Bishop Michael Curry, who heads the Raleigh-based Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, which includes Charlotte, said the conservatives had a right to do what they wanted. But he predicted that their declaration in Wheaton would matter little in the Tar Heel state.

“The Episcopal Church in North Carolina continues to grow,” he said in a statement. “I do not anticipate that these reported actions will have any significant impact on the church in North Carolina.”

The Charleston-based Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina ”“ the only one of five dioceses in the Carolinas that might be tempted to join the conservative province ”“ sent the Rev. John Scott of Eutawville, S.C., to Wheaton to be an observer and report back to Bishop Mark Lawrence, a conservative whose election was initially rejected by the Episcopal Church.

“We’re watching it and wishing them success,” said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, a spokesman for the S.C. diocese. “We’re in theological sympathy, but not in strategic agreement. ”¦ Right now, we’re seeking to be a faithful witness and tell the truth to an (Episcopal) church that’s lost its mind, that’s turned its back on God and his truth.”

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Organizers hope to become a full province of the Anglican Communion, a status that would make it a peer of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. It is the first attempt to create a province defined by theological orientation, not by geography.

“It’s something that has never happened before in the Anglican community,” said the Rev. Roger Ames of St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Fairlawn, who attended the event. “You will have a more orthodox group that will, in time, be recognized as an alternative to the United States Episcopal Church.”

The other local breakaway parishes are St. Barnabas Anglican Church in Bay Village, the Anglican Church of the Transfiguration in Cleveland, Church of the Holy Spirit in Akron and St. Anne in the Fields in Madison.

Martha Wright, communications officer for the Diocese of Ohio, said five of its 93 parishes in northern Ohio have broken away. She said the diocese, based at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, will “absolutely not” break with the Episcopal church.

“We’re sorry that they chose to go that route,” Wright said. “We stay because this is who we are.”

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The new church, called the Anglican Church in North America, represents conservative 700 parishes and 100,000 parishioners. They share an orthodox Christian outlook that includes opposition to same-sex blessings and to the ordination of gay bishops.

The plan for the formation of a new jurisdiction, based on ideology rather than geography, was first reported in the National Post last month. At that time, leaders of the conservative movement in Canada and the United States said they would not need the blessing of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the spiritual head of global Anglicanism, because he had lost his moral authority.

Instead, the new church will look to the Global South for support, where the majority of Anglicans live and orthodoxy is the norm.

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Bishop Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) has been named primate- and archbishop-designate of a proposed new body of 100,000 theologically conservative Anglicans in North America, which hopes to win recognition from the global Anglican Communion.

Archbishop-designate Duncan, whose diocese left the Episcopal Church in October, said he was “elated” that 30 representatives of eight groups with ties to the Anglican tradition in the U.S. and Canada had unanimously proposed a constitution for a body called the Anglican Church in North America. They met yesterday in Wheaton, Ill.

“I believe we’re at the beginning of something that is very significant for the Christian church in North America and for the Anglican Communion worldwide,” he said.

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A group of about 70 Anglican conservatives on Wednesday released a proposed constitution for a new Anglican province in the United States that will directly compete with the 2.1-million-member Episcopal Church.

The new Anglican Church in North America consists of various groups of conservatives who have split from the denomination over issues of biblical authority since the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop, including four whole dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

On Wednesday night, the new church released its provisional constitution and provisional canons. They declare the group part of “the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church,” confess to the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and declare “eight elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way, and essential for membership.”

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The City Council in Bellevue Washington voted Monday night to raise property taxes 3 percent next year and 3 percent the following year.

I am interested in local reaction to the new Province story. If you have such in your area, please pass it long; do not assume I have seen it. Examples would be the Tenessee priests, the Chicago Bishop, and the South Carolina clergyman quoted in the stories so far posted. Please email them (KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com) to me, thanks–KSH.

The new Anglican Church in North America will include four Episcopal dioceses which recently split from the US church, as well as breakaway parishes from Canada.

Conservative Episcopalians have long been upset by the stance of the church’s leadership on various issues, particularly homosexuality.

