All Saints Anglican Church in Irondequoit has another chance to argue that it should keep what it believes is its property.

New York state’s highest appellate court, the Court of Appeals, agreed Tuesday to hear the case between the congregation and the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester following the church’s request to appeal earlier decisions issued at the state Supreme Court and Appellate Division levels.

The Court of Appeals is expected to hear the case sometime this year.

The church, formerly known as All Saints Protestant Episcopal Church, has been fighting to hold on to property at 759 Winona Blvd. since the diocese ousted the church more than two years ago. The congregation disagreed with the diocese over the larger body’s support of the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has scheduled a press conference Jan. 21 to announce the official launch of this summer’s Lambeth Conference. He will be joined by the Most Rev. Gerald (Ian) Ernest, Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, and the Most Rev. Ellison Pogo, Archbishop of Melanesia. Archbishops Ernest and Pogo are members of the Lambeth Design Team that has been planning the program.

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The US looks poised to lose its mantle as the world’s dominant financial market because of a rapid rise in the depth and maturity of markets in Europe, a study suggests.

The change may have occurred already, not least because US markets are beset by credit woes, according to research by McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank affiliated to the consultancy.

“We think the differential growth rates are so significant that it is quite likely Europe has overtaken the US,” said Diana Farrell, author of the report.

“They are now neck and neck, which means exchange rates are very important. It is a real change.”

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Here is one letter:

October 23, 2007

Dear Dr. Keenan,

Thank you for your letter, and the concerns you raise. Let me recommend that, as a veterinarian, you might wish to begin with Bruce Bagemihl’s exhaustive study Biological Exuberance. I cannot respond in detail to studies which are not cited.

Science is not the only basis by which many people in this church are coming to the conclusion that homosexual orientation is a given (a matter of creation) and that it may be possible to bless it as a reflection of God’s image in creation. Many, many faithful people (of both homosexual and heterosexual orientation) have the direct experience of seeing the fruits of the faithful, committed, monogamous, life-long and life-giving relationships of persons of the same sex. That mode is in fact the way in which many if not most Christians experience the reality of God at work in their lives – they see Christ-like lives in those around them.

You claim that those who come to such conclusions are taking an unbiblical stance. Many said the same of those who advocated for a more generous pastoral response to those whose marriages had ended in divorce. Even though Jesus had very direct words on the subject, the church as a whole changed its teaching and pastoral practice in regard to remarriage following divorce. The change had more to do with personal experience, and a broader understanding of the whole of the biblical tradition, than it did with one or two verses of the Bible. When we have, within the tradition, clear summaries of the teaching of that tradition as “love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” many would find it possible to take a broader reading than what appears to be the plain sense of one or two verses.

May your ministry be a blessing. I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Katharine Jefferts Schori

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Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.

Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.

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An effort to inhibit the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, has not been supported by The Episcopal Church’s senior bishops.

The news, along with a copy of the allegations made by the chancellor to the Presiding Bishop against Bishop Duncan and the Title IV Review Committee’s decision to certify that, in their opinion, Bishop Duncan “had abandoned the communion of this church,” came in a letter from The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori late in the day on January 15.

Bishop Duncan offered a brief response to the news, saying, “Few bishops have been more loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church. I have not abandoned the Communion of this Church. I will continue to serve and minister as the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”

Please go here for further linked documents related to this announcement.

Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity has presented a direct challenge to the leaders of the Anglican Church of Canada by voting to hold weddings for same sex couples.

Their statement says, “Holy Trinity will continue to exercise its conscience and bless same-sex unions and marry same-sex couples.”

While Holy Trinity has been conducting blessing ceremonies for some time, Rev. Jim Ferry, a preist at Holy Trinity clarified, “We also intend, when the opportunity arises, to take the next step, which is a (same-sex) marriage ceremony.”

Ferry also claimed that numerous other parishes across Canada are “quietly” conducting same-sex blessings. “We’re not the only ones,” he said yesterday, according to the Ottawa Citizen. “There are other parishes across the country who have been quietly going ahead and doing same-sex blessings. They’re in the major urban centres, wherever there’s a significant population of gay and lesbian people.”

