NIGERIA: Non-Briton to head church as faithful move to shift spiritual home from England

By FEMI ADEOTI
The Sun News
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2008/dec/25/national-25-12-2008-01.htm
December 25, 2008

The Obama revolution may soon sweep through the Anglian Church as thoughts are being seriously given to a non-Briton head of the church. Presently, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Rowan, is the spiritual head and president of the Lamberth Conference, held every 10-year at the Lamberth Palace, Kent, United Kingdom.

The retired Anglican Bishop of Akure Diocese, Ondo State, Bishop Emmanuel Gbonigi told Daily Sun that the possibility of a non-Briton, especially a Nigerian becoming Archbishop of Canterbury could not be ruled out. He spoke at his residence, Oba-Ile Housing Estate, Akure, Ondo State.

WASHINGTON, DC: Bishop Chane expresses concern over Warren selection


From Bishop John Bryson Chane
December 18, 2008
http://www.edow.org/news/media/releases/2008/chane-warren-selection.html

I am profoundly disappointed by President-elect Barack Obama's decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to offer the invocation at his inauguration. The president-elect has bestowed a great honor on a man whose recent comments suggest he is both homophobic, xenophobic, and willing to use the machinery of the state to enforce his prejudices-even going so far as to support the assassination of foreign leaders.

In his home state of California, Mr. Warren's campaigned aggressively to deny gay and lesbian couples equal rights under the law, relying on arguments that are both morally offensive and theologically crude. Christian leaders differ passionately with one another over the morality of same-sex relationships, but only the most extreme liken the loving, lifelong partnerships of their fellow citizens to incest and pedophilia, as Mr. Warren has done. The president-elect's willingness to associate himself with a man who espouses these views as a means of reaching out to religious conservatives suggests a willingness to use the aspirations of gay and lesbian Americans as bargaining chips, and I find this deeply troubling.

UK: Archbishop backs disestablishment (and the Muppets)
Williams backs Church-state separation

by Riazat Butt, Religion Editor
The Guardian Newspaper
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/18/rowan-williams-anglican-disestablishment-muppets
December 16, 2008

The Archbishop of Canterbury has surprisingly reignited the row today over the separation of church and state by saying it is "not the end of the world" if the established church were to disappear.

Rowan Williams, the most senior figure in the Church of England, argues that there is a "certain integrity" to a church that was free from state sanctions.

ARIZONA: Nothing impossible for St. Jude's. Emerging community gathers young people into church

By Greta Huls,
December 11, 2008
[Episcopal Life]

It's safe to say there never has been another worship service in the Diocese of Arizona quite like the one taking place regularly at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Phoenix.

Between 40 and 60 people gather each week as the community of St. Jude's, sponsored with the help of Trinity Cathedral and in partnership with Urban Young Life groups at two Phoenix high schools. St. Jude's is designed to meet the needs of 15- to 30-year-olds in a crime-troubled area of Phoenix known as the I-17 corridor who have not connected with traditional churches for personal and cultural reasons.

RALEIGH, NC: Bishop Preaches at Breakaway Church

by Marti Maguire, The Associated Press
The News Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1325347.html
December 7, 2008

A Raleigh congregation that broke with the Episcopal church after its consecration of a gay bishop welcomed a new national leader Sunday -- days after a new denomination was formed from splinter groups in the United States and Canada who had also left the church.

Bishop Robert Duncan's sermon at Holy Trinity Church was his first since the announcement Wednesday that 11 groups of former Episcopalians will form the new Anglican Church of North America. Duncan, bishop of the Pittsburgh diocese, will lead the new denomination as its first archbishop.

ABUJA, Nigeria: Anglican Primate Says GAFCON has Severed Ties with pro-Homosexual Provinces
‘Don’t buy or receive seasonal cards without Christ on it’, says Akinola

Archbishop Akinola spoke to Okey Muogbo and Kolawole Daniel of the Abuja Bureau of The Sunday Tribune on how pro-homosexual Europeans are buying over weak churches in Africa to keep quiet, and on GAFCON and how God rescued one of his bishops from a lion.

The Sunday Tribune
http://www.tribune.com.ng/07122008/church_news.html
December 6, 2008

Question: What is the state of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)?

FT. WORTH: Bishop Iker meets with Orthodox leader

The following article is posted on the Ft. Worth diocesan Web site.
It is the first of a series titled "As We Go Forward in Mission."
http://www.fwepiscopal.org/series/articles.html

The leader of the Orthodox Church in North America paid a call on Bishop Jack Iker during a recent visit to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The two met for about an hour on Tuesday, Nov. 25, at St. Vincent's Cathedral in Bedford to discuss mutual concerns and goals.

The Orthodox leader requested the meeting with Bishop Iker. Consecrated the Orthodox bishop of Fort Worth and the South on Nov. 1, Blessed Jonah was elected Metropolitan of All America and Canada in a church synod just 11 days later.

