Pastoral generosity?

Let's think about this a moment. Is it really pastorally generous to offer that which Scripture proscribes? I will reiterate a point I've made in a previous note - pecusa has not in over six years offered a credible theological case for the blessing of same sex unions. So, given this, how can this act be pastorally generous? There is no good basis in Christian theology for this, it is proscribed not only in Scripture but in the Anglican Communion, so we must judge that this is not pastoral generosity. It is another case of flagrant pecusa unilateralism. ed.


'Pastoral generosity' comes to the Diocese of Massachusetts

from The Lead by Torey Lightcap

Starting Advent 1, clergy of the Diocese of Massachusetts are being given leave by Bishop Thomas Shaw to solemnize same-gender marriages for eligible couples.

In a letter posted to the blog Telling Secrets, Bishop Shaw clarifies:

Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate. This provision for generous pastoral response is an allowance and not a requirement; any member of the clergy may decline to solemnize any marriage.
Massachusetts clergy are not permitted to use the Prayer Book (in which marriage is described as "the union of husband and wife"), but, in keeping with resolution C056 from this summer's General Convention, are instead encouraged to use other liturgical resources. (That same legislation called on "bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, [to] provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members.")

Otherwise it's business as usual for clergy navigating rules for officiating at marriage services: Shaw notes, "We request that our clergy follow as they ordinarily would the other canonical requirements for marriage and remarriage."

Shaw was quick to point out that the people of the Diocese of Massachusetts had asked for just such provision at their diocesan convention in early November by providing a specific definition of "pastoral generosity" with respect to same-gender marriage.

h/t to Lionel Deimel

Always new ways

From the Mark Harris essay posted below:

"So just as the Presiding Bishop has had to find new ways to work with the canons to provide clarity that particular bishops have indeed abandoned the communion of this Church..."

New ways equals distorting the canons as many observers have noted. The P.B.'s non-canonical actions are not that much different from the distortions of scriptural interpretation that we also get from the left. Note that pecusa has not yet produced a credible theological defense for their innovations and it's been over six years. Also note the independence rather than interdependence that Harris and other pecusa liberals promote in their defense of pecusa unilateralism. The communion of the church means just pecusa and not the wider Anglican Communion. What ever happened to inclusivity?

Thanks be to God

Psalm 138

I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.

All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth, and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.

For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

CIRCLING THE DRAIN

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri held its convention last weekend and Bishop George Wayne Smith wanted attendees to know just how gosh-darned spiffy Episcopal matters are around here:

"The work of mission becomes all the more crucial for a Church like the Episcopal Church, which continues its numerical decline. Over the last decade, our Church has lost 16 percent in Sunday worshipers. In the one year from 2007-8 average Sunday attendance declined 3.1% among domestic dioceses. These are not happy numbers. In that same one-year period the Diocese of Missouri showed a .4 % increase in Sunday worship, which continues the same pattern of radical stability this Diocese has seen for the past decade."

Less than 1%, huh? George, you and I both know that that’s a rounding error, buddy. But what’s the reason for the decline? It’s not about Robbie, insists George.

"I think it is important to say numbers like these out loud, and to do so without blame or scorn. Finding fault is not my purpose; telling the truth is. There are underlying reasons for the decline and they may be other than the supposed reasons—for example less to do with a gay bishop and more to do with the increasingly rapid secularization of American culture. More to do with the small number of babies Episcopalian parents tend to have. But I find that telling the truth about our Church’s decline takes away anxiety."

Mrs. Schori has already famously remarked that Episcopal moms don’t squirt them out as often as the Catholics do. But if “secularization” were a factor, wouldn’t other churches show similar freefalls?

What about those kids who do manage to make out of the womb, eventually decide that the Episcopal Organization has nothing to tell them and join other churches? Does that play a role at all? And then there’s the whole money issue.

"Another matter of numbers must be named, and that is the financial reality affecting people throughout this diocese. Clergy and laity tell me about lay-offs and underemployment, job transfers and job losses. These are pastoral and fiscal realities everywhere in this diocese. Parishes suffer economically whenever people lose jobs and parishes with investment income have seen that income diminish dramatically. Such has been the case for the Diocese of Missouri and our investments. Parish giving has mostly been meeting the anticipated marks—which is not to say that every parish has met the full assessment. But giving this year at least has been close to historic trends. The drop in investment income, however, has taken its toll. And in light of these realities Council has drafted a responsible budget to propose to you. I do not call it a balanced budget for two reasons. On the revenue side there is the realistic projection that the income from parish assessments will be underfunded, and on the expense side there are obligations and possibilities that will not be met—including the the fact of not funding a senior position on my staff. And so I balk at calling this a balanced budget. But even with all the pain involved, it is at least a responsible budget. I remain convinced that we have all the resources, human and financial, to do what God calls us to do. We will have to arrange our work differently than we have in recent years—but the greatest wealth of this diocese lies in the 14,000 Episcopalians living in the eastern half of the state. As we move ahead we will need to tap this human resource more closely."

Meaning: a lot of you are going to have to do a lot more volunteering a lot more often. Moving on, General Convention was a lot of fun without all those damned fundies around.

"The spirit of the General Convention was by far the most pacific of the three I have attended. Most of the the bishops and deputies tried finding ways to move toward one another, despite ongoing disagreement."

Which there wasn’t any of.

"The tensions around the counter-balancing issues of the Anglican Communion and human sexuality did not resolve, nor is such resolution likely in the near term. Even so, my sense was of most people trying to move toward one another."

Are there any conservatives left in this diocese? If there are, I’ve got two words for you and both of them are neener.

"You should know that I remain committed to the Church’s full inclusion of the faithful gay men and lesbians among us, maintaining all the while the greatest degree of communion possible. It is no easy matter. And timing is everything, as far as I can tell. These issues do not always want to balance. I know that for many in the Diocese of Missouri the tension around these matters becomes too painful at times; it does also for me. I am, however, now mostly at peace with this tension, trusting that the Church remains in God’s hands."

I’m sure you are, George. I’m sure it keeps you up at night now and then. George Wayne Smith, if you need him.

another power grab by pecusa leadership?

From preludium (blog) via The Lead (another blog):

"The practice of the Christian life consists of the discernment of, and reliance upon, and the celebration of the presence of the Word of God in the common life of the world." William Stringfellow

11/24/2009

Moving from corporate governance to incorporated governance

The news that there will be a telephonic meeting of Executive Council on December 7th, called by members of Council to address the concerns of members about the anti-gay, anti-freedom of speech, homophobic legislation being considered in Uganda is good news. Difficult, but good.

The news is of course good because in its own strange way the church is getting itself together to make a statement of outrage at the slip back into rampant homophobic hate for which the Uganda's legislation is only an example.

It is difficult news because beneath the surface there are passionate currents running. Some of these passions concern the vision and "place of being" of the GLBT community in the life of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Some concern the matter of the international movement for justice and civil rights. Some concern the governance of The Episcopal Church. Some concern the persons and groups actually governing - The Presiding Bishop, the Officers of the Executive Council / Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the Executive Council itself and the commissions / committees / boards and agencies of The Episcopal Church.

The news is difficult, in other words, because it points to a wide range of issues that, should they be explored, concern a systemic reevaluation of who governs in TEC and why.

The news is also good because the matters raised by the effort to articulate the position which is almost universally acknowledged as being TEC's regarding the repression signaled by the proposed legislation - namely that we oppose and strongly condemn the criminalization of homosexuals - also helps us focus our attention on the need to rethink the future forms of governance in this Church.

This Executive Council, with its particular makeup and with its symbolically important leadership in the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies, and with its feisty entering class of 2009, is in no mood to take past Executive Council patterns of action as normative. The fact that members, rather than the Presiding Bishop, would call a special meeting is significant. That they would do so concerning matters that in the past would have been either brought up in regular session of Executive Council or spoken to by the Presiding Bishop is also worth noting. And, to make matters even more interesting, the members of Executive Council are more and more participant members in a very different community of knowledge and authority - one based on knowledge and authority as shared rather than derivative of this or that matter of merit. All of which is to say that the Executive Council, formed as a mechanism for corporate organization is becoming a mechanism within an incorporated - that is to say incarnated - community.

The development of new senses of the role and function of Executive Council is in part a product of increasing tensions in the Anglican Communion and within the Episcopal Church, tensions that have not adequately been addressed by existing canons and procedures of the church. So just as the Presiding Bishop has had to find new ways to work with the canons to provide clarity that particular bishops have indeed abandoned the communion of this Church, the Executive Council has had to find new ways to deal with the possibility of constant communication and demands for action among its members. Communication beyond the confines of the meetings of the Council begin to yield in passions, concerns, matters of inquiry and even matters of political struggle that were not present when Council could only correspond by snail mail or fax and by telephone, and when the rigors of corporate behavior mitigated against such rash interaction.

So it would appear that Executive Council is on a cusp, to use old age of Aquarius jargon. We are moving from being the corporate board of a corporation - the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society - and the governing body between Conventions of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church - to being the incorporation of a broad based body of elected persons who will define for themselves the limits and actions appropriate to the Council.

Where before we might have expected the corporate board rules to prevail here there are too many "networking" linkages to make those rules of behavior work. Now new ways of communication, new lines of trustworthy or trust building linkages will develop, new sources of power and authority will develop. The Executive Council is no longer understood by its members as being modeled as a corporate board. The message of inclusion, on a board level, has begun to effect the workings of Executive Council itself.

I think this is to the good. But there is no way that it will not be painful. Persons whose offices have power precisely in a corporate model will find these changes very difficult. Others who have built their own position on allegiance to this or that officer will find themselves no longer having a court in which to move about with subsidiary powers. At the same time various factions will develop and at one time or another attempt to become the new corporate officers, not realizing that their powers derive not from the old values of the corporate board but from the new values of the incorporated community.

These are times of heady change and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. However the issue of responding to the the Uganda legislation plays out, the power shifts that result are signaling a move from corporate to incorporate, from carnation to incarnation, from a form of governance based on civil models (and what are bishops except ecclesial alternatives to civil administrators in the Roman Empire) to a form of governance based on a post modern projection of the best of reformation thinking in which the company of believers share the oversight collectively.

I think we are beginning to see in all this a movement beyond the mere shadowing and mimicking of civil structures to a new attempt to grasp the possibility of all the faithful working as an incorporated entity to do the work God has given them to do.

So the good news is that Executive Council is flexing its "incorporated" muscle. The bad news is that until it gets it all worked out there will be the odd wild punch and the occasional one well placed blow below the belt. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and blood on the floor.

And after perhaps a new beginning.

POSTED BY MARK HARRIS AT 11/24/2009 10:11:00 AM

Church Fights for Assets, Members and Legitimacy

A parishioner gave me this story this morning. It's not that different from a number of stories on this subject, but it reminds us what's at stake in terms of property and financial assets. ed.

From the Wall Street Journal via TitusOneNine:

NOVEMBER 25, 2009

As Episcopal Parishes and Dioceses Break From the National Body, Ugly Court Battles Over Valued Property Have Followed

By AMY MERRICK

When the members of St. Luke's of the Mountains Church in La Crescenta, Calif., voted in 2006 to leave the Episcopal Church, they never meant they wanted to leave their church.

But last month, they got notice they were being evicted from the 80-year-old stone structure that had been their spiritual home.

The congregants lost a long legal fight for their building when a court ruled that the national Episcopal Church, which represents the world-wide Anglican Communion in the U.S., and the local diocese were the rightful owners of the property -- not the breakaway leaders.

Divided Congregation Fights for the Church

A sign pointed toward the chapel at Seventh Day Adventist Church. Breakaway congregation St. Luke's Anglican Church is renting the space temporarily.
More photos and interactive graphics
"For many of us, leaving here will be one of the most difficult things we have ever done for God," Rev. Rob Holman said in his last sermon in the building before renting the Seventh Day Adventist Church nearby.


The Vatican has offered Anglicans a chance to return to the Catholic church. Simon Constable speaks with three eminent scholars about the offer to bury the hatchet after a half-millennium.
In the past few years, individual parishes and four dioceses in the U.S. have voted to split from the Episcopal Church, which had about two million members before the split. In June, some of these groups officially founded a rival province, the Anglican Church in North America, which includes some 742 parishes.

The schism reflects arguments over church doctrine, such as the ordination of women priests and the elevation of an openly gay bishop in 2003. Each side argues it best embodies the values and beliefs of the Anglican Communion. The breakaway groups say they are holding true to the Anglican understanding of theology, as the U.S. Episcopal Church moves to the left. The national body says its positions may change over time, but the tenets of the denomination guide those actions.

The split has triggered some ugly battles over the assets. In civil courts nationwide, breakaway parishes are fighting local dioceses and the national Episcopal Church for church property, including financial accounts and endowments. A spokeswoman for the Episcopal Church said she couldn't give an estimate for the value of all church property because there are more than 7,100 congregations. The national body has argued that when local churches became its affiliates, they agreed to abide by its rules, including rules about property ownership.

In Religious Disputes, U.S. Courts Avoid Deciding Matters of Doctrine

The U.S. courts aren't taking a position about which faction is more legitimate -- unlike in Britain, where courts have generally considered which group held more closely to the church's original doctrine. The U.S. Supreme Court, as far back as 1871 and in subsequent cases as recently as 1979, has held that the courts shouldn't get involved in doctrinal disputes. In practice, that meant most times the national church would win such disputes.

Shortly after the 1979 case, the Episcopal Church adopted the "Dennis Canon," which says the national church and the local diocese have a "trust interest" in all local church properties. That trust interest, which says broadly that all parish property is held in trust for the diocese and the Episcopal Church, specifies that if a parish chooses to leave the national body, it must give up control of its property.

Some breakaway churches argue that the Dennis Canon is invalid because local parishes never consented to the arrangement.

Because of the Dennis Canon, courts frequently side with the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was successful in its fight to reassert ownership of the $17 million Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., after a portion of its congregation voted to secede and took control of the property.

But state property laws vary, so sometimes local churches prevail. A September opinion from the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling and declared a breakaway congregation to be the rightful owner of its 60-acre property in a prestigious resort area.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intercede in a property dispute between the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and St. James Anglican Church in Newport Beach, Calif., a more conservative congregation that parted ways with the diocese. The case has returned to Orange County Superior Court.

The stakes are highest in cases in which entire dioceses split from the Episcopal Church. In the Fort Worth, Texas, area, conservatives, who aligned with the Anglican Church in North America, won the allegiance of about 15,000 of the 19,000 members of the original Episcopal diocese. The conservatives have control of nearly all church buildings and financial accounts. Neither side will estimate the value of the buildings and endowments at stake, beyond saying it is in the "many millions."

“Those - from one generation only - who decided to leave should not expect to take this common property with them. It belongs to those who went before -and those who will come after- those who who were and those who still are Episcopalians. ”
— Eric Thomas

Those loyal to the national Episcopal Church are suing to get the property back. The lawsuit also raises the question of which group may use the name and logo of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Both sides say they are best able to carry on the tradition of the church.

"We're trying to be faithful stewards of what previous generations of Episcopalians have given to the church in good faith," says Bishop Edwin Gulick Jr., who was appointed by the national Episcopal Church after the break. "They intended those gifts to be used for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church."

The court battles might do more than divide property. They could also determine which side in the theological dispute some congregants take.

Alice Monson, a 79-year-old member of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hurst, Texas, said she stayed with the conservative faction after the schism in part because it retained control of the sanctuary. She helped paint the Stations of the Cross there. When the church was short of funds, she cut flowers from her home garden to grace the altar.

"To me, it's home," she said. "It's my church. I will stay here."

Asked what she would do if the more liberal faction gains control of the church building, Ms. Monson shook her head. "I'm afraid to address that. It's too painful," she said. "We just keep praying and let the courts take care of it."

In La Crescenta, an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, the breakaway group renamed itself St. Luke's Anglican Church. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church is reorganizing in the disputed building under the church's earlier name, St. Luke's of the Mountains.

On Oct. 18, the church held a reconciliation service. "The message was that everyone is welcome," including members of the breakaway congregation, says Rev. Bryan Jones, the new pastor. "The Episcopal Church never required them to do anything that they in conscience couldn't do."

That message attracted people like Arthur Braudrick, who used to attend St. Luke's with his wife but stopped going when the church started discussing whether to secede. "Female clergy, gay clergy, those things just aren't issues for us," he says. The tone of the reconciliation service impressed Mr. Braudrick.

"There was nothing negative said about the people who left," he says. "If that had been said, we probably would not have returned."

-- Stephanie Simon contributed to this article.

Healing the Fault Lines in Christianity - Introduction - Robert S. Munday

from VirtueOnline

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009 the Fault Lines in Christianity - Introduction
It has been my conviction (indeed, my passion) for quite some time that those of us who are serious about the unity of the Church for which our Lord prayed in John 17, and who are concerned for the contribution that a renewed, orthodox Anglicanism can make to the future of the universal Church, need to take the lead in healing the "fault lines" that have separated Christians for most of the past 1000 years.

Orthodox Anglicans, possessing as we do a comprehensive grasp of the Church—ancient and modern, east and west, catholic and reformed—are uniquely positioned to be the focal point of Christian unity. But to be truly effective as an instrument for uniting the rest of Christianity, we must get our own house in order.

While various jurisdictions in Anglicanism have conducted ecumenical dialogues with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, etc. the great theological divide between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Anglicans has been left untended (ostensibly with a sort of benign neglect) and even occasionally displayed as a sign of Anglicanism's amazing comprehensiveness. The problem is that the neglect in healing such a gaping wound in the Body of Christ is anything but benign.

Why do I consider this to be a gaping wound instead of simply a healthy sign of diversity? For one thing, there is the attitude of suspicion and even hostility with which Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals sometimes regard each other. I have lived among Anglo-Catholics who use the term "Evangelical" as an epithet. And I have lived among Evangelicals who regard Anglo-Catholics as near pagans in need of conversion. I am not referring merely to fringe movements or isolated incidents--the problem exists among church leaders, theological colleges, and church societies associated with Anglo-Catholicism and Anglican Evangelicalism on every continent where there is an Anglican presence. These attitudes (and sometimes actions) are not healthy displays of diversity, they are a reproach to an institution that exists to manifest God's grace and love.

A second reason this division is a gaping wound and not a healthy display of diversity is the magnitude of the theological issues that remain unresolved. I am not going to argue any of these issues for the time being, but merely list some of them.

The nature of justification,
the nature of sanctification,
grace and works,
the nature of a sacrament,
the nature and effects of Baptism,
the nature of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper,
the role of the Virgin Mary,
the authority of the Scriptures in relation to Tradition,
Apostolic Succession,
the nature of the Priesthood (Presbyterate), etc.

Knowledgeable Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals will immediately recognize the point of controversy in each of these issues and also recognize that this is far from a complete list. Just as obvious is the fact that these are not trivial issues.

One might well ask, given the magnitude of the issues, whether reconciliation of the differing viewpoints is possible. But are we willing to say that something for which our Lord prayed is impossible?

I have long maintained that what unites Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals is far greater than that which separates them. The simple tenets of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds are more than sufficient grounds for a very formidable unity:

belief in and worship of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
the Incarnation of the Son in the Person of Jesus Christ,
His virgin birth, atoning death, and resurrection,
the Holy Spirit and His work in the life and ministry of the Church,
belief that there is one holy catholic and apostolic Church,
that there is a resurrection of the body and everlasting life for all who believe these things

This much (and more) we have in common already, and it is of major consequence in establishing both our unity and the basis for our proclamation to the world.

The third reason I believe that orthodox Anglicans must take the lead in overcoming our divisions and manifesting the unity of the Church is that our disunity impairs our witness. It is only a united witness to the truth of the Gospel that can reach a world that is slipping into post-Christianity precisely through the compromise of the message of the Gospel by the western Church in the face of challenges from materialism and secularism on the one hand, and militant Islam and other world religions on the other hand.

To accomplish unity for the sake of the Gospel will entail a healing in our spirits, a working out of theological differences, and a renewed commitment to the integrity of our witness.

To achieve this unity will mean laying aside much of the baggage that characterizes the various parties in Anglicanism. It will require a methodology that enables us to recognize and hold fast to what is essentially Christian. It will call for passions of equal intensity for unity and truth. And it will demand a greater love for God and our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.

This is a beginning of my thoughts along these lines. I will have more to say in future installments.

posted by Robert S. Munday @ 12:49 PM

Advent is coming; are you 'in'?

from The Lead by Torey Lightcap

Advent Conspiracy (as noted by the Cafe in late November 2007 and 2008) is a site in search of a movement, and it's beginning to gain ground.

Banking on the notion that the stickiest of ideas are quite often the simplest, the concept behind Advent Conspiracy -- and an associated site, Rethinking Christmas -- is easily understood: "Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All." As to the third of these:

Before you think we’re getting all Scrooge on you, let us explain what we mean. We like gifts. Our kids really like gifts. But consider this: America spends an average of $450 billion a year every Christmas. How often have you spent money on Christmas presents for no other reason than obligation? How many times have you received a gift out of that same obligation? Thanks, but no thanks, right? We’re asking people to consider buying ONE LESS GIFT this Christmas. Just one. Sounds insignificant, yet many who have taken this small sacrifice have experienced something nothing less than a miracle: They have been more available to celebrate Christ during the advent season.
Meanwhile, conspirators can donate saved monies to the charities of their choosing. (The site touts partnership with Living Water International.)

Last Wednesday, Wired contributor Jonathan Liu noted,

I know, not all of our readers are Christians or celebrate Christmas: on behalf of those of us who have been in-your-face with our “Reason-for-the-Season” buttons..., I apologize, and I hope that this year maybe a small percentage of people will start a new holiday tradition for their families, making Christmas just a little more enjoyable for everyone—especially those who can’t stand it.

Editor's Note: I've been reading the book Advent Conspiracy in preparation for Advent (I know, Advent is preparation for Christmas, but one can't get started too early). It is in the same vein as Ron Sider's work, particularly Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I find it challenging.

Homophobia in Africa: The Real Truth Please

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
November 21, 2009

The headlines screamed loudly enough: "A Groundbreaking PRA Investigation Exposes Influence of U.S. Religious Conservatives in Promoting Homophobia in Africa....U.S. Christian Right mobilizes African clerics in U.S. 'culture war' over ordination of LGBT clergy."

This would hardly be news except that the man who wrote it is an African, designed deliberately to add credence to the "fact" that Africans still hover in the Dark Ages, have multiples marriages, (Christians not Muslims that is,) and as soon as Africans devolve into 21st Century post-modernity with Palm Pilots and 500 channels of mindless television, they will come of age and accept sodomy as good and right in the eyes of God.

"Sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars as U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American fight," according to a groundbreaking investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA).

"Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia", is a new report by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, PRA Project Director and an Anglican priest from Zambia, who also leads churches in the ultra-liberal Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Following a 16-month investigation, Kaoma offers the following thesis:

* The U.S. Right promotes an agenda in Africa that aims to criminalize homosexuality and otherwise infringe upon the human rights of LGBT people while also mobilizing African clerics in U.S. culture war battles. U.S. social conservatives, who are in the minority in mainline churches, depend on African religious leaders to legitimize their positions as their growing numbers make African Christians more influential globally.

* The Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world.

* U.S. conservatives are imposing their own concerns about homosexuality on Africa.

* "Renewal" groups in The Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church USA, and Presbyterian Church USA; U.S conservative evangelicals; and the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a neoconservative think tank that for decades have been undermining Protestant denominations' tradition of progressive social justice work.

* U.S. conservatives have established with religious leaders in Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya and are exporting homophobia from the United States to these Anglophone countries.

* The U.S. Right - once isolated in Africa for supporting pro-apartheid, White supremacist regimes - has successfully reinvented itself as the mainstream of U.S. evangelicalism. Through their extensive communications networks in Africa, social welfare projects, Bible schools, and educational materials, U.S. religious conservatives warn of the dangers of homosexuals and present themselves as the true representatives of U.S. evangelicalism, helping to marginalize Africans' relationships with mainline Protestant churches.

"We need to stand up against the U.S. Christian Right peddling homophobia in Africa," said Kaoma. PRA executive director Tarso Luís Ramos in the report's foreword says "Africa's antigay campaigns are to a substantial degree made in the U.S.A."

Leaders within mainline Protestant denominations hailed the report.

"The exploitation of African Christians by right-wing organizations in the United States is reprehensible. Where were these individuals and organizations and their leaders during the struggles against colonialism and apartheid? They certainly were not standing in solidarity with the people of Africa. Today, they use a variety of corrupt practices and methods in a vain attempt to turn back the tide of history. This report reveals the truth about what is going on and should be required reading for American church leaders," said Jim Winkler, the general secretary of the international public policy and social justice agency of The United Methodist Church.

Political Research Associates (PRA) described itself as a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. "We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights, with a focus on the U.S. political Right."

The report features a cover photo of CANA Bishop Martyn Minns embracing Peter Akinola, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. CANA is an orthodox Anglican Church plant out of Nigeria that broke away from the Episcopal Church over lax faith and even laxer morals. The report argues that it's the Western conservatives who are pushing the anti-gay line into Africa -- not the other way around -- resulting in anti-gay legislation and homophobia that wasn't there before.

So let us look at the claims of the Rev. Kaoma and the PRA.

1. Mainline Protestant churches are slowly but surely succumbing to the siren call of pansexuality. The undisputed leader is the Episcopal Church, followed by the United Church of Christ, more recently the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and The Presbyterian Church USA. One hold out is the United Methodist Church. The laity are pushing hard against their leaders not to go down the rocky road of allowing non-celibate gay pastors and blessing same-sex unions.

2. In all these churches the laity is overwhelmingly orthodox, but they are led by a cadre of vocal liberal bishops and clergy who are pushing for change as they see society move in the same direction on sexuality issues. The truth is evangelical (conservative) laity are more socially conservative and reject homosexuality. In the case of The Episcopal Church, while orthodox clergy and laity were building churches, a small group of liberals and their homosexual pals were taking over the levers of power. Presiding Bishop Edmund Browning was the first of a new breed of bishops that paved the way for homosexual acceptance. He was followed by Frank Griswold and now the appalling Katharine Jefferts Schori.

3. In a book by Miranda K. Hasset, "The Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their Allies are Reshaping Anglicanism" (Princeton University Press, 2007) she argues that North American Anglicans (Episcopalians) reached out to the church of the Global South and Africa, in particular, for help in resisting the drift of The Episcopal Church into the gay-rights culture and that in so doing genuine bonds of affection were formed. (Hasset cannot, by any stretch be considered orthodox in her personal views. She teaches at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.)

4. Theologian missiologist (Rev. Dr.) Stephen Noll who has lived for the past decade in Uganda as V-P of Uganda Christian University notes that the formation of alternative Anglican bodies in North America came as a direct response to the failure of Episcopal leaders to discipline Bishop Walter Righter. "The acquittal of Righter ended the last attempt at inner discipline within the Episcopal Church." Thus began a slow but steady advance of orthodox overseas Anglican jurisdictions onto American soil. What caused this gradual drift toward overseas alliances and "interventions" Noll stated was the steadfast stubbornness and petty meanness of Episcopalian leadership (illiberal liberals marching in lockstep). The secondary cause has been the collaboration between the national Episcopal Church in New York and Anglican Communion office in London, with the consent of the current Archbishop of Canterbury. The final nail in the coffin of Canterbury-led Anglicanism came as Rowan Williams set about to overturn the Feb 2007 decision of the Primates at Dar es Salaam. Rather than calling the Episcopal bishops to a final account as that meeting intended, he invited them all to an "ndaba" at Canterbury (ndaba is Kwazalu for "sensitivity group").

5. In her book, Hasset shows how Anglicans on both sides of the ocean came to appreciate each other. They both share a basic Evangelical theology, although their churchmanship may be quite different. The Revival movement brought with it a kind of Methodism - no drinking, no smoking, conservative dressing - but they had a common deference to Scripture. The question is, did North American Anglicans thrust their sexual agenda on the Africans? Noll notes that a decade ago many African church leaders thought homosexuality was an odd Western custom that was irrelevant to them. The influence of Western media and NGOs made them think again. Furthermore, the devious politics of the New York-London axis made them suspicious of Episcopalians bearing gifts. (Uganda has cut off all Episcopal donations and missionaries since 2003.)

6. The advent of the Internet with world class LISTSERVS like Virtueonline and Anglican Mainstream have countered the spin from ENS and ACNS, bringing the latest string of heresies and apostasies directly into dioceses and bishops e-mails.

7. Countering Kaoma's claim, Hasset, a sociology of religion and globalization expert, says that the liberal paradigm of globalization, according to which nations invariably become more liberal culturally as they develop economically, does not fit Global Anglicanism. In fact, African Anglicans find in the conservative culture of the Anglican tradition some ballast against rampant westernization and support of traditional mores. "In this sense, the North American conservatives may be offering Africans a genuine choice for their future. Many sociologists thought that after independence, Africa would cast off Christianity as so much colonial baggage. Just the opposite has happened: now Africa represents what Philip Jenkins' calls "The Next Christendom". As Noll observes, African Anglicans met up with a congenial body of Western Christians who appreciate their African culture and Evangelical heritage and who bring certain of the the modern gifts - funds, expertise, technology - without the Trojan horse of cultural liberalism.

8. A number of other things should be noted. EDUCATION. There are more bishops with earned Ph.D.s in the Anglican Province of Nigeria, mostly earned in the UK and USA, than in all the House of Bishops in the U.S. Canada, Australia and NZ put together. To argue, as Kaoma does, that Western Anglicans have imposed their views of sexual morality on Africans is not only a colonialist mentality it is also racist. African leaders were and are quite capable of reading the Bible and to exegete it without the help of Western liberal theologians with a pansexual bent. They have politely stood up to the Archbishop of Canterbury and rejected his stand that you can hold private and public views on homosexuality.