Holy Trinity parish, in downtown Toronto, is notorious for its heedless disregard for fundamental Anglican precepts, and is known for its pro-homosexual and anti-Catholic activism. During Toronto World Youth Day in 2002, Holy Trinity hosted an anti-Catholic event that included a speaker who advocated violent protest against churches.

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori testified by way of a televised deposition that lasted some 54 minutes. She was courteous yet clear in her conviction that CANA congregations had no right to leave the Church and take the property. When pressed to offer some negotiated settlement on property she was clear that The Episcopal Church would not negotiate with a church from another country coming into a diocese and competing with that established diocese. Asked to explain, she stated this violated current and ancient practice. Polity in all parts of the Anglican world has been for a bishop in one area to get permission from the bishop in another before going there to perform any type of ministerial function. She saw the establishment of parallel parishes and their vocal criticism of The Episcopal Church as confusing to the public and harmful to the church.

Presiding Bishop Katharine was reminded that she had signed the statement of the Primates at the Dar es Salaam meeting. It required The Episcopal Church to repent and pledge to renounce the practice of consecrating homosexual bishops and blessing same-gender “unions” or marriages. She responded that she signed to indicate that the statement represented what transpired. She indicated that she had no authority to bind the bishops or The Episcopal Church to such a statement.

Finally, when asked how she could support legal action against CANA churches when the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury had urged the church to settle disputes over church property within the church rather than through the courts, she responded, “I have a duty to protect the assets and the integrity of The Episcopal Church.”

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Finally, a post-debate poll is out in South Carolina, and it shows Fred Thompson surging into a virtual tie for second place with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. According to Rasmussen, John McCain leads with 28%, followed by Huck (19%), Mitt (17%) and Fred (16%).

The previous Rasmussen poll, four days ago, had McCain at 27%, Huck at 24%, Mitt at 16% and Fred at 12%. So it looks like Thompson’s frontal assault on Huckabee’s conservative credentials is working: Huck’s down 5 points and Fred’s up 4. Fred-mentum!

Says Fred File: “We are not surprised. South Carolinians know a consistent conservative when they see one. … Fred has the conservative message Republicans crave; he has the ideas to keep America secure and strong; and he has the leadership ability to keep the Reagan coalition together.”

Now Thompson needs McCain to bury Romney tonight in Michigan, thus hopefully turning the Palmetto State into, effectively, a three-man race. You’d have to think a lot of Romney’s support among National Review-ish conservatives would go to Thompson if the king of silver medals drops out (or, more likely, stays in the race but looks like a lost cause). The question then becomes whether a strong second-place finish in South Carolina (behind McCain, well ahead of Huck) would be enough to keep Fred’s campaign going, or whether he needs to go on the attack against McCain, in a “win at all costs” gambit.

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Few things are more frightening than knowing you live too far away from the nearest doctor. Yet in many rural or poor urban areas there are far too few doctors to serve the community, and the problem is getting worse.

Because the federal government has done too little in recent years to encourage doctors to take these less-glamorous posts, New York and other states are looking for ways to fill the gaps in medical care. Unlike some areas, New York is not lacking in medical school graduates; there are new interns out there in droves. The problem is that after they graduate, not enough of them decide to venture into the cold north upstate or the poorest urban neighborhoods.

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Two of the Anglican Communion’s pivotal leaders have expressed their outrage and concern following reports that church services in Harare, Zimbabwe have been disrupted by state officials.

A January 14 statement from Lambeth Palace said that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams “condemns unequivocally the use of state machinery to intimidate opponents of the deposed bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga.”

Williams is appalled by the recent reports of Zimbabwean police “forcibly stopping Sunday services in several churches in Harare where clergy have publicly and bravely refused to acknowledge Kunonga’s Episcopal authority.”

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Asia is home to the world’s freest _ and most repressed _ economies, but Europe ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom, an annual report released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal said.

While the world as a whole made little progress toward greater economic freedom, there were some surprising improvements by countries such as Mauritius and Mongolia, the survey found.

