When an Episcopal chaplain at Yale University seemed to suggest that Jews were culpable for Israel's actions against Palestinians and a related rise in global anti-Semitism, his comments not only led to his resignation but rekindled a debate within mainline Protestant churches about how to respond to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a letter to The New York Times responding to an op-ed by Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt about rising European anti-Semitism, the Rev. Bruce Shipman wrote that "the best antidote to anti-Semitism would be for Israel's patrons abroad to press the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for final-status resolution to the Palestinian question."

Several readers interpreted Shipman's letter as an attempt to hold all Jews across the globe responsible for the actions of the Israeli state. Less than two weeks later, on Sept. 4, he resigned his post in New Haven.

While the Episcopal Church supports a two-state solution and advocates for peace and reconciliation between both sides, Shipman's flare-up reflects ongoing debate within several mainline denominations about divestment from Israel, sensitivities around anti-Semitism and uneasy attempts to strike a balance.

Advocates for peace between Palestine and Israel within the Episcopal Church see a growing divide, observed Linda Gaither of the Palestine Israel Network within the independent group Episcopal Peace Fellowship.

"There's a gap between the leadership of the church and networks within the church," added Gaither, whose group has defended Shipman's comments. "It is not anti-Semitism to raise the question of the actions of the state of Israel. We must differentiate between the need for all of us to stand firm against anti-Semitism (and) the need to continue the Episcopal Church's stance against occupation."

The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted earlier this summer to divest pension funds from three companies that sell nonlethal equipment to the Israeli military. Jewish groups denounced the move as biased against Israel and damaging to interfaith relations.

"These denominations that used to be uniformly pro-Israel are having significant pressure from groups to be critical of Israel," observed Jeff Walton, communications manager for the Institute on Religion & Democracy, a conservative Washington think tank that is frequently critical of mainline denominations.

"This is most pronounced in the PC(USA), but we're seeing signs in the Episcopal Church, and Shipman's letter is an example of that."

Mainline denominations have been debating divestment for a decade or more. In 2012, the United Methodist Church defeated, by a 2-1 margin, divestment from companies accused of contributing to "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories" at its General Conference. The same year, the Episcopal Church declined to offload holdings in companies that sell nonlethal equipment to Israeli military."

"When an advocate for divestment contacts a clergy person, that probably has less weight than the local rabbi who meets the Episcopal priest at the golf club," said Walton, whose group has worked against divestment. "The organic social relationships between clergy probably lead to strong interfaith relationships that they wish to preserve."

*****
The Anglican Archbishop of Wales, the Most Rev. Dr. Barry Morgan, once famously said that he would resist the founding of another province with every fiber of his body. He was, of course, alluding to the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). He made this statement at the 2009 Virginia Annual Council.

Well, his body might need new fibers because his Church might not be around for very much longer at the present rate of decline.

According to the latest statistics (2013), the Anglican Church in Wales shows Average Sunday Attendance (over 18) of just a little over 31,000 and under 18 of just a few over 6,000. That's a drop of some 1,728 persons (over and under age 18) from 2012. Photos reveal most of the grey heads to be well over 60. So the future of the church is heading over the cliffs of St. Dogmaels unless the church can entice Millennials in.

The trend for the future will be much the same as the past as there are no green shoots of renewal extant in the province, a source told VOL. Wales is the former ecclesiastical home of the not so revered Dr. Rowan Williams.

You can read the full story here or in today's digest. http://tinyurl.com/papstqb

*****

For 18 months, The Episcopal Church's Taskforce for Reimagining itself has been on a search for how to make itself grow (or stop from hemorrhaging) in an era of declining church attendance and post-modern rejection of church. It has come up with some preliminary ideas that even a number of liberals have found distasteful, among them increased powers for the Presiding Bishop.

In setting out its vision of an Episcopal Church led by this Presiding Bishop (and certainly the next), there were few checks on his or her executive powers. Note: the Presiding Bishop has no diocese of her own and her only real authority is managing General Convention.

