AUSTRALIA: Bishop in talks for big payout

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25699851-2682,00.html?from=public_rss
July 1, 2009

EMBATTLED Anglican Bishop Ross Davies has conceded he is negotiating a payout to quit the Diocese of the Murray.

Bishop Davies, whose conduct is being investigated by Anglican Archbishop Jeffrey Driver, has broken his silence after details of his negotiations with the Diocesan Council were leaked following last month's Synod meeting.

Bishop Davies was asked at the Synod if he were seeking a payout of almost $1 million from the Diocese - as reported in the Sunday Mail last November.

WASHINGTON: New Anglicans split on women

By Julia Duin
The Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/new-anglicans-split-on-women/
July 2, 2009

Last week's birth of a new Anglican province in the dusty plains of north-central Texas left the question of women's ordination dangling in the air.

Of the 800 people attending the founding of the Anglican Church in North America, 368 were priests and deacons. Of that number, about 10 percent, or 36, of the clergy were female.

The new province is a mishmash of former Episcopalians, ranging from almost-crossing-the-Tiber Anglo-Catholics to low-church charismatics, and it's a mystery as to how they're all going to get along. Many are against ordaining women. Others are just as adamant that females be given access to the diaconate, priesthood and the episcopate. The Episcopal Church approved female priests in 1976 and elected its first female bishop in 1988.

UK: New fellowship 'to defend faith'

by Toby Cohen
Church of England Newspaper
July 2, 2009

CELEBRATION and skepticism is greeting the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) in London on July 6.

Five Church of England bishops will take part in the day at Westminster Central Hall, alongside bishops from Nigeria, Uganda, America, and Australia.

Yet the organizers are being challenged with questions about the fellowship's credibility and true purpose, as critics claim the FCA will undermine the Church.

UK: For such a time as this: Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA)

www.anglican-mainstream.net
July 2nd, 2009

There are various voices which claim that all is essentially well in terms of Anglican orthodoxy within the Church of England. The line has held: church doctrine on core Anglican essentials has not shifted, been adulterated, silenced or forfeit. We still enjoy religious liberty, after all. Another movement is just that - unnecessary, enervating, potentially divisive and damaging to the church's life. Most of the committed core are not concerned about what appears to drive the ideological engines of FCA. Why do they need to be?

Sadly, the 'facts on the ground' are unable to support this sanguine interpretation of church liberty, vitality and moral well-being, and reveal a distressing lack of awareness. One has only to think of what is actually happening in many of the leading churches of the land, not to mention out there in the 'real' world where growing numbers of Christians in the UK are being punished for holding the 'wrong' ethical view and then having the audacity to mention it at their place of work. The current legislation - the Coroners and Justice Bill and the Equality Bill - is but the most recent example of how 'gay' rights are trumping all others and silencing opposition, including that of orthodox Anglicans.

ORANGE COUNTY, CA. Based House Church Says Church Building Got in the Way of Discipleship

Christian Newswire
July 3, 2009

A recent study found many megachurch goers are content to be spectators at church, and one house church leader sees a lesson there - but it isn't what you might think.

A recent study by The Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary and Leadership Network found that nearly half of megachurch attendees say they never volunteer at church and 32 percent say they give little or no money to the church.

But, house church leader and pastor Ken Eastburn of The Well isn't blaming megachurches for this finding. While he acknowledges the sheer size of megachurches may allow spectator Christians to more easily worship anonymously alongside active, engaged Christians, Eastburn cautions other church leaders not to miss what he sees as the deeper message from the study.

UK: Homosexual 'weddings' should be celebrated in church, says Chris Bryant

Homosexual "weddings" should be celebrated in churches, a Government minister has said in defiance of religious teaching.

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Telegraph
http://tinyurl.com/moykl6
July 3, 2009

Chris Bryant, who once posed in his underpants on a gay dating website, said he wanted clergy to be "much more open" to the idea of treating civil partnership ceremonies like traditional marriages.

However, his suggestion goes directly against the rules of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, which state that only the union of a man and a woman can be celebrated by a priest in church. It comes as the Government is pushing through an Equality Bill that religious groups fear will force them to give jobs to homosexual youth workers or secretaries, even if their faith maintains that same-sex relationships are sinful.

Walking in St. Tikhon's footsteps

by Terry Mattingly
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/jul/02/religion-walking-in-st-tikhons-footsteps/?partner=RSS
July 2, 2009

It didn't take long for controversy to spread about the photograph taken after the consecration rites in 1900 for a new bishop in Wisconsin.

