The farmer plows the earth, cleans, sows seed, and awaits the mercy of God. If God doesn't send rains and helpful winds when they are necessary, the farmer's toils are in vain. It's the same with us. If God doesn't send the purifying waters of His grace, we remain devoid of fruit and our works become the fodder of demons. For our passions drown them and we don't harvest anything. We mustn't forget that virtuous deeds that are not done for the right reason become evil deeds---Elder Joseph the Hesychast, +1959

Inspired by the actions of the Episcopal Church, a Quaker group has disavowed the Christian Doctrine of Discovery and voiced its support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Indian Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends issued a Minute - analogous to a resolution - at its September meeting.

The committee "renounces the Doctrine of Discovery, the doctrine at the foundation of the colonization of Indigenous lands, including the lands of Pennsylvania. We find this doctrine to be fundamentally inconsistent with the teaching of Jesus, with our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God, and inconsistent with Quaker testimonies of Peace, Equality, and Integrity," the Minute reads. The Doctrine of Discovery was a principle of international law developed in a series of 15th century papal bulls and 16th century charters by European monarchs. It was a racist philosophy that gave white Christian Europeans the green light to go forth and claim the lands and resources of non-Christian peoples and kill or enslave them - if other Christian Europeans had not already done so.

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
12/24/2009

A covenant to unite the Anglican Communion is looking increasingly like the Munich Agreement. A policy of appeasement with The Episcopal Church by the Anglican Consultative Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury to keep the Anglican Communion together is already been roundly criticized not only by orthodox Anglicans but from liberals as well.

The controversial section four is in again with the working party explaining that their guiding principles as as "minimal revision" but with some "clearer definition" and "change of tone in language."

Four key questions are now answered: The first is that while the Covenant is designed primarily for "Provinces of the Anglican Communion" dioceses are included in the phrase "any ecclesial body" and some dioceses, for instance Communion Partner dioceses in the Episcopal Church, which may wish to commit themselves to the Covenant if their provinces do not, will be allowed to do so.

Secondly churches which are not yet current members of the Anglican Consultative Council can affirm the Covenant (e.g. the Anglican Church in North America) but this will throw a real monkey wrench into the Anglican Communion as Rowan Williams will be forced to recognize Archbishop Robert Duncan, an act that will stick in the craw of Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Of course this will not automatically make them members of the ACC and if they want future membership they will have to follow due process (section 4.1.5). We all know that Canon Kenneth Kearon will never grant status to ACNA because he will not go against The Episcopal Church which pays 60% of the Anglican Communion Office's tab. So ACNA has not applied and probably won't. Why try for the front door of rejection when you can go in by the back door with the help of the Church of England Synod which meets in February and will consider recognizing ACNA, VOL has learned.

What of Churches who choose not to enter into the Covenant? While the text deliberately does not deal with this matter, the Instruments of Communion will determine an appropriate response. Now you should know that Mrs. Jefferts Schori and bishop-elect Ian Douglas (Connecticut) were in London to talk about the possibility of lesbian Mary Glasspool obtaining consents to be the next Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles. After a closed door meeting with the ABC they left without saying a word even to their own official ENS press. This speaks volumes. Talk of "gracious restraint" clearly was on the table, but Jefferts Schori has no interest in exercising it when it comes to consecrating Glasspool. She has said she will proceed.

So who will monitor the implementation of the Covenant? Why the "Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion," which is bit like letting the fox guard the hen house. NOBODY is prepared to upset the delicate relationships between the ABC, TEC, the Primates of the Anglican Communion and the ACO. The ABC is totally committed to unity at any price, but the price is the very faith itself and the Global South will have none of it.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said the Covenant "is not going to solve all our problems, it's not going to be a constitution, and it's certainly not a penal code for punishing people who don't comply."

As CANA Bishop David C. Anderson wrote, the covenant is little more than a Potemkin Village while Canon lawyer Allan S. Haley wrote that the final text of the covenant means ECUSA will walk apart. AMiA bishop John Rodgers noted that the Covenant is too weak to hold the Communion together. The 1998 Lambeth Conference took a position on the question of human sexuality which was revisited at the 2008 conference and reaffirmed. Stay tuned.

You can read a number of stories and opinions about the Covenant in today's digest.

