Each new meeting of the Communion now reinforces this impression that the ”˜schism’ has taken place, because complete sacramental communion is demonstrably no longer possible. The most recent news, of course, is that an alternative province is being formed across North America bringing together the various acronyms and groupings we are coming used to: the Network, CANA, dioceses linked to the Southern Cone, and parishes under the oversight of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, together with traditionalist continuing churches which long ago broke away.

In the absence of any meaningful overtures from the official American and Canadian leadership, and no proposals for any effective alternative oversight, and amid a determination to press on with scandalous and acrimonious litigation, there is probably no option now other than a third North American province. Furthermore, the level of theological heterodoxy in the Episcopal Church is worryingly high. A number of dioceses have rejected the moratoria which were called for with impunity and it looks clear that at the next General Convention it will be business as usual in the liberal drift of the denomination.

Apart from the sexuality issue, relativism both morally and theologically is normal theology in TEC. Very few Episcopal leaders will say with any confidence that Jesus Christ is the only way to God; instead they apologise for missionary activity in the past, and proclaim a muted, stunted, deformed Gospel to the world.

Yet the formation of a third province is not universally favoured by those who otherwise reject North American innovation. The Gafcon route is an ”˜outside’ strategy that has given up on the ability of the Anglican Communion to discipline itself in accordance with Bible and tradition. There is however an insider’s strategy as well, which believes that the Windsor process is roughly the right direction for the Communion to go, that it will actually result in discipline.

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Whether it is viewed with sympathy or suspicion, there is no doubt that the new Anglican Church in North America changes the Anglican map. To be more accurate, it lays a new map (a relief map, perhaps?) on top of the old one, so that in his otherwise factual article the new Archbishop, the Most Revd Bob Duncan, can say artlessly that the charge of boundary-crossing, condemned by the Windsor report, “is most effectively and completely addressed by general acceptance of the new province”. Although territorial confusion matters less where a church is defined more by congregational membership than place of abode, the parish ideal is none the less strong.

When a new state declares independence, the international community decides whether or not to recognise it by measuring it against a set of standards. In this instance, does the new Church have integrity? On the subject of territorial dis­tinctiveness, as we have seen, the jury is still out. Is it Christian? Undoubtedly: it is as faithful a realisation of Christ’s will as any Church manages to be. Is it Anglican? Yes and no: its worship is, but its formation without any reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, or the Primates’ Meeting suggests otherwise.

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We need a unified body both to heal the divisions among ourselves and to give the broader Anglican Communion a unified and coherent partner with which to be in relation­ship.

Forming the Anglican Church in North America is a significant step forward on both these fronts. It is an amazing God-given healing of that internal division and an opportunity for forming constructive relation­ships within the Communion.

Eleven fragments of “mainstream” Anglicanism in the United States and Canada were involved in the adop­tion of the provisional constitution: the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda), the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of An­glicans in North America (Nigeria), Forward in Faith North America, the Missionary Convocations of Kenya, Southern Cone (including the Bolivia and Recife networks), and Uganda, together with the Reformed Episcopal Church.

These fragments draw together some 700 congregations in North Am­erica, with an estimated 100,000 worshippers on average on any given Sunday. This constellation is thus numbered as larger than 13 of the provinces of the Anglican Com­munion (including Scotland and Wales), and compares to the 750,000 the Episcopal Church in the United States claims to draw every Sunday.

Please note: this was in last week’s print edition of the Church Times, which was available on the web for subscribers only. It is now available to all. Please read it attentively.

What about the definition of Anglican? In the October issue of First Things, I expressed the hope that last summer’s Lambeth Conference, and particularly the leadership of Archbishop Rowan Williams, gave strong evidence that the center of the Anglican communion intended to hold together; that the Episcopal left and the GAFCON right would not, in fact, carry the day and so lead the communion ever-further down the road to fragmentation and incoherence. Since that time, most of the action has been on the GAFCON and Bishop Duncan side; and the more influence they have, the less chance there is of an eventual coming-together of things.

