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Police -- Stonington Pastor Provided Alcohol For Minors http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=bd09de68-90d0-408b-aa22-6d3f42ec354e http://tinyurl.com/6jdj56 Priest arrested during party after 2 girls hospitalized for intoxication Published on 6/3/2008 By Joe Wojtas Stonington - Police arrested the Rev. Mark Robinson of Calvary Episcopal Church Monday and charged him with hosting a graduation party at his Barnes Road home Sunday night that resulted in two 17-year-old girls being taken by ambulance to The Westerly Hospital for treatment for intoxication. The 50-year-old Robinson, who has led the borough church since 1993, was charged with delivery of alcohol to minors, second-degree reckless endangerment and permitting minors to possess alcohol....

I’m not going to name any presidential candidates in this column. But it is true that the question of whether or how we should conduct a war against terrorism is a part of the national debate now going on. Nor am I talking just about politicians. There is a discussion group in my church (Episcopalian) who read with favor the works of an Irish theologian who believes that Christianity’s purpose is the creation of a pacifist, secular government on Earth. This, however, is not a new concept. The same idea, that all war is “unChristian,” was present at the time...

"The Court agrees that it was major divisions such as those within the Methodist and Presbyterian churches that prompted the passage of 57-9. However, it blinks at reality to characterize the ongoing division within the Diocese, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as anything but a division of the first magnitude..."

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business. It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but it's something that could be happening in your own backyard. These were just a few of the topics addressed in the "How to fight the TTC" workshop, held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference served as an informational meeting aimed at informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project....

A Piney Woods retreat that has hosted national church conferences on controversial issues, celebrated the consecration of bishops and provided summer memories for thousands of teens now faces another kind of challenge. The nearly two square miles of forest, hills, fields, lakes and buildings that make up Camp Allen Conference & Retreat Center, 15 miles southeast of Navasota, lie in a two-mile-wide strip listed in state documents as the preferred route for the planned Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. Proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, the corridor plan has drawn heated opposition at town hall meetings and public hearings throughout Southeast...

For Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female head of the 2.4 million-member U.S. Episcopal Church, military conflict in the Middle East hits very close to home. Jefferts Schori has a 26-year-old daughter, Kate, a pilot who was recently deployed to the United Arab Emirates as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. "We raised our daughter to make her own decisions and she's clearly done that," Jefferts Schori said Friday in Birmingham. "We're very supportive of the work she's doing, believing that it's far better to have leaders who come with a solid, moral, ethical base and...

For some time now, people have been asking me why I haven't written anything on the current—or, depending on your point of view, everlasting—crisis in the Anglican world. After all, I have been an Anglican for nearly twenty-five years, virtually all of my adult life. Surely I have some opinions on the mess the Anglican Communion is now in, on how it got this way, and how it might get out again? Well, yes, I do have such opinions. But they are worthless. All such opinions amount to little more than the assignation of blame for past events and predictions...

Former Episcopal Priest Explores Christianity and Druidry in New Novel http://www.bloggernews.net/112455 December 17th, 2007 by suzanne evans On March 22nd 2005, The Rev Walter William Melnyk was forced out of the priesthood of the US Episcopal Church after facing charges of “holding private opinions inconsistent with the teachings of the Church.” This allegation, effectively a heresy charge, ended his 23 year-strong vocation as a priest, even though his only transgression was to look into Celtic Christianity and its connection with pre-Christian Druidry. Now, Walter William Melnyk has delved further into those links in a new novel written with Druid priestess...

"The problem in our church [national] is about the lack of respect for the authority of scripture and the nature, character and work of Jesus Christ," said Curran, an Episcopal priest for 15 years. "It's about the failed leadership of The Episcopal Church and whether or not we will continue to be under the authority of a failed leadership. And for many of us, the answer is no."

US Episcopal report highlights concerns over church attendance drop http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.episcopal.report.highlights.concerns.over.church.attendance.drop/15084.htm http://tinyurl.com/3d37yq by Lillian Kwon, Christian Today US Correspondent Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2007, 12:26 (GMT) An Episcopal Church committee has released an interim report that reveals positive trends as well as concerns in declining membership and church conflicts. In a brief assessment of facts and trends in the Episcopal Church, the 'State of the Church' report – issued by the House of Deputies Committee in November – indicated the need for a "plan for action" at all levels of the denomination in response to membership drops. In 2006, the number...

