Episcopal News and Current Events -- News About ECUSA

Web Site Moved to New URL

2006-12-12T00:29:00.000-06:00

During November, 2006, this web site moved to a new URL:

http://episcopal-news.blogspot.com

The web site is an independent ministry and is not affiliated with Epiphany Church in Independence. Messages and features from December forward and into 2007
are located at the new web site.

When an Archbishop Stands up to an Airline

2006-11-26T22:39:00.000-06:00

Rome/London: Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has frequently felt impotent in the face of a divided and troublesome Church congregation he leads. On Friday, however, he proved he was a force to be reckoned with when he stepped into the row over whether a British Airways check-in worker could wear a crucifix on a necklace at work.

Speaking in Rome, where he had met the Pope, Dr. Williams said consultations had begun on a possible disinvestment of BA shares. A few hours later, faced with the possible sale of the Church's £10.25 million-worth shares in British Airways and the lingering possibility of a boycott, the U.K.'s flag carrier suddenly announced a review of its 34-page uniform policy, saying it was "unfairly accused" of being anti-Christian.

Dr. Williams spoke with fervour, declaring that, if the airline felt the cross was a source of offence, then he himself would find that fact to be "deeply offensive."

The Church's Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which advises its investment bodies, contacted BA shortly after Dr. Williams's comments and sent a letter to chief executive Willie Walsh requesting a meeting.

Nadia Eweida will hear next month the outcome of an appeal against the company's decision that she cannot openly wear a crucifix on a necklace at work. Ms. Eweida, 55, has refused to go back to her job at Heathrow Airport.

Mr. Walsh did not suggest she would be able to wear her necklace, but said: "Our staff has suggested that we allow the wearing of religious symbols as small lapel badges. This will be considered..."

Dr. Williams is not only leader of the Church of England, but also of the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican community. If the Church of England sold its shares — small in comparison with the £5.6 billion stock market value of BA — it might have a passing effect on BA's share price. But an Anglican boycott could damage sales and angry customers had been contacting the airline.

Asked at a Rome press conference if he would support a boycott, Dr. Williams noted the dispute had erupted after his own flight to Rome on BA had been booked. "I have a responsibility for the proper use of the resources of staff and money and reorganising at short notice expensively and complicatedly didn't seem to me a responsible use of them," he said.

But then he added: "I'm actually consulting with others in the Church of England about our whole attitude to BA in which, as you know, we have some financial investment. And that's a question that's already been raised for discussion with the Church Commissioners in London."

The Church owns around £10.25 million shares through its church commissioners body, which owns £9 million, and the pension fund which owns £1.25 million.

The Archbishop said: "People of any faith should have the right to display the signs of their faiths in public."

Dr. Williams had clearly made the best use of his time in the air. "It is just perhaps worth noting with some irony," he said, "that amongst the duty-free jewellery items for sale are some crosses."

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Are Church Fires the Latest Thing by Conservatives?

2006-11-22T13:55:00.000-06:00

Church fire called act of intolerance
Police say religious zeal led Bible student to burn Episcopal church

By LEIGH HORNBECK, Staff writer
Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Clarification: Caleb Lussier, the man accused in the arson of Christ Church in Pottersville, also allegedly burglarized the church by stealing religious items.
POTTERSVILLE -- The Bibles were safe the night Christ Episcopal Church turned to tinder, allegedly at the hands of Caleb Uriah Lussier, police said Monday.

Lussier, 20, allegedly confessed to police that he used gasoline to torch the church in late May after he gathered the Bibles in a bag and placed them outside the reach of the flames.

Lussier, of Plymouth, Mass., is a student at the Word of Life Bible Institute in Schroon Lake, not far from Christ Episcopal. Investigators said he acted out of a religious zeal that also may have played a role in a fire at another church in his hometown and in threats against three other houses of worship.

Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland said Lussier thought the members of Christ Church were hypocrites who deviated from the teachings of the Bible and the word of God. He allegedly robbed the church twice in May. On one occasion he left behind a message written in a Bible: "You've been warned." On May 30, a fire at the 77-year-old church burned out of control before firefighters arrived.

Last week, a congregant from another local church spotted Lussier at services and told Warren County sheriff's investigators he seemed out of place. Police in Plymouth didn't have a record on Lussier, but they did have an unsolved fire at a church in December 2005 at which a bag of Bibles also was left outside.

Working off those details and other similarities, police arrested Lussier in his dorm room Sunday. He has not been charged in Massachusetts, but Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Bridget Norton Middleton said investigators were aware of the charges against him in New York and had been in contact with local police.

Cleveland said Lussier confessed to robbing the Christ Church and setting fire to both houses of worship. He also allegedly admitted to sending threatening letters three churches in his hometown. He was charged with two felony counts of third-degree burglary and a count of third-degree arson, a felony.

"He didn't think they were following the Bible the way they thought they should," Cleveland said. "He holds to the principle, but he said he went about it in the wrong way."

The executive vice president of Word of Life Fellowship Inc. issued a statement after Lussier's arrest.

"The student acknowledged that his actions in this incident are not consistent with the teaching received at Word of Life Bible Institute," John Nelson wrote. "Word of Life condemns this reprehensible act, and this student will be expelled immediately."

Word of Life is an evangelical ministry founded on Long Island in the 1930s. The founder, Jack Wyrtzen, began as a street preacher on Long Island. By 1940, he owned a camp and conference center in Schroon Lake in Essex County, just north of Pottersville. The Bible Institute was founded in 1971 and, according to the church's Web site, 695 missionaries work in 46 countries.

The arrest brought relief to the tiny congregation of Christ Church in the small town about 85 miles north of Albany.

"We never wanted retribution," said John Watson, a lay leader at Christ Church. "Our feeling is if Christ can forgive us for hanging him on a cross, there's not much we can't forgive."

Watson said the members of the Episcopal church will pray for Lussier, and they are gathering donations to rebuild the church. A congregation of about 20 people has been meeting at the Wells House Bed and Breakfast in Pottersville.

A 15-year-old boy was charged this summer in connection with the May 30 fire; Watson said women in the church are knitting the boy a sweater and a scarf. Police have not yet found a link between Lussier and the boy. According to his confession, Lussier acted alone, but Cleveland said the 15-year-old knows details about the fire he could not know if he hadn't been involved. The teen was charged in Family Court.

Lussier was arraigned in Chester Town Court. He is being held in Warren County jail for lack of $250,000 cash bail. He is scheduled to return to court later this month.

Hornbeck can be reached at 581-8438 or by e-mail at lhornbeck@timesunion.com.

All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2006, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y

Arson Fire? It Just Makes Us Stronger!

2006-11-14T00:46:00.000-06:00

Channel 27 in Topeka has had very good coverage of the fire at St. David's Church and a televised report here
tells the story, with an interview with an official from Grace Cathedral, also in Topeka.

Presiding Bishop Begins Her Work in Chicago

2006-11-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

Bishop wants to heal church
The first woman to lead the Episcopal Church hopes to end a global rift over gays, women, and she's kicking off her term with work in Chicago.

Manya A. Brachear
Tribune staff reporter

November 13, 2006

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrapped up her first week as chief pastor of the Episcopal Church on Sunday in Chicago by celebrating an institution she believes can heal the world.

Jefferts Schori also believes that the fractured U.S. arm of the Anglican Communion can heal itself while eradicating poverty and halting the spread of AIDS.

"Doing the larger work," she says, will enable the 2.4 million-member church to transcend the differences that divide it--including the debates surrounding gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex blessings.

"We need to pay attention to [healing the church]," said Jefferts Schori, who was installed this month as the first female presiding bishop in the Anglican Communion. "But it's not a matter of one before the other. ... I live in hope."

Celebrating mass Sunday in All Saints Episcopal Church on the North Side, Jefferts Schori implored the congregation to give its all to the Episcopal Church's mission. Members of the church's Executive Council, an elected body that conducts national church business, also were in the audience, meeting this week in Chicago.

High on the presiding bishop and council's agenda are the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals, a blueprint for a better world, which Jefferts Schori sees as an "invitation to see beyond our narrow self-interests." Those goals have been the heart of virtually every sermon and interview she has delivered since her election at the church's triennial convention in June.

Contentious issues

That election has not been unanimously celebrated. Eight American bishops have requested a more conservative leader to oversee their dioceses. Three -- Quincy, Ill., San Joaquin, Calif., and Ft. Worth -- do not ordain women.

Others attribute their discontent to her theology. In 2003, as Nevada's bishop, Jefferts Schori voted with the majority to approve an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire. She also supports the blessing of same-sex couples.

Also, some prelates from Africa, Asia and Latin America have said they cannot treat Jefferts Schori as their equal.

The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has not acted on the requests, instead instructing the American bishops to work it out internally. A meeting in September approached a resolution, Jefferts Schori said. Another attempt will be made before year's end.

On Sunday at All Saints, 4550 N. Hermitage Ave., congregants erupted into applause and smiles as Jefferts Schori marched into the sanctuary led by nine young acolytes--eight of them girls -- and sat in a wood throne dressed head to toe in regal navy and white vestments.

Although nervous about making a positive impression, Cicely Thom, 10, said the presiding bishop did not intimidate her.

"She didn't feel like a stranger to me," she said. "She was really nice."

Jefferts Schori's sermon called on congregants and church leaders to consider text in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus lauds the poor widow who gives all she has to the temple.

"Beware of the folks who like long robes and respective greetings," she quoted Jesus as saying. Still wearing vestments, her tone garnered gales of laughter.

"Ouch! Surely that cannot have anything to do with us," she said with sarcasm.

`Willing to bet their all'

Speaking of an earlier reading, she referred to another widow who gives her last meal to the prophet Elijah after he promises her that God will not let her die.

"Even today it is widows and mothers of dependent children who are the most desperate both here and across the world," Jefferts Schori said. "Those widows are willing to bet their all in hopes that somebody, even a God they haven't met, will respond.

"You and I have to be willing to be foolish enough to believe that God will feed the hungry and set the prisoners free and open the eyes of the blind. We have to be willing to make that last desperate bet and bet it all if we're going to follow this Jesus."

Ruth Frey, 44, said she was inspired by Jefferts Schori's sermon and hopes the presiding bishop is not distracted during her nine-year term from the mission in her message.

"She's got a lot of work cut out for her," Frey said. "If she can hold that vision up -- to center on the Gospel in ways that everyone can agree on -- it's going to be a huge step forward."

mbrachear@tribune.com

Another Arson Fire in One of Our Churches, in Topeka, Kansas

2006-11-11T15:40:00.001-06:00

Officials say Topeka church fire was arson

BY JOHN HANNA
Associated Press

TOPEKA - Arson was the cause of a Friday morning fire that gutted the interior of a Topeka church, including its sanctuary, a local official said.

Authorities estimated damage to St. David's Episcopal Church at between $2.5 million and $3 million, though its walls and most of its roof were intact after firefighters from five engine companies subdued the blaze.

No injuries were reported, but the congregation faces rebuilding the church.

"Fire officials have determined this to be an arson fire," said Greg Bailey, the local fire marshal, declining to give more details because an investigation was continuing.

Church and fire department officials said the fire might have started in a chapel and spread through the adjacent, larger main sanctuary.

Authorities' conclusion that the blaze was no accident stunned church members.

"We're processing the information," said Margaret Telthorst, the head of the church's governing council. "We're grieving, and we're comforting each other."

She wouldn't speculate on who might have set the fire. "Every organization is going to have people who disagree with it, but there's nothing we can even begin to speculate about," she said.

The church, founded in 1953, has 600 to 700 members and is among Kansas' 10 largest Episcopal parishes.

"We may be experiencing a total loss here," said Dean Wolfe, the Episcopal bishop for Kansas. "It's more substantial than we originally thought."

Wolfe and the Rev. Don Davidson, the church's rector, said several area churches from different denominations immediately offered the use of their buildings. St. David's, which normally has services at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., plans to have its Sunday service at 1:30 p.m. at a nearby Lutheran church.

The Episcopal church moved its offices to a nearby vacant home it owns.

Davidson said the loss is difficult for church members because the building is where important events in their lives, including marriages and funerals, occur.

The church's chapel normally is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The blaze was reported to Topeka firefighters shortly after 5 a.m., and they had it under control within the hour, though it wasn't reported as fully out for several more hours.

First Woman Leader of Episcopal Church

2006-11-04T12:47:00.000-06:00

By RACHEL ZOLL
Writer, The Associated Press

November 02, 2006

I'm clear about this role involving the entire breadth of The Episcopal Church Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori thought the odds she would be elected to lead The Episcopal Church were 'ridiculous' _ absolutely against her.

'I was a woman, fairly young, I hadn't been a bishop all that long, and I was serving a diocese that's not part of the Eastern establishment,' Jefferts Schori said.

The surprise? She won anyway, in balloting at the Episcopal General Convention this June.

On Saturday, Jefferts Schori will be installed as presiding bishop at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., becoming the first woman priest to lead a national church in the nearly 500-year-old Anglican Communion.

'The Bible is full of stories of the younger son being called and the outsider being called,' by God to serve, Jefferts Schori said in an interview this week with The Associated Press. 'I think courage is a central characteristic of leadership. If you're not willing to go into dangerous places, you have no business doing this work.'

The perils for anyone leading The Episcopal Church right now are considerable.

The 2.3 million-member denomination is at the center of a worldwide Anglican feud over how to interpret what the Bible says about sexuality. Jefferts Schori unapologetically supports ordaining gays and allowing blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. In 2003, she voted to confirm New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. The uproar over his consecration is threatening to split the Anglican family, which The Episcopal Church represents in the United States.

'I'm clear about this role involving the entire breadth of The Episcopal Church,' Jefferts Schori said. 'But at some level, I don't think it's appropriate for me to disguise what my own theological understanding is. I'm someone who believes transparency is incredibly important. It's part of integrity.'

Many Episcopalians are celebrating that openness. But it also has drawn protests, and her pioneering role as the church's first woman leader also has upset some.

Seven U.S. conservative dioceses have rejected Jefferts Schori's authority and asked Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, to assign them another national leader. Three of the dioceses do not support ordaining women.

Overseas, some tradition-minded Anglican leaders, meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, said they would snub her at the next global Anglican meeting in February.

Asked what she wanted to say to those Anglican leaders, she shrugged and said, 'Get over it.' On Wednesday, she asked four conservative Anglican archbishops who are meeting this month with Episcopalians challenging her authority to also make time for a session with her.

'I think the reality is clear that the archbishop of Canterbury isn't going to assign somebody to be an alternate primate' _ the Anglican term for a national church leader, said Jefferts Schori, who traveled to London last month to speak privately with Williams.

But she insisted she would not impose her views on anyone in the church.

Having served just five years as a bishop, Jefferts Schori knows her experience may seem all too brief for such an important job. But she has spent her life tackling outsized challenges.

She is an oceanographer who graduated from Stanford University and earned a doctorate at Oregon State, working at sea with boat captains more accustomed to all-male research crews.

A pilot with more than 500 hours logged, she flew her plane to visit parishes in the sprawling Nevada Diocese. She also rock climbs with her husband of more than 25 years, Richard Schori, a theoretical mathematician. Their daughter, 25-year-old Katharine Johanna, is a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.

Jefferts Schori decided to pursue full-time ministry after federal funding for her scientific research dried up. She earned a master's from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., and was ordained in 1994.

As she begins work at church headquarters in Manhattan, where her predecessor Bishop Frank Griswold just finished his nine-year term, she hopes to find a way to reconcile with conservatives overseas and at home.

She believes Episcopalians should fulfill the request from Anglican archbishops that the American church stop consecrating any more gay bishops for now, and temporarily refrain from developing an official prayer service to bless same-gender couples.

'At some level if it becomes clear that the relationship is broken, that there's no possibility for a new life in that relationship, then the pastoral thing to do is to find a creative way to separate, a gracious way to separate,' Jefferts Schori said. 'I hope we don't have to go there. My hope is for finding life that is still present in relationships, and if we go the separation route, the door is left open and the lights on.'

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's Investiture Sermon

2006-11-04T12:35:00.000-06:00

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached at her November 4 investiture service, which was set in the context of Holy Eucharist at Washington National Cathedral. The full text of Jefferts Schori's sermon follows:

Investiture
4 November 2006
National Cathedral

Where is home for you? How would you define your home? A friend in Nevada said to me just before I left that he had thought I would only leave Nevada to go home, and in his mind, that meant Oregon. But in the six years I spent there, Nevada became home. The state song is even called, "Home means Nevada." And for a place filled with folk who have come from elsewhere, that is quite remarkable – all sorts and conditions of rootless people trying to grow new roots in the desert.

So where is home for you? Des Moines or Anchorage or Taipei or San Salvador or Port au Prince?

What makes it home? Familiar landscape, a quality of life, or the presence of particular people?

Some people who engage this journey we call Christianity discover that home is found on the road, whether literally the restless travel that occupies some of us, or the hodos that is the Way of following the one we call the Christ. The home we ultimately seek is found in relationship with creator, with redeemer, with spirit. When Augustine says "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O Lord" he means that our natural home is in God.

The great journey stories of the Hebrew Bible begin with leaving our home in Eden, they tell of wandering for a very long time in search of a new home in the land of promise, and they tell later of returning home from exile. And eventually Israel begins to realize that they are meant to build a home that will draw all the nations to Mount Zion. Isaiah's great vision of a thanksgiving feast on a mountain, to which the whole world is invited, is part of that initial discovery of a universal home-building mission, meant for all. Jesus' inauguration and incarnation of the heavenly banquet is about a home that does not depend on place, but on community gathered in the conscious presence of God.

In Death of the Hired Man, Robert Frost said that "home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in." We all ache for a community that will take us in, with all our warts and quirks and petty meannesses – and yet they still celebrate when they see us coming! That vision of homegoing and homecoming that underlies our deepest spiritual yearnings is also the job assignment each one of us gets in baptism – go home, and while you're at it, help to build a home for everyone else on earth. For none of us can truly find our rest in God until all of our brothers and sisters have also been welcomed home like the prodigal.

There's a wonderful Hebrew word for that vision and work – shalom. It doesn't just mean the sort of peace that comes when we're no longer at war. It's that rich and multihued vision of a world where no one goes hungry because everyone is invited to a seat at the groaning board, it's a vision of a world where no one is sick or in prison because all sorts of disease have been healed, it's a vision of a world where every human being has the capacity to use every good gift that God has given, it is a vision of a world where no one enjoys abundance at the expense of another, it's a vision of a world where all enjoy Sabbath rest in the conscious presence of God. Shalom means that all human beings live together as siblings, at peace with one another and with God, and in right relationship with all of the rest of creation. It is that vision of the lion lying down with the lamb and the small child playing over the den of the adder, where the specter of death no longer holds sway. It is that vision to which Jesus points when he says, "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." To say "shalom" is to know our own place and to invite and affirm the place of all of the rest of creation, once more at home in God.

You and I have been invited into that ministry of global peace-making that makes a place and affirms a welcome for all of God's creatures. But more than welcome, that ministry invites all to feast until they are filled with God's abundance. God has spoken that dream in our hearts – through the prophets, through the patriarchs and the mystics, in human flesh in Jesus, and in each one of us at baptism. All are welcome, all are fed, all are satisfied, all are healed of the wounds and lessenings that are part of the not-yet-ness of creation.

That homecoming of shalom is both destination and journey. We cannot embark on the journey without some vision of where we are going, even though we may not reach it this side of the grave. We are really charged with seeing everyplace and all places as home, and living in a way that makes that true for every other creature on the planet. None of us can be fully at home, at rest, enjoying shalom, unless all the world is as well. Shalom is the fruit of living that dream. We live in a day where there is a concrete possibility of making that dream reality for the most destitute, forgotten, and ignored of our fellow travelers – for the castaways, for those in peril or just barely afloat on life's restless sea.

This church has said that our larger vision will be framed and shaped in the coming years by the vision of shalom embedded in the Millennium Development Goals – a world where the hungry are fed, the ill are healed, the young educated, women and men treated equally, and where all have access to clean water and adequate sanitation, basic health care, and the promise of development that does not endanger the rest of creation. That vision of abundant life is achievable in our own day, but only with the passionate commitment of each and every one of us. It is God's vision of homecoming for all humanity. [Applause]

The ability of any of us to enjoy shalom depends on the health of our neighbors. If some do not have the opportunity for health or wholeness, then none of us can enjoy true and perfect holiness. The writer of Ephesians implores us to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace – to be at one in God's shalom. That is our baptismal task and hope, and unless each of the members of the body enjoys shalom we shall not live as one. That dream of God, that word of God spoken in each one of us at baptism also speaks hope of its realization.

The health of our neighbors, in its broadest understanding, is the mission that God has given us. We cannot love God if we fail to love our neighbors into a more whole and holy state of life. If some in this church feel wounded by recent decisions, then our salvation, our health as a body is at some hazard, and it becomes the duty of all of us to seek healing and wholeness. As long as children live exposed on the streets, while seniors go without food to pay for life-sustaining drugs, wherever peoples are sickened by industrial waste, the body suffers, and none of us can say we have finally come home.

What keeps us from the tireless search for that vision of shalom? There are probably only two answers, and they are connected – apathy and fear. One is the unwillingness to acknowledge the pain of other people, the other is an unwillingness to acknowledge that pain with enough courage to act. The cure for each is a deep and abiding hope. If God in Jesus has made captivity captive, has taken fear hostage, it is for the liberation and flourishing of hope. Augustine said that as Christians, we are prisoners of hope – a ridiculously assertive hope, a hope that unflinchingly assails the doors of heaven, a hope that will not cease until that dream of God has swallowed up death forever, a hope that has the audacity to join Jesus in saying, "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

And how shall that scripture be fulfilled in our hearing? In the will to make peace with one who disdains our theological position – for his has merit, too, as the fruit of faithfulness. In the courage to challenge our legislators to make poverty history, to fund AIDS work in Africa, and the distribution of anti-malarial mosquito nets, and primary schools where all children are welcomed. In the will to look within our own hearts and confront the shadows that darken the dream that God has planted there.

That scripture is fulfilled each time we reach beyond our narrow self-interest to call another home.

That scripture is fulfilled in ways both small and large, in acts of individuals and of nations, whenever we seek the good of the other, ifor our own good and final homecoming is wrapped up in that.

God has spoken that dream in us, let us rejoice! Let us join the raucous throngs in creation, the sea creatures and the geological features who leap for joy at the vision of all creation restored, restored to proper relationship, to all creation come home at last. May that scripture be fulfilled in our hearing and in our doing.

Shalom, chaverim, shalom, my friends, shalom.

[Congregation responded: Shalom]

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

Welcome to our New Presiding Bishop!

2006-11-03T18:33:00.000-06:00

[Episcopal News Service] On the eve of the investiture of the 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, final preparations for the November 4 service at the Washington National Cathedral are now complete.

Flowers have been arranged, rehearsals completed, and video cameras properly poised.

Gatherings set from coast to coast.

