VOL: This is a distortion of the facts. The so-called "extreme conservatives" have not tried to "purify" anything. All they are asking for is an adherence to the faith once delivered for all to the saints and "radical reform" is merely to admit and believe what the church has always believed for 2000 years. Would one ask believers of the Islamic religion to altar the Koran to appease a handful of homosexuals at the end of the 20th Century? I doubt it. First of all, the "extreme" conservatives have "purified" nothing. Had they done so, they could have split the communion in two and walked away with more than three quarters of all Anglicans worldwide. They have not done that. They have patiently sat at one Primates meeting after another listening to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold whine about sodomy in The Episcopal Church. They have also patiently put up with the demands of the Windsor Report, a Covenant that the liberals, incidentally, don't want, and much more. They have not tried to manipulate the ABC, (as if they could). Conservatives have patiently endured insult after insult from revisionist Episcopal bishops in silence and prayer. Only one archbishop, Daniel Deng Bul from the Sudan said the homogenital Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson should step down in order to save the Anglican Communion. He was politely ignored.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has not called for stricter limits. He has been consistent from the beginning. His personal views on homosexuality are at variance with the Anglican Communion's public posture and he says he will honor the Communion's mind on the matter. Where are the "stricter limits?" With the failure of public statements (The Windsor Report) and the disciplinary measures it called for, he has finally resorted to a two-track solution, but that is his call not anybody else's. He dreamed this one up. The "objections" to it are from liberals who don't want to be seen as second class Anglicans and their equal desire to change the truth of the gospel into something else. The orthodox object to the liberal gospel, but have made no move to push them out. Quite the contrary. The orthodox in the US and Canada have been made so unwelcome by all the doctrinal and moral changes that they are fleeing by the thousands with the liberals in hot pursuit, inhibitions, depositions and lawsuits in hand.

The conservatives have reacted by patiently building their own structures like GAFCON, AC-NA and FCA. They have not tried to restrict the freedoms of liberals. They are quietly going around them. Some overseas orthodox primates have offered a temporary safe haven to orthodox parishes and dioceses in the U.S. and Canada, which they are beginning to relinquish as AC-NA becomes an ecclesiastical reality.

GUARDIAN: These Anglican "conservatives" are perhaps best known for their hostility to same-sex partnerships. Yet some are also passionately anti-Islamic. Archbishop Peter Akinola, for instance, as well as being vocally anti-gay, appears to believe that, in the Muslim-Christian conflict in Nigeria, communal violence can sometimes be justified.

VOL: There is a partial truth here. Certainly conservatives are hostile to same-sex partnerships. For them it is a salvation issue, based solidly on the teaching of Scripture. The anti-Islamic stance of Akinola is in direct proportion to the gay agenda in TEC. TEC has steadfastly advanced fostering anger, outrage and violence from Islam fanatics towards Christians in countries like Nigeria which has now enshrined Shari'a Law in Akinola's own state. Is anyone surprised that Akinola should argue back at what is taking place in his country? Evangelism towards Muslims is being thwarted precisely because of Western pansexuality.

As far as "communal violence" is concerned the archbishop believes Christians have the right to defend themselves, as every red-blooded "right to bear arms" American believes. Both Pacifism and Just War theories can be found in the church. Violence against the Bishop of Jos by Islamic extremists has been well-documented.

GUARDIAN: The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), which he helped to create, is part of an alliance which seeks to undermine the current leadership of the Episcopal Church. It has launched a "Church and Islam" website, which claims that "The so called 'moderate Islam' within America is no more moderate than the militant Islam of Saudi Arabia? Across the United States and throughout Europe a resurgent Islam has successfully strategised to infiltrate the church and win the loyalty and trust of large numbers of church-goers", and states that "Polite multifaith conversations must never become a substitute for the proclamation of the historic Christian message which we in the American church must assertively declare and defend." Former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali is to deliver a lecture in the US on "Aggressive Secularism, Multiculturalism, and the Islamist Threat to Western Culture and Society". Competition for resources and opportunities is intense, it is all too easy for other communities and countries to be demonised. And the search for a scapegoat for the nation's ills is common to many kinds of society, including those that are irreligious. So it is not surprising if in some places, including parts of the west, sizeable numbers might be persuaded that Islam as a whole is a threat (not just a minority of Muslims who are extremists).

Yet in the UK, at least, many Anglicans would be uneasy at such rhetoric. To begin with, the notion that there is no such thing as moderate Islam simply does not fit many people's experience. The claims made by ultra-conservatives such as Akinola that the "practice of homosexuality" is "a terrible violation of the harmony of the eco-system of which mankind is a part", "self-centred perversion" and "an assault on the sovereignty of God" are unlikely to convince many people with openly gay and lesbian relatives and friends. Similarly, overblown attacks on Islam may seem offensive to Anglicans who are close to Muslims and know the stereotypes to be untrue.

