1996
In 1996 Jon Shuler was invited to Little Rock, where a group of laity wanted to start a new church. They called Bishop Ed Salmon who referred them to Shuler, but it turned out that Bishop Larry Maze didn’t want them to start a new church. After a couple trips there pleading with Bishop Maze, Shuler returned for a third visit in October 96 where Bishop Maze also had an Archdeacon with him. Shuler says the Archdeacon was an enemy of God who threw him out of the diocese and was screaming at him, spittle flying from his lips. (Shuler)
1996
Jon Shuler moved the headquarters of NAMS onto the campus of All Saints Church in South Carolina and brings Thaddeus Barnum with him. (Ross Lindsay)
1996
Bishop Alden Hathaway of Pittsburgh founds the American Anglican Council (AAC).
10-15 February 1997
Kuala Lumpur—Second Anglican Encounter in the South: “Second Trumpet from the South.” Also “Kuala Lumpur Statement.” (Hansen 57-58).
Spring 1997
Thad Barnum and Chuck Murphy meet with John Rucyahana and Emmanuel Kolini in Kigali, Rwanda to discuss “the crisis…in the Episcopal Church.” (Barnum 77-91) Murphy presses for action and the Rwandans agree.
July 1997
Rev. Thad Barnum moves to South Carolina to work with a missions organization. He attends All Saints Church, Waccamaw, South Carolina, pastored by Chuck Murphy. TJ Johnston is on staff with Murphy. Jon Shuler is also on Pawley’s Island at that time, as is retired Bishop Alex Dickson.
1997
At the ECUSA convention in 1997, Frank Griswold was elected presiding bishop. Shuler says it was well known that he was bisexual and having relationships with a man and a woman outside his marriage. Shuler expected some other bishop to stand up and say something, and even though they all knew what was going on, no one did. He particularly mentions Bishop John Howe, who he says disappeared. (Shuler)
ECUSA passes a resolution “extending health coverage to the unmarried lovers of church employees.” (Barnum 96).
Resolution from conservatives to endorse the Kuala Lumpur Statement fails.
8-9 September 1997
Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, First Promise launched.
Jon Shuler came out of GenCon with the idea to find 50 rectors from parishes large enough to resist the pressure of ECUSA and do something. They got 28 rectors who flew to South Carolina and formed First Promise.
One of the rectors of the largest churches in America signed the First Promise declaration, but by the time he flew home, he asked to have his name removed from the list.
The First Promise statement caused so much trouble so fast that Shuler recommended that they ask Archbishop Moses Tay for help. Tay was the Archbishop of Southeast Asia. Shuler knew he was bold for the gospel and was adamant about orthodoxy.
Renewal movements started to coalesce after the First Promise declaration. Chuck Murphy suggested getting leaders together, and that became the First Promise roundtable. Murphy facilitated those discussions.
Three bishops gave First Promise a lot of advice: FitzSimons Allison, Alex Dickson, and William Wantland. (Shuler)
20-24 (24-28?) September 1997
Flower Mound, Texas: Anglican Life and Witness conference. AAC, Ekklesia Society, Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. Stephen Noll and others prepare Global South bishops for Lambeth, informing them of Global North machinations. (Hansen 59-62).
T.J. Johnston, Alex Dickson, and Jon Shuler meet Rwandan Bishop John Rucyahana at this conference. (Hansen 69) (Barnum 100).
1998
Chicago: William Beasley founds the Greenhouse Movement, a church-planting organization. It is a nonprofit organization that also became a deanery within the ACNA Upper Midwest Diocese in 2012.
1 December 1998
A not-for-profit entity called The Anglican Mission in America is incorporated in Illinois.
2-3 March 1998
In January 1998 there was a meeting in Atlanta. “Nobody knew what to do next.” They hit huge opposition from many people they thought had been friends and who were orthodox. Someone suggested that they send three bishops to Southeast Asia. (Shuler)
Spring 1998
Jon Shuler, Alex Dickson, Fitz Allison, and Bill Wantland journey to see Moses Tay. Moses Tay puts them in contact with other Archbishops and suggested getting the Anglican Primates together in Singapore for an emergency meeting. The thought was that the Primates would bring discipline to ECUSA.
Dickson asks to be made a bishop of Southeast Asia and sent back to the USA as a missionary. Tay says he will consider it but that nothing will happen until after Lambeth. (Barnum 127)
Tay also asked Shuler if his bishop would allow him to come under Tay’s care. A week later he asked Shuler to move to Thailand. From 98 to 2018 he was canonically part of that diocese. (Shuler)
6 April 1998
Bishop Salmon transfers TJ Johnston to the episcopal oversight of John Rucyahana in Shyira, Rwanda. (Barnum 118)
2-3 June 1998
Great Lakes Regional Pre-Lambeth Conference, Kampala.
