That’s the headline to an article in the Observer which picks up on one of the more interesting angles to the story re: Pope Benedict’s decision on the Latin Mass:

Pope’s move on Latin mass ‘a blow to Jews’

Sunday July 8, 2007
The Observer

Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism.

In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said that he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass if a ‘stable group of faithful’ request it – though he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council which allowed the mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time.

‘What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,’ Benedict wrote.

However, the older rite’s prayers calling on God to ‘lift the veil from the eyes’ of the Jews and to end ‘the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ’ – used just once a year during the Good Friday service – have sparked outrage.

Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a ‘body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations’.

‘We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted,’ said Abraham Foxman, the group’s national director, in Rome. ‘It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.’

The rest of the article is here.

Here’s the LA Times’ take on Pope Benedict’s authorization of the use of the Latin Tridentine Mass:

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday authorized wider use of the long-marginalized Latin Mass, a move that delighted Roman Catholic traditionalists but worried others who fear the erosion of important church reforms.

Revival of the old service, which had been largely supplanted by the modernizing spirit of the Second Vatican Council, also angered Jewish groups because it contains a passage calling for the conversion of Jews.

In a decree known as a motu propio, essentially a personal decision, the pope urged priests to celebrate a 1962 version of the 16th century Tridentine Mass when their congregations request it.

Until now, priests could use the Latin Mass only with permission from their bishops, which was not always forthcoming.

The much-anticipated decision, nearly two years in the making, is an attempt to win back disaffected conservatives and to unite the church, Vatican officials said. It is also a reflection of Benedict’s personal preference for traditional liturgy and incantations in Latin, a language he extols as beautiful and holy.

“What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,” the pope wrote in the decree.

But his announcement risks alienating some faithful. It could sow rather than mend divisions, undermine other reforms and harm interfaith relations, several church leaders and Catholic experts said.

The Tridentine Mass was largely replaced by newer liturgy approved during the Second Vatican Council, which took place from 1962 to 1965. In the newer rite, local languages replaced Latin, priests faced their congregations instead of turning their backs on them, and some wording deemed offensive to Jews was changed.

Attempting to reassure the doubters, Benedict said Saturday that since both the Tridentine Mass and the more modern liturgy would be available, there should be no concern that the church was turning back the clock.

“This fear is unfounded,” he said in a letter to the world’s bishops that accompanied his decree.

Benedict noted that the older liturgy was never outlawed; rather, he wrote, it fell out of favor in part because some bishops thought its use would challenge the broader Vatican II reforms.

But the reforms were sometimes misinterpreted as “authorizing or even requiring creativity,” he wrote, deforming the liturgy and driving people from the church.

The full article is here.

Terry Mattingly of Get Religion discusses some of the questions and issues raised by this decision, and analyzes the media’s coverage of it here.

That was the question that headlined a recent (July 3) Christianity Today weblog roundup. We’ve since seen the news story in question referred to on several other blogs, so it seemed like it would be good to post on T19. Here’s how Ted Olsen of Christianity Today summarizes the story in his weblog entry:

A messy decision, ripe for the Supreme Court

Bronx Household of Faith wanted to rent space for Sunday morning worship at Public School 15 in New York City. The city refused, saying allowing church services would suggest endorsement of that church. Like many cases of this kind, it’s had a long, messy history in the court system. Monday, it got messier. The three judges on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals each reached very different conclusions.

“Our disparate views of this case leave us without a rationale to which a majority of the court agrees. While two judges who disagree on the merits believe the dispute is ripe for adjudication, the court cannot decide the merits of the case without the vote of the third judge, who disagrees as to ripeness,” the court ruled.

The fractured judgment “could provide the U.S. Supreme Court with its next big establishment clause case,” The New York Sun concluded. “The case likely prompted such division because of the question, more theological than legal, at its center: What is worship?”

In its 2001 case Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the court said a school district couldn’t discriminate against an extracurricular Christian club if it allowed other extracurricular clubs. But “the federal high court appeared to draw a distinction between religiously oriented lessons and outright worship,” the Sun notes, so Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York would allow the Supreme Court to go into more detail on what’s acceptable.

Here’s the opening of the New York Sun article:

Appeals Panel Splits Three Ways on Church-State Suit

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
July 3, 2007

The city’s policy of barring churches from holding Sunday services in public schools could provide the U.S. Supreme Court with its next big “establishment clause” case, given the fractured judgment rendered by a federal appellate court in Manhattan yesterday.

The three judges on the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel who heard a Bronx congregation’s challenge to the policy each issued a separate opinion. One judge of Bronx House hold of Faith v. Board of Education ruled in favor of the church; another decided in favor of the Board of Education’s anti-church policy; a third found the case was not yet ready for review. As a result, the church may continue to use the school building pending further appeal.

The case likely prompted such division because of the question, more theological than legal, at its center: What is worship? The legal significance of the question hangs on a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, in which the court held that schools allowing use of their campus after hours by secular groups could not then exclude religious groups from conducting religious instruction or discussion on school grounds.

The full article is here.

The New York Times on Saturday published a major feature on Hilary Rodham Clinton and her faith:

Long before her beliefs would be tested in the most wrenching of ways as first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton taught an adult Sunday school class on the importance of forgiveness. It is a lesson, she says, that she has harked back to often.

“We all have things that oftentimes we’re upset about, or ashamed of, or feel guilty over, and so many people carry these enormous burdens around,” Mrs. Clinton said in a recent interview. “One of the great gifts of faith is to let it go.”

The themes of wrongs, forgiveness and reconciliation have played out repeatedly in Mrs. Clinton’s life, as she has endured the ordeal of her husband’s infidelity, engaged in countless political battles and shared a deep, mutual distrust with adversaries.

Her Methodist faith, Mrs. Clinton says, has guided her as she sought to repair her marriage, forgiven some critics who once vilified her and struggled in the bare-knuckles world of politics to fulfill the biblical commandment to love thy neighbor.

