The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey is available on the web in a variety of formats.
From the Summary:
An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.
One of the key findings is that:
More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion – or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.
Another of its findings is that Most Mainline Protestants Say Society Should Accept Homosexuality.
3 CommentsMembers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, two mainline Protestant denominations, are considering whether to allow the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians as members of their clergy. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that majorities of both denominations say that homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society. Among mainline Protestants overall, 56% say homosexuality should be accepted, compared with only about one-in-four evangelical Protestants and four-in-ten members of historically black Protestant churches.
First, several British churches, but not the Church of England, published a statement this week, in advance of the G20 conference meeting in London next week.
Churches challenge G20 leaders on real leadership:
Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Church leaders have challenged the G20 heads of government, meeting in London next week, to show real leadership and ensure that solutions to the current economic crisis lead to action on global warming. They want the G20 nations to grasp the opportunity for investment in new technology, which will save energy and reduce carbon output. In particular, they are urging the richer nations to agree generous support for developing countries, so they can afford the initiatives they need to take.
Second, in connection with the Put People First rally in central London for jobs, justice, climate, there will be a Church Service at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster on Saturday 28 March at 11 a.m. Speakers include Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.
Church Times blogger Dave Walker will be reporting on the day’s events.
Third, Archbishop Rowan Williams delivered the Ebor Lecture earlier this week in York Minster, on the subject: Renewing the Face of the Earth: Human Responsibility and the Environment. Full text and audio here. Press release here.
Dave Walker reported it as Religious communities “failing profoundly” in climate change response. and he has comprehensive links to secular press coverage of the lecture, which was extensive.
Jim Naughton criticised the archbishop in The Archbishop of Canterbury’s own shortcomings on climate change:
4 Comments…Until he states clearly that powerful people in his own Communion don’t believe human activity contributes to global warming, and that he appeases these people so that they won’t split the Communion over the issue of homosexuality, he has little credibility on this matter.
If one examines the funding sources of the organizations behind the attempted Anglican schism, and the funding sources of the organizations that deny human activity contributes to climate change, one finds that they are sometimes one and the same…
Inclusive Church is delighted to announce its next residential conference on Monday 5th – Wednesday 7th October 2009.
“Word on the Street – reading the Bible inclusively” will be a three day conference at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick, Derbyshire to help us see how Holy Scripture does indeed:
With Workshops, Bible studies, Worship, Plenary, Meals and Bar
The keynote speakers are:
The cost is £195. Students and those on low income £130. Residential ordinands and stipendiary curates £90.
For a flyer and booking form follow this link. Book early to avoid disappointment!
2 CommentsInclusive language is a contentious issue still. Inclusive Church and WATCH (Women and the Church) jointly organised a day conference on 9th Feb 2009. The speakers were
Links to their presentations and related materials can all be found here, or as follows:
Speak to us of liturgy – Lucy Winkett
Speak to us of prayers, by Steven Shakespeare
Elisabeth Baxter – Inclusive Language for a therapeutic church – handout (PDF)
June Boyce-Tillman – Hymns for today’s church – handout (PDF)
0 CommentsA press release from the Church of England announces the full list of names of those who will constitute the Revision Committee for the draft legislation enabling women to become bishops in the Church of England.
Press release: Women in the episcopate draft legislation: Revision Committee announced
We already knew the names of the members of the Steering Committee:
And we already knew the name of the Chair of the Revision Committee:
What is new is the names chosen by the Appointments Committee:
Updated again Thursday morning
Thursday morning update
Colorado Springs Gazette Judge orders Anglican parish to vacate Grace church by April 3
A judge on Wednesday ordered the Anglican parish that’s been meeting at Grace Church, 631 N. Tejon St., to vacate the building by April 3 at 5 p.m., setting the stage for the exiled Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal parish to hold its first service in the gothic church on Palm Sunday.
Judge Larry Schwartz also ordered the Anglican parish priest, Donald Armstrong, to vacate the rectory, where he lives on Electra Drive in the Skyline Way area, by May 8. This revised the original order issued on Tuesday, which stated that Armstrong would have to vacate by April 1.
