On my journey to Cairo my fellow passengers included a large party of British Muslims going on the haj, the great pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places of Mecca and Medina, and I found myself in an intensely interesting conversation with my Muslim neighbour. He told me of the spiritual significance of the haj to him personally, and described the sequence of events that would make up the pilgrimage. Questioning me about my own Christian faith, he reminded me of the Muslim veneration of Jesus as a prophet. He assured me that he had no problem with school Nativity plays, even though a nervous secular society all too often believed he might, and ought, to have. The most important thing, he said, was that we should live in acknowledgement of the God who had created the Universe, and that we should strive to love and serve that God.

Yes, I told him, that was my concern as well. But, he said, how difficult it was to love a God whom you had not seen. So I explained how for the Christian the unknown God, the source of all life and being, the creator of all, has chosen to reveal Himself, not just in words of prophecy and inspiration, but in going much farther than this. Although, as the Bible emphasises, God is awesome, holy and transcendent, yet that same God discloses Himself, chooses to make Himself known, in the end, in the amazing wonder of incarnation.

St Paul speaks of how we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. St John, in the prologue to his Gospel, writes of the Word ? the creative reason and wisdom of God ? becoming flesh, and in that becoming flesh, that incarnation, “we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”. God comes down, as the 14th-century Christian mystic Lady Julian of Norwich reminds us, “to the lowest part of our need”.

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I am on my way to Lake George to go and get my Dad, Stuart Harmon, and then bring him back to South Carolina tomorrow. My brother Randy and his wife Barbara are driving down tomorrow to join us all in Summerville for Christmas–KSH.

Update: my first flight is delayed (say you are surprised).

The Archbishop himself acknowledges the need to find a way for those within TEC who support the direction marked out by the Windsor Report to differentiate themselves from the present leadership of their church. At present both they and the Communion are faced with a bad choice, namely, between the forces represented by the National Headquarters of TEC and those represented by Common Cause Partners. The clear implication of the Advent Letter and the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is that a solution to the issue of differentiation internal to TEC is the proper way forward. It is urgent that an American solution to an American problem be found. It is our hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishops of TEC and the leaders of the Windsor Bishops will devote their energies to this issue and find a mutually acceptable solution with all deliberate speed. We fear that if no such action is taken both TEC and the Communion as a whole will be faced with a battle between opposing forces that may well simply tear fabric of our communion apart.

The Anglican Communion Institute is frequently criticized for providing no ”˜practical solution’ for those struggling at this time. We take this opportunity””in the context of an Advent Pastoral that seriously confronts the problems with TEC as a recognizable family member in Communion””to underscore that work continues unabated on our part to see to the emergence of a meaningful, Communion aligned, Windsor alliance of Anglican Bishops in Communion. We believe the Advent Pastoral underscores the necessity of such work and the hopefulness that should attend it. We pledge our continued work to this end, in cooperation with others, and contend that a recognizable Communion presence is indeed available for encouragement in connection with the wider Anglican family, especially at this present moment when TEC as a whole is undergoing such a tremendous challenge of identity and Communion forbearance.

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An interesting read.

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Christmastime is bonus time on Wall Street, and the Gucci set has been blessed with another record harvest.

Forget the turbulence in the financial markets and the subprime debacle. Forget the dark clouds of a possible recession. Bloomberg News tells us that the top securities firms are handing out nearly $38 billion in seasonal bonuses, the highest total ever.

But there’s a reason to temper the celebration, if only out of respect for an old friend who’s not doing too well. Even as the Wall Streeters are high-fiving and ordering up record shipments of Champagne and caviar, the American dream is on life-support.

I had a conversation the other day with Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. He mentioned a poll of working families that had shown that their belief in that mythical dream that has sustained so many generations for so long is fading faster than sunlight on a December afternoon.

The poll, conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Change to Win labor federation, found that only 16 percent of respondents believed that their children’s generation would be better off financially than their own. While some respondents believed that the next generation would fare roughly the same as this one, nearly 50 percent held the exceedingly gloomy view that today’s children would be “worse off” when the time comes for them to enter the world of work and raise their own families.

That absence of optimism is positively un-American.

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Take a guess at what you think they are before you look.

And you thought the passengers were mad.

