Lesbian Christian singer goes back to church -- with a different message

By Greg Warner

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

0digg DECATUR, Ga. (ABP) – When Christian singer-songwriter Jennifer Knapp acknowledged her homosexuality a few years ago, she figured she was done singing in churches. She already had walked away from her eight-year career in contemporary Christian music in 2002 because her theological views no longer toed the evangelical line. To her surprise, a decade later, the folk-rock artist is singing again – and mostly in churches. She performed April 20 at First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., as part of the [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant, hosted by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. Jennifer Knapp performs in concert at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. (CBF photo) Where you don’t find Knapp these days is in the contemporary Christian music industry, where she sold more than a million copies of her five albums between 1994 and 2002 and was nominated for Dove and Grammy awards. “I signed up to play music and sing about my faith experience,” said the folk-rock artist. As a teenager coming out of an American Baptist church, she fit into the evangelical mold well enough. “But as I got into my late 20s and early 30s, I didn’t really relate to my Christian faith that way anymore.” So she abandoned the pressures of songwriting, performing, recording and promoting Christian music. “I just kind of let it go and let it rest.” There was no thought of ever coming back as a Christian artist. “When I put my guitar in the case and said this is my last [concert], I really didn’t think I had anything to contribute to the religious conversation at all in music,” she said. “I didn’t want the responsibility of defending it anymore. If God was going to speak to me, great. If he didn’t, he didn’t.” She continued to write music while on hiatus, but she had no plans to record or perform the new material -- until close friends convinced her it needed to be heard. In September 2009, she performed again for the first time since 2002 in a Los Angeles club. In 2010 she released her first new album in nine years, Letting Go. It was not the typical Christian music that had made her famous but it was still characteristically honest and incisive. “I think my faith still comes up in my music,” the Kansas native said in an interview April 20. “It’s still obviously a very significant part of my life.” “I really didn’t have any interest in coming back and working inside of the church as a musician,” she said in only her third Christian interview since coming out as a lesbian. “I just wanted to go out and do music, and if my faith came up, it came up. I didn’t feel pressured to wrap up a nice, neat little Christian bow on it.” However, grass-roots Christians are surprisingly open to her new approach, she reported. While most denominations are reluctant to address sexuality, “on a local level, pastors are trying to be responsive to the [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] people that show up on their doorstep.” Now living in Nashville, Knapp performs most often in Methodist, Episcopal and other mainline Christian congregations that are somewhat open to homosexuality. Her concert for the Baptist conference mixed some of her new and old music with dialogue with the audience on faith and sexual orientation. It’s something she does now at virtually all her appearances, because she says the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy practiced even by a lot of progressive churches “is not working, and it’s damaging to a lot of people I see on a day-to-day basis.” In another irony, Knapp is doing more one-on-one ministry at concerts now than she did as a Christian artist. In the old days, she said, the post-concert routine involved “photos, autographs, hanging out, [like] I’m a big rock star.” Now that time is spent listening to young people talk about their struggles with sexual orientation. “I listen for an hour and a half, till I lose my brain power, because people have just such stories to tell. It’s hard not to be compassionate.” If the church is notoriously reluctant to talk about homosexuality, gay groups are even more resistant to talk about faith, she said. “Because so many LGBTs have had very negative experiences with their faith communities, they don’t want anyone talking about it at all. It’s been a dynamic that has been very hurtful and painful, so they just want it written off.” Knapp wasn’t aware of her own sexual orientation until late in her 20s, and then only by “accident,” she said. “By the time I was 18 or 19 years old, I made a pretty radical, evangelical decision for Christ, and that landed me in 10 years of celibacy. I kind of shut that whole [attraction] mechanism down. “About the time that I felt I could give myself some space to make some decisions for myself and be responsible for those decisions, I was like, ‘Oh, wow! This is considerably different than what I was expecting.’” What she discovered was she was attracted to a woman. “It had nothing to do with passions and lust,” Knapp recalled. “It was just, ‘Oh my goodness, this is a person I really spiritually and deeply connect with!’ I didn’t expect it.” “I started to realize that I loved someone who was the same sex as me,” she told her concert audience April 20. “And it was such an accident, because I forgot to check the gender!” she joked. Even today, at 38, Knapp doesn’t talk publicly about her partner of 10 years out of respect for the woman’s desire for privacy. But rumors of Knapp’s lesbianism surfaced in the Christian music field soon after she left it. Many people assumed that was why she abandoned her career and, they assumed, her faith. Neither is true, Knapp says. “When I came out, I didn’t expect how much it hurt my heart that people assumed the experience I had as a person of faith had never mattered and didn’t exist.” While the criticism of her faith hurt, it also brought clarity. “The irony is I realized [the Christian faith] was an integral part of my life, when it was assumed that it wasn’t. It was trying to be forcefully taken away from me. And I said, ‘Wait a minute!’” Although Knapp now talks openly about her sexuality, she insists she’s not an apologist or activist for LGBT issues. And she declines to offer a biblical defense for her sexuality, leaving that to the theologians. “I’m just a human being that is going through the journey.” But after two years back in the spotlight, she said she is developing thicker skin. “I don’t worry about the judgments that are being passed on me now,” she said. “It’s so nice to be able to respond and not worry what people will think. “Not to sound egotistical, but I’m happy with myself. I’m happy with my life.” -30- Greg Warner is a freelance writer in Jacksonville, Fla., and former executive editor of Associated Baptist Press.

