Describing the assembly, Bishop Donald Harvey, moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), said “There was a marvelous mood of co-operation and hope there. We had allowed three sessions for the adoption of the constitution and the canons and it was done in less than two. Everything passed unanimously all the time.”

He was quick to add, however, that he was “not naïve enough to think that in future synods there won’t be discontents of some sort arising,” noting that ACNA is a coming together of a number of different groups. Along with ANiC, which says it represents about 4,000 Anglicans in 30 congregations across Canada, ACNA includes dioceses and parishes that have left The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Mission in the Americas; the Convocation of Anglicans in North America; the Anglican Coalition in Canada; the Reformed Episcopal Church; and the missionary initiatives of Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Additionally, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America are founding organizations. ACNA says it represents approximately 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes.

Bishop Harvey noted that some of the groups that have united have been out of the mainline of Anglicanism for a long time, in the case of the Reformed Episcopal Church, for more than 100 years.

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[Robert Duncan’s] take on Islam echoed the more strident tone of conservative U.S. evangelicals and not those who have called for “inter-faith dialogue” with Muslims.

“We’ve got to be about the business of engaging Islam ”¦ secularism, and materialism, but especially Islam. Because there is only one way to the Father, it’s the only way. It’s a matter of life and death,” he said to warm applause.

On another note, he evoked the Church of England’s founding father Henry VIII ”” crowned King of England 500 years ago ”“ and held him up as an example of ”a ruler in the end gone astray, confiscating the property of a church in an almost contemporary way.”

This comparison of the legal battles between dissident dioceses and the Episcopal Church over property to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries was probably meant in a light-hearted way. But it could also be taken as a jab from a new alliance that wants to come out swinging.

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Starting at age 4, Sheila Schuller Coleman has held just about every job at her father’s Crystal Cathedral, from copying Sunday programs at the kitchen table to launching a private high school on the church grounds.

Now, five decades after the Rev. Robert H. Schuller Sr. first planted the church, his daughter is facing her most challenging job there yet: taking over her father’s megachurch and its famous “Hour of Power” television ministry at a time of both financial and family crisis.

The church and its internationally known telecast have been bleeding dollars and members for years – a trend that accelerated last fall when the cathedral’s heir apparent, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller Jr., suddenly left in a bitter family feud.

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The steel doors are closing. Embattled, uncompromising, Iran’s rulers are returning the country to a state of siege, locking out freedom and preparing to extinguish the remaining flickers of resistance. Yesterday one hardline cleric called for the execution of “rioters”, demanding punishment “without showing any mercy to teach them a lesson”. The Guardian Council, the supreme legislative body asked to look at possible instances of electoral fraud, found no major violation, declaring the vote the “healthiest” since the 1979 revolution. Armed police patrolled Tehran, prepared to fire on anyone daring to protest.

Yet one image has defied all attempts to expunge democracy and crush the hopes for change: the image of Neda Soltan, the 26-year-old music student who bled wordlessly to death in a Tehran side street after being shot by a government militiaman. Her tragic death, poignantly captured on grainy mobile telephone footage, has flashed around the world. It has appalled foreign ministers of the G8, prompting even the Russians to deplore the post-election violence. It has galvanised Mir Hossein Mousavi’s supporters, reinforcing their determination to surrender neither their principles nor their voice. And it laid bare the cynicism, ruthlessness and brutality of a self-appointed clique determined to remain in power at whatever cost.

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In January 2008 representatives of the Dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac met to discuss common mission opportunities because of similar ministry challenges, comparable demographics and shared heritage of the dioceses. The idea of possible juncture came up during this meeting, with an understanding that such a possibility should only be pursued if there were clear mission benefits.

In the fall of 2008, each diocese’s convention passed resolutions seeking consent to begin the juncture process from General Convention. Passage of these resolutions was made with an understanding that consent of General Convention was the necessary first step in the process of discernment.

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South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford sat in her oceanfront living room Friday, recalling how her husband repeatedly asked permission to visit his lover in the months after she discovered his affair.

“I said absolutely not. It’s one thing to forgive adultery; it’s another thing to condone it,” Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press during a 20-minute interview at the coastal home where she sought refuge with their four sons. They were her first extended comments on the affair.

She said that when her husband, Gov. Mark Sanford, inexplicably disappeared last week, she hoped he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, as his staff told those who inquired about his absence. That he had dared to go to Argentina to see the other woman left her stunned.

“He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her,” she said in a strong, steady voice….

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I caught this in the morning this week by accident–it is important. Watch it all.

Of the 800 people present, 234 are delegates from the 28 groups that have broken away from the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Bishop Duncan, deposed from the Episcopal Church in 2008 and now a bishop in the Province of the Southern Cone, was due to be installed as Archbishop of the would-be province on Wed­nes­day at St Vincent’s Cathedral.

