Anglicans United & Latimer Press

Determination to move forward outweighs sadness

[ENS] The 30 or so members of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Virginia, who opposed a recent vote by the majority of the congregation and the rector to join the Anglican Church of Nigeria say they want to continue as the Episcopal presence in their community.

"We are prepared to continue to operate St. Stephen's as an Episcopal Church, and I think we have people who will agree to accept leadership positions and to continue to carry on the work of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church," said Dawn Mahaffey, one of the people who voted against what some members are calling "the secession."

Sandra Kirkpatrick referred to that slowly organizing group as a "large, viable remnant."

Their determination comes not without some pain.

"Two of the speakers who wished to secede from the Episcopal Church told those of us sitting in the congregation that if we voted 'no' we were imperiling our immortal souls, and that was hard to hear," said Kirkpatrick, describing a discussion held during the week before the voting began. "This was said lovingly by people who have been my friends - dear friends - for over 10 years but they are very, very, very convinced that they are dong the right thing in leaving the Episcopal Church and they are acting genuinely worried about those of us who are not."

Mahaffey said she does "truly love" the family she has at St. Stephen's.

"This is not personal. These people have been my family, and I, and I don't think any of the others that have come to me, would harbor any evil feelings toward our fellow parishioners," she said. "This has been an issue around leadership and it's just been the way in which it has been handled. I don't think it's been done in a kind and equitable and fair way."

Archbishop Akinola, the conservative leader of Nigeria’s Anglican Church who has emerged at the center of a schism over homosexuality in the global Anglican Communion, re-enacted the scene from behind his desk Tuesday, shaking his head in wonder and horror.

“This man came up to me after a service, in New York I think, and said, ‘Oh, good to see you bishop, this is my partner of many years,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh!’ I jumped back.”

Archbishop Akinola, a man whose international reputation has largely been built on his tough stance against homosexuality, has become the spiritual head of 21 conservative churches in the United States. They opted to leave the Episcopal Church over its decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop and allow churches to bless same-sex unions. Among the eight Virginia churches to announce they had joined the archbishop’s fold last week are The Falls Church and Truro Church, two large, historic and wealthy parishes.

In a move attacked by some church leaders as a violation of geographical boundaries, Archbishop Akinola has created an offshoot of his Nigerian church in North America for the discontented Americans. In doing so, he has made himself the kingpin of a remarkable alliance between theological conservatives in North America and the developing world that could tip the power to conservatives in the Anglican Communion, a 77-million member confederation of national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“He sees himself as the spokesperson for a new Anglicanism, and thus is a direct challenge to the historic authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” said the Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.

The 62-year-old son of an illiterate widow, Archbishop Akinola now heads not only Nigeria — the most populous province, or region, in the Anglican Communion, with at least 17 million members — but also the organizations representing the leaders of Anglican provinces in Africa and the developing world. He has also become the most visible advocate for a literal interpretation of Scripture, challenging the traditional Anglican approach of embracing diverse theological viewpoints.

“Why didn’t God make a lion to be a man’s companion?” Archbishop Akinola said at his office here in Abuja. “Why didn’t he make a tree to be a man’s companion? Or better still, why didn’t he make another man to be man’s companion? So even from the creation story, you can see that the mind of God, God’s intention, is for man and woman to be together.”

Archbishop Akinola’s views on homosexuality — that it is an abomination akin to bestiality and pedophilia — are fairly mainstream here. Nigeria is a deeply religious country, evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, and attitudes toward homosexuality, women’s rights and marriage are dictated largely by scripture and enforced by deep social taboos.

Archbishop Akinola spoke forcefully about his unswerving convictions against homosexuality, the ordination of women and the rise of what he called “the liberal agenda,” which he said had “infiltrated our seminaries” in the Anglican Communion.

This view emanating from the developing world is hardly unique to the Anglican church. More and more, churches of many denominations in what many Christian leaders call the “global south,” encompassing Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, which share these views, are surging as church attendance lags in developed countries.

Bishop Martyn Minns, the rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., who was consecrated by Archbishop Akinola this year to serve as his missionary bishop in North America, said Archbishop Akinola was motivated by a conviction that the Anglican Communion must change its colonial-era leadership structure and mentality.

“He doesn’t want to be the man; he just no longer wants to be the boy,” Bishop Minns said. “He wants to be treated as an equal leader, with equal respect.”

Even among Anglican conservatives, Archbishop Akinola is not universally beloved. In November 2005, he published a letter purporting to be from the leaders, known as primates, of provinces in the global south. It called Europe a “spiritual desert” and criticized the Church of England. Three of the bishops who supposedly signed it later denied adding their names. Some bishops in southern Africa have also challenged his fixation with homosexuality, when AIDS and poverty are a crisis for the continent.

He has been chastised more recently for creating a missionary branch of the Nigerian church in the United States, called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, despite Anglican rules and traditions prohibiting bishops from taking control of churches or priests not in their territory.

“There are primates who are very, very concerned about it,” said Archbishop Drexel Gomez, the primate of the West Indies, because “it introduces more fragmentation.”

Other conservative American churches that have split from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, have aligned themselves with other archbishops, in Rwanda, Uganda and several provinces in Latin America — often because they already had ties to these provinces through mission work.

Archbishop Gomez said he understood Archbishop Akinola’s actions because the American conservatives felt an urgent need to leave the Episcopal Church and were unwilling to wait for a new covenant being written for the Anglican Communion. The new covenant is a lengthy and uncertain process led by Archbishop Gomez that some conservatives hope will eventually end the impasse over homosexuality.

One of Archbishop Akinola’s principal arguments, often heard from other conservatives as well, is that Christianity in Nigeria, a country where religious violence has killed tens of thousands in the past decade, must guard its flank lest Islam overtake it. “The church is in the midst of Islam,” he said. “Should the church in this country begin to teach that it is appropriate, that it is right to have same sex unions and all that, the church will simply die.”

He supports a bill in Nigeria’s legislature that would make homosexual sex and any public expression of homosexual identity a crime punishable by five years in prison.

The bill ostensibly aims to ban gay marriage, but it includes measures so extreme that the State Department warned that they would violate basic human rights. Strictly interpreted, the bill would ban two gay people from going out to dinner or seeing a movie together.

It could also lead to the arrest and imprisonment of members of organizations providing all manner of services, particularly those helping people with AIDS.

“They are very loose, those provisions,” said Dorothy Aken ’Ova of the International Center for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, a charity that works with rape victims, AIDS patients and gay rights groups. “It could target just about anyone, based on any form of perception from anybody.”

Archbishop Akinola said he supported any law that limited marriage to heterosexuals, but declined to say whether he supported the specific provisions criminalizing gay associations. “No bishop in this church will go out and say, ‘This man is gay, put him in jail,’ ” the archbishop said. But, he added, Nigeria has the right to pass such a law if it reflects the country’s values.

“Does Nigeria tell America what laws to make?” he said. “Does Nigeria tell England what laws to make? This arrogance, this imperial tendency, should stop for God’s sake.”

Though he insisted that he was not seeking power or influence, he is clearly relishing the curious role reversal of African archbishops sending missionaries to a Western society he sees as increasingly godless.

Asked whether his installing a bishop in the United States violated the church’s longstanding rules, he responded heatedly that he was simply doing what Western churches had done for centuries, sending a bishop to serve Anglicans where there is no church to provide one.

Archbishop Akinola argues that the Convocation, his group in the United States, was established last year to serve Nigerian Anglicans unhappy with the direction of the Episcopal Church, and eventually began to attract non-Nigerians who shared their views. Other church officials and experts say Archbishop Akinola’s intention for the Convocation was to attract Americans and become a rival to the Episcopal Church.

“Self-seeking, self-glory, that is not me,” he said. “No. Many people say I embarrass them with my humility.”

Anyone who criticizes him as power-seeking is simply trying to undermine his message, he said. “The more they demonize, the stronger the works of God,” he said.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Abuja, and Laurie Goodstein from New York.

In his sermon, Dr Williams tells how, whilst visiting a crèche attached to Bethlehem's Holy Family Hospital funded by international donations, he cradled an abandoned new-born child in his arms. He recounts asking the hospital's director, Robert Tabash why the standard of care was so good, despite the harsh economic conditions in the town:

"Dr Tabash said that all of this is important simply because 'the poorest deserve the best' .'The poorest deserve the best': when you hear that, I wonder if you can take in just how revolutionary it is. They do not deserve what's left over when the more prosperous have had their fill, or what can be patched together on a minimal budget as some sort of damage limitation. And they don't 'deserve' the best because they've worked for it and everyone agrees they've earned it. They deserve it simply because their need is what it is and because where human dignity is least obvious it's most important to make a fuss about it."

Dr Rowan Williams also urges pilgrims to visit the Holy Land in support of all the communities who live there. Reflecting on his recent experiences in the region, he says that one of the striking things about the visit was the challenge posed by the lack of hope for a political solution:

"One of the most chilling things on this journey to the Holy Land was the almost total absence in both major communities of any belief that there was a political solution to hand. So step back from that for a moment and ask, 'What do both the communities in the Holy Land ask from us - not just from that convenient abstraction, the "international community", but from you and me?'

