The Church of England is to go ahead with the plan to create women bishops without giving in to demands from traditionalists for a separate structure of bishops and archbishops untainted by the hands of a woman.

Traditionalists oppose women bishops because they argue that Jesus had no women disciples and that the apostolic succession of bishops, passed down by the laying of hands at ordination, should therefore be male.

Traditionalists warned last night that the decision, to be announced at the General Synod today, will trigger an exodus from the Church of England of many thousands of priests and lay people.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Women

Be that as it may, TEC pleads for a right of dissent on a communion level but, by constitutional irregularity and canonical misuse, seeks to close out that possibility within its own ranks. With this point, I rest my case. A failure to pay attention to that wretched cat “Polity” has landed TEC and the Anglican Communion in a proper mess. Anglicans now have before them two accounts of the nature of communion, two accounts of hierarchy, and two accounts of the way in which the common life of the Communion ought to be ordered. For the thick account, hierarchy is of different sorts, each of which has a particular sphere of operation and each of which stands in the service of a thick view of communion. For the thin account, hierarchy is addressed only in its political guise and as such is limited in its sphere of operation to diocese and/or province. Within these spheres, it serves to order local and autonomous churches each of which is called to carry out the mission of the church in a particular locality.

I personally am delighted that both TEC and the Communion are at last paying attention to the wretched cat “Polity.” In doing so, however, the issue of dissent has presented itself with considerable urgency. At the moment, TEC finds itself in a dissenting position in respect to the covenant proposal now before the Communion; while those within TEC who support the covenant find themselves dissenters in relation to their own church. It would seem that everyone within TEC is in one way or another confronted with the issue of dissent.

When the normal processes of governance no longer provide effective means for objection, just what is the right way to express this dissent? For those within TEC, is the right way departure? For TEC itself, is the right way to seek, as now it does, to escape the consequences of its actions by means of a covenant that lacks both theological substance and any meaningful form of accountability? My own view is that the answer to this question is to be found in the well-tested tradition of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience seeks neither to bring down duly constituted authority nor to establish another altogether. Rather it seeks to express loyalty to governing authority by dissenting from actions that do not accord with the reasons for its existence. Further, in dissenting those who are civilly disobedient insist upon suffering the appointed penalties for disobedience. They insist upon consequences so as to express loyalty to duly constituted authority even as they oppose actions that do not accord with the common good that government exists to uphold and further.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Theology • Ecclesiology

...TEC is organized legally as a voluntary association of dioceses.

I want to break this point down into two parts: first, a voluntary association; and second, an association whose members are dioceses.

To begin, all sides of the current disputes agree that TEC is what the law has traditionally called a “voluntary association.” This kind of entity is sometimes referred to today as an unincorporated nonprofit association, but voluntary association is the traditional terminology. So, from a civil law perspective, that puts us immediately into the category of association law, which is different in important ways from that governing other forms of organization.

A church does not have to be an association. The Southern Baptist Convention—a church named by the way for its convention; TEC is named for the office of bishop—is a Georgia corporation. And after American independence, the largest of the state churches in the former colonies, the one in Virginia, was incorporated in that state by the Virginia legislature. But TEC itself has always been and remains a voluntary association. Everyone agrees.

This leads us to the question, “what are the essential legal characteristics of voluntary associations, the things that distinguish them from other forms of organization”? And the answer is “they’re not what they used to be.” Until fairly recently, the law did not recognize a voluntary association as a legal entity distinct from its members. In other words, when the law looked at a voluntary association, it only saw the members; the association itself was simply an aggregate of its members. The legal status of associations at the time TEC was organized is reflected in a case that arose ten years later in England. An association of Freemasons brought suit to recover some of its property, but the judge would not hear its claim. The judge, one of England’s law lords, concluded it was “singular that this Court should sit upon the concerns of an association, which in law has no existence.” (Emphasis added.) The suit could only be brought by the individual members of the association.

