The Government of Ghana has been urged to bring its troops home to help fight the threat posed by Boko Haram.
The call came from the Archbishop of Ghana and Primate of West Africa, the Most Rev Daniel Sarfo, who urged the recall of troops serving in overseas peacekeeping missions.
David, 21, doesn’t do parties. The graduate from Reading University lip-reads because he lost his hearing when he had meningitis at the age of two. As it’s almost impossible to lip-read in a group, it makes parties a challenge. “If I’m in a group I tend to stay at the back because I can’t hear what’s going on at the centre. That makes me feel as though I’m on the outside looking in,” he says. “I told myself I didn’t mind not going to parties, but then I’d find I wasn’t invited and I’d think: ”˜Why wasn’t I invited?’ It would be nice to feel that someone was inviting me.”
On his first day at Reading, David discovered the chaplaincy, a homely place where you could go to be quiet or chat or just chill. “The kind of people you find at the chaplaincy are people who also feel on the outside of groups,” says David. “People go there to find a connection with somebody and that’s what I would find there. It’s where I met Mark [the Anglican Chaplain] who became my confidant and counsellor.”
More than a year of U.S.-led airstrikes and financial sanctions haven’t stopped Islamic State from ordering supplies for its fighters, importing food for its subjects or making quick profits in currency arbitrage.
This is because of men such as Abu Omar, one of the militant group’s de facto bankers. The Iraqi businessman is part of a network of financiers stretching across northern and central Iraq who for decades have provided money transfers and trade finance for the many local merchants who shun conventional banks.
When Islamic State seized control of the region in 2014, the world’s wealthiest terror group made him an offer he decided not to refuse: You can keep your business if you also handle our money.
“I don’t ask questions,” said Abu Omar, whose money-exchange offices in the Iraqi cities of Mosul, Sulimaniyah, Erbil and Hit charge as much as 10% to transfer cash in and out of militant territory””twice normal rates. “Islamic State is good for business.”
30 Years Ago Today: SI cover, after 3 networks lose $45M on their NFL deal. Things turned around a bit. pic.twitter.com/kY5oBFSowB
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 24, 2016
Here’s a radical idea: What if we contained the mission of our universities to education? The story behind the story of student debt inflation is the inflation of the university into an expanding behemoth of goods and services that have little to do with education and more to do with expectations of coddled comfort. Rather than being an institution centered on education, the university now aspires to be a total institution that meets every felt need. The campus is now a sprawling complex of fitness centers and cineplexes, food courts and gargantuan coliseums. Students aren’t taking out loans to pay for an education; they’re effectively borrowing money to pay exorbitant, short-lived taxes for the privilege of living in a scripted, cocooned city.
Canada’s spy agencies have tracked 180 Canadians who are engaged with terrorist organizations abroad, while another 60 have returned home.
The latest figures mark a significant increase from the findings of the 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Can-ada, which identified about 130 people involved in terror-related activities overseas, including 30 taking an active role with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and the Nusra Front in Syria.
“The total number of people overseas involved in threat-re-lated activities ”“ and I’m not just talking about Iraq and Syria ”“ is probably around 180,” Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Michel Coulombe told The Globe and Mail after testifying before the House of Commons public safety committee. “In Iraq and Syria, we are probably talking close to 100.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced the appointment of Dame Moira Gibb to be chair of the independent review into the way the Church of England responded to the case of Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, who was jailed last year for sex offences.
Dame Moira has worked at a senior level in the statutory sector – she was Chief Executive of Camden Council until 2011 – and holds a range of non-executive roles. Most recently she was the chair of the Serious Case Review (published January 2016) into safeguarding at Southbank International School in the wake of the crimes committed by William Vahey.
She will be assisted in the review by Kevin Harrington JP, safeguarding consultant and lead reviewer on a range of Serious Case Reviews; James Reilly, former Chief Executive of Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (until Feb 2016); Heather Schroeder MBE, currently vice chair of Action for Children and formerly held senior positions in social services and children’s services in a number of local authorities.
The review will be published once Dame Moira and her team have completed their work which is expected to be within a year. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) chaired by Justice Goddard will also be looking at the Peter Ball case but have made it clear that institutions should continue with their previous commitments on safeguarding and the Church is in ongoing touch with IICSA on this.
