The growth of popular faith schools is often blocked because they are used as an ideological “battleground” says the Church of England’s head of education.
The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend John Pritchard blamed secular campaigners for questioning the legitimacy of faith schools.
Bishop Pritchard was writing in a report on faith schools for religious think tank, Theos.
Born on September 16, 1937 Gitari attended the famous Kangaru High School in Embu before attending the University of Nairobi for a Bachelor of Arts degree and was ordained to priesthood in 1972.
He married Grace Wanjiru on March 31, 1966 and God blessed them with three children.
Gitari was the third primate and Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya from 1997 to 2002 and at the same time, Bishop of the Diocese of Nairobi.
Something extraordinary is happening in English churches. Imagine you arrived at an unfamiliar church just as the service was starting and you heard: “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid”¦” Right, you’d think, CofE, Book of Common Prayer.
But this is the beginning of a Catholic Mass, a Roman Catholic Mass. It is a liturgy approved by the Pope, and it takes lumps of the Holy Communion service from the 1662 Prayer Book. I find the general effect pleasing but distinctly unsettling.
Two questions arise, depending on the direction from which one is coming. A member of the Church of England might wonder why Catholics should want to use the Book of Common Prayer compiled by Archbishop Cranmer (pictured here in 1546). A Catholic might ask: but is it the Mass?
he Anglican Diocese of Sunyani at the weekend ordain five deacons of the church into the Priesthood.
They are Reverend John Agyemang Prempeh, Rev Frank Kusi, Rev Collins Opoku, Rev Thomas Adjei Baffoe and Rev Richard Obeng.
Brothers Nathaniel Barimah and Gabriel Afrifa Kodom were also inducted to the diocesan Diaconate at a ceremony the St. Anselm Cathedral in Sunyani.
The Primate of the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) said there is need for personal sacrifice from Christians in Africa if the Anglican Church there is to become self-sustainable.
Archbishop of CPCA and Bishop of Northern Zambia, the Most Revd Albert Chama, said this in Zambia’s capital Lusaka today during a special ground breaking ceremony to mark the beginning of a large executive housing building project by the Anglican Church in Zambia.
“Christians themselves need to sacrifice a lot by offering their expert services at low or reduced costs to help the Church become self-sustainable,” said the Archbishop. “But self-sustaining does not mean doing away with partners. We need to continue working and walking with others as Christ meant us to be.”
The Co-ordinating Committee studied the mandate given by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Anglican Communion. The focus of this work is to monitor and encourage existing Anglican-Lutheran relations, as well as to advance co-operation between the two Churches in areas where there are not yet any formal agreements. To enable the Committee to function as an encourager as well as a catalyst, the Committee has begun a process of mapping agreements, initiatives and projects in different regions. This mapping project is an ongoing task for the Committee and we urge Churches, in both communions, to provide information to further this task.
The Committee has also initiated a process promoting Anglican-Lutheran collaboration in the observance of the 2017 Reformation anniversary. As part of this the Committee intends to provide study material based around the official LWF theme Liberated by God’s Grace. This material would be designed to be used in joint Anglican-Lutheran study groups where both denominations are present as well as by separated groups. It is hoped that this material will relate to different ages and contexts. The purpose is to highlight that reformation is ongoing and that 16th century Reformation thoughts are relevant for Christians today. The Committee is locating this and all its work within the theological theme of communion in the mission of God.
A Stoke-on-Trent vicar has become the star of a real ale festival with a special brew named after him.
The Revd Chris Rushton, a Church of England minister at Holy Trinity, Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent is hosting a beer festival in the Minton Halls behind the church, starting …[Thursday]at 7.30 pm. and running until Saturday.
Archbishop Philip Richardson, who is the senior bishop of the seven New Zealand dioceses, says the three Primates here have accepted Bishop David’s resignation with regret.
“For the last five and half years, Bishop David has thrown himself, body and soul, into serving the Diocese of Waiapu.
“His people here will miss him. Equally, they will understand, as we do, the responsibilities we all have to care for our extended whanau. He and Tracy will return to the US with our blessing and prayers.”
Bishop David is to become the Provisional Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, in eastern California, and will take up that role in February next year.
The results of the first elections for female representatives to attend the House of Bishops have been announced. At its meeting of 7 February 2013 the House of Bishops decided that eight senior women clergy, elected regionally, will participate in all meetings of the House until such time as there are six female Bishops who will sit as of right.
Since the war started in Syria, the country has slowly disintegrated. More than one-third of hospitals have been destroyed, according to the World Health Organisation. According to Save the Children, 3900 schools have been destroyed, damaged or are occupied for non-educational purposes since the start of the conflict.
Syria today is no place for a child and, outrageously, more than 1 million have already been forced to flee with their families to camps and host communities in neighbouring countries. Those are the lucky ones – thousands upon thousands have already been killed. Where is the outrage?