New Edition of "Tearing the Fabric" Is Online

by A. S. Haley

The American Anglican Council has published on its Website a newly updated (as of April 2012) edition of its classic resource: Tearing the Fabric. The compilation is more useful than ever, but also more desultory than ever, as well.

It starts out with a collection of quotations from ECUSA's heretics, including this classic statement of the "faith once handed down" (not!) by the former rector of All Saints Pasadena (which shows why that church went the way it did):

"'I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to God except through me.' The first thing I want you to explore with me is this: I simply refuse to hold the doctrine that there is no access to God except through Jesus. I personally reject the claim that Christianity has the truth and all other religions are in error... I think it is a mistaken view to say Christianity is superior to Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism and that Christ is the only way to God and salvation." The Rev. Dr. George F. Regas, Rector Emeritus, All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena, California, April 24, 2005, guest sermon at Washington National Cathedral

And of course, it does not fail to include gems from the Presiding Bishop, such as these:

TIME Question: Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, TIME Magazine interview, July 10, 2006 CNN  

Question: So what happens after I die?
Jefferts Schori: What happens after you die? I would ask you that question. But what‘s important about your life? What is it that has made you a unique individual? What is the passion that has kept you getting up every morning and engaging the world? There are hints within that about what it is that continues after you die. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, interview by CNN Live, June 19, 2006

The document continues with a section on the "Fruits of TEC's Theology", including "Syncretism", "Promoting Abortion", "Weakening Traditional Marriage", and more.

It also has a useful compilation of ECUSA statistics, including a nifty graph showing the decline in active membership from 2.32 million in 2002 to 1.95 million in 2010.  Then it concludes with a compendium of all the litigation with which ECUSA has harassed its congregations, bishops and clergy since 2004. The list of more than 78 lawsuits initiated by ECUSA and its dioceses demonstrates how their pace has accelerated in recent years.*

It is an invaluable resource, and I commend it to your attention.

___________________________

*Note: Even though the catalog of lawsuits was completely up-to-date as of April 10 or so, recent events in the Virginia litigation have already passed it by: Truro Church and St. Paul's (Haymarket) have both reached settlements with the Diocese of Virginia in the last two weeks. Both are paying money to the Diocese; St. Paul's will be vacating its buildings as of April 30, while Truro will stay in its current building for another year.

LONDON: Southwark Lay Reader Sacked for upholding Traditonal Marriage

from VirtueOnline

LONDON: Southwark Lay Reader Sacked for upholding Traditonal Marriage
Rev. Paul Perkin, Vicar of St. Mark's made the announcement at FCA celebration

By Julian Mann
Special to virtueonline.org
www.virtueonline.org
April 29, 2012

One of the big stories at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans' (FCA) gathering in London last week was a local one. At an evening event celebrating orthdox Anglicanism in Westminister on Thursday, the chairman of the FCA (UK and Ireland), the Rev. Paul Perkin, announced that a volunteer lay reader in Southwark Diocese had had his permission to officiate withdrawn by an Archdeacon for defending traditional marriage.

Mr Perkin, whose church, St Mark's Battersea Rise in Southwark diocese, hosted the five-day international FCA conference, said the reader's licence had been withdrawn after the Archdeacon received complaints.

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org

Amen and amen.

ECUSA: Hollow Gains, Pointless Losses

from Anglican Curmudgeon by A. S. Haley

The end of the week brought two three pieces of news on the Church litigation front. In the first, the trial judge in the litigation over the property of the Diocese of Quincy issued an order requiring the Episcopal Church (USA) immediately to pay $18,000 to the Anglican Diocese in sanctions for the needless costs caused by ECUSA's first filing, then later withdrawing and resubmitting, its papers for summary judgment -- a motion which eventually the court denied.

One can tell, from reading Judge Ortbal's order in the Quincy action, that he was seriously displeased with the conduct of ECUSA's counsel which led to the imposition of sanctions:

5. In setting the scheduling and deadlines for the Motion for Summary Judgment Plaintiffs advised that they intended to file motions to strike directed to the affidavits filed in support ofTEC's Motion for Summary Judgment. 

6. Plaintiffs requested that their response to the Summary Judgment Motion be deferred until any hearing and ruling on their proposed motions to strike was concluded, given the number, length and volume ofTEC's supporting affidavits and based upon their intention to have their retained expert respond specifically to each statement, claim and opinion of TEC' s opinion witness affidavits. 

7. TEC objected to deferring the deadline for the Plaintiffs' response to their Summary Judgment Motion...   

8. Over the objections of Plaintiffs, the court accepted the proposed deadline of TEC and Plaintiffs were ordered to file their response to the TEC's Motion for Summary Judgment on the same date as TEC's deadline for responding to any motions to strike affidavits, that being on or before June 6, 2011. 

