I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Upon accepting his Nobel Peace Prize
December 10, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A Statement from the Communion Partners Clergy Steering Committee on the Bishop-Suffragan Election in the Diocese of Los Angeles
From here:With the election of a non-celibate lesbian priest as Bishop Suffragan, the Diocese of Los Angeles has demonstrated its belief that membership in an international communion of churches is less important than unilaterally proceeding with an agenda of sexual liberation. We believe that this action is contrary to the best interest of the Episcopal Church and the health of the wider Anglican Communion. Where restraint has been respectfully requested by the leadership of the Communion, this action by the Diocese of Los Angeles is provocative, defiant and uncharitable.
We wish to distance ourselves from this action and urge our bishops and standing committees, as well as those of all the dioceses, to withhold consent for the consecration of the Bishop Suffragan-elect of the Diocese of Los Angeles.
The Communion Partners Advisory Committee
The Rev. Dr. Charles Alley; St. Matthew’s, Richmond
The Rt. Rev. Anthony J. Burton; Church of the Incarnation, Dallas
The Very Rev. Anthony Clark; The Cathedral of St. Luke, Orlando
The Rev. Stuart Brooks Keith; Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration, Vail
The Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson, St. Martin’s, Houston
The Rev. R. Leigh Spruill, St. George’s, Nashville
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Anglican Communion leaders show concern over L.A. Election of Suffragan Bishop
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order shows concern at the recent events from the Episcopal Church. From here:An Episcopal election in Los Angeles, which remains to be confirmed or rejected by The Episcopal Church, took place during the meeting and was discussed by the Commission. It noted the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury that ‘the bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold’. The Commission expressed the fervent hope that ‘gracious restraint’ would be exercised by The Episcopal Church in this instance.A list of the commission's members follows:
The Most Revd Bernard Ntahoturi, Primate of Burundi and Chair of Commission The Rt Revd Dr Georges Titre Ande, Congo The Ven. Professor Dapo Asaju, Nigeria The Revd Canon Professor Paul Avis, England The Rt Revd Philip D Baji, Tanzania The Revd Canon Dr John Gibaut, World Council of Churches The Rt Revd Howard Gregory, West Indies The Revd Dr Katherine Grieb, Episcopal Church (USA) The Revd Canon Clement Janda, Sudan The Revd Sarah Rowland Jones, Southern Africa The Revd Dr Edison Muhindo Kalengyo, Uganda The Rt Revd Victoria Matthews, Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia The Revd Canon Dr Charlotte Methuen, England The Revd Dr Simon Oliver, Wales/England The Rt Revd Professor Stephen Pickard, Australia Dr Andrew Pierce, Ireland The Revd Canon Dr Michael Nai Chiu Poon, South East Asia The Revd Dr Jeremiah Guen Seok Yang, Korea The Rt Revd Tito Zavala, Bishop of Chile, Southern Cone The Revd Joanna Udal, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Anglican Communion Affairs The Revd Canon Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan, Director for Unity, Faith and Order Mr Neil Vigers, of the Anglican Communion Office.
Now Online: Bob Dylan's The Little Drummer Boy
We'll see how long this stays up:
BB OBSERVATION: The drawings in the video are in the Dylan style of art. Bob Dylan takes his sketch drawings, has them digitally printed, and he then overpaints them with gouache or watercolor. The drawings in this video look to be very much in the same style, his own style, right down to the color schemes - are they his? Frankly, the scenes seem to be taken from his own childhood.
Here's a short example of Dylan original artwork:
BB OBSERVATION: The drawings in the video are in the Dylan style of art. Bob Dylan takes his sketch drawings, has them digitally printed, and he then overpaints them with gouache or watercolor. The drawings in this video look to be very much in the same style, his own style, right down to the color schemes - are they his? Frankly, the scenes seem to be taken from his own childhood.
