Glasspool receives required number of consents

“Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan-elect Mary Douglas Glasspool has received the required number of consents from diocesan standing committees to her ordination and consecration, pending verification by the presiding bishop’s office…”

– No surprises in this story from Episcopal Life.

From a December 5 2009 Diocese of Los Angeles press release:
“The second woman to be elected a bishop in the diocese’s 114-year history, Glasspool is also the first openly partnered lesbian to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church…”

South Carolina Resolutions to respond to Schori

The Diocese of South Carolina’s annual convention will consider five resolutions on March 26, three of which stress diocesan authority amid conflicts with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

In proposing one resolution, the diocese’s standing committee calls it a “Response to Ecclesiastical Intrusions by the Presiding Bishop.” That resolution refers to the diocese’s “legal and ecclesiastical authority as a sovereign diocese within the Episcopal Church,” adds that “the Presiding Bishop has no authority to retain attorneys in this Diocese that present themselves as the legal counsel for the Episcopal Church in South Carolina,” and demands that she “drop the retainer of all such legal counsel in South Carolina as has been obtained contrary to the express will of this Diocese.” …

– Full report from The Living Church.
(Photo of Bishop Mark Lawrence: Diocese of South Carolina.)

What would you want on your tombstone?

What is the resurrection to you? What part does it hold in your thinking?

NSW Moderator of The Presbyterian Church, Chris Balzer, wrote this for the Presbyterian magazine, Pulse:

–––––

“A few months ago a friend and I ‘discovered’ the graveyard at Sofala NSW.

From my perspective, the most interesting inscription on a tombstone was this:

The dust of Vestry Walker, who slept in Jesus 28th August 1875, waits here (until) the morning of the first resurrection.

If you call yourself a Christian, would you be pleased at the thought that your relatives might use similar words on your tombstone? I would.

What theological insight those relatives of Vestry Walker had! Can you see the theology?   Read more

God’s power in our weakness

“I wonder whether the provision of MP3s of sermons of great preachers now available everywhere is in danger of creating another Corinthian problem for our churches…”

– Over at SydneyAnglicans.net, Bishop Robert Forsyth has a good point – see what he has to say here. (Download the mp3 file.)
Photo: Russell Powell.