What was needed to create trust and hope, he said, was ordinary people reaching out to the region:

"Go and see, go and listen; let them know, Israelis and Palestinians alike, that they will be heard and not forgotten. Both communities in their different ways dread -with good reason - a future in which they will be allowed to disappear while the world looks elsewhere. The beginning of some confidence in the possibility of a future is the assurance that there are enough people in the world committed to not looking away and pretending it isn't happening. It may not sound like a great deal, but it is open to all of us to do; and without friendship, it isn't possible to ask of both communities the hard questions that have to be asked, the questions about the killing of the innocent and the brutal rejection of each other's dignity and liberty."

Christmas, he says, is a reminder that God's love overflows into our lives despite that fact that we cannot ever earn it.

"The child I held last Friday had no merits and achievements; he deserved the best in spite of - or because of - having nothing but his helplessness. .

"God does not let us have what's left over from the grace given to holy and honourable people, he doesn't look around for some small bonus that might come from the end-of-year surplus in the budget. He gives the best: himself; his life, his presence, in his eternal Son and Word; he gives Jesus to be born, to die and rise again and to call us into full fellowship with him in the Spirit. He gives us his own passion and urgency to go where human dignity is most threatened and pour out extravagantly the riches of love."

Then came the voices in his head asking those nagging questions that many weary Episcopalians have pondered in recent decades: “Why keep fighting? Why not join the Roman Catholic Church?”

Every now and then, Zahl feels another urge to “swim the Tiber.” This is somewhat problematic because he is dean of the Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa., a post that makes him a leader among Evangelicals in the embattled Episcopal Church and a strategic voice in the broadly Protestant, low-church wing of the global Anglican Communion.

“I could become a Roman Catholic in a heartbeat,” said Zahl. “But the minute I say that, I stop and think about it and I know all the reasons that I am an Evangelical and why my spiritual home is in Anglicanism. ... But that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand why so many people — people I love and respect — have fled to Rome and why many more will follow them.”

Many Episcopalians, stressed Zahl, are seeking what he called a “truly objective form of church life” that provides authoritative answers to the moral and doctrinal questions that have — for at least a quarter century — caused bitter conflict and declining statistics in the American branch of Anglicanism. Their complaints run much deeper than mere discontent over the 2003 consecration of a noncelibate homosexual as the Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire.

But if they want that kind of church structure they are going to have to join that kind of church, he said. The Anglican approach, built on a unique blend of compromises between Protestantism and Catholicism, will never be enough.

“Anglicanism can only give you an ersatz form of that kind of church,” said Zahl, a Harvard man whose graduate work took him to England and Germany. “If you want the kind of authority that comes with Roman Catholicism then you should run, not walk, to enter the Church of Rome. ... That’s where you have to go to find it. You either become a Catholic or you simply stop asking the big questions about ecclesiastical structure.

“You move on.”

This will be a painful step for some Episcopalians to take, in an age when newspapers are full of reports about legal and theological cracks in the foundations of the mother Church of England and its bickering relatives around the world.

The big news on this side of the Atlantic Ocean is that eight congregations in Northern Virginia — including two of America’s most historic parishes — have voted to leave the Episcopal Church to join a new missionary effort tied to the conservative, rapidly growing Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams faces a revolt in his own back yard, with Evangelical leaders saying they will revolt if he does not allow them to answer to conservative bishops, rather than to liberals. And then there was that Sunday Times report claiming that Pope Benedict XVI has asked officials in his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to research ways to reach out to disaffected Anglicans.

The temptation, according to Zahl, is for Episcopalians caught in these conflicts to assume there is “some church body out there, some supervising entity or person, which, when we find it, will be seen definitely to be ‘The One.’

The question of ‘Whither?’ is based on the idea that there is, at this point in time, a verifiable protecting safe place.”
Instead, those committed to Anglicanism must embrace another image of the Christian life found in scripture, argued Zahl, in a missive to supporters of his seminary. While it will be hard, they should see themselves as the “wandering people of God” who must spend a long time in the wilderness as they “seek the city which is to come.”

It will be hard to find clarity and unity during the years ahead, he said.
“I hold out exactly no hope of a safe haven in the Church of England,” said Zahl. “If you have any hope of finding safe answers for the big questions of church identity within Anglicanism, then you are going to need to be patient because that is not going to happen anytime soon.”
- - -
Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.

I brought a garden shovel and dug a small hole in the ground. We were going to commemorate the work of this parish by using two symbols. I opened my bible to the passage of the Great Commission, read the passage, and placed the bible in the opening. On the open page of Matthew’s 28th chapter, I placed a Canterbury cross I purchased the summer before at a gift shop in England. We prayed together for our church and its future... and covered the spot with dirt.

A Bible and a Cross... an Anglican Cross... mark the center of Christ Church. So it was then. As it is now. And by God’s Grace, it will remain so.

The decisions that our church made in 2006 were actions to protect the biblical integrity and the Anglican future of Christ Church.

In September of 2006, we (the Christ Church vestry, clergy, and I) signed the legal documents to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Dallas. We settled with the bishop and the Standing Committee and Trustees for what proves now to be a fair and mutual agreement. In the past four months our church, our vestry, our staff, and our mission have slowly but assuredly reacted to these seismic events. They were not taken lightly and suddenly. And they were not taken without cost -- both personally, professionally, and pastorally. But as I write this essay, I also give thanks to God for His incredible faithfulness to me and our community of faith.

I can still remember where I was when it all hit me. I was at the Columbus General Convention Eucharistic Celebration on whatever day it was that Katherine Jefferts Schori gave her opening sermon. I got mixed up on the times and my wife and I were late for the huge mega-event. The advance billing of her first sermon as the PB-elect had been huge and I thought she might have a word of hope.

She had already begun when Fran and I walked softly across the back of the huge cavernous hall. Several thousands of worshippers were already seated. I really didn’t listen to the opening lines of the sermon. I was intent on being rather invisible and I was watching my steps carefully. But I wished I had listened. I would have picked up on the style of the new PB-elect. She was playful and casual with her images. She was saying something about running and seeing rabbits that didn’t seem to fit the moment. But I walked on and finally stopped in the very back of the conference hall.

A bishop in the church, a prominent leader among the moderate center, approached me on my right. Fran was on my left. From the podium, the PB-elect said something about "Mother Jesus." I leaned over to the left and asked Fran, "Did she just say what I think she said?" Fran nodded and repeated the phrase, "Mother Jesus." Then I lean to the right and whispered to the bishop, "We are in trouble... big trouble." He nodded in agreement.

When the new PB-elect finished her sermon, I cleared my throat and our bishop friend pointed to the exit and whispered, "Can I buy you both a cup of coffee?" We left the room with him... and that began our exodus away from the Episcopal Church.

Frankly, I had hoped I could have stayed within the Episcopal Church. The battle for the soul of ECUSA is also a major battle in the culture. Anyone with children knows how terribly worrisome and treacherous it is to raise children in a culture with so much sexual brokenness. If the Windsor Report had not been rejected (which it was) and the MDG not been embraced whole hog (which they were) I would still be an Episcopal priest. I would have stayed for Round 4 or 5 or whatever the next General Convention would have been. It is (was) a battle worth engaging. But what the PB-elect showed me, and what I should have realized beforehand, is this: The sexually permissive agenda of ECUSA is not an isolated aberration of teaching or practice. It is the outworking of a whole package of Biblically hostile, intellectually sloppy and historically arrogant thinking that has taken over the Episcopal Church. The new PB sounded like a Gnostic - a la the Da Vinci Code - because her theology, perspectives and priorities are not rooted in the old revelation but in the "new thing" that we keep hearing about.

I had weighed quite a bit in my thoughts and prayers over the last few years. But my prayer life went into overdrive. What was I finally going to do? My connections within the Episcopal Church were voluminous. They ran everywhere and they were deep. My son was a newly ordained priest serving as an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Dallas. I had many lay and ordained friends in the Episcopal Church. Only six weeks earlier I was elected as the Chairman of the Board of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. In the next four months I was due to become the president of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Dallas. I was one of the three longest standing members of the Diocese of Dallas. I had 24 years in the pension plan. I had many friends who knew and admired the planting of Christ Church 21 years earlier. And the congregation was totally united. In a recent survey conducted in May of 2006, our parish saw itself as a united fellowship in tune with each other and God’s vision for our ministry.

All of this went into the mix of prayer and discernment right after the General Convention. I took to heart the words of Jesus in Luke 14. It is not a bad thing to stop and count the cost before you venture out on a task. So I thought long and hard. In fact, I had been thinking about this choice that I saw coming for many years.

