Entertainment Weekly
Informative, investigative, and intelligently written, EW is the standard bearer of entertainment magazines. If you want all of the inside scoop, go to Variety, but if you just want most of it, presented in a fun way without being gossipy or “fanboy,†EW has the write stuff — especially now with the sharp-witted Diablo Cody, Oscar winner for Juno’s script, as a back-page columnist.

MovieWeb, ComingSoon
Want to know what’s coming down the pike — not just in the next few months, but even a couple years from now? I rely on these two sites to keep me informed on upcoming releases — when they’re due, who’s directing, who’s starring, what’s the latest news on each, images, trailers, and so on.

IMDb
The Internet Movie Database has just about everything you could possibly want to know about any movie ever made. Want to know if 1961’s The Guns of Navarone won any Oscars? (It did: Best Special Effects.) Or who played Juror No. 11 in 1957’s 12 Angry Men? (It was George Voskovec.) It’s all here.

Looking Closer
Jeffrey Overstreet was the first critic on the CT Movies team when we launched in 2004 (he’d been writing Film Forum for CT for a while), and I’ve always appreciated his insights into the movies. I’ve learned more about how to watch a movie from Jeffrey than from anyone. His Looking Closer blog keeps me abreast of what’s happening in film, music, and more, and his thoughtful commentary goes the extra mile.

FilmChat
If I only went to one website a day to find out what I had to know that would be relevant to CT readers, Peter T. Chattaway’s FilmChat blog would be that one-stop shop. It’s comprehensive, but especially zeroes in on films, themes, and news relevant to a Christian audience. Bookmark it.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at  July 18, 2008 8:15AM | Comments (1)

Mark Pinsky isn't the only Orlando Sentinel employee notified this week that he's being laid off (nor is the Sentinel alone in its cuts).

But as of August 1, his byline will be missed by religion reporters around the world. Over his 13 years on the religion beat, first at the Los Angeles Times then at the Sentinel, Pinsky established a reputation for being one of the best reporters on the beat. His beat was broad, but in the hometown of Campus Crusade for Christ, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and Strang Communications, Pinsky developed a particular expertise in evangelical Christianity. He recounted his experience and reporting in a book, A Jew Among Evangelicals, and in a 2005 Columbia Journalism Review article.

Pinsky also established himself as must-read reporter on the nexus of faith and entertainment culture. Westminster John Knox recently published an expanded version of his 2001 The Gospel According to The Simpsons, and in 2004 published his similar book, The Gospel According to Disney.

CT readers will remember his February 2001 cover story on Ned Flanders, or some of the other reporting he's done for us over the years.

Last month, Reed Business Information announced that it was laying off another great religion journalist, Publishers Weekly senior religion editor Lynn Garrett, whose coverage of religion publishing was second to none. Regardless of whether we're starting to see a trend of cuts in religion journalism, it's sad to see that two indispensable bylines on religion and culture have been dispensed with.

Posted by Ted Olsen at  July 17, 2008 11:38AM | Comments (2)

This afternoon, the Senate finally voted on the so-called PEPFAR reauthorization bill.

The Associated Press reports:

Also, I received in my email inbox, this news release from the Global AIDS Alliance:

This story will hit the front pages of newspapers tomorrow. Watch for an update soon.

Posted by Tim Morgan at  July 16, 2008 6:19PM | Comments (2)

Gary B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury, which newspapers publish either with the comics or the editorial cartoons, just wrapped up a series about Iraqi Christian refugees. Roland (in this series a Fox News correspondent) is trying to cover the story of an Assyrian family in a way that is flattering for the Surge. Doonesbury treats the imaginary Iraqis with a great deal of dignity. Fox News doesn’t fare so well.

Fox News actually did run an Associated Press story about “Christians Fleeing Violence in Iraq†in early May, which brings up the matter of ransoms most Christians pay for "protection."

