News of the Anglican World

On this April 1st, so much has happened around the world that it is hard to keep up. As a public service, here is a round up.

Episcopal Cafe: "Episcopal Church named official denomination of Major League Baseball."

As a part of opening week festivities, Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori announced today that the Episcopal Church has been designated the Official Denomination of Major League Baseball. The move was announced today in a teleconference with reporters.

"Faith oriented promotions have increasingly become a part of many minor league team," Selig said. "We felt that it was time to tap into this important demographic."

"We also want to reinforce our family friendly image while at the same time reaching out to a wide cross section of life-styles, incomes and tastes," Selig said. "We are pleased that the Episcopal Church will join us in this first partnership between a major sport and a church."

Stand Firm and sydneyanglicans.net report that Sydney Targets the Neglected Rich:

The Sydney Diocese is preparing to announce a raft of incentives and training measures to help fill critical voids in some of the city’s richest, but most neglected parishes.

A briefing provided to Sydneyanglicans.net has come in the wake of concerns raised by Southern Cross columnist John Sandeman that record numbers of Moore College graduates consider “… the rich are just too hard to reach.”

“There is a real stigma about anywhere close to the beach,” Mr Sandeman observes.

“One rich area of Sydney finds it so hard to get ministers it is known as ‘the valley of death’.”

Fr. Jake tells us of a new missionary initiative in New Jersey:

The Rev. Jacob Martin, an Episcopal priest in Princeton, New Jersey, thinks it is time to bring the Church into the 21st Century. He will soon be offering the first online communion service.

BabyBlueOnline tells us that Rowan Williams has bought a new bus:

So did you think all this time that Rowan Williams, still the Archbishop of Canterbury, has been trying to hatch a plan to save the Anglican Communion?

Well, think again.

That's all been a cover for his greatest accomplishment yet: a new Anglican hippie-style "Commune in a Bus" for those who have overdosed on too much T.E.C.

Entangled States has a report of a new religious symbol installed on public property in Tennessee:

Members of the Crossville, TN Chapter of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have installed a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster statue outside The Cumberland County Courthouse in Crossville, Tennessee.

The Diocese of Saskatchewan breaks the following news:

Showing the first signs of strain since he assumed office in 2003, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams announced yesterday that he wasn’t going to the Lambeth Conference either.

Metacatholic follows up with a report on a possible job swap:

It could be a little early to tell whether there’s any substance to some of the rumours swirling around the Church of England, but it seems that Rowan Williams is indeed fed up with the impossible task of trying to unite the Anglican Communion. If this had been a straightforward retirement or resignation, however, it would probably have been announced by now.

But things are a bit more complicated. Showing a rather steelier side in private than public, Rowan is believed to think that the bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali (probably the people’s favourite in his own eyes) would only get the job over his dead body. No, what has held things up, so my informants say, is a set of frantic negotiations behind the scene to see how all the complicated constitutional and legal niceties can be dealt with to allow things to be quietly stitched up behind the scenes. With Gordon Brown at No10 he knows he at least has a chance of a backroom deal done with a man who likes operating in secret and shows no liking for constitutional traditions.

The creative proposal that Rowan has come up with is a job swap between himself and Tom Wright. First, he would enjoy the role of scholar bishop in a see which has traditionally appointed them. Second, he sees Tom — a personal friend — as the acceptable and thoughtful face of conservative Christianity. Third, he thinks that Tom would stand no nonsense from anyone — often in error, but always Wright — and would have as good a chance of anyone of banging people’s heads together with a Bible. Fourth, of course, he knows that Tom likes going all over the world telling the pesky colonials what St Paul really means. And finally, he knows he and his family will settle happily (and stay) and be very welcome in Durham, where the graffiti in the gents’ loo in the cathedral currently says:

“What’s the difference between God and the Bishop of Durham?”
“God’s everywhere, and the bishop’s everywhere but here.”

Finally, the Onion offers this important news.