The Rev. Dr. Epraim Radner has resigned from the Anglican Communion Network. He issued his statement of resignation on the Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. website. He writes, in part:

Bishop Duncan has now declared the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference -- two of the four Instruments of Communion within our tradition - to be "lost". ... the declaration in effect cancels out the other two Instruments of Communion that also uphold our common Anglican life - the Primates' Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. It is the entire Anglican Communion, therefore, that Bp. Duncan is declaring to be "lost". The judgment is far too sweeping.

Read it all here.

Bp. Duncan has, in the end, decided to start a new church.

Bishop Duncan expressed his disappointment that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not supported Network members in ways that he and other Network leaders had hoped.

“Never, ever has he spoken publicly in defense of the orthodox in the United States,” Bishop Duncan said of the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, adding that “the cost is his office.

“To lose that historic office is a cost of such magnitude that God must be doing a new thing,” he said.

A reporter for The Living Church asked Bishop Duncan to expand on his remarks about the cost of the archbishop’s office. “I was actually expanding on a remark that the Archbishop of Sydney made during a breakfast I had with him two weeks ago,” Bishop Duncan said, explaining that both the See of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference have been lost as instruments of communion.

“The fact is that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not led in a way that might have saved his office and might have saved Lambeth,” Bishop Duncan said.
...
Asked if he thought that being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury was essential to being Anglican, Bishop Duncan said that being obedient to scripture is of greater importance than being recognized by Canterbury.

An Anglican Communion without Canterbury has recently been discussed by Archbishops Akinola and Orombi.

UPDATE. Radner has more to say here (scroll to comment #188). Some extracts:

It simply made no sense – logically, theologically, and morally— for a member of the Covenant Design Group like myself to remain a member of an organization that has, through its chief leader and spokesperson, repudiated the very basis for the work I accepted and accepted willingly and under the Lord.
...
I have come to the conclusion that unity among conservatives has not in fact been a goal for many, and that to pretend otherwise is confusing matters gravely; it should be, of course, but until there is greater honesty, it will not be. The unity of the Communion is under such serious threat, and is of such a value, that allowing words, actions, and strategies that are undermining our future go unquestioned, immediately and forcefully, is a dereliction of Christian responsibility.

Monday he was praised as a "great leader" by The Right Rev. Bob Duncan, Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network. Tuesday an Ecclesiastical Court in the Diocese of Colorado met for an evidentiary hearing regarding allegations of financial misconduct against him. The Rev. Don Armstrong chose not to attend the hearing. He left the Episcopal Church with a portion of his congregation and joined with CANA in March. The Grace and St. Stephens property remains occupied by Armstrong and his followers.

As reported by The Denver Post,

The Episcopal diocese's five-member court, led by the Rev. Peter Munson, ruled that it still has authority over Armstrong because he has made no formal renunciation of his Episcopal priesthood. Church attorneys have asked that the court remove Armstrong from his office and order him to pay restitution of more than $610,000.
...
The court will probably issue a written decision late this week, diocese spokeswoman Beckett Stokes said.

The diocese is seeking to resolve the matter internally before considering civil or criminal action, Stokes said.

Armstrong faces five counts related to financial wrongdoings, including fraud and tax evasion, over a 10-year period beginning in 1997.

The five members of the court (3 clergy, 2 lay) are elected at Diocesan Convention and operate independently of the Bishop of Colorado.

According to the Rocky Mountain News,

The whistle-blower who entangled the Rev. Don Armstrong in allegations of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in church money was the parish bookkeeper, an attorney said Tuesday.
...
Hopkins, bookkeeper from 1997 to 2001, said in a written statement that Armstrong instructed that his two children's educational expenses be paid with money from the funds and trust. Armstrong has said those expenses were OK'd by church authorities.

According to the diocese's Motion for Summary Judgment, Armstrong gave detailed instructions on how payments and money transfers were to be posted in the church's books, and no one but Armstrong was allowed to open incoming mail. Armstrong would prepare the financial reports for the vestry and these did not correspond to the bookkeeper's data. He did not explain to the bookkeeper how arrived at his numbers.

More from the Colorado Springs Gazette:

What the pastor missed was the testimony of two witnesses, one of whom spelled out how Armstrong diverted money from parish accounts to pay for the college education of his son and daughter, as well as for things such as cell phones and car repairs. The other witness testified that a trust fund from which Armstrong took the college money could not legally have been used for such a purpose.

Hal Haddon and Ty Gee, serving as attorneys for the standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, asked the court to recommend the maximum sentence and revoke Armstrong’s standing as an ordained Episcopal minister.
...
Haddon said he believes the IRS has opened a criminal investigation into the matter. An IRS spokeswoman said that she could not comment, and Armstrong spokesman Alan Crippen said that no one from the federal agency had contacted Armstrong.

