[Sarah] A letter from a Senior Warden

[Andy Figueroa]

Subject: A letter from a Senior Warden
Date: Wednesday 04 May 2005 07:01 pm
From: Sarah Hey <sarah at penpointe.com>
To: Sarah Hey <sarah at penpointe.com>

Below is a lengthy letter/report from a Senior Warden in Maryland . . .
I do not agree with every point in the letter -- but it makes for
enthralling reading and seems to be straight from the heart.


******************

Letter from a Senior Warden

From Bill Boniface, who presented a rather lengthy Senior Warden's
Report at the Annual Parish Meeting of St. Thomas, in Croom, Maryland .
. . .

February 2005

The Good News at St. Thomas'

The presentations by the rector, the committee chairs and the church
organizations contain a good amount of good news from the past year.  I
also think we have a great deal to be thankful for here at St. Thomas',
especially in terms of community and caring Christian relationships. 
 We have some wonderful Christians in this parish.

One of the things Susan and I are most attracted by in this little
country church is the diversity represented by our parishioners.  Not
"paper diversity" or a false front where we line up people who look
different and take a snapshot for a church brochure, but real
diversity.  One where people who are very different -- different
backgrounds, different colors, different politics, different sexes, and
different sexual orientations -- find something that transcends all of
those differences:  a deep faith in God.

Regardless of what we look like or who we vote for, we come together to
worship, socialize, and work together without anything in mind except
 to combine as powerfully as we possibly can our faith, gifts, and
 talents to help do the Lord's work in this community and in the world.
  We're a small group, limited in many ways by numbers, age, and
 finances, but we do what we can in our small way to do what the Lord
 has asked of us in His first two command-ments:  "Love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.
Love thy neighbor as thyself."

As far as I'm concerned, this parish is a model in that way.  We do
 love our neighbors as ourselves.  We respect and value every single
 parishioner, and I can't personally imagine St. Thomas' with any one
 of you not a part of it.

In many ways, we're a bit of a motley crew, but we're a parish family,
and all of us are part of it.

While no church is perfect, you demonstrate for all the world to see
what really can be in terms of going deeper than the surface and
 finding what's in a person's heart as we all travel on a journey to
 know Christ and be more like Him.

All of that's important because as we look to Christ's Great
 Commission, his charge to all who believe in Him to "go and make
 disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
 everything that I have commanded of you" would be difficult to do if
 what people saw when they came to St. Thomas' for the first time was
 anything less.

If there's only one thing that binds us together, let it be that
Christian attitude of acceptance and love for one another.

It's also gratifying that we see new families in the congregation.  A
good church should always be uplifted by additional voices.  But
remember that the meaning of the Great Commission is to bring Christ to
people who don't know Him.  While we welcome all people no matter where
they come from, the people we need to focus on are not just those who
are sitting in the pews of other churches down the road.

Those people, happily, already know God.  The real focus must be on the
"unchurched" people around us, those who have yet to know Jesus Christ
and are just waiting for you to introduce Him to them.

We're in the middle of a building boom that even John the Baptist would
envy (were there to be envy in him).  Entire families living right next
door who don't yet know Christ's wonderful promise of transformation
 and redemption ? but can if you'll simply fulfill the charge Christ
 gave to us to go and make disciples.  Evangelism is what we need to
 all be about at St. Thomas'.  Not just to survive as a congregation as
 we "age out" like many small country parishes.  We need to bring
 people in because that's what the Lord tells us to go out and do. 
 Yes, even
Episcopalians.

Like many -- but not all of you -- I'm an evangelist at heart but not
 in practice.  While I'm one of a rare few who is willing to knock on
 doors to spread the Word, I'm stalled by the lack of a clear message
 to those who would open them.  I believe entirely on the product -- we
 have the best "product" in the world to sell.  I just can't get past
 the packaging.

The Role of Senior Warden


The role that's supposed to be played by the Senior Warden is spelled
out pretty well in the Church canons and our own By Laws.  His or her
responsibilities have to be, of course, to make sure the buildings
remain standing, to oversee parish administration and finances, and to
sign contracts. In a small parish, everyone has to pitch in and every
one of these
tasks -- however onerous they may seem at the time -- are all what I
look at as part of "ministry."  It all helps keep God's Church
 standing.

