Inside LEAC: A group that plans to leave and take 80% of the Episcopal Church with them.

By Sarah Dylan Breuer @ The Witness 

On February 28, a survey was sent to all members of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, with a cover letter endorsing it from George Carey, the retired Archbishop of Canterbury.

It consisted of three questions:

If you were to vote today in SECRET balloting on whether you NOW would prefer that General Convention 2003 had or had not approved a measure supporting consecration of The Rev. V. Gene Robinson, how would you vote?

If you were to vote today in SECRET balloting on whether you NOW would prefer that General Convention 2003 had or had not allowed Episcopal Church measures permitting procedures for priests to bless or officially recognize same-sex domestic partners, how would you vote?

Is your desire to remain personally in the Anglican Communion stronger than your desire for solidarity within ECUSA, whether or not ECUSA is in the communion?

Just who was behind the survey, though, was a mystery: a faceless group calling itself "Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion," or LEAC.

They're no longer faceless to me.

I saw about eighteen faces of LEAC on Tuesday, March 21, in one of the meeting rooms of All Saints', Chevy Chase, Maryland, a congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. There were twenty-seven people in the room. I was one of them; two others were journalists from the conservative Christian press.

I got the distinct impression that the rest of those in the room were parishioners at All Saints' as Jim Ince, our host, stepped up to the podium and remarked, "I know most of the faces here." It was a public meeting, and Ince identified six to eight of his fellow parishioners there as being "from the other side," and therefore "not a part of this," leaving a total of seventeen to nineteen people who, presumably, were interested in joining LEAC.

They were friendly folk . All were white, as far as I could tell; all except one or two over the age of fifty, and most well over sixty; the men generally in jackets and ties. Ince -- whose wife, Phyllis, is on the vestry at All Saints', and was present -- said the meeting's objective was "to acquaint those of you particularly who are faithful Episcopalians and Anglicans to keep the church in the historic church."

Ince walked a careful line in the meeting. On one hand, he was eager to present LEAC as an organization completely independent, not only of the Anglican Communion Network, the American Anglican Council, and Anglicans United, but also of All Saints' Chevy Chase -- despite that it was the site for all organizational meetings, survey tabulations, and other announced functions.

"The reason for that I think you know," he said. "Clergy can't be identified with some of the strong positions this organization will take. Priests can suffer under the tyranny of bishops, so clergy will have credible denial that they have anything to do with [LEAC]."

At the same time Ince presented LEAC as having powerful -- and anonymous -- allies from other conservative organizations.

He noted that he'd had extensive conversations with Bill Boniface of the American Anglican Council's "Episcopal Witness" (not to be confused with The Witness magazine) initiative for laity, and that they'd "tried very hard" to merge the two organizations. He noted in particular that he'd had "good meetings" in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and that "a number of employees" of the diocese there had contributed financially to LEAC, and "committed to help in any way they can as individuals." And "three of the top people in the Anglican side of the Episcopal Church in America," Ince said, had telephoned to say that they "will do all they can to support us without incurring reprisals against clergy."

Where LEAC differed most from these other organizations, according to Ince, was in the extent of their ambition. "We disagree with clergy-led organizations" like the AAC and ACN, he explained, "in their seeming to be satisfied with the policy of saving only a remnant of our church, those affiliated with organizations."

LEAC aims to secure the allegiance of 80% of Episcopalian parishioners -- and a significant chunk of their pledges as well. The four "well-defined" initiatives Ince hopes LEAC will do before and during General Convention 2006 will cost an estimated $90,000, and he's hoping that you'll consider donations to LEAC "part of your church tithing."

What are these projects? Ince wouldn't say, except to say that they were targeted at what he called the "mushy middle," which he estimated to be 80% of the church. Ince believes that these people don't support ordaining gay clergy or blessing same-sex relationships, but value staying with their parish and the Episcopal Church more than they do fighting such trends. Ince fears that "without somewhat grotesque education" they will "go with the Episcopal Church" -- instead of what, he didn't say, except that it would involve their being "settled in a good, Christian, Anglican environment again."

Especially in combination with remarks about the importance of giving clergy plausible deniability about their involvement, his statement evoked the infamous Chapman strategy memo of the American Anglican Council -- with its goal of "a 'replacement' jurisdiction with confessional standards, maintaining the historic faith of our Communion, closely aligned with the majority of world Anglicanism," to be achieved by means of "faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis" when judged necessary.

