Could Madoff's swindle have saved thousands of lives?

It's hard to see how much good could come from a swindle such as the Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernard Madoff. But read this Catholic News Agency article, and you'll see why perhaps God is using this tragedy for many to save the lives of many others.

It seems one of the entities whose funds Madoff "managed" was the Picower Foundation, which with its billion dollars in assets aggressively support the abortion agenda. The (blessed) results?

Slate.com blogger Nancy Goldstein on Wednesday reported that abortion advocacy groups are facing financial shortfalls because of the Picower Foundation’s collapse.

“Picower was one of a handful of foundations willing to stick their necks out and significantly fund the three organizations that handle virtually all major reproductive rights-related litigation and legal advocacy in the United States,” the pro-abortion rights Goldstein wrote. “Now the Center for Reproductive Rights needs to make up a $600,000 shortage in 2009; Planned Parenthood is out $484,000; the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project is off $200,000.”

And now Planned Parenthood's headquarters is laying off 20 percent of its staff as a result.

It's hard not to see the providence of God in this.

Moving soon

Just a heads-up to readers to watch this space. Hills of the North is moving soon to another platform. If the transition is successful, all the articles here should transfer over, although undoubtedly there will be issues with media and links, some of which I'm trying to resolve now. I'll post the new URL when done with the move, and will try to alert those of you who link to the blog.

Best wishes to all the blog's readers for a Blessed and Happy New Year.

Shame on Christ Church Alexandria

If you are a parishioner or vestrymember at Christ Church, Alexandria, you should feel really, really ashamed and embarrassed this morning. Judge Bellows in his final opinion in the Virginia cases (ruling against the diocese and the national church) categorically rejected the last-minute assertion that Christ Church Alexandria was in fact the owner of two acres of property belonging to the Falls Church (TFC). Without exactly calling the claim ludicrous, disingenous, and dishonest (because that was hardly necessary), the judge noted it was "wholly at odds with the historical record, with numerous court orders and petitions over the past century and a half, with the land records of Fairfax and Arlington Counties, and with ECUSA's and the Diocese's own repeated assertions and admissions recognizing TFC as the legal owner of this two-acre parcel." The judge exposed the claim as farce and fiction, noting that "prior to the instant litigation, Christ Church, Alexandria never asserted a claim on this two-acre parcel, nor contributed to its development, maintenance, repairs, or improvements."

The parish, you'll recall, was rushed (some might say bullied) into asserting this ownership claim well into the litigation by the diocese and a rector no doubt eager to please the bishop. Something about the parish and rector and vestry made Bishop Lee bet (successfully) that Christ Church Alexandria could be counted on to act more as Christ Church Stepford--even at the risk of humiliation such as the court handed them yesterday. This was in spite of the fact that everyone at Christ Church knew, if they were honest with themselves, that there was no such ownership interest. After all, had they ever done anything that would suggest they thought they owned the Falls Church property? Had the rector or bishop or any of the others who pushed the vestry and parish into this ill-considered assertion ever spoken of Christ Church's property at the Falls Church? Had Christ Church ever thought they had a dog in this fight before they were cajoled into becoming partisans in a lawsuit against other Christians in other parishes with whom they had no issue?

And what does this tell us about the sort of church Christ Church has become? Are the parishioners at Christ Church truly so pliant and nonquestioning that they would allow themselves to be associated with a position so plainly at odds with what they knew were the facts? Were they at all concerned by participating in what was in the view of many (including the court, it turns out) a baseless sham--merely to cause financial harm to fellow Christians?

The court was charitable not to call out Christ Church further, leaving the question of whether they acted mendaciously or haplessly (or both) to others. (And, truly, what are the alternatives?) But if I were a parishioner at Christ Church, I would insist on some answers from the rector and vestry and diocese, and demand some accountability for making the once-venerable parish such a public laughing stock (or worse). Certainly those in the pews at Christ Church should ask themselves if this sort of folly, or funding those who led them down this path, is what they want their tithes and offerings going to.

For background on Christ Church decision to support Bishop Lee's Folly, there's a good summary here: BabyBlueOnline: A Bridge Too Far?

Colson on Blagojevich

Chuck Colson, on Rod Blagojevich: "If anyone knows how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich feels right now, I do," writes Colson. Reading this is a good reminder that the governor deserves our prayers, and that perhaps from this God could work a miracle in the governor's life, as he did in Colson's. Colson concludes his piece thus:

"If Blagojevich is guilty, the best thing that could happen to him is to be tried and convicted. He's going to have to reach rock bottom -- just as I did -- before he will be able to escape his own prison of pride, self-delusion and self-righteousness. But that's a transformation we can never accomplish on our own. I can vouch for the fact that human pride is simply too strong.

"[C. S.] Lewis was right: Pride is a spiritual cancer. And the only cure, for any of us, is to stop looking down and to look up. The cure can only be brought about in someone who has come to realize that the will and power to do good and not evil comes from God alone."

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury as carmaker

Does this sound at all familiar?