It recommended the following: diminishing the size of the Executive Council and limiting its role in the management and governance of the church; reducing the size of General Convention, shortening its duration and limiting its agenda; and replacing much of the full time staff of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society with contractors appointed by the Presiding Bishop.

The recommendations also call for the elimination of all Standing Commissions, replacing them with task forces appointed by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies.

You can read the full story in today's digest.

*****

When women bishops come, conservative Anglicans will find home in the Anglican Mission in England.
The AMIE looks like a support group, but if required, it could turn into more than that, says Isabel Hardman writing in THE SPECTATOR this week.

Anglicans aren't the sort of church-goers who set much store by miracles, signs and wonders. Yet their own church is one of the greatest miracles of our society: it has managed to hang together, in spite of raging differences, for centuries.

Since July 14, that miracle has been under threat. For most, it was a great leap forward when the General Synod finally approved the ordination of women bishops. A delighted Archbishop of Canterbury was "grateful to God and to answered prayers. David Cameron called it a "great day for the church and for equality".

But one section of the church didn't feel it was a great day. Members of the conservative evangelical movement, represented by a pressure group called Reform, have resisted this change for years. Reform was set up after the Church of England approved the ordination of women as priests in 1993. Before the vote on women bishops, they and the remaining Anglo-Catholics had argued there was insufficient provision for those who still believed that the Bible does not permit women to lead in this way. The conservatives feared being forced to submit to a bishop whose authority they disputed. They lost the argument.

Next week, Reform will hold a conference for its members to decide what happens next. What does happen next will surely change the character of the Church of England, for better or worse. VOL will post the results of this meeting.

*****

The Archbishop of Canterbury admits that he struggles with doubt about the existence of God. The Most Reverend Justin Welby admits he wrestles with disbelief -- most recently when out on his morning jog.

He also acknowledged that Christians have trouble explaining why God allows suffering in the world. The extraordinarily honest admission -- during which the Archbishop said he was straying into territory where an Anglican leader should not go -- came as he spoke during a visit to Bristol Cathedral earlier this week.

Asked if he ever struggled with doubt, the Archbishop said: 'Yes I do. I mean there are moments where you think 'Is there a God?', 'Where is God?'"

He added that there are moments when he is struck with doubt even while praying, including during his morning jogs near his official London residence Lambeth Palace.

*****

An Orange County, NC, grand jury formally charged Matthew John Reed, 36, this week with the murder of a 71-year-old Rev. Kent Torrey Hinkson, a retired ACNA priest pastor from Durham.

Reed, a Texas native with ties to Ohio and Raleigh, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Fr Hinkson, whose family reported him missing Aug. 4.

Reed's next scheduled court appearance will be Sept. 26 in Orange County Criminal Superior Court.

Hinkson's body was found Aug. 10 in the Eno River State Park, near the intersection of U.S. 70 and Interstate 85 in Orange County. Reed, who listed his address as 3243 Calumet Court in Raleigh, reportedly led Durham police to the site.

*****

Patsy Norton of Kingsford, Michigan, went to the VA hospital in Iron Mountain on business. While there, she stopped at the chapel and found pinky-purple curtains with mesh at the top, covering the altar. (You know the type. They use them between sick patients in the hospital).

"I stopped in my tracks, shocked at what I saw. I peeked behind the curtain and found what used to be the welcoming part of the chapel: the Cross, a picture of Jesus, and other Christian icons familiar to the majority of Americans.

"I found Chaplain Bob Mueller, and asked what the meaning of this change was. This is what he told me:

"A couple of months ago, an order came down from Washington DC to cover all things associated with Christianity in the VA. Their solution is to cover everything in all the VA chapels across the country.

"Chaplain Bob went on to say, 'A few weeks ago an official from the Madison, Wisconsin VA came down here to tell me to "stop talking about Jesus, and to stop reading Scripture out loud."'

"Chaplain Bob also said that the rest of the Obama plan is to send more curtains to cover the stained glass windows, because there are Christian symbols on the stained glass.