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The ugly legal wars in The Episcopal Church are escalating and we are seeing a new dimension not evidence before. Christian brother is being pitted against Christian brother, and it is happening in the DIOCESE OF PENNSYLVANIA where the legacy of Bishop Charles Bennison continues to cast a long pall over the diocese.

The Standing Committee has filed a lawsuit against the vestry of Good Shepherd, Rosemont seeking the return of the property. Basically they want Fr. David Moyer ousted as he is no longer an Episcopal priest but a bishop in another Anglican jurisdiction. He lost in his fraud case and now says that his fraud claim was badly handled.

The priest and his vestry have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Moyer's former attorney John H. Lewis Jr., and his law firm citing malpractice. A hearing last week in Orphans Court was adjourned after Judge Stanley Ott heard both sides argue the pros and cons of Moyer retaining his job and the status of the parish within the diocese.

Moyer now believes that his deposition was badly handled by Lewis and filed a lawsuit against his former attorney and friend seeking financial redress.

Lewis and his law firm have answered the lawsuit and counterclaimed, stating that the lawsuit has been brought in bad faith and without any basis to believe that malpractice had been committed in order to raise funds to pay new counsel. You can read the full story in today's digest.

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While we are on the subject of Episcopal Church outrages, we have to sympathize with Bishop Mark MacDonald who has served the Episcopal Church as Bishop of Alaska, and interim Bishop of Navajoland, and as a Bishop-on-loan to the Anglican Church of Canada under the Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's supervision. Now he is told by Jefferts Schori that his work with the Anglican Church of Canada will require him to renounce his Holy Orders in TEC. It must be understood that this new TEC doctrine adopted is uniquely the Jefferts Schori Doctrine, and not something that has been true in the past.

"When I served in South Dakota as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Rapid City, our bishop, Walter H. Jones, who was originally from Canada, was elected bishop of Rupert's Land and Metropolitan of the area, and he went back to Canada with the TEC House of Bishops' blessings. There was no demand that he renounce orders in TEC, and that was fortunate, since when he retired, he moved back to South Dakota, and was again able to function under the authority of the Diocesan Bishop of South Dakota until his unfortunate death a few years later.

"I do not understand why even the uber-liberals don't see this new Jefferts Schori Doctrine for what it is - a departure from any sense of the church catholic. Bishop MacDonald is quoted as saying, "The Christological doctrine of the catholicity of the church is at stake."

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Western pansexual liberals have been critical of the Anglican Province of Uganda's failure to condemn the government of Uganda for drafting an anti homosexuality bill which offers harsh penalties for those engaged in the act and any close associates who fail to report the matter to concerned authorities.

Liberals and their homosexual minions shoot straight from the hip whenever their beloved cause for sodomite acceptance comes under fire. First they condemned the Archbishop of Canterbury for not speaking up and then the Anglican Church of Uganda. They railed too soon. This week the Church of Uganda set up a committee to come up with its recommendations on the Anti-homosexual bill. The bill, which was recently tabled in Parliament, is currently under scrutiny before the Parliamentary committees on presidential affairs and legal affairs.

The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi says the Church of Uganda opposes the practice and will soon make its views on the new law known to the Public.

Changing Attitude owes an apology to the Ugandans for their premature condemnation of these orthodox and faithful Anglicans. They might want to send a note of apology to Dr. Williams as well.

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Registration is now open for an Anglican 1000 Church Planting Summit: Feb 22-23, 2010. This stems from a call by the Archbishop of ACNA, Bob Duncan, who called for the planting and the raising up of 1000 churches during his ministry. The Archbishop brought together a group of leaders from the US and Canada who began to dream about a cooperative movement to plant churches and raise up new congregations across the continent of North America. Planters and congregations would form a movement from every Anglican jurisdiction and within all 'three streams' of the Anglican Church in North America. The summit will take place at Christ Church, Plano, TX. The Leadership Team for the Anglican 1000 Movement will host a church planters summit. Beginning on Monday February 22 at 10:00 am and ending with a closing service on Tuesday night, church planters, students, young church leaders, bishops, and committed laity from around the continent will gather together for intensive learning and networking sessions.

Speakers include: Archbishop Bob Duncan, Ed Stetzer, Bishop Todd Hunter, William Beasley, Bishop Doc Loomis and David Roseberry.

