A number of B.C. churches are urging Finance Minister Carole Taylor to include a carbon tax in the next budget, saying such a measure would help save God’s creation — the planet Earth.

“Climate change is a moral issue because the way we care for creation ties into how we respond to God’s creativeness,” Rev. Kenneth Gray, chair of the environment committee of the Anglican Diocese of B.C., said Wednesday.

“We support a transitional and progressive tax strategy, which forces heavy polluters and heavy consumers of fossil fuels to change their way of operating.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

Melnyk’s problems within the Episcopal Church began when he was ”˜exposed’ by a conservative Christian website seeking more ammunition for attacking the Episcopal Church’s consecration of a gay priest as Bishop. They accused Melnyk of taking part in rituals celebrating the Divine Feminine. Although he never practised anything but orthodox rites in his church, steadfastly maintained that he was not “in conflict with the Baptismal Covenant and the historical Creeds of the Church,” and had the support of the majority of his parishioners, he felt he had no option but to resign his ministry. ”I was told I could stay if I agreed to sever ties with my friends and never again write about Druidry,” Melnyk said. “But I knew The Apple and the Thorn was on the way, and I would not agree to being silenced.”

“Like Eosaidh, I found myself suddenly at odds with the faith I had grown up in,” he explains. “Like the new group of ’Christians’ who found their way to the Isle of Mist, many Church leaders were quick to demonise Druidry and my connection with this ancient ancestor of Anglicanism. It is not only the gay rights issue that currently threatens conservatives in the Church; they are even more fearful of the threat they perceive in the free marketplace of inter-faith dialogue. Today I continue to be a walker between both worlds, celebrating the two faiths that have formed me but, when the Church told me I had to choose between my priesthood and my friends in the Druid community, I chose the path that honored relationship.”

“In the final analysis,” Melnyk continues, “this is not a novel about Druidry or the Church. It is a tale of human relationships and the choices they entail. Eosaidh and Vivian are able to convert one another because they care about one another. Characters in the tale who do not care about human relationship remain captive to their own dogmas. In matters of theology it is always the underlying human equation that matters. Christians and Pagans alike will find challenges in this tale. I hope they will also find joy”

Read it all.

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com–KSH.

Read it all.

A massive storm that dropped sleet and freezing rain across the nation’s midsection, leaving nearly a million utility customers without electricity, finally tapered off, but another wintry blast was forecast to develop Wednesday over the southern Plains.

The new system was expected to bring more sleet and freezing rain to Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas, but not nearly as much as the previous storm, according to the National Weather Service.

Ice ranging from a quarter-inch to an inch thick glazed roads in much of the central Plains and Midwest. At least 24 deaths have been blamed on the storm since it developed last weekend. Most resulted from traffic accidents.

Forecasters said more snow, sleet and freezing rain could develop across the northern Ohio Valley and from Pennsylvania into New England on Wednesday

The power outage was the worst ever in Oklahoma, with more than 618,000 homes and businesses without electricity late Tuesday. Officials said it could be a week to 10 days before power is fully restored.

Read it all. I have to confess that seeing the Oklahoma footage on the news this morning felt a bit odd, as it has been in the 80’s here this week–KSH.

Read it all.

Bishop Gene Robinson, the Nation’s openly practicing homosexual Episcopal Bishop, spoke to a crowd of over 200 people on November 27, 2007 at Nova Southeastern University’s Shephard Law Center. He told them of his upcoming planned ”˜marriage’ to his paramour saying with pride, “I always wanted to be a June bride.”

The activist Bishop continued:

“It may take many years for religious institutions to add their blessing for same-sex marriages and no church, mosque or synagogue should be forced to do so. But that should not slow down progress for the full civil right to marry,” Robinson said. “Because New Hampshire will have legal unions beginning in January, my partner of 20 years and I will enter into such a legal union next June.”

