VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 31
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VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest
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Today's Topics:
1. Table of Contents (David Virtue)
2. VIEWPOINTS: August 18, 2017 (David Virtue)
3. St. James Newport Beach: The Pious Language of Greed
(David Virtue)
4. St. James, Newport Beach will lose their church (David Virtue)
5. Spiritualizing Charlottesville? (David Virtue)
6. Virginia Seminary Labyrinth to Commemorate 1880s Black Chapel
(David Virtue)
7. ACNA Archbishop Blasts Liberal Lutherans and Anglicans for
throwing away Biblical morality (David Virtue)
8. Church of England Evangelical Council will not go along to
get along over human sexuality doctrine (David Virtue)
9. Evangelical bishop warns split may be necessary as he
spearheads resistance to liberalising CofE (David Virtue)
10. Anglican Bishop launches scathing attack on 'lying, amoral'
Donald Trump - and the 'Christian Right' for backing him
(David Virtue)
11. Is fatherlessness the key to neo-Nazi violence? (David Virtue)
12. Convert Nation (David Virtue)
13. Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption (David Virtue)
14. Transgenderism: Another Take (David Virtue)
15. In The Guise of Peaceable Assembly (David Virtue)
16. +Bruno, Schmuno: Diocese of LA Sells Out its Parish for the
Money (David Virtue)
17. Our most vulnerable girls pay sorely for our surrender to the
Islamists (David Virtue)
18. The lesson of Anglicanism: liberalism will tear you apart
(David Virtue)
19. Why The Church Fails... (David Virtue)
20. Bringing the gospel to England - The story of Trinity Church
Scarborough (David Virtue)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:41:57 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Table of Contents
Message-ID:
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VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest - Desktop & Mobile Edition
www.virtueonline.org
August 18, 2017
*************************************
VIEWPOINTS
*************************************
1. St. James the Great Newport Beach to be Sold * TEC Clergy Figures
Reveal Terrifying Decline...
http://www.virtueonline.org/st-james-great-newport-beach-be-sold-tec-clergy-figures-reveal-terrifying-decline-church-wales-seeks
*********************************************
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
*********************************************
2.St. James Newport Beach: The Pious Language of Greed
http://www.virtueonline.org/st-james-newport-beach-pious-language-greed
3.St. James, Newport Beach will lose their church
http://www.virtueonline.org/st-james-newport-beach-will-lose-their-church
4.Spiritualizing Charlottesville?
http://www.virtueonline.org/spiritualizing-charlottesville
5.Virginia Seminary Labyrinth to Commemorate 1880s Black Chapel
http://www.virtueonline.org/virginia-seminary-labyrinth-commemorate-1880s-black-chapel
*********************************************
ANGLICAN NEWS IN NORTH AMERICA
*********************************************
6. ACNA Archbishop Blasts Liberal Lutherans and Anglicans for throwing
away biblical morality
http://www.virtueonline.org/acna-archbishop-blasts-liberal-lutherans-and-anglicans-throwing-away-biblical-morality
*********************************************
CHURCH OF ENGLAND NEWS
*********************************************
7. Church of England Evangelical Council will not go along to get along
over human sexuality doctrine
http://www.virtueonline.org/church-england-evangelical-council-will-not-go-along-get-along-over-human-sexuality-doctrine
8.Evangelical bishop warns split may be necessary as he spearheads
resistance to liberalising CofE
http://www.virtueonline.org/evangelical-bishop-warns-split-may-be-necessary-he-spearheads-resistance-liberalising-cofe
9.Anglican Bishop launches scathing attack on 'lying, amoral'.
http://www.virtueonline.org/anglican-bishop-launches-scathing-attack-lying-amoral-donald-trump-and-christian-right-backing-him
********************************
CULTURE WARS
********************************
10.Is fatherlessness the key to neo-Nazi violence
http://www.virtueonline.org/fatherlessness-key-neo-nazi-violence
11.Convert Nation
http://www.virtueonline.org/convert-nation
12.Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption
http://www.virtueonline.org/evangelicals-trump-and-politics-redemption
13.Transgenderism: Another Tak
http://www.virtueonline.org/transgenderism-another-take
********************************
AS EYE SEE IT
********************************
14.In The Guise of Peaceable Assembly
http://www.virtueonline.org/guise-peaceable-assembly
15.+Bruno, Schmuno: Diocese of LA Sells Out its Parish for the Money
http://www.virtueonline.org/bruno-schmuno-diocese-la-sells-out-its-parish-money
16.Our most vulnerable girls pay sorely for our surrender to the
Islamists
http://www.virtueonline.org/our-most-vulnerable-girls-pay-sorely-our-surrender-islamists
17.The lesson of Anglicanism: liberalism will tear you apart
http://www.virtueonline.org/lesson-anglicanism-liberalism-will-tear-you-apart
18.Why the Church Fails
http://www.virtueonline.org/why-church-fails
*********************************
REFORMATION & REVIVAL
*********************************
19.Bringing The Gospel To England - The Story Of Trinity Church
Scarborough
http://www.virtueonline.org/bringing-gospel-england-story-trinity-church-scarborough
END
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:43:23 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: VIEWPOINTS: August 18, 2017
Message-ID:
<1503060203.1308128....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
St. James the Great Newport Beach to be Sold * TEC Clergy Figures Reveal
Terrifying Decline * Church in Wales Seeks Archbishop * Australian
Bishops Nix Euthanasia talk * Jesus not relied on by Americans to
Overcome Sin says study
Both the Catholic and the Liberal traditions have tended to exalt human
intelligence and goodness and therefore to expect human beings to
contribute something towards their enlightenment and their salvation.
Evangelicals, on the other hand, while strongly affirming the divine
image which our humanity bears, have tended to emphasize our human
finitude and fallenness and therefore to insist that without revelation
we cannot know God and without redemption we cannot reach him. That is
why evangelical essentials focus on the Bible and the cross, and on
their indispensability, since it is through these that God's word to us
has been spoken and God's work for us has been done. Indeed, his grace
bears a trinitarian shape. First, in both spheres the Father took the
initiative, teaching us what we could not otherwise know, and giving us
what we could not otherwise have. Secondly, in both the Son has played a
unique role as the one mediator through whom the Father's initiative was
taken. He is the Word made flesh, through whom the Father's glory was
manifested. He is the sinless one made sin for us that the Father might
reconcile us to himself. Moreover, the word God spoke through Christ and
the work God did through Christ were both hapax, completed once and for
all. Nothing can be added to either without derogating from the
perfection of God's word and work through Christ. Then thirdly, in both
revelation and redemption the ministry of the Holy Spirit is essential.
It is he who illumines our minds to understand what God has revealed in
Christ, and he who moves our hearts to receive what God has achieved
through Christ. Thus, in both spheres the Father has acted through the
Son and acts through the Spirit. --- John R. W. Stott
The Church of England isn't, really, one Church at all. It's an Erastian
umbrella organization holding together, by virtue of the Crown, and a
huge range of competing theologies --- Catholic Herald UK
We want more boldness among the friends of truth. There is far too much
tendency to sit still and wait for committees and number our adherents.
We want more men who are not afraid to stand alone. --- Bishop J.C. Ryle
First, Christians should look at the energized and emboldened white
nationalism movement, and at its fascist slogans, and condemn it--full
stop. No, "But on the other hand." The main way most people are
responding across the political spectrum is by saying, "See? This is
what I have been saying all along! This just proves my point." The
conservatives are using the events to prove that liberal identity
politics is wrong, and liberals are using it to prove that conservatism
is inherently racist. We should not do that.
Second, this is a time to present the Bible's strong and clear teachings
about the sin of racism and of the idolatry of blood and country--again,
full stop. --- Tim Keller
Americans have had a new rule written into their mental operating
systems: Do you own thing, find your own reality, it's all relative.
---Kurt Andersen in How America Lost its Mind (Atlantic magazine)
"...the Church is for the gospel and against all false gospels,
including the false gospel of white supremacy." --- Esau McCaulley in
TLC
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
www.virtueonline.org
August 18, 2017
Once again, the leadership of The Episcopal Church showed itself it to
be duplicitous and lying about the truth when it comes to property
ownership.
Having determined that a Hearing Panel said the Diocese of Los Angeles
should prayerfully consider re-opening the parish of St. James the Great
as a "mission" parish, the new bishop, one John Taylor, nixed that idea
and said the property will now have to be sold because it was already
under contract by the outgoing bishop, Jon Bruno, and to prevent more
litigation (read legal fees), the diocese has decided to go ahead and
sell it. No price tag was announced, but it is thought to be about $15
million large. That's not chump change and who really cares about a
handful of leftover Episcopalians and a woman priest; they can scatter
to the four winds.
The distinguished canon lawyer, Allan Haley, had this to say; "Today,
those clinging to the dying remnant that was the once-renowned
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America ("PECUSA" --
or, after they dropped the first adjective, "ECUSA") finally learned
that there is no soul left in that scabrous body. Long ago, it sold
itself out to Mammon. Now, those who blinded themselves to that fact are
sadly learning the reality."
This whole imbroglio can be summed up in one word...greed.
But is this just about one bad bishop? No, says Canon Phil Ashey, COO of
the American Anglican Council. He says the lesson of St James is about
TEC as a whole, not just one bad bishop.
Here is what he wrote: "Well...actually it DOES have to do with more
than one bad Bishop in TEC, as the AAC researched and published directly
from the TEC Hearing Order in "Bruno Verdict raises questions about
corruption of a diocese" three week ago. It's not just about one bishop
-- it's about a pattern of corruption in the Diocese. And it's about a
pattern of TEC judges not recusing themselves in the State Supreme
Courts -- first in Virginia, then in Georgia and now in South Carolina.
And it's about a predictable pattern of litigation by TEC, a pattern of
litigating with motions designed to inflict the maximum possible
financial damage upon departing Anglicans -- and now even a TEC
congregation that dared to challenge its bishop.
"It's about a TEC Title IV disciplinary system that has exchanged
foundations of due process and justice for administrative processes
grounded in @the welfare if the Church"-- as Runyon and McColl have so
ably demonstrated in their analysis. No wonder, when push comes to
shove, the financial welfare of the Church triumphs over justice for a
church in Newport Beach."
Ashey should know. St. James was his home church, where his father
served as Rector from 1967-1985. "This outcome is tragic-- but utterly
predictable based on the commitments and practices of TEC that we have
observed and documented for years. Thank God, the St James Anglicans
have moved on."
The last reference was to the Rev's Richard Crocker and David Anderson,
who both served there and who took 80% of the congregation when they got
the push by Bruno.
Wrote Anderson; "We are reminded that they want to scrape the sand clean
and erase our historical presence from the landscape. I find no joy in
(the Rev.) Cindy Voorhees and her congregation being treated as badly as
we were...and they have nowhere to go...they are stuck in the TEC that
betrayed them because they can't join us without repenting from deviant
theology, and so they are stuck in the hell that cut them off at the
knees."
"The church is a beautiful building but for the diocese it is a reminder
of us, not Cindy Voorhees,
Now the church building that we loved, and that they too loved will be
smashed and carted away. It's a tragedy in so many directions," he
wrote.
You can read my take here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/st-james-newport-beach-pious-language-greed
You can read Allan Haley's piece here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/bruno-schmuno-diocese-la-sells-out-its-parish-money
*****
The numbers keep coming in about the true state of The Episcopal Church.
Over the years VOL has published (and continues to publish) the decline
in the Episcopal Church mainly at the parish level but only occasionally
at the clergy level.
So, what is the truth about TEC's recent clergy figures?
Cameron Nations, writing for The Living Church, reveals an impending
leadership and experience vacuum that bodes ill for the future.
In the Church Pension Group's 2015 Church Compensation Report: A
National, Provincial, and Diocesan Analysis of Clergy Compensation, we
find a rather fascinating breakdown of the Church's full-time clergy
that reflects decades of inadequate development of young leaders, he
writes.
According to the report, there are about 5,000 full-time parochial and
non-parochial clergy in TEC, (there are many more clergy if you count
those who are "active," but not necessarily full-time stipendiary
clergy). Of this number, 3,163 (or 63.1%) are male and only 1,850 (or
36.9%) are female.
Of all full-time clergy in TEC, 55.4 percent are older than 55, and
almost 80 percent of all full-time clergy in TEC are older than 45.
Particularly noteworthy are the figures for Millennial clergy, which,
depending on where you want to place the cutoff in your definition of
Millennial, comprise roughly 6 percent of all full-time clergy in TEC.
Only 20 percent of full-time clergy younger than 45 equals 100 percent
of a problem for a denomination struggling to grow and thrive in the
decades to come.
Of the 5009, full-time clergy, some 2,023 are aged between 55-64; 1,180
are aged between 45-54. Only 287 are aged between 18-34 and 768 are aged
between 35-44. Some 751 are over 65.
This means that some 40 percent of all Episcopal clergy will retire in
the next six to eight years, 20 percent (1,180) more will retire in ten
to 15 years, with no discernible clergy to fill their empty pulpits.
There are just over 1,000 (1,055) clergy to fill those pulpits. This
leaves more than 2,000 churches without any full time, paid clergy.
Pulpits will be filled by part-time and non-stipendiary priests who will
be there just to keep the doors open. There will be no evangelism or
discipleship programs. Nothing.
On the female clergy side of things, the picture is just as bleak. There
are some 1,849 women priests in TEC. Of that number, 1,100 are 55 and
over. Only 354 are aged between 18 and 44 and another 395 are aged
between 45-54.
On the male clergy ledger, there are 3,160 full-time clergy. Of that
number, 1,670 are 55 and over -- almost half of all the male clergy in
TEC. A paltry 700 are aged between 18 and 44. There are 785 aged between
45-54.
"Only 20 percent of full-time clergy younger than 45 equals 100 percent
of a problem for a denomination struggling to grow and thrive in the
decades to come," wrote Nations.
The fiction that the church would double by 2020 or that TREC or the
Jesus Movement, much bally-hoed by PB Michael Curry is clearly not
working and will not work. The writing is on the wall -- tekel, tekel
mine upharson --- the Church has been weighed in the balance and found
wanting.
When I asked the now retired South Carolina Bishop C. Fitzsimons Allison
about TEC's future, he said this; "Bishop Curry could not turn the
Episcopal Church away from its accommodation to the culture if he wanted
to and he's given no sign that he would want to." If you haven't read my
interview with Dr. Allison, you can read it here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/i-have-been-ashamed-episcopal-leadership-denying-christian-faith
If you allow for the fact that parishioners are aging just as fast if
not faster than the clergy, then within 15 years, The Episcopal Church
will be OOB with only a small handful of viable dioceses left open,
mostly in the south and west.
The remedy, according to Mr. Cameron, is that churches need to face
demographic realities. If, for example, a city's or town's ethnic
make-up shifts, wise dioceses and congregations will adapt, not pretend
everything is the same.
"Also worth noting is that because of the way that the CPG defines full
time, one can safely assume the average age of active clergy overall
skews even older than this."
Facing demographic realities is only half the remedy. The real remedy is
having a message to proclaim and TEC doesn't have one. Pushing
inclusivity, diversity, anti-racism, sodomy and "gay" marriage and now
transgenderism are not remedies for growth, just certain death.
By contrast, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is growing and
thriving and could well outpace TEC in that period of time if the
denomination continues to grow with aggressive evangelism and
discipleship outreach.
*****
A Church of England bishop has launched a scathing attack on the
'narcissistic amorality' of 'lying' Donald Trump, along with the
American 'Christian Right' for failing to recognize the president's
traits before he was elected last November.
Nicholas Baines, the liberal-leaning Bishop of Leeds, launched his
comprehensive assault on 'shameless' Trump and his evangelical backers
in a blog post written in the wake of the violence carried out by white
supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which Trump initially failed
specifically to condemn.
But the blog, entitled, 'We won't get fooled again: Trump,
Charlottesville and the American Dream' goes broader than the clashes
over the weekend, to chart Trump's 'consistent' positions on domestic
areas and international ones including North Korea, Russia and NATO.
Bishop Baines issues blame on what he calls the 'Christian Right' for
failing to see the disastrous presidency coming.
"It appears that many Americans regret having voted for Donald Trump.
