London Times Cryptic Crossword for 31 August

Here is this week’s cryptic crossword puzzle from the Sunday London Times. Click on the image to get the full-sized version.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 24 August

Here is my solution for last Sunday’s puzzle from the London Times:

London Times Cryptic Crossword for 24 August

Here is yesterday’s cryptic crossword puzzle from the London Times. Click on it for the full-sized version.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 17 August

Here is my proposed solution for last week’s puzzle from the London Times. I expect to have this week’s puzzle up tomorrow.

The New Evangelical Politics

Here’s an interesting op-ed piece from the Washington Post analyzing the recent presidential forum at Saddleback Church.

Anyone who still doubts that the evangelical Christian world is going through a political revolution was not watching Pastor Rick Warren’s presidential forum this weekend. The era of reducing Christianity to a narrow set of ideological commitments is over.

Just a few years ago, who would have imagined that Barack Obama and John McCain would hold a discussion of this sort in a church? Who would have thought that the session would be moderated by an evangelical pastor who was emphatic in counting both the Democrat and the Republican as his “friends”? Who would have predicted that in such a setting, the issues of abortion and gay marriage would not dominate the pastor's queries? Oh, yes, and who would have anticipated that the passions of the pastor in question would be engaged not in the divisions created by the culture wars but in the imperative of civility in politics and the plight of the world’s 148 million orphans? Here’s betting that the next president will help some of those orphans find homes.

The notion that Christianity in general and evangelicalism in particular are by nature right-wing creeds has always been wrong. How can a faith built around a commitment to the poor and the vulnerable be seen as leading ineluctably to conservative political conclusions? And when political commentators talk about “evangelicals”, they are almost always talking about white evangelicals, forgetting that millions of African Americans are devout evangelical Christians and are hardly part of the conservative base. The civil rights movement was one of the greatest faith-based mobilizations in American history, even as it also drew on the energies of thousands of secular liberals who walked hand in hand with believers.

Warren is an important figure not just because he’s sold tens of millions of books but also because he has been leading evangelicals out of a political dead end that chose to ignore large parts of the Christian message. In 2004, Warren took the view that Christians should vote on a short list of “nonnegotiable” issues, including abortion. But in 2006, on Fox News, of all places, Warren declared: “Jesus’s agenda is far bigger than just one or two issues… We have to care about poverty, we have to care about disease, we have to care about illiteracy, we have to care about corruption in government, sex trafficking.” That is the new politics of evangelical Christianity.

None of this means that white evangelicals will convert en masse to the Democratic Party. McCain, who carefully touched every hot button on the control panel of religious conservatism, will certainly get a substantial majority of their votes. The question is whether Obama can cut the Republican margin among white evangelicals by, say, five or 10 points. “If Obama ever establishes any kind of trust [with evangelicals], there will be a noticeable shift,” the Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church outside of Orlando and a leading evangelical moderate, said in an interview. “It will not be huge, but it will be significant.”

The fact that the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency took place at all is a sign that both parties intend to fight for the votes of religious Christians… Will this make a difference? During his hour with Warren, McCain was crisp and relentlessly on-message, no doubt winning over many for whom opposition to abortion trumps all other causes. Obama was more a wrestler than a boxer as he struggled with the big questions. For a Democratic nominee four years ago, a meeting at Warren's church would have been an away game—if it had taken place at all. This time around, Pastor Rick made sure that in a Christian house of worship, there would be no home-court advantage.

The whole article is here.

An Anglican Calendar

From Lent & Beyond, here is a calendar of some upcoming events of interest to Episcopalians:

August 20-24 - GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) primates meet in Europe

September 3-4 - CAPA (Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa) standing committee and primates meet

September 5 - Rio Grande bishop search committee and transition committee meet

September 17-19 - Episcopal Church House of Bishops meets, Salt Lake City

September 27 - Southern Virginia bishop election

October 3-5 - Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota diocesan conventions

October 4 - Pittsburgh diocesan convention

October 10-12 - Eastern Oregon diocesan convention

October 13-17 - last meeting of the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music before the Blue Book is released, Ashland, Nebraska

October 17-19 - Dallas, Eastern Michigan, Northern Michigan, Fond du Lac, Southwest Florida diocesan conventions

October 20-23 - Executive Council, Helena, MT

October 24-25 - Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Northern Indiana, West Virginia, Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin diocesan conventions

Oct 31-Nov 2 - Northwest Texas diocesan convention

November 7-9 - El Camino Real, Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Quincy diocesan conventions

November 13-15 - Long Island, Fort Worth, New York, Northern California diocesan conventions

The intention behind publishing this list is that we pray earnestly for the Holy Spirit’s gracious intervention and overruling at each of these events. Here is a prayer I like, from the Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer (page 816, adapted from a prayer by Archbishop William Laud):

Gracious Father, we humbly pray for your holy catholic church.
Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace.
Where it is corrupt, purify it;
where it is in error, direct it;
where in anything it is amiss, reform it.
Where it is right, strengthen and confirm it;
where it is in want, provide for it;
where it is divided, heal it;
for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior.

You can find the full calendar here.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

From A.S. Haley, otherwise known as the Anglican Curmudgeon:

The Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton has put up on her blog what she says is a leaked copy of an email sent by the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan of the Diocese of Pittsburgh to an undisclosed recipient. Apparently now private emails are to be added to the type of “evidence” to be adduced in favor of the charges that Bishop Duncan has “abandoned the communion of this Church” that will be the subject of an invalid resolution to depose him at the House of Bishops meeting in Salt Lake City in September…

If the email is genuine, it certainly contains no surprises. Bishop Duncan is straightforward in discussing what is the matter with the Windsor Continuation Group's call for three moratoria: on further ordinations of non-celibate gay or lesbian bishops, on further blessings of same-sex unions, and on cross-border interventions by bishop…

That there is no moral equivalence between the first two moratoria and the third is indeed a fact that was recognized in the Windsor Report and again by the Primates meeting at Dromantine. So, there is nothing new there.

That the process of separation cannot be “frozen” is also a given. As the quotation above states, the Constitution of the Diocese of Pittsburgh requires a second vote on any proposed change once a change has first been proposed and approved at an earlier convention. So the vote on October 4 will go forward regardless of anything TEC, the WCG, or anybody else, for that matter, does (but see below). And in that vote, which will be secret, Bishop Duncan will have only one ballot to cast, along with everybody else… Thus there is nothing in this statement that should be offered in support of the resolution to depose, either.

The third and the fourth reasons given in the statement quoted above are also simple assertions of fact, and have nothing to do with any personal intentions or thoughts of Bishop Duncan on “abandoning communion”…

The House of Bishops will meet in Salt Lake City on September 19, and will proceed with this pre-programmed farce. The first sign of what is to come is that there will probably not be a sufficient number of retired bishops present to produce the required number of assents to deposition. The violations will thus commence when Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori, as the Chair of the meeting, overrules the objection by Bishop Duncan that the House cannot vote to depose him because he was never inhibited first, as Canon IV.9 in plain English requires. The next violation will be the taking of the vote itself, and the third violation will be in the Presiding Bishop’s overruling yet one more objection based on the Canon—that the requisite number of Bishops in the House are not present and voting. And the fourth violation will occur when the Presiding Bishop declares to the assembled bishops that the resolution passed—even though the lack of the required number to vote for deposition will mean that the resolution actually failed. The fifth and final violation will occur when Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori signs the certificate of deposition.

So, five new violations of the same Canon in just the space of a few days, for a new egregious record. And that will be only the beginning! For watch what the Presiding Bishop and her minions immediately will start to do in the Diocese of Pittsburgh once the deposition is announced: they will probably move against the Standing Committee and “depose” them, just as was attempted in San Joaquin. There may even be an attempt to get an injunction against the Convention's going forward with the vote on October 4, if they can find a compliant judge…

The Episcopal Church proves by its manifold illegal acts that it is not a lawful organization any more, and thereby provides the justification for leaving it—in order not to be corrupted by even more illegalities, still to come (in the cases of Ft. Worth and Quincy). And the Rev. Kaeton and others like her circulate purloined private correspondence in an effort to drum up enthusiasm for taking yet more illegal action, so that the invasion of privacy becomes the justification for what those who will vote to depose already think they know: that “abandonment” has indeed occurred, and Bishop Duncan is guilty as charged. Well, if he is guilty, then it must be for committing a thought-crime, since nothing has happened yet on the ground. But TEC and its liberals are doing their level best to see that what they are punishing before it happens will then actually occur. And that is what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can find the original post, which includes the text of the email in question, here.

2008 Olympic Athlete Donny Robinson

From christianity.about.com:

Donny Robinson won the 2006 National Bicycle League Championship and the 2007 USA Cycling BMX National Championship. Now, for the first time in Olympic history, BMX bicycling is a competitive sport at the 2008 games, and Donny is determined to win a gold medal. Though small in stature, he is considered a David in the world of BMX Goliaths. Not only is he passionate about racing, Donny is passionate about his faith in Christ. As a Christian athlete, his infectious faith spills over into everything he does, revealing a relationship with God that forms the foundation of his zeal for life.

How does your faith influence you as an athletic competitor?
I know that God has a purpose for my life, and he has blessed me with this talent to be a BMX racer for a reason. Entertainers and athletes have more power over today's youth than any political leader or the like could have. So, I know I need to use my talents to spread his Gospel, and that drives me to be successful, so I can make an impact.

