A traditionalist Anglican group has voiced regret after an Anglo-Catholic bishop said he would convert to Rome.
The Bishop of Fulham, John Broadhurst, has become the fourth Anglican bishop to make the announcement.
He intends joining the Roman Catholic Church because of his opposition to the way the Church of England plans to introduce women bishops.
Meanwhile, a Kent Anglican congregation has become the first to take up the Pope’s offer to convert to Catholicism.
For once, the quaint museum on Lincoln Avenue was all quiet. A sign inside was the only indication of the recent trouble.
“This piece was destroyed by an act of violence and is no longer on exhibit,” the sign read.
For weeks now, this bucolic northern Colorado city of just over 60,000, which has a vibrant arts community, has been bitterly divided over the controversial artwork that once sat in the empty display of the Loveland Museum Gallery where the sign now rests.
Norway’s Nobel Peace Prize committee has done the right thing in awarding this year’s prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The furious reaction of the Chinese state shows just how complicated doing the right thing will become as we advance into an increasingly post-Western world.
Liu is exactly the kind of person who deserves this prize, alongside Andrei Sakharov, Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. For more than 20 years, he has consistently advocated nonviolent change in China, always in the direction of more respect for human rights, the rule of law and democracy. He has paid for this peaceful advocacy with years of imprisonment and harassment. Unlike last year’s winner, Barack Obama, who got the prize just for what he had promised to do, Liu gets it for what he has actually done.
The Chinese authorities tried hard to prevent him getting it. They directly threatened the Nobel committee with negative consequences for Chinese-Norwegian relations. They have since described the award as an “obscenity,” forbidden any mention of it in the censored Chinese media, placed Liu’s wife under house arrest, detained other critical intellectuals, canceled export talks with Norway ”” and are now doubtless debating how to play it from here.
PLATT: I don’t in any way want to come across as anti-America. At the same time there are some ideals and values that are at the core of the American dream that are really contrary, even antithetical to the gospel that Jesus preached, and then the American dream obviously leads us sometimes in pursuits of money and possessions and pleasures in this world.
SEVERSON: What troubled him was the material comfort of his congregation and the multimillion-dollar megachurch they worship in. This was not the picture he had of the humble ministry of Christ.
PLATT: This idea that if you believe God, have enough faith, that he will give you health or wealth or prosperity, I don’t think, first of all, that it is a gospel at all. It’s not the good news that Jesus preached. More than health and wealth, Jesus I think gives us a picture more of a homeless and wounded gospel, and even the New Testament church is not a picture of prosperity theology. It’s a picture of adversity theology, persecution, struggles, poverty, helping one another out.
Since 2007, the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Georgia, and its former congregation at Christ Church have been embroiled in a legal dispute over the ownership of the church property, which includes the church building, an adjacent parking lot and two separate buildings located in the downtown historic district.
The congregation, which dates to 1733, acquired three other properties in the 1900s. County records estimate their combined value at over $2.7 million.
A Chatham County judge has ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church. But, the lawsuit is pending the outcome of Christ Church’s August appeal to the state Supreme Court.
For now, the charities operating on the property believe they’ll be able to continue their mission uninterrupted and free of charge.
The church, originally located adjacent to the University of Nevada, Reno campus, has served the community in its current building for 45 years.
“It’s been the university’s church all those years, but participation has waned,” said Deacon Jim McGrew, who is executive assistant to the Nevada’s Episcopal bishop, the Rt. Rev. Dan Edwards. “As I understand it, the church has 31 regular, contributing members, and that became unacceptable because we just could not keep it open that way.
“It’s too bad because it’s a very nice church, and we’ll probably sell the building,” McGrew said.
The church opened on West Seventh Street Nov. 21, 1965, and will hold a private service Nov. 21. The church moved to West Seventh Street from the university district because of Interstate 80 freeway construction, McGrew said.
One of the oldest churches in the north state is up for sale, a victim of the recession coupled with an aging and dwindling congregation.
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, which has stood at Lane and Fourth streets near downtown Yreka since 1881, will close its doors Jan. 1, church parishioners announced Monday.
Seventy-year-old Harry Shannon, a heartbroken 21-year member of the church, said this week he’s hoping that his beloved church can be saved, but that it appears the closure is a done deal.
“It’s not luck we’re looking for,” he said. “It’s a miracle.”
O Jesus, Master Carpenter of Nazareth, who on the cross through wood and nails didst work man’s whole salvation: Wield well thy tools in this thy workshop; that I who come to thee rough hewn may by thy hand be fashioned to a truer beauty and a greater usefulness; for the honour of thy holy name.
Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
–1 Corinthians 10:11-13
An Anglican congregation in Kent has become the first to take up the Pope’s offer to leave the Church of England to convert to Catholicism.
The Pope has created a special enclave in the Roman Catholic Church for Anglicans unhappy with their church’s decision to let women become bishops.
Last month the church council of St Peter’s in Folkestone voted to take the first formal steps towards converting.
It comes as traditionalists performed well at the CofE synod elections.
Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have “utterly failed”, Chancellor Angela Merkel says.
In a speech in Potsdam, she said the so-called “multikulti” concept – where people would “live side-by-side” happily – did not work.
Mrs Merkel’s comments come amid recent outpourings of strong anti-immigrant feeling from mainstream politicians.
A recent survey showed that more than 30% of Germans believed Germany was “overrun by foreigners”.