The background--not in the comic strips, although alluded to--is that Iraq’s Christians, the largest non-Muslim religious group in Iraq , are represented disproportionately in the refugee population (although it should be mentioned that the Assyrian diaspora dates back to World War I). It's such a huge drain that some churches in Iraq have no members left. Christians can be identified by their names and ID cards, and they are often targeted for violence. The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) is calling it genocide. So, many Assyrians leave as soon as they can. Others, like the family in Doonesbury, wait until something unbearable happens.

Continue reading "Doonesbury 'reports' on Iraqi Christians"

Posted by Susan Wunderink at  July 15, 2008 10:32AM | Comments (3)

A dispatch from one of CT's correspondents in the Middle East:

By Matthew Snyder

Prince El-Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, recently launched an internet network aimed at countering the growing tensions between the West and the Arab/Islamic world.

The Electronic Network for Arab West Understanding, or ENAWU project involves the partnership of 12 organizations from across the Middle East and Europe, including the Center for Documentation and Research on Arabic Christianity (CEDRAC, Lebanon) and Prince Hassan's own Arab Thought Forum.

“Noah created an ark for the salvation of humanity,†Prince Hassan said. “Can we create an ark for the salvation of our common humanity?â€

The Arab world has seen a spike in hostility between Muslims and Christians in recent years. Sectarian violence in Iraq has forced many Iraqi Christians to flee their homeland.

In Egypt, Christian girls often feel pressured to don the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, to avoid harassment. Tensions between Muslim and Christian groups have plagued Lebanon for decades. ENAWU’s supporters believe that by providing resources, such as an archive of more than 20,000 articles and reports from Arab media, and encouraging dialog, their project will help to alleviate such tensions.

“The aim is clear,†said Father Dr. Samir Khalil, founder and director of CEDRAC. “Understanding the other to arrive at dialog and peace. Understanding does not mean we necessarily agree with the other.â€

Cornelis Hulsman, editor-in-chief of the Arab West Report and one of ENAWU’s directors, strongly emphasized the media watchdog role of the project.

“We have a problem with media reporting that is often selective, biased, and inflammatory,†Hulsman said. “We have seen a number of tensions which were directly the consequence of poor reporting and that should be countered.â€

According to Pakinam Sharqawy, professor of political science at Cairo University, the participation of students will be essential to the success of ENAWU because “dialogue among youth is less politicized, more open … our youth are more prepared to understand others.â€

ENAWU is also looking to tap into the contacts and networks of Arab organizations as well as the vast repository of information, and potential participants, on the western shores of the Atlantic.

“We’re really hoping to build relations with relevant organizations in the United States,†Hulsman said.

In earlier coverage of Prince Hassan, he told CT in an exclusive interview:

Click here for the full interview.

Posted by Tim Morgan at  July 12, 2008 11:31PM | Comments (5)

Fox News is reporting this morning that its former news anchor and former Bush administration press secretary Tony Snow has died of cancer. Snow was 53.

Read the Fox News obit here, and read Snow's 2007 article "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings" for Christianity Today here.

Here's a brief excerpt from that article:

Posted by David Neff at  July 12, 2008 7:09AM | Comments (15)

Christianity Today online readers showed more support for Sen. Barack Obama than Sen. John McCain in our poll this week for the first time since January.

Obama passed McCain (41%) by garnering 51 percent of the vote during our poll that closed yesterday. In June, McCain led Obama 50 to 33 percent. The two were tied in March at 26 percent.

Here's a rundown of results from Jan. 4 (1,613 votes), March 3 (1964 votes), April 1 (2,668 votes), June 9 (3,007 votes), and July 10 (3,189 votes). Be sure to take the polls with a grain of salt - they are conducted online and are usually left up for about three days.

This graph is also cross-posted at Christianity Today's new election 2008 blog.

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Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  July 10, 2008 7:53PM | Comments (31)

First there was non-Catholic Sally Quinn, co-editor of On Faith and wife of my hero, displaying incredible religious ignorance or insensitivity when she took communion at the funeral for her friend, Tim Russert. Here was her reaction:

Wow. Really missed the point there, unless Russert died for her sins (not to denigrate the saintly journalist or our Lord).

