"To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." Rev. 3:21 NKJV
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Message from Bishop David Anderson
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Bishop Anderson
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, A watershed moment has occurred in the week just past, and sets the future direction for much of the spiritual realignment within the so-called mainline Protestant churches in the United States. A U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruling of some years past, Jones v. Wolf, which directed how lower courts were to adjudicate church dispute issues, had become so corrupted and confused that it begged for clarification. Some U.S. State courts have interpreted Jones v. Wolf one way, others another, and some seem to have ignored it. Although I have a clear opinion on how it should be interpreted, the confusion alone warranted SCOTUS' accepting the writs of certiorari that were filed, listening to the various arguments, and then giving a definitive ruling. The Supreme Court failed the American people by declining to review the church property cases, thus ducking the issue, and the result is that neither justice nor good order has been served. Since SCOTUS declined to accept the writs for judicial review, all of the lower court rulings, often different from state to state, will stand. What this means in a practical sense for those churches who have lost or are about to lose their church property to their respective former denominations, such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and others, is that the chain of title, intent of the donors and purchasers, and names on the title and security of the deed mean almost nothing if the church entity claims that it is a hierarchy and has an implied trust on the property. There is one defensive measure that is left open, and I would mention it simply in case any churches are thinking of leaving their parent denomination and haven't done so yet. If you have massive debt on your property, greater than your diocese or presbytery or conference can financially handle, you may be able to force your former judicatory to negotiate with you over a "buy out."
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For example, if a large church owes $10 million dollars and has a mortgage on the property, you are actually in a good position. If you all resign and walk away, the property goes into foreclosure and is an embarrassment to the judicatory, and at the very least, they lose much if not all of any implied equity in the property that they are claiming a beneficial trust over. If the judicatory is going to take it away from you in court, why not let them have it and the mortgage as well. Let them make the mortgage payments each month for the property they claim a beneficial trust over. The larger the mortgage the better, and many mortgages have a clause that says that if material representations made with the application significantly change during the life of the mortgage, then the holder of the mortgage has certain rights with regard to acceleration of payments or termination of the loan with the full amount due.
If the church vestry or board then sits down with the judicatory leaders and offers to pay what is called in the business world "green mail," (money to buy out those who could attempt a hostile takeover), and an agreeable amount can be worked out, the judicatory can take the money, give the church a quit claim deed, and each will save millions of dollars in legal fees. This could have worked in the Episcopal Church until the Presiding Bishop and her Chancellor, David Booth Beers, decided that they wanted to destroy the departing churches and deny them the use of their former facilities at any cost. When the Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori gave her infamous "guidance" to then-Virginia Bishop Peter Lee and forbade him to fulfill his mutually agreed-upon protocol with the departing churches, a great historic and Christian opportunity was lost.
The Diocese of Virginia could have had millions of dollars in the bank, none of the legal debt that it incurred, and not have empty churches to attempt to sell in a down market. In most counties across the country, the local tax assessors are looking for church property that is not being used in order to put it back on the tax rolls. It also means that the former denomination has to heat or air condition the properties so that pipes don't freeze in the winter and mold doesn't grow on the walls in the summer. County ordinances require the lawns to be cut and trees and shrubbery maintained, or there are fines. Though many Episcopal dioceses are nearly bankrupt, they will have to figure out who will stay on top of all the vacant property management issues, and how the costs will be paid. The buildings could be rented, but they won't rent them back to the departing congregations, and empty buildings quickly lose value.
My advice to congregations in the few orthodox Episcopal dioceses is to work with your orthodox bishop and fight the orthodox battle from a diocesan platform. Even in this case, large debt is good from the standpoint of avoiding seizure if things go really bad.
My advice to orthodox congregations in revisionist dioceses is to borrow as much as you can handle to build and expand structures, defer principal payments on the debt if you can, defer any capital campaigns until after you have safely left your old judicatory, defer property and structural maintenance issues beyond what are immediate safety issues, and let some parishioners begin to form a new religious corporation recognized in your state. The AAC can provide sample bylaws for a parish. Let the new church have no paper connectivity whatsoever with TEC or the old parish. Clergy and current vestry members can't participate in the new entity until after their resignation and departure from the old judicatory. Build a new, separate, virtual church as a lifeboat, waiting for the appropriate time. If a negotiation with the bishop can result in a "buyout package" and a quit claim deed, so much the better. But if you have to go out and rent or buy a new facility, the new church corporation will have some money in the bank to help make the transition.
