Bishop Duncan will remain on the diocesan payroll as an administrative adviser, but with no sacramental ministry or authority to act for the diocese, said the Rev. David Wilson, president of the Standing Committee and rector of St. David’s in Peters.

“It’s not going to make a whole lot of difference. We have not looked forward to this day, but we are prepared for it” he said.

The Rev. James Simons of St. Michael of the Valley, Ligonier, the only member of the Standing Committee opposed to secession, agreed.

“I’m saddened by it,” he said of the bishops’ vote. “I think it’s unfortunate that this has happened. The bishops should have waited until after the vote takes place at the diocesan convention. I suspect this will encourage people to vote for realignment. The Standing Committee is not going to change course.”

Read it all.

We are profoundly disappointed by this action, and view it as yet another tragic rejection of the historic faith of our diocese and the majority consensus of the Anglican Communion. We continue to believe that the House of Bishops has clearly misapplied and misinterpreted the canons as we stated to the Presiding Bishop in our letter of May 28.

In light of this unfair and improper action to “depose” our bishop, we now assume our responsibility under the canons to be the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Bishop Duncan will continue to support the work of our diocese under the terms of his administrative employment agreement and within the bounds of his deposition, providing many of the services that he previously performed for the diocese. Our diocesan convention of October 4 will go forward as planned, at which the canonically required re-alignment vote will be taken.

We understand that Bishop Duncan has been received as a member in good standing of the House of Bishops of the Province of the Southern Cone. We rejoice at this news.

The Standing Committee asks that the clergy and people of Pittsburgh pray for the Duncans, the diocesan staff and the elected leadership of the diocese in the days ahead. We stand firmly on the promise of Holy Scripture found in Romans 8:28. “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

The Rev David D. Wilson, President
St. David’s Church, Peter’s Twp PA

The Rev. Karen B. Stevenson
Trinity Church, Washington PA

The Rev. Geoffery W. Chapman
St. Stephen’s Church, Sewickley PA

Mr. Wicks Stephens, Secretary
Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh PA

Dr. Theresa T. Newell
St. Stephen’s Church, Sewickley PA

Mrs. Gladys Hunt-Mason
St. Stephen’s Church, McKeesport PA

Mr. Kenneth Herbst
St. Peter’s Church, Butler PA

Bishop Gary Lillibridge of West Texas
“As difficult as this decision is for me and many others in our Church, it is important to realize that the decision in the House today was not based on the theological convictions of Bishop Duncan, but rather on the evidence presented regarding statements and actions concerning moves to take the Diocese of Pittsburgh out of the Episcopal Church.”.

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego
“Today’s decision was difficult and emotional but a necessary action to care for the order of the Church, the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and the collegiality of the House of Bishops.”

Bishop Porter Taylor of Western North Carolina
“Our decisions today were very difficult and came out of our deep love for our Church, a commitment to honor our ordination vows, and a desire to strengthen the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”

Read it all.

(ENS) CPG’s home page features a short statement pertaining to the Clergy Pension Plan, saying that “despite recent market volatility, the Fund’s financial condition remains very strong, with assets well in excess of liabilities.”

That statement links to a second, slightly longer statement on the Clergy Pension Plan. That statement reads in full:

“In light of the recent market volatility, the Board and staff of the Church Pension Fund want to reassure participants in the Clergy Pension Plan that the Fund’s financial condition remains very strong, with assets well in excess of liabilities.

“The Clergy Pension Plan maintains substantial reserves, and the recent market volatility does not begin to call into question the soundness of the Fund. The pension benefits of the Clergy Pension Plan are fully secure.”

Read it all.

There is some truth in that answer; but it is not the whole story. The crisis is not the creation of “greedy bankers” and speculators: it is the result of too much debt, after governments and central banks failed to constrain the credit expansion of the early years of this decade. Bankers then irresponsibly exploited the opportunities afforded by an easy credit regime. Wall Street fuelled the demand for high-yield investment products in an era of low interest rates ”” hence the attraction of the sub-prime mortgage market.

But bankers operate by incentives. The real weakness in the banking system lies with those responsible for bankers’ compensation: the shareholders, who own the banks, and the boards, who manage them. Perverse incentives promised huge rewards for those who took risks in the hope of reaping short-term profits ”” but those same incentives did not penalise failure.

