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I am reminded of what I was taught by the Rev. Dr. Marion Hatchett: “never break a rubric unintentionally”. I think most priest have given communion to an unbaptized person. Hospitality and compassion may require it. But the doctrine of Baptism remains.

A personal example may be helpful. When I was ordained a priest, my father, an ordained Baptist minister, preached at my ordination. When the time came for the ordination, the Episcopal clergy gathered around to lay hands on my head along with the Bishop. My father remained in his seat, because there is no agreement between the Episcopal and Baptist churches on ordination. Just before the Bishop said the words of ordination he stopped, removed his hands from my head, and motioned for my father to come over and lay his hands on my head as well. This was contrary to the teaching of both the Episcopal and Baptist churches. This was poor doctrinal theology, but it was perfect pastoral theology. Bishop Patterson was a good bishop, and my dad was a good Baptist pastor. And yet, the doctrine remains.

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[After the rape]…Church brought no relief. It made everything worse. Church, at least in the wake of tragedy, was the empty predictability of confession recited in unison, hymns sung by rote, sermons about the glorious soul and the sinful body and magical forgiveness. A favorite verse from Romans in her copy of the Good News Bible now sounded like a lie: “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him.”

Only at home, alone with the secret of her rape, could Ms. [Marcia] Shoop find something to grasp for survival. “I felt Jesus so close,” she recalled in a recent interview. “It wasn’t the same Jesus I saw at church. It was this tiny, audible whisper that said, ”˜I know what happened. I understand.’ And it kept me alive, that frayed little thread.”

By now, more than a quarter of a century later, that thread has led Ms. Shoop, 43, to become a Presbyterian minister herself, one who has developed religious teachings aimed at repairing the rift between mind and body, soul and spirit. Born out of a survivor’s struggle, they form her variation on the broader field of “incarnational theology,” which focuses on the living, breathing, physical Jesus.

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Bishops Edward Salmon, Peter Beckwith, Bruce MacPherson, Maurice Benitez, John Howe, Paul Lambert, Bill Love, Dan Martins and James Stanton charged for supporting the Constitution of The Episcopal Church

Two Breaking stories – read them all:

Anglican Ink: Bishops Salmon, Beckwith, and MacPherson charged with misconduct: Charges filed for endorsing brief filed by the ACNA Diocese of Quincy

Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against three bishops of the Episcopal Church under the provisions of Title IV for having endorsed a legal pleading filed in the Quincy lawsuit.

On 28 June 2012, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr., former Bishop of South Carolina and Dean of Nashotah House seminary, the Rt. Rev. Peter H. Beckwith, former Bishop of Springfield, and th Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana received an email from the Rt. Rev. F. Clayton Matthews stating that the charges had been leveled against them.
…
The bishops have not been informed what canon they violated. But they appear to be accused of violating the canons for having filed a brief in opposition to the national church’s motion for summary judgment in the case of the Diocese of Quincy v. the Episcopal Church.

The 16 Dec 2011 Judge Thomas Ortbal of the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in Adams County, Ill., dismissed the claim that as a “matter of law” the Episcopal Church was a hierarchical entity with dioceses being subordinate to the national church. The judge rejected the motion for summary judgment brought by the national church against the breakaway Diocese of Quincy and set the matter for trial. Read more

Anglican Ink: Seven more TEC bishops charged with misconduct: Support for ACNA pleading is grounds for discipline complaint alleges

Seven bishops have been charged with misconduct for having endorsed a friend of the court brief prepared by the Anglican Communion Institute in the Diocese of Fort Worth case.

On 28 June 2012, the Rt Rev Maurice M. Benitez, retired Bishop of Texas, the Rt Rev John W. Howe, retired Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt Rev Paul E. Lambert. Suffragan Bishop of Dallas, the Rt Rev William H. Love, Bishop of Albany, the Rt Rev D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana, the Rt Rev Daniel H. Martins, Bishop of Springfield, and the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas were informed they had been charged with misconduct.
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The bishops have not been notified with violation of the canons they have committed, but Bishop Matthews’ notice refers to the pleading they endorsed in the Diocese of Fort Worth case presently before the Texas Supreme Court.

