An American bishop and a Christian peer have avoided being attacked by Islamist militants by minutes.
Baroness Cox and Bishop Stewart Ruch were in Nigeria’s Jos State on Monday 14th November to meet people affected by Islamic insurgency.
Boko Haram has left thousands of people dead in attacks on mainly Christian areas.
The pair were part of a group of church and charity leaders on a fact finding mission.
When David Uth, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Orlando, heard of the shooting, he contacted several local pastors, telling them, “We have to minister to this community. This is a broken place now.”
For First Baptist, that meant serving the Hispanic community. The church’s Spanish-ministry pastor, , assessed needs and looked for ways to demonstrate the love of Christ. The church became aware of two young men critically wounded in the attack who were in intensive care and would soon lose their condo because they could not work.
“We contacted them and told them not to worry,” said Uth. “We told them we were going to cover their rent until they were able to get back on their feet.”
First Baptist also offered their facilities free of charge to victims’ families who wanted to hold funerals for their loved ones.
Nigeria is by far the largest of Africa’s 54 nations, and its $1 billion economy is fifth largest on the continent. With 51 percent adult literacy, it lags far behind other former British colonies such as Ghana and Kenya, yet it has contributed much””possibly more than any other African nation””to the growing list of novels written in Africa that are read around the world.
Two debut novels by Nigerians, richly textured narratives of family life in both city and village, are attracting critical attention and deserve a wide readership. In each of them, a young narrator observes his elders negotiating the economic and cultural challenges of daily life in postcolonial Africa. Each is set in the 1990s, when Nigeria made halting steps forward in its quest for effective and accountable government and then slipped catastrophically backward. Each illuminates the tensions between African traditions and Western ambitions, between the old ways that have sustained families and communities for many generations and the new ideas that promise but do not always deliver an escape from poverty and isolation.
When Jowhor Ile’s narrative begins in 1995, the Uku family of Port Harcourt (once a verdant garden city on the Niger delta and now a chaotic megalopolis) is comfortably established in the Nigerian middle class. General Sani Abacha has thrown out Nigeria’s elected government in favor of a military dictatorship, one of several that mar Nigeria’s postindependence history.
Just when it looked as if Donald Trump might be mellowing came the unsettling symbolism of his weekend meeting with Nigel Farage, a seasoned pro of nativist politics. The leader of Britain’s pro-Brexit forces and the U.S. president-elect, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager explained, chatted “about freedom and winning and what this all means for the world.”
Just what does it mean? Kindred spirits or co-conspirators, Mr. Trump and Mr. Farage owe their respective victories ”“ Mr. Farage’s came in June’s British referendum on leaving the European Union ”“ to the popular backlash against globalization that they fomented with their fearful claims about the negative impacts of trade agreements and immigration. Closing their borders, they told voters left behind by technological change and ill at ease with the new demography, was the only way to recover what, in truth, is lost forever.
There is no understating the significance of the anti-globalization backlash in U.S. and British politics. These aren’t just any two countries. The United States and Britain have been the guarantors of the international order since the Second World War. Their “special relationship” led to the end of the Cold War and the growth in world trade and investment flows that lifted living standards almost everywhere and ensured the global peace.
Holy God, our greatest treasure, who didst bless Hugh and Robert, Bishops of Lincoln, with wise and cheerful boldness for the proclamation of thy Word to rich and poor alike: Grant that all who minister in thy Name may serve with diligence, discipline and humility, fearing nothing but the loss of thee and drawing all to thee through Jesus Christ our Savior; who liveth and reigneth with thee in the communion of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
O Lord, take thou full possession of my heart, raise there thy throne, and command there as thou dost in heaven. Being created by thee, let me live to thee. Being created for thee, let me ever act for thy glory. Being redeemed by thee, let me render to thee what is thine, and let my spirit ever cleave to thee alone; for thy name’s sake.
O give thanks to the LORD, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him, tell of all his wonderful works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually!
–Psalm 105:1-4
..you may wonder why this group [some white evangelicals] voted in historic numbers for a man like Trump. Perhaps, as some have suggested, they are hypocrites. Perhaps they are merely partisans. But I will make a further suggestion: They are scared.