Mrs. Clinton, the New York senator who is seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has been alluding to her spiritual life with increasing regularity in recent years, language that has dovetailed with efforts by her party to reach out to churchgoers who have been voting overwhelmingly Republican.

Mrs. Clinton’s references to faith, though, have come under attack, both from conservatives who doubt her sincerity (one writer recently lumped her with the type of Christians who “believe in everything but God”) and liberals who object to any injection of religion into politics. And her motivations have been cast as political calculation by detractors, who suggest she is only trying to moderate her liberal image.

“Many people have developed opinions about her,” said John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Senator Clinton has a long history of involvement in religious matters and appears to be a person of deep and sincere faith, but a lot of people don’t perceive her that way.”

Mrs. Clinton and others who have known her as a church youth-group member, a Sunday school teacher or a participant in weekly Senate prayer breakfasts say faith has helped define her, shaping everything from her commitment to public service to the most intimate of decisions.

“It has certainly been a huge part of who I am, and how I have seen the world and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life,” Mrs. Clinton said in the half-hour interview devoted to her religious convictions, which her campaign granted only after months of requests.

Ever the good student, Mrs. Clinton can speak knowledgeably about St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley, the father of Methodism.

On the campaign trail or in other public appearances, she increasingly is speaking more personally about faith, sprinkling in references to inspiring biblical verses ( “faith without works is dead,” from James), Jesus’ injunction to care for the needy and even her daily prayer life, which she credits to being raised in a “praying family.”

Read it all.

Britain is one of the most unfriendly countries for children in the world, the Children’s Commissioner told the Church of England yesterday.

Prof Sir Albert Aynsley Green said Britain did not even give children the same level of legal protection from violence as adults and urged the Church to become their advocates.

Speaking at the opening of the Church’s General Synod in York, expressed concerns about the use of physical restraint in youth prisons after the recent deaths of two inmates.

He criticised proposed changes to the rules that may broaden the grounds on which physical restraint can lawfully be used against children and young people.

Read it all.

The Church of England is to consider possible rules for settling disputes in the Anglican Church, amid divisions over the ordination of gay priests.
Its general synod, meeting in York, is to hear from the Most Reverend Drexel Gomez, chairman of the group designing the possible “covenant” agreement.

Anglican divisions over issues such as the 2003 US ordination of a gay bishop prompted the idea of a set of rules.

The row has brought Anglicans near to schism, says the BBC’s Robert Pigott.

Read it all.

Tomorrow the general synod of the Church of England will be asked to pass a resolution from the House of Bishops that hands a blank cheque to the archbishops in negotiations with the rest of the Anglican communion for a “covenant”.

The Church of England arose from the Elizabethan settlement of 1559, which settled half a century of vicious religious bigotry by virtue of a broad-based generous church with porous edges, shrewd intentional vagueness about doctrinal certainty and governance that included bishops, priests and people (laity). If the synod passes the motion unamended, the nature of the Church of England will change dramatically; first, because the way will be open for bishops to agree a document without recourse to the clergy and the laity. This looks curiously like a form of governance that the English Reformation abolished, a Curia, rule by the bishops. Secondly, the way will be paved for the “covenant” between provinces of the Anglican communion worldwide and, however widely drawn that is, some decision-making power will be ceded overseas, exporting some of its historic inheritance.

Read it all.

From a Virginia paper, the Stafford County Sun:

FAIRFAX – Despite the major split in the Episcopal Church over the ordination of gay ministers, a spokesman for the breakaway Anglican segment insists they must focus, not on the ongoing legal battles, but through continuing Christian service.

According to Jim Oakes, vice-chair of the Anglican District of Virginia, “?our churches will remain as committed to fulfilling the Great Commission through service as they are to holding steadfast to orthodox Anglicanism and honoring the historic teachings of the church.”

The Anglican District of Virginia is planning approximately 30 trips with 100 to 200 Virginian missionaries in 2007. Its focus is aiding people’s practical needs. Each trip will last one to two weeks. One church may sponsor the trip while members from other congregations can join it.

Fairfax and Falls Church missionaries have been making trips to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

“There are tens of thousands still homeless down there and we need to help them,” said Oakes, a member of Truro Church – an Anglican church in Fairfax.

This summer, Truro is again sending its team to work in Anglican Rev. Jerry Kramer’s flooded city. The Anglican Church is also sending teams to Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa to provide help with schooling and provide educational services. Locations are chosen based upon the church’s historical tie with the region.

“We look for relationships and existent structures with which we can work versus just blunder in and about in these places,” Oakes said.

Oakes has personally been on eight African mission trips. He has never felt danger.

“Our hosts are looking out for our welfare and will never let us go into dangerous places,” he said.

In Kenya, the church’s “Five Talents Missionary” will set up small micro-businesses. Africans will be lent $100 in start-up money to buy tools, for instance. The goal of the mission is to teach basic business skills.

The Lakota Sioux in South Dakota are also being helped.

“They are very needy,” said Oakes. “We will provide food, training, coats, encouragement and Bibles. In South Dakota it gets very cold during the winter months.”

In Ohio, mission teams will be building houses, in undisclosed locations, for battered women.

Although the mission trips are moving forward, the church’s ongoing legal battle is still an issue.

The rest is here.

Got your summer reading list planned? If you’re looking for some interesting book suggestions, and/or some opportunities to discuss what you’re reading with others, check out Breakpoint’s summer “Blog a Book” challenge.

Blog-a-Book: Summer reading challenge

Book Perhaps you heard Chuck Colson talking today about BreakPoint’s new summer reading list. Here’s the commentary, in case you didn’t — and here’s the list, compiled of all those book suggestions we tossed around the last few weeks.