Low-church Episcopalians called it the "Fond du Lac Circus" because of all the ornate vestments. Not only was Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton, who presided, wearing a cope and miter, but so were the other bishops. Then there was the exotic visitor on the edge of the photograph -- Bishop Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Holder: 'Gays' protected, ministers not. Attorney general's testimony on 'hate crimes'

By Bob Unruh
2009 WorldNetDaily
July 03, 2009

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says a homosexual activist who is attacked following a Christian minister's sermon about homosexuality would be protected by a proposed new federal law, but a minister attacked by a homosexual wouldn't be.

The revelations come from Holder's recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was taking comments on the so-called "hate crimes" proposal. It also was the subject of discussion on talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh's show today.

Welcome the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans

by Andrew Carey
Church of England Newspaper
July 3

So why should anyone support FCA and why should it be launched now? Firstly, it's a way of supporting Anglicans in North America who are struggling to remain Anglican in very difficult circumstances.

Secondly, it's a direct link to the Global South provinces.

Thirdly, this is hardly a time to be wringing your hands about who you want to mix with. The urgent need is to be organised now, not leave it far too late, as it was in America.

For myself, the Rubicon was crossed in the Church of England when the Bishops' guidelines accepted civil partnerships among clergy. Despite the pretence that these conformed to the 1991 document Issues in Human Sexuality, it opened the door to the acceptance of non- marital sexual relationships. While these had been anomalous before hand, their acceptance meant that the teaching of the Church of England was now muddied and confused.

Episcopacy: more than one form. Whatever the case may be made out historically for a distinctive monarchical episcopate, there is no express biblical warrant for it. The furthest we can go is to say that there are adumbrations of it in the New Testament -- of the office without the title -- in the wider oversight exercised by some resident apostles like James (if he was an apostle) in Palestine and John in Asia, and by apostolic delegates like Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete. As a result, the later development of the monarchical episcopate may certainly be recognized as a flower which grew from a biblical seed. But it is only one form of episkope and cannot claim to be the only one. The normal episkope of the New Testament was congregational, not diocesan; plural, not monarchical ---From 'The New Testament Concept of Episkope: An Exposition of Acts 20:17-38' in "Bishops in the Church", ed. R. P. Johnston

Secret theology committee unmasked

by Simon Sarmiento
Thinking Anglicans
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/003849.html
July 1, 2009

Lisa Fox has published all but two of the names of the group studying same-sex relationships. For background here is the early June report.http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/003815.html

So here are eight of the ten theologians serving on the panel to study same-sex relationships.

Co-facilitators:

Private meeting with Williams at convention will address sexuality, ministry

By Mary Frances Schjonberg,
July 01, 2009
[Episcopal News Service]

Eight members of the Episcopal Church's House of Deputies are scheduled meet privately with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at General Convention in a session that is intended in part to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church.

General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9.

The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans. However, when contacted by Episcopal News Service, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the Diocese of California confirmed the details.

Be Faithful

by Bishop Wallace Benn
July 2nd, 2009

The title for the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in Westminster Central Hall at 10.30 on July 6th says it all: Be faithful. That is our calling as Anglican Christians today. The Scriptures exhort us to remain faithful to the faith 'once for all delivered to the saints', to the Lordship of Christ and hence to Apostolic teaching and practice.

Powerful cultural forces, exerted through social pressure, the media and legislation are forcing Christians to conform to the way of the world in matters of marriage and sexuality. The Episcopal Church in North America, the Anglican Church of Canada and others have embraced these forces and, often without due process and against natural justice, are forcing out those Anglicans who seek to remain faithful to Biblical teaching and practice. In the church in the West generally there is a gradual slide in the same dangerous direction.

On Being Moderately Faithful: Why Fulcrum is wrong about the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans


By Charles Raven,
SPREAD
http://www.anglicanspread.org/
July 2, 2009

Monday, 6th July, sees the launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) in Britain and Ireland at 'Be Faithful' in Westminster Central Hall as orthodox streams of Anglicanism unite together around the historic Jerusalem Statement and Declaration celebrated by the GAFCON delegates just over twelve months ago. For those who long for the Anglican Churches of these islands to become safe places for the gospel of Christ, this is profoundly hopeful. 'Be Faithful ' is a very apt title for the day because it captures the same sense of urgency which brought so many to Jerusalem a year ago, convinced that the Anglican Communion had come to a fork in the road as historic as the sixteenth century reformation.

Convention to consider increased funding, name change for missionaries

By Matthew Davies
http://ecusa.anglican.org/79901_111594_ENG_HTM.htm
June 30, 2009

[Episcopal Life] For centuries, sending forth missionaries has been central to the Episcopal Church's engagement throughout the world, but a fresh look at appropriate terminology and current levels of financial support is in the cards.

General Convention will be asked to increase funding and to switch to the term "mission partner" instead of "missionary" to help to reinvigorate this work and define more accurately its emphasis on relationship building and interdependence.