Slate Magazine has a discussion of a new book by Mark Regnerus. The book, Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers, is a sociological study of the ways that personal faith influences young people's choices regarding their choices to be sexually active or not.

The effect of faith is not nearly what parents hope it would be:

Teenagers who identify as 'evangelical' or 'born again' are highly likely to sound like the girl at the bar; 80 percent think sex should be saved for marriage. But thinking is not the same as doing. Evangelical teens are actually more likely to have lost their virginity than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. They tend to lose their virginity at a slightly younger age—16.3, compared with 16.7 for the other two faiths. And they are much more likely to have had three or more sexual partners by age 17: Regnerus reports that 13.7 percent of evangelicals have, compared with 8.9 percent for mainline Protestants.

The complex reasons behind this are discussed in the article. The good news is that the situation is not true for young people who are really committed to their faith rather than just self-identifying themselves as faithful.

Read the rest here.

For the past two weeks, I have been in regular phone and email conversation with several members of the House of Bishops. We began talking and writing because of our concern that the Archbishop of Canterbury has announced that our colleague and friend, the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, will not be receiving an invitation to the Lambeth 2008 Conference, which gathers together all the bishops of the Anglican Communion every ten years. We drafted a letter expressing our disappointment and concern. In that letter we also articulated our hope – that this season of confusion and distress, which has ‘threatened the bonds of affection’ in the Anglican Communion, might be resolved through thoughtful conversation and mutual respect. In a conference call this afternoon, we decided not to send out our letter. As Gene Robinson has told us, there is a lot of diplomacy going on between the Archbishop’s office and the American Church, which may – or may not, create a different ecclesiastical climate and result in invitations to all bishops in good standing in the Church (which certainly includes Bishop Robinson, who was duly elected, consented and consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal church). We also acknowledged to one another that there is great confusion in the wider church about our polity. Unlike most of the rest of the Anglican Communion, which appoints their bishops – we elect ours.  So we decided not to send out our letter – yet.  Ours was a decision of strategy. We want to wait a bit to see if the diplomacy will lead to a different, and more satisfying resolution. But as we debated issues of strategy, I could feel my commitment to radical hospitality deepen, and I could hear it in my colleagues. Jesus had a passion for radical welcome – and a disdain for those who were unwilling, or unable, to embrace it. Jesus’ invitation extends down through the centuries to include the rest of us. All of us. Welcome should beget welcome. We shouldn’t settle for anything less."

There's been a number of articles in the media this week talking about the apparent dichotomy between holding to the Christian faith and a scientific view of the Cosmos.

NPR had a story this morning about the Creation Museum's opening. Here's a bit from Salon.com's coverage.

At the ribbon cutting [for the museum], Ken Ham, the rugged-faced CEO and president of Answers in Genesis, the nonprofit ministry that built the museum, tells an enthusiastic crowd that the Creation Museum will undo the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tenn. "It was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America, and that was a downward turning point for Christendom," Ham says. "We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum. We are going to answer the questions Bryan wasn't prepared to, and show that belief in every word of the Bible can be defended by modern science."

The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.

People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

He attempts to distinguish between micro-evolution (trasformation within biological species) versus macro-evolution (transitions between species or leading to new species) as way of defusing the controversy.

Chuck Blanchard has a discussion of this entire controversy on his site.

As a resource, you might want to check of the work of the Episcopal Church's committee on Science, Faith and Techonology to find out something about how the Episcopal Church discusses this issue. And more specifically their Catechism of Creation.

"The Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops on June 1 released a study document aimed at helping the bishops respond to the requests made to them by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

...Theology Committee chair and Alabama Bishop Henry Parsley told Episcopal News Service that the report is meant for bishops to use in conversation with the people of their dioceses in the three and a half months between now and the mid-September meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans. Rather than call for responses from individual Episcopalians, Parsley said the committee will in late August and early September gather input from bishops on the result of their conversations in their dioceses.

He said the committee hopes that Episcopalians will 'read, mark, inwardly digest and then come talk' about the document with their bishop.

'Every diocese will have to do that in their own way,' he said. 'We didn't want it to be an individual thing. We wanted it to be a diocesan, corporate process overseen by the bishop.'"

This process seems to be in addition to the responses being collected by the Episcopal Church Executive Council which are due by June 4th.

Read the rest here, along with links to the documents: Episcopal Life Online - NEWS

Syndicated columnist Michael J. McManus seems to be a raving fan of Nigeria's CANA initiative, writing, among other things:

As Minns summed it up, "We are here to give people a freedom of choice." At present, CANA has 34 parishes and nearly 7,000 members, which is more than 40 Episcopal dioceses. About a third are ethnic Nigerian churches in America, a third are in Northern Virginia and the others scattered.

