O Thou in whom all things live, who commandest us to seek thee, and art ever ready to be found: To know thee is life, to serve thee is freedom, to praise thee is our souls’ joy. We bless thee and adore thee, we worship thee and magnify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
–Saint Augustine
Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
–Psalm 146:1-3
Let us be clear what the Taskforce’s approach entails in political terms: it is (d.), the Balkan Solution. The erasure of alternative views, and the proposal for a canonical change that will demand church-wide acceptance in dioceses, is one of enforced unity.
To be sure, the Taskforce does not speak explicitly to any of this. But the change of canon ”“ the only concrete element in the Report ”“ seeks to define (rather arbitrarily and counter-intuitively, in my view) the meaning of specific words in the Book of Common Prayer (and hence of Scripture itself, which the Prayer Book cites). The words “man and woman” and “husband and wife”, which will remain in both Scripture and Prayer Book, will now signify to Episcopalians “two people” or “two persons”.
First, this represents an imposition of linguistic transformation by fiat, demanding that very particular words that mean one thing in customary usage and traditional interpretive habit, will now mean another. (The change is very different, in this regard, from the understanding of “man” as including “male and female”, something that biblical usage itself engages, let alone normal English usage.) Second, this change deliberately opens the door to church-wide same-sex marriage rites; that is the stated purpose of the canonical change. Third, the change will as well open the door to the potential for attempts at nullifying diocesan and episcopal jurisdiction on the matter, and will significantly alter traditional notions of episcopal authority. Fourth, given that one conscience clause allowing priests to refuse to marry a couple on the basis of their individual views of the matter is left in “tension” with another existing canon that forbids discrimination on the basis of sexuality, the canonical change also opens the door to disciplinary and perhaps legal challenge to individual clergy who maintain classical views about Christian marriage. Finally, the proposal dispenses with the notions of consultation or mutual decision-making, especially at the Communion level: the proposal has not been shared systematically with Anglican bishops around the world, or with other representatives from international Anglican or ecumenical partners, and the few months that remain before GC cannot come close to providing an adequate time for response to the Report now released. Whatever “Christian communion” might have meant in the past, the Taskforce has made a decision about TEC autonomy that is decisive: we will simply go forward in the face of Anglican and ecumenical opposition elsewhere.
I believe that we need to be clear about the trajectory of this approach to divided views. Within the church, the Balkan solution has consequences that are analogous to those experienced by political societies where it has been adopted: conflict, litigation, disciplinary disputes, and exit. This is not idle speculation. In fact, each of these elements is already well-established in TEC’s profile over the past 15 years, a period in which litigation, disputed discipline, significant exit of membership, estrangement of relations with many other Anglican churches, and finally a general contraction of resources has piled up. In this respect, the Taskforce is expressing an established habit of thinking and acting, rather than pondering it critically. It is reflecting the past, not the future. And its Balkan solution must be seen as potentially another push in the direction of our church’s conflicted dissolution.
In the Diocese in Europe we pride ourselves on offering residents and visitors a warm welcome to our congregations but as Bishop Robert discovered during a pastoral visit to Berne and the Swiss Archdeaconry Synod he needs a good supply of warm clothing and the ability to adapt quickly to temperature changes.
Read it all and see what you make of the Bishop’s sermon.
Thoughtful U.S. travelers approach Europe with a sense of pietas. Europe is no Disneyland but the home of our fathers.
That’s the attitude I take, anyway, and never did I feel more pious, in the classical sense, than on this recent trip to Florence. Within the previous year, discovering the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri had changed my life””saved it, I would say, because it drew me out of a dark spiritual wood.
I wanted to go to Italy to see the city that nurtured the poet who had been the spiritual father of my new life, the same city that threw him out in disgrace and in so doing seeded the creation of an immortal work of literature. For me, the trip to Florence was very much a pilgrimage, as much a spiritual journey as an intellectual and cultural one.