Then a University of Central Florida student claimed he was receiving death threats for "smuggling" the communion wafer out of church.

"Would you believe this isn't hyperbole?" asked PZ Myers, the often-offensive atheist blogger.

Myers thought the reaction of many Catholics was ridiculous (I agree), and let his readers know it in a manner with which I don't agree: by trashing those who think Christ's body has taken the form of a "GOD--MNED CRACKER!"

"There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so god--mned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid," he wrote. "And nothing makes them stupider than religion."

Continue reading "Atheists, the Eucharist and a controversial 'cracker'"

Posted by Brad Greenberg at  July 10, 2008 6:49PM | Comments (22)

Breaking news, Wednesday, July 9, on HIV legislation stalled in the US Senate for weeks. A source in Washington emailed me this afternoon, saying:

What does this mean?

Jon Kyl, the junior senator from Arizona, pretty much has sterling conservative credentials and a "solidly conservative voting record" in the words of the Almanac of American Politics. So what is his beef with the reauthorization of PEPFAR, perhaps the most relatively untarnished legacy program of the Bush administration?

Certainly, sticker shock and mission creep are legit concerns. But here's some op-ed commentary, published in the Tuscon Citizen:

Opponents of the bill have yet to persuasively explain their objections to this legislation or put forward a reasonable way forward. Senator Kyl and others who oppose PEPFAR own an explanation on why stalling this admitted expensive (and by the way successful) program makes sense.

Posted by Tim Morgan at  July 9, 2008 5:30PM | Comments (3)

Ministries headed by evangelists Joyce Meyer and Benny Hinn are both changing the way they operate even as a Senate probe into alleged lavish spending by six prominent ministries continues, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday, July 7.

"Both Joyce Meyer and Benny Hinn have indicated that they are instituting reforms without waiting for the committee to complete its review," said Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, in an update on the investigation he began last year.

"Self-reform can be faster and more effective than government regulation."

Roby Walker, a spokesman for Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo., confirmed that changes are being made but could not release details on Tuesday.

Don Price, a spokesman for Benny Hinn Ministries in Grapevine, Texas, also declined to comment in detail but said "reforms and improved governance practices" were being shared with Grassley's office.

Grassley's update noted instances of "whistleblower intimidation" where former employees "have received phone calls reminding them of their confidentiality agreements and threatening lawsuits if the agreements are breached."

Jill Gerber, a spokeswoman for the committee, would not disclose which ministries were involved in such calls, and declined to elaborate on the changes planned at Hinn's and Meyer's ministries.

Grassley's update described the responses from Hinn and Meyer as "in good faith and substantively informative," but said the others are "incomplete" or "not responsive."

Broadcaster Kenneth Copeland has reportedly said his Texas-based ministry will not respond even if a subpoena is issued. Grassley's memo said staffers are "consulting with Senate attorneys about next steps."

In other cases, staffers continue to contact ministry lawyers and officials in hopes of further cooperation.

"Sen. Grassley still very much wants to avoid subpoenas and hopes that those ministries will agree that subpoenas would be an unnecessary step," Gerber said.

The other ministries under investigation are: Bishop Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga.; Creflo Dollar Ministries in College Park, Ga., and Randy and Paula White, who co-pastored Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at  July 8, 2008 3:39PM | Comments (11)

Legendary philanthropist Sir John Templeton died at 95 today in the Bahamas, where he had lived for decades, according to the New York Times.

Templeton was known for funding religion and science projects, donating millions to religious leaders, scholar, and scientists.

CT wrote a story on Templeton in 2005 with comments from Joel Carpenter, former religion officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  July 8, 2008 10:26AM | Comments (0)

Leaders in the worldwide Anglican Communion (numbering up to 70 million) were anxiously awaiting today's vote in York on the ordination of women bishops.

Read the BBC report here

A large number of traditionalists left the 26 million-member Church of England back in 1994 after the church's ruling synod approved the ordination of women to the priesthood. The other shoe has now dropped with the synod's approval of women bishops.

