard for everyone..."

Read the rest of the article here.

Archbishop Mouneer Anis Addresses the House of Bishops

Date:    September 21, 2007

...My friends, you may believe you have discovered a very different truth from that of the majority in the Anglican Communion. It is not just about sexuality, but about your views of Christ, the Gospel, and the authority of the Bible. Please forgive me when I relay that some say you are a different church, others even think that you are a different religion.

I understand that it is difficult for you in your context to accept the standard teaching of the Anglican Communion. That is why you refused to accept Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10. You also ignored all the warnings of the Primates in 2003, 2004, and 2005. Your response to the Windsor Report is seen by the Primates as not clear. You cannot say you value being a member of the Anglican Communion while you ignore the interdependence if the member churches. The interdependence is what differentiates us from other congregational churches. I would like to remind you and myself with the famous resolution number 49 of the Lambeth Conference of 1930 which declares “the Anglican Communion is a fellowship of churches that…are bound together not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference.” With respect, I have to say that those who would prefer to speak of laws and procedures, constitutions and canons, committees and process: you are missing the point! It is our mutual loyalty and fellowship, submitting to one another in the common cause of Jesus Christ that makes us of one Church one faith and one Lord...

Read the rest of the speech here.

WALES: Archbishop warns proposed Anglican covenant could lead to exclusion
Source:  Episcopal Church
Date: September 18, 2007

A laudable attempt to unite Anglicans is in danger of becoming a contract designed to cut off those who don't conform, Dr. Barry Morgan, Archbishop of the Church in Wales, told about 175 lay and clergy members of the Church's Governing Body meeting at the University of Wales, Lampeter, September 18-19.

Morgan said that, while he supported the principle of an Anglican covenant, he could not endorse the proposed version currently on the table...

Read the rest of the article  here.

St. Clement's, El Paso Votes to Leave Episcopal Church
Source:  Elpasotimes.com
Date:  September 16, 2007

Congregants at Pro-Cathedral of St. Clement's Episcopal Church, one of the city's oldest places of worship with hundreds of members and more than a dozen ministries, is leaving the Episcopal Church to carry on with doctrines members said no longer fit those of its former denomination.

The church recorded a 460-41 vote from its congregation on Sunday to dissolve its relationship with Episcopal Church USA and remain part of the Anglican Communion Network.

"I'm very excited about the future of St. Clement's," Rev. William Cobb said. "I'm not at all surprised about the overwhelming vote because this is a unified church."

Late Friday, St. Clement's reached an agreement with Bishop Jeffrey Steenson of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande that will allow the local church to hang on to its property for $2 million.