VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 22

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VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest
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Today's Topics:

1. Table of Contents (David Virtue)
2. VIEWPOINTS: June 16, 2017 (David Virtue)
3. Closing Time for the Episcopalians (David Virtue)
4. DALLAS: Bishop Ray Sutton installed as new Presiding Bishop
of the Reformed Episcopal Church (David Virtue)
5. GAFCON Chairman Clashes with Archbishop Welby over Boundary
Crossing (David Virtue)
6. Good Disagreement, Generous Orthodoxy, the Nomenclature of
Anglican Fudge (David Virtue)
7. Welby to GAFCON Archbishops, "I do not consider the
appointment of a 'Missionary Bishop' to be necessary" (David Virtue)
8. UK: Evangelical Bishop of Maidstone Lowers Boom on Scottish
Episcopal Church (David Virtue)
9. IRELAND: Bishop says Scottish church's move on gay marriage
'a way forward' (David Virtue)
10. Welby goes to war over 'anti-gay' bishop plot by
traditionalists after historic marriage vote in Scotland
(David Virtue)
11. Conservative parishes declare 'no confidence' in Archbishop
of Canterbury (David Virtue)
12. Christian Lesbian Rock Star Vicky Beeching Given Award by
Archbishop of Canterbury (David Virtue)
13. ROME, Italy: Pro-Abort Anglican Philosopher Appointed to
Pontifical Academy for Life (David Virtue)
14. Strangers in a Strange Land: Christianity and Contemporary
Culture (David Virtue)
15. Christian violence is a figment of Welby's imagination
(David Virtue)
16. Scottish primus defends gay marriage vote (David Virtue)
17. EGYPT: "We can't keep up with the insatiable desire of Copts
to have a Bible" (David Virtue)
18. What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On (David Virtue)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 22:55:34 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Table of Contents
Message-ID:
<1497581734.2422631....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest - Desktop & Mobile Edition
www.virtueonline.org
June 16, 2017

*************************************
VIEWPOINTS
*************************************

1. Lambeth Palace Under Siege * Boundary Crossing Critiqued by Welby *
Nigerian Primate challenges Welby...
http://www.virtueonline.org/lambeth-palace-under-siege-boundary-crossing-critiqued-welby-nigerian-primate-challenges-welby-over


*********************************************
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
*********************************************

2. Closing Time for the Episcopalian
http://www.virtueonline.org/closing-time-episcopalians


******************************************************
ANGLICAN NEWS IN NORTH AMERICA
******************************************************

3. DALLAS: Bishop Ray Sutton installed as new Presiding Bishop of the
Ref..
http://www.virtueonline.org/dallas-bishop-ray-sutton-installed-new-presiding-bishop-reformed-episcopal-church


*********************************************
GLOBAL ANGLICAN NEWS
*********************************************

4. GAFCON Chairman Clashes with Archbishop Welby over Boundary Crossing
http://www.virtueonline.org/gafcon-chairman-clashes-archbishop-welby-over-boundary-crossing

5. Good Disagreement, Generous Orthodoxy, the Nomenclature of Anglican
Fudge
http://www.virtueonline.org/good-disagreement-generous-orthodoxy-nomenclature-anglican-fudge

6. Welby To GAFCON Archbishops, "I Do Not Consider The Appointment Of A
"Missionary Bishop" To Be Necessary"
http://www.virtueonline.org/welby-gafcon-archbishops-i-do-not-consider-appointment-missionary-bishop-be-necessary

7. UK: Evangelical Bishop of Maidstone Lowers Boom on Scottish Episcopal
Church
http://www.virtueonline.org/uk-evangelical-bishop-maidstone-lowers-boom-scottish-episcopal-church

8.IRELAND: Bishop says Scottish church's move on gay marriage a way
forward
http://www.virtueonline.org/ireland-bishop-says-scottish-churchs-move-gay-marriage-way-forward

9.Welby goes to war over 'anti-gay' bishop plot by traditionalists after
historic marriage vote in Scotland
http://www.virtueonline.org/welby-goes-war-over-anti-gay-bishop-plot-traditionalists-after-historic-marriage-vote-scotland


*********************************************
CHURCH OF ENGLAND NEWS
*********************************************

10. Conservative parishes declare 'no confidence' in Archbishop of
Canterbury
http://www.virtueonline.org/conservative-parishes-declare-no-confidence-archbishop-canterbury

11. Christian Lesbian Rock Star Vicky Beeching Given Award by Archbishop
of Canterbury
http://www.virtueonline.org/christian-lesbian-rock-star-vicky-beeching-given-award-archbishop-canterbury


********************************
CULTURE WARS
********************************

12. ROME, Italy: Pro-Abort Anglican Philosopher Appointed to Pontifical
Academy for life
http://www.virtueonline.org/rome-italy-pro-abort-anglican-philosopher-appointed-pontifical-academy-life

13. Strangers in a Strange Land: Christianity and Contemporary Culture
http://www.virtueonline.org/strangers-strange-land-christianity-and-contemporary-culture


********************************
AS EYE SEE IT
********************************

14.Christian violence is a figment of Welby's imagination
http://www.virtueonline.org/christian-violence-figment-welbys-imagination

15.Scottish primus defends gay marriage vote
http://www.virtueonline.org/scottish-primus-defends-gay-marriage-vote

16. EGYPT: "We can't keep up with the insatiable desire of Copts to have
the bible
http://www.virtueonline.org/egypt-we-cant-keep-insatiable-desire-copts-have-bible

17.What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On
http://www.virtueonline.org/what-scottish-episcopal-church-voting


END



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:00:06 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: VIEWPOINTS: June 16, 2017
Message-ID:
<1497582006.2424083....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

A new perspective on sin and alienation: Genesis 3. Divisions are the
result of sin! When sin entered the world, it brought 4 levels of
alienation:
alienation from God: spiritual problems
alienation from self: psychological problems
alienation from the other: social problems
alienation from nature: ecological problems

A complete, full gospel will be a gospel that will continually analyze
the situation of each community in terms of these 4 levels of alienation
and bring a relevant message until change happens. -- Rediscovering the
Gospel Of Reconciliation by Antoine Rutayisire

Consider Methodists and Episcopalians, two Christian denominations whose
congregants have relatively similar political compositions, with 43
percent and 55 percent identifying as Democrats, respectively, according
to the Cooperative Congressional Election Survey. But their pastors'
politics are quite different. While Methodist pastors are just as split
as their congregants, Episcopalian pastors are strongly Democratic,
roughly equivalent to Hawaii or Washington, D.C., in terms of
partisanship. --- Kevin Quealy, NYT

Two men can't enter the state of holy matrimony any more than two
screwdrivers can. --- Daniel Oliver, The Washington Times

The very first priority. The very first thing which needs to be said
about Christian ministers of all kinds is that they are 'under' people
(as their servants) rather than 'over' them (as their leaders, let alone
their lords). Jesus made this absolutely plain. The chief characteristic
of Christian leaders, he insisted, is humility not authority, and
gentleness not power. --- John R.W. Stott

Some may ask, can't homosexuals be Christians? Of course they can. And
so can bank robbers. And adulterers. But they can't put on their calling
cards "Christian bank robber" or "Christian adulterer." If those are
their sins, they should try to deal with them, not try to normalize
them. --- Daniel Oliver, The Washington Times

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." --- Corrie
Ten Boom

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
June 16, 2017

It's been another bad week for the occupant at Lambeth Palace. Once
again Archbishop Justin Welby found himself in the crosshairs over
same-sex marriage, a group of disillusioned Global South (GAFCON)
primates, boundary crossing, and more failed reconciliation attempts.

Perhaps he thought he could pick up where his predecessor Rowan Williams
left off and perform the miracle of turning discord into reconciliation;
water into wine would have been easier. All his reconciliation attempts
are falling apart faster than an old IKEA dresser. The harder he tries,
the worse it all becomes. He would probably do better selling oil
futures on the London Stock Exchange; after all he has had some
experience in that industry. The Covenant is deader than a dodo bird. It
will not be resurrected with any power or force.

First of all, he refused to weigh in on the Scottish Episcopal Church's
decision to change its canons to allow same-sex marriage, saying it was
none of his business. The SEC was another province and he wasn't going
to tell them what to do. Welby was simply unwilling to do anything. A
Pilate-like approach. Wash your hands, but make sure the towel is clean.

Then, on the day the SEC went ahead and changed its canons to
accommodate pansexualists, US Anglican Primate, Foley Beach, held a
press conference under the aegis of GAFCON in Edinburgh and announced
that Canon Andy Lines would be consecrated a new GAFCON bishop for
Europe. http://tinyurl.com/y9wodlgc

On Friday, June 30, 2017, Lines will be consecrated in Wheaton, Illinois
(USA), at the Third Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North
America (ACNA), by the Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach, Presiding. The
consecrating Bishops will be acting on behalf of the Global Anglican
Future Conference (GAFCON).

Suddenly, Welby got incensed at this boundary crossing and said so. He
gave his "I am not amused" speech, and sniffed, "I do not consider the
appointment of a 'Missionary Bishop' to be necessary". You can read that
story here: http://tinyurl.com/yc79go9z

GAFCON Chairman Nicholas Okoh, Primate of Nigeria, the largest province
in the Anglican Communion, fought back and, in a statement, likened the
border crossing to the battle fought by Arius and Athanasius in the
fourth century.

The Archbishop said it was not a step taken lightly, and from the
beginning GAFCON has been committed to standing with the marginalized.
Okoh went on to say that requests for help from Scottish orthodox
leaders to the Archbishop of Canterbury were turned down. Indeed, the
Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church told his General Synod last year
that the Archbishop of Canterbury had assured him that he would welcome
the Scottish Church to the 2020 Lambeth Conference even if it chose to
change its marriage canon to include same sex unions. In fact, it left
the GAFCON leaders no alternative but to act, and act they did. You can
read that here: http://tinyurl.com/yckr8mrb

The evangelical Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt. Rev. Rod Thomas, says he
will no longer meet with bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church
following that Church's change to its marriage canons.

In a written statement, Thomas said the decision by the Scottish
Episcopal Church (SEC) to change its marriage canons to allow same-sex
marriages in church is very serious. "By its actions it is denying the
goodness and authority of God's Word to us in the Scriptures. As a
result, it is breaking communion with the majority of Anglicans
worldwide. This leaves me with no choice but to recognize that the SEC
has walked away from our communion.

Further pushback came when a number of churches in the Church of
England, including St. Elisabeth's, Becontree and St. George's, Dagenham
passed votes of no confidence in their bishops and the archbishops.

Susie Leafe, Director of REFORM, wrote that this is a further
articulation of the concerns that Reform members throughout England have
already effectively expressed in a range of ways.

"Where bishops and archbishops of the Church of England are negligent in
the discharge of their God-given responsibilities, to the extent that
whole congregations have no confidence in them, it is inevitable that
they will seek Episcopal oversight elsewhere.

"Accordingly, we deeply regret the Archbishop of Canterbury's failure to
welcome the GAFCON bishops' decision to send a Missionary Bishop to
Europe. With less than 2% of the population of England regularly
attending an Anglican Church, we would have hoped that he would have
welcomed most warmly any missionary assistance on offer."

By the end of the week, parishes across England were declaring "no
confidence" in the Archbishop of Canterbury.