Over my past two years here, the first as Junior Warden and then this
year as Senior Warden, I've had the honor and pleasure of having so
 many of you helping me every time I've turned around that I don't even
 know where to start in thanking you all.  Most of you have been doing
 it for years, and any work I could do in this parish could never hope
 to equal what you've all done over the years.

You've all been both willing and gracious -- thank you for making my
time as Senor Warden part of a wider ministry and not just a job.  In a
small parish there have to be a solid core of unsung heroes, and we're
blessed with many.


The Danger to our Church

As you’re all aware, I’m sure, this is sadly my wife’s and my last day
at St. Thomas’.  Never in my wildest dreams when we came back to this
little church after many years away and made the decision to remain in
Upper Marlboro for the foreseeable future did I think we’d ever become
part of that large group of folks known as "former St. Thomas’
parishioners."

But now I have to talk to you from the heart in a little different way.
Families know that to let disagreements go without addressing them
slowly destroys the bond of love and trust that holds them together.
Ignoring serious disagreements only means that a price will have to be
paid some time in the future.  And if I didn’t think the Episcopal
Church’s current disagreement would ever force St. Thomas’ to pay a
 huge price in the future -- in fact, the price of its very survival --
 I’d step away from this podium this very moment and simply walk away
 with the happiness of this gathering to warm me.  That would be so
 easy.  But I couldn’t ever look you -- or even worse, Christ -- in the
 eye again if I did that.

I believe all the responsibilities of a Senior Warden are important,
 but I think his or her primary responsibility -- along with the vestry
 -- is to first and foremost guard the faith.  We’re a church, after
 all. We’re here because of the faith.  Without it, there would be no
 need for buildings or church suppers, or altar guilds.  For the
 vestry, it’s like the meaning behind a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath,
 simply do no harm.

And so I’m going to share with you why two members of your parish
 family who love and cherish each and every one of you as friends and
 have made St. Thomas’ Parish our home would drive away today for the
 last time and start all over again in another Episcopal parish across
 the Potomac River.

It’s not about what anyone’s done here.  No one’s done anything to us.
Everyone has been loving and kind.  No one here is pushing an agenda on
us, the rector isn’t being dishonest with us, and there are no disputes
between parishioners that make us want to leave.  Most people would say
everything is calm.  And it is.

But it’s what’s behind that calm that should scare the living daylights
out of you -- not just you, but your children and grandchildren.

As your Senior Warden, I’ve been like a seismologist who watches for
earthquake activity and detects an undersea earthquake with a reading
 of 8.9 on the Richter scale.  Because I’ve studied it closely from as
 many angles as possible, I know what an earthquake of that magnitude
 will mean -- not today, but soon -- to people who live on the
 shoreline and for all the people who are out on the beaches.  It will
 be a tsunami, and it will destroy everything and everyone in its path.

My friends, there has been an earthquake deep in the depths of the
Episcopal Church -- and there’s a tsunami coming that will affect St.
Thomas’ whether we close our eyes and turn our beach chairs the other
way or not.  For well over a year, I’ve been trying to warn you in the
most subtle way I can that we need to seek higher ground.  I’ve done so
cautiously, in a way that wouldn’t generate a controversy that would
divide the parish, as has been so often the case in the past.  We’re a
parish family, and I’ve openly and honestly discussed the danger with
our rector and many others for some time now.  I decided it was best to
approach the vestry in a manner more like a mild intervention than a
debate.  In that conversation, it became clear to me that St. Thomas’
 is hopeful that the tsunami racing toward the parish will somehow
 simply pass us by.

As we all have an obligation to protect our families, I decided that
even as I will continue to warn of impending disaster, it’s my
responsibility to take my own family to higher ground.  It always
 upsets me when I see parents on news reports when a huge hurricane is
 approaching who have "decided to stay and ride it out," their tiny
 children visible in the background hoping in all their innocence that
 mom and dad weren’t going to let them be killed.

To ignore the wave that’s heading toward us and picking up force and
height every day is simply unthinkable to me.  Even if we want to
disregard it for our own lives -- and many of us here today have
 already had the chance to live full ones -- why would you risk your
 children and grandchildren?