Do you ever face difficult challenges because of your stand for Christ?
There have been many times when I've been looked down upon, for my reasons why I don't act a certain way or participate in certain activities, or even why I thank Jesus for things. But, it's not as bad now as it was in the past. Most people I'm around know that I try to live the most Christ-like life I can, and they accept what I represent. I know that if I'm able to compete in the Olympics, there will be much harder times when I'll have pressure to stand my ground for what I believe in. The cost will be worth it though.

Who would you name as a personal hero of the faith?
I have always been the smallest rider in all of my classes, so everyone has said I'm the David in the BMX world of Goliaths, so definitely, David is a hero for the faith he had. Also, my dance teacher, Sara Kirkland, my team manager, Erick "Big E" Bartoldus, and a fellow BMX competitor, Randy Stumpfhauser. These people have led me to Christ and shown me how true Christ-followers live. I thank them for inspiring me to be a better person.

What is the most important life-lesson you have learned?
It's hard for me to speak of my faith because, truthfully, I know I fall way short of what Christ wants from me. I don't think I should be proclaiming anything, when I see some of the things I do sometimes. I know God's mercy renews me every day. He wants us to shine for him, and we want that too.

You can find the whole interview here.

Public Meeting in St Paul with Anglican Communion Network Leader

The Rev. Canon Daryl Fenton will be in St Paul for a meeting of rectors of Episcopal Church parishes in the Anglican Communion Network. Daryl is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and the chief operating officer of the Network.

Alongside the rectors’ meeting, there will be an open forum with Canon Fenton (and possibly others), where we will have an opportunity to learn more about the Anglican Communion Network and its role in the realignment currently taking place in the Anglican Communion. With the Lambeth Conference and the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) having just taken place, we may be gaining a clearer picture of where the Communion may be headed over the next months.

The forum will take place at

Messiah Episcopal Church
1631 Ford Parkway, Saint Paul 55116

Tuesday, August 26, at 8 p.m.

I hope that you will be able to attend, and that you will take the opportunity to invite any others you think would be interested.

Forum probes deepest differences

Here is how one of our local papers covered Rick Warren’s interviews with John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback Church:

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama shared the stage for only 36 seconds Saturday but in separate interviews gave a preview of the fall debates, offering sharply contrasting responses on social issues and personal world views. On the stage at Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in Lake Forest, they briefly hugged each other and smiled, belying a nastier campaign between them that has taken place long-distance and over the airwaves. The hug was preceded by an hourlong interview with Obama and followed by an hourlong interview with McCain in the vast, warehouselike church before an attentive, enthusiastic audience of 2,200 people.

Asked what their biggest moral failings were, Obama referred to his “difficult youth” when, he said, he experimented with drugs and drank alcohol. “I trace this to a certain selfishness on my part,” he said. “I couldn’t focus on other people.” McCain pointed to his first marriage, which he almost never does publicly. “My greatest moral failing, and I have been a very imperfect person, is the failure of my first marriage,” he said gravely.

The candidates were interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, one of the most popular evangelical pastors in the country and author of The Purpose Driven Life. The forum, which Warren arranged through calls to the candidates, whom he knows, reflected the importance of religion in American life and politics. It also marked the coming of age of a broader brand of evangelicalism that is more socially minded and diverse than the orthodox religious movement of the Christian right. Warren embodies the changing of the guard of that movement, away from traditionalist figures like Pat Robertson, and the scope of his questions reflected those broader interests…

Asked to name the most significant issue he had changed his mind on in the past 10 years, Obama cited the 1996 welfare reform bill signed by former President Bill Clinton. He said he initially opposed it because he believed it would have “disastrous results”, denying millions of women economic support, but he now believes the law largely has been successful. McCain pointed to offshore drilling. “We gotta drill now; we gotta drill here,” he said and took a poke at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposes it. “I know there are some here in Cal-eee-fornia that disagree with that position,” he said, mimicking the governor’s accent.

McCain received the more rousing response from the audience, made up largely of church members in Orange County, one of the most conservative areas in the country. He told more anecdotes but also filibustered more. One of the few points when McCain left the audience silent was when he said he favored stem-cell research. Obama skirted a question about when life begins, saying that determining such a thing was above his pay grade and sending murmurs throughout the audience. McCain said simply, “At the moment of conception.”

Asked to define marriage, Obama and McCain gave the same answer: that it is the union between a man and a woman. But Obama also said he opposed a constitutional amendment defining marriage that narrowly and said he supported same-sex civil unions. “For gay partners to visit each other in the hospital, I don’t think limits my core beliefs about what marriage is,” he said. McCain said courts in California were wrong to approve same-sex marriages but also said somewhat vaguely that that “doesn't mean people can’t enter into legal agreements.”

Warren asked Obama why he wanted to be president. He stumbled a bit at first, then said that his mother had always drummed into him the basic idea of fairness and empathy. “That’s the thing that’s made America special,” Obama said. “I want to be president because that’s the America I believe in, and that American dream is slipping way. We are at a critical juncture economically. We are at a critical juncture internationally. Our politics is so broken, Washington is so broken that we can't bring together people of good will to solve these problems.” He concluded, “I think I have the ability to build bridges across racial lines, across regional lines, and I hope I have the opportunity to do so.”

On abortion, Obama declared: “I am pro-choice, I believe in Roe versus Wade, not because I’m pro-abortion, but because ultimately I don’t think women make these decisions casually.” He also said, “I am in favor on limits on late-term abortion if there is an exception for the woman's health.” McCain said he was “pro-life” and would be a “pro-life president”.

Asked to name three people on whom he depended for sage advice, Obama named his wife, Michelle, and his maternal grandmother. For a third, he named lawmakers as varied as Sen. Edward Kennedy, of Massachusetts, a liberal, and Sen. Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, a conservative who opposes abortion rights. McCain named Gen. David Petraeus, who led U.S. troops in Iraq; John Lewis, the veteran civil-rights leader; and Meg Whitman, former chief executive of eBay who is also a top adviser to his campaign.

The whole coverage is here.

London Times Cryptic Crossword for 17 August

Here is the latest cryptic crossword puzzle from the Sunday London Times. Click on it to bring up the full-sized version.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 10 August

Here is my proposed solution for last week’s Sunday Times cryptic crossword.

Rowing for gold

Another Olympic testimony from Athletes in Action, this time by Canadian rower Jane Rumball:

If you ask rower Jane Rumball what the three most important things in her life are, she doesn’t have to think long to answer: “God, my husband and my family,” Jane says. “Rowing and school take up much of my time, but if I didn’t have those three things my life would mean little.” Perhaps those are different priorities than you would expect from the woman with a World Championship gold medal and medal potential for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Jane sees her family as a necessary support structure. “My family knew me before I was an athlete and they just want me to live a happy and fulfilling life,” she says. “My husband wants to see me pursue the things that God has gifted me with.”

God hasn’t always been a factor in Jane’s life, but in her first years at college her parents’ divorce, a failed relationship, and shattered rowing dreams all collided and she was left with a sense of desperation and emptiness. As she struggled with her own challenges she observed the life of a fellow rower who had been cut from the team yet seemed unfazed. “It bugged me that she could have that peace and hope when it seemed beyond my grasp,” Jane says.

While Jane puzzled over what she saw in her former teammate, another friend helped bring it into perspective. “Someone from Athletes in Action explained to me that Jesus Christ had died for my sins, and that I could have real hope,” she says. “I chose to believe it and my life was dramatically altered. Later I found out that my teammate [who was cut from the team] was a Christian, and it all made sense.”

In the years following, Jane’s life has taken on a new sense of purpose. “Without that hope, without that knowledge that God loves me and has a plan for my life, I would have dropped out of meaningful living a long time ago,” she says. As Jane Rumball races towards the 2008 Olympics, she does so without fear, knowing that the results of her competing are only a small portion of what is really important in her life.

Surprised by the Spirit

Bishop Michael Smith of North Dakota writes to his diocese to share reasons for his hope regarding the future of the Anglican Communion in the wake of Lambeth Conference 2008.

In my opinion, the most important document to emerge from this Lambeth Conference was not the bishops’ “Lambeth Indaba: Capturing Conversations and Reflections from the Lambeth Conference 2008,” but rather the “Concluding Presidential Address to the Lambeth Conference 2008” by the Archbishop of Canterbury. No one questions the theological or intellectual acumen of Archbishop Rowan D. Williams—or for that matter the depth of his spirituality. (He was at his very best at this Conference, particularly as he led us in a 3-day retreat in Canterbury Cathedral.)

However, many on both sides have been frustrated by his seeming reluctance to take strong positions or actions as the current crises have arisen. Rowan Williams seems to be the quintessential Anglican as his writings often follow the well known formula “on the one hand X, on the other hand Y.” Rowan Williams on the final day of the Conference, in contrast, was a surprisingly different kind of leader than the one to which we’ve become accustomed. It’s my sense that he was freed and empowered to give some specific direction based on the confidence he received from the general agreement indicated on certain matters from the Indaba reflections:

“We have quite a strong degree of support for a Pastoral Forum to support minorities, a strong consensus on the need to examine how the Instruments of Communion will best work, and a recognition…that a Covenant is needed… Before the ACC meeting next year…I intend to convene a Primates’ Meeting as early as possible in 2009. I shall look within the next two months for a clear and detailed specification for the task and composition of a Pastoral Forum, and I shall ensure that the perspectives of various groups looking at the Covenant and the Windsor process, as well as the Design Group for this Conference help to shape the implementation of the agenda outlined in the Reflections document, and are fed into the special meeting in November of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We may not have put an end to all our problems – but the pieces are on the board. And in the months ahead it will be important to invite those absent from Lambeth to be involved in these next stages. Much in the GAFCON documents is consonant with much of what we have sought to say and do, and we need to look for the best ways of building bridges here.”

