Bishop Matthews describes her time here in Christchurch as “an extraordinary privilege.”
“I want to thank the people in this Diocese for their faithful service. This beautiful Diocese has been through many challenges brought about by earthquakes, wind, fire and floods. But through it all, people have been their best selves by helping others, working together and finding new ways of doing things.”
I’m going to sketch an account of the origin of doctrine and doctrinal theology, and I’m going to draw on that to talk about two contexts of doctrinal thinking in my church today: storytelling, and decision-making in the context of division. I’m going to try to keep in mind the variety of doctrinal traditions (my first worry), and the variety of doctrinal practices within each tradition (my second worry), and to avoid an intellectualist account of the life of the church (my third worry) – and I’m going (at last!) to bring witness and teaching into the frame.
Read it all (starts on page 6).
Our Associate Dir. Prof @mikehigton has recently published texts of several prominent talks, including his 2016 @secsynod Scottish Episcopal Institute Annual Lecture: https://t.co/ZtMyyb4ijG pic.twitter.com/jc6f1fkMwD
— DurhamMRCAS (@DurhamMRCAS) March 21, 2018
.@Southern_Living shows Charleston some love by naming it the best city in the South once again.https://t.co/jVnhapGMvT #chsnews #scnews pic.twitter.com/P29zx0NZg3
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 20, 2018
The Church of England announced…[yesterday] that it is making contactless, virtual terminal, and SMS mobile payments available throughout England, in a bid to make transactions faster and easier for the Church’s congregations. In an increasingly cashless era, churches will now be able to offer cashless payment options for events including weddings, christenings, church fetes and concerts, as well for making one-off donations and the booking of churches and halls.
Over 16,000 churches, cathedrals, and religious sites will now have access to portable card readers through the Church of England’s Parish Buying portal through a partnership with SumUp and iZettle. The readers will be used to take contactless payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as chip & PIN capable. The pay-as-you-go pricing is well suited to the needs of religious institutions, charging only a small transaction fee when the reader is used. The decision follows a trial which began in summer 2017 in cathedrals and parish churches.
Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.
Given the growth of convenience — as an ideal, as a value, as a way of life — it is worth asking what our fixation with it is doing to us and to our country. I don’t want to suggest that convenience is a force for evil. Making things easier isn’t wicked. On the contrary, it often opens up possibilities that once seemed too onerous to contemplate, and it typically makes life less arduous, especially for those most vulnerable to life’s drudgeries.
But we err in presuming convenience is always good, for it has a complex relationship with other ideals that we hold dear. Though understood and promoted as an instrument of liberation, convenience has a dark side. With its promise of smooth, effortless efficiency, it threatens to erase the sort of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life. Created to free us, it can become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way it can enslave us.
It would be perverse to embrace inconvenience as a general rule. But when we let convenience decide everything, we surrender too much.
In the end, repentance, not love, has come to symbolise Cranmer himself, his life’s work being interpreted by his last days. In the eyes of his critics, Cranmer’s recantations prove that at best he was weak and vacillating. In the hearts of his admirers, however, Cranmer’s last-minute renunciation of his recantations proved his true commitment to the Protestant faith. But what of Cranmer himself, how did he interpret his last days and the meaning they gave to his life? According to a contemporary account, having previously been distraught, Cranmer came to the stake with a cheerful countenance and willing mind.
Fire being now put to him, he stretched out his right Hand, and thrust it into the Flame, and held it there a good space, before the Fire came to any other Part of his Body; where his Hand was seen of every Man sensibly burning, crying with a loud Voice, This Hand hath offended. As soon as the Fire got up, he was very soon Dead, never stirring or crying all the while.
His Catholic executioners surely thought Cranmer was making satisfaction to his Protestant God. Yet his doctrine of repentance would have taught him otherwise, for the God he served saved the unworthy.
#Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas #Cranmer martyr. His day is celebrated today. Painting @lambethpalace #CommonPrayer pic.twitter.com/F5Ss6nCdBy
— Graham Kings (@MissioTheology) March 21, 2017
Merciful God, who through the work of Thomas Cranmer didst renew the worship of thy Church by restoring the language of the people, and through whose death didst reveal thy power in human weakness: Grant that by thy grace we may always worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
"For alas, pity it is to see, what contention and hatred one Christian man hath to another" (speech before burning, 21st March 1556). pic.twitter.com/WiONhZdVZe
— Archbishop Cranmer (@His_Grace) March 21, 2017
Almighty and most merciful God, Who hast given us a new commandment that we should love one another, give us also grace that we may fulfill it. Make us gentle, courteous, and forbearing. Direct our lives so that we may look to the good of others in word and deed. And hallow all our friendships by the blessing of Thy Spirit; for His sake Who loved us and gave Himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.
–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life.
–2 Corinthians 3:1-6