Airline employees are fed up, too ”” with pay cuts, increased workloads and management’s miserly ways, which leave workers to explain to often-enraged passengers why flying has become such a miserable experience.

A rich record of the employee discontent emerges from regular question-and-answer sessions held at US Airways, which is both the worst-performing big airline in the country and a company that encourages its 36,000 workers to direct tough questions at its chief executive, W. Douglas Parker.

“Doug, I watched you on CNBC today,” said one e-mail message from a worker, sent on Oct. 25. “And I hate to tell you but the interiors of our plans [sic] smell bad and they are filthy. As an employee I am embarrassed to admit working for US Airways. When are you going to quit talking and do something about it?”

The rancor is not any worse at US Airways than at most other big carriers. What is different is that Mr. Parker, 46, subscribes to the let-it-all-hang-out school of employee relations. He says management learns a lot about how the airline is actually performing through an uncensored give-and-take ”” and he willingly provided transcripts of the Q. and A. sessions.

The brawling dialogue does, however, suggest that airline service might get worse before it gets better. The current US Airways is a result of the most recent big airline merger, with America West Airlines in 2005. Mr. Parker tried unsuccessfully to acquire Delta Air Lines a year ago. Now, other airlines are mulling mergers as a way of cutting costs to offset high fuel expenses. Such deals could start a broader service decline.

In recent months, US Airways had the worst record for on-time flights and misplaced bags among the major airlines and it piled up the most customer complaints at the Transportation Department.

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Mr Blair was received into full communion with the Catholic Church during Mass at Archbishop’s House, Westminster, on Friday.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, who is the head of Catholics in England and Wales, said: “I am very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church.

“For a long time he has been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he has been following a programme of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion.

“My prayers are with him, his wife and family at this joyful moment in their journey of faith together.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, leader of the Anglican church, wished the former prime minister well in his spiritual journey.

He said: “Tony Blair has my prayers and good wishes as he takes this step in his Christian pilgrimage.”

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When the idea for a proclamation declaring Christian Heritage Week came up in 1994, Jim Guy Tucker, the Democratic governor of Arkansas, would not sign it. His aides said he did not think it was appropriate to honor a particular faith.

But when Tucker went out of town for a week and Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee became the acting chief executive, the Baptist minister enthusiastically signed the proclamation, declaring at a later celebration that he was taking a stand against “Christophobia.”

“It’s a new word. I just made it up,” Huckabee said, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Some people talk about homophobia; I’ve been hearing Christophobia.”

Other executives have signed similar proclamations, but in Huckabee’s case his aggressive, in-your-face efforts for the symbolic cause exemplify the central role his religious beliefs played in setting policy in Arkansas, first as lieutenant governor and then as governor.

Huckabee’s moral certainty revealed a public official quite different from the affable, folksy campaigner who describes himself as a conservative, but one who is “not angry about it.” His decisions have opened him to criticism from the left and the right, as liberals and conservatives have complained that his religious devotion has clouded good judgment.

His detractors point to a governor who became indignant at criticism of his personal behavior, particularly after it was disclosed that he had accepted tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from supporters. And they say his views resulted in petty conflicts over matters such as Christian Heritage Week or his refusal to sign a disaster relief bill until legislators removed the words “acts of God” to describe tornadoes because Huckabee argued that God was protecting people from tornadoes, not causing them.

To his admirers, both liberal and conservative, his religious views have been an asset. Supporters have seen Huckabee’s strong opposition to abortion, his push to get health insurance for lower-income children and an unsuccessful initiative to allow the children of illegal immigrants to get college tuition breaks as expressions of the compassion he has drawn from his faith.

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Since the Anglican Network in Canada held a conference in late November to announce a new church structure for parishes conservative on the subject of homosexuality, several bishops have called clergy in for clarification of their intentions, but no priests have been disciplined.

Three dioceses ”“ Ottawa, Montreal and Hamilton, Ont.-based Niagara ”“ last fall voted to permit church blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples, moves that some Anglicans oppose.

At the conference, held Nov. 22-23, leaders of the network announced that the Anglican church in South America, called the Province of the Southern Cone, would accept as members parishes that wish to leave the Anglican Church of Canada. The network moderator, Bishop Don Harvey, announced that Canon Charles Masters had been named archdeacon of the network and Rev. George Sinclair prolocutor.

