The recent decision of the Diocesan Synod of Sydney, in the Anglican Church of Australia, to allow the administration of Holy Communion””i.e., the celebration of the Eucharist””by deacons and eventually laity seems outlandish to many overseas Anglicans. It makes considerably more sense within the context of Australian Anglicanism, which has a very different history than The Episcopal Church (TEC) and its various offshoots (I will get to that later). Australian Anglicanism is exceptionally diverse as a result of that history, and its diversity has led the Anglican Church of Australia to adopt a unique pattern of organization.

Just as some Episcopalians are frustrated when other Anglicans cannot understand TEC’s particular form of synodical governance, so I expect Australians feel when outsiders try to apply their own context to matters Down Under. I write the following as an American outsider, but one who has long been fascinated enough by the local variations on the common Anglican theme to make a study of them.

Read it all.

Sydney Synod has overwhelmingly restated its principled support for lay and diaconal administration of the Lord’s Supper.

More significantly – in what supporters said is ‘a great outcome’ for women deacons – the motion also ‘accepts’ the argument that there is no longer any legal impediment to deacons officiating at Holy Communion given the wording of The Ordination Service for Deacons Canon 1985 and the repeal of the 1662 Act of Uniformity by a recent General Synod Canon.

However the motion itself does nothing to change the legal situation.

“We don’t make law or change law in a motion,” said the Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, in moving the motion “we merely express our view.”

Read it carefully and read it all.

Roman Catholics in North America and Britain are calling for a series of YouTube videos showing a Canadian teenager destroying Communion hosts to be removed from the Internet.

The Quebec teenager named Dominique, who tags himself “fsmdude,” has posted more than 40 videos featuring him desecrating the host, the small circular wafer that Catholics ingest during Eucharist service.

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Communion, the central ritual of most Christian worship services and long a members-only sacrament, is increasingly being opened to any willing participant, including the nonbaptized, the nonbeliever, and the non-Christian.

The change is most dramatic in the Episcopal Church, particularly in liberal dioceses like Massachusetts. The denomination’s rules are clear: “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” Yet, a recent survey by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts found that nearly three-quarters of local parishes are practicing “open Communion,” inviting anyone to partake….

Strikingly, the transformation is taking place with little public controversy, as parish by parish, Episcopal priests are making their own decisions about whom to invite to the Communion rail. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has taken a hands-off approach.

“Episcopal Church leadership recognizes that Episcopalians have varied interpretations from Scripture and early Church practices,” said the diocesan spokeswoman, Maria Plati. “At this time the decision to invite unbaptized persons to Communion is understood and accepted as a local option.”

Read it all.

(ENS) Part of the responsibility of living in community is building relationships. That may mean connecting with someone who has a different set of beliefs or cultural standards. That may mean, as the Gospel reading for August 24 suggested, that the pursuit of truth is not about the end product of defining truth but about the journey together.

“Does one person, like the Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, have a ”˜corner on the truth market?'” asked Anderson in her sermon. “Has one particular group been given the gift of pure truth and the rest of us just can’t hear it?

“I don’t think so. Right now the how of coming to the truth is as important as getting to the truth. Right now, the way in which the Anglican Communion goes about the search for the elusive truth is as important as the truth itself.”

Through relationships characterized by intimacy and vulnerability, “we come to know the truth,” said Anderson. The relationships between bishops that were forged and fostered at the Lambeth Conference are an important beginning to this journey for truth. But laity, priests and deacons all must be a part of building relationships and making connections so that the truth of Christ can be made known to the world.

Anderson challenged each group to live into the baptismal covenant.

Read it all.

Q: Why is baptismal catechesis the key to evangelize modern man?

Arguello: Because baptism opens to us the door of the Church, participation in divine nature. As St. Paul says, “For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

The problem of the man of today is that, because of original sin, he lives everything for himself; he has placed himself at the center of the universe, substituting God as the center of his person, and does not realize that he lives enslaved, condemned to live for himself. This causes profound suffering, because the truth is something else; because God is total love, total giving to the other that he has shown in Christ; man suffers because he doesn’t love like Christ.

In countries where transcendence has been denied for years, where God has been denied, as in the former Communist countries, the rate of suicides is very high, because happiness is to live in the truth, and truth is love. And this original sin can only be erased through baptism.

