The Kingdom of Heaven. No one moment. There was no one moment in the triumphant progress of our saving Lord from his cradle in Bethlehem to his final glory at the Father's right hand, at which it may be said 'the kingdom came or will come then.' The kingdom was coming all the time. It is still growing. Its progress is twofold, first as God gives it, and second as man receives it. --- From "Men with a Message" John R. W. Stott

Greatness in the Kingdom. Greatness in the Kingdom of God is measured in terms of obedience. --- From 'The Calling of the Church: Studies in 1 Corinthians 1-6', in "The Keswick Week Convention"

The life which we live in this world has its attractiveness because of a certain measure in its beauty and its harmony with all these inferior objects that are beautiful. Human friendship is also a nest of love and gentleness because of the unity it brings about between many souls. Yet sin is committed for the sake of all these things and others of this kind when, in consequence of an immoderate urge towards those things which are at the bottom end of the scale of good, we abandon the higher and supreme goods, that is You, Lord God, and Your truth and Your law. These inferior goods have their delights, but are not comparable to my God who has made them all. It is in Him that the just person takes delight. He is the joy of those who are true of heart. --- Blessed Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
www.virtueonline.org
June 18, 2010

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori got smacked down not once, but four times this past week, making it the most publicly humiliating week of her career as The Episcopal Church's chief ecclesiastical officer.

"I was not to wear a mitre at Southwark Cathedral," Jefferts Schori told the Executive Council in a "private conversation" on the first day of its three-day meeting in Maryland. She called the requirements "nonsense" saying "it is bizarre; it is beyond bizarre." She was further humiliated when she was told she had to provide evidence of her ordination to each order of ministry. "This is apparently a requirement of one of their canons about the ministry of clergy from overseas," she said.

The bigger question is why she was surprised at all? The Church of England does not have or allow women bishops, an issue that might be settled in York later this year, so it would have violated their canons to recognize her as a bishop and to function as such. So she spoke only as a priest.

What is galling is that she makes the same demands of bishops and archbishops who come to the US. At least three orthodox archbishops were denied the right to preach and perform Eucharistic functions in my parish in Paoli, PA, so why should she get better treatment in London?

She did the next best thing. She carried her miter in hand down the cathedral nave no doubt to make the point that she had been publicly humiliated and push the issue right to the edge of ecclesiastical correctness. You've heard of Watergate, perhaps this is Mrs. Jefferts Schori's Mitregate.

The second humiliation she experienced was a public rebuke she got from the liberal Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Thabo Makgoba, when she spoke at the USPG Missions Conference in Swanwick, England.

Makgoba, who is also the Archbishop of Cape Town, accused her of not listening to views about homosexuality from the Global South. He also offered up the view that sexuality should be seen as a "second place" issue and that his province was an example of how Anglicans stay together amid their differences about human sexuality. "Listening" you will recall was the great mantra of PB Frank Griswold. Clearly that has not caught on well with Jefferts Schori. What makes this particularly ironic is that Makgoba is THE most liberal Anglican Primate in Africa and not even remotely on the same page as either the Nigerian or Ugandan archbishops who are solidly Evangelical.

A third humiliation occurred at the Swanwick (USPG) conference when one leading woman cleric present, an archdeacon, asked her why she is acting so divisively. The question, delivered at a private meeting, brought forth applause from many of those present.

The fourth humiliation came when she was asked to step down from her seat on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, and also (apparently) to absent herself from the next Primates Meeting (Jan. 2011). According to California attorney A.S. Haley, the Archbishop of Canterbury made a private request to the PB to step down. Haley reports that it was none other than David Booth Beers, Jefferts Schori's attorney, who told a number of bishops at the Living Our Vows session at Lake Logan Center in North Carolina last month that the ABC had done so, and that Jefferts Schori had refused him.

"Make no mistake. The Presiding Bishop was and still is steamed. So was this a message? A deliberate insult? An attempt to remind the Presiding Bishop of her place? All three? The fact that Mrs. Jefferts Schori went out of her way to go public with her miter story as well the language of her reaction to it suggests that that's exactly the way that she and her fawning sycophants are taking it," wrote Midwest blogger Christopher Johnson.

