The seven remaining Jews in Baghdad have been named by WikiLeaks, leaving them in danger of persecution, according to the city’s Anglican vicar.
Their lives are now in immediate danger, according to Canon Andrew White, and they’ve been advised to hide their religion.
Canon White said Baghdad’s Anglican Church is trying to protect them, as they fear extremists might try to kill them if they’re identified.
The Bishop’s Committee of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, a mission congregation of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, has informed Bishop Jack Iker that they wish to join the U.S. Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church when the Ordinariate begins functioning on Jan. 1, 2012. The Rev. Christopher Stainbrook, vicar of the church, intends to resign from the ordained ministry in order to seek admission to holy orders within the Ordinariate.
The Bishop’s Committee ”“ a body of elected lay leaders in the congregation ”“ discussed its decision with the Bishop and other key diocesan officers ”“ including the President of the Standing Committee, the President of the diocesan Corporation, and the Chancellor ”“ in a meeting Tuesday, Nov. 29. Approximately 90 persons worship at St. Timothy’s each Sunday. It is not known how many members of the congregation intend to join the Ordinariate.
St. Timothy’s, which was founded in 1956, became a parish in 1960, but had to revert to mission status in 1993, requiring significant financial support from the Diocese to continue operations.
Bishop Iker has asked that an open forum be held on Dec. 11 with the entire congregation, and, one week later, that a vote be taken to determine the will of the members. This will provide a benchmark number so that the Bishop can make provision for worship and pastoral ministry to that portion of the congregation that will be staying in the Diocese.
Bishop Iker said, “While we regret that many members of St. Timothy’s feel called at this time to leave our fellowship for the Roman Catholic Church, we respect their conscience and spiritual discernment in this matter. We live in a very conflicted time in the life of the Church, and it is important to maintain charity and patience with one another. We wish them well, in the name of the Lord.”
Notice of the intention of the Bishop’s Committee and plans for the open forum and vote are being communicated in a letter to the congregation. The text of the letter is below.
Dear Friends in Christ,
On Sunday, Dec. 11, and Sunday, Dec. 18, we will have two very important meetings for all members of St. Timothy’s Church. Please join us in the Parish Hall following the 9:30 a.m. Solemn Mass on these dates. All active members are strongly encouraged to attend these meetings pertaining to the future of our congregation. They are being held with Bishop Iker’s full knowledge and support.
The December 11th meeting will be informational and will focus on the petition of the Bishop’s Committee for St. Timothy’s to be admitted, as priest and congregation, to the Anglican Ordinariate in the Roman Catholic Church when it is established on Jan. 1, 2012. After this petition was sent to Bishop Iker last week, the Bishop’s Committee and Father Stainbrook met with the Bishop and key officers of the Diocese of Fort Worth on Tuesday, Nov. 29, to discuss the best way to address this concern. If approved by our members, the most likely possibility would be for the St. Timothy’s Ordinariate group to pay a use fee for the buildings until the property litigation is finally resolved by the courts.
The following representatives of Bishop Iker and the Diocese will be present on Dec. 11 to address our concerns and answer any question you may have: Dean Ryan Reed, President of the Standing Committee; Bishop Keith Ackerman, President of Forward in Faith; and Shelby Sharpe, lead attorney for the Diocese in the litigation.
To encourage attendance and foster fellowship, a lunch will be served prior to the open forum.
This meeting will be followed by a week for prayer, reflection, and the opportunity for clarification, before the December 18th meeting where all eligible members will have the opportunity to vote on whether or not St. Timothy’s should join the Ordinariate at this time, as proposed. The results will be presented to Bishop Iker for his consideration prior to being announced to the congregation.
We urge all voting members of St. Timothy’s to attend these two very important meetings. Eligibility for voting will be the same as at the Annual Meeting:
1. Attend church on every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation unless for good and sufficient cause prevented. [These causes are (a) serious illness or infirmity, (b) necessity to perform charitable service, (c) unavoidable obligations connected with one’s vocation, and (d) unavoidable difficulties with travel.]
2. Contribute to the financial upkeep of the Congregation.
3. Have been confirmed or received by a Bishop of this Church or of a Church in communion with this Church.
4. Have received Holy Communion at least three times in the preceding twelve (12) months.
5. Not be under ecclesiastical discipline or censure.
6. Be enrolled (via letter from another congregation or Confirmation register) as a communicant of this Congregation and be at least 16 years of age.
Do pray for God’s wisdom and guidance as we seek His will in this decision.
Faithfully in Christ,
Bishop Iker and Father Stainbrook
For five years, I became a fervent Islamist, moving up the ladder of increasingly radical organizations. All strands of this movement descend from the teachings of Banna. He fought against the British in Palestine, trained a paramilitary organization, and members of the movement killed Egypt’s prime minister in 1948. In response, the Egyptian state had Banna assassinated a few months later.
Yet I learned, through bitter experience, that Islamism is far from unitary or coherent. In the end, I quit what’s called “the Islamic movement” because I found it too controlling of my life ”” but also because I no longer wanted to be in a perpetual state of confrontation with the West. It took me several years of travel and study in the Middle East before my mind was free of Islamist influences. I remain a follower of Islam, the religion, but not of Islamism, the political ideology.
Because I was once a part of this movement ”” whose primary goal has been the creation of Islamic governments ”” and then established the world’s first counter-radical think tank, Quilliam, in London to oppose their ideology, I have been following the Arab uprisings with more than a passing interest.
