Allegations. These last minute allegations against Gene Robinson are not a good thing -- they are terrible for him and terrible for the side opposed to his nomination. It is my hope that they will be swiftly and utterly disproved.

It is my belief that this nomination must be rejected on the simple fact that this is a man who is living contrary to the teaching of Scripture, a teaching which was affirmed by the Anglican Communion 5 years ago today at Lambeth.* The ECUSA should not reject this man based on a last minute allegation of "inappropriate touching " -- as my wife said to me last night, "Do they [the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops] think his living with a man involved appropriate touching?"

Regrettably, the damage has been done to the ECUSA by the House of Deputies when they approved Canon Robinson on Sunday.

----------------
* Specifically, the Bishops assembled at Lambeth approved a statement, which read, in relevant parts:

This Conference . . .in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.

It further "reject[ed] homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture."

Et Tu? Peter? Bishop Peter James Lee, the man who baptized my oldest child, announced today that he will vote for the elevation of a man living contrary to the shared Anglican belief "that . . . 'the normative context for sexual intimacy is lifelong, heterosexual, monogamous marriage.'”

Oh Peter, Peter -- how could you betray this clear standard?

I can see that we can no longer support this apostate bishop.

Moreover, the Virginia Delegation voted 3 to 1, both laity and clergy, against the plain standard. The church I belong to, the one where all my children were baptized, has long been a support of the Bishop and the Diocese. Concurrent with the posting of this message I am calling upon the Vestry of my Church to withhold all further financial contributions from the Diocese and the Bishop. Let us finance the Gospel, not a social agenda.

Utterly Crushed Today, I am crushed. Today the House of Delegates, composed of clergy and laity, has told me that my faith is irrelevant. It has turned it's back on me and tens of thousands like me.

As a church, we have driven off the true conservative wing years ago -- over the issue of the ordination of women. That issue, which I support, one that is consistent with the teaching of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, the extremist left wing of the ECUSA strove to minimize, marginalize and hound those who hold to a contrary belief. As a result, those of us who are the real centrists now find ourselve on the right flank, labeled "conservatives."

In truth, we need all members of the body -- right, left and center, and those shades in between. This is a simple recognition that we are not each personally inspired with Divine revelation. Each errs and needs to be called back to the path. This does not mean that each person's truth is right or whatever that fluff is that you hear so much of. There is a standard and it has been revealed to the Body of Christ and delivered from generation to generation through the holy Scriptures.

*sigh*

I am truly crushed and despondent.

The idea that a man or woman living outside the doctrine and discipline of the Church is eligible to be a minister in that Church, must less a Bishop, is plainly repugnant to the teaching of Holy Scripture and apostolic tradition. The doctrine and discipline which has been vitiated today is simply that it is immoral to be engaged in a sexual relationship outside of marriage. What am I supposed to tell my kids? "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain?"

At least the Church of Rome affirms that it is wrong to engage in such conduct, even if they have had rogue ministers engaging in practices contrary to these teachings. The lesson for JP2 should be just jettison your core beliefs and accept whatever Hollywood wants -- those rogue ministers can bugger little boys and we'll all affirm how wonderful you are.

My church has turned its back on me. It has turned its back on the saints and sinners who have sought refuge in its wings for centuries. It has very flippantly abandoned essential Anglican teachings, affirmed just a few short years ago at Lambeth.

However, this is irrelevant to the theological left -- they seek an purity of extreme belief and are now attacking the center. The center will not hold -- indeed, we are being driven off as certainly as the "right" was.

I say to the bishops, priests and other ministers: you have driven off the right and are now working on the center. I will not rush into my decision in a hasty manner, but you can rest assured that you have severed me from your fellowship with this vote.

