DENNIS PRAGER

National Review Online

AUGUST 31, 2010 12:00 A.M. The New Moral Equivalence Prominent media hosts equate Christian and Muslim violence. There was one thing more than any other that turned this New York, liberal, Jewish, Columbia University graduate student away from modern liberalism: its use of moral equivalence to avoid confronting evil during the Cold War. There was a time when liberalism was identified with anti-Communism. But the Vietnam War led liberals into the arms of the Left, which had been morally confused about Communism since its inception and had become essentially pacifist following the carnage of World War I. After the Vietnam War, even liberals who continued to describe Communism as evil were labeled “right-wingers” and “Cold Warriors.” And the United States, with its moral flaws, was often likened to the Soviet Union. I recall asking the preeminent liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in a public forum in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, if he would say that the United States was a morally superior society to the Soviet Union. He would not. Little has changed regarding the Left’s inability to identify and confront evil. Its moral equation of good guys and bad guys was made evident again in recent weeks by hosts on three major liberal networks: ABC, National Public Radio (NPR), and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). First, on May 25, PBS host Tavis Smiley interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim Somali writer and activist for human, especially women’s, rights in Islamic countries. After mentioning American Muslim terrorists Major Nidal Hasan (who murdered 13 fellow soldiers and injured 30 others at Fort Hood) and Faisal Shahzad (who attempted to murder hundreds in Times Square), this dialogue ensued: Ali: “Somehow, the idea got into their [Hasan’s and Shahzad’s] minds that to kill other people is a great thing to do and that they would be rewarded in the hereafter.” Smiley: “But Christians do that every single day in this country.” Ali: “Do they blow people up?” Smiley: “Yes. Oh, Christians, every day, people walk into post offices, they walk into schools, that’s what Columbine is — I could do this all day long. There are so many moreexamples of Christians — and I happen to be a Christian. “There are so many more examples, Ayaan, of Christians who do that than you could ever give me examples of Muslims who have done that inside this country, where you live and work.” Then, on August 22, Michel Martin, host of NPR’s Tell Me More, in discussing whether the Islamic Center and mosque planned for near Ground Zero should be moved, said this on CNN’s Reliable Sourceswith Howard Kurtz: “Should anybody move a Catholic church? Did anybody move a Christian church after Timothy McVeigh, who adhered to a cultic white supremacist cultic version of Christianity, bombed [the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City]?” And third, on August 26, ABC 20/20 anchor Chris Cuomo tweeted this to his nearly 1 million followers: “To all my christian brothers and sisters, especially catholics – before u condemn muslims for violence, remember the crusades . . . . study them.” I have known Tavis Smiley since the 1980s, when we both worked at the same radio station in Los Angeles. He is smart, and he is a gentleman who has accorded me great respect both on and off the air. How, then, does such a man equate Muslims who murder in the name of Islam with Americans who “murder every day,” none of whom commit their murders in the name of Christianity? How does Michel Martin equate the thousands of Islamic terrorists around the world, all of whom are devout Muslims, with a single American (one who professed no religion at all)? And how does ABC’s Chris Cuomo claim that Christians cannot condemn Muslims for violence because of the Christian Crusades? First of all, the Crusades occurred a thousand years ago. One might as well argue that Jews cannot condemn Christian and secular anti-Semitic violence because Jews destroyed Canaanite communities 3,200 years ago. Second, it is hardly a defense of Muslims to cite comparable Christian conduct that occurred a thousand years ago. Third, even if we do compare the Crusades with contemporary Islamic jihadism, there is little moral equivalence. The Crusades were waged in order to recapture lands that had been Christian for centuries until Muslim armies attacked them. (Some Crusaders also massacred whole Jewish communities in Germany on the way to the Holy Land, and that was a grotesque evil — which Church officials condemned at the time.) As the dean of Western Islamic scholars, Princeton professor Bernard Lewis, has written, “The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad — a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war.” So how did Tavis Smiley, Michel Martin, and Chris Cuomo make such morally egregious statements? The answer is not that these are bad people, or that they are not repulsed by terrorist violence. The answer is leftism, the way of looking at the world that permeates high schools, universities, and the news and entertainment media. Those indoctrinated by leftist thinking become largely incapable of making accurate moral judgments. They once regarded America and the Soviet Union as morally similar. Today, they claim that the people they call Christian “extremists” (who are they?) and Islamist terrorists and their supporters pose equal threats to America and to the world. That is how bright and decent people become moral relativists and thereby undermine the battles against the greatest evils — Communist totalitarianism in its time, and Islamic totalitarianism in ours. The only solution is to keep exposing leftist moral confusion. One problem, however, is that in countries without talk radio, an equivalent to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, conservative columnists, and a vigorous anti-Left political party, this is largely impossible. The other major problem is that the media that dominate American life have little problem — indeed, they largely concur — with the foolish and dangerous comments made by their mainstream-media colleagues. That is why these comments, worthy of universal moral condemnation, were ignored by the mainstream (i.e., left-wing) media. Instead, they directed mind-numbing attention and waves of opprobrium toward Dr. Laura. Those who don’t fight real evils fight imaginary ones. — Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website,dennisprager.com.

Wallis-Soros ties surfacing

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 8/27/2010 4:00:00 AM

The leader of the "progressive Christian" Sojourners movement has accepted funding from leftist atheist billionaire George Soros.