9. The birth of GAFCON came from African initiatives not Western, with the single biggest input of bishops and material coming from Nigeria. This Anglican province raised over $1 million in a few short weeks to send a large contingent of African bishops to the Middle East paying for many who could not pay their way.

10. The Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world. This is patently false. Now let us be clear that two Western pan-Anglican gay groups - Integrity USA and Changing Attitude (UK) -- have made repeated allegations about violence towards gays in Nigeria (incited they say by orthodox Anglicans) that have proven false. One of their leaders, Davis Mac-Iyalla, a Nigerian Anglican Gay activist, was exposed as a homosexual predator while touring seminaries in the US. He was roundly condemned by his pro-gay minder for his bad behavior.

The Church of Uganda upholds the sanctity of life and does not support the death penalty proposed in the bill. The irony should not be missed that those who engage in risky sexual behaviors expose men and women to HIV-AIDS often leading such persons to a gruesome death. The church however has been clear in its stand. The Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, speaking on behalf of Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, wrote that the position of the Church of Uganda is that, in Christ, people and their sexual desires are redeemed, and restored to God's original intent. Repentance and obedience to Scripture are the gateway to the redemption of marriage and family and the transformation of society. (Position Paper on Scripture, Authority, and Human Sexuality, May 2005)

Furthermore, The House of Bishops resolved in August 2008 that "The Church of Uganda is committed at all levels to offer counseling, healing and prayer for people with homosexual disorientation, especially in our schools and other institutions of learning. The Church is a safe place for individuals, who are confused about their sexuality or struggling with sexual brokenness, to seek help and healing."

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi in April said he was "appalled to learn that the rumours about homosexual recruiting in our schools and amongst our youth are true. I am even more concerned that the practice is more widespread than we originally thought. It is the duty of the church and the government to be watchmen on the wall and to warn and protect our people from harmful and deceitful agendas." The Ugandan Church also echoed the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1:10 that "Homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture."

"Homosexual behaviour is immoral and should not be promoted, supported, or condoned in any way as an 'alternative lifestyle.' This position has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the House of Bishops and the Provincial Assembly of the Church of Uganda."

What about this echoes of Western interference or "the religious right peddling homophobia in Africa"? It is a complete fiction. Africans are quite capable of thinking for themselves and don't need Westerners to tell them what to believe. They read the Bible in accordance with accepted hermeneutical principles. They are certainly not buying the revisionist nonsense of Bishop John Shelby Spong or the self-absorbed, self-centered homosexual whine of Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

It is also a dead give away that the growth of the Anglican Communion in Africa is in direct relationship with gospel proclamation, while the slow but accelerating death of Western pan-Anglicanism is in direct relationship to its failure to articulate the gospel and Mrs. Jefferts Schori's public repudiation of the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

God is not mocked. The West is reaping what it is sowing. So is the Global South. The only difference is that one is bringing eternal life, joy, peace and hope while the other is sowing the seeds of eternal death, destruction and damnation.

END

Rowan in Rome; Retreat from Reason

by Charles Raven

Apparently unabashed by the chaotic state of the Communion he represents, Rowan William's provocative address to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Rome last Thursday was noted by the media for its strong challenge to the Roman Catholic Church's position on the ordination of women, but its real significance is that it reveals an Archbishop who, far from being discouraged, does really seem to believe his own propaganda, even to the extent that, the recent humiliation of his non-consultation over the Ordinariate notwithstanding, he offers recent Anglican practice as a model for the Vatican to follow in ecumenical relationships.

For an Archbishop with such a strong reputation for thoughtful scholarship and learning, this represents an alarming retreat from reason and will reinforce the concerns of those like Archbishop Bob Duncan who commented earlier this week. In the year 2000, the Archbishop of Canterbury was the second most important Christian leader in the world. In a short space of time that office has utterly been diminished. It shows that the British model of Anglicanism has failed.?

Williams ransacks ecumenical statements since Vatican II to claim that dialogue has led to ?strong convergence? on the essential nature of the Church as a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another. The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us 'in communion'. He then questions whether "the issues that still divide us have the same weight" - issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the Pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).

Each of these three areas which divide Rome from Anglicans - authority, primacy and the ordination of women - are examined in turn and Williams concludes that they are all open questions in the light of the need to serve the greater goal of ?filial and communal holiness as the character of restored humanity? and on this basis calls for greater openness on the part of Rome to practical convergence with non Roman Catholics in a "community of communities" and a "communion of communions."

It is at this practical point that the implausibility of Williams position starts to become evident when, presumably without blushing, he commends the Anglican Covenant process, claiming that "The current proposals for a Covenant between Anglican provinces represent an effort to create not a centralised decision-making executive but a 'community of communities' that can manage to sustain a mutually nourishing and mutually critical life, with all consenting to certain protocols of decision-making together." This is seen as a more ambitious approach than the Anglican Ordinariate of which Williams says somewhat dismissively that "it does not build in any formal recognition of existing ministries or units of oversight or methods of independent decision-making, but remains at the level of spiritual and liturgical culture, as we might say. As such, it is an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some; but it does not break any fresh ecclesiological ground."

But if the Ordinariate is such a modest step - Williams refers to it as a "chaplaincy" - why was he not able to support the formation of such a structure within the Church of England under his own leadership, as the Anglo-Catholic constituency in the Church of England have repeatedly requested? Instead the Church of England seems set upon a legal framework which will drive them out and foreclose the debate in a way which makes a mockery of the model of a "community of communities" reflecting "filial and communal holiness" which Williams is so keen to commend to the Vatican.

The reason for such a glaring contradiction is of course that what Archbishop Duncan describes as "the British model of Anglicanism" now has no coherent theology and is driven by pragmatism. Williams' claim for the Lambeth Communion is that "a degree of recognizability of 'the same Catholic thing' has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration. It is this sort of thinking that has allowed Anglicans until recently to maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves, despite the sharpness of the division over this matter."

The problem is that "the same catholic thing" which can be expressed in the generalised terms of ecumenical statements rapidly dissolves when exposed to questions of actual practice unless there is a clear understanding and practice of authority within the Church. Behind Williams? passing concession to reality in his commendation of Anglican practice - "until recently" - lies the unspoken issue which is even more fundamental than that of women?s ordination, the acceptance of clergy in openly homosexual relationships.

The Windsor covenant process is a pragmatic response to this particular problem and over six years and three drafts has failed to restrain the North American provinces who have been setting the pace in promoting the gay/lesbian agenda and developing a syncretistic form of Christianity behind the facade of tradition. Moreover, the Lambeth "Instruments of Unity" are widely held to have failed - most clearly reflected in the non-representation of some two thirds of the Communions' practising Anglicans at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

The Covenant process itself is now stalled and the current Ridley Cambridge Draft is still very weak on any form of discipline, the key clauses being liberally peppered with the qualification "may"; moreover, it cannot provide a theological basis for the communion because the key theological content of the introduction is explicitly excluded from the Covenant itself as "it may provide challenges to some." Williams commends the Anglican practice of finding "carefully crafted institutional ways of continuing to work together"; the Anglican Covenants have certainly been carefully crafted, but in the interests of short term institutional survival, not long term theological coherence.

So how does the Archbishop find the nerve to commend to the Vatican a model of "doing Church" which is so clearly broken backed? Part of the answer may be in the supportive leader comment of today?s London Times, echoed by other establishment voices, which accuses the Vatican of mounting "a direct challenge to the unity of the Anglican Communion." The liberal British Establishment is rediscovering its anti-papal instincts as it comes to the defence of British Anglicanism.

No doubt Dr Williams takes heart from this endorsement, but it comes with a price tag. The Times comment continues "there is every good reason, in theology and natural justice, for the Church to embrace the ministry of women and homosexuals. Anglicanism will be richer for it. Dr Williams will be a bigger man for espousing it unreservedly." Taking "homosexuals" to mean those actively in such sexual relationships (otherwise the reference would be pointless), this rather overlooks the point that if Rowan Williams were to act as The Times urges him to, he would himself be a direct challenge to the unity of the Anglican Communion, but Rome may quite properly, on the basis of his address this week, wonder whether he has convinced himself that with enough time the agenda of British Anglicanism can still be established in a global communion and even beyond.

Rowan Williams is creating a myth of unity and it is becoming all the more urgent that orthodox global Anglicans committed to confessional unity do not give credence to such a retreat from reason.

Charles Raven
21st November 2009

Christian leaders issue 'call of conscience'

From AP via The Lead:

By The Associated Press (AP) – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON — More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that "Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage," the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for "polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships."
President Barack Obama's desire to reduce the need for abortion is "a commendable goal," but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

"The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense," it says.
Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul.

The declaration also cites threats to health care workers' conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.
Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues

From the New York Times via The Lead:

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: November 20, 2009

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

They say they also want to speak to younger Christians who have become engaged in issues like climate change and global poverty, and who are more accepting of homosexuality than their elders. They say they want to remind them that abortion, homosexuality and religious freedom are still paramount issues.

“We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues,” said Charles Colson, a prominent evangelical who founded Prison Fellowship after serving time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. “A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.”

The document was written by Mr. Colson; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, who is Catholic; and the Rev. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical interdenominational school on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Ala.

They convened a meeting of Christian leaders in Manhattan in September to present the document and gather suggestions. The 4,700-word document is called the “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience.” The New York Times obtained an advance copy.

The document says, “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other antilife act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent.”

Ira C. Lupu, a law professor at George Washington University Law School, said it was “fear-mongering” to suggest that religious institutions would be forced to do any of those things. He said they are protected by the First Amendment, and by conscience clauses that allow medical professionals and hospitals to opt out of performing certain procedures, and religious exemptions written into same-sex marriage bills.

The most likely points of controversy, he said, could involve religious groups that provide social services to the public. Such organizations could be obligated to provide social services to gay people or provide spousal benefits to married gay employees.

Mr. George, the legal scholar at Princeton University, argued that the conscience clauses and religious exemptions were insufficient, saying, “The dangers to religious liberty are very real.”

Manhattan Declaration & Signers

From DeMossNews.com via VirtueOnline:


Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience

Drafted on October 20, 2009

Released on November 20, 2009


Preamble


Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.



Declaration


We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right - and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation - to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.


Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro-abortion ideology prevails today in our government. The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the "need" for abortion - a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as "the culture of death." We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.

A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called "therapeutic cloning." This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and "voluntary" euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."

We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.

A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.

Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and "ethnic cleansing," the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.


Marriage
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24


This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33


In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society - indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as "holy matrimony" to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.

Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits - the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling - and alarming - indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society - and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average - is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.

We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.

We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God's intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to "a more excellent way." As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.

We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being - the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual - on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.

We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being "married." It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.

No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality - a covenantal union of husband and wife - that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as "marriages" sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.

And so it is out of love (not "animus") and prudent concern for the common good (not "prejudice"), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God's creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.


Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21

The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: "Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God" (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God - a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.

Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.

It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law - such persons claiming these "rights" are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti-discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital "civil unions" scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one's own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.

As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust - and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust - undermine the common good, rather than serve it.

Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.



1Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America


Drafting Committee

Robert George
Professor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
Timothy George
Professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford 
University
Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.)


Signers (as of November 19, 2009)

Dr. Daniel Akin
President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, N.C.)
Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola
Primate, Anglican Church of Nigeria (Abika, Nigeria)
Randy Alcorn
Founder and Director, Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM) (Sandy, Ore.)
Rt. Rev. David Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council (Atlanta)
Leith Anderson
President of National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.)
Charlotte K. Ardizzone
TV Show Host and Speaker, INSP Television (Charlotte, N.C.)
Kay Arthur
CEO and Co-founder, Precept Ministries International (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
Dr. Mark L. Bailey
President, Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas)
Most Rev. Craig W. Bates
Archbishop, International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (Malverne, N.Y.)
Gary Bauer
President, American Values; Chairman, Campaign for Working Families
His Grace, The Right Reverend Bishop Basil Essey
The Right Reverend Bishop of the Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America (Wichita, Kan.)
Joel Belz
Founder, World Magazine (Asheville, N.C.)
Rev. Michael L. Beresford
Managing Director of Church Relations, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (Charlotte, N.C.)
Ken Boa
President, Reflections Ministries (Atlanta)
Joseph Bottum
Editor of First Things (New York)
Pastor Randy & Sarah Brannon
Senior Pastor, Grace Community Church (Madera, Calif.)
Steve Brown
National Radio Broadcaster, Key Life (Maitland, Fla.)
Dr. Robert C. Cannada, Jr.
Chancellor and CEO, Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando, Fla.)
Galen Carey
Director of Government Affairs, National Association of Evangelicals (Washington, D.C.)
Dr. Bryan Chapell
President, Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis)
Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver
Timothy Clinton
President, American Association of Christian Counselors (Forest, Va.)
Chuck Colson
Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview (Lansdowne, Va.)
Most Rev. Salvatore Joseph Cordileone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, Calif.
Dr. Gary Culpepper
Associate Professor, Providence College (Providence, R.I.)
Jim Daly
President and CEO, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List (Arlington, Va.)
Rev. Daniel Delgado
Board of Directors, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Pastor, Third Day Missions Church (Staten Island, N.Y.)
Dr. James Dobson
Founder, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
Dr. David Dockery
President, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.)
Most Rev. Timothy Dolan
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of New York, N.Y.
Dr. William Donohue
President, Catholic League (New York)
Dr. James T. Draper, Jr.
President Emeritus, LifeWay (Nashville, Tenn.)
Dinesh D'Souza
Writer and Speaker (Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.)
Most Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan
Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church in North America (Ambridge, Pa. )
Joni Eareckson Tada
Founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center (Agoura Hills, Calif.)
Dr. Michael Easley
President Emeritus, Moody Bible Institute (Chicago)
Dr. William Edgar
Professor, Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia)
Brett Elder
Executive Director, Stewardship Council (Grand Rapids, Mich.
Rev. Joel Elowsky
Drew University (Madison, N.J.)
Stuart Epperson
Co-Founder and Chariman of the Board, Salem Communications Corporation (Camarillo, Calif.)
Rev. Jonathan Falwell
Senior Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church (Lynchburg, Va.)
William J. Federer
President, Amerisearch, Inc. (St. Louis)
Fr. Joseph D. Fessio
Founder and Editor, Ignatius Press (Ft. Collins, Colo.)
Carmen Fowler
President and Executive Editor, Presbyterian Lay Committee (Lenoir, N.C.)
Maggie Gallagher
President, National Organization for Marriage (Manassas, Va.)
Dr. Jim Garlow
Senior Pastor, Skyline Church (La Mesa, Calif.)
Steven Garofalo
Senior Consultant, Search and Assessment Services (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
Dr. Timothy George
Dean and Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (Birmingham, Ala.)
Thomas Gilson
Director of Strategic Processes, Campus Crusade for Christ International (Norfolk, Va.)
Dr. Jack Graham
Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church (Plano, Texas)
Dr. Wayne Grudem
Research Professor of Theological and Biblical Studies, Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix)
Dr. Cornell "Corkie" Haan
National Facilitator of Spiritual Unity, The Mission America Coalition (Palm Desert, Calif.)
Fr. Chad Hatfield
Chancellor, CEO and Archpriest, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Yonkers, N.Y.)
Dr. Dennis Hollinger
President and Professor of Christian Ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, Mass.)
Dr. Jeanette Hsieh
Executive Vice President and Provost, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.)
Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
Senior Pastor, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church (Newport Beach, Calif.); Chairman of the Board, Christianity Today International (Carol Stream, Ill.)
Rev. Ken Hutcherson
Pastor, Antioch Bible Church (Kirkland, Wash.)
Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr.
Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church (Beltsville, Md.)
Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse
President, American Orthodox Institute; Editor, OrthodoxyToday.org (Naples, Fla.)
Jerry Jenkins
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Moody Bible Institute (Black Forest, Colo.)
Camille Kampouris
Publisher, Kairos Journal
Emmanuel A. Kampouris
Editorial Board, Kairos Journal
Rev. Tim Keller
Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church (New York)
Dr. Peter Kreeft
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College (Mass.) and at the Kings College (N.Y.)
Most Rev. Joseph E. Kurtz
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky.
Jim Kushiner
Editor, Touchstone (Chicago)
Dr. Richard Land
President, The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC (Washington, D.C.)
Jim Law
Senior Associate Pastor, First Baptist Church (Woodstock, Ga.)
Dr. Matthew Levering
Associate Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University (Naples, Fla.)
Dr. Peter Lillback
President, The Providence Forum (West Conshohocken, Pa.)
Dr. Duane Litfin
President, Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.)
Rev. Herb Lusk
Pastor, Greater Exodus Baptist Church (Philadelphia)
His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida
Archbishop Emeritus, Roman Catholic Diocese of Detroit
Most Rev. Richard J. Malone
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine
Rev. Francis Martin
Professor of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit)
Dr. Joseph Mattera
Bishop and Senior Pastor, Resurrection Church (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Phil Maxwell
Pastor, Gateway Church (Bridgewater, N.J.)
Josh McDowell
Founder, Josh McDowell Ministries (Plano, Texas)
Alex McFarland
President, Southern Evangelical Seminary (Charlotte, N.C.)
Most Rev. George Dallas McKinney
Bishop, Founder and Pastor, St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ (San Diego)
Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns
Missionary Bishop, Convocation of Anglicans of North America (Herndon, Va.)
Dr. C. Ben Mitchell
Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy, Union University (Jackson, Tenn.)
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)
Dr. Russell D. Moore
Senior Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, Ky.)
Most Rev. John J. Myers
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, N.J.
Most Rev. Joseph F. Naumann
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, Kan.
David Neff
Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today (Carol Stream, Ill.)
Tom Nelson
Senior Pastor, Christ Community Evangelical Free Church (Leawood, Kan.)
Niel Nielson
President, Covenant College (Lookout Mt., Ga.)
Most Rev. John Nienstedt
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Dr. Tom Oden
Theologian, United Methodist Minister; Professor, Drew University (Madison, N.J.)
Marvin Olasky
Editor-in-Chief, World Magazine; Provost, The Kings College (New York)
Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
Rev. William Owens
Chairman, Coalition of African-American Pastors (Memphis, Tenn.)
Dr. J.I. Packer
Board of Governors' Professor of Theology, Regent College (Canada)
Metr. Jonah Paffhausen
Primate, Orthodox Church in America (Syosset, N.Y.)
Tony Perkins
President, Family Research Council (Washington, D.C.)
Eric M. Pillmore
CEO, Pillmore Consulting LLC (Doylestown, Pa.)
Dr. Everett Piper
President, Oklahoma Wesleyan University (Bartlesville, Okla.)
Todd Pitner
President, Rev Increase
Dr. Cornelius Plantinga
President, Calvin Theological Seminary (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. David Platt
Pastor, Church at Brook Hills (Birmingham, Ala.)
Rev. Jim Pocock
Pastor, Trinitarian Congregational Church (Wayland, Mass.)
Fred Potter
Executive Director and CEO, Christian Legal Society (Springfield, Va.)
Dennis Rainey
President, CEO, and Co-Founder, FamilyLife (Little Rock, Ark.)
Fr. Patrick Reardon
Pastor, All Saints' Antiochian Orthodox Church (Chicago)
Bob Reccord
Founder, Total Life Impact, Inc. (Suwanee, Ga.)
His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Frank Schubert
President, Schubert Flint Public Affairs (Sacramento, Calif.)
David Schuringa
President, Crossroads Bible Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Tricia Scribner
Author (Harrisburg, N.C.)
Dr. Dave Seaford
Senior Pastor, Community Fellowship Church (Matthews, N.C.)
Alan Sears
President, CEO, and General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund (Scottsdale, Ariz.)
Randy Setzer
Senior Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church (Lincolnton, N.C.)
Most Rev. Michael J. Sheridan
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Dr. Ron Sider
Director, Evangelicals for Social Action (Wynnewood, Pa.)
Fr. Robert Sirico
Founder, Acton Institute (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. Robert Sloan
President, Houston Baptist University (Houston)
Charles Stetson
Chairman of the Board, Bible Literacy Project (New York)
Dr. David Stevens
CEO, Christian Medical and Dental Association (Bristol, Tenn.)
John Stonestreet
Executive Director, Summit Ministries (Manitou Springs, Colo.)
Dr. Joseph Stowell
President, Cornerstone University (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. Sarah Sumner
Professor of Theology and Ministry, Azusa Pacific University (Azusa, Calif.)
Dr. Glenn Sunshine
Chairman of the History Department, Central Connecticut State University (New Britain, Conn.)
Luiz Tellez
President, The Witherspoon Institute (Princeton, N.J.)
Dr. Timothy C. Tennent
President, Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Ky.)
Michael Timmis
Chairman, Prison Fellowship and Prison Fellowship International (Naples, Fla.)
Mark Tooley
President, Institute for Religion and Democracy (Washington, D.C.)
H. James Towey
President, St. Vincent College (Latrobe, Pa.)
Juan Valdes
Middle and High School Chaplain, Florida Christian School (Miami, Fla.)
Todd Wagner
Pastor, WaterMark Community Church (Dallas)
Dr. Graham Walker
President, Patrick Henry College (Purcellville, Va.)
Fr. Alexander F. C. Webster, Ph.D.
Archpriest, Orthodox Church in America; Professorial Lecturer, The George Washington University (Ashburn, Va.)
George Weigel
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center (Washington, D.C.)
David Welch
Houston Area Pastor Council Executive Director, US Pastors Council (Houston)
Dr. James Emery White
Founding and Senior Pastor, Mecklenburg Community Church (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Hayes Wicker
Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church (Naples, Fla.)
Mark Williamson
Founder and President, Foundation Restoration Ministries/Federal Intercessors (Katy, Texas)
Parker T. Williamson
Editor Emeritus and Senior Correspondent, Presbyterian Lay Committee
Dr. Craig Williford
President, Trinity International University (Deerfield, Ill.)
Dr. John Woodbridge
Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Deerfield, Ill.)
Don M. Woodside
Performance Matters Associates (Matthews, N.C.)
Dr. Frank Wright
President, National Religious Broadcasters (Manassas, Va.)
Most Rev. Donald W. Wuerl
Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Paul Young
COO and Executive Vice President, Christian Research Institute (Charlotte, N.C.)
Dr. Michael Youssef
President, Leading the Way (Atlanta)
Ravi Zacharias
Founder and Chairman of the Board, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (Norcross, Ga.)
Most Rev. David A. Zubik
Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh
James R. Thobaben, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Professor, Bioethics and Social Ethics, Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Ky.)


-30-

Unprecedented coalition of religious leaders call Americans to stand for sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom

From the Catholic News Service via the American Anglican Council:

Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 06:21 am (CNA).- An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues “a clarion call” to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not “under any circumstance” abandon their Christian consciences.

The statement, called “the Manhattan Declaration,” has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox leaders, and will be made fully public at a noon press conference in the National Press Club in Washington DC on Friday.

“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” the statement says.

“We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral,” the signatories explain.

But they also made clear that “we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

The Manhattan Declaration is the result of several months of dialogue among Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christian leaders culminating in a gathering of approximately 100 leaders in New York City on September 28, 2009.

Attendees considered an early draft of the “Manhattan Declaration, A Call of Christian Conscience,” but the document was entrusted to a drafting committee that included Dr. Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, Dr. Robert P. George of Princeton University, and renowned Evangelical leader Charles Colson.

The signatories explained that they speak now because in order "to defend principles of justice and the common good that are now under assault."

"We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but we will under no circumstances render to Caesar what is God’s."

The signatories of the Manhattan Declaration explain that although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, "pro-abortion ideology prevails in many places of power and influence."

"Our government promotes and funds scientific research in which the lives of tiny human beings in the early embryonic states of development are treated as disposable research material."

They also contend that "public policies contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce," while "influential individuals and organizations are seeking to redefine marriage to embrace same-sex partnerships and to recognize multiple-party sexual unions that are beyond same-sex marriage.”

Signatories of the declaration include Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia; Cardinal Adam Maida, Archbishop Emeritus of Detroit; Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver; Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York; Donald W. Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.; John J. Myers, Archbishop of Newark; John Nienstedt, Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis; Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of Kansas City; Joseph E. Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville; Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix; Michael J. Sheridan, Bishop of Colorado Springs; Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, Bishop of Oakland; Richard J. Malone, Bishop of Portland; and David A. Zubik, Bishop of Pittsburgh.

Other signatories include Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America; Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria; Jody Bottum, Editor of First Things; Chuck Colson, Founder of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview; Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List; Dr. James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family; Dr. William Donohue, President of the Catholic League; Most Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan, Primate of the Anglican Church in North America; Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, Founder and Editor of Ignatius Press; Maggie Gallagher, President of Institute for Marriage and Public Policy; Dr. Robert P. George; Fr. Chad Hatfield, Archpriest of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary; Jerry Jenkins, Chairman of the board of trustees for Moody Bible Institute; Jim Kushiner, Editor of Touchstone; Dr. Richard Land, President of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC; Rev. William Owens, Chairman of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council; Michael Timmis, Chairman of Prison Fellowship International; Juan Valdes, Chaplain of Florida Christian School and George Weigel, Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The full document will be available http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/ following the press conference.

A Message from Bishop David Anderson

From the American Anglican Council:

Beloved in Christ,

Some banks, large and small, have gotten into a great deal of trouble during the last year and a half with uncollectible loans and assets that have steeply declined in value. In short, their books don't balance, and people's money is at risk. Fortunately for most bank customers, their accounts are FDIC insured, and when a bank fails, another absorbs it, and the customer's accounts remain relatively safe.

When it comes to churches, another institution that people trust, the same safety isn't always present. Banks hold our money, and if they lose it we can work to gain more, whereas churches deal with our soul, and if we lose that, we can't pick up another at the shopping mall.

As an example, the Episcopal Church (TEC) has vastly overstated their membership strength, withheld the really bad financial news, degraded their theology, lost membership, and their members' souls are in peril. A few orthodox dioceses hold out as exceptions, but in most of TEC the misinformation attempts to hide the interior collapse of what was once a theologically sound and growing denomination. The message used to be about Jesus Christ, Holy Scripture and transformed lives, but now that has morphed into theological diversity and openness to reinterpretation of Scripture, and because Jesus Christ is no longer considered essential to salvation, it puts members' souls at risk eternally.

In a newly authorized advertising campaign, TEC begins by saying, "As Episcopalians, we are followers of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," and this sounds spot-on Christologically. What they don't say is that while they believe this is true for them, if you have another way to God, through Buddha, or Allah, or various other deities, and it works for you, that is fine. All roads lead to the same place. They believe this, but they usually don't advertise it publicly. In contrast, Jesus himself said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and none come unto the Father except through Him.

In stories from around the country, things are not going well for TEC. The last figures we have found for TEC average Sunday attendance were 795,000, although with additional recent departures we suspect it is now lower. The attendance would translate into approximately 1.59 million in membership, yet TEC uses various figures around 2.3 million. What is the real membership total for TEC? More like 1.5 million on the generous side, what with the departures and closures. Speaking of closures, a recent article by David Virtue covers the scope of TEC's internal collapse. The Episcopal Diocese of Maine's Bishop Stephen T. Lane has said that a number of his congregations face "literal bankruptcy." This translates to large decreases in program and mission for the diocesan office itself, yet the bishop had time earlier this year to lobby the state legislature for passage of same-sex marriage. A referendum by the state's voters turned this down, much to the bishop's disappointment.

Virtue also reports that from the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts has come word that church building closures are now a common theme, and that they have had to close the church camp because they can't afford it any more.

Virtue reports that the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York has run into financial trouble. The bishop, Michael Garrison, could recently have sold the St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church building to the departing Anglican congregation, but instead chose to keep the building and pour money into funding a new congregation loyal to him. He has run out of money and has had to close the church plant and prepare to sell the building.

Other church closings are occurring around the United States, but read the Virtue article for the full story. The reality is that theological controversy is splitting and dividing churches all over North America, and it is not limited to the Episcopal Church. A close companion to TEC, sharing intercommunion and interchangeability of clergy, is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). This body is only a few years behind TEC in the rapid plunge into chaos, but, befitting their Scandinavian background, they have tried to be more measured in the process. Nevertheless, at their recent meeting in Minneapolis (site of the 2003 Episcopal Church debacle where the election of a gay bishop was approved) the Lutherans approved steps to authorize homosexual clergy to pastor congregations. This was hotly contested, and the orthodox portion of the Lutheran body began to organize for what they thought might be a departure in a year or so. Mom and Pop Lutheran in the pew thought otherwise, and under some pressure, the conservative group, calling itself CORE, is now preparing for fairly immediate action.

Although some Lutheran sources have advised us that in the ELCA the property belongs to the local congregation as long as it stays within the Lutheran family, the departure of significant numbers of congregations from ELCA, taking their property with them to a new Lutheran Synod, might well prompt the ELCA to invent the hierarchy claim and purport to have a "Svenson Canon," that says people can leave but buildings remain behind. Time will tell, but we wish the Lutheran CORE group the best in their new journey of faith, and pray that they can indeed take their property with them.

Blessings and peace in Christ Jesus,

The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council

_________________________

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth:Parishes file Plea in Intervention

from VirtueOnline

November, 19, 2009

Forty seven parishes and missions of the diocese have filed a Plea in Intervention in the lawsuit against the diocese that is currently before the 141st District Court. Collectively, the 47 churches are termed the "Intervening Congregations."

The plea asks the court to acknowledge through a declaratory judgment that, "in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the title to the real property being occupied and subject to the control of Intervening Congregations is held by the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in trust for the use and benefit of each Intervening Congregation" and that this trust relationship is superior to any other claims.

pecusa's new ad offensive

TEC ad to run in USAToday

from The Lead by Ann Fontaine

Anne Rudig, director of communications for The Episcopal Church announces an ad campaign on the welcoming nature of the Episcopal Church. It will begin on November 20 in USA Today.

Letter from Anne Rudig below:

November 19, 2009

Friends,

An ad focusing on the welcoming nature of The Episcopal Church will run in the November 20 edition of USA Today, receiving national exposure.

The ad, in various sizes, will be made available to dioceses, congregations and provinces from The Episcopal Church Office of Communication.

Centering on "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You", the ad works locally and nationally. The ad is also available in Spanish. The materials will be made available to you on our web site tomorrow.

Our goal is to herald and share our message of "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You", and the copy delves into our identity, our core beliefs, and our heritage.

The ads will be available to dioceses, congregations and provinces at no cost. Additionally, space is provided in the ad for customization of church and web site address. We encourage you to place these ads in your local media outlets.

This is the first in a series of materials that will be made available as an overall communication strategy for The Episcopal Church is developed. I will keep you posted as new initiatives are available.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions.

Faithfully,

Anne Rudig
Director of Communication
The Episcopal Church

LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!!

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

ROWAN WILLIAMS CAN’T HEAR YOU!!

"Let me give an outline of what I want to say in the half an hour or so available. The strong convergence in these agreements about what the Church of God really is, is very striking. The various agreed statements of the churches stress that the Church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another. The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us ‘in communion’. More detailed questions about ordained ministry and other issues have been framed in this context."

Debatable. If your Christian tradition allows a person into a position of church leadership who denies all tenets of the Christian faith(i. e. John Shelby Spong) and then makes no effort whatsoever to remove that man or even express a corporate rebuke of him, your alleged “agreement about what the Church of God really is” can and should be called into serious question by anyone with a functioning intellect.

"Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight"

Yes.

"issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope),"

Yes.

"and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance). "

Yes.

"Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement?"

Given that they presuppose two readings of Scripture that are fundamentally at odds, I’d have to go with yes here too.

"And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion? "

See above.

"But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fullervisible unity?"

Ditto.

"Can there, for example, be a model of unity as a communion of churches which have different attitudes to how the papal primacy is expressed?"

Given the following, I’m thinking not.

"It is of course impossible to open up these issues without some brief reference to issues of very immediate interest in the lives of the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions. The current proposals for a Covenant between Anglican provinces represent an effort to create not a centralised decision-making executive but a ‘community of communities’ that can manage to sustain a mutually nourishing and mutually critical life, with all consenting to certain protocols of decision-making together. As Harvesting notes, Anglicans have been challenged to flesh out their rhetoric about communion through the crises and controversies of recent years, and this is simply part of a variegated response that will, no doubt, continue for a good while yet to be refined and formulated."

In other words, a church that can actually decide stuff now and then can be in communion with a church that avoids actual decisions like the plague. Can’t see it happening, Your Grace. And I doubt that the Holy Father can see it happening either.

The Flea to the Elephant

From The Times (UK) via TitusOneNine:

November 20, 2009

Archbishop tells Pope: there will be no turning back on women priests

Ruth Gledhill and Richard Owen in Rome

The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday made his most outspoken challenge to the Roman Catholic Church since the Pope invited disaffected Anglicans to switch to Rome.

Speaking before he meets Benedict XVI tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams told a conference in Rome that the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a bar to Christian unity.

“For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women,” he said.

The Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism, he said.

Addressing an ecumenical conference at the Gregorian Pontifical University, the Archbishop said that the way Anglican leaders dealt with internal arguments offered lessons for senior Catholics.

“Is it nonsense to think that holding on to a limited but real common life might be worth working for within the Anglican family? And if it can be managed within the Anglican family, is this a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene?”

The ordination of women priests — and the prospect of women bishops — is one of the main reasons why disaffected Anglicans may take up the Pope’s offer of a “Church within a Church” that would enable them to retain traditional Anglican practices within the Catholic faith.

But yesterday the Archbishop made clear that there would be no turning back the clock on women priests in order to appease critics. He dismissed the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans as barely more than a “pastoral response”, which broke little new ground in relations between the two Churches.

Dr Williams said: “It does not build in any formal recognition of existing ministries or methods of independent decision-making, but remains at the level of spiritual and liturgical culture.

“As such, it is an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some; but it does not break any fresh ecclesiological ground,” he told the meeting of senior priests, bishops and cardinals.

Dr Williams put the row over the apostolic constitution, as the Pope’s plan is known, into the context of a centuries-old debate about reuniting the Christian Churches. He questioned whether unity talks should even continue if disagreements over issues such as papal primacy had no hope ever of being resolved.

“I want to propose that we now need urgent clarification of whether these continuing points of tension imply in any way that the substantive theological convergence is less solid than it appears, so that we must still hold back from fuller levels of recognition of ministries or fuller sacramental fellowship,” he said.

But he went on to argue that if there was hope that such issues could be resolved, the Churches could begin to talk about converging their structures of administration and governance, and seeking “sacramental” fellowship.

The speech laid the ground for a frank encounter behind closed doors with the Pope, the highlight of Dr Williams’s Rome trip.

With tensions surfacing behind the scenes at the Holy See, Dr Williams is expected to discuss the Pope’s visit to Britain next autumn, including whether it should be accorded the status of a pastoral or State visit. If it were the latter, it would be the first state visit by a Pope to Britain and he would be the guest of the Queen, who is Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

The Archbishop’s private audience today will be preceded by meetings with the senior Vatican officials Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue. He will also attend a dinner in his honour given by Francis Campbell, the British Ambassador to the Holy See.

Dr Williams will preside at vespers this evening at the Oratory of St Frances Xavier, known as the Caravita church, in the centre of Rome.

Cardinal Kasper was not involved in the formulation of the Pope’s opening to disaffected Anglicans, which was drawn up by the more hardline Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and some of his staff have been dismayed by its impact on ecumenical dialogue.

More on liberal intolerance

From the Alliance Defense Fund via Stand Firm:

ADF files suit against radical group that invaded Mich. church
Group that openly advocates 'riots,' 'crime,' 'insurrection' targeted church for its views

Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 11:10 AM (MST) |

ADF Media Relations | 480-444-0020

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit in federal court Wednesday against a radical anarchist group that openly advocates the use of riots and crime to further its views in favor of homosexual behavior. ADF attorneys filed the suit on behalf of Delta Township’s Mount Hope Church against the group “Bash Back!,” which invaded the church’s building during a worship service on Nov. 9 of last year.

“The use of violent threats and criminal behavior to make a political point should never be acceptable in America,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “Bash Back! revealed how dangerous the homosexual agenda is to our First Liberty, religious freedom. ADF filed this suit to stop Bash Back! and other activist groups from invading churches, disrupting worship, silencing pastors, and terrifying adults and children who attend religious services.”

The Bash Back! Web site, which features a banner photo of members dressed in terrorist-like garb and wielding various objects as weapons, states on one page of the site that the group’s activities include “Riots, Sex Work, Crime, Insurrection, you know the fun stuff we do.” The Lansing chapter of the group targeted Mount Hope Church because of the church’s well-known Christian views on marriage and homosexual behavior. Through another page of its Web site, the group covertly recruited participants for its plans on Nov. 9, seeking some who would be willing to maintain “a more ‘militant’-looking presence out side [sic] of the building.”

“I can tell you that we are targeting a well-known anti-queer, anti-choice radical right wing establishment,” the page said. “However, we cant [sic] give you really any detailed information due to the cop who’s [sic] ridiculous job it is to do surveillance over this blog.... ‘ONLY ONE DIRECTION! TRANS AND QUEER INSURRECTION!’ - Bash Back! Lansing”

On Nov. 9, members of the group dressed in militant garb staged a protest outside the church during a worship service to distract security personnel, blocking access to the building and parking lot at various times. Other members of the group dressed in plain clothes then deceptively entered the building. At a coordinated time, they sprang up to disrupt the service, terrifying many attendees. The group shouted religious slurs, unfurled a sign, and threw fliers around the sanctuary while two women began kissing near the podium. The group pulled fire alarms as they ran out of the building. After the incident, the group bragged about its activities on its Web site and, on a separate page, explained its choice of Mount Hope: “This church is nothing short of a disease in the community, and in the minds of those who attend.”

Federal law imposes penalties upon anyone who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Mount Hope Church v. Bash Back!

ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

Churches head for a showdown in Rome

From the TimesOnline via VirtueOnline:

November 19, 2009

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

Priests returning to the Anglican Church have warned clergy against leaving to become Roman Catholics

A Roman Catholic archbishop has blamed Church of England bishops for keeping their leader in the dark about the Pope’s attempts to entice Anglicans to Rome.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury prepared to visit Pope Benedict XVI for the first time since plans to admit Anglican opponents of women priests into the Roman Catholic faith were published, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, deepened the row.

Archbishop Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that it had been the “duty” of the Anglicans involved in the talks to keep their primate informed about the Pope’s plans.

The Archbishop was defending the Pope against accusations of discourtesy after he failed to alert Dr Williams of the proposals for an Apostolic Constitution, or decree to set up a new Anglican ordinariate. The announcement was sprung on a distressed Dr Williams last month with barely two weeks’ notice.

In an interview with The Tablet, Archbishop Nichols declined to comment on the accusation from the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, Dr Tom Butler, who accused the Holy See of discourtesy in failing to consult Dr Williams.

Archbishop Nichols said: “While approaches had been made to the Holy See, I don’t think that had been conveyed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Frankly it was the duty of the Anglicans to do that.”

The Apostolic Constitution, published by the Vatican this month, enables thousands of disaffected Anglicans to become Catholics. Married Anglican clergy will be allowed to train for the priesthood in seminaries set up within the new Anglican ordinariates. The admission of married men will be “on a case-by-case basis”.

It even allows for married Anglican bishops to be granted the status of retired Catholic bishops, to become members of the local Catholic bishops’ conference and to be allowed to use the “insignia” of episcopal office, such as the mitre, pectoral cross and staff.

Former Catholic priests who left the Church to marry and subsequently became Anglican clergymen will not be permitted to return. More than one in ten Church of England priests who converted to Roman Catholicism over the ordination of women priests have returned to ministry in the established Anglican Church, according to figures released to The Times. Such priests have warned Anglican clergy against going over, with one saying that he had not been made welcome in Catholic churches.

A total of 441 clergy received compensation payments worth £27.5 million when they left the Church of England after the General Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992. Of these, 260 went to the Catholic Church. Thirty-three have returned to stipendiary ministry in the Church of England.

Senior Catholics sought yesterday to quash speculation that the Pope’s visit to Britain next September had been downgraded from a State to a pastoral visit because of the dispute over the new Anglican Ordinariate.

The Queen, who was expected to host the Pope at Buckingham Palace, made no mention of a Papal visit in the Queen’s Speech yesterday. A Church source said that this was because the visit was not due to take place until the end of next year. Downing Street declined to comment.

Marriage of Opposites

From First Things via TitusOneNine:

Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 11:22 AM

Kevin Staley-Joyce

It should be no surprise that the language of same-sex marriage is just as controversial as the arguments for it. The rhetorical choices of same-sex marriage proponents—especially their use of rights language—have been effective in winning over the minds of many young people. While rhetoric is unavoidable and hardly a malum in se, it can diminish understanding when it is used to make, rather than merely buttress, an argument. In a recent article, New York Times legal correspondent Adam Liptak used the phrase “opposite-sex marriage” to refer to unions between heterosexuals. It appears to be the Times’ first revival of the term since the spring of 2004, when same-sex marriages began in Massachusetts. Writing on the details of a court battle in San Francisco, Liptak asserted that the lawyer involved was advocating not, well, marriage, but “opposite-sex marriage.” (Liptak also said the lawyer’s arguments “seemed to fall of their own weight,” in case you’re wondering about his own view).

This kind of language is an anguish, no doubt, to those unrequited Times letter-writers who will soon lose sleep over the new, unwelcome adjective for their marriages. Who was it who said that same-sex marriage wouldn’t change anything but for gays? If we have begun to call marriage by a different name, something significant is afoot. So how is it that the institution that built civilization can so shamelessly be marginalized in a word? The Times could not be reached for comment, but reasons for objection hardly require explanation. On the one hand, there are the obvious objections. Sure, Liptak and the Times are probably trying to exert subtle pressure to change your view of heterosexual marriage as mainstream and same-sex marriage as marginal. And yes, “opposite-sex marriage” is deliberately symmetrical to “same-sex marriage,” suggesting the two kinds of relationships are functionally indistinguishable, or that they are mere variations on an institution that applies identically to gays and straights. But there is, I suspect, a deeper issue as well.

Perhaps Chesterton was on to something when he wrote about fences. In a chapter from The Thing, G.K. fashions an instructive parable on reform:


In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them,
there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably
be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution
or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected
across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it
and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.”
To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer:
“If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away.
Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you
do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense.
The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists
who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put
there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street.
Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good
thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was,
we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable.

Tearing down Chesterton’s fence requires reflection on its purpose, and the proposal to deconstruct is guilty until proven innocent. More importantly, those who would immediately destroy the fence without reflection are exactly the kind of reformers we should fear. So to the question of how marriage can suddenly be rechristened: Language choices, like fences, matter, and we can expect the New York Times editorial board to be in the business of demolition, with flippant disregard for the gravity of calling marriage “marriage.” If we continue to find serious thinkers outside the Times who have no use for marriage in society, let us send them back to think for a while before they decide to uproot any fenceposts. And if, as it seems, marriage is now “opposite-sex marriage” at the Times, we should hope that the change will be a matter of open debate, not subtle suggestion.

Benjamin Guyer: Marriage, Family, and Anglican Viability

From Covenant Communion via TitusOneNine:

On Thursday afternoon, my girlfriend Rachel sent me a brief text in which she indicated her upset over Gene Robinson’s NPR interview earlier that day. I immediately called her and asked what about the interview was so upsetting. Her reply first touched upon the descriptive reality of Robinson’s own profound self-denial about the state of the Episcopal Church – “there is a new kind of peacefulness, really, in the Episcopal Church,” he said – and his advocacy of a GLBTQ platform that gives no substantive place to theology. Rachel then moved from the content of the interview to a prescriptive consideration. Is either Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy in our future? This is not the first time we have had this sort of conversation. The reality of the Episcopal Church – its indifference towards orthodoxy, its recent turn towards an unfettered advocacy of abortion on demand, its unashamed neglect of pastoral care for youth and young people, and its self-important, non-existent intellectual life – have forced us to ask whether or not we will be able to stay in the church that we met in. Rachel and I are not alone in asking this question; we have friends that are wrestled by the same. I love my girlfriend very much, and I believe that we will someday be married and have a family. But in what church will we be married, and where we will we baptize and nurture our children? This is a question that presses on me – sometimes acutely, and always without apology.

The future of the Anglican Communion depends upon young people such as Rachel and myself being able, and not just willing, to remain Anglican. Rachel was raised in the Episcopal Church; I began attending the Episcopal student center at the very end of my senior year at the University of Florida, and was confirmed a year and a half later. The process leading up to confirmation was, in many ways, a difficult one. My parents are ex-Catholics and I was raised in a fundamentalist, charismatic church, but at the age of sixteen I began attending, with the rest of my family, a rather unhealthy Calvinist church. Those were very difficult years for me, and my choice to leave evangelicalism at the age of 21 was preceded (and followed, as it turned out) by years of study, struggle, and tears far removed from merely youthful angst. My choice to seek out a different church was met with considerable hostility by some of my family members, but by that point in my life, I knew enough theology to recognize that liturgy, the sacraments, the creeds, and apostolic succession were necessary and essential features of historic Christianity. At the invitation of a friend, I attended the Episcopal student center in late December 2003. The moment I walked through the doors of the chapel, I experienced for the first time what I have never experienced since: I knew that I was home. Reflecting upon this moistens my eyes; the gratuitous plenitude of that life-changing moment exceeds my command of language. I know what it means to be suddenly and miraculously converted only because of that event.

There were several Anglican doctors whose writings gave theological substance to my prior ecstasy – Rowan Williams among the living, and Michael Ramsey and Lancelot Andrewes among those who now sleep. In the years since, I have been shaped by the metaphysical vision of Richard Hooker and the creative rigor Austin Farrer; I have been nourished by the poetic meditations of Divine Herbert and R. S. Thomas; I have been inspired by saints such as Trevor Huddleston and the recent martyrs of Melanesia. In the last year and a half, I have been amazed to learn of the once-central cult of monarchy, complete with miracles, relics, and liturgical commemorations, which suffused Anglican devotion and self-understanding for hundreds of years. And, I remain fully committed to the conciliar ecclesiology that has increasingly defined Anglicanism beginning with the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. I want to pass on this heritage to my children. How do I do so, when I cannot be certain that I will have a church to raise them in – let alone a church for myself and my girlfriend? The Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon for 01 November 2009, delivered in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of All Saints’ Margaret Street, London, does a wonderful job recognizing the importance of saints, such as those mentioned above, in the Christian life. And yet, although a good bit of ecclesiological realism, united with Christian charity, will go a long way towards healing the wounds that have been – and continue to be – inflicted upon our Anglican body, the faithful lay person who attempts to plan something of his or her future needs to know what the prospects are for continued communion. I want a stable and healthy church in which I might begin and nurture my family. The lack of this as a viable option within the North American context witnesses less to those sad vicissitudes of life that we might learn and grow from, and more to a profound breakdown in pastoral care.

It is without malice when I write that Rowan Williams’ greatest failure as Archbishop of Canterbury has been his persistent belief that Christians can and should act like Christians. This, of course, is not a commentary on Williams himself, but a comment on the current moral, ethical, and theological condition of the Anglican Communion and its bishops, particularly those in places such as the United States of America, Nigeria, Sydney, and Uganda. As the good Archbishop knows, the present situation is indeed chaotic and it is unclear what the future will be, despite the creation of an Anglican Covenant. Given the uncertain timeframe that lingers between the Covenant’s proposal and final adoption, Archbishop Williams would do well to clearly articulate a backup plan that addresses what to do when either a province or a diocese desists from signing it. In particular, this course of action needs to give clear and strong guidance on the messy question of what to do when loyalty and submission to the Anglican Covenant causes a diocese to shatter. Everyone knows that this tragic event will play out time and again across the Anglican Communion, especially within my own province, the Episcopal Church (USA). If no ecclesiological road map is conceived and disseminated before the Covenant is rejected in certain places, a taxing and chaotic situation will be made far worse, and the fruit that it bears may carry bitter seeds for many bitter harvests to come.

No less importantly, but perhaps more painfully, this plan needs to comprehend the realities on the ground. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of faithful Anglicans who are in canonically irregular (invalid?) parishes, not because they find the situation desirable, but because at the end of the day they don’t want to leave Anglicanism. In order to maintain the communal telos of the Episcopal Church’s own constitution, they removed themselves (some, admittedly, for less noble reasons than others). In fact, when it comes to Anglican friends close to my own age, almost all of them have left the Episcopal Church (USA) for such parishes, although I do not know if this gives an accurate indication of the concentration of young people in groups such as the AMiA, ACNA, etc. The opening paragraph of the Episcopal Church’s Constitution, dependent as it is upon Resolution 49 of the 1930 Lambeth Conference, is worth repeating. The Episcopal Church, like all Anglican provinces, is constituted as

a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.

Those who are fueled by this same desire and self-understanding need to be brought into full, visible communion with whatever remains of orthodox Anglicanism within the Episcopal Church (USA). The Anglican Communion has the prerogative to care for itself, to maintain its health, and to discipline and reconstruct its provinces as it sees fit. Simply stated, the Anglican Communion is responsible for seeing that the “the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer” is maintained. This is not done by way of power, however, but by way of self-abasing pastoral care. The membership of the Episcopal Church (USA) is declining at the rate of one diocese per year. Rachel and I are the future of not just the Episcopal Church (USA), but of Anglicanism itself. We need a form of pastoral care that provides a way forward. So do our friends. Our children will need it, too. Is it ironic – or, is it the interruption of grace – that a seemingly basic matter such as the anticipated birth of a future child might so efficiently address the most intractable of theological conundrums?

New Lutheran body to form after gay pastor vote

AP story carried in our local paper and probably yours:

Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009

By PATRICK CONDON - Associated Press Writer

NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. -- The split over gay clergy within the country's largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by next August.
"There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop from State College, Pa.

Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran Coalition of Renewal (CORE), talks with reporters about the creation of a new Lutheran church body for those who wish to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, at WordAlone Network offices in New Brighton, Minn., on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009.
- Craig Lassig /AP Photo
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At its annual convention in Minneapolis in August, ELCA delegates voted to lift a ban that had prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian pastors from serving as clergy. The new policy, expected to take effect in April, will allow such individuals to lead ELCA churches as long as they can show that they are in committed, lifelong relationships.
Opponents, led by Lutheran CORE, said that decision is in direct contradiction to Scripture.
At a September convention, Lutheran CORE members voted to spend a year considering whether to form a new Lutheran denomination. However, its leaders said Wednesday that a heavy volume of requests for an alternative from disenfranchised congregations and churchgoers prompted them to hasten the process.
John Brooks, spokesman at the ELCA's Chicago-based headquarters, said Lutheran CORE's move was not unexpected. He expressed hope that church members would ultimately opt to stay in the denomination as it strives to be "a place for all people despite any differences we might have on any issues."
Neither Brooks nor Lutheran CORE leaders would guess what kind of numbers a new denomination might attract. Lutheran CORE leaders believe there is deep opposition to the new policy among rank-and-file churchgoers, but said some may not be willing to actually depart the ELCA over it.
Brooks said the ELCA has not seen significant departures yet, but he cautioned it's too soon after the August decision to read much into that.
So far, he said, five congregations nationwide have voted to leave the ELCA. More have started the process, with 87 taking a first vote to leave the denomination. Of those, 28 did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to leave the ELCA. In all, there are 10,300 ELCA churches in the country with about 4.7 million members.
If a congregation passes the two-thirds bar on its first vote, it must then wait 90 days before taking a second, final vote that also requires a two-thirds majority.
Other Christian denominations have seen factions split off over the gay clergy debate. In 2003, the 2 million-member Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, a move that alienated American Episcopalians from its worldwide parent, the Anglican Communion. The divide has led to the formation of the more conservative Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 members.
In addition to helping birth a new Lutheran church body, Lutheran CORE leaders said their organization would continue its recent move toward creating a free-floating synod within the ELCA for congregations opposed to the liberalized policy but who don't want to leave the denomination.
Lutheran CORE has also urged supportive congregations to stop paying so-called mission support funds that help supplement the ELCA's operating budget. Last weekend, ELCA leaders reduced their 2010 operating budget by $7.7 million, a move Brooks said was motivated mainly by the U.S. economy but also in part by an expected drop in the mission funds.
Ryan Schwarz, a Lutheran CORE member from Washington, D.C., is charged with leading the organizing effort for the new denomination. He said a committee would begin work immediately on drafting a constitution, building a budget and other steps needed to form the yet-unnamed denomination. They hope to have it ready to go by next August, he said.
"Many of us have spent years now struggling to call the ELCA to remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years," Schwarz said. "While this is of course a wrenching decision, there is also a sense of hope in refocusing on our true mission, which is evangelizing the Lutheran faith."

Appellate court issues stay in response to Mandamus filing

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth via VirtueOnline:

Nov. 17, 2009

The Fort Worth Court of Appeals has ordered the suspension of further proceedings in a suit brought against the diocese last April. The stay was issued late on Monday, Nov. 16, in response to a Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed by the diocese on Friday, Nov. 13. The suit is pending before the 141st District Court. The Hon. John P. Chupp is the trial judge.

Monday’s order, issued by the Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas, says, “The court has considered relators’ [the diocese’s] petition for writ of madamus and motion for stay and is of the tentative opinion that relators are entitled to relief or that a serious question concerning the relief requires further consideration.” The order sets a deadline of 5 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 30, for any response to be filed by parties of interest, who could include Judge Chupp and attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells. The stay is in effect until the Court of Appeals issues a decision.

The petition filed Friday in the appellate court is a method of remedying an error of the trial court. In August a Rule 12 motion was filed by attorney Shelby Sharpe on behalf of the diocese, asking the court to prohibit plaintiffs’ attorneys Nelson and Wells from representing any entity named The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth or the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and to remove those entities as plaintiffs in the suit. Hearings on the Rule 12 motion were held before Judge Chupp on Sept. 7 and Sept. 16. Judge Chupp ruled on Sept. 16 that Nelson and Wells could not represent the diocese associated with Bishop Jack Leo Iker. He declined, however, to find that there is only one Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and one diocesan Corporation, even though the plaintiffs themselves asserted as much in their original filing last April.

Friday’s petition asked the appellate court to order Judge Chupp to grant the defendants’ Rule 12 motion in its original form. The petition summarized the issue with the question, “Do the Plaintiffs’ counsel have authority to bring suit on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth?” and argued that the plaintiff Diocese and Corporation should be dismissed from the case. Such a conclusion would not end the suit itself, but it would prevent the diocese from appearing to sue itself, a situation which is not supportable in law.

A petition for writ of mandamus (literally, a request for a written command from a higher court) was filed because an ordinary appeal is not an adequate remedy to correct a trial court’s error on a Rule 12 motion. Friday’s petition asked the appellate court to require Judge Chupp to find that Nelson and Wells have no authority to represent the diocese and corporation, but that they may represent the individuals claiming to hold office in those entities. Because they represent a minority segment of the diocese which chose to remain aligned under The Episcopal Church, the petition would clarify the clients’ status as leaders of “the diocesan minority.”

At the request of lead attorney Shelby Sharpe, the petition was prepared for the diocese and the diocesan corporation by Scott A. Brister, who retired in September from Place 9 on the Texas State Supreme Court to return to private practice and has joined Sharpe in the defense of the suit. Justice Brister was appointed to the court in November 2003 and subsequently elected for a full term. A Waco native and graduate of Harvard Law School, he has served on the bench in Texas since 1989. He is co-author of the reference book Texas Pretrial Practice.

THAT KIERKEGAARD QUOTE UP TOP THERE

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Washington, DC

Episcopal Bishop and all-around pompous gasbag John Chane engages in one of his favorite pastimes. Thanking God that he is not as other men are:

"Most media coverage of the D.C. Council’s steps toward civil marriage equality for same-sex couples has followed a worn-out script that gives the role of speaking for God to clergy who are opposed to equality. As the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, I would say respectfully to my fellow Christians that people who deny others the blessings they claim for themselves should not assume they speak for the Almighty."

Two things, John. That “fellow Christians” line of yours is a bit problematic since most of us decided a long time ago that the Episcopalians are nothing more than universalists who like to play dress-up but haven’t gotten around to deep-sixing the professional jargon yet. That’s why I finally bailed anyway.

And “people who deny others the blessings they claim for themselves should not assume they speak for the Almighty,” assumes that you think that you do. Considering how often your deity seems to change his mind, most of us have a serious problem with that one.

"Christians have always argued about marriage. Jesus criticized the Mosaic law on divorce, saying “What God has joined together let no man separate.”"

And you abandoned that one when you gave twice-divorced and thrice-married Barry “Third Time’s the Charm” Beisner a pointy hat so why should any Christian listen to what you have to say about marriage again?

"But we don’t see clergy demanding that the city council make divorce illegal."

Welcome to the John Chane Non Sequitur Theater. We also don’t see the Roman Catholic clergy of Washington demanding that the Eucharist be banned in Episcopal outlets since the Piskies don’t believe in the Real Presence. John? When you get a chance, take Matthew 19:3-8 out for a spin some time.

"Some conservative Christian leaders claim that their understanding of marriage is central to Christian teaching. How do they square that claim with the Apostle Paul’s teaching that marriage is an inferior state, one reserved for people who are not able to stay singly celibate and resist the temptation to fornication?"

Actually, they don’t. Ass. What they assert is that it’s not a good idea to rewrite the Word of the living God unless there’s a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud and a really scary voice somewhere nearby. Just seems safer, that’s all.

If “marriage is an inferior state, one reserved for people who are not able to stay singly celibate and resist the temptation to fornication,” then why are you arguing for the rights of homosexuals to marry? Since, you know, what they do is, well…you know…fornication?

"As historian Stephanie Coontz points out, the church did not bless marriages until the third century, or define marriage as a sacrament until 1215."

So what? It was irrelevant until it had a liturgy? Every history of the first century I’ve ever read indicates that marriages were treated as something way more important than me deciding that I’m going to boink you on a regular basis.

Besides, God Incarnate blessed a wedding by His presence and by turning water into…oh, never mind. Pearls before swine and all that.

"The church embraced many of the assumptions of the patriarchal culture, in which women and marriageable children were assets to be controlled and exploited to the advantage of the man who headed their household. The theology of marriage was heavily influenced by economic and legal considerations; it emphasized procreation, and spoke only secondarily of the “mutual consolation of the spouses.”"

John? Let me know when you get to an actual theological argument.

"In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the relationship of the spouses assumed new importance, as the church came to understand that marriage was a profoundly spiritual relationship in which partners experienced, through mutual affection and self-sacrifice, the unconditional love of God."

Not going there, are you, John? I get that.

"The Episcopal Church’s 1979 Book of Common Prayer puts it this way: “We believe that the union of husband and wife, in heart, body and mind, is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord.”"

You don’t have a scriptural leg to stand on and you know it.

"Our evolving understanding of what marriage is leads, of necessity, to a re-examination of who it is for. Most Christian denominations no longer teach that all sex acts must be open to the possibility of procreation, and therefore contraception is permitted. Nor do they hold that infertility precludes marriage. The church has deepened its understanding of the way in which faithful couples experience and embody the love of the creator for creation. In so doing, it has put itself in a position to consider whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry."

Slow WAY down, big man. The Episcopal Organization is not “the Church.” You’ve come to that conclusion; most of the Christian world has come to exactly the opposite one.

