An Episcopal diocese in central California voted Saturday [December 8th] to split with the national church over disagreements about the role of gays and lesbians in the church.

Clergy and lay members of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin voted 173-22 at their annual convention to remove all references to the national church from the diocese’s constitution, according to spokeswoman Joan Gladstone.

The Fresno-based congregation is the first full diocese to secede because of a conservative-liberal rift that began decades ago and is now focused on whether the Bible condemns gay relationships.

David Steinmetz, professor of the History of Christianity at Duke University, talks to Andrea Seabrook about the rift.

Listen to it all and please note for the record that it is Bishop Martyn Minns, not Mims.

Via email:

My Dearly Beloved Brothers and Sisters,

Most of this letter was written two weeks ago, but I did not believe it was timely to send it. I think that the Protocol has now been adopted by the Diocesan Board it may be right to do so.

Not a single one of you has asked the question: “Bishop, why are you allowing these rectors who want to ‘disaffiliate’ the space to pursue their objectives? They are clearly in the process of abandoning the communion of this Church. Why are you not moving against them by inhibition and deposition?”

Here is my answer to the unspoken question: I am deeply sympathetic to any who believe that the current leadership of The Episcopal Church has greatly compromised the “doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” And I am extremely reluctant to discipline those who, for conscience sake, are finding they MUST “disaffiliate.”

I believe that many of our clergy and lay leaders have attempted to be completely loyal to our received heritage, and have tried to reform a Church that is in many ways errant. And they have finally concluded that such reformation is not going to be successful. They want to “protect” the members of The Episcopal Church entrusted to them from any further spiritual incursions against them.

I am not convinced we have come to a point of no return. But I understand why they may believe we have done so. I believe it is still possible to be a faithful parish, or a faithful diocese, within The Episcopal Church. And I am still eager to hear what the Archbishop of Canterbury has to say about all of this.

Some of our people have expected and hoped that I would attempt to “lead the Diocese out of The Episcopal Church.” (They are, frankly, deeply disappointed in me!)

I do not believe that is possible, though I recognize that some of our Bishops are attempting to do precisely that. I do not think they will be successful. They can leave, and they can take any number of clergy and laity with them. They can affiliate with some foreign jurisdiction such as the Southern Cone.

But there will be a remnant who will NOT want to leave, and that remnant will constitute the continuing Diocese of Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, Fort Worth, etc.

I expect that millions of dollars will be spent in lawsuits that will ultimately fail as far as those who wish to leave are concerned. And I cannot be part of that.

Nor can I be part of litigation against those who, for conscience sake, believe they must leave The Episcopal Church. These are faithful brothers and sisters who only want to remain true to what we have always been: orthodox Anglican Catholic Christians.

We have spent two months (four meetings, approximately twelve hours) attempting to craft a Protocol (a page and a half) which is finally in place – to deal with those who wish to “disaffiliate.” This Protocol does not spell out the whole process. It merely brings to the threshold of being able to deal with those congregations. I want to state again my gratitude for the prayers of so many, and my particular gratitude for the members of the Board, the Standing Committee, the Special Task Force, and especially our Chancellors. We could not pay them for the time they have invested on our behalf!

The Protocol does not guarantee success. If the leaders of some congregations offer unreasonable proposals, and we cannot possibly accept them, and if I and the Board offer counter proposals that these leaders cannot accept…there is no guarantee whatsoever that somebody may not do something that the other side will find litigious. I believe that nobody wants to go there. But we may not be able to avoid it.

The Church of the New Covenant attempted to transfer title to a separate non-profit 501 (c)(3) corporation, and forced our hand four years ago. We had to file suit, and we did so. Something like that could occur again. I pray it does not.

On one level, I think the honorable thing those who wish to “disaffiliate” would be to simply walk away.

That is what happened at St. John’s, Melbourne, and Shepherd of the Hills, Lecanto. And it appears that is what is about to happen at St. Edward’s, Mount Dora.

But, on another level, I believe that there is a validity to the argument of some who wish to ‘disaffiliate” that it is they who have been faithful, while the national leadership of The Episcopal Church has increasingly abandoned the very heritage we have all sworn to protect.

So, I want to try to work with these brothers and sisters if it is at all possible. (It may not be.) We have received proposals from three of these congregations so far. In all honesty, I do not think any of the three are realistic. But now that the Protocol is in place, we can begin to discuss these proposals.