Mark Tooley, president of The Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD), tells OneNewsNow the information about Jim Wallis receiving the funds surfaced recently in a report from WORLD Magazine.

"This was significant in that Jim Wallis in recent years has adamantly insisted he did not belong to either side of the political spectrum, but essentially was a centrist who was transcending left and right and was simply a purely Christian activist," Tooley notes. But in fact, he continues, with the Wallis-Soros connection now confirmed, "Wallis...stands exposed as what he always was: a man of the political left."

Wallis -- a spiritual advisor to President Obama -- has openly stated in the past that Sojourners did not receive funding from atheists, but he later issued a statement confirming there had been at least three Soros grants from Soros' Open Society Institute totaling about $325,000. One of those grants, according to Christianity Today, totaled $100,000 and was earmarked for "immigration reform" -- prompting Wallis to tell the publication: "I have no apologies for taking a donation on immigration reform from Open Society. We'd do it again."

---

Tooley thinks Wallis and Soros are in sync on several different levels -- some of which contrast sharply with Christian orthodoxy.

"George Soros, besides being politically on the left, obviously is very pro-abortion rights and pro-euthanasia and would have very strong views on a whole range of topics involving sanctity of life and definition of marriage and others that the vast majority of orthodox Christians would disagree with," Tooley suggests.

But the IRD president points out that at the same time, Wallis is trying to make his appeal primarily to evangelical Christians -- resulting in what Tooley describes as a clear "dichotomy."

RETIREMENT

Monday, August 30th, 2010 | Uncategorized | 4 Comments

One of the giants decides to hang it up:

I think I’m going to wind down this blog. The stupidity of the religious Left has stopped being funny to me, and I find that commenting on their continuing decomposition just isn’t worth the energy genuine indignation would require. Politics is also going from bad to worse, what with the Ground Zero Abomination Mosque Roach House project failing to produce the correct response: pistol duels. I’m starting to feel like M. Scott Peck dealing with one of his evil-infected patients: that the sickness of so many parts of the world today is so great that it will overwhelm me if I don’t get away from it.

I understand that, I really do. The idea has occurred to me from time to time and if you run one of these things long enough, it’ll occur to you too. So why have I kept at it?

Probably the only advantage to being an intensely shy, moody loner is that it provides you with a certain distance. If you spend your entire life on the outside looking in, you’ll eventually develop an outside-looking-in way of looking at the world.

After getting over the wrench of leaving the only church I had ever known, the Episcopalians began to amuse me so it was fun to write about them. If you’re interested, here’s the best chronicle of that process(not available at fine bookstores everywhere; just sayin’).

And they can’t even do that anymore. These days, since they are so predictable, the Episcopalians and the rest of the Christian left bore me more than anything else. Hence the gradual move into other areas.

But how have you stayed at it as long as you have, Chris? Why hasn’t it gotten to you? Here’s one reason. Know why the Anglican Investigator exists? Know why I take occasional semi-successful stabs at humor? Stuff like that actually isn’t for the readership. It’s for me.

You have to amuse yourself once in a while.

Fact of the matter is that most of the time, I rarely post things because I think other people will be fascinated by them. I post them because I am. The fact that other people are as well is icing on the cake.

Tiptoeing Through the Tulips: Lack of Oversight for ECUSA's Lawsuit Expenses

from Anglican Curmudgeon by A. S. Haley

[N.B.: This is Part IV of a multi-part series entitled: "How Did ECUSA Get its Attorneys?" The previous posts arePart I, Part II and Part III.]

Frank Kirkpatrick, professor of religion at Trinity College, wrote in a survey article in 2008 that "there were, as of December [2007], 55 [Episcopal Church] property disputes in one state or another of resolution around the country." (You may find a listing of those lawsuits in this post from August 2008, and see also the latest report from the American Anglican Council.) Of those fifty-five lawsuits, I estimate that ECUSA itself was a party to about half of them. Thus from the five lawsuits to which it was a party as Bishop Griswold ended his term in November 2006 (the Pawley's Island case in South Carolina, the three Los Angeles lawsuits, and a case involving St. James Church in Elmhurst, in the Diocese of Long Island), the number increased by five times in the first full year of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's term.

Under Bishop Jefferts Schori, ECUSA did not just passively stand by as the property disputes emerged, and allow the diocese involved to carry the laboring oar. It aggressively prosecuted the cases in both California and Virginia, joined in filings in Connecticut, Georgia and New York (where it intervened as the DFMS against St. Andrew's, in Syracuse, and filed an amicus brief in this case in New York's highest court), became enmeshed in additional litigation in San Diego and Colorado, and threatened litigation against the dioceses of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Quincy if they dared to withdraw from the Church. (The latter two threats were issued by the Presiding Bishop's Chancellor on his own initiative, as discussed in this earlier post.)

There are no records in the minutes of the Executive Council during this period to show that it was ever consulted before any of these multiple filings in the name of the Church took place; as quoted in the previous post, the Presiding Bishop held the view that only she personally, and neither the Council, nor even General Convention, had any authority over litigation. Thus she simply gave her Chancellor free rein -- and ECUSA's legal bills began to mount exponentially.

