Not long after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Donny George, an Iraqi Christian whose family had lived in the region for thousands of years, received a death threat in an envelope containing a Kalashnikov bullet. The letter accused George of working for the Americans and said his youngest son had disrespected Islam. George quickly arranged to send most of his family to Damascus, Syria, but he stayed behind to work at the Iraqi National Museum, becoming chairman of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in 2005.

Within a year, though, he too decided to flee ”” first to Damascus, and eventually to the USA.

“I was told by some people in the same ministry that ”¦ such an important institution should not be headed by a Christian,” George told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom last year.

Many Iraqi Christians have suffered far worse fates. As documented by the U.S. State Department, Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq have endured extensive persecution since 2003, including the murder of their religious leaders, threats of violence or death if they do not abandon their homes and businesses, and the bombing or destruction of their churches and other places of worship. According to one Iraqi Christian leader, half of Iraq’s Christians have fled the nation since 2003, and some have likened the situation to ethnic cleansing.

Read it all.

The White House’s reliance on questionable operatives, and on plans involving possible lethal action inside Iran, has created anger as well as anxiety within the Special Operations and intelligence communities. JSOC’s operations in Iran are believed to be modelled on a program that has, with some success, used surrogates to target the Taliban leadership in the tribal territories of Waziristan, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But the situations in Waziristan and Iran are not comparable.

In Waziristan, “the program works because it’s small and smart guys are running it,” the former senior intelligence official told me. “It’s being executed by professionals. The N.S.A., the C.I.A., and the D.I.A.”””the Defense Intelligence Agency””“are right in there with the Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence, and they’re dealing with serious bad guys.” He added, “We have to be really careful in calling in the missiles. We have to hit certain houses at certain times. The people on the ground are watching through binoculars a few hundred yards away and calling specific locations, in latitude and longitude. We keep the Predator loitering until the targets go into a house, and we have to make sure our guys are far enough away so they don’t get hit.” One of the most prominent victims of the program, the former official said, was Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Taliban commander, who was killed on January 31st, reportedly in a missile strike that also killed eleven other people.

A dispatch published on March 26th by the Washington Post reported on the increasing number of successful strikes against Taliban and other insurgent units in Pakistan’s tribal areas. A follow-up article noted that, in response, the Taliban had killed “dozens of people” suspected of providing information to the United States and its allies on the whereabouts of Taliban leaders. Many of the victims were thought to be American spies, and their executions””a beheading, in one case””were videotaped and distributed by DVD as a warning to others.

It is not simple to replicate the program in Iran. “Everybody’s arguing about the high-value-target list,” the former senior intelligence official said. “The Special Ops guys are pissed off because Cheney’s office set up priorities for categories of targets, and now he’s getting impatient and applying pressure for results. But it takes a long time to get the right guys in place.”

Read it all.

Please check it out.

We used to know what infidelity was: sex with someone other than your mate.

But the 21st century seems to have blurred those clear-cut lines. Is having lunch every day with an opposite-sex work friend a breach of marital trust? What about a flirtation online? If there’s no sex, is it really cheating?

Such questions arise as societal and psychological pressures challenge deep-rooted ideas about the nature of infidelity. “We are as a society finally coming to grips with what it means to be faithful,” says Douglas Snyder, a psychologist at Texas A&M University-College Station. “It doesn’t just mean to have sex with someone else.”

Read it all.

Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world.

A senior defense official told ABC News there is an “increasing likelihood” that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well.

The official identified two “red lines” that could trigger an Israeli offensive. The first is tied to when Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility produces enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. According to the latest U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments, that is likely to happen sometime in 2009, and could happen by the end of this year.

“The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point,” the official said. “We are in the window of vulnerability.”

Read it all.

What stands out in the statement? Five initial impressions of what will be important.

1. A strong commitment to stay in and affirm the Anglican Communion, despite all.

2. The creation of a fellowship of Confessing Anglicans within the Communion.

3. The issuing of the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis for such a fellowship.

4. A Council of Primates to oversee the movement.

5. A new Province in the USA recognised by the Council of Primates, which means that the power of the Archbishop of Canterbury alone to say who is in and who is out is to be shared.

Read it all.