Apparently, they believed his promises of magic restoration of greatness
without asking questions of his empty rhetoric," Baines writes.
"His misogyny, amorality, financial track record, sexual behavior,
narcissism and nepotism (to name but a few of the obvious challenges)
would have ruled out the candidacy of any other semi-reputable
politician for the Presidency of the United States of America. His
subsequent lying, shamelessness, vindictiveness and inhabiting of some
"alternative reality" (in which things that happened didn't happen and
things that didn't happen did happen; in which things, he said he didn't
say and things he didn't say he did say) cannot have come as a
disappointing revelation to anyone with half a brain or ears to hear."
*****
The Church in Wales is looking for a new archbishop following the
retirement of the Most. Rev. Barry Morgan, who held the office for 14
years. A parish church in a Victorian spa town in the heart of Wales
will host the election.
For three days beginning Sept. 5, the Electoral College will meet inside
to choose the 13th Archbishop of the Church in Wales. Apparently, the
mid-Wales town has been the location for the election of all the
Archbishops of Wales since the first in 1920, because of its central
location.
His successor will be chosen from among the six serving Welsh diocesan
bishops:
The Rt. Rev. Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St. Asaph
The Rt. Rev. John Davies, Bishop of Swansea and Brecon
The Rt. Rev. Andrew John, Bishop of Bangor
The Rt. Rev. June Osborne, Bishop of Llandaff
The Rt. Rev. Richard Pain, Bishop of Monmouth
The Rt. Rev. Joanna Penberthy, Bishop of St. Davids
VOL's money is on Cameron. He is a close personal friend of Rowan
Williams, who was previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of
Wales. Cameron worked in the Anglican Communion Office in London before
taking up this post in Asaph. Whoever is chosen will be liberal in faith
and morals, so don't expect any change of direction in the church there.
*****
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has given his backing to a
charity set up to support women involved in the "sex industry". Charis
Tiwala works to "give people in the sex industry the opportunity for
choice again; a choice to exit if they wish, and a choice to rebuild a
new life as they would choose to live it," the Archbishop's office said
in a statement.
The charity's workers build relationships with the women through baking
courses, Bible studies, Pilates classes and assistance with sexual
health. Staff and volunteers visit establishments such as saunas to
offer chaplaincy and befriending services and to "engage at whatever the
point of need is with the utmost care and respect for each person."
The charity began its work in 2008 and became a registered charity in
2014. The following year, Archbishop Justin made his first visit to the
organization and has become a keen advocate. He has now agreed to become
patron of the charity.
*****
Australian Church leaders united to speak out on euthanasia this week.
The Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, joined six other Christian
leaders from the region in calling on the state premier to reconsider
plans to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia. In a letter to
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, the Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic and
Orthodox church leaders say that "human dignity is honored in living
life, not in taking it." The church leaders published their letter as an
advertisement in the daily Herald-Sun newspaper.
"Even though an act of euthanasia or assisted suicide may be motivated
by a sense of compassion, true compassion motivates us to remain with
those who are dying, understanding and supporting them through their
time of need, rather than simply acceding to a request to be killed. It
is right to seek to eliminate pain, but never right to eliminate people.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide represent the abandonment of those who
are in greatest need of our care and support."
The open letter comes as Victoria's parliament prepares to consider a
bill that would allow Australian citizens or permanent residents, older
than 18 and living in Victoria, to request assisted suicide if they have
an advanced and incurable illness, disease or medical condition. If the
parliament approves the measure, it would take effect in 2019.
*****
The Synod of the Diocese of Christchurch will consider donating its
earthquake-ravaged cathedral to the country's government as a gift to
the people of New Zealand. This new option will go alongside two
existing options -- to reinstate the existing cathedral or to demolish
and replace it with a modern building -- when the Synod meets to decide
the building's future on the last day of its three-day meeting next
month (7-9 September).
Just over six years ago, a major earthquake struck Christchurch, NZ,
causing extensive damage throughout the city. One of the casualties was
the Anglican cathedral in the city center, which was damaged beyond
repair. Originally, the diocese planned to demolish the remnants and
build a new contemporary cathedral in its place. However, that plan met
fierce resistance from many residents and local leaders who insisted
upon rebuilding the old cathedral as it was.
*****
Thousands of people are turning out to hear free choral music around
Britain, many for the first time, according to a Christian Today report.
The ancient church music has been around for centuries -- but is getting
a new audience due to a new website set up to enable people to find
choral evensong services at cathedrals, colleges and churches anywhere
in Britain and Ireland.
The website is now receiving about 8,500 unique visitors a month, and
11,500 visits a month and that number is rising. There are now 481
churches, chapels and cathedrals with their own pages on the website and
the number keeps growing.
And the effect on congregations is staggering.
One poorly-attended church in London found attendance shot up from 10
people to nearly 200 at one evensong alone.
Apparently, Choral evensong is proving popular with atheists and
believers alike.
*****
A LifeWay Research study has found that while the majority, or
two-thirds of Americans admit that they are sinners, only a minority, or
28 percent, said that they depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin.
The study, conducted Sept. 27--Oct. 1, 2016 of 1,000 Americans, with a
margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent at the 95 percent
confidence level, noted that more people rely on themselves than on
Jesus to overcome sin.
Thirty-four percent said that they are sinners who "work on being less
of one," the study found, while 10 percent insisted that sin does not
exist. Another eight percent argued that they are not sinners, while
five percent said they are "fine" with being a sinner.
Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research, said that he
was struck by how few Americans say they rely on Jesus to overcome sin,
which he said is a "core Christian belief."
*****
The vast majority of Americans pray. But how do they do it and what do
they pray for? New research has shed light on the intercessory habits of
Americans.
A comprehensive study by Barna, published this week, suggests that for
most Americans prayer is solitary and silent.
The June survey of 1,015 US adults, found that most (82 per cent) said
they most often prayed silently and alone, while only 13 per cent prayed
audibly and alone. Just two per cent said they most often prayed
'collectively with a church' or 'audibly with another person or group'.
The most common content of prayers is 'gratitude and thanksgiving' (62
per cent), and 'the needs of my family and community'. Personal guidance
in crises takes precedence (49 per cent), while there seemed to be less
of an imperative for praying for the requests of others (34 per cent),
concerns about the government (24 per cent), global injustice (20 per
cent) or reciting Scripture or liturgies (Eight per cent).
*****
An abuse inquiry in Australia has recommended an end to the Seal of the
Confessional. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child
Sexual Abuse -- the official independent inquiry in Australia, has
recommended that the failure to report child sexual abuse in
institutions should be made a criminal offence. And it said that there
should be "no exemption, excuse, protection or privilege from the
offence granted to clergy for failing to report information disclosed in
connection with a religious confession."
The recommendations are amongst a sweep of 85 legislative and policy
changes proposed in a report Criminal Justice, released by the
Commission today (Monday), "aimed at reforming the Australian criminal
justice system in order to provide a fairer response to victims of
institutional child sexual abuse."
"Child sexual abuse is a crime and it should be reported to police.
There should be no doubt that police are the correct agency to which
child sexual abuse should be reported."
"Submissions to the Royal Commission by the Roman Catholic church argued
that any intrusion by the civil law on the practice of religious
confession would undermine the principle of freedom of religion. In a
civil society, it is fundamentally important that the right of a person
to freely practice their religion in accordance with their beliefs is
upheld.
*****
FACTOID: POLL: Most Americans Don't Want Confederate Statues Torn Down
A new poll shows most Americans, including a plurality of
African-Americans, oppose efforts to tear down statues honoring
Confederate soldiers, according to the Federalist.
In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville last weekend, many
politicians and activists have called for statues honoring Confederate
soldiers to be torn down. A new poll, however, shows that most
Americans, including a plurality of African-Americans, don't agree with
efforts to tear down Confederate statues. According to a new poll
conducted by Marist for NPR/PBS News Hour, 62 percent of Americans want
the statues to stay where they are.
Is fatherlessness the key to the recent neo-Nazi violence in
Charlottesville, VA? Why are its foot-soldiers so vulnerable to
radicalization, writes Michael Cook of Mercatornet.
Who were the foot-soldiers at Charlottesville? Despite the
forest-levelling media coverage of the riot at a university town in
Virginia, it's hard to capture who participated.
The driver of the car who drove his car into a crowd of protesters,
killing one of them, was the most recognizable face: a 20-year-old from
Ohio, James Alex Fields Jr. He has been charged with second-degree
murder and malicious wounding. He was raised without a father.
Many of the perpetrators of mass killing in the United States come from
troubled, fatherless homes.
* Wade Page was a white supremacist who shot six Sikhs dead in Milwaukee
before being killed by a police officer earlier in August 2012. His
parents were divorced.
* In December 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother, six staff at a
Connecticut primary school, and 20 school children before shooting
himself. His parents were divorced.
* John Zawahiri, 23, killed five people in Santa Monica in 2013 near and
on the campus of a state college. His parents had been separated for
years.
* Dylan Roof was a 21-year-old white supremacist who killed nine black
people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. His parents
were divorced.
Fatherlessness and family breakdown have also been fingered as a
possible cause of ISIS-inspired terrorism. According to The Guardian
"some reports indicate that foreigners fighting with Isis often come
from families where fathers were abusive or absent." You can read the
full story here or in today's digest.
http://www.virtueonline.org/fatherlessness-key-neo-nazi-violence
*****
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than ever, but fewer donors. We must have help from you our readers.
Thousands of you go each day to the website and thousands more receive a
weekly digest of stories. We are hurting for donations. All of what we
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In Christ,
David
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:43:43 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: St. James Newport Beach: The Pious Language of Greed
Message-ID:
<1503060223.1308202....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
St. James Newport Beach: The Pious Language of Greed
Memo to Rev. Cindy Voorhees: "You're screwed"
COMMENTARY
By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
August 16, 2017
No so-called Christian institution in modern history has managed to
elevate greed to sanctimonious levels of episcobabble as The Episcopal
Church is doing in its pending sale of St. James the Great Newport Beach
in the name of the god mammon. (It will soon be known as St. James the
Sold).
Mostly when the Episcopal Church goes after a property, its priest,
parishioners and prayer books it does so in the name of "mission".
Mission is never fully defined, (it certainly has nothing to do with
evangelism, discipleship or church growth); at its heart it means a lot
of vacuous talk about saving the world for God, endless talk of racism,
unnumbered social justice issues from UN resolutions to transgenderism
and sodomy, while grabbing, or holding on to properties they believe are
theirs for future generations -- generations that are currently
dwindling, and in time will cease to exist, never to see the inside of
an Episcopal Church. The future of the Episcopal Church beyond the next
twenty years is about as viable as Anthony Scaramucci being invited by
the next president of the United States to be his Director of
Communications.
But the greedy fingers of the new bishop of Los Angeles John Taylor
immediately took over, unctuously proclaiming, in prayerful discernment,
of course, that the diocese's hearts was opened to a variety of
possibilities for reconciliation in Christ and healing for St. James and
our whole community, BUT, because Bishop Bruno had entered into a
binding contract to sell the property they have no recourse but to sell
the property.
But as canon lawyer Allan Haley notes, "as the title to St. James is
still held by Bruno's corporation sole, then only he can sign the deed
that would transfer title to the developer. The same goes for the
proceeds from the sale: since the seller is the corp sole, the money
will be paid into the corp sole, and will come out to the Diocese only
if Bruno signs a check." That's a card he might play to get out of
ecclesiastical jail.
As the diocese is in financial straits, so a source told VOL, then $15
million or whatever the sale price is (and remember that Bruno spent
over $10 million in legal fees in this and other property situations,)
then very clearly it is the will of God that the property be sold as
soon as possible, and the Rev. Cindy Voorhees and her small tribe of
leftover Episcopalians can go pound sand.
The convoluted history of this parish has been ably documented by Mr.
Haley whose story about all this can be viewed here.
http://tinyurl.com/y9rvx624
The back and forth of the St. James story would make a movie of
intrigue, duplicity, lies and yes, just plain greed. Bruno, it turns
out, is the Episcopal Church's version of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko,
but with a creed, "Blessed are the litigious for they shall enrich
lawyers."
The complicated machinations of property ownership, corp sole etc. will
in time be sorted out, but Bruno has the corp sole up his sleeve till
the new bishop is fully inducted into the diocesan hall of revisionist
infamy.
Meantime Bruno has been given a three-year get out of ecclesiastical
jail card and kicked to the curb for bullying and deviant behavior over
a piece of real estate.
Now you should know that this parish was once in the hands of two godly
priests, one Richard Crocker and David Anderson, (the latter went on to
become a bishop in the ACNA) having discerned that he and many others
had no future in a morally and theologically bankrupt church.
On hearing the latest news, Bishop Anderson wrote VOL and said; "I am
heartbroken. When I first knew Bruno, he seemed a different man. I took
him with me to an ERM Evergreen Conference Center in CO for a clergy
(charismatic) renewal week. Things seemed to go very well.
"Then later he drank the kool-aid.
"The church is a beautiful building but for the diocese it is a reminder
of us, not Cindy Voorhees. They are reminded of us and they want to
scrape the sand clean and erase our historical presence from the
landscape. I find no joy in Cindy Voorhees and her congregation being
treated as badly as we were....and they have nowhere to go...they are
stuck in the Episcopal Church that betrayed them because they can't join
us without repenting from deviant theology, and so they are stuck in the
hell that cut them off at the knees.
"Now the church building that we loved, and that they too loved will be
smashed and carted away. It's a tragedy in so many directions. But in
the larger picture the price we are paying in losing property all across
North America is a pittance compared to what our brother and sister
Christians are paying in Isis Iraq and Syria, and in almost every Muslim
country, where they remain faithful and endure the most horrendous of
prices."
The prayer of Samson does however come to mind, Anderson said.
It is irony heaped upon irony that at one point in this saga a Hearing
Panel reached a definite and clear conclusion, (always after prayerful
consideration of course), strongly recommending to the Diocese of Los
Angeles that as a matter of justice it immediately suspend its efforts
to sell the St. James property, that it restore the congregation and
vicar to the church building and that it reassign St. James the Great
appropriate mission status.
That was never going to happen. Justice be damned.
The die has now been cast, the property will be sold, the few
Episcopalians scattered to the four winds and a large check will sit in
the diocese's bank account to be spent on sodomite inclusion,
anti-racism training for non-existent aging Episcopal racists, and a
Jesus Movement that nobody knows what the hell to do with. Bruno, like
Stacy Sauls and Douglas Hahn, (both the latter bishops got the heave-ho
for different reasons,) will lick his wounds and then disappear, never
to be heard from again.
Perhaps that's the silver lining in this whole tawdry affair.
END
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:44:04 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: St. James, Newport Beach will lose their church
Message-ID:
<1503060244.1308230....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
St. James, Newport Beach will lose their church
Ousted Bishop Bruno had binding contract to sell property, says Bishop
Taylor
Congregation to disperse. Rev. Voorhees has no come back or appeal
By Bishop John Taylor
August 14, 2017
A Letter to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
On behalf of the Rev. Dr. Rachel Anne Nyback, president of the Standing
Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, and me, I write today
to summarize conclusions we have reached about matters that have roiled
our diocese for over two years, since the public learned of the initial
plan by the "Bishop as Corporation Sole" to sell the property on Via
Lido in Newport Beach. I write in the spirit of Resurrection and love
and the hope of reconciliation. I also write to acquaint our community
with the limitations imposed on us all by the reality of present
circumstances.
On July 31, the Most Rev Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of The
Episcopal Church, wrote to Dr. Nyback and me that he had concluded that
Bishop J. Jon Bruno "is not in a position to exercise pastoral oversight
of St. James." He said he wished to give us episcopal jurisdiction over
St. James-related matters. He continued:
The purpose of this is to create space for the Bishop Coadjutor and the
Standing Committee to, a) exercise their respective ministries of
healing and reconciliation within the diocese, and, b) seek to resolve
the conflict over and determine the disposition of all matters related
to the property, congregation and Vicar, which is the proper domain of
their respective authority and responsibility as leaders of the Diocese.
Bishop Curry drew a distinct line between his charge to the Standing
Committee and me on the one hand and the work of the Hearing Panel on
the other. "The Hearing Panel's canonical and pastoral focus," he wrote,
"is on the actions and behavior of [Bishop Bruno] in these matters."
