About the Name

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent The-oph’ilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. -- Luke 1:1-4

Relax, I know I’m not writing the New Testament here, but I will try to follow a few things closely. — Dick Sandlin

Search

Advanced Search

Categories

• Creativity
• Religion
• Science
• Other
• Personal

Recent entries

• The Known Universe
• Will TEC Adopt the Covenant?
• Observatories Explore Galactic Center
• St. Francis Dallas Joins Dio Ft. Worth
• Science and Religion Not at Odds
• Long-term Spacers Return Home
• Pope Offers Olive Branch to Anglo-catholics
• Jon Stryker Funds LGBT Initiative
• TEC’s Diocese of Western Louisiana “Affirms” Covenant
• ABC Says Only Provinces Can Adopt Covenant
• Hell Hath No Limits
• Robot Fish Swims with Wave Motion
• Armadillo Qualifies in NASA Challenge
• Wagner’s Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser
• Buzz Lightyear Returns from Space
• Ft. Worth Wins 1st Round against TEC
• ACNA Consecrates Its 1st Bishop
• Anglican Primate Elected in Nigeria
• Bethlehemian Rapsody
• Orthodox Lament Georgia Election
• New Images from Refurbished Hubble
• Mozart’s Benedictus
• Cowardly Attack: New Martyrs in Sudan
• Episcopal Nuns Swim Tiber
• Rifqa Wins Stay of Execution
• Facebook Helps Save Christian Girl from Muslim Father
• Creativity Post Opens Thread
• NASA Finding Supports Evolution
• South Carolina Bishop Speaks Out
• Episcopal Bishop Orders No-compete Clause
• California Church Seeks 3rd Way
• The Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church and ACNA
• Who is leaving whom?
• Who is this Dick (Ricardo) Sandlin?

Archives

• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• Complete Archives
• Category Archives

Syndicate

• RSS 2.0
• Atom
• Referrers

Statistics

• This page has been viewed 66457 times
Page rendered in 0.1721 seconds

Powered by

How This Site Works

Three columns work together to present a lot of information. The center column initially contains recent posts starting with the newest. There are five on each page: see the page numbers near the bottom of the column. Each post is a member of a Category. The left column presents categories so that you can click on one and see the posts in that category alone in the center column. The titles of the forty most recent posts are listed below the categories so that you can quickly select one to view. Please click on the Comments tag below any post to enter a comment about it. The right column contains more persistent Features. Wherever you are in the site, you can return to the home page by clicking on the top banner. The image in the top banner is looking toward the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Long-term Spacers Return Home

Three spacemen (a Russian, an American, and a Canadian) landed safely on the steppe of Kazakhstan on October 11th.  This NASA photo shows the three sitting in chairs outside their Soyuz capsule just minutes after their landing.  The event was not widely publicized in the West and I found the story today on the NASA website.  Two of the three men had spent 197 days in space, on Space Station Destiny (the International Space Station), before their landing near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft at 10:32 a.m. local time.

Seated on the left in the photo is Canadian spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, who spent nine days on the station after launching with Expedition 21 on September 30th.  In the center is Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and on the right is NASA astronaut Michael Barratt.  Padalka and Barratt arrived at the station in March to begin Expedition 19 then transitioned to the six-member Expedition 20 crew in May. Padalka commanded both Expedition crews and Barratt was flight engineer for Expedition 20. 

The three flew back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia outside Moscow for reunions with their families, and for Padalka and Barratt, the start of their reorientation to a gravity environment after almost seven months off the planet.

Is it just me or does the steppe in the picture behind them look like the surface of Mars, as seen by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity?  Unfortunately, Spirit became embedded in soft soilat a site called “Troy” five months ago, more than five years into a mission on Mars that was originally scheduled to last for three months.  The NASA photo above shows efforts to extract Spirit, using a mock-up to identify the best escape strategy.  See the Free Spirit NASA page for more details.

As of Sol (Martian Day) 2042 (Oct. 21, 2009), Opportunity’s total odometry is 18,322.03 meters (11.39 miles).  That works out to about 9 meters per day over a five-year period.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Pope Offers Olive Branch to Anglo-catholics

Pope Benedict XVI has authorized an Apostolic Constitution (a formal canonical framework) which would offer Anglo-Catholics (members of the Anglican Communion who have a catholic orientation) and their clergy an opportunity to re-affiliate with the See of Peter.  For a full explanation of this announcement, see the post titled O Brave New World! on The Anglican Curmudgeon’s blog.

Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) Rowan Williams, left, from the Anglican Communion responds to the announcement and Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, right, from the Roman Catholic Church, looks on during a news conference in London.  Is it just me or does the ABC seem a little less than enthusiastic?

Ruth Gledhill of The Times Online, in an article titled Rome Parks Tanks on Rowan’s Lawn, offers more videos and a copy of the letter that the ABC sent to his bishops.

Just in:(10/28/9) The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights published a story on Oct. 28th, titled MAJOR NEWSPAPERS BLAST CATHOLICISM, that points to articles in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe that attacked the Church on it’s offer to Anglicans (described above) and it’s position on women and gay clergy.  The Washington Post‘s blog, On Faith, recently featured an interview about the Pope’s offer with outspoken English atheist Richard Dawkins, titled Give us your misogynists and bigots,  where he said that the Catholic Church was, “surely up there among the leaders” as “the greatest force for evil in the world.”  You should read it on Christopher Johnson’s blog midwest conservative journal because he did a really good “fisking” of the whole thing.  (Fisking is taking apart statements piece by piece and revealing the fallacies and idiocy of the statements - thanks to my wife, Connie.)

