As we approach Transgender Faith Action Week, progress can be seen in attitudes to trans people within the church

Last week, the Rev Dr Christina Beardsley, vice-chair of Changing Attitude, a network of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and heterosexual members of the Church of England, was one of the voices featured on 4Thought.tv's week of short films featuring trans people and faith.

While the US Episcopal church developed a maverick reputation within the Anglican communion for blessing same sex marriages and ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, the House of Bishops of the General Synod of the Church of England's report Some Issues in Human Sexuality, issued in 2003, contained a chapter titled "Transsexualism". Currently, one can find about a half dozen trans clergy in the UK and US. These numbers are imprecise, as some clergy do not wish to go public beyond the scope of their individual parish or diocese – a concern that's understandable given that the trans community seldom receives even the legal protections afforded gays and lesbians .

Beardsley, who was ordained for 23 years prior to her transition in 2001, observes that "some within the Church of England feel the issue of trans clergy has been settled" by citing such cases as the Rev Carol Stone and the Rev Sarah Jones. However, she says: "Not all trans clergy have been supported by their bishop, as these two priests were, and some have been excluded from full-time ministry because of Church of England opt-outs from UK equality legislation."

During the 2008 Lambeth conference, a decennial gathering of Anglican bishops, Beardsley organised a panel titled "Listening to Trans People". While only four bishops attended this gathering, it represented the highest number of bishops to participate in an Inclusive Network to date. Also, this panel helped consolidate Changing Attitude's networking with Sibyls, a UK-based Christian spirituality group for trans people, and the US-based online community TransEpsicopal.

The Rev Dr Cameron Partridge, interim Episcopal chaplain and lecturer at Harvard University, served on this panel as the sole US representative. He transitioned in 2002 during his ordination process and has been an instrumental player in guiding the passage of four resolutions supporting trans rights during the US Episcopal church's 2009 general convention.

The Rev Vicki Gray, a Vietnam vet before her transition, and currently a deacon with an emphasis on ministry to the homeless, noted that their goals at general convention were to assert that we exist as flesh-and-blood human beings, to demonstrate that we are here in the church as decent and devout followers of Jesus Christ, and to begin the process of education and dialogue that will lead to full inclusion in the life of the church, not only of the transgendered but of other sexual minorities such as the inter-sexed (known to some as hermaphrodites).

Following the murder of trans rocker Rita Hester in Allston, Massachusetts, in 1998, a vigil held in her honour became the impetus behind the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual event held on 20 November. Even though this day to reflect and remember those who have been killed by anti-transgender hatred or prejudice is not a religious service, in 2010 memorial services were held for the first time at Episcopal cathedrals in Boston and Sacramento.

The Rev Christopher Fike, vicar of Christ Episcopal Church in Sommerville, Massachusetts, who transitioned in 2003 after having served in a fairly high-profile position as a female cleric, believes that moving this memorial to the cathedral signifies that the church views this as a justice issue. He says: "The more we normalise people who are outside the typical in their gender expression, the more room there is for that range of expression. We no longer have to hide our real identity from the church."

The Rt Rev M Thomas Shaw, SSJE, Bishop of Massachusetts, admits that ordaining and providing pastoral oversight to trans clergy proved to be a life-changing experience for him. Initially, he struggled with the idea and the reality of having trans clergy until he saw they were doing the same ministry as everyone else.

From 3-10 April, Transgender Faith Action Week will be held in the Boston area in the hope of bringing forth faith leaders from different traditions to increase awareness of the trans community in religious circles. Partridge, one of the organisers, says: "We call upon the church to consider carefully its vision of theological anthropology, its theological vision of the human person. How does gender factor into our conception of the human?" After all, in Genesis 1:26, God created ha-adam, a nonsexual term that means "human being". Then, after he created humanity, she declared that it all was "very good".

• Today is the first day of Kwanzaa. Unless you're in the bbb family in which case it is the only day of Kwanzaa. My big problem with Kwanzaa is that it takes to long. If you include Festivus, Christmas and New Year's, that is ten straight days of joy. Ummmm, no. I pack my seven principles into about seven hours. At the hour this is published, I'm celebrating Ujima.
• If you are wondering how the repeal of DADT will change the military, I can tell you right now: not at all. Except good people wont get thrown out anymore. The mission will still be primary. Good order and discipline will be kept. Camaraderie and fighting spirit will remain. Orders will still be followed, from Lt. Dan Choi right up the line to the Commander in Chief, no matter who that person is. God Bless America.
• The New York Times reports that President Obama is set to make some mid-term staff changes:

  A reshaping of the economic team, beginning by naming a new director of the National Economic Council, is among the most urgent priorities of the new year. Gene Sperling, a counselor to the Treasury secretary who held the position in the Clinton administration, is among the final contenders to succeed Lawrence H. Summers in the job, along with Roger C. Altman, a Wall Street investment banker who also served in the Clinton administration.

  The president has handled these sorts of tasks well, calmly moving people out, and adroitly moving people in without bumps. From his campaign, through the transition, and into the White House, he's been good at management. One of the untold stories of this White House is how well managed it is.
  

• It is a good thing when people believe in evolution:

  Vice President Joe Biden says the country is evolving on the issue of gay marriage and he thinks it's inevitable there will be national consensus.

  ...

  Gay marriage is still not legal in most states. President Barack Obama recently said his feelings on the gay marriage issue are evolving, but he still believes in allowing strong civil unions that provide certain protections and legal rights that married couples have.

  Good. Maybe I can speed this along. Simply put: everyone should be able to marry any consenting adult of their choice. Rinse, repeat.
  

• I was raised up Anglican. I love the church and attend the same Carribean Episcopal church I grew up in. I try to keep up with what other bishops around the community are preaching, especially the Christmas homily. From England, the Right Reverend Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn, on austerity:

  The Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn, will tell his congregation that they can fight against job losses and public service cuts made by the coalition Government with a “legitimate Christian protest in the face of continuing injustice.”

  The comments will come in his annual Christmas Day sermon at Blackburn Cathedral tomorrow.

