Welcome to the Hylton Memorial Chapel
Hylton Memorial Chapel is a nondenominational Christian Event Center that opened in 1995. The facility does not accommodate a local church or congregation on a regular basis. It seats nearly 3500. The facility was designed to host large Christian events and facilitate renewal throughout the region.
Whoa – a gigantic thing like that, and there's no regular services there? What a strange concept to someone like me, who's been on the Bishop's Committees of more than one small, underfinanced mission parish. All this money that evangelicals throw at ginormous facilities just boggles my mind, while we small churches struggle to put together a viable food pantry program on literally nothing but donated food, donated grocery bags to be distributed in the neighborhood, and the cost of photocopying flyers for the bags explaining the program. Also – we can't afford things like air conditioning in the summer, and heave a huge sigh of relief in the spring when the gas bill goes down for the season after a mild winter. We welcome everyone. Therefore, why do so many people flee for large megachurches that DON'T welcome everyone.
It's a puzzlement, but if we were larger and better financed like many other liberal-to-centrist parishes, I suspect that most members like me in the pews wouldn't have the vaguest idea about all the skirmishing about amongst the various schismatic factions (I didn't know the Nigerians and the Rwandans weren't all that cozy, for example).
I'm just a very small fish in a very wide and fractious Anglican River, which seethes with cross-currents, eddies, and hidden snags. Sorry for the ridiculous image, but I just read John McPhee's Uncommon Carriers, and rivers and streams are on my mind at the moment.
Anyway.
I wonder who's on this Hylton Chapel's board of directors? The link to their annual report information is intriguingly stonewallish:
PUBLIC NOTICE: THE ANNUAL REPORT – of the Cecil D. Hylton Memorial Chapel Foundation for 2005 is available for inspection during regular business hours of the Foundation by any persons who request it within 180 days hereof.
Contact Norris L. Sisson, Secretary of the Foundation principle office,
14640 Potomac Mills Road, Woodbridge, Virginia
Monday through Friday (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)
Telephone number 703-590-0076
Apparently, Cecil D. Hylton Sr. was a very wealthy man, if this document relating to a natural grandson refers to the same person (tut-tut, a family scandal).
The chapel is politically connected, arranging to have deep pockets:
Financial data as reported to IRS for tax period ending: Dec 1, 2002
Assets: $52,294,700 Total Revenue: No Info Income: $5,490,140 IRS registration data
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The IRS actually has their last 5 years of tax returns online, and here is the one for 2004. It helpfully includes a list of board members and their treasurer's name, Malcolm Cook in Falls Church, VA. Conveniently located, wonder if Mr. Cook is a member of Rev., now Bishop Minn's church?
The board members are apparently…
Hmm, well, no connection to the evul IRD, maybe it's just conveniently located…
Uh, and there's some kind of video of the proceedings at YouTube, let's see if this custom field thingy of WordPress' works:
Not sure if that is working, drat. Nope. Drat.
But the whole thing was liveblogged at babyblueonline.blogspot dot com, with pictures and videos. They all seemed very happy about the event.
The Baby Blue Blogger, who is (whoops, a person of consequence in Anglican Reasserter circles, as she's a Truro Church vestry member and former member of the IRD board) is amused, elsewhere on her site, whenever someone takes "the usual silly swipe at IRD" and cites people like Louie Crew when conspiracy theories about the IRD must be denigrated. It's weird for me to see such enthusiasm for the IRD and its goals. Really odd… but personal friendships are powerful, if you read further down on that last link. Can't fault her for her beliefs. But gosh, that "silly swipe" comment sounds an awful lot like "pay no attention to that guy in the pointy hat behind the curtain."
I suspect we'd have a lot in common when it comes to movies and books, based on her Blogger profile, but we'd have to find topics other than religion to discuss, as she's clearly a deeply committed person of the self-named Orthodox stream in the Anglican river, and probably would think my beliefs were anathema and a dreadful sucking eddy to Hell down the River and all that. It's a shame, really. She likes some of my favorite hymns; it's a pity we can't sing out of the selfsame hymnal.
Left-wing liberal that I am, I do not think that the stated goals of the IRD are good for my church, and I don't get a warm fuzzy from the way IRD press releases are worded so as to dismiss anyone who doesn't believe and live as they do as "sinners," or fodder for conversion to their strict views on belief.
I'm still wondering about the underpinnings of this extemely well financed Christian event center, and the weirdly intriguiging part is that I got to BBAG via this simple Google search: hylton IRD. It got some hits based purely, I think, on the location of today's event, but also because of one specific article (see bottom).
Other interesting events related to the Current Unpleasantness have been held at Hylton Chapel, reported elsewhere by the Baby Blue Anglican blogger. So it seems to be the go-to place when several thousand charismatic, Bible-believing, fundamentalist, charismatic quasi-Pentecostals in Episcopal vestments want to have one or two big revival meetings several years ago that were likened to the start of a Second Reformation, with similar hopes of martyrdom at the stake, maybe, before the strife is o'er, the battle won.
Among the interesting side-topics: this interesting Smirking Chimp thread from February 2007 about the IRD accusing the National Council of Churches of being an under-financed and spiritually bankrupt shill for liberal groups like MoveOn.
But there was this interesting and carefully worded press release:
IRD Supports CANA, All Orthodox Anglicans on Eve of Bishop Martyn Minns’ Installation
WASHINGTON, May 4 /Christian Newswire/ — On Saturday, May 5, Bishop Martyn Minns will be installed by Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Anglican Church of Nigeria as missionary bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). Bishop Minns served as the rector of Truro Church from 1991–2007. He was consecrated as a bishop in August 2006. CANA is a missionary arm of the Church of Nigeria for Nigerian Anglicans in the United States and other orthodox Anglicans who cannot in good conscience remain in the Episcopal Church.
IRD Director of Anglican Action Ralph Webb said,
“Bishop Minns has served faithfully as an Anglican rector in many different types of parishes. His strong leadership qualities, unwavering commitment to orthodox theology and social witness, pastoral heart, and great concern for the poor are but four of many traits that will serve him well in his CANA responsibilities.
Guess I'd better find myself a tasteful tin chapeau for church tomorrow. There is no conspiracy, you know.
[tags]IRD, Episcopalian, schism, conspiracy theory, tinfoil hats[/tags]
Thanks for dropping by today. Jim Naughton, communications guru for the Diocese of Washington and I have discovered that while we have very little to agree on regarding theology – we do agree on Harry Potter. And there’s the wonder of blogging. Again, thanks for dropping by today and for your post.
Conrad … Hylton? And, I assume, unrelated to the somewhat-more-famous Conrad Hilton? Weird.
With all those ties, one wonders why the Virginians leaving TEC feel obliged to hold onto the church properties as they leave. Do they provide better air conditioning?
“Bishop Minns has served faithfully as an Anglican rector ….” An interesting turn of phrase, “Anglican rector.”
BabyBlue’s note, though, and your own musings point to what should be a greater truth — we should be able to all “get along” without feeling demonized by each other. What we have in common so exceeds what separates us that it is indeed a scandal (in the classical Christian sense) that some (mostly, I’d say, but by no means exclusively, among the “reasserters”) feel that the only path forward is to paint the “other side” as heretics, tyrants, and evil-doers. It is far too easy (I observe even, especially, in myself) to create camps of Us vs. Them, when, in the eyes of God, we all fall so short of the mark.
Very kind of you to make the return visit!
Yes, I’m doing what I can to avoid spoilers for the next (ack! last!) book but I expect that I’ll succumb to the temptation to fool around trying to solve puzzles at Rowling’s “desktop” at some point.