The Anglican Church announced it would close seven churches on Vancouver Island due to declining attendance and revenues, but one reverend says there's still a light at the end of the tunnel.

Over the next 18 months, the churches will be sold or leased and their parishioners relocated to four newly created "hub" churches designed to serve a wider community. The dramatic decision was made using a set of recommendations put forward by the Diocese of British Columbia earlier this year.

Rev. Christopher Parsons is the rector for two of the parishes being closed, St. Columba and St. Martin, but the 34-year-old said he is nothing but pleased with the church's decision.

Read it all.

In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Ravitch blasts No Child Left Behind, which she says promotes "a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education" — as well as virtually every other recent reform effort that has sought to inject more free-market competition and accountability into education. She finds much to dislike: charter schools, high-stakes tests, corporate-style school management teams and the rising influence of foundation-funded reforms.

Over several decades, Ravitch says, American schools have essentially lost their way, forgetting to focus on giving students a solid curriculum and strong teachers. Instead, she says, we've bumbled through a series of crises that have left us with "vague and meaningless standards," an odd, antagonistic public-private competition and an "obsession" with test scores.

Read it all.

THE SECRET OF FLOURISHING

Ted Schroder
March 14, 2010

One of the major themes of our history, culture and civilization in the past two hundred or so years has been the search for human fulfillment. Since the Enlightenment and the development of Western civilization, our aim has been to achieve our potential, to fulfill our possibilities, to make our mark, to overcome difficulties, to remove obstacles, and to solve problems. We want to achieve something worthwhile. We want to leave a valuable legacy. We want to become all that we can be. Some feel that they can do it best without God. They don't want to delay their reward until the next world. They want human fulfillment now. Others of us feel that we cannot fulfill our potential unless we discover the purpose of God for our lives. Only then can we properly flourish.

Read them carefully and read them all.

Warning--the content is very difficult to listen to in terms of the description of what happened. Watch and listen to it all (a little over 12 minutes)--KSH.

Update--There is a great deal more here.

NIGERIA: Jos archbishop asks 'Where is government?'

http://tinyurl.com/ylbe8tf
March 9, 2010

Following the murder of more than 500 people in the latest shocking violence in the Jos area, we reproduce here in its entirety an open letter from the Rt Rev Benjamin Kwashi, Archbishop of Jos. He describes local peace moves and rails against lack of government action

January 17th was a Sunday morning and as usual Christians left their homes to congregate in churches to worship. That day has since become a remarkable day in history with sad memories for Christian and Muslim communities in Jos and its environs. A few days after that, leaders began to gather to see how to resolve what the perceived problems, or real problems, or even imaginary problems were. I myself became a part of a group with industrialists, businessmen and women, academics and religious leaders, both Christian and Muslim, to discuss these matters. We even spent a day at a forum listening to elders and religious leaders in Jos and spent another day listening to the youth. In all the conversations the Christians and Muslims spoke up frankly and aired their understanding of the grievances they have. We are in the process of putting together ideas as to how to move forward.

I found this very interesting--see what you make of it.

UK:Christians face more difficulties after civil partnerships vote, says group

by Jenna Lyle
http://tinyurl.com/yb5va9x
March 8, 2010

A conservative group in the Church of England has warned that Christians face an "even more difficult environment" after last week's vote in the House of Lords to lift a ban on religious ceremonies for civil partnerships taking place in churches.

Church Society said it feared clergy of the established Church would be under particular pressure to conduct ceremonies they felt in their conscience to be wrong.

It echoed the concerns of other Christians that churches may now face legal action if they refuse to conduct such ceremonies on their premises.

America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom. The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television you have had a “free choice.” The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

I try to help Americans see that the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story is their story by asking them this question — “Do they think they ought to be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing?” They do not think they should be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing. They do not believe they should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

I then point out the only difficulty with such an account of responsibility is it makes marriage unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity? I then observe that is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church: because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing. And if the story that you should have no story but the story you choose when you had no story makes marriage unintelligible, try having children. You never get the ones you want. Of course Americans try to get the ones they want by only having children when they are “ready” — a utopian desire that wreaks havoc on children so born, to the extent they come to believe they can only be loved if they fulfill their parents’ desires.

Of course the problem with the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story is that story is a story that you have not chosen. But Americans do not have the ability to acknowledge that they have not chosen the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story.

Read it all.