This rule was changed in the twentieth century in most, but not all states, typically by statute. Most states now recognize voluntary associations as legal entities and allow them to own property, enter into contracts, sue in their own names and enjoy the rights and responsibilities of legal personality. But that was not formerly the case.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Polity & Canons • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History

Jesus instructed his followers not to serve both God and mammon. Buddha taught his followers to abandon all earthly attachments. But in the past few years, a new workplace spirituality movement has proclaimed the exact opposite and seeks to transform capitalism away from narrow materialism. Many wonder whether it will work, but the better question is whether we want our work to be holistic and all-consuming.

According to the workplace spirituality movement, creativity at work is a spiritual process that involves the whole person and not just the intellect or manual skill, and the new class of knowledge workers is devoting more of their time to work because they find deep meaning and a sense of purpose on the job. Today, clergy from various traditions serve as corporate chaplains, and the new faces of spiritual leadership are organizational development consultants who lead employees through creativity-enhancing spiritual practices. Overall, the contemporary workplace is regarded as a community, open to spirituality in the same way that it is hospitable to friendship and love.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

They worked for years cleaning and maintaining the Episcopal Church Center in midtown Manhattan. But after they were fired on Dec. 30, nine hard-working people are in desperate need of divine intervention.

"We came to work on Dec. 30 as every day, hoping to leave a little earlier to celebrate the new year," said Bronx native Héctor Miranda, a father of three. "But when we got to the building we were told that we no longer worked there. Just like that. They picked the date well to fire us."

Now, without the means to support his family, Miranda has no idea how he will pay the rent.

"Even worse," he said, "without health coverage I don't know how I am going to pay for my wife's treatment. She is a diabetic, you know."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

The Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board have sold their shares in Vedanta Resources plc on the advice of the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG). As a result, none of the three national investing bodies of the Church of England hold shares in the company.

The EIAG advised disinvestment because its engagement with the company had produced no substantive results and the EIAG believed that it would be inconsistent with the Church investing bodies’ joint ethical investment policy to remain invested given the EIAG’s concerns about the company’s approach to relations with the communities where it operates.

Allegations about Vedanta’s alumina refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa, and planned bauxite mine in the nearby Niyamgiri hills came to the EIAG’s attention in June 2009. The EIAG has been examining the issues carefully since and has discussed them in a process of engagement with the company. The EIAG Secretary paid a visit to India in November 2009 to see the refinery and mine site at first hand.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Stock Market • * International News & Commentary • Asia • India • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Saints quarterback Drew Brees was 32-of-39 for 288 yards and two touchdowns.

But it was the big 75-yard interception return for a touchdown by cornerback Tracy Porter that sealed the deal.

"I studied and knew their tendencies," Porter said. "I just jumped around and the ball went right into my hands."

Porter's teammate Darren Sharper, who was on the Green Bay Packers as a rookie when they lost to Denver, said this was a game that nobody had faith in the team except for the team.

"Man this is unbelievable," Sharper said. "I don't know of anyone who gave us a chance, but when you get here, anyone can win."

How great for the city and the team. Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports

Here in the US, the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) is run on strictly democratic lines. Each parish is a private corporation with a vestry, consisting of lay members of the congregation, as its board of directors. The governing body of the national church is General Convention, which includes House of Bishops and House of Deputies consisting of elected lay and clergy representatives from each diocese.

Of course it makes not one whit of difference. Priests run their churches as they please and the national church's policies are set by the überpriests, cardinal rectors and bishops who've managed to shinny up the greasy pole of ecclesiastical office politics. Church politics in ECUSA mimics secular US politics at its dirtiest, in a virulent, concentrated form. There is lobbying and logrolling, clergy are bullied, laypeople are manipulated and in the end the policy-makers, iron fist in velvet glove, get their way.

Episcopalians watched this political process play out for over 20 years as the church's organisational elite campaigned to win support for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of openly non-celibate homosexuals....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

We give people private space but do not encourage public discussion and debate on key areas which are seen as 'difficult' such as religion, immigration, the optimum funding for public services. In consequence, these areas of difference are thrust into the margins where they do not go away but instead, tend to fester.