And here’s a challenge for those of you who love to read:

Next week a group of us bloggers, along with two guest bloggers from our internship program, are starting “Blog-a-Book.” It’s an idea we got from Slate’s “Blog the Bible” feature, although our vision is just a bit less ambitious. Each of us has selected a book from the new reading list and, for nine weeks (starting July 9), will be reading it and writing about it here on the blog.

We’d like to challenge you to join us. If you’re game, choose a book from the list and blog along with us! You can use the comment section on any of our Blog-a-Book posts to log your thoughts and impressions on what you’re reading.

The full blog entry is here.

======

Personally, this elf would love to see some “book blogging” on T19 this summer, or perhaps Stand Firm? Sarah Hey set an example recently with her marvellous post on Bleak House. And yes, that post got this elf re-reading Bleak House! I’m currently on chapter 36…! 😉

Pondering the Great Commission
Baptism not a goal, but a relationship with God
By Katharine Jefferts Schori, July 06, 2007

[Episcopal Life] I met recently with a group of appointed missionaries of the Episcopal Church. They gathered for 10 days in New York for orientation before leaving to do mission. It was an enormous privilege to meet them and see their energy and enthusiasm (which means “filled with God”) for this adventure.

We had an opportunity for conversation, and one young man shared his concern about how to understand the Great Commission, particularly the directive to baptize, especially in a multifaith environment. It was a wonderful question that engages us all at one level or another.

How do we engage in evangelism, and particularly in the specific directives of Matthew 28:19-20? Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This passage marks the end of Matthew’s Gospel, and its explicitly Trinitarian language should make us aware that it probably reflects the practice of early Christian communities, some time after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet the question remains: How do we respond to this sending of the disciples, in which we understand all Christians participate, into a multifaith world?

If we believe that Jesus’ saving work is for the whole world, that should relieve some of our immediate anxiety. He is pretty clear that he is not here to judge the world, but to love the world and invite all into relationship with Love itself (John 12:32 — And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself — and John 12:47 — I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world). Judgment comes at the end of time, and until then you and I repeatedly are urged not to judge others.

Yet the ancient question remains: Is baptism necessary for salvation? Theologians have wrestled with this in a number of ways and made some remarkably gracious and open-ended responses. Vatican II affirmed that salvation is possible outside the church, even though some statements by Roman Catholic authorities in years since have sought to retreat from that position.

Karl Rahner spoke about “anonymous Christians,” whose identity is known to God alone. John MacQuarrie recognized the presence of the Logos or Word in other traditions.

But the more interesting question has to do with baptism itself. Like all sacraments, we understand baptism as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace (Catechism, BCP, p. 857). It is an outward recognition of grace that is both given and already present through God’s action.

When we look at some of the lives of holy people who follow other religious traditions, what do we see? Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama both exemplify Christ-like lives. Would we assume that there is no grace present in lives like these? A conclusion of that sort seems to verge on the only unforgivable sin, against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:30-32).

If I believe that God is more than I can imagine, conceptualize or understand, then I must be willing to acknowledge that God may act in ways that are beyond my ken, including in people who do not follow the Judeo-Christian tradition. Note that I include our Jewish brothers and sisters, for Scripture is very clear that God made a covenant with Israel. That covenant was not abrogated in Jesus. Scripture also speaks of a covenant with Abraham that extends to his offspring, including Ishmael. Our Muslim brothers and sisters claim him as their ancestor. In some way, God continues to act in the tradition we call Islam.

Well, if God is already at work in other religious traditions, why would we bother to teach, make disciples or baptize? The focus of our evangelical work can never be imposing our own will (despite the wretched examples of forced conversion in the history of Christianity), but there is a real urgency to sharing the good news.

The full article is here.

Ripon, England, (PRWEB) July 5, 2007 — Holy Trinity Church Ripon has launched an online ‘church’ for people who are not already engaged with the Christian faith, and who are looking for answers, but may not feel ready (or be able) to walk into a church building. Its goal is to help people discover if God is of relevance to them today, providing a safe and self-directed way to find straightforward answers to questions about Christianity. Longer-term, the goal is to encourage them to find a local church where they can feel at home.

Very few churches exist purely online, and Church on the Net (www.church-on-the-net.com) is unique because it is evangelistic, rather than designed to serve believers or any pre-existing fellowship. The team behind the project says that as well as agnostics, atheists and seekers, however, the online church may be useful to new Christians afraid of asking ‘silly’ questions, Christians who have slipped away from an active faith, and those who find it difficult to meet together (such as the housebound, carers, and those in remote areas or who face persecution).

“As odd as it may seem to Christians, who have all the advantages of fellowship through belonging to a traditional church, there are huge numbers of people who are accustomed to being part of online communities, whose ‘friends’ they may never meet face-to-face,” says Mark Tanner, vicar of Holy Trinity Ripon. “The idea of doing things online feels safe and attractive to them, so why not introduce church into that lifestyle?”

Church on the Net is divided into three sections:

· a reference section, with 85 articles offering explanations or perspectives on many issues relating to God, church and Christianity, including common and difficult questions

· a weekly article, updated every Sunday, exploring the Christian faith and how it is lived out on a daily basis. The launch address has been provided by the Rt Revd John Packer, Bishop of Ripon & Leeds

· an interactive community area, where visitors can engage with the site and one another through forums and blogs.

The full article is here.

From the Living Church:

Two Dioceses Report Financial Shortfall
07/05/2007

The dioceses of Pittsburgh and Western Kansas have reported financial shortfalls of more than 15 percent recently.

At its June 5 meeting, the Pittsburgh diocesan council approved major budget adjustments due to lower than anticipated assessment income and litigation costs, both caused by renewed activity in the lawsuit initiated by Calvary Church, Pittsburgh. The diocese is now estimating legal expenses of $500,000 for 2007.