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A collection of breakaway Episcopalians have formed a single denomination to rival the mainstream U.S. church, cementing a schism that was largely prompted by the election in 2003 of a gay bishop.

Their new “Anglican Church in North America” said it includes four dioceses that recently split from the Episcopal church, as well as several splinter groups, 1,000 clergy and an estimated 700 parishes, said the Rev. Peter Frank, spokesman for the Right Rev. Robert Duncan, bishop of Pittsburgh, who months ago lead his diocese away from the Episcopal church. A spokesman in the Episcopal church said he was dubious the numbers were that high.

The new church will seek recognition from the world-wide Anglican communion, including its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams. It is unclear how the larger church will deal with a rival on American soil to an existing church body. The tension will no doubt spark fresh lawsuits over the ownership of church property, dozens of which have already been filed from California to Virginia in recent years.

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“We’ve seen it coming for years. It’s not a rival denomination. At best, it would be a church within a church,” said the Very Rev. John Burwell of the Church of the Holy Cross, which has congregations on Sullivan’s Island and Daniel Island. “They’re still part of the Anglican Church. They just don’t want to be part of the Episcopal Church,” he said.

“We intend to stay and fight. We intend to stay in the Episcopal Church and act as the conscience of the Episcopal Church,” Burwell said.

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Other Memphis-area parishes intend to remain with the Episcopal Church.

“I don’t think there’s anybody left in the Diocese of West Tennessee that is going to be interested in that,” said Rev. Dr. Andrew MacBeth, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church. “It has been a long time coming, and I wish them well, but we really are of different views on how to interpret Scripture and a different view of authority.”

Rev. Jeffery Marx, rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church of Collierville, expects the Episcopal Church to react to the conservative rebellion.

“There’s more and more anger toward those people,” he said of those leaving the church. “Especially the left-wingers are furious about what these people are doing. They have spent millions of dollars on lawsuits. It’s really unfortunate.

“It’s what people do when they’re mad.”

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The province’s constitution leaves property in the hands of individual parishes, limiting the potential for lawsuits down the line if parishes or dioceses decide to leave. Details such as how marriage and divorce will be handled are expected to be hammered out before the constitution is ratified in June.

Chicago Bishop Jeffrey Lee said he is disappointed by the group’s decision to leave.

“I’m saddened that some members of the Episcopal Church are choosing to affiliate with other parts of the Anglican Communion,” Lee said. “I think we’re impoverished whenever sisters and brothers are not with us at the same table for the same conversation. There’s real regret attached to that for me.”

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The Rev. Frederick Schmidt, an Episcopal priest and theology professor at Southern Methodist University, said that only the Archbishop of Canterbury can decide who is a part of the Anglican Communion.

“This would be a little bit like a group of people outside the 50 states of the United States claiming suddenly to be a part of the United States of America,” he said.

Schmidt also questioned the long-term viability of the denomination.

“The question becomes .”‚.”‚. Can you actually build a church around a negative?” he said.

David Holmes, a religion professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., said he believes that the 100,000-strong denomination can survive.

He noted that one group joining the new denomination first split from the Episcopal Church in the 1870s.

“The point is that if a group that broke off .”‚.”‚. lasted over 140 years, this is a much larger group that has more substance in terms of membership and prestige,” he said.

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Here is one section:

1. The ACL welcomes this new development while remaining deeply saddened by the circumstances which made it necessary. Faithful Anglicans have been marginalised within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada because of their determination to remain faithful to the Scriptures as expressed in the Creeds and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. We rejoice with these our brothers and sisters in this way forward out of the difficulties that have plagued them over the past five years and more.

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Under their new constitution, each of the nine constituent dioceses or groups that would make up the new province could follow its own teachings on women’s ordination. Each congregation would also keep its own property.

Told of this new Anglican entity, David C. Steinmetz, Amos Ragan Kearns professor of the history of Christianity at the Divinity School at Duke University, said in a phone interview, “It’s really an unprecedented and momentous event,” that all of these dissident groups had agreed to bury their differences.