The November 4 investiture service for Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will draw many Episcopalians and Anglicans from all over the world to the Washington National Cathedral. Meanwhile, many others will share in the experience via the live webcast.

Due to the collaborative efforts of the Episcopal Church's Office of Communication and the Washington National Cathedral those unable to journey to Washington, D.C., will be able to access a direct link at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ and watch the service from 11 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time) through the liturgy's conclusion, expected around 1:15 p.m.

A number of dioceses, congregations and seminaries have announced plans to assemble, serve refreshments or share a meal, and watch the service.

Jefferts Schori's alma mater, Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP), plans to view the webcast on campus in the Moore Library in Easton Hall at 2401 Ridge Road in Berkeley, California. Continental breakfast will be served. Those planning to attend should email Jan Parkin, donor relations and communications officer, CDSP, at jparkin@cdsp.edu by November 3, 12 p.m.

"Everyone in the CDSP community, and indeed those in the entire San Francisco Bay Area who are acquainted with Katharine, would love to be present at her investiture," Parkin said. "It's important for us to come together to share in this experience, and so we invited the entire CDSP family for breakfast and the webcast."

Parkin said that although Jefferts Schori is an alumna of CDSP "our excitement goes well beyond that."

"Because we know Katharine so well, we are uniquely excited about what her leadership will mean for the church," she said.

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, 138 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts, will also show the live broadcast of the service concurrent with the celebration of Holy Eucharist.

"The investiture of Katharine Jefferts Schori is about us, not just her," St. Paul's dean, Jep Streit, said. "It is a celebration of the Body of Christ, and our witness to the world, and so we gather to celebrate and give thanks in all the places we live and worship and witness."

Among the many places showing the webcast are:

* Christ Church, 582 Walnut Street, Macon, Georgia, the oldest church in the Diocese of Atlanta, will host a brunch at 10:30 a.m. followed by the webcast in the Cloister Room. All in the Macon Convocation are welcome. For more information call Erin Lake at 478-745-0427 or email erin@christchurchmacon.com.

* Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, will host Eucharist and the webcast. A reception will follow the live broadcast. Call 216-771-3630 or visit: http://www.trinitycleveland.org/.

* St. John's Church on the Green, 7 Whittlesey, New Milford, Connecticut, will show the webcast on a large screen with surround sound. For more information call the church office at 860-354-5583.

* Episcopal Divinity School (EDS), 99 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, will show the webcast for faculty, students and friends, on campus in Sherrill Hall, room 3A. Light refreshments will be served. Those planning to attend should email Dr. Julie Lytle at jlytle@eds.edu. Lytle will host the event and facilitate conversation following the service.

* St. John's Episcopal Church, 48 Middle Street, Gloucester, Massachusetts, will use a large screen and view the webcast with a digital projector. For more information call Mark Nelson at 978-283-1708 or visit http://www.stjohnsgloucester.org/.

* Christ's Church, Rye, New York will show the webcast of the service. For more information email Neva Rae Fox at nrfox@dioceseny.org.

* St. Martin's Church, 15764 Clayton Road, Ellisville, Missouri, will sponsor a group viewing. Call 314-255-1387.

* The Rev. Carrol Davenport, assistant priest at Trinity Church in Kirksville, Missouri, will host a viewing at her home and serve coffee. Email Davenport at davenport1959@yahoo.com.

* All Saints Church, 144 South C Street, Oxnard, California, will present the webcast. For information call 805-483-2347.

* Cathedral Center of St. Paul, 840 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, California, will hold a reception/coffee hour following the webcast. Provost Ernesto Medina will celebrate. For more information call 213-482-2040 ext. 201 or email provost@ladiocese.org.

* St. Michael and All Angels Church, 3233 Pacific View Drive, Corona del Mar, California, will hold a reception following the webcast hosted by the parish's chapter of the Daughters of the King. The Rev. Ellen Hill will celebrate. For more information call the Rev. Martha Korienek at 949-644-0463 ext. 12 or email mkorienek@stmikescdm.org.

* St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 2965 Wycliffe Drive SE, Cascade Michigan, will host a viewing of the webcast preceded by a continental breakfast and coffee.

* St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 231 Sunset Avenue, Sunnyvale, California, will show the webcast. For more information call Courtney Tan, parish administrator, at 408-773-9248.

* Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 100 W. Roosevelt Street, Phoenix, Arizona, will host a webcast viewing with breakfast burritos. For more information call 602-254-7126.

* Trinity Church, 251 East Main Street (Rt. 391) Hamburg, New York, will host a participatory webcast of the investiture service. Coffee will be served. To attend, RSVP sgawron@trinityhamburg.org.

But, if you, like many of us are unable to be at one of these locations in person, then you are invited to watch via internet:

I hope you will watch the service

live streaming here

Saturday morning at 10:55 Eastern Standard Time.

Arguments and Squabbles are Nothing New For Us

2006-10-31T13:00:00.000-06:00

Arguments are nothing new around the Espiscopal Church. Today, I am presenting some historical documents regarding such a squabble which occurred over a century ago regards an Episcopal church, its rector and its Bishop in Chicago. Read through this and notice how similar it sounds to the fighting which is going on now. PAT
Project Canterbury
The Lambeth Conference and the Reformed Episcopal Church

Joint Commission on Approaches to Unity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.
no place: no publisher, 1941.

The Right Rev. E. L. Parsons, D.D., Chairman
The Right Rev. G. R. Fenner, S.T.D.
The Right Rev. W. B. Stevens, D.D.
The Right Rev. R. E. L. Strider, D.D.
The Right Rev. F. E. Wilson The Rev. F. J. Bloodgood, Secretary
The Rev. Angus Dun, D.D.
The Rev. T. O. Wedel, Ph.D.
The Rev. A. C. Zabriskie, S.T.D.
The Rev. H. R. Robbins, D.D. Wm. L. Balthis
Clifford P. Morehouse
Dr. K. C. N. Sills
J. C. Spaulding
Alexander Guerry Associate Members

The Right Rev. G. A. Oldham, D.D.

The Right Rev. Spence Burton, S.S.J.E.

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FOREWORD

At the Lambeth Conference of 1888 a statement was presented on behalf of the American Bishops regarding Holy Orders in the Reformed Episcopal Church. No action was taken by the Conference but the statement was received and printed in the record (see The Lambeth Conferences of 1867, 1878, and 1888—pp. 359-363).

In the past few years conversations have been held between a Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A. and a similar Commission of the Reformed Episcopal Church, resulting in further investigation and the uncovering of information which was evidently not available to the Bishops in 1888. In view of what has been brought to light the Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church believes that the statement presented to the Lambeth Conference in 1888 should be reconsidered as the first step toward reaching a working agreement with the Reformed Episcopal Church. Since no action was taken on the original statement, there is no resolution to be rescinded or amended. But since the statement does appear in the record, it seemed proper and courteous to the members of our Commission that a review of the whole matter should be laid before the present members of the Lambeth Conference, raising the question as to whether any objection would be felt toward such a reconsideration and toward working out a possible plan of intercommunion between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Reformed Episcopal Church based on the information contained in this brochure.

Accordingly the following resolution was presented and adopted by the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church meeting in General Convention in October of 1940:

RESOLVED, That the House of Bishops authorize the Commission on Approaches to Unity to prepare a brochure on the question of Holy Orders in the Reformed Episcopal Church with special reference to the report made to the Lambeth Conference on this subject in 1888; that copies of the brochure be sent to all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion; that the replies of the Bishops be presented to the House of Bishops and that any further action should be contingent on the nature of these replies.

To carry out the purpose of that resolution the following pages have been written. They are sent to the Bishops with the request that replies should be sent to

THE RT REV FRANK E. WILSON, D.D.,
Bishop of Eau Claire,
510 S. Farwell St.,
EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN, U. S. A.

For the Commission on Approaches to Unity,
All Saints Day, 1941.

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THE SCHISM

Perhaps it was a case of nerves following a great war.

In any case, whatever the cause, the years immediately after the close of the Civil War (from 1865 onward} saw a wave of controversy sweep over the Episcopal Church in the United States. The points at issue had to do with Churchmanship, ritual and ceremonial. Arguments waxed stormy and feelings were brittle. People were easily offended. Matters which might have been passed over at other times were magnified into vital issues.

In this highly charged atmosphere a difference arose between the rector of a parish in Chicago and his Bishop. The rector was the Rev. Charles Edward Cheney and the Bishop was the Rt. Rev. Henry John Whitehouse, both men of strong character. Whatever other factors may have contributed to the general situation, the issue as it finally emerged centered around the use of the word "regeneration') in the baptismal office. Dr. Cheney refused on conscientious grounds to use any parts of the office which contained references to "regeneration". The matter was brought to the Bishop's attention and he called Dr. Cheney to account for mutilating the service and for denying the Church's doctrine. So the issue was joined and the controversy over Churchmanship was for the moment focused at this point, partisans ranging themselves on one side or the other.

On June 12, 1869, Bishop Whitehouse appointed a committee consisting of two priests and one layman to examine the case and, if the evidence appeared to warrant it, to present Dr. Cheney for trial before a diocesan court. This committee made its presentment on June 21, 1869, and on the same date a citation was issued by the Bishop to Dr. Cheney giving him a list of eight Presbyters from which, in accordance with the canons of the Diocese of Illinois, he was requested to select not less than three or more than five to act as assessors at the trial over which the Bishop would preside as Judge. Dr. Cheney having failed to respond to this request, the Standing Committee of the Diocese, again in accordance with the diocesan canons, selected five assessors from the list submitted.

Thereupon Dr. Cheney entered a formal protest to the assessors who now constituted the Ecclesiastical Court, raising various technical objections to the procedure. These objections were overruled by the Ecclesiastical Court. Dr. Cheney then filed a bill in the Superior Court of Chicago (a secular court) asking an injunction against the Ecclesiastical Court from proceeding with the trial. A temporary injunction was granted. The question was carried to the Supreme Court where the action of the lower court was reversed, the injunction dissolved and the Ecclesiastical Court left free to proceed with the trial.

However, during the course of this legal sparring, one of the assessors on the Ecclesiastical Court, the Rev Henry Niles Pierce, was consecrated Bishop of Arkansas, thus severing his connection with the Diocese of Illinois and disqualifying himself as a member of the Court. Over Dr. Cheney's objection the remaining four members sitting as a Court, found him guilty as charged and recommended his suspension from the exercise of his ministry. The Bishop pronounced the sentence of suspension. Dr. Cheney objected that the Court was incompetent to act because the vacancy of Bishop Pierce had never been filled and the diocesan canon provided that "the court being duly constituted by the presence of the requisite number of Presbyters, they shall receive such evidence as may be adduced etc." He therefore refused to recognize the sentence of suspension and continued to exercise his ministry in his parish Church without interruption.

On March 27, 1871, a second presentment was made to the Bishop against Dr. Cheney charging him with contumacy because of his disregard of the sentence of suspension. A new Court was formed consisting of five assessors. Dr. Cheney was adjudged guilty and his deposition was recommended. The sentence of deposition was duly pronounced by the Bishop, June 2, 1871. This also was completely ignored by Dr. Cheney who continued to hold services and exercise his ministry as before in his parish Church with the consent and approval of his Wardens and Vestrymen.

At a convention of the diocese held later in the same year, 1871, a long resolution was adopted in which the antecedent course of events was reviewed and it was resolved "that legal proceedings shall be taken to prevent the further diversion and maladministration of the property and revenues of the said parish of Christ Church, Chicago, and to effect the rescue of the same for their legitimate and godly uses". In pursuance of this resolution a civil suit was instituted in the Circuit Court of Cook County seeking to enjoin the Wardens and Vestrymen from continuing Dr. Cheney as rector and from allowing him to occupy the rectory and use the Church building for conducting services and from paying him a stipend from the funds of the parish.

It was in the trial of this civil suit that Dr. Cheney and his attorneys argued the incompetency of the original Ecclesiastical Court. They claimed that the sentence of deposition issuing from the second Court was void because it depended on the sentence of suspension issuing from the first Court and that the first Court was incompetent to act because the vacancy created by the removal of one of its members had never been filled as the canons required. Under date of August 15, 1874, Judge E. S. Williams handed down his decision in which he said:

"I cannot avoid the conclusion that the court, which the standing committee of the diocese had selected for the trial of the defendant Cheney, was, in view of his express stipulation and their election, under the well settled rules of law, a court of five presbyters, and their presence and consequent action was necessary at all stages of the trial . . . and that the action of the four assessors (no one of them having willfully withdrawn), in finding said Cheney guilty, was unauthorized and void . . .

"The second trial of Mr. Cheney was based upon his contumacious conduct in not submitting to the former sentence of suspension . . .

"If the views above expressed are correct, it follows that neither of the verdicts of the assessors was of any validity. Upon the first trial there was no court present during the examination of witnesses nor at the rendition of the verdict. The second presentment was based wholly upon the contumacious conduct of the accused in not obeying a sentence which I have declared void, and therefore the finding of that court was of no validity". [1]

Thus the civil court presumed to invalidate the sentence of deposition and left Dr. Cheney in full possession of his rights and privileges as rector of the parish of Christ Church, Chicago.

Counsel for the Diocese of Illinois thereupon appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The decision of the lower court was upheld by the Supreme Court but (and this point is significant) on other grounds than the invalidity of the sentence of deposition. In fact the Supreme Court said quite plainly that as a civil court it was concerned only with the question of property rights and not at all with matters of ecclesiastical discipline. The following paragraph written by the Supreme Court simply disregards the bulk of the argument written by Judge Williams for the lower court:

"We shall, in considering the question, assume, although the fact is denied by Cheney, that he was, by the proper church judicatory, deposed from the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, because of non-conformity with certain of its tenets." [2]

Parenthetically it should be added that this whole question was recently submitted to Mr. James G. Mitchell, a Churchman, an attorney of New York City, and a member of the Presiding Bishop's Commission on Ecclesiastical Relations. After careful examination of all the records he has prepared an extended memorandum in which he finds the argument of Judge Williams regarding Dr. Cheney's deposition to be entirely unwarranted and considers the above paragraph taken from the decision of the Supreme Court to be a rebuke to the lower court from which the appeal was taken. Mr. Mitchell cites authorities in support of the thesis that a civil court in the United States has no jurisdiction for the review of a question of ecclesiastical discipline under the provisions of canon law. [3]

Whatever anyone might think about it, Dr. Cheney and his Vestry retained control of the Church property while the Protestant Episcopal Church continued to count him as a deposed priest.

Naturally these proceedings created quite a furor throughout the Church and those who sympathized with Dr. Cheney on grounds of Churchmanship largely rallied to his support. In fact the situation became so acute that a separatist movement was definitely launched under the leadership of the Rt. Rev. George David Cummins, Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky. Under date of Nov. 10, 1873, Bishop Cummins addressed a letter to the then Presiding Bishop stating briefly his case and saying "I, therefore, leave the communion in which I have labored in the sacred ministry for over twenty-eight years, and transfer my work and office to another sphere of labor". He then issued a call to clergy and laity who held convictions similar to his own to meet with him in New York City on Dec. 2nd to revise the Prayer Book and reform the Church.

Seven clergy and about twenty laymen attended the meeting over which Bishop Cummins presided. Out of it came forth the Reformed Episcopal Church. The Proposed Prayer Book of 1785 was adopted as the official formulary and standard of worship. [4] It was also at this meeting that Dr. Cheney was elected to be their first Missionary Bishop. Twelve days later, on Dec. 14, 1873, in his own parish Church in Chicago Dr. Cheney was consecrated to the episcopate by Bishop Cummins.

This was the origin of the Reformed Episcopal Church and it was through these two men that their Orders were derived and their ministry constituted.

THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE

To the Lambeth Conference of 1888 was presented "A statement in regard to Ordinations or Consecrations performed by Dr. Cummins, or others claiming Ordination or Consecration from him, prepared by the Presiding Bishop of the American Church, the Right Rev. John Williams, D. D., L.L. D." At the end of the Statement appear the names of A. Cleveland Coxe, Wm. Croswell Doane, and George F. Seymour, "Committee on behalf of the American Bishops". A perusal of the Statement impresses one with the fact that the atmosphere surrounding the whole question was still highly inflammable. It is almost entirely concerned with the circumstances connected with the consecration of Dr. Cheney and says that "four things must be taken into account—(1) the condition of the Consecrator; (2) the act itself; (3) the service used; and (4) the condition of the person said to be consecrated . . . "

(1)—Regarding the first of these four points, "the condition of the Consecrator", the Statement goes on to say: "Bishop Cummins had not been deposed, and therefore his act, however inconvenient, cannot, so far as he is concerned, be counted as having no force. He was, however, acting in the face of canonical obligations".. [5] This would appear to concede that the condition of the Consecrator, however unfortunate, was not such as would impair the validity of the consecration.

(2)—Regarding point two, "the act itself", the Statement says: "The Consecration itself is, clearly, utterly uncanonical, though, of course, not, PER SE, invalid". In other words, it was obviously irregular without being invalid.

(3)—Regarding point three, "the service used", two questions are raised. In the first place the Statement says that it is not known what form was employed and therefore it is impossible to say whether it was sufficient. In the second place, exception is taken to certain remarks contained in Bishop Cummins' sermon preached during the consecration service, which, it was said, impeached his "intention" of conveying the historic episcopate. Let us consider these two objections as (a) and (b).

(a) Evidently somebody saw to it that a public record should be preserved of that service of consecration. It was reported in full in the Chicago Tribune of Dec. 15, 1873—not merely a description of the service but the service itself in full form covering several closely printed newspaper columns. [5]. After the reading of the Gospel Bishop Cummins made the following announcement: "I desire to state to the congregation, before announcing the next hymn, that the prayer-book used on this occasion is the Prayer-Book of 1785, as set forth by the First General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in that year, presided over by the Rev. Dr. White, afterwards Bishop White. The Litany to be used this morning, and the Communion Service, are also from the Prayer-Book of 1785". Now it happens that the Proposed Book of 1785 contains no Ordinal but Article 19 of the Articles of Religion in that Book simply adopts the Ordinal of the English Prayer Book "excepting such parts as require any Oaths inconsistent with the American revolution".

An examination of the service used for Dr. Cheney shows that it actually was the Service of Consecration taken from the English Ordinal with a few verbal changes which we shall note. The important features are all present. The special suffrage in the Litany was used without change; the Interrogatory is the same except for one additional question; Veni Creator was said over the kneeling candidate; and the prayer for grace, immediately following, was used without change; at the laying on of hands Bishop Cummins used the following form—"Take thou authority to execute the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost''; the delivery of the Bible followed together with the exhortation as in the English Book; the special prayer before the benediction was used without change.

Certain variations from the English service are to be noted. The presentation was made by two presbyters (of course, there were no other Bishops available), using the following form:

"Reverend brother in Christ, we present unto you this godly and well-learned man, to be consecrated to the office and work of a Bishop".

The following question was added to the Interrogatory: "Will you faithfully feed the flock of God, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; nether as being lord over God's heritage, but being an example to the flock?"

The form used at the laying on of hands is different from that in the English Ordinal but is the equivalent of the alternative form in the present American Book for the ordination of priests. It is also to be noted that the presbyters joined in the laying on of hands but not in the recitation of the words.

The opening words of the Collect are slightly different: "Almighty God, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, give grace, we beseech Thee, to all Bishops and other pastors of Thy Church . . . " The Epistle and Gospel are among the alternatives provided in the English service—namely ACTS 20:17 and ST. MATTHEW 28:18 FF.

Other changes are trifling, such as using "we" instead of "I".

Bishop Cummins officiated alone as Consecrator at this service. There were no co-consecrators. There was not the minimum number of three Bishops which has been the historic practice of the Church at least as far back as the Council of Nicaea. This constitutes an irregularity but does not in itself create invalidity. For instance, the whole Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States was initiated when John Carroll, Roman Catholic Bishop of Maryland, alone consecrated four Bishops—and Carroll himself had previously been consecrated by a single Bishop in England.

Thus it would appear that the form of service used for Dr. Cheney which was unknown to the American Bishops in 1888 is now available for public scrutiny; that it contains the elements which are historically essential to the transmission of valid episcopal Orders; and that this portion of the objection contained in the Statement to the Lambeth Conference may no longer be considered sound.

(b) It is quite true that some things were said by Bishop Cummins in his sermon at this Consecration service which were scarcely up to Anglican standards. But certain facts must be kept in mind. It must be remembered that this service was the culmination of a heated controversy which had been gathering momentum over a period of years and that the preacher was undoubtedly driven to extreme statements to justify his extraordinary action. It must also be remembered that however inadequate his interpretation of episcopacy may have been, he did intend to convey the Historic Episcopate as is clearly indicated by the fact that he used with only trifling variations the "matter" and "form" of the Ordinal of the Church of England. And it must further be remembered that Dr. Cheney understood himself to have been made a Bishop in the full sense of the word, that he said so repeatedly, and that he so comported himself during more than a quarter of a century of his subsequent episcopate in the Reformed Episcopal Church. It should also be added that the careful preservation of the Episcopate has been one of the peculiar marks of the Reformed Episcopal Church from that day to this. An adaptation of the unanswerable arguments pronounced by the English Archbishops in their reply to the papal encyclical "Apostolicae Curae" in 1896 should be sufficient to resolve any doubts as to the "intention" connected with the consecration of Dr. Cheney.

(4)—Regarding "the condition of the person said to be consecrated" a curious analogy is adduced dating back to the year 457 A. D. when the Emperor Leo I circularized the Bishops preparatory to extruding Timothy Aelurus, the Monophysite candidate, from Alexandria. The Bishops of Cappadocia and the Bishops of Galatia both replied that a deposed presbyter was ineligible for the higher order. This is said to constitute a precedent affecting Dr. Cheney's eligibility for consecration. It is difficult to see a real parallel between these two situations separated by so many centuries and under such totally different conditions. Moreover one might well be reluctant to press the analogy too far in view of the cloud resting over the proceedings against Dr. Cheney which resulted in his deposition. If one is dealing in technicalities, one cannot escape the fact that the decision of a secular court is a matter of record which invalidates Dr. Cheney's deposition under the provisions of the Church's own canons. One might question the right of a secular court to render such a decision (just as one might question the position of the Emperor Leo as a secular ruler) but one can scarcely ignore it in passing judgment on the whole complicated state of affairs. And it is ignored completely in the Statement made to the Lambeth Conference, in spite of the fact that there was a body of opinion in the Church at that time which quite agreed with the scholarly Dr. Fulton, editor of the Church Standard, that the "sentences of suspension and deposition pronounced upon Dr. Cheney were illegal, uncanonical, and therefore utterly void; hence he was never suspended nor deposed".

The Statement to the Lambeth Conference also makes incidental mention of the only other consecration at which Bishop Cummins officiated—namely that of the Rev. W. R. Nicholson, a presbyter who left the Protestant Episcopal Church in order to enter the newly constituted Reformed Episcopal Church. The real burden of the argument, however, rests on the Cheney case and the Nicholson case simply goes along with it. Through these men the Historic Episcopate has been preserved in the Reformed Episcopal Church and the episcopal succession has been carefully maintained from this beginning.

