Scrolling around...August 13, 2013

Are You Needed in Your Church?
...My husband and I started attending our church nearly eight years ago. We were there just a few months before people were volunteering us to serve in various areas. We found ourselves part of a newly formed “Greeting Ministry,” I was working in the nursery, we were teaching kids on Wednesday nights. It was a little overwhelming. We didn’t know how to say “no,” so we “served” begrudgingly. Truth be told, we were both pastor’s kids and were unsure how to be normal church members.

It was easy to think, “Well I’m not sure this is my gifting. Maybe I should find something that uses my talents and abilities better.”

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to use our gifts to serve our church family. But then again, who would say they have the spiritual gift of changing diapers? Holding doors open? Setting up chairs?

Thankfully the Lord revealed to me the selfishness of my heart. I wasn’t serving anyone, really. I was performing needed tasks, but my heart was not in it. Even still it’s easy to slip back into this. It’s the mentality that thinks my service on the Sundays in which I sing with the worship team are more valuable that those in which I am a substitute teacher in the preschool department...

Mystery Priest Who Showed Up at a Crash Scene Then Vanished Has Been Identified

The mystery priest who recently showed up at a crash site, anointed a victim and then vanished has been identified — and he came forward by posting his identity in the comments section of a Catholic news site. The story began on Aug. 4, after Aaron Smith, 26, struck Katie Lentz, 19, in a head-on car crash. In the days that followed, the tale of a faith leader who disappeared went viral.

 

But now the individual, who brought calm upon the situation and who rescue workers have been hoping to find and thank, has been found. A press release provided to TheBlaze from the Diocese of Jefferson County confirmed that the Rev. Patrick Dowling, one of the priests who works with the diocese, is the individual whom they have been seeking...

Benghazi Was About 400 Surface-to-Air-Missiles Stolen by 'Some Very Ugly People,'
Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, who now represents one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, told a Washington radio station Monday that the real scandal in Benghazi is the theft of 400 surface-to-air missiles by some "very ugly people." The Obama administration fears those missiles will be used to shoot down an airplane or blow up one of our embassies, he said.

Speaking to WMAL on Monday morning, DiGenova blasted President Obama for revealing, at his Friday news conference, the existence of a sealed indictment against a Benghazi suspect or suspects.

‘Abortion Doula’ Professor Posts Video, But Catholic College Defends Employment
A professor at The College at Mount St. Vincent in New York recorded a video blog detailing her work as an “abortion doula.”

In 2011, The Cardinal Newman Society first reported on the scandal of Bianca Laureano teaching a course titled "SOC OF HUMAN SEXUALITY" for the Catholic college while volunteering as an “abortion doula.”...


Skateboarding Friars

The maniacal mind of Mark Steyn
...I had the opportunity of interviewing Steyn a couple years back when I did freelance work for The Jewish Independent. Steyn was coming into town to speak at the Hillel gala, and a few of us were going to have lunch with him a day or so prior to the event. As I asked him questions for my Independent article, I decided to throw in a question about abortion, just out of curiosity.

“Why does anyone think Europe needs huge numbers of Muslim immigrants?” Steyn replied, “Supposedly to keep their welfare state in business, because they are the children that Europeans couldn’t be bothered to have themselves. One third of German women are childless. If you just take your average, dopey Western feminist at a university campus in North America today, and she’s concerned about patriarchy, [she thinks that by] forming a pro-life club you’re forcing your backwards, patriarchal views on her. If she thinks you’re the big, stern, dominating patriarch, she ought to wait twenty or thirty years in the average Canadian city. She’ll be figuring out what the people in Amsterdam and Brussels and Malmo and Paris are beginning to figure out right now—that there’s a whole, far more motivated breed of patriarch that’s going to be walking around those cities. That’s what the dopey, clap-trapped, cobwebbed 1960’s feminist doesn’t get—that abortion is an indulgence and the indulgence only works for a generation or two before a bunch of other people take over and rebuild the future you weren’t interested in building for yourselves.”

