True Anglican Blog

Thirty-five years ago, Cambridge opened new worlds to me — I used to think 1 January was New Year’s Day, Hogmanay in Scotland. The Cambridge University Diary, however, designated the day thus: CIRCUMCISION: University LIbrary closed to readers. A good…

Britain will be a strangely optimistic place at the start of the third decade of the millennium. Strange, because the 2010s had become known as the Decade of Austerity, with its apt acronym, DOA.

Various factors conspired to make the last 10 years sober ones. Public spending had been tight as the Government struggled to balance its finances after the 2008 financial crisis, and the aftershocks which halted recovery in 2010 and 2011.

That’s just part of the first one by Julian Baggini–read it all.

It was interesting to see how many of these I had already forgotten–watch it all.

Colorado’s minimum wage will drop slightly in the new year – the first decrease in any state’s minimum wage since the federal minimum was adopted in 1938.

Colorado’s wage is falling 3 cents an hour, from $7.28 to the federal level of $7.25. That’s because Colorado is one of 10 states that tie the state minimum wage to inflation. The goal is to protect low-wage workers from having unchanged paychecks as the cost of living goes up.

But Colorado’s provision also allows wage declines, and the state’s consumer price index fell 0.6 percent last year, so the minimum wage is going down.

Read it all

CEN:

The Episcopal Church has endorsed a letter to members of the United States Senate endorsing taxpayer funding of abortions.

On Dec 4, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice released a letter endorsed by the Episcopal Church, Catholics for Choice and other liberal religious groups expressing their opposition to an amendment to the health care reform bill before Congress that would remove abortion funding from the proposed legislation.

“We believe that it is our social and moral obligation to ensure access to high quality comprehensive health care services at every stage in an individual’s life,” the RCRC letter said, noting that “affordable and accessible care for all” was “necessary for the well-being of all people in our nation.”

Abortion was an essential element of this health care, the letter said. The RCRC claimed the “House-passed version of health reform includes language that imposes significant new restrictions on access to abortion services. This provision would result in women losing health coverage they currently have, an unfortunate contradiction to the basic guiding principle of health care reform.”

Providing abortion coverage in the bill was “a moral imperative” and the “selective withdrawal of critical health coverage from women is both a violation of this imperative and a betrayal of the public good.”

The RCRC claimed the current bill was “abortion neutral” and prohibited “federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services, while still allowing women the option to use their own private funds to pay for abortion care.” However, this claim cannot be substantiated by the language of the bill, Republicans and pro-life Democrats in the Senate have charged, rejecting claims it was “neutral.”

Neva Rae Fox, a spokesman for the Episcopal Church, denied the letter called for public funding of abortions, saying it “simply asks that the Senate maintain current language on abortion, which takes a neutral position.”

The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations endorsed the letter on behalf of the whole church “based on longstanding policies of the Church,” she said.

Hat tip: Anglican Mainstream

Whenever Robert Carlisle leaves his modest apartment on Cleveland’s near west side, he turns off the heat so he can save a little money on his gas bill for a pair of shoes or a bus pass. He does the same at night when he climbs into bed under an extra blanket.

Turning down the heat is an easy step to take, Carlisle said after breakfast Dec. 30 at the West Side Catholic Center, a few blocks from his home. It’s especially important, he said, when he’s “budgeting down to every penny.”

What little money Carlisle earns from odd jobs is used for necessities, mainly rent and utilities, leaving little for food. So he visits the West Side Catholic Center for meals and even to shower. The money he saves on heating water and on a light breakfast or lunch can mean the difference between having a roof over his head or living in the streets.

“I come here because it does help offset my income,” said Carlisle, 42.

Read it all.

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

The entire article can be found here.

Source: American Geophysical Union (2009, December 31). No rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide fraction in past 160 years, new research finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 31, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm

Despite the fact that pro-abortion liberals own the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, there are still things to be accomplished on a state-level. I just had to highlight the good work being done in South Carolina, in particular one notable organization that has done yeoman’s work — South Carolina Citizens For Life.

Since 1990, the South Carolina General Assembly has passed seven life-protecting laws, including the ban on physician-assisted suicide. Corresponding to the enactment of pro-life laws is a 50 percent decline in the number of abortions occurring in South Carolina. (Information Source, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control)

Check out the laws.

Bishop Andrew Smith of Connecticut, who knows a thing or two about closing churches, reminds his diocese not to bicker about who’s closed what church… these are happy occasions, full of joy and mirth!

