From Ecumenical News International via ELO:

"The rest of the world needs to know that apart from press coverage in the West, the gay issue is not a pre-occupation of the poor," said the Zambian-born [Trevor] Mwamba. "And we don't want it imposed on us as a priority agenda. Our agenda is about basic survival, food for the hungry, and we cannot focus on other agendas. In the words of a Swahili proverb, 'An empty stomach has no ears to hear with'."

Mwamba added, "I can only pray that the media will be as passionate in reporting on these issues as they are on the homosexual debate."
...
His call for what he believed would be better and more balanced reporting on African issues came only a few weeks after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in an interview with ENI that for some people in the media, morality means sex.

"In the Bible," Williams said, "morality means justice, compassion, and the defence of the needy. It means humility, realism and questioning, repentance and generosity. That's quite a lot to be going on with."

James Heckman, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, writes on the growing polarization in American society and concludes:

The family plays a powerful role in shaping adult outcomes that is not fully recognised by current American policies. As programs are currently configured, interventions early in the lives of disadvantaged children have substantially higher economic returns than later interventions such as reduced pupil-teacher ratios, public job training programs, convict rehabilitation programs, adult literacy programs, tuition subsidies, or expenditure on police. This is because life-cycle skill formation is dynamic in nature. Skill begets skill; motivation begets motivation. Motivation cross-fosters skill, and skill cross-fosters motivation. If a child is not motivated to learn and engage early on in life, the more likely it is that when the child becomes an adult, he or she will fail in social and economic life. The longer society waits to intervene in the life cycle of a disadvantaged child, the more costly it is to remediate disadvantage.

Progressives want the Presidential campaign to be about American inequality; conservatives the American family. Professor James Heckman, an economist with a Nobel Medal on his desk, has just accomplished the unlikely task of writing a Vox column that both camps will cite in the debate over what’s wrong with America and how to fix it.

The Diocese of New Westminster filed this press release yesterday. An extract:

The Diocese of New Westminster has taken steps under the its bylaws (Canon laws) to remove clergy who have left the Anglican Church of Canada rather than accepting the decisions of its local and national governing bodies (Synods).

Following the failure of the clergy in question to leave Church premises in response to a late May request to do so, and an indication that Parish Wardens supported such actions by these clergy, the Diocese has invoked a provision that returns control of the parishes to the Diocese.
...
On May 11, 2008, each of them declared they had voluntarily left the ordained ministry of the Anglican Church of Canada. They claimed to have come under jurisdiction of a bishop reporting to the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, which is based in six South American Countries. Such foreign jurisdiction is not recognized by the Anglican Church of Canada.

Following their decision to leave the ordained ministry of the Anglican Church of Canada, they were asked by the diocese on May 29, 2008, to cease using the property of their former parishes.
...
In the past few months, the Courts in both B.C. and Ontario have issued preliminary findings in similar cases upholding similar actions by two other Dioceses, one on Vancouver Island and one in the Niagara area. Attempts to appeal those rulings in both cases have been unsuccessful and costs have been awarded to the Dioceses involved.

Thanks to Thinking Anglicans for the pointer. Check Thinking Anglicans for more about these recent developments.

From The Telegraph:

Rev Prof Kenneth Newport, pro vice-chancellor of Liverpool Hope University, has deciphered more than 1,000 pages written 250 years ago between 1736 and 1756.

He has uncovered details of Wesley's anxieties over the possibilities of a split from the Church of England, his younger brother's plans to marry and even over the growing influence of Islam.

He used a handwritten transcription of the four gospels made by Wesley as a guide to deciphering the journals themselves.
...
"He was very much opposed to separation, he saw the Methodist Societies as within the established church and anything that smacked of separation was something he took a very strong view of," Rev Prof Newport said.

"At one point in the journal he is talking to the society at Grimsby and goes into block capitals and says 'I told them I would remain with them as long as they remained with the Church of England but should they ever turn their back on the Church they turn their back on me'."

Wesley's opposition to the split is disclosed despite his older brother John, with whom he co-founded the Methodist Church, being widely credited with setting the process in motion.

It was John Wesley who ordained clergy to lead the movement in America and who set up the structures which would ultimately replace those of the established church.

The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has issued a press release (pdf) reproduced in full below:

August 26, 2008

Court maintains freeze on Episcopal Diocesan accounts pending litigation

In April the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin filed a lawsuit to recover the property and the assets of the Diocese from its former bishop, John-David Schofield. As a result of this lawsuit several of the disputed investment accounts and related funds belonging to the Diocese were frozen.

In a hearing yesterday, the Court adopted a stipulation and ordered that these accounts may only be accessed with the consent of the Episcopal Diocese and/or by further order of the Court. Several of the affected accounts included those critical to the operations of the Evergreen Conference Center in Oakhurst (ECCO).

Bishop Jerry Lamb called the continuation of ECCO’s ministry “critical.” At the direction of the Episcopal Diocesan Council, the Chancellor for the Diocese and attorneys for the Episcopal Church contacted Mr. Schofield’s attorneys to negotiate terms for interim access to funds to support camp operations, including staff salaries, daily operations and certain capital improvements. According to the order and stipulation, the ECCO management will provide operational and financial information to the Episcopal Diocese and report to Diocesan Council.

Copies of the Court’s Order and Stipulation are posted on the diocesan website (www.diosanjoaquin.org).

The Court has set a tentative date of August 24, 2009 to hear the lawsuit.