Dressed in his clerical collar and wearing his pectoral cross, the symbol of his ecclesial office in the Episcopal church, he castigated the “religious right”, a term by which he refers to all orthodox Christians who support the unbroken teaching of Christianity on the sanctity of authentic marriage:

“The greatest single hindrance to achievement of full rights for gays and lesbians can be laid at the doorstep of the three Abrahamic faiths– Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It’s going to take people of faith to end discrimination,” said Robinson, who was invested as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire in 2004.

Read it all but note that he gets the Gene Robinson chronology wrong. Saying he was ” a married Episcopal priest, who had broken both his marriage and priestly vows when he divorced his wife and abandoned his children to engage in an active homosexual relationship” is not true (and we have made this point over and over again). The divorce preceded his even meeting his current partner.

A gunman shot four staff members at a missionary training center near Denver early Sunday, killing two, after being told he couldn’t spend the night. About 12 hours later and 65 miles away in Colorado Springs, a gunman fatally shot a parishioner at a megachurch and wounded four other people before a guard killed him, police said.

One of the hospitalized victims from the second attack died Sunday at about 10:10 p.m., said Amy Sufak, a spokeswoman for Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs.

The police chief in Arvada, a suburb about 15 miles west of Denver where the mission workers were shot, said the shootings may be related to those in Colorado Springs but declined to elaborate. No one had been captured in the Arvada shootings, authorities said.

Early Monday, authorities were searching a home in suburban Englewood, about 15 miles south of Denver, that they said could be related to the Colorado Springs shooting case. Results of that search were not immediately known.

Read it all.

See what you make of their efforts.

Mr. [LOU] URENECK: We had several bear encounters on the river. And typically, bears, even these big brown bears and grizzlies that you find in Alaska, they’ll leave you alone if you leave them alone. But the guaranteed exception to that is surprising a female bear with her cub.

On the third day of the trip, Adam and I came around a sharp bend in the river. And the river was narrow – it was probably only three raft-widths wide. We came around a sharp bend and there was a big sour bear, all of nine feet tall, probably a thousand pounds, and she was there with her cub – teaching him how to fish. And we surprised her, so it was a very dangerous situation. I pulled the raft over to the side of the river, Adam and I stepped out of the raft, and when we did, when we stepped on to the gravel, she fixed her eyes on Adam. Adam was obviously very anxious – we both were. He started to trot off away from the bear. And when he did that, he seemed to trigger some sort of predatory response in this bear and she started to chase him. I had a gun with me. You have to carry a gun when you’re fishing for salmon in Alaska that time of year. So I brought the gun up. I had no desire to shoot this bear; I did not want to kill a bear; I wasn’t even sure of I could kill the bear. But I brought the gun up to protect my son and I shouted to Adam to stop. He kept running; I shouted again. The bear continued to chase, and I was about ready to pull the trigger when Adam stopped. And in that moment, the bear also stopped, fortunately.

And what happened was she looked back to find her cub, and the cub was missing. Her cub had clambered up into the woods again, and she had to make a decision. You know, was she going to continue to chase Adam or was she going to go find her cub? And, fortunately, maternity prevailed, and she turned around and went looking for her cub. At which point, we jumped in that raft and paddled the heck out of there.

[JOHN] YDSTIE: That’s a very exciting moment.

Mr. URENECK: You know, it’s interesting, John. In the writing of this book, this bear incident is one of those surprises for me as a writer. It was two parents facing off on a river, both of us worried about our cubs.

–From the NPR audio story entitled “Alaska Trip Helps Heal Father and Son in ‘Backcast'” and quoted in this morning’s sermon by yours truly

If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.

Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman told of a distinguished minister, Dr. Howard, from Australia who preached very strongly on the subject of sin. After the service, one of the church officers came to counsel with him in the study. “Dr. Howard,” he said, “we don’t want you to talk as openly as you do about man’s guilt and corruption, because if our boys and girls hear you discussing that subject they will more easily become sinners. Call it a mistake if you will, but do not speak so plainly about sin. “The minister took down a small bottle and showing it to the visitor said, “You see that label? It says strychnine — and underneath in bold, red letters the word ‘Poison!’ Do you know, man, what you are asking me to do? You are suggesting that I change the label. Suppose I do, and paste over it the words, ‘Essence of Peppermint’; don’t you see what might happen? Someone would use it, not knowing the danger involved, and would certainly die. So it is, too, with the matter of sin. The milder you make your label, the more dangerous you make your poison!”

–An illustration from this morning’s sermon by yours truly

Brother Peter Marie Westall, formerly James Westall, grew up in an Anglican family, but he did a lot of spiritual wavering.

“I became an atheist at 14 — a deliberate decision,” he said. “But I knew my mother was praying for me all the time.”

He had a change of heart at age 16, he said, but it wasn’t until he was 22 — after graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from Southampton University — that he accepted Jesus into his life at a Catholic retreat.

“I was scared of happy, clappy Christians, so I stayed at the back,” he said. “But they were just giving talks. They had Eucharist, and gave a lot of examples about the life of St. Francis. When I read about his life, that set my life on fire, the full Gospel. That’s what I wanted to do as well.”

Helping to cement his faith were accounts of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to people throughout history, he said — in particular repeated apparitions reported by children in the Bosnian village of Medjugorje, beginning in 1981. Those who investigate such reports determined that the children’s eyes reacted as if they were seeing a bright light, and they did not react to pain despite being pricked with needles, Brother Peter said.

“My reasoning went, if the scientists can’t disprove the children saw the Virgin Mary, she must exist. God must exist, and Jesus must be Lord,” he said.

Read it all.

Black British archbishop symbolically cut up his clerical collar on Sunday and vowed not to wear one again until Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe steps down from power.

“We need the world to unite against Mugabe and his regime,” said John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, pulling out a pair of scissors and making the dramatic gesture during a live television interview.

The gesture came as Mugabe was accused of undermining the image of Africa during a summit of European and African leaders in Lisbon this weekend. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has boycotted the meeting.

Sentamu noted that, as a bishop, his stiff white collar “is what I wear to identify myself, that I’m a clergyman.

Read it all.

Last week the Bush administration decided to “freeze” for five years the interest rates of certain types of mortgages. You’ve probably caught the tail end of news stories about “subprime” home loans, lots of foreclosures, etc. Never a happy moment when the bank takes the farm.

So now the government has stepped in and said that, if you fall into a particular category of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs, in the biz) and you’re worried that it’s getting way too adjustable, don’t worry: The Nanny State is about to readjust it well inside your comfort zone. By fiat of the Treasury secretary, your adjustable-rate mortgage is henceforth an unadjustable adjustable-rate mortgage. These new UNARMs will spread their healing balm across the land until it’s safe enough for the housing “market” to once again be exposed to market forces.

The government has, in effect, nullified the terms of legal contracts mutually agreed by both parties ”“ borrower and lender, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmoe and the First National Bank of Pleasantville.

Read it all.

AFTER a long time away, the Rev. Robert Castle visited his old church last year ”” St. John’s Episcopal, the hilltop Gothic with a panoramic view out over the world he did his best to change in the 1960s ”” and the state of its decline left him thinking of another sublime fortress once also thought to be impregnable.

“It was like the Titanic going down, and it was sad to see,” said Father Castle, who was rector at St. John’s from 1960 to 1968. “It’s been almost 40 years, and my heart still aches over that church.”

Other hearts have also been aching over St. John’s, a grand but moldering granite church in the Bergen Hill neighborhood that is at the center of perhaps the only ecclesiastical preservation battle that features cameo appearances by the Black Panthers and a Hollywood filmmaker.

New Jersey’s cities are filled with abandoned monuments to God, the churches and synagogues whose congregations have long since departed for more modern buildings girdled by parking lots in the suburbs. Some of the vacant shells left behind have been reincarnated with new denominations; some have been converted to housing or offices; some have been demolished. And some, like St. John’s, sit empty and await their fate, as each blast of winter, each soaking rain, brings them ever nearer to the afterlife.

