Hostility to immigration in Britain was a significant force driving the vote to leave the European Union, yet prominent Brexiteers are often sensitive to the charge that any part of their movement is inward-looking, xenophobic or racist. Many of them have recently rushed to condemn the treatment of the Windrush generation. Even the Daily Mail, a newspaper that regularly publishes scare stories about immigrants, splashed it on the front page as “Fiasco that shames Britain.”

Yet this is not an accidental fiasco but the intended outcome of Britain’s draconian and Byzantine immigration policy. Moreover, rather than being an upset, the treatment of the Windrush generation is all too consistent with Britain’s historical attitude toward those former colonies and dominions that supposedly make up its “family.”

The Commonwealth comprises 53 nations, most of which were once British-ruled, and 2.4 billion people, 94 percent of whom live in Africa and Asia. It is supposedly based on a common language, institutions and values — though, given its size and diversity, the commonality of those values is debatable. Its head is the Queen. In 2002, Boris Johnson, now the foreign minister but then a journalist, wrote: “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” The line is still often quoted for its offensive language; it is less commonly observed that Mr. Johnson was taking a swipe at the monarch for indulging the Commonwealth partly as a vanity project.

Is the Commonwealth more than that?

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One day after a fire devastated a large portion of St. Andrew’s Church Sunday, leaders started to plan how they’ll press forward, as authorities investigate the cause of the blaze.

Staff gathered Monday morning in a conference room inside Whole Foods, where they worshiped and debriefed after the fire that ravaged the Mount Pleasant church’s ministry center in the Old Village early Sunday.

Officials from the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina attended the meeting to offer support, St. Andrew’s spokesman Greg Shore said.

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Friends from the Diocese of South Carolina stopped by this morning to pray for @revstevewood and the staff. pic.twitter.com/gEF9vI0TGc

— St Andrew's Church (@standrewsmp) April 23, 2018

24 April is the anniversary of the death in 624 of Mellitus, first Bishop of London in the Anglo-Saxon period and third Archbishop of Canterbury. Mellitus arrived in England in 601, as part of the second wave of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory to support Augustine in his attempt to convert the Anglo-Saxons. With him came Justus (about whom I wrote here) and Paulinus (whose adventures in Northumbria you can read about here). Mellitus seems to have been the most senior of the party, since he is the addressee of the famous papal letter in which Gregory told the missionaries not to destroy the Anglo-Saxons’ pagan temples, customs and sacrifices, but to replace them.

Thanks to Bede, we have a detailed account of Mellitus’ activities once he arrived in Kent, and of the many trials and tribulations of the new church. We begin in Book II of the Historia Ecclesiastica (quotations are taken from A History of the English Church and People, trans. Leo Sherley-Price (Penguin, 1974), ch.3-7):

In the year of our Lord 604, Augustine, Archbishop of Britain, consecrated two bishops, Mellitus and Justus. Mellitus was appointed to preach in the province of the East Saxons, which is separated from Kent by the river Thames, and bounded on the east by the sea. Its capital is the city of London, which stands on the banks of the Thames, and is a trading centre for many nations who visit it by land and sea. At this time Sabert, Ethelbert’s nephew through his sister Ricula, ruled the province under the suzerainty of Ethelbert, who, as already stated, governed all the English peoples as far north as the Humber. When this province too had received the faith through the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert built a church dedicated to the holy Apostle Paul in the city of London, which he appointed as the episcopal see of Mellitus and his successors.

Augustine also consecrated Justus as bishop of a Kentish city which the English call Hrofescaestir after an early chieftain named Hrof. This lies nearly twenty-four miles west of Canterbury, and a church in honour of St. Andrew the Apostle was built here by King Ethelbert, who made many gifts to the bishops of both these churches as well as to Canterbury; he later added lands and property for the maintenance of the bishop’s household.

