Bishop Bethlehem Visits Amia

January 29, 2010 at 4:31 am | In ACNA, Anglican Communion, Communion, FCA | Leave a Comment

One of the highlights of the visit of Bishop Bethlehem Nopece of Port Elizabeth to North America must be the Opening Service of the Amia Winter conference 2010.  Bishop Bethlehem was invited to the conference by The GAFCON Primate Archbishop Emanuel Kolini of Rwanda.

The conference began with a wonderful service of worship at which arch Bishop Kolini preached.  The congregation in

Bishops Bethlehem and John Guernsey in procession

excess of 1300, represented all of the groups now forming the Anglican Church of North America.   The service marked the beginning of the 10th conference and celebrated the growth from 11 to 158 congregations in one momentous decade.

Archbisop Kolini preached, acknowledging the blessings of the Lord on Amia and encouraging the continued commitment to the spread of the Gospel among the 130mil unchurched people of North America.  He also reminded the congregation that Vision had to be followed by action, for there to be any fruit in the christian life.

Bishop Bethlehem and Fr Gavin are attending as representatives of FCA Southern Africa.  The trip includes Preaching appointments at the Church of the Epiphany and Church of the Apostles in Washington DC.  There is also time planned to spend with the

Bishop Bethlehem after meeting with Bp Murphy and Kolini

leadership of Amia and other bishops present.

Christians may have to give up public sector jobs!

January 22, 2010 at 2:46 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Bishop of Winchester warns Christians may have to give up public sector jobs because of secular agenda

January 21st, 2010 Posted in Religious Liberty |

Bishop Scott-Joynt said that he was concerned that traditional Churches in Africa would break away Photo: STEPHEN HIRD By Martin Beckford, Telegraph

The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, told peers that councils, police forces and judges are wrongly using equality and diversity rules to punish churchgoers.

He said that some in society now view religion as “undesirable” and want churchgoers to keep their faith “in a little box” rather than express it in public or at work.

The bishop, the fifth most senior prelate in the Church of England, spoke in support of an amendment to the Equality Bill that would ensure worshippers are not accused of discrimination simply for celebrating Christmas, displaying Bibles or saying prayers.

He said in the Lords debate on Tuesday: “Religious faith and practice appears to be viewed in many places as abnormal, exceptional, deviant, as if it alone is ideological and controversial and, for a whole range of reasons, undesirable.

“Your Lordships may think that that is wildly exaggerated, but that is how very many people of faith, Christians and others, feel.

“It seems to be a thread that is at risk of running through the equality and diversity agenda. In fact, in my observation it does run through it; that fundamentally admirable agenda is often popularly followed out in many a town hall, in a significant element of the lower echelons of many police forces, at the more rarefied level of parts of this Bill, in Parliament, and even, if I dare say so, in some of the judgments handed down by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

Read here

Church is drifting into paganism, says Packer

January 17, 2010 at 3:48 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Audrey Barrick, Christian PostPosted: Friday, January 15, 2010, 13:31 (GMT)

Influential theologian J I Packer wants evangelical churches to recover catechesis, or systematic instruction in the essentials of the Christian faith.

Packer believes the idea is an alien concept to most evangelicals.

“We are drifting back into paganism, that’s the truth,” he said in a lecture last Saturday at St Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, according to The Living Church News Service.

The 83-year-old Anglican priest has co-authored a new book, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, in which he makes the case that catechesis is a non-negotiable practice of churches and is of no less value than Bible study and expository preaching.

During Saturday’s lecture, he said he yearns for “Bible-based, Christ-centred, declarative in style”. But recovering catechesis in churches will be a challenge, he added. Earlier, he called it the greatest challenge for the 21st century church.

It’s “ridiculous to think that no more learning of the faith is necessary after confirmation has taken place,” the renowned theologian noted, as reported by The Living Church News Service.

“Ongoing learning is part of the calling of the church. It has to be taught in all churches at all times.”

In 2008, Packer and 10 other clergy left the Anglican Church of Canada over its liberal direction on scriptural authority and homosexuality. He joined the more conservative and orthodox Province of the Southern Cone in South America.

Packer was named one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the world by Time magazine in 2005.

