Will Canterbury follow Rochester?
“The February 2009 Primates’ Meeting was a fizz. The next ‘instrument of communion’ activity is the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in May in Jamaica. After that, nothing is in the diary. I understand that key Lambeth Palace staff have moved to other jobs.…”
– After the departure of Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Robert Tong wonders what’s next. At SydneyAnglicans.net.
Bishop Michael Nazir Ali — ‘Enough is Enough’
“Michael Nazir Ali, freed from the constraints of the English House of Bishops, could now emerge as a global Anglican leader. His resignation, far from signifying GAFCON’s demise, could be the prelude to a new level of global effectiveness…”
– Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
The Anglican credibility crunch
“Institutional complacency is still widespread in England where the momentum of the past is especially strong. Despite the additional strains that General Synod’s move towards the consecration of women as bishops has introduced, there is a tendency to think that on the whole the Anglican crisis is something which is being played out in Africa and on the other side of the Atlantic…” – Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
Lessons from Little Rock
On the 6th April 1998 TJ Johnston, an Episcopal priest and senior pastor of an unofficial church plant in Little Rock, Arkansas, became a missionary priest of the Province of Rwanda under the oversight of John K. Rucyahana, Bishop of Shyira. …
Though growing, the church was small and did not have much in the way of financial or social muscle, but this courageous stand set off a chain of events which was to lead to the formation of the Anglican Mission in America and create the precedent for other African jurisdictions which are now coming together in the emergent Province of the Anglican Church in North America with over 100,000 regular Sunday worshippers. …
– Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
Breaking up hard to do
“The Anglican Church of Canada has reached the point where its bureaucracy has outlived its compassion. There. I said it. And I can speak with at least some small authority, considering that I was once an Anglican myself, although my observations led to enough disillusionment to see my departure from the Anglican Church. …”
– Walker Morrow writes in The Citizen. h/t Anglican Essentials Canada blog. (Crest: Diocese of British Columbia.)
Investing in bookshops
“A personal theological library is a vital tool for anyone serious about serving the gospel. It is important to invest in good Christian books. But have you ever considered the importance of investing in good Christian bookshops? …”
– At the Sola Panel, Lionel Windsor exhorts Christians to think about where they buy their Christian books.
Suddenly it’s over for the Anglican Communion
“Like a dam that has been under pressure for some time, the Anglican Communion has, I believe, suddenly and irrevocably broken. They think its all over? It is now. …
In short, at the structural level in North America, the revisionist ‘Liberals’ have won. …
If the election of a Buddhism-practising bishop can be accepted without a whimper both within TEC and beyond, then clearly the end of the moratorium on consecrating those in active gay relationships cannot be far off.”
– John Richardson on the state of the Communion.
Sacred cows
“It is dangerous to shoot sacred cows. We all get upset, irrationally and emotionally when something we hold as precious is attacked. The more irrational our attachment the more anger is engendered when our favourite bovine is assailed. …”
– Phillip Jensen writes for the Cathedral newsletter.
The Anglican Covenant: A House on Sand
“As the March 9th deadline approaches for Provincial responses to the Covenant Design Group, an odd but telling paradox is emerging; in order to stabilise the Anglican Communion, it seems essential that the Covenant’s biblical foundations should be weak. …”
– Charles Raven at SPREAD writes on the proposed Anglican Covenant.
Responding to the fires
“Every morning I wake up and it’s okay—until, with a dull thud, it comes back to me: image after image of people who died in the fires; rows of army tents with homeless people staying in them; entire communities that have been wiped out; my friend whose parents lost their house; a family known to me who died in their car in their driveway; a 12-year-old girl, badly burned, whose parents and sister died.
How do we respond to a tragedy like this?…”
– Jean Williams in Melbourne writes at The Sola Panel. Will your church be observing the National Day of Mourning on Sunday?
‘As Darwin turns 200, Jefferts Schori the scientist reflects’
“Jefferts Schori’s supporters say her unique background has invigorated her church and brought fresh insights into age-old problems. …
Jefferts Schori said science informs everything from how she interprets the Bible to her views on homosexuality — two subjects that now embroil her church and the larger Anglican Communion.”
– Article from Episcopal Life Online. (Photo © 2009 Episcopal Life Online.)
Of Fire and Flu
My grandfather died of the flu. He was a man in his prime of life with a large family of young children. Within a few days he was dead.
Usually influenza is of greatest danger to young children or the elderly. However the so-called “Spanish flu” was notorious for its attack on healthy young adults.
Most Australians today have never heard of “the Spanish flu”. It was a great pandemic that spread across the world at the end of the First World War – killing more people than the war did. …
– The Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, writes for the St. Andrew’s Cathedral newsletter.
Is the liberal tide in the Church of England beginning to ebb?
In contrast to the bad natured meeting of July last year, this week’s General Synod of the Church of England has passed off not only peacefully, but also with a significant step forward for those who want to see the Church of England recover its confidence in the gospel. A motion by lay member Paul Eddy affirming the uniqueness of Christ was agreed with 283 votes in favour and only 8 against.
Its significance was not lost on journalist Ruth Gledhill of the London Times who was quick to claim, under the headline ‘Anglicans called on to convert non-Christian believers’, that ‘The established Church of England put decades of liberal-inspired political correctness behind it in a move that led one bishop to condemn in anger the “evangelistic rants”.’ …
– Charles Raven writes at Anglican SPREAD. (Photo: C of E website.)
Hospitals betray their history by banishing prayer
“The long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith seems to be getting louder: nurses cannot pray, the Creed cannot be recited at Christian services for fear of offending non-believers, Christian marriage counsellors are removed because they believe in Christian marriage and Christian adoption agencies cannot be publicly funded because they believe that children are best brought up in a family with a mother and father to look after them.
It seems certain that no other faith would be subjected to such strictures and, indeed, to the benign neglect to which the churches have become accustomed. A place for Christians in the public square must be reclaimed. …”
– Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali comments on the recent case in the UK where a nurse was suspended for offering to pray for a patient. In The Telegraph. (h/t Anglican Mainstream. Photo: Joy Gwaltney.)
Church Society General Secretary on the Primates’ meeting
Another meeting of Anglican Primates has come and gone, nothing of substance has been done or decided. The problem the Communion faces is not with one or two individuals such as Gene Robinson who unfairly has become the focus of our problems, but rather with false teaching. Those who teach that sexual immorality is acceptable are leading people to destruction. …
There was a brief time when combined outrage might have translated into action but Rowan Williams headed this off and now it seems that the body of Primates as a whole will not do anything. …
– David Phillips, General Secretary of Church Society, comments on the just-concluded meeting in Alexandria.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…