“It’s like a fire hose when the rain comes, just a deluge,” said Dennis Doran, a neighbor and a former senior warden of the church, pointing up toward a drainpipe that was once attached to copper gutters that were long ago stolen and sold for scrap. The roof beneath it, over the front section of the south nave, collapsed last winter.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Seven bishops and other Episcopal leaders joined with a number of influential Christian leaders in signing a letter asking Muslims to forgive Christians. The letter with signatures recently appeared as a full-page advertisement in The New York Times.

“Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility,” the authors said. “Since Jesus Christ says, ”˜First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye’ (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we ”˜shake your hand’ in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

Last month 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent a letter titled “A Common Word Between Us,” seeking common ground between the two faiths. The letter was hand delivered to many Christian leaders including Pope Benedict XVI, the Orthodox Church’s Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 1 and all the other Orthodox patriarchs, and to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leaders of protestant churches worldwide. Archbishop Rowan Williams has already responded to the letter in a joint communiqué written with several prominent Jewish rabbis.

Read it all.

So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.

But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

–1 Thessalonians 5: 6-8; I wish all blog readers a blessed Advent–KSH

Nobody on the other side was ever an enemy. They were always an adversary.

—Mark Shields on the Lehrer News Hour. You need to guess about whom he was speaking before you look. It would be very helpful if this could be remembered by all in the current Anglican debate–KSH.

As a Communion Conservative, let me assure the Federal Conservatives who are departing the Communion that I in no way see your position on homosexuality as in any way connected with the ham-fisted “Rejectionist” category that Andrew Goddard has described.

I am quite able to disagree with Federal Conservatives and their tactics, even their eventual destination which appears to be the Common Cause Partnership, without making up out of whole cloth a category about their theology concerning homosexuality which does not in fact exist.

I suspect that most of the ComCons with which I work feel the same way.

So why would Collaborationists wish to create such categories? I think there’s a simple strategic reason. If one creates such large, grand, and very flawed theological categories, that allows Collaborationists within the Communion to group themselves with a much larger group of traditionalists than they otherwise would find themselves in. After all, the thinking might go, surely no one among the ComCons will want to be perceived as a “Rejectionist” — perish the thought!

Thanks, but I’ll stick with the Reasserters. And I’ll take note of the Collaborationists as well.

Read it all. Now, there are a lot of things I could say about this, but what I want to point out now is that this is one more indication of the diversity that exists among reasserters. The same diversity exists among reappraisers. I find the monolithic treatment of each “position” or “side” by some in the debate (read: The House of Bishops/Deputies listserv, a number of blogs,etc) very exhausting at present.

Also please notice that in general this is a model of how to disagree with someone. You try to reflect accurately what someone is saying, and you critique their arguments, using counter arguments and evidence, without making it personal. It would be helpful if this were kept in mind by all as the Advent season approaches–KSH.

19. We must look briefly at the two essential stages in the political realization of this hope, because they are of great importance for the development of Christian hope, for a proper understanding of it and of the reasons for its persistence. First there is the French Revolution””an attempt to establish the rule of reason and freedom as a political reality. To begin with, the Europe of the Enlightenment looked on with fascination at these events, but then, as they developed, had cause to reflect anew on reason and freedom. A good illustration of these two phases in the reception of events in France is found in two essays by Immanuel Kant in which he reflects on what had taken place. In 1792 he wrote Der Sieg des guten Prinzips über das böse und die Gründung eines Reiches Gottes auf Erden (“The Victory of the Good over the Evil Principle and the Founding of a Kingdom of God on Earth”). In this text he says the following: “The gradual transition of ecclesiastical faith to the exclusive sovereignty of pure religious faith is the coming of the Kingdom of God.” 17 He also tells us that revolutions can accelerate this transition from ecclesiastical faith to rational faith. The “Kingdom of God” proclaimed by Jesus receives a new definition here and takes on a new mode of presence; a new “imminent expectation”, so to speak, comes into existence: the “Kingdom of God” arrives where “ecclesiastical faith” is vanquished and superseded by “religious faith”, that is to say, by simple rational faith. In 1795, in the text Das Ende aller Dinge (“The End of All Things”) a changed image appears. Now Kant considers the possibility that as well as the natural end of all things there may be another that is unnatural, a perverse end. He writes in this connection: “If Christianity should one day cease to be worthy of love … then the prevailing mode in human thought would be rejection and opposition to it; and the Antichrist … would begin his””albeit short””regime (presumably based on fear and self-interest); but then, because Christianity, though destined to be the world religion, would not in fact be favoured by destiny to become so, then, in a moral respect, this could lead to the (perverted) end of all things.” 18

