T'was The Night Before the Election

T'was the night before the election,
And all through the upstate,
Not a delegate was certain of the Diocese's fate.

The liberals were sleeping
All in the same bed.
With visions of Same Sex weddings
Dancing in their heads.

I in my conservative thinking cap,
With the dog looking on.
Stayed awake wondering
What might go wrong.

When off went the scanner with a dreadful alert,
A Episcopal wreck on the interstate!
A call for the Pewster to get to work.

I ran to the highway
And what was the bother?
A broken down church van,
And six men in white collars.

And there on roadside,
All covered with bug splat,
Was St. Nicholas himself
A'fixin a flat!

The churchmen were harnessed
To tow the old wreck,
When St. Nicholas finished up,
And shouted, "Oh Heck..."

"On Linder, on Waldo, on Williams and Thompson!
On Burwell, Michell, we best be a hustlin.
To the Cathedral in Columbia,
To the State Capital.
Pull away, pull away, pull away all!"

I hopped on the bumper
To see where they went.
That team was holy fast,
One hundred percent.

With three on the left and three on the right,
St. Nick had that van haulin
Straight through the night.

We got to Columbia
And the church parking lot.
Santa unhitched the dog collars
And checked his list to see who got what.

He read, "The Laity is conservative
The clergy is liberal."
"What they need here is a doggone consiberal!"

I jumped from the bumper,
And ran to his side.
"No, not a moderate!" I said.
"You pick one," he replied.

I said, "Give me Michell, Williams, and Burwell, all three!"
But Santa shook his head,
and spoke straight to me,
"You can only have one.
Which one will it be?"

I said, "Which one will be faithful, true and trustworthy,
A pastor, a father, a leader, and preacher?
St. Nick, which one will be the best teacher?"

So Santa packaged one up,
Threw in a crozier and miter.
And a purple shirt too,
I hope he left us a fighter.

He hitched up his churchmen,
Who turned left on Bull Street,
When I last saw them.
The were pounding their feet.

Then off in the distance,
Santa cried through the night,

"Blessed election to all, I hope it works out out alright!"

2009 U.P.

This Church Has Gone to the Dogs

Originally, I intended to discuss Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. where, according to NPR,

"They don't hand out hymnals at this service — with leashes to hold or a dog in your lap, it would be just too much. But the dogs do get biscuits.

And by the time the closing hymn is sung, the pit bull in the second row is curled up next to the schnauzer."

I hope the pit bull is not just trying to keep his next meal warm.

But there were weirder things going on in LALA land this weekend. The Episcopal church, which has been going to the dogs for many years, elected Mary Glasspool+ as bishop suffragan.


If she gets the necessary consents from the other dioceses' bishops and standing committees (DEC for DUSC), she will become the first openly non celibate lesbian bishop, albeit a bishop suffragan.

The question for Upper South Carolina is this, "Which of our nominees would consent to this election?" I think it is pretty clear that Waldo+, Linder+, and Thompson+ would give consent. I suspect that our DEC might not give consent.

The next question is this, "Do we want a bishop who will work with DEC?"

If the answer is "Yes," then we must elect either Williams+, Michell+, or Burwell+.

The Los Angeles election coupled with Louisiana's election yesterday of a revisionist priest for their next bishop are two howling examples of where the Episcopal church is headed.

If anyone can't figure the direction of the church after reading the title of this post and the results of these two elections, I ask them to remember "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" by Robert Bork which is excerpted here (Chapter 11):

"Its [the New Left's] adherents did not go away or change their minds; the New Left shattered into a multitude of single-issue groups. We now have, to name but a few, radical feminists, black extremists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, activist homosexual organizations, multiculturalists, and new or freshly radicalized organizations such as People for the American Way, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and Planned Parenthood.
Each of these pursues a piece of the agenda of the cultural and political Left, but they do not announce publicly an overarching program, as the New Left did, that would enable people to see that the separate groups and causes add up to a general radical philosophy...

