DALLAS, TX (AgapePress) - Conservative Episcopalians are renewing their commitment to Christ and repudiating the actions of their denomination's general convention.

Declaring and preparing -- that is the theme of this week's three-day "A Place to Stand" conference, hosted by Christ Church in Plano, Texas. The church's rector, David Roseberry, referred to the event as the greatest Anglican family reunion in his lifetime.

Roseberry urged the nearly 3,000 people in attendance to announce their solidarity with the bishops who stood against the consecration of homosexual Bishop V. Gene Robinson. The rector asserts that, as many in the Church believe, scripture clearly condemns homosexual activity.

"We are declaring that we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ as this church has received it," Roseberry said, describing the Bible as "sufficient, marvelous, true, life-giving," and something that "should not, under any circumstances imagined or unimaginable, ever be changed."

The rector told the packed crowd at the conference that a tremendous opportunity exists for Anglicans who are willing to stand against their denomination's rejection of the Bible's teaching.

"Today could begin one of the greatest missionary enterprises in the history of the Church: the conversion of the culture," Roseberry said. "We can today introduce a single word into the vocabulary of the North American church that could have immense ramifications for all time -- 'Obey.'"

On hand for the conference are 46 bishops, 46 deacons, 799 priests, 1,413 laypersons and 103 seminary students, who represent 600 parishes and 105 dioceses in the Episcopal Church USA (episcopalchurch.org). Members at the conference are drafting a resolution that calls on primates of the Anglican Communion to create a new alignment for Anglicanism in North America.

But some Episcopalians say the conference represents the rumblings of a rankled minority within the church. Rev. Dan Webster of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah told Associated Press that this week's meeting does not represent most Episcopalians.

"We live in ambiguity. That's what the Episcopal Church has been about for centuries," Webster says, "and now we are faced with a loud voice of a small group of people who want the Anglican Church to represent itself in one way."

According to the Utah clergyman, scripture is not necessarily to be taken at its word. "One of the things that I was always taught is that we love the Bible so much that we never take it literally," Webster says.

But while Webster and some in the ECUSA are suggesting that a small group of conservatives are attempting to divide the denomination, Bruce Mason, a spokesman for the American Anglican Council (americananglican.org), says that is not the case. He says the council sees the Episcopal Church USA leadership as having taken the actions that are potentially dividing the Anglican community worldwide -- something the Dallas gathering is trying to prevent.

Mason told Associated Press that one of the primary goals of the conference is to send an urgent appeal to the worldwide leaders of the Anglican Church. "We need them to create for us someplace that we can call home and stay a part of the Anglican Communion, whether that be a body like a province or something else," he said.

"What we're trying to do," Mason says, "is build a new unity in the Episcopal Church among Orthodox believers -- and by extension, with the rest of the Anglican Communion."

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