In so far as we are admired as a nation for the health of our political life and for our freedom from civil dissension and upheaval, it is largely due to that British pragmatism which brushes aside theoretical issues that might arouse furious controversy, and gets on with the immediate job in hand. The English philosophy in this respect is a simple one. If six people disagree violently about where they want to go, the best thing to do is set them to work making a car so that, in the long run, they can go somewhere, easily and comfortably. Meantime one hopes that something external may occur which will provide an obvious reason for going to one destination rather than another. Or indeed the finished car might, by a lucky fluke, turn out to have a convenient if unforeseen technical bias in its steering which inclines it to turn in on directions rather than another. And until the hour of decision arrives, there is a tacit understanding among the six makers of the car that all reference to its future use will be rigidly excluded from their conversation. They will do their best to compensate for any frustrations on this score by talking fast and furiously about the mechanics of manufacture and the relative merits of various petrols, lubricants, plugs, and batteries. This arrangement once accepted, the fellow who persists in raising awkward questions like--Where are we going to go? or, What is the point of making a car anyway? and Why not make a washing machine instead? --this fellow is regarded with contempt by his companions as being ill-bred, fatuously literal, absurdly doctrinaire, totally unpractical, and in the last resort a bore. He merits, in the upshot, the ultimate condemnation of the British mind. He can't get on with people.

Another excerpt from Harry Blamires' now-45-year-old book, The Christian Mind.

Friendly fire

Comments included in this post about the Anglican Communion Institute prompted some sharp responses over at StandFirm from those who share the ACI perspective, or at least felt that this blog was too harsh in its comments toward the ACI (suggesting they appeared bitter and should be a bit more Anglican and a little less institutionally Episcopalian). One friendly commenter suggested "pastorally" that this writer should re-read the second chapter of James.

This is not the first time those who dare criticize the ACI have been accused of being overly harsh and unjust. We should not, it is said, denigrate those who prefer the so-called "inside strategy," just because we might have opted for the "outside strategy." The converse should also be true, though. Therein is the problem. But more on that in a moment.

First it should be noted that the ACI has done phenomenal work producing scholarly analysis on a whole range of issues. Their work has been so well done--often to the point of being unanswerable--that it has put the lie to many of the assertions of the Episcopal Church. These include assertions theretofore unchallenged (or challenged only in polemical fashion) about the Episcopal Church's polity, history, and doctrine. There is no denying these impressive and important ACI contributions to orthodox Anglicanism in this country and the Communion.

It is no secret that the ACI opposed any new Anglican province in North America. They view this undertaking--at best an innovation in their view--as an ecclesiological matter rather un-Anglican, as unnecessarily contributing to schism in the Anglican Communion writ large, and as a practical matter ultimately doomed to failure. Their concerns were serious ones, and ones that many others (including this blogger, still an Episcopalian) have shared. And there's no indication these concerns have not been taken very seriously by those involved in the original Anglican Communion Network (ACN) and now the proposed new province. The ACI was right to raise these concerns, and do so as they did in a thoroughgoing and scholarly fashion. Some may have disagreed with their perspective, but plainly it was offered in a way that contributed meaningfully to the debate. Equally plain was that the ACI was committed to orthodox Anglicanism in America and throughout the Communion.

At the end of the day, though, the ACI lost the argument about whether a new province should be brought into being. They lost less because of the weakness of their arguments, or their small and shrinking constituency, than because of the mendacity and corruption of the Episcopal Church and the bulk of its bishops. The political reality was that there was a determined and orchestrated marginalization and purge of the orthodox from the Episcopal Church that was not going to be stopped--not by the plain language of the canon of Scripture, not by the plain language of the canons of the church, and certainly not by ACI white papers. Even if the ACI's arguments were the better ones, they never had a chance of success. This was not the ACI's fault (although I suspect even they would admit to some naivete about how corrupt the Episcopal Church had become). It was likewise not the fault of those leaving the Episcopal Church.

One can infer from the words of ACI supporters, though, that they attribute this failure precisely to who have left. This is certainly an understandable perspective, and as a purely mathematical proposition it probably is true--if none of the orthodox had left through the years we would not be where we are today. It does become progressively more difficult to argue an inside strategy when there's virtually no one left inside. And surely they must feel abandoned. Not only have the orthodox left by the thousands, many, if not most, of those orthodox once fully shared the ACI perspective of staying in and at least making a witness (about all that can be done now, as the ACI admits; there really is no inside strategy, and can't be.) It is easy to understand how they must feel, since there's hardly an orthodox American Anglican who has not been exactly where they find themselves: trying their darnedest to be an authentic orthodox voice within the Episcopal Church while all around everyone else is bailing.

What the ACI did not seem to understand was that for many the decision to leave has been a gut-wrenching one, involving not just grown-up, mature believers who could have perhaps make the sacrifices to continue fighting within what has become an apostate church. No, this was a decision involving children and those not so mature in the faith, where positive and lifelong harm was likely to be done if they stayed. It was not an issue of being more comfortable--indeed, the effect of leaving the church of one's birth or choice was often to be thrown into a wilderness of sorts, without any Anglican church of any sort. For those leaving it was almost always simply an issue of faithfulness.

