Bishop Shannon called for a gathering of representatives from our Church Schools to discuss the reality of transgendered students in our schools. At that time we were not aware of any transgender students in our schools and believed our conversations would put us a step ahead of a quickly coming change. By the time Bishop Susan [Goff] convened a gathering of 42 representatives of our six schools and our summer camps on April 27, 2016, some of our schools were already in conversation with students who are transitioning and with their parents…

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..I received a message from our Primate in Nigeria, who is currently the Chairman of GAFCON today about a partnership that is in the Western news. That there is a three way Diocesan partnership between the Diocese of Liverpool, England, the Diocese of Akure, Nigeria and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in the United States.

Also, that recently, the Diocese of Liverpool made the assisting Bishop of Virginia, Susan Goff, an assisting Bishop in Liverpool. Susan Goff is in favour of blessing same sex unions and this has been a part of the litigation against the orthodox in Virginia.

Therefore, in view of the above and being aware of the fact that Nigeria does not support same sex marriage, we in Akure Diocese cannot have any link with Liverpool Diocese.

We pray that Jesus Christ, The Owner of His Church will reveal Himself to us anew in Jesus name.

Yours in His Service,

Simeon Borokini,
Bishop of Akure Diocese.

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Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava: “All dharmas [truths, or religions] are equally valid.” Indians often cite this noble maxim, which was popularized by Mahatma Gandhi, and the country’s constitution remains firmly secular and democratic. In recent years, though, the country’s religious outlook has darkened to the point that minorities””including both Christians and Muslims””face dangers of severe persecution and violence.

The fact that that threat receives little attention in the West says much about our stereotypes of other world religions. If we saw a situation where tens of millions of Christians were being similarly maltreated by a Muslim regime, Western media and policy makers would speak out vigorously. But when the enemies of religious liberty are Hindu, members of a faith that Americans idealize, the public silence is deafening.

Although India’s Chris­tians do not represent a large proportion of the country’s vast population””only about 3 percent””they number about 40 million, comparable to the larger European nations. India’s Christians suffer from multiple disadvantages, especially because so many derive from people of low or no caste or from tribal communities on the margins of Hindu society. Official reluctance to accept the reality of conversions makes it difficult to assess the true extent of Christian numbers.

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Of special interest is the “Faith and Order Board Doctrine Committee Paper on the Theology of Marriage” which starts on numbered page 20–take a look.

It is one church separated by a border – but this week Anglicans in the Church of England and in the Scottish Episcopal Church face falling out over the issue of same-sex marriages.

In the progressive corner is the Scottish Episcopal Church – in effect the Anglican church in Scotland – which is preparing to vote for clergy to be allowed to carry out same sex marriages. Meanwhile, its southern neighbours, the Church of England, is on the reactionary side, opposing any such move.

Members of the Scottish Episcopal Church will be asked if they back a change to canon law which currently states that marriage must be between a man and a woman, at the Church’s General Synod in Edinburgh on Friday.

Read it all from The Herald.

“My aim is to make a case,” he says that night from the podium. “The visual arts . . . enable us to see the world as God sees it. Our sight is broken and needs mending. Artists come along and say, ”˜Hey, I can help.’ ”

Halfway through the lecture, Taylor displays a photo of a multimedia piece called The Chancel, built from panels of plywood interlaid with paint, gold leaf, and obscured Scripture passages.

“This work intends to give visual expression to the resurrection of Christ,” he says. “How many coats of paint?” he calls out to a woman in the crowd.

“Maybe 80?”

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Almighty God, who thyself art love, fill us with the spirit of thy holy love; that our hearts being enkindled by thee, we may for ever love thee, and each other in thee, and all men for thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

–Eric Milner-White (1884-1963)

When I am afraid, I put my trust in thee. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust without a fear. What can flesh do to me?

–Psalm 56:3-4

A private Christian university that forbids sexual intimacy outside heterosexual marriage will be in Ontario’s top court this week, seeking a green light for its proposed law school after the province’s law society denied it accreditation.
It’s the latest legal battle for British Columbia-based Trinity Western University, which is fighting similar cases at appeal courts in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
The case that will be heard Monday at Ontario’s Court of Appeal sees the university go up against the Law Society of Upper Canada, with both sides arguing the other is being discriminatory.

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There are three major changes that are reshaping the landscape in which we read and engage with the Bible. These shifts are most apparent among today’s youngest generations so, in a sense, they give shape to the present and future reality within which we read and interact with the Bible.

