ENGLAND: Will the Church of England ever find peace?
Comments made by Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, against gay marriage attracted protests outside York Minster
Arguments about women bishops will dominate public proceedings of the Synod, but gay marriage is one of the burning issues behind the scenes

By Martin Beckford
The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9057367/Will-the-Church-of-England-ever-find-peace.html
Feb. 2, 2012

Across the country, the 477 members of the Church of England's governing body are bundling reports, agendas and background papers into suitcases ready for next week's four-day General Synod in London.

But while the wood-panelled walls of the circular chamber at Church House, Westminster, echo to the sound of debates on such matters as the Draft Parochial Fees and Scheduled Matters Amending Order, the real decisions will be made furtively in the tearoom during breaks and, for those lucky enough to have received their gilt-edged invitation card, at the white-tie Dinner to the Archbishops and Bishops held at Mansion House every two years.

At the heart of the most important discussions is the question of whether the Church wants to go along with the increasingly liberal mood of English society, or whether it chooses to stick with its traditions.

WASHINGTON: No pious baloney
Eric Metaxas brings down the house with an aggressive attack on 'phony religiosity' at the annual National Prayer Breakfast

By Emily Belz
WORLD Magazine
http://www.worldmag.com/webextra/19142
February 2, 2012

Speakers at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the nation's capital usually keep their talks diplomatic. After all, the room is filled with ambassadors, lawmakers from both parties, Cabinet members, and people of various faiths from around the world.

But Eric Metaxas, the featured speaker Thursday morning and the author of biographies on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Wilberforce, talked to an audience of 4,000 important people about false religion, human depravity, poverty, slavery, and abortion. But the New York author delivered his sharp commentary with his trademark wit, which kept the audience roaring with laughter. (See below for video of the event.)

The halls of the Washington Hilton, the hotel that hosts the breakfast, were buzzing afterward as people discussed the speech-Metaxas' speech, not President Obama's, which followed. Outside the hotel, a protestor asked, "Is it true what I'm hearing, that Eric Metaxas talked about Jesus?"

LONDON: No Civil Partnerships in CofE Churches, says bishop

Clergy letter about civil partnerships in our churches

By Richard Chartres
February 2, 2012

I am of course aware of the letter that a number of clergy in this Diocese has signed regarding civil partnerships in our churches. Their request to General Synod is based on very proper pastoral concern and it is right that this matter continues to be discussed openly.

New arrangements relating to religious premises and civil partnerships were laid before Parliament on 8th November 2011 and came into force on 5th December 2011. The Church's position under those arrangements is that no Church of England religious premises may become "approved" for the registration of civil partnerships without there having been a formal decision by the General Synod to allow this.

Diocese of Virginia Is an Emperor without Clothes

By A.S. HALEY
The Anglican Curmudgeon
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/02/diocese-of-virginia-is-emperor-without.html
Feb. 1, 2012

Thanks to BabyBlue, we learn that the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, barely a week after its Bishop held out the olive branch to the departed CANA parishes, used his other hand to hit them with a sucker punch: his attorneys have filed a motion with Judge Randy Bellows for an award of prejudgment interest. (You can read the text of the motion and supporting memorandum at the link to BabyBlue's post.)

"Prejudgment interest" means just what the name says -- it is interest on an amount made payable for a time period before any actual judgment is entered. (After a judgment is entered against a defendant for a sum of money, postjudgment interest begins to accrue on the amount of the judgment, and continues to accrue until the judgment is paid in full.)

Writing Jews Out of History: The Sounds of Silence
Archbishop of Canterbury excoriated for omiting the word "Jew" on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

By Georgette Bennett
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgette-bennett-phd/writing-jews-out-of-histo_b_1240636.html
January 30, 2012

Last Friday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. A British associate of mine sent me the link to Archbishop Rowan Williams' message, which was distributed to honor that occasion. Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is Primate of All England and spokesperson for the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church. He is a man of extraordinary good will and an advocate for religious diversity. And yet, he managed to get through almost his entire speech without mentioning the word "Jew." This is astounding. How does one commemorate the Holocaust and fail to mention the major group that was singled out for obliteration?

The Archbishop's message focused on a powerful theme: the need to speak up for the "stranger" and the "neighbor" and to turn "strangers" into "neighbors." But, in many of the countries in which they were murdered, Jews were not "strangers." They were "neighbors" -- fully assimilated Germans, Poles, French, Dutch, Greeks, Scandinavians.

SAVANNAH, GA: Christ Church Episcopal seeks contempt against sister congregation

By Jan Skutch
www.savannah.com
February 1, 2012

Christ Church Episcopal may be back home in its Johnson Square building, but squabbling over church property continues.

The Episcopal Diocese of Georgia and Christ Church Episcopal on Monday asked Chatham County Superior Court Chief Judge Michael Karpf to hold the Rev. Marcus Robertson and Christ Church Savannah in contempt of court.