Bill Mehr responds to the entire column (available here) in the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star:

In "Missionaries to America?" Michael J. McManus asks, "Why would the United States need a missionary bishop?" The answer is: it doesn't. Mr. McManus claims outnumbered orthodox Episcopalians must reach out to Anglicans in the Global South for "safe haven." There's the flaw. They don't need to reach out for what they already possess.

According to historical Anglican tradition, the Episcopal Church, like America itself, welcomes diverse points of view within a broader set of canons. The problem for Mr. McManus' orthodox is that they constitute a minority that is frustrated they can't impose one viewpoint upon the entire church.

Their strategy is to claim a majority within an international Anglican Communion, but that association carries no binding authority over the Episcopal Church in America.

If individuals feel they want to attend a church with a narrower theological doctrine, they are free to exercise that choice. There are no provisions, however, for whole entities like dioceses or parishes to leave. There isn't a diocese or parish in the U.S. where everyone wants to secede.

What about freedom of choice for those who want to stay? That's the focus of the lawsuits.

The diocese is acting on behalf of loyal members who simply want to reclaim the space to worship in their own church and offer that blessing to their children.

My choice, like that of the majority of Episcopalians, is to remain a member of a denomination that provides safe haven for disagreement and that entertains diversity.

When the lawsuits are over, and the issue of property is cleared up, the Episcopal Church will stand as firmly as ever upon the principles on which it was founded, and will grow and flourish, once more, as a shining example of the freedom offered to all who follow Jesus Christ.

Found here.

From the Associated Press:

The personal faith of candidates has become a very public part of the 2008 presidential campaign. Seven years after George W. Bush won the presidency in part with a direct appeal to conservative religious voters _ he cited Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher during one debate _ it seems all the leading presidential candidates are discussing their religious and moral beliefs, even when they'd rather not.

Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have hired strategists to focus on reaching religious voters. Obama's campaign holds a weekly conference call with key supporters in early primary and caucus states whose role is to spread the candidate's message to religious leaders and opinionmakers and report their concerns to the campaign.

Meanwhile, Alan Cooperman of The Washington Post has noticed Barack Obama's new Web based religious outreach.

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who is running for the Republican nomination for President, wrote a column in The New York Times recently defending his views on evolution.

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

The Times published eight letters, in response, an unusually high number. Almost all of these took issue with Brownback's view of science, finding it insufficiently, um, scientific. Time magazine writer Michael Lemonick argues likewise.

No one seems interested in exploring the potential theological pitfalls of Brownback's view, so here is a question to get the conversation started: If God created the natural world, and science helps us understand it more completely, shouldn't religious people be its greatest proponents?

Should clergy live according to their means, just like the rest of us? Or do they have a special responsibility to live more simply, and to give more away? David Briggs of Religion News Service reports:

As the new bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for the Northeastern Ohio Synod, Eaton wants a house closer to her new office and to the church where her husband, the Rev. Conrad Selnick, serves as pastor.
...
And they want a home that makes the right impression for someone whose role is considered, in theological terms, as a servant of servants. Her lifestyle as the spiritual leader of a region that includes Cleveland, America's poorest big city, according to the Census Bureau, is part of the church's witness to the world, she said.

So Eaton doesn't expect to buy anything too lavish. She said her new house may not even be as big as her current four-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath home, valued at $140,000.

"I hope we don't get into conspicuous consumption," she said.

For clergy, choosing a residence can be an inexact balancing act between biblical and theological emphases on a simple lifestyle on the one hand and personal and practical considerations on the other.

"It doesn't do anyone any good to live in a shack," Eaton noted.
...
Cleveland's Catholic bishop, Richard Lennon, lives with four priests in a downtown rectory.

Episcopal Bishop Mark Hollingsworth Jr. owns a suburban home on 2.4 acres that he bought for $1.66 million in 2004.

Lennon said he tries to follow church teachings that encourage clerics "to set aside every appearance of vanity in their possessions." Hollingsworth said he wants a place where he can entertain and host events for the diocese.
...
When Hollingsworth was elected an Episcopal bishop in 2003, he, his wife and four children were offered housing by the diocese. Hollingsworth chose instead to buy a $1.66 million home with seven bedrooms, seven full and two partial bathrooms and five fireplaces across from a park in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The bishop bought the house with what he would only describe as his "personal resources." No church money was used, the diocese said.

"The elements that went into deciding where to live were primarily personal and had to do with finding a home for our young family that had access to schools and proximity to my office and also a place where we could offer hospitality to the diocese," he said.

Come Sunday, and one's thoughts turn to sex. At least if one has been reading the "Week in Review" section of The New York Times. "Lately," writes Randy Kennedy, "it seems that a slight virginal breeze has been blowing through the worlds of publishing, theater and Hollywood.'

