Canon Malcolm Bradshaw, of St Paul’s Athens, reports on the emerging ecumenical cooperation in Greece with regard to assistance for refugees. This emerging coordination is a fruit of much Anglican initiative.

On the morning of Thursday 15 October six Christian agencies and Churches came together in the offices of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNCHR), Athens, to learn what each one was doing in the face of the refugee crisis. They were able to share information on the resources that each may have and to explore the possibility of working more cohesively and effectively.

Around the table were Apostoli (the centre for the welfare work of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens), International Orthodox Christian Charities, the Jesuit Refugee Service, Caritas, the Salvation Army, the Greek Evangelical Church, the Anglican Chaplaincy in Athens (who joined by representatives of Anglican Alliance and Us) and a representative from UNCHR. All welcomed greatly the opportunity to be informed of what each Church was doing and something of the resources each could bring to the table.

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Freedom is the word used in our times to describe human flourishing. Freedom for the individual to be themselves in a safe and supportive environment. A great vision ”“ enshrined in Human Rights legislation and aspiration.

The great paradox of our times is that the more we speak about freedom, the more we discover about oppression and abuse. Amongst the most shocking challenges is the worldwide prevalence of modern slavery. Fellow human beings trapped as sex slaves, forced labour, pressured organ donors.

Freedom has become a space for the powerful, the criminal and the self-centred to exploit others ”“ not least because when a human being is reduced to the size of the individual, each potentially ”˜free’ person is in fact vulnerable and weak.

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We’re all painfully aware of the toll binge drinking takes on the body but what may be less known is the damage it inflicts on the economy.

Excessive drinking cost the U.S. $249 billion in 2010, or $2.05 per drink, according to a newly-released study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a significant increase from $223.5 billion, or $1.90 per drink, in 2006.

The financial toll on the economy stems in part from reduced workplace productivity – in other words, hangovers. Crime, accidents and the cost of treating people for health problems caused by excessive drinking also add to the cost.

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Charleston, New Orleans, Miami and other low-lying cities will be mostly under water by the end of this century unless global carbon emissions are dramatically reduced soon, a new study says.

Published [this past] Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study found that carbon emissions already have locked in at least 5 feet of sea rise by 2100.

But without drastic cuts in emissions, seas could eventually rise by 20 feet or more, the study found. Such an increase would affect at least 20 million coastal residents. Coastal South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana would be particularly hard hit.

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A British wife who took her five children to Syria to join Islamic State is trying to flee the country, complaining that the other women there have a violent “gangster” mentality.
Shukee Begum, 33, from Manchester, took her children, all aged under nine, to Syria last year to join her husband, Jamal al-Harith, an Isis fighter and former detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
She later fled Isis territory, but said that she and her children were held by smugglers for a number of months in Aleppo and close to the Turkish border before they were released. The circumstances of her release are unclear. According to Channel 4 news, rebels from Nusra Front, which is affiliated to al-Qaeda, intervened to facilitate it.
Ms Begum is trying to escape Syria, saying that she was shocked by the behaviour of single women in Isis, who revelled in its brutal executions.

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The Church of England should ask the Government to find more money to support listed churches and cathedrals, a report has recommended.

The Church Buildings Review Group, which was set up under the Reform and Renewal programme earlier this year, and chaired by the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, set out the proposal in a report released on Tuesday.

Although the report noted “conspicuous success” in recent years in securing state funds for church buildings, it urged the C of E and the Government to find new ways of funnelling money into maintaining the 16,000 churches under the Church’s care.

“By European standards, the Church of England bears an unusually heavy financial burden of maintaining part of the nation’s built heritage,” the report says.

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“I didn’t come out of the church. I don’t have an intuitive understanding of what religion gives to people. I just don’t. I didn’t really grow up in a Christian household,” says the author of Between the World and Me. “I’m very distanced from that. For both good and ill, it probably marks my writing.”

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Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

All through this day, O Lord, let me touch as many lives as possible for Thee; and every life I touch, do Thou, by Thy Holy Spirit, quicken, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I breathe, the letters I write, or the life I live; in the name of Jesus Christ.

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved….Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore

Psalm 16: 7-8;11

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Listen to it all and the composer’s website is there [Hat tip: Preston Trombly].

Thanks be to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ
For all the benefits Thou hast given me,
For all the pains and insults
Which thou has borne for me.
O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,
May we know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
And follow Thee more nearly
Day by day.
Amen.

–St Richard of Chichester (1197-1253)

The Taliban insurgency has spread through more of Afghanistan than at any point since 2001, according to data compiled by the United Nations as well as interviews with numerous local officials in areas under threat.

In addition, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan over the past two weeks has evacuated four of its 13 provincial offices around the country ”” the most it has ever done for security reasons ”” according to local officials in the affected areas.

