The Just Finance Network, formerly known as the Church Credit Champions Network (CCCN), has proposed a nationwide roll out of ”˜credit champions’ to help people manage money and debt.

The scheme has already been piloted in churches in London, Southwark and Liverpool and has trained more than 260 volunteers. Organisers believe it is now ready to go nationwide.

Of the Church Credit Champions Network, the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev Paul Bayes, said that desperate people had been exploited by unscrupulous credit providers locking them into a crippling spiral of debt.

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This common mistake””thinking that the Benedict Option means withdrawal from politics””is likely to be just as common with respect to whatever fad succeeds Benedict.

What was wrong with the culture war? Many particular things, but the overarching problem was the failure of grace toward those outside Christian (or “Judeo-Christian”) identity. God is holy but he is also loving, and his response to the darkness of the world’s evil was the cross. In the present age, he withholds his ultimate judgment upon the unholy world. And he calls his people to be holy as he is holy, but also to love the unholy world as he loves it, such that he gave his only son.

Now, what is wrong with the Benedict Option? To the extent that it has sufficient coherence to be criticized, it, too, has many particular faults that could be examined. The overarching problem, however, is the Benedict Option’s failure to love the unholy world. The holiness of the church has crowded out its divine mission. The Benedict Option projects the same spirit of resentment and hostility toward the world outside of Christian identity.

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New Zealand’s sole Anglican Friary is about to close.
The Friary of the Divine Compassion has, for almost 15 years, been a spiritual anchor for Te Ara Hou, which is the Anglican social service community in Hillcrest, Hamilton.
But time has caught up with the brothers.
Late last year, Br Brian, who was 90, died. Br Brother Damian Kenneth will soon be moving into a retirement village, while the Rev Phil Dyer ”“ a Third Order Franciscan who has, in recent times, lived at the Friary ”“ will also be moving on.

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The leader of the Scottish Episcopal Church has conceded that a vote on same-sex marriage this week risks putting it at odds with the remainder of the Anglican Communion.

The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane, said the potential split was “a very serious issue” for the Scottish church but added that all sides were committed to maintaining unity.

Members of the church will be asked on Friday to consider a change to canon law, which currently states that marriage must be between a man and a woman, at its General Synod.

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Author of “The Price of Prosperity,” Todd Buchholz, discusses his book explaining why America may be in danger of collapse. He speaks on “Bloomberg Markets.”

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Harrison’s thinking develops in dialogue with Hannah Arendt ”“ among many others, though her concept of natality, which I sketched earlier, seems especially important for him in Juvenescence. We are born into a particular society that exists before we do, and will presumably continue to do so for some while afterward, but that isn’t eternal or static. It leaves its mark on us (and we on it, to whatever degree). We are affected by its changes.

More to the point we are part of the changes, even when we are incapable of recognizing them. (Especially then, in fact.) It’s possible to get some perspective on things — to challenge, or at least evaluate, what we’ve come to accept and expect from the world ”“ through learning about the past, or formulating questions, or absorbing stories and other cultural expressions of other people.

Harrison coins the expression heterochronicity to point out the reality the present is never pure or self-contained. The people around us are being pushed and pulled by senses of the world (including memories and expectations) that can be profoundly different from our own, and from one another. Heterochronicity is the matrix of generational conflict, but Juvenescence explores it through readings of Antigone and King Lear rather than the contrasts between boomers and millennials.

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Broadcasters should give religion the same depth of analysis they provide for sport, the Archbishop of Canterbury has claimed.

The Rt Rev Justin Welby called for the “promotion of religious literacy” to be written as a specific duty into the new BBC charter.

Faith issues should be treated as seriously as sport and drama on television, he argued.

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…63-year-old [Phyllis Swenson of] Fairfax, Virginia, resident is among millions of Americans who haven’t rebounded with the improving U.S. economy. Part-time work at Vienna Presbyterian doesn’t pay all her bills, and almost a year of futile job-hunting has left her desperate.

“Recovery?” she scoffs. “How are we recovering?”

The labor market has staged a strong comeback: Unemployment is 4.7 percent, down from 9.5 percent when the economy started expanding in June 2009. Employers have added an average 150,000 jobs a month this year, though May slowed to just 38,000. The rate at which people quit, a handy measure of job mobility, is trending up.
Yet some Americans still feel a deep sense of betrayal. Their journey back to meaningful work has been brutal — if they even arrived — leaving them with depleted savings, increased debt, homes lost to lenders and for some, long searches that stripped away their most valuable possession: self-esteem. Many who did find jobs now earn less, with fewer benefits.