Hedge funds are also a focus for criticism, owing to their short-selling of bank stocks (that is, selling stocks they do not own, in the hope that the price will fall and thereby allow them to buy the shares later at a profit). Again, there is some justice in this, but it is not the whole picture. Short-selling is a useful discipline in financial markets. A falling share price may signal that a company management is under-performing or has a bad business model. There are good reasons that the share prices of investment banks are being marked down: many are technically insolvent. But in the exceptional current circumstances, short-sellers are exploiting weaknesses in the financial system with consequences that go beyond their commercial calculation of risk and return. The Financial Services Authority has introduced a ban on short sales of bank stocks, with effect from today ”” some will say, a week too late for HBOS.

But ultimately a rush to blame the bankers or the speculators is misplaced…

Read it all.

I happened to catch this in the car this week and it really brightened my day–see what you think.

While we have always have our historic formularies and creeds, the Church has needed from time to time to restate again her position on issues affecting our common life. In the 1998 Lambeth, one of the issues was our Church position on the family. And if Lambeth 2008 is anything to go by, that mind remains.

If so, why can’t we submit ourselves to this discipline and mutual accountability as minimally expressed through the Windsor-proposed Covenant process (as a solution to the crisis and help the Communion to deal with future similar ones)? If being part of the wider (global and by far, much larger in some parts) Communion is to mean anything, why can’t each Province choose to stand together on this? And we have not even begin to mention our relationships with our ecumenical partners and what these recent innovations will do to our long held ”˜Via Media’ role.

We have come thus far in affirming the Windsor Report (and the ”˜process,’ which in the opinion of some, weakens the report). Whether quick or otherwise, the crisis needs fixing.

We pray that the Covenant Design Group and various Communion bodies will not blink.

Read it all.

The Rev. David Wilson, president of the committee that oversees the Pittsburgh diocese, called Duncan’s ouster “a very painful moment.”

“The leadership of The Episcopal Church has inserted itself in a most violent manner into the affairs and governance of our diocese,” Wilson said. “We will stand firm against any further attempts by those outside our boundaries to intimidate us.”

But Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, which represents parishioners fighting to stay with the national denomination, said Duncan “has rejected numerous opportunities and warnings to reconsider and change course.”

Read the whole article.

Via email:

HERNDON, Va. (September 18, 2008) ”“ The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) responded to The Episcopal Church’s decision to depose Bishop Bob Duncan, moderator of the Common Cause Partnership and the head of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, from the priesthood. CANA is a founding member of the Common Cause Partnership.
“We support Bishop Duncan, a godly man who has chosen to follow the historic teaching of the worldwide Anglican Communion and to remain steadfast in his faith. CANA continues to recognize Bishop Duncan as a bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion, as Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and as the moderator of the Common Cause Partnership. This hostile and uncanonical action by The Episcopal Church House of Bishops will not be accepted by the worldwide Anglican Communion,” said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns.

David Bena, Suffragan Bishop of CANA, added, “What interests me is that this well planned ambush of Bishop Duncan by the leadership of The Episcopal Church failed to take into account something pretty important ”“ they are firing blanks. Bishop Duncan is now even more respected across the world, remains in office, and just went up another notch as a respected leader in the Anglican Communion.”

“We hope and pray for the leaders of The Episcopal Church that they would protect the interests of its members by working with ”“ rather than fiercely against ”“ its bishops to proclaim the life-transforming news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That should be the goal of all Christians. Sadly, trying to fire a bishop in good standing with the rest of the Anglican Communion does nothing to save one soul,” Bishop Minns concluded.

Bishop Duncan’s Statement on his “Deposition”

“I offer my deepest thanks to the company of saints all around the globe who have sustained me, my wife and all who are dear to me in these days.”

It is a very sad day for The Episcopal Church. It is also a sad day for me, a faithful son of that church.

Nevertheless it is also a hopeful day, hopeful because of the unstoppable Reformation that is overtaking the Christian Church in the West. It is also a hopeful day for me personally as I am unanimously welcomed into the House of Bishops of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, an act applauded by Anglican archbishops, bishops, clergy and people all around the world.

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will move forward under its new Ecclesiastical Authority, its Standing Committee. That body will carry the diocese through to our realignment vote on October 4. With the success of that vote, it will be possible that we be joined together again as bishop and people.

I offer my deepest thanks to the company of saints all around the globe who have sustained me, my wife and all who are dear to me in these days.