Not a moment too soon, say those of us rasining children. While your reading Kennedy's essay, consider whether this observation doesn't speak in a broader way to some of the intellectual struggles currenlty undreway in the mainline Protestant churches.

The sociologist Alan Wolfe, who has conducted hundreds of interviews over the last two decades for books about the country’s beliefs and politics, said he saw a reflection in such works of the way people seem to struggle now for a greater sense of societal structure. “They do want to go back to a more conventional sexuality, morality, whatever,” said Mr. Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. “But they do not want to go back to an era of repression. So a kind of muddled, middle position is where it seems to me that most Americans are these days.”

The child-rearing world is profoundly ambivalent about male aggression. Should it be suppressed, cultivated, channeled? Which of these? Read Walter Kirn's insightful essay. Then discuss.

News of a tragic accident and a great loss to the Episcopal Church and for the Diocese of Northern Michigan:

"Bishop James Kelsey of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan was killed in a road accident at around 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 3, while returning to Marquette from a parish visitation, Jane Cisluycis, diocesan operations coordinator confirmed.

...'The Episcopal Church has today lost one of its bright lights,' Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said. 'We will be less without the easy grace of Bishop James Kelsey -- Jim to most of us -- and we shall miss his humor, insight, and passion for the ministry of all. He gave us much. We pray for the repose of his soul, and for his family. We pray also for the Diocese of Northern Michigan. All of us have lost a friend. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.'"

Read the rest here: Episcopal Life Online - NEWS

Coverage from The Mining Journal on Michigan's Upper Peninsula is here.

The bishop's daughter Lydia was to have been married this Saturday.

All of us here at Episcopal Cafe join others around the Church giving thanks for +Jim's life and praying for God' loving presence right now for the family he leaves behind.

EpiScope provides this biography courtesy of Nancy Davidge at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

James Arthur Kelsey
Biographical Information

Jim Kelsey was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1952 and attended schools in New York City and Burlington, Vermont. He graduated from Ithaca College in New York in 1974 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy. In 1977, he graduated from General Theological Seminary and was called to be Deanery Curate for four congregations in southwestern Vermont. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 1978, he was called to be the rector of Holy Trinity Church in Swanton and priest-in-charge of three missions which gradually evolved into an eight-point cluster over the next seven years. During his year at Holy Trinity his interest in collaborative ministry deepened. A non-hierarchical form of leadership emerged there which included a locally ordained priest and a team of persons who shared ministry support responsibilities. Holy Trinity was recognized by the national church as one of ten effective congregations highlighted in the publication Against All Odds, prepared for the 1982 General Convention.

In 1985 he was called by the Diocese of Oklahoma to help establish a diocesan-wide strategy for cluster ministries. His work there was focused especially with eight congregations in a six-county area in east-central Oklahoma. He began an extensive consulting role on collaborative ministry throughout the U.S. and Canada.

He was called to be the Ministry Development Coordinator in the Diocese of Northern Michigan in 1989, a position he held until his election as Bishop in 1999. Since coming to the diocese, over half of the diocese’s 27 congregations have embraced Mutual Ministry, as collaborative ministry is known in Northern Michigan. It is characterized by the commissioning of local Ministry Support Teams supported by seminary-trained regional missioners.

Interest in Mutual Ministry by other diocese in the U.S. and abroad led Northern Michigan in 1994 to begin offering Spring and Fall Visitors Weekends for a first-hand look at this model for ministry.

His consulting work during these years expanded overseas to include New Zealand and the United Kingdom and has touched over thirty-five diocese in the United States. He participated in a number of national and international networks and training programs including the Leadership Academy in New Directions (LAND), Sindicators, Synagogy, Coalition 14, Living Stones and an International Symposium on Local Collaborative Ministry.

Jim and Mary Kelsey were married in 1976 and have three adult children, Nathan, Lydia and Amos and a new puppy Juniper.

He cherished a radical notion of common ministry and refused the adulation bishops tend to attract. This meant that when he did speak with authority, people listened with unusual attention and respect.

Ann Fontaine, one of the contributors here at Episcopal Cafe has her own tribute posted on her blog.

"Jim was someone who radiated the love of God to all around him. He was quick to laugh at nonsense (of which there is a lot in the Episcopal Church) and to mourn the waste of time and talent when we get so involved in our own importance over others. Although a bishop - he only saw that as a role to support others, it was never his intrinsic identity. His baptism was the most important rite for him."