This has helped fuel Donald Trump’s improbable rise and Bernie Sanders’s strong challenge to Hillary Clinton. Thousands cheer at rallies when the Republican front-runner claims he’ll put people back to work and the Democratic contender rails against income inequality.

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In little more than ten years St. Paul established the Church in four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before AD 47 there were no churches in these provinces; in AD 57 St. Paul could speak as if his work there was done, and could plan extensive tours into the far west without anxiety lest the churches which he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support.

The work of the Apostle during these ten years can therefore be treated as a unity. Whatever assistance he may have received from the preaching of others, it is unquestioned that the establishment of the churches in these provinces was really his work. In the pages of the New Testament he, and he alone, stands forth as their founder. And the work which he did was really a completed work. So far as the foundation of the churches is concerned, it is perfectly clear that the writer of the Acts intends to represent St. Paul’s work as complete. The churches were really established. Whatever disasters fell upon them in later years, whatever failure there was, whatever ruin, that failure was not due to any insufficiency or lack of care and completeness in the Apostle’s teaching or organization. When he left them he left them because his work was fully accomplished.

This is truly an astonishing fact. That churches should be founded so rapidly, so securely, seems to us today, accustomed to the difficulties, the uncertainties, the failures, the disastrous relapses of our own missionary work, almost incredible. Many missionaries in later days have received a larger number of converts than St. Paul; many have preached over a wider area than he; but none have so established churches. We have long forgotten that such things could be. We have long accustomed ourselves to accept it as an axiom of missionary work that converts in a new country must be submitted to a very long probation and training, extending over generations before they can be expected to be able to stand alone. Today if a man ventures to suggest that there may be something in the methods by which St. Paul attained such wonderful results worthy of our careful attention, and perhaps of our imitation, he is in danger of being accused of revolutionary tendencies.

–Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours; A Study of The Church In The Four Provinces, Chapter One

Roland Allen (D. 1947) is honored for his efforts to have missions reflect local cultures. https://t.co/gFQpfQRc28 pic.twitter.com/AfgaQmVZkH

— St. Stephen's Church (@StStevieCG) June 8, 2016

Almighty God, by whose Spirit the Scriptures were opened to thy servant Roland Allen, so that he might lead many to know, live and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ: Give us grace to follow his example, that the variety of those to whom we reach out in love may receive thy saving Word and witness in their own languages and cultures to thy glorious Name; through Jesus Christ, thy Word made flesh, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Oh God we pray Thy blessing upon us. Oh, Lamb of God we love Thee so, we would with Thee life’s journey go, and we pray Thou wilt help us this morning, hurt and humbled by our own unworthiness in the knowledge of, and taunting memories of sins committed in the past, but by Thy grace at the moment we have no wish to sin. We wish only to love Thee and live as we should, so please help us now for Jesus’ sake.

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

The conference, which is now in its seventh year, was founded by Professor Bee Scherer, director of the INCISE research centre at Canterbury Christ Church University. He said, “Local activists approached us last year at the QP6 conference in Canterbury with the view of bringing QP to the Caribbean region; after the success of QP in South America (Rio 2012, Quito 2014) we agreed to support them.”

The conference has attracted criticism from conservative political and religious groups who are opposing LGBTIQ rights and equality, the organisers stated this weekend in a press release.

Although one of the key note speakers is an Anglican bishop, activists said it was sad to see how some churches have tried to boycott the conference rather than engage in a democratic dialogue with experts from all over the world who are coming to the Cayman Islands to share their knowledge and expertise with the public.

“I hope that we will see a fruitful dialogue and not just picketing and shouting,” said Scherer. “We have invited the Rt Hon Dr Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, as one of the keynote speakers…

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When I first started traveling to poor countries as a young journalist I was most shocked by the slums.

Tarp cities and shantytowns in Asia, Africa and Latin America ”” often butted up against wealthy neighborhoods and sleek high-rises ”” stood out to me as symbols of the distance between the United States and the “developing world.”

But that distance has shrunk in Seattle.

Yes, we’ve had a large homeless population here for as long as I can remember. But the now-ubiquitous knots of tents on traffic medians, the appearance of homeless encampments in neighborhoods and the growth of “The Jungle” alongside I-5 have shown me our city is not immune to extreme poverty ”” or outrageous disparity of wealth.

