Easter without Jesus

Just. Flipping. Unbelievable!

That was my reaction as I read Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's Easter 2012 Message: “Give Thanks for Easter.”

My second thought was, I can recommend two excellent books for her: The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey; and the brand new (February 2012) The Jesus We Missed, by Patrick Henry Reardon. (I am very keen on Reardon's book and highly recommend it to anybody.)

But the three aspects of this "Easter Message" I found so unbelievable are that it: (1) never once mentions Jesus, (2) seems to speak of Resurrection as merely a concept and not an event, and (3) once again hypes the Millennium Development Goals instead of (or, as though they were) the Gospel.

I say "once again" because the MDG's were the focus of the Presiding Bishop's Lenten Message a mere six weeks ago.

This emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals led to a stinging rebuke from the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr. Eliud Wabukala, according to a March 29 report by Anglican Ink editor, George Conger:

The Archbishop of Kenya has criticized idolatry of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) saying faith in Christ, not works performed in his name, is the path of salvation.

The 22 February 2012 letter written by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala on behalf of the Gafcon primates chastised Christians who in the pursuit of social and economic change, lost sight of the centrality of the cross and the primacy of repentance and amendment of life. “While it is obvious that such good things as feeding the hungry, fighting disease, improving education and national prosperity are to be desired by all, by themselves any human dream can become a substitute gospel which renders repentance and the cross of Christ irrelevant,” he said.

Reprising the theme of her Lenten message, Dr. Jefferts Schori's message for Easter begins:

One of my favorite Easter hymns is about greenness. “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.”

It goes on to talk about love coming again. It’s a reminder to me of how centered our Easter images are in the Northern hemisphere. We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection.

"Now the Green Blade Riseth" is an Easter hymn from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 that uses the sights of spring as metaphors for the true Resurrection of Christ. But it seems that the gist we are supposed to get out of this Easter Message and the Presiding Bishop's reference to this hymn is that being a church member is about being green (in the eco-political sense); and, therefore we must support the Millennium Development Goals.

The Presiding Bishop continues:

As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millennium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the UN report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rates of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.

In this Easter season I would encourage you to look at where you are finding new life and resurrection, where life abundant and love incarnate is springing up in your lives and the lives of your communities. There is indeed greenness, whatever the season.

She then concludes:

Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for Resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst.

As Christians we do not so much give thanks for Easter. Rather, Easter is a time when we give thanks for the Resurrection of God's only begotten Son, who became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, lived a life like ours, except without sin, died for the sins of the world, and rose bodily from the tomb three days later, thereby assuring us of his victory over sin and death and of the hope of a resurrection like his for all who follow him by faith.

This is what Christianity has always believed, and it never quite ceases to be shocking when a senior cleric dresses up in episcopal garb and utters all the usual expressions—and means something totally different by them!

It would be easy to assume orthodox meanings to "give thanks for Resurrection" and for "the presence of God incarnate in our midst," except that, in the context of Dr. Jefferts Schori's theology, resurrection is not the event of Jesus rising from the tomb so much as it is the concept of always finding new life through God's activity in the world. Similarly, "the presence of God incarnate in our midst," is not a reference to the literal Incarnation of Jesus, but a reference to God being embodied in the world in a panentheistic way, a concept she borrows from theologian Sallie McFague, whom she has quoted in her book, A Wing and a Prayer and in various addresses and interviews.

When I say that I found this Easter message unbelievable, it is because, as I was reading it, I had the sense that Dr. Jefferts Schori's religion is not merely liberal religion, it is a caricature of liberal religion by someone who may not even grasp the extent to which that is true.

One of my favorite television shows of all time is the BBC series, Yes, Minister, and the sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, a situation comedy that is a political satire on the inner workings of the British government. One episode, "The Bishop's Gambit" parodied Liberal Christianity and politics in the Church of England. The Prime Minister thinks that the church is a Christian institution; but his advisor, Sir Humphrey, informs him that most of the Anglican bishops do not believe in God, and that a theologian's job is partly to make it possible for agnostics or atheists to be church leaders.

Imagine what the creators of this series could do with the Episcopal Church: senior clerics whose use of religious terms bears no resemblance to the conventional meaning of those terms. Clergy who are simultaneously Episcopalians, Buddhists, and Muslims. A leader whose Gospel is really a United Nations social program! The mind reels.

To draw an analogy from another sitcom: This Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop may well be the Episcopal Church's "jumping the shark" moment. This is an election year, a time when candidates are talking about the things that matter most to the American public. Have you heard one candidate—even one secular politician—mention the Millennium Development Goals? I haven't either. And it seems to me that to take as your main message, on the Church's most important day, something that no one else considers important is the very definition of irrelevance.

And we wonder why the Episcopal Church is shrinking.
 

Home--the already and the not yet

I was looking at this bucolic setting for the South Dakota state capitol building this morning and wondering if I might enjoy living somewhere even more remote and rural than my present situation. Provided I could earn a living there, I believe the answer is yes.

My thoughts this morning brought to mind Walker Percy's essay "Why I Live Where I Live," in which Percy describes his reason for choosing to live in Covington, Louisiana: "The reason is not that it is a pleasant place, but rather that it is a pleasant nonplace." As I take Percy's meaning, a "nonplace" is a place that is conducive to writing without encumbering the writer with such a sense of place that his writing is bound or altered by it.

All of us are affected by the places where we live and work, probably to a much larger degree than we realize. Michigan could not have produced a Walker Percy any more than Connecticut could have produced a Willa Cather, or New York produce a Flannery O'Connor, or Massachusetts a John Steinbeck.

Writers sometimes have to be exiled from the place they call home in order to reflect most profoundly on its influences. Take Willa Cather moving to New York City at age 33 and living there the rest of her life, writing what critics of the time considered to be anachronistically agrarian novels. You can take writers out of the places they call home; but, often, it only serves to reinforce the sense of home that lives forever inside them.

I write these words looking out a window on Upper Nashotah Lake, in Wisconsin, on a sunny but blustery day in March. Yes, I think, South Dakota would be fine—at least in the summertime. A writer needs a place, or a nonplace, to call home.

Unlike two of my favorite American authors, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, I am not a southern Roman Catholic, I am a northern Episcopalian. Or, to be more accurate, I am a southern Episcopalian living in the North. And given that I find even the North's long winters preferable to the South's heat and humidity, here, God willing, I shall remain.

But I do miss the South. In particular, I miss the churches in the South. But having gone back there in recent years, I am reminded that even they are not what they were. The old saying is true: "There is no going home." There is only going back in your mind to the place you remember as home and being nourished by what it gave you.

When my wife and I first attended Calvary Church, Memphis, in 1977, it had a presence of the holy unlike any church building I had ever experienced. An older, British professor, under whom I did my doctorate, went with me once to a noontime Lenten preaching series and was struck by it too. "This is a church that has been prayed in," he said.

Years after I had moved to Pennsylvania, the newsletter of the parish chronicled changes of a startling sort. A new Reconstruction had invaded my old, Southern parish with a vengeance.

I have been back to Calvary a couple of times in recent years. The old saints I remember were buried years ago. The younger saints I knew have dispersed to other churches. New people, new clergy, new lighting—no warmth, no life, no Spirit. Sadly, the church had outlived the feeling of being a place that had been "prayed in."

So what do we do, those of us who are Christians and who have a profound sense of "home" and a longing for it in our hearts?

