[Kendall] Harmon, who is a spokesman for Charleston, South Carolina, Bishop Edward Salmon Jr., told The Charlotte Observer that the diocese will call its own special convention to decide its next step. “You’re already beginning to see what the dramatic realignment will look like,” he said.

Many of Harmon’s colleagues agreed. David C. Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, was quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as comparing Robinson’s confirmation to domestic abuse. “We have been beaten up in the Episcopal Church for a long time,” he said. “We’re not leaving the Anglican Communion but the Episcopal Church now has.”

Anderson’s group has scheduled a meeting of “Anglican mainstream parishes” (i.e. orthodox leaders) in early October in Plano, Texas, saying it is “committed to remaining part of the Anglican Communion and will find a way for mainstream Anglicans in the Episcopal Church to stay in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

Read the whole thing.

The Archbishop of Canterbury warned yesterday that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles’ election of a lesbian and former Philadelphia priest as a bishop threatens to further divide the worldwide Anglican community.

On Saturday, the diocese’s annual convention by a narrow margin chose the Rev. Mary Glasspool, 55, as its next suffragen, or assistant, bishop. If approved by the Episcopal House of Bishops, Glasspool would be the denomination’s first openly gay female prelate.

Glasspool, who was assistant to the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill from 1981 to 1984, lives in an open relationship with her long-term partner, Becki Sander. Glasspool is currently on the staff of the Diocese of Maryland, where she is Canon to the Bishops.

Read it all.

The spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion issued an unusually sharp and swift rebuke to Episcopal Church leaders over the election of an openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

In a terse statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a warning to bishops, clergy and lay representatives of the U.S. church about the confirmation of the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, a lesbian who has been in a partnered relationship for two decades.

Glasspool must still gain a majority of votes from bishops and standing committees of clergy and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the worldwide communion. That voting process will unfold over the next four months as U.S. leaders consider Glasspool and another priest, the Rev. Canon Diane M. Jardine Bruce, who was picked for a second “suffragan,” or assistant bishop post in Los Angeles.

Read it all.

LA diocesan bishop J. Jon Bruno has, however, stated, “to not consent in this country out of fear of the reaction elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is to capitulate to titular heads”.

Notice the politicised language and assumptions. Nationalism – “in this country” – has no place in the Christian conception of koinonia. Lambeth, the other Instruments of Communion, and Anglicans across the globe are not “titular heads” – this is not how Anglicans refer to their pastors or brothers and sisters. Bruno’s invocation of the spirit of 1776 signifies something of the cultural conformity in parts of TEC far more significant than differences over same-sex relationships.

Perhaps Los Angeles should be thanked. The diocese has now forced TEC to reflect on whether koinonia or independence are of greater significance.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed his concern at the election of the second openly gay bishop in the Anglican Church.

Rowan Williams said the move raised “very serious questions” for both the Episcopal Church in the US and the Anglican Communion as a whole.

But he noted that the election of the Reverend Mary Glasspool in the diocese of Los Angeles had yet to be confirmed.

Read the whole thing.

“We celebrate the election today of the Rev. Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles. During her twenty-eight years as a priest, Bishop-elect Glasspool has served rich parishes and poor ones, cities and suburbs, and people from all walks of life. For the last eight years, she has been canon to the bishops in the Diocese of Maryland. Elected by the people of Los Angeles from a strong field of well-qualified nominees, Mary will be an excellent suffragan bishop for her new diocese and for the wider church.

“At General Convention earlier this year, the Episcopal Church affirmed that God calls partnered gay and lesbian people to all orders of ministry in the Episcopal Church. God has clearly been calling Mary to challenging and important ministries over and over during the course of her career. While there may be a temptation in some quarters to use Mary’s election to foment further controversy in the Anglican Communion, those of us who know her understand that this is simply the next chapter in a lifetime of service to her church. We are grateful to her and to her partner, Becki Sander, for answering a new call in Los Angeles.

