This is the season for historical purification. All over the world, religions and nations seem ready to peek into the dark places of their histories, to learn from the atrocities of the past and thus to experience a kind of collective catharsis. It is an imperfect process, but the press for it is undeniable. In Australia the prime minister formally apologized for the past treatment of the aboriginal population. In America there is similar talk about slavery and torture. Turkey struggles with the stain of Armenian genocide a century ago. Islam battles with the association of jihad with mass murder. But the nexus between purification and apology makes the process delicate.

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The reality is that the Common Cause Theological Statement has outlived its usefulness. What is needed is a new doctrinal statement, one which is not only more comprehensive in its recognition of divergent opinions among orthodox Anglicans but also displays greater solidarity with the Anglican entities that have supported the establishment of a new orthodox province in North America and extend their recognition to the ACNA as that province in formation. Such a statement need not be complicated””just a few well-chosen words””around which all orthodox Anglicans can in good conscience come together in the cause of the gospel.

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The low-cost airline would charge passengers less on “bar stools” with seat belts around their waists.

Michael O’Leary, the chief executive, has already held talks with US plane manufacturer Boeing about designing an aircraft with standing room.

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However, today the Bishop said: “The Be Faithful Press Release says that I would be calling on churches and Christians to repent of capitulating to cultures around them and to refocus on the faith of the Church from down the ages and an authentic mission to the nations. This is what I said to the reporter from the Telegraph. I said that we all needed to repent for straying from God’s purpose for us.

“On being pressed as to whether this included homosexuals, I said something to the effect that yes, we all need to repent when we fall short of God’s will and be transformed. I went on to say a little about how Christians should understand marriage and family and the proper expression of our sexual nature.

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To some extent, the proof will be in the pudding. The first thing to do is to learn from the mistakes made by conservatives in the United States.

Over recent decades there was a growth of evangelical and Catholic groupings formed to wage cultural warfare within the American Church. The alarming trajectory of The Episcopal Church towards heterodoxy was not always obvious to insiders and protests against divisive, controversial leaders like the über-liberal Bishop Spong were disorganised and fragmented.

Personality differences and impatience led to fragmentation. Many churches and leaders left The Episcopal Church altogether leaving the conservatives and orthodox weakened. It came to a point at which valiant attempts to regroup at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and the 2000 Denver General Convention, though largely successful, were already doomed to failure.

The resulting formation of a new province in North America became almost inevitable in the light of the fact that conservatives were so divided and fragmented in the early days that their rearguard actions were ultimately ineffective. Although my own sympathy is with those who don’t give up and continue trying to reform The Episcopal Church, I recognise that will not always be possible.

So why should anyone support FCA and why should it be launched now? Firstly, it’s a way of supporting Anglicans in North America who are struggling to remain Anglican in very difficult circumstances.

Secondly, it’s a direct link to the Global South provinces….

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The sad impression of the last year is that those most committed to GAFCON and FCA are determined to press ahead with their vision and, convinced by their own rhetoric and rightness, to ignore or dismiss those who are unwilling to follow their lead. NEAC5 demonstrated widespread unease about aspects of GAFCON and FCA but no serious attempt has been made to address these by those who have now proceeded to launch FCA in the UK. The majority of evangelical bishops remain at best cautious or sceptical about this development but there appears to have been no attempt to consult with them or take on board their concerns.

At NEAC5 it was clear that there were those already convinced about GAFCON and FCA ”“ many of them having been in Jerusalem or close to those who were ”“ but that the majority was not as yet persuaded. The presentations on the day from GAFCON supporters preached to and roused the converted but left many others at best unconvinced and at worst further alienated and concerned. Rather than learning from their failure to win a majority on that day, FCA appears to have continued with the same conviction that passionate selling of its diagnosis and itself as the remedy will be sufficient to win people over. It does not appear to recognise that this rallying of the core troops in fact often has the opposite effect on those looking in from outside or the margins. It appears unable or unwilling to understand why some of us who have so much in common with its commitments feel unable to throw ourselves whole-heartedly into its plans yet long to find a way of engaging constructively with them rather than simply opposing them.