It is well known that there have been irregularities among the Reformed Episcopalians in the course of more than half a century of struggle to maintain an effective ministry. On one occasion when there were only two bishops available for the conferring of episcopal Orders a Methodist bishop was called in to make a third and on another occasion a Moravian bishop was used for the same purpose. Such departures from Anglican tradition are disconcerting but they do not necessarily affect the technical validity of the Orders conveyed. It is also true that there have been instances of ministers received from Protestant communions into the ministry of the Reformed Episcopal Church without any episcopal ordination at all. On Feb. 16, 1938, an officially appointed Commission of the Reformed Episcopal Church gave assurances that there were no such instances existing at that time. Again it is disconcerting but it would have to be expected that irregularities would occur in times when the storms of controversy were raging. The question to be decided is whether they are of sufficient weight to warrant an entirely negative answer regarding the validity of Holy Orders in the Reformed Episcopal Church.

CONCLUSION

Conversations have been initiated between a Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church and a similar Commission of the Reformed Episcopal Church. There are hopeful indications that the acerbities of a past generation are ready to be set aside in favor of a frank discussion of the possibility of reconciliation. The Statement of the American Bishops to the Lambeth Conference stands definitely in the way of progress in this direction. A fresh and probably less biassed study of the whole situation has brought to light information which was evidently not available in 1888 when the Statement was prepared. That information is presented herewith.

Therefore it is now proposed that the Statement to the Lambeth Conference of 1888 should be considered as a significant document of an earlier generation but with no current authority and that it should not be allowed to stand in the way of negotiations looking toward the healing of this particular schism—provided always that necessary safeguards should be erected on those matters which have been or still are points of issue between these two bodies of Christian people.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES

[1] Decision of Judge E. S. Williams taken from the Chicago Legal News, Vol. VI, pp. 382-384, 389-392.

[2] Calkins v. Cheney (1879) 92 Ill. 463.

[3] Again parenthetically, the writer of this pamphlet would like to express his agreement with the conclusions reached by Mr. Michell—namely, that it is an intrusion for the civil courts to venture decisions in matters of ecclesiastical discipline. Furthermore I believe the objection raised by Dr. Cheney was purely technical and outside the merits of the case. I also believe that if his objection had been entirely met and a new court appointed in the first place, the outcome would have been exactly the same. Nevertheless, these legal complications are deserving of consideration because they have a bearing on one of the points raised in the statement of the American Bishops to the Lambeth Conference, in which statement they are completely ignored.

[4] The Proposed Book of 1785 was a suggested revision of the English Prayer Book for use in the United States after the Revolutionary War. It was withdrawn in favor of the revision of 1789 which was adopted as the official formulary of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

[5] On Nov. 15, 1866, Bishop Cummins had been regularly and canonically consecrated a Bishop. No question has ever been raised as to his own Orders.

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Project Canterbury

Trinity Church Starts British Bell Ringing Practice

2006-10-30T00:25:00.000-06:00

Wall Street church starts British bell-ringing practice
The Associated Press

By VERENA DOBNIK

October 28, 2006

You think you just pull the rope and the bell rings, but there's a rhythm to it and you have to pay attention. It's not as easy as it looks. Wall Street heard the sound of 12 bells on Saturday _ announcing God, not money.

While the bell that opens the stock exchange was silent, the landmark Trinity Church at the top of the street rang $1 million worth of new chimes, pealing for hours according to a mathematical formula dating to the Middle Ages.

The so-called 'change-ringing' bells _ the only 12-bell set in the United States _ were installed about five years after the terrorist attack on the nearby World Trade Center that filled Trinity with ash and debris. The church was closed for two months after the attacks.

'I am delighted to continue the tradition begun in the 18th century when the British introduced change bell ringing to the colonies,' said Martin 'Dill' Faulkes, a British computer entrepreneur who worked on Wall Street in the 1980s and financed the project. 'The glory of change bell ringing is perhaps even more resonant in today's stressful environment.'

Starting at 1 p.m. Saturday, a 'band' of British ringers started pulling the sallies at the Episcopal church for a full peal of at least 5,000 'changes' _ each a mathematically calculated sound sequence for all dozen bells, instead of a particular melody. The rich cascade of sound was to be heard again on Sunday morning.

The Rev. Mark Sisk, bishop of New York's Episcopal Archdiocese, was at the altar to bless the ringers, including Faulkes, himself a change-ringer since he was 12.

He had first contacted the church about the project before the terrorist attack. Last year, Faulknes donated $1 million to refurbish the bell tower and 10 older chime bells, and to install 12 new swing bells that were created at the Taylor Foundry in Loughborough, England.

The bells _ ranging in weight from a few hundred pounds to over a ton _ were cast by pouring a molten bronze alloy into molds that were hand-crafted using a mixture of sand, water, chopped hay and horse manure.

On Friday, the inaugural chime was rung, but not a full peal.

'I had a rope-handling lesson, and it was quite humbling,' Trinity's vicar, the Rev. Anne Mallonee, said after a practice session earlier in the week. 'You think you just pull the rope and the bell rings, but there's a rhythm to it and you have to pay attention. It's not as easy as it looks.'

The bells swing 360 degrees from their frames as they're rung using 30-foot ropes, producing the shimmering sounds whose patterns change hour after hour. The more bells are involved, the longer they can be rung without repeating a pattern. For instance, six bells have 720 permutations, while 12 can go through 479,001,600.

'The hardest part is learning to control a half ton of metal with a rope,' said parishioner Tony Furnivall, who is organizing Trinity's own 'band' of ringers. 'The way you control it is by pulling not too hard. The bell does the work.'

At the end of three and a half hours _ as long as the dozen-bell peal usually takes _ 'many of the ringers will be in a trance,' he said.

Change ringing dates back to the Middle Ages, with techniques refined in the 18th century still being used now. The first peal in England was rung in 1715; the first in North America in Philadelphia in 1850 _ but with fewer bells than those at Trinity. The National Cathedral in Washington has 10 bells.

Starting Nov. 13, Trinity will offer training to anyone interested in change-ringing, which is practiced at about 50 American churches including Boston's Old North Church. The teenage Paul Revere was a ringer there.

Trinity, a classic example of Gothic Revival architecture consecrated in 1846, dominated the lower Manhattan skyline as a beacon for ships sailing into New York Harbor. With Alexander Hamilton buried in its graveyard, Trinity is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

___

On the Net:

Trinity Church: http://www.trinitywallstreet.org
The North American Guild of Change Ringers: http://www.nagcr.org

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

Archbishop Williams Meets With Presiding Bishop-Elect Jefferts-Schori

2006-10-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

Lambeth Palace in background, Griswold on left, Rowan Williams in center, Jefforts-Schori on right.

Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts-Shori met Oct. 27 with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in a closed-door session at Lambeth Palace in London to discuss the state of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
Introduced to Archbishop Williams by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, the three met for 90 minutes without aides present in Archbishop Williams’ office. The meeting was requested last spring by Bishop Griswold in order to introduce the person elected to succeed him.

Bishop Griswold told Anglican Communion News Service afterward that the discussions had been “cordial and collegial.” Bishop Jefferts Schori said she welcomed the opportunity to meet with Archbishop Williams and noted the three had shared a “frank conversation about challenges in the Communion.”

Prior to the meeting, sources close to the archbishop told The Living Church that Archbishop Williams intended to ask Bishop Jefferts Schori what her response would be as Presiding Bishop to the recommendations found in paragraph 144 of the Windsor Report. Paragraph 144 states:

Because of the serious repercussions in the Communion, we call for a moratorium on all such public Rites [of same-sex blessings], and recommend that bishops who have authorized such rites in the United States and Canada be invited to express regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached by such authorization. Pending such expression of regret, we recommend that such bishops be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.

The question holds particular pertinence for Bishop Jefferts Schori, who as Bishop of Nevada authorized clergy to perform same-sex blessings. Archbishop Williams’ question should not be viewed as an attack on the presiding bishop-elect, sources said, but an example of the didactic method he frequently uses in examining difficult issues.

Archbishop Williams has also dismissed suggestions that the request for alternate primatial oversight (APO) was schismatic, privately telling the bishops in a recent letter that he considered them to be “faithful catholic bishops” within the Anglican Communion.

Writing in response to a private letter sent to Archbishop Williams in which the Camp Allen bishops affirmed their desire to be fully compliant with the recommendations of the Windsor Report, Archbishop Williams responded that he was grateful for the “tone” and “direction” of the meeting. He also expressed a desire for the Camp Allen bishops to be “magnetic” among The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. At the same time, he also made known that he has no desire to expel anyone from the communion of the Church.

His preferred solution, according to a bishop who has read the letter, remains an Anglican Covenant which would allow bishops and dioceses to opt in or out of full membership within the Anglican Communion.

Following the Lambeth Palace meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council announced that its secretary general, Canon Kenneth Kearon, would attend the Nov. 4 investiture of Bishop Jefferts Schori, while the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England would be represented by the Bishop of Lincoln, the Rt. Rev. John Saxbee. The choice of Bishop Saxbee, president of the Modern Churchpersons Union, observers note, was made as a mark of respect for the presiding bishop-elect, as the MCU is one of the Church of England’s leading progressive advocacy groups.

Article written by (The Rev.) George Conger for Living Church.

Sexual Abuse of Children Among Anglicans

2006-10-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

I was a little reluctant at first to print this item in the blog. By contrast to the Roman Catholic Church in the USA, we Episcopalians have seen very little of this sin. We did have the instance of Father Bennison who has since been relieved of his duties, but we have seen nothing similar to the situation of the Anglicans in Australia as described in this report prepared by Jill Rowbotham. We Episcopalians know that Bishops who have same-sex attraction to others but who live quietly with a single partner for years and female Presiding Bishops are NOT the problem, regardless of what many Anglicans may claim about us. PAT

Paying for sins
The sexual abuse of children has had an expensive and long-lasting impact on the churches that let it happen or tried to cover it up, writes Jill Rowbotham
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 24, 2006

Seeking redress:

AFTER more than a decade of damage control over the sexual abuse of children, the churches are still picking up the pieces. Spectacular revelations are few and far between these days, but look no further than the plight of Adelaide's Anglicans to see that many dioceses will go on compensating victims for years to come.
In the City of Churches, Anglicans face servicing a $9 million loan that's needed to finance payouts to more than 70 alleged victims of pedophile church workers. More than 30 in that group have received $4.5million collectively after accusing former church youth worker Robert Brandenburg of abuse. Brandenburg committed suicide on the eve of his arrest in 1999.

Archbishop Jeffrey Driver will oversee a lengthy program of financial recovery that will involve a 10-year levy of 1 per cent of income, to be paid by parishioners, and asset sales including the tennis court at his historic residence, worth up to $2 million, and a church camp site in the Barossa Valley.

It is not the first time churches have had to sell off their assets to make up the shortfall in funds available for payouts to victims of pedophiles: the Anglican diocese of Tasmania sold its bishop's residence for a similar purpose.

In August, arguably the most notorious Anglican case was settled when Beth Heinrich was paid $100,000 in compensation for sexual abuse she claims began in 1954, perpetrated by then church warden Donald Shearman, in Forbes, NSW. She was in her mid-teens at the time and her relationship with Shearman dominated her life. Although she subsequently married and had five children, she later lived with Shearman and miscarried his baby before finally breaking away from him.

Shearman, now 80, went on to become the youngest Anglican bishop in Australia, and the first to be defrocked after Heinrich's story became public.

The Bishop of Bathurst, Richard Hurford, wrote Heinrich a letter in which the church apologised unreservedly for Shearman's "sexual abuse and moral corruption of a minor". But Shearman was not the only bishop to take a fall over the tragedy. Notoriously, then governor-general Peter Hollingworth, who had been archbishop of Brisbane when Heinrich first complained about Shearman in 1995, also came unstuck in the scandal.

In a television interview in 2002, Hollingworth defended Shearman with the fateful words: "There was no suggestion of rape or anything like that, quite the contrary. My information is that it was the other way round." Outrage followed and Hollingworth resigned in May 2003.

It was Hollingworth's second damaging controversy: the first had been a year earlier over whether he had responded adequately to victims' needs when it came to light that there had been sexual abuse at the Toowoomba Preparatory School in 1990. In December 2001, a Supreme Court jury ordered the Anglican diocese of Brisbane to pay more than $830,000 damages to a female former student of the school who had been sexually abused by the boarding master.

The court case and the size of the payout left the Anglicans shaken. "That scared everybody," recalls the Sydney Anglican diocese's professional standards unit director Philip Gerber. He dates the flurry of victim claims on the churches from the mid to late '90s, triggered by the Wood royal commission into the NSW police force, which released a report on pedophilia in 1997, and to the Toowoomba and Shearman cases.

Church lawyer Rodger Austin notes the rise in reporting of sexual abuse cases reflected a societal trend towards troubled people seeking counselling or family therapy. "Once they were able to talk about it to a counsellor, to acknowledge it, that changed things," he says. "Once that started to happen, people did have the courage to come forward."

But although most cases may have dated from the mid-'90s, victims' groups were forming earlier than that. Broken Rites Australia dates from 1992 and opened a telephone hotline for victims in 1993, staffed by volunteers who are survivors of church-related sexual abuse.

About 90 per cent of the victims who have contacted the organisation since 1993 have been from a Catholic background and more than half have been males who were abused as children.

It is a problem, Gerber says, that has occurred in the vast majority of dioceses in the country, and metropolitan dioceses occasionally contribute some of the costs in settlements made by less cashed-up rural or regional parishes.

For example, the Sydney and Grafton dioceses helped with the payout to Heinrich, although Bathurst bore the brunt.

Although those emboldened by reports of former victims successfully holding the churches to account for its sins over previous decades have stepped forward, innocent people also have been caught up in the momentum. The best known of these is George Pell, who stood down from his role as Archbishop of Sydney in August 2002 while claims he had sexually molested a 12-year-old boy 41 years earlier were investigated. He was cleared in October that year.

Pell's biographer Tess Livingstone quotes his statement from that time at length, including his reference to the ordeal as those "dark weeks", and the strength he found in "the great Christian teachings about suffering, death and resurrection".

The Catholic Church made some significant payouts, including one in 2002 when the St John of God Order paid $3.6 million to 24 men with intellectual disabilities for abuse they suffered in residential care units in Melbourne. Another potential multimillion payout could be in store for the Sydney Catholic diocese if lawyer John Ellis succeeds in his claim. It hinges on abuse he alleges took place when he was a teenage altar boy in Sydney's western suburbs in the '70s. Claiming repressed memory, Ellis has mounted a civil action against the archdiocese, seeking redress against it although the alleged perpetrator, Aidan Duggan, is now dead.

While churches have fought actions brought against alleged pedophile priests and religious workers in the past, it is the exception rather than the rule these days. They have also introduced or finetuned policies that enable them to adopt a methodical approach to complaints and the needs of those making them.

In the Catholic Church this emerged in 1996 as the "Towards Healing" process, which is observed in every diocese except Melbourne, which has its own set of protocols. Since then more than 1000 cases have been brought to "some level of resolution", Catholic national office for professional standards executive officer Julian McDonald says.

"Towards Healing does not attempt to say we give victims compensation but payments have been made in recognition of the fact that some harm has been done," McDonald says. Payments are not capped and there is no national register of how much the church has paid to aggrieved parties.

The Anglicans also operate a set of professional standards units across all dioceses that manage grievances. Gerber concedes Sydney's financial strength in terms of assets and income has been a boon. "We have not had to put any particular funding aside for it," he says.

Gerber estimates about 20 cases have been paid out for various sums under the scheme, but none has topped $75,000. He says ballpark figures for the financial cost to the Anglican Church in Australia to compensate for sexual abuse total about $15 million. This includes $3 million in setting up systems and processes to deal with victims and complaints, $500,000 to $1 million in counselling and meeting immediate needs such as paying bills or paying for retraining, and about $10million in legal expenses including compensation payouts.

"It's tapering off now," he says of the claims. "As far as you can tell, people who wanted to raise issues in the main have done so, although others may come forward."

What's happening in Australia is reflected in overseas dioceses, particularly in the US, where there is no shortage of staggering claims. In 2002 the US Catholic hierarchy held hastily convened talks with John Paul II in Rome over how to manage the worsening situation. In a society as litigious as the US, the realisation that potentially catastrophic financial implications would follow was swift. That year, the Catholic Church in Boston paid $US30 million to settle claims of abuse against one priest.

In 2004 the Catholic archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, dramatically filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which effectively protected it from a $US155 million action involving 50 molestation charges against one priest. Two abuse trials had been set to begin just hours after the announcement but were halted. During the previous four years the archdiocese and its insurers had paid $US53million for the more than 100 claims, the highest per-capita payments made by any diocese.

A year ago, Canada's Supreme Court ruled on a case involving tens of thousands of indigenous people who were sexually abused through many years in schools run jointly by the federal government and the churches. Its decision was that they should receive 75 per cent of their compensation from government and 25 per cent from the churches.

Gerber believes payouts in Australia will never come within range of those in North America: "It's an American phenomenon; even one of our biggest cases was only $800,000. We have probably, by not being litigious, reduced the bill."

Jill Rowbotham is The Australian's religious affairs writer.

Episcopal Nun Begins a New Life

2006-10-18T21:01:00.000-05:00

A former nurse becomes Episcopal nun, devoted to prayer in monastery she began ...

By Liz F. Kay
Sun reporter

October 15, 2006

Irene Forbes Perkins has already accomplished a lot during her life. The registered nurse was the chief executive of a home health care company in Florida. She led a healing ministry and served as senior warden of her Episcopal parish.

But yesterday, she took the final step toward a new life of contemplative prayer as Sister Teresa Irene of the Heart of God, the founder and coordinator of the first Carmelite order in the worldwide Anglican community.

At a ceremony at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in North Baltimore, the nun dedicated her life to God and to the Episcopal Carmel of St. Teresa, a monastery she has started in Rising Sun with the guidance of Roman Catholic Carmelites.

"In a sense, when you look back, it seems most of my life prepared me for what I'm doing," she said in an interview, listing marketing, running a corporate board and a business among her skills.

"God knew what God was doing," said Perkins, 55. "God usually does."

The Anglican Church began in the 16th century when England's King Henry VIII dissolved monastic communities because he wanted to tax church lands, said Bishop Robert W. Ihloff, leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. But the orders re-emerged in Anglicanism in the mid-1800s, the Rev. Gregory Fruehwirth, the vice president of the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas, said in a telephone interview from Wisconsin.

Some Roman Catholic religious orders have counterparts in the Anglican communion, which includes the Episcopal Church in the United States. Like their Catholic equivalents, the approximately 2,400 members of Anglican religious orders worldwide vow to live celibate, obedient lives and don't have private possessions, Fruehwirth said. There are about 300 members in 23 different Episcopal orders in North America today. In Maryland, 16 members of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor live in Catonsville.

Perkins, who grew up in Cincinnati, said she began the process of becoming a nun at the age of 21, but she left the Episcopal Community of Transfiguration after five years.

Many years later, "my sense of vocation came back to haunt me," she said.

Ultimately, unsure of the right next step, Perkins moved to a cabin in Georgia until "I discovered I was not a very good hermit," she said.

She didn't want to be ordained an Episcopal priest - Perkins said her calling was different. She wanted to join a contemplative Episcopal community - one that maintains a deep life of prayer, rather than emphasizing direct social service - but there weren't any in the United States. So, Perkins spent four years with the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford, England, who draw on the Carmelite tradition, she said.

Perkins came back to the United States after the attacks on the World Trade Center. "I just had a sense that I needed to be here," she said. "I needed to be in this country, with, so to speak, my own people."

But returning to America meant she would have to form her own contemplative community. Perkins did so with the assistance of the Baltimore Carmel, a community of Roman Catholic Carmelite nuns in Lutherville.

The Baltimore Carmel was founded more than 200 years ago - the first group of women religious in what were then the 13 American colonies. "In a way, she's made contact with us in a view of that long tradition, that long history that we have," said Sister Constance FitzGerald, the prioress, in an interview. She gave the sermon yesterday.

"We believe that the world can be transformed by how we live together and how we pray," FitzGerald said.

Carmelites "live a large part of their day in silence," Perkins said. "If I wasn't founding a community, it'd be easier to do that," she said.

People work in silence and alone as much as possible. "I just painted a whole house," Perkins said, referring to the house in Cecil County her order is using. "I did a lot of praying with a roller in my hand." But two hours is set aside for purely recreational talk each day.

She's not alone. In addition to Perkins, one man and one woman have formally promised to join the Episcopal Carmel as lay oblates and two more are preparing to do so. Perkins' group also will receive its 15th associate tomorrow. (Associates follow a less strict rule of discipline than lay oblates.)

The community purchased a 3 1/2 -acre property in Rising Sun this summer. They're supported not by the diocese but through donations from "people who believe that what we're doing has value," Perkins said. "So far, the bills are paid."

Three years ago today, on the feast day of Carmelite reformer St. Teresa of Avila, FitzGerald and Ihloff heard Perkins' profession of first vows. Yesterday, Perkins, wearing an off-white cape on top of her brown-and-white habit, prostrated herself before the altar of the cathedral.

Ihloff then blessed a gold wedding band by sprinkling it with holy water and placed it on her ring finger as a symbol of her consecration and covenant with God.

Sister Alice L. Reid, a member of the Episcopal Community of Transfiguration in Eureka, Calif., who was Perkins' first novice master, said afterward that Perkins' act was courageous.

"I guess none of us would be here if our own foundresses hadn't done it," she said.

liz.kay@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2006, The Baltimore Sun

So They Want Something to Complain About, Eh?

2006-10-10T22:56:00.000-05:00

Is anyone here old enough -- other than me -- to remember back in the 1950-60's when _our_ priests faced the altar and largely chanted the BCP (1928 edition, but of course)? About the time the Roman Catholics decided to revise things and have _their_ priests begin facing the congregation and doing such other 'strange' things as inviting congregational participation in the mass (such as singing hymns) _our_ priests began facing the congregation also.

Until that point in time, early 1960's, when the RC Church made that major overhaul, Catholic congregations had absolutely _no idea_ what singing hymns was all about,(and we Episcopalians were not a lot better); RC had no experience in doing so, no examples, etc. When the Vatican decided all should sing -- and the Pope got that idea from the Protestants, in an effort to make their services 'more relevant to the common man' -- their Bishops had no idea how this would be implemented, but a Commission was established by the Catholic Bishops who formed a non-profit entity to compile hymns and publish a book of them. That Commission or committee was known as FEL, or Friends of the English Liturgy.

Although mostly Catholic musicians, choir directors, etc were on the committee, a few of us who were there as 'token Protestants' were also on board to assist with the editing, the choice of hymn tunes, etc, otherwise the Catholic Bishops would still be scratching their head wondering about it.

