Bishops Blogging...! Oh my, oh my! "House of Bishops 2.0"

Well, who knows who started it, but now we've got Episcopal and Anglican Bishops blogging, video blogging, facebooking, (twittering?), youtube-ing, and the rest. I think it is great, actually, and so glad that some of them are realizing the possible benefits of embracing (with good Anglican intentionality, of course) Web 2.0...

The Dean of the Phoenix Cathedral, Nicholas Knisely made a presentation to the House of Bishops here in the US about the benefits of blogging, so I am waiting to see who else might jump on the bandwagon.



More on the Bishops Blogging over at Episcopal Cafe

Is your bishop blogging?

You'll see a few that I've linked on the left side of the page.

Here's a sample, and there will be more to come, I'm sure.

House of Bishops 2.0

• Arizona Bishop (Kirk Smith)

  Opening Day - Our regular sessions began this afternoon with a Eucharist in the Kanuga Chapel. Attached is a picture of Presiding Bishop Katherine preaching the opening...
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• Bishop Dan's Blog (Dan Edwards)

  Live From Kanuga III: House Of Bishops - Today we heard presentations on the economic slump. The first was by a Republican economist from Harvard Business School, Dr. Warren McFarlan. The second w...
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• Bishop Alan’s Blog (Alan Wilson)

  Toddler sees snow for first time - Thinking about childhood and innocence reminded me of an old family video Catherine made in 2001, showing Anna (then 2 yrs 4 months) seeing snow for the fi...
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• 299 New Jerusalem (Wayne Smith)

  HOB Day 1: Friday - We did in fact convene with the celebration of the Eucharist at noon, after which I was surprised (and delighted!) to see a friend from my Lambeth Bible Stud...
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• That We All May Be One (Christopher Epting)

  Prophets, Scribes, and “The Big Sort” - We are in the middle of a fascinating series of lectures and discussions with Bill Bishop, a journalist, and Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament scholar,...
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• Bishop Greg Rickel (Greg Rickel)

  Week Two: The Great Emergence - Dear Ones, I want to thank all of you who have so diligently entered into this conversation. There are many others out there in small study groups, aroun...
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• Bishop Marc (Marc Andrus)

  Ash Wednesday Sermon - [image: 090225_ash_wednesday_sermon] My Ash Wednesday sermon delivered at Grace Cathedral on February 25, 2009. Read and post comments | Send to a fri...
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• The Ninth Bishop of Texas (Andrew Doyle)

  The First Friday In Lent - This morning I got up and headed out to run some errands before I sat down to work for the day. I was listening to a group not known for its Holy or approp...
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• Canterbury Tales (Gene Robinson)

  Here are the pics - One last posting -- pictures to prove I wasn't making it all up! Ella and Gene with The Man (compliments of Mark). Ella and Michelle. Ella, Mark and G...
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• lambethJournal (Bishops blog from Lambeth '08)

  Blogging on Friday - Bishop Alan Scarfe, Diocese of Iowa The cost of discipleship was written over every one of the bishops’ faces at the end of the day yesterday. Whatever one’s...
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• Videos - LambethPress (Rowan Williams)

  The Feast of St Nicholas - The Feast of St Nicholas December 2007: Canterbury: Dr Rowan Williams reflects on the city's celebrations for the Feast of St Nicholas in the run up to C...

Let me know if you know others who are blogging (or Twittering), there are already a few on Facebook, but I'm
on a Facebook Fast for Lent...

Peace and Blessings,

The Rev. Peter M. Carey
"santospopsicles"



big hat tip to CartoonChurch.com for the two cartoons

"Yes Virginia, Bishop Gene Robinson Was THERE!" and he gave a moving prayer

Yes! I found visual evidence that Bishop Gene Robinson did, indeed, offer a prayer today at the Lincoln Memorial, courtesy of the Caminante blog.

And, the prayer that he offered is posted all around the blogging block, which I found first over at the Episcopal Cafe.

Though HBO didn't broadcast Bishop Robinson's prayer before the big concert today, and though there are rumors that huge banks of speakers malfunctioned, he did offer a moving prayer that asked for God's blessing upon this nation and on our next president. Though I was critical HERE and HERE of Bishop Robinson's contention that he wouldn't give an explicitly Christian prayer, I applaud his thoughtfulness and prayerfulness. (I think he could have mentioned Jesus, after all, as Bishop Robinson said on the Rachel Maddow Show, "Jesus had a bigger tent than anyone"). I believe that Bishop Robinson offered a quite amazing and moving prayer that is one that not only asks for God's blessing but also names some of the torn edges of the fabric of our country, and encourages us to get to work!

Amen to that!