The desire to "remain comfortable" by refusing to recognize the
disagreement exists or trying hard not to face up to it even if you
 know it does, can’t possibly give us comfort.  It’s reality and the
 facing up to it that gives us comfort.  Comfort doesn’t bring us
 reality.

So what is this great "tsunami" that’s rolling toward us?  It’s a
radical agenda that has as its primary target not St. Thomas’ Parish,
not the Episcopal Church -- these will just be "collateral damage" in
its wake -- but the concept of Church itself.  If this tsunami can get
far enough inland, your children and grandchildren or their children
 and grandchildren are unlikely to care about -- much less be a part of
 -- any church during their lifetimes.

So what makes me so wise as to offer such an assertion?  Nothing
special.  I’ve studied the situation, prayed on it, sought to
 understand every aspect of it and, finally, been fortunate enough to
 get a sneak peek at the "playbook" of those who caused the earthquake
 in the first place.    To put it another way, I’ve seen "the man
 behind the curtain."

I know why and how the strings are being pulled and can turn the pages
to see what’s coming next.  Like people who pick up the Bible for the
first time, get bored reading all the names in Genesis and turn instead
to the more "exciting" part -- Revelation -- I quickly thumbed my way
 to the back of the playbook.  I saw the final play, then I started
 looking backward at the pages of strategies and tactics that would
 make it possible.

This is not a playbook that’s knowingly being used on us by anyone in
the parish.  The brilliance of the strategy is that in it each of us
 can find something that seems to make sense, something we can support,
 something that we can even advocate, but no one in our own little
 parish family is forcing anything down our throats.  All of us, after
 all, have shown that we’re really just trying to be good Christians.

But that’s where the benign and unknowing acceptance of the strategy
ends.  Forces in our diocese are hard at work with the playbook
carefully tucked under suit jackets and vestments, working each small
part to create the synergy to achieve the ultimate goal.  In countless
dioceses, and indeed all the way to the Presiding Bishop’s Office of
 our national church headquarters, the strategy is being carefully
 played out like a chess game.  The tsunami is being strengthened day
 after day, even as our Children’s Choir rehearses, the ladies in the
 Altar Guild place flowers on the altar, and as good people are
 educated for ministry.

You don’t just see it here.  Go down the road to other small Episcopal
parishes.  I’ve visited many churches throughout the diocese and I see
much the same in most small country parishes.  Everyone is holding
 their breaths that the great wave won’t engulf them and, as they close
 their eyes, their numbers dwindle, the money goes away, and they will
 most surely be overtaken.  And they’ll eventually be dots on a map of
 historical parishes where people will visit on a touring bus, but
 where all the parishioners have long gone.

Then there are courageous parishes -- even small ones -- that have seen
the storm brewing and taken prudent measures so that when it passes,
they’ll be able to survive it and go on worshiping God when it’s run
 its course.  All Saints in Chevy Chase, Christ Church in Accokeek,
 Christ Church in Port Republic, and Truro Church in Fairfax are just a
 few among them.  They’ve "gone to higher ground."  Not as individuals,
 but as parishes.

What is this "higher ground?"  It’s members of a congregation standing
together arm in arm in faith to guard the faith from the ravaging
onslaught against it.  It’s certainly what I’ve wished St. Thomas’
 could be -- like a beacon of faith in the countryside -- standing
 first for the faith against all harm that might come to it.  It’s a
 fight I would gladly lead were there a congregation to follow.

If there is one fight in our lives which we should all be a part of
before we take up permanent residency out there in our cemetery, it’s
the fight for Christ and the faith.  Many of our folks fight great
fights for land rights or other worthy causes.  But when it comes to
standing up boldly against the most serious assault on our church since
the English Reformation, these same people are notably absent.  Surely
Christ should have at least equal status to real estate and land
policies.

Does the Danger Really Exist?

Some of you doubt the very notion that there’s a serious and divisive
situation in the Episcopal Church today.  Please don’t rely on me or
 any one person to sway you.  Make your own decision from the following
 facts and then decide on your own whether this is serious enough:

* Over 40,000 faithful Episcopalians left the Church last year (didn’t
just change congregations, but left it altogether).

* 100 entire congregations have left together to form new churches or
worship under the protection of foreign Anglican primates or bishops.

