9/1/2004 4:09:48 PM
THE RAIN-WET CORRELATION You can't beat Reuters for insightful analysis:
DVD copies of Mel Gibson's unlikely blockbuster The Passion of the Christ went on sale on Tuesday as distributor Fox Home Entertainment reported initial shipments to retailers running 20 percent ahead of projections.
As was the case for its theatrical release, robust retail interest in home video versions of the blood-drenched film about the last hours in the life of Jesus appears to be driven by enthusiasm in the Christian market.
Boy howdy, that is some day-um fine journalism!
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 6 comments
9/1/2004 12:17:10 PM
NOSTALGIA Mr. Douglas Campbell of Culver City, California thinks that it's really nice that Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno is returning to first principles:
I hereby demand that the Anglican Communion return all properties illegally seized from the Holy Roman Catholic Church, including, but not limited to, cathedrals, monasteries, parish seats, bank accounts and Bibles.
My demand is equivalent to the demand made by Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno's attorneys to those local Episcopal parishes that have broken away from his Los Angeles diocese: to vacate their church buildings, surrender their financial holdings and yield up their worship aids.
Bruno is obviously looking back to his roots as he attempts to formulate a response to this breakaway of parishes from a breakaway church.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 12 comments
8/31/2004 7:27:33 PM
YAKKING ECUSA liberals want conservatives to stay in the church so the two sides can talk things over, have conversations, follow that up with a little dialogue and maybe get some reconciling in. They've been doing just that in the Diocese of Colorado lately and this is what they've come up with:
The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado is deeply divided over same-sex issues, but compromise between liberals and traditionalists is still possible, a task force has told Bishop Rob O'Neill, who will issue his final directive today.
The group's report suggests the diocese embark on a "season of restraint," with two main compromises for each side of the debate:
First, liberals should put the idea of same-sex blessings on hold until the church's general convention re-examines the issue in two years. They also should agree that the diocese won't add any new same-sex clergy partners from outside Colorado during that time period, though gay clergy partners already here may continue their parish work.
What are conservatives supposed to do?
Traditionalists are asked to lift their financial boycott of the diocese, which is believed to be at least partially responsible for a $500,000 drop in pledges this year.
Traditionalists should also agree not to seek what's called "episcopal oversight," a process in which a parish can remove itself from O'Neill's authority in favor of a bishop more to their liking.
So Colorado conservatives have to start scratching checks again and don't get to ask for something the national church says they can have if they want. In exchange, liberals agree to delay same-sex marriages until the next General Convention, which will obviously be a whole lot more liberal than the last one, takes the issue up again. The state's most prominent conservative Episcopalian, Colorado Springs' Don Armstrong, thinks the idea is already dead in the water:
But the recommendations outraged the Rev. Don Armstrong of Colorado Springs. He is a member of the standing committee, the bishop's advisory body, and pastor of one of the largest parishes in Colorado.
"So Rob (O'Neill) gets his money, conservative clergy fund him and the gay clergy get to do what they want," Armstrong said Monday. "He's trying to get us to sit still while everybody gets used to having practicing gay clergy in the diocese. This will push us to redouble our efforts to get others to restrict giving and seek episcopal oversight."
Is Don Armstrong overreacting? Why is he so upset so soon? Why won't he give the plan a chance? Probably because of this:
Conservative Episcopalians will ask Bishop Rob O'Neill to impose harsher sanctions against the Rev. Bonnie Spencer, an assistant pastor who participated in a same-sex ritual at Good Shepherd Church in Centennial.
In a letter sent to O'Neill last weekend, a conservative leader[Armstrong] criticized the bishop's handling of the matter, which was to impose a "godly admonition," the lightest rebuke possible. In his decision, issued last week, O'Neill also authorized Spencer to take a six-week leave of absence.
Spencer and her partner, Catherine Anderson, took part in a private church ritual April 24. Spencer has said it included the exchange of rings and "promises" but was not a same-sex liturgy.
If O'Neill wants this plan to have even a slight chance at success, he's going to have to do a great deal more than simply wag his finger in the faces of the Colorado clergy who will perform or participate in same-sex marriages and later claim that they did nothing of the kind. If his reaction to the Spencer case is any indication, O'Neill will be entirely unwilling to come down hard enough on homosexual clergy who break this agreement.