1. We labor on, knowing that none of the places we call home in this lifetime is our true home. "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1). For the Christian, we know that our true home is in heaven, and that all the places that seem like home in this lifetime are both a foreshadowing and a longing for an ideal, heavenly home that God has placed in our hearts.

2. While we are here, we have to create sacred spaces for ourselves and others. We have to create spiritual "homes," places that have been "prayed in"—where we and all who will join us can experience God in a deep and life-changing way. These are places of Word, Sacrament, prayer, music, liturgy, fellowship, and healing. They must be places of profound welcome and life-changing challenge—places of joy and excitement, and places of rich wholeness and deep peace.

3. In short, until we come to our heavenly home, we must be about the business of bringing our heavenly home to earth—both for ourselves and those who are only just awaking to the stirrings of a homeward call in their lives and are uncertain how to get there.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.     (Hebrews 11:8-16)

 

Europe bishops slam Saudi fatwa against Gulf churches

From here:

Christian bishops in Germany, Austria and Russia have sharply criticized Saudi Arabia's top religious official after reports that he issued a fatwa saying all churches on the Arabian Peninsula should be destroyed.

In separate statements on Friday, the Roman Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria slammed the ruling by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh as an unacceptable denial of human rights to millions of foreign workers in the Gulf region.

Archbishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, head of the Russian Orthodox department for churches abroad, called the fatwa "alarming" in a statement on Tuesday. Such blunt criticism from mainstream Christian leaders of their Muslim counterparts is very rare.

Christian websites have reported Sheikh Abdulaziz, one of the most influential religious leaders in the Muslim world, issued the fatwa last week in response to a Kuwaiti lawmaker who asked if Kuwait could ban church construction in Kuwait.

Citing Arab-language media reports, they say the sheikh ruled that further church building should be banned and existing Christian houses of worship should be destroyed.

Read it all
 

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 5 of 5

Prayers by:

1. The Most Rev. John Sentamu (Archbishop of York)
2. The Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres (Bishop of London)
3. The Most Rev. Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury)



See the John Stott Memorial website for more information.

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 4 of 5

Tribute by Mark Greene (Executive Director, London Institute for Contemporary Christianity):

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 3 of 5

Sermon by The Right Reverend Timothy Dudley-Smith:

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 2 of 5

This video contains international tributes from:

ASIA - The Most Reverend John Chew
AFRICA - The Reverend Robert Aboagye-Mensah
LATIN AMERICA - Ruth Padilla-DeBorst

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 1 of 5

One of the things for which I am most grateful is that we at Nashotah House were able to confer an honorary doctrate upon John Stott prior to his death on July 27 last year. His memorial service was held on January 13, 2012 at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of London among the participants. Videos clips have been made available, and I am posting the first of five parts here.

This video contains words very much worth hearing in the opening tributes from:
1. Canon Mark Oakley
2. The Right Reverend Michael Baughen
3. Frances Whitehead (Dr. Stott's Personal Assistant)

That Subversive Book

Mel Lawrenz writes on The Brook Network:

Jiang Yuchun was a boy the first time he attended a Christian gathering in a home in Anhui Province, China. He and his father walked fifteen miles under cover of darkness because any kind of Christian gathering during the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 was an act of subversion according to government policy. Thousands of believers were martyred during those dark days; every Christian leader exposed was imprisoned or killed; the Bible was practically extinct.

Yuchun watched the leader teaching the group, holding a tattered copy of the Bible tightly in his hand. The pages were torn and dirty, the corners worn to a rounded shape...

Read the rest of the story, and be sure to click on through to read Jiang Yuchun's testimony about "The First Bible I Saw in China".
 

Student wins legal fight to remove school's prayer poster...

...with the help of some major financial backers and national activist organizations, of course.

The New York Times is reporting on the controversy in Cranston, Rhode Island, over the display of a school prayer which has hung on the wall of the Cranston West High School auditorium since 1963, when a seventh grader wrote it as a sort of moral guide and that year’s graduating class presented it as a gift. It was a year after a landmark Supreme Court ruling barring organized prayer in public schools.

Jessica Ahlquist, now 16, a student at Cranston West who says she stopped believing in God at age 10, considers the prayer to be an affront. "It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, 'You don’t belong here.'" Apparently, her notions of rights and tolerance don't include tolerating the public display of anything that disagrees with her atheism, even the religious expression of the majority of people in her high school and her town.

The whole point of inclusivity, diversity, and tolerance is that we respect and make room for other people's perspectives, even when they differ from our own. Apparently these values are lost on Jessica Ahlquist, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the American Humanist Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union when it comes to their campaign to eliminate the public expression of religious belief.

Jessica, is no mere "victim" but a determined activist with a website and a Facebook page devoted to her campaign to stamp out freedom of religious expression at Cranston West.

Here is the prayer Jessica and her backers sued to eliminate:

Our Heavenly Father,
Grant us each day the desire to do our best, 
to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, 
to be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, 
to be honest with ourselves as well as with others.  
Help us to be good sports and to smile when we lose as 
well as when we win.  Teach us the value of true 
friendship.  Help us always to conduct ourselves 
so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West.  
Amen.

Yeah, that's really poisonous stuff. Many thanks to Jessica, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union for helping us eradicate such subversive and dangerous ideas from our public schools.
 

Meet your health care overlords

They are called the United States Preventative Services Task Force. And once Obamacare gets rolling, they will be the sole decider in what tests get full coverage with no co-pay under Obamacare and which tests go unfunded by your insurance carrier. Government intrusion into insurance coverage for abortifacient drugs and procedures is just the beginning.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Under ObamaCare, a single committee-the United States Preventative Services Task Force-is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"-such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75-must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"-such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer-could get nixed from coverage entirely.

That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.

Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.

When Obamacare was being debated, Pres. Obama promised that "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan." We now know that that was a lie. Before Obamacare, your insurance provider would offer you a range of coverages, some procedures with co-pay, some fully covered, and some not covered at all. The key is that you, the consumer, would decide what coverages you wanted. Now the government panel will choose for you, and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

That is the insidious nature of Obamacare. If tyranny is the government robbing its citizens of the freedom to make the most basic choices regarding their life, health, and well being, then this is it.
 

What will the Episcopal Church look like in 2030?

I was having a conversation today with a friend in which I recalled that, some time ago, I had predicted that the Anglican Church of Canada would be out of business by 2030 and the Episcopal Church by 2050. Now, before people make wrong assumptions about my motivation in saying that, let me hasten to state that I make those predictions with great sadness, and without any trace of smugness or schadenfreude. If I didn't love the Episcopal Church, I wouldn't have joined it, after having ministered in another tradition for nine years. But the Episcopal Church took a hard left turn after I got on board and sailed straight into an iceberg. And though the icy water has yet to hit the boiler room, several decks have already taken on water, and the ship is listing.

What prompted my conversation today was the news that the portion of the Diocese of Quincy that remained in the Episcopal Church after the majority voted to leave, in 2008, is now contemplating merging (being absorbed, more likely) into the Diocese of Chicago.

Being from Southern Illinois and having been ordained in the Diocese of Quincy, I know that the people of Quincy have far more in common with people in the Diocese of Springfield than the Diocese of Chicago. Quincy and Springfield have even shared youth camps and clergy retreats for many years. So the merger with Chicago seems odd to me. What I suspect may be inclining Quincy to look at Chicago is a question about the long term viability of Springfield and a sense that all of Illinois will eventually merge back into one diocese (as it was prior to 1877) anyway.

