The current national disciplinary canons were patterned on the military code of justice. And it was argued that the Church could do better than the military. Perhaps so. But it is my opinion that the new canons give far too much authority to the Bishop of a Diocese over his or her clergy, and they give unprecedented authority to the Presiding Bishop over the other Bishops of the Church ”“ and there is a tremendous loss of “due process” in their implementation.

If a Diocesan Bishop, or the Presiding Bishop, is a wise and caring person there may be no danger in these new canons. But I think there are few of us who might not be tempted to misuse the enhanced powers given to the Bishops and the Presiding Bishop to act against those with whom he or she disagrees.

I will tell you plainly: I do not want to have this enhanced authority given to me in my dealings with our clergy. Nor do I welcome this intrusion into the life of our sovereign Diocese of the unprecedented authority of the Presiding Bishop. (And I have told her so.) It is a radical revision of the polity of The Episcopal Church from its inception.

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Bishop Howe called for the election of his successor, the Fourth Bishop of Central Florida, in a Special Convention to be held Nov. 19 at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando.

“These last two-plus decades of my life have been a roller coaster of joy and sorrow ”“ but mostly joy ”“ as we have seen God work in our midst in extraordinary ways,” Bishop Howe said. “I came here after 13-and-a-half years in one of the truly great congregations in The Episcopal Church. And, as every Bishop will tell you, leaving your parish family behind is a very difficult thing to do.”

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There is also a patristic root to this sacramental understanding, particularly in the theologizing of Athanasius and Irenaeus, and the doctrine of theosis or divinization to which it gave rise. Perhaps the best shorthand summary is, “God became human in order that we might become divine.”

All those various threads are significant if we’re going to look at the current state of Anglican and Roman relationships, for the patchwork that is Anglicanism takes all those various threads and at least theoretically encourages them to find life of different colors and textures in the soil of different nations and peoples. It also forms the background on which our two communions can find common cause in joining God’s mission in this day and age and all our varied contexts. It is the ground on which we can share a catholic vocation.

Once we recognize the common ground, perhaps we may be able to move behind singular answers to highly particular challenges, at least in certain spheres. We share a common belief in the reign of God, in the sacramental presence of God in the earthly realm, and in the necessity of human participation in God’s mission.

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A Colorado theology school is teaching Air Force chaplains to consider the religious beliefs of servicemen and women to better help them cope with post-traumatic stress.

The goal is to build trust so a chaplain can encourage service members to draw on their individual concepts of God and spirituality, said Carrie Doehring, an associate professor of pastoral care at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.
Doehring helped develop the one-year program for the Air Force, which wanted another way for its chaplains to respond to the stress of deployments amid two protracted wars.

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The author also claims (incorrectly) that the Anglican Reformers were Zwinglian in their eucharistic theology. Once in awhile, one comes across these attempts to interpret the Anglican Reformers as Zwinglian in their eucharistic theology, whether by those of catholic leanings (who are attempting to do demolition work) or by low-church Evangelicals, hoping to score points against Rome.

It does not work. Neither Cranmer nor Jewel (and certainly not Hooker) were Zwinglians, and they repeatedly go out of their way to make this clear. What they rejected was transubstantiation, particularly the notion that the substance of bread and wine ceased to exist as bread and wine after consecration. It is not terribly clear what they meant by “spiritual presence,” whether a presence through the Holy Spirit (as in Calvin and Eastern Orthodoxy), or rather “something else.” Most commentators interpret them as “virtualists” or “receptionists,” who believed that Christ communicated himself really and truly in his full humanity and deity, in the very act of eating and drinking, when the communicant received the consecrated bread and wine, with faith.

What they clearly believed was: the risen Christ is really present, in his full humanity and deity, when the elements are received with faith, and, in participating in the Lord’s Supper, Christians genuinely participate in Christ’s risen life through the process of eating and drinking. Both Cranmer (against Gardiner) and Jewel (against Harding) were emphatic that they disagreed about the manner of Christ’s presence, not the reality of Christ’s presence.

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… this is not to appeal nostalgically back to a lost past. Rather it is to suggest that our present has been constructed more by one type of faith than it has been by reason.

In short, we still live within a Franciscan Middle Ages, and this can be shown to be as true of our politics as it is of our philosophy. The question is whether an alternative, Dominican Middle Ages can yet be revived in order to shape, in the twenty-first century, an alternative modernity.