Each church’s situation is unique, and each will have to be dealt with on its own merits. My life, since October 18, has been totally consumed with all of this, and I can tell you there is not a shred of joy in any of it. (Ernie [Bennett]’s, too.)

I will attempt to keep you apprised of where we are as this process unfolds.

My warmest regards in our Lord,

(And yes, you may post off the list so long as you post the whole thing.)

–(The Right Rev.) John W. Howe is Bishop of Central Florida

My condemnation – as well as those of many other Muslim scholars around the world – has apparently not been heard. In Western countries as well as in Islamic countries, we witness a kind of selective hearing. People are invited to listen only to what apparently comforts their prejudices or suits some ideological agenda.

This polarization is dangerous because it engenders enmity. Our world needs more courageous, but also more consistent, voices. The reason why voices such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s are not heard in Islamic countries is not because she raises irrelevant questions (some of her arguments are indeed very relevant) but because her criticisms appear to be obsessive, excessive and unilateral. It is as if she wants to please the West and, yes, the West is pleased. But the Muslims are deaf to her voice.

The future belongs to those who are able to consistently exercise self-criticism in the name of shared universal values and not because of blindly belonging to the artificial construct of “Western” or “Islamic” civilization, or because of a hidden ideological agenda.

All betrayals of faith and principles must be denounced with the same energy: those of the Muslims when they kill or imprison innocent people, as well as those of democratic Western societies when they illegally invade another country, or use torture or extraordinary renditions. It would be good, indeed, to hear more often these non-selective – and non-selected – voices

Read it all.

Yet none of this should detract from what has been achieved in Iraq so unexpectedly this year. First, the country will now have the time to establish itself. A year ago it seemed as if American forces would have been withdrawn in ignominious fashion either well before the end of the Bush Administration or, at best, days after the next president came to office. This will not now happen. The self-evident success of the surge has obliged the Democrats to start talking about almost anything else and the calls to cut and run have abated. If the US Army remains in Iraq in strength, continuing on its present path, then deals on a constitution and the division of oil revenues between provinces will be realised.

Secondly, the aspiration that Iraq could be some sort of “beacon” in the region is no longer ridiculous. It will never be Sweden with beards, but there has been the development of a vibrant capitalist class and a media of a diversity that is unique in the region. Were Iraq to emerge with a federal political structure, regular local and national elections and an economic dynamism in which the many, not the few, could share, then it would be a model.

Finally, Iraq in 2007 has illustrated that the words “intelligent American policy” are not an oxymoron. The tragedy is that the approach of General David Petraeus could and should have been adopted four years ago in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s enforced departure. One prominent American politician alone has spent that time publicly demanding the extra soldiers which, in 2007, have been Iraq’s salvation. That statesman is John McCain. Is it too much to hope (let alone predict) that he will reap his reward at the polls in 2008?

Read it all.

Here is one:

In his opening paragraph, Daniel Bergner (Dec. 2) describes Booth Gardner walking along the beach, his grandchildren exploring the water’s edge. Gardner says, “I can’t see where anybody benefits by my hanging around.”

I’m sorry he must struggle with Parkinson’s. However, rather than admitting defeat and withdrawing quietly from life, he could transform his disease into a means whereby his grandchildren can explore the depths of their own strength and love for one another.

My aunt lived for decades with the increasing limitations of Parkinson’s. During those years my uncle carried her from room to room, fed her, strained to understand her words. Her journey was difficult, but in the end her greatest gift to her family was a deeper appreciation for the human spirit.

Scott T. Hunsicker

Read them all.

Via email:

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, our one and only Lord and Savior. By an overwhelming majority of nearly 90% (173 to 22), our Annual Convention voted Saturday, December 8th, to uphold the authority of Holy Scripture and thereby preserve our place in the worldwide Anglican Communion and with the See of Canterbury by realigning our Anglican identity through the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of the Americas under the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, Archbishop and Primate.

This historic and momentous decision by our Annual Convention was the culmination of The Episcopal Church’s failure to heed the repeated calls for repentance issued by the Primates of the Anglican Communion and for the cessation of false teaching and sacramental actions explicitly contrary to Scripture.

