Renewing an old friendship

Many priests can tell you about other priests who deeply influenced their vocation.
I can think of three right off the top of my head 1) Fr. William Davidson, my parish priest growing up, whom I served as an altar boy for many years, 2) Fr. John Scott, the priest at the parish where I got sober and came back to the faith. Both these men have passed on to their reward.

The third person was a priest at my High School, Fr. David Ladislaus Przedwiecki, OFMI. A Franciscan Friar, I never had him for class. But he was the head of the S. Stanislaus Kostka club (for those discerning vocations), and I traveled with him and 14 others to Europe for 6 weeks when I was 15. Fr. David's deep faith and joy peaked my interest in the priesthood as well as the Franciscan Order (of which I am a member of an Anglican Third Order Franciscan group now).

Over the years he and I have had occasional contact via phone and mail. He left the mainstream Franciscan Order (OFM) to found another with a special charism. As with many who try something new (actually this is something old now being revived) he has been misunderstood, has had to move around, and has had vicious rumors spread about him and his order. He has taken it with patience and resolve to continue to be faithful.

I have not spoken with him for several years, although I once stopped by his friary in Mt. Morris, Michigan while he happened to be away. Yesterday we were put in contact by a mutual friend and had a wonderful phone call. I hope, in the near future, to get together with him to share a meal and catch up in person. Although in the last 15 years I have spoken to him and corresponded via mail occasionally, I haven't actually seen him face to face since I was perhaps 16 years old!
His order has a website - www.ofmi.net if you would like to take a look.

More motive in the Knoxville shooting

Although the media continues to harp on the shooters hatred of liberalism, and how that Church represented this (and by liberalism he was writing more about political and frustration with unemployment), but I find this line most telling.....

While police said Adkisson did not mention his ex-wife in the note, they said she attended the TVUUC years ago. That's how he selected TVUUC to unleash his frustrations, police said.

Well...there it is.

(from www.knoxnews.com)

Liturgical repair rather than revision

Much of the liturgy of the 1979 Prayer Book reflects the English language translation of the Roman Novus Ordo (new order) of the Mass put forth after Vatican II (1960's). The latin text is VERY poorly translated into English. Many 'translations' had theological revisionist motive behind them.

Under John Paul II and now Benedict XVI they are correcting the translations. Will ECUSA correct theirs too? Unfortunately, the modernist Anglican liturgy continues to be revised with supplimental texts - revised in the wrong direction rather than corrected!

Below is an article from ZENIT news service on the corrections by the Roman Church. See if any of it sounds familiar to the old Anglican Service (which is based on the old Latin liturgy).

WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 28, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments approved the first section of the new English translation of the Roman Missal.The U.S. episcopal conference reported today that it received the "recognitio" from the Holy See for the Order of the Mass, the main section of the missal. The approval includes phrases such as "et cum spiritu tuo" (previously translated "and also with you") now to be rendered as "And with your spirit." In the Confiteor, the text "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault" has been added.The Gloria's translation and structure is different, and the first line of the Sanctus now reads "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts." The response of the people at the Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God) is "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." This is the first of 12 sections of the translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal.

A great photo of St. John's

Thank you to Carl Balduf for sending this to me. It is taken from high inside Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers baseball park)

Lambeth heating up...

Not just the weather. Rather, there intial report of the Windsor Continuation group, which has been working on a way forward in defining and reforming the Anglican Communion (and what it means to be a communion). It doesn't look good for those in the Episcopal Church who would like to continue with Same Sex Blessings and the like. It also makes arrangements for oversight of parishes/dioceses/provinces in disarray due to having to break with those keeping the new religion.

But it is an initial report, and you can guess that the majority of the cadre of 'progressive' bishops and their lobbying groups have been working late into the night to figure out how to influence their indaba groups and to derail the process.

But if they can't - they will probably find a fancy way to say they will agree, and then disregard it.

Pray, Pray, Pray for the Church, for the bishops, and for resolve to take the chastening we need...we all need if we are be valid 'sons'.

Hated Liberal Churches, or a problem with Christianity?

The media is reporting two different motives.

The Knoxville paper says, according to neighbors who knew him....