The data, compiled in early September ”” even before the latest surge in violence in northern Afghanistan ”” showed that United Nations security officials had already rated the threat level in about half of the country’s administrative districts as either “high” or “extreme,” more than at any time since the American invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001.

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In our community, the reality of homelessness remains largely hidden and relegated to the East Lancaster Avenue corridor. Unless we travel to that area of Fort Worth, it’s easy to dismiss the faces of homeless people.

But, for the past eight years, homeless men and women have found a hospitable overnight welcome in area houses of worship during the hottest and coldest months. It’s through a ministry called Room in the Inn.

Room in the Inn began in Nashville in 1987 as a way to offer a warm and welcoming respite to those on the streets. Nashville became the model for similar initiatives in 20 other communities in the U.S. and Canada.

Fort Worth is fortunate to be one of them, since 2007.

Read it all and for more information about this ministry please go there.

“Everyone used to know the worship rules, and now we don’t. It’s that simple, which means that things are getting more complex,” said Lee Rainie, the Pew Research Center’s director of Internet, science and technology research. He is also the co-author of the book “Networked: The New Social Operating System.”

Every venue in public life “has its own context,” he said, “and you can’t write a set of social-media rules that will apply in all venues. Using technology to enrich our own spiritual experiences is one thing, while interrupting corporate worship is another. … People are going to have to ask if that phone is pulling them deeper into worship services or if they’re using it to disengage and pull out of the experience.”

This storm has been building in the pews for more than a decade, and religious leaders will not be able to avoid it, according to new work by the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. A survey found that 92 percent of adults own cellphones and 90 percent carry them most of the time. Nearly half say they rarely turn off these devices and nearly a third said they never turn them off — period.

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“If we don’t do this – what will our silence say?” argued Tara Sing, who spoke as seconder of the reaffirmation motion.

Mrs Sing echoed a call from Archbishop Glenn Davies, in his Presidential Address to the Synod, when he said “It is time that all Christians, especially Anglicans, should enter the discussion and graciously and sensitively explain the reasons why our good Creator has made marriage the way he has.”

Canon Sandy Grant, of Wollongong, moved the resolution, which “affirms once again that marriage, as a gift from God who made us male and female, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life” and urged the Federal Parliament to uphold that definition.

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Britain’s shallow, celebrity-obsessed culture could leave as toxic a legacy for future generations as the pollution of the planet, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams of Oystermouth has warned.

Today’s children are growing up in a culture with few if any real “heroes”, he said, while ideas of “nobility” and even “honour” are quietly disappearing.

The result could be as damaging to the nation’s “moral and imaginative ecology” as the destruction of the environment, he argued.

Britain is in danger of become a more “boring” and “mean-minded” place as a result, he added.

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Reflecting on the geographical make-up of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop explained that the average Anglican today is “an African woman in her thirties, living in sub-Saharan Africa on less than four dollars a day.”

By comparison Anglicans in the global north have become “the exception”, he said, adding: “On the whole we are, to use Pope Francis’ phrase, a poor church with the poor.”

Asked about the challenges facing such a diverse Communion in the 21st century, the Archbishop highlighted the way that technology has intensified global awareness of diversity.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, explained how Anglican churches are “deeply involved” in reconciliation work in conflict zones around the world, during an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

The Archbishop also said the mainstreams of all faiths must “challenge and subvert” radicalisation and religiously-motived violence within their traditions.

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On his calls for gun control on a personal level rather than a legal level

Ultimately, we’ll all make the decision what we will do, whether we’ll own a lethal weapon and use it or not. We’ve had a long discussion in this country ”” decades-long ”” on gun control, that is government gun control. For me, this is a question of self-control regardless of what the law may allow me to do. I appeal to a higher law. … I’ve said publicly, that in our respecting of the Second Amendment, we have to be very careful we don’t break the second commandment, which is the commandment against idolatry. We can set up our own idolatry when we declare ourselves the arbiters of right and wrong, and especially, of the value of a human life.

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Bishop Michael Curry vividly remembers growing up in segregated Buffalo in the 1950s and ’60s, where on one bright morning in 1963, he crossed Main Street from East Buffalo to West Buffalo to attend an integrated school.

As an Episcopal priest and civil rights activist, his late father, Kenneth Curry, helped lead the boycott of the city’s segregated public schools. And yet, like the larger culture at the time, worship in the Episcopal Church he so loved was largely segregated. As leader of a black congregation in Buffalo, he never would have been called to the pulpit of a white Episcopal church.

Five decades later, Kenneth Curry probably would never have imagined that his son would be chosen to lead the entire denomination.

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South Carolina is returning to normal quickly from the historic, damaging flooding, Gov. Nikki Haley said on Wednesday.

Road closures are down 48 percent, from 541 to 281, Haley said during a press conference from the S.C. Emergency Management Division’s headquarters. Of the roads that are closed, 84 have bridges.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control is also moving swiftly to inspect the state’s dams, having already assessed 147 of 357, she added. The state is also “reconfiguring the way that we do dams in South Carolina.”

