tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64684132024-02-19T01:03:45.636-06:00Wannabe AnglicanA Texan conservative Anglican -- yes, a square peg -- ponders both churchly and worldly things and enjoys his new church.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3661125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-55864628256812119212023-03-09T06:32:00.002-06:002023-03-09T06:32:29.860-06:00I’m not dead yet . . . but this blog probably is.<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">I’m not dead yet.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">I’m feeling much better actually. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Seriously, yes, I’m okay.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And I apologize for going silent, especially if I worried anybody. If I wanted to make excuses for that, they would be 1. I just didn’t have anything I wanted to write here and 2. I got locked out. Both of which are true.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But now that I finally found my way back in there, I think it’s time to put this blog to bed. I do reserve the right to revive this blog months or even years from now, but that is unlikely.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I once thought I would surely take this blog to twenty years in 2024. It was a long-lived blog! But I am writing so much for other venues, often anonymously, often privately, and more and more under my real life name, that something has to give. I have never been a prolific writer, and I’ve always had limited energy. So I think it time to end this blog.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It was a good run, wasn’t it? I was occasionally wrong, but mostly right on target, even with a prediction or two. In fact, now that I think about it, I <i>might</i> have a greatest hits post or two. But I will probably do that on my twitter feed. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yes, <a href="https://twitter.com/WannabeAnglican" target="_blank">do follow my twitter</a>. I remain very active there.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s been fun. And I’m having fun now, just in other venues. Thanks to all who supported me and prayed for me through the years. I love you all.</p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-7782289307373337482022-06-20T03:19:00.000-05:002022-06-20T03:19:33.514-05:00Vagrancy in the U. K.<p> <span style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">Vagrancy in the U. K.</span></p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">. . . which I guess is cousin to Anarchy in the U. K.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Anyway, yes, I still exist. I’ve been busy studying, mainly in Oxford, and also busy enjoying my time here. I am now in York, taking something of a vacation from my studies.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">When I came back to England some weeks ago, I feared the problem with panhandlers and other street people would be much worse than my last U. K. sojourn in 2018. I did not expect it to be as bad as, say, Los Angeles or Seattle, but Oxford and elsewhere in the U. K. have long been very tolerant toward panhandlers and the like. So I was afraid it would be bad.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">In the case of Oxford, I was surprised to find it has not changed much. But an exception to that illustrates that Oxford is asking for it to get much worse. </p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">(I did have a disturbing episode with an obviously drug-addicted panhandler attacking me while I was trying to eat in peace in Cowley, near Oxford. But I’ve not spent much time in Cowley in the past, so I’m not in a position to say whether the situation there has gotten worse. But I can testify firsthand it is bad!)</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">The exception is three panhandling women regularly in three spots in central Oxford. All three use the same passive-aggressive tactic. They pick a narrow place in a busy sidewalk, then sit and block half of it. All three spots have barriers that make walking around the women difficult if the sidewalks are crowded as they often are. Their signs (which look suspiciously similar) claiming homelessness are not placed beside them but in front of them thereby assisting them in blocking the sidewalk. </p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">If you’ve ever walked around Oxford, you would know this is a really obnoxious thing to do as these sidewalks are constantly crowded as it is. Trying to walk around Oxford can be annoying and even treacherous without panhandlers willfully blocking the way.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Yet these three women, whom I suspect are part of a racket, are allowed to do this every day as far as I can tell. Of course, when you allow and enable this sort of behavior, you are likely to get more of it as has been the awful experience of American cities . . . any maybe that’s why there are three women doing this already.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Yet, other than these three, the situation with street people hasn’t changed that much in Oxford since 2018. I cannot explain why it hasn’t gotten worse. Perhaps some cultural pond differences are in play? In any case, Oxford is asking for trouble. But, as historically the case with the city of dreaming spires, they are fortunate . . . for now.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">York is a different matter. There are definitely more street people than in 2018, even “within the walls” in the heart of York. </p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">York is foolish to allow this as much of their commerce comes from tourists and shoppers roaming within the walls. At some point, the increased vagrancy has to discourage tourism and shopping, and that point may be near. </p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">Personally, I am enjoying my stay in York, but the situation has me making a point to retreat to my room well before dark. (I am thankful it takes a long time to get dark this time of year!) And I will think twice before coming back to York — if the vagrancy situation is getting worse, how bad would it be if I return? I may not want to find out.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">I say this with sadness as I really love York.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">York is still far from L. A. or Austin. But the city seems to be asking for trouble much as Oxford is. It would be interesting to see how on target my concerns about both cities are, but I won’t be here in the U. K. much longer to find out.</p>
<p style="color: #0d131d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16px;">There are surely factors in all this that this Texan is missing. Feel free to inform me of them in the comments.</p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-80194801030082842692022-03-17T08:28:00.000-05:002022-03-17T08:28:22.151-05:00You Want Systemic Racism? You Want Systemic Injustice?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">You may need to sit down for this.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">And this is important enough that I am posting here for the first time in a while.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Ready?</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am a firm believer is systemic racism now.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, it’s true. And systemic racism is true. I have seen the light, and I am awake to it.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I saw the light yesterday when <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/03/16/judge-orders-jussie-smollett-be-released-from-jail-on-bond-while-he-appeals-his-conviction/" target="_blank">Jesse Smollett was let out of jail</a> while his conviction is appealed. He was let out less than a week after he was sentenced to 150 days in jail.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYMOsZSNoZLrwy-LJv9dtrQPQe_0SKOGXPdVogoJ0Uv1yAo1Mpj7x2kEL8cmUt6JT_YbmxZOmOB_epI6LTr6KRSPw7C_A2rh9aVcDCl9kKOcTHbjjVKyg2CT11IciKeNSJXC3kn4uQFvp4u6tnlsHihddLMg8QUEaPGALy0RDv3b1agHYuiVQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYMOsZSNoZLrwy-LJv9dtrQPQe_0SKOGXPdVogoJ0Uv1yAo1Mpj7x2kEL8cmUt6JT_YbmxZOmOB_epI6LTr6KRSPw7C_A2rh9aVcDCl9kKOcTHbjjVKyg2CT11IciKeNSJXC3kn4uQFvp4u6tnlsHihddLMg8QUEaPGALy0RDv3b1agHYuiVQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, as he wants everyone to know, he is black and gay. What he wants you to ignore is that he orchestrated fake hate in order to smear Trump supporters and to elevate himself as a victim of those deplorables.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So let’s flip it. Suppose a very heterosexual white Trump supporter orchestrated a made up black-on-white hate crime on himself in order to smear Black Democrats. Maybe he would have the fake attackers wear BLM or Biden hats kinda like Smollett had his fake attackers wear MAGA hats.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you think such a hypothetical white fake hate artist would be sentenced to only 150 days in jail? Do you think he would be let out of jail while his conviction is appealed?</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course not. Because he is white and straight and Trumpist, not black and gay and Democrat.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, yes, I believe America has a systemic injustice and a systemic racism problem . . . except it is the opposite of what the woke crowd would have you believe.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have to make up a hypothetical case to make this point. Compare the overall absurdly lenient treatment of the diverse Antifa/BLM rioters of 2020 or of the rather monochrome looters/shoplifters of 2021 and 2022 to that of those in jail for January 6th. Yes, some of those J6 people in jail are rioters, but not all. Some acted peacefully. But even the rioters did far less damage than the Antifa/BLM rioters. Yet many J6 people have rotted in jail for over a year without trial. That is not the speedy trial promised by the Constitution. That looks more a tyrannical government holding political prisoners to me. The long sentences Biden’s Justice Department is seeking confirms that.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So yes, the United States has a problem with systemic racism, with systemic injustice. We have two-tiered “justice” in this country.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And that is exactly how woke Democrats would have it. That is what woke Democrats have brought about. Oh yes, they claim to deplore systemic racism and systemic injustice. They so carry on about how much they hate it. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But, actually, they love it.</span></p><div><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-35456827637577575942022-01-20T07:48:00.000-06:002022-01-20T07:48:26.019-06:00Archbishop Cottrell the Climate Change Clown<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Few things are both more contemptible and laughable than church leaders obsequiously aping the agendas of the globalist establishment.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">How some clergy make “climate change” more their Gospel than the Gospel itself is certainly part of this sell-out behavior.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://anglican.ink/2022/01/17/stephen-cottrell-calls-for-attention-to-climate-change/" target="_blank">Take the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell. Please</a>. The other day he was asked by a Canadian:</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The Fifth Mark of Mission of the Anglican Church of Canada is “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” What’s your advice about how to motivate people in our pews to take positive action about climate change? (and what might that action as a church be?)</span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A clown question typical of the ACC being far more wedded to leftist ideologies than to the Gospel. But Cottrell’s answer was even more clownish:</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>What a good question. Is there a more important question facing the world?</i> </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What the….? A supposedly Anglican Archbishop suggesting that the issue of climate change may be the most “important question facing the world?” I think the Bible and the Creeds suggest some slightly more important questions.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It gets worse. (Emphasis mine.) </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I think I would start by…two things…on the big picture level I think we need to teach much more about this. This needs to be not a kind of add-on to the Gospel; </i><b><i>this is the Gospel</i></b><i>…how we inhabit the world in the way of Christ…this is the Gospel. So, I’d want to preach and teach about it much more…</i></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So Cottrell wants the church to go even more all in on pushing climate change agendas. He even says “this is the Gospel.”</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is outrageous is what it is. It is also puzzling. Does he not see what an obsequious sycophant he is playing for everyone to see? Does he not realize he makes a joke of himself when he says such banal blasphemies? Does he care?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEincIm98AwQwWoGnFuxh2denmaoOR90KyGKLR456DCewFowll5ue79aGFdb0-ZxNuVTB1OdzPmuY7X3tfw6R-6Y6RSEVGJWk8P0tTolOJ1Sifb2daUB3PZX6IRW3w-0pEpRZtX1U5VpmrZ4-sK9xWm1kJdTLHH_DeQApcy-bXB-96_woSC-NqI=s980" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="980" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEincIm98AwQwWoGnFuxh2denmaoOR90KyGKLR456DCewFowll5ue79aGFdb0-ZxNuVTB1OdzPmuY7X3tfw6R-6Y6RSEVGJWk8P0tTolOJ1Sifb2daUB3PZX6IRW3w-0pEpRZtX1U5VpmrZ4-sK9xWm1kJdTLHH_DeQApcy-bXB-96_woSC-NqI=w400-h245" width="400" /></a></div><p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">I knew Cottrell was bad news when he was appointed Archbishop of York. But I did not expect him to be a clown.</span><p></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This reminds me of another time I saw another Church of England cleric look silly in pushing climate change. I won’t name names because I respect the woman in question, who has far more intelligence than Cottrell. But one time, she drank the climate change Kool-aid a bit much and had a bad day. </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was visiting an Oxford chapel on a Sunday morning back in 2007. She happened to be the preacher. And her entire sermon was on global warming. (That’s what it was called back then.)</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Well it so happened that very same Sunday was the most miserably wet and cold day that term. So when, shivering from a long walk in the cold rain, I later entered her college chapel for Evening Prayer, I smiled and admonished her, “You and your global warming sermon!”</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t think she appreciated my humor.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To be fair, she normally led her chapel and preached with wisdom. I say that although her churchmanship was decidedly different than mine.