By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Breaking News

Here are the top 10 Reasons that Bishop Robinson was Censored by HBO, click HERE or below
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/nka/2009/01/top-10-reasons-hbo-censored-ge.php

Hat tip goes to Scott over at "Seven Whole Days"

"No one had a bigger tent than Jesus", says Bishop Gene Robinson

Bishop Robinson will not be offering a Christian Prayer, according to his interview in the New York Times. On the other hand, he said tonight on the Rachel Maddow show that "No One Had a Bigger Tent than Jesus." Amen to that!!



(Bishop Robinson, we love you, you have our permission to mention Jesus at the Lincoln Memorial - or at least to quote some scripture, really, we're all ok with it!)

Religious leaders from Islam, Judaism, and from the Roman Catholic Church will be offering prayers at the service on January 21st.

Will the other religious leaders be offering prayers that emerge from their own tradition, or some kind of a general "pluralistic" kind of prayer at the service at the Washington National Cathedral?

Hmmmmmm...what do you think?

~ The Rev. Peter Carey

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found on The Episcopal Cafe

AP:

The Inauguration Committee has only released one clergy name so far for the Jan. 21 National Prayer Service that caps the inauguration. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a Protestant group, will deliver the sermon.

The Associated Press has learned additional details.

A prayer will be offered at the National Cathedral by Ingrid Mattson, the first woman president of the Islamic Society of North America, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The Islamic Society, based in Indiana, is the nation's largest Muslim group.

Three rabbis, representing the three major branches of American Judaism, will also say a prayer at the service, according to officials familiar with the plans. The Jewish clergy are Reform Rabbi David Saperstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein and Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, sources said.

It is also traditional for the incoming administration to ask the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington to lead a prayer. The Most Rev. Donald Wuerl leads the archdiocese.

And like many incoming presidents before him, Obama will attend a service at St. John's [Episcopal] Church, dubbed the "Church of the Presidents," before his swearing-in.

Mattson's participation is unlikely to be without controversy.

In my humble opinion, "If you're a bishop, it's really ok to do a Christian prayer, people will understand"

First, I was really happy that the President-Elect chose Bishop Gene Robinson to offer a prayer...then, I read the New York Times..."this will not be a Christian prayer," says the Bishop.

In my humble opinion, "If you're a bishop, it's really ok to do a Christian prayer, people will understand"
...and, "exactly what is happening when you offer an inter-religious prayer, anyway?"

Free advice, and I know you do get what you pay for...

I just get kinda bummed that our leaders seem like we have to apologize for our beliefs, could this be why the Episcopal Church is losing membership?

~ The Rev. Peter M. Carey


Bishop Gene Robinson quoted in the New York Times

Bishop Robinson said he had been reading inaugural prayers through history and was “horrified” at how “specifically and aggressively Christian they were.”

“I am very clear,” he said, “that this will not be a Christian prayer, and I won’t be quoting Scripture or anything like that. The texts that I hold as sacred are not sacred texts for all Americans, and I want all people to feel that this is their prayer.”

Read it all HERE



I'm glad other people, who spoke in this location, have chosen to quote from the Bible, such as MLK, Jr.

Diana Butler Bass, "Reframing as Spiritual Change"

My friend and former professor, Diana Butler Bass, has done some wonderful work of late analyzing mainline Protestant congregations that are thriving. She has a wonderful way to chart a vision that transcends the fallacies of either/or thinking that can tend to dominate discussions of religion (and politics!). She wrote a piece some time ago that offers up some interesting and helpful ways of seeing beyond the standard dichotomies of liberal and conservative, of orthodox and heterodox, of evangelical and progressive. It is a good read, and I've quoted just a bit below:

~ Rev. Peter M. Carey

Diana Butler Bass, "Reframing as Spiritual Change" posted at the Alban Roundtable, HERE

...Lately, I have been thinking a lot about denominations, conflict, and change. This may be due to the fact that I am an Episcopalian and my church is struggling right now over the issue of homosexuality. Recently, I lunched with a friend who is a priest. We talked about the pain of the last two years—the time since the Diocese of New Hampshire elected Gene Robinson, a priest living in a faithful, same-sex partnership, to be its bishop. “You know, I think the church handled this all very poorly,” my friend said. “Right after the vote, everyone who disagreed with Robinson’s election was all over the media, protesting, holding press conferences. Those who agreed kept saying ‘no comment, no comment.’ The church, as a whole, had no story to tell. Interest groups and individuals had stories. Those who were mad at the church had a story. But the church had no story.”

I looked at her in amazement. She was right. We had become, in effect, a church with no story to tell. Or, worse still, we had a story, but we failed to tell it. We let others tell it for us. In the absence of story, conflict grew, divides deepened, and those who had stories to begin with set the larger framework for storytelling. The church—as a whole—has spent much of the last two years responding to someone else’s story, entering into the worldview created by someone else’s language and definitions, arguing within a framework that does not carry the spiritual realities of original events...