  He says the annual message will be used to send a message of support to the “broken and disheartened.”

  His sermon will say: “Perhaps it will need to be the note of anger in Our Lord’s voice that we hear, and proclaim, in the coming year as we raise legitimate Christian protest on behalf of those losing their jobs, seeing their public services undermined, their hopes for higher education jeopardised, or their fears realised through the creation of what increasingly seems like a less caring, more brutalised society, and where vast bonuses form the contemptuous retort to any mention of restraint, and the black economy of the super-tax dodger is seen as a legitimate moral code.”

  Amen.

• Yesterday was Christmas for most Christians. To all Christians, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Evangelical: don't forget why our Lord was sent here in the first place:

  And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read... "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He appointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD... Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

  Luke 4:16-21

  Jesus Christ was the first radical liberal.
  

• Of all the Christmas movies that have been made, the only one I have ever truly loved is the 1970 musical Scrooge directed by Ronald Neame  and starring Albert Finney as Mr. Scrooge. Some of the songs are just downright jaunty like "December the 25th" or the bouncy "Thank You Very Much", although I'd have to say my personal favorite is "I Hate People." Great film, wonderful acting and choreography, and some of the best Christmas songs ever made. Get it today and enjoy with eggnog.

  Here is a scene where they are literally dancing on Mr. Scrooge's coffin:

• 
  

Hadassah:

The top religion stories of the year; Christians flee Iraq; Israel debates Jewish conversion; pontificating on 2011

At the end of the year it is customary to look back, and also to pontificate on the 12 months ahead. I'm not one to sneer at tradition. Welcome to Divine dispatches.

✤ The Huffington Post claims 2010 was much like 2002 – sex abuse scandals engulfing the Roman Catholic church and fear and loathing of Muslims in the US. It also has a separate stab that is a little more diverse, devoting at least 20 words to religious repression in China and anti-Buddhist violence in Burma. There is also an appeal for the top 10 religious stories of the decade. Suggestions include 9/11 and the return of religion" (which sounds like a bad/lost Tolkien book), the new atheism, all change at the Vatican, the interfaith movement (the mind boggles) and the Dalai Lama taking on China. Over at the Religious Newswriters Association there is a poll of religion stories of 2010. I only mention this organisation because a) I wonder whether we should have something like it in the UK b) it has run this survey for 30 years and c) it takes itself very seriously. It has awards. With cash prizes. If the Brits tried this we'd hand out high-street vouchers and something knitted.

✤ Officially bored of what the US thinks, I turn my attention to an organ closer to home. According to the Telegraph, the most important story of 2010 was a papal overture. Down with this sort of thing! Yes, that was a clip from Father Ted. More seismic than a pastor grabbing the world by its throat and screaming "Look at me, I'm gonna burn the Qur'an" was the launch of the personal ordinariate – a structure for Anglicans who didn't want to be 110% Anglican anymore but didn't want to be 110% Catholic either.

✤ The UN high commissioner for refugees said last week at least 1,000 Christian families had fled Baghdad and Mosul since September following a series of militant attacks. This persecution was not confined to Iraq, it also occurred in Egypt. The violent attacks caused alarm among many and highlighted a shameful loss of perspective among others.

✤ One story that only got a little pick-up was the ordination of Margaret Lee, a grandmother of five and former chemist, in the diocese of Quincy, the final frontier for female clergy. It was the last of the Episcopal church's 110 dioceses to ordain a woman. Better late than never, and well done that woman.

✤ In Israel there were intense, complex debates about conversion. The first was about a law that would govern the way converts to Judaism were treated – including who was recognised as a Jew and who could get married or buried as a Jew. The Jewish Chronicle said the legislation – intended to make conversion easier – angered liberal and reform Jews, who said that a particular clause meant Israel would only recognise local conversions performed under the auspices of Orthodox rabbis. This row preceded another one – about conversions in the military. Anshel Pfeffer at the Jewish Chronicle gives the background and the ramifications of this proposal.

✤ Away from POTB (people of the book, since you ask), Hinduism gained an A-list devotee in the shapely form of Julia Roberts and its first state-funded school in the UK. A small group attacked the religion's failure to keep control of a key export – yoga – and there was a collective sigh of relief when the much-feared violence and an uprising did not really materialise following a verdict on a disputed site in Ayodhya. Haridwar hosted the Kumbh Mela, drawing 10 million people on one day alone.

✤ What for 2011? Here are some starters. It's the year of the census and the British Humanist Association's campaign is lobbying to affect the outcome of the religion question. In January there will be more movement on the UK personal ordinariate front. The Church of England General Synod meets in February – for a shorter session than normal – when it grapples with the divisive matter of the Anglican covenant. Speaking of divisive, there is an Anglican communion primates pow-wow in Dublin. Not that the Gafcon bunch will be in tow. Neither will I, reeling as I am from the farce of Alexandria. There will be another Hindu state school opening – this time in Leicester. The usual volatile mix of people doing/saying/demanding outrageous/horrific things should keep everyone – you and me included – busy.

Divine dispatches returns on 12 January. Happy holidays, whatever you celebrate, and, if you follow the Gregorian calendar, happy new year.

Jeff and Peg Henry talk at their Vacaville home in a hallway full of family photos and a cross made by their daughter as a child. Jeff Henry, a former Lutheran pastor, will be ordained in June as a Roman Catholic priest in the Sacramento diocese.

Jeff Henry's long journey of faith has brought him full circle, not only back to the church in which he was baptized as an infant but also back to serving God. When he's ordained at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on June 4, he will become the Sacramento Catholic Diocese's first converted, married priest.

"This will be new for us," said Bishop Jaime Soto. "I announced it to our priests on Monday, and they're very excited. They were curious but very welcoming of the idea. I think it will be an adventure not just for Jeff and his wife but for us."

With Peg, his wife of 26 years, at his side, Henry called their grown daughter when he learned two weeks ago that the Vatican has approved his application to become a Roman Catholic priest.

"I said, 'Guess what? I'm going to be a father again,' " said Henry, 51, a former Lutheran minister who lives in Vacaville.