Here's a short example of Dylan original artwork:
General Convention 2009 Revisited: Episcopal House of Bishops Rescinds Windsor Moratorium
As we remember this watershed vote that led to the election of the new suffragan bishop of Los Angeles this past weekend, we also remember another iconic moment from 2009, that of the procession for the installation of the archbishop for the Anglican Church of North America, a procession which included among its members many of whom once walked the floors of General Convention. We suggest you play both videos at the same time. Oh, for such a time as this.
Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Remember December 7th
My grandfather was an officer on the USS Honolulu, assigned to Pearl Harbor that Sunday in early December. As the bombs were falling around them, my grandmother drove him from their home in the Waikiki-area to the YMCA in what is now downtown Honolulu. 
There she dropped him off in the midst of the raid that would signal the entrance of the United States into World War II, and then took her two boys up into the Tantalus Drive area of Oahu to stay at a relative's house where her boys, then aged 8 and 6, watched with horror from the hills the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.LA Times: Episcopal diocese's selection of lesbian bishop draws sharp Anglican rebuke
From here:
The spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion issued an unusually sharp and swift rebuke Sunday to church leaders in the U.S. over the election of a lesbian bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
In a terse statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a warning to Episcopal bishops, clergy and lay representatives about the confirmation of the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, a lesbian who has been in a partnered relationship for two decades.
"The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop-elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole," Williams wrote.
The archbishop pointed out that Glasspool's selection must be confirmed by leaders of the U.S. church before she can be consecrated as a suffragan, or assistant, bishop. "That decision will have very important implications," he said.
Read it all here.
UPDATE:
Kendall Harmon speaks on "the witness of incoherence" here. A must listen!!
The spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion issued an unusually sharp and swift rebuke Sunday to church leaders in the U.S. over the election of a lesbian bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.In a terse statement, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered a warning to Episcopal bishops, clergy and lay representatives about the confirmation of the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, a lesbian who has been in a partnered relationship for two decades.
"The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop-elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole," Williams wrote.
The archbishop pointed out that Glasspool's selection must be confirmed by leaders of the U.S. church before she can be consecrated as a suffragan, or assistant, bishop. "That decision will have very important implications," he said.
Read it all here.
UPDATE:
Kendall Harmon speaks on "the witness of incoherence" here. A must listen!!Sunday, December 06, 2009
Archbishop of Canterbury releases statement on the election of a second gay Episcopal bishop
The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole. The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.
The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.
BB NOTE: Remember, my American friends, this is in British-speak. Make no mistake about it, this is a warning.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
BREAKING NEWS: Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elects partnered gay bishop
Statement from Kendall Harmon, Diocese of South Carolina on the election on the seventh ballot of a second partnered gay bishop , Mary Glasspool, this time in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles:This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching. It will add further to the Episcopal Church's incoherent witness and chaotic common life, and it will continue to do damage to the Anglican Communion and her relationship with our ecumenical partners.Read all about it here. More here.
--The Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon is Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina
Offering generous support, Rowan Williams welcomes FIve Talents to Lambeth Palace
NOTE: Five Talents is a thriving charity which provides business training and small loans to thousands of the active poor in the developing world. The projects are delivered in partnership with the indigenous Anglican churches, which through their global reach are able to serve needy communities.
At a Reception in aid of Five Talents on 29 October 2009, Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, welcomed guests to Lambeth Palace and spoke of his support for the work of Five Talents in the context of the church’s particular role and ability to reach grassroots communities with transformative services. The following is the address by Dr. Williams:
Welcome. It gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome you here for this event. What I am going to do is very briefly to say a little bit about the background in my own memory and experience of Five Talents and a bit about why I believe it matters.
