Hard economic times had kept Amy Derose and her husband Lawrence locked in an unhappy marriage for the sake of their engineering firm in Pompano Beach, Florida.

“The business was hanging on by a thread and we had to hang on,” said Derose, 53, who had been married 35 years and worked as the business manager. “We couldn’t afford to split. He needed me in the business and I needed him.”

With Florida’s economy and housing market recovering, “we are definitely on the upswing” and revenue is rising at their 24-employee company. That is allowing the couple to move forward with their divorce this month after years of showing up to work as if nothing were wrong personally. Now, she is looking for a job and “couldn’t be happier.”

Read it all from Bloomberg News.

The Archbishop of York visited Butere Diocese during its 100th year celebration
Archbishop Wabukala’s Address to Butere Diocese ”˜Hope & Transformation’ Conference 8th February 2014

It is a great landmark to be able to celebrate a century of gospel proclamation and discipleship in Butere. We thank God for the love, faith and perseverance of those who first brought the gospel to this place.

Looking back we can see the power of the Word of God. Even from very small beginnings in this place, the gospel spread far and wide to bring about the Church we see today. I am reminded of the words of our Lord in John chapter 10 verse 10 when he says ”˜ I came that they might have life and have it abundantly’.

The abundant life which Jesus brings can be reflected in many ways ”“ care for orphans and the homeless, justice and integrity in our government and judiciary, economic empowerment and the protection of the weak and marginalized, but it is important to remember today that these things are not the gospel itself. They are the fruit of the gospel. The new life we have in Christ comes through repentance and faith in Jesus as Lord as the one who died for our sins

Transformation can never be separated from salvation. We must always hold firmly to the cross and the need for personal conversion. So as we look forward to the next hundred years, let us make sure that we do not drift away from what we have heard. We must not forget the first half of the verse I have just quoted. Jesus has indeed come to bring us abundant life, but that wonderful statement comes with a warning that ”˜ The thief comes only to kill and destroy’.

The world is connected today by technologies that those who first proclaimed the gospel here could never have imagined. This brings great opportunities, including the way in which our beloved Anglican Communion can become a reality in the experience of ordinary believers people around the globe. But it also brings challenges because it opens the door wide to new temptations and false teachings.

The gospel is a message to be prized. It is something of great beauty because it brings the grace of God into our lives, so we must be alert to the strategies of the evil one who comes to kill and destroy. Our bishops and pastors must be good shepherds who protect the flock from the wolves and equip the whole people of God to be strong, well-taught and discerning disciples who put their hope fully in Christ.

So it is my prayer that as you begin a new century of Christian life and witness in Butere, you will keep a strong grip on the gospel. Let go of all that that leads to darkness, sin and confusion, and choose life. As we begin a new century of Christian life and witness here in Butere, may you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

The Most Rev. Dr Eliud Wabukala, EBS, Primate of Kenya

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…It is quite remarkable that what is still the official teaching of the Church of England ie.the 1987 Resolution of General Synod is not mentioned at all. The Pilling Report had already thrown doubt upon it and the Bishops’ silence now reinforces the perception that this is no longer viewed as normative, even though there has been no further resolution of Synod….

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When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it

–Henry Ford

Madison Holleran, a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania freshman, died in Philadelphia Friday night in what police called an apparent suicide. Her father later said her death was linked to the “stress” of keeping good grades at her Ivy League school.

According to NorthJersey.com, Holleran jumped off the roof of a parking garage Friday night. Just an hour earlier, the Allendale, N.J., native reportedly posted a photo of the lights at Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia on her Instagram account.

Holleran was a soccer and track star in her hometown at Northern Highlands Regional High School and called a “perfectionist” by her father, Jim Holleran. He also said she had “grown depressed” while adjusting to college life away from home.

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[Jervis] Zimmerman paints a compelling portrait of a hard-working but combative parish priest, quick to take offense, and often at the storm center of controversy. Prescott was subjected to four successive heresy trials in Massachusetts between 1850 and 1852. Again, he was put on trial in Pennsylvania for his ritual practices at St. Clement’s in 1880. At the same time, his relations with Fr. Benson, superior of the SSJE, deteriorated; Benson secured Prescott’s resignation from St. Clement’s in 1880 and released him from his life vows in 1882. Prescott served a variety of parishes in his 53 years of ordained ministry, but often stayed no more than two or three years in one place. His longest tenure was as rector of the African-American parish of St. Luke in New Haven, where he served seven years until his retirement in 1900.