As we saw in the two previous posts, ECUSA's legal expenses exceeded a million dollars in each of 2006 and 2007 -- even though the former year was the last of a triennium (2004-2006) whose total for three years had been budgeted at $765,000, and the latter was the first year in a new triennium whose total for three years had been set at just $405,000. The current-year budget which the Executive Council adopted at its February 2008 meetingraised the amount allocated for legal expenses from the $135,000 which had been set in 2006 to just $450,000 (after it had already changed that same amount for 2007 to $800,000 the previous year). The Council thus appears to have continued to operate in the dark with regard to the mounting tsunami of legal bills which were the inevitable consequence of all the lawsuits authorized by the Presiding Bishop, acting on her own. What it saw instead was a need to reach out to provide additional assistance to the groups trying to "remain Episcopal" in the departing dioceses. At the close of its meeting in February, the Council had issued a statement, "Transformation and Hope", which contained the following paragraph:

We are deeply concerned for those who are members of The Episcopal Church but now find themselves in parishes or dioceses attempting to depart. To the members of The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, know we stand with you. Your struggles and needs inform our prayers, deliberations, and plans. This is a new and unfamiliar landscape for all of us. We stand with you and commit ourselves to provide pastoral care, to aid in re-organization, and to support legal actions necessary to retain the assets of the diocese for ministry. We will hold clergy leaders accountable to their vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church, and lay leadership accountable to the fiduciary responsibilities of the offices they hold. Up to $500,000 of income from trust funds will be made available in the calendar year 2008 to support the mission work of the Diocese of San Joaquin and similarly situated dioceses.

Note the description of the purpose of the $500,000 to be taken from trust fund income: "to support the missionwork of the Diocese of San Joaquin and similarly situated dioceses." What was special about the Diocese of San Joaquin at this time was that its annual convention in December 2007 had voted overwhelmingly in favor of a constitutional amendment which would effectively remove it as a member of the unincorporated association of dioceses that comprises the Episcopal Church (USA). The only other dioceses that could be said to be "similarly situated" were those who were considering similar constitutional amendments: the Dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy and Pittsburgh. Thus the need for "mission work" in just these four dioceses was a rhetorical fig leaf -- intended to provide legal cover for the fact that money left in trust to the Episcopal Church (DFMS) is generally earmarked for "the mission of the Church."

The Council's official statement could also be taken as a means of avoiding any response to the petition, with over 5,000 signers, circulated in the fall of 2007 by the American Anglican Council, requesting that ECUSA reveal how much money it had spent since 2004 on litigation against individuals and parishes. (There was little chance of the request's being granted, given that the Presiding Bishop had refused even to disclose the full amounts to the Executive Council itself.) In truth, it had no idea at this point of what the amount was, or what it was going to be by the end of the year. In the next paragraphs of its February statement, the Council showed that it was still operating on rosy assumptions:

Regarding the financial health of The Episcopal Church, we learned that in a time of economic recession, Episcopalians have demonstrated a renewed commitment to stewardship with an anticipated 4 percent increase in diocesan commitments and an excess of resources over expenses for 2007.

The budget approved for 2008 reflects these increases in diocesan commitments and for that we are grateful. Appropriations for block grants, covenant relationships and most other mission programs will continue at GC approved levels or higher in 2008. . . .

Attendance was declining -- the Church would later disclose that it had lost some 60,000 members between 2006 and 2008, the equivalent of the combined dioceses of Atlanta, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Upper South Carolina. But the Council remained steadfastly on the track set for it by 815, and refused to ask any hard questions about just how much was being spent on attorneys, and what the Church was receiving for all its money. Instead, it voted to "up the ante" in San Joaquin, as we shall see, and allocate accumulated trust funds in its charge for clergy salaries there in order to free up still more funds for litigation. (The money would go to pay for Bishop Lamb's local attorneys; the expenses of Goodwin Procter, as co-counsel on the case, would continue to be paid from the office of the Presiding Bishop.)

Thus it is fair to say that at this point, in February 2008, the entire Executive Council became complicit in an official conspiracy at the Church's highest levels. The conspiracy worked in this fashion:

1. At the head was the Presiding Bishop, who with her Chancellor decided whom to sue in the name of the "Church."

2. Next, the Chancellor was given free reign to "pile on" the Church's opponents -- to bring to bear against them as many legal resources at his disposal as he wished to employ. Although there was a nominal "budget" established for legal expenses, it served as a placeholder only, and acted as no kind of limit on his authority.

3. The Treasurer of the Church was left with the problem of finding the moneys needed to pay all the legal bills from accumulated trust funds, surpluses from past years (which were exhausted by 2007), and from other unrestricted sources.

4. To provide the local remnants with additional ammunition to harass their opponents, the Executive Council would duly rubber-stamp, based on the Treasurer's recommendations, the use of particular trust funds for "mission work" in the affected dioceses. The funds would be disbursed to relieve those dioceses of the burden of collecting pledges and donations to pay clergy salaries and ongoing parish expenses.

5. With the local moneys so collected, the remnant groups could pay their local attorneys to go after additional properties. The aim was to sell any church properties recovered -- the remnant groups were too small to have any use for them, or ability to keep them up -- and turn them into cash to fund more litigation (and later, to repay "litigation loans" from the Executive Council).

6. No sooner was money found by the Treasurer and appropriated by the Executive Council than it would be overspent before the year was over, and the cycle would begin all over again.