But the ball is now in center court, as it were””this February’s meeting of the Anglican primates will be crucial, as will the meeting of the Covenant Design Group in April and the Anglican Consultative Council’s meeting in May. If Anglicanism is truly to mean something beyond the local, these meetings will carry forward the Lambeth vision of a genuinely covenanted “global” and “catholic church,” with its ministry, faith, and sacraments “united and interdependent throughout the world,” as Rowan Williams has put it.

There are, of course, no guarantees. The forces of dissolution and division right now are strong, and it is always much easier to pull apart than it is to hold together. The question “Anglican or Episcopalian?” may always be with us; but at the least, we may still be able to hope that the question “What kind of Anglican are you?” will not become just as common.

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(Via Email):

New diocese planned for North Texas area

According to Internet announcements, plans are under way for a new Episcopal diocese to be formed in North Central Texas. The sources indicate that an organizing meeting or convention may be held as soon as Feb. 7, 2009. The new diocese is being organized by North Texas Episcopalians who wish to be affiliated with the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. A group known as Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians is initiating the organizing effort.

The announcement has appeared on the Steering Committee’s Web site and on a site launched by a group leaving St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Arlington. It indicates that the probable conference site is All Saints’ Episcopal School in Fort Worth, and that the organizers hope TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will be present to preside.

Fr. Christopher Jambor, rector of All Saints’ parish in Fort Worth, is named as the head of the organizing committee. The business of the meeting is expected to be the adoption of a constitution and canons for the new diocese, as well as the election of founding officers.

It was not immediately clear how many conferees will participate in the event, how they will be selected, or what congregations or other groups they will represent.

Once upon a time, the Anglican Church was a powerful presence in the U.S.A.­ known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. or more recently as The Episcopal Church.­ It claimed a large percentage of the population (16% in 1789) and an even larger representation among the leaders of our great nation.

The language of its liturgy shaped much of our culture and its cathedrals and churches were a witness to the community. Today however, it is wracked with internal conflict, shrinking numbers (less than three-tenths of one percent of Americans regularly worship in Episcopal Churches) and is known more for its rejection of biblical authority and its willingness to litigate against its own clergy and congregations than for its passion for Christ. But that isn’t the end of the story.

A growing number of Anglican Christians have realized that they cannot continue down this path. On December 3, as the Bishop of CANA (the Convocation of Anglicans in North America) I joined the bishops and representatives of 14 other Anglican dioceses and networks to introduce the provisional constitution of a new Anglican Church in North America.

We are making a new start. This new Church already represents more than 700 congregations across the nation with a diverse leadership that is committed to the centrality of Christ and the trustworthiness of the Bible as we seek to live out our faith in an authentic way.

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This is a complicated issue for many of us who worry about the theological direction of the Episcopal Church in the USA (ECUSA). For one thing, I hate to see conservatives leave over women’s ordination. What that means, among other things, is that they are abandoning many dedicated women clergy who are themselves conservative on the other two issues: biblical authority and homosexuality. But we do have to be clear that it is not enough to say that the departing conservatives are simply setting up “a separate denomination.” In this case they are aligning themselves with the growing majority of Anglican churches around the world–an alignment that liberal Episcopalians are choosing to abandon by their recent actions.

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The standing committee of the Diocese of Quincy recently clarified its relationship with The Episcopal Church and its former bishop, the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, who resigned as bishop of the diocese Nov. 1.

“Bishop Ackerman fully supports those of us who have realigned with the Province of the Southern Cone and who are moving forward, as part of the Common Cause Partnership, to build a united, orthodox Anglican province here in the U.S. and Canada,” said the Rev. Canon Ed den Blaauwen, president of the standing committee and vicar general. Canon den Blaauwen added that Bishop Ackerman serves as one of seven lead bishops of the Common Cause Partnership in his role as president of Forward in Faith/North America. That organization has worked for almost two decades for the creation of a traditional Anglican province in the U.S.

“The new province I have long supported is now becoming a reality,” Bishop Ackerman said, “but there are still churches in The Episcopal Church who need care from orthodox bishops.”

