VIRTUEONLINE Digest - 11 May 2007 to 18 May 2007 (#2007-24) Fri, 18 May 2007 04:00:01 -0700 There are 24 messages totalling 1827 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Table of Contents 2. VirtueOnline Viewpoints - May 17, 2007 3. MRS. SCHORI AND THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION 4. Fort Worth, Quincy Dioceses break away is hype. Not true, says Bishop Ackerman 5. Episcopal Church Drops $51,000 for Op-Ed Page ad in New York Times 6. AUTONOMY OR COMMUNION?: Archbishop Gomez in Central Florida 7. TEC: Connecting the Dots - Conspiracy to Remove Property Disclosed 8. COLORADO SPRINGS: Episcopal Diocese enters battle over parish property 9. VIRGINIA: Truro Vestry Calls New Rector 10. Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare, says author Philip Jenkins 11. Anglican Mission Leaders' Gathering Builds Momentum for Church Planting 12. LONDON: Canon Kearon holds out hope that the Irish can save the Communion 13. TEC: Iraq's future requires careful...debate, bishops say in letter to Congress 14. CANADA: Former Homosexuals Write "Painful" Letter to Synod Bishops 15. HOUSTON: African plants foot in Episcopal battle 16. ONTARIO: Anglican Church in Canada at a 'crossroads' 17. NEW HAMPSHIRE: Gay bishop plans civil union with partner of 18 years 18. ARCHBISHOPS ARGUE OVER LAMBETH RESOLUTION 1:10 19. Missionaries in Northern Virginia - Michael Gerson 20. Atheist Richard Dawkins in conversation with Ruth Gledhill 21. Possibilities for an Anglican Future? - by Christopher Seitz 22. A TALE OF TWO GOSPELS: What They Have In Common - Gary L'Hommedieu 23. The Impact of Jerry Falwell - Mike McManus 24. LOVE NEVER FAILS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 22:54:05 -0400 From: Robert Turner Subject: Table of Contents 1. VIEWPOINTS All to Come to Lambeth 2008...Ft. Worth turns up heat on Schori...more 2. MRS. SCHORI AND THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION 3. Fort Worth, Quincy Dioceses break away is hype. Not true, says Bishop Ackerman 4. Episcopal Church Drops $51,000 for Op-Ed Page ad in New York Times 5. AUTONOMY OR COMMUNION?: Archbishop Gomez in Central Florida 6 TEC: Connecting the Dots - Conspiracy to Remove Property Disclosed 7. COLORADO SPRINGS: Episcopal Diocese enters battle over parish property 8. VIRGINIA: Truro Vestry Calls New Rector 9. Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare, says author Philip Jenkins 10. Anglican Mission Leaders' Gathering Builds Momentum for Church Planting 11. LONDON: Canon Kearon holds out hope that the Irish can save the Communion 12. TEC: Iraq's future requires careful...debate, bishops say in letter to Congress 13. CANADA: Former Homosexuals Write "Painful" Letter to Synod Bishops 14. HOUSTON: African plants foot in Episcopal battle 15. ONTARIO: Anglican Church in Canada at a 'crossroads' 16. NEW HAMPSHIRE: Gay bishop plans civil union with partner of 18 years 17. ARCHBISHOPS ARGUE OVER LAMBETH RESOLUTION 1:10 18. Missionaries in Northern Virginia - Michael Gerson 19. Atheist Richard Dawkins in conversation with Ruth Gledhill 20. Possibilities for an Anglican Future? - by Christopher Seitz 21. A TALE OF TWO GOSPELS: What They Have In Common - Gary L'Hommedieu 22. The Impact of Jerry Falwell - Mike McManus 23. Devotional: LOVE NEVER FAILS END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 22:57:15 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: VirtueOnline Viewpoints - May 17, 2007 Called to be peacemakers. Every Christian is called to be a peacemaker. The Beatitudes are not a set of eight options, so that some may choose to be meek, others to be merciful, and yet others to make peace. Together they are Christ's description of the members of his kingdom. True, we shall not succeed in establishing Utopia on earth, nor will Christ's kingdom of righteousness and peace become universal within history. Not until Christ comes will swords be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Yet this fact gives no possible warrant for the proliferation of factories for the manufacture of swords and spears. Does Christ's prediction of famine inhibit us from seeking a more equitable distribution of food? No more can his prediction of wars inhibit our pursuit of peace. God is a peacemaker. Jesus Christ is a peacemaker. So, if we want to be God's children and Christ's disciples, we must be peacemakers too --From "Issues Facing Christians Today" ---John R. W. Stott The sin of Dives. We are all tempted to use the enormous complexity of international economies as an excuse to do nothing. Yet this was the sin of Dives. There is no suggestion that Dives was responsible for the poverty of Lazarus either by robbing or by exploiting him. The reason for Dive's guilt is that he ignored the beggar at his gate and did precisely nothing to relieve his destitution. He acquiesced in a situation of gross economic inequality, which had rendered Lazarus less than fully human and which he could have relieved. The pariah dogs that licked Lazarus's sores showed more compassion than Dives did. Dives went to hell because of his indifference.-. --From 'Economic Equality Among Nations: A Christian Concern?' "Christianity Today" Dear Brothers and Sisters, www.virtueonline.org 5/17/2007 The burning question is this: who will go to Lambeth in 2008? Informed sources tell VirtueOnline that it will be all (rather than a partial) invitation. The openly homosexual Bishop of New Hampshire V. Gene Robinson will be invited to the next Lambeth Conference, together with all TEC bishops, (revisionists, liberals, Windsor and Network) together with some of the "more respectable" extra-mural Continuing Anglican bishops in CANA and AMiA. Apparently Bishop Duncan Gray III, DIOCESE OF MISSISSIPPI told a small group of people at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Jackson, Mississippi, recently, that he had it "on solid authority" that the Episcopal Church will be invited to Lambeth 2008. He may be right. If that is the case, "Global South" archbishops led by Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola will be faced with the choice of boycotting it and staging their own counter-conference, (which he has threatened to do). This would split the Communion, but leave the liberals in charge of the "original communion." The GS could also show up in force and try to seize control of the conference and expel The Episcopal Church. These are the options. None of them will bring peace, love, joy and reconciliation. Of course a lot hangs on what will happen after Sept. 30 of this year. Things could come unraveled quite seriously after that date. It is possible, though unlikely, that Lambeth 2008 might become irrelevant. Everything hinges on who the players will be and who will be calling the shots. Invitations, from the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, go out at the end of the year. http://www.lambethconference.org/2008/index.cfm VOL will keep you informed. TEC MAKES DESPERATE MOVE. The Episcopal Church took out a third of a page ad in the "New York Times" last Saturday on the Op-Ed page touting the Episcopal Church as a place to worship. It also extolled the virtues of becoming an Episcopalian. The Episcopal Church dropped $51,000 for the ad which ran a headline: "The Episcopal Church, Marking a Milestone, Moving Forward".Somewhere near you, there's a blue-and-white sign bearing the familiar slogan: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. It represents some 7,400 congregations that trace their beginnings in North America to a small but hopeful group of English Christians who arrived May 14, 1607 at a place they called Jamestown - the first permanent English settlement in the New World." I have written an analysis of this in today's digest or you can click here: http://tinyurl.com/2585cs A VOL reader challenged TEC's statement that the first English Christians were Episcopalians saying that The Episcopal Church is re-writing history. "This is misleading. The Puritans founded Jamestown in 1603. Not the Episcopal Church/Church of England. This is an intentional misrepresentation of fact by TEC's propaganda arm." You be the judge: http://tinyurl.com/27jwam Wrote another VOL reader: "The Church of England was established and attendance was enforced in 1607. Most of the American CE clergy, as they were established in some of the colonies, supported England in the Revolution. The church split, though not formally, in the Civil War. The history and theology of this advertisement are equally fraudulent" TEC's response: It was a group of separatists not to be confused with the Puritans. ARCHBISHOP DREXEL GOMEZ (West Indies) was in Orlando, Florida, this week and had some direct things to say about Mrs. Schori and what went on in Dar es Salaam at the Primates meeting. At a forum for the clergy and some laity in the DIOCESE OF CENTRAL FLORIDA, he walked through what actually happened. A number of VOL readers said he walked through the Anglican Covenant explaining it in some detail. He said that in Tanzania Dr. Williams went around the room at the conclusion of the meeting and had each primate affirm their support for the communique. Up to this point the Primates had worked on consensus, but not this time. Dr. Williams wanted every person to say, "Yes, I affirm what has been written." Mrs. Schori did this and then added that it would be a tough sell to her House of Bishops. When she returned to the U.S. and spoke to the House of Bishops, she spun it to say that her "yes" was to bring the communique back to the HOB - a point that Bishop John C. Howe tried to mak e in coming to her defense. Archbishop Gomez responded to Howe saying, "Sir, that was not the question she was asked by the +ABC." You can read a full report on this meeting written by Canon Gary L'Hommedieu in today's digest or click here: http://tinyurl.com/3bjkdq It is a brilliant piece of analysis. THE DIOCESE OF FT. WORTH turned up the heat on Mrs. Schori and TEC this week. The story first broke in "The London Times" and was repeated on a conservative American Blog, which said this diocese and the DIOCESE OF QUINCY, were getting ready to leave TEC for an overseas primate. It was not true. While the Diocese of Ft. Worth reaffirmed its pursuit of APO, there are no immediate plans to depart TEC. For the full story go here or read it in today's digest http://tinyurl.com/ynsn6b Be sure to read the Diocese's own take which follows my story. THE EPISCOPAL DIVINITY SCHOOL in Cambridge, Mass is offering some interesting summer courses including Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament; Christology and Cultural Imagination; Developing Spiritual Communities; Liturgical Preaching; Understanding QUEER Christian Theologies; Leading Congregational Change: A Systems Perspective. The "Queer Christian Theologies" is designed to have homosexuals running to their local queer Episcopal congregation for spiritual enlightenment or perhaps a queer bishop for the laying on of hands. Not to be outdone, the Episcopal News Service reports that two Northwestern University campus groups -- a Christian campus ministry and an undergraduate Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgendered (LGBT) group -- plan to hold a unique discussion and forum to explore the Church's stance on sexuality. Sex is apparently on everybody's mind. It is not necessarily the straight stuff. The Episcopal Campus Ministry and the Rainbow Alliance at Northwestern University will co-sponsor "Beyond Us and Them: How the Episcopal Church's Embrace of LGBT People is Invigorating its Proclamation of the Gospel." The Rev. Liz Stedman, chaplain to Canterbury Northwestern, the Episcopal ministry on the Evanston, Illinois campus, said in the release that in the Episcopal Church there is a "growing clarity and conviction that we are on the right path -- that God is calling us here, and that our actions stem from an authentic reading of the Bible." That's odd. The entire Anglican Communion is coming apart at the seams over sodomy and they think that TEC's "right path" is clearly the wrong path. Perhaps on Sept. 30 the message will finally hit home. EVER WONDERED how deeply infected the Episcopal Church's leadership is by homosexuals and lesbians? Of the forty members of The Episcopal Church's Executive Council, eight are lesbian or homosexual. So, twenty percent of TEC's top leadership is practicing sexual sin. Twenty percent of the elected leaders of the Church's most important governing body in between General Conventions are behaving inappropriately. They disproportionately represent the vast majority of some 800,000 practicing Episcopalians, most of whom are straight and married. Now you know why the TEC is in the mess it is, and who are really pulling the strings. Source: Meditatio Blog, San Francisco. In the DIOCESE OF COLORADO, the ongoing battle between Bishop Rob O'Neill and the Rev. Don Armstrong, who he accuses of alleged financial wrongdoings, took a new twist this week. The diocese now alleges that Armstrong was shredding documents and records so furiously that a shredding machine broke down, according to a countersuit filed in El Paso County District Court. Not true, Armstrong told VOL. "Interestingly, when they were closing in, they had all the documents in their possession, so we had nothing to shred if we even wanted to, which we wouldn't do because we had done nothing wrong and to shred papers relevant to this would have been wrong itself--we are all Martha Stewart fans and learned a little something from all she endured at the hands of similar sort of vicious people." In the DIOCESE OF OLYMPIA they elected the Rev. Dr. Gregory Rickel to be the eighth Bishop of Olympia at St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle. The Episcopal Church in Western Washington is comprised of 32,000 members in 96 congregations stretching between the Canadian and Oregon borders and from the Pacific coast to the Cascade foothills. Rickel, 43, currently rector of St. James' Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas, was elected on the third ballot from a slate of five nominees. Rickel raised fundamentalist eyebrows in Austin, by staging an Episcopal-Buddhist dialogue, and as an Al Gore-trained lecturer on global warming in the state capital where George Bush once reigned as governor. Rickel has been rector of St. James', which he describes as "an inclusive, multicultural community" and historically African-American Church that started in east Austin in 1941. He's a liberal who won't rock the boat. He succeeds the Rt. Rev. Vincent W. Warner, 66, who will retire at the time of the consec ration after 18 years as bishop diocesan. The Rt. Rev. Nedi Rivera, bishop suffragan and second-ranking prelate in the diocese, ran a distant third after two ballots and withdrew her candidacy. It was Nedi who once said she would never marry any more straight folks until the church gave the green light to marry sodomites. The diocese is struggling financially. It will be interesting to see what he does with a couple of parishes that have left TEC but are still on their properties. Stay tuned. Another person who knows Rickel and who worshipped at his church said about him: "Greg is VERY personable and some would say very handsome - in a word, charming (as a snake). The congregation is VERY tolerant, open minded, and just plain lost. Many same sex couples and some with infants and children. One **couple** had their infant baptized. Greg will be one of those who will think KJS hung the moon and will most certainly be at Lambeth." THE EPISCOPAL BOOK RESOURCE CENTER, an agency of the Episcopal Church (USA), in New York City is selling a book of spells by a British witch. Terese Moorey is the author of "Love Spells," which offers a host of tried and tested spells, potions, and rituals that will help you find out just how to bring love into your life. This little volume is filled with spells to find your perfect match, become irresistible, keep a love that's true, or when Cupid's arrow has gone astray, mend a broken heart. Anglicanism is a broad church, but this is absurdly broad and clearly outside the pale. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2006/06/anglican_witches.html. Don't look for any books by John Stott or J.I. Packer in the bookstore. INTERNET SCUTTLEBUTT has it that the Anglo-Catholic DIOCESE OF SAN JOAQUIN and its Bishop, John-David Schofield, are talking to Traditional Anglican Communion Archbishop John Hepworth about their future after their next Diocesan Convention in October should the diocese vote to leave TEC. Not true. I called the diocese where a spokesman said no such conversations were, or are, taking place. ON WOMEN'S ORDINATION comes this note from the Rev. Ron Gauss, priest at Bishop Seabury Church, Groton, Ct. "Back in 1974 General Convention held that there are to be two allowable theological positions in the Church concerning the ordination of women - one, no women, and the other to allow women. The two were to be considered valid. No one could take vengeance on another. So for some, "Bishop" Jefferts Schori cannot be the Presiding Bishop because she couldn't be a Bishop. She couldn't be a Bishop because she couldn't be a Priest, and she couldn't be a Priest because she is a woman." In 2000 those who disagreed with the ordination of Women were made heretics. QED. GAY PRIDE EUCHARIST. Integrity Atlanta's Annual Gay Pride Eucharist for Human Rights will take place at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Atlanta. The preacher for this year's service is Dr. Louie Crew, founder of Integrity. Crew is an elected deputy to General Convention from the Diocese of Newark and recently completed a term on Executive Council. The Rev. William "Mac" Thigpen, rector of St. Bartholomew's, Atlanta, will preside at the Eucharist. So much for Atlanta's compliance with the Windsor Report given that Bishop Neil Alexander is a Trustee and Regent at Sewanee University it makes one wonder what plans he must have for Sewanee - a Sewanee honorary degree for Crew perhaps? VIRGINIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY names new Dean. The Board of Trustees of Virginia Theological Seminary announced May 16 that the Rev. Dr. Ian Markham has been appointed dean and president effective Aug. 1. Dr. Markham will succeed the Very Rev. Martha Horne, who is retiring after 13 years as dean and president. Dr. Markham has been dean of Hartford Seminary, and professor of theology and ethics, since August 2001. Prior to moving to Connecticut, he was foundation dean and Liverpool professor of theology and public life at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, England. EPISCOPALIANS have begun responding to questions in a study guide aimed at helping the Episcopal Church consider the draft version of a proposed Anglican Covenant. Congregations, diocesan deputations to General Convention and individuals can all submit comments between now and the June 4 deadline. House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said May 14 that some General Convention deputations have already met and formulated responses with the help of the study guide. Responses can be e-mailed to gcsecretary@episcopalchurch.org, faxed to 212-972-9322 or mailed to Draft Anglican Covenant, The Office of the General Convention, The Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Ave, New York, NY 10017. The covenant study guide is not the only such tool that members of the Episcopal Church can expect to receive. At their March meeting in Texas, the House of Bishops asked its Theology Committee to develop a study document for consideration of the Primates' Communique. The bishops anticipate t his guide will be available by early June for use by bishops and dioceses in preparation for the September meeting of the House of Bishops. IN KAMPALA, Uganda, The Anglican Primate of Uganda warned Christians against practicing homosexual acts saying that they violate God's purpose for marriage and attract His wrath. "The New Vision," a Ugandan online journal, reports Rt. Rev. Henry Luke Orombi made his comments while preaching during his one-week tour of the Bukedi Diocese. You can read that here or in today's digest. http://tinyurl.com/2yuojg A READER UPSET at my story on former NJ Governor Jim McGreevey's priest says that my interpretation of events might be a tad premature. http://tinyurl.com/27m8lx "As a (conservative) clergy member of the Commission on Ministry in the diocese I serve, I would obviously have tremendous reservations about McGreevy being made a priest. But while I won't be surprised if it comes about, it is not the slam-dunk you make it out to be, and the staff at St. Bart's is not so enamored of him as your article would suggest. With the discernment process at St. Bart's, you'd find that, at best, McGreevy might be an aspirant. But that would be up to Bp Sisk to determine, and not St. Bart's or GTS. And McGreevy's process will not contain any shortcuts, at least from St. Bart's end. He's only been an Episcopalian for a matter of several weeks. He won't be eligible to be a postulant until he undergoes an in-house discernment process, psychological testing, physical testing and interviews with the Commission on Ministry, the diocesan Standing Commission, and the Diocesan Bishop. That will probably take at least a year. Until then, he isn't able to registe r at General, or any other Episcopal Seminary, as an ordination track student. He can only register for non-ordination track. And seminaries do accept people who are non-ordination, although some try to use their presence there as an end run around the discernment process: "I'm already in seminary...wouldn't it be easier if you just went ahead and let me be a candidate?" But if he (McGreevey) is trying to do an end-run around the process, I can assure you that, even if he's liberal and gay and an ex-governor, the clergy over his discernment (who have paid their dues, so to speak) will not appreciate the attempt to use his notoriety/power for cutting corners, and will, no doubt, squawk loudly to the bishop. Bishop Sisk has the final word on whether or not McGreevy is ever ordained...and he's the only one who can let McGreevy cut corners, because at the end of the day, he's the one who has to lay hands on him." FIRST MARRIED PRIEST IN THE VATICAN. Pope Benedict XVI has shown himself to be capable of breaking tradition by appointing the first married priest to head a Vatican Department. He appointed Monsignor Michael Rear, a Catholic priest of East Anglia Diocese, England, and a former Anglican Clergyman, to head a new Vatican Congregation for the Conversion of Anglicans. Aware of the present crisis in the Anglican Communion, the Pope feels the time is right for the Catholic Church to take advantage of the situation and make positive moves to welcome into the Catholic Church the large numbers of Anglicans disaffected by their Church's present direction. IN CANADA, an open letter to the National House of Bishops from the Zacchaeus Fellowship, a group of former, healed homosexuals and lesbians, released a statement saying they ignored the pastoral needs of people trying to live chastely with same-sex attraction even as it bent over backwards to placate those who have been demanding that the church affirm same-sex relationships. "We have written to the bishops to protest how the constituency that the Zacchaeus Fellowship represents has been marginalized once again, and to plead for the church to fulfill its pastoral responsibilities to the whole of its flock." Their letter can be found at www.zacchaeus.ca/HOB2007May.html IN OTHER CANADIAN NEWS CANADA'S BISHOPS have rejected blessings of same-sex unions, hinting they will veto moves to regularize gay blessings at the June meeting of General Synod in Winnipeg. "It is the discernment of the majority of the House of Bishops that as of today the doctrine and discipline of our church does not clearly permit ," the Bishops wrote in a May 1 pastoral letter to the Church. To soften the blow, the bishops couched their letter with expressions of support for the gay community, stating they sought to give them "most generous pastoral response possible." It was their "hope", the bishops wrote, that same-sex couples and their children were not being denied baptism, communion, or confirmation in Anglican parishes. The bishops also reaffirmed their 1997 statement of support for the ministry of gay clergy. It'll come as no surprise that Michael Ingham, Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, says he plans to continue to carry on performing these blessings. THE REV. ED HIRD'S book "Battle for the Soul of Canada" is short listed for an award. The Word Guild is an association of Canadian writers and editors who recognize great Canadian writers. They include such illustrious names as Dr. J. I. Packer and Mark Buchanan. This year "Battle for the Soul of Canada" has been added to the list of finalists. The association, which was founded in January 2002, has grown to 270 members across Canada, including 90 professional members. http://tinyurl.com/28hff3 1.5 MILLION ITALIANS from across that country poured into Rome May 12 to join in a demonstration against a law that would give legal recognition to homosexual couples. Organizers initially expected to draw about 100,000. The proposed legislation would give homosexual couples--and unmarried heterosexual couples--similar rights to those of married couples, stopping just short of legalizing homosexual marriage. While the Vatican and Italy's Catholic bishops backed the pro-family demonstration, lay people independent of the Church organized it. The "mind-blowing" success of the event is an outstanding example of the power held by ordinary citizens when sufficiently mobilized in support of traditional values, said Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, a priest in Rome who is the moderator of the Catholic Online Forum (see blogsite: http://tinyurl.com/2nuyv5). Who said Italians were only interested in food and sex? TWO ARCHBISHOPS - Ndungane of Southern Africa and Baxley of the Southern Cone have gotten into a lather about what actually went on at Lambeth '98 in the formation of Lambeth resolution 1:10. The Primate of the Anglican Church of South Africa delivered a long and thorough address at St. Saviours Church this past week and said, "the Lambeth Conference arose as a response to a messy situation. It was established with a less than satisfactory basis, to meet the particular agendas of particular participants at a particular time - and today we are left with the legacy of that fudge." Not true said Baxley who wrote countering Ndungane. I wrote to Archbishop Moses Tay in Singapore who was also present at Lambeth '98 and this is what he had to say: "Colin Bazley's recollection is true, but Ndungane's current attempt seems strange, jarring, distant from reality, and a biased and slanted re-writing of history! I am just saddened and disgusted to read what he has written/spoken. The Lor d is ultimately the judge, and 'for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the Day of Judgment'" (Matt 12:36) you can read that story here or in today's digest: http://tinyurl.com/37k6ny JERRY FALWELL DIES. An icon of the religious right died this past week. The 73-year-old Falwell was found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, but later died. Falwell founded the Moral Majority, building the religious right into a political force. Falwell had a history of heart problems. I had one run in with Falwell many years ago when he accused me of being less than evangelical on some issue or other and threatened me with all manner of things. Nothing came of it. I forgave him, but I always kept an eye over one shoulder in case his Fundie friends were looking for an excuse. You can read what Mike McManus has to say about him here. He is very generous towards the man. http://tinyurl.com/36qp2u CORRECTION: THE DIOCESE OF NEWARK is having a problem with inclusivity. VOL incorrectly said it was the Diocese of New Jersey. The Rt. Rev. Carol Gallagher, who got dumped as bishop suffragan of Southern Virginia, just got the heave ho as Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Newark. WELCOME TO VIRTUEONLINE. We hope you will take a few moments to scan the list of stories to read and check the website for even more stories that did not make the cut in today's digest. Stories are added every few hours. Please know that VOL depends entirely on its readers to maintain this website. If you would like to support this ministry with a tax-deductible donation we would truly appreciate that. Please consider supporting this vital ministry. You can send a snail mail check to: VIRTUEONLINE 1236 Waterford Rd., West Chester, PA 19380 Or you can make a donation at the website through PAYPAL: www.virtueonline.org. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. All blessings, David W. Virtue DD IN PASSING. This past week Catherine Beatrice Virtue, 89, passed peacefully into the presence of the Lord. She was a consummate evangelist who loved Jesus with her whole heart, soul and mind. She was my mother. I shall miss her. Requiem im pace, mother ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 22:58:15 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: MRS. SCHORI AND THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION MRS. SCHORI AND THE POLITICS OF ILLUSION News Analysis By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 5/17/2007 Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC), says she is excited to be an Episcopalian, that the Communion is alive and well and not a dead, dormant thing. At an annual Church Club dinner in New York City, she recently told a lay group that "the Communion is moving, in what some people see as seismic kinds of ways, but it's moving." She re-echoed her major theme that the set of mission priorities headed by justice and peace work, framed around the Millennium Development Goals, set at last summer's General Convention is "what it means to be Christian." According to Mrs. Schori the folks meeting in Boxburg (South Africa) didn't spend any time talking at all about conflict. "They talked about mission. The Anglican Communion is alive and well -- very well - in those partnerships between dioceses and congregations." The conference drew more than 400 Anglicans from 33 of the 38 Anglican provinces. They were to review the Communion's response to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and build partnerships. Addressing the current conflicts in the church Mrs. Schori had this to say, "The reality is that congregations in which a sizable number of members have voted to leave the Episcopal Church constitute one-half of one percent of the congregations of this church. They are very vocal and they've got a lot of media attention." Mrs. Schori then took a whack at the media saying, "What has not gotten media attention are the faithful witness and mission work that is going on all over this church." She countered news reports about the church saying, "Much of what people in this church and outside of this church think is guided by headlines. Headlines focus on a very small part of what's going on in this church and in the communion. I am happy to tell you that almost everywhere I go, I see signs of enormous health and vitality in congregations and dioceses. I don't see people moping." Mrs. Schori acknowledged that all mainline denominations have been reduced in their representation in the general population, "but Episcopalians have done better than others." "Our challenge," she stated, "is to retain the children we produce and to reach to new populations in this country and the vast population of the unchurched to whom we are a highly attractive alternative." Mrs. Schori wasn't the only one to demonstrate an "irrational exuberance" about the state of The Episcopal Church. Canon Kenneth Kearon, liberal head of the UK-based Anglican Consultative Council, believes that the recent Irish example of reconciliation can save the Communion. "The experience of overcoming sectarian division through a commitment to dialogue is a gift the Church of Ireland can bring to the Anglican Communion." Speaking to the Church of England newspaper, Kearon said that he is optimistic the divisions within the Communion are on track towards an amicable resolution. In common parlance, both leaders have their heads in the clouds. "The Irish experience would say that at the heart of reconciliation is engagement and conversation," Canon Kearon said. "That sounds very easy, and anyone who talks about reconciliation talks about this." However, "real reconciliation is very, very difficult" and begins with the admission that one is "part of the problem as well as part of the solution. Reconciliation also requires "the sort of listening that enables you to enter into the experience of the other person and begin to see through their eyes." Neither Mrs. Schori nor Canon Kearon are listening nor are they having conversations with the Global South archbishops because if they did they would be hearing a quite different story. The truth is both the Americans and British believe the myth that they are still controlling the outcome of the Anglican Communion. Therein lies their mistake. They are ignoring, often with an unspoken racism, archbishops like Peter Akinola (Nigeria), Henry Luke Orombi (Uganda), Benjamin Nzimbi (Kenya), Drexel Gomez (West Indies) and Greg Venables (Southern Cone) who are in fact pulling the strings of the Archbishop of Canterbury behind the scenes - strings that are long enough to split the communion, if push comes to shove. Both Schori and Kearon are grasping at straws. They are not willing to admit that a major paradigm shift has taken place in the communion that puts them in a distinct minority. The Global South is where the drama of historic Christianity is being played out. Western Anglicanism is producing spiritual geldings born of sodomite acceptance and weak feminized girlie men running major institutions. Mrs. Schori and Canon Kearon won't even entertain the notion that the current crisis is born of deep and profound theological differences that cannot and will not be pasted over with endless talk of "conversation" and "listening" that attempts to resolve the unresolvable. They will also not entertain or believe that contradictory views on human sexual behavior can live comfortably in the same bed if the eternal destiny of one group is at stake. Kearon believes the Anglican Communion can find an accommodation that will preserve its unity and strengthen its witness to the world. Both believe, quite falsely, that schism is worse than heresy. It is as if the wings of an Airbus 320 were built in Spain with the body being made in France with the two countries working from different engineering specs. The chief engineer merely shrugs his French shoulders and says "Weld it together anyway, it will still fly." Nobody in their right mind would buy a ticket on this aircraft. The Global South archbishops and bishops have signaled that incompatible morals and dissing sound theology are unacceptable. They will not allow The Episcopal Church to gloss over or forget the passage of resolutions C051, the blessing of committed, same-gender relationships; or D039, which acknowledged relationships other than Marriage and B001, which failed to endorse certain historic Anglican Doctrines and Policies. Mr. Kearon and Mrs. Schori think the Africans, Asians and Latin Americans are not as smart as English, Irish, Welsh and American bishops whose dioceses and provinces are in free fall. Western Anglicans are ashamed of the gospel and its exclusive call to repentance and faith, and laugh at Global South leaders for their failure to understand inclusivity. It is provinces like Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda that are growing by the million plus and will only increase in size in the coming years. The conscious commitment to dialogue that Kearon wants so badly only works to the benefit of pansexualists and theological revisionists. Dialogue, or more accurately playing for time with covenants, Windsor Reports, communiques etc., has never ever worked to benefit orthodox Anglicans. Never. The history of Episcopal General Conventions has been the slow but steady erosion of faith and morals. Issues like Women's Ordination, that went from optional to mandatory, are now being repeated with sodomy. Sooner or later it will be mandatory to ordain homosexuals and marry same-sex couples and woe betide that bishop who doesn't conform. He/she will face presentment and dismissal. We saw a taste of this in the rejection of the orthodox candidate for Bishop of South Carolina who was judged before he even took office. Is it any wonder then that the Primates have set a dateline for the Episcopal Church to conform (read repent)? We all know they won't. Is it any wonder that Network bishops and their dioceses are poised to take separate action as early as October? The Episcopal Anglo-Catholic diocese of Ft. Worth said in a recent statement that while they remain open to the possibility of negotiation and some form of acceptable settlement with TEC, "it appears that our only option is to seek APO elsewhere. This may entail a cooperative effort with other appellant dioceses in consultation with primates of the Anglican Communion, to form a new Anglican Province of the Communion in North America. A second possibility would be for the diocese to transfer to another existing Province of the Anglican Communion. A third possibility would be to seek the status of an extra-provincial diocese, under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as presently recognized in several other cases." Them's Fightin' Words, but words that Schori and Kearon should take very seriously, because if this diocese and perhaps as many as nine others decide to bolt, the TEC Humpty Dumpty will fall and no law firm, however able, will ever put TEC back together again. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 22:59:15 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Fort Worth, Quincy Dioceses break away is hype. Not true, says Bishop Ackerman Fort Worth, Quincy Dioceses break away is hype. Not true, says Bishop Ackerman Diocese of Ft. Worth Reaffirms Pursuit of APO By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 5/16/2007 Saying that he was baffled by reports that the Diocese of Quincy and the Diocese of Ft. Worth are seeking immediate Alternative Primatial Oversight, reported by Ruth Gledhill of The London Times, Bishop Keith Ackerman told VirtueOnline that the reports caught him off guard and were untrue. "I am with the president of the Standing Committee and I am as baffled as anyone about these reports in The London Times and on the conservative blog Stand Firm. Any such announcement or action is premature." "What I can say I know is that all of us in the Network who have requested APO have to understand what we have all along been asking for (APO) is because the HOB was less than conciliatory. The humor for me is that might lead to that some day. But to even to be talking about this now amazes me." "If these people have more information than the Bishop of Quincy I would be more than grateful for these people to get in touch with me. I need to have more information than the people putting it out there." "I am aware that there is much speculation about what Ft. Worth might do but nobody has told me what the outcome of that meeting may be." "If the communique is rejected by the Episcopal House of Bishops, and we have done everything to comply and they do not comply and we as orthodox bishops have complied, we would be doing more than petitioning some primate. I have talked with no one." Asked about what Ft. Worth might be doing, Ackerman said that what is true is that the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Council are scheduled to meet today. It is on their calendar. "They are presently meeting, and may issue a statement later this evening, but I have heard nothing from Bishop Iker to indicate that he is about to make some major announcement without informing me." In a headline, "Sensational news from the US." Gledhill said Forth Worth is to seek 'alternative primatial oversight' from an African primate. Quincy and at least three others of the Network dioceses are expected to follow suit. (Some of the Network affiliates want to continue to work it out with TEC.) I don't know which African Primate is to be approached, save that it is not Peter Akinola. Being Forward in Faith dioceses, they'll be looking in a catholic rather than evangelical direction. Malango perhaps? Fort Worth's standing committee and executive are meeting this afternoon, and we can expect a statement after that, around midnight GMT. According to Stand Firm, what I'm saying here comes close to, but does not precisely match, what they have been hearing." She wrote: "An impeccable source within TEC told me: 'Fort Worth is in conversation with four other dioceses about seeking alternative primatial oversight outside The Episcopal Church. They have yet to come to an agreement with an African Primate.'" Ackerman responded, "I don't know an impeccable source in the TEC that she could be referring too. This is all speculation and hype." Gledhill said that the statement is expected to outline developments to date, and why they feel driven to take this drastic step. It will have a huge impact because, although individual congregations have left before, mainly for CANA, this will be the first diocese to declare its departure. After that, four other dioceses may go as well. Does TEC have enough lawyers to fight this many property battles I wonder?" "The developments to be charted in the statement will include last summer's fruitless appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury for alternative primatial oversight, the dioceses' own rejection of the Presiding Bishop's offer of a primatial vicar appointed by her and their refusal even to attend the meeting where she proposed it." "We are aware that the actions of the HOB was not the official rejection of the communique and we are of the fact that Primates will respond after Sept. 30," he said. No diocese is going to act independently without consulting the other dioceses that have sought APO according to Ackerman. ***** DIOCESE REAFFIRMS PURSUIT OF APO Official Diocesan Response FORT WORTH, Texas (5/16/2007) - The Executive Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has adopted a statement of the diocesan Standing Committee calling for the diocese to move forward with its appeal for Alternative Primatial Oversight (APO). The Bishop and Standing Committee of the diocese first appealed for APO at the General Convention in June 2006. That appeal was endorsed by the diocesan Executive Council in September 2006 and by the Diocesan Convention in November 2006. The Bishop and diocese remain firmly convinced of the need for alternative oversight; therefore, the Standing Committee, meeting Monday, May 14, adopted the following statement as an assessment of the current situation and a proposal to actively pursue all viable options. It was adopted by the Executive Council in its regular bimonthly meeting. The mood of the council was both thoughtful and sad, yet it was considered prudent to "explore the possibilities and count the costs." According to the Constitution of the diocese, the Executive Council "exercises the powers of the Convention between meetings thereof." The text of the statement is as follows: Where are we with the appeal for Alternative Primatial Oversight? When the Diocese of Fort Worth first appealed for APO at the General Convention in June 2006, it was hoped that a special pastoral relationship could be established with an orthodox primate, in the interest of preserving unity and fostering mission, in the face of an impaired relationship with the newly elected Presiding Bishop. The original appeal was made in good faith and was directed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the primates of the Communion and the Panel of Reference. (Subsequently, it was decided not to approach the Panel of Reference about this in light of other pressing cases already before it.) As seven other dioceses made similar appeals during the course of the summer, it was agreed to combine them into one appeal, asking the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a commissary who would act on his behalf, providing a special primatial relationship with the appellant dioceses. He arranged a summit in New York in September with interested parties to discuss the matter in an attempt to come up with "an American solution to an American problem." This meeting failed to reach an agreement, with the PB-elect claiming that she has no primatial oversight of TEC dioceses and cannot therefore give to another what she does not have. Subsequently, representatives from the appellant dioceses met in November with the steering committee of the Global South primates to present their requests for APO. This meeting ended with the assurance that they would respond with a plan to address the expressed needs of the appellant dioceses. On November 18, 2006, the Fort Worth Diocesan Convention voted overwhelmingly in support of the APO request that the Bishop and Standing Committee had made in June. A second New York meeting was held later that month, but none of the appellant bishops attended because no proposal had been made for discussion. This meeting ended with the Presiding Bishop offering a plan for a Primatial Vicar, to be appointed by her and be accountable to her. The appellant bishops rejected the proposal as unacceptable. The APO requests were presented to the primates meeting in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. At the conclusion of the meeting, a Communique was issued that proposed the establishment of a Pastoral Council, which would oversee the ministry of a Primatial Vicar, to be selected by the Windsor Bishops coalition and be accountable to the Council. This plan was rejected by the House of Bishops at their March meeting at Camp Allen even though their approval was not sought. Nothing further has been heard about this from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Every attempt to find "an American solution to an American problem" has failed. Following the two meetings in New York and the House of Bishops' rejection of the primates' proposed Pastoral Council at their March meeting, it now seems clear that there is no desire on the part of the present TEC leadership to provide an acceptable form of Alternative Primatial Oversight within The Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop of this church has refused to accept the key recommendations of the Windsor Report, has failed to seek implementation of the essential requests of the Dar es Salaam Communique, and has denied basic tenets of the teaching of the New Testament. By her statements and actions, the course she wishes to pursue is clear: to lead TEC to walk apart from the Anglican Communion. This is a course we cannot follow. For all these reasons and others, we do not wish to be affiliated with her, nor with anyone she may appoint or designate to act on her behalf. So where does this leave the Diocese of Fort Worth's appeal for APO? While we remain open to the possibility of negotiation and some form of acceptable settlement with TEC, it appears that our only option is to seek APO elsewhere. This may entail a cooperative effort with other appellant dioceses in consultation with primates of the Anglican Communion, to form a new Anglican Province of the Communion in North America. A second possibility would be for the diocese to transfer to another existing Province of the Anglican Communion. A third possibility would be to seek the status of an extra-provincial diocese, under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as presently recognized in several other cases. We believe that we must now explore these possibilities. The Bishop and the Standing Committee of The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth May 14, 2007 The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth consists of 55 congregations serving 24 north central Texas counties. The major cities in the diocese include Fort Worth, Arlington, Hurst-Euless-Bedford, Wichita Falls, Grand Prairie, Richland Hills, Brownwood, and Stephenville. The Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker has served as the third Diocesan Bishop of Fort Worth since 1995. The diocese enjoys companion relationships with the Dioceses of Northern Malawi and Northern Mexico. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:00:15 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Episcopal Church Drops $51,000 for Op-Ed Page ad in New York Times Episcopal Church Drops $51,000 for Op-Ed Page ad in New York Times COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 5/14/2007 The National Episcopal Church (TEC) paid a cool $51,897 for a one-time quarter page block advertisement in the Op-Ed page section (A15) of the New York Times on Saturday, extolling the virtues of becoming an Episcopalian. Headlined: "The Episcopal Church, Marking a Milestone, Moving Forward" the ad began, "Somewhere near you, there's a blue-and-white sign bearing the familiar slogan: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. It represents some 7,400 congregations that trace their beginnings in North America to a small but hopeful group of English Christians who arrived May 14, 1607 at a place they called Jamestown - the first permanent English settlement in the New World." The ad was a result of collaboration between Mr. Bob Williams, Director of the Office of Communications for The Episcopal Church, and the Rev. Jan Nunley, Deputy for Communication for the Episcopal Church. The ad went on to explain: "You may know us as Washington's monumental National Cathedral, site of historic services and ceremonies, or the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, still unfinished, but already the largest cathedral in the world." The real intent of the ad becomes clear near the end when it states: "Episcopalians struggle with the same issues that trouble all people of faith: how to interpret an ancient faith for today ... how to maintain the integrity of tradition while reaching out to a hurting world ... how to disagree and yet love and respect one another. "Occasionally those struggles make the news. People find they can no longer walk with us on their journey, and may be called to a different spiritual home. Some later make their way back, and find they are welcomed with open arms." Clearly upset at frothing headlines exposing the splits in local parishes in dioceses around the country, The Episcopal Church hopes, with this ad, to regain lost momentum and prestige by playing up its strengths. The ad further notes: "But the Episcopal Church is also Boston's Old North Church, founded in 1723 and made famous by serving as the beacon for Paul Revere's revolution-spurring 'midnight ride.' And Philadelphia's Christ Church, home parish of 15 signers of the Declaration of Independence, host to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1785. "It's Trinity Parish on Wall Street in New York, formed in 1698, and St. Paul's Chapel just down the street, frequented by George Washington and the spiritual healing center of Ground Zero since September 11, 2001. "It's also Epiphany Church in Los Angeles, where Cesar Chavez rallied the United Farm workers. And Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Maryland, whose basement was a major stop on the Underground Railroad to freedom for enslaved African-Americans. "It's a parish in Iowa. A campus ministry in Georgia. A mission in Dinetah - the Navajo Reservation. A cathedral in Utah. Even a house church in Vermont." Jesus is mentioned twice in the article: the first time is in reference to the church's social ministries, and the second time is with reference to transforming the world, as Jesus taught: "a world of justice, peace, wholeness, and holy living." There is no reference to the Great Commission or the Great Commandment - it is all talk of structures and sodomy, the latter now considered "holy living". According to the ad, St. John's Church in Greenwich Village, is "a meeting place for gay and lesbian action following the 1969 Stonewall uprising," but makes no mention of ordinary families or the place of single heterosexuals who might be looking for spiritual solace from the Episcopal Church. The ONLY gender focus is on homosexuals. The fact that dozens of large parishes and their priests have fled The Episcopal Church because it can no longer affirm Scripture as authoritative for the church's life and witness is not mentioned. Neither does it state that thousands of orthodox Episcopalians have fled TEC in dioceses like Florida and Los Angeles, with four thousand in one parish alone in the Diocese of Dallas, and that one or possibly more whole dioceses will leave the Episcopal Church after Sept. 30 if The Episcopal Church does not fall in line with the rest of the Anglican Communion over sexuality issues. Their is no mention in the ad of the pain revisionist bishops have inflicted on priests, (dozens of whom have been inhibited and deposed,) who don't agree with them;, the slanderous slights against Global South bishops and archbishops who don't agree that sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God; or of the forced appearance of orthodox Archbishops on American soil to rescue godly parishes marginalized by liberal bishops who hate them for their stand for the truth of the transforming message of the gospel - redemption but no inclusion. Formation of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) or the more recent Convocation of Anglican Churches in North America (CANA) as safe spiritual havens for tens of thousands of former Episcopalians, now Anglicans, who believe their souls are imperiled by staying in The Episcopal Church, is not mentioned. The expensive ad glosses over such hard raw facts as the Episcopal Church might well face ouster from the Anglican Communion before the end of the year and that the Archbishop of Canterbury may be forced (by pressure from certain African Primates) not to invite liberal and revisionist TEC bishops to Lambeth in 2008 at risk of splitting the Anglican Communion. Also not mentioned is the fact that it is the liberals and revisionists who have moved away from historic Anglicanism not the orthodox. The latter state that the new religion is emptying churches not filling them. As one VOL reader deeply involved in feeding the poor noted after reading the Ad, "With $51,000 I can ship 3-4 containers of high-quality donated food to one of Africa's famine zones, upwards of 400,000 portions on some products ...or ship 22 40-foot containers of medicines to the Philippines." Perhaps the money could have been more usefully spent pursuing the much-ballyhooed Millennium Development Goals to "save the world." In any event, the ad is a vast waste of money. The much vaunted hope of doubling church membership by 20/20 is now a distant dream. Every week Episcopalians tumble out of Episcopal churches never more to return. By October of this year that could turn into an avalanche. END ***** The Episcopal Church Marking a Milestone, Moving Forward Somewhere near you, there's a blue-and-white sign bearing the familiar slogan: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You .. It represents some 7,400 congregations that trace their beginnings in North America to a small but hopeful group of English Christians who arrived May 14, 1607 at a place they called Jamestown - the first permanent English settlement in the New World. You may know us as Washington's monumental National Cathedral, site of historic services and ceremonies, or the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, still unfinished, but already the largest cathedral in the world. But the Episcopal Church is also Boston's Old North Church, founded in 1723 and made famous by serving as the beacon for Paul Revere's revolution-spurring "midnight ride." And Philadelphia's Christ Church, home parish of 15 signers of the Declaration of Independence, host to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1785. It's Trinity Parish on Wall Street in New York, formed in 1698, and St. Paul's Chapel just down the street, frequented by George Washington and the spiritual healing center of Ground Zero since September 11, 2001. It's also Epiphany Church in Los Angeles, where Cesar Chavez rallied the United Farm workers. And Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Maryland, whose basement was a major stop on the Underground Railroad to freedom for enslaved African-Americans. And St. John's Church in Greenwich Village, a meeting place for gay and lesbian action following the 1969 Stonewall uprising. It's a parish in Iowa. A campus ministry in Georgia. A mission in Dinetah - the Navajo Reservation. A cathedral in Utah. Even a house church in Vermont. Wherever you find us, you'll find the Book of Common Prayer and a Christian faith that honors and engages the Bible, the tradition of the Church, and God-given human reason. Joined in prayer, you'll find people with many points of view - Christians who are progressive, moderate, and conservative - yet who value the diversity of their faith community. That's a heritage drawn from our deep roots in nearly 2,000 years of English Christianity, and shared by a worldwide Anglican Communion that unites nearly 80 million people in 164 countries through prayer and ministries committed to caring for "the least of these," as Jesus commanded, by reducing poverty, disease, and oppression. Episcopalians struggle with the same issues that trouble all people of faith: how to interpret an ancient faith for today ... how to maintain the integrity of tradition while reaching out to a hurting world ... how to disagree and yet love and respect one another. Occasionally those struggles make the news. People find they can no longer walk with us on their journey, and may be called to a different spiritual home. Some later make their way back, and find they are welcomed with open arms. Despite the headlines, the Episcopal Church keeps moving forward in mission - in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as congregations in Belgium, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guam, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Micronesia, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela, and the Virgin Islands. We're committed to a transformed world, as Jesus taught: a world of justice, peace, wholeness, and holy living. We've grown a lot in 400 years, since that 1607 worship service from the Book of Common Prayer was held in Jamestown-inside and out. Come see for yourself. Come and visit. .. come and explore ... come and grow. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:01:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: AUTONOMY OR COMMUNION?: Archbishop Gomez in Central Florida AUTONOMY OR COMMUNION?: Archbishop Gomez in Central Florida Commentary By Canon Gary L'Hommedieu www.virtueonline.org 5/16/2007 "Does autonomy supersede communion? Or in the interests of a common mission are we willing to subsume autonomy?" With this rhetorical question the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies, summarized the question before the member Provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion at a clergy conference of the Diocese of Central Florida gathered at the diocesan retreat center in Oviedo, Florida, outside Orlando. The question is not exactly rhetorical. The implied answer would appear to be, well of course, the purported autonomy of an individual Province (such as the United States) cannot supersede the common mission of a worldwide Communion. That would negate the notion of "church" as a "catholic" entity. And yet, as the mild Archbishop added, "In our present situation The Episcopal Church, through the actions of its Convention, places autonomy above mission." The Archbishop is referring to the 2006 General Convention gathered in Columbus, Ohio, where The Episcopal Church failed to "give the assurances requested in the Windsor Report" issued by the Lambeth Commission on Communion in 2004. And he is referring to the more recent statements by the American House of Bishops in their response from Camp Allen this past March to the Primates' Communique, which, the Archbishop emphasized, had received UNANIMOUS consent and assent by the Primates meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this past February. The word "autonomy" became the official battle cry of an Episcopal hierarchy under fire, now with a September 30 deadline. It would appear that now, in the name of autonomy, The Episcopal Church is poised to throw out the missional baby with the baptismal bathwater. His Grace, The Most Rev. Drexel Wellington Gomez, Lord Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of the West Indies & Bishop of the Diocese Of Nassau & The Bahamas (Including the Turks & Caicos Islands), did not come to Central Florida on a bash TEC tour. He doesn't fit the stereotype of a political rabble rouser. He describes himself as a lifelong Anglican, and one who has remained an Anglican by conviction. While he sees the future of the Communion as stormy - if not catastrophic - his overriding message is one of hope. "Historically Anglicanism has made an enormous contribution to worldwide Christianity." The future of the global Anglicanism, according to the Archbishop, is twofold: Windsor, and Covenant. "There is no question that the future of the Anglican Communion will be Windsor driven. Every Province in the Communion will have to line up under the Covenant. Without something like the Covenant we will continue to drift. The time has come in Anglicanism for us to agree among ourselves that we need to have a way of ordering our affairs and of holding each other accountable. We don't have it at present, and to pretend we do is foolish, because it doesn't exist." The Archbishop used the partisan terminology of Traditionalist and Revisionist to describe the rival factions within present day Anglicanism. He insisted that he meant nothing pejorative by the use of these expressions but was merely being descriptive of the two forces competing for ideological dominance within the Communion. He introduced his remarks with his professed belief that he was "among friends" in Central Florida, adding that such was not always the case for him. His candid admission met with enthusiastic applause by participants. Archbishop Gomez had been invited by the Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, and the Clergy Events Committee of the Diocese "to do some teaching and to discuss the shaping of the Covenant and its anticipated role in the Communion." This he did in great detail, exceeding the expectations of participants. He began his presentation with a short Bible study on the Parable of the Sewer, which he said is more correctly titled "the parable of the false soil." He listed the four types of soil in the parable: first, the hardened footpath; second, the shallow soil; third, the mixed soil; and finally, good ground. The elucidated the types in clear detail. "Each of us has each of the types in us. We need to repent of those aspects of the first three. All of us are called by God to become the person he wants us to become, to enact God's purpose. That is the mission of the church. It is not about us, but about God." Hardly the fiery rhetoric of someone who goes around blowing smoke. From there the Archbishop led participants through the Report of the Covenant Design Group section by section and paragraph by paragraph. The Report, or simply "the Covenant", awaits approval by the 38 Provinces next year. He described the Covenant as "the way forward" for global Anglicanism."The main problem in Anglicanism is the breakdown of trust." He went on: "There are Anglicans who no longer see the face of Christ in their fellow Anglicans. Trust cannot be feigned or pretended. It must come from the heart. The commitment to travel together on a common track does not exist" at present. In spite of recent complaints by Episcopalians that an Anglican Covenant is peculiarly un-Anglican, that it represents something imposed by a Romanesque curia, the Archbishop pointed to the text of the Covenant itself as clarifying its intention: "What is to be offered in the Covenant is not the invention of a new way of being Anglican, but a fresh restatement and assertion of the faith which we as Anglicans have received, and a commitment to inter-dependent life such as always in theory at least been given recognition." What is missing at present is a mechanism of mutual accountability. The recent life of the Communion has demonstrated the necessity for such a mechanism to be added in order for the historic character of the Communion to continue. In Section 3 of the draft text the Archbishop highlighted two important paragraphs. One contained what he called "the basis for an orthodox hermeneutic" of the Bible. The term "hermeneutic" has received much attention since the Primates' Meeting in Dar es Salaam this past February. "In seeking to be faithful to God in their various contexts, each Church commits itself to ensure that biblical texts are handled faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, primarily through the teaching and initiative of bishops and synods, and building on our best scholarship, believing that scriptural revelation must continue to illuminate, challenge and transform cultures, structures and ways of thinking." The Archbishop explained, "Scripture must continue to speak to what is prophetic," and not the dominant culture. This contrasts with the Revisionist hermeneutic of "love" which wants to "bless" whatever the culture approves. Archbishop Gomez commented, "Love as a hermeneutic is a delusion - a self-delusion." Archbishop Gomez' presentation was hard-hitting and illuminating throughout. The audience of diocesan clergy and lay leaders was not accustomed to frankness that was not politically charged and manipulative, after the manner of American politicians, which seems to be mimicked by leaders in the church. His criticisms of recent American Primates, including the present Presiding Bishop, were withering, but without the scorn and sarcasm his audience was accustomed to -- or perhaps even had developed a taste for. One moment in the morning session brought the house to a standstill. In a long series of illustrations of the principle that "Covenant is making promises and keeping promises", Archbishop Gomez related how TEC has earned the distrust of the rest of the Communion. He recalled how former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold had agreed that proceeding with the consecration of Gene Robinson would "tear the fabric of the Communion at the deepest level," then thirty minutes later told a press conference that the American Church had no intention of canceling its plans to proceed with the consecration a month later. His next illustration was the real shock. He explained that at the recent Primates' Meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the Archbishop of Canterbury had broken the usual precedent of decision by consensus and required each of the Primates to stand and declare whether or not he (or she) agreed to the text of a Communique that contained the Primates' shared commitments for the future. Each of the 38 Primates said "yes" to the Communique. The American Primate, The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, said "Yes, but I'll have trouble selling it" to her fellow American bishops. The point is, as Archbishop Gomez stressed, she said "Yes." She could have, but did not, issue a minority report. When she returned, and when the House of Bishops Convened in March, Jefferts Schori claimed she had only consented to present the text of the Communique to her bishops. She took no responsibility for agreeing to it. One of the conference participants recalled she had claimed that "she never signed it." Archbishop Gomez cut in: "None of the Primates signed it." The Primates' Communiques are never signed. Their verbal responses are taken at face value. The Presiding Bishop's public statement that she hadn't signed it would appear to be a deliberate misrepresentation of the process. One of the diocesan clergy stood in stunned amazement, and fluttering with emotion said he didn't realize the extent to which we had been lied to. Bishop Howe stood, and with equal emotion insisted that the Presiding Bishop may very well have believed that she was agreeing to deliver the message and not that she was agreeing to the content itself, and that we should be very careful not to infer that she was lying. Archbishop Gomez interrupted the Bishop: "Sir, that was not the question she was asked by the Archbishop." Presumably the lady Primate had been quite convincing, so that the members of her house had the same picture as the rest of us as to how agreements were expressed in Dar es Salaam. The clergy of Central Florida reacted as if they had heard about the Primates' Meeting for the first time. This tiny detail made the prior accounts of the Meeting seem like hearsay. A fog had lifted. The Archbishop's message about a breakdown of trust was not simply a political tactic, used to weaken the position of an adversary. It was shockingly real. It was not a "tasty morsel", the kind which titillates gossipers. The response was shock and grief. The Archbishop had brought a clarity to Central Florida and to the American church that was shocking in that those who heard him had forgotten how long it had been since they had heard simple truth. Facts, even when they are sobering, can be inspiring and bracing. Hope at a way forward, even amongst unimaginable odds, seemed tangible and real. We realized that we have been awash in conflicting whirlpools of spin. Not everyone has been out to deceive us. But those who would help us parse out the truth have themselves been deceived - and have not known it. The presence of one humble man, whose commitments are clear, whose assumptions about the truth are stated up front, whose love for something greater than himself or his own cause or faction, had an electrifying effect on a bewildered and discouraged clergy - many of whom shared his particular theological commitments at the outset. The way forward will be long and hard. If the American church is "isolated" from the rest of the Anglican Communion (to use Gomez' term) after September 30, other Revisionist Provinces will follow - not as a unified body or a political block, but as fragments eroding off the main body. The impact upon the Anglican Communion as it is reconstituted will be devastating. God's mission will have been diminished, if not squandered. But a robust Anglicanism will redouble its strength. Those portions of the Communion that thrive on mission and evangelism will continue their present explosive growth. After all, they have a message of life to their communities and culture. Those portions that rest on the laurels of an earlier triumphalism will jump in at the head of the parade of the secular culture, without noticing that the culture itself is headed toward an abyss. They will be the dead left to bury the dead. "The Episcopal Church has to decide whether or not it will go with the rest of the Communion or whether it will go by itself. There are Revisionists and Traditionalists. It is quite clear now that the Revisionists are in the majority. The Traditionalists have to decide, do we continue in this group or go another way," said Archbishop Gomez. "Global Anglicanism will not be led by Akinola. He only has a few years left to retirement." The question before Traditionalists, according to the Archbishop: "How do I maintain contact and structural alignment with global Anglicanism?" He did not answer that question. American Traditionalists have been waiting for someone else to answer that question for them. If God is judging the Western Church and allowing it to disintegrate, perhaps he is also judging the orthodox for their passivity. Perhaps he is waiting to empower them to embrace, to rejoice in, the truth - what might otherwise be called, the strength of one's convictions. To repeat Archbishop Gomez' refrain: "There is no question that the future of The Anglican Communion will be Windsor driven." ---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:02:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: TEC: Connecting the Dots - Conspiracy to Remove Property Disclosed CONSPIRACY TO REMOVE TEC PROPERTY DISCLOSED NOTE: VirtueOnline received a copy of this HOB Task Force report on 4/26/2007 and published its contents here: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5906 This is the text of the unexpurgated report. HOB TASK FORCE ON PROPERTY DISPUTES DETAILS STRATEGY TO REMOVE PROPERTIES FROM THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH Report of the House of Bishops' Task Force on Property Disputes April 9, 2007 To: House of Bishops From: Task Force on Property Disputes Re: Connecting the Dots The House of Bishops Task Force on Property Disputes (Task Force) was formed at the Spring, 2006 meeting of the House at Kanuga. It consists of the following episcopal members: Mark Andrus, Charles Bennison, Jon Bruno, Philip Duncan, Mark Hollingsworth, John Howard, Jim Mathes, Bill Persell, Stacy Sauls, Kirk Smith, and Dean Wolfe.(1) It was originally chaired by Bill Swing and has been chaired by Stacy Sauls since Bill's retirement. The bishop members are advised by 19 lawyers, all serving as volunteers. Introduction The March, 2006 Executive Council meeting allocated $100,000 to fund the work of the Task Force. The Church Pension Group has contributed another $25,000. To date, no funds have been expended, despite a considerable amount of work done by the members of the Task Force. All fees, legal expenses, meeting costs, travel costs, and telephone conference-call costs have been donated by the members and lawyers of the Task Force out of devotion to The Episcopal Church (TEC). The Task Force has accomplished a significant amount of work. It has conducted extensive research, compiled a research bank for relevant materials, and has met on a regular basis, almost entirely by conference call. It has also met twice in person, once when it organized itself as an ad-hoc group, in December, 2005, and again with the then Presiding-Bishop Elect in July, 2006. The Task Force has furnished suggestions to the Presiding Bishop covering legal issues, pastoral concerns, and public relations matters. It has consulted regularly with the Presiding Bishop's Chancellor. It has advised, and it remains willing to advise, Bishops and others seeking to further the Task Force's goal of preventing the removal of property from TEC. The Legal Lay of the Land TEC is dealing with a well-thought-out, well-organized, and well-funded (2) strategy designed to enable and justify the removal of assets from use for the Church's mission and ministry in the world. To understand the strategy, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of the legal principles, civil and canonical, that form the backdrop for the strategy. There are two rules for determining church property disputes in the United States, which, for the most part, are determined under state law rather than federal law. A. Deference to Hierarchical Authority Rule-Some courts defer to hierarchical denominations, such as TEC, to determine which local faction to recognize as properly in possession of congregational property. B. Neutral Principles of Law Rule-Some courts analyze the underlying instruments or instruments by which title was conveyed to the record owner of the congregational property, along with any documents that create a possible trust relationship with respect to such property, as well as other facts, such as the way the parties have behaved historically with respect to property ownership. Since TEC has been recognized by courts as a hierarchical church, TEC's determinations should be dispositive in those states which defer to denominational hierarchies. On the other hand, in states that apply the neutral principles of law rule, a departing congregation would still have to overcome the Canon I.7.4 and II.6.4 of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church (2006), which declare that all parish property is held in trust for both the relevant diocese and TEC. (3) Those seeking to remove property from TEC hope to create confusion as to the nature of the hierarchy of TEC by claiming that its authority is subservient to the Anglican Communion. They hope to be able to argue that a departing faction is recognized by a competing hierarchical authority within the Anglican Communion. They either will urge the court to refrain from choosing between competing hierarchies and picking winners and losersor they will claim that they are acting under the authority of some other body that is within the Anglican Communion as a higher authority to TEC. This is why they have pointed to the Preamble to TEC's Constitution. As amended in 1967 as a compromise over the issue of whether to retain the word "Protestant" in the name of TEC, the preamble declares, in pertinent part: "The Episcopal Church . . . is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, P rovinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer." The history of this change in the Preamble makes it clear that it was not intended to make TEC subject to any other Anglican decision-making body. There is also no doubt that the Preamble was intended to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. In addition, it is well recognized in constitutional law that prefatory materials, such as a preamble, are not authoritative law. Still, those seeking to undermine the rights of TEC to local church property have shown that they intend to use the Preamble's language in future litigation over church property.(4) Therefore, in those states that defer to the hierarchical denominations, the court will have to determine the identity of highest decision-making body in the denomination.(5) Those seeking to undermine TEC, will contend that it is not the General Convention, but some structure within the Anglican Communion whether it is the Primates Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or perhaps something else. They might also debate what authority represents the top of Anglican hierarchy in the United States (e.g., Is it the one represented by the General Convention, and the Primate of which is Katharine Jefferts Schori, or is it the one that we now know as the Anglican Communion Network?).6 Connecting the Dots of the Strategy to Remove Property The strategy with which we are confronted is well-documented. It was, conceptually, formed very soon after the close of the 2003 General Convention and contemporaneously with the formation of the Anglican Communion Network. A. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review Interview-October 7, 2003 Newspaper report entitled "Episcopal Meeting Tackles Controversy" quoting Bishop Duncan regarding the Anglican Communion Network as the bona fide Episcopal Church. B. The Mainstream Meeting-November 20, 2003 We do not know what Bishops attended this meeting except that the notation at the top of the minutes is in Bishop Duncan's handwriting, but the typed minutes from this meeting pledge the participants to: * "Tell +Rowan that if he will not recognize the Network will separate from him," * "Declare that in the present crisis the issue of boundaries is suspended," * "Form a "Network of Confessing Dioceses and Parishes . . . established in good faith with our Constitution . . . Bob Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, as Moderator Bishop," and * "Commit to wage the "guerilla warfare of the next year." C. The Blankingship E-Mail-December 9, 2003 This email from Hugo Blankingship, the Chancellor of the Network, to Bishop Duncan, the Moderator of the Network, reports on a meeting between Blankingship and John Rees, the Archbishop of Canterbury's legal advisor (equivalent to a Chancellor in TEC), and reports that Rees "simply won't listen to anything but our staying in ECUSA." D. The Chapman Memo-December 28, 2003 The Chapman Memo has been well-publicized and has never been repudiated by the Anglican Communion Network. It provides details of a strategy that was virtually completely formed by this point.(7) At the outset, it declares: "Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil," which "e believe in the end should be a 'replacement' jurisdiction with confessional standards." Chapman notes that "e seek to retain ownership of our property as we move into this realignment." According to the memo, the realignment is to be accomplished through a two-stage strategy. "Stage 1 will feature 'spiritual realignment' while remaining within the letter of current canons," and will allow those participating "to keep clear use of their buildings for the foreseeable future." The memo says that it would be during Stage 2, which was to be launched "at some yet to be determined moment, probably in 2004," that the Network or those associated with it would "seek, under the guidance of the Primates, negotiated settlements in matters of property, jurisdiction, pastoral succession and communion," adding, however: "If adequate settlements are not within reach, a faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis may be necessary." The Chapman Memo goes into considerable detail in discussing the development and implementation of the strategy to use "offshore" bishops and a variety of practical, political, and financial issues for implementing the strategy. E. The Barfoot Memorandum-March 3, 2004 This memorandum, which followed the Chapman Memo by just slightly more than two months, sets forth a proposed "process and protocol for establishing Overseas AEO as an interim stage on the way towards the realignment of Anglicanism in North America and the reestablishment of biblically orthodox faith as normative in North American Anglicanism." It lays out a three-phase strategy to be followed in seeking and obtaining, "offshore" oversight, beginning with steps to be undertaken in selecting an offshore diocese with the assistance of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA). Various contingencies are discussed, including what actions in response might be expected from TEC, how recommended courses of action would differ depending upon whether the parish owns property, etc. It details a plan to remove priests to the oversight of foreign bishops and primates as a matter of formality while substantive oversight would be delegated to the Network. F. The Living Church Interview-April 27, 2005 This interview of Bishop Duncan includes his summary of the strategy to become a replacement jurisdiction by claiming "to be, constitutionally, The Episcopal Church." G. The Request to the Global South Primates for Alternative Primatial Oversight- November 6, 2006 This document was released publicly two days prior to a requirement to produce it pursuant to court order in Calvary Episcopal Church v. Duncan, Prothonotary Court for Allegheny County, Pa. (GD03020941). It is the Diocese of Pittsburgh's request to the Global South primates for Alternative Primatial Oversight and explicitly seeks assistance in property disputes under a section entitled "Cover" while a separate ecclesiastical structure is formed. In addition, the document details what duties of the Presiding Bishop should be delegated to a Primatial Vicar under any such pastoral scheme. H. The Bishop's Address to the 47th Annual Convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin-December 1, 2006 This document is listed out of chronological order because it is necessary to identify the Westfields Response, discussed below. Bishop Schofield describes a Global South Steering Committee consisting of "John Chew,(8) Archbishop of Singapore; Drexel Gomez(9) of the West Indies and the Caribbean; Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, South America, and a three Archbishops from Africa, including Peter Akinola of Nigeria as Chairman." Bishop Schofield also asserts that representatives of 10 American dioceses met in Virginia and submitted to the authority of the Steering Committee. Speaking at a deanery meeting on November 21, 2006, Bishop Schofield further described the commitment to the Global South Steering Committee in these words: And then we were asked whether or not we would sign a document submitting to the authority of the Primates and we had to give serious consideration as to what that might be. And everyone present at the conference, which included Bishops, presidents of standing committees, chancellors, and other counselors-all signed that document. I. The Westfields Response-November 16, 2006 This appears to be the document (perhaps incomplete) described by Bishop Schofield. The copy attached as Appendix I is signed by Bishop Duncan, Robert G. Devlin (Chancellor of the Diocese of Pittsburgh), and John M. Heidengren (President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Pittsburgh). There is significant blank space between the signatures. J. Bishop Duncan's Pastoral Letter-March 9, 2007 This pastoral letter was sent to "all who are part of the Anglican Communion Network or are allies in its welfare" with the request that it be read to congregations by all Network priests on March 11 but not published until March 12, 2007. It describes the Network's understanding of the Dar es Salaam communique as creating an ecclesiastical structure not accountable to TEC. Conclusion The Task Force has obtained and reviewed a broad array of other significant documents that relate to the strategy for removing property from TEC and that, in some cases, explicitly describe, often in considerable detail, elements of and reasons for that strategy. Those mentioned here are sufficient to clearly establish the essential nature of the strategy being followed. As a concluding note, it has occurred to many in the Task Force that it may have been misnamed. In truth, the matters that the Task Force has found it necessary to address are much larger than mere property disputes. Experience has shown that, at the root of every property issue, there is an issue of identity and integrity, and not merely an issue of polity. In reality, it is the church "homes" of countless loyal Episcopalians, the legacy of countless Episcopalians, past and present, and the spiritual well-being of those who always have found immeasurable comfort in their church homes, that are at issue as well as the nature of TEC and Anglicanism. The strategy at play must be revealed and understood if we are to protect the faithful from having their places of worship, and the assets accumulated by generations of Episcopalians, removed from them and removed from their use in the mission of TEC. .......... Footnotes 1. Bishops Bennison, Bruno, Hollingsworth, Howard, Persell, Sauls, and Wolfe were appointed to the Task Force by the Presiding Bishop. Bishops Andrus, Duncan, Mathes, and Smith have volunteered their assistance. 