At their scheduled meeting in New York in September 2008, members of the Audit Committee began to show some concern over the propriety of using DFMS trust funds in this fashion. Here is an extract from their minutes on that occasion:

Ernie [Petrey] had questions regarding the funding approved by EC to help the Diocese of San Joaquin. He identified issues regarding the use of the term “income” in the Trust Funds Manual, regardless of the fund. A number of those funds came in prior to 1972, when the definition of income changed and it changed again after 1991. . . . He inquired, “If a document says you’ll use income for x, y and z is that interpreted to mean “return” or income?” . . . He questioned whether a) in the statement of unappreciated distribution in the trust funds [the amount] is $4.2 million or b) whether it is distributable. He observed there is no clear understanding that appreciation is not a factor and it is stated in the Trust Funds Book ‘we will not distribute appreciation.’ To spend it down contrary to that stated in the TF book is bad.

Kurt [Barnes -- the DFMS Treasurer] recalled that in 1997 there was an Attorney General-mandated review of the use of the trust funds. In 2005, Elsa Cumming (assistant in-house counsel at the time) was asked to review them also to make sure the language applied to the way the funds were being used. Each time there is a request of funds from a trust, counsel reviews it to make sure that EC has the authority and there is proper use of the funds. A memorandum is produced prior to the request being sent to EC. . . .

These were the questions to ask, but the discussion was occurring only among the six members of the Audit Committee, along with the staff and outside auditor members attending. What is disturbing, however, are indications that in-house counsel's review of the use of the trust funds in this manner may have been rather perfunctory, or perhaps even not professionally competent (bold emphasis added):

If at any point the corpus is below the original amount endowed, the trustee may have to cover the corpus; by accepting the trust, agreement is made to keep it intact. N[ot-]F[or-]P[rofit]s had to cover deficiencies in times past when the market was down. Donors never said anything about unrealized appreciation and this may be affected by [statute]. Additional conversation covered the nuances concerning pay-out rates, limits of fiduciary responsibility, possibilities of expending principal in a prudent manner and the importance of spending funds entrusted for the purpose.

Ernie . . . believes you can only spend income and, in that light, feels it necessary to look at the original language of the trusts. He is not convinced that any previous legal counsel, who may have had no experience with endowment funds, understood what it means. . . . We need to find out whether or not counsel reviewed the funds prior to approval by EC to spend for San Joaquin. Kurt confirmed that Elsa Cumming reviewed and provided a written opinion at the time.

Now the discussion reached the real heart of the matter: the Church's lack of an independent, outside counsel who could provide a competent and disinterested review of the actions taken and commitments being made in the name of the Church. Significantly, the member of the Audit Committee who puts his finger on the issue is the head of the Church's Property Task Force, established by the House of Bishops in response to the publication ofthe Chapman Memo (bold emphasis again added):

[Bishop] Stacy [Sauls] expressed his concern that the organization only has available to it 20 hours per week of legal counsel and is increasingly concerned that the church does not have a lawyer. The EC does not have counsel, even though the PB does have and, it seems, everyone assumes that the PB’s counsel is everyone else’s counsel. Kurt responded that there is a second person in the in-house counsel’s office, who also devotes 20 hours per week. Romey Mancini has replaced Elsa Cumming. He added that Chuck Robertson [the Presiding Bishop's Canon] is looking into independent counsel for the church and how that might be supported financially.

It is simply astonishing that a charitable organization as large as the Episcopal Church, after committing itself literally to dozens and dozens of lawsuits and millions of dollars in legal fees, finds itself asking how it might support the cost of independent counsel to review the appropriateness of the actions so taken. If any statement in the record could indicate the lock on ECUSA at this point enjoyed by its Chancellor and his law firm, it would surely be this last one.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church (USA) gathered in Helena, Montana for its third meeting of the year, a month after this meeting of the Audit Committee. From its minutes, it would seem as though the meeting occurred in a vacuum -- neither Bishop Sauls nor any other member of both groups appears to have brought the Committee's concerns to the full Council. No alarm appears to have been expressed at what had been spent over the previous nine months; there was no report from the Presiding Bishop about what she was doing on the legal front, or why. (Perhaps there was such a report in "executive session" -- one was noted as having taken place, but its subject is not disclosed. Nevertheless, the actions and resolutions of the Council afterward do not indicate that it had any concerns in this area -- and as noted in the previous post, the Presiding Bishop did not think the topic was within the jurisdiction of the Executive Council in any event.)

Consider this question: how long did the $500,000 voted by the Council for "Legal Assistance to Dioceses" in February 2008 last? The monthly operating statements tell the tale (although as explained below, they do not allow that amount to be tracked directly). By July 2008, the line item for "Title IV Expenses and Legal Assistance to Dioceses" had already passed the one-million-dollar mark. (The ongoing expenses of the trial of Bishop Charles Bennison in Philadelphia were putting another dent in the budget, on top of all the money being spent in intensive litigation in Virginia, San Joaquin and elsewhere.)

The monthly statement for September 2008, which the Council would have had before it in Helena, for the first time split into separate line items the amounts spent on "Title IV Expenses" and "Legal Assistance to Dioceses." As so split, the figures point up the meaninglessness of the budgeted numbers. For contrary to the February 2008 communiqué, the line item for "Legal Assistance to Dioceses" is shown as budgeted at only$100,000 (which was the original amount of this line item when the triennial budget was approved by GC 2006, before the Executive Council adjusted it upwards), instead of $500,000. Apparently, what the Executive Council voted on was simply to distribute accumulated income and appreciation which had already been booked, so no increase was made to the line item. Nevertheless, the year-to-date total expended is far over either amount, at $918,418! Meanwhile, the new line item for "Title IV" shows a budgeted amount for the year of $350,000 -- with a year-to-date expenditure (through the conclusion of Bishop Bennison's trial) of $534,977.