You can also read my commentary, Good Disagreement, Generous Orthodoxy,
the Nomenclature of Anglican Fudge, that attempts to pull together the
great anomalies of Anglicanism by very smart Anglican leaders, who try
to confuse ordinary folk like myself with a lot of high-sounding talk
and episcobabble designed to confuse the laity in the hope that they
won't see the woods for the trees. http://tinyurl.com/ybqpfyyg

Some other links to consider and view:

Churches vote of no confidence:
http://anglicanmainstream.org/essex-churches-pass-motions-of-no-confidence-in-unbiblical-leadership-of-archbishops-of-canterbury-and-york/

For attendance figures of Church of England see here
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2016/10/2015-attendance-statistics-published.aspx

For attendance figures of Scottish Episcopal Church--see p71
http://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/32nd-Annual-Report-for-the-year-ended-31-December-2014.pdf

*****

In an entirely different Anglican universe, a conference, Living
Sacrifices: Repentance, Reconciliation, and Renewal, co-hosted by
Nashotah House and The Living Church on the "The missio Dei of
communion: Anglicanism, change, and synodality", Dr. Ephraim Radner
raised the possibility of an Anglican synod, "as a way of life
together."

"We need to find a way to articulate [the Communion's divinely given
mission] so as to concretize not just an idea but the practical means of
moving into the ecclesial center of God's life in Christ. This means not
just conceiving of our ecclesial communion as a state of being, but of
ongoing common activity that leads ever more fully into what are, for
God, his finished works, but what are for us a pathway that follows,
that is given to us from God in the actual forms of Christ's body and
words and deeds. This is the movement of discipleship. Communion must be
a way of moving closer and closer to the finish line, but more and more
living like Christ through more and more Passion, more and more Gospel,
more and more Israel. This is the missio Dei, not as a condition or set
of principles; rather as a person moving in the world drawing others
with him," he said.

I have heard this offered up once before in Singapore, but it came to
nothing and one suspects it will come to nothing again. Councils of the
church demand not only obedience, but firm principles to move forward
together that ALL will abide by. But recent events this week in England
indicate that the Anglican Communion is actually becoming more polarized
and more fractured, which makes me wonder if these folks are living on
another Anglican planet from the one I live on.

*****

The ACNA will hold its once-every-three years ACNA Provincial Assembly
later this month. This time at Wheaton College, Illinois, June 27-30.
http://missiononourdoorstep.com/registration/

So, who goes to Assembly and why? Small group leaders and members of the
church vestry. Your congregation is part of something bigger than
itself. Leaders will bring back tools to help their own churches
participate in the larger mission of the Anglican Church in North
America and Anglicans worldwide.

Youth groups. A fully programmed youth track for junior high and high
schoolers is being planned through Anglican Youth, including an optional
post-Assembly trip to Chicago to experience urban missions.

Healing & pastoral care teams. The 'Equipped to Heal' prayer training
school sub-conference is available for those leading and interested in
pastoral care in your parish.
Campus ministers. Reach college students in your city with special
equipping sessions. Greenhouse Campus Fellowship wants to help you own
the campuses near you and help today's students become tomorrow's
leaders.

Missional church advocates. The assembly theme this year, "Mission on
Our Doorstep" is emphasizing our responsibility to gospel mission in our
neighborhoods through church planting, evangelism, Biblical social
justice, and more. Come to be inspired and equipped for mission on your
doorstep.
Songwriters and worship leaders. Special tracks are designed for
musicians from around the province to network.

Chaplains. Anglican Chaplains is holding its Training Symposium and
Convocation beforehand and concurrently with Assembly 2017.

Latino congregations and ministry leaders. A fully-integrated
sub-conference in Spanish is sponsored by Caminemos Juntos (the Anglican
Latino church planting movement), with simultaneous translation of the
main plenary sessions.

Those invested in the future of the ACNA. Assembly 2017 is another step
in the deep partnership between the ACNA and GAFCON provinces. Come and
see how a historic partnership between Anglicans in the Global South and
North America is poised to reach the whole world with the authentic
gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of the speakers include Bishop William Beasley, the perennial
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and missiologist Ed Stetzer.

*****

The Diocese of Truro in England recently advertised for a Mission
leader, but "You do not need to be a practicing Christian", said the Ad.

"Mission goes out from God. Mission is God's way of loving and saving
the world," so declared the Church of England at the 1998 Lambeth
Conference. This quotation leads the church's Mission and Evangelism
page on its website, along with a brief exposition of its missiology:

As Christians, we follow Jesus who said "As the Father has sent me, so I
send you." (John 20.21). We are called to serve God's mission by living
and proclaiming the good news.

"It's not the church of God that has a mission, but the God of mission
who has a church".

For Anglican Christians, God's mission is about transformation --
transforming individual lives, transforming communities and transforming
the world. As we follow Jesus Christ, we believe that God's mission is
revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in three ways:

Apparently not.

The Diocese of Truro (strapline: "Discovering God's Kingdom / Growing
the Church") is advertising for a Strategic Programme Manager who will
be responsible for "the strategic leadership of the Transforming Mission
programme". This post is not simply managerial, but one of leadership.
They specify to potential applicants: "You do not need to be a
practicing Christian"

Blogger Archbishop Cranmer rightly asked; Since when did Church of
England leaders not need to be practicing Christians?

Another blogger asked, "How this faithless missioner will increase faith
is not explained. But one can be sure that the mealy-mouthed
managerial-speak in which the job is described will have alienated any
red-blooded Christian at the mere reading of it.

"The unbelieving applicant would, nevertheless, need to be 'sympathetic
to the aims and objectives of the Church of England'. Whatever they may
be. The same tolerant and inclusive language will no doubt be useful in
the forthcoming appointment of a new bishop."

*****

Polygamy and an African Archbishop. Two concerned Anglican leaders took
exception to a charge that the late Archbishop David Gitari was
polygamous and supported polygamy. Dr. Vinay Samuel and Dr. Chris Sugden
wrote a Letter to the Church of England Newspaper protesting Anglican
lesbian Jayne Ozanne for suggesting that he did. Here is what they
wrote:

Sir,

Jayne Ozanne on mainstream TV and on Facebook has alleged that
Archbishop David Gitari of Kenya was himself polygamous (later
withdrawn) and supported polygamy. May we quote from his own
autobiography, Troubled but not Destroyed (ISAAC Publishing, 2014 p
157-158):

"I appealed (to the 1988 Lambeth Conference) to revisit the decision of
the 1888 Lambeth Conference, which had resolved that "persons living in
polygamy be not admitted to baptism, but that they be kept under
Christian instruction until such a time as they shall be in a position
to accept the law of Christ." The conference agreed to review the
resolution and resolved that people who were polygamists before becoming
Christians should be baptized with their wives and children after
further instruction. Putting away all wives except one should not be a
condition for baptism. (See further David M. Gitari "The Church and
Polygamy", Transformation Magazine, Vol 1. No. 1. January -- March 1984,
Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, www.ocms.ac.uk)"

Reducing theological Issues to ad hominem comments exposes an
unwillingness to discuss the theological, moral, health, social science
and scientific issues in the debate about human sexuality and marriage.
African bishops are thousands of miles away from the TV studios, or, in
Archbishop Gitari's case, dead, where these allegations are made and
have more important things to do than respond to Facebook posts making
unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations about them. This current form
of debate is no way for those claiming to be leaders of communities of
interest to behave.

Yours sincerely,

Vinay Samuel Canon, St Paul's Cathedral Embu, Kenya;
Chris Sugden, Canon, St Luke's Cathedral, Jos, Nigeria and St Anselm's
Cathedral, Sunyani, Ghana.

*****

An Alabama judge has ordered the corporation of the Episcopal Church,
called the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS), and former
Chief Operating Officer Bishop Stacy Sauls to engage in state-mandated
mediation, according to an ENS report.

Mobile County 13th Judicial District Judge Ben Brooks' June 12 order
came after he had heard oral arguments on the Church's request that he
dismiss a lawsuit Sauls filed after he was let go from his post. Brooks
told the parties to submit proposed orders on the dismissal motion by
July 14.

The suit against the DFMS and an unspecified number of unnamed
defendants associated with the Church claims that Presiding Bishop
Michael Curry's decision to replace him as chief operating officer had
damaged his reputation and has made it difficult, if not impossible, for
him to be employed elsewhere in the Church. The Church had argued that
the case did not belong in the Alabama courts but, instead, in New York
where Sauls was based as COO.

Brooks also said in his order that the parties in the lawsuit must
submit to the sort of mediation that Alabama requires in civil lawsuits.
Brooks appointed Michael Upchurch, an Alabama lawyer and mediator, to
lead that process. Upchurch must finish the mediation and report to
Brooks by Aug. 18.

Upchurch attends St. James Episcopal Church in Fairhope, Alabama,
according to his profile on the website of the Mobile law firm Frazer,
Greene, Upchurch, and Baker.

Sauls filed suit in early February, nearly a year after Curry relieved
him of his job. In announcing the lawsuit, the presiding bishop said
that, in consultation with legal counsel, he had "tried his best to
negotiate a severance with Bishop Sauls." Curry said he made "a good
faith and compassionate offer, but that offer was not accepted.

'The presiding bishop also said that "as a steward of church resources",
he could not go beyond that offer and explain it in good conscience to
the Church.

*****

On my rock star, I will build my church of good disagreement. This might
just as swell be the mantra of Archbishop Justin Welby, who seems hell
bent on endorsing anything pansexual.

Controversial Christian rock star, Vicky Beeching, who in 2014 came out
as a lesbian and argued that God loves her "just the way I am," has
received an award by the head of the Anglican Communion for her
contributions to worship music.

Beeching, who claims to be a theologian and media commentator, hit back
against online criticism from conservative Christians who argued that
her pro-LGBT convictions disqualify her from such an award.

The rock star has been posting throughout the week about her experiences
of being presented with the Thomas Cranmer Award for Worship by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, last week.

*****

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In Christ,

David



------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:00:40 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Closing Time for the Episcopalians
Message-ID:
<1497582040.2424777....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Closing Time for the Episcopalians
A Washington, DC Episcopal parish yields to identity politics
St. Paul's-K Street will perform same-sex marriage

By Daniel Oliver
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/
June 13, 2017

The Episcopal Church must take immortality seriously. How else explain
the amazing things it does that will certainly hasten its demise?

Washington, D.C., has two prominent, historic Anglo-Catholic parishes,
the Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes, and St. Paul's Parish, known
colloquially as St. Paul's-K Street. An Anglo-Catholic parish is one
that continues to accept much of the Roman Catholic faith and doctrine
as well as its liturgical form, while tending, as Catholic theologian
Ronald Knox conceded, to be better at liturgical drama.

But now one of Washington's two Anglo-Catholic parishes has gone over to
the dark side. St. Paul's-K Street has decided to bless homosexual
marriages. A notice in a recent bulletin read: "Flowers on the High
Altar this Sunday are given by Samuel Smith and Michael 'Tricks" Molte
(names changed) to the greater glory of Almighty God and in thanksgiving
for the Blessing of their Civil Marriage which will be celebrated in
this parish to which all members of the parish are invited."

Your servant was unable to attend the ceremony due to a subsequent
engagement as well as his inability to lay his hands quickly on a
neutron bomb -- one benefit of which would have been (inter alia, as the
prosecutor at the trial might have put it) to relieve the parish from
the embarrassment of performing a vain, insulting and frankly ridiculous
act. Two men can't enter the state of holy matrimony any more than two
screwdrivers can.

The Episcopal Church began losing its way in the '60s with the move to
ditch Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer in favor of a
newspeak version, and it fell into the identity politics trap when it
decided that women could be priests. There are still a few holdout
parishes, but they are under heavy assault.