“We are looking at, do we have enough engineers to monitor those dams, how are we going to go maintain those dams going forward and what’s the new plan for the new South Carolina as we go forward with that,” she said.

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Named after the Rev. Dr. Peter Moore, one of Trinity’s founders and the fourth Dean/President, this new merit scholarship is awarded to outstanding pastoral leaders who exemplify the values of Trinity School for Ministry in their contexts of ministry: Evangelical Anglican identity, Three Stream graciousness, servant heartedness, excellence in scholarship, community concern, a passion for discipleship, dedication to lifelong learning, and faithfulness to the provision of God. Peter Moore Scholars are expected to have a Master of Divinity degree prior to appointment, and a track record for being a leader who plants, renews, and grows churches that make disciples of Jesus Christ. …he Rev. Jeffrey Scott Miller is the Rector of St. Helena’s parish church in Beaufort, SC. St. Helena’s was established in 1712 as a colonial parish of the Church of England. The church was built in 1724 and is one of the oldest active churches in North America. The vision at St. Helena’s is to be like the Church at Antioch where the disciples were first called Christians; Antioch was a culturally, ethnically, and socio-economically diverse church where all were welcome to seek the Lord. They encapsulate their vision in the words “Proclaim, Equip, Pray, Send & Go.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, is travelling to Cairo to meet with the primates of the Global South and GAFCON movements. In a roundtable discussion organized by the Council on Foreign Relations held in Washington on 13 Oct 2015, Archbishop Welby stated he would be flying Cairo to join a meeting of the conservative and center-right primates of the Anglican Communion.

Archbishops from Asia, Africa, North and South America are meeting this week at All Saints Cathedral, Cairo, to discuss a common response to Archbishop Welby’s invitation to attend a primates’ gathering in January in Canterbury. Sources tell Anglican Ink that no decision has yet been reached, but the working understanding among the group is that they will act as a bloc.

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O God, who by thy Holy Spirit didst move Teresa of Avila to manifest to thy Church the way of perfection: Grant us, we beseech thee, to be nourished by her excellent teaching, and enkindle within us a lively and unquenchable longing for true holiness; through Jesus Christ, the joy of loving hearts, who with thee and the same Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

"It is love alone that gives worth to all things." – St. Teresa of Avila #ALDUB13thWeeksary pic.twitter.com/ztiLsLTUq2

— CBCP for Life (@CBCP4LIFE) October 15, 2015

Jesus, our Master, do thou meet us while we walk in the way and long to reach the heavenly country; so that, following thy light, we may keep the way of righteousness, and never wander away into the darkness of this world’s night, while thou, who art the Way, the Truth, and the Light art shining within us; for thy mercy’s sake.

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD, who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said: I love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

–Psalm 18:1-3

Oil is the black gold that funds Isis’ black flag ”” it fuels its war machine, provides electricity and gives the fanatical jihadis critical leverage against their neighbours.
But more than a year after US President Barack Obama launched an international coalition to fight Isis, the bustling trade at al-Omar and at least eight other fields has come to symbolise the dilemma the campaign faces: how to bring down the “caliphate” without destabilising the life of the estimated 10m civilians in areas under Isis control, and punishing the west’s allies?
The resilience of Isis, and the weakness of the US-led campaign, have given Russia a pretext to launch its own, bold intervention in Syria.

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US President Barack Obama has announced that US armed forces have been deployed to Cameroon to help fight against the Islamist militants Boko Haram.
The force, which will be 300 strong, will conduct airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations in the region.
Cameroon and Chad have been targeted by the Islamist militants from northern Nigeria.

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Within marriage, we discover what John Paul calls the “spousal meaning of the body.” We are created for marriage. To even say that today sounds controversial, because we have been so versed by our culture to the strains of solitude. But Jesus repeats this in Matthew 19 “a man shall leave his mother and father and be united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” There are, of course, those who are called to celibacy and marry the church. There is a profound dignity in singleness which we will explore later on in these homilies. But, the basic design is marriage. Our modern discomfort with this is perhaps illustrated by the recent trend in the elimination of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day in the church. This has been driven mostly because of concerns that those who are single or childless might feel excluded. But, this is a sign of the inward gaze which is the anti-sacrament of autonomous solitude. Surely, the more profound insight is that our very presence in the world, or in this room, is a testimony that we have or had a father and a mother. And we stand even in our singleness and honor our father and our mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.

The contemporary world has set the genders at war with one another in endless cruel and destructive ways. Remember, the trajectory of the fall is always pushing towards autonomous solitude; the trajectory of redemption is always summoning us to communion with the Triune God. The world lives under the gravity of sin and self-orientation; we live under the gravity of holy-love. This is the heart of what John Paul meant by the “spousal meaning of the body.”

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