REC Passes Anti-Abortion Resolution

Virtually the last act of the Reformed Episcopal Church's General Council last week was the passage of the following resolution:

Forasmuch as the Reformed Episcopal Church has affirmed the teaching of God's Word that abortion is the taking of an unborn human life, and inasmuch as we have recognized the duty of all faithful Christians to work to protect the unborn and restrain the sin of abortion on demand, we hereby move that the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church direct the clergy and laity of the Reformed Episcopal Church to make a political candidate's position on the Sanctity of Human Life the highest priority in discerning for whom to vote regardless of political party represented or office being sought.

The resolution passed without opposition although there was a quiet abstention or two.

I supported it although I do quibble with one matter. The resolution was sprung on us without notification and without a written version of it in front of us. (It was read to us.) Although I think it an excellent resolution and am proud of the REC for taking this stand, that’s not the way resolutions of this importance should be handled.

Has Obama Committed Massive Election Fraud?

More than a few Democrats think his campaign already has.

A Pilgrimage

I’m a bit groggy but back home now after driving a record 1100 miles yesterday. It's a spectacular morning here.

On the way home, I made a pilgrimage . . . to an In and Out Burger.

Thanks be to God!

Presidential Race Tightening

Don’t look now but Obama-McCain has tightened. And I agree with Dick Morris that it is likely to tighten further with undecideds breaking for McCain.

Obama has let his Leftism slip out with comments past and present about redistributing the wealth and about supposed flaws and blind spots in our Constitution. And those not deeply committed to The Chosen One just might like our Constitution along with being able to keep their “wealth,” thank you.

The REC Prays for Our Sovereign Lady

REC General Council is now over. Other than endorsing GAFCON and the Jerusalem Declaration, perhaps our most notable act was a very strong pro-life resolution towards the end. When I get the exact wording, I’ll post it.

In our Book of Common Prayer, we have a wonderful prayer for “Our Sovereign Lady, The Queen,” which, among other things, asks that she may “vanquish all her enemies.” The thought of Elizabeth II vanquishing all her enemies warms my heart.

Well, she is still the Queen of Canada. So we got to use that prayer during our Daily Offices – one of the special perks of meeting in Canada.

BREAKING: REC General Council Approves GAFCON Statement and Jerusalem Declaration

Upon the hearty recommendation of Presiding Bishop Leonard W. Riches, the 52nd General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church has just affirmed the GAFCON Statement and the Jerusalem Declaration by a rising vote. There was no opposition.

Today is a great day.

MORE: In his comments on GAFCON accompanying his recommendation, the Presiding Bishop said with emphasis, “Within a few short weeks it is expected that this new alignment will be represented domestically in the formation and recognition of a new Province of the Anglican Church in North America.”

At REC General Council

Yes, I did make it here to Victoria, B. C. for the 52nd General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church. The weather is spectacular. Sorry I haven’t posted much. I haven’t had much extra time.

We’re meeting at the Church of Our Lord, the oldest original REC church in existence, built in 1875. It is a beautiful, unusual building.

Two people I’m particularly glad to see here: APA Presiding Bishop Walter Grundorf and my favorite Northern Californian Anglican, Fr. Brian Foos. He and his choir will be leading us in choral evensong later today. Bishop Grundorf just gave a brief warm address that debunked some of "exaggerations" of difficulties between the APA and the REC.

My rector has just created a photoblog of his time at (and to) this General Council. Yes, there may be a pic or two of me there.

Well, I better pay attention to the first business meeting now in progress.

This is getting silly.

I’ve said many things about The Episcopal Church. But I don’t think I’ve ever called them silly until now.

Meanwhile, I’m forming the Diocese of Me. All who don’t join will be deposed, excommunicated and anathematized . . . even laity. I’m preemptively deposing them, just to be safe.

The Sacred Service of Excommunication and Anathematization will be celebrated in my apartment cathedral at a time to be announced.

Obama Lies About Abortion . . . Again.

I would not have been good company Wednesday night. For I was listening to the final Obama-McCain debate on the radio while I was driving. (Usually just driving is enough to make me ill tempered!) And I blew my stack a time or two, particularly when Obama lied about abortion . . . again.

It is well known that Obama and Bill Clinton aren’t exactly fans of each other. But they do share one thing in common. They lie with faux sincerity very well.