Thus, the themes and traits of the New Left have become prominent in today's culture. As will be seen throughout this book, the Sixties generation's fixation on equality has permeated our society and its institutions, much to our disadvantage. Their idea of liberty has now become license in language, popular culture, and sexuality.
The idea that everything is ultimately political has taken hold. We know its current form as "political correctness," a distemper that afflicts the universities in their departments of humanities, social sciences, and law. Works of literature are read for their sub-texts, usually existing only in the mind of the politically correct reader, about the oppression of women, Western imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Political correctness is not confined to the enclaves of the academy. It is now to be found in museums, art galleries, seminaries, foundations-all the institutions relating to opinion and attitude formation.
A corollary to the politicization of the culture is the tactic of assaulting one's opponents as not merely wrong but morally evil. That was, of course, a key stratagem of the New Left, and it remains a crucial weapon in modern liberalism's armory.
The student radicals' habitual lying is easily enough explained. They were antinomians, just as those Christian heretics thought themselves freed by God's grace from any obligation to the moral law, so the student radicals, imbued with the political grace of the Left, were freed of the restraints of law and morality. It could not be immoral to lie in a noble cause. For the same reason, it could not be wrong to break laws or heads.
Modern liberals, being in charge of the institutions they once attacked, have no need to break heads and only an occasional need to break laws. They do, however, have a need to lie, and do so abundantly, since many Americans would not like their actual agenda."

Why slouch with your tails dragging towards Gomorrah when you can strut there with your tails held high?

Voting for a Bishop, Waste Not, Want Not

In a post on the 2009 Minnesota bishop election, Anglicat makes some good points.

"... never waste your vote on 'making a statement,' even in the very first ballot. With nine ballots in each delegate's voting packet, it may seem that there will be a luxury of opportunity to eventually vote their ultimate intention. Unfortunate for the 'statement makers,' sometimes the earliest ballot sets an unexpected and undesirable trend that is never overcome."

"It has been famously said that politics is the art of the possible. The rule of thumb for wise voters must be: never vote for the impossible even at the beginning of what looks to be a many-balloted election."

As our election for the next bishop of Upper South Carolina draws near, this pewster is giving serious consideration to three men, each of which would make a good bishop. Ranking these men based on just their videos, their written responses, and their walkabouts remains difficult. Factor in the needs of this diocese for a new approach to change the 10% drop in Sunday attendance that we have seen over the past 6 years, and the reluctance of the clergy to accept the need to change their way of "being church," and the pewster is left with a dilemma. If clergy votes to continue the drift to develop rites for same sex marriages, and to ordain openly gay partnered clergy by choosing either David Thompson+, Andrew Waldo+, or Philip Linder+, then it will be clear that the majority of the clergy is committed to a path of continued decline of the diocese and of the national church. It is beyond belief that they would be so committed to "making a statement" that they would ignore the facts that revisionist churches are dying a slow death. This diocese needs someone who can not just hold the dying churches hands, but someone of vision who can turn things around. It may mean that the Episcopal brand name has to be rewritten. I understand clergy's fear of such a change, but come on guys, your way ain't working, and you still have a large number of conservative laity left in the pews and paying their dues who do not want this diocese to go the way of same sex blessings or openly gay, partnered clergy.

So which one of the remaining candidates, Stockton Williams+, John Burwell+, or Neal Michell+ is most capable of working with both a liberal clergy and a conservative laity and leading us out of the current downward spiral? Which one can garner enough votes from clergy to become our next bishop? Who do I vote for in order to make my vote count rather than just having it become a wasted a vote, wasted in making a statement?

Switzerland 1, Minarets 0

In a move that will no doubt enrage the mullahs, Swiss voters approved a constitutional ban on minarets this November as reported by NPR,

"The country's four standing minarets, which won't be affected by the ban, do not traditionally broadcast the call to prayer outside their own buildings.

The sponsors of the initiative provoked complaints of bias from local officials and human-rights group with campaign posters that showed minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman."

The poster had earlier been ruled as protected under freedom of speech laws as reported in The Mail online.

I wonder if that poster would have been classified as "hate speech" in the U.S.?

I have also wondered what our downtown churches will do when Rock Hill's newest mosque starts blaring out prayer calls and interrupting our Sunday sermons?

Where's Andrew Waldo+?

Andrew Waldo+ appears to have successfully bamboozled moderate folks at our recent walkabouts. I have heard from conservative people who had not studied up beforehand who were likewise fooled by his "march to the middle." Therefore, some reiteration is in order.