"To use the same phrase President Obama so 'eloquently' used concerning other matters at the VA, "I'm mad as hell!"

"As Americans, we need to stand together to stop this insanity."

Bishop Derek Jones who heads the Armed Forces diocese for the ACNA confirmed the story.

*****

The Anglican Church in North America will officially install Dr. Foley Beach as archbishop on October 9, in a Service of Investiture which will take place at 7:00 p.m. at the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be attended by eight global archbishops representing more than 50 million Anglicans.

The Most Rev. Dr. Eliud Wabukala, chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GFCA) and Archbishop and Primate of Kenya, will help lead the service.

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), a denomination of more than 112,000 members spanning Canada, the United States and Mexico, will formally mark the beginning of the Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach's ministry as Archbishop in an historic transition as the first for the new denomination. Its founding leader, The Most Rev. Robert Duncan, retired in June 2014 at the conclusion of a five-year term.

A live stream of the service will be available for those who would like to tune in remotely. More information can be found at: www.anglicanchurch.net/?/main/investiture

*****

Mere Anglican Conference will meet in Charleston in January with an impressive line-up of speakers. They include Bishop N.T. Wright is one of the world's foremost New Testament scholars and the leading expert on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. A prolific writer of both scholarly and popular books, Bishop Wright has written over 30 books, including After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Challenge of Jesus, and The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as being the translator for The Kingdom New Testament.

Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great-grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born in China in World War II where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his D.Phil in the social sciences from Oriel College, Oxford.

Os has written or edited more than 30 books, including The American Hour, Time for Truth, The Call, Invitation to the Classics, Long Journey Home, Unspeakable, A Free People's Suicide, and The Global Public Square. His next book, Renaissance, will be published by InterVarsity Press in August 2014.

Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King's College London, Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, and Principal of Wycliffe Hall Oxford. He holds a doctorate in molecular biophysics and a doctorate in theology and divinity from Oxford University.

McGrath is recognized as one of the most significant and influential critics of the "New Atheism." As a former atheist, he is respectful yet critical of the movement. In recent years, he has been especially interested in the emergence of "scientific atheism" and has researched the distinctive approach to atheist apologetics found in the writings of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

He is ordained and serves as associate priest in a group of Church of England village parishes in the Cotswolds. His most recent books include a highly acclaimed and award-winning biography of C.S. Lewis (2013) and a reappraisal of the importance of the Swiss theologian Emil Brunner for the churches and Christian theology (2014).

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali was the 106th Bishop of Rochester for 15 years until September 2009. Originally from Asia, he was the first non-white Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England. Before that, he was the General Secretary of the Church Mission Society from 1989 to 1994 and prior to holding this position was Bishop of Raiwind in Pakistan. He holds both British and Pakistani citizenship and from 1999 was a member of the House of Lords where he was active in a number of areas of national and international concern. He has both a Christian and a Muslim family background and is now President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue (OXTRAD).

He is the author of 11 books and of numerous articles on faith and public life, freedom of belief, bioethics, mission, ecumenism, the Anglican Communion, and relations with people of other faiths (particularly Islam). Some of his published writings include: Triple Jeopardy for the West: Aggressive Secularism; Radical Islamism and Multiculturalism; Conviction and Conflict: Islam, Christianity and World Order; Understanding My Muslim Neighbour; Shapes of the Church to Come; Citizens and Exiles: Christian Faith in a Plural Society; Frontiers in Christian-Muslim Encounters; and Islam: A Christian Perspective.

Ross Douthat, a graduate of Harvard University, is the youngest regular op-ed columnist in the history of "The New York Times" and a former senior editor of "The Atlantic". He is the author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, and the co-author, with Reihan Salam, of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream. His most recent book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, is a stinging critique of post-World War II American Christianity and a call for believers to return to a robust and intellectually satisfying faith.

