Christians and the free market

Rev. Robert Sirico of The Acton Institute was recently interviewed for Relevant Radio’s Drew Mariani Show. Click here for two audio links.

How can you go wrong with a name like this?

Parked next to my car Sunday at the Holiday Inn near Black Mountain, N.C.

Artist William Schickel dies

“William Schickel, who died Tuesday at 89, had a sacred passion.

“The longtime Loveland resident was a nationally renowned liturgical artist whose work spanned more than 60 years. It combined his skills as a sculptor, architectural designer, furniture designer, stained-glass artist and painter, with his deep personal faith.” (From this obit.)

See some of his work through this site.

Read an excerpt of Gregory Wolfe’s book on Schickel here.

Did Bishop Wright get it wrong? Maybe in part, but it might not matter

Legislation, legislation, legislation. The debate over the meaning of resolution D025 at the Episcopal General Convention continues — but it might be C056 (continue reading for details) that changes the day.

This post at Seven Whole Days suggests that Bishop Tom Wright’s assessment of the resolution was inaccurate.

Seven Whole Days refutes part of Wright’s article this way:

We do not have “appointment” to holy orders in this church. We have “discernment” and “call” to holy orders. D025, through our Constitution & Canons, provides plenty of opportunity for people to be challenged in their expressed call to ordained ministry. More to the point, and somewhat disappointing to me, resolution 2006-B033 (the call for restraint on bishops in same-sex partnered relationship) is not explicitly overturned here. So we have both the admission that God will call those whom God chooses (2009-D025), and a remaining call for restraint (2006-B033).

That being said, could Wright be justified in his concern about an implicit overturn of B033? In politics and law, people often worry about the implications of a certain action. Wright is a conservative, so how else would he interpret the following portion of D025? It reads in part:

…the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals [gays and lesbians in lifelong committed relationships], to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, and that God’s call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church…

And apparently, C056, a resolution on rites for the blessing of same-sex relationships, is very explicit. Dan Martins, rector of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Warsaw, Indiana, posted the following planned response if C056 passed (in the process, he agrees, against Wright, that there might be some ambiguity in D025):

Madam President, if I had a dollar for every person who has come up to me during this convention and said something like, “I don’t usually agree with you, but I’m sure glad you’re here; we need your voice,” I could finance a day at Disneyland. So…you want my voice? Here’s my voice: If there was any ambiguity in D025–and I have contended that there is, at some cost to my credibility–then there is absolutely none in this resolution. When we pass it, we will in that moment be undoing every shred of work that this church has done over the last four years in response to the Windsor Report. Time does not permit me to enumerate all the work that will be nullified by this action. We are utterly rejecting Windsor and the hope for life in communion that it represents. On this day my church is covering itself with shame, and I am profoundly sorrowful. What you are about to do, do quickly. (The boldface is mine.)

Hey, you got no soul! Fuller seminary prof on the Christian concept of the soul

“There is no such thing …. original Christian thinkers did not employ the concept of a soul …. The doctrine that I emphasize is bodily resurrection. I believe historically that something like that did happen to Jesus. I believe that all of us are looking forward to having something like that happen to us, either at the point of death or, more likely, at the point where the whole cosmos is divinely transformed. If it weren’t for the resurrection then all we would be able to say is that however nice it is to be a Christian while you’re alive, when you die, it’s over.”

– Nancey Murphy of Fuller Theological Seminary in a Feb. 24 radio interview with Mike Collins of “Charlotte Talks” on WFAE; quotation found in Queens: The Magazine of Queens University in Charlotte

Why Sotomayor’s conservatism might amount to liberalism

Watching the Senate questiong Judge Sonia Sotomayor, I’m impressed by how rigorously she answers questions in terms of legal precedent — previous rulings guide her approach to the law.

But it occurred to me that much of those previous rulings, at this point in time, reflect “progressive,” or liberal, changes in law and society.

So essentially, she could have a very conservative legal approach that cites very liberal precedent. It’s the inevitable potential of our time.

I’m trying to listen with libertarian ears (and the Sotomayor hearing offers less despair than the Episcopal General Convention). Sotomayor seems measured in her replies, and reasonable.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had to press her hard to get any idea of her personal opinion on self-defense. She sticks with precedent as much as possible. Coburn, a doctor, even noted that it’s hard to get lawyers — like doctors — to use familiar, everyday terms.

Director of Anglican Action comments

Jeff Walton, director of Anglican Action (part of the Institute on Religion and Democracy), made these comments on the House of Deputies’ final vote today (July 14) to end the moratorium on consecrating gay bishops:

“In passing this resolution, the Episcopal Church has essentially said it wants to remain at the table, but only on its own terms.

“In the Anglican Communion, 22 out of 37 other provinces are already in a state of either impaired or broken communion with the Episcopal Church. This move by the Episcopal Church will further widen their effective separation from the bulk of worldwide Anglicans.