Haddon then played the video deposition of Karl Ross, a Colorado Springs attorney who set up the Bowton Trust and has served since its inception on the board that distributes the scholarship money. Trust bylaws strictly forbid the money from going to anyone, such as Armstrong’s kids, who are studying subjects outside the ministry, and they also forbid the church from using the money at its whim without approval of the trust board, as it appears to have done, Ross said.

The Right Rev. Kirk Stevan Smith of Arizona reports on his experiences this past week at the conference of American and African bishops sponsored by Trinity Church, Wall Street:

Unlike most conferences, there was no communique or statemant issued at the end of this gathering. That is because we did not come together to solve the problems of the Anglican Communion, but simply to get to know one another better.
...
One thing became especially clear to me. Our African brothers and sisters want us to come and see them! When I suggested in one meeting that the money spent on plane tickets might be better spent on funding various projects, I was quickly reminded that 'God created people before God created money!"

And here is video of Bishop Smith from Spain.

Update: In the latest e-Communique from the Diocese of Virginia, Bishop Lee writes of the Spain conference,

[It] enabled mission partners to talk about what we can learn from the dynamism of the African Church and what we can give to strengthen the Church in its mission. Our partner, the Rt. Rev. Daniel Deng Bul, the Bishop of the Diocese of Renk in the Sudan, was there and we talked about our longstanding partnership and how to strengthen it.

The Federal Trade Commission has recently completed a study of the practice of using credit ratings to price auto insurance, a practice several states forbid because blacks and Hispanics as a group tend to have poorer credit records.

Marginal Revolution points out

(1) the FTC finds credit records are very good at predicting accident risk implying that good black and Hispanic drivers pay higher rates in states that prohibit the use of credit risk;

(2) when the price of insurance increases for good drivers in these states, good drivers may quit buying insurance, pushing up the price of insurance for bad drivers to the price they would have paid without the prohibition.

Good intentions do not necessarily make for good public policy.

Tobias Haller offers his usual erudite and cogent analysis of where the Anglican right seems to be heading. About the immediate future of the Anglican Communion he concludes:

Some who have been part of this Anglican Communion until now have already made it clear they see a different future for themselves. As they are not forsaking Christ, but only this fellowship, I can wish them Godspeed. They are not lost; merely detached. Time will tell if these branches will be grafted onto other stocks, gathered into a bundle, or planted separately, where they may thrive — or not. They may eventually be grafted back to the stock that gave them life.

But notice too an earlier point that he makes:

It also strikes me that we are seeing, in the development of the Network, the final collapse of a geographical rootedness to the church. We are entering the world of the virtual church, the Church of the Five Faves, the church not of geographical and terrestrial space, but of affinity: Ecclesiastical MySpace.

Sometimes in the midst of a controversy, a social trend emerges, that, in itself, has nothing to do with the controversy. This is a case in point. While words like globalization and decentralization are tossed around in self-justifying fashion by Peter Akinola, Martyn Minns and their claque, who believed they are authorized to claim the property of other churches, the deeper story is that some scholars believe the West is heading toward a post-denominational and perhaps post-congregational Christian future in which people are able to find the ingredients for a spiritual life on the internet, and then mix them into recipes of their own devising in their own homes, or with small groups of friends.

This is a more threatening development to the way most Western churches conceive of themselves than anything the Akinolists can muster.

The opening prayer at the U.S. Senate usually doesn't generate a lot of controversy. But on July 12, 2007, when chaplain Rajan Zed of Reno, Nev., became the first Hindu to deliver an opening prayer in the U.S. Senate, he was interrupted by Christian protesters. There's a video clip here that, when it surfaced on the blogosphere, generated an outpouring of commentary.

Zed has responded in the Newsweek/WashingtonPost blogzine On Faith. He writes:

Many of us won’t accept it, but religion is a complex component of our lives and it encompasses much more than our own particular tradition or personal experience. We all must take religion very seriously as it is the most powerful force. The challenge today is to seek unity that celebrates diversity.

Bhagavad-Gita, one of the ancient Hindu scriptures, says: “In whatever way and path, humans worship Me, in that same path do I (meet) and fulfill their aspirations and grace them. It is always My Path that humans follow in all their different paths and journeys, on all sides.” It further says, “Whatever form (of the Divine) any devotee with faith wishes to worship, I make that faith of his steady.”

All of us are looking for the truth. Dialogue brings us mutual enrichment. We may learn from each other as we are headed in the same direction. We should at least cooperate in the common causes of peace, human development, love, and respect for others.

There is a hymn in Guru Granth Sahib, sacred Sikh scripture:

"The world is burning in the fire of passion
Save it, O Lord, by Thy grace;
Save it the way Thou consider best."

Read the whole thing here.

Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia has removed 21 clergy from the Episcopal priesthood. These clergy members had been inhibited in January after the diocesan Standing
Committee determined that they had abandoned the Communion of The Episcopal Church, according to a release from the diocese:

The possibility of such a determination was explained by the Bishop in a December 1, 2006 letter to the clergy and leadership of the now-former Episcopal congregations. By this action, the former Episcopal clergy are "released from the obligations of Priest or Deacon and ... deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority conferred in Ordination."

Of the clergy members originally inhibited, one chose to retract his association with anything but the Episcopal Church:

The Rev. Nicholas Lubelfeld "has declared his loyalty to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church" wrote Bishop Lee in the notice lifting Mr. Lubelfeld's inhibition. Mr. Lubelfeld has accepted a call to serve as priest associate of Church of Our Redeemer in Aldie, Va., serving under the supervision of the Rev. John Sheehan, rector of that church.

In making his retraction, Mr. Lubelfeld sent a letter to Bishop Lee dated June 30 in which he states his "intention to remain a member of The Episcopal Church and of the clergy of The Diocese of Virginia." In that letter he also states, "I did not and do not intend to renounce or be disloyal to the doctrine, discipline or worship of Christ as The Episcopal Church has received them." He further states "I have not sought or received admission into any religious body not in communion with The Episcopal Church, or in any way severed my ties with The Episcopal Church."

Bishop Gene Robinson has publicly endorsed Barack Obama, according to published accounts of a telephone press conference today. On the one hand, Robinson is in the spotlight as a "civil rights leader," but two cautions spring to mind, both issued by the Interfaith Alliance soon after the report of Robinson's endorsement emerged.

While not listed on the barackobama.com website, the release is at Campaigns and Elections here.

Robinson said he believes that Obama’s faith and background as a community organizer and civil rights lawyer make him uniquely qualified to advance our government’s commitment to equality and compassion for those “for whom America is not working so well.”

“As my work shows me every day, leadership means bringing people together and inspiring them to live out their values,” Bishop Robinson said. “Barack Obama sees beyond the partisanship and hopelessness that have dominated in recent years, and the movement he’s building is bringing vital new energy and optimism into our democratic process. I’m excited to work with Barack to bridge the old divides and make this country one again.”

The release notes that Robinson has never publicly endorsed a candidate for office before, which leads to a question of how appropriate it is for him to do so. In a statement released by the Interfaith Alliance, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy notes that the waters are muddy, not only because mixing faith and politics so directly can jeopardize a religious organization's protected tax status:

Today’s endorsement of Senator Barack Obama’s campaign for president by Bishop Gene Robinson is just the latest example of candidates misusing religious leaders for political gain. Over the last year we have seen many, if not all, of the presidential candidates set up websites promoting endorsements by religious leaders. While endorsements like today’s raise the possibility of legal action against religious leaders, our concerns are rooted more in the impact on the sanctity of religion and the integrity of government.

I encourage candidates to talk about the proper role of religion in public life, and I strongly defend the right of religious leaders to speak out about the important issues we are facing in the world today. However, when candidates turn religious leaders into political tools, they have crossed a line.

This is a dangerous road religious leaders are being led down. I caution them to be careful how far they go.

A short entry on the announcement at the New Hampshire Union Leader notes that a fuller story will run tomorrow.

It's not really news that godparenting has evolved into "a revered but blurry mix of religious and secular duty," but The Tennessean has devoted an extended feature to describing the history and current context of the tradition, which aligns closely with infant or child baptism and traces back to around the 8th century, when Catholic doctrine decreed that one's spiritual birth is distinct from one's physical birth.

What does a godparent do? In most cases, whatever they, and their godchild's parents, think best. The role may be centuries-old, but it's far from anachronistic. People customize everything from their rides to their ringtones to suit their tastes these days, and how they treat godparenting is no different, keeping the lifelong position going strong and its prospects healthy.

"It's this resilient, tenacious tradition that has lost its past," said Lisa Kimball, a lecturer with the University of Minnesota who studies godparenting. "It's lost its connection back to its history. What is its role today? People are inventing it."

...

People are fashioning it as a quilt of institutional knowledge, tradition and social expectation, Kimball said. The role has largely developed into one of companionship and mentoring, not always with a spiritual component.

The article features comments from several sets of godparents as well as a Catholic priest, and is available here.

The Episcopal Church Center, where the most of the national offices of the Episcopal Church reside is also the location of the Presiding Bishop's offices and the staff that reports to her. The Presiding Bishop has announced a reorganization of the program areas and working groups at the Church Center:

"Strategic groupings of advocacy, evangelism, leadership development, and partnerships -- together with a configuration of regional satellite offices to support strategic mission -- are central to a new organizational effectiveness plan to reshape ministries based at the Episcopal Church Center. A new 'diocesan services' unit, offering a comprehensive approach to local mission needs, is a highlight of the new plan initiated by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and drafted after five months of consultative work by two task forces.