In the two weeks since Bishop Curry's invitation, which he formalized in
an order dated August 1, Dr. Nyback and I have gathered information as
widely as we can, including but not limited to consultation with the
Standing Committee, Bishop Bruno and his colleagues, representatives of
St. James the Great, legal experts, and the contracted buyer of the Via
Lido property.
The Property on Via Lido
In prayerful discernment, we opened our hearts to a variety of
possibilities for reconciliation in Christ and healing for St. James and
our whole community. But Bishop Bruno has entered into a binding
contract to sell the property. The buyer has the legal right to expect
the seller to honor the contract. Much as we might wish it were
otherwise, we do not believe that it would be in the interests of the
diocese or consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities to endorse any
steps leading to breaching or threatening to breach an enforceable
contract that could lead to further expense and litigation.
The St. James Congregation
We understand that the Hearing Panel's ruling, which awaits the
possibility of Bishop Bruno's appeal, calls on us to return the
congregation to the building. The four concurring Hearing Panel members
and the attorneys who advised them evidently did not take fully into
account the existence of a binding contract nor all the ways the dispute
begs for wider reconciliation. (One panel member dissented and supported
Bishop Bruno.)
Their advocacy bespeaks a commendable pastoral connection with the
people of St. James. As recently as the filing of the church attorney's
brief after the hearings in Pasadena in March, those conducting the
proceeding against Bishop Bruno made it clear that he could avoid being
sanctioned if he would relent on his intention to sell the property.
This is not to understate the significance of the panel's findings
against Bishop Bruno. But we trust that from the painful experience of
the Diocese of Los Angeles, The Episcopal Church will learn lessons
about how, in disciplinary settings, to differentiate between actions by
a respondent which deserve sanction and a complainant's wish to reverse
an operational decision.
We share the panel's profound concern for the people of St. James.
Bishop Bruno asked them to start a new congregation, and under the
leadership of the Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees, they accepted the
challenge. They praised, worshipped, and served, as they continue to do.
We are not here to relitigate Bishop Bruno's actions or the Hearing
Panel's verdict. In all likelihood, after 40 years of ordination,
including many moments of courage and vision, he will lose the right to
say Holy Eucharist and to baptize, confirm, and bless for three years.
It is also outside the realm of Bishop Curry's charge to assess how long
it would have taken St. James to achieve sustainability. Suffice it to
say that it was making good progress and that losing its church building
was a disappointment and shock.
Amid their shock, some have gone to unfortunate extremes. We have
gathered, examined, and shared with the Presiding Bishop copies of
numerous anonymous e-mails and letters sent to persons who supported,
agreed with, and worked for Bishop Bruno and to members of their
families. We trust that the leaders of St. James have no knowledge of
them. They contain threats; ridicule; accusations of corruption,
perjury, cowardice, and submission to patronage; and demands that
volunteers and diocesan staff members resign. Standing Committee members
were particularly singled out for this treatment. We were heartened by
Bishop Curry's decision to meet with the Standing Committee on July 7
and listen to members' perspectives. He exhibited a pastor's heart and
leader's wisdom by expressing respect for the committee's ministry in
his July 31 email.
Canon Voorhees
Canon Voorhees is entitled to confidentiality when it comes to any
conversations that may occur about her ministry in our diocese. We look
forward to open dialogue and prayerful discernment in the weeks and
months ahead.
The Way Forward
The Standing Committee and I wish it were possible to achieve a
settlement in which all could receive everything they sought.
Unfortunately, in the short term, this cannot be the case. And yet we
continue to believe that healing and reconciliation are possible for our
whole community.
First, for the people of St. James. Our greatest regret concerns the
opportunities that were missed all along the line that would have
enabled the congregation of St. James the Great to fulfill its gospel
mission without being dependent on being within the walls of the
facility on Via Lido. The responsibility for these missed opportunities
is shared by both sides. Whatever happens with the contracted sale, we
prayerfully and earnestly urge the congregation to discern about what
might be possible instead of what is not. I look forward to being part
of that discernment to the extent the community may wish. I quickly
accepted Canon Voorhees' invitation to visit the congregation when she
extended it recently. I offered a number of dates. I look forward to the
blessings of worshiping with the congregation and sharing fellowship at
their convenience.
The sales contract itself offers one way forward. Although it contains a
nondisclosure agreement, we have received permission to describe some of
the details. Bishop Bruno entered into an agreement with Burnham-Ward
Properties/Burnham USA, a major commercial property owner in Newport
Beach. Burnham has longstanding ties to the community. It plans to
preserve the worship space so it may continue to be used by churches and
other community organizations, including St. James if it wishes. We were
encouraged to learn of preliminary conversations some weeks ago between
Burnham and a congregation representative about the possible use of the
space by St. James.
When by the grace of God I succeed Bishop Bruno on his retirement, I
pledge to do all I can pastorally, logistically, and financially to
support the St. James congregation should it wish to remain together and
reapply for mission status. Their purpose and drive these last two years
demonstrated that they love their church building and also that they
don't need it to be the church, to remain in unity, and to praise God
and serve God's people.
Second, for all the people of our diocese . Once the St. James matter is
settled, our diocese needs a season of open, face-to-face dialogue,
accountability, and reconciliation. In a conflict such as this one,
reconciliation is in the eye of the beholder. The dispute has affected
every aspect of our community's life. Bishop Bruno is accountable for
his actions. So too are some of the leaders of St. James. As we move
forward together, the Rt. Rev. Diane Jardine Bruce, Canon to the
Ordinary-designate Melissa McCarthy, the Standing Committee, and I,
working with Stillpoint and others in our diocese, are in conversation
about ways we can use this wearying season as a focal point for new
energy and ministry in this time when our neighborhoods, nation, and
world need The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Los Angeles to be at
their most unified and effective.
Third, for the financial life of our Diocese. The St. James matter
demonstrates that our diocese must be more transparent and deliberative
about finances. For months, a committee has been working hard on a
reform plan for Corporation Sole. As its incoming trustee, I have been
working with them closely. A progress report is imminent.
A former Wells Fargo Bank executive, Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce is
preparing to take responsibility for the diocesan budget. Our goal is a
Mission Share Fund budget that feeds hungry hearts by revealing the true
heart of the diocese -- what we really care about, what we can afford,
and what we can't yet afford but seek to make possible through
additional stewardship and fundraising. We will create a grant
application procedure to ensure equitable access to designated Corp Sole
funds. We pledge to do all we can to ensure that capital sums received
by the diocese, including proceeds from the Via Lido sale, are conserved
for the sake of generations to come.
As for our generation, our unity amid diversity and difference, our
grasping one another's hands across chasms of conflict and
misunderstanding, are vital if we are to be the church our God in Christ
needs us to be in this time and place. The 21 st century is inviting The
Episcopal Church to create communities of enduring familial connection
where we accept one another as we are, participate in divine mysteries
that invite transformation, and go forth cheerfully to love God and our
neighbor.
Accepting one another as we are can be the hardest part. But it is the
holiest work of all. As Paul writes (Romans 8:28), "We know that all
things work together for good for those who love God, who are called
according to his purpose." Each moment affords each person of faith the
opportunity to preach the good news in word, deed, and love. Each moment
of certitude invites us to ask if we may be wrong. The hurts we suffer,
even when we have every right to expect accountability, activate our
hearts of forgiveness.
I look forward eagerly to walking with all our people in the way of the
Cross in the months and years ahead. May our God in Christ, through the
grace and power of the Holy Spirit, richly bless you, this day and
forever.
The Rt. Rev. John Harvey Taylor is Bishop Coadjutor for the Diocese of
Los Angeles
*****
L.A. Episcopal diocese is going ahead with sale of Newport's St. James
church site
St. James the Great Episcopal Church held services at this location on
Via Lido in Newport Beach until 2015, now the site is under contract to
be sold to developer Burnham Ward Properties
By HILLARY DAVIS
www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-stjames-sale-20170814-story.html
Aug,.14, 2017
The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles plans to proceed with the sale of
the St. James the Great church property in Newport Beach, citing a legal
obligation created by the diocese's bishop.
In a letter Monday to the diocese, Bishop Coadjutor John Harvey Taylor
said Bishop J. Jon Bruno had entered a binding contract to sell the
property at 3209 Via Lido to Newport Beach-based developer Burnham Ward
Properties and that diocese leadership would move forward with that
plan.
"The buyer has the legal right to expect the seller to honor the
contract," Taylor wrote. "Much as we might wish it were otherwise, we do
not believe that it would be in the interests of the diocese or
consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities to endorse any steps
leading to breaching or threatening to breach an enforceable contract
that could lead to further expense and litigation."
Taylor has been named to succeed Bruno upon Bruno's planned retirement
at the end of the year and already has been assigned pastoral and
property oversight for St. James by the highest-ranking bishop of the
Episcopal Church in the United States. That move was made Aug. 1 in
light of a hearing panel's recent determination that Bruno had engaged
in misconduct when he attempted a separate sale of the church site in
2015.
Bruno changed the locks two years ago while trying to sell the property
to would-be townhouse developer Legacy Partners for $15 million. That
sale fell through.
The congregation has since been worshipping at other locations around
Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. It currently meets at Newport Beach City
Hall.
The hearing panel's ruling, issued July 21 and finalized Aug. 2,
recommended a three-year suspension from ministry for Bruno, plus
halting efforts to sell the St. James building and unlocking the
property so the congregation could resume worship in its longtime home.
Taylor, however, wrote that the panelists and their advising attorneys
"evidently did not take fully into account the existence of a binding
contract, nor all the ways the dispute begs for wider reconciliation."
Parishioner Walter Stahr, who has been active in the congregation's
allegations of misconduct against Bruno and the effort to reclaim the
building, said diocese leaders did not say when escrow would close on
the property when they met Monday with him and St. James pastor Cindy
Evans Voorhees. The sale price also has not been disclosed.
"They assured us that if St. James the Great wishes to continue as an
Episcopal congregation, they will support us -- just not in our
building," Stahr told his fellow parishioners in a statement Monday. "I
know how devastating this will be for many of you, but the story is not
over."
Voorhees had no comment Monday.
Taylor said Burnham Ward plans to "preserve the worship space so it may
continue to be used by churches and other community organizations,
including St. James if it wishes."
"I wish it were possible to achieve a settlement in which all could
receive everything they sought," Taylor said. "Unfortunately, in the
short term, this cannot be the case. And yet we continue to believe that
healing and reconciliation are possible for our whole community."
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:44:25 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Spiritualizing Charlottesville?
Message-ID:
<1503060265.1308268....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Spiritualizing Charlottesville?
Episcopal bishops focus on racism, bigotry, hatred and equality
By Mary Ann Mueller
VOL Special Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org
August 14, 2017
The violence which erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend
was another flashpoint for Episcopal bishops to again step up and
pontificate about racism, bigotry and hatred.
"The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia knew that trouble was coming,"
Rosalind Hughes wrote on Episcopal Cafe,"... and the bishops had asked
its clergy to be prepared, with their prayers and presence ...."
"As racially motivated violence continues to plague our country, we
Bishops of the Diocese of Virginia stand together with the
Charlottesville Clergy Collective (CCC), working in opposition to the
so-called 'Unite the Right' rally, an event being supported by numerous
white supremacist organizations," wrote Virginia bishops Shannon
Johnston (XIII Virginia); Susan Goff (Virginia-suffragan); and Ted
Gulick (Virginia-assistant). "We are inviting all Episcopal clergy in
the Diocese of Virginia to come to Charlottesville on Saturday, August
12, 2017, joining with other clergy and leaders from across the United
States."
The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has 237 working priests serving 182
congregations. Of the 237 active priests 99 are women.
"Our purpose will be to bear visible witness to the entirety of the
beloved community in which people of all races are equal," the Virginia
Episcopal bishops continued. "To make the most visible witness, clergy
have been asked to wear clerical street clothes or a cassock (a stole is
optional)."
According to the Charlottesville Clergy Collective website the
ecumenical organization is "a group of clergy and interested lay persons
who gather regularly to discuss and address the challenge of race
relations in the Charlottesville and Albemarle region of Virginia." The
organization was founded after the 2015 Mother Emanuel Church shooting
in Charleston, South Carolina when it was realized that the pastors in
Charlottesville didn't knew and trust each other enough to organize and
deal with racial challenges in Albemarle County.
The Charlottesville Clergy Collective is billed as a "God-centered faith
community of prayer, solidarity, and impact" which seeks to "establish,
develop, and promote racial unity" within the area's faith leadership.
The Episcopal bishops of Virginia are recognized as a part of
Charlottesville's "faith leadership" collective. As such they threw
themselves fully into preparing for the "Unite the Right" rally.
"Your voice is needed!" the Virginia bishops collectively wrote. "As
people who have been reconciled to God through Christ, we have been
entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).
In our judgment, therefore, the Church cannot remain silent in the face
of those who seek to foment division."
Friday (Aug. 11) a headline in the Charlottesville Daily Progress read:
"Faith leaders gather on the eve of 'hate-driven' Unite the Right
rally." That gathering of faith leaders took place at St. Paul's
Memorial which threw open wide its doors to welcome the various clergy.
The Episcopal church is located on the University of Virginia's campus.
"After an afternoon of sunshine gave way to a brief evening rain shower
and an overcast sky, clergy members and people of faith gathered in St.
Paul's Memorial Church on University Avenue for a prayer service that
was organized in response to the Unite the Right rally on Saturday," the
Daily Progress reported.
St. Paul's has its beginning at the hands of Bishop Robert Gibson (VI
Virginia). When he was elected bishop coadjutor in 1897, he made it as
one of his episcopal goals to see the creation of an Episcopal presence
at the University of Virginia.
"In looking for neglected persons, the condition of the boys at the
University of Virginia caught my attention," the bishop reportedly said.
"Without criticizing in the least degree the care extended to the
students by the authorities at the University, I thought that it was
perfectly plain that their own church was not doing its duty to the
Episcopal boys."
The University of Virginia was established in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson,
one of America's Founding Fathers. By the end of the 19th century 280
Episcopalians were enrolled in the Charlottesville-based institution of
higher learning and in need of Episcopal spiritual care. So, to meet
that need St. Paul's Memorial was founded at the beginning of the 20th
century.
St. Paul's Memorial is one of several Episcopal congregations in the
immediate Charlottesville area. Other Episcopal churches include: Christ
Church, Trinity, McIlhany Parish, Our Saviour, and St. Luke's.
Today St. Paul's, an open and inclusive congregation, is under the
leadership of three Episcopal clergy, two of whom are women. The
university congregation has a current ASA of fewer the 250 souls which
reflects a significant drop from a decade ago when Sunday attendance
soared above 400. The University of Virginia's student body of more than
22,000 students return to classes next Tuesday (Aug. 22). The
university's Episcopal church celebrates three Services of Holy
Communion on Sunday and one on Tuesday. During the rest of the week
either Morning or Evening prayer is read.
"The 8 p.m. multi-faith service included dozens of local and national
clergy members who are visiting the city this weekend," the Daily
Progress reported. "Along with various activist groups and movements,
the clergy members were called to confront the hundreds of alt-right and
white nationalist activists who have been planning for weeks to rally in
Emancipation Park to protest the planned removal of the statue of
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee there."
Episcopal Cafe reported: "For some time, the white supremacists
surrounded the church, but they were eventually disbanded by police for
unlawful assembly."
Traci Blackmon, a United Church of Christ minister, who was a part of
St. Paul's peaceful prayer service, tweeted as the church was besieged:
"They are coming for the church! Police all around. They won't let us go
outside. Y'all, these KKK are marching with torches!"
St. Paul's rector Fr. William Peyton was interviewed Sunday by the BBC.
He said: "What I saw were protestors heading to the rally and it was a
chilling sight to see van loads of people who had clearly come prepared
for violence."
The Virginia bishops are not the only Episcopal bishops to make their
thoughts known about the Charlottesville violence.
"For Christians, such ideas are appalling," said Bishop Jake Owensby (IV
Western Louisiana). We are all God's children. In Christ we are all
sisters and brothers. Every human being possesses infinite dignity, and
it is our right, duty and privilege to respect each person we meet as
God's beloved. Everyone is equal before God. Everyone should be equal
under the laws of the land. ... Racism is a sin."
