Little, who recently gave an interview to Christianity Today, "Living with the Tares" and why he was staying in the ECUSA did not mention even once the possibility of church discipline as an overriding principle prescribed by New Testament writers. He has also publicly endorsed local experiments in same-sex blessing rites, describing them as "within the bonds of our common life," saying it would help him meet pastoral needs.

This group is one of 22 committees that will consider proposed resolutions and prepare them for debate during the 75th General Convention, which meets June 13-21 in Columbus, Ohio. The other appointments will be announced soon.

Werner and Griswold said the special committee will handle all resolutions that propose the church's official response to the process set in motion by the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which issued the Windsor Report in October 2004.

A liberal bishop who has watched how Griswold manipulates the Episcopal Church for his pluriform ends, wrote VirtueOnline to say that a mark of this administration is his willful neglect of General Convention directives and canons when they don't suit him. "If he does not like the way something is going, he unseats the leadership or re-writes the job description."

This committee will also consider resolutions that deal with "reconciliation and communion in the service of mission occasioned by differing views regarding expressions of human sexuality within the Episcopal Church and other provinces of the Anglican Communion," according to the committee's charge.

Any resolutions coming to Convention concerning rites for blessing same-gender relationships will go through the Convention's prayer book, liturgy and church music committee. Requests for consent to bishops elected during the 120 days before General Convention will be handled by the Committee on the Consecration of Bishops.

The special legislative committee will overlap the work of the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, which Griswold and Werner appointed in the fall to help prepare the way for General Convention to receive and respond to the Communion's request that the church respond to the Windsor Report and subsequent official statements.

The commission also serves as a council of advice to Griswold and Werner to help them consider the "complex questions" involved in crafting a response "so that we might be able to present it to the houses [of Convention] and the church in the clearest possible terms," Werner said.

Griswold added that he hopes the committee can model for General Convention a way to deal with differences and continue to be "part of the mystery of growing into Christ." He said the commission members had very different views and worked hard to come to an "authentic common ground" from which to work.

Griswold said he would like to see the Convention make its response so that it can "then focus ourselves on the mission of the church."

NOW it is important to understand what Griswold is really saying and wanting. His primary concern is to have his theologically liberal legacy continued even as he walks out the door as PB. Griswold badly wants to deflect any and all sexuality resolutions and downplay them in favor of what he calls the "mission of the church", which has nothing to do with the Great Commission, the spreading of the gospel and saving souls. It has to do with Griswold's socio-political agenda driven by worldly hopes for peace through the United Nations and other international pacifiers, even as Islam is proving increasingly intransigent, with Christians in Islamic countries being murdered and hard line Muslims blowing themselves (and us) up.

GRISWOLD: "I see the coming Convention's work "as a vast field of exploration rather than a moment of decision" that might be construed by some as a make-or-break moment in the history of the Communion. It "betrays a lack of historical sense" to insist that this is the first time that the Christian church has faced a crisis. The church's history is one of experiences that result in an "expansion of understanding and consciousness," he said, adding that he's convinced that in 20 years the church "will be talking about something else."

But the Archbishop of Canterbury said this past week that the whole Anglican Communion faces schism. He said, "If there is a rupture, it's going to be a more visible rupture, it is not going to settle down quietly to being a federation." The Episcopal Church is already "walking apart"; if it continues down the present pathway it will walk alone. Griswold tries to fob it off on the basis that the "crisis" requires an expansion of "consciousness" (about homosexuality) - a Jungian concept which has yet to "expansively" catch on among orthodox global south Primates. And never will.

The notion that today's present crisis will shortly be over and in 20 years the church will face another crisis belies the fact that in 20 years the Episcopal Church may cease to be a church in any meaningful sense. (Average Sunday Attendance is now down to 795,000 a week) and dropping. If there is a meaningful Episcopal Church 20 years from now it will be a pale reflection of itself having been torn asunder by heresies distressed with Griswold being its lead heretic.

GRISWOLD: "I am grateful that the Episcopal Church is able to deal openly and honestly with the challenges that are presented to it."

VIRTUEONLINE: Honest? For nearly 40 years the Episcopal Church has manipulated, whined and finally brokered sodomy into the church against the collective will of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion, the Primates and the Lambeth conference. The ECUSA has been forced out into the open by the Global South Primates with Resolution 1:10 passed in 1998 at Lambeth and now the demands of the Windsor Report. The Episcopal Church would like the issue to go away, or somehow to convince the bulk of the communion that, over time, they will catch up to the more enlightened and "expansive" West. But that won't happen.

Griswold wants the special commission to consider how the Episcopal Church might participate in a Communion-wide listening process that has been called for, for many years and is now just starting. The Anglican Consultative Council has hired a staff person to organize the process.

But this is a stalling tactic designed to push any finality on homosexuality into never never land. The Episcopal Church wants the "listening process" to continue indefinitely and will happily foot the bill to make that possible. As Scripture has spoken definitively about homosexual activity, the only possible reason for this "listening" post is to keep the Global South bishops from demanding any finality on the subject. Any time Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola talks about the horror of this behavior and expresses his views held by most Africans, the ECUSA and its liberal allies can talk about the need to "listen" to the plaintive whine of gays....forever.

"We're anxious to be participants" in the process, Griswold said, while being sensitive to the various sensibilities of Communion members. "We are aware that our actions, which came as part of an at least 40 year listening process of our own, had a drastic impact on a number of provinces where, if issues of human sexuality were discussed at all, they were discussed behind closed doors," he said.

Really. Just how sensitive has Griswold been for the last five Primates meetings where he promised, and was told repeatedly, not to pursue the ordination and consecration of homoerotic priests. And the truth is Griswold would like it to go on for another 40 years, all the while passing resolutions in defiance of Scripture and church teaching, ordaining gays and lesbians to the priesthood and episcopacy and passing rites for same-sex blessings. Griswold thinks that 40 years from now the whole communion will be doing it, so his basic argument is 'get over it.'

The Episcopal Church recognizes that the actions of the 2003 General Convention forced some provinces into a conversation about human sexuality that they may not have been prepared to have, Griswold said. Thus, criticism of the Convention's decisions came not from "ill will" but from the awkwardness of varying degrees that often surrounds conversations about sexuality.

"Awkwardness, AWKWARDNESS"! This has nothing to do with awkwardness; that is complete psychobabble. It has to do with what the Scriptures clearly teach about human sexual behavior which has not changed in 2,000 years and which Griswold would now like to change. He has become a modern day "kissing Judas".

Griswold said the church must follow Paul's teaching that when one part of the body hurts, then all the body suffers. He said the Communion has a "profound interconnectedness that possibly we didn't give enough attention to" during the last Convention.

And what about Paul's teaching proscribing homosexual acts in I Cor. 6 and what about church discipline for those who lead people astray? And who has caused, and continues to cause this suffering if it isn't the Episcopal Church in the first place? As far as a "profound interconnectedness" is concerned, Griswold has known all along that his actions would cause a profound disconnectedness. He has personally pushed for pansexual acceptance to at least four Primates meetings, following which he has gone out into the world to spin what went on behind these closed door meetings. He has calculatedly known all along what he was doing, but what he never envisaged or calculated is that he would personally bring about crisis not only in his own church, but a permanent rupture in the 77-million strong Anglican Communion. And for that he will be answerable in the Day of Judgment.

END