* 11 dioceses have formed a Network within the Episcopal Church
structure in opposition to the direction their Church is going.

* These dioceses represent 1,100 clergy, 735 congrega-tions and 176,000
faithful communicants.

* Cathedrals and multi-million dollar retreat centers are being closed
down and sold to raise money for the Episcopal Church due to losses of
parishioners who took their money with them.

* The Washington Diocese alone is tapping $1.9 million from a trust
 fund just to continue operating ($1.4 million this budget year alone).

* In the Diocese of Newark (NJ), where there is reputedly the strongest
support of any diocese for the Episcopal Church’s new agenda, 40
parishes are projected to close this year.

* 22 of the other 37 provinces in our Anglican Communion have declared
impaired or broken communion with the Episcopal Church.

* 15 of these 22 provinces now officially recognize only the Network --
not the Episcopal Church -- as the voice of Anglicanism in the U.S.
These 15 provinces represent 55 million Anglicans.

* Faithful priests all over the country are being deposed and inhibited
by their bishops for speaking against the church’s "new direction."

* The Episcopal Church is suing a number of Episcopal congregations for
their church property in a number of states who won’t go along with the
new "doctrine."

* Two parishes in the Washington Diocese have joined the Network in
opposition to the church’s policies and 13 vestries in the Diocese of
Maryland have joined together as "confessing vestries" whose
congregations refuse to follow the church’s new policies.

While it’s quiet in our small corner of the countryside, you’re free to
render your own judgments as to whether these facts represent business
as usual in the Church or something more. I myself contend that the
tremendous damage already recorded was merely the first and smallest
wave of the tsunami that will eventually engulf us.  Whole dioceses,
parishes, entire congregations and thousands of individuals like my
 wife and me are "going to higher ground" to preserve the faith against
 the onslaught.

What the Crisis Isn’t About

So what is it that’s behind this dangerous agenda?  A radical agenda
orchestrated by supposedly "gay rights" activists that seeks far more
than just rights.  Who in this congregation is not for equal rights for
all people?  Who in this congregation wants any among us to have fewer
rights than us?  I can tell you from experience that all those dioceses
and parishes who are standing in opposition to the Episcopal Church’s
new direction aren’t against those things.  And I seriously doubt that
any of us are.

But it’s not about equal rights.  That’s simply the strategic
sound-byte.  It’s about taking human experience and desire, laying it
 up next to Holy Scripture, and asserting that it’s the Holy Scripture
 that’s in error and has been for these almost two thousand years. 
 That behaviors -- not just sexual orientations, which are completely
 neutral -- are not only acceptable, but that bishops and priests
 should now both affirm and call down God’s blessing upon them.

Most changes -- like women’s ordination -- come about by the
presentation of theological arguments that at least attempt to show how
they line up with Holy Scripture.  No such case has been made for the
Episcopal Church’s "new thing."  They simply did it "with good
intentions" by a vote at a convention.

Those other sins remain, of course, "but we’re voting this particular
one to no longer be a sin."  The real eye-opener here is this:  Most of
our bishops consider the Bible pretty much irrelevant today except to
use it for sermon filler.  They see the Bible, as one of our bishops
described it, as "a book of poetry with a lot of history in it."

You should know that at that same convention in Minneapolis in 2003,
 60% of the Episcopal church’s bishops voted against  -- yes, against
 -- a resolution to reaffirm the beliefs of their ordination vows and
 the agreements of belief of the Anglican Communion signed by our
 presiding bishops over the years.  Reaffirming beliefs would have been
 a good way to at least try to help calm the crisis.  Not being willing
 to reaffirm them -- as the Church’s leadership -- speaks volumes for
 where our denomination is heading.

I’m proud to stand up each week and reaffirm my belief through the
 words of the Nicene Creed.  Can you imagine what it would be like if
 the lay reader asked you to stand up and together reaffirm our faith
 through that creed and 60% of your congregation remained quietly
 seated?!? Welcome to the Episcopal Church of the "anti-war, free love"
‘60’s-generation bishops.  They are the perfect group upon which to
 work a dangerous and radical agenda because they believe their degrees
 on their walls confer upon them wisdom not held by a bunch of
"simple-minded" Apostles.  Those Apostles may have walked on earth with
Christ, but we are now told how "unenlightened" they were and that
 "they just didn’t understand all of this back then."