That is why it is important to call men back to the faith, through preaching, the proclamation of the kerygma, the proclamation of Christ dead and risen. When Peter makes this proclamation on the day of Pentecost, the people are moved and ask him what they should do. Peter replies: “Be baptized and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The first baptismal fonts were pools — the Council talks again of immersion — to which the neophyte descended by steps. This first form of baptism represents perfectly what this sacrament means: death of the old man and resurrection to new life, to man regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who can love and give himself. That is why the crucified Christ is the true image of the free man.

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This leads us to a problem with the liturgy that not only demonstrates how its actions runs counter to Scripture, but also presents a significant issue for the Church of England to address if no disciplinary action is taken on those who carried it out. Having identical vows for both partners of a same-sex marriage, while at the same time drawing on the Ephesians 5 model for those vows, implies that there has been a fundamental misunderstanding in the church’s application of Ephesians 5 up to this point. The BCP service indicates clearly that the sexual distinctiveness of the two partners is critical to understanding the mystery of the sexual union of the spouses – the gay union liturgy implies that it is not.

This leads us to wonder whether the claim that same-sex marriage undermines heterosexual marriage may actually have a great deal of merit. If the Church of England accepts and permits this gay union liturgy (which we have clearly seen is a gay marriage liturgy), then it will implictly condone this dimunition of the sexual model in Ephesians 5. If the gay marriage liturgy is permitted to be used again, or if it is not condemned and those who took part in it disciplined, the Church will by its actions implicitly accept that the analogy Paul uses in Ephesians 5 with explicit roles for the sexes is not in any sense a uniquely God ordained signify of the work of Christ.

Furthermore, to not condemn this liturgy and to discipline those who took part, the Church will undermine the guidelines of the House of Bishops found in Issues in Human Sexuality, Some Issues in Human Sexuality and the Pastoral Guidance on Civil Partnerships, that same-sex activity falls short of the behaviour expected of Christians, let alone clergy, fo the gay marriage liturgy clearly equates the validity of same-sex activity and married sex.

We have seen clearly that the liturgy used in this service is not just one of neutral commitment (as Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark Cathedral has claimed), but rather is a service deliberately intended to mimic the BCP rite of marriage and to replicate the core theology of sexual union and the signification of the union of Christ and the Chuch. that lies at the heart of that historic text. Unless the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury take clear action, not only to denounce the liturgy but also to discipline the clergy who took part in the ceremony (the officiant and the participants), they open themselves up to being responsible for implicitly accepting a major shift in Church of England doctrine. Nothing less than a definitive repudiation of this text and a clear steer that the doctrine of marriage has not changed will do, for the gay union liturgy is clearly not just a “blessing” but is actually a blatant attempt to establish gay marriage as a given within the Anglican doctrinal framework.

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It is at this point that the third and final gnomic utterance from the Gwitchen, to leave is to die, rings in our ears. The male and the female bound together in fidelity is a gift to the Church which bespeaks our bond, one with another, in the Body of Jesus Christ, until we too are parted by death. The conservative who says, “I can bear this corruption no more” and leaves, is deaf to this word. The revisionist who says “we can wait no longer, justice demands this remedy now, whatever the rending,” is deaf to this word. To our fallen minds, in the presence of strife, another child of the fall, bonds are to be loosed. But marriage is a sign of the love of God by which he covenantally binds himself to his people and to his world, and is ready sacrificially to suffer for her.

It is a curious fact of North American Anglicanism that most of our brothers and sisters, of the most divergent points of view, nod their heads in vehement approval when it is suggested that the post-modern and post-Constantinian Church must now be countercultural. It sounds curmudgeonly to some, sixties-ish to others, but it sounds good and bold to us all. Counter-cultural is another way to say we are indeed bound to the culture, to the world around us, for we and they need one another for definition. But we are bound in ways that neither they nor we will find easy. Still we welcome the notion. But as with most vows of fidelity, they work themselves out over the long haul to be something harder, and yet more gracious, than we reckoned. “Peter, do you love me? Yes Lord you know I love you”¦” What if counter-cultural means hanging together in this three-pronged Qwitchen Christian wisdom? All would be counter-cultural, and so all shall have surprises. For the social conservatives, there is making room and welcome for gay Anglicans. For the revisionists, there would be the hard admission of the logic: blessings have promises, so blessings are marriages, and gay marriages are, from the foundations of creation, impossible. With that admission would come what Anglicans fear most, opprobrium in elite and progressive society. And, for the fed-up on both sides, there is the interminable putting up with one another in a very prolonged family argument. What if all that together is a part of what counter-cultural actually looks like? As with marriage itself, that would be the day when the glamour and romance had worn off, and reality sets in. Our fraying, individualist, gratification-oriented, impatient, balkanized society needs to see real marriages of man and woman, and it needs equally to see that real marriage which is the Church in its protracted unity-in-conflict. As is real marriage, of the no-no-fault kind Jesus describes in Mark 10, so is our counter-cultural witness, as a bound and avowed Body, to the costly, covenantal, enduring grace of God in Jesus Christ.

