Anglican Mainstream

UK LAUNCH OF FELLOWSHIP OF CONFESSING ANGLICANS

JULY 6, 2009, WESTMINSTER CENTRAL HALL, LONDON

BOOK ONLINE HERE 

THE launch in the UK and Ireland of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), an orthodox Anglican movement for mission at global and local level, is to take place on July 6 in London.

The Fellowship is the outworking of last year’s GAFCON conference in Jerusalem, at which 1200 delegates signed up to the Jerusalem Statement. Those attending Gafcon 2008 represented some 40 million Anglicans world-wide, 70% of the total active membership of 55 million.  Read the rest of this entry »

 MORE NEW ADDITIONS!

  9.30 am     St Peter’s Bushey Heath  Bishop Michael Nazir Ali (Rochester)

10.00 am     Bishop Keith Ackerman, St Stephen’s Lewisham

10.00 am     Rev Dr Francis Donlan, Christ Church, Wyre Forest, Kidderminster  (at Social Centre, New Street, Stourport)

10.30 am     St Michael’s Chester Square.    TBA

11.00  am    St Mary’s Harmondsworth,  Bishop David Onuoha (Nigeria  

6.00 pm       St Mark’s Battersea Rise. Archbishop Peter Jensen (Sydney) 

6.30 pm       Christ Church Beckenham, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, Bendel, Nigeria

6.30 pm       St Mary’s Lewisham,  Bishop Keith Ackerman (USA)

6.30 pm       All Saints Woodford Wells,  Canon Vinay Samuel (India)

6.30 pm      Christ Church Virginia Water, Dr Chik Kaw Tan

6.30 pm      St Peter’s Harold Wood  Bishop Colin Bazley (former Primate of the Southern Cone)

7.00 p.m.    St Luke’s West Hampstead Bishop David Hicks (USA)

8.00 pm     St Nicholas Sevenoaks.  Dr David Virtue (Virtueonline)

From The Christian Institute

The Prime Minister has been quick to point out Labour’s record on ‘gay rights’ laws in response to Tory attempts to woo homosexual voters.

Gordon Brown told the organisers of a gay pride march taking place in London tomorrow they had “changed the world”.

Offering the example of civil partnerships, Mr Brown said Labour had made “massive strides towards equality” for homosexual people.

Earlier this week, Conservative leader David Cameron said he was sorry the party had supported a law against the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

He said the party’s attitudes towards ‘gay rights’ had changed.

Neither party leader is expected to attend tomorrow’s march, although the Prime Minister’s wife will be there.

Deputy Labour Leader Harriet Harman today attacked the Conservatives’ record on ‘gay rights’.

She said: “The essential heart of the Tories is homophobic. I don’t think anyone should be fooled by the apology, which is already 25 years too late.

Read the rest of this entry »

From The Christian Institute

Teenage abortions in Scotland have risen by over a quarter in the last ten years, new figures show.

The teenage abortion total rose from 2,884 in 1997 to 3,725 in 2007 according to NHS statistics.

The number of abortions among under-16s rose by a third over the same period, with the 2007 total standing at 442.

The increases will fuel concerns that abortion is being regarded as a form of contraception by some teenagers.

Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said: “These increases are the symptoms of our failed sexual health strategy.

“How many years of disastrous figures do we need before the Scottish government changes tactics?”

He added:”There is absolutely no doubt that abortion has been placed in the contraception camp by many teenagers who do treat it as no big deal.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Church of England Newspaper July 3

So why should anyone support FCA and why should it be launched now? Firstly, it’s a way of supporting Anglicans in North America who are struggling to remain Anglican in very difficult circumstances.

Secondly, it’s a direct link to the Global South provinces.

Thirdly, this is hardly a time to be wringing your hands about who you want to mix with. The urgent need is to be organised now, not leave it far too late, as it was in America.

For myself, the Rubicon was crossed in the Church of England when the Bishops’ guidelines accepted civil partnerships among clergy. Despite the pretence that these conformed to the 1991 document Issues in Human Sexuality, it opened the door to the acceptance of non- marital sexual relationships. While these had been anomalous before hand, their acceptance meant that the teaching of the Church of England was now muddied and confused.

Fourthly, liberal Anglicans are lobbying the government through measures such as the Equalities Bill to ensure that the exemptions previously guaranteed to the churches are narrowed dangerously. Freedom of speech, freedom to employ those who conform to the teaching of the church in key positions, could be affected. In opposing efforts such as these, the FCA will be working with the church’s leadership, not adopting an outside strategy.

