In recent months Exeter Cathedral has been on a journey of self-evaluation and change. That process has raised some challenging issues, not least financial. While some progress has been achieved, there are still many challenges ahead.

In that context, and having reached the age of 65 last month, after considerable thought and reflection the Dean, the Very Rev Jonathan Draper, has announced that he will retire at the end of August this year. He and his wife Maggie are on leave this week, and on his return Jonathan will be on sabbatical. He has been Dean for over five years and has achieved considerable change including renewing the outward focus to the city and county, and giving the Cathedral a greater mission focus. His preaching ministry has been greatly appreciated. He has led the huge improvements to the repair and maintenance of this historic building, leaving a legacy for generations to come.

Jonathan has been 34 years in ministry in places as diverse as London and York, in parishes, cathedrals and in theological education. Our prayers and thoughts are with Jonathan, Maggie and their family at this time.

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The Queen has highlighted respect and understanding between nations as the key to peace in her annual message to the Commonwealth.

The Queen’s address to 2.4 billion citizens promotes this year’s Commonwealth Day theme of “a peace-building Commonwealth”.

With division over Brexit in the UK and instability around the world, the theme seeks to reaffirm the Commonwealth’s charter principle that “international peace and security, sustainable economic growth and development and the rule of law are essential to the progress and prosperity of all”.

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….the recent Bishop Philip North episode ought to make us suspicious. The theology of inclusion and equality didn’t apply to +Philip, whose great mistake was to believe what all Christians in all places at all times (until Karl Marx) have believed – about the orders of the Church.

The three-card trick that Professor Percy and his cultural fellow-travellers play is to refuse to exclude anyone except those who don’t agree with them. You only get to be included in the equality stakes once you have accepted their moral and political presuppositions. So, of course, they do actually discriminate between anyone who shares their basic world view and those who don’t.

They pretend they are relativists by claiming that all views are equally legitimate, but become absolutists if you challenge their relativism. In other words, their ideas of equality and relativism are actually practised by placing their value above those who disagree with them, and discriminating against anyone who has the audacity and moral turpitude to dissent.

Meanwhile, they claim the higher moral ground by pretending to be something that they are not – outlawing discrimination while practising it.

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The Tanzanian Ministry of the Interior has declined to intervene in the dispute surrounding the forced retirement of the Bishop of Dar es Salaam. This week’s ruling strengthens the hand of the Primate of Tanzania, the Most Rev. Jacob Chimeledya in his dispute with the Bishop of Dar es Salaam, the Rt. Rev. Valentino Mokiwa (pictured). However, moves are afoot in the House of Bishops to impeach Archbishop Chimeledya and restore Dr. Mokowa to office.

In a letter dated 6 March 2017, the Registrar of Corporations in the Interior Ministry, Mr. M. L. Komba, told Archbishop Chimeledya “since the Anglican Church and the Diocese of Dar es Salaam are governed by constitutions, we have advised Dr. Mokiwa to convey his complaint on the existing dispute to an appellate tribunal within the church.”

The government’s decision leaves intact under civil law the 7 January 2017 deposition of Dr. Mokiwa for financial misconduct. However, a majority of bishops have come out against the archbishop. They have demanded he hold a meeting of the House of Bishops to address the dispute — a move the archbishop has so far declined to do, as a majority presently exists that could vote him out of office and restore Dr. Mokiwa.

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Anglicanism is a treasure to be received in gratitude and joy. It is a gift from God, not simply a pretty way of worship and living devised by some creative souls.

It is the faith and life of the catholic church developed over its first seventeen centuries, leavened with Reformation soteriology. It is particularly marked by the elegance of Thomas Cranmer’s liturgy, enriched by the bishops who gave us the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Its method is that of Richard Hooker, whose vision of the Trinitarian God of Israel was steeped in meditation on Scripture using the prism of the Fathers.

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“From Pentecost on Christians are meant to be connected,” said the Very Rev. Craige Borrett, Rector of Christ-St. Paul’s, Hollywood, who served as Chairman of the Provincial Affiliation Task Force for the Diocese, and who recommended this affiliation last March. “We’re family. And with this decision we’re uniting ourselves with a diverse group of biblical, orthodox, Anglicans who are recognized by the majority of the Anglican Communion. I’m excited about the impact we can have as well.”

“The ACNA is full of ministry friends and colleagues we have known and worked with for many years,” said the Rev. Canon Jim Lewis. “It is a joy to now be under one roof with them. We’ll be blessed to have the benefit of the work they’re doing in important areas like church planting. And we look forward to sharing our assets as well – things like our strong youth and grandparenting ministries and our beachfront camp and conference center, St. Christopher’s.”

The Convention was also blessed with a recorded greeting from the leadership of the Anglican Communion’s GAFCON movement, The Most Rev. Peter Jensen and the Most Rev. Peter Akinola. “In times like these we need to be able to partner with fellow Christians who share common faith with us,” said the Archbishop Akinola. “We need to stand together to make a difference in this world of darkness where people are deviating day by day from the standards of scripture. We know that in the ACNA we can stand together to work for the glory of God.”

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If it’s universally acknowledged that a single man with a good fortune needs a wife, the American economy may be now illustrating the inverse of that corollary: Poor men with dwindling job prospects are going to lack marriage prospects.

The decline of the institution of marriage has been studied by social scientists and policymakers, but new economic research from MIT economics professor David Autor and his colleagues points to labor issues that helped Donald Trump win the presidential election: The decline of American manufacturing and the rise of Chinese imports.

As manufacturing jobs dried up over the last few decades, blue-collar men have suffered from lower income, fewer job opportunities and the increased likelihood of risky behavior, which in turn has hurt their marriage prospects, Autor and his co-authors wrote in a paper published at the National Bureau of Economic research.

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Most gracious God, by the calling of thy servant James Theodore Holly thou gavest us our first bishop of African-American heritage. In his quest for life and freedom, he led thy people from bondage into a new land and established the Church in Haiti. Grant that, inspired by his testimony, we may overcome our prejudice and honor those whom thou callest from every family, language, people, and nation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

O Eternal God, who hast taught us by thy holy Word that our bodies are temples of thy Spirit: Keep us, we most humbly beseech thee, temperate and holy in thought, word and deed, that at the last we, with all the pure in heart, may see thee and be made like unto thee in thy heavenly kingdom; through Christ our Lord.

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