As a friend of mine used to say, "I was born on a Tuesday, but not last
Tuesday."  I’ll take what the Apostles said any day.  And, yes, Regis,
that’s my "final answer."

The Real Agenda

This well-organized but radical fringe has a goal that goes well beyond
anything any of my own gay friends have ever voiced support for -- the
ultimate demise of the Church itself.  Not just the Episcopal Church --
but all churches.

In some ways, it’s similar to the dichotomy faced by so many Muslims
today.  Most Muslims simply want to find favor with Allah and live
normal and peaceful lives, but intertwined throughout their communities
is a radical style of fundamentalism that seeks a larger goal far
 beyond theirs which threatens all they hope for and puts all of them
collectively  in a negative light.

Why this goal to get rid of the churches?  Because when society has
completed its transition to open acceptance of all types of sexual
behaviors, the Church will be the only place left where doctrine and
discipline stand in the way of people being free to follow any norms
they desire.

The Church simply has to go if people are going to be free to follow
their human desires anywhere they lead without admonition.

The best way to beat down opposition to this dangerous agenda is to
paint all those who recognize it and are determined to stand in their
way as "anti-gay" or "homophobic" ? a strategy used all over society
today and increasingly in our Church to demonize opposition.  How many
times have you heard that our Church’s controversy is about nothing but
sex?  Or that we’re all wound around the axle over "homosexuality."

But we’re all adults here.  Let’s look at the facts:  We live, work and
worship together with people of all types and of differing sexual
orientations.  In the almost eight years my wife and I have attended
 St. Thomas’, no one to my knowledge has cared one iota who is black or
 white, old or young,  gay or straight.  As I said at the beginning,
 we’re all a family of Christians.  And Christians by definition accept
 all people who come to God.  They love one another.   Otherwise, they
 really have no business being called "Christians."

Whether our behaviors will find favor with God when the Day of Judgment
arrives is unknown.  We only have the Word to go by, and we can follow
what Scripture says or not.  It’s a personal thing and we’re all in the
same boat.  I personally hope for my sake that God is a merciful one --
or at least has a sense of humor when I arrive!  One thing I do know is
that I will personally pin my hopes for salvation on what the Apostles
passed down, not on a vote at General Convention, past or future,
whether they vote away and affirm my own sins or not.

Another popular way to quell dissent is to repeatedly encourage
 everyone "to get back to the things that are really important."  We
 should all "focus on other things."  Nonsense.  These are hugely
 important issues and we can address them and still do all the other
 "important" things. These pleas are simply a way of saying "take your
 eye off the ball and, quick, look over there
!"

The strategy being worked on us depends on two lines of attack, one
against society in general, and one against the churches.  The strategy
against society -- like a guerilla war -- began subtly and picked up
more and more steam as it achieved success over the past four decades.
In this case, it’s been over forty years of one small success after
another.

The strategy is so brilliant that we should all wish this bunch was
directing our war on terrorism today.

The strategy to soften up the society is necessary to lay the
 groundwork for the strategy against the church, simply because people
 in churches live in that society.

The Strategy Against Society

Here’s the strategy for the society at large:

* Teach the children from an early age through schools and other
organizations that making judgments -- especially moral ones -- is a
 bad thing (everyone should be unconditionally accepted).

* Preach and model moral relativism (what you think is good or bad
depends on the situation) at every opportunity; there are no absolutes
when it comes to good or evil.

* Where debate has been traditionally encouraged, particularly in high
schools and colleges, launch a program of "political correctness" to
stifle it; stating values or viewpoints other than the "correct"
position is not only discouraged, but prohibited.

* Give support to hate crimes legislation, then expand it to include
hate speech to quiet open dissent, where people may actually be
 arrested for voicing their views in public; only protect open speech
 that supports the radical agenda.

* Finally, push every vestige of Judaic-Christian influence or presence
from the public square with an endless barrage of lawsuits and
intimidation; this dovetails perfectly with the education of our
children, each successful suit against religion useful as "precedent"
 to show that religion and values are provable negative influences on
 society.

