Anglican Mainstream

By Jenny Taylor, Guardian

From Anglican 1000 (Hat Tip: Barbara Gauthier)

Did I hear Him correctly?

Three days ago I sat in the next to last row of a packed auditorium at the New Wineskins Mission Conference in Ridgecrest, NC listening to an African Archbishop talk about what God has been doing in his corner of Northern Nigeria. This humble man began with a brief overview of the challenges facing Nigerian Christians – the violence and persecution, loss of jobs, homes, and loved ones all for the sake of the gospel. And then, without even skipping a beat, he continued . . . “Fifteen years ago there were three in my area of the country, today there are 49. In spite of the challenges, God has done a miraculous work.”

Wait a minute . . . I think I missed what he said . . . There were three what? And now 49 what? Church plants? “Wow! What a remarkable work of God,” I thought to myself. Could an Anglican diocese in North America ever plant 40+ churches in 15 years? I turned to the person sitting next to me and whispered, “Wow, that is a lot of churches.” He turned and looked at me . . . “Churches?” He paused. “I think he said dioceses . . . from 3 to 49 dioceses in the last 15 years. Can you believe that?”

Indeed the Archbishop HAD said dioceses (and I found out later each diocese has between 25 and 50 congregations). And no, I couldn’t believe it.

Read here

In our effort to serve orthodox Anglicans, the AAC has published new resources on its website. With info on church planting, evangelism, personal bible study, communion issues and much more, we think you'll find these resources helpful in your Christian walk. Click on the links below and try them out.

You can let us know what you think by using our feedback page.   

News & Star

A retired Cumbrian BBC producer is to attack the corporation over its coverage of religious and ethical issues.

Nigel Holmes, 64, from Great Corby, a former BBC senior local radio producer, will call upon the BBC and broadcasting watchdog Ofcom to “explain” why British television – once “exemplary” in its coverage of religious and ethical issues – now allegedly “marginalises” the few that remain.

He will ask members of the Church of England’s General Synod next month to back his Private Member’s Motion accusing BBC television of ignoring Good Friday 2009.

In a background briefing paper for the General Synod, Mr Holmes said over the past 20 years the output of general programmes on BBC Television had doubled.

Yet BBC figures for the same period show there has been a reduction in religious television output from 177 hours to 155 hours a year, he said.

This was in spite of a BBC survey showing 78% of people recognise Christianity as the “backbone” of their spirituality, he said, and a YouGov poll showing 71% said they considered themselves to be religious.

Read here

By Polly Curtis and Riazat Butt, Guardian

From Pew Research (Hat Tip: eChurchWebsites)

Americans overwhelmingly support allowing public Christmas displays at least if they are part of a display that includes symbols of other faiths and holiday traditions — more than eight-in-ten (83%) say that displays of Christmas symbols such as nativity scenes and Christmas trees should be allowed on government property, while 11% say that such displays should not be allowed.

There is much less support, however, if Christmas symbols are displayed alone on public property: Fewer than half (44%) of Americans say such Christmas-only displays should be allowed, while 27% say that Christmas symbols should only be allowed if Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other symbols are also displayed, and 12% say it does not matter or express no opinion.

White evangelical Protestants are nearly unanimous in their support of public Christmas displays, with 95% saying Christmas symbols should be allowed on government property. Furthermore, a large majority (59%) of evangelicals would allow such displays even if Christmas symbols are unaccompanied by symbols of other traditions. White mainline Protestants (83%) and Catholics (91%) also overwhelmingly support allowing Christmas displays, though fewer among these groups (49% of mainline Protestants and 44% of Catholics) support displaying Christmas symbols in isolation. More than six-in-ten seculars (63%) are comfortable with public Christmas displays, although only one-in-four (27%) says they are acceptable if displayed alone.

Read here

From Times Educational Supplement

Secularists warn hardline proselytising on school premises

Original paper headline: The Alpha movement has persuaded millions back to church globally. Now it’s taking on England’s state schools ..

Growing numbers of Alpha courses are being run in schools to give pupils the opportunity to explore Christianity, The TES has learnt.

The courses, which have been criticised by religious bodies and secular campaigners, are taught in lunchtime and after-school sessions.

Youth Alpha courses, designed for 11- to 18-year-olds, encourage pupils to consider questions such as “Who is Jesus?” and “How can I resist evil?”

They are based on popular adult Alpha courses, run in churches, universities and prisons, which organisers say have been completed by more than 13 million people around the world.