And suddenly, abortion is put in context. It’s not simply killing—although it certainly is that. It’s cultural suicide. It’s emblematic of the bloody, narcissistic tailspin of the West at twilight. It is, as Mark Steyn refers to it elsewhere, Big Government’s back alley...

Archbishop of Uganda's Press Statement about Anglican Communion Crisis and GAFCON

Press Statement
The Most Rev. Stanley Ntagali
Archbishop of Church of Uganda
13th August 2013

Excerpt:
The first GAFCON was very significant because it created a global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans led by a Primates Council and it also called for the creation of a new Bible-believing Anglican Province in North America. That new Anglican Province has now been created and is thriving. It is called the Anglican Church in North America.

This second GAFCON conference is also very important at this time in the life of our church. We are holding it in Nairobi this time because it is closer to the majority of the Christians who make up GAFCON.

I have called you here today because I want all our Christians to know about it, to pray for it, and to support it financially.

GAFCON is to the Anglican Communion as the East African Revival was to the church in Uganda. At first it was small revival fellowships meeting outside the church structures and church services. But, as the revival spread, it became mainstream in the Church. Now, most of the Church of Uganda is led by clergy and Bishops shaped by the East African Revival.

In the same way, we are going to GAFCON 2 in Nairobi to see that the Biblical faith of GAFCON spreads like revival throughout the whole Anglican Communion, so that global Anglicanism is brought back to its Biblical and evangelistic faith.

So, I am calling on all Christians to get involved in three ways:
Full statement here
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Scrolling around... August 12, 2013

‘Totally Offensive and Inappropriate’: Military Base Reportedly Hosts Drag Queens During ‘Diversity Day’ Celebration
Several drag queens reportedly took the stage at the Los Angeles Air Force Base on Thursday as part of the military base's 2013 "Diversity Day" celebration...


Ella Mae sings "An American Trilogy" by Elvis Presley
(20 months old)

Mohler: The Wrath of God Was Satisfied: Substitutionary Atonement and the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention
...There were indeed real and crucial theological concerns. And, by no coincidence, crucial refers to the cross. As these examples reveal, the debate over the atonement is not new—even within the Southern Baptist Convention. This debate has stretched well beyond the SBC as theologians continue to defend or deny the meaning of the cross, specifically its penal substitutionary nature. The Conservative Resurgence in the SBC sought a theological recovery in the denomination and a rejection of the inroads that theological liberalism had made within its schools. A denial of penal substitution was the goad; the goal was its recovery as the Bible’s central message about the cross of Christ...

Is Jesus a Baptist?
Catholic theologians speak of a “hierarchy of truths,” a phrase found in Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis redintegratio, 11). This concept does not mean that some truths are truer than others, or that the Catholic faithful are free to pick and choose among the teachings of their church as they please. It means, rather, that in the economy of divine revelation, more theological weight, as it were, is given to those teachings that relate directly to the foundational truths of the Christian faith. This point is similar to the distinction Thomas Aquinas makes between some articles of faith which are such secundum se and others in ordine ad alia (ST 2-2, q.1, a.6). (See the excellent study by the Capuchin scholar William Henn, “The Hierarchy of Truths Twenty Years Later,” Theological Studies 48, [1987].)
In this vein, I would like to propose a “hierarchy of ecclesial realities.” What do I mean by this? While I recognize myself as a Protestant, an Evangelical, and a Baptist, none of those labels defines my spiritual and ecclesial identity at the most basic level. Being an evangelical Protestant, a Baptist, indeed a Southern Baptist, are all important markers of my place within the community of faith, but there is a more primary confession I must make: I am a trinitarian Christian who by the grace of God belongs to the whole company of the redeemed through the ages, those who are “very members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ” (Book of Common Prayer)...

