Posted on 06/27/2005 1:56:48 PM PDT by sionnsar
WEST CHESTER (6/26/2005)--The President of the American Anglican Council David C. Anderson has blasted an interview that I, David W. Virtue conducted with the Archbishop of Central Africa Bernard Malango charging me with the following errors and misstatements. (see the interview here: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2660)
He says in a Special Message signed "from the President of the American Anglican Council" that:
1. David Virtue gets it wrong again!
2. Virtue got it wrong in Dromantine, N. Ireland, when he rushed to print before the Primates had actually agreed on what they were doing.
3. He has gotten it wrong several times when he went with stories on the American Anglican Council.
4. Now it has happened again in Nottingham. Virtue apparently interviewed a Primate, one for whom English is his seventh out of eight languages, and he has run with a major breaking story. The only trouble is it is catastrophically wrong. Many of the Primates, operating in English instead of their first language, do fairly well until they are being interviewed with demanding and nuanced questions. And sometimes they also are wrong on the facts. Combine all that with not checking a story with other reputable sources and a desire to scoop everyone and break a story, and you have a story that should be retracted and should have been gotten right the first time.
Allow me to respond.
First of all I did not get it wrong at Dromantine.
Here are the facts. The two words that caused the controversy were "voluntary withdrawal" by the two North American provinces. I did not use those words; I said that they had been tossed out. I was called to task at the time but I later learned that I was absolutely right.
The words "voluntary withdrawal" was the spin that Peter Carnley the ultra-liberal Australian chairman put on the Dromantine Statement but none of the Global South Primates believed or bought it then or now. And they still don't.
I recently spent a month with the Archbishop of South East Asia, Dr. Yong Ping Chung in Sabah and we talked at length in his home about what went on at Dromantine. This is what he said and what EVERY ARCHBISHOP IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH UNDERSTOOD. "When you ask someone to leave the house you expect them to leave, they don't sit down in the living room and say I will 'withdraw voluntarily' when I am ready." The gentle archbishop said that in his mind and those of the Global South Primates was that the Americans and Canadians were told to go because by their unrepentant actions they had cut themselves off from the rest of the communion. They were being TOLD to leave. Liberals like Carnley and Griswold, desperate to avoid the consequences of their actions made it sound like it was a language and "cultural" problem and when the Global South Primates see the true light of day then everything will be well. Well it hasn't and it won't.
The truth is the Global South Primates were totally blind-sided by the liberal mafia that chaired these meetings, and their input was either discounted or spun to make it mean something quite different from they (the Global South) both said and meant.
I totally stand by what I wrote. Anderson either does not understand the facts or is deliberately misrepresenting them. Furthermore the Windsor Report does not reflect Global South thinking because they would have put a ton of Scripture in that report. It had virtually none, indicating that it was worked over and schmoozed by liberal primates who then spun it to the media and the whole communion.
A case in point. At Nottingham this week, when I spoke personally (and not apparently) to Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola he thrust a piece of paper into my hand with some 30 Scriptures on both sides of the page about why homosexuality is disapproved of from the Bible. THAT'S HOW THE GLOBAL SOUTH PRIMATES THINK. They start and end with Scripture, not the "wisdom" of the prevailing culture. Griswold came to Nottingham with yet another book in hand "To Set our Hope on Christ" which contained minimal scriptural references and where there were some, they were twisted to suit the sodomite agenda of ECUSA.
I did not get it wrong at Dromantine, not then, not now. I will not reveal my sources, but I stand by every word I wrote. And I had witnesses to all my conversations.
Anderson writes: "He (Virtue) has gotten it wrong several times when he went with stories on the American Anglican Council. When, where, what stories? I challenge him to produce them. These are false and libelous statements.
"Now it has happened again in Nottingham," writes Anderson.
"Virtue apparently interviewed a Primate, one for whom English is his seventh out of eight languages."