For questions about registration or the conference contact: Cathy Carey 214-291-5038 cathyc@christchurchplano.org

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A beneficial website for good music can be found here: www.worldwidemusiconline.com Recordings are relevant to all within Anglican communities. This is a freely-offered recommendation from one who, before moving from UK to the US, had been a Diocesan Musical Representative and Organist & Director of Music consecutively in three cathedrals, with influence also in seminaries.

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Last Friday the United Nations General Assembly voted to delete language from a proposed resolution referencing a document claiming that two new anti-discrimination categories exist: one based on "sexual orientation" and the other on "gender identity."

"This was a great victory for the natural law and the family and a slap in the face to the radicals," Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), told LifeSiteNews.

The deleted reference was to General Comment 20 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR was adopted by the UN on December 16, 1966, and declares that states that are part of the agreement will "undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion ... or other status."

General Comment 20 states that the phrase "other status" includes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." This means, according to the Comment, that members of the ICESCR "must ... adopt measures, which should include legislation, to ensure that individuals and entities in the private sphere do not discriminate on prohibited grounds."

Neither "sexual orientation" nor "gender identity" have previously been included in the established list of non-discrimination categories.

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The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has called on President Obama and Congress to rethink their strategy on the Afghanistan War. EPF believes that intensified hostilities undermine the function of international law in the struggle against terrorism and generate a cycle of violence, chaos and evil that is antithetical to the teachings and example of Jesus.

Additionally, we continue to be alarmed by the application of Just War Theory to escalate our troop levels in this war. The Episcopal Church continues to reflect on the applicability of this theory to contemporary modes of conflict, and we encourage all Episcopalians to familiarize themselves with the House of Bishops Theology Committee's report on Just War Theory and to see Episcopal Cafe's summation of the ongoing dialogue on Just War Theory taking place in this Church.

We call on all members and The Episcopal Church to pray for peace this Advent and to keep pressure on our national leaders in the coming days.

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The "Me" Culture is in the Crosshairs. For decades, the "Me" culture has wreaked havoc with contemporary society in the Western World. It has devastated individuals, businesses and communities financially. It is threatening to unravel this country's social structure. The "Me" culture is killing millions of unborn children every year. It is imperiling the ethical standards in the economy, industry, education, in medicine, jurisprudence, the media, the family, the arts, and in politics. The League of Faithful Masks (LFM) has been established to champion the Judeo-Christian worldview of vocation as an effective antidote to narcissism and its destructive consequences.

What is the League of Faithful Masks? It is taken from Martin Luther's definition of man as a mask behind which God hides while carrying out his concealed purposes in the secular realm. They promote Martin Luther's theological insight that all of us have divine callings in our daily lives - as parents, craftsmen, professionals, students, politicians and voters. If we exercise these secular vocations out of love for our neighbors we render the highest service to God.

If you are interested in learning more about LFM write its director Dr. Uwe Siemon Netto: uwesiemon@mac.com You won't be disappointed. Is LFM only for Lutherans? Not at all. LFM is non-sectarian, desires to reach out to all faithful Christians and Jews and sees it as its duty to serve the community at large, irrespective of religious affiliation. Moreover, the doctrine of vocation is grounded in Scripture and shared by other denominations. Orthodox Anglicans are most welcome.

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Who Owns Your Christmas Carols? You can "Go Tell It on the Mountain" 149 different ways this Christmas season. The go-to website for evangelical church worship music boasts over 200 copyrighted versions of the medieval hymn "O Come O Come Emmanuel." Christian Copyright Licensing, Inc. (CCLI) also lists 122 licensed versions of "O Holy Night" and 202 versions of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Most have the same tune as the public domain versions, but feature new bridges or arrangements.

Your church is likely to be singing a licensed Christmas carol this December, thanks to a cycle of convenience, CCM influence, musical skills, and church identity. Today's worship world has a distinct push for new, cheap songs written for a lead singer plus a praise band, rather than the old, free songs written for keyboard instruments and a congregation.