Balkissa Chaibou dreamed of becoming a doctor, but when she was 12 she was shocked to learn she had been promised as a bride to her cousin. She decided to fight for her rights – even if that meant taking her own family to court.
“I came from school at around 18:00, and Mum called me,” Balkissa Chaibou recalls.
“She pointed to a group of visitors and said of one of them, ‘He is the one who will marry you.’
“I thought she was joking. And she told me, ‘Go unbraid, and wash your hair.’ That is when I realised she was serious.”
Last May, CTC embarked on a pioneering partnership with St George-in-the-East ”“ the church in whose crypt we are now based.
The parish was between priests and, owing to its declining congregation, the Bishop of Stepney decided to review its pattern and provision of ministry. St George’s shared some of our passions ”“ being a place of prayer; working with and for its neighbours, and growing numerically ”“ but the challenge of maintenance (of a Grade I listed building with a Sunday congregation sometimes under twenty) made it hard to engage in much mission.
CTC made a proposal to the parish, and to the Bishop ”“ for an experimental partnership, with a community of young people living in the Rectory helping to renew the mission of the church and the two CTC staff who are Anglican priests (The Revd Tim Clapton and me) being licensed to the parish. For the same level of resource as the diocese would usually invest in a parish (through providing a rectory and clergy stipend), St George’s would get a very different pattern of ministry.
O Almighty God, who into the place of Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the Twelve: Grant that thy Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
O God, who through thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised help to man according to his faith: Grant us the freedom of the children to taste the food of eternal life, and to share with others what we ourselves receive; through the merits of the same thy Son, our Lord.
Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name for ever; may his glory fill the whole earth! Amen and Amen!
–Psalm 72:18-19
[Extracts are below, but read the whole letter]
..ANGLICAN COMMUNION. My second burden in prayer has been for our beloved Anglican Communion. As you know and have heard me and our leaders say many times, the fabric of the Anglican Communion was torn at its deepest level in 2003. The Episcopal Church in America (TEC) elected as Bishop a divorced father of two living in a same-sex relationship. Not only was this a direct violation of the Bible, but it violated Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 which rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”¦and cannot advise the legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”
There was an emergency meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003 and our retired Archbishop Nkoyoyo attended that meeting in London. All the Primates in that meeting agreed that if TEC proceeded to consecrate this man as a Bishop, it would tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level, and that TEC should not proceed with the consecration. Even the Presiding Bishop (Archbishop) of TEC agreed to this resolution.
Yet, immediately after the meeting ended, the TEC Presiding Bishop held a press conference outside of Lambeth Palace and told the press that he would preside at the consecration scheduled to take place just a few weeks later.
We felt so betrayed. We wondered how the TEC Presiding Bishop could agree that their consecration should not proceed ”“ how he could agree that if he presided at that consecration that it would tear the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level ”“ and then immediately turn around and announce that he would do it anyway. It was a double betrayal ”“ betraying the clear message of the Bible and betraying an agreement the Primates had made unanimously.
Thirteen years later, the Primates of the Anglican Communion gathered last month in January 2016 in Canterbury to discuss what to do about the fact that not only had TEC torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level in 2003, but they have since changed the definition of marriage to no longer be a lifelong union between one man and one woman. There is a new Presiding Bishop in TEC and a new Archbishop of Canterbury. We were cautiously optimistic that the tear in the fabric of our communion could be repaired and betrayal healed.
The overwhelming majority of Primates voted that there should be relational consequences for TEC because they are officially promoting false teaching. They should, therefore, not be allowed to represent the Anglican Communion in ecumenical and interfaith dialogues. Likewise, they should not be allowed to vote on matters of doctrine and polity within the Anglican Communion.
This was an important, symbolic vote because it was a rebuke of TEC. It also enabled the Primates of the Anglican Communion to re-state their commitment to the doctrine of marriage as between one man and one woman.
But, it was only a symbolic vote; it was not a substantive vote. Recent statements from TEC and other leaders in the Anglican Communion have since made this clear. Let me highlight two:
1. The Presiding Bishop of TEC (The Episcopal Church) stated during the Primates Meeting that TEC would not change its position on offering “marriage” to same-sex couples, and he has repeated TEC’s commitment to a definition of marriage the Bible does not recognize. In other words, the Primates decision will have no impact on TEC.