Oregon Health Care Board Denies Chemotherapy, Will Push Rationing Under Obamacare
Oregon rations healthcare to Medicaid recipients. Terminal cancer patients are denied chemotherapy to extend life–and now the Oregon rationing board wants to go deeper into the weeds...

41%: Obama's Approval Drops to Lowest Level in Gallup Poll Since 2011
...in the Gallup poll's three-day tracking average, the lowest it has been since Dec. 28, 2011

Building collapses as 40-foot sinkhole opens up in Florida resort near Disney World
..“The building on the west side … a portion of that structure just collapsed. It’s literally breaking in half,” he said at about 3:20 a.m. ET.

The elevator building was leaning over at “about 30 or 40 degrees,” Cuellar said...

Unions, Gov. Cuomo Protect State Workers Found Guilty of Abusing Disabled Patients
On Friday, The New York Times released a follow-up report, revealing that only 25% of NY state home-workers found guilty of abusing disabled and mentally ill patients are terminated from their positions.

The majority of workers found guilty of physical, sexual or psychological abuse receive written warnings, deduction of vacation days, or suspension; 25% of those found guilty are sent to other state-run homes.

The Time’s original investigation began over two and a half years ago, when they started exposing the quality of state-run care in over 2,000 New York homes for the disabled and mentally ill...

Anglican Unscripted Episode 78

Aug 9, 2013

Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.

STORY INDEX:
Silly Story Month 00:00
News from Sydney 08:06
Egypt and Zanzibar 12:06
AS Haley 18:03
Peter Ould 32:42
Closing and Outtakes 40:51

A.S. Haley: More Court Proceedings in South Carolina

August 9, 2013

The Episcopal Church (USA) and its remnant group in South Carolina, ECSC, are hanging on to a federal trademark infringement lawsuit by their fingernails. The attorneys appeared yesterday before Senior U. S. District Judge C. Weston Houck on ECUSA Bishop vonRosenberg’s motion for a preliminary injunction under the Lanham Act against Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. (For more background on the issues at stake, see this earlier post.)

As his counterpart in Texas saw the matter, so might Judge Houck: why bother to get into the messy details of a federal trademark action if the earlier case filed in State court will dispose of the matter? He indicated by a question that he was considering staying the federal action pending the outcome of the proceedings in State court. He said he would have a ruling out in “a week or so.”

Meanwhile, the State court case begun by the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence and his Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is moving forward, now that it has been remanded from Judge Houck’s court. The attorneys for all parties were in court on July 11 to discuss a schedule for the case with First Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein, who issued her order eight days later. The order ensures that the case will not dawdle, but will be ready for trial by the summer of next year.

ECUSA is seeking to add additional defendants to its counterclaim, namely, the individual trustees and members of the diocesan standing committee (as a prelude to naming the rectors and vestry members of 37 individual parishes—some 500 people in all—following the same punitive strategy it has tried in other cases). The court ordered that any additional response Bishop Lawrence’s attorneys wanted to make to that motion be filed by July 22, with ECUSA’s reply due 10 days later. Those papers have now been filed, and the parties await Judge Goodstein’s ruling on the propriety of trying to add any individual defendants to the case. the rest

Court Battle Over Who Is Bishop of Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina After Schism
...After hearing about an hour of arguments, Houck stated that he should have a decision as to the fate of the suit sometime in the next seven to ten days...

Attorneys back in court in S.C. Episcopal schism

Scrolling around...August 9. 2013

Marines Corps Threatened With Lawsuit for Citing ‘Lack or Loss of Spiritual Faith’ as Suicide Risk
The United States Marines Corps may soon be leveled with a lawsuit over language in one of its training documents, which cites “lack or loss of spiritual faith” as being a risk factor for suicide among soldiers.

According to reports, an anonymous soldier reported the clause found in a Marines Corps’ Force Preservation Program document to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). In a section outlining “potential risk factors,” a number of negative life circumstances are listed, including loss of a loved one, divorce, financial hardship, drug use and “lack or loss of spiritual faith.”...

