In the news this morning is an article reporting on actions of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities:

"Minnesota Presbyterians have voted to restore the ordination of an openly gay man who has refused to pledge celibacy, the latest test of revamped pastoral guidelines in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Paul Capetz, a seminary professor, asked to be removed from ministry in 2000 after the PCUSA voted to require that ministers be married to a member of the opposite sex or remain celibate.

But changes made in 2006 to the Presbyterians' Book of Order allow candidates for ordination to declare a conscientious objection to church rules. Local presbyteries, or governing bodies, then must decide whether the objection 'constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity.'

On Saturday (Jan. 26), the Presbytery of the Twin Cities voted that Capetz' objection, or 'scruple,' did not violate the 'essentials' and restored his ordination as a minister of word and sacrament.

...Capetz told the Minnesota presbytery that he would follow the pastoral guidelines on sex if the church allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry, saying 'if that were the case, I would have no difficulty abiding by the standard of chastity in singles and fidelity and marriage.'"

Read the rest here.

The NFL has moved this year to stop church congregations from showing the game in their sanctuaries. The Washington Post has an article that describes the effect the enforcement is having in local congregations.

From the article:

"The Super Bowl, the most secular of American holidays, has long been popular among churches. With parties, prayer and Christian DVDs replacing the occasionally racy halftime shows, churches use the event as a way to reach members, and potential new members, in a non-churchlike atmosphere.

'It takes people who are not coming frequently, or who have fallen away, and shows them that the church can still have some fun,' said the Rev. Thomas Omholt, senior pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in the District. Omholt has hosted a Super Bowl party for young adults in his home for 20 years. 'We can be a little less formal.'

The NFL said, however, that the copyright law on its games is long-standing and the language read at the end of each game is well known: 'This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited.'

The league bans public exhibitions of its games on TV sets or screens larger than 55 inches because smaller sets limit the audience size. The section of federal copyright law giving the NFL protection over the content of its programming exempts sports bars, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

[...]Large Super Bowl gatherings around big-screen sets outside of homes shrink TV ratings and can affect advertising revenue, McCarthy said. "We have no objection to churches and others hosting Super Bowl parties as long as they . . . show the game on a television of the type commonly used at home," he said. "It is a matter of copyright law."

The same policy applies to all NFL games and to movie theaters, large halls and other venues with big-screen TVs, he said."

Read the rest here.

Former President Jimmy Carter has enthusiastically embraced the goals of an upcoming "New Baptist Covenant" conference in Atlanta which has the goal of reconciling various branches of baptist congregations. The conference is intended to be a unified response to the removal from the Southern Baptist Convention of many of the groups over recent years.

According to the report:

"[Carter] believes it reflects a desire for unity across racial, theological and political lines and an end to their internal divisions.

'For the first time in more than 160 years, we are convening a major gathering of Baptists throughout an entire continent, without any threat to our unity caused by differences of our race or politics or geography or the legalistic interpretation of Scripture,' declared Carter.

Up to 20,000 Baptists are registered for the gathering, called the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, in Atlanta, Georgia. There are representatives of some 30 organisations representing 20 million believers in the Baptist tradition.

'We do a bold and glorious thing: we attempt to express the oneness which was our Lord's desire for his people,' declared William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, one of the four prominent African-American Baptists conventions participating in the meeting."

Read the rest here.

Updated Friday evening

There are new reports from Zimbabwe on the developing controversy in the Diocese of Harare:

"The High Court of Zimbabwe will tomorrow hear an application by the Anglican church authorities over the ‘unbecoming’ behaviour of ousted bishop for Harare Diocese, Nolbert Kunonga who is alleged to be defying a High Court ruling ordering him not to interfere with church services.

The application, which comes two weeks after High Court Judge Rita Makarau ordered Kunonga not to interfere with church services conducted by acting bishop Sebastian Bakare at the church’s Cathedral of Saint Mary and All Saints in Harare, was filed by the church secretary, Reverend Christopher Tapera on behalf of the church.

Squabbles in the Harare Diocese of the Anglican Church started in September last year when Kunonga unilaterally attempted to withdraw the Harare Diocese from the Central Africa Province on allegations that the province did not openly criticize the appointment of gays into priesthood.

Court papers indicate that on January 20 Kunonga, who was in the company of one Reverend Munyanyi, disrupted services at the cathedral in flagrant violation of Makarau’s order."

Read the rest here.

For more background on the situation you can see previous stories on the Lead here and here.

The ordination of Kunonga's successor and rival Sebastian Bakare is scheduled for this weekend according to news reports.

Friday evening update

The High Court has ruled that Kunonga's diocese "does not exist." As reported by the Zimbabwe Independent

"Applicant (Kunonga's Harare Diocese) cannot exist outside the constitution of first respondent (CPCA [Church of the Province of Central Africa]). It has no separate constitution of its own. It, therefore, has no structures of its own other than those set out in the constitution," Hungwe ruled. "The assets under contention are assets which respondent lays claim to. The question of ownership of these assets is not presently before me."