Direct links to the Court's Order (4 page pdf image file) and Stipulation (14 page pdf image file).

A wave of violence between Hindus and Christians has struck the state of Orissa in eastern India. The AP provides some background:

Christians clashed with Hindu mobs who attacked churches, and eight people died in the violence in an eastern region known for deadly religious fighting.

Police imposed a curfew in the Kandhamal district of Orissa state after overnight attacks by hardline Hindus to avenge the killing of one of their leaders, whose death they blamed on Christian militants.
...
The violence comes after Hindu hard-liners set ablaze a Christian orphanage early Monday, killing a 21-year-old woman who was teaching children to use computers and seriously injuring a priest. The Vatican condemned the attack as "a sin against God and humanity."

The latest violence was set off when unidentified assailants killed a Hindu religious leader, Swami Laxmmananada Saraswati, and four others. Police blamed Maoist rebels, but Subhash Chauhan, a World Hindu Organization leader, accused "Christian militants" in the death.

Relations among India's religious minorities — such as Christians, who account for 2.5 percent of the country's 1.1 billion people, and Muslims, who make up 14 percent — are usually peaceful.

However, Orissa has a long history of Hindu-Christian clashes, usually sparked by Hindu suspicions over missionary work.

The Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, Canon to the Presiding Bishop, has issued the following statement:

There have been recent, alarming reports of violence against minority Christian groups living in Orissa, India. The news of churches being destroyed, orphanages set on fire, and Christians forced to flee for their lives are cause for great concern. We urge all Episcopalians to keep the Church of North India and particularly the Rt. Rev. Bijay Kumar Nayak, Bishop of Phulbani, in our prayers. In the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians, We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."

The Times:

The Church of England is asking members to cut back on illuminating churches, eight years after embracing a multimillion-pound scheme to install floodlights at 400 places of worship.

A guide endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, states that vicars should try to curb their use of floodlights in an attempt to reduce their carbon footprint.

The guide, Don't Stop at the Lights, suggests that nightly lighting is an extravagance and that illumination should be reserved for special occasions such as sponsored evenings in memory of a loved one or to celebrate an anniversary.

The advice represents a sudden drop in enthusiasm for exterior lighting, which peaked in 2000 when the Millennium Commission awarded £2.3million of lottery money to the Church Floodlighting Trust.

A proponent's view of the Church Lighting Trust is here. Proponents of dark skies call it night blight. At the millennium the scheme was called "a lasting legacy from your Lottery funding."

From the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Archbishop's Pastoral Letter to Bishops of the Anglican Communion

Tuesday 26 August 2008

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has today sent a letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion, setting out his personal reflections on the Lambeth Conference. The full text of the letter can be found below:
...
The final document of Conference Reflections is not a 'Report' in the style of earlier Conferences, but an attempt to present an honest account of what was discussed and expressed in the 'indaba' groups which formed the main communal work of the Conference by the Reflections Group. But although this document is not a formal Report, it has a number of pointers as to where the common goals and assumptions are in the Communion. Let me mention some of these.

First, there was an overwhelming unity around the need for the Church to play its full part in the worldwide struggle against poverty ignorance and disease. ...

Second, on the controversial issue of the day regarding human sexuality, there was a very widely-held conviction that premature or unilateral local change was risky and divisive, in spite of the diversity of opinion expressed on specific questions. ...

Third, there was a general desire to find better ways of managing our business as a Communion. Many participants believed that the indaba method, while not designed to achieve final decisions, was such a necessary aspect of understanding what the questions might be that they expressed the desire to see the method used more widely – and to continue among themselves the conversations begun in Canterbury. This is an important steer for the meetings of the Primates and the ACC which will be taking place in the first half of next year, and I shall be seeking to identify the resources we shall need in order to take forward some of the proposals about our structures and methods.

The Chicago Tribune reports that faith has a very high profile at the Democratic National Convention now meeting in Denver, especially when compared to four years ago.

At the first official event Sunday of the Democratic National Convention, a choir belted out a gospel song and was followed by a rabbi reciting a Torah reading about forgiveness and the future.

Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking," assailed the death penalty and the use of torture.

Young Muslim women in headscarves sat near older African-American women in their finest Sunday hats.

Four years ago, such a scene would have been unthinkable at a Democratic National Convention. In 2004, there was one interfaith lunch at the Democratic gala in Boston.

But that same year, "values voters" helped re-elect President Bush, giving Democrats of faith the opening they needed to make party leaders listen to them.

The result was on display at Sunday's interfaith service, staged in a theater inside the Colorado Convention Center, and will be evident throughout the convention agenda and on the sidelines.

There will be four "faith caucus" meetings, blessings to open and close each night, and panels and parties run by Democratic-leaning religious advocacy groups that didn't even exist in 2004 — not to mention protests from religious groups and leaders opposed to the Democratic platform.

Other challenges may come from within. At Sunday's service, Bishop Charles Blake, head of the predominantly black Church of God in Christ and a self-described pro-life Democrat, said Barack Obama should be pressed to "elaborate upon his stated intention to reduce the number of abortions by providing alternative programs."

One hallmark of Democratic faith efforts at the convention is diversity, which might soften objections from party activists wary of the Christian right or any mixing of religion and politics. Behind the scenes, efforts to attract the religious vote will concentrate largely on Christian "values voters."

"If we create or become a mirror image of the religious right, we have failed," said Burns Strider, who ran religious outreach for Hillary Clinton's campaign and now does faith-based political consulting. "But if we have increased the number of chairs around the table, ... then we've succeeded."