Under pastoral provision, Catholic canon law since 1980 has allowed former clergy from other faiths – primarily Episcopal – to be ordained into the priesthood. About 100 currently serve in this country, including a handful of former Lutherans and one converted Baptist. Few of them, according to Mary Gautier of Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, or CARA, are assigned as parish priests.

Should their wives die before they do, the church doesn't allow these converted priests to remarry.

"Knowing Jeff, even if he could remarry, he probably wouldn't," said Peg Henry, 50, a teacher.

"I'd end up in a monastery," said her husband.

Despite its 30-year history, pastoral provision remains a source of controversy in a church whose laity increasingly sees its traditional celibacy requirement as the main cause for a rapidly dwindling number of priests.

Why, some church observers ask, should married former clergy from other denominations be allowed to enter the Catholic priesthood when an estimated 25,000 American priests have had to leave the priesthood to marry?

"I think it's a deep wound, a very deep hurt," said Christine Schenk, a nun who serves as executive director of FutureChurch, a Cleveland-based nonprofit that advocates opening the priesthood beyond celibacy.

205 priests serve 900,000

In a sense, the numbers are stacked against the church. While the nation's population of Catholics has grown by 20 million since 1965, says CARA, the number of priests has dropped by one-third, to fewer than 40,000. The personnel shortage has forced the closure of more than 3,000 parishes in the past four years.

There simply aren't enough priests to go around. In the Sacramento diocese, for example, 205 priests serve a 20-county region of 900,000 Catholics.

And a large percentage of U.S. priests are in their 60s, edging into retirement.

"I'm always happy to see another addition to our clergy," said Ed Donaghy, 74, a retired Lincoln insurance professional who left the priesthood to marry in 1970. "We need them badly, so I applaud (Jeff Henry) for doing this. It's a big step.

"But the church has locked itself in a death grip to the concept that Roman Catholic priests must live a celibate spiritual life. It's a tragedy. I think of it as a management problem, a disastrous management problem."

Celibacy has been a church tenet for 900 years, but more than 70 percent of priests think mandatory celibacy should be re-examined, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Catholic advocacy group Call to Action earlier this decade.

Occasional announcements from the Vatican, such as the 2009 decision welcoming Anglicans and married Anglican priests into the Catholic Church, bring glimmers of hope to those who would like the church to allow its former priests to return after marriage.

"Every time the church allows a person from outside our tradition to serve, it's a harsh and sad reminder to those born Catholic that they're still second-class citizens," said Nicole Sotelo, a Call to Action spokeswoman based in Chicago.

"I know many men and women feel very hurt. They feel called by their fellow Catholics and God to serve, yet the church hierarchy rejects their call."

The church itself shows little inclination to bring these priests back into the clerical fold.

"They knew the rules," said Sacramento diocese spokesman Kevin Eckery. "They went through the traditional path to the priesthood. They knew the rules going in, and they had the option to make the decision then."

Study led to Catholic faith

Jeff Henry, the soon-to-be priest, lives a quiet life with his wife in a small condominium on the south side of Vacaville. He commutes every day to Vallejo, where students of St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School plan to call him Father Dean. They know him as their dean of students, after all.

"I'll introduce him to people as 'Father Dean Dad,' " said daughter Teresa Henry, a 21-year-old biology major at CSU Monterey Bay.

For Jeff Henry, baptized Catholic but raised in a military family that didn't attend church, the spiritual path he embarked on in evangelical groups at Oregon State University in Corvallis led him to leave his early career as a science teacher to become a Lutheran pastor.

By 2002, he was minister at Fairfield's Trinity Lutheran Church, leading a study group on early church leaders. The more he and his wife studied, the more they decided they belonged in the Catholic Church.

"I had Catholic friends who called us 'Catholic lite,' " said Peg Henry.

Her husband is a modest person, hesitant to talk much about himself or his faith, more comfortable in the realm of the analytical than the emotional.

"It's not my nature to share," Henry said. "I was teaching this study group, and before I knew it, I was thinking there was a depth and richness in the Catholic Church.

"There's a resonance in the church and the expression of life, and that's something that resonates in my soul. This is what it's about."

By 2005, Henry had returned to teaching high school and, with his family, he had converted. A friend, a Catholic priest, introduced him to then-Sacramento Bishop William Weigand.

"He said I should become a priest," said Henry. "I thought, 'How? I'm married.' But I started praying about it and thinking about it."

He also began a course of study at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, and with the guidance of Weigand and, in turn, Soto, he began the long application process for pastoral provision.

"Jeff chose this response to God's grace," said Soto. "We're very honored he'd choose to join us."

Others in the Sacramento diocese have tried, said Eckery, but the Vatican has rejected previous local applicants.

In January, Henry will be ordained as a transitional deacon, the last step before his June ordination as a priest. He will continue in his role as a high school dean.

There is no specific path for the wife of a Catholic priest, however.

"This whole situation is very unusual," said Peg Henry. "I'll take it step by step. Some of the experiences I had as a Lutheran minister's wife will transfer over."

Relatives seem more rattled by their conversion to Catholicism than by Henry's acceptance into the priesthood, he said.

"Eventually we want to be in a parish," he said.

The journey has already taken him in unexpected directions, into a world of possibilities denied to many others.

"Who knows where we'll be?" said his wife.

"God knows," he replied.

Jeff Henry works as a dean at St. Patrick-St. Vincent Catholic High School in Vallejo. In January, he’ll become a transitional deacon in the Catholic Church, the last step before his June ordination as the first converted, married priest in the Sacramento diocese.

Jeff Henry plans to continue as a dean at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School after he's ordained as a Catholic priest next year. Students say they will call him "Father Dean."

Methodist pioneer of the inner-city Christian mission

The Methodist minister the Rev Norwyn Denny, who has died aged 84, was a pioneer of the modern urban mission in Britain. His work in Notting Hill, west London, in the 1960s and 70s helped to lay the foundations for the wider church's often-controversial involvement in Britain's inner cities.

