Perfect Conditions

"Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap."
(Ecclesiastes 11:4)

This verse is basically saying that if we wait for the perfect conditions to do something we will most likely never get anything done because those perfect conditions never arrive. So what do we do? Take a leap of faith, just a little one, trusting that God will guide and provide.

"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)

I just got back from a week in Manchester, Vermont. Two granddaughters were being baptized and many family members were there for the occasion. Many of the family work on Wall Street and were lamenting the current financial situation and recession. It wasn’t that they had no reason to complain as we are indeed in a bad fiscal situation, not just in America but all over the world. Some spoke of current conditions and what needed to take place to allow for growth while others stated it was time to buy gold, guns, and prefab bomb shelters. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no perfect condition available in anyone’s opinion to remedy the current financial issues of the day.

Everyone is looking for the perfect condition to make decisions or to make a forecast for the future. It’s Human Nature; the problem is that we are expressing faith in those conditions rather than in God. Now understand, I am not saying that we blindly barge forward and completely disregard all logical thinking. God has graciously given us a mind that he expects us to use in a sensible way. However, I think you will agree that very often we can allow our sensibility to create all kinds of excuses for not taking the step of faith that honors God.

Writers of the Old and New Testament remind us often that we need to honor God first, and then move forward. “Well you are a Bishop; you’re supposed to have that kind of faith.” Yes the clergy are supposed to set the example but we alone are not the torch bearers of faith for everyone else. To find faith we must trust, to trust we must know God, to know God we must give up self and serve Him who gave us life.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10 )

Will your faith be tested? Of course it will, but take the step anyway. Will you meet with opposition that will challenge your commitment? Of course you will, but take the step anyway. Will you meet with negativity that will question your sanity? Of course you will, but take the step anyway. We honor God when you show trust in God. The families of our two granddaughters’ had faith enough to know they needed to be baptized. That was a small leap of faith.

We had a great time Vermont; we had good weather, good food, and good fellowship. It is always a joy for Robin and me to wander such places as these. Realize that God gave us these beautiful places to play in. If we are faithful in this life, think of the beauty and love He will give us in the next. Fulfill the purpose you have been created for and bring glory to God....you will not be disappointed!

Be of good faith…

Bishop Ian

Space - the Forgotten Frontier

I don’t often go off on tangents in my Blog. But there are exceptions. Here’s one of them.

NASA's new mission: Building ties to Muslim world.

This was the headline I read on AOL as I ate my breakfast. It was one of those double take moments. I thought, ‘maybe it’s an acute case of dyslexia or my computer juxtaposed a story’.

Nope, as I read on I was horrified (and I don’t use that term lightly) to discover that the new NASA administrator, Charles Bolden, had been given three tasks by President Obama. He was quoted from an AL Jazeera interview no less. “He (Obama) wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." You can’t make this stuff up. NASA’s foremost mission is to make Muslims feel good? I mean the President does realize that the “S” in NASA stands for “Space,” right???

I grew up with astronauts as my heroes. I love astronomy, and I’ve read every book I could find about the space program, and by the astronauts who flew the missions. I’ve seen “From the Earth to the Moon” six times. And now, I wake up to read that the new mission of NASA is to make the Muslim world feel good about their contributions to science, math and engineering? What are we talking about here, two or three guys, who like the Germans of WWlI, escaped fascism and were given an opportunity to build a space program in the confines of freedom and liberty here in the US?

They can’t seriously be trying to give the warm fuzzies to the guys in Iran - those same guys who are trying to come up with a guided missile delivery vehicle to blow up Israel are they? Maybe NASA can have a class on how to build a better IED. "Hi kids. Wanna see science? Today we are going to make an explosive device from common household items." It’s…well, lunacy.

The writer from the Washington Examiner goes on to say, “Obama's proposal stunned U.S. space heroes Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan -- the first and last men to walk on the moon -- who, along with Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, made a rare public statement denouncing the plan as a "devastating" scheme that "destines our nation to become one of second - or even third-rate stature."

Look, even John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, who later became a Democratic senator and an Obama supporter, chimed in on the president's plan to rely on the Russians to ferry American astronauts to the international space station. "We're putting ourselves in line for a single-point failure ending the whole manned space program."

I was 6 years old when Glenn orbited the earth. I remember following every mission, from Mercury to Apollo. I was 13 when Armstrong walked on the moon, and I was 16 when Gene Cernan closed the hatch on the Lunar Module and flew home. I stood on the bridge of the USCGC Hammer anchored near Titusville, FL and watched as the last Apollo mission left Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the Apollo-Soyuz mission with Deke Slayton, one of the Original 7 Mercury Astronauts, and he was flying his first mission into space. Every launch and every mission I ever watched always left me with one word, WOW! It was a huge source of national pride, not just for me but for most of the nation.

