Saturday 28th January 2006
“Episcopal Church Releases Candidates for Top Position, Sparks Criticism” “The Episcopal Church named four candidates to be its new leader Wednesday, a list that included the first female nominee and one candidate who opposed the consecration of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop. Orthodox Episcopalians said they were “deeply disturbed” by the choice of the nominees...”
From The Christian Post.
Saturday 28th January 2006
“RU486 opponents enlist worshippers”“A group opposed to the abortion pill RU486 will step up attempts to prevent the drug being made more readily available in Australia by drumming up support at Sunday church services...”
From The Sydney Morning Herald. See also the Australians Against RU486 website. News from last week “Disbelief At UCA President Dr Dean Drayton’s Statement”.
Thursday 26th January 2006
Australia Day HonoursTwo well known Sydney Anglicans have been named on the Australia Day Honours List – Dss Joan Hartley (For service to the community through the Anglican Church of Australia and to nursing in the area of aged care) and Mr Riley Warren (For service to education, particularly the Macarthur Anglican School, to a range of professional organisations, and to the community through social welfare initiatives for youth). Our best wishes to them both.
See the full Australian Honours List here.
Thursday 26th January 2006
“Students ban Christians in row over gays”“A University Christian Union has been suspended and had its bank account frozen after refusing to open its membership to people of all religions.The Christian Union, an evangelical student organisation, has instructed lawyers and is threatening court proceedings against the Birmingham Guild of Students. The Birmingham Christian Union has more than 100 members who attend meetings regularly and has been functioning at the university for 76 years...”
Full report from Times Online. See also this release from the UCCF in Great Britain – “The Students Union at Birmingham University wanted to impose one of their own leaders onto the CU executive, open membership to people of all faiths and beliefs, and instructed the Christian fellowship to change its constitution. The Guild raised concern at the words "men" and "women", as it could be seen as excluding transsexual/transgender persons...” (more)
Tuesday 24th January 2006
“John Piper resolves to glorify God through cancer”“The man who has long proclaimed that ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him’ is now facing a major test of his faith with every intention of proving God worthy...”
Full story from Towers Online.
Sunday 22nd January 2006
“Civil partnership row erupts”“One of the Church’s most senior bishops has delivered a fierce rebuke of the House of Bishops’ statement on Civil Partnerships, criticising it for undermining traditional teaching on marriage and calling it ‘unbiblical’. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, has written a letter to clergy in his diocese, laying out his concerns for how the statement will ‘severely test the Church’s discipline and stretch pastoral relationships to breaking point.’..”
Full story from The Church of England Newspaper.
Tuesday 17th January 2006
“Church could see female archbishops”“The Church of England could see the appointment of the first female Archbishop of Canterbury under proposals published for the consecration of women bishops. All bishops’ posts including the See of Canterbury would be open legally to women under the plans put forward in a Church of England House of Bishops document...”
Report from This is London. See also this press release from the Church of England Communications Office.
Saturday 14th January 2006
“Canadian Anglicans Face Extinction”“Canadian Anglican Bishops will be ruing the day they commissioned Keith McKerracher, a retired marketing executive, to study church growth. No doubt they anticipated the kind of sentimental fantasy that the Bishops usually spin out for parishioners... Alas, this time the Bishops miscalculated. They reckoned without an honest man. Mr. McKerracher completed his Report and his main finding, made after studying actual parish membership rolls instead of suspect census data, is that the last Canadian Anglican will turn out the lights in the last church sometime around mid-century...”
Read the story by Ian Hunter of the National Post on VirtueOnline.
Friday 6th January 2006
Press Release – Disclaimer from the Nigerian Church“The general public is hereby warned of the activities of some fraudulent personalities who exploit Christian love and the good name of the Church all in a bid to defraud unsuspecting people especially foreigners of money. The trend has become alarming recently as we receive dozens of mails seeking to verify supposed priests administering bequests of none existing estates, missionaries selling pets that never get delivered or collecting aids for the sick or orphaned with seemingly convincing pictures...”
Read the full text here (Anglican Communion Office). And a related warning on the Church of Nigeria website.
Thursday 5th January 2006
Canadian Governments rules on “Anglican” name“Corporations Canada, a federal agency that regulates corporate names, on Sept. 12 ordered a group of dissident churches to stop using the name ‘Anglican Communion in Canada’. Aissa Aomari, deputy director of Corporations Canada, wrote to the group’s lawyer that ‘corporation #409786-6 was granted a name which does not represent the Anglican Communion in Canada nor does it have any recognized ties with the international fellowship of churches known worldwide as the Anglican Communion.’....”