“It’s certainly going to be deplored by one part of the Communion and hailed by another,” Professor Steinmetz said. “Are we going to end up with two families of Anglicans, and if so, are they in communion with each other in any way? There are so many possibilities and geopolitical differences, it’s really hard to predict where this will go.”

Read it all. Please note that this is a longer article that incorporates some of the material in the article previously posted from the Times, but there is much that is new here.

Conservatives from the Episcopal Church voted yesterday to form their own branch of Anglicanism in the United States and said they would seek new recognition in the worldwide church because of their growing disenchantment over the ordination of an openly gay bishop and other liberal developments.

In the past five years, a small but growing number of Episcopal parishes and dioceses have voted to leave the church, but yesterday’s vote, at a meeting in Wheaton, Ill., represents the biggest split for Anglicans and presents a new challenge to U.S. church leaders and the denomination’s world spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The conservatives remain upset about the 2003 ordination of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the role of female clergy, the church’s definition of salvation and changes to the main book of prayer.

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Here is one section:

4. Of Bishops and Their Election

Bishops shall be chosen by a diocese, cluster or network in conformance with their respective procedures and consistent with the Constitution and Canons of the Province. Eligibility for bishop must include being a duly ordained male presbyter of at least 35 years of age, who possesses those qualities for a bishop which are in accordance with Scriptural principles, and who has fully embraced the Fundamental Declarations of this Province.

An electing body shall certify the election of a bishop for consent by the College of Bishops, or may certify two or three nominees from which the College of Bishops may select one for the diocese, cluster or network.

Where the originating body is “in formation,” that body shall normally nominate two or three candidates, from whom the College of Bishops may select one.

Consent or, choice and consent, shall require the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the membership of the College of Bishops, which consent shall be given within 60 days and in writing.

Upon the consent or choice of a bishop-elect by the College of Bishops, the Archbishop shall take order for the consecration and/or installation of such bishop.

In the event the bishop-elect or the nominees are rejected by the College of Bishops, the College shall so inform the originating body inwriting.

Read them carefully and read them all.

In the Name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

We are Anglicans in North America united by our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the trustworthiness of the Holy Scriptures and presently members of the Common Cause Partnership.

We know ourselves to be members of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

We are grieved by the current state of brokenness within the Anglican Communion prompted by those who have embraced erroneous teaching and who have rejected a repeated call to repentance.

We are grateful for the encouragement of Primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion who gathered at Jerusalem in June 2008 and called on us to establish a new Province in North America.

We believe that this Constitution is faithful to that call and consistent with the Historic Faith and Order of the Church and we invite the prayers of all faithful Anglicans as we seek to be obedient disciples of Jesus Christ our One Lord and Savior.

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Sharpening the emerging debate over how to reshape the country’s healthcare system, the major group representing insurers unveiled a proposal Wednesday for covering all Americans in a more centralized insurance market.

The plan offered by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group representing companies that together insure more than 200 million people, comes a decade and half after the industry helped kill the last major healthcare reform campaign — pushed early in the Clinton administration.

And Wednesday’s proposal for a form of universal insurance coverage reflects the intensifying interest among groups like insurers, businesses and healthcare providers in having an active role in shaping the reform effort.

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Food stamps, the main U.S. antihunger program which helps the needy buy food, set a record in September as more than 31.5 million Americans used the program — up 17 percent from a year ago, according to government data.

The number of people using food stamps in September surpassed the previous peak of 29.85 million seen in November 2005 when victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma received emergency benefits, said Jean Daniel of the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service.

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Why are the Pharisees of Accounting in the U.S. trying so hard to destroy American business? Having crippled high tech entrepreneurship and made it nearly impossible for any U.S. company to ”˜go public’, the people who set the rules of financial disclosure are now making corporate financials so obscure that investors literally have no way of knowing the financial condition of their companies.

In 2002, in reaction to Enron and other perceived corporate excesses of the Dot.com Boom Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) followed suit be revising its Generally Accepted Accounting Principles to make corporate accounting more transparent.

But in my experience, all that these new laws and regulation have done is make corporate finances more opaque – and is killing off the creation of new public companies in the United States.