So why FCA, and why now? In the American Church too little was done by conservatives, much too late. Sniffily holding the FCA at arm’s length, as Fulcrum seems to want to do, is to repeat the mistakes made by Americans.

Read the whole article below.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, Episcopal Life Online

Eight members of the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies are scheduled meet privately with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at General Convention in a session that is intended in part to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church.

General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9.

The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans. However, when contacted by Episcopal News Service, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the Diocese of California confirmed the details.

Barlowe said that he and the other deputies understood the meeting was to be brief and private, but that it was not a secret.

"It’s not a summit or constituted in an official way," he said. "We don’t expect to issue a communiqué or anything like that."

Instead, Barlowe said, he hopes the meeting will be a chance for dialogue and a chance for Williams to hear about the ministries of eight Episcopalians whose "significant fundamental characteristic" is "our deep love for the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion." The eight deputies’ lives reflect the broad range of ministry of all Episcopalians, he said.

Barlowe set the meeting in the context of the communion-wide Listening Process, which is intended to hear all sides of the issues concerning human sexuality and the church.

Read the rest of this entry »

The National Education Association (NEA) – the nation’s largest teachers union with more than 3 million members – could be poised to vote on a brazen endorsement of gay marriage at its annual convention in San Diego this weekend, according to sources attending the convention. 

NEA members obtained a draft of a proposed business item that declares the organization’s support of legal recognition to same-sex couples, which would amount to an endorsement of gay marriage and civil unions. The draft proposal also goes so far as to openly declare support of efforts to “repeal any federal legislation." This appears to be a reference to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents states from being forced to recognize same-sex unions performed outside their borders.

The draft version also declares that the NEA would support efforts to oppose constitutional amendments – a less-than-subtle reference to measures like Prop 8, a law in California recently upheld by the state’s highest court, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

NEA caucus members could vote on the issue as early as Friday.

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said this represents an adult, political agenda that has nothing to do with education or a child’s best interest.

"This is especially egregious when you consider that teachers in California contributed more to support the traditional, man-woman marriage amendment than they did to defeat it," she said. "If the NEA is so brazen to use its resources to push government-sanctioned same-sex unions — and oppose voter-supported traditional marriage laws — this would unnecessarily alienate a large portion of its members, not to mention contradict the viewpoints of a majority of the public whose tax money funds public schools."

Sissy Jochmann, leader of the Conservative Educators Caucus of the NEA, said this action item is not what’s best for future generations. 

"Over the years, we’ve been involved in the union to be a voice for conservative values we believe in. We know that even though we’re a small group, we represent a much larger group of teachers throughout the country.

Jeralee Smith, a founder of the Conservative Educators Caucus, said the focus needs to be on education, not politics.

"I believe if the union could get out of the far left agenda … and just focus on education that it would be a great boon to society," she said. "But I believe it tears society down with some of the efforts that it extends."

TAKE ACTION 
Contact the NEA pressroom at 619-525-6377 and ask them to reject any proposed business items calling for legal recognition of same-sex unions.

You can also contact the NEA state affiliates.

By James Chapman, Mailonline

David Cameron has issued an extraordinary apology on behalf of the Conservative Party for legislation banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
He said the party had ‘got it wrong’ when it introduced Section 28 in the late 1980s.

It is one of a series of apologies Mr Cameron has made for his party’s actions in government.

The Scots received one in 2006 for having the poll tax imposed on them a year before it was introduced in England.

The Tory leader’s latest remarks, during an appearance at a Gay Pride event, were attacked last night by traditionalists on the Right of his party. They pointed out that as recently as 2003, when Tony Blair axed the clause, Mr Cameron voted for a Tory amendment described by gay rights groups as ‘Section 28 by the back door’.

Former party chairman Lord Tebbit said he suspected the apology had been driven by ‘focus group findings’.

The gay vote – estimated at 2.65 million people – will be a key political battleground ahead of an election expected next May.

 Gordon Brown is hosting a gathering of leading gay and lesbian figures in Downing Street on Saturday, and his wife Sarah is joining a Gay Pride march.

