Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future

Monday 27 July 2009

Reflections on the Episcopal Church's 2009 General Convention from the Archbishop of Canterbury for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion.

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1. No-one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion. Their generous welcome to guests from elsewhere, including myself, the manifest engagement with the crushing problems of the developing world and even the wording of one of the more controversial resolutions all make plain the fact that the Episcopal Church does not wish to cut its moorings from other parts of the Anglican family. There has been an insistence at the highest level that the two most strongly debated resolutions (DO25 and CO56) do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully. There is a clear commitment to seek counsel from elsewhere in the Communion about certain issues and an eloquent resolution in support of the 'Covenant for a Communion in Mission' as commended by ACC13. All of this merits grateful acknowledgement. The relationship between the Episcopal Church and the wider Communion is a reality which needs continued engagement and encouragement.
2. However, a realistic assessment of what Convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces; very serious anxieties have already been expressed. The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favour, although a significant minority of bishops has just as clearly expressed its intention to remain with the consensus of the Communion. The statement that the Resolutions are essentially 'descriptive' is helpful, but unlikely to allay anxieties.
3. There are two points which I believe need to be reiterated and thought through further, and it seems to fall to the Archbishop of Canterbury to try and articulate them. To some extent they echo part of what I wrote after the last General Convention, as well as things said at the Lambeth Conference and the ACC, but they still have some pertinence.

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4. The first is to do with the arguments most often used against the moratoria relating to same-sex unions. Appeal is made to the fundamental human rights dimension of attitudes to LGBT people, and to the impossibility of betraying their proper expectations of a Christian body which has courageously supported them.
5. In response, it needs to be made absolutely clear that, on the basis of repeated statements at the highest levels of the Communion's life, no Anglican has any business reinforcing prejudice against LGBT people, questioning their human dignity and civil liberties or their place within the Body of Christ. Our overall record as a Communion has not been consistent in this respect and this needs to be acknowledged with penitence.
6. However, the issue is not simply about civil liberties or human dignity or even about pastoral sensitivity to the freedom of individual Christians to form their consciences on this matter. It is about whether the Church is free to recognise same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage.
7. In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years, it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also. A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.
8. This is not our situation in the Communion. Thus a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.
9. In other words, the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity. It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences. So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle. (There is also an unavoidable difficulty over whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion's voice and perspective in, for example, international ecumenical encounters.)
10. This is not a matter that can be wholly determined by what society at large considers usual or acceptable or determines to be legal. Prejudice and violence against LGBT people are sinful and disgraceful when society at large is intolerant of such people; if the Church has echoed the harshness of the law and of popular bigotry – as it so often has done – and justified itself by pointing to what society took for granted, it has been wrong to do so. But on the same basis, if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline.

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11. The second issue is the broader one of how a local church makes up its mind on a sensitive and controversial matter. It is of the greatest importance to remember this aspect of the matter, so as not to be completely trapped in the particularly bitter and unpleasant atmosphere of the debate over sexuality, in which unexamined prejudice is still so much in evidence and accusations of bad faith and bigotry are so readily thrown around.
12. When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe.
13. This is not some piece of modern bureaucratic absolutism, but the conviction of the Church from its very early days. The doctrine that 'what affects the communion of all should be decided by all' is a venerable principle. On some issues, there emerges a recognition that a particular new development is not of such significance that a high level of global agreement is desirable; in the language used by the Doctrinal Commission of the Communion, there is a recognition that in 'intensity, substance and extent' it is not of fundamental importance. But such a recognition cannot be wished into being by one local church alone. It takes time and a willingness to believe that what we determine together is more likely, in a New Testament framework, to be in tune with the Holy Spirit than what any one community decides locally.
14. Sometimes in Christian history, of course, that wider discernment has been very fallible, as with the history of the Chinese missions in the seventeenth century. But this should not lead us to ignore or minimise the opposite danger of so responding to local pressure or change that a local church simply becomes isolated and imprisoned in its own cultural environment.
15. There have never been universal and straightforward rules about this, and no-one is seeking a risk-free, simple organ of doctrinal decision for our Communion. In an age of vastly improved communication, we must make the best use we can of the means available for consultation and try to build into our decision-making processes ways of checking whether a new local development would have the effect of isolating a local church or making it less recognisable to others. This again has an ecumenical dimension when a global Christian body is involved in partnerships and discussions with other churches who will quite reasonably want to know who now speaks for the body they are relating to when a controversial local change occurs. The results of our ecumenical discussions are themselves important elements in shaping the theological vision within which we seek to resolve our own difficulties.
16. In recent years, local pastoral needs have been cited as the grounds for changes in the sacramental practice of particular local churches within the Communion, and theological rationales have been locally developed to defend and promote such changes. Lay presidency at the Holy Communion is one well-known instance. Another is the regular admission of the unbaptised to Holy Communion as a matter of public policy. Neither of these practices has been given straightforward official sanction as yet by any Anglican authorities at diocesan or provincial level, but the innovative practices concerned have a high degree of public support in some localities.
17. Clearly there are significant arguments to be had about such matters on the shared and agreed basis of Scripture, Tradition and reason. But it should be clear that an acceptance of these sorts of innovation in sacramental practice would represent a manifest change in both the teaching and the discipline of the Anglican tradition, such that it would be a fair question as to whether the new practice was in any way continuous with the old. Hence the question of 'recognisability' once again arises.
18. To accept without challenge the priority of local and pastoral factors in the case either of sexuality or of sacramental practice would be to abandon the possibility of a global consensus among the Anglican churches such as would continue to make sense of the shape and content of most of our ecumenical activity. It would be to re-conceive the Anglican Communion as essentially a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common, rather than a theologically coherent 'community of Christian communities'.