'The new configuration will raise our level of service to the church,' Jefferts Schori said July 26 while commending the plan's outline to the Church Center management team. 'There is remarkable synchronicity in the development of this plan, and great potential for creativity and capacity building.'

Four newly identified 'work centers' -- Advocacy Center, Evangelism and Congregational Life Center, Mission Leadership Center, and Partnerships Center -- form the core of the new structure drafted by one of the task forces, the Working Group on Organizational Effectiveness."

This is one of those things that seems rather mundane at first glance, but could, if it proves to be as effective as is hoped, become a critical development in the way the Church Center serves the Episcopal Church's people during the new Presiding Bishop's administration.

Read the rest here.

Bishop Victoria Matthews, one of the leading Anglican Church of Canada bishops, has announced that she intends to resign from her position as Bishop of Edmonton this coming November.

She says of her plans:

Just as the Holy Spirit called me to Edmonton in 1997, so I believe God is now calling me in a different direction.  For over two years this has been present in my prayers and the time has come to say 'yes' to the prompting of the Spirit.  Most recently I have become convinced that I am meant to resign as your Bishop before knowing what comes next.  While this is a bit disconcerting, I am proceeding in obedience to what I believe is God's will.

Some will wonder if I have new health concerns, and others will ask if I am angry at the Anglican Church.  The answer to both questions is no.  I am well and I love our Church.  I am an Anglican and hope to always minister in accordance with the grace and mercy of Christ our Saviour.

Bishop Matthews was the runner-up in the recent election for the next Primate of Canada and was deeply involved in the committee that issued a report prior to the most recent national meeting of that Church which asked the Canadian Church to wait before moving forward on officially sanctioning same-sex blessing liturgies.

Read the rest here.

St. Gregory the Great told his missionary to the English people, St. Augustine of Canterbury, to "purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be taken over into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible." [1]

The Anglican Church in Jamaica is following in this tradition according to an article in the Jamaica Observer:

The Anglican church in Jamaica will include the lyrics of songs rendered by two of the country's most famed reggae artistes - Bob Marley and Peter Tosh - in the next publication of its church hymnal due by the end of the year.

Rector of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Rev Canon Ernle Gordon, made the announcement yesterday at the 2007 Michael Manley awards function for community self-reliance at the Little Theatre in Kingston.

Gordon, speaking with the Observer after the awards, said the songs will be Tosh's version of Psalm 27 and Marley's internationally acclaimed One Love, but he said the use of reggae rhythms in the Anglican Church was nothing new.'We've been having reggae and mento masses for 25 years,' he said, noting that One Love was used in an ordination service at the St Andrew Parish Church two years ago.

The reason behind incorporating what is generally referred to in Christendom as secular music into the church book of hymns, said Rev Gordon, was the need to establish a Caribbean interpretation of theology.

'I don't live in England; I live here, so my theology and how I think must reflect my cultural morals. The theology has to be Caribbean-oriented. You have to interpret the Bible according to where you are,' he said. 'The church in Jamaica is out of date,' he added.

At the same time, Gordon said the use of the reggae rhythms was not secular, since Anglican theology does not separate the sacred and the secular.

Read the rest here.

Read more »

Bishop Peter Lee of the Diocese of Virginia, acting in accordance with national and local diocesan canons deposed 21 priests of his diocese earlier this week. The 21 clergy are no longer recognized as being priests of the Diocese of Virginia, and thus by the Canons of the national Episcopal Church, as priests of the Episcopal Church.

In response, five bishops who are associated with the Anglican Communion Network in the United States have announced that they will not honor Bishop Lee's pronouncement of a "godly judgement". They claim that the deposed priests are still in good standing within the Anglican Communion and are free to function as priests in their respective dioceses.

Mark Harris, has an excellent analysis of the situation and notes, along with others, that this may well put the Anglican Communion into violation of the canons of the Episcopal Church:

"[The] five bishops are the core of the Network on its way to being a new church. They have already abandoned attentive engagement with the Canons of The Episcopal Church.

There are other signs of this abandonment: The Moderator stated in his address to the ACN Annual Meeting,

'The Network Bishops have agreed to take part in the upcoming meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Primates Steering Committee and Anglican Consultative Council. We do so, some of us at least, without any implied recognition of or submission to the American primate ...' 'Some at least,' and I would suggest it is the core five, do not recognize the American Primate. This, of course, also makes it clear that such distinctly canonical matters as the election of the Presiding Bishop are able to be dismissed as well.

Looking at the statement of the core five, One half of the Network Bishops have made it clear that they consider the Canons of the Church to be without merit, at least in this instance.