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Those nicknames from the past ”” God’s Rottweiler, the Panzercardinal ”” don’t seem to stick anymore. After acquiring a reputation as an aggressive, doctrine-enforcing Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI has surprised many with his gentle manner and his writings on Christian love. But with the Christmas season upon us, there is growing proof that the 82-year-old Pope is also quite willing to play the part of Scrooge to defend his often rigid view of Church doctrine.

Benedict’s envoy to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals. At first blush, no one should be surprised to find the Catholic Church hierarchy butting heads with gay rights activists. But this particular French-sponsored proposal, which has the backing of all 27 European Union countries, calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death.

Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi was forced to clarify that the Vatican continues to condemn the use of the death penalty for any crime, including those associated with homosexuality. Instead, Migliore said the Vatican’s opposition to the U.N. proposal was driven by concern that countries that prohibit gay marriage would somehow be targeted. Said Migliore: “Countries that don’t recognize the union between people of the same sex as marriage will be punished and pressured.”

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Recently, I asked a colleague about the quality of care her hospitalized mother was getting. “Well, you can at least have a conversation with her doctor,” she replied. Clearly this was a big relief.

High-level skills like reflectiveness and empathy are an important part of medical education these days. That is all to the good, of course. But as I noted last May in an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, medical schools may be underemphasizing a much simpler virtue: good manners.

In the article, I described a common-sense method for spreading clinical courtesy that I call “etiquette-based medicine,” and I proposed a simple six-step checklist for doctors to follow when meeting a hospitalized patient for the first time….

See how many of the six you can guess before you read it all.

The Rev. Dr. Charles K. Robertson, Canon to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has issued the following statement:

We will not predict what will or will not come out of this meeting, but simply continue to be clear that The Episcopal Church, along with the Anglican Church of Canada and the La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, comprise the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America.

And we reiterate what has been true of Anglicanism for centuries: that there is room within The Episcopal Church for people with different views, and we regret that some have felt the need to depart from the diversity of our common life in Christ.

The Rev. Dr. Charles K. Robertson
Canon to the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
December 3, 2008

Theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province today, in a long-developing rift over the Bible that erupted when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop.

The announcement represents a new challenge to the already splintering, 77-million-member world Anglican fellowship and the authority of its spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The new North American Anglican province includes four breakaway Episcopal dioceses, many individual parishes in the U.S. and Canada, and splinter groups that left the Anglican family years, or in one case, more than a century ago.

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Received via Email:

An after Chapel Address at Trinity School for Ministry
By the Very Rev Dr Justyn Terry, Dean and President
December 3, 2008

Today, in the town of Chicago, a new Province may be born. For some of you this will be a source of great joy and hope. For others of you it will be a source of great concern and discomfort. We have board members, faculty, staff, students and alumni on both sides of this. It is bound to be a time of tension. How are we to handle it? I ask us all to observe, and hold each other to account, to an ABC:

Be Aware of different feelings about all this. People with a high view of the Bible and a deep concern for world mission differ on how to respond to this crisis. Some see a need to withdraw from The Episcopal Church and realign with other parts of the Anglican Communion. Others see a need to stay in The Episcopal Church and witness to the Gospel from within. Both have deep concerns about where the leadership of The Episcopal Church is going. Both have a deep commitment to the Gospel. But they have reached very different conclusions about how to deal with it. Be aware of the differences.

Be Blameless in your talk. Controlling the tongue is notoriously hard, as James reminds us (Jas 3:8). But in this tense time, we need to be extra vigilant. Let us beware of letting our anger or our euphoria get the better of us. Let us look out for humor that puts other people down, and let us see instead how we can build others up. Remember Prov. 10:19: “When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.” Be blameless in your talk.

Be Constant in prayer. Pray everyday for those with whom you disagree. Pray for the leadership of The Episcopal Church, for great blessing to be upon them. Pray for the witness of the Church to a watching world. Be constant in prayer.

We have an opportunity here to learn about living in the tension of a fallen world. May the Lord grant us abundant grace for these times of testing.

i found this helpful.

The rising cost of college ”” even before the recession ”” threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

“If we go on this way for another 25 years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the center, a nonpartisan organization that promotes access to higher education.

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