Anglicana

Sarah Dylan Breuer, nominee for Executive Council

Sarah Dylan Breuer ("Dylan" to friends) has been nominated as a layperson for the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church. Dylan is:

A seasoned leader:

• Served as editor of The Witness magazine
• Past president of Gathering the Next Generation, TEC’s “Generation X” network, and steering committee member of The Consultation (www.theconsultation.org), a coalition of justice movements in TEC.
• Member of the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, charged in the 2003-2006 triennium with preparing GC to respond to the Windsor Report
• Served on the 20/20 Task Force’s New Congregations team, 2000 - 2003 triennium
• Grassroots organizer with the Gamaliel Foundation, the Climate Project, and two successful union recognition campaigns.

Mission-minded, biblically grounded:

• Member of the Network of Ministry Innovators (NOMI), forming strategy for and support of creative and effective evangelism for the 21st century
• Author of “God’s Justice: A biblical perspective,” Chapter 1 of The Justice Project, ed. Brian McLaren, et al. (Baker Books, Sept. 2009)
• Ph.D. candidate in biblical studies; writer on Exodus, Luke, 1 Corinthians, Romans, and Philippians in Reflections for Daily Prayer (Church House Publishing, UK, Advent 2008 and Easter 2009)
• Served as a short-term missionary in Kenya.

Effectively communicating creative, fresh perspectives:

• Founder and author of SarahLaughed.net, a website providing resources on preaching and formation for over 18,000 faith leaders each week
• Creator of the U2charist, launched with Kathleen Capcara and the Rev. Ken Phelps in the Diocese of Maryland in 2004
• Author with the Rev. John de Beer of the Klesis Project, an innovative series of formation curricula made freely available online in ‘open source’ format for congregations from Alaska to Australia
• Active in the ‘emerging church’ movement and fluent in digital media and networking as well as in print and other traditional media.

Plays well with others!

• Contributor to the Covenant-Communion website as well as The Consultation’s ISSUES newsletter
• Commited to seek justice for all God’s children AND deepen relationships across the Communion to the furtherance of God’s mission.

Sarah Dylan Breuer lives with her partner, Karen, a high school teacher, in Boston. She loves playing guitar and ukulele, cooking, and hanging out with her two cats.

Dylan will be blogging/tweeting General Convention

I'll be at the whole of The Episocpal Church's General Convention, and will be blogging on it here on Anglicana as well as tweeting it. I'll also be contributing to ISSUES, the newsletter of The Consultation, so look for articles from me there!

For those going to Anaheim, see you there! For those following from a distance, see you online!

And if you'd like to help me cover expenses (hotel, air fare, buttons and flyers for election to Executive Council, and lost income, since my job gives me no vacation time or other paid leave), I'd be very grateful for anything you feel led to do. In the right-hand sidebar, you can click to donate via PayPal, or you can also help out by making any Amazon.com purchases by getting to Amazon.com via the "search Amazon" box in the sidebar. And if you or your church/business/etc. needs p.a. equipment, mics, or anything musical, please drop me a note with "Guitar Center" in the subject line, as I can ship equipment just about anywhere, get you a great deal, and earn a little money myself in the process.

Many thanks for your readership, your encouragement, and your support!

Dylan

Want to support Dylan's campaign for Executive Council?

I'm deeply grateful for all the support of SarahLaughed readers over the years. I'm particularly grateful at present to those of you who have written asking how you can support my campaign for Executive Council. Accepting nomination meant that I had to go to General Convention in Anaheim, and at my own expense. Nominees also need to come up with flyers and buttons (many do other kinds of swag as well). And my job at Guitar Center provides no paid leave.

Fortunately, y'all are a generous bunch! For those have asked how you can help, here are some ways:

1. Donate to SarahLaughed.net via PayPal. You can do this via credit card, though a small percentage fee is deducted if you donate that way, or you can send money via your PayPal account if you have one.

2. Send a check. If you'd like to do this, please address it to Sarah Dylan Breuer, SarahLaughed Ministries, 99 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138.