It is of some interest to note those absent from the list of bishops receiving the 21 priests: Bishops Stanton of Dallas, Bishop Howe of Central Florida, Bishop Steeson of Rio Grande, Bishop Love of Albany, and a bishop for South Carolina.

By the way, NO ONE is a 'priest in good standing of the Anglican Communion.' We are priests in good standing in our own churches (Provinces) and at the sufferance of other provinces may exercise ministry there, but we have no rights to do so."

The bishops of ACN are arguing that the priests in question's allegiance to "mainstream Anglicanism" means that there is no cause for this deposition. Bishop Lee is stating that their refusal to follow the "godly admonition of their bishop" is proper cause.

(Your "editor o' the day" makes the following observation: What is particularly interesting in all of this is the way people are making use of the argument that they are willing to abide to the rules of the Church in as much as those rules do not require them to do something they do not wish to do. You can see this happening in different instances on both sides of the debate. What hardly ever happens is that both sides are willing to acknowledge that they are behaving in ultimately the same way as their opposition. Or that their decision to make a decision based on their personal reading of a situation has major implications for our theological understanding of Church.)

Read the rest here.

Thinking Anglicans has a report of an article published in the Church of England Newspaper that claims there is evidence that Anglican Province of Nigeria is preparing to appoint a missionary bishop for Great Britain in a manner similar to the bishop appointed for CANA congregations here in North America. Quoting Religious Intelligence:

A new bishop to be appointed by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola could be consecrated before next year’s Lambeth Conference if plans succeed. A source describing himself as a ‘worker in the Nigerian diocese’ said he was aware of such plans and that such a person would be employed as a ‘mission co-ordinator’.

Rumours regarding the possibility of such a role have been circulating over the last few months but this is the first time it has been confirmed by a clergy member from Nigeria.

An additional rumor that is floating around, but which we here at The Lead have yet to find sourced so it may not be credible, is that the Rev. Canon Dr. Christopher Sugden is the likely candidate.

Read the rest here.

The Associated Press reports:

VATICAN CITY -- Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, the outspoken church leader who was killed in 1980 as he celebrated Mass, has become as polarizing in death as he was in life.

The campaign to make him a Roman Catholic saint appears to be languishing, as Vatican officials privately debate whether Romero was a martyr for the faith or for the political left.

The sensitivity of the issue was clear in remarks last May by Pope Benedict XVI, as he was flying to Brazil -- his first visit to Latin America as pontiff.

Benedict told reporters that "Romero as a person merits beatification," but Vatican officials removed that quote in an official transcript, keeping only the pope's general praise of the slain prelate as a "great witness to the faith."

Absent the influence of certain longtime friends of this blog (and they know who they are), it is unlikely we would have contemplated the theological significance of animals, largely because we are insufficiently fond of vegetables. But several regular readers have persuaded us to contemplate anew the relationship of humans to other creatures, and what our attitude toward helpless animals tells us about our attitude toward peole over whom we exercise power. In that spirit, we offer the press release hidden under the Read more tag. Click to see it all.

Read more »

"We have ... emerged from the Age of Inaction to the Age of Ineffective Action," writes William Easterly in his review of The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS, Helen Epstein's new book on AIDS in Africa.

In Africa, AIDS is now a multibillion-dollar industry, with the US President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM), the United Nations' AIDS consortium, UNAIDS, and major efforts by the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the Gates Foundation, and national aid agencies. Unfortunately, these well-meaning efforts are badly weakened by political agendas, misdirected priorities, ignorance, and plain incompetence.

To illustrate the role of political agendas, Epstein discusses the famous success story by which AIDS infection rates in Uganda decreased as a result of the ABC campaign—'Abstain, Be Faithful, and Use Condoms.' Epstein damns both the Western right and left for their misuse of the lessons of Uganda. The religious right played up the "Abstain" part because it happened to fit their particular moral preferences. People on the left, who had different sexual morals, said just use condoms. The 'Be Faithful' message, precisely the one in Epstein's story that was critical in Uganda (led by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who called for "Zero Grazing"), was a political orphan, disdained by both left and right.

The Very Rev. Mark Lawrence was re-elected as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina August 4 at a special electing convention held at St. James Church on St. James Island, South Carolina. Lawrence was the only candidate in the election since no petitions to add other names to the slate were received by the July 11 deadline.

A majority of bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan Standing Committees must now consent to Lawrence's ordination as bishop within 120 days of receiving notice of the election.

Lawrence, 56, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bakersfield, California, in the Diocese of San Joaquin, was first elected September 16, 2006 to be South Carolina's 14th bishop.

On March 15, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori declared that election "null and void," saying that a number of the consent responses did not adhere to canonical requirements since Lawrence's election did not receive the consent of the majority of diocesan standing committees.

