In The Rock for December I told you that I would be visiting the USA not just once, but twice in the course of a few weeks.

The first visit was to be present at the Confirmation at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pennsylvania where the Vicar Fr David Moyer, who is also the President of Forward in Faith North America (FiFNA) had invited a number of bishops from outside the USA and ECUSA, headed up by Bishop Maurice Sinclair of the Southern Cone of South America, to administer the sacrament.

My second visit in January was to the Homecoming event of the Anglican Mission in America in Pawley's Island, South Carolina organised by Bishops John Rodgers and Chuck Murphy, who had been consecrated in Singapore in January 2000 as "Missionary Bishops" specifically to minister to isolated and persecuted traditional Anglicans in the USA.

My presence at both these events was stemmed from my conviction that whenever and wherever fellow-Christians stand up and are counted for the "faith once delivered to the saints" and especially when they get persecuted for it, they deserve as much support as we can give them. Both Rosemont and Pawleys Island involved people who have been prepared to put principle before popularity, even in some cases placing at risk their own homesteads and means of livelihood. The very least we should do is to witness alongside them by being present: so I went, as representative of Cost of Conscience and Forward in Faith (UK).

At Rosemont. Bishop Sinclair, with a number of his fellow-primates, had planned a strategy to response to the "pastoral emergency" in the diocese of Pennsylvania where the diocesan Bishop, Charles Bennison is an outspoken advocate of ordaining practising homosexuals, and has gone on record as saying that “since the Church wrote the Bible”, she is at liberty to (sic!) “re-write it”. In the light of this Sinclair decided that he, and other non-American Anglican Primates would conduct a service of Confirmation in the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, in Bishop Bennison's terrain, regardless of whether he gave permission for it or not. This event, at which I was present, took place on Sunday 26 November.

Wisely, Bennison decided not to risk a confrontation, but issued an official invitation to Sinclair and his colleagues to visit his diocese. Bennison was there in person, sitting in the congregation in a church which was already full to overcrowding an hour before the service was due to begin. Thus Fr Moyer and Maurice Sinclair effectively outfaced Bennison as a response the “pastoral emergency”? that Bennison had himself created and which Sinclair and others recognized as justifying such an extreme step.

More than seventy candidates from several parishes were confirmed. The three confirming bishops were Maurice Sinclair of Southern Cone, Patrice Njojo, Archbishop of the Congo (who also preached the sermon - in French !) and Ray Smith, representing Bishop Goodhew of Sydney. Also present were Bishops Njenga (Mount Kenya South, representing the Province of Kenya), Ssekkadde (of Namirembe, representing the Province of Uganda), Macburney (formerly of Quincy), Herbert Groce (Archbishop of the Anglican Rite Synod of America, one of the Continuing Churches), and Fr Cantrell representing Iker of Fort Worth. The traditions which they represented were as different as the countries from which they had come.

So what was the real significance of Rosemont? Well, at least somebody did something. Hitherto in the USA, those upholding the faith have tended to shy away from confrontation. Rosemont 2000 was not like that The Confirmation took place in the presence of a full church; since at least six non-American Primates of widely differing traditions performed or assisted in a sacramental act regardless of whether permission would be given by the diocesan bishop (though, in the event, it was) the principle of diocesan territorial inviolability, that Sacred Anglican Cow, so beloved by bishops was openly breached. This means that an important precedent has been set, and the question raised: if such a thing can happen in a diocese like Philadelphia, then why shouldn't it happen in others in future?

As Winston Churchill might have said, “Rosemont was not the End. It is not even the Beginning of the End. Just possibly it may be the End of the Beginning.” If so, its importance for the future will be hard to exaggerate.

Some six weeks after the Confirmation at Rosemont another event of considerable significance took place further down the East Coast in South Carolina.

This was the Homecoming Conference of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), whose attendance exceeded the wildest expectations of its planners. They thought they might get 250 people; over eight hundred came!

This was the first get-together of supporters of bishops John Rogers and Chuck Murphy, consecrated by Archbishops Tay and Kolini in Singapore in January 2000. Faced with the refusal of many ECUSA bishops to set their house in order as Lambeth had urged them, Murphy and Rogers were commissioned as missionary bishops to faithful Anglicans in the USA who have a heterodox bishop in their diocese.

Before the Homecoming proper started, however, there was an important meeting between the Council of Forward in Faith (North America) and the Steering Committee of Anglican Mission in America to allay certain misgivings felt by the former (and other traditionalists) about the Singapore ordinations themselves. Misunderstandings, particularly about their timing, needed addressing before progress could be made. Happily, this resulted in complete agreement between them, and the following Statement was issued:

My brief, besides representing Forward in Faith (UK) was threefold: to observe and discover what sort of movement AMiA is; whether the tension over the consecrations was healed; and, if possible, to talk at length with Bishops Rogers and Murphy about how we can work together in the future.