Obamedia Double Standard

Notice how the Obamedia (aka the “Mainstream” News Media) goes after those who might give a boost to the McCain campaign while giving Obama a free pass? Joe the Plumber is a case in point. The media goes after him and finds he owes a fairly trivial amount of taxes. Horrors!

But what about Obama’s tax returns?

Don’t think this sort of thing will end with election day. It’s a taste of the coming Obama thugocracy. Those who oppose The Chosen One will face the consequences!

Holy Ghost Recreation Area

Seen on a sign along US 550 in New Mexico:

“Holy Ghost Recreation Area”

November’s Aftermath

Whatever happens in the elections, the aftermath will not be pretty. The Cold Civil War “might get a tad warmer”:

However this election turns out, there will be turmoil. If Obama wins, a large part of the country will feel angry and powerless against the will of the left leaning blue states, the news media, Hollywood and academia. (In fact, they already feel that way, I assure you.) They will believe that ACORN created enough false voter registrations to put Obama over the top. If McCain wins, the left will riot and claim, "The Diebold machines were hacked!" The blue states, the news media, Hollywood and academia will resent that the will of the "dumb hicks" in flyover country overruled that of their "betters". And we will hear the cries of, "Racism! Racism!" ad nauseam.

Now, if Obama wins as I expect, I doubt it will be close enough to smell of election fraud (although there likely will be a lot of vote fraud). But I do think this nation’s divisions will worsen.

And not just in the short term. When Obama governs like the Leftist he is, I think even many who voted for him will feel they were sold a bill of goods. There will be not a little anger.

A “uniter” Obama is not.

John McCain Was Right on Cox and the SEC.

John McCain took some flak when he called for the firing of the head of the SEC, Christopher Cox. But sadly events have proved him right.

Since McCain’s call for Cox’s firing. Cox has allowed the short sale ban on financial stocks to lift. Now that needed to be done eventually.

But it was lifted yesterday morning. Notice what the markets have done since then? Notice the obvious short raid on Morgan Stanley?

If that raid succeeds, God help us. God help us all.

Obama Is Funding ACORN Vote Fraud

First, I give the “Mainstream” News Media some much deserved bashings. So when much deserved kudos are in order I will give those, too. So kudos to CNN for investigating and reporting on ACORN’s vote fraud.

I saw their excellent report over lunch just now. One of the items it mentions is that the Obama campaign paid ACORN $800,000 earlier this year for their voter registration drives. So Obama is funding their vote fraud.

CNN: Despite its past, the Obama campaign gave $800,000 to ACORN to help fund its primary registration drive, and ACORN has endorsed Barack Obama for president. The Obama campaign reacted this afternoon, saying, it is “committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process and said it has not worked with ACORN during the general election”.

Yeah, right. But ACORN sure is working for them, using that $800,000 to corrupt our election.

There is no excuse for Obama’s complicity in this as ACORN has a sordid history of vote fraud in past elections as well documented here. Obama cannot with any credibility say, “We didn’t know.”

So I’ll say it again – Barack Obama is funding election fraud.

The Rest of the Month (and REC General Council)

Good morning. I want to give my forbearing readers a heads-up on the rest of the month for this blog. I will be quite busy, so it is uncertain how much I will blog. So if I don’t post for a few days at a time, don’t be alarmed. But, as always, if sufficiently provoked, I will blog.

But more importantly, the week of October 20th, I will be attending the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church as a delegate. So I will be sure to make some reports from there. It should be an interesting Council, given this year’s developments with GAFCON and Common Cause, including a Common Cause leaders meeting this past week.

All prayers for the REC and for me would be appreciated. And thanks for putting up with me.

In 1996, Obama Was a Member of a Socialist Party.

More is coming out on Barack Obama’s connections with the Socialist “New Party.” In spite of efforts to scrub incriminating sources from the internet, multiple archives have been found that document that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party in the 1990’s. And these sources are very friendly to Obama. Details may be found here and here.

It’s quite damning. So the “Mainstream” News Media will ignore it.

ACORN Registers Dallas Cowboys to Vote . . . in Nevada

Obama’s favorite community organizing group, ACORN, has once again been caught engaging in voter fraud, this time fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada.

The phony names used included the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys.

Dallas sports talk radio is having a bit of fun with that.

This excuse takes the cake:

“The fact is, this is hard work and there were some people that probably sat down on a couch and filled out names out of a phone book,” said Matthew Henderson, Southwest regional director for ACORN. “That’s really what we’re talking about here — not an attempt to steal an election.”

