Most of the invitations issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury for the upcome Lambeth Conference in England have been sent. Read the press release from the Anglican Communion News Service.
It seems that Bishop Robinson and Bishop Minns have not been included, although according to the AP, Bishop Robinson may be invited as a quest. Read the AP/New York Times article, here.
We shall see how all involved will react and respond. I don’t think it will be pretty. Kind of like the Moscow Olympics! (Hopefully not like the Munich Olympics!)
The Onion News Network
I just discovered the “Onion News Network” through Jason Miller’s blog “Discovering the Hope.” If you are familiar with “The Onion” newspaper, you’ll love this.
Here is an example:
Gap Unveils New ‘For Kids By Kids’ Clothing Line
They will know us by how we love one another!
The ending portion of a letter from Bishop Howe of the Diocese of Central Florida to his clergy, entitled, What Next?
It is an important message to hear during times of trouble when our tendency is to want resolutions now, because life is too stressful to wait, wait, and to wait some more. Yet, God tends to say to us – “be patient; be still and know that I am the Lord.”
Here is a portion of Bishop Howe’s letter:
I met with our clergy during Holy Week, and I told them (yet again) that I am committed to remaining both an Episcopalian and an Anglican as long as it is possible to do so. But ultimately, all of us may have to make choices. We will not all make the same choices, and we will not all make them at the same time. What is imperative is how we treat each other.
“By this will everyone know that you are my disciples,†our Lord declared, “if you have love for one another.â€
It is not by all the sermons we preach, not by all the books we publish, not by the cathedrals we build, the missionaries we send out, the bold actions we take, or even the purity of our doctrine, but it is by the quality of our relationships with others who name the name of Christ that we will prove we truly belong to him.
We reflected together on what it means to “love one another,†and I suggested we use as a template the great “love chapter,†1 Corinthians 13, and I shared four reflections with the clergy that I want to repeat today.
1) There is not a single “feelings†word in all of 1 Corinthians 13. The kind of agape love that Jesus calls us to, and that St. Paul attempts to describe, is entirely a matter of attitude and behavior; it is a matter of choice. I don’t have to feel a certain way toward you; I have to behave a certain way toward you. (There are a lot of feelings in eros; there are none in agape.)
2) The “love chapter†is a remarkable description of the Lord Jesus himself. You can actually substitute his name every time Paul uses the word “love.†(“Jesus is patient; Jesus is kind; Jesus is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful; he does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hope all things, endures all things.â€) The corollary is that when I run out of my own supply of agape love for you, I can ask Jesus to love you through me!
3) There are sixteen synonyms or synonymous phrases in the chapter, and nine out of the sixteen are negative: Love is NOT envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, irritable, resentful; it does NOT insist on its own way or rejoice in wrongdoing, and it never ends. Evidently, then, there are things I need to work on NOT doing toward you.
4) Notice how many of the synonyms are also synonyms for patience (or heavily dependent on it). You cannot be kind without being patient. You cannot bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things, without being patient. By my count at least eight of the sixteen words or phrases are synonymous with patience – which is to say that extending agape love toward someone is at least half a matter of being patient with him or her. The old phrased, “Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me,†is really a plea for an expression of Jesus’ agape love from each other!
I suggested that it is no accident that patience is the first word on the list; it is like getting the top button of your shirt right; if you don’t all the other buttons will be wrong, as well.
So, I say to you, as I said to the clergy: please be patient. Let’s trust the Lord. Let’s see what comes out of the meetings of the “Windsor Bishops†and the House of Bishops. Let’s hear what Archbishop Rowan has to say to us. And if and as we make difficult decisions, sometimes perhaps not in agreement with each other, let us do our very best to comply with our Lord’s instructions.