Just In: (11/4/9) The Vatican has today released the formal document establishing the Personal Ordinariates and the rules for their use.  My simplistic overview is this:  the Holy Father is using his authority to invite Anglicans to reunite with the “mother church” by building a special compartment for them that lets them keep their parishes, and maybe even dioceses, essentially just as they are now.  Only Anglicans may take advantage of this offer and current Catholics are not allowed to join the Anglican groups.  Inside the compartment, Anglican priests and deacons may become Catholic priests and deacons (but those who are unmarried will have to stay that way) and unmarried Anglican bishops may become the presbyter (i.e., bishop) of an Ordinariate (i.e., a diocese within the compartment).  Married Anglican bishops will have to return to being priests, but they can be Ordinaries of an Ordinariate and retain their badges of office (e.g., crosiers) and they can petition the Holy Father to become bishops on a case-by-case basis.  This delicate balancing act permits the Anglicans to have what they want, while at the same time maintaining the status quo with the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman tradition.  I think it is brilliant!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Jon Stryker Funds LGBT Initiative

A recent feature on the Stand Firm blog by Fr. Andrew Gross has identified the primary funding sources for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) initiatives in TEC, as well as other organizations.  While there is no suggestion that this activity is in any way illegal, it is interesting to know who is speaking when “money talks” in this case.  Billionaire Jon Stryker is a gay man who founded and funded the Arcus Foundation to “fund LGBT rights and great ape conservation”.  He is one of the heirs to the Stryker fortune.  Stryker is a broadly based, global leader in medical technology and one of the largest players in the $35.6 billion worldwide orthopaedic market.  Since 2000, Arcus has awarded grants totaling more than $122 million worldwide.  Jon also identified the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and Atlantic Philanthropies as major funding sources for the LGBT rights effort.

The Arcus efforts have not been limited to human rights activities, but have also been directed toward changing the beliefs and practices of the Episcopal Church. Last year they gave (from the Arcus Foundation Annual Report):

• Cathedral Church of St. James Chicago, IL $177,251 to support the efforts of the Chicago Consultation to promote the full inclusion of LGBT faithful in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion

• Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL $132,162 for support of the Chicago Consultation’s efforts to promote the full inclusion of LGBT persons in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. (In 2007 Arcus provided $25,000 for the initial organizational meeting of what became the Chicago Consultation.)

• Integrity, Rochester, NY $60,000 for two half-time field organizers to support efforts to promote the full inclusion of LGBT faithful within the Episcopal Church. (In 2007 Arcus provided $130,000 in funding specifically targeting Lambeth and the 2009 General Convention. Of that amount, $80,000 was earmarked for 2007; $50,000 was to carry over to 2008.)

This report reveals that money from a secular organization is being used to tilt the balance of power within our churches. It also means that in 2008 while Seabury Western Seminary was slashing it’s budget, cutting staff, and dramatically ‘restructuring’ and ‘revisioning’, they were also acting as a conduit for the Chicago Consultation. And it sheds some light on the massive publicity given to +Gene Robinson at Lambeth this year, when he wasn’t even invited to attend.  Money talks.

TEC’s Diocese of Western Louisiana “Affirms” Covenant

Presumably, the Diocese of Western Louisiana will be seen to have “endorsed” the Ridley Draft of the Covenant (see previous post).  Thanks to Greg Griffith of Stand Firm for the tip about this article in The Living Church.

The Diocese of Western Louisiana’s 30th annual convention has affirmed the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Anglican Covenant. The convention met Oct. 9-10 in Alexandria, La.

The Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, the diocese’s bishop since 2002, is among the founding bishops of Communion Partners...

“This will bring further recognition of our diocese as a part of the Episcopal Church (TEC), as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, and in communion with the See of Canterbury. When I shared with the Archbishop of Canterbury last month the plans for a resolution of this nature, he responded favorably,” the bishop said.

+MacPherson said that he believes the diocese needs to remain within TEC, but he also said

“...in the months ahead, and depending upon the direction taken by the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion, we could well be faced with making a choice of being either provincially oriented or Communion oriented — for it is clear we cannot be both,” he said. “We know who we are, and we cannot claim to be part of a catholic body and then seek to exercise ‘local option’ over crucial issues.”

There appears to be some doubt that the convention actually did endorse the Covenant.  Delegate Joe Roberts, who voted for the resolution, says in his blog

...after reading the precise language of the amended Saint Mark’s Cathedral resolution as recorded by the convention secretary (language that the delegates did not see printed and which was read to the delegates as a previous printed text was being amended), I think that we did little more than confirm that we support the adoption of “an Anglican covenant” as the next step in the ongoing Windsor process.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

ABC Says Only Provinces Can Adopt Covenant

The Living Church News Service yesterday published a quote from a letter from the Archbishop of Canturbury (ABC) saying:

In a Sept. 28 letter to the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida, Archbishop Williams called the diocesan bodies’ endorsement a step in the right direction. However, he stated, “as a matter of constitutional fact, the [Anglican Consultative Council] can only offer the covenant for ‘adoption’ to its own constituent bodies (the provinces).”
The archbishop added that “I see no objection to a diocese resolving less formally on an ‘endorsement’ of the covenant.” Such an action would not have an “institutional effect” but “would be a clear declaration of intent to live within the agreed terms of the Communion’s life and so would undoubtedly positively affect a diocese’s pastoral and sacramental relations” with the wider communion, he said.

Seems to me that this is not really a surprise: it’s more of a clarification.  It just means that provinces can “adopt” but others can “endorse” the Covenant. The big question, IMHO, is will TEC be allowed to adopt it after lifting its middle finger to the Anglican Communion at General Convention?