The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, welcomed the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) to Lambeth Palace today for a morning of prayer and conversation.
Archbishop Justin met with Pastor Enoch Adeboye, who is visiting from Nigeria, and his delegation, including Pastor Agu Irukwu, Chief Overseer of the RCCG in the UK.
They discussed possibilities for further collaboration between the Anglican and RCCG churches and communions, nationally and internationally…
MUTOKO ”“ A pastor allegedly went berserk last week, vandalizing church property belonging to Mutoko Centre Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa.
Apostle Tirivangani Gunduza is reported to have pulled the roof off the Anglican church after he had been served with an eviction order by a messenger of court.
Gunduza who belongs to the ex-communicated Anglican Church leader, Nolbert Kunonga’s faction is said to have failed to stomach the eviction news hence he vandalized property at the church.
“Gunduza was appointed pastor by Kunonga although he had not gone through any training to lead the church.
PTSD is considered an anxiety disorder. People may feel afraid when they’re no longer in danger, or continue to relive traumatic events. They have a damaged “fight-or-flight response,” says the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.
Several ways exist to measure and diagnose PTSD. This study used measures ranging from full PTSD to major symptoms falling just short of a diagnosis, an important aspect of the study, said Rachel Yehuda, director of the Mental Health Patient Care Center at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York City.
“The idea of ‘subthreshold’ PTSD is extremely important. We tend to think of combat veterans as having or not having PTSD,” Yehuda said. “This study reminds us that the effects of combat trauma really do last a long time and justifies the long-term treatment that combat veterans receive.”
Ten years after its founding, the Anglican Alexandria School of Theology (AST) celebrated its first graduating class to receive the degree of Masters of Arts in Theology, at Saturday the 18th of July at Alexandria. The grandaunts were: four students joined commencement exercises with 27 others who received a Bachelors in Theology, plus one who completed a two-year diploma program.
Dean. Samy Fawzy, principle of AST, congratulated the graduates for their efforts over the past four years, despite the difficulties Egypt has experienced. Rev. Atif Mehany, dean of the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, urged them further in his commencement address to overcome the challenges following the Arab Spring and fulfill their responsibilities to serve both church and society.
Dean. Fawzy conferred the degrees with Bishop. Grant LeMarqand, vice-chairman of the board of AST, and Archbishop. Mouneer Hanna Anis, chairman of the board of AST, Archbishop of Egypt, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa, and president bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East. They were joined by Bishop. Peter Tasker, representing the archbishop of Sydney and AST partner institution Moore College in Australia.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily suspended the death sentence of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, her lawyer said, in a case that hit global headlines after the murder of two politicians who tried to intervene on her behalf.
Asia Bibi, a farm worker and mother of four, became the first woman to be sentenced to death under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law in 2010.
The Supreme Court will soon begin hearing an appeal against her conviction, said lawyer Saif-ul-Malook.
“The execution of Asia Bibi has been suspended and will remain suspended until the decision of this appeal,” Malook said. No date had been set for her execution, he added.
COUNTERFEIT GODS-@timkellernyc “the fantasy that if we find our 1 tru soulmate, everything wrong w/us will be healed” pic.twitter.com/hp4E3uhujn
— Joshua M. Hood (@JoshuaMHood) July 21, 2015
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that by thy grace we may be healed of all our infirmities and know thee in the power of his endless life; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
Performed by The Cardinall’s Musick, directed by Andrew Carwood at the BBC Proms 2015
Listen to it all from the full Thomas Tallis concert
I have never put my hope in any other
but in You, O God of Israel
who can show both anger and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins
of suffering man
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our lowliness
Spem in alium nunquam habui
Praeter in te, Deus Israel
Qui irasceris et propitius eris
et omnia peccata hominum
in tribulatione dimittis
Domine Deus
Creator caeli et terrae
respice humilitatem nostram
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
–Mark 4:35-41
by Dr Thomas D. Williams
According to a recent AP-GFK poll, support for gay marriage among U.S. citizens has dropped six percentage points since their last poll in April, with more Americans disapproving of the Supreme Court ruling making gay marriage the law of the land than those approving it.
Rather than galvanizing Americans into a unified body, the Obergefell decision has left U.S. citizens more divided than ever on the question of gay marriage, after the court itself showed a deep divide on the issue. In an unprecedented move, the four opposing justices each published an independent dissent, leaving a mine of legal reasoning contrary to the majority opinion.