There were reasons to stay, but they all centered on my personal ministry and career issues. But there was also a growing list of reasons why we needed to leave ECUSA. We had five major issues facing us if we had decided to stay within ECUSA:

First, we would start to lose our core leadership. The church and I in particular, had become publicly identified with the resistance movement. In June of 2006 alone, I did almost 30 media interviews. The people of our church were zeroed in on the issues and ready to react. They heard me say before the General Convention that what I was hoping for was ‘clarity’ about the direction of ECUSA. After the convention, we all agreed, we had clarity. If I had faltered, they would not have.

Second, we had more buildings to build to accommodate our growth and I had already postponed a much needed capital campaign due to the distress within ECUSA. In fact, in October of 2005, I had called the vestry, staff, and core leadership to a season of prayer about our status within the Episcopal Church. This was not window dressing. If we were going to stay we were going to have to build buildings and pay off debt with the national and diocesan canons declaring that they had a ‘trust’ or an ‘interest’ in our property.

Third, we were beginning lose our sense of mission and purpose. I could feel it in my preaching and I could see it in our congregation. Our leaders were started to get focused and over-interested in the drama of the Anglican Communion. I was too. I was spending way to much time on blogs and phones trying to sort our strategies and organize events that would galvanize ordained leadership. Was I putting that kind of effort into reaching people for Christ? I knew I had been distracted... and so was the congregation.

Fourth, we were sensing that the new PB-elect would have a much more directive role in property disputes and negotiated settlements once she was in office. She doesn’t know me... but I remember her from a church growth work-group I participated in many years ago. She was the bishop of Nevada and while her diocese hadn’t seen growth over the last decade, I did not find her to be without opinions and ideas. She had strong feelings and heady notions of how churches could grow. And I remember that she had stubbornness and tenacity for her own ideas that I think will be borne out in her work at 815.

Finally, I saw that the church debate had changed over the previous three years. In previous conventions and conferences, the discussion of the sexual doctrines of the church was a biblical discussion. It was centered on what the Bible has to say about our families, our marriages, our sexual urges and God’s call to a life in purity. But more recently the biblical truth was not being debated. The Windsor Report had successfully changed the subject. It turned the debate to a nearly impossible argument to win: unity. The discussion of the church was not now about "if" one side was right or wrong in what was taught, but rather "how" we could all get along with each other.

When the vestry and I met after General Convention we had been weighing all of this in our minds and hearts for over 18 months. In fact, the vestry seldom spoke about anything else than the issues facing the church. Our parish was headed in one direction, and the Episcopal Church had confirmed their direction in a wholly different direction. We simply ran out of road together. A fork in the road came... and we took it.

The first few months over the summer as we announced our intention to disassociate (in June 2006) we were filled with an adrenaline rush of activity. We were pushing the outside of the envelope and we knew it. We were working with a legal team from California to give us an assessment of our property status within the state of Texas. We were in regular communication with the Bishop of Dallas and his chancellors. Our chancellor and vestry were busy preparing the founding documents for the new Christ Church. We were closing in on a settlement with the Diocese.

When people would get wind of our work they would ask why. Why are you trying to leave the Diocese of Dallas? Bishop Stanton is regarded as a hero. Why not stand with him? And the answer always had to do with the future. We loved our bishop and we had stood by him for his entire episcopate... and he had stood by us and in particular, stood by me. However, Bishop Stanton had made his position quite clear: He did not intend to leave the Episcopal Church and he was not going to lead the Diocese of Dallas out of the Episcopal Church. But he was willing to work with any congregation whose mission would be hindered by continued connection to ECUSA.

Our goals were be upfront and be generous. We didn’t want any bad blood between the Dallas diocese and Christ Church. We wanted to give them every financial consideration that we could afford. The bishop didn’t want to permanently harm the ministries of the diocese, to which we had been contributing close to $450,000 per year. And we didn’t want to have to pay for our buildings and grounds twice. By God’s grace, Jim Stanton had the pastoral heart to put the whole legal contract for withdrawal under the terms of a "pastoral judgment" from his office.

The details were made public after the deal had been signed. Christ Church had paid for everything it owned over the last 21 years without any help from the diocese, save a small stipend up front. The bishop and our wardens agreed to a pre-paid, devolving assessment over a period of the next five years. We totaled it up, borrowed the money, and paid the diocese with a check for $1.2 million dollars.

In September, I sat with the Standing Committee and read my letter of withdrawal. I wept tears and experienced one of the greatest senses of loss and sadness I had ever felt. I was saying goodbye to colleagues and friends, my bishop, my past, and I was saying goodbye to the future I had thought I had been preparing for. I was weeping. Everyone in the room showed deep emotion.

I left with my senior warden. Before he drove out of the parking lot, I asked him to pull up to the front door one more time. I ran inside and hugged and wept over every one of the staff I could find as I said my goodbyes. These were people I had known for decades: the receptionist, the administrative assistants, the accountants, the missioners, and the staff. They were people whom I knew well and knew I would never know again in the same way.

God made my Senior Warden for this moment. On the way back from the diocesan office, we processed the meeting and shared our reactions to it. I was both elated and exhausted. The meeting was over and so was my life and ministry in the Episcopal Church. I do not take these things lightly. My warden was a great friend and gave comfort to me on the drive back.

I went home and fell apart at the kitchen table. Fran and I cried and cried together. I heard later that the bishop went to his office and wept after the Standing Committee meeting. A deep sense of sadness came over me for the next few days. There was great loss. I loved the church and I lamented what needed to be done. But it was done. Relief. Sadness. Hope. Regret. They all came at once and lasted for many days.

The following Sunday I told each of our five services what we had accomplished. I didn’t expect hoots or applause. I didn’t want them. What we had been through was very hard and I felt little sense of joy and victory.

The next few weeks were difficult all the way around. I noticed that attendance and giving were off a bit. I noticed that the sense of celebration that we usually have on Sunday was more subdued one week and then a bit forced the next. We had had a major death in the parish (one of my best friends) which was announced on a Sunday following, too. They were days of deep grief.

One afternoon, I was sullen and sitting on my family room sofa. Fran knew my mood and she knew that sometimes music will work to cheer me up. She brought me my guitar and said, in as directive a tone as I have ever heard her utter, "Here... play something. God always uses music to cheer you up." I took the instrument and strummed a few chords... in a minor key!

Then, in the back of my mind, some lovely tune from an ancient chant began to press its way forward. My fingers found the notes and my heart heard the words. "Of the Father’s love begotten, ‘ere the world began to be. He is Alpha and Omega. He the source, the ending, He. Of the things that are and have been. And that future worlds shall see. Ever more and ever more." I sang under my breath the ancient words and they ministered to me in a might way. My spirit connected to that lifeline of music and hope. I didn’t feel anything else for the moment except somehow held in the Father’s hands. Cupped in His Hands. Protected. Strengthened.

We had launched a major capital campaign only a few weeks after General Convention because we knew now we were going to withdraw and we could move forward with our plans. This timing was difficult - there were literally only 23 hours between the announcement that we had received the title to our property and the public launch of the capital campaign! In hindsight, it would have been better for a bit more time to help the church understand its new status. But as the weeks went by, we were able to turn the campaign into a way that the church did get to know itself again.

Things turned out well. Praise God! I began to get back ‘on message’. The congregation shook off the trauma and drama of the previous few months. Attendance picked back up to levels we were at last year. We are growing again. The leadership got behind the capital campaign and on Thanksgiving Eve I was able to announce a total victory for the future of Christ Church. We made three-year pledges for 9.2 million dollars over and above the operating fund giving.

As we celebrate that victory we give thanks to God for his provision and leadership. It has been hard, demanding, and it has taught me more about faith than most any other event in my ministry. I think now about our future and I hear in the back of my mind another quote... but this one not from an ancient chant but from the children’s story of Peter Pan? Where to? "Second star to the right, then straight on till morning... " What a line! What a future! Where will our future lead us?

That is the subject of my next article.

Their reasons were the same ones that have prompted Episcopal congregations and even entire dioceses across the country to sever their national ties in recent months: decades of liberalising trends in the Episcopal Church that have led to, among other things, the confirmation in 2003 of the openly gay V Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire and the election in July 2006 of a presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Diocese of Nevada, who is not only a woman (a contentious issue among conservative Episcopalians) but supports both Robinson's confirmation and church blessings for gay unions.

Jefferts Schori pooh-poohed the mass departure of the Virginians, declaring that they were a splinter collection of malcontents looking for a "quick fix" and that they had failed to embrace "diversity" and "tension," which she defined as the essence of Anglicanism.

She has her head in the sand. The Episcopal Church is in serious trouble only compounded by the current schism. It is a church in demographic free-fall, its numbers now standing at 2.2 million (by Jefferts Schori's own estimate), down from 3.4 million at its heyday in 1965. At the 2,700 Episcopalian parishes nationwide, the median Sunday worship attendance is 80 people, and the churches they attend would be crumbling ruins were it not for their substantial endowments left over from the 19th century, when most of them were founded.