If you'd like to share a story about Bishop Jim, leave it as a comment, or send it to feedback@episcopalcafe.com

From the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan:

Friends- We will gather to celebrate the life of Jim Kelsey this Friday, June 8, in Marquette. Visitation will be at 9am to 1pm at St. Paul's Church, 201 East Ridge St. Memorial Eucharist will be at 4pm at St. Michael Roman Catholic Church, on the corner of College St. and Presque Isle Ave. Reception to follow at the church. Please help us share hospitality with one another by bringing a finger-food type dish to the reception. The family has requested that memorials be given to Page Center All media inquiries are being referred to the Episcopal News Service
Gloria Price, Office Administrator gloria (at) upepiscopal.org Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan 131 E Ridge Street Marquette MI 49855

The Rev. Dr. John Macquarrie, Episcopal priest and theologian, died May 28th from stomach cancer, according to an obituary published in today's New York Times.

He held several posts including professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford and canon of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and wrote over thirty books including "Principles of Christian Theology" (1966).

Dr. Macquarrie wrote that all language about God was symbolic and not to be taken literally. But it must be taken seriously. To him, what separated believers from nonbelievers was that believers had experienced the revelation that the creation and its existence are good.

“Faith’s name for reality is God,” Dr. Macquarrie wrote in “Paths in Spirituality.”

The Times of London wrote:

A gracious, generous man, he was a traditionalist and opposed to the ordination of women but was never, in any way, a campaigner. A pastoral man, in retirement he helped out at St Andrew’s, Headington, and more than once gave a course of lectures to the congregation, revealing his mastery of his subject in the clarity of his expositions of theology. Always proud of his Celtic origin, he had an open heart, which embraced people of all sorts.

Macquarrie's work influenced generations of Christians of every stripe and his influence is seen in a surprising spectrum of Episcopalians today. As we pray and give thanks for his ministry, some may wish to remember the ways his work touched our lives, thinking, preaching an spirituality in the comments below.

Who thinks up those goofy, pun-laden slogans seen on church marquees and sign boards, anyway? Are phrases like "seven days without prayer makes one weak" or "forbidden fruit creates many jams" the new hermenuetic of a drive-by world?

Slate magazine's Doree Shafir explores the background and development of church signs including an interesting slide show.

There is a web-site where you can create your own church signs. Someone took this and turned into a very funny Church Sign Smackdown.

Of course, there is money to be made. There are books to help busy pastors or sign committees with writers block keep their signs current.

Photographers Pam and Steve Paulsen created a book containing 300 images of church signs across the country "Church Signs Across America." An April 8, 2007 New York Times Book Review says they "have found and documented the uncommon poetry and sly wit used to rouse the flock, and the book is curiously inspirational."

Most of the slogans are decidedly clever — “Free Trip to Heaven, Details Inside,” at the Ascension Lutheran Church in Kansas City, Mo., appears on the cover, though that’s not even the best.

Here’s a sampling: “Rapture, the Only Way to Fly,” at the Venice Baptist Church in Los Angeles; “You’ve Seen the Movie, Now Come Read the Book,” at the Central Parkway Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla.; “The Easter Bunny Didn’t Rise From the Dead,” at the Cypress Lake Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Fla.; and “Swallow Your Pride. It Contains No Calories,” at the Bridgeton Bible Church in Bridgeton, Mo. But the hippest, at the Montgomery Place Church of God in Albuquerque, is “Jesus Is the Rock That Doesn’t Roll.”

Not all are this witty, but even the somber ones, like “Exposure to the Son May Prevent Burning,” “We Are Too Blessed to Be Depressed” and “Pray Until Something Happens,” provoke a smile. Nor must one be a true believer to savor them. The agnostic who merely appreciates the art of snappy advertising copy will know exactly how difficult it is to write something as effective as the motto for the Christian Assembly Ministries in Stewartsville, N.J.: “Give Your Troubles to God. He’s Up All Night Anyway.”

Curiously inspirational or not, the signs point to the challenge and pitfalls of making the gospel comprehensible.

From Episcopal Life Online:

Citing the need for immediate attention to serious issues of global warming, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will represent the National Council of Churches USA (NCC) at a June 7 Congressional hearing on global warming.

Jefferts Schori will testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at 10 a.m., Room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building. The committee will hear from several leaders of faith groups in "An Examination of the Views of Religious Organizations Regarding Global Warming."

The Presiding Bishop, who in 1983 earned her doctorate in oceanography, approaches the issue of climate change from both scientific and theological perspectives. Her testimony to the Senate Committee notes the specific effects of climate change on those living in poverty. Jefferts Schori regularly emphasizes care for the environment as part of the Millennium Development Goals, affirmed within the Episcopal Church's current top mission priority.

It's all here.

