Life in Christ. No-one may dare to claim that he lives in Christ and Christ in him unless he is obedient to the three fundamental commands which John has been expounding (1 Jn. 4:24) which are belief in Christ, love for the brothers and moral righteousness. 'Living in Christ' is not a mystical experience which anyone may claim; its indispensable accompaniments are the confession of Jesus as the Son of
God come in the flesh, and a consistent life of holiness and love. --- John R.W. Stott

In practice the values of secular liberalism have failed to protect Iraq’s Christian minority, and that says something. It says that when there are no Christians or Jews left in the Middle East, secular liberals will find an Islamist super-state on the doorstep and Western freedoms next on the jihadi hit list – without quite knowing how it happened. --- Dr. Laura Keyne

There’s a lot of talk about being “missional,” but to be truly missional means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot. Indeed it is to miss everything. --- From the Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
June 20, 2014

A liberal secular blogger recently wrote that the most important difference between 2009 and today is that conservatives have officially lost the culture war. In the past few years, public support for both marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage has surpassed 50 percent, with no indication that these trends are likely to reverse. Women make up more than half of the professional and technical workforce. It’s a midcentury Christian conservative’s worst nightmare: The country has been overrun by pot-smoking gays and women’s libbers. Cultural liberalism won, and there’s nothing much we as orthodox Anglicans can do about it.

Sadly, liberals/progressives and pansexualists in The Episcopal Church and, increasingly, in other major Protestant denominations and liberal Jewish organizations, as well, have helped the cultural changes along. Only Christian fundamentalists, Muslims and orthodox believers including the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches have or are holding the line, but against enormous political and spiritual pressure to change. Moreover, millions of Catholics no longer toe the party line and latent Catholics could not care a less what sexuality you are or how you behave despite that church’s official teaching. It’s over, we lost.

BUT this week saw one magnificent rebuttal. San Francisco's Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (IX San Francisco) was one of four speakers at a March for (traditional) Marriage in Washington, DC for which he was roundly vilified, accused of being "anti-gay," a "hate monger" and "bigoted". The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which champions the traditional understanding of holy wedlock, was labeled as an "anti-gay hate group." He took it on the chin for his strong stance on Christian marriage, defined as a lifetime union between one man and one woman, and refused to back down.

Ironically, he also took heat and pressure to not participate in the pro-marriage rally by 80 politicians, community representatives, faith leaders, and LGBT advocates, including the Very Rev. Brian Baker, Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Sacramento; Episcopal Bishop Wendell Gibbs (X Michigan); and Vivian Taylor, Executive Director, Episcopal Integrity-USA. So now, the cardinal is homophobic for daring to stand up and say marriage can only be biblically sanctioned between a man and a woman and is vilified for it. Abp. Cordileone responded to calls to withdraw from the pro-marriage march saying, “Please do not make judgments based on stereotypes, media images and comments taken out of context. Rather, get to know us first as fellow human beings.”

The full story can be read here or in today’s digest. http://tinyurl.com/kfr5tlt

*****

In another move, we saw the Culture Wars extended to university campuses. In a collision between religious freedom and antidiscrimination policies, a student group and its advisers have refused to agree to the college’s demand that any student, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, should be able to run for election as a leader of any group, including the Christian association group.

Similar conflicts are playing out on a handful of campuses around the country, driven by the universities’ desire to rid their campuses of bias, particularly against gay men and lesbians. In the eyes of evangelicals, it is also fueled by a discomfort in academia with conservative forms of Christianity.

The universities have been emboldened to regulate religious groups by a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that found it was constitutional for a public law school in California to deny recognition to a Christian student group that excluded gays.

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders.

Can you imagine a pedophile running a child abuse program or the head of the Mormon Church being an Imam! This is political and spiritual fascism at its worst. It is political correctness run wild. Imagine Gene Robinson preaching the values of celibacy and getting called up short for his lack of inclusivity and diversity.

While the Faith continues to expand in Asia, Africa and Latin America, actions like this only continue to sink the West. We will shortly be back to the Catacombs, the veneer of Christianity maintained by a few mega churches whose influence in the totality is actuality very small and will not save it.

Of course Christians and their influence on culture has been up and down over the centuries. Right now in the West it is sliding downhill and the reasons are many and nefarious.