Were I a Colorado Episcopalian in an orthodox ECUSA parish, I would do two things. I would wait and see what the Lambeth Commission report had to say. Then when it says what I think it's probably going to(a typical Anglican attempt to split the difference), I would meet with as many members of my parish and its clergy as I possibly could as soon as I could and begin planning for official separation from the Diocese of Colorado. Because "compromises" like this one only delay the inevitable.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 24 comments
8/31/2004 3:19:13 PM
THROWDOWN Those three Los Angeles Episcopal churches who recently placed themselves under Ugandan bishops have a message for their former supervising official. Bring it on:
Lawyers for three area churches that have broken away from the Episcopal Church USA have rejected demands from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles that the parishes either surrender their property to the bishop of the diocese by Monday or suspend operations.
Eric Sohlgren of Payne and Fears, a firm representing the local churches, wrote that the churches "reject the demands set forth in your letter."
The demands from the diocese were delivered by hand Friday to All Saints Church in Long Beach, St. James Church in Newport Beach and St. David's Parish in North Hollywood. That was the first step in what could become a protracted legal struggle between the Episcopal Church USA and three parishes.
"Your demand that hundreds of families and children immediately cease worshipping God in the buildings they alone erected and supported defies belief," Sohlgren wrote to the diocese.
This fight will be long, it will be costly, it will be messy, it will no doubt be the first of a great many across the country and these three churches could very well end up "losing" it. But when the dust finally settles, the word "Episcopal" may replace "pyrrhic" in the English language.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 9 comments
8/31/2004 1:55:22 PM
L'APAISEMENT Old French habits die hard:
Two French journalists held hostage in Iraq have urged their government to lift a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools to save their lives.
The BBC's Angus Roxburgh in Paris reports that a large crowd of people gathered in the city's Trocadero Square on Monday evening, to show their support for Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper.
He says French people have been appalled by their plight, and are baffled that the country's citizens should have been targeted by Iraqi militants, given France's vocal opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Welcome to real life, Vichy Paris. Then there's this:
The crisis over the French journalists stunned France, which won Russian and German support last year in its high-profile campaign against the U.S.-led war in Iraq and because of this considered itself safe from militant attack.
"Their kidnapping is incomprehensible to all those who know that France, the country of origin of human rights, is a land of tolerance and of respect for others," Barnier said before seeing Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
"France has always opposed the vision of a clash between the West and Islam," said Barnier, who along with other French officials was entrusted with trying to secure the journalists' release. The minister did not give other details of his trip.
"France, due to its position on the war in Iraq, could have hoped it was safe," Le Figaro said in an editorial on Monday. "This was not the case."
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest Islamist organization but officially banned in Egypt, said in a statement that it condemned the kidnappings.
"The Muslim Brotherhood demands that the two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq be freed, especially as there is no proof of their involvement in any activity against law and order, but rather they were participating in exposing the occupation and its practices," the group said.
One prays that these two men are safely released and that France will finally learn what it should have learned over sixty years ago. But given French cravenness, the first prayer seems much more likely to be answered than the second.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 2 comments
8/30/2004 8:40:35 PM
LAODICEANS QUESTION: How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?
ANSWER: Episcopalians don't change light bulbs. Dark rooms are just as good as lighted ones:
Via Media USA was formed in March 2004 as an alliance of twelve groups from eleven dioceses with strong ties to the emerging "Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes." Each VMUSA group formed out of its deep love for the Episcopal Church and the conviction that the calls for realignment and punitive action against the Episcopal Church were disproportionate and inappropriate as responses to General Convention 2003.
So the Veemers support Robbie then? According to them, yes and no:
VMUSA’s allied groups are made up of the full spectrum of positions within the Episcopal Church. There are those who oppose the decision made to confirm Bishop Robinson and those who welcome the decision as a courageous acknowledgment of what has long been a matter of secret practice. But, as an organization, we have taken no position on the confirmation.
Except that the Veemers thought that responses to the ECUSA General Convention were "disproportionate and inappropriate." So that's sort of a backhanded position right there.
What unites us across our many individual beliefs is Unity itself.
And what makes us repeat ourselves are our tautologies.
All of us are committed to working to keep everyone at the table because we continue to believe that what we share is far greater than what separates us.
Given the Scripture-optional approach by the liberals these days, I'd say that we don't really share much of anything anymore. But that's just me.
VMUSA believes that the via media is a powerful part of our Anglican heritage: not a "compromise for the sake of peace," but, as the collect for the feast of Richard Hooker reads, "a comprehension for the sake of truth."
Whatever that means.
We embrace our heritage of the middle way, which has found a generous and charitable path to unity based upon our deepest values, even in times of bitter controversy.
Except when the Puritans and Separatists bailed. But you know how those people are.
We hope that the Commission will help us, along with all Anglicans, find the via media in this moment of controversy.
Finding the via media
Stop saying "via media" so much.
requires that all parties step back from the use of combative language and from precipitate action, especially threats and ultimatums, in order to sit at table with one another.