Consider that over the course of the past few years, Democrats and liberals have: booed the inclusion of God in their platform at the 2012 convention (this is disputed, but it is the perception); endorsed a regulation that would allow transgendered students to use the bathroom and locker room corresponding to their identity; attempted to force small businesses to cover drugs they believe induce abortions; attempted to force nuns to provide contraceptive coverage; forced Brendan Eich to step down as chief executive officer of Mozilla due to his opposition to marriage equality; fined a small Christian bakery over $140,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding; vigorously opposed a law in Indiana that would provide protections against similar regulations ”“ despite having overwhelmingly supported similar laws when they protected Native American religious rights ”“ and then scoured the Indiana countryside trying to find a business that would be affected by the law before settling upon a small pizza place in the middle of nowhere and harassing the owners. In 2015, the United States solicitor general suggested that churches might lose their tax exempt status if they refused to perform same-sex marriages. In 2016, the Democratic nominee endorsed repealing the Hyde Amendment, thereby endorsing federal funding for elective abortions. Democrats seemingly took up the position endorsed by critical legal theorist Mark Tushnet [quoted on T19 this past May]:
The culture wars are over; they lost, we won. . . . For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who ”“ remember ”“ defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
A new academic study into growth and decline in the Anglican Communion will be marked by a day conference and the publication of a new book. Edited by the Revd Dr David Goodhew, director of ministerial practice at Cranmer Hall, part of St John’s College at Durham University, Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion ”“ 1980 to the Present, is described by publishers Routledge as “the first study of [the Anglican Communion’s] dramatic growth and decline in the years since 1980.”
Prepared by an international team of researchers based across five continents, the study provides a global overview of Anglicanism alongside twelve detailed case studies of Anglican churches in Australia, Congo, England, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, South America, South India, South Korea, and the US.
Indonesia’s most prominent Christian politician is to be prosecuted for blasphemy in a victory for conservative Islam in the world’s biggest Muslim nation.
Police named Basuki Tjahja Purnama, the governor of Jakarta, as a criminal suspect, following huge and deadly protests against him in the capital this month. The prosecution of Mr Basuki, who is also unusual among Indonesian politicians in being ethnically Chinese, brings into the open old and sometimes violent divisions between the Muslim majority and practitioners of other religions.
In September, while campaigning for next year’s election to the Jakarta governorship, Mr Basuki joked about political opponents who had cited Koranic verses in arguing that a Christian should not hold high office. He said that they had “deceived” their audience, a statement which has been taken up by his antagonists as a blasphemous commentary on the Koran by a “kafir”, or non-Muslim.
Read it all (requires subscription)
England could face a severe shortage of senior teachers by 2022 if action is not taken to encourage a new generation of leaders, new research shows. So the C of E Foundation for Educational Leadership could not be launching at a more prescient time.
Our mission is to build a national movement of inspirational leaders equipped to transform education, so that it fosters wisdom, hope, community and dignity, to enable children to flourish and experience life in all its fullness, regardless of their background or starting point.
We are doing this by building networks, bringing together people from schools to support, challenge and inspire each other; rigorous leadership development programmes to equip those leaders to realise our vision, and robust research to provide an evidence base on the outcomes for children’s spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and social development.
As a former vice-principal of a large secondary school in Nottingham, I know how important mutual support is for teachers to grow in confidence. I now lead the networks programme for the Foundation. Last week we held our first Regional Peer Support Network meetings for the South East and South West regions. These pilot groups are drawing together school leaders to work together to support one another as leaders, as they seek to ensure that their school’s ethos enhances its outcomes. The gatherings have been full of energy, life, hope and vision, and above all a commitment that we are stronger together.
Colorado law is not currently clear on marijuana use in public, which has led to a range of local ordinances. Bar and restaurant owners in Denver may now choose to allow their patrons to use (but not smoke) pot indoors, with a possibility for some outdoor smoking areas.