-snip...Much of the controversy surrounding the program has centered on a specific Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training document that featured definitions of a "racist" ("…The term applies to all white people…living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture of sexuality") and "non-racist" ("A non-term."). Newman said the material came from the director of the California-based World Trust Educational Services Dr. Shakti Butler. She presented the document at RA summer training as, what Newman describes, "tools" that "were by no means what we had to believe." -snip

Vedic Recitations in a Christian Church on Thanksgiving http://newsblaze.com/story/20071101085222tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html http://tinyurl.com/2kmxfe Nov 1, 2007 Judyth Piazza, News Blaze Recitations from ancient Sanskrit scriptures will reverberate in a Christian church in Nevada on the occasion of coming Thanksgiving eve service. Rajan Zed, the prominent Hindu chaplain, will read from Rig-Veda (oldest existing scripture of the world dated from around 1,500 BCE), Upanishads (Hindu scriptures containing mystical teachings), and Bhagavad-Gita (famous philosophical and spiritual poem) in Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno (Nevada) during Twenty-second Annual Thanksgiving Service of Northwestern Nevada to be held on November 21 evening. Despite conflicts around the world, various...

You can call them gluttons for punishment. They've begun calling themselves that. After no children or parents showed for Planned Parenthood of West Texas' Real Life. Real Talk. sex education session in August, organization officials rescheduled the workshop for Tuesday night at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest at South 6th and Meander streets. This time, after four teachers and a program director drove two hours from Midland, one girl attended. "She'll be one of the best educated young women in the community after tonight," said Carla Holeva, vice president of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of West Texas....

Jim McGreevey to begin Episcopal seminary classes http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2007/09/01/2007-09-01_jim_mcgreevey_to_begin_episcopal_seminar.html http://tinyurl.com/2p469w BY CHRISTINA BOYLE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Saturday, September 1st 2007, 4:00 AM Jim McGreevey, the nation's first openly gay governor, is returning to the classroom Tuesday as a seminary student. The former New Jersey governor will begin full-time studies at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Chelsea, where he will pursue a three-year Master of Divinity program. McGreevey, 50, switched denominations from Roman Catholic to Episcopalian earlier this year and has expressed an interest in becoming a priest. "I hope that Jim McGreevey finds some contentment and...

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago included an openly lesbian priest among five nominees for bishop Tuesday, as fellow Anglicans demand that the church bar gay bishops. The Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, who has a female partner, will be on the November 10 ballot. If she wins, she would be the second bishop living with a same-sex partner in the Episcopal Church. New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who has a male partner, was consecrated in 2003, pushing the world Anglican Communion to the brink of schism.

Porn star now seeks priesthood instead http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/07/15/2003369673 http://tinyurl.com/2wv9qm NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, OAK PARK, CALIFORNIA Sunday, Jul 15, 2007, Page 7 Some people have their midlife crisis in reverse, like Ronald Boyer, who for most of his professional life has been better known as a star of pornographic films, Rod Fontana. After 30 years of sowing the wildest of oats, Boyer, 54, has searched his soul and chosen, to the surprise of family and colleagues, to seek a priesthood in the Episcopal Church. From his work in the rented villas of the San Fernando Valley, where hard-core sex films...

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a local Episcopal priest who announced she is both Muslim and Christian, will not be able to serve as a priest for a year, according to her bishop. During that year, Redding is expected to "reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam," the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to Episcopal Church leaders. During the next year, Redding "is not to exercise any of the responsibilities...

A Left-Wing Priestess for Allah http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070630/28250_A_Left-Wing_Priestess_for_Allah.htm http://tinyurl.com/33pmot By Mark D. Tooley Christian Post Contributor Sat, Jun. 30 2007 11:57 AM ET A Seattle priest has become a Muslim while also retaining her clergy status in the Episcopal Church. Her local bishop has described the development as “exciting.” "I look through Jesus and I see Allah,” explained the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding to the “Seattle Times”, which reported that Redding puts on her Islamic headscarf on Fridays and her clerical collar on Sundays. She has denounced Christianity as a "world religion of privilege.” But she still sees Jesus as her Savior,...

