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"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." I Peter 1:3 NKJV
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Message from Bishop David Anderson
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Bishop Anderson
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Dear Friends of the Anglican Realignment,
During the winter weather in North America, the snow, ice, rain, road salt, etc., take a heavy toll on the streets and motorways, leaving significant potholes in the driving lanes. As things warm up in the spring, two things become necessary: the road maintenance crews need to patch or repave the potholes and motorists need to take their automobiles to the garage and have their wheels realigned so they are all pointed in the same exact direction.
In the Anglican Communion, the winter of liberal theological heresies, immoral innovation, and deviant practices has knocked the wheels of orthodox Anglicanism out of kilter. When Anglican bishops, usually American Episcopal ones, argue against the Holy Trinity, deny the virgin birth of Jesus and his bodily resurrection, and state that there are many ways to God - Jesus is just one option so take your pick - then the wheels of the Anglican wagon get seriously wobbly. In recent years, the American Episcopalians decided not only to ordain non-celibate homosexuals, but to perform same-sex unions and marriages, and then the Church of England rushed along to declare that a homosexual with a same-sex partner is OK for consideration as a bishop. Now you might wonder if the wheels will come completely off of the wagon. It's time for an Anglican realignment - time to tighten up the wheels and point them straight ahead in theory, theology and practice. That is the principal reason that I use this term for what we are about; not just fussing about one thing or another, but recognizing that the entire Communion needs to have its alignment checked, and where it is out of alignment, to experience a realignment along historic and Biblical lines.
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The wheels aren't only out of alignment in the American Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada, but serious problems can be found in England itself and Scotland, Ireland, Wales, South Africa, Brazil, New Zealand, parts of Australia, and so on. When wheels aren't aligned, they do eventually fall off with catastrophic consequences.
Back in the United States, the American Episcopal Church's (TEC's) scorched earth policy toward those who have left continues unabated. The major litigation attack by TEC on churches in California, Texas and Illinois has had a new front opened in South Carolina. It is odd that TEC considers litigation a proper use for church mission funds.
When most Anglicans were deep in Holy Week, thinking of Jesus' Last Supper and preparing for Good Friday and Easter, key leaders in the Episcopal Church and their lawyers were filing a lawsuit in Federal Court in South Carolina against the Diocese of South Carolina, her bishop Mark Lawrence and other leaders, alleging a violation of the Federal Lanham Act which regulates trademarks and insignia. As background, when the historic Diocese of South Carolina discovered that TEC and their faux Diocese were using the official seal and insignia of the real diocese in their advertising and confusing people in the process, they filed suit against TEC and the so-called Episcopal Church in South Carolina to stop their use and the confusion arising out of it, and they filed the suit in South Carolina State Court. A injunction was granted stopping the use by the faux Diocese until the court could hear the case. Then a clock started to run, which gave TEC the right to file a motion for a change of venue or removal to the US Federal Court system, within a limited number of days.
Unfortunately, the attorneys for the historic Diocese of South Carolina made a decision that many would consider a mistake. When each undecided church in the Diocese made a decision to align with the historic diocese and Bishop Mark Lawrence, the attorneys for the Diocese of South Carolina (DSC) re-filed the suit to include the additional name of yet another church. It sounded impressive, but unfortunately each time they did this they reset the clock for change of venue or removal, and they did it several times. They may well have given the faux Diocese and TEC an additional month, and even with all that time, TEC waited until near the end of their allotted time, till the day remembering the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot in the Garden, to file the change of venue. Whether the Federal judge will accept the case or remand it back to state court is unknown at this point, but my guess is that it will be tried in Federal Court because the Lanham Act gives the judge a reason to accept it.
TEC is suing now for just the trademark issues, seal and insignia, because that gives them the smallest bite of the apple that they have to take. TEC's game, in part, is to use up all of DSC's money on attorneys and court costs, and by burning through money on a trademark issue, they can then go to another issue, and then another, and finally have the DSC unable to stay in court for lack of funding. Those of you who care about these things might want to see that DSC doesn't lose because of a shortage of defense funds - I'm certain that directed donations to their legal defense fund would be happily received.
