A few statistics tell the story.

A majority of seminary students now carry educational debt, and they’re borrowing larger amounts than in the past. Graduates confirm that their debt affects their career choices, holds them back from purchasing homes, prevents them from saving for their children’s education, limits their retirement savings, delays health care and creates distress.

Christian Century magazine recently reported that “churches are paying their clergy proportionately lower salaries today then they did a generation ago, making it more difficult for ministerial candidates to justify the high cost of a graduate degree.”

Fewer than 7 percent of clergy in most Protestant and Catholic denominations today are under age 35.

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During the July 6 gathering PB&F members said that Episcopalians have told them they expect the General Convention, the church’s triennial policy-making gathering, to pass a three-year budget that reflects the realities of the economy they live with each day. The members also said they sense a commitment to mission and openness to creative responses to the crisis.

“What I am hearing is that we’d better be realistic about our income projections,” said Diocese of New Jersey Bishop and PB&F member George Councell, who predicted his diocese’s income will be 25 percent less in 2010.

“To continue to go on as if nothing’s changed will send a completely wrong message to everyone,” agreed Diocese of West Virginia Bishop Mike Klusmeyer.

The Rev. Canon John Floberg (North Dakota) said Episcopalians in his diocese are “wondering how we make it through these tougher economic times as a whole church without losing the least and the marginalized.”

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Discussions will continue this week at the general convention in Anaheim, Calif., about the possibility of joining together the dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac.

Fond du Lac Bishop Russell Jacobus said although the local membership may have concerns about the future of St. Paul’s Cathedral if a new diocese is formed, the cathedral would remain a center of local religious activity.

“Both St. Paul’s and Christ Church in Eau Claire are seats for the bishop’s throne. I would not want to give up either,” Jacobus said.

Eau Claire’s diocese has been without a bishop since April 2008. Jacobus has performed some Episcopal functions in the diocese, including an ordination and confirmations.

“They could elect another bishop, which they can’t afford, or junction with another diocese. They are in the process of discerning what to do,” he said.

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La Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur has grown by “leaps and bounds” over the past decade the Bishop of Bolivia, the Rt Rev Frank Lyons told delegates to the founding convocation of the ACNA in Fort Worth last week, with many dioceses doubling in size.

Bishop Lyons reported that at the March 28 meeting of the South American House of Bishops in Asuncion, the province authorized the creation of four auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Chile, three auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Peru, one suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Uruguay, and one suffragan bishop for the Diocese of Northern Argentina.

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Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, said it’s “part of our duty as Christians” to forgive Sanford. But it will be a particularly difficult process for those who saw him as a presidential hopeful, he said.

“I feel like there was a lot of hope in him, so I think the disillusionment is that much greater,” he said.

But people should reserve judgment, because there “but for the grace of God go all the rest of us,” Harmon said.

“The story of David and Bathsheba is in the Bible for a reason,” he said, a reference to the story of an adulterous relationship between the king of Israel and the wife of a soldier. “People’s naivety about their vulnerability to these kinds of problems boggles my mind.”

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Walking around the lobby I saw several old friends. The Rev’d Mark Goodman, former rector of Trinity Myrtle Beach, is here with his family. The Rev’d Kevin Martin and his wife, Sharon, are here. Kevin was one the key staff members at Episcopal Renewal Ministries (”ERM”) back when Chuck Irish was the director (mid 80’s ”“ mid 90’s). A little while later I ran into The Rev’d Tony Clark. Tony, the current Dean of the Cathedral in Orlando, was a year behind me at seminary. I’ll be curious to see how many old friends I’ll see since most of them have left the Episcopal Church over the past few years.

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We will have a lot of coverage on this, so the schedule will be something to keep bookmarked.

Last week more than 800 men and women gathered in Bedford, Texas, to elect an archbishop and ratify a constitution for the ACNA, a new alliance for churches that have left the Episcopal Church. Led by Robert Duncan, bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, the ACNA comprises more than 700 theologically conservative churches with about 70,000 parishioners.

There were many central theological beliefs that last week’s attendees could agree on in their constitution and canon laws, including the full inspiration of the Bible, the centrality of baptism and Communion to church life, and the authority of the historic church creeds. But for the time being, ACNA leaders have not reached full agreement on female priests. At this time, each jurisdiction is free to decide whether or not to ordain women, but jurisdictions cannot force others to either accept women’s ordination or to stop practicing it. Women bishops are forbidden.

“For those who believe the ordination of women to be a grave error, and for those who believe it scripturally justifiable . . . we should be in mission together until God sorts us out,” said Duncan in last week’s opening address. “It is not perfect, but it is enough.”

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The 750 churches in the newly formed Anglican Church in North America were once among the most charismatic churches in the Episcopal fold, said the Rev. Briane Turley, rector of Tulsa’s Church of the Holy Spirit Anglican.

Turley’s church is one of two Tulsa-area congregations in the new denomination.

Most of the congregations left the Episcopal Church over concerns that it was drifting from its biblical foundation.

“Most of the largest Episcopal churches have joined us,” he said.