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Received via email:

Dear Bishop Schori,

Thank you for your letter of December 14, 2007 asking for clarification of my status. Much has happened in the past few weeks that have a bearing on that status. I am proud of the people of the Diocese of San Joaquin. Last year when the vote was taken to change the Constitution, that first vote was not only required by Canons but, in essence, was a “straw vote”. Little was at stake, for truly no action had ”“or could”“ be taken.

This year the delegates to the Annual Convention came fully cognizant of what has taken place in Virginia and Southern California where litigation has been pursued vigorously against those who oppose the innovations of The Episcopal Church and who, consequently, have stood up for their faith and remain protective of the property they have built, purchased and maintained with no help either from The Episcopal Church on a national level nor ”“in most instances”“ from the local diocese either.

The people of The Diocese of San Joaquin came to the Convention fully aware that years of meetings with the leaders of The Episcopal Church have accomplished little or nothing.

They came fully aware, too, that at the meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans this past September a last minute attempt to provide some semblance of oversight was proposed. The sad thing was that those most affected by the innovations of The Episcopal Church had no part in this proposal and to this very day have never seen what such a plan involves. It is true that the vote on Saturday December 8 protest, but it was much more than this. To understand December 8th’s vote as a protest only would be to misunderstand the courage of the people within the Diocese of San Joaquin.

They were saying that no matter what the consequences, they take a stand for a clear reading of Scripture, the faith that The Episcopal Church first received – but from which it has departed – and for Catholic Order within the Anglican Communion. Truly, the vote was for their bishop and diocese to remain in the Anglican Communion with the fullness of the heritage we have received as a part of that worldwide body. Once again, it was much more than this.

It was an expression of profound gratitude to the Global South who have expressed support in many ways and more specifically to the Primate of the Southern Cone, his House of Bishops and their Provincial Synod for their understanding of our plight – along with that of many others within The Episcopal Church – and their willingness to offer a place of refuge.

Their offer, as you know, was conditional until such time as The Episcopal Church repents of those decisions and actions that have caused a rift in the wider Anglican Communion.

Furthermore, I understood the Convention’s actions as a request that I provide episcopal oversight of the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin under the Province of the Southern Cone of South America. Accepting such an invitation to be a part of the Southern Cone’s House of Bishops may not necessarily define my relationship with The Episcopal Church particularly since this may only be a temporary arrangement. This is true in light of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent Letter in which he proposes facilitated conversations not only between us but among others in the Anglican Communion.

The purpose of December 8th’s vote, then, was not to change anything within the Diocese but quite to the contrary. With the status of The Episcopal Church’s member-ship in the Anglican Communion looking more and more precarious, the people of San Joaquin simply wanted to remain what we have always been, namely Anglican.

On the very day your letter arrived asking for clarification, the Advent Letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury was received. In it he pointed out clearly the distress in many parts of the Anglican Communion caused by the unilateral actions of The Episcopal Church.

In his own words he fully understands that “A scheme has been outlined for the pastoral care of those who do not accept the majority view in TEC, but the detail of any consultation or involvement with other provinces as to how this might best work remains to be filled out and what has been proposed does not so far seem to have commanded the full confidence of those most affected.” He continues: “Furthermore, serious concerns remain about the risks of spiralling disputes before the secular courts, although the Dar- es-Salaam communique expressed profound disquietude on this matter, addressed to all parties.”

Giving thought to the future, the Archbishop makes reference to the upcoming Lambeth Conference during which he trusts: “Whatever happens, we are bound to seek the fruitful ways of carrying forward liaison with provinces whose policies cause scandal or difficulty to others.”

Ultimately, then, it is the Archbishop’s proposal for a course of action in the months ahead that may affect my status. Since everything that the Diocese of San Joaquin has done, it has done with an eye toward remaining Anglican and in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, his proposal should naturally take precedence.

As he says, “I wish to pursue some professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of The Episcopal Church and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding. Such meetings will not seek any predetermined outcome but will attempt to ease tensions and clarify options. They may also clarify ideas about the future pattern of liaison between TEC and other parts of the Communion. I have already identified resources and people who will assist in this.”