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19. As Anglicans, our membership of the Communion is an important part of our identity. However, some see this as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way. They would see this as the only appropriate language for a modern or indeed postmodern global fellowship of believers in which levels of diversity are bound to be high and the risks of centralisation and authoritarianism are the most worrying. There is nothing foolish or incoherent about this approach. But it is not the approach that has generally shaped the self-understanding of our Communion – less than ever in the last half-century, with new organs and instruments for the Communion's communication and governance and new enterprises in ecumenical co-operation.
20. The Covenant proposals of recent years have been a serious attempt to do justice to that aspect of Anglican history that has resisted mere federation. They seek structures that will express the need for mutual recognisability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralisation but about mutual responsibility. They look to the possibility of a freely chosen commitment to sharing discernment (and also to a mutual respect for the integrity of each province, which is the point of the current appeal for a moratorium on cross-provincial pastoral interventions). They remain the only proposals we are likely to see that address some of the risks and confusions already detailed, encouraging us to act and decide in ways that are not simply local.
21. They have been criticised as 'exclusive' in intent. But their aim is not to shut anyone out – rather, in words used last year at the Lambeth Conference, to intensify existing relationships.
22. It is possible that some will not choose this way of intensifying relationships, though I pray that it will be persuasive. It would be a mistake to act or speak now as if those decisions had already been made – and of course approval of the final Covenant text is still awaited. For those whose vision is not shaped by the desire to intensify relationships in this particular way, or whose vision of the Communion is different, there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness – existing relationships will not be destroyed that easily. But it means that there is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a 'covenanted' Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with 'covenanted' provinces.
23. This has been called a 'two-tier' model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure. But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a 'two-track' model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure. If those who elect this model do not take official roles in the ecumenical interchanges and processes in which the 'covenanted' body participates, this is simply because within these processes there has to be clarity about who has the authority to speak for whom.
24. It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both 'tracks' should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage. And if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely.
25. It is my strong hope that all the provinces will respond favourably to the invitation to Covenant. But in the current context, the question is becoming more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free (granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province) to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with other parts of the Communion. It is important that there should be a clear answer to this question.

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26. All of this is to do with becoming the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclamation of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. It would be a great mistake to see the present situation as no more than an unhappy set of tensions within a global family struggling to find a coherence that not all its members actually want. Rather, it is an opportunity for clarity, renewal and deeper relation with one another – and so also with Our Lord and his Father, in the power of the Spirit. To recognise different futures for different groups must involve mutual respect for deeply held theological convictions. Thus far in Anglican history we have (remarkably) contained diverse convictions more or less within a unified structure. If the present structures that have safeguarded our unity turn out to need serious rethinking in the near future, this is not the end of the Anglican way and it may bring its own opportunities. Of course it is problematic; and no-one would say that new kinds of structural differentiation are desirable in their own right. But the different needs and priorities identified by different parts of our family, and in the long run the different emphases in what we want to say theologically about the Church itself, are bound to have consequences. We must hope that, in spite of the difficulties, this may yet be the beginning of a new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage.

+ Rowan Cantuar:

From Lambeth Palace, Monday 27 July 2009
© Rowan Williams 2009

CMS response on Greenbelt and Gene Robinson

CMS response on Greenbelt and Gene Robinson 

 

An article has appeared on Anglican Mainstream which may concern some. To allay any confusion, CMS offers a few points of clarification.

• For CMS, the proper place for mission is being in the marketplace. CMS has had a venue at the Greenbelt Festival for many years and it is a brilliant platform from which to offer hospitality and share the gospel.
• GB is not a confessional event but primarily a 'space' for Christians to engage with the arts and cultural trends. There are multiple events, a great range of participants and many thousands of visitors. Many are seekers.
• We are not “sponsors” as has been stated, but “associates” and as such CMS is not involved in the particular decisions under debate.
• While we understand the reasons why Greenbelt has invited Gene Robinson, we are unhappy about it, particularly at this time in the life of the Anglican Communion. CMS supports the Lambeth Conference resolution 1.10 (see our Ethos Statement)
  
• CMS requirements for people in mission are unequivocal and long-standing because of the gospel and our gospel partnership with Churches in Africa and Asia many of which were planted by CMS.
• CMS this week received a clear bill of health from the Charity Commission having been subject to a Public Benefit Assessment. The Commission made no recommendations for change to the Trustees of CMS. It is a clear affirmation that Evangelistic Mission conveys public benefit.

Traditionalists call for Greenbelt boycott

From Anglicanmainstream

Traditionalists call for Greenbelt boycott

July 23rd, 2009

By Matt Cresswell. Church of England Newspaper
YOUTH CLUBS and families should consider skipping this year’s Greenbelt festival because of its pro-gay agenda, conservative Christians have urged.  Anglican Mainstream believes that young people could be led astray by Bishop Gene Robinson and other gay rights  campaigners at the Cheltenham-based festival. It has also questioned the involvement of the Church Mission Society in the event, which attracts 20,000 people each year.
Gay and lesbian Christian groups have since criticised the traditionalist organisation for its remarks, which they believe are inaccurate and exaggerated. The dispute follows a published article attacking this year’s festival by Dr Lisa Nolland, one of Anglican Mainstream’s leading members.
Commenting on the article, the Rev Canon Dr Chris Sugden said: “If nothing is done to bring into the marketplace of Greenbelt a biblically faithful point of view, publicly, that is available for people, then I think leaders of youth clubs and families should think very seriously about whether they want their young people to be in this environment; an environment where it is accepted that this [practising homosexuality] is a valid, completely acceptable expression of the Christian point of view.”  He said that the gay agenda was already pushed enough at schools and in the media and that there was no need for a Christian festival to be promoting it. He added that Gene Robinson was “clearly seeking to influence a lot of people.”
Anglican Mainstream, which has strong links with the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, has also questioned the Church Mission Society’s (CMS) involvement in the festival. In Nolland’s article she writes: “Highly respected Christian organisations like Church Mission Society are sponsors of Greenbelt. Unless it means very little to be a sponsor, surely CMS must be deeply embarrassed at this situation.”
The Rev Sharon Fergusson, spokesperson for the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) who will attend the festival, said that Anglican Mainstream’s remarks were not accurate and that Greenbelt would feature organisations with traditional views on Christian sexuality. She said: “Once again they are making a big deal out of nothing. They are going down the victimisation road. They are trying to make out that Christians who follow a traditional view on Christianity are being victimised and discriminated against and it’s just not the case.”
Responding to the accusation against it CMS said: “The proper place for mission is being in the marketplace. CMS has had a venue at the Greenbelt Festival for many years and it is a brilliant platform from which to offer hospitality and share the gospel.” CMS added that it was not a ‘sponsor’ but an ‘associate’ and was not involved in the particular decisions under debate. CMS added: “While we understand the reasons why Greenbelt has invited Gene Robinson, we are unhappy about it, particularly at this time in the life of the Anglican Communion. CMS supports the Lambeth Conference resolution 1.10.”
Greenbelt, which has the Archbishop of Canterbur y as its patron, has been provocative on numerous occasions since it began in1974. In previous years it featured the bikini-clad dancers of the Shef field Nine O’Clock Ser vice (before it ended scandalously in 1995). Another year a white witch was invited to speak at the festival. Greenbelt is refusing to comment on the criticisms.