Hungwe said it was clear to him that Kunonga's diocese was nowhere "near demonstrating that it has placed itself within the purview of those who confess to be Anglicans and who abide by the constitution" of their church.

"There is no claim that there was resolution of the synod of the diocese adopting this alleged breakaway (by Kunonga)," the judge ruled. He said Kunonga by breaking away from the CPCA violated the constitution of the church.

Queen Elizabeth II has appointed a number of royal chaplains during her reign. Her recent appointment of the Rev. Rose Hudson-Wilkin is slightly different though than many of her previous choices:

"Jamaica-born, Rose, as she is know to her parishioners, regards her recent appointment to the roster of scarlet-robed royal chaplains serving the monarch as a great honor for the people of her parish and herself, but says she will not be changing her style of preaching.

'One of the things I am passionate about is that we belong to one another and that we should not allow cultural differences to become a hindrance to finding a way to connect. I shall want to bring an awareness to others of the lives of the people I serve at Holy Trinity, Dalston and All Saints, Haggerston [in the district of Hackney],' Hudson-Wilkin told Ecumenical News International.

..On the issue of homosexuality, she is typically forthright. 'We are playing games to our detriment,' she said. 'There are much more important problems to be concerned about than homosexuality. Look at what is happening in Kenya and Zimbabwe and with child soldiers and AIDS. This is where our prayers should be and our attention directed to what we can do.'"

Read the rest here.

It's Friday night and fans everywhere are getting ready for the big event this weekend. While most of us understand that event to be the Last Sunday in Epiphany, some people here in the United States seem to think that there's a football game that might overshadow our Sunday worship.

But, not be willing to give ground, some of our clergy have taken matters into their own hands and have tried to find a way to make via media statement of their own this weekend.

Ann Fontaine's blog has more information, and some interesting reasons for these particular vestments.

Writing in Prospect magazine, Michael Lind sets out to debunk "three ubiquitous myths" of American decline:

Anyone who reads the serious press about the condition of the US might be excused for believing that the country is headed towards a series of deep crises. This impression is exacerbated by economic slowdown and by the presidential primaries, in which candidates announce bold plans to rescue the country from disaster. But even in more normal times there are three ubiquitous myths about America that make the country seem weaker and more chaotic than it really is. The first myth, which is mainly a conservative one, is that racial and ethnic rivalries are tearing America apart. The second myth, which is mainly a liberal one, is that America will soon be overwhelmed by religious fundamentalists. The third myth, an economic one beloved of centrists, is that the retirement of the baby boomers will bankrupt the country because of runaway social security entitlement costs.

America does, of course, have many problems, such as spiralling healthcare costs and a decline in social mobility. Yet the truth is that apart from the temporary frictions caused by current immigration from Latin America, the US is more integrated than ever. Racial and cultural diversity is in long-term decline, as a result of the success of the melting pot in merging groups through assimilation and intermarriage—and many of the country's infamous social pathologies, from violent crime to teenage drug use, are also seeing improvements. Americans are far more religious than Europeans, but the "religious right" is concentrated among white southern Protestants. And there is no genuine long-term entitlement problem in the US. The US suffers from healthcare cost inflation, a problem that will be solved one way or another in the near future, long before it cripples the economy as a whole. And the long-term costs of social security, America's public pension programme, could be met by moderate benefit cuts or a moderate growth in the US government share of GDP. With a linguistically united, increasingly racially mixed supermajority and a solvent system of middle-class entitlements, the US will remain first among equals for generations to come, even in a multipolar world with several great powers.

Read it all.

Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney has released the following statement:

‘With regret, the Archbishop and Bishops of the Diocese of Sydney have decided not to attend the Lambeth Conference in July. They remain fully committed to the Anglican Communion, to which they continue to belong, but sense that attending the Conference at this time will not help heal its divisions. They continue to pray for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference.’

There are six bishops in the diocese including Jensen.

Jensen and his allies have attempted to create the impression, that Jensen speaks for more bishops than he does, a pretense that was helpfully punctured by the Bishop of Newcastle. In disassociating himself from a rival conference (GAFCON) which Jensen is organizing, the Rt. Rev. Brian Farran, said:

It needs to be understood that Dr. Jensen is an organizer of this conference in his own personal capacity or possibly in his capacity as the Bishop of the Diocese of Sydney. It must be seen that Dr. Jensen has no authorization to do this as the Metropolitan of the Anglican Province of New South Wales. (Editor's note: there are seven dioceses in the province.) I am not suggesting that Dr.Jensen would act in this way as the Metropolitan of New South Wales but public perception might not be discriminating in this regard. As the Bishop of Newcastle I wish to dissociate myself from any movement such as GAFCON that might damage or lessen the moral authority of the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

(Emphasis added.)

Farran's statement is here.

The folks at Beliefnet have created a gallery to Lost's twelve most "spiritual" moments. But does the show have an identifiable spiritual stance, or do its writers, in true post-modern fashion, use whatever motifs are out there to keep their narrative humming along? The character John Locke, for instance, is frequently described as a man of faith. But what exactly is it that he believes in?

