GOD, CHRIST: QUESTIONS & FAITH

Breaking News on J Mark Brewer Texas Two Step Cease and Desist Posting

Previously, (see J Mark Brewer Does The Texas Two Step Cease and Desist) a reader nicely summarized what happened:

Dave Walker, a cartoonist in England, was blogging about the demise of the SPCK bookstores after they were acquired by SSG, a charitable organization (technically speaking) set up by Houston, Texas attorney J Mark Brewer [of Brewer and Pritchard, bplaw.com]. Dave, who opined about management, was trying to get people to pay attention. Mark Brewer didn't like what Dave was saying and sent him a threatening cease and desist letter. Dave complied and removed about 75 blog postings from his web site. This provoked an immediate reaction because Dave had not said anything that was libelous or slanderous. 

It seemed but minutes before vicars, bishops and ordinary bloggers were jumping to Dave's defense. Atheists, Evangelical Christians, Conservative and Liberal Anglicans, Catholics, Southern Baptists and people of no known religious persuasion were jumping to Dave's defense. Because some people had copies of Dave's posts, as did the Google cache machines, those 75 blog postings were reposted on several web sites. They will become increasing visible to Internet users when Google completely indexes them. The are indelible.

NOW, Matt Wardman writes on his blog posting, US Court Motion for Sanctions against Mark Brewer: Is the dam breaking at last? that "This could be the biggest development of the last 6 months towards moving this mess towards a resolution." From his posting we learn that . . .

Randy W Williams, the Trustee in Bankruptcy for the Application for the Bankruptcy of the Society of Saint Stephen the Great by J. Mark Brewer and Brewer and Pritchard PC, filed a motion requesting sanctions against both J Mark Brewer and his law company on September 4th 2008, following on from the dismissal with prejudice of the application.

What is in the Motion?

Essentially, the kitchen sink. Among other things, the motion:

• Requests that the Court enter sanctions against J. Mark Brewer and the law firm of Brewer & Pritchard, P.C. for filing this case in bad faith.
• Accuses Mr Brewer of incomplete disclosure of information to the case conference, including failure to identify a bank account while handling large sums (100s of thousands of dollars) of money.
• States that there was failure to disclose the existence of the ENC SHOP MANAGEMENT CO. entity.
• States that Mr Brewer and Brewer and Pritchard have perpetrated a “fraud on the court”:

There is more and some good commentary. So read US Court Motion for Sanctions against Mark Brewer: Is the dam breaking at last?

Rescuing Durham Cathedral Bookshop

GETTING RESULTS FROM DAVE WALKER'S EFFORTS: From Phil Groom's SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info blog:

Today, we launch a formal petition to the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral in a bid to rescue this once outstanding bookshop from the hands of those who have ravaged it, namely Phil and Mark Brewer and their St Stephen the Great Trust.

The Brewers took control of this bookshop, of the entire SPCK Bookshop chain, with fine sounding words, but actions always speak louder than words: Durham Cathedral Bookshop — described by one eminent scholar at an international conference as “the best theological bookshop in the world” — is now but a shadow of its former self. The manager, Carole Burrows — who once organised An Evening Conversation on Jesus and Paul, a conversation between Professor James D G Dunn and the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd N T Wright, as one of many excellent initiatives that helped to keep the shop at the forefront of theological debate — was driven out. Current staff are demoralised.

The time has come to say: enough is enough! The time has come for the Dean and Chapter to take decisive action to rescue the shop from further decimation. Durham Cathedral is a World Heritage Site and an iconic northern shrine, a popular tourist destination and a centre of Britain’s spiritual life — yet it is now marred by association and ill-equipped to serve those who come to it seeking spiritual refreshment and theological enlightenment.

I hereby call upon the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral to step in, as Jesus once stepped in at the Temple in Jerusalem, and to drive out these men who are bringing this unique part of Britain’s Christian Heritage into disrepute. I urge you, please: take back control of your bookshop, of our bookshop.

And I call upon all others who feel similarly outraged — here in the UK, in the USA and throughout the world, and especially upon the residents of Houston, Texas, whose home town’s otherwise good name is similarly marred by this association — to sign this petition and to spread the word to encourage as many others as possible to do the same.

Thank you.

- Phil Groom.