——-
Earlier report:
The property dispute in the Diocese of Colorado over Grace and St Stephens parish property has been resolved in favour of the diocese. Many members of the congregation have affiliated with CANA.
The Colorado Springs Gazette reports it this way: Armstrong camp loses Tejon Street church report written through extensively and new headline is One group leaving Grace church, one moving in — but when?
From the earlier version:
According to a press release issued by the Rev. Alan Crippen II, a member of the breakway group, Judge Larry Schwartz issued a 28-page ruling that concluded , among other things: “The Diocese over most of its 135 years existence demonstrates a unity of purpose on the part of the parish and general church. … The trust created through past genereations of members of Grace Church and St. Stephen’s prohibits the departing parish members from taking the property with them.”
Crippen said the group is considering an appeal, but is already preparing to move from the historic property.
“We will meet at a new location,” he said in an interview.
Because of the ruling, the congregation’s leader, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, is also losing his rectory, and the church loses its name because it’s so similar to the Episcopal congregation, Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal.
Martin Nussbaum, attorney for the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, expects the move to go quickly.
“We will be in possession of the property no later than next Wednesday,” he said.
The press release from the Diocese of Colorado is available here as a PDF. The content as a web page can be found here at Episcopal Café:
The Bishop and Diocese of Colorado, and the more than 500 members of Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church rejoice today that the members of the Episcopal parish will be returning to their church home as a result of a decision issued by District Court Judge Larry Schwartz. In that ruling, Judge Schwartz found that the historic property is held in trust for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church and ordered the breakaway congregation that wrongfully took possession of the property two years ago to leave…
There is also a press release from the continuing parish.
The full text of the judgement is on the website of the continuing Episcopal parish as a PDF file.
The website of the CANA-affiliated congregation has its press release here as a PDF file:
“For two years we have been praying for justice in this case, and the Court has now ruled. Judge Schwartz is a fair and honorable man and we appreciate his own sacrifice and considered effort in hearing our case. Our congregation will take some time to review his ruling with our attorneys before we make a formal response.
There is much yet to be settled even with this significant ruling now issued,” said Father Donald Armstrong, rector of Grace Church & St. Stephen’s.
“As to the future of our congregation, it’s the people and not the building that is at the heart of our life in Christ,” Armstrong said. “This decision is one major step out of the ambiguity in which we have lived these past two years and will allow us to more readily refocus on gospel work and service. At the very least this is an occasion for renewal and recommitment to the essential things of gospel work. Our Plan B is well-developed, exciting, and will be announced shortly.”
and:
31 Comments“This is a new beginning for Grace Church & St. Stephen’s in its partnership with CANA,” said the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).
“Grace Church has a glorious heritage and an exciting future ahead of it. Although this decision is disappointing, the congregation and its leadership in Don Armstrong are strong in their commitment to gospel work and the renewal of Anglicanism in Colorado Springs and beyond. I fully expect that its members will quickly recover
from the sad loss of their historic place of worship. Knowing the people of Grace Church and their buoyant optimism, I anticipate that the parish’s best days are yet ahead.”
Two documents are available from the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The bishops have published a response to the letter issued in February by the meeting of Anglican primates in Alexandria.
College of Bishops Respond to Anglican Primates’ Letter of February 2009 is available as a PDF file.
The Faith and Order Board has responded to the St Andrews Draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant.
A Response from the Faith and Order Board of the Scottish Episcopal Church is also available as a PDF file.
20 CommentsComment is free has an article No change in attitudes by Davis Mac-Iyalla.
CANA and ACNA both have press releases about the Nigerian response to the latter:
The matter is also referred to in this report from the Living Church ACNA Expects at Least Five Inaugural Dioceses.
There is no mention on either of these websites of the support given by the Church of Nigeria (and other Christian churches) to the proposed Nigerian Same Gender Marriage (Prohibition) Act. Do CANA and ACNA support the Church of Nigeria’s position?
