General Interest Anglican Headlines

Nanner McBotox drops her guard:

You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.  But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.  Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. 

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

Me, I’ve always been partial to my senators and congressmen reading legislation before they vote on it.  And Nanner?  I own a copy of the Senate bill passed last Christmas Eve that’s the basis for all this.  I’d be happy to loan it to you.  I’ll even pay shipping.

Because a comedy concept that good doesn’t come along every day.

Show me the cards of the hand you were just dealt so I can find out what is in it.

Would you mind taking a bite out of this so I can find out what is in it?

Take off your clothes so I can find out what was in them.

I’ll have to deliver my sermon before I can find out what is in it.

We’ll need to see your playbook, Coach, so we can find out what is in it.

The Anglican Church announced it would close seven churches on Vancouver Island due to declining attendance and revenues, but one reverend says there's still a light at the end of the tunnel.

Over the next 18 months, the churches will be sold or leased and their parishioners relocated to four newly created "hub" churches designed to serve a wider community. The dramatic decision was made using a set of recommendations put forward by the Diocese of British Columbia earlier this year.

Rev. Christopher Parsons is the rector for two of the parishes being closed, St. Columba and St. Martin, but the 34-year-old said he is nothing but pleased with the church's decision.

Read it all.

In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch blasts No Child Left Behind, which she says promotes "a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education" — as well as virtually every other recent reform effort that has sought to inject more free-market competition and accountability into education. She finds much to dislike: charter schools, high-stakes tests, corporate-style school management teams and the rising influence of foundation-funded reforms.

Over several decades, Ravitch says, American schools have essentially lost their way, forgetting to focus on giving students a solid curriculum and strong teachers. Instead, she says, we've bumbled through a series of crises that have left us with "vague and meaningless standards," an odd, antagonistic public-private competition and an "obsession" with test scores.

Read it all.

The Carry On Tuesday prompt for this week, #43, comes from the opening lines of The Beatles' song "Love Me Too":

"Each day just goes so fast
I turn around--it's past."

Celestial Navigation
Each day goes so fast--
voyaging, we embark,
weatherworn mates,
compassing unfamiliar seas.
Shall we navigate by the stars?

I turn around—it's past.
Our children older by a day.
Time speeds through my fingers
like hempen sail cord
as we tack clumsily,
struggling to split the wind.

Our vessel heaves
upon white-tipped brine.
“Squalls Ahead”
warns teenage years,
We secure the boom once again,
returning to our course.

The salt breeze stings my eyes.
Submerging my fears,
I weep my hope.

Copyright 2010 by Susanne Barrett

P.S. Here's a photo of a Mariner 31, very similar to the sailboat I grew up sailing with my family:

Read them carefully and read them all.

As I add to my list, plodding on toward the goal of One Thousand Gifts as part of Holy Experience's Gratitude Community, I can't help but be overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Little things are not little to Him -- all manifestations of His grace are gigantic, miraculous, far beyond the telling.

So, a day late but never too late, I add a note of gratitude for:

111. ... WOOD! Lake Murray is taking down a long row of mature eucalyptus trees, and Keith, his brother, and our three boys have been hauling the wood the 37 miles from church to our home. The wood will need to be split soon as eucalyptus hardens as it sits, so we'll have a HUGE splitting party soon. Next winter we will be warm and toasty, and I am *so* looking forward to it. We've been scrounging wood this winter as we haven't had enough money to fill our propane tank, but next winter even if we can't fill the tank, we're assured of a comfy winter.

112. ... for the power of words, how ideas germinate and imagery blooms in the most unlikely places.

113. ... part and parcel of #112, I am so grateful that God has gifted me with the desire to keep pushing my poetry writing, to keep baring my heart and extending my shy boundaries far past my comfort zone.

114. ... for my full Brave Writer classes this winter. My One Thing Poetry & One Thing Grammar courses have *never* been so large before, and it feels so wonderful to be helping so many families and to be an active help financially. Thanks be to God!!!

115. ... for our fun trip to Disneyland and California Adventure last week with my parents, my brother and his two kids, and myself and our four kids. Much fun was had by all, and after a very busy month, it was delightful to enjoy rides and fun times.

116. ... for my hard-working husband, boys, and daughter. They all work so hard physically, and I'm so proud of them.

117. ... for a wonderful birthday and a superb lunch at Jeremy's On the Hill just outside historic Julian, with two incredible women who are poets and "of the deeps" both faith-wise and wise-wise.

