True Anglican Blog

An Elm Grove church says it will leave the U.S. Episcopal Church to join a rival, more conservative province.

Wednesday’s announcement makes St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church the first Wisconsin congregation to break with the Episcopal Church since the new Anglican Church in North America formed earlier this month.

Read it all.

Update: The parish mission statement may be found here.

If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, “Start going to church”?

This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin. He and a fellow psychologist at the University of Miami, Brian Willoughby, have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control.

Read it all.

As more and more black renters began moving into this mostly white suburb a few years ago, neighbors started complaining about loud parties, mean pit bulls, blaring car radios, prostitution, drug dealing and muggings of schoolchildren.

In 2006, as the influx reached its peak, the police department formed a special crime-fighting unit to deal with the complaints, and authorities began cracking down on tenants in federally subsidized housing.

Now that police unit is the focus of lawsuits by black families who allege the city of 100,000 is orchestrating a campaign to drive them out.

“A lot of people are moving out here looking for a better place to live,” said Karen Coleman, a mother of three who came here five years ago from a blighted neighborhood in nearby Pittsburg. “We are trying to raise our kids like everyone else. But they don’t want us here.”

Who is “they”? Where is this city that’s accused of “orchestrating a campaign” to drive out blacks?

Dallas? Birmingham? Nashville? What bunch of racist crackers are at it this time?

Try San Francisco.

Remember this the next time Bay-area “progressives” preach to you about tolerance and diversity.

Jolene Siana, a writer in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, plans to spend time with friends at their homes rather than in wine bars, bringing a $12 bottle rather than blowing $12 on a glass. Nelson Murphy, a maintenance worker at a Manhattan hospital, is determined that 2009 will be the year he finally gives up smoking — it is bad for his health, and, at $9 a pack, his wallet.

And Felicia Jackson, 23, is promising herself a healthier lifestyle — physically and financially. She will take peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to work instead of frequenting McDonald’s for lunch (and sometimes breakfast), and walk to and from her subway stop instead of hopping in a town car.

“It’s $5 each way, so that’s $50 a week,” said Ms. Jackson, who lives in Brooklyn and works at Paragon Sports in Union Square. “I’m going to make a tighter budget this year with the economy the way it is.”

Read it all.

Over the next two weeks, I will be posting quite a number of “China” stories from the past six months. My purpose is to remind us — after what I saw as a disappointing Olympic decision to allow China to serve as a host country — of what kind of country Communist China is.

From Deutsche-Welle:

Some 100 participants took park in the demonstration in Berlin which couldn’t take place directly at the embassy due to police barriers. They held up banners with Chinese characters written on them, expressing their hope for improvement of human rights.

Protestors in Berlin wanted to highlight the mass arrests and persecution of Tibetan groups, Uighurs and Falun Gong members
The protestors also took lit torches, emblazoned with the Olympic rings, and put them out in giant tubs of water. With this symbolic gesture, the demonstrators wanted to make clear that Beijing has failed to honor the promises made leading up to the games to better human rights in the country.

According to human rights organizations, more than 1,000 Tibetan were taken into custody during the unrest and mass arrests in March 2008 and are still missing.

More than 1,500 Uighurs have been arrested in recent weeks for political reasons, and members of the Falun Gong sects have been victims of torture and murder. 3,160 of them have meet grisly deaths while in the custody of the security forces, they say.

In my childhood, a shadow lay over the days after Christmas, the shadow of the thank-you letters. Until these had been written, to grandparents, godparents, uncles, aunts and family friends, we were not free for untrammelled enjoyment of our new…

Waging reconciliation in the Diocese of Fort Worth: All Saints, whose institutional oath of loyalty we highlighted here, has dismissed a priest and a youth minister who refused to sign the oath. The news is summarized on the front page of the parish newsletter [1.6 Mb PDF] and a farewell letter from the priest, Fr. Zeke Rogers, appears nearby.

Reports are that three vestry members who refused to sign the oath were asked to resign, and did. That news is contained in the vestry comings-and-goings sidebar on page 4.

I’m interested in hearing more accounts of what went on at All Saints. Beginning tomorrow I’ll be deep in the Mississippi woods for the next couple of days. If you have information that’s fine for sharing with the public, please leave it in the comments. If you have information that needs checking out, or that you’d rather not post in the comments, use the private message feature to send me what you have.

Prayers for Fr. Rogers and youth minister Matt Maples are, obviously, also appropriate.

Here is the loyalty oath:

When Marci Needle and her husband began to contemplate divorce in June, they thought they had enough money to go their separate ways. They owned a million-dollar home near Atlanta and another in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as investment properties.

Now the market for both houses has crashed, and the couple are left arguing about whether the homes are worth what they owe on them, and whether there are any assets left to divide, Ms. Needle said.

“We’re really trying very hard to be amicable, but it puts a strain on us,” said Ms. Needle, the friction audible in her voice. “I want him to buy me out. It’s in everybody’s interest to settle quickly. That would be my only income. It’s been incredibly stressful.”

Chalk up another victim for the crashing real estate market: the easy divorce.

Read it all.

As we watch the ball drop on 2008 and usher in 2009, I thought it might be fun to list some of the blessings received in 2008. It doesn’t have to be a life-changing event – just something or someone who touched your life in a positive way.

I’ll start. I continue to be blessed through my association with Stand Firm. The blessings have come in the articles that bring edification, the humor that is never far away, the new friendships that have been forged around the world and old friendships that have been strengthed.

Our family welcomed two new members this year: Reece and William. May they grow in God’s love and seek His path.

An Episcopal priest at a rural northeastern Pennsylvania parish has been ousted from priestly ministry for flamboyant partying at New York City nightclubs.

When a New York newspaper reported on his lavish lifestyle, the Rev. Gregory Malia told the Daily News: “I work hard. I make good money. How I spend it — that is my business.”

The paper reported Sunday that Malia was a fixture in fashionable nightclubs, spending thousands of dollars on liquor and tips.

Read it all here.

Hat tip: Art+