Now as you probably know, hymns are a sort of 'religion unto themselves'; that is, most hymns appear in _everyone's hymnal_. Our Hymnal 1982 (actually it was published and distributed in 1984) contains many of the same hymns which appear in the Baptist or Methodist hymnals. Our hymnal (and the ones used by Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and whoever) contain poems and matched-up hymn tunes written by whomever. No one in the hymn book business cares about anyone's _religion_, just if their poem touches the heart, and the tune is lively enough. Go through our hymn book or anyone else's: a mishmash of tunes and poems from God-only-knows who and what formal religious beliefs the author had. It is very rare than a tune and poem were written by the same person or at the same time.

With that in mind, that compilers sit down and pick lots of poems, 'meter them out' and then match up lots of well known tunes, the Roman Catholic Bishops asked the Protestant church musicians to help them compile their own. The Catholic bishops sort of gave imprimateur to the whole thing, oversaw the process to make sure none of the poem lyrics were that much away from accepted Roman Church theology, etc.

A dozen or so of us worked in an office in Chicago, down the street but in the complex of the Archdiocese of Chicago; an office on the back side of the Cathedral of the Holy Name, the archdiocese church there. For about a year and a half, early 1960's -- we met in the cathedral with an organist and a choir; we went through at least two dozen protestant hymnals; the choir sang the hymns one after another; the committee members would listen to the singing, note the words, decide which ones to include and what to drop, etc. The committee even decided to include the well known "A Mighty Fortress is Our God", with the tune of J.S. Bach and the poem attributed to a monk named Martin Luther; the monk who started the rebellion against the R.C. church as it was modeled in the middle ages.

Finally we had narrowed it down to about 200-250 hymns for the 'new' (really first time) Catholic Hymnal from Friends of the English Liturgy. Off we went, back to our office to begin editing and proof-reading our selections. Each of us had a 'signature' (a collection of several pages) which was our personal responsibility. Make certain all the musical notes were correct; all the words were correct, etc

Then we had to 'sign off' on our work and pass it to the person next to us, who rechecked all our work. Then they signed off on it and passed it around again, sort of round-robin style. Each of us had to proof-read the poetry and the musical notes for everyone else's 'signature' or part of the book. The theory was a set of fresh eyes would catch further errors, etc.

Finally we got it all finished after another year or so and off it went to the printers and the bindery. As it began coming back from the printer, the proof reading process began all over: each of us took a section of the finished book looking for errors, initialed it and passed it around the room. Finally it appeared all was finished, our product was ready for the final printing, binding, and distribution, etc. We were so proud of our work! And the Catholic Bishops all liked it as well ...

The first print run started in distribution to Catholic parishes ... about a week afterward, the FEL office got a rather strange note from a Catholic nun -- a sister -- at a small parish in Iowa. Her letter said,

Dear Hymnbook Editor,
I know that as a result of the Vatican Council, our church has become a lot more liberal than in the past ... but did you really mean what you said in Hymn 93?
Yours sincerely,

(signed by the nun).

Assuming that the nun was merely lodging a complaint about the theology presented, and not liking the new format, we sat her letter aside saying, "What is the old biddy complaining about? This is the new church, and a new era." Just as casually, and with a straight face I walked over to the bookshelf and took down a copy of the new hymnal and flipped to that page. I read it over and over, checked out the tune, the meter, etc. I could find nothing wrong at all. I casually asked a co-worker to look at it and he read it over for five minutes or so then suddenly he let out a gasp and said "My God, take a look at verse 3!" I looked at it again and still saw nothing wrong.

It was the hymn "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee, God of Glory, God of Love" by Henry Van Dyke. And sure enough, in the line which proclaims "Jesus Giver of Life Immortal" the /T/ in immortal had been dropped by accident, so the nun was complaining about 'life immoral' . We very quickly got the proof-reading plates and somehow managed to squeeze a 't' in the proper place when the next batch of books was going out.

And just imagine: some of the more conservative Episcopalians (the ones who are grumbling now and threatening to leave -- or have left the church) are not merely complaining about Vickie Gene Robinson -- although he is the icing on their cake -- but they also complain about the newer BCP and in some instances the 1982 Hymnal. I sure am glad we got that 'Jesus Giver of Life Immoral' caught before another set of books was printed for the Roman Catholic people!

PAT

A Bit More Early History of Epiphany and St. Paul's in Coffeyville

2006-10-09T00:14:00.000-05:00

The first dozen years of our parish in s.e. Kansas (1872-1884), we shared priests-in-common with Coffeyville our neighboring community to the south. We attribute our founding to The Reverend Archibald Beatty, who met with a group of interested persons to form Friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Independence, Kansas on April 22, 1872.

St. Paul's Church in Coffeyville [which had been founded in 1869 by Colonel Coffey] was also started by Reverend Beatty, whom they have described in their historical documents as a missioner. Reverend Beatty served Coffeyville for two years in 1872-73.

But St. Paul's says that Reverend Levi Holden was their first full time vicar between 1873-76.

Our historical records show that Levi Holden was our second full time pastor, between 1876-78. Apparently, Reverend Holden left Coffeyville and 'came north' to Independence that year to stay with us for a couple years.

Then, Reverend Beatty returned to Epiphany in Independence for another year in 1878-79. In 1879-1880, Reverend Charles H. Canfield -- whom our records indicate was a missioner -- served Independence in that capacity, however St. Paul's records in Coffeyville show 'Reverend C.H. Canfield' was the rector there between 1878 and 1881. Apparently Reverend Canfield did 'double duty' during much of that time serving both Independence and Coffeyville.

On the first meeting of Epiphany Parish in April, 1872, Bishop Vail attended services, administered confirmation to a small class, and conferred with the newly formed Vestry regards other duties for Father Beatty. Father Beatty would be given a salary of $500.00 per year, and his duties would include missoner work in Neodesha, Elk City, Fredonia, and Coffeyville (my emphasis).

Reverend Beatty was primarily employed as a chaplain for the Santa Fe Railroad while all this was going on. Santa Fe, then as now, ran passenger trains from a terminal in Chicago, Illinois to the west coast, passing through Topeka, Kansas en-route. (Thus the name, 'Atchison [Kansas], Topeka [Kansas] and Santa Fe [New Mexico] Railroad'. Its a good thing Father Beatty had some other source of income (the railroad). Southeast Kansas was /still is a very rural area and we were not able to pay him all that well. Plus which, in 1873 his rectory burned to the ground, and among other tragedies for the Beatty family, an epidemic of Spiral Menengitis spread through town and affected one of the children.

Then November 23, 1879 through February, 1880, Reverend C. H. Canfield took charge of Epiphany Parish in Independence. He is listed as the third rector at St.Paul's in Coffeyville, 1878-1881.

Coffeyville then had a succession of pastors over the next twenty years through the early years of the twentieth century while Epiphany/Independence was essentially dormant. Arthur S. Freese, the pastor at St. Paul's in Coffeyville, 1903-1908 took on Independence as one of his responsibilities in 1903 for about one year.

Then, as you know, if you have been following this blog for a few months now, 1904 saw a renaissance at Epiphany Church in Independence, and lots of very nice, very major changes. But just as Epiphany and Ascension Church (Neodesha) have much in common from our early years, so does Epiphany and St. Paul's in Coffeyville. Where we were incorporated in 1873, St. Paul's was incorporated in 1878 and Neodesha in about 1900. St. Paul's opened their 'new' building at 7th and Elm in Coffeyville in 1912, Ascension in Neodesha opened their 'new' building in 1904 and of course we at Epiphany opened our new building in 1924-28 at 4th and Maple Streets in Independence.

Arson Suspected in Church Blaze

2006-10-02T19:06:00.000-05:00

Arson suspected in church blaze
3-year-old building in Hartford sustains estimated $1 million in damage
By SCOTT WILLIAMS
swilliams@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 30, 2006
Hartford - Shocked parishioners were left hoping to rebuild after St. Aidan's Episcopal Church sustained an estimated $1 million in fire damage Saturday in what might have been the latest in a series of local arsons.

St. Aidans Episcopal Church Fire

Firefighters were able to save a cross from the steeple after an early morning fire Saturday destroyed St. Aidans Episcopal Church in Hartford.

Quotable
The building can be rebuilt, but our church is our congregation.

- Brian Schrunk,
a congregation leader

"It's terrible," said Elda Sexton, a member of the church, which was built just three years ago at 670 E. Monroe Ave.

Investigators said they believed the fire that broke out about 3 a.m. was intentionally set.

Fire Chief Paul Stephans said investigators were trying to determine whether the blaze was related to other suspicious fires that have occurred recently in a Hartford garage, some vehicles and trash bins.

Noting that the church fire was the most serious yet, Stephans said, "It does appear that, if this was the work of the same person, it has escalated."

Joining the investigation were Hartford police, the state fire marshal's office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Investigators posted a $5,000 reward for information leading to a suspect.

In a prepared statement, the Fire Department cited evidence of "a rash of other arson fires" in Hartford.

The Rev. Michael Tess, pastor of the church, said his devastation grew more intense after he heard that an arsonist had targeted the church, which opened just three years ago after a lengthy fund-raising and building effort.

"This is malicious," Tess said. "It hurts even more now."

According to the Fire Department, the church was found in flames shortly after 3 a.m. after a nearby resident telephoned authorities to report smelling smoke. Firefighters battled the blaze for about three hours with help from neighboring fire departments.

Although the structure was not destroyed, Stephans said, damage was nearly $1 million - roughly the same amount it took to build the church.

"It may be damaged to the point of being beyond repair," the chief said.

Parishioners gathered for a prayer service Saturday outside their charred sanctuary, and they planned to return today for regular Sunday services under a tent.

Brian Schrunk, a leader of the congregation, said he was grateful that the fire did not break out while worshippers were inside.

"The building can be rebuilt," he said, "but our church is our congregation."

St. Aidan's began five years ago with about 30 families and has grown to 120 families.

Church members said they had no reason to believe that an arsonist would target the Episcopal congregation for any specific reason.

Stephans would not say what caused investigators to conclude the fire was intentionally set, although he said there were "indicators left on the scene."

William Boswell, an investigator with the state fire marshal's office, declined to comment.

Parishioner Barbara Lindert said the fire made her angry, because the congregation's many years of planning and fund raising had nearly been undone.

Lindert, however, was already thinking about rebuilding.

"We've got a tough row to hoe," she said. "Just say a prayer for us, because I think we're going to need it."

Anyone with information about the St. Aidan's Church fire can call the Wisconsin Arson Hotline anonymously at (800) 362-3005

Thanksgiving Service at the National Cathedral

2006-10-01T00:36:00.000-05:00

In the message from last week giving an invitation to the National Cathedral for the installation of the new Presiding Bishop, I did not realize how many readers here had never had an opportunity to visit the Cathedral before, or see its beauty, so to give you an idea of just what you missed there, you might enjoy seeing a video production of last year's Thanksgiving service. This is a 56-minute production, which aired on Thanksgiving last year. It includes the adult and the children's choir of the Cathedral, and the Washington Choral Society. The Dean and Vicar of the Cathedral is the morning preacher.

Watch it here

Invitation to the National Cathedral

2006-09-27T18:44:00.000-05:00

Cathedral requires advance free passes to Presiding Bishop seating liturgy

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Washington National Cathedral

[Episcopal News Service] The seating of the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, will take place at the 11:00 a.m. All Saints service on November 5, at Washington National Cathedral, the day after her investiture.
The service is open to the public but passes will be required. This is a recent change in the cathedral's policy about this service.

To request passes, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Installation 2006
Washington National Cathedral
Massachusetts & Wisconsin Avenues NW
Washington, DC 20016

Please include the number of passes you are requesting (limit of two per request). No group requests will be honored; no e-mail or faxed requests will be honored. Passes will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis. Instructions for accessing the cathedral will be mailed with the passes.

Jefferts Schori will preside and preach at the service, which will include formally seating her in the Presiding Bishop's official chair.

General-admission tickets to the November 4 investiture are due to be sent out from the Episcopal Church Center later this week or early next week.

Episcopal Migration Ministries

2006-09-25T23:53:00.000-05:00

Share the Journey

Because there are between 11 and 14 million refugees in the world today and millions more internally displaced persons; because immigrants and newcomers within our borders are increasingly denied basic civil and human rights, and because the plight of refugees and immigrants is too often ignored or not fully understood, Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) continues to carry out the ministry to the uprooted it began over 60 years ago to resettle refugees, advocate with and for immigrants, and raise awareness of the plight of the uprooted in our church. The Gospel mandate to extend hospitality to strangers and our Baptismal covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons calls us to this ministry.

Our network of 33 affiliate offices in 27 dioceses of the Episcopal Church, numerous parishes, and countless volunteers sustain this ministry of hospitality. As long as the crisis persists for refugees and immigrants, EMM will pursue its mission and mandate to welcome the stranger. You are invited to share the journey with all who seek safety and security within our borders and throughout the world.

Resettlement
EMM carries out, with other faith-based and secular agencies, a national program of refugee resettlement through a public-private partnership with the U.S. government. Resettlement is the most tangible and central component of our ministries. EMM affiliate offices and parishes in one third of the dioceses of the Episcopal Church participate in our resettlement work. Refugees are received from all parts of the world and sponsorship is offered to refugees without regard to national origin, race or religion. Click here to learn more about our resettlement program

Advocacy
EMM takes seriously the call to accompany the least of our brothers and sisters, serving them as companions and advocating for their protection and welfare. EMM is the voice of the Episcopal Church speaking on behalf of refugees and other vulnerable immigrant groups, advocating for legislation and public policies, consistent with the resolutions of the Episcopal Church, which enhance the protection and well being of refugees and at-risk immigrants such as migrants and those seeking asylum in the U.S. Click here to learn more about our advocacy work.

Outreach
Though EMM’s mandate is principally to serve refugees and immigrants, sharing news about our mission and ministry with Episcopal congregations and providing Episcopalians with an opportunity to reach out to these strangers in our midst is also vital to our work. We educate churches on the plight of refugees and immigrants, make resources about the uprooted available for use in worship services, and provide the means for parishes to become involved in both our advocacy and resettlement ministries.

Read more about Episcopal Migration Ministries here.

Remembering Rita, A Year Later; Episcopalians Continue to Help

2006-09-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

By: Mary Frances Schjonberg
Posted: Thursday, September 21, 2006

A year ago this week, the Gulf Coast of the United States received the second of the 2005 hurricane season's two-fisted punch.
Coming less than a month after Hurricane Katrina, Rita grazed the Florida Keys and Cuba as a category 2 hurricane on September 21 and made landfall between Sabine Pass, Texas, and Johnson's Bayou, Louisiana, on September 24 as a category 3 hurricane with winds clocked at 115 mph.

More than 100 people were killed by Rita and the storm's aftermath.

The storm destroyed homes, businesses, and the economy of several coastal communities in Louisiana, including those in the areas of Vermilion, Creole, Cameron, and Port Lafourche. Thousands of houses were swept away and local industries, especially shrimping and oyster farming, were devastated. The hurricane destroyed the town of Cameron and destroyed or damaged many homes beyond repair in Abbeville and Sulphur. It is estimated that Rita's assault resulted in 8.7 million cubic yards of debris.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported Rita's storm surge reached 15 feet at the Cameron Parish shoreline and up to 12 feet at the Vermilion Parish coastline and at St. Mary Parish near Louisa, along the southwestern Louisiana coastline. The surge also swamped areas of the southeastern coastline that had been devastated by Katrina.

More than 365,000 Louisiana households and businesses registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for help as a result of Hurricane Rita. More than 110,000 registered in Calcasieu Parish and nearly 18,000 in Vermilion Parish. The combination of Katrina and Rita prompted what some called the largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

The Episcopal Church has been deeply involved in the work of the past year as the Gulf Coast began to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In states that were reeling from the devastation caused about a month earlier by Hurricane Katrina, evacuations were ordered and Episcopal Relief Development (ERD) prepared to assist the areas likely to be damaged by Rita's force before the storm hit.

In the very early days of the aftermath, ERD partnered with the Diocese of Western Louisiana to assist parishes reaching out to displaced people in the region, to supply food and shelter, and to prepare for involvement in programs for trauma counseling, psychosocial care, and help with the unmet needs of vulnerable populations.

ERD also assisted with evacuation and relocation expenses, and helped in coordinating the diocese's disaster recovery activities and work with a coordinator to organize collection and relief points in the Lake Charles and Acadiana convocations, which includes the Vermilion parish and the area near Abbeville and Sulphur.

ERD pledged early on to work with diocesan partners to develop a long-term, comprehensive rehabilitation program to help communities affected by both hurricanes.

More information about the work of ERD and Episcopal Migration Ministries is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_77345_ENG_HTM.htm, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_69050_ENG_HTM.htm, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_69050_ENG_HTM.htm, http://www.er-d.org/newsroom_64626_ENG_HTM.htm

On September 22, 2005, the bishop and several staff members of the Diocese of Texas evacuated their homes and offices in Houston in advance of Rita's landfall and relocated to Camp Allen, the diocesan conference center in Navasota, Texas. Camp Allen also housed residents of the diocesan nursing home and another nursing home, and many others took refuge there as well.

Then archdeacon, now Bishop Suffragan-elect Dena Harrison relocated to Austin with backup files for the diocesan office. The diocesan offices told congregations to do the same: secure their documents and historic valuables and follow local authorities' evacuation instructions.

All roads leading out of Houston became snarled with evacuees, some of whom had to abandon cars that had run out of gas. Carol Barnwell, diocesan communication director, reported that it took three-and-a-half hours to travel 26 miles. The usual four-hour drive to Dallas was more than 10 hours, Barnwell said.

The neighboring diocese of West Texas offered to house evacuees in the face of Rita's approach.

Forty-eight hours after Rita hit, Diocese of Western Louisiana Bishop Bruce MacPherson wrote to the diocese praising the "witness of Christian care and concern, and for the outpouring of support across the diocese as people from within the Diocese of Western Louisiana came north seeking a place to stay, and in their midst, Katrina evacuees that had begun to go home, found themselves returning to the many places of shelter being provided to those who came from the Dioceses of Louisiana and Mississippi."

"A major difference in our ability to care for all who came this time, was the fact that we ourselves had been struck and our infrastructure wounded," he wrote. "Power resources failed along with telephone systems across the affected areas, which were almost statewide now as a result of the two storms. This was further complicated by the failure of our water systems across the central part of the diocese, an area that has literally housed thousands of evacuees."

MacPherson spent two days trying to contact the diocese's clergy, and reported locating them all. "As I made contact with the last person this day, and having found him two states east of here, I stated I truly understood Jesus' parable about the lost coin, for he and his family were my lost coin," he wrote.

In Rita's aftermath, the Diocese of Texas began working with outreach coordinators around the diocese to get help to where it was needed. In one instance, Harrison drove in the middle of the night to meet the senior warden of a parish to deliver a check. They met at an abandoned gas station several miles outside of town since there was no way to drive into town.

Help came for individual parishes as well. For instance, St. Martin's Episcopal Church in suburban Houston raised more than $300,000 for hurricane relief in the days after Katrina and Rita, according to Sally Harvin, the parish's volunteer outreach coordinator.

The parish was immediately able to help ten families get back on their feet by helping them find work, pay bills and purchase cars. A number of parishioners "adopted" family members last Christmas and gave them gifts, Harvin said.

In the midst of St. Martin's initial work, a container of supplies arrived from the Seattle Supersonics and the WNBA Seattle Storm. The two professional basketball franchises had donated money and supplies, and coordinated donations from their fans. Harvin said she was never quite sure how the parish was chosen to receive one of the five containers the teams shipped to the Gulf Coast, but outreach volunteers put the supplies to good use. At one point, Harvin loaded up her SUV and headed to St. John's in Silsbee, in hard-hit southeast Texas, near Beaumont, where she dropped off cleaning supplies and other necessities.

All told, the parish was able to help 145 household consisting of about 400 people, she said.

While St. Martin's parishioners did much for the victims of Katrina and Rita, Harvin said they also had some experiences that will further the church's mission in the future. "We raised up a lot of new volunteers," she said. Those volunteers and the work they have done were recognized during worship services on September 17.

Some of those volunteers are now trained as case managers who are forming what the parish is calling the Community of Compassion.

"It has definitely made our members more sensitive to help in times of need," she said. "It's hard to say just where it's going, but it's still going."

© 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS.

IRS Goes After Liberal California Church

2006-09-21T11:54:00.001-05:00

PlanetOut Network

SUMMARY: All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena, famous for championing gay rights and opposing the Iraq war, is in danger of losing its tax-exempt status.

With the campaign season in full swing, a liberal Pasadena, Calif., church is locked an escalating dispute with the IRS over an anti-war sermon -- delivered two days before the 2004 presidential election -- that could cost the congregation its tax-exempt status.

Religious leaders on both the right and left are watching closely, afraid the confrontation at All Saints Church in this Los Angeles suburb will compromise their ability to speak out on issues of moral importance such as abortion and same-sex marriage during the midterm elections.

Under federal tax law, church officials can legally discuss politics, but to retain tax-exempt status, they cannot endorse candidates or parties. Most who do so receive a warning.

According to the IRS, the only church ever to be stripped of its tax-exempt status for partisan politicking was the Church at Pierce Creek near Binghamton, N.Y., which was penalized in 1995 after running full-page newspaper ads against Bill Clinton during the 1992 election season.

Before this fall's congressional races, the IRS warned that it would be scrutinizing churches and charities -- important platforms, particularly for Republicans -- for unlawful political activity.

All Saints is an Episcopalian church of about 3,500 -- the largest west of the Mississippi -- and has long had a reputation for liberal social activism among its largely affluent, Democratic-leaning membership.

During World War II, its rector spoke out against the internment of Japanese-Americans. The Rev. George Regas, who headed the church for 28 years before retiring in 1995, was well-known for opposing the Vietnam War, championing female clergy and supporting gays in the church.

The dispute centers on a sermon titled "If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush'' that Regas delivered as a guest pastor. Though he did not endorse a candidate, he said Jesus would condemn the Iraq war and Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war.

"I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: 'War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq,' " Regas said, according to a transcript.

The IRS reprimanded the church in June 2005 and asked that it promise to be more careful. Church officials refused.

Last week, the IRS demanded documents and an interview with the rector by the end of the month. Church officials will probably fight the action, said the rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon. That would mean the IRS would have to ask for a hearing before a judge.

"You can't talk about the love of the neighbor without talking about public policy," Bacon said.

Pastors elsewhere echoed those sentiments.

In South Dakota, where citizens in November will vote on the nation's most restrictive abortion law, preachers have taken classes to avoid breaking federal law.

"I would think that that speech should not be censored and neither should ours," said the Rev. Ron Traub of the Pasadena case.

Traub, senior pastor at the First Assembly of God in Sioux Falls, S.D., said he never mentions candidates by name but tells his congregation to vote for the abortion ban and for politicians who espouse the church's values.