Episcopal Church canons, which govern the procedures for the election of bishops, call for consents to episcopal ordinations from standing committees to be "signed by a majority of all the members of the Committee. (III.11.4 (b))"

Further, the canon states (on pages 101-102) that standing committee members must sign in their own handwriting: "In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this (blank) day of (blank) in the year of our Lord (blank)."

Where the signature requirement had not been met by standing committees, the consent forms for Lawrence's election were rejected for not complying with that part of the canon.

Canonically adequate ballots were received by South Carolina from 50 diocesan standing committees of the 56 required. Several other standing committees were reported to have consented, but no signatures were attached to their ballots, or the ballot itself was missing from South Carolina's records, Jefferts Schori reported in March. Any committee that did not respond to the diocese's consent request is considered to have voted no.

Read it all.

Shirley Ragsdale, religion editor of the Des Moines Register, writes:

When it comes to the Republican presidential campaign, some conservative Christian voters say they ain't seen nothing yet.

That is, none of the top-tier GOP candidates is addressing the issues that these Iowans care passionately about, and few exhibit the moral values they want to see in the leader of the free world.

"Morality is the No. 1 issue with me," said Ken Rogers, 62, of Altoona, a member of Central Assembly of God Church in Des Moines. "If a person can't live by the Ten Commandments, how can he lead the nation?"

Evangelical Christians have traditionally been a strong factor in Iowa Republican politics. They were credited with helping to push President Bush to victory in Iowa in 2004.

Read it all.

Howie Aiden, an Anglican priest and airport chaplain at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam describes his airport ministry in the Times:

The work of an airport chaplain is a never-ending stream of intense personal encounters followed by silence, the void being filled with hopeful prayer that each individual will continue to find the help and support they need once they have moved on from here. Only twice in my time at Schiphol have those whom I have helped written or returned to let me know how they are doing.

Initially it surprised me how much death and bereavement are part of the chaplaincy’s work. Airports are not keen to advertise it, but there are a good number of passengers who die on inbound flights or at the terminal. Travel is stressful; heart problems are commonplace. Accidents and suicides, though not frequent, do occur. And on average two Dutch citizens a day die while abroad, their remains often being repatriated in the company of family or friends. At Schiphol the chaplains are authorised to take up to five meeters and greeters through the security checks to the arriving airplane, so that the bereaved can be met away from the busy arrivals hall.

There is a brighter side, too. Sunday services are an enjoyable mix of nations and denominations, the Church drawn together from the four corners of the Earth, only to be scattered again within hours. People who would otherwise never enter each other’s churches share the Peace, and mean it. They also learn that they can share space with people of other faiths, praying or worshipping as they do in the one interfaith meditation centre.

Read it all here.

I have noticed chapels at various airports across thw world, but have never met an airport chaplain. Have you?

Churches can be sizable institutions with serious administrative responsibilities. To what extent should the Church look to the secular business community for assistance? These are questions that are explored in a commentary by Tom Horwood in the Guardian.

Noting that the Catholic Church in England turned to an outside commission (the Cumberlege Commission) to advise it about how to prevent future child abuse by clergy in the future, Horwood notes that churches have much to learn about leadership and management:

At the same time, like the rest of the voluntary sector, churches are having to become more professional - from child protection to health and safety, financial accountability to data protection. This draws faith leaders out of their comfort zone because they have tended to rely on traditional models of hierarchy to govern their flocks. They were normally recruited on the basis on orthodoxy and conservatism, and received little training when they were promoted.

There is a resistance to this change, as the Cumberlege report notes. Some religious leaders would prefer to devote all their energies to spiritual and pastoral matters, despite being responsible for multimillion-pound charities and large workforces. There is a temptation to leave practical problems to others. Yet Cumberlege criticises this attitude because it fails to make vital issues such as child protection part of the mainstream life of the organisation. Faith leaders need to be, and be seen to be, in the driving seat if the necessary culture change is to happen.

To effect this change, other organisations can teach churches a thing or two. Secular management theory has been grappling with change management for the last decade, as companies and the public sector have increasingly valued the importance of persuading people to modify how they behave to improve the organisation, whether the motivation is profit or public service. This way of thinking is now commonplace and mainstream, but it has yet to make a significant impact in most faith communities.

Elements of what works in the secular working world can be consistent with the ethos of religion. Strategic management does not conflict with theology or doctrine. I and other writers, managers and pastors across the denominations have been suggesting ways of integrating good management practice with faith.

Those who argue that the two are irreconcilable could consider these words of the management author Charles Handy, written for a secular audience in language that could be as at home in the presbytery as the boardroom: "The leader's first job is to be missionary, to remind people what is special about them and their institutions; second it is to set up the infrastructure" to make things happen.