The man accused of a mass church shooting this morning was described by his Powell neighbors as a helpful and kind man, but one who had issues with Christianity.
Jim D. Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which killed one and injured eight others.
He is being held on $1 million bond.
"He had his own sense of belief about religion, that's the impression I got of him," said neighbor Karen Massey. "We were talking one day when my daughter graduated from Bible college, and I told him I was a Christian, then he almost turned angry.
"He seemed to get angry at that."
According to Massey, Adkisson talked frequently about his parents who "made him go to church all his life ... he was forced to do that."
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/27/neighbors-accused-shooter-everyones-friend-hated-c/

This is very different than the motive in the Associated Press article...

An unemployed man accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people at a Unitarian church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies, police said Monday.
Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said a letter had been been recovered from the SUV of Jim D. Adkisson, 58, by investigators seeking clues about the motive behind the attack. Authorities said he was an apparent stranger to the Tennessee church where gunfire punctuated a children's performance based on the musical "Annie." Two people were killed and seven wounded Sunday.
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said at a news conference.

Either way - there is just one real motive. Demonic - he gave in to the tempations of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil (secularism and unfaith, personal decision to take life to solve a problem, and the source of all lies and deception to justify it in his mind).

Keep praying. Lord have mercy upon all involved.

20 hours after the knoxville shooting...

It is interesting to watch how the coverage is playing out.

Knoxville paper and TV station continues to cover it with an insistance that no motive is known, and in covering the story ONE person said they heard him say 'hateful things', but others, including those who tackled him, said that he said nothing but was mumbling as they tackled him.

The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, using AP sources, drops any mention of the play as Sunday service, (now noted as "Annie Jr."), and adding (as did Fox News last night), that the Unitarian Church
"promotes progressive social work, such as desegregation and fighting for the rights of women and gays. The Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site" .
Why are the media sources reporting that the shooting had anything to do with a gay rights agenda or any other agenda for that matter? Fox News even had on the by-line "shooting at gay-friendly church". Are the prepping us for something they know but hasn't been released to the public yet, or are they trying to skew coverage?

Interesting to watch how the story will continue to be reported.

Tragic Shooting in a church in Knoxville...and a question.

It appears the shooter had no connection to the Church. Neighbors are giving the standard "nice guy", "paid the rent on time", "didn't seem like the type to shoot in a church"....

One of the local TV stations filed this report this morning. http://www.wbir.com/

11:00 am
Multiple people have suffered gunshot wounds in what witnesses describe as a mass shooting inside a church in West Knoxville Sunday morning.
The shootings happened at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Kingston Pike.
A witness who spoke to 10 News said police had arrived and one person was being detained at the scene.
A children's production of "Annie" was taking place as part of the normal Sunday service (emphasis mine) at the time of the shooting, the witness, who is a member of the church, said. The gunman walked into a packed sanctuary and opened fire.

Please pray for these folks as they deal with this tragedy. It will be interesting to hear the coverage in the coming days to hear a possible motive.

But my question - "Annie" as a part of the normal Sunday service?
Is this where worship goes in a denomination like the Unitarians - that have no doctrine?
Is "The sun will come out tomorrow" or "Its a hard knock life" a part of their teaching?
I am sure the kids were cute and worked hard on the production - but is this Sunday Morning Worship? I don't get it.....

An interesting view....

Tiger Stadium, with the left field stands demolished.
Sad to see the old place go! Unless the group who wants to save the field and a part of the stands comes up with the cash by Friday, the entire thing will be gone shortly thereafter.

A video from St. Michael's Conference for Youth

Go to

www.youtube.com/user/Stjohnspriest

to view the latest. Apparently linking up the feed itself was messing up the RSS on the parish website...

A photo from Lambeth

Our own Bishop Gibbs greeting Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams outside Canterbury Cathedral.

Thank you to Herb Gunn, editor of The Record, for this photo.

To read an interview with Bishop Gibbs about his first week at Lambeth to to

https://www.churchpost.com/view_mail.php?id=cp48874ccc039

A bishop from Sudan speaks

The Church in Sudan is persecuted: War, Famine, Islamic Jihad.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church!