Section 28 was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in response to evidence of Left-wing councils promoting gay relationships in schools.  It prevented councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality, but became a focal point for anger for gay rights campaigners.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Peter Ould

In my last post I looked at the question of what forms of homosexual relationship might have been recognised by Paul and the other New Testament writers. I concluded with the observation that given the diverse Roman / Hellenistic world that the NT writers operated in, they would have been familiar with a significant number of varied homosexual expression in the Mediterranean world. We identified two forms of homosexuality in particular that have the closest equivalence to modern western gay relationships, that of Greek pederasty in its most noblest forms and the Roman practice of taking someone of socially inferior status as a lover.

In this post I want to begin to turn to the New Testament texts that refer to homosexuality and to see whether understanding the cultural context of the time helps us to discern what is implied by the language employed by the New Testament authors. Before I begin this process however I need to point out the axiomatic basis upon which I am approaching these texts, namely, that the NT texts as we have received them are not just the opinions of humans but are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This means that we approach the texts on the understanding that they have been produced through the synthesis of God and man as a divine narrative that is as useful today as it was 2000 years ago. I don’t approach the texts as simply the thoughts of first century men and that we can dismiss their teachings if they don’t fit our twenty-first century mindset. Rather, we read the NT with the understanding that the fundamental moral precepts and guidelines are not relative to the society they were produced in, but in actuality are pertinent today. How might this work out? Well for example, if we discover that the NT texts when discussing homosexual practice allow a degree of liberty in this area, we cannot still take a conservative position on the issue arguing that such liberty was only for first century Christians. Equally, the converse applies.

So to the text. The first passage I want to explore is the healing of the Centurion’s boy or servant in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. This story is useful for a number of reasons, because the discussion around the meaning of the Greek pais will help us to see the correct use of the hermeneutic principles that we can later apply to other texts discussing homosexuality and slavery.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are various voices which claim that all is essentially well in terms of Anglican orthodoxy within the Church of England. The line has held: church doctrine on core Anglican essentials has not shifted, been adulterated, silenced or forfeit. We still enjoy religious liberty, after all! Another movement is just that — unnecessary, enervating, potentially divisive and damaging to the church’s life. Most of the committed core are not concerned about what appears to drive the ideological engines of FCA. Why do they need to be?     

Sadly, the ‘facts on the ground’ are unable to support this sanguine interpretation of church liberty, vitality and moral well-being, and reveal a distressing lack of awareness. One has only to think of what is actually happening in many of the leading churches of the land, not to mention out there in the ‘real’ world where growing numbers of Christians in the UK are being punished for holding the ‘wrong’ ethical view and then having the audacity to mention it at their place of work. The current legislation — the Coroners and Justice Bill and the Equality Bill — is but the most recent example of how ‘gay’ rights are trumping all others and silencing opposition, including that of orthodox Anglicans.

It may be that considerable numbers of conservative Anglicans are still managing to retain their orthodox sexual beliefs in private. Given the culturally-mandatory LGBT dogma in the air we all now breathe, however, it is foolish to assume that such is the case. And even if some managed to hold on to their convictions in private, have you listened to the views of the new breed of evangelical Anglicans recently? The posts are most definitely in the process of being moved, and ‘gay’-friendly evangelicals realise it is only a matter of time.

Given the orthodox — say, the evangelical bishops in the House of Lords — are now always on the defensive (when they say anything at all), and LGBT-affirmation is on the offensive, all that is needed is for the fuddy-duddy old guard to retire. Naively assuming all is well plays right into the ‘gay’ activist hand, and is precisely what it is after, for it keeps the facade reasurringly intact while radically changing the reality of what people actually believe and how they operate their sexual lives. FCA is about challenging this slow but insidious slippage, and doing it openly, positively, and publicly. It is hard to confront denial, but it must be done.

Are things truly satisfactory? Well, then, what about the fates of people like Lillian Ladele, Gary McPherson, David Booker, Kwabena Peat, Theresa Davies (for a start)? What about the Roman Catholic adoption agencies in the UK who have either had to compromise their view that children need and deserve both a mother and a father (if at all possible) or throw in the towel? And where are the CoE ‘equivalents’? CoE parishioners say that they have not been open with their views at their places of employment because they know that their churches and dioceses would not stand with them as they faced the metaphorical firing line. Who will stand with them, then? FCA will. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Pierce, Telegraph.co.uk

The Earl of Devon, who lost £200,000 a year when he banned same-sex civil partnership ceremonies at his stately home, is being forced to sell the family silver to raise money.

