Primate of Nigeria’s Easter message
“As we celebrate perhaps the most significant event in the Christian calendar, we remember the recent travails of Nigeria in the hands of a faceless yet well-coordinated mafia spreading terror, death and destruction in the land. …
we can only pray for Nigeria and Nigerians that the victory of Easter will usher in permanent peace and victory over these visible and invisible hawkers of death and destruction in the country.…”
– Read Archbishop Nicholas Okoh’s Easter message at the Church of Nigeria website.
The Archbishop we don’t need (but will probably get)
“Central to the role of the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be his views on human sexuality, not because that is the most important thing about Christian theology (though it is quite important), but because the agenda of our society will make it so…”
– John Richardson calls for an Archbishop of Canterbury who will ‘uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and … banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions’. At the Ugley Vicar.
FCA Leadership Conference to be held in London next month
GAFCON / FCA Media Release
Anglican leaders gather to work towards visionary future
More than 200 delegates from 30 Provinces of the Anglican Communion will gather in London in April to build on the work of the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem and in the words of the organisers to ‘help turn the present crisis moment into a visionary future’. Read more
Archbishop Peter Jensen’s Statement on the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury
March 19th, 2012
Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney – Media Statement
Statement on the resignation of Dr Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury
“The Archbishop of Canterbury is universally admired for his intellectual stature and his personal warmth. In his time as Archbishop, the Anglican Communion has been subjected to unprecedented stresses which have hastened an inevitable tendency to regional independence and decentralisation. With the majority of Anglicans now from theologically conservative churches of the Global South, the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the future will demand a deepening appreciation of their place in the Communion.
Dr Peter F Jensen,
Archbishop of Sydney.”
Church of Nigeria on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to resign
PRESS STATEMENT — CHURCH OF NIGERIA REACTS TO ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY’S RESIGNATION
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd and Rt. Hon. Dr. Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002 when it was a happy family. Unfortunately, he is leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness, evangelism and mission all around the Anglican world. Read more
Reform on Rowan Williams’ announced departure
From Reform:
Rev’d Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform, the 1,700-strong network of conservative evangelicals within the Church of England, said:
“Many people will have appreciated Rowan’s great courtesy in dealing with people of different views within both the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. But his departure opens up the potential for a new leader to heal the deep divisions within the Anglican Communion. What is needed is someone who will hold firm to biblical truth in areas such as human sexuality in order to promote the gospel and unite the church in the face of militant secularism.”
Canterbury not the future?
In his weekly video message, Canon Phil Ashey of the American Anglican Council, reflects on the legacy of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. He argues that GAFCON, with a clear focus on the Lord Jesus, is the way of the future for Bible-believing Anglicans.
Rowan Williams to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury in December
A press release from the Anglican Communion News Service:
“Archbishop of Canterbury to be Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge
Archbishop Rowan Williams has today announced his acceptance of the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge with effect from January 2013. He will therefore be stepping down from the office of Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of December 2012. Read more
New Hampshire names nominees for bishop
“The Diocese of New Hampshire’s Bishop Search and Nomination Committee March 15 announced a three-nominee slate for a bishop coadjutor to succeed Bishop V. Gene Robinson… Robinson announced in November 2010 that he would retire in January 2013.”
– Report from the Episcopal News Service.
Archbishop Duncan gives thanks for Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti
Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America, Robert Duncan writes to his province:
“Bishop Robinson was a champion of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
“Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti was among the great friends and steadfast heroes of the Anglican Church in North America. He and his wife, Miriam, are mourned by all of us in this Province. Our prayers and love are extended to the clergy and people of Recife, and to all friends and family, not least because of the tragic circumstances of their murder.
Bishop Robinson was a champion of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. He led his diocese to stand against the theological revisionism that plagued his Province and he stood with all of us in the parallel battles in North America and in global Anglicanism. Internationally, he was among the band of courageous bishops and archbishops who adopted North American congregations during our days of trial.
I personally have the warmest of memories of Robinson Cavalcanti throughout all of my years as bishop. Moreover, since the founding of our Province, he was often a guest at meetings of our Provincial Council and College of Bishops, most recently in September.
We thank God for the lives of these faithful servants. We entrust them to the merciful keeping of our Lord and Savior in whose Resurrection ‘death is swallowed up in victory.’ Robinson’s words to us at this moment would be one with the Apostle Paul’s in I Corinthians 15, not least in the exhortation at the end: ‘Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.’”
– via the ACNA website.
Tragic news from Brazil
“The Diocese of Recife reports that Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti and his wife were murdered in their home in Olinda in Northeastern Brazil [on Sunday] night. The bishop’s adopted son is alleged to have knifed his parents following a quarrel…”
– Report by George Conger.
• Announcement via Anglican Mainstream.
• Diocese of Recife website (mostly in Portuguese).
New Abp of the Province of Southeast Asia
“Bishop of the Diocese of Kuching the Most Reverend Datuk Bolly Lapok was officially installed as the fourth Archbishop of the Province of the Anglican Church in South East Asia at an elaborate ceremony in St Thomas’ Cathedral [in Kuching]… Bolly, who is the first Sarawakian ever to hold the post, succeeds Bishop of Singapore the Most Reverend Dr John Chew…”
– Report from Global South Anglican.
Will General Convention be able to approve same-sex blessings?
“At its meeting last October, the General Convention’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music agreed to present at the 2012 session of General Convention a resolution to authorize the trial use, over a three-year period, of a rite for the blessing in a church ceremony of same-gender relationships…
In contrast to those locally approved rites, what is now being proposed is a church-wide standard rite that would have the imprimatur of General Convention itself.”
– The Anglican Curmudgeon, A S Haley, wonders if the TEC General Convention will ignore its own Constitution – again.
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Holocaust Memorial Day Message
See the Archbishop’s message here – or read the text.
Church leaders in Wales attack presumed organ donation consent
“Church leaders in Wales have criticised ‘ill-judged’ proposals to introduce presumed consent rules on organ donation. …
They said the principles outlined in their document ‘seek to preserve the dignity and autonomy of every person whilst creating a proper framework in which the gift of human organs after death is precisely that – an act of solidarity, generosity and love.’…
Under the Welsh government proposal, everyone in Wales would automatically become a donor unless they opted out. … The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, has already called for the legislation to be scrapped.”
– Report from BBC News Wales.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…