9. On June 1, 2011, TEC, without leave of court, sent correspondence to the court and counsel advising they were "withdrawing" certain affidavits filed in support of their Motion for Summary Judgment, a copy of which correspondence is attached to this Order as Exhibit A.

So ECUSA's (TEC's) attorneys "withdrew" their voluminous affidavits rather than respond to plaintiffs' motion to strike them -- but they had previously insisted that Quincy's attorneys had to respond to their entire motion -- including Quincy's affidavits prepared to counter the ones ECUSA had submitted. Then, having seen Quincy's affidavits in response, the ECUSA attorneys filed new affidavits (not including, this time, any affidavit by their retained expert Prof. Mullin), which required Quincy to throw out everything they had rushed to get ready, and to start over.  The judge quite properly has now ordered ECUSA to reimburse Quincy for the expert fees and attorneys' fees it incurred in responding to the motion they unilaterally withdrew at the last minute.  

* * * * * *
In the second piece of news, a Tennessee appeals court justice, after working on it for more than a year, issued a long, rambling and ultimately meaningless opinion affirming the equally confused opinion of a Nashville trial court chancellor, which awarded all of the real and personal property of St. Andrew's Anglican Parish to the Diocese of Tennessee and its bishop, the Rt. Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt.

The victory in Nashville is another case of the Episcopal Church playing the role of the dog in the manger. There is no "remnant parish" waiting to fill the pews at St. Andrew's, once the Anglican congregation leaves; St. Andrew's had been an orthodox, Anglo-Catholic parish in the Diocese from its formation until it transferred to the Anglican Diocese of Quincy in 2006. Bishop Bauerschmidt and his Diocese must have brought their lawsuit because of the value of the parish's real estate, estimated at around $3 million in burgeoning Nashville. At the hearing held to establish the amount of the bond to be posted for the appeal, the bishop's attorneys had claimed that they could rent the property out for as much as $12,500 per month. Well, now they will have their chance.

The opinion by Presiding Justice Patricia Cottrell of the Court of Appeals rambles on for twenty pages before finally adopting the rationale of the recent decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court in the appeal of the Bishop Seabury parish: the Dennis Canon trumps state trust law, and because the Episcopal Church is "hierarchical", it can create trusts by fiat whenever it wants to. Along the way, Justice Cottrell sweeps under the rug the fact that St. Andrew's parish had changed its corporate articles in 1978 to remove its accession to the constitutions and canons of ECUSA and the Diocese. That was a year before General Convention appears to have enacted the Dennis Canon (there is no way of conclusively proving that it did so).

The fact that the parish had withdrawn its consent to be governed by Episcopal canons a year before the Church tried to impose a trust on all parish properties everywhere made no difference to the Court of Appeal. Just the very fact of continuing to stay in the Diocese of Tennessee was enough to override the parish's attempt to keep its land free of any trust, although the opinion does not even acknowledge that attempt:

While the Trust Canon, or Dennis Canon, was adopted after the Property was transferred to St. Andrew’s, when the congregation decided to associate with The Episcopal Church and the Diocese in 1960, and when St. Andrew’s filed their Articles of Incorporation in 1966, the parish agreed to be bound by the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church and the Diocese. St. Andrew’s remained a parish within The Episcopal Church and the Diocese long after the Dennis Cannon was adopted by the Church’s governing body. [Op. at 18.]

This is just one blatant example of how Justice Cottrell simply ignores inconvenient facts, and proceeds as if they were not there. (She notes the fact of the amendment at page 7 of her opinion, but does not discuss its significance after that.) She also brushes off the contrary views of St. Andrew's experts who testified that the Episcopal Church does not have a hierarchical structure:

St. Andrew’s contends that it created a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether The Episcopal Church is hierarchical for temporal matters, including property disputes. St. Andrew’s submitted an affidavit by a former bishop of a diocese in Illinois, an affidavit by a board member of a diocese in Florida, and a document entitled Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of The Episcopal Church (the “Bishops’ Statement”). The former bishop stated that The Episcopal Church is not hierarchical for any purpose. The board member opined that The Episcopal Church is not hierarchical for “the issues in this dispute.” The Bishops’ Statement is dated April 18, 2009, and appears to be authored by fifteen or so bishops and former bishops, but does not appear to be sanctioned by The Episcopal Church or the General Convention. The Bishops’ Statement suggests, inter alia, that The Episcopal Church is a voluntary association of equal dioceses.  

The affidavits St. Andrew’s offered do not create a disputed issue of material fact because the affiants were simply offering their opinions and interpretations of the constitutions and canons, not facts....