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April 24th is the feast of Saint Mellitus: Italian nobleman, Benedictine monk, Abbot of St. Andrew’s Monastery (in Rome), missionary to England, Bishop of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury, where he died on this day in AD 624—having personally baptized King Sæberht of Essex. pic.twitter.com/FJbtIv7NNV

— Tradical (@NoTrueScotist) April 24, 2018

From there:

God of grace and wisdom,
who called your servant Mellitus
to leave his home and proclaim your Word:
grant to all who belong to the college that bears his name
diligence for study, fervour for mission,
and perseverance for ministry,
that they might shine with your love and truth
in these dioceses and beyond,
for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today the Church of England commemorates Mellitus, Bishop of London, 1st Bishop at St Paul’s, 624. Mellitus, a native of Italy, was a member of the Gregorian mission sent in 601 AD to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, and was also 3rd Archbishop of Canterbury. pic.twitter.com/Dl8YDwATnq

— Anglican Church SPB (@anglicanspb) April 24, 2018

O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast promised in thy holy gospel that thy disciples shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free: Give us, we pray thee, the Spirit of truth, sent by thee and leading to thee, that we may find the truth in finding thee, who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life, for ever and ever.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you; for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit; so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us what a welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

–1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

The sermon given by Bishop Mark Lawrence from Confirmation Sunday yesterday. https://t.co/k1zznh2ytN

— StMichaelsChurch (@StMichaelsChrch) April 23, 2018

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Young people in Europe need political support to start families in countries with aging populations, a French Catholic campaigner said.

While “young people want to form lasting relationships and have children,” they “don’t feel safe” to start families, said Antoine Renard, president of the Brussels-based Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe.

“Unless something is done rapidly, Europe risks a total demographic collapse,” Renard said in an April 19 interview with Catholic News Service after the federation called on European Union governments to “put the family at the center of national policies.”

Young people are “often discouraged by inadequate and individualistic policies and cultures which are hostile to the family,” the federation said in an April 13 statement at the end of its spring meeting in Vienna.

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Southern Baptist chaplain Jerry Scott Squires is fighting a U.S. Army investigator’s charge of unlawful discrimination for refusing to preside over a marriage retreat including same-sex couples.

But Squires followed federal law and Army and Southern Baptist Convention chaplaincy protocol when he rescheduled a Feb. 9 Strong Bonds marriage retreat in order to involve a non-SBC chaplain, thereby accommodating the attendance of a lesbian couple, First Liberty Institute said in an April 17 letter to the Army in Squires’ defense.

“Federal law and Army policy both make clear that chaplains must remain faithful to the tenets of their faith,” First Liberty attorney Michael Berry wrote in the letter. “The failure of a chaplain to do so exposes the chaplain to risk of losing their ecclesiastical endorsement, or worse, violates … federal law and policy…. Squires’ actions here are fully protected by federal law and regulation.”

Squires, who follows the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message in protocol established by the North American Mission Board as an SBC-endorsed chaplain, told First Liberty he was shocked when an Army investigator concluded he should face disciplinary action, which is currently pending.

“I hope the Army sees that I was simply following Army regulations and the tenets of my church,” Squires, a decorated major with more than 25 years of military service, said in a First Liberty press release April 17.

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

Almighty God, who didst commission thy holy martyr George to bear before the rulers of this world the banner of the cross: Strengthen us in our battles against the great serpent of sin and evil, that we too may attain the crown of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

St George & the Dragon on title page to ‘Constitutiones legitime seu legatine regionis anglicane’, 1504 #StGeorgesDay pic.twitter.com/eXtbz6vcwP

— LambethPalaceLibrary (@lampallib) April 23, 2015

The recurring question of the day has been, “what can I do?” I love that about our church family; everyone willing to jump in and do what they can. Because a fire of this magnitude is beyond a pick-up clean-up crew we are working with our insurance agency about specific next steps.

I need your prayers for wisdom. Over the next few days we have to sort out some very practical matters. We need space for our weekly staff meetings. We need office space. We need to have electricity restored to the undamaged part of our campus. We need to sort weekend worship schedules. Most importantly, we need to rally to one another and to the Lord who will surely lead us in the weeks ahead.

Let me close with a picture that one of our members took with his drone at the end of the day. Amidst the ruin of our beloved sanctuary you will see standing the emblem of our faith, the cross of Jesus Christ. That wooden cross was at the epicenter of the fire – and it still stands! I believe with every fiber of my being that what the enemy meant for ill the Lord will redeem for His Kingdom purposes in ways that will surprise and delight us.

We – you and I – are the church and the Lord dwells within us and among us, He will surely lead us higher up and further in.