One reason religion is playing such a prominent role at this week's convention is that Obama has made faith outreach prominent in his campaign.

"People of faith are being engaged in the convention in a new and robust way ,and it's because of Senator Obama's acknowledgment that people of faith and values have an important place in American public life," said Joshua DuBois, the Obama campaign's religious affairs director.

Read the rest here.

The Washington Post reports on a new trend. Home circumcisions. For Christians. Are these modern day Ebionites?

Mark Kushner pulled up to the Watson family's suburban Philadelphia home a week after the birth of their first son, Colin. In the dining room, he unpacked the tools of his trade: sterilized surgical instruments, topical anesthetic, prayer shawls and a small bottle of kosher wine.

The shawls went back into his black bag. But to Megan and Christopher Watson's happy surprise, the mohel -- pronounced "moyle," the title for a Jewish ritual circumciser -- had copies of several prayers appropriate for the Presbyterian parents to read for the occasion.

"We thank You for the miracle of human experience in the birth of our child," they recited while Kushner gently rocked their infant before the procedure.

Kushner, who is based in Philadelphia, and Philip Sherman, a mohel in the New York City area, say they have performed more than 30,000 circumcisions since training together in Israel in the 1970s. Most of their business comes from traditional brith milah ceremonies for 8-day-old Jewish boys. But in recent years, they have increasingly catered to Christian families who eschew a hospital procedure in favor of a $300 to $800 house call, a trend Sherman has dubbed "holistic circumcision."

Many Christian clients, including the Watsons, liked what they saw at a friend's brith milah, also known as a bris. Others are conservative Christians who want to follow Old Testament tradition or learned about holistic circumcisions from the Internet, their doctors or others, Kushner said.

Does this indicate a trend among some Christians who might want follow Jewish customs...or is it simply a fad among people looking for meaningful symbols in the marketplace?

Read the rest here.

Dean Martha Deng Nhial is the first African women to serve as the dean of an African cathedral in the history of Christianity. She has been as the first dean of the Cathedral of St. Matthew, Diocese of Renk, Episcopal Church of Sudan.

The Rev. Lauren Stanley, appointed Episcopal missionary for the Diocese of Renk in Sudan writes on the blog at EGR:

A week after Dean Martha was installed, special prayers were offered at her home. Fifty women gathered to praise her, to praise the Church, and to thank God and the Church for lifting her up, and for her ability to lift all of us up in our lives.

Even before she became dean, Martha was a force to be reckoned with in Renk. She was a nurse, as well as a member and then leader of the Mothers Union here. When she walked through town, with a purposeful stride, everyone could see that she was a woman of strength... When Martha spoke, everyone listened, because they knew she was a woman of faith. When she became one of the first women priests ordained in Sudan, all applauded her for her courage.

Culturally, Sudan is still a land where women are expected to do certain kinds of work, none of which involve leadership. In the countryside, it is still not unusual to see the boys being educated while the girls are kept at home. In Renk, boys can pretty much roam the streets at will; girls, on the other hand, are kept under tighter supervision....

So to see Dean Martha being installed – to see her daughters weep at her service – to hear the women in town sing her praises and encourage her to greater heights for herself and beg her to lead them to greater heights – was awe-inspiring.

Forget the history.

Read more about The Rev. Martha Deng Nhial here.

Learn about the Diocese of Renk here.

Read the rest of Stanley's account here.

The Alban Institute discusses the work of afterpastors, who are interim pastors specifically trained to deal with congregations who have experienced a betrayal of pastoral trust. The work is often very stressful for the afterpastors themselves as they absorb the unresolved and unnamed emotions of the congregants.

The term "betrayal of pastoral trust" refers to serious professional misconduct by the ordained leadership of a congregation. This violation could be an instance of sexual abuse or misconduct by clergy or it could be a financial misconduct such as an embezzlement or some other professional violation within their parish.

Afterpastors, or clergy who minister in the aftermath of betrayal of pastoral trust, are challenged with a complex and stressful set of circumstances as they assume the leadership of the troubled congregations their predecessors have left behind. The relationships and interactions in their ministries are frequently characterized by distrust and suspicion. Afterpastors often feel misheard or unheard by lay leaders and congregants, and they often report feeling manipulated, coerced, and sabotaged by lay leaders or seeing their decisions co-opted or corrupted by poor process or underhanded leadership. And many say they are often criticized without cause or unwarrantedly berated for incompetence.

Nearly all afterpastors describe a general reactivity to their presence or position that encumbers their work and relationships. And some describe reactivity so acute that it makes them lightning rods for every upset, conflict, and complaint—large or small—in the congregation.

More often, afterpastors are triangulated in petty, perennial conflicts or caught in webs of mixed messages. Communications are characterized by boundary challenges, power struggles, threats, and coercion. Each requires considerable perspective, diligence, objectivity, and grace from the afterpastor, lest he or she become entangled in the dynamics.

Read more here.

The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews begins her new ministry as Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand. She reflects on her ministry as Bishop in Canada and her new call as well as her experience at the recent Lambeth Conference.

Victoria Matthews quietly chuckles when people assume that because she is a woman in a traditionally male role she must be a liberal.

Stereotypes do not sit well with the 54-year-old Canadian who will be enthroned as the new Anglican Bishop of Christchurch next Saturday. Nor do questions about how she, as a woman, will cope with the role.

"The challenge has nothing to do with gender. The challenge has to do with coming to a new part of the world and learning a new culture, a new language in part because I don't speak Maori at the moment, and learning to steer the good ship Christchurch wherever God would have her sail."