First, the steady rise of skepticism is creating a cultural atmosphere that is becoming unfriendly””sometimes even hostile””to claims of faith. In a society that venerates science and rationalism, it is an increasingly hard pill to swallow that an eclectic assortment of ancient stories, poems, sermons, prophecies and letters, written and compiled over the course of 3,000 years, is somehow the sacred “word of God.” Even in just the few years Barna has been conducting “State of the Bible” interviews, the percent of Americans who believe that the Bible is “just another book written by men” increases. So too does the perception that the Bible is actually harmful and that people who live by its principles are religious extremists.

Second, as Gabe Lyons and I propose in Good Faith, the broader culture has adopted self-fulfillment as its ultimate measure of moral good….

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A growing number of Muslim refugees in Europe are converting to Christianity, according to churches, which have conducted mass baptisms in some places.

Reliable data on conversions is not available but anecdotal evidence suggests a pattern of rising church attendance by Muslims who have fled conflict, repression and economic hardship in countries across the Middle East and central Asia.

Complex factors behind the trend include heartfelt faith in a new religion, gratitude to Christian groups offering support during perilous and frightening journeys, and an expectation that conversion may aid asylum applications.

Read it all and don’t miss the great picture.

Bendigo was ringing with the sound of bells on Sunday to mark the re-opening of St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral.

The bells went quiet about 2.45pm in preparation for an invitation-only opening service for the diocese.

Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, The Most Reverend Dr Philip Freier, delivered the sermon.

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The Anglican Church has clarified its position regarding same sex marriages and why it has accepted the decision by Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu-van Furth of the Saldanah Bay diocese to give up her licence.

Tutu-van Furth, who recently got married to long-time partner and academic, Marceline Tutu-van Furth, voluntarily gave up her practice licence before it was revoked by the church.

Tutu-van Furth, the daughter of Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, recently made headlines when she decided to marry another female.

Anglican Church spokesperson, Father Bruce Jenniker says the church guidelines do not allow for same sex marriages.

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Novak Djokovic, once the odd man out in this all-time great tennis generation, made history here on Sunday by winning his first French Open title and his fourth consecutive major title, a first in men’s tennis since 1969.

After a dozen trips to Roland Garros and three losses in the final, Djokovic finally prevailed with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 victory against Andy Murray. He fought nerves. He showed frustration. He got annoyed at the chair umpire. But this time, Djokovic survived.

The victory puts Djokovic in rare company: He is first man to hold all four major titles at the same time since Rod Laver, and only the third man in history to do it, along with Don Budge, who won six consecutive major titles from 1937 to 1938. Djokovic could become the first man since Laver to win a single-season Grand Slam if he defends his titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open later this year.

Read it all from the WSJ.

There was something unique about DCI Julie MacKay’s statement outside Bristol Crown Court on May 9 this year – the day Christopher Hampton admitted his guilt in murdering 17-year-old Melanie Road in 1984.

MacKay spoke from the heart; blonde hair whipped by the wind, barely using her notes, and in a way that was so personal, so affecting, that she single-handedly showed the human face of Britain’s police.

Her conviction that she would find Melanie’s killer – and her belief in her own intuition ”“ shone through. Here was DCI Jane Tennison, played expertly by Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, brought to life.

“I can’t describe it, but I always knew I was going to be the one to solve Melanie Road, she tells me. “I could feel it right here in my tummy.”

Read it all from the Sunday Telegraph.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, who hast given thy Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, and hast commanded us to love one another as thou hast loved us: Make us, we beseech thee, so mindful of the needs and sufferings of others, that we may ever be ready to show them compassion, and according to our ability to relieve their wants; for the sake of the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–The Rev. James Mountain (1844-1933)

The next day, as they were on their journey and coming near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. And he became hungry and desired something to eat; but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heaven opened, and something descending, like a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “No, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision which he had seen might mean, behold, the men that were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood before the gate and called out to ask whether Simon who was called Peter was lodging there. And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down, and accompany them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house, and to hear what you have to say.” So he called them in to be his guests.

The next day he rose and went off with them, and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied him.

–Acts 10:9-23

A key feature of American exceptionalism has been the propensity of Americans to create voluntary organizations for dealing with local problems. Tocqueville was just one of the early European observers who marveled at this phenomenon in the 19th and early 20th centuries. By the time the New Deal began, American associations for providing mutual assistance and aiding the poor involved broad networks, engaging people from the top to the bottom of society, spontaneously formed by ordinary citizens.