All sides should be as reasonable and restrained as Pittsburgh Veemer head Lionel Deimel was in his letter supporting J. Jon Bruno.
We hear cries of pain and hurt, but the truth is that when they are cloaked with threats, there is almost no chance to resolve the most important question of whether or not people of the same faith can abide with each other through their differences.
Translation: ECUSA may have apostatized but calling it apostate isn't constructive so shut up. Actually, the only question on the Episcopal table at the moment is whether or not people of entirely different, mutually-exclusive faiths "can abide with each other through their differences." Some of us have decided to be honest with ourselves and answer that question negatively.
VMUSA trusts that everyone, in this moment of controversy, believes in and loves Jesus and is seeking to serve him as their hearts, minds, and spirits direct. We would hope that, as the Commission seeks to find the highest level of possible communion we might share, it might start with such an affirmation.
I sincerely hope that "everyone, in this moment of controversy, believes in and loves Jesus and is seeking to serve him as their hearts, minds, and spirits direct" anyway. But I doubt that any communion is possible at all since our interpretations of what that involves differ so radically.
The Commission’s mandate rightly acknowledges this extraordinary moment in the life of the Communion. There is no formulated, agreed upon international polity for our Communion; indeed, there is no process in place for formulating polity, much less for defining policy. A policy may well be needed now, and VMUSA believes that a call to create an international polity could be a forum for a lively and vigorous discussion among the provinces of the Communion. However, at the moment, there is simply no structure for adjudication of this sort of dispute. We believe that the formation of an international polity is most properly framed as a discussion about unity, akin to the one that brought forth the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Everyone must be at the table to ask, among other things: What are the essentials of the faith that must be believed to be Christian? How do reason, scripture, and tradition work together to provide authoritative decisions? How will we bring into harmony the issues that derive from our multiplicity of cultures and their particular challenges? How will we respect our differences in our forms of internal polity, some provinces embracing the laity in decision-making and some not? How will we hold one another accountable? Who will judge whether we have done so effectively? We have, of course, our own Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity as a foundation for such a discussion. Richard Hooker’s work is every bit as relevant to this time of controversy as it was in the latter sixteenth century.
So stay in ECUSA for another forty or fifty years and five or six more openly-homosexual bishops while we try to hash all this out. And triple your pledges. We can't guarantee we'll solve anything though. But there will be coffee and we'll buy the first round of donuts.
The present atmosphere, however, is the worst possible one for making international polity. In the absence of any polity, making one in reaction to specific incidents is counterproductive in the long run. The actions of the US and Canadian Churches may have pushed us to this place, but a reactive single-issue polity decision will not move us to the larger discussion we must have. VMUSA entreats the Commission not to fall prey to the passions of the moment, but to create a process to discuss the deeper issues outlined above, rather than rehashing precipitating events.
Make that another hundred years. Apparently, we're all supposed to stick around until everybody forgets all about same-sex "marriages," Gene Robinson and the ECUSA's fifteen or twenty other openly-homosexual bishops. Then we'll start yammering.
We would invite the leaders of those who feel aggrieved, especially those who feel aggrieved on behalf of God, to offer leadership by emulating Christ’s sacrificial love. We believe that a non-anxious, loving, and encouraging witness best exemplifies Christ’s own ministry and would allow the enmities now present to be shed.
Okay. Those of us attempting to defend the Word of God and 2,000 years of church tradition should be "non-anxious, loving and encouraging" to those who have "aggrieved" our heavenly Father so we can "shed" our "enmities" because that "best exemplifies Christ's own ministry." We conservatives should stay in the ECUSA and talk nice and not get so bent out of shape about liberal apostasy and quadruple our pledges or we'll never be able to talk all this out and never ever come to any agreement about anything at all. That's not a beam in the Veemer eye. That's metropolitan Denver.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 17 comments
8/30/2004 5:30:16 PM
WORLDWIDE RHODESIAN CONSPIRACY WATCH The WRC enlists another prominent clergyman:
The new Roman Catholic archbishop of Harare, Robert Ndlovu, and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe have clashed over the protection of human rights in the southern African country.
“The role of a bishop and of the Church in general is to stand up for human dignity, and from human dignity flow human rights,” Ndlovu told a congregation of 6,000 people attending his inauguration on Aug. 21.
The archbishop’s sermon came after the Zimbabwean government announced plans to ban all foreign human rights groups and place restrictions on foreign-funded charities.
Hdlovu said free expression, association and assembly were rights the church supported.