20. The nineteenth century held fast to its faith in progress as the new form of human hope, and it continued to consider reason and freedom as the guiding stars to be followed along the path of hope. Nevertheless, the increasingly rapid advance of technical development and the industrialization connected with it soon gave rise to an entirely new social situation: there emerged a class of industrial workers and the so-called “industrial proletariat”, whose dreadful living conditions Friedrich Engels described alarmingly in 1845. For his readers, the conclusion is clear: this cannot continue; a change is necessary. Yet the change would shake up and overturn the entire structure of bourgeois society. After the bourgeois revolution of 1789, the time had come for a new, proletarian revolution: progress could not simply continue in small, linear steps. A revolutionary leap was needed. Karl Marx took up the rallying call, and applied his incisive language and intellect to the task of launching this major new and, as he thought, definitive step in history towards salvation””towards what Kant had described as the “Kingdom of God”. Once the truth of the hereafter had been rejected, it would then be a question of establishing the truth of the here and now. The critique of Heaven is transformed into the critique of earth, the critique of theology into the critique of politics. Progress towards the better, towards the definitively good world, no longer comes simply from science but from politics””from a scientifically conceived politics that recognizes the structure of history and society and thus points out the road towards revolution, towards all-encompassing change. With great precision, albeit with a certain onesided bias, Marx described the situation of his time, and with great analytical skill he spelled out the paths leading to revolution””and not only theoretically: by means of the Communist Party that came into being from the Communist Manifesto of 1848, he set it in motion. His promise, owing to the acuteness of his analysis and his clear indication of the means for radical change, was and still remains an endless source of fascination. Real revolution followed, in the most radical way in Russia.

Together with the victory of the revolution, though, Marx’s fundamental error also became evident. He showed precisely how to overthrow the existing order, but he did not say how matters should proceed thereafter. He simply presumed that with the expropriation of the ruling class, with the fall of political power and the socialization of means of production, the new Jerusalem would be realized. Then, indeed, all contradictions would be resolved, man and the world would finally sort themselves out. Then everything would be able to proceed by itself along the right path, because everything would belong to everyone and all would desire the best for one another. Thus, having accomplished the revolution, Lenin must have realized that the writings of the master gave no indication as to how to proceed. True, Marx had spoken of the interim phase of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessity which in time would automatically become redundant. This “intermediate phase” we know all too well, and we also know how it then developed, not ushering in a perfect world, but leaving behind a trail of appalling destruction. Marx not only omitted to work out how this new world would be organized””which should, of course, have been unnecessary. His silence on this matter follows logically from his chosen approach. His error lay deeper. He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and he forgot man’s freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment.

Take the time to read it all.

Four years after the appointment of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, tensions continue to mount within the Episcopal Church.

While some Episcopal dioceses are discussing breaking away from the church, the controversial bishop is traveling around the world to spread a peaceful and inclusive message.

His next stop — South Florida, where a number of Episcopal leaders have shown their support of Bishop Gene Robinson.