After just five days in the country and two in her new job, Matthews told the Star-Times she may be a novelty in New Zealand, but she is part of a long tradition.

"The Anglican Communion has had women bishops now for about 20 years. I was the first in Canada ... I'm kind of tired about all the talk about firsts. I happen to be a woman who happens to be a bishop. What's the point?"

Whether she likes it or not, Matthews' appointment as Christchurch's first female bishop has drawn attention around the world. But then Matthews is no stranger to attention.

Read it all here.

HT to T19.

Related: St. Michael Report | Canadians focused on redefining marriage | Bishop Victoria Matthews will resign | Archbishop of Canterbury appoints Windsor Continuation Group | Victoria Matthews elected bishop in New Zealand

The New York Times has an interesting article on the challenge that many science teachers have teaching evolution to a largely fundamentalist student body. Removing legal barriers is obviously only the first step:

David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.

He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.

“If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”

. . .

But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.

Some come armed with “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution,” a document circulated on the Internet that highlights supposed weaknesses in evolutionary theory. Others scrawl their opposition on homework assignments. Many just tune out.

With a mandate to teach evolution but little guidance as to how, science teachers are contriving their own ways to turn a culture war into a lesson plan. How they fare may bear on whether a new generation of Americans embraces scientific evidence alongside religious belief.

“If you see something you don’t understand, you have to ask ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ ” Mr. Campbell often admonished his students at Ridgeview High School.

Yet their abiding mistrust in evolution, he feared, jeopardized their belief in the basic power of science to explain the natural world — and their ability to make sense of it themselves.

Passionate on the subject, Mr. Campbell had helped to devise the state’s new evolution standards, which will be phased in starting this fall. A former Navy flight instructor not used to pulling his punches, he fought hard for their passage. But with his students this spring, he found himself treading carefully, as he tried to bridge an ideological divide that stretches well beyond his classroom.

It is a wonderful profile of a very good science teacher. Read it all here.

Each August, Beloit College releases the "Mindset List" that reflects the very different mindset and cultural assumptions of every incoming class of college freshmen. Here are some highlights from this year's list:

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

. . .

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

. . .

2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.

3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.

4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.

5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.

. . .

20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.

. . .

28. IBM has never made typewriters

Read it all here.

Well, much has changed since Bruno has burned at the stake. The Vatican now operates a premier observatory. As Discover reports, the Vatican also operates a well regarded, but little known science academy that explores a wide variety of scientific issues:

The lessons learned from the trial and condemnation of Galileo in the 1600s have guided an era of scientific caution and hesi­tancy within the Vatican. Today the Vatican’s approach to science is a complex undertaking involving nearly every facet of Church life. The Roman Curia—the Church’s governing body—includes a network of 5 pontifical academies and 11 pontifical councils, each of them charged with tasks ranging from the promotion of Christian unity to the cataloging of martyrs. To varying degrees, each of the 16 offices—and, of course, the independent Vatican Observatory—intersects with scientific issues, and they tend to rely on the efforts of one academy to provide clarity and consultation: the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Housed in a building several centuries old deep inside Vatican City, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is a surprisingly nonreligious institution as well as one of the Vatican’s least understood.

Though it is virtually unknown among laypeople, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is an independent and remarkably influential body within the Holy See. Over the years its membership roster has read like a who’s who of 20th-century scientists (including Max Planck, Niels Bohr, and Erwin Schrödinger, to name a few), and it currently boasts more than 80 international academicians, many of them Nobel laureates and not all of them Catholic—including the playfully irreligious physicist Stephen Hawking.

Academy members are elected by the current membership. There are no religious, racial, or gender criteria. Candidates are chosen on the basis of their scientific achievements and their high moral standards. When a nomination for membership is made, the Vatican Secretariat of State is consulted in order to prevent the appointment of someone with a questionable history.

“We’re a group of people from all over the world—many religions and attitudes,” says physicist Charles Hard Townes, a Nobel laureate and an inventor of the laser. “It is essential for scientists to participate in this and try to help the Catholic Church, advise them on their policies. Many civilizations in the world are not directly affected by science and technology decision making, but they are affected by mandates and decisions of the Catholic Church.”

. . .

Today the academy’s mandate involves promoting the progress of mathematical, physical, and natural sciences and participating in the study of related epistemological questions and issues. The academy convenes plenary sessions in which its members offer presentations addressing a certain theme. Held every two years, the meetings highlight the most recent advances in the sciences. The next session is slated for October.

Although the academy’s mission seems as benign as that of any other scientific body, its presence within the Vatican invites controversy. During the early 1990s, at a time of alarm about population problems, the academy issued a report saying that there was an “unavoidable need to contain births globally,” a position that supposedly infuriated Pope John Paul II.

A pope, more than anyone else, knows the exact reason for the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In 1992 John Paul II told the members that “the purpose of your academy is precisely to discern and to make known, in the present state of science and within its proper limits, what can be regarded as an acquired truth or at least as enjoying such a degree of probability that it would be imprudent and unreasonable to reject it.” In the pope’s eyes, the academy is an instrument that teases scientific fact from fiction.

The full article is well worth a read.