What will be the result of all this is anybody's guess, but clearly this is stretching "gracious restraint" and "listening" to the breaking point and the Windsor Report has been put through a shredder. Clearly the gulf between the Presiding Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury has widened. Don't look now, but the Global South Primates are privately smiling and saying, "We told you so Rowan, when are you going to wake up and smell the heresies and realize you won't be able to put TEC in reverse gear?"

*****

Is the Presiding Bishop building her own Anglican Communion? She travelled recently to Canada, England, Scotland and is also planning visits to New Zealand and Australia....all liberal provinces in the Anglican Communion. Is she schoring up her base for a coup d'etat against Dr. Rowan Williams for his refusal to give approval or affirm the consecration of lesbian bishop Mary Glasspool? Is she plotting an exit strategy with her 16 colonial dioceses? Is she working on the Archbishop of Canterbury if he takes the next logical step of not inviting her to the next meeting of the Anglican Primates? The plot thickens.

Williams called on those provinces in the Anglican Communion who had formally broken one of the three moratoria called for by the Windsor Report and the last Lambeth Conference to have their representatives removed from certain inter Anglican ecumenical commissions since they no longer represent the mind of the Communion. This has clearly ticked her off.

Angered at his Pentecost message, the Presiding Bishop fired back with her own continuing Pentecost message in response to both the archbishop's letter and the subsequent removal of Episcopal representatives. She wrote that efforts to "impose a singular understanding in such matters represent the same kind of cultural excesses practiced by many of our colonial forebears in their missionizing activity."

From New York, the Presiding Bishop then flew to Halifax, Canada, to attend the Anglican Church of Canada Synod where she delivered much the same message to the Canadian Church that she delivered to Rowan Williams in NY. "I don't think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation." She said their removal misrepresents what the Anglican Communion is. She also described disciplinary actions by the Archbishop of Canterbury as "colonial" and a "push toward centralized authority."

From Halifax, she flew to England, where she made the first of two back-to-back appearances. The Presiding Bishop spoke first in a keynote address to USPG (United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) in Swanwick and then to the Scottish Episcopal Church General Synod in Edinburgh. Later this month, she heads south of the equator where she will be warmly received in Christchurch, NZ, and in (as yet undefined places) in Australia. Archbishop Philip Aspinall will warmly receive her, but Archbishop Peter Jensen won't, of that you can be sure.

*****

Canon Kenneth Kearon Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council was at the Episcopal Church's Executive Council meeting in Maryland this week at the invitation of Jefferts Schori where he tried to put the best spin on the actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He called the effects of the Archbishop's request for certain ecumenical leaders in TEC to stand down and the actions of Jefferts Schori "fairly minimal". His presence at the meeting came 11 days after he announced that he had sent letters to five Episcopal Church members of the inter-Anglican ecumenical dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches "informing them that their membership on these dialogues has been discontinued." On June 7, Kearon wrote to the Episcopal Church member of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO) withdrawing her membership and inviting her to serve as a consultant to that body.

Of course, he needs to downplay this because the ACC depends on TEC for 40% of its income. Kearon "survived" a hard-hitting press conference following the Anglican Church of Canada's recent synod and you can read that in today's digest. He did offer up this choice morsel when asked by Leigh Anne Williams of the Anglican Journal: Could you respond to the concern that Section IV of the Anglican Covenant has an exclusionary element, in that dissenting provinces must step back from the table?

Kenneth Kearon: I do have a concern that when people read the Covenant they do so in the light of previous versions. In the present version, Section IV doesn't have the word "exclusion" in it. It doesn't even say, "Step back." What it does say is that as issues are identified and clarified by the various bodies, then it is over to the Instruments of Communion to see what implications need to be worked out. The decision-making will be by the Instruments of Communion [the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates Meetings, and the Lambeth Conference].

INTERPRETATION: Punishment will be minimal if any at all, however Jefferts Schori will go on persecuting faithful orthodox Episcopalians and getting away with it.

"If the Covenant is in place, then we have a mechanism for seriously considering very deep issues that have Communion-wide implications." Really. We know what the "deep issues" are and we know about the "implications". What we don't know is the requisite punishment for disobeying them.

