Listen to it all and make sure to read Steven’s comments:
As I have prayed for and grieved with the people of Charleston SC there’s one part of this terrible and tragic story in particular that continues to stir me. It’s the fact that Rev. Pinckney and the other believers gathered at Emanuel AME Church to worship, pray and study God’s Word opened their hearts & made room in their “circle” for a stranger..
(the rest at the link).
Emanuel AME Church’s 500 or so parishioners may face a decision to seek God, prayer and support Sunday at the historic black church or elsewhere after an attack left their senior pastor and most of their ministerial leadership dead and their hallowed space violated.
Rev. Joe Darby, a senior AME pastor, said Saturday morning Emanuel AME will likely hold services Sunday but is waiting for official word from authorities. The Charleston Police Department is still investigating the murders of nine parishioners and pastors. Word about the church’s opening could come as early as Saturday afternoon, Darby said.
As of Friday members were not expecting to hold services at their historic Calhoun Street building Sunday.
In South Carolina, by act of the state legislature, the Confederate battle flag flies over a Confederate War Memorial on the state Capitol grounds. I can see how some white Southerners genuinely regard the flag and its display as nothing more than honoring the Confederate dead, something that is noble even as the cause for which those soldiers died is not. I think about the one ancestor I know of who fought for the Confederacy. He was a poor country farmer, and almost certainly didn’t carry in his head the idea that he was fighting to preserve slavery (though he ultimately was); chances are he only thought that he was fighting for the people of his state, defending his land against invaders. He really did fight bravely, records show. I cannot and will not be ashamed of that man’s battlefield courage, though I wish he had not devoted his courage to the Confederate cause ”” which was not solely about maintaining slavery, but which undeniably included that evil end.
The widespread use of the Confederate battle flag during the Civil Rights era, to defend white supremacy, removed the benefit of the doubt that might have been extended to those displaying the flag in memory of the war dead. In other words, modern white supremacists robbed the flag, as a symbol, of a plausible claim of innocence. True, Dylann Roof did not display the Confederate battle flag in his rampage inside the church, but it can’t be denied that the Dylann Roofs of the Civil Rights era, and their fellow travelers, did openly associate that flag with their cause. In light of what just happened in Charleston, and considering things from the point of view of black Southerners, I believe that the Confederate battle flag is simply too tainted as a symbol to be displayed in good conscience anymore.
The Confederate battle flag may mean many things, but with those things it represents a defiance against abolition and against civil rights. The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night.
That sort of symbolism is out of step with the justice of Jesus Christ. The cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire. White Christians, let’s listen to our African American brothers and sisters.
Let’s care not just about our own history, but also about our shared history with them. In Christ, we were slaves in Egypt ”” and as part of the Body of Christ we were all slaves too in Mississippi. Let’s watch our hearts, pray for wisdom, work for justice, love our neighbors.
Let’s take down that flag.
Read it all (emphasis mine).
Let us whites especially admit that many of us have inadvertently imbibed theological and ethical assumptions that, in the face of a tragedy like this, show themselves to be naïve. We sometimes write and act as if the Christian ethic is mainly niceness on steroids, all in the name of grace. Anyone who knows my writing knows I’ve wandered into this territory from time to time. In short, we do not take into sufficient account the depth of evil roaming this world, and in this particular case, the radical evil that lies at the heart of racism.
Of course, we mustn’t swing the pendulum in the other direction. We mustn’t now abandon the doctrine of imago dei, nor the need for mutual respect, nor the fruitfulness of dialogue, and so forth. To assume we can solve racism with by merely mocking white supremacists and treating perpetrators of hate crimes with brutality and hatred””well, that is just as naïve. As if evil can be checked with distrust, suspicion, and hate.
And we can never forget that radical “niceness”””what is better called agape love””has extraordinary power to bring miracles to bear on seemingly intractable evil in isolated cases. Agape love on the ground is a large part of the reason Martin Luther King, Jr. made as much progress as he did in his day.