Sign The Petition: Rescuing Durham

Source of this post: Rescuing Britain’s Christian Heritage: Durham Cathedral Bookshop « SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info

Increase and Enlist: J Mark Brewer Does The Texas Two Step Cease and Desist

I received an interesting email. The subject read Texas Two Step - Increase and Enlist. It reads:

I was quite surprised. You are quite right. Should I want to know something about a Texas attorney named Mark Brewer, I probably would search in Google for TEXAS ATTORNEY "MARK BREWER,"  being careful to put his name in quotes so as not to get a bunch of micro-brewers in the mix. Google returned 1350 possible pages on the web.

Most of the first several entries and about half of the first 30 dealt with the SPCK story. If I add SPCK to my search, I get 100 entries and they ALL deal with the story. There are hundreds more that Google has still to index. [That is obvious when you check out friendfeed: DaveWalker/SPCK: Free Debate Not Libel Threats which has identified over 300 blog posts on the story.]

As I understand it, Dave Walker, a cartoonist in England, was blogging about the demise of the SPCK bookstores after they were acquired by SSG, a charitable organization (technically speaking) set up by Houston, Texas attorney J Mark Brewer. Dave, who opined about management, was trying to get people to pay attention. Mark Brewer didn't like what Dave was saying and sent him a threatening cease and desist letter. Dave complied and removed about 75 blog postings from his web site. This provoked an immediate reaction because Dave had not said anything that was libelous or slanderous. 

It seemed but minutes before vicars, bishops and ordinary bloggers were jumping to Dave's defense. Atheists, Evangelical Christians, Conservative and Liberal Anglicans, Catholics, Southern Baptists and people of no known religious persuasion were jumping to Dave's defense. Because some people had copies of Dave's posts, as did the Google cache machines, those 75 blog postings were reposted on several web sites. They will become increasing visible to Internet users when Google completely indexes them. The are indelible.

More significantly, others bloggers picked up where Dave left off by digging into and reporting on other details of the SSG/SPCK story. Five postings at a blog called the Ministry of Truth are particularly revealing. They include copies of many legal documents and interesting commentary about the documents:

• J Mark Brewer revisited (updated)
• Questions for J Mark Brewer
• SSG/SPCK Bankruptcy Filings
• SSG/SPCK motion to dismiss chapter 7 application
• SPCK owner seeks US bankruptcy protection for UK charity

There are some particularly entertaining postings:

• Peddling Smut for Jesus with J. Mark Brewer
• Poor Mark Brewer - He's not Dave Walker.
• J Mark Brewer: Still Seeking to Serve Dave Walker
• The Great SPCK Scandal: Bloggers Stick it to the Man

Bishop Alan in his blog, in a posting SPCK shops — Wet Fish rotting, wrote that "It’s an almost perfect example of the Streisand Effect named after the attempt by Barbra of that Ilk to prevent her house appearing on the internet." Indeed! Wikipedia offers this definition:

The Streisand effect is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. Examples are attempts to censor a photograph, a file, or even a whole website, especially by means of cease-and-desist letters.

Writes Bishop Alan:

Thanks and greatest respects to Matt Wardman, Sam Norton and Phil Groom, who have borne the heat of the day.

It should be mentioned that Phil Groom had also been posting stories about SPCK. He, too, had received a cease and desist notice but had not complied. An excellent piece that summarizes what is going on is his posting: SPCK/SSG: My Story, by Phil Groom.

I am not sure what the emailer meant by Texas Two Step. But I like the ring of it. There must be a metaphor in it.

UPDATE: See: Breaking News on J Mark Brewer Texas Two Step Cease and Desist Posting

Texas Hold 'em: Still More on SPCK/SSG - Dave Walker and J Mark Brewer of Texas

1) The Rev Sam Norton, rector at West Mersea, Essex, United Kingdom has come up with a great find. Private Eye magazine has a small bit on the Dave Walker and J. Marker Brewer SPCK/SSG story.

Ya'll know the sayin, as they say in Texas, that he who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. Not when it comes to paying yourself a fee from corporate coffers. It's a form of Texas Hold 'em. Texas Hold'em is trying to make a winning hand with your two cards and a bunch of cards belonging to all the players:

Did you catch that:

bloggers … have been checking out the US bankruptcy filings, which may explain why SSG can afford to pay the lawyers. The “disclosure of compensation of attorney for debtor” shows that for legal services rendered in connection with the bankruptcy case, SSG is to pay $75,000 to lawyer J. Mark Brewer, who also happens to be… chairman and CEO of SSG!