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In an effort to block posthumous rebaptisms by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Catholic dioceses throughout the world have been directed by the Vatican not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons’ Genealogical Society of Utah.

An April 5 letter from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, obtained by Catholic News Service in late April, asks episcopal conferences to direct all bishops to keep the Latter-day Saints from microfilming and digitizing information contained in those registers.

The order came in light of “grave reservations” expressed in a Jan. 29 letter from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the clergy congregation’s letter said.

Read it all.

…at the Islamic Society of Orange County, Imam Muzammil H. Siddiqi told his congregation during Friday prayers that the high court’s decision was a severe disappointment and goes against Islamic teaching.

The ruling “is a violation of God’s law,” Siddiqi, an authority on Islamic law, said in an interview. “I hope all people of faith — Jews, Christians and Muslims — speak up against this.” At Lake Avenue, a large and diverse church that is part of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, Waybright told worshipers that he did not want to be “self- righteous or condemn anyone.” Still, he said, “it’s my responsibility . . . to keep pointing you to God’s way.” The Bible, he noted, makes clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.

A mile or so away at All Saints Episcopal Church, the Rev. Susan Russell led a between-services forum on the religious, legal and political ramifications of the court’s decision.

“The justices have ruled in favor of the sanctity of marriage and against bigotry,” Russell declared, as the audience cheered. “This is good news for all Californians.”

But even though All Saints has been blessing same-sex unions for more than 15 years, the ruling unleashed a wave of uncertainty.

“At this point in the Episcopal Church, our prayer book still defines marriage between a man and a woman,” Russell said in an interview. “There’s some question about whether we can, within the canons of our church, extend the sacrament to same-gender couples.”

Read it all.

Until recently, I thought being a Christian was all about belief. I didn’t know any Christians, but I considered them people who believed in the virgin birth, for example, the way I believed in photosynthesis or germs.

But then, in an experience I still can’t logically explain, I walked into a church and a stranger handed me a chunk of bread. Suddenly, I knew that it was made out of real flour and water and yeast ”” yet I also knew that God, named Jesus, was alive and in my mouth.

That first communion knocked me upside-down. Faith turned out not to be abstract at all, but material and physical. I’d thought Christianity meant angels and trinities and being good. Instead, I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.

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For 46,000 Catholics, it was a Mass like no other, with the altar standing on centerfield at a ballpark and the presiding clergyman arriving in a bulletproof vehicle.

But Pope Benedict XVI’s Mass in the nation’s capital Thursday was also different from a typical service in another way: Lay people were not asked to distribute Communion, which was administered exclusively by 300 priests and deacons.

Organizers of the Mass at Nationals Park were only following the letter of church law. But to some Roman Catholics, the ceremony was symbolic of what they see as Benedict’s desire to erect clear boundaries between clergy and lay people.

“What he wants to do really is to reinforce the old categories and classifications ”” different roles for different people,” said David Gibson, author of books on Benedict and the future of the U.S. church.

Read it all.

As Orthodox we believe that the church is a place for healing. That in fact the church is the hospital for our souls. I think the church should be an open and inclusive community regardless of race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation! Love the sinner and hate the sin! Jesus hung around with some of the most despicable people because they needed him. But the church tells people unless they are this, and have done this, then you just stay in your seat because Jesus is not for you.

I guess I am advocating open communion. I don’t mean that anyone should come up they should at a minimum be baptized in some Christian denomination. After all when I come out of the Holy Place with the chalice in my hands I say approach in the fear of God with faith and with love. If we believe that we gain some grace from the reception of the sacraments then why would we tell people who are struggling with some sin that they cannot come and receive that grace. Jesus never told anyone who came to Him for healing to go away! He died on the cross with His holy arms open wide to welcome ALL of His children not just a select few.