“[In Jerusalem] we all sat around the table, and pretty well with one voice, we said, we are not leaving the Anglican Communion,” Archbishop Greg Venables, who oversees several countries in South America, said from Jerusalem. “We are not going to break away and form another church.”

There had been talk preceding the meeting of a theological divorce. The group did not split because, Venables says, “we are the true Anglicans.”

“We don’t accept that we can hand over the franchise of Anglicanism to people who suddenly, without consulting anyone, decided to create a new version of Anglicanism,” he says.

Read or listen to it all.

More than 1,300 clergy, including 11 serving bishops, have written to the archbishops of Canterbury and York to say that they will defect from the Church of England if women are consecrated bishops.

As the wider Anglican Communion fragments over homosexuality, England’s established Church is moving towards its own crisis with a crucial vote on women bishops this weekend.

In a letter to Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, seen by The Times, the signatories give warning that they will consider leaving the Church if two crucial votes are passed to introduce female bishops.

Read it all.

First it was drinking. Then it was cell phones. Now text-messaging is the latest behind-the-wheel activity lawmakers are trying to curb.

“All of my friends do it,” says Sonalie Patel, 17, who lives in Elk Grove Village, Ill., and admits that she too occasionally sends texts despite a ban on cell phone use for drivers under 19 and adults with learners permits. “It’s like an epidemic.”

Indeed, a Nationwide Insurance survey found that 18% of cell phone owners text and drive and that drivers between the ages of 16 and 30 are the most frequent texters. Young adults have even posted videos of themselves texting while driving on YouTube, and nearly 600 people have joined a Facebook group called “I Text Message People While Driving And I Haven’t Crashed Yet!”

Read it all.

For now, GAFcon seems to be trying to provoke a split rather than announcing one itself. On Monday, Rowan Williams responded to the Jerusalem declaration by saying he thought “the tenets of orthodoxy” spelled out in the document will be acceptable and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans. He did, however, note that GAFcon’s proposals for reorganizing its churches and “intervention” in existing dioceses were problematic. It now likely that the U.S., which brought the conservative-liberal tension to a boil with its consecration of openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson in 2003, could end up being the setting for a GAFcon provocation. Certainly, after this past weekend, the temperature of the U.S. battle will only increase along with the international stakes.

Read it all.

Adults distrust young people and are increasingly worried about children’s declining morality, a report has found.

In the poll of 1,176 UK adults, 66% said children’s morality today was “not as strong” as when they were young.

Seven out of 10 questioned for the Children’s Society survey – 69% – said children’s community values had fallen.

The Bishop of Leicester, the Right Reverend Tim Stevens,said children were aware of these attitudes and wanted to be seen positively, not as “thugs”.

Read it all.

In some ways the newly formed Gafcon body resembles much more this “colonial” strategy than perhaps its organizers contemplate. The banding together of like-minded Anglicans to give mutual support and to encourage evangelism and church growth, in bodies which remain within the traditional structure of the church, but in formal and ad hoc ways exercise their own control, has been a part of the Anglican story for centuries.

What is revolutionary and perhaps troubling is the intention of Gafcon to enter existing Provinces of the Communion without the authorization or consent of the canonical bodies involved. In this perhaps crucial aspect, Gafcon is proposing to act as a church rather than as a large “missionary society” or lobby or interest group.

That such a society exhibits impatience with existing church structures is nothing new. The argument which split the Evangelical Movement in the 18th Century was not simply about “Calvinism” versus “Arminianism”, although neither title precisely fits the moment, but about whether the existing parochial structure of the church was to be respected and used, or whether to go outside that structure and create cells of converts linked in “connexion”. Gradually the Wesleyans “invaded” the structure, placing evangelism above ecclesiology. Church evangelicals remained within the structure, “converting” parishes and accepting high office.

As far as North America and perhaps England is concerned, Gafcon seems to be following the path of the early Methodists in placing evangelical strategy and need over ecclesiology.

Read it all.

With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.

Local officials have initiated an all-out effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently covered a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic races.

Water quality has been a concern for the sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

Read it all.