Still, the moment of lament is the moment to rethink what we believe, and to adopt the radically realistic ethic of Jesus, who has no illusions about the power of evil….
I have never seen anything like what I saw on television this afternoon. Did you hear the statements made at the bond hearing of the alleged Charleston, S.C., shooter?
Nine beautiful people slaughtered Wednesday night during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and their relatives were invited to make a statement today in court. Did you hear what they said?
They spoke of mercy. They offered forgiveness. They invited the suspect, who was linked in by video from jail, to please look for God.
There was no rage, no accusation””just broken hearts undefended and presented for the world to see. They sobbed as they spoke.
Attendees heard prepared statements from multiple speakers, including state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston; Charleston County Council Chairman Elliott Summey; Charleston Mayor Joe Riley; the Rev. Nelson Rivers III of Charity Missionary Baptist Church; and others.
They sang hymns “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” held hands and swayed to a rendition of “We Shall Overcome.”
Statements made during the vigil reiterated common themes of love, faith and unity.
“We share one thing in common. … Our hearts are broken. We have an anguish like we have never had before,” Riley said.
Read it all from the local paper.
Almighty and eternal God, who madest thy light to shine in the darkness by the sending of thy Son Jesus Christ to deliver us from the dominion of evil: Visit us now, we pray thee, in the darkness of these times, and let thy truth and righteousness shine forth among us. Take from the world the fears which oppress mankind, that we may live in the power of justice and the freedom of thy truth; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
–New Every Morning (The Prayer Book Of The Daily Broadcast Service) [BBC, 1900]
On the holy mount stands the city he founded; the LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.
–Psalm 87:1-3
Wipe away my sins, O Lord, which ignorantly in my youth I have done; and give pardon to the penitent, for thou art my Lord my God.
All the hope of my soul doth only rest in thee. Thou art my hope, thou art my health. My tears do testify to my grief, my dolour and affliction.
Be mindful O Lord God of thy goodwill, and with favour give ear unto my prayer.
Then shall my heart rejoice in thee and my spirit shall serve thee for ever and ever. Amen.
With the busyness on the blog yesterday given the Charleston shootings and quite a number of other important posts, some readers may have missed the post about Lent & Beyond’s list of resources to help us pray for Muslims during Ramadan. You’ll find it here..
Today they have posted a Ramadan Day 2 Prayer Roundup including short prayers for several countries, and a challenging exhortation that all their readers “might commit to spending 5 or 10 minutes before or after your evening meal for the next 4 weeks to pray for Muslims’ spiritual hunger to be satisfied in Jesus.”
You’ll find each day’s prayer entry using the Ramadan 2015 tag.
One thing that might make a difference in mass killings is a law allowing people to ask police to take guns away from a family member who is acting irrationally. In this case, though, not even that would have helped: The shooter’s father is said to have given him the gun in April as a birthday present.
The broader problem ”” more entrenched, more pernicious and more likely to eat away at the nation ”” is the racial animosity that still lurks in some quarters. African Americans have suffered its sting often in recent events. A series of unarmed black men, including one in North Charleston, S.C., have been killed by white police officers. And many African Americans have come to believe, a half-century after the civil rights movement took hold, that black lives still do not matter. Or do not matter as much as white lives.
Yes, there has been heartening progress. The president who mourned Thursday is black. So is the attorney general, who opened an investigation to ensure that justice is done. Politicians and congregations, black and white, came together to decry the violence. The alleged killer was pursued by local police and the FBI and taken into custody.
In important ways, America is a different country than it was in 1963
Rev. Anthony Thompson, Vicar of Holy Trinity REC (ACNA) Church in Charleston, husband of Myra Thompson:
“I would just like him to know that . . . I’m saying the same thing that was just said. You know I forgive you and my family forgive you. But we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Repent. Confess. Give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ. So He can change you, can change your ways no matter what happened to you, and you’ll be okay. Do that and you’ll be better off than what you are right now.”