In recent days, there have been persistent reports than hundreds of Anglican/COE clergy were prepared to bolt from their parishes and presumably migrate to Roman Catholicism. That may still happen. It all depends on the level of accommodation that the synod offers.

Of course, these events are a precursor to the once per decade Lambeth Conference, which opens in Canterbury on the campus of the University of Kent next week.

Many Anglican women leaders may press for limited accommodation since they believe this kind of action is discriminatory against their ministry and creates a de facto two-tier system for clergy.

The UK Press Association reports:

Since the format at the Lambeth event will be geared toward conversation, not debate, amendment, and passage of resolutions, it is also murky whether women's ordination will be subject to significant discussion at all. Conservatives are not in unity of women's ordination. But I can't find a single truly conservative woman bishop in the entire Communion. Can you?

Posted by Tim Morgan at  July 7, 2008 5:27PM | Comments (11)

China will provide free copies of the Bible to athletes, spectators and anyone else who wants one at the Olympic Games, the Associated Press reports.

About 10,000 bilingual copies of the Bible will be distributed and another 30,000 copies of the New Testament will also be available during the games, but none will be provided in public hotels, according to the AP. The cover of the Gospels will sport an Olympics logo. Places of worship for other religions will also be available.

The country has had to combat reports that said there would be restrictions on Bibles being brought into Beijing. See CT's other coverage of China.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at  July 7, 2008 9:06AM | Comments (3)

In the four decades since Paul Ehrlich published his demographic jeremiad, The Population Bomb, demographers have largely worried that the earth is getting too crowded. Contemporary proponents point to supposed signs of climate change, food shortages, and commodities inflation as evidence that Ehrlich was right. However, now comes word that in some parts of the world the key problem is not too many people, but too few. Russell Shorto’s absorbing June 29 article in The New York Times Magazine informs us:

The hypothesis Shorto presents is that nations that have only half-heartedly embraced modern society’s welcoming of women into the paid workforce by failing to provide state financial incentives or career flexibility inadvertently end up providing strong disincentives for couples to have children. Shorto notes that as modern culture continues marching around the world, population shrinkage is far from solely a European problem. He reports that countries as diverse as Iran, South Korea, and Thailand are also facing alarming drop-offs in fecundity.

One thing left largely unexplored in this lengthy piece, however, are those traditionalists—of whatever faith—who reject the modern project to push both parents into the paid workforce and who opt instead to raise their children without recourse to state surrogates. While a second income is an economic necessity for many parents today (even given the existence of financial incentives to work), the article fails to consider that many—if finances were not an issue—would prefer to be home with their children during their formative years. How better to pass on religiously based knowledge, traditions, and character traits to the next generation and avoid the corrosive, occasionally life-denying, tenets of modernity?

Hat tip: Yehiel Poupko.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at  July 1, 2008 12:07PM | Comments (10)

In the same week Focus on the Family’s James Dobson made some pointed comments about Barack Obama’s “confused theology†in his 2006 “Call to Renewal†speech, the senator’s campaign took another step in its deliberate outreach to evangelical voters by hiring Shaun Casey.

An ethics professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., Casey will next month become Obama’s official “senior adviser for religious affairs.†Similar to his informal role in John Kerry’s 2004 campaign, much of Casey’s time will be spent communicating Obama’s personal story and policy positions to leaders of the evangelical world. (Casey was also the lucky one to go to bat for Obama on Good Morning America following Jeremiah Wright’s own pointed comments.)

Casey was one of four figures to speak on religion in public affairs at this weekend’s Christian Scholars Conference, held at Lipscomb University in Nashville, a school affiliated with the Church of Christ denomination (not the UCC) and with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

In a one-on-one panel discussion with Stephen Monsma, research fellow at the Paul Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, Casey expressed his belief that in their tendency to resist “single-issue voting,†younger evangelicals may hold the key to Obama’s victory come November:

According to the Washington Post’s campaign blog, Casey was raised in an evangelical home and attended Abilene Christian University in Texas before going on to Harvard Divinity for three degrees.