In 1997, I retired from active ministry in the Episcopal Church and went to work at a national TV network in Washington DC as one of the Post Production Supervisors. I bought a small townhouse in Baltimore and commuted to Washington’s Union Station everyday. It was a late night and I was waiting to take the last MARC train - the 10:15 back to Baltimore. There were three of us in the terminal area, when two spry elderly people came and sat next to me. He looked at me smiled and said; “How are you tonight young man.” It was John Glenn, and his wife Annie. It was another one word moment - I was sitting next to Mercury Astronaut John Glenn!!!. WOW…

He was taking the train to NYC to do one of the national morning TV shows before heading back to Florida. He was training for his trip back to space and he had just spent the evening with President Clinton.

I worried about being intrusive especially with a living legend so I congratulated him on his upcoming flight and I thanked him for his service and I told him how I remembered his first flight even as a young child of 6 years old. I rambled on about how he and the others had inspired me to get a telescope and study astronomy and learn about rockets and space. He smiled, stood up and shook my hand and said, “Young man, I am glad to hear you say that. I get asked all the time why I am doing this, and that is the reason - that’s it right there, what you just said, the reason I’m going back up, to inspire young people to start looking up again.”

Now c’mon folks, NASA for the last 50 years has been about Space. When NASA put John Glenn into orbit and landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, the whole world went, WOW. They have done things in their fifty year history that made people; ordinary people like me from all over the world look up again and say WOW.

We have a president whose vision of America’s greatness lies in our humility, rather than the greatness we have achieved as a nation. Nothing embodied that greatness like the accomplishments of NASA. Making Muslims feel better??? Yes, I thought, WOW, when I read the article. It wasn’t the good kind of WOW factor. This is politics, the worst kind; NASA deserves better. America deserves better. All of mankind, who NASA has inspired for fifty years, deserve better.

Be Inspired,

Bishop Ian (boldly going where I haven't gone before)

The Fourth of July: Remembering America as a Nation Under God

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: that it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

- John Quincy Adams

The signers intended the Declaration of Independence to officiate the separation between America and Great Britain. However, they based the Declaration, which has served as a foundation for the beginning of the American nation, upon a greater foundational belief that God, or as written in the Declaration, a “Creator,” was the source for men’s irrevocable rights.
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, also believed, "God, who gave us life gave us liberty.”

Two of the Continental Congress’ first actions were to hire military chaplains and to purchase 20,000 Bibles to remedy a national shortage.

Although America was already a free nation during the presidency of George Washington, as the first president of the United States, he suggested that only religion could uphold its morality. During his farewell address he said, "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

The first settlers in America, the Pilgrims, clearly stated the purpose for their voyage even before stepping off the Mayflower; “...undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith...”

The U.S. Supreme Court also identified America as a Christian nation in 1892 after 10 years of examining hundreds of documents on the foundation of the country. The justices came to the unanimous conclusion that the documents undeniably "add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a religious people, a Christian nation."

After the constitution had been ratified, John Adams, the second president of the United States, summed the document up this way. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The late Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, held the conviction that God cannot and should not be moved from the social and governmental construct of America. He said, "Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience....without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure....If we ever forget that we are one Nation under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."

People who want to remove all mention of a God from schools, public buildings, government, and society in general, use the First Amendment to the Constitution as their rallying point. But if you read that amendment carefully, you will note that the words "separation of church and state" do not appear. The amendment simply prohibits "an establishment of religion." That means there should be no nationally mandated or tax supported church. The amendment promises the federal government will not start a national church, like England has the Church of England.

We have to answer to God for our national life, because it was God who gave us our national life. It was God who was often called upon by our leaders and credited with our victory in America’s War for Independence, and not just "good fortune" or "luck" that allowed thirteen colonies to defeat the greatest military power in the world at that time.

Be Patriotic,

Bishop Ian

Take Your Bible for a Walk

I recently read an on-line article from my old seminary and discovered that The Rev. Shunji F. Nishi, acting dean at the time I attended, and my Philosophical Theology professor, had died last May. He was an interesting professor and yes, very philosophical. He asked us one day, “What is the commandment of Jesus most people follow today?” We gave him several scriptures. I quoted Mark 16:15. With a wry smile and a bit of sarcasm, Professor Nishi quoted Mark 7:36.

“And he charged them that they should tell no man…”

His point of course is that most professing Christians are reluctant to talk about the Gospel. Unfortunately, Professor Nishi was right. Most people when given an opportunity will choose to say nothing about their faith; in fact most professing Christians don’t even open their Bibles. They rely on the personality in the pulpit to tell them what they should believe.