High schools students all know about the troubles that Galileo had with the Catholic Church, but few have ever heard of Giordano Bruno, who died at the stake. The New Yorker has a fascinating review of a new book about Bruno:

In 1600, Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori, now a nice plaza lined with cafés, was one of the city’s execution grounds, and on Ash Wednesday of that year Giordano Bruno, a philosopher and former priest accused of heresy by the Inquisition, was taken there and burned. The event was carefully timed. AshWednesday is the primary day of Christian penance. As for the year, Pope Clement VIII chose it because 1600 was a jubilee for the Church—a festivity that would be enhanced by the execution of an important heretic. Bruno rode to the Campo on a mule, the traditional means of transport for people going to their death. (It was also a practical means. After years in the Inquisition’s prisons, many of the condemned could not walk.) Once he arrived and mounted the pyre, a crucifix was held up to his face. According to a witness, he turned away angrily. He could not speak; he had been gagged with a leather bridle. (Or, some say, an iron spike had been driven through his tongue.) He was tied to the stake, and the pyre was lit. When it had burned out, his remains were dumped into the Tiber. As Ingrid Rowland writes in “Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $27), the Church thereby made Bruno a martyr. But “a martyr to what?” she asks. That is the question that her book, the first full-scale biography of Bruno in English, tries, with difficulty, to answer.

So why was Bruno burned at the stake? He was an original thinker with often provocatively modern ideas:

In this system, there were three main ideas. One was heliocentrism, the notion that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. This revision of the standard, Ptolemaic cosmos was, of course, not original to him. It had been made by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, five years before Bruno was born. But while Copernicus’s repositioning of the earth and the sun was a radical proposal—indeed, a heresy (the Church needed the Earth, the arena of salvation, to be the center of the universe)—in other respects his cosmos was quite orthodox: a finite structure consisting of fixed spheres that revolved in concentric circles, just as in Ptolemy. Bruno, on the other hand, proposed an infinite cosmos, consisting of innumerable heliocentric worlds. This, his second and most important idea, was also not new. It had been put forth by Nicholas of Cusa, a German cardinal, in the fifteenth century. But here, too, Bruno went further, claiming that the universe was a vast, wheeling, unknowable thing, and that all theories about it, including his own, were not descriptions but merely approaches—“models,” as we would call them today.

Finally, Bruno developed an atomic theory, whereby everything that existed was made up of identical particles—“seeds,” in his terminology. Other people, notably Lucretius, had had this idea, but, again, Bruno expanded it. Not only were all parts of the cosmos constituted of the same elements, but God, whom the Church strictly set apart from the material world, resided in these elements. It was his love, informing every “seed,” that unified the world.

Read it all here.

It's a bit funny that the Telegraph picks a downright smoldering picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar—cropped in a fashion that shows her bare-shouldered—in a report that says the decline in young women's attendance at church has to do with the church not being relevant to them. On the upsurge, they note, is their attraction to Wicca, glamorized in pop culture such programs as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now, *this* Cafe editor is to Buffy the Vampire Slayer what Jim Naughton is to Friday Night Lights, but despite my insider knowledge of the series and all its DVD extras, the money quote that gave Telegraph editors its handy story frame is partly accurate. Buffy was a show about female empowerment, and that is something that spoke to the people who watched the show when it ran for seven years in the waning years of the 90s until 2004.

Saving that commentary for the comments, but the study notes some reasons why women have been leaving the church. It underscores that the recent brouhaha over women bishops' in the Church of England may drive some people out for theological reasons, but it may help address why people have been leaving all along:

Her research, published in a new book called Women and Religion in the West, cites an English Church Census which found more than a million women worshippers have left churches since 1989.

Over the past decade, it claims, women have been leaving churches at twice the rate of men.

In addition, the census is said to show that teenage boys now outnumber girls in the pews for the first time.

Dr Aune says the church must adapt to the needs of modern women if it is to stop them leaving in their droves.

She believes many women have been put off going to church in recent years because of the influence of feminism, which challenged the traditional Christian view of women's roles and raised their aspirations.

Her report claims they feel forced out of the church because of its "silence" about sexual desire and activity, and because of its hostility to single-parent families and unmarried couples which are now a reality for many women.

But it also says changes in women's working lives, with many more now pursuing careers as well as raising children, mean they have less time to attend church.

The story is here. And remember, kids, Willow wound up in a 12-step program to kick the magic habit. Don't try this at home.

Richard Sloan, writing an op-ed column in today's LA Times, waxes trenchant over the California Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that it was discriminatory for a medical group to refuse a woman treatment for her inability to get pregnant. At issue wasn't the artificial insemination procedure itself, but rather the fact that the woman in question is a lesbian. I had to read Sloan's commentary twice to determine what was the "welcome, if unusual, turnabout in a disturbing trend that has characterized American medicine over the last three or so decades" even though I'd heard about the decision on the radio--is anyone else accustomed to hearing "disturbing American trend" in a completely different context?

At any rate, Sloan reminds readers that "Freedom of religion is a cherished value in American society. So is the right to be free of religious domination by others," and it turns out the disturbing trend is this one:

Recent studies have shown that 14% of U.S. doctors, when confronted by possibly objectionable but legal medical treatments, not only would refuse to deliver such care but also would refuse to inform their patients about it or refer them to physicians who would deliver the care. That translates to about 40 million people who would receive substandard care from these physicians, who believe that their religious convictions are more important than the well-being of their patients.

The tradition of religious freedom in the United States is one of the founding ideals of this country. But as our framers envisioned it, religious freedom referred to a right to practice one's own religion free of interference from others. It did not refer to religiously based interference with the rights of others, who may have their own and different religious traditions. Even in the relatively religiously homogeneous era of the framers, such interference was not acceptable. It is even less so in 21st century America. With religious heterogeneity growing, the devotional demands of one group may be increasingly at odds with those of others.

