The Somerset Anglican Fellowship resolved a three-year dispute with the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh Monday.
Property and legal disagreements arose in 2008 after members of St. Francis-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church decided to break apart from the diocese because of theological differences. St. Francis is located in Somerset.
Under the supervision of the Rev. Mark Zimmerman, the Somerset Anglican Fellowship formed and began holding services in a suite at Georgian Place.
St Valentine’s Day is a good day on which to welcome the leaked news that later this week the government is expected to announce full marriage equality for gays and lesbians under reforms to the marriage law as well as allowing civil partnerships to be held in religious buildings.
Changing Attitude England has been involved in consultations with the government that tested public and LGBT opinion before the decision was made. We will now campaign vigorously for the Church of England to adopt the changes being proposed by the government, open Church of England doors to welcome gay marriages and civil partnerships and grant clergy persons the freedom to preside over and register them.
The Government, it would seem, feels no such respect. The Coalition proposes a new law that would allow gays to wed in church and other places of worship. No matter that in doing so they would upset large numbers of believers; or that clerics are warning that they cannot force conscientious objectors to celebrate ceremonies they deem to be a sacrilege. The Government sees this as a crucial step in obtaining full equality for gay people.
More than 20,000 gay Britons are joined in civil partnership. I know a few, and they enjoy a far happier union than some heterosexual marriages I come across. If the Coalition now seeks to replace civil partnership with civil marriage, that is its prerogative; already, the former confers the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, so it would be a question of semantics rather than principle. But so be it: men married to women, men married to men, women married to women ”“ they will all be equal before the law.
They’re not, however, equal in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Evangelical Christianity, Islam or most of Jewry. Even some Anglicans do not accept same-sex unions. Marriage, in these religious communities, joins only man to woman….
“Civil partnerships are not marriage. The legal protections available to civil partnerships should not be confused with marriage. Marriage between a man and a woman is God’s provision for human flourishing. Research has shown that it offers the best environment for the care and nurture of children and family stability which our society needs today.”
Dr Philip Giddings Convenor
Canon Dr Chris Sugden Executive Secretary
Anglican Mainstream
Herewith the BBC blurb:
Religious groups should be allowed to conduct civil partnerships in their place of worship should they wish, according to expected government proposals. Reverend Colin Coward, of the pressure group Changing Attitudes and the Reverend Rod Thomas, from the evangelical group Reform, debate whether this should happen.
The Church of England, however, has voiced its opposition. Senior Anglican officials have said the Church is unlikely to host civil partnerships, which would include religious readings and hymns under the plan.
Some critics fear the reforms could pave the way for legal challenges that would force vicars to conduct homosexual “wedding” ceremonies against their will.
Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, told BBC One’s Andrew Marr show: “I live in a liberal democracy and I want equality for everybody. I cannot say the Quakers shouldn’t do it.
“Nor do I want somebody to tell me the Church of England must do it or the Roman Catholic Church must do it because actually that is not what equality is about.”
Gay partnership ceremonies in other venues will also be allowed for the first time to contain a religious element, such as hymns or readings from the Bible. These unions will then be called ”˜marriage’.
For sure, this change doesn’t force religious institutions to introduce such ceremonies; whether they do so is up to them.
But the Government’s position is anything but neutral. For it implicitly endorses the idea that there is nothing wrong with overturning centuries of Biblical understanding of the sacrament of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
As such, the Government will be cutting the ground from under the feet of religious traditionalists. And what if churches refuse to conduct such a travesty of a marriage ceremony? Presumably, they would then risk being sued for ”˜discrimination’.
Truly, we are fast reaching the stage where upholding Biblical sexual standards will become the morality that dare not speak its name.
As William James pointed out many years ago, religious faith is basically “faith in the existence of an unseen order of some kind in which the riddles of the natural order may be found and explained.” Faith is based on reason, yet not limited to the somewhat meagre truths that reason can actually prove.