The AP poll reveals that 42% of Americans favor legal gay marriage, while a similar poll carried out last April showed 48% in favor. Moreover, in conflicts between the interests of same-sex couples and those of religious liberty, a majority of Americans (56%) believe that government should rule in favor of religious freedom.
Specifically, more Americans believe that local officials with religious objections should be exempted from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, with 49% siding with the exemption and 47% saying they should be obliged to comply with the law. Moreover, an increasing number of U.S. citizens believe that wedding-related businesses with religious objections should be allowed to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples. Whereas in April 52% thought they should be accorded this option, the number was up to 59% in the recent poll.
There is evidence that some conservative and open evangelicals are finding common ground in engaging with church and culture around issues of sexuality.
..Gerald Bray, author of many books and visiting Professor at an American University, writes in the journal Churchman, of which he is Editor: “so warped has discussion of homosexuality become that speaking”¦truth has become risky”. Bray speaks of “the Lie” of “the gay agenda” which stifles free speech and creates fear ”“ he gives Dolce and Gabbana and Ashers Bakery as examples. Bray says that “the Lie is at work again” in the Pilling Report and the setting up of the Shared Conversations:
“at the heart of the Lie is the assertion that the unbridgeable chasm between those who advocate same sex marriage and those opposed to it can be overcome by a supposedly common dedication to ”˜mission’”¦the Christian church has to surrender to the world in order to reach it, which is exactly the opposite of what the New Testament teaches us.”
Bray concludes soberly: “will we accept public ridicule because we are standing up for truth? Are we so afraid of disestablishment that we will compromise the Gospel in order to preserve our increasingly imaginary secular privileges?”
……………………
Reform have issued robust Statements expressing dismay at the Gay Pride march at York Minster and the decision of TEC to prepare for celebrating same sex marriages in its liturgies.
One might expect conservative evangelicals to say this kind of thing but in fact in many circles there has been a reluctance to address these issues publicly. So it is encouraging to see evidence of a move away from the pietism which holds that issues of sex are an internal, pastoral matter, that Christians should not seek a return to “Christendom” which is implied by any critique of the culture, and that all attempts at mission must be preceded by grovelling apologies for “homophobia”.
Within the more “centrist” sections of evangelical Anglicanism there seems to be increasing frustration with revisionism, and the failure of orthodox Bishops to publicly hold the line on orthodox doctrine and ethics…
”˜From my seventh till my twelfth year I sang in the church choir. I knew God existed, but I had no idea you could have a personal relationship with him. After high school I had a gap year in the army: I was miles away from God there. Then I went to Oxford to read law and I got to know some committed Christians. I started reading the gospels again and the Jesus I met in the gospels matched the Jesus I saw in the lives of those Christians.
Someone asked me along to an outreach service and there, on Sunday evening January 20th, 1974, I committed my life to the Lord. On Wednesday after that I met my future wife, and on Friday I attended a missionary prayer group of Operation Mobilisation. That was not just your average week!
In April, Alison and I started going out. At her parents’ house, I encountered books, music and arts, which I had not grown up with. A whole world opened itself up for me to do with faith and culture. I thought: do I really want to be a lawyer? I went for theology. My Dad was furious. After two weeks, he gave up his resistance and said: “Give me something to read then.’’ I gave him the New Testament in the Good News version. He went away with my Mum for a week and read the whole thing. My mother, who had chronic colitis, had been healed by prayer shortly beforehand in a Charismatic Church, nearby. And my Dad saw me change. Through all these ways God was speaking to him. In November he came to church and when the vicar made the altar call, he went up to give himself to Jesus. A week later my sister did the same. So God drew the whole family to himself in one year.’
Read it all from here originally and and there is a translation into Spanish here
The Diocese of Egypt Hosts Iftar (break of the fast of Ramadan) for Muslim and Christian Leaders, at Laylat al-Qadr.
The invincible Egypt
The Most Rev. Mouneer Hanna Anis, bishop of the diocese and primate of the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, hosted an iftar, yesterday the 13th of July, at All Saints Cathedral, attended by Dr Ali Gomaa, the previous Grand Mufti, Dr. Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, the former Minister of Religious Endowments, Dr Hany Helal, the former Minister of Education.