[color=red]last updated: 3 July 2008, 12:30 GMT (8:30 a.m. Eastern)[/color]
What’s new: Response from +Hiltz of Canada, new GLOBAL petition to indicate your support of GAFCON, long commentary on GAFCON from Forward in Faith, etc…

———————-
Now that the responses to GAFCON are coming in fast and furious, we thought it would be helpful to create a roundup post to track them. As always, feel free to post comments that include links to articles and statements of interest.

[b]New entries July 2 & 3:[/b] (apologies these are in no particular order… it’s a busy day)

A NEW GLOBAL Petition in support of GAFCON:

++Hiltz (Primate of Canada)

+Chane (Dio. Washington)

+Benn (Lewes, UK)

CANA Bishop David Bena writes his clergy about GAFCON

Forward in Faith: Letter from Jerusalem

Bp. Kirk Smith of Arizona (See “A Final Thought”)

Alister McGrath

Chris Sugden

Kevin Kallsen of Anglican TV reflects on GAFCON

GAFCON Report by Canon Bill Gandenberger (Dio. San Joaquin)

Church of England GAFCON Briefing (one of the Melbourne GAFCON bloggers)

Church Times blog (July 1): GAFCON Primates in London

A summary of GAFCON designed for parish newsletters (Produced by the Chelmsford branch of Anglican Mainstream, note this is primarily geared to CoE parishes)

New materials at Anglican TV:
GAFCON: The Post Gafcon London Meeting
GAFCON Archbishop Venables delivers closing sermon
GAFCON-Final-Press-ConferenceGAFCON: Final Press Conference

— end of new July 3 links —

****

I. GAFCON Communique and other important Conference Materials (see also section VI. below for more conference materials)

The GAFCON Communique — full text and primary T19 discussion thread.
— the SF Discussion Thread on the Communique.

GAFCON Final Press Briefing (audio)

GAFCON Final Press Release
— SF Discussion thread

Jerusalem Declaration Acceptance Statement (Matt Kennedy’s liveblog)

The Offical GAFCON website is here.

***

II. International Response and Commentary

Archbishop Rowan Williams Response
— SF Discussion thread

Bishop NT Wright’s Response

Bp. Allan Ewing (Canberra)

Abp. Peter Jensen (Sydney)

Bp. Robert Forsyth (South Sydney)

Modern Churchpeople’s Union

Bp. Tom Butler (Southwark)

++Philip Aspinall, Primate of Australia

Inclusive Church

Anglican Church League, Sydney

***

III. US Response and Commentary

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Response

Bishop Iker’s (Fort Worth) Response

Canon Neal Michell (Diocese of Dallas) Response

Dr. Leander Harding

Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina: Understanding the Times (pre-GAFCON)

***

IV. Bloggers and Various other Commentary

The GAFCON links post which we elves had posted during most of the GAFCON conference — links to all those who were blogging from Jerusalem

Matt Kennedy: The Anglican Communion Must Change or Die

Greg Griffith: Finally, Into the Breach? The Global Anglican Future Begins

Fr. Dan Martins: A First Take on the Jerusalem Declaration

The Ugley Vicar: Can GAFCON really help us in England?

Graham Kings: On the GAFCON Final Statement: Encouragements and Serious Questions

Christopher Seitz on the GAFCON Communique’

Brad Drell: What The Gafcon Statement Means For Western Louisiana

Bobby J. Kennedy: GAFCON: What’s in it for me? (Another view from Western Louisiana)

Fr. Lee Nelson (Fort Worth, GAFCON attendee): My Thoughts on the Jerusalem Declaration and the GAFCON Statement

Tony Payne (Sydney, GAFCON attendee): GAFCON final day: Making a Statement!

Dr. Karin Sowada (Sydney, GAFCON attendee): Singing Bishops and Firm Words

REFORM Ireland (GAFCON attendee): Moving Forward

The Rev. Grant LeMarquand (Trinity Seminary, Ambridge)

Cherie Wetzel (Anglicans United, Dallas, GAFCON attendee)

Tony Clavier: GAFCON and Voluntary Groups

Chris Watson Lee: GAFCON Roundup

***
V. Mainstream Media Reports

Timothy Morgan: Misunderstanding GAFCON (Christianity Today)

Travis Kavulla: Remaking Anglicanism (National Review)

Time: An Anglican Schism Headed for US?

