ROME: Archbishop Williams address at a Willebrands Symposium in Rome

November 19, 2009

The Archbishop of Canterbury is today giving an address in Rome, as the guest of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The address is part of a symposium being held at the Gregorian University, to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Cardinal Willebrands, the first president of the Council.

The Archbishop says in his introduction:

"Since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church has been involved in a number of dialogues with other churches - including with the Anglican Communion - which have produced a very considerable number of agreed statements. This legacy has been brought together in a recent publication by the Vatican department to promote Christian Unity, whose first President during and after Vatican II, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, is justly and happily celebrated in today's centenary conference.

Muslim academics and students are turning against Darwin's theory

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6919413.ece
November 17, 2009

Muslims in many countries are increasingly rejecting Darwin's theory of evolution, under the influence of conservative elements in Islam, a science conference was told yesterday.

Nidhal Guessoum, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, told the conference, being held in Egypt by the British Council, that in too many places students and academics believed they had to make a "binary choice" between evolution and creationism, rather than understanding that one could believe both in God and in Darwin's theory.

Joel Osteen and the Glory Story: A Case Study

by Michael S. Horton, Ph.D.
Westminster Seminary California
November 2009

"Name it, claim it"; the "health-and-wealth" or "prosperity gospel" : these are nicknames for a heresy that in many respects is only an extreme version of perhaps the most typical focus of American Christianity today more generally. Basically, God is there for you and your happiness. He has some rules and principles for getting what you want out of life and if you follow them, you can have what you want. Just "declare it" and prosperity will come to you. (1) God as Personal Shopper.

Charles Simeon: Evangelical Mentor and Model

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/131christians/pastorsandpreachers/simeon.html
November 2009

"On the Wednesday of Holy Week began a hope of mercy. On the Thursday, that hope increased. On ... Easter Day ... I awoke with these words upon my heart and lips: Jesus Christ is risen today, halleluja, halleluja."

Though he became a model for modern figures like John Stott, Charles Simeon started his life in Cambridge as anything but a model.

In 1779, the young Simeon, from an aristocratic family, came to Kings College, Cambridge, to study, and he was told that he must attend chapel on Easter Day to receive Communion. Simeon's main interests to this point had been horses, games, and fashion. He considered that "Satan himself was as fit to attend [the sacrament] as I." Still, he sought hard to see how he might sort out his conscience. He began to read the Scriptures and various devotional books.

A Documentary History of ECUSA's Constitution

By Allen S. Haley
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/10/documentary-history-of-ecusas.html
October 31, 2009

There is much litigation going on currently in State courts over the polity of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, there do not appear to be any online versions readily available of ECUSA's early Constitution, either as originally adopted or as subsequently from time to time amended.

The commentary on the history of the Constitution and Canons published in 1981 by Messrs. White & Dykman, and reprinted in 1997, is available for download from this site (along with two supplements written by others, carrying the account through General Convention 1991). However, even it does not have in one place a complete version of ECUSA's original Constitution, which is so important for understanding the nature of ECUSA's mixed form of ecclesiastical polity.

The Thirty-nine Articles and the Church

by John P Richardson
http://ugleyvicar.blogspot.com/2009/10/thirty-nine-articles-and-church.html
October 31, 2009

Introduction

That the Thirty-nine Articles were designed to benefit both the church and the state by settling religious disputes is evident from the Royal Declaration of 1562: Being by God's Ordinance, according to Our just Title, Defender of the Faith, and Supreme Governour of the Church, within these Our Dominions, We hold it most agreeable to this Our Kingly Office, and our own religious Zeal, to conserve and maintain the church committed to Our Charge, in Unity of true Religion, and in the Bond of Peace; and not to suffer unnecessary Disputations, Altercations, or Questions to be raised, which may nourish Faction both in the Church and Commonwealth.

That is the Anglican ideal, based on the model of church and state conceived at the English Reformation. There are to be no disputations, altercations and questions. Instead there is to be unity and the bond of peace, in state and in church.

Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists to Mark 10th Anniversary of Justification Declaration

Sotto Voce
October 31, 2009

Several commemorative events will be held in Augsburg, Germany, over the next two days to celebrate the signing of a landmark ecumenical agreement made ten years ago between representatives of the the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Roman Catholic Church.