But you can't fool Bob:
After the archbishop finished speaking, Mugabe took the microphone for an unscheduled speech in which he criticized unnamed religious leaders for having “joined hands with erstwhile colonial masters to peddle lies about the state of affairs and demonize Zimbabwe.”
Thousands of people were killed during the campaign by government forces, according to a report produced in 1997 by a church-sponsored rights group, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), and the Legal Resources Foundation.
Earlier this month, the Zimbabwean government warned the Catholic Church about the activities of the CCJP, accusing the group of “soliciting the help of a foreign power to fight the government.”
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 2 comments
8/30/2004 4:38:52 PM
GO EASY ON THE NEW GUY - Andy Scott's Rest Across The River
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 0 comments
8/29/2004 11:12:57 PM
THE WAYS, THE TRUTHS, THE LIVES Evidently figuring that there's nothing he can do to prevent an Anglican split, my gracious lord of Canterbury lets his inner universalist run around in public:
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday vented his frustrations with the Church factions warring over homosexuality and also reminded Christians that they did not have a monopoly on the afterlife.
Really?
He surprised some at the three-day Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham, Glos, by declaring that Muslims can go to heaven.
Dr Williams said that neither he nor any Christian could control access to heaven. "It is possible for God's spirit to cross boundaries," he said.
"I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think."
Looks from this end as if Dr. Williams isn't that "happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus." That whole idea of Jesus paying for your sins by His death on the Cross not working for you? Not to worry. There are "varied" ways that God leads people to heaven through Jesus.
In Rowan Williams' religion, whatever it is, you can believe that Jesus was only a prophet and not even the greatest one. Or you can believe that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It's all good since "how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think."
How God leads people through Jesus to heaven can be quite varied. Dr. Williams thinks. Wow, talk about blessed assurance. I'd quote the Scriptures about Jesus and His role but you already know what they are and an "intellectual" like Rowan Williams can just higher-criticize them out of his way anyway.
Christians have always believed that Muslims can get to heaven. Provided that they stop believing about Jesus precisely what Islam teaches about Him. For the leader of the Anglican Communion to suggest otherwise is reason enough not to wait for the Lambeth Commission's report. Orthodox Christians can't be out of "official" Anglicanism fast enough.
By the way, Dr. Williams thinks that some of you are getting a little too cranky:
In a rare glimpse of his anger over the row that has overshadowed his first two years at Canterbury, Dr Williams said the debate had lacked grace and patience.
He said that this had been aggravated by pressure groups with entrenched positions who posted instant reactions to events on their websites.
"It is not so much that we have disagreement in the Church - that happens," he said. "It is more to do with how those disagreements are conducted. The dismissiveness, the rawness of the anger . . . need to be worked with."
"We haven't had an effective forum in which that process can be slowed, not just for the sake of putting things off but for the sake of mutual understanding. We haven't quite found that forum yet. It is not the General Synod. It is certainly not the trading of websites."
Guess he means me. One of the guiding principles of western Anglicanism is that any conflict at all can be solved over sherry or a really good Madeira. Hence the repeated references to the word "dialogue" and its various synonyms in just about every Anglican communication.
But those of us who have been around this denomination a while know full well that Dr. Williams' desire that the "process...be slowed" is not at all "for the sake of mutual understanding" but is precisely "for the sake of putting things off." Because both sides in this dispute fully understand each other right now.
The Anglican Communion is soon going to have to do something that it passionately hates. Make a serious decision about something. Because making a serious decision sometimes makes people angry. And angry people sometimes take their pledge checks to other churches.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 44 comments
8/29/2004 2:38:39 PM
DISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM Reason #839,275 for the Church of England to be turned into a religio-historical theme park:
A bishop who warned that the Church of England was facing extinction is to launch a campaign to lure 50-somethings back to the pews with bars of chocolate and their favourite hymns.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, is attempting to swell attendance figures at harvest festival services next month by distributing thousands of credit card-style invitations and "goody" bags of free gifts, including chocolate.
Half the diocese's 300 parishes have already signed up for the scheme and ordered material that includes colour posters depicting a crowd of people around a puzzle-shaped hole containing the slogan "Missing You".
They will also be urged to do something "completely different" during the service, such as showing a comedy video.
I would like to sincerely apologize to everyone reading this who's just eaten.
New worshippers will be handed a bag at the end of the service containing a glossy booklet about the Church, a special issue of the diocesan newsletter Crux and a bar of "fair trade" chocolate donated by the Co-Op supermarket chain.
Well, of course there will be "fair trade" chocolate from a co-op. I'm astonished that Manchester didn't also include a world music CD and a free month of the Guardian.