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The Rev. Paul C. Fuener, rector of Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church in Georgetown, agrees. He says although South Carolina is listed in many publications as the “fifth” diocese which may leave the National Episcopal Church, that is unfounded, he says. He agrees with Burwell’s sentiment (above).

“At present most everybody wants to hold together as a diocese,” Fuener said. “We have never talked internally about leaving. If we were to join this new province, we would have to split because everyone wouldn’t want to do that. We tend to be united as a diocese.”

He says the formation of a new Anglican province would be “truly extraordinary.”

“It is not every day that an entire diocese of one of the Anglican provinces gets together and says it is no longer going to be in the province,” Fuener said. “It is sad to me, not upsetting, that it has come to that point where the actions of our national church have driven people to this conclusion that they can’t stay.”

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A vastly downsized Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh launched its reorganization Saturday, calling a senior bishop from North Carolina to serve as its interim leader.

The Right Rev. Robert Hodges Johnson, a retired bishop who previously served as interim bishop to a Virginia diocese in upheaval, will serve as assisting bishop to the Diocese of Pittsburgh through July 2009, as it reorganizes, the Rev. James B. Simons announced yesterday. Simons, president of the Standing Committee of the Pittsburgh diocese, made the announcement during his state of diocese speech at a special convention yesterday at which representatives from 28 parishes met to reorganize, ordain a new priest and elect new leadership.

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U.S. Anglicans are now split, and a West Michigan pastor says he’s excited about joining dissidents in the province that formed last week.

“Is it a divisive move? It might be, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said the Rev. Andrew Gross, pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in South Haven. “When our core proclamation is at stake, division is not necessarily bad.”

Holy Trinity is now part of the new Anglican Church in North America, a breakaway from the Episcopal Church that is the worldwide Anglican Communion’s American branch.

Gross said the division is not so much over the much-talked-about issues of sexuality — although fault lines formed with the ordination of openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson in 2004 — but over belief in who Jesus was.

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St. John’s Anglican Church in Park City, Utah’s only congregation to break away from the Episcopal Church after its election of the first openly gay bishop, will join the new rival denomination announced last week.

The new group, to be called the Anglican Church of North America, estimates it will have 100,000 members, compared with the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. According to news reports, the proposed province would unite nine groups that have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over the years, including four Episcopal dioceses and umbrella groups for dozens of individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada.

“It will create a larger network of churches and a stronger presence in the U.S., Canada and Mexico,” said the Rev. Doug Folsom, St. John’s pastor. “Being united, we are not just off by ourselves.”

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Last month, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, became the fourth American Episcopal diocese to formally break away from the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, in a long-simmering feud over Biblical authority that included the 2003 consecration of the church’s first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire.

Although discussions are ongoing, Bishop Mark Joseph Lawrence, of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina in Charleston, said the state diocese does not plan to join the newly formed Anglican Church in North America.

“I anticipate the Diocese of South Carolina holding to the faith that is revealed in Holy Scripture, defending that and moving forward with the mission of the church here and throughout the world,” Lawrence said. “This is not just a national church issue. It is an issue for the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is a part. I think (the split) was primarily because many of the leaders of the Episcopal Church have been tone deaf to the needs of the conservative parishioners and clergy. I know many of the players involved, and I understand their distress and concerns.”

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Some have wondered about the status of this church, and about its intention to seek recognition as a province of the Anglican Communion. A basic principal of catholic Christianity is that it is not self-authenticating; its credentials cannot be established by the mere assertion of them. Christian faith looks to authorities, as well: the Scriptures, principally, but also Creeds and Councils that articulate them reasonably and traditionally, and all of which communicate the Gospel and act as a standard by which faith is recognized and acknowledged. Anglicanism itself represents a distinctive witness within the Christian faith, with its own markers and measures. A particular church (any particular church) always looks beyond itself in some way in the key points of its existence, and others will evaluate it accordingly.

