Nothing says it’s a wonderful Monday in [Department] like Skinny Puppy…

If the rumors out of England are correct and tomorrow brings the English Evangelical organizations throwing down the gauntlet before ++Rowan, the future may become that much more clear. In the chess game that is the Anglican Communion,  the ABC is a pinned piece. The Network can use him as leverage against liberals through a concerted movement of GS Primates. That is, unity with the ABC is wielded as a weapon in the apparently all important property disputes a la ‘we didn’t leave them, they left us’. If the C of E itself splits, however, in some sense the pressure is off—the pin disappears or at least is weakened greatly. Because both sides can’t have the ABC and it looks like the English Evangelical wing isn’t bluffing. If they do calve off, the ABC will stay right where he is and the Network will have to answer some really tough questions about how and why they’re willing to stay linked to the Primate of an increasingly more liberal church (I.e., conservatives leave, C of E becomes more liberal by default…). I’m guessing this isn’t a move that appeared in the Chapman Memo…

I haven’t commented much on Anglican news recently. I don’t have much to say about it…except this. General Convention spoke and its collective will is being carried out. No, I’m not talking about B033 or any of those other resolutions. I’m talking about the PB. I think with that election General Convention made its collective voice known that it was ready for a split. Somebody like +Alexander would have been the Convention’s voice for unity; +Schori was its voice the other way. And now events are working themselves out in that direction.

Anyone care to explain to me how a major Southern newspaper can run a story on the excavation of the Vatican and state that St Paul was the Church’s first pope?

I know it’s the South but c’mon…

Thanks to Anastasia watching the girls, M and I got out to a concert last night. Overall, it was very good. We caught two acts, the first one of the main Emo groups currently circulated, the other a band I didn’t know of except for a song or two.

The first was good—but strange. In terms of set and outfit they had a minimalist thing going on so everything was white. Except the rainbow suspenders. M nailed it when she said, “You know,  [the lead singer] looks just like Mork…” But with more tattoos. The Old-School Goth in me had difficulty accepting a band dressed in white, but the music was solid and it was a pretty high energy set.

The second was a pleasant surprise. I just knew a few of their dance-y, pop-y songs and was prepared to be unimpressed. Instead, it was quality 70’s-style guitar rock. Very reminiscent of the Stones, the Beatles and having some alternate Oasis and Elvis moments. Style-wise, not a great fit for the crowd; when they started playing folks started heading for the door. Given the composition of the crowd, I figured a lot of them just had to get some sleep so they wouldn’t be late for home-room this morning… Their drummer was fabulous—I was very impressed—and the lead was a great performer who quickly won over the people who stayed. Bottom-line, it was a great set too but in different ways from the first. I loved their show, but probably wouldn’t buy their cd.

Overall, a great night on the town. And Lil’ G apparently had a great time making a mess of things with Kizzy…

As part of my motivation regimen if you have anything for me to read over, just send it to my haligweorc address… Thanks!

I’ve set up a meeting to deliver chapters One and Two to Scary Prof. I think it’ll be next Tuesday. Why the title of this post? Because One and Two aren’t done yet. In fact, since my flash drive died, I’m not entirely sure where chapter One is… So we’ll call this a bit of forced motivation.

Class was great today. I haven’t talked much about class recently—or at all, come to think of it…  It’s going well and I have a great group of students. Today I tried something I was a little hesitant to do—I gave them one of Æ’s sermons to chew on (SupHom XIa for the OE geeks…). My topic was integration. That is, how does the lit. year fit within our theologies and within those of our local churches? How do we keep it from being an “extra” or something tacked on. Rather, what would it look like if it was an integral part of how we understand the faith? Æ’s sermon presents a great model. It’s a catechetical/missionary sermon that basically moves through the grand narrative following the Apostles’ Creed; the section on the 2^nd Article is a rehearsal of the life of Christ as seen through the lit. year. They loved it; I was thrilled.