Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22, 2007 – For volunteers with South Riding, Va.-based Operation Pinecone, Halloween is over and the Christmas rush has begun. “We have 25 camps, four hospitals (and) two humanitarian aid contacts,” said Mary Hacker, who founded the group two years ago after deciding to super-size a care package originally planned for one family friend deployed to Iraq. “A neighbor came by, saw what I was doing, and said she had wanted to do something to help the troops but that she didn’t have a contact over there,” Hacker explained. Word spread through Hacker’s rural Virginia neighborhood and,...

Churches in the United States are turning their backs on religious liberalism at home and looking 9,000 miles away to "biblically orthodox" Uganda for a spiritual refuge.In November, Anglicans at South Riding Church in Fairfax, Virginia, became the latest congregation to break from their roots and join the Church of Uganda instead.A dozen others have done the same, a symptom of religious conservatives' deep discomfort over scriptural revisionism and the Church's growing acceptance of homosexuality. It is a further sign of the widening schisms threatening the Anglican communion and comes as reforms implemented last week allow homosexuals in Britain to...

Fr. Ashey's Response to Canon III.13 Judgment 20 December 2005 The Right Reverend Peter James Lee The Diocese of Virginia 110 W. Franklin Street Richmond, VA 23320 Dear Bishop Lee, Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I am writing to you in response to the Diocesan Press Release that I received shortly after our phone conversation yesterday. Since the intent of your action and the Standing Committee contradicts the plain language of Canon III.13, let me restate and reiterate the facts: 1) On the first Saturday after the Epiphany 1989 the Right Reverend Frederick H....

A Virginia congregation says it has left the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) -- and the pastor of that congregation fears his former bishop may take retaliatory action against the parish. South Riding Church is the first parish to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia after two years of conflict over ECUSA's ordination of an openly homosexual bishop in New Hampshire. But Pastor Phil Ashey says his problems with the Episcopal Church run much deeper than its approval of Bishop V. Gene Robinson. "Really the issue of Robinson's consecration and the blessing of same-sex unions is simply the presenting issue of...

Contact: The Rev. Phil Ashey (o)703-961-1983 (M) 703-963-3185Mr. Paul Branch(H) 703-327-3318South Riding Church Disaffiliates from the Episcopal Church, Joins Anglican Province of Uganda South Riding Church, established in 2000 as a new church plant in Fairfax, Virginia, has ended its affiliation with the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Diocese of Virginia. The church is now under the jurisdictional authority of Bishop Kisembo in the Diocese of Rwenzori, Anglican Province of Uganda.South Riding is a biblically faithful church committed to the authority of Scripture, traditional Christian teaching and the historic faith and practice of Anglicanism. The decision to disaffiliate with...