And of course you don't need to be in a different religion or even a different denomination to see that kind of heterogeneity in action.

Story is here.

Episcopal Bishop Jerry Lamb sent a letter dated yesterday to the active clergy in San Joaquin who have not yet recognized his authority within the Diocese—giving them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they are still undecided, but also giving them a date by which they need to make up their minds. From a diocesan press release:

Bishop Jerry Lamb directed all active clergy who have not indicated their recognition of him as the duly authorized ecclesiastical authority of the Diocese of San Joaquin to do so by September 5, 2008 or potentially face disciplinary action.

In his letter Bishop Lamb stated that he did not "relish" using disciplinary action, adding "I would prefer to engage you in conversation and reconciliation."

This is a followup action after his July 10 letter asking, Are you in? We covered that one here. According to the release, some one-third of the priests answered that yes, they are staying.

The release and the letter are available from the San Joaquin website as PDFs here.

This letter follows a previous letter mailed July 10 requesting each clergy member to confirm his or her status in the Episcopal Church. About one-third of the active clergy members living in the diocese responded to this letter by stating their desire to remain in the Episcopal Church. According to the Canons of the Episcopal Church, clergy who do not comply with a directive of their bishop may be subject to ecclesiastical discipline for violation of their ordination vows or other offenses. They also may lose their eligibility for church medical insurance as well as further contributions to the church's pension fund.

Prior to the letters of July and August, Bishop Lamb extended invitations to all clergy to participate in the Special Convention held in March of this year, and personally invited clergy to talk with him individually or through a "reconciliation tour" in June 2008. Letters were not sent to clergy who are inactive, or who are no longer residing in the diocese.

A copy of the letter is posted on the diocesan website (www.diosanjoaquin.org ).

CANA holds their Council 2008 this weekend in Akron, Ohio. The group continues its plans to set up a separate Anglican Province in North America.

According to their conference website, the agenda include reports from GAFCON and updates on the Common Cause Partnership. They also say they will begin work on their own Constitution and Canons and the adoption of their own American Prayer Book.

During a legislative session tomorrow, they will vote on the following resolutions:

RESOLUTION NO. 1-Establishment of the Great Lakes Region as a Region of CANA

RESOLVED, that the Convocation Council recognizes that the Great Lakes Region has been duly established as a region within the Convocation the Convocation of Anglicans in North America ("CANA"), in accordance with Section 5.3 of the Bylaws of CANA.

RESOLUTION NO. 2-Regarding the Global Anglican Future Conference

RESOLVED, that the Convocation Council hereby expresses its gratefulness to the majority-world Anglican leaders recently gathered at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem, who stood in solidarity with all Anglicans who struggle against revisionist forces in the Anglican Communion. We also hereby express our appreciation to the CANA bishops, the bishops' wives, and others for representing CANA at GAFCON. We echo their endorsement of the Statement on the Global Anglican Future and the confessional Jerusalem Declaration. We commit ourselves to pursue the GAFCON goal to "reform, heal and revitalize the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world." We endeavor to support the emerging GAFCON movement and its Primates Council.

RESOLUTION NO. 3-Regarding Recognition by the Primates Council of the Global Anglican Future Conference of a New Anglican North American Province

RESOLVED, that the Convocation Council hereby supports the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) desire to embrace the invitation by the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) leadership to recognize CCP as an emerging Anglican province in North America. As we set forth plans for the future of Anglicanism in North America, our prayer is that our Common Cause federation will continue to grow and mature as an Anglican province.

So CANA appears to have moved beyond simple border crossings and are working with the GAFCON churches in setting up a new, self-defined, doctrinally conservative and reformed-evangelical Anglicanism. By forming their own constitution and canons and developing their own prayer book, they no longer are a parallel jurisdiction within the Anglican Communion but see their future as a new and separate denomination that is aligned with certain members of the Anglican Communion.

Resolution # 1 will provide the new jurisdictional home for the members of the diocese of Pittsburgh who vote to leave the Episcopal Church--taking their property and assets as they go.

Resolution #3 is another step that CANA and the GAFCON Churches are taking to create their own style Anglican Communion and to separate themselves from both Canterbury & York and the rest of the Instruments of Communion.

HT to Fr. Scott & Co.

Updated

Saying that they don't want to choose between "competing Anglican bodies," the Chapter of Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh will vote on a plan that would allow the Cathedral to serve both the remaining Episcopalians in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and those who would separate from the Episcopal Church at this fall's diocesan convention on October 4, 2008.

A news release from the Cathedral says the plan is to provide a process by which the Cathedral could serve both groups. That system envisions giving seats on the Cathedral’s governing bodies to representatives of both contingents, inviting the bishops of both to serve as co-presidents of the Cathedral Chapter, and working with both on issues such as clergy appointments."

The release says that Bishop Robert Duncan is in full support of the plan.

According to Cathedral Provost Canon Catherine Brall, the draft resolution was prepared over the last several months by the Cathedral Chapter and sent to all active members of the Trinity on August 22. Cathedral parish members will have a number of opportunities to discuss the resolution over the next three weeks, and then will come together for a final all-parish meeting on September 14. Canon Brall praised the work of the Chapter, saying that the ideas encapsulated in the resolution “grew out of a very thorough and wonderful season of Chapter members seeking to envision how Trinity Cathedral might best position itself to fulfill its unique identity and destiny as a historic Penn Land Grant Church deeded to foster and preserve Anglican and Episcopal worship.”