Of course not. And, of course Obama wouldn’t support any such efforts. No, not at all.

Obama and Socialists

As if Obama and his news media friends aren’t hiding enough of his radical background, here’s more – his participation in and support from Socialist political parties, and not as a callow youth, but in the 1990’s.

A personal aside: I know most of my good readers come here for things other than reading up on Obama. And, to be honest, I now expect he’s going to win regardless of what comes out on him. People blame the Republicans more than Democrats for the current economic mess (which is a serious error given that it’s mainly Democrats who pushed risky mortgage loans), and the McCain campaign has waited too long to expose Obama’s radicalism. Any attacks now are likely to be seen as desperation and will be so dismissed no matter how accurate. Given those factors, I cannot foresee any development that would turn the tide.

But even if Obama is elected, I want to be able to say I did my part to warn people about him. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Sometimes, fighting for a losing cause is the most honorable course.

Edwardtide!

This morning as I drove, I began singing a hymn in praise of St. Edward the Confessor when it occurred to me – his feast day is upon us. Later I looked, and, sure enough, The Feast of the Translation of St. Edward the Confessor is October 13th.

A year ago I very much enjoyed a Sung Eucharist on the Eve of the Translation at Westminster Abbey, which St. Edward founded. For those who can, I strongly recommend attending a service or two at Westminster Abbey during Edwardtide.

(Wow, this year is different. First thing this warm, humid, and still morning I caught some waves. This evening I will likely get some barbeque with a friend. South Texas and England are different worlds.)

Flying Bishops for CofE Traditionalists?

Over the weekend, word came out via The Telegraph that a revised arrangement of flying bishops for CofE traditionalists is in the works.

Hardly anyone seems to be pleased about this. Damian Thompson (who wants every traditionalist Anglican to cross the Tiber) is dismissive. Cranmer doesn’t think much of it. Fr. Jeffrey Steel, in a typically thoughtful post, is also typical of his fellow Anglo-Catholics in thinking that this wouldn’t go far enough.

Among the more liberal, Canon Jane Shaw’s opinion is common.

Canon Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity at New College, Oxford described the proposals as ludicrous and a betrayal of Synod's earlier vote. "If they enshrine in law legislation that puts flying bishops in place they'll be going against the will of the Synod," she said. 



"This would be totally undemocratic and completely inappropriate."



She said it was "absurd" that a diocesan bishop shouldn't have oversight over all the parishes in their diocese.

On a personal note, I am disappointed, though not shocked, at Dr. Shaw’s stand. I very much respect her leadership of New College Chapel. Of the three choral foundation chapels in Oxford, New College was the only one where I could worship with good liturgy without having liberal excesses shoved in my face. She leads the chapel in a manner where all just about Christians can worship and feel welcomed. I do wish she supported the Church of England being so led.

However, she does raise good questions about the governance of the Church of England, a root issue in the current situation. Namely, to what extent should (and is) the Church of England be a democracy? How much authority does (should) Synod really have?

Here’s one view that will rub many the wrong way, but I suspect is correct:

Bishop Reade spoke against the Synod becoming parliamentary with two competing sides: “Ideally I think the House of Bishops should be there, and we should be listening to the debate, and we should go away and make the decisions.” 



He said the clergy and laity should vote, but that it should simply be used as information for the bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had also spoken in July against using General Synod as a parliament, emphasising that the Church was managed by synod, rather than governed by it.

Lately, it seems if a church becomes too much of a democracy, you get The Episcopal Church, The mainline Presbyterian Church and the latest CofE Synod, in which the most committed activists take over from the less ardent but more sensible and more orthodox mainstream. (Note that “more” isn’t saying much at times.) For all its faults, the Church of England has a long record of thwarting the designs of activists of various sorts who would take the whole church overboard with them. Making the CofE too much of a democracy ala Synod would diminish that moderating tendency. (Not that “moderate” is necessarily good, but it sure as heck is better than what Synod wrought.)

Having said all that, my opinion of the flying bishops proposal? I still think traditionalists should be given their own dioceses, but I am sanguine about the current proposal, at least what we know about it. It is a step in the right direction for a change. And it may slow the exodus of Anglo-Catholics to Rome, maybe. (And if Rome appoints a loser to be Archbishop of Westminster, which may happen, that would slow the exodus that much more.)