3. Make your Amazon.com purchases after getting to Amazon.com via any link on SarahLaughed.net. I get a commission (usually 6%) from purchases made that way, whether I've linked to the specific product(s) purchased or not.

4. You can get SarahLaughed.net "swag with a mission" -- t-shirts, tote bags, and whatnot -- at the SarahLaughed Cafe Press store. My main reason for having a Cafe Press store was so people could get fun stuff that maybe -- just maybe could also do some non-obnoxious witnessing to what God is up to in the world, so I've kept prices there low, and for the most part I only make a dollar or two from each purchase. But every bit helps, and it's also generally a boon to me when people let their friends, colleagues, and others know about SarahLaughed.net.

Thanks again, and blessings!

Dylan

the decline (and fall?) of epiScope and ENS

I'm posting this here and on Grace Notes, as I'm really scratching my head here, and would be grateful for any sensible explanation of what's gone wrong and when and how it will be remedied.

I have two questions:

1) What happened to epiScope?

You remember epiScope -- the brilliant blog that kept us on top of news from around the world of interest to Anglicans, and that served as a valuable and amazingly timely corrective to errors made by the secular press (understandable errors -- the Anglican world is a complicated one requiring much nuancing to negotiate and communicate) in their coverage of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

Well, epiScope seems to be gone. I assumed at first it was because all of the resources of the Episcopal News Services (ENS) were concentrated on Lambeth, but that clearly isn't a good explanation because:

a) some of ENS's best and most senior reporters were not at Lambeth at all, and provided no coverage of it; and

b) the quality of epiScope has, if anything, continued to nose-dive after Lambeth.

I've stopped reading epiScope, as skimming its RSS feed, when I've bothered to do it (pretty easy to do, since it's not being updated anywhere near as frequently), has shown it mostly to be a regurgitation of ENS bulletins. That brings me to my next question:

2) What on earth has happened to the Episcopal News Service?

I have often joked that, much as certain flavored substances must, since they don't contain enough of the real thing, call themselves "cheese-food" or a syrup "full of chocolatey goodness," there are some television shows and paper publications that ought to call themselves "news-food" that is "full of newsy goodness."

ENS has, I'm surprised and sorry to say, become of late "news-food." Where's the news? Where's the analysis?

I've pretty much stopped reading ENS as well. I deeply respect Solange de Santis, whom I got to know a bit at General Convention in 2006. I wish her well in her new position. And I hope she can do something to revitalize ENS, which, to my eyes, took a sharp dive in quality just prior to Lambeth and has yet to recover. I hope she's embarking on a major course correction that would allow it to recover.

And while I'm thinking of it, that leads to a third question:

3) Where's the accountability?

I'm not even remotely close to the first person who has noticed these things. Was our Standing Commission on Communications consulted through or about whatever it is that's impeding ENS's effectiveness? Were a cross-section of Episcopal Communicators asked for feedback? What's been the feedback from secular media about the Church Center's effectiveness in helping them to cover accurately matters related to The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion? Or has their feedback been sought?

How are decisions made regarding The Episcopal Church's communications, and where do the opinions of these people, and of ordinary Episcopalians, enter into such processes?

prophesy and interpretation

Bishop Duncan received this prophesy:

The Year of the Gate ---
Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.
-- Isaiah 62:10

In Hebrew, the number eight is rendered by the letter CHET, which is depicted in the form of a GATE. The number eight is related to new starts and new life in the Scriptures – the most notable being the resurrection of Jesus which occurred on the eighth day… Eight is the number of the gate… And I sensed the Holy Spirit saying simply this:

2008 is the year of the open gate. Prepare to pass through the gate. There are new beginnings ahead for those who have been waiting patiently for their moment to come. Obstacles are being removed. The Father is breaking his children out of a sense of captivit y to past restrictions. The anointing for new beginnings is on many in this year. The time of frustration and exile is coming to an end. This is the Lord’s time for his people to rise up and follow him through the gates of opportunity. New star ts are looming. Many are on the point of experiencing the new life that convergence brings. And the true church – even though it will know many trials - is on the point of experiencing new life, a new season of vitality and creativit y, a brand new Reformation. A highway is being built, stones are being removed, and a banner is being raised for the nations. So get ready… and do not be afraid. Do not be anxious. 2008 is the year of the gate… And there is a BREAKER ANOINTING on those who are pushing up to the threshold of their opportunity: One who breaks open the way will go upbefore them; they will break through the gate and go out.Their king will pass through before them, the LORD at their head.
-- Micah 2:13

... about which Scott Allen posted to the listserv for bishops, deputies, and members of interim bodies of General Convention:

I thought Jesus was raised on the first day of the week, not the 8th (and the 3rd day after his death)....

To which I say:

Jesus was indeed raised from the dead on the third day, not the eighth, and therefore the correct interpretation of the prophesy obviously is that 2003, not 2008, is the year in which God anointed people to break barriers, remove obstacles, and open opportunities in the church for "those who have been waiting patiently for their moment to come." That seems to fit.

Either that or it means that Green Day -- green being the color of new life, and Green Day being a band with three members -- will win best record at the next Grammy awards, becoming the first punk band to do so and therefore opening the way for others and revitalizing the U.S. punk scene.

Oh, wait a second ... my band has three members too, and our first gig together was in March, the third month of the year! Clearly the prophesy is telling us that we are to play outside the gates of Harvard -- or maybe that we should approach Bill Gates for patronage. I hope it's the latter, as we really ought to get a P.A. system, a couple of monitors, and a vocal reverb unit before our friends get tired of us borrowing theirs for U2charists. Ooh, and I've had my eye on this instrument made by Reverend Guitars that's got three P90 pickups! Talk about a convergence of signs ...

Anyone have a phone number for Bill Gates? I hope he buys the guitar from me in orange, though of course I'd be happy to get the black, if that's the color God wants me to have. Funding from Bill Gates is going to open up so many opportunities ... clearly the moment for my band has arrived! Thanks be to God!

dropping the conference, leaving the GAFfes.

Archbishops Peter Jensen of Sydney and Peter Akinola of Nigeria have now met (separately) with Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem about GAFCON, the gathering proposed over this past Christmas for self-proclaimed "orthodox" bishops, clergy, and laity in Jerusalem. The organizers hadn't thought to meet with the Bishop of Jerusalem or with Mouneer Hanna Aris, the Primate of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, before sending out a press release saying that the were holding a conference in his diocese, and as it turns out, neither one of these bishops of the chosen site for GAFCON are even remotely pleased about its being held there any more than they are about not having been consulted before the site was announced.

But now Jensen and Akinola have met with Dawani -- separately, despite the meetings being only three days apart -- and Thinking Anglicans has posted the minutes of those meetings, which make for very interesting reading.

Apparently Archbishop Akinola didn't take kindly to the objections of his host: "[Akinola] stressed that liberty was important for Africa and that he could not allow anyone to tell his community what to do and to say." At no point, according to the minutes, did he acknowledge his host's concerns; he apologized only "for sending his letter to Bishop Suheil at a very inconvenient time (at Christmas) and at such short notice, but he said that he could not see how this conference could become a 'political problem'." Nor did Akinola ask his host what he might respond to or ameliorate the concerns of Jerusalem's Primate, bishop, and people.

Instead, he tried another tack. "Archbishop Akinola then said, that this was a pilgrimage and wondered what the difference was to other pilgrimages. The Rev’d Canon Hosam responded by saying that this was not only a pilgrimage, since the Archbishop himself was talking about a conference with an agenda. Archbishop Akinola replied that he would be happy to change the terminology and refrain from calling it a conference, in which case he would call it a pilgrimage."