It may be that FCA’s calling is to launch now as a small tight-knit fellowship of the whole-heartedly committed who feel most alienated by developments in the Church of England and Anglican Communion over recent years (including women’s leadership) and who want to form a body of the like-minded on how to pursue their concerns politically. In that case it is clearly not the place for me and the only question is whether it can relate to people like me in a constructive rather than destructive manner.

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This great gathering is significant in several respects:

i) It is a clear demonstration of the fact that the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) held in Jerusalem from 22-29th June 2008 was divinely mandated;
ii) That the organization, execution, decisions and declarations which came out of it were inspired by the Holy Spirit and they reflect the mind of God for our dear Anglican Church in this generation;
iii) It shows that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) is divinely chosen and called to be the channel of continuing this work of reviving, reforming and transforming the Anglican Church in the UK and Ireland in particular, and in God’s wide world in general. This is with a view to repositioning it to restore “what the locust had eaten” in this great land, for the salvation of mankind, and all of God’s creation.
iv) Furthermore I see the significance of this gathering against the background of Acts chapter two ”“ the great gathering from all over the world, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, to inaugurate God’s New Testament Church, empower men and women to evangelize and do the work of mission. Thus I see this gathering as a people assembled, as the Jerusalem gathering before it, by the finger of God, to receive fresh power and a saving message for the broken, hurting, confused and confusing world all around us.
v) Moreover it is gratifying to note that this crowd has assembled in the city of London ”“ not Lagos, Nairobi or Kampala. It thus answers to the derogatory remarks of some who say that the faith, commitment and zeal of African Anglicans is borne out of uneducated minds and flawed missionary enterprise in Africa. I am happy that men and women like you who have received sound ediucstion in the British tradition and the gospel ”˜from the feet of Gamaliel’, can assemble under the umbrella of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Indeed wise men and wise women still seek Jesus.

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Even asking that question says Archbishop Jensen, shows how badly things have gone wrong.

He is speaking live now and you can watch it here on Anglican TV.

This one made me weep like a little boy–wonderful stuff.

–Watch it all–KSH.

President Obama arrived in Moscow Monday for a summit with Russian leaders aimed at reaching an agreement to cut stockpiles of nuclear warheads, but also expected to touch upon the war in Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, terrorism and the jousting for influence in other post-Soviet countries.

The summit comes less than a year after the conflict in Georgia caused the worst tensions between the United States and Russia since the end of the cold war. Since taking office in January, Mr. Obama has called for a “reset” in relations, and the summit will offer the most telling evidence so far about how difficult it will be for him to achieve this goal.

Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said over the weekend that he was “moderately optimistic” about the possibility of success at the summit, noting that under President George W. Bush, relations between the two countries had significantly worsened.

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Take the time to read it all, noting carefully the warning about the affadavit. My response to this was real sadness, and prayers for the parish and the mess the leadership is now ensconced in.

Also, Terry Mattingly has some pertinent questions to ask about this story here and a diocese of North Carolina statement is there.

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

Caught this one on the morning run. Take the time to watch it all. Those of you with connections to youth ministry, this video is the kind of thing all youth groups needs to be challenged to watch and discuss.

PAUL SOLMAN: Here are the new numbers from the Labor Department’s monthly survey of 60,000 households. The official number is what the government reports as U-3, 14.7 million unemployed as of June. That’s 9.5 percent.

U-4 adds discouraged workers who’ve stopped looking. That would make unemployment 10 percent.

U-5, marginally attached workers who say they’d take a job, but haven’t looked in a month. The number would then be up to 10.8 percent.

The most inclusive number, U-6, adds part-timers looking for full-time work, bringing the total to 16.5 percent.