– with thanks to Stand Firm where there are more transcripts
Be warned: This is very hard, yet very important to view–it is a deeply moving heroic Christian witness in unimaginably awful circumstances.
Greetings to you in the matchless Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
As the eyes of the nation turn toward Charleston we commend her to your prayers. Our hearts are crushed by this violent act. Our minds reel as we consider the pain of our brothers and sisters who have lost loved ones””mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, family and friends””as well as for those who have lost faith and hope from such a senseless act of hatred and insanity. Among those killed was one from our own Anglican family, Myra Thompson, the wife of The Rev’d Anthony Thompson, a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
It is right that you feel sickened and angry. It is right that you struggle to know what to do. We all do. Scripture tells us that in the diminishment or suffering of one the whole church suffers. We are enjoined to weep with those who weep and to mourn with those who mourn. Today, we mourn and we weep with our brothers and sisters at Emmanuel Church and all of Charleston.
Together we shall seek God’s face on how he will have us respond as dioceses, as congregations, and as individual members of the Body of Christ””ambassadors of reconciliation””in this broken and fallen world for which His Son our Savior, Jesus Christ, has died that He might redeem.
A bishop has been asked if the “hot potato” issue of a clergyman marrying his partner in a same-sex marriage was delegated by the archbishop of Canterbury, to avoid a Church of England split.
Former acting bishop of Southwell and Nottingham Richard Inwood was asked if the Most Rev Justin Welby decided “to leave it (the issue) alone, politically,” in allowing individual bishops to handle such a breach of the church’s rule as they saw fit.
The bishop replied: “To paraphrase the TV programme [House of Cards], you may say that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.” Inwood was speaking at an employment tribunal for Canon Jeremy Pemberton, who has made a claim for discrimination against the bishop.
A meeting of church leaders from across Ireland has been challenged to remain biblically faithful but to ”˜dare to do new things’ in the face of a ”˜new spiritual darkness’ in the west.
The General Secretary of the Global Anglican Future Conference, Dr Peter Jensen, who addressed the event at Belfast’s Willowfield Church, told the story of GAFCON’s beginnings in the landmark conference of Bishops, clergy and lay leaders in Jerusalem in 2008, through to the Nairobi meeting in 2013 and the movement’s unifying work today across the Anglican world.
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Addressing the current context in Ireland and Scotland, Dr Jensen drew a sharp comparison.
“In the last few days, two Anglican Provinces have spoken words of choice. In Scotland, the General Synod of the Episcopal Church has chosen to omit the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman from its canons, thus signalling an acceptance of so-called gay marriage. It is a choice to rewrite the Bible and so the Christian faith. In Ireland, the House of Bishops, following the referendum, has endorsed once more the teaching of the Bible that marriage is between a man and a woman for life. The contrast is stark.” he said.
“Of course there are those who argue that the two positions can be held in tension in a denomination with mutual respect, recognising that sincere people will differ over the interpretation of the Bible. But let me offer a very serious warning: the cost of taking such a position is unacceptably high. It is to say that the Biblical testimony is so unclear that it can be read in several ways, whereas in fact the Biblical position is crystal clear. When the testimony of the bible is rendered so murky, the authority of the Bible is fatally compromised. The middle position is a vote for an unacceptable compromise.”
The general-secretary said “The business of GAFCON is to deliver fellowship to orthodox believers who have to bear testimony in the midst of such confusion; to resource them to teach the truth and to inspire them to preach the gospel.”
“GAFCON” Dr Jensen said “is a force which delivers fellowship and encourages courage.”
People of faith need to focus on the moral and spiritual elements of the crisis brought about by rapid climate change, Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba, chair of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, said today in response to Pope Francis’s encyclical on the issue.
In a statement issued from Cape Town, the Archbishop said:
“I would like to thank Pope Francis for this historic, ground-breaking letter. I look forward to studying it in more detail.