Five Talents is now 10 years old, or rather a little bit more than 10 years old, because at the 1998 Lambeth Conference I remember very vividly an evening where we were discussing the first principles of Five Talents; the occasion when some real substance was being put on the ideal and things were moving forward. And the reason I was involved, I think, was that in my work at that time in the Church in Wales, we had begun very seriously to think through what the Church should be doing about not only personal debt but build up confidence and capacity in local communities that would actually prevent people falling into toxic debt. We had had a programme in the Church in Wales running for a year or so called ‘Debt on our Doorstep’ and what we had decided to do as a Province was to back a Province-wide initiative on microfinance. We were going to send to every parish in Wales a pack telling people how to start credit unions and we went into a three-year partnership with the Wales Co-Operative Centre on training people in microfinance.
Now we did this because we believed that you cannot solve problems like debt without changing people’s mindset. You cannot change people’s mindset without giving them capacity, confidence, skill, a fundamental belief that they are worthwhile as persons and that they can therefore take control of some areas of their lives that they may have thought out of control.
That, it seems to me, is the absolute bottom line of microfinance and it is of course also the Christian rationale for microfinance. While it is true that there is a major and extremely significant Christian imperative to give to the poor, there is also a major Christian imperative to build up people’s liberty and authority and confidence as adult children of God to relate creatively and transformingly to the settings that they live in. And for me that is the theological heart of religion here.
And so because of that experience I think I was invited to share in some of the discussions around those original envisions of the Five Talents initiative.
Over the years Five Talents has now established itself as a crucially important part of the Anglican scene worldwide and I hope that this evening may help it become even more of a part, a visible part of our Anglican ministry. Here at Lambeth Palace we are trying with the help of Rachel, Helen and others to get our work worldwide as an Anglican Communion on development and aid better co-ordinated - working towards an Anglican Alliance on this. And for me a central part of that vision has to be our capacity in microfinance. Because that is the area where perhaps more any other we see that transforming, maturing effect of the gospel on
people that gives them the confidence and the capacity to begin to take charge of where they are and who they are with their neighbours. And the patterns of mutuality and the building up of mutual trust that belong in the world of microcredit and microfinance – these are of course central Christian things.
Microfinance has, so to speak, come up the agenda in recent years. From the time when Muhammed Yunus created the Grameen Banks in Southern Asia - a great step forward - that vision has gradually spread. It is been taken up enthusiastically and quite rightly by Christians as well as others. And at the end of a year which has seen some of the macro economic and macro financial climates looking perhaps not quite as sunny as it might have a little while ago, it is not entirely surprising that people have become more interested in how local, small scale grass roots capacity is built up. Now that is where Five Talents comes in. And I am very, very proud to be associated with Five Talents as Patron because I think its moment has come, in a sense, worldwide. It is something that the church can offer with confidence and gratitude to the societies in which it works.
Five Talents works in about a dozen countries and it is helped to train somewhere in the region of 20,000 entrepreneurs, which I think is quite impressive. It is making a measurable difference around the world and for that alone we can give thanks. But if it is true, as I very strongly believe, that in many parts of the world the Christian church is going to be the crucial lever for grassroots development, we need to build capacity as consistently and generously as we can.
One of the constant discussions – far be it from me to say arguments – constant discussions we have with people over the river about development issues really centres on this question. We have been banging away for the last few years at some of the people in DFID and elsewhere to say, if you actually want Millennium Development Goals delivered at grass roots level in many, many parts of the world, not least in Africa, you have to work with the churches. They are the communities that have the confidence in themselves and the trust from their environment. They are the communities that have the reach into places where secular NGOs never get and frankly if you ignore that, you ignore your most potent and creative ally.
And sadly, philosophy has often been in recent years to ignore them. There has been a sort of embarrassment about faith in general and the Christian church in particular. There has been a conviction that ‘government to government’ is the only pattern that we ought to be working with. There has been a slightly starry-eyed trust that secular western NGOs can somehow gain confidence of profoundly religious communities elsewhere in the world (which really does not work terribly well). And so, if only pragmatically, it is extremely important for our department, other national development agencies and NGOs themselves to wake up to the fact that communities of faith in general and the Christian church in particular are capable of transforming effect.