This, in my opinion, is a leader moving forward in the confidence that the vast majority of his fellow bishops are clearly behind him. Other surprises:

• … There can be no doubt that the Windsor Process and the Anglican Covenant are still very much in play. (Actually, this should have come as no surprise as acceptance of invitations to the Lambeth Conference “carried with it a willingness to work with the Windsor Report and the Covenant as tools by which the future of the Communion could be shaped.” )

• The Windsor Continuation Group recommended, in the period leading up to the establishment of a Covenant, the honoring of the three moratoria requested by the Windsor Report: ordinations of persons living in a same gender union to the episcopate; the blessing of same-sex unions; and cross-border incursions by bishops. “There is widespread support for moratoria across the communion…,” the bishops discerned, adding, “If the Windsor process is to be honoured, all three moratoria must be applied consistently.”

• The Windsor Continuation Group also recommended, in the period leading up to the establishment of a Covenant, “the swift formation of a ‘Pastoral Forum’ at Communion level to engage theologically and practically with situations of controversy as they arise or divisive actions that may be taken around the Communion.” After consideration, the Indaba groups indicated “clear majority support for a Pastoral Forum…and a desire to see it in place speedily.”…

• On the day we discussed human sexuality, the Archbishop of Canterbury explained that the reason we were not revisiting the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 was that it remained the commonly held teaching of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.

Some will argue that there is nothing new here, that these are the same Windsor recommendations that have been ignored and failed to mend the “tear in the fabric” of the Anglican Communion. I disagree. What has changed is that the vast majority of the world’s Anglican bishops have indicated their willingness, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, to stand behind them. The way of healing and reconciliation is clear now. The blame and burden for making permanent the divisions we are now experiencing is squarely on the shoulders of those who choose to ignore the requested moratoria. The Archbishop admits “there will be those for whom ‘covenanted restraint’ is conscientiously hard, even impossible.” One hears echoes here of his distinction between “constituent” and “associate” membership in the Anglican Communion in the 2006 essay “The Challenge and Hope of Being Anglican Today.”

Admittedly, there are unanswered questions here. Will the Covenant have “teeth”? What will be the basic level of adoption of the Covenant, the province or the diocese? Will there be time for General Convention 2009 to act on it or will it need to wait for General Convention 2012? What of covenant congregations in non-covenant dioceses or covenant dioceses in non-covenant provinces or vice versa? Will those bishops crossing diocesan boundaries be willing to delegate oversight to a Pastoral Forum? Will General Convention be able to show restraint by not rescinding Resolution B033 or authorizing rites of blessing for same-sex unions? Obviously no one knows with certainty, but as these questions are answered it’s my sense that a renewed Anglicanism in communion with the See of Canterbury will emerge for mission in the twenty-first century. I do know that where there is a gracious will, there can be found a way forward that respects the consciences of all. I trust the Holy Spirit to surprise us once again with answers to these questions…

It just might be the case that God has surprised us once again by using our current divisions to strengthen us and form us into a body of Christians and a Church we might not have been otherwise. Maybe, contrary to our self-understanding, we actually have only been a federation of independent churches after all, but that God is molding and forming us into a real communion of interdependent churches to his honor and glory. Gratefully, I think we are beginning to understand that this enterprise is not about us. It has always only been about the broken, hurting world which the Father loves and desires to save, heal and restore through the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. I give thanks to God for calling us to share in his mission as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church we know as the Anglican Communion. May the One who has begun this good work among us bring it to completion!

These are excerpts from a longer document which I received by email. I will post a link when it becomes available online.

The Lambeth Conference 2008—and the future of the Anglican Communion

Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, reflects on his experience at the Lambeth Conference:

So much about “Lambeth 2008” was wonderfully encouraging, moving and often humbling… By the second full week of the Conference I and many other bishops had come to the view that the programme as a whole was designed to ensure that the Conference should not seek to offer any clear guidance or teaching on any issue, because of the potentially divisive effects of our starting upon the plenary debates, and the voting, which alone would enable the Conference to articulate a particular view comparable to that of “Lambeth 1998”. To me and to many others this had the effect of legitimising, in the life of the Conference and by implication in the Communion, the whole range of convictions about same-sex relationships and about the use of Scripture. There was little if any sense that the Conference was bound by Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference; and over and over again participants were encouraged to think especially of their “context”—with the tacit but clear impression that “context” could indeed, as some insist, powerfully influence Christian teaching; and that a world-wide family of Churches could continue with radically different teaching on the content of the Holy Life in different parts of the world, even when all are in communication in seconds through the Web.

For many of us, and perhaps especially for many Bishops from the developing world, these impressions were exacerbated by the extent to which the physical environment of the Conference was strongly coloured by the well-organised and well-funded activities of groups and individuals lobbying against the Communion’s teaching expressed in Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and for that publicly advocated by The Episcopal Church and those who think like it. Around a third of the stalls in the “Market-place” were taken by those lobbying for change in the Communion’s teaching; Bishop Gene Robinson was quite often around the campus and extensively “hyped” by the British media; and news-stands at strategic points around the site offered copies of a near-daily news-sheet, The Lambeth Witness, sponsored by InclusiveChurch and providing its “take” on events and people, while looking as if it might be an official organ of the Conference!

On the other hand, early in the Conference 19 Primates from the developing world sponsored a meeting which gave an opportunity for Bishops broadly in sympathy with the “Global South” in its emphasis on orthodox teaching on the use of scripture, on the person of Christ and on same-sex relationships, to hear from some of their leaders in the Conference and to offer each other mutual encouragement. Well over 150 bishops attended, from Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA and England as well as from the developing world. Many of the latter had persisted in coming to Canterbury in the face of persuasion to join Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya in staying away (but five Kenyan Bishops and the wives of four of them braved the criticism of their colleagues to come to the Conference). That afternoon and throughout the Conference we greatly missed what would have been the strong participation of those who stayed away.

At the beginning of the second week I e-mailed letters to our own Partners, the Archbishops of Rwanda and Uganda, expressing my sadness at their and their Bishops’ absence, strong though my sympathy was for the convictions which had led them to judge that they should stay away. I received a warm note, before the end of the Conference, from Archbishop Henry Orombi, affirming the contribution over the years of Winchester to the Church of Uganda, and his own and his bishops’ continuing commitment to our range of Partnerships. Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini had made the same clear commitment to me—and I to him—when we talked for 2 hours, at his invitation, in Sussex in mid-May.

Though the Conference was not, as I expressed my fears to the Diocesan Synod, “engulfed in, taken over by, the profound disagreements that exist among us around the legitimacy for Christians of same-sex sexual behaviour”, I found that these were never far below the surface, indeed that they were explicit, in every Bible Study and every meeting of the “indaba” of which I was a member – even while these settings enabled Bishops to express their disagreements courteously and respectfully to each other. There was no escaping, in my experience of the Conference, the demanding reality that not only in parts of the world distant from each other, but often within the same Province, Bishops hold radically—I should say, incompatibly—different convictions on the use of Scripture, on same-sex sexual relationships and on whether people in such relationships may be ordained.

Bishops who argue for the “revisionist” position see themselves and their churches as prophetic, and obedient to fresh disclosures of the Holy Spirit; and they see as both unreasonable and impossible, and profoundly detrimental to the credibility of their Christian witness in their context, the demands of the Primates in recent years that they should draw back from what is now a generation or more of thinking and behaving in these ways in their Dioceses – and the “tickets” on which they themselves were elected to their Sees.

To many other Bishops, especially but by no means only in the developing world, and by no means only to Evangelicals, this teaching and practice does not only disobey the clear teaching of Scripture and the unvaried practice of the Church until this generation; it threatens the reputation and credibility of their Churches, and exposes their Christians to mockery if not actually to violence. In the UK, too, today the “orthodox” often face mockery, and charges of “bigotry”, for their convictions (as I know well)! …

Right up until the final afternoon of the Conference and Archbishop Rowan’s third Presidential Address, everything seemed to be “managed” to ensure that these opposing and (in my judgement and experience) mutually incompatible views should be held in tension; and that this “both-and”, not Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998, should effectively be the teaching of the Conference and the means of holding the Anglican Communion together.

I described this apparently likely outcome as “living down” to the concerns about “Lambeth 2008” that motivated the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem in July, and that led more than 200 bishops to refuse the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation to the Conference. I expressed my concern that if this were to be the outcome of the Conference, more Provinces might well be drawn away from the See of Canterbury to the new structures that GAFCON had committed itself to bringing into being; and I suggested that the wisest future for the Communion could be some kind of negotiated “orderly separation” that would free both “sides” from more years of necessarily inconclusive debate and from the damage that each perceived itself receiving from the other.

But on the final afternoon Archbishop Rowan decisively tipped the balance for the first time in the Conference. Affirming the uniqueness of Christ as the Way, the Truth and the life, he re-affirmed Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference as the teaching of the Anglican Communion on sexual behaviour, and the Primates’ 2007 call for moratoria on blessings of same-sex relationships, on the consecration of any more priests in same-sex sexual relationships like Gene Robison, and on incursions by bishops into the dioceses of others; and he again backed work on the Anglican Communion Covenant as the most fruitful way for the Communion to manage its life together. “The onus of proof”, he said, “is on those who seek a new understanding.” And later: “The vision of a global Church of interdependent communities is not the vision of an ecclesiastical world empire - or even a colonial relic… The global horizon of the Church matters because churches without this are always in danger of slowly surrendering to the culture around them and losing sight of their calling to challenge that culture.” …

So what are my own provisional conclusions, as I complete this Report to the Diocese of Winchester nearly a week after the close of the Lambeth Conference of 2008?

