The Anglican Church of Canada has won, at least temporarily, a legal tug-of-war over a breakaway parish in Metchosin, just west of Victoria.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has decided it would be unjust to grant exclusive use of St. Mary’s of the Incarnation to those parishioners who had elected to split from the national church. That, Madam Justice Marion Allan ruled, would be unfair to the 14 remaining parishioners now relegated to a smaller, heritage church.

The dispute, largely centred on the issue of same-sex marriage, is part of a larger schism rocking the Anglican Church across Canada. Last June, the general synod of the Anglican Church of Canada voted narrowly not to bless same-sex unions. Still, the dioceses of Ottawa, Montreal and Niagara later decided to do so, following the lead of the Lower Mainland.

Read it all.

Why our brains convince us our decisions were right, even when the facts may suggest we were wrong.

Listen to it all.

Our primary authority is Jesus Christ our Teacher and our Lord, and our submission to Scripture is only the logical outcome and necessary expression of our submission to him. It is to Christ that we come; but Christ sends us to a book. Not that the book to which he sends us is a dead and wooden letter, or an authoritarian ogre. He bids us listen rather to his own voice as he speaks to our particular situation by his Spirit and through his written Word.

–John Stott, “Jesus Christ Our Teacher and Lord”, in Guidelines, ed. J. I. Packer (London: Falcon, 1967), p. 64.

The Veteran’s Administration maintains more than 2.8 million gravesites at 125 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico, as well as in 33 soldiers’ lots and monument sites. Occupied gravesites may hold the remains of more than one family member.

Approximately 306,600 full-casket gravesites, 93,700 in-ground gravesites for cremated remains, and 79,400 columbarium niches are available in already developed acreage in VA national cemeteries.

Read it all.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

”“Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

In thanksgiving for all those who gave their lives for this country in years past, and for those who continue to serve”“KSH.

As prices at gasoline pumps and grocery stores rise U.S. consumers say they are driving less but they can’t cut down on eating, a new poll found.

Nearly half of respondents to a Reuters/Zogby poll of likely voters in the presidential election later this year said they are driving less to compensate for record U.S. gasoline prices, which hit a record average of $3.80 per gallon on Tuesday according to travel club AAA.

But only about 8 percent of the 1076 respondents in the national poll said they were eating less generally to cope with rising food prices, the poll said.

“People have more control over gasoline. they are driving less and driving smarter,” pollster John Zogby said by telephone.

Read it all.

Kendall Harmon of Orkin Pest Control will present a program on pests.

—The Mississippi Star-Herald. It is not yours truly of course, but I can never get used to the fact that in a country of more than 300 million people there will be more than one person with the same first and last name. The John Smiths out there will no doubt extend no sympathy–KSH.

How about those Cubs?.

I am wary of experts who are quick to offer advice. I have been warned that the devil often appears as an angel of light. I also know that the way of Jesus is under perpetual attack but that the attack rarely looks or feels like an attack. There is a good deal of slieght of hand involved. As Amos Wilder wisely comments, “The Spirit is not to be quenched, yet the spirits should be resisted.”

–Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way (Eerdmans, 2007), p.272

“I was Watching You” is the title–listen to it all.

Check out all the pictures if you care to; my favorite is here.

Alan Greenspan’s reputation is under siege, and he’s incredulous.

Hailed three years ago as “the greatest central banker who ever lived,” the retired chairman of the Federal Reserve now is being criticized for his management of the U.S. economy before he retired in 2006. The Fed’s low rates and laissez-faire regulatory oversight during his final years are widely blamed for sowing the seeds of today’s financial crisis — one that began in the U.S. housing market and is now battering banks, stock markets, borrowers and consumers around the world.

For much of his 18 years atop the world’s most-influential economic institution, Mr. Greenspan was lionized for the economy’s performance. Now, he notes, he’s being second-guessed for it.

Read it all.

Virginia Anglican Churches Prevail in Court is their title; read it all.

A true story, and a lot of fun..

With the weird early date of Easter this year, Saint Jospeh is transferred to today, but today is normally John Donne’s feast day and on the last day of March I always thank God for him–KSH.

Almighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open our eyes to see, with thy servant John Donne, that whatsoever hath any being is a mirror in which we may behold thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””-

Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

”“Holy Sonnet XIV (my favorite)

“when all is done the hell of hels the torment of torments is the everlasting absence of God and the everlasting impossibility
of returning to his presence”¦.what tophet is not paradise what brimstone is not amber what gnashing is not a comfort what gnawing
of the worme is not a tickling what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation to be secluded eternally eternally eternally
from the sight of God”

”“From his sermon Preached to the Earle of Carlile, and his Company, at Sion [? 1622]

””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
“The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all”¦.All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated”¦As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness”¦.No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

”“From his Meditation XVII

Another test.

All, we’re having some blog “time stamp” issues this afternoon, and I’m trying to verify something. Please ignore this post and the one that will follow in just a few minutes. I just need to check something. Sorry to do it in public! –elfgirl

This is all overshadowed by the unarguable hash that was made of the intervention itself. But I would nonetheless maintain that this incompetence doesn’t condemn the enterprise wholesale. A much-wanted war criminal was put on public trial. The Kurdish and Shiite majority was rescued from the ever-present threat of a renewed genocide. A huge, hideous military and party apparatus, directed at internal repression and external aggression was (perhaps overhastily) dismantled. The largest wetlands in the region, habitat of the historic Marsh Arabs, have been largely recuperated. Huge fresh oilfields have been found, including in formerly oil free Sunni provinces, and some important initial investment in them made. Elections have been held, and the outline of a federal system has been proposed as the only alternative to a) a sectarian despotism and b) a sectarian partition and fragmentation. Not unimportantly, a battlefield defeat has been inflicted on al-Qaida and its surrogates, who (not without some Baathist collaboration) had hoped to constitute the successor regime in a failed state and an imploded society. Further afield, a perfectly defensible case can be made that the Syrian Baathists would not have evacuated Lebanon, nor would the Qaddafi gang have turned over Libya’s (much higher than anticipated) stock of WMD if not for the ripple effect of the removal of the region’s keystone dictatorship.

Read it all.

Confidence in Bear Stearns collapsed on Friday after the US investment bank said it had arranged for an unspecified amount of emergency funding from JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York because its liquidity position had “significantly deteriorated”.

In early New York trading, Bear Stearns shares plunged as much as 50 per cent, pulling the rest of the US stock market down. The shares have been hammered by concerns about the bank’s liquidity and had fallen more than 30 per cent this week alone in highly volatile trading.

In a statement, JP Morgan Chase said that “in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, it has agreed to provide secured funding to Bear Stearns, as necessary, for an initial period of up to 28 days.

”Through its discount window, the Fed will provide non-recourse, back-to-back financing to JPMorgan Chase. Accordingly, JPMorgan Chase does not believe this transaction exposes its shareholders to any material risk. JPMorgan Chase is working closely with Bear Stearns on securing permanent financing or other alternatives for the company.”

Read it all.

Good Morning.

Just a short note to let you know that I appreciate your blog, even though I often disagree with your views. It’s not that I consider myself to be very liberal, I just don’t consider myself to be a fundamentalist (which is what many on the conservative fringe of the Episcopal Church are). As a middle-of-the-road, via media, Anglo-Catholic, high Church Episcopalian…..I find that the center ground is being pulled away from me at this point in the life of the Church. As I said, you and I would disagree about many things, but at the same time, I appreciate your ability to put forth your thoughts in a Christian manner.

The people that post comments on your site are something entirely different. The level of hate (and I do not use that word lightly) has noticeably risen in the last week or so, and I thank you for your taking note of that and calling the commenters attention to this fact. While I acknowledge you try to use other adjectives without using the word “hate”, I find that, sadly, the word “hate” is quite a proper description for some of the postings.

I am troubled at the level of venom in the words of the internet blogs. Be it either the far right side or the far left, there is certainly not much in either extreme that resembles Christianity.

Web sites such as [name of site], the [name of site], and several on the “extreme liberal” sides are an embarrassment to the Church. T1:9 is different, and alot of that is because you try to keep folks steered in the right direction. It is a terrible reflection on the Church when people with differing viewpoints cannot have discussion in a civil manner.

Keep up the good work.

