They Won't Let Us Have MTV But We've Got Pornography on the Directory

Exercise class enrollments skyrocket at Samford University?

Here’s how the story goes: the cover of Faces, the student photo directory of Samford University, looked like a photomosaic of an attractive young person—made up of hundreds of small images of what looked like people exercising. You know what a photomosaic is, don’t you? If not, here are a few: an image of Jesus made up of images of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Babe Ruth of baseball cards, George Washington of credit cards, etc. Well, turns out the small images of this photomosaic weren’t people exercising. They weren’t the Dead Sea Scrolls or baseball cards, either. They were, simply put, porn. Yes, hundreds of naked and copulating people grace the cover of Samford’s student directory. Senior graphic design major David Carrigan initially said he made the image himself, from stock photos, and that the small pictures were in fact “everyday kinds of things: exercising, jogging, running and calisthenics.” “If students are trying to make a scandal out of the issue they should get over it,” he told the student newspaper. That story didn’t last long. Carrigan quickly sent a university-wide e-mail message apologizing for the cover—he claims deadline pressure made him do it. “I surely would not have used the image had I known the content of the small photographs,” he wrote. “I am personally opposed to pornography and its effect on society and would have a moral obligation not to use the material.” Okay, okay. We’ll pretend to buy that. Even though you say you intentionally blurred the images … The school says it won’t recall the directories, and that Carrigan will be disciplined.

Australian Anglicans upset about Sydney Diocese’s church planting

The Sydney Diocese is theologically much more conservative than the rest of Anglican Australia, but tends to be less “High Church” than its Down Under counterparts. So you’ll have to excuse The Sydney Morning Herald‘s conflation of doctrinal and liturgical conservatism. But it’s an interesting story. Ministers from the Sydney Diocese are moving throughout Australia to plant churches—but not officially Anglican ones. Some Anglican leaders are worried about what it means for the future of Australia’s Anglican Church. Others are just irritated.

Meanwhile, back in America …

The Miami Herald reports that three dozen clergy have quit the Episcopal Church to join the Anglican Mission in America. “We are like sand in an oyster, something of an irritant, but we believe God will make us into a pearl,” Bishop John Rodgers Jr. tells the paper. “We would like to have an Anglican province in America that is in touch with the Scriptures.” He says that the AMiA would be happy to fold in with the Episcopal Church “if they repent.” For readers who haven’t been following this important split, the Herald‘s piece is an excellent primer.