Anglican Blogs & Websites

Reformed Churchmen
Wannabe Anglican
Parish Priest: St. Francis, Dallas
Virtue Online
Stand Firm
Wesleyan/Anglican
Anglicani
Anglicans Ablaze
Anglican Ink
The Sword and the Ploughshare
The Conciliar Anglican
Anglican Way
Anglo-Reformed
Churchmouse Campanologist

The Fallacy (?) of Sola Scriptura

Where do you find that in the Bible?
Sola Scriptura?
Sola Scriptura

This country needs reform, let alone its prisons.

"Fleming is among more than 1,350 inmates exonerated nationwide in the last 25 years."

Wow, that is heart-breaking. How do we stop wrongly convicting the innocent? Is it better to err on the side of more or less people in prison? Traditionally we say to err on the side of safety...don't assume more people in jail is the "safe" option. We place non-violent "criminals" in prison with violent criminals-literally creating criminals that will surely never leave the US criminal "justice" system. Rehabilitation occurs in the real world, not in lockup with [really] bad people.

Political Groupthink

If you think like we do, you deserve the freedom and liberty to be enslaved by groupthink.

If however you exercise the freedom and liberty to think differently you will be enslaved to the court of public opinion.

Enter Bundy.

His words couldn't be less palatable to contemporary sensibilities...but the question isn't "is he right or wrong?"; the question we should be asking is "does he have the right to think differently?".

Women's Ordination

William Witt's Article Series on Women's Ordination

John Piper and Wayne Grudem's Complementarianism

Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE): Free Articles

New Perspective on Paul, N. T. Wright

N. T. Wright New Perspective on Paul

So…unlike the fear mongering that I am used to from the reformed presby's, N. T. Wright does not engage in 'you're a heretic if you don't believe me.' Now that I am researching/studying Anglican theology, I see another side. In Anglicanism I see ecclesia catholica semper reformanda. I see Anglican theologians working within the constrictions of the 39 Articles…whereas the reformed presby theologians work within the even more narrow thinking of the westminster confession.

Don't get me wrong; I absolutely respect the reformed presbyterians. But I always knew something was missing. Now I know. Now I'm even more convinced I'm Anglican.

Big Bad Bureaucracy

Man who never served prison sentence on clerical error awaits fate

So they made a mistake...but in a bureaucracy you can just shift the decimal, or in this case the date to the right and make it "right." Forget about the human element; forget about forgiveness; forget about his family. If they now incarcerate him, it would be a travesty against humanity. The only "slippery slope" is not punishing the bureaucrats who failing at their job would punish a woman and four children for a "clerical error."

We Have a Crisis in America

We have a mental health crisis in America. I cannot condone the violent actions of the tortured souls that have responded in the only way they thought that they could make their voices heard. It's sad, pitiable, but absolutely a problem that must be addressed. It's also a place where politics should not be involved, but alas politics is already involved. I have a friend who works in special needs and he says we have problems.

Some of the things he outlines:

Segregation

We segregate those who need to have healthy-minded individuals around them to only be around others whom have mental health issues. So instead of the "town fool" of yore, we have mental hospitals (where we don't have to see, experience, or feel responsible to help those whom need it) where those who could live fairly normal lives learn bad behavior from other mental health patients (i.e. we treat them like prisoners; it has been observed that we have created a wicked process by which non-violent criminals are segregated from society with violent criminals and they themselves typically become violent criminals).

Poor Treatment

Who wants to work with the mentally ill or at nursing homes? My friend told me that the treatment is typically poor because the caretakers feel they can easily get away with it (similar to parents who mistreat their children). What recourse do the victims have? Who will take their side? I have seen what it's like in nursing homes.

I'm not saying everyone under care is mistreated and all caretakers are evil. I am saying we should not take the mentally ill out of society. We need to keep them in society. We need to embrace them as members of our community. We may have to watch them a little closer as we would with our children (because we care) but not "treat them as children." With positive peer pressure they will try to fit in as best they can and will be a part not set apart. They will feel heard not ignored. They will feel that they matter, that they have a voice. We need to listen on our terms not their terms because we have a responsibility to care. If we ignore the problem, this is what will continue to happen:

Study: All But Two Multiple Public Shootings Since 1950 Took Place Where Guns Were Banned (I disagree with the "aggressive institutionalization" statement. Mental health point made.)

