The executive committee of General Theological Seminary’s board of trustees said April 19 that the school may have to sell some of its property to raise enough money in order to pay its bills after mid-November.

The Rev. Canon Denis O’Pray, chair of the trustees, said in a news release that the committee considered merger or collaboration with other entities, as well as the likelihood of “immediate philanthropy,” before coming to the conclusion that selling property was the “most reasonable source” of money. He did not say what property might be sold.

The executive committee concluded that the school’s “first priority” must be to “develop a source of immediate cash relief so that seminary operations can continue and debt be serviced until a long-term strategic financial plan can be designed and implemented,” O’Pray said.

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Facing what some have termed a financial crisis, the board of trustees of the General Theological Seminary has suspended its search for a new dean and president and is looking for ways to cover the expense of the 2010-2011 school year.

Meanwhile, at the request of the trustees, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will convene a small group of advisors outside of General to address the seminary’s financial concerns. The group is meant to provide “fresh eyes and will serve in an advisory capacity,” according to the Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, canon to the presiding bishop.

A roundtable discussion will take place this spring in an effort to “offer additional possibilities for General’s board of trustees to consider,” Robertson said in a news release due to be posted here.

The members of the group have not yet been chosen and their names will not be released prior to the meeting, he said.

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Read it carefully and read it all also.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Two years ago The Episcopal Church House of Bishops asked a panel of eight theologians, four “conservative” and four “liberal,” to produce a study document addressing the issue of same-sex marriage. The Rev. Dr. Grant LeMarquand, Trinity’s Academic Dean, was one of the theologians on that committee. Their work is now done.

Along with Dr. Willis Jenkins of Yale, Grant went to the Spring 2010 meeting of the House of Bishops to present the work of the panel. Both Willis and Grant gave ten minute presentations summarizing the two positions, for and against same-sex marriage. The bishops then discussed among themselves in table groups following which there was an hour for the bishops to ask questions. Perhaps the most interesting thing which happened during that question period was a short speech by Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, who expressed dissatisfaction with both papers and stated that it was time to move beyond speaking simply of “GLBT” (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered) orientations: “there are so many other letters in the alphabet,” he said; “there are so many other sexualities to be explored.” He did not elaborate as to what those other sexualities and other letters of the alphabet might be.

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(The above is my title, you can see his by going to the link below–KSH)

The Christian churches in the United States are in trouble for all the usual reasons ”” human sinfulness and selfishness, the temptations of life in an affluent society, doctrinal and moral controversies and uncertainties and on and on and on ”” but also and to a surprisingly large degree they are in trouble because they are trying to address the problems of the twenty first century with a business model and a set of tools that date from the middle of the twentieth. The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date.

Without even questioning it, most churchgoers assume that a successful church has its own building and a full-time staff including one or more professionally trained leaders (ordained or not depending on the denomination). Perhaps no more than half of all congregations across the country can afford this at all; most manage only by neglecting maintenance on their buildings or otherwise by cutting corners. And even when they manage to make the payroll and keep the roof in repair, congregations spend most of their energy just keeping the show going from year to year. The life of the community centers around the attempt to maintain a model of congregational life that doesn’t work, can’t work, won’t work no matter how hard they try. People who don’t like futile tasks have a tendency to wander off and do other things and little by little the life and vitality (and the rising generations) drift away.
At the next level up, there is another level of ecclesiastical bureaucrats and officials staffing regional offices. When my dad was a young priest in the Episcopal diocese of North Carolina back in the late 1950s the bishop had a secretary and that was pretty much it for diocesan staff. These days the Episcopal church is in decline, with perhaps a third to a half or more of its parishes unable to meet their basic expenses and with members dying off or drifting away much faster than new people come through the door ”” but no respectable bishop would be caught dead with the pathetic staff with which Bishop Baker ran a healthy and growing diocese in North Carolina back in the 1950s. (Bishop Baker was impressive in another way; he could tie his handkerchief into the shape of a bunny rabbit, put it flat on the palm of his hand, and have it hop off. I was only six when he showed me this trick, but it was clear to me that this man had something special to offer. Since that time I’ve traveled all over the world and met bishops, archbishops, cardinals and even a pope ”” but none of them made quite the impression on me that Bishop Baker and his jumping handkerchief did.)