Some evangelical leaders around the globe worry that the recent US presidential election has damaged Christian moral witness, and will fuel discord abroad.
In a conference call Tuesday, a week after Donald Trump’s win, more than 70 ministry presidents, pastors, and scholars spoke with concern as they discussed the ramifications of the American election on the global church.
The call was organized by Doug Birdsall, a former top leader of the Lausanne Movement and the American Bible Society, as part of his new Civilitas Group. Participants included evangelical representatives from Asia, Europe, and South America, as well as a diverse span of US church leaders.
“One of the things that America was stood for in the past was moral leadership and character. Over the past few decades, it has slowly dissipated,” said Hwa Yung, longtime bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia. “In this election you have produced two candidates, both of whom are deeply flawed in character. The question people around the world are asking is, ”˜Is this what America is today?’ The election has done great damage to your moral standing in the eyes of the world.”
Six Anglo-Saxon graves believed to be the oldest ever found in Britain have been discovered on a waterlogged site in a river valley in Norfolk, alongside 81 coffins made from hollowed oak trunks.
Archaeologists think the startlingly well-preserved plank-lined graves were part of the burial ground of an early Christian community, dating from between the 7th and 9th centuries. Tree ring dating is being carried out to establish a more precise age.
Finding timber graves of this age is extremely rare, due to wood’s tendency to leave little more than a decayed smudge in the earth.
“You now have billions of people on the internet, and most of them are not that happy with the status quo,” said Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, a research firm that forecasts global risks. “They think their local government is authoritarian. They think they’re on the wrong side of the establishment. They’re aggrieved by identity politics and a hollowed-out middle class.”
Many factors accounted for Mr. Trump’s win: middle-class economic anxiety in the industrial Midwest; an inchoate desire for some kind of change in the national direction; and some mix of latent racism, xenophobia and sexism across the electorate. But as even Mr. Trump acknowledged in an interview with “60 Minutes” aired Sunday, social media played a determining role in the race.
In the past, Mr. Bremmer said, the concerns of Mr. Trump’s supporters might have been ignored, and his candidacy would almost certainly have foundered. After all, he was universally written off by just about every mainstream pundit, and he faced disadvantages in money, organization and access to traditional political expertise. Yet by putting out a message that resonated with people online, Mr. Trump hacked through every established political order.
“Through this new technology, people are now empowered to express their grievances and to follow people they see as echoing their grievances,” Mr. Bremmer said. “If it wasn’t for social media, I don’t see Trump winning.”
O God, who didst call thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne that she might advance thy heavenly kingdom, and didst give her zeal for thy church and love for thy people: Mercifully grant that we who commemorate her this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of thy saints; though Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Today is the feast of St Margaret of Scotland, the English exile who became a Scottish queen. She died #OTD in 1093. https://t.co/CnlPcwJ4Lz pic.twitter.com/Iq3KUXSSlC
— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) November 16, 2016
O Living God, in whom is the fountain of life: So teach us to know thee through Jesus Christ that we may share the power of that eternal life which is in him, and that all our lives may be brought into obedience to thy holy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samar”²ia and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”
–Luke 17:11-19
A Letter from Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford to Adrian Hilton,
..I am quietly confident that ++Justin is softening up the hard edges of conservative evangelicalism, and is preparing the ground for a complete volte-face on human sexuality. I applaud this, of course. I can also see that the best way to keep most of the church together on this issue is for an evangelical archbishop to declare a personal change of heart, and to move the polity to something more progressive from than point. A ”˜liberal’ archbishop would be castigated for this, and never forgiven, in a way that an evangelical bishop can’t be. Because they can plausibly assume the mantle of a convert to a cause within the evangelical worldview ”“ and in a way a liberal cannot appeal.
The changes can only be a few years off, in my view. ++Justin knows that the Church of England can have no real public or media credibility as a plausible body ”“ so can’t do mission, and can’t recruit new clergy easily ”“ if it carries on discriminating against LGBTQ Christians. The Church of England has to change. And ++Justin is clearly a change-agent.