If faith leaders took to heart the lessons of other sectors, they would be better able to set strategies for what their communities would look like in the future. They would inspire people to bring about a shared vision, rather than responding defensively to crises. They could bring about the attitude changes the Cumberlege Commission believes are so necessary. They could find new ways of turning their faith communities into the beacons of hope and inspiration they aspire to be.

Read it all here.

When is it appropriate for the church to learn from the business community? Is there a danger that this can lead us to buy into the more materialistic aspects of our culture?

The Episcopal Church and the Canadian Anglican Church are not the only denominations that will confront the issue of same sex realtionships this year. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("ELCA"), the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States will next week at their biannual assembly in Chicago.

Front and center will be the issue of ordaining ministers in relationships with same sex partners. The current policy requires celibacy of its GLBT clergy, and the proposal would be to allow clergy to remain in good standing as long as they were in committed relationships:

Married ordained ministers are expected to live in fidelity to their spouses, giving expression to sexual intimacy within a marriage relationship that is mutual, chaste, and faithful. Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships.

According to Eillen Flynn of the Austin American Statesman, over 80 Lutheran ministers will come "out" on Tuesday in an effort to affect this debate:

Are you serious, I thought when I heard the voice mail. More than 80 Lutheran ministers will go public with their homosexual identity next week? Mind you, these clergy members serve a comparatively liberal branch of Lutheranism, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

But still, many of those coming out on Tuesday are in homosexual relationships, and the ELCA restricts ordination to heterosexuals who are faithful in marriage or celibate homosexuals. As it happens, the ELCA will be debating the issue of dropping the celibacy requirement for gay ministers at its biennial assembly next week in Chicago.

I got the phone message about next week’s press conference from a fellow with Lutherans Concerned/North America, a group that supports people of “all sexual orientations and gender identities.”

Now again, this is the liberal Lutheran denomination — not the Missouri Synod, which takes a much harsher stance on homosexuality. But still, the ELCA, like most mainline Protestant churches, does have a celibacy rule. And if church leaders don’t change that policy at this convention, aren’t these folks putting their collars on the line?

"The orthodox voice of the multitude is drowned out and ignored in Anderson’s analysis in favour of selective quotation from the fringe." So says the Rev. Arun Arora, director of communications for the Archbishop of York, in a cogent dissection of an essay by the Rev. David Anderson of the Church of Nigeria, recently published in the Church of England Newspaper. Arora notices in Anderson and others a "rush to say something (anything?) that will place TEC upon the top of a heretical bonfire."

Read it all.

The altar is a tray for serving breakfast in bed. The pews are large towels or striped beach chairs. And instead of doodling on the program, distracted children can play with a bucket or bury a parent’s feet in the sand.

On Saturdays in the summer, Trinity Church, an Episcopal congregation here, celebrates a beach Mass at 6 p.m., attracting up to 75 people — some passers-by from the Boardwalk, some regular parish members, and some visitors from Asbury Towers, a retirement housing complex that casts a welcome late-afternoon shadow on the sand.

Read it all in The New York Times. (Hat tip, Dan Webster.)

Mark Harris at Preludium reports:

Announcement has come that Bishop Azad Marshall was installed as sixth Bishop at St Paul's Church, Tehran on Sunday August 5. At least the following bishops and representatives of bishops from elsewhere in the communion were present for the service: Bishop Michael Nazir Ali of Rochester, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury , Archbishop John Chew (South East Asia), Bishop Suheil Dawani, Bishop of Jerusalem, Bishop Paul Butler of Southampton, Bishop Riah, former Bishop of Jerusalem,and a representative of the Bishop of Oxford.

Support and prayers are needed for this church as it ministers in Iran. The presence of bishops from around the world reveals that they are not alone even when feeling isolated. Harris reminds us that this is the heart of being in the Anglican Communion.

Read it all here

Click here for a photo from the installation.

Communique from the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East here

Beliefnet is exploring Barry Bonds' assault on Hank Aaron's home run record from a theological point of view. Today, Michael Kress, who says he finds himself "overcome by a deep sense of sadness and more than a little outrage when contemplating Bonds's achievement," weighs the issue of justice v. forgiveness and comes down on the side of justice.

Starting to inject oneself with performance-enhancing steroids so late in an already-amazing career strikes me as just craven, a self-loathing act of desperation, a statement that being great isn't good enough, that nothing less than the history books--nothing less than god-like perfection--will suffice. Bonds wasn't--isn't--some striving rookie, he was already an established star, a role model, a leader. He could have become one of baseball's elder statesman, retiring gracefully with one of the best careers ever. Instead he chose to artificially prolong it, making a mockery of the natural aging process and his God-given body, as well as his opponents and teammates, and the game itself.

David Kuo and Patton Dodd offer differing points of view.