However, we should remember two things: the faith was born in the midst of a failing Roman Empire whose cultural influence was virtually non-existent; secondly, we are called first and foremost to obedience and faithfulness, if need be unto death.

*****

Thirteen bishops of the Episcopal Church have joined an amici curiae brief filed with the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in support of a lesbian couple’s bid to be married.

“Eliminating discrimination in civil marriage will not impinge upon religious doctrine or practice,” the brief says. “All religions would remain free — as they are today with nineteen states and the District of Columbia permitting same-sex couples to marry — to define religious marriage any way they choose.”

The amici include:

The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, Bishop of Southern Ohio
The Rt. Rev. Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr., Bishop of Michigan
The Rt. Rev. Douglas Hahn, Bishop of Lexington
The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr., Bishop of Ohio, and the Rt. Rev. David C. Bowman, the Rt. Rev. William D. Persell, and the Rt. Rev. Arthur B. Williams, Jr., Assisting Bishops in Ohio
The Rt. Rev. Whayne M. Hougland, Jr., Bishop of Western Michigan
The Rt. Rev. Don E. Johnson, Bishop of West Tennessee
The Rt. Rev. Todd Ousley, Bishop of Eastern Michigan
The Rt. Rev. Rayford J. Ray, Bishop of Northern Michigan
The Rt. Rev. Terry Allen White, Bishop of Kentucky
The Rt. Rev. George D. Young III, Bishop of East Tennessee

*****

Just as we were going to press we received word that turmoil has erupted at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An intense struggle has developed between the administration and faculty at of the Episcopal Divinity School over the seminary's future. A letter by the Very Rev. James Kowalski, chair of the board of trustees and dean of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, to members and friends of the EDS community outlines the issue. You can read it here: http://t.e2ma.net/message/ywcjf/i8yjek

Behind all this is the steady but slow realization that The Episcopal Church is a slow train wreck and it is now being felt in the seminaries with diminishing income, fewer students, costly educations and the fact that a graduate heavily in debt is unlikely to find a parish who can pay him/her enough to make it. The elephant in the room of course is that the message coming out of the gay and lesbian driven seminary is not a message that sells well to people who can see it all on television and then ask what does the Episcopal Church really stand for that is significantly different.

*****

An interview with the outgoing Bishop Don Harvey of the Anglican Network in Canada by a couple in Vancouver BC is excerpted here.

On reforming the ACoC from within or, as Malcolm Muggeridge used to say, playing hymns in the whorehouse:

Then the Essentials Movement itself split, mainly because there were those who wanted to reform the Anglican Church of Canada from within. This was an interesting concept, as I don’t think any one of us would have left if we had thought there was the slightest possibility of reform happening. We saw things getting worse there instead of better.

On ANiC’s growth:

At the start of that first Synod, we were 2 bishops, 2 priests, 2 deacons and 2 parishes. At least we were being very biblical, being “sent out by 2’s!” Five years later, we were 4 active bishops, 2 retired bishops (1 retired and 1 working as a church planter), well over 150 clergy members, 72 parishes, church plants and forming congregations, and an average Sunday attendance over 3900.

On Wycliffe College:

At one time here in Canada, we could say Wycliffe College was ideal for them. It is not the case anymore. The college doesn’t like us. Our students are treated as second class students. I know these are explosive words, but I am willing to stand by them, because I have seen the evidence of them. I have been told that our students would be treated like anybody else. Their usual practice was that sometime during the course of the 2 or 3 years that a student was there, they would have their bishop come and spend a day with them, show them around, meet the staff, and what not. Usually, that was planned for a day when there was Chapel with a sermon and the bishop would be invited to preach.

“That being the case,” I said, “does that mean that Bishop Charlie or I, one of us, would be given a chance to preach here, to walk in procession at your convocation?” And their reply was ...? “No, I’m sorry. You couldn’t.” This from the college supposed to be favourable to us. If that is our friend, spare me from our enemies. Believe me that is very sad. It’s sad because Wycliffe College was built on the very premises that ANIC exists on.

VOL: Wycliffe is in the ACoC’s pocket, a fact that was very apparent when, in 2010, I interviewed George Sumner, Wycliffe’s principal. There was a lot of dancing.

