Fort Worth FAQs on ‘Fiduciary Duty’
“As we approach the time of decision concerning our continued affiliation with The Episcopal Church (TEC), one of the issues raised by those who desire to maintain affiliation with TEC concerns the legal question of the existence of ‘fiduciary’ relationships.
The issue seems to have been raised as a veiled threat against those who would vote to disaffiliate with TEC. Accordingly, it would be helpful for anyone who is concerned about this issue to understand what a fiduciary is and how fiduciary relationships are created in order to evaluate the credibility of the threat. …”
– The Diocese of Fort Worth provides guidance for its members in the light of statements in recent months from TEC Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (here’s one) and echoed by others.
Remodelling Hell
Is belief in hell disappearing? “Absolutely,” says Barnard College professor Alan Segal, author of Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion. Segal’s remark is found within a news story released by Religion News Service. …
– Al Mohler writes in his blog.
Worth thinking about: What are the implications of preaching to people who don’t believe God will judge? And how many professing Christians think this way?
Obama and McCain at Saddleback
“Today we’re going to be live-blogging the Saddleback Civil Forum, with presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain. The candidates will appear at the Lake Forest church this evening and give back-to-back, hourlong interviews with Pastor Rick Warren.
As our Maeve Reston reports today, the event will be an important preview of what’s to come in the three presidential debates, the first of which takes place next month at the University of Mississippi. This will be the first time since the general-election campaign kicked off that the candidates will share a stage together. …”
– This liveblog from the LA Times gives a feel for the Saddleback meeting. (As is usual in reading a live blog, start at the bottom.) The BBC has video excerpts.
If they build it, will He come?
Last Thursday, in Jerusalem’s Old City, around five hundred Jewish teenagers signed a declaration – to spend at least half an hour each week working towards building the Third Temple.
If they ever succeed, it’s going to be a day to remember. For Jews, it will be the trigger for the coming of the Messiah – who will descend from the Mount of Olives, break through the sealed Golden Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City, and redeem the people. …
– ABC Correspondent Ben Knight reports from Jerusalem. (Photo: ABC.)
TEC’s San Joaquin diocese: deadline passes
Bishop Jerry Lamb, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, said it is unlikely that there will be any action taken Aug. 15 at a meeting of the standing committee to depose clergy who failed to reply to a letter sent with an Aug. 5 deadline.
Bishop Lamb said it was within his canonical authority as the elected bishop of the Episcopal diocese to proceed to depose all clergy who did not respond affirmatively to the first of three options he outlined in a July 10 letter. But he said it was very unlikely that the standing committee would take any action toward that purpose at this time. He said a more likely prospect would be the issuance of another invitation leading to reconciliation. …
– Report from The Living Church. The letter sent to clergy is available here (direct link to PDF file).
Bishop Don Harvey reflects on Lambeth
My dear members of our ANiC family, For the past three weeks, I have been combing the Internet for news from Lambeth. And there has been no lack of it. The blogs and (especially UK) media have been full of information. Making sense of all that information, however, has been a challenge. This is my best effort to make sense of Lambeth from this side of the Atlantic.
One of the key benefits of this Lambeth conference was the opportunity it afforded Anglican leaders from throughout the world, including our own Primate, Archbishop Greg, to meet together in groups, as well as one-on-one, to discuss important matters. There have been many reports of positive “indaba” and Bible study group meetings.
There have also been reports of frustration. Frustration that Lambeth, by design, did not produce any further clarity on the crisis – no clear direction, no decisions. However, this was indeed by design and was cited by bishops who chose not to attend as one of the factors in their decision. Two Primates – one attending Lambeth, one not – spoke passionately and eloquently of the intransigent anti-Christian actions of the North American churches, actions that precipitated the crisis. I have great respect for both Archbishop Deng Bul (Sudan) and Archbishop Orombi (Uganda) for their courage in taking their stands when silence would have been far easier. …
– Read all of Bishop Harvey’s comments at the Anglican Network in Canada.
See also his Reflections on GAFCON.
(Photo: Bishop Don Harvey of the Anglican Network in Canada at St Mary of the Incarnation, Metchosin.)