Archbishop Blanch CofE High School in Liverpool, now in its third year of running Youth Alpha, has had almost 300 pupils complete the course. It runs for eight weeks in lunch hours. Attendance is voluntary but the sessions are promoted around the school, including during assemblies.

Head Jane Griffiths said: “It is a hugely successful and popular part of our church life here. There were girls who were asking questions about the Christian faith.

“We feel it’s great for children whose own churches don’t offer Youth Alpha and for children who are not Christians.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The article I posted last Sunday about decline in the Church of England generated quite a lot of interest from readers. As I was on holiday (hooray!) I was avoiding posting any replies to comments, but now that I’m back (are you supposed to boo on returning to the joys of parish life?) I want to pick up some of the issues raised.

— to which one can only respond with a pantomime shout of “Oh no it doesn’t!” Read more

From Pew Forum

The evangelical Christian movement historically has been defined by its members' distinctive doctrinal standards and practices. Yet in recent years many Americans have come to understand evangelicals more by their political, rather than religious, identity.

The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life invited Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., to discuss how this political association has affected the evangelical movement, what evangelicals' most important concerns are today, and how the movement is evolving. Warren, author of "The Purpose Driven Life," hosted a presidential candidate forum at his church during the 2008 campaign. Several months later he delivered the inaugural prayer at President Barack Obama's swearing-in.

Speaker:
Rick Warren, Pastor, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif.
Moderator:
Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

In the following excerpt, ellipses have been omitted to facilitate reading. Find the full transcript at pewforum.org. Read the rest of this entry »

by Sarah Hey for StandFirmInFaith

In the past, I’ve pointed out a number of great resources for Christians, including Steve Brown, Mars Hill Audio, Veritas Forum and now RC Sproul’s radio broadcasts. Although, yes, a PCA Presbyterian, Sproul is sympathetic to the Anglican ethos [ahem -- a friend who visited his church came back prattling about the great liturgy, and further suspicious questioning revealed that that liturgy had been taken right from our BCP!]. And his section in his philosophy series on Thomas Aquinas is incredibly wise, respectful, and sympathetic to Aquinas and his ideas — something that might be surprising to those who aren’t familiar with Sproul’s ideas. His short Renewing Your Mind radio broadcasts are a fantastic — and free — resource.

For those in the US, you can find a radio station in most states that carries the broadcasts.

There are also,  the archived audio broadcasts as well.

Posted on: October 16, 2009

The retired Bishop of Rochester (Church of England), speaking at The Falls Church on Oct. 10, described evangelism in both individual and communal terms.
 
The Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali said his understanding of evangelism is “in opposition to” that of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, noting that at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in July, Bishop Jefferts Schori referred to the notion of individual salvation as a “great Western heresy.”
 
“The spiritual journey, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is about holy living in community,” she wrote in a subsequent column for Episcopal Life. “When Jesus was asked to summarize the Torah, he said, ‘love God and love your neighbor as yourself.’ That means our task is to be in relationship with God and with our neighbors. If salvation is understood only as ‘getting right with God’ without considering ‘getting right with (all) our neighbors,’ then we’ve got a heresy (an unorthodox belief) on our hands.”
 
Bishop Nazir-Ali called personal evangelism essential. Although communities are important and Christians are to serve one another, people respond to the gospel on an individual basis, he said.
 
Asked whether divisions within the Church create a problem for evangelism, Bishop Nazir-Ali said he lamented fragmentation in the Anglican Communion, and that he is only an Anglican because “through [Anglicanism] … I came to the faith of the Apostles.” Read the rest of this entry »

By John Plunkett, Guardian

Listen to ad and read here

By Adam Rutherford, Guardian

Adam Rutherford: Ok, would you mind stating your name and who you are, so we have it on record.

Nicky Gumbel: I’m Nicky Gumbel and I’m the vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton.

AR: The Reverend Nicky Gumbel and the founder, well not the founder, but the architect of the Alpha course … Would you say that was accurate?

NG: Well, some might say the pioneer of Alpha … that’s how they sometimes describe me. I didn’t start it. It started in 1977. Charles Marnham was the Curate. It started in the flat just over there, and they had six people on it and it grew from there. Lots and lots of people have been involved in the evolution of Alpha over the years.

AR: I appreciate that. Ok, just to get some background, tell me about the origins of Alpha in the 70s first, but also your role in taking over its running.

