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Treating Friends like Enemies
Anglo Catholics may be wrong, I think they are, but they are not hostile and they are not our enemies nor are they enemies of the gospel. They are friends. And what is more, they are friends who do not insist that evangelicals accept their understanding of the priesthood. The very last thing evangelical Anglicans ought to do at this point is send our warships over their lines. But that is essentially what Sydney proposes to do.
Wednesday, September 1 • 
57
The Anglican Consultative Council’s Standing Committee: Who Is Janet Trisk?
While it's clear that she is a progressive/revisionist activist of the most extreme, the Sea of Faith Network is certainly a few steps beyond revisionist Anglican activism -- beyond support for non-celibate gay relationships and their affirmation, beyond feminist Marxist liberation theology, beyond manipulation of political processes at ACC meetings, beyond heretical Christology. Other than the Sea of Faith's interest in the use of religion, it would be hard to find a more antithetically religious organization than one that denies the objective existence of God. And just because Janet Trisk has had some book reviews posted on the Sea of Faith Network doesn't mean she's a member of such an interesting, albeit godless, organization. But the shocking fact is that Janet Trisk is a member of the Sea of Faith Network.
Monday, August 16 • 143
21 Lessons Learned during the Lawsuit
16. Never express bitterness or resentment toward the judge, the diocese, the bishop or anyone else to the congregation. Resentment spreads like gangrene and the last thing you need when everything is all over, is a bitter, angry congregation. That’s the quickest way to die. Here’s the attitude I wanted my people to have: “God has entrusted us with this time of struggle and sacrifice. We must glorify him by forgiving and loving those who persecute us. This is not a tragedy it is an honor and a privilege to be called to lose everything so that we may walk with Jesus in his way.” I preached that, taught it, and counselled it. Resentment, while present, has not been a major problem.
Tuesday, July 13 • 92
The ACNA and the Filioque: Decisions Matter
One thing holds him back from becoming a full member. He’s not sure about Anglicanism. His struggle is a theological one. It has nothing to do with his feelings or how welcoming or seeker sensitive Good Shepherd is or isn't. His decision to stay or go depends upon his biblically critical estimation of Anglicanism.
Tuesday, July 6 • 174
Leaving Home, Part IV
I could tell it wasn't going well. I'm pretty good at reading people's faces. It wasn't that they gave any tell-tale signs of disapproval, it was just that they didn't seem interested at all. They exchanged occasional glances, commented very little, and, most revealingly, didn't read or listen very carefully. Everything about their body language said: "Our minds were made before we got here and nothing you've shown us has changed that." After we finished, they excused themselves and went to another room to talk.
Tuesday, June 29 • 38
TEC Announces Members of Task Force to Create Liturgies for Same-Sex Blessings
It's a source of frustration for me - and no doubt a source of joy for our Worthy Opponents - that no matter how brazen or successful or disruptive they are in advancing their agenda, there seems to be nothing that triggers any sort of pushback from the Beloved Moderates - on whom, like their counterparts in secular political elections, the ultimate outcome of changes such as these rests. But there we are: In about 20 years, the Episcopal Church has gone from a few rogue priests doing gay "marriages" disguised as home blessings, to a task force that in two short years will develop and present for approval by General Convention, liturgies for same-sex blessings.
Tuesday, June 29 • 57
Breaking Up is Hard to Do. Even More So for the Men. And Especially for Jesus.
So the researchers are right- breaking up is hard to do, especially for the men, and thus we need to be careful.
But also take great comfort that, at the end of the day, breaking up is impossible for Jesus to do, no matter how undeserving we, His bride, are. He has cleaved to His wife and shows us how to model our own marriages in the same way.
Monday, June 21 • 22
Disciplining the Ecclesiastical Child (Updated)
As you attempt to make small talk across the table with uncle Joe, little Joe Jr. happily plunges his grubby hands into the mashed potatoes and hurls fistfuls at his distinguished and pained grandfather across the table. Aunt Mary gently coos "Now Joey, wouldn't it be much nicer to eat the mashed potatoes rather than throw them?" To which little Joey answers, "No" because in fact it would not be "nice" at all. He's having a grand time of it and wishes his mother would just shut up. Uncle Joe, father, can't step in because he is far too cowed by Aunt Mary, mother, to say anything at all except, "Please pass the dressing." And so dinner wears on, everyone being far too polite to do what must unavoidably be done--take little Joey to his room for a healthy administration of negative reinforcement. So Joe Jr. simply continues to throw mashed potatoes at Grandfather whilst Aunt Mary continues to coo softly and smile at him because he is after all so very cute when he is naughty.