But then, they all are. For well over half my life, I have been going to Europe at every opportunity, drawn mostly by its art, its architecture, and its culture. (And, well, its food.) It was in Europe””inside the Chartres cathedral, to be precise””that I rediscovered the Christian faith that I, as a know-it-all teenager, had rashly discarded as an ideology of either bourgeois dullards or televangelistic vulgarians.
A review by Dr Martin Davie of ‘Living Reconciliation ”“ Phil Groves and Angharad Parry Jones’.
Dr Martin Davie is tutor in doctrine at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and served at Theological Consultant to the House of Bishops
The reason that Living Reconciliation nevertheless holds that the Anglican diversity needs to include both the liberal theology prevalent in the Episcopal Church and same-sex sexual activity is because of a belief that the alternative to such inclusion would be to exclude people from the Church and that such exclusion is wrong in all circumstances. This point is made by Archbishop Justin in his foreword:
Through all our differences we belong to one another: not through our choice, but God’s. Those who follow Christ are relatives ”“ we are related through our Shepherd. You may choose your friends, but you are stuck with your relatives.
So we do not have the option, if we love one another in the way that Jesus instructs us, simply to ditch those with whom we disagree. You do not chuck out members of the family: you love them and seek their well-being, even when you argue. (p.xiii)
The Bible (see Matthew 18:15-18, 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, 1 Timothy 1:19-20) and the Christian tradition would both disagree with the Archbishop’s argument. They would hold that it is legitimate to exercise the disciplinary power (the ”˜power of the keys’) granted by Christ to his Church (Matthew 16:19, 18:18, John 20:23) by excluding people from the Christian community.
The theological rationale for the exercise of discipline by the Church in New Testament times and subsequently is helpfully explained by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship. In his chapter on the Church as the community on the saints Bonhoeffer writes that the Church:
”¦is a community of men and women who have genuinely encountered the grace of God, and who walk worthily of the gospel by not casting that grace recklessly away.
……
In his chapter on ”˜The visible community’ Bonhoeffer also makes clear that such discipline must extend not only to sinful behaviour, but also to heretical teaching:
It is not always easy to see where a legitimate school of thought ends and heresy begins. That is why a doctrine may be tolerated in one Church and proscribed as heresy in another (Revelation 2:6, 15ff). But once a heresy has become an open scandal it must of necessity be proscribed. The heretical teacher must be excommunicated and all personal intercourse with him avoided (Galatians 1:8, 1 Corinthians 16:22, Titus 3:10, 2 John 10ff). The word of pure proclamation must visibly bind and loose. The space which the Church claims for its proclamation and order is thus made clear as an ordinance of divine appointment.
……
Conclusion
In summary therefore, although Living Reconciliation provides us with a useful reminder of a number of things that all Christians need to bear in mind, it does not provide us with a useful blueprint for the future of the Anglican Communion. This is because its account of what reconciliation involves does not do justice to what the New Testament teaches about reconciliation and because its emphasis on living with difference and celebrating diversity fails to do justice to the need to reject forms of theology and practice that are contrary to the message of reconciliation given to the Apostles. A blanket affirmation of difference and diversity simply will not do.
Read it all
Posted 2:13 am 01.10.15
The Archbishop of Canterbury said he was “often deeply embarrassed” by some failings of the Church of England in tackling anti-Semitism,
Justin Welby said people should be shocked by the rise in anti-Semitism and described it as “blasphemy”, as he hosted the launch of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism at Lambeth Palace.
The Archbishop said the spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK and the Paris terror attack on a Jewish supermarket had made the report more timely. “The need for increased police patrolling of Jewish neighbourhoods in response to security concerns was a “peculiar and remarkable obscenity when we are in the midst of commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz”, he said.
The problem of anti-Semitism was “deeply embedded in our history and the culture of Western Europe”, the Archbishop acknowledged as he praised the all-party group for highlighting “the stark reality of rising anti-Semitism in this country and the key responses necessary to counter it”.
When Islamic extremists snatched more than 270 girls from the Chibok boarding school in Nigeria in the dead of night, protests broke out worldwide. The U.S. pledged to help find them, and the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag was born.
