In a wide-ranging interview on ABC radio yesterday, the Bishop of Grafton Sarah McNeil, spoke of the recent diocesan synod held in Port Macquarie.
Bishop McNeil said members of the synod had discussed a number of political issues, including gay marriage, asylum seeker policy and climate change.
The bishop said the synod decided to assess the views of the congregation on gay marriage in the next 12 months, then to present this to the 2016 synod.
Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop has fought back tears while apologising for past church cover-ups and the poor handling of complaints about child sexual abuse.
Greg Thompson marked 500 days in the position by saying sorry for “the terrible harm done [by] a culture of not listening”.
“If you are a victim or a survivor of abuse I want to encourage you to come forward,” he said.
“I want to assure you that when you do share your story the church will believe you and you will be supported in that process.
Dr Freier wrote to Mr Abbott and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten because Parliament may soon consider amending the Marriage Act. Mr Shorten is bringing a bill to introduce same-sex marriage, and two other bills are also planned.
“Should changes to the Marriage Act be legislated, I urge on behalf of the Anglican Church that there be provision made for decisions of conscience.
“Ministers of religion recognised by a church or other religious body must have the right to refuse to solemnise a marriage if in doing so that would contravene his or her religious beliefs or the religious beliefs of the church or other religious body,” Dr Freier wrote.
The 4,130 square metre Brown Street property housed the city’s successive Anglican bishops until current bishop Greg Thompson chose to reside elsewhere.
The seven bedroom, four bathroom 1929 Bishopscourt is not heritage listed but parts of its grounds are.
Last year, the Anglican Synod gave the greenlight for the Newcastle sale to be considered. At the time Bishop Greg Thompson asked the Synod to consider “the economics of having this property, the suitability of it as the home of the Bishop and family, and the historic sentiment of previous bishops who lived within it.”
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Australia is clearly being asked to take a regional role in this ongoing crisis. What role should we take?
PHILIP FREIER: Well, I think there’s a couple of things we could do. One is to look at these countries where many people are wanting to leave for a manifest number of reasons and seek some of the long term solutions that might stabilise those.
But I think that plainly we need to do all we can in association with our regional neighbours in making sure that there are not people simply left starving on boats with nowhere to go.
So the breakthrough that we’ve had are people being able to come onshore, seems to be the initiative of some fishermen in Indonesia, seems very welcome.
3. What are you most looking forward to?
It’s a while off yet, but I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the opportunities for preaching and evangelism. I’m looking forward to meeting the Cathedral church family, getting to know them, the challenges they face and the opportunities they have in living for Jesus. I’m looking forward to meeting those already engaged in gospel work in the city and seeing how we can support one another in advancing the interests of the Lord in ”˜that great city’.
It is religious persecution on a horrific scale, involving massacres, bombings, slavery, beheadings and mass rape.
So why don’t our churches protest against this slaughter of their own?
Yes, Christians are now the prime target of unbelievably barbaric attacks in the Middle East and Africa, yet Australia’s bishops, ministers, priests, church “social justice” units and Christian aid groups ”” usually so vocal ”” are now near mute.
Investment in women’s services could double or even triple, but Australia would still require a major attitude shift in order to stem the increasing rate of domestic violence, say anti-domestic violence advocates.
Speaking at a forum hosted by Archbishop Philip Freier on 22 April, Paul Linossier, CEO of Our Watch, formerly the Foundation to Prevent Violence Against Women and their Children, said the community needed to tackle the two key drivers of domestic violence, gender inequality and cultural circumstances, for any lasting gains to be made.
“In a sense we’re all perpetrators because we’re transmitting from one generation to another this continuing position of inequality between men and women. We do that through a million interactions every day.”
He said even after his decades in the sector he has been guilty of it, recently realising that he had referred to fixing his fence and setting a new path down as “a blokey weekend”.
The management board of the debt-ridden Anglican Diocese of Bathurst in western New South Wales has admitted huge loans weren’t properly examined before being approved.
The Commonwealth Bank is suing the Anglican Diocese of Bathurst for outstanding debts of $40 million dating back to 2007.
The diocese is being sued in the Supreme Court in Sydney and is responsible for roughly a third of all Anglican parishes across the state ranging from Bathurst to Bourke.
The actions of three governing groups within the diocese are being examined about their roles in the massive debt.
Police in Australia say they have foiled an Islamic State-inspired plot to carry out an attack at a World War One centenary event.
Police arrested five teenage suspects, charging one 18-year-old with conspiring to commit a terrorist act.
The men were planning to target police at an Anzac memorial event in Melbourne next week, police said.
About 200 police officers took part in the counter-terrorism operation in the city early on Saturday.