There are several scales used, recently I have been following the CIA Factbook. No peaking, phoning a friend, googling etc.
This appeared in yesterday’s (London) Times (at the top of the Ipad). You have to guess what you think it means before seeing the article’s beginning.
Pupils should learn that studying the form can improve their chances of winning a bet, an industry-funded body has advised
Children as young as 12 should be taught in school how to gamble, a government education review has been told.
Pupils should learn that studying the form of race horses, dogs and sports teams can improve chances of winning a bet, an industry-funded body has advised. They should also play the dice game craps, learn about fruit machines and how to calculate betting odds.
Read it all (my emphasis) [requires subscription].
[Ross] Hebb has been priest and rector of the Anglican Parish of St. Peter (Springhill), Woodstock Road since 1996. He spent May and June on sabbatical in England and, while there, he noticed something.
“The 400th anniversary was a really big deal over there,” Hebb said. “It is being marked throughout the land in many various ways – talks, displays, readings, lectures and usage.
“Here, in Canada and in New Brunswick – hardly a word. I thought someone should do something and, as St. Peter’s is known as a traditional parish, what better place than here?
O God, who didst send thy blessed Son into the world to be the Saviour of all men, and hast promised that he will come again to be our Judge: We beseech thee to increase in us the spirit of watchfulness and prayer, that in the day of his appearing the lamps of our spirit may be trimmed and burning, and we may enter with joy into the marriage supper of the Lamb. Hear us, O heavenly Father, of thy mercy, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering– since indeed God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant rest with us to you who are afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at in all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfil every good resolve and work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
–2 Thessalonians 1:5-12
In 2010 only 48.2% of the adult population of England and Wales were married. Of the rest, 35.6% were single, 9.3% were divorced, and 7% were widowed. It is estimated around one in six people are cohabitating.
“One of the main reasons for the decrease in the married population and the increase in the single population is the growth of cohabitation by unmarried couples,” the report stated.
Earlier this year cohabitation in England was examined in a study published by the Jubilee Centre, a group that describes itself as a Christian social reform organization.
In “Cohabitation: An Alternative to Marriage?,” authors John Hayward and Guy Brandon said that although the rise in rates of cohabitation is now stabilizing, an increasing proportion of these relationships do not lead to marriage but end in separation.
Pondering a gender change began with his doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School in the ’90s. “I was out as gay at that point,” he recalls. The run-up to his change was not the turmoil-filled time you might expect. “I’m not a huge fan of the trapped-in-the-wrong-body narrative” of some other transgendered people, Partridge says. “I know it’s true and real for some folks, but I never felt like God made a mistake. I’ve not had a problem with God about this, I really haven’t. I just had a sense of this growing””discomfort, disjunction.” With the change, “I felt like I was able to kind of reclaim the body that God had given me.”
Seeking a unisex name, he was stumped until he went for take-out sushi one day when he was still a woman and the clerk misheard the name, asking, “Cameron?” Partridge looked the name up and learned it meant “crooked,” just the name, he thought, for someone who believes gender is not linear.
As for his agenda as chaplain, he’s exploring ways to involve students in environmental justice, an interest that has come up in conversations with them.
The Church of England is a parochial church. Whatever some ecclesiologists may say the heart of the Church of England, both legally and I believe effectively, lies in its parishes. The law is based far more on Churchwardens and PCCs than on diocesan boards or indeed bishops. Incumbents have very specific legal rights meant to ensure their independence of bishops, patrons and PCCs. This rightly preserves the duty of the incumbent to follow his or her conscience within the parameters of Canon Law and the Measures which spring from that. I know that Common Tenure is sometimes seen as challenging that, and most of us want to be paid, so there is a necessary relationship with the Diocesan Board of Finance, but both parish and incumbent retain their own rights and duties which are not subject to episcopal, diocesan or even archidiaconal behest.
So I believe that a diocese is the servant of parochial mission. The parish is responsible to and for its local community, so that there is a duty to take up the Christian care of everyone, and the proclaiming of the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone.
Nevertheless the diocese is more than a group of parishes who have got together for mutual support or defence.
Read it all (Hat tip: Stand Firm).
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
However much of him India has claimed, he has always clung resolutely to his Christian faith, as devoted to the Anglican Church today as he was as a schoolboy at Marlborough, a theology student at Cambridge, and at Lincoln Theology College, where he once hoped to become a priest. He remains a regular worshipper at Cathedral Church of the Redemption in the Indian capital.
Yet now, at the age of 76, Sir Mark appears to have embarked on a spiritual journey that few of his fellow worshippers there, and almost one million devoted listeners of his Sunday evening programme Something Understood on BBC Radio 4, would consider recognisably Christian: he has accepted the eastern religious ideas of karma and reincarnation.
There are different interpretations of karma and reincarnation within the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, but Sir Mark has come to believe that he will be born again into a new life, the nature of which will be determined by how he has lived and behaved in this one.
“I’m having a blast…” [the Rev. Mel Malton] says. “I enjoyed the training but it’s like lessons in sky-diving; you can’t really know until you’re actually doing it.”
“I remember realizing, wow, this is for real. The parishioners talk to me about the heavy things they are dealing with. It’s a huge responsibility, it’s a blast, it’s a challenge. You get to be in on people’s really important life moments: funerals, weddings. I haven’t been able to do any baptisms yet but we have some coming up after Christmas and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Digby’s deacon grew up in Muskoka, Ont., but was born in England. That accent slips out now and then, usually when she’s telling a joke, but most of the time she uses a gentle Upper Canadian accent.