For more on Dobson and Obama's theology, see CT editor at large Collin Hansen's "Reading the Bible with Obama."

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at  June 30, 2008 3:54PM | Comments (23)

Monday, June 30, 11 a.m.

An brief update on the GAFCON statement and declaration:

Many GAFCON pilgrims are headed home and I met two of them at Ben Gurion airport disappointed that their efforts to include an explicit affirmation of the prolife cause was left off the statement and declaration. In reality, relatively few changes were made to the GAFCON declaration as the rank and file members fed comments to the drafting committee. Efforts to get prolife language were unsuccessful. But Anglican prolife leaders will try again.

Watch for an update on this later today.

Sunday, June 29, 11 a.m

I'm writing as GAFCON pilgrims celebrate their closing Holy Communion. About one hour ago, the GAFCON leader, Archbishop Orombi, read aloud the four page GAFCON statement. The primates who were present publicly signed the document, including: Akinola, Kolini, Nzimbi, Orombi, and Venables. There is space for Primates Akrofi, Mokiwa to sign. They were unable to attend the Sunday signing ceremony.

Go to: www.anglicantv.org later today for video on demand.

After the signing, there was a standing ovation and about 25 minutes of spontaneous singing and African traditional dancing. It was a stunning visual feast. Later, Archbishop Venables will deliver the closing address.

Heads up: Those doubtful that GAFCON is birthing a movement should check out the London event this coming week. On July 1, All Souls Langham Place in London will be hosting a one-day event, reportedly to be attended by 750 Anglican clergy. Archbishops Orombi, Venables, and Jensen are the headliners.

All Souls, where John Stott served as rector for year upon year, is ground zero for evangelical Anglicanism. Since this event in London will occur about two weeks before Lambeth, it means (to me at least) that evangelicals will be game-day ready when the once per decade Lambeth event opens in mid-July on the campus of the University of Kent, in Canterbury. (But ready for what, who knows?)

In the mean time back in the USA, The Episcopal Church has taken another body blow by losing another court round over ownership of church property in Viriginia; and TEC convicted the Episcopal bishop of Penn. for covering up his brother's sexual abuse of a teen-age girl back in the 1970s. Conservatives are happy to see this conviction, but the case has been stalled for years.

Continue reading an earlier dispatch about late night missteps in releasing the GACON statement:

Continue reading "GAFCON Statement Contains No Explicit Sanctity of Life Endorsement"

Posted by Tim Morgan at  June 28, 2008 10:55PM | Comments (1)

Reading an economic report at Moody's Economy.com, I was struck by one sentence. It read something like: "If the U.S. falls into recession, it will be because the American family couldn't make good on its debts."

While that oversimplifies all the factors that went into the creating and popping of the housing bubble (including deceptive practices and fraud on the part of lenders and the "irrational exuberance" that accompanies any such asset price inflation), the basic cause of the country's economic problems is the fact that a huge number of borrowers couldn't pay their debts.

As we are seeing, fiscal irresponsibility can be devestating not just to those whose houses are foreclosed upon, but neighbors, lenders, other borrowers, the growing numbers of unemployed, and on and on as the effects ripple through the economy. So, it's about time that some thinkers have begun discussing debt not simply in economic terms, but moral ones.

In a terrific essay, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, lays out how our country instituted a culture of thrift and fiscal responsibility only to give in to hucksters pushing payday loans and the lotto.

Whitehead reports that in 2004--when home prices were escalating and families were easily able to borrow against the inflated value--the typical family spent more than 18 percent of its income on debt payments, 12.2 percent said debt payments exceeded 40% of their income. One in seven families has filed for bancruptcy or sought the help of a credit consolidator. "Few other advanced countries confront a debt debacle comparable to that of the United States."

Financial deregulation, allowing for a massive increase in what lenders could charge borrowers in interest, in the 80s began to unravel the once-wary attitude Americans had toward debt. Lenders began to market their products as bringing the advantages of credit to the masses. No longer did the less than affluent need to save up for the new sofa or pay for a car in cash.

