COMPARE AND CONTRAST

Upon reading the excerpt below from the article in the Telegraph, I'm led to wonder if a bit more transparency and a bit less secrecy in the Church of England's method of choosing bishops might improve the process and prevent the kind of present debacle engulfing the church which harms innocent people and stirs up even angrier controversy within the church than has already been experienced.

Our system in the Episcopal Church is not perfect and, most certainly, includes politics and jockeying for position, and, no doubt, includes unofficial secret meetings, but, compared to the process in the Church of England, ours appears a model of transparency. As the persons involved in the Church of England strive for secrecy in their procedures, their method begs for leaks. Just my two cents, and it would be none of my business if the leader of the Church of England did not appear to be attempting to grab for himself the title of Anglican pope.

However, a secret meeting of senior Church figures has decided to overlook Dr John amid fears that his consecration would have provoked a split in the Church.
....

…It is understood that discussions at the two-day meeting, held at a secret location in Stepney, were heated with members of the Commission arguing over whether they should select Dr John.

Dr Williams is said to have been furious at the pressure placed on him and the other members by a leak to The Sunday Telegraph, which revealed the dean was on the shortlist. He asked the rest of the Commission to swear an oath of secrecy about the talks.

For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light.
Luke 8:17

UPDATE:

Check out Church Mouse's post and the comments at his blog.

UPDATE 2: And there's Anglican Minimalist's essay contest.

Essay Contest: Anglican Covenant Values

Essay Question: Compare and contrast the two scenarios for how well they represent the Anglican Covenant values of interdependence and subsidiarity and the larger community issues of transparency, directness and candor.

Read the descriptions of the scenarios at AM's blog.

H/T to Peter Carey at The Lead.

JEFFREY JOHN BLOCKED AS BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK

From Colin Coward at Changing Attitude:

Jonathan Wynne-Jones has ‘revealed’ in the Telegraph that Jeffrey John is not to be nominated as the next Bishop of Southwark. Neither, so I am told, will Nick Holtham, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, be nominated.

This is painfully disappointing news for Jeffrey, who has lived through a week in which his identity and reputation have been pored over, analysed and attacked once again by conservative forces in the church in a way which I can only describe as poisonous. Those who claim the moral and ethical high ground in the church behave in ways which are scandalous and unchristian.
....

Archbishop Rowan was apparently so furious about the first leak that he unilaterally vetoed Jeffrey’s name, betraying his friend for a second time and handing an apparent victory to the conservatives who seem to be successfully controlling him. Archbishop Rowan would have directed his anger in a more healthy direction if he had targetted the people inside and outside the Commission who have deliberately sabotaged its work.

Jonathan lists a number of reasons why this is bad news. I think he omits far more important reasons why it is bad news. It is a capitulation to forces within the Church of England and the Anglican Communion which represent a reactionary attitude to scripture and a negative attitude towards the glory, goodness and infinite variety and beauty of God’s creation.

It communicates an image of the church and Christianity to our nation in which we are perceived to be bigoted, prejudiced, narrow-minded and lacking in the primary Christian virtue of love.

My goodness! What a mess. Can the words about the Archbishop of Canterbury's unilateral veto be true? What a way to redress a breach of confidentiality!

H/T to Thinking Anglicans.

GUNS ALLOWED IN CHURCH IN LOUISIANA - I AM SO PROUD

From NOLA:

Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be carried into houses of worship.

Jindal's office said Tuesday the governor acted on the bill in the past few days after receiving it June 20.

Including the "gun-in-church" bill, House Bill 1272 by Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, Jindal has signed into law 940 of the 1,067 bills the Legislature sent him, vetoed 12, and used his pen to line-item spending measures in four different budget bills.
Burns' bill would authorize persons who qualified to carry concealed weapons having passed the training and background checks to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.

Ain't it grand? What a legislature! What a governor! Who knew the lot of them would align so neatly with the result that members of congregations may now be fully armed in church.

Look at the guvna up there wearing his red and white striped tie with the stars in the background - a living symbol of patriotism and what the US is all about, the 2nd Amendment, the right of every citizen to bear arms.

"10 DISASTROUS MISTAKES BP MADE BEFORE THE THE DEEPWATER HORIZON EXPLODED"

From Business Insider:

1. BP downplayed operational risks in applications for exemption from federal inspection

2. BP may have cut corners in well design

3. BP used slapdash methods to fix early problems in the well lining

4. BP skipped crucial tests of the well cement lining

5. BP knowingly used a faulty blow-out preventer

6. According to an industry whistle blower, BP falsified blowout preventer tests for years

7. Rig supervisors ignored pressure warnings in hours leading up to the explosion

8. Turns out BP did not have a good rig rescue plan

9. BP did not plan for an oil spill significantly greater than 20,000 bbl

10. BP had not researched Top Hat and Top Kill at drill depth

Read the details of the mistakes at Business Insider.

