VOL: We would agree with Mr. Clifford to this point. A line has been drawn in the sand (concrete). Sexual ethics have become the litmus test and there is no middle ground. Denying the inevitability of a split is to stick one's head in the sand or concrete.

CLIFFORD: The other road, regretfully, acknowledges the futility of the first road and then allows the Church to move forward. If ECUSA takes this second road, the Church will need leadership characterized by fidelity to three classical Anglican emphases: the pastoral, the incarnational, and the via media.

During 2006-2009, TEC chose the second road. The choice was neither quick nor easy, but an extended and at times painful process. For the most part, individuals who believe that same sex unions are incompatible with Christianity have exited TEC or reluctantly accepted that big tent Anglicanism can survive a plurality of views on this subject. Continuing battles over property and a relative handful of disputes over which body is the legitimate expression of Anglicanism in the United States (never an issue for either TEC or the Archbishop of Canterbury, incidentally) represent the dust that is still settling from the fork in the road that TEC chose.

VOL: Again, correct. TEC chose the second road and is paying the price of long term irrelevancy. If TEC wants to be faithful to the "pastoral", it must do so by not imposing what it means by pastoral on people who do not share similar values or principles. To be "incarnational", TEC leaders would need to acknowledge that incarnational means more than God coming into the world in the person of Jesus, but that His purpose in doing so was to die for our sins and that we are to live that message daily through repentance and faith. An understanding of "via media" would have to be Hooker's version, not Mrs. Jefferts Schori's.

Yes, the "big tent" cannot nor will not accept a plurality of views on human sexual behavior. Continuing property battles will only empty churches, as well as diocesan and national church coffers. As the dust clears (and the scales fall from Mr. Clifford's eyes), he will see that the other fork in the road has ACNA written on it.

CLIFFORD: Apart from persons and entities directly involved in resolving those issues, TEC and its constituent members are moving forward. The 2009 General Convention initiated development of rites for blessing same sex unions. Sexuality has generally ceased to be a prime focus and bitterly divisive issue in most dioceses and parishes. The majority of Episcopalians accepts the fork chosen with rejoicing while a minority accepts it with resignation or even lamentation.

VOL: This is partly correct. Studies show that the majority of lay Episcopalians are conservatives who are being led by priests who no longer believe the gospel and are falling all over themselves to imbibe the dark waters of pansexuality. They, in turn, are following their liberal and revisionist bishops. The laity does not fight back because they want peace in their parishes, sermons that don't rock the boat and the altar guild to do its work. For the most part, they go along to get along.

CLIFFORD: Recently, I spoke with a woman who for several decades played a leading role in her parish, one of the first in my diocese both to welcome everybody regardless of gender orientation and to embrace ministry to GLBT persons. Almost all of the congregations in this diocese, she remarked, now welcome everyone. To have a distinctive identity and fresh energy, she said that her parish must develop a new focus. I'm not as sanguine as is she about every congregation's genuine welcome of GLBT persons, but we've come a long, long way since 2006, thanks be to God.

VOL: The laity has been dumbed down by their clergy into accepting unbiblical views on sexuality. They are learning that that is not growing their churches and that, in fact, it is emptying them. Young people are not being drawn into Episcopal churches because Episcopal parishes suddenly embrace sodomy other than come as you are and stay as you are. Nightclubs and movies offer better deals than that.

Welcoming ALL people, including GLBT persons into one's parish, is exactly the right thing to do. When you get them in, you present them with the life-changing news of the gospel. Not to do so is to sell homosexuals, murderers, cheats, stock brokers, ambulance-chasing lawyers, liars and bankers who sold America down the river short. We do not invite people to come as they are and stay as they are. We invite them to come and be changed by the life-giving, power of the Holy Spirit.

CLIFFORD: To move TEC along the second road, the road we've chosen, I presumptuously suggested that the PB adopt three emphases: the pastoral, the incarnational, and the via media for her tenure in office. Let me be clear: I have no idea whether the PB ever read my essay and claim no credit or responsibility for her actions or leadership. Furthermore, although I write about the PB, my comments are about TEC; in time-honored naval tradition, I presume that an organization's leader symbolizes the totality of the organization, an idea that coheres well with bishops symbolizing the Church's unity. Unlike a naval leader, the PB is not personally accountable for everything TEC does or fails to do. Nevertheless, my original essay affords a useful platform for assessing where TEC stands today, at the midpoint in the Most Rev. Jefferts Schori's tenure as PB.