A Nice little N.T. Wright Prayer

 From Fumbling towards Eternity

Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth

Set up Your kingdom in our midst

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God

Have mercy on us sinners

Holy Spirit, Breath of the Living God

Renew us and all the world

Amen

Church of England offers to marry couples, baptise kids at same time Art

From AdelaideNow

THE Church of England will offer combined wedding and baptism services, officials say, as research shows increasing numbers of couples in Britain are having children out of wedlock.
Although the church does not sanction couples having children before marriage, officials said the new services were aimed at encouraging unmarried parents to eventually tie the knot.
The service, to be unveiled later today, allows couples to baptise their children after their wedding ceremony, and parents themselves can also get baptised at the same time.
A church spokesman said clergy would continue to teach that sex is best confined to marriage, but also recognise that it was "not standing in judgment on their past".
"The Church of England believes that the best place for sex is within marriage, and marriage is best for bringing up children. That hasn't changed," the spokesman said.
"This is a response to the demand that's on us as the church to meet people who come to us for this key event in their lives.
"Not standing in judgment on their past, but welcoming them and pointing to a fresh future."
Figures released earlier this year showed that about 44 per cent of children are born to unmarried mothers in Britain.
Some clergy criticised the new service, saying it trivialised the church's role in the community.
"It is a pity they have not put in a funeral for grandma as well," the Bishop of Fulham in southwest London told The Times newspaper.
"What are they playing at? It seems trendy, and it reveals a complete lack of awareness of the reality of what goes on in parishes. I do not understand why they want to do it," the Right Reverend John Broadhurst said.

UGANDA: Anglican Archbishop Decries Conversion

East Africa Tribune
http://www.eatribune.com/articles.php?id=943
July 22, 2009

The archbishop of the Church of Uganda Henry Luke Orombi has decried the massive migration of the youth from the Anglican churches to other secular churches. He attributed this to failure by the church leaders to address the problems affecting the youth. "There is a very big problem in Church of Uganda. In all the archdeacons I have visited, the youth are running away from the church simply because they are hungry.

It is like a mother who can't cook food for her children. Can you blame your children for running to the neighbors and beg for food," he questioned. He urged pastors, lay leaders to 'feed' the young people with the right spiritual food so that they do not run away to other churches and join cults.

"If the youth want to dance let them dance while you are watching and guiding them because if you refuse them they will do it from out and you won't know which people they are dancing with," he said. He said the youth should be groomed by the elders to take up various church ministries to enable them remain in their mother church and minister to their fellow youth as they are prepared to take over from the elderly church ministers, to ensure continuity of God's ministry.

Orombi was preaching at the Busoga Diocesan Youth Day celebrations held at Christ's Cathedral in Bugembe on Sunday. Orombi is conducting his first ever official pastoral tour of Busoga diocese and has laid foundation stones at various archdeacons and presided over Holy Communion. Flanked by Bishop Michael Kyomya, and the clergy, Orombi hailed Kyomya for initiating a spirit of team work which has resulted in positive achievements for the church.

"I thank Kyomya for being a man of peace, reconciliation, hard working and a humble servant of God. In the past few years this cathedral was in shambles simply because Basoga were fighting. Where there is war there is destruction, anger and bitterness.

We thank God that peace has returned to the church," he said. Orombi criticized the wave of immorality and other evils which have swept society. He decried homosexuality, human sacrifice among others and also criticized older men who abuse young girls and called for respect of the rights of the girl child.

"I pray that parents and guardians look after their daughters very well, give them education and respect them because they are the mothers of the nation," he said.

He challenged the youth to avoid short lived worldly pleasures which can lead their lives to total destruction saying there was hope for a better future in the young people. He urged Christians to work hard to avoid laziness. He said Uganda was facing problems of hunger and underdevelopment because there are more 'eaters than the workers'.

"If we had more workers we would develop faster and people would not be suffering from hunger," he said, urging Abasoga to make maximum use of the God-given resources like land and water to harness wealth. The government chief whip Daudi Migereko, Tororo deputy RDC Richard Gulume, students and amammoth Christians attended the function.

Archbishop Peter Jensen: The Jerusalem Declaration – why it matters.

