Now let me respond. Do you know the history of the first official Diocese of San Joaquin website and by what means it was published to the WWW?
And do you know who Brian Reid is?

It doesn’t appear you were willing to wait for “one to ask”, since you posted your comment. That’s too bad. If you knew the answer to the questions I posed I’m not sure you would be able to come to the same illogical conclusions.

rge

We have received numerous calls and emails telling us that our website was no longer working on Saturday afternoon, March 29th. Visitors were being re-directed to an “Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin” site instead of ours. We have discovered the problem and offer a solution, which we post immediately below with the Solution first.

SOLUTION: To immediately arrive at the official site of the Diocese of San Joaquin, an Anglican Diocese of the Southern Cone of South America, simply type http://www.sjoaquin.net into the very top address line of your internet browser (Explorer, Safari, AOL, Yahoo, Mozilla, Comcast, etc) DO NOT use a search engine window because if you do, it will draw you to the false TEC site. DO NOT continue to use http://www.sanjoaquin.anglican.org as it will do the same. Important: You may have to remove the bookmark (favorite) you use to reach us. Simply remove the old bookmark, then log in to our proper site and save it as a new bookmark or favorite. You should not experience this problem again.

THE PROBLEM: (for those who may be interested): The real problem has to do with the folks who created AnglicanOnline, who reserved a placemarker or sublink for every diocese in the Anglican Communion, and have now redirected San Joaquin’s sublink “sanjaoquin.anglican.org” away from sanjoaquin.net and to diosjoaquin or whatever it is. Lots of people had bookmarked the sublink URL instead of the primary server URL. Once they clicked on their little “favorites” link for San Joaquin it went to the other website. (Thank you Fr Rob Easton, for that explanation)

Rob, seems clear to me if one were to ask where your sympathies lie…. Hmm.

Sadly, I will not be attending.

You and your congregation are in my prayers.

Your colleagues in Sequoia Deanery are gathering tomorrow for clergy fellowship at noon at St. John’s Porterville. Fr. James and I would be ever so delighted to see you if you are able to join us.

Grace and Peace
Francie+

Thanks be to God.

I believe when Fr. Martins used the phrase, “in the truest sense of the word”, he was specifically referring to the original sense of the Greek word. Moving into the New Testament canon, the word was then used to describe those early Christians who testified and witnessed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the face of all trials, or perhaps no trials at all. You see it in Acts 22:20 as the Greek word martusreferring to Stephen, and invariably translated in its original sense as “witness” or simply as “martyr” (with the hopes one would know what it means or find out). But the complete phrase in 22:20 is “And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’ (NIV). There you have a lasting connection in the reader’s mind between “blood” and “witness”, or “martyr.” Fox’s “Book of Martyrs” helped perpetuate that connection as inevitable.
But it is important to see as you read that verse, the implication that if Stephen had not been stoned to death, he still would have been a “martyr” because he was a witness (in this context to a rather hostile crowd that couldn’t handle the witnessing) to the Messianic Lordship of Jesus Christ. Thus, a Christian martyr is one who witnesses to Jesus.

Still, the seed was laid for the modern use of the word which is usually only defining someone who HAS actually died as a consequence of their beliefs, whatever they might be (the word is used broadly, as you are aware, well beyond being confined only to Christian references).

If you want to cease the voice of the martyr, what you for SURE don’t want to do is to shed their blood unto death.

I might add that when I first saw Fr. Dan use that phrase on his blog, I objected exactly because we were not yet dead. In the context of the charismata, the “spiritual gifts”, C.Peter Wagner and others have so identified “martyrdom” (the killing of a martyr). In that case, martyrdom is a one time gift, don’t you think?
I believe my comment is still posted on that thread. If not there, it is somewhere else in response.

Except that they didn’t actually die.

They are not going to budge from the path they are on. They have been plotting for a long time to get to where they are now and no one or ones, just like yurself and the good parishioners of St. John’s or anywhere else is going to be heard, listened to or adhered to by them. You will either agree with them, or be thrown to the lions. Just look at what Fresno Mark of Holy Family said to you on the Beryl thread. He gave you your three choices:

1. Agree with us and walk with us
2. Go to Schofield
3. Walk Alone

That says volumes to me and anyone with any reality of sight and truth in hearing can figure out that this ctooked path of apostacy of TEc and Remain Episcopal is not a path of God!

But you all are in my prayers Fr. Rob