The Archbishop of Canterbury sent greetings to His Eminence Silouan, Metropolitan of Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland, who was enthroned on Saturday 27th February.

Read it all.

We are committed to providing leadership that honors Jesus Christ as the head of the Church, the authority of his Word and the power of his gospel. Therefore, in the power of the Holy Spirit ””

1. We covenant ourselves to pray for each other and to establish a network that will allow us to continue in communion to support each other.

2. We covenant ourselves to give greater priority to lead as Anglicans in the way Jesus did it: servant leadership.

3. We covenant ourselves to transform our societies through the Anglican institutions and churches in which we serve.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Amen.

Read it all [pdf] and the Report from A.L.I. Director Peter Moore

..Here is something I wrote after the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

In 1978 Archbishop Joseph Adetoloye of Nigeria stood at the microphone at the Lambeth Conference for 30 minutes waiting to be recognized. For all that time, the chair continued to recognize bishops from Western Provinces at other microphones and overlooked Archbishop Joseph.

When he was finally recognized, he said, “Here at this meeting, I have struggled to be recognized by the chair, but it will not always be this way.” He went on to prophesy, “In ten years time in 1988 the voice of the Africans will not only be allowed, it will be sought. In 1998,” he said, “The Global South bishops (especially those in Africa) will set the agenda.”

At the Lambeth Conference in 1998, that is exactly what happened.
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Now this year in January 2016 the Primates gathered for the first time in a number of years. Many of the Primates were new. In fact, 21 had never been to a Primates meeting before. They met, prayed, talked, and worked, agreeing to measures to discipline the Episcopal Church for their General Convention decision in 2015 to change marriage to be between any two people, whether same or opposite sexes. There was also a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Only this time, the new Archbishop actually let the Primates set their own agenda. Many Primates told me that they thought the conversations and prayers were genuine and they did not feel manipulated. Some were less sanguine, but it was certainly better than the last few meetings which were completely manipulated.

The result of the meeting was interesting. There was a very narrow decision to limit the Episcopal Church from participating in Communion life in three areas:

– Doctrinal Conversations
– Decisions of Polity
– Ecumenical Conversations

As I said, that was extremely limited and was just a slap on the wrist, but it was very significant because 33 of the Primates wanted to see the Episcopal Church disciplined in one way or another. In addition, the discipline that they imposed was motivated by using Scripture as the standard. That is really huge.

Now, however, there is an institutional crisis. Immediately following the Primates’ Meeting, TEC Presiding Bishop Michael Curry admitted that TEC had changed core doctrine about marriage and that he understood that people would be upset about that. Now that he has been back in the shark pond here at home, suddenly he is now saying that changing the definition of marriage is not a change to core doctrine. Furthermore, he said that the Primates can only decide things that relate to the Primates Meeting. He claims that nothing the Primates said applies to the upcoming Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. That was certainly not the understanding of the Primates! They thought that the discipline to which they agreed would be applied everywhere across the Anglican Communion..

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By Canon Phil Ashey
..by their own admission, these Canadian bishops are “unable to come to a common mind about what the Spirit is saying to the Church.” Really? From which “Spirit” are they seeking discernment? The Spirit of Jesus Christ, whose mind is undivided, as Paul so powerfully expounds in Philippians 2:5-11? The Spirit who inspired God’s revelation from creation, in Holy Scripture, that God created humanity “male and female” (Genesis 1:27) and that marriage is a holy estate between a man “who shall leave his father and mother” to be united to his wife so that “the two will become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)? Were they seeking discernment from the same Spirit who inspired Jesus to cite this ordinance in Matthew 19:5, and in the very next verse to emphasize its holiness and permanence by declaring “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matt. 19:6)?

Or were they seeking discernment from some other Spirit, or the Spirit of the age?

The Holy Spirit who reigns with the father and the Son from the beginning is the same Spirit who at creation hovered over the unformed depths and waters of creation. The Holy Spirit is the same Spirit who helped bring order out of that chaos. He is not the author of chaos. And he is certainly not responsible for the doctrinal chaos in the Anglican Church of Canada today.

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The Right Reverend Dr Michael Ipgrave has been named as the new Bishop of Lichfield.

He assumes responsibility for one of the Church of England’s largest dioceses, leading an episcopal team with the Bishops of Wolverhampton, Stafford and Shrewsbury.

Bishop Michael (57), the current Bishop of Woolwich in the Diocese of Southwark, will be the ninety-ninth Bishop of Lichfield, in a line going back to St Chad in the seventh century. He succeeds the Right Reverend Jonathan Gledhill, who retired last year.

Today, Bishop Michael is visiting Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Little Drayton and Lichfield on a tour meeting churches and communities across the Diocese.

In this personal welcome message to the Diocese, Bishop Michael says:

“I’ve had twelve wonderful years in London but I am so looking forward to coming back to the Midlands. Lichfield is the mother church of the Midlands, and the city of St Chad, a man of great humility and profound Christian faith.”