Ultimately, her opinion is so self-contradictory as to render it meaningless for anyone to use as a precedent. Justice Cottrell spends half of her opinion explaining the precedents which hold that while civil courts may not decide religious questions, they may decide religious property disputes if they can do so without making an extensive inquiry into religious doctrine or polity. (The same point was made at some length at pp. 3-14 in theamicus brief filed last week in the Fort Worth case by the Communion Partner bishops and the Anglican Communion Institute.) But then, having established that point with page after page of citation to precedent, look at how she flatly contradicts herself on the question of ECUSA's hierarchical structure:

The constitutions and canons, as well as St. Andrew’s filings and Articles of Association, speak for themselves and are determinative of the issue. As discussed earlier in this opinion, when resolving disputes involving hierarchical churches, the courts will defer to the highest church authority on questions of church governance. In such situations, the courts “are bound to look at the fact that the local congregation is itself but a member of a much larger and more important religious organization, and is under its government and control, and is bound by its orders and judgments.” Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. at 726-27. We think that includes interpretation of church governing documents and interpretation of the basic organization of the church. Consequently, we cannot conclude that there is a factual question regarding the organization and governance of The Episcopal Church and will not inquire into it.

Well, which is it, Justice Cottrell? Are you precluded from making a factual inquiry into the hierarchical nature of ECUSA because to do so would involve you to an impermissible degree with the "interpretation of church governing documents and interpretation of the basic organization of the church"?

Or do the constitution and canons of the church "speak for themselves" -- even though, as pointed out in the ACI's Fort Worth brief,

. . . there is no explicit language in The Episcopal Church’s governing constitution identifying in express legal terms of hierarchy or supremacy any central body or office allegedly superior to the diocesan bishop [footnote omitted]. Indeed, none of the following terms routinely used in legal documents to indicate hierarchical priority is found at all in The Episcopal Church constitution: “supreme”; “supremacy”; “highest”; “hierarchical”; “subordinate”; “sole”; “preempt”; and “final.”

If you are ruling out all factual inquiry into the structure of the Episcopal Church (USA), Justice Cottrell, then you are saying that the First Amendment prohibits your court from doing what ECUSA itself has asked the Texas Supreme Court to do, by submitting "a 70-page affidavit by an expert witness on TEC history accompanied by an affidavit from a church archivist sponsoring 700 pages of historical documents spanning over 200 years."

But at the same time, if you have concluded that the Church's governing documents "speak for themselves" and say that the Church is "hierarchical," because that is how they have been interpreted by "the highest church authority on questions of church governance", then of what "highest authority" are you speaking, Justice Cottrell? And how can you determine just what the "highest authority" in ECUSA actually is without first examining its structure to see whether it really is hierarchical?

Perhaps the reason it took so long for Justice Cottrell to write her opinion is that she was so confused by the issues she tries to address. If that is the case, however, it is manifest that she remains as confused as ever -- and her two silent partners on the bench have done nothing to help her. All they did was join their names to her successful essay at self-refutation.


* * * * *
Finally, the third piece of Episcopal litigation news is that late Friday evening, Judge Bellows signed an order denying the motion for a stay from his earlier judgment requested by The Falls Church, to take effect pending its appeal of that decision.Had it been granted, the stay would have prevented TFC from having to turn over to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia all of its property by next Tuesday, and to vacate its premises completely by May 15. Apparently Judge Bellows stayed at the courthouse late while the two sides tried to negotiate an arrangement which would have allowed TFC Anglican congregation to remain on the property pending the appeal. (In an earlier ruling, Judge Bellows had signaled that he lacked the power to force any such arrangement on the parties; they would have to reach one voluntarily, if at all.)

This development will entail a massive disruption in the operations of TFC Anglican. It is not known what back-up plans they have in readiness; they could perhaps ask the Virginia Supreme Court for an emergency stay. If they do move out next week, it is equally unclear how the Diocese of Virginia plans to use the extensive facilities. The Episcopal congregation which is waiting to occupy the property is a fraction of the size of the Anglican congregation, and will most likely require a sizeable subsidy from the Diocese to be able to pay for its upkeep in addition to their own expenses.

Thus, whether or not another chapter of "The Dog in the Manger" is about to play itself out will shortly  be seen. This development will put the credibility of Bishop Johnston and his Diocese on the line. He has made several public statements to the effect that his Diocese is prepared to take charge of all of the former parishes' properties -- and now it will be assuming responsibility for the last and largest of them. If the properties end up being sold to strangers, whether in other denominations or in different lines of business entirely, then all of the talk about "keeping the property for future Episcopalians" will ring as hollow as the dog's barking in the manger.

Via Anglican Ink

Joint Communiqué from Archbishop Rwaje of P.E.A.R. and Archbishop Duncan of the Anglican Church

ARTICLE | APRIL 28, 2012 - 9:25PM | BY GEORGE CONGER

George Conger

April 28, 2012

To All Confessing Anglicans in North America: Greetings in this happiest of seasons, when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and grow in the knowledge of what it means to live as people who have been “raised up with Christ.” (Colossians 3:1-4)

We have just completed a rich week of blessing and encouragement at GAFCON’s Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans’ Leadership Conference at St Mark’s Church in Battersea, London. We joined 200+ delegates from over thirty nations as we listened to God’s word, worshipped, prayed, studied, and talked. It was deeply encouraging and challenging to share with people who serve Christ faithfully with great sacrifice in the face of revisionist opposition or outright persecution from the unbelieving world. We thank the Lord Jesus for his faithfulness and for the Gospel by which people are being saved and his Church is growing.