Now you will hear about Sudan in a few minutes, but one of the statistics that I was able to quote with some smug satisfaction on the radio last year when I was interviewed on some of these matters, was the difference between the number of schools that had been built by churches in international partnerships in Sudan as opposed to the number of schools that secular NGOs had managed to build and the disproportion was vast, because churches are trusted communities.
So in building up capacity, local confidence, the entrepreneurial spirit allied to a co-operative philosophy and spirituality – I think that is also very important – Five Talents is wonderfully placed at present in the world.
As I said earlier, I am really delighted and grateful and honoured to be associated with it. I hope that some of that sense of the honour and delight at being associated with Five Talents will strike those of you who are not yet associated with it this evening and help you to feel that you would like to be so associated. And I am deeply grateful to God for all that He has done through Five Talents in the last decade to advance that particular form of the Christian Gospel and the Christian good news that simply enables people to stand on their feet and say, “I have something to receive and to give. I am capable of responsibility. I can stand before God with the confidence
of being an adult trusted, not only by God, but by others, winning the trust of the community around me, so beginning to transfigure what is possible for people here.”
So with all that in mind, let me again welcome you here, say how very, very pleased I am that so many responded to our invitation and how very much I hope this evening will not only be an affirmation of the work that has been done through Five Talents but a real step forward for the whole organisation in the Anglican Communion and in the wider setting. Thanks you very much indeed. Learn more about Five Talents and how you can help here. To God be the glory.
At a Reception in aid of Five Talents on 29 October 2009, Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, welcomed guests to Lambeth Palace and spoke of his support for the work of Five Talents in the context of the church’s particular role and ability to reach grassroots communities with transformative services. The following is the address by Dr. Williams:
Welcome. It gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome you here for this event. What I am going to do is very briefly to say a little bit about the background in my own memory and experience of Five Talents and a bit about why I believe it matters.Five Talents is now 10 years old, or rather a little bit more than 10 years old, because at the 1998 Lambeth Conference I remember very vividly an evening where we were discussing the first principles of Five Talents; the occasion when some real substance was being put on the ideal and things were moving forward. And the reason I was involved, I think, was that in my work at that time in the Church in Wales, we had begun very seriously to think through what the Church should be doing about not only personal debt but build up confidence and capacity in local communities that would actually prevent people falling into toxic debt. We had had a programme in the Church in Wales running for a year or so called ‘Debt on our Doorstep’ and what we had decided to do as a Province was to back a Province-wide initiative on microfinance. We were going to send to every parish in Wales a pack telling people how to start credit unions and we went into a three-year partnership with the Wales Co-Operative Centre on training people in microfinance.
Now we did this because we believed that you cannot solve problems like debt without changing people’s mindset. You cannot change people’s mindset without giving them capacity, confidence, skill, a fundamental belief that they are worthwhile as persons and that they can therefore take control of some areas of their lives that they may have thought out of control.
That, it seems to me, is the absolute bottom line of microfinance and it is of course also the Christian rationale for microfinance. While it is true that there is a major and extremely significant Christian imperative to give to the poor, there is also a major Christian imperative to build up people’s liberty and authority and confidence as adult children of God to relate creatively and transformingly to the settings that they live in. And for me that is the theological heart of religion here.
And so because of that experience I think I was invited to share in some of the discussions around those original envisions of the Five Talents initiative.
Over the years Five Talents has now established itself as a crucially important part of the Anglican scene worldwide and I hope that this evening may help it become even more of a part, a visible part of our Anglican ministry. Here at Lambeth Palace we are trying with the help of Rachel, Helen and others to get our work worldwide as an Anglican Communion on development and aid better co-ordinated - working towards an Anglican Alliance on this. And for me a central part of that vision has to be our capacity in microfinance. Because that is the area where perhaps more any other we see that transforming, maturing effect of the gospel on
people that gives them the confidence and the capacity to begin to take charge of where they are and who they are with their neighbours. And the patterns of mutuality and the building up of mutual trust that belong in the world of microcredit and microfinance – these are of course central Christian things.
