The Episcopal News Service reports that last week the bishops of the dioceses in Province IX of the Episcopal Church approved the creation of a development group. The purpose of the group is for each diocese in the province to achieve fiscal independence.
The UMC and the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in North America have been holding talks for a number of years. The United Methodist Church approved the full communion agreement completed in 2014 with the two Moravian provinces at its recent General Conference in Portland OR.
Greg Bourke and Michael De Leon were two of the plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark case decided last year in the US Supreme Court, which ushered in marriage equality throughout the United States. Greg & Michael had recently submitted a design of a shared headstone for their joint plot in the St Michael Cemetery in Louisville KY. The Burke-De Leons were notified by the executive director for Catholic cemeteries in the Archdiocese of Louisville, Javier Fajardo, that the design could not be approved for placement in the cemetery.
During a Special Convention held 14 MAY at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Winchester KY, clergy and laity of the diocese chose to call the Rt Revd Bruce Caldwell, former bishop ordinary to the Diocese of Wyoming, as bishop provisional for Dio Lexington.
Yesterday we reported that the Irish Legal Times had announced that the Scottish Episcopal Church was on track to become the first UK church to allow same gender marriages. This isn’t true however, as the Unitarians, the Quakers and the Metropolitan Community Churches in the UK already allow marriage equality, although they are all smaller bodies than the Scottish Episcopal Church.
A review by climate scientists of aerial & satellite photos of Pacific Islands between 1947 and 2014 shows that five vegetated reef islands have vanished beneath the waves and six additional islands display severe shoreline erosion. A member of General Synod from Dio Polynesia, Fe’iloakitau Kaho Tevi, enlightened members to more stark reality on the ground, stating seven islands have disappeared just since the Paris climate accords.
In JAN 2016 we covered a preliminary release of a major study of the use of pornography in the US. The study was conducted by the Barna Group in 2015. The study had been commissioned by the Josh McDowell Ministries. The Barna Group has released the ten main findings of the research in a report.
The Northern & Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in North America and the Presbyterian Church USA have agreed to enter full communion with one another. The two churches will be celebrating their full communion agreement with a national service of worship on 5 JUN 2016.
In a blunt opinion piece at Religion Dispatches, author Patricia Miller, exposes what appears to be a new tactic by religious conservatives to advance their agenda opposing LGBT rights in the US, following the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision.
There are about 9000 indigenous people in western Paraguay who speak their native language, Southern Énxet. Many of them live on four reservations associated with the Anglican Church of Paraguay. Today these folks can read the Bible in a newly published translation that has taken 25 years.