Robert Duncan

From here.
http://www.pitanglican.org/news/local/duncanstatement091808

http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/2008/09/presiding-bisho.html

The following is the statement by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on the actions of the House of Bishops today, Thursday, September 18, 2008

The House of Bishops worked carefully and prayerfully to consider the weighty matter of Bishop Duncan. The conversation was holy, acknowledging the pain of our deliberations as well as the gratitude many have felt over the years for their relationships with, and the ministry of, Robert Duncan. The House concluded, however, that his actions over recent months and years constitute “abandonment of the communion of this church” and that he should be deposed. Concern was expressed for the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in the face of leadership which has sought to remove itself from The Episcopal Church. In the days and months ahead, this Church will work to ensure appropriate pastoral care and provision for the members of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, so that mission and ministry in that part of Pennsylvania may continue in the name of Jesus Christ and in the tradition of the Episcopal Church.

Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh has issued a press release with their reaction to today’s news from the HOB re: the supposed deposition of Bishop Duncan. The following section caught this elf’s eye:

Now that the House of Bishops has acted, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh needs to find a way to move forward gracefully and productively. By canon, the Standing Committee is now the ecclesiastical authority for the diocese. We pray that its members will exercise wisdom in a spirit of love and reconciliation and will reconsider the divisive course set for our upcoming diocesan convention. It is within their power to begin to heal this troubled diocese.

The full text is here.

Watch it all.

The House of Bishops brushed aside procedural challenges and deposed Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church Sept. 18.

The final tally was 88 yes, 35 no, with four abstentions, according to one bishop. Those results are not official, however.

Present were 128 bishops. Not present were 15 who could not attend for a variety of reasons, including the bishops of Texas who are dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Nine did not respond and were not present, according to Episcopal News Service.

Immediately after his deposition from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church, Bishop Duncan was welcomed into the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, according to Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables.

Read it all.

The House of Bishops purported deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan will not change the agenda for the Oct. 4 Diocesan Convention or change Bishop Duncan’s status as a bishop in good standing within the Anglican Communion.

The action of the House of Bishops, which was taken in a closed meeting on September 18 in Salt Lake City, Utah, contravenes numerous canons of The Episcopal Church. While Bishop Duncan continues to believe that the “deposition” is unlawful, he will not challenge the “deposition” prior to the end of the diocese’s October 4 convention unless forced to do so by the leadership of The Episcopal Church.

Read it all.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke are considering a new plan to address the credit crisis, said Senator Charles Schumer, who proposed an agency to pump capital into troubled banks.

“The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are realizing that we need a more comprehensive solution,” Schumer, a Democrat who chairs the congressional Joint Economic Committee, told reporters in Washington today. “I’ve been talking to them about it.”

Schumer urged forming an agency to inject funds into financial companies in exchange for equity stakes and pledges to rewrite mortgages and make them more affordable. His remarks indicate momentum is building for some wider plan after the Fed and Treasury’s takeovers of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group Inc. this month.

Schumer advocated a Great Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corp. model, different from the Resolution Trust Corp.- type plan others have floated. Another RTC, which was a 1990s agency that sold devalued assets in the Savings and Loan Crisis, would “simply transfer excessive risk to the U.S. government without addressing the plight of homeowners,” he said.

Read it all. I can’t imagine how stressful it is to be Henry Paulson or Ben Bernanke right now. As for any plan, something comprehensive and clear is desperately needed, but the devil will be in the details–KSH.

Update: CNBC has much more on this here.

Billed as a “Jesus Freakonomics,” the book weds basic Christian principles with economic tools to figure out which actions and policies will yield moral outcomes. Once again, the results may surprise you.

Bob Smietana, a fellow religion writer at The Tennessean, and Charles North, an associate professor of economics at Baylor University, teamed up to tackle nine hot-button issues affecting today’s economy: gas prices, immigration, family values, environment, minimum wage, education, capitalism, CEO compensation and poverty.

“Good intentions do not assure good results, and they can at times lead to policies with perverse unintended consequences,” co-authors Bob Smietana and Charles North write. “As in the rest of life, the road to economic hell is often paved with good intentions.”

Though many Christians turn to the Bible for to help them make decisions, it’s difficult to apply its principles to the economic choices we make each day, Smietana said. By using Christian economic theory, with the goal of getting God’s gifts into the hands of as many of God’s people as possible, Smietana and North tried to project long-range implications of certain economic choices and evaluate them according to biblical criteria.

They found that what sounds moral isn’t always so. For example, the battle to raise minimum wage sounds moral, but from an economist’s perspective, granting an “earned income tax credit probably works better than minimum wage to get money in the hands of poor families,” Smietana said.

