Notes on the AAC, aka, the "Conservative Anglican Group" meeting in Dallas

The following is from an article written by a Dallas PI and published with a non-mainstream news agency, but it's pretty interesting. Especially since the worst of it (Christian Reconstructionism) is backed up by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The small but vocal Washington-based orthodox Anglican organization reported receiving only $619,093 in contributions, gifts and grants during 2002, according to the tax return filed on August 14th and just released today in response to a formal request to Anderson by TR&I Publishing.

Elsewhere we're told that contributions were $730,238 in 2001, a record high of $1,080,202 in 2000 and $473,233 in 1999. According to the tax records,

In 2001, the AAC had five significant individual contributions, for $200,000, $150,000, $85,000, $50,000 and $25,000.

So in 2001, $510,000 of the $730,238 - 69.8% of their contributions - were from five individuals. What did they do with it?

In 2002, the AAC's largest single expenditure was on salaries and benefits, 28% [...]. Its biggest grants were $25,000 to co-sponsor a conference in South Carolina and $9,300 to the losing cause of Christ Church-Accokeek before its rebellious rector, The Rev. Samuel Edwards, could be forced to leave the parish because he refused to recognize the authority of a female bishop in the Diocese of Washington.

A few other items of note:

• More than 2,000 are in attendance at the current conference in Dallas, or less than one tenth of 1% of Episcopalians.
• The 2002 return reported no membership fees. In 2001, it reported just $7,125, indicating it had just 285 dues paying members, or about 1 of every 8,000 Episcopalians.
• The 2002 report did not attach a schedule, as in previous years, identifying its largest contributions in monetary amounts if not by names.
• The largest contributor to AAC is believed to be Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Jr., who until recently supported "Christian Reconstructionism", which advocates replacing American democracy with a fundamentalist theocracy under biblical law in which the death penalty would be required for everyone from adulterers and homosexuals to witches and those who spread "false" religions.