The explanation of what was going on can only be guessed at from a review of the minutes of the Helena meeting in October 2008. One would think that a considerable amount of time would have been devoted to such huge cost overruns -- where they were headed, and what alternatives existed to rein them in, if not contain them. But that was not the case. Instead, the Council spent most of its time on these matters discussing where furthermoney could come from to fund an estimated $700,000 needed by the remnant "dioceses" for "mission work" in 2009! The proposal, again, was to use accumulated, unspent income and appreciation from certain specific trusts as the source of the needed funds; the Treasurer reported there was approximately $3 million of such money available. Along the way, the minutes make note of this fact (bold emphasis added):

The Executive Council authorized a draw of up to $500,000 to fund similar work in 2008. Through October, nearly $421,000 had been expended to support mission in the dioceses of San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh. These disbursements were reviewed and approved by legal counsel, who confirmed that the disbursements complied with the terms and conditions of the trusts.

But as just noted, the total shown on the September month-end statement for "Legal Assistance to Dioceses" stood already at $918,418. How, then, could the Treasurer make a report that the amount spent "through October" was only $421,000? The answer must be that the latter amount was included in the former, and hence that for reporting purposes, moneys spent by ECUSA on on ECUSA's attorneys were commingled with moneys given to dioceses to spend on their attorneys (or -- excuse me -- clergy salaries). But showing the expenditures without taking into account the sources (the accumulated trust moneys being disbursed) would, over time, exaggerate expenses in relation to revenues, and give a false picture of the financial state of the Church. The correction, however, was not made until the December year-end statement, which finally showed a line item in revenues for "Short-term Reserve Draw."

And the amount so finally shown? It was not $500,000 -- or any amount even in the neighborhood. No, the total short-term draw on funds needed to keep the Church able to pay its bills in 2008 pretty much exhausted the entire $3 million which the Treasurer had reported was "available" for reserve funding in 2009: it was just over$2.5 million. That left the Treasurer to find still more individual trusts with undistributed appreciation and income in order to fund the appropriation for "Legal Assistance to Dioceses" in 2009.

Why did so much have to be drawn from short-term reserves in 2008? Because legal expenses were out of control. As we saw above, the amount had already climbed over $900,000 by September 2008, and the December monthly statement shows a further $900,000 paid out in that month alone! The total spent on legal fees and assistance in calendar 2008 came to a whopping two million, sixty thousand, two hundred and eleven dollars. And that figure did not include the now separately budgeted "Title IV expenses," which in 2008 amounted to nearly another nine hundred thousand dollars all by themselves!

All told, the Church's legal bills, and its provision of legal assistance to dioceses, cost the Church in 2008 a total of $ 2,954,855 -- when at the beginning of the year it had revised its budget to establish a total of just $450,000 for those expenses -- or fifteen percent of the amount that was eventually spent. Obviously, the figures would have to be further revised for 2009, given the track record of the Church to date in this area. Shall we recap the figures? The original triennial budget established at GC 2006 allocated a total of $405,000 for the three years 2007-2009 to be spent on "Title IV expenses and Legal Assistance to Dioceses." But at the end of just two years of that budget, the actual figures spent were:

2007 - $1,304,137

2008 - $2,954,655

2-yr Total: $ 4,258,792

And even that, as we shall see, was not a final figure. Nor, because Goodwin Procter also discounted its fees as a pro bono contribution to the Church, does it even represent the full amount of legal work that was ordered to be done.

We are now at the point where General Convention 2009 is approaching, and Executive Council is striving mightily to come up with a proposed new triennial budget for adoption in Anaheim in July 2009. So what happened next? Stay tuned -- if you think what has been described to date is bad, you haven't really seen anything yet. With the next post, we will see how greatly "the plot thickens."

Rwandan House of Bishops Urge Conciliar Process to Resolve Anglican Crisis

from VirtueOnline

Rwandan House of Bishops Urge Conciliar Process to Resolve Anglican Crisis
Bishops say Covenant has failed

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue in Entebbe
www.virtueonline.org
August 29, 2010

The House of Bishops of the Province of Rwanda has sent a dispatch to the All African Bishops Conference (CAPA) meeting in Entebbe calling for new "effective structures" to meet the "ecclesial deficit" in the Anglican Communion.

The letter brought by the Archbishop of Rwanda, the Most Rev. Emmanuel Kolini said that despite the blessings here at the CAPA conference, "We the Bishops of Rwanda have great concern about the state of the Anglican Communion and its ongoing disintegration." He described the situation as "acute."

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

Rwandan House of Bishops Call for Reaffirmation of Jerusalem (GAFCON)Declaration

from VirtueOnline

Rwandan House of Bishops Call for Reaffirmation of Jerusalem (GAFCON) Declaration
Bishops urge new Conciliar Process. Covenant has failed, they say

Posted by David W. Virtue in Entebbe
www.virtueonline.org
August 27, 2010

We write to you with gratitude and humility as we rejoice in our time together in Entebbe, Uganda at the All African Bishops' Conference.