It is possible to be a fan of the show without buying into its New Age-y spiritual vibe.

Meanwhile, for those who haven't followed the show in the past, but are roaming the television wasteland during the writers' strike, Entertainment Weekly proves quick summaries of previous episodes.

[ENS] The Rev. Dr. Prince Singh was elected February 2 to be the next bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester (http://www.rochesterepiscopaldiocese.org).

Singh, 45, rector of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Oakland/Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, in the Diocese of Newark, was elected on the second ballot from a slate of five candidates. An election on that ballot required 75 votes in the lay order and 33 votes in the clergy order. Singh was elected with 77 lay votes and 35 clergy votes.

Singh will succeed Bishop Jack McKelvey, who has spent the past eight years as bishop of Rochester. Prior to being called to Rochester, McKelvey had spent eight years as bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Newark. McKelvey will retire in this spring and Singh is due to be
consecrated May 31 at the Eastman Theater at the University of Rochester.

Singh was ordained a priest in the Church of South India (http://www.csichurch.com) (CSI) in 1990. CSI was inaugurated in 1947 by the union of the South India United Church (itself a union of Congregational and Presbyterian/Reformed traditions), the southern Anglican diocese of the Church of India, Burma, Ceylon, and the Methodist Church in South India. It is one of the four United Churches in the Anglican Communion.

After serving congregations in rural south India, in the Diocese of New Jersey and elsewhere in the Diocese of Newark, Singh was called to St. Alban's in 2000.

In a recent column, Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post raised a question about the Democratic Party that is also relevant to liberal Episcopalians:

One of the most interesting contrasts between last year's State of the Union address and this year's has nothing to do with President Bush. It involves the transformed tone of the Democratic response, from partisan lion to post-partisan lamb.

And this, in turn, reflects a schism in Democratic thinking -- to what extent to be the party of fighters and to what extent the party of Kumbaya -- that is being played out most prominently in the presidential race.

Last year's Democratic response came from Jim Webb, the newly elected, perennially pugnacious senator from Virginia. A former Reagan administration official turned populist, antiwar Democrat, Webb's most recent book, about the Scottish-Irish influence on America, was "Born Fighting." His speech lived up to type.

Webb invoked the memory of Teddy Roosevelt taking on the robber barons and Dwight Eisenhower ending the Korean War: "These presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this president to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way."

Flash forward to Monday night. For a brash male senator speaking from Washington, substitute a soothing female governor, Kansan Kathleen Sebelius, speaking from the heartland. Both Webb and Sebelius were new faces, from purple (Virginia) and red (Kansas) states, but their messages could not have been more different.

Seated in front of a flickering fire, with a colorful spray of flowers beside her, Sebelius was assertively post-partisan -- so much so that some Democratic lawmakers grumbled afterward that there was not enough mention of their accomplishments.

"I'm a Democrat, but tonight, it really doesn't matter whether you think of yourself as a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. Or none of the above," Sebelius began. "In this time, normally reserved for the partisan response, I hope to offer you something more -- an American response." Instead of Webb's bellicose challenge to lead or step aside, Sebelius's message was more accommodating: "Join us, Mr. President." Americans, she said, "aren't afraid to face difficult choices. But we have no more patience for divisive politics."

(The rest is here.)

How should liberals respond to the facts that the long-predicted global schism seems to be shrinking, and that key conservative priests in the dioceses of San Joaquin and Pittsburgh are deserting their schismatic bishops is an open quesiton. One can simultaneously delight in the fact that increasing numbers of conservative Episcopalians are choosing to remain in the Church, while worrying that in certain dioceses, this might mean that gays and women will continue to be marginalized, and diocesan leaders will continue to work with groups such as the Institute on Religion and Democracy to destabilize the church.

Sarah Posner writes The Fundamentalist for The American Prospect's Web site. In her most recent dispatch, she tackled a hot recent topic: are the political goals of the evangelical movement in flux?

Last week, Beliefnet released the results of its new online poll which showed that although evangelical voters remain largely conservative, issues at the top of their agenda are increasingly aligned with those at the top of the progressive agenda. Although the poll was not scientific, its results reflect what many see as the changing face of the evangelical movement.

While a majority of self-described evangelicals said they remain committed to the Christian right leadership, they're recognizing the need to address issues like global warming, poverty, and torture. Most Christian right leaders have resisted this change, but they've yet to see a significant backlash from their constituents. The religious right leadership remains well-funded, well-organized, and committed to the same core issues from which they will not budge. And even evangelicals touted as "new" or "less conservative" remain committed to some of those core issues as well.

Read it all.

February 23, 2007 marked the 200th anniversary of the British Parliment's vote to ban the slave trade. But the recognition of William Wilberforce, who lead an often lonely campaign to end the slave trade is not over. This month PBS stations will air The Better Hour: The Legacy of William Wilberforce.