Hong Kong and Singapore retained their No. 1 and No. 2 rankings respectively on the annual Index of Economic Freedom for the 14th successive year. Both port cities benefit from low taxes and liberalized trade. Hong Kong, however, saw its score dip slightly due to higher inflation and greater tax revenues.

European countries accounted for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free, with Ireland at No. 3, Switzerland at No. 9 and Britain at No. 10. The U.S. ranked No. 5, and Canada ranked 6th.

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Bonnie Eslinger willingly gave her heart “the intent of his question,” she insists, but not to marriage. Her explanation is straightforward — she has no need of “a piece of paper from the state” and is not a believer in any religion that would demand that romance, sex, and “committed love” be restricted to marriage — a couple’s “joint allegiance to God.”

In one sense, the column is not shocking. Rates of heterosexual cohabitation are growing annually. Marriage has been subverted by easy divorce, pummeled in the mass culture and in entertainment, confused through debates over same-sex relationships, and sidelined by a generation that is extending adolescence past age thirty.

In another sense, Bonnie Eslinger’s column is surely noteworthy for its candor — and its evasions.

Read it all and the whole Newsweek article to which it refers.

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Update from the elves:
Due to technical work (a site transfer), the Anglican Mainstream website is currently offline, thus the link Kendall posted no longer works. We were able to retrieve the article via Google’s cache. See comment #21 below for the text.

(ACNS)

The situation with respect to the Anglican Church in Harare is a matter of grave concern to all in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Kunonga’s close ties with President Robert Mugabe is of deep concern to many and the resort to violent disruption has been widely deplored.

His unilateral actions with respect to the Diocese of Harare and his own status within the Province of Central Africa are, to say the least, questionable and have brought embarrassment to many. Above all, I am concerned for the well-being of faithful Anglicans who seek to practice their faith in peace and free from violence.

We assure Bishop Sebastian Bakare of our prayerful support in this difficult situation, and it is my firm hope that the Province of Central Africa will be enabled to find a way forward at this anxious time.

The Revd Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General

The Diocese of San Joaquin and its Bishop, John-David Schofield, will not participate in any ecclesiastical disciplinary action brought against them by The Episcopal Church, according to statements released by the diocese and Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

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Frustrated that the Episcopal Church’s battles over doctrine and sex were turning off newcomers, the former members of Holy Cross decided, in essence, to switch brands. No longer Episcopalians, they were now Anglicans, allied with more conservative believers in Uganda.

Once reserved for consumer products like Coca Cola or Doritos, branding has become increasingly important in the God business. Churches, old and new, are using branding to define their theology, attract newcomers and get their message out.

“There is sadness for what we left behind, for who we left behind,” Richardson said. But “God will be faithful,” he added.

For Faith Anglican, the brand switch went deeper than a name change, Richardson said.

“It gives us a new identity,” Richardson said. “The Anglican Church does not have the baggage that the Episcopal Church has at this time. It speaks of a deeper tradition and a more biblically grounded faith.”

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Biofuels can come in one of three varieties. The first is bioethanol, or alcohol, which is usually produced by the fermentation of sugars. The second is biodiesel produced from processing plant oils and the third is synthetic biofuels, which result in fuels identical to petrol, diesel and even aviation fuel.

[But]…people have failed to look at the overall costs and benefits from the complete production process, from “farm to forecourt”. This is sometimes known as life-cycle assessment and it involves taking into account all aspects of the carbon budget from one end of the production process to the other. When this is done, the simple assumptions that politicians and some environmentalists have made about the benefits begin to look hopelessly optimistic.

Take for example biofuels made from maize (in the US way) and from sugar (in the Brazilian way). The Worldwatch Institute estimates that the reductions in greenhouse gases on a life-cycle assessment resulting from ethanol produced in Brazil is about 80 per cent, compared with just 10 per cent from ethanol made from intensively-farmed maize in the US.

But the problem is not just about the efficiency of biofuel production. Britain will never be self-sufficient in biofuel and so other parts of the world will be expected to set aside land and water to supplement our needs. This has led to a growth in non-food crops in parts of the world where millions already go hungry. It has also put pressure on wildlife as forests are cut down to clear land for biofuel crops.