Telegraph July 1 (coverage of All Souls Langham Place, comments by ++Jensen and ++Orombi)

NPR: All Things Considered, June 30, Barbara Bradley Hagerty (Comments by ++Venables, Naughton, +Minns, +VGR)

***

VI. Miscellaneous Conference Materials

Matt Kennedy’s blog entry listing TEC Bishops and Anglican Primates in attendance at GAFCON

Dr. Stephen Noll: COMMUNING WITH CHRIST, A WORKSHOP ON ANGLICAN ECCLESIOLOGY
Given at GAFCON 2008

Notes on Dr. Os Guiness’ talk at GAFCON

The full Transcript of Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali’s GAFCON Talk
GAFCON Day 3: Live Blog of +Nazr-Ali Remarks to General Assembly

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali on authentic Anglicanism

Dr. Mark Thompson: “Just what is the Bible?” (GAFCON Scripture workshop)

Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda Interviewed at Gafcon by BBC’s Today Programme
Live Blog: Archbishop Henry Orombi’s Sermon at the Opening Eucharist

GAFCON: Live Blog of Day 1 Press Conference

GAFCON ”“ A Rescue Mission: Archbishop Peter Akinola’s opening address
GAFCON: Transcript of Archbishop Akinola’s Opening Address

Bp Bob Duncan: Anglicanism Come of Age: A Post-Colonial and Global Communion for the 21st Century
— SF Discussion thread

GAFCON: ”˜The Way, the Truth and the Life’ Publication [PDF Document]
— T19 thread
— SF Discussion

VII. All Souls Langham Place London Post-Gafcon meeting
1. Presentation by ++Orombi
2. Presentation by ++Venables
3. Interview with JI Packer
4. Panel Discussion
5. Apb. Peter Jensen Presentation
6. Petition to declare support of GAFCON for CoE members (COE members only!)

VIII: Additional Anglican TV videos:
GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration Video
GAFCON Behind the scenes briefing
GAFCON Interview with Archbishop Venables
Anglican Report with Archbishop Orombi

[color=red]last updated: 3 July 2008, 12:30 GMT (8:30 am Eastern)[/color]

Contrary to their claims, the Anglican Communion is traditionally one that embraces difference and respects diversity. Since the reign of Henry VIII the Church of England has sought to encompass a range of opinions because it recognized that no one group has special access to truth. Therefore engagement with those with whom you disagree is essential in pursuit of truth.

The formation of FOCA is nothing less than a pre-emptive first strike by those who are determined to have their own way come what may. Their abandonment of serious theological discussion and debate is a betrayal of the ethos of Anglicanism.

Jonathan Clatworthy, General Secretary of the MCU said: “They tried to take over, using homosexuality as a rallying-cry and threatening to split the Anglican Communion. Finding their more extreme demands rejected they have finally decided to go their own way. This will be an opportunity for the Anglican Communion to reaffirm its traditional openness and diversity, recognizing that nobody has all the answers”.

Read it all.

It has been a joy to participate in the GAFCON experience in Jerusalem, and I welcome and endorse the proclamation that has been issued at the conclusion of our week of deliberation and prayer.

It is a positive contribution to the future direction of the Anglican Communion, as well as a very encouraging affirmation and validation of the realignment that has been taking place in the Communion over the past few years.

We stand in solidarity with the GAFCON movement and principles, and we in Fort Worth look forward to the continuing saga of this exciting development in our life together as faithful Anglicans.

May the Lord continue to bless and guide us in the challenging days ahead of us.

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth

[from the Diocese of Fort Worth website]

