WHAT'S HAPPENING AT NO ANGLICAN COVENANT?

NO ANGLICAN COVENANT

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TELLING THE GOOD NEWS

God bless Bishop Gene Robinson! Bishop Gene may be retiring from his position as Bishop of New Hampshire, but I doubt that he will fade into the sunset. I hope not. We need his voice.

Bishop Gene's announcement of his retirement in January 2013 has been widely circulated in the media and in blogs, either in whole or in part. His words are full of grace, which is entirely unsurprising from such a grace-filled man of God. I'll never forget his words to all who face prejudice, hostility, name-calling, lies, bullying, and, in Bishop Gene's case, multiple death threats, "Love them anyway!"

What I'd like to highlight today is his latest column at the website of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

What makes evangelism so hard for Episcopalians?

I know that we are not ashamed of our faith. Indeed, we Episcopalians are deeply proud of our faith. Somewhere around half of us came to The Episcopal Church from some other denomination as an adult. So, many of us, not being “cradle” Episcopalians, have consciously and intentionally chosen to be Episcopalians. So we hold this style and expression of the Christian faith very dear. We are hardly ashamed of it.

We are not ashamed of Jesus, certainly. We know Jesus of Nazareth to be the Holy One of God and the “full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction and oblation for the sins of the whole world.” We try to model our lives after him; we strive to think like him. We talk to him, seek guidance from him, praise and adore him.

Clearly, Jesus is not the reason for our reticence to evangelize.

Clearly, Jesus is not the reason for my reticence to evangelize. I know full well the difference Jesus makes in my life. I need Jesus every single day for my salvation, right here and right now - for my survival as a functioning (more or less) human being. Hyperbole? Not at all. Just the simple truth.

Nor am I ashamed of my faith. As did Bishop Gene, I came to the Episcopal Church from another denomination, but rather later in my life. I love the Episcopal Church, warts and all, and at this moment, I'm proud that my church takes a lead in officially standing for justice and equality for all. We have a way to go with respect to implementing the practice of justice and equality, but we're on the way, and we've taken more than a few blows in the process of setting out upon our path. So no. I'm not ashamed of my faith.

But why is that I lack the zeal of Bishop Gene, or Fr Jake, or my rector, Fr Ed Robertson, to share my faith in my real-life, everyday interactions with others? Is a zeal for person-to-person evangelization a special gift that is given only to certain Christians? Telling the Good News here on my blog is easy, but unless another asks me about my faith or my church, I am reticent about introducing the subject in a conversation.

Bishop Gene says we are all to be evangelists. His final words encourage us to the share the Good News about Jesus.

We can find our own style for telling the Good News to a world desperate to hear it. We can get over our reticence – even as New England Episcopalians (or Louisiana Episcopalians) – to share our joy in knowing the Lord and living in his light.... Try on some new behavior. And let’s tell our neighbors how they can come to church with us and share in that joy!

Lord, may it be so.

STORY OF THE DAY - EXACT CENTER

this is the exact center of the universe
which explains why none of the usual
rules apply here

From StoryPeople.

THE CHURCHILLIAN BISHOP BENN

The Right Rev Wallace Benn, the Bishop of Lewes, compared the ordination of women bishops to the Nazi invasion

From The Telegraph:

The Right Rev Wallace Benn, the Bishop of Lewes, told the Reform conference of conservative Anglicans: “I feel very much increasingly that we’re in January of 1939. We need to be aware that there is real serious warfare just round the corner.”

His analogy angered Jewish groups as it was in that month that Hitler outlined his intent to kill Europe’s Jews.

And Bishop Benn was shocked, because he did not at all mean to suggest an analogy with Hitler.

Bishop Benn later attempted to clarify his remarks and said: “I was thinking in terms of the storm clouds being on the horizon.”

He said he intended his remarks to be Churchillian rather than thinking of Hitler.

Storm clouds, indeed. I expect Bishop Benn's had a little storm cloud over his head ever since he made his remarks.

It's times like this when I wish for the talent to draw a cartoon.

ELDERLY BATS

I don't know about y'all, but I needed a couple of laughs.

Thanks to my brother-in-law.

JESUS AND MO

Click on the strip for the larger view.

From Jesus and Mo.

WOT THEMETHATISME WROTE TO THE NEWSPAPERS

From the comments:

themethatisme said...
I have forwarded a brief missive to the newspapers covering this...

