Last week the Very Rev Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark, banned Jerusalem from a private memorial service in Southwark Cathedral. He has subsequently taken himself off to Brazil (presumably not in a chariot of fire) and is unavailable for comment. But a spokesman for the Diocese of Southwark confirmed that the dean “does not believe that Jerusalem is to the glory of God”.
After a meeting in Pretoria, bishops from Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia urged regional leaders to put pressure on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to accept disputed poll results.
The Anglican Archbishop of Perth, the Most Reverend Roger Herft, says he hopes the appointment will help overcome resistance to the elevation of women from some parts of the church. Archbishop Herft says the move will refresh the church. “The church has brought about diminishment to women in the world and in the church,” he said.
The Newstatesman (UK) has three articles today under the heading “Belief is Back.” Mary Warnock, a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advisory group on medical ethics writes: ‘ It is the role of legislators to be consequentialists. They must not ask, “What does my religion teach about this measure?” but “Will society benefit from it in the empirical world?” ‘
When George Augustus Selwyn went as bishop to New Zealand, where Queen Victoria had assigned him a large part of Polynesia as well as the two islands of New Zealand itself, he realized the need for synodical forms to be developed to give Anglicanism outside of the Church of England establishment a coherent theological structure.
In perhaps the most pointed comment of the evening, Leonel Abaroa Boloña, a student at Trinity College, Toronto, stated that Archbishop Gomez had preached at the consecration of two bishops whose consecration was expressly for the purpose of pastoral care to Anglicans in America disaffected by the Episcopal Church’s stand toward homosexuality. Boloña argued that this was inconsistent with the stance of the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant.
Journalist and Professor Richard Domke spoke to Episcopal Communicators today about how the American religious landscape has shifted from “civil religion” to “political religion” that has allowed religion to become a political weapon.
The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev. John Sentamu, will take off in and then abandon a perfectly good airplane for a good cause later
Dale Rye reflects on the recent court ruling in the dispute between the Anglican District of Virginia and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and says it is a perfect example of why “hard cases make bad law” and that, if the ruling stands, it would be a disaster for every church and religious society.
Affirming Catholicism comments on the narrow defeat in the Church of Wales of a proposal to allow women bishops in that Church, saying it exposes a deep seated problem that also exists in the Church of England.