The mistakes were human errors, errors of judgment by BP, in which decisions were influenced by the culture embedded in the operations of the company to heavily favor production over safety. Our own federal agencies, especially the Minerals Management Service, many of whose employees were cosy with the oil companies, so much so, that they ignored their mission to regulate, failed to make public safety the priority, and instead put the interests of the oil companies first.

The Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 men and injured 17, and resulted in a catastrophic human and environmental disaster, with no end to the ill effects in sight, was entirely preventable.

STORY OF THE DAY - INNER SPACE

There's a lot of space in here I'm just
starting to discover, my grandma told
me not long ago, so I'm hoping my body
holds out.

From StoryPeople.

JESUS AND MO - PAIN

From Jesus and Mo.

GAY PASTOR AND PARTNER ATTACKED IN PARK AT GUNPOINT

From CBSAtlanta:

Six people are facing charges after a gay pastor and his partner were attacked at gunpoint while picnicking at Piedmont Park.
Joshua Noblitt, a pastor at St. Mark's Methodist United Church in Atlanta, told CBS Atlanta that he and his partner were enjoying an evening at the park last Friday just before 10 p.m. when a group of young men approached them.

"They walked up to us and asked 'are y'all gay? We ought to beat y'all for that'" said Noblitt.
Noblitt said that the youths walked off, but returned with a stick and demanded money.
....

One of the suspects pulled a handgun and held it to Noblitt's head, then stole his wallet and cell phone, police said.

I should not be shocked by this story, but I am. Violence against gays in this country is nothing new, but gratuitous assaults such as this are difficult to fathom.

They [the attackers] range in age from 13 to 19.

Teens on a lark.

H/T to Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin.

DARTH CAT PREPARES TO CONQUER THE UNIVERSE

This is Bella, my friend's cat.

Either

a) she sees herself as the cat world's answer to Darth Vader

or

b) she has come to the conclusion she needs to swathe herself in the equivalent of a burka to protect the neighbourhood toms from the mesmerising effects of her loveliness

or

c) she is just horsing about with the rubbish bin lid.

You decide.

Thanks to Cathy for the picture and the words. What do you think?

TARBALLS IN LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN

A tar ball washed ashore near the Treasure Isle subdivision in Lake Pontchartrain as people fish near the Rigolets in Slidell on Monday. (Matthew Hinton - The Times-Picayune)

Seems to me the picture shows something other than a tarball. The tarballs I saw on the beach years ago, were solid objects. What's pictured is what I would call a viscous oil patty, something less than a solid.

From NOLA:

Showing just how unpredictable and all-consuming the massive Gulf oil spill can be, tar balls and small sheens of oil have entered Lake Pontchartrain and are hitting Texas shores for the first time.

John Lopez, director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's coastal stainability program, spotted the first tar balls in the Rigolets Pass on Sunday. By Monday, the blobs of oil had washed ashore as far west as Treasure Isle in Slidell.

Cleanup crews used nets to scoop up the tar balls throughout the day, collecting more than 1,000 pounds of oil and waste. BP also deployed 19 manual skimming vessels and four decontamination vessels to the area, and placed 600-feet of hard and soft boom at a choke point in the Rigolets to prevent more oil from entering the lake. Cleanup efforts are expected to resume today.

Lopez said oil made its way into the lake because of winds from the far edges of Hurricane Alex last week as well as sustained east and southeast winds during the weekend. The winds from Alex pushed a large amount of oil into the Mississippi Sound for the first time, and the east winds during the past few days pushed oil into Lake Borgne, the Rigolets and eventually the eastern stretches of Lake Pontchartrain.
....


"It has a fairly tortuous route to get to the lake, and that's why we're at day 70-something of the spill, and we're just seeing the oil reach Lake Pontchartrain," Lopez said. "This oil we're seeing probably headed east toward Alabama and Florida before it came this way. It's traveled probably at least 100-200 miles, depending on how far east it went."

Also on Monday, The Associated Press reported that Texas crews were removing tar balls from the Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island.

The Texas landfall and the encroachment into Lake Pontchartrain weren't unexpected, but they were staggering nonetheless, as the previously spared gateways to the highly populated areas saw the first physical evidence that they would not be immune.

The coastline from Texas to Florida, a vast area, is now affected by the gusher. Staggering, indeed, but entirely predictable, although, from the beginning, there were those who said, "It may not be that bad." I never said such a thing, because I knew it would be that bad and, very likely, worse. We have not yet seen the worst.

COMMENTS DON'T POST

Along with Counterlight, I'm having difficulty with comments. Even mine don't always post. I have your comments in my email notification, but they don't appear in the comment boxes. I'm not blocking or deleting. Perhaps they'll show up eventually.