The story is attracting comment from secular sources in Africa, see for example:
Lagos Guardian Homosexuality and the lawmakers
afrik.com What has Africa done to organised religion to deserve this…
IHEU Leo Igwe condemns Anglican Archbishop’s homophobic outburst
11 CommentsThe Standing Committee meeting on which previous reports have been made, has yielded a further document Standing Committee Meeting:Pastoral Letter signed by Archbishop Peter Akinola. It concludes:
45 CommentsWe are especially concerned about those who are using large sums of money to lure our youth to see homosexuality and lesbianism as normative. We must consistently and faithfully teach about God’s commands on this ungodly practice and help those with such orientation to seek deliverance and pastoral counsel.
It was also our great delight to welcome to our meeting, the Rt. Rev Bob Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh in the USA, and Moderator of the Common Cause Partnership which is a fellowship of about 11 Anglican groups that are determined to maintain the Biblical and historic convictions of our faith, including CANA (also represented at this meeting by our own Bishop Martyn Minns). We have declared ourselves to be in full communion with the emerging province of the Anglican Church of North America, praying that they will remain solidly rooted in the foundations of our faith.
We have expressed our grave concerns over the relentless aggression against Christians in the North of Nigeria and have again drawn the attention of our governments to this unhappy scenario. We are calling for a national conference of all stakeholders to deal with the issue of religious intolerance and guarantee a peaceful and just future for our beloved country. We especially call on our members in the National Assembly to keep alert to this threat to our corporate existence. Most of all we call on our churches to pray earnestly about the future of our nation.
Christian peacemakers must play a major role in healing Northern Ireland’s pain, says Roy Searle in the Guardian’s Face to Faith column.
Morals: the one thing markets don’t make said Jonathan Sacks yesterday in The Times.
Roderick Strange writes in The Times today about Embracing the precious gifts of our Lenten practice.
At Total Politics Andrew Hawkins reports on a survey to answer the question, Is the Church of England still the Tory Party at prayer?
Tony Blair wrote an article for the New Statesman on Why we must all do God, and Andrew Brown wrote a critique of this at Comment is free titled Doing God – the vague way.
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times that Humankind needs limits for reality.
The Church Times has a leader headed God as father and mother.
6 CommentsFor all of its beauty and joy, this world is founded on pain and loss. Darwin is not a challenge to Christian belief because he shows how species arise over time (rather than being created at one fixed point) but because he makes it impossible to imagine a time before death and pain entered the world. They have been the constant companions of creation, in all their nastiest forms. Even creationists cannot believe that Adam brought death into the world.
Whatever the theological problems this raises, the solution does not include running away. The Israelites in the desert tried that, and died. The cure they were offered was staring at the very thing they feared. They were to stare hard at the serpent death which terrified them so, according to Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Rabbi Phyllis Berman in Red Cow, Red Blood, Red Dye: Staring Death & Life in the Face.
For Christians this becomes even more poignant. For us it is Christ who becomes the serpent on a pole. Looking at him, we see what horrifies us; agonising suffering and bloody death. It is easy, with practise, to become complacent about it, seeing new life springing from this agony. We do not serve our God well by doing so.
The serpent in the wilderness was offered to allow the people of God to face their terrors. They looked into the pit of the image of death. Christ offers us the image of our worst imaginings, and of all the suffering of nature. Every meadow pipit pushed out by the baby cuckoo, every caterpillar split open by the parasitic wasp who has eaten though it, each is summoned up in the image of the creator of them dragging out a slow death from suffocation. Lifted up so, he draws all to him.
Somewhere in this, I feel, lies something of a solution. It is far from an intellectually satisfying solution. Yet it is played out again and again. Suffering can demean and destroy, and yet on occasion individuals can transcend themselves through it. These last months have seen the suffering of the Cameron family and of Jade Goody. The circumstances are totally different, yet, yet… The extraordinarily moving exchange in the Commons between two bereaved fathers, both knowing the constant anxiety of having a child with a life-limiting disease was a moment of reality in the too-often artificial rhetoric of that cold institution. Jade Goody’s decision not to hide her slow descent to death has opened up conversations about facing death over the whole country.