118. ... for music, specifically that of Billie Holiday and the Twilight: New Moon Soundtrack -- both are excellent writing music even though recorded 70 years apart.

119. ... for beauty popping out everywhere in this early spring, for rush of March winds, for greening of browns and golds, for daffodils raising faces to the sun, for rains slaking thirst of parched ground.

120. ... for a Holy Lent, far from perfectly kept, but always keeping me on my knees. For this I thank Thee, O Lord.

Warning--the content is very difficult to listen to in terms of the description of what happened. Watch and listen to it all (a little over 12 minutes)--KSH.

Update--There is a great deal more here.

Sometimes it amazes me how dishonest Jim Naughton can be.  Commenting on the recent speech of James Jones, the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, in which the Bishop thought that the way to end the Anglican wars was to stop fighting, John Chane’s former publicity flack had this to say:

Bishop Jones is going to be treated as a dangerous man by the Anglican right–and as a silly one by the Anglican Communion Institute/Fulcrum crowd who would condescend to Einstein on the topic of relativity. But the risk may be worth it if he is truly committed to the let-and-let-live solution he has articulated to the Anglican crisis over homosexuality.

To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, I don’t believe a word in that paragraph, even “and” and “the.”  I don’t even believe Jim’s punctuation.  And you know what?  Jim doesn’t believe any of it either.  Know how I know that? He comes right out and says so.

Many, many bishops expressed a preference for this sort of solution at the Lambeth Conference in 2008, but Rowan Williams would not lead in that direction, preferring to place the burden of keeping the communion together on the backs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians, who were asked to abandon any hope of first-class citizenship in the Church until Williams had persuaded some of the most bigoted men in the Communion that it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Subtle, innee?  Jim?  I’ll type this as slowly as I possibly can.  You and I both know that Gene Robinson got a pointy hat and Mary Glasspool is about to get one.  You also know that it is now next-to impossible for a person who believes homosexual activity to be a sin to be ordained in the Episcopal Organization.

And you know that Mark Lawrence is the last orthodox bishop TEO will ever approve and he’ll only last until Mrs. Schori decides to cap him.  So as far as the Episcopalians are concerned, there is one right answer and only one to the homosexual issue and your side is the one that proclaims it.

So what, says Jim.  We’re not imposing our views on anyone else.  All we’re asking is for the Anglican Communion to respect where we are as a church.  No, you’re not, Jim. 

Because that word “bigoted” gives the game away. Dismissing people as bigots merely because they disagree with you suggests that you mean for your views to not only be tolerated to eventually prevail.  So you’ll stay in the same Communion with the Africans.

For now.  The muscle will come later.

Williams’ approach hasn’t worked. It has done tremendous damage to the witness of the Church in the United States, Canada, and in his own country, where the public has turned away from a Church viewed ever more widely as a seat of reaction. Jones’ speech points the Church of England, and perhaps the entire Communion, in a new direction. Whether it has the wisdom to follow is another question.

Rowan Williams’ leadership during the Anglican crisis can be explained by two basic facts.  He is a liberal while a large part of the Communion he heads is not.  Since serious Christians don’t enjoy having 2,000 years of Christian teaching dynamited merely to make a tiny group of Episcopalians feel better about themselves, Dr. Williams’ course of action was probably the only one open to him.

He could have taken your side from the start and watched the growing and vital part of the Anglican world shake Canterbury’s dust from its feet a long time ago.  Or he could have manned up, declared that Lambeth Resolution 1.10, all of it, meant what it said and watched the US, Canada and their allies, form the Episcopal Communion and keep their scratch to themselves.

But Dr. Williams steered a middle course and made everyone mad at him.  Know why that was, Jim?  Because, as liberal as he might be, he genuinely respects the conservative viewpoint and takes it seriously.  Rowan Williams is a lot closer to an actual live-and-let-live position than James Jones or ecclesiastical airheads like Katharine Jefferts Schori can ever hope to be.

As far as the “damage” Dr. Williams has supposedly done to the Communion is concerned, project much, Jim?  You and the Canadians started this fire and you have the balls to complain about the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury to limit the damage?  Man up and deal with the fact that this is all on you.

Besides, how’s that whole homosexual bishop thing working out for you anyway?  From all indications, TEO’s membership hemorrhage has picked up speed since Robbie got his pointy hat(all those progs who were going to flood TEO parishes after Robbie should be arriving any day now) and dioceses are awash in red ink from one end of the country to the other. 