Parish activity expands to spend all funds available. Parishes are,
therefore, always in danger of not making their budgets. If there are
two or three big donors who say they'll go elsewhere if the parish
doesn't accept women priests, what's a poor rector to do? Should he,
like Samson, pull the temple down on all heads? How does he argue with
the big pledgers who say that the women in town "feel" the parish is
anti-woman because it won't allow women priests? Most of the other
Episcopal churches allow women priests -- why not St. Phillinthename's?

Here are two arguments a rector could try:

"Look, I've studied this for my whole life. I know more about the
substance of this issue than you do. Do you really want to be out of
step with the Catholic Church? If you accept women priests, you can't
describe yourself as any kind of Catholic, which you do every time you
say that part of the Nicene Creed which reads: 'I believe one holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church.'

"There are 1.2 billion Catholics, 260 million Eastern Orthodox
Christians (give or take 50 million), 83 million Anglicans, but only
three million Episcopalians -- about .02 percent of all Christians.
That's the same percentage of Americans living in Vermont.

"What would you say about a Hilton Hotels vice president who told a
civil engineer hired to design a hotel in Vermont, 'Don't build in any
margin of safety. We don't care what the practice is in the rest of
America. We want to do this the Vermont way.' You'd say, 'He must be an
Episcopalian.' "

As his second option, a rector under assault by the women of the town
might respond:

"Ladies, what do the following people all have in common? Dorothy Day,
Faye Dunaway, Susan Hayward, Clare Boothe Luce, Patricia Neal, Kirsten
Powers, Edith Sitwell, Alice B. Toklas, Ann Widdecombe, and Katherine,
Duchess of Kent?

"They were all accomplished women, prominent in their fields, who
converted to Catholicism as adults. Would they have done that if the
church were anti-woman? The church whose first saint was a woman?"

What the rector of an Episcopal Church has to realize is that if he
accepts women priests, the homosexual lobby will soon be all over him to
force him to bless homosexual marriages.

But, some may ask, can't homosexuals be Christians? Of course they can.
And so can bank robbers. And adulterers. But they can't put on their
calling cards "Christian bank robber" or "Christian adulterer." If those
are their sins, they should try to deal with them, not try to normalize
them.

But it's much easier, of course, to become a parishioner of an
Anglo-Catholic parish that has gone over to the dark side, of which
there is now, unfortunately, one more in Washington, D.C., for a while,
anyway -- until closing time.

-----------------------

Daniel Oliver is chairman of the Education and Research Institute and a
director of Citizens for the Republic. He is a descendent of Samuel
Seabury, the first American Episcopal bishop



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:01:24 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: DALLAS: Bishop Ray Sutton installed as new Presiding Bishop
of the Reformed Episcopal Church
Message-ID:
<1497582084.2424881....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

DALLAS: Bishop Ray Sutton installed as new Presiding Bishop of the
Reformed Episcopal Church

http://anglicanchurch.net/?/main/page/1471
June 15, 2017

Bishop Ray Sutton was installed as the 17th Presiding Bishop of the
Reformed Episcopal Church at Holy Communion pro-cathedral in Dallas on
June 15, 2017.

Archbishop Foley Beach gives thanks for the installation of Bishop Ray
Sutton as Presiding Bishop

What a privilege to be here today to Install Bishop Ray Sutton as the
17th Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church!

This is a man, like many of you, that I have come to deeply respect,
love, and honor as a father in the Lord.

His compassion, his scholarship, his vision, and his desire for unity in
the Body of Jesus Christ makes him the ideal person to servant-lead the
Reformed Episcopal Church in this next season.

He has been a blessing to our Province serving as the Dean of the
Province and also as the Dean of Ecumenical Affairs.

As an integral part of the Province of the Anglican Church in North
America, the Reformed Episcopal Church brings a depth of spiritual,
historical, and ecclesiastical substance to the ACNA.

And I am grateful to have a such a man as Bishop Sutton at the helm.

I hope you will join me in interceding for him (and Susan) in an
intentional and on a regular basis.

He took over the leadership of the REC and the Diocese of Mid-America on
24 November 2016 upon the death of the Most Rev. Royal U. Grote, Jr.

More on Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton

The Most Rev. Ray R. Sutton serves as the Presiding Bishop of the
Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) and the Ordinary of the Diocese of Mid
America. He is also the Dean of the Province and Ecumenical Affairs of
the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), of which the Reformed
Episcopal Church is a founding member and special jurisdiction. Bishop
Sutton often lectures at ACNA and Reformed Episcopal Seminaries, and is
a popular retreat speaker.

A native of Kentucky and a Dallas resident since he was 13, Bishop
Sutton received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist
University and his Masters of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary.
>From 1976 to 1991, he served as a parish minister. Following this, he
pursued doctoral studies in an associated research program at Wycliffe
Hall, Oxford with Coventry University, from which he received his Ph.D.

He became the Dean and Professor of New Testament at the Reformed
Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia, and continues as an adjunct
professor today. Later, Bishop Sutton functioned as Dean and Professor
of Theology at Cranmer Theological House, where he continues to teach.
He has also authored four books on theology, his most recent being
Signed, Sealed and Delivered: A Study of Holy Baptism.

Bishop Sutton is married to Susan Jean Schaerdel of Dallas, a fellow
graduate of Southern Methodist University. The Suttons have seven
children and four grandchildren. The Suttons live in Dallas where Bishop
Sutton's residential offices are at the Pro Cathedral of the Church of
the Holy Communion.

END



------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:02:05 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: GAFCON Chairman Clashes with Archbishop Welby over Boundary
Crossing
Message-ID:
<1497582125.2424962....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

GAFCON Chairman Clashes with Archbishop Welby over Boundary Crossing
Athanasius consecrated orthodox bishops...because he knew that the
apostolic faith itself was at stake
The creation of a missionary bishop for Europe is an historic moment,
says Archbishop Nicholas Okoh

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 15, 2017

GAFCON chairman and Nigerian Primate, Nicholas Okoh, clashed with
Archbishop Justin Welby over the recent passage of a resolution by the
Scottish Episcopal Church to redefine marriage to include same-sex
couples, resulting in the announcement that GAFCON would ordain a bishop
to provide episcopal oversight for bishops and clergy who believed that
such actions betray the faith once received.

Welby wrote to the GAFCON Archbishops saying he did not consider the
appointment of a "Missionary Bishop" in the person of Andy Lines to be
necessary and berated the Primates for "cross-border intervention",
arguing that it was not a Church of England appointment and therefore
carried no weight in the Church of England.

"Historically, there has been resistance to cross-border interventions
and ordinations from the earliest years of the universal Church's
existence. Such weighty authority as canons 15 and 16 of the first
Council of Nicaea in AD 325 are uncompromising in this regard and make
reference to the 'great disturbance and discords that occur' when
bishops and their clergy seek to minister in this way," wrote Welby.

The Nigerian Primate fired back, saying that what happened in Scotland
was similar to the clash between the heretic Arius and Athanasius in the
fourth century, which nearly overwhelmed the church by the Arians, but
was rescued by Athanasius.

"If the Church had continued to follow Arius, the Christian faith would
have been lost. I am reminded of Athanasius because we are facing a
similar struggle for the integrity of the gospel in our time. On
Thursday, 8th June, the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) changed its
teaching to allow men to be married to men and women to women. It
followed the path already taken by the Episcopal Church of the United
States (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada.

"This attempt to redefine marriage is not a secondary issue about which
we can agree to disagree and continue to walk together. It means that
Jesus was mistaken when he taught that marriage was between a man and a
woman and that sex outside of such a marriage is a sin. It is a radical
rejection of the authority of Scripture. The Church claims that it can
consecrate behavior that God's Word clearly teaches to be sinful.
According to the Bible, this behavior, without repentance, separates
those who practice it from his kingdom.

"Athanasius consecrated orthodox bishops in dioceses led by Arians
because he knew that the apostolic faith itself was at stake. This was
the principle guiding the interventions which led to the formation of
the Anglican Church in North America in 2009 and it was affirmed by over
three hundred bishops in assembly at GAFCON 2013 in Nairobi. It was
therefore very appropriate that on the same day that the Scottish
Episcopal Church formally turned aside from the historic Christian
faith, GAFCON announced that Canon Andy Lines, already an
internationally recognized missionary statesman, will be consecrated
later this month as a GAFCON missionary bishop for Europe."

Archbishop Okoh said it was not a step taken lightly, and from the
beginning GAFCON has been committed to standing with the marginalized.
"Requests for help from Scottish orthodox leaders to the Archbishop of
Canterbury were turned down. Indeed, the Primus of the Scottish
Episcopal Church told his General Synod last year that the Archbishop of
Canterbury had assured him that he would welcome the Scottish Church to
the 2020 Lambeth Conference even if it chose to change its marriage
canon to include same sex unions."

Archbishop Okoh said GAFCON stands ready to recognize and support
orthodox Anglicans in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe as the drift away
from apostolic faith and order continues.

"For reasons of mission and conscience, we can expect to find a growing
number of orthodox Anglican congregations needing oversight outside
traditional structures, as is already the case with the Anglican Mission
in England.

"The creation of a missionary bishop for Europe is an historic moment.
It is a recognition that the era of European Christendom has passed and
that in this 500th anniversary year of the Reformation, a new start is
being made by building global partnerships for mission."

Okoh called on orthodox Anglicans to stand with the marginalized and to
work tirelessly for the continuing reformation of our "beloved
Communion."

END



------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:04:44 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Good Disagreement, Generous Orthodoxy, the Nomenclature of
Anglican Fudge
Message-ID:
<1497582284.2425649....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Good Disagreement, Generous Orthodoxy, the Nomenclature of Anglican
Fudge

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 14, 2017

One of the great anomalies of Anglicanism is that it has a whole lot of
very smart and very bright people who know how to use language in such a
way as to confuse ordinary lay folk like myself.

Now I know why Jesus chose 12 largely unlettered fishermen to be his
first disciples, because they learned early on to call their yea, yea
and their nay, nay. No fudge. Did the ascension happen? Yes, we saw him
go up out of sight and there were 500 witnesses. No fudge. When Jesus
said He (meaning God)
"made them male and female" he closed the sexual matrix door and never
opened it again. No fudge.

Probably the smartest of Anglican fudgists (my word) was Rowan Williams,
who literally made words mean what he wanted them to mean and, by doing
so, made sure that no one really understood what the blazes he was
talking about. This meant, of course, that he was brilliant and full of
wisdom. Allegedly. But he didn't fool the likes of Nigerian Primate
Nicholas Okoh, who saw through Williams' multiplicity of words and
called him on it, just as Rowan was told politely to leave Lambeth
Palace and high tail it to academe, where he can now fudge his students
for the rest of his life and theirs. Here is what Okoh said; "You have
left behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly
factionalized, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness." No
fudge.

Was Arius a heretic, just ask Rowan, but for a contra view ask Bishop
Mouneer Anis of Egypt, who actually holds a different view from than
that of Rowan Williams. According to Anis the schismatic, heretical
Arians and their modern counterparts, (in TEC) will die out, the
orthodox will flourish and grow.

The only absolute the former Archbishop of Canterbury seemed to have was
his hatred of orthodox Anglicans, even though he claimed affinity in his
views with the Russian Orthodox Church. He was also opposed to abortion,
but supported homosexuality.