2. TEC’s delegates to the upcoming April meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka have stated that they intend to go to the meeting, participate in the meeting, and vote during the meeting. The Chair of the ACC ”“ former Malawi Bishop James Tengatenga ”“ has announced that TEC will be part of the meeting and will vote during the meeting. He stated that the Primates do not have the authority to tell the ACC what to do. Since the ACC is governed by its own Articles of Association, it does not have to follow the resolution of the Primates Meeting.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is like we are back in 2003 where we continue to be betrayed by our leaders. The Primates voted to bring discipline to TEC and, yet, we now see that the leadership of the Anglican Communion does not have the will to follow through. This is another deep betrayal..
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..As you know, the Church of Uganda’s Provincial Assembly has resolved that the Church of Uganda will not participate in meetings of the Anglican Communion until godly order is restored, including demonstrating that it is capable of restoring godly order. This has not yet happened. The Church of Uganda, therefore, will not be participating in the upcoming April meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka.
There will be a GAFCON Primates Council meeting in Chile in April, and we will discuss how to continue advancing the mission of GAFCON as a renewal movement within the Anglican Communion. As I have stated previously, we are not leaving the Anglican Communion; we are the Anglican Communion. We uphold the Biblical and historic faith of Anglicans and have come together in fellowship with other Provinces and national fellowships that have made the same decision…
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I look at our beloved Anglican Communion and can only conclude that it needs a new “constitution” ”“ the way the so-called Instruments of Communion work together is broken. Our GAFCON Fellowship seeks to bring renewal to the Anglican Communion through the Jerusalem Declaration ”“ keeping the Word of God Incarnate and the Word of God written at the centre of our fellowship, upholding the historic Anglican confessions of faith, and using a conciliar model to order our common life.
I appeal to you, during this season of Lent, to please continue to pray for Uganda and for the Anglican Communion.
The Most Rev. Stanley Ntagali
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
Durham in the north of England is the diocese where Christians are least likely to go to a service of the Church of England, according to latest figures.
Church attendance data analysed by the Manchester Evening News shows just one in 81 Christians attended an Anglican church in Durham in 2014, a fall of nearly 10 per cent since 2009.
The figures indicate the continuing decline in church attendance over centuries but that has been particularly marked in the last few decades.
Read it all from Christian Today.
To be blunt: The last thing this funeral Mass was about was “spirituality.” So search the [New York] Times story and look for the role that terms such as “Christian” and “Catholic” played in its contents. What about “Jesus,” you ask? Forget about it.
The strongest religious language in the [New York] Times piece linked a kind of vague, Americanized faith with a nod to current fights over religious liberty.
The LeMarquands report:
..On Jan. 30th, the Gambella Centre, received an unexpected influx of local ”˜refugees.’ About 70 women and children from the small community nearby our compound suddenly walked through the gate. I’ll let Wendy describe their visit.
As they entered our compound, they reminded me of of the lines of refugees we saw heading into Akule refugee camp two years ago: women with their meager belongings on the heads, little babies in their arms, and children, silent, stoney faced, walking alongside. One difference ”“ razor sharp spears and deadly pangas (machetes) were carried by a few of them, mostly boys, 8 or 9 years old. They had heard that ”˜people were coming to kill them’, and they fled to us for refuge.
“What can we do?”, I wondered. “We have no stores of food and no means of defending them.” Inwardly I stepped back into Peace, and greeted each with a smile. I looked into the dull eyes and hardened faces. The sun beat down. “Water,” I thought. “Give each a cup of water.” As I gave each a cup of water, I looked into their eyes. It was the children who softened first. Slowly, shy smiles answered mine. Eyes began to brighten. It was lunch time. “They must be hungry,” I thought. I remembered yesterday, when the lunch prepared for 10 people stretched to amply feed almost 30. I had bread and ”˜Injera’ enough for ten. But what was that with such a crowd? “Test Me in this,” the thought seemed to come. Grant went to get some peanut butter crackers left by our visiting team from South Carolina. Everyone had at least 4 or 5 pieces of the bread, injera and crackers (“biscotti”). Some of our Anuak students were with us. They and Grant led us in prayer…
The emergence of a “para Anglican Communion” was underway, Newcastle Bishop Greg Thompson said in a letter to Anglican Primate Archbishop Philip Freier in December, in which he declined to attend the annual bishops conference in South Australia from March 6 because it would give the impression of a united church that conflicted with reality.