The second of these had been resolved before I arrived which meant that I could concentrate on the other two.

AMiA, I can assure anyone, is a theologically-sound, eucharistically-based orthodox Anglican body. Their headquarters are in Bishop Murphy's former parish of All Saints', Pawleys Island. Murphy himself has left ECUSA and suffered the customary penalty of de-pensioning. The Parish of All Saints' presently remains within ECUSA, though legal investigations are under way to determine who are the rightful owner of the considerable ($8 million-plus) plant. Once this is settled, the parish will decide whether, and how far, to distance itself, as Bishop Murphy has done, from ECUSA. Precedents exist, by the way, which mean parishes (like All Saints) dating back to the Colonial Era are the legal owners of its assets, not the diocese.

The "M" in AMiA is critical. Emphasis throughout was on Mission. However, it was made abundantly clear that Mission without orthodoxy is an empty vessel.

The Eucharists had a predictably evangelical flavour, but nothing said or done at them would, I believe, have troubled even the most sensitive FiF member; some of our more strait-laced (if that's not the wrong term!) colleagues in Reform or the Diocese of Sydney might find them problematical! Stoles were worn; the dead were prayed for; some folks crossed themselves; some raised their hands; some genuflected; the great thing was that it didn't matter in the slightest -- to anyone!

On Sunday evening I had two hours on my own with Bishop Murphy. I had met John Rogers already at Reform and knew that his orthodoxy was beyond question. It took very little time to convince me that the same was true of Chuck. We talked at length on the subjects of Women Priests and Lay Presidency at the Eucharist. On the latter he was deeply shocked when I told him just how widespread the practice is throughout Australia, and increasingly in England, despite being illegal. He assured me that the matter had never even come up in AMiA and he thought it most unlikely that it would ever do so.

On women priests, Chuck reminded me that AMiA has declared a complete moratorium on such “ordinations”for the next two years during which time the subject will be carefully studied by the Steering Committee. It is Chuck's conviction that the burden of proof lies with those who wish to promote this novelty, not those who are seeking to safeguard the Catholic faith. My impression (and this is entirely personal) is that the innovators are unlikely to prevail.

Towards the end of our conversation I broached one subject about which the conference had been quite silent -- their relationships with the ancient Catholic churches of East and West. To my delight I discovered that Murphy doesn't suffer from any sort of Roma-phobia, and he recognizes as well as anyone that the Church Catholic doesn't begin and end at Pawleys Island. The matter is being addressed.

The next step now depends on what happens at the Primates' annual meeting in March at Kanuga, North Carolina. Here they will consider the proposals of Primates Maurice Sinclair (Southern Cone) and Drexel Gomez (West Indies) set out in a book of essays entitled Mending the Net (published by The Ekklesia Society 1415 Halsey Way Suite 320 Carrollton TX 75007) which came out just before, though quite independently of, the Pawleys Island get-together. This book should be obligatory reading for anyone wanting to understand what is really going on at this critical moment in Anglican history.

In it Sinclair and his colleagues propose that the Primates' Meeting, which now takes place annually should, in accordance with the resolution at Lambeth '98, be given an enhanced status and "include among its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity, in submission to the sovereign authority of holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies...."

This, especially the final sentence, are code for DISCIPLINE, especially that of bishops who have chosen to ignore or ridicule resolutions approved at Lambeth. Clearly we must all, including AMiA and FiF, wait and see what Kanuga comes up with in response to this.

It's vital, however, that everyone involved at this stage should be seen to be acting together. To their credit AMiA perceived this, and sought to be as inclusive as possible in extending its invitation to Pawleys Island not just to those who had already "signed-up" for AMiA but who had expressed any kind of interest in being present.

Bishops Rodgers and Murphy deserve to be congratulated and given every support by all who seek to "uphold the Catholic faith which comes to us from the Apostles" for the new wave of hope which their bold, imaginative and personally costly venture has generated. Amongst the eight hundred guests at this event was a significant number of representatives from Continuing jurisdictions. The organizers has gone to the extent of laying-on a special session for Continuing Churches and the AMiA (which I attended). It was chaired by Bishop John Rodgers and he had taken the trouble to wise himself up about the Continuum and its manifold divisions and sub-divisions. He realises the danger of “importing”? problem-jurisdictions into AMiA, and at this stage no commitment was made (or sought) on either side for their formal inclusion. Since so much of the future depends upon what happens (or doesn't happen) at Kanuga, it would have been understandable but seriously unwise to "go for growth" at this stage and try and “include” everyone, regardless of their belief, order, unity (or the lack of them!). Instead, this was a friendly, exploratory meeting where people could, and did, ask questions about AMiA of its Presiding Bishop and indicated their interest in being kept in touch in the future. Most enthusiastically opted to do so.