"When the IRS comes into my pulpit and tells me I cannot speak on issues, on spiritual and moral issues, I believe my congregation will be willing to stand with me and say, 'If you want to take away our IRS status, go ahead, "' he said. "The only approval that we need is the approval of God."

Steve Miller, commissioner of the IRS tax-exempt and government entities division, would not comment on the specifics of the investigation but denied the agency had any partisan agenda.

"It's a delicate area, there's no question," Miller said. "But we are not trying to curtail people's right to speak."

Miller said the agency completed investigations of 90 tax-exempt churches and charities in 2004 and found wrongdoing in 70 percent of the cases. Four -- none of them churches -- lost their tax-exempt status. In 2005, the agency began audits of 70 churches and charities and has 40 cases pending so far this year.

Earlier this year, IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson promised more robust enforcement.

In recent years, Republicans in particular have teamed with conservative evangelical leaders to motivate would-be voters, a strategy credited with helping President Bush win re-election. Intensified IRS enforcement could erode the relationship between religious and political leaders, according to some political strategists.

"The IRS action will hinder the ability of some of the churches to make their lists available, to make their pulpits available, to make their sanctuaries available," said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

Others say the All Saints case will barely affect politicians' use of churches.

All Saints has been known as "a headquarters for political activity'' since the 1970s, said Steve Frank, a GOP consultant who organizes churches for political campaigns. The IRS is probably using the sermon as an excuse to investigate the church's expenditures, Frank said.

"It's not a question of the IRS going after one ideology. They're going after anybody that violates the law," he said. "The reality is it doesn't stop a minister from teaching . . . what they believe is the truth within the Bible."(Gillian Flaccus, AP)

Copyright 2006 Associated Press.

The Story of Kevin

2006-09-16T00:40:00.000-05:00

This report comes to us from Sorrels DeWoody, a long-time member of Epiphany Church (and my ride home most Sundays after the coffee hour). Thank you, Sorrels, for this great contribution. PAT

Don't start reading this one until you've got more than 3 or 4 minutes to just "scan" over it. It deserves some time for reflection.

I envy Kevin. My brother Kevin thinks God lives under his bed. At least that's what I heard him say one night.

He was praying out loud in his dark bedroom, and I stopped to listen, "Are you there, God?" he said. "Where are you? Oh, I see. Under the bed..."

I giggled softly and tiptoed off to my own room. Kevin's unique perspectives are often a source of amusement. But that night something else lingered long after the humor. I realized for the first time the very different world Kevin lives in. He was born 30 years ago, mentally disabled as a result of difficulties during labor. Apart from his size (he's 6-foot-2), there are few ways in which he is an adult. He easons and communicates with the capabilities of a 7-year-old, and he always will. He will probably always believe that God lives under his bed, that Santa Claus is the one who fills the space under our tree every Christmas and that airplanes stay up in the sky because angels carry them.

I remember wondering if Kevin realizes he is different.

Is he ever dissatisfied with his monotonous life?

Up before dawn each day, off to work at a workshop for the disabled, home to walk our cocker spaniel, return to eat his favorite macaroni-and-cheese for dinner, and later to bed.

The only variation in the entire scheme is laundry, when he hovers excitedly over the washing machine like a mother with her newborn child.

He does not seem dissatisfied.

He lopes out to the bus every morning at 7:05, eager for a day of simple work.

He wrings his hands excitedly while the water boils on the stove before dinner, and he stays up late twice a week to gather our dirty laundry for his next day's laundry chores.

And Saturdays-oh, the bliss of Saturdays! That's the day my Dad takes Kevin to the airport to have a soft drink, watch the planes land, and speculate loudly on the destination of each passenger inside.

"That one's goin' to Chi-car-go!" Kevin shouts as he claps his hands.

His anticipation is so great he can hardly sleep on Friday nights.

And so goes his world of daily rituals and weekend field trips.

He doesn't know what it means to be discontent.

His life is simple.

He will never know the entanglements of wealth of power, and he does not care what brand of clothing he wears or what kind of food he eats. His needs have always been met, and he never worries that one day they may not be.

His hands are diligent. Kevin is never so happy as when he is working.

When he unloads the dishwasher or vacuums the carpet, his heart is completely in it.

He does not shrink from a job when it is begun, and he does not leave a job until it is finished. But when his tasks are done, Kevin knows how to relax.

He is not obsessed with his work or the work of others. His heart is pure.

He still believes everyone tells the truth, promises must be kept, and when you are wrong, you apologize instead of argue.

Free from pride and unconcerned with appearances, Kevin is not afraid to cry when he is hurt, angry or sorry. He is always transparent, always sincere. And he trusts God.

Not confined by intellectual reasoning, when he comes to Christ, he comes as a child. Kevin seems to know God - to really be friends with Him in a way that is difficult for an "educated" person to grasp. God seems like his closest companion.

In my moments of doubt and frustrations with my Christianity I envy the security Kevin has in his simple faith. It is then that I am most willing to admit that he has some divine knowledge that rises above my mortal questions.

It is then I realize that perhaps he is not the one with the handicap. I am.
My obligations, my fear, my pride, my circumstances - they all become disabilities when I do not trust them to God's care.

Who knows if Kevin comprehends things I can never learn? After all, he hasspent his whole life in that kind of innocence, praying after dark and soaking up the goodness and love of God.

And one day, when the mysteries of heaven are opened, and we are all amazed at how close God really is to our hearts, I'll realize that God heard the simple prayers of a boy who believed that God lived under his bed.

Kevin won't be surprised at all!

When you receive this, say a prayer. That's all you have to do. There is nothing attached. This is powerful.

FRIENDS ARE ANGELS WHO LIFT US TO OUR FEET WHEN OUR WINGS HAVE TROUBLE REMEMBERING HOW TO FLY.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: there will be something solid for you to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly." (Patrick Overton)

Changing Times Doom Historic Anglican Parish

2006-09-14T23:26:00.000-05:00

Changing times doom historic parish

Dave Rogers
The Ottawa Citizen

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

With only eight parishioners remaining, St. James Anglican Church may have outlived its viability, church officials fear. The region's oldest Anglican church is likely to be put up for sale, along with its cemetery, resting place of many of Ottawa's founders.

With attendance in the region's oldest Anglican church down to eight parishioners, the diocese is contemplating putting the building and land up for sale, along with the cemetery where many of Ottawa's founding fathers are buried.

The last service in St. James Anglican Church, which seats 250 people, was held on Aug. 27 and there will be no more services until the diocese makes its decision later this month.

The stone church on Promenade du Portage was completed a year after the Great Fire of 1900 destroyed Hull and much of Ottawa. But the cemetery dates back to 1801 and was taken over by St. James in 1823. Among those buried there are Philemon Wright, the founder of Wrightville, which became Hull, and Nicholas Sparks, who once owned much of downtown Ottawa.

"This is the oldest Anglican parish in the region," said Anglican Bishop Peter Coffin. "Even the Anglican Cathedral at the end of Sparks Street was a mission of St. James Hull before it was a cathedral because Hull had more people than Ottawa during the early 1800s."

Bishop Coffin, who was the rector of the church from 1976 to 1984, said the exodus of Anglicans from West Quebec during the past 30 years has prompted the need to consider selling. Three of the eight people who attend the church are from Ottawa, one is from Wakefield and four are from the Hull sector of Gatineau.

The first St. James Church opened in 1824 on a lot on Leduc Street donated by Philemon Wright.

The original church was destroyed by fire in 1865 and rebuilt in 1901 at Main and St. James streets, now Promenade du Portage and Rue St-Jacques.

The church includes an altar that marked Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

St. James is not a heritage building, but it can't be changed for two or three more years because the Quebec government has contributed to its preservation.

The church is in a prime downtown location, but Bishop Coffin said the land may be worth more than the building. The church is expensive to heat, the boiler needs to be replaced and the bathrooms are in poor condition.

He said the diocese can't afford to keep the church if only a handful of people use it and even the cost of heating the building is more than the congregation can afford.

"I don't think that there is any other option but to close the church. It is an old stone building and the few elderly people who attend can't afford to maintain it. It is particularly sad for me because I was their parish priest for nine years and the church was my first parish."

Bishop Coffin said he tried to revitalize the church by attracting new members, but that was difficult because the Parti Quebecois had just been elected and anglophones were leaving Quebec.

Rev. Charles Boole, a retired Anglican priest assigned by Bishop Coffin to interview parishioners about the possible closing of the church, said most parishioners had expected it for years.

St. Bernard de Clairvaux, the French-speaking Anglican church that shares the building, will move to a new location because it can't afford to maintain the church by itself.

Rev. Boole said there used to be more people living close to the church, but the city core is now mostly office towers, hotels and restaurants.

"There is a shift in the way society looks at religion nowadays," Father Boole said. "We live in a multicultural, multinational and multiracial society.

"Immigration now comes from the East and no longer from Europe, so there are few Anglicans coming into the area. It's a shame this had to happen, but this kind of thing has been going on in churches over the centuries which end up being in places where the population has moved away."

End Is Near for Area's Oldest Anglican Church

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

Rally to Save Social Services Building in Wichita

2006-09-12T22:41:00.000-05:00

Kansas Episcopalians Rally to Save Social Services Building
09/12/2006

It is wrong for the government to take property without just compensation, according to the Rt. Rev. Dean Wolfe, Bishop of Kansas. He urged a Sept. 9 rally of some 300 supporters of Episcopal Social Services to persist until the Sedgwick County Commission makes adequate provision for the relocation of the agency based in downtown Wichita.

Last year Episcopal Social Services (ESS) served more than 7,000 people during 19,000 visits. The agency operates a variety of programs, including help with employment, education and counseling. In addition, it provides more than 19,000 free hot lunches a year and emergency food assistance. In preparation for construction of a downtown sports arena, the county recently offered ESS $500,000 for its building, but Sandra Lyon, executive director of ESS, said the agency will need at least $1.3 million to purchase and refurbish a new building that meets its needs.

Finding a new facility for the agency is a challenge, given the shortage of suitable buildings in the area. ESS wants to remain downtown, she said, because that is where most of its clients live. It also needs ready access to the bus transit system, since so many clients don’t own cars, and they need a parking lot big enough to accommodate the nearly 100 volunteers who serve there.

There are 26 pieces of property slated for demolition, according to Ms. Lyon, and the county has settled with only three of them to date. One of those, a bar across the street from ESS with a history of police calls for drug and alcohol violations, was offered $915,000 for its building. Ms. Lyon said the county told her it had to factor in the bar’s potential lost revenue but couldn’t do that for a not-for-profit agency like ESS. “We asked them to consider the value of what we do, and there is a dollar value to it, but they said it wasn’t possible to do that,” she said.

The Rev. Steven Mues, rector of the Combined Ministry of St. Alban’s and St. Stephen’s in Wichita, fired up the crowd when he chastised the county for comparing the ESS building to a warehouse in its appraisal process. “This is not a warehouse,” he said. “It is a recycling center, a recycling center for human beings, providing the resources so those who have been cast aside and scratched and damaged and hurt by life can find resources to help them reclaim life and become new beings.”

ESS was founded in 1988 by the congregations of the greater Wichita area with money raised in the Venture in Mission capital campaign. The agency’s building ever since has been known as “Venture House.”

Because ESS did not accept the county’s offer, the agency has been sued to put the matter before a judge for final resolution. Word of that action came the day before the rally.

Melodie Woerman

300 Attend Rally With Bishop Wolfe in Wichita to Save ESS

2006-09-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

300 attend rally for Episcopal Social Services
About 300 people who rallied today outside the Episcopal Social Services building were urged by the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas to continue expressing support for the imperiled charity.

Bishop Dean E. Wolfe asked those in attendance to voice their support to Sedgwick County officials who have moved to condemn building at 233 S. St. Francis to make way for a new downtown arena.

Agency officials said the $500,000 the county has offered for the building is well short of the what would be needed to buy comparable space downtown to continue their work helping the poor and the disabled.

"It is wrong; it is just plain wrong not to care for people who are important to us," Wolfe told the group.

For more on this story, see Sunday's Eagle.

As The World Turns

2006-09-09T01:42:00.000-05:00

As the World Turns

If we could shrink the earth's population to village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 From the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 would be Africans

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all
6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition

(ONE) 1 would be near death;

(ONE) 1 would be near birth;

(ONE) 1(yes, only 1) would have a college education;

(ONE) 1 (yes, only 1) would own computer.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

And, therefore:

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed that three billion people in the world.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If your parents are still alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug them, or even touch them on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer healing touch.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can read this message, you have just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

As you read this and reminded how life is in the rest of the world, remember just how blessed you really are! Attending a diversity circle made me question my own perceptions and those of others, with the result that I now have a more open view of the world. And, I now consider myself an active participant in diversity, instead of an abstract figure or number.

Anoush Greylord
Fond du Lac Diversity Circles Participant

Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold Speaks About 9-11 Fifth Anniversary

2006-09-08T23:28:00.000-05:00

Presiding Bishop's message for the fifth anniversary of 9/11.
As the fifth anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11 approaches, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold calls on all people to commit to "a future in which the events of that day will not be repeated." He also upholds the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals as giving the governments of the world a clear and workable plan for addressing "the vast disparity between the wealth of nations ... and the extreme poverty of nearly half of the world's people."

Listen/View his message here or read the full text in English below:

On a brilliantly clear Tuesday morning five years ago the peace and security many of us took for granted were suddenly shattered. Even as the tragic events of September 11, 2001 ended the way we had looked at the world, they challenged us to see ourselves in a new way.

That afternoon, as streams of stunned New Yorkers made their way uptown past the Church Center heading north, and as far away as they could walk from the devastation, I sat at my desk and wrote a word to the church. I said our responsibility was to "engage with all our hearts and minds and strength in God's project of transforming the world into a place of peace – where swords can become plowshares and spears are changed into pruning hooks."

I said that our challenge was to claim our participation in the Risen Christ's work of casting out fear, and proclaiming to all people the peace that the world cannot give.

Now, five difficult years have passed, and our nation and our world are beset by fear and wracked by violence of almost unimaginable proportions. The war in Iraq is well into its third year and a peaceful resolution seems more distant than ever. Over the past two months violence in the Middle East has escalated. A growing divide separates rich from poor, both within this nation and in the nations of the world, a dynamic that breeds further conflict and instability.
We remain threatened – as last month's foiled airline plot reminded us – by a well-organized and unpredictable network of human beings whose goal is to inflict slaughter and destruction.
And, very sadly: religion is being used not to reconcile, but to divide.

I can think of no better way to observe the passage of five years since the horrific events of September 11, 2001 than to commit ourselves, individually, as a church and as a nation to looking for new ways to pursue healing and restoration in the world God so loves. I can think of no better way to honor the memory of those who died on September 11 five years ago than by committing ourselves to working for a future in which the events of that day will not be repeated.

What, specifically, does this mean for the United States today?

I continue to be guided by the words of our House of Bishops in the weeks following 9/11. Challenging us to "wage reconciliation" in the world, the bishops urged us to "bear one another's burdens across the divides of culture, religion, and differing views of the world."

To accomplish this, I believe our nation first must reclaim its historic identity as a champion of peace in the world. At the present moment, this is nowhere more necessary than in the Middle East. Our nation must play the role not just of a superpower but also of a super-servant – willing to work in a sustained and focused way for lasting peace. This means examining our own nation's relationship to the Muslim world as recommended by the 9/11 Commission. It means understanding how the U.S. is perceived abroad. It means and working to foster mutual understanding – within our own nation and between nations – among all who share a common heritage as the children of Abraham.

Second, I believe it is more urgent than ever that the United States address the vast disparity between the wealth of nations such as our own and the extreme poverty of nearly half of the world's people. The United Nations' Millennium Development Goals give to the governments of the world a clear and workable plan for how this can be achieved. I could not be more gratified that the Episcopal Church's recent General Convention identified the Millennium Development Goals as a mission priority. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and I will soon be releasing a joint pastoral letter on the MDGs that describes how individual Christians can work for United States leadership in the fight against poverty.

Finally, I believe this nation must walk humbly before our God. As the House of Bishops observed in September 2001, such willingness to change course "opens our hearts and gives room to God's compassion as it seeks to bind up, to heal, and to make all things new and whole."
Particularly in working for resolution to the war in Iraq, I pray that hubris not provoke our nation to stay a course that does not appear to be working, and that pride not blind our eyes to alternative strategies. I pray that in the Middle East we will be willing to try – knowing in all humility how great the task – to bring the parties together to find the peace that has so long eluded the suffering people of Israel and Palestine.

Though the challenges facing our world seem even more daunting than they did five years ago, we can place our faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to draw us always into God's work of reconciling the world to himself "by making peace through the blood of the cross." For me, the power of the Cross was never more evident than when I stood at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001. It was the Feast of the Holy Cross, and I had just presided at the Eucharist at the Seaman's Church Institute, which had already begun the task of giving respite to rescue workers and volunteers.

As I was returning from the site of the fallen World Trade Center, I entered a deserted and silent St. Paul's Chapel, an Episcopal Church where George Washington, our nation's first President once prayed.

Though the chapel is just next to Ground Zero, in eerie contrast to the chaos and devastation outside the door, everything was in its place and looked just as it should – except for a fine gray dust which lay everywhere like a blanket. As I stood there, trying to let the experiences and sights of the morning settle within me, I looked toward the altar and my eyes came to rest upon the brass crucifix that hung above it.

Suddenly Jesus' words from the gospel I had just proclaimed at the Eucharist came to me: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people – all things – to myself." In that moment I knew with the full force of my being that the tiny brass arms of the crucifix could contain in their embrace all the horror and destruction and grief and rage occasioned by what had happened.

Five years later, I still know the truth of this. In the power of the Cross lies our hope for today, and tomorrow, and our future. For in baptism Christ's work of reconciliation, achieved upon the Cross, becomes our own. It is costly and demanding work. It is work we cannot carry out on our own. Christ at work in us, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, supplies us with his own strength, endurance and love. And it is Christ who makes it possible for us to withstand the forces of pessimism and despair, and to be ministers of reconciliation and instruments of his peace. My brothers and sisters in Christ: in the days ahead may we be such ministers and instruments.

"Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine."

Join in Lighting a Candle

2006-09-07T00:47:00.000-05:00

On the right hand side of this page, midway down, you are invited to click and enter our 'virtual church' and light one of the candles. These 'virtual candles' are intended as a way to light your way to a coversation with God; it can either be a Thank Offering, a prayer of gratitude, to ask God for help, or perhaps you hve reasons of your own and you wish to speak to God privately for a few minutes.

When you light one of these 'virtual candles' it will stay lighted for 48 hours and although there are thousands of candles on display, you will be able to identify yours if you place your initials on it. Follow the examples given in that section. While you are inside our 'virtual church', in addition to lighting a candle, you'll also have a chance to see our artistic representation of angels, listen to bells and chimes, and Gregorian chants. I hope you enjoy this candle-lighting/viewing experience.

PAT

Bishop Wolfe to Lead Protest Rally in Wichita

2006-09-03T20:50:00.000-05:00

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas announced Friday that he will lead a rally next weekend in support of a charity imperiled by Sedgwick County's plan for a new downtown arena.

The county plans to demolish the Episcopal Social Services building to make room for the construction of the $184 million, 15,000-seat sports and entertainment center approved by voters in 2004.

Officials of the charity say the $500,000 the county has offered for their building is not enough to buy comparable space downtown to continue their work helping the poor and the disabled.

'As a result, the people who will suffer are those who always suffer -- the poor, the homeless and those in greatest need,' Bishop Dean E. Wolfe said in a statement e-mailed to The Eagle on Friday.

County officials have moved to condemn the Episcopal Social Services building and say they won't increase their offer.

They said that would be unfair to other property owners in the arena zone and open a floodgate for them to challenge their offers.

'I understand where they're coming from in light of the fact they think the appraisal is unfair,' Commissioner David Unruh said of the Episcopalians.

But he said the county's offer was based on an independent appraisal, as were all the offers for property in the arena zone.

'We haven't deviated from what our plan was at the start of the process,' he said.

Diocese spokeswoman Melodie Woerman said the idea for a rally emerged in recent meetings with priests of the Southeast Kansas Convocation, a group of a dozen Episcopal churches with 3,500 members in Wichita and nearby communities.

Overall, the diocese covers about the eastern 40 percent of Kansas and has 12,000 members in 46 churches, she said.

The rally is scheduled for Sept. 9 in front of the Episcopal Social Services building, 233 S. St. Francis, at 5 p.m.

'This is a pretty dire situation,' Woerman said. 'If we can bring some light to it, it probably would be a good thing.'

Episcopal Social Services is the only building in the arena zone that was not appraised by Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group, which had a potential business conflict of interest with the charity.

Officials of Martens Group and Hudson Consulting Services, which performed the appraisal, said they are prohibited by their county contract from discussing the case.

Episcopal Social Services provides an array of assistance, including a daily free hot lunch, an employment center, and counseling for troubled teens and their families.

The charity also runs the area's only free, large-scale 'representative payee' program, managing rent and bills for people with mental illness or disabilities.

'It serves the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and in return, the city and county need to support those efforts that serve the common good,' Wolfe said. Episcopal Social Services 'has done its part, but the county commissioners haven't done theirs.'

Church and charity officials said they're especially troubled that the county paid $915,000 to acquire a similar-size building that housed a bar less than a block from the center.

'Anyone familiar with the facts of this situation can see clearly the inequity in how ESS's building has been treated,' Wolfe said. 'The only fair thing is for the county to call for additional appraisals.'

Unruh said the charity will get the chance to make that case when the condemnation goes to court.

As part of that process, the county will have to pay for three independent appraisers to re-appraise the property and report their findings to the court, he said.

'The judge will determine what the fair price is at that point,' Unruh said. 'The process allows for exactly what the bishop is asking for.'

Copyright © 2006 The Wichita Eagle, All Rights Reserved.

Our Life and Death is With Our Neighbour

2006-09-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

Originally posted on 22 August '06 in Theology and the Spirit.

Note to readers:
A guest commentary today from Not Too Much a blog presented by James and Brian, a gay Anglican Christian couple in Canberra, Australia. This blog entry discusses a series of talks given by Rowan Williams entitled "Silence and Honey Cakes; the Wisdom of the Desert". I hope you will enjoy reading it.

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

I've been studying Rowan Williams' Silence and honey cakes: the wisdom of the desert, a series of talks that draws on the wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers. Perhaps one reason why people are reluctant to be witnesses to the gospel is a perception that they should not impose themselves and their views on others. In Silence and honey cakes, Williams shows that this non-imposing attitude is precisely what is needed to win others to Christ, which is central to our own relationship with Christ.

Indeed, awareness of our fallibility and imperfection is indispensable to getting alongside our neighbours. If church people feel tentative about asserting their beliefs, that is exactly the right attitude to carry into a winning relationship with the neighbour, an attitude of journeying together. Failure will not come from a lack of dogmatism, but it will come if we fail to listen, be with and attend to the neighbour as she or he is.