Like other mainline Protestant groups in America - Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the like - the Episcopal Church decided some 40 years ago that the future of Christianity lay in accommodating its theology and moral teachings to whatever was fashionable or politically correct in the secular culture. Militant feminism and blessings for gay sex were only part of the doctrinal upheaval. Avant-garde clerics and theologians throughout North America and Western Europe scoffed at the traditional Christian teachings that Jesus Christ had been born of a virgin, worked miracles, died for human sin, rose from the dead, and founded a church that was supposed to be the means of salvation.

All those liberal strands of Christianity are paying the price for their devil's bargain with secularism in vastly diminished numbers, as members figure out that when a religion lets them do whatever they want, one of the things they don't want to do is go to church on Sunday. The mainline denominations, which once represented 40% of US Protestants, now represent only 12%: 17 million out of 135 million.

To put it bluntly, liberal Christianity is in meltdown. The election of Jefferts Schori, a theological liberal who prayed to a female Jesus at last summer's bishops' convention, together with the bishops' vote not to endorse the bedrock Christian proposition that Jesus is Lord, proved to be the last straw for many Episcopalians who believe that the essence of their Anglican faith isn't "tension" but fidelity to the Bible and the Christian creeds.

In fact, those conservative Northern Virginia churches that split off on Sunday may be few in number, but they represent an island of vibrancy in an otherwise moribund denomination. They are large, prosperous, highly educated congregations in large, prosperous, highly-educated Washington, DC, suburbs: Fairfax, Falls Church, Sterling, Woodbridge.

They join four other Northern Virginia churches that have similarly severed their ties with the Episcopal Church, and two more churches are likely to schedule similar votes in January. These 14 churches, together with a 15th that had been expected to announce a vote on Sunday but did not, constitute only 7% of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia's 197 parishes, but represent 11% of its baptised membership of about 90,000 and 18% of its average Sunday attendance of 32,000. Live people instead of dead people pay for their upkeep.

What happened in Virginia is a sign of growing awareness among conservative Christians that they are not - contrary to the way they have been painted by the liberal denominations and their sympathetic friends in the liberal media - a theologically backward, inevitably diminishing minority of dissenters from the enlightened Christian mainstream.

The recent petition by evangelical Anglican clerics in England to be freed from the supervision of liberal bishops is another sign of changing times - for their congregations represent a full 34% of the 900,000 English Anglicans who bother to go to church on Sunday. It has finally dawned on orthodox believers in the west that they may have the numbers on their side after all. The worldwide Anglican Communion has 77 million members, and in the Third World, where the Anglican Church is growing rapidly, conservative Anglicanism prevails.

For years the wealth, historic prestige, and trendy theology of the Episcopal Church have secured it outsize press attention that has obscured its marginal status in worldwide Anglicanism and American Protestantism. The election of Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop and the pomp surrounding her installation at the National Cathedral in Washington seemed designed as displays of liberal triumphalism.

Lately, however, the cracks in the façade have been showing. There is talk among liberal Episcopalians of "remnant" churches, and Jefforts Schori's assertion in a New York Times interview that Episcopalians are "better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations" amounted to a candid admission of numerical decline.

Jefferts Schori has also indicated that she will use the resources of the national church to fight to the teeth in court any efforts by churches in Virginia and elsewhere to keep their property after they secede. Perhaps she will succeed, and tiny groups of liberals will replace burgeoning conservative congregations. When and if that happens, however, it is likely that she and her church will be competing with a thriving branch of American Anglicanism that takes the traditional teachings of its faith very seriously.

END

"This is a handful of congregations of a total of nearly 7,200, the vast majority of which are engaged in healthy and vital ministry," Jefferts Schori said Monday, a day after six Virginia parishes, including two of the state's most prominent, announced they would break away.

Four other Virginia parishes previously left, and two more will decide soon whether to do likewise, according to parish leaders.

The Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of the global Anglican Communion, has been under pressure from traditionalists at home and abroad since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Under Anglican tradition, Akinola's move into Episcopal territory amounts to an invasion, since archbishops agree not to start churches outside the borders of their own region.

Jefferts Schori said some people held what she called the "fantasy" that Akinola's convocation could replace the U.S. denomination.

"I don't think that's going to happen any time soon," she said.

Among the Virginia churches that announced Sunday their members had voted overwhelmingly to leave were Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church, two of the state's largest and most historic parishes.

A lengthy and expensive legal fight is possible over the Truro and Falls Churc h properties, which are worth tens of millions of dollars.

On Monday, leaders of Virginia's 90,000-member diocese voted to establish a seven-member property commission. The diocese and departing members said they have agreed to delay possible legal action over church property for 30 days.

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Reed in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.

Which occasion switched on a light bulb, showing the irrelevance of our annual "Christmas Wars" and the lawsuits they occasion over this or that public recognition of the Christ child.

To the ACLU lawyers, and such like, trying to muzzle Christian expression at Christmas, there is just one thing to say: Get a life.

Now, I know that's not the way many a serious Christian would talk about the perpetual toil involved in defending public Nativity scenes and pushing for general restoration of "Merry Christmas."

On the other hand, consider: You're at a choral service where sits, front and center, the Human Plight: our inability to get anything right for very long, if at all, due to an ancestral encounter with a talking snake in a pleasant garden. Scriptures and choral music escort the the listener through the journey from despair to...to a stable in Bethlehem, where "in the bleak mid-winter" (as Christina Rossetti put it) lies none other than the Son of God. I know: it hardly sounds like what you'd find on YouTube, but consider that the narrative of redemption through this miraculous birth has made the rounds for many a moon now, and continues to comfort and inspire. Here is affirmation. You want to ring bells, sound trumpets, and weep for joy? By all means, do so.

Now against this, let us set the narrative of the politically correct, which is: Stop it! Stop those carols, out with that Nativity scene. Why would that be? For the sake of a higher narrative? Not as it turns out. About as high as that narrative ever climbs is the shelf on which lies the mummified claim that religion, being ":dangerous," is to be kept generally out of sight.

Now, that's a claim the Constitution enables, as it enables all manner of assertions, asserverations, declarations, and avowals. But when you hear the summons to public secularism, do you want to ring bells, sound trumpets, prepare a feast? A few may; not many, I would guess. When you've pushed the Nativity figures out of sight, and told the Christmas carolers from P.S. 121 to drop the angels and keep it to red-nosed reindeer, you've said, essentially...what? As much as Christina Rossetti said (in the Festival of Lessons and Carols)? "What can I give him, poor as I am/If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb./ If I were a wise man, I would do my part/ Yet what can I give him? Give my heart."

We are at a different level here. Minds swim with the wonder of it all. This is the real stuff. No judges or advocates can take away from it with glances or snarls of disapproval. It is. Thirsty ears know as much; and, knowing, return for it, century after century.

The contest is gravely unequal: Christmas against legal documents and editorials warning of constitutional transgression; shepherds against judges, angels against editors.

O little town of Washington... Or Austin, Boston, Moscow, Cannes. How would any of that sound? Half as inspiring as the name of grubby, down-at-the-sandal-heels Bethlehem -- where in the bleak mid-winter a stable place sufficed?

There's a reason bells ring out at Christmas and not on the opening day of Congress. Nor can secularism, the creeping creed of a creepy age, drive that reason from the hearts and minds of men. In the secular doctrine of man alone -- bereft of God -- there is neither warmth nor richness nor comfort: just terrible coldness beneath a star that fails, perversely, to sputter out.

In a pastoral letter to Christians of the Churc h of Uganda, Orombi said that some Primates have asked Williams to invite a bishop from the Anglican Communion Network "to attend the Primates Meeting and represent the orthodox believers."

Jefferts Schori will be the first woman among the leaders, or Primates, of the Anglican Communion when they next convene in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania in February, but in his pastoral letter Orombi insisted that his "problem" with the Episcopal Church is "not that they have enthroned a woman as their Presiding Bishop."

The Kigali communiqué, issued after a meeting of Global South leaders in Rwanda in September, noted that "some of us will not be able to recognize Katharine Jefferts Schori as a Primate at the table with us."

Although the communiqué cited 20 signatories, a number of Anglican leaders later disavowed the statement. [Ed. Note: Archbishop Ungane from South Africa, who has traveled widely for Frank Griswold for 3 years, asked that his signature be removed. Two other archbishops who did not attend the meeting, asked that their signatures note that they were not in attendance. ENS always "spins" things to look like the Africans are dishonest.C. Wetzel]

It is unclear to which Primates Orombi refers in his letter, the full text of which follows:

Dear Christians of the Church of Uganda,

Greetings in the name of our risen and reigning Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!

I am writing with a heavy heart to share with you sad news about our beloved Anglican Communion. On Saturday, 4th November, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA) enthroned as their Presiding Bishop a leader who has permitted the blessing of same-sex unions and who also denies that Jesus is the only way to the Father. Her name is the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Our problem with ECUSA is not that they have enthroned a woman as their Presiding Bishop. We in the Church of Uganda do support the ordination of women and women in all levels of leadership in our church. In fact, I am very pleased to report that the House of Laity elected Dr. Sarah Ndyanabangi to serve as the next Chairperson of the Provincial House of Laity.