After the 75th General Convention when Pittsburgh and six other dioceses requested alternate primatial oversight, Calvary Church returned to court seeking through discovery to obtain copies of all communication between the diocesan leadership, the Anglican Communion Network and the Global South primates.

The original budget for 2007 was $1.7 million. After additions for legal fees and a few reductions, the revised budget for the 2007 is now $2.2 million. The new figure takes into account the escrowing of Calvary’s assessment. To cover the estimated legal fees and the Calvary shortfall, the diocesan governing bodies have decided to draw $220,500 from operating reserve; use $335,000 approved by the board of trustees from funds they control; and use $60,000 given by supporters for the purpose of covering lawsuit costs.

A very early draft 2008 budget would reduce diocesan expenses by the amount of Calvary’s assessment. The diocese plans to live within its means, according to Peter Frank, director of communications for the diocese.

The shortfall in the Diocese of Western Kansas began when its application for a $65,000 DFMS partnership grant was not renewed. Several years ago the criteria for approving partnership grants was changed from block grants which could be used to fund continuing operations to grant proposals for specific ministry projects. The loss of $65,000 out of a $350,000 annual budget was significant, according to the Rev. Canon James Cox, diocesan treasurer.

The rest of the story is here.

From the New York Times:

In Trinity’s case, parishioners say their situation is different, since the church traces its roots to 1747, 38 years before the first general convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Moreover, Trinity’s real estate and other property has “always been held in its own name,” according to a letter sent Monday by the parish’s lawyer, Howard M. Wood III, to Bishop Smith. Mr. Wood also warned that “any interference with the property rights of Trinity Church Society will be met with a claim of trespass.”

Local police are aware of the situation at the church but believe a showdown on Sunday is unlikely. “We had a discussion with the diocese, and it appears that there isn’t going to be any action taken on Sunday,” said Lt. Thomas Grimaldi, a spokesman for the Bristol police. “They’re going to take the legal route.”

John W. Spaeth III, a top administrative aide to Bishop Smith in Hartford, dismissed the notion of a confrontation. “There are canonical ways we will work with to seize the property,” he said. “We’re not people who move quickly. We’re people who are thoughtful and try to negotiate.”

Read it all.

Also from this morning’s (London) Times:

If someone hates us so much that he is prepared to sacrifice his own life in order to commit mass murder, then we want to find a rational explanation in his personality or his background to separate him from the rest of us.

He would ideally have grown up in deprivation, with a dysfunctional family, few friends, minimal education, a poverty of expectation and a world view that can be easily moulded by the Islamist zealots whose nihilistic creed offers a simple, deadly solution to all of life’s problems.

The reality, disturbingly, is very different. A study of 172 al-Qaeda terrorists conducted four years ago by Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and former CIA case officer in Pakistan, found that 90 per cent came from a relatively stable, secure background.

Three quarters were from middle-class or upper-class families, two thirds went to college and two thirds were professionals or semi-professionals, often engineers, physicians, architects or scientists. The average age for making an active commitment to violent jihad was 26, and three quarters of the terrorists were married, most of them with children. Only one in a hundred had shown any form of psychotic disorder. Two thirds became drawn towards a terror group while living in a country that was not their homeland.

Dr Sageman’s findings, published in 2004 in Understanding Terrorist Networks, led him to conclude that “most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile”. He wrote: “Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They spoke three, four, five, six languages.”

Read it all.

From the (London) Times:

With donations to the Church from around the world almost doubling and pilgrims pouring into Rome in ever-greater numbers, Vatican watchers are beginning to reassess the two-year-old pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI and noting a positive “Ratzinger effect”.

Today the Vatican will publish the Pope’s “motu proprio” decree allowing broader use by Roman Catholics of the Latin Tridentine Mass ”” the pontiff’s last act before leaving for his traditional summer holiday.

The move, which amends the Second Vatican Council’s decision in the 1960s that worship should be in the vernacular, is regarded as yet another sign of Benedict’s conservative attachment to tradition and doctrine. Some senior Catholics in Britain have accused him of “encouraging those who want to turn the clock back” and say that they fear the rite will revive preVatican II prayers for the conversion of “the perfidious Jews”.

The Vatican denies this, however, and points instead to the huge appeal of the Latin Mass ”” and Gregorian chant ”” not only for disaffected right-wing Catholics but also for many ordinary believers who value “the sheer beauty” of the ancient liturgy. “This is a Pope who ”” contrary to conventional wisdom ”” is in tune with the faithful,” one Vatican source said.

Read it all.

Kendall was very quick to get out the news of Ruth Gledhill’s interview with Archbishop Peter Akinola, posting the news the evening of July 3rd. When we saw the post the following morning, we added the update indicating that there was more info available on Ruth Gledhill’s blog.

We never, however, mentioned that there were several video portions of Ruth’s interview with Archbishop Akinola available. So, for those who might have missed them, or might not have had time to watch them yet and would appreciate a reminder, here are the links:

The videos
Archbishop Akinola talks about Lambeth 2008 (6 minutes)
Dr Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria (4 minutes, he talks about his call to ministry)
Archbishop Peter Akinola and a threat of ritual sacrifice (2 minutes)

The articles
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2026348.ece
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2007/07/peter-akinola-w.html

[thanks to Scott at Magic Statistics for the nice roundup post which reminded us about the videos]

From Reuters:

LISBON (Reuters) – Peru’s Machu Picchu, Jordan’s Petra and the Acropolis were among the top contenders to be picked as the new seven Wonders of the World with just a few hours to go in a massive poll to pick the winners.

Voting in what may be the biggest ever global online poll closes at midnight on Friday ahead of the announcement of the winners at a ceremony on Saturday in Lisbon. More than 90 million people have voted so far.

Organizers say the contest is a unique exercise in leveling the global cultural playing field by putting hallmarks of European civilization on an equal footing with other cultures such as Mexico’s Mayas.

