Another Diocese Leaves the Grasp of PB Jefferts-Schori: No Parallel in Lutherland

We need a ministry for tigers of color.

QUINCY: Diocese Votes to Leave TEC for the Province of the Southern Cone

By David W. Virtue

www.virtueonline.org

November 7, 2008

Peoria, Illinois: The Diocese voted to leave TEC today

The voting was 41 to 14 in the clergy and 54 to 12 among the laity.

More later.

Diocese of Quincy votes to re-align

Forward in Faith
November 8, 2008

The annual Synod of the Diocese of Quincy, Illinois tonight voted overwhelmingly to remove The Episcopal Church from the accession clause of the diocesan constitution and to join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone.

The vote to leave The Episcopal Church was carried by 41 votes to 14 by the clergy and by 54 votes to12 by the laity. The decision to join the Province of the Southern Cone on a temporary basis was approved by 46 votes to 4 by the clergy order and by 55 votes to 8 by the lay members of the Synod.

END

PEORIA: Quincy members vote to leave Episcopal Church, align with Southern Cone

By Joe Bjordal,
November 07, 2008
[Episcopal News Service, Quincy, Illinois]

A majority of delegates to the 131st annual synod of the Diocese of Quincy voted on November 7 to leave the Episcopal Church and realign the diocese under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, which covers the southern portion of South America.

The action was carried out by the passing of two resolutions. The first formally annulled accession to "the constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America."

The resolution stated that the General Convention and leaders of the Episcopal Church "have failed to uphold the teaching and authority of Holy Scripture, have challenged or belittled core doctrines of the Christian faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican faith, have refused to conform to the agreed teaching and discipline of the Anglican Communion, and have rejected the godly counsel of the leaders of the Communion."

Members of Quincy's leadership, including former diocesan bishop Keith Ackerman, who retired on November 1, have been at odds with the wider church over such theological issues as the church's attitude toward homosexuality.

The vote on the resolution to leave the Episcopal Church was taken by orders. Members of the clergy voted 41 to 14 in favor of the resolution. Lay delegates voted 54 to 12 in favor of the resolution.

The second resolution stated that the Diocese of Quincy "wishes to accept the gracious invitation extended by the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone in November, 2007, to offer membership to extra-provincial dioceses on an emergency basis."

On the resolution to join the Southern Cone, clergy voted 46 to 4 in favor. Lay delegates voted 55 to 8 to approve the resolution.

Immediately following the vote, delegates were read a letter from Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate, or national bishop, of the Southern Cone, welcoming the Diocese of Quincy into his jurisdiction.

In the letter, Venables announced that he has appointed the Rev. Canon Ed den Blaauwen, a member of Quincy's governing standing committee, as Vicar General of the diocese, in the absence of a sitting bishop.

The Southern Cone includes the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. It also includes former members of the San Joaquin and Pittsburgh dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal News Service will update developments as warranted. A full story covering the convention will be posted on November 8.

---Joe Bjordal is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Provinces V and VI.

***

GJ - For those who graduated from prep school - this is another group of congregations voting to leave The Apostate Episcopal Church.

If conservatives do not show more spine in the old Synodical Conference (ELS, WELS, LCMS) the next Synod President will be Leonard Sweet's second wife.

One Reason Why Augsburg Fortress Cannot Sell Books - ELCA Cannot Spell Augsburg

How can we go live with our website if the URL is wrong?

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 7, 2008

Augsburg Fortress Publishers Announces Changes in Business Model
08-186-JB

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Augsburg Fortress, the publishing ministry
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),
Minneapolis, announced Nov. 7 significant changes in its business
operations. The publisher will focus its ministry on its "two
most important callings"-- group-use materials for congregations,
such as faith formation and worship materials, and textbooks and
monographs for higher education, said Beth A. Lewis, Augsburg
Fortress president and chief executive officer.

Based on a year of analysis of market and business research,
a strategic plan for the publisher's new direction was presented
and unanimously approved at a regular meeting of the board of
trustees for Augsburg Fortress Oct. 24-25 in Minneapolis.

The new business plan will result in some personnel changes.
Thirteen positions will be added to the company's information
technology, marketing and sales operations. Fifty-five positions
will be eliminated, Lewis said. The company has 242 full- and
part-time staff. Laid-off employees will remain on the payroll
through at least 2008 and some well into 2009, and the publisher
is providing outplacement services, Lewis said.

The ELCA publisher's new priorities will result in some
changes in traditional offerings, Lewis said:
+ A new Web site will feature improved navigation and search
capabilities. The http://www.augsburgfortress.org site will be
relaunched Dec. 1.
+ Augsburg Fortress will not accept or sell new titles in its
consumer-oriented book line, though it will continue to market
stocks on hand.
+ It will close nine bookstores by April 30, 2009. A store at
Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., is not owned by Augsburg
Fortress. The company will continue to rent space there and
market group-use resources to congregations. Augsburg Fortress'
Canadian bookstores will remain open.
+ Augsburg Fortress will no longer provide bookstore operations
at synod assemblies and most large ELCA churchwide events, such
as ELCA Youth Gatherings and Women of the ELCA Triennial
Gatherings. It will continue to provide a bookstore at ELCA
churchwide assemblies. Lewis explained that the publisher will
work in partnership with synods and offer services to teach
members about new resources and faith formation teaching
techniques. "This adds value for synods and for us," Lewis said.
+ Giving envelopes and worship supplies, such as communion wafers
and cups, and candles, will still be available. Items that don't
sell well will be dropped.