They see themselves as crusaders for human rights--protectors of the innocent, the voiceless, and the powerless. After years of enduring the slings and arrows of opposition, these activists are finally in the power seat. They are among the most important voices on a crucial political question: will abortion finally scuttle health-care reform?

They are America's Roman Catholic bishops.

It goes without saying that the Catholic hierarchy has always been pro-life. Nevertheless, the new prominence of this ancient fraternity is somewhat surprising. For one thing, the American public hardly regards the institutional Catholic Church as sacrosanct. Thanks to continuing sex scandals, many Americans--even American Catholics--roll their eyes on the subject of the Catholic hierarchy's ability to stand as a moral example.

Also, American Catholics reflect the voting public at large, which is to say that they are--and have long been--pro-choice. According to a 1999 poll, more than half of American Catholics believe you can be a good Catholic and disregard the bishops' teachings on abortion.

Read it all.

Peter Ould has five main themes of disagreement with Bishop Jones' address, and I've excerpted two of them:
Third, whilst Bishop Jones is correct to call for a more reasonable debate in this area, the reality on the ground is that in the places in the Anglican Church where the revisionist side has advanced its cause, the side-lining and ejecting of those with a conservative theology has always followed. Philip Ashey of the AAC last month produced a magnificent cataloguing of the way that in North America those who follow a traditional sexual theology have been persecuted (the word is not an exaggeration) by liberals in power.

In the secular arena it is very clear that groups like Stonewall are prepared to create such a situation here in the UK. Whilst it is alarmist to currently suggest, like the Bishop of Winchester has, that the changes proposed by Lord Alli’s amendment on Civil Partnerships will allow clergy right now to be sued, the trajectory of the progressives is clear in the words of Ben Summerskill of Stonewall when he says:
Right now, faiths shouldn’t be forced to hold civil partnerships, although in ten or 20 years, that may change.
Colin Coward of Changing Attitude agrees.
Is Lord Alli’s amendment a Trojan horse as some claim? I very much hope so.
And this is not simply about “alternative interpretations” of the Bible. I have sat in a meeting with one of the leading proponents in this country of the revisionist position. That person was asked, “If it could be demonstrated beyond all doubt that the Bible permitted no other sex for Christians then sex within a marriage of a man and a woman, would you change your position?” The answer was a clear, unequivocal “No”. For this person the issue had already been decided a priori to engaging with the Scriptures and no amount of Biblical theology would change their mind. So much for a conversation about what God was saying.

I commend Bishop Jones for wanting to have a graceful and compassionate conversation in this area, but the evidence is that those who are revisionist are not in this just for the mutual exploration of ethical dilemmas, they are in it to change the very face of the Church, regardless of what Conservatives think.

Fourth, Bishop Jones is simply incorrect to sweep away the scientific debate in a manner that assumes that sexuality is a fixed given. The best scientific research indicates that human sexuality is a complex interaction of nature and nurture, and thus it is probable that for each person that experiences same-sex attraction there is a unique interplay of various factors. That is why recently I have written against the imposition by some conservatives of particular development models of human sexuality on all those who self-identify as homosexual. While the “absent father” narrative is deeply insightful for some (including this author) leading to healing and orientation change, for others it is not relevant, and indeed can be damaging if one attempts reparative activities based upon its assumptions. At the same time the insistence by some revisionists that sexuality is biological in origin and therefore cannot be changed is a scientific naivety and flies in the face of good evidence that for some sexual identity and ever orientation is fluid and malleable.

Ultimately one cannot rest an ethical argument on “I was born this way, so it must be good”. We would not treat paedophilia, or alcoholism, or kleptomania or polygamy or any other number of sinful desires in that manner and therefore neither should we homosexuality.

ORLANDO, Fla: 100 Anglican parishes to join Catholic church

By Catholic News Service
http://ncronline.org
March 8, 2010

About 100 traditionalist Anglican parishes in the United States have decided to join the Catholic Church as a group.

Meeting in Orlando, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America voted to seek entry into the Catholic Church under the guidelines established in Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus" ("Groups of Anglicans"), said a March 3 statement.

The Anglican Church in America is part of the Traditional Anglican Communion, a group of churches which separated from the worldwide Anglican Communion in 1991. The Traditional Anglican Communion claims 400,000 members worldwide.