Now I know that some of you that read this will have some strong points in the other direction and you are certainly welcome to that opinion. I also know that this puts me outside of the mainstream of the Orthodox Church. But I feel that we need to STOP using communion as a weapon to separate and we should begin to use it a tool for healing, welcoming, and dare I say pastoring!

Please note, for the purposes of clarity I much prefer the term communion of the unbaptized since the phrase open communion in many parts of the church means something else.
In any event, read it all.

Calvin’s view that Christ’s body is objectively presented rather than objectively present–””as he would say, “truly presented to us” but not “enclosed in the bread” or “chewed with the teeth”””gives his teaching a distinctive place on the spectrum of Eucharistic doctrine. This is distinct not only from the Lutheran and Calvinist views but also from the low Protestant view usually attributed (I do not know how fairly) to Zwingli. In this low Protestant view the supper is merely a memorial, which means that the only link to Christ’s body is our state of mind, our faith. On the contrary, when Calvin insists that Christ’s body is truly presented, offered, and given to us, he is talking not about our state of mind but about the action of God, and perhaps the most important thing to pay attention to is the adverb truly, for what is at stake here is the truth of God’s word. Does God do as he says when he offers us Christ’s body? Calvin’s answer is an emphatic yes.

Read it all.

In all my years as a parish priest, I advocated ”” indeed, insisted ”” that “it is desirable that every minister having the cure of souls shall normally administer the sacrament of Holy Baptism on Sundays at public worship when the most number of people come together” (Canon B21: Of Holy Baptism).

Yet now, in retirement, as I approach our parish church, and see the festive gathering ”” I wonder….

Sunday by Sunday, the faith is being sold cheap, and the opportunity for patient and welcoming pastoral teaching before Baptism (as allowed by Canon B22 (4)) is being lost. Elsewhere, evangelists may be dancing to the tune of Fresh Expressions of Church in all sorts of courageous innovations, but these popular Sunday jamborees are invitations to fresh perjury.

Perjury is a punishable offence, and yet we clergy who put the question “Do you turn to Christ?” could be accused of inciting it. It is no wonder that thoughtful members of our congregations become distressed at what they see; for solemn vows are being made, when it is often quite clear from the body language and the tone of the responses that the parents and godparents are doing no more than follow the script that has been put into their hands.

—The Rev. Ian Robins in this morning’s Church Times

In 1990 I was appointed to a parish where both the church and house needed extensive refurbishment. Late one afternoon the clerk of works came to report that the day’s plumbing work was unfinished; it could be completed only the following morning and they would have to leave the water turned off overnight.

He advised me to fill buckets for my needs. But what were my needs? I realised that I needed water for drinking and for cooking, for washing up and washing myself, for shaving and flushing the lavatory. It taught me very quickly how essential water is for survival. Water is a source of life. Some time later a woman came to see me to plan a funeral. Her brother had fallen into the local canal and drowned. Water is not only a source of life. It can be an instrument of death.

Then some years later still I found myself here at the Beda College in Rome, where older men from the English-speaking world are prepared for priestly ordination. One was Vietnamese. He had escaped from his country by boat and spent nine days on the open sea. Water was carrying him to safety, but it was also a threat: there was doubt about the seaworthiness of the boat, danger from storms and from pirates. For him water was ambivalent. And water’s very ambivalence is one reason why we use it for baptising, when we mark a passage from death to new life in Christ.

Read it all.

Much has been said and written in recent months about “open communion” for all Christians, and even for unbaptized persons. Of course, those who advocate this idea of hospitality do so in all good conscience. However, such actions are really spiritually dangerous, and not permitted in the Episcopal Church.

First, as to unbaptized persons, Canon I. 17. 7 states, “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” This simply continues the declared teaching of the Church Catholic at least since the second century, as set forth in the Didache: “Do not let anyone eat or drink of your eucharist except those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord.”

The basis for this principle is found in Chapter 11 of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body” (vs. 27-29).

Reference to St. Paul’s admonition is found in the Exhortation in the Book of Common Prayer:

But if we are to share rightly in the celebration of those holy Mysteries, and be nourished by that spiritual Food, we must remember the dignity of that holy Sacrament. I therefore call upon you to consider how Saint Paul exhorts all persons to prepare themselves carefully before eating of that Bread and drinking of that Cup.