Mary Eberstadt, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, explores issues relating to American society, culture, religion, and philosophy. She is the author of several influential books: Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution (2012); The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism (2010); and Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes (2005). She is also editor of a 2007 anthology, Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle their Political Journeys. Her latest book is How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization, published by Templeton Press (April 2013).

John Guest will be the 2015 Conference Preacher. He was born and raised in Oxford, England. While studying as an engineer he was invited to hear the American evangelist, Billy Graham, in London, 1954. That night John responded to God's call and made his commitment to Jesus Christ at age eighteen. Shortly thereafter, he felt God calling him into full-time service as a pastor.

John graduated from Trinity College in Bristol and was ordained by the Church of England in 1961. He came to the United States in 1964; combining his love for young people with his musical ability he formed one of the first Christian contemporary music groups known as the Exkursions. For the next four years John used music to draw young people to meetings where thousands of them heard for the first time the "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

John is the author of ten books. He co-founded Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry and was a participant in the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism and a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals. He founded the Coalition for Christian Outreach, an evangelistic organization employing approximately 150 staff on college campuses. Also, he co-founded South American Missionary Society (1976), hosted a daily radio broadcast, "New Life In Christ," on WPIT-FM, Pittsburgh (1983-1990), and currently has a daily broadcast on WORD FM, 101.5 in Pittsburgh as well as several other cities. He is also a featured speaker at Promise Keepers Conferences within the U.S. John married Kathleen Heggar in 1967 and has four daughters: Carrie, Chelsea, Sarah and Susanna.

*****

The Rt. Hon. Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley, the Lord Bannside, died this week. Whatever you may have thought about him - however he may have inspired or irked, attracted or repelled, appealed or disgusted; encouraged or disappointed - Ian Paisley was undeniably one of the towering religio-political giants of the modern era. To those who appreciated, respected and loved, he was an inspiration; a shield and defender; a prophet after the fashion of Jeremiah; a fire-and-brimstone preacher whose task it was to expose the vipers in our midst, curse ecclesiastical error, rail at whited sepulchres, and faithfully assist the Lord in dividing the goats of damnation from the sheep of eternal salvation.

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was born into a Baptist manse and steeped in Unionist politics. He was educated at the South Wales Bible College, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological College in Belfast, and Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where he earned his doctorate. Disillusioned with Ulster's newspapers, churches and political parties, he founded one each of his own -- "The Protestant Telegraph", the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, and the Democratic Unionist Party, which were basically all one and the same. Such arrogance and hubris is usually a recipe for spiritual oblivion and political obscurity: for Ian Paisley, they led to him becoming an MP in Westminster, an MEP in Brussels, an MLA at Stormont, and First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Like Moses, he spent 40 years wandering in a wilderness of Anglo-Irish appeasement and Good-Friday obfuscation. But, unlike Moses, he lived to lead his people into the Promised Land of power-sharing and peace. He did bestride Ulster like a colossus, Bible in one hand, and ballot papers in the other. If you believe the British media, he was a much loathed and embittered bigot. If you bother to listen to reports of his name and accounts of his reputation in North Antrim, in the whole of Belfast, or even in the whole of Northern Ireland, you would hear people from both sides of the sectarian divide talk fondly of the "Big Man" as a loyal servant; a great soul of humility; a man of honour who had time for people; a pastoral disciple of the Lord who prayed, listened and cared.

Archbishop Justin Welby commented about Paisley, "He was a passionate advocate for his community, a parliamentarian who made his presence felt in our national life and a man of deep faith. History will remember him for many things but above all for having the courage, when he judged the moment to be right, of taking the difficult but vital steps towards reconciliation."

*****

The Orthodox Anglican Priest's Manual authored by the Rev. Paul Taylor is currently available from the publisher Lulu: http://www.lulu.com/content/4872685
or from
WWW.Amazon.com
or
Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Anglican-Priests-Manual-Taylor-ebook/dp/B00N7Y2LYO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1410885827&sr=1-1&keywords=orthodox+anglican+priest%27s+manual
or on
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/orthodox-anglican-priests/id470041604?mt=11

*****

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