In my pre-walkabout evaluation of this nominee for bishop of Upper South Carolina several problems were noted. Rather than direct you to that post, I will copy some of it here.

Old sermons curiously were not accessible from his church's home page, but I was able to dig out an old link using a different search engine and find sermons from 2003-2007, with the interesting note,

"FYI - Since June 2006, most of Andrew Waldo's sermons have been from notes, so PDFs are only occasionally available. We hope in the near future to offer MP3 files of sermons."

I did find a sermon from 01/30/05 entitled "Humility" that had some interesting things:

...how we as individuals and communities define the authority of scripture affects how we believe and act on the current Social Security debate, how we respond to poverty, the war in Iraq, questions around gay marriage, and within the church, how we view the ordination of my old friend and mentor, Bishop Gene Robinson. ."

Rev. Waldo's "old friend and mentor" is +Gene Robinson. Does that leave any doubt as to where we would be headed with Waldo+ in the House of Bishops with his old friend and mentor?

Let's take a look at his answers to the search committee:

Part A - Faith Story:

He honestly tells of his anti-Christian early years, and about his divorce he says,

"An unwanted, soul-crushing separation and divorce from my first wife at the tender age of twenty-five assured me that I was not as in control of my life as I thought."

I had to remind everyone about those verses we don't hear from the pulpit any longer:

1 Timothy 3:1-7
This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.
A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Part C - How would you counsel a rector who was asked to bless a same gender relationship and how would you lead us beyond our divisions?
He started out by commenting on same sex relationships,

"I don’t know how the Church will ultimately articulate—in liturgy or in canon law—the status of same-gender relationships without some division."

Sounds like he might be okay with schism.

"We have not however performed any same-gender blessings at Trinity Church because neither the vestry nor the larger parish community has come to one mind."

And what about the rest of the Church, what about the Anglican Communion? I guess it all boils down to the discretion of the rector, vestry and "larger parish community." What about the bishop?

"The guiding principle for such dialogue at Trinity has long been that 'It is more important for us to stand or kneel together as brothers and sisters around a common table receiving the Body and Blood of Christ than it is to be ‘right’ on a matter of doctrine.'”

That tells us where he stands on doctrine. I can almost use this reasoning to justify anything as long as I show up for Sunday service.

"My approach as bishop would continue to follow this pattern—not permitting blessings until the Church has come to one mind..."

Guess what, the Episcopal church has spoken, just ask the Bishop of Eastern Massachusetts who on 11/30/09 was reported to have given approval for same sex marriages to be performed by his priests in accordance with his interpretation of C056.

Waldo+ is clearly in the camp that will go along with the wishes and desires of the General Convention, which are to accept same sex blessings and gay ordinations as "facts on the ground" and it is "time to move forward." Here are his words:

"The answer here must follow from what I’ve said above: that because our Church is not of one mind on this issue we cannot act unilaterally, and I would not therefore sanction such blessings in the Diocese until we have, through General Convention, reached a decision..."

I would be willing to bet that he will permit clergy to perform a SSB in their parish once GC approves liturgies which could be in 2012 or 2015.

And what about D025,the one about ordination of partnered gay clergy? At the walkabout he claimed that if he were at the last General Convention, he would have voted against it. Well, Bill2 who claimed to have been present in Minnesota witnessed, (you can see the comment at the following URL:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/sf/page/24871/)

" think it was in the run-up to GC 2003. Trinity was going to hire a new assisting clergy person and Waldo was bemoaning how awful it would be if someone were disallowed because they were GLBTQXYZ. He let fly with all the usual shibboleths against conservatives." (Update from Bill2 on 12/1/2009 who adds, "I didn’t witness Waldo whining about excluding candidates based on their GLBTQXYZ status. They were on Trinity’s website, either as the rector’s column or a sermon. So in one sense I did witness it, but they weren’t spoken words I witnessed, rather typed. A fine distinction, but one that needs to be made."

I have to reiterate where I referenced our profile as a diocese:

15. Our current Bishop and the diocese, in
convention, have affirmed that we are a
Windsor Diocese. In that light, I believe our
next bishop should be supportive of the
Windsor Report and the ongoing Windsor
process.