Always professing his loyalty to the Episcopal Church, in times of controversy Prescott also insisted on his rights according to the canons. At least twice he resigned as rector because of what he saw as vestry violations of his canonical prerogatives. When bishops tried to suppress his ritual practices, he argued that such practices were nowhere forbidden by the church’s formularies and that his duty was to defend his parish’s rights against infringement by low-church bishops, who tended to argue that what was not explicitly authorized was forbidden. In other words, Prescott consistently resisted rule by the personal whim of those in positions of ecclesiastical authority. Tellingly, his fundamental disagreement with Benson arose from the latter’s refusal to provide a written constitution for the SSJE despite earlier promises to do so.

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More American women have had medical help to have their babies than ever, according to the latest annual report from the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology.

The group represents the greater majority of in vitro fertilization clinics in the United States.

Their report showed that doctors at these clinics performed 165,172 procedures, including IVF, with 61,740 babies born as a result of those efforts in 2012.

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A cradle Anglican who grew up in the small, progressive congregation of Christ the King Church in Burnaby, B.C., Clark has since attended every type of Anglican church and pretty well every other type of worship site, from temples to synagogues and mosques. Once a student of comparative religion at the University of Edinburgh, the premier remains fascinated by other traditions of worship and the doctrines that underpin them. She considers it a privilege of her office that when she travels, she’s often invited to worship with people of other faiths.

Still, she finds plenty of variety in her own fold. “The Anglican church has many different faces of worship, but whether the service features a rock band, a beautiful choir or a spare liturgy, there is always the same basic element of tradition, which for me is very important,” she says. The familiar patterns offer her a respite from the agendas and stratagems of political office and an entry point into meditation. “The repetitiveness of worship helps draw us into a space where we are thinking about faith and what it means,” she says. “The prayers, the psalms draw me to the familiar and make it much easier for me to be contemplative.”
– See more at: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/christy-clark-natural-born-politician-of-faith#sthash.SeCGNYN4.dpuf

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The Episcopal Church in Egypt has joined the growing number of groups who have condemned Christian attacks on Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR).

In a Tuesday statement, The Reverend Mouneer Anis, Bishop of the Episcopal and Anglican Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and the President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, said he hoped the international community would respond to “stop this humanitarian disaster”.

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I’m often the first to defend Episcopalians when people joke about what they see as excessive people-pleasing and inclusivity. Though I’m an atheist, I consider myself a “cultural Episcopalian” due to my upbringing. I find their consistent adaptation of doctrine and policies that open the church up rather than close it off not as people-pleasing but as measures to be more loving and Christ-like. But even I have to shake my head sometimes when the church does something so clearly aimed at getting people to like them. Such is the case of the seashell adorning The Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston.

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A St. John’s developer was all set to proceed with a 90-unit subdivision situated on more than 16 acres of land east of Portugal Cove Road.

But there’s a catch ”” the party that allegedly sold the land is claiming there is not an agreement of purchase or sale in place.

Powder House Hill Investments Ltd. is suing the Anglican Church’s Diocesan Synod of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador for $9 million as a result, claiming that figure represents the value of a lost business opportunity. A statement of claim was filed in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labra­dor earlier this month.

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I’d defend the father’s example, and, informed by a reading of Timothy Keller’s outstanding book “The Prodigal God,” I’d even apply the father’s wisdom to social policy-making today.

We live in a divided society in which many of us in the middle- and upper-middle classes are like the older brother and many of the people who drop out of school, commit crimes and abandon their children are like the younger brother. In many cases, we have a governing class of elder brothers legislating programs on behalf of the younger brothers. The great danger in this situation is that we in the elder brother class will end up self-righteously lecturing the poor: “You need to be more like us: graduate from school, practice a little sexual discipline, work harder.”

But the father in this parable exposes the truth that people in the elder brother class are stained, too. The elder brother is self-righteous, smug, cold and shrewd. The elder brother wasn’t really working to honor his father; he was working for material reward and out of a fear-based moralism. The father reminds us of the old truth that the line between good and evil doesn’t run between people or classes; it runs straight through every human heart.

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Almighty God, whose sovereign purpose none can make void: Give us faith to stand calm and undismayed amid the tumults of the world, knowing that thy kingdom shall come and thy will be done; to the eternal glory of thy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.