TEC's focusing on the trademark issue doesn't risk TEC's entire complaint, and allows them multiple bites out of the apple from different directions. TEC doesn't want any of this tried in South Carolina's State Court, where the State Supreme Court has already declared the "Dennis Cannon" null and void in SC. If you send money to South Carolina to help with their litigation costs, just be careful that you send it to the right Diocese, which is at www.dioceseofsc.org, and there is a small print line at the top right that says DONATE NOW, providing for electronic online donation. Do understand that what the TEC leadership and the faux diocese want to do is have the Federal judge overturn the South Carolina State Court order and strip the historic and orthodox diocese under Bishop Mark Lawrence of its identity and ability to function as who they are. That would be seriously wrong.
Please pray for all those who are being attacked and persecuted for their orthodox faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessings and Peace in our Lord and Savior,
+David
The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council
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A Message from Canon Ashey
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Canon Ashey
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Reconciliation - to what end??Dear Friends in Christ, Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury promoted a new approach to the crisis of Gospel truth in the Anglican Communion by re-framing the issue as one of "reconciliation" - involving, apparently, an initial process of "detoxification" of the conflicts by sitting down and establishing civil dialogue over the issues and warm personal relationships that will enable all parties to live into the unity that Jesus Christ prayed for the church in John 17. This was at the heart of the conference in Coventry Cathedral on "Faith in Conflict" which Rev. Canon Chris Sugden reported on here. The current Anglican crisis/conflict has some distinctive features: 1. The Scope: As others have noted, the major doctrines of the Christian faith are not hermetically sealed from each other, so that error and false teaching in one area will not affect another. A fatal compromise coming from an unbiblical view of human nature and human sexuality contaminates and ultimately destroys faith in Jesus Christ as Lord of all. That fatal compromise by the leadership of The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) over consecrating partnered gay and lesbian bishops and performing same-sex blessings, and their embrace of rank heresy - denying Jesus as the only way to the Father, denying the divinity and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, denying the Resurrection, denying heaven and hell, denying the authority of Holy Scripture, and denying Biblical standards for human sexuality - has been meticulously documented in our Report to the Primates of the Anglican Communion. One compromise on the authority of the Bible over all of our life leads to another, and another, and another, until Biblical faith is completely eviscerated. This is not pessimism or theory. It is an established fact. With this in mind, the differences between the leadership of TEC and Anglicans in the new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) are so profound and irreconcilable that theological and institutional reconciliation are virtually impossible to imagine. Yes, there is a possibility for personal and relational peacemaking between such leaders - but to what end? 2. The Definition: Reconciliation as defined within the Bible begins with the reconciliation of humanity to God through the life, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it is all about Jesus Christ and not about our best human efforts, secular-utopian dreams or other non-biblical agendas. Reconciliation with God is a gift to be received through faith in Jesus Christ, and trust in him alone - and specifically in his sacrificial death for our sins. Even our best efforts and intentions must come under the blood of Jesus Christ. Our part is to repent, confess our sins, receive his gift of reconciliation, persevere in resisting evil "and whenever we sin, to repent and return to the LORD." (Holy Baptism, BCP 1979 p. 304). So we should expect to find the same elements at work in the horizontal dimension of reconciliation between people. We should expect to find in such reconciliation common ground at the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ, where there is genuine repentance of sin, whether it is false teaching or false practice, heresy or hatred of our enemies. We should expect to see a heartfelt confession of those sins, a commitment to stop the sinful behaviors that cause offense, and a commitment to rebuild trust and relationship under the blood of Jesus Christ. Paul makes exactly this connection of the vertical and horizontal dimensions, reconciliation with God and reconciliation with each other, in Ephesians 2:14-16: "For he [Jesus Christ] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility."
