Bad Bishop

Tim Fountain has posted a news article from the Episcopal News Service about the nine missions that are to be closed in South Dakota. Go and read.

The thing that strikes me is the degree of cowardice shown by the South Dakota leadership. Were I bishop and I had decided for financial reasons to close missions, I would visit them to check them out first. Having resolved that they needed to be closed, I would make every effort to deliver the bad news myself. And if the members of one of the missions sent me a certified letter, I would sign for it.

What is this feeling?

Because, I Like, Care and Stuff

Here's a shout out to Kate et al...

It's got a good beat

and I can dance to it. I give it a 'nine'.

Nathan Fillion

Now that Firefly and Serenity are long gone, our favourite spaceship captain has been reduced to doing porn. PG rated porn at that.

Enjoy:


Nailing Your Wife

Lionel's bad day

However stressful Friday night may have been for me, it was no where near as as bad as this guy's Saturday. The horror of having to use porta-potties! At a diocesan convention, no less. The use of "scare quotes" is especially appreciated. Also, if you have time to kill, check out his fiction and poetry.

Banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine

This past Friday night at 7:21 pm I clicked on a executable file I had just downloaded from the Internet. The instant I clicked on it, I knew I had made a horrible mistake and sure enough my computer was immediately infected with a plethora of spyware, malware, viruses and trojans.

Friday night was interesting. I had downloaded the executable in question as part of a compressed file from Usenet. Earlier this week I had installed a shiny new graphics card and I wanted to show it off to Sally. So I Went surfing to find a high definition program to showcase my new toy. The show I downloaded came as a locked RAR file and a keygenerator executable. There was no good reason for that multimedia file to be locked, so I had no business even thinking about opening an executable file from an unknown source. Mea culpa, indeed. I force Windows to show file extensions just to avoid silly mistakes like that.

Within seconds the appearance of my desktop had chaned, I was getting spammed with adware, security notices, legitimate and spurious were proliferating, and I was a very unhappy camper.

After a couple of hours eliminating some but not all of the uinvaders, I threw in the towel and used the big gun. I reformatted the drive where Windows lives and reinstalled it. I do that once a year whether my computer needs it or not, so that should have been a smooth process. Instead, around 10 pm I found my self with Windows reinstalled unable to connect on my computer to the Internet.

Being in panic mode, I hadn't assembled all the tools needed and I hadn't planned the procedure out in writing. I had no checklist and was working from memory. I tried every trick I knew. I consulted books. I called our ISP. Nothing worked. Then, around 2 AM, I installed the driver for the onboard LAN on my motherboard. Three minutes later I had authenticated Windows and was off and rolling.

I managed to crawl into bed at 4 AM yesterday.

All seems right with the world now. My computer is back to its old self, only better because it's working off of a clean registry. I don't think there are any viruses loose on our systems. My confidence as to that fact is rather high.

Really good guides to handling this sort of thing may be found here and here.

Perpetua on the Ten Commandments of Blogging

The Evangelical Alliance in the UK started the idea, Ruth Gledhill critiqued it and now Perpetua sheds a great deal of light on the idea.

It's That Time of Year

Every October for the past ten or so years I've re-read Roger Zelazny's classic "A Night in The Lonesome October". I even have it on audio cassette somewhere, read by Mr Zelazny himself. For a genre literature buff, it's a treasure trove of literary references. Being a Zelazny book it contains many puns, one of which is truly horrible.

Crock

The New Republic has a neat little essay up that blames the failure of the bailout bill on everyone but the people mainly responsible, the Democrats. It's a nice idea, but last I checked the bill was sponsored by the House Democratic Congressional leadershipand the House is controlled by the Democrats. Did I miss something there?

Further, the Speaker of the House and one of the leading proponents of the bill made an extremely insulting, stupid and bigoted speech concerning the opposition.

If ever you need or want proof that the Mainstream Media represents only the left wing of the Democratic party, you now have it.

Is it any wonder that reporters and politicians are running neck and neck for bottom feeder ratings in all the public opinion polls?

Which is worse?

The paper dying or the words on the paper?