Despite the dismal failure of meetings with the leadership of The Episcopal Church over the past two decades, I will remain open to the Archbishop’s proposal and not close the door on anything that the Holy Spirit may accomplish through these efforts. It may well be that in these facilitated conversations my own status and even that of The Episcopal Church vis-à-vis its membership in the Anglican Communion will be clarified. This, then, is both my hope and my prayer.

Sincerely,

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

THE Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has exhorted Australians to follow up action on climate change and indigenous child welfare with prayer and says Australia’s leaders, including the Prime Minister, are accountable to the electorate, but more so to God.

Following the change of government last month, Dr Jensen said it would be wrong to think that government rested solely on the shoulders of Kevin Rudd and his ministerial cabinet. Under God, the new Labor Government had a responsibility to look outward and help its overseas neighbours in peace and war.

“What I once told John Howard is true of Kevin Rudd also: we all have a higher authority to which we are accountable and, ultimately, God has placed the government of us all on the shoulders of Jesus, the one the prophet Isaiah spoke about,” Dr Jensen said in his traditional Christmas message.

“That is a radical change of perspective. If we imagine ourselves as independent human beings who do not need God, the world will prove us wrong. Climate change, for example. It is right we take action but our own actions must be accompanied by prayer to the God who sends the thunder and the rain.”

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The Rev. Phillip Wainwright begins early each December to put together his Christmas sermon to deliver to congregants at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Brentwood. He said he gets his outline ready “before things go wild” later in the month. Still, he often adds some final touches on his message in these busy days leading up to Christmas Day.

Father Wainwright is one of a number of pastors of South churches who this week are polishing their sermons. Though the topics vary, all revolve around the hope of “Peace on Earth , good will toward men” for their congregations and, of course, the world.

For many, Christmas services are an opportunity to connect with people who don’t come to church on a regular basis.

“My Christmas sermons tend to be devotional and not as intellectual. Every third or fourth year, I try to challenge those who are not there very much,” Father Wainwright said.

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It’s the holidays, a busy time for Santa and shoppers.

And lawyers.

Attorneys who specialize in religious expression say they get a spike in calls in November and December, with people calling about everything from public school choirs singing religious songs to Nativity scenes on government property. Some are for, some are against, and some are public officials trying to find out how to avoid being sued.

While the Supreme Court has handed down multiple rulings about religious expression, including several about holiday displays, each case turns on the details, which means fertile ground for competing legal opinions and disagreement.

Exactly how prominent was the Nativity scene on the town green? Was it the only holiday display there? Were the students handing out Christmas cards at school standing where other students couldn’t avoid passing?

The questions are endless, and so are the tensions.

In tiny Exmore, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, officials are ignoring a demand that they remove or alter a plastic Nativity scene in front of Town Hall.

“Spines have stiffened,” said Herbert Gilsdorf, town manager in Exmore, population 1,500.

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For six years, it has been a tradition for Muslims in the Research Triangle: After morning services on the first day of Eid al-Adha — the “festival of sacrifice” — scores of families leave the tweedy environs of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and head toward an obscure plot of land on a two-lane country road.

They come to visit Eddie Rowe, a hog farmer.

The children typically run around among Rowe’s loose chickens. The women prepare picnic sandwiches. And the patriarch of each family awaits his turn to slit the throat of a lamb or a goat that Rowe has sold him.

To Muslims around the world, this is an important ritual — a tribute to Allah and to the prophet Abraham, who in both the Koran and the Bible is said to have offered his son as a sacrifice to God.

To research scientist Ahmed Mamai, 40, a native Moroccan, performing the sacrifice on Rowe’s property allows him to maintain an ancient tradition that would be difficult to square with his lifestyle in suburban Raleigh. If he slaughtered an animal in his backyard, Mamai said with a smile, “My wife would sacrifice me.”

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Ambition is an excellent thing. As a father, nothing would dismay me more than having my daughters submit to me as husband material a man with no reasonable ambitions. (I say “reasonable” because I would not be happy with some guy whose ambition was to read every science fiction novel that had ever been written, or who wanted to be the Hobo King.)

But many, early in life, err, transgressing our Lord’s teaching by cheating to get ahead, for much of what He is talking about here involves just that. “Taking the lowest place” includes resolving not to limit one’s ambitions, but to maintain the conscience in a healthy, working state, and then taking only so much advancement as a clear conscience before Him will allow. This will most often mean taking a far lower seat than a man with healthy ambitions suspects he deserves. (It will sometimes mean taking a far higher one, which is another subject.) But if he is a Christian, he must believe his vindication will come, usually later, most often after his death, and from the hand of God, within the Ultimate, “Friend, go up higher.”