Now we come to the latest occupant of Lambeth Palace, a man who rode in
on the white horse of evangelicalism, but who has done nothing but
disappoint evangelicals ever since he got the job. Justin Welby has done
the impossible and unthinkable. While claiming Holy Trinity, Brompton,
as his spiritual home and ALPHA as his point of embarkation to new life
in Christ, he has, almost from Day One, disappointed the very
constituency who were waiting to rally around him and who had high hopes
for renewal and revival following the lamentable reign of Williams of
Oystermouth.

It was not to be. He has forever defined, and taken to new levels, the
meaning of Anglican fudge.

Does he believe sodomy is good and right in the eyes of God? Well, that
depends on how you ask the question. Does feeling the alleged pain of
homosexuals warrant a full court press on homophobia, a word made up by
pansexualists against anyone who opposes their behavior. And why not say
"homosexual behavior" rather than the more generic "homosexuality",
because by doing so you can fudge the answer and accuse people who
disagree with homosexuality of being homophobic. It's a game of words,
much like the word Islamophobia. People rightly fear Islamic extremists
and terrorists and should be allowed to say so without being yelled at
for being Islamophobes.

Welby even said that if one of his sons was to announce he was gay, he
would go to his marriage, shutting the door on reparative therapy, even
though there are thousands of now happily married couples who can
testify otherwise. (There used to be full-page ads in major US
newspapers attesting to that until they were denied the right to
advertise the fact because of the incessant cries of homophobia by the
gay lobby.) And don't get me started on Proposition 8.

Sources now tell VOL that Welby's attitude and behavior has become like
"a thug" in dealing with any opposition to his Anglican reconciliation
views on which he has poured out his diminishing capital.

And the harder he tries, the worse it all becomes. He had Canon David
Porter, his first reconciler-in-chief but he got pushed upstairs and the
job is now in the hands of a woman, Sarah Snyder his new Advisor for
Reconciliation. Bishop Graham Kings, Welby's theological reconciler, The
Anglican Communion's ACC reconciler, Josiah Idouw-Fearon, along with a
host of moderate corporatist bishops are all pushing the cause of
reconciliation. However, the harder they all push, the worse it all
becomes. Witness what happened in Scotland this past week. All talk of
reconciliation sailed right out the window when the GAFCON primates
announced they will lay hands on Canon Andy Lines to provide a safe
haven for Europeans (and that includes Britain) for orthodox Anglicans
who fear the growing pansexual onslaught.

Of course, they were told that no one would be forced to marry two
queers, but I can tell your from long bitter experience that that is a
myth. Women's ordination was once optional in The Episcopal Church and
the consciences of those who disagreed would be preserved. That barely
lasted from one general convention to the next. Now no diocese can deny
a woman the "right" to serve, even a lesbian bishop no less.

As a sop to evangelicals, Welby placed a miter on the head of the Rev.
Rod Thomas to placate the conservative wing of the Church of England,
but that has clearly failed to galvanize them. To prove the point, we
have emergent movements like the Anglican Mission in England, (AMiE) a
new Anglican bishop in Jesmond and now, horror of horrors, an Anglican
bishop who has had hands laid upon him by GAFCON primates from the
Global South including Africa, South America and Sydney, Australia. No
fudge.

Welby's mantra has been "good disagreement", a laughable notion, as the
two words cancel each other out. If there's a disagreement, it can't, by
definition, be good. Not even Welby can lift the Law of
Non-Contradiction. You could try the word "good compromise", perhaps. In
truth, what we have now is just plain disagreement heading towards
schism.

The Primus of Scotland, one David Chillingworth took fudge to a new
level this week following his Church's passage of sodomite marriage.
Here is what he said, "The Communion expresses a growing spectrum of
diversity. In that context, reference to a 'majority stance' seems
misplaced. It is part of the genius of the Anglican way that we express
unity in diversity -- as we have tried to do this week in Scotland."
Pure Anglican fudge. Diversity is resulting in a slow but steady schism
and a breakdown in the Anglican Communion now being exploited by the
GAFCON primates who delighted in sticking it to the Scots and the
British by using their proxy Primate ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach! A
brilliant move incidentally because Welby couldn't accuse the Africans
of stepping on British soil. They chose an AMERICAN, the ecclesiastical
equivalent of a raised middle finger.

Another master of Anglican fudge was Frank Griswold, former TEC
Presiding Bishop. His mantra was "generous orthodoxy". By this, he
implied that if we stretched the word "orthodoxy" (right doctrine) to
include sodomy and then attach the word "generous" to it, we could all
suddenly agree on a behavior that is specifically proscribed by
Scripture. He sold it successfully to TEC's House of Bishops, who wanted
to agree with their leader. Griswold also called himself an
Anglo-Catholic, when in truth, he was an Affirming Catholic because he
embraced both pansexuality and women's ordination. Not a voice was
raised against his misuse of language.

At the end of the day, all the linguistic shenanigans will (and are)
failing. Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics are not buying it. They are
staying close to the Scriptures, 'yea and nay' and 'the faith once for
all delivered to the saints'. And they will not be moved. No fudge.

END



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:05:18 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Welby to GAFCON Archbishops, "I do not consider the
appointment of a 'Missionary Bishop' to be necessary"
Message-ID:
<1497582318.2425752....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Welby to GAFCON Archbishops, "I do not consider the appointment of a
'Missionary Bishop' to be necessary"

EXCLUSIVE

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 11, 2017

VIRTUEONLINE has obtained a copy of the letter sent by Archbishop Justin
Welby to the GAFCON primates in which he argues that the appointment of
a "missionary bishop" was not necessary.

The Church of England leader blasted the recent announcement by GAFCON
primates to ordain the Rev. Andy Lines as a bishop, and said it was not
necessary, and berated the Primates for "cross-border intervention"
arguing that it was not a Church of England appointment and therefore
carried no weight in the Church of England.

"Historically, there has been resistance to cross-border interventions
and ordinations from the earliest years of the universal Church's
existence. Such weighty authority as canons 15 and 16 of the first
Council of Nicaea in AD 325 are uncompromising in this regard and make
reference to the "great disturbance and discords that occur" when
bishops and their clergy seek to minister in this way.

"I would like to remind you of the 1988 Lambeth Conference resolution
number 72 on episcopal responsibilities and diocesan boundaries. This
resolution reaffirms the historical position of respect for diocesan
boundaries and the authority of bishops within these boundaries. It also
affirms that it is deemed inappropriate behavior for any bishops or
priest of this communion to exercise episcopal or pastoral ministry
within another diocese without first obtaining the permission and
invitation of the ecclesial authority thereof. The conclusion of this
resolution was that in order to maintain our unity, "it seems fair that
we should speak of our mutual respect for one another, and the positions
we hold, that serves as a sign of our unity."

The issue of cross-border intervention has continued to come up in
recent conversations within the Anglican Communion, and may well be
included in the agenda for the next Primates' meeting, which takes place
from2 to 7 October 2017, in Canterbury. The Anglican Communion Secretary
General, Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, has written to you concerning
arrangements for the meeting, and his staff will be in touch as further
details on the logistical and other practical arrangements emerge."

Welby concluded his letter saying he wanted to hear from them with
suggestions on items for the agenda for the Primates' Meeting "as well
as other things.

Welby signed his letter "In the peace of Christ"

HERE IS THE LETTER

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
June 2017
To
Primates of the Anglican Communion
& Moderators of the United Churches

"Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of
peace." (Ephesians 4:3) I greet you in the name of our risen Lord Jesus
Christ.

I have just returned from a fruitful visit to the Holy Land where I
visited Jordan, Israel and Palestine. During the visit, I was
continually reminded of the shout of victory of the Church, "Christ is
risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia" and how congregations have
responded, in a place of total despair, to the needs of refugees and
others less privileged in society, to the threats they face, and to the
dangers of the future.

As followers of the risen Christ, Paul's exhortation to the Church is
for it to seek to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
We are called upon to walk together in love, to be patient, humble and
gentle with each other (v.2), whilst holding clearly to the truth, and
to be attentive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

As leaders, we are called in such a time as this to shepherd God's flock
in our different Provinces and contexts. I am encouraged by what you are
all doing in challenging situations. I am mindful of the ongoing crises
and trials in the many countries of the Anglican Communion: the conflict
and famine in South Sudan, the famine in the North East of Nigeria,
pressures in the Middle East, DRC, Burundi and other countries. Let us
continue to uphold the Primates, bishops and leaders in these areas as
they respond to the needs of their people and continue to bring a
prophetic voice of hope in the midst of despair. Let us also pray for a
peaceful outcome to elections that are taking place in a number of
countries this year.

I would like to welcome Primates who have recently been appointed, and
also to offer my prayers, gratitude and best wishes to those who have or
will be standing down in the coming months. This year also sees the
inauguration of the newest Province of the Anglican Communion. The
Episcopal Church of Sudan will be inaugurated in Khartoum on 30 July
2017 as an autonomous province, and I am sure we shall all look forward
to welcoming Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo to the Primates' Meeting in
October as the first Primate of the 39th Province of the Anglican
Communion.

I wanted also to take this opportunity to formally notify you that I
have agreed to the recommendation of the Trustees of the Anglican Centre
in Rome, who had appointed Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi as Director of
the Anglican Centre in Rome (ACR), and have made him my Representative
to the Holy See. He succeeds Archbishop David Moxon, who retires in
June, and will take over from September 2017. I believe that the work of
the ACR continues to play a vital and important role for us all in the
Anglican Communion. Archbishop David has ably filled the role of
Director, and we look forward to Archbishop Bernard taking forward this
important ministry. Many of you will have known Archbishop Bernard when
he was the Primate of the Anglican Church of Burundi from 2005 until
2016.

I wrote to you last year about the call to prayer for evangelism that
the Archbishop of York and I made for 2016. We have renewed this call in
2017, and across the Church of England thousands of churches are joining
together in the time between Ascension Day and Pentecost with fervent
and focused prayer for a fresh empowering of the Holy Spirit in witness
and evangelism. This time, which we have called Thy Kingdom Come, has
captured the imagination of many Anglicans and brothers and sisters in
many other denominations around the world. My team here at Lambeth
Palace has worked hard to provide resources in six different languages.
The response globally has been overwhelming.

There are a number of Provinces of the Anglican Communion that will be
discussing issues concerning human sexuality in meetings later this
year, and I would ask that you continue to pray for them as they wrestle
with these and other issues. Following the defeat of the take note vote
at the General Synod of the Church of England, I want to reiterate that
there are no changes in the liturgy, the situation or in the rules
regarding human sexuality in the Church of England. Since the Synod in
February this year, the Church of England has established a Pastoral
Advisory Group to support and advise dioceses on pastoral approaches to
human sexuality, and the House of Bishops have agreed proposals for
developing a teaching document on marriage, relationships and human
sexuality. To be effective, the concerns of all in the Church of England
and beyond need to be taken into account by those working on Pastoral
support and advice, and those writing the teaching document. We continue
to exhort the need to work together without exclusion, in faithfulness
to the deposit of faith we have inherited, to the scriptures and the
creeds, and paying attention to the Great Commission, our call to
evangelism and sharing in the mission of God.