However, we are no longer operating under the looming shadow of this institutional apostasy because our Annual Convention wisely and prayerfully accepted the gracious invitation for sanctuary from the Southern Cone. Under a plan developed with their House of Bishops and ultimately discussed between Archbishop Venables and a number of other Primates and Bishops we were offered hope by the Southern Cone. I wish to emphasize that Convention’s action is not a schism over secondary issues but a realignment necessitated by false teaching as well as unbiblical sacramental actions that continue to take place in The Episcopal Church. As our new Archbishop so succinctly put it: “Christianity is specific, definable and unchanging. We are not at liberty to deconstruct or rewrite it. If Jesus was the Son of God yesterday then so He is today and will be forever.” After our Annual Convention voted to accept the invitation from the Southern Cone, the first words to the Diocese of San Joaquin from our new Archbishop were these: “Welcome Home. And welcome back into full fellowship in the Anglican Communion. “But whatever things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. But no, rather, I also count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them to be dung, so that I may win Christ and be found in Him; not having my own righteousness, which is of the Law, but through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death; if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect, but I am pressing on, if I may lay hold of that for which I also was taken hold of by Christ Jesus. My brothers (and sisters), I do not count myself to have taken possession, but one thing I do, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 3:7-13]’ Your Father in God. ++ Gregory” The orders of all Diocesan clergy have been recognized by the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone and appropriate certificates have already been issued. A period of discernment for those who request it and agreed to by the bishop has been provided for those clergy who desire more time to consider whether or not to accept the invitation welcomed so heartily by the majority of Convention.

Likewise, all parishes will be given a similar discernment period. No one is being asked to act against his conscience. Surely, if there is one outstanding mark of this recent decision to realign with the Southern Cone it is freedom from oppression and threat. As your Bishop, I would ask you to treat those in the minority with graciousness and love and keep them in your prayers. It is a difficult time for all of us. We have to deal with a turn of events that no one wanted. For the majority who travel with the Diocese, however, nothing will change. The familiar ways in which you worship, your clergy, the Book of Common Prayer, Hymnal, lectionary and place of worship will all remain the same with one notable exception. In the Prayers of the People, “Gregory our Archbishop” is to appear where the Prayer Book offers intercession “For N. our Presiding Bishop”.

Among those things that will remain the same is the solid teaching of the word of God free from worldly compromise, giving priority to your spiritual well being, faith, and salvation along with a future in the Anglican Communion. You may well discover, too, what it is like to witness to your faith without having to apologize for or feel embarrassed by the decisions of a Church over which you had no control. All of this has been assured by the courage of your Annual Convention, which – in turn – could have done nothing without Archbishop Gregory Venables and his Province of the Southern Cone going before us first and by their taking the bold step of faith they did on our behalf. We shall be forever grateful to them and trust that we will prove as much a blessing to them as they have been for us.

While there may be a degree of uncertainty over the future of our material possessions, we are not to despair. We all know there are no guarantees in this life, only the next. Time and again God has provided us with what we have needed to do His work for the advancement of His Kingdom and the building up of His Church. Why would we question whether the One who identifies Himself as “the same yesterday, today, and forever” change now?

Faithfully yours, in our Lord Jesus Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) John-David Schofield is Bishop of San Joaquin

Last week was a horrible one for Hillary Clinton. Her husband had thrown a wrench into her campaign to become president of the United States by declaring that he’d been against the Iraq war from the beginning – a transparent fib that reminded many Democrats of the pathological lying of the 1990s.

Two Clinton campaign staffers were then caught sending out e-mails warning that Barack Obama, her main rival for the Democrat ticket, was a closet Muslim. And one of her campaign co-chairmen raised the issue of Obama’s past drug use – something Obama had dealt with candidly years ago. Clinton was forced to apologise and her aide resigned. Grassroots Democrats were appalled at the descent into nastiness. It suggested desperation in the Clinton camp.

But everything came to a head in last Thursday’s Iowa debate between the Democratic candidates. Obama was asked by the moderator how he could claim to represent change on foreign policy when he had so many former Clinton administration officials advising him. Hillary burst into desperate laughter. “I’d love to hear him answer that,” she cackled. Obama paused, then fired: “Well, Hillary, I’m looking forward to having you advise me as well.” The audience erupted. In one moment, the Alpha Female ceded authority to the Alpha Male.

The Washington media are taken aback by Obama’s surge in the polls. They dismissed him months ago, buying into the notion that a Clinton presidency was inevitable. But they can’t ignore the facts in the key states: in Iowa, Obama is slightly ahead and has the organisational edge. In New Hampshire, Clinton’s double-digit lead has suddenly evaporated. In South Carolina, black voters have begun to switch en masse to Obama. It’s still far from over – and no one should discount Hillary Clinton – but the momentum is suddenly his.

Read it all.