The Living Church broke the news that the number persons asked to step back might be considerably higher. The archbishop's letter could affect as many as 30 leaders, not five as earlier thought, wrote Doug LeBlanc. "If all the Instruments of Communion were to exclude members based on actions that disregard the moratoria of the Windsor Report, 30 Anglican leaders - from laity to archbishops - could be affected and that includes Katharine Jefferts Schori herself. Ironically at a press conference today she flatly denied that she and her ecumenical offspring had been denied access to the church's ecumenical councils..."

*****

At this week's Executive CouncilThe Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, bishop of Connecticut, and the Rev. Gay Jennings were elected to the Anglican Consultative Council, despite the fact that as a bishop he should not be allowed such a slot. The Rt. Rev. James Cowan, bishop of the Diocese of British Columbia, is the new ACC liaison and will meet with with EC at their October meeting in Salt Lake City. What is ironic here is that this diocese is going out of business. It is closing parishes left, right and center. In five years (or less) it may cease to exist altogether.

Other key resolutions adopted by Council at this meeting include the following: Resolution reasserting The Episcopal Church's historic opposition to nuclear weapons, considering their potential to cause catastrophic damage to humankind and all of God's Creation. Resolution convening a steering committee to begin planning a fund-raising strategy for the rebuilding needs of the Diocese of Haiti. Resolution convening a committee to lead the effort to oversee building a new site for the Archives, including fund-raising. Why. You could put everything on mega hard drive and stick it in the basement of the Church Pension Fund building. Resolution advising the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies to fix the length of the 77th General Convention in 2012 at eight days. (Best news so far).

*****

The recent Anglican Church of Canada Sexuality Statement got blasted by Sara Plumpton of British Columbia. In a hard-hitting piece that can be read in today's digest, she says that the recent decision by the ACoC not to decide about affirming same-sex blessings was "apostate waffle."

"Canadians are known for making waffles, and liberally dousing them in maple syrup. The Anglican Church of Canada has put a Sexuality Statement made of lack-of-progress flour, and seasoned with hypocritical salt into the waffle iron, hoping that when they take it out again (in three years at General Synod 2013, and in six years with the Anglican Church of Canada Anglican Covenant discussion timetable), the world-wide Communion will be ready to pour liberal helpings of maple syrup on it. Sugary sweet graciousness cannot cover the fact that compromise theologically on this issue of human sexuality is not of God. Jesus said, 'Whoever is not with me, is against me' (Matthew 12.30)."

"The lack of a definitive vote at General Synod 2010 affirms the status quo (same sex relationships are sanctified, GS2007), which is to the liberal Anglican advantage. The majority liberal Anglican Church of Canada now claims it has not violated moratoria at the national level, while turning a blind eye to violations at the diocesan level. This is achieved by continuing the "dialogue" on human sexuality. This is the text of Resolution C011 as passed at their General Synod 2010:

"The ongoing study by the Canadian Church (carried as amended) requested that all Dioceses, ACIP, Military Ordinariate, and Religious Orders engage in theological and scriptural study of human sexuality in the coming triennium, in conversation with gay and lesbian voices, and with the full range of theological opinion in the Canadian Church.

"Irresponsibly deciding to allow the pain of indecision to become the status quo is to reject calling for godly repentance, for a return to biblical authority, and a submission to God's Word. To allow theological confusion to reign is to preach relativism, which is not the Gospel of Christ. To confuse the people pastorally is to lead them astray. The bible says that those teachers who lead little ones astray would be better off with a millstone round their necks and tossed into the sea (Matthew 18:6). In my opinion, lack of leadership qualifies for this prophetic punishment," wrote Plumpton.

Conservative Anglicans should not participate further in the charade of fruitless "dialogue."

First of all, dialogue is not informed debate. It has not got a stated goal. Nor does it have parameters beyond what has been decided upon at General Synod. Those parameters are remarkably flawed as will be discussed below. Second, "dialogue" implies that there is something that can reasonably be disputed, or that there is leeway for interpretation afforded by the Scriptures. No compromise can be reached on the issue of same sex blessings. Either homosexual sex is blessed or it is sinful.