Bishops today in their sinking, decaying dioceses surround themselves with large staffs who hold frequent meetings and no doubt accomplish many wonderful things, although nobody outside the office ever quite knows what these are. And it isn’t just Anglicans. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, UCC, the whole crowd has pretty much the same story to tell. Staffs grow; procedures flourish and become ever more complex; more and more years of school are required from an increasingly ”˜professional’ church staff: everything gets better and better every year ”” except somehow the churches keep shrinking. Inside, the professionals are pretty busy jumping through hoops and writing memos to each other and grand sweeping statements of support for raising the minimum wage and other noble causes ”” but outside the regional headquarters and away from the hum of the computers and printers, local congregations lose members, watch their buildings fall year by year into greater disrepair, and in the end they close their doors.

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[JUDY] VALENTE: Sexual mores have been changing. But how well are seminaries preparing future pastors and rabbis to address these changes? The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality is a nonprofit group that helps promote sexual health in faith communities. The Institute recently studied 36 seminaries across denominational lines. The study found an “overwhelming need” to better educate and prepare future religious leaders in the area of human sexuality.

Dr. KATE OTT (Associate Director, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing): We see these issues every day and the harm that can be done around sexuality issues ”” either a kid who’s questioning their orientation, a couple whose marriage is failing. I think when those folks are coming to us in faith communities for real information and for real help, we need to make sure we have the training to be able to address that.

{JUDY] VALENTE: Many pastors say issues such as teen sexual activity and marital infidelity are among the most common topics about which congregation members seek guidance. Yet few seminaries offer courses in sexuality, and fewer still require these courses.

Dr. ALICE HUNT (President, Chicago Theological Seminary): It’s a challenge. It’s controversial. It makes people feel uncomfortable. It makes people feel insecure. So it’s just taking time for schools to come on board with addressing these issues.

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If church leaders had the chance to fashion a seminary from scratch, what would it look like? Would it have its own campus? Would it be tied to a denomination or be fully ecumenical? Would the classical academic subjects be taught and, if so, how would that learning be correlated with the work of forming spiritual leaders and training them in the practice of ministry? Would greater emphasis be placed on supervised ministry? Might the entire curriculum be based on an apprenticeship model of learning?

While this kind of important reflection is going on in some circles, students and churches must continue to reckon with seminaries as they exist””with their campuses and buildings, faculty and staff, governing boards and supporting constituencies. Yet change is coming to these institutions whether they want it or not, for many face decreasing enrollments and lack the financial resources to continue business as usual. The Association of Theological Schools reports that of the member schools that responded to a survey last April, 53 percent saw their endowments drop from 21 to 30 percent between June 2008 and March 2009; another 15 percent experienced an even deeper drop. Seminaries that were living on the edge financially before the recession were forced to cut faculty and staff, freeze or reduce wages and benefits, defer maintenance and reduce other spending, especially on libraries.

The average ATS member school spends 60 to 70 percent of its budget on institutional support and only 30 to 40 percent on educational programs. “This model is not sustainable,” the ATS report bluntly concludes….

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The talks manage to avoid the sin of navel-gazing: rather than focusing on Anglican peculiarities, the purpose of each is to see and to show how the Anglican tradition opens up onto a world much larger than itself, making them not just a good primer on Anglicanism but on Catholic Christianity as such.

The series begins with N.T. Wright, who with characteristic clarity and depth of learning gives not only an overview of the New Testament but also of how Anglicans have classically read and been formed by the Bible in their common life. Scripture, as reformers such as Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Cranmer held, is to be placed in the hands of the people and read in common, so as to knit together a people through deep immersion in the Scriptural story. This, Bishop Wright holds, is in fact at the heart of Anglican worship and life: the simple, daily, communal reading of the Bible, through which the Spirit forms us as a church and equips us for mission in the world.

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Karri Backer’s path to the priesthood has not been direct or traditional. She was a high-school dropout who disliked and distrusted organized religion. She now has college degrees from UCLA and Antioch University and is working on a third, a master’s in divinity from Claremont School of Theology’s joint program with Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont.

A social worker who found her way back to the church, she enrolled in Claremont after her home church, St. Mark’s, Upland, Calif., encouraged her to become a priest when she was considering the diaconate.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that her internship at Claremont School of Theology is also non-traditional.

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The Anglican Church in Canada is updating how it trains priests so they can minister to everyone from Bay Street stockbrokers to Baffin Island Inuit.