2. The Task Force has not explored funding issues as of yet. Funding, including the involvement of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, is addressed in "Following the Money" (Washington Window, May 2006.) The Task Force has prepared and proposed a plan for funding the defense of attempts to remove property. 3. The Diocese of Pittsburgh passed a resolution in 2003 purporting to nullify Canons I.6.4 and II.7.4. 4. The provision in TEC's Preamble is rare in the constitutions of Anglican Provinces (Norman Doe, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) p. 341). A similar provision was recently removed from the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. 5. Action by some dioceses, including Quincy (predating 2003), Pittsburgh, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and San Joaquin, to remove the accession clause required by the Constitution of TEC (Art. V, Sec.1) might be advanced to obscure the hierarchical nature of TEC. 6. The Anglican Communion Network asserts that it is intended to operate only within the Constitution and Canons of TEC, a claim which takes on a considerably different meaning if the Network should claim actually to be TEC, exclusive of non-Network parishes and dioceses. 7 It bears noting that at the very time the Chapman Memo was circulated in secret, the assistant to Geoff Chapman, its author, was a man named David Brannen, a priest who had interviewed, signed a contract to purchase a house, and accepted a call from by St. John's Church in Versailles, Kentucky without the Bishop's knowledge, and who at first refused to be interviewed by the Bishop. When the Bishop eventually declined to approve the call, three events followed in rapid succession: half the congregation of St. Johns left to form St. Andrew's Anglican Church; Bishop Duncan transferred David Brannen to the Province of Uganda; and David Brannen accepted a call to be the Rector of the new Ugandan congregation, exactly as the Chapman Memo suggests should happen. The same strategy has subsequently been followed in several other dioceses. 8 Archbishop Chew is a member of the Covenant Design Group for the Anglican Communion. 9 Archbishop Gomez is the chair of the Covenant Design Group for the Anglican Communion. Significance of this Task Force Report. Most of the source data for this report has been public for some time. The significance of this report is that the Task Force on Property Disputes has clearly detailed a conspiricy to remove property systematically from The Episcopal Church. Further the Task Force sets forth an assessment of the legal issues and a resolve to defend ownership of all property currently in The Episcopal Church. Quoting from the concluding paragraph of this report: "In reality, it is the church "homes" of countless loyal Episcopalians, the legacy of countless Episcopalians, past and present, and the spiritual well-being of those who always have found immeasurable comfort in their church homes, that are at issue as well as the nature of TEC and Anglicanism. The strategy at play must be revealed and understood if we are to protect the faithful from having their places of worship, and the assets accumulated by generations of Episcopalians, removed from them and removed from their use in the mission of TEC." END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:03:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: COLORADO SPRINGS: Episcopal Diocese enters battle over parish property COLORADO SPRINGS: Episcopal Diocese enters battle over parish property By Jean Torkelson Rocky Mountain News http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5533762,00.html May 11, 2007 As the Episcopal Diocese closed in on alleged financial wrongdoings, the Rev. Don Armstrong was shredding documents and records so furiously that a shredding machine broke down, according to a countersuit filed Thursday in El Paso County District Court. With the lawsuit, the diocese formally entered the fray to regain control of the historic Colorado Springs parish property, Grace Church and St. Stephen's. The property is currently under the control of Armstrong, its rector of 20 years, and a majority of the church's governing board, which voted with him in March to break away from the Episcopal Church. "Time after time courts have ruled that while individuals can leave the church, it is illegal for them to take the property with them," said the chancellor of the diocese, Lawrence R. Hitt II, in a statement. "Grace and St. Stephen's has been an Episcopal church for over 130 years and it will continue to be an Episcopal church." Alan Crippen, the spokesman for Armstrong, said, "It strikes me the diocese has thrown everything they have, including the kitchen sink, into this thing." He called the shredding charge "on its face, incredulous." The escalating war between Armstrong and the diocese centers around two battlefields. In March, after a year-long investigation, the diocese accused Armstrong of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in parish funds. Armstrong, who denies the charges, says the diocese is persecuting him for criticizing the Episcopal Church. He's part of a national movement of conservatives who believe the church has strayed from historic Christian teachings on issues of sexuality and scriptural authority. They hope to bring the parish property with them into a national network of conservative churches called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). A parish vote is scheduled for May 20 to determine if a majority of the 1,500-plus member congregation also wants to join CANA. The diocese's countersuit argues that the parish was seized illegally. The diocese quotes from a purported March 26 e-mail from Armstrong to vestry head Jon Wroblewski as they were preparing to break away. Referring to Episcopal Bishop Rob O'Neill, the e-mail said: "He has no army and no keys and no authority - possession is 9/10s of the law and I have the microphone." Wroblewski sent the e-mail on to other vestry members adding his own message: "Prepare for battle. Ramming speed." Wroblewski acknowledged his e-mail today. Crippen shrugged off the exchange, saying Armstrong was out of town but suspected the rector wouldn't deny the aggressive e-mails. "The vestry is made up of bunch of military veterans including Armstrong himself, and these guys talk like this all the time," Crippen said. "When they voted on March 26 they were in a very celebratory mood. That probably lasted about 10 minutes when they realized what was coming down the pike." The Armstrong camp argues that it's free to join CANA because the parish is a separate non-profit corporation founded 14 years before the Episcopal Diocese. Also, it has held its own title to the property since the land was donated to the church in the 1870s by Colorado Springs founder, General William Palmer. They regard it as relevant that the parish is incorporated under name which doesn't include the word "Episcopal." In its counterclaim, the Episcopal Diocese said that the parish and the congregation used the name Episcopal regularly over the years, dating back to the mid-1800s when the first Episcopalian settlers came to Colorado. What's more, the diocese maintains that while a local parish corporation may hold the title to the property,the parish's purpose has always remained constant - to further the mission of the diocese and the Episcopal Church, said the diocese's attorney, Martin Nussbaum. "This is absolutely settled law in Colorado," Nussbaum said. The diocese is citing a 1986 Colorado Supreme Court decision which said an Episcopal parish in Denver had to return its property to the diocese. The parish, St. Mary's, tried to keep its property after it broke away from the Episcopal Church in the 1970s after it voted to ordain women. Hitt said in his statement that the diocese will continue with a church trial against Armstrong, and he suggested the legal challenges mounted by Armstrong's group are attempts to deflect the serious allegations against him. "This litigation is not about theology or differences of opinion in the church," Hitt said. "It is an effort by that break-away group to distract attention from the very serious charges of theft and misconduct against Armstrong." Crippen said the Armstrong group will continue to fight for the church's right to self-determination. "This thing is going to play out over several months and maybe years," Crippen said. "We'll patiently for the civil court system to administer justice." END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:04:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: VIRGINIA: Truro Vestry Calls New Rector VIRGINIA: Truro Vestry Calls New Rector Parish News 5/13/2007 Fairfax, VA: Oakes, Senior Warden of Truro Church (2005-2007), announced today to the Truro family that the Vestry has unanimously called the Rev. Tory Baucum as the new rector of Truro. This follows a unanimous recommendation of Baucum by the Search Committee. "After a two-year intensive search that spanned the Anglican Communion worldwide we are grateful to God for the amazing way in which the Truro Vestry was so unified in its decision to call Tory to Truro," said Oakes. "I am delighted with this decision to call Tory as rector," said the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Bishop of CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) and current rector of Truro. "Tory is a gifted pastor and teacher with a demonstrated passion for evangelism. I am looking forward to seeing how God will use his gifts at Truro." Baucum is currently Associate Professor of Preaching and Church Renewal at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY. He has a PhD in Intercultural Theology with expertise in the catechumenate, Christian revitalization movements and the history of preaching. "I have watched with delight as Tory's gifts as a Christian communicator, as a leader, and as a compelling voice for Christ have indicated just how great an impact, under God, he may be for our Lord and for the Church," said J. Ellsworth Kalas, President, Asbury Theological Seminary. "I rejoice in the door of opportunity that has opened for him at Truro." The Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Lexington, KY agrees. "I have been truly blessed by my friendship with Dr. Tory Baucum," said the Most Rev. Ronald W. Gainer. "The depth of Tory's learning and love for Christ and the Church makes him a wonderful bridge-builder among believers." Baucum received his MA (1986) and M.Div (1988) from Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, PA, and his doctorate from Asbury in 2005. Prior to teaching at Asbury, Baucum was the rector of All Saints Church, Kansas City, MO, and has served on the clergy staffs of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Kansas City and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, AK. In addition to his position at Asbury, Baucum also serves as the Alpha International Associate Missioner, London, England. Baucum, 47, was born in Pratt, KS. He is married to Elizabeth Tyndall Baucum, Esq., and they have three daughters, Isabelle Rose, 11; Amelia Tyne, 9; and Bridget Flanagan, 7. "Tory Baucum is a true and gracious servant of God," said the Rt. Rev. Prebendary Sandy Millar, Assistant Bishop of London and former Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, where the Alpha Course was founded. "His appointment to Truro is good news for everyone who looks forward to the growth of the church and the coming of God's Kingdom. Praise God!" END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:05:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare, says author Philip Jenkins Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare, says author Philip Jenkins The author of "God's Continent" offers a measured assessment of Europe's religious future. He responded to questions from Oxford University Press about his most recent book. http://blog.oup.com/ OUP: This is the final book in your series on the future of Christianity, how does it differ from the other titles? Philip Jenkins: The Next Christendom and New Faces of Christianity both explored gods-continent.jpg the rise of Christianity in areas where it is relatively new and growing, chiefly in Africa and Asia. God's Continent discusses the historic heart of Christianity, where the Christian faith is said by many to be in deep trouble, and perhaps on the verge of extinction. Even writers I respect greatly such as George Weigel share this view. And it is alarming if true, since it may suggest that Christianity is inevitably bound up with poverty, and will fade away when living standards rise. I reject this view. I believe that European Christianity is instead adapting to a new society in which traditional assumptions about (for instance) family, community and gender roles, are in rapid transition. The change to new attitudes and assumptions is painful, but it is happening. And these changes will, I believe, affect Islam in Europe, and beyond. OUP: Where is Eurabia and what do you think it will look like? Jenkins: Eurabia is a dystopian nightmare land where white Europeans have very few children while their Muslim neighbors have many, so that Muslim immigrants swamp traditional Europe, making it what Bernard Lewis calls "part of the Western Maghreb". I have real problems with the idea because I think it's based on shaky demography, but also because it recalls for me so many nativist campaigns in bygone years - against Catholics in nineteenth century America, Jews in early twentieth century Britain, and so on. It is quite possible that in sixty or eighty years, some fifteen or twenty percent of Europeans might have family roots in Muslim countries, but that is quite different from assuming that they will all be stereotypical "Muslim fanatics", or even Muslim at all. My guess is that Muslims in Germany will be very German, Muslims in Britain very British, and so on. By all means, let Europe and the United States suppress extremists and violent radicals, but that's quite differen t from panicking over people who happen to be from the Middle East or South Asia. OUP: The public tends to have an anti-Islam backlash after an event like 9/11 or the French riots. How does your book debunk alarmist assumptions about Islam? Jenkins: There is plenty to worry about in contemporary Europe, and I write at some length about some of the extremist parties and movements that threaten lethal violence. Yet I make several points that people have really fail to note. First, the numbers of Muslims are far smaller than most Americans think, so that a maximum of around 4.5 percent of Europeans are presently of Muslim stock - and I use that phrase advisedly. When we talk about "Muslims", often we are including many non-religious people who happen to have roots in Muslim societies, but who are not followers of Islam in any religious sense. If we look at an American city or state which is four or five percent minority, we probably call that community "white", so why do we have a more hostile response to a comparable number of Arabs or Muslims in Europe? Critically too, I'm not sure that many of the incidents that people cite when they warn about "Eurabia" arise from the issue of Islam as a religion, as opposed to conflicts of race and class, and the best example of that would be the French riots of 2005. I see very little evidence of any religious motivation there. This does not mean that such outbreaks are not serious, but governments have to respond to them differently than they would if they represented a true religious movement. Also, we should not complain about Muslim failure to assimilate into European societies when these populations have been there such a short time. Think how poorly assimilated America's minorities were in the 1920s, which is a fair comparison - about thirty years after the beginning of the main influx. Finally, forecasts about Muslims taking over Europe assume that Muslim birth rates will continue to be very high. All immigrant populations have high fertility in the first generation, but usually that usually falls within a generation or so, and that is exactly what we are seeing in Europe. Moreover, the home countries for most of Europe's migrants have experienced a dramatic fall in fertility just in the past decade, and that will certainly have its impact in Europe itself. OUP: Why has Christianity developed differently in Europe than in South America or Africa? Are there underlying cultural differences at play? Jenkins: Africa and Latin America are by and large much poorer than Europe, and poorer societies tend to rely more on some particular forms of religion to help them through life -that doesn't mean they are more religious, but the religion they espouse is more overt and enthusiastic. But the real question is why Christianity has developed so differently in the United States, which is so comparable to Europe, and that is a real problem for the whole secularization thesis. The US is just as developed as Europe and far richer by most standards, but is obviously much more actively religious by any standard you care to name. Why? I examine, and reject, most of the familiar explanations, but one point I do make concerns the sheer size of the US, which is a subcontinent as well as a nation. The difference in geographical size has many implications, but just consider the consequences for internal migration. A German or a British person who relocates to the far distant end of his or her own country has usually traveled at most a few hundred miles, while a move of comparable distance within the United States might well leave a family within the same state. Even before the advent of modern air travel, a migrating European was likely to maintain touch with his or her roots, unlike an American counterpart who moved, say, from the East Coast to the West Coast. In the US, then, frequent movement and internal migration are likely to leave individuals cut off from their homes and familiar social networks, driving them to seek new networks and forms of instant community. Often, the best and easiest place to find such interaction is within a hospitable church in a well-known denomination, a singularly attractive setting for young families with children. A society marked by constant movement, by frequent uprooting and replanting, by ever-growing cultural diversity is more accustomed to seek the institutional support of religious bodies, and also to accept the spiritual ideas presented in that environment. Attendance at these institutions thrives, and thus churches and synagogues flourish in the US in a way they don't in Europe. That's only a part of an explanation, I know, but it's suggestive. OUP: How do the legal systems of Europe discourage religious orthodoxy? Jenkins: European courts tend to enforce certain concepts of rights that make highly liberal assumption about gender roles and especially homosexuality. This raises enormous problems for conservative religious organizations that might believe that homosexuality is sinful. Also, laws prohibiting "hate speech" can in practice be used to limit evangelism or proselytizing. Europe in the near future will face many conflicts between religious bodies and the courts, and many of the familiar themes in American religious freedom law will need to be fought out from square one. OUP: Claire Berlinski was very critical of you in her review, why? Jenkins: Claire Berlinski is the author of a highly controversial book on the subject of religion in Europe, a prolonged shriek against Muslims and Arabs (and Europeans!) by the name of Menace in Europe. Since I refer to her book repeatedly in God's Continent, each time pointing out its flaws, she was probably not the fairest reviewer for a newspaper to choose to give an objective response to my work. But even having said that, I thought her review gave a grossly inaccurate impression of my argument. To give an example, I argue at some length that institutional Christianity is seriously declining in Europe, but that there is a powerful underlying quest for Christian spirituality, and I devote two chapters to new and rising movements within the churches - renewal movements, immigrant churches and so on. Yet Berlinski quotes me as saying that the only piece of good news for Christians is that "The number of visitors each year to Lourdes is rising." That's a wildly inaccurate description of my argument, and it's a characteristic sample of her review. OUP: What is your favorite book? Jenkins: Probably my absolute favorite author is Charles Williams, the associate of C S Lewis and Tolkien, and I read everything I can get of his - novels, plays, poetry, theology. But I read all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. In terms of fiction, I have an odd assortment of favorite writers, including Dickens, but also Jim Thompson the great noir writer, fantasy writers like Arthur Machen, and even - guilty secret - the horror author H. P. Lovecraft. I also go back to G. K. Chesterton time and again, especially to The Man Who Was Thursday and to lesser known pieces like The Ball and the Cross. --- Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University as well as the author of numerous books. His most recent title, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:06:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Anglican Mission Leaders' Gathering Builds Momentum for Church Planting Anglican Mission Leaders' Gathering Builds Momentum for Church Planting Anglican Mission in America News 5/15/2007 The Anglican Mission Council of Bishops and Mission Network Leaders met together in Chicago May 8-10, 2007, reinforcing their commitment to building community among our network leaders and deepening their collaboration, communication, and celebration of all that the Lord is doing in and through our Networks. Such gatherings will be scheduled regularly and are designed to strengthen existing networks and resource the development of emerging networks in new territories. "We are coming together to discuss what is and what will be," said Bishop Chuck Murphy, Chairman of the Anglican Mission. "These meetings give us the opportunity to build momentum for our church planting and other mission initiatives in a strategic way." Bishop Murphy has asked Bishop Thomas Johnston to assume the responsibility for providing oversight for networks as well as convening, planning and chairing the meetings with bishops and network leaders. "We are currently referring to this as the Anglican Mission Steering Committee," said Bishop Johnston, "but I hope we will adopt a title that more accurately reflects the work we are called to do." Bishop Johnston outlined his vision for the group which focuses on a team effort marked by covenant, vision, and mutual trust as well as empowering and equipping others in order to impact the culture around us. "Mission Network Leaders have been entrusted with a very significant role in the Mission," he said. "This is not a governing board, but rather, our purpose will be to strengthen our commitment to four 'Cs': community, collaboration, communication and celebration," he added. Bishop Johnston encouraged the gathering to "give voice to the moment, the mission, the opportunity and the power of God at work in our midst." During the three-day gathering, leaders participated in worship, Bible study and group discussions on topics including resourcing and strengthening networks to fully engage ministry initiatives, encouraging and releasing networks to embrace new opportunities for mission through the local church and Anglican Mission structures. Special presentations to the group were made by Mrs. Elizabeth Walters, coordinator of the Anglican Mission Prayer Network; the Rev. Dr. Joe Murphy, Anglican Mission's Director of Credentialing and Deployment; and Mrs. Cynthia Brust, Director of Communications for the Mission. These three leaders also offered breakout sessions to familiarize participants with their areas of responsibility, vision and work. Mission Network Leaders initially met with the Council of Bishops in May 2006 to discuss the essential role of networks within the Anglican Mission, and the group also adopted the Network Development Manual, a tool designed to "provide basic information on network formation and administration." The manual provides increased clarity and definition to the work of Networks within the Mission while remaining an "evolving work that seeks to document best practices of effective Mission Networks." The group agreed to meet regularly in order to enhance collaborative ministry. Future meetings will vary in agenda, but will consistently focus on expanding the life and ministry of the Anglican Mission. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:07:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: LONDON: Canon Kearon holds out hope that the Irish can save the Communion LONDON: Canon Kearon holds out hope that the Irish can save the Communion The Church of England Newspaper May 18, 2007 THE EXPERIENCE of overcoming sectarian division through a commitment to dialogue is a gift the Church of Ireland can bring to the Anglican Communion, ACC Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon tells The Church of England Newspaper. Speaking to the CEN on April 28, Canon Kearon stated he is optimistic the divisions within the Communion are on track towards an amicable resolution. Director of the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College, Dublin, before his appointment as ACC secretary general in 2005, Canon Kearon sees parallels between the Northern Ireland peace process and resolution of the doctrinal divisions within the Anglican Communion. If Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley (pictured) could find a way forward after a century of sectarian and political bloodshed, the Anglican Communion could also find an accommodation that would preserve its unity and strengthen its witness to the world, he said. "That sort of thing is beginning to happen within the Anglican Communion," he said. The Tanzania Primates' Meeting was "characterized by a graciousness and a willingness to listen" and was a source of hope. "The Irish experience would say that at the heart of reconciliation is engagement and conversation," Canon Kearon said. "That sounds very easy, and anyone who talks about reconciliation talks about this." However, "real reconciliation is very, very difficult" and begins with the admission that one is "part of the problem as well as part of the solution." Reconciliation also requires "the sort of listening that enables you to enter into the experience of the other person and begin to see through their eyes." He went on: "When you talk about the Anglican Communion, you can be very simplistic and talk about camps." However "the divisions that exit in Anglicanism are those that exist in almost every church throughout the world. People are living in a time of change and are responding to changes in the world very differently," he said. "How does faith and culture engage? Does it move with the culture or stand prophetically against it?," he asked. The divide over the interpretation and place of the Bible is the "real issue" for Anglicans, and "we are working this out in public, and being criticized for it. Yet I am proud to be an Anglican because of this," he noted. "The Irish contribution is to see the need to engage in conversation. There was no engagement" between Republicans and Unionists, Catholics and Protestants in Ireland for generations. But beginning in the 1970s in the Republic and in Ulster in the 90s the Irish began to move away from sectarianism through a conscious commitment to dialogue. It "takes courage, and people have got to be prepared to make significant and symbolic gestures. You also need to be prepared to accept things that you would have found offensive in the past. In the Northern Ireland experience, it is seeing things like accepting the release of prisoners who have not served their full terms, or the acceptance of people who were received as former terrorists into controlling roles into the Police Authority in Northern Ireland. That was a very big thing and very hard to accept. "Reconciliation and conversation involves symbolic gestures that also involve courageous steps against your own emotional feelings, and I do think we need all of that in the Anglican Communion. We have had a lot of conversation and there have been some important symbolic gestures where people have been engaged in dialogue in a public way across what looked like an irreconcilable divide. But just as Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley have been able to sit down and form a government for Ulster, there are signs that the Anglican divide can be bridged, he argued END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:08:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: TEC: Iraq's future requires careful...debate, bishops say in letter to Congress TEC: Iraq's future requires careful, reasoned debate, bishops say in letter to Congress May 16, 2007 Expressing "deep concern" for the situation in Iraq, more than 100 bishops of the Episcopal Church have written to all United States Senators and Representatives outlining the need for "a careful and reasoned debate" to end the violence "and bring stability and a just peace to the region." The May 16 letter was also signed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and two former presiding bishops, the Rt. Revs. Frank Griswold and Edmond Browning. The bishops recalled an October 2002 letter to Congress in which they expressed their belief that going to war with Iraq was not justified. "Now we write again to express our deepest concern for the situation in Iraq and for our servicemen and women," the May 16 letter said. "We are filled with sorrow as we witness how our worst fears of what might ensue from war in Iraq become reality." In particular, the bishops noted the families and communities that "have been broken both in body and in spirit as service members are separated from their families for extraordinary periods of time, suffer mounting casualties, and all with no end of violence in sight." To date, more than 50 Episcopal chaplains have served in harms way in Iraq, Afghanistan and in support bases in Kuwait and other Middle East neighboring states. Presently, there is one Episcopal chaplain in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and three in Kuwait. The bishops also acknowledged that "the respect our nation once enjoyed and our relations with allies have been seriously undermined." Into its fifth year, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of more than 3,300 U.S. Soldiers and left at least 25,000 seriously injured. As many as 65,000 Iraqi civilian deaths were reported by March 25, according to an independent UK/US group, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC). On considering Iraq's future, the bishops urged Congress and the Administration to engage in "a careful and reasoned debate that avoids the partisan and harsh rhetoric that would diminish the important issues before our nation." They noted that such a debate did not occur in 2002 "and, with the notable exception of the Iraq Study Group, it is only marginally occurring now." "For the sake of all those involved, and to honor those brave women and men who have been maimed and lost, we encourage full and open discussion that acknowledges our mistakes as well as our responsibilities," the letter continued. "It is our hope that this discussion will lead to policies that will end the violence in Iraq and bring stability and a just peace to the region." The bishops identified six imperative goals for the United States, including mapping out a strategy for a responsible transition to Iraqi governance; joining those in the region, including Syria and Iran, in seeking security and economic recovery for Iraq; and providing the women and men of the military and their families with the sustained and responsive care they need. They also acknowledged the need for the U.S. to work for religious freedom and protection of religious minorities in Iraq; serve the needs of Iraqi refugees wherever they may be; and seek peace in the region, including a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. "In the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer, we ask that the spirit of wisdom be given to those whom we entrust with the authority of government; with that authority comes great responsibility," the letter concluded. "We pray that the spirit of wisdom will be with each of you and help guide us to a just and lasting peace." The full text of the bishops' letter follows. Dear Senator/Representative: In October of 2002 we, the bishops of the Episcopal Church, wrote to Congress expressing our belief that going to war with Iraq was not justified, noting that "the wisdom of our own Christian faith, as well as other religious traditions, teaches us to demonstrate the greatest prudence and caution when the lethal force of war is contemplated." We offered our prayers and support as Congress made "this difficult decision, not just for our country, but also for the people of Iraq and the peace of the world." We noted that we respected "the seriousness of your responsibility to protect the lives of our citizens" and we condemned "the brutality of Saddam Hussein and his regime." We included prayers for "members of the armed services and their families in the midst of international crisis and possible military action." Now we write again to express our deepest concern for the situation in Iraq and for our servicemen and women. We are filled with sorrow as we witness how our worst fears of what might ensue from war in Iraq become reality. Families and communities have been broken both in body and in spirit as service members are separated from their families for extraordinary periods of time, suffer mounting casualties, and all with no end of violence in sight. The respect our nation once enjoyed and our relations with allies have been seriously undermined. As Congress and the Administration consider the future of Iraq, we urge a careful and reasoned debate that avoids the partisan and harsh rhetoric that would diminish the important issues before our nation. That debate did not occur in 2002 and, with the notable exception of the Iraq Study Group, it is only marginally occurring now. For the sake of all those involved, and to honor those brave women and men who have been maimed and lost, we encourage full and open discussion that acknowledges our mistakes as well as our responsibilities. It is our hope that this discussion will lead to policies that will end the violence in Iraq and bring stability and a just peace to the region. We believe it imperative that the United States now: * Map out a strategy for a responsible transition to Iraqi governance, making clear that we do not have long term interests in occupying Iraq * Join those in the region, including Syria and Iran, in seeking security and economic recovery for Iraq * Provide the women and men of our military and their families with the sustained and responsive care they need * Work for religious freedom and protection of religious minorities in Iraq * Serve the needs of Iraqi refugees wherever they may be * Seek peace in the region, including a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians In the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer, we ask that the spirit of wisdom be given to those whom we entrust with the authority of government; with that authority comes great responsibility. We pray that the spirit of wisdom will be with each of you and help guide us to a just and lasting peace. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:09:16 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: CANADA: Former Homosexuals Write "Painful" Letter to Synod Bishops An open letter from the Zacchaeus Fellowship responding to the "Statement from the House of Bishops to the Members of General Synod" May 14, 2007 http://www.zacchaeus.ca/HOB2007May.html To the National House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada: We write to you out of our painful sense of rejection caused by the statement in the name of the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada issued on April 30. Our response to your statement has taken two weeks as we have needed to recover from our shock and discouragement. One of our members wrote, "When I first read the HOB statement, it felt like someone had just spit in my face! I was not angry; just gravely disappointed and yes, surprised." What little comfort we can take is in the knowledge that some of you have encouraged us in the past and continue to assure us of your support. We thank you for standing with us. Sadly, though, it seems we are now the new marginalized minority. On October 27, 2005, several members of the Zacchaeus Fellowship made a presentation to the House of Bishops (available at www.zacchaeus.ca/hob.html), in which we spoke about our pasts, our struggles, our hopes and our hurts. Every member of the House of Bishops has also received a copy of our booklet Transformed by an Encounter with Christ. Your statement has betrayed our witness to the House of Bishops. You bent over backwards to express sympathy for our brothers and sisters who openly espouse the gay lifestyle, yet your statement held not one word of pastoral sensitivity towards us. In the name of pastoral care, you have left us feeling spiritually bulldozed and utterly deserted by our church. We are not at all able to agree with the statement's claim to consistency with paragraph 143 of the Windsor Report, which affirms "the duty of pastoral care that is laid upon all Christians to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations." We point to your lack of so much as an acknowledgment that the Anglican Church of Canada contains a constituency of individuals who are ex-gay, ex-lesbian, or living chastely with same-sex desires. We remind you that this is not the first time such rejection of this constituency has taken place. At General Synod 2004, Resolution A134 was passed, intentionally involving gay and lesbian persons in the dialogue and study. Yet, a second amendment which was proposed to include "those who identify themselves as ex-gay or ex-lesbian" was defeated. The Anglican Church of Canada decided at that Synod that we are non-entities, not deserving an equal voice alongside that of gays and lesbians. May we suggest that if a motion of this nature with regard to people of colour had been defeated, the cry of protest would have been loud enough to bring down the house. In any case, when we were rebuffed in 2004, our fellowship decided to turn the other cheek. We have repeatedly asked that our voice representing this constituency be heard, in particular at this upcoming General Synod. This request has been rejected by the agenda committee. We want to be allowed to sit at the table with our church family in order to share our experiences. We plan to appeal to the Primate for the opportunity to address General Synod from the floor. We ask you to prayerfully consider supporting us in this appeal. As we have stated before, not all persons with same-sex attractions want these attractions affirmed. We are concerned for those whom we describe as "silent sufferers" in the pews. These are the many individuals who adhere to the traditional Christian teaching on sexuality and wish for the church neither to condemn them as persons nor to encourage them to act on those same-sex attractions. Who shall support them? Such individuals need pastoral care - towards which goal your statement offers empty wind. And on moral direction as called for by Lambeth Resolution 1.10(c) your statement is silent. We implore you in the strongest possible terms to ensure that all persons experiencing same-sex attraction are offered biblically sound pastoral care. In the name of Jesus crucified and risen, The Rev'd C. Dawn McDonald, Chair of the Zacchaeus Fellowship, priest in the Diocese of Yukon The Rev'd Dr. Don Alcock, Vice Chair of the Zacchaeus Fellowship, priest in the Diocese of Huron On behalf of the Zacchaeus Fellowship Copyright 2007 The Zacchaeus Fellowship ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:10:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: HOUSTON: African plants foot in Episcopal battle HOUSTON: African plants foot in Episcopal battle By BARBARA KARKABI The Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/4797049.html 5/13/2007 The Rev. Felix Anyasor was a happy man this week. So was his friend and colleague the Rev. Simon Omoke. The Nigerian-born Houston ministers had just returned from Virginia, where they celebrated the installation by Peter Akinola of a "missionary bishop" to lead U.S. churches that have broken from the Episcopal Church because of disagreements over homosexuality. "It was like the first Christian gathering at Antioch," Anyasor said of the installation of the former Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns as bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. "When (Antioch) happened, people from all over the world came. The spirit of God fell on them, and they were able to speak in different languages," he said."That's what I saw (in Virginia), too." The convocation, known as CANA, was established in 2005 by Akinola and the Church of Nigeria. Its 34 members include churches that have broken away from the U.S. Episcopal Church, including Minns' Truro Church in Fairfax City, Va., and those that began as independent Anglican churches under the umbrella of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The latter includes Anyasor's Christ Anglican Church on Harwin and Omoke's Chapel of Reconciliation in southwest Houston. Anyasor's predominantly Nigerian 90-member church opened in 2004; Omoke's 30-member chapel was founded the next year. They were never a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. "It was inevitable, because there was an ordination of the gay bishop, and that started the schism," Anyasor said. "So many of our people didn't want to go to the Episcopal Church anymore, and there were phone calls from many people to start a church." First he had to clear it with the archbishop of Nigeria, the leader of 18 million Anglicans. Anyasor received word that it was "not a bad idea for me to gather the flocks." Anyasor described the atmosphere in Virginia as "people coming to agree with one voice and one heart, ready to move ahead on this path." But Minns' installation defied the wishes of both Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church. To others, it was yet another crack in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. "I think we were not surprised by the action in Virginia last week. It's been building for a long time," said the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, a gay-rights lobbying group. "This is an important moment for the communion to recognize that there are forces within it, particularly those led by Archbisop Akinola, who are really determined to split the communion if they can't re-create it in their own image," he said. For the past few years, Anglicans in other parts of the world have disagreed with the "permissiveness" of the Episcopal Church. In 1998 the Lambeth Conference, a bishops' meeting held every 10 years in England, approved a statement rejecting homosexual practice as "incompatible with Scripture." The U.S. ordination of a gay bishop in 2003 outraged conservative Anglicans - and conservative Episcopalians. Earlier this year in Tanzania, the world's Anglican bishops proposed a pastoral council to oversee conservative American congregations that disagree with the U.S. church's liberal pro-gay stances and want to remain in the communion. The American bishops rejected the idea, calling it "spiritually unsound" and a violation of church law. Anglican leaders gave the U.S. church until Sept. 30 to reject rites of blessings for same-sex unions and future consecrations of gay bishops. Minns, a native of England and former Mobil Oil executive, said there is a deeper context to the disagreement. "The bigger part is over the different way we interpret biblical theology and the uniqueness of Christ," he said in a telephone interview. For some years, Minns has been active in the conservative American Anglican Council. "My sense is the Episcopal Church believes that everyone should be welcome, but no one is expected to change. That's very important to me. ... We don't need to redefine God for our culture; God is beyond culture." Russell, a senior associate minister at All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., accused the conservatives of a "narrow and fundamentalist approach" to Scripture and theology. "The pernicious piece for me is that rather than be seen as brothers and sisters in Christ who read Scripture and interpret it differently, they say that we have turned our backs on Scripture and are just focusing on social-justice issues," she said. The Rev. Lisa Hunt of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church on West Alabama believes that Akinola is testing boundaries. "It's about power for him and the African church." It's also about globalization, she said. "What does it mean to be in communion with each other? How do we in a world structure enable that to happen?" she asked. "The British Empire took the Anglican Church to China, Asia, Africa," she continued, "and those churches have their own identity and their own people. It's a really fascinating time." Dean Joe Reynolds of downtown's Christ Church Cathedral was saddened by Minns' installation. "With all the mission and ministry that needs to be done, it's a shame to spend time on those kinds of things," he said. "We are going about our work here on Texas and Fannin." Though some predict an eventual split, the Rev. David Puckett, rector of Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in the Memorial area, doesn't see it happening. "I don't think that this event will prohibit Anglicans from continuing to commit themselves to seeking ways to remain unified as a communion," Puckett said. "I think the vast majority of Anglicans wish to do that," he said. "I mean Anglicans worldwide and Episcopalians." At a parish meeting last fall, Puckett and an associate minister presented both the conservative and liberal interpretations of the main issues of human sexuality. "We openly discussed all the issues, and toward the end of the day one of our oldest longtime members, a gentleman in his 70s, got up and said: 'I believe we are called to all live in the same tent.' "It was great wisdom and really verified my faith in this wonderful parish," Puckett said. barbara.karkabi@chron.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:11:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: ONTARIO: Anglican Church in Canada at a 'crossroads' ONTARIO: Anglican Church in Canada at a 'crossroads' By Stuart Laidlaw Faith and Ethics Reporter Tbe Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/article/213177 May 12, 2007 LOWVILLE, Ont. - For conservative Canadian Anglicans, a rejection by their church of same-sex marriage blessings next month is no longer enough. They now want the clock turned back on how gays are ministered. Rev. Canon Charlie Masters, the head of Anglican Essentials Canada, a leading orthodox group, is travelling the country to rally opposition to resolutions before the June synod in Winnipeg that would let local churches decide for themselves whether to bless same-sex unions. In a one-day conference of prayers, workshops and speakers on the opening day of the synod, Masters says supporters will be recruited to put forward a motion to restrict the ministering offered to gay couples. "The decision before us is whether we will choose our biblical heritage or whether we will choose to walk apart," says Masters, who is also a pastor at St. George's Anglican Church in this hamlet north of Burlington. "We think it's that simple." The group wants a return to the days when church policy was to hate the sin, but love the sinner and help him or her remain celibate through prayer and counselling, which Masters describes as "the old way." Masters and his group feel a recent statement by the Canadian House of Bishops telling ministers they can say the Eucharist with same-sex couples married in civil ceremonies, but not bless their unions, goes too far. "The pastoral suggestions that are made imply that this is a holy relationship, which is to receive the full support of the church," says Masters, whose group presents itself as a "lifeboat" for those who feel the church has become too liberal. The bishops' statement suggests they want same-sex blessings to be approved at the synod, he says, which could lead to the church being forced from the worldwide communion. If that happens, Masters says Essentials will petition Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the church, to recognize his group as the official Anglican Church in Canada. "It's possible that by the end of June, the face of Anglicanism in Canada will change." The U.S. church has been given until Sept. 30 to recant its support for same-sex blessing and gay clergy or face expulsion from the communion. Its house of bishops has said no change in policy is contemplated. But Masters says it's still not too late for the Canadian church to return to traditional values. The current round of cross-country meetings with the faithful and the curious are meant to build support for a more orthodox version in Canadian Anglicanism. There will be a meeting Friday at the Church of the Ascension in Don Mills. Masters is in Montreal this weekend. The meetings were organized before the House of Bishops statement was released, so they focus on the resolutions before the Winnipeg synod. The statement made it clear more must be done than defeat the resolutions, Masters says, so the plan for a resolution from the floor was developed. "We would be encouraging delegates and helping them to provide such a motion," says Masters, adding Essentials doesn't have standing to present a motion. The bishops' statement calls for same sex blessings to be tabled for more discussion, as it was in 2004. This was rejected by Essentials, which wants the issue resolved next month. "The thought of limping along for another three or six more years is unthinkable," he says. This is, perhaps, the only point of agreement between Essentials and Integrity Canada, a group of gay Anglicans who also want the resolutions voted on. The Anglican Church describes the statement as an outline of the current situation, not where the bishops would like the church to head. Masters says Winnipeg is shaping up to be a defining moment. "This is a crossroads. This is a moment of decision." If same-sex blessings are approved, the church will effectively be saying it no longer wants to be part of the worldwide communion, says Masters, whose parish voted to split with the Canadian Church if the resolutions pass. "It seemed to us it was important to demonstrate how serious we felt this was, by saying, 'You know what, if you go this way, if you walk apart, some of us won't be walking with you.'" More than a dozen congregations have made a commitment to Essentials, with more considering the move. If that happens, Essentials will ask the archbishop of Canterbury to recognize them as the legitimate church in Canada. Masters says being part of the communion is central to being an Anglican, as stated in the Solemn Declaration of 1893 establishing the church in Canada. It is the communion - drawing most members from former British colonies in Africa, where the churches are led by conservative bishops - that is staying true to traditional beliefs. Earlier this month Nigerian Bishop Peter Akinola, international leader of the conservative movement, was in Virginia to appoint a bishop to lead congregations that break away from the U.S. church over the issue. Masters expects the archbishop of Canterbury to call an emergency meeting in the fall, especially if U.S. and Canadian churches do not reject same-sex marriage blessings. Speculation about such a meeting has been growing in recent weeks. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:12:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: NEW HAMPSHIRE: Gay bishop plans civil union with partner of 18 years NEW HAMPSHIRE: Gay bishop plans civil union with partner of 18 years May 10, 2007 http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/10/gay.bishop.reut/index.html MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) -- The openly gay Episcopal bishop at the center of the Anglican Church's global battle over homosexuality said Thursday he hopes to enter into a civil union with his partner next year. But New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson added that he wants to hold separate religious and legal ceremonies to set a precedent for how marriages and civil unions are performed in the United States. Next week, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is expected to sign a bill that allows civil unions for same-sex couples, making his state the fourth in the nation to do so. The law would go into effect on January 1. "We need to separate the civil rights from the religious rites," said Robinson, whose ordination in 2003 enraged conservative Anglicans and threatened to break up the church. He and his partner of more than 18 years, Mark Andrews, aim to hold two ceremonies around the middle of next year: A non-religious one where they become legal partners followed by a church service to give blessings to God for their relationship. "Religious people and religious organizations who are not yet ready to offer the church's or the synagogue's blessings on such unions might be supportive of full civil rights for this country's gay and lesbian citizens," he told Reuters in an interview. Robinson is perhaps New Hampshire's most well-known gay citizen. He was the first openly gay man to be ordained as a bishop in the U.S. Episcopal church, sparking deepening divisions among the world's 77 million Anglicans. The 59-year-old divorced father of two praised New Hampshire for allowing same-sex civil unions but suggested states should go further and follow Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gay marriage is legal. "It won't be full equality until it is equal," he said. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:13:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: ARCHBISHOPS ARGUE OVER LAMBETH RESOLUTION 1:10 ARCHBISHOPS ARGUE OVER LAMBETH RESOLUTION 1:10 In a speech in Cape Town, South Africa on May 8 and reported on the internet here: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/ndungane_questions_the_course.html#more] and on the Anglican Communion website, Southern Africa Archbishop Ndungane gave his recollection of the debates at the Lambeth Conference 1998 on the issues of Human Sexuality Bishop Colin Bazley, the former Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone of Latin America, was a member of the group specifically discussing Human Sexuality. He gives his version of events here in response to Archbishop Ndungane's account. This is published on the Anglican Mainstream website, along with Archbishop Ndungane's speech. LAMBETH 1998 Section 1: Called to Full Humanity Human Sexuality. Comments on Archbishop Ndungane and Resolution 1.10. By Colin Bazley It is best to start with a short account of the Conference as I saw it from the point of view of a participant in the Group dealing with Human Sexuality.. Lambeth 1998 was well-prepared, with people being assigned to groups and sections about a year before the Conference began. Those in the Human Sexuality group received a welcome letter from the Chairman, Duncan Buchanan (Johannesburg). Amongst other things he informed us that we would have the benefit of a visit from a group of homosexuals so that we could hear their story. In my reply, I asked that we should also receive a visit from a group of homosexuals who were celibate and/or were in a process of healing. I received no reply. At the first group meeting at the Conference, Bishop Buchanan again told us of the visit of the group of homosexuals. I asked why we were not to receive also the visit of other homosexuals who were celibate, etc. He informed the group that he had not had time to set it up. This seemed strange in view of the fact that a whole year had passed since I had written to him. My reply therefore was that it would give us a distorted picture if the second group were not allowed to meet with us on the same terms as the first. Bishop Richard Harries (Oxford ) supported me on this, and it was decided that we should not have either group in a formal meeting but that both should be invited to share their story at extra-programmatic meetings. This in fact took place during the second week of the Conference. The group itself was fairly packed with people of a liberal persuasion on the one hand and evangelical on the other. It was clear from the start that the debate would be fairly hot and it became obvious to me that it would be important that we should seek to present a formal resolution on the subject. The liberals did not want this, arguing that the Communion needed more time for discussion on the subject. It was at this point that Archbishop Ndungane (Chairman of the whole Section) visited the group and sought to dissuade the group from asking for a resolution. The group refused to be browbeaten and by a small majority it was decided to present a resolution. I was on a small group that drew up a proposal, and this I handed to our Chairman who was to have it typed up for debate in our group before taking it on to the Section Plenary, whence it would be taken to the Conference Plenary. On the following Monday the proposal was brought before the group and it was immediately obvious that it had been altered on the way through the typing-up process. On being asked why this had happened the Chairman alleged that he had mislaid the copy given to him and that he had had to make something up that he believed represented what was said. This was in fact far from the case. But what was more worrying was that several phrases in the new version were clearly copied from the original In his address, the Archbishop shares his concerns about the present state of the Anglican Communion, how the Church of South Africa came to be a part of the Communion and talks about the present roles of the "Instruments of Unity" as described by the Windsor Report. He speaks about what future course the Anglican Communion might take, both in terms of the roles of the Instruments of Unity and in terms of the relationships of the various provinces to each other. Some of the most interesting points that he makes in his address are: ...the Lambeth Conference arose as a response to a messy situation. It was established with a less than satisfactory basis, to meet the particular agendas of particular participants at a particular time - and today we are left with the legacy of that fudge. Nonetheless, these flexible, and at times usefully ambiguous, understandings of the Communion have helped guide our worldwide relationship through over a century. speaking of the 1998 Lambeth Conference: ...through not holding to the internal processes of this Instrument of Unity , we have undermined, and so lost our grip, on the assumptions of unity in communion that underlie our common life. and of the proposed Anglican Covenant: I will be honest and say that beyond my continuing question of whether a Covenant is really the best way ahead, my serious concern with the current draft is that the ACC is being sidelined, and far too much power is being given to the Primates' Meeting. I fear we are in danger of setting up something akin to the Roman Curia - and I am especially worried that the Primates, gifted and blessed and called as they are in so many ways, are nonetheless so unrepresentative of the totality of the Body of Christ. Even the representative breadth of the Lambeth Conference is questionable. The full address can be found below. via email The Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane Archbishop of Cape Town Bishop's Forum - The Anglican Communion 8 May 2007 @ 10h00 at St Saviours I have been invited by Bishop Garth and members of Chapter to reflect on the state of affairs within the Anglican Communion. I shall start by addressing three points - the nature of the Anglican Communion, the Instruments of Unity, and the draft Covenant. Then we will have a time for questions and debate. Communion and the Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is a family of 38 Provinces in over 160 countries bound together in covenantal 'bonds of affection.' The word Anglicanism first emerged in the 1830s, and the phrase 'Anglican Communion' was first used in 1851, and by 1860 was recognised as referring to our fellowship of legally independent Churches, worshipping in the tradition of the Anglican Prayer Book, with a ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, and in communion with the See of Canterbury. In this sense, the 'Anglican Communion' was never established, as was the case of, for example, the Lutheran World Federation. It just emerged, out of the various historic developments that acknowledge some historic link to the See of Canterbury. Provinces themselves also evolved in an ad hoc manner, with no consistency even between founding documents (for example, some refer to the 39 Articles, though we do not, references to the Church of England vary considerably). Nonetheless, there have always been strong shared bonds, not least in our historic use of the Prayer Book and Ordinal; our commitment to the three-fold ordained ministry and bishops within the historic episcopate; and our 'Catholic-and-Reformed' theological and ecclesiological understandings. We also share a level of engagement with contemporary culture, and an expectation of tolerance, charity, and a gracious magnanimity towards a considerable degree of diversity within our unity. So, our Communion has 'just grown' and continues to grow, as we find ways to express both our shared Anglican inheritance, and our worldwide communion as God's children. Now, alongside the particular, but undefined, role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, we have the Lambeth Conference, Anglican Consultative Council and Primates' meetings, the Partners in Mission process, and various Gatherings, Networks, Conferences, Committees, Commissions and Consultations. All contribute texture and depth to our common life, and none have any legally binding remit! The Birth of the Lambeth Conference It is worth remembering that our own Province was born in conflict, and it was these problems that led to the very first Lambeth Conference in 1867. Arriving in the Cape in 1848, Bishop Robert Gray soon found himself in conflict with Bishop John Colenso of Natal. Some of his views would still be controversial today, others we recognise as the necessary pursuit of an appropriately encultured gospel. In 1863 Bishop Gray deposed Bishop Colenso on the charge of heresy. In 1865, Bishop Colenso appealed to the Privy Council in London, who ruled his deposition was improper and illegal. In 1866 Bishop Gray excommunicated him. Meanwhile, Bishops in Canada had asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Longley, to call together Anglican Bishops round the world, so that they could talk about this and other issues. They were concerned that as Provinces developed their own life, they should not inadvertently move apart. They also wanted to avoid giving different answers to controversial questions - concerns that are familiar to us today! So Archbishop Longley called the conference in 1867. Several senior bishops refused at first to have anything to do with it. Not only was there concern about the complexities of the Colenso case, there was also fear that all large meetings are bad - bishops are only human, and fall into partisan camps, and large meetings can lead to unedifying behaviour! Another concern was any attempt to take decisions would threaten Bishops' autonomy within their dioceses. Others were concerned about the legality, and ecclesiology, of calling bishops together. So the meeting went ahead, not as a Synod, or a Council, but as a Conference. Bishops were not 'summoned to decide', but 'invited to confer'. It was also made entirely clear that none of the resolutions would have any binding force. In other words, the Lambeth Conference arose as a response to a messy situation. It was established with a less than satisfactory basis, to meet the particular agendas of particular participants at a particular time - and today we are left with the legacy of that fudge. Nonetheless, these flexible, and at times usefully ambiguous, understandings of the Communion have helped guide our worldwide relationship through over a century. The Relationship with the Church of England in South Africa A more recent example is the status of the Church of England in South Africa in relation to the rest of the Anglican Communion. CESA has maintained very close ties with other parts of the Anglican Communion, notably the Diocese of Sydney in Australia and elements within the Church of England. When the question arose of whether CESA Bishops ought to be invited to Lambeth Conferences, it was felt that this had to be addressed through relationships on the ground here in South Africa. During the incumbency of Archbishop Phillip Russell, there were discussions between CESA, Sydney and ourselves, over the election and consecration of Dudley Foord to be CESA's Presiding Bishop. After much debate, our Synod of Bishops decided to participate in that consecration in the hope of facilitating reconciliation between our churches. The then Archbishop of Sydney and I subsequently collaborated on a resolution for the 1987 meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, which recognised and encouraged reconciliation between our churches (text follows). ACC-7 - Resolution 41: The Church of England in South Africa THAT this Council: a. notes that the Archbishop of Sydney consecrated Canon D. Foord on 12th February 1984 on the authority of letters dismissory from the Rt Revd S. C. Bradley; b. further notes a Statement made by the Archbishop of Sydney before the consecration which was a gesture of goodwill and encouragement; c. recognises the Church of the Province of Southern Africa's efforts in seeking reconciliation with the Church of England in South Africa; d. encourages the re-establishment of the Joint Liaison Committee between the Church of the Province of Southern Africa and the Church of England in South Africa and hopes that progress can be reported by the Church of the Province of Southern Africa to ACC-8. As you know, that process is still with us. It is a salutary lesson that division may provide an immediate solution to seemingly implacable differences, but in the long term is no solution whatsoever to our call to communion within the Body of Christ. So let me sum up this section by saying that neither through time nor through contemporary practice across the world, has there been a single answer to how we should understand and express Communion between Anglicans. We talk about the 'bonds of affection' - and in some ways, trying to regulate affection is about as easy as legislating for love! But we should take heart, because Communion is God's gift - and it is from our Communion with him that all else springs. Our Church has life, not because of who we are, but because of who God is, and his gift of His Spirit, which sustains us, and leads us into all truth. The Instruments of Unity Let me turn now to my second theme, the four Instruments of Unity or Instruments of Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury The longest-standing of these is of course the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose historic See goes back to the year 601. Until recently (with the conclusion of various regional agreements) it was the case that it was sufficient to be in communion with the See of Canterbury to be in communion with the whole of the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury occupies what has been called 'the primacy of honour' among all the Primates, and is described as a 'focus of unity'. He convenes the Lambeth Conference and Primates' Meetings (and so decisions on whom to invite are ultimately his - though the extent of his discretion is unclear). He also chairs the Anglican Consultative Council. Historically, Archbishops of Canterbury have often played a leading role in the teaching and the mission of the Communion as a whole. Yet all of this has evolved organically, without legal basis - it is a position of influence and moral weight only. The Lambeth Conference The second Instrument to emerge was the Lambeth Conference, which has met approximately every ten years since 1867 - and I shall return to the events of the most recent meeting in more detail in a moment. The Anglican Consultative Council One touchstone of Anglicanism has been the involvement of laity in the governing of the Church. We are not ruled from above by a Pope and a Curia of Bishops. Rather, we believe that God's Spirit is at work in all God's people to build up the whole Body of Christ. Paul tells the Corinthian church 'to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good' (1 Cor12:7), For this reason, we describe ourselves as 'both episcopally led and synodically governed'. In our synods, all God's people are represented - Bishops, clergy and laity. The role of laity grew through the nineteenth century. Recognising this, the 1897 Lambeth Conference established a permanent consultative body, which gradually developed as an advisory body, through to the establishment of the Anglican Consultative Council at the 1968 Lambeth Conference, after consultations within each Province. The ACC meets approximately every three years, with episcopal, clerical and lay representatives from every Province. It alone of the Instruments of Unity has a formal constitution, which includes among its objectives 'to advise on inter-Anglican, provincial and diocesan relationships ...' So both by reason of its constitution, and by reason of the theological and ecclesial understandings of what it means to be church which underpin the constitution, my conviction is that this is the Instrument of Unity which should primarily be the place for handling the current difficulties and the inter-Anglican, provincial and relationships that are affected by them. The Primates' Meeting Yet it seems that centre stage is increasingly being given to the Primates - and I very much regret this. The 1978 Lambeth Conference invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to work with his fellow Primates 'to initiate consideration of the way to relate together the international conferences, councils and meetings within the Anglican Communion, so that the Anglican Communion may best serve God within the context of one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.' Archbishop Coggan called the first meeting. He advocated 'meetings of the Primates of the Communion reasonably often, for leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation ... perhaps as frequently as once in two years.' Again, there was the underlying acknowledgement that they never had more than a consultative and advisory authority. Archbishop Coggan's emphasis was certainly that the meeting should be rather more a place where the pastors of pastors could pastor one another, than a business meeting. So, how have these Instruments of Unity dealt with divisive questions in the past? The Ordination of Women The most obvious issue is the Ordination of Women. The 1968 Lambeth Conference resolved that theological arguments for and against women's ordination to the priesthood were inconclusive, and recommended that the advice of the Anglican Consultative Council should be considered carefully. In other words, the Bishops looked to the wider synodical body of the Communion for their views. The 1970 ACC meeting concluded by a narrow margin, after long debate, that the ordination of women to the priesthood would be acceptable. The 1978 Lambeth Conference then recognised 'the autonomy of each of its member churches, acknowledging the legal right of each church to make its own decisions about the appropriateness of admitting women to Holy Orders.' A further development came in 1985 when the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (USA) expressed the intention 'not to withhold consent to the election of a bishop on the grounds of gender.' The Presiding Bishop brought the matter to the newly established Primates' Meeting, which asked the Australian Primate, John Grindrod, to head a committee which would prepare a paper for the 1988 Lambeth Conference. Lambeth 1988 resolved that each Province should respect the decisions of others, and maintain the highest degree of communion possible, and went on to recommend courtesy, respect, and open dialogue with those of differing views. This rather lengthy explanation illustrates how the Communion can deal with a very contentious issue with maturity, and without division, despite a measure of impairment in relations of Communion. Human Sexuality The debate on homosexuality started with similar broad consensus. Lambeth 1978 passed a resolution which affirmed faithfulness and chastity within and outside marriage, and called for a wider theological study of sexuality. Its final clause said, 'While we affirm heterosexuality as the scriptural norm, we recognise the need for deep and dispassionate study of the question of homosexuality, which would take seriously both the teaching of Scripture and the results of scientific and medical research.' It also encouraged dialogue with homosexual people, and affirmed their need for pastoral care. The 1988 Conference reaffirmed the statement, and called for further study and dialogue. So, finally we come to the 1998 Lambeth Conference. During the first two weeks of our three weeks together, Bishops spent considerable time working on particular questions. I chaired Section 1, which had the overarching theme of 'Called to Full Humanity'. Some 200 bishops opted for this Section, of whom 60 signed up to consider human sexuality. Let me tell you, these 60 spanned the broadest spectrum imaginable, from the hardest line conservatives to the most radical liberals! Someone calculated that we devoted 800 bishop hours to this thorny subject. It was the most difficult group of the whole conference - there was huge pain and division as discussions began. But 800 bishop hours later, we had thrashed out a common position. The result was the 11 carefully crafted paragraphs of Theme 3 of the Section 1 Report. I am making these available to you, so you can see how we managed to be completely honest about the breadth of views on which we could not agree, and yet also find considerable agreement on wider issues, and on a way to go forward together. We recommended that the Conference Resolution should not go into details, but merely accept and affirm our report, and refer it to the Provinces for discussion. The rest of the 200 Bishops of the Section agreed with this approach, recognising that it resulted from refining in a real crucible of fire. Now this is where clumsiness prevailed. The Archbishop of Canterbury found himself under considerable pressure for there to be a fuller resolution on homosexuality. Contrary to all the usual normal procedures for handling resolutions, a draft was presented, and then debated and substantially amended in an hour-and-a-half plenary meeting, of over 600 bishops, spouses, observers, guests, and all in the full glare of the cameras. The result was Resolution 1:10. Though it does commend the report of the subsection, the points that follow did not arise out of the long hard wrestling that we had done, and did not reflect the way that, despite such differences, we had managed to enunciate our differences in ways that allowed us to keep working together. It was as if our 800 bishop hours had never happened! For all that resolutions are advisory and not binding, some of its clauses, those which 'reject homosexuality as incompatibly with Scripture' have taken on a life of their own. Other clauses, including those advocating continuing listening and also monitoring work in the area of human sexuality - alongside all the rest of the resolutions of the Conference - are given nothing like the same prominence! What grieves me most, is that through not holding to the internal processes of this Instrument of Unity, we have undermined, and so lost our grip, on the assumptions of unity in communion that underlie our common life. The Windsor Process We know what resulted. Acting within the autonomy that is theirs, and after debate over several decades, the American Church elected and consecrated Gene Robinson, a man in a long term relationship with another man. The Primates set up the Lambeth Commission which produced the Windsor Report. Its recommendations were broadly endorsed by the 2005 Primates' meeting in Dromatine, Northern Ireland, and by the 2006 ACC meeting. At the Archbishop of Canterbury's behest, the Joint Standing Commission of the Primates and the ACC set up a sub-group, which reflected the full span of perspectives, to report to the Primates in Dar es-Salaam on the American response to Windsor. They judged that the report had been taken very seriously, and that overall the response was positive. They noted that in some areas the General Convention had gone beyond what had been asked by Windsor. They also acknowledged that in other areas the General Convention had not followed the exact letter of Windsor where that did not reflect the internal structures and legal framework, but had instead operated within its own polity to reflect the spirit of Windsor. Well, as you know, that was not the position that was reflected in the final communique. Nor were the internal structures and workings of the Episcopal Church taken into consideration in the new set of demands being made of the Americans (and let us be clear here - though the Primates' meeting legally remains only advisory, these effectively are demands). Whatever the merits of the various positions on human sexuality, my greatest sadness is that we have allowed ourselves, within the Primates' meeting in particular, to lose sight of what it means to live in Communion. The Synod of Bishops of the Anglican Church in Southern Africa Last September, when our Synod of Bishops met, we had a very full discussion of the whole subject. As you might guess, there is a pretty wide spectrum of views, even if nothing like as wide as within the global Anglican Communion. However, we were totally in agreement in saying the following: We know from experience that unity is a divine given but requires constant effort to be realised; a journey that requires tolerance and grace so that no-one should be hurt and all should feel that they belong. Our own journey continues to remind us of the need for a generosity of spirit and the respect for diversity. We also said As Bishops, we remain convinced that within the Anglican Communion what unites us far outweighs what divides us. And we concluded by saying We urge the Anglican Communion to choose to remain united in accordance with the will of the Triune God whom we seek to serve. We understand that, given the situation in which we find ourselves at present, there is no simple or quick solution to the difficulties we face. We urge every part of the Anglican Communion to recognise, in one another, our common sanctification in Christ and to seek steps that, in time, will lead to reconciliation and the unity and peace that Christ wills for his Church. We pledge ourselves to continue to pray and work with all concerned for such reconciliation and unity and are ready to assist in this process where appropriate. Well, this was the message I tried to put forward at the Primates' Meeting, but I fear that there were too many deaf ears. Nonetheless, I want you all to be assured that at last week's Synod of Bishops' meeting, we remained committed to the need to continue to choose to remain united, and to work together on this basis, by God's grace. The Draft Covenant Finally, let me say a few words about the draft Covenant. Now, it is certainly the case that our current predicament highlights the rather fluid nature of the Anglican Communion as an international fellowship of autonomous Provinces. It is worth reflecting for a moment on that word 'autonomous'. We do not consider ourselves to be 'independent' Provinces. This would mean a far looser relationship. As the Windsor Report points out, 'autonomy' only exists for those who are in relationship with others - it is about the ability to govern one's own affairs, while being part of a greater community or system (Sections 75, 76). So the first questions are these: What sort of balance should we have between our autonomy and our common life? Do we have the balance right at present, or have we moved too far in a particular direction? It is only as we answer that question that we can proceed to the more specific question of what processes or mechanisms or commitments do we need, in order to ensure the effective operation of an appropriate balance. We certainly want to preserve the greatest strengths of 'unity in diversity' - while at the same time not wanting to jeopardise either appropriate unity, nor appropriate diversity. It is not a question of setting unity against truth. As Rowan Williams has reminded us, the fullness of unity will be the context for the fullness of truth, and vice versa - and even if these will only be completely realised in an eschatological framework, they are nonetheless the inevitable destination of the journey of all Christians, and the whole Church universal. The Windsor Report first proposed the idea of a Covenant and now the specially commissioned Covenant Design Group has put forward a first draft. The Primates are asking Provinces to consider the draft. At last week's Synod of Bishops, we agreed that Dioceses should be asked to study it, and send responses to the Dean of the Province by the end of the year. These will be consolidated and sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury. A revised text will be sent to the Lambeth Conference of July-August 2008, which will carry out further work. The next revision will then be passed to the subsequent meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Thereafter, Provinces will be asked to make a formal response - each through their full synodical processes, which for us will mean the Provincial Synod of 2012 or 2015. Bishop Garth has given thought on how we as a Diocese will engage in discussion of this covenant. The questions I want to ask of the Covenant are these: * Is this what the Anglican Communion most needs at this time? * How great are the dangers merely of producing a text driven by the underlying agenda of tackling a particular problem, without bearing in mind sufficiently the need to preserve the broad riches of Anglicanism? * Can we produce a text that, rather than constraining, provides a basis upon which global Anglicanism can grow and flourish into this, and even future, centuries? * Can we produce a text that enhances the life both of Provinces and of the Communion as a whole? * Are the roles and responsibilities of the various Instruments of Unity accurately described? * Is the balance right between the various Instruments of Unity? I will be honest and say that beyond my continuing question of whether a Covenant is really the best way ahead, my serious concern with the current draft is that the ACC is being sidelined, and far too much power is being given to the Primates' Meeting. I fear we are in danger of setting up something akin to the Roman Curia - and I am especially worried that the Primates, gifted and blessed and called as they are in so many ways, are nonetheless so unrepresentative of the totality of the Body of Christ. Even the representative breadth of the Lambeth Conference is questionable. My theology continues to tell me that it is in and through our widest councils that we will most fully discern both what we should do, and how we should go about it. Conclusion I am an eternal optimist - and not because I am retiring soon and leaving this behind, but because Jesus has risen, and in him we have the victory, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church! When we look back on the history of the Church, it has always been assailed with divisions to be overcome. The unity of Christ's people is one of the prime targets of the devil, who does not want the world to look at us and say 'See how these Christians love one another!' The devil's purposes are far better served when people look at us and see us fighting and quarrelling, and doing so in ways that fail to reflect the spirit of charity, tolerance and gracious magnanimity that has always characterised the best of Anglicanism!. So whether it was the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, or the precise understanding of the Eucharist, or the various models of salvation, or slavery, or usury, or contraception, or women's ordination - or even questions over vestments, and whether, and how high, to raise up the bread and wine with the words of consecration - well, God is bigger! And the unity that he grants us is a gift of grace that can overcome all manner of human disagreement. In March, we hosted the International Anglican Communion's TEAM conference - Towards Effective Anglican Mission. I continue to hear stories about how the experience of participants was that our common life of mission and ministry in Christ bridges our disagreements. It was also evident that human sexuality is not the prime concern for most Christians in their life of faith. Of course, some may leave the Communion as a result of our current problems. But we must not take ourselves too seriously. As Joost de Blank once said 'God works his purposes out, despite the confusion of our minds.' I suspect that future generations will see this as something of a storm in a teacup, and certainly not as central to the Christian life. For the centre of Christian life is Jesus Christ. As I said at the TEAM conference, God's eternal Word did not come as a philosophical concept, nor as a political programme. Nor was the Word made text. But the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. It is not where we stand on this or that particular issue which is definitive for our salvation - nor even our understanding of this or that passage of Scripture. What matters is our relationship with Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us on the cross, and who was raised to new life, so that we too might find new life in him. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! ---------------------------------------- LAMBETH CONFERENCE 1998 Section One Call for Humanity Theme 3 Human Sexuality Human sexuality is the gift of a loving God. It is a gift to be honoured and cherished by all people. As a means for the expression of the deepest human love and intimacy, sexuality has great power. The Holy Scriptures and Christian tradition teach that human sexuality is intended by God to find its rightful and full expression between a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage, established by God in creation, and affirmed by our Lord Jesus Christ. Holy Matrimony is, by intention and divine purpose, to be a life-long, monogamous and unconditional commitment between a woman and a man. The Lambeth Conference 1978 and 1988 both affirmed "marriage to be sacred, instituted by God and blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ." The New Testament and Christian history identify singleness and dedicated celibacy as Christ-like ways of living. The Church needs to recognise the demands and pressures upon both single and married people. Human beings define themselves by relationships with God and other persons. Churches need to find effective ways of encouraging Christ-like living, as well as providing opportunities for the flourishing of friendship, and the building of supportive community life. We also recognise that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ. We call upon the Church and all its members to work to end any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and to oppose homophobia. Clearly some expressions of sexuality are inherently contrary to the Christian way and are sinful. Such unacceptable expressions of sexuality include promiscuity, prostitution, incest, pornography, paedophilia, predatory sexual behaviour, and sadomasochism (all of which may be heterosexual and homosexual), adultery, violence against women and in families, rape and female circumcision. From a Christian perspective these forms of sexual expression remain sinful in any context. We are particularly concerned about the pressures on young people to engage in sexual activity at an early age, and we urge our churches to teach the virtue of abstinence. All human relationships need the transforming power of Christ which is available to all, and particularly when we fall short of biblical norms. We must confess that we are not of one mind about homosexuality. Our variety of understanding encompasses: * those who believe that homosexual orientation is a disorder, but that through the grace of Christ people can be changed, although not without pain and struggle; * those who believe that relationships between people of the same gender should not include genital expression, that this is the clear teaching of the Bible and of the Church universal, and that such activity (if unrepented of) is a barrier to the Kingdom of God; * those who believe that committed homosexual relationships fall short of the biblical norm, but are to be preferred to relationships that are anonymous and transient; * those who believe that the Church should accept and support or bless monogamous covenant relationships between homosexual people and that they may be ordained. It appears that a majority of bishops is not prepared to bless same sex unions or to ordain active homosexuals. Furthermore many believe there should be a moratorium on such practices. We have prayed, studied and discussed these issues, and we are unable to reach a common mind on the scriptural, theological, historical, and scientific questions that are raised. There is much that we do not yet understand. We request the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council to establish a means of monitoring work done in the Communion on these issues and to share statements and resources among us. The challenge to our Church is to maintain its unity while we seek, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to discern the way of Christ for the world today with respect to human sexuality. To do so will require sacrifice, trust, and charity towards one another, remembering that ultimately the identity of each person is defined in Christ. There can be no description of human reality, in general or in particular, outside the reality of Christ. We must be on guard, therefore, against constructing, any other ground for our identities than the redeemed humanity given us in him. Those who understand themselves as homosexuals, no more and no less than those who do not, are liable to false understandings based on personal or family histories, emotional dispositions, social settings and solidarities formed by common experiences or ambitions. Our sexual affections can no more define who we are than can our class, race or nationality. At the deepest ontological level, therefore, there is no such thing as "an homosexual or "an heterosexual; there are human beings, male and female, called to redeemed humanity in Christ, endowed with a complex variety of emotional potentialities and threatened by a complex variety of forms of alienation." END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:14:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Missionaries in Northern Virginia - Michael Gerson Missionaries in Northern Virginia By Michael Gerson The Washington POST www.washingtonpost.com May 16, 2007 An epoch-dividing event recently took place in the religion that brought us B.C. and A.D. Too bad hardly anyone noticed. For years, a dispute has boiled between the American Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion it belongs to, with many in the global south convinced that Episcopalians are following their liberalism into heresy. This month, Archbishop Peter Akinola, shepherd of 18 million fervent Nigerian Anglicans, reached the end of his patience and installed a missionary bishop to America. The installation ceremony included boisterous hymns and Africans dressed in bright robes dancing before the altar -- an Anglican worship style more common in Kampala, Uganda, than in Woodbridge. The American presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, condemned this poaching of souls on her turf as a violation of the "ancient customs of the church." To which the archbishop replied, in essence: Since when have you American liberals given a fig about the ancient customs of the church? Such conflicts used to be decided in the Church of England by the king putting someone in the Tower of London. That does not appear to be an option in this case. The media, as is their habit, reported this story as another front in the American culture war: conservative Anglicans seeking refuge in the arms of like-minded African opponents of homosexual marriage. Those debates on sexuality are real enough -- but this explanation is far too narrow. The intense, irrepressible Christianity of the global south is becoming -- along with Coca-Cola, radical Islam and Shakira -- one of the most potent forms of globalization. When I visited Martyn Minns, the missionary bishop installed by Akinola, his first reference was not to St. Paul or to St. John but to St. Thomas: Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. "The Church is flat," Minns told me, paraphrasing the title of Friedman's bestselling book. Rigid, outdated church bureaucracies are proving unable to adjust to the shifting market of world Christianity. "People used to pronouncing from on high," he said, are now "gasping for air." In 1900, about 80 percent of Christians lived in North America and Europe; now, more than 60 percent live on other continents. There are more Presbyterians in Ghana than in Scotland. The largest district of the United Methodist Church is found in Ivory Coast. And many of the enthusiastic converts of Western missions have begun asking why portions of the Western church have abandoned the traditional faith they once shared. Liberal Protestant church officials, headed toward international assemblies, are anxiously counting African votes, because these new voters tend to take their Bible both literally and seriously. This emerging Christianity can be troubling. Church leaders sometimes emphasize communal values more than individual human rights, and they need to understand that strongly held moral beliefs are compatible with a commitment to civil liberties for all. Large Pentecostal churches are often built by domineering personalities promising health and wealth. But the religion of the global south has a great virtue: It is undeniably alive. And it needs to be. A mother holding a child weak with AIDS or hot with malaria, or a family struggling to survive in an endless urban slum, does not need religious platitudes. Both need God's ever-present help in time of trouble -- which is exactly what biblical Christianity claims to offer. Some American religious conservatives have embraced ties with this emerging Christianity, including the church I attend. But there are adjustments in becoming a junior partner. The ideological package of the global south includes not only moral conservatism but also an emphasis on social justice, an openness to state intervention in markets, and a suspicion of American economic and military power. The emerging Christian majority is not the Moral Majority. But the largest adjustments are coming on the religious left. For decades it has preached multiculturalism, but now, on further acquaintance, it doesn't seem to like other cultures very much. Episcopal leaders complain of the threat of "foreign prelates," echoing anti-Catholic rhetoric of the 19th century. An activist at one Episcopal meeting urged the African bishops to "go back to the jungle where you came from." Not since Victorians hunted tigers on elephants has the condescension been this raw. History is filled with uncomfortable turnabouts, and we are witnessing one of them. Serious missionary work began in Nigeria in 1842, conducted by a Church Mission Society dedicated to promoting "the knowledge of the Gospel among the heathen." In 2007, the Nigerian outreach to America officially began, on the fertile mission fields of Northern Virginia. And the natives here are restless. ---Michael Gerson, a former assistant to President Bush for policy and strategic planning, is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He will be writing a twice-weekly column for The Post. His e-mail address ismichaelgerson@cfr.org. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:15:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Atheist Richard Dawkins in conversation with Ruth Gledhill "God . . . in other words: Richard Dawkins may be Britain's foremost atheist, but he is willing to be inspired and uplifted. Is he a believer after all?" by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent The Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article1767506.ece May 10, 2007 Richard Dawkins believes that children should grow up reading the Bible and has a "soft spot" for the Church of England. He also believes some of the historic atrocities of human behaviour were not inspired by religion, but were a result of our "ruthless Darwinian past". And he believes in the possibility of a transcendent "intelligence" existing beyond the range of present human experience. It is just that he refuses to call it God. These are just some of the more surprising confessions to come from the man variously described as Britain's angriest atheist and the self-appointed Devil's chaplain. We meet in the North Oxford Gothic splendour of his grand house near the colleges of Oxford, of which his own, New College, is one of the grandest and oldest, founded by a Bishop of Winchester and steeped in the religious and choral tradition of the Church of England. I am at once curious and anxious. I want to tell him how strange it is to find my specialism under such articulate attack from a biologist; that if I believed in such entities I would say he was my Nemesis. In the background, as we speak, are the carved wooden fairground figures collected by his wife, Lalla (Ward), daughter of the seventh Viscount Bangor and known to Doctor Who fans as Romana. What does seem fantastic is to find myself, as a daughter of the cloth, a nongraduate and a traditionalist Anglican, quizzing this rather awe-inspiring Oxford don and author of The God Delusion (GD) about the existence of the Almighty. Or not. Dawkins in the flesh bears no resemblance to the angry, hate-filled antireligionist he is portrayed as. In fact, he even believes that children should know their Bible. "You'd be rightly written off as uncultivated if you knew nothing of the Bible. You need the Bible to understand literary allusions," he says at the end of our chat. By then I've concluded that, by many Anglican standards, and certainly by most Einsteinian ones, Dawkins is quite religious. He would get on famously, I feel, with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I ask him how he is getting on with his friend Lord Winston, the fertility pioneer, who last last month condemned Dawkins for his "patronising" and "insulting" attitude to religion, which he said was in danger of damaging the public's trust in science. "He's a dear friend and I have enormous regard for him. He either is religious, as he claims, or he believes in beliefs. He claims to be an observant Jew and I'm sure he does go to synagogue. I sometimes wonder whether he really believes it. He is offended by strong criticism of religion. I believe that what appears to be strong criticism of religion is not as strong as people think. Criticism that in any other field - theatre, book or restaurants - would be comparatively mild. It sounds outspoken and strident because we are not used to religion being criticised." I put it to him that negative criticism can finish off a book or a play, especially intelligently argued criticism, and that one of the ambivalences I feel about interviewing him is that his mission in life seems to be to destroy something that's my livelihood. "I think it'll see you out. I think there'll be plenty to write about. And under the banner of religion you can write about what I call Einsteinian religion, which I subscribe to and so do many scientists as a sort of reverence for the Universe and life, which has nothing to do with anything supernatural." In GD, Dawkins quotes Einstein as saying that he prefers not to call himself religious, because that implies "supernatural". But Einstein acknowledged that behind everything "there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly". Dawkins admits: "If that's what you call religion then I'm religious." But when I suggest that, in this case, he is in touch with the transcendent, he accuses me of "playing with words". He says: "If by transcendent you mean what Einstein believed then yes, but what I think, to come back on your statement that more intelligent and sophisticated religious people believe something close to what Einstein and I believe, that may be true, but they are a tiny minority of religious people in the world. It's the majority of religious people in the world that we have to worry about." He is really talking about the US here, where hundreds of thousands of people believe that the Universe is less than 10,000 years old. "Apart from that, even the sophisticated intelligent so-called religious people that you mentioned, even bishops, do actually believe in something supernatural, they believe in the Resurrection." I suggest that not all of them believe in the physical Resurrection. "So I accept that there are a few wearing clerical collars who are not theists at all. I don't think you can say that nowadays religion is the same as what Einstein said because if that were true we wouldn't have a problem." His main beef is in fact with fundamental-ism. I suggest that the people most likely to take his arguments on board are the intelligent, enlightened people in the middle ground. If he takes them out of the equation by virtue of intellectual supremacy, he leaves the space vacant for fundamentalists to take over the centre. This has to be one of the arguments for continued establishment, so the Church of England can act as a kind of buffer against extremism, a buffer lacking in the US. "What you mean is that institutions like the Church of England would be taken over by fundamentalists because all the intelligent people would have left." Or the institutions would cease to exist and the fundamentalists would become the centre. "I can see that and I think it's certainly a sensible and arguable position that, short of vaccination, a weakened strain of the virus should protect against the virulent strain." For a moment, I had forgotten I was talking to a biologist. Being among those who have criticised Dawkins for an atheistic version of the fundamentalism he so detests, critics have accused me of mistaking his passion for fundamentalism. A more intelligent assault on his lack of beliefs came in sermons earlier this year at Westminster Abbey. The Rev Dr Nicholas Sagovsky, its Canon Theologian, accused him of lacking an "ethic of love". Given that passion and love are so related, I tried to smuggle God in there too. It didn't quite work. "Love is not a rational process and I'm as susceptible to love as anybody else," he says. "To say God is love, if that is an actual definition, then I believe in God because I believe in love. But God isn't love, God is something supernatural, and in certain religions, love is supernatural. When you say love is not rational, there are two ways of interpreting that. You could say that love is not intelligible by rational means, and I'm not sure I believe that. As a scientist I believe that love is intelligible on rational grounds. That doesn't mean that a particular person who is in love can learn anything, gain anything, or understand their own emotions in rational terms. But I do believe that love, like any other manifestation of brain stuff, is intelligible in rational terms, although maybe not in practice." So love is merely a biological phenomenon? "Anything to do with life is biological. So, in a way, you haven't asked me a very big question and I haven't answered it." He does suggest in GD, however, that some of the irrationality of religion may stem from the same place as the irrationality of love. "I think it's right to say anthropologists would tell us that all human cultures have some form of religion. Which might make it hard to get rid of. It certainly doesn't make it true." His passion and anger do stem from love, however, a love of the truth. "I am a scientist. It is my business to understand and help others to understand the nature of life in my case, or generally, as a scientist, the nature of the Universe. At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is approaching a staggeringly impressively near-to-complete understanding. It's hugely exciting to be a member of this elite species at this time when our understanding of physics, biology and cosmology are so exciting and near complete. It's tragic that people are deprived of this not by misfortunes or lack of education, but by deliberate distortion, by organised of misinformation." He denies that he is setting up an alternative religion, an atheistic lack-of-belief system. He also resists the conclusion that, if God and religion are no more than human creations, his attack on religion is an attack on humanity, perhaps evidence of a certain degree of misanthropy. "There's a lot to criticise in humanity that has nothing to do with religion, but that doesn't detract from the importance of criticising religion as well and I would criticise the brutality of Stalin and Hitler, the idiotic beliefs that they had." He is equally critical of fundamentalist Darwinism. "A lot of what is good about human history has been an emancipation, a weaning, of humanity away from our ruthless Darwinian past," he says. "As a Darwinian, I see that." He even agrees that religion might have helped "a bit" in this civilising process, and that something is needed to stop humanity slipping back into the extremes of Darwinian natural selection. But he is not convinced that Christianity is the answer. "Why don't you say enlightenment, moral philosophy? Enlightenment generally?" Because lots of people won't understand that. "Well, people can understand a principle such as 'how would you like it if people did that to you so why are you doing it to them?' " That comes from Christianity, I say. "No, Christianity is one belief system that has adopted it." By now it is clear that the thing Dawkins really detests is not so much God, or even religion, but superstition. I am still hopeful of persuading him that a belief in the transcendent does not equal superstition. I lob "n" into the equation: numinous. "It's not a meaningful word," he retorts. So what about those other dimensions that some scientists believe might exist? Yes, he concedes, modern physicists do talk about 11-dimensional space. "But that's nothing to do with theology." How does he know? Might not God exist in one of those states? "That might be true, but what's sure, well, highly unlikely, is that anything that theologians of modern day or any day have to say is going to have anything to do with the wonder of what future physicists are going to discover. It's going to dwarf not only modern-day science but present-day theology as well." But was there not, in his mind, a tiny possibility that one of these future physicists could discover God in one of these dimensions? "Well, I'm convinced that future physicists will discover something at least as wonderful as any god you could ever imagine." Why not call it God? "I don't think it's helpful to call it God." OK, but what would "it" be like? "I think it'll be something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand. I think that all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison." He can even see how "design" by some gigantic intelligence might come into it. "But that gigantic intelligence itself would need an explanation. It's not enough to call it God, it would need some sort of explanation such as evolution. Maybe it evolved in another universe and created some computer simulation that we are all a part of. These are all science-fiction suggestions but I am trying to overcome the limitations of the 21st-century mind. It's going to be grander and bigger and more beautiful and more wonderful and it's going to put theology to shame." The day before we met I received by e-mail a promotion from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for a new DVD series for children, Growing up in the Universe. It looked superb and I will buy a set for my young son. I tell him how similar it was to receiving text from a religious company, the blurb almost like a creed. "You're very close to being right," he admits. How could I be more right? "To be spot-on would be to say that this had nothing to do with the sort of religion that believes in a divine creator who forgives sins, answers prayers and listens to your innermost thoughts, cares about your sex life, does all the things that the Christian God is supposed to." It would be a "mysterious-beyond-present-comprehension physics of the future". He has no name for it. Again, I lob in the words "transcendent" and "numinous", which I believe sum up what he is trying to describe. God, in other words. "I suspect they don't mean anything at all," he says. But being a good scientist, he leaps from the sofa for a dictionary. He reads: "Numinous: divine, spiritual, revealing or indicating the presence of a divinity, awe-inspiring." A moment's pause. Then: "I'll go along with awe-inspiring. Also, aesthetically appealing, uplifting. I'll go along with aesthetically appealing and uplifting. Those aspects of it, yes. Let's look for transcendent." He finds a definition to do with lying beyond the ordinary range of perception. "That's probably all OK and I could go along with that. Going beyond the range and grasp of the presently experienced. Maybe transcendent would be a good word to adopt." So there we are. Dawkins sums up our conversation: "I don't think you and I disagree on anything very much but as a colleague of mine said, it's just that you say it wrong." But his crusade will not be stopped, even if it can be proved that he and half the bishops of the Christian Church believe the same thing. "I do think that intelligent, sophisticated theologians are almost totally irrelevant to the phenomenon of religion in the world today. Regrettable as that may be." Why so? "Because they're outnumbered by vast hordes of religious idiots." I ask him what words he uses when he swears. The same as everyone else, he says. For example, "O God help us" when he gets a dreadful essay from a student. Does he ever think then that he's invoking God? "No, it's part of a language so it doesn't really matter what the word means." Now I'm the sceptical one. Words have power. He'll never destroy the Church if he doesn't understand the power of the Logos. I'm not superstitious, but there is something faintly transcendent about Dawkins in the flesh. But I didn't tell him that of course. He'd just accuse me of making it up. END ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:16:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: Possibilities for an Anglican Future? - by Christopher Seitz Possibilities for an Anglican Future? - by Christopher Seitz by Rev. Dr. Christopher Seitz Anglican communion Institute http://anglicancommunioninstitute.com/content/view/83/2 May 13, 2007 From various sources and from various leaders of groups within the Anglican Communion we are beginning to see the lines of demarcation and advocacy more clearly. It would be useful to set these out and consider them as we face into a very difficult season, waiting and praying for a way forward for Anglican Christianity that is pleasing to God as 30 September 2007 approaches. 