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6) On the other hand: "Jesus is not the only way to God . . ." Rev. Ann Holmes http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/reader_feedback.php?id=171 http://tinyurl.com/36ss36

Episcopal Panel 'Dodges' Response to Moratorium http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070615/27991_Episcopal_Panel_'Dodges'_Response_to_Moratorium.htm http://tinyurl.com/35qes6 By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Fri, Jun. 15 2007 07:13 AM ET An Episcopal panel of clergy and lay people indicated on Thursday they will not give a response to the moratorium Anglican leaders requested for by September, arguing that only the General Convention has the authority to respond. The next General Convention – The Episcopal Church's primary governing and legislative body – however, meets in the summer of 2009. After a four-day meeting that ended Thursday, the Executive Council said that no governing body other than General Convention can agree...

Executive Council prepares for communiqué response http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86791_ENG_HTM.htm Two committees hear experience of gay Nigerian activist By Mary Frances Schjonberg June 11, 2007 [Episcopal News Service] The Executive Council, the Episcopal Church's governing body between General Conventions, began its four-day meeting June 11 in New Jersey learning that a draft of a response to the Anglican Communion Primates' latest communiqué was ready for their consideration. In a public plenary session, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said that Executive Council members would discuss during private conversation later in the day a draft report of the EC008 Task Group, requested by the...

One day after Congress scuttled immigration reform, an Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles congregation welcomed into sanctuary a nursing mother facing deportation. On June 8, Liliana Sanctuario, 28, and her two-month-old son, Pablo, began living at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach, California, to avoid federal deportation to Mexico, and to help raise public awareness about the need for effective immigration reform, according to the Rev. Julie Wakelee-Lynch. "This is not hiding, this is public hospitality," said Wakelee-Lynch, St. Luke's associate rector. "Her three children and her husband are U.S. citizens, all are legal residents, which is why deportation...

Williams Not 'Absolutely Confident' Anglicans Can Get it Together http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070608/27856_Williams_Not_'Absolutely_Confident'_Anglicans_Can_Get_it_Together.htm http://tinyurl.com/2om7ed By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Fri, Jun. 08 2007 10:56 AM ET The spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion is hopeful, but not "absolutely confident" that the global church body, which many say is on the brink of division, can stay together. "Anglicans should remain Anglicans ... I don't think schism is inevitable," said Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in an interview with Time magazine. The Anglican head added, however, "If you're asking am I absolutely confident that we can get it together after the Lambeth Conference? No....

Breakaway Anglican Groups Invited to Form New Alliance http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070604/27766_Orthodox_Anglicans_to_Initiate_Talks_on_Forming_'Anglican_Union'.htm http://tinyurl.com/37dsm9 By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Mon, Jun. 04 2007 07:09 AM ET The head of a conservative Anglican network in the United States has invited major breakaway Anglican groups to up the level of their partnership for a united Anglicanism in North America as some predict a split in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, called for a Sept. 25-28 meeting to initiate discussion of creating an "Anglican Union" among the partners. The creation of the union would be a step...

Episcopal break up? http://www.catholic.org/views/views_news.php?id=24184 5/23/2007 Our Sunday Visitor One could argue that the Episcopal Church in the United States has been on the brink of disaster for years. Thomas Reeves, in his book The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity, quoted an observation made about the Episcopal Church in 1994 that seems no less true today: “The Episcopal Church is an institution in free fall. We have nothing to hold on to, no shared belief, no common assumptions, no agreed bottom line, no accepted definition of what an Episcopalian is or believes.” The Episcopal Church has been divided by...

No Lambeth Invitation for Bishop Robinson http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=3366 http://tinyurl.com/yoerxw 5/22/2007 The Bishop of New Hampshire will not be invited to participate in the 2008 Lambeth Conference, according to the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary of the Lambeth Conference. Invitations to the conference were mailed May 22 to more than 800 bishops of the Anglican Communion by the conference’s host, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) and the Rt. Rev. Charles Murphy and his suffragans, the bishops of the Anglican Mission in North America (AMiA) will not receive...

