Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP who is in a civil partnership, said: “It is progress for them to stop asking the celibacy question but it still leaves the Church of England policy based essentially on dishonesty and encouraging its clergy to lie.”

He also suggested the church’s apparent reluctance to usher in full equality meant it could be time for parliament to intervene, as it did when the synod initially refused to allow women to become bishops in 2012.

Bradshaw, a member of parliament’s ecclesiastical committee, said: “There is a growing sense that if the church can’t sort this out for themselves, then parliament may have to do it for them.”

Frank Field, a fellow Labour member of the committee, urged the bishops to be “brave” and usher in equality, with a conscience clause for those clergy who feel they cannot marry gay people.

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One of the Queen’s chaplains has resigned after a row about reading from the Koran in a Glasgow church.
The Reverend Gavin Ashenden, a senior clergyman in the Church of England, left his position as chaplain in order to be free to criticise the move.
A passage from the Koran was read during an Epiphany service at St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow earlier this month.
Mr Ashenden said the reading had caused “serious offence”.

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In the last decade alone, physicians and researchers have begun looking deeply into the impact of loneliness and social isolation on health, well being, and mortality, and the data on the subject is overwhelming: a lonely person is significantly more likely to suffer an early death than a non-lonely one.

Most of this research is centered around geriatrics, as you might guess, where feelings of loneliness are powerfully predictive of mortality. A few years ago researchers at Brigham Young University conducted an influential meta-analysis of scientific literature on the subject, and found that social isolation increases your risk of death by an astounding ~30%, and some estimates have it as high as 60%!

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The archbishop of Canterbury has intervened in an attempt to prevent an Iraqi Christian who fled Islamic State jihadis from being returned to his home country.

Justin Welby wrote a letter in support of the man ahead of an appeal against his rejected asylum claim, saying he supported his application to remain in the UK.

Last week, a second letter was sent by the archbishop’s interfaith adviser, Mark Poulson, “unequivocally endors[ing]” an appeal for asylum by the man, who met him and the archbishop while working as a volunteer.

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Courage…is the indispensable requisite of any true ministry…. If you are afraid of men and a slave to their opinion, go and do something else. Go make shoes to fit them. Go even and paint pictures you know are bad but will suit their bad taste. But do not keep on all of your life preaching sermons which shall not say what God sent you to declare, but what they hire you to say. Be courageous. Be independent.

—-Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, the 1877 Yale Lectures (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969), p. 59

O everlasting God, who didst reveal truth to thy servant Phillips Brooks, and didst so form and mold his mind and heart that he was able to mediate that truth with grace and power: Grant, we pray, that all whom thou dost call to preach the Gospel may steep themselves in thy word, and conform their lives to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Photo: Phillips Brooks,1835-1893,Bishop,Episcopal Church,MA http://t.co/ig7m4vhiZo pic.twitter.com/Vf6DVun8yk

— extremely awesome de (@marinarandolfo) July 7, 2015

Almighty Father, giver of life and health, look mercifully upon those who are stricken with leprosy, and stretch forth thy hand to cleanse and heal them, as did thy blessed Son of old. Grant wisdom to those who are seeking the cure and treatment of this disease; give tenderness and sympathy to those who minister to the sufferers; and restore to their families and friends those who have been separated from them; for the sake of the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul an apostle–not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead–and all the brethren who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel–not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

–Galatians 1:1-7

A chaplain to the Queen has resigned after publicly criticising a church that allowed a Koran reading during its service as part of an interfaith project.

The Rev Gavin Ashenden, who until this week was one of the 33 special chaplains to the Queen, said the reading was “a fairly serious error” and one which he had a duty to speak out about.

“There are things we should not tolerate because they are destructive,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme.“I don’t accept the rather feeble accusation that intolerance is a bad thing.”

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Gary Priest, a semi-retired Anglican priest currently living in Adelaide, was an illiterate schoolboy living in Gunnedah when a Mr John Chapman became his Manual Arts teacher in 1954.

One of Chappo’s favourite dining-out or after dinner stories tells of Gary’s famous victory in the impromptu public speaking competition that secured the Littleton Cup for Gunnedah High in the fierce competition of the schools of North West NSW in 1955

This story is the sequel to that article.

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For a number of churches in this fast-growing town, soaring land prices have been a godsend.

Some have inked multimillion-dollar sales of land they bought inexpensively many years ago, boosting church finances and in some cases paying for other initiatives. Development-weary residents, however, might not appreciate new homes popping up on previously tax-exempt property. In at least one community, residents say they feel betrayed.

Parcels once owned by churches are now home to a parking lot for the future Lucy Beckham High School, a cellphone store at Towne Centre, and the Tidal Walk single-family home development.

Read it all from the local paper.

His election is thus not merely one more event that happens in the complex world God once created and continues to maintain like a giant ecosystem in which God otherwise does not interfere. And it certainly is not as an event upon which God smiles as the realization of God’s dreams for human life in the USA and beyond.

No, the God of all nations has so supervised this important election to this important position such that the American people have selected the president that God wants to govern the USA at this time.

Just why God has done that, however, is the daunting question.

God plays a long game, and a complex one, full of dark episodes of judgment as well as bright portents of hope.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.