“We live in a Eurocentric world,” said Tia Vering, spokeswoman for the New 7 Wonders of the World (www.new7wonders.com) organization.

“When have we ever compared symbols of European civilization with, for instance, Mayan civilization?”

Europe’s leading contenders are the Acropolis in Athens, Rome’s Colisseum and the Eiffel Tower. They are competing with Machu Picchu, Mexico’s Chichen Itza ruins, India’s Taj Mahal, Petra in Jordan, Christ Redeemer in Brazil and the statues of Easter Island.

Whole article is here.

What would you vote for and why?

From the International Herald Tribune:

Prophet cartoons protester convicted in London of incitement to murder

LONDON: A speaker at a rally protesting against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was convicted Thursday of inciting murder.

Mizanur Rahman, 24, of London, spoke at a February 2006 demonstration protesting the publication in Europe of the cartoons, first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten daily.

Prosecutors showed video of Rahman speaking about British soldiers and saying, “We want to see them coming home in body bags. We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad.”

Rahman also had placards calling for the beheading and annihilation of anyone who insulted Islam.

He and three others convicted of offenses at the demonstration face sentencing on July 18.

Rahman had pleaded not guilty, and said the microphone had been thrust into his hand and that he was only repeating chants from others.

From IHT
(hat tip: Abu Daoud)

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For those wishing to refresh their memory of Feb 2006’s Cartoon Crisis, Kendall has a lot of links and wrote an excellent analysis of the issue on his old blog. (If the old blog is down, here’s the Google Cache version).

We’ve posted at least once, maybe twice before on the issue of HTML code and formatting in the comments. For whatever reason, HTML doesn’t work well in the comments here. Don’t know why or whether Greg G. will be able to fix it.

However, thanks to a very clever commenter, we’ve learned that what DOES work just fine is what’s known as “Bulletin Board” code. In a week now, Bulletin Board code has worked perfectly for me every time I’ve tried it. Even with complex urls which contain spaces or “arguments” (like search queries).

For most formatting (bold, italics, underline, blockquote), Bulletin Board code is just like HTML except you use square brackets instead of angle brackets.

For links, however, the code is different. Here’s how Bulletin Board code works for links. It’s actually easier than HTML:

[url= the link ] the name [/url]

thus for a link to T19 it looks like this:
[url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/]Titusonenine[/url]

You can read more here.

The latest on the Ann Holmes Redding story, in response to yesterday’s news from Bishop Wolf of Rhode Island. Thanks to one of our commenters for the hat tip on this. We hadn’t yet gotten a chance to check the latest news. Trying to work and blog at the same time is hard!

Priest drawn to Islam loses her collar for year

By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times religion reporter

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a local Episcopal priest who announced she is both Muslim and Christian, will not be able to serve as a priest for a year, according to her bishop.

During that year, Redding is expected to “reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam,” the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to Episcopal Church leaders.

Redding was ordained more than 20 years ago by the then-bishop of Rhode Island, and it is that diocese that has disciplinary authority over her.

During the next year, Redding “is not to exercise any of the responsibilities and privileges of an Episcopal priest or deacon,” Wolf wrote in her e-mail. Wolf could not be reached for immediate comment.

“I’m deeply saddened, but I’ve always said I would abide by the rulings of my bishop,” said Redding, who met with Wolf last week. Redding, who characterized their conversation as amicable, said the two would continue to communicate throughout the year.

During the meeting, Redding said she took off her priest’s collar and accepted Wolf’s invitation to hold it for the year.

“I understand she’s holding it as an indication that we’re both in this together,” Redding said.

At the end of the year, the two will revisit the issue.

“I understand that one of my options would be to voluntarily leave the priesthood,” Redding said.

At this moment, though, she is not willing to do that. “The church is going to have to divorce me if it comes to that,” she said. “I’m not going to go willingly.”

But she also doesn’t completely rule it out, saying: “God will guide me over this year.”

Redding’s bishop in Seattle, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner of the Diocese of Olympia, who accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, said Wolf’s decision is a good compromise.

Read the rest at the Seattle Times.

Stephen Bates of the Guardian profiles U.S. evangelist Joel Osteen who is currently on a preaching tour in Britain.

An excerpt:

Osteen was named most-watched pastor in America last year and America’s most fascinating person. This for a man whose Lakewood Church is a converted basketball stadium in Houston, Texas, whose ministry started only eight years ago and whose message is one that could charitably be described as theology lite. He gets 30,000 in his congregation every weekend and 18 million more tune in each month around the world to watch his services. That’s probably the secret. Osteen, a slight 44-year-old with a Texan drawl and a modest manner and gleaming teeth, smart suits and slicked-back hair, is not from the generation of hellfire preachers peddling old time religion. Nor, more importantly, is he one of the leaders of the religious right, men like Falwell and Pat Robertson whose pulpits and television studios have been platforms for nakedly partisan political messages designed to win secular power. Instead, Osteen’s is an affirming gospel, exemplified in the title of his book Your Best Life Now, which has sold more than 3 million copies since it was published three years ago.

Go to one of his services, as I did last year, and you will be told God wants you to do well: “God is a good God. He is smiling down on each one of you today We are going out for next week changed by God … Lord, we are filled with hope.”

Attending a service is an extraordinary experience. There are no religious symbols in the building. The stage is decorated with artificial waterfalls and a giant revolving globe, while above all flies an enormous stars and stripes.

The message of Osteen’s 12-minute sermons – precisely timed to hit the programme schedule – is studiously upbeat: if you keep a right attitude, God will reward you. It even extends to physical fitness in the obesity capital of the US: “Make changes for your health’s sake and God will make you better … if you get the physical side in balance, you will be rewarded by God.”

One on one, explains Don Iloff, Osteen’s press officer and brother-in-law, Joel knows where the rubber hits the road: “He’s telling them, God loves you, come on back. When they listen to Joel, they recognise a new face of God.”