Hosam has a point. Clearly the event was intended from the start as a conference -- hence the name 'GAFCON," the Global Anglican Future Conference. The front page of the GAFCON website refers to it as a "conference" fifteen times, including in every header, while the word "pilgrimage" appears a grand total of three times. At least the organizers finally added the picture of one person of color (Archbishop Akinola); the first incarnation of the website, the domain of which was registered in Englishman Canon Chris Sugden's name, had pictures only of white men (Sugden, Jensen, and Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh).

In any case, none of the Jerusalem Christians present were going to buy the line that GAFCON isn't really a convention -- at least not as it's currently being organized. And so, although he hadn't been asked his opinion on what might help, Bishop Suheil rather generously offered a suggestion: that Akinola's agenda be spilt in two, with the conference taking place in Cyprus so what happened in Jerusalem could be a pilgrimage only.

That's what closed the meeting, with no response from Akinola, who had earlier "repeated that his interests were not political, and that his major concern was about how to grow and how to be strengthened and exchange experiences." I'm not surprised that he did not immediately accept Suheil's suggestion, or even promise to think about it. I'd say it was clear from the start that GAFCON was not only a conference, but a conference with political intent. My hunch is that organizers "immediately felt that [Jerusalem] was the right venue," as Jensen put it, because of the resonance they hoped edicts from that gathering would have as a kind of reconvening of the "apostolic council" in Jerusalem described in Acts 15.

Acts, however, describes "the whole group of those who believed" as being "of one heart and soul" (Acts 4:32), and it's clear that, not having consulted with the Jerusalem Christians before announcing a conference there, that GAFCON is not building that kind of community.

So who knows -- organizers may drop the "CON" from the name to further description of the event as not being a conference. It might be an even more appropriate name if they do -- the organization seems to have been nearly all gaffe thus far.

theologians, homosexuals, and other animals

The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. (which is an incorporated nonprofit, but uses the .com suffix normally used by for-profit companies) -- which I gather is not to be identified with The Anglican Communion Institute (which uses the .org suffix reserved for nonprofits, but which never incorporated separately from The Anglican Institute, which all involved except Don Armstrong, its executive director) -- has published an interesting piece. (And yes, all of this shuffling about of names and titles for the same group of people, give or take Don Armstrong, makes my head swim too.)

This is an article called "Why Theology Should Precede Change." It's interesting enough that The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc., which in none of its incarnations styled itself any kind of medical research clearinghouse -- would publish a piece that is essentially a review of selected medical and psychological literature. The word "God," for example, appears nowhere in the piece. The word "Christ" appears only as part the name of the Disciples of Christ denomination and as part of the title of To Set Our Hope on Christ, of which the author strongly disapproves. The word "Christian" appears only in this sentence: "Christian theology and systems theory both recognize that secrets are divisive, cause distorted perceptions, and increase pathologic processes totally unrelated to the secret" -- and that's a statement that readers of the Gospel According to Mark, for starters might find simplistic if not misleading with respect to attitudes toward secrets in Christian theology, although not with respect to family systems theory.

But don't just look at what words do and don't appear in the article to assess its genre; I think if you read the whole thing, you'll find it's fair to classify it as a review of selected medical and psychological literature with a narrative frame about the author's correspondence with the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies. I think if you read the article, you'll find it's a fair summary to say that the article asserts that theology should precede change with respect to policies and theologies regarding human sexuality because more recent scientific study comes to different conclusions regarding causality for same-sex relationships. The author does not argue against the biblical exegesis or theology of To Set Our Hope on Christ; her criticism of the document is about which scientific studies it cites. Her criticism of the choice of people to serve on the committee is not that there weren't enough or good enough theologians; it's that the committee did not include any career scientists who could speak authoritatively to scientific studies of human sexuality. Theology gets a cursory name-drop in the article's title and in the plea of the penultimate sentence to "State the theology of the change first"; but the article's thesis is at core a scientific one: that the most recent and best scientific literature suggests that sexual orientation is influenced at least as much by social and environmental factors as by genetic ones. How accepting that thesis would lead us to conclude that it's improper for Christians to bless same-sex relationships or ordain clergy in same-sex partnerships is never made clear in the article, aside from its assertion (unproven and unargued) that the authors of To Set Our Hope on Christ and the bishops and deputies to General Convention voted on resolutions regarding human sexuality on the basis of outdated science rather than any kind of theology.