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Interesting.

Leading judges and scholars provided a grim verdict Thursday on how well the California justice system is carrying out the ultimate punishment as a state commission began an unprecedented review of the death penalty.

From California Chief Justice Ronald George, a death penalty supporter, to law professors who oppose capital punishment, the theme was consistent: The state’s death penalty system is a mess.

George and six other witnesses, including a federal appeals court judge and Florida’s former chief justice, named a string of reforms to improve death penalty justice in California, where there are now nearly 670 inmates on death row who typically spend decades awaiting execution.

But for the most part, many of the proposals called for spending more money – just as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger elsewhere in the building was proposing dramatic cuts in education and prisons to cope with a $14 billion budget shortfall.

“The current system is not functioning effectively,” George told the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. “We’re at a point now where choices must be made.”

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The dean of St. John’s Cathedral in Denver has been nominated to be the next bishop of Maryland, one of the oldest and most historic sees in the Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Peter Eaton, 49, is among four nominees for the post, which will be filled in a diocesan election at the end of March.

“This is not only an honor for me but a huge honor for the cathedral,” Eaton said Monday. “What I am most pleased about is the attention this brings to the ministry of St John’s Cathedral, which I believe to be significant and important.”

If elected, Eaton would take office at the end of June.

Since becoming dean of the Denver cathedral in October 2001, the Cambridge-educated priest has overseen a $1.1 million fund-raising effort and helped put Denver on the map with a series of visits from church notables. They included the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who is a personal friend of Eaton’s, as well as the first woman bishop in the Episcopal Church and the present Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco.

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Meanwhile, Diocese of Utah Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish said January 13 she “deeply regret[ed] the necessity of this inhibition.”

“Yet I am in full support of our Presiding Bishop’s actions. When the Body of Christ is broken by the departure of any of its members, we are all diminished,” the bishop said in a statement emailed to Episcopal News Service. “Yet I know that our Presiding Bishop has taken courageous steps to ensure the long-term future of our beloved Church, whose structure must be respected as we live out our common life. Bishop Schofield has chosen to violate the authority and canons (church law) of the Church that called him into the ministry of bishop. We cannot do otherwise than to hold him accountable to the vows he took the day he was ordained.”

Irish said in her statement that Episcopal bishops from western U.S. dioceses who concluded a three-day meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 10 were unanimous in their support of Jefferts Schori’s action.

“While we have tried over the years to be in collegial fellowship with Bishop Schofield and to work productively with the Diocese of San Joaquin, he has consistently refused to join in our conversations,” Irish said. “The Episcopal Church is actively supporting and ministering to those persons who wish to remain members in San Joaquin, and our prayers and thoughts are with them as they suffer abandonment by their bishop and fellow Christians. We trust good things will come for them through the comforting ministry of the Holy Spirit at this challenging time.”

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Bishop Schofield said, “Even though the American Church is threatening us with all sorts of things, they no longer have jurisdiction over us.”

The decision to split came after several years of disagreements over same-sex unions and the roles of homosexuals in the national church. Bishop Schofield says the Valley’s view of the Bible is more traditional and orthodox.

“We’re dealing with two different teams with two different rules for the game” said Schofield. Schofield also said those differences could easily turn into a battle over who has legal ownership of the church and estates in the Valley. “Unfortunately, the liberal side is mean and ugly and going for the money and the big time” said Schofield.

After news of the split the national church issued a statement saying a lawsuit could be filed if Schofield and his congregations try to keep Episcopal Church property. But Schofield said the national church wasn’t there when he and other clergy raised money for church and the property within those sanctuaries.

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Like many mainstream denominations, the Lutheran church in the United States is grappling with sexuality issues, including how to deal with homosexual clergy.

“Our current policy is that if a pastor or other rostered [lay] leader is homosexual, he or she is not expected to be in a relationship. It’s the same policy as for heterosexual, not married, individuals,” said Bob Fisher. He’s the communications director for the Norristown-based Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

In 2007, after considering several proposals on the issue, a national Lutheran assembly voted not to change church policy. At that time, the assembly encouraged regional bishops to use their discretion in situations like [David] Wagner’s.