While in London, we had the opportunity to talk at length together about the continuing turbulence from the separation of the Anglican Mission in America from its founding church, the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The House of Bishops of Rwanda has recently declared the establishment of a Missionary District in North America (PEARUSA) as its only continuing work on this continent and has offered a deadline of August 31 for clergy and churches to determine their future jurisdiction. There are three options available: remain with Rwanda through PEARUSA, transfer to another Anglican jurisdiction through letters dimissory, or follow the Anglican Mission into its new venture. Provision and procedure for each of these options is available or is being developed as rapidly as possible. (These materials will be available through the www.pearusa.org website as they are developed.)

At the same time, there has been a great deal of confusion recently around the issue of the resigned bishops of the AMiA, their relationship with Rwanda, and their possible relationship with ACNA. We write this communiqué together primarily to address that confusion.

1. Archbishop Rwaje and the House of Bishops of Rwanda have established April 29 as the deadline for the resigned AMiA bishops to declare their intention for future jurisdiction. Having declared their intention, he is willing to work with those bishops seeking letters dimissory to another jurisdiction in the weeks and months ahead.  (April 29 is simply a deadline for declaring intention and direction.)

2. The Anglican Mission is seeking canonical residency in the Church of the Congo, and those bishops and clergy that have applied for letters dimissory to the Congo are being processed according to standard Anglican procedure.

3. Several AMiA bishops have approached the ACNA, through diocesan bishops or directly with Archbishop Duncan, concerning transfer into ACNA. Archbishop Duncan has established a clear path for this process:

    • Following normal transfer process, any bishop seeking transfer must initiate the request with Archbishop Rwaje. He will respond individually to each bishop appropriate to his situation.

    • An AMiA bishop received into ACNA will be received in the following manner:

    o   Graciously and willingly, as the Lord has received all of us, and with the understanding and expectation that God’s love constantly transforms and renews us into the image of Christ

    o   Into a diocese or diocese in formation, that is, through proper ecclesiastical interaction between Rwanda and the diocesan bishop

    o   As an assisting bishop, which does not automatically seat one in the ACNA College of Bishops

    o   Able to give episcopal care to former AMiA churches and clergy that follow them into that diocese, under the blessing of the diocesan bishop

    o   Prepared to engage a process of full reconciliation with all parties wounded through the actions of recent months

In these matters, we are united in heart, soul, mind, and action.

This has been a painful and difficult time for many.  Nevertheless, we are confident that the Lord, in his sovereignty, is building his church, and that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. We are confident that this will ultimately redound to the Glory of God, in this life and the next. We rejoice at the growing closeness and partnership within the GAFCON provinces and particularly between our respective provinces. We rejoice at our growing joint missionary effort through PEARUSA. We can honestly say that we pray for our brothers and sisters in the AMiA, asking God’s grace to be fully poured out on them and the Gospel to be proclaimed faithfully through them. We pray for further reconciliation and friendship, as the Lord gives grace.

Finally, brothers and sisters, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.  Continue to serve the Lord in faith and humility. Pray for us, as we pray for you.

In the love and truth of Christ,

Archbishop Robert Duncan
Archbishop Onesphore Rwaje

A Crucial Apr. 25 Presentation—Bishop Mark Lawrence, S. Carolina, and ACNA Bishop John Guernsey

from TitusOneNine by Kendall Harmon

(This was sponsored by Guildford DEF[Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship] which is part of the Church of England Evangelical Council in England). You may listen to it all through the audio file which may be found over here (an MP3 file).

Herewith a flyer sent out as an invitation to this event:

The Guildford Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship invite you to an An evening with Bishop Mark Lawrence (TEC Bishop of South Carolina) and Bishop John Guernsey (ACNA Bishop of Mid-Atlantic) On 25th April 2012 at 8 pm At Holy Trinity Claygate, Church Road, Claygate, Surrey, KT10 0JP

We are delighted that Bishop Mark Lawrence, the Episcopal Church Bishop for the Diocese of South Carolina, and Bishop John Guernsey, the Anglican Church in North America Bishop for the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, have agreed

• to bring us up to date with developments amongst Anglicans in North America;

• to tell us why some orthodox Anglicans have considered it appropriate to work within TEC whilst others have considered it appropriate to work within ACNA; and

• to explain to us how people within the two organisations who hold similar views are generally able to continue to support each other in spreading the Gospel.

Bart D. Ehrman admits that Jesus existed: liberal commenters shriek

from Stand Firm by Timothy Fountain 

I was at a wedding rehearsal dinner last night, and lucked out with some really enjoyable college-age table mates.  One gent shared that he’d found himself “In the strange situation of defending Bart Ehrman.”

