It’s our weekly roundup of stories you don’t want to miss
US & Episcopal Church
President Trump went to church for St Patrick’s day at St John’s Episcopal.
WaPo has the headline: “A church service on blue skied Sunday interrupts Trump’s weekend of presidential pique”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-church-service-on-a-blue-skied-sunday-interrupts-trumps-weekend-of-presidential-pique/2019/03/17/4c103b68-48d1-11e9-b79a-961983b7e0cd_story.html?utm_term=.955266915cb7
Anglican and Episcopal delegates from all over the Communion who are delegates to the annual United Nations Conference on the Status of Women gathered at St John the Divine in NYC as they begin thier second week of meetings
https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/03/18/anglican-episcopal-uncsw-delegates-open-second-week-with-evensong-at-st-john-the-divine/
Fascinating art project (shared originally on Instagram) depicting ground breaking women (including bishop Barbara Harris)
https://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/photogallery/WL/20190318/NEWS/318009998/PH/1
The Jonathan Daniels Center for Social Responsibility (in his hometown of Keene, NH) heretofore a purely volunteer effort, has secured enough funding to hire its first ever staff person!
https://www.sentinelsource.com/business_journal/jonathan-daniels-center-secures-funding-to-hire-first-staff-member/article_c52635c0-4b29-11e9-b3a9-cf95f9b7b88b.html
UK Items
Prominent Scottish blogger Kelvin Holdsworth was expected to be the next bishop of Glasgow & Galloway, but instead they are planning for another election – and BTW Kelvin is very openly gay.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/scotland-stalls-on-appointment-of-first-gay-bishop-c85jp79bh
The UK Home Office is apparently quoting scripture to Christian convert refugees as the basis for denying their asylum applications.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/march/britain-deny-asylum-islam-convert-bible-verses-peaceful.html
Africa
This is a bit old (from Feb) but it is the notes from a recent synod in the church of Southern Africa and it touches on their intentional process of dialogue in approaching Human Sexuality (including a talk by Bp Curry) as well as their efforts around Safe Church. I just thought it was a different kind of news than we usually see out of Africa (which is a VERY big and diverse place, actually)
https://anglicanchurchsa.org/seeing-more-clearly-pastoral-letter-from-the-synod-of-bishops/
Big news in Nigeria: a well-known gay activist from there (who now lives in the UK) is moving towards ordination in the CoE.
https://www.herald.ng/gay-nigerian-cleric-set-to-become-an-anglican-priest-in-england/
and
https://punchng.com/gay-nigerian-reverend-to-be-ordained-by-church-of-england/
and
http://dailypost.ng/2019/03/21/anglican-church-set-ordain-nigerian-gay-man-priest/
Ecumenical Relations
In ecumenical news, a gathering to celebrate 20 years since the ground-breaking Augsburg compact between the Roman and Lutheran churches that settled thier historic theological disputes
https://international.la-croix.com/news/lutherans-celebrate-20-years-of-amity-with-catholic-church/9712#
And following on from that 20 year celebration; Leaders of five Christian churches meet are meeting at the University of Notre Dame next week to discuss the significance of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) and its impact on their search for full, visible unity of the church.
https://www.lutheranworld.org/news/ecumenical-meeting-us-follow-joint-declaration-doctrine-justification
A piece in a local CA paper’s religion section on the tangled issues related tro the TEC- UMC communion agreement, with speculation about a rump UMC joining TEC somehow.
https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2019/03/21/on-religion-union-possible-on-episcopal-united-methodist-left/
Relatedly, there’s this from a large UMC church in Rochester openly calling for a split.
https://uny4inclusion.home.blog/2019/03/21/an-open-response-to-the-upper-new-york-special-session-recap-and-reflection/?fbclid=IwAR0TwdQLDpKTS70DeaSxlptmSEOc1stu9DyAzIW4C3JLiqH_PxqLQBGbCTs
image: Barbara Harris by Tiffany Wong from the project “Women Creating Change”