Canon Roger Hill, the rector of St Ann's church, Manchester, said he was very enthusiastic about the scheme. "We come across dozens of people who say they have slipped out of the habit of going to church and want to come back. We have found that personal invitations are a very effective way to achieve this. The bar of chocolate just brings an extra element of pleasure."
Since nobody at all will get much of a kick out of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
On one level, I guess this is admirable. After all, Christ did say, "And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled(Luke 14:23)." A cynic might respond that Christ said, "And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled," something that these people have been doing for well over a century. Then there's the whole issue of what folks will hear once they come inside Manchester Anglican churches but that's an entirely different post for another time.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 4 comments
8/29/2004 10:15:24 AM
INTO THE GARBAGE? Two years ago, my high school, Webster Groves, won a state football title on this play:
The last explosive flare came with 2 minutes, 13 seconds left when Webster Groves quarterback Darrell Jackson fired a 38-yard strike down the left sideline, over a pair of Raymore-Peculiar defenders, to a streaking Grady Wilson to knot the score at 22-22. Will Tullmann's point-after kick sailed through the uprights and Webster Groves held on for a thrilling 23-22 victory — the third state championship in school history for the Statesmen and the first since 1988.
A pass which capped off these two drives:
Webster Groves went ahead 16-14 on a 37-yard field goal from Tullmann with 10:28 left. But Raymore-Peculiar came marching right back with a 13-play, 99-yard drive to regain the lead with 5:21 remaining when Rasmussen connected with Cody Newman for a 19-yard touchdown pass and Anderson ran in the two-point conversion.
Down 22-16 with 5:01 remaining in the game, Jackson guided Webster Groves on an eight-play, 73-yard drive that was kept alive after an incomplete fourth-down pass when Raymore-Peculiar was flagged for holding. Five plays later the standout quarterback connected with Wilson for the game-winning touchdown.
Jackson's numbers for that game were impressive:
In leading Webster Groves to its third improbable playoff win in three weeks, Jackson completed 12 of 23 passes for 245 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 128 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries.
But not as good as his totals in Webster's semifinal win:
Jackson finished the game with 38 carries for 157 and two rushing touchdowns. He completed 23 of 34 passes for 399 yards and three scores. Jackson, a 6-foot-4 junior, accounted for all but six of the Statesmen's yards.
Think of a kid who could run like Marshall Faulk and throw like Kurt Warner. And then think of a kid who may have thrown all that away.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 3 comments
8/28/2004 12:02:25 PM
THE BIG GUNS OPEN UP J. Jon Bruno wants his stuff back:
Lawyers from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles sent letters to three breakaway churches Friday instructing them to surrender their property and control of their parishes to the bishop of the Diocese or cease holding services, interfering with Episcopal services on the property and handling any real or personal property of the parish until litigation is resolved.
Early but certainly not unexpected.
The letter also said that conducting services and parish business under the supposed aegis of a Ugandan diocese was a "flagrant violation' of a ruling by the bishop inhibiting the clergy from ordained ministry.
Hmmm. These three parishes withdrew from ECUSA, announced that they no longer recognized J. Jon Bruno as their bishop and placed themselves under Ugandan bishops. For this action, J. Jon broke off their clergy. Now they are informed that if they hold services, they are in "flagrant violation" of a ruling by a bishop that they no longer recognize that their clergy can no longer operate in the diocese because they withdrew their allegiance from J. Jon and placed themselves under Ugandan bishops, which got them broken off by J. Jon. Who they no longer recognize as a bishop. May God have mercy on the judge who gets this case.
The letters for the lawyers claim that by state and canon law, as well as voluntary action by the parishes, "all real and personal property of the Parish has been and remains irrevocably under the jurisdiction of the Bishop for use only by members of the (Episcopal) Church in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of the Church and the Diocese. The clergy and congregants who have chosen to withdraw from the Church lack the authority to change the status of this property or to use it except as members of the Church."
I don't know why but for some reason, this popped into my head just now:
Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD. Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim(Jeremiah 7:4, 9-11, 14-15).
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 7 comments
8/27/2004 11:20:27 PM
ROOT CAUSES Gene Robinson is only a symptom. He is not the disease:
Jose Poch, rector of St. David's[North Hollywood, California], calls the ECUSA's "corruption of scriptures" an abomination. "We finally came to the conclusion that there could be no reconciliation and there would be no repentance over on their side," he says. "We are not willing to be dragged down any more into a theology that is clearly not Christian, and we just decided that we had had enough."
