“The Bible does not outline specific public policies around the provision of health care, but it does make clear that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith. Physical healing was a part of the salvation Jesus brought. Healing represents a sign of the breaking of God’s reign into the present reality.”
Why has homosexuality persisted as a divisive issue for religious traditions and communities, within the Anglican Communion and beyond? Six scholars share their views.
Pro-gays in the Church of England are planning a survey of all LGBT clergy, in and out of the closet, in London, Southwark and throughout the Church. In the capital, they reckon, it is as many as 20 per cent. They are also intending to survey precisely how many gay blessings have been and are being done. Again, estimates put the number in the hundreds.
The World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia appealed to Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to “ensure the safety and security” of Christians in the Punjab province, where three attacks against Christian communities were carried by militant Islamic groups in the last two months.
The first Hispanic woman to serve as a bishop in the Episcopal Church is retiring from the Seattle-based Diocese of Olympia, talking of how she has “loved” being here but hinting at difficulties with the man who beat her in an election for diocesan bishop.
You can’t just go to the garden and get what you want. Despite our consumer-coddled ways, everything has its season and time and you get what the garden gives. And if you think there’s a larger theological point hidden there about grace and God as the giver of good gifts, well, I’d suggest you’re right.
The cross of Christ is transformative. In the resurrection the worst that humankind can inflict is lifted up, transformed, and made new. Christ’s materiality enables his solidarity with us, and his two-personhood holds the human and the divine together in a cosmic oneness.