Patterson is correct when he says that process set out in Canon B2 provides the opportunity for General Synod to approve liturgical texts after agreeing that they do not depart from the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter. This does not mean, however, as Patterson suggests, that the decisions to ordain women as priests and bishops and the decision to permit the re-marriage of divorcees in church did not involve changes in doctrine. They clearly did, in that they involved the Church of England accepting that something was permissible which it had previously said was impermissible. The reordering of the Church of England’s common life that took place was a consequence of this change of doctrine. However, General Synod took the view that this change of doctrine was not in conflict with the doctrine found in the Articles, Prayer Book and Ordinal, and on that basis said that both this change, and the reordering of the Church’s life that flowed from it, were acceptable.

In similar fashion Synod could decide to permit same-sex marriages on the grounds that they were not contrary to what is taught by the Articles, the Prayer Book and the 1662 Ordinal and that therefore changing the Church’s teaching to allow these things to take place would be a legitimate thing to do. However, it would need to show good grounds for making this decision and this would be impossibly difficult to do given that the Prayer Book marriage service is absolutely clear that marriage was ordained by God to be between two people of the opposite sex and that ‘so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their matrimony lawful.’

Fourthly, Patterson declares concerning the Prayers of Love and Faith commended by the House of Bishops in December 2023 for use in regular services:

‘I agree that they are not a change in doctrine, but they are a change. In response to the legalisation of civil partnerships in 2005, the then House of Bishops declared that ‘clergy…should not provide services of blessing for those who register a civil partnership’ and on the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2014, repeated the instruction,  ‘Services of blessing should not be provided.’ Whereas now they have very clearly commended a set of prayers that may be used with those who have formed a civil partnership or same-sex marriage.’

Read it all.

Martin Davie–'The…problem with this statement is that the idea that the Church of England does not have a ‘straightforward statement of doctrine’ is simply untrue. The Church of England does have a straightforward statement of its doctrine, and this is found in the Thirty Nine… pic.twitter.com/8jtUCwrQDb

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 21, 2024

In a significant interview on the Rest is Politics Podcast England’s Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has denied the teaching of the Bible, and the teaching of his church. 

It is Archbishop Welby’s most public betrayal of his ordination and consecration vow to ‘banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture.’

Archbishop Welby’s comments came on the eve of an important House of Bishops meeting in the UK, which considered a request from a group called The Alliance, consisting of 2360 clergy whose churches represent 42% of the Church of England’s Sunday attendance, and who hold to the Bible’s teaching on sexuality.

Please watch it all:

Note especially these sections–

“…the conservatives, the Bible people and the traditional Catholics won’t come under the jurisdiction, or if you like the false teaching bishops, but will come under a separate Province, separate episcopacy…” and that  “…first order difference requires first order differentiation…”

As well as

“… there’s still ongoing discussion- like the House of Bishops have always said we’ll need to give some kind of provision for those who in conscience can’t go along with this, but that process has really not got anywhere so even though we’re still charging down the direction of blessing for same sex unions a clear trajectory towards same sex marriage for clergy and standalone services, kind of pseudo-marriage services for same sex couples we’ve not had any real details about settlement and some kind of offer.”

“And anything that’s been on the table that the Bishops have discussed has been very much of a second order, so basically they’ve dismissed it. Many have said ‘look you don’t really represent very many, it’s just a few leaders and most people don’t really like this. You’re going to get much, much less, if anything it will be second order differentiation, so I don’t think they’ve really heard how many of us are out there and how seriously we hold this. We can’t accept less than we’re asking for.”