I am not speaking of the general need to address urgent problems, true as it is that we must. There are many issues on which we are out of time, and running faster will not serve us. Unpleasant truths about the thoughts of those who are our co-religionists. Painful realisations about the financial state of many of our congregations. Nasty facts about the age structure of those congregations, and just why they are so structured. Not to mention the now fast-ticking bomb of ecological disaster.
All this is true and urgent, but it is only a weak reflection of the story of the bronze serpent and the man on the cross. That promise is about facing the terror of pain and death in the word, and being blessed in the facing of it. That story underlies all the other terrors we need to deal with, and if we do not face it, we cannot face them. We need to turn and face that serpent because only by looking steadily on its face can we hope to gain healing for our other ills.
16 CommentsUpdated Saturday evening
This press release comes from the Church of England:
Lambeth Conference: funding
The Lambeth Conference Funding Review Group has published its report. The review was commissioned last August by the Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners, and the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England following an approach from the Lambeth Conference Company* for financial help.
The Review Group, chaired by John Ormerod, a former partner of accountancy firm Deloitte, makes a number of recommendations to be acted on by the Lambeth Conference Company and the Anglican Communion Office.
The Board of Governors of the Church Commissioners and the Archbishops’ Council each agreed, last August, to make available to the Lambeth Conference Company up to £600,000 as required to enable the Company to honour its commitments while fundraising efforts continued. Both bodies regarded these amounts as interest free loan facilities. Of the £388,000 actually borrowed by the Company, £124,000 has now been repaid, leaving £132,000 owing to each organisation as fundraising continues.
By the end of 2008, the review reports, the projected deficit had reduced from an estimate of over £1 million in August 2008 to £288,000, in part as a result of further fundraising efforts and in part due to actual costs proving lower than had been cautiously projected earlier in the year. The total cost of the event was £5.2million, as against the budget of £6.1million.
*The Lambeth Conference Company is the body given responsibility for managing the finances and administration of the Lambeth Conference 2008.
The main report is available as a .doc file.
Update Now also available as a PDF file.
Appendices are available as a PDF file.
From the Notes to editors:
9 CommentsThe review group’s members were: (chair) John Ormerod, a former partner of accountancy firm Deloitte; the Rt Revd Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester and member of the Archbishops’ Council; Dr Christina Baxter, principal of St John’s theological college, Nottingham and also an Archbishops’ Council member; and Timothy Walker, Third Church Estates Commissioner. The group had staff support from two people provided via the office of the Church Commissioners.
There has already been generous support from the Church of England for the Lambeth Conference. Parishes and dioceses have made donations towards the costs of overseas bishops attending and the Church Commissioners have met the fees of the English bishops and their wives attending the Lambeth Conference, the costs of some of the conference organising staff, and some of the hospitality offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The United States government has announced it will support the UN resolution concerning decriminalisation of homosexuality.
This is a resolution that the Vatican did not support, but about which it did say:
“The Holy See appreciates the attempts made in [the declaration] to condemn all forms of violence against homosexual persons as well as urge states to take necessary measures to put an end to all criminal penalties against them.”
Savitri Hensman has written at Comment is free that Nigeria’s attack on human rights has no virtue. She writes:
5 Comments…Yet several church leaders have spoken in favour of the bill, including Rev Patrick Alumake, who claims to represent the Roman Catholic Church, though his stance appears to defy Vatican policy. While hardly gay-friendly, this opposes criminalisation. It will be revealing to see how Rome reacts.
Another champion of the bill has been Archbishop Peter Akinola, though the international Anglican Communion, to which his church belongs, has repeatedly called for human rights for all, including homosexuals.
