It’s Tuesday evening (26 August) and I got back from Greenbelt last night – I think it was my fifth year of attending. Though I’ve categorised this as news, I’m not sure that Greenbelt is news for Thinking Anglicans. No dancing Archbishop Rowan this year, so it probably won’t make it to the nationals, except the Church Times. But there were connexions with what’s being discussed elsewhere on this site.
0 CommentsWriting in today’s Telegraph, Jonathan Petre reports on a new study by Peter Brierley of Christian Research. He says this suggests that, if current trends continue, evangelicals will make up more than half of all Sunday church worshippers in 10 years’ time, up from about a third now. Moreover, all but a tiny proportion of the new breed of evangelicals will be theologically conservative, viewing sex outside marriage, including homosexuality, as outlawed by Scripture.
Petre’s full article here does contain some criticisms of the research by Gordon Lynch of Birmingham University. TA will seek more information too.
2 CommentsRobin Eames and John Neill, archbishops respectively of Armagh and Dublin, have issued a press release containing a joint statement concerning the election of a bishop for the diocese of New Hampshire, USA.
The statement says that this election raises grave issues for the Anglican Communion and refers to the discussion on homosexuality in which the Irish House of Bishops is currently engaged. The archbishops say: “We regret the threat to the unity of the Anglican Communion caused by this election at a time when the Christian Church faces such grave issues in a divided world.”
This statement then refers to Clause 3 of the declaration to which all Irish clergy must subscribe. This says:
“The Church of Ireland will maintain Communion with the sister Church of England, and with all other Christian Churches agreeing in the principles of this Declaration; and will set forward, so far as in it lieth, quietness, peace, and love among all Christian people.”
The statement ends as follows:
“It is clear that what happens in another part of the Anglican Communion cannot change the Church of Ireland and that we have a duty to do all that we can to maintain as high a degree of unity as possible with those from whom we differ.
Our prayer must be that God will deepen our understanding of these issues, so that we may discern a way forward that is faithful to Christ and sensitive to the needs of the Church and of the world. In the past many issues have led to division between Christian Churches and that division has often crippled the mission of the Church. It is our task today, whilst differing on many issues, to maintain the communion to which God calls us.”
First, two newspaper columns commenting on recent ECUSA events:
When the Archbishop Calls by Colbert King in the Washington Post.
A Divided Episcopal Church? by Peter Steinfels in the New York Times.
Second, here is a pastoral letter written by the Bishop of Arizona to his diocese. (Arizona is a diocese which voted in all three orders in favour of the confirmation of the Bishop-elect of New Hampshire and in favour of the compromise resolution on same-sex blessings.)
I found all of these helpful in understanding how mainstream Americans view recent ECUSA events.
0 CommentsRuth Gledhill writes in The Times today that Archbishop of Canterbury backs faithful gay relationships. This story is based on the fact that Canterbury Press is to republish an earlier essay of Rowan’s in the book of essays The Way Forward: Christian Voices on Homosexuality edited by Timothy Bradshaw, due to appear in the middle of September.
A second article in the same newspaper discusses another essay and the book further.
Gay clergy need not be celibate, says Dr John.
Mary Ann Sieghart has written this article in The Times:
If all liberals left the church it would cease to be a national institution and become a narrow sect.
Thinking Anglicans has received the following press release, announcing the formation of a new movement in the Church of England.
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