Martin Feldstein says in part:

Because monthly data for December will not be available until next year, we cannot be sure whether the economy has turned down. The measure of personal income for October suggests that the economy may have peaked and begun to decline, but the data for employment and industrial production in November and for sales in October show continued growth.

My judgment is that when we look back at December with the data released in 2008 we will conclude that the economy is not in recession now. There is no doubt, however, that the economy is slowing. There is a substantial risk of a recession in 2008. Whether that occurs will depend on a variety of forces, including monetary policy and a possible fiscal stimulus.

Read it all and the others as well.

The Episcopal Church in the United States has said it is disappointed that a diocese in California has become the first to leave the Church in protest at its support for gay rights. San Joaquin, which is based in Fresno, last night voted overwhelmingly to secede. The row which has split the worldwide Anglican communion began in 2003, when the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop. Roger was joined on the phone by Mark Pinsky; religion writer and correspondent for the Orlando Sentinel.

Things get a bit muddled here, as the pronunciation of the diocese is not correct and Mr. Pinsky speaks of a diocese in Quincy, Massachusetts, whereas he means the one in Quincy, Illinois. In any event, listen to it all.

Paradox is the stock and trade of the kingdom of God. Perhaps when Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, he is inviting us to take up the burden of paradox: an instrument of death that is for us a symbol of life. Obedience to that call is called in the Scriptures “perfect freedom” ”“ yet another paradox.

For us to choose the way of paradox as Anglicans/Episcopalians, in the context of the Archbishop’s definition, would be to choose to see one another as being faithful even though that faithfulness does not look the same. It would be to acknowledge the faithfulness of the Archbishop of Nigeria and the faithfulness of the Bishop of New Hampshire ”“ and the faithfulness of those they represent. Though I disagree with him on almost everything, can I see Archbishop Akinola as standing under the authority of Scripture and seeking to be obedient to his understanding of it? Am I able to acknowledge the authenticity of his sacramental ministry and share the Eucharist with him? Am I able to see that, in the context of Nigeria, his preaching may indeed constitute Good News for the vast majority of his people? And is someone who feels about the Bishop of New Hampshire the way I feel about the Archbishop of Nigeria able to do the same?

There is no question that to walk this way of paradox is hard. My mind cries out, “They can’t both be right! There is only one Truth!” But my heart and spirit are not quite as sure as my mind. As St. Paul pointed out, we see as in a mirror, darkly, so long as we are in this present life. Each of us is possessed of cloudy vision, only able to glimpse the partial ”“ and only in those rarified moments of mystical exaltation to catch a brief glimpse of the whole.

Read it all.

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said most cases involving businesses that game the system involve small to midsize companies. Larger companies, he said, tend to have professional human resources employees who know the laws.

Enforcement has picked up some in recent years as the issue has become a political lightning rod, but Camarota said it still isn’t what it should be. “The system is so lax,” said Camarota, whose organization advocates for increased immigration enforcement. “There are, according to the Department of Homeland Security, a quarter million people working on a Social Security number made up of all zeros.”

When agents do go after immigration violations, investigators and prosecutors often focus on workers, not the businesses, in part because the laws are stacked against them, officials say.

In the last five years, a review of case statistics shows that most of the roughly 950 immigration-related cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Carolina have involved immigrants caught here illegally or caught using false documents, such as green cards and Social Security cards.

McDonald, the assistant U.S. attorney, said it is easier to prosecute a worker caught with fake documents because there is a narrow set of facts. Prosecuting a business is more difficult because the law requires only that a company owner see a worker’s document. There is no requirement to verify whether the document is legitimate.

Experts say that loophole lets employers do as little as possible to verify workers’ documents. It also offers an easy shield against prosecution. A business owner can simply claim not to be a document expert and unable to distinguish what is or isn’t a valid document.

As a result, prosecutors must be creative and pursue other charges, such as conspiracy charges. In an Ohio case last year, federal authorities charged a temporary employment agency in part for lying to its clients and stating that its employees were legally allowed to work.

Read it all.

WHILE CHURCH attendance is going down in much of the UK, the diocese of London is celebrating a bumper five years.

Churchgoing in London has gone up by seven per cent since 2002, according to the latest figures.

The current number of registered church attenders in London now stands at 63,302 across the diocese compared to at 59,063 in 2002.

But these totals are considered to only be a conservative estimate, as the Roll only logs registered and baptized adults regularly attending a parish.

The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, said: “Behind the figures there is great Christian energy and imagination on the part of priests and congregations in the Diocese but at the same time in London, this World in a City, the questions which faith in Jesus Christ address are once again un-ignorable.”