In a statement supporting the bill, Archbishop Akinola starts with his own (contested) interpretation of the Bible, and warns, “Any society or nation that approves same sex union as an acceptable life style is in an advanced stage of corruption/moral decay. This bill therefore seeks to shield Nigeria from the complete annihilation that will follow the wrath of God should this practice be accepted as normal in this land.” He goes on to make further extraordinary claims: “Part of the purpose of God is to ensure that human existence is sustained through procreation. God blessed them ie Adam and Eve and told them, multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1: 28). Same sex marriage is a violation of this divine injunction and will only endanger human existence.” The fact that these dire predictions have not come to pass elsewhere in the world does not deter him.
Despite the major historical contribution made by Africans (including Nigerians) in winning recognition for and defending human rights, he is dismissive of these: “We must take note of the various stages of pernicious western influence in our nation and continent … The present clamour for unrestricted human rights especially in relation to same sex union is yet another ploy to unleash more mayhem on this nation.”
The Archbishop’s portrayal of the threat posed by gays and lesbians would appear to justify even the harshest measures: “Same sex marriage… is a perversion, a deviation and an aberration that is capable of engendering moral and social holocaust in this county. It is also capable of existincting (sic) mankind and as such should never be allowed to take root in Nigeria.” In this apocalyptic worldview, it can be too risky to love one’s neighbour as oneself…
The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) is much larger than you would suppose from its name and normal Western usage of that term:
The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the leadership of the Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria, met at All Souls Chapel and Oduduwa Hall at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, from March 10-14, 2009. The Standing Committee serves as the Executive Body of the Church of Nigeria between meetings of the General Synod. One hundred and fifty five bishops, one hundred and fifty clergy and one hundred and thirty nine laity were present…
The General Synod must be truly huge in scale.
See earlier item for the Primate’s Opening Remarks.
This body has issued a Communiqué which includes the following:
21 Comments5. RELIGIOUS CRISIS
For more than twenty years there has been an unrelenting religious crisis in Nigeria. The Christian Church has been the target of attack and has suffered irreparable losses in many parts of the North. At different times various reasons have been advanced: unemployment, poverty, politics and sectarian tensions. However, those who have perpetrated these destructive actions have never been brought to justice, operate with impunity and appear to be motivated by the conviction that if they persist they will be able to claim entire sections of Nigeria for their faith. We reject this claim.
We also view with grave concern the recent inflammatory statement by Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima calling for the total Islamization of Nigeria. This attitude threatens the very existence of our nation. Since this call violates specific Constitutional provision for the freedom of religion and his pubic oath to protect the Constitution we ask the leadership of the Senate to investigate as to whether Senator Yerima is qualified to continue to hold office.
We call for a national conference of all relevant stakeholders especially the National Assembly, Media practitioners, religious leaders and the guardians of our constitution to deal with these issues and plan for a peaceful and just future for Nigeria. We are convinced that unless urgent action is taken we may have no future for the next generation.
6. OUR ASSURANCE
As Anglican Christians we continue to be distressed by the spiritual crisis within our own family of faith in other parts of the world. Since 2003 the unilateral revisionist actions of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church Canada have torn the fabric of our common life. While the Church of Nigeria stands resolutely and uncompromisingly on the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the Lordship of Jesus Christ endless meetings and repeated communiqués have done nothing to bring restoration of our beloved communion. In this, however, and in all these matters our hope is not in our own efforts but in the Lord Himself. We can therefore boldly declare to our nation and to the world, “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
An earlier report on Anglican women at the UNCSW is here.
The links to some documents in that article are now broken, apologies.
Here are some new reports and documents:
UN Commission on the Status of Women Fifty-third session, 2– 13 March 2009
ACNS:
4 CommentsThe Church of England has announced today:
Church publishes inspection reports
The Church of England today publishes inspection reports on two of its ministerial training colleges.
The Church has a long track record of ensuring the quality of the initial training of its clergy by regular inspection of its training institutions. Theological colleges and part-time training courses are inspected every five years by teams of inspectors appointed by the bishops of the Church of England. Where training is delivered ecumenically, Church of England inspectors work in partnership with teams from the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Union.