Joel, he explains, does not have a great deal of time for pastoral work; visiting the sick, for example. There’s not enough time: that sermon takes two days to write and rehearse each week.

The full article is here.

A kind reader tipped us off to BBC Radio 4’s program this morning. He says it featured a good discussion of the Anglican Covenant and the issues facing the Church of England.

Here’s the link to listen in.

The Church of England segment is 5 minutes long, beginning at 39 minutes into the program and has background and comment from across the spectrum including Marilyn McCord Adams (a well-known reappraiser), an ACI Conference participant from Wycliffe, Dr Graham Kings (Fulcrum), Christopher Hill (Bishop of Guildford), Colin Slee (Dean of Southwark).

Over at Stand Firm, Matt Kennedy has now posted two entries in a series of essays on the Articles of Religion.

On the First Article of Religion

Who is the Son?: Essays on the Articles of Religion part 2

It has become apparent recently through reading responses to the proposed Covenant Draft, that many reappraisers within TEC reject the truth and authority of the Articles of Religion. This elf is thinking especially of SE Florida’s response which stated:

The statement “led by the Holy Spirit, it [i.e. each member Church, and the Communion] has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons,” is factually untrue and inappropriate for a Communion-wide Covenant. […] Moreover, the “truthfulness” of several of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion is debatable (e.g. Articles VII, XIII, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXIX, and XXXIII). The validity of several of the Articles has been a subject of debate and doubt in The Episcopal Church since its inception.

Obviously the question of a Covenant raises the question of the Formularies. Thus this elf really welcomes and appreciates Matt’s effort to help us examine the Articles afresh. Go read his essays!

I’m not really sure we need to post yet another news story about Katharine Jefferts Schori. At least to this elf, they all begin to sound alike. But in the “For the Record” category, here’s an excerpt from the Houston Chronicle’s article on the Presiding Bishop’s recent visit there.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Episcopal leader urges teamwork in repairing the world

[…]

“The reality is that reconciliation and freedom go hand in hand,” she told Houstonians and members of the Union of Black Episcopalians in a morning service at downtown’s Christ Church Cathedral. “The irony is that freedom, reconciliation and the reign of God are all around us, and yet none of them is fully known or experienced ”” not yet.”

Jefferts Schori, who was elected the first female leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church in June 2006, is on her first official visit to Houston. Her sermon was a highlight of the 39th annual meeting of the Union of Black Episcopalians, many participants said. She will lead a forum today at the conference, which concludes Friday.

“We live in a world that is not yet whole, and we understand our vocation to be its healing or repair,” she said in a sanctuary filled with both black and white Episcopalians. “Our Jewish brothers and sisters call it ‘Tikkun Alam,’ the repair of the world.”

A healed world is an ancient dream, the presiding bishop said during her sermon. Telling stories of both joy and grief is part of the healing process.

“Over and over and over again, the prophets railed against those who brought greater divisions to the world, those who bring more injustice, those whose deeds sow destruction,” she said.

Jefferts Schori said there are many kinds of reconciliations ”” “between individuals, within families, among nations, between politicians and, yes, even theological factions.”

The last was a subtle reference to the struggle between the Episcopal Church and the global Anglican Communion over the role of gays in the church. The 77 million-member worldwide church has been in turmoil since 2003, when the Americans consecrated an openly gay bishop.

“Why is loving our neighbors such hard work?” she asked, as the standing-room-only congregation laughed.

Here’s the full article.

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Also of note on the Katharine Jefferts Schori beat:

A reader sent us links to the podcast of her recent radio appearance in Virginia. This elf has been too busy to listen and normally doesn’t like to post things without verifying them herself. However, the reader noted that the call-in section of the show was quite interesting in places. The easiest place to find all the links is the Lead blog (part of the Episcopal Cafe site).

If any readers have listened to the podcast and have specific suggestions as to short segments you recommend, we’d welcome that information. Thanks.

Bishop Tony Burton of the Diocese of Saskatchewan in Canada has written his clergy following Canada’s General Synod. Here’s a key section:

We talked a lot at the General Synod about the implications of baptism, that Christ has grafted us into a whole new set of complicated relationships in his body to which we needed to respond. Nobody was in doubt that the body is fevered and disoriented at the moment. Our place in the Anglican Communion was never very far from our minds.

From one perspective this was a General Synod at which nothing happened””at least nothing of obvious consequence, blazing illumination or historic moment. The Synod tidied and tweaked and consolidated earlier initiatives, rekindled some old missionary loves, and decided, somewhat grudgingly, to give its troubled marriage to the Anglican Communion another chance. A few trial balloons were floated and referred away to committees. We elected an honorable man as Primate in a vote for continuity. We welcomed a new National Indigenous Bishop as a harbinger of good things to come but he had already been with us for a while and was already a much-loved member of the family. We had lunch with our Lutheran relatives. No nettles were grasped, no Rubicons were crossed, no sacred cows were slain, no blood was left on the floor, nobody stormed out.

In short, it was a miracle.

It takes only one match to begin a conflagration in a dry forest. [1] Our Communion has been drying out for a long time. In Winnipeg, we were all smokers, and a few of us lit up, but we went home with the old growth intact, hoping for rain.

This was a disappointment to many people for a variety of reasons. On the left and the right, there were plenty of people who wanted to witness the final rupture, the definitive apostasy, the moment of liberation, the beginning of a new world, clean and free from that bearded old wood.

It came close. After having passed a much-amended procedural motion which ended up stating the obvious (that same-sex blessings are not in the Creeds), the bishops defeated by two votes a motion to allow local dioceses to authorize the blessing of committed same-sex unions. Whether one agreed with this decision or not, there is no question that it bought time for the Anglican Church of Canada to find a way to walk together with the Anglican Communion. Encouragingly, from the beginning of this debate to the end of it, there was nothing but good will shown to Anglicans with same-sex attractions. Their full membership and inclusion in the Church, which derives from baptism, was simply not at issue.