You may have been wondering whether I was ever going to get round to telling you about what's been going on in England – which is, of course, the prime purpose of this column.

Well I am delighted to be able to report that I went at the invitation of Fr John Maunder, Vicar of St Agatha's the TAC Continuing Church in Portsmouth, to preach for their Patronal festival. My reception by them was as friendly and forthcoming as the one which I had been afforded at Fr Gill's church in Presteigne last year, and I believe that in the future there will be other events in which we can jointly participate.

Below is the sermon which I preached on that occasion. You will see that it addresses some of the problems which have inevitably arisen between churches like St Agatha's which have "taken the plunge" and distanced themselves from the Church of England though not from Anglicanism, and those Forward in Faith churches which, for good reasons, have not done so, or not yet at any rate.

Under circumstances like these there is bound to be, at first, a certain amount of mutual suspicion and unease. Estrangement of any kind is always painful, not least between co-belligerents. As you know, the history of “Continuers” in the USA has been riven with divisions and sub-divisions. The fact that this has never been the case in Canada, for instance, is proof that such things need not happen. My conviction is that if Forward in Faith and the TAC can only be helped to implement the Lewisham Concordat which provides for full intercommunion and the interchangeability of ministries, then at least some of “our unhappy divisions” (see the final paragraph below) will be a thing of the past.

Our church in Lewisham is dedicated to Saint Stephen, Protomartyr; yours in Landport to St Agatha Martyr. So from the protégés of one saint and martyr to those of another, let me extend our greetings and grateful thanks for this opportunity to share in your Patronal festival. If you have nothing else to do on 26^{th of December I can assure you that you will receive an equally warm welcome in Lewisham to the one which you have given me this morning.}

But it’s not about Agatha or Stephen as individuals that we shall be thinking, but about the subject of martyrdom as a whole.

The word “martyr” literally means “a witness” and it’?s applied as you know to anyone who by their life and death has “witnessed” to their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

Persecution and martyrdom have been enduring features of Christian history. Lest you might suppose that martyrdom is a thing of the distant past, a historian, K.T. Ware, says: “in the thirty years between 1918 and 1948 [it’s possible that] more Christians died for their faith than in the first 300 years after the Crucifixion”; and, of course, persecution continues to this day: not just in Asia and Africa and the Middle East, but in the form of the even more relentless and systematic persecutions of one lot of Christians by another, headed up in many cases by none other than their own diocesan bishop.

You, as members of the Traditional Anglican Communion, and we, as members of Forward in Faith have both experienced such persecutions over the past few years, and they are gathering pace, particularly, though not exclusively in the United States of America.

It might seem obvious, therefore, that two such regiments of faithful Anglicans, you and we, fighting for a common cause, against a common foe, would have everything to gain and little to lose by standing shoulder-to-shoulder, defending the “faith once delivered to the saints”, Stephen and Agatha among them, which has been entrusted to us for safeguarding.

But it doesn’t happen, and natural curiosity, if nothing else, bids us to ask “Why not?” If, as Tertullian once said “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” than that seed is much too valuable to waste by throwing it around all over the place willy-nilly. That’s not how good harvests are produced. Careful husbandry demands that seeds are sown in carefully ploughed furrows, running roughly parallel with one another, not so close that they don’t have room to grow, but neither so far apart that their harvesting becomes a hopelessly tedious and inefficient task.

During the past twenty years my studies have focused on this particular problem. Why can’?t we work together better than we do? It’s a problem which faces us all: a problem for Continuers; and for others who, like myself, have not, as yet taken the step of formally joining your ranks. How can we successfully build up a rapport with each other?

It’s a grave mistake to see this continued estrangement as being the result of anyone’?s fault. Of course mistakes have been made, often in good faith, by those on both sides of the divide. However, it’s a hard fact of life that some situations in life by their very nature have a Catch-22 or no-win element built into them. In such a situation, the will of God is discovered not by searching endlessly and vainly for a “perfect” solution which satisfies in one go every possible moral, intellectual, theological and aesthetic criterion, but rather to find a course of action which best enables God’s faithful soldiers and servants, each in his own different regiment, to fight alongside each other, in company with Angels, Archangels and all the heavenly host (which includes of course our two patrons). Always remember that they are striving just as hard, if not harder, than we are!

We are seeking then, not the “best possible strategy” (which might have to wait till Kingdom-come before it emerged) but the “best strategy possible” in the present circumstances. To enable us to understand what this strategy is, and why, despite all our efforts, so much good seed gets blown all over the place, let us not take a closer look at the business of witness and martyrdom.