Read it all.

Some of us who attended the 1998 Lambeth Conference were not looking forward very much, if I am honest, to the one in 2008. The 1998 Conference, although it produced a lot of useful documents on mission, unity and human rights and a whole range of other subjects, fell apart on the issue of human sexuality towards the end of the Conference. The plenary dealing with Human Sexuality was the only one that refused to accept a report from a group that had been discussing the issue for three weeks and insisted on altering it, thus losing the balance of that carefully crafted document. The result was a bad tempered debate that soured everything. In reality, the issue of human sexuality had simmered under the surface of the 1998 Conference from the outset and that shows that it isn’t just the consecration of Gene Robinson or public rites of same sex blessings in Canada that are wholly responsible for the present crisis in the Communion. Throughout the ’98 Conference groups met in secret on and off campus, pursuing their own particular views on human sexuality and briefing against each other, so that when it actually came to the Resolutions, there was bound to be a conflagration and indeed, there was.

From the outset, the 2008 Conference ”“ the 14th Lambeth Conference to be held, did not appear to have a dangerous under-current simmering beneath the surface. Everyone knew of GAFCON’s meeting, i.e. the meeting of around 200 bishops who had refused the Archbishop’s invitation to Lambeth and who met in Jerusalem beforehand. Everyone knew that Gene Robinson had not been invited; everyone knew that there were different views on sexuality, and everyone knew about the events that had taken place since ’98, yet there seemed to be a genuine desire on the part of everyone to engage constructively with those holding different views. Admittedly 200 Bishops were absent mainly from Africa, one or two from England and Australia but that too needs to be seen in perspective. Uganda was the only Province not to be represented by a bishop and some of the African Bishops had come under intense pressure from their Primates not to come, even though some of them wanted to. (This tells you something about the power of Primates in some Provinces of the Communion and why some of them fail to understand why the whole Communion does not fall into line when they speak).

It helped to know, of course, that nothing would be decided at this Conference ”“ no Resolutions would be passed as has happened at most Lambeth Conferences. It was a return to the intention of the first Lambeth Conference called in 1867 by Archbishop Longley for brotherly counselling and conferring in response to a crisis caused by the Bishop of Natal who believed in a non literal interpretation of the Scriptures….

Read it all.

Despite the attempts of some to downplay the seriousness of the current situation in which tens of thousands of once loyal Episcopalians are leaving TEC, with no end in sight, the Episcopal Church is in a state of chaos. It is our belief that unless the current downward spiral is reversed, current and future charges of abandonment of communion will be a moot point. Within the not-too-distant future, if things continue as they currently are, there won’t be a communion to abandon. If the current on-going depositions of bishops and priests are intended to stop the mass exodus out of TEC, it isn’t working, but rather having the opposite effect. More and more clergy and laity are reaching the point that they can no longer accept or tolerate the recent theological innovations that have become so pervasive throughout much of The Episcopal Church’s leadership. The current attacks directed against the theologically conservative orthodox Christians within TEC are not scaring or intimidating them, but rather angering and emboldening them. With each new attack, more fuel is thrown on the fire. The depositions and lawsuits must stop. What type of example are we setting for our children and the rest of the world? What are we saying about how Episcopalians treat one another? Jesus commands us to love our enemy; to love our neighbor as we love ourselves; to love one another as He loves us. Clearly many in the Episcopal Church have not heard or listened to His command, when it comes to the way we relate to one another within TEC and the wider Anglican Communion.

The Standing Committee and Bishop of Albany call upon the House of Bishops, the House of Deputies and all involved in the current theological war to call a truce, enabling The Episcopal Church to refocus our time, energy and resources on the difficult but necessary process of figuring out how Christians who passionately hold what appear to be irreconcilable differences in the understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture and its authority on our lives as well as issues of human sexuality, can move forward in building up the Kingdom of God by sharing the love and Good News of Jesus Christ with all who will receive it. For far too long we have been consumed by politically-charged agendas to the detriment of the Church and the building up of the Kingdom of God. May God give us the grace, the wisdom, the compassion, the humility we need to discern His will, moving forward in His Name to His honor and glory and to the benefit of His Church and people.

Read it all.

A new survey of the USA’s religious beliefs and practices finds 55% of all adults ”” including one in five of those who say they have no religion ”” believe they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel.

“I would never have expected these numbers. It was the biggest surprise to me in our findings,” says sociologist Christopher Bader of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Baylor today will release results of its second national survey on religion.