South Australia’s first Aboriginal Anglican bishop says he plans to use his new role to focus on reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
Reverend Christopher McLeod, who is of Gurindji descent and whose mother was a member of the Stolen Generations, has been ordained as Assistant Bishop at St Peter’s Cathedral.
He has most recently served as the rector at St Jude’s Church at Brighton, and becomes the only Aboriginal bishop currently serving in Australia.
The appointment is considered a landmark for the church because Reverend McLeod is only the third Anglican bishop of Aboriginal descent in Australia’s history.
The NZ Bible Society has published a commemorative Defence Force New Testament to mark the centennial of WWI.
1500 of the newly minted New Testaments (with Proverbs and Psalms) will be gifted to the NZ Defence Force in an official ceremony next month.
Defence Force Chief, Lieutenant General Tim Keating, says in his foreword to the edition,
“This commemorative edition of the New Testament reminds us of this sacrifice made by New Zealanders 100 years ago, and of the book that brought so many of them peace and comfort as they fought.”
‘…Bishop Matthews wrote she had informed the chairman of the commission Bruce Gray QC and Archbishop Philip Richardson “I am aware that this matter in the Diocese of Christchurch is causing a high level of angst on all sides. I decided I would be unable to minister effectively in this Diocese and also have membership on the Way Forward Working Group as time progressed. My resignation was a matter of maintaining my integrity and is in no way a judgment on the work that the Way Forward Working Group is attempting to achieve for the next General Synod.”
The Anglican Church is quietly preparing for a hearing that could see the defrocking of one of its former bishops, five months after the royal commission recommended he face disciplinary action for ignoring complaints from sexual abuse victims.
Keith Slater, whose title remains the Right Reverend, was forced to resign as the Grafton Bishop in 2013 for the way he handled abuse claims from a group of 40 people.
They were men and women who had been sexually, physically and or psychologically abused at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore between the 1940s and the 1980s.
Through most of their history, Christian churches deÂmanded that converts forsake traditional religious ideas and “pagan practices,” and modern-day Pentecostals are especially strict in these matters. In recent times, though, Christian thinkers have struggled to rethink the relationship between the new faith and its ancient counterpart, seeking to root Christianity in the land and the Dreaming. The most quoted such work is Rainbow Spirit Theology, produced in 1997 by a multidenominational group of Aboriginal Christians from Queensland. The whole text is a heroic attempt to reconcile the Euro-American North with the Aboriginal South.
Aboriginal thinkers present their traditional faiths as a kind of Old Testament precursor to the Christian message, one of the many and various ways in which God spoke to our ancestors. The name “Rainbow Spirit” refers to the common myth of the serpent that acted as a creative force in the Dreamtime. Christians generally dismissed this story as a crude Creator myth, with uncomfortably satanic connotations. Actually, these traditional peoples respond, the RainÂbow Serpent is a critical symbol of life and fertility, more comparable to the Holy Spirit, whose actions transcend time. Moreover, indigenous peoples acknowledge Christ as one who takes their own form.
In 2020 Australia will celebrate a quarter millennium of European contact. That commemoration provides a wonderful opportunity for churches to proclaim a wholly transformed attitude toÂward indiÂgenous traditions. Call it a dream.
Watch the whole incredible thing. You may also read more about it there.
With the question “well, where’s the coffee?”, Anglican Bishop Ian Palmer and his wife Elizabeth made their first stop at St Barnabas Anglican Church on day three of their trek through the central west.
Twenty Orange East parishioners on the corner of McLachlan and Dora Streets gave a cheer and a clap as they spotted their leader make his way up Summer Street East at 10.15am on Tuesday.
They greeted him with morning tea and sent him on his way with a prayer.
Bishop Palmer is moving to Dubbo to take on the duties of parish priest while continuing his work as bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Bathurst.
History maker: #Djokovic becomes the 2nd man to win FIVE #ausopen titles (Emerson, 6), beating Murray 7-6 6-7 6-3 6-0 pic.twitter.com/EDzDoGrdx7
— Australian Open (@AustralianOpen) February 1, 2015
The ethics of becoming a parent and the ethics of being a parent seem to have a different character and different rules. For example, what counts as selflessness in the latter may be criticised as selfish in the former. Thus, on the model of the ethics of war, we may separate the ethics of parenthood into two phases, which might be parodied as jus ad parenthood and jus in parenthood.
The critique of parenthood as selfish relies on a strong distinction between becoming and being a parent, so that a parent’s own selfless dedication to their children cannot count in their favour. The charge is that the decision to become a parent is a selfish one because it effectively hijacks society’s sense of justice towards the needs of children once created to socialise the costs of a private and therefore necessarily self-interested lifestyle choice.
My concern in this article has been to reject the strong distinction between the ethics of becoming and the ethics of being a parent, and hence the claim that parenthood is selfish.