I believe that the example of how we addressed the separate issue of the
ordination of women to the episcopacy illustrates this; the Right
Reverend Rod Thomas' consecration as Bishop of Maidstone served to
provide episcopal oversight for those who disagreed with the ordination
of women to the episcopate. This clearly demonstrates how those with
differing views still have their place in the Church of England, and are
important in enabling the flourishing of the Church. Because of this
commitment to each other I do not consider the appointment of a
"missionary bishop" to be necessary. The idea of a "missionary bishop"
who was not a Church of England appointment, would be a cross-border
intervention and, in the absence of a Royal Mandate, would carry no
weight in the Church of England. Historically, there has been resistance
to cross-border interventions and ordinations from the earliest years of
the universal Church's existence. Such weighty authority as canons 15
and 16 of the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 are uncompromising in
this regard and make reference to the "great disturbance and discords
that occur" when bishops and their clergy seek to minister in this way.

I would also like to remind you of the 1988 Lambeth Conference
resolution number 72 on episcopal responsibilities and diocesan
boundaries. This resolution reaffirms the historical position of respect
for diocesan boundaries and the authority of bishops within these
boundaries. It also affirms that it is deemed inappropriate behaviour
for any bishop or priest of this Communion to exercise episcopal or
pastoral ministry within another diocese without first obtaining the
permission and invitation of the ecclesial authority thereof. The
conclusion of this resolution was that in order to maintain our unity,
"it seems fair that we should speak of our mutual respect for one
another, and the positions we hold, that serves as a sign ofour unity".

The issue of cross-border interventions has continued to come up in
recent conversations within the Anglican Communion, and may well be
something that is included in the agenda for the next Primates' meeting,
which takes place from 2 to 7 October 2017, in Canterbury. The Anglican
Communion Secretary General, Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, has written
to you concerning arrangements for the meeting, and his staff will be in
touch as further details on the logistical and other practical
arrangements emerge.

In the meantime, I would like to hear from you with suggestions on items
for the agenda for our meeting. Do please send these to me and copy in
Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon. I am hoping to be making calls to each
one of you over the next few months, when we might discuss the agenda
for the Primates' Meeting as well as other things, and one of my staff
will be in touch with your office with suggested dates and times when we
might speak. aznv

The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby

Archbishop of Canterbury



------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:05:46 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: UK: Evangelical Bishop of Maidstone Lowers Boom on Scottish
Episcopal Church
Message-ID:
<1497582346.2425803....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

UK: Evangelical Bishop of Maidstone Lowers Boom on Scottish Episcopal
Church
SEC has walked away from our Communion, says Rod Thomas
Bishop says he will no longer meet with SEC bishops

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 9, 2017

The evangelical Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt. Rev. Rod Thomas, says he
will no longer meet with bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church
following that Church's change to its marriage canons.

In a written statement, Thomas said the decision by the Scottish
Episcopal Church (SEC) to change its marriage canons to allow same-sex
marriages in church is very serious. "By its actions it is denying the
goodness and authority of God's Word to us in the Scriptures. As a
result, it is breaking communion with the majority of Anglicans
worldwide. This leaves me with no choice but to recognize that the SEC
has walked away from our communion.

"I will no longer be able to accept invitations to Christian meetings
where bishops of the SEC are actively participating, unless their broken
communion is recognized in the arrangements. I pray that this declining
church will understand that their position is not blessed by God, will
repent of their action and turn back to Him."

"I therefore welcome the steps that GAFCON (the global fellowship of
orthodox Anglicans) is taking to support those who are seeking to stand
firm by the Bible's teaching on marriage and sexual relationships, and
wish to assure Canon Andy Lines of my prayers as he becomes a missionary
bishop."

In other news, over 100 evangelical churches in the CofE have passed
resolutions on men's and women's ministry which unequivocally recognized
women to all orders of ministry and who request an alternative bishop
(like Thomas) because they don't believe in women priests or bishops.
The resolutions by individual church councils ask bishops to make
special arrangements to honor their understanding of men's and women's
ministries. Bishop Thomas said that he knew of a further 50 churches
which were moving towards passing resolutions.

The Bishop added "It is very heartening to see so many churches working
hard to make a success of 'mutual flourishing' as commended in the
Declaration. However, it is important to recognize that the compromises
involved are only possible because most of us regard this as a matter of
church order and therefore something on which we can agree to disagree.
This is not possible with the issue of sexual relationships, which goes
to the heart of what God has made us to be, and of His great design to
free us from sin for eternal salvation."

END



------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:06:12 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: IRELAND: Bishop says Scottish church's move on gay marriage
'a way forward'
Message-ID:
<1497582372.2425909....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

IRELAND: Bishop says Scottish church's move on gay marriage 'a way
forward'
Scottish Episcopal Church first major congregation in UK to allow
same-sex marriage

Church of Ireland Bishop of Cork Paul Colton: 'the reality is that there
is such diversity and difference throughout the Church of Ireland.'
Photograph: Cyril Byrne

By Patsy McGarry
www.irishtimes.com
June 12, 2017

The Church of Ireland may have found a way forward on the issue of
same-sex marriage following a move by a church in Scotand, Bishop of
Cork Paul Colton has said.

The Scottish Episcopal Church last week became the first major church in
Britain or Ireland to allow same-sex marriage. A vote by its general
synod in Edinburgh removed a clause from the church's canon law which
defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

However, clergy who do not agree can opt out of conducting same-sex
weddings.

Dublin-born Bishop David Chillingworth is primus of the Scottish Church.
He was ordained in Belfast and served in Northern Ireland until 2005
when he was consecrated Bishop of the diocese of St Andrews, Dunkeld and
Dunblane in Scotland.

Addressing the Cork diocesan synod in Douglas, Bishop Colton quoted
Bishop Chillingworth who said "the new canon itself affirms that there
are differing views of marriage in our church.

"Nobody will be compelled to do anything against their conscience. We
affirm that we are a church of diversity and difference, bound together
by our oneness in Christ..."

Diversity and difference

Bishop Colton said "the reality is that there is such diversity and
difference throughout the Church of Ireland too. Those differences and
that diversity cannot be ignored."

He added it may well be the Scottish approach "represents a way forward
for us too that recognises all integrities. It is worth considering in
our debate here in Ireland".

The bishop said "that such things are open to debate in this Church [of
Ireland] has always been the case. If there had been no questioning or
discourse, the Reformation itself would not have happened, nor would
many other developments have unfolded over the centuries, in ministry,
in liturgy and in belief, the most recent examples being our change in
approach to suicide, to the marriage in church of divorcees, and also
the ordination of women, and there are many others."

Thanksgiving service

Last month a motion that Church of Ireland bishops investigate
developing a public thanksgiving service for legally married same-sex
couples was defeated at the church's General Synod in Limerick. It
followed debate where speakers divided along North-South lines, with all
speakers from the South in favour and all but one Northern speaker
opposed.

Meanwhile, a report to the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) General
Assembly last month concluded there were not "sufficient theological
grounds to deny nominated individual ministers and deacons the authority
to preside at same-sex marriages".

It said "conscientious refusal" of ministers and deacons to preside at
such marriages should be protected and spoke of "constrained difference"
in the church over the issue. Officials were instructed to consider
changes to church law that would allow ministers to preside over
same-sex marriage ceremonies.

A report presented last week in Belfast to the general assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland concluded that its sister Church of
Scotland "has departed from the clear teaching of scripture on the
matter of same-sex relationships."

END



------------------------------

Message: 10
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:06:36 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Welby goes to war over 'anti-gay' bishop plot by
traditionalists after historic marriage vote in Scotland
Message-ID:
<1497582396.2426038....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Welby goes to war over 'anti-gay' bishop plot by traditionalists after
historic marriage vote in Scotland
The rebuke from Justin Welby is his latest attempt to avert a split in
Anglicanism
Conservative archbishops to consecrate Canon Andy Lines at meeting in
USA

By Jonathan Petre for The Mail on Sunday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
June 10, 2017

The Archbishop of Canterbury has hit out at traditionalists who are
planting a 'missionary' bishop in the UK after last week's historic vote
by Scottish Anglicans to approve gay marriage.

The rebuke from Justin Welby is his latest attempt to avert a damaging
permanent split in the worldwide Anglican Communion over homosexuality.

As this newspaper revealed earlier this year, conservative archbishops,
led by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, are to consecrate Canon
Andy Lines at a meeting in America this month after warning that Western
churches are abandoning biblical teaching on the issue.

These archbishops say the new missionary bishop would support
disaffected Anglicans who quit in protest at the Scottish Episcopal
Church's decision on Thursday to become the first Anglican body in the
UK to allow same-sex marriage in its churches.

But Canon Lines, a former British Army tank commander and
father-of-three from Surrey, will also minister to traditionalist
parishes that break away from the Church of England.

Now, in a confidential letter to fellow Anglican leaders, seen by The
Mail on Sunday, Archbishop Welby has warned the African archbishops
against creating 'disturbance and discords' by intervening in Britain.
He accused them bluntly of a 'cross-border' intervention' that would
'carry no weight in the Church of England'.

Welby said in his letter to Anglican leaders across the 80
million-strong worldwide Communion that there was no need for a
missionary bishop in the Church of England because worshippers could
already express a range of views.

He said there had been strong opposition to 'cross-border interventions'
for centuries, and quoted the 'uncompromising' verdict of the early
Church's First Council of Nicea in 325 AD, which condemned the 'great
disturbances and discords that occur' when bishops ministered in this
way.

Canon Lines's presence in the UK without Welby's approval could be seen
as provocative. But Lines's backers complain that the Archbishop failed
to rebuke the Scottish Episcopalians for permitting gay marriage, even
though it is out of step with Church of England official policy.

The former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali, a prominent
traditionalist who is attending the meeting in Chicago where Canon Lines
is to be consecrated, said: 'The Scottish Episcopal Church has done
something that will cause many people to exercise their right of
conscience and not remain in it. Who is going to look after them?

'The question is not just about territory. It is also about faith.'

END



------------------------------

Message: 11
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:07:43 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Conservative parishes declare 'no confidence' in Archbishop
of Canterbury
Message-ID:
<1497582463.2426712....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Conservative parishes declare 'no confidence' in Archbishop of
Canterbury
Rev Steven Hanna, vicar of St Elisabeth Brecontree, will not attend a
training session organised by the bishop

By Harry Farley
CHRISTIAN TODAY
https://www.christiantoday.com/
June 14, 2017
Two Anglican churches have declared 'no confidence' in the Archbishops
of Canterbury and York in the latest feud over Church of England
teaching on sexuality.

The unprecedented move by St George's Becontree and St Elisabeth
Becontree will further heighten tensions as bishops draft a new teaching
document on the CofE's stance on gay marriage.

Rev Steven Hanna and Rev Simon Smallwood accused Justin Welby and John
Sentamu of 'unbiblical leadership' in a letter publicising the votes to
the conservative blog site Anglican Mainstream.

Given 'the failure to teach sound doctrine and the refusal to refute,
publicly, false teaching and practice, each congregation was asked to
consider the current leadership in light of the biblical requirement for
bishops', the two vicars said.

The two congregations also declared 'no confidence' in their own Bishop
of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell, who has called for official
thanksgiving services for gay couples.

The two churches said they had no confidence in any of the three leaders
to 'uphold publicly biblical and traditional teaching and practice on
sexual morality and refute publicly any that oppose this teaching and
practice, namely that "faithful sexual relations blessed by God are only
those within the boundaries of biblical and traditional marriage between
a man and his wife"'.

Bishop Stephen Cottrell said in March the CofE was seen as seen as
'immoral' for its refusal to welcome gay marriage and that it should
reach an 'agree to disagree' compromise over gay marriage as it had done
over women's ordination.