First, the PB has consistently emphasized what it means to be the Church, drawing upon our rich Anglican pastoral heritage of inclusivity and openness, consistently welcoming all who seek to live out their faith in this part of the body of Christ. Her exhausting travel schedule brings her to all corners of the Church, building vital relationships. A recent headline from Houston made this point in good naval lingo, "PB covers the waterfront." Without my prompting or inquiring, people who have met her consistently tell me that she impresses them as a godly bishop who inspires and challenges them to be more faithful in our modern world. In retrospect, a bishop who told me that he hesitantly voted for her election as primate, sensing the movement of the Holy Spirit in the House of Bishops showing him that she was the leader whom God desired for this time, was right.

VOL: There is nothing remotely "pastoral" about Mrs. Jefferts Schori in her continuing ability to run the church into the ground. She is the most litigious presiding bishop in the history of TEC, suing whole dioceses, congregations and deposing dozens of bishops along with some 400 priests at a cost of millions of dollars in lawsuits to the church, and curtailing meaningful expansion of the church all because she does not believe in the Great Commission. She thinks that the church will grow if it engages the world for God on a whole host of social justice issues ranging from climate control to peace in the Middle East, if only the Israelis would listen to her.

CLIFFORD: Work remains to be done. TEC still expends too much time and too many resources to keep its legislative and bureaucratic structures moving. We have yet to implement a constructive process for dealing with dysfunctional relationships between a bishop and diocese, a problem encumbered with more urgency and even greater complexity given recent developments in South Carolina than when I wrote in 2006. Property and other disputes with departed dissidents continue to sap individual and institutional energy. Reconciliation is Christ's, and therefore our, business.

VOL: St. Paul said we have been given the "ministry of reconciliation" that is, reconciling men (all persons) to God, but Mrs. Jefferts Schori isn't listening. Hers is a "ministry of legal engagement". She has remortgaged 815 Second Ave, NY for $60 million so she can continue the lawsuits.

CLIFFORD: Second, the challenge of articulating a clear, bold, and passionate vision for TEC, its ministry and mission, has proven more difficult. The PB frequently receives positive media attention; her presence and words help to move public opinion. However, the many forces pulling TEC in a wide variety of directions exert too strong of a fragmenting influence for what, from national and global perspectives, is a relatively small organization. Similarly, most dioceses and parishes lack a clear vision, torn in multiple directions, dissipating individual leadership and organizational momentum.

VOL: "Difficult" doesn't begin to touch it. The major passionate vision of the Presiding Bishop is to broker pansexuality into the church and woe unto you if you oppose her and General Convention resolutions. The damage this has done by mangling Scripture to fit the procrustean bed of Gene Robinson's sexual proclivities is now part of TEC's history. Pansexualists have crucified Scripture on the cross of Integrity (TEC's unofficial pansexual organization), and have caused whole dioceses to leave TEC along with hundreds of congregations. Where is the win-win there? Those dioceses that lack a "clear vision" are dioceses with no clear fix on the gospel, that don't believe in changed lives and are floundering around looking for a meaning to their existence. Such is not the case in dioceses like Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, South Carolina and Springfield, all of whose bishops are able to articulate a clear understanding of the gospel and want it preached from their parish pulpits.

Jefferts Schori gets positive media attention because she says outrageous things. Do you think the media would take any notice if she articulated a biblical gospel? Sodomite Bishop Gene Robinson got to write a seven-part series about why homosexuality is good and right in the eyes of God for the Huffington Report. Will the Rev. Dr. Robert Gagnon be given an opportunity to make a seven part response? Don't hold your breath.

CLIFFORD: No person or organization can do everything well. Maximizing effect requires establishing and adhering to realistic priorities, an essential lesson for military leaders in combat (concentration of force is one of the first principles of tactics and strategy they learn) and a lesson equally applicable to the Church. The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham's achievements in creating Interfaith Power and Light offer an example of what focused leadership and energy can achieve.

VOL: Whatever Canon Bingham has or has not achieved pales next to what Archbishop Robert Duncan has achieved since he departed TEC and founded ACNA, He is extremely busy bringing authentic Anglicanism to North America.