It is clear that the Cathedral assumes a split will definitely occur this fall and that there will be two Anglican bodies vying for space not only in the Cathedral but in the Diocese. The plan recognizes that not everyone in the diocese, among them both conservative and progressives, will vote to re-align, and that the remaining Episcopal Churches will move immediately to fill vacancies in Episcopal and Diocesan leadership should a split occur.

The language of the plan recognizes that the realigning group, headed by Bishop Duncan, will no longer be apart of the Episcopal Church while at the same time this new group will claim that they still part of the Anglican Communion. The framers of this plan hope that they can avoid being fought over by the competing groups by planning before the convention to serve both the canonical diocese and the new entity.

It appears from the language of the motion that the Cathedral assumes that they will remain an Episcopal congregation who would welcomes the realigned members of the new entity and include representatives of the realigned diocese in the decision-making of the Cathedral.

But there may be more to this than meets the eye.

Lionel Deimel, for one, is skeptical. On his blog, he writes that the thinks that this proposal is part of Bishop Duncan's plan to hang on to separately incorporated entities within the Diocese of Pittsburgh should realignment occur. He also believes that if this is an attempt by the Cathedral leadership to try and avoid being caught in the inevitable legal crossfire, it will not work. He writes:

I had heard rumblings that such a resolution was in the works. Although it is being represented as a Cathedral Chapter initiative, I have a suspicion that it is an integral part of the bishop’s realignment strategy. At last year’s diocesan convention, the bishop’s address contained a section called “Behaviors for the Time Ahead.” I reproduce a subsection titled “Forgive” below, from pages 112 and 113 of the 2007 Convention Journal:

Do not dwell on the hurts. Let go of the things that wound. Make your confession often. It is our Lord’s direction to us in the prayer He Himself taught us.

It is in this spirit that I share with you one of my convictions about what our God is calling us to in our stewardship of assets in the years ahead of us. It is my growing conviction that all the things we presently hold in common need to continue to be administered for the good of all, even if we find ourselves in two different Anglican Provinces at the end of the day.

Consider Trinity Cathedral. It is, more than any other church building, the city’s and the region’s parish church, a true cathedral. It belongs to the whole community, not just the Episcopal Diocese, and certainly not just to those who may “win” the right to administer it. I intend to challenge the Cathedral Chapter at their annual January retreat to make plans for how our Cathedral can continue to serve all of us and all of the community – in the separated future that lies ahead. Magnanimity and grace can characterize our future, if we choose it.

How will those who hold Calvary Camp or the Common Life Center Property or the Growth Fund or Pool One administer these assets? For all, or just for some? These matters are a choice, after all.

I do not need to remind the Convention of how Diocesan Council dealt with St. Stephen’s Church in Wilkinsburg during the period when they were joined as plaintiffs in the lawsuit: we fully supported their Youth Program despite the conflict between us. The present diocesan leadership has a track record, as does the national Episcopal Church. Locally, we also have a vision: “One Church of Miraculous Expectation and Missionary Grace,” impelling us to support each other wherever we can support each other, in areas and in concerns where we do agree. Forgiveness is Jesus’ witness from His undeserved cross. May it be our witness too.

Readers not thoroughly familiar with recent Diocese of Pittsburgh history should be reminded that any evaluation of the diocese’s generosity toward St. Stephen’s—likely the diocese did not wish to suffer the public relations fallout from killing a youth program for disadvantaged African-Americans—should also take into account the fact that the bishop, at an earlier convention, threatened to throw plaintiffs Calvary Church and St. Stephen’s Church out of the diocese if they did not drop the lawsuit against the bishop and other diocesan leaders.

As I remarked at the 2007 convention, Bishop Duncan was essentially saying that he is willing to share any diocesan property he is unable to steal outright. His fallback position is, at least from my perspective, less that a model of Christian charity.

Here is a link to the full text of the resolution.

Update

Here is the PDF showing the participation and giving trends of Trinity, Cathedral in Pittsburgh. The church has experienced a drop in Average Sunday Attendance since 2002 and a marked decreased in baptized membership since 2005. One wonders, should the diocese split into two distinct camps, if the Cathedral can maintain itself. Perhaps the hope is that, should this plan pass, that both camps would stay and support the cathedral despite their divergent denominational loyalties.

Updated-Monday, August 25, 2008

Father Patrick Malloy, Rector of Grace Church, Allentown, PA, reflects on the violence that visited his congregation and neighborhood when Jameel Clark was murdered in the parish's parking lot.

Jameel Clark was only 20 when he died on Aug. 10. That morning, one of his friends took sidewalk chalk and wrote outside his apartment building, ''I am my brother's keeper.'' Sidewalk chalk is a child's toy. Jameel was hardly more than a child. I had to walk over the words because I live in that building, too.

Jameel was shot to death behind Grace Episcopal Church at Fifth and Linden in Allentown. The members of the parish went there for Sunday morning worship just eight hours later. They had no idea that only feet from where they parked, a man had been killed in the darkness. I had to go to Grace Church on Sunday morning because I am the priest.

The violence that plagues Center City Allentown suddenly feels very close. I am not afraid. I do not fear that I will be hurt, living and working here, no matter how close the violence comes. The mayhem that waits in the darkness outside my home and outside my church does not choose random targets. The Morning Call reported that Jameel predicted his murder the very day it happened. Something was up and he knew it.

