Episcopal Bishop opens old wounds
Seven years after 18 priests in the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado left the diocese and were given Letters Dimissory to the Province of South East Asia by then Episcopal Bishop Jerry Winterrowd, the present Episcopal Bishop of the diocese, Rt. Rev. Rob O’Neill, has decided to reopen old wounds. He has sent letters to the priests saying they must either renounce their orders in the Episcopal Church (TEC) or he will officially depose them. …
[The Rev. Dennis Garrou] esponded to O’Neill’s letter asking what was the “need to resolve” his status in TEC. “I am at a complete loss to guess why this unstated ‘need’ now arises for you, but hasn’t for over seven years. Has something recent occurred of which I am unaware that now arises the issue of my status to a point of concern for you?…”
– Full report from VirtueOnline. (Photo of Bishop O’Neill: Episcopal Life Online.)
Archbishop Peter Jensen in The Australian
I did something really odd the other day. I looked up the dictionary definition of marriage, just to make sure that my understanding was not too off-line. I was relieved to find that it is called the legal union of a man with a woman for life. It is a public, lifelong and exclusive relationship. There is no hint in the dictionary that the word can extend to two men or two women in a public, lifelong and exclusive relationship.
Of course, dictionaries change to mirror the times, and governments do all sorts of things with words, but changing the definition of marriage would be as fatuous as declaring that Perth is Sydney or that the moon is made of ice cream. We would then need a new word to describe the reality that occurs when a man and a woman publicly promise each other to live in lifelong and exclusive relationship, “in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others so long as you both shall live”. …
– Read the full article in The Australian.
Sin and Grace
“We can think of forgiveness as something real only when we hold that sin has betrayed us into a situation where we deserve to have God inflict upon us the most serious consequences, and that it is upon such a situation that God’s grace supervenes.
When the logic of the situation demands that He should take action against the sinner, and He yet takes action for him, then and only then can we speak of grace. But there is no room for grace if there is no suggestion of dire consequences merited by sin.”
– Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (London: The Tyndale Press, 1955). (From Firstimportance.org)
Faith Today Interviews J.I. Packer
Faith Today, the magazine of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, has interviewed Dr J. I. Packer for its current issue –
I could have said ridiculous. I could have said fantastic. I could have used other adjectives but I’ll stick with grotesque. I do not think a bishop who has not convicted me of grave moral or heretical practices is in a position to revoke my spiritual authority in Word and Sacrament. The most he can do is withdraw my permission to minister in The Anglican Church of Canada.
Since the thing that has occasioned this is the decision St. John’s and other churches have taken to leave The Anglican Church of Canada, revoking my authority to minister in the ACC changes absolutely nothing.
So I’m not losing sleep over it. Though over age, I am still a professor at Regent College and director of the Anglican studies program at Regent. No action on Michael Ingham’s part can change either of those things.
It’s worth reading the full interview here. (Photo: Ed Hird.)
Communion ‘breaking up because nobody is leading’
At a meeting in the Diocese of Fort Worth last week, Archbishop Gregory Venables said that “the Anglican Communion in the United States has been hijacked” by an Episcopal Church leadership that doesn’t “mind what happens as long as they control it”.
“I am astounded that in America, the land of the free, so many people have been robbed of their freedom,” he said.
– See The Living Church for the story.
Pittsburgh Bishops to attend Lambeth
Bishops Robert Duncan and Henry Scriven confirmed today that they will be attending both the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jordan and Jerusalem in June and the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in Kent, England, this July and August. …
– More at the Diocese of Pittsburgh website.
Don’t waste your pulpit
John Piper exhorts preachers to do what they ought to be doing, in this 4 minute video from Desiring God. (Thanks to Between Two Worlds.)
Why ‘evangelicals’ are returning to Rome
The February 2008 edition of Christianity Today ran a cover story about evangelicals looking to the ancient Roman Catholic Church in order to find beliefs and practices. What was shocking about the article was that both the author of the article and the senior managing editor of CT claim that this trip back to Rome is a good thing. …
– Seeing strong parallels with Hebrews, Bob DeWaay writes, “The Roman Catholic Church has tangibility that is unmatched by the evangelical faith, just as temple Judaism had.”
Abp of Canterbury and Pope meet
Pope Benedict XVI held a private meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at the Vatican May 5 to discuss ecumenical and Muslim-Christian relations. … During the visit… it was announced that India-born Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, would be among the plenary speakers at this summer’s Lambeth Conference of bishops.
– Story from the Episcopal News Service. (Photo: ACNS / James Rosenthal)
‘Stunning’ creed from Toronto Youth Synod
“We believe in Jesus of Nazareth, who is our brother, who wants not to be idolized but to be followed.
We believe that we dwell in the presence of the Holy Spirit; without her we are nothing;…”
– a prayer used as a creed at the recent Anglican Church of Canada’s Toronto Youth Synod. (Graphic: Anglican Church of Canada.)
Ontario churches disappointed by decision
A press release from the Anglican Network in Canada –
A judge in the Ontario Superior Court in Hamilton, Madam Justice Milanetti, has ordered three southern Ontario Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) parishes to share their building facilities with a diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada pending the resolution of a trial over who is legally entitled to exclusive possession.
Read more
Paul Helm on The Future of Justification
“John Piper’s book The Future of Justification (Crossway, 2007) is a great thing. If you have not read it, then you must. …
In this Analysis I shall try to do two things.
The first is to draw attention to what I believe is one of the most significant methodological points that Piper makes, but one which may, in the flurry of interest about justification, and the dust raised by it, get overlooked. The second thing is to underline what Piper says about the ambiguity of some of Bishop Wright’s language about imputation and justification. What both of these have in common is that Piper shows us the need to observe theological distinctions. …”
– from Paul Helm, the J.I. Packer Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Regent College, Vancouver. (See also the earlier commendation of the book, by Mike Ovey.)
The Sola Panel switches on
In the fine tradition of the T4G blog, The Sola Panel – a new blog sponsored by Matthias Media – is now online.
With regular contributions from Peter Bolt, Mark Thompson, Tony Payne, Archie Poulos “and more!”. See it at solapanel.org
Plant rights and lunacy in Switzerland
The failure to distinguish between human beings and the larger animal world is a hallmark of a post-Christian culture. The extension of this ideology to vegetation is a frightening sign of mass delusion. …
Al Mohler on what can happen when you reject a biblical worldview.
Review of Stott’s ‘The Living Church’
Reading John Stott’s The Living Church is like having a conversation with a venerable and godly grandfather. There’s no bold new vision. No young man’s castles in the sky. You might not even agree with everything he says. Yet all of it commands respect. All of it evinces wisdom. Every single word, every single expression, feels permeated with the deep and calm virtue of a man who has, for more days than can be counted, found his refreshment lying beside the quiet waters of our Lord…
Jonathan Leeman reviews John Stott’s The Living Church: Convictions of a Life Long Pastor. At IX Marks. (The book is available at Moore Books.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…