IRS caressed liberals, harassed conservatives
According to Team Obama's "phony scandal" narrative, when the Internal Revenue Service processed 501(c)(3) tax-exemption applications, it equally tormented liberals and conservatives. No big deal, the argument goes. The IRS suffers from even-handed inefficiency rather than an un-American habit of slamming critics of the president of the United States.

Unfortunately for the Obamites, actual facts annihilate their institutional-incompetence defense. New data deepen the suspicion that the IRS is the latest and most worrisome weapon in the left's arsenal...

Vicar claims her rude bumper sticker is a 'vulgarity' not blasphemy
A vicar, who claims the former Archbishop of Canterbury has been in her car, is unrepentant about a rude bumper sticker with the letters WTFWJD - which stand for What The ---- Would Jesus Do...

Committee Head Covers Up “In Christ Alone” Controversy
...Mary Louise Bringle, chair of the committee that chose to exclude “In Christ Alone” from the Presbyterian Church USA’s hymnal is now claiming the word “satisfied” not the word “wrath” was the real reason for the decision...
Presbyterians' decision to drop song from hymnal stirs debate

Swiss asked to ditch God from national anthem
Switzerland is holding a competition to rewrite its national anthem because it currently focuses on God.

Over £7,000 is being offered as a prize for rewriting the song, which is called the Swiss Psalm.

The man in charge of the competition claims Swiss society is “religiously neutral”, but in a 2010 census two thirds identified themselves as belonging to a church...

Million dollar bond set for St James Newport Beach

By Richard Crocker
August 8, 2013

Dear Family of God,

As you are aware, St. James Church appeared in court this afternoon for a hearing concerning the resolution of our case after Judgment against us and before we embark upon a process to appeal that decision.

One of today’s key decisions was the bond amount required which would allow us to remain on our properties during appeal. The Judge set a very large bond amount (in legal terminology, an “undertaking”) of just under $1,000,000, which was far beyond what we considered appropriate or even possible. The alternative then left for us is that we will be required to move off the properties during the appeal process.

A second key decision in the case was how much longer we will be able to remain at 3209 Via Lido and our attorneys argued for, and obtained after closed-door negotiation, a stay of 45 days. This means we are able to remain on property, hold worship services, other events and do day-to-day church business until we must turn over the properties on or before September 21.

Brothers and Sisters, as difficult at this change may be, we want to transition well. Be assured, plans are already in place for our new worship location. I look forward to sharing more with you this Sunday, August 11, at a Parish Update in Trane Hall at 8:35 and 10:35 am. There, we will offer further details about our transition, the provision of office and midweek meeting space, the plan for responding with pastoral care for parishioners with anger, grief, or other concerns, and the variety of ways we will remain connected in this important time.

In closing let me say that this is not the last day for St. James, but it is a new day! Though it will take time to adjust to this change, our parish family, our mission, and our Savior will remain the same. "Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, and today and forever." Hebrew 13:8

Let us ask God to deal graciously with the hurt of the moment, and then open our eyes to the new opportunities that await us!

May God bless you,
Pastor Richard
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Judge again weighs issues in SC Episcopal schism
For the second time in recent months, U.S. District Judge C. Weston Houck is weighing whether issues arising from the acrimonious Episcopal schism in eastern South Carolina belong in federal court.

As two bishops sat with their attorneys on either side of his Charleston courtroom, Houck heard about an hour of arguments Thursday on one bishop's request for an injunction against the other.

Charles vonRosenberg, the bishop of parishes remaining with the national Episcopal Church, wants the court to block Mark Lawrence, the bishop of churches that left last year, from using the name and the symbols of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

The conservative Diocese of South Carolina last year separated from the more liberal national Episcopal Church over a variety of theological issues, including the authority of Scripture and the ordination of gays. The breakaway churches sued in state court to protect the use of the diocesan name and half a billion dollars' worth of property...