And, finally, this in reference to the completely avoidable and disastrous TEC situation:

“Some of us have been saying ‘look across the Atlantic – we’ve got to avoid an Episcopal style train crash which has led to a complete split with… a very large grouping of Orthodox Anglicans who are no completely separate from the Episcopal church and the cost has been massive emotionally, spiritually, missionally and there’s been to many who said that would never happen here but actually there’s a stronger Orthodox grouping here in the Church of England..” [hat tip: Anglican Futures]

Since February last year, his position has implicitly shifted. For he has remained in post, as Synod has introduced a new policy, that the Church may bless same-sex couples. The evangelicals see this as undermining the traditional teaching. No, Welby and most of the other bishops have said, there is no planned change to the doctrine of marriage. But the evangelicals are obviously right that the innovation implies the acceptability of gay relationships. The archbishop of York has said that sex is permissible in stable relationships, straight or gay. This is the reformist position, seemingly held by most of the senior bishops.

Astonishingly, Welby has now said the same thing.

Read it all.

Justin Welby has made a huge shift on homosexuality https://t.co/N3wr9IBaba

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) October 28, 2024

Canada’s fertility rate hit its lowest rate in recorded history for a second consecutive year in 2023. The spinoff impacts of this are already being felt – with Canada’s aging workforce joining a swelling retirement-age population and increasing economic pressure to meet this groups’ needs and entitlements.

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds insight into the reasons behind lagging birth rates. ARI asked 1,300 Canadian adults younger than 50 if they plan to have children, and if not, why? Among this group, one-in-five are definitely (21%) going to have at least one child, while one-in-three (32%) say they may still do so. Within these two groups of potential parents, fully half say that they have delayed having kids longer than they ideally would have wanted. This rises to three-quarters (74%) among 35- to 44-year-olds. The top reasons driving delays are both societal and personal. For many, the search for the right partner has just not borne fruit (40%). For others, however, uncertainty surrounding their finances and the job market (41%) the cost of childcare (33%) and the housing affordability crisis (31%) are all drivers of the decision to wait.

Even among those who are definitely not going to have children (37% of the 1,300 adults surveyed) these worries about childcare and cost are a factor. One-quarter among this group say they decided not to have kids because the spectre of childcare costs was too daunting (25%), while one-in-five (18%) said it was too hard to foresee having proper housing to start a family.

With immigration playing a larger role year over year in sustaining the population – and criticism of immigration policy evidently growing – the historically low birth rate trend divides Canadians. They’re equally likely to feel that the birth rate is (43%) and isn’t (42%) a crisis.

Read it all.

"Half of Canadians who want children have waited longer than they’d like, due largely to cost." –@angusreidorg #cdnpoli #generationalfairness https://t.co/XtH9zRh2nA pic.twitter.com/9BbZg6CFEM

— Generation Squeeze (@GenSqueeze) October 17, 2024

By Williams’s estimation, our societal disregard for God’s image in mothers and children has a far-reaching impact. It means that we see pregnancy as a sickness to be prevented or solved by means of birth control or abortion. It means we reduce our children’s existence to an “assembly-line life,” obsessing over educational achievement and resisting the reality that “children, like all people, are unpredictable individuals and are not made for the convenience of their parents.” It means we force new moms back to work too early, pitting their careers against their children. 

Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic begins by describing contemporary problems. But disdain for mothers and children, Williams demonstrates, was also characteristic of antiquity. Drawing on myths, literature, and histories from Greek and Roman writers, she describes a past in which women were sexually exploited, infants were left “exposed” on “village dung heaps,” and anyone who couldn’t achieve military victory on the battlefield was a second-class citizen by default. 

It’s Christianity, she argues, that changed all of this—that gave us the human rights we take for granted, that blessed the meek and lowly instead of kowtowing to the powerful. “It is because of two millennia of Christian valuing of human life,” she states forcefully, that “we do not delight in the suffering of the weak.” Both the life of Christ and the writings of the church fathers demonstrate that “the church is responsible for caring for the bodies and souls of the neglected and the abandoned at all ages and life stages, because their lives are priceless.”

Read it all.

In western post-Christian society, humans are treated more like commodities than image bearers.

