The Bishop and people of the Diocese of Minnesota commissioned a study group and asked them to look hard at the present state of the diocese and its immediate future. The answer they found is not a happy one. But they have developed a plan to respond to what they found.
Luke’s account of Jesus’ passion presents a Jesus in control of events: Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane is the agony of a heroic martyr not the anguish of Mark or Matthew; the arrest in Gethsemane includes Jesus’ healing of the ear of the High Priest’s servant; Jesus’ last words on the cross indicate confidence not abandonment: “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”
Next to the calling of the disciples, I expect that Matthew’s story about their sending forth is one of the most confrontational stories in all the Bible. Can you imagine? There you are, perfectly content to be a follower, when Jesus comes home all worn out one day with his hair handing in his face and his clothes ringed with sweat and dirt.
Starting in 2006 a number of clergy and congregations began to push back against the increasing commercialization of Christmas by inviting their members to consider giving gifts to charity instead. In the first year hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised. This year, about 491 churches from 10 nations have joined the conspiracy, says Jeanne McKinley, who directs the program from Imago Dei Community with her husband Rick.
It takes two to bicker. Is there a creative way for those loyal to the Episcopal Church to unilaterally stop bickering with those trying to tear it apart? What would that look like on the national, diocesan, and congregational levels? What should it look like?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says that churches need to be brave, imaginative and honest in the fight against the spread of HIV and Aids. In a message for World Aids Day, issued for the first time as a video available on the internet on YouTube, Williams described as ‘a scandal’ the limited access to drugs and treatment in deprived parts of the world.
There is now an entire website devoted to the question, “Is it Christmas?” Check out the answer here. In a similar vein, click here to
Ian T. Douglas: “I’m sad that Bishop Charleston is suggesting that bishops not go to Lambeth 2008 without considering what the Conference will and will not be. Bishop Charleston’s position is based on the assertion that the 2008 Lambeth Conference will be similar to recent Lambeth Conferences in both form and function.”
The 40 minute program intersperses clips from Tutu with critiques by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan Bishop of Pittsburgh, Stephen Green (Director of Christian Voice), Anne Widdecombe MP and Canon Chris Sugden (Anglican Mainstream).
I just wonder a bit whether, you know, when an Archbishop condemns something, suddenly in, I don’t know, the bedsits of north London, somebody may say oh, I shouldn’t be having pre-marital sex, or in the cells of Al-Qaida, somebody says, goodness, terrorism’s wrong, the Archbishop says so. – Rowan Williams speaking in 2006