2) For all the latest scoop on the story and links to archives of all Dave's posts, visit this dedicated blog: SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info

3) A Wardman Wire Resource Page with links to archived messages that J Mark Brewer forced Dave Walker to remove from his blog.

4) A post from an unlikely source: For God’s Sake Cease and Desist: The blogger writes:

Now we’d normally say send in the lions and let them sort it out but in this case poor old Dave deserves a bit of support. The SPCK are a legitimate target chain of Christian bookshops who specialise in works of fiction about some dead people with beards.  What is of interest is that they were recently taken over by the aforementioned St Stephen Trust and appear to have been driven into the ground.

The St Stephen Trust are a bunch of Texan evangelist bastards run by one J Mark Brewer who had planned to save the failing SPCK and send the Lord’s own word to the unwashed hordes of the UK. . . .

The thing you must carefully consider in Texas Hold 'em is that other players at the table are entitled to most of the cards you are playing with.

UPDATE: See: Breaking News on J Mark Brewer Texas Two Step Cease and Desist Posting

More and More on the Exploding SPCK Story & Dave Walker's Cartoon Church Blog

I'm reminded of a brief story: Many many years ago, a small political newsletter in Washington D.C. referred  to a certain congressman as the stupidest man in congress. Now, this was back in the days when Washington didn't have a "Beltway" and when a mimeograph machine was a viable tool for getting the word out. The newsletter, in those days, was a mimeographed and it went out to a subscriber base of about 300 people.

Nobody much noticed the newsletter or what its one writer had to say. Nor had anyone really noticed that the congressman in question probably was the stupidest man in congress. That was, not until the congressman called a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Building. He waited until the Washington Post and the New York Times arrived before demanding a public retraction from the tiny newsletter. He wanted everyone in the country to know that he was not the stupidest man in congress. Now they knew.

So what is this all about? It is about an attempt to censor the blog of Dave Walker. Here is a neat summary by The Wardman Wire (found from a link in Thinking Anglican):

Dave Walker, the official Lambeth Conference Cartoonist in Residence, has taken 75 posts down on his blog after being threatened with Libel Action by the new owner of SPCK - the oldest chain of Anglican Bookshops. He has been reporting the story of alleged mismanagement for two years.

The story had legs. Yesterday, Bishop Alan Wilson reported on his blog:

I was disturbed to come back this afternoon and discover [Dave Walker] has had a “Cease and Desist” order served on him from Texas, arising from blog entries tracing the fate of former SPCK Bookshops. The news itself has now disappeared from Dave’s site — surely not a censorship notice censored?!

Censorship does not work well on the Internet. For one thing most of of Dave's postings are still lying around in mammoth caches maintained throughout the worldwide web's network machines. The following Google search will find them: “SPCK site:cartoonchurch.com” Simply click on "Cached" to retrieve them (ever wonder what that was for?).

But censorship also doesn't work because we are no longer in the world of mimeograph journalism. The blogosphere exploded when the story got out. A sampling of blog entries about this attempt at censorship can be found below. You will note that it is not just about solidarity with Dave Walker, which is warranted. It is about what Dave Walker was writing about. 

Bishop Alan went on to say:

Former Staff had been filing inside stories on Dave’s blog. Now a gagging order has been served and, unable to risk high legal costs, Dave has had to comply. I have only loosely followed the story, but I can’t remember anything remotely actionable on Dave’s site. Now it’s been taken down I wonder what SSG was so ashamed about that it wanted it suppressed? The rapid and pathetic decline of the bookselling business betokens management way out of its depth. Its latest behaviour raises questions also about bullying and free speech. Heavy handed or what?

Or what?  Those who wanted the story suppressed might as well have called a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Building (in Texas) to announce that they wanted to control what was said about them on the Internet.   

The Mad Priest on his blog has collected many of Dave's posts and republished them (so you don't need to go to Google). He writes:

It is a load of saved posts that Dave has been bullied into taking down off his blog. PLEASE COPY AND POST ON YOUR BLOGS We will not be silenced by bad people; - there are too many of us.