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nonetheless, when clergy try to turn secular political agendas into Gospel issues worthy of much pulpit time, they not only do a disservice to the Gospel, they are likely to become silly . . . like Cottrell the Climate Change Clown.</span></p><div><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-23735857062499283852021-12-28T09:02:00.000-06:002021-12-28T09:02:49.137-06:00If I were Roman Catholic...<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.1px;">No, I am not becoming Roman Catholic.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.1px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.1px;">I’m a traditional Anglican until I die even if that means starting an Anglican parish in my house.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But I do share a lot with traditional Roman Catholics. And my heart is with them as the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) is being suppressed by LibPope Francis and his . . . minions. </span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Knowledgable readers might think I’m exaggerating by saying the TLM is suppressed. Fair enough. Let’s <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/new-policy-requires-all-chicago-clergy-get-permission-celebrate-latin-mass" target="_blank">look at the Archdiocese of Chicago under Cardinal Blase Cupich</a> (SPIT). For the sake of “the unity of the church” deplorable trads cannot have their Latin mass on the first Sundays of months, nor during Christmas, the Triduum, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. And among other restrictions is the required permission of the bishop. Yeah, I’m sure Francis fanboy Cupich will be generous in giving permission for Latin masses. In any case, during the holiest times of the year, traditional Roman Catholics cannot have their Latin Mass in Cupich’s Archdiocese</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This from a Cardinal and diocese replete with enormities, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuabYFzIzf8" target="_blank">this service</a> that began with a “Happy Kwanzaa.”</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, not all dioceses are not quite that bad. But increased restrictions on the TLM are the norm as directed by Francis.</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If I were a Roman Catholic I would not submit to having decent traditional liturgy taken away from me. I will not do that as an Anglican either. If that means going it alone for a brief time, so be it, but I would hope to find clergy and people with the gumption to rebel against rot in the church. <a href="https://onepeterfive.com/its-time-to-occupy-the-churches/" target="_blank">People like this</a>:</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">On April 12, 1977, Parisian traditionalists got sick of worshipping in the community hall the petty New Church bureaucrats relegated to them for the celebration of their banned Mass. So they did what any decent, God-fearing Catholics should – they processed into the church of St. Nicholas with priests, occupied it, and stayed there. Every living Trad should know by heart the exchange that occurred between the parish clergyman of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet and one of the occupying priests.</span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">‘By what right do you come here?’ asked one of the parish clergy.</span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>‘We come,’ replied Mgr. Ducaud-Bourget… ‘In Nomine Domini.’</i><span style="color: #535f6a;"><i>[1]</i></span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">When the police were called by the conciliar priests to expel the invaders, the police showed that they knew more about liturgy than the Congregation for Divine Worship does today. The police did nothing because, as they told the Novus Ordo priests about the Trads: “They’re saying Mass and praying, that’s what a church is for!”</span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">They also displayed that they were inhabiting a more Catholic, and less officious France, when a group of progressive clergy went to a police precinct to complain about the takeover. Requesting to speak with the officer in charge they were told he was unavailable, as he was attending Latin Mass at St. Nicholas.</span></i></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I do think it is time for rebellion from faithful Roman Catholics. For the LibPope and most of their leaders have rebelled against their own history and patrimony. Francis and his tools are trying to tear the church from the Faith handed down to them.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those who think I’m overwrought and overstating the situation should remind themselves that lex orandi, lex credendi. Liturgy and faith cannot be separated. A crap Novus Ordo liturgy leads to watered down crap belief and visa versa. Defending and insisting on traditional liturgy is defending and insisting on the Faith.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; color: #1e242a; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those faithful Roman Catholics who are so doing have my respect and prayers.</span></p><div><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-56443917507496617812021-12-17T09:24:00.001-06:002021-12-17T09:24:37.728-06:00Boris the Bust<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.1px;">The overnight by-election disaster for Tories in North Shropshire may be the best thing that’s happened to Britain in a while. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.1px;"> </span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">I say that as one who still considers Labour and the LibDems worse than the Conservatives. And I know very well the by-election was a train wreck. The district had been Tory for 200 years. Boris Johnson won it by over 20,000 in 2019. But a swing of 34 percentage points has handed it to the LibDems. It wasn’t even close. To make matters worse, Reform UK (whom I would have voted for) had a weak showing.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">So why does this despiser of all things Left think this good nonetheless? Because it pushes Tory MPs closer to dumping Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">Yes, this is all quite a switch not only for many once Tory voters but for me as well. I once was a great admirer of Boris. He was an excellent Mayor of London after the insanity of Red Ken Livingston. He showed political courage in backing Brexit and then insisting it be carried out. He seemed to be politically savvy. So I expected him to be an excellent Prime Minister, possibly a great one.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">But since then, he has been a horrible disappointment. Look, I know British Conservatives are centrist at best by American standards, and I knew he would be no Margaret Thatcher (still my heroine). But I did not expect him to be more Blair than Thatcher. I did not expect him to swallow Climate Change Net Zero madness hook, line, and sinker. I did not expect him to RAISE taxes. I certainly did not expect him to persist in COVID lockdowns and then revive restrictions even after it was very clear they do not work and cause far more harm than good.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">In short, Boris Johnson began with a remarkable amount of good will as reflected in the 2019 elections and has pissed it all away — and not just by getting pissed at a certain Christmas Party at Downing Street.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">Perhaps I should disclose this is personal for me. I had planned to visit the UK again in 2020. I then thought I would instead visit in 2021. Instead I now have bought tickets for 2022 though I fear it will be a sad place thanks to the devastation Johnson’s COVID tyranny has wrought. If the absurd entry requirements continue, I will cancel those tickets as well. (It’s a good thing I have travel insurance.) Not only that, since the UK once looked more sensible and politically stable than the US, I was considering moving there. Not any more! I now intend to stay put in Texas, thank you.</span></p>
<p style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1px;">Anyway, Boris Johnson has lost most of the good will and patience of the British. He is worse than a failure. If Tory MPs have any wisdom, they will turn the big lemon of the North Shropshire by-election into lemonade and use it to dump Boris.</span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-64248574190992143002021-10-22T08:38:00.000-05:002021-10-22T08:38:17.223-05:00A Reminder About Who is on the January 6th Commission<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">With the absurd House resolution finding Steve Bannon in Contempt of Congress for his principled refusal to comply with the January 6</span><sup style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">th</sup><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Commission, a reminder about said Commission is in order.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The January 6<sup>th</sup> Commission is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/26/january-6-select-committee-who-its-9-members/5375766001/" target="_blank">beyond stacked</a>. It is entirely appointed by Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and has only two Republicans in Name Only (RINOs), both of whom voted to impeach Trump. <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-pelosi-rejects-reps-jim-jordan-and-jim-banks-for-jan-6-committee?utm_campaign=64469" target="_blank">There is a story behind that.</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">As is customary, Republican House leaders appointed a group of Republicans to be the minority on the commission. As is not customary, Pelosi rejected two of those appointments, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, both of whom are reputable men, both of whom would have surely asked inconvenient and needed questions. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Rejecting these minority appointments as Pelosi did just is not done. That is the reason some really vile and untrustworthy Democrats like Adam Schiff and Ilhan Omar get prominent committee positions even when Republicans control the House. Unless there is serious misconduct, the minority party leaders get to appoint minority party representatives on committees. Even when there is serious misconduct, as with Schiff and Omar, rejecting or ousting minority party committee members is rare. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">So Pelosi rejecting Jordan and Banks to further stack the January 6<sup>th</sup> Commission was an outrage, and Republican leader Keven McCarthy was outraged and immediately pulled all the Republican members from the committee. Hence the only two Republicans on the commission are the pariah RINOs Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">As if that is not bad enough, Adam Schiff is on the commission. He has a record of hoaxing, lying and leaking as past head of efforts to impeach Trump. His presence on the committee makes it even more disreputable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">So the question should not be why Steve Bannon is not cooperating with the January 6<sup>th</sup> Commission, but why are any Republicans cooperating with it? To call it a kangaroo court is not fair to kangaroos. It is a stacked farce.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Principled people should give it the respect it deserves – zero.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-43571875223074736082021-10-12T09:51:00.000-05:002021-10-12T09:51:09.335-05:00A Strong Letter to ++Kenya from FIF Bishops<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Ten ACNA bishops who are also in Forward in Faith, N. A. have written a strongly worded <a href="http://fwepiscopal.org/downloads/FIFNA-Letter-to-the-Church-of-Kenya.pdf" target="_blank">open letter to the Archbishop of Kenya</a> regarding his consecration of a woman as bishop.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Now it may not seem that strongly worded to those not used to the usual Anglican understatement, but know that it is indeed very robust by Anglican standards, and that from bishops of high reputation. The conclusion alone calling upon the Archbishop of Kenya “to repent of your actions which have directly harmed your brother and sister Anglican Christians around the world” are the sort of words rarely seen publicly between Anglican bishops.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Do read the whole letter below. I will add that I am especially glad to see this:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">While the Anglican Church in Kenya currently maintains an orthodox understanding of the Gospel, it should be noted that every province that has adopted women into the episcopate has, in time, yielded to the pressures of the culture and left Biblical morality. Listen to the words of Saint Paul to Timothy<a name="OLE_LINK75">,<i> “For the time is coming when people will</i></a></span></b><b><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">not</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial;"> endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">(2 Timothy 4:3-4)</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><b><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This reflects what has become the clincher to hardening my opposition to women’s ordination. WO has been undergoing “reception” in large parts of the church for decades now. And its fruit has been found wanting to say the least. There is only one jurisdiction that ordains women as priests that I can recommend for now. WO almost always comes with baggage the church should not carry.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">By the way, I’ve seen it asked why more ACNA bishops did not sign this. Note that the letter is from bishops in Forward in Faith. Perhaps a better question is why aren’t more ACNA bishops in Forward in Faith? :)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The letter follows:</span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Feast of St. Michael and All Angels</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Most Reverend Jackson Ole Sapit<br />Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Your Grace, </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">We, the bishops and members of Forward in Faith North America, write to express our profound sadness at the decision of the Anglican Church of Kenya to break two thousand years of episcopal principle and practice, the great tradition in Anglicanism since the English Reformation, as well as GAFCON protocol, and consecrate a female bishop. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Your decision to act unilaterally in opposition to the expressed concerns and agreements of the GAFCON Primates Council is a break in the fraternal love and respect that has been a hallmark of GAFCON and witness to orthodox Anglicans worldwide. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Sadly, the actions of your province directly harm Christ’s Church by failing to uphold the “doctrine, sacraments and discipline of Christ, as the Lord has commanded and as this Church has received them.” Specifically, this innovation directly harms the maintenance of the historic episcopate, challenges our missional and ecumenical relationships throughout the world, and opens the door for Satan to divide Christ’s One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Historic Episcopate </span></b><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In a 2017 communique from the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), the Primates noted: “It is our prime recommendation that the provinces of GAFCON should retain the historic practice of the consecration only of men as bishops until and unless a strong consensus to change emerges after prayer, consultation and continued study of Scripture among the GAFCON fellowship.” The historic male episcopate provides the Church a common assurance of sacramental validity. * <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Ecumenical Relationships and Christian Mission </span></b><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Recently the GAFCON Primates Council has reached out to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches<span style="color: #cc0000;">, </span>as well as Protestant denominations such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, in order to further our relationships and further our common mission in fulfillment of our Lord’s prayer in John 17, </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial;">“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;">(John 17:20-21). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Our ability to fulfill this prayer, heal division, and carry out Gospel mission together will only be further impaired by breaking with the holy Biblical tradition given by all male apostles to all male successors. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial;">Doctrine, Discipline and Division </span></b><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><a name="OLE_LINK74"><span style="font-family: Arial;">While the Anglican Church in Kenya currently maintains an orthodox understanding of the Gospel, it should be noted that every province that has adopted women into the episcopate has, in time, yielded to the pressures of the culture and left Biblical morality. Listen to the words of Saint Paul to Timothy, <b><i> </i></b><i>“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” </i>(2 Timothy 4:3-4) <o:p></o:p></span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Lastly, your Grace, for the sake of the Gospel and our unity in Christ we call upon the Anglican Church in Kenya to refrain from further actions of division and <a name="OLE_LINK73">to repent of your actions which have directly harmed your brother and sister Anglican Christians around the world. <o:p></o:p></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Faithfully, </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Eric Vawter Menees, </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of San Joaquin and President of Forward in Faith North America <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Richard Lipka </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of the Missionary Diocese of All Saints and Vice President of Forward in Faith <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Ray Sutton </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of the Diocese of Mid-America <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Walter Banek </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of Mid-America<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Clark Lowenfield </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Ryan Reed </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of the Diocese of Fort Worth <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Fort Worth <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Bill Wantland </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Alberto Morales, OSB </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ordinary of the Diocese of Quincy </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">The Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt;">SSC </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of Fort Worth </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-81108245948607117382021-09-22T08:51:00.000-05:002021-09-22T08:51:42.314-05:00Diocese of Ft. Worth’s Resolution on GAFCON and Women Bishops<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In the aftermath of the latest GAFCON Primates meeting, two responses I have seen stand out for being succinct and on point: <a href="https://northamanglican.com/convenient-forgetting-and-the-jerusalem-declaration/" target="_blank">Lee Nelson’s excellent article</a> over at North American Anglican and <a href="http://www.fwepiscopal.org/downloads/Fort%20Worth%20Standing%20Committee%20-%2021%20Sept%202021%20-%20Final.pdf" target="_blank">the resolution released by the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Ft. Worth</a> yesterday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Yes. Something timely and well written came out of a church committee. The Diocese of Ft. Worth must be of divine origin! God be praised!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The resolution points out three things well:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">1. The GAFCON Primates have rather blatantly chosen to ignore their own 2017 resolution on the subject of a male-only episcopate. (The Ft. Worth resolution puts it more nicely than I, of course.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">2. Since it pertains to the validity of the sacraments, whom is chosen to be a bishop is hardly a secondary issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">3. Ideally, bishops are to be bishops for the whole church. The innovation of women bishops disregards that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">But read the resolution, which follows, for yourself. Again, it is not long and is very well written.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Resolution of the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth </span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">21 September 2021 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">“Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In a 2017 communique from the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCon), the Primates noted: “It is our prime recommendation that the provinces of GAFCon should retain the historic practice of the consecration only of men as bishops until and unless a strong consensus to change emerges after prayer, consultation and continued study of Scripture among the GAFCon fellowship.” In 2021, the Chairman of GAFCon, Archbishop Foley Beach, noted: “At our meeting, the GAFCon Primates agreed we have not come to a consensus on the issue of women in holy orders, and specifically women in the episcopate.” And yet, three women have been consecrated in the GAFCon provinces of Sudan and Kenya since the moratorium on such consecrations went into effect, despite the lack of consensus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">We enthusiastically support the statement of our own Primate, Archbishop Beach, that “we will continue to stand with these brothers and sisters [of GAFCon] to the greatest extent possible to maintain the Biblical Faith in the Anglican Communion and proclaim the saving Good News of Jesus Christ.” And we enthusiastically celebrate the rich contribution of women vitally engaged with significant impact in the ministry of the church throughout her long history. In an effort to strengthen and not to whither our bonds of affection, we also wish to record our strong objection to the recent consecrations of women in provinces of the Global Anglican Future Conference and to the classification of the action as a “secondary issue.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Primary and Secondary Issues </span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">“Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ . . . Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Ephesians 4:15,25). </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In their recent meeting, the primates of GAFCon passed a resolution which noted: “In our discussion, the Primates acknowledged that while there is disagreement and ongoing discussion on the issues of the ordination of women as deacons or priests, and the consecration of women as Bishops, we are agreed that these are not salvation issues and are not issues that will disrupt our mission: to proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Issues that touch upon the salvation of souls are always primary issues, and certainly not to be considered <i>adiaphora </i>(“things indifferent”). The catechism of the 1662 <i>Book of Common Prayer </i>describes the sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord as “generally necessary to salvation.” The Jerusalem Declaration affirms as a tenet of orthodoxy (#6), that “we uphold the <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">1662 <i>Book of Common Prayer </i>as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer.” The validity of the sacrament of the Supper of the Lord is contingent upon the minister being a valid priest or bishop in Holy Orders. The validity of a sacrament that is generally necessary to salvation is, by definition, a salvation issue. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The Jerusalem Declaration affirms as a tenet of orthodoxy (#2), “The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.” The innovation of the ordination of women is not respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading of scripture. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Bishops for the Whole Church </span></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">“The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1). </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Bishops are consecrated not just to serve a local diocese, but are consecrated for the whole church. What one province does in this matter affects all. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">We recognize that the ordination of women has been a contentious and divisive issue. We urge our brethren and spiritual fathers to move away from divisiveness, not toward it. We affirm the unanimous statement of the ACNA College of Bishops about the subject on 7 September 2017. While acknowledging that the ordination of women is practiced within some dioceses of the Anglican Church in North America, it stated: “we also acknowledge that this practice is a recent innovation to Apostolic Tradition and Catholic Order” and “we agree that there is insufficient scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as standard practice throughout the Province.” This standing committee, together with our bishop, believes that the same principle of restraint should be applied locally as well as in the global church. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In our view, the way forward toward our global Anglican future lies in faithfulness to the Holy Scriptures and the received tradition, not in a theological innovation which would seek to overturn created order by attempting to consecrate women as spiritual fathers. The sacred trust placed in the episcopal office, as successors to the apostles, is to hand on the historic Christian faith and practice to a new generation of believers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Adopted unanimously at the 21 September 2021 regular meeting. </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The Rev’d Timothy M. Matkin, President of the Standing Committee </span></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-81973123156728041672021-08-31T10:47:00.001-05:002021-08-31T10:47:32.836-05:00Watch Checks That Told More Than the Time<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Few acts are more mundane that checking one’s watch.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I used to do that a lot.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Now I check my phone.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">My, how technology advances.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">But before I get distracted by my phone again, my point is that people checking their watches is hardly the stuff of history.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Or is it?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">No, I cannot think of a time when someone checking their watch changed the course of history . . . yet. But I can think of watch checks that revealed a lot about history before it was history.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">October 15<sup>th</sup>, 1992<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">During the Second Presidential Debate with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, President George H. W. Bush checked his watch at the beginning of a question of how the recession affected him. That told more about him and about his re-election campaign than about what time it was, namely:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">1. His disinterest in debating and campaigning, that in contrast with Bill Clinton, who clearly enjoyed it. The mercurial Ross Perot also enjoyed barnstorming on a good day. Bush wanted it to be over with. <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/a-damaging-impatience" target="_blank">He admitted as much</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Bush later suggested that his gesture may, in fact, have revealed something about his discomfort with the debate. "Was I glad when the damn thing was over?" he said to PBS Newshour anchor Jim Lehrer. "Yeah."<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">It would be very much over soon. Bush’s disinterest while Clinton oozed empathy assisted in that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">2. His sense of superiority and overconfidence. He was a Bush after all. He was better than that blowhard Perot and that young playboy Governor of Arkansas, of all states. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">It was not just the President who felt that way. His campaign was hampered by overconfidence that surely he would not lose to Bill Clinton of all people. Heck, the only reason Clinton got the Democrat nomination was because bigger names did not want to run against Bush. Adding to the misplaced confidence was that Republicans had won the last three presidential elections and four of the last five.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">So it wasn’t just Bush who was ready to get the campaign done with and won. And it wasn’t just this then Republican Precinct Chairman who did not see the result coming.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">March 30/31<sup>st</sup>, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Elected earlier that month, Pope Francis was in the Vatican presiding over his first Easter Vigil as Pope. For those unfamiliar with Easter Vigils, they are not services to be done with in less than an hour so one can rush home or to the pub. The Easter Vigil on Easter Eve is the most solemn occasion of the church year for many traditional Christians. At their best, they are evocative, glorious, and definitely not rushed. One of the most memorable services I’ve ever attended was an Easter Vigil at St. Matthias Anglican Dallas in 2005; it lasted well over two hours, and I would not have it a minute shorter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">But Pope Francis apparently did not feel that way about his first Easter Vigil as Pope. Bishop of Rome only for days, <a href="http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=464621" target="_blank">he had already acted to shorten the service</a>. But it wasn’t short enough apparently. During the service, he checked his watch, just as he checked his watch during his installation service on March 19<sup>th</sup>.