I am writing this as I prepare to drive to Virginia for a six day pre-consecration retreat. On Sunday, Dec. 9, four of us who are CANA clergy will be, God willing, ordained as bishops in CANA (Nigeria). Next week I will not write an article since I will be, along with my wife MaryAnne, still in retreat.

The battle for the faith continues to unfold in North America, with a second retired Canadian bishop transferring to the Southern Cone on one hand, and on the other, more Canadian dioceses approving same-sex blessings. Will the Gospel of Jesus Christ transform the culture or will the fallen culture transform the gospel? I use the term battle, but battles are by nature brief, whereas what we are involved in is a war, as unpleasant as that sounds to the ear or the soul. War involves many battles in different locales and has a significant duration in most cases.

The Primate of the Anglican Church in Canada, Fred Hiltz, made the following statement in high indignation over the Southern Cone action:"The actions by the Primate of the Southern Cone are not necessary. Our bishops have made adequate and appropriate provision for the pastoral care and episcopal support of all members of the Anglican Church of Canada, including those who find themselves in conscientious disagreement with the view of their bishop and synod over the blessings of same-sex unions."

Their adequate provision is more like the adequate provision that King Herod made for the holy innocents in Bethlehem, and most of the Canadian orthodox know that they cannot depend upon heterodox and heretical leaders to ensure either the true proclamation of the Gospel or their own safety. The AAC applauds the witness of Primate Greg Venables of the Southern Cone. At the present time, the Southern Cone touches both the Arctic and Antarctic circles. Is there a piece missing in the middle? Perhaps some of the departing TEC dioceses will fill in the missing middle. It appears that the Canadian Anglican Church leaders are in real denial about what is happening. They can join the earth-is-flat society, but the defections to orthodoxy will continue.

The papers have been full of articles by or about Rowan Williams, beginning with his trashing of the United States. He should remember that he was given his job as ABC through the manipulations of Tony Blair. George Bush - whom Williams clearly does not like - and Tony Blair can hardly be separated when the issue of the Iraq war is raised. Why then does he blast America and its president, and overlook his own nation's support and involvement? His sense of history is weak, for he seems to have forgotten how Britannia ruled not only the waves but many colonies as well, and how they suppressed dissent.

Rowan also forgets the social and criminal aspect of that colonization, involving slave trading, opium trafficking into China, forced monopolies on salt and other essentials in India, and a host of other wrongful actions. Rowan Williams is not only wrong on history and sociology, but on religion as well. In many of the colonies the Church of England was mainly concerned with religious chaplaincies to the British who were running the colonies' governments, and interest in reaching the local people of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or various Chinese faiths was either nonexistent or late in developing.

It is particularly disappointing to see that duplicity and deception were not only ways of controlling a Commonwealth, but presently are a way for Lambeth Palace to attempt to control or direct the Anglican Communion. When he doesn't want to do something, Williams says he can't do it and there is no provision for it. When he wants to do something, he works behind the scenes to cause it to happen. He says he doesn't want to be an Anglican Pope, but he stresses in private correspondence to Bishop John Howe that an individual bishop's relationship to the See of Canterbury is what makes them Anglican, bypassing the Provincial level.

His Grace maneuvered the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC to issue a determination on New Orleans, when in fact it was the Primates themselves who at Dar es Salaam called for the action by TEC and the response date of September 30. Rowan, however, appointed the right to think for the Primates to the JSC, and then individually by mail asked the Primates whether they thought the American Episcopal Church met the Dar es Salaam requirements. With his thumb pressing down on the scale of decision, he asked their opinion. The usual suspects responded yes, all is OK with TEC. Ten of the Global South responded no, others undecided, others not responding.

It is important to Dr. Williams that the primates be divided so he can discount their determination as unclear. The clarity of the NO from the core Global South, which represents the preponderance of global Anglicans doesn't matter the way the ABC does arithmetic.

Now we discover that Dr. Williams sneaked off to a "secret" Holy Communion service held at a previously undisclosed location to meet with the Clergy Consultation - a support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gendered and "intersex" clergy and their partners - and reassure them of his support. The location was originally to have been St Peter's Eaton Square, but was switched to another location, All Hallows by the Tower, to avoid media attention after news of the meeting emerged on the Church Society website. (This is believed to be the parish where the Rev'd Jim Rosenthal, an American TEC-supported missionary, is assigned, in addition to his work in the Anglican Communion Office.)

This is the Archbishop we are looking to to hold Anglicanism together and to defend the faith against attack from the culture. This is the Archbishop to whom several orthodox (so-called Windsor) TEC bishops are STILL looking for direction, for blessing, and most strangely, for protection. To those to whom much is given, much is required.

Advent is upon us, and with it a time to look backwards and forwards, and especially forward to the return of Jesus. I suspect many of us need to use this time looking in a spiritual mirror, and reflecting upon the Christian that we see and the Christian that God is trying to shape us into. May He succeed where we have failed.

In Christ,
Bishop-elect David C. Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council