Heartbreak

I graduated from the University of the South in 1982. Sewanee was a great place to go to college. My high school had been quite large, so the small classes were a welcome change from the angst of urban teen education. In these days when we celebrate diversity, I think few will appreciate how wonderful it was to have come home to a place where I felt like there were others like me. I had never met people from my background before. There were other Episcopalians around. More to the point, there were other devout Episcopalians around.

Sewanee has an Honor Code (one should not lie, cheat or steal) that when I was there was all-encompassing and student enforced. At the end of my junior year (I think) I lost my wallet. It had my drivers license, some cash, library card, student id and all the other assorted paraphernalia that a young man of insufficient means keeps in his wallet. When I got home, I immediately applied for a replacement drivers license, informed the school that I'd need a new id and went on with life. Six weeks later a box arrived. My wallet had been found, turned in and the school had sent it on to me at my parent's home. Inside the wallet was everything that was supposed to be there. Including all the money. That's what Sewanee was (and hopefully still is).

That sort of environment has a powerful impact on a mind. Sewanee shaped the character of many people I know. I have always felt I could trust a fellow graduate of the college. The School of Theology was suspect, and rightly considered so because of the shoddy theology taught there as well as the older age of the students meant that their values, such as they were, were already fully formed.

I liked most of the students when I was there and still do. Some I didn't like at the time. But there was always a sense of community, a bond of shared values and of trust. I knew that even if someone I disliked told me something, it would be true. I knew that I could leave my door open and my possessions and my work were safe. My pillow might be replaced with shaving cream, but it would still be around.

Twenty six years have passed since I graduated. Some of my classmates have gone on to bigger and better things. Many are doctors and lawyers. Quite a few are priests. One is a bishop.

I usually can not impute bad motives to someone. But you see, I knew the Bishop of San Diego when he was in college. I knew his wife. I know what sort of college education he received and what he did with it. I know that he knows how to read, I know he understands logic. I know he is intelligent. At one time I thought he had integrity. At one time I thought I could trust him.

And then I read this.

And my heart is broken.

What good is having Integrity when you have lost your integrity to get it? What good does it do you to be bishop when you have maimed your soul to get there?

Bloggy Goodness

Anglican Beach Party (The only blog whose name I wish I had thought of first) is on a roll. First a kewl song and now a nifty MDG graphic.

The Gauntlet Was Thrown

But remains on the floor. Clifford has been on a posting tear of late. As part of that he put up several videos that repay interest.

Unfortunately, I'm slammed at work, and so haven't been able to reply with the depth that I'd like.

But perhaps this video may put balm on the sting?

Her Own Private Idaho

An interesting tale of trespassing and free speech from the spud state.

Of course the whole reason for the post is the plaintiff's name.

For Mike from Liverpool, UK

For our British cousins, I can buy any of the weapons shown (assuming I have the cash). Oddly enough, there is next to no crime in my neighbourhood.

One of the many reasons I love my country.

Just Too Heartwarming

Jim's Dad served in Korea. Read the rest.

(H/T The Drawn Cutlass)

The Next Big Issue

will apparently be the communion of the unbaptized (COTU), or as it is more trenchantly termed "the communion of the damned (COTD)".

It's prohibited by the rubrics and by tradition but, of course, that hasn't stopped more progressive diocese such as my own (Atlanta) from allowing it.

How do I know it's the next big thing? Well, Episcopal Life Online very nicely signals what the next prophetic thing TEC is called to do by posing questions in its reader response column. My guess is that with COTD being widespread, but not universal, the church wants to make the change to the canons and the rubrics to conform the rules to the reality. And because we're hospitable or whatever.

Here are the money quotes:

From Geoff Brown • Taconic, Connecticut, Sep 18, 2008 The canons need to be changed.

When I bring kids in from our Sunday morning community soccer program for Communion, it has occurred to me that, when a child comes in from this community outreach program, it would be absurd to give the poor kid, who finally has decided that he or she actually wants to come into church, the third degree as to whether he or she was baptized.

Would Jesus have given this kid the third degree about something that most likely would have happened (or not) while the kid was still in diapers, and through no conscious decision of his/her own? Isn't there a pretty clear statement in the New Testament when Jesus tells us not to forbid the children who want to come to him?