“As Christians, we know that we can only fulfill the promise of our baptismal vows when all of our brothers and sisters in Christ can fulfill theirs. Today the people of Los Angeles and Mary Glasspool have made it more possible for all Episcopalians to be the people God is calling us to be.”

Riverside, CA–“Integrity salutes the election of the Reverend Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as a bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles, and as the second openly gay partnered bishop in the Episcopal Church.” said Integrity President David Norgard. “Bishop-elect Glasspool brings to the diocese her experience of building strong congregations by providing pastoral care, vocational guidance, and support to clergy and their families. She brings to the House of Bishops her commitment to social justice. And she will bring to the Anglican Communion an incarnational witness to the Episcopal Church’s commitment to fully include all of the baptized into the Body of Christ. ”

“It takes both a courageous candidate and a courageous community to fully embrace inclusion and to be prepared for the public attention this historic opportunity offers the Episcopal Church and the United States of America at this time,” said Norgard. “Today’s election means the Episcopal Church has taken another step toward the full inclusion of all the baptized in all the sacraments becoming a reality in the Episcopal Church–not just a resolution of General Convention.
“As Episcopalians, we are proud of the historic links between the founders of our church and the uniquely American democratic process that influences our church polity. We are very different from the Church of England and the Church of Rome, and we rejoice that lay members are valued for their significant role in the choosing of our leadership, and empowered to stand as radical witnesses that can heal past discrimination and prejudice.

“Integrity now calls upon Standing Committees and Bishops with jurisdiction to claim that proud history and consent to today’s election. For now, we pause to rejoice in this election. This is a big day for California, for their bishop-elect and, for the whole Church.”

We are saddened but not surprised by this announcement from TEC. Unless their diocesan bishops and their standing committees decline to endorse the election, it will confirm that TEC have no intention of respecting the mind of the Communion and halting their current trajectory. That is why tens of thousands of Anglicans, in order to witness to the Communion’s common basis of faith, and particularly biblical teaching on Christian marriage, have had to leave TEC and form the Anglican Church of North America. For any who doubted whether that action was justified TEC’s latest announcement, made in full knowledge of its negative effect on the Communion’s Covenant process, will confirm that TEC, rather than wanting to remain within the Communion’s bonds of affection, is determined to walk away and follow its own path.

Dr Philip Giddings (Convenor)

Canon Chris Sugden (Secretary)

Anglican Mainstream

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elected a partnered lesbian as Bishop Suffragan today and demonstrated The Episcopal Church’s further departure from biblical Christianity.

“Unfortunately, this election provides further clarity to the rest of the Anglican Communion,” said Bishop David Anderson, president and CEO of the American Anglican Council. “Should the rest of The Episcopal Church consent to this election, there can be no more pretending that The Episcopal Church holds to Anglican Communion doctrine and 2,000 years of biblically based Christian teachings. Not only have they elected another non-celibate homosexual bishop, but they repeatedly defy the moratorium on same-sex blessings called for by the Windsor Report.”

“The General Convention’s decision to approve the appointment of Gene Robinson will inevitably have a significant impact on the Anglican Communion throughout the world and it is too early to say what the result of that will be.
It is my hope that the church in America and the rest of the Anglican Communion will have the opportunity to consider this development before significant and irrevocable decisions are made in response. I have said before that we need as a church to be very careful about making decisions for our own part of the world which constrain the church elsewhere.
It will be vital to ensure that the concerns and needs of those across the Communion who are gravely concerned at this development can be heard, understood and taken into account.”
August 6th 2003
—————————————
Archbishop to convene primates meeting

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion this autumn. The meeting will take place in London in mid-October and it is expected that invitations will be sent out in the next week.

Dr Williams said that the effects of recent developments at the ECUSA General Convention were being felt throughout the Communion and there was a need for the Primates to meet to consider them.

“I am clear that the anxieties caused by recent developments have reached the point where we will need to sit down and discuss their consequences. I hope that in our deliberations we will find that there are ways forward in this situation which can preserve our respect for one another and for the bonds that unite us.