And nothing brought that point home quite like visiting “The Jungle” alongside an Anglican Bishop from South Sudan..

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..The most important thing for us is not what happens but how we respond to what happens. If our legal case is not heard, do we respond with righteous indignation or like our Lord from the cross? Forgive them for they know not what they do. And if they get the property, what will come of it? I sometimes smile when I think about what happened when the Philistines captured the Ark Of The Covenant. The property has been a blessing to us like the Ark was a blessing to Israel. Like the Ark, the property could become a curse to those who may capture it.

The author of the spirit of the ages is Satan who is the ruler of this world and this age. As a church our marching orders remain the same against the spirit of this age. Preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. “O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them”. Lord, with Your inspiration, may we help others come into the light of Your Truth. Amen

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This world is no friend to grace”¦The world is protean: each generation has the world to deal with in a new form. World is an atmosphere, a mood. It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the world’s temptations as it is for a fish to discover impurities in the water. There is a sense, a feeling, that things aren’t right, that the environment is not whole, but just what it is eludes analysis. We know that the spiritual atmosphere in which we live erodes faith, dissipates hope and corrupts love, but it is hard to put our finger on what is wrong”¦.

People submerged in a culture swarming with lies and malice feel as if they were drowning in it: they can trust nothing they hear, depend on no one they meet. Such dissatisfaction with the world as it is is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship. The dissatisfaction, coupled with a longing for peace and truth, can set us on a pilgrim path of wholeness in God.

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A discussion paper ‘Thinking Afresh About Welfare’ has been released today by the Church of England.

The paper, by Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, Director of the Mission and Public Affairs Division of Archbishops’ Council, was endorsed by the May meeting of the House of Bishops as a discussion document.

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..Anglican Ink has learned the ACK has declined to invite Archbishop Welby to give the sermon at the July consecration of archbishop-elect of Kenya, the Most Rev. Jackson ole Sapit. It has extended the invitation instead to the newest member of the GAFCON primates council, the Archbishop of Tanzania, the Most Rev. Jacob Chimeledya (pictured). The Kenyan snub follows the Lambeth snub of the GAFCON primates over the Task Force authorized by the January primates gathering in Canterbury. Leaders of the Churches of Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya tell AI they were not consulted by Lambeth Palace or the Anglican Consultative Council on the composition of the task force, and learned of its membership from press reports. The appointment of a Kenyan to the task force, without speaking with the leaders of the Kenyan church, AI was told, telegraphed to the GAFCON leaders they should not expect anything from this latest Lambeth commission, one leader explained. Queries to the Lambeth Palace press office asking why the GAFCON leaders were not consulted have gone unanswered.

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..Highbury Corner magistrates heard the Anglican priest kicked a paramedic twice in the leg before punching him and trying to bite him, on Charing Cross Road, in Covent Garden.

As police intervened, the priest from St Mary’s Church in Ilford, east London, kicked an officer in the face, the court was told.

When asked which embassy would grant him diplomatic immunity, the priest said “the Vatican” and swore at officers.

Jones, who has previous convictions for a bomb hoax, affray, possession of cannabis, fraud, and criminal damage, now faces formal church disciplinary proceedings..

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Finally, at a choral evensong in Westminster Abbey, a copy of the latest Agreed Statement, entitled In The Image and Likeness of God: A Hope-Filled Anthropology was presented to us by the Co-Chairmen of the International Commission for the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue. We were able to celebrate what Anglicans and Orthodox affirm together about the human person. This milestone provides the theological foundation for forthcoming discussions on the practical consequences of our shared theology to address the key themes, including the protection of the environment, ethical questions around medical interventions, and family life, and our call to reconciliation in the world around us. You yourself have been an untiring advocate for peace and reconciliation – politically, with the natural world and in your historic visit at the installation of His Holiness Pope Francis.

Historically I see these achievements as signs of a further deepening of the deep-rooted friendship between our two churches. As noted by Your All Holiness during the visit to Lambeth Palace, as early as the 17th century Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch first of Alexandria and then of Constantinople, had many contacts with the English Church and State. The Anglican and Eastern Churches Association and the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius have both fostered and continue to strengthen ecumenical friendships.

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Says my current pastor, the Reverend Dr. Timothy E. Tyler at Denver’s Shorter Community AME Church: “The mid-week prayer meeting was always a very intimate atmosphere””a place of renewal, love, and connectedness. As a child, when my mother and father dragged me there, I remember noticing that the large crowds of Sunday were much smaller on Wednesday. This group was the spiritual core of the church. The people would testify, petition God, and pray for each other. I finally understood it as a mid-week check-in on your spiritual self. Then you were ready for another Sunday.”