With much love in Christ,
Steve​ ​& Jacqui

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From @revstevewood – Our next steps forward: https://t.co/9OXU4QGTSa pic.twitter.com/cV3tUG6yIF

— St Andrew's Church (@standrewsmp) April 23, 2018

After reviewing the history of church property cases in the United States Supreme Court, and fleshing out what that Court meant by the term “neutral principles”, the Texas Court of Appeals then focused on its own Supreme Court’s recent decision in Masterson v. Diocese of Northwest Texas (Tex. 2013) 422 S.W.3d 594 as instructing how neutral principles of law are used to resolve church property disputes in Texas. It set out the following concise summary of Masterson’s holdings (pp. 78-79):

• • Absent specific, lawful provisions in a corporation’s articles of incorporation or bylaws otherwise, whether and how a corporation’s directors or those entitled to control its affairs can change its articles of incorporation and bylaws are secular, not ecclesiastical matters, and an external entity—under the former or current statutory scheme—is not empowered to amend them absent specific, lawful provision in the corporate documents. Id. at 609–10 (citing Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 3.009; Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 1396–2.09).

• • The TEC-affiliated bishop could, as an ecclesiastical matter, determine which faction of believers was recognized by and was the “true” church loyal to the Diocese and TEC, and courts must defer to such ecclesiastical decisions, but his decision identifying the loyal faction as the continuing parish does not necessarily determine the property ownership issue, and his decisions on secular legal questions such as the validity of the parish members’ vote to amend the bylaws and articles of incorporation are not entitled to deference. Id. at 610.

• If the title to the real property is in the corporation’s name and the language of the deeds does not provide for an express trust in favor of TEC or the Diocese, then the corporation owns the property. Id.

These propositions are all correct statements of Texas law as expounded in Masterson. Followed correctly, they should have led to a correct decision in the Fort Worth case. Instead, look where the Salazar court ended up…

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Fundamentally, the survival of the church in a post-Christian age comes down to a promise and a command given us in Scripture, an indicative and an imperative. First, we must remember that Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18).

Next, we must remember that we have been commissioned to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:18-20). We need to remember both of these words from Scripture in order to evangelize faithfully and maintain our evangelical identity.

As we evangelize we must keep the gospel and the person of Christ central and we must unashamedly and winsomely teach our evangelical commitments. We must talk about God’s holiness and righteousness, we must talk about sin, and we must talk about our need of a Savior. The core of the good news is the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the one we must talk about most of all — and without fail.

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Local Paper front page on the tragic fire at saint andrews #MountPleasant #SouthCarolina #parishministry #lowcountrylife #anglican pic.twitter.com/eVSlOuVrS7

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 23, 2018

For those interested, you may find the audio, outlines and handouts for each class there.

O Heavenly Father, by whose gracious will we have been born again by the Word of truth: Make us ever swift to hear that Word and responsive to its saving message, that henceforth we may live as those who are partakers of thy new creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessed is he who considers the poor!
The Lord delivers him in the day of trouble;
the Lord protects him and keeps him alive;
he is called blessed in the land;
thou dost not give him up to the will of his enemies.
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed;
in his illness thou healest all his infirmities.

–Psalm 41:1-3

Tasmania’s Anglican Diocese is proposing to sell more than 120 properties, including churches, halls, houses and vacant land, to fund redress for survivors of child sexual abuse.

The church said it would need to sell just under half of its Tasmanian properties to cover an estimated $8 million of liability in additional payments to survivors.

It has been lobbying for the State Government to sign up to the National Redress Scheme for survivors, due to start on July 1 as a result of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Tasmanian Diocese also agreed to increase the payment cap for its own Pastoral Support and Assistance Scheme from $75,000 to $150,000 per claim.

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If your marriage can make it past the seven-year itch, your best years are yet to come, new research suggests.

Those who survive 20 years of married life report feeling happier and more compatible than newlyweds, claims the US study, which was published in the journal Social Networks and the Life Course.

The researchers, from Pennsylvania State and Brigham Young Universities, also found that these long-term couples benefited from spending more time together in shared activities than those who might be relishing in their honeymoon period.

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Some of our members who lead the largest provinces in the Anglican Communion chose on principle not to attend the 2017 Primates’ Meeting. However, we received a report from those members who did choose to attend.