Deporting one’s self in this way requires faith, without which it is impossible to please God. It is a sin, I believe, either to kill the desire for the highest achievement–to accept the self as some sort of craven, servile, mediocrity, thus risking hell for rejecting the talents one has been given–or to step outside the rules we have for the deportment of life to rise in the estimation of the world, but not of the Lord.

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There are some really terrible headlines in the papers at the moment about what Rowan Williams ‘said’ about the Christmas story:

“It’s all a Christmas tall story” The Times
“Three Wise Men are just a legend, says Archbishop of Canterbury” The Daily Mail
“Archbishop says nativity ‘a legend'” Daily Telegraph

I’m sure there’s plenty more around like this. The only problem is, none of it is true. Instead, one ‘journalist’ seems to have fed on another.

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But we realize that we must choose between furthering a malfunctioning traditionalism and cultivating deliberate traditions that we hope will flourish in the hearts of our children. So this year we’re doing things differently. For starters, we will stay where we live rather than trek back to our home state. We love our families, but our days of re-enacting Santa’s frantic house-to-house dash are over. We’re also scaling back on gifts. Our former co-workers and cousins’ second wives are all very nice people, but it’s time to stop the madness. The same goes for our burgeoning card list, with its fine gradations (“Should the Walkers get a card with a picture, or a letter, or just a signature? Would the Goldsteins prefer a Hanukkah card, or something generic?”). This holiday, we are unilaterally disarming. No matter how many acquaintances inundate us with Starbucks gift cards and Pepperidge Farm sampler baskets, we will not retaliate.

Instead, we’re going to make cookies. Sugar cookies and chocolate-chip cookies and gingerbread cookies. We might give some away–but solely on the spur of the moment and without consulting a gift list. While other people throw elbows in last-minute shopping kerfuffles, we’ll be driving through neighborhoods looking at lights. Every night during Advent, we’ve read stories from the Old and New Testaments, and our children have hung handmade ornaments representing these stories. This week they gave a musical recital in a nursing home. And if I can work up the nerve, we may even go caroling.

Will we succeed in making this season mean something to our children besides gifts and harried schedules? I don’t know. But recently we received a solicitation from the Ronald McDonald House, which lodges families of hospitalized children. Our 7-year-old read it, a serious look on his face. Then he announced he was giving them the $50 he’d saved toward a robot. “It makes me feel better when I give to someone else,” he said, “than when someone gives things to me.” Maybe it’s not a matter, after all, of engendering the Christmas spirit out of nothing. Maybe the challenge, with children, is just to keep the trappings of the holidays from squashing the spirit that’s already there.

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the Diocese of San Joaquin has welcomed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter to the Primates, seeing it as a validation of its secession from The Episcopal Church to the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone.

“I find it difficult to imagine any other reading of Canterbury’s Advent letter than the intent to recognize ”” or maybe I should say, to allow San Joaquin to be recognized as a legitimate member of the Anglican Communion,” Diocesan spokesman the Rev Van McCalister (pictured) told The Church of England Newspaper. In his Dec 14 Advent letter to the Primates, Dr Williams distinguished between the various responses made by North American traditionalists to the disputes over doctrine and discipline.

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Participants described current relations among Anglicans and Lutherans in their home countries. They discovered considerable diversity but also identified a number of practices which already reflect mutual recognition, support, and common mission. They reviewed the work of earlier meetings of the Commission, particularly from Harare in 1999. They discussed Dr Ishmael Noko’s analysis of steps that would lead toward a full communion agreement: mapping current relationships among our churches; analyzing the contexts; taking account of the changing ecumenical landscape; developing common projects; and giving responses to historically divisive issues, both making use of ecumenical resources and speaking from African contexts.