In the past the reports have been confidential to bishops and church leaders, but from today inspection reports will appear on the Church of England website. Inspection reports on the institutions of partner churches will appear on their websites. At first there will only be a limited number of reports, because training institutions are only inspected every five years. Over the coming years a full set of reports will appear.
See Quality Assurance in Ministerial Education and The Quality Framework for Ordination Training.
The first two reports are available as PDF files from this page:
Wycliffe Hall has published this press release: Bishops’ Inspection 2008 and there is also this PDF file containing Wycliffe Bishop’s [sic] Response:
Statement by the Bishop of Liverpool (Chair of Council)
Bishop of Chester (Chair-designate of Council)
Bishop of Birmingham17 March 2009: We are grateful to the Inspectors for their work, and for the wide endorsement which they give to Wycliffe Hall and its work. We are pleased that the Inspectors have confidence in Wycliffe, and we note their qualifications. In particular we welcome their recognition that the difficulties of recent years in relation to staff relationships are now largely overcome.
We welcome the recommendations of the Inspectors, and the Council and staff will do their utmost to ensure that they are given very careful consideration, and are acted upon.
We regret that the Inspectors have judged it right to declare that they have no confidence in one area of the Hall’s life, in relation to aspects of Practical and Pastoral Theology. We doubt that the evidence which the Inspectors adduce merits such a stark assessment, but we will ensure that the recommendations which are made in relation to this area are given speedy and particular attention. We share the confidence that the Inspectors have that Wycliffe Hall is fit for purpose, and look forward to maintaining its high academic standards and formation of both men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England.
+ James Liverpool
+ Peter Cestr
+ David Birmingham
Several downloads are available here, which contain submissions made to the inspectors.
St Stephen’s House has also published a press release: Response to the Publication of the Inspection Report 2008
19 CommentsThe Diocese of Manchester reports: Bishop silenced by email failure:
1 million spams and a virus bring down Bishop of Manchester & Church of England email systems.
The central offices of the Diocese of Manchester were without email from 3-13 March (10 days) following a virus infecting its servers and an unprecedented amount of spam. The problems have also affected the Bishops of Manchester and other senior clergy in the diocese.
While some emails have now been restored, others are still not getting through, particularly to satellite offices.
Two weeks ago, following continuing concerns over missing e-mails and an unacceptably high occurrence of breaks in service, the diocese changed its IT provider.
The new IT technicians discovered a virus and tried to remove it. While doing so they found that it had severely corrupted systems. This has meant that, since 3 March, e-mails sent to the Diocese of Manchester central offices, its Archdeacons, and the Bishops of Bolton and Middleton have not been received, nor have they been able to send e-mails. E-mails sent via the Diocese of Manchester website have not been delivered either.
In addition, an audit of the 6000 pieces of communications sent by the Bishop of Manchester over the past ten months revealed that a significant amount of electronic mail, though sent by the Bishop, may have been deleted during sending or has simply not been delivered by the system. In addition, many emails sent to the Bishop may not have been received.
A spokesman for the Bishop said, “Given the nature and scale of the problem it is likely that the Bishop will never fully know which e-mails failed to arrive nor the number of emails that were sent by others to him but were never received by his office. If people have written or emailed the Bishop of Manchester during the past ten months and not received a reply, it is likely that a system failure is to blame.”
“The new IT providers have been given the brief of establishing, as an urgent priority, a cast iron IT system for Bishops, Archdeacons and our central administration. If an e-mail is sent to us and a reply or acknowledgement has not been received within three days, then individuals should follow-up the message with a phone call. As a policy, where possible, people should always request a receipt when sending e-mail to us.”
As the Manchester Evening News reports:
11 CommentsThe problem is particularly embarrassing because Mr McCulloch serves as the CoE’s communications spokesman.
Updated Tuesday evening
The Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, has expressed his opinions on this subject in a lecture, given recently at St Paul’s School of Theology in St Helier, Jersey.