Bishop Eugene Sutton (XIV Maryland) added: "[This is] another display of
bigotry and hatred. Another act of domestic terrorism. And another
example of the collective failure of our nation to expend the moral and
political capital needed to stop our spiral into racial and violent
madness."
" Once again our nation's demon of racism has reared its head, spewing
hatred and inciting violence. What we saw in Charlottesville was
unmasked and ugly, culminating in a deadly act of domestic terrorism, "
wrote Bishop Mariann Budde (IX Washington, DC). " We cannot expunge the
sin of racism from our past and present, but we can redeem it. And we
must."
" I fear that we have lost the desire to live in community," explained
Bishop Edward Konieczny (V Oklahoma). "I fear that the world has been
telling us far too loudly, and for far too long, that our primary desire
above all else should be promotion of self-interest. I fear that the
opinion that the ends justify the means, has resulted in a common
message that whatever course of action we see fit to use to accomplish
our goals can be justified: dishonesty, hatred, violence, etc...."
"How are we to respond, as Christians, in a way that condemns these
actions, but does not contribute to the rhetoric of hate?" Bishop Samuel
Rodman (XII North Carolina) and Bishop Anne Hodges-Copple (North
Carolina-suffragan) collectively ask. "We will need to rediscover the
deep roots of non-violence embedded in the gospel and the Jesus
Movement: non-violence that calls us to love our enemies, to pray for
those who persecute others, to refuse to fight evil with evil, but to
overcome evil with good."
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, formerly the XI Bishop of
North Carolina, took to Twitter to respond to the violence which
unfolded in Charlottesville.
"In the days and weeks to come, there will be much to discuss as the
#JesusMovement responds to the violence and inequality in our world," he
tweeted. "Today, as we remember in prayer those who died and were
injured in the violent clashes in #Charlottesville ... In the days and
weeks to come, there will be much to discuss as the Jesus Movement
responds to the violence and ..."
"On Saturday afternoon we looked to television and computer screens to
inform us of the developing tragedy in the South. To do so without
reflecting on the same behavior and attitudes in our own towns here in
Central Pennsylvania would be shortsighted," explained Bishop Audrey
Scanlan (XI Central Pennsylvania) in Facebook. "As Christians, we are
called to be peacemakers. We vow to embrace the dignity of every human
being. We are called to a ministry of reconciliation in the name of
Jesus. And this work is vital in our own neighborhoods and our own
hearts."
Bishop Scott Barker (XI Nebraska) also took to Facebook to champion his
role in witnessing a gay marriage while violence erupted in Virginia.
"While so many brother and sister bishops were standing against the
deplorable and sinful ideology of white supremacy in #Charlottesville
yesterday, I was in Central Nebraska presiding at the marriage of two
wonderful men. Gay marriage is still a rare thing in greater Nebraska,
let alone a standing room only gay church wedding!" the Nebraska bishop
wrote. "But there we were, all casually attired at the invitation of the
grooms (so wearing our Nebraska shirts, cowboy boots and sparkly jeans)
gathered to say and show that by the power of God, it is always possible
to overcome deep prejudice and fear ... gathered to say and show that as
disciples of Jesus we will strive to be a reconciling force for God's
kingdom no matter the hostility of the culture in which we make our home
... gathered to say and show that in God's time, if we fight the good
fight, the power of God's grace will always and everywhere triumph over
hate."
"This morning (Sunday) I'll stand with faithful preachers all over
America condemning racism and white privilege from the pulpit," he
continued. "but I'm also giving thanks as the sun rises here in middle
America, for yesterday's celebration of Christ's love!"
Former Anglican priest Fr. Dwight Longenecker has a unique understanding
of what happened in Charlottesville. The priest, a convert from the
Church of England, is now a Roman Catholic priest serving in Greenville,
South Carolina.
"I'll tell you what's happened in Charlottesville this weekend," the
priest explained in his Standing on My Head blog."It is human beings
revealing what lies within. It's real simple and it's been happening
since Cain killed his brother Abel."
"It works like this," he continued. "Human being is unhappy ... He
doesn't know why he's unhappy ... Somebody must be at fault ... He needs
to blame somebody for his being unhappy ... It can't be his fault
because he's convinced that he's a good person ... So it must be
somebody else's fault ... So he gets together with other people who are
unhappy ... They talk about why they are unhappy and conclude that it
must be somebody else's fault ... The other person is to blame, but who
is that other person? ... It's the people who are not like them ... It's
the people who disagree with them ... It's the people of a different
religion, a different race or a different belief ... Those people are
the problem ... To get rid of the problem they conclude that they have
to get rid of the people who caused the problem ... First they try to
exclude those people ... Then they try to persecute those people ...
Then they try to kill those people ... If only they can eradicate those
other people then they will be happy ... Once they did get rid of them
they felt so good that it was like a drug ... So they will try to get
that feeling again like any addict does."
"Charlottesville has revealed to all of us what it means to be an
unredeemed human being," he continued. "Only repentance can solve this
problem for repentance is, at its very heart, the simple act of a person
taking responsibility for themselves -- for their own happiness and by
God's help, the solution to their problems. Then once they take
responsibility for themselves they might start taking responsibility for
the happiness of others."
*****
Anglican Bishop Calls for Prayer in Wake of Charlottesville Conflict
>From Bishop John Guernsey
Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic:
August 14, 2017
A Call to Prayer
The horrific events today in Charlottesville, VA, call us to pray and
intercede for our communities that are in deep conflict. Psalm 145
reminds us of the hope we have as we pray: "The Lord is near to all who
call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of
those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them." Please join
in praying for the community of Charlottesville and for all communities
in our nation that face conflict, that the Lord may deliver us from
bigotry and violence, and bring healing and salvation to all people in
our nation.
"O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the
midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another
without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual
forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
--Texts for Common Prayer
This statement was endorsed by ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach
Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular
contributor to VirtueOnline
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:50:27 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Virginia Seminary Labyrinth to Commemorate 1880s Black Chapel
Message-ID:
<1503060627.1310835....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Virginia Seminary Labyrinth to Commemorate 1880s Black Chapel
By Jeff Walton
https://juicyecumenism.com/2017/08/17/labyrinth/
August 17, 2017
An Episcopal Church seminary seeks to commemorate African Americans
which once worshiped on its Alexandria, Virginia campus by constructing
a late 20th-century innovation that would have been unfamiliar to them:
a modern labyrinth.
The Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) classes of 2009 and 2017 jointly
gifted the installation after culling through ideas which arose in a
class survey. An initial idea was to construct a Stations of the Cross
to commemorate St. Cyprian's Chapel, built in the early 1880s at the
then-segregated VTS for the local African American community following
the Civil War and later moved in the 1920s, or to build a permanent
labyrinth.
"There was really strong sentiment in favor of commemorating the St.
Cyprian's Chapel," said organizer Serina Sides in an article about the
installation featured in the summer 2017 edition of the VTS journal News
from the Hill. "Race relations, racial justice, racial reconciliation --
all have been a point of discussion ever since we arrived on campus."
The walls of the 1881 Chapel Garden were not stable enough to support
additional work, so members of the class were "inspired" to combine the
ideas and name the labyrinth in honor of the chapel.
"It is exciting that the Seminary was able to commemorate the African
American community in this way," Sides added, apparently unconcerned
about appropriating the chapel name for a completely unrelated project.
The idea of a labyrinth isn't brand new at VTS, but it isn't old,
either.
"For the 17 years I've been here, there has been talk about having a
labyrinth," said the Rev. Barney Hawkins, vice president of
Institutional Advancement at VTS.
Commemorating a 19th-century African American church with a labyrinth
has all the historical resonance of marking the site of the pilgrim
landing with a new Apple store. Labyrinths are far-removed from the
historic religious experience of black America, and are more commonly
associated with upper middle class middle-aged white people doing yoga
to pan flute music.
"We used the 'Vision Quest' design, which is a modern design that I
created," explained designer David Tolzmann in News from the Hill.
"There is a lot of demand for labyrinths because of the stories of the
people who use them and the value people find in having them. These go
back thousands and thousands of years."
Well, sort of. The modern "labyrinth movement" traces its origins to the
late 1980s at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. While the Chartres
Cathedral labyrinth constructed in the late 12th century is cited as an
inspiration for the modern movement, Jesus Christ doesn't figure
prominently. Instead, proponents of labyrinths see them as "making space
for the inner journey" in the words of Judith Tripp of Veriditas, which
promotes programs centered on the labyrinth.
The Veriditas web site notes eastern religions, the new age movement and
the 1987 "Harmonic Convergence" as context for the emergence of the
labyrinth movement. African American church history -- and Jesus Christ
-- is not mentioned. Labyrinths seem to play no role in contemporary
black Christianity, either.
In a relatively short span of time, labyrinths have spread far beyond
San Francisco. The Episcopal Washington National Cathedral has one;
historic Christ Church in Old Town Alexandria not far from Virginia
Seminary also constructed a labyrinth. Progressive Episcopal parishes
are most likely to host them. Despite the inspiration of Chartres
Cathedral, the trend has not been as widely embraced in Roman
Catholicism or other historic, liturgical Christian traditions.
The labyrinth concept may not be directly objectionable. Its problems
lie more in the vague promise of spiritual awakening found more often in
eastern mysticism and untethered from the person of Jesus Christ. In an
Episcopal Church where the "vision quest" and journey is always in
fashion and increasing signs of external religiosity have substituted
for core Christian doctrine, the process of seeking is in, the act of
finding truth is out.
Interestingly, the VTS marker says nothing about the chapel (and now
labyrinth) namesake, St. Cyprian, the 3rd century bishop of Carthage and
early Christian writer. An opponent of the Novatianist heresy, he
advocated a policy under which former idolaters could be once again
admitted to communion with the church following public penance.
It's a lost opportunity. An installation named for St. Cyprian could
point to Christian martyrs: Cyprian was martyred at Carthage under
Emperor Valerian's persecution.
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:50:47 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: ACNA Archbishop Blasts Liberal Lutherans and Anglicans for
throwing away Biblical morality
Message-ID:
<1503060647.1310865....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
ACNA Archbishop Blasts Liberal Lutherans and Anglicans for throwing away
Biblical morality
A virus of immorality, has spread to the leadership of the Church and
become accepted as "Christian."
Too many church leaders have thrown away Biblical morality for the sake
of cultural relativity, said Beach
By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
August 13, 2017
Too many church leaders have thrown away Biblical morality for the sake
of cultural relativity, said ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach, pointing the
finger at liberal Lutherans and Anglicans.
Addressing the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) at their 2017
Mission Festival and Convocation in Nashville, Tennessee recently, Beach
said that churches who wear the same name as we do, Lutheran and
Anglican, have abandoned the teaching of the Bible.
"Because we refuse to tell people God's truth, refuse to reveal to
people God's holy expectations, in the name of love, we are deceiving
people into thinking that 'living in sin' is ok with the Almighty. It is
not.
"A virus of immorality, has spread to the leadership of the Church and
become accepted as 'Christian.' It is nothing more, than pagan morality,
dressed up and Christianized, with inclusive language and politically
correct verbiage. We have become too feeling-oriented in the Church.
Yes, we are to love, but we've become afraid to tell people of their
sin. This is not love at all, it is deception (And you know where
deception comes from)."
Beach praised the leadership of the NALC who, he said, believed the
Bible and attempted to practice its teaching especially on the 500th
anniversary of the Reformation. "Thank you, for your clear stand for
Biblical Morality. We in the Anglican Church in North America stand with
you."
The Anglican Church in North America and the North America Lutheran
Church have been having ecumenical discussions and fellowship for a
number of years, and continue to partner in various ways to further the
proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Beach praised these orthodox Lutherans for their clear stand on the
moral teaching of the Bible.
DISCIPLESHIP
Beach praised the NALC for their emphasis on discipleship. Jesus said to
his disciples: "GO and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them
to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always." This
is called the Great Commission. Sadly, for too many in our pews and
chairs, it is the Great Omission. This is what we are called to be about
-- making disciples. Jesus ends this commission by saying "Lo, I am with
you always." As we make disciples, He promises to be us. This ought to
immediately motivate us -- so Jesus will be with us. He says to "Go"
literally. Isn't this what a commission does? It gives you something to
do. As you go, make disciples.
"We must get out of our churches and go. We must get out of our homes
and go. We must get out from in front of the television, and go. We must
get out from in front of our computer screens, and go! As you go, make
disciples.
"Did he say go and make new members? Did he say go and lead beautiful
worship services? Did he say go and build buildings?
"All those things are great, but not if we are aren't doing what he
asked us to do. As you go, make disciples. Make disciples of all
nations. Make disciples of all people. Not just our kind. Not just
people who look like us. Not just people who share our values. Make
disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that I commanded
you.
"We aren't to just get people to pray a special prayer, and then get
them wet in baptism, we are to teach them. Teach them what Jesus taught.
Teach them what His Word says. Teach them how to follow Jesus in a world
which hates him. As you go, make disciples, of all nations, baptizing
them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach them
to observe all that I commanded you, and I will be with you always.
"What a joy to know that you have a vision of discipleship! We are
excited about our partnership with you in these Gospel endeavors.
Together, we can impact North America, for generations to come!"
END
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:51:07 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Church of England Evangelical Council will not go along to
get along over human sexuality doctrine
Message-ID:
<1503060667.1310869....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Church of England Evangelical Council will not go along to get along
over human sexuality doctrine
Church of England Evangelical Council
August 8, 2017
Dear DEF members and members of networks represented on CEEC
In February of this year (after the January CEEC meeting), Stephen
Hofmeyr, CEEC Secretary, wrote to DEF Chairs and Secretaries (you can
find the letter on our website) providing information on CEEC's
conversations around human sexuality and the challenges at that time.
You will be aware that much water has gone under the bridge since then
and we are therefore writing to offer update and comment.
The February letter was sent immediately after the House of Bishops
report (GS2055) was published. It described how the Officers were
"heartened to read that the House of Bishops is proposing no change to
the Church of England's doctrinal position on marriage and sexual
relations and that no liturgical prayers for same sex relationships,
authorised or commended, should be produced". Much work was done by
evangelical bishops to secure this outcome and we are grateful for that
and that this remains the Church's official position.
We cannot, however, ignore the fact that since then this position has
been under constant and serious attack. There have been several
disappointing developments leading to widening and deepening concerns
among evangelicals:
A small majority of the House of Clergy refused to "take note" of the
report and so, although the majority of General Synod members wished to
do so, it was not taken note of by Synod,
The Archbishops' letter following this vote left many unclear as to what
was meant by "radical Christian inclusion" and has led to many believing
there has been not only a change in tone but a change in direction,
A number of bishops have openly signalled their support for changes in
teaching and/or practice and the Bishop of Liverpool became a Patron of
Liverpool Pride,
Behaviour and decisions at the July General Synod, including the
rejection of good amendments tabled by evangelicals to the motions on
conversion therapy and welcoming transgender people, have further
heightened concerns,
The Scottish Episcopal Church has changed its marriage canon and now
permits its clergy to preside at same-sex marriages.
Alongside these it is important to note a number of recent developments
which have brought encouragement to many evangelicals around the
country. These include the consecration of Andy Lines (who represents
Crosslinks on CEEC) as a missionary bishop of ACNA, supported by GAFCON
and many Global South Primates; the planned involvement of many
evangelicals in the groups working on the House of Bishops Teaching
Document, overseen by Bishop Christopher Cocksworth; and the call for a
renewed orthodox Anglicanism gaining signatures online.
In the midst of this CEEC continues to endorse the theology of human
sexuality and biblical authority offered in 'Guarding the Deposit'
(GTD). We are also clear as a Council that these matters are not able to
be treated as adiaphora but are of prime importance. We would encourage
you to read and raise awareness of GTD (both the full text and a helpful
two-page summary are on our website).
