The Dean of Trinity Episcopal School For Ministry said,"The new Network is claiming, rightly I think, to be the true Episcopal Church in the USA. So, we'll use the word Episcopal bearing this in mind."

Is bishop Iker playing a word game similar to this when he says that he will not leave the Episcopal Church? Some say: "We are not leaving the Episcopal Church; the Episcopal Church has left us; is this not a word game?

“Conservatives plan to replace Episcopal Church with their own Anglican province” is the headline for an article in The Episcopal News Service as reported by Jan Nunley on October 13, 2003.

She wrote: “…as Duncan described it, a ‘Network of Confessing Dioceses and Parishes’ would emerge in North America, aligned with African and Asian Anglicans-a remnant ecclesiola in ecclesia, a church within a church. The AAC would facilitate the process, providing structures for the new ‘replacement province,’ which will embrace a variety of breakaway Episcopal churches, ranging from the Reformed Episcopal Church to the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA).

“We have the start of a confessing church movement underway,” Says David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, in his December 2003 letter to Seminarians

We can see that David Anderson has no love or respect for the Episcopal Church from his statement at the American Anglican Council's three-day safe place to grieve and organize rally in a Dallas hotel prompted by the ordination of an openly gay Episcopal Bishop. The Fort Worth based progressive Episcopal journalist Katie Sherrod was denied press credentials to the conference. A team of four observers sent by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold was turned away. Anderson said allowing in the delegation from the National Church "would have been like asking a rape victim to sit at the table with her rapist," according to an article appearing in Every Voice Network.

Understand that a “Confessing Church” is foreign to Anglican thought which has traditionally achieved its union through a common Liturgy found in The Book of Common Prayer; as Anglicans we are joined more at the heart than at the head. Far from a Church preoccupied with the finer points of doctrine, the Episcopal Church has opted for inclusion, the middle way where, for example, a doctrine of the Real Presence would be preferred over the more exclusive Transubstantiation. Prior to the Elizabethan Settlement Protestants and Anglo-Catholics didn’t want to remain in communion with one another. The queen resolved this with a Eucharist formulary broad enough in its language that would allow those with differing views of the Eucharist to comfortably kneel side by side at the Eucharist. Since that time Anglicans have been wise enough to define their faith with such reasonable latitude that they are often referred to as the “broad church.” After all the great commandment mandates that we love God and our neighbor not that we be inerrant in our understanding in the finer points of true dogma.

The realignment is structured along the lines of a shadow church. The official position of the American Anglican Council is of a new gatherings network of Anglicans who will remain within the Episcopal Church of the USA but who are seeking ways in which they can be represented at all major Anglican and ecumenical meetings in future.

And indeed, as Bishop Stanton of Dallas quotes from an Uganda letter: , "…any delegation you [ECUSA] send cannot be welcomed, received or seated." The letter then goes on: “As a result, we would be pleased to receive an official delegation from the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Congregations who remain Committed to Biblical faith and with whom our relationship steadfastly continues.”

According to an article on beliefnet by Diana Keough, “The Network is pushing for a parallel Anglican province separate from the Episcopal Church. The new province would be made up of conservative parishes, priests and lay people from Canada, the United States and the Caribbean, under the direction of Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh. The eventual goal, organizers say, is for the Network to win recognition as the authentic ‘Episcopal Church’….effectively replacing the current Episcopal church as the legitimate face of Anglicanism in America.

“American Anglican traditionalists are plotting the break-up of their national church and the creation of a new fundamentalist church…,” said Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent for The Guardian on January 15, 2004.

Rev Geoff Chapman, of Pennsylvania, strategist for the American Anglican Council, in a secret document made public by the Washington Post, "Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil ... We believe in the end this should be a replacement jurisdiction."

As of March 15, 2004 seven dioceses out of 110 across the country have voted to associate with the 'Network'. Another five dioceses have voted to associate provisionally with it.

Conservative Episcopalians called on the primates on Friday, June 4, 2004 to recognize their emerging network as a separate church within the worldwide Anglican Communion

The conference's steering committee in Long Beach urged the primates to "recognize the Anglican Communion Network as a true Anglican province in North America if the Episcopal Church does not repent."

"The leadership of the AAC would not want to go that far at this point," their president, David Anderson, said.

Geoffrey Kirk, Secretary of Forward in Faith UK said: "There is an end game for the Network and that is to get out of the ECUSA as ECUSA is irreformable. The Lambeth Commission will chastise the ECUSA and if it doesn't it will not lead to subservience but to violence."

Don Curran, a member of the Network's Steering Committee, said: "But the sad truth is that we are now in a war. There are good guys and bad guys and there will be casualties. There is no middle ground and no neutrality. We can no longer play both sides of the street. Since August 5 and November 2 everything has changed."