Here is a faithful bishop speaking at the Lambeth Conference. Too bad so much time is going to have to spent talking about ECUSA and other Western Church's unfaithfulness....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lPnu8zVJ2k

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake - not SELF-righteousness sake (ie..something that makes yourself more comfortable or happy, instead of sacrifice for His sake!...)

Lambeth reporting

Compared with Lambeth 1998, there is LOTS more reporting going on, from inside out. Bishops are blogging like crazy!!! 1998 was well covered by reporters, and now the bishops themselves are giving their own spin on things.

I go regularly to www.kendallharmon.net/t19 for resources, including links to bishop's blogs.
I also like Ruth Gledhills blog - she is the religious correspondant for the London Times.
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/
Here is an article I find particulary interesting from Ms. Gledhill's blog.

Lambeth Diary: Into the 'Miry Pit' of Chaos.
It's about a hundred degrees and getting hotter in the Big Top at Lambeth but the £1 million black hole in the budget at the Lambeth Conference means they can't afford air conditioning. Expect fainting bishops to be ferried out by ambulances any moment now, if they don't start shooting each other first. The press conference this morning was a farce. Excommunications officers declined to comment on who is here for reasons of 'security' but declined to say what the 'security' issues were. Apparently there are some Nigerian bishops at the conference but we are not allowed to know who they are. Even the totally harmless and innocuous Church Press here are being denied access to the evening Eucharists. As for me, I was told yesterday that it was worth applying to attend the afternoon indaba groups. Today there is one called 'Never say No to Media', led by Rev Dr Joshva Raha, tutor at the Centre for Mission Studies at Queen's, Birmingham. I applied and they said no.
The conference is falling apart and it is only day two of official business. The Sudanese bishops, who were, astonishingly, stationed as Salisbury with the US Presiding Bishop and her team before the conference, have almost derailed the whole thing by virtually calling for Gene Robinson's resignation. One of their two statements today is here.
The funding crisis is more severe than we realised. A senior source has told me that the conference is up to £2 million in debt, and they are at a loss of how to meet this. 'We can't pay for it,' he told me, looking desperate. The prospect of the bailiffs turning up at Lambeth Palace to requisition some of those lovely old paintings of previous Archbishops is to unbearable for words. The Church Commissioners cannot help out because their trust deeds restrict financial aid to the English church only.
An emergency meeting has been called for the Commissioners and the Archbishop's Council immediately after the conference. Will TEC be handed the begging bowl? A bit embarrassing, isn't it, if on the one hand the conference organisers say, your legally elected bishop cannot come. And then on the other, they say: 'Help! Save us from our debt!'
This is why, I understand, we are all sweating like the proverbials. The big blue top where the bishops have their plenaries is, literally, hotter than hell itself. The prospect of air conditioning was explored, but when the estimate came in it was turned down. They just couldn't afford it.
And of course think of all that accommodation that has been booked. More than 230 rooms, presumably paid for, and lying empty. What a shame.
Poor Rowan Williams is trying his best, as we report. The retreat went well, the Archbishop seemed even to be beginning to enjoy himself. There are some genuinely good ideas for covenant and canon being worked out here. The trouble is, too many of the bishops don't want to know. It really is increasingly difficult to see how the Archbishop is going to resolve this mess. As he said yesterday, it will take nothing short of a miracle, and none knows how many Anglican bishops still believe in those.

Thanks be to God for the St. Michael's Conference!

What a great week at St. Mike's! The kids were wonderful, the worship great, the fellowship of faithful priests a blessing. What a perfect tonic in the midst of summer!

I tried to upload some videos of the conference to YouTube yesterday, but for some reason they are not there yet. When they are, will link them here.

Pray for the St. Michael's Conference for Youth

Please keep the Staff and Michaelites in your prayers as they meet this week at the St. Michael's Conference for Youth, Midwest!

In a bad 'space' right now

GAFCON, , Church of England's Synod, and soon Lambeth....
I have been doing too much internet browsing.

Pray for the Church,
and for me.

I look forward to St. Michael's Conference next week:
Worshipping, praying, teaching, being in the company of good faithful priests and lay leaders, and the Michaelites themselves - hope for tomorrow!