Tuesday, June 8 • 43
Guardian Attempts To Excuse Poor Journalism
Did he actually mean that because he read it on a revisionist site, it MUST be true? Evidently reporting on breaking news from September 2007 causes the average Guardian editor to throw caution to the wind. Can't you just hear it now - Stop the presses, damn the caution, let's run with it Harry, old chap. Can't keep this three year old news from the waiting public!
Monday, June 7 • 11
Memorial Day: Omaha Beach & A Misallocation of Resources [Warning: Graphic Visual Content]
As the viewer wanders through the countryside with the small group of soldiers looking for Private Ryan, one slowly recognizes the incredible price that was paid in that war for our freedom. The film is meant to hold a very challenging and convicting mirror up to viewers, and the people holding the mirror are those men, living and dying. We are judged by them, even though they did not know us. This is made explicitly clear with the final words of Captain John Miller to Private Ryan: "Earn this. Earn it." There is no question that we are Private Ryan, down through the generations which are following WWII.
Monday, May 31 • 27
Responses to the Archbishop’s Pentecost Letter from the Stand Firm team
Below are the initial quick responses of the Stand Firm team to the Archbishop's Pentecost letter. If Jackie and Greg decide to weigh in (which would mean that Greg would have to get up at the crack of noon) I will add their thoughts to what I have below.
Friday, May 28 • 16
Ruth Gledhill Tears Hole in Fabric of Rationality
Was it ever possible for an evangelical to be for sex acts between two people of the same sex? Ever? Certainly there are some people who call themselves "evangelical", "Christian", "orthodox" etc...who are in favor of sex acts between two people of the same sex just like there are people who call themselves Napoleon Bonaparte or who believe themselves to be horses. But no real evangelical favors sex acts between two people of the same sex because to be evangelical is to believe certain things about the authority of scripture that make such a belief impossible.
Monday, May 17 • 46
Why nobody seems to care about the consecration of Mary Glasspool
That the Episcopal Church--an evaporating pond already overstocked with committed Muslims, witches and wizards, Sufi dancers, labyrinths, cosmic techno masses, Buddhists, John Spong, Marcus Borg, John Chane, and, yes, many people who engage in sex acts with members of the same sex--tosses an episcopal lesbian into the stagnating water just isn't news.
Sunday, May 16 • 197
Soft Talk: Conditioning People to Reject Orthodoxy
So when the next rector search or bishop election comes along and two candidates who differ on this particular question are set side by side, the lay person/clergy who has been conditioned to see the controversy over same sex behavior as a debate "within" the Church rather than an attack against it will be willing to consider each candidate using technocratic measures like "experience" or "qualifications" rather than measures like, "does this person's life and doctrine measure up to that which is given as a requirement in scripture?"
Tuesday, May 11 • 70
Sermon & Legal Complaint from John Nieman Lawsuit [UPDATED w/Quote from Family Atty]
Tomorrow the Diocese of Rio Grande will elect a new bishop. Will they elect John Nieman, who cost his parish $42,500 because he chose to scold his congregation about the way they handled the situation surrounding the father of a 15-year old boy who came out of the closet?
Friday, April 23 • 36
[Diocese of Southeast Florida] The Pastor, the Pedophile and CAIR [DISTURBING CONTENT]
With the above roundup of facts on Wilifred Allen-Faiella and her parish, I'll simply close with asking SF readers to contemplate, yet again, the nature of our Episcopal Church leaders. These are the people whom the discernment processes of our dioceses are churning out and whom our seminaries are pouring out onto the streets of TECdom, who are representing us at General Convention and in Diocesan Conventions, who are leading our parishes, who are casting their votes for resolutions, who are nominated as bishops, and who are pontificating in pulpits all around the country. Clueless. Incompetent. Smug. Faddish. Heretical. Preening. Pretentious. And apparently, incredibly unconcerned about things that really really really ought to be of intense concern, whether it's the oldest church building in the county being torn down for a development, or men raping boys, or Christian theology and faith. It's as if there's a real ... vacancy -- as if there is something fundamental missing. Even pagans outside in the real world -- people who don't claim to be Christians -- can be wise, competent, humble, respectful of tradition, understated, dignified, and appropriately concerned about concerning things. So what happened to our clergy?
Wednesday, April 21 • 42
Anatomy of a Hit Piece
“It’s sad and troubling that some parents instill values of exclusion and teach their children to disrespect and bully those who are different from them. These shirts promote harassment and bullying of actual or perceived LGBT youth, plain and simple."
Wednesday, April 14 • 20
BREAKING: Anis, Orombi And Now Ernest (Indian Ocean) Write To The Archbishop of Canterbury
...it is now abundantly clear to me and to my people that the Episcopal Church has no intention of honouring any of the commitments it has made whether that be in terms of ‘moratoriums’ or ‘gracious restraint’. It is to my mind hell bent on a course that is in radical disobedience to the counsels of God in Holy Scripture.