A similar trend can be seen in France in relation to the use of the word 'tolerance'. There too it has become understood, at least in part, in the sense of something you put up with rather than as a positive virtue. An amusing example of this is the description of French brothels as 'maisons de tolérance'! Houses of tolerance!

I therefore believe that for all our judicial tolerance, Britain has become in many ways, a less tolerant society today.

One of the main areas in which we see this is in the government's treatment of Religion which they now prefer to call 'faith communities'. The Equality Bill which is going through the House of Lords, had contained a 'Genuine Occupation Clause' which would have made it very difficult for a religious group to employ someone of that religion for a position within their organisation, except in the very restricted role of leading worship, explaining or proclaiming doctrines.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Archbishop of York John Sentamu • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

Archbishop Sentamu: "If people genuinely realise that they want to be Roman Catholic, they should convert properly, and go through catechesis and be made proper Catholics. This kind of creation [the Apostolic Constitution] -- well, all I can say is, we wish them every blessing and may the Lord encourage them. But as far as I am concerned, if I was really, genuinely wanting to convert, I wouldn't go into an Ordinariate. I would actually go into catechesis and become a truly converted Roman Catholic and be accepted."

William Crawley: "So those Anglicans who take advantage of the Apostolic Constitution, you're saying, would not be 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "Well, I mean, I'd be very surprised --"

William Crawley: "What would they be if they are not 'proper Catholics'?"

Archbishop Sentamu: "They would be what they are: an Ordinariate of the Vatican."

I highly recommend you follow the audio link and listen to the whole interview.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Archbishop of York John Sentamu • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Social Security's annual surplus nearly evaporated in 2009 for the first time in 25 years as the recession led hundreds of thousands of workers to retire or claim disability.

The impact of the recession is likely to hit the giant retirement system even harder this year and next. The Congressional Budget Office had projected it would operate in the red in 2010 and 2011, but a deeper economic slump could make those losses larger than anticipated.

"Things are a little bit worse than had been expected," says Stephen Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration. "Clearly, we're going to be negative for a year or two."

Read it all

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Budget

What is unusual about China’s reaction to these two traditional issues is the volume of its response and that it is threatening sanctions against American firms. It has just imposed penalties on American chicken imports, in retaliation for US protectionism against Chinese car tyres. The Chinese Government has been very truculent over the alleged hacking of Google and 30 other foreign companies by Chinese cyber-warriors, refusing to investigate — which bolsters the belief that the hackers work for the Government.

Nor is America the only Chinese target. The hackers also attacked departments of the Indian Government, including the Prime Minister’s office. In Indian eyes China has become increasingly provocative over the two countries’ long-running territorial disputes in the Himalayas, over which a short border war was fought in 1962. China has been building up its troop numbers along those disputed borders. And to this list you can also add the obstreperous stance China took in the Copenhagen climate change conference last December.

So what explains this apparent rise in Chinese belligerence?...

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China

We know how important faith is, because we’ve known what it’s like for people to have faith in us. And we all have this faith, consciously or unconsciously. We’ve all given it, and we’ve all received it. We know what it is and how it works. Having faith in others, and others having faith in us, isn’t a sign of weakness or mental deficiency. It’s reasonable and logical.

And it’s also reasonable and logical for us to have faith in the promise of a person in whom is found all that there is to be found of God.

And this promise is that, amid the darkness of our lives, there will always be that critical pinprick of light that will take away our fear.

We’ll still have disappointment, and rejection. We’ll still have to face failure, possibly tragedy. Let’s hope not, but the darkness will still be there.

Faith in God won’t take away the darkness. But what faith in God will do is to free us from the fear that the darkness will destroy the value and meaning of our lives.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

Here’s a rather predictable news flash: American mothers want the fathers of their children to stick around, help with the kids and go to church.

There’s something else that united the participants in “Mama Says,” a recent survey from the National Fatherhood Initiative: 93 percent of them believe America is suffering from what the researchers called a “father-absence crisis.” An earlier survey by the same nonpartisan group found that 91 percent of American fathers affirmed that stark judgment.