Blessed is the Church in Africa to have such gifted leadership in our host, the Anglican Province of Uganda and its Primate, the Most Reverend Henry Luke Orombi. Such blessings continue in the CAPA Leadership and its Chair, the Most Reverend Ian Ernest, Primate of the Province of the Indian Ocean.

As we think of this very important gathering we recall that it was only four months ago that many in this gathering arrived in Singapore for the Fourth Global South to South Encounter. Since that gracious time shared, Anglican revisionism in the West continues and the need to "Secure our Future" as Faithful Anglicans has become even more acute.

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

ENTEBBE: Two African Anglican Provinces Say Abandoning US Church is "Wrong"

from VirtueOnline

ENTEBBE: Two African Anglican Provinces Say Abandoning US Episcopal Church is "Wrong"
Central Africa and Southern Africa reject ACNA's legitimacy

By David W. Virtue in Entebbe
www.virtueonline.org
August 29, 2010

Two African Anglican Provinces - Central Africa and Southern Africa - say they will not go along with CAPA's call to disassociate itself from the Episcopal Church for its actions in consecrating a non-celibate homosexual and a lesbian to the episcopacy.

In a letter VOL has obtained, the two provinces say that notwithstanding, the impression being created at the Conference that all Provinces in Africa are of one mind to abandon our relationship with TEC, [we believe this] is wrong. "Painful as the action is it should not become the presenting issue to lead to the break-up up of our legacy and this gift of God - the worldwide Anglican Communion."

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

Anglican Communion News Service

Seven days in Entebbe - A reflection on the All Africa Bishops Conference

Posted On : August 29, 2010 12:50 PM | Posted By : Admin ACO
ACNS: ACNS4729
Related Categories: ACO Africa

By Jan Butter, Anglican Communion Office Director of Communications

I flew into Entebbe on Monday morning without map or compass; this was only the second gathering of bishops from across the continent of Africa. The first had been six years ago in Lagos, Nigeria, long before my time with the Anglican Communion Office.

As an invited guest I had received the conference agenda, but I was worried that disagreements between Provinces of the Anglican Communion -a perpetual topic for most bloggers and journalists -could overshadow the proceedings.

This concerned me because the official conference agenda appeared to be a genuine attempt to bring to the table those issues that hampered the mission of the Church in Africa: poverty, poor leadership, health inequalities, conflict and violence. In fact, many of the invited guests were from mission agencies such as CMS Africa and World Vision Uganda.

By the close of the first day, newspaper reports and online blogs were unsurprisingly filled with articles on topics that divide the Communion: human sexuality issues, bishops ordained in one Province ministering in another without permission; this, despite some genuinely important presentations and sermons on the role of Anglican bishops and the issues before conference delegates. Day two and three's coverage was sadly much of the same.

Absent was any mention of searching questions from the podium; questions such as 'if numbers of African Christians are soaring, why are several countries where they live still suffering from conflict, corruption and poverty?' Absent was mention of the commitment by one bishop to plant a million trees on his land before he dies in an effort to reverse deforestation and tackle climate change. Stories of hugely successful DIY community dam projects and of biogas schemes that provide villages with desperately needed water and fuel went largely unreported. Where were the newspaper articles or the blog entries describing the challenge to bishops to use their position and influence to help end the mutilation, rape and murder of African women?

As a former print journalist I know what sells newspapers, but there was so much more to this conference than internal disagreements over certain issues. All anyone needed to do was strike up a conversation with any bishop from any country and soon they would be marvelling over what was happening in dioceses and parishes up and down the continent.

There was the five-man ministry team that over two years has preached the Gospel to 15,000 soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has seen 13,000 of them repent of raping women and looting. There was the Sudanese bishop who produces and broadcasts a radio programme six days a week on a range of social issues that affect the community. There was the church-supported microcredit scheme, in one of the poorest rural Nigerian dioceses, that was so successful in helping women to capitalise on their own investments that the overseas donors sent auditors to the country to verify the claims.

On Saturday the bishops and other delegates were taken on a day-trip to one of three different sites. In Namugongo I stood with a large crowd of clergy from Malawi, Nigeria, Sudan, South Africa and other countries and listened as a Ugandan priest told us that where we stood, 25 of the country's first Protestant and Catholic converts were roasted alive because they had chosen Christianity. The sacrifice of these martyrs was foundational to the Church in Uganda and every year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims actually walk from across Uganda, as well as neighbouring countries, to Namugongo to remember them. Our group moved from shrine to shrine, chapel to chapel and we prayed together at each one. Before we left, all the bishops stood on the steps of a church for a group photo, eager to remember this collective moment.

Do all Provinces of the Anglican Communion agree on everything? No. Is there hurt and anger over actions taken by Provinces? Yes. But were 400 bishops from around 20 countries able to meet together, pray together and commit together to prevent violence against women and children; to work for poverty reduction; to help strengthen African identity and purpose; to call for strong, honest leadership for the continent; to promise to protect and nurture the next generation of African Anglicans; and to listen to the rest of the global Anglican Communion?

Yes they were.

Late one evening in Uganda I caught the end of a film in which a father tells his son: "the miracle of wood is not that it burns, but that it floats." After spending time with the bishops in Entebbe, I think the same could be said of the Anglican Communion.