I have not changed a word of this, and it is posted with the author’s permission. My only major place of disagreement with the writer is when he or she says “The people who comment,” I would modify it to say “some of those who comment.” But it has been true of far too many comments lately, and it interests me that this came the day I made the post about the comments–KSH.

The question of Lambeth Conference invitations will be reviewed by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), sources familiar with its deliberations tell The Church of England Newspaper. Chartered last month by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, the WCG will take a second look at the decision not to extend invitations to the African-consecrated American bishops of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria, and may also discuss the question of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire’s non-invitation.

Were Dr Williams to accept advice to broaden the Lambeth Conference invitation list, “that would change everything,” one global south leader told CEN, and prevent Lambeth from being a “bust.”

Dr Williams’ decision not to invite Bishop Martyn Minns of Cana and Bishop Chuck Murphy of the AMiA and their suffragans contributed to the decision by the Churches of Nigeria and Rwanda to decline the invitation to attend Lambeth. The Archbishop of Kenya has announced that he will not attend the July 16-Aug 3 conference after his two suffragans, Bishops Bill Atwood and Bill Murdoch, were overlooked by Lambeth. The Kenyan House of Bishops meets later this spring and will review its position at that time, sources in the Kenyan church tell CEN.

At its New Orleans meeting last year, the US House of Bishops asked Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to treat with Dr Williams, and find a way to bring Bishop Robinson to Lambeth. Acting on behalf of the presiding bishop, the bishops of Northern Indiana, Vermont and Wyoming spoke with Dr Williams’ aide, Mr Chris Smith and ACC Secretary General Canon Kenneth Kearon on five occasions. The three reported they had sought to find a way for Bishop Robinson to “have the opportunity to pray with other bishops at Lambeth,” to have an opportunity to “build relationships,” and that he be given a “voice at the table” during the discussions“on human sexuality.”

Their approach was unsuccessful and they reported that a “full invitation is not possible,” for the New Hampshire bishop. Nor would he be able to participate in the bishops’ retreat or study groups. While he could not be an “observer” at Lambeth, he was offered the opportunity by the organizing committee to be part of the Lambeth Marketplace””-a venue where vendors historically displayed their wares.

Bishop Robinson told the House of Bishops that he had declined the invitation to set up a stall amongst the haberdashers, prefacing his remarks by saying he was not “whining”, but the marketplace was a “non-offer” already available to him. The controversy had left him “dismayed and sick hearted,” he said. However, he would go independently of the invitation process as he had a duty to the…[young people he recently met]. “I will go to Lambeth remembering the 100 or so twenty-something’s I met in Hong Kong this fall, who meet every Sunday afternoon to worship and sing God’s praise in a secret catacomb of safety ”” because they can’t be gay and Christian in their own churches. I will be taking them to Lambeth with me,” he said.

The secretary to the Windsor Continuation Group, Canon Gregory Cameron declined to confirm or deny its agenda, telling the CEN that it had “decided not to make their work more public” at this stage of the proceedings. The WCG met last week in London, spending March 4 with the ACC-Primates Joint Standing Committee and March 5 with Dr Williams. Sources present at the joint standing committee meeting with the WCG note the issue of invitations was not raised.Canon James Rosenthal of the ACC noted that while he could not speak to the invitations issue, Dr Williams was doing everything in his power to see that as many bishops as possible could come to Lambeth.

Sources familiar with the deliberations of the WCG report the group will meet two more times and offer its recommendations to Dr Williams. The public brief of the group, which is chaired by the former Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Clive Handford, is to “contribute to the shared discernment of the bishops in strengthening the life and identity of the Anglican Communion.”

Finding a way of bringing those boycotting the Conference back into the life of the Communion is a priority, sources tell CEN, and that will include looking once again at the invitation question. While the WCG may recommend several courses of action to address the dysfunction within the Communion, the question of
”˜who comes to Lambeth?’ is for Dr Williams alone to decide, one global south primate noted.

–This article appears on the front page of the March 14, 2008 edition of the Church of England Newspaper

Experts on the church said the deposing of Bishop Schofield had set the stage for the next phase of the conflict, which would most likely be lawsuits over diocesan and parish property.

The Rev. Ephraim Radner, a leading Episcopal conservative and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto, echoed other experts when he said the removal of Bishop Schofield would send a message to others considering a split with the church. Two other bishops have been warned not to proceed with votes to secede. Episcopal bishops denied, however, that the vote to depose the bishop was “punitive.”