Once again. If you give a pointy hat and a hooked stick to old Third Time’s the Charm, you’re not serious about marriage. Period.

"Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition"

To anybody who can read, it is so.

"but a recognition that the church’s understanding of marriage has changed dramatically over 2,000 years."

Translation: homosexuals give us a lot of money, that’s why.

"I have been addressing the sound theological foundation for a new religious understanding of marriage, because it disturbs me greatly to see opposition to marriage for same-sex couples portrayed as the only genuinely religious or Christian position."

No it hasn’t since you haven’t quoted any actual theology to back up your position. John? Give us some Christian theology or shut up.

"I have been addressing the sound theological foundation for a new religious understanding of marriage,"

“The sound theological foundation?” You had me fooled, John.

"because it disturbs me greatly to see opposition to marriage for same-sex couples portrayed as the only genuinely religious or Christian position."

Since the conservatives are relying on the Word of God and you’re not, I don’t get what you’re disturbed about, John.

"D.C.’s proposed marriage equality law explicitly protects the religious liberty of those who believe that God’s love can be reflected in the loving commitment between two people of the same sex and of those who do not find God there. This is as it should be in a society so deeply rooted in the principles of religious freedom and equality under the law."

That’s not how the Archdiocese sees it, John.

The complete Kierkegaard quote from which the above was taken is here:

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

Amen.

Seriously. I’m going to have to start buying and reading lots and lots of Kierkegaard. The Great Dane gets me.

400,000 former Anglicans worldwide seek immediate unity with Rome

from PewForum.org:

by Ruth Gledhill, Sophie Tedmanson, Giles Whittell and Richard Owen
The Times Online

Leaders of more than 400,000 Anglicans who quit over women priests are to seek immediate unity with Rome under the apostolic constitution announced by Pope Benedict XVI. They will be among the first to take up an option allowing Anglicans to join an "ordinariate" that brings them into full communion with Roman Catholics while retaining elements of their Anglican identity.

The Pope's move is regarded by some Anglicans as one of the most dramatic developments in Protestant christendom since the Reformation gave birth to the Church of England 400 years ago.

Archbishop John Hepworth, the twice-married Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, who led negotiations with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, said he was "profoundly moved" by the Pope's decision and would immediately seek the approval of the group's 400,000 members worldwide to join.

He described the development as "a moment of grace, perhaps even a moment of history"

SEWANEE University Regrettably Succumbs to Post-Modernism and Pansexuality-Pt.I

from VirtueOnline:

SEWANEE: University of the South Regrettably Succumbs to Post-Modernism and Pansexuality - Part 1

University Elects Pro-Gay Bishop as Chancellor
Trustees Dump Ft. Worth Bishop's Orthodox Trustees

This is the first in a three-part series on the University of the South, the Episcopal Church's only university with a School of Theology as it transitions into the 21st Century.

Special Investigation and Exclusive Report

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
11/18/2009

Sewanee: The University of the South, The Episcopal Church's only university with a School of Theology continues undergoing profound and troubling changes as it heads into the 21st Century - changes that most who love Sewanee know compromise both its historic and intellectual character as well as its theological integrity.

The campus, affectionately known as "The Mountain," is owned by the twenty-eight southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church. Its Sewanee School of Theology is an official seminary of the church. Known simply as Sewanee, the school has produced 25 Rhodes Scholars and was ranked 36th in the annual US News & World Report list of liberal arts colleges, having fallen in recent years from a high of 24th. Sewanee is a member of the Associated Colleges of the South.

The renaming of The University of the South to "Sewanee: The University of the South" in 2004 was an official attempt to recruit and retain more minority and non-Southern students. Most students and alumni were, and continue to be, offended by the "distancing" University from its historic association with the best of Southern culture.

Two Fort Worth Bodies Tout New Unanimity

From The Living Church via TitusOneNine:


Posted on: November 17, 2009
Now that the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) are separate entities, they are both reporting unanimous decisions by their respective legislative bodies. The decisions move the dioceses away from one another and toward their respective theological commitments.

The convention of the diocese remaining with the Episcopal Church voted unanimously Nov. 14 to:

• Call the Rt. Rev. Wallis C. Ohl as its next provisional bishop. Bishop Ohl succeeds the Rt. Rev. Edwin “Ted” Gulick, who has served as the provisional bishop for 10 months.

• Pledge 21 percent of the diocese’s operating budget to the wider Episcopal Church. The diocese expects a budget of about $600,000.

Delegates also voted to make diocesan constitution and canons conform to those of the Episcopal Church, and declared that the 47 parishes that left the Episcopal Church with the Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker are not compliant with the Episcopal Church’s canon law. Of those 47 parishes, 13 have reorganized to remain in the Episcopal Church’s diocese.

Bishop Gulick ordained the diocese’s first female priest, the Rev. Susan Slaughter, 67, on Nov. 15. Bishop Ohl installed the newly ordained priest as rector of St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church in Keller, a suburb north of Fort Worth.

The ordination prompted letters of congratulations from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and from Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies.

The Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth (Southern Cone) unanimously agreed Nov. 6 and 7 to:

• Accede to the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America, while also remaining a member diocese of the Province of the Southern Cone, based in Buenos Aires.

• Adopt the proposed Anglican Communion covenant.

• Express its intention to work toward “full, visible, and sacramental unity” with the Orthodox Church in America.

• Dissolve its relations with Trinity, Fort Worth; St. Martin’s, Keller; and St. Luke’s, Stephenville. Bishop Iker, with the consent of the Standing Committee, already had released all property to the rectors and vestries of those congregations.

• Praise both Bishop Iker and the Most Rev. Kevin Vann, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, for their friendship and efforts for unity between their dioceses. The same resolution praised Pope Benedict XVI for the Vatican’s expanded welcoming of sojourning Anglicans.

• Authorize Bishop Iker to welcome more affiliating parishes of the diocese.

Both dioceses are contending for parish properties in a lawsuit in the 141st District Court in Fort Worth. On Nov. 16, the Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas ordered suspension of further proceedings until it issues an opinion.

Notes on the 78th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester.

From IndyMediaRochester via TitusOneNine:

LOCAL Review :: Religion

* 15 Nov 2009 07:55:16 PM

78th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester, Hyatt Regency Hotel, November 6-7, 2009. [This is not an official release of the Diocese.]

The convention was presided over by the Rt. Rev. Prince Singh, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester.

About 400 people participated in the main business sessions, including delegates (elected by each parish), rectors and other clergy (including retired clergy and other clergy not directly affiliated with a parish), diocesan staff members, etc.

Friday, November 6

At noon, before the business sessions, workshops and seminars were presented. These were advertised within the diocese, although anyone may register. This year's events were: "Praying in Color", "Ministry to the Unemployed", "Christian Education", "Small Church Music", "Voices of Witness Africa", "Building Bridges: Enhancing Accessibility to Worship and the Church", "Introduction to the Qur'an for Christians", "The Many Faces of Poverty in our Diocese", "Greening our Faith: Launching and Sustaining Environmental Ministries in Churches", "Traces of the [Slave] Trade", "Webpage Management and Digital Faith".

Also available throughout the 2-day convention were displays from various spiritual and community organizations.

At 3:00 PM, the first business session was held for parish delegates, clergy, diocesan staff members and a few others. At the first session, candidates for elected positions were introduced and resolutions were introduced. The elected positions are typically for seats in diocesan committees. This year, nominees were considered for: Commission on Ministry, Diocesan Council, Standing Committee, Trustees.

One resolution was introduced related to asking the national Episcopal Church to contact various parties to ask for the end the blockade by Israel of the Gaza Strip. This follows previous resolutions on other topics related to promoting peace in the Middle East. Normally, resolutions are written well in advance for consideration at the convention. This was the only one that was so prepared, but there are exceptions to the rules that allow resolutions to be introduced during the convention, and that occurred on Saturday as described below.

After a short break, at 5:00 pm the convention was officially convened by Bishop Singh. In general, the bishop chairs the sessions with help from various assistants. Several motions were presented and voted on with respect to the business of the convention, such as approval of the appointments of the assistants, including the chief teller (vote counter), parliamentarian, etc. These appointments are perfunctory and are approved by the delegates and clergy with little or no discussion. The first ballots for the elected positions were then collected. In cases where there are more candidates than available positions, various rules determine the number of votes required for election and other issues. In some cases, a single ballot for a particular position is not sufficient, and rules for runoffs or subsequent ballots come into effect. The first ballot's results were announced on Saturday as described below.

A banquet was held Friday evening for the parish delegates, clergy, diocesan staff members and invited guests. Service awards were presented, dinner was served and social activities were held. The social activities included live music from the Geneseo String Band and simple square dancing.

After the banquet, a small number of meetings occured such as to prepare ad hoc resolutions and to count ballots.

Saturday, November 7

Breakfast for registered participants was provided. At 9:00 AM, a Holy Eucharist service was held. The bishop officiated, and the sermon was provided on video screens by Rev. Marc Andrus of California.

At 11:00 AM, the next business session was held. All of the elections were completed except for one position on the Standing Committee, and a second ballot was required for that position.

The bishop gave his address. He made a distinction between leaders and managers. We need managers, but we also need the visionaries who can provide direction to the managers and others. Times are tough, these days, with a bad economy, violence in our streets and around the world, insufficient health care and political wrangling, etc. However, we as Christians and particularly as Rochester Diocese Episcopalians must work harder to address problems to the best of our ability.

Three resolutions were presented that were related to the bishop's address. These would establish task forces to review the "apportionment" process that calculates parish giving to the diocese, the models of ministry for rural communities and the opportunity to "plant" new congregations in this diocese. These were discussed and passed.

Time was allotted for the groups at each table of 10 to discuss how we came to be Episcopalians and how we might reach out to others. A few groups summarized their discussions.

The Youth Advisory Report proposed a new structure for youth ministry, splitting the diocese into five parts. There was some discussion about the proposal to combine urban and suburban parishes, and the resolution passed.

The 2010 diocesan audit and budget were discussed. Parish apportionments will be discounted 10% from the formula calculation (compared to 15% for the 2009 budget). At last year's convention, the shock of the economic downturn was fresh and unprecedented since WWII. The bishop's address at this year's convention called for renewed energy even in the face of continued trying times. 2010 spending is slightly higher than in 2009, and the delegates passed the budget.

A report was given on "Episcopal Relief and Development" and "Millennium Development Goals". These national and international outreach projects are supported at the national church level, and a local rector is a leading voice. Bishop Singh presented a surprise donation from the diocese.

The election for the position on the Standing Committee was completed.

A resolution to condemn anti-gay legislation in Uganda (that is supported by the Anglican church in Uganda) passed.

The resolution related to peace in the Middle East passed.

The resolutions of courtesy (thanking various parties for their support of the diocese, helping with the convention, etc.) passed.

The next convention is scheduled for November 5-6, 2010.

Seminary of the Southwest to cut 12 staff positions

from The Lead by Jim Naughton:

Twelve staff positions will be cut as the Seminary of the Southwest attempts to trim $1 million from its operating budget, according to a letter from the Very Rev. Douglas Travis. A press release is here.

A source close to those in the restructuring effort said no faculty members are losing their jobs, and the curriculum would not be affected.

A letter sent by members of the Seminary's board to alumni reads in part:

Dear Seminary of the Southwest Alumni:

As alums of the seminary and members of the Board of Trustees, we join with Dean Travis in sharing his Open Letter to the campus community, alumni, and friends. This news will be hard to receive, but we believe these actions are absolutely necessary at this time to secure and preserve the seminary in this economy. The difficult decisions we approved at a special board meeting on November 13, were done with careful thought. As many of us have already experienced in the lives of our parishioners, in our dioceses, and in our congregations, the deep recession is forcing a lot of difficult decisions. In fact, over the past two years, virtually every other Episcopal seminary has had to take similar - and equally challenging - steps.

Our goal in this process is to strategically and significantly pare expenses to assure our ability to continue offering all current degrees and certificates, minimize the impact on our students - and maintain our attractiveness to prospective students - in both the MDiv and CCMV programs, and give us time to move forward with the fund raising necessary to secure Southwest for the future. This fund raising is in two areas: First, a $14 million capital campaign to increase funds for scholarships and fully endow all core faculty positions; and, second, expanding the donor base and the size of the annual fund to support operations.

We are keenly aware that these actions impact our community, and deeply touch the lives of those individuals whose positions are being eliminated. However, given the magnitude of the market decline on our endowment, we believe this was the prudent action in order to protect the institution.

PB: Set aside 'fear and anxiety,'

From The Sacramento Bee via TitusOneNine:

By Jennifer Garza
jgarza@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Monday, Nov. 16, 2009 - 6:31 am

Hundreds of worshippers packed into Sacramento’s Trinity Cathedral on Sunday morning to hear the nation’s leader of the Episcopal Church talk about the need to embrace change.

“Changing isn’t the problem,” said Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her message. “Our fear and anxiety about it is.”

Jefferts Schori spoke to a supportive and welcoming crowd. After all, she interned at the midtown cathedral 16 years ago. Sunday she returned to deliver a message of hope and change for the Episcopal Church that has been marked by controversy in recent years.

Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church for three years, has been at the center of that turmoil.

Many worldwide Anglican leaders – the Episcopal Church is the American branch of the union – have condemned U.S. church leaders for ordaining the first openly gay bishop and welcoming gay clergy. Some conservative U.S. bishops and their parishes broke away from the church over this issue. Membership in all but four U.S. Episcopal dioceses fell last year, according to Jefferts Schori.

“Decisions made here sometimes irritate other people,” said Jefferts Schori. “We also embarrass other parts of the Communion when we talk about sexuality.”

The Episcopal Church in America has about 2.3 million members in the United States and is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Diocese of Northern California has 70 congregations with 14,000 members, according to the diocesan Web site.

Jefferts Schori, 55, spoke as Northern Californian Episcopalians ended their convention. She spoke in a relaxed but friendly style from prepared notes.

During her sermon, the bishop talked about the importance of change, a theme she carried into a question-and- answer forum with churchgoers later.

Worshippers, who came from throughout the Sacramento area, asked about same-sex liturgies, health care reform, growth in the church, and the need to heal racial divisions.

Ruth Lindgren asked about the recent Vatican announcement inviting Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church. Many leaned forward in their pews to hear the bishop’s response.

Jefferts Schori smiled and nodded and said the policy was not new. A similar one had been in effect for 30 years, she said. Then she quoted another bishop.

“The road between Canterbury and Rome is well- traveled,” said Jefferts Schori.

Jefferts Schori had been a Catholic when she was a child and had attended Catholic school. Later, she was drawn to the Episcopal church for its community. She earned a doctorate in oceanography. Then she heard the call to the priesthood. She was elected bishop of Nevada and in 2006 became the first woman to lead the national church.

“I’m still fishing,” she said during the forum.

Afterward, she greeted congregants and posed for photographs.

Members were impressed. “I was heartened by what she said about the importance of inclusivity,” said Leslie Hacia, a member since 1991.

Lindgren was satisfied with how Jefferts Schori answered the question about the Vatican. “I think her answer was perfect.”

The Amusing Spectacle of Virginia’s “Windsor Dialogue Commission” & Peter Lee’s “Legacy”

from Stand Firm by Sarah Hey:

Anglican Mainstream pointed me towards the report of the faux "Windsor Dialogue Commission."

What makes it so amusing is that the "dialogue" is nothing more than a discussion about "when we can go ahead and enact same-sex blessings" . . . but named "the Windsor Dialogue Commission." Of course, since the Windsor Report based its entire prescription on Lambeth 1.10 -- which served as its foundational assumption -- naming a same-sex blessings commission the "Windsor Dialogue Commission" is nothing more than rank propagandistic lies.

So here's what the Diocese of Virginia says about the "Windsor Dialogue Commission" [sic]:

In its report to the 2008 Council, the R-5 Commission recommended, among other things, that a new commission be appointed "to identify the practical steps necessary to provide for the pastoral care and spiritual support of same-gender couples in committed monogamous relationships."

Accordingly, the Bishop appointed the Windsor Dialogue Commission in February of 2008 with the following charge:
• To encourage and continue a process of listening pastorally and prayerfully to all persons in the church concerned about the place of gay and lesbian members of the church, involving gay and lesbian persons themselves in that listening process;
• To seek to discern signs of an emerging consensus in the Diocese of Virginia regarding the issues identified in that listening process;
• To encourage and continue the commitment of the Diocese of Virginia to the processes recommended in the Windsor Report and to recommend ways the Diocese of Virginia may strengthen its support of an engagement with the wider Anglican Communion;
• To engage members of the Diocese of Virginia in educational and discernment events that will contribute to broader understanding and strengthened unity.

And surprise surprise surprise:

"Based on these six groups, with four overwhelmingly positive experiences and two characterized by feelings of impatience for not addressing issues of liturgy and blessings, it appears that there is progress towards an emerging consensus in the Diocese of Virginia for the support of same gender unions."

For sheer gall and spectacle there's nothing like Peter Lee -- dissembling, divisive man that he is -- appointing a same-sex blessings commission and calling it the "Windsor Dialogue Commission" -- when its entire purpose is in direct and utter contradiction to the Windsor Report. May as well call a forced Ukrainian famine a "Five Year Plan."

What are the ultimate consequences, though, of this kind of lying? It means that Peter Lee -- for all of his Pravdaesque propaganda -- will go down in history not as a "unifier" or a great "center aisle" negotiator. In fact, despite his pretensions and his fantasies, he failed to "unify" his diocese. He will go down in history as The Bishop Who Lost The Traditionalists And Split His Diocese -- from top to bottom and from east to west.

And the self-serving man who wanted so very badly to be perceived as The Great Centrist . . . a man who thought he could sweet talk people who disagreed with his rankly heretical theology into unifying around his person rather than around truth . . . turns out to be The Great Divider, The Great Diocese-Splitter, and The Great Preener.

That's his legacy.

And the good thing is . . . many many many Episcopalians, like this one, know that legacy full well.

More on the intolerant left

From the Alliance Defense Fund via Stand Firm:

Calif. professor to student: "Ask God what your grade is"

ADF attorneys file suit against L.A. Community College District after professor calls student 'fascist bastard' for sharing beliefs on faith and marriage

Thursday, February 12, 2009, 8:35 AM (MST) |

LOS ANGELES — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit against officials of the Los Angeles Community College District Wednesday. The lawsuit comes after a professor censored and threatened to expel a student following a speech about his Christian faith, including passing reference to the topic of marriage, during an open-ended assignment in a public speaking class.

"Christian students shouldn't be penalized or discriminated against for speaking about their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel David French. "Public institutions of higher learning cannot selectively censor Christian speech. This student was speaking well within the confines of his professor's assignment when he was censored and ultimately threatened with expulsion."

On Nov. 24, 2008, Los Angeles City College speech professor John Matteson interrupted and ended Jonathan Lopez's presentation mid-speech, calling him a "fascist bastard" in front of the class for speaking about his faith, which included reading the dictionary definition of marriage and reciting two Bible verses. Instead of allowing Lopez to finish, Matteson told the other students they could leave if they were offended. When no one left, Matteson dismissed the class. Refusing to grade the assigned speech, Matteson wrote on Lopez's evaluation, "Ask God what your grade is."

One week later, after seeing Lopez talking to the college's dean of academic affairs, Matteson told Lopez that he would make sure he'd be expelled from school. Matteson's treatment of Lopez during his speech follows an earlier incident in which Matteson told his entire class after the November election, "If you voted yes on Proposition 8, you are a fascist bastard."

"Professor Matteson clearly violated Mr. Lopez's free speech rights by engaging in viewpoint discrimination and retaliation because he disagreed with the student's religious beliefs," said French. "When students are given open-ended assignments in a public speaking class, the First Amendment protects their ability to express their views. Moreover, the district has a speech code that has created a culture of censorship on campus. America's public universities and colleges are supposed to be a 'marketplace of ideas,' not a hotbed of intolerance."

ADF-allied attorney Sam Kim and attorney Michael Parker of the Buena Park firm Sam Kim and Associates, APC, are serving as local counsel in the case.

* Complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in the lawsuit Lopez v. Candaele, including LACC policies, Lopez's speech evaluation sheet, the original letter from ADF to LACC, and LACC's letter in response.
* Fact sheet of the events leading up to the lawsuit.

The ADF Center for Academic Freedom defends religious freedom at America's public universities. ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

America's economic pain brings hunger pangs

From the Washington Post via TitusOneNine:

USDA report on access to food 'unsettling,' Obama says

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people -- including almost one child in four -- struggled last year to get enough to eat.

At a time when rising poverty, widespread unemployment and other effects of the recession have been well documented, the report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides the government's first detailed portrait of the toll that the faltering economy has taken on Americans' access to food.

The magnitude of the increase in food shortages -- and, in some cases, outright hunger -- identified in the report startled even the nation's leading anti-poverty advocates, who have grown accustomed to longer lines lately at food banks and soup kitchens. The findings also intensify pressure on the White House to fulfill a pledge to stamp out childhood hunger made by President Obama, who called the report "unsettling."

The data show that dependable access to adequate food has especially deteriorated among families with children. In 2008, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 percent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce -- 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Among Americans of all ages, more than 16 percent -- or 49 million people -- sometimes ran short of nutritious food, compared with about 12 percent the year before. The deterioration in access to food during 2008 among both children and adults far eclipses that of any other single year in the report's history.

Around the Washington area, the data show, the extent of food shortages varies significantly. In the past three years, an average of 12.4 percent of households in the District had at least some problems getting enough food, slightly worse than the national average. In Maryland, the average was 9.6 percent, and in Virginia it was 8.6 percent.

The local and national findings are from a snapshot of food in the United States that the Agriculture Department has issued every year since 1995, based on Census Bureau surveys. It documents Americans who lack a dependable supply of adequate food -- people living with some amount of "food insecurity" in the lexicon of experts -- and those whose food shortages are so severe that they are hungry. The new report is based on a survey conducted in December.

Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. "This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third World country," said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, the largest organization representing food banks and other emergency food sources.

"It's frankly just deeply upsetting," said James D. Weill, president of the Washington-based Food and Action Center. As the economy eroded, Weill said, "you had more and more people getting pushed closer to the cliff's edge. Then this huge storm came along and pushed them over."

Obama, who pledged during last year's presidential campaign to eliminate hunger among children by 2015, reiterated that goal on Monday. "My Administration is committed to reversing the trend of rising hunger," the president said in a statement. The solution begins with job creation, Obama said. And he ticked off steps that Congress and the administration have taken, or are planning, including increases in food stamp benefits and $85 million Congress just freed up through an appropriations bill to experiment with feeding more children during the summer, when subsidized school breakfasts and lunches are unavailable.
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In a briefing for reporters, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "These numbers are a wake-up call . . . for us to get very serious about food security and hunger, about nutrition and food safety in this country."

Vilsack attributed the marked worsening in Americans' access to food primarily to the rise in unemployment, which now exceeds 10 percent, and in people who are underemployed. He acknowledged that "there could be additional increases" in the 2009 figures, due out a year from now, although he said it is not yet clear how much the problem might be eased by the measures the administration and Congress have taken this year to stimulate the economy.

The report's main author at USDA, Mark Nord, noted that other recent research by the agency has found that most families in which food is scarce contain at least one adult with a full-time job, suggesting that the problem lies at least partly in wages, not entirely an absence of work.

The report suggests that federal food assistance programs are only partly fulfilling their purpose, although Vilsack said that shortages would be much worse without them. Just more than half of the people surveyed who reported they had food shortages said that they had, in the previous month, participated in one of the government's largest anti-hunger and nutrition programs: food stamps, subsidized school lunches or WIC, the nutrition program for women with babies or young children.

Last year, people in 4.8 million households used private food pantries, compared with 3.9 million in 2007, while people in about 625,000 households resorted to soup kitchens, nearly 90,000 more than the year before.

Food shortages, the report shows, are particularly pronounced among women raising children alone. Last year, more than one in three single mothers reported that they struggled for food, and more than one in seven said that someone in their home had been hungry -- far eclipsing the food problem in any other kind of household. The report also found that people who are black or Hispanic were more than twice as likely as whites to report that food in their home was scarce.

In the survey used to measure food shortages, people were considered to have food insecurity if they answered "yes" to several of a series of questions. Among the questions were whether, in the past year, their food sometimes ran out before they had money to buy more, whether they could not afford to eat nutritionally balanced meals, and whether adults in the family sometimes cut the size of their meals -- or skipped them -- because they lacked money for food. The report defined the degree of their food insecurity by the number of the questions to which they answered yes.

DISGRACED GAY GOVERNOR EMERGES AS PRIEST

From thelastcrusade.org via Fr. Dick Kim:

Out of the Closet; Into the Church
McGreevey Finds Higher Calling



What does a gay governor do after he resigns from political office in disgrace?

He becomes an Episcopalian and enters the priesthood.

Jim McGreevey, the former New Jersey love gov, has gone from Turnpike truck stops to All Saints Church in Hoboken, where he is known as “Father Jim.”

Last Sunday, the ex governor administered the sacrament of baptism to a bevy of babies, blessed the Eucharist, and carried the cross during the processional.

In 2004, Mr. McGreevey resigned as Governor of New Jersey after revealing that he is gay and has had an adulterous relationship with another man.

At the time of his resignation with his wife by his side, Democratic Gov. McGreevey said: “At a point in every person’s life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one’s soul and decide one’s unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is. And so, my truth is that I am a gay American.”

The gay American enrolled in a master of divinity program at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Chelsea in 2007. As part of his education, he started an 18-month training program at All Saints in April and is expected to stay until his graduation next spring.

Seminarians like McGreevey are offered such courses as “The Poetry of Ancient Israel” and “Loving Thy Neighbor: The Church and Human Rights.”

McGreevey once described his quest for a third master’s degree as a “spiritual journey,” and said that “at different points in my life, I had grappled with the idea of going into the priesthood.”

Episcopal priests can be married, whether they are male or female, straight or gay, unlike in the Roman Catholic Church, which used to count McGreevey as a member.

McGreevey declined to comment on his new calling.

THREE BISHOPS CONSECRATED, BISHOP HARVEY TO RETIRE

From the Anglican Church in North America:

November 13, 2009

St Catharines, Ontario - Three bishops were consecrated today in St
Catharines, Ontario into the Church of God for ministry in the
Anglican Network in Canada, a diocese of the Anglican Church in North
America. The Right Reverend Stephen Leung, the Right Reverend Charles
Masters and the Right Reverend Dr Trevor Walters were consecrated
today by the Most Reverend Robert Duncan in a service which saw the
participation of 15 bishops and more than 60 priests and deacons from
across North America.

The service of consecration was the culmination of the second synod
(church convention) of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC). During
the synod, ANiC moderator, the Right Reverend Donald Harvey announced
his intention to step down in November 2010. The Right Reverend
Malcolm Harding, who like Bishop Harvey emerged from retirement in
November 2007 to serve as the original bishops of ANiC, re-retired
earlier in June.

It was also announced that the third synod would be held in Ottawa in
early November 2010. The synod is planned to coincide with the visit
by the Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, recently retired Bishop of
Rochester, to ANiC's St George's Anglican Church for their 125th
anniversary celebration.

Messages of greeting, support and encouragement were sent to synod
from a number of bishops from the Church of England and from Primates
(Church leaders) representing the majority of active Anglicans in the
global Anglican Communion.

ANiC is under the Episcopal authority of Bishop Harvey and is a
diocese in the Anglican Church in North America which unites over
100,000 faithful Anglicans from across this continent. It now numbers
33 parishes and eight forming congregations in North America with more
than 3500 in church on an average Sunday.

Members of the Anglican Network in Canada are committed to remaining
faithful to Holy Scripture and established Anglican doctrine and to
ensuring that orthodox Anglicans are able to remain in full communion
with their Anglican brothers and sisters outside North America. The
newly adopted mission statement for the Anglican Network in Canada is
"Building Biblically faithful, Gospel sharing, Anglican churches."

Rowan Williams tries to make the best of it

from the Anglican Samizdat:

As the Anglican empire crumbles around him, Rowan Williams wants to “work together” with Rome to assist in its further dismemberment; the good news is that efforts towards “ecumenism” and “ARCIC” can continue unabated – not that anyone really cares.

Hats off to Rowan, though, for being able to say that this move by the Vatican should not “in any sense be seen as a commentary on Anglican problems”; not many could pull that off with a straight face.

e-Pravda: Conservatives are Racists, Homophobes, and Murderers

From the Not Another Episcopal Church Blog via Stand Firm:

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

And I forgot to mention, secessionists.

Not content with the "Crosswalk" as its sole source of misinformation, the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina (EDUSC) is now using its electronic mouthpiece, the e-DUSC, to turn up the heat on conservatives. What do I mean? First look at the lead page. Highlighted and in headline position is,

_____________e~DUSC specials!______________

A sermon by the Rev. Furman Buchanan about what the life of a former SC bishop has to say about the upcoming episcopal election


I am getting tired of reading sermons, but felt it was my duty to suffer through this one in order to see what the Diocesan House wants us lowly pewsters to hear to guide us in the difficult task of choosing a bishop.

Let's take a look at this sermon. Buchanan starts with words that should pique the ears of any sharp eared pewsitter,

"We just heard what St. Paul wrote to the Ephesian congregation, 'Pray for me…to make known the boldness and mystery of the gospel…pray that I may declare it boldly…'"


I think that is from Ephesians 6. You remember that chapter that no one trusts anymore because of all that nonsense about slaves obeying their masters.


"When the air is thick with controversy, and there is deep tension and strife, when people are confused or abandoning ship, it is just plain common sense not to preach too boldly. In the life of the Church, or of a diocese, or of a congregation, these are the times when it is just plain common sense to avoid 'rocking the boat.' "


When a liberal preacher starts out this way, he is gearing up to "rock the boat."

"What would Jesus do? One of my teachers put it this way: 'Jesus was in the middle of everything but the road!'"