Notwithstanding Archbishop Rowan’s magnificent final Address, I continue to see a negotiated “orderly separation” as the best and most fruitful way forward for the Anglican Communion. The experience of this Lambeth Conference, underlined by that final Address, has again convinced me that the Anglican Communion cannot hold in tension convictions and practices that are incompatible, and so not patent of “reconciliation”, without continuing seriously to damage the life and witness of Anglican Churches as much in “the Global South” as in North America and in other provinces that have followed the lead of TEC. The experience of this Conference cannot have encouraged any participant to imagine that the latter are about to turn their backs on a generation or more of development in directions foreign to the life and convictions of the vast majority of Anglicans, let alone of other Christians, across the world. I cannot see that the members of an “international family of Churches” can thrive and grow and offer a clear witness to Jesus Christ as Lord while offering contradictory teaching, on a matter as central as the character of the Holy Life, in different parts of a world knit together by instantaneous e-communications.

I am not imagining that such an “orderly separation” could prove either straightforward or painless. Archbishop Rowan said two years ago that if partings came, they would be as unmanageable, and as unpredictable in their effects, as the splintering of panes of glass; and I realise that there could be especially difficult implications for the Church of England, as there continue to be for the Churches of North America. But I recognise as quite fair the summary of my and others’ views offered by the Guardian newspaper’s Editorial on August 4th: they “feel that the avoidance of confrontation this past fortnight has merely set up a worse confrontation in the future”.

If this may be the future under God of the Anglican Communion—a large “orthodox” majority continuing to look to its historic roots (I pray and hope) in the See of Canterbury yet maintaining some defined relationship with a “separated” and more “liberal” Communion of Churches centred on TEC—much now depends on the GAFCON Primates and the rest of the “Global South” quickly mending the relationships between them that have been put at risk, and on all of them together reacting positively to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s stated intention to call a meeting of the Primates of the Communion early in 2009.

By then they, and the rest of us, may have a clear sense of how TEC and others are going to respond to Archbishop Rowan’s calls in his final Address on August 3rd; and the Archbishop may himself be in a position to judge whether there is a will for the Anglican Communion to go forward together in Our Lord’s service – or whether he faces the terrifyingly difficult decision between initiating negotiations that may make for “an orderly separation”, or watching a still more destructive separation take place around him.

His whole letter may be found here.

Where Once He Was Lost, Now He Is Found

Here is the story of Olympic flag bearer Lopez Lomong, as told by Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post.

Four billion people around the world will see Lomong carrying our flag.Lopez Lomong, one of the Sudanese “Lost Boys” and a member of the anti-genocide group Team Darfur, has been chosen by his 595 U.S. Olympic teammates to carry our flag on Friday… Far more than that, untold millions of people, in the next few days, will hear Lomong’s life story, in his own words. In a half-hour monologue here on Friday, just 10 hours before he was to carry the flag, Lomong told a tale of grief, endurance, redemption and almost unimaginable hardship that captures in human terms every aspect of the Darfur tragedy…

During a Sunday morning Mass 17 years ago, the 6-year-old Lomong, along with about 100 other children, was taken at gunpoint from his parents, driven away blindfolded in a truck and dumped in a cramped, windowless, one-room prison full of boys. There, they were fed millet full of barely visible sand, which prevented proper digestion, and, within days, gradually led to the death of boy after boy.

“They would go to sleep and never stand up again. ‘Tomorrow will be my day,’” Lomong said. “But I had three angels.” They were slightly older boys who told him to eat just enough of the death gruel to stay alive, but not enough to kill himself. After three weeks, the older trio discovered a hole in a fence. At midnight, crawling while guards talked, stopping when they fell silent, then crawling until they were outside the compound, the four boys began to run. “That is where my race started,” Lomong said.

Despite one boy holding each of his hands as they fled, Lomong nonetheless battered his legs on so many trees and thorns “that’s why they still look like such a mess… We ran for three days and nights. They would hide me in a cave while two of them went to get water. They would fetch some back for me in a big leaf.”

When the four boys fell asleep at night, they made sure to keep their bodies pointed in the same direction that they had been running “so that we did not run back in the wrong direction toward the guards or run in circles,” Lomong said. Finally, they were arrested at the Kenyan border—penniless, unable to speak the local Swahili—and taken to a refugee camp. For the next 10 years.

There, thanks to the United Nations, a group of 10 boys were able to eat one meal a day. “You eat late at night so it will carry you until the next night,” Lomong said. “In the day, you play soccer or run to keep your mind off the hunger… Still, some Kenyans were not happy with us because we had more food than they did. I thought my family was dead, but in the camp I became happy again.” Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, the 10 boys got one chicken. They mixed it with salt and water to make weak chicken soup and treasured every tiny morsel of actual chicken, their only meat of the year.

In 2001, word arrived that the United States wanted to take 3,500 of these refugee “Lost Boys” to the United States to place with foster families. “But you had to write your life story to see who would go,” Lomong said. “I just decided to say, ‘This is me.’ I put everything on a piece of paper.” After three weeks, “They said, ‘Congratulations.’”

The rest was an incomprehensible swirl. An airplane, a family (Robert and Barbara Rogers) in Upstate New York and the sight of unfathomable cars, roads and cities. “I had to learn everything, like how to shower. [Is it] hot or cold? No, put it in the middle.” Straight from the airport, the Rogers took Lomong to McDonald’s. Yeah, yeah, the Olympic sponsor. And what did he order? Chicken. When he had eaten all he could, there was chicken left. “Throw it away,” his new parents told him. “There’s more at home.” But he couldn’t. “I remembered when a little piece of chicken was ‘Merry Christmas to you’. So I took it home.” Given opportunities that American teenagers take for granted, he embraced his chance with his whole soul. School was a blessing but also breathtaking to a 16-year-old who had always learned his letters by writing in the dirt.

So, you ask, how on earth did Lomong get the idea of being an Olympian? Once in Kenya, he was given five shillings for watering cows. It was his only money but he never spent it, keeping it for the right moment. He heard others talking about the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and how, on the only TV set in the area, five miles away, they might watch it. So, Lomong and friends walked five miles to the black-and-white TV only to find out that, for each event you watched, you had to pay—five shillings. That day, Lopez Lomong saw sprinter Michael Johnson run and win, stand on the podium in a U.S. uniform and cry as his anthem was played. “I want to run as fast as that guy,” Lomong says he thought. “And I want to wear that same uniform. I was so determined. I knew I could run. Running is what we do all our lives. It is part of our transportation.’”

On July 6, 2007, Lomong became an U.S. citizen. On July 6, 2008, he made the U.S. Olympic team. “ is what we call, ‘Dream makes history,’” Lomong said. Once he gained citizenship, Lomong returned to his native land and was reunited with his parents who had, long ago, assumed he was dead, held a funeral and buried what remnants, like a child’s beads, that he had left behind. Last December, Lomong participated in a burial in reverse as his plot was unearthed and blessed. “They revive me back,” he said with a grin. “I am alive again.”

In his Sudanese village where war and genocide, disappearing families and starvation have seemed an unending fate, Lomong told everyone never to give up, that someone they believed dead “may be out there somewhere”. For his parents, he bought a TV and told them: “You can watch me in the ’08 Olympics. I didn’t know I would make the team.” Then his sheepish, gap-toothed expressing broke into a wide-eyed smile: “But I did.”

You can find the whole story, which also tells of China’s complicity in the Darfur tragedy, here.

Olympic decathlete Bryan Clay

This is from an article on Bryan Clay in Muscle & Body magazine, where he appears on this month’s cover.

The hard thing about the Olympics is that once you get to that level, it’s anybody’s game. It comes down to who makes the least amount of mistakes, who’s going to be tough enough mentally to stay focused. And, believe me, there’s a lot of distractions. People don’t realize that the click of a camera can be a distraction that throws everything off.

My faith plays a huge role in who I am and what I’m all about. It really sets the foundation for me and my life—who I am, how I compete and why I compete. I feel like I have all those questions answered in my heart. I understand what’s really important in life, what’s a blessing and what can be taken away tomorrow.

My dream started when I was 8 years old. I was watching the 1988 Olympics and saw Carl Lewis win the 10-meter dash. I remember being awestruck by the fact that this guy is the fastest guy on the track. Then he grabbed the U.S. flag and draped it around himself and continued to jog around the track holding the flag, and everyone was cheering for him and screaming his name. I thought, Man, that is the coolest thing ever. I turned to my mom and dad and said, “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.” It was just a crazy little dream when I was only 8 years old, and it got set on the back burner for a few years. But I definitely came full circle, and now I’ve been able to accomplish that dream.

It was during the long jump, which is the second event of the decathlon, that I experienced my Olympic moment. Everything that happened after that Olympic moment, including the silver medal, was icing on the cake.

I already have been so blessed to be able to accomplish my dreams and aspirations. And I have more dreams and aspirations outside of track and field. That’s why I train as hard as I do. And that’s why I’m still trying to reach the gold medal, and hopefully take down a few records at the same time. I know that’s going to set me up in the future for even greater things.

There’s no way I would be where I am without the help of so many people in my life. I’ve got high school coaches and club team coaches; my parents and my grandparents; my wife; my coaches in college; youth pastors who would pick me up in the middle of the night when I was fighting with my parents to help me cool off and talk me through what was going on. All these people were there for me when I needed them. I want to make sure that I have the opportunity to do all that for someone else someday.