Labour’s secular tyranny torments faith schools

January 12, 2010 at 6:07 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Telegraph View: The degree of government interference in the affairs of teachers and parents of children at faith schools is disgraceful.

Published: 7:23AM GMT 11 Jan 2010

At a time when too many of Britain’s schools suffer from abysmal standards of management, teaching and discipline, it seems incredible that the Government should devote resources to harassing some of the most successful state schools in the country. The establishments in questions are faith schools, and while Tony Blair was prime minister they were largely left alone (hardly surprisingly, since Mr Blair educated his own children at one of them). But since 2007 the Government has resorted to the sort of political bullying of “elitist” schools associated with the Wilson and Callaghan administrations.

As we report today, in the last six months more than 30 faith schools, most of them Church of England or Roman Catholic, have been investigated by the Office for the Schools Adjudicators, England’s admissions watchdog. The main purpose: to make sure they do not quiz prospective parents about their faith, since this could constitute “selection”. To cite one example: Cardinal Vaughan School in west London, an excellent and diverse Catholic comprehensive, is effectively forbidden from giving preference to children from committed Catholic families because this might produce a “middle-class” bias. Matters have not been helped by politically correct Catholic education advisers and, as a result, the freedom of a faith school to define itself by its ethos has been weakened.

The degree of government interference in the affairs of teachers and parents of children at faith schools is disgraceful. The practice of asking clergy for references is discouraged, while the “right” of children at Christian schools not to attend Christian assemblies is constantly asserted. This nosiness extends beyond Christianity, however: Sikh schools in west London have been criticised for allocating points to children who take part in community activities.

In all this, the Government is displaying a mixture of two unpleasant qualities. One is the increasingly aggressive secularism of the modern Labour Party, whose members equate religion with superstition. The other is a dislike of independence, whether in the private or state sector. In no area of life is government policy more wrong-headed than education; drastic measures to liberate schools, parents and children from socialist ideology cannot come soon enough.

Diocese of Recife doubles in size (2005-2009)

January 10, 2010 at 5:02 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Recent statistics show that the Diocese of Recife, under the Primatial Authority of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America, continues to grow. The number of confirmed members and regular communicants has more than doubled since its traumatic axing from the liberal Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) five years ago.In 2005 the diocese had 1,488 communicants, today there are 3,240. The number of baptized members is 2,010 and the total membership of the community stands at 5,250 members. Over the past 5 years Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti has confirmed 2,025 people (407 in 2009), 90% of whom were newcomers to the Anglican church.

In 2005, 32 clergy were excommunicated by the Brazilian Province, today, thanks to the hard work of 6 diocesan training institutions the number of clergy in the diocese stands at 60, in whose care are 46 congregations and social projects in 9 Brazilian States.

Despite the fact that the Diocese of Recife is currently facing lawsuits brought to bear by the Brazilian Province (which is demanding property), its story has been one of growth in the face of material uncertainty. Recently an Archdeanery was created in the South and South Eastern reaches of the country where various congregations have already been established. In view of this exciting growth and expansion, the diocesan General Convention is looking to 2010 as a “Year of Vocations”.

The Right Reverend Robinson Cavalcanti
Diocesan Bishop
Diocese of Recife, Anglican Communion

January 9th, 2010 Posted in Recife -Southern Cone

General Synod to be asked to recognise ACNA

January 10, 2010 at 4:41 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Gregory Cameron, one of the architects of the Covenant, fears that if the election of Mary Glasspoolas a bishop in Los Angeles is confirmed, this will cause ‘disruption’ in the Anglican Communion. Read my story in  The Times, Friday. I also recommend strongly the insightful analysis by Scott Gunn in the US.
Bishop Gregory believes this could be the trigger that finally brings an end to unity around the table at primates’ meetings. Read more of our interview over at Religious Intelligence. Meanwhile, an evangelical synod member from the Chichester diocese, Lorna Ashworth, whose husband Mark is director of youth and children’s ministry at All Saints Eastbourne, has put a nice little PM’s motion down at General Synod. If passed, and it easily could be in this present conservative synod, it means the Church of England will have declared itself willing to be ‘in communion’ with the Anglican Church in North America.