On Bishop Malcolm Harding:

Here’s an example of what happened to Bishop Malcolm Harding. Usually, when you complete your term as Diocesan Bishop, your picture is hung on the cathedral wall with all your predecessors and the dates underneath. After he came with us, his photograph was taken down from the wall at the Cathedral in Brandon. His name was taken away. It simply said, “The person who held the position of 8th Bishop of Brandon is no longer a member of the church” or something like that.

How could anyone try to rewrite history that way? The fact was that between the year this and the year that, he was the 8th Bishop of Brandon. And his picture should still be there.

On abortion:

I still haven’t heard a definitive stand from the Anglican Church of Canada over abortion. There have been all kinds of words about it, but to come out and say, it is taking another human’s life, they don’t say it. So this phrase “wishy-washy” has been said to me about them many times. We want to know where we stand and where our church stands, and we want to be proud of where our church stands. I used to say in the early days, I’m praying for the time when I can go across this country and say “I’m Anglican” without having to apologize for it.

The full interview can be read in today’s digest.

*****

The pioneering ALPHA course which began in one parish in the Church of England nearly four decades ago is now being used in more Catholic than Anglican parishes, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

Archbishop Welby revealed the latest phenomenal success of the evangelisation course, with its strong emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit, after meeting the Pope in Rome where he was accompanied by Rev Nicky Gumbel, vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton.

Speaking to Christopher Lamb for The Tablet, the Catholic weekly, Archbishop Welby said: "Every now and then I just like to remind people that it [Alpha] started in the Church of England," adding that he recently had to convince a French Catholic friend that the course had not originated in France. "We [Catholics and Anglicans] are working additionally on evangelisation, and that illustrates the breadth of the relationship. The Catholic Church is much bigger than us and far more widely extended, but we also bring something to the relationship. Alpha is a gift of the spirit to the church of the world not merely to the Anglican Communion let alone the Church of England."

*****

Australian Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall is bowing out as titular head of the church in Australia after nine years bookended by bitter rows over child sexual abuse.

The 54-year-old will stay on as the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, his launch pad to the primacy. Having been appointed as archbishop when Peter Hollingworth was named governor-general in 2001, Dr. Aspinall confronted allegations that the Brisbane diocese had failed to act against predatory priests and teachers employed by church schools.

He was an ultra-liberal leader of Australian Anglicans. He supported the pansexual agenda of The Episcopal Church and was at loggerheads with the evangelical Archbishop of Sydney Dr. Peter Jensen over faith and morals. Aspinall’s legacy like that of Dr. Rowan Williams will be seen as fostering a liberal Anglican agenda that was and is at odds with the vibrant evangelical Global South.

*****

Trinity School for Ministry’s president, the Rev. Dr. Justyn Terry reports that the school has been blessed and its future is bright. He says its student recruitment is strong with representatives from 15 states, Canada and six Africa countries. The Robert Webber Center has now been functioning for two years, developing and providing discipleship materials for clergy and lay leaders. The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) Seminary center is solidly established on campus while its online education program is reaching many who are not able to study residentially. Some 45 new graduates are making final plans to move into ministry, he noted. TSM is based in Ambridge, PA.

*****

St. Benedict School for Ministry, an independent, online, church-related entity inaugurated in the Diocese of Quincy in the Anglican Church in North America, in October 2013, to provide training for those pursuing vocations, both lay and ordained, in the Church as well as continuing education for clergy and lay leaders, is now open for business. St. Benedict will also offer some one-week intensive residential courses and formation retreats.

Classes for the Certificate in Diaconal Studies/Certificate in Christian Studies began in January 2014. The Diploma in Anglican Studies program will begin in January 2015; the Licentiate in Theology program is under development. Courses in these programs will be offered in accessible, online formats and through short-term intensive residential courses.

All Courses at St. Benedict School for Ministry are taught by experienced professors who have taught these same subjects in one or more accredited theological seminaries. Faculty are chosen for their commitment to Christ and the authority of Scripture, excellence in teaching, and concern for students and their formation, proclaims a blurb at its website.