VOL: CANA was launched out of necessity by the will of orthodox Episcopalians who felt they had no place left in The Episcopal Church, as they were being hounded for their orthodoxy and made to feel unwelcome by TEC's leftist bullying leadership and agenda. Their laughable "doctrine" of inclusion, did not include them. They are now being told that same sex marriages and Rites are acceptable to the church so get in line and accept it. They won't. So they left and formed their own party. That's Christian, that's democratic and actually quite American.

The "Church and Islam" website was put together by an evangelical Anglican priest from NZ. The Rev. Julian Dobbs is about as extreme as a well-cooked New Zealand Sunday lamb. Furthermore, he might actually be right about Islam. Islam is acquiescent and quiet when it is a minority religion, but grows more strident as their numbers increase. Did anyone fear the rise of Islam in the UK 10 years ago? Of course not. Now Scotland Yard has a full-blown anti-terrorist squad devoted to Islamic extremism in the UK. The Brits have also put up over four million cameras on street corners and buildings to catch wannabe Islamic terrorists placing explosives on the nation's streets. Who says that won't in time come to the U.S.? The biggest oil producer in the world is Saudi Arabia. It is also the country funding and exporting Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, according to some newspaper reports. Why shouldn't Christians be put on alert? One should remind "The Guardian" that Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has had his life threatened to the point where he now must have 24-hour Police protection.

GUARDIAN: Besides, many Anglicans, horrified by abuses against Christians by Muslim fanatics in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere, were also revolted by the expulsion and mass murder of Muslims in Bosnia by fighters inspired by a distorted version of Christianity.

VOL: Evil is rooted in the human heart. Two wrongs don't cancel each other out. So called Christians in Bosnia were about as Christian as Hitler's Catholicism. Neither side was acting in the best traditions of their religion.

GUARDIAN: It is all too easy to project evil on to another group, harder to acknowledge that it may be found in one's own community and self. In the Gospels, Jesus urges his followers not to be so fixed on the speck in someone else's eye that they do not notice the log in their own, and warns of evil thoughts in the human heart, which, if unchecked, may result in harming others. This does not mean that injustice should not be resisted, but regarding people as good or bad simply on the basis of religion or ideology is risky.

VOL: First of all this is not about "specks" in someone else's eye, it is about the acceptance and proclamation of sin as good and right in the eyes of God. No self-respecting Christian is unaware of his or her own specks. What conservatives don't like is being told that they have to accept sexual sin and obey those who push it. This is not a "moat and beam" issue. It is an issue that totally misuses and misrepresents Scripture. The truth is people are both good and bad. Bad religion will make people do bad things and the ideology that flows from it can kill. The Hutus and Tutsi in Rwanda were both Christian groups. Yet they slaughtered each other because of a false tribal ideology and because the Christian Faith was not embedded deeply enough to make them stop. The result was a million dead. Yes, bad religion and bad bad ideology can kill you. In the case of the Anglican Communion, it is now about two very different religions at work, one consciously orthodox Christian, the other consciously, Docetic, Pelagian and Donatist.

GUARDIAN: Many Anglicans, including moderate conservatives, are too conscious of their own need to be delivered "from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness" (in the words of the Litany) to be attracted by the simplistic approach of the radical reformers who misleadingly call themselves "conservatives" or "traditionalists". Their campaigning has to some extent paid off. Yet, in the longer term, many Anglicans in the UK and elsewhere will hold on to values which are at odds with those of the conservatives striving to reshape the communion.

VOL: The so-called simplest approach of the "radical reformers" is simply a reaffirmation of the Good News of the Gospel. They are not misleading anybody. Yes, the Gospel is indeed radical (coming from the root word radix). It is Good News and demands obedience. They are not misleading anybody by calling themselves "conservatives" or "traditionalists", for that is what they are. There have not campaigned for anything. They are simply going back to the future and demanding that the church be the church and proclaim its unchanging message. If they had wanted, they could have split the church. They have the power and the numbers to do so, but they have steadfastly resisted. They are arguing, quite rightly, that the days of colonialism are over and that the Queen, as Governor of the Church of England, is about as relevant to global Anglicanism as the Church of England is to 95% of the English population.

The Guardian writer has it all wrong. It is about belief and unbelief, it is about the nature of the belief system that "conservatives" and traditionalists" hold verses the new religion of Western pan-Anglican liberals and revisionists who preach pansexuality, the joys of abortion, doctrinal abandonment and moral relativism.

The Global South will have none of it, not now, not ever. While they are growing by leaps and bounds, Western Anglicanism is slowly withering and dying and the truth becomes more obvious. It is only the spiritually blind who will not see the obvious. That apparently includes the writers of "The Guardian" newspaper.

To read "The Guardian" story go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/sep/07/anglican-conservatives-islam

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