Read it all and the rest of the correspondence may be found here. There is also a letter from the Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council here
The Embarrassing Rainbow Elephant in the Room
..the GAFCON report is not really about the individuals named who have in various ways deliberately and defiantly broken Biblical orthodoxy and orthopraxy but actually about another list of unnamed individuals; the leaders of the Church of England who have done little publicly about this consistent and growing move to disregard Biblical Christianity. The report concludes:
To restore order and a credible Christian witness, the upcoming meetings of the House of Bishops and General Synod would need to not merely avoid going further in violating Lambeth 1.10, but it would need to take constructive steps to rectify the numerous public (and presumably private) breaches that have been strategically taken by some to undermine the teaching of the Communion.
That’s the real issue here and the rainbow elephant in the room. The GAFCON report makes clear the inaction and therefore (no doubt unintentional) complicity by conservative leadership. The Bible and our ordination/consecration vows are more than clear on what should be done in the face of false teaching and openly sinful behaviour in the church.
But this is the Church of England and if there’s one thing worse for an Englishman than making a fuss, it’s being embarassed.
What will the recent GAFCON paper achieve?
..The new GAFCON document should provide few surprises: references to those cited were already in the public domain, and given its primary audience of GAFCON Primates, the tone adopted is little different from the communiqué following the 6th Global South Conference in October..
During the 2016 presidential campaign, the label “evangelical” became an especially blurred category both because of the media and because of some evangelical voices. Over the course of the campaign, the press increasingly referred to evangelicals as politically conservative, and predominantly white Christians. For some evangelicals, abortion and future Supreme Court appointments were of primary concern, placed over and against concerns for women, people of color, Muslims, and LGBT persons. This polarization, even among evangelicals, led some to conclude that evangelicals on both sides were increasingly and inextricably bound to and complicit with scandalizing words and actions that degrade people and contradict and betray the gospel of Jesus Christ. At times, these associations have not just been attributed by the press, but clearly and repeatedly captured through evangelicals’ own witness. The reported influence of the evangelical vote in the post-election surveys only intensified this view.
For some who have identified themselves as evangelical, these distorted entanglements now compel them to abandon the term, to adamantly reject further identification with evangelical and with groups associated with it. Only by distancing themselves from the now pervasive and destructive associations with evangelical do they feel they can reclaim or maintain their identity and integrity as followers of Jesus. For these, anything less than this seems like a meaningless and impossible semantic position.
As President and President Emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary, we lament and reject the disgrace that hateful words and actions by some evangelicals have heaped specifically upon people of color, immigrants, women, Muslims, and LGBT persons in our nation, as we uphold the dignity of all persons made in the image of God. We grieve and condemn the racism and fear, rejection and hatred that have been expressed and associated with our Lord. Such realities do not in any way reflect the fruit of God’s Spirit and instead evoke the sorrow of God’s heart and of our own.
To whatever degree and in whatever ways Fuller Theological Seminary has contributed or currently contributes to the shame and abuse now associated with the word evangelical, we call ourselves, our board of trustees, our faculty, our staff, our students, our alumni, and our friends to repentance and transformation.
Today at Lambeth Palace ”˜In Good Faith’, a new Christian-Jewish dialogue project, was launched. This is a joint initiative of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations, Ephraim Mirvis. Modelled on their own well rooted friendship, this partnership programme will ensure Priests and Rabbis based in close geographical proximity will be encouraged to explore mutual concerns and opportunities for shared action together, initially for the next year.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis explained their vision and hope for the programme and its place within their respective understandings of the role of faith in society.
Archbishop Justin said: “It is in the everyday conversations, the grassroots initiatives and the building of local bridges between Christians and Jews, our synagogues and churches, that we will see real change and the hope for a divided world and nation”¦.. I am so grateful to you for signalling hope when the temptation is to succumb to world-weary cynicism, pessimism, defeatism and even despair.”