Orlando deliberations focused on the Petition

By Daren K. Williams
http://www.anglicanwest.org/
March 5, 2010

Dear People of the Diocese of the West

Many of you may have read the press release issued from the House of Bishops of the ACA in connection with our meetings March 1-3 in Orlando, Florida. I reprint it here:

We, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America of the Traditional Anglican Communion have met in Orlando, Florida, together with our Primate and the Reverend Christopher Phillips of the "Anglican Use" Parish of Our Lady of the Atonement (San Antonio, Texas) and others.

At this meeting, the decision was made formally to request the implementation of the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in the United States of America by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

More All is Well, Eh™ from our friends across the border. Please note: they consider this prophetic. Sweeping changes to the Anglican Church on Vancouver Island, including the closing of a number of churches in Greater Victoria, will proceed.

The changes, recommended in a report commissioned by the Diocese of British Columbia, which governs Anglican churches on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, were endorsed at a sitting of the church synod during the weekend.

Rev. Christopher Parsons, spokesman for the diocese on the issue, said there was enthusiastic support at the meeting for moving ahead. However, he conceded that for some, change will be difficult.

“Change is not easy. Nobody likes change. But I think the church has a call to be prophetic, and to get into reality that it needs to do things differently in order to live out what God calls us to do,” Parsons said. (emphasis mine)

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING!!!!!!!

Following this link is going to take you to an article with pictures of the tragic massacre in Nigeria. Words cannot express the horror you will see should you elect to follow the link.

The following commentary is found at the link above. I am very grateful to Save Our City (http://www.veracityjos.com/Veracity/Save_Our_City.html) for documenting this human tragedy.
The genocide that took place in Dogo Na Hauwa, Zot and Rastat during the early hours of yesterday 7th March 2010 at 3am by the Hausa/ Fulani youths most likely coming from the bordering district of Toro in Bauchi state is gross. Our reporters visited the scene yesterday to discover a total of 88 dead persons and many others who are in the Plateau Specialist Hospital receiving treatment. We are yet to verify the total number of those in the hospital.

It is clear that whoever is responsible for this hideous crime has the audacity because they have a backing of some sort. The blame should go to those who are evidently doing nothing about it. How many innocent lives must we lose before the ‘gods’ in government realize that this is beyond the political front? How do these people get their sophisticated weaponry that aides their havoc? Is there a chance that this is not unrelated to the crises?

There have been cattle raids by armed gun men in Vom, there have been murders of unarmed civilian women in sabon Gida Kanar, Riyom and Jabu bassa not to mention the most recent midnight slaughter of persons in Dogo Na Hauwa, Zot and Rastat. What more does the military and police force need to go after those murderers? I have dear friends in Nigeria. Please join with me in prayer for all the people who are having to suffer this horror. Please pray that an outcry that can be heard around the world will reach those who can help. Please pray for strength, courage, healing and God's presence among the persecuted. Please pray for God to heal the heart of the persecuted so they can have eyes to see. I am waiting on information from a friend to determine the best avenue for sending aid. As soon as I hear I will post an update.

In the meantime, I call upon all our fellow bloggers to help spread the word and call for an end to the horrific and senseless violence.

What bothers my heart are a few questions:

• It was curfew time when these attackers came in and carried out their heinous activities. Who are responsible for these areas? What happened to those who should enforce the curfew? The purpose of the curfew is to stop events like this.

• Failure of government to provide full security for its citizenry leaves a people with very little option but to provide for their own kind of security. History has shown that these kinds of security are bred in vengeance, retaliation, bitterness, hatred and malice. This gives birth to an almost endless cycle of senseless violence as can be seen in many nations of the world today. Where is our government in all the levels of governance? Where were they on this night? Where were they on 17th January? Shall we continue to have the ugly sight of mass burials? Are there no leaders who fear God, who will swallow their pride and choose to be humble before God for the sake of those faces of slaughtered children?

• The new dimension these attacks are assuming is revealing a system of well-trained terror groups who rights now have attacked these villages, and only God knows which community will be next.

Read it all.

California passed a gas tax last week to help make up for its nearly $20 billion budget gap, the latest in a series of measures to right the state's teetering economy. The country of Greece is in even worse shape, with accumulated debt higher than 110 percent of GDP, set to reach 125 percent this year. Can a state declare bankruptcy? Can a country?

No and no. Chapter 9 of the U.S. bankruptcy code allows individuals and municipalities (cities, towns, villages, etc.) to declare bankruptcy. But that doesn't include states. (The statute defines "municipality" as a "political subdivision or public agency or instrumentality of a State"—that is, not a state itself.)