Rome's position - a summary.

APOSTOLIC LETTER ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS OF JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON RESERVING PRIESTLY ORDINATION TO MEN ALONE

Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate,
1. Priestly ordination, which hands on the office entrusted by Christ to his Apostles of teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone. This tradition has also been faithfully maintained by the Oriental Churches.
When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: "She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church."(1)
But since the question had also become the subject of debate among theologians and in certain Catholic circles, Paul VI directed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to set forth and expound the teaching of the Church on this matter. This was done through the Declaration Inter Insigniores, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be published.(2)
2. The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church "does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination."(3) To these fundamental reasons the document adds other theological reasons which illustrate the appropriateness of the divine provision, and it also shows clearly that Christ's way of acting did not proceed from sociological or cultural motives peculiar to his time. As Paul VI later explained: "The real reason is that, in giving the Church her fundamental constitution, her theological anthropology-thereafter always followed by the Church's Tradition- Christ established things in this way."(4)
In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."(5)
In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood,(6) the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers(7) who would succeed them in their ministry.(8) Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.(9)
3. Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
The presence and the role of women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable. As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, "the Church desires that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the true face of the Church."(10)
The New Testament and the whole history of the Church give ample evidence of the presence in the Church of women, true disciples, witnesses to Christ in the family and in society, as well as in total consecration to the service of God and of the Gospel. "By defending the dignity of women and their vocation, the Church has shown honor and gratitude for those women who-faithful to the Gospel-have shared in every age in the apostolic mission of the whole People of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and mothers of families, who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the Church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the Gospel."(11)
Moreover, it is to the holiness of the faithful that the hierarchical structure of the Church is totally ordered. For this reason, the Declaration Inter Insigniores recalls: "the only better gift, which can and must be desired, is love (cf. 1 Cor 12 and 13). The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not the ministers but the saints."(12)
4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.
Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.
From the Vatican, on May 22, the Solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1994, the sixteenth of my Pontificate.

Moscow and Rome weigh in....

Apparently only the shrinking parts of the Anglican Communion gets it right, and the rest of Catholic/Orthodox Christendom is wrong????

Moscow, 8 July 2008 (Interfax):
The Moscow Patriarchate expressed concern about the Anglican Synod’s decision yesterday to ordain women to the episcopate. “Undoubtedly, this decision is an utterly unhealthy step in the inter-Christian dialogue, as it further alienates the Anglican Communion from the Apostolic tradition”, Fr Igor Vyzhanov, head of the secretariat for Inter-Christian Relations of the MP Department for External Church Relations, stated to an Interfax-Religion correspondent on Tuesday. Fr Igor also said that the Anglican Synod’s decision to ordain women to the episcopate “is a very painful blow to the unity of the Anglican Communion, as it aggravates the division amongst Anglicans. Unfortunately, the decision was predictable because very liberal tendencies prevail in many Christian Churches today, particularly in the Anglican Communion”, he said.
In the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, the Orthodox saw the Anglican Church as “the closest to us amongst the western Christian Churches”, he said. “A very serious dialogue resulted, leading to hopes that good relations between the Orthodox and Anglicans would have good prospects”, Fr Igor said. “If we look at documents of that time, one simply cannot believe that it was the same church then, because, now, regretfully, we see how the Anglican Communion increasingly abandons the traditional understanding of church life”, he said.
In his opinion, the present decision of the Anglican Communion manifests “the tendency of secular European thought to follow everything through to its logical conclusion”. Fr Igor emphasised that church life and the sphere of religious faith “is not the place to apply the rational logic of secular society”. In this connection, he quoted the words of a well-known philosopher that said, “Any thought carried through to its logical conclusion becomes an absurdity”. “We see what absurd results flow from an application of liberal ideas to, for example, Christian moral standards”, Fr Igor said.
He noted that the MP shall attentively follow the developments at the Lambeth Conference, the largest meeting of representatives from all the Anglican churches, which is scheduled to begin on 16 July and run through 3 August. He mentioned that this conference shall discuss, amongst other things, questions of Anglican cooperation in the field of Christian moral theology; in particular, it shall examine the question of homosexuality, both the ordination of openly gay individuals and the blessing of homosexual unions.
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=25357 (in Russian)
--------------------
8 July 08 - RV) The Vatican Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity issued a Statement Tuesday regarding recent events within the Anglican Communion.The Council is headed by Cardinal Walter Kasper. The statement reads: “We have regretfully learned of the Church of England vote to pave the way for the introduction of legislation which will lead to the ordaining of women to the Episcopacy.The Catholic position on the issue was clearly expressed by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Such a decision signifies a breaking away from the apostolic tradition maintained by all of the Churches since the first millennium, and therefore is a further obstacle for the reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.This decision will have consequences on the future of dialogue, which had up until now born fruit, as Cardinal Kasper had clearly explained when he spoke on June 5 2006 to all of the bishops of the Church of England at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury.The Cardinal has been invited once again to express the Catholic position at the next Lambeth Conference at the end of July”.