“I don’t think we are sending messages but dealing with matters at hand,” Bishop Suffragan Catherine S. Roskam of New York said in a conference call. “We have dealt with it with sober conversation, dealt with it prayerfully and even regretfully.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

After explaining that they would be reading through the creed phrase by phrase, Woodward would give the charge:

“When the phrase is something you understand on one level or another, and believe, stand up or remain standing. When the phrase is something that makes no sense to you, or is something you do not believe, sit down or remain sitting.”

The resulting dance, he says, appeared to be something akin “to a rebellious exercise class,” with folks popping up, sitting down and squirming to watch their neighbors as they stood and sat and stood again.

At the end, Woodward would ask what they had observed. “The answers were always the same: No one stood all the way through the creed, and no one stayed seated all the way through, and there was always someone standing for every phrase.”

The article is mistitled, it should say that what it tells us is that we are a church which is failing to teach the faith effectively and is not doctrinally serious. Can you imagine if the Founding Fathers of America took this approach with, say, the Declaration of Independence? In any event, read it all–KSH.

“Research shows that a vice-presidential candidate determines very few people’s votes,” says Paul Light, an expert”‰on the vice-presidency at New York University. “But it is one of the first big tests of a nominee’s decision-making and helps set the tone for the campaign.”

Economic expertise is likely to be another requirement given Mr McCain’s self-declared weakness on the issue. Executive experience, preferably outside Washington, would be another advantage to balance Mr McCain’s decades of legislative service on Capitol Hill.

Mr McCain’s main strategic decision will be the ideological identity of his running mate. As a Republican moderate, he is under pressure from conservatives to pick someone from the right of the party, such as Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, or Sam Brownback, senator for Kansas.

Many experts believe Mr McCain needs a conservative running mate, preferably from the south, to unify the fractured Republican base. But others argue he has most to gain from picking a fellow moderate, such as Chuck Hagel, senator for Nebraska, or Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator for Connecticut, who would reinforce his appeal among swing-voters. Another option might be Michael Bloomberg, the independent New York mayor and billionaire media tycoon, who recently ended speculation that he might make his own third-party run for president.

Read it all.

This has taken a lot of work by a number of people and I am delighted it can be released. Please take the time to listen to it carefully and listen to it all.

In your comments please focus on the content of what was said as far as possible. Thanks–KSH.

After you guess, watch it all–you may be surprised.

I linked to a website this morning without making it clear that I found it offensive and manipulative. My apologies for any confusion.

From the diocese of Fort Worth website:

Archbishop Gregory Venables, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, has accepted an invitation from Bishop Iker to make a pastoral visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth during the first weekend of May. He will be accompanied by his wife, Sylvia.

On Friday, May 2, Archbishop Venables will meet with all the clergy of the Diocese at the Church of the Holy Apostles, and then on Saturday, May 3, he will address a specially-called Convocation of the 2008 convention delegates at St. Vincent’s Cathedral. The purpose of the convocation is to provide information: Archbishop Venables will answer questions from the delegates, but no legislation will be considered.

On Sunday, May 4, Archbishop Venables will preach in the morning at the Cathedral, and on Sunday evening at St. Andrew’s Church in downtown Fort Worth. Question-and-answer forums will follow the services at both churches.

Archbishop Venables was born in England and grew up near Canterbury.

After he and Sylvia were married in 1970, the two felt called to serve as lay missionaries in Paraguay, where they moved to in 1978, sponsored by the South American Mission Society (SAMS.) According to a biographical sketch in a recent issue of the San Joaquin Star, it was while serving in Paraguay that Archbishop Venables felt called to the ordained ministry, and he was ordained a priest in 1984. He was consecrated to serve as Auxiliary Bishop to Peru and Bolivia in 1993 and elected Presiding Bishop of the Province in 2001. He has also served as the Diocesan Bishop of Argentina since 2002, and he and Sylvia reside in Buenos Aires. They have a son, two daughters and two sons-in-law, all of whom are serving in ministry within South America.

The Diocese of Fort Worth is considering aligning with the Province of the Southern Cone, and this visit will help clarify the practicalities, benefits, and possible drawbacks of such a move.