It seems that cultured Bible despiser Ehrman’s March 20 contribution to the Huffington Post, in which he made this stunning, right-wing conspiratorial admission,

Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed

was just too much for the even more cultured commenteriat at HuffPo:

I keep looking in the fiction section of the Library and book stores and still can’t find any of his books or the other books written by theologists! I think they keep misplacing them!

Harry Potter was inconveniently a tosspot, therefore he existed.

Paul did NOT write about Jesus and knew nothing about him. The brother (James) was was also the name of the brother of Jesus of Damneus (the High Priest that Josephus writes about). Strange coincidence? or post-added?

Attis was ALSO a “crucified messiah”, as was Horus and Mithras.

I note that Mr Ehrman gives no explicit proof of Jesus’ existence.

The comments go on and on, and it’s the usual smug stuff of people who “took a class in religion” and now know everything about anything.

The argument actually turns on the Bible.  Ehrman believes that the New Testament is a bunch of “biased” (his word) propaganda, but that this is just flawed interpretation of an actual, historical Jesus.

The commenters argue that if they don’t agree with what the NT says about Jesus theologically, then he could not possibly have existed historically.

Man, so glad “science and reason” are the guiding lights of our culture.

pecusa minority wins in court in VA

No stay: Falls Church is going home

from The Lead by John B. Chilton

The Diocese of Virginia has once again prevailed in court in its property dispute with a breakaway congregation associated with the Anglican Church of North America a group which desires membership in the Anglican Communion.

Late this evening social media lit up with the news that the ACNA church's motion for a stay of the judge's order to vacate had been denied.

Judge Bellows' order of this evening is attached. Other documents related to the property recovery litigation can be found here at the Diocese of Virginia website.

A local paper, the Falls Church News Press, filed this report:

BULLETIN: Judge Denied Motion by Breakaway Group to Keep Church Property Pending Appeal

Ruling shortly before 10 p.m. tonight, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows denied a motion by breakaway members from the historic Falls Church to maintain control of the church's property pending their appeal of the judge's January 2012 ruling that the property revert to control of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.

The judge's ruling followed a lengthy hearing on whether or not the motion would cause either the breakaway group, which has occupied the church property since 2007 when it voted to leave the Episcopal denomination, or the Episcopal Diocese and its "continuing Episcopal" congregation meeting outside the church property in the City of Falls Church, "irreparable harm." Following the hearing, the judge granted the two sides an opportunity to work out an amicable agreement for shared use of the property pending the outcome of the appeal.

However, according to News-Press sources, while the Diocese was willing to work out such a temporary shared use option, the breakaway group, known as the Council of Anglicans in North America (CANA), was not. Upon learning of this, Judge Bellows issued his ruling denying the CANA motion. As a result, the breakaway group is ordered to sign over all church property assets to the Episcopal Diocese on Monday, prior to May 1, and is ordered to vacate the church property in total by two weeks from that date on May 15.

As reported earlier today on Episcopal Cafe an ACNA like breakaway structure is planned in the UK.

United Methodists to debate allowing same sex blessings and openly gay clergy

from The Lead by Andrew Gerns

I expect that the UMC has learned from the pecusa, Lutheran, and Presbyterians and they will defeat this unbiblical agenda.  ed.

The United Methodist Church will gather for their General Conference in 2012. On the agenda will be whether the language of their Book of Discipline which bans gay and lesbians from serving as clergy and prevents United Methodist pastors from blessing same sex unions will be changed.

Since their last meeting in 2008, more than 900 active and retired clergy have signed a petition advocating change, while another 2500 clergy have signed letters demanding that the denomination stand pat.
Kathy Gilbert writes at the UMC 2012 General Conference website:

Impassioned pleas, protests and prayers. Broken chalice, broken hearts. An altar draped in black, a same-sex wedding, arrests, amends and a statement of unity.

At each General Conference for more than 40 years, The United Methodist Church has debated its position on homosexuality.

Church law states all persons are children of God and of sacred worth but homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching. Gays cannot be ordained and United Methodist pastors may not perform same-sex marriages.

When the 2012 General Conference convenes in Tampa, Fla., April 24-May 4, the language and laws about homosexuality will be up for debate once more.

Will gay rights be debated with the same fervor in 2012?

Complicating matters is that while the stance against homosexuality has softened in some quarters in the United States, the church’s worldwide growth is in the Philippines and in Africa, where the support for an outright ban can be more stringent and backed by the force of law. In Liberia, for example, “voluntary sodomy” is punishable by a year in prison....

...When the 2012 United Methodist General Conference convenes in April, members of unofficial United Methodist organizations on various sides of the issue will be lining the halls and entrances handing out pamphlets for and against the church’s stance.

In January during the pre-General Conference news briefing, Sue Laurie, one of the women who was married during the 2008 meeting, told a panel discussing holy conferencing that she was more concerned about “inflammatory silence than inflammatory language.”

“Silence maintains the status quo. It hurts the church. Silence stops that transformation. This will be my fifth General Conference; we are tired of telling our stories. Some of the hurtful language I have heard just now is ‘we need more time.’”