From Anglicansunited.com

The Jerusalem Declaration – why it matters. Archbishop Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney
Presentation at Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, London,  July 6th
Ominous and foreboding words are being said about the FCA by those who wish it ill – they say it is schismatic, it will divide the church, it is a power play.
These changes are at best misunderstandings or at worst political posturing.
Let me say this as clesrly as possible.
The FCA exists to keep Anglicanism united, to enable those whose spiritual existence as Anglicans is threatened to remain Anglicans with integrity.
It exists to keep orthodox, biblical Anglicanism inside the fold at the highest level possible; to gather up the fragments, to unite them. It exists so that evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics and mere Anglicans can continue to be Anglicans without compromising Biblical truth. The question for you is: will you join us, will you help us keep our Communion one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
Jim Packer is one of the giants of the real world-Anglicanism. Amongst the wise of this world he is disdained, but his praises are sung in all the churches. Astonishingly, in the eyes of his institutional church he is no longer one of us. He has chosen to separate himself from what he has called the sanctification of sin.
Is he still an Anglican?
When we can seriously ask that question, something is deeply wrong. We are at a watershed, at a parting of the ways. Decisions have to be made.
In this country, the Christian foundations have been shaken. In this and the next generation there will be fought what may amount to the last battle for the soul of the nation. It will be an ideological war, a war of ideas. But great issues w ill hang upon the outcome: the fate of a culture and the eternal fate of souls. Many look to you for guidance and resource and inspiration. Can we do so any longer?
How can we test your resolve to evangelize your people? Unless you develop a deep confidence in the gospel of the saving work of God through Jesus Christ, a willingness to work together for Christ, and a determination to submit to the teaching of scripture, it will not be done. The culture will swallow you alive.
With persuasive power, the culture of the West has adopted and promulgated anti-Christian belief and practice. It confronts every Christian with the choice of submission or harassment. It pretends to be the true heir of the Christian faith, that it now possesses all that was worthwhile of Christianity, and that the entire structure of Christian thought can disappear into the receding past.
It tells you that its tolerance is the choicest part of your love, that its non-discrimination is the choicest part of your justice, that its individualism is the choicest part of your freedom and that its sexual athleticism is the choicest part of your marriage.
Against such a false ideology the ecclesiastical liberal temper  fails. It means well, but its genius is toward politics and hence compromise. Its tendency is toward exercising denominational leadership, into synods and boards and councils, indeed into the episcopacy itself. It will come to terms with this world theologically but paradoxically it will insist on the structural unity of the institutional church before gospel – truth. . Its spokesmen will unceasingly lecture the rulers of this world on how to go about their tasks, but they will not do so from within the culture of Christ and the Bible. They will do so from within the ideology of the day so that if you listen to them on the radio you will not be able to tell whether you are hearing a Christian minister or a member of the intellectual elite or the  political class. There is much to admire in the liberal temper, but it is assuredly no basis from which to evangelize the nation and build up the churches. For that, you need a deep confidence in the gospel and a  determination to follow the teaching of scripture come what may.
In the British Isles, there is a laudable tendency not to panic, not to respond to overstatement, to seek balance and nuance, to see the other point of view, above all not to take decisive and irretrievable action. I know I am a foreigner, but I care deeply what happens here.  Let me say this: It is not a day in which to practice the politics of drift. There is little time left. The younger generations are largely lost. Your great inheritance is about to pass into other, heedless hands. You can no longer treat the institutional church as though it is as unassailable as the temple of the Lord; you can no longer say ‘peace, peace’ where there is no peace. You need to  unite with each other in a fellowship which will sustain and protect and do mission.
Many are still angry that the Jerusalem GAFCON was held. Some of the most angry are those who agree with the theology of the GAFCON movement but cannot accept that a moment for decisive action had arrived. To such persons I say, I admire you and honour you as brothers and sisters in the Lord. But it seems to me that every day that has passed since the GAFCON has only vindicated the decision to hold it. The liberal churches have not resiled from their unbiblical teaching on human sexuality; the court cases still go on; the covenant has been delayed yet again; Dr Packer and eighty thousand other faithful Anglicans have been told that they do not belong to the Anglican Communion. And in this country there are moves not merely to consecrate women as bishops, but to make no provision for those whose only fault is that they believe what the Church Catholic has always believed.
We need to imagine the next twenty years. We need to see the ideological battle being fought out in the arena of ideas with the speed of the internet and the scale of the globe. We need to see biblical churches assailed as never before by the distorted and false gospels which have captured so much of the West. The culturally captivated churches of the West are sending their gospel to the rest of the world. I tell you, this is not the time to wring hands and say ‘the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord,’ to choose institution over gospel; it is no time to say ‘peace, peace’ – for there is no peace.  The conflict is over the authority of Jesus Christ. The fact that sexual ethics is where the contest is sharpest should not divert us from this basic truth. There are two areas in which special vigilance is called for if we wish to honour the authority of Christ in his church. The first is theological education by means of which the intellectual and spiritual lives of future leaders are shaped. The second is the area of hermeneutics. Those who hold that the Bible is the inspired word of God will see in it a unity which holds all things together. Those who regard it as a human witness to God, drawn together as a sort of library, will find contradiction and tension throughout. It is no accident that the two areas in which we can see especial liberal efforts to help in the ‘enlightenment’ of the global south and the conservative Anglicans of the West, are in theological education and hermeneutics.
GAFCON has been a remarkable success. It has rescued the 80,000 Anglican Christians in North America who have been forced to disaffiliate from their church by the sanctification of sin. Other good people have chosen to stay inside the denomination. But who can doubt the stature of Bob Duncan or Jim Packer and their urgent need to find another spiritual home? I applaud the courage of men like Greg Venables and the African and Asian Primates who risked and received heaped up opprobrium for extending fellowship to those who needed it. They took action while others wrung their hands. They have invited us all to declare that we are in communion with these Anglicans. I cannot believe that any evangelically and catholically minded Anglican would hold back. Why are we so frightened?  
The Jerusalem Declaration is a rallying point for Anglicans and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is the means by which the movement can be sustained. The FCA exists to unite Anglicanism in their faith so that we help each other be authentic Anglican Christians. Shortly there is to be a commentary on the Declaration published, and I commend it to you.
What sort of document are we dealing with here? It is a Catholic statement, it is an Evangelical statement, it is an Anglican statement, it is a classically Christian statement. One of its chief features is this: it says both a joyous ‘yes’ and a firm ‘no’. Both are necessary. A Christianity which has a great desire to be acceptable to the world says all the positives but will not state the negatives. But the mark of a Christian statement, a statement which professes the true faith, is that it also says ‘No!’ In particular here is an affirmation which says to those who would offer cheap grace in the name of Jesus Christ that there is no grace without the grace which leads to repentance and to transformation of life, that our good news to this sin-sick world is not ‘go this is not longer a sin,’ but ‘go and sin no more.’ Its affirmatives take strength from its negations.
First it affirms the biblical gospel.