Of course, there are a lot of scientists who would argue with the article's suggestion that more recent and better medical research on human sexuality better supports the view (presumably that of the author) that a man's or woman's orientation toward the same sex is socially conditioned and "pathologic adaptation." I'm not going to do so, or at least not here and now. I'm not a neuropsychologist, a geneticist, a psychiatrist, or any other kind of scientist who could speak with authority about the science of human sexuality. My postgrad coursework is in biblical studies, church history, and theology. While I occasionally veer into authoritative tones when talking about rock music or Joss Whedon's superiority as a writer of episodic television, I generally try to be clear about where my training gives me academic or institutional authority and where it doesn't -- and I'm closest to being an expert on St. Paul and Luke, not on human genetics, neuropsychiatry, psychology, or any other such science.

The author of this ACI, Inc. piece -- Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan, as the byline reads -- has an academic background very different from mine. Let's see -- she's a "Dr." writing on human sexuality, and her article seems to suggest that she would have been a better choice for the committee selected to write To Set Our Hope on Christ than were the theologians and pastors who served.

Is she an M.D.? No.

Does she have a Ph.D. in psychology? Is she a research scientist in neuroscience or some other field that includes studies of human sexuality? No.

Is she a Ph.D. at all? No.

Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan is a veterinarian.

"She has been reading and studying human and animal medical literature for 27 years," her byline says to justify her speaking as an expert in medical science about human sexuality. I've been reading novels for more than 27 years, but that doesn't make me Dostoevsky; I'm a biblical scholar working to finish her dissertation, and that's a very different sort of scholarly animal, I'd say. At this point I'd have to say that Dr. Keenan has as much academic credibility with respect to human sexuality as does "Dr. Laura," the kinesiologist-turned-radio-self-help-guru, who does at least have a Ph.D. in something related to humans.

At least Dr. Keenan's studies in her MTS program "focusing on family systems" has something to do with humans rather than horses, though family systems theory isn't exactly a theological discipline. Perhaps that's why she seems unaware of the myriad volumes of Christian theology and ethics of human sexuality produced over the last forty years or more, and doesn't refer to any published theological document other than To Set Our Hope on Christ -- not to any of the official reports or studies from 1967 on listed in To Set Our Hope on Christ's Appendix, not to any of the works listed in its endnotes, and not to any of the works that would spring up in a simple search of the Virginia Theological Seminary's library catalog. And perhaps she will have read more theology she finds worthy of comment by the time she finishes her MTS degree.

In the meantime, the most interesting point to me about "Why Theology Should Precede Change" is where it was published: on the website of The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. despite its not saying anything in particular about Anglicanism or Communion, and among the work of "collegial theologians" despite its decidedly medical focus and near-total lack of theological language. It is an article about scientific studies of human sexual orientation written by a veterinarian, and it is difficult to see how it could in any way further or even address the concerns suggested by the name, "The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc." unless the ACI wishes to ground our koinonia with one another not on our shared Baptism, nor on our shared theological heritage or historical ties via Canterbury, nor on our shared call to engage God's mission, but rather on a shared scientific consensus regarding the development of sexual orientation and a shared conviction that heterosexuality is, medically speaking, an earlier or healthier state than any other sexual orientation. That would be a curious communion indeed.

+Bruno responds to NY Times flight of fancy

Bishop Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles has responded to the New York Times article I blogged about a few days ago, and I think it's an excellent and pastoral response. Read it on epiScope. Though it's not clear at this point whose imagination or imaginations generated the report, it's now absolutely clear that the story of a recently retired porn star being on track for ordination in The Episcopal Church is entirely fictional.

