The Archbishop of Canterbury has arrived (or will arrive very shortly) at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and will attend various meetings and make a keynote presentation, before returning to the UK tomorrow for General Synod. There is more on the Episcopal Life site - see Archbishop of Canterbury to make debut appearance at General Convention. See also a report and a link to the transcript of the opening address by the Presiding Bishop yesterday: Presiding Bishop to church: 'We will fail if we choose business as usual'

There are various ways to follow General Convention from a distance:

1. Via the media hub which includes live video at times - the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech will be here later today: TEC Media Hub // General Convention 2009 (Warning: I've had problems with 'unresponsive scripts' and Firefox slowing right down whilst using this page)
2. On Twitter - #ecgc is the tag that participants and others will be using.
3. Bloggers. There are official blogs for bishops (Blogging Bishops) and other participants (Bloggers on the ground), but for the best news and insights (serious and otherwise) I'll be following The Lead and Seven whole days among others.

I've been reading up on many tens of reactions to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans launch event on Monday. For a final FCA post I thought I'd bring together a variety of posts from bloggers of all persuasions, those for and against, present and absent. I've added a one line summary of each which of course fails to do them justice, but gives you an idea of their general position should you choose to click through to read the whole thing.

Fr Simon: The FCA need to read their Bibles (FoCA – the beginning of the end « parishLife).

Nick Baines: My credentials as a Christian and a bishop have been questioned, but that doesn’t worry me (Faith addiction? « Nick Baines’s Blog).

James Cary: People who have a problem with homosexuality should be allowed to speak out (Best of Both Worlds: FCA, Nazir-Ali and all that).

'Cranmer': This meeting wasn't controversial (Cranmer: Queen sends 'supportive' letters to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans).

David Hodgson: The FCA are a bit like a rebellious teenage son (Anglican Spirit: Queen gets it right on FCA).

John Richardson: It could be that the FCA cannot finally work because it can't agree on which are first and second order issues (The Ugley Vicar: Reflections on the UK FCA launch, 6 July 2009 and The Ugley Vicar: Further reflections on the FCA launch).

Church Mouse: Anglican Mainstream have quoted Her Majesty out of context (The Church Mouse Blog: The Queen supports the FCA? Don't you believe it).

Nick Jones: A good event, though the Forward in Faith participants didn’t quite know what to do in the worship, and Michael Nazir Ali went on a bit (FCA « REDLETTERS).

Stephen Sizer: The event in pictures - not really a blog post (Photo album: Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans UK & Ireland).

Urban Pastor: Archbishop Peter Jensen is one of the reasons I still feel it’s alright to be Anglican (FCA UK « the urban pastor).

David McCarthy: Ordained women were present (GadgetVicar: At the Launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Westminster Central Hall, London, 6/7/09).

'Josiah', a minister from Plymouth: The main question from the day - What happens now? (through a glass darkly: Initial reactions to FCA).

Fr Ivan D Aquilina: An Evangelical ordinand who did not know what Confirmation is - one of many signs that Forward in Faith should pull out of FCA immediately (Sevenoaks, St John the Baptist: Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans).

A selection of posts from Anglo Catholic bloggers who attended the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans launch yesterday.

Fr Ross Northing Today at Westminster....

At times it was patently obvious that views being expressed were barely Anglican and were more akin to a Baptist/Pentecostalist mindset. So if we were thinking that there could be common-cause over things that matter then it is doubtful. Certainly, that is the case from listening to other Anglo-Catholics over coffee and in the corridors this afternoon.

Fr Giles Pinnock: Tripe & Onions at Westminster Central Hall

"For me, who would not in any case be able to sign The Jerusalem Declaration, GAFCON / FCA / ACNA isn’t going to be the answer. The Declaration isn’t all bad, but rests heavily on the Book of Common Prayer 1662 and the 39 Articles of Religion as definitive, and I cannot help but see these documents as part of the fundamental problem of Anglicanism, not the answer."

Fr Edward Tomlinson (Final Thoughts on ‘Be Faithful’) posts a number of reflections along with a message from +Edwin Barnes, formerly Bishop of Richborough:

After all this I cannot see how there can be common cause between Catholics and Evangelicals. We are looking to going home to the Universal Church, in Communion with the Holy Father and half Christendom. They seem to want to perpetuate a sixteenth century accident.

You will, of course, need to click through to read each extract in context.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans launch event is taking place today at Wesminster Central Hall. You can watch online via Anglican TV and on Twitter some participants are using the fca tag (though many aren't).

Specific information about the launch has hard to come by online for those not in the know - incredibly the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans doesn't obviously link to its own launch event from its own website, but those with inside information will know to look on the Anglican Mainstream website.

Over the weekend there were a number of news reports about this event and in particular comments by Michael Nazir-Ali, who will address the event later. A selection:

• Telegraph: Change and repent, bishop tells gays
• Guardian: Dissident Anglicans launch protest movement against CofE liberalism
• Times: Bishop of Sherborne Graham Kings says new group could split Church
• Independent: Condemnation for bishop who called for gay people to 'repent'

From Friday's Church Times: Fellowship leaders take flak in run-up to London launch