<br /><br />Twenty years older and somewhat wiser, I knew immediately there was something profoundly wrong with Francis long before many whom I respect caught on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Why? Unless one is hinting to an overly loquacious preacher to wind his sermon up, a priest just does not look at his watch during a service. It’s not in the rubrics; it doesn’t have to be. It sends the wrong message to the congregation and to God as well. For a pope to check his watch during one of the more solemn services of the year . . . . It was unthinkable . . . before Francis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Thus in the first month of his pontificate, those with eyes to see could already see Francis was a man of impious priorities who had little respect for the liturgy, for the need of solemn and traditional celebrations of even the Resurrection of our Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The slow motion disaster of the pontificate of Francis should not have afterward surprised anyone, particularly his attempted vandalism of the Lord’s Prayer and his attacks on the traditional Latin Mass. Early on, his watch check foretold his attacks on catholic worship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Sunday August 29<sup>th</sup>, 2021<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Joe Biden stands at Dover Air Force Base to receive the bodies of 13 service people killed in the Kabul bombing, an attack enabled by the shambles of his withdrawal from Afghanistan. As he ends a salute, <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/08/30/biden-ripped-for-apparently-looking-at-watch-at-troops-ceremony/" target="_blank">he quickly checks his watch</a>. It was so quick that perhaps he caught himself, realizing how wrong that was. But he checked his watch nonetheless. (And some reports have him checking his watch additional times during the ceremony.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">At this point, it is unclear just what this watch check tells. Perhaps it tells that Biden’s cognitive decline is worse than most think. One system of dementia is socially inappropriate behavior. But I am not his doctor, and it would be wrong for me to presume that is what is happening. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Perhaps he did not want to be there at Dover AFB and thought he had better things to do. He surely wants to move on from his Afghanistan disaster. Perhaps he was so detached from reality, he did not realize the solemnity of his role. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">It is hard to think that his watch check revealed shear callousness toward the fallen soldiers and their families. But he has already greatly endangered Americans and allied Afghans. How much of that disaster is from incompetence and how much from callousness, we do not know. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In any case, what Biden’s watch check this past Sunday reveals is not good.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">----<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">So the trivial act of checking one’s watch revealed much about these three men and their times, although exactly what was revealed in Biden’s case is not yet clear. Did the checks also have consequences?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In the elder Bush’s case, probably not. Yes, it was part of his lackluster debate in his lackluster campaign. But it was the campaign and the recession and perhaps Ross Perot that brought about his defeat, not a watch check.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">In Pope Francis’ case, it had virtually no consequences whatsoever before men. Just about everyone was too eager to think hopefully about the new Pope. The consequences before God are another matter best left to Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I doubt it will have lasting consequences for Biden either. But I see similarities with Bush’s watch check in that it reveals traits that will have political consequences. Bush’s disdain for actual campaigning, partly revealed by his watch check, assisted his defeat. Whatever the mix of incompetence and darkness revealed by Biden’s watch check, that mix may and should lead to the downfall of his presidency as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">There is a significant difference with Biden’s watch check. Bush’s check, though revealing undesirable traits, was not awful or disgusting. Biden’s watch check is disgusting and adding to widespread disgust with him – as it should.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-91337959838458858732021-08-16T09:45:00.000-05:002021-08-16T09:45:39.245-05:00Why Women Bishops in Kenya Could Be Important in ACNA<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPLjHbcLR3k" target="_blank">Anglican Unscripted has reported</a>, a diocese in the Anglican Church of Kenya has elected a woman to be the Bishop of said diocese.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The culprit diocese has been something of a pain to the Archbishop of Kenya and to orthodox Anglicans there.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">(Hmm, reminds me of a certain diocese in the Anglican Church in North America.)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">It is not certain at this time that the Archbishop will recognize the new bishop.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I will defer to Kevin and George for further details.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">It’s probably fair to say it’s a mess.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">So why do I or anyone in ACNA care about this mess in Kenya? Well, we place a high value on our relationship with GAFCON, a confederation of orthodox Anglicans mainly from the Global South that includes the Anglican Church of Kenya and ACNA as well. And there is supposed to be a moratorium on women bishops in GAFCON. In ACNA, women bishops are prohibited in our Constitution and Canons. There has been two women bishops before in GAFCON that I am aware of. But this is the first diocesan bishop.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">To give an idea how important this breach in the moratorium could be to ACNA, I will give some condensed and oversimplified history. After the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003 – and long before for many of us traditional Anglicans – The Episcopal Church was a no-go jurisdiction due to her brazen apostasies. But part of our catholicity is we know we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and we want our structures and formal relationships to reflect that. Some thirty years ago, I saw a sign for an “Independent Episcopal Church” around Paris, Texas; we don’t want that although some have been compelled to do that for a short time.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">After 2003, as a stop gap, many of us put ourselves under orthodox Anglican bishops from the Global South. But several of these bishops eventually let it be known, mostly in private but quite clearly, that they soon wished to be in communion with one orthodox Anglican entity in the United States. They did not desire to sort through an alphabet soup of jurisdictions. I know bishops of my Reformed Episcopal Church were politely told that if we wished to continue our formal relationship with the Church of Nigeria, we would have to join a new orthodox Anglican province once it was formed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">This very understandable and even godly encouragement from Global South bishops (who soon formed GAFCON in 2008) was one factor behind us joining ACNA when it was formed in 2009. We valued our global relationships with orthodox Anglicans and wished to retain them as much as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">However, there was an outstanding difficult issue in the formation of ACNA and of GAFCON as well – women’s ordination. No, I am not going to explain why here, but us traditionalists do not recognize the Holy Orders of women. For many of us, it is a communion-breaking innovation. So both sides of this issue had to flex for ACNA to be formed. The compromise was that it would be up to dioceses whether to ordain women as priests or not, and dioceses who did not ordain women were not obligated to recognize women priests. Further, and most relevant to the current situation, no diocese would ordain a woman as bishop. This is important as us Anglicans see the office of bishop as a focus of unity in the church. To not recognize the validity of a bishop is a communion breaker; it is practically the definition of breaking communion. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Up to recently, GAFCON’s practices on women’s ordination were similar but less formal: different provinces had different policies but women were not to be made bishops until there was a consensus accepting that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I’ve glossed over a lot of history here. My erudite readers are welcome to add or correct in the comments. But I think you see the problems with now three women bishops being in GAFCON. A big reason many of us traditionalists compromised and joined ACNA was to retain our relationships with those who now form GAFCON. But what if we can no longer be in communion in GAFCON due to a proliferation of women bishops?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">That would be one less reason for us to remain in ACNA. I don’t want this post to become of litany of grievances, but some of us, even people like me who were excited at the formation of ACNA, have very mixed feelings about ACNA today. If our relationship with GAFCON is no longer a desirable or even feasible part of the ACNA package, that would make remaining in ACNA itself that much less desirable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">We traditionalists in ACNA do not expect perfect polity; we would not have joined ACNA if we did. And I know of no one getting ready to leave over this matter. But we do have our limits. Many of us have already left churches and suffered loss when those limits were violated before. And women bishops in GAFCON could become one more test of those already strained limits if this is not dealt with in a timely fashion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-15571799560855956092021-06-16T08:15:00.002-05:002021-06-16T08:16:56.307-05:00An Open Letter to My Southern Baptist Friends<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Last night and this morning, I have been hurting for my Southern Baptist friends who were on the right – and losing – side at yesterday’s Convention.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I felt I should say something, and, after reflection, I’ve decided a tweet or even a tweet thread won’t do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">First, I am indeed hurting and praying for you. And I am sad for the church as a whole. For most of my life, the Southern Baptist Convention has been a bulwark of orthodoxy. For that bulwark to be so weakened and compromised diminishes the whole church.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Second, I advise that you <i>do</i> mourn. I also advise that you wait awhile before making a decision about your future relationship with the SBC. Early on after a bad event, both upset and denial can cloud your judgement. So wait on the Lord, pray, and at least recover a bit first before deciding.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I cannot make that decision for you. I can see a case for staying and fighting, and I can see a case for moving on. Know that if you remain faithful, you have my respect along with my prayers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Also know something that I am hesitant to say for fear of appearing to poach. Know that IF you decide to leave, there is a place for you in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) and especially in my jurisdiction, the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC – which has a large degree of independence but is within ACNA – it’s complicated).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">You will have to get used to babies being baptized. You will have to get used to real live bishops with those funny mitres even. You will have to get used to a wide range of orthodoxy under one roof. We have people who are more catholic than the Pope and people who are more Protestant than Luther. Our breadth is both glorious and annoying – like the whole faithful church.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">But ACNA and the REC are committed to the authority of scripture and to the basics of the Faith as reflected in the Creeds. AND both the Archbishop of ACNA and <a href="https://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2021/06/presiding-bishop-ray-suttons.html" target="_blank">the Presiding Bishop of the REC</a> have just made strong statements opposing Critical Race Theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">We are not perfect. There are a few dioceses in ACNA I cannot recommend. And wokeness has infiltrated us as it has the SBC. (Where has it <i>not</i> infiltrated?) But unlike the SBC, our two highest bishops along with many other bishops are opposing it. And it has not and will not gain a stronghold in the REC.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">If you do wish to check out an Anglican church or two, feel free to message me for guidance. You can contact me in the comments (And I will not post your comment unless it’s clear that you want it public. I moderate comments.) Or you can message <a href="https://twitter.com/WannabeAnglican" target="_blank">me on twitter</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">I would prefer Baptist faithful stay in the SBC and take back their denomination from the woke cabal. I want a faithful thriving SBC. But if you become convinced that is not your path, you are welcome to help us remain faithful in ACNA. Let me know if I can help you.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-87557452430612281412021-06-10T09:37:00.000-05:002021-06-10T09:37:12.102-05:00Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton’s Exhortation to the REC General Council<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yesterday began the General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">It is held on Zoom this year because when it was being planned back when COVID was more of an issue than now, many did not want to travel to a large meeting.