Read it all.

I think dialogue is a good thing. I don’t see how Rowan’s calling for it now will help much given how badly it has failed over the past thirty years. And if those most affected are not allowed to speak, then let’s call it a bloody sham right now and not waste our time.

The former bishop here was definitely on the conservative side of things and his view of human sexuality, from what I heard him say, was definitely right out of the Vatican magisterium. Nonetheless, he spent an evening listening to lesbians and gays speak out of their experience, their pain, their hopes, and their journeys in Christ and in the community of faith. He did not agree with our positions but he remained our chief pastor and he did not shun, denounce, or excommunicate. He practices love and forbearance and provided pastoral care. At the beginning of this month he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He did not take any congregation with him. He resigned and left on his own. Those of us who disagreed with him on just about everything were, and are, fond of him. +Jeffrey Steenson was a “Windsor Bishop,” one who abided by the listening part of Windsor and Lambeth. Most of those denouncing TEC are choosing not to listen, which means they may call themselves Windsor bishops but are not; they may say they are upholding Lambeth, but they are not.

It is clear that I am quite pessimistic about the future of the AC as we know it. It is also clear that I really don’t give a damn any more so long as Gospel is proclaimed, lived, and Christ can draw the world into God’s boundless love and life. I found a home in the AC and wish to continue being a Christian in the Anglican tradition. I would prefer for us all to “get along” but I have to trust God for that to happen. I have no faith in the Primates, quite frankly (with a few personal exceptions) or, after 1998, in Lambeth, or, after the confirmation of this Advent letter, in the ABC. But then, my faith is not in them, nor should be. It is in God the Holy and Lifegiving Trinity.

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.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter outlines his perspective on the crisis affecting the Anglican Communion and his plans and expectations for the Lambeth Conference and the proposed Covenant.

The Archbishop naturally focuses his attention on the Primates, bishops and Instruments of Communion, and the leaders and pressure groups who are exacerbating the crisis.

What the Archbishop is unable to do is articulate the experience and views of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) members of the Anglican Communion. We are a minority but our numbers are not insignificant. If the Communion has 75 million members, at a conservative estimate there are likely to be 3.75 million LGBT people among them.

Attention is further focussed on one faithfully partnered bishop. The experience of 3.75 million LGBT members of the Communion is ignored. Changing Attitude and Integrity between us give voice and visibility to a tiny minority of the minority.

Hostility to LGBT people in the Communion is primarily expressed towards those who live in the “west”. We have benefited from over a century of progress in the development of confidence, visibility, secular political action and Christian integrity among LGBT Anglicans. The majority of the 3.75 million live in nations with penal codes condemning homosexual people to death or long-term imprisonment and a culture of prejudice and aggression towards LGBT people.

Read it all.

There are some topics – politics and religion – that families often find uncomfortable to discuss.

Matters of faith also can split a church and its denomination.

Just ask members of the 47 parishes in 14 counties that make up the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.

They voted overwhelmingly on Dec. 8 to disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church USA.

A third touchy topic, sex, prompted the breakup.

The split can be characterized as a contrast between conservative and liberal points of view. Or it can be viewed as a dispute between biblical authority and church tradition and modern interpretations and changing world views.

It’s the first such secession in the United States, although dioceses in Pittsburgh, Quincy, Ill., and Fort Worth, Texas, have taken initital steps in the same direction.

Read it all.

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.

The great early 20th century sociologist, Max Weber said there were three pure types of leadership and authority. There were traditional leaders, legal or bureaucratic leaders, and charismatic leaders. I don’t think there’s much doubt that the most charismatic religious leader on the world stage today is the Ugandan-born Anglican Archbishop of York, John Sentamu who we interviewed on The Religion Report earlier this year. You may have seen him on the News earlier this week cutting up his clerical dog-collar in protest against the oppressive regime of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

John Sentamu surprised his host and audience during the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, when he pulled out a pair of scissors and cut up his dog-collar, vowing not to wear it again until Mugabe is ousted.

John Sentamu: This is what I wear to identify myself that I’m a clergyman. Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity and literally, if you don’t mind, cut it to pieces; this is what he’s actually done, and in the end there’s nothing. So as far as I’m concerned, from now on, I’m not going to wear the dog collar until Mugabe’s gone.

Andrew Marr: My goodness. Archbishop, that is a dramatic gesture and everybody will observe it. Are you going to carry on talking to the Prime Minister here, are you going to go and talk to the South Africans and continue to make these points?