More than 100 people attended the Iftar, including a number of Muslim and Christian clerics, politicians, ambassadors of the U.K., Netherlands, and Ireland, and journalists. The artist Madeleine Tabar, and the Lebanese singer Rula Zaki were keen to attend the ceremony, and Rula sang some beautiful national songs.
The Anglican Diocese of Auckland plans to sell two Mid North churches, in response to what it says are declining congregations and rising costs, but some at least are not prepared to let them go quietly.
A deputation, none of whom wished to be identified, representing St Catherine’s at Okaihau and St Stephen the Martyr’s in Kaikohe, told the Northland Age last week that they would fight the decision, and hoped that the two communities would rise up in their defence.
A report from Assistant Bishop of Auckland the Rt Rev Jim White, based on a draft that he said had been circulated to the Waimate North community earlier in the year, was accepted and approved by the Diocesan Council on May 28.
……..
Critics of that decision, which they said was based purely on a highly offensive business model, pointed to the history behind the two churches, particularly St Catherine’s, the fact that they had been built for and by their communities, that they continued to be maintained by the communities at no cost to the diocese, and the distasteful realities of selling them, complete with their graveyards, for some other purpose or development.
St Catherine’s was completed in 1875. It was built, for the use of all denominations, on land gifted by Captain Henry Burleigh, using totara he also donated, that was pit-sawn by local settlers. It was erected by one Robert Neilson.
The church and its graveyard had been maintained and cared for by Okaihau families ever since.
The vicar who is the star of a reality television show in which couples are married as soon as they meet has been criticised for allowing his clerical collar to give respectability to a “seedy” experiment.
The Rev Nick Devenish is one of five experts who selected six strangers to tie the knot in the Channel 4 show Married at First Sight.
The team vicar at the Church of St Mary & St Michael in Cartmel, Cumbria, analysed the participants’ understanding of marriage, what they wanted from their union and how well they understood the seriousness and commitment required. He was part of a panel of experts alongside a sex therapist, a psychologist and two anthropologists.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev David Walker, accused the show of “inappropriate and rather seedy behaviour” and has said that a Church of England vicar should not have been involved.
St. Agnes Church, becoming the first Anglican Church, is extremely significant because the Anglican Church was the established church of all of Great Britain at the time so it was significant to have an Anglican Church in these communities regardless of how many other denominations were represented. St. Agnes was established to minister to the lowest in the society, to reach out to them, but now over 100 years later, St. Agnes Church is unofficially the “black Cathedral” of New Providence. That is a major achievement and it did not come about simply because we wished it so. It was because of the very significant role that St. Agnes Church played and continues to play in this very vibrant and diverse community that became and remains Over-the-Hill.
I know you understand. Posts will be catch as catch can but there will be updates so do check back. I am seriously considering an occasional open thread on an edifying subject so if you have suggestions for such threads please post in the comments below. Many thanks–KSH.
You can check here and there. This is what stood out to me:
1160 Peterus Lombardus, Italian theologian, bishop of Paris, died.
1669 John Locke’s Constitution of English colony Carolina was approved.
1831 Belgium became independent as Leopold I was proclaimed King of the Belgians.
1861 In the first major battle of the Civil War, Confederate forces repelled an attempt by the Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia. The battle became known by the Confederates as Manassas, while the Union called it Bull Run.
1969: Man takes first steps on the Moon
What stood out to you–KSH?
O God, our heavenly Father, who so loved the world that thou didst give thine only Son to die upon the cross: Pour thy love into our hearts, we humbly beseech thee; that we loving thee above all things, may give up ourselves, our time, our money, our talents, to thy service; for the sake of him who loved us and gave himself for us, Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord.
Now at Lystra there was a man sitting, who could not use his feet; he was a cripple from birth, who had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking; and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and walked.
–Acts 14:8-10
Toronto’s Cathedral Church of St. James has mounted a historical overview of the Anglican church’s often painful relationship with Indigenous peoples, as part of an effort to keep alive the momentum generated by the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in May.
Truth and Reconciliation: A Special Exhibit on the Legacy of the Residential Schools is showing daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the cathedral’s east aisle during July and August. The cathedral is located on the northeast corner of Church and King streets.
The idea of an exhibit was supported by Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. “The primate was keenly interested, and we thought this was something we could put together fairly quickly,” said Nancy Mallet, cathedral archivist and exhibits committee chair.