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">The highlight was and will surely always be Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton’s formal exhortation or “Report” which <a href="http://rechurch.org/gc2021/56thGeneralCouncil2021-SupplementalReportPacket.pdf" target="_blank">you may find here</a> beginning on page 4. In spite of internet connection issues that were at times amusing, his address was very well received. Even I greatly rejoiced in it. I recommend reading the whole address.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">The part that is likely of most interest to readers addressed issues relating to sexual identity, race, and social justice ideologies and the infiltration of these ideologies into the church. He exhorts us to resist being overly influenced by these ideologies. He instead puts forth a robustly Biblical view on these issues. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I will excerpt only some of this. Again, I recommend reading the whole address.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">All too often when the church attempts to be, “all things to all people that by all means we might save some,” she allows culture to seduce her into introducing secular thinking and concepts that insidiously confuse, confound and even violate foundational Biblical commitments (1 Corinthians 9:22, ESV). Far too often St. Paul’s statement about becoming all things to win some by finding common ground with the world, fails to heed the apostle’s other statement, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). For St. Paul, the will of God is clear in how we are to interface with the culture to win some to Christ. Whatever common ground with the world that St. Paul suggests in one passage, should not be interpreted to mean conformity to the world’s, secular thought. Rather, St. Paul calls for transformation to a “Christian mind,” in the words of the Anglican scholar, Harry Blamires, who wrote a book by this title. Elizabeth Elliot, popular Anglican Christian author, refers to conformity to the world as capitulation. She grew up in the Reformed Episcopal Church and became the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the seven Wheaton graduates and missionaries in the 1950s, who were martyred by the Auca Indians in South America while attempting to spread the Gospel to these lost people. She once observed about the will of God: “The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God...or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” ….<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">He then dealt with issues of sexual identity and explained the statement by the ACNA College of Bishops on this area. Then he proceeded to issues concerning race:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">A second cultural concern where we must not be conformed to the world but be transformed in Christ concerns the church’s response to the sins of racial prejudice, hatred, and violence in our society. In recent months we have seen tragic, unjust, and unacceptable use of force in racially oriented crimes. These situations have included “the bad cop,” as well as retaliatory groups answering hate with hate and equal prejudice. Although not everyone is a racist, nor do these kinds of tragedy mean that all police are racist, Christians must speak the truth in love and peace with the standard of the Word of God. This calls for the application of a Biblical world view to provide not only the Scriptural understanding of race, but to avoid being conformed to the world by secular racial theories. While models such as Critical Race Theory may at some points offer useful information, they are not necessarily Biblical nor Christian in their premises, principles, and practices. They can even at times become explicitly anti-Christian displaying another kind of religious prejudice. And since they are only theories, they can offer misinformation or exclude key information. Moreover, these secular racial theories in the hands of some biased researchers unfortunately succumb to atheistic totalitarian, Marxist ideologies. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Strong but truth-telling language!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Christians therefore must be extremely careful not to rely on secular theories and worldviews regarding any subject such as race and racism. Non-Christian viewpoints entering the Kingdom of God can confuse, mislead, and conform God’s people to the world instead of transforming their minds to the will of God. When this happens, our answers then become no different from a fallen, sinful mind, failing to offer true Scriptural solutions to cultural problems. I know some believe that if we concede to secular viewpoints where we can, some might be won to the Biblical view. Unfortunately, the opposite has proven to be the case throughout Christian history….<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0.1pt 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Scripture teaches that all of humanity represented by Adam and Eve fell into sin (Romans 5:12). The apostle concludes, “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). Everyone in every race is a sinner. No one person or race is exempt from the effects of sin. However, although humanity became totally depraved this does not mean that every person has become utterly depraved. There’s a big difference between totally and utterly. Total depravity means that humans in every aspect of their person – mind, emotion, and will – became tainted and enslaved by sin. This is not the same as utter depravity. The phrase utter depravity suggests that every sinner commits every sin. This goes beyond the Scriptural teaching of the effect of the fall. By God’s restraining common grace every human does not become so utterly depraved that he/she commits every sin. Just as not every individual is a murderer, or robs a bank, not every person participates in the sin of racism. On this point, secular racial theories like CRT actually exceed the Biblical doctrine of sin by effectively accusing all humans of certain races of the sin of racism. They say things like, “all white people are racists.” This kind of generalization is not accurate according to Scripture or experience, any more than it would be to say that every human is a murderer. It’s reducing individuals of a race to utter and not just total depravity. It is more Scripturally precise to say all races have racists but not everyone in a given race is a racist.…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Thus he nicely but directly contradicts Critical Race Theory. He also contradicted the woke crowd’s incessant accusations against the church by reminding us how Christianity and the church have greatly assisted progress in racial justice, such as . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">…the remarkable story of overcoming slavery and racism in England by courageous Anglican Evangelicals like William Wilberforce and John Newton who authored the great hymn, Amazing Grace. What some don’t mention is John Newton’s own testimony of how he was changed from being a slave trader, by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to become a champion for the very people whom he had hated and enslaved. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Though Christians are sinners saved by grace and not perfect in this life, the prevailing Gospel story regarding race is overwhelmingly constructive. One of the most powerful stories of Christian restoration is the first African Bishop, Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1809-1891). When only twelve years old, his family was captured by Muslim slave traders in Western Africa. Traveling in the captors’ slave ship, a British Royal Navy Squadron of Ships enforcing the ban on slave trade intercepted the vessel. Crowther converted to Christianity through English missionaries. Eventually called into the ministry, the English Church Missionary Society provided for his education at Oxford University where he earned a doctoral degree. Upon returning to Nigeria with the CMS, he became the first Anglican African Bishop. During the same period, Henry Townsend, was a 19th century Anglican missionary to the West Coast of Africa in the area of Abeokuta, Nigeria. He encountered slave markets. On a certain day he attended one, bought a slave, and right in front of everyone after he had purchased the man, unshackled his chains, and set him free. That act became a powerful Christian witness for the man and his culture. Both men worked together to spread the Gospel and stop the evil slave trade. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">There is also our own history in the Reformed Episcopal Church. It is a classic example of how Jesus Christ changes people from being racist. The first Reformed Episcopal bishop in South Carolina was Peter Fassyoux Stephens. He was the white Commandant of the Citadel in Charleston and fought for the South in the Civil War. After the war was over, Christ moved in his life. He took up the cause of freed African American slaves. He worked to reform the educational system in South Carolina so that African Americans could receive an education. And when the Episcopal Church would not ordain African American Christian men called into Holy Orders, he ordained them after they had left the Episcopal Church. He, together with these faithful lay and clergy African Americans, began a grand work for Christ. It continues to this day as a key witness in and from the Reformed Episcopal Church in the Diocese of the Southeast.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">For those unaware, the REC Diocese of the Southeast consists mostly of Black brethren. He then counseled against complacency and for standing with those suffering wrongly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">… in these challenging times of racial turmoil, I exhort us to renew our stand with our African American brothers and sisters, especially our fellow Reformed Episcopalians. I believe we can strengthen our work together first by weeping with those who weep. My/our hearts go out especially for our African American brothers and sisters who have lived once again through a painful period and witnessed racially oriented crimes. We are all grieved and concerned. But for our African American brothers and sisters, old wounds have been reopened from the recent abuses in our culture. Although not all in our society are racist, it has pointed out the need for reform among some our law enforcement agencies. We should realize the effects of these tragic events on our brothers and sisters, hurt with them, uphold them, pray for them, and weep with those who weep. At the same time in our stand together to proclaim Christ, particularly those of us in the Anglican Church in North America and in the Reformed Episcopal Church, let us not lose sight of the difference between faithful, Biblical and believing Gospel churches and the unbelieving culture. I don’t know of any lay or clergy in the ACNA or the REC who are racist. Some may be confused and frustrated, but the word racist does not apply to our fellow Biblical Anglicans. I ask us not to be confused with the confusion in our society to the extent that we forget the distinction between lost sinner without the grace of God and saved sinners by grace in Biblical churches. I know we have so much more in which we must be sanctified. I realize that in our increasingly diverse society, we in a Biblical church must reach all diversities with the Gospel. In calling us to stand with our fellow African American Reformed Episcopalians, I ask that they minister to us and help us better to fulfill the Great Commission to all ethnicities of the world and in our ministries together. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yes, it was a moving address and dealt with much more than racial issues. I’ve attended several REC General Councils, and I cannot recall a better address in such trying times, nor one that has been more appreciated. I really cannot do it justice here. I do hope it serves as a template for the ACNA College of Bishops as they address race and Critical Theory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Again, <a href="http://rechurch.org/gc2021/56thGeneralCouncil2021-SupplementalReportPacket.pdf" target="_blank">read it</a>, especially if you are in the Anglican Church in North America.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-89268135370588224002021-06-09T08:29:00.001-05:002021-06-09T08:29:47.132-05:00The Lid May Be Coming Off Georgia Election Fraud<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><a href="https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/06/08/why_a_judge_has_georgia_vote_fraud_on_his_mind_pristine_biden_ballots_that_look_xeroxed_779795.html" target="_blank">This could be big.</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">A Democrat donor judge is concerned enough about evidence of massive 2020 election fraud in Fulton County Georgia (Atlanta) that he has ordered the 147,000 mail-in ballots to be unsealed and inspected.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Among the evidence is sworn testimony of hundreds of duplicate ballots voting for Biden. The following is particularly damning and far from alone:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Suzi Voyles</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">, a veteran Fulton poll manager who audited the Nov. 14 recount at Georgia World Congress Center, <a href="https://voterga.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/notice-of-filing-exhibits.pdf" style="color: purple;">testified</a> she examined several stacks of ballots of about 100 ballots each from a cardboard box marked “Box No. 5 — Absentee — Batch Numbers 28-36.” She said these ballots “came from the ballot [drop] boxes that had been placed throughout Fulton County.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">“Most of the ballots had already been handled; they had been written on by people, and the edges were worn. They showed obvious use,” she wrote in her Nov. 17 affidavit. "However, one batch stood out. It was pristine. There was a difference in the texture of the paper,” and these mail-in ballots hadn’t been folded even though they ostensibly had been removed from envelopes.<br /><br />All but three of the 110 ballots in the bundle — which had been labeled “State Farm Arena” — were marked for Biden and appeared to be “identical ballots."<br /><br />The most “alarming peculiarity” was the identically marked ovals next to Biden’s name. In every ballot, “The bubble next to ‘Joseph R. Biden’ had a slight white eclipse in the bubble,” she said, leading her to believe that the batch of 107 Biden ballots had been “copied" from a single ballot.<br /><br />Voyles speculated that “additional absentee ballots had been added [for Biden] in a fraudulent manner” at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta on election night.<br /><br />The void she and other auditors witnessed in the exact same spot of the oval filled in on 107 ballots for Biden “was alarming to us,” Voyles said in an RCI interview. “Every single bubble was precisely alike. I had never seen that before in 20 years” of election monitoring.<br /><br />But when she and other recount workers raised concerns with county election officials, “we were told not to worry about it,” she said. “They seemed uninterested in the [integrity of the] ballots.”<br /><br />After Voyles later blew the whistle in affidavits and state election hearings, she was fired as a poll manager by the Fulton County Department of Elections. “I got the boot for speaking the truth,” she told RCI.