NG: Well I was involved gently in the 70s because I was a member of the congregation here from 1976. It started in 1977 in a flat here. It was a six week course for people who were already Christians. And then, in 1981, it was taken on by someone called John Irvine, who was a Curate here, and he developed it into a ten week course with a weekend, and that really changed the nature of the course quite a lot, and it started to grow quite rapidly. Then John Irvine ran it from ‘81 to ‘85 and Nicky Lee took it on from ‘85 to 1990, and I took it on in 1990. It was already a thriving course, and I did very little to it really except to make it slightly more aimed at people outside the Church, so that was when it really began, numbers wise, to grow.

AR: So, in its first inception in the 70s, you say it was for people who were already Christians. What’s the goal if people are already Christians?

NG: It was the basics of Christianity really; it was designed for people who had become Christians. It was only six weeks … I don’t know what the talks were. I have seen the original syllabus, but it was probably something about the Bible and something about prayer, and something about the Church. They had a different course for people who were enquiring in those days.

AR: And when you took over in 1990…

NG: It was October 1990. I did the talks when Nicky was leaving, but I actually took over the leadership of it in 1990.

AR: And how did the agenda change when you took over?

NG: It didn’t change a huge amount. What I found was we were getting a lot of people coming who were not Christians, and I realised then that it could be adapted a bit for them, because they had rather different questions from the people who were already Christians. So, we started to adapt it, but we didn’t do too much to it, so we left it pretty well as it was, because it seemed to be working – that was the point. It wasn’t what you would have designed as a course for people who weren’t Christians. I mean, there’s no way you’d have put those talks in that were in there. The kind of courses we had for people who weren’t Christians were, ‘Why does God allow suffering?’, ‘Are all religions the same?’, ‘Is there evidence for the resurrection?’ … so, we had this course that was designed for Christians, that seemed to work for people who weren’t. So it was that which surprised us.

Read here

By Andrew Alderson, Telegraph.co.uk

A street preacher is at the centre of a row over freedom of speech after police threatened to arrest him for reading the Bible in public.

Lawyers acting for Miguel Hayworth, 29, have demanded an explanation over the alleged intimidation and abuse of power by three officers.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, the director of the Christian Legal Centre, has written to Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, over the incident.

She claims that Mr Hayworth and his father, John, 55, were unlawfully and unfairly treated as they preached Christianity in the city at the end of July.

"They were clearly told that reading the Bible and preaching can be offensive and that they could be arrested," she wrote.

"Furthermore, they were subjected to abuse and intimidation. They were told that they were being monitored and filmed," she wrote.

Critics claimed that a Muslim preaching his religion in the street would not have been treated in such a way by police.

Mr Hayworth, a voluntary worker who is married with two children, has been a street preacher in the Manchester area for five years and he is often accompanied by his father.

He said that he and his father had decided to preach from 11am at St Ann’s Square in Manchester instead of their usual place on nearby Market Street.

He was reading passages from the Old and New Testaments while his father distributed leaflets containing the message of the gospel.

"At 2pm, I was approached on more than one occasion by several police officers who falsely accused me, stating that I was inciting hatred with homophobic and racial comments," he said.

"One plain-clothed officer, who was with the other two uniformed officers, said: ‘It is against the law to preach and hand out tracts: preaching causes offence and handing out tracts is harassment and could result in an arrest.’"

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrea Minichiello Williams, CLC

A HOMELESSNESS Prevention officer with Wandsworth Council has been suspended from work for nearly two months for encouraging a homeless woman with an incurable medical condition to look to God for help, after doctors told her they’d given up hope.

Duke Amachree, aged 53 who has worked for the local authority for almost 18 years was suspended on 28 January 2009 for discussing his faith with a client, and was told in an investigatory interview on 17 March that he should not raise the issue of religion at work.  Not only was Mr Amachree told it was inappropriate to ‘ever talk about God’, he was also told that he may not even say ‘God bless’.

Mr Amachree, a member of the UK World Evangelism Church in London, was summoned to an interview as a result of a complaint made against him by a member of the public. 

Mr Michael Phillips, a solicitor working with the Christian Legal Centre, which was consulted by the worker, said: “On 26 January, Mr Amachree met a client who was due to be moved out of her home because her landlord wished to sell the property.  Doctors had told the client that she had an incurable illness and, as such, could only work part time.  In general conversation, Mr Amachree asked the lady why she believed her condition was incurable,  and in encouragement, commented that sometimes doctors do not have all the answers.  So concerned was he that the lady was in despair and without hope, he suggested she put her faith in God. The lady, however, explained that she had tried religion and because she did not have any faith she was satisfied with what the doctors had told her and was able to move on.  She smiled, thanked Mr Amachree and left.”

