Australian Church Record — Special edition

From The Australian Church Record:

“Our [Sydney] Synod meets over three years, a Triennium. Each year the Synod meets is called a Session. In 2011, the First session of the 49th Synod will meet.

This will be a significant Triennium for the Sydney Synod. Amongst the issues to be discussed and decided, there are matters of local, national and international significance.

Representatives for the new Synod will be elected at the Annual General Meetings (i.e. Vestry meetings) to be held in Sydney parishes across February and March.

Given the importance of the 49th Synod, now is the time for good people in every local congregation to seriously consider who they should nominate to be their Synod Representatives, or, indeed, whether they should be nominated themselves.

The Australian Church Record hopes that this pamphlet might be of some help as Sydney congregation members prayerfully consider the forthcoming elections.”

The January 2011 special edition is available from the ACR website.

‘Coalition folds in ethics class battle’

“The state opposition has dumped its promise to remove ethics classes from NSW public schools if it is elected, as 57 schools prepare to start teaching the new course within weeks. …”

– Report from The Sydney Morning Herald.

‘Dublin and the Art of Dishonest Conversation’

Charles Raven at SPREAD looks at the just-concluded Primates’ meeting, and what he sees isn’t good.

“What about a passion for reaching the lost, for faithful teaching and preaching, for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ?”

“We might well ask ourselves what sort of Communion we are in when the chief passion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and those still willing to work with him is for ‘conversation’.  Why this preoccupation with interminable and inward looking dialogue? What about a passion for reaching the lost, for faithful teaching and preaching, for the glory and honour of Jesus Christ?

However sincere or even passionate the Primates may feel themselves to be, this is actually ‘dishonest conversation’ which displaces the gospel and is spiritually dangerous. Fundamentally, this is because ‘conversing’ has come to replace ‘confessing’…”

– Worth reading it all – including Charles’ comments on the state of the Church of England.

Adopted for Life — free audiobook

This month’s free audiobook from ChristianAudio is Adopted for Life, by Russell Moore at the Southern Baptist Seminary.

Free during February 2011.

A Descent into Irrelevance

“The documents posted at the close of the recent Primates’ Meeting in Dublin tell the story. The takeover of the Instruments of Communion by ECUSA, aided and abetted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, is now complete. …

Look at how the remaining primates now view themselves and their function. Their statement of purpose could as well have been written by the Presiding Bishop’s staff at 815 Second Avenue:

We endeavour to accomplish our work through:
* prayer
* fellowship
* study and reflection
* caring for one another as Primates and offering mutual support
* taking counsel with one another and with the Archbishop of Canterbury
* relationship building at regular meetings
* being spiritually aware
* being collegial
* being consultative
* acknowledging diversity and giving space for difference
* being open to the prophetic Spirit
* exercising authority in a way that emerges from consensus?building and mutual discernment leading to persuasive wisdom…”

– A S Haley, “the Anglican Curmudgeon”, responds to the Dublin Primates’ meeting.

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