These groups provided sophisticated and effective social services and social insurance of every sort, not just in rural towns or small cities but also in the largest and most impersonal of megalopolises. To get a sense of how extensive these networks were, consider this: When one small Midwestern state, Iowa, mounted a food-conservation program during World War I, it engaged the participation of 2,873 church congregations and 9,630 chapters of 31 different secular fraternal associations.
Did these networks successfully deal with all the human needs of their day? No. But that isn’t the right question. In that era, the U.S. had just a fraction of today’s national wealth. The correct question is: What if the same level of activity went into civil society’s efforts to deal with today’s needs””and financed with today’s wealth?

The advent of the New Deal and then of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society displaced many of the most ambitious voluntary efforts to deal with the needs of the poor. It was a predictable response. Why continue to contribute to a private program to feed the hungry when the government is spending billions of dollars on food stamps and nutrition programs? Why continue the mutual insurance program of your fraternal organization once Social Security is installed? Voluntary organizations continued to thrive, but most of them turned to needs less subject to crowding out by the federal government.

This was a bad trade, in my view.

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How did your Christianity journey begin?

In 1985, a friend invited to be to a local Anglican church in Olendeme where a white missionary who also served as a nurse at the area dispensary was looking for an interpreter in a bid to allow her to effectively communicate with the local Maasai community. Being the only one who understood English, she recruited me and worked alongside her in interpreting health messages as well as read the Maasai version of the bible during her evangelical missions to the village. That is how I begun interacting with the word of God and embraced it…

What don’t people know about you

Immediately, after high school I worked as a cattle trader. My associates and I would buy cattle in Narok and trek with them for sale at the famous Dagoretti cattle sale yard. I would plough the profit back to increasing my cattle numbers at home…

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The Department of Youth Ministries is seeking high school students interested in applying to serve for the 2016-2017 academic year. Our Youth Commission is comprised of cheerful servants who demonstrate spiritual maturity and leadership gifts and desire to develop skills while serving our Lord. This leadership group serves on youth events as well as at Diocesan Convention each year. Their role in events includes leading small groups, sharing testimonies, leading activities, and providing behind the scenes support. They are a vital part of our ministries! Serving on Youth Commission involves a commitment to several weekend events as well as two training days. Students are expected to serve in a leadership capacity in their church as well.

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How to navigate this new reality? Most conservative Christians fall into one of three broad camps.

There are those who are determined to even more fiercely wage the culture wars, demanding the broadest possible religious exemptions from recognizing same-sex marriage.

There are those who plan to withdraw as much as possible into their own communities to preserve their faith ””an approach dubbed the “Benedict Option,” for a fifth-century saint who, disgusted by the decadence of Rome, fled to the forest where he lived as a hermit and prayed.

There is, however, a segment that advocates living as a “…[dissenting] minority,” confidently upholding their beliefs but in a gentler way that rejects the aggressive tone of the old religious right and takes up other issues, such as ending human trafficking, that can cross ideological lines.

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A federal jury in Minnesota has found three young men guilty of plotting to join ISIS and commit murder overseas, in a case in which six other men have already pleaded guilty. All of the men are Somali-Americans who are in their early 20s; they now face maximum sentences of life in prison.

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In the beginning, the focus of our concern was North America and we thank God that he has raised up the Anglican Church North America as a new wineskin in that continent. Now our concern is increasingly with the British Isles. A line has been crossed in the Church of England itself with the appointment of Bishop Susan Goff, of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, as an Assisting Bishop of Liverpool. The false teaching of the American Episcopal Church has been normalised in England and this divisive act has meant that the Church of Nigeria’s Akure Diocese has had no alternative but to end its partnership link with Liverpool Diocese.

At our recent Primates Council meeting in Nairobi we reaffirmed our solidarity with the leaders of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK and the Anglican Mission in England at this testing time.

When the GAFCON movement began in 2008 with our first conference in Jerusalem, my predecessor as Primate of All Nigeria and former Chairman, His Grace Peter Akinola, declared that GAFCON was a rescue mission for the Anglican Communion. His words were prophetic and they are being fulfilled. Let us be confident of all that is yet to come. Let us work and pray for the reform and renewal of our beloved Communion. Let us trust in our God who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.