Jameel and I must have crossed paths many times in the lobby of our shared home, but I took notice of him only once. He opened the door for me and called me, ''Sir.'' People don't call me, ''sir,'' unless they want to sell me something or I'm dressed like a priest. He didn't, and I wasn't, and so I was struck by the politeness of a man who seemed too old and yet too young to be so polite: a man caught between childhood and maturity.

(snip)

We Christians root our moral convictions in a belief that God loves the human race and each human. From that conviction -- that each person has a place in the heart of Infinity -- every moral decision flows. Tragically, though, there is so much in the lives of so many people that tells them something else: that they are not worth much at all, that the universe is not a benevolent place, that life -- theirs and everyone else's -- is ephemeral and cheap. And if that is so, why not murder a 20-year-old man over what we will surely discover was a trifle?

Just a few feet from where Jameel Clark died, in the same parking lot, the people of Grace Church gather in the dark every Holy Saturday night -- the night before Easter Sunday -- and we light a great fire. It is an ancient tradition, beginning in sixth century Ireland. And from that fire, struck in defiance of the darkness, we take light: a light that we cherish as a sign of Jesus rising in defiance of the darkness of death. I wrote about that fire on this page two Easters ago. ''The fire marshal stands and watches, and well he does, because you never know what a fire in the city might do. We live in Center City Allentown. We are people born of Easter light. We will not shrink from the darkness. We'll stay put, and we'll build a fire.''

This coming Sunday, the congregation will process from their sanctuary to the place where Jameel was murdered. The parish has invited the public to join them in taking "back the streets from the chaos and evil.''

Read the rest here.

Update

Here is a report about the Sunday procession to the parking lot along with reactions of parishioners, neighborhood members who took part and parts of Fr. Malloy's sermon.

Those at church Sunday morning proceeded outside following the church's Paschal Candle, their hymns rising above the muffled noise of light street traffic. They stopped at the spot where Clark was slain and prayed that God would deliver the world, the city, from the darkness -- from crime, injustice and suffering.

Most of the approximately 60 people who filled the pews Sunday were members of the Grace congregation. A few were not.

Inside the church, Malloy told of handing one letter to a young man whose hand was marked with a Latin Kings symbol. Still, he said he wasn't scared as they shook hands and looked each other in the eye.

''We were like two soldiers in a complex war protected by the rules of engagement,'' Malloy said.

Friday also was the day The Morning Call ran an opinion piece by Malloy on Clark's death, the worth of every human, and the need for light in the darkness. He said things changed when he got back to his office and read the online comments about his article. ''I was afraid as I read the comments that had been posted,'' he said, characterizing some of the commentary as cowardly, vicious and full of hate.

Unlike the man he met on the street that morning, Malloy said, the online commenters ''have no tattoos that would let me know the rot that has claimed their hearts.''

Malloy said those people were angry over the desire to find light in the midst of the darkness of Clark's murder. ''The suggestion that the light was stronger than the darkness enrages them,'' he said.

Here is a portion of Father Patrick's sermon, which may be found here:

Every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, our fellow citizens kill people. We pay them for what they do. But I want to believe that they suffer many sleepless nights because of it.

Ask the wife of a man who came home from the Second World War or Korea or Vietnam. Ask the wife of a man who was not the same man who had gone off to the fields of battle. Ask them, and they will tell you that people forced to take a human life – even for a just cause – instinctively know that they have transgressed a great boundary, and they will never be the same again.

But not everyone.

On the streets of our cities, people take human lives every day, and they do not lose one minute of sleep. They do not sink into deep depression. They do not die inside. Maybe they don’t die inside when they take a life because they died inside a long time ago. Even when they are only 18, maybe they died inside a long time ago.

Imagine taking a gun and killing a person over a lost fistfight. Imagine taking a gun and killing a person over a broken string of beads. Imagine taking a gun and killing a person over anything less than the most noble and selfless of causes. And, even then, imagine taking a gun and killing a person and not feeling a crushing pain that will follow you for the rest of your life.

What must have happened in the life of that tragic 18-year-old man who killed Jameel Clark? What must have happened in his life – the life only of a child -- that could have stripped him of the very thing that makes us human?

The death of Jameel Clark, and the nearness of his death, forced me to confront social decay as I never had before. But even then, I was not prepared for the horror that was still to come. The op-ed piece I published in Friday’s Morning Call had barely appeared online when the vicious, hate-riddled responses began to be posted. Do not fool yourself into thinking that we can protect ourselves from social decay by fleeing to the tree-lined streets of the suburbs. Do not think that it rots only the hearts of young black men or young Latino men in the broken city. Do no think that the jackals are all Latin Kings. The decay spreads wide, and most of the time it is as invisible as air.

If it were only a rot in the hearts of the Latin Kings, we could at least hope to control it. We could look for the gang gesture, the gang colors, the gang markings. And we could run. And until Friday, I fear that I was naïve enough to think that something like that was true.

But then the responses began to mount in response to my article. Many times standing here and writing on the pages of the Morning Call I have said that I am not afraid to live in Center City Allentown. And even with the death of Jameel Clark, it is still true. But I am deeply afraid to live in a world with the people who responded to my op-ed.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released a survey that says that some Americans are tiring of their pastors bringing electoral politics to their pulpits.

Some Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics. A new survey finds a narrow majority of the public saying that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters. For a decade, majorities of Americans had voiced support for religious institutions speaking out on such issues.

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that most of the reconsideration of the desirability of religious involvement in politics has