"I was appalled at what I saw," said an organist who asked not to be named. "I could not stay to the bitter end."

The opening event, a concert by The Crossing began in the gay flaming parish of St. Clement's whose priest, the Rev. Gordon Reid, has been exposed by VOL as having a long history of homosexual activity that included sex with hundreds of partners, group sex orgies, extreme sadomasochistic sex acts and prostitution when he was in Scotland.

On Wednesday, Clergy Day, which PA Bishop Charles Bennison underwrote, Ana Hernandez, an alumnus of the Center for Emerging Visual Arts in Philadelphia, proceeded to lead the conference in "sacred chant" - in bare feet at Holy Trinity Rittenhouse Square, which appalled many. As Ms. Hernandez's own book and website makes clear - her concept of sacred chant is a strange New Age mix of Hindu and Buddhist chant and philosophy intermingled with Christianity.

In a letter to the editor of the AAM Journal, a commenter noted, "... the real error of 'A Day for Clergy and Musicians' at the conference (an error that did not help the workshops) was that we went to Holy Trinity Church (where O Little Town of Bethlehem author Phillips Brooks was rector before being elected Bishop of Massachusetts, and composer Lewis Redner was organist) and experienced 'the hopes and fears of all the years' in a liturgy where we were asked to do things that were downright uncomfortable."

David Brensinger, in a letter to the editor of the Journal of the AAM, described the event as a "disappointment and an embarrassment" describing some of the music as "under rehearsed and ill prepared as it did with the music choices themselves."

The conference preacher, Bishop Paul Marshall (Diocese of Bethlehem), in his Monday sermon went so far as to suggest that belief or unbelief in the historic Creeds of the Church Catholic might be optional for Christians. He stated in the reprint of his sermon, "Not all of us believe with words. Perhaps the dogmatically hesitant have a vital point to make, at least in the present culture that speaks so trippingly of the uncertainty principle and parallel universes. I have to remember that for the orthodox Christianity of Mahler's day, the creed was for the most part data, not a song.

So perceived, it ultimately reduced God to an object, capable of study, dissection, and definition, the fuel for debate and even persecution. Such talk of a domesticated and definable God does not invite the ecstasy of music. Who would want to set the periodic chart of the elements to music? Well, of course, Tom Lehrer did just that, but you get my point."

Five current or former bishops of the Episcopal Church present at the conference were: The Rt. Rev'd Neil Alexander, retired Diocese of Atlanta, The Rt. Rev'd Keith B. Whitmore of the Diocese of Atlanta who was formally installed as the AAM chaplain, The Rt. Rev'd Douglas Theuner, retired Diocese of New Hampshire (under whose careful engineering Gene Robinson was selected as his successor), the Rt. Rev'd Paul Marshall, Diocese of Bethlehem, the Rt. Rev'd Charles Bennison, Diocese of Pennsylvania and the Rt. Rev'd George Councell of the Diocese of New Jersey.

William Bradley Roberts, professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, in his Banquet keynote address praised the The Book of Common Prayer and its use by others in nondenominational churches.

He said that an emerging church with no denominational ties wanted to deepen their worship and found it in the Book of Common Prayer. "Other churches are doing some things that are very, very effective. People are starving for what you and I take for granted, for the food that is sitting right in our cupboard. But waiting for them to walk through our red doors is not going to work anymore."

He said Brian McLaren, a leader of the Emerging Church Movement, calls this period we live in: "The Episcopal Moment." That is nothing short of extraordinary. "Brian McLaren was talking to Dent Davidson who is music chaplain to the House of Bishops, music coordinator in the Diocese of Chicago, and one of the most creative musicians in the church. McLaren wanted Dent to meet one of the musicians at Willow Creek, the independent mega-church just outside Chicago. What he's looking for is a liturgical, mystical dimension to feed his spirit and his creative life. He turned to the little Book of Common Prayer."

Later at the closing banquet at Philadelphia's prestigious Union League club, men were seen dancing with men which speaks to the level of depravity to which the parish leadership within the Episcopal Church have fallen.

END