Moreover, the decision to create a new Anglican province was an affirmative decision to remain Anglican, with the alternative being to abandon Anglicanism entirely (as many, perhaps most, of those who have left had done). However flawed the new province may be, it is in fact an effort to maintain an Anglican witness, and not have all North American Anglicanism disappear as the Episcopal Church descends into irrelevancy.

It always seemed the ACI viewed the entire matter mainly as an issue of ecclesiology. But to most of those leaving it has been a quintessentially pastoral matter, begging for a pastoral response--something seemingly outside the ACI's ken and reflex and remit. To be fair, the ACI has been trying to approach the issues dispassionately and in scholarly fashion, so in their view to maximize their effectiveness. At some point, though, such an approach seems very much stuck in an ivory tower, and very much removed from what's happening to individual families in real churches. To those reading the various ACI missives, it was akin to going to a doctor to get treatment for a painful condition, only to have the physician review with you all the great scientific work that was happening in the area and its many implications--before sending you on your way no better off.

Or, perhaps, referring to James 2 as I was advised to do, it seems a bit like being told to "go in peace, be warm and filled" without having been given any means to accomplish that.

In short, it's pretty easy to understand why the ACI vexes so many as they do, even though for some reason it's not so easy for ACI sorts to grasp.

The ACI lost the argument. That's lost--past tense. The argument is over because the province is here. Discussion now about whether the province was a smart thing or not is purely academic. And as an academic matter it belongs to the historians, and it's far too soon to start making historical judgments now. Which is to say there's very little at this point the ACI can say about the new province that will be constructive, either to the situation at hand or to history (that is, unless they accept the province as reality and begin to offer thoughts as to how it can be assimilated into the Communion).

But still one gets the sense that some on the ACI side feel it necessary to justify their criticism of the new province, doing so even long after it was clear that the effort would proceed. ACI quotations critical of the new province showed up in press reports of the new province's launch. One has to wonder what possibly is motivating them at this point to spend such energy against the new province, instead of against the heterodoxy, canonical abuse, and Communion-breaking actions of the Episcopal Church. As the ever-irenic Dean Munday earlier wrote, "I believe the ACI's efforts would win the support of a greater number of people if they spent more time telling us how they propose to save the ship and less time knocking holes in other people's lifeboats." Surely he was right.

It is this lifeboat vandalism that those of us who now criticize the ACI object to, not their valiant efforts to maintain a witness still within the Episcopal Church. Yes, there are some now on the outside who do not understand why the ACI fights on, and who view the ACI's work as quixotic and irrelevant. There are some who are now experiencing the elation of being free from the sickness that is the Episcopal Church who feel it necessary to condemn those who remain, forgetting that not so long ago they were in the same place. This is surely unhelpful. The ACI and all those faithful Christians still in the Episcopal Church deserve the support and prayers of those who have chosen to leave.

But it is high time for the ACI and its supporters to stop the unhelpful friendly fire, to quit complaining about those who have left, to quit doing all they can to undermine the new province, and instead focus their attention on the witness they say they are called to make within the Episcopal Church, in support of the Communion Partners and the rest of the faithful remnant within. When they do otherwise, they should not be surprised that others (correctly or not) think them a bit too institutionally focused, and just a tad bitter.

More on at-large ACNA membership

The considerable amount of feedback that's been forthcoming regarding this article suggests that the idea of some sort of "at-large" or "watchcare" membership in the new Anglican Church in North America resonates with many of this blog's readers. Several have asked that I be more specific in how this might work. So instead of answering all those queries individually, I offer this postscript to my earlier post, if only to prompt some discussion. Here's how an alternative form of membership might work:

1. The default for church membership should continue to be involvement and association with a parish in a diocese under a bishop. Nothing should be done to dilute that, and the goal of any other form of membership should ultimately be to steer the person into normal membership in an ACNA parish as quickly as possible. So alternative forms of membership should always be viewed as transitional in nature.

2. Certain benefits that flow to church members by virtue of their membership should not attach to those in an at-large membership. Those members should probably not have voting rights, and should likewise not be counted in the censuses taken to determine diocese size, even if the persons are within the geographical area of the diocese.

3. At-large membership should not be available to those who have an ACNA parish within a certain distance of their home--perhaps 20 miles. In no way should such membership undercut existing ACNA parishes or church plants. That one is not keen on the "flavor" of a nearby ACNA parish (e.g., charismatic or Anglo-Catholic) is not reason to violate this rule. We certainly don't need to encourage any more Balkanization than there exists already.

4. Those allowed to have at-large membership must otherwise meet the requirements for church membership (baptism, confirmation, etc.). They would have to already have had prior membership in a church (preferably Anglican of some sort).

5. Those seeking alternative membership will have to be current members of another church, or at least certify (or provide evidence) that they are involved regularly with another church.

6. Such membership would have to be reviewed periodically, with recertifications made if necessary by the members. Such memberships could be canceled after a certain period of time if the members come to be within close proximity of an ACNA parish or plant.

7. Those seeking at-large membership should be expected to financially support the ACNA through annual pledges, even if they also have membership in another church.

8. The ACNA should not count these at-large members in their membership or ASA numbers, but always report these number separately (if at all).

9. Those with at-large membership should be assigned to the pastoral care of an ACNA bishop. That bishop could provide services (or arrange for such services) that the at-large members could not receive in their current churches, such as Anglican confirmation instruction.

10. At-large membership can be held at the same time as regular membership in another (non-ACNA) parish is held. But if one needed to transfer letters from one's previous church (an Episcopal Church, for example) before having another church home, those letters could be received and held by ACNA in the same way as regular membership transfers are done. This could be an option for those who can't abide having their numbers attributed to the Episcopal Church rolls, but who do not yet have another place to go.

11. At-large members should in every way be made to know they are in fact members of the Anglican Church of North America--through membership certificates, communications, and in all the ways members should be treated. They should know that this is their Anglican church. They should be able to say that they are Anglicans, not only by affection, but by affiliation.

12. For those for whom at-large membership would not be available (those close to an ACNA parish, for example) or those who prefer a less formal membership association, there could be "supporting members" who belong upon making a donation of a certain amount or paying a stated membership fee, much as one would join any other non-profit. These supporting members would not be assigned to a bishop or have access to the pastoral resources that at-large members would. But this would provide another source of financial support to the denomination.

Stephen Noll in a StandFirm comment asks whether the American Anglican Council might take on such an endeavor. While they might have the best list of prospects for such members at large, what's envisaged (save in #12 above) is actual membership in the new Anglican Church in North America, something transcending what the AAC currently provides. But it may well be that the AAC--now led by a bishop in the new church--would be a very good group within the Anglican Church in North America to provide such support.

As noted in the earlier posting, many who are leaving the Episcopal Church have gone to non-Anglican churches. Often this is out of necessity, owing to the lack of any Anglican alternative. But as time marches on, the chances increase that these families will be lost to Anglicanism forever, as people like the stability of staying put in a church. They get used to what they weren't used to before. This proposal may not be able to stop this reality. But it can serve in the long term to help folks maintain their Anglican identity, so that they might be more prone to join an Anglican church plant when one comes their way.

"We're Anglican and you're not"

That was pretty much what the snide and graceless reaction of the Episcopal Church headquarters was to the announcement of the new Anglican Church in North America. "We will not predict what will or will not come out of this meeting, but simply continue to be clear that the Episcopal Church, along with the Anglican Church of Canada and La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, comprise the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America," said the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon to Presiding Bishop.

If 815 was so convinced of the insignificance of the undertaking, and wanted to use the opportunity to appear like the mature, established ecclesiastical presence they take such pride in purporting to be, the statement would have perhaps expressed regret, but at the same time noted the commonality of heritage and mission, and express hope for cooperation in the future as together with all of Christ's church they work for the spread of the Gospel.

That, of course, isn't possible, though, because the leadership of the Episcopal Church rejects that heritage, save in outward manifestations like buildings, frocks, and finery. And in no sense do the Episcopal Church's powers-that-be even understand what the Gospel is, or what mission is as Christ defined it to be.

So what else could they say, but "We're Anglican and they're not." It remains about the last distinctive the Episcopal Church has. And that does nothing to bring in new members, or these days even keep the old ones. It has no persuasive power to keep young people a part of the church. It's the ecclesiastical equivalent of the headstone inscription for a deceased motorist that reads, "He had the right of way"--although perhaps one day the claim of the Episcopal Church may be even less compelling. Though intended to denigrate the new undertaking it served in fact to do little more than point to the inherent weakness and shallowness of a church whose statistics released this week strongly suggest its demographic death is fast approaching.

Another wag, the Rev. Frederick Schmidt at SMU, raised the question of whether one can build a church around a negative. Good question, that, and fair warning to the new province. But in truth it is the Episcopal Church that is now a church existing on negative premises: that others are not Anglicans, that others are bigots, that others aren't as socially enlightened as they are; that others aren't sophisticated enough to stop having children; that others are "fundamentalists" that others haven't apologized for the sins of others as it has; and so forth. Very little the Episcopal Church does these days does not carry with it implicit condemnation of other Christians, past and present, so to build up its own pride, and perhaps convince itself that it is better than its empty pews would suggest.

Bishop Duncan volunteered in his press conference that of course the new province is not the official branch of Anglicanism in North America, and that the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church in Canada were. That is the nature of the undertaking: creating a new province that one day might be in position to be recognized. The Episcopal Church may succeed for many years, many decades even, in keeping the Anglican franchise, even well after a majority of the world's Anglicans recognize the new North American Church and its archbishop. But what Bishop Duncan was saying was that this is not everything, not now and not ever. Christ and his Gospel are everything. And therein is the crucial difference in perspectives.