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">At least three others have similar testimony of seeing mail-in ballots for Biden that appeared to be duplicates.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Biden “won” Georgia by less than 12,000 votes. From what is sworn already, the fraud from Fulton Co. is likely well into the thousands. One estimate is 10 to 20 thousand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Now the mail-in ballots will be inspected unless the Democrats can stop that somehow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Again, this could be big. Watch Fulton County, Georgia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">(And, no, I am not among the naïve who think the election will be overturned with Trump taking the White House before 2024 or even this year. That is just not how the Constitution works. But if the election is proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a public forum to be stolen in one or more states, that will surely have consequences nonetheless. At the very least, the credibility of the Biden regime will be diminished and the determination of Americans to be rid of it increased.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-44392919221608432052021-06-03T07:59:00.001-05:002021-06-03T07:59:55.091-05:00Scot McKnight, C4SO, and the Authority of Scripture<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Right at the start I should say I completely understand there are faithful, scholarly people who have a robust view on the authority of Scripture but who do not think “inerrancy” is the best way to describe the authority of Scripture.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I respect such people although I hold to inerrancy myself.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">With that out of the way, I was annoyed, then disturbed when I read Canon (in the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others – C4SO) <a href="https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/inerrancy-or-inerrancies" target="_blank">Scot McKnight’s post on inerrancy</a>, really a smear of inerrancy. His straw men and poor reasoning, such as conflating inerrancy with wooden literal interpretations of Scripture annoyed me. Quibbling over inerrancy applying to the original texts also annoyed me. He fusses about that, but nobody holds to the inerrancy of translators or of ancient copiers although we now know through the Dead Sea scrolls and more that we have remarkably reliable copies. As for translations, I am only half-joking when I recommend NIV Bibles for doorstops.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Then he picked at some poor reasoning from the inerrancy camp. To which I say, so what? We hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, not the inerrancy of inerrancists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">If the whole piece were only quibbling and straw men and the like, I would have just been annoyed, shook my head, then moved on. As I said at the turn of the year, I have to be more selective in posting here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">But then came this:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I know some who think inerrant means Moses wrote the Pentateuch, theistic evolution is wrong, Isaiah wrote Isaiah, Jesus was denied by Peter six times (Lindsell), and that Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Back to authority. NT Wright said often that he believes not in the authority of Scripture but in the authority of God who speaks to us in Scripture (<b><a href="https://amzn.to/2Tj0IO6" style="color: purple;">Surprised by Scripture</a></b>). <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">At this point, I got disturbed, agitated even. I don’t care if St. N. T. Wright said that, that statement is the sort of swill I have heard from LibChurchers for years. I still remember four decades ago a guest preacher at my evangelical Presbyterian Church, saying from the pulpit this or something very close: “We don’t believe the Bible but the Christ behind the Bible.” (Yes, I informed her after the service that we believe the Bible at that church.) Such are old weasel words that claim to be faithful to the Lord while tossing his written word aside when it’s just too inconvenient. It’s a cowardly way of appearing to hold to the authority of Scripture without actually holding to the authority of Scripture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Well, clergy cannot get away with that. Or at least they shouldn’t get away with that. If you believe God, you believe his word. You don’t get to sit as a judge over his word; his word judges you.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Or was Jesus mistaken when he said:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.</span></i><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> Matt. 5:18<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">“Oh we believe Jesus, but we know so much more about Scripture than he did.”*<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yeah, try telling that to his face in the Judgement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">McKnight gives a big hint in how far gone he is in denying the authority of Scripture when comes right to the edge of denying <a name="OLE_LINK36">“Isaiah wrote Isaiah, . . . Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.”</a> He even seems to ridicule those views by lumping them together with a strange interpretation that has Peter denying Christ six times.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Now if he has elsewhere clearly denied or questioned the authorship of Isaiah or of Peter's and Paul’s letters, I am not aware. But if not, then his bishop should flat out ask him if he believes the Bible when it says “Isaiah wrote Isaiah, . . . Paul wrote all the letters ascribed to him – and while we’re at it, so did Peter.” If McKnight cannot answer in the affirmative, he should be dismissed as Canon with further discipline under consideration. After all, ACNA is supposed to be an orthodox Anglican church, not a liberal seminary.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Oh. Right. His bishop is Todd Hunter of the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yes, holding to the authority of Scripture may eventually call for discipline in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) beyond just dealing with Scot McKnight.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">----<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">*No that is not a direct quote of any Libchurcher. It’s a translation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-46794233883625768062021-05-05T09:10:00.001-05:002021-05-06T08:58:02.353-05:00Ft. Worth, Sowing, and Reaping UPDATED<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yes, I have been rather quiet as I warned I might.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">But having followed the travails of the Diocese of Ft. Worth for most of the life of this long lived blog, I should say something about the property dispute finally being resolved with the U. S. Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal of the Texas Supreme Court decision in favor of the ACNA Diocese of Ft. Worth.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">There were a few congregations once in the diocese that aligned with The Episcopal Church in the dispute. After the case was resolved, they had to vacate the church buildings. Living Church, as they often do, has <a href="https://livingchurch.org/2021/05/04/a-painful-divorce-in-fort-worth/" target="_blank">one of the better accounts of that</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">All Saints, as usual, was among the worst actors, stripping the church before they left. But St. Stephens Wichita Falls (Yes, I guess even Wichita Falls has a handful of libchurchers) tried to out do them by even taking the pews. It was breathtaking.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLnM-8AMctXKLdi_pH7tVEIHMBmpgDU5wWwF9fvNJxiLm4FScgK-hD7NNAKrfbxIbnKhEmBR1FX7hjuCtqtEsYySvMgQU0nNdeRJH-llmf3PwrYqh04-fFJphrV7FyiLS_9uzoA/s750/St-Stephen-before-and-after.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="750" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPLnM-8AMctXKLdi_pH7tVEIHMBmpgDU5wWwF9fvNJxiLm4FScgK-hD7NNAKrfbxIbnKhEmBR1FX7hjuCtqtEsYySvMgQU0nNdeRJH-llmf3PwrYqh04-fFJphrV7FyiLS_9uzoA/w400-h216/St-Stephen-before-and-after.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I say “was” for a judge has since said they can’t do that and at least some of the stolen property has been returned.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I do have to restrain myself in opining on this for I am well aware that All Saints, perennial libchurch spokeswoman Katie Sherrod and company have been bad actors for decades.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">But I will say this. The departing libchurchers merit no sympathy no matter how many crocodile tears they shed. If there had been a good faith negotiation, I am confident Bishop Iker and the diocese would have been glad to let St. Stephen’s, All Saints, and the like leave with the parish properties. But no, The Episcopal Church under the Lady of Perpetual Litigation Katharine Jefferts Schori did not have “good faith negotiation” in their vocabulary. They went scorched earth and tried to take all the property. And All Saints, Sherrod and other libchurchers supported that policy. Further they had over a decade to pull back and settle instead. (I suspect that the courts were slow in part to provide opportunity to settle, but that is speculation on my part.) But no.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">So they get to have it their way. Now what they tried to do to the orthodox majority of the Diocese of Ft. Worth is happening to them. It sounds downright Biblical. To be more Biblical, they would have to pay fourfold. Reaping what one sows can be a . . . difficult experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Meanwhile, I am thanking God that He is just. And I am trying not to engage in ungodly gloating. I really am.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">----</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Photo courtesy of ACNA and Living Church</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">----</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">UPDATE: I have been reminded just how much All Saints, St. Stephen’s and ilk have only themselves to blame. The orthodox Diocese of Ft. Worth on their own accord offered parishes that wanted to do so to stay with The Episcopal Church <i>with their properties</i>. That even though TEC was showing no quarter.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">This from the Standing Committee of the orthodox Diocese of Ft. Worth <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/faith/2009/05/08/breakaway-fort-worth-group-responds-to-episcopal-church-lawsuit/" target="_blank">back in 2009</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">On April 14, 2009, the newly formed diocese of Fort Worth, along with representatives of The Episcopal Church (TEC), filed a lawsuit in a Tarrant Count, Texas, court. The suit names Bishop Iker and the five-person Board of Trustees for the Corporation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth as defendants.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">As you might remember, at our 2007 diocesan convention we passed a revised canon outlining a process that could be used if a parish disagreed with the course of the diocese. At the end of the process, if reconciliation were not possible, the canon provided that the church property would be released to the congregation. Even after our 2008 convention, where we ratified our decision to separate from TEC by an 80 percent majority, none of the congregations wishing to remain loyal to The Episcopal Church asked for that procedure to be used.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">However, the facts allowed the Bishop and the Standing Committee to investigate, and at the end of our investigation, the properties of Trinity Church, Fort Worth, and St. Martin in the Fields, Keller, were deeded to their respective congregations. At the same time, two other parishes - St. Christopher's in Fort Worth, and St. Luke's in Stephenville - were contacted. They had outstanding building loans which were made in the name of the Diocese. The Diocese offered to release their properties to them if they would renegotiate the loans and remove the Diocese from their notes. St. Luke's renegotiated their note and had their property deeded to them. As soon as we hear from St. Christopher's, we will do the same for them.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">We've done everything we can think to do to make a settlement with any congregation that wants to stay with TEC. Bishop Iker and the Standing Committee have no wish to take property from those churches that do not wish to remain with us.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><br /></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Which begs the question why did St. Stephens and All Saints and company not take the offers even while other parishes did? I am told it was because they wished to assist The Episcopal Church in their lawsuit in taking it all. They were in a better position to so assist in that predatory lawsuit if they stayed in the diocese. But whatever their motives, they have only themselves to blame for what has befallen them. The Diocese of Ft. Worth bent over backwards to accommodate them graciously. St. Stephens and All Saints spurned that grace and trampled it under foot. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">They had best learn from their just defeat under secular judges and prepare for the final Judge. But I am not holding my breath for those fools so to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-14901672213227034832021-03-17T08:44:00.000-05:002021-03-17T08:44:18.226-05:00“20 Theses on Justice” Countered<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Just a note that I very much appreciate Jady and Liza Koch’s patient response to the “20 Theses on Justice” from Esau McCaulley and Jonathan Warren.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I will not summarize the response here. (So <a href="https://standfirminfaith.com/20-theses-on-justice-a-decidedly-anglican-response/" target="_blank">go read it over at Stand Firm</a>.) But I especially appreciate two things they do.