• A Message from Bishop-elect Anderson
• Christ Church of Atlanta launches second Sunday Service
• All Eyes On Pittsburgh
• Pennsylvania Bishop Inhibited
• Executive Council comments on House of Bishops' statement
• South Carolina Bishop-elect Mark Lawrence receives necessary consents
• Ontario priest disciplined for marrying same-sex couple

A Message from Bishop-elect Anderson

Dearly Beloved in Christ Jesus,
 
Around the world, more and more observers are realizing how seriously the American House of Bishops (HOB) missed the mark in their response to the Dar es Salaam Communique. At the same time the HOB has upset many liberal revisionists within TEC who feel that the HOB should have been bolder in defending TEC's right to chart their own course on the gay and lesbian agenda for the church. These times are truly interesting!
 
As many of you are aware, some months ago the Anglican Church of Nigeria's House of Bishops elected four new bishops for CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) and the consecration of those four is scheduled for December 9, a Sunday afternoon, at 2 PM at the Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, Virginia.
 
This will be a great celebration in many ways. It will provide CANA and the Church of Nigeria with additional bishops to minister to the growing flock of Anglican Christians in CANA who are part of the growing orthodox realignment within the larger communion. A second way this celebration is significant is that these consecrations will be (by permission of His Grace Peter J. Akinola) not in Nigeria as is the custom, but in Northern Virginia, in the heart of where one of the great battles for Christian Anglican orthodoxy is underway.
 
Many former Episcopal Churches have left the liberal and revisionist Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and in an important theological and practical division have formed new churches under various overseas provinces. Even now the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and the national Episcopal Church are involved in a massive litigation offensive, suing these faithful churches who have left the heresy of TEC's Virginia diocese.
 
These CANA consecrations build on the ones recently done in Kenya and Uganda and look forward to the ones in January with AMiA/Rwanda. All are a part of the orthodox family of God equipping the army to go forth and spread the Good News. It is appropriate therefore that in the heart of the Virginia battleground the faithful church gathers to consecrate four new bishops to carry on the defense of the faith.
 
There will be a five day spiritual retreat for the soon-to-be-bishops and their wives preceding the consecration, and as one of the bishops-elect, I look forward to it as a chance to catch my breath and center in on the entirely new life and task before us.

The division in the church over faith and morality is spreading from parishes to dioceses and even to the provincial level. As we have seen parishes leave TEC to realign with other faithful provinces, now several TEC dioceses are preparing to do the same. Within the global Anglican family severe divisions on the provincial level are also developing, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is approaching the time when he also will have to choose which path he will walk: one of orthodoxy and faith or one of heterodoxy and accommodation. Even now leaked memos from secret Lambeth meetings mention the possibility of officially sanctioning foreign overseas bishops to come into English bishops' dioceses and perform episcopal acts for specific inviting congregations, with or without the explicit permission of the local bishop. If that is approved it would likely avoid the litigious and contentious scene that we see in the USA.

Speaking of contentiousness, there is breaking news within the American Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has finally acted on complaints against Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania, complaints that go back many years, pertaining to his purported complicity in keeping the sexual molestation of a child in his church by Bennison's own brother quiet and the information suppressed. It is further alleged that Bishop Bennison, knowing his brother was being ordained a deacon and then a priest, did not divulge the information or cause it to be known.
 
Why has Jefferts Schori waited until now to inhibit Bennison and start his trial process? The most probable answer is to convey a picture of evenhandedness - for having signed the Bennison papers she wrote Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh a threatening letter, letting him know that unless he stopped his diocese from passing a change in their canon law allowing Pittsburgh's departure, she would inhibit and depose him (although she says it in formal language: "If your course does not change, I shall regrettably be compelled to see that appropriate canonical steps are promptly taken to consider whether you have abandoned the Communion of this Church - by actions and substantive statements, however they may be phrased - and whether you have committed canonical offences that warrant disciplinary action.")

This threat to Bishop Duncan on the eve of his diocesan convention was, I would assert, the reason why Bennison was inhibited at THIS time, so she can say, "See, I am fair - I discipline the bad boys on both sides equally." What this actually says is fairly horrendous, however. What she is actually saying is that there is parity between being an orthodox, faithful bishop and being involved in child molestation.