A modest suggestion for the new province

Much will be written today elsewhere about the fledgling Anglican Church in North America, which yesterday came into being, at least in a provisional sense. Surely it is time for such a move, if only to stem the flow of orthodox Episcopalians out of the Anglican fold entirely. And the anecdotal evidence (and the numbers not adding up) suggests that's exactly what is happening to most of those orthodox who have been leaving the Episcopal Church. Certainly in this part of Georgia, if one leaves one's Episcopal parish there is no other alternative. It continues to astound this writer that the ACI does not see merit in the new proposed province if only for this reason: that it offers hope for a continued, robust, and numerically significant Anglican witness in North America that they would acknowledge (by their surrender on the issue of reform) that the Episcopal Church no longer can, given its heterodoxy. If the ACI were truly Anglican, instead of merely Episcopal, one would think they would want those who will out of conscience leave the Episcopal Church to go somewhere other than the local Methodist or Presbyterian or non-denominational church, or to Roman Catholicism or big-O Orthodoxy. One senses, though, no small amount of petulant bitterness on their part toward those who do not share their institutional loyalty. It says much that they would apparently prefer those leaving the Episcopal Church abandon Anglicanism altogether.

There are many shortcomings in this new enterprise, ones that are evident in the constitutive documents--meaning they are ones that the founders acknowledge, which is a good thing. The model of subsidiarity that Bishop Duncan spoke of does give hope that some of the differences within the entities that make up the new province can be accomodated. That said, there will be a need for identity, in nomenclature so as to prevent confusion, and in structure so as to ensure efficiency. This will have to be more than merely another alphabet-soup collection of Anglican-ish entities if it is to succeed. Right now it appears to be more Articles of Confederation than Constitution, and one suspects therein may now be its strength, but later its weakness.

Perhaps the greatest weakness, though, is that it does not yet provide anything, save a spot of hope, for those not near any parish that's in the new province--and that is most of North America. That's not the fault of the new province; indeed, to have the 700 parishes and church plants they have is extraordinarily impressive. But it will be many years before there is parish coverage across the country.

So here is my modest suggestion for the new province. Enable a class of at-large membership, membership that does not supplant or discourage membership in a local church, but that gives an orthodox Anglican either stuck in a heterodox Episcopal Church, or having to affiliate for the moment with another sort of church because of there being no orthodox Anglican church, a way to keep their Anglican identity. There are models for dual membership already, particularly for college students who are away from their home church, or "snowbirds" in Florida--called "watchcare" membership in some places. Such an affiliate membership would have many benefits:

1. It would significantly expand the membership base of the new province.

2. It would provide financial support for the province beyond the current membership base, and provide those with affiliate membership a place they can send their tithes and offerings if they are unable by reason of conscience to give it to their local church.

3. It would enable the province to gauge where there is a critical mass for a church plant.

4. It would provide a mechanism for affiliate members to find one another for fellowship or to work toward a church plant.

5. It would actually make it more palatable for those where there is no Anglican church, but who have stopped attending their Episcopal Church, to move their letters from an Episcopal Church to the non-Anglican church they now attend, as they would not in the process lose their Anglican identity. And the Episcopal Churches would then, if honest, have off of their rolls numbers they now legitimately claim as members, but who in fact have nothing at all to do with the Episcopal Church.

6. If it were possible to transfer membership to the new province from a local parish, this would also provide a rather visible way for those still in the Episcopal Church to register their disapproval for what they see happening in the denomination.

7. If structured so, it could provide services and resources to those stuck in non-orthodox or non-Anglican churches--alternatives for confirmation instruction, for example, and involvement in the various ministries (men's, women's, youth, college, etc.) that one presumes will soon have to spring up as part of the new Anglican Church in North America.

We are as Anglicans quite wed to the parish model of membership, and that does not have to be jettisoned or diluted. But the times call for a bit of creativity, and one way the new Anglican Church in North America can expand its ministry is to consider new forms of membership that show the same flexibility as has been shown in putting together this enterprise so far. This is fact could be the key to a much more rapid expansion than those leading the new province have thus far considered possible.

Blamires on the incarnation

From Harry Blamires' 1963 classic, The Christian Mind:

Into such a situation as this our Lord came. The world was rotten. Vice was rife. The wealthy lived in luxury: the poor were oppressed and down-trodden. There was debauchery and corruption in the cities of the Roman world as now in our own cities. There was slavery and injustice as in the darker parts of the world to-day. There was drunkenness and perversion. Bureaucracy prospered. Men bribed their way to power. There is no evil now which did not exist then, two thousand years ago. Nevertheless our Lord came. He came into the midst of it. And he found the shortage of residential accommodation so acute that he had to be born in a stable like the child of refugees or squatters. But he came, and he grew here, talked and taught here. He didn't come in style. He didn't wear an old school tie. He didn't flourish duplicated testimonials. He didn't have a good Oxford accent or an assurance bred of Public School conditioning. He came from a working-class home; he spoke a provincial dialect; and he had a body of followers some of whom might well have failed their eleven plus or their college entrance examination. He came here at the humblest level because, as God , that was where he wanted to be; where best he could work and serve and love. At the level of the factory-worker and the farm-worker, at the level of the under-privileged. He came. And he wasn't a great success in the world. He didn't have a brilliant career of climb the social ladder. He didn't acquire more and more prestige, status, and possessions. He didn't get on. He was more like you and me than those expensively suited gentlemen in the glossy magazines who are surrounded by sleek cars, sleeker women, and smart furntiture. He came, by every act and word to show up the world's evil, yet never to pretend it was not a world fit for him, the divine, to be in, and on the bottom floor.