John Sentamu: I have been writing and I’ve been talking, and in the long run, we need a world voice, and I hope that what Gordon Brown has done by not going, pressure now will be put on Mugabe. See, there was an expectation that humanitarian United Nations group would visit every part. The areas, a friend of mine has just returned from there, and he said it’s just so awful. People don’t know where their next meals will come from. But of course Mugabe and his clique are living wonderfully. I’ve suggested the Prime Minister doesn’t understand why Britain doesn’t have a intra-section Instead of having an embassy; why all the world don’t do the same thing, what they did to Libya at one point. Is it because this happens to be a black person? Because what is going on for me there is this pernicious self-destructing racism. A white man does it, the whole world cries; a black person does it, there is a certain sense, ‘Oh this is colonialism’. I’m sorry, I don’t buy this. Africa and all the world have got to liberate Africa from this man to slavery, and this colonial mentality whenever there’s anything, you blame somebody else instead of yourself.

Read it all.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in a long-awaited message to the global Anglican Communion he heads, said Friday there was no consensus among Anglican leaders on whether the Episcopal Church had met demands that it stop consecrating openly gay bishops and authorizing same-sex blessings.

In an Advent letter released Friday, Williams said just more than half of the fellowship’s top bishops and archbishops had responded positively to recent pledges from the Episcopal Church to roll back its relatively liberal positions on homosexuality and the Bible.

But for the rest of the Anglican leaders surveyed around the world, the promises made by Episcopal bishops were “inadequate,” the archbishop wrote. In a September meeting in New Orleans, the bishops pledged to “exercise restraint” in consecrating openly gay bishops and said they would not authorize official blessings for same-sex couples.

Williams, who is struggling to keep his fractious global fellowship from splintering, said he planned to ask professional mediators to help guide discussions between the Episcopal Church’s leadership and conservative dissidents in the United States and abroad.

“We have no consensus . . . ,” Williams wrote in the letter largely devoted to the crisis affecting the communion. “All of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our communion fractures any further.”

Read it all.

Senator Barack Obama is seeking to capitalize on a moment of opportunity in the weeks before the Iowa caucuses to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s long dominance of the Democratic field, and in doing so, he now faces intensified questions about his vulnerabilities in a general election.

These days, Mr. Obama spends less time acknowledging Mrs. Clinton as he speaks to Iowans. But he finds himself at the center of a fusillade of criticism from his rivals, including an assertion by former President Bill Clinton that to elect Mr. Obama would be to “roll the dice” for America ”” a comment that validates the political threat Mr. Obama poses.

Mr. Obama, in an interview on Friday, addressed the shift in sentiment about his prospects of beating Mrs. Clinton in Iowa and holding her off in New Hampshire and other states that follow. “A month ago, I was an idiot,” he said. “This month, I’m a genius.”

The campaign of Mr. Obama, which slogged uncertainly through a period in the late summer and fall, alarming contributors who feared that he might have missed his moment, is now brimming with confidence as he delivers a closing argument to Iowa voters. His speeches are noticeably crisper, his poise is more consistent and many supporters say they no longer must rely upon a leap of faith to envision him winning the nomination.

With one week remaining before the campaign pauses for Christmas, Mr. Obama is dashing through a 22-city tour from the Mississippi River in the east to the Missouri River in the west, rushing to lock in voters before a holiday interlude. His organization faces its greatest test yet: turning enthusiasm among many grass-roots Democrats into widespread support at the caucuses on Jan. 3 in precincts that will decide the outcome, particularly rural areas where his support still remains uneven after 10 months of campaigning.

Read it all.

“Really, really interesting, that I’ve heard Sen. Obama a dozen times making some fairly derisive comment about Hillary…saying, you know, she had a decades old plan to be president…repeating this total canard that…totally fabricated account from an anti-Hillary book…as if it was something bad that he didn’t have a decades-long president…so on their website they put reports that he had been planning to run for president…and they put this thing when he was in kindergarten that he planned to run for president..but the Obama people got the press on their side…”

Rose asked Clinton whether he was nervous about the state of the campaign.

“Well, no. Let me back up. In January, when on New Years Day, she said she was finally going to try and do this… I said I’ll make you a prediction…allt he press will say you will coast to the nomination….I think you will have a difficult time getting nominated, and if you are nominated, you’ll win the general election handily…..[HRC asked why]…you’ll have to run in Iowa, which is the single most difficult state…but Sen. Edwards has a well-earned, huge cadre of support in Iowa because he’s worked it for seven years…Sen. Obama is next door, that matters.

