Source:  AAC Weekly Update

The following article by Bishop David Anderson is from the July 26, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly Email Update. Sign up for this free email here. 

Dear Friends of the Anglican realignment for orthodox faith,

As we have noted in recent updates, both the English Church and the American Episcopal Church have been on a downward slide, with the speed accelerating. The governments of the UK and the USA are both very much caught up in the rush to sexual deviancy and license, with traditional marriage suffering at the hands of both the government and the two churches. Stop for a moment and let your room grow still. Can you remember where you were during the last week of July in 2003? Do you remember what you were doing or where you were going? Do you remember what church you belonged to back then? Bear with me, for I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing and what church I belonged to, and it seems like a lifetime ago.

Ten years ago next week, beginning on July 30, 2003, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church began their triennial meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The American Anglican Council had assembled a formidable team to staff our work: the exhibit for orthodoxy on the main exhibit floor; our information gathering and debriefing team, which gave updates each noon over lunch to all who wished to come; our hearings and testimony team which ensured that every key issue had orthodox speakers standing in line to speak (if they were allowed); a legislation team that tried to modify objectionable legislation through orthodox deputations present, and a communications office that posted news daily, both in a printed newsletter for those present and via the internet for those watching at a distance.

In spite of the largest and best-staffed AAC orthodox team ever assembled, the relentless push of the heterodox lesbian and gay supporters rolled forward. One of the major issues was the consideration by General Convention of the election of the Rev. Gene Robinson to be the next bishop of New Hampshire, and it quickly became clear that he was not going to be denied. Early on, evidence surfaced about links on his website to other shameful websites. We took screen shots to document the progression of links, and we considered it to be shocking and grounds enough to deny approval of his election, even if his personal situation of being a divorced person now living with his same-sex partner wasn’t.

As news of the entangled connection between his website and the other objectionable ones became known, the Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Frank Griswold, named a committee to look into these allegations. It was a stacked committee, assembled to go through the motions and render a predictable outcome. I personally handed a copy of the evidence to the Presiding Bishop’s attorney, David Booth Beers, and with a snarl he grabbed it out of my hand, turned abruptly and disappeared back into the committee room. I doubt that any of them ever looked at the material, for it was such an inconvenient bump in the road in what was supposed to be a smooth trip. They never returned the material to us, but we had several more complete copies stored in offsite locations, just in case. Of course, the committee found no grounds for concern.

A few months later, a grand coven of bishops gathered in New Hampshire to consecrate Gene Robinson as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. We told the officials at General Convention that this was the Titanic hitting the iceberg, and they told us we would get over it, just like everyone had gotten over the new prayer book and women priests. The truth is, they really believed their own propaganda – that everyone would just get over it and things would continue on.

Later that autumn, the Archbishop of Canterbury convened a Primates Council at Lambeth Palace in London to deal with the unilateral action of the American Episcopal Church in consecrating an active homosexual as a bishop. They put the Primates up at the Days Hotel a few blocks away from Lambeth Palace, and booked all of the available rooms to keep us out and at a safe distance. As bishops went into Lambeth Palace, aides took away the Primates’ cell phones so they couldn’t tattle on what was transpiring inside. Bishop Martyn Minns, then an Episcopal priest as I was, had tried to get us rooms at the Days Hotel, but the room-block prevented us. We had been in London about a month ahead of the Primates’ meeting, and we had stayed at the Days Hotel. As we left, they said, “come back again soon,” and we mentioned that we had a business meeting to attend in some weeks but were blocked from getting a reservation. Not to worry, we were told, they always hold back a few rooms for their regular patrons, and in a moment we were booked on the same floors as the Primates for the upcoming meeting.

We checked in a few days ahead of the Primates’ Council just to be sure that we would actually get our rooms. After they arrived, at breakfast each morning Martyn and I sat with the Primates, introduced ourselves to those who didn’t know us already, visited with them, and for those interested in assisting us, provided a covert supply of secondary cell phones so they could reach us and we them. It worked quite marvelously, and kept us on top of what was happening, which unfortunately wasn’t very positive. When Archbishop Rowan Williams came into the breakfast room of the Days Hotel one morning and saw me sitting and visiting with the Archbishop of Kenya at the time, Benjamin Nzimbi, Dr. Williams became nearly apoplectic. We were, however, paying guests of the hotel and had a right to eat our breakfast with the other hotel guests and so we stayed.