The situation in Illinois is far from unique. The TEC dioceses of Fort Worth and San Joaquin will have to be merged into their neighbors as soon as the lawsuits against departing Anglicans are settled. Given declines in membership, sooner or later, El Camino Real and Northern California will probably merge back into California. San Diego will merge back into Los Angeles. Northern Michigan and Eastern Oregon should have merged with one of their neighbors a long time ago. Western Kansas and Kansas should have merged as well.

Fond du Lac and Eau Claire thought they had agreed to merge last fall, but a recount showed it failed by one or two votes. I imagine that there are those in Fond du Lac who breathed a collective sigh of relief that they managed to avoid taking on the financial burden that the merger would have most likely entailed. But eventually, just as in Illinois, the three dioceses in Wisconsin may find themselves merging back into one. What appears certain is that the decreasing viability of a number of dioceses across the US means that the likelihood of mergers (or "junctioning," to use the episcopally correct term) will only increase.

A lot of dioceses will wait until it is too late and eat up their endowments before they merge: Delaware, Easton, and Maryland; Long Island and New York; Connecticut and Rhode Island. One could easily make the case that all the dioceses in upstate New York (Western New York, Rochester, Central New York, and Albany) ought to merge. The Episcopal landscape is going to look a lot different in the coming years. But, based on my estimates (taking into account the average age of Episcopalians, no conversion growth, low birthrate, and poor retention of young people), things start imploding at an alarming rate after about 2018--and that's only six years from now.

When I say that the Episcopal Church will be out of business by 2050, I don't mean that every last Episcopal church will close its doors. Trinity, Wall Street, has enough money to operate in some form until the eschaton. All Saints, Pasadena, will continue to survive as long as there are liberals in Los Angeles who need religious validation of their lifestyles and political views. The same can be said for Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, although they will probably never have another dean who will succeed in pulling that off with such an unusual combination of gravitas and panache as Alan Jones.

The Proctor and Gamble endowments in Southern Ohio and the Eli Lilly endowments in Indianapolis, and a number of other examples elsewhere, will insure that Episcopal parishes in various places survive in some form. But, increasingly, the Episcopal Church will be a network of wealthy (but not necessarily well attended) parishes in various metropolises with very little in between. Thanks to the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes, these churches already have their network. But what it means for the Episcopal Church to exist as a denomination will change radically; and for people in many parts of the country, the Episcopal Church will simply cease to exist as part of the religious landscape.

Which leads to my question: What will the Episcopal Church look like in 2030? One possible scenario would be for the Episcopal Church to operate on a model that is based around its provincial structure, instead of the current diocesan structures. That map would look something like this:



Each province would have a certain number of bishops and locate them wherever necessary in the province. The president of the province would function as a metropolitan.

Another, more conservative possibility might see the Church merged into, for example, around 30-40 domestic dioceses, instead of the current 100, and look something like this:


Let me make clear, this is just speculation. So if you live in, let's say, Mississippi, please don't write me and say, "But I don't want to be merged with Louisiana." It's just a guess. And it will probably be someone the age of your children who makes the decision in 18 years anyway. (That's six more General Conventions, for those who measure their life that way.)

The only thing certain about any of this is that the Episcopal Church will not have 100 domestic dioceses 18 years from now. What do you think the Episcopal Church will look like in 2030? Ask yourself. Send a comment, if you wish.
 

First they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew...

...so I didn't care. Then they came for the Roman Catholics, but I was not a Roman Catholic, so I didn't care. Then they came for me, but there was no one left to care.

This letter, or one very similar to it, was to be read at every Roman Catholic Mass in the United States last weekend:

LETTER FROM THE BISHOP (TO BE READ AT ALL MASSES)

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ in the Diocese of Trenton:

As your Bishop, I write to you concerning an alarming matter that negatively impacts the Catholic Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which claims to be "of, by and for the people," has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people - the Catholic population and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.

The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will be forced to offer their employees health coverage that includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to include those "services in the health policies they write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that coverage as a part of their policies.

As a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to violate our consciences or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so.)

We cannot - we will not - comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

This is not an attempt by the Church to interfere with anyone's politics. It is, rather, an attempt to lift up and live our Catholic faith the way that our nation and our constitution have always guaranteed us the freedom and the right to do. Please join me and all of those harmed by this legislation in prayer and in an all-out effort to have our freedom restored. History cautions us repeatedly that once we walk down such a dangerous path, we will get lost in the process.

Respectfully yours in Christ,
Most Reverend David M. O'Connell C.M.
Bishop of Trenton
DOC:blm

The controversy centers on the Obama administration's mandate that employers must include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in health care coverage. Recently, the administration made one small concession surrounding the mandate. They decided to give church-affiliated hospitals and organizations another year before they will be forced to comply. “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently said.

No one should make the mistake of thinking this is merely a Catholic issue. It is about the government using the new health care mandates to violate the consciences and first amendment rights of anyone it chooses. Right now that just happens to be the Roman Catholics and, beyond them, anyone who opposes abortion.

The whole problem began with letting the government take over health care in the first place. Prior to this, individuals who needed a certain type of coverage were free to purchase it. Some policies covered maternity care, some didn't. Some covered psychological counseling, some didn't. Some covered chiropractic care, some didn't. Some policies covered eyeglasses, some didn't. If I wanted a policy that covered abortion services, there were policies that covered that too. The point is I could choose a policy that met my needs and leave off types of care I don’t want, or need, or feel conscience bound not to have to pay for. It’s called freedom.

Now the government is empowered to dictate what kinds of health insurance policies all companies must provide, and to dictate what kinds of policies we all must pay for. Of course the same power enables the government to dictate what will not be covered. And, in a few years, when the cost of health care becomes even more difficult to manage, the government will dictate, for example: no organ transplants if you’re over 75; no dialysis if you’re over 80, etc. Choices will have to be made "in the interest of keeping health care available and affordable to all." So, yes, there will be panels that decide who lives and who dies.

Government run health care is a dictatorship; and this conflict with the Roman Catholics is just the first taste of what this kind of dictatorship means for all of us.

The only way to stop this dictatorship is to get the federal government out of the health care business altogether. We have one chance to do that next November, and we had better make it count!
 

"Hey, Al, tell me that joke again about the earth getting warmer!"

A very interesting piece from The Daily Mail (UK):

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Read it all.
 

Tunics, cloaks, and church buildings

"And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well" (Matthew 5:40, ESV).

Last week I happened to be in Savannah, Georgia; and, as I try to do whenever I am in town on a Sunday evening, I attended the beautiful sung Compline at historic Christ Church. Christ Church is the oldest Anglican church in Georgia—older than the State of Georgia, older than the Diocese of Georgia, and older than the Episcopal Church. It is the only church where both John Wesley and George Whitefield served as rectors. Christ Church, whose vestry voted unanimously to separate from the Episcopal Church in 2007 (a vote that was sustained by 87% of the membership) recently had its building taken away by the courts and given to the Episcopal diocese.

So, this time, Compline was different. It was the same beautiful service, marvelously sung by the same very able choristers. The homily by the Rev. Marcus Robertson was inspiring, as always. In every respect it was the same, except that the whole service had been transported several hundred yards away to Independent Presbyterian Church, which has offered sanctuary to the recently evicted Christ Church.