8 I am feeble and utterly crushed;
I groan in anguish of heart.

9 All my longings lie open before you, O Lord;
my sighing is not hidden from you.

* * *

19 Many are those who are my vigorous enemies;
those who hate me without reason are numerous.

20 Those who repay my good with evil
slander me when I pursue what is good.

21 O LORD , do not forsake me;
be not far from me, O my God.

22 Come quickly to help me,
O Lord my Savior.

Psalm 38:8-9, 19-22

Off with His Head. Very interesting observations here, by Rev. John Burwell who is attending the Episcopal General Convention. He noticed the opening liturgy of the convention intentionally omits are references to the Lordship of Christ. Well, I guess if you are intending to jettison fidelity to the teachings of the Lord, the first thing you have to do is de-throne Him. For example, the Gospel reading began with these words (I am bracketing the words omitted): "The Holy Gospel of our [Lord and] Savior Jesus Christ, according to Matthew." Similarly, the Presiding Bishop jettisoned the opening reference to the triune God: "Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" by using these words in place: "Blessed be the one holy and living God."

But I don't want to give you the impression that there was no reference to the Trinity. Apparently there was, in the closing blessing:

May the blessing of the God of Abraham and Sarah,
and of Jesus Christ born of our sister Mary,
and of the Holy Spirit
who broods over the world as a mother over her children,
be upon you and remain with you always.
Amen.

This kind of thing is almost enough to give me, a supporter of the ordination of women, doubts...

More That gospel reading I mentioned above was from the end of the 25th Chapter of Matthew regarding the separation of the sheep from the goats. Omitted was verse 46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Still Okay. Just a quick follow-up to the message immediately below -- we are all okay. We've been checked out by the doctors and had numerous x-rays and have no broken bones or dislocations. I had a glass fragment removed from my hand and Debbie and I got shots and meds and are now looking for a replacement vehicle.

If you saw our van, I think you'd realize what a miracle this was.

We're Okay ...but our van is (probably) totaled.

We were in an accident on Sunday while driving through the mountains in western Maryland. Here is a link to the area near where the wreck occurred. Right about here was the approximate location. We were all headed out west for three weeks -- two different family reunions, the Grand Canyon, Mexico, etc.

Thanks to God and his angels, none of us are hurt. The van went completely over and slid for a brief (but rapid) time on the roof and hood. I was asleep when the accident occured, riding in the front passenger's seat -- I awoke to see a shower of sparks flying over my head as the van slid down the road before flipping again and landing upright. We were going through a high mountain pass that was very windy -- Debbie thought she started to veer off to the right and overcompensated, but a trucker I talked with later said that he thought it was the wind taking us first to the right and then flipping us when Debbie tried to get back on track.

Thanks to Debbie's Dad and my sister, Ann, both of whom drove more hours than I realized at the time, we are back home safely.

I'm not sure what comes next -- obviously, we won't be driving anywhere in the next day or two. I'm trying to figure out if we can get flights out for the two family reunions, plus we need to get the insurance straightened out and get a rental van, short-term -- I imagine -- and look at a replacement vehicle long term.

The really important thing is that we are all okay. All of us were wearing seatbelts and the kids were well strapped in their respective car seats/booster seats. It's hard to say who got the worst of it -- I looked bad because I cut my elbow and leg on the glass after the accident, but it really wasn't anything but blood that looks bad. The car was full of gravel -- we must've plowed up at least 50-100 lbs of gravel in the car alone. Emilie came up the worst on that end -- she had it in her face and mouth. None in her eyes. Joe and Sarah were both scared, but no aches or pains -- both got quite chilled outside the van -- a very nice couple stopped and gave them blankets to warm them up. Joy has a sprained finger that I want to check out tomorrow -- there's always a possibility of a hairline fracture. Debbie was shook up and covered with gravel but seemed to be fine. Both Debbie and I seemed to have minor brusing from the seatbelts, but that's nothing. I realize that if I wasn't wearing a seatbelt I would've very easily been thrown through the windshield and ... well, you get the idea.

I'm detailing the minor scrapes really just to emphasize that we are okay and that we really have been delivered from something that could've been quite bad.