Elsewhere on Bryan’s website:

Bryan’s life as an adolescent wasn’t always one aimed on a successful path. He was a bit of a rebellious teen and was often finding himself in trouble. Bryan credits two things with getting his life back on track: His success in sports that led him to college, and his belief and acceptance of the Christian faith.

London Times Cryptic Crossword for 10 August

It’s back! Here is today’s London Times Sunday cryptic crossword. Just click on it to bring up the full-sized version.

Silver medalist in Athens runs for God and for gold

Here’s an encouraging story about a Christian athlete competing in the Beijing games:

Allyson Felix has lived her life following people. First it was her older brother, Wes. “I’ve always looked up to Wes,” she says, “and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.” Born and raised in central Los Angeles, she followed Wes into the sport of basketball, where her thin frame earned her the nickname “Chicken Legs.”

But something changed when she followed him into track and field. When the high-school coach first timed her on the track, he thought he’d measured the distance incorrectly. When Allyson’s time was consistently faster than the other girls, both she and the coach began to realize her unknown talent.

She soon began making her own footsteps, winning state championships in both the 100 and 200 meters. A few months after her high-school graduation, she ran the 200 in 22.11 seconds in the Banamex Grand Prix in Mexico City, the fastest in history for a high school girl, although the record couldn’t be ratified because there had been no drug testing at the event.

Allyson turned pro shortly after that, and at 18, she became the youngest member on the 2004 U.S. Olympic track and field team. She took the silver in the 200 meters at the 2004 Olympics, and the girl they used to call “chicken legs” has now leg-pressed 700 pounds. Suddenly, Allyson was no longer following her older brother, but she was following the fastest runners in the world.

“It is exciting to be compared to the great American sprinters,” she says. “I’ve looked up to them, studied their races, and followed their footsteps. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s a great thing to take it on.”

Allyson learned early on that unless she’s following Christ, her footsteps won’t matter. “I can’t imagine life without knowing Jesus,” she says. Her father is an ordained minister and a professor at The Master’s College Seminary, and the family attends church together every Sunday.

“My speed is a gift from God,” says Allyson. “My main purpose for running is that maybe someone can see something different in me, or maybe I can say something that will reach out to someone.”

Her agent, eight-time world-record holder Renaldo Nehemiah, agrees. “Allyson is humble, exemplifies tremendous character and sportsmanship,” he says. “And most importantly, her sport doesn’t define who she is as a person. Whether she wins or loses, she’s at peace with God’s will.”

Now, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, the 21-year-old is poised to be following once again. But this time she’s chasing down world records as she follows in the footsteps of greatness. After many runners have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, Allyson Felix stands out as a shining light for the sport’s future. “It’s time to let track go in a new direction,” she says. Allyson won gold at the world championships in 2005, and in 2007, became the second woman in history to win three gold medals at one world championship.

From Athletes in Action. Allyson’s own website may be found here.

Lambeth Conference: An Anglican Communion Institute Perspective

We have followed closely the events at Lambeth. We have been pleased at the regular meetings of Communion Partner Bishops together with English Bishops and key Global South Primates. Much hard work and prayerful cooperation was in evidence and we thank God for that. In a telephone interview yesterday with the New York journal First Things, the topic was general accomplishments of the conference. Here are several things noted:

1. The presence of Global South Primates and their final statement, indicating support for the Windsor Continuation Group’s work. This is a crucial statement as it signals support for Communion processes. Their support of the Archbishop of Canterbury was also underscored. We are grateful for the leadership of Archbishop John Chew and Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis, and their colleagues.

2. The call from the Archbishop of Canterbury for a Primates Meeting in 2009. This will determine where the wider communion is and how broadly support for the Instruments remains. We hope all Primates will be present and that the work of the Communion will continue in these challenging days. If there is to be a Faith and Order committee of some description, as suggested, the input of the Primates into this important initiative is critical.

3. The endorsement from the Archbishop of Canterbury of the Covenant Process, Lambeth 1.10, Communion Partners, and a Pastoral Forum. In several public statements he clarified considerably his own view on the teaching of the church in the area of human sexuality, and was clearer about the consequence of pressing forward with departures from that teaching. In our view, this indicates a realism about the probability of Bishops and Dioceses moving forward with same-sex blessings in a more concerted manner. Already we are seeing news reports to that effect.

4. We welcome the call for moratoria and the timing of these, as this places the matter firmly before the Communion as a totality. What individual Bishops and Dioceses now choose to do will be in the light of this wider Communion gathering. At issue, we surmise, will be the sense of a common mind within the House of Bishops of TEC itself, in view of the Lambeth Conference and anticipated efforts to move ahead against the direction set there.

5. The Indaba format, whatever its shortcomings, allowed Bishops from North America the daily experience of rubbing elbows and praying with a majority of Bishops from parts of the world with far more severe challenges, and to hear of the effect of decisions made in the US and Canada on them and their churches.

6. The call for the covenant to be something individual dioceses can signal support for. ACI raised this question in New York with Gregory Cameron in the Spring, following his enthusiastic account of its merits and why TEC should endorse the covenant. Obviously there are grave doubts about that, and whilst it is clear why the provinces are the point of contact, Canon Cameron allowed that if TEC should choose not to join the covenant, or put the decision off, the larger communion would indeed be concerned to allow individual dioceses inclusion. Communion Partner bishops reiterated that concern at Lambeth.

Many developments will of course determine the next phases of our Communion life, measured against what has been undertaken in Kent. If individual Bishops press ahead with same-sex blessings, or consecrations of the sort in New Hampshire are forthcoming, as many anticipate, this will serve as a proxy within the US and Canada. It is crucial to have Lambeth and especially the Archbishop’s own clear statements against which to view the next developments.

Finally, we are not clear what the concept of a “escrow” plan is and who it would be designed to support. It is also unclear what the Gafcon gathering and the call for a Council to consider a new province in the US actually entails. There was no discussion of this latter development at Lambeth. Perhaps this will be taken up at the next Primates Meeting, or in back channels leading up to that. Some associated with Gafcon describe it as a structure with its own integrity independent of the Instruments of Communion (hence, its own Council), whilst others speak of it as only a broad movement. It will be important to see these matters clarified.

This summary is undertaken in the context of other commitments and intends only to make some initial observations. ACI will make further comment in the days to come.

I look forward to the appearance of further observations from this group. The Anglican Communion Institute’s website is here.

The Feast of the Transfiguration

Here are some thoughts on Jesus’ transfiguration by Fred Craddock:

We would very much like to penetrate the mystery of this experience, but we cannot. Matthew calls it a vision. One thing is clear: Jesus and his three disciples have an experience of God. Its meaning for Jesus and for them is different, but the only actor in the event is God. Jesus is not acting but is being acted upon. The God of Moses and Elijah affirms them in their unity with Jesus but asserts the finality of Jesus. The God who could rescue the Son from suffering confirms for Jesus the way of the cross. This God also tells the disciples, who will soon face conditions that seem to derail if not bring to an end their hope in Jesus, that those very painful conditions do not lie across the way but on the way to the completion of God’s purpose. This is a mountaintop experience but not the kind about which people write glowingly of sunrises, soft breezes, warm friends, music, and quiet time. On this mountain the subject is death, and the frightening presence of God reduces those present to silence. In due time, after the resurrection, they will remember, understand, and not feel heavy. In fact, they will tell it broadly as good news.

From Luke (Interpretation Commentary)

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: ‘Live Not By Lies’

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died yesterday. Below are the opening paragraphs of an essay published in the Wahington Post, written on 12 February 1974, the day he was arrested by the secret police.

At one time we dared not even to whisper. Now we write and read samizdat, and sometimes when we gather in the smoking room at the Science Institute we complain frankly to one another: What kind of tricks are they playing on us, and where are they dragging us? Gratuitous boasting of cosmic achievements while there is poverty and destruction at home. Propping up remote, uncivilized regimes. Fanning up civil war. And we recklessly fostered Mao Tse-tung at our expense—and it will be we who are sent to war against him, and will have to go. Is there any way out? And they put on trial anybody they want, and they put sane people in asylums—always they, and we are powerless.

Things have almost reached rock bottom. A universal spiritual death has already touched us all, and physical death will soon flare up and consume us both and our children—but as before we still smile in a cowardly way and mumble without tongues tied. But what can we do to stop it? We haven't the strength.

We have been so hopelessly dehumanized that for today’s modest ration of food we are willing to abandon all our principles, our souls, and all the efforts of our predecessors and all the opportunities for our descendants—but just don’t disturb our fragile existence. We lack staunchness, pride and enthusiasm. We don’t even fear universal nuclear death, and we don't fear a third world war. We have already taken refuge in the crevices. We just fear acts of civil courage.

We fear only to lag behind the herd and to take a step alone—and suddenly find ourselves without white bread, without heating gas and without a Moscow registration.

We have been indoctrinated in political courses, and in just the same way was fostered the idea to live comfortably, and all will be well for the rest of our lives: You can't escape your environment and social conditions. Everyday life defines consciousness. What does it have to do with us? We can't do anything about it.

But we can—everything. But we lie to ourselves for assurance. And it is not they who are to blame for everything—we ourselves, only we. One can object: But actually you can think anything you like. Gags have been stuffed into our mouths. Nobody wants to listen to us, and nobody asks us. How can we force them to listen? It is impossible to change their minds.