Turley said that the largest Episcopal churches have tended to be evangelical and charismatic at their core.

“We’ve tended to attract the most evangelical, and the most Anglo-Catholic congregations,” he said, churches that adhere to the biblical record and also to traditional, liturgical forms of worship.

“It has to do with a thirst for the transcendent Christ, for knowing him, having entered into a deeper relationship with him,” he said.

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Last week, the Anglican congregation at St. Paul’s handed over the keys to its $2.3 million facility to Episcopal Bishop Jerry Lamb. The congregation became one of the first in the nation to voluntarily give its property to the Episcopal Church before a lawsuit was filed.

It’s a miniature portrait of a conflict going on across the country over the interpretation of Scripture, such as whether Jesus is the only way to salvation, as Anglicans believe, and if same-sex marriages should be allowed, as Episcopalians favor.

But Sunday, both sides seemed content.

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America’s long-awaited fiscal train wreck is now underway. Depending on policy actions taken now and over the next few years, federal deficits will likely average as much as 6% of GDP through 2019, contributing to a jump in debt held by the public to as high as 82% of GDP by then – a doubling over the next decade. Worse, barring aggressive policy actions, deficits and debt will rise even more sharply thereafter as entitlement spending accelerates relative to GDP. Keeping entitlement promises would require unsustainable borrowing, taxes or both, severely testing the credibility of our policies and hurting our long-term ability to finance investment and sustain growth. And soaring debt will force up real interest rates, reducing capital and productivity and boosting debt service. Not only will those factors steadily lower our standard of living, but they will imperil economic and financial stability.

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“America is six months behind; it has wasted a lot of time,” said Patrick Devedjian, the minister in charge of the French relance, or stimulus. By the time Washington gets around to doling out most of its money, Mr. Devedjian sniffed, “the crisis could be over.”

Gallic pride aside, Mr. Devedjian has a point. While he plans to spend 75 percent of France’s stimulus money this year, the White House is giving itself until fall 2010 to lay out that big a share of the American expenditure. And many experts predict that Washington will fall short of that goal.

As it turns out, France’s more centralized, state-directed economy ”” so often criticized in good times for smothering entrepreneurship and holding back growth ”” is proving remarkably effective at deploying funds quickly and efficiently in bad times.

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It is good news that those Anglican parishes that are strongly opposed to homosexuality are forming a new movement. The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) was launched last year as a pressure group within the international Anglican communion, but only now is it trying to exert grassroots influence, raising awareness for its cause on the parish level. If it is successful, then it will be easy to identify the sexual politics of your local parish church. It will be impossible to deny that there is a church within the church, that division has become schism.

This is good news because honesty is better than dishonesty. The fact is that conservative evangelicals profess a different version of Christianity from other Anglicans. There are admittedly other divisions within Anglicanism, but this is the really big one. If opposition to homosexuality is a basic component of your idea of Christian truth, then you ought to be clear about this, and not cohabit with those who fudge the issue, or openly express disdain for your position.

Over the past 20 years or so we have seen huge amounts of dishonesty and evasion on this. The church’s leadership has been trying to build a home on the fence. The liberals and the conservatives must both be accommodated, it has said: as long as both sides are still part of the same communion, then there is hope of reconciliation. A pious sentiment, surely? Well, the piety is laced with self-serving evasion and hypocrisy.

The fault lies with the liberals….

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A traditionalist Anglican group has insisted at its launch conference that it is not poised to break away from the Church of England.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans of UK and Ireland will campaign against active homosexuality in the Church.

Its leaders told the conference in London that liberal moves had brought “heartache” and “real problems”.

Bishop of Lewes the Rt Rev Wallace Benn said he wanted “to pull people back” rather than breaking away.

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Speaking at the group’s launch event in London, attended by an estimated 1,600 people from 300 parishes across the UK and Ireland, Bishop Benn said: “Parts of the Church of England don’t believe it, they are moving away from the historic Biblical Christianity.

“It’s very important to understand that when novelty is introduced into the church, as the New Testament says, there are divisions.

“We’re trying to move back to the core of our Christian faith. Sadly some in the British isles are moving away and where bishops do that, there is particular unhappiness in some dioceses and it causes real problems and real heartaches for people and for churches.

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Consideration of the first two issues will take place against the backdrop of recent news that the House of Bishops has commissioned its second theological study in nine years on homosexuality.

In addition, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson wrote to the deputies June 29 that it would be asked to consider convening in two rare “committee of the whole” sessions the afternoon of July 8 and the morning of July 9 “to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies” and to inform the legislative committee that will consider all B033 resolutions.

Concern over the reaction from the wider Anglican Communion about eventual decisions made about Resolution B033 and same-gender blessings likely also will hover over the Anaheim meeting.

The Episcopal Church began studying issues of human sexuality in 1964, when General Convention said that “changing patterns in human action have raised inquiries concerning the church’s position on sexual behavior” and called for data gathering and studies that would result in recommendations to the next convention. Since then, the church has published 10 officially sanctioned studies and reports on human sexuality, including the 2005 “To Set Our Hope in Christ,” which summarizes the history of the debate and the changes in perspective the church has experienced.