Katharine Jefferts Schori on the future of the Episcopal Church http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/05/19/0519schori.html http://tinyurl.com/2vknks First woman to preside as bishop talks with Statesman religion reporter By Eileen Flynn American-Statesman Staff Saturday, May 19, 2007 The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, addressed the graduates of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest on Tuesday in Northwest Austin. After the commencement, Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the national church, sat down with an American-Statesman reporter to talk about her denomination's challenges, including tensions within the 2.4 million-member American province and with Anglicans worldwide and her recent...

Orthodox Anglicans Take 'First Step' Away from Episcopal Church http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070507/27269_Orthodox_Anglicans_Take_'First_Step'_Away_from_Episcopal_Church.htm http://tinyurl.com/ywlc4m By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Mon, May. 07 2007 06:43 AM ET WOODBRIDGE, Va. – The installation of a local minister who recently broke with the Episcopal Church and will now oversee other breakaway congregations was a unique and historic event and one that the Nigerian Anglican leader called "just the first step." "The journey ahead is long, the road ... rough, rugged," said Archbishop Peter J. Akinola of the Church of Nigeria, who defied top church leaders on Saturday and installed the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns as...

The nation's first openly gay governor has become an Episcopalian and been accepted into a seminary, according to a published report. Former Gov. James E. McGreevey, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York, said the Rev. Kevin Bean, vicar at the church. McGreevey has been accepted to study at the General Theological Seminary in New York, the oldest in the Episcopal Church, school spokesman Bruce Parker said Wednesday. Parker did not know whether the former governor wants to become a priest. ''Mr. McGreevey has...

McGreevey mulling Episcopal priesthood Posted by The Star-Ledger May 02, 2007 12:08PM Categories: News Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger Former Gov. James E. McGreevey appears during custody proceedings in the Union County Courthouse last week.Former Gov. James E. McGreevey has started the process to become a priest in his newly adopted Episcopal faith and hopes to begin a three-year seminary program in the fall. McGreevey, who often described himself as a devout Catholic while in public office, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday, at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan, and is now part of the church's "discernment" phase that...

Church History: America once an Episcopalian nation http://www.thedailycitizen.com/articles/2007/04/28/news/features/features05.txt http://tinyurl.com/383b4f Friday, April 27, 2007 8:43 PM CDT Statistically no group of Christians held a greater influence over the founding and initial direction of the United States of America than the Episcopal Church. According to the website www.adherents.com, fifty-five percent of the founding fathers were Episcopalian. In addition, Episcopalians comprised thirty-two percent of all Supreme Court Justices and more than twenty-five percent of all presidents in the past two and a quarter centuries of American history. The Revolution may have been a “Presbyterian Parson's War,” as King George referred to it, but...

Episcopal Bishop says few leaving over same-sex issues http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=123562&ran=89412 By STEVEN G. VEGH, The Virginian-Pilot April 26, 2007 Last updated: 12:16 AM VIRGINIA BEACH - The Episcopal Church's presiding bishop on Wednesday downplayed the notion of a denominational schism over homosexuality, saying only a tiny fraction of congregations have moved to break away. In an interview, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the congregations had "gotten a lot of attention and been very noisy," but accounted for less than 1 percent of the country's total number of parishes, which she put at 7,500. "The Episcopal Church is alive and well,"...

Gay Bishop Will Make Union with Partner Official http://www.beliefnet.com/story/217/story_21727_1.html Associated Press Concord, New Hampshire - The Rev. V. Gene Robinson became the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop. Now, he and his partner want to be among the first gay couples in New Hampshire to officially unite under a soon-to-be-signed civil unions law. New Hampshire is set to become the nation's fourth state to offer civil unions for gay couples after legislation approved by the state Senate on Thursday was sent to Gov. John Lynch, who has said he would sign it. "I think this moves us one step closer...

Archbishop of Canterbury announces plans to visit the Episcopal Church http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_84949_ENG_HTM.htm By Mary Frances Schjonberg and Solange de Santis April 16, 2007 [Episcopal News Service] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, announced April 16 that he intends to visit the United States this autumn in response to the invitation from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church. Speaking in a news conference in Toronto, Williams said he would make the visit together with members of the Standing Committee of the Primates, of which Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is a member, and the Anglican Consultative Council. "I look...