In an amicus brief filed on 23 April 2012 the seven bishops and three scholars from the ACI ”“ the Rev. Christopher R. Seitz, the Very Rev. Philip W. Turner, and the Very Rev. Ephraim Radner — argued a Tarrant County, Texas trial court misconstrued the church’s constitutions and canons by holding that the Episcopal Church was a hierarchical body with ultimate power vested in the General Convention. Read more

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[THE] REV. MICHAEL] TANNER: What I see coming to us and joining us is a group of people who have been knocked down all their lives and who are just remarkably joyous and remarkably full of faith. They get it that God loves them and that their suffering is just part of life, and God loves them through it, and they love each other through it.

[DEBORAH] POTTER: One out of every ten people will experience a severe and persistent mental illness at some point in life, experts say. For decades society shut those people away in institutions. But now they’re more visible on the streets and in group homes, and faith communities have been challenged to respond.

Holy Comforter responded 15 years ago when a group home opened nearby and the priest at the time invited the residents to church. Today, almost two-thirds of the congregation is made up of people with mental illness””including bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and schizophrenia””who worship together”¦

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A jury convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn of child endangerment Friday, finding that as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia secretary for clergy, he ignored credible warning signs about a priest who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

The verdict, after a three-month trial, marked the first time since the clergy sex-abuse scandal erupted nationally a decade ago that a Catholic Church supervisor had been found criminally liable for child-sex crimes by a priest.

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The Episcopal Church is struggling to redefine its order and mission in the face of rapidly declining membership amid a radically changing civil society. The role of bishops has always been central to our church ”” hence our church’s name ”” but this role is now itself a part of the struggle for the Episcopal Church’s faithful mission. What are bishops for? To what are they accountable? How should they engage in the oversight (episcope) of the Church and what role should they have in her councils and decision-making? General Convention is only one place, if a key one, where these questions arise. Without addressing particular issues before Convention that involve our bishops ”” their constitutional responsibilities, doctrinal authority, discipline, and role in the Communion ”” let me suggest, in the form of several theses, some foundational elements that ought to inform our church’s understanding of her bishops.

1. The full description of the episcopal office is given in the Holy Scriptures’ description of Jesus Christ. This is because this full description of Jesus Christ is the figure that the episcopal office represents (1 Pet. 2:25).

2. The office of the bishop is properly understood only within the contours of the whole Scriptures, for it is all the Scriptures that coherently describe Christ Jesus….

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The Christian faith is not simply teachings, wise sayings, a code of morality or a tradition. The Christian faith is a true encounter and relationship with Jesus Christ. Transmitting the faith means to create in every place and time the conditions which lead to this encounter between the person and Jesus Christ. The goal of all evangelization is to create the possibility for this encounter, which is, at one and the same time, intimate, personal, public and communal. Pope Benedict XVI stated: “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. […] Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere ‘command’; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us.” In the Christian faith, the encounter with Christ and the relationship with him takes place “in accordance to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3, 4). The Church is formed precisely through the grace of this relationship.

This encounter with Jesus, through his Spirit, is the Father’s great gift to humanity. We are prepared for this encounter through the action of grace in us. In such an encounter, we feel an attraction which leads to our transformation, causing us to see new dimensions to who we are and making us partakers of divine life (cf. 2 Pt 1:4). After this encounter, everything is different as a result of metanoia, that is, the state of conversion strongly urged by Jesus himself (cf. Mk 1:15). In a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, faith takes the form of a relationship with him and in remembrance of him, especially in the Eucharist and the Word of God, and creates in us the mind of Christ, through the Spirit, a mentality which makes us recognize our brothers and sisters, gathered by the Spirit in his Church, and, in turn, see ourselves as witnesses and heralds of this Gospel. This encounter equips us to do new things and witness to the transformation of our lives in the works of conversion as announced by the prophets

Read it all (official version) or there (plain text and for some easier usage).

Leaving the hospital three months [after an accident]…he soon walked on crutches down the aisle of Greater Mt. Carmel and committed himself to the Lord.

“I immediately started a street ministry because … I was so shocked by my relationship with Christ, I wanted everybody in my neighborhood, all my partners … to know the God that I knew,” Luter said. “So every Saturday at 12 noon I’d be preaching on different streets of the Lower Ninth Ward and sharing Christ. And that’s how, as they say, that’s how it all began.”

The first African American president of the Southern Baptist Convention is amazed at how God has blessed his ministry, opening doors previously closed to those from Luter’s side of town.

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Not long ago, estrangements between family members, for all the anguish they can cause, could mean a fairly clean break. People would cut off contact, never to be heard from again unless they reconciled.