– See more at: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/-cathedral-exhibit-extends-spirit-of-the-trc#sthash.Huf4i7CB.dpuf
British Muslims who hold “intolerant ideas” and create a climate for extremism will become the target of a new clampdown to be announced by David Cameron today.
In a landmark speech the prime minister will say that a failure of integration has meant that there are people born and raised in this country who do not identify with Britain. Outlining a five-year strategy to combat extremism, he will attack those who hold ideas “hostile to basic liberal values” and who promote “discrimination, sectarianism and segregation”.
Mr Cameron will single out Muslim conspiracy theorists who believe that “Jews exercise malevolent power”, that 9/11 was inspired by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and that Britain allowed 7/7 because it wanted an anti-Muslim backlash.
Read it all (subscription required).
Polygamy may well make for a coalition of strange bedfellows drawn from across the religious and non-religious spectrum in the United States. If the so-called “mainline” churches repeat their same-sex marriage trajectory, they could well provide polygamy some hefty cultural and political ballast (though the impact of that support may not be quite as big as it was for same-sex marriage in light of the continued demographic decline of these denominations).
These Christians would, of course, also need to square their religious heritage around polygamy with the kinds of feminist critiques that informed the overhaul of monogamy during the past 50 or so years. The Reformation proponents of polygamy, after all, only had polygyny in mind, and a very male-dominated version at that. Protestants today would almost certainly need to consider polyandry and, to use a clunky term, polygynandry.
I agree with Douthat and Silk that Americans are going to need to think seriously about polygamy. Douthat is probably right in arguing that many of the arguments liberals put forth on behalf of same-sex marriage will be deployed on behalf of polygamy, but Silk is probably also correct that religious freedom claims will play a role as well. In any case, rather than let fear guide the conversation, perhaps we should embrace an honest, thorough, and thoughtful debate that will likely generate a new set of pro- and con- alliances from a diverse range of people and groups in the United States. It wouldn’t be a reformation of marriage without one.
Nigeria felt slighted when President Obama overlooked the vast nation on his first African trip as head of state in 2009, instead visiting its shrimp-sized neighbor, Ghana, where he lauded the smaller country’s democratic achievements.
Obama left Nigeria out again in his 2013 visit to Africa. Now, as he prepares for his third and likely final trip to the continent as president, Nigeria is once more being bypassed in favor of Kenya and Ethiopia.
If democratic achievements play a role in the president’s itinerary, Nigerians may be wondering: Why?
…Dodgson’s writing bears subtle witness to the wonders of both creation and its creator in ways that deserve more attention. He was a committed, lifelong member of the Church of England. Although he balked at taking Holy Orders, he was ordained as a deacon in the church in 1861.
While his doctrinal views parted ways with those of his high church ancestors (his great-grandfather had been a bishop and his father a clergyman), Dodgson shied from the religious controversies plaguing the church at the time, remaining essentially what would have been considered orthodox.
“Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to ”” that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God,” Dodgson wrote in a letter to a friend in 1897, “and most assuredly I can cordially say, ”˜I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary.’”
When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby ”” dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.
The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.
“He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,” said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.
I say the distinctions are questionable: The New Testament makes no such distinction between false teaching and heresy. When the Apostle Paul tells his disciple Timothy and the various churches to which he wrote not to tolerate false teachers, he did not make a distinction as to whether their false teaching concerned a matter that would someday be included in the Nicene Creed. In fact, the admonition was often to separate from false teachers who promoted immorality (1 Corinthians 5:11, 1 Corinthians 10:8, 2 Corinthians 6:17, Ephesians 5:3). The same is true for other apostles (2 Peter 2:1-10, Jude 3-7).
Heresy has also been defined as any departure from the faith of the Catholic Church, which Vincent of Lerins identified as that which has been believed by the whole church throughout the world, from the beginning, and by all (universality, antiquity, and the consensus of the faithful). Who can disagree that the Episcopal Church has seriously departed from the received faith of the universal and ancient church–and on a matter of ultimate importance: God’s stated will for humankind in the matter of sexual relations and God’s ordained sacrament of Holy Matrimony?
And as to remaining in communion, the New Testament makes no such stipulation. The Apostle Paul does not say, if the body with which you are associated continues in false teaching for a generation, then you (or, more likely, your children) are obliged to separate from it. No, the admonition is that those who are serious about following the way of Christ are either to expel or to separate from false teachers immediately.