At the time Hanna told Christian Today Cottrell should repent for his
remarks and warned of further action.

'We call all our bishops to public repentance -- both for what they have
said publicly and for what they needed to say clearly but haven't
publicly said,' Hanna said then.

The latest rebellion against the CofE hierarchy comes after Scottish
Anglicans became the first in the UK to allow gay marriage in church.

In response conservatives planted a 'missionary' bishop to oversee
traditionalist parishes who disagreed with the move.

The Archbishop of Canterbury rebuked the move and accused conservative
bishops of 'cross-border interventions' warning against the 'great
disturbances and discords' the move could cause.

Welby's decision not to condemn the Scottish Episcopal Church's move has
enraged conservatives and been welcomed by liberals as a sign of the
CofE's trajectory.

Lambeth Palace declined to comment on the votes of no confidence.
Christian Today has also contacted the Archbishop of York and the
Diocese of Chelmsford.

END



------------------------------

Message: 12
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:08:29 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Christian Lesbian Rock Star Vicky Beeching Given Award by
Archbishop of Canterbury
Message-ID:
<1497582509.2426981....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Christian Lesbian Rock Star Vicky Beeching Given Award by Archbishop of
Canterbury

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post
http://www.christianpost.com/
Jun 13, 2017

Controversial Christian rock star Vicky Beeching, who in 2014 came out
as a lesbian and argued that God loves her "just the way I am," has
received an award by the head of the Anglican Communion for her
contributions to worship music.

Beeching, who is also a theologian and media commentator, hit back
against online criticism from conservative Christians who argued that
her pro-LGBT convictions disqualify her from such an award.

The rock star has been posting throughout the week about her experiences
of being presented with the Thomas Cranmer Award for Worship by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, last week.

"Still amazed this happened last Friday. Never thought, after coming out
as gay, that I would receive an award like this. Means so much," she
tweeted on Monday, and shared a link of the official document praising
her for her contributions to contemporary worship music.

She also shared several pictures of her mother and father at Lambeth
Palace, where the awards ceremony took place.

"Having my Mum and Dad at the Awards meant so much to me. Here's a photo
of them & @JustinWelby after the ceremony. A day I'll never forget," she
wrote in another tweet on Monday, this time with Welby in the photo with
her parents.

Beeching was among over 35 people from around the world who received
awards for outstanding service to the church in a ceremony at Lambeth
Palace in London on Friday. The awards recognize outstanding service in
different fields, including prayer and the religious life,
reconciliation, and evangelism and witness.

In honoring Beeching, Welby recognized her for her Christian songs that
"have become staples in churches around the globe."

"Her music has brought the Gospel message to many who would otherwise
not have heard it. The Guardian called her 'arguably the most
influential Christian of her generation' for her progressive impact on
the Church, and the Telegraph placed her in their 'Top 100 Britons.' The
impact of her songs on contemporary worship has been outstanding."

The Church of England's decision to honor Beeching in such a way drew
criticism from some Christians online, who suggested that Beeching is
not a Christian for her LGBT activism.

"Dear trolls, I dearly hope that my life shows plenty of evidence of
being a Christian.. I certainly try my best anyway. #LoveWins," she
wrote in one reply late last week.

"Sorry trolls, but today has been really special & you won't spoil it
for me," Beeching wrote in another tweet.

In 2014, she admitted that it took all her courage to come out and say
that she is gay before the world.

"What Jesus taught was a radical message of welcome and inclusion and
love. I feel certain God loves me just the way I am, and I have a huge
sense of calling to communicate that to young people. When I think of
myself at 13, sobbing into that carpet, I just want to help anyone in
that situation to not have to go through what I did, to show that
instead, you can be yourself -- a person of integrity," Beeching argued
at the time.

Conservatives hit back against her arguments, however, and said that the
Bible only affirms marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

"If 10,000 pastors declared they were gay tomorrow, it would not change
the truth of the Bible one iota. If 10,000 worship leaders declared that
God had made them gay, it would not change a single scriptural truth,"
wrote Michael Brown, host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show
The Line of Fire, in an op-ed published in The Christian Post.

"As I have emphasized repeatedly, despite the increasing number of
professing 'gay Christians' -- by which I mean those who claim that you
can follow Jesus and practice homosexuality at the same time -- there
are 'no new textual, archeological, sociological, anthropological, or
philological discoveries [that] have been made in the last fifty years
that would cause us to read any of these biblical texts differently.'"

Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, added in a separate article that Beeching's
"same-sex attractions have features that are common to the human
condition generally and can be dealt with accordingly."

"The point is to examine and expose the inauthenticity of desires that
contradict the intentional handiwork of our Creator. Not even Ms.
Beeching is exempt from that, however many kudos she receives from a
Western culture that has become skillful in suppressing the truth about
the way God made us (Romans 1:18-27)," he said.

END



------------------------------

Message: 13
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:08:58 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: ROME, Italy: Pro-Abort Anglican Philosopher Appointed to
Pontifical Academy for Life
Message-ID:
<1497582538.2426959....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

ROME, Italy: Pro-Abort Anglican Philosopher Appointed to Pontifical
Academy for Life

By Bradley Eli
https://www.churchmilitant.com/
June 13, 2017

A pro-abortion philosopher has been appointed to the Pontifical Academy
for Life, according to a statement made today by the Vatican.

Nigel Biggar, one of 45 new ordinary members chosen to serve a five-year
term on the Vatican's pro-life academy, believes it's morally acceptable
to abort a person before 18 weeks of gestation.

During an interview in 2011 Nigel, an Anglican minister and Regius
Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the U.K.'s University of
Oxford, stated, "I would be inclined to draw the line for abortion at 18
weeks after conception, which is roughly about the earliest time when
there is some evidence of brain activity and therefore of
consciousness."

The title of that 2011 interview was "Putting a Value on Human and
Animal Life." During the interview, Biggar professed his belief that
babies in the womb for some period of time after conception aren't
really human:

[It's] not clear that a human fetus is the same kind of thing as an
adult or a mature human being, and therefore deserves quite the same
treatment. It then becomes a question of where we draw the line, and
there is no absolutely cogent reason for drawing it in one place over
another.

For Biggar, drawing the line of when it's morally acceptable to abort a
baby isn't based on the fact that the baby is human from the moment of
conception but rather on some nebulous need of not becoming "too casual"
with killing babies. He says during the interview, "In terms of
maintaining a strong social commitment to preserving human life in
hindered forms, and in terms of not becoming too casual about killing
human life, we need to draw the line much more conservatively."

Speaking in 2012 at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Biggar rejected the
notion that abortion can always be equated with murder. "[It] is not
true that all abortion is equivalent to murder," he claimed Biggar.

The reason he was chosen for the academy, according to Biggar, was owing
to his work pertaining to euthanasia and assisted suicide. "I believe
that the reason for my recent appointment," says Biggar, "lies in my
sustained work on the issues of voluntary euthanasia and assisted
suicide. On those issues my conclusions are consonant with the
Church's."

The appointment of a pro-abortion philosopher to the academy contradicts
the recent assurance given by the head of the institute, Abp. Vincenzo
Paglia, that all members would be completely pro-life. On June 6, Abp.
Paglia expressed his hope that "membership will be seen as not only
talented and accomplished, but also as truly representative of all who
value life at all its stages."

The statutes of the academy were changed last November to no longer
require members to sign "a declaration of fidelity to the Church's
pro-life teachings." Asked by Vaticanista Ed Pentin about this omission
in the new statutes, Abp. Paglia responded, "The new statutes themselves
require members to promote and defend the principles of the value of
life and the dignity of the person, interpreted in conformity with the
Magisterium of the Church."

The Church upholds the reality that a human person is formed at
conception. It therefore, defends the value of human life from "womb to
tomb" -- from the moment of conception until natural death. Professor
Nigel Biggar, by his own admission, is missing half of this equation.



------------------------------

Message: 14
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:09:23 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Strangers in a Strange Land: Christianity and Contemporary
Culture
Message-ID:
<1497582563.2427153....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Strangers in a Strange Land: Christianity and Contemporary Culture

BY BILL MUEHLENBERG
https://billmuehlenberg.com/
June 11, 2017

There is nothing much new under the sun, as Solomon reminded us some
3000 years ago. And for much of the last 2000 years Christians have been
wrestling with how they should relate to the surrounding culture.
Differing views have been held, and the discussion continues today.

There are many hundreds of volumes on this complex topic that have been
penned just in the past 60-70 years. I know, because I have hundreds of
these volumes on my shelves. Christians will take different positions on
what relationship Christians should have with culture, how we are to
understand church and state relations, and so on.

One famous assessment of the options was the very influential 1951
volume by the Protestant theologian and ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr,
Christ and Culture. In it he examined five major ways believers over the
centuries have interacted with culture. These include "Christ against
Culture" and "Christ the Transformer of Culture".

One evangelical reappraisal of that work is D. A. Carson's Christ and
Culture Revisited (Eerdmans, 2008). See my review of this book here:
billmuehlenberg.com/2008/07/26/a-review-of-christ-and-culture-revisited-by-da-carson/

Another very important volume in this ongoing discussion was the 1984
volume The Naked Public Square by Richard John Neuhaus. The Lutheran
thinker (who later converted to Catholicism) offered us some crucial
analysis of church-state relations, and how religion and democracy
coexist in America.
Obviously dozens of other critical works on these topics could be
mentioned here, but let me bring the conversation up to more recent
times. Four very new books on religion and culture all explore the theme
of Christians -- and Christianity -- in a post-Christian culture.

All are written by American Christians and look at American culture, but
their thoughts are applicable to much of the West. The four books I will
examine here are:
-R. R. Reno, Resurrecting the Idea of a Christian Society. Regnery,
2016.
-Charles Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith
in a Post-Christian World. Henry Holt, 2017.
-Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture. Regnery,
2017.
-Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a
Post-Christian Nation. Sentinel, 2017.

Reno, Chaput and Esolen are all Catholics, while Dreher is Eastern
Orthodox, but formerly a Catholic. All four authors are conservatives
who care greatly about what they find happening, and they seek to help
believers find their way in these increasingly dark times.

All four books see the West in a state of moral, cultural and spiritual
decay, and well on the road to being post-Christian, if not
anti-Christian. All the volumes look at the usual indicators of cultural
and social decay and decline, be it the ongoing and worsening sexual
revolution, the battle over life, or the war on marriage and family.

The first three are roughly similar in many respects, including the call
to continue to be salt and light in a very needy culture, and to
continue doing the work of the Kingdom. Let me very briefly look at each
three. In Reno's closing chapters he reminds us that we are not unlike
the early church in being outcasts and outsiders.

The early church did not fit in to the surrounding culture and neither
do we. He urges us to take our faith seriously, not withdrawing and
retreating but to act as "the soul of the world". We need to renew our
Christian communities while on mission in the world around us.

He writes, "We have a duty as Catholics to study and understand the
world around us. We have a duty not just to penetrate and engage it, but
to convert it to Jesus Christ. . . . God calls us to set the world on
fire with his Word. But he calls us first to love him."

Chaput, as his title indicates, takes his cue from the series of
lectures T. S. Eliot gave in 1939, The Idea of a Christian Society. He
reminds us that his book was drafted during the dark times of the rise
of the Nazis, and the Communist control of Russia.

How should the West face these threats? Eliot asked whether the future
of the West would be a Christian one or a pagan one. Today we are in a
similar sort of place, and the West does look to be on its last legs.
With the rise of militant secularism and militant Islam, a weakened,
self-doubting West seems to have its back against the ropes.