Although my spirit was lifted, as it always is, by that service, it is just as well that it took place in a darkened church, lighted only by candles. Because I have to confess that my eyes teared up more than once during that service at the thought of this very faithful and vibrant congregation being displaced from their historic home.

Shortly after Christmas I was with family in Southern Illinois. One morning at the breakfast table, my brother-in-law was reading the newspaper and noticed in the real estate ads that a very prominent church building in town was for sale—for $144,000—an ironically biblical number, but also a surprisingly paltry sum, far less than many houses in town. But so it goes in many places.

For instance, in the city of Quincy, Illinois (from which the Diocese takes its name), the last time I checked there were three former Roman Catholic churches for sale. All of them had been on the market for at least three years, and the most expensive one was listed for $275,000. (not to mention several other church buildings in town that are either listed as for sale, or that have been taken off the market for lack of any buyers).

This means that, as painful as it might be, if St. John's Church eventually loses its beautiful and historic building in the current lawsuit from TEC and the Episcopal Diocese, the congregation can go a few blocks in any direction and pick up a ready-to-use church building for a relatively small sum. The Roman Catholic diocese will have disposed of one disused building, and the Episcopal diocese will have gained one.

It amazes me that a denomination that speaks rather freely in some circles about restorative justice and the redistribution of wealth (and which has been both a spiritual and even physical home to the Occupy movement) isn't willing to redistribute a little of its own wealth to brothers and sisters in Christ who have experienced significant differences and feel a spiritual need to walk apart.

Instead we have stories like this one from Ohio:

Carla Long is overcome with sadness every time she sees the unoccupied church building in her East Buchtel Avenue neighborhood [in Akron].

"It's heartbreaking. That church has been a beacon of light in this neighborhood," said Long, 46. "We always called it a hospital because it was a place where you could go for comfort and healing."

Long is a recovering addict who found support at Holy Spirit Church when it was located at 825 E. Buchtel Ave. The congregation moved out of the building in July, after losing it in a court battle.

The Holy Spirit congregation is among five Northeast Ohio parishes that were displaced after a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge ruled that the church properties they occupied belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio.

The five congregations — Holy Spirit; St. Luke's, Fairlawn; St. Barnabas, Bay Village; St. Anne in the Fields, Madison; and Church of the Transfiguration, Cleveland — left the Episcopal Church in 2003 and realigned with the Anglican Communion.

The split grew from disagreements over biblical teaching on salvation and other issues, including homosexuality. After the Episcopal Church consecrated its first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in 2003, some of the more theologically conservative parishes, including the five in Northeast Ohio, disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church and realigned themselves with Anglican organizations that share their views on issues like homosexuality.

In March 2008, the diocese sued, asking the county court to declare that the property associated with the five parishes belongs to the diocese and the Episcopal Church. Last April, the court ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church and the diocese. Several months later, the Anglican congregations began vacating the buildings.

All five congregations have been taken in by other churches — Church of the Transfiguration worships at a former Methodist building on Martin Luther King Drive in Cleveland; St. Anne's worships in the youth center at Cornerstone Friends Church in Madison and St. Barnabas, now Christ Church Westshore, has weekday services at Bay Presbyterian Church Westshore and a 10 a.m. Sunday service at Bay High School in Bay Village.

Locally, Holy Spirit's congregation worships at 10 a.m. Sundays in the fellowship hall at Bethel Church, 734 Grant St. in Akron. There also is a lunchtime ministry that begins at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesdays. The ministry is supported by several other congregations, including those at Bethel and St. Luke's.

St. Luke's, whose corporate name is now St. Luke's Ministries, worships at 10 a.m. Sunday in the fellowship hall at St. Thomas Eastern Orthodox Church, 555 S. Cleveland-Massillon Road in Fairlawn, and has a 4:30 p.m. Saturday service at its ministry center, 3810 Ridgewood Road in Copley Township.

"One of the great things that has come from this is that we don't just have a renter's relationship with St. Thomas. It's a genuine friendship," said the Rev. Michael Kraynak, pastor at St. Luke’s. "All of the five churches have been instrumental in unifying the Christian community because each is involved in a relationship where one Christian community is helping another."

St. Luke's moved its services to St. Thomas in late November. In the last two months, the two congregations have grown closer. Although they each have their own services, the congregations have come together on several occasions.

"Even though we were at a place where we didn't know where we were going to go, after the court ruling, God was doing much more in the midst," Kraynak said. "The Lord has done something in our vision and our heart to help us see that we can do much more to serve others when we are in relationship with others. Mission, for us, is more important than a building."

The properties that were once home to St. Luke's at 565 S. Cleveland-Massillon Road in Fairlawn and Holy Spirit at 825 E. Buchtel Ave. are for sale with Grubb and Ellis Co. The Cleveland real-estate company also is selling the properties in Madison and Cleveland. The Bay Village property has been restarted as an Episcopal Church by the diocese.

"The Bay Village location was one that we really wanted to keep. Most of the others have Episcopal churches nearby," said Martha Wright, spokeswoman for the diocese. "Until the other buildings are sold, the diocese is still responsible for them."

The former St. Luke’s property is listed as a 26,186-square-foot single-story structure, with 425 parking spaces, located on 20.27 acres that can be adapted for office or medical use. The listing suggests that the property is "ideal for congregate care, continued religious use, public/private schooling, hospitals and cultural institutions." It is priced at $1.9 million.

The former Holy Spirit property consists of a 1,880-square-foot house and a 5,682-square-foot church, with 45 parking spaces on .65 acre. It is listed for $159,000.

David Hollister, of Grubb and Ellis, said that in the two months that he has had the listings, both properties have had two showings and one offer. He said that while the Fairlawn property could serve a different use, the Buchtel property is likely to be sold to another religious community.

The Rev. Scott Souders, pastor of Holy Spirit, said he hopes that the Buchtel property will go to a ministry dedicated to outreach in the neighborhood.

"We were doing some really effective ministry there and it would be nice to have the presence of another ministry there to continue meeting the needs of the people,” Souders said. “We still go back to the neighborhood and do ministry but our presence is missing. Still, we are committed to touching lives and bringing other ministries together to help us minister to people where they are."

Long, who still considers Holy Spirit her church home, said she is not always able to travel to the new location. So, she regularly attends a church that is closer to her home.

"It’s just a shame that a church that has done so much to lift up the people in this neighborhood is no longer here," Long said. "It was a place that everyone knew they could go to and find comfort without judgment. People had respect for the building because of what the people inside were doing."

"Since it closed, my husband and I have chased people who were drinking from the front porch. We've found drug paraphernalia near the church house and mattresses behind the church. Lord only knows what they were being used for. This neighborhood needs a safe place for people to go, not a closed church building."

Then there are stories like the one from Central New York, written just after the diocese sued St. Andrew's, Syracuse, and St. Andrew's, Vestal and before it moved against Good Shepherd, Binghampton, whose building was later sold to a mosque!

The point I am trying to make here is the same one made by Fr. Tony Seel, when he writes regarding the situation in Central New York:

I can't help wondering what went so horribly wrong in the episcopate of Skip Adams. Fr. Kennedy at Stand Firm linked to Adams' convention address and some of the statements in that address are astounding. How can the bishop tell the story that he tells about two of the desert fathers and not see his own acts of ungenerosity toward those who have left the DCNY? I'm sure that he would respond that he has a fiduciary responsibility to the DCNY and that's why he sued St. Andrew's in Syracuse and is now suing Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton. You would think that someone who told a story about generosity like that might reflect on their own lack of generosity.