August 1998
Lambeth Conference: Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 upholds Scriptural and traditional teaching on marriage and human sexuality.
John Rodgers and Chuck Murphy spend an entire day with the Rwandan bishops who promise to find a biblical solution to their problem and support them. (Rodgers 187)
Immediately after Lambeth, Moses Tay runs into John Rucyahana in Canterbury and agree to meet about next steps. (Barnum 147-149)
September 1998
Chuck Murphy convenes the First Promise Roundtable. (Lindsay)
January 1999
Chuck Murphy flies to Singapore with Jon Shuler to meet with Moses Tay, then to Rwanda with Thad Barnum to meet Kolini and Rucyahana. (Barnum 151)
8 April 1999
Charleston, South Carolina: Chuck Murphy has a ten-minute meeting with Archbishop George Carey. Carey tells Murphy to stand down and not go ahead with ordination to bishop. (Barnum 154-55)
April 1999
In April 1999 seven Primates came together in Singapore and decided to meet again in the Fall in East Africa. Shuler was not at this meeting. (Shuler)
John Rodgers, Moses Tay and Bob Duncan were at this meeting. Rodgers passes around a photo directory from his old diocese, showing gay men with their male partners, which revolutionizes the meeting. (Rogers 188)
The Primates of Rwanda (Emmanuel Kolini), Uganda, and Moses Tay formed a kind of triad. Secretly, they thought North America needed a new province.
Summer 1999
Kolini was not persuaded that things in America were as bad as they were portrayed, so he came to the USA for thirty days in 1999. The Presiding Bishop took him around and Kolini saw that the problems were real. After this visit, he told First Promise to select three bishops, draft a constitution, and draft canons for a new North American province. (Shuler)
29 July 1999
Bishop Samuel Ssekadde of Namirembe Diocese, Kampala, Uganda travels to the USA and attends the consecration of Ray Sutton, REC bishop. (Hansen p 148-49)
27 September—6 October 1999
USA: Frank Griswold conducts a “Come and See” tour for overseas clergy. Two archbishops and three bishops participate, including John Rucyahana. On October 6, Griswold tells Rucyahana he can do nothing if someone ordains a practicing homosexual, saying that his hands are tied. Rucyahana writes Kolini and tells him America needs a missionary district. (Barnum 160-62).
21 October 1999
Bishop Rucyahana calls Archbishop Moses Tay from Pawley’s Island. They fully discuss the details of a US intervention before March. (Barnum 165-66)
1999
Shuler was asked to be on the committee to draft the constitution with John Rodgers and William Beasley. Shuler and Beasley flew to Ambridge, PA to meet Rodgers and hash out the rough constitution and canons. They found that Rodgers had already written it. They tweaked it. While there, at the house of John Rodgers, Shuler saw a letter on his desk from a David Pytches in England. Pytches was talking about consecrations of new bishops. Rodgers was convinced that Tay had started a new Reformation.
November 1999
The next meeting was in Kampala Uganda in November of 1999. The Africans had agreed among themselves that they would not take a stand if they were not unanimous. The Archbishop of Canterbury knew this meeting was going to happen and he intimidated Uganda (Livingstone Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo) to stand down. Bob Duncan and Jim Stanton were there. It was a tumultuous meeting. Chuck Murphy and T.J. Johnston were also there. Bob Duncan said to them, “we can’t fix ourselves, you have to come and help us.” Kolini and Moses Tay were walking back to the hotel together. On one of the stairwell landings, they stopped and talked. Tay told Kolini that if they didn’t do something now, no one ever would. Tay volunteered his cathedral to consecrate bishops. (Shuler)
Duncan asks for foreign intervention, but bishops Andy Fairfield, Steve Jecko, and Jim Stanton, do not. The Africans see that the American Anglican Council (AAC) bishops are divided. (Barnum 169-70)
Kolini and Rucyahana were there, as well as the primates from Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, Sudan, Kenya and the Southern Cone of the Americas. John Rodgers attended. (Hansen 102).
Rev. Geoffrey Chapman of First Promise calls for “…a new jurisdiction on American soil, under the temporary oversights of an overseas province.” (Hansen 103)
First Promise brings a draft constitution for a proposed Anglican Missionary Province and has priests ready to be consecrated as bishops, but this does not happen. (Hansen 103)
On the last day, John Rucyahana meets with Chuck Murphy, Thad Barnum, and Jim Beard (First Promise administrator) in a tent. Tay and Kolini had given Rucyahana a mission to enlist these men in an outside strategy. There would be an inside strategy (primarily Bob Duncan) and an outside strategy, which would produce missionary bishops. (Barnum 179-182)
Shuler flew from that meeting to a SOMA conference in Singapore. When he walked into the church, a priest came up to him and told him that he had heard that Moses Tay was going to make him a bishop.
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