Magic Statistics

The Rt Rev Donald Harvey, retired Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, has been moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada since its inception in 2004.  He has spoken repeatedly and forcefully against the approval of same-sex blessings in the Anglican Church of Canada and has traveled back and forth across the country to support and encourage traditional orthodox Anglicans.  As a tireless advocate for historic Anglicanism, he has made at least one powerful enemy: Rt Rev Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster.

Bp Ingham is said to have initiated some sort of official action against Bp Harvey within the past month or so.  The exact nature of the action is unclear because, in the tradition of newsless Anglican “news” services, neither the Diocese of New Westminster nor the Anglican Church of Canada has breathed a word about it.  Searches of both websites turned up no information on the charges.  Likewise, the Anglican Journal has posted nothing.

So, why is Bp Ingham ticked off at Bp Harvey?  Maximum Mike hasn’t specifically said, but a recent news report is highly suggestive.  (The report didn’t come from Anglican Journal, New West Diocese, or the ACC, but from that upstart news agency, the much-feared and reviled Anglican Planet.)

At a meeting of the House of Bishops last December, Bp Ingham objected to Bp Harvey's entering his domain turf stomping grounds diocese without approval.

Michael Ingham of New Westminster complained that retired bishop, Don Harvey, had recently entered his diocese to attend three Essentials functions without informing him or asking his permission. (It was learned later that Harvey had informed him in the past but had never heard back from Ingham, so he didn’t bother this time.)

At last month’s meeting of the Anglican Communion Network, moderator Bob Duncan, Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh, made the first (as far as I know) public mention of Bp Ingham’s hissy fit action.

Canadian Network Moderator, Bp. Don Harvey, has been informed in recent days that he is will [sic] face charges of "invasion," charges brought by none-other than Michael Ingham, the bishop who can be credited with the actual "launch" of the Canadian prologue to the full-blown Anglican crisis brought about by the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire.

“Invasion”?  Sounds like Bp Harvey came against New West with missiles and Katyusha rockets.

And now the August newsletter of Anglican Essentials Canada includes this plea.

Please pray for our AEC and its two bodies Federation and Network:

*    For the Chairs of both: George Sinclair and John Paul Westin and their respective councils and the AEC Board

*    For our Moderator of our Anglican Network in Canada, Bishop Don Harvey. It is has recently been brought to light that Bishop Michael Ingham is bringing action against Bishop Harvey for his ministering to the biblically orthodox congregations in the Diocese of New Westminster, particularly the congregation from Christ Church, Hope, B.C., who were essentially forced out of their building after their rector was similarly dismissed last January, after their vote to affiliate with the Anglican Network in Canada. Please pray.

Those pieces indicate that Bp Ingham got a bee in his bonnet when Bp Harvey failed to give advance notice of entering the diocese to comfort and counsel a congregation whose rector Ingham had shoved out—even though Ingham had ignored several previous advance notices.  That Michael Ingham sure has the heart of a pastor.

via Binks.

Previous related posts:

• Rev Archibald Pell takes early retirement
• Bishop Ingham seizes another orthodox Anglican parish

New Zealand's retiring Governor-General, Dame Sylvia Cartwright, shocked the nation by discussing its “dark secrets” at her retirement ceremony last week.

“Sometimes when I listen to a foreign leader praise our efforts on the environment or our willingness to assist those in war-ravaged countries, I hope that our dark secrets — for they remain hidden to the rest of the world — will never become known internationally,” she said.

“I am concerned that these countries that so admire us might soon learn that we have a terrible rate of family and other violence.”

The cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it.

Times of London columnist Jamie Whyte connects New Zealand’s domestic violence problem to a broader social phenomenon: the increasing prevalence of hoons.

Hoons are the underclass of New Zealand. They are inarticulate and unkempt to a degree that would appal even a chav. (No Burberry caps for hoons; simply wearing shoes often takes too much sartorial effort.) But, in other respects, hoons are just like the underclass of any other modern Western country.

They often grow up without their fathers. The succession of “uncles” who come through their home may beat or rape them. They attend school only because it is compulsory until sixteen, and leave having acquired neither an education nor any qualifications. They work in unskilled jobs, if they work at all. They have no interests and no ambitions, unless you count sex and intoxication (especially from marijuana, which grows like a weed in New Zealand). The sex leads to children, but rarely to marriage. They smoke, eat junk and die younger than the rest of us. And then their children do it all over again.

It is in this subculture of listless depravity that women and children are so frequently murdered and abused. And it is because New Zealand has such a large underclass that its social statistics are so bad.

New Zealand’s underclass seems to have disproportionate representation from the country’s aboriginal people, the Maori.

Maori are 15 per cent of the population, but 50 per cent of the prison population. Forty per cent of Maori children grow up in fatherless homes, compared with 17 per cent of whites. A third of Maori boys leave school with no qualification, compared with 13 per cent of white boys. The child murder rate is 1.5 per 100,000 among Maori, compared with 0.7 among whites. Maori life expectancy is seven years less than that of whites.

The recent founding of the Maori Party gives hope that social dysfunction in New Zealand will be addressed.  The party advocates curtailing welfare dependency and restoring the importance of the family in society.

Sudan has one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, but economic growth appears to be concentrated in Khartoum.  The professedly Islamist government has embraced economic liberalisation; that, combined with oil industry growth, has driven GDP growth of 8% in 2005 and a projected 13% this year.  Foreign investment from China and the Gulf oil states has burgeoned following last year’s signing of a peace treaty with rebels in southern Sudan.

Sudan's ruling National Congress Party is toning down its hitherto robust Islamist language; the new emphasis is on economic development.

However, it is almost exclusively the Arab heart of the country that is benefiting from the boom. Nearly $3 billion of foreign direct investment has come to Sudan, but well over half of it has gone to the capital and its hinterland. In the past year hotels, telecoms companies, light industries and even a Thai massage parlour have opened in a city that is still nominally ruled by sharia law.

The development that most epitomises Khartoum's new dynamism is Alsunut. Meaning “point of meeting” in Arabic, this behemoth of a residential and office project is now under construction on 65 hectares (160 acres) of land where the Blue and White Niles converge. The $4 billion project, the result of a public-private partnership between the government and DAL Group, Sudan's leading company, will transform the city by adding 63 towers varying between 15 and 35 floors in height. Over half the office space has already been sold to local and foreign companies.

Evidence of economic prosperity is hard to find outside the capital, however.  War has driven two million people of Darfur into refugee camps.  The south, despite the peace treaty, remains one of the poorest areas on the continent.  If Khartoum would share the wealth with the rest of the country, Sudan could reap long-term benefits from greater stability.

Previous related posts:

• No peace in Darfur
• Darfur conflict is both tribal and political