KJS: The work we do on Sunday morning and inside what we traditionally call 'the church' ... is about supporting people in their lives outside of this place...get lost in your involvement in the needs of the world and the opportunities to love your neighbor.

VOL: No, the primary message to communicate is the message we should be proclaiming, which is that God's love is such that people will repent and believe in him. It is about announcing the Good News of the kingdom. If the message is not that, then TEC parishes are little more than social service agencies. There are enough agencies both government and non-government that can do a better job. We should be in the business of making disciples, not social workers.

KJS: On the political upheaval in countries such as Egypt and Libya: It may give us more hope for peace in the Middle East; it may launch a series of internal civil wars. Our task is to pray and advocate for justice for everybody.

VOL: No mention of Christians in countries like Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran and the Sudan et al who are being persecuted and killed for their faith by Islamic extremists. Government forces in Egypt recently raided the Coptic Church for no particular reason other than they were Christians. There was no outcry from TEC or Jefferts Schori about this. What about "justice" for them? Furthermore, if TEC keeps stoking the fires of pansexual behavior, it will incur the wrath of Islamists who have no use for such behavior. TEC's course will only continue to stifle evangelistic efforts by Global South Anglican leaders to evangelize and convert them.

KJS: The church is changing, becoming more multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. There are nearly 2.4 million members of the Episcopal Church worldwide and dioceses outside the Unites States are growing. Episcopal churches in America are seeing increases from Sudanese and immigrant populations. Traditional Episcopal churches that are deeply engaged in healing the communities around them are growing, too.

VOL: San Diego Bishop James Mathes drove out a conservative Vietnamese priest and congregation (now ACA), fired the Sudanese priest and allowed two small congregations to just die because they preach a different gospel from his (which is no gospel). There are Nigerian parishes in Texas that won't have anything to do with the Episcopal Church because they perceive it has "another gospel". These are but two examples of how TEC defeats anybody that does not share its "gospel" of inclusion. Furthermore, the 2.4 million figure includes hundreds of thousands of Episcopalians who haven't darkened the doors of an Episcopal Church in years. For example, the Eisenhowers (Nixon's married daughter) have been on the books of the Church of the Good Samaritan for years. I have never seen them once in church. How many of these so-called 2.4 million are even alive.? The Average Sunday Attendance, a far better barometer of accuracy, is 690,000 weekly attendees nationwide. As for "traditional Episcopal churches", they are virtually extinct in TEC. Most have been hounded out or left to join ACNA/CANA/AMIA and some to one of the Continuing Anglican churches.

KJS: It's the inward-looking congregations that are shrinking and dying, as maybe they should.

VOL: That applies to most of The Episcopal Church's 7000 churches, most of whom have parishioners in their mid 60s with congregations under 70. Yes, they are dying and probably will. No gospel, no growth. TEC is shriveling faster than a prune in cold water.

KJS: People aren't joining organizations, religious or otherwise, at the rate they have in the past.

VOL: Only partially true. Young people are looking and they are seeing a smorgasbord of spiritual options which many are finding unsatisfactory. Jesus alone satisfies, which would account for the evangelical revival we are seeing in many quarters. The fact that ACNA will shortly have a 1000 new congregations gives the lie to this. AMIA Bishop Todd Hunter plans to open 200 new gospel-driven congregations in California.

Mark Tooley, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy writing in The American Spectator had this to offer: "Americans by and large are attending churches at about the same rate they have for most of the last 70 years. About one third of Americans are now evangelical. Fewer and fewer attend, or even have a cultural memory of oldline Episcopal or Presbyterian churches. Many stately old urban sanctuaries sit empty, while nearby thriving congregations meet in school gymnasiums or hotel ballrooms, if they haven't already built a mega-church campus.

A Gallup poll in 2010 showed the percentage of Americans reporting to attend church regularly (at least monthly) was 43 percent. In 1937 it was 37 percent, was slightly lower in the early 1940s, reached 49 percent during the 1950s, and settled at 42 percent in 1969, where it has remained steady for the last 40 years.

KJS: The fastest-growing religious affiliation is "none of the above." Many young adults, who were not raised in faith traditions, are asking the same spiritual questions as those who were.

VOL: A partial truth at best. Many young people were raised on the empty husks of liberal Protestantism, unsatisfying materialism, New Age nonsense, eastern religions and self-help gurus. None have satisfied them. Sadly, they won't hear a clear, salvific message from TEC rectors who preach a gospel of "diversity" and "inclusion" that saves no one and nothing. The message of 'come as you are and stay as you are', has about as much appeal as AIG appealing for tax-payer dollars to keep it afloat until it can make more money doing the same thing to a different set of people or bankers selling derivatives.

KJS: We're not going to see them if we stay [in the church]. We're only going to see them, if we go out there and look and engage.

VOL: Engage them with what? Talk of MDGs? I have news for you. Most young people (and I suspect older) wouldn't know an MDG if they fell over it. They have also listened to enough New Age hype to know this doesn't work. Motivational "experts" and self help authors Robert Schuller and Anthony Robbins are growing old. Rap artists with their hip hop lyrics get closer to their world, but it will never satisfy the thirst in the souls for God, and He, odd as it may seem, can only be found in Jesus.

KJS: That's the challenge. Episcopalians have not, traditionally, been very good at that. We've relied on evangelism by reproduction.

VOL: And it has failed dramatically. Reproduction is not evangelism. It's what people do in bed to keep the human race going. Reproduction Episcopal style is over and has been over for 20 years or more. TEC numbers have been slipping for a generation or more. ACNA/CANA/AMIA is not relying on "reproduction". They are out there saving souls, making disciples and planting churches. TEC Bishops are busy putting out fires in parishes, as the outgoing Bishop of Atlanta recently noted. He is tired of going into parishes and hearing parishioners complain about the negative stories about TEC that they are reading on the Internet. Bishops are also sick and tired of hearing about internal fights over trivia, and treasurer's who run off with funds and sodomy as the new TEC religion. They are angry, disillusioned and much more. It is probably why a lot of bishops like Gene Robinson are getting out early so they can hit the speaker's circuit or disappear into seminaries where they can write and lecture in relative solitude without the aggravation of angry Episcopalians. Some of them can't wait to hit the golf course and beat up on golf balls instead of their archdeacons...or deal with one more orthodox priest who dares to stand up and yell that the bishop has no [theological] clothes and he is leaving and wants the parish property.

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