Read it all and the official announcement is here

..Sacks, 67, served as Great Britain’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013 and was often praised for his work in revitalizing Jewish institutions. During his tenure, the John Templeton Foundation said, he “built a network of organizations that introduced a Jewish focus in areas including business, women’s issues and education, and urged British Jewry to turn outward to share the ethics of their faith with the broader community.”

At the same time, Sacks became a prominent public figure in advocating for religious institutions to turn away from extremism in an era of terrorism and violence.

In his most recent book, “Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence,” Sacks writes specifically of the need to counter extremism.

“Too often in the history of religion, people have killed in the name of the God of life, waged war in the name of the God of peace, hated in the name of the God of love and practiced cruelty in the name of the God of compassion,” he said. “When this happens, God speaks, sometimes in a still, small voice almost inaudible beneath the clamor of those claiming to speak on his behalf. What he says at such times is: ”˜Not in My Name.’”

Read it all

Watch it all-brought tears to my eyes-KSH.

A police officer who was fatally shot on her first day on the job was remembered Tuesday as someone who helped in soup kitchens, at suicide prevention programs and at mortuary services for Marines killed overseas.
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Thousands of people came to the Hylton Memorial Chapel here to honor the officer, Ashley Guindon, 28. Officer Guindon died Saturday when she and two other Prince William County police officers were investigating a domestic disturbance at a home in Woodbridge, about 20 miles south of Washington.

As the officers approached the front door of the house, a gunman opened fire, hitting all three, the police said. Officer Guindon later died at a hospital; the other two officers were treated for their wounds. The suspect, Ronald W. Hamilton, 32, who the police said also fatally shot his wife before they arrived, was arrested on murder charges.

Read it all from the New York Times.

The Bishop of Los Angeles has reneged on his promise to the 2015 Diocesan Convention to make public the finances of the diocese’s corporation sole. In a statement released on 28 Feb 2016, the Save the St James the Great Coalition reported the diocese’s chief operating officer had responded to the group’s request for the audited records of the bishop’s finances by saying that disclosure would at this time would harm the bishop in his on-going litigation with the parish and donors of the land. The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, who is facing ecclesiastical charges of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy that include lying to members of the diocese, had faced a public censure at his diocesan convention over his handling of church property, but was able to postpone a showdown after he promised to make public his activities.

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Nigerian police are hunting for three teenage girls abducted from their boarding school on the outskirts of Lagos city by heavily armed men.

Kidnappings for ransom occasionally occur in Nigeria’s commercial capital, but this is the first time a school in the city has been attacked by gunmen….

Our reporter says the school, linked to the Anglican Church, is one of the best and most expensive in Lagos state and is mostly attended by children of politicians and wealthy individuals.

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, has been awarded the Templeton prize.

Sacks, 67, has written more than two dozen books targeted at bringing spiritual insight to the public. He has spent decades revitalizing Britain’s Jewry during his tenure as chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013.

Sacks has been an outspoken advocate of religious and social tolerance throughout his career. His most recent book, “Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence,” argues that violence in the name of God is the exact opposite of what any deity would expect of followers….

Read it all.

Donald Trump rode a powerful tide of voter fury to victories across the country on Tuesday, ending the campaign season’s most momentous day of balloting as the unrivaled favorite for the Republican presidential nomination.

The billionaire mogul’s Super Tuesday rout extended from New England to the Deep South, but he resoundingly lost the night’s crown jewel, Texas, to home-state Sen. Ted Cruz, who also defeated Trump in Alaska and Oklahoma.

Tuesday’s results exposed some vulnerabilities for Trump: He lost late­-deciding voters in many states by wide margins to rival Marco Rubio, a sign that the senator from Florida may have had some impact with his withering assault on Trump’s character. Ohio Gov. John Kasich also came close to beating Trump in Vermont.

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Almighty God, whose servant Chad, for the peace of the Church, relinquished cheerfully the honors that had been thrust upon him, only to be rewarded with equal responsibility: Keep us, we pray thee, from thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, and ready at all times to give place to others, (in honor preferring one another,) that the cause of Christ may be advanced; in the name of him who washed his disciples’ feet, even the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

O Thou who hast prepared a place for my soul, prepare my soul for that place. Prepare it with holiness; prepare it with desire; and even while it sojourneth upon earth, let it dwell in heaven with thee, beholding the beauty of thy countenance and the glory of thy saints, now and for evermore.

Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.

–1 Corinthians 8:9-13

The world’s deadliest terrorist group is not in the Middle East. It’s in Nigeria, where the Islamist insurgency Boko Haram and other forces killed more than 4,000 Christians in 2015.

That tally was a 62 per cent increase from the previous year, according to Open Doors, a global charity that supports Christians in places where their faith exposes them to government, social or sectarian hostility.

In response, Nigeria’s largest confederation of Christian churches is, for the first time, jointly endorsing a commitment to revive the Church in the country’s north, before it collapses from a decade of violence that has killed thousands of Christians and driven away more than 1 million.

At the same time, the grouping, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has jointly published with Open Doors a detailed study of the violence and its impact. “Crushed but not defeated: The impact of persistent violence on the Church in Northern Nigeria” was scheduled to be released on 24 Feb. in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

Read it all and the report Crushed but not Defeated [pdf]