The developments of the last six months have also highlighted the
prescience and importance of the second part of GTD in which a series of
structural possibilities are explored. We thank God that the desired
first option of maintaining current teaching and practice has,
thankfully, not yet been formally rejected. However, there are many
signs that the Church could reject it by embracing either the proposals
of the Pilling Report or an even fuller acceptance that permanent,
faithful same-sex relationships are a legitimate form of Christian
discipleship.
CEEC Officers hear the call for a clearer and louder voice in support of
the traditional teaching of the church on marriage and same sex
relationships, not least from evangelical bishops. Without being able to
be explicit, it is important to say that behind the scenes a number of
initiatives are being planned, which hopefully will bring welcome
reassurances and send clear messages to the evangelical constituency and
the wider C of E and the even wider Anglican Communion.
More explicitly, the Council is working on two major areas. Firstly, we
are seeking to help the Church of England to maintain and be confident
in biblical teaching. We are positively exploring how we might
contribute to the proposed Teaching Document being worked on.
Furthermore, we are continuing to support and facilitate meetings in the
dioceses/regions to encourage, teach and resource a biblical orthodoxy
in matters of gender, identity and sexuality.
Secondly, and whilst we are committed to praying and working for a
renewal of orthodox vision within the C of E, we are being realistic and
thinking through what ''visible differentiation" might look like, should
the Church depart from its current teaching, whether in law or in fact,
and make such differentiation necessary. We are also aware of the need
to continue to work together and support one another as evangelicals
who, in different contexts, may, at times, be called to differentiate
from the wider church to varying degrees and in different forms.
In both these areas we welcome any input from you.
In the face of recent developments in the Church of England it is
important to remember and be encouraged by the fact that the
overwhelming majority of Anglicans worldwide share both our positive
vision and our concerns about Anglicanism in England and the wider
British Isles. As evangelicals in the Church of England we seek to work
with them and ask you to pray particularly for the Primates in advance
of the Primates' Meeting in early October and for those working to
prepare for Lambeth 2020 and GAFCON 2018.
In recent turbulent months many of us have been struggling to read the
signs of the times and hear what God is calling us to do. This looks
like it will be our situation for some time to come. At various points
we are likely to find ourselves saying, with Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles
20.12, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you". As we keep
our eyes on God, confident in his grace and power and truth, please pray
for wisdom for all those in positions of leadership in the Communion,
the Church of England, and among evangelicals, including those serving
on CEEC:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials
of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces
perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature
and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you
should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and
it will be given to you. (James 1:2-5).
Yours in His service
The Rt. Revd. Julian Henderson (CEEC President)
The Revd. Hugh Palmer (CEEC Chair)
The Revd. George Curry (CEEC Treasurer)
Stephen Hofmeyr (CEEC Secretary)
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:51:30 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Evangelical bishop warns split may be necessary as he
spearheads resistance to liberalising CofE
Message-ID:
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Evangelical bishop warns split may be necessary as he spearheads
resistance to liberalising CofE
Julian Henderson is Bishop of Blackburn, one of the senior posts within
the CofE Diocese of Blackburn
By Harry Farley
www.christiantoday.com
August 9, 2017
A senior evangelical bishop in the Church of England is spearheading
resistance to a perceived drift in teaching on sexuality, hinting that
some form of schism may be necessary.
Julian Henderson, the Bishop of Blackburn and president of the Church of
England Evangelical Council (CEEC), told evangelical leaders across the
CofE that 'behind the scenes' initiatives were under way to bolster
traditionalist teaching and support in the Church.
But he went on to warn that some form of split or church-within-a-church
may be necessary if the apparent liberalising trajectory continues.
'We are being realistic and thinking through what "visible
differentiation" might look like, should the Church depart from its
current teaching, whether in law or in fact, and make such
differentiation necessary,' he wrote in a letter to evangelical Anglican
leaders this week.
The phrase 'visible differentiation' comes from a report by the CEEC in
2016. Guarding the deposit argued unless bishops restated and reinforced
the teaching that any sex outside heterosexual marriage is sinful, with
'effective sanctions' for gay clergy and others who transgressed, 'the
Church of England might need to be divided in two'.
The document read: 'There will need to be some visible 'differentiation'
and division within the Church of England between those following this
new teaching and those wishing to be in an "apostolic community".'
Now a letter signed by Bishop Henderson as president of the CEEC
alongside its executive points to the CofE's recent motions to welcome
transgender people and ban gay conversion therapies as well as the
Scottish Episcopal Church's vote to permit gay marriage as evidence
evangelicals are 'under constant and serious attack'.
The response comes after a comment piece on Christian Today criticised
the Church of England Evangelical Council for its lack of action.
Writer David Baker said last Monday: 'The problem [with the CEEC] is
simply that it doesn't look as though it is doing or saying enough. And
that's a pity, because at this somewhat fraught and unsettled time in
Anglicanism's history it is arguable it is needed more than ever.'
The letter sent out on Tuesday retorts: 'CEEC Officers hear the call for
a clearer and louder voice in support of the traditional teaching of the
Church on marriage and same sex relationships, not least from
evangelical bishops. Without being able to be explicit, it is important
to say that behind the scenes a number of initiatives are being planned,
which hopefully will bring welcome reassurances and send clear messages
to the evangelical constituency and the wider C of E and the even wider
Anglican Communion.'
The intervention from the CEEC comes at a time of increased tensions
within the CofE after a July synod which was seen to set the Church on a
trajectory away from its current conservative stance.
In response a group of 23 conservatives, led by former Queen's chaplain
Gavin Ashenden, warned of a 'declaration of independence' from vicars
who feel that those with traditional views are being 'marginalised' by
the Church's leadership.
In a letter in the Telegraph they said the 'booing of traditionalists'
and the 'personal abuse' that they endured at the synod had 'deepened
mistrust' between the two camps.
In response Rev Rachel Marszalek, general secretary of the Fulcrum
evangelical grouping, urged evangelicals to say with the 'mother ship'
of the CofE.
'We are to remain in the mother-ship, pay our parish shares, teach the
faith, care for souls and bodies, and make it clear why the Church
should not change its doctrine or practice in regard to marriage. We are
always more effective when we contend together for the faith, and if
there was a crucial time to do this, it surely is now,' she wrote in the
Church Times.
END
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:51:50 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Anglican Bishop launches scathing attack on 'lying, amoral'
Donald Trump - and the 'Christian Right' for backing him
Message-ID:
<1503060710.1310922....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Anglican Bishop launches scathing attack on 'lying, amoral' Donald Trump
- and the 'Christian Right' for backing him
By James Macintyre
https://www.christiantoday.com/
August 15, 2017
The Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines has launched a blistering attack on
Donald Trump.
An Anglican Bishop has launched a scathing attack on the 'narcissistic
amorality' of 'lying' Donald Trump, along withthe American 'Christian
Right' for failing to recognise the president's traits before he was
elected last November.
Nicholas Baines, the liberal-leaning Bishop of Leeds, launched his
comprehensive assault on 'shameless' Trump and his evangelical backers
in a blog post written in the wake of the violence carried out by white
supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which Trump initially failed
specifically to condemn.
But the blog, entitled, 'We won't get fooled again: Trump,
Charlottesville and the American Dream' goes broader than the clashes
over the weekend, to chart Trump's 'consistent' positions on domestic
areas and international ones including North Korea, Russia and Nato.
Bishop Baines issues blame on what he calls the 'Christian Right' for
failing to see the disastrous presidency coming.
'It appears that many Americans regret having voted for Donald Trump.
Apparently, they believed his promises of magic restoration of greatness
without asking questions of his empty rhetoric,' Baines writes.
'His misogyny, amorality, financial track record, sexual behaviour,
narcissism and nepotism (to name but a few of the obvious challenges)
would have ruled out the candidacy of any other semi-reputable
politician for the Presidency of the United States of America. His
subsequent lying, shamelessness, vindictiveness and inhabiting of some
"alternative reality" (in which things that happened didn't happen and
things that didn't happen did happen; in which things he said he didn't
say and things he didn't say he did say) cannot have come as a
disappointing revelation to anyone with half a brain or ears to hear.
'His espousal of the alt-right has not come as news. His condemnation of
anyone and anything he sees as a challenge to himself ([former President
Barack] Obama, for instance) is weighed against his silence in the face
of inconvenient truth or facts.
'Yet, none of this is a surprise. It was all there to be seen before he
was elected. How on earth did the Christian Right even conceive of the
possibility of backing a man who can't put a sentence together and who
epitomises narcissistic amorality? If Hillary Clinton couldn't be
trusted because of her handling of an email server (or because Americans
had had enough of political dynasties), by what stretch of moral
imagination could Trump have been thought of as a cleaner, brighter
alternative? To which base values did he appeal?'
Baines argues that Trump is in fact 'the most consistent politician
America has seen', adding: 'Nothing that is happening now -- the
testosterone competition with North Korea's leader, NATO, Russia, for
example -- is new or surprising. It was all there to be seen. Either it
was seen and approved of (which says something of the moral sense of the
people who voted for him) or something blinded good people to the
reality of what was put before them.'
Turning to Charlottesville, Baines says that the 'brazen impunity' of
the white supremacists there 'is only possible because the fascists
believe they can get away with it -- or might even get approval from the
top'.
Baines adds that 'there are moments in history where a tipping point is
reached and it matters that people stand up and challenge the danger.
This is one of them. Charlottesville is only one (relatively small) town
in an enormous country, and most of the USA will have been as horrified
as the rest of us at what they witnessed this weekend; but, the images
coming out of this one place become iconic of a deeper malaise. People
are right to look for consistency in the rampant condemnations and
criticisms of their President in his favoured medium Twitter. If he
damns Islamic terrorists and wet liberals for their actions, we can
expect him to damn right-wing militias and neo-Nazi criminals when they
walk his streets and drive cars into ordinary people. Silence.'
Baines concludes by praising those Christians who have condemned the
violence in Charlottesville, before challenging the Republican party to
'stand up' against the Trump regime.
'As a Christian leader, not oblivious to similar challenges here
(consider the acceptability of multiple lies during the Brexit campaign
and the brazen impunity of those who told them), I applaud my brothers
and sisters in the USA who stand against the corruptions described
above,' he writes. 'I am proud that Christians (among many others) stood
against the wickednesses of Charlottesville. But, I remain incredulous
that evangelical Christian leaders, Bible in hand, can remain supportive
of the President and administration that is corrupting their country.
When will the Republican Party take responsibility, stop wringing their
hands, and stand against this regime that will be able to do little
without their support?'
END
------------------------------
Message: 11
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:54:59 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Is fatherlessness the key to neo-Nazi violence?
Message-ID:
<1503060899.1311616....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Is fatherlessness the key to neo-Nazi violence?
Why are its foot-soldiers so vulnerable to radicalisation?
By Michael Cook
https://www.mercatornet.com/
Aug 16 2017
Who were the foot-soldiers at Charlottesville? Despite the
forest-levelling media coverage of the riot at a university town in
Virginia, it's hard to capture who participated.
@YesYoureRacist on Twitter has been naming and shaming the neo-Nazis and
white supremacists by identifying faces in the media coverage. He has
scored about half-a-dozen scalps so far. One of them was immediately
fired from his job as a cook at a hot dog restaurant in Berkeley,
California. About 10,000 people have signed an on-line petition asking
that another be expelled from the University of Nevada.
The driver of the car who drove his car into a crowd of protesters,
killing one of them, was most recognisable face: a 20-year-old from
Ohio, James Alex Fields Jr. He has been charged with second-degree
murder and malicious wounding.
What strikes you when you look at the angry faces on both sides,
neo-Nazi and leftists, is their youth. No one seems to be over 40 and
most are in their 20s. Where did they get their nutty antiquated,
neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, racist ideas? Not from their high schools or
their universities. Probably from the internet.
But why were they so vulnerable to radicalisation by the dark corners of
the internet? More than wall-to-wall coverage of the fatal riot, what
the media should provide is context for the protest. Who are these guys
(they are nearly all guys)? What do they have in common?
Judging from the sketchy reports, this might be a fatherless home.
This is certainly true of James Alex Fields Jr. His father died before
he was born. Media reports say that his disabled mother had to ring
police a couple of times when he was 13 or 14 because he was threatening
her. He is a very troubled young man.
Many of the perpetrators of mass killing in the United States come from
troubled, fatherless homes.
* Wade Page was a white supremacist who shot six Sikhs dead in Milwaukee
before being killed by a police officer earlier in August 2012. His
parents were divorced.
* In December 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother, six staff at a
Connecticut primary school, and 20 school children before shooting
himself. His parents were divorced.
* John Zawahiri, 23, killed five people in Santa Monica in 2013 near and
on the campus of a state college. His parents had been separated for
years.
* Dylan Roof was a 21-year-old white supremacist who killed nine black
people in a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. His parents
were divorced.
Fatherlessness and family breakdown have also been fingered as a
possible cause of ISIS-inspired terrorism. According to The Guardian
"some reports indicate that foreigners fighting with Isis often come
from families where fathers were abusive or absent."
In 2013 three eminent scholars published a major article in the Annual
Review of Sociology, "The Causal Effects of Father Absence". After
reviewing dozens of studies they found that growing up without a father
lowered the likelihood of academic success and graduation from high
school for children, affected their mental health as adults, and was
associated with lower levels of employment.
This doesn't always happen and it doesn't have to happen. But
fatherlessness is certainly a risk factor for confusion and unhappiness.
The probability of a civil war sparked by young men chanting neo-Nazi
slogans is vanishingly small. But their rage is real. If we want to find
out why they are so confused, deluded and hate-filled, perhaps we need
to examine the health of the American family.
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
------------------------------
Message: 12
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:55:25 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Convert Nation
Message-ID:
<1503060925.1311606....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Convert Nation
More than one-third of Americans identify with a religion different than
the one they grew up with
By Emma Green
THE ATLANTIC
https://www.theatlantic.com/
August 12, 2017
Jane Picken didn't know much about religion growing up. Her parents were
Christians, but she was orphaned at a young age, and the person who
helped raise her "utterly rejected" revealed religion. Years later, when
she met Abraham Cohen at a party, they really hit it off--they were
engaged within three weeks. But first, they had a religion problem to
fix.
Cohen was the son of a cantor, or worship leader, at a Philadelphia
synagogue. His father wasn't comfortable with him marrying someone who
wasn't Jewish. At first, Cohen didn't want to push his faith on his
fiancee, but Jane really loved Jewish rituals like lighting Shabbat
candles and eating with family on Friday nights. She decided to convert,
taking the name Sarah.
A few years later, Sarah got very sick. As friends and doctors gathered
around her, assuming she was dying, she had a vision of Jesus. This was
what real conversion felt like, she thought; it was so much deeper and
more heartfelt than her earlier turn to Judaism. The Cohens tried to
make it work, but they fought over keeping her faith a secret and how to
raise their kids. Eventually, they split. One of their daughters went to
live with Abraham as a Jew, while the other two followed their mother as
Christians.
The thing is, Sarah Jane and Abraham Cohen first met in 1806. They
separated in 1831 after one of their sons died of scarlet fever. While
their story has a certain 19th-century flavor to it, the same thing
might have happened to any couple currently on the dating scene. Perhaps
it would be comforting to Sarah Jane and Abraham to know that their
descendants are likely facing the same questions and having the same
fights as they did, 200 years later.
Lincoln Mullen, an assistant professor of history at George Mason
University, writes about the distinctively American fascination and
struggle with conversion experiences in his new book, The Chance of
Salvation. Throughout the country's history, he argues, people have been
choosing their religion. This shows up even in today's demographic data:
According to Pew Research Center, more than one-third of Americans
currently identify with a religion that's different from the one they
grew up with, and that number is much higher depending on how you count.
It's particularly fascinating to watch this trend among the young people
who are turning away from religious institutions in large numbers, as we
wrote about in our "Choosing My Religion" series last spring.
Mullen and I spoke about the attraction--and myths--of conversion in
America. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Emma Green: There's a myth out there about American religion which goes
something like this: We have reached a crisis point in religious
affiliation. Everyone is running away from traditional religious
observance, and religion is going to die.
Your book significantly undermines that myth. You describe a period in
the early 19th century when many Americans weren't very religious,
followed by a period of religious revival, largely driven by aggressive
proselytism. What have you learned about the myth of the so-called
"nones"--people who aren't any religion in particular--through your
study of conversion?
