The Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) offer this pastoral statement to the Church after prayer, study, careful listening to disparate voices, and a collaborative process involving contributions from across the Province. As a result of this process, we have become even more acutely aware of the power we all need to live faithfully in Jesus Christ as He redeems the whole of our identity, including our sexuality.

The College of Bishops asked for the formation of this statement in January of 2020 after we heard reports of varied application among ACNA leaders regarding the use of language about sexual identity, especially within provincial events. We recognize there are a multiplicity of realities in our current national, political, and global circumstances into which an episcopal voice could be presented. In the midst of this tragic pandemic, we desire to continue to minister the Gospel into all aspects of our common life that have been distorted by sin such as racism, persecution, injustice, and violence, while also speaking to this specific issue of identity and sexuality. We hope this circumspect statement will speak pastorally to the issue of sexuality and the use of language within our provincial church.

Our foundation is the Scriptural truth that God made us male and female in His image—a profound unity with distinction (Genesis 1:27). God established marriage between male and female to fill the earth through procreation (Genesis 1:28). Jesus and the Apostle Paul taught that marriage is the model of God’s relation to humanity, the Church. It is a sacramental type of union by which humans work out their salvation with, and in, God’s grace. It requires a lifetime of commitment joined, blessed, and sustained by God between one man and one woman for the purposes of raising children and bearing the image of Christ’s relationship with the Church (Matthew 19:1-12, Ephesians 5:21-33). Yet, Jesus and Paul also extol, and themselves exemplify, the model of virginity for life and spirituality (2 Corinthians 11:1-2). They establish Christian celibacy as a normal, while less common, vocation of abstinent singleness for the sake of the kingdom (Matthew 19:1-12, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40).

Furthermore, we equally affirm, following Paul, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We say, with Augustine, that this Fall has affected our lives in destructive ways that have disordered our affections. While same-sex attraction is one manifest type of disordered affection, there are many other types of disordered affections. Indeed, we recognize that same-sex sexual relationships have been an oft-targeted sin while other sinful manifestations of our common fallen nature, such as pornography, adultery, divorce, greed, and disregard for the poor have sometimes been tragically discounted or even ignored.

Read it all.

Last year, Bp Stewart Ruch was asked to chair a Taskforce to "develop a pastoral statement on same sex attraction & identity, w a focus on the theological language that might be employed w/in our provincial ministries regarding this attraction." Read more: https://t.co/T01pB7PFuD pic.twitter.com/sJRA6UUYl7

— ACNA (@The_ACNA) January 21, 2021

The story of how a middle-class lady was able to reform the appalling conditions under which prisoners were treated in Britain and in many other countries, is a classic example of the way God can use unlikely people to extraordinary effect.

Elizabeth Fry was born Elizabeth Gurney in 1780 to a Norwich Quaker family whose Christian faith and traditions were to shape her life. Quakers preferred to dress in a style of plain clothing that made them instantly recognisable. They rejected violence in any form and believed everybody was equal before God and tried to ignore social rank. Unusually for that time, they believed that there should be equality between the sexes so that women often took leadership roles.

At the age of seventeen Elizabeth had a conversion experience and, ever after, was a woman who was committed to public and private prayer, to Bible reading and preaching, and to doing good to others.

Elizabeth was an anxious child who often suffered from ill health, a trait that persisted through her life. At the age of twenty she married Joseph Fry, with whom she was to have eleven children. Largely because of her husband’s support, Elizabeth’s childbearing did not get in the way of her social work.

In 1813 Elizabeth visited the women’s section of London’s notorious Newgate Prison and was horrified. The section – built for 60 but now containing 300 – was crowded with women and children who wore rags, slept on straw and suffered every kind of abuse. Quietly outraged, Elizabeth returned the next day with food and clothing, but crises in the family delayed her full involvement in prison work until 1816. Helped by others, she began regular visiting, bringing in food, clothes and books. She created a prison school and began schemes in which inmates could do work and learn skills. She read the Bible to the women and, with considerable effect, preached to them. Seeking to give inmates dignity and self-respect, she involved them in decision making….

Read it all.

Heroes of the Faith: Elizabeth Fry https://t.co/uJmZYvDjUf

— D2BChristians (@D2BChristians) January 10, 2021

Who really won the Cold War? Maybe China.

In 1972, Cold War logic pushed President Richard Nixon into an unlikely alliance with Mao Zedong—bringing China back into the mainstream of the world economy. In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union encouraged “end of history” hubris that blinded the West to the consequences of China’s rise.

Fast forward to 2020 and China has emerged as a major global power, its single-party rule and state-dominated economy the cause of alarm in foreign capitals—and pride in Beijing. By 2035, Bloomberg Economics forecasts, China will have overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s biggest economy and perhaps also its most powerful political actor.

China’s rise is just one part of a larger shift that’s already under way and looks set to accelerate in the decades ahead.

