Apparently the sodo,mites used deception to rent the banquet room and they obviously expected confrontation as they posted two Edmonton Police Service plain clothes officers at the door of my church's banquet room.
Read moreAlthough Thorp apologizes in his preface for the limited scope of his essay, this does not stop him from making many bold claims. He ends with the following: "Gay liberation is clearly the work of the Spirit. How can it reasonably be judged otherwise?" (p. 29; his emphasis). He believes that the case he has made for blessing homosexual unions at three levels-Scripture, Tradition, and Reason-"easily overcomes the surface prohibitions" against homosexual practice in Scripture (p.
Read moreUnder legislation expected to receive Parliamentary approval and Royal assent this summer, a national body will be given sweeping powers to recommend the closure or reorganisation of dioceses and the scrapping of suffragan or assistant bishop posts.
The legislation was initially drawn up three years ago, partly in response to criticism that the Church was becoming increasingly top-heavy, stifling grass-roots growth.
Read moreThe crisis, while focused upon the consecration of a divorced, non-celibate homosexual having been consecrated bishop (the Church leader responsible for maintaining the teaching and witness of the Church), is only the flash point. "When you abandon one part of Holy Scripture you open the whole to be a matter of individuals picking and choosing the parts that suit their liking" said Vice-President William Ilgenfritz, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Read moreIf we succeed in capturing their churches, in most cases, the small remnant which remains will find the cost of operation and upkeep prohibitive. To sell the properties would be a public relations fiasco. I now believe it would be a better strategy to follow the policy of your predecessor, Frank Griswold, and let the property matters be merely a matter between the parish and the diocese.
Read moreWe look forward to working with Archbishop Nzimbi, Bishop-elect Atwood and this new pastoral initiative from the Anglican Church of Kenya. We pledge our ongoing prayers and enthusiastic support and cooperation through CANA - a missionary initiative of the Church of Nigeria already established in North America.
Read moreThe archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently sent out invitations to the Lambeth Conference (the once-every-ten-years meeting of all the Anglican bishops), and there are several names not on the list-most notably, Gene Robinson, the actively gay bishop of New Hampshire, and Martyn Minns, the American who recently was installed by the Nigerian church as bishop of a new group in the United States called CANA, one of several collections of conservative parishes that have broken from th
Read moreThe revolutionary changes we seek are matters of human rights and social justice. We in The Episcopal Church are better informed than those who went before in discerning God's hidden plan for his Church. The Holy Spirit guides us and sets us free from the past, so all we do will be consistent with the will of God. If some in our church resist our prophetic changes, we will push the change ahead anyway to demonstrate the rightness of our views.
Read moreIs the church to be a saint, of unvariegated goodness? A saint is a person who lived a long time ago and has never been adequately researched. The church may be a place where we can bump into a saint or two. We are all saints of course by virtue of belonging to Christ. But we often fail to be Christlike.
Read moreWe need to address our understanding of ourselves and of all of our relationships - starting with our relationship with God and continuing - flowing - inevitably into our relationships with each other. For this reason, I strongly support the conclusion of the St. Michael Report that the issue is in fact a matter of doctrine not just of pastoral care.
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