It was on Oct. 31, 1999, that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), considered one of the most significant agreements since the Reformation, was signed by church officials from the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, which today represents 66.7 million of the world's 70.2 million Lutherans.

The Church of England Outside England

by Stephen Hofmeyr
October 27, 2009

That the Church of England can exist out of England, just as well as in England, was taken for granted by its members as they settled in North America in the 17th century and as British Colonies and possessions came into being all over the world in the 18th and 19th centuries.

They took with them the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, containing the services of the Church, and the 39 Articles of Religion, its doctrinal basis. Naval and Military Chaplains accompanied the Armed Forces and Colonial Chaplains were provided later for civilian congregations as the need arose. Still later, Bishops were appointed from England, Dioceses were organised and parallel structures to the Church of England in England came into being in colonies and dominions as well as the independent USA. This was also the course of events in South Africa.

Diocese and Covenant: Reflections on Dallas, its History and Future

by The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton,
The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
http://tinyurl.com/yjac5un
October 23rd, 2009

"Every Diocese is an independent and sovereign state, held in the unity of the Catholic Church by its Episcopate, according to the rule of St. Cyprian." With these words, Bishop Alexander Charles Garrett - our first Bishop and,be it noted, once the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church - addressed the organizing Convention of the Diocese of Dallas in 1895. "The Diocese thus becomes the ecclesiastical unit, a full and perfect integer sufficient of itself for all purposes of growth and development."

Scanned books by or about Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer - avaiable from Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?q=thomas+cranmer


William Goode's arguments against Tractarians
http://books.google.com/books?id=mFgYAAAAYAAJ

The Book of Common Prayer and the New Settlement

By Robin G. Jordan
Special to VirtueOnline
11/15/2008

In my previous article, "The Thirty-Nine Article and the New Settlement," I voiced the concerns of confessional Anglicans about the place of the Thirty-Nine Articles in the new settlement in North America in the twenty-first century and called for the organization of confessional Anglicans in defense of the truth of the gospel, which the Articles safeguard. Confessional Anglicans like myself are not only concerned about the place of the Articles in the new settlement but also the place of two other important Anglican formularies-The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and The Ordinal of 1661. Common Cause is proposing that the new North American province should be built upon the foundation of the Common Cause Theological Statement. What does this statement tell us about the place of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal in the Common Cause Partnership and its future place in a new province built upon the statement as a foundation?

Do "gay-marriage" or "civil partnerships" undermine my marriage? Yes - and here's why

From the pages of Anglican Mainstream
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?page_id=511

In the debate about civil partnerships in the UK, and gay marriage globally, the point is regularly put forward that such relationships do not undermine anybody's marriage. The work done by American social anthropologist, Stanley Kurtz puts very big questions against this simplistic approach. Dr Lisa Severine Nolland has the details

Dear Readers,

In the course of doing research for Anglican Mainstream, I have come across the work of American social anthropologist, Stanley Kurtz, and been deeply impressed by it. He writes from a conservative perspective but is au fait with the broad spectrum of ideological thought. He manages to keep up-to-date with popular social and cultural trends as well as intellectual and political developments and ranges easily across these terrains in his writings. Dr Kurtz has been called dreadful names by some of his critics - he does not return the 'favour' - but they have difficulty refuting his arguments. The below gives you a few tasters, he writes prolifically, from web articles, and though some of his material is more American-oriented, he thinks globally and writes accordingly. His material can be found at nationalreviewonline http://author.nationalreview.com/?q=MjMxNA== and also at weeklystandard.com type in Stanley Kurtz at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Search/FreeSearch.asp.

This report first examines the appropriateness of women being ordained as priests (presbyters) or consecrated as bishops in the One Holy and Apostolic Church in and through the Anglican Mission in America as these offices are ordered and exercised in the Anglican Communion. In addition, in a following section, it examines the question of the appropriateness of women being ordained as deacons in the Church through the Anglican Mission in America.

The question of this study is not whether there should be involvement of women in Christian ministry--that is fully affirmed by the Anglican Mission in America. We are deeply committed to the ministry of all members of Christ’s Body. We see the calling of the ordained ministry, in no small measure, to consist of helping to equip the laity for their crucial ministry to be exercised both within the Church and to the World.