1. Canterbury as hub of localist options: Canterbury is in communion with various local sectors of the Anglican family, though they are not in communion with one another, due to developments of the past five years. Presumably, Canterbury could be in communion with sectors within a province which are not in communion with one another, but it is likely that this very reality will frustrate such an ecclesiology at the practical level, whatever one might make of it as an actual ecclesiology. In some ways, it gives Canterbury a curious kind of papal individuality, but without any obvious theological or scriptural warrant. At the same time, it undermines the ecumenical capacity of Anglicanism. It is also not clear how the Primates Meeting would bring these various disputants and communion-fractured entities together under a single presidency. This appears to be the way forward recently articulated in The Living Church, by the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, the Rev'd Kenneth Kearon. "What holds the Communion together," he said, "is the 'figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury' as Anglicans across the globe are 'not in communion with one another but with him'." 2. Plural confessional communions: ++Nigeria (and/or other individual Primates?) form 'convocations' in districts outside their own provinces. Canterbury's 'permission' is not required for this, because 'facts on the ground' are made by virtue of alterations within the canons of a given individual region, independently of approval from Instruments of Communion. On this understanding, Anglican Christianity devolves (or evolves for a season only; this is unclear) into groups which deem they are 'in communion' on the basis of certain theologically common understandings, and the will to enforce larger, trans-provincial arrangements without need of approval beyond those so electing. It is unclear whether Instruments of Communion are vitiated by this kind of possible future, but it is clear that only with difficulty could one imagine a Primates Meeting or a Lambeth Conference or an Anglican Consultative council adapting themselves to this kind of initiative and actually meeting. As above, the ecumenical capacity of Anglicanism is called into question by such arrangements made apart from their coherent ordering by the Instruments of Communion. It may also be the case that such arrangements are not meant to determine Anglicanism's future because ++Nigeria does not intend them to be more than an emergency measure based upon larger hopes for a renewed conciliar Anglicanism (see 4. below). This, however, remains unclear. 3. Federated churches: The Communion becomes a Federation of autonomous national bodies, on analogy, presumably, with the Lutheran World Federation. One can make the argument, as is happening, that this is the way things have always been (highly questionable though that may be), but fail totally to demonstrate how such an arrangement can actually hope to contain the various challenges and extreme disagreements within any one given 'autonomous' church body - short of 'minority' groups just leaving or being driven off. These 'minority' groups inside of one 'autonomous' church have, however, their counterpart in majority 'autonomous' churches elsewhere, so it is hard to see this as a coherent option - except for individuals in one region hoping thereby to drive out unwanted others. "Balancing" the often conflicting poles of "local" and "global", in the recent words of Dr Douglas of the Episcopal Theological School in Massachusetts, drives the federated model in a consistent poli tical instability, one that tends to follow democratic dynamics of contestation. Again, the ecumenical ministry of Anglicanism is thwarted. 4. Conciliar Communion: The Anglican Communion follows the direction given by its preeminent councils, whose cooperative work represents most fully the mind of the Anglican church. This means now that the Communion must proceed forward on the understanding that the enhanced role given to the Primates' Meeting by the other Instruments of Communion is warranted by these Instruments' unconstrained choosing; that the Dar es Salaam communique offers the conciliarly agreed away forward; that the initial response of The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops is initial only (insofar as all that has been asked of it has yet concretely to be adjudicated) and cannot hold hostage in any event what Dar has requested, short of the Instruments of Communion so declaring. On this understanding the decision of Canterbury to visit the TEC's House of Bishops near to the deadline of 30 September in no way compromises the work of the Primates' Meeting and may indeed assist in helping them form a response to what TEC's bishops declare as of the deadline given to them. There is no reason to believe that Canterbury is visiting for any other reason than as the President of the Primates' Meeting who will return to that meeting on the basis of what was said when last it adjourned. This understanding of the future of Anglican Communion Christianity also supports the work of the Covenant Design group, precisely because such work is warranted by the Windsor Report, authorized by the Primates, sent on to the Provinces and gathered at the Lambeth Conference, to be then discussed at the ACC, and because this work is crucial for comprehending the very way forward that is represented by conciliarity, of which it is an integral part. This last option is consistent with the understanding of Communion argued for by the ACI, on the basis of its congruence with Scripture and the historical realities of the Anglican Communion as this has taken form in God's providence over the historical course of its existence as an international Gospel and missionary movement. ---Christopher Seitz, on behalf of The Anglican Communion Institute ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:17:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: A TALE OF TWO GOSPELS: What They Have In Common - Gary L'Hommedieu A TALE OF TWO GOSPELS: What They Have In Common Commentary By Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu www.virtueonline.org 5/12/2007 The liberal, secular or "new" gospel of today's church has one thing in common with the "old time religion" of classic Christian preaching, and it's important -- and only fair -- to point it out. Like the old, the new gospel is an attempted solution to the problem of human sin. What today's theologians call sin -- the evil in structured environments of human interaction, such as nations, economic classes, and other social systems -- is not what I mean by sin. While the concept of "systemic evil" is an important critical tool for pastors and theologians, it typically represents a rejection of the classic concepts of sin and salvation. The classic Christian doctrine of sin is that human beings, made in the image of God, have rebelled against God, forfeited a primeval innocence and inherited a sin nature, which reproduces itself through natural human generation. Now part of the genetic code, the sin nature colors every human action and interaction, including every structure of human organization. Hence the classic understanding of sin illuminates not only the traditional psychological problem of personal guilt, but also the manifold conceptions of social or systemic evil. The root of the problem is human flesh and blood. That root feeds the entire trunk, every branch, and every leaf. The contemporary doctrine of sin, by contrast, is purely symbolic and reductionist. It declares the classic concept to be obsolete, along with its broader theology, while spokesmen siphon off the authority of the historic doctrine onto their own latest conjectures. With this objective assorted counter-culturists and malcontents have crashed the gates of professional ministry since the 1970's. The prestige of historic orthodoxy is a prize worth stealing. Today's reconstruction of the doctrine prejudices the diagnosis of the sin problem. Sin is no longer a personal problem except insofar as the individual is affected by a diseased social organism. Because sin is no longer personal, it is no longer concretely anything. It is now pure abstraction. Even if I admit personal responsibility for my own evil actions, the source of the evil is outside of me. My admission of guilt becomes a ritual of passing blame. I may be a sinner, but this is usually guilt by association with a group that shames or embarrasses me. Thus our systems of origin -- family, nation or race -- become scapegoats for us as sinners in the hands of an angry God. But the guilt feelings never leave. The sin is still present. The scapegoat keeps finding his way back into camp. The irony is plain. We have severed the connection between sin and self and gone into full-scale denial. At the same time we continue to squirm under the burden of guilt that betrays our awareness of sin and its anticipated outcome: judgment. This is the dilemma of contemporary American liberalism, both in the church and society at large. In the West the radical counter-culture of an earlier era has become the dominant culture. Confrontation and righteous indignation are the common dialect of counter-culture. The feeling of offended righteousness has become the antidote to the psychological problem of guilt. Controversy is the ritual wherein feelings of righteousness can be custom-made. Like all rituals this one fails to touch the deeper problem of sin. Feelings may reveal a problem, but they never solve it. Hence the ritual must be endlessly repeated. A feeling of hopelessness is added to the deeper realization of unresolved guilt. The response is predictable: increase the pressure of confrontation so that the feeling of indignation can be made to stand out. If yesterday's radicalism has become today's conformity, then maybe today's insanity can become tomorrow's prophecy. Prophets, as we know, are always righteous. The progressive social agenda is driven by a craving to save souls. While the salvation of the official victims of systemic evil are the purported target, it is really their own souls that activists are trying to save. But because they have gutted the theology of sin, no one is saved -- not themselves, nor their intended beneficiaries. What drives today's progressives is the feeling of guilt, which even a "higher" doctrine of sin cannot hide. But sin is denied and guilt is not recognized. Both are projected outward onto the victims of society's oppression, who now become victims of the activists' need to save themselves. Here a strange innocence comes to light. Activists truly want to effect the changes they have identified but are powerless to do so. They are committed, albeit unconsciously, to a prior agenda. It is this other agenda, and the concealed intent underlying it, that explains the results of their actions. If solving the problems of society were the real objective, then the problems would be solved and we would all move on. The real objective is not liberating the oppressed but managing them. It's simply not possible, with all the money, energy and creativity poured into improving society, with the countless industries spawned in the name of social improvement, that society could be failing to improve. Too many experts have vested interests in managing social dysfunction, and the entrepreneurs of discontent are legion. Maintaining the status quo -- or perhaps even expanding it -- must be the real objective. A diseased society is, after all, a field white for harvest! The new religion, and the liberal social doctrine of which it is the expression, fails to acknowledge its own deep spiritual and psychological motivation. This primary failure undermines the social program of the liberal church. While it sets out to liberate the oppressed, it only liberates insofar as it solves the prior problem of relieving liberal guilt. Worst of all, while liberals are driven deeply and unconsciously by the need all people have to return to God and be saved, through the projection of their sin into the abyss of social abstraction they undermine their own ability to turn to God. Nothing could be more practically beneficial to the broken lives they set out to restore through Christian service than their own personal salvation. The classic doctrine of sin has numerous and profound advantages. First among them, it happens to be God's own doctrine, based as it is on His word, the Holy Scriptures, and certified through His living Word, Jesus the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again. The main "advantage" of the classic doctrine is that it happens to be true. The second great advantage is the manner in which the correct theory of sin makes possible an approach to action that might actually accomplish something. The message of salvation from sin neutralizes the deeply rooted feelings of guilt which, among other things, sabotage our outreach. Unresolved sin, driven by feelings of guilt, traps us in a never-ending cycle of symbolic gestures of service mainly geared to relieving bad feelings. I pursue peace and justice because it makes me feel better. It may or may not do you any real and lasting good. It may entice you into a never-ending cycle of resentment and dependency. I won't know because I won't be looking that closely at you. That is not the heart of a servant. Classic salvation makes Christian servanthood at least possible. The increasingly shrill cries for justice, peace and reconciliation in liberal circles are proof that righteous indignation is harder to come by and personal feelings of guilt are closing in. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and progressive Christians are still not saved. The new religion is, at its deepest level, just like the old -- an attempt to save the soul of the individual. It generally fails to do this, projecting the language of religion outward on to a policy of social renewal. The motivation of a failed religion becomes the primary force determining the effectiveness of its policy. The policy also fails. The old religion has decided advantages over the new. As Christian conservatives must admit and confess, it may or may not lead to practical Christian service. But at least it makes genuine service possible. It frees the heart of a servant who may then set other captives free. The old religion flushes out the guilt and calls sin by name. It then gives it to One who is able to take it. There is no more denial, no more pretended solutions that cancel out old oppressions with new resentments. Any guilt, however horrible, however many generations it goes back, however pervasive it is in the community or family system, has an end. It has no further function in the system. New industries of victimization are no longer created with new professional classes dependent upon them. The games can stop. The debt is simply cancelled. ---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:18:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: The Impact of Jerry Falwell - Mike McManus The Impact of Jerry Falwell by Mike McManus May 17, 2007 The Rev. Jerry Falwell was one of the giants of the 20th Century. Few people truly change history, as he did. Almost single-handedly, he created "the religious right." A bold innovator, he launched the Thomas Road Baptist Church 50 years ago with 35 adults in an abandoned building that once housed the Donald Duck Bottling Company. First, he visited 100 homes a day, seeking new members. Second, he began a half-hour daily radio broadcast which morphed six months later into a televised "Old-Time Gospel Hour." The 22-year-old was a born promoter. On the church's first anniversary, 864 people showed up. Falwell combined his deep commitment of winning souls for Christ with an entrepreneurial flash that attracted attention. His church, where Falwell preached weekly, became one of the early mega-churches that last year opened a huge new facility for its 22,000 members. His hustle and passion for righteousness was nurtured in his own family. His father was a flamboyant entrepreneur who owned grocery stores, 17 gas stations, oil storage tanks and became a bootlegger and owner of the Merry Garden Dance Hall. Also a committed atheist and a heavy drinker, he died at age 55. By contrast, his mother was deeply religious "who planted the seeds of faith in me from the moment I was born," he wrote in his autobiography. He said that in his own family he saw a battle between God and the Enemy, "a malignant force just as real and just as determined to produce evil as God is to create good. It was the Enemy who destroyed his father... he said, and God whose grace ennobled his mother," noted a respectful New York Times obituary. In the 1960's and 1970's he witnessed an America marked by growing decadence of drugs, easy sex - and its consequences of widespread abortion, soaring illegitimacy and divorce plus liberal politics blessing the permissiveness. "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but soul winners," he preached in a 1964 sermon. But the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion sparked a wholesale change in him. He began urging Christians to become involved in politics and advised churches to register voters. Traditionally, Southern Baptists and many evangelical Christians were reluctant to get involved in "things of this world." especially the dirty world of politics. To awake them from their slumber and non-involvement, Falwell created "The Moral Majority" in 1978 with the clear mission to organize a Christian-right electorate, who chose candidates espousing their views and raised money to elect them at state and national levels. He united religious conservatives of many faiths and doctrines, emphasizing their common enemies. Literally millions registered as new voters. Their impact began to be felt in the 1978 election when liberal U.S. Senators were defeated. The watershed year, however, was 1980. "Up until that time, evangelicals were evenly positioned between Republicans and Democrats," said Rev. Tony Campolo, a liberal evangelical. "History will record that because of Jerry Falwell, Ronald Reagan became President." For the first time in decades, Republicans also gained control of the Senate. However, the ascendancy of conservatives to political power did little to change the culture. Reagan appointed Justices Kennedy and O'Connor to the Supreme Court who were liberal on the abortion issue. He nominated conservative Judge Bork who was rejected after Democrats regained control of the Senate. Marriage rates continued to plunge and cohabitation rates to soar. For example, there were only 1.6 million cohabiting couples in 1980, but 5.2 million in 2005. However, abortion did fall in the 1990's from 1.6 million a year to 1.3 million. The "religious right," as it came to be known, played a decisive role in the election of both Presidents Bush and the Republican Congress from 2001-7. One clear result has been the appointments of the conservative Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito. Falwell turned his attention to creating and building what has become Liberty University with 10,000 students, which is educating new generations of conservatives. For example, Tony Perkins attended 20 years ago as an ex-Marine and cop. Falwell personally inspired him to shift his interest to public policy. Perkins became a TV newsman and anchor in Louisiana and was elected to the Legislature where he got the first Covenant Marriage bill passed. He is now President of the Family Research Council. Falwell is best known for his intemperate remarks, such as calling Mohammad a terrorist. However, he apologized and often surprised his critics with his genuine graciousness. In 1989 Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority, because its "work was done." However, the legacy of Jerry Falwell will continue. -- Michael J. McManus is a syndicated columnist writing on "Ethics & Religion". He is President & Co-Chair of Marriage Savers. He lives with his wife in Potomac, Md. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:19:17 -0400 From: David Virtue Subject: LOVE NEVER FAILS LOVE NEVER FAILS 1 Corinthians 13:8 by Ted Schroder May 13, 2007 Love never fails. Divine love stands forever, for God is love, and only God is eternal. Everything that is created is contingent, dependent, mortal. Therefore only love from God, love that is given by God, love that partakes of the character of God, can never fail. It is this love, the sharing of God's love with his children that never fail. If we want our love to never fail, then we will want our love to be drawn from God's love. When God is the source of our love, then our love cannot be defeated by anything. Love is permanent. "Many waters cannot quench love." (Song of Songs 8:7) Love cannot be drowned or destroyed. This love is eternal. This is what William Penn (1644-1718) meant when he prayed: "Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. Lift us up, strong Son of God, that we may see further, cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly, and draw us closer to yourself that we may know ourselves to be nearer to our loved ones who are with you." Love never fails - it is a comfort and strength when we are threatened with the evils of life: despondency, terror, anxiety, and uncertainty. Love is the spring in the desert which never fails, which can be relied upon to sustain you. When this love is expressed it never fails the test, it never runs out, it can be relied upon. When mothers and grandmothers love, their love never fails. To illustrate love's permanence Paul contrasts it with three gifts prized most highly by the Corinthians. Prophecy is a clear word from God uttered under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by prophets and preachers. It is extremely valuable. We all need to hear the Word of God. Yet prophecies will cease when we are ushered into the presence of God. Prophecy will no longer be necessary. The same can be said of the gift of tongues. They will one day be stilled. There will be no need of a prayer or evangelistic language to communicate with God or about the wonders of God when you are in his immediate presence. The gift of tongues can be a private ecstatic experience. The gift of love is meant to help us relate to others. Love is the true and fullest manifestation of the Spirit's power. Jesus said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) The gift of words of knowledge will pass away. In heaven our knowledge will be of no value. When we are with God and know him who is love, we will not need the gift of knowledge for we shall be experiencing reality. Love is greater than all other achievements. Love never fails when the value of other achievements fades. All accumulated knowledge will be unnecessary, out-of-date and redundant. No amount of talent which we may prize in this life, which the world values and rewards, can compare with love. Love is superior to prophecies, tongues and knowledge. They are partial, and love is perfection. Even the most sophisticated knowledge we attain on earth is partial. The more we learn, the more we recognize how little we know. It is the same with prophecy. God reveals to us only those things we need to know. In this life we never have a complete understanding of his will. But one day we will enter into a fuller revelation - "when perfection comes." This is the goal and aim of all human experience. It is the end of all things, the fulfillment of God's purpose for us and the universe. When that happens and God's will is perfectly done, then all this world's partial achievements will fall away, inconsequential before God's final order. The same point can be made in the contrast between childhood and adulthood. "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." The way a child thinks is contrasted with the way an adult thinks. When he matured he repudiated his childishness. The contrast is between this life and the next. Certain things valuable in this life have no place in the next. Some things remain permanently valuable. To underline his reasoning he changes to the subject of vision. Our vision here and now is partial. It is very much like looking at things in a mirror. Mirrors in those days were normally made of polished metal. They gave only a poor reflection. In such a mirror you could only see obscurely, in a distorted fashion. At best we see a reflection. We do not see accurately. But when the Lord returns for us and ushers in the new creation, we will see clearly, as face to face. Our vision will be perfect. In other words, in the present age our knowledge is partial. It is part of life that we struggle to attain more complete knowledge by the slow and laborious processes of learning. But we never attain complete knowledge in this life. In the age to come it will be different. We shall know as we have been fully known by God. God's knowledge of us is complete. There is nothing about us that God does not know. The apostle John epitomized this never-failing love. He became known as the "apostle of love." When he wrote his Gospel he referred to himself in the third-person as "the disciple whom Jesus loved," (13:23; 19:26; 20:7,20) in the Upper Room, at the foot of the Cross, at the empty tomb, and in Galilee after the resurrection. When he wrote his first epistle he described love as the central feature of God and Christian believers: "Dear friends, let us love one another, love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7,8) Like Paul, he contrasted such love with the passing attractions of this life: "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him....The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." (1 John 2:15,17) There is much in this world to love. It is so easy to be seduced by the spirit of the world into desiring those things which promise satisfaction, but in reality are ephemeral. Too many times we can choose to put our preoccupations before our relationships. We can become obsessed with the tasks, with the activities, that feed our egos. Our goals can control us. In life we make choices about what we value. We choose what is most important to us. We can choose to love the world and its desires, but it will pass away. Jesus came that we might receive God's love, and learn to love one another as he loved us. This love will never fail. It will never pass away. Choose love - the love of God - the love of others - the love of Christ. It alone is permanent. Prayers: O Love most powerful, strengthen me. O Love most sweet, let me taste of your goodness. O Love most dear, let me live for you alone. O Love most faithful, comfort and support me. O Love most companionable, accompany all my deeds. O Love most victorious, persevere with me to the end, for your own name's sake. (Gertrude of Helfta 1256-1302) Let me walk in the way you love, O God. Let me love you for yourself. Let me love you in all things. Let me taste the sweetness of your love and let it work its beauty in me, until I love with that divine love with which you love me; through Christ our Lord. (Gertrude More 1606-33) Lord, fill us with the joy of your great love; let our minds meditate on it, let our tongues speak of it, let our hearts love it, let our minds preach it, let our souls hunger for it, and let our whole being desire it, until we enter into your glory and see you face to face. (Anselm of Canterbury 1033-1109) (I am indebted to Leon Morris, Testaments of Love: A Study of Love in the Bible, for material used in this presentation.) ------------------------------ End of VIRTUEONLINE Digest - 11 May 2007 to 18 May 2007 (#2007-24) ******************************************************************