Anglican Communion News Service

African Anglican bishops in Uganda draw a line in the sand in their final conference statement

Posted On : August 29, 2010 12:46 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
ACNS: ACNS4728
Related Categories: Africa

By Jan Butter in Kampala

Four hundred bishops from Africa announced today that 'business as usual' was no longer an option for the Anglican Church there and that Africans should "take their destiny into their own hands".

On the sixth and final day of the All Africa Bishops Conference in Uganda, the bishops issued a communiqué filled with commitments contesting the status quo in areas including politics, poverty reduction, violence against women, theological education and conflict.

The five-page statement was a clear challenge from the Anglican bishops of Africa to the Church, the continent and the rest of the Anglican Communion, and it pulled few punches: "While we will always be prepared to listen to voices from other parts of the global Communion, it is pertinent that the rest of the world listens to the unique voice of the Church in Africa," wrote the bishops.

"The Anglican Church in Africa has continued to witness growth so that the centre of gravity of Christianity today appears to be shifting to the continent. Nonetheless, the Church's relevance and impact on global mission and to social, economic and political transformation of the continent remains a challenge."

It was to these last items that most of the document's 'commitment' statements referred. The Church, the bishops said, needs to address the causes and effects of poverty and injustice on the people of Africa.

"We must be actively involved in working with partners at all levels to ensure equal access to medical care, food security and the promoting of good health practices to prevent the major causes of death on the continent, with particular attention to primary health care for African families, especially mothers, children and the elderly.

"The Anglican Church in Africa must join the global movement that refuses to stay silent about the current socio-economic and political state of affairs. We should stop agonising over the deplorable state of African underdevelopment and start organising towards a proactive, pragmatic engagement with good governance and infra-structural development."

They also made several demands on those in authority, particularly in Africa. Such demands included ones on human rights abuses: "We call for and actively work to bring about an end to all forms of abuse and forms of slavery. We demand the protection of our people, particularly our women and children, from human trafficking, sexual immorality, abuse and violence, and structural, cultural and domestic violence."

There were also calls for national leaders to meet global poverty reduction targets: "The successful hosting of the World Cup by South Africa…demonstrated how Africa's potential can be unleashed. This should inspire and motivate the Church as well as political leaders to proactively promote and contribute to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015."

The bishops' document stated also that "the inherited model of theological formation and educations has been identified to be inadequate" for the African Church. It said that rather theological curricula would be developed on the continent that would enable its leaders to be "more relevant to the practical and spiritual needs of contemporary society". They also reaffirmed their commitment to "Anglican orthodoxy and authority of Scripture" and the "Biblical standard of the family with man and woman as its foundation".

On the Anglican Covenant bishops wrote: "Whereas we accept the rationale for an Anglican Covenant, we realise the need for further improvement of the Covenant in order to be an effective tool for unity and mutual accountability."

The communiqué also contained statements on tackling climate change and on encouraging the Anglican Church in Africa to become more financially self-reliant and more strategic in its planning: "After a long period of African underdevelopment and misconceptions of African identity, it has become increasingly pertinent for Africans to take their destiny into their own hands.

"By setting and achieving their own strategic goals, based on the Biblical model of Christ's mission, African Christians can define their own identity, recover their self-esteem and reach their potential under the guidance of the Holy Spirit."

The bishops also spoke out on several trouble-zones on the continent including DR Congo, Sudan and Madagascar and called on national and international authorities to work harder to bring peace to these conflict-affected countries.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1. The 2nd All Africa Bishops Conference (AABC) from the 23rd – 29th August 2010 is at the Imperial Resort Hotel, Entebbe, Uganda. It was organised by The Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA).

2. The conference brought together Bishops from 400 dioceses in Burundi, Central Africa, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania, Egypt and Uganda. www.africanbishops.org

3. The Anglican Communion Office serves the Anglican Communion, comprising around 80 million members in 44 regional and national member churches around the globe in more than 160 countries.http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

4. Media queries about the Anglican Communion in relation to this conference should contact Mr Jan Butter on +256(0)700882038 or jan.butter@aco.org

ENTEBBE, Uganda: CAPA PRIMATES COMMUNIQUE

from VirtueOnline

ENTEBBE, Uganda: CAPA PFRIMATES COMMUNIQUE

Posted By David W. Virtue in Entebbe
www.virtueonline.org
August 29, 2010

1. In a spirit of unity and trust, and in an atmosphere of love the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) as well as Archbishop John chew, the Chairman of the Global South, which represents the majority of the active orthodox membership in the entire Anglican Communion, met during the 2nd All Africa Bishop's Conference in Entebbe, Uganda. We enjoyed the fellowship and the sense of unity as we heard the Word of God and gathered around the Lord's Table.

2. We gave thanks to God for the leadership of the Most. Rev. Ian Ernest, Archbishop of the Indian Ocean and Chairman of CAPA and for the abundant hospitality provided by the Most Rev. Henry Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda and the entire Church of Uganda.

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

UGANDA: CAPA Bishops Conference: From My Ear to Yours (2)

By David W. Virtue in Entebbe
www.virtueonline.org
August 26, 2010

The CAPA primates met with Rowan Williams in a closed-door session Tuesday night. It went on for many hours, but Williams got the message loud and clear - there will be no compromise on homosexual practice. None. When I tried squeezing an African Primate, not so much about the content of the meeting, but about the dynamics of the meeting and how Rowan responded, he simply said this, "When all was said and done, he was being Rowan."