The survey, based on interviews with nearly 1,700 adults in fall 2007, updates Baylor’s 2006 findings on religious affiliation and views of God by adding new questions on topics such as gender and politics, the environment and beliefs about evil.

Read it all.

Are you capable of taking a perfectly good 158-year-old company and turning it into dust? If so, then you may not be earning up to your full potential.

You should be raking it in like Richard Fuld, the longtime chief of Lehman Brothers. He took home nearly half-a-billion dollars in total compensation between 1993 and 2007.

Last year, Mr. Fuld earned about $45 million, according to the calculations of Equilar, an executive pay research company. That amounts to roughly $17,000 an hour to obliterate a firm. If you’re willing to drive a company into the ground for less, apply by calling Lehman Brothers at (212) 526-7000.

Oh, nevermind.

I’m delighted to announce that Mr. Fuld (who continues to lead Lehman since it entered bankruptcy proceedings this week) is the winner of my annual Michael Eisner Award for corporate rapacity and poor corporate governance. The award honors the pioneering achievements in this field of Mr. Eisner, the former Walt Disney chief.

Read it all.

So many foreclosed homes are for sale in Southern California that these distressed properties will soon dominate the market, forcing prices down even further.

About half the homes sold in the region in August had been repossessed, according to figures released Wednesday by the real estate tracking service MDA DataQuick, driving prices down 34% over the previous year to a median of $330,000….

“We’ll certainly see more than 50% foreclosures,” said Sean O’Toole, chief executive of ForeclosureRadar, a seller of default data.

Read it all.

Check it out.

Check it out.

Watch it all.

John McCain and Barack Obama disagree on a lot. Lately, they’ve been especially disagreeable in their disagreements over who deserves the most blame for the presidential campaign’s ongoing descent into the trivial and the downright misleading. But they rightly concur that American institutions of higher learning should allow Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs on campus.

Both White House candidates stated the position last Thursday night during a forum on public service at Columbia University in New York City, a few hours after they made a joint appearance in a 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero.

Read it all.

From every side we suddenly hear people calling for more regulation of financial markets. The calamity on Wall Street has brought to public attention the frightening risk-taking of firms like Lehman Brothers, which lent money against assets at a rate of 35 to 1.

Something must be done! The government must put a stop to this!

But in the excitement of scapegoat-hunting, something important is forgotten: Wall Street was doing exactly what the government wanted it to do. Almost all the exotic credit instruments now wreaking havoc trace back to the simplest of all assets: the single-family home.

Insurance giant AIG, for example, held almost $100 billion in mortgage-backed securities when the market began to fall last year — and almost one-third of those securities were based on subprime loans.

The United States takes pride in high home ownership rates. Over the past decades, administrations of both parties encouraged ever looser lending standards in order to push the home ownership rate higher and higher still.

Read or listen to it all.

As we learn this morning via Julie Satow of the NY Sun, special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years — as well as the massive current unwind

Satow interviews the above quoted former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right — the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.

Instead, the 2004 exemption — given only to 5 firms — allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Read it all–you need to click to get the former SEC director quote.

Alan Greenspan, of course, saying in that way he has that he’s going to keep interest rates low as long as it takes. When he gave that congressional testimony five years ago, he was about to lower the Fed short-term interest rate to 1 percent and leave it there for more than a year. That, in and of itself, wasn’t a bad thing. It’s what people did with all that cheap money that’s gotten us into trouble.

They borrowed. They borrowed a lot. And then they got creative, using things like collateralized debt obligations to bundle risky mortgages into something they could sell off in the markets. But when the value of the houses behind those mortgages began dropping? Well, here’s financial analyst Peter Cohan.

PETER COHAN: Nobody knows what’s in these bundles of mortgages. And they have a very, very low value because nobody can open them up and figure out which ones are paying and which ones are not paying. It’s like Superman trying to look inside of a box that’s wrapped in lead. You just can’t see inside.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year-and-a-half, when the markets don’t know what’s inside. they just stop. They stop lending. They stop buying. Nobody trusts anybody. And, presto, a credit crisis.

There’s an argument to be made — and lots of really smart people have made it — that all those financial innovations, things like CDOs, were inevitable. That once you had basically free money, thanks to Alan Greenspan, and a crowd on Wall Street that’s always looking for an edge, abuses were bound to happen. That what we’ve got here is a failure of regulation.

Read or listen to it all.