Ince's remarks echoed the 2004 memo's counsel "not to spread these emails over the internet, and to speak of them only to people you trust. In the end, everything will be spoken plainly, but the ability to get organized and take counsel together effectively depends upon our readiness to keep confidentiality."

Ince did suggest some elements of strategy, though. LEAC is putting together a website that Ince hopes will function "like Howard Dean's" for fundraising and organizing grassroots activists. And Ince is hoping that the three or four "well-defined" projects he's planning will attract "very solemn news stories" that will spread his message for him, much as news coverage of LEAC's anonymous survey sent to the House of Bishops and the Presiding Bishop's response attracted attention worldwide for "less than six hundred dollars."

Ince was clearly proud of the survey. He said LEAC had "some very good professional consultation" on it from supporters working pro bono. And when they'd developed it, Ince said that two LEAC supporters from All Saints' Chevy Chase suggested "buttonholing" the retired Archbishop of Canterbury, who was based at All Saints' while serving as Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Library of Congress.

Ince says Carey was in his car heading out to do some errands when Ince caught him and "ran a few things by him," one of which was the proposed survey. "Within fifteen seconds," Ince said, Carey had some paper over his knee and was dashing off what would be published as his letter of support for LEAC and the survey. "I felt sorry for him," Ince said; "I thought he didn't know what he was getting into." But "I saluted my betters," Ince said, and chose to run Carey's letter.

And although Carey's briefing was only fifteen seconds long, according to Ince, the retired archbishop's support for LEAC was expressed in strong terms: "Jim, I want you to know if there's ever a chance to go to the ramparts, I'll be there."

But, as Ince tells it, when Carey got a call from Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold about the survey, he was "blindsided." Carey immediately called Ince and left a message asking how he should respond.

Before Ince could return the call, Carey had called Griswold to give "something like an apology." Ince called Carey back. The conversation, according to Ince, caused Carey's attitude to shift dramatically, and Carey then fired off an email to Griswold -- accusing Griswold of "outright prevaricating" and other things "that I can't repeat because it was a personal letter," Ince reported.

Ince sees the controversy as a boon to LEAC, though he hopes it "blows over for a while until the end of the month," when he intends to announce the survey's results with a press release. The headline Ince is shooting for in the papers? "Episcopal Bishops Now Reject the Gay Agenda." "That'll be a hand grenade in the meeting room," a gentleman a few feet away from me murmured approvingly.

All this, Ince said, "will demonstrate chapter and verse of the very serious gravity of tampering with or dancing around scripture." And then LEAC will "publicize the depths to which the General Convention of 2003 actions have sunk" in a booklet to fit in number-ten envelopes for mailing to "parishes that are hard to crack," where clergy and vestries don't want to discuss what LEAC wants to say.

Ince reported that a number of former major donors to conservative Episcopalian organizations were burned out, like one donor who had given $500,000 to a conservative project "that flopped a few years ago," and now "doesn't want to talk about the Episcopal Church."

And so LEAC wants money -- at least $90,000 for projects that will be over by the end of General Convention 2006. So LEAC has come up with a donor structure with levels from "Contributor" at $50 to "The Order of St. Paul" at $500 and "Keystones of the Mission" at $1,000 or more.

They're also looking for volunteers -- people to tabulate the surveys, form phone trees, stuff envelopes, raise money, and coordinate those four projects. True believers only need apply: while Ince said that "people on the other side of the fence ... are welcome here" at the meeting's beginning, by the end he'd said, "to those of you on the other side ... you're not a part of this, and you know why ... you're over twenty-one."

It was a pronounced shift in tone from the one Ince had adopted in his survey mailing, in which he said "the objective in this is bringing and holding together as many Episcopalians as possible in a single, diverse, inclusive province of the Anglican Communion" and that LEAC was "prayerfully working for loving reconciliation."

As we rose at the end of the meeting, and clusters of people formed to chat, I was taken again with how warmly I was invited to visit All Saints' parish on a Sunday. And I just may do that. There were many indications that these people were passionate about their faith and committed to living it out as best they could.

But I also saw some signs of limits to their patience, and I don't imagine that the "inclusive, diverse" province they hope to inaugurate will have much of a place for anyone who doesn't agree with their take on what Anglicanism really is.

Sarah Dylan Breuer is editor of The Witness. In her spare time, she maintains a website with a lectionary commentary series and a blog, and works throughout the church on issues of liturgy and faith. Dylan may be reached by email at editor@thewitness.org.

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