So is this irrational, as the New Atheist orthodoxy declares? Christianity holds that faith is basically warranted belief. Faith goes beyond what is logically demonstrable, yet is nevertheless capable of rational motivation and foundation.
It is not a blind leap into the dark, but a joyful discovery of a bigger picture of things, of which we are part. It is complex and rich idea, which goes far beyond simply asserting or holding that certain things are true.
Dating, flirting, cheating ”” social media and other online venues are ripe for making and breaking romantic alliances, suggests an online survey of 1,000 Americans 18 and older being released today.
“Fundamentally, what social media has done is make it unbelievably easier to flirt and meet people and follow up,” says David Jones, global CEO of ad and marketing agency Euro RSCG Worldwide. Its survey, fielded in January, captures Americans’ most up-to-date attitudes about romance online.
O God of compassion, who didst open the eyes of thy servant Thomas Bray to see the needs of the Church in the New World, and didst lead him to found societies to meet those needs: Make the Church in this land diligent at all times to propagate the Gospel among those who have not received it, and to promote the spread of Christian knowledge; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
We give thee humble and hearty thanks, O most merciful Father, for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men, for the blessings of this life and for the promise of everlasting happiness. And as we are bound, we especially thank thee for the mercies which we have received: for health and strength and the manifold enjoyments of our daily life; for the opportunities of learning, for the knowledge of thy will, for the means of serving thee in thy Church, and for the love thou hast revealed to us in thy Son, our Saviour; to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit be praise and glory for ever and ever.
–B.F. Westcott (1825-1901)
I will recount the steadfast love of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel which he has granted them according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. For he said, Surely they are my people, sons who will not deal falsely; and he became their Savior.
–Isaiah 63:7-8
The Church of England, which has said it will not allow any of its churches to be used for civil partnerships, said the reported proposals could lead to “inconsistencies” and “confusion”.
A spokesman said the church had yet to see the plans, but added: “The proposal as reported could also lead to inconsistencies with civil marriage, have unexplored impacts, and lead to confusion, with a number of difficult and unintended consequences for churches and faiths. Any change could, therefore, only be brought after proper and careful consideration of all the issues involved, to ensure that the intended freedom for all denominations over these matters is genuinely secured.”
However, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, gave the news a guarded welcome. He told the BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show that he “believes in a liberal democracy, and actually wants equality with everybody”, but he did not want churches to be told what to do.
Conflicting opinions on ordaining homosexuals or blessing same-sex unions hinge largely on one’s view of Scripture, Bishop Jefferts Schori said.
“I don’t think anybody takes everything [in the Bible] completely literally,” she said. “The tension is more around which parts are more important. I think Anglicanism — the Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican tradition — Anglicanism at its best has said that the wisdom of community is important in interpreting Scripture. One’s rational capacity, reason, is important in interpreting Scripture. We can’t just read it and understand what it means. For one thing, most of us don’t read in the original languages. And meanings of words have changed over the centuries,” she said.
As an example, she said, in Shakespeare’s time, the word “nice” meant “stupid,” from the root for “to not know,” unlike today’s definition of “agreeable” or “pleasant.”
If the Holy Spirit guides the Catholic Church, how would the need for a change of direction be manifested? The question is raised by growing evidence that the institution of the male celibate priesthood is in crisis in many parts of the Catholic world. Until now, the only response of the Church’s hierarchy is to hold the present line come what may ”“ while praying intensely for an increase in (celibate) vocations. What if they do not come? What would be the meaning of a refusal to grant what the prayers are asking for? One result might be a major realignment of Catholic demographics, with Massgoing numbers heading for collapse in the West but increasing in places like Africa. Would that be the will of God?
Unless the Church is prepared to ask such questions, the situÂation can only become gradually more desperate….
Few believed the housing market here [in Seattle] would ever collapse. Now they wonder if it will ever stop slumping.
