Of course, it won't happen. Bishop Love is already guilty and the hearing will only confirm the verdict with the judge and jury made up of progressive Episcopal minds who would not dare go against the episcopal zeitgeist. He is guilty till proven innocent and there is no sexual innocence in TEC; that ship sailed a long time ago.

This godly bishop will stand alone, there won't be a voice raised in his defense. Both sides have agreed that there are no contested facts regarding his actions and neither side will be presenting witnesses. Instead, the attorneys will be making arguments as to what the canon law requires. The Communion Partner bishops, of which Love is a member, will not come to his defense.

They will remain silent or offer up an anemic statement, sprinkled with a little holy water, raise holy hands of faux outrage and go about their business, much like Kapos who went along with the Holocaust and said nothing in order to survive.

Bishop Love has made it abundantly clear that his unwillingness to abide by Resolution B012 is based on his ordination vows to 'conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church' which, when he first took such vows, did not include same-sex marriage. This later innovation violated the very vows he first took. It was a bridge too far for the evangelical catholic bishop and he said no. For Bishop Love scripture trumps General Convention resolutions.

Now he will pay the price. The panel will have no option but to find him guilty; there will not be a single orthodox voice raised in his defense. It will be a Kangaroo court and public lynching, with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry sending him on his way, preaching one of his manifestly hypocritical "love" sermons about inclusion, but not for William H. Love.

It is ironic that not a single Communion Partner bishop was included among the "jury", that so bedeviled the Righter Trial. At that trial, the token orthodox bishop, one Andy Fairfield (Nth Dakota) demurred and got publicly ripped by Righter himself, the same bishop who faced a heresy trial (and was acquitted) for ordaining a known active homosexual to the diaconate.

Thou shalt not oppose the zeitgeist.

JUST LEAVE

But divisions in the Anglican Communion reached fever pitch when the evangelical Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, became a model of convictional courage telling his Anglican supporters of homosexual marriage, that they should leave the church rather than "betray God's word". This was the first honest, resolute cry of fortitude that we have ever heard from the right side of the aisle.

On the other side of the ecclesiastical ledger the Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell, told a priest John Parker that his Biblical views on sexuality were not welcome in the Church of England and that he "could leave."

Cottrell will shortly ascend to the see of York and be its next archbishop, the second most powerful prelate in the land. You can be sure that the future of evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England will be made even harder.

Both sides, it seems, are now prepared to play hardball.

THE CHURCH OF NICE

For too long conservatives played along to get along. They kept drawing lines in the sand until there were no lines left to draw. The tide came in and they were slowly washed away. The last to go will be the Bishop of Albany.

He dutifully raised his lone voice at one General Convention after another protesting the steady erosion of 'the faith once for all delivered' by the Church's pansexualists, but was isolated and shot down, with only token or no support from the Communion Partner bishops.

The Hearing Panel convened for this case is made up of the following five individuals:

· The Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, Convener
· The Rt. Rev. Herman Hollerith
· The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Brooke-Davidson
· The Rev. Erik Larsen
· Ms. Melissa Perrin

Not one is remotely orthodox.

But as one bishop told VOL years ago, we may lose the battles in this life, but we know how it all ends, and that will be hell for those who have betrayed the faith.

As St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might."

END