The 1944 settlement, the basis for governing religious education, school worship, and denominational schools for the past seven decades, should be replaced with an agreement in tune with modern reality, a former Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke, said this week.
Mr Clarke calls for the change in a pamphlet, A New Settlement: Religion and belief in schools, cowritten with Professor Linda Woodhead, a colleague at Lancaster University, where he is a visiting professor in politics and religion.
“It is clear to us”, they say, “that the educational settlement between Church and State formalised in the 1944 Education Act, and reflected a different era, no longer serves its purpose.”
The Primate of the Anglican Church in North America, the Most Rev. Foley Beach, on 18 June 2015 released a statement asking for prayer for the families of the victims.
Please join me in praying for the Rev. Anthony Thompson, Vicar of Holy Trinity REC (ACNA) Church in Charleston, his family, and their congregation, with the killing of his wife, Myra, in the Charleston shootings last night,” he wrote in a message posted to Facebook.
Read it all and there is an ACNA press release there.
WCBD-TV: News, Weather, and Sports for Charleston, SC
I happened to catch this and I wanted to post it because it says so much about this community right now–here is a Republican talking about a Democrat, a friend talking about a friend, and a Christian talking about his brother in Christ.
Charleston has suffered considerable tragedy in its 345-year history, including war, fire, storm and earthquake. But in terms of shocking inhumanity, the atrocity that occurred Wednesday night in a place of worship on Calhoun Street transcended those past horrors.
That’s because our Holy City was defiled by this horrendous pairing of words ”” “church massacre.”
Nine people at a Bible study gathering were killed by a single gunman at the historic Emanuel AME Church, located on Calhoun Street between Marion Square and the main branch of the Charleston County Library. Those murdered included state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor.
“I don’t think there’s ever been anything like that here,” said historian Jack Bass, a professor emeritus at the College of Charleston. “I think it’s just unprecedented.”
While South Carolina has suffered a long history of racially motivated arson attacks at black churches, some as recently as the late 1990s, the state’s last mass slaying of this scale occurred 139 years ago during the Reconstruction Era, Bass said.
in July 1876, violence erupted in Hamburg, a small town across the Savannah River from Augusta. Following a confrontation between white farmers and the town’s African-American militia, an armed mob of white men laid siege to the community. Five black men were summarily executed.
A hate crime, as defined by Congress, enables the Justice Department to prosecute crimes motivated by the offender’s bias against race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
O Heavenly Father, who dost feel the pain of the world, and lookest upon all grieving, sick and suffering persons with special concern; be especially with those in the City of Charleston, SC, most affected by this horrific and violent incident Wednesday night; enfold them with thy love; grant that in the midst of pain and grieving they may find thy presence; and enable them through your Holy Spirit to begin the slow process of healing by giving them the strength to walk into the future you have for them, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family–from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
–1 Samuel 3:8-13
There are 28 in all–take them time to look through them.
The names of those who died in the #CharlestonShooting #chsnews pic.twitter.com/63tXLP4Tu6
— Melissa Boughton (@mboughtonPC) June 18, 2015
Please join me and pray for them and their families–KSH.
Opposition to the encyclical has been building for months. The Heartland Institute launched a campaign to “Tell Pope Francis: Global Warming is not a Crisis,” asking readers to “Talk to your minister, priest, or spiritual leader. Tell him or her you’ve studied the global warming issue and believe Pope Francis is being misled about the science and economics of the issue. Refer him or her to this website.” Others have suggested that Francis is advocating Latin American style socialism.