Tamzine

Her name was Tamzine, and there was nothing formidable or impressive about her. Not even 15 feet long, and with a draft of just 18 inches, one would hardly have thought the little wooden fishing boat capable of military service of any sort. She was certainly no troop transport ship. She had none of the capacity, protection, armament, or speed of the Royal Navy's warships or of the Merchant Marine's cargo fleet. She was certainly no match for the weapons the enemy could bring to bear.

But there was no time to wait for the perfect ship, the ideal vehicle, if you were a British soldier trapped in Dunkirk in May of 1940. Indeed, the larger draft vessels could not get as close to shore as could little boats like Tamzine, and the larger ships were also larger targets for the Luftwaffe. So in what Churchill was later to call a "miracle of deliverance," Tamzine and some 700 other small craft and lifeboats did what the larger ships alone could not do: rescue over 338,000 stranded and imperiled British and allied soldiers, bringing them to safety in England. The boats and ships of that rag-tag flotilla in fact proved to have been the perfect vessels for the task.

What must at first have seemed like a desperate, ill-conceived, and amateurish response to a dreadful military disaster in fact provided the great rallying point for the British. What must have to the Germans seemed laughable and foolish in fact not only succeeded but also gave Britons the resolve to defend their island nation and (with a spot of help from the Yanks) win the war. Churchill's rousing "We will fight on the beaches" address was prompted by the events of Dunkirk. And that "Spirit of Dunkirk" lasted far longer than the operation itself, and remains still part of how Brits define themselves.

"Wars are not won by evaculations," Churchill told the Commons afterward, keenly aware that the heroism of "Little Ships of Dunkirk" was made necessary by a colossal military failure, for which he was largely responsible. "Operation Dynamo," as it was called, also came at the cost of six British destroyers, and many hundreds of artillery pieces, countless tanks, and other critical materiel left behind in France. And the end of the war was nowhere in sight.

Today, of course, we know how important that rescue was, especially to morale. The little fishing boat Tamzine is in the Imperial War Museum, the oldest and smallest of the surviving Little Ships, as representative of a bold and risky undertaking that saved countless souls and helped save a nation. Churchill was right not to "assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory." But he was perceptive enough even then to realize that "there was a victory inside this deliverance."

We learned today that on December 3rd in Wheaton, Illinois, a new Anglican church in North America will come into being. It will not be perfect. In many ways it will be decidedly imperfect, insufficient, and ill-equipped. But there is not time--and it is now plain there never could be--to create the perfect vessel to bring safely home the many thousands of stranded Anglicans in North America.

The undertaking will appear to some an act of desperation, and its success is by no means certain. As there must have been in late May 1940, there will be naysayers who rather than help this small boat into the water and speed it on its way would rather preserve the ability to say they "knew all along" it wouldn't work. We know who they are and we expect as much--and now we all need them simply to step out of the way. And this evacuation is not a moment of victory--far from it: we still need the help of others distant from our shores. The work is only beginning, and there will be many efforts designed to ensure this rescue (for that is what it is, in every sense of the word), will fail and come to naught. There will be great losses, and there will be property left behind. But as with Dunkirk, we can hope those losses prove ultimately to be costs of victory, not signs of failure.

All Britain in late May and early June of 1940 united in prayer for the success of their Little Ships. In the days ahead every orthodox Anglican in North America should unite in prayer for the success of our own Tamzine and wish those who steer her course Godspeed, so one day we will all be able to look upon this undertaking as the miracle of deliverance we so desperately need.

Conquering my addiction

“Hi, I’m . . . and I’m an Episcopalian, too.”

These were the welcoming words I heard recently at a (non-Episcopal) church I visited, where a church member introduced me to another Episcopalian who had totally quit attending his Episcopal church. When I heard those words, they instantly struck me as the sort of introduction one would hear in an AA meeting. And then as I thought about that more, I realized that in many ways I’ve had my own unhealthy addiction, and—as the greeting suggested—it was to the Episcopal Church.

Like most addicts, I have plenty of rationales for my addiction, and plenty of arguments why it is not a harmful one. I do love the liturgy, and I do think the current Prayer Book does in the main reflect orthodox Christian belief—its occasional 70s trendiness and the Trojan horse baptismal covenant notwithstanding. The hymnody is uplifting, and the 1982 book, despite its weaknesses, does have orthodox, Biblical teaching set to music that surely gives God glory. I’m able to ignore the sermons for the most part, enjoying and benefiting from the occasional Christian bits without getting angry about the secularism and heterodoxy, since that does little good and I doubt anyone will remember them. I take comfort in a way to see so few young people corrupted by the sermons, as there aren’t many around, and those who are there simply don’t pay attention, those in my family included. I saw one older fellow doing the Sunday crossword during the sermon; he had stuck it in his leather-bound prayer book, plainly knowing before he came to the service he’d have the chance to work on it during the sermon. That, too, made me think that perhaps not too much damage was being done. On the ride home with my family I’m dutiful about pointing out the errors we’ve all just heard. And I can always get the Christian sermon I missed from a podcast or by reading one. I also know I’m not the only orthodox Christian in the pews. So if I have an unhealthy addiction, I’m not the only one.