The hearing will be webcast HERE

Davis Mac-Iyalla launched the Chicago leg of his 20-city American speaking tour this weekend. In a feature, the Chicago Tribune provides good insight into the context of Mac-Iyalla's visit, recapping his comments from a Sunday talk at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park:

Many conservative Anglicans would agree with Nigerian lay minister Davis Mac-Iyalla that the summer of 2003—when the Episcopal Church approved the first openly gay bishop—left a gaping hole and wrenching pain in their hearts. But not for the same reasons.

For Mac-Iyalla, that summer was when the Anglican Church of Nigeria, in which he was born, baptized and became faithful turned its back on him because he is gay.

"God created me a gay man and put me in the womb of my mother. I was born into the church, baptized and sang in the choir," Mac-Iyalla told parishioners Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park. "Now, the church rises against me when I speak who I am. The church is supposed to be a house of joy, a house of peace. It has become a place of fire."

...

As the founder of Changing Attitudes Nigeria, part of a larger network that challenges the church's conservative stance, Mac-Iyalla adds a Nigerian point of view that so far has been silent.

...

"He's working for the split and disunity," Mac-Iyalla said, referring to Akinola. "I'm speaking for unity, oneness and equality."

The whole thing is here, including comments from Akin Tunde Popoola, Sandra McPhee and Josh Thomas.

The Mission of the Trinity
Singaporean theologian Simon Chan says 'missional theology' has not gone far enough.
Interview by Andy Crouch in Christianity Today

Simon Chan may be the world's most liturgically minded Pentecostal. The Earnest Lau professor of systematic theology at Trinity Theological College in Singapore is both a scholar of Pentecostalism and a leader in the Assemblies of God, but his recent books, Spiritual Theology and Liturgical Theology, engage with wider and older Christian traditions as well. Worship, Chan believes, is not just a function of the church, but the church's very reason for being. Our big question for 2007 focuses on global mission: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world? Christian Vision Project editorial director Andy Crouch interviewed Chan while Chan was a visiting scholar at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, to find out whether fully joining God's mission may require that we unlearn some of our assumptions about mission itself.

Interviewer: You have written a great deal about liturgical theology, but missional theology seems more popular these days.

Chan: I think that missional theology is a very positive development. But some missional theology has not gone far enough. It hasn't asked, What is the mission of the Trinity? And the answer to that question is communion. Ultimately, all things are to be brought back into communion with the triune God. Communion is the ultimate end, not mission.

If we see communion as central to the life of the church, we are going to have an important place for mission. And this is reflected in the ancient fourfold structure of worship: gathering, proclaiming the Word, celebrating the Eucharist, and going out into the world. The last, of course, is mission. But mission takes its place within a larger structure. It is this sense of communion that the evangelical world especially needs. Communion is not just introspection or fellowship among ourselves. It involves, ultimately, seeing God and seeing the heart of God as well, which is his love for the world.

In many services today, the dismissal into the world is quite perfunctory. But if you go to an Orthodox service, you'll be amazed at the elaborate way in which the end of the service is conducted. It's not just a word of dismissal—there are whole prayers and litanies that prepare us to go back out into the world.

Interviewer: If liturgical worship is such a good preparation for mission, why are Pentecostalism and evangelicalism, which hardly follow the ancient structure of worship, growing so fast?

Chan: In the modern age, the free churches are evangelistically successful, but in the broader history of mission that hasn't always been true. Europe was evangelized in the early centuries by missionaries who were certainly not free-church evangelicals. And think of the spread of the Orthodox Church from Russia to northern Africa.

In Singapore, we keep very close statistics about the growth of the Assemblies of God, which is currently the second-largest Protestant denomination in the country. We are good at evangelizing, bringing people in, but we have also noticed that many of those people that we have brought into our churches would over time go to more traditional churches and seeker-friendly megachurches. Our net growth isn't really that much, but in terms of bringing people in, yes, we have significant numbers of people being brought into the church for the first time. It may be that in God's providence he is using free churches, Pentecostals, and charismatics to reach out to the world, but I still believe that his aim is to embrace them all within the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

Read it all HERE

Drawing on experiences of reconciliation in his homeland, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, has added his voice to the call for justice and a lasting peace in the Holy Land, Episcopal News Service reports today.

"It is impossible to remember events of 40 years ago in the Holy Land, and reflect on all that has happened since, without being deeply moved at the scale of this human tragedy and the continuing heartbreak across the region," Ndungane said in a June 4 statement.

"Our God is also the God of hope -- so we dare to pray for a future where Jews, Muslims and Christians enjoy peace as brothers and sisters together, where occupation and oppression cease, where violence and fighting end, and where everyone can live without fear, in security, and experience the true freedom and abundant life for which we were each created," he added.

Ndungane has been one of the Anglican Communion's leading voices on issues of justice and reconciliation since he was elected to lead Southern Africa's Anglican Church in 1996.