“I hope we can use the time between now and then to reflect, to pray, to consult and to take counsel.”
August 8, 2003
———————————————-

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has issued a statement following the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson as bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire. The text is below.

“It was recognised fully at last month’s meeting of Anglican leaders that the consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop in New Hampshire would have very serious consequences for the cohesion of the Anglican Communion. That meeting requested the setting up of a Commission which would examine these consequences in depth. Last week the membership of that group was announced and I look forward to being in close touch with it as its work develops. [See ACNS3652]

“The meeting also encouraged me to be in discussion with the leaders of the provinces concerned about provisions made for those alienated by decisions which appear to go against Catholic order or biblical teaching. Such discussion has already begun.

“The divisions that are arising are a matter of deep regret; they will be all too visible in the fact that it will not be possible for Gene Robinson’s ministry as a bishop to be accepted in every province in the communion.

“It is clear that those who have consecrated Gene Robinson have acted in good faith on their understanding of what the constitution of the American church permits. But the effects of this upon the ministry and witness of the overwhelming majority of Anglicans particularly in the non-western world have to be confronted with honesty.

“The autonomy of Anglican provinces is an important principle. But precisely because we rely on relations more than rules, consultation and interdependence are essential for our health. “The Primates meeting last month expressed its desire to continue as ‘a communion where what we hold in common is much greater than that which divides us’. We need now to work very hard to giving new substance to this, and to pray for wisdom, patience and courage as we move forward.”

November 3, 2003

NPR: So the bottom line is it fair to say that at least the door has been opened for gay and lesbian bishops in addition to Bishop Robinson.

KJS: The door has been open for many years.

NPR: So if an openly gay or lesbian person were to make it through to the stage where he or she could be consecrated bishop you would go ahead with that.

KJS: It is my duty, my canonical duty as Presiding Bishop, to take order for the consecration of a bishop whose election has been affirmed by the consent process.

NPR: The Archbishop of Canterbury said that we need to have a real thorough exploration of all of this and we need to have a wider consent within the communion in order to go ahead with either the consecration of gay bishops or blessings of gay unions. He said that does not exist in the communion right now. How do you feel about that?

KJS: The conversations been going on in The Episcopal Church for 45 years. The reality is that same-sex unions are blessed in many churches of the Anglican Communion. Not just in the United States or Canada, but in the Church of England. Not officially but that is reality.

NPR: Do you think there is scriptural basis for what the convention did and what is it.

KJS: The scriptural basis for what the convention affirmed about our discernment process is that each human being is made in the image of God.

Read it all (I posted the audio link a while back).

Read it all.

“I can’t say it surprises me,” said the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, bishop of the South Carolina diocese, which has begun withdrawing from some of the national church’s councils to protest the policies on gays. He said the split in the church is likely to endure:

“Is there anything that can be done to bridge it? No one has come up with it yet.”

—From one version of an LA Times story

Included are comments from Bishop Gordon Mursell; and Christopher Landau, religious correspondent for the BBC, as well as Christina Rees, and Chris Sugden.

Listen to it carefully and listen to it all (slightly over 12 minutes).

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles just elected someone whose homosexual behavior goes completely against the Bible. They are doing a disservice to people of faith everywhere.

Read it all.

BBC religious affairs correspondent Chris Landau says that for an Anglican Communion already fracturing over the issue of homosexuality, this election is yet more evidence of the church’s divisions.

He says that for many in the US, electing openly homosexual bishops is simply a reflection of the diversity long affirmed by that Church and that it would be very surprising if Mary Glasspool’s election wasn’t approved.

Episcopal Church leader, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has said she will consecrate any bishop whose election follows the rules.

Read it all.

Los Angeles’ Episcopal Diocese elected an openly lesbian priest as assistant bishop on Saturday, a move likely to stoke more tensions in the global Anglican community over the divisive issue of gay clergy.

The Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, 55, of Baltimore is the first openly gay priest chosen as an Episcopal bishop since Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose 2003 consecration deeply strained church unity. Her election must be approved by the national church.