Sorting out the news from England

I gleaned this from the Telegraph (London) paper which explains the timetable, and a glimmer of hope for repentence, or perhaps our Lord will return first!

"The church's drafting group is now likely to draw up legislation which will bring in women bishops, by 2014 at the earliest, with only an as yet unwritten national code of practice to cater for those who firmly believe the Bible teaches that bishops must be male, as Jesus and his apostles were.
However those who oppose women bishops say their views must still be taken into account, and pointed out that a two-thirds majority will be needed for the legislation to be agreed in two or three years' time"

For more information, try
www.kendallharmon.net/t19

EDIT - Anglicanism takes one step further away from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church...

... the C of E votes to allow the introduction of the novelty of women into the Episcopate, further damaging the cause for Christian Unity through sound theological doctrine.

When you try to change the nature of a Sacrament contrary to the teaching of the Universal Church (remember Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy constitute 1.5 BILLION Christians, Anglicanism 70 MILLION), you lessen your claim to be a member of the Church Catholic (without whose faith you CANNOT BE SAVED - Athanasian Creed), and become just another protestant sect.

God help us as He sorts it all out.....
--------
EDIT - here is someone who is writing in the same vein, from the London Telegraph newspaper.

The Church of England is Protestant again
Damian Thompson
Monday, July 7, 2008, 11:27 PM GMT
A couple of hours ago, the Church of England decisively severed itself from its Catholic roots. By voting to ordain women bishops without significant safeguards for traditionalists, it reasserted its identity as a Protestant Church. Whether it will be a liberal or conservative Protestant denomination remains to be seen. But any hope of unity with Rome and the Orthodox has gone forever.
I'm not sorry. From the moment the C of E voted to ordain women priests in 1992, it cut itself off from the Catholic mainstream. But unexpectedly generous safeguards allowed traditionalists to cordon themselves off from the rest of the Church, persuading themselves that they, rather than the main body, preserved its true Catholic identity.
This was always a delusion, and now it is truly unsustainable. The General Synod tonight made a commonsense decision. If you have women priests, you must have women bishops - indeed, I remember Dr David Hope, then Bishop of London, telling me that the Church should in theory have started with women bishops and then moved on to priests.
What the Anglo-Catholics have lost tonight is their standing in the Church of England. They are no longer honoured traditionalists who have been allowed to preserve an (almost) watertight communion of their own, nurtured by powerful bishops who sustain their sacramental purity.
From now on, they will be the C of E's granny in the attic, whose eccentricities are tolerated only at family get-togethers. If, that is, they are silly enough to stay.
What a painful debate this was. This time round, in contrast to 1992, the Synod knew it was demolishing a wing of the building, and there was preciously little triumphalism. Dr Rowan Williams seemed especially crushed: he had argued - reluctantly - for tight safeguards for traditionalists, but the assembly ignored his advice. That doesn't bode well for Lambeth.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2008/07/07/the_church_of_england_is_protestant_again

Let us pray

The Collect for Independence Day
O Eternal God, through whose mighty power our fathers won their liberties of old; Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Collect For Our Country
Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; we humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united peoples the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperty, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Document that started it all!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

GAFCON - from further right

GAFCON was primarily called together by those who would be called the Evangelical Party in the old days. Way back when the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelicals were frequently at great odds with each other. Today, with the threats of increasing secularism in the Church, the Anglo-catholics and Evangelicals find themselves working together in a battle for more foundational principles.