Microfinance has, so to speak, come up the agenda in recent years. From the time when Muhammed Yunus created the Grameen Banks in Southern Asia - a great step forward - that vision has gradually spread. It is been taken up enthusiastically and quite rightly by Christians as well as others. And at the end of a year which has seen some of the macro economic and macro financial climates looking perhaps not quite as sunny as it might have a little while ago, it is not entirely surprising that people have become more interested in how local, small scale grass roots capacity is built up. Now that is where Five Talents comes in. And I am very, very proud to be associated with Five Talents as Patron because I think its moment has come, in a sense, worldwide. It is something that the church can offer with confidence and gratitude to the societies in which it works.Five Talents works in about a dozen countries and it is helped to train somewhere in the region of 20,000 entrepreneurs, which I think is quite impressive. It is making a measurable difference around the world and for that alone we can give thanks. But if it is true, as I very strongly believe, that in many parts of the world the Christian church is going to be the crucial lever for grassroots development, we need to build capacity as consistently and generously as we can.
One of the constant discussions – far be it from me to say arguments – constant discussions we have with people over the river about development issues really centres on this question. We have been banging away for the last few years at some of the people in DFID and elsewhere to say, if you actually want Millennium Development Goals delivered at grass roots level in many, many parts of the world, not least in Africa, you have to work with the churches. They are the communities that have the confidence in themselves and the trust from their environment. They are the communities that have the reach into places where secular NGOs never get and frankly if you ignore that, you ignore your most potent and creative ally.
And sadly, philosophy has often been in recent years to ignore them. There has been a sort of embarrassment about faith in general and the Christian church in particular. There has been a conviction that ‘government to government’ is the only pattern that we ought to be working with. There has been a slightly starry-eyed trust that secular western NGOs can somehow gain confidence of profoundly religious communities elsewhere in the world (which really does not work terribly well). And so, if only pragmatically, it is extremely important for our department, other national development agencies and NGOs themselves to wake up to the fact that communities of faith in general and the Christian church in particular are capable of transforming effect.Now you will hear about Sudan in a few minutes, but one of the statistics that I was able to quote with some smug satisfaction on the radio last year when I was interviewed on some of these matters, was the difference between the number of schools that had been built by churches in international partnerships in Sudan as opposed to the number of schools that secular NGOs had managed to build and the disproportion was vast, because churches are trusted communities.
So in building up capacity, local confidence, the entrepreneurial spirit allied to a co-operative philosophy and spirituality – I think that is also very important – Five Talents is wonderfully placed at present in the world.
As I said earlier, I am really delighted and grateful and honoured to be associated with it. I hope that some of that sense of the honour and delight at being associated with Five Talents will strike those of you who are not yet associated with it this evening and help you to feel that you would like to be so associated. And I am deeply grateful to God for all that He has done through Five Talents in the last decade to advance that particular form of the Christian Gospel and the Christian good news that simply enables people to stand on their feet and say, “I have something to receive and to give. I am capable of responsibility. I can stand before God with the confidenceof being an adult trusted, not only by God, but by others, winning the trust of the community around me, so beginning to transfigure what is possible for people here.”
So with all that in mind, let me again welcome you here, say how very, very pleased I am that so many responded to our invitation and how very much I hope this evening will not only be an affirmation of the work that has been done through Five Talents but a real step forward for the whole organisation in the Anglican Communion and in the wider setting. Thanks you very much indeed. Learn more about Five Talents and how you can help here. To God be the glory.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Liam Clancy (1935-2009)
“I never heard a singer as good as him ever. He was just the best ballad singer I ever heard in my life." - Bob Dylan
Read more at the Irish Times.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
The Manhattan Declaration
The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.
Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Read more about it here.
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