In ‘Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic,’ @NadyaWilliams81 uses ancient and modern sources to show how Christians can value life amidst an empire that seeks to dehumanize it. pic.twitter.com/ErT36b1P0n

— IVP Academic (@ivpacademic) October 15, 2024

As US Election Day approaches, inflation is largely tamed and wage gains have lifted incomes. Yet the economy remains the most pressing issue in the presidential race for one big reason: Increasingly, for many Americans, the long-standing building blocks of middle-class life feel frustratingly unattainable.

The standard 20% down payment on a median-priced home now costs 83% of a year’s income for the typical family ready to buy a home, up from 65% on the eve of the 2016 election, according to Bloomberg calculations. Buying a new car takes almost two extra weeks of work for the median household compared to eight years ago. Child care then cost the same family about a quarter of its weekly income. Now it swallows up more than a third.

And while the cost of attending college has gone down as a share of income in recent years, a median household can expect to pay 75% of its annual income for a private college and more than third for a public in-state university. That is up significantly from when many of today’s parents went to college themselves — and, in turn, can make the price tag look unnerving.

Read it all.

The Math Says It’s Getting Harder to Break Into the American Middle Class

Some major milestones are becoming frustratingly unattainable for many families – Bloomberg https://t.co/ncqA4FJ6g4?

— Jose A. Briones (@Brioneja) October 18, 2024

Codi Hamilton and Marina Harrison met in virtual reality (VR) — putting on headsets and entering an arena of infinite possibilities. The couple are part of a growing trend for real-life relationships to begin not just online, but virtually….

Hamilton, 30, said the [new] model would be a game-changer. “This will introduce more people into virtual reality, considering that the biggest issue is the price point,” he said. “A more affordable headset will likely sway a lot of people to try VR for the first time.”

Hamilton and Harrison run a business organising parties in VR, where performers entertain audiences with acrobatics, pole dancing and DJ sets, all in their own homes. People can go on VR “dates” to theme parks, bars and landmarks around the world, or get married in virtual ceremonies. Some even spend the night sleeping with their headsets on, although most said the contraptions were too cumbersome to be comfortable enough to doze off.

Read it all (subscription).

‘His avatar was kind of cute’ — meet the couples who fell in love in VR https://t.co/z6OoJY2kOZ pic.twitter.com/bB7UXPGfk8

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) October 15, 2024

Imagine if having children came with more than $150,000 in cheap loans, a subsidized minivan and a lifetime exemption from income taxes.

Would people have more kids? The answer, it seems, is no.

These are among the benefits—along with cheap child care, extra vacation and free fertility treatments—that have been doled out to parents in different parts of Europe, a region at the forefront of the worldwide baby shortage. Europe’s overall population shrank during the pandemic and is on track to contract by about 40 million by 2050, according to United Nations statistics.

Birthrates have been falling across the developed world since the 1960s. But the decline hit Europe harder and faster than demographers expected—a foreshadowing of the sudden drop in the U.S. fertility rate in recent years. 

Read it all.

Worldwide Efforts to Reverse the Baby Shortage Are Falling Flat: "Demographers suggest the reluctance to have kids is a fundamental cultural shift rather than a purely financial one" https://t.co/GDF4fuEAA8

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) October 14, 2024

In summary, almost everything of substance that the Archbishop says about PLF in the quotation above (apart from “the church is deeply split over this”) is demonstrably either false or misleading unless the previous explanations and commitments offered by him and the bishops to General Synod are false or misleading. 

The Archbishop’s interview gives the impression that the Church of England, with the agreement of the majority of bishops, now teaches that sexual relationships, including same-sex sexual relationships, are acceptable as long as the couple are in a committed relationship, either a civil partnership or a marriage. Furthermore, he claims that the Church of England will provide a service of prayer and blessing in church for couples in such relationships. 

In fact, the theological argument presented by the bishops (and sight of the legal advice to bishops might demonstrate that this is also crucial for PLF’s legality) has been that any sexual relationship other than marriage between a man and a woman is contrary to the Church’s doctrine of marriage. Despite this, it has nevertheless been claimed by the majority of bishops that any committed same-sex couple (with or without a legal status) can be offered PLF as prayers within an existing authorised liturgy. This is even though it is also acknowledged that because their relationship may be sexual, such prayers are indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine.

