U.S. Cellular Vice President and COO Jay Ellison says his ban on Friday e-mails at the Chicago-based company came after he heard complaints from employees. But it wasn’t a cakewalk.

“I got a lot of push-back from a lot of people that I was nuts they’d have to operate that way, and I pushed back on them,” Ellison said. “I respect that push-back,” he told them. “But I heard the associates; we’re going to try this.”

Ellison says the company tried it for two and a half months, and everyone loved it ”” even those who didn’t like the idea at first.

“I think people would outright just freak out if we started e-mails back up on Friday,” Ellison said. “I know the front-line leadership would scream; I’d have a mutiny on my hands.”

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GAFCON leadership team and key participants in the week long conference are on their way to Jerusalem for the final preparations for the meeting beginning Sunday. The Pre-GAFCON consultation in Jordan wound up early, and the participants move to Jerusalem today. Hotel and meeting rooms previously unavailable in Jerusalem became available at the same time GAFCON leaders learned that previously granted permission for the Jordan consultation was deemed insufficient.

GAFCON delegates have taken the alterations in their stride, the move proving no barrier to a developing sense of fellowship.

Already, there’ve been joyous scenes as GAFCON leaders greeted each other.

The Nigerian delegation was given a rousing cheer as was Archbishop and Mrs Yong Ping Chung. Archbishop Yong, of Sabah, will give a Bible study during the Gafcon week.

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Maybe he was trying to beat the heat. A Brooklyn restaurant cook is accused of stealing frozen lobster tails by stuffing them down his pants.

A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create “I Believe” license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina’s government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

“I do believe these ‘I Believe’ plates will not see the light of day because the courts, I’m confident, will see through this,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director.

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he school year that just ended brought to the fore a couple of controversies over Muslim students on U.S. campuses. The University of Michigan announced in the fall that it would be spending $25,000 on footbaths for Muslim students. In the spring, Harvard’s decision to provide women-only gym hours to accommodate some members of the campus Islamic society sparked debate in the ivory tower and beyond. Yet away from the often-harsh media glare, a profound shift has begun across the country. Where dogma and conformity once defined the Muslim scene on campus, students with liberal outlooks are emerging to assert their voices on the quad. At some American colleges where the only official Muslim events used to feature gender-segregated seating, new programs are drawing diverse Muslim and non-Muslim participants to explore the complexity of the Muslim community.

Only a half-century ago, there was hardly any Muslim communal presence at American universities. In the 1960s, the Muslim World League, a Saudi charity, funded the establishment of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), initially to support foreign students studying in the U.S. and, according to the organization’s Web site, to advance Da’wah (proselytizing). The MSA established its first chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now can be found on more than 100 campuses across North America.

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It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.

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Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.

More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.

The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.

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A report in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper referring to the book was headlined Hardline bishops declare Anglican split and went on to declare that they had “formally declared an end to the Anglican communion”.

That was firmly rejected by one of the GAFCON leaders, Sydney Archbishop Peter Jensen, who referred to the actions in North America by churches in defiance of the Lambeth decisions of 1998 on homosexuality.

“If we’re talking about schism and the break up of the communion, that’s where it starts and that’s where the responsibility is,” Archbishop Jensen says.

Earlier, Archbishop Jensen told the BBC from Amman that the actions meant that the Anglican communion had turned “from a nuclear family to an extended family”.

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THE Clearest indication yet that the forthcoming Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) will herald a formal split in the Anglican Communion came yesterday (Thursday) with the publication of The Way, the Truth and the Life.

The 94-page book will be given to everyone who attends GAFCON ”” organisers expect 1000, including 280 bishops ”” and has been produced by the 25-strong GAFCON theological resource team, chaired by the Archbishop of Bendel, in Nigeria, the Most Revd Nicolas Okoh. The group’s secretary is Canon Dr Chris Sugden, executive secretary of Anglican Mainstream, based in Oxford.

The book uses the language of the parting of the ways. “We see a parallel between contemporary events and events in England in the 16th century. Then, the Catholic Church in England was faced with the choice of aligning itself with either Rome or Geneva. But, when forced to decide its identity, it sought to distinguish itself from both the practices of the Papacy and the excesses it associated with the more radical reformers.

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Gafcon, the Global Anglican Future Conference, will work towards shaping an “Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centred mission [is] a top priority,” Dr Jensen, the chairman of the conference’s programme committee, said. He denied charges the conference was a shadow Lambeth Conference, saying the delegates meeting at the Renaissance Hotel near Israel’s Knesset in West Jerusalem were not going to “ape” Lambeth. “This is a conference about he future and we’ve deliberately invited lay people, clergy and others” to ask what it means “to be Anglican,” he said. “How can we best serve God, how can we honour his word and how can we best make his message known? They’re the big themes we’ll be looking at,” Dr Jensen said.

However, Dr Jensen, along with bishops from amongst the largest provinces of the Communion: Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, will boycott the Lambeth Conference, attending Gafcon in its place. “We have made other plans to travel to Jerusalem [instead of Lambeth] to reflect on how best we can do the work of the Lord,” Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya explained last week, citing conservative disquiet with its agenda and guest list.

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It is true that the forthcoming Lambeth Conference will also be a divided body, boycotted by an unprecedented numbers of bishops. But the semi-fiasco of Gafcon means that Dr Williams still has a chance of keeping the conservative Christians of, say, Uganda, in dialogue with the liberal provinces of the United States and Canada.