Jesus said, “Go in into all the entire world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) The problem? Most Christians have no idea how to do that. Communicating the simple truth of the Gospel is elusive to those who never crack a Bible past Sunday morning. Jesus’ intention in Mark 16:15 wasn’t that our only obligation was to send and support missionaries, or go on the occasional mission trip. While these works are wonderful and needed, it isn’t the sum total of our responsibilities. The mission field is right out the front door. And Jesus’ admonition in Mark 16:15 applies to all of us. We live in amazing technological times. We have the ability to travel and communicate further than we ever have - whether by plane, train, automobile, or electronically. Everyone has a cell phone; texting and tweeting are now part of the American lexicon. Internet access that connects us globally is a few keystrokes away. Our voice and image has the ability to travel further and in a shorter amount of time than Professor Nishi or any of us could ever have imagined twenty-five years ago. Yet, we have friends, neighbors, co-workers, even family members who have never heard the Gospel. We stand next to lost souls in line at the grocery store; they’re sitting next to us in restaurants, movie theaters, and airplanes.

We are willing to carry on small talk with total strangers about our favorite sports team, our hobbies, or our family. How about talking about your church, the Bible, your salvation? I know, many of you will say you aren’t good with scriptures or you don’t know how to start the conversation without feeling like a “Jesus Freak.” Well - there are worse things you could be.

I have a challenge to all my blog readers. It is the same challenge the good professor gave our class all those years ago. Take the biggest Bible you can find, and carry it with you for a week; in full view - out in the open - everywhere you go. Don’t open it; just take it with you. Let me know how many opportunities to talk about your faith arise from this simple exercise. I was amazed at the looks I got, and more amazed at the opportunities I had to speak about what was in the book.

If you are doing your part, keep it up! If you’re not doing your part, please remember the verse after Mark 16:15. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” (Mark 16:16) Isn’t that something everyone needs to hear?

Be communicating,

Bishop Ian

Don't Just Do Something - Stand There!

I said that right, “Don’t Just Do Something - Stand There.” You see, the liberal church for years has said, “Let’s not squabble over the Bible and doctrine. Let’s just go out there, open our doors to every sin, every new theology, and preach the message of tolerance, relativism, and personal interpretation. Let’s just do something.”

The bottom line is this; it doesn’t matter whether we go out there if we don’t have the message that saves. So, don’t just do something, stand there on the Bible. Stand there on the truth. Stand there on the gospel. Stand there on what the Bible says about Jesus. Believe that and then we’ll do something.

This spring and summer I have been teaching a series on cults and the occult. Rob, a member of the vestry at St. Andrews in Middleburgh, MA, shares my rabid interest in Apologetics. In one of our many email conversations, he sent me a scripture from Jude, a passage I hadn’t visited for awhile. Jude calls us to be lovingly contentious Christians; to stand with conviction about our faith, to care about truth, to believe in truth, and teach the truth. Why?

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:4)

Jude is saying, ‘Here’s why I’m writing to you. There are people in your own congregation who have the name Christian, who say that their teaching is Christian, but they’re leading you astray. They’re teaching you false things. They’re teaching cheap grace and using it as an excuse to live a life of indifference and sin, and they’re denying the biblical historic Jesus Christ.’ Sound familiar? It certainly strikes a chord with most of us battle scarred Anglicans.

The new relativistic theology tells us that it doesn’t matter how you live as long as you’re sincere. It doesn’t matter what your life is like as long as you’re good and kind. It doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus as long as it is relative to your expression of him.

A false teacher is a flip of the channel away, the opening of a book away, or as close as the nearest progressive congregation. False prophets and false teachers are everywhere. We need to be discerning because truth and good theology matters. What you don’t know can hurt you as false teaching can destroy souls and lives.

And so here’s Jude speaking to a group of Christians who lived in a pluralistic society, a relativistic culture that followed after many gods, many truths, many fashions, and many fads. And lo and behold, here we are 2,000 years later in a culture that’s very relativistic and pluralistic, following after many fads, many fashions, and many gods. Jude is saying to us again - care about the truth - cling to the truth - believe the truth. Be savvy enough about the truth that you can tell a false teacher from a faithful believer. Stick close to the Bible. Stick close to God’s word. Stick close to Jesus Christ. Don’t just do something, Stand There!!!

He’s saying all those things to us. And that word is just as fresh today as when he spoke it 2000 years ago. Thanks Rob, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at Jude, a simple message, with eternal consequences.

Be standing on the truth.

Bishop Ian

A Fine Line

Occam's Razor - William of Occam was a fourteenth century philosopher who enunciated the principle "pluritas non est ponenda sine necessitate," or "nature likes things as simple as possible." In other words, the simpler the explanation of a given phenomena - that takes into account all the experimental evidence - the more likely it is to be correct. This could also be called the KISS principle.

