The intellectual community, and especially the Christian intellectual community, needs always to be engaged in the critique of triumphalism of any kind. That is why it is so significant a disaster when universities become mouthpieces for governments. The theologian may remember the shock felt by the twentieth century’s greatest Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, on reading the manifesto in support of German policy in the First World War signed by most of the leading German academics of the day. And ”“ given that the vocation and destiny of Europe is part of the focus of these celebrations ”“ there is here a clue about what the university, Christian or otherwise, has to say to our continent.

We have inherited a long record of European triumphalism; and while this may no longer be a political reality, its cultural echoes are still very clear ”“ not least in the bland assumption often made that European secularism is the destined future of the rest of the world. Universities like this have the responsibility to say to our culture that the light which enlightens the human world is not the product of European civilisation ”“ indeed, the opposite is more true, that European civilisation, with its high valuation of dialogue and critique and its suspicion of absolutism, is the product of the light that Symeon speaks of in the Nunc Dimittis. Our specific European legacy is precious, but precious as a gift among others. Freeze it into a self-image of finality and decisive authority for the rest of human culture, and it becomes an idol and a danger to the truth.

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The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) is opening a new phase of dialogue with a meeting scheduled for May 17-27.

A communiqué from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted that this new phase of work was mandated by Benedict XVI and the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at their meeting in November 2009.
The first meeting of the new phase of the commission will take place at the Monastery of Bose in northern Italy.

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Israeli archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills on Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes, fish and peacocks.

The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with soil for its own protection.

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The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh announced Friday that its leaders will ask a state appeals court for another hearing to reconsider its ruling that $20 million in endowment assets will stay with the Episcopal diocese from which it split.

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Are we witnessing the death of America’s Christian denominations? Studies conducted by secular and Christian organizations indicate that we are. Fewer and fewer American Christians, especially Protestants, strongly identify with a particular religious communion””Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, etc. According to the Baylor Survey on Religion, nondenominational churches now represent the second largest group of Protestant churches in America, and they are also the fastest growing.

More and more Christians choose a church not on the basis of its denomination, but on the basis of more practical matters. Is the nursery easy to find? Do I like the music? Are there support groups for those grappling with addiction?

This trend is a natural extension of the American evangelical experiment. After all, evangelicalism is about the fundamental message of Christianity””the evangel, the gospel, literally the “good news” of God’s kingdom arriving in Jesus Christ””not about denomination building.

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As with any theft, the worst part is the blow it deals to one’s faith in humanity. The chickens were in danger of being demoted from goodwill ambassadors to harbingers of doom, canaries in the neighborhood coal mine.

The sidewalk confabs reached a fever pitch. People were devastated.

A man with a neck tattoo shook his head and tut-tutted, “What kind of person would do something like this?” A woman in a church hat encouraged us to turn to God. Neighbors posted another sign: “439 Franklin misses Gertrude!” People scribbled commiseration. (“My son is sad! Find Gertrude!”) The crime was taken as proof of the decline and fall of civilization, and we found ourselves assuming the role of the comforter far more than the comforted.

Again, this is Bed-Stuy. Not Mayberry. Yet the response was more suited to a town with less in the way of a police blotter. Such dramatic emotional outpourings for a lost chicken seemed frankly disproportionate, since you can hardly walk a block in this town without being offered some tantalizing version of dead chicken….

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The opposition education spokesman, Adrian Piccoli, said the Liberal-National party took the view that ”the battle over ethics classes is finished”.

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But the announcement was met with anger by the influential Australian Christian Lobby.

Its NSW director, David Hutt, said the lobby was extremely disappointed by the decision.

”We had welcomed the opposition’s previous commitment to scrap the ethics classes should they win government and we cannot understand why they have now retreated from this,” Mr Hutt said.

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The first step is to respond to all U.S. Anglicans who have indicated an interest in the ordinariate and to learn more about them.

“Questionnaires have gone out asking them to identify more clearly who they are and what the nature is of their current community,” Cardinal [Donald] Wuerl explained. “The goal is to determine whether there is a response substantial enough to warrant the establishment of an ordinariate here in the U.S.”

“We’ve already seen how the Holy See, at the request of Pope Benedict, has established an ordinariate in England, Our Lady of Walsingham. And that would probably be a model for what we would do here in the U.S.”