"If we have learned anything at all from our experiences in South Africa, surely it is this: that the only lasting solution to any conflict must come through a process of reconciliation that paves the way for a future built upon justice, where former antagonists can find true freedom, peace and prosperity together, and where each is served by, and therefore promotes, the flourishing of the other."

From the Democrats, we have:

" Sen. Clinton: Faith got me through marital strife"

... which also contains segments on Barack Obama and John Edwards, including video clips of all three. Clinton provides a rare glimpse into her marriage and how faith helped give her strength when it was strained; Obama talks about the problems in seeing the world through a dichotomous, good vs. evil lens; and Edwards points out that we—including he—are all sinners, and talked at length about his mission to end poverty. The forum, which aired on CNN, was sponsored by Sojourner's/Call to Renewal and moderated by Jim Wallis.

On the other hand, "Debate evolves into religious discussion," also from CNN (and clever puns on creationism aside), takes a look at some faith-related highlights in last night's Republican debate. Among them, Mike Huckabee "offered a spirited defense of the biblical creation narrative"; John McCain, having previously indicated that he "believed in" evolution, also agreed with Huckabee's view; and Sam Brownback made a case for uniting faith and reason.

Additional coverage:

New York Times: "Mrs. Clinton said she took her faith 'very seriously and very personally' but went on to say she came from a faith tradition, Methodism, that is 'perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faiths on their sleeves.' She admitted that talking about her faith in public 'doesn’t come naturally to me,' saying she often flashed back to 'the Pharisees and all of the Sunday school lessons and readings I had as a child.'"

AP: "Edwards, wearing a purple tie to match Sojourners' signature color, promoted himself as the candidate most committed to the group's mission of fighting poverty. He said he doesn't feel his belief in evolution is inconsistent with his belief in Christ and he doesn't personally feel gays should be married, although as president he wouldn't impose his belief system on the rest of the country."

Thomas J. Reese, writing on the Washington Post/Newsweek blog "On Faith," writes: "At the presidential candidates forum on religion, values and poverty, Democrats decided that it was time to show America that Democrats can be good Christians, inspired by Christian values, but not willing to impose their faith on others. The candidates showed themselves to be tempered, moderate and ecumenical. ... Many of the questions from the moderator were personal and obnoxiously intrusive. 'What was the greatest sin you ever committed?' 'Did your faith help you deal with your husband’s infidelity?' This has nothing to do with the intersection of faith and politics."

"On Faith" also continues the conversation with additional columns and comments here.

Forward in Faith UK has made its submission to the Women Bishops Legislative Drafting Group of the Church of England General Synod. For some reason, FiF abbreviates the name of the group to the Legislative Drafting Group. The charge to the group is "(i) preparing the draft measure and amending canon necessary to remove the legal obstacles to the consecration of women to the office of bishop; (ii) preparing a draft of possible additional legal provision consistent with Canon A4 to establish arrangements that would seek to maintain the highest possible degree of communion with those conscientiously unable to receive the ministry of women bishops; (iii) submitting the results of its work to the House of Bishops for consideration and submission to Synod;

Some selections from FiF's submission:

Forward in Faith was founded in November, 1992, in the wake of the decision that month by the General Synod to proceed to the ordination of women to the priesthood. Our opposition to the ordination of women as priests or bishops remains as firmly and utterly rooted in theology today as it was in 1992, as we have set out in detail on numerous occasions....
...
Our proposals for a new province were designed to permit all in the Church of England to flourish, and represent the only solution thus far suggested which would enable women bishops to exercise their ministry without hindrance in their own dioceses, thus fulfilling the aspiration lying behind Canon Jane Sinclair’s amendment to the motion passed by General Synod on 10 July, 2006.
...
In particular, we would ask the Group to note the following key features of the solution which we proposed [in 2004]:
• a province which would be an integral part of the Church of England
• a province which would provide a stable and secure solution to the problem
• a province the bishops of which would have ordinary jurisdiction
• a province the boundaries of which would be entirely permeable
• a province in which only male priests and bishops would minister sacramentally
• a province in which orders would derive from the historic episcopate as traditionally understood
• a province which would thus provide the necessary sacramental assurance
• a province which would enable renewal in mission and evangelism
• a province which would bring peace to the Church of England

In their submission (pdf) the group Women and the Church notes, "We would draw to the Group’s attention that never before in the history of our Church has a diversity of views on any subject been responded to by the creation of an alternative episcopal structure."

The Guilford Group report of January 2006 listed disadvantages of a free province including:

• It could represent a major schism within the Church of England, with less possibility of the two sides growing together, potentially allowing for the possibility of the new Province declaring itself out of communion with the Provinces of Canterbury and York;
• It would to all intents and purposes amount to a competing provincial jurisdiction which has so far run counter to Lambeth Conference Resolutions;
• It would be fundamentally unhealthy to establish a province solely on the grounds of opposition to women bishops;
• There would be a risk of it becoming another ‘continuing Anglican Church’.