Our condition as a Church and Communion remains grave. The doctors quarrel among themselves. We agree on neither diagnosis nor cure. Can the doctrine of Christ be separated like a yolk from its egg? Perhaps on our knees, in fear and trembling, in a theological environment galaxies away from the aridities of this present generation, but surely not by a vote of hands in a political forum.

The full letter is here.

ENFIELD – Three of the four Episcopal parishes in the North Central Episcopal Regional Ministry have voted to merge and form one single parish, church officials said Monday. Parishioners of St. Mary’s and St. Andrew’s churches in Enfield and Calvary Church in Suffield voted for the merger at a special meeting on June 25.

The North Central Episcopal Ministry or NCERM, which was formed in November 1991, consists of St. Mary’s, St. Andrew’s, Calvary Church, and Grace Church in the Broad Brook section of East Windsor. Grace Church, which had decided to join the new parish in December, reversed its decision and voted not to join in the merger.

St. Andrew’s, at 28 Prospect St., had voted against the merger in December, but changed its position and decided to join.

[…]

The new parish, which has yet to be named, will temporarily be located in St. Mary’s Church at 383 Hazard Ave. while officials look for a new location, Bushnell said.

The parish will have almost 650 parishioners from Enfield, Somers, Suffield, and Windsor Locks, Bushnell said.

“The reality is that the congregations were small, independent, and struggling,” Bushnell said of the reason for the merger.

The churches were struggling in terms of finances as well as the small number of parishioners, he said.
In a letter to parishioners, Bushnell expressed his disappointment that Grace Church decided not to join the new parish.

“The joy I feel at the decision of three NCERM parishes to join together in a single new large parish is diminished by the prospect that our friends at Grace Church have declined to join us in this new venture in Christian mission,” Bushnell wrote.

Bushnell said he did not know why Grace Church declined to join the new parish.

The new parish is in the process of applying to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut for acceptance as a single parish and if granted approval, the new parish will be admitted to the union at the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese in October.

The full article is here.

The dust has barely settled and already, different interpretations of the decisions General Synod made last month about human sexuality have led one parish to publicly offer blessings to same-gender unions, and another to say that it would not deny a parishioner’s request for a same-sex marriage.

During its seven-day meeting in Winnipeg, the church’s highest governing body approved a resolution saying that same-sex blessings are “not in conflict” with the church’s core doctrine but defeated another that would have given dioceses the power to offer them in churches.

There is enough ambiguity in those decisions that it is left open to dioceses and churches to offer same-sex blessings, said Rev. Jim Ferry, who was fired for being involved in a homosexual relationship in 1991. He has since been given some duties at Holy Trinity church in downtown Toronto.

Read it all.

Christianity Today has a really interesting interview with Ugandan theologian Emmanuel Katongole. We found his reflections on the interaction between church and culture particularly interesting in this age of globalisation and important to consider as we reasserting Anglicans form new partnerships with the Global South.
———-

From Tower-Dwellers to Travelers
Ugandan-born theologian Emmanuel Katongole offers a new paradigm for missions.

Interview by Andy Crouch | posted 7/03/2007

Christian leaders from five war-torn countries of East Africa gathered in Kampala, Uganda, last November to strengthen the church’s witness in the midst of conflict. They were convened by Emmanuel Katongole, a Catholic priest whose biography embodies both ethnic tension and Christian hope. Katongole was born and raised in Uganda, the son of Rwandan parents. His father embraced Christian faith as an adult, and his joyful seriousness about Christianity shaped Katongole, who joined the priesthood and trained as a philosophical theologian in Belgium. Katongole now teaches at Duke Divinity School, where he is co-director, with Chris Rice, of the Center for Reconciliation. He spoke with Andy Crouch about this year’s big question for the Christian Vision Project: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God’s mission in the world?

You’ve lived on three continents and in four countries, and your parents were from yet another country, Rwanda. How does your story affect your understanding of God’s mission in the world?

Being an immigrant can be a blessing. God’s mission, as I read it in 2 Corinthians 5:17, is new creation. God is reconciling the world to himself. And there is a sense of journey that is connected with that. When, later on, Paul says that “we are ambassadors of God’s reconciliation, God is appealing through us,” he is inviting us into a journey toward a new kind of community. People looking at Christians should be confused. Who are these people? Are they black? Are they white? Are they Americans? Are they Ugandans? In Revelation, John sees people drawn from all languages and tribes and nations: an unprecedented congregation. Living on three continents has deepened my understanding of the church as such a congregation; at the same time, it has heightened my sense of Christian life as a journey and of what it means to live as a pilgrim, a resident alien.

That is reminiscent of the name Christians gave themselves in Acts, “people of the Way.”

That is, the way of Jesus. I also take that to mean people on the way, on pilgrimage. We have settled too easily. Instead of living out that story of journey toward a new creation, we tend to live out the stories of nationality. And then we forget what it means to journey. It’s not difficult to see why we settle, because our nations or tribes or races try to convince us that life can’t get any better than this. They ask us, “Where would you want to go? Why would you want to leave?” This is not just something that happens in a superpower like America. Even small nations like Rwanda, even small tribes, have an America-sized imagination of themselves!

The challenge that Christianity faces in our time is the challenge of tribalism. There’s a church in Rwanda where the baptismal font still stands. But it bears the scars of being hacked by machetes, and the church was littered with thousands of bones of people who were killed. You couldn’t find a more strange and ironic and tragic image than that: a common baptism surrounded by killing in the name of Hutu and Tutsi.

Many of us feel we are beyond that, but the dynamics of national identity remain””even of ecclesial identity. We can be settled in our Catholic power. We can be settled in our Baptist, Episcopalian, Pentecostal, or evangelical identity, and we feel a certain power from that. We think that our mission derives from that power.