They argue Robertson and Christ Church Savannah have failed to comply with a court order to return a $2 million endowment fund and other property after the two congregations agreed to the return of the historic Johnson Square property in December.

OLYMPIA WA: "Redefine marriage and history will not be kind to you"
The following prepared remarks were delivered to the Washington state legislature hearings on the definition of marriage in Olympia, Washington

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
http://www.ruthblog.org/
January 30th, 2012

I am here today to address those of you who have already made up your minds to redefine marriage. History will not be kind to you. Previous generations of social experimenters have caused unimaginable misery for millions of people. Particular people advocated the policies that led to today's 50% divorce rate and 40% out of wedlock childbearing rate. None of these people has ever been held accountable.

I am here today to hold you to account, for the predictable harms you have already caused and will continue to cause by redefining marriage.

Let me remind you of the essential public purpose of marriage. Marriage attaches mothers and fathers to their children, and to one another. Once you replace that essential public purpose with inessential, even frivolous private purposes, marriage will not be able to do its job. But children will still need secure attachments to their mothers and fathers, a need which will go unfulfilled.

You are redefining parenthood, as a side effect of redefining marriage, without even considering what you are about to do. Until now, marriage makes legal parenthood track biological parenthood. The legal presumption of paternity means that children born to a married woman are presumed to be the children of her husband. With this legal rule, and the social practice of sexual exclusivity, marriage attaches children to their biological parents.

WESTERN MICHIGAN: A Sidelined Cathedral

The Sacred Castle
The Cathedral of Christ the King
Kalamazoo, Michigan Blurb. Pp. 80. $34, paper.

Review by Douglas LeBlanc
January 31, 2012

Whatever else may be said of the Diocese of Western Michigan's Cathedral of Christ the King, it embodied the spirit of the late 1960s. Seen only at a distance, in black and white photos, the cathedral looks about as inviting as the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, an embattled landmark of brutalist architecture in the nation's capital.

The Sacred Castle, available in rich color from the innovative print-on-demand Blurb imprint, highlights the beauty that transcends the former cathedral's forbidding exterior, with its 16 towers rising from a boxy base. The book collects photographs by the Very Rev. Cynthia L. Black, who was the cathedral's dean for 19 years, and four others: James Carter, Kirsty Eisenhart, Mike Matthews, and Lance Rosol.

Black writes in a brief introduction about seeing the cathedral interact with nature: "I could witness the east wall appearing to be on fire as the sun rose in the early morning each spring, and catch the majesty of a full moon rising over the king's 'crown' in the fall. Each week as I celebrated the Eucharist I saw a cross appear in the wine (a reflection from the lights above, with the oculus at the center). On any given sunny day I could watch the sunlight come through the oculus and trace an arc on the Cathedral floor, but capturing those images was rarely possible."

Humility consists, not in condemning our conscience, but in recognizing God's grace and compassion. ---- St. Mark the Ascetic, 5th century

Keep Looking Unto Jesus. Keep on looking unto Jesus. Faith shall soon be changed to sight, and hope to certainty. Looking to Jesus on earth by faith, you shall end with seeing Jesus eye to eye in heaven. Those eyes of yours shall look on the head that was crowned with thorns, the hands and feet that were pierced with nails, and the side that was pierced with a spear. You shall find that seeing is the blessed consequence of believing, and that looking at Jesus by faith, ends with seeing Jesus in glory, and living with Jesus for evermore. When you awake up after His likeness, you shall be satisfied. --- J.C. Ryle

Spiritual sacrifices. The uniqueness of Christ's sacrifice does not mean, then, that we have no sacrifices to offer, but only that their nature and purpose are different. They are not material but spiritual, and their object is not propitiatory but eucharistic, the expression of a responsive gratitude. This is the second biblical undergirding of Cranmer's position. The New Testament describes the church as a priestly community, both a 'holy priesthood' and a 'royal priesthood', in which all God's people share equally as 'priests'. This is the famous 'priesthood of all believers', on which the Reformers laid great stress. In consequence of this universal priesthood, the word 'priest' (*hiereus*) is never in the New Testament applied to the ordained minister, since he shares in offering what the people offer, but has no distinctive offering to make which differs from theirs. –-- John R. W. Stott

THE CAVALRY IS NOT COMING FOR REFORM OVER WOMEN BISHOPS

By Julian Mann
Special to virtueonline
www. virtueonline.org
February 1, 2012

"Should I stay or should I go?" was the 1981 song by the English punk rock band The Clash. It is the question looming over conservative evangelical members of Reform in the shadow of next week's meeting of the Church of England's General Synod in London.

The General Synod elections of September 2010 did see gains for traditionalists but with 42 out of 44 English dioceses having voted for women bishops since then, the bus is now unstoppable.