Spurred on by the socialist cleric Donald Soper, the Methodist church sent Denny and two other ministers, David Mason and Geoffrey Ainger, to work in Notting Hill, and thus create Methodism's first "team" ministry. The ministers and their families all lived in one house, bound together by common disciplines of prayer, vocation and study.

Denny and his colleagues arrived in Notting Hill shortly after the race riots of the late 1950s. They found a population that included significant numbers of West Indians and West Africans, who were often well-qualified but in poor jobs. Racketeering landlords provided slum housing, racial prejudice was rife, and policing less than helpful. Denny would often appear in court to speak for people – on one occasion for a West Indian woman the police had stopped as she carried home a borrowed vacuum cleaner.

Key to the team's approach was the concept of collaborative ministry, in which everyone in the church, lay and ordained, plus the community, should be involved. Denny was the organiser of a mixed bunch of people who threw themselves into putting the world to rights. It was, for example, a member of the team ministry, the Rev Bruce Kenrick, who began the charity Shelter in 1966.

The worshipping community created in Notting Hill was rooted in scripture and the world. It became a highly regarded model for what the church could do in a broken society. In 1982, Denny was elected president of his church's highest governing body, the Methodist Conference. In his presidential address, he signalled his feeling of unease "at being white, male, senior and middle-class in a conference similarly biased".

Denny was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk. His father was a railwayman and preacher as well as being a conscientious objector, for which he spent the first world war in Dartmoor prison. During the second world war, and for the same reason, Denny worked in a mental hospital. Peacemaking remained a passion for him.

In the 1960s and 70s, the talk among those seeking an appropriate way of being Christian was that of "servant ministry". Some theorised about it; Denny lived it. One story, retold for years, was of how he could be found cleaning the Notting Hill church toilets before the service early on a Sunday morning. He never asked anyone to do anything he was not prepared to do himself.

Another motivation for Denny's ministry was his understanding of the life of Christ: "Because of the sacrifice and commitment of Christ, the place of utter despair, terror, pain and evil becomes, 'a road to bring us nearer God'." 

From Notting Hill, Denny went in 1975 to Liverpool to lead Merseyside's Methodists as their chairman of district (a bishop in all but name). He worked closely with the Anglican Bishop David Sheppard and Roman Catholic Archbishop Derek Worlock, as well as the area's other free church leaders. Not believing in being put on a pedestal, he was unconcerned when, given the media's infatuation with episcopal titles, only Sheppard and Worlock were reported on rather than the whole group.

Denny's life represents a movement within the church that saved it, or at least parts of it, from becoming obsessed with itself, and which provided a critical – some would say prophetic – perspective on political life in the second half of the 20th century.

He believed he was at heart a radical but hoped, he said, to be a kind-hearted one. His wife, Ellen, and their three daughters survive him.

• Norwyn Ephraim Denny, clergyman, born 23 October 1924; died 9 September 2010

The former dean of Southwark would have been a fierce critic of conservative evangelical resistance to the Anglican covenant

Colin Slee, the dean of Southwark and one of the doughtiest and most outspoken liberals in the Church of England, died overnight, within a few weeks of suffering the galloping onset of cancer. When I last saw him, a couple of weeks ago in hospital, he told me all passion was spent and he felt he no longer had any enemies within the church, but I guess had he still been as hale as he was a few months ago and able to attend this week's general synod in London, of which he remained a member, he would have snorted in derision and despair at yesterday's goings on in the Anglican communion.

In brief, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, pleaded with the synod on Tuesday to vote in favour of the Anglican covenant, the compromise plan painfully drawn up over seven years largely to appease conservative evangelicals within the worldwide church who have been outraged over the existence of gay clergy. The covenant would comprise a set of agreed principles for Anglicanism and include mechanisms for censuring out-of-line provinces within the communion – for which read the American Episcopal Church which had the temerity to elect a gay bishop in 2003 – and exclude them from the inner counsels of the denomination. Liberals within the church have been decidedly sniffy about the covenant, believing it would undermine the traditional autonomy of national churches in making their own decisions and open the way for conservatives – such as the homophobic archbishops of central Africa – to veto innovations in other provinces they dislike.

But the covenant is also regarded by many, including the archbishop, and many more moderate evangelicals, as the only way of safeguarding the future international unity of the church. It will need to be adopted by each of its 38 provinces worldwide. It is, as one senior church official said to me, the only game in town: there is no plan B. The Church of England synod's assent was therefore vital and Rowan's plea was particularly heartfelt and even-handed in blaming both conservatives and liberals for the continuing crisis. He called for mutual understanding and tolerance and received an ovation.

At the end of Wednesday's debate, the synod loyally voted overwhelmingly to pursue the covenant idea further. And within minutes, a number of African archbishops and other conservatives, who had met privately earlier in the month, issued a statement saying they no longer supported the covenant because it was not strict enough for them. They, of course, had waited to deliver the snub until after the vote was over. It is par for the course, fostered and encouraged by the sort of conservative evangelicals within the Church of England who dance attendance on them – it is no surprise that their meeting was in Oxford where leaders of the insurgency are based. The message is – as it has been so often in the last few years: archbishops to Rowan: drop dead.

Perhaps now, finally, the covenant wheeze is dead, killed off by the very prelates it was supposed to appease. And perhaps now the archbishop of Canterbury will return to his former instincts and appreciate that the true splitters are not the wicked liberals who warned against the covenant, but those conservatives determined get their own way and wrest Anglicanism in their reactionary direction so that it becomes something it was never meant to be. Colin Slee would have understood that and spoken fiercely against them as he so often did. Liberals in the church must today be asking who will be courageous enough to take his place.

Archbishop of Canterbury appeals to factions to put differences aside as traditionalists stress the sanctity of Christian marriage

The future of the Anglican Communion was thrown into doubt today after religious leaders in Africa withdrew their support for an initiative aimed at maintaining a truce over issues such as homosexuality, just as the Church of England gave the plan its overwhelming approval.

Traditionalist archbishops of Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and west Africa, described the text of the Anglican Covenant as "fatally flawed" and said that supporting it was no longer appropriate, exposing the deep rifts within the church. They represent six of the 38 provinces needed to make the covenant work.