But what happened to the evolution of the post-Franciscan current after Kant? Do both analytic and continental philosophy really still stand within its slip-stream? The answer is indubitably yes. And if these two philosophies tell similar stories about the genesis of modern philosophy then it turns out that their own origins are but continuations of this story in varying ways that are not so different as is sometimes imagined.

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US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told Davos delegates rapid, drastic spending cuts are “not the responsible way” to cut national budget deficits.

He also said the US was more confident now there was a sustainable expansion, but said it was not a boom.

Mr Geithner said “education, innovation, and investment” were the way forward for the US economy.

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Daily briefings are being released by the Anglican Communion Office, and while these have listed a number of the issues being discussed, such as what it means to be a primate in different regions of the Communion, they have not mentioned the big questions such as what the implications of the boycott might be for the future of the Anglican Communion; or what relationship these Primates can expect with their non-attending peers.

Paul Feheley, working with the Anglican Communion Office, said that the press was not being “gagged”; but there was a desire to keep the media away “to allow the Primates the space they need” to be able to have conversations “in a way that’s free”.

Of course, the absence of most of the conservatives means that there is no occasion for the briefing and counter-briefing that has been seen at earlier encounters of the Primates.

All, then, awaits the final communiqué, planned for Sunday afternoon, which is expected to deliver the conclusions of the Primates who are present. In the mean time, I count 22 Primates in a circle, deep in discussion ”” visible only from afar.

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The Egyptian government’s unprecedented shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday stunned the world’s technology community, which questioned whether the country can quickly recover from cutting such a vital link for commerce and communication.

The government’s surprising move came in the face of widespread civil unrest, but essentially wiped the country off the world’s online maps, said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer and co-founder of Renesys, a New Hampshire firm that monitors how the Internet is operating.

“It is astonishing because Egypt has so much potentially to lose in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the economic world,” Cowie said. “It will set Egypt back for years in terms of its hopes of becoming a regional Internet power.”

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Egyptians say their growing protest against the 30-year-rule of President Hosni Mubarak was sparked by the Tunisia uprising that toppled another veteran authoritarian leader two weeks ago.

But while ordinary Egyptians have been inspired by the ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the forceful response of Mr. Mubarak’s regime more resembles how Iran successfully ”“ if mercilessly ”“ dealt with widespread protests in 2009 after the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Anyone who followed Iran’s violent crackdown then may feel a twinge of déjà vu as they watched rows of Egyptian riot police and plainclothes security agents battle Egyptians with batons, tear gas, and water cannons in their bid to halt five days of unprecedented protest.

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The path to Rome detours by the Gold Coast for those disaffected Australian Anglicans planning to take up Pope Benedict’s offer to join the Catholic Church.

Up to 50 clergy and laity will gather for the first time nationally at St Stephen’s College at Coomera for three days from Tuesday to discuss the Australian Anglican ordinariate – the local framework which will allow them to keep their married clergy, liturgy and church structures within Catholicism.

The prominent Sydney barrister John McCarthy, QC, has been briefed to advise the main dissident group of conservatives, the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion, on constitutional and legal issues arising from the historic move.

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Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know thee, diligence to seek thee, wisdom to find thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

And he called the people to him again, and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him.”

–Mark 7:14-15

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President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt appeared on television late Friday night and ordered his government to resign, but backed his security forces’ attempts to contain the surging unrest around the country that has shaken his 28-year authoritarian rule.

He did not offer to step down himself and spent much of the short speech explaining the need for stability, saying that while he was “on the side of freedom,” his job was to protect the nation from chaos.

Several hours earlier, he had ordered the military into the streets to reinforce police struggling to contain riots by tens of thousands of Egyptians.

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The Obama administration is ramping up pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to address the grievances of the Egyptian people and said the government’s response to protests may affect U.S. aid.

“The people of Egypt are watching the government’s actions, they have for quite some time, and their grievances have reached a boiling point and they have to be addressed,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in Washington. The U.S. will be looking at its “assistance posture” toward Egypt, Gibbs said.

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If Egyptian unrest turns into an Egyptian revolution, the implications for the Arab world – and for Western policy in the Middle East – will be immense.

Egypt matters, in a way that tiny Tunisia – key catalyst that it has been in the current wave of protest – does not.

It matters because its destiny affects, in a range of ways, not only Arab interests but Israeli, Iranian and Western interests, too.

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