The History of Anglicans United
Opposed to moral and doctrinal relativism, the conference highlighted the Revelation of God in the Scriptures and called for the Renewal of God's people. Alarmed by trends within the denomination, everyone saw the need for Reformation. The Conference ended with the issuance of a 3R's Statement and publication of a book, "The Gospel Conspiracy in the Episcopal Church" written by the Rev. Charles Irish and the Rt. Rev. Michael Marshall.
With the 1988 General Convention of the Episcopal Church just a year away, the Rev. John Guest, the Rt. Rev. Alden Hathaway, the Rev. John Throop, Lay Evangelist Lee Buck and others met in Pittsburgh early in 1987 to found Episcopalians United for Reformation, Renewal and Revelation, Inc.
The Rev. John Troop became the first Executive Director and quickly organized offices in Shaker Heights, Ohio. John and the Board committed the ministry to direct mail as a means for fund raising and mobilizing a great number of Episcopalian laity from every diocese. E.U. quickly became the largest conservative organization in the church, based on the notion that if you tell people in the pews the truth about what is happening to their church, they will rise up in protest and defend the "faith once delivered." In 1988, E.U. won its first legislative victory, by mounting an intensive and successful effort at General Convention 1988: opposition to legislation enabling the ordination of practicing homosexuals. The legislation failed by one vote.
In August of 1989, the Board named the Rev. Todd H. Wetzel as the new Executive Director. The ministry mounted an effective presence at General Convention (Phoenix) 1991 by means of a widely circulated daily newspaper-especially distributed to Deputies, large display booth, one hundred volunteers staffing a legislative task force and luncheon briefings for Deputies.
By 1992, the ministry newspaper, United Voice, was an award winning success, recognized for good reporting and articulate advocacy. Recognizing the need for orthodox teaching in the Church and knowing of the difficulties orthodox authors were having getting their works published, Latimer Press was founded in 1993.
1994 proved decisive in E.U.'s mobilization of laity. The ministry mounted another successful presence at the General Convention (Indianapolis) in 1994, by blowing the cover on an explosive and highly biased sexuality study commissioned by the national church offices. Advance copies for study were mailed to all deputies and bishops prior to the Convention. Once received, the phones of our offices rang off the hook. We quickly implemented a plan to use the secular press to reveal the "gay-friendly" contents of the study and thwart the adoption by either the House of Bishops or the House of Deputies. This effort buried a very biased and gay-friendly study before it had opportunity to spuriously influence the Convention and subjected Fr. Wetzel and his family to public excoriation by the Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Ed Browning. The aftermath of the event saw many of the most faithful, orthodox bishops disavow their support of this ministry even though grateful privately for the ministry.
E.U. was labeled as both alarmist and strident by the national church, the press and bishops. Looking back, we're proud of those labels.
In 1995, Fr. Wetzel devoted major resources and manpower to several conferences and the creation of a new ministry called the American Anglican Council. Separated from Episcopalians United, The Council, under the guidance of a Bishop's Council, took the lead in legislative impact and chapter development. E.U. continued its ministries of the United Voice, its publishing enterprise through Latimer Press, and an extensive networking and conference ministry.
At General Convention (Philadelphia) in 1997, Frank Griswold was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and the ordination of homosexuals was defeated again. After an early 1998 meeting with Griswold, Fr. Wetzel concluded that the legislative battle would soon be decisively lost, as revisionist dioceses in favor of the gay agenda were determined to elect enough delegates to win the legislative battle. Wetzel concluded that the best hope for orthodoxy, evangelical, charismatics and conservative Episcopalians would have to come from overseas in the Anglican Communion.
With that Episcopalians United partnered with The Ekklesia Society, run by the Rev. Canon Dr. Bill Atwood, and they directed all their efforts towards the 1998 worldwide Lambeth Conference held at Canterbury, England. This meeting, a gathering of every bishop in the Anglican Communion, occurs every ten years and certainly the bishops from America were going to be sure that the homosexual agenda would be part of the discussion and policy-making part of Lambeth. This topic drew the most heated discussion and greatest number of hearings. The vote was 526 to 70 against, stating that homosexual behavior is incompatible with Scripture. The bishops from the emerging countries in Africa, South America and the Far East stood for the Authority of Scripture as essential for Christianity. The ECUSA bishops were stunned and immediately moved to ridicule the vote. This was probably the first sound of shattering of the Anglican Communion as American bishops declared they would not "defer to the beliefs of some bishop in Asia or Africa."
Following the Lambeth Conference, United Voice became Anglican Voice. Along with the Rev. Canon Chuck Murphy, Rector, All Saints, Pawley's Island, South Carolina, E.U. helped form The Round Table, a coalition of orthodox, large church rectors. When Canon Murphy and the Rev. John Rodgers were consecrated bishops by the Archbishops of Rwanda and Singapore in late 1999, this group became the Anglican Mission in America. Over the course of the next two years, some 50 of the brightest and best rectors in the Episcopal Church left to become part of the Anglican Mission in America. We wished them well in their new endeavors, and missed each one of them enormously.
Prior to the General Convention 2000 in Denver, Fr. Wetzel worked to network an effective orthodox Anglican presence on the American shore. He worked to highlight ministries formerly disenfranchised in both the U. S. and Canada, including the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province in America and other groups that splintered from ECUSA. This resulted in the U.S. Anglican Congress, held in Atlanta in 2002 and 2003. Early in 2003, the Director formalized steps begun in 1997 and changed the name of this ministry from Episcopalians United to Anglicans United to reflect the expanded scope of the ministry. The Board of Trustees was restructured to include bishops/laity from the AMiA, Reformed Episcopal Church, Anglican Province in America and Forward in Faith, NA. This ministry is pressing forward in its networking efforts both in the continental United States and throughout the Anglican Communion.
Since 1987, Anglicans United has been a steadfast force for Anglican orthodoxy. We intend to persevere in our purpose: to grow a faithful Church for the promulgation of the Gospel while forming Christian disciples in the evangelical, catholic and reformed Anglican way. We are Anglicans United.