The 2007 General Synod meeting in Canada has left mixed messages to the dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada on the status of performing same sex blessings. Does the legislation prohibit or allow blessings?
God calls the whole person and all of their experiences – so that one can have a life of meaning and service at same time.
To love one’s neighbor with perfect love it is necessary to be prompted by God. How can you love your neighbor with purity if you do not love him in God? But he who does not love God cannot love in God. You must love God, so that in Him you can love your neighbor too.
A friend of mine, a Lutheran pastor, said “You Episcopalians seem very earnest and dedicated in your worship, but you don’t seem to take yourselves so darn seriously.” But he went on to say, “You guys are the only denomination that can laugh at yourselves often enough to keep conversation going to be able to make decisions. But lately, you have seemed to get all serioused up.”
The Diocese of Colombia has made an urgent plea for the release of one of its priests, the Rev. Ricardo Morales Gaviria, who was abducted August 20 by outlaw militias. Update: Bishop Duque reports that the priest has been found and is safe.
Dr Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales conducted a debate in a bar on the subject of Is Religion Bad? in front of around 50 people, wearing his clergy collar and a sports jacket. A mixture of believers, atheists and drinkers from the bar downstairs combined to create a lively debate.
Statistics published by Amazon suggest that the number of people buying books from it about religion or spirituality has soared in three years by 50 per cent. The increase has outshone all other categories, including history, which has grown by 38 per cent, and politics, which has grown by 30 per cent.
We in the West are disturbed and confused. Though we have our own fundamentalists, we find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruin. We had assumed this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that fanaticism was dead. We were wrong.
Churches have been providing sanctuary for illegal immigrants who want to stay in the United States to be with their US born children. Immigration sweeps have mounted since congressional measures to legalize the country’s undocumented immigrants were defeated this summer. Yesterday, one activist was arrested when she left the church grounds.
All eyes seem turned towards the next date on the Anglican Communion calendar, the September meeting of the Episcopal Church House of Bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the House of Bishops will meet in New Orleans. Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola publishes his thoughts and others respond to his statement.