Ottawa Bishop John Chapman, who is leading the initiative, believes a savvier clergy would help bridge the church’s current bitter divisions over issues such as gay priests.

“The genius of the Anglican Church has been its capacity to live in difference,” Chapman said in an interview.

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Gender and sexuality have caused divisions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Same-sex unions are upheld in some churches and not in others; the same is true for gay clergy. While there are more than 3,300 churches that affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender congregants, 57 percent of Protestant clergy hardly ever discuss issues specific to the gay and lesbian community.

But according to “Sexuality and Religion 2020,” a report released this week, they probably should.

The report was published by the Westport, Conn.-based Religious Institute, a national interfaith network of more than 5,000 clergy and religious leaders.

On Tuesday, the report’s authors described a “disconnect between religion and sexuality in America” and called for churches, synagogues and seminaries to work on narrowing the divide between faith and sex in the next decade.

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Through his half-hour speech at the DeSoto Savannah Hilton, [Bishop Scott] Benhase set ministerial goals and addressed the diocese’s financial struggles.

Revenue in 2010 was expected to decline 4 percent, mostly due to a smaller carry-forward from the previous year, according to a financial report posted on the diocese’s Web site.

The budget showed tithing – described as “pledges”- remained about the same.

“Some of the financial challenges we face are due to the larger economic recession in which this country still suffers,” he said.

But some problems preceded the recession, he said.

“It’s been there much longer. We’ve been drawing on past financial reserves to fund current ministry. This must stop.”

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Dr. Rowan Williams began his New York City tour this past week with duties related to his role as Archbishop of Canterbury, but ended it by demonstrating his academic acumen and continued interest in the Orthodox Christian faith. On Saturday, January 30, 2010, the Anglican archbishop delivered the 27th annual Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture”” this year titled “Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia””” and received an honorary doctoral degree from St. Vladimir’s Seminary.

During his visit, Dr. Williams also attended Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Three Hierarchs in the seminary chapel, and had a cordial and frank discussion with St. Vladimir’s theological faculty at a private brunch. After the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Jonah, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), and the Anglican archbishop both publically expressed their desire for a deeper personal friendship and their hope for deeper understanding and cooperation between their respective communions. Additionally, Dr. Williams thanked the seminary community for its “overwhelming warm and generous welcome,” which he stated, surpassed even his first visit to St. Vladimir’s in 1974, and which was all that he “had hoped and prayed for.”

The Anglican archbishop received the invitation to be this year’s Schmemann Lecturer for his pioneering work in Russian Orthodox studies and his long-standing interest in Eastern Christian studies. His doctoral work at Oxford University focused on Vladimir N. Lossky, the famous mid-twentieth-century Orthodox theologian; and his first book, Wound of Knowledge, was a study of spirituality from apostolic times to the sixteenth century.

Read it carefully and read it all, noting especially the section toward the end about some audience members.

The Archbishop of Canterbury concluded a week of meetings in greater New York City by offering theological reflections to an overflow audience at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers.

In delivering the seminary’s annual Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture on Jan. 30, Archbishop Rowan Williams spoke on the topic of “Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia.” The Philokalia is a collection of monastic writings by great saints of the Eastern Church, dating from the 4th to the 14th century, and generally centered on the topics of asceticism, prayer and renewing oneself in God.

The archbishop focused his remarks on the “natural state,” that is, the wholly good state in and for which God created human beings. The Philokalia teaches that our natural state is of living in full communion and mutual love with God the Creator, Archbishop Williams said, but our fallen or “unnatural” state can interfere.

The watchfulness that the Philokalia requires is to “be aware of the moment this basic human consciousness can become diabolical,” the archbishop said.

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On Saturday, though, Williams will receive an honorary doctorate from St. Vladimir’s that will recognize his lesser-known contributions to the study of Orthodox Christian theology. And he will speak not about sexual politics, but about the “Philokalia,” a collection of writings about monastic life that date from the 4th to 15th centuries and are revered by Orthodox Christians.

The 12:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public.

“We chose to honor him because of the contributions he has made toward increasing knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy in the West,” said the Very Rev. John Behr, dean of St. Vladimir’s. “Through his work, he has also asked (the) Eastern Orthodox to continue our own thinking through of our tradition .”

Read it all and you may find a Seminary press release on the event there.