Here are a few extracts from the first of Williams' talks in his book, called "Life, death and neighbours." Williams quotes a saying of St. Anthony, "Our life and our death is with our neighbour. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ."

(Here to 'win' is not about succeeding so that other people lose, but about succeeding in connecting others with life-giving reality.)
Living in the Christian way with the neighbour, so that the neighbour is 'won' -- that is converted, brought into saving relationship with Jesus Christ -- involves my 'death'. I must die to myself, a self understood as a solid possessor of virtues and gifts, entitled to pronounce on the neighbour's spiritual condition. My own awareness of my failure and weakness is indispensable to my communicating the gospel to my neighbour. I put the neighbour in touch with God by a particular kind of detachment from him or her. And, the desert writers insist, this is absolutely basic to our growth in the life of grace. . . .

Everything begins with this vision and hope of putting the neighbour in touch with God in Christ. On this the rest of our Christian life depends, and it entails facing the death of a particular kind of picture of myself. If I fail to put someone in touch with God, I face another sort of death, the death of my relation with Christ, because failing to win the neighbour is to stand in the way of Christ, to block Christ's urgent will to communicate with all. ...

The desert monastics are keenly interested in diagnosing what sort of things get in the way here, what things count as blocking someone else's relation with Christ. They seem very well aware that one of the great temptations of religious living is the urge to intrude between God and other people. We love to think that we know more of God than others; we find it comfortable and comforting to try and control the access of others to God. Jesus himself speaks bluntly about this when he describes the religious enthusiasts of his day as shutting the door of the kingdom in the face of others: 'You do not enter yourselves, and when others try to enter you stop them.' (Matthew 20: 13) ...

To assume the right to judge, or to assume that you have arrived at a settled spiritual maturity which entitles you to prescribe confidently at a distance or above the sickness is in fact to leave them without the therapy that they need to their souls; it is to cut them off from God, to leave them in their spiritual slavery -- while reinforcing your own slavery. Neither you nor they have access to life. You have shut up heaven for others and for yourself. But the plain acknowledgement of your solidarity in need and failure opens the door: it shows that it's possible to live in the truth and to go forward in hope. It is in such a moment that God gives himself through you, and you become by God's gift a means of connecting another with God. You have done the job you are created to do...

The church is a community that exists because something has happened which makes the entire process of self-justification irrelevant. God's truth and God's mercy have appeared in concrete form in Jesus and, in his death and resurrection, have worked the transformation that only God can perform and told us what only God can tell us: that he has already dealt with the dreaded consequences of our failure, so that we need not labour anxiously to save our souls and put ourselves right with God. The church's aim is to be to be a community that demonstrates this decisive transformation as really experienceable. One of the chief sources of the anxiety from which the gospel delivers us is the need to protect my picture of myself as right and good So one of the most obvious characteristics of the church ought to be a willingness to abandon anything like competitive virtue (or competitive suffering or competitive victimage, competitive tolerance or competitive intolerance or whatever). The church appoints to the all-sufficiency of Christ when it is full of people whose concern is not to separate others from the hope of reconciliation and life by their fears and obsessions. A healthy church is one in which we seek to stay connected with God by seeking to connect others with God; one in which we win God by converting one another, and we convert one another by our truthful awareness of frailty. A church that is living in such a way is the only church that will have anything different to say to the world ...

A Broken Window Has to be Repaired So We Can Peek Through it

2006-09-02T13:55:00.000-05:00

A sad event ... one of the better Episcopalian web sites
Peek Through the Window was vandalized not too long ago, and disappeared entirely from the server which was hosting it. Apparently some angry person felt it should be squashed and not available for others. The Webminister is in the process of rebuilding it, page by page, but you might want to look at the repair work going on. Eventually it will all be back together again.

PAT

A Trial by Fire at St. John's Church

2006-08-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

A joyous report of a church which has a rebirth today; after a trial by fire, they said they were returning; and they did. Quincy, Illinois is in the southern part of that state. PAT

By Steve Eighinger
Herald-Whig Staff Writer

At first glance, the sheer beauty is almost breathtaking.

The striking, clean look of the open-beam ceiling dominates the rebuilt nave and altar areas at St. John's Episcopal Church, Quincy's oldest house of worship and one that was gutted by fire four years ago last week.

"This is God's house," said the Rev. H.W. "Sandy" Herrmann, almost in a whisper. "This is where he resides, and there is something special about that."

God's house is open for business again.

The congregation and community will celebrate the rebirth of St. John's during a 4 p.m. service today, a gathering that will mark the rededication and consecration of the church at Seventh and Hampshire, which was originally built in 1852-53. The church itself dates to 1837.

Preceding this afternoon's rededication and consecration will be two morning services at 8 and 10:15.

The $5 million project, beset by construction snafus and assorted other delays, comes to fruition this afternoon when each one of its new 384 seats is expected to be filled.

For Herrmann, it will be an emotional day. This afternoon's service marks the end of his 11 years as rector of St. John's.

Earlier this year, he accepted a pastorate at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church in Denton, Texas, but wanted to stay through the rebuilding of St. John's.

The Rev. Jim Derbyshire of Peoria will serve as interim rector at St. John's while a replacement for Herrmann is sought.

"It's an exciting time," Herr-mann said. "It's a new beginning in a new space, and there is a new mission."

Among the scheduled guests at today's service are Mayor John Spring, former mayor Chuck Scholz, Fire Chief Scott Walker and Police Chief Rob Copley.

"Everyone along the way has been so gracious and so many people have assisted, people who wanted us to get this place back together," Herrmann said. "The city, in particular, has been so helpful."

Also on hand will be the Rev. Keith Ackerman, bishop of the Diocese of Quincy, which is headquartered in Peoria. Ackerman will officiate today's ceremonies, which will begin with a half hour of music at 3:30. A reception will be held in Upson Hall after the service.

St. John's member Don Gnuse, senior warden at the church, said he will always remember other churches in the community stepping forward after the fire. He said denominational lines were non-existent.

Gnuse said St. John's members were offered places to worship and given donations and other forms of assistance from other churches and individuals in the community to help in the rebuilding effort. More than $25,000 was given.

"We would never have seen this day if others had not come forward," Gnuse said. "That's what it's all about and it has left a lasting Christian witness."

Gnuse said it is now time to look forward.

"We were sad four years ago, and there were some tough times," he said. "Now, it is time to rejoice."

The new St. John's is a product of countless workers and technicians, starting with nationally recognized architect Walker C. Johnson of Johnson Lasky Architects in Chicago.

"Walker Johnson is an architect grounded and trained in historic church preservation," Herr-mann said. "He helped us design an interior that matched the historic significance of the period of the 1850s."

At the time St. John's was originally built, the church bell tower and nave cost a combined $10,000.

"We were able to maintain the historic exterior while im-proving on the interior," Herr-mann said. "This is now a 21st century user-friendly church."

Also playing important roles in the reconstruction were architect Darin Prost of Architechnics and general contractor Greg Fischer of A. Fischer Builders, both of Quincy.

"A lot of good friendships have been built through all of this," Greg Fischer said.

Peters Heating and Air Conditioning, Brown Electric, Sparrow Plumbing and Heating, paint contractors A.H. Kemner and Sons, Bill Vonderhaar Masonry, Blick's Construction, Abbey Carpet, Sohn Carpet World, Adams Florist, Brennan and Brennan Law Firm, Classique Signs, Doors-N-More, Doyle Renovating and Construction, Gem City Concrete, Heinz Electric, JK Creative Printers, McClean Concrete, Mitchell's Quik Print, Tel Tech Communications, the Business Centre and Moore's Floors were other contributors to the rebuilding effort.

Each detail of the fire and the ensuing rebuilding project is etched in Herrmann's mind.

"The fire started at 4:04 a.m. Aug. 23, 2002," Herrmann said. "That's when lightning struck the church."

The incredible irony was that fire crews were called to the church twice during the 12 hours preceding the fire. Smoke alarms had gone off, but both times firefighters could not find anything wrong after walking through the building.

The disaster wound up being the proverbial blessing in disguise. Numerous problems were uncovered during the investigation into the fire, including how unsound the structure was.

"The termite damage was so bad that we were told a wind of 40 mph or more could have caused the building to implode," Herrmann said.

Other serious problems also surfaced. Some of the walls were bowed, others needed to be leveled. Later, a debris field 90 feet beneath the surface was discovered, which caused delays in the reconstruction, which originally figured to take between 18 and 24 months.

During the four years of work, services were held in the parish hall. Out front of the damaged building there was always a friendly reminder to passers-by. A sign read "We're Still Here."

"At times, the rebuilding was a painful process," said Ben Miller, junior warden of the church. "But we put our faith in God and (today) is going to be a glorious day."

Maintaining the church's intricate design and workmanship were paramount from the beginning, Herrmann said. For example, all of the church's stained-glass windows were re-moved and warehoused in Peoria. They later were sent to a company in Fairfield, Iowa, to be cleaned and repaired.

Much of church's interior and roof were destroyed, but the stone walls and bell tower were left standing. They served as the framework for the new church.

The pews that will be occupied today came from a church in Joliet that had closed.

"When I contacted (officials) in Joliet, I found that the church was from the same period as St. John's and I asked them if we might be able to purchase the pews," Herrmann said. "After explaining to them what had happened with the fire, they said we could have the pews ... at no cost. They were happy to assist."

Herrmann returned to Quincy last Wednesday to tie up loose ends and begin final preparations for today's service. As he walked through the reminders of a four-year journey, he stopped and looked as construction workers laid the last carpeting, adjusted lights and swept up debris.

There was an obvious feeling of accomplishment present, one that seemed to grip all who have been involved.

"From what we had in the old church, to what we have now ... it's almost as if it is a completely different building," Miller said.

In many ways, it is.

In Herrmann's eyes, there is a reflection of more than simply fulfilling a goal. When he surveys the new St. John's, he is, at times, almost at a loss for words.

"When you walk in, you sense you are in a holy place," he said.

Again.

Contact Staff Writer Steve Eighinger at seighinger@whig.com or (217) 221-3377

Do You Realize or Comprehend the Damage Katrina did to Churches in New Orleans and Mississippi?

2006-08-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

Several months ago, our Bishop, Rt. Reverend Dean Wolfe asked all the churches under his jurisdiction to partner with a sister church either in Louisiana or Mississippi. We have been helping as best we can since that time. I am passing along today an article from Thursday's Christian Science Monitor which discusses just how dire the situation remains there for your consideration. PAT

from the August 24, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0824/p17s01-lire.html
To raise New Orleans, lift churches, pastors urge
By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
African-American churches historically have been the heart and soul of black communities, and the Rev. C.T. Vivian - a Martin Luther King Jr. confidant from Atlanta - believes they hold the key to restoring New Orleans' neighborhoods.
So he and a pastor from the city, the Rev. Dwight Webster, have formed Churches Supporting Churches (CSC), a national initiative to revitalize 36 churches in the 12 hardest-hit areas.

When the levee broke last August, Pastor Webster's house in the devastated Ninth Ward filled with water, and his wife's small business was destroyed. Their Christian Unity Baptist Church was built 12 feet off the ground, however, and is now back in shape. Though some 65 percent of its members are still scattered across the United States, they'll soon be holding services every Sunday.

For other black pastors in the city, the struggle has been even grimmer.

"Almost 80 percent of city churches have been destroyed," says Mr. Vivian, who's been galvanized by the crisis, "and guys have two mortgages - for their home and their church - and no money coming in." Vivian and Webster envision partnerships connecting 10 churches across the US with each local congregation.

CSC is but one of the initiatives the African-American faith community has undertaken to respond to hurricane Katrina's unprecedented impact on the Gulf Coast.

As soon as evacuees were shunted in random fashion onto airplanes, church coalitions formed in several US cities to help evacuees locate family members, resettle, and plan for the future.

Individual black churches have raised huge amounts of money to help those in distress, and they continue to send volunteers and resources to the region. For example, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago gave $160,000 to Dillard University and has a partnership with the school. Fountain Baptist Church in Summit, N.J., has pledged to raise $1 million for Gulf Coast restoration, including funds for job training and housing projects.

A national consortium of black churches - the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference - created a 9/11-style commission to ensure that the voices of those most affected wouldn't be drowned out during the recovery and rebuilding.

The Katrina National Justice Commission - involving leaders from the clergy, academia, business, and the professions - held public hearings this summer in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Houston. Evacuees, first responders, public officials, and representatives of charitable groups told their stories.

Although the US Congress also held hearings, "we felt that African-American churches connect with people that the government would miss or ignore," says the Rev. Otis Moss III, a pastor at Trinity United and a Proctor conference trustee.

The testifiers highlighted, for instance, the particular challenges such emergencies present for those with limited resources, and for citizens who are disabled or immobile in their homes for medical reasons, says the Rev. Dr. Susan Smith, of Columbus, Ohio, the commission chair. "Preparedness plans have to be more detailed than in the past," she says. The need for mental-health support was also apparent, as suicides continue among those affected, she adds.

Commission findings and recommendations will be published early next month. The report will address four issue areas: disaster and relief, the restoration process, public policy, and African-American church and community preparedness. It will call for a federal Katrina assistance fund; a bipartisan commission to monitor the recovery, including contracts; and participation of church and community-based groups in preparedness decisionmaking at every level.

"FEMA and Red Cross testimony affirmed that they were very weak in certain areas, such as cultural competence," says Dr. Iva Carruthers, general secretary of the Proctor conference. The conference aims to provide training for black churches in emergency preparedness.

This Sunday, Aug. 27, there will be special commemorative worship services at Riverside Church in New York City and other sites across the country.

Webster, meanwhile, meets in monthly seminars with other New Orleans pastors struggling to maintain contact with dispersed congregations while rebuilding. (Someone donated a website so his members could keep in touch. He and his family are still in California, which puts him on the "red eye" flight frequently.)

CSC aims to strengthen the health and unity of pastors and congregations as they return to the city and rebuild bricks and mortar as well as the spiritual life of the congregations. CSC hopes to enable them to be agents for change.

"We need to bring neighborhoods back, not just one church here and there," Webster says. "We can do that if we get these 36 churches up."

To accomplish this, CSC is seeking 10 churches from across the US to partner with each local congregation for three years (360 partner churches in all), to help with spiritual, financial, and technical assistance. The National Council of Churches has agreed to act as the group's fiduciary agent; and several denominations and ecumenical groups (including Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, the Baptist Peace Fellowship) have signed on.

The situation remains daunting. But as a pioneer of the civil rights movement, Vivian knows how to persevere and what spiritual resources to draw on. His new dream, he says, is that success in New Orleans "will serve as a model for other parts of the Gulf Coast."

• To contact CSC, call: (504) 915-4987.
Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science Monitor.

We Keep Plugging Along

2006-08-23T21:43:00.000-05:00

Not a lot to report at this time; our Thursday night community suppers are still getting a rather good turnout; We always have enough food to feed a hundred visitors, but sometimes the hot weather has kept people from venturing over to join us; nonetheless, 75-85 men, women and children from the community always come around on Thursday beginning at 5:30 PM. I suggested to our vicar, Father Eytcheson that it would be a good idea to include Evening Prayer starting at 5 PM for anyone who wished to attend prior to the supper, but no answers on that yet.

PAT

Obituary: An Episcopal Parish Reaches a 'Time to Die'

2006-07-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

Church peacefully reaches a 'time to die'
Friday, July 28, 2006
By Charles Honey
Press Religion Editor

WALKER -- The sanctuary of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is eerily empty, save for a few sacred objects: brass candlesticks atop a granite altar, banners hanging from cinder-block walls, an organ fallen silent.

A carving of Christ that once hung above the altar is gone, leaving a cross-shaped outline on a powder-blue wall.

Karen Bryant sits in a back pew and says, "This was home. My grandchildren were baptized here."

So were many others. But after 137 years, St. Paul's has doused its last fussing infant. One of the area's oldest Episcopal churches will be de-consecrated in services Saturday at 10 a.m., officially marking the end of its life as a church.

The Rt. Rev. Robert Gepert, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan, will transform the church, 3412 Leonard St. NW, from a house of worship to a secular building. He will thank God "for the blessings, help and comfort which you bestowed upon your people in this place."

The ceremony follows the congregation's decision this spring to close because of a steady decline in members. Only about 20 weekly worshippers were attending by the time St. Paul's held its final service May 28.

Bryant, a lifelong Episcopalian, worshipped faithfully for the past six years and headed the church council. She loved playing in a music ensemble and reading from the Book of Common Prayer. But in the end, there were just too few people and not enough money, she says sadly.

"It's like a hospice," says Bryant, who manages a Holland medical practice. "We've been struggling, we've been dying, and now we've given up the ghost -- and have been told, 'It's OK to die.' "

Saturday's service ends a proud but troubled history for the church. Originally located on Turner Avenue NW, St. Paul's was founded after the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church felt the West Side needed a chapel.

The cornerstone was laid in September 1869. St. Paul's reached out to Armenian immigrants in the 1890s and survived two fires. But it did not survive progress, moving to Leonard Street in 1961 after the state bought the church to make way for U.S. 131.

It barely survived a court battle beginning in 1979 when a majority of members broke from the Episcopal Church over its liberal policies. Renaming it St. Paul's Anglican Church, the dissidents occupied the church until courts returned the building to the diocese in 1983.

Though the loyal remnant got their church back, they never fully recovered, said the Rev. John Crean Jr., St. Paul's pastor for the last nine years.

"Ever since then it's been on the weak side," says Crean, who retired last fall. "It just didn't have the will to live."

The building will be sold by the Episcopal Diocese but is not yet on the market, said the Rev. Canon William Spaid, chief pastoral assistant to the bishop. Statues and other objects have been given to other churches.

Bryant misses the church and its people, but accepts the end.

"To everything there is a season," she said. "This is our time to die."

Send e-mail to the author: choney@grpress.com

©2006 Grand Rapids Press
© 2006 Michigan Live. All Rights Reserved.

But not all churches are dying ... some are doing quite well, alive and healthy, such as our own Epiphany Church.

More About Your Worship Here With Us

2006-07-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

Why are some people bowing and some are kneeling before entering the pews yet others don't do anything at all?

What you are noticing is called 'reverencing' and people have different ways of doing that. Some bow in the direction of the altar, some 'genuflect' (touch their knee to the floor, others reverence silently or without gesture. You shuld do whatever helps YOU worship God. Do not do whatever hinders your worship of God or makes you uncomfortable.

Why do people touch themselves on the forehead and shoulders?

Again, this is a personal worship style. This is called making the sign of the cross. Some people do it out of habit; others because it reminds them of the price Jesus paid to enable us to respond to God's love; For still others, it commemorates their own baptism or perhaps it is their own way of 'taking up their own cross' and following Him. And some people, you will notice, do not do it at all. It is really a personal religious decision for each person. Do not do it just because you see others doing it. Both reverencing and making the sign of the cross are personal decisions of each Christian to do or not do as they wish.

This all looks very Roman Catholic to me. Is Epiphany Church a Roman Catholic place?

No ... and yes ... Although the ancient Church from which the Episcopal Church sprang was Roman Catholic, the present, modern-day Episcopal Church has practices and beliefs which are distinctly different from those of the Roman Catholic Church.
The important thing is our worship of God, not the specifics of how we do it.

Is anyone going to make me stand up and give my name or anything like that?

No. Not because we do not care; in fact you will find we care very much. We just do not want to embarass you or cause you to feel uncomfortable. But we do hope you will sign our guest book in the lobby as you enter or leave, and that you will linger after services for coffee and refreshments in the parish hall.

Starting Your Worship Here With the Basics

2006-07-21T22:27:00.000-05:00

What are these books in the rack in front of me?

The red book is the Book of Common Prayer. Our entire service and a lot of other stuff is contained in it.

The blue book is our hymnal. The songs we will sing are indicated in the bulletin the Usher gave you and on the hymn boards on the wall in front. The music is played on an organ and on many Sundays we have a choir, although during the summer months the choir takes a vacation. Please feel free to join in the singing.

Why is everyone so quiet?

It is an Episcopal custom to take time before the service to 'say hello' to God, perhaps with a prayer, go over the Scripture readings of the day, the other announcements printed in the bulletin, and prepare in our own way for communion. And by the way, everyone is invited to come to the altar rail for communion, including yourself, if you have been baptized and consider yourself a Christian.

Speaking of which, what is all this stuff I was given when I came in?

The major parts of the service are in the bulletin. The bulletin directs you to the page numbers in the Book of Common Prayer(the red book). The insert in the bulletin has the scripture lessons for the day printed in it. The back of the bulletin has a calendar of events in the week ahead and the schedule of services, etc.

The insert with the day's lessons has a colored top and the title of the particular day in the church calendar. The first prayer, known as the Collect is shown in two versions, the Traditional and the Contemporary. We use the Contemporary version, except during the Advent and Lenten seasons.

The INTERCESSIONS page in the bulletin is a page for prayers. Those listed in the intercessions are persons for whom we offer special prayers. If you would like to add someone to the list, please place their name on a slip of paper in the offering plate.

If You Wish to Come Visit Us For a Service

2006-07-21T22:03:00.000-05:00

First Things First

1. We'd be delighted to have you come to a service, and hope you will return.

2. We suspect you might have questions. Everyone was a newcomer at one time or another, and we've all had questions -- probably the same ones. So -- do not hesitate to ask questions.

3. We want you to be comfortable so you can worship God and enjoy your visit. You can't do that very well if you're wondering what book to pick up next or trying to 'do everything right,' which generally means doing the same thing as everyone else is doing. ... SO ... relax ...

The first rule is: When you are worshipping God, you can't get it wrong!
The second rule is: If you need help, ask the person next to you, or one of the ushers. We like people at Epiphany Church.
The last rule is: Do not do anything which makes you feel uncomfortable, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

You can do whatever makes you feel comfortable and you should not do anything which makes you feel uncomfortable.

If you are wondering "Am I allowed to take communion here?" the answer is YES, if you are baptized and consider yourself a Christian, then WE HOPE YOU WILL SHARE IN COMMUNION (The Lord's Supper or Eucharist) WITH US!

Our Community Free Supper Each Thursday Evening

2006-07-21T21:41:00.000-05:00

Since this is one of my own (your webmaster) ministries, I will tell you just a little about it. Every Thursday evening, 50 or 51 weeks of the year (the exceptions being mostly for Neewollah week each year in October and Maundy Thursday of Holy Week), in cooperation with other churches in Independence offer a free supper meal to the community. It is always held in our parish hall, but the other churches provide the food: United Methodists one week, Presbyterians another week, the Southern Baptists, Lutherans, St. Andrews Roman Catholic Church and the AME churches on still other weeks, and there is a week for us as well. We personally serve the food about once every six to eight weeks, but we provide the space each week. Typically, there are between eighty and one hundred people from the community come for these suppers; some of them are members of the various churches involved but many others have no church affiliation at all but wish to come for the meal.