The Archbishop’s answer might have been “better” in the sense of probably being more appealing to Alastair Campbell. It is, however, in fact so highly misleading and inaccurate as to suggest a disturbing level of some combination of ignorance, misrepresentation, dishonesty and inaccuracy on the Archbishop’s part in his account of the church’s recent decisions, its doctrine, and its stated rationale for PLF. 

Our dire situation as a church is bad enough as a result of having been so divided because of the direction set by the Archbishops and most of the bishops. The fact that there are such deep theological disagreements on these matters that need to be addressed cannot and must not be avoided. However, such significantly erroneous statements as these from no less than the Archbishop of Canterbury, unless swiftly followed by an apology and correction, can only add further to the widespread erosion of trust and growing sense of disbelief, betrayal, deception, anger and despair now felt across much of the Church of England in relation to both the PLF process and our archiepiscopal leadership.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has now made claims about the debate on sexuality and the Church's teaching which are demonstrably untrue. Why has he done this, and what will be the impact on trust, the unity of the Church, and the future of the debate?https://t.co/Falt0kuP5Q

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) October 15, 2024

Why should countries care about shrinking populations at a time of climate change, increasing risk of nuclear catastrophe and the prospect of artificial intelligence taking over jobs? At a global level, there is no shortage of people. But drastically low birthrates can lead to problems in individual countries.

Tomáš Sobotka, one of the authors of the U.N. report and a deputy director at the Vienna Institute of Demography, does a back-of-the-envelope calculation to illustrate the point: In South Korea, which has the lowest birthrate in the world at 0.72 children per woman, just over a million babies were born in 1970. Last year, 230,000 were. It’s obviously too simple to say that each person born in 2023 will, in their prime working years, have to support four retired people. But in the absence of large-scale immigration, the matter will be “extremely difficult to organize and deal with for Korean society,” said Mr. Sobotka.

Similar concerns arise from Italy to the United States: working-age populations outnumbered by the elderly; towns emptying out; important jobs unfilled; business innovation faltering. Immigration could be a straightforward antidote, but in many of the countries with declining birthrates, accepting large numbers of immigrants has become politically toxic.

Across Europe, East Asia and North America, many governments are, like Japan, introducing measures like paid parental leave, child care subsidies and direct cash transfers. According to the U.N., the number of countries deliberately targeting birthrates rose from 19 in 1986 to 55 by 2015.

Read it all.

Great piece by @motokorich on what governments can do to increase the birthrate, and how Japan's experiment doing this panned out. https://t.co/ZdaeJY3ZuO

— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) October 14, 2024

Although few yet see it coming, humans are about to enter a new era of history. Call it “the age of depopulation.” For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people.

With birthrates plummeting, more and more societies are heading into an era of pervasive and indefinite depopulation, one that will eventually encompass the whole planet. What lies ahead is a world made up of shrinking and aging societies. Net mortality—when a society experiences more deaths than births—will likewise become the new norm. Driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility, family structures and living arrangements heretofore imagined only in science fiction novels will become commonplace, unremarkable features of everyday life.

Human beings have no collective memory of depopulation. Overall global numbers last declined about 700 years ago, in the wake of the bubonic plague that tore through much of Eurasia. In the following seven centuries, the world’s population surged almost 20-fold. And just over the past century, the human population has quadrupled.

The last global depopulation was reversed by procreative power once the Black Death ran its course. This time around, a dearth of procreative power is the cause of humanity’s dwindling numbers, a first in the history of the species. A revolutionary force drives the impending depopulation: a worldwide reduction in the desire for children.

Read it all.

"For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline. But whereas the last implosion was caused by a deadly disease borne by fleas, the coming one will be entirely due to choices made by people." Nick Eberstadt @AEI https://t.co/Ey2VpERWY5

— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) October 11, 2024

The last time they talked, Guadalupe Hernandez said her baby sister, Monica, sent her videos and photos of rising waters surrounding her as she huddled with co-workers on the back of semi truck.