The Bible tells us that those who have trusted in Jesus as their Lord and Savior have been adopted into the family of God. We have life with God, we are children of God, and we are in the family of God...forever!

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him." (1 John 3:1)

Pretty simple, and that theme is played over and over again in scriptures. Then why so many variations on the theme, when scriptures from the Old and New Testament clearly reveal God’s plan of salvation and reconciliation through the sacrifice of God the Son?

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." (2 Peter 2:1-3)

I am still amazed by what some of the mainline churches have adopted as “New Spirituality," rejecting the completeness of God’s coming in Jesus Christ. It’s a new name for a very old error. Almost two thousand years ago St. Paul visited Athens. In the midst of all the Grecian idols was an altar inscribed "To the Unknown God" (Acts 17:23). The Greeks thought that they were covering all their religious "bets" by setting up an alter to all gods known and unknown. St. Paul said to them then, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious" (Acts 17:22). "Covering your religious bets" is the is the foundation for today’s "spiritual movement."

"(God) who has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time." (2 Timothy 1:9)

Occam hit the nail on the head. It is the simple truth that leads to true spirituality. Think about it, the three persons of the Trinity knew you, loved you, and called you into the Most Royal Family...not because of your good works, but because of God's purpose and grace given to you in Christ Jesus - before the beginning of time!

God’s plan for reconciliation by nature is "pluritas non est ponenda sine necessitate.” His plan doesn’t get much simpler than that.

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility." (Ephesians 2:13-16 NIV)

Be Simplistic,

Bishop Ian

An Alternative Ministry Worth Fighting For

On September 17, 1944, we were part of the first wave of Allied parachute troops that landed in the Netherlands. We were part of the massive airborne assault codenamed, Operation Market Garden.


The plane carrying me and my comrades from the 101st, encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire as we approached the jump zone. Our pilots were able to hold formation, and for the most part, we were delivered to the correct drop zones.

We made our drop to the west of the main highway near the villages of Zon, St. Oedenrode, and Best. My company, the 506th Parachute Infantry E Company (Easy Company), cleared Zon, but it was slow going with lots of casualties. 1st Battalion, under General Taylor, moved around the village to the south to seize the bridge crossing at the Wilhelmina Canal, but heavy enemy fire completely pinned them down as they tried to approach the bridge. We moved out of Zon and met up with 1st Battalion. We were starting to beat back the German defenses when the Germans blew the bridge.

Some of us were called to form a strike force and we slowly made our way across the river. We were finally able to destroy the Germans who had blown up the bridge and we were able to get everyone across. It was the first time I had seen battle - the first time I saw the carnage of war - the first time I ever saw what lead and bombs could do to flesh. I had lost my faith because of that war…until I met Chaplain Steve 64 years later.

There are many stories like this one. This particular story is told through the eyes of John. He was there in that invasion; 18 years old and fresh out of training. This was his first jump as a member of Easy Company, the “Band of Brothers” made famous by the HBO miniseries of the same name.

Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war. (Proverbs 20:18)

I want to fast forward a few decades. In the U.S. there are many men and women who participate in military re-enactments. They bring history alive from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, from the French and Indian War to WWII. One of the Deans of our Diocese, Fr. Stephen DelSignore is a re-enactor. He participates in an alternative ministry as a WWII Army Chaplain – in Easy Company.

Steven participates at the annual “Battle of the Bulge” reenactment at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania held every January. “Chaplain Steve,” as he is known, serves as the Chaplain for the 101st Airborne - complete with the period uniforms, and an authentic chaplain’s kit issued in the 1940’s.

When Fr. Steven told me about his involvement and how serious he was about this alternative ministry I was enthralled. You see it isn’t about men and women playing soldier. It’s about living our history, and it’s a living memorial to all the heroes of WWII - the fallen as well as those who came home.

The added reality to this memorial is that Fr. Steven is a priest. He takes his ministry with him and is able to impart to men and women, some who may never set foot in a church out side the Fort Indiantown Gap chapel, the grace of God, the Gospel of Christ.

Steven has told me several stories of his time as a Chaplain re-enactor. My favorite is the story of John. Since his experience in Holland, John hadn’t been in a church nor taken communion in over 65 years. He came to the re-enactment as a guest, meeting Chaplain Steve during his visit. By the grace of God, he reconnected with his faith while experiencing this amazing alternative ministry.

Remember, freedom has a price; it can’t be bought with dollars and cents. It can’t be measured by wealth and power. The price of freedom is rows of white markers. This weekend, celebrate your freedom, and remember what it cost.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)

Be thankful for freedom,

Bishop Ian

John receives communion - his first since WWII