However we view this new church in terms of these things, we must recognize that membership in the Anglican Communion is not something claimed unilaterally or seized by force. Sharp elbows may be useful in any number of contexts, but are hardly edifying or effective in this one. A request to be admitted as a province must be approved by the Primates’ Meeting and then acted upon by the Anglican Consultative Council, two of the Instruments of Communion that have developed within Anglicanism to help bring coherence to its life. The constituent bodies of the Anglican Church in North America are not known for a willingness to pay much heed to any of the Instruments of Communion. It is even doubtful that they are much interested in any authentication that looks to the existing structures of the world-wide Communion. Their witness is predicated on a self-proclaimed unwillingness to wait for these structures to work.

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“In 2004, the standing committee had expressed support for the work of the Anglican Communion Network in providing a place within The Episcopal Church were those of a more conservative outlook could find a place of encouragement for their mission and ministry within the church,” the standing committee said. “As the Diocese of the Rio Grande looks toward the future, and particularly as it works toward electing its next bishop, the standing committee felt increasingly that the work of the Anglican Communion Network no longer served the constructive purposes hoped for in the 2004 resolution.

“The support of the Anglican Communion Network for the creation of a separate Anglican church in North America, announced on Dec. 3, served as the catalyst for the action of the standing committee at its meeting this week.”

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THE NEW Anglican province in North America proposed by a coali­tion of conservative Anglican groups in the United States and Canada published its draft constitu­tion and canons in Wheaton, Illi­nois, last week (News, 28 November).

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), formed by the Common Cause Partnership, says it has 700 congregations and about 100,000 members. It “will seek to represent orthodox North Amer­icans in the councils of the Anglican Communion”. It will have an Arch­bishop ”” initially the Rt Revd Bob Duncan, former Bishop of Pitts­burgh, and the Moderator of Com­mon Cause.

At a press conference on Wednes­day of last week in Wheaton, Bishop Duncan told the gathering: “The Lord is displacing the Episco­pal Church.”

In the new provincial structure, congregations and clergy are related together “in a diocese, cluster, or network, whether regional or affinity-based, united by a bishop”. These are defined in the canons as consisting of a minimum of 12 congregations with an Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) of at least 50 each, and a collective ASA of at least 1000. They choose which bishop they want to be under: “A duly ordained male presbyter of at least 35 years of age.”

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[Peter] Frank hopes the Anglican Church in North America will heal some of the breaches within the Church, but acknowledges unspecified threats from unnamed groups as well as lawsuits.

“Last year, the Episcopal church spent $2 million on lawsuits to reclaim parish properties (from disaffected congregations.) We can’t be sure how those lawsuits will come out. There are some lawsuits pending and some settled favorably for the congregations. Some congregations have put the keys (to their church properties) on the desk and walked away. You just don’t sue people back in the church.”

In spite of the troubled birth of the Anglican Church in North America, Frank says the new body will continue to “move against the trend” and maintain the traditions of what it means to be Anglican: maintenance of the distinctive characteristics of the English reformation, a high view of scripture, and a deep appreciation of church tradition.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will not block the creation of a third Anglican province in North America, sources familiar with Dr. Rowan Williams’ Dec 5 meeting with five traditionalist archbishops, tell The Church of England Newspaper.

However, the archbishop will not give it his endorsement either, arguing his office does not have the legal authority to make, or un-make, Anglicans.

On Dec 5, five members of the Gafcon primates council: Archbishops Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, and Henry Orombi of Uganda met with Dr. Williams in Canterbury for approximately five hours to discuss the current state of affairs within the Communion.

In a half day meeting interspersed with prayer and lunch the archbishops had a “full and frank” discussion of the issues, sources familiar with the proceedings said. “There was no indaba-ding on Friday,” one senior Gafcon bishop told CEN, referring to the ”˜Indaba’ process of directed listening used at the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The Gafcon bishop said the conversation was a direct and forthright discussion of all of the presenting issues.

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The strange part of …[the New York Times] account is the statement that this move “threatens the fragile unity of the Anglican Communion.” That fragile unity was shattered by the actions of more liberal churches in North America to bless same-sex unions, ordain homosexual ministers, and elect an openly-homosexual bishop. The lack of unity is what has prompted the establishment of this new denomination.