The road from Lambeth
The recently-concluded Lambeth Conference provided an opportunity for bishops from around the Anglican communion to discover the deeper realities of the contexts in which each seeks to spread the gospel. …
The Anglican communion’s present reality reflects a struggle to grow into a new level of maturity, like that of adult siblings in a much-conflicted family. …
– TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori writes this opinion piece in The Guardian.
Church considers £1.2m shortfall
A £1.2m deficit in the recent Lambeth Conference’s budget will be discussed on Monday by the committee that manages the Church of England’s assets.
A boycott of the conference by more than a quarter of bishops over the issue of homosexuality is thought to be partly responsible. …
– From the BBC. (The caption to the photo accompanying the article reads: “Homosexuality was the main topic discussed by bishops at the conference”. Not correct.)
Photo: Lambeth Conference media.
The Anglican Blog Song
American Anglican Paul Erlandson has composed The Anglican Blog Song and posted it on YouTube.
– A bit of light relief.
Canterbury answers critics
In response to the recent coverage of the correspondence dated back to 2000, The Archbishop Canterbury has made the following statement:
“In the light of recent reports based on private correspondence from eight years ago, I wish to make it plain that, as I have consistently said, I accept Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference as stating the position of the worldwide Anglican Communion on issues of sexual ethics and thus as providing the authoritative basis on which I as Archbishop speak on such questions. …”
– from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.
However see also the important Latimer Study: The Theology of Rowan Williams An outline, critique and consideration of its consequences – written by Dr Garry Williams of Oak Hill College in 2002.
(Photo: Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.)
Dr Williams has made a split inevitable
A split in the Anglican Church was inevitable, a leading conservative cleric said last night as he attacked Rowan Williams’s belief that gay relationships could be “comparable to marriage”. …
The Primate of the Southern Cone, Bishop Gregory Venables, predicted the end of the communion, saying: “This is more evidence of the unravelling of Anglicanism. Without a clearly agreed biblical foundation, all the goodwill in the world cannot stop the inevitable break-up. Unity without truth is disunity.” …
– Ruth Gledhill writes in The Times.
See also: Archbishop of Canterbury’s Correspondence on Homosexuality Reveals Deep Conflict – by David Virtue.
(Photo: Jim Rosenthal, Anglican World.)
What happened (and what didn’t) at Lambeth
This week SBTS President Al Mohler interviewed Canon George Conger, who has been reporting from Lambeth for The Church of England Newspaper.
The segment starts 11 minutes 20 seconds into the programme and is downloadable as an 8.7MB mp3 file (direct link).
China to Provide ESV-Chinese Bibles at Olympics
China will provide 10,000 free Chinese-English bilingual Bibles to be distributed in the Olympic Village where the Olympic athletes and media are housed, as reported by the China Daily newspaper. The bilingual Bible text will include the CUV (Chinese Union Version) and the ESV (English Standard Version), appearing in two side-by-side columns per page. The CUV Bible is the most widely distributed Chinese Bible in the world, and the ESV Bible has recently become the fastest growing English language Bible in the world. …
The Christian population of China is estimated by some to be about 7 percent, or 90 million, of China’s 1.3 billion people. …
– Press release from Crossway (hat tip Between Two Worlds).
Baptists call for action
Press release:
“The Baptist World Alliance has called on Baptists everywhere to strongly support government, corporate and community initiatives to address the causes of human-induced climate change.
A ‘season of gracious restraint?’ Not likely
The 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops ended with something more like a whimper than a bang. The once-a-decade meeting of bishops of the Anglican Communion was a matter of controversy long before it started. In an unprecedented move, over 200 conservative bishops boycotted the meeting and held their own gathering in Jerusalem a few weeks before the Lambeth conclave. The 650 bishops who did attend had faced one unavoidable question — will the Anglican Communion survive?
Anglicans — like most denominations — are no strangers to controversy. But the stresses and strains in the Anglican Communion have clearly reached the breaking point. …
– Al Mohler reflects on the outcome of Lambeth. (Photo: Together for the Gospel.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…