Thanks again to family and God for deliverance.

"...the difference between a fetus and a premature infant is a social distinction, not a biologic one" I don't normally post long essays -- especially from other sources -- but this letter to the editor of the Washington Times merits posting in whole:

According to The Washington Times, Senate Democrats are slowing progress of legislation banning partial-birth abortion ("Abortion bill faces conference setbacks" Nation, Monday). Both the House and Senate have overwhelmingly passed bills that ban this procedure, and President Bush has promised to sign such legislation. Here is my experience with this issue:
In 1976, I was a medical student on my first obstetrical-gynecological clinical rotation. In my second week on the gynecology service, I checked the operating room schedule and saw I was to assist with a hysterectomy/TAB. At the operating table, I learned that a hysterectomy/TAB was the surgical procedure where the pregnant uterus is removed. TAB stands for therapeutic abortion; the hysterectomy was for sterilization. I held the retractors as the professor methodically excised the gravid uterus.
I already had assisted on two other hysterectomies, one for endometrial cancer and the other for a benign tumor. I had been taught during those first two cases to "always open the uterus and examine the contents" before sending the specimen to pathology. So, after the professor removed the uterus, I asked him if he wanted me to open it, eager to show him I already knew standard procedure. He replied, "No, because the fetus might be alive and then we would be faced with an ethical dilemma."
A couple of weeks later, now on the obstetrical service, I retrieved a bag of IV fluid that the resident physician had requested. The IV fluids were to administer prostaglandin, a drug that simply induces the uterus to contract and expel. The patient made little eye contact with us. A few hours later, I saw the aborted fetus moving its legs and gasping in a bedpan, which was then covered with a drape.
Several years later, I had my only experience with a partial birth, or late term, abortion during my neonatology training.
One day, the obstetrical resident who was rotating through the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was excited that he was going to get to learn a new procedure, a type of abortion. This obstetrical resident explained to several of the pediatric residents and me that a woman in labor and delivery in her late third trimester had a fetus who was breech (a baby positioned buttocks, not head, first) and also was severely hydrocephalic.
The resident described how he was going to deliver the body of the baby and then, while the head was entrapped, insert a trochar (a long metal instrument with a sharp point) through the base of the skull. During the final portion of this procedure, he indicated that he would move a suction catheter back and forth across the brainstem to ensure that the baby would be born dead.
Several of the pediatric residents kept saying, "You're kidding" and "You're making this up," in disbelief. The pediatric residents all had experience caring for infants and children with hydrocephalus and had been taught that with any one infant the degree of future impairment is difficult, if not impossible, to predict.
Later that afternoon, the obstetrical resident performed the procedure, but unfortunately the infant was born with a heartbeat and some weak gasping respirations, so the baby was brought to the NICU. All live-born infants, even if it is clear that they were going to die in a short period of time, were always brought to the NICU so they could die with dignity, not left in the corner of Labor and Delivery.
I admitted this slightly premature infant, who weighed about 4 pounds or 5 pounds. His head was collapsed on itself. The bed was a mess from blood and drainage. I did my exam (no other anomalies were noted), wrote my admission note, then pronounced the baby dead about an hour later.
Normally, when a child is about to die in the NICU and the parents are not present, one of the staff holds the child. No one held this baby, a fact that I regret to this day. His mother's life was never at risk.
When I was in medical school, abortions were done up until 28 weeks (full term is 40 weeks). It was confusing that on one side of the obstetrical unit, pediatricians were placing extremely premature infants on warmers, intubating them to help them breathe, and rushing them off to the NICU, while on the other side similar premature infants/fetuses were being delivered in bedpans and covered with drapes. Most 28-week fetuses died back then, even with NICU care. Today, more than 95 percent of all 28-week premature infants survive and thrive. Most states won't do an abortion beyond 24 weeks now. However, today more than 50 percent of all 24-week premature infants survive if delivered in a hospital with an NICU, and infants as young as 22 weeks have survived and done well. Infants weighing as little as 9 ounces or 10 ounces have survived.
As a neonatologist who has cared for numerous spontaneously aborted and a few intentionally aborted fetuses in the past 20 years, I now realize that the difference between a fetus and a premature infant is a social distinction, not a biologic one.
If it is wanted, it is a baby; if not wanted, it is a fetus. When I started medical school, I viewed abortion as just another medical procedure and the products of conception as tissue. After 20 years of practicing neonatology, I now know this is not the case. I believe that after abortion became legal, the mantra of "it's just tissue" took hold in the medical and lay communities, and most never stopped to question if it were correct.
More than 1.2 million induced abortions are done annually in this country; roughly one out of every four pregnancies is terminated by abortion. Medical or social euphemisms such as TAB, D&C (dilation and curettage), choice, women's health or reproductive freedom don't change the fact that abortion is a violent and unethical — if legal — procedure. Elective abortions have degraded both the medical profession and the women who have made this choice.
Of course, partial-birth or late-term abortions constitute only a minute fraction of the abortions done daily in this country. Why should Congress and the president limit the few partial-birth abortions that are done? Simply because it is the right thing to do.