St. Benedict School for Ministry does not grant degrees, although its certificate and diploma programs closely parallel those offered in established theological seminaries. The Licentiate in Theology (LTh) is a theological qualification commonly awarded for ordinands and laity studying theology in various countries around the world. It is a qualification similar to the two-year postgraduate (master’s degree equivalent) Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL), available from Pontifical universities. The aim for the St. Benedict Licentiate in Theology is to seek degree granting status and accreditation as soon as practical.

The Trustees include The Rt. Rev. Alberto Morales, OSB, Bishop of the Diocese of Quincy; The Very Rev. Robert S. Munday, Obl. OSB, Ph.D., D.D. Dean and President, Rector, All Saints Anglican Church, Montrose, CO; The Very Rev. Shawn Doubet, Obl. OSB, MTS, Director of Admissions and Registrar Dean, Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Peoria, IL, The Very Rev. James Fosdick, SSC, Dean, St. Philip’’s Deanery Rector, St. Mary of the Snows Anglican Church, Eagle River, WI and The Rev. Canon Eric Raskopf, JD Canon Lawyer, Vicar, Holy Cross Anglican Church, Lake Villa, IL

They can be contacted here: http://www.stbenedictschoolforministry.org/Home.html

*****

Update concerning the suit filed against the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the diocesan Corporation, following a recent hearing the 141st District Court: A calendar of deadlines was approved by Judge Chupp, setting dates for all pleadings, depositions, and discovery to be completed. Motions for Summary Judgment are due on Oct. 24 and will be heard on Dec. 17.

*****

Peter D. Robinson, Presiding Bishop of the United Episcopal Church of North America, gave his "State of the Church" address recently which pointed to modest growth over the past three years, especially in the Eastern and Western Missionary Dioceses. He also noted with approval that he had been called upon to dedicate new or relocated church buildings in Branson, MO, and Boaz, AL, both in the South and Ozarks Missionary Diocese.

He also gave an overview of both inter-jurisdiction and ecumenical relations, noting that whilst moves towards closer relations with the Anglican Catholic Church and the Anglican Province of Christ the King have been stalled, old friendships with the Diocese of the Great Lakes, and the Anglican Episcopal Church have been renewed.

*****

Most Americans would rather have their children marry "born-again Christians" than atheists or other types of marriage partners, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. Across ideological lines, 1 out of 3 Americans (32 percent) say they would be happy if an immediate family member married a born-again Christian. Meanwhile, only nine percent of all Americans say such a marriage would make them unhappy.

While trends carried across ideological boundaries, the results from Pew's study of U.S. political polarization varied considerably between liberals and conservatives.

More than half of "consistently conservative" Americans (57 percent) would be happy to have a born-again Christian in the family, while only 16 percent of "consistently liberal" Americans say the same. By comparison, 27 percent of the most liberal Americans were unhappy at the thought, as were only 3 percent of the most conservative.

*****

The Rev. Christopher Royer of Tulsa, Okla., has been named new executive director of Anglican Frontier Missions (AFM).

Richmond, VA-based AFM is a mission organization that seeks to minister in areas of the world where there is very little Christian presence, in areas of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and even some ethnic communities in the United States. Royer’s official start date is July 21.

“The Rev. Royer was selected because of his contagious passion for the unreached and his anointing by the Holy Spirit,” announced the executive director search committee and AFM board of directors. “He will bring his first hand experience of ministering in the Middle East and his sensitivity to cross-cultural evangelism/discipleship to support and encourage AFM’s workers. He also brings a deep respect for the church as he advocates on behalf of the unreached to churches across the Anglican Communion.”

From 2008-2012, Royer ministered at The Church of the Cross in Bluffton, S.C., and from 2012-2013, at Christ the King in Pawleys Island, S.C., before becoming Associate Rector at Church of the Holy Spirit in Tulsa, OK, where he currently serves. Royer and Grace have two daughters, Daniella (16) and Stephanie (15). While Royer will work remotely from Tulsa, AFM will retain its office in Richmond.

AFM partners with members of the Anglican Communion from around the world to serve as a catalyst to provinces, dioceses, churches, and individuals to extend the Gospel to all. There are approximately 104 million Anglicans in the world. AFM also works with other organizations, denominations, and Christian groups who share its biblical values and strategic vision to see the Good News rooted in hearts and minds of peoples who have limited, or no, access to the Gospel.