This sure is matter of love; but came there any good to us by it? There did. For our conception being the root as it were, the very groundsill of our nature; that He might go to the root and repair of our nature from the very foundation, thither He went; that what had been there defiled and decayed by the first Adam, might by the Second be cleansed and set right again. That had our conception been stained, by Him therefore, primum ante omnia,to be restored again. He was not idle all the time He was an embyro all the nine months He was in the womb; but then and there He even ate out the core of corruption that cleft to our nature and us, and made both us and it an unpleasing object in the sight of God.
And what came of this? We who were abhorred by God, filii irae was our title, were by this means made beloved in Him. He cannot, we may be sure, account evil of that nature, that is now become the nature of His own SonNHis now no less than ours. Nay farther, given this privilege to the children of such as are in Him, though but of one parent believing, that they are not as the seed of two infidels, but are in a degree holy, eo ipso; and have a farther right to the laver of regeneration, to sanctify them throughout by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. This honour is to us by the dishonour of Him; this the good by Christ an embyro.
–From a sermon preached before King James, at Whitehall, on Sunday, the Twenty-fifth of December, 1614
Our final talk inspired us to a revival of the missionary spirit of the Toronto Congress.
In this spirit, we lay before you the following:
Communion is a missionary movement: as Stephen Bayne said at the time, our common goal is to plant the Gospel “in every place of the world”.
Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence (MRI) remains a compelling calling for today.
We need renewal of the structures of the Communion so as to reflect the tremendous growth of the Church in last 50 years in Global South. As the Congress noted regarding the fact of mission: “the form of the Church must reflect this”.
We must reclaim and strengthen Anglicanism’s conciliar character in these structures and in our decision-making, as MRI assumed.
We are open to a fresh articulation of an Anglican Covenant and commend the role it can have in the renewal of our Communion, and we believe that we ourselves can have a constructive role to play in leading in this.
(Please note: you can see basic information about this conference there)–KSH.
Toronto: The Archbishop of Canterbury has laid out his vision for a reformed and renewed Anglican Communion during an address delivered last week at Wycliffe College of the University of Toronto.
The Anglican way forward was through a church whose mission and message had a concrete impact on the real world of modern men and women. But this church was not merely a vehicle for good works, but one that took a wholly Christ-centered approach to theology and was grounded entirely in the New Testament.
In an unscripted address via Skype to the “Back to the Anglican Future: The Toronto Congress 1963 and the Future of Global Communion” Conference held on 18 September 2013 Archbishop Welby acknowledged the impact of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ideal of the Church as “Christ existing as community” as his guide.
A priest has been appointed to look into the possible canonisation of G. K. Chesterton, the writer known for the Father Brown stories. The move has reopened the debate over his alleged anti-Semitism.
The Bishop of Northampton, the Right Rev Peter Doyle, has appointed Canon John Udris to carry out a fact-finding exercise to consider the possibility of opening a “cause” for Chesterton.
The writer, who died in 1936, lived in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, which is part of the Northampton diocese. Like Cardinal Newman, he was a convert from Anglicanism. He smoked cigars and was an accomplished journalist.
Read it all (subscription required).
Live updates from the BBC today here
There is also a report in the East African ‘Standard’ newspaper this morning:
Explosions go off inside Westgate Mall in Nairobi [title of article amended later]
An Anglican bishop is marking the tenth anniversary of his consecration with a cash gift to churches in his diocese.
The Bishop of Wakefield, the Right Reverend Stephen Platten, said churches should use the £100 to start community projects.
Bishop Joel Waweru of Anglican Church of Kenya called for his followers and his countrymen to maintain peace.
“We are so disheartened with whatever happened, but we would want to call upon our Christian brothers and sisters to keep peace and to maintain peace,” said Waweru.
Read here
Reuters: 10-Islamist gunmen hold hostages in Kenya siege, 68 dead
NAIROBI, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Islamist militants were holding hostages on Sunday at a shopping mall in Nairobi, where at least 68 people were killed in an attack by Somalia’s al Shabaab group.
Live updates from the BBC here
Update
News from the local paper the Standard with a live link from KTN here
A message from +Peter Jensen about GAFCON II here
The Anglican Diocese of Wellington has voted to remove all of its investments in companies which extract or produce fossil fuels.
The decision came at a meeting of delegates in Palmerston North this weekend and follows a similar decision by the Anglican synod in Auckland.
“Are you worried about the future?” So asked eight year old Nana, in a letter when she heard about my life-threatening illness.
What do you say when you have had two major operations and Salmonella poisoning?
Sentamu, are you worried about the future? No.
Concerned? Yes.
Shaken but not stirred.
The married mother of two, who grew up in Belfast, said she was both “excited and daunted” by the historic appointment.
“I have had an extraordinarily happy experience in St Augustine’s and in this wonderful city, which I will be sad to leave,” she said.
The Church of Ireland has appointed its first ever woman bishop as the new Bishop of Meath and Kildare.
Fifty-three-year-old Revd Pat (Patricia) Storey is married with two adult children and is currently Rector of St Augustine’s Parish in Derry.
She succeeds the Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Richard Clarke of Armagh, in the role.