From the Bishop Dear Friends in Christ, By the time you read this I will be in attendance at the annual spring retreat of the bishops of the Episcopal Church, meeting at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas, March 15-22. As I prepare to travel to meet with my brothers and sisters in this House, I must be honest and share with you a few concerns about the challenges before us as a Church right at this moment in our common life. First and foremost, it grieves me to know that we bishops of this Episcopal Church will once again be...

Episcopalians Begin Considering Response to Moratorium http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070412/26840_Episcopalians_Begin_Considering_Response_to_Moratorium.htm http://tinyurl.com/2mzvet By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Thu, Apr. 12 2007 09:19 AM ET Episcopal leaders have begun considering a potential response to requests from Anglican leaders to not consecrate another openly gay bishop. An appointed Executive Council work group convened for the first time early this month to begin discussion on a report responding to the communiqué that was issued by the Anglican Communion's Primates in February. The Episcopal Church was given a Sept. 30 deadline to respond to a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex...

Fate of Episcopal Church Left to Anglican Leaders, Not Head http://tinyurl.com/3dn5pf An Episcopal bishop recently revealed that the latest Anglican conference, while publicly centered on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, had a hidden agenda - concern over the issue of homosexuality. Tue, Apr. 10, 2007 Posted: 13:08:34 PM EST An Episcopal bishop recently revealed that the latest Anglican conference, while publicly centered on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, had a hidden agenda - concern over the issue of homosexuality. More than 400 people had convened in Boksburg, South Africa, last month for the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM)...

Primates push U.S. on sexuality http://www.anglicanjournal.com/issues/2007/133/apr/04/article/primates-push-us-on-sexuality/ http://tinyurl.com/3auuwb Americans given deadline to comply Marites N. Sison, staff writer Apr 1, 2007 Primates of the Anglican Communion have given the U.S. Episcopal Church until Sept. 30 to “make an unequivocal common covenant” that its bishops will bar same-sex blessings in their churches and that it would not consecrate another gay bishop “unless some new consensus on this matter emerges” across the Anglican world. Failure to comply would mean that “the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remain damaged at best, and this has consequences for the...

Leadership: Amen To Women http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/20/katharine-schori-episcopalian-lead_cz_ch_0321pink.html http://tinyurl.com/ynvrms Cecile S. Holmes, PINK 03.21.07, 6:00 AM ET Katharine Jefferts Schori -- oceanographer, instrument-rated pilot and Episcopal bishop -- remembers the evening in 2000 when it seemed she might be reaching the zenith of her short ecclesiastical career. After spending the day in a diocesan committee meeting along Oregon's southern coast, she had returned to her home in Corvallis, Ore. Her daughter was away at college, her husband out for the evening with friends. She was sitting at home alone when the call came, she recalls. "They said, 'You have been elected bishop. Will...

Williams: Church appears 'obsessed with sex' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/27/nchurch27.xml http://tinyurl.com/2ox4ax By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent Last Updated: 1:19am GMT 27/02/2007 The Anglican Church appears to the outside world and to many of its own members, to be "obsessed with sex", the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, admitted to the General Synod yesterday. But the Archbishop argued that its bitter and prolonged dispute over homosexuality touched deeper issues, such as the way the worldwide Communion dealt with profound differences, which could not be easily avoided. It was "folly" to think a split in the Church over gays would leave a "neat and...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said Iran bore no hatred towards the United States as he held talks with American Christians in a rare official contact with visitors from Tehran's arch enemy. State television showed Ahmadinejad meeting with a dozen American representatives from various Christian orders who are in Iran for a week-long visit to promote peace and dialogue between the foes. "The Iranian nation does not have any feeling of hatred and opposition towards the American people and we believe that all people are respectful and given the common grounds people have, they could achieve peace and justice," Ahmadinejad...

OMAHA — Hotline calls to Grand Island’s largest Hispanic church suggest that as many as 180 of the approximately 260 workers detained in an immigration raid at the Swift meatpacking plant there last week have been deported. Jorge Canelas, a deacon at the Cathedral of St. Mary’s, said 80 mothers were taken back to Grand Island from a holding area near Des Moines, Iowa, to be reunited with children. Speaking at a Thursday news conference organized by critics of the raids, Canelas said many of the town’s Hispanic residents who were not detained are living in fear. “People are still...

