Thursday, September 2, 2010
carl on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Moot:  But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who…
hippocamper on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Your headline is misleading, confusing, mean, and not really funny.
carl on Stephen Hawkins: God Was Not Needed To Create The Universe: the Universe can and will create itself from nothing Something cannot exist before it exists.  Gravity does not exist without matter, and so gravity cannot…
carl on [Bumped For Obvious Reasons] Anglicanism Upside Down Down Under? Understanding Lay Administration: [360] driver8 [L]awful authority may order the church in any way consonant with Scripture and enforce uniformity Has Sydney been accused of acting unlawfully, or…
Fisherman on Stephen Hawkins: God Was Not Needed To Create The Universe: Hawking:  “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing”. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is…
cennydd13 on Newsflash: The Episcopal Church sues local congregation: The truth of the matter, MichaelA, is that Jerry Lamb knows what we say about him, but he thinks that Mrs Schori is insulating him…
Ralph on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Any comment that I might make about Katherine Ragsdale might well be taken as mocking the mentally ill.
Moot on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Hi Carl, I knew you weren’t reacting to my post, just something you had typed and had a second thought or three prior to hitting…
driver8 on [Bumped For Obvious Reasons] Anglicanism Upside Down Down Under? Understanding Lay Administration: Only Scripture binds the conscience. Including obeying the lawful authority? The Anglican view (as against the anabaptists) is firstly that the lawful authority may order…
Matt Kennedy on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Oh and I am certainly not mocking the dead but the living.
Matt Kennedy on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Wait, hold on…you mean to tell me he’s not an Episcopal clergyman? Wow! I mean I could have sworn since his views so closely resemble…
Don+ on [Entirely Off Topic] What's Wrong With This Shiny New Video on Public Education?: [7] above should read “better keep up with…”
Don+ on [Entirely Off Topic] What's Wrong With This Shiny New Video on Public Education?: No doubt these fast-paced students will be able to better up with the rapidly changing truth and radical new concepts of salvation.
carl on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: [5] Moot I didn’t mean to imply anything about your post.  I was simply reacting to what I initially thought to write.  I agree with…
carl on [Bumped For Obvious Reasons] Anglicanism Upside Down Down Under? Understanding Lay Administration: [358] MichaelA Why do you want the Anglican church to abandon the doctrinal understanding of Thomas Cranmer, and of continental reformers with whom Cranmer corresponded,…
MichaelA on Newsflash: The Episcopal Church sues local congregation: In the long run, ACNA wins, since TEC is spending money that it cannot replace (because it does not have enough income from active parishioners…
GrandpaDino on [Entirely Off Topic] What's Wrong With This Shiny New Video on Public Education?: “Every textbook a child will carry thoughout their education” Obviously not a textbook on proper grammar.
NoVA Scout on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: Document that I didn’t know something?  Not easy.  But my comment was based on Matt’s post.  This hostage taker guy was a candidate to be…
paradoxymoron on Newsflash: The Episcopal Church sues local congregation: You must be new to this site.  Yes, that’s what that means.
Ralph on The sad demise of a potential candidate for Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School: #2, carl, I agree. I further think it seems wrong to mock the mentally ill. I have no idea “where” he is right now.

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A Deputy Reports On GC09

Thursday, July 23, 2009 • 6:47 pm

Ed Starns is a good guy who served with excellence as the treasurer of the diocese for as long as they could keep him there. You can read his entire report here.
For the upcoming triennium, revenues are forecast at $141.3 million as compared with a projected $164.9 million in the current triennium. A major area of change is a reduction in Diocesan commitments of $11 million from $90.5 million to $79.2 million. Much of this reduction is due to the increased exemption (going from 100K to 120K) and a reduction in the asking percentage from 21% to 20% to 19% in the years 2010 through 2012. This may still prove an optimistic assumption as to revenues from the various dioceses. Time will tell.
Total expenses for the coming triennium were budgeted at $140.8 million as compared to a projected amount of $163.9 million for the current period. Entire programs were cut and this should lead to a reduction in the workforce at 815 (the Church’s national office). One category of expenses was considerably increased from the draft budget circulated
several months ago and that item was for the Title IV legal assistance. The original draft budgeted $1,800,000. The approved budget is $4,000,000. Title IV and legal assistance to dioceses relates to property litigation and disciplinary
situations.During the budget hearings, there were numerous calls for amendments to various areas of the expense budget. All were defeated. After the budget was passed, prayers were offered “for those who bear great burdens for what we have chosen not to do in this budget.”
One of the interesting proposals in the budget is a two day reduction in the next General Convention. It will be interesting
to see how that proposal fares as it seems to me that those who “drive the train” really like “driving the train”.
Emphasis added.
Comments:

Maybe Disney should march on 815 for their unjust employment practices.

[1] Posted by Big Chief on 07-23-2009 at 06:44 PM • top

I knew Ed very well for many years at St. Luke’s in Baton Rouge; his report sounds, well, just like him!

[2] Posted by Capt. Deacon Warren on 07-24-2009 at 06:00 AM • top

What’s with the picture of John Bulushi from Animal House for a clergy house party (pg. 2)?

[3] Posted by Festivus on 07-24-2009 at 06:12 AM • top

I have to disagree with his comment that… ”You can’t fly an airplane with just a left wing, you need a right one too.”  Sure you can.  The airplane goes down in a spiral until it crashes.  Sound familiar?

[4] Posted by fsbill on 07-24-2009 at 07:04 AM • top

Maybe they can combine the evangelism and litigation budgets and see if they can get some of the battalion of lawyers to show up for Mass on Sunday.  It’ll only cost them $500/hr for each amboo-lance-chaser in a pew.

[5] Posted by Jeffersonian on 07-24-2009 at 09:25 AM • top

Oh well, we all know it takes money to make money…
But then you can not serve both God and money.  I guess they made their choice.  And a poor one at that.  We all remember too that we shall know the type of tree by its fruit.

[6] Posted by humble country parson on 07-24-2009 at 09:25 AM • top

#4 the plane analogy fails if you have enough reserve lift built into the aircraft design…a plane can fly on one wing

see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_EXtBEaBbs  for proof

I would suggest property fights and endowments are going to provide the reserve lift for TEC

[7] Posted by MikeS on 07-24-2009 at 09:27 AM • top

Speaking of litigation


Judge Corona here in Fresno, Ca has ruled on our case (San Joaquin) and it was in favor of TEc….this is a set back but by all means is not the end…..we still have a trial date coming up but this does not help. The Anglican Curmudgeon has the sordid details if you are interested in this.

[8] Posted by TLDillon on 07-24-2009 at 10:27 AM • top

Good old Ed!  Honest, up front, smart as a whip, and faithful beyond measure. 

If he says the folks who are “driving the train” really like “driving the train” you can take that to the bank.  In fact, they’ll keep driving it even though it may have left the tracks years ago.

KTF!...mrb

[9] Posted by Mike Bertaut on 07-25-2009 at 02:29 PM • top

Title IV legal assistance. The original draft budgeted $1,800,000. The approved budget is $4,000,000. Title IV and legal assistance to dioceses relates to property litigation and disciplinary situations.

When one combines this with the amount budgeted for Evangelism (Zero), it says volumes. First the Presiding Bishop says that Christ is only one way to salvation. That brings into question whether Evangelism is even necessary. If there is no Evangelism (this has been replaced in TEC by “outreach”) there is no power given to the church by the Holy Spirit. A church that has abandoned the uniqueness of Christ and His Great Commission is only a social welfare agency.

[10] Posted by Fr. Dale on 07-26-2009 at 02:16 PM • top

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