Besides, it’s not like I’m contributing to the problems. I am careful not to fund the enterprise—I long ago reached a point where I could not give in unrestricted fashion or beyond my parish, and so I can sleep at night knowing that I’m not funding the heterodoxy or the silliness of our diocese or national church. I’ve taken care to ensure that there’s no way a single penny of mine would make its way to lawsuits, either directly or indirectly by giving to some other budgeted item such that other monies were freed up to sue other Christians.

By staying in the Episcopal Church, I’m having a positive influence, right? I’m helping hold that “little stone bridge” Sarah Hey writes about, am I not? And, sure, I don’t see the influence I’m having, but surely I must be having some, or perhaps will. Or so I tell myself.

Plus, I tell myself, the Episcopal Church is the church of my youth and my adulthood, the church of my family and my forebears, the church in which I was married and the church in which my children were baptized and confirmed. So surely given that it is in my religious DNA, I can be excused on those grounds as well, right?

So what’s the harm, and why should I consider changing?

Perhaps the answer is in the number of times in the paragraphs above one can find the first-person singular: Gene Robinson could hardly do better. For like every addict, my primary concern has been myself: my comfort, my habits, my family heritage, my doing what I like, my making a difference, my doing what’s necessary to assuage any guilt, my neatly protecting myself from criticism, my justifying to God what I’m doing, my trying to have the best of all worlds, my being able to call myself Episcopalian and so on and so on. Like all addictions, this one has skewed my perspective, increasingly elevating my own perceived needs and desires above all other considerations. Maybe it’s time I started thinking about others, and most especially about God. It’s hard to see how I can do this within an Episcopal parish, when my focus is, quite naturally perhaps, self-protection and then self-justification. Perhaps it’s time I thought of worship beyond my own ability to sing a proper hymn or say a proper Prayer-Book prayer or kneel or even take Holy Communion every week. Perhaps it’s time I thought about opening myself to hearing God in a sermon, instead of thinking of the sermon as a chance to pat myself on the back for not grimacing or excusing myself or saying something snide to the preacher on the way out of church.

And perhaps in thinking outside myself, I will realize that I have deluded myself in my addiction by telling myself that others weren’t being harmed. Didn’t Jesus say something about millstones around the necks of those who would lead the little ones astray? And even if I am successfully protecting my own children from the distortions of the Christian faith so pervasive in the Episcopal Church, have I not deprived them of the strong discipleship, the solid instruction in the faith that they might have gotten elsewhere? And without that, and with their only experience growing up being the Episcopal Church, where does that leave them when they are ready to go out in the world on their own? At best, am I not merely preparing them to approach church with the same addiction that I have had, and all the lost opportunities that come with it? (And at worst, am I not complicit in their being led astray?)

It’s a truism that the first step in dealing with an addiction is admitting that one has the addiction. And that’s where I am—at that first step. I don’t know yet how I will deal with it. I just know that I must.

And soon.

The End

I suspect through the years many death certificates have been prepared for the Episcopal Church, and many obituaries have been written. And certainly there are armchair physicians out there diagnosing the ills of this very sick patient who would feel some satisfaction if their diagnoses and prognoses are proven correct. But the fact is that the Episcopal Church as an organization is not going to die, however chronic its many maladies. It has the life support of substantial assets, assets that would be there even if every disgruntled parish and diocese were allowed to take their property with them. It has endowments that will enable it to continue however small its membership may be, and however irrelevant it has become. In short, it is almost impossible to envisage the Episcopal Church dying as an institution. After all, if Revolution and Civil War did not bring about its demise, it's hard to see what would now. Those orthodox believers who seek vindication in such a demise are destined to be forever disappointed and tragically distracted.

That said, for all intents and purposes the Episcopal Church as a church died yesterday. In purporting to depose Bishop Robert Duncan, two-thirds of those bishops who attended the House of Bishops meeting did something so blatantly and brazenly unlawful under the canons and so patently violative of Robert's Rules that they in effect announced that within our church words and laws and truth no longer matter. All that matters is power. Not the power of the Gospel, mind you--but raw human secular power, exercised for political purposes. Those bishops who voted to depose (and the one cowardly Judas who changed his vote after being sure it wasn't needed to destroy his brother bishop) openly and proudly embraced what was a lie--that there had been abandonment of Communion--and did so by embracing transparent lies about what the canons and parliamentary procedure actually said. Those charged to guard the truth yesterday gleefully showed their fealty to the very opposite.

The purported deposition did, though, lay bare the extent of the cancerous corruption that afflicts those who have hijacked our church. Henceforth it will be very difficult to hide the Episcopal Church's true condition, as the the lies about what was done were so amateurish and so obvious as to assume stupidity in those who actually might believe them. The vote in a sense revealed how weak these corrupt leaders are, as, after all, they were unable to accomplish this treachery legitimately, or with the numbers required, or under the relatively undemanding requirements of the canons.