Poch insists he had no choice but to part ways with Los Angeles Bishop John Bruno. "Recently our bishop made a statement in the Los Angeles Times that Jesus is not the only way to the Father," he says. He notes that he confronted Bruno, as others have done, but that the bishop "seems to waver back and forth" in his responses.
"Finally he said to me that Jesus is the only way, but only for Christians," Poch recalls, "and that is just against what Jesus said all along. Jesus said He is the way, He is the light, He is the Good Shepherd, He is the Bread of Life -- He is it -- for all people."
First, a real quick review:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life(John 3:16).
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd(John 10:7,9,10,11,16).
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me(John 14:6).
Were Robbie to be induced to step down "for the good of the Anglican church," this would change nothing in the Episcopal Church. Indeed, it might be the greatest tactical move the Episcopal left could possibly make.
It would give the left a living martyr, which is always a nice thing to be able to trot out in front of the cameras, while at the same time robbing Episcopal conservatives of the greatest motivation they have ever had. After all, many conservatives rationalized remaining in a church that refused to discipline atheistic charlatans like John Shelby Spong.
Gene Robinson's consecration did not cause the Anglican crisis. It was the result of the Episcopal Church's spiritual decay, something that too many Episcopal conservatives refused to confront.
Too many Episcopal conservatives wanted to play golf or softball rather than serve on their church vestries. Too many lay Episcopal conservatives couldn't(or wouldn't or didn't know how to) defend the faith once delivered unto the saints. Too many Episcopal conservatives wouldn't leave the church, rationalizing their continued membership in a body that they knew was drifting into universalism long before anyone had ever heard of Gene Robinson.
Do I include myself among those Episcopal conservatives? Yes. But God, who is rich in mercy, will provide me with another church worthy of His holy and blessed Name. I just pray that I will take my responsibilities more seriously this time.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 19 comments
8/26/2004 7:02:06 PM
DISCREPANCY In his recent letter to Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno in which he compared conservative Episcopalians to mass murderers, Lionel Deimel of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh also made the following claim:
Nonetheless, more than a quarter of the people of this diocese support the PEP vision of a united and tolerant church, and disapprove of the NACDAP and its actions.
However, there are good grounds to, um, doubt the accuracy of Deimel's assertion. From the March, 2004 PEP newsletter:
PEP’s campaign for church unity reached the heart of the Pittsburgh Diocese when a delegation of PEP members attended the Diocesan Council’s monthly meeting March 2 to present a letter calling on the Council to rescind its February 3 vote to affiliate the diocese with the new Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. The letter - titled "A Call for Unity" - was signed by 149 parishioners of 20 parishes all over the Diocese, including many non-PEP members.
The Episcopal Church reported that, as of 2002, the Diocese of Pittsburgh contained 20,389 baptized members and 16,639 communicants in 71 parishes. But when I divide PEP's reported signatures by the number of Pittsburgh communicants, I get a figure that isn't anywhere close to 25%, never mind more than that. But I was never very good at math.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 8 comments
8/26/2004 2:18:04 PM
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Frank Griswold is Gravely ConcernedTM about Los Angeles:
"I am saddened by the action of clergy and members of three congregations in the Diocese of Los Angeles and their desire to separate themselves from the life of the Episcopal Church. I know how assiduously Bishop Bruno has sought to be a minister of reconciliation and a pastor to those of all views within the life of the Diocese of Los Angeles and its 147 diverse congregations.
Uh huh. J. Jon Bruno voted to approve an unrepentant sinner as a "bishop" and also officiated at a homosexual "wedding." How J. Jon thinks he can "reconcile" with people who think that both actions are heretical, un-Christian abominations is a question only Frank Griswold can answer.
"I have written to the Archbishop of the Church of the Province of Uganda expressing my concern that he claims jurisdiction within the boundaries of the Episcopal Church. The bishops of the Anglican Communion and the primates in their statement of last October have made it clear that bishops are to respect the boundaries of one another's dioceses and provinces. Living in communion with one another involves not only the sharing of a common faith in the Risen Lord but how we treat and respect one another in the Body of Christ."
Frank? Don't know if you recall this or not, since you forgot its result pretty much instantly, but last October's primates meeting was actually not about diocesan boundaries in the Anglican Communion. It was about apostasy, both yours and New Westminster's. And in their statement, the Anglican primates also made this clear:
At this time we feel the profound pain and uncertainty shared by others about our Christian discipleship in the light of controversial decisions by the Diocese of New Westminster to authorise a Public Rite of Blessing for those in committed same sex relationships, and by the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church (USA) to confirm the election of a priest in a committed same sex relationship to the office and work of a Bishop.