Rowan Williams didn’t damage your “witness,” Jim lad.  You put that gun to your temple all by yourself.

I found this very interesting--see what you make of it.

America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom. The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television you have had a “free choice.” The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

I try to help Americans see that the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story is their story by asking them this question — “Do they think they ought to be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing?” They do not think they should be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing. They do not believe they should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

I then point out the only difficulty with such an account of responsibility is it makes marriage unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity? I then observe that is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church: because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing. And if the story that you should have no story but the story you choose when you had no story makes marriage unintelligible, try having children. You never get the ones you want. Of course Americans try to get the ones they want by only having children when they are “ready” — a utopian desire that wreaks havoc on children so born, to the extent they come to believe they can only be loved if they fulfill their parents’ desires.

Of course the problem with the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story is that story is a story that you have not chosen. But Americans do not have the ability to acknowledge that they have not chosen the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story.

Read it all.

They see themselves as crusaders for human rights--protectors of the innocent, the voiceless, and the powerless. After years of enduring the slings and arrows of opposition, these activists are finally in the power seat. They are among the most important voices on a crucial political question: will abortion finally scuttle health-care reform?

They are America's Roman Catholic bishops.

It goes without saying that the Catholic hierarchy has always been pro-life. Nevertheless, the new prominence of this ancient fraternity is somewhat surprising. For one thing, the American public hardly regards the institutional Catholic Church as sacrosanct. Thanks to continuing sex scandals, many Americans--even American Catholics--roll their eyes on the subject of the Catholic hierarchy's ability to stand as a moral example.

Also, American Catholics reflect the voting public at large, which is to say that they are--and have long been--pro-choice. According to a 1999 poll, more than half of American Catholics believe you can be a good Catholic and disregard the bishops' teachings on abortion.

Read it all.

Peter Ould has five main themes of disagreement with Bishop Jones' address, and I've excerpted two of them:

Third, whilst Bishop Jones is correct to call for a more reasonable debate in this area, the reality on the ground is that in the places in the Anglican Church where the revisionist side has advanced its cause, the side-lining and ejecting of those with a conservative theology has always followed. Philip Ashey of the AAC last month produced a magnificent cataloguing of the way that in North America those who follow a traditional sexual theology have been persecuted (the word is not an exaggeration) by liberals in power.

In the secular arena it is very clear that groups like Stonewall are prepared to create such a situation here in the UK. Whilst it is alarmist to currently suggest, like the Bishop of Winchester has, that the changes proposed by Lord Alli’s amendment on Civil Partnerships will allow clergy right now to be sued, the trajectory of the progressives is clear in the words of Ben Summerskill of Stonewall when he says:

Right now, faiths shouldn’t be forced to hold civil partnerships, although in ten or 20 years, that may change.

Colin Coward of Changing Attitude agrees.

Is Lord Alli’s amendment a Trojan horse as some claim? I very much hope so.

And this is not simply about “alternative interpretations” of the Bible. I have sat in a meeting with one of the leading proponents in this country of the revisionist position. That person was asked, “If it could be demonstrated beyond all doubt that the Bible permitted no other sex for Christians then sex within a marriage of a man and a woman, would you change your position?” The answer was a clear, unequivocal “No”. For this person the issue had already been decided a priori to engaging with the Scriptures and no amount of Biblical theology would change their mind. So much for a conversation about what God was saying.

I commend Bishop Jones for wanting to have a graceful and compassionate conversation in this area, but the evidence is that those who are revisionist are not in this just for the mutual exploration of ethical dilemmas, they are in it to change the very face of the Church, regardless of what Conservatives think.

Fourth, Bishop Jones is simply incorrect to sweep away the scientific debate in a manner that assumes that sexuality is a fixed given. The best scientific research indicates that human sexuality is a complex interaction of nature and nurture, and thus it is probable that for each person that experiences same-sex attraction there is a unique interplay of various factors. That is why recently I have written against the imposition by some conservatives of particular development models of human sexuality on all those who self-identify as homosexual. While the “absent father” narrative is deeply insightful for some (including this author) leading to healing and orientation change, for others it is not relevant, and indeed can be damaging if one attempts reparative activities based upon its assumptions. At the same time the insistence by some revisionists that sexuality is biological in origin and therefore cannot be changed is a scientific naivety and flies in the face of good evidence that for some sexual identity and ever orientation is fluid and malleable.