Bloomberg Economics has used a growth accounting framework—adding up the contributions of labor, capital and productivity—to forecast potential GDP through 2050 for 39 countries, from the U.S. to Ghana. We’ve used that data to map some of the key geographic and political shifts in store for the world economy.

The results suggest that a remarkable period of stability, stretching from the end of World War II through to the early 21st century, is coming to an end. The center of economic gravity is shifting from West to East, from advanced economies to emerging markets, from free markets to state controls and from established democracies to authoritarian and populist rulers. The transition is already upending global politics, economics and markets. This is just the beginning.

Much could happen to throw our projections off track. The Covid crisis is demonstrating how pandemics can reconfigure the global economic map. Wars, natural disasters and financial meltdowns can do the same. So could policy choices on globalization and climate change. Still, absent a crystal ball, forecasts of potential growth provide the most reliable basis for thinking about the long term.

Read it all.

An absolutely fascinating read – An Economist’s Guide to the World in 2050 https://t.co/1RUswpBD8I #economics #business #politics #law #society #developmenteconomics #sustainability #globalisation #internationaltrade #protectionism #internationalrelations

— The Mr Moosajee (@BusEconYMO_HGS) November 12, 2020

The coronavirus has swept away any idea that chaplains are optional extras or “genteel outsiders”, the president of the College of Healthcare Chaplains, Dr Simon Harrison, has said.

“In the first wave of the virus, there was a bit of the ‘Perhaps the chaplaincy should stay away for a bit until we get over this,’” Dr Harrison, who is also lead chaplain at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, said on Monday. “That has long passed.”

Staff support is significantly more embedded into the infrastructure, to the extent that some trusts have newly recruited dedicated staff chaplains.

The impact of the virus on chaplaincy teams themselves has also heightened the sense of being part of the hospital team. All were now hands-on and very busy, Dr Harrison said.

“There is a lot of fatigue and ongoing anxiety among chaplains, but collegiality is at an all-time high. Staff support feels like the direction of travel for so many more.”

Read it all.

Hospital chaplains at the core of coronavirus care https://t.co/PUgxewqvmR

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 22, 2021

When hackers exploited a bug in Parler to download all of the right-wing social media platform’s contents last week, they were surprised to find that many of the pictures and videos contained geolocation metadata revealing exactly how many of the site’s users had taken part in the invasion of the US Capitol building just days before. But the videos uploaded to Parler also contain an equally sensitive bounty of data sitting in plain sight: thousands of images of unmasked faces, many of whom participated in the Capitol riot. Now one website has done the work of cataloging and publishing every one of those faces in a single, easy-to-browse lineup.

Late last week, a website called Faces of the Riot appeared online, showing nothing but a vast grid of more than 6,000 images of faces, each one tagged only with a string of characters associated with the Parler video in which it appeared. The site’s creator tells WIRED that he used simple open source machine learning and facial recognition software to detect, extract, and deduplicate every face from the 827 videos that were posted to Parler from inside and outside the Capitol building on January 6, the day when radicalized Trump supporters stormed the building in a riot that resulted in five people’s deaths. The creator of Faces of the Riot says his goal is to allow anyone to easily sort through the faces pulled from those videos to identify someone they may know or recognize who took part in the mob, or even to reference the collected faces against FBI wanted posters and send a tip to law enforcement if they spot someone.

“Everybody who is participating in this violence, what really amounts to an insurrection, should be held accountable,” says the site’s creator, who asked for anonymity to avoid retaliation. “It’s entirely possible that a lot of people who were on this website now will face real-life consequences for their actions.”

Read it all.

New site features pictures of the faces of thousands of insurrectionists who attacked the capital, scrubbed from video. Site creator: "Everybody who is participating in this violence, what really amounts to an insurrection, should be held accountable." https://t.co/47toeUIIvS

— Michael S. Derby (@michaelsderby) January 21, 2021

Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Saint Vincent, Saragossa, Protomartyr Spain, deacon, martyred, commissioned preach. poems,"Crowns of Martyrdom". Paul, Roman 15:24. ”I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there” pic.twitter.com/ZrQ9HQatCF

— Lamb on the shore (@lambontheshore) January 22, 2021

O God, who hast made the heaven and the earth and all that is good and lovely therein, and hast shown us through Jesus our Lord that the secret of joy is a heart free from selfish desires: Help us to find delight in simple things, and ever to rejoice in the riches of thy bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: Services of Praise and Prayer for Occasional Use in Churches (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933)

Ich wünsche allen einen entspannten Tag. pic.twitter.com/FKlBIt2wvv

— Karl Hofstätter (@KHofsttter) January 22, 2021

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

–Mark 4:35-41

“No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean and earth and skies.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will:
Peace, peace, be still.”#Hymn 105 #HearHim

Art: ‘Calming The Storm,’ John Martin pic.twitter.com/l6GG0g1WAv

— The Relevant Questions (@RelevantQuest) March 16, 2020