One reason the Anglo-catholic movement in Anglicanism (particularly in the USA) has been weakened is because of the massive defections of Anglo-catholics to Rome and to the Continuing Churches - those break-away bodies starting in the 1970's with the St. Louis Affirmation. Unfortunately, the Continuum has not been able to provide a united voice, and has fractured into smaller and smaller fragments.

One of those bodies claimed a retired bishop who was a dear mentor to me - Brother John Charles Vockler, FODC. A retired bishop of Australia and Melanesia, who later became an Anglican Franiscan Friar, he retired to the Diocese of Quincy and was my vicar while I was in seminary. Shortly before my graduation he left ECUSA and became a bishop of the Anglican Catholic Church. He ended up being Metropolitan for many years, and is now retired from that.

The Current Metropolitan has issued and evaluation of the recent statements from GAFCON, and it is worth looking at. For many of us, the issues is not human sexuality, but it is general disobedience to the bigger Apostolic Teaching. In this you see the attempt to change the foundational Traditions based in Scripture and held by the LARGER CHURCH (Rome, Orthodoxy and historic Anglicanism) throughout the ages, such as the form for the apostolic ordained ministry which is reserved to men. "If we can change the priesthood as handed to us by the Apostles, then why can't everything else be changed?" Back in the 70's few would have thought that way - look how far we have come since!

This is certainly worth reading and thinking about as God is busy sorting it all out!

--------------------------------------
> > METROPOLITAN’S MESSAGE: GAFCON 2008> > > >

A number of self-described traditional Anglicans from around the globe, including many bishops and archbishops from the ‘global South’ bodies of the official Anglican Communion, recently met in Jerusalem at a meeting called GAFCON. This meeting was called largely in response to the refusal of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and of the Anglican Church of Canada to heed earlier calls to rein in innovations concerning matters of sexual morality, including notably the ordination and consecration of self-proclaimed and practicing homosexuals and the blessing of ‘same sex unions’.

GAFCON produced a now widely published statement which does not address the innovations that led to the formation of our own Continuing Church in 1976-8: namely the ‘ordination of women’, a new and radical Prayer Book, and a pro-abortion policy. Concerning GAFCON and its statement, I have several observations, which I believe are widely shared in the Anglican Catholic Church and, indeed, by most Continuing Churchmen. For that reason I make bold to write in the first person plural in what follows.

1. On the immediate issues that led to the GAFCON conference, we stand with GAFCON and its statement. That is, the ACC believes and teaches what Scripture and the universal Church have always taught everywhere concerning human sexuality. We would only note that GAFCON fails to address the problem of divorce and remarriage, which antedates the present crisis concerning homosexuality, and which in many ways prepared the ground for the more recent aberration.

2. The GAFCON statement, by its silence concerning the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate, implies that this earlier aberration is tolerable, if not desirable, and is at worst a much less serious departure from the universal practice of the orthodox and catholic Church than is homosexuality. This silence and its implications are profoundly mistaken. The ordination of women and homosexuality both flow from a confusion concerning both sexual roles and also the place of sexual identity in Church and Christian life. Furthermore, pretending to ordain women to Holy Orders requires a rejection of clear Biblical teaching and of the unbroken practice of the Catholic and Orthodox Church. The ordination of women is in effect a claim by official Anglican bodies to authority over the deposit of the Faith. The ordination of women assumes a falsehood: that Anglicans have authority to alter the doctrine and practice of the central Tradition of Christendom, which is represented by the consensus of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and all older Anglican Churches. Such a claim, once made, can be pressed into service to justify any further innovation or aberration in doctrine or morals. No one should be surprised that Churches which began to ordain women in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, began to legitimize homosexual conduct in the 1990s and in the first decade of the 21st century.