Instead they invited churches in England and elsewhere to adopt an alternative doctrinal statement of beliefs.

Called the Jerusalem Declaration, it advocates "the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family" and the rejection of "those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed".

They announced their decision as the Church of England moved closer to signing the covenant, which is designed to provide a framework for settling differences across the international communion. Of the 400 or so members of General Synod taking part in this morning's crucial vote, only 50 opposed the motion to send it out to dioceses for consultation.

The result will at least boost the confidence and leadership of the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who earlier this week made a heartfelt plea to the various factions, calling on them to put aside their differences. He had warned of the risk of the "dissolution" of worldwide Anglicanism.

One synod member urged his peers to throw their weight behind Williams. Mark Russell said: "The archbishop of Canterbury has the most impossible job in the history of the world. It is a lonely task. I have never heard Rowan Williams ask for our support in the way he has. If we say no, we're not backing our archbishop when he asked for our help."

But as clergy and laity rose to air their opinions during the debate, it became clear that there remained reservations. Even Church of England bishops, who were proposing the motion, expressed concerns about the language and content of the covenant.

The bishop of Lincoln believed it would lead to a "factory farmed religion rather than a free-range faith". John Saxbee said: "I feel like we would be sending sincere and faithful Anglicans to stand in a corner until they have seen the error of their ways and return to the ranks of the pure and spotless."

Michael Perham, the bishop of Gloucester, had his doubts too but said he would vote in favour partly out of loyalty to Williams.

The US Episcopal Church caused a split in the communion by endorsing the election of a non-celibate gay man to be bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

It has since consecrated a lesbian, Mary Glasspool, as assistant bishop of Los Angeles, ignoring Williams's call for a ban on provocative moves.

The African initiative has the support of the Anglican Church of North America, a breakaway group from the Episcopal Church.

The draft covenant, at more than 5,000 words long and seven years in the making, would commit national churches "to act with diligence, care and caution in respect of any action which may provoke controversy".

Disagreements would be referred to a panel of Anglican leaders, which could declare a proposed development to be incompatible with the covenant. National churches would be free to withdraw from the covenant at any time.

Signatories would pledge to "respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the churches of the Anglican Communion", but they could object to the innovations in other churches regardless. Only those who sign the covenant would belong to the communion.

Opponents of the covenant said a two-tier communion appeared unavoidable. The No Anglican Covenant Coalition said it was "disappointed" that the Church of England had decided to proceed with its consideration of the controversial document.

Rowan Williams tells warring factions to pull together for crucial General Synod vote on church's future

Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, warned of the risk of "piece-by-piece dissolution" of worldwide Anglicanism in a heartfelt personal plea today to warring factions in the Church of England.

At the opening of the church's general synod in London, he called for all parties to put aside their disputes and agree on a fresh framework for settling differences across the 70 million-strong international communion.

The synod votes tomorrow on the Anglican covenant, which has been seven years in the making, and sets the Church of England at a crucial crossroads. The church is already facing probable defections to Roman Catholicism by some priests opposed to the ordination of women bishops.

The covenant was devised in response to divisions caused by the US Episcopal Church's decision to endorse the election of the openly-gay bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson, and it has to be endorsed by all 38 previously autonomous provinces of the communion across the world. The vote will be crucial as not only is the Church of England the mother church of the communion, but Williams is its spiritual head. A senior church official told the Guardian: "There is no Plan B. If this falls, the communion is in ruins."

In advance of the vote – which is technically to refer the covenant to dioceses for consultation – supporters and opponents have indulged in heated rhetoric; liberal Anglicans claimed it would spell the end of individual churches' autonomy and subject decisions of the Church of England to the prior approval of reactionary churches such as the homophobic conservatives of equatorial Africa. Gregory Cameron, the Bishop of St Asaph in Wales, the canon lawyer mainly responsible for drawing up the covenant, likened opponents to the BNP.

Williams used his presidential address to the first day of the general synod to urge both sides to calm down, listen to each other and work through their differences.

"For God's sake," he said. "Don't let us waste time and energy talking or behaving as if there were competition going on here ... I don't think we are doing the job for which God has called us here if we reproduce the worst aspects of secular partisanship."

He told the synod it was an "illusion" to think the communion could "carry on as usual" without some changes. And it was a "greater illusion" to think the Church of England could "derail the entire process" of the adoption of the covenant, a text that opponents claim will define who belongs and discipline those who flout rules.

"The unpalatable fact is that certain decisions in any province affect all," he said. "If we ignore this, we ignore what is already a real danger, the piece-by-piece dissolution of the communion and the emergence of structures in which relation to the Church of England and the See of Canterbury are likely not to figure very significantly."

Williams, who has tried to keep disparate churches talking rather than leave the communion altogether, articulated the hopelessness of taking up entrenched positions on homosexuality, criticising both sides in the debate.

Aides say he has been depressed by the battle. He said: "It is unthinkingly treated by some as almost the sole test of biblical fidelity or doctrinal orthodoxy. It is unthinkingly regarded by others as one of those matters on which the church must be brought into line with what our culture can make sense of ... The covenant proposals are the only sign at the moment of the work that has to be done."

Anglican provinces would only belong to the communion if they signed up to the covenant, he said. They would agree not to proceed with any development that fellow members anywhere in the world objected to.

The archbishop acknowledged that he was "bound to accept" his share of "reproach" for the lack of progress in major debates and invited the synod to help him do better by creating an "ambience where better understanding may happen".

Earlier, the supreme governor of the Church of England, the Queen, addressed the synod, reflecting on the "difficult, painful choices" ahead.

Gay clergyman has retained the support of his congregation – but seven years as a controversial figure have taken their toll

On the day he was consecrated as the US Episcopal Church's bishop of New Hampshire in November 2003, Gene Robinson and his partner Mark Andrew wore bulletproof vests following assassination threats.

Inside the ceremony at a university sports hall in the New England university town of Durham a clergyman intervened to denounce gays in lubricious detail, while outside a bedraggled group of demonstrators waved banners warning "Fags Doom Nations".