It would be natural to vote them out of office—but there are not elections in our country. In the West people know about strikes and protest demonstrations—but we are too oppressed, and it is a horrible prospect for us: How can one suddenly renounce a job and take to the streets? Yet the other fatal paths probed during the past century by our bitter Russian history are, nevertheless, not for us, and truly we don't need them.

Now that the axes have done their work, when everything which was sown has sprouted anew, we can see that the young and presumptuous people who thought they would make out country just and happy through terror, bloody rebellion and civil war were themselves misled. No thanks, fathers of education! Now we know that infamous methods breed infamous results. Let our hands be clean!

The circle—is it closed? And is there really no way out? And is there only one thing left for us to do, to wait without taking action? Maybe something will happen by itself? It will never happen as long as we daily acknowledge, extol, and strengthen—and do not sever ourselves from—the most perceptible of its aspects: Lies.

When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: “I am violence. Run away, make way for me—I will crush you.” But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally—since violence can conceal itself with nothing except lies, and the lies can be maintained only by violence. And violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies—all loyalty lies in that.

And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, we will be obstinate in this smallest of matters: Let them embrace everything, but not with any help from me…

You can read the rest of this powerful essay here.

Confessions of a “Mainline Fundamentalist”

I am grateful to my wife for finding this marvelous testimony to God’s redemptive power, and thought I’d pass it along. It is an encouraging complement to the article from First Things that I posted last week.

I came out of seminary believing what I had been taught, trained in the school of academic thought that says that anyone who thinks the Bible is without inner contradictions, that it was actually written by the people who the books themselves claim wrote them is a brainless dope. In short, I was a well-trained historical-critical, Neoliberal pastor. I was launched out of the halls of academia into the parish with shelves full of books that would refute any notion that the Bible was consistent, had a central, coherent message and had historical accuracy. I had all the arguments, all the pride, ready to correct all of the simpletons that I would meet in my ministry. Little did I know what God had in store for me, to make me precisely the kind of person that I had trained to correct. God does have a sense of humor!

In the parish I had a rigorous preaching schedule and I taught a regular Sunday morning Bible study before the worship service. Week after week several church members and I engaged the Scriptures and discussed their meaning. In that class I found myself with two people in particular who had been taught under the teaching ministry of R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. They loved me and I loved them, so week after week we engaged each other in the attempt to convince the other that they misunderstood the interpretation and purpose of Scripture. I found myself losing the argument, week after week.

Being prideful, I started to investigate these outrageous claims that I was unable to refute. These people anticipated my every argument, every counter-move and every point that my seminary training had taught me! It was extremely frustrating… Concurrently, I found that in this time my preaching had also started to suffer. I had run out of ideas. My faith slipped further into irrelevancy… So, I started reading. Not my seminary texts. They could not, had not helped. I started reading strange fellows, people that had never been even mentioned in either of my two mainline seminaries. Funny how that happens…

I started to read these wild and strange fellows that had been verboten in the seminary, they who must not named: I started reading J.I. Packer. I read Graeme Goldsworthy and D.A. Carson. I remember it so clearly–They were so rational and so clear! They were so confident and yet humble in their assuredness that the Bible really was without error and had a sweeping unity of narrative. The scales fell from my eyes. Now, I began to understand why these writers had been hidden from us! They had just as much academic training and credentials as the people the seminary adored, but these theologians and biblical scholars had come to the opposite conclusion after studying the same data! They were utterly convincing.

I began to see where I had gone wrong. I had always been taught that Scripture was a patchwork of human ideas about God that were mutually contradictory yet somehow inspired by God to teach us about the love of Christ. The basic notion had been that Jesus came to teach us what was wrong with Scripture itself. Isn’t that funny? That’s what I came out of seminary with, the idea that we could take some things from the Bible that worked for us in the modern world and discard the rest, as long as Jesus said it was ok.

Suddenly, I found Jesus in the Old Testament. Imagine that! I found the whole sweep of God’s redemptive history in the full and complete witness of the whole 66 chapters in the one book of the Bible. I saw it now–as an opening, a middle and a finale. One Author, many witnesses, one story. I realized that this is what Jesus had been trying to teach his disciples all along… There were no gaps, no messy contradictions, no muddy compromises. Just clarity and peace. Perfect peace…

I had jumped the shark, so to speak. As a mainline, PC(USA) pastor I had found myself the guy that I used to laugh about. That mocking derision to the simple-minded folk who actually claimed what I now claimed about the Bible was directed at me. You see, in the mainline church culture, it only works one way: conservatives and evangelicals can turn liberal. But never, never the reverse! A liberal turning fundamentalist is a violation of the contract. Oh well…

So here I am. A PC(USA) pastor, not going anywhere, who is now the person that I never expected to become. A minority of a dwindling minority. And I wouldn’t trade it for any treasure in all the world.

The complete version of the Rev. Toby Brown’s testimony may be found here.

“What the Lambeth Conference accomplished”

What follows is a digest from three sources—

From The Guardian:

The Archbishop of Canterbury blamed liberal North American churches yesterday for causing turmoil in the Anglican communion by blessing same-sex unions and consecrating gay clergy as he attempted to chart a way out of the crisis that has been engulfing the church…

“If North American churches do not accept the need for a moratoria [on same sex blessings and the consecration of gay clergy] we are no further forward. We continue to be in grave peril,” he said…

From The Living Church:

On the other hand, the idea of moratorium was apparently not taken seriously by many bishops from The Episcopal Church. Bishops Jon Bruno of Los Angeles and Marc Andrus of California already have said they would not attempt to stop the blessing of gay relationships in their dioceses, and in the Diocese of Massachusetts on Aug. 2, two priests participated in civil same-sex marriages for two couples inside Episcopal churches.

“The current policy, well, I wouldn’t say policy of the American church, but some of the practices of dioceses, or certain dioceses, in the American church continues to put our relations as a Communion under strain and some problems won’t be resolved while those practices continue,” Archbishop Williams said. “I might just add, perhaps a note here. One complication in discussing all this is that assumption, readily made, that the blessing of a same-sex union and/or the ordination of someone in an active same-sex relationship is simply a matter of human rights … That’s an assumption I can’t accept because I think the issues about what conditions the church lays down for the blessing of unions has to be shaped by its own thinking, its own praying.”

Archbishop Williams was asked what was meant by the Windsor Continuation Group’s recommendation for a moratorium on public rites for same-sex blessings. Different parts of the world define public rites of blessing in different ways, adding to the confusion, according to Archbishop Williams. A primates’ communiqué following a meeting in Brazil in 2003 noted that in some places private prayers were said, but that was not intended to include public liturgies. “There are those in the U.S.A. who would say ‘pastoral response.’ Well, it’s a blessing and I’m not very happy about that,” he said…

From The Guardian (again):

Making his third and final presidential address Williams said the “pieces are on the board” to resolve the wrangling over homosexuality. He put forward the idea of a "covenanted future" involving a “global church of interdependent communities”. But even as he was speaking disaffected primates from developing countries expressed regrets about the conference. A statement signed by more than a quarter of the world’s Anglican archbishops said theological voices outside the west had been missing from some key sessions. “We are concerned with the continuing patronising attitude of the west towards the rest of the churches,” they said.

Williams also faced disenchantment at home, with some English bishops questioning the nature of the conference. Michael Scott-Joynt, the bishop of Winchester and the fifth most senior churchman in England, said: “The Lambeth Conference is required to do something rather than live down to the worst expectations of the bishops who stayed away.”

The bishop of Exeter, Michael Langrish, also said there was an "inexorable logic" that there should be one core communion with the more liberal churches at the margins. Conflicting views over homosexuality have pushed liberals and conservatives apart, with 230 boycotting Lambeth and realigning themselves with a breakaway movement, the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon).

Throughout the conference there have been pleas for churches in the US and Canada to refrain from progressive agendas… Williams announced that he would convene a meeting with all the Anglican primates, to take place early next year, and that the objectives and composition of the pastoral forum would be unveiled within three months. In addition, he said, the Gafcon bishops absent from Lambeth would be involved in policy shaping.

Jon Bruno, bishop of Los Angles, was clear that calls to stop blessing same-sex relationships would be received with “fear and trepidation” in his diocese. “I can only say that inclusion is a reality,” he said. “For people who think that this is going to lead us to disenfranchise any gay or lesbian person, they are sadly mistaken.” Susan Russell, president of the US campaign group Integrity, was angry with Williams’ remarks, which she called an “11th-hour sucker punch”. She said: "It sends the wrong message—that gays and lesbians are still strangers at the gate. It’s not going to change anything on the ground.”

And from The Times:

Organise as many meetings, commissions and reports, the logic goes, and everyone will be too engaged or simply too tired to walk away. At Lambeth, Dr Williams has set up not just one, but four of these things. There are probably even more, hidden away between the small print of the 37-page “reflections” document that has come out of two weeks of African-style conflict resolution in “indaba” groups. The documents, meetings and commissions all have the same end in mind, to avoid a decision, ever, and thereby avoid schism…

The four key initiatives discussed at Lambeth are the Pastoral Forum, the Covenant, the Canon Law blueprint and the Faith and Order Commission. They are all designed basically to do the same thing: to keep everyone around a table, talking, until they are all just so grateful to get back to their dioceses that schism is the last thing on their minds. The strategy has worked and from the perspective of avoiding schism, Lambeth has been a success. If it falls apart in the end, it will most likely be under Dr Williams’ successor.

But not all Anglicans like success. Their gospel is the Christ-like one of victory through defeat, preferably crucifixion. In response to his failure to have a good public row and bring about schism, Dr Williams is facing rebellion within the ranks, although all done with the nicest of English smiles, a handshake or two and the Christian “sign of the peace”.