Most worship songs from the past 100 years are under copyright. Churches can legally use them by buying hymnals, which denominations sell nearly at cost at about $10 per copy. Or, music directors can contact and pay copyright holders directly. Since the late 1980s, churches have also been able to buy subscriptions to licenses through companies such as CCLI, OneLicense, and LicenSingOnline

For more go here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/decemberweb-only/152-11.0.html

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St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary of Yonkers, N.Y., has invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to deliver the annual Father Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture on Jan. 30. Archbishop Rowan Williams will speak on "Theology and the Contemplative Calling: The Image of Humanity in the Philokalia" beginning at 12:30 p.m. "Many Orthodox Christians may be unaware of Rowan Williams's research and contribution to the field of Orthodox theology, but he was a pioneer in this field, with outstanding breadth and depth," said the Very Rev. Dr. John Behr, dean of St. Vladimir's, who was examined for his doctoral degree at Oxford University by then-professor Williams.

"The archbishop is a patron of The Fellowship of Saints Alban and Sergius, a society of Eastern and Western Christians that held a major conference on our campus in 2008," said the Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield, chancellor and CEO of the seminary. "And we welcome his presence as a person who supports the continued dialogue of the society's members." St. Vladimir's and Nashotah House Theological Seminary held a joint three-day conference, "In the Footsteps of Tikhon and Grafton," at Nashotah House in October. As that conference concluded, Dr. Hatfield and the Very Rev. Dr. Robert Munday of Nashotah House signed a covenant that commits their seminaries to "continued prayer, fellowship and ecumenical cooperation." The archbishop's visit will coincide with his speaking at the Trinity Institute's 2010 Conference, "Building an Ethical Economy: Theology and the Marketplace."

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Russia and the Vatican have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, the Kremlin has announced. Until now, Moscow only had an office of representation at the Vatican. The new status means full-fledged embassies will be established in Moscow and Rome. The announcement comes after President Dmitry Medvedev met Pope Benedict XVI while on a visit to Italy. The move follows improvements in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican.

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For an original rendition of O Holy Night by Celtic Woman go here: http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/celtic-woman-o-holy-night/6F5DF0D4BE3E8643F95C6F5DF0D4BE3E8643F95C ***** The Guardian newspaper reports today that the Church of England is to launch its first campaign to encourage young people (under 18s) into church. According to the Guardian, proposals will be put before the general synod in February that include plans to set up breakfast, homework and sports clubs in schools as well as working in toddler playgroups to spread the Christian message.

The document, Going for Growth, sets out a plan devised by the Church of England's education division that promises to make churches more "child-friendly" and to work towards every child - regardless of their faith - having a "life-enhancing encounter with the Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ". It includes:

* An information campaign to supply schools with materials to fulfill their legal duty to conduct a daily act of worship amid reports that many schools have dropped it.

* Creating a new "social, moral, spiritual and cultural curriculum" for further education colleges.

* It identifies environmental campaigns as a key concern of children and says it must do more to act on such issues in order to win them round.

* To work in youth clubs and children's playcentres to re-establish links outside of church. The document suggests the church is failing young people by being out of touch with their lives. "The tragedy is that we appear to be failing even those with whom we have already connected.

The challenge is how to creatively offer children and young people encounters with the Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ." "We need to reconsider how we engage with and express God's love to this generation of children and young people, whoever and wherever they may be," it says.

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Lovers of the writings of Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison will be delighted to learn that he has produced yet another book, Trust in an Age of Arrogance. Buyers will not be disappointed in his newest volume. In this book, he explores the serious consequences of replacing Christianity with secularism and the dangers of self-righteousness when it comes to the Christian life and our salvation. You can read the full review in today's digest.

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VERSE:

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." Luke 2:10

THOUGHT:

Don't be afraid. What can cast away all fear in the presence of God's glorious messengers? The joy of knowing that God has come to earth to bring an end to sin and Satan's curse and to bring salvation to all people. Fear must not master our hearts when we know that God has broken through every barrier to reach us with his overwhelming grace.

PRAYER:

I praise you, Almighty God, for the gift of joy that chases away all fear. Fill my heart with that joy and fill my mind with wonder as I try to comprehend your love for me. Stir me to greater concern for those who have not heard, or who have not yet accepted, your offer of grace in your Son Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.

http://www.heartlight.org/cgi-shl/todaysverse.cgi?day=20091224

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Virtueonline wishes all its readers in 145 countries a very Merry Christmas and a blessed and Happy New Year.

All Blessings,

David