But in a social network world, estrangement is being redefined, with new complications. Relatives can get vivid glimpses of one another’s lives through Facebook updates, Twitter feeds and Instagram pictures of a grandchild or a wedding rehearsal dinner. And those glimpses are often painful reminders of what they have lost.

“I frequently hear, ”˜I heard from somebody else who read it on Facebook that my son just got married,’ or, ”˜My daughter just had a child, and I didn’t even know she was pregnant,’ ” said Joshua Coleman, a psychologist in the Bay Area who wrote a book about estrangement, “When Parents Hurt.”

“There are things that parents assume all their lives they’d be there for, then they hear in a very public third-hand way about it, and it adds a layer of hurt and humiliation,” he said.

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….in the rush to (rightly) condemn [his arguments], conservative responses have often overlooked the fact that Savage was on to something….

Savage’s original point….was not “the Bible is wrong;” his incendiary remarks were meant to build up the over-arching concern of Christian non-response to the gay community. He recounts a hypothetical Christian who claims, “I’m sorry, we can’t do anything about bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, in Timothy, in Romans that being gay is wrong.” Christians have appealed far too quickly to their traditional moral views to avoid offering support to gay people. Here, if nowhere else, Dan Savage has a point.

In my own Roman Catholic Church, the teaching is clear that homosexual acts are immoral, but the presence of homosexual inclinations is not. Most (though not all) Christians of other traditions would agree. But if we make the distinction in theory, its practical application is far too rare. The all-encompassing rhetorical tool of the “lifestyle” is used to reduce the entire identity of gay people to sexual activity, and thus our response to all concerns of gay people becomes an automatic “no.”

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This is from yesterday from yours truly if you have an interest. It was preached at Saint Andrew’s, Mount Pleasant, S.C. and is based on Articles 12-14 of the 39 articles and readings from Ephesians 2:1-10 and Matthew 25:31-46. The link included downloadable options as well as sermon notes and questions.

One day Thomas Jefferson and a group of other men were fording a swollen stream on horseback. A man on the bank of the river waited until several of the men crossed. Then he waved to Jefferson and asked to be taken across, and the President gladly obliged. When the wayfarer reached the other side, one of the men asked, “Tell me, why did you select the President to ask this favor of?” The man replied, “I didn’t know he was the President. All I know is that on some faces is written the answer ”˜No’ and on some the answer ”˜Yes.’ His face was one of the latter.

–Chuck Swindoll, The Grace Awakening (Dallas:Word Publishing, 1990), used by yours truly in this morning’s sermon

Who will guard the guardians? Ten years after the Catholic hierarchy of the United States gathered in Dallas and adopted unprecedented policies to address the scourge of child sexual abuse by clergy, the question of accountability at the top remains unanswered….

The best answer the bishops had…in Dallas was a behind-the-scenes “fraternal correction” policy, by which a bishop would quietly pass along any concerns about another bishop to that bishop. Church tradition was invoked to preclude any external oversight by laypeople or other prelates. As always, each bishop would answer only to the pope, who alone had the authority to remove the head of a diocese.

Now, as the bishops gather next week in Atlanta for their annual spring meeting, they will hear an update on the Dallas charter but are unlikely to address this enormous loophole””despite events that make it all the more urgent.

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…the universalization of a Facebook-powered world is also worrisome. For all the good that comes when we take control of our Facebook accounts and use them for proactive outreach and connection, just as much damage occurs when we allow our accounts to control us, pulling us further apart from the people who are very close by.

For me, and most others of my generation, Facebook strengthened my ability to forge countless “weak ties” at the expense of fewer, but stronger, relationships. Posting regular updates coached me to write rapidly for a faceless mass audience and craft my publicly promoted identity as if it were a brand.

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Jesus ate local.

He walked everywhere. He loved grilled fish dinners with friends. And even if drive-thrus existed in the first century, he wouldn’t have gulped down a value meal on his way to the office.

That’s the message Tennessee’s obesity fighters want pastors to convey to their flocks, captive audiences with a built-in support system ”” one another. And while the deadly sin of gluttony slipped out of church lingo decades ago, a gentler approach that emphasizes eating as a spiritual issue can work, they say.

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A video camera, audio files and blogging software all helped Diane DiResta handle the recent deaths of loved ones.