Read it all HERE

www.albanroundtable.org

www.dianabutlerbass.com

From "The Lead" - The Living Church Splits a hair

I was just sent a link to the following article on The Episcopal Cafe's The Lead which offers some helpful comments about Bishop Robinson and his banning (or not, not at least technically) by the Church of England....

From The Episcopal Cafe:

The Living Church splits a hair

We are linking to this report in the increasingly tendentious Living Church to correct the mistaken impression it attempts to create.

George Conger writes that Rowan Williams has not been banned from preaching in England. This is technically correct. Williams doesn't have the authority to ban Robinson. However, Robinson told Williams several years ago that he would not preach without Williams' permission. Williams did not grant it. And in an email he sent to Robinson earlier this week he said that he did not think that "any extenstion" of the previous arrangement "in terms of permissions" would be appropriate because any public celebration "or even a sermon" would create controversy for Williams and whichever bishops gave Robinson permission to preach.

the Living Church says Bishop Robinson was not banned...

Was he banned?
Was he banned and it was rescinded?
Was he never banned?

Now it seems maybe Bishop Robinson wasn't banned at all...hmmmm, this is all very strange, check out the article in the Living Church...HERE

No Pulpit Ban for Bishop Robinson

Posted on: May 2, 2008

Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has not been banned from pulpits in the Church of England according to a spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who denied press speculation that the Archbishop Rowan Williams was attempting to silence Bishop Robinson.

A press officer confirmed on May 2 that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams had not issued Bishop Robinson a license to officiate in the Province of Canterbury. However, Church of England canon law does not grant the archbishop the authority to ban preachers, the spokesman noted.

While traveling in Britain to promote his book, Bishop Robinson told the BBC “in the past [Archbishop Williams] has... declined to give me permission to preach and to celebrate the Holy Communion and I would never do so without his permission.” Episcopal News Service reported April 30 that Archbishop Williams would not permit Bishop Robinson “to preach or preside at a Eucharist while he is in England, according to reports.”

Under the Church of England’s Canon C17.6 “by statute law it belongs to the archbishop to give permission to officiate within his province to any minister who has been ordained” by an “overseas” province of the Anglican Communion. All visiting clergy who seek to perform the sacraments within the Province of Canterbury must secure the permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The same rules apply for the Province of York in the northern part of England. But another canon gives the authority to preach to a parish incumbent, with the permission of the diocesan bishop.

Was there a rescinding of the ban, or was there never a ban at all, or is this article in the Living Church not based on credible sources?

Gandalf planning to preach Bishop Robinson's Sermon?

Wow,...we certainly live in interesting times...on Ruth Gledhill's (London Times Religion Correspondent) blog, she asserts that there may be a plan to have Sir Ian McCellan (the wonderful actor who played Gandalf in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings series) preach Bishop Gene Robinson's sermon since Bishop Robinson has been denied permission to preside at the Eucharist and to preach in England by Archbishop Rowan Williams ...

... perhaps just a few rumors stitched together, but the idea is pretty interesting....

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey


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From Ruth Gledhill's blog:

Episcopal Cafe has a good story in its 'lead', that Bishop Gene Robinson has been denied permission by the Archbishop of Canterbury to preach while in this country during Lambeth. I've been following this for some time, as there was a story going round that Sir Ian McKellan, the gay actor, would take part in a service and 'preach' the sermon for Bishop Gene while he stood silently beside the pulpit. Sir Ian is understood to have expressed his sympathies for Bishop Gene in writing. Also, when my own husband interviewed him a while back for The Times Magazine, although these quotes didn't make it into the finished article because they weren't relevant, Sir Ian was clear in his outrage at the Anglican goings-on. When I spoke to Sir Ian about it a few days ago he was adamant that he wished to make no comment. And Sir Ian's office tells me he has no plans to do anything for Bishop Gene at present. In any case, whether he did or not would depend on Bishop Gene being banned from preaching in the first place. So has he or hasn't the bishop been banned? Will Bishop Gene and Sir Ian put on a 'double act' at St Mary's Putney, an event that would be a massive publicity coup for Inclusive Church and Bishop Gene's supporters?

It does make me wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has deliberately given them the opening they need to do just this. Because if Lambeth Palace hadn't denied him permission to preach, he could hardly make such a powerful protest against a non-existent injunction. But maybe that's a conspiracy theory too far.....

Read it all HERE.

If Gandalf preaches Bishop Robinson's sermon, who will preside and preach for Bishops Minns or Venables (if they too are banned)

Hmmmmmmm, what do you think...?



I, for one, would be happy to have Merry or Pippin preach for me in England ....

Elf Yourself...

this application has been making its way around the 'net, but here is my version of "elf yourself"...do you recognize anyone...maybe we just need Santa to help us get along!

Click HERE for a bit of humor...









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