For further analysis and comment on SCOTUS' denying review, see A.S. Haley's article in this Update.
The life of the church is in looking forward, not backward such as Lot's wife did - and she turned into a pillar of salt. No matter the loss or injustice that has befallen you, no matter how the former judicatory has abused or mistreated you, don't dwell on the past and its pain. Put it at the foot of the cross and leave it there, and go forward with the living, breathing Christ who is interested in where we are going, and whether we will walk with him or on our own. In spite of the loss occasioned by the SCOTUS refusal to consider, the silver lining is that the way forward is now clearer. Go preach, teach, baptize, and make men and women disciples of the risen Lord Jesus. Start where you are and work your way outward, sharing the good news of Jesus the Messiah in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And may our Lord bless you in this endeavor,
+David
The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council
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Chaplain's Corner
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 By The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey
Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council
"You joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions." Hebrews 10:34 NIV
Dear Friends in Christ,
I want to echo +David's last paragraph above and look toward the future - toward the "better and lasting possessions" that we are receiving from the Lord's hand as the buildings we once had are confiscated. That verse from Hebrews 10:34 first impressed itself upon me when I saw it on the sign of St. Luke's in La Crescenta, CA, on the last Sunday the Anglicans worshipped there before turning over their buildings to the TEC Diocese of Los Angeles. If you were at Provincial Assembly two weeks ago in Ridgecrest, you heard Bishop John Guernsey remind us tellingly that after 2005 when TEC Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia reneged on the negotiated settlement protocol with The Falls Church (among other departing congregations) under pressure from new TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, The Falls Church has almost doubled their total ASA (Average Sunday attendance) by planting new churches in the metro DC area. And they are still growing and still planting new churches!
I am reminded how persecution and adversity is something God historically uses to move his church from a place of comfort and into mission: "On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria...Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." (Acts 8:1, 4) Isn't that exactly what we are seeing among North American Anglicans today? The most recent reports of our Anglican1000 church planting movement is that we have planted at least 200 new churches in North America! Even if we never planted another new church before the end of the 5 year challenge (2014), this is already a tremendous accomplishment. Most, if not all, of these new church plants are in temporary facilities. In my own diocese, in several weeks I will be going to a new Anglican church in Americus, GA to lead their vestry retreat and preach. I wrote about St. John's Anglican and their Rector several weeks ago. Their story is a familiar one, and the actions of the TEC bishop under the new TEC Title IV Disciplinary Canons nothing short of persecution. But like those scattered under the persecution in Acts 8, they are moving out and into mission. That's the subject of their vestry retreat. The American Anglican Council will be helping them through a MissionInsite community profile and through our Sure Foundation project to identify the unreached and unengaged people in Americus and the surrounding communities, and help St. John's Anglican to begin to formulate steps to reach them with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
Like the Israelites on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land, Anglican congregations and new church plants will be "tabernacling" in movable facilities so that we can focus more resources on mission rather than buildings, administration, overhead and legal fees. Like the Saddleback Community Church in Mission Viejo, CA, which moved 25+ times before they settled into their present magnificent missional facilities, and whose story we heard from Pastor Rick Warren at our June 2009 Inaugural Assembly, Anglicans are learning to see buildings as a means and not an end. Let others take the buildings, assume the mortgages on empty or near-empty facilities, turn them into bars and saloons, sell them below market value to Muslims, or wait in vain for the properties to appreciate so that they can sell them and replenish the endowments emptied in spiraling and vindictive litigation against Anglicans. Let them have the stuff. Like the persecuted followers of Jesus in Acts 8, we'll take the souls. We will joyfully wait for those "better and lasting possessions" (including buildings) as we spend our time, talents and treasure on directly reaching secular people and helping them discover a purpose-filled life through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
In closing, let me offer congratulations and blessings to the Church of Uganda on the election of their new Archbishop, Stanley Ntigali. I met Bishop Stanley on a SOMA Mission to Masindi Diocese and saw firsthand his outstanding leadership in planting new churches and building up the diocese. As the torch passes from ++Henry Luke Orombi to ++Stanley Ntigali, the Church of Uganda will continue to enjoy great and godly leadership. We have been blessed by their sanctuary and ongoing support, and their example of planting new churches through lay leaders. May we give thanks for our brother and sister Anglicans in Uganda, and God's choice for their new Archbishop!