“We’re a little ways off yet,” he said.

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Today, less than 8 years after the 2003 emergency Primates Meeting, 15 of the Primates are no-shows. There is loss of trust and a sense that words and efforts are meaningless – that the Episcopal Church in particular will act unilaterally against the mind of the Provincial leaders and global Anglican witness.

The Episcopal Church continues to decline, with its membership the oldest among U.S. denominations and its internal reports showing no reliable sources or patterns of growth. In an Anglican Communion of some 80 million members, only about 700,000 Episcopalians attend services on an average Sunday. The [partnered] gay bishop consecrated in 2003 downsized his diocese, spent most of his time at gay movement and media events, and recently announced his retirement after less than a decade in office.
A [partnered] lesbian bishop was consecrated, and some gay and lesbian couples have had high profile ceremonies, including a recent lesbian union worded contentiously as a variation on the Prayer Book marriage rite.

So, a small, affluent, socially homogeneous inner circle of a very small denomination indulges its fancies at the cost of a diverse, global Christian fellowship – a fellowship whose leaders hung in with misrepresentations and broken commitments while trying to maintain bonds of affection. That is, until this 2011 Anglican Primates Meeting in Dublin.

Read it all and make sure to take special note of the numbers of Primates attending.

Speaking on behalf of the GAFCON Primates of Uganda, Rwanda, West Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and the Southern Cone ”” none of whom went to Dublin ”” Bishop Venables said that the meeting “had ignored the difficult issues that divide us.

“There was a denial of the serious­ness of the crisis facing the Communion which led to the absence of Primates representing two-thirds of the Anglican Com­munion, and there remains a com­plete lack of trust, which every day is getting worse.

“The Dublin meeting has just made things worse, as they did not deal with the reasons why people stayed away, or the causes of the divisions in the Anglican Church.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will engage in a round of shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to improve relations with the Global South primates who boycotted last week’s primates’ Meeting.

Speaking during the closing press conference at the Emmaus Centre, near Dublin, on Sunday afternoon, Dr Williams spoke of his plans to visit some of the provinces of the absent Primates, such as South-East Asia. He said that he had recently met the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr Eliud Wabukala, one of the Primates who did not attend, taking part in “a very long and detailed conversation on a variety of matters”.

Such diplomatic endeavours would be a “long task”, he said; and trying to keep the diverse Com­munion together was “difficult”; but “the task we’ve been given, it’s part of the gift of living in the Church” and “part of the cross we carry”.

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After maintaining a low profile in protests led largely by secular young Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition force, appeared to be taking a more assertive role Thursday, issuing a statement asking for President Hosni Mubarak to step aside for a transitional government.

“We demand that this regime is overthrown, and we demand the formation of a national unity government for all the factions,” the Brotherhood said in a statement broadcast by Al Jazeera.

The Obama administration has spoken cautiously about the future role of the Brotherhood, which has long been banned by Mr. Mubarak’s government, saying only that all parties must renounce violence and accept democracy. But one of the few near-certainties of a post-Mubarak Egypt is that the Muslim Brotherhood will emerge as a powerful political force.

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Several specific topics are worth noting.

First, corruption in church leadership. Corruption and greed are issues especially where the church is growing rapidly and new leaders cannot be developed fast enough to meet the needs. As a result, immature leaders with charismatic personalities abound. “Many use their positions for worldly power, arrogant status or personal enrichment,” the document’s authors complain. “As a result, God’s people suffer, Christ is dishonoured, and gospel mission is undermined.”

Leadership training programs have been instituted in many places to meet the urgent need, but, the document continues, “The answer to leadership failure is not just more leadership training but better discipleship training. Leaders must first be disciples of Christ himself.” Character formation as Christ followers should take precedence over training in the techniques of leadership.

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Tahrir Square filled again with vast crowds of anti-government demonstrators Friday morning, ahead of a massive protest planned to demand the immediate ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

A day after authorities launched an aggressive clampdown on foreign journalists and human rights activists observing the demonstrations, Friday’s gathering was calm and orderly, without the beatings and bloodshed that had horrified the world the day before.