How dare he say "apparently interviewed". I sat down in broad daylight on the main floor of the Atrium building on the Jubilee Campus of Nottingham University some 50 feet from the ACNS press office. Archbishop Malango walked into the press office and I stood up to greet him. There were multiple witnesses to his coming into the press office. Many saw us leave together. We sat next to a window overlooking a pond where I personally interviewed the archbishop laptop in hand. Ruth Gledhill of the London Times was present at the time and saw Archbishop Malango walk into the room. There was nothing "apparent" about it.
Why did the AAC or The Living Church not interview any primates from the Global South? The answer is because they know that the true agenda of the Global South is not in line with the conservative Episcopal elite of the AAC.
Anderson's attack was personal (at me) not issue based. If he truly believed what he wrote why did he not invoke Mt. 18 and come to me personally. He didn't.
To say as Anderson does of Archbishop Malango that "English is his seventh out of eight languages," is wrong and pure racist.
Archbishop Malango speaks English very well and understands it even better. Anderson should talk. He can barely get a sentence out that contains a subject, verb and object.
Anderson again: "The only trouble is it is catastrophically wrong. Many of the Primates, operating in English instead of their first language, do fairly well until they are being interviewed with demanding and nuanced questions. And sometimes they also are wrong on the facts. Combine all that with not checking a story with other reputable sources and a desire to scoop everyone and break a story, and you have a story that should be retracted and should have been gotten right the first time."
But another person who has talked with the archbishop is the Rev. Christopher Pierce, an REC priest. He wrote on an orthodox ListServ (and I post it with his permission) the following: "I have only spoken once (to Malango) and that by phone. He was visiting his daughter in St. Louis. Our conversation was about a work in his home province. I had NO trouble understanding the bishop's English. He was exceptionally precise just as in DV's story. No interpreter was needed to flesh out the nuances of the discussion. Indeed, I have known many in this country who are native English speakers of which I've had more trouble understanding than Abp Malango."
So Malango needs to be interpreted. Really. The problems the Global South have are not linguistic, it is that they are TOO NICE and don't like to make waves. So they defer time and time again to the loudest and noisiest voices of the [liberal] West.
Anderson's attack on the gentle archbishop is pure unadulterated racism and Anderson should publicly apologize to Archbishop Malango.
Anderson's rhetoric and racist comments are worthy of Frank Griswold and Jack Spong both of whom have made equally racist statements about Third World bishops because they are not quite up to snuff on sexuality issues and when they (the Global South bishops) come of age they will understand. Really. So now you can add a third racist - David C. Anderson.
What irks Anderson and others of his kind is that they have lost the power to change anything. The power has moved to the Global South and the AAC is a succubus, drawing from the spiritual life blood of the south because he and the AAC have none in themselves. The AAC is a parasitic organization.
The AAC represents a few evangelical Episcopalians and do not represent at all most of the orthodox Anglicans in North America. For example, they were not at the Essentials Conference in Toronto recently, only the Network in the person of Bob Duncan was there. The truth is the AAC are an army without guns or ammunition. The AAC is nothing more than a public relations machine churning out press releases written (not by Anderson) but a former Washington politico public relations flunkie.
The AAC cannot do the following things:
They cannot stop revisionist bishops deposing orthodox priests. They cannot stop parishes leaving or being thrown out of ECUSA and going to the AMIA or REC or anywhere else. They cannot stop parishes coming under a Global South Primate. In short the AAC is a powerless organization that sends out press releases into cyber space that effectually change nothing.
And just to add insult to injury, Anderson's former parish, St. James, in Newport Beach, CA upped and left the Diocese of Los Angeles and the ECUSA and has come under the Province of Uganda!! And Anderson was powerless to do anything about it.
In truth what we have here is a group of white western boys who have spent 40 years drawing lines in the sand in the Episcopal Church and now that they have lost the game they think they can manipulate and tell the Global South what they should say and do to support them. It is an outrage.
Did Primate Peter Akinola need to consult Anderson as to whether he should start his own Nigerian Anglican Province in North America? Of course not. CONA (Convocation of Nigerian Anglicans) in North American now exists right under Griswold's (and Anderson's) nose and Anderson can't control it or have any say in it.