DR. HANES SWINGLE
Pediatric Fellow
University of Iowa
Iowa City

Two Good Links. As always, if you want good news about the Anglican Communion, your starting point must be Classical Anglican Net News or CANN: http://www.anglican.tk/index.php.

Second, this website developed by the American Anglican Council looks promising: http://www.aplacetostand.org/

Two More: Titusonenine and MCJ.

Advance. There was a big convocation -- an advance, I think you'd have to call it -- of Anglican ministers at my church today. It looked more like a UN meeting. Actually, I take that back -- it had a very third world flavor (the UN being very European). As I understand, the gist of the meeting was that the confessing church members in the Anglican communion agreed to meet after the Episcopal General Convention if (1) it authorizes any same sex blessings or allows Gene Robinson (the fellow who left his wife and kids for a same sex lover) to take a seat as bishop, or (2) it takes action to bless same sex unions.

It must be recognized in the days ahead that the Episcopal Church in America is just a small part of the Anglican body.* It is a hand, if you will. The Anglican Body, speaking in unison at Lambeth reconfirmed that the union of a man and a woman is the only biblical standard -- only a man and woman may be joined in holy matrimony and santified by the Church as Christ's representative. If the Episcopal Church were to take one of the two steps I noted above, it would be affirmatively separating itself from the Anglican Body.

It would be like severing a hand from the body.

Those of us remaining in the Episcopal Church who are standing for the standard endorsed by the Anglican body may be just a finger on the hand, but we will do what we can to see to it that the hand remains firmly attached to the body. I think we may be that opposable thumb that makes the hand so useful -- if so, we will stay. God willing.

-----------------------------------------
*I must acknowledge that in reality the Church of Christ universal, as the Bride of Christ, is so much greater than the Anglican communion -- Thanks be to God. In truth, the Anglican Communion may come closer to being the skin on the left shin. Nevertheless, when you bang the shin, it hurts and the body may stumble.
-----------------------------------------

More: Here, a news report from the WaPo. Here, from the NY Times.

Shields Up. I noticed today, driving by the Pentagon, that the levels of defense are definitely way up. For example, just the number of police parked on the shoulder has at least doubled. But more noticeable where the humvees and jeeps with mounted guns, each staffed by at least three soldiers. This had been scaled back over the past few months -- don't know if there is any connection with the deaths of EBay and Queasy, but I wouldn't doubt it. Also, they are wearing the dark green BDUs and cammies (Woodland style, I think) -- not the lighter cammies, which blends better with the Virginia shrub brush. They've also dispensed with the military camouflage netting. They are projecting a prescence.

More It looks like that was just a one day deal.

