And they voted to consecrate 10 bishops in dioceses around the country. One of them was the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay man to achieve that rank within ECUSA.

More than a year later, the effects of that decision upon the 7,500 ECUSA churches are anywhere from positive to negligible to denomination-rending, depending on whom you ask. Likewise, what it means for Arkansans in Episcopal pews depends on where the pew is.

The Rev. Lowell Grisham, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in
Fayetteville, says his church has seen a net gain in membership as a result of that vote. Four families left, he said, but others joined.

"A lot of people have come to St. Paul's because of its reputation as an open and compassionate church," he said. "There are a lot of people who have been estranged from Christianity because a family member was gay and was treated badly. A lot of gay people have left Christianity because they were told they were evil.

"I see a lot of healing happening. I find that encouraging and very
consistent with the gospel of Jesus."

Not far away, in Springdale, the Rev. Leo Michael says attendance at his
church, St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church, has more than doubled in the past year but for other reasons.

St. Gabriel's is a member of the more traditional United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA), which was founded in the late 1970s because of concerns that ECUSA was straying from its orthodox Anglican roots by approving a modern translation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and starting to ordain women.

The denomination has roughly 21 parishes and is a "continuing church," or one of the denominations that follow Anglican tradition but have broken away from ECUSA. They are not part of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide organization that recognizes churches considered to be in communion with the Church of England.

Michael became St. Gabriel's rector in May, and attendance now averages 55 or 60 people. He does not attribute the growth directly to Robinson's consecration, but to the fact that people who already preferred tradition are finding the church.

"People are definitely looking for a more traditional, orthodox and
sacramental type of church," said Michael, a former Roman Catholic priest. Population growth in Northwest Arkansas is also a factor, he said.

There is one development Michael attributes to the gay issue. Some
members of St. Theodore¹s Episcopal Church, an ECUSA parish in Bella Vista (which is currently without a rector ), were traveling to attend St.
Gabriel's for worship ‹ enough of them that the UECNA decided to start a mission church in Bella Vista.

On Aug. 22, St. Gabriel¹s Mission Church started meeting on Sunday
evenings in the Bella Vista Lutheran Church building. Average attendance is 20, said Michael, who serves as its rector as well.

Bobby Hall, a spokesman for the mission congregation, said about nine
couples left over increasing "politically correct" ECUSA views, including
the Robinson vote.

"This originally started with a young couple who were very active at St. Theodore's. They had children and their statement was, ŒHow can we teach our children moral values and raise them correctly when our church allows this to take place?" he said.

"So they were the spearhead that started the drifting away from St.
Theodore's."

Shirley Sutton, senior warden of St. Theodore¹s, said the church is
preparing to call a new rector.

"There is a core of the congregation that has held fast through the
turmoil generated from last year¹s national convention," she said in a
written statement.

"We are sad that some of our members have chosen to leave our
congregation and wish them well."

A new church in Mountain Home is a direct result of the General
Convention vote. St. Thomas Anglican Church is also a mission church of UECNA. The pastor, Sam Seamans, resigned as deacon of St. Andrew¹s Episcopal Church in Mountain Home on June 22 after nearly a year of personal soulsearching.

"I left, obviously, over the consecration of Gene Robinson," he said.

For Seamans, the issue is not just sexuality, but flouting procedure.
"They took a vote on human sexuality under the guise of a bishop¹s
election," he said. "It was a very dishonest process. The church did not
dialogue about whether homosexuality was a godly expression of sexuality. It was politics, plain and simple."

The Rev. Pam Morgan, rector of St. Andrew¹s in Mountain Home, said
Seamans was formally "deposed" in July, which means his ordination is no longer recognized by ECUSA. She said her "healthy, vibrant" church has "held together in spite of different personal opinions... and we are still loving each other in Christ's name."

Seamans, also a full-time Mountain Home police officer, was drawn to the Episcopal Church's liturgy. He read about Anglican heritage and began attending St. Andrew's in 1997. He was ordained a deacon in 2001.

"The Anglicanism that I fell in love with was the classical, traditional
Anglicanism," he said. "Coming into the church and not knowing about the politics and a lot of the liberal theology that existed, I thought I was
joining the church that I had studied."

So he moved to St. Thomas, where attendance averages 20 to 30, he said.

Seamans is looking forward, not back. "That fight is no longer mine. I've moved on," he said. "I no longer have to tolerate apostasy and heresy in the church. And I don't think those words are too strong."

The Rev. Larry Maze, bishop of the diocese of Arkansas, attended the
General Convention and voted in favor of Robinson¹s consecration. He
concedes that, unlike St. Paul¹s in Fayetteville, the Arkansas diocese has seen overall loss in membership and giving since the pivotal decision in Minneapolis. But the numbers, he says, are not great, nor "as great as was predicted."

"No diocesan programs have had to be eliminated," he said.

Maze has expressed frustration that so much attention has been focused on this issue, to the exclusion of other outcomes of the triennial convention.

"In the long run, issues of global justice, new provisions for local
training for all levels of ministry and continued development for evangelism and outreach will be on the table years after we have resolved our fears around sexuality," he said.

The Right Rev. T.W. Johnston Jr. is the senior pastor of St. Andrew¹s
Church in Little Rock, a member of the Anglican Mission in America, which is separate from the Episcopal Church but under the Anglican Communion umbrella. Johnston sees the decision to consecrate Robinson as one that is spreading a long-growing crack within ECUSA into a gaping chasm.

"Twenty-three of the 38 Anglican provinces [in the worldwide Anglican
Communion] have gone on record in opposition to the Episcopal Church," saying it no longer represents a legitimate expression of Anglicanism, he said.

The Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) was officially created in 2000 by the Anglican archbishops of Rwanda and Southeast Asia as a missionary outreach to the United States. St. Andrew¹s, which incorporated in 1998, was the first church to come into the AMiA fold, now numbering about 70 churches.

In June 2001, Johnston was consecrated as a bishop in the denomination.

He now oversees 21 clergy in 18 churches in the Southwest. Since February, he has also provided temporary supervision over several Canadian churches that no longer feel the Anglican Church of Canada reflects their orthodox views.

In the aftermath of Robinson¹s consecration, some churches have walked away from their buildings; others are involved in disputes over property, Johnston said.

"Property is the glue that is holding the Episcopal Church together," he said, citing three congregations in California that have decided to leave ECUSA, resulting in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles filing suit to retain ownership of the churches' property.

While disenfranchised parishioners in some cases say their offerings
funded buildings, the diocese claims it owns the property. This scenario is expected to be repeated in other places.

People from all corners of the Anglican world are waiting for the results of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, appointed in October 2003 by the Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, as a result of the vote on Robinson and a Canadian diocese¹s authorizing of a service to use for same-sex unions.

"The Lambeth Commission has not asked to resolve the sexuality issue, but to offer guidance to the church as it continues to face issues that threaten the closeness of the Communion," Little Rock's Maze explained.

"Today's issue is sexuality, but in the globalization that we now face, cultures will continue to collide over other issues as well. The Commission is charged with finding a path to maintain communion while disagreeing on issues."

Johnston thinks there will be consequences for the denomination.

"My sense is that the Communion will no longer allow the status quo ofthe Episcopal Church to do whatever it wants to continue. That is a
tremendous consequence of the Gene Robinson [issue]," he said.

"I believe that a faithful Anglican witness within the tradition is going
to emerge, and the Episcopal Church is going to go through a season of
realignment and reformation, whether it wants to or not."

Maze expects ECUSA to remain in good standing with the Anglican
Communion. The report will be made public Oct. 18.

END