The AAC should fold its tent, it is propaganda machine turning out press releases that affect nobody and nothing. The revisionists ignore them, as they ignore Anderson because they know he is powerless to stop ANYTHING that is going on or will go on in the ECUSA. He can rant and rage all he wants but he is powerless to stop the inevitable. They lost the battle a long time ago. GC2006 will be a clean sweep for the revisionists and everyone knows it. And that is why orthodox parishes across the country are leaving the ECUSA.
Furthermore the Global South does not need Anderson's permission to make their own moves. They are quite capable of making them themselves, they don't need to be told by Anderson what they should or shouldn't do or say. Anderson is a nobody, Akinola is the biggest player with 18 million evangelical Anglicans and his province will soon have 36 million. The AAC is a pimple on the backside of ECUSA.
What Anderson hates the most is that he is not in control of the situation.
The truth is this. The Global South does not need to play ball with either the revisionists or the orthodox remnant in the west. The orthodox represent a microscopic number of people, and Bishop Bob Duncan (Pittsburgh) has publicly admitted that he has been told by Global South leaders that unless the North American Anglican orthodox get their act together and make Common Cause, don't bother calling. A number of Global South primates have made it clear to him (and they have told me) that unless all orthodox Anglicans come together then the orthodox Primates will be done with them.
"What did Virtue get wrong this time, Asks Anderson? He reports that an Alexandria, Egypt, meeting of the Global South Primates soon will break with Canterbury and the Communion and form a new Anglican Communion. At least that's how I read it, and that's simply wrong."
Really, how does Anderson know that? Is he privy to information that I don't have or cannot get. I hate to rain on his parade but I have more contacts among the primates than he does, and they trust me.
There is a meeting in October for leaders of the Global South--it has been in the planning for years, and it is the third of the South Encounters. They have invited Archbishop Rowan Williams to join them, and understand that he intends to come--hardly the mark of a rebellion, writes Anderson.
Now the Global South bishops do that kind of thing out of POLITENESS to the role and position of Rowan Williams not because they will continue blindly to follow him. They invited him to Lagos at their CAPA meeting recently and he refused to come. They have invited him again. THE GLOBAL SOUTH BISHOPS ARE GENTLEMEN which Anderson is not. They go on doing the right thing over and over again, they "listen" till they can't stand it any more.
Anderson: "Things could change, they seem to on a regular basis, but orthodox Anglicans have had a string of victories, albeit partial victories. The Lambeth Commission took a step in our direction, and their findings, The Windsor Report, although flawed in some areas, took several major steps in our direction. Dromantine was a huge step in our direction, and now, in the most liberal of Anglican institutions, the Anglican Consultative Council, we have had some very significant victories. Is this slow process frustrating? Absolutely! But is it moving in the right direction? Absolutely!"
Then why are dozens of the biggest orthodox Episcopal parishes leaving the ECUSA if they felt there were "victories". What victories? To date almost every priest who has left ECUSA has been deposed and inhibited and most of them have either walked away from their parishes or are in court fighting for them.
If Normandy Beach has been taken and the heights above taken, Anderson says, then tell that to the "Connecticut Six" who are waiting for their bishop Andrew Smith to lower the boom and who knows what will happen to the "Magnificent Seven" in the Diocese of Florida.
Anderson does not have to apologize to me I am used to this sort of thing. I dish it out and I can take it, but he does owe an apology to Archbishop Malango for his racist remarks. I hope he does. It is the very least he should do.
David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
THE FOLLOWING IS DAVID C. ANDERSON'S LETTER TO ME
From Nottingham...
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Special Message from the President of the American Anglican Council American Anglican Council President's Response to David Virtue Article
David Virtue gets it wrong again! Virtue got it wrong in Dromantine, N. Ireland, when he rushed to print before the Primates had actually agreed on what they were doing. He has gotten it wrong several times when he went with stories on the American Anglican Council.
