The Roman Catholic Co-Chair of the Third Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC III) has expressed his personal view that, seeing how in 1993 certain relaxations were made in the Vatican’s rules on eucharistic sharing, further relaxation is possible.

Speaking last week to the Gazette editor following a joint session of the National Advisers’ Committee on Ecumenism of the Irish (Roman Catholic) Episcopal Conference and representatives of the Church of Ireland’s Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue, at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Most Revd Bernard Longley – Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham and ARCIC III Co-Chair -referred to the changes in “specified circumstances” set out in the 1993 Ecumenism Directory.

He commented, “Given that that represents a change, and a very significant shift away from the impossibility to the limited possibility, then I could imagine and foresee one of the fruits of our ecumenical engagement as moving towards a deeper understanding of communion and a deeper sharing, a deeper communion between our Churches which perhaps would lead to reconsideration of some of the circumstances.”

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In the end, we have incentives for insurers not to compete, for customers not to care about price, and for insurers to drive up the cost of care. Not much of a marketplace, is it?

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Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, bishop of the diocese of Kaduna in Nigeria, said he believes there are extreme conservatives and liberals within the Communion, but a majority of about 70 per cent of Anglicans are in the middle and want the Communion to hold together.

Idowu-Fearon, in speaking about the Communion’s instruments of unity””the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council””offered suggestions for making them more effective, including creating a commission to decide whether the Lambeth Conference should be designed for talk or decision-making; giving the Archbishop of Canterbury direct oversight of the Anglican Consultative Council; and the idea that each primate could come to the Primates’ Meeting, accompanied and advised by both a liberal and a conservative on controversial issues.

“I think, as Anglicans, it is about time we stopped running away from the fact that we are two groups””the liberal and the conservatives,” Idowu-Fearon said. The primates might not agree, but there is an opportunity for building understanding, he said, adding that recommendations from the Primates’ Meeting could then be taken to the Anglican Consultative Council, like a synod. “If this Communion has a mission, which is to unite the church, we must learn to accommodate one another,” he said. “The conservatives have been very arrogant, the liberals have been very despotic, and I believe we both need to ask the world for forgiveness”¦”

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A radio advertisement for a prayer vigil at St Paul’s Cathedral has been rejected because it is too “political”.

Premier Christian Radio planned to run a brief commercial advertising the vigil, which takes place next Monday.

The station condemned the decision by the RACC, the commercial radio advertising clearance body, as a “gross perversion of reality flying in the face of basic freedoms”.

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Lambeth Palace said last week that, although he had been invited, the Most Rev Justin Welby, could not attend the meeting, organised by the powerful Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), who claim to represent around 40 million churchgoers around the world, in person but would address them by video link.

He is due to be in Iceland for an international church leaders’ gathering which had long been planned.

But, in a move seen as an olive branch to the traditionalists, it has now emerged that he is to make a detour to Kenya on his way to Iceland to meet the group’s leaders before the summit begins ”“ adding more than 8,400 miles to his journey.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit GAFCON primates just before the opening of GAFCON 2013 in Nairobi.

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With thanks to Kevin Kallsen and George Conger at Anglican TV

It was well worth the time–visually just stunning.

Kimberla Lawson Roby stood near the pulpit of a Baptist church in this Atlanta suburb one Saturday in late August, giving her testimony. She spoke of infidelities, mistresses, blackmail, out-of-wedlock children and extravagant spending. She did so as neither minister or worshiper, but rather as a novelist telling scores of rapt fans about her fictional characters.

…for the past 13 years …[she has been] writing a series of novels built around an African-American pastor, the Rev. Curtis Black. The series, now numbering 10 books, has sold well upward of one million copies, and several titles have made best-seller lists.

Besides being a commercial phenomenon, Ms. Roby’s books represent a theological and cultural one.

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Write deeply upon our minds, O Lord our God, the lessons of thy holy Word, that only the pure in heart can see thee. Leave us not in the bondage of any sinful inclination. May we neither deceive ourselves with the thought that we have no sin, nor idly acquiesce in aught of which our conscience accuses us. Strengthen us by thy Holy Spirit to fight the good fight of faith, and grant that no day may pass without its victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–C. J. Vaughan

Praise the LORD! O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever! Who can utter the mighty doings of the LORD, or show forth all his praise? Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!

–Psalm 106:1-3

Reader question from John Blaxland: Given how little we know about the universe, how can we possibly be sure there is no God?

There are all sorts of things we can’t be sure of–we can’t be sure there are no leprechauns and fairies. Science in the future is going to be revealing all sorts of things which we have no idea of at present, but it’s extremely unlikely that it would happen to home in on an idea from a Bronze Age tribe in the desert.

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The 65 volunteers line up single file beneath the silvery glow of a full moon awaiting their turns to be scrutinized by the Ridgeville prison’s security guards. Some quietly sip coffee. Others greet old buddies. A few pray….

They, like their Christian brethren, believe that Jesus was killed as a sacrifice that opened the doors of salvation to all, even the most heinous of sinners. Even murderers and child molesters and rapists ”” if they truly repent. If they believe in him.

These volunteers comprise the 50th Kairos Prison Ministry International group to enter Lieber’s towering gates to serve what Jesus called “the least among us.” An ecumenical lot, some have volunteered with Kairos for all the 25 years it has been allowed inside the prison.

“We are fishers of men,” says volunteer Billy Gaines, a past state Kairos chairman and member of John Wesley United Methodist in West Ashley.

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.