Christianity Today gives it a favorable review:

A year ago, February 23, 2007, marked the 200th anniversary of the short Parliamentarian's tall triumph, with the passage of a bill banning the slave trade. That same day, the film Amazing Grace released to theaters, and there has been no shortage of Wilberforce-ian resources in the past year.

What has been missing is that middle-ground vehicle: the public television documentary. A biopic like Amazing Grace is an excellent medium to give audiences access to the emotions of great people and the most dramatic moments of their history. . . . But such films almost demand that the filmmakers play down the complexity of the history and rearrange the details in order to maximize the drama.

For those not yet ready to invest their time in reading a full-length biography, an hour-long documentary, airing throughout February on public television, is just the right bridge to better understanding.

The Better Hour: The Legacy of William Wilberforce does well what television documentaries do. It presents the basic facts of Wilberforce's dramatic life in a calm and orderly fashion, illustrates them with historical images, fleshes out the story with interviews with experts, and grounds it with a basso profundo narration (provided by Avery Brooks, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Captain Benjamin Sisko).

The interviews feature the authors of popular Wilberforce biographies—Kevin Belmonte, Eric Metaxas, John Pollock—and other founts of Wilberforce lore, including Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and David Isherwood, rector of the church in Clapham where Wilberforce and his friends found spiritual sustenance.

Unlike many accounts, this documentary emphasizes the importance of Wilberforce's circle of friends--and his Christian faith--in this battle:

Wilberforce's network of friends illustrates the complexity of his story. When people speak reverently of Wilberforce's legendary persistence, they create an image of a solitary hero standing against insuperable odds. But WW's perseverance and his multitude of other achievements were due in large part to his circle of intimates. The Better Hour points out his particular talent was for networking, an ability commonly found in effective politicians. Wilberforce's theater was the House of Commons, where he provided leadership to a group of about 30 members. There he acted his very public part in the drama of suppressing the slave trade. His friends were no less gifted, but many displayed their talents on other stages: Hannah More, the gifted playwright and poet, being a prime example.

. . .

Likewise, little reform would have happened without faith in God. The Better Hour makes this clear in many ways, from the role faith played in launching Wilberforce into the long struggle, to the supportive role it played for him and his network of friends, to the sustaining power of faith for the slaves themselves. This is one story in which religion—Christian faith—plays a natural and positive role throughout.

Read the full review here. The official website for the documentary is here.

In The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary Robert Alter has published a new translation of the Book of Psalms that attempts to offer a translation that is truer to the original Hebrew. Why do we need a new translation? As Adam Kirch argues in a New Republic book review, most English translations of the Psalms take a distinctively Christian point of view that distorts the original meaning of the Psalms:

This assumption was crucial to the way King James's committee of scholars, and subsequent Christian translators, turned the Psalms into English. It guided their decisions about how to render many Hebrew terms: if the Psalms were essentially a Christian text, then it was not just legitimate but imperative to employ the Christian theological vocabulary of sin and soul and salvation. And that vocabulary, which for English readers became the very language of the Psalms, itself sanctioned the belief that the Psalmist thought in Christian concepts. Take Psalm 2, verse 7, which reads, in the King James Version: "I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." Elsewhere in the Psalm it is clear that the speaker of this line is a king of Israel, and that the divine power he claims is simply the ability to defeat his foes in battle: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Yet the text virtually insists that we take the "Son" to be Jesus Christ: not only is the noun capitalized, so is the pronoun, and the word "begotten" comes straight out of the Nicene Creed ("I believe ... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God").

The translators' work of Christianizing the Psalms was not always so blatant. In Psalm 23, possibly the best known of all the King James versions, the third verse begins, "He restoreth my soul." Inevitably the phrase makes us think of resurrection, and it retroactively turns the Psalmist's imagery of "green pastures" and "still waters" into metaphors for heaven. By the time we reach the end of the poem--"and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever"--it is impossible to read "for ever" as meaning anything but "eternally," in the time-without-end of the redeemed soul.

One of the tasks that Robert Alter undertakes in his extraordinary new translation of the Psalms is to undo this Christian orientation. As he writes in his introduction, he has deliberately set out to evacuate the covert theological assumptions of the Authorized Version: "the pointed absence of 'soul' and 'salvation,'" as Alter notes, are only the most obvious signs of this program. It extends even to capitalization, as can be seen in Alter's version of Psalm 2. Where the King James Version has "Thou art my Son," leaving no doubt that the second person belongs to the Second Person of the Trinity, Alter has "You are My son," restricting the honorific capital to the speaker, God. Again, in Psalm 23, in place of "He restoreth my soul," Alter's version reads "My life He brings back": "the Hebrew nefesh," Alter explains of the noun at issue, "does not mean 'soul' but 'life breath' or 'life.'" In the same poem, Alter's Psalmist concludes by asking to live in the house of the Lord not "for ever" but "for many long days"--the true meaning of the Hebrew l'orech yamim. "The viewpoint of the poem," his note explains, "is in and of the here and now and is in no way eschatological."