–1 John 2:15-17

Pilling and facilitated conversations (again)

On Wednesday morning Archbishop Justin addressed the assembly. What he said was eagerly awaited, especially given recent pronouncements on ”˜homophobia’ in Africa, the enthusiastic endorsement of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s honorary Oxford degree, and the revelations about funding from TEC. His speech, only 15 minutes long, was published on his website immediately. While it has been interpreted in some quarters as giving the go-ahead for gay blessings, this was not what he said. His message was about overcoming fear with love; showing a watching world that Christians can disagree while remaining in fellowship, and that this process of gracious conversation is itself part of preaching the Gospel.

This theme was continued in the final session of Synod, a presentation on the Pilling Report and facilitated conversations, followed by questions and answers, but no debate. Sir Joseph Pilling and Bishop Stephen Croft summarized what we already knew, in the carefully phrased non-controversial language that we shall increasingly hear over the coming months. Questions from the floor were invariably met with assurances that the design and implementation of the listening process would ensure that all views were heard.

Comments and conclusions

We know that Justin Welby has made this new version of Indaba a central feature of his archepiscopacy. There are several problems though, not least theological difficulties. It may be possible to get people who profoundly disagree with each other to be nice and respectful (it happens at Synod, and regularly in Deaneries up and down the land). But the ideological and philosophical differences remain unresolved and will continue to be so as long as the fiction persists that contradictory views on primary issues are equally valid and both welcome in the same church. To put so much energy and money into getting people to repeat the same arguments and tell the same stories in refereed, set piece engagements appears to be making superficial reconciliation within the church a primary means of facilitating mission. However it is not preparing the ground for Gospel preaching, but a flight from it, because of the admitted confusion about the content of the Gospel. It is being portrayed as a model of peaceful and courageous negotiation, but how will it be seen? Yet more navel gazing, or worse ”“ a dishonest form of manipulation?

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The Church of England House of Bishops has issued a statement affirming Lambeth 1.10 and restricting clergy from blessing same sex unions and/or ”˜marriages’. This is good. But these good restrictions should not obscure the destructive permissions formally provided in paragraphs 20-21. I believe these will be seen, in the future, as the camel’s nose, the beginning of the end for the church of England:

“The House did not wish, however, to interfere with the clergy’s pastoral discretion about when more informal kind of prayer, at the request of the [same-sex] couple, might be appropriate in the light of the circumstances”¦[21] [with] the assumption that any prayer will be accompanied by pastoral discussion of the church’s teaching and their reasons for departing from it.”

Note the neutrality of the language. The prayers “informally” offered might be prayers of affirmation or exhortive prayers for repentance. Either sort of prayer would fit. A conversation about why one departs from church teaching could easily go like this:

“Why are you not abiding church teaching on this matter?”

“We are in love and we think God has joined us together”

“How wonderful! Let me pray for you”¦”

The core problem is this: the New Testament teaches that unrepentant indulgence in homosexual behavior will lead to damnation (1 cor 6:9). The Church of England now formally allows clergy to pray affirmatively for such relationships. She is, therefore, on record professing that there are a variety of responses to same sex relationships beyond the New Testament call to repent of a sin that will keep people from the Kingdom of God. This formal step is also a formal step away from Christianity. Truly Christian bishops do not leave clergy free to affirm sins that lead to hell. Christian bishops instruct clergy to admonish and exhort couples living in damnable sin to live lives of repentance and celibacy for the sake of their souls.

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“Independent Ukrainian news station Espreso TV is broadcasting live from the clashes in Kiev” here

Live Updates from BBC here

Another TV feed from Hromadske TV from another location here

Having read through Archbishop Justin’s presidential address carefully several times it seems to me that he makes two major points in it. The first is that we need to be a church marked by love rather than fear, and the second is that as this sort of church we need to be a place where people will seek to ensure the flourishing of those with whom they disagree. The Archbishop sees these points as applicable both to the issue of the ordination of women to the episcopate and to the issue of human sexuality.

In what follows I want to raise critical questions about each of these points.

First of all, is it right to see fear as always being a bad thing?

Taking his cue from the statement in 1 John 4:18 that ”˜perfect love casts out fear’ the Archbishop consistently sees fear as something negative which we need to allow God to overcome in us. I have two reservation about this approach.

My first is about his appeal to 1 John 4:18. If you look at the context of the words which he quotes from 1 John 4:18 you will see that the Apostle John is not talking about fear in general, but about a very specific form of fear, the fear of the judgement of God on the last day. What the Apostle is saying is that as Christians filled with God’s love we should not fear the judgement.