*****

WORSHIP. There is nothing quite like hearing more than 400 strong African voices raised in glorious harmony singing the great hymns of the church. Hymns stretch across the ages, cultures and time. No praise choruses here, just the grand hymns of the faith that have sustained Anglicans both Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic for generations. Tears came to my eyes as we sang one of my favorite hymns,When I Survey the Wondrous Cross by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), often referred to as the "Father of English Hymnody". One wonders if I will ever hear it sung again like this in my lifetime.

*****

Here is the breakdown by numbers of the bishops who are here: 40 from Kenya, 8 from Indian Ocean, 180 from Nigeria, (the largest), 7 from Burundi, 12 from Central Africa, 8 from Congo, 3 from Egypt, 12 from Rwanda, 10 from South Africa, 39 from the Sudan, 23 from Tanzania, 35 from Uganda and 17 bishops from West Africa = 396 bishops. There are 30 plus additional people from aid agencies and a small number of media.

*****

During a coffee break today, I met with a dozen Sudanese bishops all of whom read VOL. I was thrilled to meet them. They seemed very appreciative of VOL's ministry informing them about what is going on in the Anglican Communion. "We don't trust any other sources," they told me. When I think of the nasty, noisy American conservative Episcopal blogs that I live with like bad canker sores, it was a joy to sit down and talk with bishops from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Rwanda who say VOL is their sole source of trustworthy news. An honor indeed.

*****

Social issues are featured high on the agenda. The environment, poverty, HIV/ADIS and diseases of one sort or another are being addressed. However, one wonders if some of the speakers, many of whom are bureaucrats who struggle with resources, are adopting UN language to get UN dollars. Every Anglican province has an HIV office as well as development offices with huge staffs.

One of the criticisms of Episcopal Church bishops like John Chane of Washington and Tom Shaw of Massachusetts is that Africa is more concerned with homosexuality than the pressing issues of Africa. It is a lie, of course. It is the North American churches that are obsessed with homosexual behavior, not the Africans. Africans have no interest in the subject at all. They are being forced to address it precisely because it is being thrust upon them by the West's Culture Wars.

This conference is not shying away from addressing the subject, but this conference has dispelled forever the African church's alleged lack of interest on social issues that are tearing people apart including war and disease. Whole lectures have been devoted to HIV/AIDS, the environment, poverty, disease, war and the need for clean water and what local churches should be doing about it. One African bishop says he hopes to plant one million trees before he dies. (Has US Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori planted a single tree?) The Africans have the resources. What they need is help to mobilize and strategize them.

The problems are immense and the need is great. Many African nations have had a series of corrupt political leaders, which has made change difficult. Uganda is a case in point. The country has gone from Idi Amin to a solid Christian Anglican president today. Things can change. The church even has a provident fund for retiring clergy. No, it is not in the same league as the Church Pension Fund, but the African Anglican world is growing and changing. Constant whining about Western pansexuality will not hold them back. The evidence is in. The total Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) for the whole of North America wouldn't be one decent sized Nigerian diocese. So the question is: who should be listening to whom?

The deeper truth is that the axis of Anglicanism has moved from the Global North to the Global South. African Anglicans no longer need to go through Canterbury (if they ever did) to get to Jesus. In reality, Canterbury and Lambeth are historical relics and tourist attractions along with St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. There is very little if any gospel being proclaimed there, hence the churches are empty. (The church hugging the walls of Lambeth Palace now sells plants and offers advice on herbal cures).

African churches are packed to capacity and overflowing. Evangelists vie for new converts often on opposing street corners. Anybody caught preaching on a street corner in England could get nailed for being either homophobic or Islamophobic.

By contrast, Africa will have 633 million practicing Anglicans by 2025. By then, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada will cease to exist or be little more than a reverse Plunket Society for geriatric priests in need of colostomy bags held up by vague Unitarian beliefs.

There is enormous spiritual dynamism here. The Holy Spirit's presence is palpable.

Anglican leaders are facing challenges of marriage and divorce and occasional bad leaders. They address them all in the framework of the gospel. Charles Bennison, V. Gene Robinson, Mary Glasspool et al would not even be priests here, let alone bishops. These African leaders say these people need converting to Christ first. African bishops are horrified when they hear and read all about what is going on in North America. They shake their heads, put their arms around me and say, "We are praying from you and the Episcopal Church." Many of them openly weep at what is happening in North America and England. They can't find words to express what they see going on in the churches in Europe and North America. And they wonder aloud why it is that these nations that brought them the gospel, now has "another gospel" they do not recognize.

*****

The Rev. Canon Grace Kaiso, General Secretary of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, made a pro gay comment to "New Vision" newspaper that has gotten him into trouble with the Primates here.

Asked whether homosexuality that has split the Western church from their African counterparts was on the agenda, Kaiso said the church was finding ways of advocating for change in the mindsets of those who purport to be homosexuals.

It is not God's will, Kaiso added, that people should live a hopeless life. "Change is possible in Africa but how can we achieve it? Our leaders use our money badly and fail to build hospitals, wells and roads. But since the church is everywhere, even where governments don't reach, we can use that strength to mobilize people."

Infuriated that he is sending mixed signals over homosexual behavior, Kaiso is being taken to task.

END