Two days later Mr Amachree was handed a letter informing him that a service user (the lady) had made serious allegations against him and he was therefore suspended. 

Mr Phillips, who was present at the meeting, added: “On 17 March, Mr Amachree’s employers told him that ‘God had to be kept out of the workplace’. He was accused of crossing boundaries. The issue of religion, according to the interviewer, should not be raised in a housing issue.  Mr Phillips, on behalf of Mr Amachree, queried this statement by asking if ‘God bless’ would be an appropriate comment.  He was told that it would not be appropriate and that any complaint would again lead to an investigation.”

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From the Anglican Heritage Network

This article, originally published in Cross†Way Issue Summer 2003 No. 89, the quarterly journal of the Church Society, accurately describes the state of North American Evangelical Anglicanism today as it did almost six years ago.  

It has often been said that the people of the United States and the United Kingdom (really the British Isles) are a common people, separated by a common language. This aphorism is especially true when one starts discussing ecclesiastical matters. One must always define one’s terms in order to be clear. [Graphics: P & S Hughes  here]

Take for instance the word evangelical. It is a good word, a very biblically derived and descriptive word. It is however, a loaded word, and carries with it all sorts of historical definitions and qualifications. One has to know his audience and how it defines terms if he intends to effectively communicate. 

In the C of E and the C of I traditional evangelical Anglicanism (at least historically speaking) is clearly defined. The Scriptures are the final authority in all matters. The Three Creeds and the XXXIX Articles define the biblically derived summations of precise Christian doctrine. The BCP, ordered after the received theology of the Creeds and Articles, defines matters liturgical. Ceremony and clergy attire is traditionally evangelical, Morning Prayer and monthly communion…no bells or incense…no sacrificial vestments. The XXXIX Articles are more than minimally assented to, they are believed wholeheartedly. In earlier times English and Irish evangelicals would have read Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Ussher, and Ryle, and would unreservedly agree with Dean Litton’s assessment that (quoted by Dean Paul Zahl, in his work ‘The Protestant Face of Anglicanism’), “The Anglican Church, if she is to be judged by the statements of the Articles, must be ranked amongst the Protestant Churches of Europe.” 

Evangelical, Low-Church Anglicanism in North America, whether in Canada or the United States, is in the main, very different than that found in the Church of England or Church of Ireland. In preparation for these articles, I interviewed clergy and laity in varying capacities in both countries. Some were serving in the ECUSA and the ACC, others in Anglican jurisdictions not in official communion with the See of Canterbury. Interestingly, many asked not to be directly quoted. Those that did not mind being quoted for the record were very clear in their understanding. All were in agreement that traditional Evangelical, Low-Church Anglicanism of the English and Irish variety is presently at a low ebb.

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By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

Christianity is in decline in England because politically correct churches are more interested in accommodatin
g other people’s views than putting forward their own, it is claimed.
 

A minister from a black majority church in London told members of the Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, that many Christians appear to see community cohesion as more important that evangelisation.

She warned that Christians must not "walk on eggshells" at a time when followers of other religions are "unrelentingly" spreading their message to the public, and said that everyone should be seen as a potential convert.

The Rev Nezlin Sterling [image: Institute of Theology and Christian Counselling], general secretary of the New Testament Assembly who is an ecumenical representative of the Synod, made her passionate comments during a debate on "the uniqueness of Christ in multi-faith Britain".

She said: "We cannot allow ourselves to be marginalised. This process of marginalisation of Christianity seems to be moving at a rapid rate in our country.

"I am of the belief that we in the church are so anxious to be politically correct that we on occasions forget to reflect on whether our actions are Christ-correct.

"We have positioned ourselves like the disciples did after Christ died, behind closed doors, paralysed with fear of the world recognising that we are Christians and bearers of the good news of salvation.

"It would appear that the church is making a choice between community cohesion and evangelisation, and the former seems to be given priority.

"Why do we complain about the decline or our membership? What meaningful measures are we taking to correct this negative process?

"Why should we as Christians have to walk on eggshells to preserve community cohesion and accommodate everyone else when the world around us is becoming more aggressive to Christians, and the mere mention of the words Jesus Christ is an offence to so many of those whom we are seeking to working relationship with?

"Other faiths are unrelentingly spreading their message and gaining ground that we unwittingly have vacated.

"There is no room for complacency, no room to procrastinate or retreat but like a mighty army of the church we Christians must go forward, spread the Gospel and the good news of salvation. Every person in my mind is a potential convert."

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