A licence for marriage ceremonies was withdrawn from Lord Devon after he refused to allow two men to hold their civil partnership behind the battlements of Powderham Castle.

The 18th Earl is auctioning some 17th century literature at Sotheby’s to try to raise £100,000 for modernisation work on the castle which is close to Exeter.

The castle, which was a royalist garrison in the Civil War, came under attack by gay rights campaigners after the Earl refused to acknowledge same sex unions.

Lord Devon, family motto Floret Virtus Vulnerata which translates as "Virtue Flourishes (although) Wounded”, said: "I am a Christian and therefore it [homosexuality] is objectionable to my Christian religion.”

Read the rest of this entry »

By Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, from Standpoint Magazine

It is hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the launch of Standpoint with my article, "Breaking Faith with Britain", in the inaugural issue. In that article, I tried to show how there was a descending theme of Christian influence on the systems of governance, the rule of law and the assumptions of trust in our common life. The ascending theme of the importance of the person as a moral agent and, therefore, as free was also seen to arise out of the biblical vision of humans as made in God’s image and as exercising stewardship in the world. This discourse became hugely important in the emergence of natural or human rights language, particularly, but not only, as it was developed by the Enlightenment. I noted that there had been an Evangelical-Enlightenment consensus in place until the 1950s, which had brought about huge changes in society in its attitudes towards slavery, the treatment of workers, universal education, care of the sick and the dying and a host of other areas of life. It has been the dissolution of this consensus that has created the situation in which we now find ourselves. A basically Judaeo-Christian framework for public life has been seriously weakened, some aspects of it have disappeared entirely and others survive only in vestigial form.

By any standard of measurement, the past year has been momentous. The financial crisis had us reeling as the value of our savings and our homes plummeted. As people felt less secure about their jobs, they spent less and gave less. Not only did High Street businesses suffer but charities were also affected. It is true, of course, that the financial crisis was brought about by a failure of regulation, especially in taking account of the growing complexity of global market transactions. But it was also brought about by moral failure. Even if we grant that market processes are "amoral" in themselves, we cannot deny that we are moral agents as we act within those processes and are thus responsible for our actions. In the past, the best of British financial and commercial life was characterised by the values of responsibility, honesty, trust and hard work. Such values arose from a specifically Christian view of accountability before God, the sacredness of even the most humble task (as George Herbert said, "Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine") and the recognition of mutual obligation by people of all classes and callings, one towards another. This rich tradition was set aside in favour of an entrepreneurial free for all and winner takes all ethos. We are now seeing the results. Far from engendering the wealth which would have benefited society as a whole, it has actually left not only this generation but future ones as well in such significant debt that it will affect the lives of us all for the foreseeable future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Church of England Newspaper  July 2 2009

The title for the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in Westminster Central Hall at 10.30 on July 6th says it all:  Be faithful.  That is our calling as Anglican Christians today.  The Scriptures exhort us to remain faithful to the faith ‘once for all delivered to the saints’, to the Lordship of Christ and hence to Apostolic teaching and practice. 

Powerful cultural forces, exerted through social pressure, the media and legislation are forcing Christians to conform to the way of the world in matters of marriage and sexuality.  The Episcopal Church in North America, the Anglican Church of Canada and others have embraced these forces and, often without due process and against natural justice, are forcing out those Anglicans who seek to remain faithful to Biblical teaching and practice. In the church in the West generally there is a gradual slide in the same dangerous direction.

The gathering on July 6th will express the unity of Anglican Christians in their loyalty to the teachings and commands of Jesus.  A major step towards that unity was taken a year ago at the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem.  Many within and without the church were unsure about what Anglicans stood for. GAFCON issued the Jerusalem statement, which has been widely received by Anglicans around the world as expressing the heart of Anglican faith and practice. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jessica Geen, Pink News

In an exclusive interview with PinkNews.co.uk, Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill discusses gay marriage, the ‘cancer’ of homophobic bullying and the future of the charity.

The gay rights movement celebrates two landmark anniversaries this summer. One is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York; the other is the 20th year since Stonewall, the UK gay rights charity, was founded.

Section 28, which banned discussion of homosexuality in schools, has been lifted, along with the ban on openly gay military personnel. Civil partnerships, heralded as virtually identical to marriages, are now legal and the age of consent for gays and straights has been equalised.

So then, some may ask, what is the point of Stonewall? Ben Summerskill too hopes to see a day when the charity can be dismantled, which he believes could be within the next 20 years.