Robinson, of New Hampshire, will speak at Nova Southeastern University Tuesday. Robinson’s visit at NSU will conclude the law school’s 2007 Goodwin Symposium on sexuality, morality and the law. He will focus on how morality affects gay and lesbian legal rights.

”He’s not only a bishop who struggled in the church, he’s a person with an internal struggle,” said Anthony Niedwiecki, professor of current constitutional issues at NSU, who organized the event. “One of the things he will talk about is how a church can actually reconcile with gay, lesbian and bisexual issues.”

Read it all.

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

(I post it unaltered but it is from the long queue of will-post-when-I-can stuff and you can tell it was originally written in the second week of November–KSH)

From here:

Last weekend deputies to Pittsburgh’s Diocesan Convention voted to take a first step in disaffiliating with the national Episcopal Church in order to realign with another, overseas, Anglican jurisdiction. That process will take at least a year to complete.

Subsequently a colleague asked me (Dennett): “So, how are you feeling?”

My answer was: “Sad. I don’t dislike people on the other side; but I do think they’re wrong and it’s reached the point where, however much I may like them, I can’t keep on going the same direction they’re going.”

As I think about my answer, I reflect on our innate propensity to self-justify. I say “our,” because in my own comment I see the same propensity at work. The line of reasoning starts with my remark, or words to similar effect, that we have run out of options: we’re realigning because we just can’t do anything else, or go forward any other way. To assert simply that we have no other options sounds to me suspiciously like despair and is moreover simply not accurate. The reality is, there are other ways. We could choose to remain in the Episcopal Church and do nothing. We could choose to leave altogether and affiliate with some other denomination or none. There are other ways forward, but these are ways we are simply not choosing to go. We are choosing to go the way of realignment.

Our choice may be a good choice or a bad choice; it may prove to be the right choice or the wrong choice; but it is a choice. In making this choice and in attending to the consequences, it is important that we maintain a certain humility. We are acting because we believe obedience to God””as best our limited capacity can understand
it””demands this response.

That obedience to God demands response, however, does not in itself make us right in offering the response. We remain fallible people living in a fallen world. And even were it not for those two limiting factors we are also constrained in our ability to anticipate and evaluate the future before it happens.

In prayer leading up to Convention, the Scripture that kept running through my mind was the part of I Peter 3:21 which says: “”Baptism . . .now saves you also–not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God.” My heart cry to the Father has been for a clear conscience toward him. I’m not sensible of having a troubledconscience; just that the sense of clear conscience that I have would be truly that and not deceived. As Paul wrote, “my conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” (I Cor.4:4)

Our choice to realign may be a good choice, or it may be a bad choice. In the longer run God may vindicate our choice and it may be established that our theology and ethics were well-grounded in him””or not. We cannot be concerned about any of those things. We choose realignment not because we are right in doing so (even if we are) but because we have come to believe God requires us to make this choice. Others, evidently equally believing they are called by God, are choosing differently. Some,
at least, of us will be proven wrong on the merits. Clear conscience or not, right or wrong as we may be, our “right” does not ultimately depend on how well or poorly we’ve done at discerning and responding to God’s leading in regard to alignment””but on the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ at the Cross. Our “right”-ness is not “realignment and Jesus” or “not-realigning and Jesus”””but simply him, and him alone.

–The Rev Dr Dennett Buettner is a priest in the diocese of Pittsburgh

Old ladies sitting in otherwise empty churches. That’s the picture most of my American friends have of spirituality in Europe. Well, that or a continent being overrun by jihadist Muslims. It’s not an entirely incorrect picture (the empty churches, not the scimitar-wielding immigrants). How is it, then, that a guy like me, Bible Belt-born and -bred, lifetime churchgoer, has found spiritual renewal in this pit of secularism? And am I the only one?

The hard data show that Christianity remains in long-term decline here. A 2004 Gallup poll found that 15% of Europeans attend a weekly worship service of any faith, compared with 44% of Americans. And the spiritual gap between the U.S. and Europe is actually “worse than people think,” says Philip Jenkins, author of “God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis.”