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The extreme volatility that has gripped oil markets for the last 18 months has shown no signs of slowing down, with oil prices more than doubling since the beginning of the year despite an exceptionally weak economy.

The instability of oil and gas prices is puzzling government officials and policy analysts, who fear it could jeopardize a global recovery. It is also hobbling businesses and consumers, who are already facing the effects of a stinging recession, as they try in vain to guess where prices will be a year from now ”” or even next month.

A wild run on the oil markets has occurred in the last 12 months. Last summer, prices surged to a record high above $145 a barrel, driving up gasoline prices to well over $4 a gallon. As the global economy faltered, oil tumbled to $33 a barrel in December. But oil has risen 55 percent since the beginning of the year, to $70 a barrel, pushing gas prices up again to $2.60 a gallon, according to AAA, the automobile club.

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Now, I’m well aware that having 47 million people who can’t afford medical care is a genuine social problem — although many of those millions are illegal immigrants, people between jobs and young folks who choose to go insurance-bare. I’m also aware that I can’t necessarily have everything I want, whether it’s a dozen pairs of Prada boots or a pacemaker at age 99. I know that Medicare is on the greased rails to a train wreck, and not just because of spiraling costs but because doctors are fleeing the system because they’re sick of below-cost reimbursements and crushing paperwork. There are ways to solve some of these problems: healthcare tax breaks, malpractice reform that would lower the cost of practicing medicine, efforts to make it easier to get cheap, high-deductible catastrophic coverage, steps to encourage fee-for-service arrangements of the kind that most people have with their dentists.

In short, as someone who’s not getting any younger, I’d like to be the one who makes the “difficult decision” as to whether I can afford — and thus really want — that hip replacement in my extreme old age. Sorry, President Obama, but I don’t want “society”– that is, government mucky-mucks — determining that I’ve got to go sit on an ice floe just because I’m old and kind of ugly, no matter how many fancy degrees in medicine or bioethics they might have.

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The Rev. Tom Foster of Modesto was a delegate to the historic inaugural provincial assembly of the Anglican Church in North America held June 22-25 in Bedford, Texas. He called the meeting “a gangbuster operation” and said the spirit of the gathering “was absolute joy.”

The 29th province in the worldwide Anglican Communion was established to oversee U.S. churches and dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church, as well as those in Canada that similarly have split over doctrinal issues, primarily the interpretation of Scripture. ACNA will oversee 700 parishes four U.S. dioceses and about 100,000 people, organizers said.

The new province, which still must garner approval from two-thirds of Anglican leaders around the world, is not recognized by the Episcopal Church. The Rev. Robert Duncan, bishop of another U.S. breakaway diocese, was installed as ACNA’s archbishop during the assembly, which included the adoption of a constitution and canons, or laws. That would put him on equal footing with Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the other 27 primates, or leaders, around the world.

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Russia’s population is shrinking alarmingly, its death rate double that in most developed countries. Conflicts in its north Caucasus republics have flared again. Its armed forces are woefully ill-equipped and poorly trained. Mr Putin has kept control by unleashing a virulent brand of anti-Western “patriotism”””the latest textbooks are as tough on America as they are soft on Stalin””and thuggishly silencing the opposition. Last year in a pretence of democracy Mr Putin installed Dmitry Medvedev (Mr Obama’s supposed host) as president while he himself became prime minister.

In the long term Mr Putin’s refusal to modernise his country will weaken Russia. Yet the place Mr Obama has to deal with now is still a potent force. The largest country on earth, Russia stretches from Europe to China. It is the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas. It has a seat on the UN Security Council and of course that nuclear arsenal. Above all it has the capacity to do both great harm and some good….

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Reverend BILL GAVENTA (Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities): In every faith community there is a scriptural basis for welcome and hospitality. But you’ve also got congregations who live in cultures where people with disabilities have been hidden and ostracized and devalued in lots of ways, and too often faith communities sanctify prejudices in the community rather than challenge them. It shouldn’t be easier to get into a bar than a church….

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