Some 10 months later, most are still missing. The Boko Haram extremist group sees the mass kidnapping as a shining symbol of success, and has abducted hundreds of other girls, boys and women. The militants brag to their new captives about the surrender of the Chibok girls, their conversion to Islam and their marriage to fighters.
“They told me the Chibok girls have a new life where they learn to fight,” says Abigail John, 15, who was held by Boko Haram for more than four weeks before escaping. “They said we should be like them and accept Islam.”
What do the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, many of them threatened with extinction in lands where they have survived since the dawn of their faith’s existence, most need from their co-religionists in the West? Some want more military support, but others take a different view. That difference emerged during a visit to London by Archbishop Bashar Warda, the top Catholic cleric in Erbil, the only Iraqi city where Christians live in significant numbers.
At a meeting yesterday in the House of Lords, co-organised by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, the archbishop reminded people of the hard realities facing his flock. As of a result of last year’s onslaught by Islamic State, perhaps 400,000 people fled their homes in Mosul and the neighbouring Nineveh Plain and many sought refuge in the adjacent area controlled by the Kurdish regional government. The displaced include Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities. Of the 300,000 or so Christians who remain in Iraq (down from 1.4m a couple of decades ago), the great majority now live in Kurdistan, of which Erbil is the capital.
Iraqi Christians are practical, energetic sorts, the archbishop told his British hosts, and they are not sitting around bemoaning their fate. Huge efforts are being made to get the displaced families, who are now holed up in tents, portakabins and half-built shopping centres, into better accommodation where they can become economically active and their children can pursue studies. The archbishop is working hard to start, by next autumn, a new university which will be Catholic in inspiration but open to all faiths.
Dear Friends in Christ,
We were all greatly encouraged by the court ruling that came out of South Carolina last week, where the historic Diocese prevailed in its lawsuit against The Episcopal Church. Circuit Court Judge Diane S. Goodstein ruled that Bishop Mark Lawrence and his Diocese, under neutral principles of law, had legitimately withdrawn from TEC in 2012 and were entitled to retain all their buildings, assets, and intellectual property (name, identity, seal, etc.)
South Carolina’s Supreme Court had previously ruled that the Dennis Canon (that claims all church property is held in trust for TEC) was invalid in that State, and the Texas Supreme Court has made the same determination here in Texas. Under neutral principles of law governing property, trusts, and corporations in Texas, we believe we should prevail in the hearing before Judge Chupp on Friday, Feb. 20, here in Fort Worth.
The same conclusion was also reached recently in the appellate court system in Illinois, where the Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that there is nothing in the Constitution and Canons of TEC that prevents a Diocese from withdrawing, with its property and assets. The right to associate includes the right to dissociate. The Illinois Supreme Court denied an appeal from TEC attempting to reverse that ruling. And though TEC will be making a similar appeal in the South Carolina decision, it is expected that they will reach the same result.
In coming months, we expect TEC will once again be taking their losses in Illinois, South Carolina, and Texas to the United States Supreme Court, seeking reversals. We do not believe such efforts will succeed. Needless to say, all of this is a very expensive undertaking, costing both sides millions of dollars in legal fees and court costs that instead should be going for ministry and outreach in the world.
Continue to pray for our legal team as we prepare for the summary judgment hearing on the 20th and for clarity and insight for Judge Chupp in his ruling.
Thank you all for your continued faithfulness and for your witness to the Truth.
Faithfully in Christ,
–The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth
(Found here).
Updated 2 March 2015
Here are links to entries that were recently featured (stickied at the top of the blog) regarding the Diocese of South Carolina Legal Ruling.