What do we find instead? We find the leadership of TEC initiating a new lawsuit in Federal Court on Maundy Thursday against Bishop Mark Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina. We find escalating litigation in San Joaquin and Orange County, California, Fort Worth, Texas and Quincy, Illinois. We find the Episcopal leadership in Pittsburgh, not satisfied with confiscating church properties, initiating a forensic audit of Archbishop Robert Duncan and the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh in what is likely the preface to a new round of litigation. We have TEC Bishop Shannon Johnston, a featured speaker at the Coventry Conference, promoting the teaching of John Dominic Crossan and John Spong to clergy and laity in the diocese of Virginia on the eve of Holy Week and Easter, teaching which denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, asserts that his dead body was eaten by dogs, and that the resurrection accounts in the New Testament can only be understood mystically and mythically. We have Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, DC asserting during Holy Week that "we don't know what happened to Jesus after his death, anymore than we can know what will happen to us." Meanwhile the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion (SCAC), one of the leadership bodies in the Anglican Communion, finished its meetings two weeks ago with every indication that they are returning to "business as usual." As I wrote on Tuesday in our International Update, the SCAC concluded its business by endorsing endless dialogue (the "Continuing Indaba Project") which will paralyze the Instruments of Communion from disciplining TEC and the ACoC for their unilateral violations of Biblical and Communion teaching (Lambeth Resolution 1.10, 1998) on human sexuality, marriage and holy orders. In addition, the SCAC promoted the application to every level of the Church both the Continuing Indaba Project and a new "Bible in the Life of the Church" Project which elevates personal and cultural "context" over actual Biblical content in the interpretation of scripture. Captive to endless process rather than prostrate at the foot of the cross for false teaching, the TEC-funded and driven Anglican Communion structures are far from any place one could call reconciliation. What should we expect if there were genuine, Christ centered, foot-of-the-cross reconciliation?The Rev. Dr. John Stott described exactly what it might look like in his meditation on the restoration of Peter in John 21:1-17. Reflecting on this familiar Eastertide reading, Stott raises the question: "Is it possible for backsliders to be restored, for those who have denied Christ to be given another chance? These questions greatly exercised the early church during the systematic persecutions of the third and early fourth centuries. What should be done with the lapsed? The church has tended to oscillate between extreme laxity (never disciplining anybody) and extreme severity (refusing restoration even to the penitent)." Through the Bible, Through the Year (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), p. 276
Jesus' treatment of Peter in John 21 is an object lesson in genuine reconciliation, restoration and reinstatement. As Stott observes, Jesus asked Peter about the present condition of his heart: "Peter, do you love me?" He did not ask Peter about the past, although asking three times certainly would have reminded Peter of his own threefold denial of Christ. What was important to Jesus was whether Peter truly loved him - and following each profession of love came Christ's recommissioning command, "Then feed my sheep." So we should expect to see leaders of The Episcopal Church "feeding their sheep" with the faith once delivered to the saints and with Biblical truth rather than allowing the sheep to be ravaged by false teachers like Crossan and Spong. We should see them repent of spreading such false teaching to the rest of the Anglican Communion. We should expect to see them professing their love of the same Jesus Christ who rose from the dead bodily and appeared to Peter, and to love Jesus just as Peter did. We should expect them to care more about loving Jesus and his sheep than litigation, forensic audits and money. Is such reconciliation and restoration possible? Only at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. Only face to face with the resurrected Lord and Savior of the world who says, "Feed my sheep." Yours in Christ our Lord, Phil+ The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council Back to top |
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South Carolina: Episcopal group asks for federal jurisdiction
| Source: Post and Courier
April 5, 2013
The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, or "continuing diocese," has asked for a state  lawsuit brought by the independent Diocese of South Carolina to be removed to U.S. District Court, where a second suit is in the works.
The state suit asks the Circuit Court to prevent the continuing diocese from using the name and seal. The federal suit, filed by the continuing diocese, asks the court to decide who has authority over the diocese, Bishop Mark Lawrence, who left The Episcopal Church along with 35 parishes, or Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, the provisional leader of the group that remains loyal to the church....
The rest of the article may be found here.
Editor's note: Charles vonRosenberg, bishop of the "continuing diocese," has sent this letter to the clergy of South Carolina asking them to "make known their allegiance to TEC."
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Marriage is of God, not the state Church of England declares
| Source: Anglican Ink
April 9, 2013
By George Conger
The Church of England has reaffirmed its rejection of gay marriage stating the public blessing of marriage can only take place within the context of a lifelong, monogamous, male-female relationship. Marriage is a gift from God, not a right granted by the state nor cultural construct said a paper released today by the church's Faith and Order Commission entitled "Men and Women in Marriage".
"In calling it a gift of God, we mean that it is not simply a cultural development (though it has undergone much cultural development) nor simply a political or economic institution (though often embedded in political and economic arrangements). It is an expression of the human nature which God has willed for us and which we share. And although marriage may fall short of God's purposes in many ways and be the scene of many human weaknesses, it receives the blessing of God and is included in his judgment that creation is 'very good' (Genesis 1.31). In calling it a gift of God in creation, we view marriage within its wider life-context: as an aspect of human society and as a structure of life that helps us shape our journey from birth to death."
The report recognizes the existence of same-sex relationships as "forms of human relationships which fall short of marriage in the form God has given us."
Marriage on the other hand is the "faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman, central to the stability and health of human society," the report stated.
The Church of England has taught "historically and more recently," that the "sexual differentiation of men and women is a gift of God, who 'created humankind in his image... male and female he created them'. It is on male and female that God gives his blessing, which is to be seen not only in procreation but in human culture, too (Genesis 1.27-8)."
In a note accompanying the release of the report, Dr. Christopher Cocksworth, the Bishop of Coventry, also reaffirmed the church's commitment to provide "care, prayer and compassion" to those who cannot marry -- but this pastoral care could not be extended to the blessing of same-sex unions.
"Whilst it is right that priests and church communities continue to seek to provide and devise pastoral care accommodation for those in such situations, the document is clear that public forms of blessing belong to marriage alone," he said....
The rest of the article and the full text of the paper may be found here.
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Archbishop joins call on G8 to 'strike at causes of poverty'
| Source: Archbishop of Canterbury website
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Archbishop Welby
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April 5, 2013
With 1000 days left to achieve the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has joined religious leaders across the G8 urging governments to keep their promises on foreign aid.
Archbishop Justin is among 80 religious leaders who have signed a letter to the Financial Times today, urging G8 countries to follow the UK in meeting existing commitments to spend 0.7% of national income on aid.
With a focus on tax, trade and transparency, the religious leaders argue, the UK Presidency of the G8 has the potential to advance the MDG agenda in ways that strike at the underlying causes of poverty, in particular by ensuring the wealth created by developing countries is not lost through unfair tax practices, a lack of transparency or a failure to secure the benefits of trade for developing countries.
"Meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, is possible - but only if governments do not waiver from the moral and political commitments made over a decade ago," the letter stresses....
The rest of the article and the letter may be found here.
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Stunning 4,620% increase in Belgian euthanasia cases in ten years since legalisation
| Source: LifeSiteNews
April 9, 2013
By Peter Saunders
I have previously highlighted the rapid escalation of euthanasia and assisted suicide cases in the Netherlands, Oregon and Switzerland in recent years, but Belgium is eclipsing all of these countries in the race to become the 'world leader'.
In 2012, the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium increased by 25%, reaching a record level of 1,432 since the practice was legalized in the country in 2002....
It is important to note that only acts which intentionally end life using barbiturates (Article 2 of the law on euthanasia) meet the legal definition of legal euthanasia so these figures do not include people killed by deliberate overdosage with morphine, withdrawal of treatment with explicit aim of ending life or 'terminal sedation' with the aim of hastening death.
We know from the Netherlands that these other ways of ending life have also increased dramatically in recent years....
The Committee in its report emphasized the importance of 'easy availability of products needed for euthanasia' and considered that the medical school curriculum and postgraduate education sessions should include training on 'the proper implementation of euthanasia'.
It seems that euthanasia has now been accepted as part of normal medical care in Belgium.
The lessons are clear. Once euthanasia is legalised steady escalation follows along with a change in the social conscience so that it rapidly becomes accepted as normal.
With new bills about to be debated in the Westminster and Scottish parliaments Britain should take warning.
The rest of the article may be found here.
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Egypt: Sectarian clashes outside Cairo Cathedral
| Source: Anglican Ink 
April 9, 2013
By George Conger
Egypt remains on edge this week after two men were killed and 89 injured in clashes between Coptic Christians and Islamists outside St. Mark's Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo.
The Anglican Bishop of Egypt, Dr. Mouneer Anis warned: "Such attacks could lead the country into the abyss of sectarian sedition and deteriorate the social, economic and political conditions of the country. These actions could worsen the image of Egypt in front of the international community."
A spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Health said 66 people had been treated and released from hospital while 23 remained in care after fighting broke out on 7 April 2013 outside the cathedral as mourners left the church following a funeral for four Christians who were killed in sectarian violence in the northern town of Khusus over the weekend.
As mourners left the cathedral they carried wooden crosses and chanted slogans calling for the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Confrontations with Islamists quickly followed in Ramses Street outside the cathedral. Police responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades into the Christian procession....
The rest of the article may be found here.
Dr. Mouneer Anis' statement about the situation is here.
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