Wendy Shalit has made a career as the sort of journalist whose trend stories fall apart on closer examination. But no matter, because by the time closer examination occurs, the stories have frequently started quite useful conversations. Her latest book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good, is a case in point. Unless one believes that the plural of anecdote is data, there is simply no evidence for a resurgence in modesty. But by the time a reader figures that out, he or she has skipped past the need for data, and leapt to the discussion of whether such a resurgence would be desireable. It is possible to regard Ms. Shalit simultaneously as a mediocre journalist and a useful contributor to contemporary conversation about morals.

The Washington Post's review of her book, and, to a lesser extent, her career, is here.

Today Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, sent this notice out to the clergy of the Diocese of Fort Worth:

BISHOP CLARENCE POPE telephoned me this morning to let me know that Martha and he have returned to membership in the Roman Catholic Church, in full communion with the See of Peter. We certainly wish them well and want to uphold them with our love and prayers at this important time in their pilgrimage. They both gave ten years of faithful service and witness here in the Diocese of Fort Worth, and we give thanks to God for their continuing friendship and ministry. Bishop Pope wanted to assure me that he remains very attached to us and that his affection for the people of this diocese remains unchanged. Do join me in thanking God for both of these faithful Christians and praying His continued blessing upon them in the years ahead.

Thanks to Katie Sherrod. Read all about the history of Clarence Pope and the Roman Catholic Church on her blog. One bit:

[In 1994] Pope was [first] received into the Roman church at St. Mary the Virgin Catholic Church, a parish whose priest and congregation had been part of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth until 1991, when they all became Catholics and their priest was re-ordained as a Roman priest. Pope –that is Bishop Pope -- allowed them to keep the church buildings.

Kirk and Leslie Steffensen just returned to the US after a two year mission in Tanzania. Kirk reflects on their return and the gifts to their family from being a missionary. From their homepage

While we were working in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika (DCT), we were lucky to work for the one Bishop in Tanzania that was willing to stand up against signing the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) letter cutting off ties with the Episcopal Church USA. Bishop Mhogolo gathered all of the DCT missionaries together to explain his position and told us that with all of the help that Africa needs, it is foolish to single out one organization for one sin. He said that no one in Africa asks the Red Cross, UNESCO, or the many governments that donate money if they have any homosexuals working on their staff. He also said that singling out homosexuality over adultery, greed ( i.e., corruption), and dependence on alcohol (all issues in Tanzania) was missing the point that we are all sinners and we are all forgiven.

Bishop Mhogolo emphasized that the important thing is developing partnerships. Our family helped DCT in many ways, through both of us teaching many students and my setting up two computer networks for two schools. But our family received many blessings in return. Our children learned life lessons that we could not have paid for at home. They are much more aware of the world around them, how lucky they were to be born into the situation they’re in, and how much other cultures have to offer to their understanding of life. (The kids couldn’t articulate that if you asked them, but you can see it in the ways that they’ve changed over the past year.)

Kirk concludes this entry:

And now that we’re back in the States, we will always have a piece of Africa and Tanzania in our hearts. We’re still unpacking our possessions, but after we finish with them, we’ll need to unpack our experiences and share them with our parish, our Diocese, and the other people that helped enable our mission journey. This lifelong partnership is one of the key points that Bishop Mhogolo makes when he talks about the ways missionaries help DCT. He says that we help in the ways that we can while we’re there, but that we help even more when we come home by spreading the message of partnership with Africa and by helping to recruit more missionaries and assistance, whether it is through active recruitment or by passive recruitment through witness of life in Africa.

Read all their family reflections here

The Rt. Rev. Jon Bruno, bishop of Los Angeles reports on his visit to the conference Way to Emmaus sponsored by Trinity Church, NYC. The focus on mission that unites us gave him new insight into the state of the Anglican Communion. In the Diocesan clergy newsletter, The Angelus, he offers his reflection on the event.

The current climate in the Anglican Episcopal family of churches is described by the internet blogs and some organizations' websites as anxious, tense and desperate. A 'reality check' opportunity in the last days of July found a considerably different encounter taking place, one drenched in the graceful spirit of mutual responsibility, happening in a monastery guest house in El Escorial Spain. Those present were from, of all places, the U.S.A. and Africa. Could it be happening? Yes, it happened, and thanks be to God, mission to a weary world was its focus.

He continues, "I felt so aware of those around me each day. Our small groups became more like prayer cells, not stranger, but pilgrims. They also became a safe place for honesty and clarity. This is so refreshing in this time in our history, when people who are being open are demonized. As Anglicans we claim John 8:32 as our motto, emblazoned on the Compass Rose, albeit in Greek; "The Truth Shall Make You Free!" Maybe we should have multi-language versions to help us own the message."

Read it all here, at Susan Russell's blog.

Other coverage on the conference at The Lead from Episcopal Cafe here and here