These actions threaten the unity of our own Communion as well as our relationships with other parts of Christ's Church, our mission and witness, and our relations with other faiths, in a world already confused in areas of sexuality, morality and theology, and polarised Christian opinion.
Therefore, as a body we deeply regret the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster and the Episcopal Church (USA) which appear to a number of provinces to have short-circuited that process, and could be perceived to alter unilaterally the teaching of the Anglican Communion on this issue. They do not. Whilst we recognise the juridical autonomy of each province in our Communion, the mutual interdependence of the provinces means that none has authority unilaterally to substitute an alternative teaching as if it were the teaching of the entire Anglican Communion.
If his consecration proceeds, we recognise that we have reached a crucial and critical point in the life of the Anglican Communion and we have had to conclude that the future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy. In this case, the ministry of this one bishop will not be recognised by most of the Anglican world, and many provinces are likely to consider themselves to be out of Communion with the Episcopal Church (USA). This will tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level, and may lead to further division on this and further issues as provinces have to decide in consequence whether they can remain in communion with provinces that choose not to break communion with the Episcopal Church (USA).
You demonstrated how you "treat and respect" the other primates of the Anglican Communion "in the body of Christ" by completely repudiating a statement you just signed before the ink was dry:
The statement was signed by all 37 church leaders, but the Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church, sounded a defiant note at a news conference just minutes later.
"While anything can happen, including the Second Coming, I expect to be in New Hampshire on the second of November," he said. Nov. 2 is the scheduled date for the consecration of Mr. Robinson, a divorced father of two who has lived with his male lover for more than a decade, as the new bishop of New Hampshire.
If you "treat and respect" your fellow primates in as shameful and disrespectful a manner as you did last October, why should any other Anglican bishop anywhere care even a little bit about your diocesan boundaries? After all, there are Christians in southern California Episcopal parishes who desire godly, Christian leadership and isn't it the responsibility of men like Archbishop Orombi to provide it if they are asked to? Double J got another shot in:
Bruno, who today thanked the Presiding Bishop for his action, continues to emphasize the importance of reconciliation and the inclusion of all people across the church. "I hope that this situation is resolved through the openness and willingness of the people of St. James, Newport Beach; All Saints, Long Beach; and St. David's, North Hollywood, to return to the Episcopal Church," Bruno told the Episcopal News Service.
Interestingly enough, "the people of St. James, Newport Beach; All Saints, Long Beach; and St. David's, North Hollywood" all hope that "this situation is resolved through the openness and willingness" of J. Jon Bruno to return to the Christian religion.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 18 comments
8/26/2004 11:44:44 AM
MAIL CALL "Archbishop Orombi?"
"Yes?"
"You have a letter here from the United States."
"Who is it from?"
"Someone named Louie Crew."
"Name doesn't ring a bell."
"He seems to connected to something called the Episcopal Church of the United States of America."
"What's that?"
"Some kind of religious organization, I guess. What should I do with the letter?"
"Well, it's from the United States so I guess I'd better deal with it right away. Will you do me a favor?"
"Certainly."
"Take it outside and put it in the "to do" dumpster."
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 11 comments
8/25/2004 5:31:33 PM
DROPPING THE MASK In one of the most intemperate, vile pieces of liberal Anglican writing that I've ever seen, Lionel Deimel of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh writes Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno and reveals what he and his group really think of Episcopal conservatives:
News of recent developments involving St. James’, Newport Beach, and All Saints’, Long Beach, has been greeted by many of us here with distress, though not with surprise. After all, we are merely seeing the implementation of the strategy so chillingly laid out months ago for the American Anglican Council by Pittsburgh priest Geoff Chapman.
As I understood the famous strategy, the alleged design of the AAC was to replace the ECUSA with another orthodox Anglican body. So it's difficult to see how three churches placing themselves under Ugandan bishops advances this goal.
How strange that the Anglican Communion has been turned into the Wild West, where rustlers, with crosiers and miters, rather than lariats and horses, steal parishes from their erstwhile colleagues!
Good leftist that he is, Lionel has to work in the cowboy blast. Liberals hate cowboys; cowboys don't placidly take orders from their "betters." And it's an extremely interesting commentary. Deimel seems to believe that hordes of wild-eyed marauding Ugandan bishops invaded the Diocese of Los Angeles and forced these three congregations from J. Jon's loving embrace.
How ironic that, almost simultaneously with the defection of the Los Angeles parishes, the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDAP) should release publicly the testimony it recently offered to the Lambeth Commission, in which Hugo Blankenship could say: “We believe the Network is worthy of your trust and that of the whole Communion.”!
Nothing says live and let live and let's all get along like the implication of unproven goofball conspiracy theories.