Indeed, this division among the Anglicans and related national churches can be traced directly back to the Anglican Communion’s failure to establish and maintain doctrinal boundaries and a clear affirmation of biblical authority. Liberals and conservatives have been increasingly at odds over a host of issues related to biblical authority.

The action of the American church, the Episcopal Church USA, to elect and consecrate an openly-homosexual man as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 set the stage for what now appears to be a schism in the church.

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For Ralph Jones, the 2003 consecration of an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire was the last straw in his longstanding uneasiness with the direction of the Episcopal Church.

The Yucaipa man opposed the church’s decision to allow female priests and to change parts of its liturgy.

But he believed bestowing a leadership role on a priest in a same-sex relationship was so clearly against biblical teachings that it forced him to leave the church.

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It appears a narrow majority of Alle-Kiski Valley Episcopal parishes will remain with the Pittsburgh diocese that agreed in October to split from the Episcopal Church of the United States.

“The (national) Episcopal church really has gone off the wall in terms of liberal theology,” said the Rev. Gary Miller, pastor of Holy Innocents parish in Leechburg. “The majority of bishops in the church do not believe in the basic doctrines of the faith.”

He noted several conservative tenets of Christian theology that, he claimed, many in the national church have moved away from, such as the virgin birth and deity of Jesus Christ.

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Delegates to the Anglican Communion Network’s fifth annual council meeting in Overland Park, Kansas, voted today to begin handing over ministries as well as financial and administrative support services to the forming Anglican Church in North America.

Network members spoke of how much the organization has meant to them since its founding in 2004. “This has been my lifeline. Without the Anglican Communion Network and you all, I don’t know what would have happened,” said Episcopal Church Bishop Jim Adams of Western Kansas.

During the approximately six months the hand over is expected to take, the Network office will continue to provide key organizational, administrative and other services for Network members and the Common Cause Partnership as it completes the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.

The hand over will not be complete until the summer of 2009. When it is complete, the Network as it is currently configured will cease operation.

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IRD Religious Liberty Director Faith J.H. McDonnell commented:

Some liberals in the Episcopal Church are undermining their own talking points by the spitefulness with which they are being delivered. If the proposed new Anglican Church of North America were so insignificant, their response would be dismissive but gracious. Instead, a mean-spirited hostility has broken out.

Ultimately, this is not a schismatic movement. While disaffected groups have split from the Episcopal Church in the past, the fact that many of these groups are now unifying is unprecedented. The stated intent is to remain within the Anglican Communion.

Having more than one Anglican province occupy a single geographic area is not completely new. The Church of England’s Diocese in Europe exists alongside both the Convocation of American Churches in Europe and the Old Catholic Church, which are both in communion with Canterbury.

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Last Thursday a front page article appeared in the New York Times, and a smaller article in the Washington Post, about the proposed formation of a new non-geographical province within the jurisdictional boundaries of the Episcopal Church. The proposed archbishop of this envisioned province is Bob Duncan, deposed bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. First and foremost, let me assure you that the formation of a non-geographical province within an existing province is highly unlikely. Before the establishment of any such province, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church would have to give her consent, and it is difficult to imagine that she would do so. If consent was given, the Archbishop of Canterbury would then form a committee of primates to discuss the feasibility of forming the new province. If two thirds of the primates felt that such a new province would assist and strengthen the ministry of the Anglican Communion, then the primates would forward their recommendation to the Archbishop of Canterbury who in turn would forward his recommendation to the Anglican Consultative Council for final vote and action. At present, neither two-thirds of the primates, nor the Archbishop seem favorably disposed to this development.