The combined effect of these changes is to remove the Psalms from the Christian drama of sin and redemption, and to situate them firmly in this world. This does not mean that Alter's Psalms automatically become a more Jewish text--a point worth emphasizing, because the equation of Christianity with the transcendent and Judaism with the immanent is an old and frequently unpleasant trope of Christian apologetics.

The result of his new transaltion, according to Alter, is that the Psalms better reflect the "warrior culture" prevalent throughtout the Psalms:

It is good to have an English version of the Psalms that is liberated from this sort of interpretation. For the fact is that Alter's systematic return to the original Hebrew text leaves his Psalms estranged from the ethical language of both Judaism and Christianity. "We are all accustomed to think of Psalms, justifiably, as a religious book," he writes, "but its religious character is not the same as that of the Christian and Jewish traditions that variously evolved over the centuries after the Bible." Instead of looking forward to their "fulfillment" in some messianic antitype, Alter's Psalms look backward--to the warrior culture that produced them, obsessed with honor, shame, and revenge; and even to the polytheistic Canaanite mythology that lurked in the background of Israelite religion.

Read the entire review here.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are using Facebook, MySpace and other social networking websites as a means of making Lent meaningful for the faithful. Ruth Gledhill of the Times gives the details:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have joined forces to tell Anglicans to get down on their knees – and polish their neighbour’s shoes.

Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are backing a church Facebook group urging members to find time in their busy lives to complete 50 actions over the seven weeks of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday next week. The aim is “to help you become a better neighbour and transform your world for the better”. Actions include polishing someone’s shoes on Maundy Thursday, a reference to Jesus’s washing of the feet of His Disciples; making someone laugh; and leaving a thank-you note for the postman.

Most are deemed “appropriate for those of all faiths or none”.

The Facebook group, Love Life Live Lent, appears today along with sites on MySpace and the photo-sharing website Flickr, in the Church of England’s first significant entry into online social networking. It is hoped that members of the networks will upload photos of themselves doing the Lent actions.

Bloggers will help to spread the word through cyberspace. They include the Rt Rev Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, and Dave Walker, of the CartoonChurch website and blog.

Dr Sentamu, who will be giving up all alcohol for Lent when he adopts a 40-day vegan diet, told The Times: “Lent is a time for sober reflection but that doesn’t mean being dour. These actions help people to think globally and act locally, to broaden their world-view and to be good neighbours.

Read it all here. the Facebook group can be found here. The offical website for the project is here.

Ruth Gledhill writes:

The Anglican archbishop in charge of drawing up the document intended to reunite his warring church said he believes that schism can still be averted in spite of divisions over the issue of homosexuals.

The Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Rev Drexel Gomez, said that a new formula had been found that would allow the disciplining of errant churches while respecting the traditional autonomy of the 38 worldwide Anglican provinces. Urging all Anglican bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference this year, he said that it would be a “tremendous tragedy” if the Church fell apart.

A new document to be published this week would form “a basic way of holding each other accountable as a Communion”, he said. But he indicated that the Episcopal Church of the United States was unlikely to face discipline or any form of exclusion from the Anglican Communion as a result of consecrating Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Read it all.

Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Jeff E. Schapiro has some pointed observations about the intervention of the Virginia Attorney General's office into the property dispute between the Diocese of Virginia and churches from CANA:

McDonnell's entry in the church case, intentionally or not, may have a political dimension: He is a devout Catholic, highly regarded by religious conservatives on whom his Republican gubernatorial ambitions could depend.

Perhaps that is making for closer scrutiny of McDonnell's arguments.

For example, the Episcopal Church's lawyers, in their response to his motion to intervene, noted that the attorney general's office under his predecessor, a fellow Republican, questioned the constitutionality of the church-division law and urged caution in state action.

That was three years ago, when the General Assembly was considering revising protocols for dividing church property if a congregation secedes.

Mainstream churches branded it a breach of the separation of church and state. The bill died quietly. But its demise would augur a discomfiting aspect of the current struggle: that religion can be taken very personally, no matter what one does.

The senator who wrote the controversial 2005 measure is now McDonnell's chief deputy.

Bill Mims also was a member of a breakaway Episcopal parish in Loudoun County, though it is not a direct party to the Fairfax suit. Since moving here, Mims, a prospect for the Virginia Supreme Court, has joined a Presbyterian church.

The suspicions of Episcopal Church lawyers notwithstanding, Mims is steering clear of the Fairfax case. You will not find his name on the paperwork. He has had no contact with lawyers on either side. Mims also is not commenting.

The Chicago Tribune reports Chicago's new bishop, Jeffrey Lee, and the Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a clear message about where they stand on gay clergy and on the issues facing the Episcopal Church.

Wrapping up a five-day tour in honor of Jeffrey Lee, the new Chicago bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori declared that the American church will not stand alone in its support of gay clergy during an international meeting in July in Lambeth, England.

"Many more [bishops] than you might expect are sympathetic," Jefferts Schori, the presiding Episcopal bishop, told parishioners at St. Nicholas Church in Elk Grove Village. "They are not, however, the loudest voices."

At his installation at the Cathedral, Lee reminded the congregation of their call to ministry by virtue of their baptism, not their liberal or conservative interpretations of Scripture.