If you’ve ever had to be a witness in a court of law, you will know just how difficult it is. It’s extraordinarily hard to remember accurately, and express succinctly what we have witnessed and know to be the truth, especially when it took place some months previous to our appearance in court where we may be under all sorts of pressure from a hostile counsel for the defence.

Consider the following example: Once, while walking down the street, we saw three men break the glass of the jeweller’s shop; we saw that one of them had a sledge hammer and was wearing green trousers; that the second had a stocking-mask and was wearing a blue anorak; and that the third had a white cap and carried a sack over his shoulder. But three months later, at the actual trial, our confidence begins to evaporate. Are we quite certain about all the details. Were there really only three men, or was there, as another witness alleged, a fourth? Are we sure that the one in the anorak had a stocking mask or was it the one in the white cap?; and are we quite positive that it was a sack and not a supermarket shopping carrier-bag (Exhibit A) that he was carrying? “?I put it to you, Father Gardom, says the counsel for the defence wearing a look of painful concern as if for our sanity, “I put it to you that you really don’t remember at all clearly what you really saw.”

The same can easily happen to anyone who bears witness to his faith in Jesus Christ. We think we know what we believe, and why; we think our faith is secure beyond question; we think we know why the particular beliefs we are defending are important; but all too often it happens to even the doughtiest “defender of the faith” that he finds himself defending something quite different. It may be a particular liturgical practice because “we’ve always done things that way”? (though the truth is it only dates back to the last vicar but one); we may try and defend some belief on the basis that “the Bible says”, forgetting that the New Testament was written in Greek and our Lord’s words were spoken originally in Aramaic, so what he intended is different from what Jacobean English might lead one to think.

In short, unless we really understand what we’re defending and why we shall find ourselves isolated in some indefensible outpost of God’s Empire, far removed from our comrades-at arms.

That’s one problem about being a martyr. Now, here’s another:

If you or I have the courage of our convictions to “stand up and be counted”? it places us, inevitably, at some distance from such of our fellow-men who have, for reasons which may be good or bad, decided not to make this move, or at any rate not for the time being.

But this “distancing”, which always feels really painful at the start, becomes over the course of time something that we unconsciously grow into, in such a way that it not only ceases to be painful, but actually begins to feel quite comfortable.

As a result we become more and more critical of and hostile towards those who are hesitant about their decision; worse than that, we may start actually treasuring our separation as an end in itself. What’s more natural than to want to preserve something which makes us feel so good? And how very natural that we, who have paid such a heavy price for our convictions should try to make as sure as we can that all those hesitant, Laodicaean hangers-on do not get inside our palisade without paying a price comparable with ours?

Of course, we’re quite right to beware of camp-followers and fellow-travellers who wait until the war is half-won before standing up to fight. One of the Apostles, you remember, turned out to be a traitor, and of some of his followers Jesus is recorded as saying “He who is not with me is against me”; but Jesus also said in another context “he that is not against us is on our side” In other words, even for our Lord himself, the business of distinguishing ultimately between friend and foe wasn’t simply a matter of being able to tell black from white.

Speaking of “white”, have you ever wondered what that word “noble”? is doing in that verse of the Te Deum which I took as my text: the noble army of martyrs praise thee? Noble is a translation of the Latin word candidus which literally means “white”? and from which we get our word “candidate”.

It reminds us of course in the case of the martyrs like Stephen and Agatha of the white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb, with which they are clothed. The word may also be an allusion to a particularly Roman regiment renowned for their bravery who were called the Whites because of their white uniforms, as we today have the Blues and the Buffs and the Greenjackets.

But the word is also the one which gives us the adjective “candid” which my dictionary says means “free from bias, impartial, favourably disposed, kindly, frank, ingenuous, sincere in what one says”

There’s something very positive to learn from that, isn’t there? If you and I and the constituencies to which we belong could become the Candid Regiment of Witnesses for Jesus, it would mean that we would not only learn more about him but more about each other as well.

We need to be unbiased in our judgements of each other, especially when it comes to our failings; we must be favourably disposed, which means seeking nothing but the best for what the other is trying to achieve; we must be frank and sincere when we criticize what we see to be each others’? mistakes; and we must be ingenuous, “letting our love be without dissimulation, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”

Then we shall be a noble army indeed, worthy to take our place alongside our patrons Agatha and Stephen. In the words of the Book of Common Prayer let us pray that God will…. “give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions, [taking] away all hatred and prejudice and whatsoever else may hinder us from Godly union and concord: that as there is but one Body and one Spirit and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all; so we may henceforth be all of one heart, and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

From the Accession Service, 1662 Book of Common Prayer

[Some of this material in this article has already appeared in New Directions and is reproduced by kind permission]

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