(The Channel Islands are annexed to the Diocese of Winchester.)
You can read the full text of his lecture on the diocesan website, at Bishop Michael on the Future of the Church of England.
Here’s a teaser:
…I am now going to examine some of the specific questions, challenges, realities in the life of the Church of England today which, I think, may be causing people to ask the question that is the title of this Lecture – or at least to think that such a title is worth offering to me, and I to think it worth accepting! I could have arranged them in more than one order; the order that I have chosen is only sometimes that of the importance that I see them having, the level of threat that I see them posing!
Disestablishment
Secularisation of politics and public life
Women and the Episcopate
Same-sex sexual behaviour,
Decline from orthodox teaching
Division of the Anglican Communion
Islam
Ecumenical developments
Financial Pressures
Absorption in, distraction by, these!
Tuesday update
Andrew Brown has commented on this lecture at Cif Belief in Secularism threatens British Christianity, says bishop.
24 Comments… I remember debating this last question with him from one of the twin pulpits of St Mary le Bow, and how impressed I was by his utter imperviousness to arguments from educated secular opinion.
Now he has published a talk he gave recently on the threats to the continuation of the Church of England, and it’s clear that he thinks that educated secular opinion is one of the main hostile forces facing his church…
Terry Philpot wrote for the Guardian about the RC adoption societies, see Face to Faith.
Sara Maitland wrote in The Times about Why the Via Dolorosa can be a powerful experience.
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times about Grounding ideology in people. See New England – Kirsty MacColl at the Church Times blog for background material.
Alexandru Popescu wrote at Comment is free about An iconic power.
James W. Jones wrote in the Church Times last week about Churches talking past each other. Many in the C of E misunderstand the Episcopal Church in the US, he says.
Robert Pigott at the BBC has written another Faith Diary.
17 CommentsFurther excerpts from Meeting of the CON Standing Committee: PRIMATE’S OPENING REMARKS:
The Anglican Communion
Early last month at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates of the Anglican Communion had their meeting in an atmosphere of ‘peace and mutual respect’ for five days in Alexandria, Egypt. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the meeting was that the ‘status quo ante’ was maintained. That is to say that we remain as we have been since 2003 when the unilateral revisionist actions of TEC and Canada tore the fabric of our common life, in a state of impaired or broken sacramental communion. We have not been able to deal with the fundamental problems of our brokenness nor see through decisions taken at previous meetings of the Primates.
It seems to me the Communion is playing a game of ‘just keep talking’ until perhaps someone will blink or become weary and give up the struggle. Confident that we are on the LORD’s side contending for the faith once delivered to the saints, we can rest assured that: “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” On this vexatious issue, the Church of Nigeria will neither blink nor be weary.
On my return from Egypt, I issued a letter to the faithful titled ‘a wake up call’. I also sent an open letter to our chairman, Dr Rowan. In both, I made it clear that America is not thinking of backing off from its new religion. And the rest of us desiring to keep the unity and structures of the Communion by all means including losing our faith and churches risk the danger of becoming a church that has the appearance of being alive but in reality are no more than what Prof John Mbiti once described as the ‘living-dead.’
The Global South
The Primates and leadership of the Global South also met and decided to call the ‘fourth trumpet’ in the first quarter of 2010, perhaps in the UK. The last one was held in Ein Sukhnan, near the red sea, Egypt. Each of our Provinces will be represented by the Primate, a bishop, a senior priest, lay leaders comprising of a man, a woman and a youth.
GAFCON
GAFCON continues to wax stronger. Membership of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is growing in many parts of the world beyond our own imagination. Here at home, some of our senior lay leaders (Fellowship of Christian Patriots, FCP) organised a two-day celebration of the ideals of GAFCON with special lectures and service of praise and thanksgiving to God. We are deeply grateful to the Christian Patriots. I urge all our members to obtain copies of the lecture. The GAFCON Primate’s Council will meet in the UK after Easter. I ask for your prayers.
7 Comments