From Africa, the archbishop of Kenya warned "the devil has entered the church", while a few days before the ceremony Robinson received a postcard from England, depicting the high altar of Durham cathedral and bearing the message: "You fornicating, lecherous pig."

Gene Robinson was not the first gay bishop in the world, nor is he the only one, but he was the first in the Anglican communion openly to admit to his homosexuality. The congregations of his diocese in one of the most politically conservative states in the US knew about his sexuality – he had been a clergyman there for many years – and elected him anyway.

Their decision outraged conservative evangelicals around the world, some of whom launched a discreditable campaign of smears and innuendos to stop him being confirmed.

They claimed, falsely, that he had abandoned his wife and children, that he had behaved inappropriately by touching a man (on the arm) at a public meeting and even that he had sponsored a pornographic website – all lies. English bishops were intrigued by this wicked man, of whom they had previously never heard, and asked questions that implied they imagined him to have horns and cloven feet. Had they but known, Robinson, from a poor Southern share-cropping background, was one of the most evangelical of American bishops.

His election served as a catalyst within the worldwide communion, where a faction of conservatives saw an opportunity to wrest the church in their direction by mobilising parishioners united by a visceral distaste for homosexuality.

In this they could also make common cause with the church in the third world, particularly equatorial Africa, newly assertive of its influence in a previously white-man dominated denomination and in cultural denial of the existence of gay people.

Exactly seven years on, Anglicanism is still groaning under the crisis but has not entirely split.

Far from disintegrating, Robinson's own diocese has remained supportive of him. Robinson's wish to become known as the bishop of New Hampshire, rather than the gay bishop, has not, however, been granted.

He has acknowledged that his position and all it entails has taken a heavy toll. Four years ago he underwent treatment for alcoholism. He still fits the description given to him on the eve of his consecration by his Kentucky home-town newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, when it called him: "The most controversial Anglican leader since Henry VIII."

Stephen Bates is a former religious affairs correspondent for the Guardian and the author of A Church at War: Anglicans and Homosexuality

• New Hampshire clergyman opts to take early retirement
• Decision does little to appease Anglican communion critics

The rift in the Anglican communion over homosexuality was reopened today after its first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, said he was retiring early because seven years of controversy had "taken their toll" on him, his family and followers.

Robinson's consecration in the diocese of New Hampshire in 2003 had brought conservatives and liberals in the Anglican communion to the brink of schism.

As the first non-celibate gay clergyman in the Anglican communion to become a bishop, his appointment exposed irreconcilable theological divisions between liberals and conservatives that reverberate to this day.

Last year, North American traditionalists broke away from the US Episcopal church to set up their own network. This year, Episcopalians consecrated a non-celibate lesbian to the post of assistant bishop in Los Angeles.

Robinson told the New Hampshire gathering that "the constant strain" was too much to bear.

He said: "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, you.

"While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate."

He also revealed he had no intention to retire from public life, saying he would continue his work on college campuses and public forums.

"I get the opportunity to make the case for God and for God's church – either to those who have never known God's unimaginable love, or to those who have been ill-treated, in the name of a judgmental God, and who have left the church.

"Recent news brings us the tragic stories of teenagers who have taken their own lives because religion tells them they are an abomination before God and who believe that their lives are doomed to despair and unhappiness." Robinson thanked people for their support over the years, saying New Hampshire was the one place he was always "the bishop" and not "the gay bishop". He said: "I believe you elected me because you believed me to be the right person to lead you at this time. The world has sometimes questioned that, but I hope you never did."

News of his early retirement has done little to appease those who are angry with the inclusive, progressive nature of Episcopalians. The archbishop of Sydney, the Right Reverend Peter Jensen, said there was more to the "agonising dispute" than Robinson's non-celibate status, while a conservative evangelical group said the exit changed nothing and accused US Anglicans of "promoting ethical and doctrinal standards … contrary to scripture".

"They have chosen to walk apart," said a statement from Anglican Mainstream.

There were kinder words, though, from campaigners. The Reverend Susan Russell, former president of Integrity USA, which works for inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church, called his retirement "the beginning of the end of an era".

She told the Guardian: "We're moving towards a time when electing a gay bishop will be increasingly normative. We have just elected a lesbian dean at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. While much of the rest of the communion struggles with issues around women, gay clergy and the covenant, we are moving forward.

"Jesus said to 'take up the cross and follow me'. He never said it would be easy. We are paying the price for being prophetic."

Colin Coward, from the UK-based group Changing Attitudes, said Robinson's election had transformed the landscape. "At last we had somebody as a bishop who was fully visible and embodied the quality of life we all longed for, a committed, faithful and loving relationship as a Christian."

"He has borne the cost as an iconic figure on behalf of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] Anglicans. But it is the tip of the iceberg," he warned. "There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of LGBT Anglicans who experience stress, anxiety and pressure in a similar way. I know that from friends and colleagues in the Church of England and, increasingly, I'm learning that through friends I talk online with in Africa."

Coward said Robinson had lived through the last seven years "with a great deal" of resourcefulness and spirituality. "The cost has been invisible," he added.

Gay bishops have proved a headache for the archbishop of Canterbury, who has struggled to maintain harmony since taking office in 2002. He asked Anglicans to observe three temporary bans on emotive issues such as sending clergy to another country without its agreement, electing openly homosexual priests or blessing same-sex unions while a more permanent structure to resolve disagreements is put in place, but the moratoriums have largely been ignored.

Rowan Williams is pinning his hopes on a covenant to define how the Anglican communion stays together. Anglican provinces would only belong to the communion if they signed up to it. They would agree, among other things, not to proceed with any new development that fellow members anywhere in the world objected to.

There was no comment tonight from Lambeth Palace about Robinson's decision to retire.

My cousin, Arnold Simister, who has died aged 91, led an eventful life which encompassed two medals for bravery in the second world war and a ministry in the Anglican church, mainly in the Scottish Episcopal church.

He was born in Salford, Lancashire, and educated at St Bede's college, Manchester, a Catholic school for boys. It was here that he had the vision of becoming a priest. The second world war intervened and instead Arnold became a commando.