Yours in Christ,
Phil+
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U.S. Supreme Court denys review of church property cases
| Source: Anglican Curmudgeon
June 18, 2012
By A.S. Haley
The list of orders from their June 14 conference is now online, and it shows that less than four of the Supreme Court's Justices were interested in reviewing the two petitions from parishes who lost their properties in the courts below. It takes a vote of at least four Justices to grant review, and the two cases (the Timberridge case from Georgia, No. 11-1101, and the Bishop Seabury case from Connecticut, No. 11-1139) are shown
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US Supreme Court Justices
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as having review denied. (The latter case appears on p. 6 of the orders list, because it also required a ruling on a pending motion to allow the amicus brief by St. James Newport Beach, et al., to be filed.)...
The result today for church property law is regrettable, because it means that the morass of State court decisions interpreting Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595 (1979) will remain unresolved, with some States allowing certain churches to bypass their legal requirements for the creation of a trust, and with other States requiring that all churches comply with their local trust laws. Thus the outcome of any church-parish dispute over property will continue to turn upon the State in which it arises: if the parish is in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York or Ohio, it will most likely lose its property; but if it is in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire or South Carolina, it will most likely keep its property. And if it is in Kentucky or Pennsylvania or Virginia, then the courts could hold that any national trust canon is ineffective to create a trust, but still find that a trust existed anyway.
Fortunately, the denial of review will have little or no bearing on the three pending property lawsuits involving entire dioceses which left the Church (Quincy, Fort Worth and San Joaquin). That is because the Church's Dennis Canon has no application to real or personal property owned by dioceses. Furthermore, the fact that the Supreme Court declines to review a lower court's decision is not a judgment on the merits - it does not mean that the Court views that case as having been correctly decided. Its net effect, therefore, will be to leave the various States' results exactly as they are....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Diocese of South Carolina (TEC) issues statement on proposed rite for SSB's
| Source: Diocese of South Carolina
June 15, 2012
Declaration of the Standing Committee
 The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina
June 15, 2012
1. As the Standing Committee of the sovereign Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina, we view with dismay and great sadness what appears to be the inevitable outcome of the 2012 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, that is, the official approval of a rite for the blessing of same-gender unions. This is a defining moment in the life of the Episcopal Church, being the first formal adoption of doctrine, discipline and worship which are contrary to the unequivocal mandate of Holy Scripture, the historic Christian faith, Anglican doctrine, and the pronouncements of the four instruments of Anglican unity. Furthermore, the adoption of such a rite at General Convention contravenes the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and the Book of Common Prayer, and in so doing reveals the bankruptcy of our own polity and institutional integrity.
2. Of greatest concern is not that a blessing of same-gender unions contravenes specific verses of Scripture, though that is unacceptable - of greatest concern is the theology which underlies this rite, set forth in the 82 page I Will Bless You document, which patently redefines the Christian faith, subverting the doctrines of creation and baptism, the nature of sin and salvation, and the grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
3. We have compassion for those who struggle with and act upon same-gender attraction, and we urge equal treatment for all men and women in the church. Our Lord calls us all, equally, to repent of sin that we might receive forgiveness and cleansing through the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, restoration to the Body of Christ, and transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit.
4. We hereby repudiate, denounce and reject any action of the Episcopal Church which purports to bless what our Lord clearly does not bless. Specifically, we declare any rite which purports to bless same-gender unions to be beyond the authority and jurisdiction of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and without force or effect.
5. In view of the persistent movement of the General Convention of this church away from orthodox Christianity, including its expected embrace of such a rite of same-sex blessings, we further affirm and assert our calling in this diocese to seek to "make Biblical Anglicans for a global age," and we declare that we will not walk with General Convention down the road they are choosing. We will instead continue to partner with Anglican dioceses, provinces and other Anglican entities here and abroad to further the spread of the Good News of salvation for sinners through faith in Jesus Christ.
View a signed copy of this document here.
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'Fortnight for Freedom': Catholic bishops launch all-out prayer effort against HHS mandate
| Source: LifeSiteNews
by Kathleen Gilbert
Wed Jun 20, 2012
WASHINGTON, June 20, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic bishops of the United States are preparing to launch what they have called a "great hymn of prayer for our country" lasting for two weeks in response to encroachments on religious freedom in America.
