Presiding Bishop appeals for unity
Posted on October 5, 2008
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In the face of more dioceses, parishes and individuals leaving The Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori has gone on camera to appeal for unity.
Speaking from Savannah, Georgia, she said that if people are led away by their leaders (even bishops!), the TEC will ‘leave the porch light on’ – and that there is ‘room for all’.
She also said “it’s time to get the gay issue behind us”.
Watch the 5 minute 37 second video on the Episcopal Church home page.
Pittsburgh vote tonight
Posted on October 4, 2008
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The 143rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh will convene tonight, Sydney time, to vote on resolutions to realign the Diocese out of the Episcopal Church and into the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The Coalition for Realignment plans to post live results on their website.
Doubtless, the delegates would be grateful for your prayers as they meet.
Why Anglican? – Phillip Jensen
Posted on October 4, 2008
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It is a strange phenomenon when your friends and enemies agree about you. But Sydney Anglicans enjoy this peculiarity. Neither friends nor enemies think we believe in Anglicanism. …
Anglican Christians have never believed in the sociological Anglicanism. We have always been Confessional Anglicans. We are Anglicans because we profess the Anglican beliefs of the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion. These include the great creeds of the ancient worldwide church (the Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds). …
– Phillip Jensen, Dean of Sydney, writes in this weekend’s Cathedral newsletter.
An idea for your church?
Posted on October 4, 2008
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Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology read by 800 members of one church.
Hunter Street Baptist Church in Hoover, Alabama is the largest Baptist church in its state, averaging 4,500 attendees each weekend. Six years ago pastor Buddy Gray started a theology reading group with nine other men and chose Dr. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology as their beginning text. …
– Story from Koinonia.
Repentance and the Church of England
Posted on October 3, 2008
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Lee Gatiss, co-ordinator of Reform London, spoke at a joint Reform London – London Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship meeting on Wednesday:
I’ve been preaching on Hebrews for the last month or so, and it’s struck me how penetrating some of the application of this book is for us today in the Church of England.
So a few weeks ago we looked on a Sunday morning at the great warning in chapter 2 verse 1 that “we must pay more careful attention to what we have heard (from Christ) lest we drift away from it.” For if we do drift, we will not escape God’s judgment. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?…
God spoke on all the issues we’ll be discussing tonight, everything facing the Church of England, but we didn’t listen. And so the deceitfulness of sin has led us further and further away from the living God.
That probably means that it won’t be long before simple superstition takes over in the upper echelons on our Church. Anglican bishops will be going on pilgrimages to Lourdes and praying to Mary or something daft like that next.”
– Read the full talk at Reform London.
Statements by the Presiding Bishop and other TEC Leaders on Christian Theology
Posted on October 3, 2008
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Peter Frank, Director of Communications of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, has assembled chilling quotes from TEC leaders – read the PDF file (direct link) at the Coalition for Realignment’s website.
While many of these quotes have been previously circulated, it’s yet another reminder that one can never assume the gospel, but that in every generation there is a need “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
(Photo: Episcopal News Service.)
Williams hails apparitions at Lourdes
Posted on October 3, 2008
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has become the first Primate of the Church of England to accept visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes as historical fact.
In a homily at an international Mass in Lourdes on the Feast of Our Lady of Walsingham last week, Dr Williams implied that he believed 18 visions of Our Lady experienced by St Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 were true…
– The Catholic Herald reports.
Pittsburgh final communiqué before vote
Posted on October 2, 2008
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Pittsburgh’s Coalition for Realignment has issued a final pre-convention communiqué with 4 reasons to give a resounding YES to realignment at this Saturday’s vote.
It’s available here as a PDF file.
And the Diocese is organising a ‘Moving Forward in Mission’ Conference on November 7 and 8.
The Passions of the Marian Martyrs: Lessons for the Anglican Communion
Posted on October 2, 2008
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Evangelical Christians within the Western branches of the Anglican Communion face continual hostility because of their commitment to Jesus Christ and the biblical gospel, as is increasingly apparent with every year that passes.
To become a gospel minister within the Anglican churches of Britain and North America now requires a willingness to face a lifetime of bullying and scorn, not least from neighbouring clergy and the episcopal bench. We cease to be surprised at scandalous tales of harassment of the godly by power-thirsty bishops. Ministers have their licences revoked, their church buildings confiscated, their stipends stopped, their families expelled from their rectories, simply because they insist on obeying God before men.