Ultimately one cannot rest an ethical argument on “I was born this way, so it must be good”. We would not treat paedophilia, or alcoholism, or kleptomania or polygamy or any other number of sinful desires in that manner and therefore neither should we homosexuality.

More All is Well, Eh™ from our friends across the border. Please note: they consider this prophetic.

Sweeping changes to the Anglican Church on Vancouver Island, including the closing of a number of churches in Greater Victoria, will proceed.

The changes, recommended in a report commissioned by the Diocese of British Columbia, which governs Anglican churches on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, were endorsed at a sitting of the church synod during the weekend.

Rev. Christopher Parsons, spokesman for the diocese on the issue, said there was enthusiastic support at the meeting for moving ahead. However, he conceded that for some, change will be difficult.

“Change is not easy. Nobody likes change. But I think the church has a call to be prophetic, and to get into reality that it needs to do things differently in order to live out what God calls us to do,” Parsons said.

(emphasis mine)

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING!!!!!!!

Following this link is going to take you to an article with pictures of the tragic massacre in Nigeria. Words cannot express the horror you will see should you elect to follow the link.

The following commentary is found at the link above. I am very grateful to Save Our City (http://www.veracityjos.com/Veracity/Save_Our_City.html) for documenting this human tragedy.

The genocide that took place in Dogo Na Hauwa, Zot and Rastat during the early hours of yesterday 7th March 2010 at 3am by the Hausa/ Fulani youths most likely coming from the bordering district of Toro in Bauchi state is gross. Our reporters visited the scene yesterday to discover a total of 88 dead persons and many others who are in the Plateau Specialist Hospital receiving treatment. We are yet to verify the total number of those in the hospital.

It is clear that whoever is responsible for this hideous crime has the audacity because they have a backing of some sort. The blame should go to those who are evidently doing nothing about it. How many innocent lives must we lose before the ‘gods’ in government realize that this is beyond the political front? How do these people get their sophisticated weaponry that aides their havoc? Is there a chance that this is not unrelated to the crises?

There have been cattle raids by armed gun men in Vom, there have been murders of unarmed civilian women in sabon Gida Kanar, Riyom and Jabu bassa not to mention the most recent midnight slaughter of persons in Dogo Na Hauwa, Zot and Rastat. What more does the military and police force need to go after those murderers?

I have dear friends in Nigeria. Please join with me in prayer for all the people who are having to suffer this horror. Please pray that an outcry that can be heard around the world will reach those who can help. Please pray for strength, courage, healing and God's presence among the persecuted. Please pray for God to heal the heart of the persecuted so they can have eyes to see. I am waiting on information from a friend to determine the best avenue for sending aid. As soon as I hear I will post an update.

In the meantime, I call upon all our fellow bloggers to help spread the word and call for an end to the horrific and senseless violence.

What bothers my heart are a few questions:

• It was curfew time when these attackers came in and carried out their heinous activities. Who are responsible for these areas? What happened to those who should enforce the curfew? The purpose of the curfew is to stop events like this.

• Failure of government to provide full security for its citizenry leaves a people with very little option but to provide for their own kind of security. History has shown that these kinds of security are bred in vengeance, retaliation, bitterness, hatred and malice. This gives birth to an almost endless cycle of senseless violence as can be seen in many nations of the world today. Where is our government in all the levels of governance? Where were they on this night? Where were they on 17th January? Shall we continue to have the ugly sight of mass burials? Are there no leaders who fear God, who will swallow their pride and choose to be humble before God for the sake of those faces of slaughtered children?

• The new dimension these attacks are assuming is revealing a system of well-trained terror groups who rights now have attacked these villages, and only God knows which community will be next.

Read it all.

California passed a gas tax last week to help make up for its nearly $20 billion budget gap, the latest in a series of measures to right the state's teetering economy. The country of Greece is in even worse shape, with accumulated debt higher than 110 percent of GDP, set to reach 125 percent this year. Can a state declare bankruptcy? Can a country?

No and no. Chapter 9 of the U.S. bankruptcy code allows individuals and municipalities (cities, towns, villages, etc.) to declare bankruptcy. But that doesn't include states. (The statute defines "municipality" as a "political subdivision or public agency or instrumentality of a State"—that is, not a state itself.)

Read it all.