The "Fortnight for Freedom" will begin with a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption in Baltimore on the vigil of the feast of English martyrs SS. Thomas More and John Fisher, celebrated by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori. It will end on July 4 at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., with D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl presiding and Philadelphia's Archbishop Charles Chaput as homilist....
The Fortnight for Freedom comes on the heels of a second wave of nationwide rallies against an upcoming mandate by the federal Health and Human Services Department (HHS) that will require employers, including Christian hospitals, charities, and universities, to provide insured birth control to their employees. The finalized mandate will take effect August 1. The June rallies drew tens of thousands of protesters in 160 cities across the U.S.
Last week, the U.S. bishops reaffirmed their condemnation of the HHS mandate, nothing that the rule effectively punishes Catholic institutions for operating in the public sphere.
"The exemption is not merely a government foray into internal Church governance, where government has no legal competence or authority - disturbing though that may be," wrote the bishops in March. "This error in theory has grave consequences in principle and practice.
"Those deemed by HHS not to be 'religious employers' will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their very own institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world."
The Obama administration is currently facing at least seven lawsuits over the HHS mandate from dozens of Catholic and Christian institutions, and an eighth backed by the attorneys general of seven U.S. states (Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina)....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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New Archbishop of Uganda elected
| Source: Church of Uganda via email
June 22, 2012
Contact: Rev. Canon George Bagamuhunda
The Rt. Rev. Stanley Ntagali Elected 8th Archbishop of the Church of Uganda
On 22nd June 2012, at a press conference held at the Archbishop's Palace, Namirembe,
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Archbishop elect Ntagali
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the Rt. Rev. Nicodemus Okille, Dean of the Church of the Province of Uganda, announced that the Rt. Rev. Stanley Ntagali was elected the 8th Archbishop of the Church of Uganda. The election was held during a meeting of the House of Bishops on Friday, 22nd June, 2012, at St. Paul's Cathedral, Namirembe.
The election was by secret ballot and was presided over by the Provincial Chancellor. Bishop Ntagali was elected with more than a two-thirds majority, per the Constitution of the Church of Uganda.
Bishop Ntagali was consecrated Bishop on 19th December 2004 and has served as the Bishop of Masindi-Kitara Diocese for eight years.
Born in Ndorwa County in Kabale District in 1955, he shifted with his family to Wambabya Parish in Kizirifumbi Sub-county in Hoima District when he was 16 years old. On Christmas Eve 1974, at the age of 19, he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour and was born again.
He began working as a teacher in Wambabya Primary School, and later spent two years as a missionary in Karamoja Diocese. He did his theological training at Bishop Tucker Theological College, St. Paul's Theological College, Limuru, Kenya, and the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in the UK....
The installation of the new Archbishop is expected to take place on 16th December at St. Paul's Cathedral, Namirembe. At that time, Archbishop Henry Orombi will hand over the pastoral staff to Archbishop-elect Stanley Ntagali who will then be invested with the authority to lead the Church of Uganda as Archbishop. The Presiding Bishop at the enthronement will be the Dean of the Province, who is the longest serving Bishop in the Church at that time....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Pro-life victory at Rio 'sustainable development' conference: 'reproductive rights' excised
| Source: LifeSiteNews
June 20, 2012
by Hilary White
International pro-life advocates are claiming victory at a UN-sponsored meeting on the environment in Rio de Janeiro this week. The Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development has angered abortion lobbyists by excluding any mention of abortion, either explicitly or in coded language, in the conference's outcome document.
Among the parties attending the meeting was the UK's Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a UN-recognized NGO that trail-blazed the international pro-life effort at these kinds of gatherings when it participated in the 1994 meeting on population and development in Cairo. SPUC director John Smeaton told LifeSiteNews.com the defeat of the abortion-pushers at Rio will give strength to governments, churches and the pro-life movement when it comes time to fight at the local level....
Touted as a follow-up to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 UN-sponsored Earth Summit, the Rio meeting is already being called a failure by those who were hoping for a clear declaration making population control, including abortion and sterilization, a key component of efforts to preserve the natural environment.
Pro-life advocates and government representatives have spent months fighting efforts to include code words such as "reproductive rights" or "reproductive health services" in the final document. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Catholics for Choice and the International Planned Parenthood Federation were among the powerful lobby interests attempting to force the UNFPA's new term "population dynamics" into the document's language on sexual and reproductive health. The final document, titled "The Future We Want," which will be signed by 52 heads of state on Friday, has completely excised this language....
The rest of the article may be found here.
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