For, as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body.

Finally, the 1979 General Convention adopted specific guidelines for non-Anglicans receiving communion in the Episcopal Church (Resolution No. A43). That resolution gives five conditions for the reception of Communion by non-Anglicans:

”¢ They shall have been baptized ”¦ and shall have previously been admitted to the Holy Communion within the Church to which they belong.
”¢ They shall examine their lives, repent of their sins, and be in love and charity with all people ”¦
”¢ They shall approach the Holy Communion as an expression of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ ”¦
”¢ They shall find in this communion the means to strengthen their life within the Christian family ”¦
”¢ Their own consciences must always be respected as must the right of their own church membership to determine the sacramental discipline of those who ”¦ make that their spiritual home.

Further, the resolution commended the Commentary on Eucharistic Sharing by the Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations as the pastoral context for the interpretation of these standards.

That commentary warns against any idea of “open communion”: “If local circumstances present a pastoral need for a public invitation, it should not in any way be coercive, nor should it be in terms of an ”˜open communion’ applied indiscriminately to anyone desiring to receive communion.”

In the words of an editorial [TLC, Sept. 19], “To welcome nonbelievers and those who are not baptized to receive communion is not an act of hospitality but of disrespect both for them and for the Blessed Sacrament itself.” It is also a repudiation of scripture, ancient tradition, canons and General Convention action.

”“The Rt. Rev. William C. Wantland is the Bishop of Eau Claire, retired. He lives in Seminole, Okla. The preceding Reader’s Viewpoint originally appeared on page of the December 26, 2004 issue of THE LIVING CHURCH magazine, an independent weekly serving Episcopalians. The Reader’s Viewpoint article does not necessarily represent the editorial opinion of THE LIVING CHURCH or its board of directors.

(This originally appeared in an older version of the blog here).

When Jane Andrews Parker was growing up in railroad towns in New Mexico and Arizona in the 1920s, her mother said they’d wait until the family moved to a town with an Episcopal church to baptize her.

But her father’s career with the railroad never took them to such a town.

She grew up and married a man who wasn’t a churchgoer. He died in 1996. Now she lives with her daughter and son-in-law, who also aren’t churchgoers.

Parker awoke Sunday, which would have been her mother’s birthday, still unbaptized at 90.

Shortly before noon, two priests at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church poured water over her head and anointed her with oil, saying she was “marked as Christ’s own forever.”

Receiving the sacrament alongside her were her daughter, Dale Holden, 65; her son-in-law, Richard Holden, 67; her granddaughter, Jennifer Wierks, 38; and two great-grandchildren, Jonathan Wierks, 3, and Jane Wierks, 1.

Read it all.

Years ago I met a Methodist minister who had worked in Africa. He told me that one day some of the villagers where he was working came to him to ask if their children could be baptised. He was taken by surprise. Infant baptism was not a main part of his tradition and had not been something he had yet explained to these new adult Christians. He wondered with a laugh whether Catholics had been snooping. “Who has told you about children being baptised?” he asked them. “No one,” they answered. “But being baptised is such a blessing for us, we want our children to have it too.” Parents instinctively want to share their benefits with their children.

Of course, not everyone sees baptising the young as a benefit. Some would prefer to wait, believing that the choice of religion is something that people should decide for themselves, not have imposed on them when they are young. Others go further and identify it with indoctrination. Children should not be programmed in this way. But is baptism an imposition? Is baptising programming? What is being done when a person is baptised?

Read it all.

The hope that the Covenant would assume a significant place in the general life of the Church has been abundantly fulfilled. The Covenant is now often used in preaching and teaching, and has sent down its roots deeply into the awareness of many in our Church. And it has become very common for the Covenant to be renewed not only at a Baptism and at the Easter Vigil, but also at other major events in the life of the Church, and increasingly at Ordinations so that those who are to be ordained renew their baptismal commitment with the whole assembly before they go on to make their ordination vows. This is theologically significant in that Ordination is thus seen as the fruit of the discernment of particular gifts for the ministry of Word and Sacrament for the People of God rather than as an elevation to a higher status. The ordained person lives out his or her baptismal identity within the larger context of the common baptismal vocation.