The gathering in Wheaton, Illinois of Duncan, Martyn Minns and several hundred of their supporters who seek the formation of the non-geographical province came as no surprise to most of us in the House of Bishops. But the press it has received, especially in the New York Times, was well beyond what was warranted considering that the proposed province is, at most, about 5 percent of the size of the Episcopal Church and that its chances of recognition are dim. I realize, however, that this most recent installment in the media’s coverage of how the sky is allegedly falling on the Episcopal Church caught many members of our diocese by surprise, and I want to allay their anxieties. We face our share of problems in the Episcopal Church, but wholesale defections to a movement committed to denying gay and lesbian Christians the birthright of their baptism is not one of them.

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Five Anglican archbishops have backed the introduction of a new Anglican province in North America, a significant, though unsurprising boost for the conservative-led initiative.

“We fully support this development with our prayer and blessing,”
said the archbishops, who are called primates because they lead regional branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion. “It demonstrates the determination of these faithful Christians to remain authentic Anglicans.”

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–We recognize that evangelical Anglicans will pursue a variety of strategies for dealing with the current crisis in the Communion, and we support those who are seeking to work through the existing Anglican Communion structures, those who are working within the framework set out in the GAFCON Statement, and those supporting both.
–We call on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates to recognize the urgency of the situation as it affects parishes and clergy, particularly in the USA, Canada and Brazil, and to give immediate and serious consideration to granting recognition to the new Province in the USA.”

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Eight members of Christ Church in Savannah attended an event in Chicago last week unveiling the constitution and laws of a proposed new North American arm of the Anglican Communion.

Christ Church spokeswoman Stephanie Lynch said the group signed a symbolic statement marking the congregation’s intention to join the new organization once membership details have been worked out.

“It’s really more of a symbolic gesture. Nothing is binding,” Lynch said. “At some point we’ll be released from (the Anglican province of) Uganda and transferred to this new North American province.”

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When conservative members of the Episcopal Church announced plans to found a new denomination this week, the fissure had a direct impact on one local church and appeared uncomfortably familiar to members of another.

No churches in the local Episcopal diocese planned to join the new denomination, called the Anglican Church in North America. But a Scranton parish was among the small denominations that had previously left the Episcopal Church that formed a coalition to develop the new province.

Grace Reformed Episcopal Church, on Laurel Drive, is a part of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which broke away from the mother Episcopal Church in 1873 for broadly evangelical reasons. The pastor of the local church, the Rev. Paul Howden, said the presiding bishop of his denomination helped lead the way in forming the coalition of conservative denominations and Episcopal dioceses that on Wednesday joined to make the new province.

For the small denomination ”” there are about 10,000 members of the Reformed Episcopal Church ”” the new province signals a much bigger alliance than it has had in its history as a breakaway group.

“Instead of feeling lonely and isolated with so few churches throughout the country, we go from 10,000 to 100,000 members,” he said, referring to the estimated number of adherents in the new province.

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The church started ordaining women in 1976, according to Phyllis Bartle, Rector of St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Orange City. She counts herself as religiously conservative. She expressed empathy for the breakaway group, but said her church won’t join it.

“I actually understand where they’re coming from, but I’m not called there, yet,” Bartle said.

Colbert Norville, rector of Daytona Beach’s St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, also sympathized with the seceding conservatives. However, he, too, is staying put.

“I believe in the Episcopal church as it stands now,” said Norville. “I think a lot of people have forgotten their ordination vows.”

Nevertheless, he was critical of a growing movement in his denomination to accept…[same sex practice].

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Speaking to a group of parishioners before Sunday’s service, Duncan likened the split to the Reformation, when Protestant churches split from a wealthy and powerful Catholic church that had “lost its way.”

“We’re in the midst of another Reformation,” Duncan said. “Protestantism has gotten off track, and God is doing what he always does, and that is to reform it.”

Without mentioning gay priests, Duncan said the established church has strayed from its adherence to Scripture. As an example, Duncan cited the refusal of a head bishop to say that the Christian faith is the only path to salvation in the afterlife.

In an interview after his sermon, Duncan called it “unfortunate” that the consecration of a gay bishop prompted the split. He said church members were already alienated by a church that diluted biblical teachings, but they were forced to leave because the consecration directly contradicted scripture.

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