Why did the Ft. Hood gunman do it? Because a gun-crazy country let him (Self-admittedly this author has made slop of argumentation, and when corrected stuck to his non-sequitur conclusion, otherwise note his pointing out of the mental health crisis we are in. Instead of advocating for help on this point he simply has a gun agenda.)

Fort Hood Victim's Dad: Gunman Snapped After Seeking Time Off

On the Other Hand

James Holmes: Mental Illness or Social Frustration? (Exactly! Regardless of whether it's mental illness or social rejection or some combination, it is a societal problem not an institutional fix.)

So really, we have a social crisis in America. We have forgotten how to be a community. Mental health is an issue, but how much of an issue would it be if we had true community? We would help each other physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, et cetera. We do this to a small extent but on such a small scale. There are pockets of community in this country. Certain churches practice community (but there is a line between community and cult). Certain neighborhoods practice community. In the military there is a sense of community but it's two-dimensional and needs expanding. I will pray for the cultivation of Christ-centered community which will truly enrich the world, because that is what we need now.

It's Official: FB Saves Lives (Tongue-in-cheek)

Facebook post saves girl’s vision as 'glow in the eye' raises alarm

A bittersweet and inspiring story like this leads me to laud progress. The concept of progress can be really open-ended but please don't take it too far or misattribute to me something I am not saying. To be crystal clear, what I praise here is the good that comes from the "information age" in which we live. How amazing is it that through unintentional "crowdsourcing" people are saving and improving lives and livelihood?!

Tax Info for Rental Property

Some tax advice from MSN.com.

Schedule E blunders

"This is the Schedule that is used to report rental property, royalties, partnership income and expenses, estate income and expenses and S-Corp income and expenses," says Du Val, flagging it as the area on the federal tax form 1040 where people are most likely to make a mistake. He adds that anyone who needs to fill this out should be familiar with phrases like "property basis" and "suspended losses." If you own rental property and don't know those terms, you should start learning everything you can about them, as well as "depreciation" and "passive activities," Du Val says. Or, of course, you could hire someone who does, because things can get sticky when it comes to rental property. "For example," Du Val says, "A residential rental property is depreciated over 27 1/2 years, but furniture is depreciated over five years."

Time to start studying real estate laws, if this is my retirement plan.

The Rise and Fall of the Political Ultra-Rich

The Rise of the Political Ultra-Rich

The most important statement made in this article is the heading of the final paragraph: "How establishment Republicans are trying to survive Tea Party challenges." This is the most telling data point of the whole piece. It clues us in to the reality of the situation: the Supreme Court's decision doesn't affect the Rep-Dem stranglehold on political posturing. The writer indicated that there will be a short-term benefit to Reps but that it would only be short, really short.

So in the least pontificated "paragraph" of the article do we find an exquisite exposition of the incredible implications? No. It reads almost as if the article was truncated. It ends abruptly.

So in the spirit of charitable free-lance, allow me to finish the article which was just starting to get good before it got gone.

How establishment Republicans are trying to survive Tea Party challenges

Turning to Senate contests, we’re seeing examples of how establishment Republicans are trying to survive Tea Party challenges. In North Carolina, American Crossroads is airing a TV ad for establishment GOPer Tom Tillis highlighting his work for voter ID laws. And in Mississippi, Thad Cochran is using guns and abortion as way to strengthen his conservative bona fides.

But saying that they are merely challenges is to obfuscate the symptoms with the source of those challenges. As indicated earlier in the article, the power of influence is via the power of the dollar, traditionally speaking. However the "Republicans" of today are less traditional. In fact, this is a problem for establishment Democrats as well. The establishment's base of support is dwindling due to changes in the culture, largely brought about by reactionary changes from generation to generation as well as the technological changes that have sparked the information revolution.

The response is revolutionary. What is becoming ever obvious to ordinary citizens is that the bureaucratic machine continues to polarize the public and pander to the politically minded. The establishmentarians fail to realize that the new generation of collective, political activism known broadly as the Tea Party is an idealist, intellectually-grounded, free-thinking, and politically-centrist movement of ideologues that cannot be bought by anachronistic advertising. They deal in the currency of ideas. They are neither republican, nor democrat. They are neither conservative, nor liberal. They desire the one thing that a bureaucratic machine cannot deliver: freedom. And like their forefathers, they are ready to fight for it.

Billions of dollars spent on smear campaigns won't deter the coming tide. If the establishment will not change to suit their constituents, their constituents will change the establishment. The rise of the political ultra-rich is also, paradoxically, the fall of the political ultra-rich.