Sorry Mr. Toon, but I have seen nothing but good fruit springing from recovery of a baptismal ecclesiology. At the same time, we cannot be naive nor unrealistic in our expectations. No liturgical text can of itself renew the life of the Church. And so I come to my final point: it is an absolute imperative that much more energy be devoted on the part of all of us to the ministry of Christian formation. Now as I am nearing the time for retirement, I often find myself saying to my students, “Teach? in season and out of season, teach. Our people are hungry to deepen their understanding of the faith. I have had this confirmed for me time and time again. Whether it be the catechumenate, or adult education during the coffee hour, or an open forum where questions can be asked and engaged respectfully: all such occasions should be seen as opportunities to nourish God’s people, to strengthen faith. It is imperative for the Church to claim such opportunities at every level of our corporate life.

I am convinced that much of the conflict in our Communion today has resulted from not making basic education and continuing education a higher priority for laity and clergy alike: education in Scripture, education in basic theology, the exploring of moral issues, mining the riches of our extraordinary liturgical tradition. Throughout my ministry as a teacher of liturgy in seminaries, now for over four decades, I have regularly been involved in lay education in parishes. And this has not meant asking people to read big, fat books. My goal has always been to enable people to reflect on the meaning of their faith and to connect faith in Jesus Christ with the realities of their daily lives. The fruit of this has been to enter more deeply into the symbols of our redemption which form the central meaning of the sacramental life.

Read it all.

Donatism was not a difference over morality””no one in Christian antiquity, Catholic or Donatist, thought that cooperating with persecuting authorities was without moral significance””but an error about validity, an error that dissenters within and without the Episcopal Church have not made. No one has argued that the episcopal orders of the consecrators of Gene Robinson were subsequently rendered null and void by Gene Robinson’s sexual habits, but that these bishops have, by their doctrine, broken communion with the rest of us. We, on the other hand, are not simply asserting that homosex is wrong””we are insisting that the claim that homosex is morally neutral is itself a falsehood, an untruth, and we will not have communion with a lie. We are not breaking fellowship with sinners (we’d all be in a lot of trouble if we did), nor are we declaring anyone’s sacraments invalid. Rather, we are refusing communion with heretics, something which St Augustine, even in his most rabid anti-donatist diatribes, never confused, never lost sight of, and would never have condemned.

If this comment by the Bishop of Arkansas is connected with the the controversy ripping apart the Anglican Communion””and I find it hard to believe that it is not””then it is of a piece with other recent utterances by North American Anglican Officialdom. The Presiding “Bishop” of the Episcopal Church is fond of citing “ancient principles,” , while Fred Hiltz, the Primate of Canada, refers to “ancient canons” and Michael Ingham, the Bishop of New Westminster, pleads “ancient traditions.”

Read it all and say it again after me, it is NOT about sacramental efficacy, it is about eucharistic fellowship and discpline.

Evangelical conflict on the topic was obvious in reader response to the Instone Brewer essay. Initially the mail was heavily negative. The most stinging broadside was a column by John Piper, a respected theological conservative, that called the essay not just weak but “tragic.” The magazine’s editor in chief, David Neff, felt the need to explain online that “Instone-Brewer’s article did not… give people carte blanche on divorce.” The mail eventually leveled off at 60% negative to 40% positive.

Still, the controversy suggests that even the country’s most rule-bound Christians will search for a fresh understanding of scripture when it seems unjust to them. The implications? Flexibility on divorce may mean that evangelicals could also rethink their position on such things as gay marriage, as a generation of Christians far more accepting of homosexuality begins to move into power. (The ever-active Barna folks have found that 57% of “born-again” Christians age 16-29 criticize their own church for being “anti-homosexual.”) It could also give heart to a certain twice-divorced former New York mayor who is running for President and seeking the conservative vote. But that may be pushing things a bit.

Read it all.

Take a look.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statement on communion, “grave matters” that should cause a person to refrain from communion include missing Mass on Sundays “without serious reason” and dishonoring one’s parents “by neglecting them in their need and infirmity.” Add being pro-choice, using birth control and engaging in premarital sex, says Father Robert Bussen of St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, and “if you really take the checklist seriously, nobody could receive communion.”

The canons of the Episcopal Church say that all “baptized Christians” are invited to communion. But more and more Episcopal churches aren’t following those rules, says the Rev. Canon Mary June Nestler, spokeswoman for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. “Instead, they’re extending the invitation of communion to any person who feels led to receive it.”