The Declaration starts with the gospel. It is the gospel of the grace of God through Jesus Christ, applied to the hearts and lives of undeserving sinners by the Holy Spirit. It is a powerful Holy Spirit gospel which transforms us; it does not leave us where we are. It also speaks of the universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, ‘humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgment and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death we deserve.’ In other words here is a gospel which is to do with sin and hell, with our need of a Saviour, with our salvation through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross by which he bore our sins. The Declaration affirms that Jesus Christ is the sole Saviour that there is no other name under heaven by which men may be saved than that of Jesus.
In other words it repudiates any gospel in which human merit is advanced, any gospel which is confuses salvation with this worldly political goals, any gospel which does not seek for a transformed life though repentance, any gospel in which all are saved, any gospel which denies the reality of hell and judgment, any gospel which sees humanity as fundamentally sound, any gospel in which other beliefs and religions offer a way to God. The gospel of the Jerusalem Declaration is the gospel of the Bible, the Prayer Book and the Articles of Religion.
Second it affirms God’s authority.
The Jerusalem Declaration identifies Scripture as the word of God written and its unique role in expressing God’s authority over his people. Scripture is sufficient; it does not look beyond itself; it needs no supplement; the appeal to scripture is enough to settle for us the mind of God. Furthermore, since the whole Bible is a canonical unity, being the word of God, we may believe it and obey it with confidence that we may understand its message using the ordinary methods of reading, the plain and canonical sense.
And yet we are not the first to have studied scripture. We rightly respect ‘the church’s historic and consensual reading’, and therefore pay due honour to such creeds, Councils, Articles as enable us with confidence to say  that we understand the scriptures aright. Hence the importance of the rule of faith expressed through the four ecumenical councils and the three creeds; hence too the assertion that the 39 Articles remain ‘authoritative for Anglicans today’.
Third it affirms Anglican identity through its basic practice and order.
The statement aligns itself with the classic expressions of Anglican sacramental, liturgical and   ecclesiastical practice and order. It does so because this heritage is an expression of the gospel, not because they are worthy in themselves for antiquarian reasons. Over the years there have been many different appropriations of this heritage and to this day the different churchmanships lay claim to the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal as peculiarly their own. Such differences remain important. But we can talk about them and seek to resolve them as long as all parties recognize the givenness of the Christian faith, that we have received it from God and do not have the right to change it to fit the spirit of the age. To this conviction those Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals who understand their own position bear equal witness.
Fourth, it firmly applies the biblical gospel to the issues of our day.
The Declaration asserts ‘lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those not married’ as the biblical norm and hence as the will of God, to be obeyed not evaded. This stands in contrast to the churches which obscure the call of the gospel over this area of human life by ordaining those who breach it, or having the audacity to bless unions which God does not bless, or by suggesting that there is one standard for the ordained and another for the laity. The fact that these things may occur in our churches is an indication of how far we have come from the biblical foundation of our churches, of how far we have slipped and allowed the world to rule over that which belongs to God alone.
Here is where the contest between the church and the world is fiercest, here we need to be absolutely clear on the mind and will of God. If we will not stand for these principles we will not stand together or any principles and the Christian faith becomes an infinitely malleable set of human aspirations and not the revelation of the living God to a sinful people. Here we must make a choice and the choice must be political not theoretical. It must devolve into action not drift.
The Declaration properly asserts the unity of all Christian people and calls on us to act to one another in love. That is a basic Christian principle. Thus it recognizes that even between those who can assent to the Declaration itself there will be significant differences. Concerning these, there is a pledge either to live in Christian freedom or to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues which divide. The most obvious of such issues at the moment is that of the ordination of women. The Declaration assumes that on this subject there will be mutual forbearance and a willingness to continue a conversation under the eye of God to see whether there can be a common conviction. This is a far different temper from that which would make life impossible for those who hold this view to remain in fellowship and for the matter to be treated as though it is no longer able to be discussed before God. That is the cause of schism.
The boundaries of doctrine are not elastic. There are moments when an institutional church loses its grasp of the gospel and actually endorses that which is sin. There are moment in which the unity of the authentic church is best maintained by separation and distance. Truth must precede order; the fellowship of God’s people is more important that the institutions which serve that fellowship. The Jerusalem Declaration recognizes the orders of those of orthodox faith and practice and says firmly ‘We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed.’
Can we do this? We can do no other. To remain in undisturbed fellowship with those who endorse what the Bible identifies as sin or heresy is to run the risk of partaking in the sins of others. We have to approach a subject like this with care and humility, but nonetheless when the issues are clear so is our duty. Our actual strategy may differ in each case. There may be a call to actually sever relations and move outside an institution; the aim of FCA is to help us stay within, but to do so with integrity. If we choose the latter option, we must do so in such a way at to make it clear that the practices which dishonour the gospel of Christ are not ours. We must organize, unite in fellowship, and act. What we cannot do is merely drift or utter meaningless protests which will not protect others or put forward the gospel of Christ. What we ought not do is show incredible sensitivity to the feelings of those who have endorsed false teaching and to the institution which does not bring them to account, while at the same time castigating those who have made their protest by taking action.
The Function of the Jerusalem Declaration
I believe that the Jerusalem Declaration is a noble document.
It is a gathering point. We need to be renewed, given new heart, revived in a common identity and in a common purpose. In the Jerusalem Declaration we have a gospel inspired, gospel infused call to unity of heart, mind. purpose and love written by and for Anglicans from the world–wide Communion. It does not say that its signatories are the only authentic Anglicans. But when you sign it and join the FCA does give a very practical way in which Anglicans of different backgrounds can signal their fixed determination to work together for the Anglican faith against the cultural captivity of the church and in favour of the Holy Spirit’s transforming power and the mission of Christ in the world. I believe that it represents a spiritual movement within our Communion, something which we seem to have forgotten in all our talk of conferences, covenants, commissions, and indaba groups.
The launch of the UK FCA is a great moment, a gospel moment. It appeals to all that is best in the Anglican tradition. It summons people from all over Britain and Ireland to join together in a spiritual movement for the sake of Christ and his gospel. It is a moment in which ordinary people can take responsibility for what happens in their church. It is a moment when you can say, enough is enough, we wish our church to express the Anglican faith because it is the biblical and gospel faith. It is a moment when you can say, what has happened in the USA and Canada will not happen here.
In Sydney we made Jim Packer a Canon of our Cathedral. It was a practical way of saying that we stand with him and we will not allow it to be said that he is no longer an Anglican. Our Diocese has signed up to the Jerusalem Declaration and we are actively at work with our brothers and sisters all round the world to defend and promote the biblical gospel. We are making our convictions concrete and we are setting them to work. Will you join us?
Ominous and foreboding words are being said about the FCA by those who wish it ill – they say it is schismatic, it will divide the church, it is a power play.
These changes are at best misunderstandings or at worst political posturing.
Let me say this as clearly as possible.
The FCA exists to keep Anglicanism united, to enable those whose spiritual existence as Anglicans is threatened to remain Anglicans with integrity.
It exists to keep orthodox, biblical Anglicanism inside the fold at the highest level possible; to gather up the fragments, to unite them. It exists so that evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics and mere Anglicans can continue to be Anglicans without compromising Biblical truth. The question for you is: will you join us, will you help us keep our Communion one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