The ordination of gay clergy and related issues have prompted some congregations to leave the Episcopal fold and form a rival North American church that claims 100,000 believers. Anglican churches in regions like Africa have broken ties with their more liberal American brethren.

Read it all.

The Rev Rod Thomas, the leader of the conservative evangelical group Reform and a member of the General Synod, said: ”˜I feel deeply ashamed that this is happening in the Anglican Church.

”˜I think a schism is absolutely inevitable.’

But St Paul’s Cathedral’s Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser, a leading liberal, said: ”˜This is another nail in the coffin of Christian homophobia.’

Read it all.

The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

A lesbian priest was elected an Episcopal bishop Saturday at the Los Angeles diocese’s annual convention in Riverside, putting her on track to become only the second openly lesbian or gay bishop in the centuries-old denomination’s history.

The Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool, currently an adviser to the bishops of the Diocese of Maryland, was chosen for one of two assistant-bishop vacancies in the Diocese of Los Angeles, which includes San Bernardino County and part of Riverside County.

She is the first openly lesbian or gay bishop chosen since the 2003 election of V. Gene Robinson as bishop of the New Hampshire diocese led dozens of conservative parishes and four dioceses to vote to leave the Episcopal Church. It also provoked condemnation from some of the other churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the 2.1-million-member Episcopal Church is a part.

Read it all.

A period overseas included postgraduate study before he returned as the Vicar of Ellerslie. He was commissioned as Archdeacon of Auckland in 2006 and in 2007 was appointed Dean and Vicar General.

As Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral Ross was thrust into the international spotlight when Sir Edmund Hillary died and the Cathedral was chosen for his state funeral.

“We’re not just this little group in this particular parish. We also belong to something much wider than that: the diocese, the three Tikanga church here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the worldwide Anglican Communion.”

Read it all.

The 2.1-million-member denomination paved the way for her election last summer when it lifted a moratorium on electing gay bishops after the election of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson six years ago caused a split in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion.

The majority of world Anglicanism opposes openly homosexual clergy, and a majority of Anglican bishops voted against allowing them at the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in Canterbury, England.

But the U.S. Episcopal Church ignored that sanction, selecting Bishop Robinson in 2003, causing an estimated 100,000 Episcopalians to flee the denomination to more conservative churches. Four dioceses also have pulled out of the denomination in protest. They and an estimated 60 churches are entangled in lawsuits with the Episcopal Church in a fight to keep millions of dollars’ worth of property and real estate.

Ms. [mary] Glasspool had 153 clergy votes, with 123 needed to win, and 203 lay votes, with 193 needed to win. Mr. Vasquez had 87 clergy votes and 177 lay votes.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elected a lesbian as assistant bishop Saturday, the second openly gay bishop in the global Anglican fellowship, which is already deeply fractured over the first.

The Rev. Mary Glasspool of Baltimore needs approval from a majority of national church leaders before she can be consecrated as assistant bishop in the Los Angeles diocese.

Still, her victory underscored a continued Episcopal commitment to accepting same-sex relationships despite enormous pressure from other Anglicans to change their stand.

Read it all.

For a time, the Episcopal Church sought to discourage the elevation of gay and lesbian priests as bishops in hopes that strains in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion would be reduced. But the move failed to stem growing disenchantment by conservatives alarmed by the ordination of gays and lesbians, and what they saw as liberal interpretations of the Bible.

In the U.S. some Episcopal parishes, including four Los Angeles parishes, and several dioceses bolted from the national church and aligned themselves with conservative Anglican bishops in Africa and South America. So great were the possibilities of schism that the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, implored the American church to go no farther.

But in July, the Episcopal Church reversed course at its national convention in Anaheim, voting to open the top echelons of the church to gays and lesbians. The Los Angeles diocese is the first to test that policy.

Read it all.

Received via email–KSH.