As to the possibility of a Christian society, he is both pessimistic and
optimistic: "America feels less Christian today than ever before. . . .
Christendom is no more. . . . Yet the end of Christendom has not meant
the end of Christianity." He continues:

Christ's lordship makes a difference in the world, which is why we
rightly engage in the public square. But his kingdom is not of this
world. Moral truths are at stake, but not our souls. . . . Let's avoid a
false purism. It would be political Pharisaism to refuse to pollute
oneself with the realities of public life in a fallen world. . . . Along
with the synagogue, the church is the only surviving institution from
antiquity. . . . Over the long haul, religious faith has proved itself
the most powerful and enduring force in history. Let's be realistic
about the great challenges we face. But let's also be realistic in our
realism. There will probably be no United States of America in one
thousand years. But there will be synagogues and churches. The future is
God's.

Esolen also sees our civilisation in tatters, and asks what we should do
about it. He encourages us to engage and rebuild on various fronts: we
must restore truth, we must redeem education, we must challenge the
sexual revolution, and so on. A big mess requires a big amount of
restoration work.

While offering us meaty chapters on how these various jobs can be
carried out, he too realises that at the end of the day, if we simply
seek to rescue culture, we will fail. Our hope does not lie in this
world. "We are pilgrims. We must remember that at all times. We are on
the way."

He reminds us of the wise words of Lewis that if we aim for earth alone
we will lose it, but if we aim for heaven, we will get that, and earth
as well. Jesus of course said the same when he told us to seek first his
Kingdom. Says Esolen, "The Christian loves the world best by keeping it
in its proper and subordinate place."

The last book on my list has certainly gotten the most attention, and
has been discussed and debated countless times now. It is the most
pessimistic of the four in terms of Christian cultural engagement.
Dreher basically says the game is over -- the culture wars have been
lost and it is time to head to the hills.

He believes our culture is now so toxic that Christians cannot remain in
it, but must move out, and follow the pattern of the sixth century monk
St. Benedict and set up monastic orders, or Christian communities. He
says a church weakened and emaciated by a hostile culture will have
nothing to offer it, so it is now time for retreat, renewal, and
regrouping.

He does not say we must stay there forever, but he does not say how long
we should remain absent either: a year, ten years, a hundred? But once
renewed and reinvigorated, God's people can go back into the world and
seek to have an impact.

It is not my intent to deal with Dreher much further here, as his book
has already been debated nearly to death. But let me just mention a few
points. I and other culture warriors will of course be somewhat troubled
by his pessimistic and basically retreatist stance. A few quotes:

"Today we can see that we've lost on every front."
"The public square has been lost."
"Nobody but the most deluded of the old-school Religious Right believes
that this cultural revolution can be turned back. The wave cannot be
stopped, only ridden. With a few exceptions, conservative Christian
political activists are as ineffective as White Russian exiles, drinking
tea from samovars in their Paris drawing rooms, plotting the restoration
of the Monarchy. One wishes them well but knows deep down that they are
not the future."

Them's fightin' words! Of course Dreher is a conservative and he does
say there is a place to fight the culture wars. But he says things are
now so bad that a strategic retreat is the order of the day. On the
issue of education for example he makes things quite clear: pull your
kids out of public education and either home school them or start
classical Christian schools.

Yes and no would be my response to his whole thesis. Yes we are in a
very bad way, and yes so too is the Western church. Yes a weak and
anaemic church will do no good to challenge our militant secular
culture. Yes we need to revive the church and establish Christian
outposts along the way.
But I have all along said that there is a place for engaging in battle
as well. While I know full well that at the end of the day only
widespread repentance and revival will save the American church, and
then perhaps America. I am not advising complete surrender just yet.

Many folks advised Wilberforce to pull out and give up as well.
Thankfully he ignored their advice. And when we look at the American
scene, yes things are extremely dark, but there are some glimmers of
hope. The abortion wars for example are one such case of numerous
victories being won along the way.
One recent article which is also quite gloomy about the US agrees that
at least on the abortion front things are looking better:

According to Gallup, support for abortion has only changed 1% since
2001, with 43% of Americans saying that the procedure is morally
acceptable. This can be attributed to the massive educational efforts of
the pro-life movement and the relentless exposure of abortion as a
violent act of physical destruction by everyone from undercover
reporters such as David Daleiden to street activists holding abortion
victim photos. The abortion rate has been consistently falling, and it
is heartening to see what activists can do when they truly set to work
to change the culture.

He goes on to say that "On every moral issue, social conservatives are
losing ground". But at least he sees one ray of hope. Dreher does not
seem to see any. And since he often makes use of The Lord of the Rings
Shire imagery in his book, one can remind him that the Shire was only
saved when Frodo and his friends left the comforts and safety of the
reclusive Shire and went on a mission, on a battle, to fight for it.

But all these issues, as mentioned, have been debated and discussed for
centuries now. These four new books offer more food for thought. Yes,
our ultimate hope is only in the Lord, and in getting on our knees
before him and crying out for his mercy.

Yes times are very dark right now, but there have been other dark times.
Thus we need to have some perspective here, and we need to learn from
history. And we need to resist the temptation to fall into utter
despair, but place our trust in God.

I happen to think that many of the things we have been fighting for are
still worth the effort. Yes, we are losing often, but we do have some
wins as well. I simply reflect on the culture wars here in Australia.
While so many other Western nations have fallen on things like
homosexual marriage and legalised euthanasia, we have managed to hold
the line so far.

And this has required plenty of hard work and plenty of prayer. I will
keep doing both. Others may feel it is time to throw in the towel and
head for the hills. That is up to them. I for one will stay and fight
some more -- at least until I am certain that I am called to do
otherwise.

END



------------------------------

Message: 15
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:09:51 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Christian violence is a figment of Welby's imagination
Message-ID:
<1497582591.2427300....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Christian violence is a figment of Welby's imagination

By Jules Gomes
http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/
June 11, 2017

If Islam is a religion of violence, so is Christianity. So are Hinduism,
Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Paganism and Pastafarianism (i.e.
the Religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Religions are all violent
so don't demonise Islam.

This sums up the Solomonic wisdom of Justin Welby, Archbishop of
Canterbury, in his BBC Radio 4 response to the London Bridge attacks.
Predictably, the media lapped it up like the Queen of Sheba's cat
drinking out of Solomon's silver saucer. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin
Welby: London attack link to Islam as Christians killing Muslims is
linked to Christianity shrieked the Independent's headline.

Instead of defending Christianity, Welby used his faith as a human
shield to cover up violent Islam and then went on to gun down
Christianity as collateral damage in a burst of random gunfire from the
only automatic weapon he possesses--his big mouth.

Welby did get something right when he pointed to the 'lack of religious
literacy' among people tackling the terrorist threat. 'They often don't
understand the very basic doctrines of the faith they're dealing with,'
he said. Yes, Justin. Is that why you thought you could fool all the
people all the time in your Radio 4 interview?

The Daily Mail's four-decker header flashed like an au naturel streaker
running through an Opera House: Archbishop of Canterbury says Islam
should 'take responsibility' for the London Bridge attack just as
Christianity should for killing Muslims. So where on God's good earth
are Christians killing Muslims just as Muslims are killing Christians,
Yazidis, Pastafarians and other Muslims?

Srebrenica. Welby's evidence for "Christian" terrorism is Srebrenica.
Let's quote him in context. The BBC interviewer asks Welby: 'But when
politicians have told us as they have done, this is nothing to do with
Islam, you're saying that is a mistake, it is a cul de sac, it's not
getting us anywhere?'

Welby replies, 'I don't think it is getting us anywhere, any more than
if we said that Srebrenica had nothing to do with Christianity.'
Billions of bilious blue blistering boiled and barbecued barnacles in a
thundering typhoon! That's how Captain Haddock would respond to the
Archcomedian of Candybury.

Let me respond in a more measured manner. Let's examine Welby's moral
equivalence between Islamic and Christian violence. You've heard of
logical fallacies, Justin? How about the fallacy of false equivalence?
Welby is pretending to treat both sides fairly. But he comes across like
a dodgy science reporter who claims that the Earth is 6,000 years old
and makes her case by citing a geologist who believes the Earth is
billions of years old and then quotes 16th century biblical scholar
James Ussher who believed that the world began in 4,004 BC.

Welby does the same when the interviewer asks him about the treatment of
women. He says that denying women the right to the priesthood in
Anglicanism is as misogynistic as the ill treatment of women in Islam.
As terrible as Female Genital Mutilation, eh Justin? So you're telling
us that St Paul exhorting husbands to lay down their lives for their
wives in his Letter to the Ephesians (5:25), is on par with Muhammad
asking husbands to beat their disobedient wives in the Qur'an? (4:34,
38:44)

Welby also falls prey to the anachronistic fallacy. He compares
Christian violence in the past to Islamic violence in the present. There
is no epidemic of Christian terrorism sweeping the world in recent
years! If there is a knife attack at Heathrow nobody is going to debate
whether the terrorist was a Lutheran or a Quaker! All religions inspired
violence sometime during their history, ergo we should not pick on
Islam, but hold all religions culpable, argues Welby.

One could list a compendium of logical fallacies to debunk Welby's
claims. How about cherry picking, suppressed evidence, concealed
quantification, analogical fallacy, abusive analogy and the
Sharpshooter's fallacy, which gets its name from someone aiming at the
side of a barn and then drawing a bull's eye concentrically around the
bullet hole? But Welby couldn't hit a barn with a bazooka!

So he blames religious texts that have 'been twisted and misused' to
justify violence. We'll come to Srebrenica, but in the only example of
"Christian" violence he cites, can the Archbishop demonstrate how
Orthodox Serbs 'twisted and misused' the Bible when they were
slaughtering Bosnian Muslims?

Welby is insulting Islam when he accuses Muslims of misinterpreting the
Qur'an. The Qur'an claims to be clear and unambiguous. It has numerous
verses defending its clarity. 'Shall I seek for a judge other than
Allah, when He it is Who has sent down to you the Book fully explained?
(6:114) 'This is a Book, whose verses have been made firm and free from
imperfection and then they have been expounded in detail' (11:1). 'These
are verses of the clear Book' (12:1). 'These are verses of the Qur'an--a
book that makes (things) clear (27:1). 'A Book, whereof the verses are
explained in detail....' (41:3). 'He it is who sends down clear
communications upon His servant, that he may bring you forth from utter
darkness into light' (57:9).

Welby knows nothing when it comes to interpretation of Islamic texts.
The interpretation of the Qur'an is a highly precise and comprehensive
discipline. It is not whimsical and arbitrary but carefully controlled
and safeguarded by a whole chain of canonical authorities explaining
what the text means--most importantly using the example of Muhammad
himself. As a biblical scholar, I am positively envious of the
brilliantly schematised system of Islamic interpretation.

But the Archpeddler of Candyfloss thinks we are all a basket of
religiously illiterate deplorables and so he shouts 'Srebrenica!' like a
man in a theatre shouting 'Fire!' So what does 'Srebrenica' have to do
with 'Christian' violence? In 1995, during the Bosnia-Herzegovina wars,
Serbian forces under the control of General Ratko Mladic massacred
around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the city of Srebrenica. This
has been rightly described as 'the largest single war crime in Europe
since the Second World War.'