There is plenty more out there on the blogosphere about the Lambeth Conference, and no doubt plenty more than that remains to be written. Much of it will have to be written off in the end as speculation. Only time can tell what the real impact of the conference will have been. But for the moment I think these give as good a general picture (from my far-off perspective) as any.

GAFCON is Heir Apparent

From the Living Church:

The Global Anglican Fellowship Conference (GAFCON) is the heir apparent to assume leadership of the Anglican Communion, said three bishops during an informal media briefing this afternoon at the Lambeth Conference. Bishops Mark Lawrence of South Carolina and Keith Ackerman of Quincy were joined by Bishop Hector Zavala of Chile from the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone on the campus of the University of Kent, Canterbury, shortly before Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was scheduled to deliver his final presidential address of the conference.

Bishop Lawrence criticized the existing Instruments of Communion of being too slow to adapt. “I witnessed a new birth last month [at GAFCON],” Bishop Lawrence said. “The Global South has come to its place of maturity. I don’t know how the two structures will work together in the future. Those who adapt the quickest will be the ones who win the day.”

Bishop Zavala challenged Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to state clearly to the rest of the Communion the intentions of The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. “I don’t want to put words in her mouth,” he said. Bishop Zavala said the current crisis is rooted in The Episcopal Church’s decision to disregard Resolution 1.10 from the 1998 Lambeth Conference and consecrate a partnered homosexual person as Bishop Coadjutor of New Hampshire. “If there is no moratorium then the Communion will split,” he said.

Bishop Ackerman encouraged the assembled media to pay careful attention to the words chosen in the final reflections document. He said he is concerned that people on both sides will be unwilling to wait 10 years for the approval of a proposed covenant and that individual bishops will attempt creative interpretations of the language used in the final reflections document. “Pay careful attention to the words must, should and do for an indication of how strong the moratorium will be,” he said.

Minutes after the conclusion of the bishops' media briefing, the final reflections document was released. The language on the moratorium remains unchanged from the fourth draft which stated there was “widespread support for moratoria across the Communion,” but did not come to any decision.

Bishop Mark Lawrence has written in his diary:

I am glad I came here for this Lambeth and worshipped one last time in the Cathedral home of Augustine and Dunstan, Anselm and Becket, Cranmer and Laud, Temple and Ramsay. I had come to speak a word of hope and perhaps to intervene on behalf of our beloved, but in the last resolve the family refused the long needed measures. So he just slipped away, our noble prince, one dreary morning in Canterbury with hardly even a death rattle.

The new prince was born last month in Jerusalem. I was there—arriving late, departing early. I was never quite sure what I was witnessing. It was an awkward and messy birth. He hardly struck me as I gazed upon him there in the bassinet as quite ready to be heir to the throne. I even wondered at times if there might be some illegitimacy to his bloodlines. But that I fear was my over-weddedness to a white and European world. May he live long, and may his tribe increase—and may he remember with mercy all those who merely mildly neglected his birth.

As for me my role for now is clear, to hold together as much as I can for as long as I can that when he comes to his rightful place on St. Augustine’s throne in Canterbury Cathedral he will have a faithful and richly textured kingdom.

You can read his whole letter to his diocese (South Carolina) here.

The Bishop of Nelson [New Zealand] Writes His Diocese About the Lambeth Conference

This letter from Bishop Richard Ellena to his diocese appeared at StandFirm over the weekend:

We are now in the last couple of days of Lambeth and I am feeling deeply sad.

I don’t know why at the moment–everything I came here hoping for looks set to be agreed to: It is very likely that the Windsor continuation report will be approved–which means that a moratoria on gay bishops will continue etc… And it seems likely that a covenant process will be endorsed and a draft agreed to.

All this seems good to me and yet I can’t help this overwhelming sadness. Because I am more convinced than ever that none of this will help us. Those who have stayed away will not agree to it and will continue their ministry in the States. And TEC will continue to bleat that they won’t follow the moratoria while these Africans continue to ignore it.

I believe (at this stage–and there are still two days to go) that this has been the most expensive exercise in futility that I have every been to. The Indaba groups have been a joke. I can’t believe that no zulu has stood up and taken us to account for our abuse of this process. ‘Indaba’ is supposed to be very similar to the process our Maori use when they go onto a marae to achieve a consensus. We, on the other hand, arrived in our indaba groups only to be divided off into even smaller groups with little tasks to do–little questions to answer. It feels as though this is a process to divide and conquer

The Bible study groups have been very good in relationship building–I have met some very special people from within TEC and I hope to keep in touch with some of them. But I’m tired of every study being reduced to the buzz-word around here–‘What does it say in your context. Every second sentence you hear seems to start with that phrase–well, in my context. This is an abuse of the hermeneutical process.

The draft statement that will be released is so full of generalizations it says absolutely nothing. I am deeply dismayed at the spinelessness of the communion.

So what is good? I have appreciated networking with some pretty amazing people. I am so full of respect for Bishops Bill Love and Mark Lawrence (from within TEC) who are not afraid to stand up and call sin, sin! I have the deepest admiration from the Bishops from the Sudan who came to let their voice be heard and have been treated with the most disgusting abuse from a woman Bishop from New York who labeled them ‘wife-beaters!’

I am ready to come home–with little energy for pursuing the covenant–but will do so because this is my church!!! But I will be actively building relationships with the Global South which looks as if it will expand and grow beyond this Lambeth to include evangelical Bishops from all around the world.

I applaud the bishop’s candor.

A Word from the Bishops of the Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa

This public statement appeared today:

WE, the bishops of the Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa, wish to express our appreciation and thankfulness for the Lambeth Conference now ended. It has been a great joy to experience the fellowship, mutual support and counsel of fellow bishops from around the world. This conference has been a most valuable opportunity to express our thoughts and concerns and to listen to the concerns of others…

It is with great sadness however that we remember those who for the sake of conscience are unable to be with us. We think of those from Provinces and Dioceses who felt it would not be appropriate to be present on account of the unilateral actions taken by the Episcopal Church in America in breach of the Resolution 1.10 of the last Lambeth Conference now again reaffirmed as still expressing the mind of the church as a whole. We share their sense of pain that such unilateralism has so strained the bonds of our unity as to leave them now still impaired.

We must all pray for a spirit of mutual submission to prevail and for unity to be restored and we join with our African brothers and sisters in the Conference of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) in unity with the wider Global South movement in support of the Windsor continuation process, the Covenant and the three (retroactive) moratoria comprising
a cessation of

• The blessing of same-sex unions
• Ordinations to Holy Orders of those living in same-sex relationships
• Episcopal interventions across diocesan and Provincial borders

We do note, however, that the first two listed pertain to central moral teaching while the last is a matter simply of administration and good order. We are mindful that it is a break with the mind of the church in matters pertaining to sexuality that has occasioned the crossing of borders. We do commend the rapid establishment of the proposed Pastoral Forum with the guidance of the Archbishop of Canterbury and in consultation with the Presiding Bishop of the United States as there is an urgent need for truly effective provision of such extended pastoral care as is acceptable to those who feel the need for it.

You can read all of it here.

The Death of Protestant America

I am grateful to another parishioner for passing this article to me, from the August/September issue of First Things. What follows is just a small segment of what I think are some very insightful observations on the demise of the mainline (now often called “old-line”) churches in the USA, by Joseph Bottom:

The Episcopal Church used to be “larger percentagewise,” the current presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, admitted to the New York Times at the end of 2006. “But Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.” Episcopalians, she said, aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children—indeed, “it’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.” Applauding her parents’ decision to leave the Catholic Church and become Episcopalians when she was nine, Bishop Schori added, “I think my parents were looking for a place where wrestling with questions was encouraged rather than discouraged.”

Schori is by no means a radical, as such things are counted these days in the Episcopal Church—the home, after all, of V. Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual bishop of New Hampshire, and John Shelby Spong, the retired bishop of Newark, who has denied even the possibility of meaningful prayer. She seems, rather, a fairly typical liberal Protestant: a rentier, really, living off the income from the property her predecessors purchased, strolling at sunset along the strand as the great tide of the Mainline ebbs further out to sea.

To be saved, we need only to realize that God already loves us, just the way we are, Schori wrote in her 2006 book, A Wing and a Prayer. She’s not exactly wrong about God’s love, but, in Schori’s happy soteriology, such love demands from us no personal reformation, no individual guilt, no particular penance, and no precise dogma. All we have to do, to prove the redemption we already have, is support the political causes she approves. The mission of the church is to show forth God’s love by demanding inclusion and social justice. She often points to the United Nations as an example of God’s work in the world, and when she talks about the mission of the Episcopal Church, she typically identifies it with the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals.

Her Yahweh, in other words, is a blend of Norman Vincent Peale and Dag Hammarskjöld. And through it all you can hear the notes of Bishop Pike—not the lyrics, perhaps, but always the melody. There’s the same cringe-making assumption of social superiority: “Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates” than the lower classes of Catholics and Mormons. For that matter, there’s the same unselfconscious declaration of superiority even to faith: We’re theologically more advanced precisely because we don’t have a theology—we have “a place where wrestling with questions” is “encouraged rather than discouraged.”

The Mainline, however, shifted to a surprising degree in the fifty years between Bishop Pike in 1958 and Bishop Schori in 2008. Pike was newsworthy precisely because he seemed contrary to type: a chaplain to the establishment who campaigned against that establishment. Schori seems instead a solid, unexceptionable instance of her type: a representative of the moods and politics of the establishment Episcopalians who elected her their presiding bishop.