The rolling real estate crash that ravaged Florida and the Southwest is delivering a new wave of distress to communities once thought to be immune ”” economically diversified cities where the boom was relatively restrained.
In the last year, home prices in Seattle had a bigger decline than in Las Vegas. Minneapolis dropped more than Miami, and Atlanta fared worse than Phoenix.
The bubble markets, where builders, buyers and banks ran wild, began falling first, economists say, so they are close to the end of the cycle and in some cases on their way back up. Nearly everyone else still has another season of pain.
As the day unfolded, strikes and protests were held outside a string of government offices and at workplaces, eventually prompting a televised statement from Egypt’s military rulers.
The best guarantee of a smooth transition to civilian rule would be if all Egyptians went back to work, the military said.
Strikes and disputes would “damage the security of the country”, the army’s ruling high council said.
Two priests with strong ties to Egypt said they feared young Egyptian Catholics will turn away from the church because it did not back the protests that led to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.
“If we lose the youth in the church, then we are done,” said Father Makarios Isaac, an Egyptian-born priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto and an associate of Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers who is currently based in Kenya.
Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster ”” that is, the rate at which they’re getting faster is increasing.
True? True.
So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness ”” not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.
If you can swallow that idea, and [Raymond] Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there’s no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibly quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn’t even take breaks to play Farmville.
Posters, banners and even drink coasters are popping up around Brownsburg showing a picture of a man with eyes and mouth wide open and asking: “What happens when God gets between the sheets?”
New Day Church is finding sex helps sell its message of faith. The edgy marketing campaign promotes a sermon series starting today focusing on the link between sex and religion.
We see then that the consequences of the recession have destabilized the provision of essential services, especially for the poor. We realize the unyielding pressures facing public officials. Thus we recognize the responsibility we have as Church to stretch our resources to the limit as we collaborate with others on behalf of the most vulnerable in our midst. Pope Benedict XVI, addressing the whole Church in his letter God is Love (2005), stressed that the work of charity is an imperative, not an optional choice for us. In words that carry unique gravity for us as Bishops, the Pope affirmed: “Love of neighbor, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level: from the local community to the particular Church and to the Church universal in its entirety. As a community, the Church must practice love.” We take seriously this call to love, and it is for this reason we are offering this statement of solidarity.
In light of the extraordinary challenges our state faces and in view of our religious and moral responsibilities, we use this occasion to make a pledge and to issue a plea. Our pledge is that we will do all we can as Bishops to enable our institutions-parishes, Catholic Charities, health care facilities and schools- to continue to do their best in extending help to our neighbors in need. The persons we must serve include not only those defined statistically as poor, but also those recently unemployed who once enjoyed stability, and who constitute the newly fragile as a result of the recession’s impact.
Our plea is that in the decisions facing our elected officials, and in the discussions and actions of all citizens, there be preserved, for the sake of human dignity, a special place and regard for the vulnerable — those forced to choose between heat and food, and between shelter and clothing — those for whom the destination of every dollar is now so consequential.
The industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy””and society””in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.
{BOB] ABERNETHY: There was a poll that came out this week taken by phone in Cairo and Alexandria asking questions about these things, and a very low percentage, 15 percent, said they approved of the Muslim Brotherhood. Has there been a change since years ago in that as a new generation has come up?
[GENEIVE] ABDO: Well, I think that the statistic that people that have used is 20 percent generally””that if there were free elections today, 20 percent of Egyptians would vote for Brotherhood candidates, but I think that could be sort of an underestimation.
ABERNETHY: But so what would that mean in a government if the Muslim Brotherhood or any strongly Islamist group had influence?
ABDO: Well, there are a lot of parties in Egypt. There are a lot of political parties, as we all know. Some of them are secular, some are nationalist. The Brotherhood is only one of them. However, the Brotherhood is very well organized, and they’ve been around for a long time. They’re a social, also, organization. They run hospitals. They do a lot of sort of social work in Egypt. So they are very, very influential.
Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back–in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
–Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (SanFrancisco: Harper, 1993), p.117; quoted by yours truly in the sermon yesterday.
The churches of Australia guard with absolute determination the right to hire and fire according to the ancient sex rules of their faiths. Orthodox Jews and Muslims claim and exercise the same right, too. But across the faiths and denominations, religious leaders are far happier talking the talk of religious liberty than detailing the human cost.
Are de factos on the list? “Yes.” Single mothers? The bishop pauses. “General carte blanche, no. You need to know why.” The key is repentance: an unmarried mother is employable if she repents of the “behaviour” that occasioned conception. Indeed, everyone on this list of shame can save themselves ”“ and their jobs ”“ by being seen to wrestle with their sins.
[Robert] Forsyth, who speaks on this issue for the Anglican Church in Australia, says it isn’t a matter of proving harm or showing someone can’t do the job. The damage to church organisations is inevitable: “In the long run, someone behaving in a way that is consistently immoral working for an organisation is going to depower and chill the fervour and the life of the organisation.”
In the end, Barack Obama made a hugely important but unintended contribution to the democracy revolution in Egypt. Because the White House never found the voice to fully endorse the Tahrir Square revolution until it was over, the people now know one very powerful thing: they did this all by themselves. That is so important. One of the most powerful chants I heard in the square on Friday night was: ”The people made the regime step down.”
This sense of self-empowerment and authenticity – we did this for ourselves, by ourselves – is what makes Egypt’s democracy movement such a potential game-changer for the region. And in case other autocrats have not picked up on that, let me share my second favourite chant from Cairo’s streets after Hosni Mubarak resigned. It was directed at the dictator next door in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, and it went like this: ”We’re not leaving Tahrir until Gaddafi leaves office.” Hello, Tripoli! Cairo calling.
This could get interesting – for all the region’s autocrats….
Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit didst move thy servant Cyril and his brother Methodius to bring the light of the Gospel to a hostile and divided people: Overcome, we pray thee, by the love of Christ, all bitterness and contention among us, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Almighty Father, in whom is no darkness at all: Shine upon our path, we pray thee, that we may walk in thy light. Lift from our hearts all anxiety and fear, and teach us to trust thee both for that which we see and for that which is hidden from us. So evermore lead us in thy way and keep us in thy peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I thank him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful by appointing me to his service, though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life
–1 Timothy 1:12-16
For this reader, the great achievement of Slawenski’s biography is its evocation of the horror of Salinger’s wartime experience. Despite Salinger’s reticence, SlaÂwenski admirably retraces his movements and recreates the savage battles, the grueling marches and frozen bivouacs of Salinger’s war. It’s hard to think of an American writer who had more combat experience. He landed on Utah Beach on D-Day. Slawenski reports that of the 3,080 members of Salinger’s regiment who landed with him on June 6, 1944, only 1,130 survived three weeks later. Then, when the 12th Infantry Regiment tried to take the swampy, labyrinthine Hürtgen Forest, in what proved to be a huge military blunder, the statistics were even more horrific. After reinforcement, “of the original 3,080 regimental soldiers who went into Hürtgen, only 563 were left.” Salinger escaped the deadly quagmire of Hürtgen just in time to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, and shortly thereafter, in 1945, participated in the liberation of Dachau. “You could live a lifetime,” he later told his daughter, “and never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose.”
That July he checked himself into a hospital for treatment of what we would now recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder. In a letter to Hemingway, whom he’d met at the Ritz bar shortly after the liberation of Paris, he wrote that he’d been “in an almost constant state of despondency.” He would later allude to that experience in “For Esmé ”” With Love and Squalor.” Readers are left to imagine the horrors between the time that Sergeant X, stationed in Devon, England, meets Esmé and her brother, Charles, two war orphans, and the time that Esmé’s letter reaches him in Bavaria a year later, after he has suffered a nervous breakdown.