The national church expects to tackle issues involving sexuality ”” including homosexuality ”” at its 2009 general assembly. Wagner said church leaders could agree to the status quo or ban homosexuals in relationships from the ministry.

Wagner said he grew up in Minnesota in a conservative community that never allowed for differences. By age 11 or 12, he recalled that he knew he was “different.” It wasn’t the kind of thing you admitted, so he decided to repress his emerging attraction to males.

Wagner also had a deep love of God and a desire to preach the Gospel to others. He attended Gustavus Adolphus College south of Minneapolis-St. Paul. That’s where he decided to enter the ministry and where he was ordained 34 years ago.

He also married and had two children, whom he dotes on. Twenty-five years after his marriage and just before he took over at God’s Love, he finally admitted to his wife that he was gay. He moved to Newtown alone, but said he has remained close to his former wife and his children.

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Anglican Bishop John Chapman says he will likely decide within seven months or so whether to allow blessings of same-sex unions in the Ottawa diocese.

He is to discuss the issue with other clergy in July at the Lambeth conference, an international meeting of Anglicans that happens once a decade.

“I’m really hoping that, when we have an opportunity to look each other in the eye that, somehow we will find a way through so that more traditional-minded dioceses can live together with a more liberal-minded diocese under the same roof,” he said.

“I hope I am not being naively optimistic, but I do put a lot of stock in what can happen when people sit down and start to reason together.”

Then, Bishop Chapman said, the three Ontario bishops whose dioceses have asked for same-sex blessings ought to be able to come to some agreement on how to proceed “in a way that will be compatible with the Anglican Church of Canada as well.”

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From that barest of sketches, it is obvious that the cosmological argument has some grave problems. For one thing, it takes for granted the dubious principle that everything has an explanation. For another, there is no reason to suppose that the self-existent entity it points to has any other divine attributes, like omniscience or benevolence. But grappling with its flawed logic has led to a deeper understanding of existence, causation, time and infinity.

Paulos misses most of that. Just when the going ought to get good, intellectually speaking, he bales out with a jokey allusion to self-fellating yogis. He has a similarly glib way with the other classic arguments for God’s existence. The ontological argument ”” which, in its most up-to-date version, involves a subtle analysis of how existence might be built into the very definition of being like a god ”” is “logical abracadabra.” The argument from design is a “creationist Ponzi scheme” that “quickly leads to metaphysical bankruptcy.” You wonder how such transparently silly arguments could have engaged serious thinkers from Descartes, Leibniz and Hegel to the present day.

Clearly, Paulos is innocent of theology, which he dismisses as a “verbal magic show.” Like other neo-atheist authors, his tone tends to the sophomoric, with references to flatulent dogs and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Ann Coulter crops up in the index, but one looks in vain for the name of a great religious thinker like Karl Barth, who saw theology as an effort to understand what faith has given, not a quest for logical proof.

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Over the past several days, the only real movement in South Carolina’s Republican Presidential Primary has been a four-point gain for Fred Thompson and a five-point decline for Mike Huckabee.

The big winner from that trade-off is John McCain.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows McCain at 28%, Huckabee at 19%, Mitt Romney at 17%, and Fred Thompson at 16%. Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul are tied with 5% support. Giuliani is betting his entire campaign on a strong showing in Florida, where he is now tied for the lead with three others.

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The members of the church left Holy Cross and the Tennessee diocese saying they believed the Episcopal Church had strayed from its core doctrine and scripture on the role of Christ, salvation and sexuality. The Episcopal Church has been embroiled in controversy over its decision to allow gay priests to lead congregations.

“I felt this was where God wants my husband and son to be,” Sharon Garner said, explaining why she and her family left the Episcopal church to join the Faith Anglican Fellowship.

Faith Anglican Fellowship is affiliated with the Anglican Communion through the Anglican Communion Network and the Common Cause Partnership of North America as a part of the Church of Uganda.

“There’s a place of worship for everybody and this is our place,” Garner said.

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