The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has convened a meeting of leaders of all the Anglican Churches across the globe in an attempt to find common ground on which to base the continuation of the Anglican Communion. It is well worth fighting for; his bold initiative is timely. As an expression of Christian solidarity between Churches of the Western world and sister Churches in developing nations, the Anglican Communion has an exceptional record. The present threat to its existence has to be addressed, otherwise it could fall apart.

Yet the structures designed to hold it together can no longer bear the weight put on them. Attitudes to homosexuality have become the critical turning point. The tensions arise from the conservative standards of biblical orthodoxy applied by some of the increasingly assertive Anglican Churches in Africa and Asia, compared with the more liberal versions of Anglicanism reflected in church policy and practice in other parts.

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The current power struggle is about redefining and recasting the faith of the historic Anglican Communion. Post-colonial Great Britain’s influence declined rapidly after second world war but it took longer for the dominant influence of Canterbury to wane. And it has now waned in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church has tried to occupy that centre of influence in order to shape the communion according to its vision of the Christian faith, untethered from the authority of scripture. Canterbury under the previous leadership allowed TEC space and even support with its Communion Changing agenda. We expect the present incumbent to resist that agenda and pressure and to restore the role of Canterbury in leadership of the Communion. The battle is not primarily about a theological or ethical issue. It is really about resistance to a section of the western church who are redefining the faith of the Communion in order to be relevant in their context and acting like those who wish to erase and rewrite history; they are reinventing the faith that was protected and preserved historically so that it might be drawn on for the flourishing of the Church and its public witness.

Our call is to Canterbury to recognise that it still has a historic role and, rather than preside over endless confusion, to take a firm stand and move forward. The leadership of the Communion cannot deal with this challenge as a political issue in the way politicians might address it. We are a Church, the Body of Christ that is both part of history and also transcends history. The Church has sought to live out transcendent realities in history and offer to every historical context these realities as its public witness. It cannot allow culture to replace its historical witness. The leaders of the Church must act prophetically, not politically. They must uphold what has been tested in history as their public witness.

The temptation for the African, Asian and Latin American Churches will be to cut themselves adrift from what they sometimes read as an embarrassing past and a compromised present. There is the real possibility that the Communion could split between TEC and its dependencies (often financial) and allies, and the churches of the Global South unwilling to have what they see as TEC’s heresies thrust upon them. The result will be chaos, the end of the communion, and increasing independency among the churches. This temptation must be resisted. Read it all.

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Anglican Primates are gathering to pray & reflect on the future of the Communion. Follow @Primates2016 #Primates2016 pic.twitter.com/O6hGIjPvR9

— Lambeth Palace Ù† (@lambethpalace) January 7, 2016

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Bishop Donald James Parsons, Thirteenth Dean and President and Professor of New Testament at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, died on January 4, 2016. He was born on March 28, 1922 in Philadelphia, PA. He attended Temple University before matriculating at Philadelphia Divinity School, where he earned a ThB, a ThM, and a ThD in New Testament. He was ordained as a deacon in 1946 in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, and ordained as a priest later that same year in the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware. He served as Tutor of Greek and New Testament at Philadelphia Divinity School while also serving as Curate at Church of the Holy Trinity at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, PA. He subsequently served as Assistant Rector of Immanuel Episcopal Church in Wilmington, DE, and as Rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Smyrna, DE. In 1950 he moved to Wisconsin to begin serving at Nashotah House, where he was Professor New Testament and Ascetical Theology; his tenure as the Thirteenth Dean and President of Nashotah House ran from 1963 to 1973. He was elected as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy and was consecrated on September 8, 1973; he served as Bishop until his retirement in 1987, and thereafter continued to provide episcopal oversight for a number of congregations. He was the author of The Holy Eucharist Rite Two: a Devotional Commentary (1976) and A Lifetime Road to God (1977). In 1955 he married Mary Russell, who predeceased him; he is survived by his three children, Mary, Rebecca, and Brad.
A Requiem Mass for Bishop Parsons will be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (343 Buena Vista Ave., Pekin, IL) on Saturday, January 9, 2016. Visitation will be from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM and Holy Eucharist will be celebrated at 3:00 PM.

Nashotah House will celebrate the life and ministry of Bishop Parsons with a Requiem Mass in the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin at 1:00 PM. on Thursday, January 14, 2016, followed by a Committal service at the Nashotah House cemetery. The Right Reverend Daniel H. Martins, Eleventh Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield and Chair of the Board of Directors of Nashotah House, will preside; The Very Reverend Steven A. Peay, Twentieth Dean and President of Nashotah House, will celebrate; The Right Reverend Keith L. Ackerman, Bishop Vicar of the Diocese of Quincy of the Anglican Church in North America and Member of the Board of Directors of Nashotah House, will serve as preacher. A reception will immediiately follow in Breck Refectory, located in DeKoven Commons.

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Next week (January 11th-16th, 2016) the Primates of the Anglican Communion gather for their first meeting in almost five years and the first since Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury in February 2013. It follows the fulfilment of his remarkable commitment to meet during his first two years in office with all the Primates in their provinces so as to listen to their concerns. The meeting occurs three months before the Anglican Consultative Council meets in Lusaka, Zambia at ACC-16 and is also the first meeting being organised by Josiah Idowu-Fearon, a former Archbishop in Nigeria, appointed Secretary General of the Anglican Communion last summer in succession to Kenneth Kearon.

As background to the meeting it is helpful to review the six Primates’ Meetings under Rowan Williams (especially as Archbishop Justin, in calling the meeting, was clear that “Our way forward must respect the decisions of Lambeth 1998, and of the various Anglican Consultative Council and Primates’ meetings since then”), to note some of the other key developments related to those meetings, and to recall some of Fulcrum’s own commentaries on events as they happened.

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About two million Americans are hooked on prescription painkillers. In 2012, 259 million prescriptions were written — that’s one bottle for every American adult. CBS News went to West Virginia, a state that is attempting a drastic solution: allowing addicts to sue the doctors who got them hooked….

“We are talking in a certain sense drug traffickers. They are doing nothing but writing and cranking out prescription after prescription after prescription,” said DEA agent Gary Newman.

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O God, who by the guidance of a star didst manifest to the Gentiles the glory of thine only begotten Son: Grant us grace that, being led by the light of thy Holy Spirit, we may, in adoring love and lowliest reverence, yield ourselves to thy service; that thy kingdom of righteousness and peace may be advanced among all nations, to the glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colos”²sae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing””so among yourselves, from the day you heard and understood the grace of God in truth, as you learned it from Ep”²aphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

And so, from the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

–Colossians 1:1-14

“Almighty God our Heavenly Father, whose only Son came down at Christmas to be the light of the world, grant as these trees are burned this Epiphany night, that we, inspired by your Holy Spirit, would follow his example and bear witness to His light throughout the world, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit, live and reign in glory everlasting. Amen.”

Many Christians around the world are celebrating Epiphany and Theophany ”“ the day when the Three Kings of Orient arrived in Bethlehem to present Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh; and the celebration of the Baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan River ”“ while others are preparing to celebrate Christmas.

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