The survey didn’t include many religious questions, but the role of faith in American homes and marriages kept rising to the surface.

“What the religious questions revealed to us is that the mothers who were the most religious were consistently the mothers who were the most satisfied with the jobs that their men were doing as fathers,” said Vincent DiCaro of the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is based in the Maryland suburbs of Washington.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Men • Women • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Listen to it all--very encouraging.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics • * Theology • Christology • Pastoral Theology • Soteriology

In Georges Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest, the elderly Curé de Torcy gives his young priest friend a bit of advice about proclaiming the Gospel: "The Word of God is a red-hot iron," he says. "Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes later."

One could probably craft a meditation on the state of the Catholic soul today in terms of the tension between those two values -- truth and comfort. We want the church to offer comfort, which among other things implies that Catholics shouldn't brutalize one another in internal tribal warfare. Yet we also want the church to be bold in proclaiming the truth that saves, which inevitably means that sometimes lines have to be drawn and feelings may be bruised.

The $64,000 question is, can we do both? Can the Catholic church be both the "sacrament of the unity of the human race" and a fearless evangelical force?

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Myers Park, a historic neighborhood in Charlotte, N.C., has wide, tree-lined streets, sweeping lawns and historic mansions worth millions. It's the kind of neighborhood where people take pride in the pedigree of their homes.

But Myers Park is also struggling with a racial legacy that plagues many communities across the country: discriminatory language written into original home deeds. The restrictions are no longer enforceable, but the words are a painful reminder of history.

The deed on homeowner John Williford's 75-year-old Myers Park house includes restrictions written by the original developers geared to preserve the parklike feel of the neighborhood. The deeds also include racial restrictions: "This lot shall be owned and occupied by people of the Caucasian race only."

Read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Race/Race Relations • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing/Real Estate Market • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Check it out.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

...Mrs. [Angela] Braly says. "We really do have to get at the underlying question of health-care costs."

That was the core promise of ObamaCare. Overall health costs for people insured by WellPoint increased by 8.9% in 2009 alone, and arresting this climb was the reason so many industry groups, not only the insurers, joined with the White House and Democrats. Nobody thinks the status quo is a success. But as Mrs. Braly notes ruefully, "The nature of health care is very complex, and sometimes the nature of politics is very simple."

The tragedy, as she sees it, is what "a wasted opportunity" it all turned out to be. "Health-care reform" soon became "health-insurance reform" exclusively. "It was a pivot that was—unfortunate," she says, "because it is not going to solve the longer-term problem."

It's hard to see how WellPoint could be to blame for surging health spending, Mrs. Braly says, when 85 cents out of every premium dollar or more "is paid out in the actual cost of care, doctors, hospitals, suppliers, drugs, devices." Confiscating the 2009 profits of the entire insurance industry would pay for two days of U.S. health care.

Read it all from this Weekend's Wall Street Journal.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • --The 2009 American Health Care Reform Debate • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate

People sometimes quote the old cliché; why should I worry about posterity, what’s posterity ever done for me. And I think what we have to come to terms with first of all is recognising that here and now, we are taking decisions that whether we like it or not have effects long beyond our own lifespan.

Those decisions may be conscious decisions; we know what values they are based on, we know where we want to get. Or they may be short term, narrow decisions whose effects we don’t understand or control and don’t very much care about.

So the very first thing I’d want to say is that it is important for us here and now to wake up to the fact that what we decide, what we simply accept or let by, the habits we value, the behaviours we reward; these things create the world of the next generation. And we can’t get away from that, whether we like it or not.

If it’s important then for human beings to live as if they were intelligent, as if they were capable of understanding themselves, it’s important for human beings to be aware of the consequences of their actions.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * Theology • Anthropology

Aaqil Ahmed, a controversial executive whose appointment last year prompted more than 100 complaints, said: "I think all the faiths should be treated in the same way. I don't believe in treating any faith differently."

He dismissed claims that the BBC was marginalising religion as overly simplistic and argued that Christianity, in particular, was already covered well on television.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Culture-Watch • Media • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK