Takeover

An article in the Washington Post over a year ago entitled "Plan to Supplant Episcopal Church USA Is Revealed" regarding a leaked AAC letter should have been enough to wake up most Episcopalians to what is going on. Please keep in mind that congregations aligned with this plan are hard at work in the Diocese of Tennessee. Their laity and clergy hold policy-making office with the power to shape our future to their will. Here's just a small piece of that document:

During the months of Stage 1, we will begin to reform our relationships to build the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. We will move to initiate support structures for fellowship and strategy, We will act courageously and faithfully to support "at risk" parishes. We will creatively redirect finances. We will refocus on Gospel initiatives. We will innovatively (sic) move around, beyond or within the canons to "act like the church God is making us". Stage 1 will enable congregations/clusters to keep clear use of their buildings for the foreseeable future and would give critical time to strengthen our leadership circles for what promises to be a turbulent spiritual season.

Stage 2 will launch at some yet to be determined moment, probably in 2004. During this phase, we will seek, under the guidance of the Primates, negotiated settlements in matters of property, jurisdiction, pastoral succession and communion. If adequate settlements are not within reach, a faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis may be necessary. (Emphasis ours -- Ed).

It seems that property, not piety, is keeping dissident parishes in ECUSA. In the longer term, the AAC expects to use foreign intervention to trump American law and the Episcopal Constitution and Canons. Its leaders are assuring dissident parishes that the Anglican primates, a consultative body with no governing authority or standing in the United States, will ride to the rescue of Network parishes, negotiate property settlements and transfer the assets of the 2.3 million member church to a group representing perhaps a tenth of that body. The AAC's "realignment" should be taken for what it really is -- the overthrow of ECUSA by extralegal means.

What some don't seem to understand is that nothing will ever appease the AAC or the Network (same group, different name). Schism has been their goal from the beginning. Their plan is to be recognized as an alternative "Anglican province" in North America, to get ECUSA kicked out of the Anglican Communion, and then to claim ownership of all assets previously held by ECUSA.

[COVENANT, Number 20, April 2005]