The specific nature of what the Apostle John is talking about means that this verse cannot be taken as a blanket rejection of all kinds of fear. This is particularly the case as the Bible elsewhere depicts fear as perfectly legitimate. Three examples will serve to illustrate the point…
….
What these examples show is that some forms of fear are entirely legitimate. In his address Archbishop Justin notes the fears of those on the conservative side in the Church of England and the wider communion who are concerned about where the Pilling process will lead the Church of England in terms of its belief and practice with regard to sexuality. He rejects that fear, arguing that we cannot find a way forward on this issue on the basis of fear.

This brings me to my second reservation. I do not think that the fear by conservatives about this issue to which he refers can or should be set aside. If there is a possibility that the Pilling process will lead to the acceptance of same sex sexual activity in the Church of England (and there is) and if, as the Bible and the Christian tradition have consistently taught, such behavior is a serious sin which if not repented of will exclude someone from the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10) then there is every reason to be afraid of the outcome of the process. As we have seen, St Paul was fearful that the Corinthian church would fail to repent of the ”˜impurity, immorality and licentiousness which they have practiced’ and those on the orthodox side who are concerned about the Pilling process share exactly the same sort of fear.
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If we move on to the issue of sexuality the question which arises is whether allowing those with whom we disagree to flourish means accepting that arguments for accepting same-sex sexual relationships form a legitimate part of the spectrum of Anglican theology and that being part of such a relationship, or marking such a relationship liturgically, are legitimate forms of Anglican practice.

The issue which has to be decided is whether the analogy of the position that the Church of England has taken over the ordination of women suggests that this should be the case. This is the direction in which the Archbishop’s address seems to be taking us, but I do not think it is correct. This is because the teaching of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, and behind that the teaching of Christian tradition and of the Bible itself, all point to the fact that the acceptance of same sex sexual relationships is not, and cannot be, a legitimate part of the spectrum of Anglican belief and practice.
As Canons A5 and C15 point out, the Anglican theological tradition is rooted in the teaching of the Bible and the teaching of the Fathers that is in agreement with the Bible. Neither of these sources allows space for the acceptance of same sex sexual relationships. There is thus no space within Anglican theology to permit such acceptance.

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Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday and called on him to “pull back government forces” and “exercise maximum restraint” following deadly clashes in Kiev between police and protesters.

Biden “made clear” the United States condemns violence “by any side,” but “that the government bears special responsibility to deescalate the situation,” according to a summary of the telephone conversation released by the White House.

Read it all and join me in praying for the situation in the Ukraine.

Pastor Jamie Coots, a 42-year-old Pentecostal preacher and third-generation snake handler from Middlesboro, Ky., spoke to NPR in October about his unusual way of leading church services.

“We sing, we preach, we testify, take up offerings, pray for the sick, you know, everything like everybody else does,” he said. “Just, every once in a while, snakes are handled.”

On Saturday night, Coots was handling three rattlesnakes at his small church, the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, when one of them bit him on his right hand….
Read it all and there more comment at Christianity Today

Scientists and Christian evangelicals can collaborate for the good of society but it will take some serious effort, experts said as they launched a new campaign to change perceptions between the two groups.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science and its Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion program released a major research project on Sunday (Feb. 16), at the AAAS annual meeting in Chicago, and announced an upcoming series of conferences mixing believers, scientists and many who are both….The concern is not whether “science and religion can co-exist. They already do,” said lead researcher Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist and director of Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program. “The question is how to do it well.”

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David Pocklington writes:-
…The quasi-legislative nature of the House of Bishops’ Statement is problematic, for whilst the Statement does not have the force of canon law (compared with a Canon or Measure, for example) and may not be regarded as one of the “laws ecclesiastical” in the context of the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003, as amended, (CDM), it unambiguously affirms Church doctrine in this area, albeit with persuasive authority. This is evident in its application to two (of the three) particular areas it identifies as requiring “some guidance ”¦ on the implications of the new legislation in relation to our common life and ministry in England”…

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I expected to be pained by Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker essay on atheism and belief, but I didn’t expect to be quite so ”¦ puzzled by his depiction of contemporary belief. Gopnik clearly has sympathy for the religious side of the argument he’s describing ”” or at the very least he’s straining to be sympathetic. But given the premises he’s working from, that sympathy manifests itself in a peculiar and telling misreading of what theists actually believe.