*****

Decline in the Anglican Church of Canada continues. St. Matthew’s Abbotsford is going through a bumpy patch, a recent report revealed. In 2011, the 500 member congregation of St. Matthew’s Abbotsford was ejected from its building by the Diocese of New Westminster.

In 2012, the rector of the diocese of New Westminster’s version of the parish, Rev Allen Doerksen, declared that one day the church will become self-sustaining. That day has not yet arrived: the parish is still being funded by the diocese and is now going through tough times.

What’s more, the church’s furnaces need replacing so, to avoid a cold, miserable winter, the parish is asking the Diocese of New Westminster for $150,000 to fix them.

Both St. Matthew’s Abbotsford and St. John’s Shaughnessy – which is bleeding $20,000 per month – were kept on artificial life-support by Bishop Michael Ingham to demonstrate to the world that the diocese’s ersatz Christianity works. It doesn’t. The new bishop, Melissa Skelton, will have some difficult decisions to make soon before the diocese starts going through a bumpy patch.

*****

Jon Meacham, a former editor of Newsweek (which ultimately collapsed) who tore into Archbishop Robert Duncan over homosexuality (for his lack of inclusion), is back in the news. He has returned to Sewanee this semester to teach. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who is teaching a history course and giving talks open to the general public.

He found himself in the news this week as a book from beyond the grave by Richard Johnson “The Last Magazine,” is haunting a number of Newsweek editors, including Meacham.

The manuscript was discovered in the files of Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings after he died a year ago in a car crash in Los Angeles, a tragedy that has sparked growing conspiracy theories. Hastings, just 33 at the time of his death, is the reporter who destroyed the career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2010, when he penned a profile that quoted the general and his staff mocking civilian government officials, including Vice President Joe Biden.

Hastings told friends he was on the verge of breaking another big scoop before his high-speed, post-midnight crash.

Former colleagues at Newsweek, where Hastings began his journalistic career as an intern, will recognize the book’s super-smooth international editor Nishant Patel as Fareed Zakaria, and fictional neo-con managing editor Sanders Berman as Jon Meacham.

The roman à clef chronicles how the two egotistical editors jockeyed for power while promoting themselves.

Meacham makes himself a first class Episcopalian with the most liberal credentials you could ask for plus a couple of books under his belt. He is Sewanee’s dream team.

*****

The Diocese of South Carolina requests prayers for its upcoming trial between the Diocese and TEC set to begin July 7.

We all know that, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” [Ps. 124:8] The final disposition of this case and our future are in His hands, so we should be particularly intentional at this time in committing all these matters to His care. As you encourage that practice of prayer in your own parish, here is a prayer, written by the Very Rev. John Barr, adapted for this trial:

Gracious Lord, we pray that your will would be done through this trial. May we want what you desire. Speak your words alone through Alan Runyan and the other attorneys who represent us. May the courtroom be filled with the pleasant aroma of Christ, and at the end of the day, protect this Diocese and its parishes that we might bring the redemptive power of the biblical gospel to the South Carolina Lowcountry, the Pee Dee and beyond. Let not our fear of outcomes tarnish our joy or deter us from the mission you have given us. Teach us to bless and never curse those on the other side of this conflict. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And make us victorious over-comers wherever this road leads. For we ask it all in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

*****

The Anglican Church in North America meets for it Provincial Council and Assembly June 23 - 28 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. VOL will be there to record this historic moment as the missionary province, recognized by a number of Global South Primates, elects a new archbishop to replace Archbishop Robert Duncan who has served as the founding archbishop of ACNA. Whoever it is, he will serve for a term of five years.

*****

Next week VOL readers will see a new VOL website. This is the product of months of hard work. It is a complete makeover. There will undoubtedly be some bumps in the road, but we believe it will be easier to navigate and more user friendly, as well as being much bolder, in keeping with other serious news outlets. Please don’t hesitate to send us your comments. We value your input.

*****

Next week VOL readers will see a new VOL website. This is the product of months of hard work. It is a complete makeover. There will undoubtedly be some bumps in the road, but we believe it will be easier to navigate and more user friendly as well as being much bolder, in keeping with other serious news outlets. Please don’t hesitate to send us your comments. We value your input.

*****

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