Here is a brief simple run down of the process of salvation from a Reformed perspective that I wrote up for someone who asked. Discuss amongst yourselves.

1.Election: Before they had done anything good or bad, apart any foreseen merit or goodness inherent in them, the Father chose his people in the Son, through the Son, and for the Son in accordance with his own will and purposes.

2. Regeneration: God alone, through the Holy Spirit gives new birth to elect sinners. There is nothing sinner does to deserve, prepare for or merit regeneration in any way. Nor can he cooperate with it anymore than a baby cooperates in his conception.

3.The Call: God draws the regenerate sinner to himself--putting down the willed suppression and hatred for God that characterize the sinful nature, freeing the heart to love what is good, evoking a desire for the truth through the word of Christ, preached, read, or taught.

4. Justification: The sinner, by grace alone, comes to a right knowledge of Jesus' person and work, he assents to the truthfulness of what he knows, and finally repents and trusts in the merits and work of Christ alone for his salvation and commits to follow Jesus as his Lord. This is "faith". It is not blind belief in a possible outcome. It is not mere cognitive assent to various theological propositions. Faith is knowledge, assent, and surrender. All three components are necessary. This "faith" is the sole instrument through which the Father credits or imputes the righteousness of Christ to the sinner and removes the eternal consequences of his sins--punishing them justly through the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the Son. The sinner is Justified by grace alone, through the instrument of faith alone, because of Christ alone.

5. Sanctification: And yet, justification is not the sum of salvation. At the point of justification the sinner is no longer under the sentence of hell. He has been rescued from eternal torment and is assured, on the basis of Christ's righteousness (which he cannot damage or destroy) imputed to him, life forever with Christ beginning in the present, continuing spiritually after death, and fully at the Resurrection in the Kingdom of God. Yet sin still exercises a powerful role in his life despite his justification. When the sinner comes to justifying faith, God the Holy Spirit immediately indwells him, makes a permanent home in his heart, and begins the process of renovaton or sanctification. 

Sanctification is a cooperative process. The sinner is a new creation, his will is no longer in bondage to sin. God works in him and continues to transform the will, heart, mind, directly, but the justified sinner can truly participate in this process. He can will and do what God calls him to will and do. Of course, nothing is done through naked effort. Grace proceeds and empowers everything. And that is true with regard to the justified sinner's cooperation as well. The grace of God provides the strength necessary to fight against sin and to live an increasingly godly life. That grace is conveyed through various means: scripture, prayer, preaching, the sacraments, the fellowship of the church and many others.

A justified sinner will necessarily bear fruits in keeping with his new nature and status. Someone who walks the sawdust trail in a fit of emotion but then returns to his former life unchanged cannot claim to be in Christ. Sanctification necessarily flows from justification. True faith necessarily leads to transformation. It will not look the same for everyone, since as CS Lewis noted, we all start off in very different places, but sanctification is a necessary result of Justification.

6. Glorification: Sanctification will not be completed during the sinner's life. Christians will continue to fall and fail but never fall completely or fail finally. And yet because the eternal destiny of the sinner is grounded in the imputed rather than infused righteousness of Christ and because all of his sins were imputed to Christ at the moment of Justification, there is no need for purgatory to work off or bear the penalty for remaining sins after death. When a Christian dies, the “old nature” is immediately mortified and he, like Lazarus, is carried immediately to Abraham's side, into the spiritual presence of Christ until the moment when God reunifies body and soul at the Resurrection.

From Church Society's website:

Earlier this week parliament voted to lift a ban on religious ceremonies being conducted for civil partnerships.

Because of other legislation in recent years, purporting to be about equality, this latest change will create an even more difficult environment for Christians. Clergy of the established Church will be under particular pressure to conduct services which they in conscience believe to be wrong. They may face the threat of legal action if they insist on following their conscience. Parliament has increasingly sought to interfere in religious affairs.

Very cool:

To date we have received more than $96,000 in donations for the Haiti Disaster Fund which will be used for immediate and intermediate needs following the January 12 earthquake. Nearly 300 families, churches, and organizations have made contributions including 22% of donors coming from outside this parish. The geographic distribution of the 22% of non-member donors is represented below . . .

Note also the four organizations that are managing the funds contributed to Haiti.

Great news for them!

From The American Catholic blog:

Breaking news as the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America has formally requested to enter the Catholic Church. All 99 parishes and cathedrals!