MARRIAGE AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together
Archbishop Duncan Signs Open Letter on Marriage
TEC Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's signature not to be found

An Open Letter from Religious Leaders in the United States to All Americans

http://thenalc.org/documents/usccb/usccb-11JAN2012-marriage-religious-freedom-letter.pdf
January 11, 2012

Dear Friends:

The promotion and protection of marriage-the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife-is a matter of the common good and serves the wellbeing of the couple, of children, of civil society and all people. The meaning and value of marriage precedes and transcends any particular society, government, or religious community. It is a universal good and the foundational institution of all societies. It is bound up with the nature of the human person as male and female, and with the essential task of bearing and nurturing children.

As religious leaders across a wide variety of faith communities, we join together to affirm that marriage in its true definition must be protected for its own sake and for the good of society. We also recognize the grave consequences of altering this definition. One of these consequences-the interference with the religious freedom of those who continue to affirm the true definition of "marriage"-warrants special attention within our faith communities and throughout society as a whole. For this reason, we come together with one voice in this letter.

Unstable behaviour
A leading activist agrees that homosexual preferences are fluid and changing. If so, why do gays need special treatment?

By Peter Saunders
Mercator Net
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/unstable_behaviour
January 30, 2012

Many people think that homosexuality is a biological characteristic like race or sex - biologically fixed and genetically determined. They think this because this is the view that has been successfully propagated by the gay rights lobby for decades in order to provide a justification for arguing that 'homophobia' is a form of discrimination akin to racism or sexism.

This belief has also been behind moves to treat discrimination against 'practising' homosexuals as a human rights issue by pretending that homosexuals are a biological category like 'women' or 'Asians' whose distinctive features are genetically determined rather than just a group who have simply made a certain life-style choice.

But in fact the strength and direction of erotic attraction, although relatively stable in some people, can be quite changeable in others - it is often not fixed at all.

Similarly, identical twins often have different sexual orientations proving that, although sexual orientation may have some genetic influences, it is not genetically determined. There is, in other words, no such thing as the gay gene.

THE TWO WAYS (Matthew 7:13,14)

by Ted Schroder,
February 5, 2012

A characteristic of our age is the plethora of choices we have. When we go to the supermarket, or a restaurant, or go onto the internet, we are faced with a wide variety of options. It takes a great deal of time to decide between them. Religion is no different. There has always been a multiplicity of choices between faiths. When St. Paul went to Athens he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. (Acts 17:16) Today there is a cafeteria of spiritualities on display for us to pick and choose between.

Jesus, however, confronts us with the choice between only two possibilities. All religions, all spiritualities, all philosophies, can be divided into one or another of these possibilities. As he comes to the end of the Sermon on the Mount he says that the time for decision has come. We must choose between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, the culture of worldly materialism and the culture of Christ.

President Obama and Same-Sex Marriage - The Dance Continues

By Albert Mohler
http://www.albertmohler.com/
January 5, 2012

Some predictions are rather safe to make. 2012 is almost certain to be a determinative year on the issue of same-sex marriage. Multiple courts appear poised to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] and, even more urgently, the appeal on California's Proposition 8 at the Ninth Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals will set up a certain appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court. Given the facts of this case and the significance of the nation's most populous state, the Supreme Court is almost certain to take the case. This sets the stage for the courts to make some determinative statement on same-sex marriage within the next several months - a decision that will go a long way toward setting the direction of the larger culture.

At the same time, the same-sex marriage issue will play a part in the 2012 presidential campaign. The reason for this is quite simple. The issue of same-sex marriage is about far more than marriage as a legal institution and about more than sexuality and personal autonomy. It is the great inescapable issue, and we will know in fairly short order what all the candidates believe about the issue.

Then again, maybe not.

Running to the Free World

By Faith McDonnell
http://www.theird.org/
January 27, 2012

Chinese Christian dissident and popular author, Yu Jie, titled his recent statement about leaving China, "Exposing CPC Tyranny and Running to the Free World." Animosity-filled Leftists may condemn and make apologies for America. But to courageous democracy-lovers around the world like Yu Jie, who became a target of the Chinese government with writings such as his book China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao, America is still the free world and the best hope for those living under Communist oppression.

We wrote about Yu after first meeting him and his wife, Liu Min, in 2005 when IRD arranged a Capitol Hill briefing for him and another Chinese Christian dissident, Zhang Boli, one of the "most-wanted" leaders of Tiananmen Square, who is now pastor of a large Chinese church in northern Virginia. With the conversion and participation of Yu and other young intellectuals and dissidents, the Church in China has been infused with new energy and confidence with which to confront the Communist government of the People's Republic. Yu, a prolific writer and former vice-president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, was a leader of Bejing's Ark Church, a house church movement started as a Bible study by his wife Liu Min and two friends in 2001.