Last two weeks:
South Carolina Dorchester County Judge Diane Goodstein Reaffirms Ruling Against TEC (Feb 23)
A S Haley on TEC reconsideration motion””Judge Goodstein: “We, not You, Get to Say What Is Ours” (Feb 14)
Slightly older entries::
Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein rules in favor of Dio. of South Carolina in case vs TEC/TECSC (Feb 3)
South Carolina Circuit Court Rules Diocese Keeps Historic Property (Feb 3)
A S Haley’s Analysis of the recent South Carolina Legal Ruling””“A Full Vindication”¦” (Feb 5)
Grateful: Bishop Lawrence Writes the Diocese Following Ruling (Feb 6)
Other related entries:
(CP) SC Judge Rejects Episcopal Church’s Attempt to Take Over one of its Founding Dioceses (Feb 27)
A.S Haley””South Carolina Court Makes Short Shrift of ECUSA’s Motion (Feb 24)
(Local paper) Judge denies motion to reconsider ruling against Episcopal Church (Feb 24)
(Local Paper) Local families worshiped at parishes for centuries, long before Episcopal split (Feb 15)
Jim Lewis””What it Means: Understanding Judge Goodstein’s Ruling in South Carolina (Feb 14)
(Not another Episcopal Blog) On the strange Radio Silence in Upper SC abt the Dio. of SC (Feb 14)
The New Episcopal Church Diocese in S Carolina files a motion for Reconsideration in recent ruling (Feb 14)
New Episcopal Church Diocese, Original SC Diocese steer ahead into complex legal waters (Feb 8)
A Charleston, S.C. Regional Business Journal Article on this week’s Court Decision (Feb 6)
(Charisma News) Episcopal Church Loses Big in Landmark South Carolina Court Decision (Feb 6)
Rift among S.C. Lowcountry Episcopalians widens as fight continues over properties, name (Feb 6)
New Episcopal Church Diocese in SC’s Decides to Appeal this week’s Court decision against them (Feb 6)
A Pastoral letter from the Bp of the New Episcopal Church Diocese in South Carolina (Feb 5)
Reminder””Timeline of Events in the Diocese of South Carolina leading up to latest legal ruling (Feb 4)
The Local Paper Article on the Ruling in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina (Feb 4)
(AP) South Carolina court rules Episcopal diocese, churches can keep property (Feb 4)
You can find all stories related to the TEC legal conflict in SC here.
Nearly 4,000 blacks were lynched in the American South between the end of the Civil War and World War II, according to a new report by the Equal Justice Initiative.
The report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, says that the number of victims in the 12 southern states was more than 20 percent higher than previously reported.
Lynchings were part of a system of racial terror designed to subjugate a people, says the Alabama-based nonprofit’s executive director, Bryan Stevenson.
As we ponder this momentous ruling of our nation’s highest court, let us pray that the gifts of the Holy Spirit will guide all of us in our response: Above all, that the gifts of wisdom, right judgment and courage will flourish among us.
Moreover, we cannot fail to proclaim the gospel of life with both vigor and joy: that every life has an inherent God-given dignity from the moment of conception until life’s natural end. And let the words of St. Paul we heard in today’s second reading ring out in our minds and hearts: “If I proclaim the Gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16).
The mission ahead of us is not committed only to a few. Rather, it is mine; it is yours; it is ours.
With God’s help, which he offers in this Eucharist, may we fulfill this obligation to proclaim the Gospel for the welfare of all our brothers and sisters.
,,,a more secularized society might just be a great gift to the Body of Christ. While I suppose the same might be true for other traditions, Christianity has had a particular brand of dominance in the United States that was likely never intended. And now that affiliation with Christianity is on the decline, it’s like the Church is liberated from the burden of garments that were never ours to begin with. Stripping these off even may allow us to remember what makes us the Body of Christ.
Maybe people would stop confusing “church” as being a place rather than a community if we stopped treating our buildings like our purpose for existing.
We can empty our pockets of squandered simoleons and remember how clearly Jesus speaks about riches. Seriously, he was super clear about money, and we’re rarely good about living up to his standards.
We can remove our penny loafers and don walking shoes for a journey that takes church out of elaborate facilities (and some not-so-elaborate ones) into the rest of the world. Maybe people would stop confusing “church” as being a place rather than a community if we stopped treating our buildings like our purpose for existing.
And finally, we can exchange our power suits for some solidari-tees. Seriously, outreach has its limits ”” we’ve got to engage beyond (but including) food and clothing collection.
The Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram continues to strengthen its hold over Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north-eastern states, and the Nigerian government seems to be permanently on the back foot.
