The Episcopal Church House of Bishop's passage of Resolution D025--affirming gay and lesbian people in all parts of the life of the church, including all levels of ministry--is both a tragedy and a gift, depending on how you look at it. As it represents the final repudiation of the Christian sexual ethic, it's a tragedy. …
The Church Where Getting a Straight Answer is Next to Impossible
Many of you wonder why I, now holed up in a Pentecostal church, take so much interest in the Anglican/Episcopal world. Much of that answer is here, but there's the opposite question: with that interest, why did you leave the Episcopal Church to start with? One lesson from teaching is that a worked example is …
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“Schism is not a Christian act.” Tell That to Henry VIII.
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori fires a shot across the bow at the Church of England (HT bb): She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the "pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who …
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Palm Beach: Around the Island
Palm Beach Day School https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSnZ5tjDlLY Above: the opening ceremony during Field Day at Palm Beach Day School, 20 April 1968. For intramural competition the school was divided into two teams, the "Pelicans" (blue uniforms) and "Flamingoes" (yellow uniforms.) Both my brother and I were in the latter. (View the video in QuickTime/iTunes format.) Right: A …
Episcoplaians, Katherine Jefferts Schori, and Evangelicals: The War is Now Declared
Gary l'Hommedieu has it right, regarding TEC PB Katherine Jefferts-Schori's declaration that individual salvation is heretical: This week the Presiding Bishop declared holy war on heresy, and that's news. Which heresy? "That we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." This heresy must be stamped …
A State of Being
Helene Tuchbreiter Portrait by Antonio Sereix Photo Reproduction by John Haynesworth Helene Tuchbreiter was one of Palm Beach's most prominent socialites in her time. She made an impact both on the social scene and on the people immediately around her. My own recollection of her, however, was more prosaic: she was one of my mother's …
Acolyte Order of St. Peter
We present the guide for the Acolyte Order of St. Peter at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church for three reasons: To give a historical view of acolytes in Episcopal churches in the era it was written (around 1968.) To help Anglican churches today in training their acolytes. To show how the "rich and famous" (or infamous) served …
Youth Choir Contract, Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church
When it comes to Palm Beach, as Kendall Harmon would say, you just cannot make this stuff up... BETHEDSA-BY-THE-SEA Palm Beach, Florida 1967-1968 YOUTH CHOIR CONTRACT THIS AGREEMENT, made and entered into between the CHURCH OF BETHESDA-BY-THE-SEA, Palm Beach, Florida, and __________________________. WITNESSETH: That the Second Party named above, agrees to sing in the YOUTH …
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Gildas: On the Ruin of Britain, Part IV
This is a continuation of Part III. 67. For what is so wicked and so sinful as after the example of Simon Magus (even if with other faults he had not been defiled before), for any man with earthly price to purchase the office of a bishop or priest, which with holiness and righteous life …
Gildas: On the Ruin of Britain, Part III
This is a continuation of Part II. 34. But when the imagination of thy violent rule had succeeded according to thy wishes, and thou west urged by a desire to return into the right way, night and day the consciousness of thy crimes afflicted thee, whilst thou didst ruminate on the Lord's ritual and the …
Positive Infinity 