In reality Bennison was a convenient sacrificial lamb for Jefferts Schori to use in her attack on Bishop Robert Duncan, and by extension on Bishop Jack Iker and Bishop John-David Schofield, whose dioceses will be taking votes in the near future on their continued relationship with TEC.

I have a mental picture of Captain Schori of the ship TEC Titanic, brandishing an armload of writs, inhibitions and threats, trying to drive people away from the life boats and proclaiming "you must go down with the ship!"

Pittsburgh's diocesan convention is this weekend. Pray most earnestly for Bishop Duncan and all other orthodox leaders.
 
It is a historic time we are living in. Each night as I say my prayers and close my eyes I wonder "What will tomorrow bring, and what will God do next?"

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

All Eyes On Pittsburgh
Source:  The Tribune-Democrat
Date:  November 1, 2007

Episcopalians nationwide are watching as leaders and delegates of the Episcopal Church’s Pittsburgh Diocese converge on Johnstown today to consider separating from their national affiliation...

The 142nd convention for the Pittsburgh diocese, whose leaders have spoken in favor of a more conservative church, meets today at the Pasquerilla Conference Center in Johnstown to consider an amendment to its constitution to allow its separation from the Episcopal Church of the United States. The diocese’s parishes then could join a more conservative group, the worldwide Anglican Communion, rather than its American arm.

If the resolution passes, the pullout would have to be ratified at a second convention.Pittsburgh is one of at least four Episcopal dioceses out of 110 – along with Fort Worth, Texas; Quincy, Illinois; and San Joaquin, Calif. – that are taking steps to break away...

In a letter sent Wednesday to Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, Schori threatened disciplinary action if Duncan does not change his direction.
"I call upon you to recede from this direction and to lead your diocese on a new course that recognizes the interdependent and hierarchical relationship between the national Church and its dioceses and parishes," Schori said in the letter, published by the Episcopal News Service at http://episcopalchurch.org.

The letter accompanies a story that centers on multimillion-dollar litigation about church fights over real estate across the country.
A spokeswoman for the national church declined to comment.

Peter Frank, spokesman for the Pittsburgh diocese, said the letter is meant to intimidate and influence today’s vote.  "This is not an effective technique," Frank said. "In past situations where the church has made threats, it tends to galvanize people to support their leadership. Certainly this will be a watched convention across the country..."

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Pennsylvania bishop inhibited from ordained ministry
Source:   Episcopal News Service
Date:  October 31, 2007

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on October 31 inhibited Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania Bishop Charles Bennison from all ordained ministry pending a judgment of the Court for the Trial of a Bishop.

The Title IV Review Committee issued a presentment for conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy against Bennison on October 28.

The two counts of the presentment center on accusations that Bennison, when he was rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Upland, California, did not respond properly after learning sometime in 1973 that his brother, John, who worked as a lay youth minister in the parish, was having an affair with a 14-year-old member of the youth group. John Bennison was also married at the time, according to the presentment.

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Executive Council comments on House of Bishops' statement
Source:  Episcopal Church
Date:  October 28, 2007

As it concluded its three-day fall meeting at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn, Michigan, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church thanked the House of Bishops for its efforts that resulted in a statement to the Anglican Communion issued in September.

However, Council Resolution NAC026 said that where the bishops' statement called "particular attention to the application of [General Convention] Resolution B033 to lesbian and gay persons, it may inappropriately suggest that an additional qualification for the episcopacy has been imposed beyond those contained in the constitution and canons of the church."

Resolution B033, passed by General Convention in June 2006, calls upon diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

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South Carolina Bishop-elect Mark Lawrence receives necessary consents
Source:   Episcopal News Service
Date:  October 29, 2007

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced October 29 that the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence had received the consents needed for him to become the next bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

The consecration will be held January 26, 2008 at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Ontario priest disciplined for marrying same-sex couple
Source:  Anglican Church of Canada
Date:  October 29, 2007

A priest in the diocese of Ontario has been disciplined and had his licence to marry cancelled after officiating at the wedding of a same-sex couple last August in a church in rural Ontario, where he is the incumbent.

Rev. Michael Bury, rector of St. John the Evangelist church, in Stirling, Ont., a small village located about 190 km east of Toronto, confirmed in an interview that his licence to perform marriages has been cancelled.

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