The assembly has ratified its canons and constitutions, and pro­claimed its support for the Anglican Covenant, which it would like individual dioceses to be able to adopt, rather than provinces. It has retained a declaration that says: “We are grieved by the current state of brokenness within the Anglican Communion, promoted by those who have embraced erroneous teaching and who have rejected a repeated call to repentance.”

ACNA says it has 693 congrega­tions, 81,311 worshippers, and an average Sunday attendance of 69,197….

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The task of forming priests is a delicate mission. The formation offered by the Seminary is demanding, because a portion of the People of God will be entrusted to the pastoral solicitude of the future priests, the People that Christ saved and for whom he gave his life.
It is right for seminarians to remember that if the Church demands much of them it is because they are to care for those whom Christ ransomed at such a high price.

Many qualities are required of future priests: human maturity, spiritual qualities, apostolic zeal, intellectual rigour…. To achieve these virtues, candidates to the priesthood must not only be able to witness to them to their formation teachers but even more, they must be the first to benefit from these same qualities lived and shared by those who are in charge of helping them to attain maturity.

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Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing ”“ a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

How fantastic is that? Read it all.

Children whose parents separate are twice as likely to under-achieve at school, suffer mental health problems and struggle to form lasting relationships, according to research commissioned by Ed Balls.

Effects of family breakdown can be ‘enduring’ and persist well into adulthood, the study for the Schools Secretary concluded.

It also reported that one in six children growing up in stepfamilies show social and emotional problems, against one in 10 whose parents stayed together.

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What do you want the Episcopal Church to look like in 2019?

An eight-question survey posted online June 24 asks Episcopalians””lay and ordained””to envision the church in 10 years’ time and to prioritize the strategies toward that vision.

Do you favor a multicultural church? Is evangelism “less important,” “important,” or “very important” to you? Should advocacy and social justice define the church? Or should the church be a combination of mission and worship?

“We are looking at where we are as a church today and addressing hopes and desires,” said the Rev. Christopher Johnson, a member of the Strategic Planning Committee formed by Executive Council at its January 2009 meeting in Stockton, California.

Read it all and check out all the survey questions.

“I have to tell you about Maggy,” my colleague said excitedly. He was just back from Africa, and I was eager to hear about his work and his meeting with 100 Christian leaders from east-central Africa. But he wanted to talk about Maggy.

“Love made me an inventor,” Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse had told several of my colleagues with a sparkle in her eye. The more she talked, the more my colleagues wanted to see her Maison Shalom (House of Peace). They arranged to travel from Bujumbura to Ruyigi, the city in Burundi where Maggy lives.

Maggy’s story goes back 15 years to the civil war in Burundi…

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In three hours of grueling questions from lawmakers armed with e-mail messages and internal documents, the Fed chairman flatly denied accusations that he had threatened to oust the bank’s top management if it pulled out of the deal.

He also denied that the Fed had maneuvered to postpone public disclosures about Merrill Lynch’s spiraling losses until after the merger was completed on Dec. 30, and he denied that Fed officials had kept other financial regulators in the dark about plans to bail out Bank of America in January.

But Mr. Bernanke did not appear to satisfy lawmakers from either party. Republicans accused Mr. Bernanke of strong-arming a private company, which one lawmaker called “socialistic.” Democrats complained that Mr. Bernanke had not been tough enough, and had perhaps been bamboozled into bailing out Bank of America.

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So I went over to TitusOne, which I view as the most reliable, least strident site in the “conservative blogosphere,” to learn what’s happening in Fort Worth. Kendall Harmon is carrying many, many news reports from the ACNA meet-up. It had been many weeks (maybe even a couple of months) since I’d visited his site.

And I was shocked by what I observed. His postings (especially about Big Events like this one purportedly is) used to get dozens and dozens of comments. But go look. His many ACNA-related posts are only getting a handful comments. Reports like these used to get dozens of comments. That is weird! What the heck is going on? T19 is still getting hits; it’s just not getting much discussion. How come?

I have a hunch that the True Believers have moved over to StandFirm because they’re weary of TitusOneNine’s fairly constrained links and excerpts. Maybe they want the screaming free-for-all that StandFirm feeds them in its posts and allows in its comments. But even over at SFiF, the posts don’t seem to be getting the volume of comments that they used to.

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The Episcopal Church is part of the global Anglican Communion. Anglican Church members say they remain part of the same Communion, even though they’ve left the Episcopal Church.

Bane said that after his retirement, he tried to remain active in Episcopal ministry but was shunned by the denomination.

Bane said he was more conservative than many members of the Southern Virginia diocese. In 2003, he voted against Robinson’s ordination; other clergy and parishioners representing the diocese voted unanimously for ordination.