I listen to his words, realizing I like reflecting on such things with my own pastor: as I would on a Wednesday night.

He reminds me how Methodism itself, including its practice by African Methodist Episcopalians worldwide, finds its origins in the weeknight prayer meetings and love feasts organized by Methodist movement founder John Wesley.

“Wesley said, ”˜We’re still Anglican,’ but let’s go beyond the ritualistic worship of Sunday and meet God in prayer here tonight,” my pastor explained.

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Monday was a sad day for the men and women with the Cy-Fair Fire Department as they said their final goodbyes to Bretagne (pronounced “Brittany”), the last known surviving search and rescue dog who worked at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Bretagne would have turned 17 in August, but the golden retriever’s health had been declining recently and Monday her handlers took her to the vet’s office to be put down.

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O God, who in thy blessed Son hast prepared for us a rich feast and dost invite us day by day to partake of thy bounties: Grant that neither the distractions of business nor the allurements of pleasure may cause us to turn a deaf ear to thy call, nor to neglect thy so great salvation, which thou hast given us in the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

I have also to announce to the House that during the night and the early hours of this morning the first of the series of landings in force upon the European Continent has taken place. In this case the liberating assault fell upon the coast of France. An immense armada of upwards of 4,000 ships, together with several thousand smaller craft, crossed the Channel. Massed airborne landings have been successfully effected behind the enemy lines, and landings on the beaches are proceeding at various points at the present time. The fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled. The obstacles that were constructed in the sea have not proved so difficult as was apprehended. The Anglo-American Allies are sustained by about 11,000 firstline aircraft, which can be drawn upon as may be needed for the purposes of the battle. I cannot, of course, commit myself to any particular details. Reports are coming in in rapid succession. So far the Commanders who are engaged report that everything is proceeding according to plan. And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever taken place. It involves tides, wind, waves, visibility, both from the air and the sea standpoint, and the combined employment of land, air and sea forces in the highest degree of intimacy and in contact with conditions which could not and cannot be fully foreseen.

There are already hopes that actual tactical surprise has been attained, and we hope to furnish the enemy with a succession of surprises during the course of the fighting. The battle that has now begun will grow constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to come, and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its course. This I may say, however. Complete unity prevails throughout the Allied Armies. There is a brotherhood in arms between us and our friends of the United States. There is complete confidence in the supreme commander, General Eisenhower, and his lieutenants, and also in the commander of the Expeditionary Force, General Montgomery. The ardour and spirit of the troops, as I saw myself, embarking in these last few days was splendid to witness. Nothing that equipment, science or forethought could do has been neglected, and the whole process of opening this great new front will be pursued with the utmost resolution both by the commanders and by the United States and British Governments whom they serve. I have been at the centres where the latest information is received, and I can state to the House that this operation is proceeding in a thoroughly satisfactory manner. Many dangers and difficulties which at this time last night appeared extremely formidable are behind us. The passage of the sea has been made with far less loss than we apprehended. The resistance of the batteries has been greatly weakened by the bombing of the Air Force, and the superior bombardment of our ships quickly reduced their fire to dimensions which did not affect the problem. The landings of the troops on a broad front, both British and American- -Allied troops, I will not give lists of all the different nationalities they represent-but the landings along the whole front have been effective, and our troops have penetrated, in some cases, several miles inland. Lodgments exist on a broad front.

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According to Brad Steinecke, Director of Archives and Local History Programming at the Spartanburg County Libraries, there was a big, booming system of textile mill villages that had built-up around where textile plants were located on rivers in the Upstate by 1903. “The flood catches people by surprise, they are sleeping. They wake up to this, and it’s already at that point a pretty catastrophic thing,” Steinecke said.

Historical and media accounts from the time said that when the flood waters on the Pacolet reached the ten mile stretch of river where the mills and mill villages were located, the current was moving at about 40 miles an hour, and the water level was believed to be 22 feet above the river’s flood stage.

“It’s enough to move buildings, it’s enough to float the wooden houses, it’s enough to erode these enormous brick structures,” said Steinecke. “Trees and everything you can imagine is all up in that water,” Steinecke also said.