That said, the Episcopal Church does recommend denying communion in some cases ”” described in the church’s Prayer Book as people who are “living a notoriously evil life” or “are a scandal to the other members of the congregation.”

In her 28 years of ordination, she says, she has never had to deny communion and has only witnessed two denials ”” a person involved in a serious financial misconduct of parish funds and the case of a triangle of adulterers. Even then, says the Rev. Nestler, the priest did not refuse communion on the spot. Instead, as advised in the Prayer Book, the priest spoke privately to them, advising them not to come to the communion table until they had given “clear proof of repentance and amendment of life.”

But faced with an uncertain situation, says the Rev. Nestler, “I would say it’s best to err on the side of generosity, because Christ’s table is a generous table. Second-guessing at the communion rail is always a difficult call.”

Read it all.

“Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptised in the Lord’s Name. For concerning this also did the Lord say, ‘Give not that which is holy to the dogs.'”

–Didache ix.5, trans. Kirsopp Lake.

“This food we call Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake, except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour being incarnate by God’s word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus. For the apostles in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, thus handed down what was commanded them: that Jesus, taking bread and having given thanks, said, ‘Do this for my memorial, this is my body’; and likewise taking the cup and giving thanks he said, ‘This is my blood’; and gave it to them alone.'”

–Justin Martyr, First apology 66, trans. Edward Rochie Hardy.

The following is an excerpt of the lead article in the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s September 2007 newspaper, entitled “Dar es Salaam, Already One in God.” The intro to the article states “On the 19th of February, 2007, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, released a Communiqué. We, as the Diocese of Northern Michigan, offer our response.” It is not clear who exactly within the diocese drafted this response. Please read it all carefully. It is noteworthy not so much for what it says specifically in response to the Primates’ demands, but its articulation of the theological convictions accepted within the diocese. This is where TEC’s Baptismal Ecclesiology can lead individuals or an entire diocese.

(emphasis added)

We invite all to God’s table. What we expect, in turn, is that those who come to the table likewise recognize the right, by being children of God, of everyone else to be at the table.

BAPTISMAL ECCLESIOLOGY

We proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ that everyone and everything belongs. We are continually being created in the image of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Baptism confirms this most basic truth which is at once, the Good News: all is of God, without condition and without restriction.

We seek and serve Christ in all persons because all persons are the living Christ. Each and every human being, as a human being, is knit together in God’s Spirit, and thus an anointed one ”“ Christ. Jesus of Nazareth reveals this as the basic truth of the human condition:

God is more in me
than if the whole sea
could in a little sponge
wholly contained be.
~Angelus Silesius

We strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being, because each person embodies the living God. Life is inherently and thoroughly sacramental, which is why we love one another without condition.

We stand with Meister Eckhart who, when he gazed deep within himself, as well as all about him, saw that “the entire created order is sacred” as it is grounded
in God. We do harmful and evil things to ourselves and one another, not because we are bad, but because we are blind to the beauty of creation and ourselves. In other words, we are ignorant of who we truly are: “there is no Greek or Hebrew; no Jew or Gentile; no barbarian or Scythian; no slave or citizen. There is only Christ, who is all in all.” (Colossians 3:11).

Everyone is the sacred word of God, in whom Christ lives. This baptismal vision of a thoroughly blessed creation leads us to understand the reason for the incarnation in a new way:

People think God has only become a human being there ”“ in his historical incarnation ”“ but that is not so; for God is here ”“ in this very place ”“ just as much incarnate as in a human being long ago. And this is why he has become a human being: that he might give birth to you as his only begotten Son, and as no less. ~Meister Eckhart

AFFIRMATIONS

Because each and every one of us is an only begotten child of God; because we, as the church, are invited by God to see all of creation as having life only insofar as it is in God; because everything, without exception, is the living presence, or incarnation, of God; as the Diocese of Northern Michigan,

We affirm Christ present in every human being and reject any attempt to restructure The Episcopal Church’s polity in a manner contrary to the principles of the baptismal covenant;

We affirm the full dignity and autonomy and interdependence of every Church in the Anglican Communion and reject any attempt of the Primates to assume an authority they do not have nor have ever possessed;

We affirm the sacramental gift of all persons, their Christ-ness, especially those who are gay and lesbian, and reject any moratorium on the blessing of samesex unions and consents of gay bishops, as it would compromise their basic dignity.