We shall see. I’m watching and praying with interest.

A Shoot-em-up at My Place

No, I didn’t shoot any liberals. This past summer, some guys I know from a home school co-op shot a Western short for the Corpus Christi 7-day Film contest. Though the youngest team in the contest, they won a number of awards. You may see their movie with more background info here. (Be warned that it contains realistic shoot-em-up violence in the spirit of Westerns.)

By the way, at their request, they shot most of the movie at my place.

Calling Good Evil and Evil Good . . .

. . . and pro-abortion pro-life.

From The Episcopal Church, of course.

MSNBC Caught in Palin-Bashing Falsehood

It seems MSNBC is so busy bashing Palin they don’t bother to get their facts straight. And they’ve been caught.

Where is Obama’s Campaign Money Coming From?

That’s a very good question. For the sources of nearly half of Obama’s campaign donations don’t appear in Obama’s fundraising reports. (Yes, small donors don’t have to be reported. But did small donors give that much?) And a lot of Obama money is coming from overseas. Now, overseas U. S. citizens can contribute, but it’s illegal for foreigners to do so.

The FEC certainly has had some questions.

A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found that the FEC had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations, totaling just under $30 million.

I freely admit I don’t know if any election laws are being willfully violated. And in any campaign, honest mistakes will be made. But Obama’s campaign is not passing the smell test. More here.

Some Moderator

The moderator for Thursday night’s Veep debate is no moderate. She’s in the tank for Obama.

Will she be even-handed anyway? We’ll see, but I’m not holding my breath.

What Caused the Current Financial Crisis?

I don’t want to oversimplify the causes of the current financial mess. There is more than one cause and a lot of blame to spread around. For one thing, mandated mark-to-market accounting certainly has – and is – contributing. And allowing bond insurance to be separated from the underlying bonds (enabling people to do the financial equivalent of buying life insurance on their enemies) certainly has thrown fuel on the fire.

But probably the biggest problem is the great push, practically mandated by the federal government and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to make massive amounts of sub-prime mortgages. These were an accident waiting to happen – waiting for the next housing downturn. And, sure enough, the first significant housing downturn caused many of these sub-prime mortgages to fail.

Democrats are trying to blame Bush for this (Doesn’t he get the blame for everything?) and to blame McCain, too. But the facts are Bush tried to reform mortgage lending back in 2003 as reported by the New York Times(!). And in 2005, McCain co-sponsored housing finance reform with this prescient warning:

If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

If you want to go further back – and you should – here is one of the better explanations of the sources of the sub-prime mess I’ve come across. Pay particular attention to the following excerpt (I haven’t formatted the links. Those can be found at the above source.).
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A home of your own. It’s part of the American dream. Work hard, save up for a down payment, pay your bills on time and, presto, you, too, can buy a home.

For decades the government has done things to help Americans to realize the dream, e.g., graciously allowing citizens to keep some of their own money to help pay for the interest on a mortgage (the official term for this is a “tax deduction,” but I prefer my locution since it emphasizes the fact that it is YOUR MONEY we are talking about).

But what about people who do not work hard (if they work at all)? What about people who have not saved up for a down payment? What about people who do not pay their bills on time (if they pay them at all)? Why shouldn’t they get to live the American dream?

That was the question that led to
”The Community Reinvestment Act” (see here for more).
* The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.
The buzz word was “affordable mortgages,” e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.
* In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls “sub-prime mortgages.”

Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages.

$1 trillion, i.e., a thousand billion dollars in sub-prime, i.e., risky, mortgages, in order to push this latest example of social engineering.

But wait: how did it force banks to do this? Easy. Introduce a federal requirement that banks make the loans or face penalties. As Howard Husock, writing in City Journal way back in 2000 observed: “Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A’s for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count.” Way back in 1994, for example, Barack Obama sued Citibank on behalf of a client who charged that the bank “systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods.”
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And guess who else made big contributions to this mess? Among the villains are Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, and – Surprise! Surprise! – Obama and his favorite community organizing group, ACORN.

Are there Republicans to blame for the current troubles? Oh yes. Did eeeevil Wall Street people contribute? Well, yes. What about predatory lenders? Well, I’d personally like to see some in prison.

But facts are facts. The big push behind the policies that led to the sub-prime mortgage mess came primarily from Democrats . . . though Democrats try to demagogue and distract from that and though the “Mainstream” News Media ignores it.