CofE ‘may back rebel US Anglicans’

BBC News

Dropping the moratorium on appointing gay bishops could boost moves in the Church of England to back breakaway American Anglicans, a UK campaigner claims.
Canon Chris Sugden, a leader of the newly-launched UK section of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), told the BBC News website the decision by the Episcopal Church in the US was "extremely worrying and serious".
He said it could increase support for a motion at the Church of England’s General Synod to declare fellowship with the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA).
The ACNA is a union of groups which broke away from the Episcopal Church following the appointment of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire.
At the same time, Canon Sugden complains, advocates of a "gay agenda" in the church are determined to keep pushing the issue.
This includes bringing Bishop Robinson to speak at the UK church’s youth festival, Greenbelt, in August. "A number of us are very concerned about that," he says.
Canon Sugden is the Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream, a body set up in 2003 to represent "orthodox" views in the Church following the appointment of Bishop Robinson and of the gay Canon Geoffrey John as Bishop of Reading – an appointment he later renounced.
Canon Sugden is also secretary of the organisers of the FCA in Britain and Ireland – which was launched at a 1,600-strong meeting in Westminster on 6 July.
A number of bishops were among those at the launch, which he says was also encouraging because he reckons half the people there were under 40.

‘Worldwide crisis’
"The church is always within a generation of extinction – I think it’s good news for the future of the church that we had a large number of younger people there," he adds.
FCA follows the Global Anglican Future conference (Gafcon) which met in Jerusalem in June last year to address what it says is a crisis in the Anglican Communion worldwide – of which the most divisive aspect was the appointment of Gene Robinson.
Same-sex intimacy, Canon Sugden, says, "is something that excludes people – without repentance – from the Kingdom of God. That’s clear teaching."
Several bishops and many young people were at the FCA launch, Chris Sugden says.
He rejects claims he and those who think like him are obsessed with discussing sex, to the exclusion of more valuable Christian pursuits.
The trouble with controversies in the Church, he says, is they divert attention and work from sharing the Gospel of Christ. He stresses the concerns of FCA and allied organisations with issues of poverty, war and oppression.
"It’s perfectly possible to address pastorally and sensitively the experience of people who have same-sex relationships," he insists.
‘Obsessed’
On the other hand, he claims, "It’s the people who are continually bringing up the pro-homosexual agenda. They’re the ones who are obsessed by this.
"Why is Gene Robinson at Greenbelt? Why is he there? It’s not as though he is unknown; it’s not as though the issue hasn’t been well aired."
He thinks the Church of England will "be looking very carefully" at its formal ties with the Episcopal Church in the US following the decision to end the moratorium on appointing gay bishops.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had already said he regretted the US move – before the American House of Bishops confirmed it.
A private member’s resolution is circulating at the Church of England’s General Synod, calling on the English Church to declare itself in fellowship with the ACNA.
Canon Sugden says he has spoken to several bishops about this motion, and they said they would wait for the Americans’ decision.

"I think we’ll see more people expressing the desire to be in fellowship with the ACNA," he adds.
Some British Anglicans will seek to be in fellowship with both American Churches, Chris Sugden admits.
He says: "That may be an approach that some take – institutional peace – but the issue is not institutional peace the issue is theological integrity and clarity and to say, ‘Would you take Communion with those who bless sin?’"
"It’s not just who are sinners – we’re all sinners… but those who bless sin? I think you’ll find a great number of people will say No."

Justice

I love this quote that is on timesonline from N.T.Wright it is so true.

Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

I think this is the value that people need to remember, that Justice is not treating everybody the same way, but treating people appropriately. Just consider God and the Kingdom. (Matthew 20:1-16)

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o”clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o”clock, he did the same. And about five o”clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o”clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

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Motion in English Synod to Recognize ACNA

By George Conger, The Living Church

A private member’s motion asking the Church of England to recognize the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been submitted to the General Synod of the Church of England. While the motion will not come up for debate at the current meeting of Synod, it serves to sharpen the focus of the 76th General Convention on the consequences of backing away from the 2006 pledge made with Resolution B033.
Synod is meeting in York from the July 10-13. On July 10, a private member’s motion was submitted asking for a debate on the Church of England’s formal relationship with the ACNA. To be considered for debate, a private members motion must receive the support of 100 members of synod. Approximately 75 members have so far endorsed the motion.
Traditionally only one or two such motions are considered at each session of Synod, and in creating the agenda for forthcoming session, the Synod’s Business Committee generally looks to the number of signatures received in order to set the priority for debate.
Questions were also put to the Chairman of the House of Bishops and Chairman of the Ministry Division from members on the attitude of the House of Bishops to the ACNA. The Bishop of Bristol, the Rt. Rev. Michael Hill, told synod the House of Bishops there was no “representation” by the House of Bishops at the installation of the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan as Archbishop of the ACNA, and so far the bishops had not considered the question of the Church of England’s relationship with the ACNA.
But the Bishop of Durham, the Rt. Rev. N.T. Wright, told Synod the House of Bishops’ Theology Committee had agreed on July 10 to study the ACNA’s constitution and canons at their fall meeting.
Who had the authority to recognize the ACNA was not clear, Bishop Hill said, but would likely first be considered by the bishops.

The press by conservative members of General Synod for recognition of the ACNA as a formal part of the Anglican Communion comes the day after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urged General Convention not to back away from B033. At the July 9 Eucharist, Archbishop Williams thanked the Episcopal Church for its invitation to Anaheim, and “to share something of my mind with you; and so thank you too for your continuing willingness to engage with the wider life of our Communion.
“I do realize that this engagement has been, and still is, costly for different people in different ways,” he said. “Some feel impatient, some feel compromised, some feel harassed or undervalued, or that their good faith has been ungraciously received.”
The archbishop said he had come to California with “hopes and anxieties,” stating “I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart.”
However, he refrained from saying what the consequences might be of repudiating B033. The move to recognize the ACNA put forward by conservative members of General Synod appears to answer that question.
(The Rev.) George Conger reporting from General Convention in Anaheim.