The point is that this isn't about fiduciary responsibility, because in some of these cases the Episcopal Church has obviously been willing to spend more than it stands to recover in the prosecution of these lawsuits. It isn't about recovering the buildings for the use of future generations of Episcopalians, because the dioceses have abandoned them to become crack houses and have sold them for purposes such as a mosque. And, although the Episcopal Church leadership may not see it, it isn't about protecting their brand from competition from another Anglican jurisdiction, because that jurisdiction is already up and running—and growing—with or without the buildings, while the Episcopal Church is shrinking and dying.

No, the point becomes plain. This is about being punitive. It is about using every weapon at your disposal to hurt those who disagree with you. It is about taking everything you have ever said about generosity, humility, self-sacrifice, loving your neighbor, and sharing what you have with those who need it—and doing exactly the opposite.

The history lessons from this era won't be written by Episcopal Church historians, because when the Episcopal Church dies, its institutions of higher learning will die with it--in fact they may even precede it. The only hope denominational leaders must have is that the history of this present period will be written by secular historians who are sympathetic to their liberal agenda. But that won't be the final word.

Christianity has entered the age of post-Christendom. It is quickly becoming an age like that before Constantine, when authentic Christianity is often misunderstood and persecuted. And so the Church is faced with a time of great division. On the one hand there are those who cooperate with the new Imperial establishment of secularists and post-modern pagans, and who attempt to make Christianity acceptable to its "cultured despisers." This effort will ultimately fail because secularism and post-modernism are self-authenticating and don't have any enduring need for what liberal Christianity has to offer. Liberal religion will simply dissolve into the culture whose values it mirrors and cease to exist.

On the other hand, there will be those who respond to the challenges of the post-Christendom period the way Christians did in the pre-Constantinian era, by upholding and proclaiming the apostolic faith and message, even at great cost. To whatever extent there will be Christian Church histories written 200 years from now, it will be these new Apostolic Fathers and Mothers who write them--unless, of course, our Lord comes again (as every creedal Christian stands and confesses every Sunday morning, but which only a portion actually believe will happen). In either event, the verdict on the religious establishments of this age will not be pretty.

Finally, let me close with a commentary on the verse with which I began this piece, from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:

Matthew 5:38-42 - The plain instruction is, Suffer any injury that can be borne, for the sake of peace, committing your concerns to the Lord's keeping. And the sum of all is, that Christians must avoid disputing and striving. If any say, Flesh and blood cannot pass by such an affront, let them remember, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and those who act upon right principles will have most peace and comfort.

And, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, see also I Corinthians 6.

 

53.2 million and counting

Today marked the 39th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v Wade decision. Since that time 53.2 million fellow human beings who would otherwise be walking among us have been killed by choice. This picture can be found several places on the web, but I thought it appropriate to post it here, because sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words.



In the 1980's I was one of the founders and later chairman of LifeChoices of Memphis. From 1989 to 2001 I was a board member and president (1991-2001) of the Pregnancy Centers of Pittsburgh, now known as the Women's Choice Network. For the past 25 years I have been a board member and sometime president (1991-1994) of the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life, now known as Anglicans for Life. I cite my own personal history simply to say this: It is not enough to be opposed to abortion, we have to work to provide alternatives. There is a pregnancy care center in your community that needs your help. Make a commitment right now not merely to be pro-life but to get involved in helping a woman with an unexpected pregnancy to choose life.
 

What I wish Chuck Murphy had said

As the AMiA Winter Conference continues to meet in Houston, TX, Chairman/Bishop Chuck Murphy has delivered his address to the conference. You can read a summary or listen to the audio to read or hear what he actually said. What I wish he had said is something more like this:

This has been a difficult season, an awkward season as we have gone through a time of discernment and great challenges regarding the future of the Anglican Mission. The attendance at this year's conference is down, as many of our members and leaders have chosen to "sit this one out" while they prayerfully wait and see what is going to happen here.

I have spent the past month in prayer and fasting in preparation for this time with you, interrupted only to meet with the Archbishop of Rwanda at the gracious invitation of the Archbishop of Kenya and to meet personally with Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America. Those meetings were marked by repentance for the ways in which I have abused my position of leadership and wronged my Christian brothers and fellow leaders; and I have wronged you.

God has blessed the Anglican Mission mightily in these past twelve years, and I am grateful for his leadership and guidance. I believe he has great plans for the Anglican Mission in the days ahead. At the same time I must confess, just as I confessed to my fellow bishops and archbishops, that I have been guilty of allowing my own will and desires to affect too greatly the direction of my leadership of this Mission.

In particular, I must confess to you that:

When the Anglican Mission withdrew from membership in the Anglican Church in North America to become a mission partner, I said that it was because the Church in Rwanda would not release us to become full members of the ACNA. The truth is that I feared the loss of autonomy that would come from joining the ACNA and being part of a larger church, over which I did not exercise the same degree of control.

I confess to you that now, two years later, I led in withdrawing the AMiA from the oversight of the Province of Rwanda because I resented the increased accountability and authority being exercised by the new leadership of the Church that has been our spiritual and ecclesiastical home for the past twelve years.

That new leadership does not yet fully understand and support the calling and vision that I believe we have been given in the Anglican Mission. But I recognize that these differences must be worked out in fellowship and under authority and not through schism.

At the same time, I recognize that we cannot be fully Anglican while living apart from our orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters in North America. We must work together as one body and engage in the mutual submission that is expected of all of us who are members of the Body of Christ. I have sought and received the forgiveness of my brother bishops for the ways in which I have failed them in my lack of submission and in withholding my fellowship, and I now ask for your forgiveness for the ways I have failed you in my leadership. I have pledged myself to undertake new ways to be fully open and accountable to them and to you who are the backbone of this Mission.

I have taken quite a beating on the internet lately, but I have come to recognize that not all the people saying things on the internet that are difficult for me to hear wish me ill. In fact, there are many who are praying diligently and who care deeply about what happens to me and to the AMiA. The internet can be a tool for openness and accountability and a great way of getting a speedy response as to what God's people are thinking and feeling. And I am making a new resolve to listen to what God is saying through his people.

This is a smaller group at this conference, and it affords us the opportunity to listen carefully. We want to hear God speak to us, to see how he wants to direct us. Several of us will be presenting the direction that we believe God has called us to undertake for the AM, just as we have shared it with our fellow bishops and our Archbishop in Rwanda with whom we are working toward reconciliation and with the leadership of the Anglican Church in North America. Just as I committed myself to them, I am committing to you that we will move in the direction and on the timetable that God shows us as we pray and discern together....

Okay, that's enough. You get the idea. And if you read or listened to the actual address, you will have noticed several points of departure. But I am certain that, if Bishop Murphy had said something like this in Houston, there would have been shouts of Hallelujah from Anglicans all across this nation and around the world, and a new resolve on the part of many to follow his leadership.

And so I want to say to Bishop Murphy: Chuck, you can be humble and still be a leader. In fact, it is the only way you can lead like Jesus.

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45).

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:1-11).

It is always dangerous (if not impossible) to write a confession for another person. We can only truly confess our own sins and not someone else's. And so I offer this with a prayer that it will be received as it was intended, with the earnest desire to see God's blessing on the AMiA and all faithful Anglicans.
 