That's one of the tragedies afflicting the church right now," he said. "So many of us seem to think that salvation depends on our theological correctness.

The Rev. Alex Seabrook, 82, who was ordained in 1954 and attended the service at St. Nicholas to watch the presiding bishop baptize twins said:

I've seen the church of the past. The whole service today was the church of the future.

Read it all here.

Camp Quixote, a tent city for homeless residents that began illegally on city property but now is celebrated by city leaders, marked its first anniversary Friday, February 1, according to The Olympian.

The camp is a "safe place to stay after losing a 23-year marriage," said Ani Otto, one of three residents who were part of the original camp.

It started on a city lot near State and Columbia streets as a protest of the city's then-new Pedestrian Interference Ordinance, which prohibits sitting on portions of downtown sidewalks.

Olympia police evicted the camp, and it moved to property owned by Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, followed by United Churches of Olympia, St. John's Episcopal Church, First United Methodist Church and First Christian.

For more on the Tent City movement read here and how to get involved here.

In other news of churches reaching out to the homeless comes this story of a Whittier, California Coalition and the development of a shelter and programs:

Gilbert said the inspiration for the shelter came when he and other students were sitting in a Quaker meeting on the Whittier College campus, and a homeless man burst in on the meeting asking for help.

"That just got me thinking," Gilbert said. "That really affected me profoundly."

So, Gilbert and his friends found support in the Whittier Area Ecumenical Council, and several churches agreed to help host a

shelter during winter months.

The churches decided that the shelter would rotate to different locations on a weekly basis, and a few supervisors would always be on hand for safety's sake.

Bea Comini, a parishioner at St. Matthias Episcopal Church, was one of the first church volunteers to sign on to the project

"What a testament to the spirit of this town, that they're willing to put church buildings and church volunteers into use in such a way," Gilbert said. "It's hard and it's basically thankless, but it's also important and critical."

In the years since Gilbert and his friends helped start the shelter and staff it overnight, many changes have been made. Now, churches in the area partner with the local mosque and synagogue.

Read it here.

In USA Today Stephen Prothero writes:

For the past two years, I have asked students in my introductory religion courses at Boston University to get together in groups and invent their own religions. They present their religious creations to their classmates, and then everyone votes (with fake money in a makeshift offering plate) for the new religions they like best. This assignment encourages students to reflect on what separates "winners" and "losers" in America's freewheeling spiritual marketplace. It also yields intriguing data regarding what sort of religious beliefs and practices young people love and hate.

... my students' "dogma aversion" (as one put it) goes liberal Protestantism one further. These young people aren't just allergic to dogma. They are allergic to divinity and even heaven. In the religions of their imagining, God is an afterthought at best. And the afterlife is, as one of my students told me, "on the back burner."

What about established religion and tradition?

In their final exam this past semester, I asked my students to reflect on whether young Americans are the canaries in the mines of more traditional religions. Study after study has shown that American college students are fleeing from organized religion to mix-and-match spirituality. So what will happen to what one of my students referred to as the "religions of discipline" when this millennial generation (born in the late 1970s through the 1990s ) grows up? What will today's youth do with religions whose ethical injunctions arrive as strict commandments rather than friendly suggestions? Will they be able to abide religions that divide the human family into the saved and the damned, that present as absolute truth what they suspect is mere speculation?

My students' projects suggest that traditional religions are in trouble. Of course, these young people might eventually see the light. Who cares about heaven or hell when there is a party to go to and a hot young thing eager to meet you there? But after college, after your children are born and your parents die and your body grows old, traditional religions might look more appealing.

Read it all here.

Tobias Haller continues to do heavy lifting in graceful prose. His case for a positive view of same-sex relationships, informed by Scripture, tradition and reason, has now grown to nine parts, the most recent of which are here, and here.

The ninth part concludes:

The legal code of Deuteronomy is book-ended with citations that indicate its contents derive from God: These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth... Moses and the elders of Israel charged all the people as follows: Keep the entire commandment that I am commanding you today. (Deuteronomy 12:1; 27:1) The same sort of general description applies in Leviticus, which often takes of the refrain of the need to keep all of the statutes and ordinances delivered by Moses. (Lev 20:22, 25:18)

Yet Jesus clearly distinguished between these collections of Law and the commandments of the Decalogue: when the young man asked him how he might inherit eternal life, Jesus cited only Decalogue commandments. (Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20 — though in Matthew’s version at 19:19 he added the Law on love of neighbor from Leviticus 19:18).

I by no means wish to suggest that because Jesus emphasized the Decalogue over the other laws, and set aside a number of the latter laws explicitly (more on this below) that all of these laws are no longer to be observed. I am merely observing here that this places these laws in a category in which we are able to review them for their applicability, in keeping with the general principle which Jesus affirmed as his own touchstone for moral action: loving one’s neighbor as oneself. This is the explicit conclusion reached in Jesus’ discussion with the lawyers concerning what is most important in the Law. (Luke 10:27-28; Mark 12:33-34)

As a bonus, have a look at Tobias' take on recent developments regarding the proposed Anglican covenant, which may see the light of day on Ash Wednesday.