Monica Hernandez, 45, was working at Impact Plastics, near the Nolichucky River, when Hurricane Helene sent a murky rush of floodwater through their small eastern Tennessee town Friday, Guadalupe, 50, said. Hang on, Guadalupe said she reassured Monica, the family was calling 911. Just let them know when she was safe, she told her.

Monica was among five Impact Plastics employees and one contractor reported missing after Helene tore through town.

It was the start of a period of agonizing limbo for Guadalupe and the families of other missing employees, who said they struggled to get information from local officials.

Read it all.

As floods recede after Helene, anguished families wait for answers https://t.co/N4PepkLXFH

— Brady Dennis (@brady_dennis) October 2, 2024

Earlier this month, a detective knocked on Shavon Harvey’s door, in suburban Ohio, to ask about her son. The son had sent a Snapchat message from her phone to his friends, saying there would be shootings at several schools nearby.

She rushed to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and officials kept him in detention for 10 nights.

He is 10.

Ms. Harvey’s son is far from the only child arrested this month after similar behavior. And he’s not even the youngest.

Read it all.

We need to find a non-law-enforcement solution to students who make threats on social media. This @nytimes piece explains why.

As School Threats Proliferate, More Than 700 Students Are Arrested https://t.co/dnTc2hQ1MG

— Tom Warrick (@TomWarrickAC) September 26, 2024

Allison Jumper’s family was a picture of healthy living. Active kids. Wholesome meals. A freezer stocked with organic beef from her in-laws’ farm in Maine.

Then in late 2020, she got a devastating call from her brother-in-law. High levels of harmful “forever chemicals” had been detected on their farm and in their cows’ milk, and they were getting shut down.

At first, Mrs. Jumper worried only about her in-laws’ livelihoods. But soon, her mind went somewhere else: to her own children’s mysterious health issues, including startlingly high cholesterol levels.

“Then it hit me,” she said at her home in Durham, N.H. “Could it be the beef?”

Read it all.

Her family’s farm was hiding dangerous chemicals in their food https://t.co/6aYN9OtCNW

— Judith Enck (@enckj) September 23, 2024

Ricki Mudd was born in 1993 in China during the one-child policy era. She remembers her early childhood only in fragments, but has been told she had spent some of it hidden in a bag.

At age 5, she was adopted from a Chinese orphanage, one of the more than 150,000 children China sent overseas. Most were girls. In the West, they were one of the most visible consequences of the one-child policy, which ended in 2016. This month, Beijing put an end to foreign adoptions. 

China is grappling with a demographic crisis, with dropping birthrates and a rapidly aging population. The policies to control the population have given way to new ones in the opposite direction. But a legacy of the one-child policy is a dearth of women of childbearing age.

Because of a government decree that led to forced abortions and sterilizations, millions of girls were never born or were hidden from authorities. In the process, China’s gender ratio became increasingly skewed, with 117 boys born for every 100 girls in 2004, compared with 106 in 1980, United Nations data showed. 

Read it all.

The Missing Girls: How China’s One-Child Policy Tore Families Apart—A now-ended adoption program created the perception Chinese girls weren’t valued. One adoptee, once hidden in a grocery bag, found more to her own story.@QiLiyan https://t.co/hA715EWpXPhttps://t.co/hA715EWpXP

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) September 18, 2024

In his recent advisory on parents’ mental health, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, said out loud what many parents might have only furtively admitted: Parenting today is too hard and stressful.

Of course, there have always been concerns about families’ well-being. And while some of today’s parents’ fears are newer — cellphones, school shootings, fentanyl — parents have always worried about their children.

So why has parental stress risen to the level of a rare surgeon general’s warning about an urgent public health issue — putting it in the same category as cigarettes and AIDS?

It’s because today’s parents face something different and more demanding: the expectation that they spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children. These pressures, researchers say, are driven in part by fears about the modern-day economy — that if parents don’t equip their children with every possible advantage, their children could fail to achieve a secure, middle-class life.