"When I arrived at Stonewall six years ago, we did do a legislative plan which involved 12 years more work and actually we have almost completed that with the arrival of the new Equality Bill which will mean we have legislative protections in every single area," he said.

"But we’re still very mindful indeed that changing the wider world is critically important and so our challenge for the next 20 years, which we hope will be the last 20 years of our existence, our challenge for next 20 years is to try and make those legislative developments meaningful across right across the whole of the public sphere."

Read the rest of this entry »

By Rev. Dr. Philip Turner, ACI

Chief among the claims now made by The Episcopal Church (TEC) is that it is an inclusive church that is open to a variety of opinions and practices. This self-definition is an updated version of the traditional claim that Anglicanism represents a via media between extremes of one sort or another—Catholic/Protestant, liberal/conservative, modern/traditional, etc. The simple fact is, however, that the policies and actions of the progressive leadership of The Episcopal Church have exposed the false nature of these claims, at least as in so far as they are applied to TEC.

The false nature of the claim is easy to see. The logic used by progressive Episcopalians to explain and justify TEC’s “inclusive” agenda is in point of fact necessarily “exclusive” of contrary opinion. How so? The standard justification for the inclusive agenda is almost without exception stated in terms of justice. That is, behind efforts to change church practice in respect of the blessing of unions between persons of the same gender and the ordination in persons in faithful and permanent same sex unions is a firm belief that the rights of these brothers and sisters in the Lord are being violated by antiquated church practice—a practice that rests upon misinformation, fear, and prejudice. “It’s a justice issue” is a statement made again and again, and it is made in a way that is meant to end all argument and cast aspersions on the moral state of anyone defending a contrary opinion.

In the minds of progressive Episcopalians, to acquiesce in matters of injustice and to allow ignorance, fear, and prejudice to go unopposed is a betrayal of what to their mind is central to the Gospel message. Jesus in fact came “to preach good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty those who are oppressed…” (Lk. 4:18) The mission of the church in each age is to follow Jesus in this ministry.

One or another version of the progressive view summarized above has been stated repeatedly by none other than our Presiding Bishop, and it appears repeatedly on liberal blogs like Preludium and Episcopal Café. Indeed, claims that the Gospel is, almost without remainder, one of inclusive justice appears now to be beyond question in the minds of TEC’s leadership. The problem is many Episcopalians are made quite uneasy by a version of the Gospel that does not in all ways cohere with the one they received through Baptism and from the larger Anglican Communion. It seems to them that the Gospel of inclusion ironically excludes them.

Read the rest of this entry »

By George Pitcher, Telegraph.co.uk

The liberal elite that runs the corporation now has a chance to reflect the public mood, says George Pitcher.

The most telling comment to emerge from the biggest exercise in audience research ever conducted by the BBC didn’t come from the sort of viewer or listener you would expect to be disgusted by foul and profane language from our national broadcaster – a major, say, or a matron of a certain age. Instead, it came from a young man in his twenties. "I swear when I’m in the pub with my mates," he said. "But I’d never swear in front of my mum. I’d hate it if the BBC just gave up on the idea that you don’t swear in certain situations."

Doubtless it can get fairly "edgy" down the pub when the boys are in. This is a quality that the BBC has put at the heart of its public-service remit, as it has pushed the envelope of public taste. But I’m prepared to bet my licence fee that this young man wouldn’t team up with one of his mates to leave obscene messages on the phone of an elderly man about the sexual proclivities of his granddaughter.

Such an instinct among the young, not just for what is morally right and wrong on the big issues but also for what amounts to simple good manners, may have come as something of a surprise to Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, and his senior producers. They have been called in by the BBC Trust and told to clean up their act, even after the 9pm watershed.

The survey, of 2,700 people aged 11 and over, revealed sufficient concern about swearing and gratuitous sex on BBC programmes for the trust to demand an overhaul of editorial policy. Offensive language before 10pm will now be permissible only in "exceptional" circumstances.

Read the rest of this entry »

From BBC News

A Northern Ireland assembly member will not face prosecution over comments she made about homosexuals last year.

Iris Robinson, chair of the Stormont health committee, called for homosexuals to seek psychiatric counselling.

Mrs Robinson said if gay people got help they could be "turned around".

The police said they were satisfied no offence had been committed. But a gay rights group said in future she should "respect the diversity" in society.