FAIRFAX, Va. - Two of the largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly Sunday to break from The Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival U.S. denomination. Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the church. The archbishop hopes to create a U.S. alliance of disaffected parishes called the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Truro rector Martyn Minns was consecrated a bishop in the Church...

Q: You just took office as the first woman to head the Episcopal Church, and curiously enough, you come from a science background, having worked as an oceanographer for years. I worked on squids and octopuses. As a scientist with a Ph.D., what do you make of the Christian fundamentalists who say the earth was created in six days and dismiss evolution as a lot of bunk? I think it’s a horrendous misunderstanding of both science and active faith tradition. I understand the great creation story in the scientific sense — big bang and evolutionary theory — as the best...

Truro and The Falls Church Vestries recommend severing ties with The Episcopal Churchhttp://titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/?p=16227 Nov 15, 2006 The following is the official press release received by e-mail from the vestries of Truro and The Falls Church. The text is also available online at BabyBlue’s blog. An earlier entry about Falls Church was posted below. *** Truro and The Falls Church Vestries recommend severing ties with The Episcopal Church “With great sadness and yet firm conviction we took this initial step toward our respective votes.” -Tom Wilson, Senior Warden, The Falls Church Fairfax, VA, Nov. 15 - In a congregational meeting Sunday...

Episcopal Scouting in the Diocese of West Texas The following blurb appeared in the October, 2006 issue of "Direct Line", the monthly electronic newsletter of the Diocese of West Texas: --- Resources are available for Episcopal churches and schools interested in sponsoring a Boy Scout unit, including Cub Scout packs (for boys in grades 1-5), Boy Scout troops (boys, ages 10-18) and Venturing crews (coeducational, ages 14-20). "Scouting can be a wonderful outreach ministry for unchurched youth outside a parish, and it can provide vocational and leadership training for youth within the parish," says Fred Goodwin, an assistant scoutmaster at...

Diocese of Texas will consecrate female bishophttp://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/4241978.html http://tinyurl.com/lcnep Oct. 6, 2006, 9:58PM Episcopal Church will seek unity but negotiate 'tensions,' says Bishop-elect Dena Harrison By BARBARA KARKABI Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle The Rev. Dena Harrison will become the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church in Texas when she is consecrated today. Harrison, 59, will serve as bishop suffragan, an assistant to Bishop Don Wimberly in the Houston-based Diocese of Texas. She served congregations in Austin, La Grange and Conroe before joining the diocesan staff as canon, handling administrative duties and various ministries. The diocese expects more than 600 people...

Plano parish will pay to leave Episcopal Churchhttp://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_77847_ENG_HTM.htm Christ Church Plano, Diocese of Dallas reach 'godly judgment' Episcopal News Service Mary Frances Schjonberg Friday, September 15, 2006 The vestry and rector of Christ Church in Plano, Texas announced September 15 that the parish will pay the Diocese of Dallas $1.2 million for its title to the parish property and disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church. Bishop James Stanton said, in one of two statements posted on the website of Christ Church in Plano, that he had come to the conclusion that there are "irreconcilable differences between Christ Church and the...

Church and state face similar issueshttp://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/wb/xp-76903 Sunday, August 06, 2006 Donald Nuechterlein Early in 2003, before the Pentagon launched the invasion of Iraq, American liberals chastised the Bush administration for ignoring the United Nations and world opinion by pursuing a unilateralist foreign policy on Iraq. When key allies -- France, Germany, Belgium, Canada and Turkey -- refused to join the U.S.-led intervention to oust Saddam Hussein's regime, the NATO alliance was seriously split on a major international issue. In the same year, the U.S. Episcopal Church incurred the wrath of its conservative members and opposition from the worldwide Anglican Communion...

One of the most divisive issues facing American churches today is homosexuality. Most major Christian denominations have debated same-sex marriage and ordination of homosexuals and most have come down in opposition to both, despite vocal dissenters on the other side. The Rev. Don Hanway, who retired in 2003 after 22 years as rector of St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, offers a thoughtful and well-reasoned view on this volatile topic in his book “A Theology of Gay and Lesbian Inclusion” ($14.95, Haworth Press). Subtitled “Love Letters to the Church,” the book looks at societal fears and prejudices about gays...