We are grieved that the Communiqué from that meeting did not accurately describe the relationships that have been broken by The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Scottish Episcopal Church. These provinces have torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion. They are not walking together with us. The Communiqué also did not accurately describe the Anglican Church in North America, which we recognised as a Province in the Anglican Communion. In addition, in addressing cross-border interventions, the Communiqué failed to recognise that there is no moral equivalence between border crossing, which arises “from a deep concern for the welfare of Anglicans in the face of innovation”, and the innovations themselves (Dar es Salaam Communiqué 2007).

We were disappointed both in the content of the Communiqué and the process of its production. The Communiqué was not made available until the very last day of the meeting, and there was not adequate time to consider its content. At the moment when trust between the provinces of the Anglican Communion is exceptionally fragile, this was not an event that facilitated healing and reconciliation. Instead, the Primates’ Meeting in Canterbury has contributed to a deepening of the divide in our beloved Communion.

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Gafcon Primates Council Communiqué, Entebbe, April 2018 'We are grieved that the Communiqué from [the last Primates] meeting did not accurately describe the relationships..broken by TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Scottish Episcopal Church' https://t.co/0zxVeF2ZgG pic.twitter.com/x4BWEAnuha

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 22, 2018

If we look beyond the liberal West, we see that another Christian revolution, quite different from the one being called for in affluent American suburbs and upscale urban parishes, is already in progress. Worldwide, Christianity is actually moving toward supernaturalism and neo-orthodoxy, and in many ways toward the ancient world view expressed in the New Testament: a vision of Jesus as the embodiment of divine power, who overcomes the evil forces that inflict calamity and sickness upon the human race. In the global South (the areas that we often think of primarily as the Third World) huge and growing Christian populations – currently 480 million in Latin America, 360 million in Africa, and 313 million in Asia, compared with 260 million in North America – now make up what the Catholic scholar Walbert Buhlmann has called the Third Church, a form of Christianity as distinct as Protestantism or Orthodoxy, and one that is likely to become dominant in the faith. The revolution taking place in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is far more sweeping in its implications than any current shifts in North American religion, whether Catholic or Protestant. There is increasing tension between what one might call a liberal Northern Reformation and the surging Southern religious revolution, which one might equate with the Counter-Reformation, the internal Catholic reforms that took place at the same time as the Reformation — although in references to the past and the present the term “Counter-Reformation” misleadingly implies a simple reaction instead of a social and spiritual explosion. No matter what the terminology, however, an enormous rift seems inevitable.

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As Facebook pushes into developing countries, it tends to be initially received as a force for good.

In Sri Lanka, it keeps families in touch even as many work abroad. It provides for unprecedented open expression and access to information. Government officials say it was essential for the democratic transition that swept them into office in 2015.

But where institutions are weak or undeveloped, Facebook’s newsfeed can inadvertently amplify dangerous tendencies. Designed to maximize user time on site, it promotes whatever wins the most attention. Posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger or fear, studies have found, produce the highest engagement, and so proliferate.

In the Western countries for which Facebook was designed, this leads to online arguments, angry identity politics and polarization. But in developing countries, Facebook is often perceived as synonymous with the internet and reputable sources are scarce, allowing emotionally charged rumors to run rampant. Shared among trusted friends and family members, they can become conventional wisdom.

And where people do not feel they can rely on the police or courts to keep them safe, research shows, panic over a perceived threat can lead some to take matters into their own hands — to lynch.

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“The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind.” On how the social media giant fanned the flames of a pogrom that lay waste to Muslim homes and businesses in Sri Lanka. Superb reporting by @amandataub and @Max_Fisher https://t.co/aHEXtyFePJ

— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) April 22, 2018

Rector Steve Wood looked toward his sanctuary, eyeing the charred roof of the ravaged ministry center that now opened to the heavens.

A large early morning blaze at St. Andrew’s Church in the Old Village consumed significant portions of the worship space and offices Sunday.

“The Lord promises to bring beauty out of ashes,” Wood said Sunday, surveying the remains of the ministry center, “and we’re taking him at his word.”

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No services in Mt Pleasant today due to a fire in the Ministry Center. Please attend services at City Church or Park Circle. pic.twitter.com/pnYjbOWr9H

— St Andrew's Church (@standrewsmp) April 22, 2018

O Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning; who abidest steadfast as the stars of heaven: Give us grace to rest upon thy eternal changelessness, and in thy faithfulness find peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
So I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary, beholding thy power and glory.
Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee.