Is he going to attack the Via-Media folks? No way. Read on,

"I want you to notice what has happened in the story according to John’s Gospel that we have been hearing for the past month. In a lovely, green, grassy field by the sea; five thousand people gathered to see what Jesus was all about, and they ended up having an incredible picnic—a sort of holy communion on the hillside.
Jesus slipped away in the night, along with his closest friends; but the crowds came after them. They greeted Jesus, but he challenged their motivation for coming; and then he preached boldly, 'I AM the bread of life!'

You can guess what happened next. The religious folks in the crowd began to complain. (This is what we 'religious folks' do when we get offended.)

But what did Jesus do? He preached even more boldly, he kept on rocking the boat by saying, 'Your ancestors ate the manna …and they died. I am the living bread. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.'

There was even more confusion, tension and disagreement in the crowd. This is when good common sense should’ve kicked in. It is not hard to imagine one of the disciples—someone like you or me—pulling Jesus aside and saying, 'Let’s adjourn debate on this whole “bread of life” thing for the day. It’s not polling well in the crowd. Your numbers are dropping. Let’s sleep on it, and start fresh in the morning.'

But what did Jesus do? He preached even more boldly, he kicked it up another notch by saying, 'Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…' I remind you that Jesus is speaking to people who observed unbelievably strict dietary laws. He just said the most offensive thing imaginable. Flesh-eating and blooddrinking were just too much for the crowd to stomach."


I think he must be talking about traditionalists/orthodox/conservatives! Yes, that must be it.

"John records that the congregation declined from 5000 to 12. And so Jesus asked the twelve, 'Do you also wish to go away?'

I want you to consider what it would be like to serve on a vestry for a congregation that experienced a similar, breath-taking drop in numbers. What would you say to a preacher like Jesus?"


Could he be drawing a parallel to his own ministry? I don't know how long he has been at St. Martins in Columbia, but the growth and development charts from the Episcopal church pages show a membership of greater than 1000 in 2002 dropping to about 650 in 2008.

UPDATE: I received word from an anonymous commenter that most of the decline was during the tenure of another rector. I hear that one got promoted to canon of the Ordinary.

(A note to the uninitiated, the liberal preacher is quite happy with the departure of those annoying conservatives. It is amusing to watch this one use scripture to justify the shrinking Episcopal church, I don't think I have seen this before although I have heard the quality over quantity argument in the past.)

I would feel right at home in this congregation.

"Now imagine standing in the pulpit of that same congregation trying to summon the courage to preach boldly.

What would you say to those who were leaving?

We would much rather hear some 'common sense' preaching, wouldn’t we? Maybe some helpful hints for happy living!

How do you think this would fly?

'Dear people of God, it is time we had a black bishop for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina!'

Does this sound too bold, given the tension that is already present in the Episcopal Church and in our nation?

Does it feel like I’m trying to rock the boat, when our diocesan numbers are declining?"


Oh, I see now. He is obviously going to show how the issues that he thinks are causing the current decline of the Episcopal church (same gender marriages and ordinations of openly gay, divorced men) should be declared boldly and openly because they are the equivalent of racism.

And don't you see, conservatives are racists and homophobes? He is not through and wants to pile it on with even worse associations. Let's see if you pick it up in the following interesting history lesson:

"Well, listen to another story about bold preaching that cuts very close to home.

On Christmas Eve of 1860, God was working yet another miracle inside a young woman whose name was Margaret. She was married to a preacher in Eastover, S.C. They were probably at Church, singing hymns about the Christ child, and dreaming about the child they were expecting. On Christmas Eve—of all days—our state government declared its intention to secede from the United States. It was the 'common sense thing to do' given the tension, strife and disagreement that was all around."


Okay, there are those common sense folks again, remember, this is code for "conservatives." This time he is equating them with secessionists.


"In 1861 the American Civil War began, Abraham Lincoln became President, and Margaret gave birth to William Alexander Guerry. Things were falling apart—Margaret died when William was just a boy. His father struggled to make ends meet. And his grandmother read to him on Sunday afternoons out of the Bible and the Prayer book. Many Episcopal Church leaders in the South wanted to secede from the Church during this time, much like the confederate states. Given the tension, disagreement and strife in the Episcopal Church back then, it was the 'common sense thing to do.'"


Here he uses repetition to emphasize the parallel he is trying to draw between the present day issues of the church and the issues of the 1860's.

"William graduated from high school in Charleston around the end of the Reconstruction Era. It was a time of great tension and uncertainty. He went to Sewanee on a scholarship, and not long after graduating from college decided that he was called to ordained ministry.6 There continued to be much volatility and fear within the Episcopal Church in South Carolina. For example, black clergy and lay persons from St. Mark’s in Charleston were rejected as delegates at the diocesan convention.

In 1888, William graduated from seminary and was ordained at Christ Church in Greenville. He served capably in a number of capacities in South Carolina and beyond during this tense and ambiguous period in the Episcopal Church in S.C. At one diocesan convention there was even a resolution to segregate the blacks into a distinct, and separate organization. In 1907, at Trinity Church (now Trinity Cathedral) in downtown Columbia, William Guerry was elected bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. It was a time of tension and fear not unlike our own time. There was anxiety about a new scientific theory by Charles Darwin,"


Throwing in Darwin is another liberal tactic. It is commonly used to demonstrate the ignorance of traditionalists.

"strife about developing new liturgies for a new 1928 prayer book, tension about race relations, and fear about the economy and about war. And South Carolina Bishop William Alexander Guerry preached boldly about striving for unity, and not uniformity in the Church. He preached boldly that (quote) 'the Church should be broad enough to embrace within its communion…every living soul.'"


Code word warning: "Broad church" means embracing heterodoxy and bad mouthing orthodoxy.

He is trying to draw that parallel again because this is the same language liberals of today use to justify rejection of the Apostolic traditions.

"So now you know that roughly one hundred years ago, a man who grew up in Charleston, S.C., someone whose immediate relatives fought as Confederate Soldiers in the Civil War, someone who was educated at a college chartered to serve young white men from the south—this person stood up in the building we know as Trinity Cathedral in Columbia, S.C. and preached boldly when he said:

“Dear people of God, it is time we had a black bishop for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina!”

Bishop Guerry’s vision of the Church can be summarized in the opening sentences of what we proclaim at a Holy Baptism. There is One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. One God and Father of all. Bishop Guerry wanted all people, regardless of race, to be part of the community of Christ in the diocese, and he wanted a black Bishop Suffragan to work alongside him to build up the Body of Christ in this state."


Without a doubt, Bishop Guerry was bold, a martyr perhaps, and ahead of his time. So what happened to him?

"Bishop Guerry’s dream was never realized. And in 1928, a priest who passionately insisted on the principle of white supremacy walked into the bishop’s office in Charleston and shot him. He died several days later, as a martyr—a witness—for the faith. Bishop Guerry preached boldly, not only with his lips, but with his very life."


We should at this point thank Bishop Guerry for his sacrifice, but what does this have to do with the present issues of sexuality in the church? It is an old liberal argument that says, "The church got it wrong about Darwin, wrong about slavery, wrong about racism, and is wrong about human sexuality."

So why doesn't this preacher come out and boldly state what he believes? (In case you can't guess, he appears to believe in the ordination of non celibate homosexuals) Didn't he start out with, "Pray for me…to make known the boldness and mystery of the gospel…pray that I may declare it boldly…?" I think the only bold thing he did was to mention Lincoln's name in a Columbia South Carolina church.

Why does he instead openly and boldly paint a negative picture of traditional belief?

Because the liberal message does not work. It is ultimately a message of despair. After all, once you throw out all that sexual moralism, all that "Southern obsession with sin" (sorry for the quote from my rector), all that stuff about original sin and the sinful nature of man, and the liberal preacher is left with no explanation for why God became incarnate and died for us. Wo needs Jesus, who needs the church? He will fight with his dying breath any attempts to get the congregation to study and appreciate doctrine and tradition, for he knows that once they do, they will be free of his control, they might challenge his personal agenda, and they might boldly turn "his" church on its head.

This preacher should be honest enough to admit that even his "common sense" and the ruling liberal thought in the Episcopal church might be in the wrong.

I can only conclude that his sermon points to his opinion that,

Conservatives/traditionalists = secessionists/racists/homophobes/the cause of all decisiveness/and...MURDERERS.


Okay, he didn't say it directly, but I think it is there, and I think it is a despicable use of the pulpit. This probably explains where all the people have gone.

He concludes with an appeal to God to keep those evil conservatives out of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.


"I don’t know who the candidates for bishop will be when we gather at Trinity Cathedral this December, but I pray that they will be women and men who are eager to preach just this boldly with their lips and in their lives. I pray they will insist upon a diocese that is broad enough to embrace within its communion every living soul."

(More coded speech and another use of repetition to emphasize a point).

The next question that needs to be answered is this. Who in the diocesan house picked this particular sermon to promote as a "must read" before the bishop election?

If there was ever any doubt as to the leftward bias of the leadership in Columbia, the "Crosswalk" article praising Philip Linder+'s work at the General Convention 2009, and this e-Pravada recommended reading should be sufficient proof that a good old fashioned house cleaning is in order. Diocesan funds should not be used to promote this destructive liberal agenda.

Posted by The Underground Pewster

A Deal That ECUSA Cannot Refuse

From the Anglican Curmudgeon:

Saturday, November 14, 2009

The law must mean nothing any more. Up is down; black is white; and all property of Episcopal parishes everywhere is now the "property of the Episcopal Church." Consider this quote, taken word for word from a press statement issued by the Diocese of San Diego after yet one more California trial court judge ruled that he was not interested in the facts or considering the parties' different versions of them, and that he would give the victory to the Episcopal Church (USA) as a matter of law:

“This decision reaffirms the principle that the property of an Episcopal congregation must be used to further the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church,” said Baker & McKenzie partner, Charles H. Dick, Chancellor of the Diocese and its attorney in the property litigations. “People should be free to leave the Episcopal Church if they wish, but they cannot take the property of the Episcopal Church with them when they depart.”

Consider the anomaly behind the words "the property of the Episcopal Church." It is like speaking of "the property of the association of all people on Facebook" -- the expression is utterly and totally meaningless. There is no property of any kind which belongs to the Episcopal Church (USA). The Episcopal Church (USA) has never owned any property since it was first established in 1789. As an unincorporated association of individual dioceses which was organized at common law, and not under the law of any one State, it cannot hold title to any property of any kind, because the common law does not recognize an association as a separate legal entity. Like the collection of people who have joined Facebook, it is just a group (of other groups called "dioceses"), and is not any one person in the eyes of the law.

The Episcopal Church (USA) thus has no property, can claim title to no property, and cannot even legally call so much as a pencil its own. (It has its DFMS to do that on its behalf -- and believe me, the DFMS also pays for each and every pencil used by ECUSA, because it holds title to all the Church's bank accounts. Unlike ECUSA, the DFMS is a corporation, which the law recognizes as a separate person, and which therefore can take title to real and personal property.)

The legal mind that can allow the words "property of the Episcopal Church" even to be uttered thereby shows all that is wrong with our legal system today, and why we keep getting rulings which are ever more worse and worse from the courts. For over two thousand years now, the system of laws established by the Romans, and taken up and adapted locally by each Western country ever since, has never recognized a voluntary association of people or things as a separate legal entity, or "person", on its own -- it is the modern uniform codes of laws which have finally changed the common law, and declared that associations organized in accordance with their provisions may sue and be sued, and hold title to property, in their own name. (Nothing in those laws provides any cover for associations never organized under the laws of any State to begin with. Just as a State which does not recognize common-law marriage is not required to treat people as married who live together in it for seven or more years, so a State is not required to recognize as a single legal entity a group of people who came together long ago at common law.)

But when the people associated on Facebook decide to acquire, say, a bicycle, or a book, or something else for their common good and enjoyment, they had better have rules already agreed upon among themselves which spell out which of them actually gets to ride the bicycle or read the book when, which is responsible for replacing the bicycle or book if it is stolen or damaged, and which of them can go into court on behalf of the whole group if necessary to reclaim the group's common property. The Episcopal Church (USA) has no such rules -- and for good reason, as I say, because it has never owned any property of its own, and so has not needed to have any such rules.

So please, is it too much to ask of lawyers that they not debase the law, and make people think it means something else when it does not? When there is a perfectly good reason why the Episcopal Church (USA) has never owned any property of any kind since it began 220 years ago, how does it advance public understanding of the actual issues involved to assert that "no one can take the property of the Episcopal Church with them when they depart"?

I tell you what: let every withdrawing parish offer the Episcopal Church (USA) a terrific deal. The parish should offer to return to ECUSA its property in exchange for ECUSA agreeing that the parish can have the parish's property. That way everyone can end up with what is properly theirs, and there will be no need for any further lawsuits. Problem solved!

Posted by A. S. Haley at 12:03 AM

Some Comments on the Kelly Bollinger story

The story is posted below. Most of the 77 comments on this story are of the liberal vs. conservative political variety. Here are two comments that actually have something to say about the Bollinger's situation. ed.

From PressConnects.com

Like most articles about this subject...you have to really search to find the facts as to what actually caused the monetary problems that led to the ultimate bankrupcy filing. Definately, David's early retirement caused a drop in their income and his heart attack and their daughter's cancer treatments created medical expenses...but they did have health insurance, correct? Indeed, they did have a higher deductible than they used to when he was the rector...but how high? 1000? 2500? Did their policy have "max out-of-pocket" caps? Most policies do. So...they were insured, they didn't get turned down for pre-existing conditions, up until 2006 it appears they had access to preventative checkups, they probably had out-of-pocket caps. I feel very sorry for the Bollingers...it's a shame they had to file bankrupcy...I pray they find financial & physical healing. But one has to ask...What can Barack & Michelle Obama possibly do to prevent this type of hard luck story?
11/13/2009 10:57:17 PM

The only reason the family didn't lose its house was that David Bollinger qualified for Social Security disability.So... Whats the point of this story? Looks to me that they managed to save their house, without the need of socialised healthcare? I am wondering, if they will be able to afford the taxes and not end up losing their house anyway when socialised healthcare comes about. Makes you wonder...
11/14/2009 3:45:59 PM

Owego woman shares health care nightmare with Michelle Obama

Note the mention of the DCNY's persecution of Fr. David Bollinger. At the time of this posting the story generated 77 comments at PressConnects.com. ed.

From The Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton):


BY BRIAN TUMULTY •WASHINGTON BUREAU • NOVEMBER 13, 2009, 9:40 PM

WASHINGTON -- Former Owego Mayor Kelly Bollinger never talked publicly about how health care costs pushed her family into bankruptcy more than two years ago -- until Friday.

The occasion was a visit to the White House for an event hosted by first lady Michelle Obama that focused on health problems facing older women.

Unlike two women at the event, who spoke about their personal battles with breast cancer, the 52-year-old Bollinger is in good health.

But four years ago, her husband, David, suffered a heart attack that forced his early retirement in 2006 as an Episcopal minister. Kelly Bollinger, Owego mayor in the late 1990s, had to switch the family's health coverage to a more expensive plan with higher deductibles offered by her employer, the nonprofit Tioga County Council on Addiction.

Around the same time, one of the Bollingers' three daughters, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer while still attending college.

The cancer was treatable, but only a few physicians specialize in treating it. The family had to make periodic trips to Lexington, Ky., as part of Elizabeth's care.

"We took advances on credit cards to pay for medical bills and travel expenses, and after a while it became overwhelming," Kelly Bollinger said.

Elizabeth, who continues to travel to Kentucky for once-a-year treatments, is now married and works as a Chenango County social worker.

Filing for bankruptcy, Kelly Bollinger said, remains an embarrassment.

"But it happens to a lot of people," she said. "It's something people need to know about -- how quickly you can be a completely healthy family and everything purring along just fine, and then two catastrophic illnesses in one family and you can lose everything."

The only reason the family didn't lose its house was that David Bollinger qualified for Social Security disability.

Adding to the Bollinger's struggles, David Bollinger was barred from his church for two years while he was embroiled in a legal dispute with the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. In July 2007, an Episcopal court cleared him of all charges related to diocesan allegations of financial misconduct while he was rector of St. Paul's Church.

At Friday's event, held in the East Room of the White House, the first lady thanked Kelly Bollinger and the other women for their personal stories.

"I can't tell you what the bill that ultimately comes across my husband's desk will look like," Obama said, referring to the health reform legislation working its way through Congress.

But she predicted that whatever is enacted will address the women's biggest concerns by capping out-of-pocket medical expenses, barring insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, requiring coverage for preventive checkups and closing the "doughnut hole" gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage.

Former Gay Youth Leader Re-Emerges to Tell His Dramatic Conversion Story

Via VirtueOnline:

Interview

By Patrick B Craine,
LifeSite News
November 13th, 2009

Two years ago Michael Glatze sent shockwaves through the homosexualist establishment when he declared publicly that he had left his life as a prominent homosexual activist, become Christian, and embraced "normal human sexuality."

However, after being subjected to intense criticism and ridicule following his conversion, Glatze decided to "go inside," "be silent," and "process" for a time, but now says he feels compelled to share his story anew.

In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN), Glatze said that, far from reverting back to his old lifestyle (as many of his critics in the homosexual community said he would) he is "extremely happy, and able to have a very good, normal, healthy life."

Glatze started identifying as homosexual at 20. After that he went on to found a popular homosexualist youth magazine - Young Gay America - in his early 20s, and had become a nationally-recognized media source on homosexual issues by 30.

During that time, however, he began to have doubts about homosexuality, and in 2005, after a decade working in the homosexual movement, he gave it all up, deciding it was "wrong and immoral."

Just prior to leaving his position at the magazine, as he recounted in 2007 when he first went public with his conversion, he wrote on his office computer: "Homosexuality is death, and I choose life."

After announcing his conversion, Glatze says he was "trashed by people who didn't know me to such an extent that I felt I needed to go inside, more, to further understand everything I was discussing."

"The fury that comes from 'gay' people against people like me can be vicious and vile, and it can hurt," he told LSN.

"They stop at nothing to make me feel ashamed for my current stance on homosexuality, and to try to make me doubt what I have experienced in my life."

"I got to a point where I decided to be 'silent,' and turn down offers to speak, and process," he said. Since then he says he has "relied on God, and God alone."

"I have enjoyed living a relatively 'normal' life," he said. "I go to church. I've dated girls. And, I continue to understand the ramifications of the homosexual sin in increasingly deep ways, as I encounter others in the grip of this sin, learn more about human nature, and watch my own experiences - comparing them to the way I might've responded or acted in certain situations just a few years ago."

Now ready to share his story again, he says he is insistent on grounding his identity in God rather than defining himself according to his status as "ex-gay." "I don't want to be some kind of spokesperson that makes this issue seem too much about me," he explained.

"There are countless individuals who have successfully left the homosexual lifestyle, have gotten away from the habits of homosexual sin, and who have happy and healthy lives," he continued. He says he has been edified by "many, many e-mails from people in various parts of the world who related to my story ... who encouraged me to keep going down this road, who are happy, who have left homosexuality far, far behind, who have kids, [and] who have beautiful spouses."

"Part of the problem with 'getting the word out,' is that we're actually just talking about normal human experience," he said. "It's not the kind of thing where you feel the need to take hours out of your life, run around shouting, 'People breathe air.'"

The truth is "obvious," he explained. "Heterosexuality is normal human sexuality, while homosexuality is a deviation. These are obvious things. What is so ground-breaking is how successful activists have been at clouding out reality."

"I think as the angry media continues to perpetuate the myth that homosexuality can't be cured, ... I want to continue to send the message of truth in opposition to that lie," he said, "supported by the fact that I have just continued to be happier, more confident, and much, much more healthy - and much less, less gay - since 2007 and the years before."

END

Former clinic director: Church chilly to my pro-life turn

Another pecusa story of intolerance. None of us are as good as we'd like to be, but the liberal mantra of tolerance is so dishonest and this article is further proof that liberals not only practice intolerance, they also try to muzzle free speech. ed.

From The Washington Times via VirtueOnline:

November 13, 2009

Now feels unwelcome among Episcopalians

By Julia Duin

Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood clinic director whose about-face on abortion prompted her to resign her job, says she's gotten flack for her decision from an unexpected quarter: her own church.

Her Oct. 6 decision to leave Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas - after viewing an ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old fetus two weeks earlier - made headlines, especially when she ended up volunteering at the Coalition for Life center a few doors away. Her former employer filed a restraining order to silence Mrs. Johnson, but a judge threw out the case on Tuesday.

Now she is facing a different kind of music at her parish, St. Francis Episcopal in nearby College Station, the home of Texas A&M University.

Whereas clergy and parishioners welcomed her as a Planned Parenthood employee, now they are buttonholing her after Sunday services.

"Now that I have taken this stand, some of the people there are not accepting of that," she told The Washington Times. "People have told me they disagree with my choice. One of the things I've been told is that as Episcopalians, we embrace our differences and disagreements. While I agree with that, I am not sure I can go to a place where I don't feel I am welcome."

The rector at St. Francis refused to comment on the charge of nonacceptance.

"I do not intend to be dismissive," the Rev. John Williams wrote in an e-mail, "but my pastoral responsibilities to this faith community preclude making public comments. I am sure you understand how important it is for me to foster healthy communication around this emotional issue - that is only possible, as I said, in the context of my pastoral ministry to all."

Mrs. Johnson, 29, spent much of her 20s searching for the right church.

"I was raised Southern Baptist but didn't find the Southern Baptist community was very accepting of my work at Planned Parenthood," she said. "It felt there was a spiritual conflict in what I was doing, but you just begin to rationalize it. I didn't want to leave these women without options, so you begin to think you are doing the right thing, although it doesn't feel right."

As a result, she and her husband, Doug, "had been told by a couple of churches," one being Baptist and the other nondenominational, "that because I worked at Planned Parenthood, we could not be members."

Anglican and Catholic Heads to Meet in Rome

From ethicsdaily.com via TitusOneNine:

By: Francis X. Rocca
Posted: Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:01 am
Section: Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) When Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams meets with Pope Benedict XVI here on Nov. 21, the two men will be making the latest gesture in a four-decade-long effort to achieve unity between their churches.

But some Catholics and Anglicans fear the future of that endeavor could be jeopardized by the Vatican’s plans, announced last month (Oct.), to make it easier for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism. Former Anglicans, many of whom are upset by their church’s growing acceptance of female clergy and homosexuality, will be allowed to join special Catholic dioceses while retaining many of their traditional prayers and hymns, and to a limited extent a married priesthood.

Williams, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, will visit Rome for five days (Nov. 18-22) of meetings and events aimed at “keeping alive the ecumenical endeavor,” said his Vatican envoy, the Very Rev. David Richardson.

“We don’t see it as in any way a comment on the ecumenical conversations,” Richardson said of the Vatican’s move, which he called a “pastoral response” to the requests of disaffected Anglicans. “It’s a side issue for ecumenical dialogue.” Richardson noted that Williams’ visit to Rome was scheduled before the Vatican rolled out its welcome to Anglican dissidents.

Williams remains optimistic about the dialogue, Richardson said, noting that planning will start later this month for the next phase of meetings of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, a project that seeks to resolve conflicts between the two churches’ teachings.

In a celebration of the ecumenical spirit, Williams will take part in an interdenominational service at a Rome church on Nov. 20 with Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Kasper, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, has long discouraged en masse conversions of Anglicans to Catholicism, saying last month that “we are not fishing in the Anglican lake.” Neither Kasper nor any representative of his office appeared at the press conference held last month to announce the new dioceses for former Anglicans.

Williams will also meet with India’s Cardinal Ivan Dias, who along with Kasper attended last summer’s Lambeth Conference, the international meeting of Anglican bishops that the archbishop of Canterbury calls every 10 years.

Dias heads the Vatican’s office for missionary work, which the Catholic and Anglican churches are increasingly carrying out together.

“Despite differences in other areas, in the area of evangelization of peoples there is a marked Anglican-Catholic harmony,” said the Rev. R. William Franklin, academic fellow at the Anglican Center in Rome and a visiting professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Joint evangelization happens not only in the mission fields of Africa and Asia, Franklin said, but even in Europe and the United States, where the Alpha Course and Cursillo programs, of Anglican and Catholic origin respectively, have won endorsements from leaders of both churches.

Addressing another common concern, Williams will meet next week with officials from the Vatican’s office for migrants, refugees and other displaced persons.

According to Richardson, Anglican-Catholic cooperation in the promotion of poverty reduction, social justice and peace is likely to grow in the coming years, regardless of any tensions over theological or moral issues.

“We are always stronger,” Richardson said, “in what we can affirm than in where we disagree.”

MOTES, BEAMS AND STUFF

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, DC is currently embroiled in a controversy with the government of the District of Columbia:

"The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care."

"Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

"Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

"The archdiocese’s statement follows a vote Tuesday by the council’s Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary to reject an amendment that would have allowed individuals, based on their religious beliefs, to decline to provide services for same-sex weddings."

According to the Archdiocese, the District is the one giving the ultimatum.

"The bill provides no exemption for individuals with sincerely-held religious beliefs, as required under federal law. In fact, one council member opposed an amendment that would have respected an individual’s federally-protected, deeply-held religious beliefs by saying that would encourage a “discriminatory impulse.”

"The committee rejected concerns raised in testimony by the ACLU, the Archdiocese of Washington, the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and a group of nationally-recognized legal scholars, including Robin Fretwell Wilson, professor at Washington & Lee University Law School. In calling for broader religious liberty protections in the bill, the experts cited well established United States Supreme Court case law under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal law that applies to the District of Columbia.

"Under the bill, religious organizations do not have to participate in the “solemnization or celebration” of a same-sex marriage ceremony. An earlier version of the bill also exempted them from “the promotion of marriage that is in violation of the entity’s religious beliefs.” The revised language significantly narrows that exemption to the “promotion of marriage through religious programs, counseling, courses, or retreats.”

"As a result, religious organizations and individuals are at risk of legal action for refusing to promote and support same-sex marriages in a host of settings where it would compromise their religious beliefs. This includes employee benefits, adoption services and even the use of a church hall for non-wedding events for same-sex married couples. Religious organizations such as Catholic Charities could be denied licenses or certification by the government, denied the right to offer adoption and foster care services, or no longer be able to partner with the city to provide social services for the needy."

Never ones to miss a chance to bash Catholics, some Episcopalians quickly seized the opportunity. Diana Butler Bass went bat crap and hallucinated the Spanish Armada.

"I don’t like to criticize other people’s religious faiths or churches. There’s plenty enough to criticize in my own Protestant tradition. In the last year, however, we have witnessed a new authoritarian activism on the part of the Roman Church hierarchy that has an impact well beyond the Catholic Church. This new coercive Catholicism is akin to the development of the Christian Right in evangelical churches in the early 1980s–a religious-political movement that reshaped American culture. This is everybody’s business."

Diana? I don’t want to frighten you but…JESUITS!! The Spanish ships are full of them!! And Captain Drake won’t stop bowling!!

"In the last year, new Catholic politics emerged in the Prop 8 campaign in California where the church invested vast resources of money and leadership to overturn gay marriage; and then did the same in Maine. Last week, in a political maneuver worthy of Tom DeLay, authoritarian Catholic bishops forced a Democratic Congress to adopt the Stupak Amendment undermining the legal right to choice by threatening to torpedo health reform. Now they threaten the D.C. City Council? Using the lives of poor people as a political tool?"

“Authoritarian Catholic bishops forced a Democratic Congress to adopt the Stupak Amendment undermining the legal right to choice by threatening to torpedo health reform” is what “bat crap” means, in case any of you were wondering.

Because normally, the idea that Catholic bishops can force a United States Congress to do anything at all is too stupid a concept for normal people to entertain even for a moment. Seriously, Diana. Cut WAY back on the Dan Brown.

"I don’t want to be alarmist about this."

Yes you do.

"Nor, in this ecumenical age, do I wish to be seen as a nativist calling for a new anti-Catholic crusade. That would be a terrible misrepresentation of these concerns."

No point in locking that barn door, D.

"Nor do I want to offend Catholic friends and family."

Yes you do.

"But it is profoundly disturbing that the Roman Catholic Church appears to be using threats and fear to manipulate a democratic political process to enforce Catholic doctrine regarding abortion and human sexuality. There seems to be a political pattern developing that should cause broad-minded citizens–Catholics included–to ask some serious questions regarding what is happening within the Catholic hierarchy."

I can help you with that one. That’s their doctrine and they’re sticking to it.

"Oddly enough, Roman Catholic leaders have adopted a strategy of authoritarian engagement with the body politic at the very moment at which their church is declining. One in ten Americans is now an ex-Roman Catholic, with numbers dwindling, churches closing, a decline in the number of priests and religious, and with only immigration holding the number of communicants steady."

You’re an Episcopalian, Bass. Project much? The papists rock a billion and change worldwide. You claim 2 mil but most people with a functioning intellect know you barely rock 1 mil if that.

"With the church clearly in crisis, the bishops apparently have chosen to use the sick, poor, homeless, children, the faithful laity, and marginal as tools to increase their public power and influence by coercing public policy to fit their theology. You’d think that they would be looking inward to see what is eroding Catholic congregations instead of lobbying Congress and threatening politicians."

That would mean a hell of a lot more if it hadn’t come from a member of a church that has imposed its theology on the entire Anglican Communion and has endangered the Communion’s existence along with the Communion’s programs to help the very sick, poor, homeless and children about which Ms. Butler Bass claims to be so concerned.

Moving on, John Chane, the Episcopal Gasbag Bishop of Washington, DC got this shot in:

"The Episcopal Church and the Roman Catholic Church have significant theological differences on the issue of same-sex relationships, so perhaps it is not surprising that the social service organizations affiliated with the two Churches have reached different conclusions regarding the effect of the legislation to legalize same-sex marriage currently under consideration in the District of Columbia.