It's hard to imagine a clearer example of the universally scorned idea of "church as club" than this, in my humble opinion.

================================================================

From Jean Rutherford • Portsmouth, Virginia, Sep 19, 2008 It seems clear to me that that the cannon and the teachings of Jesus are in conflict. Changing the canon seems like a no-brainer. Maybe we should just eliminate it. I feel that the most authentic base we have is Jesus. He is the authority for Christians. It surely would support our claim of the radical hospitality of Jesus.

=================================================================

From William A. Doubleday • Columbus, Ohio, Sep 19, 2008 I believe there is a related issue. The 1979 Prayer Book and our professional liturgists have raised the bar so high on Baptism that many grandmothers can no longer see grandchildren baptized in an Episcopal parish where the family has worshipped for hundreds of years. Meanwhile, sometimes the same parish is inviting everyone, including the unbaptized, to receive communion. I see merit on both sides of both of these issues, but I think our liturgical vectors should be coordinated. Right now our messages are mixed and sometimes contradictory. It is time for a high caliber group to do some theological and pastoral reflection on these matters. If the canons need to be changed, where is the General Convention? If the canons need to be enforced, where are the Bishops?

The writer is a professor of Pastoral Theology at Bexley Hall Seminary

{ed. I have no idea what he is going on about.}

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And lastly one semi-orthodox opinion:

From Thomas Bushnell, BSG • Los Angeles, California Sep 18, 2008 I think that Clay Morris has missed the point. Clergy have made a promise, and it is not unreasonable to expect them to keep their promises, whether their names are Robert Duncan or Clay Morris or the leaders of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco. The answer to the
question posed is that some Episcopal Church clergy have substituted their own judgment for that of the church, and have chosen to dishonor the vows they have made by violating those canons they think ought to be changed.

One question is whether people should honor the vows they have made and keep the commitments they have pledged. A quite distinct question is what our canons should be. But it is entirely inappropriate to suggest that there is some great muddling, or that the question of disobedience is anything other than the question of disobedience. It is entirely inappropriate to suggest that if the canons need to be changed, it is all right for clergy to dishonor their ordination vows and render them essentially a nullity.

It seems to me--as a person myself under obedience--that keeping this distinction is crucial. If I am to be an honorable person, I will keep the commitments I have made, and if I have made a firm decision not to, I will depart gracefully and relinquish the prerogatives of such office as I hold. And, I believe, this is what a decent and honorable person does, whatever his or her name may be.

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You can tell how fallen my church has become by the total lack of effort the heretics put into justifying their depravity theologically.

The question for me is no longer "Will I leave?" The question is now "Where will I go?"

One parting thought: Chris Johnson mines that section for comedy gold. I justfind it depressing.

You say half full, I say half empty

This article (H/T Instapundit) touts the advantages of the ever spreading use of cell phones. Not only are more people using the little devices, but they are using them to accomplish more and more tasks. That would seem to be a good thing.

Except my very first thought on reading the article was: "Jeez now they're going to be texting the 419 scam on my cell."

If that hasn't already happened, it will shortly.

Saturday Poetry

Second Coming by W B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Imagine my delight when I saw the last two lines quoted in an essay discussing recent Episcopalian events.

In another bit of synchronicity, it is the favourite poem of an old gamer chum of mine.

But like all good poetry, it applies on any number of occasions.

Show me the money

BabyBlue has posted a letter from Bishop Howe of Florida to his diocese. The money quote is: "Some of the Bishops who are also lawyers argued that the case law of Pennsylvania would make it more difficult for The Episcopal Church to press its case if we delayed our action until after Pittsburgh's Diocesan Convention."

It really is all about the money. It was inconvenient to wait, to allow for due process to proceed canonically. Since there was no possibility of a check to the House of Bishops' decision, they acted knowing they couldn't be reversed and went for the property.

I guess when you don't believe in God, do not believe in Truth or Justice, when all you have is the here and now, when everything is relative, when sin is socially defined, well then all that is left is the material.

Is this the new anthem of the Episcopal Church?