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">First, they nicely but firmly debunk the Woke Church’s specious conflation of “justice” with Leftist political agendas:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">…Nobody is a “critic of the advocacy for justice,” until “justice” is defined in non-biblical ways, which is precisely what is happening in much of the conversation both within the church and in the wider culture. It should be noted that these terms are used and assumed throughout these theses over against their “opponents” and “critics,” as if there are those involved in this conversation who are legitimately opposed to “justice” and, by extension, somehow “pro-oppression.” If one examines the arguments of these so-called ” critics of justice,” what is clearly evident is a sincere belief that there is great danger in appropriating non-Christian worldviews and concepts to diagnose and cure the human problem. Acknowledging the Marxist and postmodern theories undergirding the discussion surrounding much of what passes for “justice” is a necessary part of defining fully the terms at play. Read Marx, Marcuse, Alinski, Gramsci, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc., and show how their ideas can be baptized, rooted as they are in the fundamental convictions that 1) there is no God, 2) truth is relative, 3) morality is culturally bound, and 4) every relationship in life is a zero-sum power struggle. Until that work is done, the (so-called) “critics of the advocacy for justice” will continue to ignore the unfounded (and frankly slanderous) repeated assertion that anyone who disagrees with this new understanding of “justice” (and by extension, racism, oppression, equality, etc.) is indifferent to the biblical demand for justice.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Second, they refuse to play the Woke game that disagreeing with approved “oppressed voices” is not listening to “oppressed voices” or to “Black voices” etc. and is harming them. May more and more firmly tell the Woke Church cabal that we shall not play that race-baiting victim-playing game. The Kochs nicely blow up one tactic of that game when they write:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva;">The influence of radical European and Marxist philosophy into the modern discourse around modern theories of “justice” is well-documented, and, simply stating that the theology of ethnic minorities sprung up entirely apart from those influences does not prove it so. What is more, the African-American Christian tradition, insofar as people like James Cone are illustrative of at least one stream, was and is deeply influenced by (so-called) liberation theology and other theological schools explicitly indebted to Marxist influence.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Yes, the “Black voices” we must listen to, lest we be racist, always seem to be Leftist voices. Listening to Voddie Baucham or Virgil Walker doesn’t count.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I also appreciate the Kochs addressing “the discouragement of many ethnic minorities and their departure” from conservative denominations such as the Southern Baptists [Emphasis mine]:<br /><br /><i>It’s true that some high-profile people have left various churches, but people are free to determine what is most important to them in any given denomination. There is a global theological conversation about race, gender, sexuality, etc. that has caused and is causing a disruption in every denomination that affects all people, not just ethnic minorities. In this particular case, there may be some churches that are legitimately “opponents of justice,” but it’s also just as possible that <b>some of those who left were/are the ones elevating race and various other “identities” to an idolatrous level.</b> It makes sense that those who disagree with what’s being taught, when they try to “dialogue” and don’t make any headway, would give up and leave. That by no means proves their mistreatment.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Timely words. I would go further and say if at least some Woke Church people are not leaving/avoiding a denomination, there is probably something wrong with that denomination. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">But then I am meaner than Jady and Liza Koch. So <a href="https://standfirminfaith.com/20-theses-on-justice-a-decidedly-anglican-response/" target="_blank">go read them</a> instead of me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-81177412419001492392021-02-25T12:40:00.000-06:002021-02-25T12:40:08.149-06:00ACNA’s C4SO Brings Back Soong-Chan Rah<p><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Remember Soong-Chan Rah?</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">I sure do.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Back in 2017, I noticed he was going to keynote a Matthew 25 Gathering in my Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Curious, I did a little research on him, and the rest is history. I exposed some of his background.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Others found more and protested, and eventually he was quietly removed from the program.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva;"><a href="https://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/search/label/Rah">Here are my posts about the matter back then</a>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">One would think that less than four years later, ACNA’s dioceses would exercise enough wisdom not to have him as a focus of any program. Especially since he has continued his woke act, including lovely quotes like this:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">“The United States of America does not hold a morally exceptional position greater than Nazi Germany. We are not more just. Our sense of equality is not any superior. Our nation has never been Christian. We have just won our wars. And therefore, for centuries, we wrote our own history. And that has proven to be incredibly dangerous.” (Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Oh, that’s right. One of the dioceses in ACNA is the Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others (C4SO), not exactly a font of wisdom.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">C4SO not only has <a href="https://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2021/02/acna-update-increasing-identity.html">a congregation giving up Whiteness for Lent</a>, one of the diocese’s programs is reading Rah for Lent with the apparent blessing of C4SO itself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__hW5V3rCWYrLfdW5ijele9kMPDQse0dp_PDxHKPcRRzqmIsJJomLM4fOwfgS457aTqG7vIrEBXNxJKCNJN-jnZsehVxUblpooZNz5YO_XkUq7gKd_ud_GF_q7a-xRXOG7UEfRA/s994/Screen+Shot+2021-02-25+at+8.50.05+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="866" data-original-width="994" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__hW5V3rCWYrLfdW5ijele9kMPDQse0dp_PDxHKPcRRzqmIsJJomLM4fOwfgS457aTqG7vIrEBXNxJKCNJN-jnZsehVxUblpooZNz5YO_XkUq7gKd_ud_GF_q7a-xRXOG7UEfRA/w400-h350/Screen+Shot+2021-02-25+at+8.50.05+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva;">Now perhaps the diocese is so clueless about Rah, even after 2017, that this is only an honest mistake, a lapse of judgement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 12pt;">But I doubt it. And frankly I am so angry I do not trust myself to say more at the moment. </span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-8878083187739188672021-02-24T09:05:00.001-06:002021-02-24T09:05:56.130-06:00ACNA Update: Increasing Identity Conflict and the “Dear Gay Anglicans” Letter<p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Conflict over Critical Theory and related identity issues is escalating in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">On the one hand, the woke cabal in ACNA has gotten more bold. One prominent example is the Anglican Multi-Ethnic Network (AMEN) naming Johana-Marie Williams as Interim Director. She happens to be the Southern Gothic Womanist blogger. The goal of <a href="https://southerngothicwomanist.com" target="_blank">her blog</a> is two-fold:<br /><br /><i>1. To show how who Jesus is answers womanist, posthumanist, and afro-pessimist ontological concerns.</i><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">2. To show how a deeper commitment to Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the Church can (and should) legitimately lead to a deeper commitment to fighting the capitalist-imperialist-racist-hetero-patriarchy.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Got it. Now it should be said it is unclear what relationship AMEN retains with ACNA. I believe AMEN was once a provincial initiative, but that may no longer be the case. Nonetheless, this appointment has gotten some attention in ACNA as Kevin and George note in <a href="https://anglican.ink/2021/02/23/anglican-unscripted-648-sparks-fires-fallacies/" target="_blank">their latest Anglican Unscripted</a> (648, about 9 minutes in).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Not getting quite as much attention, but it should, is that The Table Indy, a C4SO (Diocese of Churches for the Sake of Others) congregation of course, is giving up Whiteness for Lent. Their “Lent focus on Racism and Repentance” began with <a href="https://www.thetableindy.org/reimagining-life-together/" target="_blank">an online Workshop on “Re-imagining Life Together Beyond Whiteness.”</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">The discussion at the Facebook announcement was interesting, including this:<br /><br /><a name="OLE_LINK40"><i>Whiteness? Why does the color of my skin assume I have some supremacy or that I have wronged others. Sound like a rather blanket racist comment.</i></a><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">To which one of The Table’s Priests, Matt Tebbe, replied:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">You misunderstand whiteness... It’s racist to refuse to acknowledge or learn about whiteness. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">You are free to learn by watching the workshop if you wish.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">But by far the biggest battle lately is over “Gay Anglicans,” namely whether it is appropriate for Christians with same-sex desires or temptations to identify as Gay Christians. And that battle sure got interesting the past two days (to the point where I had to rewrite this).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Earlier the ACNA College of Bishops put forth <a href="https://anglicanchurch.net/sexuality-and-identity-a-pastoral-statement-from-the-college-of-bishops/" target="_blank">an excellent and sensitive pastoral statement</a> even if it seems written by a college of bishops. But it did not take long for there to be pushback. Bishop Todd Hunter of C4SO, of course, issued guidance that some took as undermining the College of Bishops. And then came a “Dear Gay Anglicans” open letter, which most definitely does undermine the College of Bishops’ statement. (Anglican Unscripted 648 also discusses this while the matter was still ongoing about 19 minutes in.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">The response was swift. I know of at least two ACNA bishops who told their clergy not to sign the DGA letter. <a href="https://standfirminfaith.com/a-statement-in-support-of-sexuality-and-identity-a-pastoral-statement-from-the-college-of-bishops/" target="_blank">Stand Firm issued a good open letter</a> in response. I was aware of more efforts in the works as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">But swift actions by two bishops put a quick end to the DGA letter. <a href="https://anglican.ink/2021/02/23/archbishop-beach-writes-to-the-diocese-of-the-south-about-the-dear-gay-anglicans-open-letter/" target="_blank">Archbishop Foley Beach issued a remarkably frank letter</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">While [the DGA letter] says they are not undermining our Pastoral Statement, they actually are. Replacing “gay Christian” with “gay Anglican” is pretty much in your face. My immediate reaction to the letter was that it was pretty benign and wasn’t going to change anything about what we teach. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">However, it has already had international ramifications. I have had to deal with two provinces already (actually now three as of a few minutes ago) — and this is just the first day…. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">In the province, the expected hard rhetoric is coming from both sides in reaction to this. I find our lack of charity in the province a serious blind spot we need to address. Many of our bishops, and rightly so, feel this is an attempt to undermine our roles as guardians of the Faith and teachers of the doctrine of the Church. Some individuals have expressed that we are now TEC 2.0. Some think this is going to break the ACNA apart — one quote I received tonight: “If I had to guess what might fracture the ACNA I would’ve said women’s ordination. I never would have thought it would be homosexuality. We gave up everything to take a clear stand on this. It is disheartening to have it being taken away.” I could go on, but you get the point. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">This is serious enough, however, that I am writing this at 1:15 am.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I don’t think he was happy. Do <a href="https://anglican.ink/2021/02/23/archbishop-beach-writes-to-the-diocese-of-the-south-about-the-dear-gay-anglicans-open-letter/" target="_blank">read the rest</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Then the Interim Bishop of Pittsburgh Martyn Minns asked the DGA ringleader Pieter Valk to take the Dear Gay Anglicans letter down, <a href="https://deargayanglicans.com" target="_blank">which he did</a>. A few are very unhappy about that. But more, including me, rejoice that we in ACNA actually do have bishops who have spines and know how to use them. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">So this episode had a somewhat happy ending. But it suffices to say that conflict over Critical Theory, identity, and related issues continues and is increasing in ACNA. And frankly it needs to increase. The routine of the woke cabal pushing and pushing while the rest of us are “collegial” will no longer do. That is a road to becoming The Episcopal Church. As St. Paul wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for <b>there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. </b></span></i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">(I Cor. 11: 18, 19)<o:p></o:p></span></p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">We need our bishops and other leaders to come down every bit as hard on Critical Theory and its progeny as they just did on the “Dear Gay Anglicans Letter.” But I may say more about that another time.</span>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-45490362943125937852021-02-02T07:28:00.000-06:002021-02-02T07:28:49.687-06:00A Helpful Reminder<p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I wish to follow the good example of Dr. Esau McCaulley . . .</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Ux3tp62GjybPi53vWltiNeih4_7p6-owDlOSjZglxF7bcj1otlnd0vpqdRfbhJfWaUN0ym-52XBsactnMywKWddcWY2s2ao4lc1YM28FhbPj2hy1COQu0SVKG0ivDhjLQsWCkg/s1178/Screen+Shot+2021-02-01+at+7.32.24+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="934" data-original-width="1178" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Ux3tp62GjybPi53vWltiNeih4_7p6-owDlOSjZglxF7bcj1otlnd0vpqdRfbhJfWaUN0ym-52XBsactnMywKWddcWY2s2ao4lc1YM28FhbPj2hy1COQu0SVKG0ivDhjLQsWCkg/w407-h323/Screen+Shot+2021-02-01+at+7.32.24+PM.png" width="407" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Like him, I, too, wish to give a helpful cheerful reminder.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I just want to remind everyone that race baiting is not a recognized Christian ministry in any orthodox denomination that I am aware of. Happy Candlemas!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">You’re welcome.