This week, the government announced it has decided to postpone the Presidential election that was due to be held on February 14th, saying that it needs more time to wrest control from Boko Haram, and ensure a safe and secure poll.
Boko Haram’s stated aim is to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the north of Nigeria, and ultimately to impose sharia law across the whole country. But the religious agenda doesn’t tell the whole story.
According to information disclosed by the Church Commissioners, which is responsible for its property portfolio, six out of 10 bishops live in a large official residence.
The details of the comfort afforded to members of the episcopate emerged an official question and answer session to the Synod which is meeting in London.
Andreas Whittam Smith, the First Church Estates Commissioner, outlined details of spending on bishops’ living arrangements in response to a question by Sam Margrave, a Labour councillor and lay member of the Synod from Coventry.
He disclosed that the Commissioners spend just over £207,000 a year providing drivers for 11 of the Church’s 42 diocesan bishops.
Deliver us, O God, from injustice, envy, hatred and malice; give us grace to pardon all who have offended us, and to bear with one another even as thou, Lord, dost bear with us, in thy patience and great loving-kindness.
— Rydal School Hymnal
But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.
–Mark 10:14-16
The recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, striking down the long held ban on physician-assisted dying is cause for celebration among many Canadians and cause for great concern among many others.
For those who have long advocated for a person’s right, in the face of immense and intolerable suffering, to end their life with medical assistance the ruling is a victory. For those who hold to the conviction that our life is something larger than any individual person’s “ownership” of it, and is not simply ours to “discard” the ruling is deeply troubling.
Whatever one’s perspective, serious attention needs to be given to the court ruling’s intent and application. While enabling legislation may not be imminent, we know consideration of any new laws will be a matter of intense public interest and debate within Canadian society at large, within the country’s medical community, and certainly within and among the churches, including ours.
General Synod is on February 10-12 in London
Our Father in heaven,
May You inhabit the praises of Your people at the General Synod.
O Lord, may those who worship in the chapels and environs of the Synod surrender their burdens to You as they come into Your presence. Descend upon them, Holy Spirit, and stir their hearts to confess their sins. Father, in Your tender mercy, forgive them their sins and cover them with the Blood of the Lamb. May they come into Your presence with clean hands and pure hearts, in humility and truth.
May Your priests who minister there teach Your people the difference between the holy and the common, the pure and the profane, the clean and the unclean. May they follow Your laws and keep Your Sabbaths holy. May they honor Your appointed days of feast and fast.
May Jesus be their bread and Your word be their clean, sweet water.
May those who minister there speak Your word in the full confidence that it will not return to You empty, but accomplish what You desire and achieve the purpose for which You have sent it. May the angels, excelling in strength, bless You, do Your commandments, and hearken to the spoken voice of Your word in this place. May the heavenly hosts descend upon General Synod and do Your pleasure. Amen.
Ezekiel 44:17-30, John 6:35, Ephesians 5:25-27, Psalm 19:9-10, 22:3, 103:20-21, 119:103, Isaiah 55:11
See also for background: Colin Coward’s Article: “David Porter Lays Out Justin Welby’s Sexual Immorality Plans for the CofE”
and Interview with David Porter and Malcolm Brown: Welby Scheme: ”˜It’s Not Necessarily About Sitting Down Arguing Over The Scriptures’ – Porter
and for comment on Facilited Conversations and Reconciliation CEEC: Martin Davie on ”˜Living Reconciliation’
Question 31 asked today:
The Revd Christopher Hobbs (London) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops:
Question: Can the House confirm whether or not the report of the meeting between the LGBTI Coalition and David Porter concerning the Shared Conversations about sexuality which was posted on the Changing Attitude website on 23 January is accurate? If it is accurate, how is it compatible with what was said about the purpose of the Shared Conversations in GS Misc 1083?