Our problem with the new Presiding Bishop of ECUSA is that she has publicly denied what the Bible teaches about faith and morality. And now she is in the position of Archbishop of one of the most influential and wealthiest Provinces in the Anglican Communion, even though it is one of the smallest in number.

There is a proverb that says, "When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold." So, I am writing to warn you to be careful that you don’t catch a cold! I also want to update you on decisions and actions of the Provincial Assembly and the House of Bishops to guard the Church of Uganda from falling sick with the sickness that is coming from America.

1. In 2003, the House of Bishops officially broke communion with ECUSA, and in 2004 the Provincial Assembly affirmed that decision. These decisions were taken because ECUSA elected and consecrated as a Bishop a divorced man who has a homosexual partner. This is contrary to the Word of God! We also determined that we would no longer receive funds from ECUSA, including American dioceses, churches, and organizations that support the gay agenda.

2. At the same time, the Church of Uganda has declared that it is in communion with those Bishops, Dioceses, clergy, and congregations who did not support the consecration as bishop of a man who is in an active same-sex relation ship, and who now make up what is called in America the Anglican Communion Network.

3. Practically, the implications of these decisions are the following:

a. We have broken or need to break once and for all the companion diocese relationships with ECUSA dioceses that support the gay agenda.

b. We will no longer apply for grants from the Trinity Grants program of Trinity Wall Street, UTO (United Thank Offering), Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), or scholarships through the Episcopal Church Center (815). No Bishop or Diocesan Secretary should sign grant applications to these organizations.

c. We will no longer send students to ECUSA theological colleges, except Trinity School for Ministry and Nashotah House. For example, we will no longer send students to Virginia Theological Seminary, Sewanee, Episcopal Divinity School, Seminary of the Southwest, or Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

d. We will not invite Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to visit Uganda, and we did not send any official Ugandan representative to her enthronement.

e. We will not automatically accept an ECUSA priest or lay missionary in the Church of Uganda , unless it can be determined that the person upholds the authority of Scripture and the historic and biblical faith and morality of the Church of Uganda.

f. We do consider ourselves to be in communion with those bishops, clergy, people, dioceses, and congregations that are part of the Anglican Communion Network. Clergy and lay missionaries can be easily exchanged between the Church of Uganda and the Anglican Communion Network.

g. We will send clergy abroad to study only at Trinity School for Ministry and Nashotah House.

h. Grant requests must be directed to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund and other non-Anglican, Bible-believing donors.

i. We need to pray for new international and orthodox partners to become part of our life, including other ecumenical partners who uphold historic and Biblical faith.

Finally, one of the most significant decisions we have made to support Biblically faithful Anglicans in America is to provide a diocesan home for American congregations who could no longer be submitted to a revisionist Bishop and the national church leadership of ECUSA. Ten of our dioceses in the Church of Uganda are now providing spiritual oversight to twenty congregations in America. These are congregations of Americans in America, but they are officially part of the Church of Uganda.

I have been in consultation with the other Primates and Archbishops of Africa and the Global South about this crisis in our beloved Anglican Communion. We have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury and informed him that we cannot sit together with Katharine Jefferts Schori at the upcoming Primates Meeting in February. We have also asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to invite an orthodox Bishop from the Anglican Communion Network in America to attend the Primates Meeting and represent the orthodox believers. We await his decision on these matters.

We are also praying about whether our House of Bishops should attend and participate in the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 2008. Every ten years, the Archbishop of Canterbury invites all the bishops of the Anglican Communion together for prayer and mutual consultation on matters of mission and our common life together as Anglicans throughout the world. The next conference is planned for 2008. However, the Archbishops of Africa and the Global South have received a report and a recommendation that we not participate in the next Lambeth Conference if ECUSA, and especially their gay bishop, are also invited to the conference. The House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda has not yet made a decision about this, but I wanted you to know that we are praying and asking the Lord to give us the mind of Christ on this matter.

Since ECUSA officially approved of homosexual relationships in 2003 we have earnestly prayed they would repent and return to the Word of God. But, their General Convention in June 2006 made it clear that they are not intent on repentance. In fact, they seem even more committed to their erring ways and the revision of the Biblical and historic faith that brought life to us and that we gratefully proclaim.

Therefore, and in light of all these developments, the House of Bishops and the Provincial Assembly in its meeting in August reaffirmed our position of broken communion with ECUSA and our decision to support in practical ways those churches, dioceses, and leaders in America who uphold and promote the Biblical and historic faith of Anglicanism for which our own Ugandan martyrs died.

In the meantime, as we work and pray for unity in the Anglican Communion that is grounded in the truth of the Word of God, we are rejoicing in the upcoming consecration of the new Bishop of North Mbale Diocese, and the recent breakthrough in Muhabura Diocese. I urge you to keep praying for complete and lasting peace in northern Uganda. May I also ask you to explore ways your diocese and parishes can actively support the restoration of the families and communities of our brothers and sisters in the greater North.

Yours in Christ,

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA

The leadership of the Diocese of Virginia has labored for three years to seek another course that would have maintained the integrity of the church and the spirit of inclusiveness that has been a hallmark of the Diocese and the Anglican Communion. The votes today have compromised these discussions and have created Nigerian congregations occupying Episcopal churches. This is not the future of the Episcopal Church envisioned by our forebears.

I have called a special joint meeting Monday of the Executive Board and Standing Committee of the Diocese, with counsel, to consider the full range of pastoral, canonical and legal obligations of the Church and our responsibilities to those faithful Episcopalians in these congregations who do not choose to associate with the Church of Nigeria.

In the interim I have asked the leadership of these now Nigerian and Ugandan congregations occupying Episcopal churches to keep the spiritual needs of all concerned uppermost in their minds at this difficult moment in our Church history, especially continuing Episcopalians. I also have directed diocesan personnel to work with the leadership of the departing congregations and with those who wish to remain in the Episcopal Church to reach agreements for the shared use of the Church property for the purposes of worship and other needs until final disposition of the Church's property can be settled.

I want to be clear on this point: Our polity maintains that all real and personal property is held in trust for The Episcopal Church and the Diocese. As stewards of this historic trust, we fully intend to assert the Church's canonical and legal rights over these properties.

Today is indeed a sad day for the Church and for many in the Church. It is also a day of abundant hope that in our 400 years as Virginia's oldest Christian community, the Episcopal Church in Virginia will continue to serve Christ faithfully by serving his people.

The result of the week-long vote, announced yesterday, sets up the possibility of a lengthy ecclesiastical and legal battle for property worth tens of millions of dollars. Buildings and land at Truro and The Falls Church alone are valued at about $25 million, according to Fairfax County records.

The votes are fresh evidence of an increasingly bitter split within the U.S. Episcopal Church. Seven of its 111 dioceses have rejected the authority of Presiding U.S. Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori, installed in July as the first woman to head an Anglican church. Schori supports V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay man elected Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

"I grew up in the Episcopal Church. I hope I don't cry when I talk about this," said a shaken Katrina Wagner, 37, an accountant and member of Truro's vestry, after the congregation's vote was announced. "But the issue is, are we going to follow Scripture?"

Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia said yesterday in a statement that he was "saddened" by the churches' decision, but that he would not yield in seeking to retain ownership of the parishes' land and buildings. The two congregations voted not only to sever ties with the U.S. church but also for a resolution saying that they should keep the property.

"As stewards of this historic trust, we fully intend to assert the Church's canonical and legal rights over these properties," said Lee, who is scheduled to meet today with the Executive Board and Standing Committee of the Diocese to discuss the situation.

Truro and the Falls Church, with a combined membership of more than 3,000, will form the core of what is envisioned as a new Fairfax-based mission of the conservative Episcopal Church of Nigeria. The head of the Nigerian church, Archbishop Peter Akinola, has voiced support for a pending law in that country that includes prison sentences for gay sexual activity.

Rev. Martyn Minns of Truro Church, who is missionary bishop of the splinter group known as CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), said that while the dissident Virginia churches believe that homosexuality is banned by Scripture, they do not support criminalization of gay sex.

Akinola's spokesman and his advocates have said he does not advocate aggressively pursuing the jailing of homosexuals. His advocates say he is trying to navigate an explosive cultural situation in Nigeria and appease Muslim leaders.

The other Virginia congregations that announced votes to leave the U.S. church are St. Stephens in Heathsville, St. Margarets Church in Woodbridge, Potomac Falls Episcopal Church in Sterling and Church of the Word in Gainesville. Two other churches participating in the vote, Church of the Apostles in Fairfax and St. Paul's in Haymarket, are expected to release results today. Last week, members of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Dale City announced a vote to separate.

In all, the eight voting parishes represent about 5 percent of the 90,000-member Virginia diocese.

The defections are likely to continue. Two other small Northern Virginia churches, Our Saviour Episcopal in Oatlands and Church of the Epiphany in Herndon, are expected to vote on separation early next year.

Minns said he expects about 20 parishes nationwide to join CANA by year's end.