Young view Bible 'as old fashioned'

From AdelaideNow

From correspondents in London

July 12, 2009 09:01am

KNOWLEDGE of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian holy book as "old fashioned", a survey said today.
Forty per cent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 per cent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found.
Youngsters were particularly disillusioned, telling researchers that the Bible was "old fashioned", "irrelevant" and for "Dot Cottons" - a reference to the church-going EastEnders' character, the National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed.
"It is the first recognition of something which we all knew in our gut. We knew it was there but we weren't exactly willing to face up to it," said Rev Brian D. Brown, a visiting fellow at St.John's College in Durham University.
One respondent to the survey said David and Goliath was the name of a ship while another thought Daniel, who survived being thrown into the lions' den, was "The Lion King".
Rev Brown said the survey showed the need to push for greater religious education among young people as knowledge of the Bible among the under-45 age group was in decline.
"We have got to recognise that it (the Bible) is the foundation of our society, upon which our whole culture has been based," he said.
"To understand it and to live in it you do need an understanding of the Bible."
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible's popularity.
"It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people," said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association.
"The fact that people have little knowledge of the Bible perhaps suggests that it's becoming less and less relevant to people in the 21st century," she said.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the Bible among the 900 respondents, three-quarters said they owned one and almost a third said it was significant in their lives.

My second Funeral Sermon

We’ve all come here today for different reasons, we have come here in grief to mourn, we have come here to celebrate a life, to celebrate a mother, a grandmother, an aunt and a friend. We have come here to say good bye and yet the Christian faith teaches that we don’t come here just in grief but also in hope, in hope of something better yet to come.

          Now I should say that in our society today to make any truth claim is quite arrogant and so to have the Scripture reading we just had where Jesus said “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” is not something that we happily hear. We ourselves in our society expect to be the judge of what is right and wrong in our own lives and to hold to what is true for us and not to be told by someone else what the truth is.

          That being said, I actually want to speak about faith and from the quiet witness we have to faith from her life and her truth. As I understand from talking to the family the building that we are in today was central to many of her faith events in her life. It was in this building that she was baptised and it was in this building she was married. It was in this building that she had her sons baptised and it is in this building that she wanted to have her funeral.

          So this building in many ways was central in her faith life, this building though is a symbol and to choose to do so many of those things here is to be involved with this symbol. This building is a symbol of the Christian faith and the Christian hope. It speaks of the Christian hope through its being here, it speaks through its stain glass windows, through its organ playing hymns and by all the other symbols of faith that we see around us.

         

So what is the Christian hope? The Christian Hope can be explained by saying that in the person of Jesus we see something more  for this world that in his death and resurrection, we have a hope that not only when we die that we would go to Heaven, but that in Jesus all things are to be made new to be changed and made right. That through baptism and faith we would be like Jesus one day, resurrected along with the whole world, where there will be no more suffering, no more death, no more disasters or disease. This was the Hope that she was baptised into, which she had linked in with by having her wedding here and is now celebrating by having her funeral here.

So today as we remember a life I’d ask you not only to Celebrate her life and mourn her loss but also to think about the Hope that she has participated in through her faith during her life.

Couples Study Debunks “Trial Marriage” Notion of Cohabiting

USA Today
Sharon Jayson

Most unmarried couples who live together aren’t trying to test their relationship. They just want to spend more time together. 
That finding, from a new national study of dating and cohabitation, seemingly contradicts the popular wisdom of cohabitation as a trial marriage. It’s among early results from the study, scheduled to continue for years, and it gives researchers new insight into the burgeoning number of couples who cohabit.
Cohabitation has increased so rapidly that the data about it haven’t kept pace with the growing numbers, researchers say. The latest U.S. Census for 2008 reported 13.6 million unmarried, heterosexual couples living together. Researchers say 50% to 60% of couples who marry today lived together first; some note that 70% of young adults will cohabit. Most couples who live together either marry or break up within two years.
This first snapshot of the new federally funded study of 1,294 unmarried Americans ages 18 to 34 will be presented today at a convention of marriage and family experts in Orlando. Those who study cohabitation say it will provide good documentation for years on how such relationships evolve and on the changing role of cohabitation.
"People who are engaged think of (living together) as the next step before they get married, but in many couples, it’s part of the dating relationship – pretty serious, but still well shy of the marriage part," says researcher Scott Stanley, co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver.
Almost half of cohabitors of both sexes in the study cite spending more time together as a reason they moved in together; just 9% of men and 5% of women cited "to test the relationship before marriage."
"National surveys show many young people believe cohabitation is a good way to test a relationship," says co-researcher Galena Rhoades, also of the University of Denver. "So it’s surprising that very few individuals identify ‘testing the relationship’ as their primary reason."
Other initial findings: 
* Most couples didn’t consciously decide to live together; two-thirds of cohabitors said they either "slid into it" or "talked about it, but then it just sort of happened." Just one-third talked about it and made a decision to live together.
* The more religious are less likely to cohabit: 49% of dating couples and 30% of cohabitors surveyed agree that "my religious beliefs suggest that it is wrong for people to live together without being married."
Participants complete questionnaires two to three times a year; more than 100 questions are in each survey. More than two-thirds are in a serious dating relationship; 32% live together.
Of those cohabiting, 66% moved in before making plans to marry; 23% planned to marry but weren’t engaged, and 11% moved in when they got engaged.
Angela Trilli, 26, and her fiancé, Nick Kapalski, 28, have been dating three years and bought a house two years ago in Kendall Park, N.J. "He actually proposed the day we bought the house," she says. "We were both living at home, and we both wanted to move into together."
Trilli, who works in marketing for a non-profit, and Kapalski, a technician for a heating and air- conditioning company, haven’t set a date, but "we’ll get married eventually," she says.
Sociologists Jay Teachman of Western Washington University in Bellingham and Daniel Lichter of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., say the new study is promising because it asks detailed questions of young adults and can monitor relationship progression from dating to cohabitation. Both sociologists study cohabitation; neither is involved in the new research.
Another study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, illustrates the difficulties of studying cohabitation. The 1,733-question survey asked two questions related to cohabitation; data are from 2001-02. Those findings are part of an analysis being released today by the non-profit Child Trends, which examined statistics on 11,998 young adults ages 20-24.
It finds most young people view cohabitation positively and see living together as a temporary alternative to marriage. Most say they hope to marry someday.
Other research by Stanley and Rhoades, along with the center’s co-director, Howard Markman, published this year reinforces previous findings about cohabitation and is similar to the new Denver study. A survey of 1,050 people who were married less than 10 years published in the Journal of Family Psychology suggests cohabiting before engagement is associated with lower marital satisfaction. A study of 120 cohabiting couples in the Journal of Family Issues also found unmarried partners cohabit to spend more time together, not to test the relationship.