The Most Rev. Gregory Venables, Bishop of Argentina, has been installed as primate and obispo presidente of the Anglican Church of South America. Elected at the provincial synod on 8 Nov 2016 in Santiago, Chile, the bishops of the dioceses of Northern Argentina, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile installed him as archbishop the following day in succession to the Most Rev. Hector “Tito” Zavala, Bishop of Chile…Archbishop Zavala served as primate for two three year terms between 2010 and 2016, and will serve as vice-primate for the province under Archbishop Venables.
GAFCON UK congratulates the Most Rev. Gregory Venables, Bishop of Argentina, on his election as Primate of the Anglican Church of South America. Bishop Venables was one of the original leaders of the GAFCON movement, and remains an inspiration for his fearless proclamation of Gospel truth and his gracious leadership gifts in different cultures..
The Chairman, General Secretary and fellow Primates of the GAFCON Council are delighted to announce that the third GAFCON conference will be held, in Jerusalem, between 17th – 22nd June 2018.
Jerusalem has a special place in the hearts of the GAFCON movement as it was the location of our very first conference back in 2008. The city stands as a constant reminder of the birth of the Gospel and the movement’s determination to remain true to the teachings of our Lord and his Word…
The list on the GAFCON UK website said it was recently given as a briefing for conservative bishops around the world to highlight the state of the Church of England.
The notes described “chaos” in each Anglican province and listed a number of “violations” of the Church’s ban on same-sex marriages, as laid out in the landmark Lambeth 1.10 resolution passed in 1998.
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The list was released as senior bishops are preparing to meet in December to discuss the next steps for the Church over its ban on gay marriage. A group of bishops will bring a recommendation to the CofE’s ruling general synod in February. One possible option is some form of “pastoral accommodation” that would allow liberal clergy to celebrate same-sex unions in church without an official change in teaching.
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Rev James Paice, part of the GAFCON UK Taskforce, told Christian Today: “This report is shocking because it shows the extent to which revisionism has infected the the Church of England.” He said CofE leaders had turned a “blind eye to blatant violations” and added more conservative Anglican leaders around the world had “concluded that the Church of England ”‹is”‹ a sinking ship”
Read it all [The Briefing ‘The Church of England and Lambeth 1.10 may be found here]
According to Board of Trustees Chair Gary Hall and Vice-Chair Canon Bonnie Anderson, the October 27-29 trustees meeting on the seminary’s Cambridge, Massachusetts campus “accepted the 2016 audit report which contained the sobering news that EDS’s net assets decreased by $7.9 million (11%) in the last fiscal year.” The deficit is nearly a third larger than EDS Board Treasurer Dennis Stark revealed in July, an amount that was already 30 percent “above a reasonable amount” according to the official.
This follows a decrease of nearly $6.5 million (8.5%) in 2015.
“As the fiduciary stewards of EDS’s assets and mission, we are obviously dismayed at the size of EDS’s losses, but the news has redoubled our commitment to finding a more sustainable and prudent future for the seminary by the end of fiscal year 2017,” Hall and Anderson wrote.
Up through the 1960s, members and institutions of the Protestant mainline dominated American public life. To be sure, this dominance was not without serious issues””most notably, the exclusion of “Catholics, Jews, blacks, and atheists from nearly every position of influence in American life.” The significant demographic changes brought about by post-war immigration did nothing but exacerbate this problem.
Through these developments, influential mainline thinkers such as Harvey Cox and Paul Tillich responded by abandoning Christian particularism. Gleason writes:
They focused on the church’s social obligations, which they emphasized at the expense of the exclusivity and particularity of traditional doctrinal claims. In one famous formulation, Tillich argued that Christianity was just one of many ways to touch “the ground of being.” Symbols, religious and otherwise, all inadequately represented their ineffable subjects, but they also pointed beyond themselves to this ground of being, which Tillich called God. If Tillich was right, then mainline Protestants had no reason to distrust people of other faiths. Perhaps their beliefs were not so different after all.
This liberal thought was disseminated to millions of congregants by mainline Protestant clergy. They taught the values of “individualism, tolerance, pluralism, and emancipation from tradition”””and, in so doing, played a pivotal role in creating the culture in which we now live.
By virtue of their very “success,” however, mainline churches became a “vanishing mediator.”