Bikers revved up their engines at the National Convention of the Sons of God Motorcycle Club.
The event held at Trinity Episcopal Church runs through the weekend and is expected to host over 300 bikers and hundreds of Harleys. The national group gets together twice a year for conventions, and they have members stretching from the East to West Coast.
Several thousand people have gathered in Christchurch this afternoon to protest the demolition of the city’s Anglican cathedral.
The protest rally began in Cranmer Square and saw past and present civic leaders, MPs and other high profile Christchurch residents calling on the Anglican Church to immediately halt demolition work on the quake-damaged Cathedral.
Members spent the day working through three questions around finance, governance, and ACIP:
1. How might God be using the current financial situation of General Synod to tell us about our future in carrying out Vision 2019?
2. What might the Holy Spirit telling us about ourselves as we grapple with the complexities of our current governance and structural challenges?
3. How might Jesus be leading us on a journey of spiritual renewal through the presence of Indigenous peoples among us, and their witness in the Mississauga Declaration.
After four meetings over the past 18 months, the Anglican Church in North America and The Lutheran Church””Missouri Synod (LCMS) rejoice in affirming core teachings of the Christian faith they share. The two church bodies, together with the Lutheran Church””Canada, are jointly releasing a report today summarizing the areas of agreement.
Leaders from the two church bodies began meeting in the fall of 2010 to discuss theological and ecumenical issues for the purpose of increasing the level of mutual understanding and affirmations between them, and identifying potential areas of cooperative work. Because the Anglican Church in North America includes congregations in Canada as well as in the United States, a representative from Lutheran Church””Canada, an LCMS partner church, also participated in the discussions.
The U.K. is calling for a “strong international response” following reports of a massacre of civilians by Syrian forces in a town in Homs province.
More than 90 adults and children were killed during shelling and shootings by government forces in Houla in the past 24 hours, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mailed statement. Explosions were also heard in the city of Homs, it said. British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the killings “an appalling crime” and said the U.K. would be calling for an “urgent” meeting of the UN Security Council.
There has already been a lot of discussion about the amendments agreed this week by the House of Bishops to the draft Measure concerning the ordination of women as bishops. Although the senior officers of the Synod (the ‘Group of Six’) have determined by a majority that these amendments do not alter the substance of the proposals embodied in the Measure, much anxiety has been expressed as to their implications, and it may be helpful to set out what the House attempted and intended.
The House fully and wholeheartedly accepts that the draft legislation voted on by the dioceses represents the will of an undoubted and significant majority in the Church of England. They did not intend to make any change in any principle of that legislation or to create any new powers or privileges for anyone. They believed that, if certain clarifications and expansions of the wording were made, the Measure might be carried with more confidence, and, out of that conviction, agreed the new wording, which affects two questions….
Note carefully the contention that The Episcopal Church’s General Convention is expected to approve these first same-sex union blessings in July, and that St. David’s hopes to perform the first such blessing in late December or just after the first of the year 2013–KSH.
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
The documents below explain themselves. Briefly, they relate to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown’s desire to change the status of three of our clergy to the status of lay people.
I want to note here that the ordination of these three men was recognized by this church some years ago and their orders were received here. They are priests under the jurisdiction and protection of the Episcopal Church. Please be assured that nothing that might occur in the Roman church effects their identity, status, or work among us. I value each of them highly, as I am sure you know.
Faithfully,
–(The Rt. Rev) Paul Marshall, Bishop of Bethlehem
Leslie Sabo was drafted after high school. Lots of people his age marched against the war, but Les didn’t try to get deferred. His family had fled the communist crackdown in Hungary; he wanted to serve the country that welcomed them….
[He] was killed in May 1970. He was 21….
…[the 101st Airborne] had been surrounded by a much larger North Vietnamese force on a reconnaissance mission in Cambodia. Leslie Sabo, already wounded, crawled forward to hurl a grenade back at their attackers, and shield his men with his own body. Then he set off his own grenade to blow up the enemy, and took the full force of that blast, too.