Lincoln Mullen: In many ways, the early 19th century was more like the
period we're living in today than the 20th century. If you asked people
to draw a chart of religious affiliation in history, I think most would
say it's gone down constantly over time. It's simply not the case that
everybody, or even the majority of people, were associated with a
Christian denomination or other religion.
In the early 19th century, Christian missionary organizations were
really quite worried about the lack of Christian affiliation they saw in
society. There was this tremendous effort to reach people and convert
them to Christianity. Over the course of the 19th century, through their
missionary effort, more people became affiliated.
Green: We often think of conversion as being freely chosen. But the
missionary zeal you describe complicates that. How did this concerted
battle to save souls shape the landscape of conversion?
Mullen: This missionary effort I've been talking about creates an
obligation to choose your religion. It works like this: Somebody has a
religious affiliation, and then an encounter with a missionary or person
of a different background makes them realize that there are other
options out there. Those other options might not be appealing, but the
presence of all those different options creates a sense that if you stay
in the religion to which you're born, you're staying in it because
you've made a choice to remain affiliated and reject other options.
All of this is unequally distributed. If you're a Christian growing up
in a place with a lot of Christians, you're much less likely to be
affected by the knowledge that there are other options available to you.
For instance: If you're a Catholic in a Catholic enclave, then your
religion is closely related to your ethnicity and neighborhood. But if,
for instance, you're an American Jew, you're probably in a very small
minority. You're almost certain to be approached by Christian
missionaries. So there's a kind of asymmetric experience here.
"Religion is a kind of perpetual-motion machine. It brings
destabilization as well."
Green: When does that cross over into coercion? You describe African
American encounters with proselytization and coercion before and after
the Civil War. Religious outreach has a much different valence for a
person who is not free to make his or her own decisions. How do you
think about that line?
Mullen: There's a double question when it comes to African American
Protestant conversions. They share an awful lot with white Protestant
conversions. But in the U.S., the color line is always stronger than
Christian unity.
Sometimes, slave owners encouraged conversions to a bastardized
Christianity which supported only obedience to masters and had none of
the claims of liberation you would find elsewhere in the Bible. At other
times, slave owners did everything they could to prevent enslaved
African Americans from knowing about Christianity. There are many, many
black conversion accounts from slaves who would go to revival meetings
and then be whipped by their master. And it's well known that slaves
sometimes had to hold their own meetings separate from white Christians
in places called hush harbors. There's constraint on the freedom black
Christians have to practice their religion.
Green: All of this underscores the meta-point of your book: "Religious
choice" should have really big air quotes around it. "Choice" does not
necessarily happen freely in a vacuum, as we like to imagine.
Mullen: Religious historians have often used the metaphor of a "free
market" in religion without deeply examining what that metaphor means.
It's a throwaway line. When I read conversion accounts from so many
different kinds of people, they sounded a note of loss as much as gain.
That loss could be your family. If you left the religion of your birth,
you were leaving behind your parents or perhaps your spouse. Sometimes
people made choices that lost them social position. Other times it was
just a sense of leaving behind a former self.
Religion is a kind of perpetual-motion machine. For many people, it
brings stability, but it brings destabilization as well. While there is
freedom in that system of American religion, I think it also comes at a
tremendous cost.
------------------------------
Message: 13
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:55:45 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption
Message-ID:
<1503060945.1311670....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Evangelicals, Trump and the politics of redemption
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands during a service
at the International Church of Las Vegas on Oct. 30, 2016. (AP
Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
By Peter Wehner
http://religionnews.com/2017/08/11/evangelicals-trump-and-the-politics-of-redemption/
August 11, 2017
We're at a hinge moment in the public witness of American Christianity.
The evangelical Christian movement in America is being compromised and
discredited by the way prominent leaders have associated themselves
with, first, the Donald J. Trump campaign and now, the Trump presidency.
If this is allowed to define evangelical attitudes toward political
power, the public witness of Christianity will be undermined in durable
ways.
I say this recognizing that the last election involved difficult choices
upon which reasonable and well-intentioned people disagreed. I
understand the argument of those who believed that Mr. Trump was the
better of two bad options, whose policies would do less damage to the
country than Hillary Clinton's.
But the worry is that now that the election is over and there is no
binary Trump-Clinton choice, many evangelical Christians have lost the
capacity to hold the president accountable when he transgresses norms,
violates principles and acts in malicious ways. In fact, they have
become among his most prominent and reliable public defenders.
Either by their public defense of Trump or their self-indicting silence,
certain prominent evangelicals -- including Franklin Graham, Eric
Metaxas, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, Ralph Reed and James Dobson
-- are effectively blessing a leader who has acted in ways that are
fundamentally incompatible with a Christian ethic.
The same qualities that Mr. Trump showed during the campaign have
continued in his presidency. He lies pathologically. Mr. Trump exhibits
crude and cruel behavior, relishes humiliating those over whom he has
power and dehumanizes his political opponents, women and the weak. He is
indifferent to objective truth, trades in conspiracy theories and
exploits the darker impulses of the public. His style of politics is
characterized by stoking anger and grievances rather than demonstrating
empathy and justice.
Evangelical Trump supporters aren't responsible for the character flaws
and ethical failures of the president. But by their refusal to confront
those flaws and failures, they are complicit in the debasement of
American culture and politics. Even more painful, they are presenting a
warped and disfigured view of Christianity to the world.
A non-Christian I know recently told me that what is unfolding is
"consistent with what sociobiology theorizes about religion: Its
evolutionary purpose is to foster in-group solidarity. Principles serve
rather than rule that mission." This certainly isn't my view of faith,
but in the current circumstances -- given what is playing out in public
-- this is not an unreasonable conclusion for him to draw. And he's not
alone. This kind of perception is multiplying.
I've worked in politics much of my adult life, including in presidential
campaigns and at the White House. I understand that governing involves
complicated choices, transactional dealings and prudential judgments. No
one ever gets things exactly right, and all who choose to serve deserve
our prayers for wisdom. Politics is certainly not a place for the
pursuit of utopia and moral perfection; rather, at its best, it is about
achieving the best approximation of the public good, about protecting
human dignity and advancing, even imperfectly, a more just social order.
That is why Christians shouldn't exile themselves from politics.
But with political involvement come temptations and traps, and it is the
responsibility of Christians to act in ways that maintain the integrity
of their public witness. And that is why this moment is so troubling. It
seems clear to me, and I think to others, that many evangelicals, even
unwittingly, are subordinating the Christian faith to partisan loyalties
and political power.
"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of
the state, but rather the conscience of the state," Martin Luther King
Jr. said. "It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never
its tool." Today, far too many evangelical Christians are tools of the
Trump presidency.
To be sure, the people with whom I have differences on this matter often
do worthy work in other areas of their lives. But in this area, I
believe their words and actions are harming the faith we share.
I'm speaking out at this time because I'm a Christian who places himself
in the evangelical tradition and senses that some important lines have
been crossed, some significant damage is being done, and some
substantial repair work needs to take place. I hope others who share
these concerns -- who might feel anguished by what they perceive as the
abuse of their faith -- will take a stand in their own lives and in
their own way. We can all be part of a politics of redemption.
Jonathan Merritt, who writes On Faith & Culture for RNS, invited Peter
Wehner -- senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a
contributing op-ed writer at The New York Times -- to write this guest
column on his blog.
------------------------------
Message: 14
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:57:07 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Transgenderism: Another Take
Message-ID:
<1503061027.1312168....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Transgenderism: Another Take
By Patricia A. Kelly
http://www.thetentacle.com/
August 11, 2017
Transgenderism is a present focus of social change, both part of the
assertion of special rights by the LGBTQ community, and a demonstration
of political correctness by so many others, even in the medical
community.
The number of Americans reported to be transgender ranges from 0.3 to
0.6 percent of the population. The "other kids" in school can use the
nurse's bathroom.
There appears to be very little scientific data, or evidence of brain
differences among transgender people, to yet support a biological cause
for transgenderism, known now as gender dysphoria. This recently adopted
name, dysphoria, deletes the word "Disorder," and reflects the newly
changed view noted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, that gender dysphoria is not a mental illness. If a man
thinks he's a tree, he is ill. If he thinks he's a woman, he's a
"heroine."
I'm all for everyone in our society being accepted and protected.
Personal freedom is the hallmark of our society, and, as long as the
rights of everyone are protected, free expression for all, not to
mention living as one's true self, should not only be tolerated but
encouraged.
Whatever color, gender, religion, or sexual preference (other than
illegal predation) one embraces, it's okay with me. You can work in my
company, serve in my military, even wear your pussy hat to work, if the
dress code allows, if you are an adult, and if you meet the physical
requirements of the job.
The current pressure from certain segments of our society, liberal
leaders, Hollywood stars, college students, professors and more, to
create division, aggrieved classes, racial disharmony, disrespect for
authority, and demonization of those who disagree with their ideas, is
destructive and terrible. Willingness to endanger or hurt our children
in this process is sickening.
Full brain maturation is now thought to occur at age 25. Yes, I know
people drive, drink, fight and vote before that age, but it doesn't mean
their brains are fully developed. Even if you accept the age of
adulthood as 18, that is plenty young enough to permanently alter your
body from one sex to another, and give up your ability to have children.
Worse yet, not only are young girls allowed to have their breasts
removed at age 16, children are being given puberty blockers, followed
by hormones to make them into the gender they choose, while they are
still children, and still developing as people.
If one could know, for sure, that a child would be mentally more
comfortable for life in the body of the gender opposite their birth
gender, the risk might be worth it, but it is not possible. These drugs
have dangerous side effects, and some effects of the hormones are
permanent. How can we promote gender transition, in terms of DNA an
impossibility, with all its' risks, at such an early age? How can we
justify what amounts to medical experimentation in the name of a social
agenda?
This is child abuse.
The rate of suicide attempts among transgender people is about 40%, very
possibly partially due to isolation and discrimination. After sex
reassignment surgery, it remains around 20%, and 20% of those who have
the surgery, even as adults, regret it.
Johns Hopkins Hospital, which pioneered gender reassignment surgery,
stopped performing such surgery in the 70s, because they felt it didn't
really help those who received it. Problems with identity, engagement
with others, socialization, and success in employment, comfort with
one's identity, did not improve after gender reassignment. Dr. Paul R.
McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief for Hopkins has stated
unequivocally that gender dysphoria is indeed a mental health issue, and
should be treated as such.
He, and many others, bemoan the push to make psychological treatment
illegal, the only socially acceptable treatment now being gender
reassignment, even though 70 to 90 percent of children with gender
dysphoria come to accept their birth gender in time.
I once knew a small child who wore the same superhero pajamas, day and
night, every day, for years. His parents, except for an occasional quick
wash, allowed it. He doesn't do it anymore. He went to college in
regular clothing. Children with gender dysphoria need support,
acceptance, counseling, and the chance to experiment with what they wear
and how they play. They don't need to be transformed by invasive therapy
before they really figure out who they are. Loving moms and dads, along
with truly objective health care professionals, can help them do that,
not secret permission to use a different name and gender at school.
Current treatment for gender dysphoria, and the movement to make
psychological therapy illegal, is both inadequately proven, and
dangerous. Instead of equating gender dysphoria with human rights
abuses, treatment for gender dysphoria should have a scientific, instead
of political basis. No other physical or psychological condition is
treated with less objectivity and less caution.
It's time for a call for common sense and compassion in dealing with
gender dysphoria in our society.
Patricia Kelly writes from Frederick, Md. She is a distinguished medical
professional who studied at the University of Maryland, Norfolk's
Sentara General Hospital, and is former emergency room charge nurse at
Adventist Shady Grove Md. Medical Center. Her writings have appeared
regularly in the Frederick News Post and other publications.
------------------------------
Message: 15
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:57:26 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: In The Guise of Peaceable Assembly
Message-ID:
<1503061046.1312211....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
In The Guise of Peaceable Assembly
By Harry M. Covert
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
August 15, 2017
There are plenty of words in the English language to express and condemn
the odious events of the past weekend in Charlottesville. All are
appropriate for the unpeaceable assembly where haters had their day.
The ghastly would-be protestors placed scars that will be difficult to
erase for years to come. People of good will have their work cutout for
them.
Officials estimate 5,000 people invaded Charlottesville on Saturday.
They were identified as alt-righters, white supremacists, Ku Klux
Klanners and other misfits. On the other side were Black Lives Matter
subscribers and a few other watchers.
It was unbelievable to see the fighting explode with fisticuffs, tear
gas, then become more horrible when a 20 year old Ohio man drove his car
into the downtown crowd killing an innocent local paralegal and injuring
39 others.
This is no excuse. The knot heads, including out-of-town haters of the
highest sort, amounted to 0.00001548percent of the 323.1 million
American population. This is an insignificant number but invidiousness
at its worst.
There is no way to condone the horror. When officials granted permits
for the day they never expected such devastation from hate. Already
permits in Richmond, Virginia, and other cities have been issued or are
waiting approval. A bomb, excuse me, another explosion is about to
happen. Under the guise of legal "peaceable assembly," police will have
to be prepared again.
Sadly, two Virginia State Troopers died when their patrolling helicopter
crashed in Albemarle County. What price was paid to protect the
protestors, the haters and the watchers?
There is no way to avoid calling the alt-right crowd cowards; or the KKK
yellow bellies; or the white supremacists as evil without redemption;
the Nazi flaggers are abhorrers beyond description. They are and I'm
saying it.
The alleged car killer is charged with second degree murder in Virginia.
The justice department in all probability and correctly will level
domestic terrorism charges. The Ohioan likely will get a state life
prison sentence. If the federal courts take over he'll get life in
Colorado's Super Max or the "needle" in Indiana.
How many times can the C-Ville situation be reviled? I've counted at
least 742 synonyms and 942 antonyms for the word "hate." All
appropriate.
The hatefulness being spewed against the president has surpassed all
courtesy and respect for the man and the office. He was firm in decrying
the terror.
I've watched and read the reporting. Yes, hate has gotten out of hand
and in reportage. Because we are guaranteed freedom of speech and
freedom of the press we are not given carte blanche to pick the hate we
like or approve merely to fit our positions, which seem mostly political
in these days.
Hate has no place in our lives. It's there unfortunately. It takes more
than talk and nice slogans.
Gabbing hate talk on one side, then expecting other hate proliferators
to quiet down is folly, flummery.
Harry M. Covert is a columnist and writer and Virginian by birth.
------------------------------
Message: 16
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:58:10 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: +Bruno, Schmuno: Diocese of LA Sells Out its Parish for the
Money
Message-ID:
<1503061090.1312288....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
+Bruno, Schmuno: Diocese of LA Sells Out its Parish for the Money
By Allan Haley
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/
August 15, 2017
Allan Haley Today, those clinging to the dying remnant that was the
once-renowned Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of
America ("PECUSA" -- or, after they dropped the first adjective,
"ECUSA") finally learned that there is no soul left in that scabrous
body. Long ago, it sold itself out to Mammon. Now, those who blinded
themselves to that fact are sadly learning the reality.
I have thoroughly documented on this site all the ups and downs of the
parish of St. James the Great, in Newport Beach (Orange County),
nonetheless a member of the Diocese of Los Angeles. I regret having no
patience for rehearsing the dreary steps of that history again: start
here, then go here, and continue backwards through the earlier posts at
this page. http://tinyurl.com/y9s53nay
The interim decision of the Hearing Panel of the Disciplinary Board for
Bishops set forth its recommendations for the suspension of Bishop J.
Jon Bruno and for the reinstatement of the congregation of St. James
into its Newport Beach property. There was one dissenting view, from
Bishop Michael Smith of North Dakota, who expressed the opinion that the
Hearing Panel had no business getting mixed up in the local property
ownership dispute.
As I detailed in my posts linked above, it emerged after the conclusion
of the hearing that Bishop Bruno had secretly entered into another
confidential agreement to sell the St. James property -- to a different
Newport Beach developer. The Hearing Panel entered a special order to
keep him from going forward with the sale, which was to have closed
escrow on July 3.