That's true. Want to see what others are saying (in just the last 24 hours):

• The Mark Brewer Saga … Dave Walker, SPCK and Saint Stephen the Great  Of all people Dave Walker - the Artist in Residence at the Lambeth Conference - has been sent a cease and desist letter at half-a-day's notice to take down all posts (75+) relating to the reporting of the new management of the SPCK ...
• The Wardman Wire: Lambeth Conference Artist in Residence threatened  ALARMING STORY - WILL THEY ALSO SUE GOOGLE? Here is a simple search parameter to use with Google to retrieve removed pages.
• Solidarity post - SPCK/SSG and Dave Walker  Dave Walker is a well-know cartoonist and blogger who's been following the developments and was recently serve with a cease & desist order by the new SPCK/SSG chain owners, which forced him to take down all posts relating to the ...
• Dave Walker, Cartoonist of Lambeth: Injustice Is Not Funny  Dave Walker, Cartoonist of Lambeth, received a “cease and desist” letter from a current owner of the British SPCK chain of Christian bookshops. He has removed all content from his blog pertaining to the odd and ongoing story of how an ...
• Dave Walker capitulates on ex-SPCK bookshops  Dave Walker, cartoonist and blogger extraordinaire, blogger for the Church Times, friend of bishops (he’s the one on the right) and hanger-on (when they let him in) at the Lambeth conference, has shown what he is made of - that it is ...
• dave walker - cartoonist and martyr  From the very beginning, our friend (and provider of many laughs), Dave Walker let his own blog become the centre of the campaign against the closures and ill-treatment of SPCK staff. Now, Dave is a nice, middle-of-the-road, ...
• Dave Walker Threatened with Libel by SPCK Bookshop owners  Dave Walker, who has been flying the flag for the beleagured SPCK bookshop chain, has been threatened with libel by the St. Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSG), who took over the chain last year. Since then, most (if not all) of ...
• Dave Walker: from the sublime to the ridiculous  Dave Walker, the official Lambeth Conference Cartoonist in Residence, has taken 75 posts down on his blog after being threatened with Libel Action by the new owner of SPCK - the oldest chain of Anglican Bookshops. ...
• Dave Walker Solidarity Post  ... Walker Solidarity Post: It is a load of saved posts that Dave has been bullied into taking down off his blog. PLEASE COPY AND POST ON YOUR BLOGS We will not be silenced by bad people; - there are too many of us. SPCK / SSG Bookshop ...
• SPCK Bookshops — Gags & Gimcrack  The funniest thing in the exhibition area today was this card by Dave Walker. I was disturbed to come back this afternoon and discover he has had a “Cease and Desist” order served on him from Texas, arising from blog entries tracing the ...
• Dave Walker: Empty threats and fear of libel Dave Walker has been threatened. The person doing the threatening is Mark Brewer. The basis for the threat is Dave’s “people’s journalism” exposing and highlighting the awful saga of SSG/SPCK and the slow destruction of a much respected ...
• Dave Walker: Empty threats and fear of libel  Dave Walker has been threatened. The person doing the threatening is Mark Brewer. The basis for the threat is Dave’s “people’s journalism” exposing and highlighting the awful saga of SSG/SPCK and the slow destruction of a much respected ...
• We are all Dave Walkers now  Dave Walker is the Cartoon blogger, and currently cartoonist in residence at the Lambeth conference. He's also a really good bloke, who has been, over the last several months, exposing the incompetence and injustice of the people who ...
• Comments on Moderation  As Phil Groom is on holiday he has asked me to look after the site (I am an officer so have some rights). In the light of the threats made to Dave Walker by the Brewers I have set all comments to moderation. As yet I have not heard from ...
• former SPCK bookshops  Dave Walker of CartoonChurch fame has on several occasions reported on the saga of the former SPCK bookshops, subsequently owned by SSG. Today he has removed all his blog entries on the subject after receiving a ‘cease and desist’ ...
• ‘Cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer  This morning I was sent a ‘cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer relating to the posts I have made about the former SPCK bookshops. The demand says ‘Confidential - not to be redistributed or posted’, so I am not posting the text. ... 
• Those Christian Bookshops A number of Methodist bloggers have already reported about the silencing of Dave Walker on the subject of the decimation of the former 'SPCK' bookshops. The blog 'Connexions' provides a number of links here. Dave Walkers's posts on this ...
• Web censorship and the Google cache  Following up on a note from David Ker, here is a post from Dave Walker that was removed from his blog but is still in the Google cache:. July 22nd, 2008. ‘Cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer. This morning I was sent a ‘cease and ... 
• Nothing like like having an informed debate  Dave Walker has removed all the SPCK closure related stuff from his blog - obviously some people (not Dave!) believe that silence is the best cover for their actions and have taken legal steps to try to ensure this. ... 
• Cartoon blogger silenced  Our friend the amiable Cartoon Blogger (aka Dave Walker) has been received a “cease & desist” order from SSG, the (not very) charitable trust that took over the SPCK chain of bookstores. For some while Dave has been faithfully blogging ...
• Libel law used as censorship  Now in the spirit of Christian love these devils have threatened one of the finest Christain bloggers, Dave Walker who happens to be Cartoonist in Residence at the Lambeth Conference. Daave has been threatened with legal action for ...