The Anglican Church of Canada has already given its blessing to homosexual sex; therefore, nothing remains to be discussed. By participating in "dialogue," conservative Anglicans legitimize the hypocritical position of the Anglican Church of Canada, which is in fact breaking the moratoria at the diocesan level and in intent at the national level. Agreement to participate in the facade to protect the Anglican Church of Canada from international Communion sanctions is a position that conservatives should not put themselves into, as it is contrary to the goal of conservative Anglicanism, which is to uphold the authority of Scripture.

On a different note I commend to you an amazing short video clip from the Forgiven Summit that took place in Ottawa recently. Over 4,000 First Peoples and others attended, including a good number of Inuit Christians and Anglican Inuit leaders. It can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/12487494

This short video clip http://bit.ly/cV60Yt of the Forgiven Summit by CBC Canada is worth watching. Being CBC, it omitted any reference to the Christian content of forgiveness at the Summit.

*****

The Diocese of Albany, meeting in its 142nd annual convention, passed the following resolution on June 12: "RESOLVED, that the Episcopal Diocese of Albany endorses the Anglican Communion Covenant (final text, approved for distribution December 18, 2009) and recommends its adoption by all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion." The resolution passed a plurality vote, 314 to 76. Bishop Bill Love urged delegates to support this resolution.

*****

The Bishop of the Diocese of San Diego, the Rt. Rev. James Mathes has just "reopened" St. Anne's, Oceanside. 97% of this congregation left TEC and joined the ACNA, but they lost their building in a court fight with the diocese.

To date, Mathes has lost nine of his 40 parishes, the people that is, not the buildings. It is ironic that Mathes does not have the money to support a black Sudanese priest or the poor or a vibrant Vietnamese congregation and priest that recently closed its doors because they didn't have enough money to pay the priest. Mathes does have the money to support a priest and a handful of liberal white Episcopalians in Oceanside, California.

A VOL reader wrote saying that the Oceanside parish will host their first service this Sunday and Mathes has put out an appeal for people (read ringers) to come from all over the diocese so it will appear that there is a congregation. "This is the third white restart for him. I love inclusiveness. Oh and V. Gene Robinson was just at the cathedral recently." THAT says it all.

*****

Social justice is all the rage in Western Christian circles these days, and Episcopal Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori is in the vanguard of church social reformers with her constant appeal to Millennium Development Goals and saving the world (environment, the poor, women, and pansexualists) for God. Experiencing God emotionally is not far behind.

We want a touchy, feely, feel good God who will swoop down and meet all our needs and then some, but please make sure you don't live in the Lower Ninth Ward or own a fishing business in Mississippi otherwise you might have to learn how to walk on oil. That might NOT be considered a miracle.

For some evangelicals, the gospel has feet only when it is used in service to the disenfranchised, and worship is considered good only when it fosters fuzzy warmth in the worshiper. What if changing the culture, transforming the world, and worshiping intensely are not the primary missions of the church? What if they are byproducts of something else?

In his latest book, Gregory S. Clapper gives his perspective on what the church should be about: The Renewal of the Heart Is the Mission of the Church: Wesley's Heart Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Wipf and Stock). Clapper explores John Wesley's view of human "affections" (emotions, passions) and what his view means for churches today. Not exactly in the vein of St. Katharine of Schori.

*****

In Washington, DC, recently, the Presiding Bishop felt the pain of disenfranchised Palestinians in an address to the Churches for Middle East Peace. Ironically, the Presiding Bishop spoke quite temperately, contrasting her own denomination with others advocating boycotts of Israel.

You can read Jeff Walton of IRD's piece in today's digest.

Interestingly, Metropolitan Jonah was also supposed to be present at the prayer breakfast where Jefferts Schori spoke. He was a no-show and instead sent an Orthodox chaplain from Georgetown in his place, citing a "scheduling conflict". I'm willing to bet that he was unaware of her participation in the same session when they originally asked him to do prayers. The "scheduling conflict" was probably due more to his disinterest in appearing in the same room with her.

*****

At St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral in London, Ontario, Canada, there are huge banners adorning the front of the church building. They read "St. Paul's - All are welcome in your cathedral". Of course the word "all" is code for homosexuals.