Now it has happened again in Nottingham. Virtue apparently interviewed a Primate, one for whom English is his seventh out of eight languages, and he has run with a major breaking story. The only trouble is it is catastrophically wrong. Many of the Primates, operating in English instead of their first language, do fairly well until they are being interviewed with demanding and nuanced questions. And sometimes they also are wrong on the facts. Combine all that with not checking a story with other reputable sources and a desire to scoop everyone and break a story, and you have a story that should be retracted and should have been gotten right the first time.
What did Virtue get wrong this time? He reports that an Alexandria, Egypt, meeting of the Global South Primates soon will break with Canterbury and the Communion and form a new Anglican Communion. At least that's how I read it, and that's simply wrong.
There is a meeting in October for leaders of the Global South--it has been in the planning for years, and it is the third of the South South Encounters. They have invited Archbishop Rowan Williams to join them, and are understanding that he intends to come--hardly the mark of a rebellion.
Things could change, they seem to on a regular basis, but orthodox Anglicans have had a string of victories, albeit partial victories. The Lambeth Commission took a step in our direction, and their findings, The Windsor Report, although flawed in some areas, took several major steps in our direction. Dromantine was a huge step in our direction, and now, in the most liberal of Anglican institutions, the Anglican Consultative Council, we have had some very significant victories. Is this slow process frustrating? Absolutely! But is it moving in the right direction? Absolutely!
The Global South Primates may well be interested in meeting again after the ECUSA General Convention in 2006, to weigh ECUSA in the balance. They will probably press for a full Primates meeting post-GC '06 and pre-Lambeth '08. There is every reason for the orthodox primates to stay on board because the tide globally is running with orthodoxy. Whether or not Virtue runs a restatement of his article on a supposed breakup, a meeting in Egypt or Antarctica isn't going to see a declaration of independence from the communion. No one quits when they are winning.
Now about the victories here in Nottingham: clearly the vote to go with Lambeth 1.10, and with the Windsor Report and with the Primates from Dromantine, was huge. Anglican Communion Office decisions that seemed favorable to the ECUSA folks were apparently mistakes and poor judgment calls that are reflective of the past. I was asked by an ACO official what my perception of the ACO office was, and I replied that I, and the AAC, and really many orthodox Anglican leaders in North America, viewed the ACO as an appendage of the Frank Griswold 815 office. They did bristle at that. Was I unfair? They asked my perception, I didn't say it was Gospel truth, but it was my perception. They argue Peterson is gone and we should give Kearon a chance. The chance is given, but it has started off with several miscues. The ACCanadians and ECUSA representatives were given green badges that looked just like the seated delegates; mistake. They were seated to begin with in the Ecumenical Guests area, and introduced and allowed to bring greetings; mistake. They were allowed to eat their meals with the official delegates; mistake (do you suppose they worked the meal table?). They asked for and were given a small room to meet in during the small group time, just like other official small groups; mistake. Some changes did happen after we raised protestations, but they continued to eat with the delegates; mistake. Are we willing to work with the Kearon administration? Absolutely. Are we looking for major improvement after a really sketchy start here in Nottingham? Absolutely. Will we see it? I guess I am a pragmatic optimist. Is that an oxymoron? I hope not, especially the latter part. I do hope, but I count my change; trust is in short supply.
Next ACC meeting the Global Primates will be with the delegations, and that will not only shift the voting to the orthodox in a pronounced way, but it will embolden the Third World delegations to speak out even more clearly and be heard. No one folds their cards when they are holding a handful of aces. Are there still very difficult times? Yes indeed, especially in the States. Unless a huge counterattack in the next few days erases the gains made (which is always possible), the Normandy Beach has been taken and the heights above taken. There is still a great deal of suffering before the heresy of ECUSA has been separated from the Anglican body. Press forward with us.
The Rev'd Canon David C. Anderson AAC President and CEO
David Virtue's article can be found at www.virtueonline.org
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.