Allegedly Jeff Foxworthy On Being From Louisiana

Forget Rednecks, here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about folks From
Louisiana…

If a guy in a Lowe’s store offers you assistance and he doesn’t work
there,
you may live in Louisiana

If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in
Louisiana

If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a
wrong number, you may live in Louisiana.

If “Vacation” means going to Dallas for the weekend,you may live in
Louisiana.

If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Louisiana .

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may
live
in Louisiana.

If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave Both
unlocked, you may live in Louisiana.

If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use
them,
you may live in Louisiana.

If the speed limit is 55 mph, you’re going 80 and everybody is passing
you,
you may live in Louisiana

If you find 60 degrees “a little chilly”, you may live in Louisiana

Brad’s Random Thought For Today

It really should not take $45.00 to fill up a Toyota Camry, for Pete’s sake. It just shouldn’t.

Renowned Theologian J.I. Packer threatened with suspension by uber-liberal Bishop Ingham, Canada’s Ex Officio Representative to 815’s Executive Council

Read it all.

The Latest On the Communion Partners Plan From The Living Church

Read it all.

I realize this isn’t my Bishop talking, but Bishop Howe. However, I think anything that will strengthen the hands of the Presiding Bishop is a bad idea. Why do it? So she can crush more orthodox parishes and Dioceses? While I am glad the bishops in favor of this plan are not going to the HOB to ask permission, this seems more like capitulation rather than reconciliation. I will be very interested to see what Bishop MacPherson says about this. Trust me, I am getting emails asking about it…

Save Money On Corrections – Separate The Folks We’re Mad At From The Folks We Are Afraid Of

Read it all, realizing that churches that do not reach out to the lost and needy are part of the problem, and those that do are part of the solution.

IRS Investigates Obama’s Church

Read it all. I hope Huckabee hasn’t preached at any churches lately, even though he is an ordained pastor.

Bexley Hall Closes Rochester Campus

I wonder how many more Episcopal seminaries will close.

The Anglican Communion Partners Movement

I spoke with Bishop MacPherson yesterday, and what Bishop Howe wrote is correct. Moreover, it was Bishop MacPherson who arranged the meeting with the Presiding Bishop. One important point of clarification is that, despite George Conger’s headline that the Presiding Bishop “backs” this plan, the bishops went to meet with the PB not to seek her permission, but to tell her what they were doing, that this did not violate the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and that they were going to be perfectly transparent with what this new association will be about and what it will do.

In short, the group has taken the Episcopal visitor plan and melded the same with alternative primatial pastoral oversight for the Episcopal visitors, which addresses the pastoral needs of conservative bishops. The Presiding Bishop has three roles – CEO of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (the corporate arm of the church but which is not the church), presiding officer over the House of Bishops (she runs the meeting), and chief pastor, which includes being a pastor to the Bishops, much as a bishop is the pastor to the clergy in their Diocese. The Anglican Communion partner bishops are not seeking to undermine the PB’s role as the duly elected PB for the first two functions, but the third, pastoral oversight, is relational and therefore requires an alternative arrangement.

Unfortunately, while this move may help conservative bishops in conservative Dioceses hold on until (and if!) the covenant is created, this is not some big overall solution folks have been hoping for. Frankly, nothing so far has been that. Will something like that ever come? Maybe, maybe not.

Update: The Anglican Communion Institute weighs in on the plan it helped to draft.

A Possible Plan On The Table?

We’ll see.

Seabury Western Seminary Closing Its M.Div Program

Not terribly surprising, in reality. Dying Church, dying seminaries. That and Nashotah House has the youngest seminary population. I guess we are running out of aging hippie ladies to make priests and the money to send them to seminary. It is a kind of a shame that the closure is happening on their 150th anniversary. What is also strange is that this is Sewanee’s 150th anniversary too. 1858 must have been a really good year for the Episcopal Church. I wonder what a good year in the Episcopal Church would look like.