A Canadian Anglican wrote VOL to say that there are hardly any gays and lesbians in London in the Dominion of Canada, and they do not go to church. "St. Paul's is lucky to get 60-100 parishioners in the pews in a church that seats 1100 people, one man is 100 years old, many of the lovely ladies are in their 80's and 90's. In London we also have the Metropolitan Community Church, the gay church, and there is maybe 10-20 attending there, all sorts of folk. There are also United Churches here, but six more are going to close due to the gay business being introduced in 1988, it was said at the time that the United church would be all done in 20 years, and this was a true prediction, as the people have now all died, and no one has come along to replace them. The National Post newspaper in Toronto now has the Holy Post of blogs and letters to the editor, and right now there is a letter to the editor about the Niagara Diocese and how they are doing the same-sex blessings."

*****

U.S. Blood Ban for Gays Remains. The federal Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability (ACBSA) voted 9-6 Friday to maintain current blood-donation rules, which effectively forbid practicing homosexuals from donating blood.

Specifically, the rules defer any prospective blood donor if he is a man who has had sex with another man since 1977, approximately the beginning of the AIDS outbreak. "Common sense has triumphed over political correctness, an increasingly rare but very welcome occurrence," said the Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg in response.

"This panel heard a day and a half of testimony, including the latest research on HIV risks in the blood supply, but in the end they recognized that there is no alternative screening policy that can be shown to maintain the safety of the nation's blood supply."

*****

In the Province of Uganda DNA test results have revealed that Bishop-elect Bernard Bagaba is not the father of two children belonging to Annet Tugumisirize, as previously alleged. The House of Bishops will discuss the implications of these test results at their next regularly scheduled meeting on 2nd July and communicate the way forward at that time." A source in Kampala confirmed this report.

*****

The Church of Finland has elected is first female bishop. Pastor Irja Askola was elected Bishop of Helsinki of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland on June 3. A member of the Porvoo Group of churches in Communion with the Church of England, Finland now joins Norway, Sweden and Denmark in appointing women bishops. However, the election of Pastor Askola will likely cause difficulty for some of the diocese's clergy, members of the traditionalist Finnish Lutheran Gospel Association.

In September 2006 a committee of the Finnish House of Bishops, chaired by the Bishop of Espoo, the Rt. Rev. Mikko Heikka, recommended that congregations no longer be permitted to allow ministers to absent themselves from services where they would have to serve with a female priest, nor would the parish be permitted to accommodate traditionalist clergy by scheduling male clergy only services.

In 2008 a court convicted the Rev. Ari Norro of "criminal discrimination" under the country's human rights laws for refusing to concelebrate the Eucharist with a female minister. Mr. Norro, a member of the Lutheran Gospel Association, was fined 20-days pay by the Hyvinkää District Court, which held that religious convictions can not trump sexual discrimination laws.

*****

No Gay 'Marriage' in Germany, Court Rules. Marriage can only be between one man and one woman, a German court has ruled in a case brought by two homosexual men who were "married" in Canada. The court ruled that a same-sex "marriage" contracted abroad is to be legally considered a civil partnership in Germany.

The decision is a setback for the homosexualist movement in Germany, which had hoped to use the courts to force the legalization of gay "marriage." Andreas Boettcher, a 37-year-old German event manager, went to Montreal with his Spanish partner and undertook a civil marriage ceremony in July 2006. The pair returned to Germany and went to a Berlin administrative court when local authorities refused to recognize their Canadian marriage certificate. The pair had already been to Spain, where same-sex "marriage" has been legal since 2005, and registered there as a family.

In August 2001, Germany passed legislation allowing registered partnerships but, despite being one of the most sexually "progressive" countries in Europe, declined to go so far as to include homosexual partnerings in the legal definition of marriage.

In general, however, the homosexualist movement has been highly successful in using the German courts to attain its goals. In a 2009 case involving a dispute over pension benefits for a homosexual man in a registered partnership, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that all the same rights and obligations of marriage be extended to same-sex registered partners.

*****

The leader of Britain's Tory Party, David Cameron pledged his support for gay rights before jokingly referring to his deputy, Nick Clegg, as "my own civil partner" at a recent garden party.