When her 91-year-old aunt passed away in 2010, DiResta videotaped the eulogies to create a record of the moving words spoken. She wasn’t ready to talk about her aunt at the service, so she used AudioAcrobat to record her thoughts, then e-mailed that audio file to close family.

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More than 50 people, many from other Episcopal churches, came to St. George’s Episcopal Church in Parkland on Sunday for a prayer vigil that focused on the nearby shootings last Thursday.

Bishop Terry White, who heads the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky, helped lead the service, calling on those present to “redouble our efforts to be peacemakers.”

The church supports St. George’s Community Center, which tutors young people and helps them explore their passions to find career paths and research higher-education options.

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In an unprecedented act of defiance, a California branch of the Presbyterian Church (USA) refused a ruling from a church court to rebuke a pastor who wed same-sex couples.

The Napa-based Presbytery of the Redwoods voted 74-18 on Tuesday (May 15) to instead praise the Rev. Janie Spahr, who wed 16 same-sex couples when gay marriage was legal in California in 2008.

Read it all and also note an LA Times article on this matter is there.

Listen to it all; it is based on John 15 verses 9 and following.

Proposing the revised motion the Archbishop of Dublin said he appreciated the willingness of Synod to deal with the topic of Human Sexuality in the Context of Christian Belief. He apologised to those who felt that the original motion was “bounced” on them just days before Synod saying this was simply due to pressure of time and was not intended to cause hurt or insult.

The Archbishop explained that the term ”˜normative’ was used theologically in the motion “to give voice to God’s perfect loving will for, in and through the creation”. “Normative is not used in any such way as to make anyone: abnormal, in the context of human sexuality or of anything else,” he stated.

Explaining the terminology of the resolution the Archbishop said the term sexual intercourse was necessary because: “It is a term which has a legally defined meaning, and it complements and sheds light on the term: chastity which is to be found in the Catechism. That is why it has to be used here, reticent though anyone might be about it”.

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It is entitled “Human Sexuality in the Context of Christian Belief.” Read it all.

Today marks the start of the Dying Matters awareness week, organised by the Dying Matters Coalition to encourage more open discussion about dying, death and bereavement. It’s a collaboration of over 16,000 members including hospices, care homes, charities, health and care professionals, the Church of England and other religious groups, as well as families and individuals who are themselves facing the end of life.

Our message, born from personal and professional experiences, is a clear one: unless we change our reluctance to talk about dying and plan for the future, we are unlikely to be able to die as we would want with dignity, or to support the dying and the bereaved.

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In 2006, The Falls Church and six sister congregations in Northern Virginia voted (overwhelmingly) to pull out of the Episcopal Church because, in our view, it had drifted so far from orthodox Christianity that we could not remain in good conscience.

Reasons for the division have been mainly theological, particularly focused on how we interpret the Bible, and what doctrines of the Christian faith are essential for leaders to maintain. The doctrinal divides have been widening for several decades, and in 2003 when a practicing homosexual was consecrated as Episcopal bishop, many realized that the divisions in the church were unresolvable.

We will stay in the Anglican Communion under the Archbishop of Canterbury, but through a different branch.

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The Rev. Brian O’Rourke, who oversaw family ministries, was dismissed from the post Thursday. In an open letter to the congregation, the Rev. James R. Mathes said he had worked for several months “regarding various problems” between the rector, the Rev. Lane Hensley, and O’Rourke.

“This relationship has deteriorated to the point where it can no longer be sustained,” Mathes wrote. “After considerable effort and prayer, I have come to the conclusion that for this reason, it is time to end Brian’s ministry at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church effective immediately.”

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The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland is offering forgiveness and a funeral service for a homeless man who killed himself after fatally shooting a priest and church secretary last week.

Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton and an academic expert on forgiveness likened the diocese’s attitude to that of an Amish community in Lancaster County, Pa., that forgave the man who fatally shot five school girls there in 2006.

“That is a painful, hard process,” Sutton told The Associated Press after last Thursday’s shooting. “But we learned something a few years ago, made manifest by the Amish community, when a gunman came into that school: Eventually, that community went to the family of that murderer and extended forgiveness.”

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9. Make her laugh. A marriage without humor is like oatmeal without brown sugar: it might still be good for you, but it’s basically congealed mush. If you’ve stopped laughing, you may have started hardening.

10. Repent and forgive. Say “I’m sorry.” Be specific and don’t make excuses. Try to see things her way. If you were only half wrong, own up to your half of the wrong. And when she owns up to her h

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