The turning tide of United Methodism

January 7, 2010 at 7:37 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

January 6th, 2010 Posted in Culture |

By Bill Bouknight, Good News Magazine (Hat Tip: Barbara Gauthier)

Unlike the Lutherans (ELCA) and Presbyterians (PC-USA), the United Methodist Church is pulling back from following TEC into the future. The Methodist Church was at one point was accounted even more liberal than the Episcopal Church, but that liberal tide now appears to have crested and is beginning to recede. The turnaround has taken place through educating the laity in the Biblical faith, evangelizing, renewal, and learning much from Global South Methodism:

Over the past 15 years, we have witnessed the cresting and subsequent decline of the liberal tide in American Methodism. Simultaneously, the influence of evangelicalism and orthodoxy has been steadily increasing within the last decade.

As measured by membership and influence, the United Methodist Church has been in decline for the last 40 years. A definite low point for the denomination was November 1993, when United Methodists participated in the infamous “Re-Imagining Conference” in Minneapolis. Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, was worshipped, the doctrine of Atonement was ridiculed, and lesbianism was glorified. At least one United Methodist helped plan that conference, and it was an approved continuing education event for many staff members of United Methodist general boards and agencies.

Most UM bishops made no public response to this heretical display. Only a handful of UM leaders such as Bishops William Cannon, Earl Hunt, and Tom Stockton denounced certain teachings of that conference as being contrary to United Methodist doctrines and ethical standards. Despite the silence of most UM leaders, the Re-Imagining Conference had a sobering impact on the denomination—serving as a wake-up call within United Methodism.

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Dean Challenges Flock to Measure Up to Jesus

January 5, 2010 at 8:10 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

St Andrew’s Cathedral viewed from a flank. (Photo: Terence Ong)

This Christmas the vicar of the Anglican cathedral urged his members to aim at nothing less than emulating Jesus Christ; he wrote a booklet outlining certain characteristics of the life of the Lord he hoped his flock would learn.

In his introduction and in an interview that appeared in the latest issue of the church magazine, The Very Revd Kuan Kim Seng, dean of the 4,500-member St Andrew’s Cathedral, stressed that spiritual maturity is to be measured against the life of Jesus Christ and expressed his wish for his parishioners to reach their ‘full potential’ in resembling Him.

Explaining why he wrote the booklet in an interview with ‘The Courier’ magazine, Dean Kuan said: “All of us will agree that it is a tragedy when a twenty-five-year-old adult functions with the mind of a five-year-old. It is even more tragic when people who have been Christians for many years still live and behave like spiritual babes. Being perpetual spiritual babes is definitely not God’s will for our lives.”

Reflecting on his six years as chief cleric, he said: “I [have] become conscious that there is so much more potential in the St Andrew’s church-community that is yet to be realised.”

He added: “Whether as an individual or as a community, the fulfillment of our full potential in God is not found in imposing upon ourselves more and more work or rules. It is found in our becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This, he said, is because human beings were created in the image of God; Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the perfect revelation of God.

In his 15-page devotional resource, Dean Kuan explained how Christ demonstrated sacrifice, obedience and grace in His life, characteristics which “sum up all that the Lord Jesus Christ is” and which are the “sum total of living in agape love, the love that comes from God Himself,” he said in an interview with the magazine.

He said: “Jesus’ death for our sake made it possible for us to get to the starting line, and the Holy Spirit enables us to run and complete the race that transforms us back into the image of God that was lost when we sinned against God. The more we are transformed into the image of God, the more mature we are spiritually.”

In his booklet the dean explained and defended the importance of tithing.

Tithing, he said, is not an act of giving since God owns the tithe, but it is God’s ‘all-wise institution’ and ‘chief tool’ to mould Christians into the image of Jesus Christ the true giver.

Dean Kuan argued that there is no biblical evidence to support the teaching that tithing is no longer compulsory if it is not an act of freewill.

Tithing is also God’s way of financing the work of the Church, especially its task of preaching and teaching the Gospel throughout the world.

He said: “One of the reasons why the Gospel of the Kingdom is not proclaimed and demonstrated in the extent and pace that it should have been is due to the fact that many Christians sin against God in the area of the tithe and freewill giving. If all Christians were to just bring God’s tithe back to Him, all the financial needs in the Church would be met overnight, and Matthew 24:14 (i.e. the promise of the gospel proclaimed in the whole world and the contingent return of the Lord Jesus Christ) would be fulfilled sooner rather than later.”