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-91913076098682935732021-01-14T07:46:00.000-06:002021-01-14T07:46:30.877-06:00 Pay Attention to Psalms 7 . . . and 9 and . . .<p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Well, <a href="https://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2020/10/psalm-37-psalm-for-our-time.html">my commendation of Psalm 37</a> in October sure proved timely, did it not?</span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I suspect it still is timely due to much righteous anger that could too easily morph into foolishness.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Anger is not always wrong, but it is almost always difficult to handle and direct aright.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Allow me also to direct you to Psalm 7, particularly verses 14-16:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Behold, the wicked man conceives evil<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> and is pregnant with mischief<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> and gives birth to lies.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">He makes a pit, digging it out,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> and falls into the hole that he has made.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">His mischief returns upon his own head,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> and on his own skull his violence descends.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Note two traits of the wicked we need to be aware of especially now. First, he creates traps, often described as pits or nets in Scripture, in order to trap good people. We need to be aware of them and watch out. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">One such trap the Left and allies like to pull is to exaggerate, distort, and often outright invent violence from political opponents. I’ve seen this time and again. Mark Levin and I think the likelihood of such traps around those who may protest the Inauguration of Biden is so high, that <a href="https://twitter.com/WannabeAnglican/status/1349361946378829824" target="_blank">we advise staying away</a> from it and from state capitols next week.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Second, the wicked have a propensity to fall into the traps that they themselves have made. I think we may be seeing that before our eyes. I have hope that Democrat attacks on free speech and their second sham impeachment will backfire greatly on them politically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">So let them fall into their traps. You be alert and wise and avoid them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I think the Lord really wants us to get this. For the theme of the wicked setting traps and falling into them occurs often in Scripture. The whole book of Esther is one example. And we see this repeatedly in the Psalms: 7, 9, 35, 57, 141, and I may have missed one or two. It’s important to get this, now and always.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-16650254241696029822021-01-07T08:15:00.000-06:002021-01-07T08:15:20.891-06:00I will not pray for a “President” Biden.<p><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">After two months of prayer and deliberation, I have decided I will not pray for a “President” Biden, especially in the context of public worship.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, I can pray for those in authority.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">I can pray for enemies as in the Litany.</span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">But I will not be praying for “the President of the United States” as such after January 20</span><sup style="font-family: Geneva;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">for four years.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Among the consequences of stealing an election through fraud and other illegality should be that the thief should be regarded as illegitimate by significant numbers and in significant contexts. That goes double if the thief was aware of the election fraud. And what appears to be the biggest Freudian Slip in history indicates that Biden knew. Biden knew, <a href="https://rumble.com/vau48d-biden-comment-about-voter-fraud-organization-garners-attention.html" target="_blank">in his own words</a>, about "most extensive & inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">So I cannot conscientiously in private or public worship lend legitimacy to a “President” Biden by praying for him as President. I can certainly pray for those in authority, e. g. for “all Christian Rulers and Magistrates.” I, of course, can pray for our country. But I will not join the pretence that Biden will be a legitimate President of the United States by praying for him as such.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Yes, a case can be made for praying for him as POTUS anyway, and I have no problem with those who do (although I will not join them). An obvious argument is that St. Paul urged praying for the Emperor even when he was a rather nasty man. The difference here is that the highest secular authority in the United States is not a man, as in the Roman Empire of Paul’s time, but the Constitution. And the Constitution was run over roughshod to steal the election. Bypassing state legislatures to tear up election laws to steal the election is a prominent example of that.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">The Founding Fathers wisely set up this country to be under the Rule of Law, not the rule of emperors or kings or tyrants. And as long as the Constitution remains, even if only theoretically, there is no obligation under God to treat an illegitimate President as legitimate. (Whether it is wise to do as a practical matter is another question.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">So although I respect those who respectfully disagree, I have made my decision. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">Now for those wondering about the rubrics, if I read them accurately, there is no requirement in my jurisdiction to use any prayer that specifically mentions the President of the United States. There is one exception that I am aware of: the Litany includes a prayer for God “so to rule the heart of thy servant, the President of the United States, that he may above all things seek thine honour and glory.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">So if I make a “mistake” while praying the Litany, let the reader understand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">And after the events of yesterday, I will add that refusing to recognize the legitimacy of a “President” Biden should be <i>non</i>-violent. The violence perpetrated by some of the protesters yesterday was not only wrong, it was stupid. With Trump’s speech and with numerous objectors to the Electoral College in Congress, yesterday was well on the way to spotlighting the election fraudsters as the bad guys. But because of the violent foolishness, the day ended up making Trump and his supporters look like the bad guys and completely distracted from the villainy of the stolen election. Thus it was not only wrong and harmful, it was stupid and self-defeating as political violence generally is.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Geneva; font-size: 14pt;">And numerous and manifold non-violent ways to oppose the coming fraudulent Biden regime remain. My refusal to recognize him as President in public and private worship is only one modest example.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-2849818260822894432020-12-30T07:47:00.000-06:002020-12-30T07:47:20.900-06:002020, 2021, and This Blog<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">As a new year is upon us, it is a time to look back and forward.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Looking back, it seems every year I make a remarkably prescient prediction if I may say so myself. This year’s came <a href="https://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2020/09/brace-for-contested-election.html" target="_blank">back in September</a> when I wrote, “I think it likely we will have a contested election fueled by massive fraud.” And I went on to warn of the problem of mail-in ballots.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I did get something slightly wrong when I noted one “scenario is that [Trump] loses his lead in a crucial state due to questionable mail-in ballots, and you get President Harris, er, Biden.” In hindsight, I should have written “states.” And I confess the fraud was more massive and widespread than even I anticipated.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">You may have noticed something more mundane about this blog – I have been posting less frequently in recent months.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">There may have been some lack of energy and creativity involved, but I have a good reason as well.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">And that gets me into looking forward.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The publication of my writing increased notably in 2020, and I expect the new venues for my writing will continue in 2021. Also, I finally decided on my next book. Yes, good progress for which I am thankful.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The problem is, to do these justice, really to get these done, I have to change my time management, and that will likely include posting less often here. Already, I have caught myself procrastinating on my book, and this blog has been one of the excuses for that. In fact, I put off working on my book to write this post!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">So do know that if post less frequently, it will probably be for good reason. But I will continue to opine on <a href="https://twitter.com/WannabeAnglican" target="_blank">twitter</a> and <a href="https://parler.com/profile/WannabeAnglican/posts" target="_blank">Parler</a>, which can be more fun anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">For now, may you have a more tolerable 2021 and a happy remainder of the Christmas season.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-87185208906885668442020-12-28T08:57:00.000-06:002020-12-28T08:57:44.555-06:00Two Timely Christmas Sermons from Pusey House<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I <a href="http://wannabeanglican.blogspot.com/2007/12/holy-innocents-and-dark-side-of.html" target="_blank">noted on a past Feast of Holy Innocents</a> that Christmas has its dark side.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">We often try to push that aside in strenuous efforts to be merry, but on this Holy Innocents Day of 2020, one would have to engage in significant denial to ignore it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">So I am glad to have come across Christmas sermons this year that tackle the current difficulties and the present darkness head on. Two of those come from the Principal of Pusey House, George Westhaver during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZrNoEWRmso" target="_blank">their Christmas Eve Midnight Mass</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Although I could only watch the opening of his sermon live due to my preparations for a Christmas Eve service, I was able to watch it the remainder of the evening and was edified. I hoped it would be posted for all to see and read and have not been disappointed. <a href="http://www.puseyhouse.org.uk/uploads/1/2/9/9/129941883/christmas_midnight_2020_pusey_house.pdf" target="_blank">The transcript is here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dr. Westhaver expounded on John 1:5 – “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I said two sermons from Pusey House because Westhaver refers to a sermon from Dr. Pusey. That sermon, too, well addresses the relevance of Christmas to great difficulties and may be <a href="http://www.puseyhouse.org.uk/uploads/1/2/9/9/129941883/pusey_god_with_us_parochial_sermons_vol_1__1_.pdf" target="_blank">found here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Although I hope the difficulties of my readers have not been too great, I also hope these sermons encourage you in the midst of a trying time as they have me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Do have a blessed Holy Innocents Day and a happy Christmas season. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6468413.post-14082539760264204992020-12-23T08:04:00.002-06:002020-12-23T08:04:45.555-06:00King’s Nine Lesson and Carols Will Be Pre-recorded.<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">2020 continues to take its toll.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Now that toll includes the Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, at least a live version.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/news/2020/radio-broadcast-recorded-version-christmas-eve-service" target="_blank">From King’s</a>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">…For safety reasons it had previously been decided that no congregation could be present this year. In the face of Covid-19, King’s also decided to make a recording of the service a few weeks before Christmas as an additional precaution. In the light of current conditions, it is this recording of 2020’s </span></i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols<i> that will be broadcast at the usual time on 24 December.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Given all the lockdowns now around London, the decision is understandable, perhaps inevitable. And King’s College is to be praised for their foresight in pre-recording a service just in case.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Still Christmas Eve this year will not quite be the same.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">For those wondering, the broadcast schedule should remain the same:<br /><br /><a name="OLE_LINK15"><i>The scheduling information for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will remain the same, with the service broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service on 24 December at 3pm (10:00 EST or 07:00 PST). The service is also broadcast at 1pm on Radio 3 on Christmas Day, and at various times on the BBC World Service. In the United States the service is distributed by American Public Media and is broadcast by around 450 radio stations, including Minnesota Public Radio and WQXR in New York.</i></a><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Additional information, including the Order of Service may be <a href="https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/a-festival-of-nine-lesson-and-carols-2020" target="_blank">found here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">One has to have sympathy for Director of Music Daniel Hyde. Now into his second year, he has yet to have a live Nine Lessons and Carols without difficulty. Last year was at the end of his first Michaelmas Term and in the shadow of Stephen Cleobury. It takes time for a new director and choir to work seamlessly together. Last year’s service seemed to show that at times although it was excellent overall. Then in a dark Lent Term came the COVID. And now the live service is cancelled. Like much of the UK, the man cannot seem to get a break.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02059920222709764278noreply@blogger.com0