The Bishop of Sheffield to reply on behalf of the Chair
Answer: Private Conversations have been offered and held with individuals and groups from a range of views and constituencies within the church to enable the process to move forward addressing the concerns that each have expressed. I am assured that what has been said at all of these private meetings is in keeping with the purposes of the conversations as set out in GS Misc 1083
Update: there were two supplementary questions of which this a rough record:
Christopher Hobbs “in the light of that Changing Attitude Report which should” [not have been given] asked whether there were plans for a Synod debate on the results of the facilited conversations. The Bishop of Sheffield stated that it was planned to bring it to Synod in July 2016 but the the shape of that had not been determined.
Simon Butler asked about the safety of LGBT persons to disclose information in the facilitated conversations including their bishops not attending. The Bishop of Sheffield said there had not been agreement in the House of Bishops so it would be dealt with on a diocese by diocese basis, although the planning for the conversations had been designed for them to be as safe as possible, but it was for people attending to take responsibility for the extent they disclosed information.
More information will be provided when the audio is available.
…the biggest hill to climb is that at every point in the church we might be so urged on by the love of Christ, the good news of salvation, that we break the historic pattern, which in many parts of our church goes back centuries, and become those who with all our faults, all our failings, all our divisions and sins and misunderstanding ”“ because, let us be clear, if we wait until we’re fit to witness, we will wait forever ”“ we become those who, with all those drawbacks, are nevertheless humble, gentle, transparent, hospitable witnesses to Jesus Christ, so that the world may know.
That is a challenge which takes us straight back to the life of the local church or chaplaincy, to the cathedral, to every point at which there is a Christian, because at every point at which there is a Christian there is a witness. And it takes us back here to be those who serve and love the witnesses, so that they are liberated to a joyful ministry of witness. All that we are doing here must be held in that context of the worship of God and the sharing of the good news.
..the persecution our community is enduring is doubly painful and severe. We are personally affected by need and by the reality that our vibrant church life is dissolving in front of our eyes. The massive immigration that is now occurring is leaving my church much weaker. When the Jews were exiled to what is now called Iraq, they wrote lines of text, now enshrined in our Old testament of a yearning to return to their true home ”“ Jerusalem; My people, who resided very recently in the same land as the exiled chosen people, are yearning for the opposite: they will go anywhere rather than return to their home. This is a deeply sorrowful reality. We who are part of the church hierarchy are very often tempted to encourage our parishioners to stay ”“ keep the presence of Christ alive in this special land. But truly I and my brother bishops and priests can do no more than to advise young mothers and fathers to take all the necessary considerations into account and to pray long and hard before taking such a momentous, and perhaps perilous, decision. The Church is unable to offer and guarantee the fundamental security that its members need to thrive. It is no secret that hatred of minorities has intensified in certain quarters over the past few years. It is difficult to understand this hate. We are hated because we persist in wanting to exist as Christians. In other words, we are hated because we persist in demanding a basic human right.
How did you decide to focus on baptism, the Bible, the Eucharist, and prayer as the four essential elements of the Christian life to write about?
Dr. Williams: Simply by looking at what Christians actually do to announce that they’re Christians, throughout the ages and throughout the world. It would be hard to recognize as Christian a body that had none of these practices. And all are mandated by Jesus in different ways: he tells his friends to evangelize and baptize, to search the Scriptures, to break bread in his memory, so as to receive his life into theirs, and to pray.
The Bible is a collection of books written over centuries. How do they all fit together in a cohesive message?
Dr. Williams: The cohesion comes through the fact that it is the set of texts read and accepted in a cohesive community””the community of those whose lives are being shaped by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Christ is the center of Scripture for the Christian and provides the perspective in which diversity can be held in the right kind of tension. And the church both gives Scripture its unity be treading it in the Spirit of Christ and receives its unity from Scripture as the book which provides a universal common language.
European Bishops have deplored the “unacceptable loss of life” of at least 29 migrants by hypothermia in the Mediterranean Seaand and are calling for “greater clarity and greater political will among all of the EU member states on an acceptable resolution of the refugee crisis”.
Just over two months have gone by since Pope Francis appealed to European policy-makers not to allow the Mediterranean to become a vast graveyard. But migrants continue to die during the dangerous crossing as they seek to flee poverty and conflict.
In the latest tragedy of the sea 29 migrants have died of hypothermia and others are in serious condition after they were picked up from inflatable boats by Italian coastguard vessels.