Most weeks my duty there is as a greeter; I greet the people as they come in (we unlock the parish hall door starting at 5:30 pm) and keep count of the number of visitors for statistical reasons so the cooks know the amount of food which will be needed. The food serving begins at 6:00 PM and the people are generally out and on their way back home or wherever about 6:45 - 7:00 PM. There are many 'regulars' there each week; people whom I suspect depend on us to provide them with a good, wholesome meal. Its really an exciting ministry which I am involved with.

PAT

Palm Sunday, April 2006

2006-07-11T12:44:00.000-05:00

Here are just a few of the marvelous pictures Sorrells Dewoody took of the beautiful Palm Sunday processional into the church in April, 2006. Thank you very much, Sorrells!

About that Ivy Which is Missing

2006-07-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

According to Marty Eidson, our Parish secretary, the decision to remove the beautiful ivy from our buildings in the 1960's was made by Father Rutland, the priest here from 1960-1968 (just prior to Father Brisbane). Marty says Father Rutland claimed it would protect the mortar on the walls ... oh well ...

PAT

The History of Women's Organizations in the Episcopal Church

2006-07-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

1871 ~ General Convention authorized the Board of Missions to organize the Women’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions.

1874 ~ First Triennial Meeting held in New York

We here at Epiphany had started about this same time, and Fr. Beatty's wife and daughter had started early on with a Women's Auxiliary raising money to construct our first church, plus which three women were named to the Building Committee by Father Beatty, and they were quite sucessful in raising money.

Beginning in 1904, women founded and built our Sunday School program. See the 'Good things happened in 1904' messsage for more details on this. In 1914 our Saint Mary's Guild was started; again, a very important and influential service in our church. A group of Epiphany women met with Father Randall to form this guild, one of whose purposes was to take over the United Thank Offering and affiliate themselves with the Independence-based social service Associated Charities.

We had a Girl's Friendly Society which was founded in 1917. In 1912 the women formed our Alter Guild, and in March, 1915 St. Mary's Guild was responsible for the purchase and installation of our new musical instrument, an Estey organ.

1919 ~ Along with the Presiding Bishop and National Council, the First National Council Executive Board of Women’s Auxiliary established.

1920 ~ National Council adopted resolution recognizing in all of its departments the Executive Board of the Women’s Auxiliary.

In 1949 another women's guild was started, called Saint Martha's Guild, here at Epiphany. Eventually, Saint Mary's Guild was merged into St. Martha's.

1958 ~ By action of the National Council, the Executive Board of the Women’s Auxiliary became the General Division of Women’s Work.

1964 ~ National Council became Executive Council. General Division of Women’s Work has liaison member with voice and vote in every department.

1967 ~ General Division of Women’s Work and Executive Council vote to suspend bylaws in order to "enter into such new structure with other departments and units as seems appropriate to discharging responsibilities and functions …"

1970 ~ Resolutions from 1969 Committee for Women meeting approved for trial use.

1973 ~ Triennial Meeting voted overwhelmingly to continue.

1976 ~ Triennial Meeting adopted Structure Document, formed Triennial Program and Planning Committee.

1979 ~ Name shortened to Triennial Committee.

1985 ~ Triennial Meeting adopted bylaws, forming Episcopal Church Women, Episcopal Church, U.S.A.

1988 ~ Regular publication of the ECW Communiqué commenced.

1994 ~ Episcopal Church Women/United Thank Offering Joint Committee Formed.

2000 ~ Triennial Today is centerfold in Convention Daily.

2001 ~ Website re-launched and expanded.

So Epiphany -- and the Episcopal Church in general, has always had a place for women. In fact, history would seem to indicate we had a strong women's organization here at Epiphany about the same time it was becoming commonplace in the Episcopal Church at large.

PAT

Whatever Happened to Our Ivy?

2006-07-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

Our church building, considered one of the nicest buildings in Independence, has always had a nice looking lawn, with trees and shrubs all over. But, we used to have ivy growing all over our buildings as well. But for some reason, in the 1960's a decision was made to remove all the ivy, ostensibly in the best interest of the maintainence of the building ... that seems to me to be a dreadful shame; just my opinion of course, but what was the thinking behind the removal of all the ivy?

PAT

The First Priest to Occupy Our Rectory

2006-07-04T20:37:00.000-05:00

Following the departure of Father Shaner for Trinity Church in Lawrence, we were without a full time regular priest for a few months and had an interim priest serving here by the name of Father Kenneth Ives Rice for a few months. He was here a few months until the new and full time pastor, Reverend Carleton Clark arrived. Father Clark arrived in December, 1927 and remained through October 14, 1934. Father and Mrs. Clark were the first residents of the rectory, which was finished in 1928.

Our first Ordination Ceremony took place under Father Clark's tenure on May 16, 1930. Charles R. Davies was ordained to the priesthood. He had spent a couple years working here at Epiphany so he was well-known by the congregation. On February 8, 1931 our church hosted the Diocesan Convention. There were three services held that day of which the morning and afternoon services were held at the church, but the evening service was held in Memorial Hall and there were 850 persons present for that one service; the most persons ever in our church, or affiliated with our church.

PAT

New Church Opens in 1926-27

2006-07-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

In the message just before this one, we discussed the parish house, which opened on September 7, 1924.
Another year passed by as the new church building was under construction. (This was NOT the easternmost
area where the office of Father Gerry and the church office is located -- that would not come until 1956.)
I am talking now about the main sanctuary area. On Monday, November 23, 1925 at 4:30 PM, the Right
Reverend James Wise, then the Bishop of Kansas, laid the cornerstone for our church building. The
cornerstone contains the architect's drawing of the building, the program for the afternoon's events, a list of
the vestrymen at the time, a list of the building committee and other church organizations, a picture of the
original 1874 church, a list of the 128 communicants, a copy of the Canons of the Diocese of Kansas, a copy of
the 1925 edition of the Journal of the Diocese of Kansas, a copy of the Book of Common Prayer and a
copy of the Bible used at some time in the past.

During this slightly more than one year while the sanctuary was under construction, services were held in the
parish hall. The completed church was dedicated October 23, 1927. There was considerable controversy within
the congregation with regards to the plans of construction. The basement area of the parish hall -- an area which
few have ever seen -- is lower than the sewer line, which has resulted at one time or another in flooding in the
basement. The building contractor was A.E. Todd and Son.

Following the construction of the church, the Guild Room was added to the parish hall. Then, the final things to be
built were the kitchen and the rectory. The kitchen was completely remodeled in 1993. Father Shaner, who had first
come to us in 1922 at the old church, oversaw the building of the new church but resigned as our rector to serve
Trinity Church in Lawrence, Kansas. He did return however for the formal dedication on October 23, 1927. Reverend
Kenneth Rice, the priest in charge of our church and Bishop Wise were participants in the ceremony that day along
with Fr. Shaner.

The vestry in 1927 included Judge J. W. Holdren, Senior Warden, Charles E. Leppleman, Junior Warden, C. H.
Bates, Clerk; G.T. Guernsey, Jr, treasurer; also Guy Berry, John Denman, Jr., Austin Farnswoth, A.E. Lawson,
W.A. Spencer, Frank Hainline, Dana Kelsey and E.T. Patterson. The Building Committee was Mr. Guernsey who
was the chairman and treasurer, E.T. Patterson, W.A. Spencer, and Mrs. Charles Miller.

A question: Do YOU know where the cornerstone is located? Have you ever seen it?

PAT

Plans to Build a New Church Start in 1923

2006-06-30T21:49:00.000-05:00

In an earlier message I mentioned how the original church building (and the supplemental property a half-block away and across the street) served us very well for a half century -- almost too well -- as things had gotten to the point that the original church was very crowded and the main church building at 8th and Laurel was beginning to show signs of very needed repairs. The original building - actually more of a chapel -- was 20 feet wide by 40 feet long and could seat 150 people. By standards of the nineteenth century it was a pretty good looking little church. Father Beatty had designed a small, but properly proportioned Gothic church.

Trouble was, by the early 1920's, there were routinely at least 100 people in church each week, the pews were small (see the remaining 'antique pew' from the old church we saved for historical purposes in the new building, along with the old pulpit back there), heating and cooling were not the best, to say the least, and we had already expanded once before (in 1917, the vestry had purchased -- for two thousand dollars -- a cottage and lot north of the 'main building' for the Sunday School and frequent, other than church, group meetings). Notice the church growth in the early years:
In 1872 we started with _12_ communicants.
In 1873 that was almost doubled to _23_ communicants.
In 1905 after the church had reorganized it was three times that number at _66_.
From 1905 through 1922, it doubled again, to _128_ communicants. By the mid-1950's the number of communicants would double two more times.

So with that foresight in mind, the vestry in the early 1920's knew what had to be done. Time was indeed running out ... and firm plans for a new building had to be made as quickly as possible. After 50 years of service as a church, the land at Eighth and Laurel was sold for five thousand dollars and the vestry started making preparations to move.

In February, 1923, the vestry voted to purchase two lots, side by side on which a suitable church could be constructed. The present site, 400 West Maple Street was selected as an ideal location to build a new church, in keeping with the architectural design and standard of Episcopal Churches. I would also have to say the location is ideal: living as I do in the southeast area of town, and being a handicapped older communicant of the church, a short, five-block walk to the church is very easy for me. In the June, 1923 meeting of the vestry the chairman of the building committee, Mr. George Guernsey, Jr. proposed that the building campaign should begin with a parish house, then the church, then a rectory.

If all had gone according to schedule, the parish house was to be erected in 1923. But so many things do not go according to schedule. They were not able to break the ground until December 16, 1923 when Bishop James Wise was here to participate in the ground breaking ceremony. The first part of our new church, the parish house (the north end of our church, now called 'Parish Hall') opened on September 7, 1924. Little did the vestry know that over the next century (well, at least 82 years as of now, 9/1924 though 7/2006) how much that parish house would be used by the community at large -- not just the church folks -- and how appreciated it would be.

PAT

An Interview With Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

2006-06-27T22:16:00.000-05:00

Again, off the beaten path a little, this time for the transcript of an interview on PBS with our new Presiding Bishop.

PAT
===============================
WEB EXCLUSIVE:
Interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

June 21, 2006

RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY correspondent and program managing editor Kim
Lawton spoke to Presiding Bishop-Elect Katharine Jefferts Schori on June 20
in one of the first in-depth interviews the bishop has given since her landmark election. Excerpts from this conversation will be included in this week's edition
of the show (to be distributed Friday, June 23) as part of a larger story on the convention.

KIM LAWTON: You mentioned right away after your election that you saw the church as having an opportunity to be the vehicle for the reign of God. And I just wanted you to tell us a little bit more about what you see, what is that vision of the church?

Bishop KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI (Presiding Bishop-Elect, U.S. Episcopal Church): Well, the church is a community that is really called to transform the world around it. That takes different forms in different places. Each one of us has got a piece to play in that kind of work. And the fact that this General Convention has adopted justice and peace as its first priority for mission in the coming triennium, particularly focused on the UN Millennium Development Goals, gives us an enormous opportunity to be part of building something that looks very much like the reign of God that's achievable in our own day.

LAWTON: Are you very mindful of the magnitude of what you are lurching into?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: Probably not fully. I'm sure that I will have much to learn that I don't even know about. But I think life is meant to be challenging. If we're going to use the fullness of the gifts that we've been given, it means we have to continue to be stretched. And I look forward to that.

LAWTON: What message does your election send to all the quarters of the Episcopal Church?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: This is not your grandmother's church anymore. When I was growing up, girls and women could only do things like sing in the choir and serve on the altar guild. And singing's not my great strength, so I had no concept of being active in leadership in the church when I was growing up.

LAWTON: And what about for the rest of the communion? What message, what signal do you hope this sends to other members of the Anglican Communion?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: I hope that our decisions at this General Convention send several messages to the rest of the communion: that we are incredibly anxious to be, to continue to be, part of the communion; that we are fully committed to partnerships across the globe; that we firmly believe that all people need to be included in the reign of God that is being built; that people of all colors and races and nations and language groups and sexual orientations are fully part of this creation that God has blessed us with.

LAWTON: What do you anticipate saying to some of the primates at your first meeting, including some that you know have problems with women being ordained? What can you imagine yourself saying to them?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: One would probably begin with "hello," to begin to build some kind of relationship, speaking about each other's contexts, who am I, where do I come from, what kind of history do I bring, what kind of theology do I understand that this church is being called to? And we cannot have substantive conversations until we know each other as human beings.

LAWTON: Some people say that this has been a real crucial time for the Anglican Communion just in terms of reexamining what Anglicanism means today in this world. Do you think that is going on right now?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: Yes it is, and I think it goes on in every age. Anglicanism has grown out of a history of struggle and tension. The great Elizabethan compromise that produced the Church of England was born out of incredible strife, but it has been a gift to many, many people around the globe.

LAWTON: And so in what way do you see, you know, what are some of the critical issues that global Anglicans need to be examining right now?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: We need to be examining the poverty that is real around the world. We need to be examining the fact that our brothers and sisters, Anglican and not, in places like Africa and Asia don't have enough to eat. Their children don't have the opportunity to go to school. AIDS and tuberculosis and malaria are rampant in many parts of this world and people with those diseases don't have access to adequate health care. That's where our focus needs to be.

LAWTON: Clearly, one of the big challenges, the big issue is the sexuality debates. What message do you hope that this convention sends to people who are very upset about the consecration of Gene Robinson and are really opposed to same-sex, the blessing of same-sex unions? What signal do you hope they get from this convention?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: That there is room for them at this table as well.

LAWTON: And what about for gay and lesbian members of the church who are concerned that maybe there is a backing away, that maybe they're being, in some way being called to make sacrifices for the sake of unity that aren't just, for a church that's emphasizing justice? What do you hope they hear from this?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: The same message, that there is room for them at this table as well, that God calls all of us to this bountiful table to share in the riches of creation that were given for all.

LAWTON: There've been some pretty pointed statements publicly from some of the conservative bishops and other leaders of that wing of the church, really raising questions about whether indeed everybody can stay at the table and whether this is a time when that is no longer possible. Do you feel that reconciliation is still possible, and what will you do to try and make that happen?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: Reconciliation is always possible. The Christian faith is about the eternity of hope. Once we give up hope, I think we cease to become active, engaged Christians. If we have no hope, we have repudiated the basis of our faith. There is always the possibility of reconciliation, resurrection, renewal. And once we lose a sense of that in a very deep way, we have challenged the very foundations of our faith. If -- if the resurrection, the reconciliation may come beyond the grave, but we insist that it is always possible.

LAWTON: Talk about the transition, oceanographer turned bishop. What led to that?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, I knew I was supposed to go fishing, and it took me a while to figure out just what for. Christians often talk about being sent to fish for people; the gospel is about drawing all people into the reign of God. When it became apparent that I was not going to be able to continue to be an active oceanographer, that if I wanted to continue in the field it was going to be as a grants writer and hustling grant money, right at the very same time, three people in my congregation asked me if I'd ever thought about being a priest, just out of the blue. It seemed absurd, it seemed unfitting to the gifts that I recognized at the time. But I went and spoke at great length with the priest in that congregation and came to the conclusion that, at least, the time wasn't right. But five years later, I was asked to preach on a Sunday morning when he wasn't going to be there -- a new rector. And that experience and the response that I had to that experience finally let me say yes. And I was in seminary the next fall.

LAWTON: Describe some of your emotions on Sunday [the day she was elected the first female presiding bishop]. What gamut did they run?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: It was a long and challenging day -- to sit waiting, to recognize that this election might possibly call me into this office. I think we were all surprised, all of us.

LAWTON: And I have a personal question for you. Just, a lot of people have different practices to maintain their own spiritual spark, you know, and to maintain that, and I'm just wondering if you'd be willing to share what's most meaningful for you? How do you get your best connection with God?

Bishop JEFFERTS SCHORI: I've always found a great sense of spirituality in the out-of-doors. I ground myself as a creature in the midst of the natural created order. And taking Sabbath time is exceedingly important to me, taking time away, and I bring all of those together in seeking solitude in the wilderness. The wilderness is a place of great gifts. It may be threatening to some people; it ought to be threatening, I think, in some important way. But it is a place where I discover God, and what God is calling me to do and be.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/
week942/exclusive.html

Church Continues its Growth and Expansion

2006-06-27T19:12:00.000-05:00

After Father Randall left us in 1912, another excellent man, the Reverend
William
H. Haupt came here from Burlington, Kansas to be our rector. Due to a childhood
accident, he spent his entire life on crutches. He had a fine singing voice, directed the choir himself, and founded the Alter Guild in 1914. He left us in
1915 to do missionary work in Wyoming where he founded several missions around
the Yellowstone Park area. He then took a position as rector at Grace Church in Philadelphia, where he passed away during the Easter Communion Service in
1928. He is buried here in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Also, in 1914, St. Mary's Guild was started, and it remained an active part of
our church until it was dissolved into the Women of Epiphany Auxiliary in 1971.
Fr. Haupt was followed by Father Mack on March 1, 1915. Fr. Mack was especially active in holding services -- the trouble is, often times no one would
attend; no one at all.

By this point, there was a regular choir of seventeen people and he instituted a later afternoon/early evening program on an occassional basis
called Choral Evensong. He always conducted three services daily during
the Lenten season. He also had a service called "Harvest Festival" with a
Reverend Fenn from Wichita as the guest preacher. But, often as not, few or no people would come to church for the 7:30 AM mass. People would attend for the service in the later morning, and also in the evening however. Bishop Millspaugh died November 21, 1916 and Fr. Mack held a special Eucharist for him on
November 26. The newly elected Bishop, The Right Reverend James Wise made his
first visit here on April 29, 1917.

In the spring that same year, 1917, the church had purchased, for $2000, a
small cottage and lot north of the church (approximatly 8th and Chestnut) to be
used for the Sunday School and other group meetings. Just before Fr. Mack left,
a Girl's Friendly Society was organized, with Mrs. Houston (see earlier message about the Epiphany Sunday School) sponsoring it. Girl's Friendly
had several projects, including much work for the Red Cross, and they also
furnished and maintained a room at West Side County Hospital which we now know as Mercy Hospital.

Those early days at Epiphany were very busy, active times. After the vist by Bishop Wise on April 29, 1917, Fr. Mack tendered his resignation effective July 1, 1917.
We did not have a priest until April, 1918 -- about nine months later -- when Reverend William E. Warren was appointed by the vestry. He was here about three years and the last recorded activity in his register was the baptism of L.C. Inge on June 28, 1921.

Warren stayed here from 1918 until 1922, when Reverend Francis B. Shaner took over on October 1, 1922.
But time was starting to run out for the little church building. After 54 years, the building had seen better times; was much to small for the number of congregants regularly worshipping, had leaks in the roof, and just overall was not very satisfactory for our needs. The vestry sold the building to the D.A.R. (Daughters of American Revolution) who used it for a few more years and moved it over to the corner of Park Boulevard (formerly Third Street) and Locust. D.A.R. eventually sold it to the Girl Scouts who now (as of 2006) use it now and then. The building is protected from being torn down under federal law and the Historic Preservation Act. Our vestry sold the land under the building for five thousand dollars and started planning a new home.

PAT

A Few More Details on Church of the Ascension in Neodesha - part 2

2006-06-25T18:59:00.000-05:00

Just as the early 1900's brought much life to Independence and Epiphany Church, likewise Neodesha and Church of the Ascension were similarly blessed. For Epiphany our good fortune came from the Sinclair Pipe Line Company and the Midland Glass Plant. In Neodesha's instance, the same period of time brought not only Standard Oil (in later years known as Amoco) but also a smelter, two brick plants, a glass plant, the roundhouse, and much oil and glass exploration.

From 1908-1925 Ascension was served by two archdeacons and four priests or rectors. Reverend Stowells was the first resident priest and one of the most popular. In 1929, Reverend Charles Davies, who with his wife lived in Coffeyville, began serving Neodesha on a regular basis. Fr. Davies was transferred to Chanute in 1931, but he continued to care for the missions in Coffeyville and Neodesha.

In the 1930's and 1940's, Fr. William Paul Barnds served both Epiphany in Independence, and Ascension in Neodesha. Fr. Raasch served Epiphany for 11 years in in the 1940-50 era as well as Neodesha. Then, Ascension had a resident priest, Fr. Boyer for a year and a half in 1949-50.

The Reverend John Fargher was the vicar at Epiphany from 1955 through 1959, and during that same time he also had charge of Neodesha with the exception of the two
years, 1957-58 when Reverend Warren H. Sapp was a resident priest at Neodesha.

Street Hall, the parish house at Neodesha was constructed in 1957-58 under the supervision of Fr. Sapp. There are a lot more details in the history of Church of the Ascension, but I will leave those up to the vestry there when they plan something for their hundredth anniversary in April, 2008.

But I thought that since Neodesha and Independence were so historically innertwined, you at least needed a bit of its history. At the present time (2006)
Fr. Gerry and our staff here at Epiphany serve them.

More About Ascension Church

2006-06-25T18:27:00.000-05:00

Church of the Ascension (SE) 702 Osage Neodesha, KS 66757
We are also affiliated with and share Vicar and Deacon with Ascension Church

There are several things Ascension and Epiphany share
in their respective
histories and I have now received more history on the Neodesha church to be
shared with you. My thanks goes to Clark Thompson, a member of the vestry
there for making these details available.

For one, Ascension began meetings in April, 1876, just a few years after the founding of the town of Neodesha, in 1867.

Epiphany began in April, 1872, just a dozen or
so years after the town of Independence got started.

For two, one of the founders of Ascension, Amanda McCartney, wife of Dr. Allen McCartney, was one of the founders of the town of Neodesha.

While J.A. Eisenberg, the fellow who held the organizational meeting of Friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Independence was not a
founder of the town of Independence, he was rather 'highly placed' and a very respected leader in the community.

For three, the earliest meetings of Church of the Ascension, like the earliest meetings of Epiphany
were held in many public halls around town; also the hotel parlor, other churches, and sometimes in private homes.

The first year of Epiphany's existence was the same kind of thing; public halls around town,
other churches, even for a month or so at City Hall. But after a year of that, we had our
original church home, at 8th and Laurel Streets. Ascension would go on for a few more years in
'borrowed spaces'.

There is no indication that Ascension suffered the same 'black out' period that Epiphany suffered,
but the notes from Clark Thompson do tell us that Ascension did have a 'flourish of activity' in the
early 1900's as did Epiphany. Considering that the church was recognized as a mission in May, 1899,
I am led to believe they probably had a bit more activity going on than we did in those days.

It was not always Church of the Ascension. The original church in Neodesha was named
Grace Church , which was a very common name for Episcopal (and other denomination)
churches in that era. In 1902, the name was changed to Church of the Ascension. On the other hand,
we have always been 'Epiphany' since our beginning.