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Father we pray: Bless thou this truth. Oh God, thy mercies are abundant. Are not thy mercies full and free, and have they not, oh God, found out me? We thank thee for thy mercies, thy many, abundant, full mercies. Now we pray that thou will help us to lean back upon thy mercy and trust, and not be afraid; heed sin and love righteousness, flee from iniquity and follow after godliness, but always know that in all that we do mercy is around us like the air; underneath us as the earth; above us as the stars, and we live in a merciful world and serve a merciful God; live and swim and move and have our being in the abundant mercies of the triune God. Graciously grant us, we pray thee, properly to understand this and to apply it to our hearts, and we give thee praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.

–Galatians 3:23-4:6

Anglican bishops on Friday had a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari where they sought to know what his administration is doing to tackle the spate of insecurity, particularly vandalism of oil facilities in the Niger Delta and herdsmen’s attacks in parts of the country.
The Primate, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Rev’d Nicholas Okoh, who led the bishops to the meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, disclosed this while interacting with State House correspondents.

“We told him (the President) many things but part of it is that we are all looking for solutions to issues of the herdsmen; the issue of vandalism; on security in one way or the other because the people are asking us and we want to have explanation for the people whom we lead,” Okoh said.

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For the second year in a row, Bishop David Edwards of the diocese of Fredericton will spend the first two weeks of June walking the streets and highways of his territory, visiting parishes, praying with Anglicans and witnessing to the communities he visits along the way.

“As a church, we need to be getting outside our walls and proclaiming the good news of Jesus in all kinds of ways,” he said in an interview with the Anglican Journal. “In a sense, this is a symbolic gesture on my part: to say to folks that we can’t sit in our buildings, the gospel is something to be proclaimed in the streets and on the hillsides.”

The pilgrimage, which began May 29 and ends June 12, will take Edwards through the geographically large but sparsely populated archdeaconry of Chatham along New Brunswick’s rugged north shore.
– See more at: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/bishop-s-pilgrimage-about-getting-outside-our-walls#sthash.20Ry8Fe8.dpuf

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The release of Church of England ministry statistics this week confirms once again the “ageing crisis” of Anglican clergy. Signs of change are evident, but it remains the case that there are almost twice as many clergy aged over 60 as under 40.

You would be forgiven for questioning the veracity of that data after walking into the church where I serve, however. St Luke’s Kentish Town has a clergy stock blessed with a vicar in his mid-30s, a curate just shy of 30, and me, as ordinand, aged 26. At the last count, the average age of the 200-strong congregation was 27. This is perfectly in keeping with our young north London location, but pitches us ”“ clergy and congregation ”“ as significantly more youthful than the Church of England as a whole.
Vicars needed: the Church of England’s fight to fill its vacancies in the north
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While the church realises that there are unusual enclaves such as ours, misconceptions are common about what really goes on in them. To be clear, this is not just the young leading the young. We (and many like us; we might be uncommon but are in no sense unique) are normal parishes, seeking to present and represent Jesus Christ faithfully to those around us, irrespective of age.

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Almost all of Webster’s efforts at constructive theology after that address were an exercise in dogmatic theology, from his breviary on holiness (2002) to his “dogmatic sketch” of scripture (2003) and his collection of essays aptly titled Confessing God (2005). Of course, there was much more to the body of work Webster left than the three titles I have mentioned, but those three illustrate his ongoing concern with a theology of retrieval that privileged the particularity of Christian culture.

There is still one more lesson I gleaned from Webster during those early days at Oxford, and this was the role of grace in the theological task. At the conclusion of his introduction to Jüngel’s theology, Webster noted that Jüngel had focused on the role of grace as divine gift, to the exclusion of grace as elicitation and call. The indicative of the gift elicits the imperative of the call because the person is caught up into something greater that makes possible what was impossible. One can see how grace as elicitation began to permeate Webster’s work as he sought to redress the imbalance he found in Jüngel. The reconstruction of human identity in and through the sanctified life makes possible the task of theology, because theological reason just is “the exercise of redeemed intelligence within the economy of God’s revelatory grace.” Teasing out this notion of grace took Webster into the domain of pneumatology and the work of John Owen. But I learned the lesson through the deeply pastoral way in which Webster guided his students, even to the point of inviting us to continue dialoging in his house at Christ Church long after the lectures in the examination schools had ended.

As I reflect back on those heady days at Oxford reading through volume one of Barth’s Church Dogmatics with Webster at the helm in a room filled with Protestants and Catholics, I cannot help but recognize the way he became God’s gift of grace to so many. It is in this living communion that one discovers the many channels through which grace flows. John Webster was and is one such channel.

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