3. GAFCON asserts and appeals for support to formularies which have a notable Anglican pedigree: namely the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the three Creeds, and the first four Ecumenical Councils. No one can or should deny the authority of these formularies. However, these same formularies received formal assent from the same Anglican bodies that since the 1970s have abandoned orthodox and catholic doctrine as noted above. Many Anglican bodies traditionally cultivated a kind of studied doctrinal ambiguity which combined material toleration of grave theological errors with formal acceptance of traditional creeds and formulas. Therefore, the Continuing Churches wisely have fixed our doctrinal stance firmly in the Affirmation of Saint Louis. The Affirmation, confirmed by the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Catholic Church, explicitly positions the ACC within the great central Tradition of Christendom, represented by the consensus of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches and of the teaching of the Undivided Church of the first millennium. Since the studied ambiguities of some traditional Anglicans permitted the grave errors of recent years to arise, it is no longer enough to recapitulate compromise positions and formulas. A clearer, more explicitly catholic and orthodox stance is demanded by the times. GAFCON’s statement, therefore, is far inferior to the Affirmation and in the long run will not stand up to the winds of error blowing in our world. I would note also that the Affirmation is not a confession or a new statement of belief, but rather affirms the authority of the great central Tradition of Christendom.

4. By way of fixing our own Church’s teaching clearly, I note the following teachings of the Affirmation of Saint Louis and of the Anglican Catholic Church on matters about which GAFCON is silent:
– there are Seven Ecumenical Councils, not merely Four;
– while the 1662 Prayer Book has many strengths, it also has some notable weaknesses, including a truncated Eucharistic Canon, which the 1928 American, 1954 South African, and other later Prayer Books have corrected. We by no means assert the invalidity of any form in the 1662 book, but neither can we accept that 1662 is the central or best model for Anglican liturgy;
– the 1979 Episcopalian Prayer Book, and many other contemporary language books at use in the official Anglican Communion, are radically flawed and are often subject to grave theological objection;
– all three Holy Orders are male in character;
– the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are generally necessary for salvation and as divine acts convey God’s offer of grace objectively and unfailingly;
– there are seven sacraments received by the central Tradition of the universal Church, namely Baptism; Confirmation or Chrismation, the Eucharist, Penance, Unction of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders.
– all Anglican formularies, practices, and beliefs properly are subject to evaluation and interpretation in the light of the central Tradition. If both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches reject something that some Anglicans believe, then that something probably is false, particularly if it concerns a matter of importance. Our security lies in the authority of Scripture as interpreted by the universal Tradition and by the living consensus of the great Churches, not in peculiarly Anglican notions;
– human life is sacred from the moment of conception to natural death, and directly willed abortion always is gravely sinful.
– valid Christian marriage establishes an indissoluble sacramental bond which cannot be broken save by death;

5. We call upon all self-described Anglicans to reject clearly and decisively all of the liturgical, moral, and theological errors of recent years, beginning with the ordination of women. We call upon all self-described Anglicans to return to the central Tradition of Christendom and to recognize that evangelical and neo-Pentecostalist Protestantism is no safe haven. We welcome GAFCON as a small step in the right direction. But we confidently predict that the ambiguities and silences that characterize its statement will lead rapidly to fragmentation and confusion without any countervailing theological achievement. The only issue addressed in a somewhat adequate fashion by GAFCON is homosexuality.
Far more is at stake.

– The Most Reverend Mark Haverland, Ph.D.
Archbishop and Acting Primate
Anglican Catholic Church

Childhood memory

John Rogers / Associated Press
LOS ANGELES -- Larry Harmon, who appeared as Bozo the Clown for decades and licensed the name to other Bozos around the world, had died at age 83.
Harmon died Thursday at his home of congestive heart failure, his longtime publicist, Jerry Digney, told The Associated Press.
Although not the first person to play Bozo, Harmon took on the famous clown's persona and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly TV stations. Those stations then recruited their own Bozos for local shows.

Harmon met his alter ego after answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote records. He got the job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo.
Along the way, he embellished Bozo's distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume.

St. Arbucks

Over the last few years some church growth people have looked to the coffee chain Starbucks (nicknamed by these churchy folks as St. Arbucks) as a model for growing Churches. I obviously don't follow the newest fad about these things.