General Synod is now over. Reports and other links are below
â– Press release about Agenda
â– Timetable
â– Full Daily Agenda and Timetable
â– Brief Agenda and Papers
â– Live Video Feed when in session or listen here for prior recordings
â– Twitter: #synod and it may be worth following: CofE Official Synod tweets; and @C_of_E if interested.
Thursday Afternoon February 12th
Report on Thursday Afernoon Business
– Liturgical Business – Alternative Baptism Texts ”“ Revision Stage [new texts removing reference to the devil and evil] (GS 1958A Alternative Baptism Texts and GS 1958Y [item 600])
– Mission and Growth in Rural Multi-Parish Benefices: Take Note Debate from the Mission and Public Affairs Council (GS 1985) and GS Misc 1092 [item 16])
– Farewells and Prorogation
Thursday Morning February 12th
Report on Thursday Morning Business
– Legislative Business
– – Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure/Amending Canon No 34 ”“ Revision Stage
– – Petition to change the names of the suffragan sees of Knaresborough and Pontefract (if a debate is required)
– Standing Orders Debate
– Private Member’s Motion – Canon B38 [‘to allow those who have taken their own life, whatever the circumstances, to be buried in accordance with the rites of the Church of England’] (GS 1972A & GS 1972B)
Wednesday Afternoon February 11th
Report on Wednesday Afternoon Business
– Discipleship: Debate on a Motion from the Ministry Council
– Resourcing the Future and Resourcing Ministerial Education: Debate on a Motion from the Archbishops’ Council
– Simplification: Debate on a Motion
– Inter-generational Equity: Debate on a Motion from the Church Commissioners
Tuesday Afternoon February 10th
Report on Tuesday Afternoon Business and Audio [the media office have gone back to chopping the audio record into bits and pieces as they like]
– Address by Archbishop Bashar M Warda, CSSR, the Archbishop of the Chaldean Diocese of Erbil (Eastern rite Catholic)
– Report by the Business Committee
– Report by the Business Committee on the Allocation of Seats in the 2015 General Elections
– Archbishop of Canterbury’s Presidential Address amd audio
– Report on Immersion Experience in India by Regional Representatives of House of Bishops
– Legislative Business
– – Enactment of Amending Canon No 32 (relating to GS elections)
– – Amending Canon No 35 ”“ Final Approval
– – Naming of Dioceses Measure ”“ Revision Stage
– Questions and written Answers
– Presentation on the Task Groups and Discipleship Report [“The Synod’s engagement with the programme for Reform and Renewal”]
……………………….
Links when in session:
Watch here at the following times:
Tuesday February 10th 8am to 2pm Eastern [1pm to 7pm GMT]
Wednesday February 11th 9.30am to 2 pm Eastern [2.30 pm to 7pm GMT]
Thursday February 12th 5.30am to noon Eastern [10.30am to 5pm GMT]
[This post will be updated from time to time]
The Rt Revd Paul Williams has been announced as the next Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham on the 10 Downing Street website
From here:
One might wish that the leadership of the Episcopal Church would come to grips with reality. The people of the Diocese of South Carolina voted by an overwhelming majority to leave the Episcopal Church. Any church bureaucracy that would try to force its will on a Diocese where the majority of people have said they no longer want to be affiliated is manifestly evil. They are just trying to suck the life out of the Diocese of South Carolina (and the other dioceses they are suing) by bleeding them dry through lawsuits. (That’s just my opinion, of course. But this kind of continued pernicious evil from the Episcopal Church’s leadership has been going on long enough that it just makes you wonder what it will take to finally drive a stake through the vampire’s heart.)
Christians in Iraq “do not have much time left” without direct military action on the ground, the Archbishop of Irbil has told UK peers and MPs.
Archbishop Bashar Warda said air strikes were “not enough” to defeat Islamic State militants and “begged” for Western troops to be deployed.
He said Iraq’s Christian population was declining and that he would speak to the UK government about further action.
The government has said efforts to defeat IS were “comprehensive”.