Read it all.

Here is a brief simple run down of the process of salvation from a Reformed perspective that I wrote up for someone who asked. Discuss amongst yourselves.

1.Election: Before they had done anything good or bad, apart any foreseen merit or goodness inherent in them, the Father chose his people in the Son, through the Son, and for the Son in accordance with his own will and purposes.

2. Regeneration: God alone, through the Holy Spirit gives new birth to elect sinners. There is nothing sinner does to deserve, prepare for or merit regeneration in any way. Nor can he cooperate with it anymore than a baby cooperates in his conception.

3.The Call: God draws the regenerate sinner to himself--putting down the willed suppression and hatred for God that characterize the sinful nature, freeing the heart to love what is good, evoking a desire for the truth through the word of Christ, preached, read, or taught.

4. Justification: The sinner, by grace alone, comes to a right knowledge of Jesus' person and work, he assents to the truthfulness of what he knows, and finally repents and trusts in the merits and work of Christ alone for his salvation and commits to follow Jesus as his Lord. This is "faith". It is not blind belief in a possible outcome. It is not mere cognitive assent to various theological propositions. Faith is knowledge, assent, and surrender. All three components are necessary. This "faith" is the sole instrument through which the Father credits or imputes the righteousness of Christ to the sinner and removes the eternal consequences of his sins--punishing them justly through the substitutionary atoning sacrifice of the Son. The sinner is Justified by grace alone, through the instrument of faith alone, because of Christ alone.

5. Sanctification: And yet, justification is not the sum of salvation. At the point of justification the sinner is no longer under the sentence of hell. He has been rescued from eternal torment and is assured, on the basis of Christ's righteousness (which he cannot damage or destroy) imputed to him, life forever with Christ beginning in the present, continuing spiritually after death, and fully at the Resurrection in the Kingdom of God. Yet sin still exercises a powerful role in his life despite his justification. When the sinner comes to justifying faith, God the Holy Spirit immediately indwells him, makes a permanent home in his heart, and begins the process of renovaton or sanctification. 

Sanctification is a cooperative process. The sinner is a new creation, his will is no longer in bondage to sin. God works in him and continues to transform the will, heart, mind, directly, but the justified sinner can truly participate in this process. He can will and do what God calls him to will and do. Of course, nothing is done through naked effort. Grace proceeds and empowers everything. And that is true with regard to the justified sinner's cooperation as well. The grace of God provides the strength necessary to fight against sin and to live an increasingly godly life. That grace is conveyed through various means: scripture, prayer, preaching, the sacraments, the fellowship of the church and many others.

A justified sinner will necessarily bear fruits in keeping with his new nature and status. Someone who walks the sawdust trail in a fit of emotion but then returns to his former life unchanged cannot claim to be in Christ. Sanctification necessarily flows from justification. True faith necessarily leads to transformation. It will not look the same for everyone, since as CS Lewis noted, we all start off in very different places, but sanctification is a necessary result of Justification.

6. Glorification: Sanctification will not be completed during the sinner's life. Christians will continue to fall and fail but never fall completely or fail finally. And yet because the eternal destiny of the sinner is grounded in the imputed rather than infused righteousness of Christ and because all of his sins were imputed to Christ at the moment of Justification, there is no need for purgatory to work off or bear the penalty for remaining sins after death. When a Christian dies, the “old nature” is immediately mortified and he, like Lazarus, is carried immediately to Abraham's side, into the spiritual presence of Christ until the moment when God reunifies body and soul at the Resurrection.

From Church Society's website:
Earlier this week parliament voted to lift a ban on religious ceremonies being conducted for civil partnerships.

Because of other legislation in recent years, purporting to be about equality, this latest change will create an even more difficult environment for Christians. Clergy of the established Church will be under particular pressure to conduct services which they in conscience believe to be wrong. They may face the threat of legal action if they insist on following their conscience. Parliament has increasingly sought to interfere in religious affairs.

Very cool:
To date we have received more than $96,000 in donations for the Haiti Disaster Fund which will be used for immediate and intermediate needs following the January 12 earthquake. Nearly 300 families, churches, and organizations have made contributions including 22% of donors coming from outside this parish. The geographic distribution of the 22% of non-member donors is represented below . . .
Note also the four organizations that are managing the funds contributed to Haiti.