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Read it all.

Here is one:

Once upon a time, some 60-odd years ago, I was a baseball fan. It was a time when we called baseball players “heroes,” before we really knew the definition of the word. And yet, fielders showed up for every game, pitchers occasionally pitched complete doubleheaders, and all were available to sign autographs free for kids after the game was played.

As television came upon the scene, so did money ”” big time! This changed America’s pastime forever.

No longer did the average players earn 50 or 60 times the wages of ordinary Americans, but were being paid much more ”” almost 1,000 times the pay of an ordinary worker. By that time, my interest in the game started to wane.

It should be no surprise to anyone still interested in baseball today to witness the expected results of the Mitchell report on steroid use. Why did players use these substances? For money ”” to hit the ball farther, to throw a ball harder, to run a little faster or to negotiate a better contract after their improved performance.

I abandoned the game with the baseball strike in 1994, when both sides minimized the impact on fans of the game in pursuit of wealth and greed. I do not regret my decision to leave what was once a wonderful game.

James D. Cook

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When he climbed out of the car at Fort Robinson that morning in June 1972, Mike Huckabee found himself surrounded by 1,200 other high school juniors, each a leader in his Arkansas home town, each primed for an election. Several were carrying posters touting their platforms. Others were handing out cards.

Then as now, Huckabee didn’t have the campaign apparatus of his peers. The 16-year-old arrived at Boys State, a prestigious and civic-minded youth camp run by the American Legion, from the small southwest Arkansas town of Hope with nothing but a suitcase and a gift for oratory.

By week’s end he was its brightest star, elected governor in a landslide. He left Boys State with a network of high-achieving new friends who were eager to hitch their futures to his. And he’d soon have a letter from Gov. Dale Bumpers encouraging him to consider a career in public service.

It was a heady triumph for a teenager who already harbored big ambitions. But it wasn’t enough — not yet — to lure him from his chosen path: preaching the word of God.

Three days after Boys State, Huckabee and two buddies from Hope piled into a car and headed to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, where they joined 80,000 other teenagers at Explo ’72, the first worldwide gathering of evangelical youth. Time magazine dubbed it “the Jesus Woodstock.” There, Huckabee spent six days learning from the Rev. Billy Graham and Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, how to lead others to the Lord.

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The main problem with “His Dark Materials,” however, is not the atheism per se but rather its mindless dogmatism. There is no such thing as an open-minded Christian in the series. Take this quote from “The Amber Spyglass”: “I met an angel. . . . She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.” To be fair, Mr. Pullman himself noted in a 2000 interview that this one-sided portrayal is “an artistic flaw,” but there it is nonetheless.

The polemic against religion starts quietly enough in the first book, which introduces Mr. Pullman’s truly brilliant gift to fantasy literature, the personal daemon. A daemon is not a demon but more like Socrates’ daimon, a sort of guardian spirit that accompanies a person throughout his life. In “His Dark Materials,” a daemon is an outward manifestation of a person’s soul in animal form. Children’s daemons change to match their mood or suit their purposes (say, from a moth to a wildcat), but they settle into a fixed form at puberty. This change is the crux of the entire series; that is, the series is about growing up.

There couldn’t be a more time-honored general theme for children’s books, but Mr. Pullman seemingly found at least part of the impetus for his work in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series. Mr. Pullman’s hatred of those books–he says he doesn’t mind some of Lewis’s other works, especially “The Screwtape Letters”–is no secret. “One girl [in the Narnia books] was sent to hell because she was getting interested in clothes and boys,” he noted in 2002. Actually, Susan was getting interested in “nylons and lipstick,” arguably less important than clothes and boys; nor was she “sent to hell.” Instead she, unlike her three siblings, remained alive on Earth in the last book of the series. While Susan wasn’t “saved,” she certainly wasn’t damned. As Lewis wrote to a child concerned about Susan’s fate, “perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end–in her own way.” Growing up was not the problem.

In “His Dark Materials,” however, the church condemns growing up, particularly sexual awakening. “That’s what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling,” claims a character in “The Amber Spyglass.” In Mr. Pullman’s world, the church by extension condemns the growth, life and freedom of the soul itself. So strongly does this church want to “save” children from autonomy and the resultant possibility of choosing sin, that it literally cuts them away from their daemons, destroying their souls.

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For the last four years, Wendy Samuels has worked in a remote village in Jamaica for Mustard Seed Communities, a Roman Catholic nonprofit group that helps disabled children.