Maryland priest selected in balloting to fill one of two positions

By Bob Williams

[Riverside, Calif.] — The six-county Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has elected the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, canon to the bishops of the Baltimore-based Diocese of Maryland, to the office of bishop suffragan, in which she is called to assist Bishop Diocesan J. Jon Bruno in ministry to the region’s 70,000 parishioners.

Glasspool, 55, was elected Dec. 5 on the seventh ballot taken by some 800 clergy and lay delegates to the 114th Annual Meeting of Diocesan Convention, gathered in Riverside, Calif., as the diocese’s chief legislative body.

The Convention on Dec. 4 also elected the Rev. Canon Diane Bruce to the office of bishop suffragan. Glasspool and Bruce were part of a slate of six candidates nominated by a 24-member diocesan committee.

The second woman to be elected a bishop in the diocese’s 114-year history, Glasspool is also the first openly partnered lesbian to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church, which includes some 2.4 million members in 109 dioceses in 16 nations. She is the 17th woman to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church; its House of Bishops includes some 300 active and retired members.

Glasspool received 153 votes in the clergy order and 203 lay votes, meeting the required majority of ballots after the Convention’s necessary quorum was declared.

Consent to the election of Glasspool and Bruce by the bishops and standing committees of the Episcopal Church’s other 108 dioceses will now be requested under longstanding denominational procedures in keeping with their elections as bishops not only for the local diocese but also for the whole church.

Consents must be received prior to the bishops-elect scheduled ordination to the episcopate, set for May 15, 2010, at which the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop, the Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, is slated to officiate.

“I am very excited about the future of the whole Episcopal Church, and I see the Diocese of Los Angeles leading the way into that future, said Glasspool, a native of Staten Island, N.Y., who has been ordained a priest for 27 years, and whose father was also an Episcopal priest.

“But just for this moment, let me say again, thank you, and thanks be to our loving, surprising God. I look forward, in the coming months, to getting to know you all better, as together we build up the Body of Christ for the world.”

Bruno said Glasspool brings years of valuable experience to her new role, noting that she has been essentially fulfilling the duties of a suffragan in her role as canon to Maryland’s bishops since 2001.

He said he is looking forward to working with Glasspool because of “her congeniality and willingness to work together to bring us to a place of abundance.

“She’s not afraid of conflict and she is a reconciler,” Bruno said. He added that Glasspool and her partner of 19 years, Becki Sanders, are an example of loving service and ministry. “I will pray that Mary and I and Diane will be as strong a team as Chester and Sergio and I have been. I know Mary will be an asset to this diocese,” he said.

A resident of Annapolis, Glasspool has been canon to Maryland’s bishops since 2001. Previously she was rector of St. Margaret’s, Annapolis (1992-2001); rector of St. Luke’s and St. Margaret’s, Boston (1984-1992); and assistant to the rector of St. Paul’s, Philadelphia.
Ordained a priest in 1982 in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, she holds a master of divinity degree from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and a bachelor’s degree from DickinsonCollege in Carlisle, Pa. She was in 2006 Merrill Fellow at HarvardDivinitySchool.

Glasspool’s life partner, Becki Sander, holds a doctorate in social work.

In response to a reporter’s question about whether Glasspool might receive the necessary consents from other dioceses, Bruno said: “That would be a violation of the canons of this church. At our last General Convention, we said we are nondiscriminatory.

“They just as well might have withheld consent from me because I was a divorced man and in my case, it would have been more justified than in withholding them from someone who has been approved through all levels of ministry and is a good and creative minister of the Gospel.”

He acknowledged rumors of a “concerted effort not to give consent” to Glasspool because she is openly gay.” I would remind the Episcopal church and the House of Bishops they need to be conscientious about respecting the canons of the church and the baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.

“To not consent in this country out of fear of the reaction elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is to capitulate to titular heads.”

The Diocese has voted from a slate of well qualified candidates whose talents fit well with the episcopal team approach of Bishop Bruno, said the Rev. Julian Bull, chair of the seach and nominating committee, and head of Campbell Hall Episcopal school in North Hollywood, Calif.