In March 1942, he took part in Operation Chariot, the daring raid on St Nazaire, in German-occupied France. Amazingly enough, Arnold escaped injury and, indeed, he helped to bring wounded comrades back to Britain. Towards the end of his life, he was made a chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur in recognition of his actions.

After further training, in Canada, in 1944 the commandos were sent in at Anzio, a beachhead behind enemy lines, in the Italian campaign. Arnold was severely wounded (his comrade trod on a landmine and was killed). He was brought back to a military hospital in Liverpool, where surgeons extracted as much shrapnel from his body as was possible. His bravery was recognised by the award of the Military medal.

After the war, Arnold went to Coates Hall, an Anglican theological college in Edinburgh, and was ordained in 1948. He elected to work in one of the toughest parts of Glasgow and became a curate in the parish of Christ Church, Bridgeton, later serving parishes in Lancashire and Wiltshire. In 1963 he returned to Scotland, as the rector of Greyfriars church in Kirkcudbright, where he and his wife Cathy, whom he married in 1966, spent the rest of their lives. She survives him.

Long-running controversy, including death threats, "takes its toll" on Right Rev Gene Robinson who plans to call it day seven years ahead of schedule
Right Rev Gene Robinson's statement in full

An openly gay bishop whose appointment split the Anglican church is to resign, saying the last seven years had "taken their toll" on him, his family and his flock.

The Right Rev Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, revealed his plans yesterday, at at annual diocesan meeting. He will be 65 when he steps down, seven years below the retirement age.

He told the convention that being in the eye of the storm had proved too much.

He said: "Death threats, and the now-worldwide controversy surrounding your election of me as bishop, have been a constant strain, not just on me, but on my beloved husband, Mark, who has faithfully stood with me every minute of the last seven years, and in some ways, you.

"While I believe that these attitudes, mostly outside the diocese, have not distracted me from my service to you, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that they have certainly added a burden and certain anxiety to my episcopate."

He said he would continue his work with the "unchurched" and "dechurched" on college campuses and public forums, showing no intention of retiring from public life.

"I get the opportunity to make the case for God and for God's church – either to those who have never known God's unimaginable love, or to those who have been ill-treated, in the name of a judgmental God, and who have left the church. Recent news brings us the tragic stories of teenagers who have taken their own lives because religion tells them they are an abomination before God and who believe that their lives are doomed to despair and unhappiness."

Robinson made headlines in 2003, when he became the first non-celibate gay clergyman in the Anglican Communion to become bishop. His consecration took place at an ice-hockey stadium in Durham, New Hampshire, and he wore a bulletproof vest under his gold vestments because he had received death threats.

The election exposed deep, irreconcilable theological divisions between liberals and conservatives. Last year, Anglicans in North America broke away from the US Episcopal Church and asked for the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to recognise the new entity. This US Episcopal Church consecrated a partnered lesbian to the post of assistant bishop in the Los Angeles diocese.

Gay bishops have proved a headache for the archbishop of Canterbury, who has struggled to maintain harmony since taking office in 2002. He persuaded Anglicans to observe three temporary bans on emotive issues such as sending clergy to another country without its agreement, electing openly homosexual priests or blessing same-sex unions while a more permanent structure to resolve disagreements is put in place, but the moratoria have largely been ignored.

Rowan Williams is pinning his hopes on a covenant to define how the Communion stays together. Anglican provinces would only belong to the Communion if they signed up to it. They would agree, among other things, not to proceed with any new development that fellow members anywhere in the world objected to.

There was no comment from Lambeth Palace about Robinson's decision to retire.

By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service

(RNS) Chile's top Anglican bishop has become collateral damage in the border wars between the Episcopal Church and conservatives overseas.

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More on Chile

What were the religious beliefs of the founding fathers? That question is at the heart of many of the most contentious debates about the role of religion in the American public square. Countless arguments are centered on claims that the founders were either God-fearing Christians or Deistically-inclined secularists.

But while historical documents are often mined for justifying quotes, few people bother to muster historical evidence to shore up their claims with the necessary academic rigor.

David L. Holmes, a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, provides a useful methodology for examining the relevant evidence in his book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Holmes offers four types of evidence that can help us discern whether a Revolutionary-era political leader was a Deist, an orthodox Christian, or something in between:

1. Examine the actions of the founding father in the area of religion (e.g., Did they attend church regularly?).

2. Examine the participation of the founding father in a church’s ordinances or sacraments (e.g., Did they have their children baptized? Did they take Holy Communion?).

3. Comparison of inactivity versus activity in regards to religious involvement.

4. Examine the religious language used by the founding father.

Using these criteria, Holmes claims that the religious beliefs of the founding fathers can be broadly classified as: Non-Christian Deists who rejected all sacraments and rarely attended church services’ Deistic Christians/Unitarians who held Deistic beliefs, attended church regularly, but rejected the Lord’s Supper and confirmation;. and Orthodox Christians who accepted orthodox Christian beliefs, attended church regularly, and participated in the sacraments and ordinances.

Let us examine Holmes’ four types of evidence in the life of the pre-eminent founding father:

1) Although he was raised in the Anglican Church, Washington was never confirmed.

2) Washington appears to have consistently refused to take Holy Communion, the principle means by which, as Holmes notes, “Anglicans displayed a commitment to Jesus Christ.”

3) Washington was active in the Episcopal Church, serving as both a vestryman and churchwarden. He attended services with some regularity (about once a month). And

4) Washington consistently used Deistic language in reference to God. Although he often used such terms as “the Deity” and “the Supreme Being” in his correspondence he only uses the name Jesus Christ once (in a letter to an Indian tribe)

A careful examination of the evidence would therefore lead us to the conclusion that Washington was, using Holmes taxonomy, a “Deistic Christian.”

Applying the method to other founding fathers, the list could be roughly delineated as:

Non-Christian Deists: Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen.

Deistic Christians/Unitarians: Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe.

Orthodox Christians: Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Elias Boudinot, John Witherspoon.