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The consequences of this widespread dislike to “dogma” are very serious in the present day. Whether we like to allow it or not, it is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and specially among young people. It creates, fosters, and keeps up an immense amount of instability in religion. It produces what I must venture to call, if I may coin the phrase, a “jelly-fish” Christianity in the land: that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power. A jelly-fish, as everyone knows who has been much by the seaside, is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little, delicate, transparent umbrella. Yet the same jelly-fish, when cast on the shore, is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defence, or self-preservation. Alas! it is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is,“No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.” We have hundreds of “jelly-fish” clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have no definite opinions; they belong to no school or party: they are so afraid of “extreme views” that they have no views at all. We have thousands of “jelly-fish” sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or a corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint.””We have legions of “jelly-fish” young men annually turned out from our Universities, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what is Christian truth.
Their only creed is a kind of “Nihilism.” They are sure and positive about nothing. And last, and worst of all, we have myriads of jelly-fish worshippers,respectable church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that differ, any more than colour-blind people can distinguish colours. They think everybody is right and nobody wrong, every-thing is true and nothing is false, all sermons are good and none are bad, every clergyman is sound and no clergyman unsound. They are “tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine;” often carried away by any new excitement and sensational movement; ever ready for new things, be-cause they have no firm grasp on the old; and utterly unable to “render a reason of the hope that is in them.” All this, and much more, of which I cannot now speak particularly, is the result of the unhappy dread of “dogma” which has been so strongly developed, and has laid such hold on many Churchmen, in these latter days.

I turn from the picture I have exhibited with a sorrow¬ful heart. I grant it is a gloomy one; but I am afraid it is only too accurate and true. Let us not deceive ourselves. “Dogma” and positive doctrine are at a dis¬count just now. Instability and unsettled notions are the natural re-sult, and meet us in every direction. Never was it so important for lay-men to hold systematic views of truth, and for ordained ministers to “enunciate dogma” very clearly and distinctly in their teaching.

–JC Ryle, Principles for Churchmen (London: William Hunt+Co, 1884), pp. 97-98 (my emphasis)

This was new to me–check it out.

A deal to avert the break-up of the worldwide Anglican Communion risks collapse amid signals that African churches are reassessing ties with the Church of England over the issue of same-sex marriage.

The new leader of a powerful bloc of traditionalist bishops and archbishops – seen as representing the majority of the world’s estimated 80 million Anglicans – said the Church of England had recently crossed a “line” with a series of decisions seen as endorsing a more liberal stance on homosexuality.

The Most Rev Nicholas Okoh, the Archbishop of Nigeria, said many traditionalists now view the British branches of Anglicanism in a similar light to The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the US which has been accused of “heresy” for ordaining openly gay bishops and endorsing same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Okoh ”“ recently elected as chairman of the influential “Gafcon” (Global Anglican Future Conference) group of clerics ”“ also pointedly gave his backing to a new breakaway network of churches in England, set up outside the control of the Church of England.

His intervention is the clearest sign yet of a renewed threat of schism within Anglicanism.

It follows the decision by one Nigerian diocese last week to break off ties with the Church of England Diocese of Liverpool because of the appointment of an American bishop who supports same-sex marriage to a special role in the area.

Last month there was also anger among traditionalists after a cleric from the Church of England’s Oxford diocese took part in a celebration of Desmond Tutu’s daughter’s same-sex wedding in South Africa.

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On Wednesday, May 25, the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston will join other bishops and primates from across the Anglican Communion in Accra, Ghana, for the 7th Consultation of Anglican Bishops in Dialogue. The Diocese of Virginia hosted the 6th Consultation in Richmond last year, and Bishop Shannon has attended previous meetings in Africa and England. The dialogue group was formed in 2008 at the Lambeth Conference when the Anglican Communion was split over issues of same-sex unions and larger questions of Scriptural interpretation. Membership has grown and shifted over time, and includes bishops from The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, and from dioceses and provinces from all over the continent of Africa. There are 25 bishops expected to attend this year, including Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop and Primate Michael Curry.

The bishops meet to listen, to understand each other’s context of shared ministry in the Gospel, and to facilitate healing and reconciliation. Bishop Shannon describes the consultation as a unique group that does very important work for the Anglican Communion. The testimonies published from each meeting are widely read, discussed, and referenced across the Communion. Bishop Shannon states that, “Over the years, since the second consultation meeting that I attended in Dar-es-Salaam, it has been most gratifying to see the growth in commitment to each other’s place and role in the Communion. Whether or not we come to agreement is not the point..

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