Asked why he didn’t join the Anglican conservatives earlier, Bane said he’d hoped to remain a traditional voice within the Episcopal Church.

He said the Anglican Church “is probably where I should have been earlier.”

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Two Tulsa-area ministers are elated about the historic creation of the Anglican Church in North America, a denomination formed by conservative churches and members who left the Episcopal Church.

Six years after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop, setting off a firestorm of protests, delegates meeting in Bedford, Texas, this week officially constituted the new Anglican church with 700 congregations and 100,000 members.

“It’s wonderful,” said the Rev. Briane Turley, rector of Tulsa’s Church of the Holy Spirit Anglican, which left the Episcopal Church several years ago over concerns that the church was drifting from its biblical foundation.

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To celebrate the 30th anniversary of St. David’s Episcopal Church congregation, church historian Wesley Martin put together a book entitled The Little Church that Could, but now, the addendum he’s writing will have be titled The Little Church that Tried, because St. David’s is closing. The last service will be held July 26, with Bishop Thomas Shaw in attendance. After the service, the church will be deconsecrated and sold.

It’s a heartbreaking end to the little white mission church built by the congregation 13 years ago after searching for a permanent home for its first 26 years. The church’s mission was to bring new members to the church, but membership has stayed at about 25 since the beginning.

“We’re a very small congregation, but everybody does things, everybody helps,” Diane Williams, the congregation’s senior warden, said as she sat in the pews of the empty church one sunny day.

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Check it out.

Check it out.

Conservative Anglicans disenchanted with the liberal drift in their U.S. and Canadian churches say they are confident that a new church body launched this week will one day gain a seat in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been organized, its leaders say, as an alternative for Anglicans who disagree with the theology of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

“This is the beginning of a recovery of confidence in Anglicanism as a biblical, missionary church,” said former Fort Worth Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker.

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Unlike the previous General Convention, next month’s gathering faces a “vague anxiety level” over multiple issues as opposed to just one, said the Rev. Canon Charles K. Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop. He made the remarks during a June 24 lecture at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).

The comment came in response to a question as to whether a final decision on issues such as same-sex blessings would come out of the General Convention. Canon Robertson said that Resolution B033 from the 75th General Convention, consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester as Bishop of the Northern Michigan, and the budget are all flash points causing anxiety for different Episcopalians.

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As we approach the fi rst anniversary of those disgraceful scenes in York last July when members of the General Synod chose to ignore the clear advice of both archbishops and opted instead for provision for traditionalists to be made via a so-called ”˜code of practice’, I thought that you would appreciate a brief outline of where we are.

I know only too well how isolated many of you are feeling and how frustrating it is to have to wait upon events which are outside our control. Last summer, there were those who argued that it was all over and that we had lost the battle to achieve suitable provision for those of us who cannot in conscience receive the ordination of women. Others ”“ and I include myself in their number ”“ took the view that we could not know our position until the synodical process was complete.

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Famed blacksmith Philip Simmons, whose wrought iron gates and other works grace gardens and entryways along the South Carolina coast and beyond U.S. borders, died at age 97, friends and funeral officials said Tuesday.

Read it all–and note the church affiliation, of which I was unaware.

Geez, I went to an appointment this afternoon, just got back, and I feel much older. My goodness.

My sister-in-law, a professional storyteller, was in Europe speaking at various libraries. Later, she called her mother and told her that she’d just given a speech for 250 librarians.

“Great,” said her mother. “How much is that in American money?”

–David Rumpeltin in the July 2009 Reader’s Digest, page 175

For a Long Beach Anglican church, all eyes will be on Newport Beach in the coming months.

St. James Anglican Church, which made national headlines in 2004 when it joined with All Saints Church in Belmont Heights in a split from the U.S. Episcopal Church, on Wednesday petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision by the California Supreme Court.

St. James, which along with All Saints and St. David’s in North Hollywood, has been engaged in a drawn-out property dispute with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles since 2004. It is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the state court decision that it says improperly gives certain religious organizations the power to take property they do not own.

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The Anglican Church in North America currently is made up of 700 dissident Anglican churches, ranging from tiny Southern congregations that meet at Holiday Inns to larger congregations like St. Vincent’s in Bedford.

“The challenge before them is obviously two-fold,” says the Rev. Bill Sachs, an Episcopal priest and author of the forthcoming book, “Homosexuality and the Crisis of Anglicanism.” “How do you meld all of these groups that have prized their particular identity? And the larger challenge is how do you transform a spirit of protest into a positive message that might even attract newcomers?”

Denominational realignment has dogged the Episcopal Church since it broke from the Church of England after the Revolutionary War. But never has such a large chunk of the church broken off in protest. Its intent is to form a polyglot communion with like-minded dioceses spanning from Rwanda to Argentina.

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