Bishop Bruno's appeal of that restraining order was rejected, but
ECUSA's Presiding Bishop, in an express desire to "protect the
integrity" of the disciplinary proceedings, issued a highly unusual
pastoral restriction on the authority of Bishop Bruno to make any
disposition of the church property (even though he owned it through his
corporation sole) pending the hearing's outcome. Since that report, the
Presiding Bishop of ECUSA expanded his restrictions on Bishop Bruno, and
effectively removed him from any further episcopal oversight of either
the St. James parishioners or their vicar, the Rev. Canon Cindy
Voorhees.
Bishop John Taylor The Presiding Bishop also ordered that henceforth,
the Bishop Co-Adjutor for Los Angeles (Bishop Bruno's elected
replacement upon the latter's resignation [retirement]), the Rt. Rev.
John Taylor, would have pastoral care of the parish and its vicar. He
further specified that Bishop Bruno could in no way authorize any sale
of the St. James property to go forward pending the conclusion of the
disciplinary proceedings.
The Hearing Panel, after considering submissions from both sides, then
entered its final decision and recommendations (again, with the dissent
of Bishop Smith of North Dakota). It made its chief recommendation in
the following language (emphasis in the original):
After hearing this entire unfortunate case and after prayerful
deliberation the Hearing Panel reaches a definite and clear conclusion:
The Hearing Panel strongly recommends to the Diocese of Los Angeles that
as a matter of justice it immediately suspend its efforts to sell the
St. James property, that it restore the congregation and vicar to the
church building and that it reassign St. James the Great appropriate
mission status.
Notice the word "recommends" (forget "strongly"; that is just
window-dressing).
It is key to understanding both the polity (structure) of ECUSA, and the
now unfortunate outcome of this case, that one take into account the
true relationship among the individual dioceses of ECUSA and the
individual pieces of the national church organization. (The latter are
the Presiding Bishop and his staff at 815 Second Avenue, in New York,
the officers and committees of the General Convention, which meets only
once every three years, and the episcopal disciplinary bodies which
convene under the authority of the national canons.)
For it requires such an understanding to put into context the
announcement today by the Bishop Suffragan of Los Angeles that in
agreement with the Diocesan Standing Committee, and despite the strong
recommendation of the Hearing Panel just quoted, the Diocese of Los
Angeles intends to go forward with the sale of the Newport Beach
parish's former property that Bishop Bruno surreptitiously contracted
with a developer while he was under disciplinary jurisdiction.
Bishop Taylor's patently lame excuse for this outlandish development is
as follows:
In prayerful discernment, we opened our hearts to a variety of
possibilities for reconciliation in Christ and healing for St. James and
our whole community. But Bishop Bruno has entered into a binding
contract to sell the property. The buyer has the legal right to expect
the seller to honor the contract. Much as we might wish it were
otherwise, we do not believe that it would be in the interests of the
diocese or consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities to endorse any
steps leading to breaching or threatening to breach an enforceable
contract that could lead to further expense and litigation.
Translation: even if Bishop Bruno breached his fiduciary duties to the
Diocese and the congregation of St. James the Great by entering into a
contract to sell the latter's property without their consent, the
Diocese will honor his underhanded dealings by going forward with the
contract. Otherwise the Diocese (!) -- and not Bishop Bruno or his
corporation sole -- could suffer "further expense and litigation."
Excuse me, but this rationale does not even pass first blush. The
contract in question was between the developer and Bishop Bruno's
corporation sole. It was not (so far as I am able to learn) a contract
with (or guaranteed by) the Diocese per se. Bishop Taylor, the Standing
Committee, and the Diocese itself have no liability to the developer if
Bishop Bruno's corporation sole is unable to perform on its contract --
they were not parties to it.
So if Bishop Bruno is unable (due to the restrictions placed upon him by
the Presiding Bishop) to sign the deed conveying title out of his
corporation sole, could the developer sue the corporation sole for
specific performance? Undoubtedly he might, but could a secular court
order the incumbent of a religious corporation to sign a deed that he no
longer has the authority to sign?
I doubt it seriously. If Bishop Bruno no longer has the authority to
sign the deed, the situation is just as though he had died before the
close of escrow. The next incumbent of the corporation sole (i.e., the
Rt. Rev. John Taylor) would be subject to a court order to sign -- but
only once he takes office. Bishop Taylor has no current authority on
behalf of the corporation sole, and will have none until Bishop Bruno is
removed as its incumbent and he is installed as +Bruno's replacement.
Under the Hearing Panel's suspension order, that could take three years
or more. Is the developer prepared to wait that long?
Perhaps the developer might want to sue the corporation sole for damages
for breach of contract, rather than seek specific performance. According
to this article, however, his damages are limited to his "out-of-pocket
costs" -- i.e., for his preliminary title report, and for any physical
investigations he made into the condition of the property, etc. Such
expenses could at most amount to a few tens of thousands of dollars (if
that much). So of what, exactly, is the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
afraid?
All these speculations serve only to point out that they are all the
consequences of Bishop Bruno's secret actions -- without the knowledge,
consent or (I trust) participation of the members of the Standing
Committee, or other diocesan officers.
Although the Standing Committee was clearly derelict in its
responsibilities when it approved the original (2015) transfer of the
property to the corporation sole, I have seen no evidence that its
members were complicit in the most recent, and highly secret, sale. That
said, however, how could it reasonably be argued that its consent to one
(unknown) deal in 2015 provided a blanket of authority for Bishop Bruno
to enter into a second deal (presumably unknown to the Standing
Committee) for the property in 2017? Surely the consent required by the
canons must be informed consent, i.e., consent given after full
disclosure of all the factual and legal details.
And if that is the case, just why should the Diocese and the Standing
Committee now find it necessary to throw the congregation of St. James
under the bus?? Surely the answer couldn't be that "it needs the money
from the proposed sale." Or could it?
If that is truly the case, then a pox on all of Bishop Bruno's enablers
on both sides is in order. For they were the ones who sat silently by as
he brought suit to oust the original parish of St. James in the first
place, and as he ran up the millions and millions of dollars in legal
fees and costs that they now seek to recoup from the current sale.
In other words: if it was about dollars then, and is still about dollars
now, then it has always been about the dollars, and not about the
people. The parishioners from time to time are just pawns who come and
go as they are sacrificed on the secular chessboard for the bishops'
sake, and it is high time they drew that conclusion from how all St.
James's parishioners have been treated -- first by Bishop Bruno and his
apologists, and now by the Suffragan Bishop, by the current Standing
Committee, and by Presiding Bishop Curry (who appears to have acquiesced
in the ousting of the latest congregation). Under the evidence, then, it
just comes down to dollars, and not the collective faith of parishes.
One concluding observation, which goes to Bishop Taylor's own candor in
these machinations. According to his public statement on this debacle
(and I quote verbatim, with my bold emphasis added), "We pledge to do
all we can to ensure that capital sums received by the diocese,
including proceeds from the Via Lido sale, are conserved for the sake of
generations to come."
Wait: I thought that the proceeds of the sale of the St. James property
(NB :not acceding to Bishop Taylor's euphemism of "the Via Lido sale"),
were by contract coming into the corporation sole, not the Diocese And
if that is the case, how do they get out of the corporation sole's bank
account and into the Diocese's accounts without Bishop Bruno signing
some sort of draft on his corporation sole's account -- which he is
under strict prohibition not to do?
Finally, what does the empty promise to "conserve [those funds] for the
sake of generations to come" do for the current needs of the
congregation of St. James? Are they expected to sacrifice the value of
their long-standing worship property for some unspecified benefit to
unspecified future Episcopalians? (Again, listen to Bishop Taylor make
hollow-sounding promises on behalf of a secular, profit-minded
developer.)
Without more details, Bishop Taylor's solemn pledge to "conserve" those
proceeds reeks of the duplicity that Bishop Bruno habitually used to
derail opposition to his self-serving maneuvers.
Let us try to summarize and draw conclusions from the foregoing.
First, what a chimera is the much-touted authority of ECUSA over its
dioceses and its bishops. Not only can ECUSA not prevent a diocese from
doing what its own disciplinary panel found was against "the integrity
of the reconciliation process", whatever that high-sounding language is
supposed to mean, but it is absolutely incapable of making anything more
than a "[strong] recommendation" to the diocesan authorities as to how
they should best protect the interests of their member congregations.
When parishes concerned about the drift of the national church were
debating about how to proceed, the personnel at ECUSA's 815 Second
Avenue headquarters encouraged dissidents to bring disciplinary charges
against "nonconformist" clergy and bishops. And it encouraged loyalist
bishops to sue clergy and parishes who decided they could not stay in
the national church -- it even made a practice of joining in such suits,
and in seeking punitive damages against individual rectors and vestry
members (with the object of forcing them to hire expensive attorneys and
drive up their costs).
But now it becomes clear that the national church's claims were hollow
to start with: it can do nothing on its own to command a member diocese
to take any measure whatsoever; it can only "strongly recommend" that it
do something.
Second, it follows from the foregoing that if you are a parishioner in
an individual parish, then no matter how much you might support the
national church's agenda, you are on your own when push comes to shove
in your own parish, or diocese. The national church is powerless to aid
or support you; what you are able to salvage will depend solely on those
officials in the diocese whom you can persuade to support you. Good luck
with that!
Third, the desultory example of St. James itself, over a period of
twelve years, should furnish all the proof you need that neither your
national church nor your diocese cares one whit for your parish's
ongoing welfare. They are happy to accept the tributes you send their
way, so long as you keep sending them. But the moment that their
financial survival / viability is at stake, you and your parish assets
become expendable, regardless of the length or loyalty of your service
to them. Remember: it's all about Mammon.
Is it any wonder that ECUSA is a dying denomination? Maybe some good may
come of its selfish (and self-destructive) behavior, but if so, it will
not be before it shrinks a great deal more, and before its members, out
of sheer necessity, learn anew how to make mission out of adversity.
Since God has a purpose for everything under the sun, let us pray that
He will use the apostate denominations of our time as a means of
restoring their disenchanted followers to His fold. Amen.
END
------------------------------
Message: 17
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:58:29 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Our most vulnerable girls pay sorely for our surrender to the
Islamists
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Our most vulnerable girls pay sorely for our surrender to the Islamists
By Jules Gomes
https://www.julesgomes.com/
August 13, 2017
It is rape of the innocents on an industrial scale. First they came for
white, teenage, under class girls in Rotherham, and we did not speak out
-- because we did not want to be called racist.
Next they came for white, teenage, under class girls in Oxford, and we
did not speak out -- because we did not want to be guilty of cultural
imperialism.
Then they came for white, teenage, under class girls in Aylesbury and
Bristol and Banbury and Derby and Halifax and Huddersfield and Keighley
and Peterborough and Rochdale and Telford and we conducted
investigations, appointed commissions and published reports -- because
we did not want to be called Islamophobic.
Now they've come for white, teenage, under class girls in Newcastle and
we have still not learned our lesson -- we are still terrified of being
labelled Islamophobic. A blind man in a dark room looking for a black
cat can spot the common denominator among these despicable predators and
their defenceless targets.
The major factor uniting the rapists and child abusers is their
religion. The major factors common to the abused girls are their lack of
religion, ethnicity and class. All the men without exception are Muslim.
All the girls without exception are non-Muslim, white, and come from the
under class of our society.
In the latest Newcastle sexual abuse scandal, 17 Muslim men were found
guilty of 87 sex and drug offences. The men come from different ethnic
backgrounds --Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian, Albanian,
Kurdish, Eastern European and Turkish. The exception, who proves the
rule, is a 22-year-old white woman, Carolann Gallon, who lured younger
girls to the groomers.
There is another common factor -- the attitude of the abusers towards
the "other" -- the "other" defined as non-Muslim, woman and white.
'White women are good for only one thing -- for people like me to f***
and use as trash,' Badrul Hussain, one of the rapists told a white
female ticket inspector when caught travelling ticketless in 2014.
All the men without exception are Muslim.
Predictably, the chattering classes are in ostrich-headed denial. Home
Secretary Amber Rudd insists that sexual predators are 'not restricted
to any single ethnic group, religion or community.' This has little to
do with individual predators, Ms Rudd! This is systemic, organised and
methodical sexual abuse perpetrated exclusively by close-knit groups
belonging to a particular religion.
Northumbria Police Chief Constable Steve Ashman says the police did not
ask about religious background since those arrested were from different
cultural backgrounds. If Chief Constable "Sheerluck Holmes" is so stupid
or so obtuse as to confuse religion and culture, we are in very deep
doo-doo indeed.
The Bishop of Newcastle should know better. She's allegedly studied
theology. But for Christine Hardman, community relations trump
protection of white, under class girls. Well they don't go to her
church, which is largely white, elderly, and middle class -- so she
couldn't give a flying fig.
If these teenage girls were prevented from gender transitioning to boys,
woe betide, every bishop in the CofE would be taking the next Flying
Scotsman train to Newcastle. There are now 11 or 12 of these overpaid
women-bishops and Rachel Treweek, Bishopess of Gloucester, is into
self-esteem for white middle class anorexic girls. But not a peep out of
the female mitred gaggle when white under class girls are systemically
abused and raped by Muslim men.
Bishopette Hardman has signed a 'community statement' (what an obnoxious
term!) along with other well meaning but good-for-nothing religious
leaders. The weasel words would put Alastair Campbell to shame. 'We are
also conscious that members of all communities are among those who are
most disturbed and devastated by these crimes.' Rubbish! Are Hardman's
Anglicans shattered by the wholesale victimisation of Geordie under
class girls?
'It is important now that we do not compound the profound suffering that
victims of these crimes have endured by casting blame on entire
communities...' PC code for don't blame Muslims. This is post-truth par
excellence.
The BBC, of course, trots out its in-house imam. 'We can't racialise
this issue. We can't focus on just one community. Perpetrators come from
all backgrounds and all communities need to be vigilant and all
communities need to be working together to protect our children,' says
Imam Alyas Karmani.
There are none so blind as those who who refuse to see the Muslim
elephant in the mosque of multiculturalism.
There are none so blind as those who will not see and none so blind as
those who refuse to see the Muslim elephant in the mosque of
multiculturalism. Instead, all Asians, including myself, are being
tarred with the same brush. Thankfully, Islamic theologian Dr Taj Hargey
from the Oxford Centre for British Islam smashes the political
orthodoxy.
Writing in the wake of the Oxford rape scandal, Dr Hargey admits that
the abuse is 'bound up with religion and race: religion, because all the
perpetrators, though they had different nationalities, were Muslim; and
race, because they deliberately targeted vulnerable white girls, whom
they appeared to regard as 'easy meat', to use one of their revealing,
racist phrases.'
'Another sign of the cowardly approach to these horrors is the constant
reference to the criminals as "Asians" rather than as "Muslims." In this
context, Asian is a completely meaningless term. The men were not from
China, or India or Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh. They were all from
either Pakistan or Eritrea, which is, in fact, in East Africa rather
than Asia,' comments Dr Hargey.
Can we ask why is there no Asian rape-gang comprised exclusively of Sri
Lankan Buddhists or Korean Presbyterians or Hindu-Indian corner shop
owners, or Sikh taxi drivers or Pakistani Pentecostal Christians?
It goes without say that not all Muslims are rapists and not all Asians
are predators. Nevertheless, all the evidence points to Muslim men
targeting white girls. And yes, although the predators hail from many
ethnicities, many happen to be Pakistani. There are at least three
religious and cultural issues to confront.
First, rape is endemic in Pakistan. Professor Shahla Haeri, author of No
Shame for The Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women, says that rape
in Pakistan is 'often institutionalised and has the tacit and at times
the explicit approval of the state.' A Human Rights Watch study reports
a rape every two hours and a gang rape every eight hours. What is
particularly significant is the high percentage of Christian, Hindu,
Sikh and other women from minorities raped by Muslim men in Pakistan.
The British incidents reflect a perilous import from Pakistan.
Islam views rape as a particular method of humiliation.
Second, sexual promiscuity is endemic in Britain. The depressing fact is
that the complete breakdown of sexual mores in the West has contributed
to the stereotype of white women as 'worthless trash.' This stereotype
is prevalent among men (not just Muslim men) in Asia and Africa. No one
is blaming these victims, but why was there no parental oversight or
moral stricture that prevented these girls from being preyed on in so
many parts of Britain?