A packed church of nearly 1,000 Truro congregants sat in rapt silence at the end of the 11:15 a.m. service yesterday as Jim Oakes, the senior warden, announced that more than 90 percent of eligible voters resolved to sever ties with the U.S. church and retain control of church property.

"A new day has begun," said Oakes. The congregation then sang a hymn, Number 525, specially selected by Minns. It began, "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. . . ."

Outside after the service, members were somber but resolute about a decision that they say culminated a long period of disenchantment with the Episcopal Church, dating back to the ordination of women in the 1970s. Their alienation grew with Robinson's election.

"I want to do what's right in the Lord's eyes," said Vicki Robb, 53, an Alexandria public relations executive, who said the church's leftward drift was becoming intolerable. "It's kind of embarassing when you tell people that you're Episcopal."

Minns said the process of separation had been emotionally wrenching. "This is a family struggle, no question about that," he said. "And it is a very painful one, but we have managed to conduct the struggle in a way that has sought to honor those with whom we disagree."

Truro and The Falls Church were formed before the U.S. denomination even existed. George Washington was a member of the vestry at The Falls Church.

Liberal Episcopal leaders said yesterday's vote was not surprising given the increasingly conservative tilt of the parishes involved. "Frankly, anyone who didn't agree has long since left those parishes. They've been headed that way for years," said Joan Gundersen, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh.

The departure is regrettable, she said, adding: "Every time one of these churches leaves, their voice becomes an even smaller minority. And I'm sorry to see that. One of the beliefs of the Episcopal Church has been how we can live together and worship together under widely varying interpretations of belief."

Conservative congregations have left the church in the past, including in the 1970s when ordinations of women began, and a number have done so since Robinson's election. In some cases, dissident churches have fought their diocese for the church property. Many court rulings have been in favor of the dioceses, although some recent cases in California have gone the other way.

Representatives of CANA, the Fairfax-based splinter group, said yesterday that they remain confident they can reach a settlement with the diocese that will allow them to retain the churches. "We expect to be able to settle the questions of property in a peaceful way," said Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church.

CANA wants to be home for conservative Episcopalians and possibly a future indpendent arm of the Anglican Communion within the United States. But officials with the Anglican Communion appeared to distance themselves from that idea late last week. On Friday, the secretary-general of the Communion issued a statement emphasizing that CANA is simply a mission of the church of Nigeria, nothing more.

Staff writer Christian Davenport contributed to this report.

The group, whose supporters include the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, warned Dr Rowan Williams that the crisis over issues such as gay clerics was escalating fast and could descend into schism.

At a confidential meeting at Lambeth Palace on Tuesday, they urged Dr Williams to create a parallel structure to free them from the interference of liberal bishops or risk a revolt against his authority.

The group, an unprecedented coalition of evangelical organisations and networks, is powerful because it represents about a fifth of all the Church of England's churches.

As many of these are large and thriving, according to some estimates they account for almost a third of its active membership and up to 40 per cent of its money, a significant weapon given the parlous state of Chu rch finances.

The evangelical intervention comes with the worldwide Anglican Church on the brink of schism and will further complicate Dr Williams's efforts to keep the Church of England from disintegrating as well. Additionally, traditionalist Anglo-Catholics who oppose female ordination are threatening similar action if they are not provided with sufficient protection when women are consecrated as bishops.

Lambeth Palace confirmed last night that the Archbishop had held a "preliminary" discussion with the evangelical group and was taking the issues seriously. It is understood that he is urgently contacting all his fellow bishops to seek advice.

But liberals were dismayed, saying that evangelical attempts to split the Church over homosexuality would undermine its traditional tolerance, damaging not only the Church but also the nation.

The group of evangelicals who met the Archbishop is thought to have included the Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, who is the president of the Church of England's Evangelical Council, a broadly representative national network.

Others believed to be involved were the Rev Paul Perkin, a member of the General Synod and of Reform, the conservative evangelical organisation, and Canon Christopher Sugden, the executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream.

Group members presented Dr Williams with a covenant" making clear they would not accept the authority of liberal bishops regarded as having abandoned Biblical teaching by accepting gay priests or blocking evangelical growth.

The covenant makes clear that the whole group will support individual members who break their ties with their bishops, refuse to allow them into their churches, or who cut their quotas, the "taxes" they voluntarily pay into central Church funds.

As part of a growing resistance movement, retired or foreign bishops from abroad could be parachuted into evangelical parishes in defiance of the diocesan bishops.

The evangelicals believe Dr Williams has only a few months to create a "flying bishops" structure because the clash could worsen significantly after a summit in February in Africa of all the primates, the leaders of the 38 self-governing provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The meeting is expected to decide on the fate of the liberal Americans who precipitated the crisis by consecrating Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop in 2003.

Mr Perkin, the priest in charge of St Peter and St Paul in Battersea, south London, said: "The sleeping giant is waking. We have to be taken account of now."

Bishop Nazir-Ali, who was a leading rival to Dr Williams for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, threw his weight behind the evangelical initiative last night, saying it demonstrated "the depth of feeling" within the Church.

But the Rev Giles Fraser, the president of the liberal pressure group Inclusive Church, said: "These rebel churches want to destroy the traditional breadth of the Church of England and turn it into a puritan sect. They must not be allowed to succeed."

The plans are believed to include proposals for a panel of retired bishops to give oversight to over 50 parishes which are involved in ongoing disputes with their bishops, and for the widespread adoption of capping funds to the diocese and the central Church.

A covenant was released after the meeting with Dr Rowan Williams, which has the backing of many of the most prominent evangelical groups and networks, including Anglican Mainstream, the Church of England Evangelical Council, the New Wine Network and Reform. A number of large flag-ship evangelical parishes are also believed to have signed the covenant.

Talks with the Archbishop were said to be positive and ‘ongoing’ after the meeting on Tuesday. It is believed that further negotiations will be held in January after the meeting of the House of Bishops. Evangelical leaders were this week playing down accusations of creating a schism in the Church of England. They believe that theirs is the only way forward for preventing parishes seeking alternative Episcopal oversight from overseas and splitting the Anglican Communion.

In their ‘Covenant’ they stated that the Church of England was in danger of departing from a common faith. On mission, they said that those who adopt the covenant will increasingly pursue extraterritorial solutions to the Church of England’s decline.

“This means there cannot be any no-go areas for gospel growth and church planting. Best practice will always involve appropriate consultation… “We will support mission-shaped expressions of church through prayer, finance and personnel, even when official permission is unreasonably withheld.”

The Covenant also calls on local congregations to raise up and release new leaders without the need for official approval. “Many parishes have lost confidence in the institutional centre to discern and train suitable ministers, and fund and deploy them in sufficient numbers and appropriate contexts.” They warn that if bishops unreasonably withhold authorisation for new ministers, they will pay, train and commission them without permission and “seek official Anglican recognition for them”.

Under the plans some of the Church of England’s most generous givers could reduce the amount of money they give to ‘heterodox’ dioceses and to the administrative centre. The Covenant suggests that all of the parishes involved will seek to become self-sustaining and “donate a reasonable yet modest amount to support the administrative centre”.

On the issue of alternative oversight, they express impatience with the strained relationship between many evangelical parishes and liberal bishops. “We can, therefore, no longer accept churches being denied such [biblically orthodox] oversight.”

The liberal grouping Inclusive Church released a press statement based on a newspaper report, before the Covenant had even been released, accusing evangelicals of trying to destroy the Church of England and make it into a ‘Puritanical sect’.

A number of liberal bishops will also be unhappy with the plans and even with the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury is discussing alternative Episcopal oversight. His task in the coming months will be to weather a storm from his liberal colleagues who will feel threatened by plans for alternative oversight, while keeping determined evangelicals at the table to agree a ‘compromise’

We reminisced about our cordial relations over many years, and how they had been important to all of us. We discussed our serious areas of difference that night, of course, but we also made a strong effort to do so with decorum and civility, in a manner and tone that we felt was appropriate to our genuine respect for you and your office, and to our long-term relationship with you. We sincerely hoped after that meeting that this mutual respect and civility could be maintained between us, even as we moved into what we all knew would be a difficult phase of our relations, which might involve Church of the Apostles separating from the diocese.

That is why we were so taken aback when the next direct communication from you to our vestry was the cold, sharp, and threatening letter you sent us all last Friday. What an unpleasant reversal! Beyond our great concern about what it may be revealing to us about you as an individual and your style of dealing with us, we are honestly confused about your intent.

In the early paragraphs, you discussed the Special Committee, which you had appointed and which had worked diligently in good faith under your direction for a year before it came up with a Protocol for Departing Congregation, on which the Committee unanimously agreed. You had given us every indication that if this Committee were somehow able to reach consensus—a seemingly miraculous accomplishment—you would honor and support their recommendations, and that they would become the basis for our moving forward to resolving our differences in an honorable and amicable manner.

But now you tell us that you cannot actually approve the protocol they defined; that in your view, the power to do so does not even rest within our Diocese, but rather is the purview of the National Church. Do you really believe that? Have you suddenly ceded your authority over the diocese so completely? And if that is the case, why are you only revealing that fact now? If this was a matter that involved the national church, why did you not include representation from the national church on the Special Committee from the outset? To what end were their efforts spent?

After your seeming willingness to abandon the hard work of the Special Committee, you then turned to reciting to us a litany of quotations from the Church Canons, in an extremely cold and condescending manner. “The place of Christian leaders—chiefly within the Anglican tradition, of bishops—as teachers of scripture can hardly be overemphasized,” the Windsor Report explained. “The ‘authority’ of bishops cannot reside solely or primarily in legal structures, but, as in Acts 6.4, in their ministry of “’‘prayer and the word of God.’ ’”. If this is ignored, the model of ‘the authority of scripture’ which scripture itself offers is failing to function as it should.” (Windsor Report, para. 58). Frankly, we all found this exercise deeply insulting and profoundly disappointing. Certainly you cannot have thought that we actually needed this information, that our Vestry is unaware of the relevant Canons, and that our church does not have them easily available. Obviously your intent lay elsewhere. But what was it?

We can only speculate, Bishop Lee, but the motive that seemed most probable to us was individual intimidation of vestry members, an attempt to make them fear you and what you as our bishop would attempt to do not only to our church, but also to each one of us. Why else would you cite actions in Pennsylvania and highlight that there, “Members of the vestry were held individually liable for the expenses the Diocese and the Bishop incurred in the litigation.” We note that you did not mention instances where the reverse has been true, and Dioceses in the United States have lost in court on property issues. If indeed intimidation was your goal, we must respectfully inform you that you have utterly failed. Nothing has galvanized our vestry so strongly in all its deliberations over our affiliation with the Episcopal Church as your recent letter. Rather than making us think that we may be making a mistake, despite our having carefully studied, prayed and deliberated about this matter for years, you have succeeded in confirming our conviction that the Episcopal Church is not where we belong. Does your threatening letter reflect the way that a chief Pastor should speak to men and women who are voluntarily serving the church on a vestry, in order to help further the work of Christ in the world? The fruit of love, which you referenced by a quote from 1 Corinthians 13 in your video address to our church, and exhorted us to take to heart, is seems completely absent in your letter.

Our conclusion was confirmed even further when we noted sadly that although you quoted the Canons many times in your letter, you never once referenced scripture. And then this past Sunday, when members of our Vestry attended a Parish meeting at the Falls Church, so that we could hear what members of the Standing Committee wanted to say to that congregation, we got another shock. We learned that you have apparently written John Yates that the belief that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him, is an “ideological statement that exceeds the witness of scripture.” We are increasingly unclear about where you really stand theologically. Do you also fully embrace the revisionism that Presiding Bishop Schori is now expounding?

We recognize that our relations with you are now in a different phase from where they were during our amicable dinner. Your letter seems to indicate that your many years of gracious leadership, where we have been able to discuss our serious differences in matters of scripture, doctrine, and standards for moral behavior, in a climate of civility and mutual respect, are now behind us. You appear to beAre you now signaling to us that you have fundamentally changed how you will deal with those who disagree with you?. In the coming months, can we expect to find you no longer athe man of honor and civility we have come to know who seeks amicable solutions in the best traditions of the Diocese of Virginia? Or Are are you instead becoming a man of legalisms, threats, and intimidation? And are you ceding your authority over the Diocese of Virginia to national church officials?

Bishop, we know that we will never convince you of our positions on the authority of scripture, the meaning of marriage, and a host of other fundamental issues on which we disagree. TEC and the Diocese are deeply divided, in what the Rev. Sam Faeth described in the Reconciliation Commission as a “Level 5” conflict. You know that we stand in our beliefs with the majority of Anglicans throughout the world, and not with the new positions taken by the Episcopal Church in the United States. Where we fervently hope and pray that we still can find agreement is in how this Level 5 conflict can be amicably resolved through negotiations conducted in an honorable and civil manner. The Special Commission’s Protocol, developed under your leadership, was the first step in that process. We ask you not to draw back from it now, but to embrace it, to defend it, and to implement it in our Diocese. We ask you not to cede your authority in our negotiations in Virginia to the national church. We have no question that you have that power. We ask you to return to the civility that has so long been the hallmark of your leadership, and the fundamental characteristic of our relationship with each other.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.” Eph 3:20-21

“…Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” Eph. 4:15

Respectfully in Christ Jesus,
David Harper, Rector David Allison, Snr. Warden Mark Robbins, Jnr. Warden
Members of Vestry: (Names Listed)

2. And because in their June 2006 General Convention, the Episcopal Church (USA) did not adequately respond to the requirement made to them by the Anglican Communion through the Windsor Report by their failure to register honest repentance for their actions that were contrary to the dictates of the Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Anglican Church as expressed in Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference and thereby indicating that they were deliberatively choosing to walk apart from the rest of the Anglican Communion;

3. Therefore after its meeting on 7th December 2006 in Dar es Salaam, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania hereby declares that its communion with the Episcopal Church (USA) is severely impaired but the Anglican Church of Tanzania remains in communion with those who are faithful to Biblical Christianity and authority of Scripture who remain in the Episcopal Church (USA) or have left or are considering leaving that church body for the same reasons that we have stated above.

4. Further to the consequent state of the severely impaired communion, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania declares that henceforth the Anglican Church of Tanzania shall not knowingly accept financial and material aid from Dioceses, parishes, Bishops, priests, individuals and institutions in the Episcopal Church (USA) that condone homosexual practice or bless same sex unions.

5. The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania declares that we are committed to concerted prayer for renewal in the Anglican Communion that will further the mission of Jesus Christ and will render greater glory to God.

6. Finally, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania hereby mandates the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania to forward this statement to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (USA), to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to all the Primates of the Anglican Communion.+++ 7th December 2006 DAR ES SALAAM

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA

A STATEMENT OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA CONCERNING THE CONSECRATION OF THE REV CANON GENE ROBINSON AS BISHOP OF THE DIOCESE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1. The Anglican Church of Tanzania hereby issues a statement opposing the action of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) in consecrating the Rev Canon Gene Robison, who is a homosexual, to the episcopate on the 2nd November, 2003. We declare that this is against the revelation of the Word of God and against the mind of the Anglican Church worldwide as expressed in the Lambeth Resolutions.

2. This statement of our Church springs from the fact that:

v. The Anglican Church of Tanzania remains obedient to the Word of God, that only a lawful union between a man and a woman constitutes marriage. This is the basis of the human family;

vi. The Anglican Church of Tanzania believes that homosexuality is contrary to the teaching of the Word of God. It is a sin.

3. Notwithstanding the fact that the Anglican Church of Tanzania warned ECUSA against consecrating Rev Canon Gene Robison, a homosexual, as Bishop, ECUSA went ahead and consecrated the man to the episcopate on 2nd November 2003.

4. Besides, although the Primates of the Anglican Church worldwide who met in London mid October, 2003, asked the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA to advise the Rev Canon Gene Robison not to accept the consecration to the episcopate in the Church, this advice has been ignored.

5. The act of consecrating a homosexual to the episcopate in the Church is contrary to the revelation of the World of God and pastorally very damaging. It amounts to the legitimization of sin instead of recalling the sinner to repentance. It has to be condemned unreservedly. This must be so because a Bishop is a leader of the Church and his lifestyle should witness to the ethics of the Gospel.

6. Because ECUSA has gone ahead and consecrated a homosexual person to the episcopate in the Church, the Anglican Church of Tanzania, hereby resolves and states:

b. We do not recognize the Rev Canon Gene Robison to be a bishop of the Church, nor shall we recognize any homosexual person who may be consecrated in future;

c. We shall not recognize the Ministry of Rev Canon Gene Robison as a Bishop of the Church because he is not; d. We declare that, henceforth we are not in communion, namely, communion in sacris, with:

i. Bishops who consecrate homosexuals to the episcopate and those Bishops who ordain such persons to the priesthood and the deaconate or license them to minister in their dioceses;

ii. Bishops who permit the blessing of same sex unions in their dioceses;

iii. Gay priests and deacons;

iv. Priests who bless same sex unions.

7. The Anglican Church of Tanzania recognizes that there are within ECUSA Bishops, priests and faithful people of God who are opposed to the consecration or ordination of homosexual persons in the Church of God. The Anglican Church of Tanzania assures them of her solidarity, support and unity and of the heartfelt desire to remain in communion with them in the unity of the true Christian faith.

8. The Anglican Church of Tanzania, therefore, resolves and states that:

e. It remains in communion with all faithful people of God in ECUSA; Bishops, priests and laity who oppose homosexuality and who uphold the orthodox faith of the Church and the teachings of the Anglican Church as contained, for instance, in the Lambeth Resolutions;

f. It asks ECUSA to make available to those who are opposed to the ministry of homosexuals to have access to pastoral care elsewhere. The Anglican Church of Tanzania is willing to offer such pastoral care, if requested to do so, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.++

The Most Reverend Donald Leo Mtetemela
ARCHBISHOP AND PRIMATE THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA
03 November 2003
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA

A STATEMENT OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA CONCERNING THE RESOLUTION OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THE USA TO CONSECRATE A HOMOSEXUAL BISHOP

1. The Anglican Church of Tanzania, at a meeting of its Standing Committee held at Mtumba Rural Women Training Center near Dodoma (Tanzania) on 31st October, 2003, has considered carefully the resolution of ECUSA at its 74th General Convention on 5th August, 2003, confirming Rev Canon Gene Robinson, who is a homosexual, as the new Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. 2. Rev Canon Gene Robinson divorced his wife and is now living with another man as husband and wife. This kind of relationship is what we refer in this Statement as homosexuality. 3. The Anglican Church of Tanzania has an obligation to issue a statement concerning the said resolution by ECUSA in recognition of the fact that this act goes against the revelation of the Word of God and against the mind of the Anglican Communion as expressed in the Lambeth Resolution (viz 1998).

4. The Standing Committee backs the stance of the Archbishop of Tanzania which he made clear in his recent letter to the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA expressing the pain and the anguish that the actions of ECUSA have caused our Church.

5. The issue of the ordination, even consecration, of homosexuals to the Holy Orders has been very much alive over the years in the Church in Europe and America. Eventually the issue of human sexuality and gay lifestyles was brought up at the Lambeth 1998 Bishops' Conference.

6. The Lambeth 1998 Conference, at which Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania actively participated, and at which the Bishops of ECUSA were present too, issued a clear Statement in its Resolution 1:10:98 concerning human sexuality maintaining the teaching that:

a. In view of the teaching of the Scripture [the Anglican Church] upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;

b. While rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, [the Church] calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sex orientation;

c. [The Church] cannot advise the legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.

7. The position of the Anglican Church of Tanzania concerning human sexuality is the same as it has been revealed in the Holy Bible and as it was upheld at the Lambeth 1998 Conference. We believe that the homosexual lifestyle is contrary to the morality sanctioned by the Word of God and taught by the Church. 8. The Anglican Church of Tanzania embraces the teaching of the Word of God that marriage is the union between a man and a woman out of which union the human family is born. Homosexuality, on the contrary, cannot and will not be the basis of family life as sanctioned by the Will of God.

9. The Anglican Church of Tanzania declares that homosexuality is sin and that homosexuals lead sinful lives. These people need close pastoral care. They, like all other sinful persons, stand in need of love. They need to be helped out of their immoral lifestyle and not its legitimization.

10. The resolution of ECUSA confirming the Rev Canon Gene Robinson, who is a homosexual, as a Bishop runs contrary to Gospel's spirituality and the Lambeth Resolution quoted above. The decision is an act of disobedience both to the Word of God and to the Lambeth Resolution. It has been undertaken without any regard to its negative effects on the state of the unity of the Anglican Church worldwide. 11. The Anglican Church of Tanzania condemns unilateral acts of any Province that violate the foundations of the Anglican Church worldwide with little regard to the repercussions of such acts for the other Provinces in the Communion. One such example is the decision of the Diocese of New Hampshire to elect a homosexual person as Bishop, a decision that has been confirmed by ECUSA. Another example is the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada where rites for the blessing of same sex unions have been authorized.

12. The Anglican Church of Tanzania urges ECUSA to review and to retract its resolution to consecrate the Rev Canon Gene Robinson, who is a homosexual priest, or any other homosexual priest, to the episcopate. In doing so ECUSA would have respected the mainstream stance on the issue of human sexuality as required by the Word of God and the Lambeth Resolution. This way, ECUSA will help the Anglican Communion to avoid the looming danger of divisions within, a result of which will be a weakened unity.

13. In the spirit of Christian fraternal love we warn ECUSA that if they proceed with the consecration of Rev Canon Gene Robinson, the homosexual, to the episcopate they will be acting against the faith and order of the Church and, thereby separating themselves from the majority in the Anglican Church worldwide.

14. Even at this late hour, ECUSA can still take the opportunity of returning to the position acceptable to the Anglican Church on the divisive issue of human sexuality. Therefore, the Anglican Church of Tanzania again urges ECUSA, not to go ahead with its decision to consecrate the Rev Canon Gene Robinson, or any other homosexual person, for that matter, to the episcopate in the Church of God.++ The Most Reverend Donald Leo Mtetemela ARCHBISHOP AND PRIMATE THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA 01 November 2003

THE RESPONSE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF TANZANIA ON THE WINDSOR REPORT 2004

A. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

1. The Anglican Church of Tanzania has received with appreciation the Windsor Report by the Lambeth Commission on Communion.

2. We extend our appreciation to the Chairperson of the Lambeth Commission, the Most Reverend Dr Robin Eames for undertaking this onerous task not only on behalf of the Anglican Communion but for the entire Church of Christ. Likewise, we thank all other members of the Commission.

3. We thank the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Rowan Douglas Williams for convening the Primates meeting in October 2003 and for establishing the Lambeth Commission. We also thank him for sending the Report to Provinces in October 2004 and for soliciting responses from each of the Provinces.

4. The Anglican Church of Tanzania has taken time to pray, consult, and reflect before responding to the Report so that our response reflects the desire and prayers of our people and the faith they have stood firm to uphold, live and defend. Therefore, although we decided not to respond specifically to the questionnaire that was distributed to Provinces, we believe that our response covers the questions raised in the questionnaire as well as some key issues and recommendations of the Report.

5. It is important that we do not loose sight of what has precipitated the current crisis in the Communion leading to the appointment of the Lambeth Commission on Communion. We should acknowledge that all this is a result of the following:

(a) Defiance of the Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church (USA) and other key leaders of ECUSA to the plea of the Primates of our Communion not to proceed with the consecration of a person living in a homosexual relationship.

(b) Decision by the Episcopal Church (USA) to ignore Lambeth Resolution 1.10 which reaffirms the position of the Scripture and encapsulates the Anglican teaching on sexuality. Contrary to this, the Episcopal Church (USA) elected, confirmed, and consecrated a person living in a homosexual relationship as Bishop in the Church of God.

(c) The unilateral action and the unbiblical action of the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada and the Diocese itself to authorize a rite for the blessing of same sex unions contrary to Scripture and the Anglican teachings on sexuality.

6. While noting the many areas covered in the Report, it is our view that the Report dwells more on the need for maintenance of unity of the Anglican Communion, than the issues of human sexuality that has led to appointment of the Commission on Communion. This has made the Report more abstract and academic and less accessible to many ordinary Anglicans, especially in our context.

B. ON RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE WINDSOR REPORT

7. Like many other Anglican Churches worldwide, the Anglican Church of Tanzania accepts that the life of the Church should be based on Scripture, tradition and reason. However, our reading and understanding of the scripture is so crucial to our mission and ministry.

8. We acknowledge that no one approaches the Bible with an empty mind, and that a contextual reading of the Bible and Biblical interpretation is necessary. However, such interpretation can have a meaningful result only if the authority of the Bible and the tradition of the Church are recognized and upheld.

9. While the Anglican Church of Tanzania acknowledges that there may be different approaches to Biblical interpretation, and that there may be limitations of social, cultural and philosophical contexts when interpreting Scriptures, we firmly believe that the Bible does not compromise on issues such homosexuality and same sex unions.

10. On the need for a Covenant, it is our view as a Church that there is no need for such an arrangement at the moment if there is no mechanism in the Communion for insuring that Provinces would abide. Furthermore, we do not think that such a Covenant would be more significant than the Instruments of Unity that are already prone to violation (refer to the actions of the ECUSA and the Diocese of New Westminster). Those who have violated the existing Instruments of Unity, we believe, will also violate the Covenant, and will do so because in our opinion, they have departed from the Apostolic faith and the Church tradition we have inherited as Christians and Anglicans.

11. The Anglican Church of Tanzania is thankful to God that it is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. We pray and desire to continue to be members of the Anglican Communion. However, like so many other members of the Communion, especially in the Global South, we would like to emphasize the fact that the Communion, through its Instruments of Unity, should be in a position to reprimand its members who take unilateral decisions that compromise matters of great importance in Scriptures such as the meaning of marriage and family and sexuality thereby threatening the unity and integrity of the Communion.

12. The Anglican Church of Tanzania supports existence of the Anglican Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the focus of unity. It is important for all Provinces to recognize the worldwide moral authority of the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Anglican Communion as a body and the potential such authority has for giving Christians a moral voice in societies where they carry out their mission and ministry, especially in contexts where Christians in general, and Anglicans in particular are a minority.

13. We would like to emphasize that it is the Good News of Christ that has not only given us eternal hope in Christ and courage in our sufferings of poverty and disease such as HIV & Aids pandemic, but has sustained us as we fight together with our partners to eradicate them.

14. The Anglican Church of Tanzania calls upon all members of the Communion to respect and use the Instruments of Unity - the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lambeth Conference; the Anglican Consultative Council; and the Primates Meeting.

15. The Anglican Church of Tanzania continues not to re