"Our partners in ministry have expressed no reservations about the legislation. Episcopalians understand that none of us has the right to violate the human rights of another individual. That’s the law of the District of Columbia. More important, it’s at the core of the Gospel. I hope that the least among us will not be victimized by the struggle over this legislation, and I pray that people of faith will come forward to provide food and shelter if the need arises."

Actually, John, the core of the Gospel is what Jesus accomplished on the Cross but I’ve got to remember who I’m dealing with here. I hope you’re right. And I got to thinking that as far as shelter is concerned, you could fit a boatload of homeless people in the NatCat. Lord knows, nobody else is using it.

The cathedral here in the Diocese of Missouri, Christ Church, does that or used to. One time, one of them stabbed a woman who worked there to death. She was the mother of a good friend of mine at the old parish and someone I knew quite well but if you want to make an omelette and all that.

Jim Naughton’s commenters keep it classy.

"The RC statement is nothing but more mean-spirited bile from an institution that has lost its moral compass completely.

"The leadership of the Roman Church continues to show itself to be morally and ethically disordered. Objectively disordered, at that, for it is one thing just to be unethical or immoral, but for a church to be so, as in this case, is at odds with their “object.”"

Tobias Haller wrote that last one. To continue.

"They add the crime of blackmail now to their “megisterium’s” other moral crimes."

Spell check not working, D-Bag Michael Russell? And when a commenter suggested that people might want to dial down the rhetoric some, Jim told him:

"I don’t think these comments constitute anti-Catholicism. The Church is rightly subject to the same scrutiny as any institution that functions in the public sphere. No more smearing other commenters, please."

I’ll remember that, Jim. I’ll particularly remember that the next time you or anybody else on the Anglican left accuse conservative Anglicans of “hateful” commentary.

PURPOSE-DRIVEN

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Donald Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, is not down with Anglicanorum Coetibus:

An invitation from Rome to join the Catholic Church is “offensive in the extreme,” the head of a breakaway group of Canadian Anglicans says.

“Apart from being an intrusion at the very highest levels of one major church into the internal affairs of another, under the guise of being ecumenical, this invitation offers very little that is new,” Bishop Don Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, told the group’s annual synod Thursday morning.

“I find the words in the official joint communique referring to ‘the Catholic Church and the Anglican Tradition’ offensive in the extreme and reporters who suggested that this may be a solution to the Network’s needs are not really aware of what we truly profess,” he said.

And Dr. Williams fervently hopes that Anglicans don’t do anything rash.

"One is indeed something to do with our contemporary anxieties. We need to tell the stories of the Saints to remind ourselves what is possible and within any Christian family. We need to tell the stories of those who have made God credible to us. And within our Anglican family we need to go on telling a few stories about those who have shown us that it is possible to lead lives of Catholic holiness even in the Communion of the See of Canterbury! We need to be reminded of what we have to be grateful for in the lives of those who within our communion and fellowship have lived out God’s presence and made him credible here in this fellowship with these people. God knows what the future holds for any of us for any of our ecclesiastical institutions, but we can at least begin with what we can be sure of; that God has graced us with the lives of Saints; that God has been credible in this fellowship with these people. This church with its very particular place in the history of the Church of England is one small but significant facet of that great mystery and that great gift. And at times when the future seems more than usually chaotic and uncertain, it doesn’t hurt simply to give thanks."

Bishop Harvey? My lord Archbishop? Four words. Give me a reason.

There is a major problem with the Anglican Christian tradition. Thus far, the only person to propose a solution to that problem has been the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI.

Will I avail myself of that solution? At this point, probably not. Will the Apostolic Constitution cause a major realignment in Western Christendom? Doubtful. Nevertheless, Benedict’s solution has a major advantage over any of its Anglican counterparts.

It exists.

I don’t respect anything simply because it’s old. I was baptized into the Anglican tradition but I’m not wedded to it and I’ve never considered Anglicanism to be anything other than another form of Protestant Christianity.

Therefore, I’m going to need a reason to hang around. There’s a Catholic option in place; there’s no Anglican option in place at all aside from staying put because of something or other that may or may not happen down the road somewhere, with any kind of luck.

The Pope has proposed a procedure whereby conservative Anglicans can enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church if they so desire. Anglicans have proposed nothing in particular. While I may not take Rome up on its offer, the lack of an Anglican alternative makes it less and less likely that I’ll remain any kind of Anglican at all.

Bishop Harvey? My lord Archbishop? As far as this writer and I suspect lots of other Anglicans are concerned, time is something you no longer have.

Archbishop Rowan: 'God knows what the future holds.'

From Ruth Gledhill - Times Online (UK) via VirtueOnline:

November 12, 2009

The Archbishop of Canterbury has pleaded with the Church of England's Catholic Anglicans to remain in communion with Canterbury and resist joining the Pope's new Anglican Ordinariate. He referred to the 'chaotic and uncertain' future of the Anglican Communion but insisted that it was still possible to be holy, Catholic and Anglican.

Preaching at All Saints Margaret Street on All Saints' Day in a sermon just released to me today [family commitments meant I couldn't attend the service, to my great regret], Dr Rowan Williams made reverent reference to the relics of St Therese.

He said it was possible 'to lead lives of Catholic holiness even in the Communion of the See of Canterbury.'

He continued: 'God knows what the future holds for any of us for any of our ecclesiastical institutions, but we can at least begin with what we can be sure of; that God has graced us with the lives of Saints; that God has been credible in this fellowship with these people.'

He said: 'This church with its very particular place in the history of the Church of England is one small but significant facet of that great mystery and that great gift. And at times when the future seems more than usually chaotic and uncertain, it doesn’t hurt simply to give thanks.'

The service marked the 150th anniversary of the consecration of All Saints, one of London's most noted centres of Catholic Anglican devotion.

There might be more from the Archbishop when he speaks at the RSA tonight at the final Tony Blair Faith Foundation seminar on faith and development. And of course he is due to go to Rome himself next week, when he will have an audience with the Pope.

Of course one of the interesting aspects of Archbishop Rowan's own eccesiology illustrated by both sermons is his own innate Catholicism. If he weren't Archbishop of Canterbury, who knows.....?

Rowan Williams: Anglican future looks 'chaotic and uncertain'

From The Times (UK) via TitusOneNine:

November 13, 2009


Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

The future of the Anglican Communion looks “more than usually chaotic and uncertain”, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has admitted.

In what amounted to a plea to the Church of England’s Anglo-Catholics to resist the temptation to convert to Roman Catholicism over the issue of women bishops, he said: “God knows what the future holds for any of us . . .” He insisted, however, that it remained possible to be at once holy, Catholic and Anglican.

Dr Williams did not refer directly to the Pope’s response to requests from some Church of England bishops and traditional Anglicans around the world for a means of admission to the Catholic Church. He said that it was still possible “to lead lives of Catholic holiness even in the Communion of the See of Canterbury”.

The Catholic Church’s Holy See published the Apostolic Constitution or Papal decree this week, setting out the norms for the new Anglican Ordinariate, which will allow Anglo-Catholics to become Roman Catholics while still retaining their liturgies and other aspects of their Anglican heritage.

The new ordinariate is likely to be named after Cardinal John Henry Newman, the Catholic convert from Anglicanism who is to be beatified next year when the Pope visits Britain.

Dozens of members of the traditionalist group Forward in Faith could opt to move to the ordinariate if the Church of England General Synod proceeds with the consecration of women bishops without making some kind of statutory provision.

Dr Williams was preaching on All Saints’ Day at All Saints, Central London, at a service to mark the 150th anniversary of the church’s consecration. All Saints is a prominent centre of Catholic Anglican worship in Britain. In the sermon, published yesterday on his website, Dr Williams, whose own background is from the Church of England’s catholic wing, paid tribute to the Catholics and Anglicans who went to see the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux during their recent tour of Britain.

He added: “God knows what the future holds for any of us, for any of our ecclesiastical institutions, but we can at least begin with what we can be sure of — that God has graced us with the lives of saints, that God has been credible in this fellowship with these people.”

He added: “This church with its very particular place in the history of the Church of England is one small but significant facet of that great mystery and that great gift. And at times when the future seems more than usually chaotic and uncertain, it doesn’t hurt simply to give thanks.”

Dr Williams will go to Rome next week, when he will have an audience with the Pope and deliver a public address at an ecumenical conference at the Gregorian University.

Last night, delivering the final Tony Blair Faith Foundation seminar on faith and development at the Royal Society of the Arts, he said that those coming from a faith perspective needed to develop “literacy in the discourse of human rights”.

The Bishop of Southwark, Dr Tom Butler, has also spoken out on the Pope’s offer to receive the Anglican Communion’s disaffected traditionalists. Dr Butler said that the initiative had “put the cat among the pigeons”.

Addressing his diocesan synod, he said that he had sought legal advice, and warned those thinking of going: “No priest or group of laity has the right to take church property with them when they change denominations, for a diocese holds such property in trust for the mission and ministry of the Church of England to all the people of its parishes and this duty of care would continue. I don’t myself see how a parish could legally take the parish church and other assets without specific statutory authority.”

The issue was brought to a head by the decision by the Church of England’s General Synod last year to consecrate women bishops with no statutory provision for opponents.

This week, in a debate at Westminster Hall at the House of Commons, the Tory MP Robert Key, a member of the Synod and of Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee, said: “The fact is that most Anglicans who go to church want to see women ordained as bishops.” He added: “Most Christians believe that God is above gender. Jesus surrounded himself with both women and men as his disciples.”

PB: Episcopalians should get involved

From the Times-Leader (NE PA)via TitusOneNine:

November 12

She urges church members to reach out to younger folks, non-church members.

By Jen Marckini jmarckini@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

WILKES-BARRE – Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church says the church needs to figure out ways to attract younger people, non-church members and a growing Hispanic population.

Those were some of the topics discussed during an open forum at St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral on Wednesday.

Jefferts Schori was elected for a nine-year term in 2006 and has served as chief pastor to the church’s 2.4 million members in 110 dioceses in 16 countries.

The presiding bishop will meet with the clergy of the Diocese of Bethlehem this morning at Good Shepherd in Scranton.

One woman during the evening’s question-and-answer session asked what to do about the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Luzerne County has the fastest growing Hispanic population in terms of percentage in the nation.

“We are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants,” Jefferts Schori said. “We have to be willing to share our gifted tradition, share our space, invite and go out into the community.”

One of the church’s disciplines is to pray the words in Spanish – to learn to pray God’s word in a different language, she said.

“We have to figure out how to reach out to them,” said Jefferts Schori, who is the first woman presiding bishop in the 220 years the position has existed.

Jefferts Schori also pointed out the struggles of ministry among younger people and the non-churchgoers.

A woman who is a member of St. Stephen’s asked what can be done about a shrinking number of members and a drop in attendance at the local place of worship.

The Episcopal Church loses about 19,000 members a year because more of them die than are baptized into the church, Jefferts Schori said. The average Episcopalian is about 57 years old. The average age American is 37, she said.

“Fifty-seven-year-olds don’t produce a lot of children,” Jefferts Schori said. “But, there are lots and lots of communities and populations among us that are growing.”

Younger generations don’t know what the church has to offer, she said, adding that it’s going to take Episcopalians to become more passionate about ministry to attract new people.

“How are they going to find out if we don’t tell them?” she asked.

The presiding bishop did not talk about issues threatening to divide the Episcopal Church, such as appointing an openly gay bishop, allowing priests to bless same-sex unions or the ordination of women as priests.

Jefferts Schori also spoke about her career before as a marine scientist and how science and faith can work together.

Charles R. Coslett, an attorney who practices law in Kingston and a longtime member of St. Stephen’s, said the politics of the church is going “far, far to the left.”

“The Episcopal Church of the United States has forgotten that we conservatives still should play a role in this church,” said Coslett after the evening’s program. “Scripture, I believe, is being forgotten.”

Coslett shared his frustrations with the ordination of a gay bishop and the potential for blessing of civil unions.

“I respect the dignity of every human being, but that doesn’t mean they should play a leadership role in the church,” he said. “The Episcopal Church seems to think of us conservatives as Neanderthal.”

Despite some of the issues, Coslett said he is not thinking about leaving the church.

“I was baptized in this church. I love this church,” said Coslett emotionally. “But I’m heartbroken where it’s going.”

The Cost of an Incoherent Strategy Just Went Up

from Anglican Curmudgeon by A. S. Haley

Now there is a new downside to ECUSA's take-no-prisoners strategy of driving congregations from their churches and then letting them sit vacant (rather than allow them to be sold to, or rented by, the congregation which was forced out): in Pennsylvania, at least, county assessors have begun to remove the property tax exemptions on church properties that sit vacant. The article explains that the impact will be felt most by Catholic dioceses:

Although this applies to any religion, the impact would essentially be felt by the Diocese of Scranton, which has already started implementing a plan to close some schools and half of the 90 churches in Luzerne County.

[County Assessment Director] Alu said he recently learned that several other counties already started taxing closed churches and religious schools, maintaining that their closure no longer qualifies them for tax-exempt status.


It might seem that this would be a counter-productive strategy for the counties -- demand that properties which are generating no income start paying their share of local taxes -- but in reality, it is better for all in the long run. By making vacant properties more expensive to retain, it forces churches to order their priorities: do they want to use their hard-won donations and tithes from parishioners to further their religious mission, or do they just want to pay for the privilege of being a dog in the manger? And why should a church escape contribution to the cost of local services for property for which it has no current use?

I am not informed as to whether an impending property tax assessment is the reason that St. Mark's in Philadelphia decided, after holding the property for three years, to have a summer vacation Bible school at the beautiful and historic, but very vacant, church of St. James the Less (see previous link). And now I learn from St. Mark's latest newsletter that they are holding "work days" at the church in preparation for repainting the interior. I hope that all of this is a precursor to a plan to make such a beautiful place of worship once again ring with music, psalms, sermons and prayers.

But it has taken three years. At least now there will be no reward for doing nothing. And the cost of ECUSA's litigation strategy just went up another notch.

It is also worth noting that apart from paying its own attorneys and subsidizing a few rump dioceses, ECUSA contributes nothing of its own funds toward the long-term costs of its strategy, which are borne by the Dioceses and the parishes that remain in them. When a Diocese takes over a vacant church property, the funds required to maintain it (and now pay property taxes on it) have to come from the rest of the parishes in that Diocese. Thus in commanding that suits be brought to recover the properties from departing congregations, the Presiding Bishop claims to be acting as a "faithful steward" of property entrusted long ago to the Church. But that is empty rhetoric. The burden of her "stewardship", as always, falls on the regular pewsitters -- of whom there are, each year, fewer and fewer.

The market for vacant church buildings has to be even more depressed than the one for single-family residences. Can there be any doubt that the Presiding Bishop is being penny-wise and pound-foolish in pushing her litigation strategy? Unless new numbers of churchgoers are recruited to replace those driven out, simple mathematics tells us that the pro-rata cost of the strategy will go up among those who remain. That is a recipe for increased disaffection, and increased departures from the Church.

I put up a post recently about how no one, paradoxically, seems to be in charge as the country's monetary system lurches toward disaster. The same seems to be true of ECUSA, as it slouches toward bankruptcy -- of both the temporal and the spiritual kind.

Virginia Supreme Court sets dates for appeal by the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church

from BabyBlueOnline by BabyBlue:

We've learned that the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Virginia has issued two Certificates of Appeal - one for the Diocese of Virginia and one for The Episcopal Church. This sets in motion a timeline for the appeals process. The Appellants' (Diocese of Virginia/Episcopal Church) briefs are due by December 21, 2009. They could file earlier though. That will be interesting to watch. The rest of the dates flow from there. Stay tuned - and please keep watch and pray

CRY ME A RIVER

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor:

According to the Guardian’s Andrew Brown, a great many people in the Church of England are angry about how the Pope humiliated Rowan Williams:

But in this country, the Anglo-Catholics have now got all they could possibly want from the pope except the recognition that they were right all along. On the other hand, the mood in the rest of the Church of England is hardening against them. There is a general resentment of the humiliating way in which this was sprung on the Archbishop of Canterbury (who will go to Rome later this month, and deliver a speech on the 23rd; it is not thought that the pope will be present, looking embarrassed, when he does so). The demands of the Anglo-Catholics that they be paid off and given their churches as well when they go are greeted with something between incredulity and anger. No one knows whether their congregations will follow them. It might just be that this tremendous edifice will be greeted with a rather embarrassed silence, like the competence of erection manifesting itself in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Let’s review. The current Anglican controversy erupted in 2003. Shortly after the election of homosexual Gene Robinson, who is a homosexual, as Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, Rowan Williams convened an emergency primates meeting to deal with the situation.

At that meeting, Williams allowed the spurious issue of boundary-crossing to be introduced into the statement which declared that if Robbie’s consecration went ahead, the Anglican Communion would be torn at the deepest level.

Frank Griswold, TEO’s Presiding Bishop at the time, signed that statement, went home and participated in Robbie’s consecration anyway. Dr. Williams’ response? To set in motion what a year or so later became the Windsor Report which TEO effectively ignored.

Two primates meetings followed in the intervening years, the communiqués of which were so much toilet paper as far as Canadian and American liberals were concerned. Those years also saw two GenCons which saw TEO at first evade and then plow under Anglican Communion requests.

Which brings us to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the closest thing to a Magisterium an Archbishop of Canterbury has. But not only did Dr. Williams invite the Americans and Canadians to the Conference, he deliberately structured the meeting in such a way that the fundamental question ripping the Communion apart would never be addressed.

I’ve never worked as a shepherd. Since I don’t mind being alone for long periods, I used to think it would be fascinating to spend hour after hour just thinking or praying under what Mr. Spurgeon once called “the heavenly Father’s vast audience chamber.”

I guess that if you’re a shepherd, you’re good at your job and you come across sheep that aren’t being led by anyone, your first instinct would be to gather in as many as you could in order to protect them. And that’s precisely what Benedict XVI has done here.

Because wolves don’t wait until every I is dotted, every T crossed and every Anglican cavil is satisfied. If Rowan Williams was humiliated by the Pope’s action, he has only himself to blame.

Reflections on the 27th Annual Convention

From Bishop Iker via VirtueOnline:


What a joy and delight it was to participate in our diocesan convention this past weekend! I can tell you that after 35 years of ordained ministry, having attended annual conventions year after year, both here and in two other dioceses, seldom can they be described as joyful or delightful! Too often they are contentious, boring, and frustrating! But let the record show that this one was indeed very different! It was a great experience, and I think that everyone who attended will agree.

All six resolutions were adopted unanimously and without dissension! Gone were the contentious debates of the past between opposing sides! We spoke with one mind and one voice. Likewise, everyone was in agreement about the need for the proposed amendments to the diocesan Constitution and Canons. We even agreed on the adoption of a budget of over $1,981,000 and parish assessments to support it, without one dissenting vote!

In the 27-year history of diocesan conventions here in Fort Worth, this was the first time we ever seated five new congregations. We didn’t just talk about church growth – we saw it! Eleven new clergy were introduced and welcomed. Also unprecedented was the presence of ecumenical guests from both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church who brought us greetings and assured us of their prayers and partnership in the Gospel. Archbishop Dmitri spoke to us on behalf of the Orthodox Church in America, and Fr. James Hart read a letter to us from Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth. Resolutions calling for dialogue on church unity with both bodies received the unanimous support of the clergy and lay delegates.

The recurring themes in the various reports made to the Convention echoed the points in the sermon of Nashotah House Dean Robert Munday at the opening Eucharist: world mission, evangelism and youth ministry. How blessed we are to be in a diocese that is so clearly mission-minded, focused on sharing the Good News with others, and committed to ministry with our young people!

While maintaining our membership as a diocese in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, we acceded to the Constitution and Canons of the newly organized Anglican Church in North America. We give thanks to God for the continuing primatial oversight of Archbishop Greg Venables and for the godly leadership of Archbishop Bob Duncan. United with them, let us move forward together in mission in the coming year, standing firm in the faith once delivered to the saints!

May the work of this diocese continue to be a joy and delight in all the days ahead!

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Third Bishop of Fort Worth
Feast of St. Leo the Great
November 10, 2009

GAFCON Primates’ response to the Apostolic Constitution

via Stand Firm:

Primates statement on Vatican offer

November 10, 2009

Statement from GAFCON/FCA Primates Council

RESPONSE TO OFFER OF AN APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION TO ANGLICANS

We have received the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter informing us of the Pope’s offer of an ‘Apostolic Constitution’ for those Anglicans who wish to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. We believe that this offer is a gracious one and reflects the same commitment to the historic apostolic faith, moral teaching and global mission that we proclaimed in the Jerusalem Declaration on the Global Anglican Future and for this we are profoundly grateful.

We are, however, grieved that the current crisis within our beloved Anglican Communion has made necessary such an unprecedented offer. It represents a grave indictment of the Instruments of Communion whose very purpose is to strengthen and protect our unity in obedience to our Lord’s clear command. Their failure to fully address the abandonment of biblical faith and practice by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada has now brought shame to the name of Christ and seriously impedes the cause of the Gospel.

The Primates Council of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON/FCA) is convinced, however, that Anglicanism has a bright future as long as we remain grounded in the Holy Scriptures and obedient to our Lord Jesus Christ’s call to reach the lost and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe the whole Gospel. We also believe that there is room within our Anglican family for all those who hold true to the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’. We would like to encourage those Anglicans who are considering this invitation from the Roman Catholic Church to recognize that Anglican churches are growing throughout the world in strength and offering a vibrant testimony to the transforming work of Christ.

We are convinced that this is not the time to abandon the Anglican Communion. Our Anglican identity of reformed catholicity, that gives supreme authority to the Holy Scriptures and acknowledgement that our sole representative and advocate before God is the Lord Jesus Christ, stands as a beacon of hope for millions of people. We remain proud inheritors of the Anglican Reformation. This is a time for all Christians to persevere confident of our Lord’s promise that nothing, not even the gates of hell, will prevail against His Church.

+Peter Abuja,
Chairman,
GAFCON/FCA Primates Council

Rise of French evangelicals puts secularism in a spin

From theage.com.au via VirtueOnline:

LIZZY DAVIES, PARIS.
November 8, 2009

Belief in the gospel truth is spreading.

AS THE piano strikes up, the congregation sways, fists in the air, murmurs of hallelujah punctuating the music. Pastor Franck Lefillatre, bathed in the spotlight on his podium, intones into a microphone.

''Let out the words that are in your heart,'' he urges. His whispers crescendo to booming rhetoric. Behind him, emblazoned in gold lettering, are the words: ''Jesus Christ: the same yesterday, today, eternally.''

As evangelical services go, this gathering on a rainy Sunday is nothing unusual. In countless churches across the US and many countries, it would be a staple means of Christian worship.

But this is not the American Bible Belt. It is the Church of Paris-Bastille, and this congregation is one of a growing number of evangelical communities spreading through France and prospering in spite of its secular - and Catholic - traditions.

From a postwar population of about 50,000, French evangelicals are now estimated to number 450,000 to 500,000. According to the Evangelical Federation of France, the number of churches has risen from 800 in 1970 to more than 2200 today.

Last week, the boom made headlines when thousands of evangelicals descended on Strasbourg to turn the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth into a huge media-covered event.

On paper, France would seem one of the least likely places for this branch of Christianity to gain a foothold. For centuries, Protestantism was the embattled minority in a country Catholics liked to call the ''eldest daughter of the church'' because of its strong ties to Rome. That minority still makes up just 3 per cent of the population.

More importantly, ever since France wrote a separation of church and state into the constitution, the country has worshipped at the altar of laicite - the concept of a secular state.

So the emergence of evangelicals as a force has raised eyebrows, with some critics questioning whether their beliefs are compatible with the values of a secular republic. They are associated in many minds with the politically powerful movement of the US religious right.

Jean-Francois Colosimo, a writer and religious historian, provoked a furious backlash from evangelicals when, after it emerged that France's intelligence services had launched a ''census'' of the domestic population, he said: ''Everything in France would seem to ban a politico-religious mixture. But laicite is fragile and temptations are present'' - a direct reference to the evangelicals.

These arguments are rejected as irrelevant by French believers. Just because they have the same faith as the Americans and a similar style of worship, they say, it does not mean they share the same politics. But Henri Tincq, a religious commentator, said issues such as abortion and homosexuality were creeping up the agenda.

ACNA grows

In the interview below Archbishop Robert Duncan reports, "In June, when the Anglican Church in North America was constituted, there were 702 congregations. Right now there are 755."

Kind of makes me wonder about pecusa and their predictions of the demise of conservative Anglicanism in North America. Do pecusa talking heads ever check into reality?

In answer to a question regarding the legal battle that pecusa continues to pursue against the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Archbishop Duncan replies,

"There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future."

That sums it up for me. pecusa can wage all kinds of legal battles and accumulate all kinds of parish properties that they will sell because they don't have enough people to populate the buildings they already possess. Doesn't it make you wonder what kind of gospel pecusa really believes?

Seven Episcopal Dioceses meet to begin Missional Relationships

from TitusOneNine by Kendall Harmon

Clergy and lay representatives from seven dioceses in The Episcopal Church, as well as six bishops with Episcopal jurisdiction, met in Charleston, S.C. on November 3-4, 2009 to consider ways they might assist each other in more effectively reaching their communities and the world for Christ. More specifically, in keeping with General Convention resolution B030, which encouraged domestic Dioceses within The Episcopal Church to enter into missional relationship, this meeting encouraged the dioceses to consider what resources they can share with each other and work more closely to further the Gospel mission. Evangelizing and reaching the unchurched; catechizing and discipling the converted; assisting members in generational faithfulness; renewing, strengthening and growing existing parishes; and planting new congregations to reach their communities with the Gospel were the areas of greatest interest.

To this end, through the work of some of the Communion Partner bishops and rectors, along with others, these Dioceses in Missional Relationships will begin by hosting two initiatives for the purpose of encouraging and equipping missionally focused dioceses, congregations and individuals through:

1. Establishing a website for sharing resources and networking for ministry and mission. It is their intention to have this ministry-networking initiative functioning in an initial stage during Epiphany 2010; and,
2. Sponsoring a large venue three day event in Dallas, September 23—25, 2010. This event will be for the purpose of encouraging, empowering, emboldening and equipping missionally focused individuals, congregations and dioceses, as well as providing resources to assist each other to be more effective in reaching their communities for Christ and his Church.

Dioceses presently involved in this Gospel initiative are Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, North Dakota, South Carolina, Springfield, and Western Louisiana.

Anglican Diocese to expand, cut costs

Via TitusOneNine:

Sunday, November 08, 2009

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Due to at least a temporary loss of endowment, the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has slashed its budget, but still plans to launch 70 new churches over five years.

It received five mission congregations at its convention yesterday in Sewickley. It also received four parishes from outside its original boundaries. All nine were already counted among its 58 churches.

The Anglican diocese is appealing a Common Pleas Court decision awarding its endowment to the 28-parish Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The two split last year when a majority at the diocesan convention voted to secede from the Episcopal Church, which they believed had failed to uphold biblical doctrine on matters from salvation to sexuality. The Anglican diocese billed this as its 144th convention, and there were references to the Episcopalians as "the rogue diocese."

But others can't be blamed for any past failure of missionary initiative, said the Rev. Mary Hays, canon to the ordinary, as she urged the diocese to start 70 new churches.

"There's a reason we're in this mess and it isn't just the rogue diocese," she said. "We have to take responsibility for not reaching the people around us with the love and power of the Lord Jesus."

The diocese left the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America. Both the Southern Cone and the Episcopal Church belong to the global Anglican Communion.

In June the diocese joined the new Anglican Church in North America, which hopes to join the Anglican Communion.

Yesterday it voted for sole affiliation with the Anglican Church in North America, while its bishops and clergy hold dual credentials with the Southern Cone.

It adopted a flexible 2010 budget of $919,163 to $987,416. That's down from $1.7 million for 2009. Rent will be slashed by moving from Downtown to the North Side. Archbishop Robert Duncan's pay package was reduced from $192,700 to $89,356 but he will receive $75,000 from the Anglican Church in North America for serving as its archbishop.

The convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing abortion, except to save the mother's life, and called for aid to women with crisis pregnancies. There were questions about a clause against teaching that "divorces the sexual act from ... the possibility of procreation."

Some asked if that was a criticism of contraceptive use. Co-author Deacon Tara Jernigan of Butler replied that "the intent here is not to legislate with regard to birth control" but to counteract a world view "that has divorced sex from babies."



Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09312/1011753-455.stm#ixzz0WMS8HzIf

QUESTIONS FOR ROBERT DUNCAN

From The New York Times via BabyBlue:

Is This Bishop Catholic?


By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: November 5, 2009


As the archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, you are known as the leader of a conservative — and even ultraright — movement that was founded last year in a break from the Episcopal Church. Do you plan to convert to Catholicism now that Pope Benedict has opened his doors to Anglicans?

I wouldn’t characterize us as ultraright. We don’t beat up folks. We are sort of mainstream right. I am very pleased that the Vatican has done this, but my call now is to lead all those Anglicans who stand where Anglicans have always stood.

Have you had any contact with the pope?

I corresponded with him as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, when we had the first national gathering of Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans who realized they couldn’t go on with the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.

Was this at the time that the Rev. Gene Robinson was being consecrated by the Episcopal Church as the first openly gay bishop?

It was between the time he was confirmed and ordained. He’s a likable enough guy, but the problem is he’s leading a whole generation astray. I don’t believe he should be a bishop.

You and Robinson were fellow students at the General Theological Seminary in New York.

Yes. That was in the early ’70s. He was living a heterosexual lifestyle at the time. He was married. Then he left his wife and later committed himself to a male partner. I don’t wish him ill.