But the light is not yet out. Those remaining believers and the faith communities they form are what Prof. Jenkins calls “white dwarves”–because “they’re smaller than the sun, but they shine brighter.” I’m no astrophysicist, but it seems to me that such intense bodies–when composed of people who believe passionately in a cause–are more likely to expand than to contract.

Read it all.

While an officer in the British army, John Bowker was sent to control a riot over a donkey between religious factions in a northern Nigerian marketplace.

“I did everything by the book,” Bowker said. “You had to blow a trumpet, you had to have an interpreter, you had to say, ‘Go home,’ three times or, ‘I’ll fire.’ ”

It was no use. The crowd could not be calmed and soon pulled the donkey limb from limb. While witnessing the spectacle, Bowker had an epiphany.

“I suddenly realized I wanted to understand why religious people hated each other so much,” he says. His career has included Anglican priesthood and editing The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. He also has written several books, including “Licenced Insanities: Religions and Belief in God in the Contemporary World.”

Read it all.

My brothers and sisters in Christ in the Diocese of Pittsburgh

Someone asked me recently if I was planning to vote at the Convention on November 2. “Not until they allow email ballots,” was my answer. But it occurred to me that I could send an electronic voice vote instead of a paper ballot.

I write to you from a distance but with a closeness of heart as you prepare for the Convention this weekend. I have been an Episcopalian since my conversion and baptism as a university student in 1966. I have been ordained since 1971 and a priest of the Diocese since 1979. I have been a theologian and educator at Trinity School for Ministry for 21 years and now in Uganda since 2000. I have been addressing the crisis in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion for the past 20 years.

I believe Bishop Jack Iker has spoken frankly and prophetically when he states there is no future in The Episcopal Church for those who hold to biblical Christianity in the Anglican tradition. In my courses on the prophets, I always taught that oracles of judgement precede oracles of hope. Such is the situation of Anglicanism today. We have incurred God’s judgement as a tradition and as a church. The responses of biblically-minded Anglicans to this crisis have been various, uncoordinated and often contradictory, which may itself be an outworking of judgement.

About ten years ago, I did some contingency planning for the American Anglican Council by projecting five scenarios for the future. Let me comment on them briefly with benefit of ten years of hindsight.

Scenario 1: Victory in turning the institution back to the biblical and historic faith. Despite strenuous efforts by the AAC and others, the Episcopal Church has set its course for the future, and we are not a part of it. Politically, we lost. There is no credible scenario now by which TEC can be reformed or revived from within.

Scenario 2: A negotiated settlement that would allow our group (call them confessors or dissidents) to live in peace or to separate with a fair distribution of property. The powers that be have ruled out this option, either out of fear that they might open the floodgates to departures or out of conviction that they don’t need to compromise, holding the legal cards in their hand.

Scenario 3: A league of confessing parishes. Parishes have been the main source of strength among confessing Episcopalians. Beginning with the First Promise movement, then with AMiA, and now with other networks aligned with overseas provinces, parishes have become the foundation of a new church. In most cases, joining these networks has cost churches and clergy their property, pensions, and some of their people. At the same time, breaking free has brought new energy for evangelism, church planting and mission.

Scenario 4: A league of confessing dioceses. The Anglican Communion Network emerged out of the AAC to unite bishops and like-minded dioceses against the powers that be. Unfortunately, this league has been whittled down to only a few. Help has come from another quarter: a network of bishops and dioceses has emerged, with connections reaching internationally into the Global South and historically back to the Reformed Episcopal Church and other groups who have been marginalized by the Episcopal Establishment over the years. This is the Common Cause Partnership.

Scenario 5: Piecemeal disintegration. Institutional death ”“ comfortably financed but death nonetheless ”“ is the future of The Episcopal Church. If the typical Anglican worldwide is a 30 year-old person of color, so the typical Episcopalian of the future will be a 70-year-old divorced priest. Those who stay in the institution to make a witness will be swallowed up and swept away like the exiles of Samaria after 722 BC.