He accused Sydney diocese of demanding other dioceses sign up to Anglican protocols on homosexuality, or Sydney would not attend any further national bishops’ conferences.
Bishop Thompson’s letter followed a Sydney Synod resolution in October against Australia’s first female Anglican Bishop, Kay Goldsworthy, for appointing an openly gay priest in a long-term relationship with a man to a parish in her diocese of Gippsland.
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Prominent evangelical Sydney Anglican priest David Ould described the Sydney resolution as “robust”, in a blog in which he said Bishops Goldsworthy and Parkes were “undermining the Biblical doctrine of marriage and human sexuality”.
The resolution included “praise to God” for the recently formed Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) in Australia, associated with the global Confessing Anglicans movement based on strong rejection of female and gay clergy and same sex marriage.
..A group of 42 Assyrian Christians, including women and children, were handed over after months of negotiations between Assyrian leaders and the radical Sunni jihadist group.
IS captured around 250 members of the ancient Christian community last February after the terror group overran parts of northeastern Hassakeh province in northern Syria.
Much of the Assyrian homeland has since been retaken by Syrian Kurdish forces and allied Arab and Christian militia (pictured above).
Members of the religious community that still speaks the language of Jesus have been periodically released in exchange for ransom payments.
Earlier releases had reportedly been arranged through the mediation of Arab tribes in the region, but an Assyrian organization said a priest had been involved in the last release…
Prosecutions for contempt of religion, common under former President Hosni Mubarak, increased dramatically after the 2011 uprising that deposed him, with many observers saying it was correlated to the rise to power of the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But in 2015 under Mr. Sisi, the former general who unseated the Islamists and is overseeing an unprecedented crackdown on the Brotherhood, authorities prosecuted or investigated at least 20 contempt of religion cases, says Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher on religious freedom at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. That’s more than at any time under Mr. Mubarak or since.
Religious minorities, particularly Christians, Shiites, and atheists, are often targeted. But recently prominent Sunni Muslim public figures who have voiced criticism or questions of prevailing religious doctrine have also been convicted of insulting religion.
People came from many directions to see Jesus because he represented a compassionate and empowering response to life’s suffering. “All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them” (Luke 6:19). When Jesus laid his hands on a crippled, bent-over woman who had not been able to stand up straight for 18 years, she immediately stood up straight. When he met a naked, demon-possessed man, he commanded the demons to depart, and the man returned to his right mind. When a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years touched the fringe of Jesus’ clothes, her bleeding stopped.
It is right to speak of these events as miracles. People were surprised and astounded by Jesus’ ability to transform sickness and death into new life. We should be clear, however, that a miracle is not simply an interruption or an abrogation of the laws of nature. Our bodies get sick and die because their physiology demands it. Many people believe that if sickness and death are overcome at a word or touch from Jesus, then Jesus has reversed or canceled something that otherwise would have happened.
But Jesus’ miracles are not interruptions. They’re focal moments in which Jesus shows us creatures as they are meant to be: physically healthy, well fed, of right mind, and in right relationship with each other. Miracles are God making right what has gone wrong. They are not interruptions but acts of liberation that allow creatures to move into the lives that God desires for them.
Leadership comes in many shapes and sizes””not just one. And different situations call for different styles of leadership. So what types of leader does the church need right now?
Clichés become clichés for a reason””usually because they are true. So I am going to risk saying that because the church is in crisis, we need a different kind of leader from those we needed fifty years ago. It is a cliché””but it is also true.
I was thinking about this recently when speaking at the induction of a friend, Ross Lockhart, as Director of Ministry Leadership and Education at St. Andrew’s Hall, the Presbyterian College at the Vancouver School of Ministry. My brief was to “give the charge.” This was not a phrase I was familiar with, so I asked Ross whether it meant I had to tell everyone how wonderful he is, or whether it was a chance for me to tell him what to do. Modest man that he is, he said the latter. I was happy to oblige””though I would happily have done the first too.
Since seminaries like St Andrew’s are in the business of training leaders, and since Ross is teaching leadership, it seemed like a good opportunity to reflect on what kind of leaders the church needs in today’s world.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s opening address in which he told us what really happened at the Primates’ Gathering, behind all the spin. Remember that report that the Primates had had their phones taken away? Not true! In fact they delighted in waving them at the Archbishop to prove it. On the positive side, there were clearly moments when prayer and the presence of the Spirit changed everything, and made communion real. Alleluia!