“In Australia, 2014 has not brought us the turmoil of a world war but we still saw many signs of our broken world, with the strains of discord, hatred and fear. We experienced the pain of loss and the frailty of life, especially young life, which hit us hard….”
“Even in the cradle of Christianity, we heard of persecution, destruction and the seeming triumph of evil.” he said.
The Archbishop referred to our crying out in prayer, amid grief and pain.
“At times like this we rush to prayer and we expect God will be listening. Our turning to God in prayer is only possible because of God’s own ‘Christmas truce’.” Dr Davies said.
Read it all and follow the link to watch or read the whole piece.
Hours after five hostages escaped from the Lindt cafe, one of the remaining women switched off the lights inside.
Premier Mike Baird has asked Sydneysiders to go about their day as usual on Tuesday
There is an exclusion zone near the cafe, bordered by Pitt, Elizabeth, Hunter and King Streets.
NSW Police have activated Task Force Pioneer, which they use in terrorism related incidents.
A coalition of Muslim groups has expressed their shock and horror at the siege. They have urged calm.
Sydneysiders have united under the hashtag #illridewithyou offering company to Muslims wearing religious garments as they travel in the city.
Read it all and there are loads of links to follow.
There is a lot of talk about the decline of the traditional family. Indeed, after remaining steady for more than a decade, the rate of marriage fell last year to a record low. Nevertheless, a new book argues that there remains something powerful about the institution and the role it plays in our lives.
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“For decades, we have heard that marriage is on the wane, in Australia and across the secular West,” sociologist Dr Genevieve Heard argues in the introduction to Family Formation in 21st Century Australia.
“It may be more accurate to claim that Australians are spending less time within the institution of marriage. This is because Australians are marrying later and are not necessarily remaining married for life … It is difficult to argue that marriage is on the wane when the institution remains the dominant partnership model for adult Australians.”
Church attendance is down, disaffection with organised religion is high because of sexual scandals, and the influence of religious leaders is waning, even when they speak of secular concerns, such as the rights of the poor and asylum seekers. And yet, are we seeing a rising dismay among secularists? That’s a question being put to a symposium this week at the University of Western Sydney. Dr David Burchell, co-convenor of the symposium, Secularism and its Discontents, explains.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found the Anglican Diocese of Grafton treated victims insensitively and conducted settlement negotiations in a hostile manner.
The commission’s public hearing was told about frequent sexual, psychological and physical abuse of nine former residents of the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore between 1940 and 1985.
Handing down its findings, the commission found the diocese denied responsibility for the sexual abuse, denied some victims financial compensation and conducted some settlement negotiations in a hostile manner.
Bishop Ken Short AO, former missionary, military chaplain, Dean of Sydney and Bishop of Wollongong, Parramatta and the Defence Forces, has died at the age of 87.
Bishop Short suffered a massive stroke last week and died on Sunday, 19th October.
Archbishop Glenn Davies, who visited him in hospital at the weekend, described Bishop Short as ‘a faithful pastor, a gracious leader, and an elder statesman of the Sydney Diocese’.
“He had international experience and was greatly respected around the world. He had a significant impact in all the ministries in which he was involved, whether in parish, chaplaincy, missionary service or diocesan leadership ” Dr Davies said.
Read it all and the funeral service from St Andrew’s Cathedral Sydney may be watched below:
A call to reflect, pray and take action on child poverty, from the bishops of the Anglican Church.
In a new booklet, they’re asking Anglicans to keep up the focus on child poverty, even with the election done and dusted.
Around 30 cities and counties internationally have made similar commitments, including Seattle, Dunedin, and Oxford. The announcement also comes hot on the heels of similar divestment commitments made by Local Government Super and the Anglican Diocese of Perth.
The decision affects millions of dollars in council investments – a May report showed the council had cash and investments of 36 million dollars. Moreland’s principal bank is the Commonwealth Bank, which like each of the ‘Big 4’ is a major lender to fossil fuel projects around the country, including controversial coal projects on the east coast.
The Muslim population in Australia has climbed nearly ___% percent since 2001 and numbers some ____.
Make sure to guess both the % number and the absolute number and then read it all and find the answer.
[Dean of Brisbane] Dr [Peter] Catt, the chair of the church social responsibilities committee, launched a stinging attack on the Government.
He said: “A business model that depends to a large extent on losses from problem gamblers and the subsequent harm to individuals and families is unethical.
“Even proceeding on the erroneous assumption that harm is in fact limited to a small percentage of the population, this approach effectively validates the great harm done to a few, for the mild pleasure, financial benefit and convenience of the majority.’’
Dr Catt said the Government policy was exposed as “deeply destructive” to both gamblers and their families.