Mrs Robinson made her comments on BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show last June.

"I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals – trying to turn away from what they are engaged in," she said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Howell has produced 250 photographs of the event in Texas.  The first page features assorted images from the Assembly’s first three days, while the second page features images from the glorious Enthronement Service.

They can be viewed here:

http://www.smilodon-photo.com/ACNA_page1
http://www.smilodon-photo.com/ACNA_page2
 

You will need the Adobe Flash player to view them, and if it is not already installed in your web browser, you can download it here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
 

By Charles Raven,  SPREAD

A year after ‘Breaking Faith with Britain’, written for the launch of ‘ Standpoint’ magazine (www.standpointmag.co.uk) Bishop Michael Nazir Ali again sets out the case for a return to Judaeo-Christian values in another powerful critique for the July/August issue, noting that both the financial crisis, which has intensified over the past twelve months, and the recent Westminster expenses scandal, so hugely destructive of public confidence in Parliament, are further evidence of a nation seriously adrift from its historic values.

However, the Bishop’s illuminating line of reasoning may be overshadowed by controversy because the article, entitled ‘Only God Can Save Us From Ourselves’ is splashed on the magazine cover as ‘Michael Nazir-Ali: Why Rowan Williams is wrong’ supported by a somewhat doctored quotation, claiming ‘Rowan Williams and others…treat with contempt or actively oppose any attempts to uphold a normative view of the family’. This is misleading, but as I will show, the editorial instinct is nonetheless on to something.

A careful reading of the article shows that Standpoint has been unable to resist the temptation to stretch for a headline. Michael Nazir Ali recognises that those who want to subvert our national institutions do so primarily by dissolving the core institution, that of the family, by promoting relationships which are entered into and maintained on an entirely voluntary basis, without social sanction or coercion. He then observes that ‘Criticism by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and others of those who regard heterosexual marriage as “absolute, exclusive and ideal” is based on such views of “pure relationships” which are about mutual desire and fulfilment’. The reference to ‘contempt’ appears in a subsequent paragraph and if Michael Nazir-Ali has any individual in mind as someone who would have ‘contempt’ for the traditional family, his mention of British sociologist Anthony Giddens seems to present a more plausible candidate than the Archbishop. Read the rest of this entry »

By Barbara Gauthier

Bishops:

Bp. Martyn Minns says that for right now, like AMiA and Rwanda, CANA churches will carry dual citizenship in both the ACNA and Nigeria. The goal is that eventually they will form into local dioceses:

CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns, a leader in founding the new province, attended the meeting along with a CANA delegation that included more than 20 lay and clergy members. He issued the following statement in response:

“The assembly meeting was a wonderful coming together of the various jurisdictions represented in the Anglican Church in North America. Everyone was determined to make it work and we kept our eyes on Jesus and the Gospel.

“Since day one, CANA has been and will continue to be a full participant in the life of the new province, and will continue to maintain our own identity. We will encourage groups of congregations, when they are ready, to establish themselves as free-standing dioceses. Our goal is to support the work, mission, and ministry of the Gospel on this continent and bring our own particular distinctive to that task.

“CANA congregations now have a ‘dual citizenship.’ They are members of the Church in Nigeria and as a result of that relationship, full members of the global Anglican Communion. CANA congregations are also members of the Anglican Church in North America and will participate fully in the life of the new province.

“CANA is unique in its connection to the largest province in the Anglican Communion, the Church of Nigeria, which represents about 25 percent of the entire population of the Communion. CANA also has a distinct connection with the GAFCON and Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans movement, and with the Global South. We have a radical commitment to ministry of the poor which crosses all ethnic lines, to planting new churches, equipping the next generation for leadership in the church, and educating the church about how to engage with a resurgent Islam in North America.

“The future involves radical inclusion, profound transformation, and inspired service. The vision has not changed. Jesus Christ is the same and the Gospel remains unchanged. The new province has given us a way to do this work more effectively and more collaboratively.”  (http://tinyurl.com/lpx9uy)

Bp. Don Harvey of Canada was pleased with the unity and unanimity present in the Bedford gatherings even though there are still a number of questions to be answered. LIke CANA and AMiA, the ACiC will hold dual citizenship in both the ACNA and the Southern Cone for a while. +Harvey also tells his women priests that the ACNA ban on women bishops is only a temporary agreement:

Read the rest of this entry »