I do like Starbucks coffee, but rarely drink it anymore (I can make several POTS of coffee at home/office for the price of one cup there). But I do like the way their coffee tastes!

I say all this because the chain has been in the news lately.
With the economy down, combined with the proliferation of coffee places (heck -even McDonalds sells premium coffee now), their sales/profits are WAY down.

They brought back the old CEO/Founder, introed a new coffee line, and announced they are closing 600 stores.

600. Seems like a lot.

Until I read the end of the interview. There are over 10,000 Starbucks stores in the USA, 15,000 worldwide!

I would have never imagined 20 years ago that people would pay $2 for a regular cup of Coffee ($5 for something fancy) or pay for water in a bottle! Wow!

Found before we knew it was gone

Today a Police Detective knocked on our front door, to let us know that they had recovered Andrew's stolen bike. We didn't know it was gone.

The garage door had been opened unattended for 10 minutes or so in the late afternoon yesterday. William noticed that Sam's bike was on the lawn, odd since it has a flat tire and Sam hadn't rode for a while.

I guess they must have grabbed his first, and finding it flat, took Andrew's.

Another neighbor also had their bike stolen and reported it to the police. When the police apprehended that suspect, one of the three accomplices turned evidence, and after a search of a house turned up several stolen bikes, the one who fessed up showed the police which house(s) it was stolen from!

Andrew picked it up at the police station today - with a new Grosse Pointe Park ID sticker on it (his was the newest and only one without the sticker). The suspects were over 17 and are under arrest.

Good police work GPP Public Safety!

Responses to the Jerusalem Statement

As you can imagine, such a strong statement as published below, will definately draw people out to respond.

Those who support Biblical Anglicanism are happy!
The Bishop of Ft. Worth, Texas
http://www.fwepiscopal.org/bishop/bishop.html
The Archbishop of Sydney
http://news.theage.com.au/national/jensen-says-anglican-church-hasnt-split-20080630-2z5n.html

Those who are being called to account are not...
The Archbishop of Canterbury http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/13839/
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/13851/

I am sure that the responses will be flying, fast and furious, in the coming days and weeks.
To check in on responses to GAFCON, source documents, and the opinions of various bloggers (of all sides of opinion) you can check http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/13855/

Thank you to Kendall Harmon for his fine work on his site TitusOneNine!
The upcoming Lambeth Conference should be interesting!

Statement from GAFCON

Available at www.gafcon.org
Gleaned from www.kendallharmon.net/t19


STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE
Praise the LORD!
It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2)
Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!

Introduction
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).
GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:
- launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
- publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
- Encourage the GAFCON Primates to form a Council.

The Global Anglican Context
The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.

The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism.
The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.
The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold.
The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honour promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure’. Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.

A Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world. Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

Global Anglican Future Statement, 29 June 2008
The Jerusalem Declaration
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.
1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

The Road Ahead
We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation.
Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.

Primates’ Council
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans. We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith. We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons. We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.
We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.

Conclusion: Message from Jerusalem
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.
The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.
It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.
Jerusalem
Feast of St Peter and St Paul
29 June 2008

William's All Star Game

It was great fun having William play in the Single A Little League All Star game on Sunday afternoon!

3 kids from each team was chosen to play. They divided into 2 teams and played a regular game after having a 'home run derby'.

William played outfield twice, short stop once, and first base once. He got a single (eventually rounding the bases to score), and hit into a grounder's choice as well. It is 'coach pitch' so nearly every kid puts the bat on the ball every time. He enjoyed playing in the game with his teammates J.D. and Noah.

Afterwards they enjoyed a trip to the concession stand for pizza and soda.

Video highlights can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02cptDakTOQ

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6s3Rq4UDkI

Regular Little League is now over for the year. Sam and Andrew's team didn't win a game in the round-robin of the play-offs. Like almost all their loses this year, they were by 1 or 2 runs.

Next week we start "second season", a more laid back version of Little League. There are two games a week, all held Monday through Thursday (unless you need to make up a rain cancellation). I will most likely be managing a team for Sam and Andrew, and William (being a 7 year old All Star) gets to move up to Double A for second season.