Since the 1972 General Conference, when the phrase “homosexuality is not compatible with Christian teaching” was added to the denomination’s law book, emotions have run high, tears have been shed and people on all sides of the debate have been hurt.

Are lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgendered people deliberately defying God’s word or just being the person God has called them to be?

Where will the discussion end this time?

LET YOUR YES BE YES

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

I think most people would agree, as the saying goes, that honesty is the best policy.  At the end of the day, it’s better to be straight with people than to deceive them.  The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans/GAFCON group would like to establish a parallel jurisdiction for traditionalist British Anglicans:


The Primates of the FCA have assured us that, through instruments now available in this country, including the panel of bishops of the Anglican Mission in England and the FCA UK, those who might otherwise have been under pressure to leave the Church of England can remain within the family of global Anglicanism and be recognized by that body as faithful  to the Church of England itself.


At the FCA Leadership Conference this Monday, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala reported in his Chairman’s keynote address:  ‘Last year, it became clear that provision needs to be made for England too. The Anglican Mission in England was formed last June after four years of discussion with senior Anglican leaders in England had failed to find a way in which those genuinely in need of effective orthodox oversight in the Church of England could receive it’.


The AMiE has already acted to provide oversight to churches, including arranging the ordination of some ministers. For the future it is ready to extend this ministry, and to expand its panel of bishops accordingly. Parish Incumbents who affirm the Jerusalem Declaration are invited to meet on Wednesday 27^th June to pray and make progress together.

A regular commenter at Jim Naughton’s who calls himself Leonardo Ricardo responded.


The only Anglicans insisting and demanding that they are the all-holy/all-knowing and ¨better thans¨ are the same Anglicans who can NOT serve or minister properly or serve their tortured/desperate citizens in their blood flowing cultures at home…the powerful attraction to the GAFCON meet-ups must be purely driven FEAR, hate/jealousy, greed and/or desperation.

In the face of superstition, vertical corruption, alcoholism/drug addiction, basic incompetance (money mismanagement) and moral defeat (Nigeria, Uganda, Jamaica/West Indies come to mind)the grass appears greener in England, Canada, the Americas and beyond.


Of course people are going to rush to God when they are in horrible and unthinkable daily pain but where is the God of love amongst the schismatic leaders, the priestly demonizers, the unholy outcasters, the bishop poachers/thieves and the arrogant everday bigots who harm others both at home and abroad?


I shudder when I wonder what ongoing pogroms, LGBT and Heterosexual bloodbaths will ensue before these not-so-orthodox Anglicans realize the harm that do as they plot against innocents everywhere in the name of their own piety!

The comments at Jim’s site are moderated so one assumes that someone over there believed that racist crap was worth publishing and, by extension, agreeing with.  But as far as I’m concerned, I’d much rather deal with a guy with an SS ring, a medallion with Hitler’s portrait on it, a Nazi Party badge, a well-thumbed copy of Mein Kampf in his library and a Nazi flag on the wall over his bed.

Because one of the ugliest of all human traits is hypocrisy.

Reporting on gays, women and the Presbyterian church splits

from GetReligion by geoconger

Thou shakest thy head and hold’st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember’d tolling a departing friend.
The Earl of Northumberland in Henry IV part II
Act I, scene 1, lines 95-103
William Shakespeare

Blaming the teller of bad news for the bad news is as old as time. Reporters who break stories about malfeasance in churches are often attacked for airing dirty linen. I’ve been reproached by those perturbed by what they read in my stories about bad behavior in churches. My critics argue that as a Christian (which I am) and a priest (which I am) I should suppress discomforting or embarrassing news. I should take as my guide Matthew 18:15-17.

¹⁵ If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶ But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’¹⁷ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

I am not persuaded  by their Biblical exegesis nor by the merits of the argument, believing that truth telling is a higher virtue than face saving. The phrase, “shooting the messenger” is a valid rejoinder to these criticisms,
The same retort can be applied to media criticism. Complaining about what something is not, rather than addressing what it is, is a form of shooting the messenger. When there is a hole in a story a reader should not assume the reporter is responsible. Some things are unknowable — try as we like, reporters are not omniscient.
A recent story in The Colorado Springs Gazette on the disaffiliation of one of the state’s largest churches from its parent denomination — the Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. (PCUSA) — brought this problem to mind.

Let me say up front there is nothing wrong with the article on the First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs’ vote to leave its presbytery — it is a workman-like story that relates crisply the facts. But The Gazette story entitled “Sparked by acceptance of gay ministers, First Presbyterian bolts denomination” seemed to be missing something. This something was not the rather dumb headline. The  story makes it clear that it was not only about gay ministers and the church didn’t bolt — but reporters do not write headlines and this brick forms no part of my critique.

The lede is clean and lays out the facts well:

In an historic vote Sunday morning, the largest Presbyterian church in Colorado voted overwhelmingly to leave its governing body and join a new, more conservative denomination.

An estimated 95.5 percent of the 1,769 congregants who cast ballots at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Colorado Springs voted to leave the mainstream Presbyterian Church USA in favor of the newly-created Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.