The Diocese of Northern California and Bishop Barry Beisner have filed a lawsuit to regain church property in Petaluma, California. In a press release issued February 4, the bishop states that although the diocese has been negotiating with the breakaway parish the former leaders have filed name and status changes leaving the diocese with no other option:

"Please let me underline that the former leaders of the parish took the first steps in bringing this into the legal system by filing to change the name and status of the parish with the State of California. We are calling upon legitimate civil authority to assist us in undoing the effect of a legal action already taken by fellow Christians, and taken in disregard for this Church's willingness to seek reconciliation, with the help of God."

HT to Susan Russell.

The complete press release follows:

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Some time along about noon yesterday, the Episcopal Café received its one millionth visit since opening for business in late April, 2007. Just a day earlier, we reached 2.5 million “page views.” Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who visits the site, especially those of you who drop by daily to keep up with the news here on The Lead, read the essays on Daily Episcopalian appreciate the art and perhaps spend a little time in meditation.

We hope you will journey with us through Lent.

Special thanks to our contributors and our partners, Episcopal Church in the Visual Arts and Trinity Television and New Media which supplies our weekly video clip. And congratulations to our Facebook group, which reached 300 members yesterday.

You can support the work of the Café by contributing to the Diocese of Washington's annual Bishop's Appeal.

The Guardian, UK reports Bishop James Jones apologizes for his role in objecting to the appointment of gay cleric Jeffrey Johns as a bishop. His essay published today also is a plea for making space to hold the conversations with gays and lesbians around issues of homosexuality requested by the last Lambeth Conference. Riazat Butt writing for The Guardian says:

The Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Rev James Jones, a conservative evangelical, expressed the views in a book, A Fallible Church, in which he apologised for objecting to the appointment of the gay cleric Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. He was one of nine bishops to sign a public letter criticising the proposed consecration.

The bishop also apologised for his conduct and its effect on John, who eventually withdrew his acceptance of the post after bowing to pressure.

Jones said: 'I deeply regret this episode in our common life. I still believe it was unwise to try to take us to a place that evidently did not command the broad support of the Church of England but I am sorry for the way I opposed it and I am sorry too for adding to the pain and distress of Dr John and his partner.'

He called for Anglicans to 'acknowledge the authoritative biblical examples of love between two people of the same gender most notably in the relationship of Jesus and his beloved [John] and David and Jonathan'.

He believes these cross-cultural discussions take place best between those who have already established working relationships. Describing the Anglican Communion relationships like a plate of spaghetti rather than an organizational chart in his essay he writes:

It is better to deal with difficult ethical and doctrinal questions – in this case, sexuality – in a conversation between people who already know, trust and respect each other than through megaphone diplomacy between strangers across the oceans. The historic partnerships within the Anglican Communion can offer a different context for the debate about homosexuality where there can be a genuine dialogue between people whose mutual trust and affection protect them from jumping too soon to conclusions and keep them in conversation because a long time ago they learned to think the best and not the worst of each other.

Urging others to engage one another and refrain from lobbing sound bytes at one another Bishop Jones writes:

The description in John’s Gospel of Jesus “full of grace and truth” presents us with a person who created space around himself for others to “see the Kingdom of God”. He was neither truthless in his grace, nor graceless in his truth. I fear that in our debates with each other and with the world especially on the subject of homosexuality we have come over as graceless.

The bishop's change of heart has come through conversation with Anglican partnerships in the United States and Africa and through a report The Theology of Friendship. This report looks at same-sex relationships in the Bible such as David and Jonathan and Jesus and John. It delves into the Hebrew and Greek words used to describe these relationships and their intimacy. Jones writes:

The Theology of Friendship Report took me in particular to the relationship between David and Jonathan. Their friendship was emotional, spiritual and even physical. Jonathan loved David “as his own soul”. David found Jonathan’s love for him, “passing the love of women”. There was between them a deep emotional bond that left David grief-stricken when Jonathan died. But not only were they emotionally bound to each other they expressed their love physically. Jonathan stripped off his clothes and dressed David in his own robe and armour. With the candour of the Eastern World that exposes the reserve of Western culture they kissed each other and wept openly with each other. The fact that they were both married did not inhibit them in emotional and physical displays of love for each other. This intimate relationship was sealed before God. It was not just a spiritual bond it became covenantal for “Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:3). Here is the Bible bearing witness to love between two people of the same gender.

Read the entire essay here.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that almost all church leaders in Australia are opposed to Bishop Peter Jensen's boycott of the Lambeth Conference.

The Anglican Primate of Australia, Phillip Aspinall, said yesterday that it was difficult to understand the decision by the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, to boycott this year's Lambeth Conference, as virtually all Australian bishops declined to support Dr Jensen.
...
The Bishop of Armidale, Peter Brain, whose diocese has been traditionally allied to Sydney, said he did not think boycotting Lambeth would help

Read the article here.

