The Archbishop of Canterbury offered his qualified personal endorsement to Gafcon today, telling the congregation of All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi his vision for the future of the Anglican Communion was of a Bible-based church dedicated to mission and evangelism ”“ goals shared by the Gafcon movement of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA).

While Archbishop Justin Welby stopped short of giving Gafcon his formal imprimatur, he conceded the existing instruments of communion were no longer fit for purpose in ordering the life of the Anglican world.

The archbishop also hinted the Communion may not be able to count upon the Church of England to hold the line on issues close to the heart of the Gafcon movement.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised energy companies for imposing huge price rises that will hammer struggling families.

Justin Welby said power giants had a ”˜massive’ moral duty beyond squeezing customers for maximum profit, and challenged the firms to justify their huge increases in bills.

The Archbishop, himself a former oil executive, said he understood the anger over apparently ”˜inexplicable’ rises and called on the companies ”˜to behave with generosity and not merely to maximise opportunity’.

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The ledgers of the country’s credit unions enjoyed a boost this week, as dioceses and bishops deposited money, backing up warm words.

In a personal letter that is being sent out to 8000 members of the clergy in mid-November, the Archbishop of Canterbury urges them to support their local credit union: “Our faith in Christ calls us to love the poor and vulnerable with our actions. That is why the Church must be actively involved in supporting the development of real lending alternatives, such as credit unions.”

More than 40 bishops are taking up the call immediately, and at least 11 of them planned to mark International Credit Union Day yesterday by opening accounts.

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It has long been a favourite among publicity-seeking celebrities wanting to post “selfies” online but now the Archbishop of Canterbury has joined the photo sharing site Instagram in his drive to spread the Christian message.

In a first for the Church of England, Justin Welby has joined the app’s 150 million users worldwide with an opening message urging churches and communities to support their local credit union.

His statement came as bishops across England and Scotland prepared to mark International Credit Union Day today.

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The Church of England is investigating the reasons for the dramatic spread of food banks, and will examine the impact of benefits cuts on their use.

The move emerged as David Cameron was questioned in the Commons over the soaring numbers of families requesting emergency help from the banks.

The Independent reported this week that food bank use had more than tripled over the last year. Shrinking pay packets, as well as the benefits squeeze and the rising cost of basic groceries, have been cited as reasons for the increase.

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The Church of England and ++Welby are culture bound. They formerly sent missionaries to the far corners of the earth. Much of the pushback against Canterbury is from lands Canterbury missioned through the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The prophetic voice for Anglicanism is from the Global South not Canterbury. It should be Canterbury speaking truth to power not cowering and renting her garments because she is ashamed of her guiding documents and Lord. Does accommodating the cultural change make the church more relevant; more genuine; more truthful; more liked? Does ++Justin Welby actually speak the mind of the WWAC any more than the former ABC ++Rowan Williams? His collaboration, while cloaked is progressivism not true reconciliation or repentance.

The bitter irony is that Canterbury in an attempt to be more relevant and responsive to her immediate culture has made herself less relevant to the Christian church in general and the WWAC in particular. Since when does taking the majority side make the church right or more liked? Does Canterbury even understand that lukewarm Christianity is no match for Islam which will ascend to power by demographics alone? England is in danger of having a new and less tolerant established religion.

The title of my article is “A Way Forward For Anglicanism”. It is different than two years ago. We are further down the road. There is more clarity. GAFCON II will be meeting in Kenya in October. I am hopeful.

Read it all and part two is there.

Using an overdraft at a high street bank can cost more than taking out a payday loan, research has shown.

Which?, the consumer group which conducted the study, said that the mainstream credit industry was in as much need of regulation as the much-criticised fringe players.

The research shows authorised overdrafts with a leading bank can be as costly as a payday loan with companies such as Wonga. For example, borrowing £100 for 31 days will cost £30 with a Halifax authorised overdraft or £20 with some Santander accounts.

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When the Archbishop of Canterbury was embarrassed by the revelation earlier this year that the Church had invested indirectly in Wonga ”“ after he had announced plans to take on the payday lender ”“ it served as a bleak reminder that even the best-intentioned investor can be let down by their so-called ethical investments.

If you are looking to put your spare cash to good use by investing “ethically”, be warned that you could face similar nasty surprises unless you keep a keen eye on the investment criteria. A close examination of the ethical fund sector shows investments in some unexpected areas. They include oil companies operating in tar sand fields, deemed harmful by some environmentalists; arms manufacturers; and businesses that have exposure to fur and animal testing.

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The Most Rev Justin Welby advised churchgoers that it could be an “enormously powerful” experience to unburden themselves to a confessor, even if it was not always a “bunch of laughs”.

His comments came as he addressed the heads of other churches ”“ including the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England Wales, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols ”“ about divisions between Christians.

Although Archbishop Welby comes from the evangelical wing of Anglicanism, his personal spiritual director is a Swiss Roman Catholic priest, Fr Nicolas Buttet, and he is a strong advocate of Catholic worship styles.