It was interesting that two of the three bishops of the largest diocese, Virginia, reportedly voted against deposition.* Perhaps Bishop Lee, an institutional liberal, and his coadjutor realized more than most what this meant, as the Diocese of Virginia has borne the brunt of the Presiding Bishop's scorched-earth warfare more than any other. They have seen what was once a financially secure diocese expend millions of dollars on needless litigation that has accomplished nothing but the further loss of members. Many rightly pilloried Bishop Lee for succumbing to the pressure brought against him by the Presiding Bishop and her chancellor, and commencing lawsuits he almost certainly did not want. But his vote yesterday perhaps could be read as a pretty open vote of no confidence in her, and a condemnation of the devastation she has wrought. Maybe, just maybe, he was having a Cranmerian moment.

Years from now, this action by the House of Bishops may well prove to have been a tipping point for the Episcopal Church. There are many for whom this will be the final straw, not because they have any association or necessarily even agreement with Bishop Duncan, but because it reveals what a corrupt organization they find themselves a part of. Others will realize that they cannot any longer do business with (and certainly not follow) those for whom words are meaningless, law is nothing more than an instrument of power, and truth is nonexistent. And still others will leave weary of the fight, and yearning for spiritual refreshment they cannot get from what is now indisputably a secular organization (and actually something less than most secular organizations, since few could abide such dishonesty in their leaders). In short, the exodus of the orthodox will continue and likely accelerate. This is likely exactly what the Presiding Bishop and her minions want, as they undoubtedly believe that if all the retrograde evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics would just go away, there's no limit to the greatness a progressive Episcopal Church can achieve. The evidence, of course, has been quite to the contrary, but perhaps the accelerating membership loss will help put the lie to this fantasy. The Presiding Bishop may think that in supposedly beheading the orthodox movement, she will have caused disarray in their ranks. On this she is likely to be unpleasantly surprised also.

If there is any hope on the Presiding Bishop's part that this will deter those stalwart orthodox bishops outside North America who have supported Bishop Duncan and the orthodox, she is likely to be further disappointed. There is now little to deter them from recognizing another North American province, and recognizing Bishop Duncan as the legitimate Anglican primate in North America. And in doing so they will be speaking for a majority of the world's Anglicans. She can dismiss that, citing whatever old Anglican bureaucratic and colonial structures she cares to, but the fact will be that most of the world's Anglicans will soon see the bishop she tried to depose as legitimate, and her as irrelevant. And while the Episcopal Church in numbers and assets will make this new province appear inconsequential, the real story will be told in growth percentages, a concept foreign to most Episcopalians.

Finally, it's worth considering what difference yesterday's events will have in an average Episcopal Church, ones such as our two parishes here. I think it's plain enough that there will be little if any effect in the short run. The chances that even a half-dozen parishioners knew the House of Bishops was meeting is pretty small, and fewer still probably have any idea who Robert Duncan is. What happened doesn't affect the work the altar guild has to do, or the music the choir is rehearsing. It doesn't affect a parish's social outreach. It doesn't change the liturgy (yet), or alter the service times. Certainly it won't occasion the interest of reorienting the furnishings in the church, or getting a new stained glass window. If the Presiding Bishop is betting on the ignorance or nonchalance of the average pew dweller, she is making a pretty sure bet.

That's not to say there won't be an effect eventually, and a pretty potent one. The average age of those in Episcopal Church pews is high and increasing, and it's not as if the average Episcopal Church is full of children and young people and young families. There's a reason churches all around ours are opening and growing, and ours are at best in a steady state, despite population growth. And the trajectory to which the larger Episcopal Church is now committed is not one that is likely to spur growth or giving. In time that will affect the average parish church, and the average parish church here. And some years from now when we wonder why our numbers are down, and why people aren't pledging, and why no new families are joining, and how this all happened, we will be able to point to the House of Bishops meeting of September 18, 2008, as the day our church, as a church, died.

*Updated to reflect the sad news that the third Virginia bishop, David Jones, voted to depose.

"Keep your eye steadily fixed"

The perfect devotional for the day after, courtesy of Pat Dague.

The coward stands aside

And so now "new occasions teach new duties."

This is the hymn the orthodox should today be singing, to mark the leadership of the Anglican world having passed to GAFCON as Lambeth ended.



Once to every man and nation,
comes the moment to decide.
in the strife of truth with falsehood,
for the good or evil side;
some great cause, some great decision,
offering each the bloom or blight,
and the choice goes by forever,
'twixt the darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble,
when we share her wretched crust,
ere her cause bring fame and profit,
and 'tis prosperous to be just;
then it is the brave man chooses
while the coward stands aside,
till the multitude make virtue
of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, thy bleeding feet we track,
toiling up new Calvaries ever
with the cross that turns not back;
new occasions teach new duties,
ancient values test our youth;
they must upward still and onward,
who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
yet the truth alone is strong;
though her portion be the scaffold,
and upon the throne be wrong;
yet that scaffold sways the future,
and behind the dim unknown,
standeth God within the shadow,
keeping watch upon his own.