The full article is here (pp. 1-2)

There is much talk at present in the Anglican communion of a new covenant to bind us together. This is seen as a solution to our problems, to our disagreements about homosexuality. Some argue that we just need to agree to certain new “essentials”. But many of us hesitate to embrace such a covenant because we already have a covenant: our baptismal covenant. That is how we are joined together and it is based on the long-established “essentials”: the historic creeds. From the very earliest days of Christianity, baptism marked that moment when men and women assented to the Christian essentials – one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and came into relationship with those who shared this belief in the creator God, the risen Christ and the Spirit who sustains us daily. Baptism is therefore the foundation of our identity as Christians. With Paul’s words to the Galatians in our memories, we hesitate to assent to a covenant in which there will be a new distinction between lay and ordained by handing over decision-making power to the Anglican primates. Having made our assent to the historic creeds, we hesitate to create new “essentials” about an issue – homosexuality – that may be purely of this moment.

Let me suggest another response to the Anglican crisis. All we really have to do in the midst of this crazy church dispute is be awake to our relationship with a loving God.

Read it all.

Read it all in case you had not earlier.

THE Sydney Anglican Church has revived its radical push to let church elders preside over Holy Communion despite strident opposition from Australian Anglicans and the worldwide church and at the risk of antagonising international churches it has courted to stop the consecration of gay bishops.

A committee of church officials has urged the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, to amend the licenses of senior lay people and deacons to enable them to preside over Holy Communion, a right at present restricted to ordained priests and bishops.

The principal of Moore Theological College, John Woodhouse, a leading advocate of lay presidency – an issue of contention in the Australian and the worldwide church – has suggested the diocese could make use of existing church laws.

This would avoid the diocese having to apply for special legal authority of the national church which would likely be voted down by opposing dioceses.

This is poor timing for a bad idea in my view. Read it all.

One of the arguments between Catholics and Protestants at the Reformation and until now centers on just how grace “works” in the sacraments. Is sacramental grace “invincible” in that it is offered in the sacrament whether the recipient seeks the grace or is prepared to receive the grace or not, or does the receptive state of the recipient determine whether grace abounds or not? Nothing is as simple as it sounds, and the Catholic would assert that the recipient of a sacrament should be in a “state of grace” to receive the gift, or there are consequences. Nor am I absolutely sure that a “receptionist” would want to make Jesus and His Presence entirely a matter of the receptive nature of the receiver: too much like works righteousness. I raise this question because our lawyer-bishops seem to propose that the theology of a baptismal “covenant” -but they say they are against covenants – is now divorced from any scriptural or credal teachings, among them that baptism is “for or by the remission of sins.” While “mutual ministry” doctrine is not clearly articulated in this paper, what is assumed is that all Christian ministries have their origin in baptism and that ergo all the baptized are to be included in all ministries to which the church discerns they have a calling. Certainly the unbroken teaching of the Church has been that in baptism all are incorporated into Christ and therefore into His ministry as prophet, priest and king. The source of the charisms of ministry is in the water of baptism rightly administered with the Trinitarian formula. That last caveat should be noted and remains the clear teaching of the Prayer Book and the Catechism.

An Evangelical and I would suggest an earlier Tractarian would object to bishops’ thesis in two particulars. The first is that it lacks a “moral” component. The second is that the bishops say too little rather than too much about their “discovery.” My use of the word “moral” takes us into dangerous grounds, for to most of us the word “moral” immediately suggests sex. That is a commentary on our times rather than theology. For “moral” I might propose the word suitable or apt, not perfect synonyms, but good enough for my purpose. While all the baptized may forensically be suitable or apt candidates for any form of ministry lay or ordained, it is surely obvious, even to the most sentimentally obtuse that all are not really suitable or apt candidates. I do not discount the power of grace to make up for deficiencies in talent or ability, but there would be no point in our present elaborate methods of discernment if all shall win and all take the prize.

A discernment committee is quite right to suggest that Susy’s chronic bad temper makes her a less than suitable candidate to serve as a deacon. A moral judgement is here made. But why should chronically choleric people be excluded?The fact that Frank has dreadful problems with comprehension would perhaps rule out a seminary education, although one remembers the Cure de Ars and wonders. To say to the world that persons living together in a sexual relationship outside the bounds of matrimony is a given based on their baptism asks us to suspend all moral or “suitability” judgments.

Read it all.