We should point out that you were deposed from ministry of the Episcopal Church by the presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, after you threatened to have your diocese in Pittsburgh secede.

That was a year ago, but what’s interesting is that virtually no one in the Anglican world accepted that sentence. Within two weeks of being deposed, I was received at Lambeth Palace in London by the archbishop of Canterbury, who continues to consider me a bishop.

Bishop Schori heads the Episcopal Church in this country, and you opposed her election in 2006?

She was the least qualified, the least experienced, of the candidates, but I hoped that what she would bring if she were elected was the kind of grace that women often bring. She turned out to be far harder, far less willing to bend or compromise, than any of the men.

Where are you from?

I was raised in Bordentown, N.J., at Christ Episcopal Church in Bordentown. It’s a very special place. It’s where I was married, where I met my wife. It’s just a great parish church.

What was your childhood like?

My family knew a lot of turmoil, and there were a lot of things that happened in the house that were very unhappy. My mother was emotionally disturbed. She was a very difficult person. There were times when I was not sure I’d wake up in the morning because of her violence.

And your father?

He just died last week.

I’m sorry. Were you close to him?

Again, not greatly close to him. I tried to be a faithful son. He didn’t know how to handle my mother.

How large is this new denomination of yours?

In June, when the Anglican Church in North America was constituted, there were 702 congregations. Right now there are 755.

Is there any truth to the popular notion that the Anglican Church was created by Henry VIIIjust so he could annul his marriage? He wanted to ditch Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

There’s no question that the Anglican Church, the Church of England, was created as an aspect of state policy. It had a very bad beginning. It had a very secular, very political beginning. God used it for good.

I see a lawsuit was filed by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to take away both money and property in your control as the longtime bishop there.

There is an ongoing lawsuit. They may get the stuff, but we’ll get the souls. They may get the past, but we’ve got the future.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

DioFort Worth Makes It Official--We have acceded to the Constitution and Canons of the ACNA and endorsed the Anglican Covenant

from Texanglican by texanglican

When the gavel fell bringing our 27th diocesan convention to an end about an hour ago the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth officially became a full member of the Anglican Church of North America, ending the "provisional" member status we have had in ACNA since its Inaugural Assembly last June here at St. Vincent's Cathedral.

By a unanimous voice vote the convention committed us "to continued participation in the development of the Anglican Church in North America, acceding to the Constitution and Canons thereof during this process." At the same time, our diocese will also maintain "its status as a member diocese in the Province of the Southern Cone while the formal process of recognition of this new province continues in the Anglican Communion."

We also unanimously expressed our "readiness to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant (Ridley Cambridge Draft)" and our "solidarity with the Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America and the Communion Partner Bishops in North America in the hope that individual dioceses and other churches [Covenant 4.1.5] be encouraged to adopt the Anglican Covenant."

By another unanimous voice vote we also declared that we share "Metropolitan Jonah’s vision 'to live, to actualize, and to participate in the full integrity of the Catholic Church—the full integrity of Orthodox Catholicism,'" and communicated to "Metropolitan Jonah and the
Orthodox Church in America [our] desire to work toward that full, visible, and sacramental unity that the Lord Jesus Christ desires in his prayer that 'they all may be one.'"

Finally, we also expressed our "deep gratitude" to Pope Benedict XVI for "his willingness to achieve full communion with Anglicans" and urged members of our diocese to study prayerfully his soon-to-be-released Apostolic Constitution on reception of Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church.

The full texts of the resolutions may be found by clicking the title of this blog entry. All of these resolutions were adopted without modification by unanimous voice vote.

Archbishop Dimitri of the Orthodox Church of America (pictured below with Bishop Iker--photo by S. Gill) brought us fraternal greetings on behalf of Metropolitan Jonah. He was warmly received, as was the representative of the Roman Catholic diocese.

Former TEC Dioceses Welcome Congregations

From The Living Church via BabyBlue:

Posted on: November 5, 2009

As two former Episcopal dioceses hold conventions this weekend, they are beginning to incorporate congregations from across the nation.

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh will vote on welcoming Harvest Anglican Church, Homer City, Pa.; Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland, Ohio; Holy Trinity Church, Raleigh, N.C.; and St. James Church, San Jose, Calif.

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (Southern Cone) plans to receive St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church, Springdale, Ark., as a new mission station. It also will welcome two existing parishes: St. Matthias’ Anglican Church, Dallas; and Church of the Holy Spirit, Tulsa, Okla.

On Oct. 30, the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee went to court against St. Andrew’s Church, Nashville, which left the Episcopal Church in 2006 and has since announced its affiliation with the Diocese of Quincy (Ill.).

The Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin (Southern Cone) has welcomed three neighboring California parishes — St. Andrew’s in the Desert, Lancaster; St. David’s, San Rafael; and Santa Maria de Juquila, Seaside — and Jesus the Good Shepherd, Henderson, Nevada.

In the context of the Anglican Church in North America’s constitution [PDF], such an elastic definition of diocesan borders is a feature and not a bug.

“Congregations and clergy are related together in a diocese, cluster, or network (whether regional or affinity-based), united by a bishop,” the ACNA’s constitution says. “Dioceses, clusters or networks (whether regional or affinity-based) may band together for common mission, or as distinct jurisdictions at the sub-Provincial level.”

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is establishing one type of network within ACNA: regional districts.

The Rt. Rev. David Bena, a suffragan bishop of CANA and a former suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, is guiding the growth of the recently established Anglican District in the Northeast.

“In the Northeast we had ten parishes that were interested in doing mission and ministry together,” he told The Living Church. “They were not connected except by bishop visitations.”

The new district will unite seven congregations in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Two other CANA districts unite congregations in Virginia and in the Great Lakes.

“We are going to coordinate on overseas missions and concentrate on the possibility of planting new churches,” Bishop Bena said of his district. “We’re also talking about trying to plant some churches up here in the rocky soil of the Northeast.”

While serving in Albany, Bishop Bena could travel from one end of the diocese to the other within six hours. Today, he travels more by airline than by car. His work also has him providing pastoral guidance to two different types of congregations: those that separated from the Episcopal Church, and those that have approached CANA from evangelical and independent backgrounds.

“For those who used to be Episcopalians, there’s a good deal of work to be done on dealing with grief,” Bishop Bena said. “Half of our congregations had to walk away from their buildings. If you don’t forgive, you get stuck.

“For those who weren’t Episcopalians, it’s the joy of being on the ‘Canterbury trail,’ and a question of how you become more immersed in that life.”

Douglas LeBlanc

BISHOP IKER’S ADDRESS TO THE 27TH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF FORT WORTH

From the DFW via TitusOneNine:

NOVEMBER 7, 2009

The theme chosen for this year’s Convention is “Standing Firm in the Faith.” It is an allusion to verses in chapter 6 of the Epistle to the Ephesians where St. Paul urges them to continue to stand fast against the powers of evil and for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do this, he reminds them of the need to “put on the whole armor of God,” so that having stood, they might be enabled to continue to stand - firm in the faith they had received.

It is never enough for us as Christians to stand against something – important as it is to oppose all that is evil and false. We must also stand for something – namely the revealed truth of the Christian faith. We must be clear that standing firm in the faith is not something that is static or inactive. It is not simply standing in place. Stand up for Jesus, yes, but don’t stand still! Taking a stand means active engagement in spiritual warfare, evangelism, witnessing, teaching, pastoral care, proclamation and all the rest. Standing firm means mission, outreach and church growth. It means taking the initiative, being on the offense, not just being on the defense in a reactive sort of way.

As a diocese, I am proud to say that we have stood our ground, not only in defense of the Gospel, but also by actively advancing the Kingdom of God. Clearly our work is far from over, and the power of the evil one is great. We must continue to stand boldly in the face of whatever opposition or challenges may confront us. In Jesus, the ultimate victory is won, but the battle is not over. Bishop Samuel Wiley once said: “The Church is the pilgrim people of God, who in the midst of the battle, pause to celebrate the victory.” Having stood in the past, let us renew our resolve to continue to stand firm in the faith once delivered to the saints, without compromise or surrender.

By God’s grace, we are called to build upon and expand what others have accomplished before us. Faithfulness, steadfastness, firmness have characterized this Diocese since our beginning twenty-seven years ago. We have followed in the brave footsteps of some wonderful Christian men and women who have gone before us. We are the beneficiaries of their labors. In particular, I am mindful of four great priestly soldiers of Christ who have died this past year and gone on to their reward. We are forever indebted to them for all they contributed to the life and witness of this diocese for many, many years. They were indeed exceptional priests who deeply enriched and blessed this diocese through their ministry and service: The Rev. Canon James P. DeWolfe, Jr., the Rev. William R. Belury, the Rev. Canon Laurens R. Williams, and the Rev. Canon Dr. John H. Heidt. We thank God for them. They will be deeply missed. I ask you to stand to honor and remember them in a moment of silence. “May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may light perpetual shine upon them. Amen.”

Since this past April, the threat of a lawsuit has been hanging over us, seeking to distract us from our mission and make us anxious about the future. As you know, the small minority who separated from us in order to remain in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America has not been content with our willingness to give them their buildings and property – they want ours as well! It has been and will continue to be a huge distraction and a great drain on time, energy and resources. I have tried to keep all of you informed, while at the same time not being preoccupied with the litigation, as it has developed. Our focus must be on the mission of the Church, not the lawsuit. Sad to say, there is no end in sight. Once there is a decision by the court, whichever side loses will surely file an appeal, with the likelihood of another appeal after that. So we are talking years, not months, before this whole matter is resolved. I can assure you that we are being very well represented by our attorneys, and I ask that you continue to pray for them as they go about their work, especially our lead attorney, Shelby Sharpe. I am certain that he would want me to remind you, however, that our hope and trust is in God alone, not our legal team. We are engaged in spiritual warfare, as well as a legal battle. I would also remind you that no diocesan funds or parish assessments are going toward our legal expenses. Thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor, all of our legal fees are being paid by special gifts. For this, we are sincerely and deeply grateful, and we say a word of heartfelt thanks at this time.

As the lawsuit makes its way through the courts, we must continue to focus on the mission of the church, to go make disciples of all nations and to minister in the name of Christ to all who are in need. We are called to be a missionary and evangelistic church, as well as a ministering and serving church. But the work of the church is always hampered and weakened by divisions among us. So now more than ever, we must work and pray for the unity of the Church of God. Christ wills for his disciples to be one, and we must do all we can to heal the brokenness in the Body of Christ. It is not enough to simply maintain the historic biblical faith for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We must also share it with others, in order to bring the whole world to Christ. And this work must be done in concert with others, never alone. So let us work and pray for a deeper unity in Christ for all believers, for the sake of mission, that the world may believe.

One of the big highlights of this Convention is our great joy in welcoming into our diocese five new congregations. This is unprecedented in the history of the diocese! So let us greet with joy and thanksgiving those churches joining our diocese today: St. Francis in Dallas, St. Matthias in Dallas, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulsa, Oklahoma, St. Gabriel’s in Springdale, Arkansas, and our newly founded mission church here in Fort Worth – Christ the Redeemer. Please join me in giving them again a warm Fort Worth welcome in a round of applause. I am pleased to report that we are in the process of exploring new mission stations in a variety of other locations, both in Texas and beyond, and that we expect to continue to add new congregations to the diocese in the years ahead.

Exciting possibilities are before us as we work for the unity of the Church, and there are three resolutions before us at this Convention that address this concern. The first is a resolution concerning the Anglican Church in North America. Here we seek unity with orthodox Anglicans who have separated from The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, while maintaining our membership in the worldwide Anglican Communion by our temporary affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone. We are indeed deeply grateful to Archbishop Greg Venables for taking us into his fold and for providing primatial oversight and protection for us as this new province emerges in North America. While recognizing continuing theological differences among us, which has always been the case among Anglicans, this movement is a realignment that attempts “to maintain the highest degree of communion possible” with orthodox Anglicans around the world, as well as with the Archbishop of Canterbury. We are also grateful to Archbishop Robert Duncan for his tireless efforts, both here in North America and in other parts of the world, on our behalf and in particular for his commitment to an honored place for all who hold the historic, catholic theological position concerning the ordained ministry, the church councils, and the sacraments. The Anglican Church in North America is not perfect, nor is it a solution to all our problems, but it is a positive step forward and one that I believe we must take at this particular point in time. It is a new alliance; it is not a new church. It is a structure that enables us to maintain our integrity as an authentic Anglican diocese, as expressed in Article I of our Constitution. It is an affiliation that enables us to continue to be what we have always been – biblical, catholic Christians in the Anglican tradition.

The second resolution on church unity concerns the invitation extended by Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America to the inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America in June. He invited us to consider how we Anglicans might be united in common faith and practice with the great spiritual tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and this is a very welcome and historic initiative. Conversations have already begun in pursuit of this goal, on both the national and local levels. In addition to an Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue Committee that has been formed by Archbishop Duncan and Metropolitan Jonah on a national level, we here locally have also formed a dialogue committee for our diocese and the Orthodox Diocese of Dallas and the South. Six Orthodox priests and Metropolitan Jonah have invited me and six priests of this diocese to meet with them to begin this conversation on the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, Monday, November 30th, at St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in Dallas. Please pray for us that this meeting may yield good fruit and prove to be just the beginning of something that glorifies God.

The third resolution involves our relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, and it addresses the gracious provision announced by the Vatican just a couple of weeks ago whereby Anglicans may come into full visible communion with the See of Rome. The Apostolic Constitution authorized by Pope Benedict has not yet been released, so many of the details and specifics of this arrangement remain unknown. However, we are told that it is designed in such a way that certain elements of the Anglican patrimony will be preserved. For some time now Bishop Kevin Vann of the Catholic Diocese of Fort the Worth and I have been in regular conversations concerning what we have in common and what continues to separate us, as Roman Catholics and orthodox Anglicans. Just a few days prior to this recent announcement from the Vatican, he and I held the first meeting of a local dialogue committee we have appointed to explore our common faith and differences. Our second meeting is to take place on Thursday, Dec. 3. Please pray also for this meeting that the Holy Spirit would bless and guide our conversations. Pray as well for all traditional Anglicans around the world as they too consider how to respond to this historic invitation from the successor to St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

I am well aware that not all of us are in the same place regarding these three conversations and what we expect they might produce. Some have strong preferences for one of these dialogues over the others. I am also aware that in the future these conversations must increasingly involve the laity, not just priests and bishops. After all, the Church is the people of God, not just the clergy. However, if we are to work and pray for the unity of Christ’s Church throughout the world, it must involve all three bodies – Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics. These are the three great churches of the catholic tradition, East and West, who though divided for centuries, have maintained the historic faith and order of the Church as expressed in the Holy Scriptures, the apostolic succession of ordained ministry, the sacraments and the creeds. When the New Testament speaks of the need for unity and truth among believers, it is for all members of the Body of Christ. When Jesus prays for the unity of his disciples, it is “that they all may be one.”

I am well aware of the disappointment and disillusionment of many of us with Anglicanism, as well as a deep level of skepticism about the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The proposed Anglican Covenant holds out some hope for improvement in this regard, and that is why we will want to endorse it at this Convention. For those among us who wish to remain Anglicans, the Anglican Church in North America is our best way forward, despite whatever obstacles or frustrations may accompany it. Anglicanism has always been characterized by tolerance, diversity, and a degree of untidiness. Nothing new about that! But it has also proven to be a grace-filled way to live the Christian life that many are unwilling to sacrifice or relinquish.

I am also aware that many of us are not very familiar with the theology and spirituality of the great Orthodox Churches of the Eastern tradition. In some ways they seem not only mysterious, but foreign. In times past, however, there has always been a great affinity and deep friendship between Anglicans and the Orthodox. Both have the tradition of autonomous, national churches, united to the universal church by common faith and practice, while resisting papal supremacy and doctrinal additions made by the Church of Rome. Up until a few years ago, members of the Orthodox Churches were encouraged to worship in the local Episcopal or Anglican church if an Orthodox congregation was not in the area, often even receiving Holy Communion in our churches. Up until recent times, there was a very real hope for the recognition of Anglican orders by the Orthodox and the establishment of full sacramental communion between our two churches. But then came the unprecedented break with the apostolic tradition when the ordination of women as priests was introduced by some Anglicans in 1976, and the Anglican-Orthodox dialogues that held so much promise sadly came to an end. Perhaps God has given us the opportunity to rekindle that relationship and hope in our own time through this renewed dialogue.

Given the make up of this diocese, I am also well aware of differing perspectives among us on how to respond to the recent initiative from Pope Benedict XVI for Anglicans who wish to come into full communion with Rome. Some are elated and see this development as an answer to prayer. They are eager to move forward and make it a reality. Some are frightened by what might have to be sacrificed or are cynical about engaging in conversations with Rome on Rome’s conditions alone, or are perhaps uncertain about how certain serious theological differences can be resolved in order to heal the breach. While others among us simply are not interested in becoming Roman Catholics or perhaps would prefer to pursue closer ties with more evangelical or Protestant bodies.

My vocation in the midst of all of this is to be the shepherd and pastor to all of you who are under my spiritual oversight. While it is no secret to anyone that I myself am an ardent Anglo-catholic, I promise to strive in the future, as I have over the past 17 years, to be a faithful bishop, friend and father-in-God to all of you. I will also continue to exercise leadership, not just pastoral care, as God gives me the grace and wisdom to do so, in the days ahead. I believe my leadership has demonstrated that I have been willing to take a stand and make hard decisions when the times have required it. I am saddened when I disappoint any of you, but I learned a long time ago that being a faithful bishop is not a popularity contest.

In my capacity as pastor and leader, it is clear to me that all of us will need more information, more conversation with those with a different perspective, more time and much more prayer and love for one another. We must be patient and charitable with each another as things unfold. We must be willing to wait and see what God will do with all of this. We must respect the fact that we are in different places and that not all of us will move in the same direction or at the same time. Let us first seek God’s guidance, and try to accept His timing as things develop. There are no deadlines or timetables. There is no need to rush or hurry to a decision. By God’s grace, we must be careful in the months and years ahead that as we pursue the cause of deeper unity in the Body of Christ that we do not become further separated from one another in this diocese as a result. We must be on guard against fragmentation and refuse to allow civil war to break out amongst us, with brothers and sisters fighting against members of the same family. It is my fervent hope that in the end, we will do what God calls us to do, together, as one diocese, one body.

Pray for me, and for all our clergy, as I will pray for each of you, that God’s will may be revealed and embraced and joyfully done, above all else. These are exciting and challenging times. By God’s grace, may we continue to stand firm – and indeed move forward -in the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Thank you, and God bless you.

pecusa's defense

The following quote is from the article in the next post. It is pecusa's judgement on the realignment of Anglicanism in North America. What is silly about this line of reasoning is that the realignment is growing by thousands each year while pecusa is declining by tens of thousands each year. In some places the growth in the Anglican Church in North America, the new province, is double digit. Kind of makes one wonder about pecusa's vision of reality. ed.

"Divorce breeds divorce." Bishop Persell, viewing the scene from the perspective of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, draws an even stronger conclusion: "If you're formed in opposition and negativity, you're bound to keep on splitting--there's always need for more purity, and you don't live with ambiguity very well, so you end up in a church of one."

Splitting up: Anglican angst

I missed this article last year. It is about Anglicanism in the western suburbs of Chicago and includes information about a parish I once served, St. Mark's in Glen Ellyn, IL. ed.

Christian Century, May 20, 2008 by Jason Byassee

LAST YEAR THE Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in nearby Glen Ellyn. The new congregation later aligned itself with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), which is connected to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.

The new Church of the Resurrection later experienced its own split, with some members leaving to launch the Church of the Great Shepherd--also affiliated with AMIA--in Wheaton. The Church of the Great Shepherd eventually closed its doors, but not before a 2004 split led to the formation of the Church of the Savior back in West Chicago. During this time the ranks of St. Mark's, an Episcopal congregation in Glen Ellyn, had been swelling--until the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003, whereupon many St. Mark's members left to form All Souls, still another AMIA church, in Wheaton. Meanwhile, another split at the original Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, which had experienced renewed growth, led to the creation of the Church of the Resurrection Anglican, a church which is overseen by the archbishop of Uganda. So now there are two Resurrection churches in the area, both formed in exodus from the original--now defunct--Church of the Resurrection, and both affiliated with African Anglican bodies, not with the Episcopal Church in the United States, sometimes abbreviated as TEC.

Got all that?

Even for Anglicans in the vicinity it takes a long memory or a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal-Anglican divisions and acronyms that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, just west of Chicago.

Many observers of the Anglican splits assume that the key issue is homosexuality, but a closer look reveals that several other factors are also at work. In fact, the local Anglican story is largely about charismatic leaders coming and going, and congregations growing in their presence or folding in their absence. Among the AMIA folks, the juiciest disagreements have been over the ordination of women rather than the ordination of gays. And the biggest fight to date has been over the relationship between church and state in Rwanda, not in the U.S.

The energy in all these churches comes to a great extent from the many evangelicals who have converted to Anglicanism, a phenomenon outlined some 20 years ago by Robert Webber in Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail. For the most part, evangelicals joined the Episcopal Church out of an appreciation for its liturgy and tradition, not for its generally liberal approach to sexual ethics and scripture. Many of these people have an association with evangelically oriented Wheaton College, where Webber taught for many years.

The various conservative groups that have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the U.S. have conglomerated into Common Cause, a group that has formed an alliance with churches in the global South in an effort to reverse the long liberal trend of the Anglican Communion in the Northern Hemisphere. Its advocates champion a thesis advanced by historian Philip Jenkins and others: Christianity's axis of power is tilting south and east, with church membership growing rapidly in the developing world while it declines in Europe and America. The late Diane Knippers, a leader among conservative Anglicans, summarized the situation this way: "Today's statistically typical Anglican is not drinking tea in an English vicarage. She is a 26-year-old African mother of four."

And, Knippers might have added, the typical Anglican is strongly opposed to homosexuality. One of the leaders of Common Cause is Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who readily uses the word abomination in reference to homosexuality. He likens homosexuality in the church to a "cancerous lump," compares same-sex coupling to animal behavior, and supports severe prison sentences for homosexual practice.

The alliance that conservative Anglicans in the U.S. have made with African Anglicans presents an unusual challenge to the liberal Episcopalian mainstream. It's hard to accuse AMIA members of being bigoted malcontents when they are, in effect, members of African churches. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference of world Anglican leaders, John Shelby Spong, the now retired uber-liberal bishop of Newark, dismissed his African colleagues who were adamantly opposed to liberalizing the church's rules on homosexuality as "superstitious, fundamentalist Christians." In remarks that have been frequently cited by his detractors, Spong complained that African Anglicans had "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity" and had yet to face "the intellectual revolution of Copernicus and Einstein that we've had to face in the developing world." For AMIA and its friends, here was evidence that white so-called progressives were the real bigots.

You can read the rest of the article at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_10_125/ai_n25453426/

The Maine Vote for Marriage

Gay Marriage has been on the ballot in 31 states and 31 times it has lost. ed.

From RealClearPolitics.com via Stand Firm:

November 5, 2009

By Maggie Gallagher

On Election Day this past Tuesday, the people of Maine voted to repeal gay marriage, 53 percent to 47 percent.

Gay-marriage advocates are bitterly disappointed. They spent three years building an organization to push gay marriage in Maine. They had every major newspaper and most other media on their side, as well as the political establishment -- the governor, the attorney general, the head of the schools. They were awash in money, out-fundraising pro-marriage advocates by more than 50 percent. (Full disclosure: The National Organization for Marriage contributed $1.8 million to the Yes on One campaign -- or more than half the campaign budget.)


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Gay-marriage advocates in Maine had the benefit of learning from California. They ran the kind of campaign critics claim would have won Proposition 8: No on One ads featured happy gay families, and rebuttal ads to Yes on One claims came quickly. There are not very many Mormons in Maine, or black people, either, so they cannot blame this loss on either minority group. Maine is a deep blue state, socially liberal and relatively secular, and close to Massachusetts, where people have presumably learned "the sky doesn't fall" after gay marriage becomes law.

And yet people in Maine in a free and fair election decisively rejected gay marriage by an even bigger margin than in California.

Here's the first thing this victory means: The $4 million spent to pass gay marriage in Maine was wasted. Even Americans in liberal states do not believe that two guys pledged to a gay union are a marriage. Politicians can pass a bill saying a chicken is a duck and that doesn't make it true. Truth matters.

Americans have a great deal of goodwill toward gay people as friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. Most of us do not want to hurt them or hate them or interfere with anyone's legitimate rights to live as they choose. But we do not believe gay marriage is a civil right; we think it is a civil wrong. And we do not appreciate the increasingly intense efforts to punish people who disagree with gay marriage as if we were racists, bigots, discriminators or haters.

Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in a TV ad for the Yes on One campaign in the closing days of the contest. If substantiated, the ethics complaint could lead the government to yank his license as a social worker and, therefore, threaten his livelihood. What kind of movement spurs people to act like this? Meanwhile, a teacher of the year who campaigned for gay marriage faces no such threat to her livelihood. Is gay marriage really about love and tolerance for all?

The people of Maine are certainly entitled to wonder.

Over in New York, the collapse of Dede Scozzafava is another big story. Scozzafava was handpicked to become the first openly pro-gay marriage Republican in a district where the vast majority of Republicans and independents (and even a big chunk of Democrats) oppose gay marriage.

A National Organization of marriage poll of likely voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District revealed that fully 50 percent of her opponent's supporters said that Scozzafava's vote for gay marriage was a factor in their decision not to support her.

NOM spent more than $100,000 sending 160,000 pieces of mail to voters who oppose gay marriage, and it also made more than 250,000 automated and live calls to make sure these voters knew that Scozzafava voted for gay marriage. Executive director Brian Brown has his own take on what happened in the 23rd district:

"This should be a wake-up call to GOP politicians who think they can play clever insider games and cut special deals on the marriage issue: It's not going to work. The voters are not on your side."

Indeed.

MaggieBox2004@yahoo.com

Maggie Gallagher is president of the National Organization for Marriage and has been a syndicated columnist for 14 years.

Episcopal Dioceses Face Downsizing, Closing Parishes, More Departures

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org

November 4, 2009

A number of congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine are on the brink of bankruptcy with over 50% of its parishes receiving grants-in-aid. This has lead to the curtailing of funding for mission programming at the diocesan level and no money left to support the buildings or their budgets.

The Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane, in an address to his diocese, said that several of his congregations face "literal bankruptcy" and that tweaking the system and the budget will no longer work. He argued that what is needed is something he called "Adaptive Change."

"What we're always trying to do is tweak the system, tweak the budget, so it works a little better, a little more efficiently. We're always trying to build a better mouse trap or give ourselves a little more breathing room. We're trying to make the old system work as well as it possibly can work. But what if things have changed so much that the system itself no longer will serve? What if we've squeezed every penny out of every dollar? What if, instead of tweaking the system, we have to adapt to the change? What if we have to build a new system? What if we have to learn a new way to be church? That work is called Adaptive Change."

Lane said that every congregation he visited was engaged, to some degree, in Technical Change. He admitted, "I think we've about run out the string. We can't continue for long with over 50% of our congregations receiving grants-in-aid."

Lane said that the diocesan budget would be smaller this year than in over in a decade. "Many of our congregations are struggling with buildings that need a great deal of work and cost far too much to heat. The average age in many congregations continues to rise and the average attendance continues to decline. And people ask me every week, why don't my children come to church? How can we get young families back to church? How can we bring teenagers into our church? How can we find a new generation to take the load off our backs?

"How can we get our old church back so we can retire in peace with a good conscience? I think the answer to our questions is beyond a technical fix. I think we need to be a new church."

Lane admitted that an effort to bring together clergy and lay leaders to a conference to address a plan to rescue the diocese failed. The "wise heads" gathered for the conference weren't fully satisfied with the plan and didn't know if they wanted to volunteer for the work. A number of them decided not to volunteer, he wrote. The bishop said that as a result of the failure to deal with the failing diocese, "it may mean some congregations seeing themselves as ministry sites rather than worship sites. It may mean new ways of calling and paying clergy. It may mean deeper ecumenical and community partnerships - shared facilities and shared clergy. It may mean a return to circuit riders and house churches. It may mean - probably does mean - solutions I can't imagine."

Lane described the situation as "urgent" saying that he was in conversation with several congregations who can no longer afford their budgets or their buildings, and who are facing literal bankruptcy.

DIOCESE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

From the Diocese of Western Massachusetts comes word that church building closures are a common theme this year. Bishop Gordon Scruton observed that closing churches is an expensive business, and there is no ready market for such churches.

The bishop admitted that the diocese could no longer afford to keep and maintain the diocesan church camp called Bement. "We have also had to face the reality that we are not able to maintain all our church buildings. The Church has far too many buildings that have ceased to serve a useful purpose. In the last century, before the days of the automobile, many churches were built too close to one another, and today they are struggling for survival. Often one would suffice where two or three now exist because they are only a few minutes apart by automobile. We must begin to think in terms of combining such churches, having team ministries, or, in cases where budgets are small, having them staffed by clergy who during much of the week are engaged in secular employment. All of this is going to involve some bold and farsighted re-thinking in the near future.

"I would urge all of our people to get over the idea that the Church is a building. It is not a building at all. Instead, a Church is people, and it exists whether they meet in an ecclesiastical structure or in a storefront or in somebody's home. The place of meeting is not all-important and the sooner we accept this the freer we shall be to plan constructively for the future. Small struggling churches located not far from other Episcopal churches, will have to be combined....It is very important that we face this realistically and prepare now for an orderly change instead of drifting planlessly into a future that we are afraid to confront." Scruton admitted that over this past year, the diocese has began to talk more openly about the reality that there are more church buildings than can be supported. The bishop cited the 125-year old St. John's church in Worcester, which closed because the people came to recognize and accept their lack of energy, money and people to carry on the ministry of the congregation. The organ of St. John's will provide music for St. Michael's in Worcester. The Iglesia Cristiana Natanael will continue worshipping at St John's with the bishop tacitly acknowledging that another congregation will soon rent St. John's building with the possibility of purchase.