New Conservative Anglican Intiative Receives Unofficial Support of Queen Elizabeth

By Hilary White

LONDON, July 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II has twice written to support an emergent group of conservative Anglicans that rejects the ultra-liberal and sexually permissive direction of the Church of England. The Queen recently wrote to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) that she "understood their concerns" and "understands the commitment to the Anglican Church" and that she wished them well on the day of their official launch on Monday. 
FCA leaders had written to the Queen to assure her of their loyalty to the Church of England. Palace spokesmen said that the letters did not constitute an official endorsement of the FCA. The FCA is an alliance of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parishes in Britain and Ireland whose formation was precipitated in part by the acceptance of homosexuality by segments of the Anglican leadership in the developed world.
Unlike the US and Canada, Britain's official church is tightly intertwined with the civil constitution of the country. The Queen is not only head of state, but in her capacity of Supreme Governor of the Church of England she also formally appoints bishops on the advice of the Prime Minister. She has had little public input in the crisis that has enveloped the Worldwide Anglican Communion since the consecration in 2003 of openly active homosexual Gene Robinson as a bishop of New Hampshire. 
Among the five bishops supporting the FCA, one of the most prominent is the bishop of Rochester, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, who has stirred controversy on many occasions with his vocal defence of Christian moral teaching and the traditional Christian cultural foundations of British society.
In a recent statement, issued just hours before Sarah Brown, the wife of the Prime Minister, was due to march in last month's London Gay Pride parade, Nazir Ali said of active homosexuals, "We want them to repent and be changed." He said the Church of England must uphold the Biblical teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. "We want to hold on to the traditional teaching of the Church. We don't want to be rolled over by culture and trends in the Church," he said.
In a sermon on the Sunday before the FCA launch, Nazir Ali said, "If we continue in God's way then we will flourish as persons. Marriage will be strong, family will be strong and society will be strong. It's not rocket science."
Another supporter bishop of the FCA, the Rt. Rev. Wallace Benn of Lewes, denied accusations that the group is "divisive." To an audience of approximately 1,600 people from 300 parishes across the UK and Ireland, Benn said it is those "parts of the Church of England" who do not adhere to the biblical teaching who are "moving away from the historic Biblical Christianity."
"We're trying to move back to the core of our Christian faith," Benn said.
Apart from members in Britain, the FCA has attracted parishes in Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America as well as the US and Canada. It claims membership of nearly half the world's 77 million baptised Anglicans and was a project of the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON), established at the time of the 2008 Lambeth Conference. While the group rejects active homosexuality and actively homosexual clergy, it remains divided on the issue of female ordination.
Although not yet regarded as the "mainstream" Anglican church, the GAFCON section of Anglicanism currently represents two thirds or more of the Worldwide Anglican Communion's active lay membership of approximately 55 million and a third of its bishops.
FCA was launched at the same time as a similar initiative in the US. The official launch of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) last month was attended by 800 people in Bedford, Texas, where the group ratified its provisional constitution and elected its first archbishop. ACNA comprises approximately 700 parishes in North America with 100,000 members, making it bigger than the Anglican provinces of Wales and Scotland. While the ACNA has yet to achieve acceptance by the Anglican Communion, it is in full communion with the Anglican Churches of Nigeria and Uganda.
The launch of the FCA and ACNA comes as senior Anglican figures are warning of the looming demise of the Church of England and of Christianity in general in Britain. In a June 27th op-ed in the Sunday Telegraph, one of the Church of England's longest serving bishops heavily criticised his fellow bishops for failing to take the crisis seriously. "Christian Britain is dead," wrote the Rt. Rev. Paul Richardson, Assistant Bishop of Newcastle.
Richardson said that with only 1 percent of Church of England members attending weekly services, "it is hard to see the church surviving for more than 30 years." Of every 1,000 live births in England and Wales in the period 2006-07 only 128 were baptized as Anglicans. "Many bishops prefer to turn their heads, to carry on as if nothing has changed, rather than face the reality that Britain is no longer a Christian nation."
"At present church leaders show little signs of understanding the situation. They don't understand the culture we now live in."

Oldest Bible pieced together online

By Stefano Ambrogi

July 06, 2009 10:24am

THE surviving parts of the world's oldest Christian Bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.
The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.
Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by four of the Apostles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments - it was originally some 1400 pages long - also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.
"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.
"This 1600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation," he said.
The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.
"The Codex ...is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," said Mr McKendrick, pointing out that each page is 16 inches tall by 14 inches wide.
"Critically, it marks the definite triumph of bound codices over (papyrus) scrolls - a key watershed in how the Christian Bible was regarded as a sacred text," he said.

Four-year project
The ancient parchments, which appear almost translucent, are a collection of sections held by the British Library in London, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, the National Library of Russia and Leipzig University Library in Germany.
Each institution owns different amounts of the manuscript, but the British Library, which digitised the delicate pages of the entire book in London, holds by far the most.
The four-year joint project, which began in 2005 with the aim of "virtually reunifying" and preserving the Bible, as well as undertaking new research into its history, has shed new light on who made it and how it was produced.
Importantly, experts at the British Library say, the project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe - along with the three already recognised - worked on the texts.
The assembly and transcription of the book includes previously unpublished pages of the Codex found in a blocked-off room at St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Moses, Sinai, in 1975, some of which are in a poor condition and have been difficult to study.
But there are still many unanswered questions about how the book came to be, said the British Library's Juan Garces, project manager of Greek manuscripts, who worked on the digitisation
For instance, where was it made? which religious order commissioned it? And how long did it take to produce?
"The limits on access to this manuscript previously have meant that people (academics) have tended to dip, so that they have seized on particular things" to advance theories, Mr McKendrick said.
He said the website will enable research to be carried out in a holistic way for the first time, forcing top scholars to view their theories in context.
A good example, he said, was evidence advanced by some academics pointing to the theory that it could have been made in the ancient city of Cesarea in Israel.
"It is our hope this will provide the catalyst for new research and it is already creating great interest" Garces said.
The Bible, which can be viewed online free from Monday, includes modern Greek translations and some sections translated into English.
The British Library is expecting massive interest from believers around the world as well as the academic community.
"When 25 percent of the images were made available online last July we had 3.5 million hits in the first day (a record), and it crashed the site," a spokesman said.