Sir,
The Bishop of St. Asaph in comparing opposition to the covenant to an ecclesiastical BNP, can only indicate just how abstracted episcopal thought is from reality, it's clergy and parishioners. As one of the designers of this expensive, punitive, bureaucratic and prejudicial piece of legislation, it is incredible that he can make such a suggstion about those among us who promote inclusivity. Opposition is not solely rooted here in England but is a growing multi-national body of opinion which is determined to showcase this nonsense for what it is.

Whilst the covenant is touted as a document which will prevent splits in the communion, it is in fact a document which legitimises splitting on the terms of the powerful, centralising authority in the few, increasing costs to the whole church not least through boosting the episcopal Airmiles tally. If the bishop believes that name-calling is a positive premise upon which to conduct debate, then he was probably a good choice for the design of such a document.

NT.(Non-ecclesiastical caucus.)

Excellent, TheMe. I could not have said it so well myself. Isn't it about time to post again on your blog?

I remind you once again of No Anglican Covenant, where you can sign up to join the group in its opposition to to the covenant. Your comments are welcome at the web site.

UPDATE: Themethatisme heeded my advice and posted on his blog the fine sermon on the Anglican Covenant, which he preached today.

Still, as I am preaching in the morning, I have thought to include my sermon here as I would usually do, but it will be noted that my sermon this morning although taking an askance look at the mornings gospel, is principally in order to announce to my parish church my thoughts and feelings on this here covenant thingy. I am delighted to see the launch earlier this week of NO ANGLICAN COVENANT, and am pleased to add what I may to the argument against its adoption. The following reworks some bits and pieces that I previously have shared with trying to awaken a local consciousness to a global matter.

2 Thess. 2:1-5,13-end; Luke 20:27-38

St. Mary Magdalene, 7th November 2010.

TheMe's sermon is well worth a read.

FR JAKE ANSWERS BISHOP CAMERON

You must read Fr Jake's riposte to Bishop Cameron's letter. Fr Jake doesn't write often on his blog these days, but when he writes, his words are always worth reading.

Jake takes apart the worst of Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, the objectionable, punitive section, piece by piece, and demonstrates why adopting the covenant will not be a good thing, despite Bishop Cameron's advice to all of us to please calm down and stop the scaremongering.

Says Jake:

Use whatever snarky names you can imagine, Bishop Cameron, but, regarding the signing of any current or future Anglican Covenant, this is one Anglican whose response must echo that of Bartleby the Scrivener; "I would prefer not to."

And they all said, "Amen"!

And while I have your attention, why not go vote on the Church Times Question Of the Week,: "Should the Church of England reject the Anglican Covenant?" Look for the link to the question in the upper left hand corner.

LAND OF THE FREE

From Elizabeth Wurtzel, who is American, but the article is in the Guardian, which, last I heard, was a newspaper in England:

Hard to say precisely what it is that people – "folks", as President Obama likes to call them – are so darn exercised about, but they say things that show that their command of any words with more than two syllables is completely questionable, like: "The president is a socialist", or "healthcare reform is unconstitutional". Of course, what they want to say, and what they should say, is something to the effect that they hate this man that those people elected president and they want to kill him – but only people like me, elitists with Ivy League degrees – people who actually have read Das Kapital and who have studied constitutional law – talk trash like that.
....

Look, America is a very sad place right now, which is what the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections are about. I could analyse the particulars, but then I would be no better than the whole 24-hour media machine – which, given that unemployment is at 9.6%, is lucky that no one has noticed that they don't exactly do their job. If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next.

And truthfully, it would not be so bad, if we could only come to terms with who we are: we are an amazing country still, but not in the way we believe. We are, in fact, kind of nerdy. We decry elitism, and yet it is precisely the high-falutin' stuff that we are good at. We still have the best research universities on the planet – every world survey puts Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford at the top – and we still have companies like Apple and Google that no one else on earth can come up with. And, of course, our creative industries – movies and music – are still our biggest import, even if piracy is deflating their value.
....

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai. The Tea Party people should enjoy their rallies, because the rest of it is, indeed, quite bleak.

For the first time in American history, then, social mobility has been replaced with class struggle. Europeans have always been mystified that poor people in this country don't rise up and throw potatoes at Donald Trump – instead, they make him a reality TV star. But that's because everyone here us sure they are going to be rich like him someday, too. Maybe tomorrow.

And yes, you should read Wurtzel's piece in its entirety, despite the fact that it's published in a foreign newspaper. She's mostly right. I wonder if she could be published in a major newspaper here in the US. Her truth-telling may paint far too bleak a picture for consumers of the "news" over here. In truth, not a few of Wurtzel's fellow citizens might label her as downright un-American.

Disclosure: I say "folks", too.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

WHAT GOD WANTS

Tobias Haller had his own lovely post exclusively for three days, but today I had to have it.