Remember the effect of the printing press, the mimeograph machine . . .

UPDATE: See: Breaking News on J Mark Brewer Texas Two Step Cease and Desist Posting

Technorati Tags: Dave Walker,Cartoon Church,Bishop Alan's Blog,Mad Priest,Anglican Thinking,Wardman Wire,Anglican,SPCK

Another Sort of Atheist: Julian Barnes and "Of Nothing To Be Frightened Of"

It is a book that I think I will read. Joel Yanofsky has written an interesting review of Nothing To Be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes (Random House Canada). Yanofsky writes in his review, "The Final Sting:"

The book is also a welcome antidote to the recent crop of religion-bashing books such as God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: Mr. Meaninglessness, as he's been dubbed. Barnes sees in this kind of "militant atheism" something similar to religious fundamentalism. Death may be a straightforward biological fact for the likes of Hitchens and Dawkins, but that doesn't account for how profoundly our awareness of it affects every aspect of our lives.

I agree with Barnes that the militant atheism is similar to religious fundamentalism. Having read Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett (as well as many of the militant/new atheist blogs such as those of PZ Myers), I look forward to reading a book that seems more reasonable. Whether it is really more reasonable and more intellectually stimulating remains to be seen. More:

"I don't believe in God," Barnes says in the book's opening line, "but I miss Him." It's a statement Barnes's brother, Jonathan, a philosopher and confirmed atheist, dismisses as "soppy." Jonathan provides a sanguine counterpoint to Julian's perpetual fretting, or what he calls "pit-gazing." Jonathan is resigned to the fact that one day he will cease to exist. Julian keeps looking for a loophole. He wouldn't mind dying, he admits, "as long as I didn't end up being dead afterwards."

It sounds like it has a measure of lightheartedness, something that those of us who find the new atheists tiresome and unconvincing need to try to achieve.

For those not familiar with Julian Barnes, his website contains this summary of some of his recognition as an author:

Barnes has received several awards and honors for his writing including the Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981), two Booker Prize nominations (Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England, England 1998); Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (FP 1985); Prix Médicis (FP 1986); E. M. Forster Award (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1986); Gutenberg Prize (1987); Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy, 1988); and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Barnes was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1988, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995 and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004. In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation and in 2004 won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

Nothing To Be Frightened Of is about death. But those words might well be the best response those of us who believe in God can have in exploring the minds of atheists: the militant kind and what I suspect are the more thoughtful kind.

Against the Atheists: "Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and their co-believers"

Ross Douthat of The Atlantic Monthly writes for The Claremont Institute a very interesting book review of Dinesh D’Souza's What’s So Great About Christianity.

I'm pleased to report, then, that What's So Great About Christianity, D'Souza's defense of the faith that he and I share, is a considerable improvement on its immediate predecessor, a reminder of its author's skill as a polemicist, and a fitting rebuke to the recent spate of atheistic tracts that it sets out to contend with. His measured tone alone makes for a refreshing contrast with the bitchy, condescending style favored by the bestselling anti-theists, and his promise "to meet the atheist argument on its own terms" likewise stands in sharp contrast to the "new atheist" habit of making a caricature of religious belief and then gleefully smacking it around. (One can only hope that his antagonists will make a careful study of D'Souza's habit of actually quoting those with whom he disagrees.)