The Commission decided to move ahead simultaneously along several lines. First, it will seek to work with bishops to plan a joint regional meeting of Anglican and Lutheran bishops in 2009: movement to full communion will require that the bishops deepen their networks of personal relationships, commit the resources of their churches, and endorse the theological vision in their communications. Second, it will ask the LWF and CAPA offices, with other structures, to seek ways to bring together sub-regional groups from all areas of the churches’ life – youth, women, theologians, etc.: movement to full communion will require staff support from appropriate international bodies. Third, members themselves will continue to develop the narratives of local relationships which were shared during the meeting in order to contribute to the process of mapping. These narratives will form the basis for the work of a group of theologians who will meet before the next full Commission meeting. This theological reflection will allow a proposal for full communion to emerge from the life of these communities in Africa.

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As primary season unfolds, health care and the mortgage crisis seem to be taking a backseat to religion ”” specifically, the candidates’ eager assertions about how Christian they are.
Mitt Romney gave a much-heralded speech about the depth of his Christian faith. Mike Huckabee is emphasizing his background as a Baptist minister and airing a commercial that appears to feature a cross behind his head.

It has gotten way out of hand. What would great American leaders of the past think of all of this religiousity in the middle of a political campaign? What Would Abe Lincoln Do?

Actually, the historical record gives us a pretty good idea….

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In the last decade, however, syphilis has unexpectedly returned, driven by risky sexual behavior and outbreaks in major cities across Europe, including London, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin.

Ӣ In Britain, syphilis cases have leapt more than tenfold for men and women in the past decade to 3,702 in 2006, according to the Health Protection Agency. Among men in England, the syphilis rate jumped from one per 100,000 in 1997 to nine per 100,000 last year.

Ӣ In Germany, the rate among men was fewer than two per 100,000 in 1991; by 2003, it was six per 100,000.

”¢ In France, there were 428 cases in 2003 ”” almost 16 times the number just three years earlier.

Ӣ In the Netherlands, cases doubled from 2000 to 2004. In Amsterdam, up to 31 men per 100,000 were infected, while the rate was much lower in other regions.

Similar trends have been seen in the United States.

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The book is 533 pages long, so I decided to just call [Randy C.] Alcorn at his ministry in Oregon. He’s one of the foremost non-dead experts on heaven, having also written “50 Days of Heaven,” “In Light of Eternity: Perspectives on Heaven” and “Heaven for Kids.” Alcorn said that a few outraged people had shown him my Venti cup. It made him laugh. “Not because I thought it was silly, but because I believed it, in essence,” he said. “Hey, I agree. The Christian church has communicated an extremely boring view of heaven. I think it’s wrongheaded and flat unbiblical.”

The clouds-and-harp version came about for two reasons, Alcorn told me. One is Satan. The other is the early church fathers who tried to blend the Bible with Greek philosophy and wound up with a Platonic version of the afterlife stripped of the physical. In the heaven in Alcorn’s book, he imagines we’ll be riding on the backs of brontosauruses and throwing baseballs with Andy Pettitte. This does not sound like it will be heaven for brontosauruses or Andy Pettitte.

But that’s actually the heaven on Earth that only gets going after the return of Christ. Until then, our souls are hanging out in intermediate heaven — a place a lot less physical and awesome — and much of our time is spent watching events on Earth. Which sounds pretty boring. “If you didn’t have the promise of resurrection and new Earth, and all you had was this unnatural state, I would say that, yeah, by our present standards, that doesn’t sound exciting to us,” Alcorn said. And remember, some Christians have been in intermediate heaven for about 2,000 years. The brontosaursuses maybe a few thousand years longer, depending on your views on science.

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Jerry Auger finds himself “profiling people” when he’s at a mall or other crowded place to gauge whether they might be dangerous. Victor Cotton tells his kids that if they see people running away from something, they should, too. Barbara Murch rarely goes out alone and always looks for potential threats.
Auger, Cotton and Murch share a sense of vulnerability that was reinforced by shootings this month in places few people consider obvious targets of violence: a shopping mall, a church, a school bus stop.

The cluster of shootings reminded people that they can become victims even in the most benign public places and revived the sort of insecurity that swept the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than two dozen interviews show.

Three-fourths of Americans followed the news about the latest incidents very or somewhat closely, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,011 adults last Friday through Sunday found. Three in 10 people said they worry they could be victims of similar attacks.

“Right now in the world, anything can happen to you at any time,” says Cotton, 37, a corrections officer in Lexington, Ky. When he’s with his children, he avoids malls and amusement parks. He’s always on alert. “Nobody gets too close to me,” he says.