Now, as Polycarp was entering into the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, “Be strong, and show thyself a man, O Polycarp!” No one saw who it was that spoke to him; but those of our brethren who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, [the proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny [Christ], saying, “Have respect to thy old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom, [such as], “Swear by the fortune of Cæsar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, “Away with the Atheists.” Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will set thee at liberty, reproach Christ;” Polycarp declared, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
O God, the maker of heaven and earth, who didst give to thy venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Saviour, and steadfastness to die for his faith: Give us grace, after his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Happy feast of St Polycarp. Here he is, second on the left, in a mosaic from St Appolinaris, Ravenna. pic.twitter.com/CjZNTB7GiJ
— St Hugh Knaphill (@StHughKnaphill) February 23, 2016
O Blessed Saviour, who art full of mercy and compassion, and wilt not cast out any that come to thee: Help us, we beseech thee, who are grievously vexed with the burden of our sins; and so increase in us the power of thy Holy Spirit that we may prevail against the enemy of our souls; for thy name’s sake.
Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!
–Psalm 61:1-4
On Friday, I drove from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, Texas, to visit my parents. Somewhere along Interstate 35 south of the Red River, I flipped the FM dial to a Dallas sports talk station.
I hoped to hear discussion of my favorite team, the Texas Rangers, arriving at spring training and the outlook for the upcoming season.
Instead, I found myself mesmerized by two sports talk hosts focused on faith and forgiveness ”” and the rousing eulogy that Oklahoma City Thunder assistant coach Monty Williams gave for his wife, Ingrid, on Thursday.
“I’m jealous of someone with that kind of faith,” said one of the hosts, as questions of life and death suddenly trumped draft picks, trade deadlines and even the Dallas Cowboys.
Read it all; the main thing to do is to watch the video which was have posted earlier.
I spent the past 2½ years researching my new book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of TeenÂagers, visiting 10 states and talking to more than 200 girls. It was talking to girls themselves that brought me to the subject of social media and what sexualization is doing to their psyches. How is it affecting their sense of self-worth? The tweens and teens I spoke to were often very troubled by the ways the culture of social media was exerting influence on their self-images and their relationships, with both friends and potential dating partners. They were often highly aware of the adverse effects of the sexualization on girls””but not always sure what to do about it.
“Sexism has filtered into new arenas that adults don’t see or understand because they’re not using social media the same way,” says Katie, a student I interviewed at Barnard. “They think, Oh, how can there be anything wrong here if it’s just Snapchat or Instagram””it’s just a game.” But if this is a game, it’s unlike any other we’ve ever played. And the stakes for girls could not be higher.
Victim isn’t a word I’d use to describe the kind of girls I’ve seen, surviving and thriving in an atmosphere that has become very hostile to them much of the time. How can this be, when girls are graduating from college in higher numbers than ever before, when they’re becoming leaders in their chosen fields in greater numbers? From what we hear, American girls are among the most Âprivileged and successful girls in the world. But tell that to a 13-year-old who gets called a slut and feels she can’t walk into a school classroom because everybody will be staring at her, texting about her on their phones.
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is culturally and theologically diverse, and it includes multiple national legal jurisdictions. Consequently, the Way Forward Working Group has considered the differing legal situation in New Zealand, and the respective nation states of the Pacific region that fall within the boundaries of the Diocese of Polynesia. The mechanism the Working Group offers for our consideration works with this reality and these differences to suggest a way that provides a clear protection of conscience.
In terms of process, this report, like many others for the General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui, will be sent to all members of the General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui for their consideration. In sharing this report with you, we remain hopeful that the wider community of the Church will be given the opportunity to share their concerns and reflections with their communities. This report will be tabled for discussion at the next General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui in Napier in May.
In offering the report and a possible way forward on these matters, the Working Group has sought to build on many years of discussion and study across this Church. In particular, they build on the work of the Commission on Doctrine and Theological Questions, which reported to General Synod/Te Hinota Whanui in 2014. That report presented two clearly-argued positions, both with their own biblical and theological integrity. One argued that the blessing of committed, monogamous, life-long same-sex relationships was outside of the doctrinal possibilities the Church can consider, the other that such relationships can and should be able to receive the blessing of the Church.
The Way Forward Working Group has assumed that these two integrities cannot be reconciled….