While watching the News Hour on PBS last night, it became abundantly clear to me that the crisis in The Episcopal Church is fundamentally a failure to understand both the nature of Christianity and the essence of the Anglican Communion. Attempting to reinvent words or the history of Anglicanism cannot save Episcopal bishops from addressing the issues contained in the Windsor Report.

Following the release of The Windsor Report by the Eames Commission, which called on ECUSA to "repent" of its actions in ordaining Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, Episcopal Bishops met in Salt Lake City recently to address the crisis. What they said only deepened it.

The bishops released a statement following their meeting which expressed "regret" that their actions in ordaining Robinson caused "pain" to their fellow Anglicans world-wide. They either refused to repent or misunderstood the meaning of the word. When asked in the PBS interview whether this meant that the Bishops were "repenting" of their action both the Bishop of Louisiana and the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA, Frank Griswold, said they were only regretting the pain and not repenting of their action in ordaining Robinson. This is akin to a man regretting that a woman feels pain due to his slapping her, but not regretting the slap! Either the bishops do not understand the word "repentance," which is possible, or they are mocking the Anglican communion. No doubt they are hoping this will all go away and that all these pesky conservatives will simply get out of a church many liberals feel they don't belong in anyway.

Another term the Bishop of Los Angeles, Jon Bruno, does not understand is the word "fundamentalist," a word with historical meaning referring to people mostly in Baptist or Pentecostal denominations. When used by liberal Episcopalians, the term "fundamentalist" is a highly pejorative word used to reject traditional Anglican teaching and those who support it. I spent forty years in the Episcopal Church and met very few fundamentalists. I did, however, meet lots of traditional believers, anglo-catholics, evangelicals, charismatics and just plain ordinary folks who shared two things in common. They had a high view of Scripture (not a "literalist" view) and embraced the Book of Common Prayer as expressing Anglican teaching. This included embracing Anglican and classical Christian teaching on sexuality and marriage. For the Rt. Reverend Bruno to refer to these loyal Episcopalians as "fundamentalists" is simply ignorant and historically inaccurate.

In the interview, Bruno went on to compare the rejection of homosexual behavior to civil rights and women's rights, something many in the black community bristle at, with good reason. The truth is that most black churches in America actively reject the gay agenda, and take personal offense at comparing it to their struggle for racial equality. Similarly, equating a sexual lifestyle with women's identity might leave a lot of people behind as well. The truth is that shibboleths will not save liberal Bishops from addressing this issue. Repentance requires a yes or no answer. So far it's a no.

There was, however, some promising news for conservatives in the Episcopal Church this past week. A Virginia judge ruled that if ten congregations leave the church in one calendar year, they may be able to keep their property. Formerly, most church property in ECUSA has been owned by dioceses, forcing churches that leave to abandon their buildings. Apparently, at least in Virginia, ten churches would be considered a "church split" and they could be entitled to their property.

Those close to the ECUSA scene say June 1 is a likely "drop dead" date for the American Episcopal Church to avoid the inevitable split. At this juncture, a turnaround would seem unlikely. If schism is to be avoided, experts believe movement needs to begin very soon.

  John Pendleton