Posted on 10/22/2005 8:48:12 AM PDT by sionnsar
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Cynthia P. Brust
770-414-1515
Minutes from a Steering Committee meeting of Via Media USA
have been leaked to the media, exposing plans to seize control of Anglican Communion Network (ACN) dioceses following General Convention 2006. Code-named “Day After”, the Via Media strategy outlines specific preparations and plans to “have ready blank presentments for abandonment of the communion” and todeclare the “see” in ACN dioceses as “vacant, requesting appointment of interim bishop[s] in coordination with “the PB” [ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold]. Additional tactics include preparing the groundwork for special conventions in these dioceses in order to fill vacancies for trustee, council, standing committee, and commission on ministry positions, as well as taking legal action regarding property issues. The American Anglican Council issues the following statement in response to the revealed plans:
The American Anglican Council Condemns Via Media’s Planned Coup of Biblically Faithful Dioceses
According to documents and articles in circulation, Via Media USA is planning attacks against the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) dioceses and bishops at the conclusion of General Convention 2006. It is reported that they will have fill-in-the-blank deposition documents against ACN bishops, as well as true-church-lawsuit documents, ready to fill in for court litigation. If Via Media’s plans become a reality, every orthodox bishop and diocese will be ousted, leaving dioceses with rogue bishops and diocesan commissions. The biblically faithful within those dioceses would be held captive and lose their affiliation with the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Via Media’s exposed plot to supplant ACN bishops is outrageous and unconscionable. It is a travesty for a group bent upon abandoning any semblance of Anglican faith and order to call itself “via media”. The “via media” of Anglicanism historically refers to the Church of England’s middle ground between Roman Catholicism and Free Church Protestantism and emphasizes unity based on the essentials of faith as expressed in Scripture. To misappropriate this Anglican terminology and apply it to an entity established to promote a false gospel is beyond the pale.
Since its inception, Via Media has served as a pawn of 815 [the Episcopal Church’s national office], Integrity USA, Every Voice Network, and other radical revisionists intent upon transforming the Episcopal Church into a religion devoid of Christian faith, doctrine and practice. While espousing a mantra of tolerance and diversity, the organization has now been exposed as a body committed to dismantling dioceses that uphold Scriptural faith and historic Anglican doctrine. Via Media clearly has no desire to walk together with the Anglican Communion; nor does it respect the mind of the Communion on matters of sexuality. Rather, it has plotted and schemed with unparalleled duplicity to seize control of dioceses, thereby usurping legitimate episcopal and diocesan authority.
If Frank Griswold, ECUSA chancellor David Booth Beers and 815 are not complicit in this scandalous plan, they need to publicly repudiate Via Media’s strategy and break all contact with Via Media groups. Tragically, there is little hope that ECUSA will pull away from Via Media. Let us not forget that a group of ECUSA bishops has established a special task force to develop strategies for ensuring that no churches leaving the Episcopal Church as a matter of conscience retain their property. Formation of this task force has been made public; now Via Media’s intentions have been revealed. What other secret plans are being plotted behind closed doors that have not yet been leaked? We encourage those who have knowledge of such plans and proposals to come forward and place them in the public sector so that all can be forewarned.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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