That misreading follows from the fairly stark distinction that Gopnik tries to establish between the God of popular belief ”” the God of miracles and commandments, signs and wonders, heaven and hell ”” and the God of more intellectually-minded modern believers. The former sort of almighty, he writes, is simply impossible for serious minds to believe in any more…

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…there is a deep fracture, a fault line, between our instincts, our desires, what we feel is innate within us, and the pattern of holy living God calls us to in Christ. It is the theology embedded in the Scriptures. This isn’t simply true for those who believe they are gay and not called to celibacy””it is true for all of us, and it is a point of tension and struggle for all who seek to live faithfully in the footsteps of Jesus. The chief dishonesty here has been amongst ”˜liberal’ bishops who have ordained men knowing full well that they are living contrary to the bishops’ clear teaching on this issue..
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What is the real challenge facing the church in the UK? In all the discussion about gender and sexuality, about women bishops and the response to gay men and women, there is a massive paradox. The Church which is apparently almost irredeemably misogynistic is numerically dominated by women in its membership. The Church which is, it seems, deeply homophobic has a disproportionate number of gay people in its ranks, and especially in its clergy””in some dioceses, vastly disproportionate. Yet one group is consistently under-represented, and rarely discussed: men, and particularly working class men. And if all the recent media coverage has done anything, it has pushed them further away through painting an unremitting picture of the church feminised.

I look forward to the time when the agendas of Synods, the headlines in the papers, and the tweets and posts in the social media are dominated by the importance of the offer of purpose, direction and wholeness to the men of our nation found in the message of the gospel, which has become the preoccupation of the Church.

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It was 50 years ago that the Rev. Wade Renn, the founder of Montclair Emergency Services for the Homeless (MESH) decided that enough was enough.

The former Boeing and Atomic Energy Commission employee had spent the first part of his life helping to make weapons of mass destruction and participating in research that Renn would only describe as “nasty stuff.” His two physics degrees and scientific track record had earned him a spot in a prestigious Johns Hopkins think tank, but none of it brought him satisfaction.

None of it brought him peace.

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The chapter from Seitz’s 2011 book, The Character of Christian Scripture, seeks to explain how the two testament canon of Holy Scripture must be properly respected — particularly the Old Testament as Christian witness — or we inevitably end up with two separable canons, and then a third called the greater wisdom of our own day. This is what has happened and explains why there is such deep confusion over how the Bible declares its sense when it comes to marriage and sexuality. Here is a summary of the chapter circulating at Alastair’s Adversaria
Seitz proceeds to put his finger on what is perhaps the deepest concern explaining the strength of opposition to same-sex behaviour among many Christians, which is the very power of Scripture to speak with any degree of clarity into the present day at all:

If the Bible’s consistently negative word about homosexual conduct is wrong, or outdated, who will then decide in what other ways the Bible is or is not to be trusted or cannot comprehend our days and its struggles, under God? Appeal to Scripture’s plain sense is born of the conviction that the Bible can have something to say without other forces needing to regulate that or introduce a special hermeneutics from outside the text so we can know when and where it can speak.

Seitz suggests that, at the very heart of these debates is the issue of the Bible as two testaments, speaking ”˜of the same God in Christ, though in different dispensations and in different figural directions.’ At stake here are two creedal statements: that the Holy ”˜spake by the prophets’ and that Christ died and rose again ”˜in accordance with the Scriptures.’ What progressivism has done is to change the relationship between the testaments. The work of the Spirit is now regarded as ”˜fully detachable’ from his prior testimony in Scripture and the Old Testament is read, not as a faithful testimony to God in Christ but ”˜only of a developmental phase of religion en route to a NT religion and then a more enlightened Holy Spirit religion.’
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It is also critical that we appreciate that sacrificing the Old Testament’s authority with respect to the New has broader ramifications:

For once one begins thinking along these lines, that is, of using the New’s allegedly “new religion” to sort out the “religion of a First Testament,” instead of seeking to hear God’s Word of triune address in both Testaments, appropriate to their character as “prophet and apostle,” it is then an almost effortless transition to believing both Old and New Testaments are themselves only the provisional proving ground for religious virtues said to be en route to a Holy Spirit’s fresh declaration of unprecedented “new truth” in our day.

I believe that Seitz here brings into sharp relief what lies near the heart of the concern that many of us have about contemporary developments in some churches in the area of teaching about Christian sexual ethics. The flirting of many evangelicals with forms of trajectory hermeneutics is just one example of the way in which the creedal understanding of the relationship between the testaments has become compromised. As Seitz observes, it is a fundamental conviction of Christian orthodoxy that is at stake here: that the Old Testament is authoritative Christian Scripture, a faithful and abiding witness to the triune God.

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