The General Synod next meets July 6-10.

In a recent comment on a posting here on evolution Tobias Haller wrote:

When "religion" is only around to plug the gaps in understanding the world, and science comes along and plugs those gaps more effectively and persuasively, religion will feel assaulted. That is why a faith that is based more on a Who than a Why or How is more lively, and surely at the root of Christianity we have a grasp on Who we worship. In the long run, this Who is at the base of everything, not just the gaps.

There are dozens of consequences that follow from our choice between Biblical Anglican Christianity and Modernism. Let me just mention two.

If you opt for Modernism, you give up hope. The "god" of Modernism is simply the "force" that's spinning a sick system. Even a nine-second appraisal of human behavior immediately reminds us that we're in big trouble. And even in American suburbia (gasp) there are intractable problems that don't go away when you throw money at them or go serve at the soup kitchen. Drugs, teen suicide…you fill in the blanks. The Modernist "god" offers absolutely no hope, no intervention from outside, no autonomous burst of healing energy. Because the Modernist "god" is finally simply our experience - in other words, Us.

If you opt for Modernism, likewise, you give up reason. Let me say that again…if you opt for Modernism, you give up any hope of rationality or accurate knowledge. If "mind" is not a gift from God - a possibility that Modernism categorically excludes - then "mind" is simply a random product of genetic inheritance plus accidental environmental stimuli. Therefore a thought in my head is as likely to have been caused by some ancestral experience on the African savannah as it has of portraying the tree I'm looking at right now.

All of which is to say that Biblical Anglican theology is Christianity, and Modernism isn't.

Hearts were aflutter in the Anglican blogscape on Sunday when The Telegraph ran a story headlined "Church to impose ‘rule book’ of beliefs." Here at The Lead the newsteam consulted and concluded the breathlessly told story just didn't add up so we held off passing it on.

Thinking Anglicans did too, but now has something concrete to say:

Here’s what is actually happening, based closely on the so-called “bishops’ paper” to which the Sunday Telegraph refers.

The House of Bishops met at Market Bosworth in May. At that meeting they were asked to agree to a process for the Church of England to respond to the request made for all provinces of the Anglican Communion to comment by the end of 2007 on The Proposal for an Anglican Covenant.

This is only the first stage in quite a protracted process, involving the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the subsequent meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council and the subsequent submission of a final Covenant text to all Anglican provinces for synodical approval.

The UK papers seem to have a penchant for jumping the gun. The Times has pulled a story it just posted today underline byline of (drumroll) Ruth Gledhill.

From north of the border comes this story:

Parishioners at the Holy Cross Catholic Church have twice received notes in their weekly newsletter promoting more conservative clothing for Sunday Mass. The note, titled "Dressing for Church," asks women to "dress in a 'modest' way -- a way that does not draw undue attention to your beauty or physique, so that you will not be upstaging God, who gave you these gifts."

"When we get distracted by the female figure, we're going to be less likely to be praying than noticing who's sitting nearby," Father William Swift, the church's pastor, said yesterday in an interview.

Fr. Swift said strapless dresses, tight shirts, short skirts and "dresses that expose too much skin" were in question, but added he thought people should come to their own conclusions about what is appropriate and what is not.

"Mostly, clothes designed to draw attention to oneself," he said. "In church, to be modest means to give way to another point of view, without being centre stage."
...
St. Paul used to request women cover their heads in church in order to avoid distraction, Fr. Swift said.

"The only way women were to draw attention to themselves in biblical times was to show off their hair because their dress was modest. So St. Paul cut them off at the pass there," he said.

Not surprising, we have the Mad Priest to thank for this pointer.

Thursday morning, June 7, the Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, will testify before the United States Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee on the urgent need for legislation to address Global Warming.
According to the Episcopal Church Public Policy Network, the hearing will be on-line via a Live Webcast tomorrow, June 7, 2007 at 10 a.m. ET.

To View the Hearing CLICK HERE and look for the red "Live Hearing" button on the front page at the time of the hearing.
You will need "Real Player" to view the hearing - it can be downloaded for free here

More information on the Episcopal Public Policy Network HERE

UPDATE: News report from Hearing HERE

Testimony from the Presiding Bishop HERE

"Rogers predicts that 'a major division of the Anglican Communion is more likely' than the Episcopal Church being 'disciplined' or expelled from the Communion. He believes the shape of the schism will mean that evangelical Anglicans in Africa and the West will go their own way, while other provinces remain in communion with the Episcopal Church and England.