Responding to the news, Archbishop Clarke said he was “certain that her ministry in the Dioceses of Meath and Kildare and the wider Church will be a blessing to many.”
More than 15,000 packed Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens. Crowds thronged the lobby of the Royal York Hotel. Two hundred reporters scrambled for news and The Globe and Mail splashed the story on its front page.
Not for the Beatles or Muhammad Ali, but a congress of the Anglican Church.
It was late summer, 1963…Today, the church lives in reduced circumstances. The latest figures from the National Household Survey showed just more than 5 per cent of Canadians identify as Anglican, and only a third of those are actually on parish rolls.
Primates and bishops from the Global South attending a gathering here said current proposals for a new Anglican Communion covenant don’t go far enough to heal the conflict in the communion over homosexuality.
The Wednesday (Sept. 18) gathering to mark the 50th anniversary of the Toronto Anglican Congress, suggested the worldwide Anglican Communion faces troubled waters. Anglicans from the Global South prepare to meet for their second Global Anglican Future Conference next month and the Toronto meeting showed no signs of reconciliation.
Archbishop Ian Ernest, primate of the province of the Indian Ocean, said decisions by the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada on issues involving homosexuality have torn the fabric of communion.
All communicants at St Peter and St Paul’s, Yalding, in Kent, now receive non-alcoholic wine, in deference to the residents of a rehabilitation centre situated near by.
The PCC of the church voted in July to approve the change, and it has been in place since 1 September. The Vicar of Yalding with Collier Street, the Revd Paul Filmer, is Chaplain to the Kenward Trust, which runs a rehabilitation centre for men seeking to overcome addiction to alcohol and drugs. The residents of the centre are encouraged to attend the church, which is less than a mile away. This month, Mr Filmer said that, since his arrival in Yalding in 2009, he had been considering ways in which these congregants could take communion without drinking alcohol.
“We had two options: to have an alternative non-alcoholic communion wine for those who preferred it, or to serve non-alcoholic wine to everyone. After much prayer and thought, we went for the latter as a more inclusive way forward, and one which will not in any way stigmatise any members of the congregation.”
Kattey, who was released by his abductors after nine days of captivity in the forest, said the political leadership in the country must begin to be sensitive to the plights of the governed by carrying out the basic responsibilities of government to her citizens.
The Archbishop while narrating his ordeal in the den of his abductors, frowned at the allegation by the Rivers State Police Command that it facilitated his rescue. “The police did not rescue me and my wife. That the police rescued me and my wife is not true. I saw the police for the first time two days ago. The police public relations officer is telling lies. The commissioner of police apologised to me yesterday (Tuesday), “he said.
A group of Zambian Anglicans wowed by the impact of rural evangelism has challenged the Church to evangelise to the farthest parts of the country.
The challenge came following a week of church planting in one of Zambia’s most remote and neglected towns of Chama, a small town in the Eastern Province of Zambia. The headquarters of Chama District, Chama town is one of the most remote district headquarters in the country, lying just inside the eastern edge of Luangwa National Park.
Fr Katete Jackson Jones is a priest from Lusaka Diocese and one of the organisers of the project. He told ACNS today, “Most of the churches that we currently have in Zambia were planted by missionaries many years ago, but the Church today has not done much to plant indigenous churches in the country”.
The Primate of Rwanda Onesphore Rwaje and others are consecrating David Bryan at Church of the Apostles in Columbia, South Carolina and I am following along to learn and get a chance to have fellowship with those present.
Lewis’ “Mere Christianity,” published in 1952, explained what he felt was the core of his faith. At the time, critics on the left thought it superstitious and simplistic, while evangelicals were upset at the lack of fire and brimstone.
The book’s popularity with the public, however, has endured, and the popular monthly magazine Christianity Today ranked it the best book of the 20th century.
All the while, Lewis was at odds with his colleagues. Many resented his promotion of religion, looked down on his popular fiction, were jealous of his large classes and thought literature courses should focus on more modern books. So in 1955 he bolted, accepting a professorship of medieval and Renaissance literature at Oxford’s great rival, the University of Cambridge.
Grant unto us, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant Edward Bouverie Pusey, we may with integrity and courage accomplish what thou givest us to do, and endure what thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Senator Magnus Abe, has charged Nigerians to see the travails of the Dean, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Ignatius Kattey, in the hands of kidnappers as a wake-up call, insisting that the country can no longer afford to play with the issue of security.
Abe, who stated this during a visit to Kattey shortly after he was released by his abductors, however said joblessness and financial challenges should not be placed as excuses for indulging in kidnapping and armed robbery. Kattey, who is also the Archbishop, Province of the Niger Delta and Bishop of the Diocese of the Niger Delta North, was released by his abductors on Saturday night after spending nine days in captivity.
“I just want to use this opportunity to thank Christian faithful across the country; every Christian in this country showed concern; so I thank all of us for what God has done and to say that this actually is a wake-up call for us as a country. We can no longer afford to play with the issue of security,” Abe, who representing Rivers South East in the National Assembly, said.