jenk

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.