The Anglican and Orthodox churches have long enjoyed close theological affinities, having similar forms of worship and common roots in the faith. Metropolitan Jonah, who was baptized in the Episcopal Church in Chicago as an infant, commended Bishop Iker and the Diocese of Fort Worth on the mid-November decision of the Diocesan Convention to separate from the errors of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church.

WHEATON, IL: Episcopal Split as Conservatives Form New Group

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/04episcopal.html?pagewanted=2&sq=episcopal%20split&st=cse&scp=1
December 4, 2008

Conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church announced on Wednesday that they were founding their own rival denomination, the biggest challenge yet to the authority of the Episcopal Church since it ordained an openly gay bishop five years ago.

The move threatens the fragile unity of the Anglican Communion, the world's third-largest Christian body, made up of 38 provinces around the world that trace their roots to the Church of England and its spiritual leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Greetings from the Anglican Church League, Sydney, to the new Province of North America

December 4, 2008
Anglican Church League
http://acl.asn.au/acl-sydney-greets-new-province/

THE COUNCIL OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH LEAGUE SENDS GREETINGS IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS GATHERED IN THE NEW PROVINCE OF NORTH AMERICA

1. The ACL welcomes this new development while remaining deeply saddened by the circumstances which made it necessary. Faithful Anglicans have been marginalised within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada because of their determination to remain faithful to the Scriptures as expressed in the Creeds and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. We rejoice with these our brothers and sisters in this way forward out of the difficulties that have plagued them over the past five years and more.

Lambeth Palace responds to Common Cause Partnership announcement
Episcopal News Service
December 4, 2008
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_103367_ENG_HTM.htm

A spokesperson for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has responded to the Common Cause Partnership's December 3 release of a provisional constitution and canons that outline the formation of what they are calling a new Anglican province in North America.

NIGERIA: Fish out the perpetrators of Jos crisis - Akinola

December 1, 2008

The Primate of Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) Archbishop Peter Akinola, has urged government to fish out the perpetrators of the crisis that trailed Thursday's local government election in Plateau State. Scores of people had been killed since violence erupted in Jos on Friday even before the election results were announced.

Speaking at the Diocese of Abuja Carnival for Christ celebration, he accused government of "playing the ostrich", on the recurring sectarian crisis in the country.

"We know these people who are bent on destroying the nation and for goodness sake they should be brought to justice," Akinola told journalists in Abuja.

UK: I'm not the archangel Gabriel - but I'm not the devil incarnate either says 'swinging vicar'
Drunken sermons, nudist holidays, claims of wife-swapping... How in heaven's name did the 'swinging vicar' get her dog collar?
In her first interview - and hallelujah, with some regrets - she gives her side of the story

By Antonia Hoyle
The Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1088602/Im-archangel-Gabriel--Im-devil-incarnate-says-swinging-vicar.html
November 23rd, 2008

Teresa Davies, the 'swinging vicar', says the church is too 'hung up' about sex

BUFFALO, NY: Dissenting Episcopalians acquire former synagogue

By Jay Tokasz News Staff Reporter
Buffalo News
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/498203.html
11/19/08

Members of the area's largest Episcopal congregation have established a new religious corporation and purchased a former synagogue in the Town of Tonawanda, as they move ahead with plans to split from the Diocese of Western New York.

The purchase of the former Temple Beth El complex at 2368 Eggert Road was finalized Friday.

St. Bartholomew's Christian Church paid $750,000 for the 37,000-square-foot facility and expects to make another $125,000 in changes and improvements, said the Rev. Arthur W. Ward Jr., longtime rector of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church.

The congregation is joining hundreds of parishes around the country that have abandoned the liberal-leaning Episcopal Church over such issues as interpretation and authority of scripture, the path to salvation and acceptance of same-sex marriages.

But the congregation voted near unanimously not to try to retain property at Brighton and Fries Road, where it has been worshipping since 1960.

LONDON: Rowan Williams haunted by suicide of troubled Oxford student who fell for him
Dr Rowan Williams: the coroner at Miss Watson's inquest asked why he had set himself up as a source of 'spritual counsel' without formal training

by David Brown and Ruth Gledhill
The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5119808.ece
November 10, 2008

The suicide of a fellow student at Oxford 33 years ago has been revealed as one of the defining moments in the life of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

A new biography describes how Hilary Watson fell secretly in love with the charismatic and deeply spiritual 24-year-old doctoral student while he was counselling her in the 1970s.

SYRACUSE: Ordination spotlights church rift
Group that broke from Episcopal Diocese ordains a priest today in Geddes.

By Renée K. Gadoua, Staff writer
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1225011319223670.xml&coll=1&thispage=3
October 26, 2008

Jeffrey Altman will be ordained an Anglican priest today in a ceremony that reflects Central New York's role in the nationwide growth of a separate Anglican church in the United States.

Altman will lead Sunday services at Westside Anglican Fellowship, a Geddes congregation of about 25 people who began worshipping together after their former congregation, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Syracuse, split from the local Episcopal Diocese. They meet at Syracuse Vineyard Church.