What’s more, it is enormously exciting to live at a time when new leadership is arising from places completely outside the north Atlantic axis. Africa was one of the great cradles of early Christianity, producing such towering minds as Tertullian and Augustine. Most of us have long ago moved away from any idea that Christianity, or even Anglicanism, somehow ”˜belongs’ to England or northern Europe. In my own diocese we love our link with Lesotho, and always find that visits from our friends there bring new energy and joy to our parishes and schools. Just as you don’t have to go to Jerusalem to meet Jesus ”“ he is alive and present to heal and save in every place! ”“ so it’s obvious that you don’t have to go to Canterbury to be part of the Anglican family. However, as I know, going to Jerusalem can help. Pilgrimage can add a new dimension to our awareness of who Jesus was and is; it has done that for me, as it clearly has done for those attending GAFCON. Likewise, the historic link with Canterbury is not to be dismissed. Cutting your links with the past can be like cutting off the roots of a tree. Reconnecting with our roots ”“ and, where necessary, refreshing and cleaning them ”“ is always better than pretending we don’t need them. But what matters is of course the fruit. Here in my diocese, as in so many in England, we are refreshing our roots and seeing real fruit; but we don’t imagine we are self-sufficient. On the contrary, we know we have a great deal to learn from brothers and sisters in many other parts of the world, Africa included. I would have hoped, actually, that all this would now go without saying: that we have long moved beyond the sterile stand-off between ”˜colonialism’ and ”˜post-colonialism’. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s what matters.

I and my colleagues in this diocese, like so many others, share exactly in the sense that we are a fellowship ”˜confessing the faith of Christ crucified, standing firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context’, sharing too the goal ”˜to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world’ and ”˜to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ’. For this reason, I know that the GAFCON leaders can’t have intended to imply (as a ”˜suspicious’ reading of their text might suggest) that they are the only ones who really believe all this, that they and they alone care about such things. The rest of us, no doubt ”“ including several of us who were not invited to GAFCON ”“ are eager to share in any fresh movements of the Spirit that are going ahead. And as we do so I know that the GAFCON leaders would want us to express the various questions that naturally come to mind as we contemplate what they have said to us. Just as they wouldn’t want anyone to swallow uncritically the latest pronouncement from Canterbury or New York, so clearly they wouldn’t want us merely to glance at their document, see that it’s ”˜all about the gospel’, and then conclude that we must sign up without thinking through what’s being said and why. It is in that spirit that I raise certain questions which seem to me important precisely because of our shared goals (the advancement of the gospel), our shared context (the enormous challenges of contemporary society and of a church often muddled in theology and ethics and lacking the structures to cope), and our shared heritage (the Anglican tradition with its Articles, Prayer Books and historic roots).

Central to these questions is the puzzle about the new proposed structure. I am sure the GAFCON organisers are as horrified as I am to see today’s headlines about ”˜a new church’. That doesn’t seem to be what they intended.

Read it carefully and read it all.

“Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships with others across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the gospel…” [the Presiding Bishop oberserved.]

The Jerusalem meeting took place ahead of the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion’s once-a-decade meeting which takes place later this summer in England.

Jefferts Schori said she was looking forward to that meeting for “constructive conversation, inspired prayer, and relational encounters.”

Bishop Martyn Minns, a Virginia-based leader of the conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America who attended the Jerusalem meeting, told U.S. reporters by phone from Israel on Monday that a split in the Anglican church is not being discussed.

“The language of split was not part of the conversation,” he said. “We’re all part of the family. It’s more like the traditional family where children grow up and are treated differently,” he said.

Read it all.

(ENS)

Much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON. Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable. This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers. Anglicans will continue to worship God in their churches, serve the hungry and needy in their communities, and build missional relationships with others across the globe, despite the desire of a few leaders to narrow the influence of the gospel. We look forward to the opportunities of the Lambeth Conference for constructive conversation, inspired prayer, and relational encounters.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

The Americans at GAFCON really wanted a Christendom-based solution which would have split the Anglican Communion and called for the formation of an alternative Communion.

An alternative Christendom solution would have been the formation of a network of like-minded dioceses and provinces wholly within the Anglican Communion. This “network within a Communion” is what the Anglican Communion Network and the more recently proposed Communion Partners have called for.

Instead of the Christendom solution calling for a “you’re either in or out but not both,” the Jerusalem Communiqué says “you can be in and out, yet still in relationship, and we will still recognize your holy orders.”

Some have said that Anglicanism is now, in effect, a federation. I don’t thinks so. A federation still has Christendom writ large over it. Under a federation, all those in the federation agree that they are all a part of a federation. Under the auspices of the Jerusalem communiqué, not all of these Anglicans even want to be a part of the Anglican Communion (federation) if it means that the Americans and Canadians are a part.

The Jerusalem Communiqué changes Anglicanism from a Communion to a series of networks, or a series of relationships….

Read it all.