In addition to Bruce, other nominees were the Rev. Zelda Kennedy, senior associate for pastoral care at All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif.; the Rev. John Kirkley, rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in San Francisco; the Rev. Silvestre Romero, rector of St. Philip’s Church in San Jose, Calif., and the Rev. I. Martir Vasquez, vicar of St. George’s Church in Hawthorne, Calif.

In the second election, Kirkley withdrew on the third ballot and Romero on the fourth.

According to Convention rules of order, ballot results in Glasspool’s election were separate from the election balloting in Bruce’s election, according to Canon M. Janet Wylie, secretary of Convention.

The ballot results were posted in real time on the diocesan web site, http://www.ladiocese.org .

Glasspool is the eighth bishop suffragan to be elected in the history of the Diocese of Los Angeles. She and Bishop-elect Bruce together will succeed the Rt. Rev. Chester L. Talton, 68, who plans to retire in May 2010 after serving as bishop suffragan since January 1991.

Also retiring in 2010 is the Rt. Rev. Sergio Carranza, bishop assistant in the Diocese of Los Angeles since 2002 following his retirement as bishop of the Diocese of Mexico in the Anglican Church of Mexico.

Previous bishops suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles are the late Robert B. Gooden (1930-1947), Donald J. Campbell (1949-1959), Ivol I. Curtis (1960-1964), Robert C. Rusack (1964-1973), and Oliver B. Garver Jr. (1985-1990).

The Diocese of Los Angeles was formed in 1895 by General Convention action to divide the San Francisco-based Diocese of California. The Diocese of Los Angeles today includes 147 congregations located in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, and part of Riverside counties. The diocese is based in L.A.’s Echo Park district at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, a congregation dating from 1864.

The term suffragan is said to come from the Latin suffragari, which has been translated “to support with one’s vote.” Under Episcopal Church polity, bishops suffragan are elected to assist bishops diocesan without right of succession.

— Robert Williams serves the Diocese of Los Angeles as canon for community relations.

Read it all.

This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching. It will add further to the Episcopal Church’s incoherent witness and chaotic common life, and it will continue to do damage to the Anglican Communion and her relationship with our ecumenical partners.

–The Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon is Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina

On the 7th ballot.

Though there are few Jews in Montana today, there once were many. In the late 19th century, there were thriving Jewish populations in the mining towns, where Jews emigrated to work as butchers, clothiers, jewelers, tailors and the like.

The city of Butte had kosher markets, a Jewish mayor, a B’nai B’rith lodge and three synagogues. Helena, the capital city, had Temple Emanu-El, built in 1891 with a seating capacity of 500. The elegant original facade still stands, but the building was sold and converted to offices in the 1930s, when the congregation had dwindled to almost nothing, the Jewish population having mostly assimilated or moved on to bigger cities.

There is a Jewish cemetery in Helena, too, with tombstones dating to 1866. But more Jews are buried in Helena than currently live here.

And yet, in a minor revival, Montana now has three rabbis, two in Bozeman and one (appropriately) in Whitefish. They were all at the Capitol on the first night of Hannukah last year to light a menorah in the ornate Capitol rotunda, amid 100-year-old murals depicting Sacajawea meeting Lewis and Clark, the Indians beating Custer, and the railway being built. The security officer and the dog followed the rabbi into the rotunda, to size him up.

Read it all.

[Dick] Witherow is a tall, spare man, 76 years old, a former private detective.

Shortly after he entered the ministry some 30 years ago, he began working in prisons, holding prayer services and doing addiction counseling.

Then, about a decade ago, he began focusing on sex offenders. After some horrific sex crimes involving children, Florida became one of the first states to pass laws restricting where sex offenders could live after they’re released from prison ”” effectively banning them from some communities.

Take the time to listen to it all (a little over 7 1/2 minutes). I sometimes ask myself if Jesus were to come to earth now as opposed to when he did, where would we find him. My answer–doing something like this–KSH.