The leaders during the revolutionary era may have subscribed to a Judeo-Christian view of morality, but few of them were orthodox believers. The majority subscribed to a religious view that we would nowadays classify as Unitarianism. A rejection of Trinitarianism clearly puts one outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. We should not claim that a historical figure is a Christian when he held heretical views of the central Christian dogma .

However, while we Christians can claim few founding fathers as fellow believers, the atheists and secularists can claim none. Not one of the significant leaders was an atheist, much less subscribed to the modern idea of secularism.

Most—whether they were non-Christian Deists or Deistic Christians—appear to have been held to the classic “five points of Deism”: (1) There is a God; (2) He ought to be worshiped; (3) Virtue is the principle element in this worship; (4) Humans should repent of their sins; and (5) There is life after death, where the evil will be punished and the good rewarded.

The views of the Deistic founding fathers would have been as repugnant to the modern secularist as those of the so-called Religious Right. The founding believers considered belief in a deity to be necessary for good citizenship, believed in intelligent design, had few qualms about establishment of state churches, and took a low view of atheists. They might not pass muster as orthodox Christians, but if they were around today they would considered theocrats.

Regardless of what was believed at the time of the founding, our country is not a “Christian nation” but rather, as the Baptist theologian Albert Mohler duly notes, “a nation of Christians.” America, he argues, “is not Christian by constitutional provision or creedal affirmation—but its people are overwhelmingly Christian by self-affirmation. Thoughtful evangelicals will not overestimate the convictional character of this self-identification. Secularists ought not to overestimate its superficiality.”

In an age when even believers are hostile to religiously-informed public philosophy, it’s understandable that traditionalists would turn to the past as an example. But such an effort is likely to be as unproductive as it is unpersuasive. If Christians wish to build a polis informed by Christian convictions—“mere Christendom”—we must the look to the future, thick with possibility, rather than to the thin material left over from our founding.

Joe Carter is web editor of First Things.

RESOURCES

Steven Waldman, The Pious Infidel

Peter L. Berger, Secularization Falsified

Michael Novak, The Faith of the Founding

Meeting with Rev Jane Hedges will see head of the Vatican shake hands with a clergywoman for the first time

Pope Benedict's arrival in Britain breaks new ground on many levels, with a state welcome from the Queen and the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman. But buried in the itinerary is another and, some would say, more piquant landmark.

Next Friday, the pope will meet the Rev Jane Hedges, canon steward of Westminster Abbey and a campaigner for women bishops in the Church of England. It will be the first time the head of the Vatican, which earlier this year declared female ordination a "crime against the faith", shakes hands with a clergywoman.

Their meeting will act as a reminder of the differences and difficulties between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic church. The abbey team is aware of the many historic aspects to the visit.

"We shall greet this pope as our guest. There will no hint of battle," wrote the dean of Westminster, the Very Rev Dr John Hall, last week in the Tablet, a weekly Catholic newspaper.

An ecumenical evensong will begin with an exchange of peace between the archbishop of Canterbury and Benedict XVI, and include a psalm, the Magnificat, readings and prayers. "I have no doubt that it will be a memorable occasion. Yet it will also be coloured by many emotions," Hall said.

It was almost a year ago that the pope created the ordinariate, a way for traditionalist Anglicans to convert to Catholicism – their desire prompted largely, but not solely, by the ordination of women, which is often cited as the single biggest obstacle to reconciliation and unity between the two denominations. The archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was informed of the initiative two weeks before its announcement.

"It looked at first as though battle lines were being drawn, to the embarrassment of all: papal tanks to be deposited on the Lambeth palace lawns and groups of partially reordered Anglicans to be landed on Westminster Cathedral's forecourt," wrote Hall.

However, within a month, amid speculation over Williams' leadership, the two met in Rome, and proclaimed their desire to strengthen ecumenical relations.

This depth of friendship and respect should not be underestimated, says Monsignor Andrew Faley, of the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, who described the body language at that meeting as "utterly cordial and one of equality". "There is a serenity about the relationship. [The pope] will be welcomed into the home of the archbishop, it is a very reciprocal gesture of friendship and closeness, the tone of the meeting is a very mature one."

On the subject of the ordinariate, which will allow Anglicans to convert but retain aspects of their own heritage, he said: "It might have been more helpful had the archbishop been kept informed. I do not think the ordinariate is anything to do with the strength of our relationship."

One senior Anglican also thinks the papal project will have little or no impact on the visit, calling it a "red herring".

The Rt Rev Tom Wright, the former bishop of Durham, said: "People leave the Roman Catholic church for Anglicanism and the other way round. It has always been the case, it is two-way traffic.

"It is easy to think ecumenical relations are what happens at a high level in public statements, but it's what happens on the ground that is important."

He dismissed the Vatican's horror over women's ordination as "surface noise", but it is difficult to see past robust views.

At the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade meeting of the world's Anglican bishops, the Vatican contingent scolded them for failing to reach a consensus on the ordination of women and gays as bishops. Liberal churches were suffering from "spiritual Alzheimer's and ecclesiastical Parkinson's", homosexuality was "disordered behaviour" that must have the clear condemnation of all and unrest in the Communion posed a "further and grave challenge for full and visible unity".

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Southwark, the Most Rev Kevin McDonald, spent eight years at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. He said those involved in ecumenical dialogue had to consider where it was leading. "It is a matter of trust and faith.

"The Church of England has been trying to find a way of accommodating people. They are running into a lot of trouble doing that. The Catholic church does not want to tell the Church of England how to deal with this. There is no reason to think there is a pulling back on either side, but there has been a reality check." Anglicans and Roman Catholics were in a "different place" to where they were in the 1960s and 70s. "People should not underestimate what we do have in common, perhaps it is best to capitalise on that, not make the best enemy of the good." Previous meetings between popes and archbishops have been heavy with symbolism: Paul VI presenting Archbishop Michael Ramsey with his diamond and emerald episcopal ring in 1966, John Paul II walking with Robert Runcie in Canterbury cathedral in 1982.

The sight of Benedict XVI and Williams praying for unity at the shrine of Edward the Confessor could be a defining moment: the 11th century monarch is the patron saint of kings, difficult marriages and separated spouses.