From Anglican Journal.
Thursday 5th January 2006
 John Stott Recognised in Queen’s New Year Honours“The eminent biblical scholar and Rector emeritus of All Souls, Langham Place, the Rev Dr John Stott was awarded the CBE in recognition for his services to Christian scholarship and the Christian world.”
From the Church of England Newspaper. (And here’s an article, published in the New York Times last year, on “Who is John Stott?”)
Tuesday 3rd January 2006
“Thoughts on the Windsor Report: What Went Wrong?” – Paul Zahl “The Report of the Lambeth Commission is flawed fundamentally because it refuses to take up the substantial issue that caused its coming into existence: the issue of homosexuality.
‘Process’ statements will not suffice at this juncture in Anglican church history. Theological ‘conservatives’ can take heart from most of the findings of the Report, although it is deficient in equating the New Hampshire consecration with the crossing of diocesan boundaries on the part of ‘orthodox’ bishops and primates. Two further problems with the Report are its ambiguous use of the Bible in relation to an issue on which the Bible is unambiguous; and in its ultimate result, which papers over the cracks... ”
Paul Zahl is the Dean and President of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Pennsylvania. Read his article via VirtueOnline.
Tuesday 3rd January 2006
“Why laughter is an appropriate response to Barna & his Ecclesiological Proposal”“To be a Christian is to be faithful to the teaching of the New Testament. That is a given. A second given is this: the New Testament is an ecclesial document. It is written from within the context of believing communities for believing communities. In fact, the idea of trying to be a Christian without the Church is anathema for the writers of the New Testament (see, for example, Hebrews 10:24-25)... ”
Another reflection on George Barna’s book ‘Revolution: Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary’ – on Historia ecclesiastica.
Tuesday 3rd January 2006
“Cleric snubs Camilla in royal prayers”“An Anglican clergyman surprised British royal-watchers yesterday when he failed to mention Prince Charles’s new wife Camilla in prayers at a New Year’s Day church service attended by Queen Elizabeth...”
From The Gulf Times. (It must be a quiet news day.).
Sunday 1st January 2006
 reformation 21 – helpful online magazineFor many Australians, January is a quieter time – giving the opportunity to do some reading and thinking. Here’s a very worthwhile resource – reformation 21 – The online magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.
You can find the current edition here.
Tuesday 27th December 2005
A new Dean of Hobart It has been announced that Dr Lindsay Stoddart will be the new Dean of St. David’s Cathedral Hobart.
Lindsay is well known to many ACL members, as the former CEO of Anglican Youthworks. He also served as the Archdeacon of Wollongong, and before that in several Sydney parishes. He will take up his appointment in March.
Announced just before Christmas, the details have been posted on the Diocese of Tasmania website.
Saturday 24th December 2005
“The Christmas gift that breaks the curse” – Archbishop Peter Jensen’s Christmas Message “In CS Lewis’s story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which will be on our movie screens from Boxing Day, the land of Narnia is under a curse that means that it is always winter but never Christmas. Of course, it is never winter at Christmas time in Australia, but we can nevertheless understand what a terrible curse this is! Narnia is stuck in hard times, with no cause for celebration. Its creatures are suffering, with no highlight to look forward to.
Like the Narnians, many Australians will be doing it tough this Christmas. For some, it is a time when relationships are strained to the limit, when the cracks in our marriages, our families and our friendships seem to widen. For others, the strain is financial, as we see what the neighbours have and we don’t. Yet others find it difficult to join in the festivities because the world just doesn’t seem like somewhere worth celebrating. Wars, hurricanes and child poverty press in on our hearts and minds, refusing to be pushed aside, even for a day. My challenge to you this Christmas is to lift your eyes from your daily struggles and see what lies around the corner. To the great surprise of the children in CS Lewis’s story, Father Christmas turns up in Narnia to hand out gifts. His appearance is a sign that the curse on the land is breaking, and a better world is on its way...”
Read the full message here.
Wednesday 21st December 2005
“Narnia spoof has experts bewitched” – you can fool some of the people...“Perhaps C S Lewis had cast his magical spell farther afield than usual – but a spoof news report about Narnia tricked some of the world’s best business brains. A Day Today-style story claimed the state of Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the US and Europe..”
Read the story from This is London.
 Monday 19th December 2005
“Sydney supports suspended evangelical”“Sydney Diocese has announced its support for a British clergyman whose licence to minister was revoked by the Bishop of Southwark last month. ... At its final meeting of 2005 the Sydney Standing Committee passed two motions instigated by the Rev Dr Mark Thompson, Academic Dean of Moore College and President of the Anglican Church League...”
Read the full report from SydneyAnglicans.net. See below for related news stories – and also a statement made on behalf of the ACL.
Thursday 15th December 2005
“North Florida: Five Parishes Announce they will leave ECUSA in January”“On December 12, 2005 a letter was delivered to Bishop Howard which stated that during the first week of January, five congregations will transfer from the Episcopal Diocese of Florida to other provinces within the worldwide Anglican Communion. These congregations seek to remain faithful to Christ and be in full communion with the majority of the members in the larger Communion...”
Full story from VirtueOnline.
 Monday 12th December 2005
Media statement on the problems at Cronulla – from Archbishop Peter Jensen“The events that occurred at Cronulla, Brighton-le-Sands and Maroubra yesterday are of substantial concern to all Australians, whatever their faith or ethnicity. There is no place in our free, democratic and civil society for racist and mob violence...”
Read the Archbishop’s full statement here.
 Monday 12th December 2005
“Boyer Lectures” – the book – appearing in ABC Stores nowWe’ve heard that the book version of Archbishop Peter Jensen’s Boyer Lectures is now available in the ABC Shop at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, and will be in many bookshops this week. It will be available, of course, from ABC Shops, and well as Moore Books, and many other bookstores. The ABC is advertising it for $22.95. It would make an ideal Christmas gift for someone who enjoys reading. The audio of the talks is also available for online streaming or purchase via this link.
Wednesday 7th December 2005
Willow Creek – one of several large US churches that will be closed on Christmas Day“This is a consumer mentality at work: ‘Let’s not impose the church on people. Let’s not make church in any way inconvenient,’ ” said David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Hamilton, Mass. “I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing...”
Story from Newsday. In reflecting on contemporary Western culture, and the emerging church movement, two talks given at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary by Dr. David Wells are very helpful. The two talks may be downloaded as MP3 files (around 20MB each) – or streamed as RealAudio files – from the Seminary’s Chapel Messages page on their website. (Scroll down.) And for a bit of light humour after hearing the talks, have a look at this entry on the Pergatorio blog.
Wednesday 7th December 2005
“Interspiritual centre for False Creek will have many different faiths involved”“Work continues to progress on the creation of an interspiritual centre near downtown Vancouver in which the Diocese of New Westminister is involved. Mike Wellwood, business administrator of the diocese, is one of three Anglicans on the 20 member board of the group that is creating the centre. He told their annual meeting last month that after a year of preliminary work he now believes the centre definitely will become a reality... ... To date 13 religious organizations have signed on to the project, which include Christians, Jews, Muslims, Budddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, and Unitarians...”
From the Diocese of New Westminster. (False Creek – an appropriate name?)
Sunday 4th December 2005
“Wedding bells for ACT gays”“The ACT will introduce civil unions for same-sex couples, giving them the same legal rights as married couples. ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the laws would grant a ‘basic social and legal right’ to couples whose relationships were not recognised by federal law...”.
Story in The Age. See also the Media Release from the ACT Government.
Saturday 3rd December 2005
“Malawi rejects ‘pro-gay’ bishop”“African Anglican bishops have blocked the appointment of a ‘pro-gay’ bishop in Malawi...”
Report from the BBC.
Friday 2nd December 2005
“Lecture delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Islamic University, Islamabad” – What the Archbishop said about Christianity“Imagine someone watching, over a period of about one year, the things that happen in a Christian church. They would be aware that one day of the week had special significance. Particularly if they were observing what happens in a historically Christian country, they would notice that Sunday is seen as important for meeting and praying. They would see that Christians met to sing and speak to a God whom they describe as the maker of all things and the judge of all things, and that they knelt or bowed in the presence of this God, thanking him and acknowledging their failures and wickedness...”
Global South Anglican.
Friday 2nd December 2005
“Canada: Decline in Anglican membership quickening”“The Anglican Church of Canada, one of the country’s largest and oldest denominations, is in precipitous decline – losing 13,000 members each year and facing extinction by the middle of this century, says a new report prepared for the Church’s bishops. Membership in the Anglican Church has fallen by 53% over the past 40 years and continues to drop by 2% a year, the steepest recorded decline of any mainstream Canadian church...”
CanWest article via VirtueOnline. |