After standing in long lines to pass through security checkpoints, thousands upon thousands of Egyptians entered the vast, open square and performed the weekly Friday prayers, kneeling and prostrating themselves in accordance with the muezzin’s call. Nearby, soldiers on duty kept watch.

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Central Florida joins three other dioceses ”” Dallas, South Carolina and Western Louisiana ”” in expressing concerns about the new canons on discipline, which become effective July 1.

The diocese asks General Convention “to modify New Title IV, as it applies to the Diocese of Central Florida, so as to comply with the Constitution.” The resolution expresses two concerns about the new Title IV: that it “empowers the Presiding Bishop to take certain actions within the Diocese of Central Florida in violation of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution,” and “creates a charging and trial system applicable to Presbyters and Deacons in violation of Article IX of the Constitution which provides that presbyters and deacons shall be tried by a court instituted by the convention of the Diocese.”

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Almighty and everlasting God, who didst send thy servant Anskar as an apostle to the people of Scandinavia, and dist enable him to lay a firm foundation for their conversion, though he did not see the results of his labors: Keep thy Church from discouragement in the day of small things, knowing that when thou hast begun a good work thou wilt bring it to a faithful conclusion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Eternal God, whose majesty is revealed in mercy: Grant that as we draw near to thee thy truth may set us free from the bondage of our own thoughts and desires, and that as we abide in thee our prayers may be an instrument of thy righteous will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

–Leslie S. Hunter

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

–Galatians 5:22-24

The former Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Dr. Phillip Turner of the Anglican Communion Institute told CEN he was disappointed by the reports produced by the meeting. “Here we have reports on both the function and the organization of the Primates meeting that neither locate as an aspect of ecclesiology the office and role of a primate within a communion of churches nor speak of how the meeting and its standing committee are to address a province or diocese within the communion whose actions other Provinces do not recognize as in accord with scripture.”

“These reports are theologically vacuous,” Dean Turner said. “Sadly, they only display the fact that this Instrument has become dysfunctional. It has become dysfunctional because neither the Primates as a group nor the Primate who is primus inter pares were willing and able to address the actions” of the North American churches.

The “fabric” of the communion remains torn “because of a failure in leadership,” he said, noting that the “communion as we have known it is gone.”

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Put it together. QE2 is due to run out this summer. Unless you think we’re creating so many jobs in a few months, that it’s obvious that we’re on the right track to full employment, then more QE seems in the cards.

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The third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission will begin in May with 18 bishops and scholars set to examine the theology behind some of the thorniest questions creating tensions within the churches and keeping Catholics and Anglicans apart.

The Vatican released a statement Feb. 3 announcing that the dialogue commission would meet May 17-27 at the ecumenical Monastery of Bose in northern Italy and listing the 18 commission members.

Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, met in late 2009. They pledged to continue the formal dialogue even as the ordination of women as priests and bishops, the blessing of gay unions and the ordination of openly gay clergy threatened the unity of the Anglican Communion and made it more difficult for Catholics and Anglicans to see a way for their communities to draw closer together.

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The head of the Anglican Church in Australia, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, could join Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran as a defendant in a NSW Supreme Court case testing how the church runs professional standards matters nationally.
Archbishop Aspinall has asked to be named as fifth defendant in a case launched by former Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence and Cardiff priest Graeme Sturt after professional standards hearings in December.

The archbishop advised the court this week that he wanted to intervene in proceedings because the matters raised had general application to the operation of professional standards procedures in Australia.

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Just days after 57 percent of voting members of the Christ Church of Lonsdale rejected their rector’s plea that they merge with Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, opposition leader Walter Scott is calling for a brand new team of lay and clergy leaders.

In a letter to the Rev. Scott Gunn Monday, Walter Scott said of his Committee to Save Christ Church, “It is our sincere hope that the entire clergy will voluntarily resign prior to (the Feb. 13 annual) meeting and that includes the current vestry.”

Scott is offering to take on the role of senior warden, the highest lay position in the church and head of the governing board, which is called the vestry.

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As you might imagine, a spirited debate is underway on economics blogs about [Tyler] Cowen’s view that the Internet may not really be the productivity bonanza that was once predicted. So far, he notes, the Internet has generated far less income and far fewer jobs than earlier innovations – think of the automobile – and the benefits it has yielded have been confined largely to the upper end of the income scale.