The company's refined priorities began with discussions, in
executive session, at the board of trustees' spring 2008 meeting,
Lewis said. "We questioned whether we should be in all markets or
whether denominational publishing is viable," she said. The board
encouraged the publisher's leadership team to start with a blank
sheet of paper and rethink the company's priorities for the
future, she said.

"Augsburg Fortress is undergoing important strategic changes
to focus our ministry and business -- and some are very painful
on a personal level as we say good-bye to wonderful colleagues.
We are confident that, while difficult, these changes are
necessary and will enable Augsburg Fortress to be a strong and
responsive organization for the future," Lewis said.

***

GJ - Mrs. Ichabod and I met Beth Lewis at the national communication conference of the LCA, in the good old days. At one point Fortress was the leading publisher of books used in the Notre Dame theology program (PhD, not DMin). A few years later they were publishing books by women Jewish rabbis and other oddball feminists. Their church materials went from liberal to atrocious. Ever since the merger in 1987 they have been revising their business model and hoping to make money again.

Here is the funny part. ELCA has a huge PR budget and lots of staff. They launched their new website with a notice giving this (below) as the address for Augsburg Fortress, the merger of the ALC and LCA publication houses.

"+ A new Web site will feature improved navigation and search capabilities. The http://www.augusburgfortress.org (sic) site will be relaunched Dec. 1."

Some of you are waiting for some gratuitous remark about a WELS apostate doing their proof-reading. No, I will not stoop that low...today.

Missouri Foreclosing on Their Own Church Properties

The story can be found on LutherQuest (sic)

The exact URL, as Bruce Church noted, is:

The exact URL is:
http://www.lutherquest.org/discus40/messages/13/78696.html?1226187191

Thirty years of the Church Growth Movement have been really...effective, haven't they?

I think the District Popes of the LCMS should sue Waldo Werning and Kent Hunter.

A Creed - American Thinker

Credo in Unam Nationem, Sub Deo

By Geoffrey P. Hunt




I believe in one nation, under God, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all.

I believe in the Constitution of the United States, a nation of laws not men.

I believe in the greatness of America, having no limit to what it may achieve.

I believe in America's manifest destiny and the obligation to use our resources and power to preserve and propagate liberty and democratic government around the world.

I believe the United States has the right and obligation to use military force, even preemptively, but judiciously, anywhere in the world whenever the vital interests of the United States and her allies are threatened.

I believe the United States is a nation without peer, whose sovereignty shall never be subjugated to nor compromised by any nation or nations anywhere on earth for national security, trade , economics or for any other purpose.

I believe in the sanctity of human life, including protections for the unborn and the infirm.

I believe in the right of consenting adults to make lifestyle choices, provided I am neither required to pay for such choices nor required to accept corruption of traditional family institutions in name or form, as a condition for accepting such choices. [GJ - I disagree completely with this, I copied this creed verbatim. It is in society's interest to preserve the family unit and natural law. Perversion is not a right: it is the fad that helped destroy the Roman Republic.]

I believe in free market capitalism.

I believe that private citizens and private enterprises can spend their own money more wisely than the government.

I believe taxes should support only those necessary and minimally essential government functions, not to underwrite an ever—expanding role of government intruding into our private lives nor enlarging the welfare state.

I believe tax burdens should be fairly distributed and proportional; no economic class should disproportionately subsidize another.

I believe tax policies should not confiscate the rewards of achievement; instead taxes should encourage entrepreneurship, inspire upward mobility and motivate wealth creation.

I believe in equal opportunities and if measured objectively I can accept unequal outcomes.

I believe in the self—esteem of achievement, not in patronizing generosity.

I believe in personal accountability where I am responsible for my own actions and where I will not blame the shortcomings and disappointments of this life on someone else.

I believe in freedom of expression, the competition of ideas in an open marketplace free from intimidation, prejudice, suppression and retaliation.

I believe in leaders who respect differences of opinion and reject the politics of hate, distortion and personal destruction.

I believe in leaders who are intellectually honest with me and who value my intelligence and common sense as much as their own.

I believe in leaders who are authentic and can make a personal connection with me despite our differences in personal taste and economic station in life.

I believe in leaders who appeal to my hopes instead of reinforcing my fears.

I believe in leaders who identify with my dreams and aspirations instead of reminding me of my failures, misjudgments and infirmities.

I believe in American democracy where voting is a valued privilege, not a right afforded to every inhabitant, regardless of citizenship, criminality, or inability to fill out a ballot.

I believe in voting as a sacred duty where on that day all qualified American citizens are equal with power and authority to judge and choose.

I believe in the unique American ideology of liberty, freedom of thought, assembly, speech and worship; of political power used to protect private property and promote economic self—determination.

I believe the unique American ideology transcends and binds the racial, ethnic and religious diversity in America and offers hope for millions of oppressed people around the globe.

I believe in Almighty God who shed His grace on this great nation, from the beginning, and who pours His blessings upon us and our descendents, now and forever,

Amen.

Geoffrey P. Hunt is an executive in the electronics industry.

on "Credo in Unam Nationem, Sub Deo"