The lesson for bloggers? If you read an article, whether in the New York Times or the National Enquirer, claiming that the Lakers have just hired me as their starting center and that I'm aspiring to the NBA Hall of Fame, you might want to check it out before writing an article decrying the depths to which professional basketball has sunk if the Lakers are hiring 5'7" female theologians to play pro ball.

NY Times branches into fiction

I groaned as soon as I saw it on my RSS reader: "Man of the Flesh to Man of the Cloth." The New York Times has this story about Ronald Boyer, who as late as January of this year was making pornographic movies, and now is at the Church of the Epiphany, which writer Sharon Waxman claims "is guiding his transformation from pornography star to preacher." While Waxman says that "the process to priesthood will take several years," she reports that Boyer "is undergoing training to become a deacon," and that he met "with his priest and with the second-ranking official of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, Bishop Suffragan Chester L. Talton, to gain approval to establish a ministry among sex workers." "To become a priest," Waxman writes, "he must study in a seminary for approximately two years and his candidacy must be approved by the diocesan bishop."

The Diocese of Los Angeles was my home for over twenty-five years. I know what the discernment process for ordination is like there, and I know +Chet Talton. I also know that it generally takes people with no prior graduate theological education at least three years to finish an M.Div., the degree required under most circumstances for ordination. And so I didn't believe Waxman's story for a minute. It didn't take long before a friend confirmed that Boyer is not in the ordination process in the Diocese of Los Angeles or anywhere else. The Times story is fiction.

And now the always-sharp Jan Nunley has talked with Boyer's rector, Hank Mitchel -- "which is more than reporter Waxman managed to do," she writes. "No one is training [Boyer] for ministry at any level," Mitchel said, and as for the supposed meeting Boyer had with Mitchel and Bishop Talton: "No way!" Mitchel said. Talton "never met with Ron. Couldn't pick him out of a crowd ... he was confirmed with about 150 others by Bishop Talton in May." And Boyer "has a long, long way to travel and a lot of spiritual growing to do before we can even think about thinking about a leadership role," his rector said.

Read the whole story at epiScope. Boyer may be interested in becoming a priest someday. I don't know whether he had any chance last week of becoming one, but as of now, I'd have to say that he's got less chance of becoming a priest than the Times' Sharon Waxman has of being a responsible reporter.

UPDATE 15 July 3:43 p.m. -- looks like StandFirm and TitusOneNine have both fallen for the story. I've got to wonder whether the whole thing was a hoax Mr. Boyer launched to generate publicity for his "Internet ministry." His rector had explained the discernment process for ordination, after all, and while Sharon Waxman should be held accountable for her failure to fact-check in any case, I don't know why she would have invented these particular facts ex nihilo. Bloggers, I understand that fact-checking may not seem like a worthy activity for "Roistering Episcopal Adventurers," but it's important if you want people to take you seriously as a reliable source for information.

UPDATE 15 July 11:09 p.m. -- The TitusOneNine "elves" have posted an excerpt from Jan Nunley's post on epiScope and a comment indicating that they "took the story at face value because it was in the NY Times, and "most of us would assume that the Times did some fact checking."

buy bricks from a virtual office!

The Anglican Heritage Foundation (AHF) -- not to be confused with:

• the Anglican Heritage Society, which does -- well, I'm not sure what it does, as there's no trace of it outside of databases of nonprofits, and it's located in a mobile home in Lubbock, Texas -- and
• the Anglican Foundation, Inc., which at the end of 2005 had net assets of a little over $16,000, takes four volunteers a grand total four hours per week to run, and seems just to be a corporate funnel of funds to Blessed Trinity Anglican Church of Alpine, California

... on July 9 made their biggest announcement to date. Actually, it's their only announcement to date, and their only activity I could find other than registering a domain name on March 9. The big announcement -- carried on the website of the American Anglican Council's Washington, DC chapter (appropriate enough, since the board of the AHF is identical to that of that AAC chapter) -- is of "the establishment of a Legal Defense Fund to assist Trinity Church, Bristol Connecticut [sic]" in their court battle with the Episcopal Church," and their call "upon Anglicans throughout the Communion to contribute ... through AHF's fundraising program, where the donation for an inscribed memorial brick paver will fund the Legal Defense Fund."