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Conservative Anglicans, who oppose the Church of England’s stand on issues such as gay clergy, on Monday ruled out formally breaking away from the mainstream as a group has done in the United States.

Members of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), also unhappy at plans to allow the ordination of woman bishops, said they wanted to create an umbrella movement to promote conservative views within the Church.

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Blessings of same-sex marriage and removal of an informal ban on gay bishops are expected to be the top items at the upcoming 10-day meeting of the Episcopal General Convention, which starts Wednesday in Anaheim, Calif.

Since the 2006 General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, the number of states that have legalized same-sex marriage has increased to six.

Bishops from those six states – Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa and Connecticut – have put forth a resolution asking a “generous and flexible response” to same-sex couples seeking to be wed in these states, according to Religion News Service.

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Could it be a sign from God?

An Episcopal church in Cobb County wants to install an electronic sign to replace an old-style sign that a car destroyed two years ago. It has had to keep the high-tech shift on hold, though, because county rules prohibit electronic signs in residential areas.

Now, a ray of light may shine down on the church after all. Cobb County commissioners are considering a change to the county code that would allow electronic signs for some churches, private schools and others in residential areas.

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Check it out here and you can find more links with pictures there.

Q. Could you give us a brief definition of “the gospel”?

A. I could try taking a Pauline angle. When Paul talks about “the gospel,” he means “the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and therefore the Lord of the world.” Now, that’s about as brief as you can do it.

The reason that’s good news”¦ In the Roman Empire, when a new emperor came to the throne, there’d obviously been a time of uncertainty. Somebody’s just died. Is there going to be chaos? Is society going to collapse? Are we going to have pirates ruling the seas? Are we going to have no food to eat? And the good news is, we have an emperor and his name is such and such. So, we’re going to have justice and peace and prosperity, and isn’t that great?!

Now, of course, most people in the Roman Empire knew that was rubbish because it was just another old jumped-up aristocrat who was going to do the same as the other ones had done. But that was the rhetoric.

Paul slices straight in with the Isaianic message: Good news! God is becoming King and he is doing it through Jesus! And therefore, phew! God’s justice, God’s peace, God’s world is going to be renewed.

And in the middle of that, of course, it’s good news for you and me. But that’s the derivative from, or the corollary of the good news which is a message about Jesus that has a second-order effect on me and you and us. But the gospel is not itself about you are this sort of a person and this can happen to you. That’s the result of the gospel rather than the gospel itself.

It’s very clear in Romans. Romans 1:3-4: This is the gospel. It’s the message about Jesus Christ descended from David, designated Son of God in power, and then Romans 1:16-17 which says very clearly: “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation.” That is, salvation is the result of the gospel, not the center of the gospel itself.

—Please guess who is speaking before you look and find the answer.

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…I felt I needed to at least say something about the Church, Anglicanism, and that failing institution, TEC. Frankly, at this point TEC is ecclesiologically analogous to a failed state in political terms. The Presiding Bishop has taken on authority never granted to her under the Constitution or Canons, the General Convention is at a point where folks within the church obey or disobey its edicts at a whim (whether on the left or the right), TEC can no longer interact normally with other churches in Christendom or in Anglicanism, and it is failing economically.

—Brad Drell of Western Louisiana who will not be present at the 2009 Episcopal Church’s General Convention

Caught this in this weekend’s Financial Times:

Questions of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief
By John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale
Westminster/John Knox Press £11.99, 160 pages
For several years physicist and Anglican priest Polkinghorne and his former pupil Beale have answered questions on their website about the relationship between religion and science. This is a probing selection.

Jim Packer is one of the giants of the real world-Anglicanism. Amongst the wise of this world he is disdained, but his praises are sung in all the churches. Astonishingly, in the eyes of his institutional church he is no longer one of us. He has chosen to separate himself from what he has called the sanctification of sin.

Is he still an Anglican?

When we can seriously ask that question, something is deeply wrong. We are at a watershed, at a parting of the ways. Decisions have to be made.

In this country, the Christian foundations have been shaken. In this and the next generation there will be fought what may amount to the last battle for the soul of the nation. It will be an ideological war, a war of ideas. But great issues will hang upon the outcome: the fate of a culture and the eternal fate of souls. Many look to you for guidance and resource and inspiration. Can we do so any longer?

How can we test your resolve to evangelize your people? Unless you develop a deep confidence in the gospel of the saving work of God through Jesus Christ, a willingness to work together for Christ, and a determination to submit to the teaching of scripture, it will not be done. The culture will swallow you alive.

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Newly-installed Kenyan Archbishop Eliud Wabukala has called for unity among the 77 million-member global Anglican Communion, which is threatened by a split centred, as far as many African bishops are concerned, on the issue of homosexuality.

“We are in a state of brokenness because the truth of the Scripture has not been upheld in some provinces,” said Archbishop Wabukala in July 5 homily after his enthronement as the fifth archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya. “We call on all Anglicans to come together again around the Gospel.”

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