Unofficial Anglican Pages of Louie Crew

Home Polity & Structure General Convention House of Deputies House of Bishops Provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion Resources Argumentation Data & Analysis Documents Reports & Events Tools & Services News flashes, Announcements Links Religious LGBT Christian General Links Poetry Reflections/Sermons Do Justice Joy Anyway Angels Unawares Louie Crew: Natter/BLOG parish (Grace/Newark) diocese (Newark) province (II) TEC assignments current calendar publications resume cv  education software for writers Louie Crew 377 S. Harrison Street, 12D East Orange, NJ 07018 Phone: 862-520-7499 h lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu Please sign the guestbook and view it. Louie & Ernest Clay-Crew Married February 2, 1974 12/21/1974   8/17/2006

From Easter 2007 Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Hallelujah! Relentlessly, dependably, resurrection, joy, forgiveness, and hope are upon us. Rejoice and be glad in the day that God has made. The conflicts of our time are nothing to the conflicts in Israel during the first century. Then high priests, now called primates, were pushing for creedal purity. They felt the law held the only key to God's blessing. They were absolutely certain that they should worship God in Jerusalem. Our Samaritan ancestor challenged the exclusiveness of that venue. She would not have been welcome there, nor did she seek to worship away from her own people, whom the Jews considered low caste, half-breeds. Jesus responded that no one has a corner on God, no group holds an exclusive franchise. "God is a spirit. The time is coming, nay, now is, when those who worship God must worship God in spirit and in truth." God still seeks such to worship. Rt. Rev. Mark Beckwith, Bishop of Newark, recently reflected: "One of the gifts of my new role is to see how people in the diocese bring Christ's light into circumstances and conditions that the wider culture has trained us not to see.... A couple of Saturdays ago I joined with the clergy and some parishioners of St. Mark's, Teaneck on their twice-weekly ministry to day laborers, who wait on a side street from dawn until midday -- every day, hoping that someone will come along and hire them -- if not for a day, then at least for a few hours. Not only are these Latin and South American men not easily seen (which is one of the reasons that on a good day one or two get hired), but the would-be patriots who gather around an American flag across the main street carry sandwich boards that express a very clear wish that the 50 or so men not be seen at all." See all of his examples. Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude in Nigeria, will visit the United States in May and June. He is a courageous young man, and you will want to hear him if you can. If you have a group that can sponsor him and host him during that time, please contact Josh Thomas, who is in charge of Davis' arrangements. Click Davis' calendar to date (May 6, 2007) to see whether he's coming to a site near you. Archbishop Peter Akinola is gadding about too. He was in Virginia on May 5th to do mischief. He installed Martyn Minns as director of CANA. See Wayne Besen's Nigeria's Frequent Flyer Was the Archbishop of Canterbury deliberately tardy in responding to this crisis? ++Akinola was already in the United States when ++Williams wrote appealing to him not to install Minns, according to a report in USA Today. When General Convention in 2003 consented to the consecration of +NH, ++Rowan called an emergency meeting of the primates to react. Will ++Rowan call an emergency meeting of the primates to react to ++Akinola's invasion of The Episcopal Church? Is he afraid to? We can perhaps best survive these late throes of the patriarchy by keeping our tickleboxes in good repair. P.S.: Off Topic Looking for a good, cheap, gift for the geek that has everything and is impossible to shop for? Try The Complete April Fools RFCs by Thomas A. Limoncelli and Peter J. Salus. It is a compilation of the best April Fools jokes created by the IETF, the group that creates the standards for how the Internet works. It's pretty technical but fun to read for anyone that is in software development, system administration, or any kind of computer geek. Towards Anaheim: 98.2% of the deputies for General Convention in 2009 were elected by the deadline. The Dioceses of Quincy and Venezuela will have to petition to be seated after they dutifully elect deputations. The percent of those who are new is the lowest it has been for the last four conventions. Of those returning who also served in 2003, more voted to consent than voted not to consent to +NH. There are more females (among the clergy an all-time high) more deputies of color more out lgbts. The average age of deputies is up by almost one year from 2006, up by 4.3 years over GC 2000. See the exact numbers and listings of all deputations. Also visit my General Convention Prayer Calendar and the prayer calendar just for today.

21.4% of all Episcopalians are members of churches with 1,000 or more communicants, yet those 223 congregations represent only 2.9% of all Episcopal churches.

The 7,635 congregations of TEC average 229 confirmed communicants each. ...

Thirteen of the priests in charge (5.8%) are African American.... Ten (4.5%) are Hispanic/Latino Americans.... Fourteen (6.3% -- up from only 1.8% in 2002!) are female....

Read the full report, The Largest Congregations in the Episcopal Church. See also my newly revised Cathedrals of the Episcopal Church.

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The Anglican Communion News Service announces...
Christmas Card Competition

Here is my entry:

My friend Fr. Paul Woodrum asks, "Did the recent visit from the ABC influence the letter from the ACC [Anglican Church of Canada] bishops? If so, maybe we don't want him to visit TEC bishops."

Caveat, there is nothing like a brit accent to send most Anglophiliacs into high swoon. Look how many horrible bishops we have elected just because they spoke in one -- and it doesn't even have to be a prestigious one, any brit accent will do it. Colonialism persists until the 8th and 9th generation.

I am not suggesting there is something wrong with the British, nor with British accents. I am describing entrenched colonial deference to them in uncritical ways. At 29, I decided to leave Britain for the United States, in 1966. My luck on the annual academic lottery stuck me as a graduate assistant in a sleepy Southern university more famous for its football team than for its scholarship. My heavy Oxbridgean accent.... continued

-- Louie (posted on May 2nd at 11:10 am, enlarged at 7p)

An Executive Council committee has offered a draft covenant study guide. Read, mark, and inwardly digest this document. Executive Council is coming to our diocese (specifically to Parsippany) on June 11-14 to refine this draft and use it to gather reflections from all over the Episcopal Church. While they are here, visitors may attend most of their sessions as observers and may participate in their 8 breakout bible study groups each morning at 8-9 am. Mark you calendar. Begin your prayer for them now.

I think I've pinpointed my own issue with the choices the ABC has been making. He said, "As a bishop I have to keep people around the table in discussion on this."

The thing is, as a host -- which is the metaphor underlying this part of the conversation -- I have two relevant responsibilities:

1. Encourage civil behavior among my guests -- if you are all guests in my house, you are all expected to be civil and respectful toward one another.
2. Should that fail, and should some guest(s) say of other(s) "I'm sorry, Michele, it's them or me!" my answer must be "I'm really, really sorry to hear that: I know we will miss you."

There really is no other way to deal with that sort of social blackmail. And that is where I think the ABC is falling down on his hostly duties -- not in saying that out loud, but in making it clear that should he be forced to it, that is the only answer he can give.

See ABC re being a bishop -- my own reflection on the ABC's dilemma.