I'm sure that Trinity Church is thrilled that such a powerful foundation is coming to their rescue. And that's not all that the Anglican Heritage Foundation is going to do by a long shot: their website announces on its front page (and in boldface AND italics, so you know it's important) "a Nationwide Grant Program" that is "Building a Pathway to the Anglican Church, Brick by Brick" (they love Superfluous Capital Letters even more than A.A. Milne does, it seems). "This innovative grant program," they say, "will create a financial resource for Anglican missions, churches, clergy, and other non-profit organizations to assist them in their ministries when it is needed to build the Anglican Church."

I'm not sure that raising funds by selling "reservations" for bricks with the donor's name on them qualifies as "innovative"; we've all seen pathways and walls and such with such bricks, and the web site for the brick vendor, Gift Bricks® of Wisconsin, has lots of pictures showing examples from other organizations.

But there is one truly innovative thing about this campaign:

It's asking people to reserve real bricks from an organization with only a virtual location.

The Anglican Heritage Foundation is located at 611 Pennsylvania Ave. SE #1400 in Washington, DC -- and that's a box in a UPS Store. Must be a pretty big box to hold all of those bricks. Personally, I think that given their location, they would have been smarter to go with inscribing donor's names on grains of rice. Vivanne Robinson, who writes names on bits of rice in Venice Beach, California, "is available to write Your Name on a Grain of Rice for Birthday Parties, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, Company events, Fairs, or other special occasions," so I'm sure she'd be willing to contract with the Anglican Heritage Foundation, she clearly likes Capital Letters as much as they do, and they might be able to fit more than one donor-funded grain-of-rice "brick" in their UPS Store box. I wonder whether Vivianne could do a tiny golden compass rose on the rice, though. No matter; I'm sure that an organization able to come up with such an innovative program could figure out what other rice-grain-sized bonus could be given to premium donors. Maybe it would work to give them these ear rings to carry around their "donor brick" with 'First Edition Anglican Heritage Foundation Medallion'" with them.

But even without my brilliant plan to call grains of rice "bricks," the AHF has managed to launch their Nationwide Grant Program, meant particularly to benefit Anglican congregations in the U.S. dating from the colonial period, listed here on their website. I should let my old friend Ken Phelps, rector of historic All Saints Sunderland (founded in 1692) know about it. Ken is liberal enough to make me look very conservative indeed, but I'm sure the AHF will be glad to give them a grant and install one of their bricks at his parish.

I'd better move fast, though, if I want to help Ken with a successful grant application. Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC) -- that organization providing (according to their website) "Bold Assistance Action Supporting the Orthodox" and that last October announced a conference (since cancelled) promising "THE MOST EXPERIENCED, DIVERSE ANTI-REVISIONIST TEACHERS EVER ASSEMBLED" to found "Team 2 Million, which will undertake a five-year expansion drive" -- is pleading for funds, since they "have no foundation or deep-pockets [sic] to help," and since David Bickel, President of the AHF, is also one of the founders of LEAC, I bet that LEAC will any second discover this well-oiled machine of a foundation bestowing grants nationwide.

And it looks like it wouldn't take long for LEAC to snap up the AHF's remaining funds. AHF Chairman Bradley Hutt says in a comment on VirtueOnline, "the money ... is currently in our pockets," and their pockets don't seem to be bulging particularly at the moment; Hutt says, "if we can get 10,000 of the faithful to donate $100 we will have $1,000,000."

So, anyone want to found the Anglican Communion Ministry Foundation (ACMF)? I've got some leftover curry and a couple of cans of Diet Coke in my fridge that we could give away in a Galaxy-Wide Grants Program, and if a billion of the world's Christians gave me a dollar, I'd have a billion dollars. It's in the bag!