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The retreat continues, despite the best efforts of the Anglicans to keep making concessions to disbelieving modernity, as the Archbishop of Canterbury did again this week with his observation that we were obliged to treat the Christmas Story really as just a legend. Like Alfred and the burnt cakes, I suppose.

Christmas closes another year that has been pretty brutal on the God squadders, a year in which the swelling tide of unbelief crashed further through the structures of our cultural architecture….

But the atheists didn’t confine their advances to the rather narrow field of non-fiction for grown-ups. Seizing on the old Jesuit principle of getting them while their young, Philip Pullman went Hollywood this year with the Dark Materials trilogy.

Mr Pullman, knowing a commercial opportunity when he saw one, described Catholics who objected to the adaptation of his books, which feature as the principal villain a thinly disguised Papacy, as “nitwits”.

This seems to be wanting to have your polemical cake and eating it. You can hardly blame Catholics for feeling a bit defensive. He told an interviewer a few years ago that the main purpose in writing his books was to undermine belief in God. Now belief in God may be increasingly optional these days for the more lukewarm leaders of Anglicanism but it is still pretty much a prerequisite for Catholics.

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The Rev. Fred Risard, vicar of St. Nicholas’ Church, Atwater, Calif., has written to Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin, informing him that the congregation has retained legal counsel, and asking for clarification regarding a planned visitation on Dec. 23.

“If you do decide to come, please let us know in advance your purpose and your status as a bishop of The Episcopal Church,” Fr. Risard wrote. “Will you be coming as our Episcopal Bishop, having repented of your actions at diocesan convention, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation? Or will you be coming to worship as a visiting foreign bishop seeking to reconcile with your former congregation and vicar, and, following the Mass, to join us as we take groceries and coats to the poor?”

In an interview with a reporter for The Living Church, Fr. Risard said he is concerned that Bishop Schofield was planning to relieve him of his responsibilities as vicar at St. Nicholas. Fr. Risard said he wants to remain a priest of The Episcopal Church. He abstained from the votes to leave The Episcopal Church and from the one to affiliate with the Southern Cone on Dec. 8 during diocesan convention.

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There are proposals, of course, to make us either a federation or a confederation, or God forbid, a unitary governmental structure such as the Roman Catholic Church has. The draft Anglican Covenant is a serious concern in this regard, particularly because it abrogates the constitutional principles that make us Anglicans. It abrogates the principle of lay participation in the governance of the Church by placing disproportionate emphasis on the views of the highest ranking bishops. It abrogates the principle of toleration by imposing a standard, and more frighteningly a mechanism, for judging orthodoxy other than the idea of common worship. Most dangerously of all, it appears merely to compromise the principle of autonomy when, if fact, it virtually destroys it by vesting the right to determine what is a matter of common concern, what the common mind of the Communion is, and what punishment is appropriate for violations of the common mind in the Primates Meeting. It is as if the English Reformation, to say nothing either of the Elizabethan Settlement or the constitutional development over time of independent churches voluntarily cooperating on the basis of a shared heritage, never happened.

I do not believe it is impossible to create an Anglican covenant that is constitutionally consistent with existing Anglican polity. The Inter-Anglican Commission on Mission and Evangelism has proposed one.(24) I do believe the current draft being considered, rather than being an expression of our constitutional identity, would be a complete replacement of it with something far less significant as an experiment in being the Church than is the Elizabethan Settlement.

In truth, the Anglican Communion does not exist with a governmental structure at all. It is, rather, a voluntary association of autonomous churches bound together by a shared heritage from the Church of England and enjoying cooperative relationships for the purpose of mission, nothing more. It is not at all unlike the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches in that regard, and they somehow manage to function reasonably well without a central government.
The term Anglican Communion arose, after all, not from an international constitutional convention but from the usage of Horatio Southgate, the American missionary bishop to Turkey in 1847.(25) Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the Anglican Communion at all in an institutional sense. There are, instead, ways in which Anglican Christians affirm their heritage and further their missional ends by mutual respect for the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and participation in the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meeting, as well as, probably more importantly, countless informal relationships that bring them together across racial, cultural, and geographic barriers for a common purpose in the service of the Gospel of Christ. What the Anglican Communion already is, I would suggest, is quite enough.

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