The work is both rewarding and heartbreaking. But some of the most difficult moments came as she managed well-meaning staff members who did not always do their jobs properly.

“If someone is not performing their job, how do you deal with it when there is still so much to be done?” Ms. Samuels said. “I kept wondering, How do you manage persons in a third-world country who work for a charitable organization?”

The quest for an answer led Ms. Samuels to Boston College, a Jesuit institution here, where she is one of seven students in a new graduate program intended to teach management principles to leaders of churches and religious nonprofit agencies.

The program was born out of the idea that the Roman Catholic Church needs employees who can both minister to the faithful and ensure that organizations and churches are managed well.

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Really inspiring stuff.

The Archbishop completely objectifies, makes passive, “the community of believers,” which, for this Anglican, is about as far from Anglicanism as one can get.

The other problem is his final sentence in that paragraph.

Radical change in the way we read cannot be determined by one group or tradition alone.

That is Roman Catholic Theology pure and simple, and it’s is simply hogwash. At the very least it begs the question, what is “radical change.” I defy the Archbishop to prove that the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson is a “radical change” in the reading of Scripture by Anglican standards. He ought to have at least asked the question rather than made the pronouncement.

Here’s the other problematic paragraph:I acknowledge that this limitation on invitations will pose problems for some in its outworking. But I would strongly urge those whose strong commitments create such problems to ask what they are prepared to offer for the sake of the Conference that will have some general credibility in and for the Communion overall.

Earth to Archbishop, the credibility of the “instruments of communion” are already shot, literally, to hell. To be fair to him, this did not begin on his watch, but on his predecessors at the previous Lambeth Conference. The very reason Lambeth 1.10 cannot be “ the only point of reference clearly agreed by the overwhelming majority of the Communion” is that 1.10 had and has no credibility because of the process at which it arrived. I would also defy the Archbishop to give actual evidence outside the Primates Meeting that the statement is actually true. It is not true simply because he “repeatedly” says it is true.

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There were some very tough things said about The Episcopal Church in his letter. And one wonders why we continue to be singled out on the issue of the blessing of same sex unions when it is going on all around the Anglican Communion, and in other Christian communions, ”˜under the radar screen.’ Nonetheless, there was also appreciation for the hard work done by The Episcopal Church, and its bishops, and a recognition that we have probably gone about as far as we can right now in seeking to clarify our position with respect to the Windsor Report and the Primates’ requests from Dar Es Salaam.

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In the Advent Letter there is no call for TEC to repent or even do better, but rather for all of us to accept that they are locked into their iniquity and we have to accept that as it is. They stay at the table, and the orthodox have the burden of trying to figure out how to live with them. Additionally, it is clear that the AMiA, CANA, Kenya and Uganda USA bishops are not only unwelcome or unworthy to sit with Dr. Williams, but he questions their LEGITIMACY. In one quote he says, “And while ”¦ I understand and respect the good faith of those who have felt called to provide additional episcopal oversight in the USA, there can be no doubt that these ordinations have not been encouraged or legitimized by the Communion overall.” It is finally not those few of us that he is really attacking, but our Primates: Akinola, Orombi, Nzimbi, and Kolini. The actions of Primate Venables really upset his sense of order as well, because now Canadian and American bishops and one entire diocese have changed provinces and moved to the Southern Cone.

Dr. Williams announces in his letter that he is seizing yet more power and initiative, principally to punish the orthodox, by several new actions. He is launching “professionally facilitated conversations” between TEC and those they are most in dispute with to see if there is any better level of mutual understanding. What part of the last ten years does he not understand? The TEC revisionists do understand us and fear us. That is why, like pharaoh, they are trying to prevent our multiplying. And we do understand the revisionists, and we are determined not to go to hell with them, no matter what the cost of our resistance. In launching this new action, he also announces that he knows who he will pick to do it. This is not collegial. This is power.

He also intends to convene a small group of Primates, hand picked by himself, to work supposedly with other groups to decide “whether”¦it is possible for provinces or individual bishops at odds with the expressed mind of the Communion {does he mean boundary crossings or adherence to Lambeth 1.10?} to participate fully in representative Communion agencies, including ecumenical bodies.” This means that those Primates who have done the morally right thing could be kicked off of Communion boards and bodies for their “disruptive actions.” Then concerning those of us who are US Anglican bishops answering to overseas Primates, this hand-picked group of primates “will thus also be bound to consider the exact status of bishops ordained by one province for ministry in another.”

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