Early in 1953, Pike refused an honorary degree from the Episcopalians’ seminary in Sewanee, Tennessee, because of the school’s segregation. “The Church has never regarded the civil law as the final norm for the Christian conscience,” he wrote in the noble peroration of his letter of rejection. (Although, in characteristic Pike fashion, he sent the letter to the New York Times before he sent it to Sewanee.) As it happens, the man was not far out of step with his church; even in the South, Episcopalians were moving quickly toward support for integration, and, just a few months later, the school began admitting black students. Still, it seemed—and was widely reported as—a new thing when the dean of St. John’s Cathedral denounced one of his own church’s seminaries. To create a parallel instance of ap parent class betrayal, Bishop Schori would have to do something like take to the pages of Human Life Review to attack her congregants’ support of legalized abortion.

She’s not likely to do that, perhaps mostly because abortion offers a key measure of the changes in the social class of liberal Protestants over the past fifty years. The role of abortion, and of feminism generally, deserves its own chapter in any telling of the Mainline story. But here’s a small case study: After the attacks of September 11, 2001, I was at the Episcopalians’ National Cathedral in Washington, on a panel to discuss violence and religion. The evening began with a prayer from Jane Dixon, the cathedral’s temporary bishop, and her invocation was as revealing as any short speech could be of the concerns of the contemporary Episcopal Church.

While asking the divine gifts of wisdom for the speakers and understanding for the listeners, Bishop Dixon was vague—not merely failing to name the name of Jesus but straining to phrase all her requests in a passive voice to avoid even naming God: “May we be given . . . may it be granted to us . . .” When her prayer unexpectedly swerved toward abortion, however, her language suddenly snapped into hard specificity as she reminded God that “America at its best stands for the spread of rights around the world, especially the right of women to choose.” The discussion that evening, she prayed, would not turn vindictive, for we could not condemn the destruction of the World Trade Center until we remembered that “even in the United States, people have bombed abortion clinics.”

The important thing to understand here is the social shape of these issues and their uniform acceptance by a certain class. Bishop Dixon was speaking the language of Bishop Pike, and yet, at the same time, she was not shocking her listeners. She was, rather, confirming them in their settled views. Sometime after the 1960s, everyone in the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church became Bishop Pike—with the perverse effect that Pike’s ostensible rebellion turned, at last, into the norm. Formed in the victory of civil-rights activism, a new version of the social-gospel movement became the default theology of church bureaucrats in the Mainline. The churches “increasingly turned their attention to the drafting of social statements on a variety of contemporary problems,” as the religious historian Peter J. Thuesen has noted, and their statements “revealed a shared opinion among Mainline executives that the churches’ primary public role was social advocacy.”

The result is an ethical consensus unfailingly consistent with the political views and cultural mores of a particular social class—in fact, the class of professional women in the United States since the 1970s. Certainly on the question of abortion, and probably on the question of homosexuality, such bishops as Jane Dixon and Katharine Jefferts Schori face no serious opposition among the elite of their denomination in the United States. The Episcopal Church remains the chaplaincy of an establishment, but it is an establishment much diminished—in class, numbers, and influence—for only Pike’s heirs have stayed in the church bureaucracy, and they have no one to speak to except themselves.

H.L. Mencken is usually credited with dubbing the Episcopal Church of the 1920s “the Republican Party at prayer.” The Episcopal Church today seems hardly distinguishable from the small portion of America that is the National Organization for Women at prayer.

I highly recommend reading the whole article. You can find it here.

Cryptic Crossword Solution for 27 July

This is my proposed solution to last Sunday’s London Times cryptic crossword. I regret I won’t be able to post tomorrow’s puzzle. Back on 10 August!

An Open Door – Pittsburgh Laity Discuss Realignment

One of my parishioners alerted me to this 10-minute video produced in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and I thought it well worth posting. It clearly and cogently sets forth the issues facing the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Mouneer Anis shares his views on the Lambeth Conference

As published in the London Times:

I found the presidential address of Archbishop Rowan very clear. He clearly described what is happening and the thinking of people on both sides. I found his address helpful and very honest in expressing both sides of the conflict. While some very positive things are happening at the conference, some unresolved issues are still dividing the Communion. Those issues are still very much unresolved and untackled. I wonder if during the next few days we will do something about these unresolved issues. I have some doubts. The positives are that we are sitting down together, we are studying the Bible together, we are talking to each other and we are listening to each other.

Yet I see that a big wall still divides us. It is big because it involves the essentials, the foundation of our faith. We are not divided by mere trivialities, or issues on the periphery of faith. We are finding it very hard to come together in the essentials. This diversity of opinion is about the heart of our faith, the faith which we received from the saints. I speak the mind of many of my colleagues in the Global South, especially in the Diocese of Eygpt. I am aware that not all of us in the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East have the same mind. I respect and love them.

I find that many of our North American friends blame us and criticise us for bringing in the issues of sexuality and homosexuality but in fact they are the ones who are bringing these issues in. Here at Lambeth, you come across many advertisements for events organised by gay and Lesbian activists which are sponsored by the North American Church. If you visit the marketplace at the conference, you will notice that almost half the events promoted on the noticeboard promote homosexuality and are sponsored by the North Americans. And in the end, we, the people who remain loyal to the original teaching of the Anglican Communion, which we received from the Apostles, are blamed. They say that we talk a lot about sexuality and that we need to talk more about poverty, about AIDs, and injustice. They are the ones who are bringing sexuality into this conference. It’s not us. We want to talk about the heart of the issues which divide us, not only sexuality. That is just a symptom of a deeper problem.

They talk about the slavery and say that 200 years ago Christians were opposed to the freedom of slaves and they compare us to those Christians for our attitude to gay and lesbian practises. To be honest, I think this is inviting us to another kind of slavery, slavery of the flesh, to go and do whatever our lusts dictate. Sometimes, I think that maybe because of the pressure in Western culture to push the practise of homosexuality, our friends in the West are pushing these issues. But, on the other hand, I see many who live in the West and still want to preserve the faith and the tradition of the Church. Should we allow culture to pressure the Church or should the Church be distinctive, light and salt to the world? Cardinal Ivan Dias said that we didn’t bring the Gospel to the culture we could end up suffering from spiritual Alzheimers.

Mouneer Anis is the bishop of Egypt and president bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. For the perspectives of other bishops, also reported in the Times, go here.

Female Anglican Bishop at Lambeth Conference Accuses Fellow Bishops of Wife Beating

George Conger of Religious Intelligence reports from the Lambeth Conference:

Charges that wife beaters were at work amongst the bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference have raised concerns that the bishops discussions of rape and domestic violence will be diverted by partisan wrangling over political correctness. In a statement published in the Lambeth Witness, a newssheet distributed at the 2008 Lambeth Conference by the pressure group the Inclusive Church Network, the suffragan bishop of New York, the Rt. Rev. Catherine Roskam wrote, “We have 700 men here. Do you think any of them beat their wives? Chances are they do.” She added that “the most devout Christians beat their wives many of our bishops come from places where it is culturally accepted to beat your wife. In that regard, it makes conversation difficult.”

Bishop Roskam’s remarks were released to coincide with a joint plenary session of bishops and their spouses at the Lambeth Conference entitled “Equal in God’s Sight: When Power is Abused.” Men and women were seated on separate sides of the room and the presentation opened with a play on the theme of women’s empowerment by a theatre company, followed by a dramatic reading of the rape of Tamar taken from 2 Samuel 13. Bishops and spouses then broke into same-sex groups and using a study guide prepared by Dr. Gerald West, author of the conference Bible study materials, and gave periodic reports via closed circuit television cameras to the plenary. The study groups were asked to discuss the incidence of rape in their communities and develop action plans to address the issues in their home communities, prompting emotional responses from some participants.

In the press conference following the presentation, Jane Williams, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury said the presentation was a great success. She stated church had a duty to address issues of domestic violence, both in society and within the church for “even disciples fall into patterns of behavior that are not Christ-like”. However, the way the issue of domestic abuse was raised, and the implications that there were wife-beaters amongst the bishops at Lambeth, rankled many. Approximately 100 bishops left the plenary, while others expressed concern that while outside pressure groups had been briefed about the joint session while the bishops were not.

“It was quite clear we were being guided to a foregone conclusion,” the Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe said. He reported that one of the women present asked, “‘Why have you separated us; if we cannot discuss such things in a safe place like this, where can we discuss them?’ The answer was, ‘Because, for some of the women present, this isn’t as safe a place as you might think.’ Evidently this had been determined before the meeting began,” Bishop Howe noted.

Bishop Peter Beckwith of Springfield said he was “so offended” by Bishop Roskam’s remarks, and had been “embarrassed by her quote.” The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu told The Times he was offended by the remarks. “I have never beaten my wife, although I can't talk about other people."

The Bishop of Ho (Ghana), the Rt. Rev. Matthias Mededues-Badohu said he was distressed by the implications of the bishop’s remark that Africans were less culturally and morally advanced than Americans, and were prone to beating their wives. Of the twenty bishops questioned by the CEN, none admitted to beating their wives, though many said they were distressed that the topic of domestic violence had been sidetracked by Bishop Roskam’s comments. In a press conference on July 31, the Rev. Jackie Cray, wife of the Bishop of Maidstone, said she had “heard nothing” about wife beating bishops in the plenary session, but noted her husband, the Bishop of Maidstone, did not beat her.

I was going to add another label to this post: “stupidity”.