Gerald Butt reports in the Church Times that Christians fear more violence after fatal bomb attack in Alexandria.
Bishop David Hamid reports on his blog the invitation from the Coptic community in the UK to join them on Sunday: Pray for Christians in Egypt this Sunday.
The Church Times has a leading article: Signs of hope after Christmas attacks.
So also does the Tablet: Martyrdom in the proper sense.
2 CommentsAlthough I linked earlier to this news story, I am doing so again, because the underlying article is now available to all readers.
Read the full article by Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of Kaduna If you disagree, at least be there.
2 CommentsDEAR brothers in Christ, — the Primates’ Meeting is one of the four instruments of unity within our Communion. Recommendations from the meetings carry weight and have an impact on the Communion. So we always look forward to your collective wisdom as the spokespersons of your provinces, and we uphold you in our prayers, that you may be led by the Holy Spirit.
Clearly our Communion has been going along a very difficult road since the Lambeth Conference of 1998. To put it bluntly, we are a traumatised family, though I would hasten to say that the Church has had worse crises, and survived every one of them. My conviction is that the Communion will also survive this present crisis, and emerge even stronger, and better positioned to make Christ known in a world that is becoming increasingly relativistic and pluralistic.
There have been reports that some of you are thinking seriously about not attending the Primates’ Meeting in January (News, 26 November). This is a very worrying situation, and, after waiting on the Lord, I have decided to make this open appeal to you all, to urge you to seek the face of the Lord before boycotting this next meeting…
The Economist carries an article on church property disputes, mainly with reference to the Diocese of New Westminster.
See Faith in courts.
3 CommentsAs the season of goodwill fades, an old problem returns: religious disputes that draw in secular courts
PULSES rarely race in Shaughnessy, a genteel, old-money district of Vancouver where mature cedars shield mansions with giant drawing-rooms. But the splendid Anglican church there, which draws worshippers from across the city, is the centre of a dispute that arises in many countries: how should judges rule in religious rows? Usually such quarrels involve worldly goods and rival claims to be the true believers. They quickly raise theological issues normally settled in church councils, not the courtroom…
Updated 9 & 11 January 2011: All the four documents linked below are now available on the new Church of England website, and I have updated the links accordingly.
As a result of the debate at the November 2010 General Synod on the Anglican Communion Covenant, the matter was referred to Diocesan Synods. The papers sent to dioceses and are available online. They include this paper outlining the process
Reference to Diocesan Synods (GS Misc 971)
and these background papers.
Transcript of debate on Anglican Covenant November 2010
Draft Act of Synod (GS 1809)
Faith and Order Commission: Briefing Paper (GS Misc 966)
Dioceses are required to respond by 5pm on Monday 30 April 2012, so the earliest that this matter can return to General Synod for a final decision on whether to adopt the covenant is July 2012.
5 CommentsUpdated 10 January 2011: links updated to refer to the new Church of England website.
I have recently published election results for General Synod officers and some committee members.
General Synod officers (including detailed voting figures)
General Synod committee elections (Appointments and Business Committees)
The Church of England website has now published these, and other election results, including all the detailed voting figures.
General Synod officers elected
Electoral Returns for Officers and Committees
The Secretary General, Canon Kenneth Kearon, writes:
The thoughts and prayers of many in the Anglican Communion are focused on Sudan at this time, as the people of Southern Sudan prepare for a referendum to decide their future. The referendum will take place on 9 January next, and all are invited to pray and to focus their concerns on that war-torn country at this time.
And the ACO has provided a page of background material.
Other useful pages:
Trinity Wall Street Sudan: Background on the Conflict by Rebecca Linder
Cif belief A momentous day for Sudan on 9 January by Graham Kings
Diocese of Salisbury Deadline for Sudan
Episcopal Church A Season of Prayer for Sudan
New York Times Peaceful Vote on Sudan Appears More Likely
1 CommentJonathan Wynne-Jones reports in the Sunday Telegraph that First Anglicans are received into the Roman Catholic Church in historic service.
Priests and worshippers from around 20 Church of England parishes converted to Catholicism on Saturday at a ceremony in Westminster Cathedral.
Three former bishops were among those confirmed at the service, which saw the first wave of Anglicans defecting to Rome to join the Ordinariate…
Further reports by Austen Ivereigh at America in The discreet beginnings of the Ordinariate and by Sean Finnegan in History Being Made at The Anglo-Catholic.
54 CommentsAdam Forrest has interviewed the Archbishop of Canterbury for The Big Issue in Scotland: This turbulent priest.
2 CommentsSome archbishops have published their Christmas sermons.
Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Wales
Archbishop of Dublin
Simon Barrow of Ekklesia has this response to the Canterbury sermon: Rowan and the rollicking rich.
Simon Barrow also writes about Christmas and the rebirth of ‘peasant Christianity’.
Jane Williams continues her series for Comment is free belief with The Book of Genesis, part 3: Creation – and afterwards “A dissonant note crept into God’s creation once man and woman arrived to put their mark on the world.”
This is what the Church Times had to say 100 years ago about the King James Version: The Bible tercentenary.
Adam S McHugh asks in The Washington Post: Are happy churchgoers good news?
Christopher Howse writes for The Telegraph about Trollope and the three policemen. “Anthony Trollope got into hot water when he crossed a real, live dean.”
Jessica Martin writes a Face to faith article for the Guardian: It speaks of the majesty of God that he dwells on earth with humanity in intimacy.
8 CommentsSimple Massing Priest has an article with this title, reporting what Michael Peers a former Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada said, back in 2000, well before the proposed Anglican Covenant was invented:
13 Comments[W]orldwide Anglicanism is a communion, not a church. The Anglican Church of Canada is a church. The Church in the Province of the West Indies is a church. The Episcopal Church of Sudan is a church. The Anglican Communion is a ‘koinonia’ of churches.
We have become that for many reasons, among which are the struggles of the sixteenth century and an intuition about the value of inculturation, rooted in the Incarnation, which has led us to locate final authority within local churches.
We are not a papal church and we are not a confessional church. We are autonomous churches held together in a fellowship of common faith dating from the creeds and councils, recognizing the presidency of a primus inter pares (the Archbishop of Canterbury), often struggling with inter-church and intra-church tension, but accepting that as the price of the liberty and autonomy that we cherish.
As I said to the members of the Council of General Synod last month, the price of this includes a certain measure of messiness.’ [Power in the Church: Prelates, Confessions, Anglicans The Arnold Lecture, December 6, 2000, Halifax, Nova Scotia]