Moreover, he believes that the departure of the evangelical coalition will mean that the Episcopal Church will in fact maintain its position and standing within the Communion. Finally, he predicts that those who wish to separate from the Episcopal Church will have to forfeit the properties they are trying to purloin from the Episcopal Church. (Notably, the Anglican Mission in America has lost its flagship court case on this issue.)"

"The invitation list for the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops is not complete, according to Canon James Rosenthal, communications director for the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), who said it is possible more invitations will be extended in the coming months," writes George Conger in The Living Church

Invitations were sent May 22. The initial invitation list was compiled based on past precedent and the recommendations of the Windsor Report, according to Canon Rosenthal and other aides to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who spoke with The Living Church.

Bishops who have not received invitations included those whose consecrations are valid but whose jurisdictions are anomalous, bishops not engaged in stipendiary episcopal ministry, and a handful of bishops whose manner of life or public actions are cause for concern. Invitation also were not extended to retired but semi-active bishops known as “assisting bishops” in The Episcopal Church or “honorary assistant bishops” in the Church of England.

Some previous Lambeth Conferences included bishops holding administrative positions within their national churches, but no such invitations have yet been extended for 2008. Episcopal bishops in this group include the Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, the Presiding Bishop’s deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations; the Rt. Rev. F. Clayton Matthews, director of the Office of Pastoral Development at The Episcopal Church Center; and the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. All three are actively engaged in stipendiary church ministry and are active members of the House of Bishops, but are not directly engaged in “episcopal ministry,” the ACC said.

Read it all HERE

When the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church convenes June 11-14 in Parsippany, New Jersey, its members will spend time reflecting on the past, present and future shape of the Church and of the Anglican Communion, as well as considering issues of ministry and governance according to Mary Frances Schjonberg of the Episcopal News Service.

"The Church's governing body between General Conventions will, as part of its agenda, look to the past to hear a report about the effort to gather information about how the Episcopal Church may have benefited from slavery.

The Council will look to the present and the future as it discusses how the Church might reach out to Episcopalians in a small number of dioceses and parishes where the leadership is disaffected with the wider Church.

Council will consider a report and resolutions in response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; get a summary of responses to its invitation for Episcopalians to discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant; and will hear about the experience of one gay Anglican in Nigeria.

"I am sure that a number of international concerns will be the subject of our conversation and deliberation," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. "Among them, Anglican Communion issues, of mission including the Towards Effective Anglican Mission meeting and matters of peace and justice such as our Millennium Development Goal efforts. We'll talk about how we can grow our partnerships around the Communion; as well as relationships with our covenant partners such as Brazil, Mexico and Philippines.

"The current conflict around the draft Anglican Covenant and the process for its consideration, as well as the Lambeth Conference and the House of Bishops' response to the Primates' Communiqué, will be discussed. We will also include in that discussion the conflict caused by incursion into the Episcopal Church from other members of the Anglican Communion."

"We will consider domestic issues including the federal Farm Bill and our concern about domestic poverty, as well as matters of internal governance," she continued."

The lesbian and gay members of Executive Council will meet with Bonnie Anderson and other members of the Communiqué response committee on Sunday evening.

Read it all HERE with links to more information.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in an interview to be published on Friday, in Time says he is not optimistic about the future of the Anglican Church but adds that a schism over gay issues is not inevitable, reports Michael Conlon, Religion Writer for Reuters.

The state of the 77-million-member global church "feels very vulnerable. I can't, of course, deny that. It feels very vulnerable and very fragile, perhaps more so than it's been for a very long time," Williams told Time Magazine.
"I don't think schism is inevitable. The task I've got is to try and maintain as long as possible the space in which people can have constructive disagreements, learn from each other, and try and hold that within an agreed framework of discipline and practice." Asked if was optimistic, Williams said "I'm hopeful. Not optimistic," agreeing that "hopeful" was a "safer" word.

Later in the interview Archbishop Williams explains his thinking on which bishops to invite to the Lambeth Conference and why he left Bishop Robinson and Bishop Minns off the list,

"In the Time interview Williams said he did that to avoid the two bishops becoming the focus of the 2008 meeting. "The mode of their appointment in the face of substantial protest simply means their bishoping is going to be under question in large parts of the Anglican world," he said "Regarding Robinson, one thing I've tried to make clear is that my worry about his election was that the Episcopal Church hadn't made a general principled decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or the ordination of people in public same-sex partnerships," he said. "I would think it better had the church actually taken a view on that before moving to the individual case. As it is, someone living in a relationship not theologically officially approved by the church is elected to a bishop. I find that bizarre and puzzling," Williams said.

Read it all HERE

UPDATE: Time podcast of interview HERE

Time article HERE

Interview printed HERE