For me, however, the more intriguing argument in “The Great Stagnation” is that much of our recent growth may, in fact, have been a mirage. It is no coincidence, he writes, that during the recent decades of slow growth in incomes and productivity, three of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy have been education, financial services and health care. And while government statistics show productivity in those sectors growing at the same pace as the rest of the economy, other data suggest otherwise.

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After years of watching Muslims portrayed as terrorists in mainstream TV and movies, an advocacy group hopes to change that image by grooming a crop of aspiring Muslim screenwriters who can bring their stories ”” and perspective ”” to Hollywood.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council is hosting a series of workshops taught by Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated veterans over the next month, an initiative that builds on the group’s outreach for a more representative picture of Muslim-Americans on the screen.

The workshops are the natural evolution of MPAC’s efforts to lobby TV networks and movie studios from the outside, and they fit into a small, but growing, movement to get more Muslim-Americans behind the cameras.

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Dr Michael Jackson (54), the current Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, was elected as the new Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough in succession to John Neill, who has retired.

Speaking last night in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Archbishop-elect Jackson said he was looking forward to establishing a good working relationship with his Catholic counterpart, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

He pledged to work in close partnership with the Anglican Primate of All Ireland, Alan Harper, who presided over the electoral college at which he became the first Northerner since 1969 to be chosen as the senior Anglican prelate in the Republic.

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Q. So is your work getting better?

A. The more you practice the better you get. I’ve been writing for more than 50 years, so inevitably I get a bit better. But you have to beware of facility. The danger is that you’ll say any old thing. Nothing good was ever easily got.

Q. How electronic are you? Do you own a Kindle?

A. I don’t own a Kindle, no. I love books, they are beautiful objects. I’m leaving for a trip to Italy now, and I have four huge doorstoppers in my suitcase. I can’t be without them. I’m a print man. I grew up writing with a fountain pen. I’m barely computer literate. I use the computer as a glorified typewriter. I don’t know what the computer can do. Every now and then I hit a button and weird stuff comes up, for instance the type will change color. But I am addicted to e-mail. I hate weekends. Nobody ever writes to me on the weekend.

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Evangelicals may well be nervous about the notion that doctrine develops. Examples of Catholic dogmas such as the immaculate conception of Mary and her assumption immediately come to mind. Isn’t that where development of doctrine inevitably leads?

However, before we throw out doctrinal development, we might want to listen to what Vanhoozer has to say about it. His understanding is hardly different from Congar’s. Although he does not ground development in Christology the way Congar does, I suspect that Vanhoozer would agree with Congar on the christological foundation. Vanhoozer speaks quite freely about the “meaning potential” of biblical texts, and makes this observation: “As the potential of the Old Testament is realized over the ‘great time’ of the canon, so too the potential of the canon is realized over the ‘great time’ of church history.” Vanhoozer explicitly uses “development of doctrine” language to describe this unfolding of the meaning potential of the biblical text: “The development of doctrine is thus a matter of improvising with a canonical script.” In fact, Vanhoozer’s language emphasizes development in some ways more strongly than does Congar’s. We repeatedly encounter in Vanhoozer the language of imagination, as well as related terms, such as improvisation, spontaneity and creative understanding. For Vanhoozer, development of doctrine is based on the church’s creative improvisation on the biblical text.

–Hans Boersma, J.I. Packer Professor of Theology at Regent College, Vancouver. B.C., Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011)

This program really scared me–I was not aware of this. Take the time to watch it all–KSH.

The study pointed out that relatives were most often esteemed because of goals accomplished, personality traits, and overcoming adversity, while friends were most highly regarded because of the encouragement and support they provide the teen. Faith leaders received recognition because of their strong spiritual convictions, their moral lifestyles, and because the teen hopes to pattern their lives like these leaders. Coaches and teachers also made the grade because teens hope to follow their lifestyles and because of the encouragement coaches and educators dole out.

Not surprisingly, entertainers and sports figures are recognized most often for their talent. However, the profiles of the two types of celebrities diverge from there. Entertainers earned teens’ attention not only with their humanitarian efforts but also with fashion and money. In contrast, sports stars scored points with teens based on their accomplishments as well as their ability to overcome adversity.

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