Because many misunderstand the origin of King’s theology in the black church, they also misunderstand his relation to black theology. Many assume that black theology and Martin Luther King, Jr. have completely different theological and political perspectives. Persons who hold this viewpoint often explain the difference by saying that King was concerned primarily with love, non-violence, and the reconciliation between blacks and whites. But black theology, in contrast to King, seldom mentions love or reconciliation between blacks and whites and explicitly rejects non-violence with its endorsement of Malcolm X’s contention that blacks should achieve their freedom “by any means necessary.” Some claim that black theology is a separatist and an extremist interpretation of the Christian faith. But King was an integrationist and a moderate who believed that whites can and should be redeemed.

During a decade of writing and teaching Black Theology, the most frequent question that has been addressed to me, publically and privately, by blacks and especially whites, has been: “How do you reconcile the separatist and violent orientation of black theology with Martin Luther King’s emphasis on integration, love, and non-violence?” I have always found it difficult to respond to this question because those who ask it seem unaware of the interrelations between King, black theology, and the black church.

While it is not my primary intention to compare King and black theology, I do hope that an explication of his theology in the context of the black church will show, for those interested in a comparison, that black theology and King are not nearly as far apart as some persons might be inclined to think.

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Mary Daly, a retired professor at Boston College who was probably the most outré of all the dissident theologians who came to the fore of Catholic intellectual life in the years right after the Second Vatican Council, died on Jan. 3 at age 81. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, which might be called the golden age of Catholic dissidence, theologians who took positions challenging traditional church teachings””ranging from the authority of the pope to bans on birth control, premarital sex, and women’s ordination””dominated Catholic intellectual life in America and Europe. They seemed to represent a tide that would overwhelm the old restrictions and their hidebound adherents.

Now, 45 years after Vatican II concluded in 1965, most of those bright lights of dissident Catholicism””from the theologian Hans Küng of the University of Tübingen to Charles Curran, the priest dismissed from the Catholic University of America’s theology faculty in 1987 for his advocacy of contraception and acceptance of homosexual relationships””seem dimmed with advanced age, if not extinguished. They have left no coherent second generation of dissident Catholic intellectuals to follow them.

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“Packer’s last crusade in this world,” the Rev. Dr. J.I. Packer affirms, is recovering catechesis ”” systematic instruction in the Christian fundamentals ”” to meet the challenges of an increasingly pagan age.

The evangelical theologian said at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas on Jan. 9 that he yearns for the return of catechesis, “Bible-based, Christ-centered, declarative in style,” at a time when “the Christian value system is virtually disappearing from schools.”

“We are drifting back into paganism, that’s the truth,” said Dr. Packer, the second featured speaker in the James M. Stanton Lecture Series.

“Ongoing learning is part of the calling of the Church,” he said. “It has to be taught in all churches at all times.”

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Those of you in parish ministry considering continuing education opportunities for 2010, here is a grand possibility to consider.

Has there ever been a more pressing time to discuss the ethics of business and investment?

The Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, the Very Rev Justin Welby, thinks this is exactly the right time to debate the issue.

Liverpool Cathedral will be the UK northern host of an online worldwide conference on this topic from Wall Street, New York.

It will join with Canterbury Cathedral and St Paul’s Cathedral, London, for the live video webcast streamed from New York.

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Jesus promised that he would build his church (Matthew 16:18) and one of the surest ways we know to be obedient to God is to be faithful to the Holy Scripture. It was Jesus who prayed for the church, saying, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

God seems to be using at least six factors in the continuing process of renewing and reforming United Methodism toward faithfulness to his Word.

1. Most evangelistically-minded churches grow, while others seldom do. Quite simply, too many of our United Methodist congregations don’t know how to reach out. Though most liberal United Methodists are compassionate, kind people, their churches seldom grow. One definite reason is theological. Most evangelical Christians feel a sense of urgency about lost people. They really believe that people who are outside a relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are at risk of spending all eternity in a horrible place where God is totally absent. By way of contrast, many liberal United Methodists are universalists””believing that all persons are going to heaven regardless of what they believe or do. Such a belief makes evangelism irrelevant.

