Archbishop Williams writes on Lambeth
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has sent an open letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion in advance of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, set for July 16 – August 4 at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.
“I indicated in earlier letters that the shape of the Conference will be different from what many have been used to.… At the heart of this will be the indaba groups … close to what Benedictine monks and Quaker Meetings seek to achieve as they listen quietly together to God …
The hope is that over the two weeks we spend together, these groups will build a level of trust that will help us break down the walls we have so often built against each other in the Communion. And in combination with the intensive prayer and fellowship of the smaller Bible study groups, all this will result, by God’s grace, in clearer vision and discernment of what needs to be done.”
– via the Episcopal News Service. (Photo credit: Jim Rosenthal, Anglican World.)
1,000 to attend GAFCON in Jerusalem
Over 1000 senior leaders from seventeen provinces in the Anglican Communion, representing 35 million church-going Anglicans, have registered for the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem at the close of the online registration process. They include 280 bishops, almost all accompanied by their wives. Final attendance figures will depend on smooth processing of requested visas, and other factors. …
– Read the full press release from GAFCON.
ESV Gospel of John free audio
The publishers of the English Standard Version of the Bible are selling audio versions of the entire Bible in MP3 format read by Max McLean – downloadable from their website.
Some will find it helpful, others may not (it’s not an Australian accent – and there’s background music), but you can find out by listening to samples or by downloading the free copy of John’s Gospel – from Good News & Crossway.
Ontario churches to meet elsewhere
Members of two Anglican churches are choosing not to worship in their buildings tomorrow in the wake of a court order that they share the facilities with the diocese they have left.
A Superior Court ruling on Monday required three breakaway churches to share the property Sunday mornings until ownership is decided…
– Report from The Hamilton Spectator.
See also St. George’s Lowville and St. Hilda’s Oakville. (Photo: Rev. Charlie Masters, St. George’s Lowville)
Warning for Christian polygamists
Nigeria’s Anglican leader has told the country’s many Christian polygamists to give up their extra wives.
In a letter to the faithful, Archbishop Peter Akinola warned the issue could “make a mockery” of the church. …
– Report from the BBC.
GAFCON: 267 bishops signed up so far
Organizers of the June Gafcon meeting in Jerusalem report that as of April 25, 267 bishops have registered for the June meeting in Jerusalem. …
Approximately 150 bishops and conferees from Muslim majority countries unable to travel freely to Israel along with the Gafcon leadership team will meet at a resort on the Dead Sea in Jordan from June 18-22, while a further 600 are expected to join the self-styled “pilgrimage” in Jerusalem from June 22-29. –
– Report by George Conger for the Church of England Newspaper.
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)
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.)
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
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…