Grace Episcopal Church in St. George, Utah is hosting groups opposing the proposed coal fired power plant in nearby Nevada. Among those speaking out is The Rt. Rev. Carolyn Tanner Irish, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah. The Salt Lake City Tribune reports:

Clean-air activists and others plan to send hundreds of heart-shaped valentines to the governors of Utah and Nevada urging them to oppose plans for a $1.3 billion coal-fired power plant near Mesquite, Nev.

Students wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Love your air, stop Toquop" will pass out 250 of the handcrafted valentines at a rally Tuesday at St. George's Grace Episcopal Church.

Attendees then will jot down their objections to the planned 750-megawatt Toquop plant. Half the hearts will go to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.; half will go to Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons.

Plant foe Lin Alder, executive director of Citizens for Dixie's Future, said former Utah Gov. Olene Walker and Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, head of Utah's Episcopal Diocese, are expected to address the rally.

According to St. George newspaper The Spectrum and Daily News,

The plant is planned for 14 miles northeast of Mesquite, Nev., in Lincoln County, Nev., and has been proposed by Sithe Global Power, LLC Sithe Global Power, LLC, an international development company engaged in the development, construction, acquisition and operation of electric generation facilities in attractive markets around the world.

More on how Utah faith groups are working together on environmental issues here.

The Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns NIFCON has released its treatise on interfaith relations, Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue. It is a culmination of four years work on developing an distinctively Anglican theology of interfaith relations.

Generous Love is being sent to every Anglican diocesan bishop and to all NIFCON contacts. It is intended both for those already engaged inter faith relations and those who are considering how and whether they might begin such engagement Recipients are being asked to disseminate the document as widely as possible

Read more »

Received by email from anglican-information.org:

At last some common sense emerges in the Diocese of Lake Malawi:

Unfortunately, it is not as a result of wise episcopal leadership, but as a result of a Court Injunction granted earlier today. The Injunction stops the forced elections for a Bishop of Lake Malawi Diocese, hastily called by acting Dean of the Province of Central Africa, Bishop Albert Chama and scheduled to take place in far-off Malosa in the Diocese of Upper Shire on 16th February.

It is ironic that it is a civil court that has insisted that the elections be halted and that all parties come together to sort out their differences before proceeding any further. ANGLICAN-INFORMATION has reported the grave concerns in the Diocese of Lake Malawi regarding Bishop Chama's attempts to circumvent synodical processes and to sneak in a preferred new candidate, Henry M'baya (who has been lobbying vigorously, to the annoyance of the clergy) as bishop. This forced election has now rightly been stopped before enormous and permanent damage is done.

Sensibly, the people of Lake Malawi have, as a last resort, appealed to the civil courts and been granted an Injunction. This means that Bishop Chama will now have to enter into meaningful dialogue and not act as he did, for example, at the last diocesan Standing Committee when he ordered members not to speak.

ANGLICAN-INFORMATION respectfully says that there is a lesson here for Bishop Chama in the way in which traditional African chiefs conduct business on behalf of the people. Tradition determines that their role is to allow everybody to speak and give their views. Only then do they speak last, summing up the majority decision and thereafter enabling it. A good example of this process at work was undertaken by the then Dean of the Province, Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana who succeeded last year in getting all parties to agree to a synodical process and a subsequent referral to an independent Provincial Court.

Upper Shire Diocese
Meanwhile it is thought that the also hastily arranged elections, scheduled for the same 16th February, for a new Bishop of Upper Shire (former Archbishop Malango's see) will still take place. However, things are not going according to the intended plan of selection for a preferred candidate, as no less than three frontrunners have now emerged who are respectively, an English priest, an American Episcopalian and a local priest.

Diocese of Harare, Zimbabwe
Sunday, 3rd February saw a tremendous and well-organised 'enthronement' of Bishop Sebastian Bakare held in the City Sports Centre. Thousands joyfully celebrated this mass affirmation of the diocese as part of the Central African Province, as opposed to those few who have followed dissident Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, who has declared independence.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to enthrone Bishop Bakare upon the Cathedral 'cathedra' as Nolbert Kunonga had camped overnight in the building with a gang of thugs to prevent access. Two brave souls who tried to enter were roughed up. This is all despite the fact that the High Court had ruled that the swearing-in of Bishop Sebastian Bakare, should go ahead and Bakare's followers should be allowed to worship in the Cathedral.

ANGLICAN-INFORMATION observes that support of the authentic diocese by the people is most encouraging. Nevertheless, until legal possession of the diocese is obtained and the accounts, keys, property and vehicles are back with the Province the problem has not been resolved. Kunonga remains a dangerous man - prayers please for Bishop Bakare.

Updated 2008-02-06 5:45 PM

The most recent draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant was released today in London. You can find a copy of the Saint Andrews draft here, an important appendix here and the accompanying communiqué here. The group also issued commentary to the draft here.

We will be updating this story throughout the day, and would be grateful for your evaluation of the document, particularly the conflict resolution process outlined in the appendix.

The Episcopal News Service story is