A church member gave them a piece of land on 8th Street (in Neodesha) for a church, but the Neodesha
vestry decided to not build on that land and they sold the land. The street name there is still 'Church Street'
however. Instead they chose to build at their present location at 7th and Osage Streets. They laid
their cornerstone on July 2, 1903, and moved in early in 1906. The construction took over two years since it was done on the 'pay as you go' method.

Epiphany began to wake up from its quarter-century 'nap' about that same time, in 1903.
Our 'full resurrection' would take place over the next year. Ascension completed building its church in
1904, as Epiphany was really getting into motion.

From May, 1899 when the 'Grace Church' mission at Neodesha was recognized until November 23, 1905
when 'Church of the Ascension' was well under way, the number of communicants grew from 8 to 46.
People in town saw them building the new church, they were interested in what they saw, and
wanted to be part of the action.

In 1872, the rolls show we had 12 communicants at Epiphany. In 1904, the rolls show us there
were 65 commuicants at Epiphany. So you might say we were two small rural churches which pretty much
grew up together.

Ascension was consecrated March 17, 1908 by Bishop Millspaugh, but they had
services in the building as of February, 1906. Ascension did have resident
priests at one time, and it was only in the 1950's that the present arrangement
-- sharing priest and deacon with Epiphany became the standard.

More about Ascension in another message.

PAT

The First Mention of Women at Epiphany

2006-06-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

Women have always had a very important role at Epiphany Church. The first mention of female participation was on opening day in the first meeting in April, 1872. Fr. Beatty was anxious to get started with our building, so he named three women to be on the building committee. Then there was the Ladies Aid Society which received a lot of praise. Reverend Beatty's daughter, Mrs. Anne Beatty Oliver used to have very pleasant ice-cream socials and bake sales, with the profits going toward the
building fund. But until the church was re-organized in 1904 and the Epiphany Guild started, there was no 'organized' group of women. The Epiphany Guild contributed heavily to the welfare of the church and members of the community in need for over fifty years, until it was eventually re-organized in the middle 1950's, to be replaced by St. Martha's Guild which had been organized in 1949 and the Alter Guild, which began in 1914. Also, in 1914, a women's group called St. Mary's Guild got started and continued until it was dissolved into the Epiphany Guild and combined with St. Martha's in 1971.

On May 15, 1907, our priest at the time, Father Randall and a group of women met to form the first auxiliary, which they decided to call the Emma P. Frey Branch.* In addition to the United Thank Offering and Box Supply work which they took over, they also had an educational program mostly concerning missions and mission work.

*[[Emma P. Frey was the deceased wife of Isaac M. Frey, the former Congregational minister turned Episcopal deacon who came to 'take charge' following the resignation of Fr. Canfield in 1880. His wife (Emma) died in the typhoid epidemic which hit Independence in 1880. She is buried in the original Mt. Hope cemetery, lot 196-D. The other person buried in that lot, a child of a parishoner named 'Ward' was buried there at no charge because the family was indigent. Note that Reverend Frey simply came to 'take charge'. He was not a deacon nor a priest. My thoughts are that the typhoid epidemic had caused such a disaster in our town -- probably affecting our church heavily also -- Reverend Frey simply decided to step in and try to hold our church together, for which we should be eternally grateful.

Of course, there was also the Sunday School which had been started in 1904 (see earlier message) and the women who were involved with that phase of our ministry.

By the way, Father Randall was a bachelor, and he lived with his mother in a beautiful home at Fifth and Myrtle Streets. Their home became 'the place' for Sunday afternoon tea and stimulating conversation before Evening Prayer. Father Randall and his mother were especially concerned with charity organizations (which were mostly non-existent in Independence at that time). He and his mother organized the first charity service here, it was called Associated Charities and served people throughout Independence and southeast Kansas.

In those days, we commonly had three services each Sunday at Epiphany: the two morning services at 7:30 AM and 11:00 AM and the Evening Prayer at 6:00 PM. For Father Randall, that was in addition to his other duties as priest in charge of the missions at Cherryvale, Sedan, Cedar Vale, Elgin and Caney. He was also the Chaplain of the Kansas State Senate in 1910. In 1912, Aaron F. Randall tendered his resignation and relocated to Spokane, Washington.

The Pilgrims, Both Inside and Outside the Church of England

2006-06-24T13:06:00.000-05:00

This column today is devoted to two people in our own congregation who noted to me with some amazement that the local AME church used the word 'Episcopal' in its name, and that the corner stone of the local United Methodist Church had the same word 'Episcopal' in its name; of course it is a very old building.

We have all heard about the Pilgrims -- early settlers in the United States -- and how they came about. What is not as commonly known is that there were two groups of Pilgrims . They were all on the outs with the Church of England of course, and all had come to America to avoid persecution for their beliefs. While one group of Pilgrims believed that their differences with the established orthodoxy of the Church of England could best be settled by staying 'in the system' -- that is by trying to change the church from within the church, by appealing to the Bishops and other church members, thinking that reason and logical thinking would bring everyone around to their ideas -- the other group of Pilgrims thought that was nonsense; no changes would be possible within the existing structure of the Church of England. In order to make a difference, they would have to go their separate way.

So this group of 'separatist Pilgrims' continued on their own path, and today -- 2006 -- are known as the United Church of Christ -- a Congregational style style church organization. They've gone through many changes over the years, but always retained the congregational polity or style of church government. That is what the word polity means, i.e. style of church government. There are essentially two styles of church government, or polity. Those pilgrims, and their descendents who went on their own way, and those of us who chose to remain under the leadership of our bishops, which is is the other style of church government, or Episcopal.

The original episcopalians got scattered in various ways but so did the original congregationalists. Note the small letter /e/ and small letter /c/ as they refer to church polity or style of government. This oversimplifies things a little, but the original episcopalians -- or pilgrims who decided to stay with the Church of England -- are today, by and large Episcopalians. The congregationalists further splintered and among other things became Campbelites (Disciples of Christ) and Baptists and Congregationalists (in later years, United Church of Christ.)

The episcopalian side of things splintered into, among other things, the Weslyan movement, which later split into the Methodists and others. Where almost all of the congregationalist style churches serve the communion wafers and liquid to people sitting in their pews, the Methodists serve it at the alter, the same as those of us who are Episcopalians. Do you know why that is the case? Because their founder, Mr. Wesley, did not want to give up his Anglican heritage, pure and simple. Wesley was born in the Church of England; went outside the church like many of the pilgrims, but was reluctant to give up (among other things) the style in which the Eucharist was served. Years and years and years ago, they were known as the Methodist Episcopal Church for that, among other reasons; the other main reason being they are governed by a Bishop, even today, the same as we are.

Then there was the 'problem' with black people -- African Americans -- and their role in the church. Throughout the 1840-1850's time frame, a huge controversy in almost all churches in America -- including the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church - was what to do with African-Americans -- black -- Negro -- people attending our churches. See an earlier message in this cluster about 'Our First Vestry and How We Got the Name Epiphany' for more details. To our ever-abiding shame as Episcopalians, in 1856, Epiphany Church in Philadelphia broke up -- with about half the members of the parish leaving over the slavery issue and forming a new parish 'Church of the Covenant' where black people were welcome. The Methodists did the same thing; black people who had been attending the Methodist Episcopal Church were in some cases 'encouraged to leave' and they then formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church as a congregation which would welcome people of various races. In both the modern, 21st century version of those churches, A.M.E. and (what is now called)United Methodist, there are still vestiges of the Anglican customs and ways of doing things, communion served at the alter rail and (in many United Methodist Churches at least) a procession by the choir down the center aisle to the nave of the church for the service. At least into the 1950-60's Methodists were still processing down the center aisle doing that. There is also a black denomination called 'Christian Episcopal' which holds to some of the 'original' Episcopalian (i.e. Church of England) traditions.

So now, ladies, you have a better idea why various churches have the word 'Episcopal' as part of their name even though very little of their
religious activities resemble ours, but the main thing is, they are
governed by Bishops just as we are and going way back when, they were
part of the pilgrims who did not choose to split from the Church of England.

Now, a century and a half following when slavery was considered a properly
debateable issue, all the churches which split apart because of slavery
(Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, various congregationalists and of
course Episcopalians) are about to split again because of sexuality. Maybe
we Episcopalians will take a true leadership role this time around, eh?

PAT

Our First Vestry in 1872 and How We Got the Name 'Epiphany'

2006-06-23T01:35:00.000-05:00

The very successful meeting on April 22, 1872 resulted in John A. Eisenberg being elected as Junior Warden
and John Cullyford being elected as Senior Warden. This optimistic group (known as 'Interested Friends
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Independence, Kansas', even elected three delegates to the
Diocesan Convention planned for a month later in Topeka, in May. Those three delegates were Eisenberg,
M.D. Henry and George Burchard, who were also elected to the first Vestry.

The rest of the vestry was formed also, and consisted of Frank C. Jocelyn, W. A. McCully, and J.J. Sprague.
Mr. Jocelyn was named clerk pro tem and Mr. Burchard was named clerk. M.L. Robinson was appointed
treasurer. Not only did they talk about building the first church building, they even decided on a name for it:
The Church of the Epiphany. We were named after the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia
which dated from the Revolutionary War Days. Fr. Beatty had attended that church and been married there
and he was quite pleased that this little church on the far western prairie should be its namesake.

Many churches are named 'Epiphany' in commemoration of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, but
this particular Church of the Epiphany took a special place in American and Kansas history just before the
Civil War. Although located in Philadelphia -- in the northern part of the USA -- many pro-slavery people
were in the congregation, however the rector, Dudley Tyng was very much an Abolishionist, and he got into
several heated discussions on the slavery issue with members of the congregation and the vestry. One Sunday
morning in 1857, while people all over the USA were discussing and arguing about the plan to force Kansas (the
LeCompton Constitution plan) into the USA as a slave state, Dudley Tyng devoted his entire sermon speaking a
against the idea. In the middle of his sermon, one of the vestrymen there in Philadelphia, Doctor Norris rose from
his seat and began to rebuke Dudley Tyng for 'introducing politics into the services of the church'. This whole
issue caused such a controversy that the vestry decided to ask for Tyng's resignation which was forthcoming
that same day.

At the evening service that same day at Epiphany in Philadephia, Tyng removed himself, along with a large number
of congregants from Epiphany Church. They all went over to Concert Hall and created a new parish known as
Church of the Covenant which coincidentally is how the church in Junction City, Kansas got its name.
Tyng preached constantly against slavery and very much favored having Kansas enter the United States as a
'free-state'. One of his sermons there in his new parish was entitled 'Stand Up For Jesus'. One person in the
congregation for that sermon was George Duffield, Jr. in 1858, who wrote the hymn Stand up, Stand up for Jesus,
Ye Soldiers of the Cross, which was and is usually sung to the tune known as 'Webb'. A person named
Mr. Webb was the organist there at Concert Hall for the Church of the Covenant meetings held by Reverend Tyng.

Fr. Beatty wanted nothing to do with slavery -- which had already been abolished several years prior -- and that
bit of history from the namesake 'Epiphany Church' in Philadelphia plus sweet memories of his own marriage
there by Reverend Tyng also several years before convinced him to use the name 'Epiphany' for the new church
being started here in Independence. Three days later, on April 25, 1872 the new vestry was sufficiently pleased
with Archibald Beatty and his credentials that they met again and asked him to be the Rector at their new church.
So now, you know how we got the name 'Church of the Epiphany'. And perhaps you also notice how squabbles
among Episcopalians is nothing new. Just as we these days have fights over issues like sexuality, in the 1850's
Episcopalians had squabbles over issues like slavery.

PAT

Book Review: New Book on Bishop Robinson

2006-06-21T01:25:00.000-05:00

[Note: Not really related at all to the history of Epiphany Church but worth a mention during this convention week in Pennsylvania, I am tossing in for your thoughts a review of a new book being published on Bishop Vickie Gene Robinson, Bishop in New Hampshire. And considering the first for us with the election of a female presiding bishop this past week as well, you may want to do two things: get a copy of this new book and read it, and then (b) read the various blogs on the net dealing with the new presiding bishop, including my own blog if you wish to read it which is located here.

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

Going to Heaven: The Life and Election of Bishop Gene Robinson
by Elizabeth Adams

1-933368-22-5
Trade Paper 6 x 9
Biography 308 pp. $14.95
To be Published on July 28th 2006

An exploration of the man—Gene Robinson, the world's first openly gay Episcopal bishop—who many believe will be the catalyst for the breaking apart of the Episcopal Church.

It may be a uniquely American success story: not long ago, who would have thought that the son of tobacco sharecroppers in Kentucky could become an Episcopal bishop? No one could have predicted that this boy, born poor, ill, and given little chance of survival, would in fact be elected and ordained 56 years later as the first openly gay bishop in Christendom, finding himself at the center of unprecedented positive and negative reaction in the religious world and beyond.

Gene Robinson’s life is a compelling story of challenges overcome by hard work, intelligence, humor, love, and deep faith. It is also a story of one man’s journey into his own “otherness”; of courage found and integrity retained; and the emergence of a ministry that speaks to countless people who believe in a Gospel of love and inclusion, and want the church to reflect that vision.

Through a lively text based on extensive interviews with Bishop Robinson, his closest associates, family, colleagues, and observers, and illustrated with photographs from all phases of his life, this book paints a portrait of Bishop Robinson not as a symbol but a human being who is, as he puts it, “neither the angel nor the devil some would make me out to be.” It illuminates his life; his struggle with—and eventual acceptance of—his sexual orientation; his calling to become a priest and later a bishop.

It tells the story of the critical, central events of his election and consecration amid intense opposition, huge security concerns, and media attention. The book follows him through the next two years as he juggles dual roles—Bishop of New Hampshire, and symbol of gay achievement and the progressive church— while the opposition stirred by his election creates increasing pressure for schism in the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Communion worldwide.

The book concludes with a discussion of the deep theological and historical significance of Gene Robinson’s election and personal vision for the future, and what this means both for individuals and for a Church seeking to be relevant in a today’s world.

Elizabeth Adams has been granted unique, extraordinary access to Bishop Robinson and the events and people surrounding him. She also has significant knowledge about the Episcopal Church gained through lifelong membership and active participation, and has been an observer, writer, and speaker for many years about the interface between religion and contemporary life and politics.

Read a sample chapter on line here .

Now with that out of the way, let's continue discussing our history here at Epiphany Church, and the next item following this dealing with the 1904 resurrection and re-awakening of Epiphany Church. PAT]

1904 Was a Great Year in the History of Epiphany Church

2006-06-20T23:52:00.000-05:00

In 1903, after 23 years of being dark and deserted -- mostly, except for occasional 'church days' when the Bishops would come around, or itinerant missioners would pass through town,-- the Reverend A.S. Freese, a supply minister in southeast Kansas decided to add Independence and Epiphany Church to his otherwise busy schedule serving Cherryvale, Neodesha, and Coffeyville. And so, once or twice per month, we would celebrate Eucharist, although sometimes no one would show up, so unaccustomed to having services at Epiphany everyone was. After almost a quarter century, that's how things had gotten. The original building, at 8th and Laurel Streets had gotten pretty dilapidated, and as often as not, the itinerant missioners and such would begin by repairing the roof or windows prior to conducting Morning Prayer services. When Freese came around on a sort of regular schedule, the vestry decided to make a whole-hearted effort to try and repair things and make it a church once again. The Seventh Day Adventist people had last used the building more than a decade before, on a rental basis, and we could not really expect _them_ to do any repairs.

Good things happened in 1904.

A group of English people arrived in Independence to open and operate the Midland Glass Plant, and beginning about the same time, executives from Sinclair Pipe Line Company moved into town. For Midland at least, true Anglicans everyone of them, they were very interested in an active church life, and it did not take them long to resurrect Epiphany and start an active church. Ditto the 'oil people' from Sinclair.

During vacation, while in Seminary, the Reverend George Davidson had been in Independendence. He liked being here, the vestry and parishioners at Epiphany all liked him, and they asked him to become the new rector here, for a salary of $700 per year. He arrived in 1904, and immediatly set about rebuilding and resurrecting the parish. Fr. Freese was only intended to be temporary at best, because his hectic schedule put him more often in Neodesha and Cherryvale than here in Independence anyway. And recall, in these days when automobiles were still new, many people still traveled by horse and carriage, the same as Fr. Beatty and Bishop Vail a quarter century before. So Fr. Freese was perfectly happy when he was able to turn things at Epiphany over to Fr. Davidson in 1904.Now he was able to give those other churches more of his time.

Some folks have contended that we should really say Epiphany Church was a 1904 creation by the Midland Glass Plant and the Sinclair Pipe Line Company and that would be a very interesting theory, except that our charter -- our official status as a corporate entity from the State of Kansas dates to April, 1873 and Fr. Archibald Beatty. (Although our first meeting was April 22, 1872, our charter of incorporation was a year later, in April, 1873. April, 2007 marks the 135th anniversary of our Sunday meetings, and the 134th anniversary of our charter.)

Our vestry which dates to 1872, technically held the church and charter in trust for the 24 years of 'darkness'; the vestry was re-organized in 1904 with C.L. Hanson and C.H.H. Patison as the wardens under the re-organized vestry. Two thousand dollars was raised in 1904, and our church was taken out of the Mission class. There were 65 active communicants that year.

The first choir at Epiphany was a Boy's Choir, founded by Fr. Davidson. The Boys Choir becane quite well known throughout Kansas and Missouri. Founded in 1904, they were soon invited to sing in various churches around the state,including a camping out trip to Kansas City where they sang at a very large church. Some of the first members of the Boys Choir were Nolan Ottman, Fred Truby, Frank Stanford, Paul Surber and William Wallace. All the little guys went to school here in Independence and gave considerably of their free time to 'choir practice' at the church.

The Epiphany Sunday School was also quite active. Founded in 1904, the Sunday School superintendent was Mrs. Catherine Huston, and her assistant was Mrs. Deal. The regular Sunday school teachers were Miss Sophie Bates, Mrs. Carl Gansel, Mrs. John Fertig, and Mrs. John Holdren. Mrs. Holdren was involved with the Sunday School through the end of the Second World War, and she became the superintendent when Mrs. Huston resigned the position. The first Sunday school lesson materials came from Coffeyville.

PAT

The Quarter Century of Darkness

2006-06-17T20:53:00.001-05:00

After Archibald Beatty resigned the second time, in 1879, there were various fellows who came around to help us when they could, for the most part all missionaries and a couple of deacons. But regretably, no priests were available. In 1880, the vestry voted to close the building, and suspend further services until that situation could be rectified; it took 24 years, about a quarter century before Epiphany was to re-open and function as a full time Episcopal church once again. During that 24 year period, the building was poorly maintained, and for a number of years was rented out by the Vestry to the Seventh-Day Adventist people.

We had Episcopal services only rarely, (those occassions were called 'church days') and often as not, we had to use the Congregational Church to do so. Bishop Millspaugh came once to visit, and found the church in such dreadful need of repair, he set about redoing the roof himself.

The 1890's were a time of financial depression in the United States also, and things did not look very good for Epiphany Church, but finally things started to look a bit better: in 1903, Reverend A.S. Freese -- a supply minister -- decided to add Epiphany into his already busy schedule serving Cherryvale and Neodesha. People started coming back to church, but only in small numbers. But 1904 was just around the corner, and Epiphany would soon come to life once again.

PAT

Church of Ascension in Neodesha Shares With Us

2006-06-17T20:46:00.000-05:00

Church of Ascension in Neodesha, 702 Osage Street shares Father Gerry and Deacon David Butler with Epiphany.

The arrangement has been that way for many years, but as of this time, I do not have any historical details on Ascension to share.

PAT

Some Historical Facts About Our Parish

2006-06-16T23:22:00.000-05:00

Did you know?
Our first and third pastor -- the founder -- was Fr. Archibald Beatty, a missioner from around the Kansas City area? On April 22, 1872 he met with a group of residents here who had founded an organization called Friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Independence, Kansas . In that meeting, held in the downtown office of J.A. Eisenberg, the decision was reached to start an Episcopal Church -- or Protestant Episcopal as we were known in those days -- and Fr. Beatty was asked to become the pastor, or rector. He remained with us for three years, until 1875. His duties included holding services in the nearby towns of Coffeyville, and Fredonia as well. Independence was a town of 1500 people in those days.

During his two-plus year's tenure, Sunday services were held in several public halls around town, including City Hall, Gray's Hall, Waggoner Hall, and Dunning Hall. During that time, Fr. Beatty also built our first church, which was located at 8th and Laurel Streets. In April, 1873 Epiphany Church was incorporated with the state as a result of Fr. Beatty's efforts, and we were likewise admitted into communion with the Diocese of Kansas.

After Fr. Beatty had been here about 6 months, his rectory caught on fire and burned down. The rectory was located at (what is now numbered) 617 East Myrtle Street, around First and Myrtle. It had been a very dreadful summer, the crops were mostly all eaten by grasshoppers or scorched from heat, so the fire really was the final straw, one might say. His entire library -- thousands of books of which he had intended to give several to the church to begin our library -- was destroyed. About the same time, an epidemic of spiral menengitis hit our town, and one of the Beatty children died in that.

In April, 1875 he tendered his resignation, and went to work as a chaplain for the Santa Fe Railroad.

Reverend Levi Holden followed him as our pastor after the new church had been closed for nine months, in January, 1876. He remained with us for about two years, then the vestry asked Fr. Beatty to return which he agreed to do, for another year, in September, 1878. He remained for another year, until he was able to raise some money for the church, which he did in September, 1879, and he again turned in his resignation. Independence had been a 'tough act' for Fr. Beatty. He was followed by Reverend C. H. Canfield who stayed only a few months. Canfield was here as our pastor only three months, until February, 1880.

PAT

Epiphany Church's Community Memories Web Site

2006-06-16T18:44:00.000-05:00

Our handsome church building at 400 East Maple Street in Independendence. Constructed in 1925-26.
Our first church building was constructed in 1873, was located at 8th and Laurel Streets, and now is protected by the Historic Preservation Law.

April 22, 2007 will mark the 135th anniversary of the founding of our church, and we would like to prepare a book outlining our history, both in the Independence community and in the greater Anglican community. Therefore, for the next several months at the least or even longer, this area on the internet is being set aside as a place for YOUR memories and thoughts about the past several years here at the church. We will base our new book -- if we manage to put one together -- on the 1972 book of our 100th anniversary as a parish which was edited by Mr.& Mrs. J.R. Barnett and the 1997 supplement to same which was edited by Roberta Davies and Sally Pokorny.

Your help is vitally needed! If you have any newspaper clippings, books or pictures about the church -- or even just personal memories -- would you please share them with us?

If you can share things with us, we will be extremely grateful, and if you want the materials returned, we will be glad to copy them and return the originals to you. Or, if we can keep the documents, that would be great also. Please give them to Marty E. in the office. If you just have personal memories you want to share, you can type them in right here. Nothing is unimportant or 'not worth' telling us about.

Thanks so much, and Christ be with you!

Patrick Townson
Acting Historian for Epiphany Episcopal Church