Read it all.

So true, right here in our wealthy Silicon Valley community – nearly every kid is scheduled every day, weekends, too, sports, classes, etc. I'm part of it, teaching robotics after school, too:
Today’s Parents: ‘Exhausted, Burned Out & Perpetually Behind’ https://t.co/0JjY4ep8lr

— Steve Mushero (@stevemushero) September 14, 2024

The scholarship of the author shines through the pages of the book as he ponders deeply on what he believes “the duty of man” to entail and what the main thing is that makes for the good life during our sojourn here on earth. It is, he tells us, Avodat Hashem: service (or worship) of the Name, honouring God in everything.

That will mean, as he summarises it in the final text of his letter to his children, in the last ten pages of the book, after much rich reflection: grasping the truth of being made in the image of God, male and female; valuing family, neighbours, toil, and friendship; exhibiting patience, humility, hope, and forgiveness in the face of suffering; finding joy, especially in the recognition of our exhaustive grasp by God’s love; and living within the Church’s time as well as our own. All this we are called to do while acknowledging that God can be “a question, an encounter, a discovery, a struggle, sometimes (too often, perhaps) even a loss and a cry”.

This leaves out much of what is nowadays generally thought to be Christian political duty, which I found something of a relief: it is a modest manifesto powerfully articulated, which I found deeply attractive. Crucially, as the title implies, the book is offered as a vision of the good life lived in the light of mortality….

Read it all.

Mortal Goods
Reimagining Christian Political Duty

Ephraim Radner

This book by one of today’s leading theologians examines how Christians might more faithfully and realistically imagine their political vocation.

Ephraim Radner explains that our Christian calling is to limit our… pic.twitter.com/FuAJeBEoxH

— Theology Books (@theology_books) April 14, 2024

The Man Behind the Red Bandana from Drew Gallagher on Vimeo.

On Sept. 11, Mr. Colasanti kissed his wife, Kelly, and children, Cara, 4, and Lauren, 1, before catching an early train to arrive by 7:30 a.m. at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he worked as a bond trader on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

His plan was to get in early so he could return early to his family in Hoboken. Every night, he gave his girls a bath, then tucked them in.

“He put us first always,” Kelly Colasanti said. “He was a great father. He had such a great relationship with both the girls.”

Read it all.

9/11

A day of reflection.
A day of community.
A day of remembrance.

Today marks 23 years since our immeasurable loss.

As an extension of Tribute in Light, for the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we have partnered with the @Sept11Memorial and will be… pic.twitter.com/IvHEq0Pprr

— Luna Park in Coney Island (@LunaParkNYC) September 11, 2024

From there:

I got up and turned on the TV, and there was just this big black hole in the World Trade Center. And there was just smoke billowing out of it. I called my sister Cathy I said, “You might wanna wake up, turn in your TV and take a look at what they’re showing.” The commentator’s saying that it’s an American Airlines plane. And I casually asked Cathy, I said, “Do you know where Betty is?” And she says, “Betty’s supposed to be flying out of Boston.” And I said, “Do you think Betty is on that plane?” We just didn’t know. So I left a phone call on her cellphone, just asking her when she’s landed or anywhere you’re on the ground, to just give us a call and tell us you’re okay. And there was no call from Betty. I called American Airlines, and it was only then that it was confirmed that Betty was on the flight.

I just want to add, through your passing, Betty, our family’s gotten very very close. Dad, who’s quite stoic, doesn’t really say a whole lot, man of the family, one day told us that he cries himself to sleep. Even to this day, he just keeps staying up watching TV, hoping somehow that you’ll reappear. And we’re all still waiting for that phone call from you to tell us that you’re okay. We just miss you a whole lot.

You may find the transcript of Betty Ong’s conversation reporting the hijacking from the American airlines plane here.