None of the above scenarios is pleasant, humanly speaking; even the first (victory) would have been distressing in its way. As Scripture says: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant”¦. But some scenarios ”“ call them ways of obedience ”“ are hopeful; as the writer continues: “later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

I think realignment through the Common Cause Partnership offers the best amalgamation of parish and diocesan scenarios that we can ask for at present. Yes, there is danger of splintering. Yes, there are thorny issues like women’s ordination to be faced. And certainly, there is no way we shall return to “business as usual.” On the other hand, I think this movement has garnered the best leadership in the church, and above all, it has the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ that those who are faithful over a little will be entrusted with more (Matthew 25:21).

Some of my friends and former students have concluded that Anglicanism has lost its saltiness and have departed to other churches. I believe Establishment Anglicanism is dying, both nationally and internationally, but the Anglican tradition, chastened and reformed, has an ongoing witness to make. Certainly, the Anglicans in the Church of Uganda see it that way. So I plan to continue an Anglican come what may.

I serve in Uganda, but I am proud to be a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. I am in awe of my bishop, who has exhibited sacrificial courage, biblical faithfulness, and practical wisdom in leading the Network and Common Cause movements. I cannot in good conscience remain a priest of The Episcopal Church much longer, but it is my hope that I may remain a priest of this diocese for years to come. Your decisions this week may enable that possibility.

May God bless and guide you in your deliberations. We shall be praying with you as you meet.

Cordially in Christ,

Stephen

The Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll
Mukono, Uganda
28 October 2007

This year, I’m spending Thanksgiving in the United States for the first time in five years. But you always want what you can’t have: In 2003, I missed Chicago, and home, and my grandmother’s apple-sage stuffing. This Thanksgiving, I miss Baghdad and that brief moment, now gone forever, when Iraqis and Americans could trade cooking tips on the American Id, when our dangers and our safety were the same.

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So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they’ve been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.

But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens ”“ a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan ”“ the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.

Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in ”“ shoring up Afghanistan’s fledgling post-Taliban democracy ”“ most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.

If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It’s not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.

That said, Thanksgiving isn’t about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home….
Last week, the state of Oklahoma celebrated its centennial, accompanied by rousing performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s eponymous anthem:

“We know we belong to the land

And the land we belong to is grand!”

Which isn’t a bad theme song for the first Thanksgiving, either.

Three hundred and 86 years ago, the Pilgrims thanked God because there was a place for them in this land, and it was indeed grand. The land is grander today, and that, too, is remarkable: France has lurched from Second Empires to Fifth Republics struggling to devise a lasting constitutional settlement for the same smallish chunk of real estate, but the principles that united a baker’s dozen of East Coast colonies were resilient enough to expand across a continent and halfway around the globe to Hawaii.

Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.

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Thanksgiving began as an austere occasion among settlers of a single, uniform faith who were grateful simply for having survived in the New World. The observance was revived later in time of war, a reminder to everyone about the nation’s good fortune even in its worst crises. Today it’s a little harder to summon that public and universal spirit. The country has people of many faiths, opinions and degrees of unbelief. It is the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. For it to give thanks to some greater power for benefits bestowed upon it (and upon none other) seems a bit presumptuous and perhaps excessive, as if the New England Patriots were to point skyward and thank divine providence for their eighth touchdown of a game. The president’s focus on thanking those who serve is a worthwhile common theme. There is another “thank you” on which Americans can unite. “The chances of birth favored the new Americans,” Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the nation nearly two centuries ago. “[T]heir fathers of old brought to the land in which they live that equality both of conditions and of mental endowments from which, as from its natural source, a democratic republic was one day to arise. But that is not all; with a republican social state they bequeathed to their descendants the habits, ideas, and mores best fitted to make a republic flourish.”

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