Recently I studied one particular annual conference in the Southeastern Jurisdiction. The ten local churches with the highest worship attendance figures for the previous year were quite diverse in terms of location (some are inner-city, others suburban) and in worship style (traditional, contemporary, and blended). But these ten churches have one thing in common””all of their senior ministers are evangelical/orthodox in theology. That same pattern probably prevails in most other annual conferences.
Jesus said that he came to earth “to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). The Holy Spirit seems to bless those congregations that focus primary attention and resources on seeking, serving, and saving lost people.

2. United Methodist renewal and reform groups are making a positive contribution. The “granddaddy” of UM reform organizations is Good News, launched in 1966 by Charles Keysor’s article in the Christian Advocate. For 28 years, the Rev. James V. Heidinger II led Good News with prophetic courage and winsomeness. Now, the Rev. Rob Renfroe leads this vital agency of renewal and reform. Other organizations like The Confessing Movement, The Institute on Religion and Democracy, The Mission Society, Lifewatch, Transforming Congregations, and others have joined in the struggle.

3. High-quality biblical material has been introduced into the UM educational curriculum….

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…true encouragement comes from honesty before God and self and the strength of purpose to serve in the face of disappointment or uncertainty. Or so it should. I know a young person who sneered at the faith of an Episcopalian ”“ a more conservative person ”“ who chose to leave TEC for another set of ecclesial structures. “You would do such a thing”, this young person said to him: “yours is the generation, after all, who invented no-fault divorce”. In fact, in this case, the complaint was less directed at a purported hypocrite, than at what he perceived to be the witness of an impotent God, unable to garner the sacrificial steadiness of His adherents. But either way, faith is scandalized by those who do not have the strength, nor certainly seek the strength, to stand in the face of upheaval.

I will come back to this at the close of my remarks: honesty need be neither angry, miserable, nor defeatist. It should be the seed for hope, because it is the first and necessary turn to God who alone saves.

What is the difficult thing to speak, honestly? It is this: the Episcopal Church, as it has been known through the past two centuries, is no more, in any substantive sense. TEC is simply no longer the church filled with even the strength of purpose we saw only 10 years ago ”“ yes, even then, a church with a good deal of vital diversity and disagreement; but a seeming sense of restraint over pressing these in ways that overwhelmed witness and mission. And as a result, even then, it was church that was growing in outreach and faith. That church, shimmering still with some of the vibrancy of love spent for the Gospel seen140 years before, even 90 years before, is now gone. And TEC will not survive in any real continuity with this past and its gifts.

This is something we must face. To be sure, I am not speaking here of this or that diocese or bishop or congregation or clergy person within TEC: there are many through whose service the Gospel shines bright and the witness of the Kingdom flourishes. I am speaking of an institution as a whole ”“ not even in terms of its legal corporation, but in terms of its character and Christian substance given flesh in the Spirit’s mission.

Read it all carefully.

I want to stress, please, that people in the comments interact with what Ephraim is arguing for and actually saying. Comments not doing so will be dispacted into the ether. Many thanks–KSH.

When Newton, Mass. artist Paula Rendino needed fresh inspiration last year (2008), she sought her muse in an unlikely place: seminary.

Art school would have been “too boring,” Rendino explained. She yearned to bring fresh depth to her work by pondering spiritual themes. Now she does exactly that alongside dozens of ministers-in-training at Andover Newton Theological School.

“In seminary, you’re looking at philosophy, ethics or poetry and taking the time to really think about something,” Rendino said. “That’s so important because we live in a time where everything is fast, people write in short sentences. (They) don’t take the time to think about things.”

As theological schools cope with intense financial stress, they’re getting a much-needed boost from unconventional students such as Rendino….

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Q How did this all come about?

A I’ve been teaching here at the Episcopal Divinity School for 22 years. I love the vocation of teaching and I’ve been very pleased with the community and colleagues I’ve been blessed with here at EDS. I’m from Massachusetts, my wife’s family is from Massachusetts ”” from Belmont ”” so it wasn’t as if I was looking to go and switch vocations and locations. But as a Christian and someone who is ordained in the Episcopal Church, I felt like I always needed to be open to see what God and the community, known as the church, might be calling me to do and be next. I’m 51. Our third and final child is graduating from high school. My wife’s vocation as a midwife is changing because of the medical insurance realities in Massachusetts. So it was a good time for us as a family and me professionally to imagine taking on some new challenges and some new possibilities. The question of timing, the question of how can I best serve God and God’s church in the wider world were questions before me.

Q When you applied for the job, did you think you had a shot?