He points out that the book addresses all of the big topics of the new atheists' polemics: the crimes of history attributed to Christianity and the notion that the universe "seems essentially meaningless and accidental."

The book is organized around the various strands—political and moral, scientific and philosophical—of the "atheist argument" that it sets out to unravel. Against the secularization hypothesis, with its vision of a humanity moving steadily away from superstition toward the broad sunlit uplands of godlessness, D'Souza argues for religion's resilience, and indeed for the demographic advantages enjoyed by religious populations, who multiply fruitfully while secular societies grow steadily more sterile. To the litany of crimes against liberty and progress that are laid at Christianity's door, the author responds by tracing everything that contemporary atheists claim to value—human rights and church-state separation, the faith in reason and progress that makes scientific advancement a possibility—to the modern West's Christian roots. Against the argument that the universe itself , D'Souza lays out the not-inconsiderable evidence that the entirety of creation has been designed with conscious life in mind, and then dryly limns the attempts by modern scientists to explain this possibility away with ever-more-elaborate, ever-less-testable hypotheses.

Douthat's recommendation:

Much of this argument I would happily recommend to anyone foolish enough to believe that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and their co-believers have permanently settled religion's hash.

I agree with this books review. The book is well worth reading.

The Anglican Communion and Homosexuality

From the Anglican Communion News Service (May 29) we learn of a new book. The first paragraph of the description is wonderfully written, and without the last sentence, it could be applied to almost any issue we Anglicans face from time to time.

Anglicans believe that God communicates through the Bible, the traditions of the Church and through reason. Listening to God involves listening to one another, which allows us to understand the Bible more clearly, appreciate the depth and variety of the traditions of the Church, and enables us to draw on the intelligence and experience of others. This book offers clear and accurate resources to enable bishops, clergy and laity in the Anglican Communion to listen to God and to one another on the subject of human sexuality.

But this is about a specific issue. It is timely and hopefully helpful. The news service tells us that it is a study guide "designed to be accessible to all. Its aims are:

♦ to hear the diverse responses offered from across the Anglican Communion

♦ to inform and encourage study of the issue in parishes, dioceses and provinces

♦ to increase the individual reader’s understanding of diverse perspectives of approaches to homosexuality.

The contributors to this timely book are women and men who reflect the geographical and theological diversity of the Communion. They include bishops, clergy and lay people with a wide range of expertise and experience."

Where to get the book?

Reviews: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian | Christianity Today Movies

In a review by Peter T. Chattaway of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," appearing in Christianity Today, he writes:  

For all their talk of staying true to the spirit of C. S. Lewis's novels, the makers of the Narnia films have frequently deviated from the books in ways both big and small

and concludes:

But on a summer-popcorn-movie level, it all works. Prince Caspian is a reasonably enjoyable and diverting bit of entertainment, and it may satisfy people who have been waiting for a worthy successor to the movie version of The Lord of the Rings but felt the previous Narnia movie wasn't quite it. And if it lacks Lewis' message, oh well, with any luck, it will turn people on to the book, which is where the real magic lies.

The Bishop’s Daughter - Honor Moore - Book Review - New York Times

He was a hero to me. Nothing about the sensational parts of his life, so far revealed in the press, will change that. But I need to read the book. And then I'll know more certainly. Here are two salient quotes from the review in the New York Times:

A young man, heir to a fortune so vast he considers it his “cross of gold,” comes home from Guadalcanal a decorated hero, bearing scars from a bullet that just missed his heart. God has saved him, he believes, for a purpose. The vocation he heard at Yale has grown loud enough to drown out the objections of his family. Ordained an Episcopal priest in 1949, he begins his career in a blighted New Jersey parish, eventually climbing to a position so exalted that at his death in 2003 he is remembered as “a prince of the church,” “a saint.”

Already many people, whether or not they’ve read “The Bishop’s Daughter,” know it as the book in which Honor Moore outs her famous father, a man celebrated as a paragon of virtue, a priest whose vestments seemed to set him apart from passions that sully ordinary men. But Paul Moore Jr.’s bisexuality — a fact previously known only to family and a few friends — was an important and decidedly not sublimated aspect of his essential self. There is no way to write a book about him, or about being his daughter, that fails to consider its place in his life and its impact on his family.

The entire review can be found here: The Bishop’s Daughter - Honor Moore - Book Review - New York Times