Feed the people. Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Prelate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, spoke at worship this morning. In Nigeria they have 17 million communicants, more than the Anglican communion has in England, Canada, and the U.S. -- combined. This branch of the Church is quite strong and healthy, albeit materially poor. He is in America to give support and sustenance to those members of the confessing church who remain in the Episcopal denomination. I can not begin to tell you how wonderful it was to listen to the spiritual strength and vitality of this man. I've heard Billy Graham preach and this man outdoes him -- not that it's a competition.

He spoke on the feeding of the 5,000 and also participated in a number of baptisms.

I believe we are on the verge of a historical shift -- a turning point.

More later.

Adios. Well done, Bill Bright.

Micah 6:8. One interesting proposal, from Louie Crew, is an amendment of the Catechism

to quote Micah 6:8 correctly:

“Question: What response did God require from the chosen people? Answer: God required the chosen people to be faithful; to love justice, to do mercy, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with their God.”; and be it further

Resolved, That all future printings of The Book of Common Prayer include this correction in an erratum until a new edition is approved.

Explanation:
It is much easier to love justice than to do it. It is much easier to be merciful than to love mercy. We should set for ourselves the high standard that Micah articulates.

The NIV translates the verse this way

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

and the KJV

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

On this one, I agree with Dr. Crew.

GC2K3. I find it hard to believe that it was just a few months ago a friend of mine, a pastor of a UMC church, asked about the Episcopal Church's General Convention and I replied that I thought it would be a relatively quiet affair. Of course that was before New Hampshire nominated a man who had left his wife and children and was living with sex partner.

In preparation for the General Convention, the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church released a report ("The Gift of Sexuality: A Theological Perspective") that, while not an endorsement of Biblical ethics and morality, at least recommended a "cooling off" period: "Because at this time we are nowhere near consensus in the Church regarding the blessing of homosexual relationships, we cannot recommend authorizing the development of new rites for such blessings."

Nevertheless, the Convention has the task of affirming or rejecting the Robinson nomination. Talking with a vestry member tonight (actually Friday night, I see by the time I post this it will be Saturday morning), he said he thought the Robinson nomination would be the first order of business and will set the pattern for the convention.

The Diocese of California has proposed a number of proposals, one calling for "Rites for Blessing and Supporting Committed Relationships;" another which attacks anyone who seeks deliverance from sexual bondage. Similarly, the Diocese of Newark has a proposal which condemns by name the American Anglican Council (AAC) for running a campaign focusing on "God's Love Changed Me."

Wetting Down. I just got a note from the fellow who was my best man (actually, the note was from his wife) -- he has been promoted to Captain in the Navy, which is the equivalent rank of Colonel in the infantry forces - one step below flag rank. I am very thrilled.

They will be having a 'wetting down' party in about 10 days. (Actually, I'm not sure if the Navy calls it that.)

Santorum was right. A state district court judge threw out the charges against a man arrested on solicitation of sodomy in a public park in Charlotte, NC.

Links/E-mail. I finally updated my links and e-mail. I had previously had a mailto: with my e-mail address in it. The spambots got ahold of it and I got to the point where I couldn't bear to open my mailbox. Anyway, you know the routine. substitute the @ for the -at-.

Bonhoeffer. This movie will be playing in town at the Avalon -- I'd like to see it (and perhaps take my son, age 5, to it. He is very facinated with DB -- he has a book that he regularly asks us to read to him). Here's a good article on the documentary.

Foreign Law. USA Today has an article today noting the reliance by several justices upon case law from other countries. I've noticed this for awhile in Justice Breyer's opinions -- basically it turns out to be an appeal to authority to support one's own predetermined opinions.

What strikes me as interesting is that it's the white liberals on the court who are the leaders in this trend. As can be imagined, they only look to European opinions -- one never finds reliance on any African Courts or, say Jewish courts.

Liberal Supreme Court. Get used to the phrase -- start using it, it reflects the reality. See Stuart Taylor, here, if you need convincing.