During the day we could occasionally make contact with orthodox Primates during breaks, but for all of this work we had a very serious obstacle to overcome. The other Primates just couldn’t believe that bishops would behave as badly as we had told them, nor could they believe that Presiding Bishop Griswold would lie to their face. These Primates were godly men, and they just couldn’t believe that church leaders at the top of the church’s structure would or could lie, cheat, deceive, and manipulate. It took several years of their being betrayed by not only Griswold but Rowan Williams himself before they sadly and reluctantly agreed that we had been giving them an accurate picture all along. In many ways the GAFCON Primates’ Council of recent years is an outgrowth of the learning many of the Primates gained, beginning with that meeting in Lambeth Palace.

When the AAC was still at the Minneapolis General Convention, as the news of General Convention’s actions grew more and more disheartening, the cry went up “What are we going to do?” As it happened, the Rev. David Roseberry of Christ Church, Plano, Texas, and I had been planning a small conference to be held at his church for rectors of larger orthodox churches, and it was already on our schedules for a date in early October. When others heard about the small conference, somehow everyone began saying, “See you in Plano,” and the Rev. Messrs. Roseberry and Anderson were only one step ahead of a tsunami of anxious and concerned Episcopalians who wanted to gather and talk about where we go from here. Very soon Christ Church Plano was too small for the gathering, and finally a Dallas hotel had to be engaged with a huge meeting area, where thousands of faithful gathered. At the opening worship service, over 800 deacons, priests and bishops, all fully vested, processed into the meeting. One of the highlights was the reading by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh of a letter on Vatican City stationary from then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict, giving us encouragement in our stand for orthodox faith. We still have a copy of his letter. Several Roman Catholic media offices contacted us at the AAC to privately caution us that we had been scammed, and that the letter couldn’t be authentic. In each case I asked how I would know if the letter was authentic, and they told me what to look for and where certain numbers would be located, then I confirmed that the letter was exactly as they said it should be. “Most irregular,” was all they could say.

Out of Plano, as the meeting has been called, a movement of orthodox Anglicans in and outside of the Episcopal Church began to coalesce and take form, and in many ways the Anglican Church in North America is the spiritual, logical and faithful outgrowth of Plano One. I say Plano One because subsequently organizers also held Plano-type gatherings in Virginia and California and named them Plano East and Plano West.

The past ten years have seen individual laity, clergy and bishops leave the Episcopal Church for safer places to worship and serve. Parishes and entire dioceses have left, and whenever possible the Episcopal Church has used ecclesiastical and legal means to punish those who have left. The problem for the Episcopal Church is they have lost the Gospel, and the church-speak that they attempt to substitute for it isn’t selling very well. Their membership numbers have continued to shrink, and although they have legally seized property, rectories, churches, bank accounts, etc. belonging to those that left, those that left took the Gospel with them and have prospered under God’s guiding hand.

The Episcopal church tries to destroy and discredit the Anglican Church in North America because they are not only afraid of having the Anglican franchise pass out of their hands and into the ACNA’s hands, they are even afraid of dual recognition by Anglican Provinces. Why does the ACNA frighten the Episcopal Church so? I think that down deep they recognize that their empty Gospel and their coasting on their past status is slowing down. They will probably be around for some time yet, growing ever smaller, living off of the accumulated wealth of previous generations, but more and more, irrelevant. It could have been different ten years ago, but they made their choice and to date haven’t repented. And there you have it – for a church, a fearful term indeed: “irrelevant.”

So I say to you, remember the Gospel, live the Gospel, share the Gospel. Worship God, obey Him, and minister to a lost and hurting world; in a phrase, be the Gospel as we enter the next ten years.

May our Lord Jesus bless and encourage you in every good work,

+David

The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.

President and CEO, American Anglican Council