Marcus Borg, meet Bernie Madoff

Christopher Johnson runs two (1, 2) of the cleverest blogs I know. While his writing is always sure to interest or amuse me, I am especially thankful that this piece reminded me of a wonderful quotation from no less notable a theologian than Soren Kierkegaard:

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. "My God," you will say, "if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?" Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.

That is a lovely quote, isn't it? It has sustained me over the years when I have been in meetings with clergy and theologians--intelligent, educated people who wouldn't hesitate to declare the precise meaning of any sentence ever written or translated into English; but let someone mention a passage from the Bible, and they suddenly become total agnostics, who don't know and will profess that we never can know what that verse is supposed to mean. Kierkegaard knew the type. He dealt with them in his day, and he anticipated where their supposed theological scholarship would take us in the years to come. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things" (Rom. 1:21-23). (It's funny how most of Romans, chapter 1, doesn't appear in any lectionary readings, isn't it?)

Christopher Johnson quotes Kierkegaard in the process of doing an excellent fisking of a Huffington Post (a.k.a., the Huffing and Puffing-ton Post) column by Jeff DeGraff, critizing the revised language for the Mass that Roman Catholics began using on the First Sunday of Advent 2011.

DeGraff begins and ends by comparing the new Roman Catholic Mass to the New Coke, but in between makes some comments I found curious. For instance, he says: "Supposedly this was all done in the name of authenticity. If that were true, why not embrace the Jesus Seminar, a group of over one hundred of the world's foremost biblical scholars who have identified inaccuracies in the liturgy?" Now I am certainly willing to be corrected if wrong, but I have had a fair amount of experience with the Jesus Seminar, and I am not aware that they have ever dealt with the canon of the Catholic Mass. Their focus is on the text of Scripture, particularly the Gospels. And, frankly, while most of the words in the Mass represent scriptural ideas, they are not direct quotations from Scripture. (There is a chart comparing the changes in the Mass here, in case you are interested.)

So it appears that Mr. DeGraff really doesn't know what the heck he is talking about. But he keeps digging, nevertheless: "Why not go back to the original language of the Bible -- Hebrew and Greek?" he asks. Guess what! It wouldn't help. If the parts of the Mass that have been changed aren't quotations from the Bible in the first place, then going back to the original languages of the Bible isn't going to help.

But he continues: "Why not reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox Church which also has a legitimate claim as the original denomination?" Yeah, if you want to see changes in the Mass, just try reconciling with the Eastern Orthodox! It makes me wonder if he has ever even seen an Orthodox Divine Liturgy. So much for Mr. DeGraff, whose by line identifies him as an "Author, thought leader and innovation expert." (I'm sorry, I actually couldn't type those last few words without laughing out loud.)

But the thing that amazed me most is Mr. DeGraff's reference to the Jesus Seminar as "a group of over one hundred of the world's foremost biblical scholars." This is a little bit like citing the Tesla Institute as experts in Physics. But left wing journalists who get caught up in skepticism toward religion don't want to know any better, as long as they have a source they can use to confirm their prejudices.

For those who aren't familiar with The Jesus Seminar, it is made up of religion and theology faculty members in liberal institutions who have already evidenced skepticism about the Bible before they even get to join. They then analyze the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels and vote on how few of those words they think he actually said.

It is a remarkable way to make a living. Skeptical academics write skeptical articles and books that are peer reviewed by other skeptical academics, and everyone gets paid.

Jesus Seminar "scholars" make a career of disputing the authenticity of Jesus' words when there is absolutely no way anyone will ever be able to verify objectively whether they are correct (at least not in this lifetime). This would never pass for scholarship in the hard sciences or even as a worthwhile achievement in most professions.

Make no mistake: the Jesus Seminar is simply an intellectual Ponzi scheme, and every member you meet is simply a Bernie Madoff in academic garb. The scheme only works as long as new people buy in so the ones who got in earlier can earn a living.

So while there is still time, I am going to make a New Year's resolution: Every time someone cites the Jesus Seminar to me, I am simply going to laugh--openly and unashamedly laugh out loud--that the person talking to me could ever mistake such an empty, preposterous hoax for actual scholarship.

Happy 2012!
 

It Only Takes a Girl

 

Ben Stein's Confessions [re: Christmas]

In 2005, Ben Stein delivered this commentary about the observance of Christmas on CBS Sunday Morning, with Charles Osgood.

CHARLES OSGOOD: We all have our own thoughts about the holidays. Here's Ben Stein with his.



BEN STEIN: Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart. I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are.

(Footage of People magazine; Us magazine)

STEIN: I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important?

(Footage of People magazine)

STEIN: I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.

(Vintage footage of congressional hearing)

STEIN: Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hmmm, not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees "Christmas trees."

(Footage of Christmas trees)

STEIN: I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they're slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. I shows that we're all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.

It doesn't bother me one bit that there's a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.

(Footage of manger scene; menorah)

STEIN: If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to. [Bold type added.]

There are several versions of this floating around the internet, but this is the correct original, according to the official CBS transcript, and verified by Snopes.com.
 

Anglican Fever: Youth Flock to New Denomination

Here's an encouraging video and story about young people being drawn to Anglicanism. Some of the news deals with nearby congregations in the upper Midwest.



Read the whole story.

Here are some of the points I took away from this brief video about what these young people are looking for in Church:

• They love the emphasis on Scripture.


• They love the Sacraments.


• They love worship that is grounded in ancient tradition.


• They love worship that is paticipatory and interactive.


• They love being part of a movement that is globally connected.


• They love church leaders taking a stand for the faith.


• They respect the willingness of these congregations to walk away from property for their beliefs.


• (In regard to the previous two points: The Episcopal Church's litigation strategy is creating martyrs.)


• They recognize that the Anglican Church in North America is a movement that is growing (with a strategy to double to 2000 churches in five years).


• They appreciate being part of a revitalized tradition, in contrast to the decay of many mainline churches.

Did I miss anything?  What are your "take-aways?"
 

Global Schism: Is the Anglican Communion Rift the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split?

From 2007, but still very relevant:

Some of the nation's leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2007 for the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life.

Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor and one of the first scholars to call attention to the rising demographic power of Christians in the southern hemisphere, analyzed the ongoing schism in the worldwide Anglican church. While the dispute concerns attitudes toward homosexuality, Jenkins argues the core of the conflict lies in how biblical authority is defined. [Emphasis added.]

Will the current alliances between conservative Western and African leaders endure? Will African leaders begin to press an ultra-liberal economic agenda? Are other mainline denominations in the U.S. headed for similar splits? Jenkins answered these and others questions, while offering a fascinating glimpse into the life of African Christianity.

Read it all.

How to answer those questions? Here are my thoughts:

1. Will the current alliances between conservative Western and African leaders endure?

Given this week's developments in the Anglican Mission in the Americas, that is indeed a question. If Global South Anglicans were ever tempted to think of their western brothers and sisters as "Ugly Americans" this week's resignation of Chuck Murphy & Company from the Anglican Province of Rwanda and the events leading up to it cannot help but reinforce that impression. How will this eventually be resolved? And will this action by AMiA leaders cast a shadow on the Anglican Church in North America's relationship with the Global South? I pray not. But time will tell.

2. Will African leaders begin to press an ultra-liberal economic agenda?

No. Not in any way that will alienate them from their North American brothers and sisters. Still, North Americans need to try harder to understand the economic realities faced by those in the Global South and work constructively and cooperatively on solutions.