A When it was first recommended I look at Connecticut because they were beginning a search process, my response was, “Yeah, that’s nice, but I’m not from Connecticut.” The reason why I said that is because Connecticut itself in 225 years ”¦ has never elected someone from outside the state. I thought, “It’s a great place, it’s a great diocese, but it’s futile to put my name in because they’ll never elect me.” When the job description came out, many of the things they were looking for I felt very much fit my gifts, my capabilities and experiences. And so I went ahead and allowed my name to stand and went through an application process. There was an ongoing winnowing with paper application review, telephone interview, site visit where people from Connecticut came and heard me preach. I’ve been an associate priest at St. James’ in Porter Square for 22 years. In June I was invited to be one of the finalists and ultimately one of the nominees.

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On Saturday afternoon, January 30, 2010, The Most Rev. and Rt. Honorable Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England, will deliver the annual Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. The archbishop will speak on the topic “Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia.”

St Vladimir’s Seminary will also confer upon the archbishop a Doctorate of Divinity honoris causa, in recognition of his contribution to the academic study of Eastern Orthodox theology and spirituality. The Very Rev. Dr. John Behr, dean of St. Vladimir’s, was examined for his own doctoral degree at Oxford University by the archbishop, then a professor of theology there.

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It was my children who told me about Tolkien, and said I should read The Lord of the Rings. I had thought it was a book for boys, and was pleasantly surprised to find wonderful feisty heroines in it. But it’s also very melancholic, and you are led to long for something beyond it: the ending is quite unsatisfying, and you’re left with a great hunger for heaven.

The Franciscans use it a lot with young people in Italy. And I was in America, talking to some poor young men on a Greyhound bus; it meant something to all of them. It made one of them question his work, sent another to walk the Appalachian mountains, and prompted a meeting with a girl on the internet.

It’s a very powerful book. I don’t think the films are very good.

G. K. Chesterton is a wonderful writer. The Everlasting Man con­verted C. S. Lewis. Chesterton’s story of how he came to Christianity himself, Orthodoxy, is brilliant: witty, paradoxical, and it makes you see reality in a totally new way.

The stories that changed my life and faith are the ones which give me a shock of the otherness and reality of the world beyond the self.

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A handful of students in Rochester, New York, may well be prototypical of one way the church will train Episcopalians for ministry in the future. “We’re going to have to have some alternative delivery systems,” said Diocese of Atlanta Bishop Neil Alexander, who heads the House of Bishops Task Force on Theological Education.

Given changing enrollments and challenged finances, alternatives already in place involve distance learning and partnerships among the 11 Episcopal Church-affiliated seminaries and with other theological institutions.

For instance, four people ”“ and a few others “who are dipping their toes into the water” ”“ are enrolled in the new Certificate of Anglican Studies Program at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRDS), said the Rev. Denise Yarborough, program director. They eventually will receive master of divinity degrees from the school, but their certificates in Anglican studies will come from the program run jointly with General Theological Seminary (GTS), the Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary downstate, and the Diocese of Rochester. Funding for the program comes largely from the diocese, which saw the need for continued access to local theological education when Bexley Hall, another Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary, decided in March 2008 to close its satellite campus in Rochester.

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Here is one from the Rev. Thomas Myers :

If the professor of ecclesiastical history at General Theological Seminary feels that the pope’s announcement is more for Britain, it is because the Episcopal Church is being run and overrun by anything but Episcopalians. His query as to whether or not the constitution would newly recognize Anglican orders is as shallow as the new wave theology in the Episcopal Church, and suggests it would include the apostasy that is driving the church apart. Shame on you, professor. The pope has extended his offer to those who desire to retain orthodox worship, theology and practice, and who understand that the unity of Christ’s body is ultimately more important

Read them all.

The Rt. Rev. Jim Curry, who will continue to hold the post of the diocesan bishop suffragan, was expected by many to prevail in Saturday’s election.

“I’m still a little stunned,” said the Rev. Jim Bradley of St. John’s Church on the Waterbury Green, moments after the historic vote. “I really thought that Bishop Curry would win handily … it certainly was a vote for change.”

[Ian] Douglas, reached by telephone in Massachusetts soon after the results of the second ballot were announced at Christ Church Cathedral, said Smith, Curry and other current leaders have brought the diocese “to a place of new energy, new commitment.”

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