Moving the Strategy into the Church

This strategy, which has been highly successful, sets the stage for
people’s thinking about the church.  Here are some key points to their
strategy for the churches:

* Find a church of relatively small membership but wide recognition
 with the most liberal philosophy and the most "flexible" theology: 
 The Episcopal Church

* Flood that church with as many radical activists as possible,
including ordaining priests.

* Build those numbers over years, and combine with activist laity to
achieve strategic placements on national church councils and diocesan
staffs.

* Seize the property of parishes nationwide by passing a canon putting
all of them in trust to the Church’s national body; this will assure
exceptional leverage against parishes who try to stand up against
revisionist doctrine.

* Find the state with the lowest "churched" population of all 50 states
in the nation -- a "weakest link" -- and vote in an activist priest as
bishop.  New Hampshire.

* Force a vote at General Convention to approve his consecration and at
the same time another to approve "blessing rites" for non-celibate
homosexual partners in spite of the Theology Committee of the House of
Bishops recommending strongly against it and almost the entire Anglican
Communion pleading with the Episcopal Church not to do it.

* Label those who oppose these moves as "uninclusive" and
"un-Christian", regardless of whether grounds for either assertion
exist.

* Paint African and other "Two-Thirds World" Anglicans as "simple" and
"backward" as reasons for their opposition; like the Apostles, they’re
too "simple" to understand that the Bible really is just a "book of
poetry."

* Force those who disagree -- clergy and laity -- either out of the
Episcopal Church altogether or into submission (use jobs and pensions
for leverage against clergy; use parish properties as leverage against
laity).

* Weaken belief in Holy Scripture:

-- Teach that Jesus is not the only way to God
-- Teach that the Gospel has simply been misunderstood all these years
-- Teach that other religions are equally valid; Christianity holds no
sway over others
-- Affirm all "feelings" and behaviors
-- Teach that transformation by Jesus is unnecessary; what you want to
do is paramount

* Ultimately point to the fallacy of the whole Bible, not just selected
portions.

Eventually, belief will be sufficiently weakened to support the
activist’s ideology that not only do human desire and experience trump
Holy Scripture, but that lacking a valid foundation, belief in Jesus is
illogical.  Transformation from what?  Redemption from what?  Neither
 is any longer necessary.  "Come as you are, stay as you are" will be
 the prevailing call.  Jesus -- and His death for our sins -- becomes
 irrelevant.

The failure of the Episcopal Church or its decline into near
 irrelevance will be the jumping off point for elevated attacks on
 other churches until there no longer exists a moral authority which
 will challenge the elevation of human desire and experience.

So am I saying our rector is part of this agenda?  I think only in the
sense that, like so many other clergy, he’s been trained and educated
over the decades to passionately believe in the nice part of the agenda
that appears so benign.  He’s a decent and gentle person and I think he
has a strong faith.  I’m sure he doesn’t recognize the dangers of the
larger agenda and would deny loudly that it’s there.

But sometimes when you’re in the "belly of the beast" everything seems
pretty normal.  It’s only when someone makes noise fighting the beast
from the outside that you realize you may not be where you thought you
were.  That’s our rector’s predicament.  It’s also that of many of our
other priests.

Reason for Hope

As brilliant as this strategy is, however, thousands of faithful
Episcopalians are increasingly seeing through it and are coming
 together to counter it.

It’s true that "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do
nothing" and what keeps my heart steeled for the fight is the knowledge
that a lot of good men and women recognize the danger are not just
standing by and "doing nothing."

I think Martin Luther had it just right when he said:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every
portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which
 the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not
 professing Christ, no matter how boldly I may be professing Christ.

Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.  To
be steady on all battlefields besides is mere flight and disgrace if he
flinches at that point."

I plan to be where the battle rages.  I hope in all sincerity that St.
Thomas’ will in time realize the danger, go to higher ground and keep
this beautiful little parish from becoming nothing more than a
historical site in years to come.  It’s a battle I’d proudly stand
beside you in.

Don’t just take just what I’ve written here or any one person’s
viewpoint to decide which way you want to look at the problem.  There
 is a massive amount of information on both sides of the issue, and if
 you really care what happens to your parish -- and your children and
 grandchildren -- go out and find it.  I know of nothing that’s more
 important.

In Christ’s love and in His promise of hope,

Bill Boniface
Senior Warden