–Psalm 63:1-3

Sophia Grace talks about him every day. Daddy wasn’t great at braiding her hair, she recently said to her mother, but he tried his best. She tells people he’s in heaven now.

The rest of the family talks about Bryan Cooke all the time, too.

On his cellphone, Mike Cooke found a voicemail his son had left him in October. He didn’t listen to it before his son’s death, and he still hasn’t. The message — to hear his son call him “Pops” again — is a gift he anticipates opening.

Lynda Cooke also saved a voicemail from her son. She plays it over and over, memorizing his laughter. She prefers to hear his voice when she can slip out alone to the dock behind their home.

The Matipan Avenue residence the Cookes were working on is now home to Alecia Wright, 47, who lives with her sister and disabled mother. Their lives are peaceful, but they feel for the Cooke family.

With the shooting in mind, Wright hung a sign with a cross on the front door that reads: “Bless our home and all who enter.”

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Mike Cooke was shot and his son was killed during a robbery attempt as they fixed up a home for a family in need. Now Mike is working on forgiveness. "If you cannot find hope, then you remain inside of that tragedy, and it imprisons you." His story: https://t.co/hMwDGZNlEr

— Angie Jackson (@AngieJackson23) April 20, 2018

There’s a difference in preaching and teaching. Certainly, preaching contains teaching, however preaching is more – at least it should be. The goal of preaching is the transformation of lives. I once heard someone say that “preaching goes for the guts.” I liked that and often have that in the back of my mind when preparing sermons. Please don’t be offended if you are a teacher. Teaching is essential and as I just wrote, preaching must contain teaching. It’s just that preaching takes good teaching and adds to it the “so what” that will turn the transfer of information into the transformation of life.

Changed lives is what we are preaching for, right? It’s not about impressing people with our speaking ability or intelligence. It’s not about passing on head knowledge about the Bible. It’s about transforming lives for Jesus Christ. Right? Pews full of people who only know about Jesus won’t be the missional disciples that North America desperately needs. We need pews full of people who intimately know Jesus and are daily being changed into his likeness – people who are living as Jesus would in the world around them. In our pulpits we must be preaching for a change. A change of life. A change into mature, missional disciples of Christ.

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The world’s first female Anglican Archbishop, Kay Goldsworthy, has started a tour of regional Western Australia, visiting country parishes across the Perth Diocese stretching across the Wheatbelt to the eastern Goldfields and to Esperance in the south east.

In Kay Goldsworthy’s first meeting with country church clergy since her installation as the eighth Anglican Archbishop of Perth in February, she addressed the faithful at the ninth Rural gathering in Wongan Hills in the Wheatbelt.

“The schools and agencies that are related to the Anglican Church, across Perth and the country as my very first ministry, to hear how it is for people, what they are doing, what they believe God has called them to, and what their hopes and dreams are in the church going forward.”

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World's first female Anglican Archbishop calls on Anglicans to keep the faith amid rural church closureshttps://t.co/xl2uG0DSpX pic.twitter.com/HHk6Q7L0r5

— ABC Perth (@abcperth) April 20, 2018

Before more than 1,000 people, including four former presidents, at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, speakers lauded Mrs. Bush as a loving but steel-tough “enforcer” who steered a powerful family through trying times. She was the second woman in U.S. history to be the wife of one president and the mother of another.

“She called her style a benevolent dictatorship, but honestly, it wasn’t always benevolent,” her son Jeb Bush recalled. “There were no safe spaces or microaggressions allowed with Barbara Pierce Bush.”

Many also made note of her quick, sometimes biting, wit—a central characteristic that helped her resonate with everyday people across the political spectrum.

“She was the first lady of the greatest generation,” historian Jon Meacham said at the funeral, comparing her to Abigail Adams, the wife of America’s second president, John Adams, and mother of its sixth president, John Quincy Adams. Mr. Meacham wrote a book about President George H.W. Bush, to whom Mrs. Bush was married for 73 years.

Mrs. Bush died Tuesday at her home at age 92 with her husband at her side. Two days earlier, a family spokesman said in a statement that she was in failing health and had declined continued medical treatment to focus on “comfort care.”

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