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After the news broke last week (on Anglican Ink) that Archbishop Welby was not going to Gafcon, a torrent of negative comments from the right and rejoicing from the left washed through the Anglican blogosphere. Others gave the archbishop the benefit of the doubt. And the vast majority paid it no mind at all.

On Anglican Unscripted I said that the excuse of having to baptize Prince George was the best get-out-of-a-social-obligation-free card I had ever heard. I gave the archbishop high praise for finding a way to finesse a sticky situation. And now we have this extraordinary volte face — and this pitiable explanation.

So, what is going on? Wheels within wheels? Or incompetence? From what I have been able to divine, Archbishop Welby is breaking free from the shackles of the Church of England’s bureaucracy. His predecessor, Rowan Williams, was Anglicanism’s Jimmy Carter (or for our English readers its Harold Wilson). The smartest man in the room — but clueless as to how to use his authority and office. Justin Welby started off well as archbishop, but has also fired some distress rockets that worry the Global South. While they like him and are encouraged by his sincere faith ”“ will the office overwhelm the man as it had Rowan Williams?

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Exactly one month after the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping centre in Nairobi (News, 27 September), 1200 people are expected to gather in the city to attend GAFCON II.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will preach at a eucharist at All Saints’ Cathedral in the Kenyan capital, the day before the conference opens there. He will not attend the conference, owing to “long-standing commitments”, a statement from Lambeth Palace said, but will record a video greeting.

The Archbishop will be the guest of the Primate of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala, who chairs the GAFCON Primates Council, from 19 to 20 October. The “flying visit” to Nairobi was “to be in close solidarity following the recent terrorist attack”.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury called for Christians in deep disagreement to choose ”˜to be gracious’.

Archbishop Justin was addressing Churches Together in England’s Annual National Church Leaders Meeting at Lambeth Palace on Monday evening, where he spoke on ”˜graciousness and respect in disagreement’.

Acknowledging the ”˜reality’ of divisions between Christians, Archbishop Justin said that ”˜genuine reconciliation’ was not ”˜agreement’ but ”˜learning to love one another in deep disagreement. . . The miracle of the church is not that we agree and love one another; it’s that we disagree and, despite that, we love one another.’

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Egyptian Government to do more to prevent mob attacks on the country’s Coptic Christian minority.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said the circumstances for Egypt’s Christian minority, which makes up about about 10 per cent of the nation’s population, were “life-threatening”.

More than 200 Christian-owned properties have been attacked and 43 churches seriously damaged across the country, according to an Amnesty International report out…[this week].

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It is the first time that a royal christening has been marked with coins.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s son will be christened on 23 October, just over three months after his birth.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, will perform the christening at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit Nairobi on 19 and 20 October as a guest of the Archbishop of Kenya, the Most Revd Eliud Wabukala.

The purpose of the visit, which has been arranged at short notice, is to be in solidarity with the Kenyan people following the attack on the Westgate shopping mall last month.

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Lambeth Palace said last week that, although he had been invited, the Most Rev Justin Welby, could not attend the meeting, organised by the powerful Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), who claim to represent around 40 million churchgoers around the world, in person but would address them by video link.

He is due to be in Iceland for an international church leaders’ gathering which had long been planned.

But, in a move seen as an olive branch to the traditionalists, it has now emerged that he is to make a detour to Kenya on his way to Iceland to meet the group’s leaders before the summit begins ”“ adding more than 8,400 miles to his journey.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that he was ”˜moved to tears’ to welcome recently-released Nigerian archbishop Ignatius Kattey and his wife, Mrs Beatrice Kattey, to Lambeth Palace yesterday.

The Most Revd Ignatius Kattey, who is Dean and Archbishop of the Niger Delta Province, and Mrs Kattey were kidnapped on 6 September near their residence in the southern city of Port Harcourt. Mrs Kattey was released a few hours later, but Archbishop Kattey was held for more than a week.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury called for a change in “culture” at financial institutions during a meeting in the House of Lords on Wednesday of last week.

Archbishop Justin gave the keynote address at a roundtable meeting organised by the Islamic Finance Council UK and supported by the Arab Finance Forum and the Cambridge Interfaith Programme.

Archbishop Justin said: ”˜The big area that has to change in our financial services structures is not around leverage and levels of debt in financial institutions ”“ although they are crucial and they must change ”“ but more fundamentally, even than that, is the issue of culture. Culture is an area that cannot be legislated, it can only be changed by a transformation in the spirit of society which leads to a sense of what is right and wrong.”

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On church affairs, the Bishops agreed to an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Niassa in northern Mozambique in response to strong church growth, and took decisions on problematic issues within the Dioceses of Pretoria and Umzimvubu.
Provisional accreditation of courses at the church’s seminary, the College of the Transfiguration in Grahamstown was welcomed.