The story of the tower of Babel begins with people settled in the land. The tower speaks of strength, power, and stability. It speaks of the ability to stand above the land and survey it. Pilgrims don’t build a tower! In our day, I think what God is doing is exactly what he did for that tower””dispersing people, spreading them out, scattering them. Scattering, the way I read it in Genesis, is a good thing. It is part of God’s purpose for God’s people. It is meant to be good news for both Israel and the nations.

[…]

Are specific places and local identities important in a life of pilgrimage?

Absolutely. Pilgrimage actually makes us more aware of localness, because it brings us into contact with specific places and people. People sometimes ask me how “the church in America” should relate to “the church in Rwanda.” But that level of abstraction grows out of a tower-building mentality. There are only specific Americans from specific places with specific gifts and stories; there are only specific Rwandans.

The language of culture actually prevents us from engaging other people. It leads us to see ourselves as permanently separate from them: We have our culture, and they have theirs. It keeps us from allowing others to radically challenge us””that’s just their culture, you see, and it does not have anything to do with our culture.

What would it mean for Christians to have a certain naiveté about all these things called culture? How do we inhabit what we might call tactics instead of strategies? Strategy is the posture of an army, of a nation state, of a business that is able to conduct surveillance of its territory and all others. Tactics, on the other hand, are weapons of the weak, of those who have no place to call their own, who live in a territory that is surveilled and controlled by others.

Isn’t that a waste of our capacity to think strategically?

There are two dominant models of mission in our time. There is the model of mission as aid, which arises out of the great need we see in the world””famine, AIDS, poverty””and also out of a recognition of how much American Christians have. So American Christians go to Africa to help. This can be criticized as giving a person a fish for a day, but if that person is starving, then this model of mission actually does some good. A lot of people are being helped by this kind of mission. But the problem is that from this mission, Christians return to a tower. Their world remains their world, and Africa’s world remains Africa’s world.

Then there is the model of mission as partnership. It arises out of a sense of mutuality and solidarity between churches in the North and the South. So churches develop sister-parish relationships and so forth. The hope is to teach people how to fish, to equip them to do the fishing.

But as far as I can see, the pond in which they fish is still their pond. Christians in America have their own pond. We are still talking about your pond and our pond!

This model also overlooks the difference in power between America and the rest of the world. One gets an impression that because of the numerical strength of Africa’s church, Africans Christians can be equal partners with their Western counterparts. But we cannot pretend that the power of America does not exist. There is a new desire to learn from one another, but how deep does the learning go?

Read it all here.

From a July 5th entry on the Inclusive Church blog

The growing number of bishops created by African provinces for “pastoral oversight” in North America (and potentially in other provinces), the attempts to create a Covenant that defines Anglican doctrine and ethics, and the apparent intention to organise an alternative to the Lambeth Conference in London next year all point towards one thing. The strategy to destabilise the Anglican Communion is moving into another phase.

The creation by the provinces of Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria of extra-provincial Bishops is against the expressed wish of the Windsor Report and the post Lambeth ’98 process of listening and reconciliation. It is more evidence that the Primates of those provinces and their supporters in the US and Britain profoundly misunderstand the nature of the Communion. We very much regret that the Chair of the Covenant Design Group, the Archbishop of the West Indies, has welcomed these appointments.

Inclusive Church’s aim is to support and celebrate the traditional breadth and generosity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it has been received and passed on through Anglican history and lived out in the Communion. This creates challenges when there are fundamental disagreements. But the way to respond to disagreements is not to walk apart, nor to create separate structures, nor to seek to impose one particular point of view on the Communion. It is to engage, to communicate, to speak, to listen and to learn.

Clearly there are outstanding issues over how the Communion should respond to the reality that many Provinces include lesbian and gay Christians who live with partners in loving, faithful relationships. But the extraordinary way in which this issue has been allowed to dominate the life of the Communion over the past ten years is not coincidence.

There can be little doubt that the issue is being used by some, mainly conservative, Christians as a lever to try to change the Communion into something it is not; from a conciliar church into a confessional one. From a praxis-based Communion where the bonds between us are the bonds of fellowship and love to a codified Communion where exclusions are legally determined and legally enforced, and where the Communion defines itself not by who it includes but by who it excludes.

The Covenant process has been moved, by this group, away from its original intention which was to affirm the bonds of fellowship which exist. The way in which the draft was received by some at the Primates meeting in Tanzania is indication that, whatever the intention, it will be used to enforce a particular interpretation of the Scriptures to the detriment of the life of the Communion. We do not need a Curia, and the process of drafting a Covenant is already giving more power to the Primates than is justified by our history, by our life and by some of their actions to date.

The full text is here.

Justin Brett, a lay member from the diocese of Oxford, wants the Synod to “note” rather than “affirm” the Primates’ recommendation. On Wednesday, he described as “dubious” the idea that Synod should, as he put it, effectively write a blank cheque. He also expressed concern that the timetable for drawing up the Covenant was already well advanced.

This was not a wrecking amendment, he said. “It’s trying to make sure that when we do vote on the motion, we do so with a sizeable majority.” There was too much uncertainty surrounding the process, Mr Brett said. The various views expressing doubts about the Covenant “all hang on whether we’re absolutely sure we are doing the right thing, and have been talking long enough”.

Another amendment, tabled by the Revd Jonathan Clark, a member of Affirming Catholicism, reflects concern about the power of the Primates. It seeks to ensure that the Synod gets the chance to endorse the Church’s official response to the current draft Covenant.

The amended section (c) would read: “invite the Presidents, having consulted the House of Bishops and the Archbishops’ Council, to bring back to the next group of sessions of Synod for approval a considered response to the draft from the Covenant Design Group for submission to the Anglican Communion Office”.

Read it all.