…while this might come as a surprise to Greeks suffering under extreme austerity, some say Lagarde’s approach to the eurozone is less draconian than the IMF’s traditional policy towards developing world economies. Is it easier to impose harsh demands upon small economies, but much harder to tell difficult truths to the big ones ”“ particularly fellow Europeans? “No,” she says firmly. “No, it’s not harder. No. Because it’s the mission of the fund, and it’s my job to say the truth, whoever it is across the table. And I tell you something: it’s sometimes harder to tell the government of low-income countries, where people live on $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000 per capita per year, to actually strengthen the budget and reduce the deficit. Because I know what it means in terms of welfare programmes and support for the poor. It has much bigger ramifications.”
So when she studies the Greek balance sheet and demands measures she knows may mean women won’t have access to a midwife when they give birth, and patients won’t get life-saving drugs, and the elderly will die alone for lack of care ”“ does she block all of that out and just look at the sums?
O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Almighty God, who after thy Son had ascended on high didst send forth thy Spirit in the Church to draw all men unto thee; Fulfill, we beseech thee, this thy gracious purpose, and in the fullness of time gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in him, who is the head over all things in the Church which is his body, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
–Ephesians 6:10-12
(Via email–KSH).
After discussion and prayer and in accord with its canons the Provincial Executive of the Cono Sur together with its College of Bishops, did not ratify the election of the Ven. Dr. Michael Pollesel as bishop-coadjutor for Uruguay. The meeting took place this past week in Montevideo (21 to 25 May). Pollesel previously had served the Anglican Church of Canada as its Secretary General. At the same time the Province promised its close cooperation with the diocese in its future decisions.
Christians have often hoped for a time when our racial and economic differences would cease, when in Christ we would all be indistinguishable. Such impulses are earnest but fundamentally misguided.
Many such interpretations emerge from a fervent hope that the specters of racism, sexism, and myriad other destructive “isms” would no longer bind us to cycles of violence and hate. Many such interpretations emerge from a misreading of texts like Galatians 3:28. Such readings imagine that becoming Christians means becoming all the same in all ways. There are no ethnic differences between us (“no longer Jew or Greek”), no differences of class and status between us (“no longer slave or free”), no gendered differences between us (“no longer male and female”).
Nothing could be further from the truth.
(The concept of liquidity is Zygmunt Bauman’s and has been noted in numerous blog posts over the years–KSH).
Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering, plagued by trading errors and a 16 percent drop in the share price, will push more individual investors out of a stock market they already distrust after the financial crisis.
“This is clearly the latest in a long string of events that is eviscerating the confidence investors have in the market,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago attorney who represents retail investors. “The perception is Wall Street jiggered this IPO so the underwriters made money, Facebook executives made money and the small investor got left holding the bag.”
The doctor, Steven Leatherman, tends to turn a nose up on South Carolina beaches because of murky ocean waters, but the Kiawah beach routinely makes his top 10. In 2011, Beachwalker was ranked seventh. It also made the list in 2009, 2008 and 2002.
The man is enraptured. Listen to him: “This is certainly a nature lover’s coast, so visitors should pack their canoes and kayaks to paddle through the tidal inlets or walk down Sam’s Inlet to see thousands of birds.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate appeared likely to face off against either a former prime minister who served under ousted president Hosni Mubarak or a leftist contender whose popularity surged at the end of the race, according to predictions Friday by political parties based on preliminary results in Egypt’s first free presidential election.
A contest between Mohammed Morsi, a conservative Islamist, and Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, would present a stark choice for Egyptians. A win for Morsi would give the venerable Islamist group a near-monopoly on political power, raising fears among secular Egyptians of a state governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law. If Shafiq were to prevail, many Egyptians would feel that their revolution last year paved the way for a politician with a past and governing philosophy in line with the autocrat they ousted.
“It would be extremely polarizing,” said Shadi Hamid, an Egypt expert at the Brookings Doha Center. “There would be a lot of boycotting. It’s the worst-case scenario.”