FACT: The Episcopal Church has slightly less than 7,000 congregations not 7,400. Overall Average Sunday Attendance in 2008 was 705,257 down from 727,822 in 2007, a decrease of 22,565 or 3%. Over the last five years the loss in active membership has been 14%. Average median attendance has gone from 75 to 69. It has lost hundreds of congregations to ACNA, but because they still retain the properties, though not the people, they maintain the fiction of having more congregations than they really have. Furthermore the figure of 2.2 million includes hundreds of thousands of names of people still on the church's books who no longer darken the doors of Episcopal churches. It should also be noted that the offshore dioceses are propped up by TEC money. On their own, most would fail.

TEC: It is important to note that membership in ACNA includes churches and denominations which have disassociated from The Episcopal Church, both recently and over the last 130 years, as well as congregations which have never been part of The Episcopal Church. A definitive number is difficult to ascertain.

FACT: The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) unites some 100,000 plus Anglicans in 758 congregations and is growing, with a new church being added every three weeks, according to Archbishop Robert Duncan. The figure of 130 years makes no sense. The Reformed Episcopal Church left in 1873 - 137 years ago. The REC is a constituent member of ACNA. None of the Anglo-Catholic churches that broke away from the Episcopal Church at the St. Louis Convention in 1977 have joined the ACNA.

The vast majority of ACNA's churches and African-branch Anglicans such as AMiA (Rwanda), CANA (Nigeria), Uganda and Kenya are of very recent vintage - within the last decade (AMiA began in 2000) with the vast majority of their churches being former Episcopal churches. They are all busy trying to reach the 130 million unchurched Americans. It should be noted that the two new orthodox Anglican branches in Canada - the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) and the Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) are also very recent, and formed as a result of the Anglican Church of Canada's public departure from the faith over morals and doctrinal abandonement.

TEC: ACNA is lead [sic] by an archbishop who is not a member of The Episcopal Church, The Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, or The Anglican Communion.

FACT: ACNA is a province-in-formation in the global Anglican Communion, initiated at the request of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in June 2008 and formally recognized by the GAFCON Primates - leaders of Anglican churches representing 70 per cent of active Anglicans globally. - April 16, 2009, after a thorough examination of ACNA's leadership, organizational structure, proposed constitution and proposed canons. Its leadership includes a primate, Bishop Robert Duncan (illegally deposed as Bishop of Pittsburgh) who was installed as Archbishop of ACNA on June 24, 2009, during the ACNA inaugural. As ACNA is recognized by the vast majority of African, Southern Cone and Australian leaders, Archbishop Duncan is de facto a member of The Anglican Communion. It is true he is not a member of TEC (he was deposed) nor of the Anglican Church of Canada or the Church of England. However, if the Church of England Synod does recognize ACNA, that will change.

TEC: The Episcopal Church laity and clergy believe the Christian faith as stated in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. We call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible. We look to the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the understanding of the Scriptures. Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

FACT: By its actions, TEC has departed from the faith of the creeds by publicly endorsing immoral, unbiblical sexual behavior. More Episcopal bishops believe in the theology and morals of Bishop Gene Robinson (New Hampshire) than they do Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison (SC ret.) Furthermore, a significant number of Episcopal bishops agree with former Bishop of Newark Jack Spong who has openly repudiated most of the creed with his "12 Theses". If the Holy Spirit is remotely guiding The Episcopal Church, it is not visible to orthodox Anglicans who fled TEC precisely because they no longer believed the Holy Spirit is active in TEC. Finally, in order to know the love of God, one must first be joined to Him. It is highly doubtful, based on statements by Mrs. Jefferts Schori at GC2009 about the non-necessity for personal salvation, whether or not she is in fact connected to the Christian Faith in any measurable form.

TEC: The Episcopal Church welcomes all who wish to serve God through Jesus Christ.

FACT: Except of course if you are orthodox in faith and morals, then you can go elsewhere. Furthermore, if you are a seminary graduate of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry you will not get an opportunity or be invited to "serve" as a priest in the vast majority of Episcopal dioceses that are liberal in ethos. Furthermore, many Episcopal priests have flirted with Islam, Buddhism and syncretistic practices of one sort or another.

TEC: The Episcopal Church welcomes women in ordained ministry - deacons, priests and bishops. The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead The Episcopal Church as well as any of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion. ACNA does not permit women to serve as bishops and, in some areas, bars women from all ordination.

FACT: The Episcopal Church has indeed welcomed women to all ranks of the ordained ministry with many Anglicans believing it is a Donatist heresy. The Episcopal Church found it necessary to redefine God to conform to a secular ideology such as feminism, thereby inventing a new, politically correct, feminized religion that only has a superficial similarity to traditional Christianity. In almost every case, one of the first steps in the feminization of religion is the ordination of women. It is also not surprising that the church has not grown. Many of these women priests are active lesbians defying Biblical standards for sexual moral behavior. A lesbian woman might well become a bishop. While ACNA has drawn the line at women bishops, many bishops, including Archbishop Duncan do believe in the ordination of women. Other bishops like Jack Iker do not.

TEC: The Episcopal Church is a member province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, serving God together and working together to bring the Reign of God on earth. ACNA is not a member of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

FACT: TEC is ONLY in the AC because no one, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, will exercise discipline called for by the Windsor Report and the Dar es Salaam Communique to discipline The Episcopal Church for its apostasies in ordaining a known non-celibate homosexual to the episcopacy. ACNA may not be a member of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, but it is recognized by GAFCON primates which means it is a de facto member of the Communion even though it is de jure not a member....yet.

TEC: It is important to note that those who have remained in The Episcopal Church in those places where some have left include conservatives as well as liberals, persons on the political right as well as on the political left, and everything in between.

FACT: This applies only to a very limited number of dioceses including Pittsburgh, Dallas and Central Florida. Furthermore it is not axiomatic that those conservatives who have left TEC are politically conservative. Certainly, they are theologically conservative, but one does not necessarily assume the other.

TEC: It is an inaccurate and misleading image that pictures those who have broken away from The Episcopal Church as the persecuted faithful, when in reality those who have remained have felt deeply hurt, and now in some cases are exiled from their own church buildings by ACNA.

FACT: Unnumbered stories have been written by this writer of orthodox priests and vestries who have been sued by their liberal bishops and the national church. Estimated costs range up to some $30 million in legal fees. They have been persecuted and that includes inhibition, deposition, lost salaries, lost pensions and lost medical benefits. Because of the Dennis Canon, The Episcopal Church has won nearly all the property disputes (except for Pawleys Island and Virginia) and the so-called "deeply hurt" remnant have retained the buildings, gotten a vicar and carried on.

The "hurt" has come about because of lost and broken friendships owing to the actions of the Episcopal Church demanding that the 1979 Prayer Book MUST replace the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, promoting sodomy and "social justice" stands that advance abortion violating biblical standards on human life. Any "exile" has been temporary. In more than 95% of cases those who remained have won back the parish though the victory is often pyrrhic as the churches are no longer financially viable, are forced to close and are put up for sale.

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