Whether the Anglican Communion can survive the inevitable discord of Lambeth is still unclear. But it is encouraging that some of the most vociferous critics of liberal Anglicanism have decided to join in debate and worship with their fellow bishops at their traditional gathering in England rather than declare allegiance to a rival body meeting in the Middle East.

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Watch the whole encouraging reporrt on some seeking to help those in the flooding’s path.

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The world’s population will reach 7 billion in 2012, even as the global community struggles to satisfy its appetite for natural resources, according to a new government projection.
There are 6.7 billion people in the world today. The United States ranks third, with 304 million, behind China and India, according to projections released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning it will take only 13 years to add a billion people.

By comparison, the number of people didn’t reach 1 billion until 1800, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. It didn’t reach 2 billion until 130 years later.

“You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,” Haub said.

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“Football is like chess without the dice.”

–A German football player as cited in Der Spiegel in an article on the greatest football quotes in Germany, cited on this week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell me show (Go here and click on the “Lightning Fill in the Blank” segment, then begin listening at 2 minutes 55 seconds).

Guess which program before you click.

The Rt. Rev. Jerry A. Lamb
P. O. Box 7606
Stockton, CA 95267

Re: St. Andrew’s Anglican Mission

Dear Bishop Lamb:

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

This will reply to your June 1, 2008, letter to Father Charles Threewit concerning St. Andrew’s Anglican Mission in Taft, California.

Our records indicate that St. Andrew’s Mission validly adopted Anglican bylaws on March 23, 2008. These bylaws cannot be amended without my consent (which was not requested and not given) and without a properly called meeting of the Bishop’s Committee. Title to the Mission’s real property is held by the Anglican Diocese Holding Corporation.

We do not have any first hand knowledge about the meeting you conducted where you say “an overwhelming majority vote” was recorded by those present to remain with the Episcopal Church. We do know that whatever meeting took place was not properly noticed and that a voting quorum of the Bishop’s Committee was not present. Following your meeting, you apparently caused the locks on the Mission doors to be changed and you and your agents have taken physical possession of the building. These actions are all very irregular and, in my opinion, unlawful.

On top of it all, you apparently asked one of our priests who holds Anglican orders, Father Upton, to conduct services. Father Upton has asked my permission to conduct services on a temporary basis and I have granted his request to stabilize the situation for the time being. The Anglican contingent of the Mission can be ministered to by our three thriving Anglican parishes in Bakersfield until we can sort this matter out.

It is not our intention to rush back in and change the locks, as you have done, and cause further upheaval in this small mission. Our actions, however, are not to be construed as a waiver of any rights on our part. The civil courts and our ongoing investigation will ultimately settle the matter of title to the real and personal property of the Mission. To this end, it would be helpful if you would forward to us the minutes of
the meeting you conducted so we can review them.

We will also permit your use of the Mission computer under the same reservation of rights and with your implicit agreement that it will remain at the Mission until a final decision is made by the courts or by our agreement. Father Threewit, the priest in charge, temporarily removed the computer because he suspected something was afoot but he did not know what it was. He thought it wise under the circumstances to remove the computer so its contents could be copied. That has been accomplished and we will make arrangements to get it back to the Mission.

While I in no way agree with or condone your actions, nevertheless, may the peace of God be with you.

In Christ,

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

The whole world is watching. This gathering is about the future. In my travels around North America this spring it has become increasingly clear just how much faithful Anglicans are looking to what we will do here. In contrast, there is almost no popular expectation surrounding Lambeth.

We are here on pilgrimage. With the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, we know ourselves to be strangers and exiles, aliens here. We are headed to a lasting city.
We know that everything we do has to do with the story: the old, old story. Finally, it is not about England, or Canterbury, though these relationships matter to us. Our life, our witness, our leadership, our pilgrimage here is all about Jesus.

What comes out of this gathering we cannot predict. But we are confident that God is not done with Anglicanism. We are confident that GAFCON is one piece of what God already has in mind as part of a Global Settlement of Anglicanism. This Global Settlement of Anglicanism we also understand to be but one aspect of a 21st century Reformation of the whole Christian Church.

It is tempting to be impatient. But impatience is just that, a temptation. Impatience does not become servants. We will do our part here. We will work hard here. We will build relationships here. We will focus on the story here. We will try to get out of God’s way here. We will say our prayers here. We will dream here. But finally we will entrust everything to our Master here. Our God is sovereignly re-forming his Church, of that we may be sure, and of that this Global Anglican Future Conference is an unmistakable sign. The Prophet Jeremiah has a word for us: “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jer.29:11) We do well also to remember St. Paul’s assurance at the end of I Thessalonians: “He who has called [us] is faithful, and He will do it.” [5:24]

This promise is true, as are all the promises, not least for us Anglicans.

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At the last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, the bishops overwhelmingly passed a resolution saying that homosexuality was “incompatible with Scripture,” and that homosexuals should not be ordained. The vote revealed the growing strength of the conservative bishops from Africa and the developing world.

To forestall conflict, the organizers of this year’s Lambeth Conference have planned for no resolutions, no proposals and no votes. Instead, the bishops will meet in small groups, on the theory that they will overcome their divisions by building personal relationships.

The Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., who served on the design committee for Lambeth, said in a news conference last month, “It’s fundamentally about the encounter, about conversations among the leaders all oriented to: what is God calling the Anglican Communion and the bishops to be about in the wider world?”

Bishop Minns said of the Lambeth Conference, “It’s unfortunate, at a time the church needs clear and strong leadership, it gets two weeks of conversation.”

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