48 % Strongly Agree
20 % Somewhat Agree
26 % No Opinion
4 % Somewhat Disagree
2 % Strongly Disagree

21. I support the marriage of gay and lesbian
persons in the Episcopal Church.

17 % Strongly Agree
11 % Somewhat Agree
7 % No Opinion
12 % Somewhat Disagree
53 % Strongly Disagree

I am sorry, but IMHO Waldo does not match our profile.

How about Q 30?

30. I would like our next bishop to be a strong
preacher / orator, fully committed to evangelism
and outreach to the unchurched.

46 % Strongly Agree
39 % Somewhat Agree
9 % No Opinion
6 % Somewhat Disagree

At the walkabout, I did not hear one word about how he has successfully grown his church or helped grow his diocese. Instead I heard about the closing of their church camp and conference center and his not doing Cursillo because he had heard it was "divisive."

Lastly we have the problem of his practice of "open communion" or "communion of the unbaptised." This may not be a problem that most pewsitters can understand. What should be understood is the manner in which Waldo+ flip flopped on his position. He simply caved under the pressure of his assistant rector and the "wave" that was sweeping the diocese of Minnesota.
Does he fit our profile's requirement that our bishop, "Have a strong theological background, interpreting the Gospel and standing on Christian principles, even if standing alone" (p.33)?

Another thing to consider is what one commenter sent me:

"Someone who blatantly violates Church law should not become a bishop and, in this case, he wantonly and egregiously violates Canon I.17.7 every Sunday. His acceptance of 'open Communion' is on the record and should not be ignored by the voting delegates."

This is the Canon:

Sec. 7. No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.

Could that be a problem in getting consents from other dioceses if elected?

Where is Wadlo+? HE IS LEFT OF DORSEY+!

Where will he leave us? LEFT OUT!

Episcopal Priests Working Outside the Prayer Book Box

If there was ever any doubt as to the meaning of resolution C056 passed by the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal church, please be reassured that there is no truth in the rumor that the resolution restricts in any way an Episcopal priest from officiating at a same sex marriage.

What was C056? For the uninitiated it said,

* FINAL VERSION - Concurred Resolution: C056
Title: Liturgies for Blessings
Topic: Liturgy
Committee: 13 - Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: Diocese of Missouri

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge the changing circumstances in the United States and in other nations, as legislation authorizing or forbidding marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian persons is passed in various civil jurisdictions that call forth a renewed pastoral response from this Church, and for an open process for the consideration of theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same gender relationships; and be it further


Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops, collect and develop theological and liturgical resources, and report to the 77th General Convention; and be it further


Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops, devise an open process for the conduct of its work inviting participation from provinces, dioceses, congregations, and individuals who are engaged in such theological work, and inviting theological reflection from throughout the Anglican Communion; and be it further


Resolved, That bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church; and be it further


Resolved, That this Convention honor the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality; and be it further


Resolved, That the members of this Church be encouraged to engage in this effort.

Here is the headline from Boston.com:

"Five years after same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, the local Episcopal bishop yesterday gave permission for priests in Eastern Massachusetts to officiate at same-sex weddings."

The article quotes renegade Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III,

“The time has come,’’ Shaw said in a telephone interview. “It’s time for us to offer to gay and lesbian people the same sacrament of fidelity that we offer to the heterosexual world.’’

Another blatant violation of ordination vows as well as the doctrine and discipline of this church. Will the bishop be disciplined? I doubt it.

Crape Murders in the Rue Garth

Were there any witnesses?

Where were you the week of Nov. 8, 2009?

Did anyone notice the disfigurement?



Alas, one consequence of the departure of the parish master gardener was the demise of the flower bearing tops of the crape myrtles in our once lovely garth garden. The trees' sole defender against the wrath of the rector was not present to plead their case in front of the Buildings and Grounds committee. In fact, the committee was not informed of the case, and the beheadings took place in the absence of due process.

This was clearly a premeditated case of CRAPE MURDER!

Inspector Pewseau of the Sûreté has been called in, and is questioning suspects in his usual bungling style. It is unlikely that he will solve this most challenging case.

The perpetrator will probably have to be exposed by an inspired amateur. Do we have a C. Auguste Dupew amongst us?