The new denomination was created with the help of First Presbyterian’s senior pastor Jim Singleton.

The reporter’s editorial voice comes into play at this stage through her selection of quotes — and to her credit she does not play favorites. After relating the news of the vote, the author addressed the question of the minority who opposed the vote — identified as 80 out of almost 1780 members who voted. The first quote comes from a church spokesman who acknowledges that “some members may leave.

This is followed by a quote from a church spokesman stating the vote was historic. Background on the church and its decision to leave the PCUSA follows with The Gazette avoiding the mistake of portraying this as being solely a gay issue.

Sunday’s vote was the culmination of almost a year’s worth of work by church leaders who wanted to distance themselves from the Presbyterian Church USA. That organization voted in 2011 to allow openly gay ministers to be ordained, but First Presbyterian leaders say the divide is greater than just that issue – going back to a basic way that scriptures are read and interpreted.

“God has called us to respond to his call, step into something new and hold firm to our understanding of scripture,” Cindy Sparks, chair of the church’s Board of Trustees said Sunday morning.

Further detail on the vote and what happens next follow, as does a quote from a member of the minority opposed to the split, and  closing quote from a member of the majority. All in all this was a very clean story.

But it was also incomplete. The pastor is quoted as saying this was historic. Well why was it historic? The story is not clear on this point. Was it historic for First Pres, for Presbyterians in Colorado, for all Presbyterians?
I was struck by the weakness of the pastor’s comments reported in the article as to why it was historic. Did the reporter not do her job? Did she not understand what was said? I think she did. The problem was that she was not given much to work with.

When I checked the church’s website and read the statement  issued after the vote, I found that all the reporter had to work with were some rather anodyne comments. If you want to know why this was a “historic day”, you won’t find an answer from the church.

As an aside — What is it about Colorado Springs and conservative churches? First Presbyterian of Colorado Springs was the largest PCUSA congregation in Colorado and it quit is denomination. In 2007 Colorado’s largest Episcopal Church, Grace and St Stephen’s in Colorado Springs, quit its denomination over the same basic issues as First Presbyterian. That split ended badly for the parish and the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado — the Presbyterians appear to have avoided the path of litigation. Is there something in the air, or unique to the culture of that community that would see schisms in two mainline congregations — as well as produce inordinately large Episcopal and Presbyterian churches?
To find out why this was historic — and why this story has wider significance you need to do some research in the congregation’s website. What is the significance of the choice of First Pres’s new denomination? The article mentions that the pastor, Jim Singleton, helped form the ECO — Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians — but why did the church not join one of the existing conservative Presbyterian groups?

A letter to the congregation on the church website states that it was the issue of women ministers that led First Pres to the ECO, as the existing conservative groups were not as accepting of women clergy as was First Pres.

One of the subtexts often unreported in the stories about the mainline splits is the question of women clergy.  Conservatives leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church may be at odds with their denomination’s teachings on human sexuality, and they may express this as being a division over the interpretation of Scripture, but amongst themselves they are divided over women clergy.

And this division over women clergy is driven by the interpretation of Scripture. What criteria is First Pres using to say that the PCUSA has broken with Scripture over homosexual clergy, but not over women clergy? In asking this question, I am not assuming an answer — rather seeking development of an issue. One, for example, that may well divide the nascent Anglican conservative church, the Anglican Church in North America, and is dividing First Pres and the ECO from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

I also liked this article from The Gazette because it did not make the mistake so often made by newspapers in distilling the mainline splits into a story about opposition to gay ministers or gay marriage. That is part, but is far from the whole story. It is the back half of the story — the question of where these breakaway churches are going and why — that was missing. And, if the church can’t explain why — a reporter can’t tell her readers why.

The first bringer of unwelcome news, as Shakespeare observes, hath but a losing office. Beating up on the press for omitting part of a story is easy. But when the actors in the drama don’t say their lines — the reporter is unable to say it for them.

What say you GetReligion readers? Is this a case of the subject, not the journalist, dropping the ball? Who should be telling this story?

Elizabeth Scalia: The Vatican’s Corrective to Liberal Catholics

from TitusOneNine by Kendall Harmon

On the eve of the Vatican's doctrinal investigation in 2009, Sister Sandra M. Schneiders published a letter to her Leadership Conference associates in which she sounded loaded for bear. Declaring that her community and others had "birthed a new form of religious life," she referred to the Vatican's attempt at assessment as "a hostile move" and one that would do "violence" to all that newness.

Not all sisters have been as combative. Two years earlier, in a thoughtful presentation that some believe spurred the investigation, then-Leadership Conference president Sister Laurie Brink had acknowledged that while many sisters walked unevenly with Rome, some had moved "beyond the church, even beyond Jesus." She called that a post-Christian mind-set that might ethically require those who held it to leave the church.

That assessment by Sister Brink was quoted in the Congregation's findings, but the document says nothing ill of Sister Brink. Rather, it worries that post-Christian mind-sets too often "go unchallenged" by the Leadership Conference—that it is falling down on the job of bringing Christian witness to its own members.

Read it all.