Scruton said that closing a congregation requires an enormous amount of time, energy and money on the part of a congregation and diocesan staff. "It is expensive and time consuming to maintain empty church buildings when there is no congregation there to oversee those responsibilities. The architecture and real estate market make it difficult to sell church buildings. In the future, closing a congregation will impact all the parishes of the diocese through shared expenses in our diocesan budget."

The bishop hinted broadly that the closing of Bement and St. John's impacted the diocese financially and "raised strategic questions about the future of our ministry in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts."

The bishop said he sent a Pastoral Mission Letter to the whole diocese inviting it to reflect on the "sobering challenges we are facing" and "to explore the creative new opportunities for ministry that God's Spirit is opening for us in our new situation." The letter, he said, generated much discussion across the diocese. "Berkshire County wardens and clergy have gathered for three Summits to explore moving from isolated ministry to cooperative ministries. Churches in the South Berkshires are experimenting with new creative ways of working together. The Adams and North Adams congregations have entered into a covenant to discern how God is calling them to walk together. They worship as one congregation twice a month. In North Worcester, clergy and wardens have also held three Summits to explore possibilities of sharing ministry in that region. Other congregations across the diocese are beginning to initiate conversations about ways of sharing ministry. These conversations are a grass roots movement of the Holy Spirit. We will need to keep nurturing these regional conversations and creative partnerships as the context out of which God will guide us to new configurations of ministry in this new mission situation."

DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK

In the Diocese of Western New York, outgoing Bishop Michael Garrison discovered, much to his surprise, that he could not afford to support a church plant meeting in the vacated St. Bartholomew's property. Last year St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church ceased to exist. The congregation, the largest in the diocese and thoroughly orthodox, bought an old synagogue and became St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church. Of course Garrison could have cut a deal with the departing parish but chose not to. They left the property and now he has to sell it. The community of St. Peter's in Forestville announced that they have left The Episcopal Church denuding the diocese of much needed income. The bishop then admitted that many parishes are in financial difficulty and that the diocese will need to reduce the number of church buildings in the next few years. His retirement will be a blessing in this case. His successor will have the "joy" of closing more parishes. "In the last few months I have met with vestries and leaders of a number of our parishes who are experiencing financial difficulties. The financial crisis we experience in our nation and world exacerbates and highlights this difficulty. In many parishes the trouble has been brought on by an over dependence on endowments. The leadership of our congregations needs to be wise and prudent in these matters. All of us are called upon to live within our means. "We also need to ask ourselves over the next few years, if we can any longer support the number of church buildings in which our community worships."

Is juncturing with another diocese in their future?

DIOCESE OF NEW JERSEY

The Rt. Rev. George Councell, Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey has carried a particular piece of advice with him throughout his career delivering Masses in New Jersey: Say each as if it were your first, say it as if it were your last, say it as if it were your only Mass.

That outlook gave Councell something of an emotional advantage over the rank-and-file parishioners of Fair Haven's Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion recently. That was the day Councell came to preside over the congregation's last-ever Mass.

After 125 years of service, the towering River Road landmark was closed for good following the afternoon service. The church and two buildings on the property are owned by the diocese, and will likely be put on the market, according to Councell.

But Councell was angry at the closure and he spoke his mind, "I am very disappointed with the lack of support for one of my Churches. This trend had better stop or I will make life on earth not as enjoyable as it has been for most of you. Go to one of the other local churches this weekend and double your donations so we can collect the funds necessary to reopen this most Holy of Houses. Remember I am watching all of you, so don't disappoint."

DIOCESE OF WESTERN LOUISIANA

At the Diocese of Western Louisiana's Thirtieth Annual Diocesan Convention, the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson publicly admitted that the diocese could lose parishes following GC2009's Resolution actions. In his address to the diocese, the orthodox bishop hinted broadly that the diocese could not serve two masters. "We could well be faced with making a choice of being either provincially oriented or Communion oriented - for it is clear we cannot be both."

Describing the situation as "uncertain," he said, "We cannot claim to be part of a catholic body and then seek to exercise 'local option' over crucial issues."

He further acknowledged that there were some in the diocese who are taking a more formal step by looking towards separation.

New Jersey bishop George Councell, summed it up by saying that there are some things worse than death. "One of them is denial. Resurrection follows death, not denial," he said.

The Episcopal Church denial about the direction of the church and its advocacy and passage of a series of pansexual resolutions by general convention has only heightened rebellion amongst the church's rank and file. The rejection of personal faith by Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and the go-it-alone mentality by TEC among the Communion's archbishops has resulted in the birth of a new orthodox North American Anglican province.

END

Bishop is ordained before hundreds

From the Daily Pilot (CA):

Pageantry and song accompany Long Beach rector’s three-hour welcome to the Diocese of Western Anglicans. The church’s first bishop will preside over 22 churches.

By Brianna Bailey

Updated: Sunday, November 1, 2009 9:08 AM PST


Anglican clergymen from as far away as Uganda and Newfoundland visited Newport Beach on Saturday to ordain a new bishop in the fledgling Anglican Church of North America.

Formed in 2008, the church is made up of congregations in the United States and Canada that have broken away from the Episcopal Church over differing views on homosexuality and the Scriptures.

The movement includes Newport’s St. James Church on Via Lido.

“This is an important, historical day for the whole church,” said Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church of North America, who presided over the incense-drenched ceremony at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Saturday. “You can see the excitement in the people today.”

William Thompson was ordained as the first bishop of the of the Diocese of Western Anglicans of the Anglican Church in North America during a three-hour ceremony filled with pageantry and song.

The newly formed Diocese of Western Anglicans Thompson will preside over includes 22 churches scattered across California, Arizona, Idaho, Washington and Montana.

The few hundred people assembled at the ordination broke into applause as the archbishop placed a red embroidered bishop’s hat atop Thompson’s head.

“Receive the helmet of protection and salvation,” Duncan said after placing the pointed hat on Thompson’s head. “Be merciful and not remiss, so minister discipline, yet do not forget mercy, that when the chief shepherd shall appear, you man receive the never fading crown of glory.”

At one point during the ceremony, Thompson began to cry, while kneeling at the front of the church.

“I was mostly trying to hold my tears back,” Thompson said after the ordination. “There was a sense of unbelief that God had chosen me for this.”

Thompson, rector at All Saint’s Church in Long Beach, never had aspirations to be a become a bishop, he said.

But he has become one of the leaders in a growing movement of conservative congregations who have broken away from the Episcopal Church in the past five years over differing views on homosexuality and their interpretation of Holy Scripture.

The fledgling bishop hopes to see his diocese grow, building new churches across the Western United States, he said. There are also the ongoing legal battles with the Episcopal Church to attend to.

Several churches in the diocese are still embroiled in heated property disputes with the Episcopal Church, including St. James.

St. James became one of three conservative Southern California parishes that placed themselves under the jurisdiction of an Anglican Ugandan bishop after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop in 2003. Other Episcopal bishops began sanctioning gay marriages about the same time. The break led to a highly publicized property dispute over whether the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles or the St. James’ congregation owned the white stucco church, which stands across the street from Newport Harbor on the Balboa Peninsula.

Good news on blog traffic

According to Alexa, Stand Firm in Faith has passed the episcopalchurch.org site in traffic.

SFIF worldwide:197,473
US 60,197

ec.org ww: 222,420
US 60,543

Maybe this means that Episcopalians don't care anymore, the war is over, life is back to the regular abnormalcy. I don't know. I did find it notable and interesting.

btw, the DCNY blog continues as an independent news source for the DCNY. I still get reports that DCNY priests do not let their people know what's going on in pecusa and worldwide Anglicanism. This is understandable but shameful. If we as Anglicans really believe in a communion of saints you would think that the saints ought to know what's going on in the larger church. I understand why DCNY priests don't let their people know what's going on elsewhere. What is going on in pecusa is shameful in itself and the people in the pews would be absolutely shocked if they knew about it. What is going on in Anglicanism is a slow disintegration that was touched off by pecusa actions and continues because of pecusa stubbornness. pecusa continues to walk apart from the Anglican Communion and shows no interest in returning to full communion with the wider Communion.

ANGLICAN REFORMATIONS: ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

By George Egerton
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org

Nov. 1, 2009


In the promised Apostolic Constitution, the Roman Catholic Church has prepared a welcome for dissident Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Communion who have lost all confidence in the polity and fidelity of Anglicanism within the Church of England, The Episcopal Church (US), and other Anglican Churches of the first world, as the official structures seem determined to depart from traditional Anglican teaching and practice, in the name of inclusion, feminism, and human rights.

Other conservative Anglicans under North American revisionist jurisdictions have, in large measure, already departed. Having exhausted the hopes for reform and renewal within their national churches, they have formed new confessional jurisdictions, such as the Anglican Network in Canada, under the broader umbrella of the Anglican Church in North America, and in alignment with the burgeoning Anglican churches of the global south.

Anglican evangelicals and charismatics share the concern and alienation of Anglo-Catholics, and they can understand the desire to embrace the terms which the Vatican is offering in allowing continuation of Anglican liturgy, accepting a married priesthood, and providing non-territorial episcopal oversight to be exercised by unmarried Anglican priests or bishops. If it is an occasion of sadness to see the imminent departure of faithful Anglo-Catholics to Rome, we wish them well, even as they will have to abandon much of the heart of classic Anglican theology. But for Anglican evangelicals, like this author, joining the Roman Catholic Church and necessarily accepting its doctrines and papal ecclesiology is not a path that can be followed in good conscience.

What can be hoped for now in the deeply-divided world Anglican Communion given the crises precipitated by the revisionists of First World Churches? Does the Vatican initiative signal something broader than the establishment of another concessionary ethnic 'prelature.' The answers to these questions are probably closely associated. We can see the Vatican has proved itself capable, given its long experience with ethnic diversity, of adapting its structures to make reasonable accommodations, while insisting on the preservation of its doctrinal teaching and the authority of its magisterium.

By contrast, Anglicanism has proved incapable of maintaining classic Christian teachings on an array of issues, most notably on sexual and marital ethics, while simultaneously refusing to adapt its territorial episcopacy and national structures to allow conservatives extraordinary forms of episcopal oversight with adequate jurisdiction. One of the principal arguments presented by the revisionist Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada against episcopal innovations to accommodate conservative Anglicans was that such action would violate the traditional status of a territorial episcopacy. Clearly, there were limitations to the revisionists' imagination, and the Vatican's offer illustrates what is possible when there is charity and goodwill.

The departure of Anglo-Catholics will not have massive numerical or theological impact in the United States, or Canada, where Anglican demographics are already in free-fall. But in Britain, their reception by Rome will change the nature of the Church of England and profoundly affect Anglican - Roman Catholic relations. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was quick to downplay the significance of the Vatican announcement, denying that it was an aggressive move or was anything other than a continuation of the ecumenical discussions of the two churches. But, equally, it is clear he was blind-sided by the Catholic overture, which was generated wholly apart from the ecumenical bureaucracy, and drove the Anglican Archbishop to his default mode of denial and positive spinning.

The Vatican's abrupt initiative (Williams had but a week's notice), represents the inferred abandonment by Rome of the long-term ecumenical dialogue with Anglicanism. They will now turn to the much more hopeful ecumenical rapprochement with Eastern Orthodoxy, where both sides have increasing desire for unity.

Without its Anglo-Catholics, the Church of England will be left with an already dominant liberal hierarchy much more entrenched and determined to extend its revisionist agenda. This will compound Archbishop Williams' problems, as he struggles to steer the world wide Anglican Communion 'through many dangers, toils and snares.' If the Anglo-Catholics have been offered refuge in Roman Catholicism, the Anglican evangelicals and charismatics have found rescue in the missions mounted by two-thirds world African, Asian, and Latin American Anglican Primates, and their provision of extraordinary Episcopal protection to faithful Anglicans who have become victims of hostile revisionist Bishops and church bureaucracies.

The rescue of alienated North American conservative Anglicans by global south Anglicans, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the Anglican Communion, has generated a new reformation in the international polity of Anglicanism, with the conservatives convening the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in the summer of 2008, issuing a confessional statement in the Jerusalem Declaration, and proceeding to organize a world-wide Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, with the ground shifting under his feet, has attempted, with winsome and artful determination, to re-establish Anglican identity and discipline, through a conciliar process which produced the Windsor Report of 2004 and then presented a draft Anglican Covenant of proposed norms and procedures. The Archbishop has faced resistance from revisionists on any moves to reassert confessionality and discipline, while evangelicals have endorsed the Windsor Report and the draft Covenant with enthusiasm.

With the departure to Rome of most of the Anglo-Catholics, the increasing institutional entrenchment of the revisionists within the Church of England, and the spreading momentum of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Archbishop Williams' leadership seems stressed beyond capacity. Anglicanism, in Canada and globally, seems at a tipping point. Perhaps next summer's General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada will serve as a microcosm of things to come for first world Anglicanism, as the global Anglican Communion is facing both the end of the old Reformation for Anglo-Catholics, and a new reformation for confessing Anglicans.


----Dr. George Egerton is Associate Professor Emeritus, History Department at the University of British Columbia. He is a member, St. John's Anglican Church, Vancouver

A Documentary History of ECUSA's Constitution

From the Anglican Curmudgeon via TitusOneNine:

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2009

There is much litigation going on currently in State courts over the polity of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, there do not appear to be any online versions readily available of ECUSA's early Constitution, either as originally adopted or as subsequently from time to time amended. The commentary on the history of the Constitution and Canons published in 1981 by Messrs. White & Dykman, and reprinted in 1997, is available for download from this site (along with two supplements written by others, carrying the account through General Convention 1991). However, even it does not have in one place a complete version of ECUSA's original Constitution, which is so important for understanding the nature of ECUSA's mixed form of ecclesiastical polity.

Since the nature of ECUSA's polity is so much in dispute these days, I have decided that as a public service, I will publish in this post the earliest version of the Church's Constitution, as well as some further historical materials leading up to its formulation. The purpose will be so that everyone may access and understand the Church's organic evolution (see this earlier post for even more detail and background), out of a meeting of delegates from the various successors, in each new State, of the previously established Church of England in the respective colonies.

Let us begin with the six principles for the formation of a national replacement in the States for the Church of England, as it had existed in the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. The Rev. Dr. William White, of Christ Church in Philadelphia, later one of the first Bishops in the newly established Church, first proposed them in a pamphlet which he had published in 1782, entitled The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered:

I. That the Episcopal Church in these States is and ought to be independent of all foreign Authority, ecclesiastical or civil.

II. That it hath and ought to have, in common with all other religious Societies, full and exclusive Powers to regulate the Concerns of its own Communion.

III. That the Doctrines of the Gospel be maintained as now professed by the Church of England; and Uniformity of Worship be continued, as near as may be, to the Liturgy of the said Church.

IV. That the Succession of the Ministry be agreeably to the Usage which requireth the three Orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons ; that the Rights and Powers of the same respectively be ascertained, and that they be exercised according to reasonable Laws, to be duly made.

V. That to make Canons or Laws, there be no other Authority than that of a Representative Body of the Clergy and Laity conjointly.

VI. That no Powers be delegated to a general ecclesiastical Government, except such as cannot conveniently be exercised by the Clergy and Vestries in their respective Congregations.
(Emphasis added.) The last principle thus expressed from the very outset the belief that the "general ecclesiastical Government" would consist of powers delegated to it from local congregations. Those who contend that the lack of any limitation in the powers so delegated means that they are unlimited, or that once delegated, they may not be withdrawn, are ignorant of this documentary history of how General Convention came into being.

This pamphlet had a wide reception in the mid-Atlantic States, and served as the basis for a further "Declaration of certain fundamental rights" agreed upon by the assembled former Anglican clergy of the State of Maryland, at a gathering in Annapolis in August 1783, which stated in relevant part as follows:
DECLARATION of certain fundamental Rights and Liberties of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland, &C.

WHEREAS by the CONSTITUTION and FORM of Government of this State "All Persons professing the Christian Religion, are equally entitled to Protection in their Religious Liberty . . . And Whereas the ecclesiastical and spiritual Independence of the different religious Denominations, Societies, Congregations, and Churches of Christians in this State, necessarily follows from, or is included in, their civil Independence,

WHEREFORE WE the Clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Maryland (heretofore denominated the Church of England, as by Law established) with all Duty to the civil Authority of the State, and with all Love and Good-will to our Fellow-Christians of every other religious Denomination, do hereby declare, make known, and claim, the following, as certain of the fundamental Rights and Liberties inherent in and belonging to the said Episcopal Church . . .

I. WE consider it as the undoubted Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church, in common with other Christian Churches under the American Revolution, to compleat and preserve herself as an entire Church, agreeably to her ancient Usages and Profession, and to have the free Enjoyment and free Exercise of those purely spiritual Powers, which are essential to the Being of every Church or Congregation of the faithful, and which, being derived only from CHRIST and his APOSTLES, are to be maintained independent of every foreign or other Jurisdiction, so far as may be consistent with the civil Rights of Society.

II. That ever since the Reformation, it hath been the received Doctrine of the Church whereof we are Members . . . "That there be these three Orders of Ministers in CHRIST'S Church, BISHOPS, PRIESTS, and DEACONS," and that an Episcopal Ordination and Commission are necessary to the valid Administration of the Sacraments, and the due Exercise of the Ministerial Functions in the said Church.

III. That, without calling in Question the Rights, Modes, and Forms of any other Christian Churches or Societies, or wishing the least Contest with them on that Subject, we consider and declare it to be an essential Right of the said Protestant Episcopal Church to have and enjoy the Continuance of the said three Orders of Ministers forever, so far as concerns Matters purely spiritual; and that no Persons, in the Character of Ministers, except such as are in the Communion of the said Church, and duly called to the Ministry by regular Episcopal Ordination, can or ought to be admitted into, or enjoy any of the "Churches, Chapels, Glebes, or other Property," formerly belonging to the Church of England in this State, and which by the Constitution and Form of Government is secured to the said Church forever, by whatsoever Name, she the said Church, or her superior Order of Ministers, may in future be denominated.

IV. That as it is the Right, so it will be the Duty, of the said Church, when duly organized, constituted, and represented in a Synod or Convention of the different Orders of her Ministry and People, to revise her Liturgy, Forms of Prayer, and public Worship, in order to adapt the same to the late Revolution and other local Circumstances of America; which it is humbly conceived, may and will be done, without any other or farther Departure from the venerable Order and beautiful Forms of Worship of the Church from whence we sprung, than may be found expedient in the Change of our Situation from a DAUGHTER to a SISTER-CHURCH.
(Emphasis again added.) The editor of the volume in which this declaration is to be found appends a piece of contemporary correspondence, with the following introductory remarks (I have added the italics):
In connection with these "Fundamental Principles," which appear not only in this printed address, but again and again in subsequent Journals and fragments of Journals of the Maryland Conventions, it may be well to subjoin the following important letter, from the Rev. Dr. William Smith, the leading spirit in the Maryland organization, which bears strongly upon the question of diocesan independence, as held by the framers of our ecclesiastical Constitution. It forms, moreover, a fitting preface to the "Proceedings" it so clearly indicates in advance.

Dear Sir:

The Clergy of Maryland are to meet (in pursuance of the sanction obtained from the G. Assembly) on the 13th of this Month; but as Mr. Gates and myself were to call this Meeting, we found on consulting some of our nearest Brethren, that they did not think it proper, nor that we were authorized, to call any Clergy to our assistance from the neighboring States that the Episcopal Clergy of Maryland were in some respects peculiarly circumstanced, and ought, in the first instance, to have a preparatory Convention or Conference, to consider and frame a DECLARATION of their own Rights as one of the Churches of a separate and independent State, to agree upon some articles of Government and Unity among themselves, to fix some future Time of meeting by adjournment, to appoint a Committee to bring in a Plan of SOME FEW alterations that may be found necessary in the Liturgy and Service of the Church, and by the authority of this first Meeting to open a correspondence on the subject with the Clergy of the neighboring States, and to have some speedy future and more general meeting with the Clergy of those States, or Committees from them, to unite if possible in the alterations to be made, which many among us think cannot have a full Church Ratification, till we have on some plan or another the three Orders of Bishops, Priests and Deacons to concur in the same. What STATE or civic ratification may be necessary, or whether any is a question yet to be determined. In Maryland, I presume, a few words of a Declaratory Act, that a Clergy, ordained in such a form, and using a Liturgy with such alterations as may be agreed upon, are to be considered as entitled to the Glebes, Churches and other property declared by the Constitution to belong to the CHURCH OF ENGLAND for ever. I say such a short Act as this, or the Opinion of the Judges that such Act is not necessary, is I conceive all that will be wanted.

Chester: August 4th, 1783.
To Rev. Dr. WHITE.
From the Bishop White MSS., in the possession of the Rev. F. L. Hawks, D.D.
There followed a gathering of clergy and laity from New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey at Brunswick, New Jersey on May 11, 1784, which resulted in a determination to gather again in October, and to invite representatives from churches in additional States. This meeting also spurred the clergy and laity from the parishes in Pennsylvania to begin their own organizing. To that end, they assembled in Philadelphia toward the end of May 1784. The meeting was the first of its kind in the former Colonies to include laity from each and every parish. It ended up by adopting the following recommendation concerning the creation of a "standing committee" -- the first use of this term in the nascent Church:
That they think it expedient to appoint a standing committee of the Episcopal church in this state, consisting of clergy and laity; that the said committee be empowered to correspond and confer with representatives from the Episcopal church in the other states, or any of them; and assist in framing an ecclesiastical government; that a constitution of ecclesiastical government, when framed, be reported to the several congregations, through their respective ministers, church-wardens, and vestrymen, to be binding on all the congregations consenting to it, as soon as a majority of the congregations shall have consented; that a majority of the committee, or any less number by them appointed, be a quorum; that they be desired to keep minutes of their proceedings; and that they be bound by the following instructions or fundamental principles. [There follow the six fundamental principles first set out by the Rev. Dr. White in his pamphlet.]
The "standing committee" so formed did communicate with clergy and laity in other States, as I have already related in this earlier post. This resulted in a series of further meetings and drafts of a national constitution, as I have spelled out in great detail there, and I will not repeat here what I said earlier. My concern from this point on is to set out the version of the Church Constitution as finally agreed upon by the assembled representatives of the Churches in the States of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina in the city of Philadelphia in September-October 1789, and as finally ratified by diocesan conventions in each of those States, since the text does not readily appear elsewhere on the Web. Here, then, is the text of that original Constitution, in full:


THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

ART. 1. There shall be a General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America on the second Tuesday of September, in the year of our Lord 1792, and on the second Tuesday of September in every third year afterwards, in such place as shall be determined by the Convention; and special meetings may be called at other times, in the manner hereafter to be provided for; and this Church, in a majority of the States which shall have adopted this Constitution, shall be represented, before they shall proceed to business, except that the representation from two States shall be sufficient to adjourn; and in all business of the Convention, freedom of debate shall be allowed.

ART. 2. The Church in each State shall be entitled to a representation of both the Clergy and the Laity, which representation shall consist of one or more Deputies, not exceeding four of each Order, chosen by the Convention of the State: and in all questions, when required by the Clerical or Lay representation from any State, each Order shall have one vote; and the majority of suffrages by States shall be conclusive in each Order, provided such majority comprehend a majority of the States represented in that Order. The concurrence of both Orders shall be necessary to constitute a vote of the Convention. If the Convention of any State should neglect or decline to appoint Clerical Deputies, or if they should neglect or decline to appoint Lay Deputies, or if any of those of either Order appointed should neglect to attend, or be prevented by sickness or any other accident, such State shall nevertheless be considered as duly represented by such Deputy or Deputies as may attend, whether lay or clerical. And if, through the neglect of the Convention of any of the Churches which shall have adopted, or may hereafter adopt this Constitution, no Deputies, either Lay or Clerical, should attend at any General Convention, the Church in such State shall nevertheless be bound by the acts of such Convention.

ART. 3. The Bishops of this Church, when there shall be three or more, shall, whenever General Conventions are held, form a separate House, with a right to originate and propose acts for the concurrence of the House of Deputies, composed of Clergy and Laity ; and when any proposed act shall have passed the House of Deputies, the same shall be transmitted to the House of Bishops, who shall have a negative thereupon unless adhered to by four-fifths of the other House. And all acts of the Convention shall be authenticated by both Houses. And in all cases, the House of Bishops shall signify to the Convention their approbation or disapprobation, the latter with their reasons in writing, within three days after the proposed act shall have been reported to them for concurrence, and in failure thereof it shall have the operation of a law. But until there shall be three or more Bishops as aforesaid, any Bishop attending a General Convention shall be a member ex officio, and shall vote with the Clerical Deputies of the State to which he belongs; and a Bishop shall then preside.

ART. 4. The Bishop or Bishops in every State shall be chosen agreeably to such rules as shall be fixed by the Convention of that State. And every Bishop of this Church shall confine the exercise of his Episcopal office to his proper Diocese or District, unless requested to ordain or confirm, or perform any other act of the Episcopal office, by any Church destitute of a Bishop.

ART. 5. A Protestant Episcopal Church in any of the United States not now represented, may, at any time hereafter, be admitted, on acceding to this Constitution.

ART. 6. In every State, the mode of trying Clergymen shall be instituted by the Convention of the Church therein. At every trial of a Bishop there shall be one or more of the Episcopal Order present: and none but a Bishop shall pronounce sentence of deposition or degradation from the Ministry on any Clergyman, whether Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon.

ART. 7. No person shall be admitted to Holy Orders, until he shall have been examined by the Bishop and by two Presbyters, and shall have exhibited such testimonials and other requisites as the Canons in that case provided may direct. Nor shall any person be ordained until he shall have subscribed the following declaration: "I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation: and I do solemnly engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in these United States." No person ordained by a foreign Bishop shall be permitted to officiate as a Minister of this Church, until he shall have complied with the Canon or Canons in that case provided, and have also subscribed the aforesaid declaration.

ART. 8. A Book of Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Articles of Religion, and a form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, when established by this or a future General Convention, shall be used in the Protestant Episcopal Church in those States, which shall have adopted this Constitution.

ART. 9. This Constitution shall be unalterable, unless in General Convention by the Church in a majority of the States which may have adopted the same; and all alterations shall be first proposed in one General Convention, and made known to the several State Conventions, before they shall be finally agreed to, or ratified, in the ensuing General Convention.

Done in General Convention of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Church, the second day of October, 1789, and ordered to be transcribed into the Book of Records, and subscribed, which was done as follows, viz.

IN THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS.

SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D., Bishop of Connecticut.

WILLIAM WHITE, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Pennsylvania.

IN THE HOUSE OF CLERICAL AND LAY DEPUTIES.

WILLIAM SMITH, D.D., President of the House of Clerical and Lay Deputies, and Clerical Deputy from Maryland.

NEW HAMPSHIRE & MASSACHUSETTS

SAMUEL PARKER, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Boston.

CONNECTICUT

BELA HUBBARD, A.M., Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven.
ABRAHAM JARVIS, A.M., Rector of Christ Church, Middletown.

NEW YORK

BENJAMIN MOORE, D.D., } Assistant Ministers of
ABRAHAM BEACH, D.D., } Trinity Church, in the City of New York.
RICHARD HARRISON, Lay Deputy from the State of New York.

NEW JERSEY

UZAL OGDEN, Rector of Trinity Church, Newark.
WILLIAM FRAZER, A.M., Rector of St. Michael's Church, Trenton, and St. Andrew's Church, Amwell.
SAMUEL OGDEN, }
R. STRETTELL JONES, } Lay Deputies.

PENNSYLVANIA

SAMUEL MAGAW, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia.
ROBERT BLACKWELL, D.D., Senior Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH G. J. BEND, Assistant Minister of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia.
JOSEPH PILMORE, Rector of the United Churches of Trinity, St. Thomas, and All Saints.
GERARDUS CLARKSON, } Lay Deputies
TENCH COXE, } from the State
FRANCIS HOPKINSON, } of Pennsylva-
SAMUEL POWEL, } nia.

DELAWARE

JOSEPH COWDEN, A.M., Rector of St. Anne's.
ROBERT CLAY, Rector of Emanuel and St. James's Churches.

MARYLAND

JOHN BISSETT, A.M., Rector of Shrews bury Parish, Kent County.
JOHN RUMSEY, } Lay
CHARLES GOLDSBOROUGH, } Deputies.

VIRGINIA

JOHN BRACKEN, Rector of Bruton Parish, Williamsburg.
ROBERT ANDREWS, Lay Deputy.

SOUTH CAROLINA

ROBERT SMITH, D.D., Rector of St. Philip's Church, Charleston.
WILLIAM SMITH, } Lay Deputies from
WILLIAM BRISBANE, } the State of South Carolina.


Note the many features in common with the version we have today, as well as the provisions that have been greatly expanded (e.g., Art. V, on how dioceses form and join) and that were subsequently dropped altogether (e.g., the last sentence of Art. 2, as discussed and explained in the paper by Mark McCall published by the Anglican Communion Institute [see n. 44 and the text at that point]; repealed as part of the overhaul made in 1901.) As I deem it useful, I will document additional versions of the Constitution in subsequent posts.

FOUL BALL!

From the Archdiocese of New York via TitusOneNine:

October 29, 2009

The following article was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article. The Times declined to publish it. I thought you might be interested in reading it.


By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York

October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!

Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:


On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”
Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.

On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.
Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.
Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.
True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.

I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?

The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.

I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.

Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.