In the section on obedience, Dean Kuan said that disobedience “declares that God cannot be trusted; that’s why He should not be obeyed” whereas obedience affirms “the trustworthiness and goodness of God… expressing such an affirmation in non-verbal language.” Obedience also shows that God is indeed the Father of the Christian.

Concerning grace, the dean, describing the love of God in the event of the cross, told the story of a man who chose to forgive the person who murdered his son and then offered to receive the murderer as his own son, giving all the benefits of and inheritance of the household to the one that deserved death.

Lord Carey: Rise up against this arrogance

December 30, 2009 at 6:20 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

December 27th, 2009 Posted in FaithPoliticsReligious Liberty |

Lord CareyFrom News of the World

CHRISTIANITY, the majority faith of Britain, is being systematically marginalised by combination of breath-taking political arrogance, and well- meaning political correctness.

In fact, at times it seems as though we nowadays resemble a cartoon character sawing away on a branch on which we are sitting only to find out too late that with the last push of the saw we will plunge to our ruin.

Make no mistake, our laws, literature and national character are hewn out of our national religion – Christianity.

To understand our history, you have to understand our faith. Even our landscape is dotted with the spires, steeples and church towers of old. Our days are punctuated by the sound of the church clock ringing the hour.

So why do I say that Christianity is being marginalised when it is such a prominent feature of our national life – to the extent that 72 per cent of people in the 2001 census labelled themselves as Christian?

This vital connection between the Christian faith and the British people is increasingly disregarded by our political leaders and our civil servants.

I first noticed this dislocation over a decade ago when the Millennium celebrations were being planned. As Archbishop of Canterbury it was my job to talk with the government about the role the Church should play. It was amazing to see this basic ignorance about the millennium’s religious dimension.

We weren’t just celebrating a meaningless date; the western calendar itself flowed from a fixed point – the year of our Lord, anno domini.

Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the sceptics, there is real truth in the story of Christmas

December 24, 2009 at 8:28 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

December 24th, 2009 Posted in Apologetics, Theology |

John Dickson, director of the Centre for Public Christianity.By John Dickson, Sydney Morning Herald (Hat Tip: ACL)
There are enough question marks over the Christmas story for dogmatic sceptics to have a field day at this time of year, but the core historical realities are not easily swept away.
It is common at Christmas to hear experts questioning the Gospel accounts. Writers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray and Bishop John Shelby Spong make their pronouncements with something approaching glee: there is not a skerrick of evidence outside the Gospel of Luke for a census at the time of Jesus’s birth; Matthew’s hovering star over Bethlehem is a fiction; and the virgin birth is the neurotic invention of a church trying to distance the Son of God from any association with sex.
Then there are questions about the date of Jesus’ supposed birth. December 25 was a pagan festival until it was hijacked, we are told, by a church desperate for relevance. Evidence that the starting point of the Western calendar, AD1, cannot have been the year of Jesus’s nativity helps the sceptics’ case, and we are left with the impression that perhaps Jesus never lived at all. Maybe the whole thing is a fable with no more credibility than Santa Claus. And, like that story, thinking adults ought to grow out of it.
But while much of this is factually correct, it is ultimately wrong. Take the absence of corroborating evidence for the Roman census, the visit of foreign Magi or the great star. The sceptics would have us think, if these things really did take place, there would be mention of them in other sources. But scholars of antiquity often note we probably have in our possession less than 1 per cent of the literary works that existed in the first century. Ninety-nine per cent of our evidence is lost.
”As every student of ancient history is aware,” Professor Graham Stanton of Cambridge University writes, ”it is an elementary error to suppose that the unmentioned did not exist.” With only 1 per cent of the evidence to hand, it is foolhardy to deny something just because it appears in a single source.
As recently as June 2004, a large public pool mentioned only in John’s Gospel – and so doubted by some – was uncovered during sewerage works in Jerusalem.
It is true there is no corroborating evidence for the finer details of the Christmas story but it is wrong, and wrong-headed, to turn this into evidence that they are untrue. People are free not to trust what the Gospels report, but this is a choice based on a preference, not an argument arising from evidence.
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