Today, we honor the memory of those lost on 9/11, and remember all the heroes who responded that day.#NeverForget pic.twitter.com/YyMGdyaH6U

— City of New York (@nycgov) September 11, 2024

The Anglican Church of Australia (ACA) would “automatically” cease to be in communion with the Church of England if the Appellate Tribunal determined that the C of E was “inconsistent” with the Australian Church’s “Fundamental Declarations”, a report to the Sydney synod by the diocese’s doctrine commission suggests.

The Appellate Tribunal is the church’s highest court, and the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Revd Kanishka Raffel, is a tribunal member.

The report says that the Church of England could be ruled “inconsistent” if it “rejected the scriptures as ‘the ultimate rule and standard of faith’ or if they ceased to ‘obey the commands of Christ and teach his doctrine’”.

The ACA, the report continues, “has no legal power to declare whether it is in or out of communion with any other Church in the [Anglican] Communion, other than the Church of England. Nevertheless, serious breaches of gospel communion do exist within the Anglican Communion, and ‘impaired communion’ or ‘broken communion’ accurately describes this doctrinal reality.”

Read it all.

Sydney diocese report warns of ‘impaired communion’ with Church of England https://t.co/NdVQObNCNP

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) September 6, 2024

….a better diet for pregnant mothers and infants would eventually make humanity more intelligent. Alas, child malnutrition is far from being eradicated—and not just in poor, war-charred places like Congo. Many middle-income countries also have shockingly high rates.

How much of a cognitive boost would the world get from feeding babies better? Precision is tricky, but scientists agree it would be huge. If a fetus’s weight is below the tenth percentile, the child can expect to score half a standard deviation worse on all neuro-developmental measures—the rough equivalent of seven iq points. After birth, the speeds at which a baby puts on weight (before four months) and length (before 12 months) are good predictors of iq at the age of nine. A study in Bangladesh found that the combination of malnutrition and inadequate stimulation common in poor families was associated with an iq gap of a whole standard deviation (about 15 points) by the age of five.

Even if a baby has enough macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat), its brain development can be hobbled by a lack of micronutrients such as iron, iodine or zinc. Yet such deficiencies remain rife: half the world’s young children and two-thirds of women of reproductive age do not get enough micronutrients. For brain development, the most serious shortfall is iron. Two-fifths of children aged 6-59 months were anaemic (iron deficient) in 2019. Between 2012 and 2019, at least 92 countries saw no improvement on this score, laments Dr Shekar.

Read it all.

The cover of @TheEconomist this week: Small investments in nutrition could make the world brainier pic.twitter.com/kEsSdAieMt

— alain servais (@aservais1) July 12, 2024

The following links can direct you to videos of Archbishop Steve Wood from Assembly.

• A conversation with Archbishop Stephen Wood and his wife, Jacqueline, at the 2024 Provincial Assembly here.
• Archbishop Wood’s sermon at the closing Eucharist where authority was passed to him here.
• Passing of authority to Archbishop Wood here.

IRD's @jeffreyhwalton chats with @anglicantv about new Archbishop Steve Wood, the direction of the growing church, and conversations taking place alongside last week's Assembly. #Anglican https://t.co/coTq91bsHr

— IRD (@TheIRD) July 1, 2024

A warning of a “de facto ‘parallel Province’” in the Church of England has been given in a letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York from the Alliance, an umbrella group that emerged last year. It comprises the leaders of groups, Catholic and Evangelical, that are concerned about the effect of the Living in Love and Faith outcome on C of E teaching on marriage.

The letter, signed by current and former Vicars of Holy Trinity, Brompton, and the National Leader of New Wine, among others, warns that, if proposals to enable stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples go ahead, “we will have no choice but rapidly to establish what would in effect be a new de facto ‘parallel Province’ within the Church of England and to seek pastoral oversight from bishops who remain faithful to orthodox teaching on marriage and sexuality.”

Next month, the General Synod will be asked to vote on a draft motion approving such services, alongside an offer for “delegated episcopal ministry” for opponents (Online News, 21 June). The proposal is “clearly contrary to the canons and doctrine of the Church of England”, the Alliance letter says, citing Canon B30 on marriage.