Gay celebrities and members of the Armed Forces partied at Number 10 as Cameron became the first Tory Prime Minister to reach out to the gay community.

The new Tory Leader told journalists that gays, bisexuals and transsexuals should be allowed to have gay civil partnerships take place in religious buildings, but he stop short of allowing "gay marriage" - a key demand of some activists.

Mr. Cameron said he wanted civil partnerships to be carried out in places of worship if possible, adding, "We shouldn't have this legalistic nonsense getting in the way of people who want to celebrate their civil partnership in churches."

*****

In Sacramento, a San Francisco district court judge, who is reportedly homosexual, will decide soon whether to overturn the will of California voters and strike down Proposition 8 - the state's constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman - in a landmark trial that many say is likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A VOL reader described it as a watershed event in the moral standards of our civic and religious life. Mike McManus has written about this historic event that could change the definition of marriage forever in America.

A thoughtful Brit wrote VOL saying, "I sometimes wonder if the West fatally undermined its own institutions, by way of 'Human Rights', as an over-reaction to WWII? There is no doubt that the Nazis had to be stopped, but since 1950 the West has been under some kind of compulsion to seek out and abolish any kind of values within its own societies which indicate a commitment to any kind of cultural or moral norms - for fear that they somehow 'oppress' anyone by expressing a preference for Christian teaching. "We are left with a vacuum, which moral anarchists have rushed to exploit, and in their wake come the Islamists, equally determined to exploit it and to impose their own crushing order in its place...."

*****

GADFLY: The Life and Times of Les Kinsolving, White House Watchdog has just been published. It presents a portrayal of a man as the third-longest serving senior member of the White House Press Association. Kinsolving was once an Episcopal priest who was rattling cages in ECUSA long before this writer came on the scene. He was suspended from the priesthood in 1978 and removed in 1979 for preaching assorted heresies. He is now a minister in the Anglican Church. Some of his outrageous lines include calling both Jesse Jackson and Minister Louis Farrakhan a "horses' ass". Kinsolving has been controversial for most of his life starting with a sermon he preached calling the Damnable Doctrine of Hell Damnable. However, he was read and appreciated by people like Billy Graham. For his sins he went on to become nationally syndicated columnist hosting radio and TV programs and working as a reporter in Washington. He has been a conservative on most matters such as his vigorous denunciation of homosexuality. This book, written by his daughter Kathleen Kinsolving tells the story of her father, warts and all. It's a great read. You can purchase the book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_6?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=gadfly+kinsolving&sprefix=GADFLY

*****

Readers of the daily Lectionary, now the Revised Common Lectionary will have noticed something a little unusual this week, a BIG omission. A number of verses have been excised, no doubt for the sake of touchy consciences.

Look at what happens to Paul's letter to the Romans between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

On Tuesday we read (or hear) Romans 1:16-25.

On Wednesday we get Romans 1:28-2:11.

Does anyone notice the missing verses?

Is there is a conspiracy to keep you from reading things that might offend the zeitgeist.

Here are the missing verses - Romans 1: 26-27

v. 26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. The pansexual Integrity organization is not amused.

*****

Four new deacons were ordained to the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) on June 5 at St. Stephen's, Sewickley. Constance Keck Hughes (Trinity, Beaver), James Perry Russell (Seeds of Hope), Teresa Lynn Russell (Seeds of Hope), and James Wilson Kuahiwi Apple (St. Christopher's) were all ordained to the transitional diaconate.

*****

Anglican Ministry in the Americas Bishop Thad Barnum is entering a New Season of Ministry. Starting July 1, 2010, Barnum launches out in his role as a missionary bishop - promoting discipleship in the local church through the Anglican Mission and beyond. Continuing as Rector of Church of the Apostles in Fairfield, Connecticut, Bishop Thad will step away from overseeing clergy and congregations in the Anglican Mission to commit to call2disciple for this next chapter of his episcopal ministry. You can read more about this ministry and see a video of Thad's ministry here: http://call2disciple.blogspot.com/

*****

Dr. Rowan Williams turned 60 this week. Happy Birthday, Rowan Williams.

*****

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In Christ,

David