Creditors today structure loans and repayment terms to keep borrowers borrowing--and creditors flush with fees, interest, and other finance payments. Loans "are structured so that it is hard for the borrower to repay the loan in full. Instead, many consumers end up with little choice but to pay special fees to “roll over†the original loan into the next payday, a practice that can lead to chronic dependency on expensive credit."

Whitehead points out the "loan sharks" are nothing new in American society. As the country industrialized, there were plenty of unscrupulous creditors taking advantage of workers in America's burgeoning cities--workers fresh from the farm who had nothing but their next paycheck to borrow against. "But this was the Progressive Era, and a handful of reformers set out to combat the 'loan sharking evil.' "

Reformers fought to make lending to the poor profitable--allowing banks to charge enough interest to cover the extra risk but not too much to forever impoverish borrowers. Other reformers took on the task of creating "pro-thrift" institutions such as the credit union.

Whitehead's article is based on a report by the Institute for American Values . David Brooks calls the paper, titled “For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture," "one of the most important think-tank reports you’ll read this year."

Brooks does admit that may not be saying much.

But he agrees that financial decadence is something those concerned about the country's moral shift need to be paying more attention to. There are policy fixes to implement, but, he says, "the most important is to shift values. [Benjamin] Franklin made it prestigious to embrace certain bourgeois virtues. Now it’s socially acceptable to undermine those virtues. It’s considered normal to play the debt game and imagine that decisions made today will have no consequences for the future."

A shift in values is needed in part because those we should be calling upon to bring payday lenders and fast and loose mortgage agents back into line are the politicians. And they're as enslaved to debt as the rest of us. "The debate about our nation's fiscal problems," writes Andrew L. Yarrow in the Balitmore Sun, "is on the wrong track. Debt is a moral issue; by any objective standard, it is wrong to beggar your children."

Our country runs a $9.4 trillion tab and has promised another $50 trillion in outlays (think Social Security and Medicare) that is currently unfunded. What happens to organizations that make huge promises that they can't possibly fulfill? Think the Big Three: Ford, GM, Chrystler. Think Detroit and the Michigan economy.

Yarrow argues that this kind of debt is immoral. "Our culture's Judeo-Christian tradition offers powerful counsel on this subject, words that we should not be afraid to wield. The biblical book of Proverbs, for example, warns that 'the borrower is servant to the lender,' and Psalms 37:21 offers the more pointed injunction that 'the wicked borrow and don't pay back.' "

He offers specific and helpful policy positions and persuasive moral arguments for getting our country's revenues and expenditures back into line: "Increasing the Social Security eligibility age, indexing benefits to price (not wage) inflation and establishing carve-out personal retirement accounts because these are the right things to do for our kids. Speak of sacrifice (whose Latin root means "sacred") for future generations when advocating taxes on those most able to pay." He goes on to address health care, the evironment, and energy.

"As theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: 'The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children.' "

Posted by Rob Moll at  June 28, 2008 6:52PM | Comments (8)

A Civil War-era law that lets Virginia churches keep their property when leaving a denomination where a "division" has occurred is constitutional, a county judge ruled Friday, June 27, siding with 11 former Episcopal parishes.

Fairfax County Judge Randy I. Bellows' ruling on the 1867 law stops short of awarding the property to the parishes, but it hands them a major legal win.

"It's a resounding victory and very broad," said Steffen Johnson, lead counsel for several of the congregations. "There are just a few loose ends to tie up."

The ruling could encourage the dozens of Episcopal parishes in similar court battles across the U.S., and shake the confidence of mainline Protestant denominations that fear losing churches and people to breakaway groups.

An October trial is scheduled to decide the remaining legal issues, which concern church deeds and property that predate the 1867 law.

The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia argued that the law infringes on their First Amendment rights to practice religion without government interference.