Jesus shared his Last Supper with the one who would betray him and the others who would desert him, and then he went to the cross for them – and us. And he said, “Love one another as I have loved you.â€
My love to all of you,
John W. Howe
Scheming Swindlers
“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard
Pronouncements from Archbishop Akinola
A couple weeks ago, Archbishop Peter Akinola of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) came to Virginia to install his new missionary bishop for “CANA” (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), his new church in the U.S. (or missionary diocese under his jurisdiction). Martin Minns is that new missionary bishop.
So then, CANA has a few parishes under its umbrella throughout the U.S., although primarily, it seems, in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. Since Archbishop Akinola is the Primate of this fledgling new “missionary diocese” or denomination in the U.S. (that is providing a safe-harbor from the evil Episcopal Church), he seems to presume he must speak out on American politics and social issues. For good measure, he throws in some comments about the state of things in the U.K. as well.
I wonder whether he honestly believes that the American and British public is going to pay any attention to his opinions or pronouncements. Maybe it is because we are arrogant imperialists, but I really think he is in for a rude awakening if he things he now has the ability to move American or British political or social policy. Then again, I am beginning to believe that Peter Akinola thinks he has been divinely commissioned by God to restore Christianity (as he understands it) and God’s kingdom in the West.
Here are some excerpts from his latest press conference:
Press briefing by Archbishop Peter Akinola on Sunday 13th May at the end of the Abuja Diocesan Synod
Gentlemen of the Press.
We welcome you to this press briefing at the end of our diocesan synod in Abuja
We met to study and discuss the theme “Be ye Holy†1Peter 1:16. We examined God’s calling upon our lives to be holy and live exemplary lives. You will find in the distributed communiqué, our resolutions on this important issue. Allow me highlight some salient points.
Global Scene
Considering how the world is making it increasingly difficult for Christians to live holy lives, we ask:
WHERE IS THE CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE?
Many people look to the USA as a Christian country and its leaders often assume the role of moral leaders for the world who are ready to point the finger at problems around the globe and yet we must not forget that there is another side to their story. The present generation of Americans would do well to remember their own history. While they and their forebears claim their nation to be a gift from God it is in truth a land forcefully taken with no respect for the human rights of the despised and dispossessed Indians – it is also a land where a great deal of its early economic foundation was built on the sweat and blood of de-humanized African slaves.
Americans seem to have forgotten the same LORD in whom they say “In God we trustâ€. Deuteronomy 7 and 8 are relevant biblical passages
“And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth†8:18a
“Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.†8: 19
The God who has blessed so abundantly is also a jealous God who requires obedience and holy living. But instead of calling for obedience to the Word of God we now have the situation where those who call for faithfulness in holy matrimony or abstinence outside of it risk being accused of hate speech. The breakdown in marriages in the USA is a scandal. It is causing a massive crisis in their own society and the rest of the world. But instead of admitting the problem and finding creative ways to strengthen traditional families we see a relentless promotion and protection of so called ‘alternative lifestyles.’ Recent legislative bill H.R. 1592 (Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007) passed in the House on May 3rd 2007, and the H.R 2015 (Employment Non-Discrimination Act.) being discussed are worthy of note. God will not be mocked.
We see a similar crisis in the UK. The decline in marriages and the breakdown in families has become an epidemic. But instead of encouraging holy living and strengthening family life we read of a bishop of the Church of England called before tribunal to explain his refusal to hire a certain youth worker. His offence was ‘discrimination’, we were told because the job seeker in this case was a self-confessed homosexual and who said he had just ended a five-year homosexual relationship. Surely the Church has an obligation to promote holy living not apologise for it!
* Where is the Christian voice in all these?
* Why are Church leaders not concerned about this breakdown in society?
* Why are they ashamed of promoting holy living?
* Why have they lost their confidence in the Word of God?
Letter to a Discouraged Saint and a Down-Trodden Sinner (same guy)
Good essay by Dan Gilliam over at Next-Wave e-zine.
Read it here.
Pentecost is coming, so what exactly is the “Church?”