Hyperbole is part of politics. But there seems to be a fairly large disconnect between the criticism of Laudato Si (much of it made prior to the release of the actual text) and the encyclical itself. The actual document is a more measured affair. For one thing, it’s not even really accurate to call it a “climate encyclical.” Most of the document is devoted to other environmental issues (ranging from clean drinking water to biodiversity) or to the proper Christian perspective on the environment generally. Only a small portion of the lengthy encyclical is devoted to climate change per se, and much of what the encyclical does say about climate change is in keeping with the prior statements of John Paul II and Benedict XVI on the issue. The encyclical says that:
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. . . . It is true that there are other factors (such as volcanic activity, variations in the earth’s orbit and axis, the solar cycle), yet a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity. Concentrated in the atmosphere, these gases do not allow the warmth of the sun’s rays reflected by the earth to be dispersed in space.
The Church of Nigeria has distanced itself from the appointment of the Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon as general secretary of the Anglican Consultative Council. While it wishes him well in his new post, a letter endorsed by the Church’s registrar, general secretary and episcopal secretary states the former Bishop of Kaduna does not speak for the Nigerian church, nor are his views in accord with the formal teaching of the largest province of the Anglican Communion.
On 2 April 2015 ACC chairman the Rt. Rev. James Tengatenga announced Dr. Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of Kaduna in Northwestern Nigeria, had been appointed to the London-based post in succession to the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Kearon, who had been elected Bishop of Limerick.
Read it all
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Anglican Unscripted 185
… Rt. Rev. Graham Kings, who in July takes up a newly created seven-year post, mission theologian in the Anglican Communion, believes a fourth element is needed to make the Anderson-Venn vision complete: self-theologising.
This fourth self, he says, now needs to come to the fore, especially the largely unrecognised work of Anglican theologians from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. “It is these theological voices which need to be heard more clearly throughout the Anglican Communion,” he says.
“It’s a partnership to find and publish new voices,” Kings adds. The post is an initiative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church Mission Society, and Durham University. Kings has been awarded an honorary visiting fellowship at Durham, will be employed by CMS, will work in the Lambeth Palace Library, and will serve as an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Southwark, London.
Step one will be a series of seminars around the Communion for theologians, particularly from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There are two further elements: coordinating writing-sabbaticals for hard-pressed theologians of the Global South and publishing a series of books on Anglican theologies. Sabbaticals are being planned at colleges in Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, and at Virginia Theological Seminary’s Center for Anglican Communion Studies.
Kings, an original member and mentor in the founding of Covenant, the weblog of The Living Church, has been Bishop of Sherborne in the Diocese of Salisbury since 2009.
………
Among the tasks ahead for Kings is setting up an endowment fund at Durham to ensure, after his seven years, a stable foundation for mission theology in the Communion. Another dream is encouraging theologians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to serve in the role of peritus (Latin for expert) in conferences of the Communion
Appointment of the Most Reverend Josiah Idowu-Fearon as the General Secretary of the ACC: The stand of the Church of Nigeria [Anglican Communion]
The Church of Nigeria’s attention has been drawn to the information posted on the Anglican Communion Website by George Conger, dated 2nd April 2015, captioned: ”˜Nigerian Bishop appointed ACC General Secretary.’
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) as a Province is a founding member of GAFCON/FCA, and subscribed to The Jerusalem Declaration, 2008. The Most Rev’d Josiah Idowu-Fearon’s statement: ”˜I have never supported the law in Nigeria that criminalizes the gay community and I will never support it,’ clearly indicates that he is not in accord with the theological and doctrinal posture of the Church of Nigeria. His acceptance of the post of ACC General Secretary neither received the approval of the Church of Nigeria, nor does it in any way affect the Church of Nigeria’s theological posture on the issues of homosexuality and gay movement. Thus, the Most Rev’d Josiah Idowu-Fearon represents himself at the ACC, and not the Church of Nigeria.
He has taken an early retirement from his Episcopal responsibilities in the Church of Nigeria with effect from 01 July 2015. We wish him every blessing.
The ACC, the general public and the International Community of the Religious should please note the stand of the Church of Nigeria on the Most Rev’d Idowu-Fearon’s personal acceptance to serve as ACC General Secretary.
Read it all and there is an Article by George Conger and Anglican Unscripted Episode 185.