The diocese signaled that it may appeal the ruling, saying Friday it would "explore fully every option available to restore constitutional and legal protections for all churches in Virginia."

The 1867 law allows churches that are part of a denomination in "division" to keep their property when they decide which side to join.

In a 49-page ruling, Bellows wrote, "While it is true that (the law) requires the court to make factual findings involving religious entities, each of those findings are secular in nature."

Bellows ruled in April that a "division of the first magnitude" has arisen in the worldwide Anglican Communion and its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church.

Angered over the consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, the breakaway churches — including several large, historic parishes — have joined the more conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Episcopal leaders hold that local church property is held in trust for the diocese and the denomination. People may leave, they say, but the steeple stays.

The diocese of Virginia called the ruling "regrettable" and said it "reaches beyond the Episcopal Church to all hierarchical churches in the Commonwealth."

Seven Protestant denominations, some of which are experiencing similar controversies, and several regional church bodies, filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the Episcopal Church's interpretation of the law.

Posted by Susan Wunderink at  June 27, 2008 8:35PM | Comments (3)

Andrew Sullivan has written an unusually honest and reflective column for The Guardian on the intellectual tradeoffs of living in a one-click-away world.

A veteran of the blogosphere now publishing at a rate of 300 posts per week, Sullivan rhapsodizes over the transformations this has worked on his brain functioning:

Continue reading "Take Up and Read...Offline"

Posted by Derek Keefe at  June 27, 2008 11:23AM | Comments (1)

Some 1100 Anglicans from around the world are meeting this week at the Renaissance hotel in West Jerusalem in hopes of steering the Anglican Communion back to the center of Christian Orthodoxy.

But this conference, now entering its fifth day, is in many respects becoming more difficult to understand and thus easier to misinterpret.

If I were writing purely a critique of the mainstream media coverage, my central criticism would be that US and UK media outlets keep driving the political side of the story (Will there or won't there be a schism?). But they are by and large missing the faith side of the story.

It's easy to do. The folks attending the worship events of GAFCON are telling me that these are high water marks in their own spiritual development. Most worship events are well attended and the plenary sessions are standing room only.

I am told the worship service on Wednesday evening at Ophel Gardens, along the southern steps of the Temple, was a stunning display of contemporary Christian worship in an ancient context. Most media skipped that event (myself included) due to scheduling conflicts.

But the media are not the only ones who are misunderstanding GAFCON. Among conservatives, no surprise, I am coming across three different kinds of Anglicans here who often don't understand each other very well. Let me describe them this way:

* The separationists. These individuals wish to create a new Anglican Communion that is global, not centered in Canterbury.

* The reformers. These folks are not yet ready to give up on the existing Anglican Communion and have a movement strategy for redeeming and restoring the Communion.

* The new paradigm. This is the trickiest one to understand. Under a new paradigm, Anglicanism becomes a global network, locally distinctive, church or community-based, and centered on the biblical mission of evangelism and discipleship.

One new reality of GAFCON is that the discussions here across the Anglican food chain from the Primates to the small groups of lay and parish clergy have moved beyond "The American Problem," which is The Episcopal Church, its bitterly hostile actions against conservatives, and the advent of homosexual clergy and same-sex unions. Bishop Bob Duncan, the American conservative leader from Pittsburgh, isn't even here.

Last night, scholar Lamin Sanneh, Palestinian Christian Salim Munayer, and Messianic pastor Evan Thomas pointed GAFCON Anglicans toward a future that was global, reconciling, and biblical. Years from now, we might find that the only English element left in 21st century Anglicanism is the English language itself.

In my mind, the questions of the hour before the committee drafting a GAFCON statement are these:

What will the drafting committee emphasize? Will they lay the groundwork for a new communion? Will they map out a process of Anglican Communion reform? Or, will they envision a new kind of Anglicanism that is post-colonial, not nationalistic, but conciliar, global, and networked?

Tomorrow, GAFCON small groups are due to evaluate the statement in draft form.

Posted by Tim Morgan at  June 26, 2008 4:57AM | Comments (9)