3. Are other mainline denominations in the U.S. headed for similar splits?

Yes. Presbyterians actually preceded Anglican splits with the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Moves by the "mainline" Presbyterian Church in the USA to ordain non-celibate homosexual clergy will only expedite the exodus, assuming that there are actually any remaining conservatives in the PCUSA who have not already left. (And, yes, I know there are some--you don't need to write.)

Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant body in the US, have seen their liberals (yes, liberals--not moderates--look at what they actually believe on all the major issues) depart into the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has seen their conservative wing split after they followed Episcopalians and Presbyterians in ordaining gay clergy. The conservatives have now formed the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The trend is sure to continue as other denominations face these issues.

But the critical question is the one in the title: "Is the Anglican Communion Rift the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split?"

In a nutshell, yes. Christianity is faced with a division of greater significance than the Protestant Reformation and even the Great Schism between East and West in 1054, as western, so-called "mainline" churches embrace secularist agendas and revisionist views of God, and reject biblical and historic Christian teaching on faith and morals.

There are those who will challenge me for saying this is of greater significance than the Protestant Reformation. I would say it is because they have not looked at what is really at stake. The Protestant Reformation was chiefly concerned with the nature of justification (sola gratia, sola fide) and the related issue of biblical and church authority (sola scriptura) although there were other issues as well. The division today is over the nature of God. You can follow in the direction of Sallie McFague (quoted approvingly by TEC presiding bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, although she is far from alone among mainline leaders in embracing McFague's views) or you can hold that God has an objective identity that we know through revelation.

McFague's view is essentially this: God is a projection of our own needs, ideals, and imaginations, not a being with an absolute, objective identity that we can know. The classical Christian view is that God has an objective existence, that he has revealed himself to us in Scripture and in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. I cite McFague, but she is only one example. The drift in academic theology from the objective to the subjective has taken place over more than sixty years. It includes Paul Tillich but goes back even farther, as theology moved from being a dogmatic discipline grounded in Scripture to a speculative discipline grounded in philosophy.

Then there is the division over the nature of the Bible. The revisionist view holds that the Bible is merely a record of human experiences of God. The Jews of the Old Testament had their guesses about God. The New Testament Christians had their guesses about God. And as these guesses worked themselves out in religious experience they became enshrined in a book. But, say those who hold this view, our contemporary guesses about God and our experiences are just as valuable as theirs, maybe even more so. This leads to the hubris that results in such statements as "The church wrote the Bible; the church can rewrite the Bible." For others it is not so much a matter of rewriting the Bible as interpreting it any way they please (they would say they are interpreting it in the light of "modern scholarship" or "contemporary experience") or ignoring it altogether.

What we are dealing with is a dichotomy as to whether Christianity is a speculative religion or a "revealed religion." In affirming revealed religion, I would point to two such unlikely allies as John Henry Newman and J. Gresham Machen. (Take time to follow the three links in this paragraph and to read both Newman's sermon and Machen's entire Christianity and Liberalism, and you'll be glad you did.)

The cry sola scriptura was once raised against a church hierarchy that twisted the interpretation of Scripture for its own ends. Today we must raise once again the cry sola scriptura against church hierarchies and liberal academia that have twisted Scripture to erect a god and a theological system that is of their own idolatrous imaginations instead of the God who was, and is, and evermore shall be, who has revealed himself in the Word of God written [Article XX] and the Word of God Incarnate, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Great Schism of 1054 was between two different expressions of Christianity, East and West. The Schism today is between two elements that, though they both use Christian terminology, are, in fact, two different religions.

This is a rift that has been growing for decades, perhaps for centuries, and that has resulted in two distinct (despite the attempts at camouflage) and incompatible worldviews. It is a rift that cannot be bridged because there is no middle ground. You have to choose.

I have made my choice. Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.
 

John Wesley’s Church Planting Movement: Discipleship That Transformed a Nation and Changed the World

John Wesley’s Church Planting Movement: Discipleship That Transformed a Nation and Changed the World

When John Wesley was born in 1703, four million out of Britain’s five million people lived in absolute poverty—unless they found enough food for that day, they would begin to starve to death.

When John Wesley launched a Church Planting Movement in this context, he not only changed the eternal destinies of an estimated one million people who came to Christ through his ministry, he changed their economic status as well. Not only did the Methodists he led get saved, they got out of poverty and became a powerful influence in discipling their nation. Wilberforce and other “spiritual sons” of Wesley honored him as the “greatest man of his time.”

The Methodists made such an impact on their nation that in 1962 historian Élie Halévy theorized that the Wesleyan revival created England’s middle class and saved England from the kind of bloody revolution that crippled France. Other historians, building on his work, go further to suggest that God used Methodism to show all the oppressed peoples of the world that feeding their souls on the heavenly bread of the lordship of Christ is the path to providing the daily bread their bodies also need.

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Topography of Faith

USA Today has published a unique map, where you can roll your cursor over the map to see how various faith traditions break down by state. (However, they seem not to have included Alaska and Hawaii.) Moving your cursor outside the map will give you the figures for the US as a whole.
 

The Hobbits March in One Year

From here.

The legacy media can't read the Hobbits because they're unfamiliar with life in the Shire. Ironically, they pronounce the death of the Tea Party while it is they who speak with the death rattle.

Near the final scene of the Lord of the Rings films, Gandalf crowns the new king and proclaims, "Now comes the days of the King." The crowd cheers. The new king kisses his queen to be. The crowd applauds. Then the king the approaches the four Hobbits: Frodo, Samwise, Peregrin, and Meriadoc. The Hobbits bow to the king. He stops them, saying, "My friends, you bow to no one." And the king leads the crowd in kneeling before the Hobbits.

That's something akin to what the Founders had in mind for the United States of America.

One year from this November 9th, the Hobbits march to the polls.

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[Breaking News] Dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac have voted to approve merger

[UPDATE: The vote was later found to have been miscounted in the Diocese of Fond du Lac, and the measure failed. The merger has been defeated--deferred, postponed--who knows? Stay tuned.]

My sources in northern Wisconsin told me moments ago that the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire and the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, both meeting in convention today, have voted to approve a merger of the two dioceses.

[Update - 2:58 p.m.:] A press release has just appeared on the Diocese of Fond du Lac website.

[Update - 3:44 p.m.:] An announcement has also appeared on the Diocese of Eau Claire website in which Bishop Edwin Leidel states:

Today our two dioceses made history. Never before have two dioceses in the Episcopal Church "junctioned" together. So, today we begin a new journey to create a new Diocese in northern Wisconsin.

The "junctioning," as it is being called (is there some reason why they want to avoid the term "merger"?), of the two dioceses has been a matter of study and discussion for the past several years and comes amidst losses in membership and attendance in both dioceses, but particularly the Diocese of Eau Claire.

Statistics for 2010 show that the Diocese of Fond du Lac has seen a decline in average Sunday attendance from approximately 2800 to 2100 (for the entire diocese) during the period from 2003 to 2010. The Diocese of Eau Claire has seen a decline in average Sunday attendance from approximately 1000 to 800 (again, for the entire diocese) in the past four years (2006-2010).

While this may be the first time in the history of the Episcopal Church that two dioceses have "junctioned," it appears that this solution may be adopted in other Episcopal dioceses with declining membership in the years ahead.
 

Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta to consider resolution restoring Pelagius as "a viable theological voice within our tradition"

From here, though you will have to scroll down to Resolution "R11-7"

Pelagius was condemned as a heretic in the 5th century. The case for reappraising Pelagius is a current theological fad (yes, theologians have those), but it is still rather amazing that it should come up as a resolution in an Episcopal diocesan convention. For those interested in concise explanation of why this matters, I recommend this article.

The full resolution from the Diocese of Atlanta is below:

R11-7 Contributions of Pelagius

Whereas the historical record of Pelagius’s contribution to our theological tradition is shrouded in the political ambition of his theological antagonists who sought to discredit what they felt was a threat to the empire, and their ecclesiastical dominance, and whereas an understanding of his life and writings might bring more to bear on his good standing in our tradition, and whereas his restitution as a viable theological voice within our tradition might encourage a deeper understanding of sin, grace, free will, and the goodness of God’s creation, and whereas in as much as the history of Pelagius represents to some the struggle for theological exploration that is our birthright as Anglicans, Be it resolved, that this 105th Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta appoint a committee of discernment overseen by our Bishop, to consider these matters as a means to honor the contributions of Pelagius and reclaim his voice in our tradition And be it further resolved that this committee will report their conclusions at the next Annual Council.

 

The Chicago Consultation uses Indaba to Export TEC's LGBT agenda

The Chicago Consultation is taking its innovative views on human sexuality and justice to a conference at the Ujamaa Centre in South Africa. Designed to strengthen mission and advocacy connections, the Consultation will provide Indaba processing and Bible studies for bishops, church leaders and "grassroots advocates for LGBT people":

From here:

In mid-October, the Chicago Consultation and the Ujamaa Centre of the University of KwaZulu-Natal will convene a gathering in South Africa to strengthen mission and advocacy connections among Anglicans who are interested in the theology of human sexuality and justice. We believe that deeper connections with each other will make it easier for us to work together in mission and to communicate productively when challenging Communion-wide issues arise. The co-conveners of the consultation are Professor Gerald West, director of the Ujamaa Centre, and Professor Esther Mombo of St. Paul's University in Limuru, Kenya.

The consultation, which will involve about 55 people and last for three days, will be grounded in the Indaba process, prayer and Bible study and will explore theological perspectives on human sexuality and justice. Participants will include theologians, bishops, church leaders, grassroots advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and other people willing to engage in intensive conversations across cultural boundaries.

The participants in the consultation will share their experiences with the wider church through stories and video reflections and through the report of a listening team led by the Rev. Janet Trisk, a representative to the Anglican Consultative Council from the Church of Southern Africa. [Emphasis added.]

 

[Updated] EPGM disbands after 21 years of service to the Episcopal mission community

From Episcopal News Service:

Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission (EPGM) has announced that it will officially disband as a mission networking organization serving the Episcopal Church, according to an Oct. 15 news release.

The decision to disband was made at EPGM's annual meeting, held at the Everyone Everywhere 2011 conference in Estes Park, Colorado, and approved by consensus of the attending membership organizations, the release said.

EPGM began in 1990 as the Episcopal Council for Global Mission (ECGM). It was renamed in 1999 when its structural organizing plan was approved by Executive Council. General Convention adopted the plan in 2000.

Financial issues due to loss of funding from the 2009 General Convention and loss of membership contributed to the decision to disband, according to the release.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission was once a fine organization--an umbrella group where all of the agencies and mission organizations that served the Episcopal Church could come together and work on goals and strategies and engage in cooperative efforts. As with so many other signs of TEC's implosion, it saddens me to see it die.

However, as Paul Harvey was famous for saying, we need to know "the rest of the story." The sentence mentioning the loss of membership is the key.

Following the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, the Diocese of New Hampshire applied for membership in EPGM. Viewed charitably, one could perhaps hope that the application meant there was a group in the Diocese genuinely concerned for world missions. A more skeptical view is that the Diocese was seeking to force recognition and acceptance from one of the few remaining Episcopal organizations where theological conservatives were in the majority. The application, and the debate over issues of sexuality that were racking TEC as a whole, only served to bring to a head longstanding disagreements over theology and the meaning of mission and evangelism.

In any event, New Hampshire's application to join EPGM put the conservative mission organizations in a difficult position. Many of the overseas Anglican provinces where missionaries from the conservative mission organizations served were determined to break fellowship with the Diocese of New Hampshire and even the whole of the Episcopal Church as a consequence of the consecration of a gay bishop. Some of these same Anglican provinces started refusing money from TEC, and they began questioning missionaries and mission organizations that worked in their countries about their participation in TEC and their position on TEC's actions.

Consequently, conservative mission agencies that had been a part of EPGM were faced with a choice of either losing their ability to send missionaries to various countries or else withdrawing from EPGM. The withdrawals did not happen quickly or without much prayer and discussion. New Hampshire's application to join EPGM was put on hold while these conversations occurred. But, in the end, EPGM willingness to admit the Diocese of New Hampshire caused the conservative mission agencies to leave. Titus Presler encapsulates this episode very well in his history of EPGM, published on the EPGM website (while it is still online). (See especially the section entitled, "EPGM Fractured by Sexuality Turmoil," pages 6-7.) As Presler notes, the agencies that left EPGM were the ones responsible for sending nearly all of the actual, long term missionaries from the Episcopal Church. These organizations have since formed a new umbrella network, the Anglican Global Mission Partners.

Interestingly, while the split in EPGM began over an application for membership from the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, the list of current members on the EPGM website shows no listing for the Diocese of New Hampshire nor any organization from that diocese.

[Update 10/18/11]: For those who may be interested in what has happened to the organizations that left since the split, the Anglican Global Mission Partners continue to meet twice annually, usually hosting a missions conference at the church or seminary where they meet. Their meeting, two weeks ago, at St. James Anglican Church, in Newport Beach, CA, was in conjunction with the SALT Missions Conference. Their Spring 2012 meeting will be at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, and they are planning a Re:Mix Youth Missions Conference at the same time.

The agencies that are a part of Anglican Global Mission Partners (AGMP) have continued to grow. For instance, SAMS (formerly the South American Missionary Society) has changed its name to the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders. The number of missionaries being sent from SAMS has nearly doubled in the past decade, and they are now a worldwide organization, with missionaries on every continent.

The Anglican Global Mission Partners (AGMP) itself has grown through the number of new organizations that have joined since the split from EPGM. A personal observation: One would think that the contrast in the histories of the two entities since the split—even the contrast in sheer vitality between the two organizations—might be enough to convince TEC that they made a wrong turn somewhere.
 

Wall Street Journal: Twenty first century Excommunication

The Wall Street Journal has turned it's focus onto the Episcopal Church's campaign against departing churches:

When the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, N.Y., left the Episcopal Church over disagreements about what the Bible says about sexuality, the congregation offered to pay for the building in which it worshiped. In return the Episcopal Church sued to seize the building, then sold it for a fraction of the price to someone who turned it into a mosque.

The congregation is one of hundreds that split or altogether left the Episcopal Church—a member of the Anglican Communion found mostly in the United States—after a decades-long dispute over adherence to scripture erupted with the consecration of a partnered gay bishop in 2003. But negotiating who gets church buildings hasn't been easy. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she'd rather have these properties become Baptist churches or even saloons than continue as sanctuaries for fellow Anglicans.

Read it all.