Third, Islam views rape as a particular method of humiliation. Islam is
centred on the home and family. The primary task of the father and
brothers is to safeguard the mother and sisters. If they are sexually
assaulted, the honour of the entire family, especially the man, is at
stake. So what do you do if you wish to humiliate the Western man and
Western society?
You rape their women! This has less to do with sex than with power,
domination and humiliation of the ultimate enemy -- the kuffar. Last
year, Professor Suad Saleh from Al-Azhar University, provoked a storm
when she said that 'Allah allows Muslims to rape non-Muslim women in
order to humiliate them,' particularly during a 'legitimate war.'
It is a war. We are fighting religious predators who have imported a
culture and religion from abroad that is trashing Western civilisation.
We are fighting secular Leftist predators who have spawned a culture of
self-loathing for Western civilisation and have celebrated what the
Cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse called 'polymorphous perversity' -- and
the most vulnerable of our society are now paying the tragic price.
(Originally published in The Conservative Woman)
------------------------------
Message: 18
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 08:58:46 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The lesson of Anglicanism: liberalism will tear you apart
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The lesson of Anglicanism: liberalism will tear you apart
Highly political synods shattered Anglicanism's fragile unity. Catholics
should take note
PHOTO: The ordination of the first 32 female priests in the Church of
England, in Bristol Cathedral on 12 March 1994 (Getty)
By Fr Ed Tomlinson
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/
July 26, 2017
A former Anglican Chaplain to the Queen, the Revd Gavin Ashenden, is
spearheading a revolt in the Church of England Synod over the thorny
issue of homosexuality. Anglicans are talking openly about schism.
Catholics the world over should be watching very carefully.
Anglicanism's real problem has always been a theological schizophrenia
-- the result, perhaps, of it having formed to appease a lusty monarch
rather than to preach a creed with clarity. Ask a hundred Anglicans what
Anglicanism actually is and expect a hundred answers. The Church of
England isn't, really, one Church at all. It's an Erastian umbrella
organisation holding together, by virtue of the Crown, a huge range of
competing theologies.
For most of the 20th Century this diversity was even viewed as its
strength because, thanks to a shared pension board and the clever use of
ambiguity in official statements, the three main factions within
Anglicanism -- which one wag labelled 'high and crazy', 'broad and hazy'
and 'low and lazy' -- were happy enough to rub along together despite
their radically different set of beliefs. It seemed as if the Nicene
Creed, a very loose application of the 39 articles and strong civic
approval gave just enough common ground to hold the show together.
Two major developments in the 20th Century brought this uneasy truce
into question. The first was the adoption of synodical governance which
led to a radical politicisation of the Church of England. With
everything suddenly up for grabs, by virtue of majority vote, the
factions no longer pulled together in unity but began to plot and lobby
against each other. General Synod became a battleground on which
theological opponents could be put to the sword. And it didn't take long
for the liberal lobby, strengthened by trends in society and
over-represented on the bench of bishops, to realise synod worked in
their favour. Did the Holy Spirit said no to women priests in July's
Synod? Fret not: table the motion again in February, then repeat ad
nauseum, until the Holy Spirit finally gets the message! That is how
democratising the deposit of faith tends to work, though the system
admittedly tends to favour Barabbas over Jesus.
The second development which disrupted Anglican unity occurred when the
Book of Common Prayer became optional not mandatory. You are what you
pray: lex orandi, lex credendi. With the shackles removed, parishes
started to go their own way. Today, there is almost no common ground
between an evangelical parish on one side of town and its liberal
counterpart on the other. This represents a massive problem for the
Church of England: how can you bring people together in love when there
is zero shared praxis between them? The situation has become so grave
that the Lambeth Conference can no longer be held, due to deep divisions
even at the level of the episcopacy.
Throw into this toxic mix the effects of the sexual revolution, and the
strong secular ideology of the present culture with its LGBTQ crusade,
and the writing seems to be on the wall. Historically the Church of
England kept to a via media, teetering between Catholic and Protestant
claims. But neither of these is destined to win out. Instead the body
will fall between the gaps. Its Catholic claim (and ecclesiology) ended
with the defeat of Anglo-Catholicism over the issue of women priests;
its authentic Protestant claim ended via an inevitable creeping embrace
of "gay marriage" and notions of gender fluidity.
Unless a miracle occurs, the CofE seems destined to fracture into
various splinter bodies, as already happened in America. Expect bitter
legal disputes as competing bodies take up residence on your high
street, each claiming to be the voice of authentic Anglican witness. So
it is that the Revd Gavin Ashenden finds himself embroiled in this final
battle for the soul of modern Anglicanism. He and a few others are
making their last stand against the powerful modernist liberal consensus
that dominated the most recent Synod.
Catholic observers can take little pleasure from this unfolding saga,
for we too wrestle bitterly with modernism at present. We too face the
threat of division and of capitulation to the prevailing culture. One
must hope that the fate of modern Anglicanism serves as a stark lesson
to those in Rome who are tempted by liberalisation. For there is now
little doubt -- given the experience of recent years -- that orthodoxy
unites Christian bodies via shared proclamation of truth, whereas
liberalism only pulls them apart via ambiguity, worldly agendas and
rebellion.
END
------------------------------
Message: 19
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 09:00:07 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Why The Church Fails...
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Why The Church Fails...
By Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
www.virtueonline.org
August 2, 2017
Recently I was looking for a bit of inspiration, so, using differing
search engines, I entered the phrase, "Why the Church Fails". I was
fascinated by the results. The topics that arose were consistently along
the lines of the following:
Why the Church Fails Us...
Why the Church Fails Me...
Why the Church Fails Businessmen...
Why the Church Fails the Divorced...
Why the Church Fails Singles...
Why the Church Fails Married Couples...
Why the Church Fails the Gay Community...
On and on the entries followed one after the other. There was, however,
a common thread. When the different authors wrote about how the Church
has failed... it was generally about how it had failed "me", or my
tribe, or my profession, or my state in life. At the root of it was the
perception that the Church had failed me personally (or professionally)
in one way or another.
In the ecclesiastical cafeteria that characterizes American
Christianity, the failure of which they, and we, speak is not usually
considered the fault of the universal Church (or, indeed the Church
militant and triumphant of which Christ is the head), but more often the
perceived failure of this church or that church with which we have
become acquainted. Somehow, the local church that we bumped into failed
to meet our needs and so we move down the road to another - another with
its own unique set of problems and issues which we will soon discover
and, very likely, pronounce as having failed in satisfying our
particular needs or desires before moving on yet again. On occasion, the
accusation of failure will move beyond the local church to a
denomination, association or even those who hold a particular
theological view, such as evangelicals or the Reformed or those with a
high view of sacraments.
Something about the tendency to treat the Church as "other", i.e.
outside of ourselves, troubles me. It troubles me because, in a profound
theological sense, we are the Church. Our Lord said that when two or
three are gathered in his name, he is in the midst of that group. We are
individually and corporately the Church. The house churches of which we
read in Paul's letters were often exactly that - a married couple who
opened their home to other believers and thereby constituted an ecclesia
- a church. Yet, despite this theological reality, we still identify the
concept of "church" with a building, or a pastor, or a particular group,
or a denomination; and in that identification of something or someone
outside of ourselves being "the church", we are quick to indicate how
they, or it, has failed us.
Now, life experience should make all of us aware that by and large
individuals will fail us at some point in time. The otherwise admirable
husband may forget the date of the wedding anniversary. The devoted wife
may make an ill-timed remark. These things just happen. Institutions
will also fail us a some point or another. Asking the highly rated
educational institution to send transcripts for the third time comes to
mind. And yes, even those leaders of movements whom we otherwise admire
may say or do something that causes us pain and makes us feel that they
have failed us.
Yet, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "the fault dear friends, is not in the
Church, but in ourselves".
We have been all too willing to be spectators in terms of the Church and
all too often our criticism and speculation on "why the Church fails us"
is made anonymously from the balcony, or worse yet, from the outside.
You see, from a distance it is easy and safe to pontificate. Moreover,
this "spectator" syndrome flies in the face of the concept of the
priesthood of all believers (in the Reformation/Protestant world) or of
the people of God (in the Roman Catholic/Orthodox world). Both
appellations - "priesthood of all believers" and "people of God" - are
not only conferred privileges, but bear with them responsibilities. To
put it bluntly, for much too long a time we have looked to others to
create, sustain and lead what we call "Church" while many of us throw in
our comments and criticisms from the peanut gallery.
In practical terms, living out our own lives as a vital and contributing
member of the Church can mean many things, especially on a local level.
If you are in an unhealthy church situation which, for whatever reason,
consigns you to being a mere spectator with no hope of real involvement,
leave and find a place where you can exercise your God given gifts. If
you are in a church situation in which there are issues that concern
you, take it upon yourself to address those issues. Speak to the pastor
or priest, not in anger but in love, and share your concerns. If the
issue is that the church is unfriendly, go out of your way each week to
welcome at least one newcomer, or better yet, invite someone. If there
is a lack of meaningful Christian Education, offer to teach an adult
class or at the very least organize a discussion group around various
topics of interest. If there is not a married couples group, or a
singles group... start one. So much can be done, and needs to be done,
and it is not enough to wait for someone else to step up to the task.
When we move beyond the local expression of the Church, matters are
admittedly more difficult. For instance, I doubt that any of us here
will have a chance to sit down and talk to Joel Osteen, or Franklin
Graham, or Jerry Falwell, Jr., about their approaches to theology or
ministry. We can, however, at the very least, in our interactions with
others simply say, "They do not speak for me or the vast majority of
Christians". Yet, many believe that they speak on the behalf of most
believers owing to their media outreach and influence. Let us be clear,
however, in identifying these so-called spokesmen as aberrations. In
terms of the early Church of the first four centuries, Osteen would be
considered as a Gnostic, Graham as a court bishop similar to Eusebius of
Nicomedia, and the gun-toting Falwell as near to a politicized moral
apostate. Moreover, when we consider the average salary of a clergy
person in the US in 2017 to be about $46,000 a year (half below that
amount and another half above it), the annual incomes of Osteen (no
salary, but a net worth of over $40 million) Graham ($880,000 per year )
and Falwell ($803,000 per year) are simply obscene, placing them well
outside the bounds of historic Christian leadership and norms of
compensation. Moreover, these are merely three among dozens, if not
hundreds, that could be named.
Their surest exposure, however, will come not from words on a page or a
screen, but when we begin to hold up the mirror of authentic church life
and historic theology. Yet even here, that mirror needs to reflect our
own authentic experience of Church and our personal commitment and
involvement. Then, perhaps, we can move beyond the haggard and specious
argument of, "Well, they may be theologically off-base, but look at all
the good they are doing and all the people attending their
church/school/rallies." Success is not the measure of Truth, and it is
long past time that we continue to regard it as such.
Now, whenever I write about ecclesiology and the issues we are facing,
someone will always respond with the reference that Christ said that the
gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, as though that
settles the issue, no matter what we do or what we leave undone. As
usual, however, the citation is usually taken out of context. For,
immediately after Christ made this promise, he continued addressing
Peter and the disciples, saying, "I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." You
see, the promise is connected with the tools Christ gives us to truly be
his Church... not as observers or mere critics, but as participants. It
is time for more than posts on threads or critical comments on "why the
Church fails us", it is time for us to actually be the Church.
Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD is author of The Early Episcopal Career of
Athanasius of Alexandria (Notre Dame, 1991), Prayers of the Martyrs
(Zondervan, 1991) and is a member of The Project
------------------------------
Message: 20
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2017 09:00:35 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Bringing the gospel to England - The story of Trinity Church
Scarborough
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<1503061235.1312529....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
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Bringing the gospel to England - The story of Trinity Church Scarborough
By Lee McMunn
https://www.gafcon.org/
August 16, 2017
In April 2016, I announced to my church family in Hull that God had
given me a burning passion to plant a church in the English seaside town
of Scarborough. In fact, God has given me a gospel ambition to see many
churches planted in this country. This land is full of people who are
worshipping and serving created things rather than their glorious
Trinitarian Creator. They are robbing God of his glory and robbing
themselves of his infinite joy. England is in desperate need of the old
gospel story that can bring new life from the dead. We need countless
numbers of new and revitalised churches all over our land. I felt
compelled by God's Spirit to use the skills and talents he had
graciously given me to play my part in this mission endeavour.
At the time of my announcement in Hull, we had a very small core church
planting team. It consisted of me, my wife, my three children (plus all
of their toys!) and a young man who I had persuaded to join as an
Assistant Minister. The plan was for him to learn how to plant a church
and then in four years go and do the same thing. We didn't have any
money, any more people and no building. But we did have the gospel and
we did have confidence a God for whom nothing is impossible.
Our first task was to gather a team. While we did want to evangelise a
church into existence we also wanted more gospel voices to be involved
in reaching out to lost people. Therefore, we prayed to God and had many
conversations. God was incredibly kind. Some decided to relocate their
life and move to a new place. New homes, new jobs, new schools --
everything for the sake of the gospel! Some did this from Hull; others
joined us from a variety of other places. People came from different
contexts but all had a common desire to sacrifice so that others could
hear about Jesus and be rescued from hell. Others got in touch from
Scarborough, families who were longing to come to the type of bible
centred church we were planning to establish. Over a few months, our
team had grown to 24 adults and 13 children.
Next, God provided the money. The core team pledged their giving, and
individuals, other churches and Trust Funds gave generous gifts.
And then God gave us an incredible building for us to meet on Sundays.
It was perfect for our needs and it was so obvious that God had arranged
it for us.
And so, the new church, Trinity Church Scarborough, met for the first
time on Sunday 14th May 2017. We had planned for a low-key start to give
us time to sort out any teething problems. But from the beginning we've
had the joy of welcoming new people. News travels fast in Scarborough!
Our aim as a church is to know Jesus and make him known. We seek to do
this by proclaiming God's Word as often as we can. We are convinced that
God's Word applied by his Spirit is what churches need for growth, both
numerically and in terms of maturity. We plan to particularly reach out
to families with young children but are also responsive to gospel
opportunities that our Sovereign Father brings our way.
As such, we are preparing to start our small group ministries, organise
evangelism training and are ready to actively promote our existence in
our town. In keeping with our aim outlined above, our desire is to sow
the seed of the gospel so that God grows his church in Scarborough,
winning people for Jesus, and, over time, to start new gospel ministries
and churches in our region and beyond. We long to be a resource-giving
church, with a generous attitude to release our most gifted to work
elsewhere in the Lord's harvest field.
Trinity Church Scarborough is a church that belongs to the Anglican
Mission in England (AMiE*). We are a church that is confessionally
Anglican. We treasure the 39 Articles and joyfully subscribe to the
Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. Part of our conviction is that
Bishops are for the good of local churches. The right gospel men in this
Office can help give vision and leadership to local Presbyters, care for
their souls and families, and provide that much needed external voice in
church conflicts.
AMiE wants to multiply the number of healthy Anglican churches in
England. We need way of operating in this nation that keeps us at the
heart of global biblical Anglicanism but also allows us to work both
inside and outside the structures of the Church of England. Some will
try the inside track first and after being blocked come to AMiE. But
others will come to us first, with good reasons why they have no desire
to knock on doors of a local Diocese. And that's okay. In fact, that's
necessary if we are to reach England for the glory of Jesus. Time is
short. Millions need to hear the gospel and be discipled. The need is
urgent.
We'd love our brothers and sisters in GAFCON to pray for us. We send out
a prayer update every three weeks and if you'd like to subscribe to this
then email: in...@trinityscarborough.org.uk. But to get you started, here
are three current prayer points:
? Pray that we would keep evangelism as one of our top priorities.
? Pray that the congregation would feel a compulsion to share the
gospel and invite their friends, family and colleagues to hear about
Jesus.
? Pray for God to establish a new outreach ministry in the autumn.
We're also thinking about a students and international ministry.
The Rev. Lee McMunn is Senior Minister, Trinity Church Scarborough
Mission Director, Anglican Mission in England
www.trinityscarborough.org.uk
*AMiE is a mission society established by GAFCON to multiply and
strengthen healthy Anglican churches in England. AMiE provides authentic
Anglican oversight for both new church plants outside the Church of
England and established fellowships within.
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