The persecution of the saints by those in positions of ecclesiastical power has become an established part of life within the Anglican Communion in the West. Yet we have been here before. …
– Dr. Andrew Atherstone, Tutor in History & Doctrine and Latimer Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, wrote this article (direct link to PDF file) for Churchman in 2006. Sobering reading.
Thanks to Church Society. (Photo: Wycliffe Hall.)
GAFCON Primates’ Council on the ‘deposition’ of Bishop Duncan
Posted on October 1, 2008
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This statement has just been released –
Statement by the Primates’ Council of GAFCON on the alleged deposition of the Bishop of Pittsburgh.
The fact, timing and manner of the action taken by the American House of Bishops toward Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh has filled us with dismay. He is a Bishop in good standing in the Anglican Communion, and is guilty only of guarding his people from false teaching and corrupt behaviour as he promised to do. Once more the upholders of the orthodox faith are made to suffer at the hands of those who have introduced new teachings.
However, the action has also had the effect of clarifying matters even further. It is now impossible to believe that the exhortations of the Lambeth Conference and the Windsor Continuation Group will be heeded. No Pastoral Forum has been established. We remain convinced that the faithful Anglicans of North America need to have their own Province recognised by the Communion as a whole. We are determined to stand with Bishop Duncan and those who, like him, have protested in the name of God against the unscriptural innovations which have caused such divisions amongst us.
In the absence of other substantive provision from the historic structures of the Communion, the Primates’ Council gives its full support to Archbishop Greg Venables in receiving Bishop Duncan as a Bishop in good standing in the Province of the Southern Cone.
1st October 2008
(Photo: Joy Gwaltney.)
Jensen on responding to Driscoll
Posted on October 1, 2008
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Recently Sydney has had the pleasure of hearing an American preacher, Pastor Mark Driscoll. In a two-week period he spoke in many venues, including the Cathedral.
In the Cathedral he twice addressed a packed gathering of Christian workers. His second address was a challenge to our evangelistic ministry of the gospel in this city. He lovingly told us of eighteen problems that he saw we had. It was an address that has caused some considerable discussion amongst Sydney’s evangelical community.
Since that address I have been approached by many people wanting my opinion on Mark Driscoll and in particular on his critique of Sydney’s evangelism.…
– Dean of Sydney, Phillip Jensen, writes in the Cathedral newsletter.
(Image: Anglican Media Sydney.)
‘Cult’s teachings deemed heretical’
Posted on September 30, 2008
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“The Presbyterian Church of Australia has declared heretical six principal teachings of a cult inside a Melbourne Presbyterian church, and ordered that the church’s findings against the cult be read at every Presbyterian congregation in Australia.
The declaration, to be released today, vindicates the church in its decade-long battle to expel the cult…”
– Story by Barney Zwartz in The Age.
Desiring God Conference files online
Posted on September 29, 2008
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The 2008 Desiring God Conference was held in Minneapolis over the weekend. Sinclair Ferguson, Bob Kauflin, Mark Driscoll and John Piper and others spoke.
Following their normal practice, the people at Desiring God have generously made the transcripts, audio and video files of the conference available.
John Piper’s talk on Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross is particularly helpful –
“There is a way to speak the gospel—a way of eloquence or cleverness or human wisdom—that nullifies the cross. I dread nullifying the cross, and therefore it is urgent that I know what this eloquence-cleverness-wisdom of words is, so I can avoid it.”
See all the files at Desiring God. (Note that each video file is approx. 200MB.)
Another church votes to join ANiC
Posted on September 29, 2008
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St. Aidan’s Anglican Church in Windsor, Ontario, Joins the Anglican Network in Canada.
“At a special vestry meeting held earlier today, St Aidan’s became the 19th ANiC parish and the 11th former Anglican Church of Canada parish to vote to join ANiC this year. The vote was:
- 109 In Favour
- 0 Against
- 0 Abstained. The vote was unanimous.”
– from the St. Aidan’s website. The ANiC has issued this press release.
The Problem of Heresy
Posted on September 28, 2008
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Next weekend the Diocese of Pittsburgh holds its special diocesan convention to consider separating from The Episcopal Church. The Rev. Christopher Klukas, Rector of a church in that diocese, has written a helpful analysis of what happens when heresy in a denomination is not challenged.
“But how did we get to this point? How did the Church become so corrupt? … The roots of our present problems go as far back as 150 – 200 years. The situation didn’t become acute, however, until the 1960s. It was at this time that Bishop James Pike published a book called ‘A Time for Christian Candor.’ In this work he openly denied such basic doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Virgin birth.”
Download the PDF document here, courtesy of Chris Klukas. (Photo of Bishop James Pike: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…