Read it all.

A warning of a “de facto ‘parallel Province’” in the Church of England has been given in a letter to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York from the Alliance, an umbrella group that emerged last year. https://t.co/jeVv0VGh7e

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 27, 2024

The CRC does have a process for those who believe something in its confessions contradicts Scripture. CRC leaders sign three Reformed confessions—the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort—and in 2022, the denomination clarified in a footnote that the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching that “God condemns all unchastity” includes homosexual sex, as well as adultery, premarital sex, extramarital sex, polyamory, and pornography.

At least 18 churches publicized their disagreement by declaring themselves “in protest” of that teaching. They argued the CRC should allow differences in biblical interpretation of unchastity.

Last week, however, the synod decided that churches who adopted the “in protest” status would also fall under the discipline process and be required to comply with the confessions.

“It’s okay to send a protest. The issue is when you say our whole church, our whole council, is going to take exception to the confessions,” said Cedric Parsels, reporting from the synod for the Abide Project, a group that upholds the CRC’s historic view on sexuality. “‘We are going to put an asterisk next to our name of CRC. We can only be CRC basically on our terms .’ That’s a significantly different approach.”

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Two years ago, the Christian Reformed Church in North America clarified its stance against homosexuality.

Last week, the denomination clarified its expectations for churches whose LGBTQ-affirming teachings contradict that stance.https://t.co/xltKDkUBGn

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) June 28, 2024

In a moving, heartbreaking and yet hopeful book, Amy Low writes of finding miracles in the mundane details of life, while dying of cancer. https://t.co/FrJd9H4t4u

— Bob Smietana (@bobsmietana) June 27, 2024

And all clergy have taken public vows at ordination that they believe the doctrine of the Church of England, that they will uphold it, and that they will teach and expound it.

Do you believe the doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it, and in your ministry will you expound and teach it?

Ordinands   I believe it and will so do.

This includes the teaching of Jesus on marriage which is expressed in Canon B30 and explained in the marriage liturgy.

How, then, can we be ‘undecided’? How can some believe one thing, and others another? It can only be that we have, amongst our bishops and other clergy, people who simply do not understand the doctrine of their own Church or, understanding it, think it is wrong. That is the problem we have. What is the solution to this?

Martyn’s solution is—as he says openly in his article—‘a spirit of generosity and pragmatism.’ In other words, to preserve institutional unity, we must pragmatically give up on the idea that we actually share common beliefs, that we expect clergy to be faithful to their ordination vows, and that we expect our bishops to believe and teach the doctrine of the Church they lead. But what kind of institution will that be? A husk, a hollow shell of a ‘church’, retaining its outward, institutional, form, but having lost its heart.

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Unity matters in our debates about sexuality—and so does truth | Psephizo https://t.co/Q1Dwp6xsw1 via @psephizo

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) June 24, 2024

Make sure to listen all the way to the end, where Steve talks about his experience of having Covid19 and recovering from it and what it taught him theologically.

Responding to the paper on Thursday afternoon, the national director of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), Canon John Dunnett, suggested that the proposals would not receive support from those who have consistently voted against LLF motions in Synod.

“The longing of CEEC Evangelicals is to remain in the C of E, but this is being undermined by the ongoing commitment of many in the House of Bishops to walk away from our biblical and inherited doctrine of marriage and sexual ethics,” he said.

Referring to provisions which, since late last year (News, 18 November 2023). CEEC has made available to churches which oppose the Prayers of Love and Faith, Canon Dunnett said:

“If General Synod approves the motion as it stands, I anticipate a significant increase in the take up of the Ephesian Fund and alternative spiritual oversight by clergy and churches in the CEEC and Alliance constituency. This is because many feel that this is the only way they can find a voice for their concern and a spiritual oversight that has integrity.” 

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Proposals for stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples are to be brought to the General Synod in July, alongside an offer for “delegated episcopal ministry” for those who oppose any changes https://t.co/8reQ8xiytv

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 21, 2024