CLIFFORD: The PB, acting upon insights from feminist and liberation theologies, might call upon Episcopalians at all levels to:
* Decentralize authority, e.g., empowering individuals to form formal and ad hoc task groups to achieve clearly defined objectives without burdening a parish with new permanent structures and administrative overhead.
* Encourage diverse priorities by different groups, e.g., a diocese in an area where the population is growing rapidly emphasizing church planting and evangelism while a diocese in an area with a stable population emphasizes stewardship and environmental ministries.
* Emphasize mutual interdependence, i.e., TEC in conjunction with the other branches of Christianity can in their totality incarnate the fullness of the body of Christ. Similarly, mutual interdependence between dioceses and between parishes will result in the whole being larger than the sum of the parts.

VOL: "Decentralize authority"... Who are we kidding? The new Title IV canons give increased power to the Presiding Bishop, castrate the sovereign rights of diocesan bishops, and enable her to come down hard on any bishop and Standing Committee who disagrees with her. Far from decentralizing authority, Mrs. Jefferts Schori is in fact going in the opposite direction and centralizing it.

On the subject of "encouraging diverse groups" and "planting churches" and doing "evangelism", the model here is a bishop like James R. Mathes of San Diego who recently inhibited a Vietnamese priest who refused to fall in line over sodomy, thus forcing this growing ethnic congregation out of the church in the name of "inclusivity". His is not an isolated case. This kind of thing is quietly going on all over the US. Anybody who dares oppose the current sexual zeitgeist has no future in TEC. Perhaps Mr. Clifford should dwell on that. Furthermore, the Presiding Bishop said at GC2009 that she doesn't believe in the need for personal salvation, which really puts the kibosh on evangelism.

CLIFFORD: Third, the PB (and TEC) has appeared to seek to bridge the secular and sacred, a path faithful to our via media heritage. Her frequent appearances in venues that address the relationship between science and religion are a sign of this choice. Her affirmation of the value of other religions while insisting on the integrity of Christianity is another such sign. Yet a third sign is leading TEC in choosing the road that led to welcoming GLBT persons fully into the life of TEC, a choice that now seems irrevocable and God directed.

VOL: Let us examine this sentence by sentence. The PB is seeking "to bridge the secular and sacred". Wrong. Every time she rolls across that "bridge", the sacred is rolled over by the secular. The bridge is Jesus. Every time she capitulates and tries to make the sacred i.e. the gospel, more palatable to the world, the gospel gets the short end of the stick. In her efforts to not appear "fundamentalist" over the authority of scripture, she waters down Scripture to the point that it is no longer believable or relevant nor can it be taken seriously, lest its "literalism" offends secular minds.

CLIFFORD: In a Church that has suffered through decades of numerical decline, painful conflict, and significant fiscal constraints, TEC daily offers healing words, living water, and the bread of abundant life to literally hundreds of thousands of God's broken, thirsty, and struggling children. Those ministries deserve a cheerleader who incarnates the Christ. Surely, God has sent Bishop Jefferts Schori to us for just such a time as this, a time when we build on the past to achieve new glories of faithful service in the future.

VOL: This is pure spin. Yes, the church is in "numerical decline, painful conflict and facing fiscal constraints", but it is doing so because it has no message to proclaim except "inclusivity", which is a denial of the gospel; "pluralism" which denies the uniqueness of Jesus Christ; affirming a variety of sexual behaviors contrary to Scripture; and refusing to accept the authority of Holy Scripture in all matters of faith and practice. When priests attend the dying with no words of salvation and hope except for some incoherent ramblings about God's absolute love for everybody, or shuffle a man or woman dying of AIDS into eternity without that person ever hearing the Good News of God's forgiveness, or pushing a communion wafer into the mouth of a dying man who has never confessed Christ as Savior and Lord, then you know why God has raised up the Anglican Church in North America for such a time as this. In TEC, the spiritually hungry are sent empty away. In ACNA parishes, now numbering close to a 1,000, priests are proclaiming the Good News of God's salvation while TEC continues its downward spiral lost in spiritual darkness. Perhaps, Mr. Clifford should put his ethics hat on and think on some of these things as he contemplates TEC's dark future.

END