“The Episcopal Church understands that by abandoning scriptural authority it is cutting itself off from the Anglican Communion. As an autonomous church, it has that choice, now it must live with the consequences.”

(The Institute on Religion and Democracy aligns itself with conservative perspectives that support traditional church teachings within several denominations.)

Overlooked: Orthodox Church leader addresses Anglican Church in North America

The following was written on July 8 by Jeff Walton of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (posted here); Walton reported on a significant address by the leader of the Orthodox Church in America to the provinical assembly of the Anglican Church in North America.

A former Episcopalian who is now head of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) greeted delegates to the Anglican Church in North America’s recent provincial assembly in Bedford, Texas. Metropolitan Jonah, known by his monastic name, is the first convert to lead the million-member OCA.

In an address that was sometimes controversial and elicited animated response from delegates, Jonah made the case for ecumenical reconciliation between the Anglican and Orthodox churches and proposed a formal dialogue between the two. Still, Jonah did not refrain from touching sensitive points dividing the Orthodox from various currents of Anglicanism. The metropolitan voiced the Orthodox Church’s objection to ordained female clergy as well as denouncing iconoclasm and Calvinism. The statements were greeted with both cheers and groans from different Anglican delegates.

“We have to speak the truth in love,” Jonah said. “There is no truth if there is no love. There may be facts, but no truth.”

The Orthodox primate also called the gathered Anglicans to move ahead in ministry, distancing themselves from prior conflicts in the Episcopal Church.

“I know the Anglican Church has gone through a bitter, bitter time,” Jonah said. “My heart is with you. We need to surrender those resentments. Forgive those who have accused you, slandered you.”

Jonah, born James Paffhausen, was baptized in the Episcopal Church and influenced by the Episcopal charismatic movement that became popular in California during his youth. College led to his discovery of Orthodoxy, and his decision to embrace the eastern faith.

“Orthodoxy is not about picking and choosing what I like,” The metropolitan explained. “It is about finding the mind of the Holy Spirit. Nothing else matters.”

“This past millennium has been tough for us,” Jonah said, making a lighthearted transition into the serious subject of the trials endured by Orthodox Christians under Muslims, Mongols and eventually, communists.

Orthodoxy is a church where there were 20 million martyrs in the last century, according to Jonah.

“From this comes an incredibly powerful spiritual seed, for the seed of the church is the blood of the martyrs,” Jonah said.

The Orthodox primate spent much of his talk appealing for a unity between Orthodox and Anglican Christians, an aspiration that he saw as tantalizingly close to reality during the early 20th century. Reconciliation between the churches was stalled when the Episcopal Church veered towards liberal Protestantism, and came to an abrupt end with the advent of women’s ordination in the 1970s.

“We have the opportunity to come together, Anglicans and Orthodox, in truth,” Jonah said. “Does that Anglican Church that came so close to being recognized as a fellow Orthodox Church still exist? Here [at the ACNA assembly] it does.”

The metropolitan said that true unity was “a call to surrender to that one faith that is delivered to the saints.”

“The Church is not simply human, it is divine,” Jonah said. “We believe in the Church like we believe in Jesus Christ. The Church is the living body of Jesus Christ. It’s not just people who happen to like the same prayer book.”

In addition to a high view of the sacraments and the role of the church, Jonah also articulated a personal, individual faith.

“We have to surrender to God, personally, in the depths of our being,” Jonah said. “It’s that experience that I have died, that my life is hidden with Christ my God. The Lord Jesus Christ did not die so that we could have nice rituals.”

Jonah spoke to some of the social issues that have divided the Episcopal Church over the past generation, among them sanctity of life and human sexuality.

“We have to stand together in an absolute and unconditional condemnation of abortion,” Jonah said, to a standing ovation from delegates.

The Orthodox metropolitan also spoke about gender, sexuality and the damage he saw inflicted upon western society, saying that Christians needed to denounce immorality without judging.

“Immorality demoralizes,” Jonah said. “I think we can see where immorality has been allowed, what has happened. We need to look deep inside ourselves to find that identity given to us by Jesus Christ.”

Jonah concluded his address by opening his hands and stating “our arms are open” in inviting reconciliation with the Anglican Church. In response, Archbishop Robert Duncan promised to pursue talks with the Orthodox, and thanked the metropolitan for his willingness to re-engage with Anglicans after a long dry spell.

Bishop Tom Wright: The Episcopal Church has (essentially) left the Anglican Communion

Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham (in the U.K.), writing in The Times of London:

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”.

Read the full article here.

Was it censorship? Some Michigan Muslims offended by on-camera questions

This recent video from Arab Festival 2009 in Dearborn, Michigan, borders on creepy. The video will provide enough background. Watch it now.