They also warmly welcomed the announcement that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, with his wife, will attend their second ”˜Anglicans Ablaze’ conference in July 2014.

Speaking after the meeting, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Dr Thabo Makgoba, said ”˜this was a very encouraging time. Within a deeply prayerful context, we tackled a very broad agenda, from church governance through to global faith and political issues. In a short time we made significant progress on a number of matters. God is God of the whole world ”“ and he will guide us in our calling to lead his people in every walk of life, and follow the example of all the saints who have gone before us.’

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‘Capitalism With A Human Face’ was the title of a well-known book written by Sir Samuel Brittan, a leading economic commentator, shortly before the year 2000.

Sadly, the financial calamities of the first decade of the 21st century have revealed that ”“ sometimes at least ”“ capitalism has a very far from human face. Indeed, more than occasionally it has seemed to have the countenance of a monster.

But now, under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it looks as though the Church of England is attempting to give capitalism the opportunity to develop a new appearance ”“ even a Christ-like face.

The start of this month has seen the news that Justin Welby is hoping to draw up a ten-year action plan with the aim of forcing payday lenders such as Wonga out of business.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has sent a message of support to an anti-human trafficking conference organised by the Christian organisation Hope for Justice.

In a message sent to the Hope Conference 2013, which took place last Friday and Saturday in Leicester, Archbishop Justin said that trafficking was ‘one of the greatest scandals and tragedies of our age’. He prayed that the conference ‘might help to transform awareness, as the world urgently needs to wake up to the scale of human trafficking that is modern day slavery’.

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A new Christian discipleship course for church congregations and groups of all traditions was launched yesterday at Lambeth Palace.

”˜Pilgrim: A course for the Christian journey’ is part of the Church of England’s focus on spiritual and numerical growth. It is the first national discipleship course to be commissioned by the House of Bishops.
The programme ”“ which promises ”˜participation, not persuasion’ ”“ seeks to reach parishes that have never run courses of this kind, as well as to offer additional approaches to churches to already running programmes such as Alpha.

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A spokesman from the Lambeth Press Office said the Archbishop had been invited to address the 21-26 October 2013 meeting of centrist and conservative Anglican leaders set for All Saints’ Cathedral in Nairobi. However, he “is unable to attend because of a long-standing commitment on the same date. He will be sending a pre-recorded video greeting,” the spokesman said. – See more at: http://anglicanink.com/article/justin-welby-not-going-gafcon-ii#sthash.onkEpX4M.dpuf

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is preparing a “ten-year plan” to put payday lenders such as Wonga out of business.

A Church of England task force will, in collaboration with the Church of Scotland, make church buildings available to credit unions and recruit expert churchgoers as volunteers to help to run them. A leading financier is to meet the archbishop this week on whether he would lead the task force, which will include academics who, it is hoped, will produce a radical new theology of finance.

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Here we go again. The consortium that has just bought 314 branches from the Royal Bank of Scotland is pledging to launch an “ethical” bank. Now, where have we heard that before?

Of course, it was Co-op. The one that claimed its mutual ownership was more righteous than those banks with nasty shareholders and which said it would not get into the sort of mess that brought down the big banks. Well, not until it did get into the same sort of mess, which cast doubt over its entire banking operations.

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Archbishop Justin said today: “David Gitari was an Archbishop of great courage who preached the Word of God steadfastly, both in season and out of season. He was a gifted and committed servant of the church who served our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully. He had an enormous vision for development and for social justice and was not afraid to promote change, always reminding the church to retain a critical distance from political power. His concern for prayer and promoting love and harmony has continued to the end of his life through his welcoming of so many to the Philadelphia Guesthouse near Mount Kenya. He will be remembered with much affection and admiration around the Anglican Communion. His family and the whole Anglican Church of Kenya are in our prayers.” – See more at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5146/archbishop-justins-tribute-to-archbishop-david-gitari-1937-2013#sthash.YOCA3vdC.dpuf

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From here:

We welcome all support for family life and we’re pleased that this initiative includes both married couples and those in civil partnerships.” – See more at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5144/archbishops-statement-on-marriage-tax-breaks#sthash.qFxb8bCl.dpuf

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the Church Commissioners should invest some of their funds in housing associations and other social enterprises that work to tackle financial inequality.

He made his comments during a question-and-answer session at the National Housing Federation’s annual conference in Birmingham last Friday, where he had delivered a speech calling for a greater partnership between housing associations and the Church of England.

Tess Pendle, the head of My Home Finance, a non-profit organisation that provides low-cost credit and banking facilities to financially excluded people, as an alternative to payday lenders, asked whether “such a partnership might involve financial investment from the Church”.Read it all.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said that there had been more than 80 Christian “martyrs” in the last few days alone.

He was speaking about the bombing of All Saints Anglican church in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which 85 were killed and more than 200 injured.

But he said that Christians were also being singled out for violence in a string of other countries.

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