From the Ohio Anglican Blog:

St. Lawrence (or Laurence) was chief of the seven deacons of the congregation at Rome, the seven men who, like Stephen and his companions (Acts 6:1-6), were in charge of administering the church budget, particularly with regard to the care of the poor.

In 257, the emperor Valerian began a persecution aimed chiefly at the clergy and the laity of the upper classes. All Church property was confiscated and meetings of Christians were forbidden. The bishop of Rome, Sixtus II, and most of his clergy were executed on 7 August 258, and Laurence on the 10th. This much from the near-contemporary records of the Church.

The accounts recorded about a century later by Ambrose (see 7 Dec) and the poet Prudentius say that, as Sixtus was being led to his death, Laurence followed him, saying, “Will you go to heaven and leave me behind?” and that the bishop replied, “Be comforted, you will follow me in three days.” They go on to say that the Roman prefect, knowing that Laurence was the principal financial officer, promised to set him free if he would surrender the wealth of the Church. Laurence agreed, but said that it would take him three days to gather it. During those three days, he placed all the money at his disposal in the hands of trustworthy stewards, and then assembled the sick, the aged, and the poor, the widows and orphans of the congregation, presented them to the prefect, and said, “These are the treasures of the Church.” The enraged prefect ordered him to be roasted alive on a gridiron. Laurence bore the torture with great calmness, saying to his executioners at one time, “You may turn me over; I am done on this side.” The spectacle of his courage made a great impression on the people of Rome, and made many converts, while greatly reducing among pagans the belief that Christianity was a socially undesirable movement that should be stamped out.

This presents an interesting solution to ANiC parishes that are being sued by their former dioceses; in the above account, substitute Fred Hiltz for the emperor Valerian, Michael Bird for the Roman prefect and church wardens for Lawrence. The only minor problem is the part about the roasting.

John Shepherd, Dean of St. George’s Cathedral Perth, Australia demonstrates how  taking too much LSD in one’s youth clouds the faculties, dims the intellect, opens what is left of the mind to cosmic detritus and is generally a Bad Thing:

I once invited the abbot of the Bodhinyana Buddhist monastery in Perth to preach at a Eucharist in St George’s Cathedral. During Communion representatives of the Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Bahai faiths read passages from their sacred writings, and after Communion an Aboriginal reader offered a dream-time reflection.

Wriggle as he might – and there is a fair bit of wriggling in this article – the ironically named Shepherd stumbles from muddle to confusion saying first that:

Perhaps appreciating this point, the writer of John’s Gospel emphasises the importance of staying focused on a living, humane [humane?] relationship with the person of the risen Christ. And it was in that person that salvation was to be experienced.

And then, desperate not to offend non-Christians:

We are all moving towards what we hope is a clearer appreciation of that which we call God. We come from different religious and cultural backgrounds and experiences, and we have been inspired by different revelations. And we all have our own tradition of worship — our own perception of a passage to God.

We all have our own perceptions, nothing is real man, and other religions’ paths are just as efficacious in re-uniting us to God as Jesus. Someone should have told Jesus that before he went to die in agony on the cross.

And:

For ultimately all our streams, about which we can become so obsessive and insular, will empty out into nothing other than the one large sea — the one heart of the one God.

Trouble is, the one large sea is actually one large toilet bowl.

Rowan Williams has made a statement on TEC’s GC2009. It is classic Rowan, dangling tempting titbits before the noses of both sides in the hope of bringing them within sniffing distance of each other and thus maintain the illusion of unity:

It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both ‘tracks’ should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage. And if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely.

When Rowan declares that “it helps to be clear” one suspects that he must be about to quote from someone else; but no. Apparently we have now “two styles of being Anglican” each proceeding along its own track: perhaps the track idea was inspired by N. T. Wright’s train wreck article.

What is sadly missing in Rowan’s attempt to put a brave face on things is the apparent absence of any understanding that, if a church persistently denies doctrines that are necessary for it to be called Christian, it should no longer be called that. For Rowan, the important thing is that Anglican provinces can hold radically different views on the centrality of Christ, the importance of the bible, the meaning of individual salvation and still be called “Anglican” – even if one has ceased to be Christian.

Heading to a seminary near you:

A little over a decade ago, ex-MI5 agent David Shayler was facing prosecution under the Official Secrets Act as a whistleblower.

Today the 43-year-old is a squatter who declares that the ‘world will end in 2012’ and dresses as a transvestite called ‘Delores Kane’ complete with false breasts, mini-skirt and ginger wig.

Yesterday, posing in a wig and miniskirt and wearing false breasts, he said: ‘I know in my heart that I am Christ and I am here to save humanity.’

In fact, judging by that last sentence, he’s after Katharine Jefferts-Schori’s job.