With equal sincerity, Bishop Robert Duncan spoke of the Episcopal Church as the burning, fatally wounded, World Trade Center towers, neglecting to include, in his analogy, the role of himself and of his supporters in piloting the airplanes! I can only imagine how difficult it is to maintain episcopal collegiality at a time when an Episcopal bishop regularly makes such destructive statements.
That's it. I will no longer listen to any complaints from the Episcopal left about "extreme" or "hateful" conservative Anglican rhetoric. For no conservative Anglican has ever been as magisterially evil as Deimel is here. Conservative Episcopalians who wish to pull the ECUSA back to orthodox Christianity are to be compared to Islamic mass murderers. People whose theology differs from Lionel Deimel's are the same as Muslim extremists who murdered 3,000 innocent people. Thus the "moderation" of the Via Media.
I do not write to commiserate, however, but to congratulate you on your wise and timely pastoral letter, and to offer whatever tangible assistance Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) might be able to offer in the present circumstances. You have, I believe, labeled disloyalty, betrayal, and theological error for what they are, and, in so doing, you are helping to awaken and rally the majority of Episcopalians who have hitherto been ignorant of the threat to our church or who have mistakenly viewed that threat as insignificant. Your swift action to discipline the clergy involved and your resolution to protect the property that is our common heritage represents a turning point at which the Episcopal Church has now declared that it will not longer tolerate that which is intolerable.
Actually, the old fraud has it backwards. It was those three parishes that labeled J. Jon Bruno's disloyalty and betrayal of both the Scriptures and his ordination vows, along with his theological error, for what they are. Those three churches have declared that they "will not longer tolerate that which is intolerable."
PEP members feel a special sadness over these events because, as often seems to be the case, the breakaway parishes have multiple connections to our diocese and to organizations with which our bishop is associated: we have no doubt that the actions of the clergy of these parishes are part of the NACDAP strategy. In fact, beginning with the David Moyer incident two years ago, the transferring of clergy to dioceses outside the Episcopal Church to evade church canons seems to have become something of a Bishop Duncan specialty, and, judging by his Lambeth Commission testimony, a source of satisfaction for him. The diocese of Pittsburgh is indeed dominated by the so-called “orthodox.” Nonetheless, more than a quarter of the people of this diocese support the PEP vision of a united and tolerant church, and disapprove of the NACDAP and its actions.
Let's review, shall we? Mr. Lionel Deimel of the Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh claims, without any discernible evidence, that those three Los Angeles parishes broke away and aligned with Uganda as part of some devious Network strategy. He accused those three parishes(that Ugandan bishops "stole" from their colleagues) of "disloyalty, betrayal, and theological error." And he compared Bob Duncan and other conservative Episcopalians to mass murderers. But Lionel Deimel claims he wants a "united and tolerant" Episcopal Church.
Not interested. I would prefer to worship God by myself on a park bench, under a tree or in a bus stop shelter for the rest of my life rather than share, even in the most remote and theoretical way, a Christian denomination(or anything else) with Lionel Deimel and the Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 41 comments
8/24/2004 11:50:55 PM
MOM - Josh Claybourn lost his mother. You can send him a note here.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 2 comments
8/24/2004 8:49:00 PM
CANUTELING The National Council of Churches Nobody Goes To Anymore is going to visit the seashore with some other lefties and command the tide to stay out:
With repeated calls for urgent and immediate action, a broad coalition of close to 100 businesses, religious groups, unions, insurers, consumer organizations and provider groups, including the National Council of Churches USA, today called on our nation’s policymakers to dramatically overhaul the health care system.
The non-partisan National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC), representing the interests of 150 million Americans, released specifications for system-wide reforms to help frame a renewed national debate about the health care system. NCHC is calling for political leaders to act immediately and to persist regardless of who wins the Presidential election or has control of Congress following the November election.
Being left-wing means never having to propose anything practical, economically sound or even remotely doable:
The NCHC recommendations are outlined in the report, Building a Better Health Care System: Specifications for Reform. They call for
(1) requiring health care coverage for all Americans within two to three years after the enactment of legislation;
(2) bringing cost increases for health care in line with increases in other parts of the economy within five years;
(3) launching a nationwide effort to dramatically improve the quality, safety and value of care;
(4) making the financing of health care more equitable; and,
(5) simplifying and modernizing the administration of health care.
Another proposal asking political leaders to require the sun to stay above the horizon an additional four hours every day was still being discussed.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 35 comments
8/24/2004 8:16:40 PM
QUAGMIRE - Rand Simberg thinks the US should never have gone in.
Posted by Christopher S. Johnson - 1 comments