The more I think about it, hear what people are saying (and I’m more interested in what un-churched people are saying, honestly), the more I read, the more I experience, I think Dan’s list is a pretty good summation or at least a good foundation upon which to begin, even though his intent is not to present what the “Church” is.
Holiness
I find myself battling between my upbringing within the tradition of the Holiness Movement and with my current situation within the tradition of Anglo-Catholicism. Both present a very different way of engaging the faith, God, and one another, particularly in how we should live out our lives as Christians.
“Be holy, even as I am holy,” as Jesus said. Yes, but we too often fall into a kind of “perfectionism” that works against our natures as beings that always fall short of the glory of God. That is just how things are, yet not excusing immorality or unholy actions.
As a result, too many of us descend into a “shame spiral” (remember that?) that contributes to unreasonable demands of ourselves and more tragically of others. We expect ever more stringent and demanding proof of our devotion to God exhibited through our actions. (This is the pattern of the politicized Religious Right and fundamentalism) We become Pharisees. Then, we tend to really become Pharisaical – condemning, hypocritical, unrealistic, mean, angry, bitter, seeing the speck in everyone else’s eyes but not the tree trunk in our own, and then trying to demean and squash those who disagree with us.
If course, the other extreme is an attitude that is morally and ethically laissez-faire and a demand that there is really no such thing as sin, no real need for repentance, no need for holiness, and that we are all really good and virtuous by nature.
I want to live into the understanding that we are called by God to be moral and ethical – to love mercy, to do justly, and to walk humbly with our Lord. We are called to be holy. Yet, we all fail again and again and this is our plight. We don’t wallow in it, but we also to not deny the reality of it.
So, give people a break! Be at peace and encourage and cajole and support all to seek God and God’s will, call all to holiness, but allow the judgmentalism to end and let the responsibility of judgment remain with the only one who is justified in judging.
Open or Free?
Is there a difference in being:
1. Open-minded
or
2. Free-minded
The Triad Of Anglicanism
Tobias Haller, priest, Rector, brother (BSG), writes in his blog, In a Godward Direction, about a few distinctives of Anglicanism.
The entire essay is well worth reading, and is entitled, “The Anglican Triad”
Here are a couple paragraphs that I particularly likes:
For shorthand I will call these three elements Humility, Provinciality, and Variety. They stand in the via media between Humiliation, Provincialism, and Chaos at one extreme, and Pride, Centralism and Uniformity at the other. All three are well attested in foundational documents of Anglicanism (The Articles of Religion, the Prefaces to the English and American Books of Common Prayer) and in the work of those who first focused the Anglican vision, such as Richard Hooker. I’ll limit my citations here to the Articles themselves, by number.
Under “Humility,” he write:
Anglicanism thus humbly rejects concepts of inerrancy and infallibility; even the Scripture itself is “sufficient†for the end for which it was intended: salvation (6). Human understanding, even of the Scripture, is fallible, and subject to a constant review as the church bears its responsibility as the “keeper of Holy Writ.†(19)
A couple things
From the Guardian Unlimited (UK), this commentary by Andrew Brown entitled, “The end of communion,” concerning the Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola’s installation of a Nigerian “missionary Bishop” in Virginia this past week. An interesting read, but from a particular point of view:
For most of the past four years, almost all the energies of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, have been devoted to holding the Anglican communion together in the face of the American civil war. Make no mistake – the supposed worldwide row over homosexuality would never have happened without conservative American money and energy.
and this
The rest of the churches which once constituted the Anglican communion will now have to choose whether they want to belong to any international body at all, and if so, who will head it. Here it seems that Dr Williams may have played a subtle game, because Dr Akinola’s ambition has repelled a great many of his potential supporters.
The Anglican-Episcopal Literacy Quiz:
Of course, this quiz is a bit biased, but bias does not negate truth, at least in most circumstances.
Anglican-Episcopal Literacy Quiz on The Episcopal Majority.
Via: Father Jake Stops the World