…look at the names of parishes that recently were counted among our number in Connecticut, but are no more; Emmanuel, Stamford; Trinity, Stamford; St. John’s by the Sea, West Haven; Christ Church, West Haven; Calvary, Suffield, St. Andrew’s, Enfield; St. Mary’s, Enfield; Trinity, Bristol; Christ Church, Watertown. Those are parishes that have closed in the years I have served as a bishop.

What’s up?

Well, a number of things.

One factor is a change in perception and attitude among us in the diocese. For years we have seen the closing of a parish to be a sign of defeat, failure. That sort of thinking in fact leads to a “survival mentality,” in which members of a parish, usually few in number, dedicate themselves to keeping a congregation “alive” even if that means running through all the parish’s resources and then some, and spiritually and emotionally exhausting the members.

But bishop, isn’t closing a church a sign of failure? Granted, the definition of success in Christian evangelism is a highly nuanced, complex measurement the metrics of which are not always as obvious and straightforward as some might think, but don’t we all pretty much agree that when we succeed in bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to more people, they tend to end up in our pews on Sundays, creating a means by which to sustain a church building? Even, as we’ve heard in myth and legend, to warrant the expansion and growth of said buildings?

In fact, among the teachings that Jack Spaeth and I offer when we are invited into parishes to teach about parish life, mission and stewardship, is one entitled “Six Kinds of Churches We Have Known and Loved in Connecticut.” Included among them is a kind of church we label “Closed” – and we present “closed” as one faithful response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In that light, a number of parishes – often thinking together – began to see how much of their personal, spiritual and material resources were duplicated, and wasted, in continuing individually to maintain their property and historic parish life-styles.
…
But what opportunities and new beginnings! Consolidation of property, and wiser use of resources, mean better stewardship. A larger congregation has led to greater spiritual vitality and attractiveness for new members.

So, yes, I do believe that closing a parish can be a holy, significant and strategic response for the Gospel.

Gosh, bishop… I guess next you’ll be telling me that responsible stewardship of the earth means Episcopalians having fewer children! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

But seriously. Surely this was like a last-ditch, end-of-your-rope response, right? Everything’s A-OK now that you’ve closed those nine parishes, right?

A search through our diocesan archives, and our own memories, reveals that there have been a significant number of parishes and missions which have merged or closed over the years, for many reasons. Traveling around Connecticut, it is fascinating to identify the buildings that once were Episcopal churches.

Are there other parishes that should close? If with a cold eye we look at the (unbalanced) balance sheets of some, if we consider really low average Sunday attendance, if we gauge congregational vitality, yes, there seem to be. And that’s a matter for our discernment together.

The bishops currently are in conversation about the question with several parishes in the diocese. In every case we have to measure the sacrifice of what we would lose against the opportunity of new gospel life. May the Spirit inform and guide us!

Oh.

So you’re going to be closing more parishes. Exactly how bad have your membership and ASA losses been, in the ELEVEN YEARS you’ve been bishop?

Oooooh. That bad, huh?

Bishop Smith delivers a thrilling speech to an appreciative crowd of Connecticut Episcopalians numbering several. [Portrait courtesy The People's Artist]

So the Diocese of Connecticut has lost over 10,000 in membership, and over 2,000 in average Sunday attendance, since Andrew Smith has been bishop. In addition to closing the nine churches he lists above, and in addition to the losses of the Connecticut Six churches, the diocese is planning on closing more churches in the near future.

From strong-armed tactics with dissenting parishes, to massive losses in membership and ASA, to spinning double-digit church closings (with more to come) as “opportunities of new gospel life,” by any measure you wish to apply, Andrew Smith’s decade-plus long tenure as bishop of Connecticut has been a failure.

At least the tenure of this failed bishop is coming to an end, but who has the Diocese of Connecticut elected as its new bishop? None other than Anglican Communion man-about-town Ian Douglas. Let’s have a look at Bishop-Elect Douglas and see what his episcopacy might portend for the struggling Diocese of Connecticut.

Douglas sponsored Resolution D018 at General Convention in 2009. He has testified on behalf of TEC in the Virginia property trials. The goings-on at EDS during his time on the faculty there have been nothing short of abysmal, from Buddhist workshops and pro-polygamy workshops to courses on The Queer Incarnation, to the appointment of Katherine “Abortion is a Blessing” Ragsdale as its dean, to the selling off of over $33 million of its property just to stay afloat.

Thus the future of the Diocese of Connecticut becomes the easiest of 2010 predictions. Swami Greg says: EPIC FAIL.