The presentations and discussions focused on finding meaning and hope in recent events. “The search for meaning is always intensified during disasters,” said CREDO’s Associate Director, the Rev. Gay Jennings, as she drew parallels between natural disasters and ecclesiastical divisions. She charted how people respond as they come together, work through their grief, and rebuild.
In Oregon this past weekend 170 church workers attended a workshop on church hospitality sponsored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. Catholics, Protestants and Evangelicals gathered
So what do you think? Should a decade of evangelism kick off with an early retirement plan funded by the Church Pension Group? Is the time auspicious — has the culture war within The Episcopal Church turned a corner so that young people are less likely to be driven away? Afterall, Mary Glasspool’s consecration barely caused a ripple inside or outside the church.
“The South to South Encounter of non-Western churches in Singapore … proved to be what every other Anglican gathering has been in the past decade: in addition to faithful witness and counsel, also a time for political maneuver, secretive changing of agendas at the last moment, North Americans coming in and grabbing the microphones and running meetings, disagreements over this and that strategy and doctrine.”
“We are united in opposing the criminalisation of homosexual people. We see the sentence that has been handed down to these two individuals as a gross violation of human rights and we therefore strongly condemn such sentences and behaviour towards other human beings. We emphasize the teachings of the Scriptures that all human beings are created in the image of God and therefore must be treated with respect and accorded human dignity.”
“The price of holding the communion together can’t all be paid by stifling the lives of gay people in the West and cruelly punishing them in Africa. The Home secretary has changed her mind, and so have I.”
Why did Gregory choose Augustine to head his mission? For those to whom Augustine appears as an unintelligent coward and bigot it is naturally a puzzle why so shrewd a man as Gregory should have sent him.
I think that the onus of paying attention is not on the liturgist but rather on the disciples participating in the service. The service is simply a mirror upon which we can see reflected the Face of Christ. To put it more bluntly, if you find the service boring whose reflection are you seeing in the mirror?