Today today was a big day for pronouncements in the Anglican Communion, including publication of a statement about the Archbishop of Caterbury’s hope for Lambeth, an adress aby the Bishop of Jerusalem asking GAFCON participants to show humility and seek unity, and an adress by Archbishop Peter Akinola that was included pointed attacks on the Archbishop of Caterbury.
Jesus said that we should give alms in private rather than when others are watching. A substantial body of current psychological research points against Jesus’ advice. One of the most significant factors determining whether people give to charity is their beliefs about what others are doing. Those who make it known that they give to charity increase the likelihood that others will do the same.
Relying on statements from his “friends”, the Sunday Telegraph reports that Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester will decline an invitation to attend Lambeth next month, and that others will join him.
In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That’s what it really admires.
Where you live is partly determined by where you can afford to live, of course. But the “Big Sort” does not seem to be driven by economic factors. Income is a poor predictor of party preference in America; cultural factors matter more. For Americans who move to a new city, the choice is often not between a posh neighbourhood and a run-down one, but between several different neighbourhoods that are economically similar but culturally distinct.
Desmond Tutu of Capetown observed recently that “God is continually breathing into our nostrils.” It is a vivid way of expressing the fact that not only is our life the creation of God, but that every moment of our life is also sustained by God. We are not only made.