As is the case with the Crusades, Welby doesn't tell us that the
Muslim-Christian conflict began from the time of the Battle of Kosovo in
1389 when Muslim Turks attacked Christian Serbs and subjugated them to
five centuries of Muslim Ottoman rule. He completely skirts over the
pivotal issue of Serbian nationalism, which was subordinate to Communism
and became full-blown after Tito's death in 1980. He doesn't tell us
that this was a military conflict and Srebrenica was valuable as a
strategic military target as well as a symbolic stronghold. He is silent
about the role of ethnicity. He doesn't talk about Naser Oric's Muslim
armed units executing 120 Serbs in 1992 and committing numerous
atrocities launched mostly from the Srebrenica 'safe area.' He omits to
mention it was a Muslim attack on a Serb village in January 1993 that
led the Serbs to cut off the link between Srebrenica and Zepa.

In the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, Katherine
Southwick shows how the defence at the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 'put forward substantial evidence that
reasonably characterised the Srebrenica massacres not as genocide, but
as a heinous effort to remove a military threat in one of the conflict's
most hotly contested regions.' According to the defence, had the Serbian
forces actually 'intended to destroy the Bosnian Muslim community of
Srebrenica, it would have killed all the women and children, who were
powerless and already under its control....' Instead, the Serb forces
'did not kill the women, children, and elderly ... but transported them
safely to Kladanj, as opposed to all other genocides in modern history,
which have indiscriminately targeted men, women, and children.'

Yes, the Serbs were Orthodox Christians. However, their Christian faith
neither caused nor motivated nor inspired them to the mass murder of
Bosnian Muslim men. Welby has completely confused causation with
correlation. If the perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre were
basketball players (a game Serbs are known for), would Welby blame
basketball for their actions?

The question is: did a certain interpretation of biblical texts or
theology or an imitation of the life of Jesus provide motive or intent
to the mass murderers of Srebrenica? No. Do certain interpretations of
Islamic texts or theology or the sunna (example/prophetic precedent) of
the life of Muhammad provide motive or intent to the mass murderers of
ISIS? Yes.

Sadly, the Archbishop is too much of a coward to acknowledge this.
Ironically, the Arch-atheist Richard Dawkins got it just right when he
tweeted: 'No, all religions are NOT equally violent. Some have never
been violent, some gave it up centuries ago. One religion conspicuously
didn't.'

END



------------------------------

Message: 16
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:10:17 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Scottish primus defends gay marriage vote
Message-ID:
<1497582617.2427414....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Scottish primus defends gay marriage vote

By David Chillingworth
Press Release
June 10, 2017

In response to a statement from Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon,
Secretary General of the Anglican Communion The Most Rev David
Chillingworth, Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane and Primus of
the Scottish Episcopal Church made the following response: "The
Secretary General of the Anglican Communion has issued a statement
commenting on Thursday's decision by the General Synod of the Scottish
Episcopal Church to amend its Canons to permit same-sex marriage. The
statement recognises that the Provinces of the Anglican Communion can
each take these decisions within their own life. But I think it is
important that I should comment on some other aspects of what the
statement says and their implications for the continuing life of the
Anglican Communion.

"The classic understanding of the position of Provinces of the Anglican
Communion is that they do indeed have autonomy. But that autonomy is
exercised in tension with a balancing sensitivity to the interdependence
of provinces within the Communion. We, in common with other provinces,
did not feel that the Anglican Covenant could successfully meet this
need. The statement implies that the Primates' Meeting will now fulfil
this role. But such a role is not within their remit or authority. For
the Primates' Meeting was called together originally by Archbishop
Coggan for 'leisurely thought, deep prayer and consultation'.

"Archbishop Josiah, who leads the Anglican Communion Secretariat, speaks
of the 'majority stance' of the Communion. We are deeply aware that
yesterday's vote puts us at one end of a spectrum in the Communion. But
many other provinces are in their own way and in their own time
considering a variety of responses to issues of human sexuality. The
Communion expresses a growing spectrum of diversity. In that context,
reference to a 'majority stance' seems misplaced. It is part of the
genius of the Anglican way that we express unity in diversity -- as we
have tried to do this week in Scotland.

"We of course also respect Resolution 1.10 of the Lambeth Conference of
1998. But it cannot be elevated into a binding statement of Communion
policy. Lambeth Conference resolutions do not have that force. The view
of marriage set out in Resolution 1.10 was passionately expressed in our
Synod's debate on Thursday. It is one of the views of marriage which we
uphold and carry forward in our diversity.

"The Scottish Episcopal Church carries in its heart a deep commitment to
the Anglican Communion. We have been enriched by our Communion
membership and we have in return made a significant contribution to its
life. I understand that some will feel that the decision which we have
taken stresses the life of the Communion. The question is how best the
unity of the Communion can be sustained. We look forward to being part
of measured discussion within the Communion about how that can be
achieved."

END



------------------------------

Message: 17
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:10:53 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: EGYPT: "We can't keep up with the insatiable desire of Copts
to have a Bible"
Message-ID:
<1497582653.2427993....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

EGYPT: "We can't keep up with the insatiable desire of Copts to have a
Bible"

By Joel Forster in Wisla, Poland
http://evangelicalfocus.com/world/
June 7, 2017

"The image of Christians as a persecuted minority is not completely
right", says Egypt's Bible Society Director Ramez Atallah in an
interview with Evangelical Focus. He analyses the coexistence with
Muslims and the role of the evangelical community.

Serving as the General Director of the Bible Society in Egypt, Ramez
Atallah knows the reality of Christians in his country well.

Having travelled a lot and been active in global movements like the
Lausanne Movement and IFES, Atallah has seen the impact of the Bible in
Western cultures as well as in in Arabic contexts.

In the following interview, Atallah analyses the reaction of Christians
to violence, the misconceptions about Egypt, the two sides of Islam in
the country, and the relationships between Coptic Christians and other
Christian minorities, such as the evangelical community.

Atallah spoke to Evangelical Focus on May 24th, while attending this
year's European Leadership Forum (ELF) conference, in Poland. Two days
after this conversation, a group of Islamic terrorists linked to Daesh
killed 29 Coptic Christians in Minya.

Question: We would like to have your insights about Egypt, Ramez, and
help people in other countries to better underrstand the reality of
Christians there. Our first question is, how do you think people in
other parts of the world see Egypt? What are the misconceptions?

Answer: Egypt is a very interesting touristic site, with many of the
most antiquities in the world: the Pyramids are the only remaining
wonder of the "7 Wonders". And you would be in love with going to scuba
diving in the winter, Egypt has all these beaches....

We are getting very few tourists, and the reason for this is that people
think it is a very dangerous place to go. But the only tourists that
have been killed in the last 3 years where two tourists from South Korea
that were in Northern Sinai, a place to which people are not really
allowed to go, because it is a very dangerous area. But Sharm El Sheikh,
Luxor, Aswan, Cairo, and other places... nobody has been hurt there. So
we do not understand the reason of this boycott of Egypt.

When a terrorist attack happens in Manchester, which is similar, and
just as bad, nobody thinks of not going to England. And there are
probably more terrorists in England that in Egypt, because there are a
lot of disgruntled people in England who could very easily be taken on
by ISIS.

So, we think it is a bit unfair that our country is boycotted, and
considered very dangerous, even though the level of danger is not much
greater than in any other European country.

Question: More specifically, how do you think Christians in Europe and
in other parts of the world perceive Egypt?

A. Christians in other places see our country as a place where
Christians are being persecuted. A bomb in a church is certainly a bit
different than a bomb in a rock concert. But for the Muslim mind, in
both cases they are attacking Christians. For them, anybody that is from
a Western culture, and is not Muslim or Jew, is a Christian. In the mind
of ISIS, there is not a great difference between killing people in a
church and kill them in a rock concert.

In Egypt, if they put a bomb in the streets, they will kill more Muslims
than Christians, because Christians are 10 per cent of the population.
In general, they do not want to kill Sunni Muslims. They may want to
kill Shia Muslims. So, the reasons to put a bomb in a church is to make
sure that all the victims are Christians. But when they attack a rock
concert in Manchester, they assume that all these people are Christians.

So, for ISIS, it is very much the same mentality from ISIS' point of
view, but these attacks are completely read differently by the Western
mind.

Question: We understand that organisations working in favour of the
Persecuted Church or media writing about the situation of Christians in
Egypt, do it to raise awareness. But what could we do better to portray
Egypt fairly and still inform about the problems and the violence
Christians are facing there?

Answer: Well, our government in Egypt is more supportive of Christians
than any of the governments in a Western country. So, in general, we
have a government that is not asking us to be politically correct in
something that we do not believe in, and that gives us great freedom
within our churches. It is true that there are things that you can do in
the West which you cannot do in a Muslim majority country, but these
things, for those living in Egypt, are not a big hindrance.

For instance, in Egypt, you cannot go on the streets and distribute
Christian literature, but we have sixteen bookshops in the main cities
of Cairo. You can go there anytime and buy a book. We also can rent any
book table at any book fair and sell Scriptures.

So, we have tremendous freedom. The one thing we cannot do is going out
and giving free literature, and because of that, it is seen like 'oh,
this is a persecuted minority and they do not have our freedoms'. The
West at times fights blindly for some freedoms that we do not care about
very much, because there are more important issues.

There is discrimination in Egypt, and some people left the country
because they thought they had not a good chance. But when these people
leave, they feel like they have to continually justify why they left
Egypt. So, when aid agencies or persecution organisations interview
Egyptians Christians in the West, they tell them bad stories about the
country. But this is not the way most of us in Egypt feel.

People in Egypt think that because there a lot of freedoms in the West,
they do not understand, I think, that these Western societies are really
very anti-evangelical. The approach to political correctness is very
limiting for Christians in the West.

Question: You are leading the Bible Society in Egypt, and you just
mentioned you are fully allowed to sell Bibles. But you also have had
attacks against some of your bookstores. How do you react to violence?

Answer: We have been around for about 135 years, and this was the first
attack we had. This was a plan of the Muslim Brotherhood to embarrass
the government, to put pressure on the government. They made a plan to
target about 80 Christian churches and institutions. Their aim was to
start a civil war in Egypt. In that chaos, they would hope to come back
to power.

This was a political move, not a religious move. Attacking our Christian
bookshops was not an attempt to stop the Bible being sold in Egypt, but
an attempt to create chaos in society. This is how we see it, we have
been around for a long time and I did not have a stone thrown into any
of our bookshops.

I feel completely safe in Egypt, both politically and socially, and in
other ways.

Question: Is this feeling of security real for Christians in all regions
of Egypt?

Answer: There are village feuds in the South of the country where
Christians do not feel safe, because their neighbours are fanatical
Muslims. For a variety of reasons, they have attacked these Christians,
burnt their houses, and treated them badly. But this discrimination is
mostly inter-racial issues, long-lasting fights between extended
families.

It usually comes when a young man who is a Christian, let's say, would
be attracted to a girl who is a Muslim. Then the family of the girl
would get very upset and would accuse him of having raped her, even
though he would not have done so, and so war beings between these two
families. But thankfully Egypt is not a tribal country. So, these
incidents, though they continue to happen in the South, they are not
symptomatic of a country as a whole, they are exceptions.

Question: How do you distribute the Bible in Egypt? And, do you see a
rise of interest in reading the Christian Scriptures?

Answer: We have ten million Christians in Egypt, and the Coptic Church
is very, very committed to the Bible. It is probably one of the churches
in the world that is most committed to the Bible. We can't keep up with
the insatiable desire of Copts to have a Bible.

As I am talking to you now, there is a big event happening in Egypt with
thousands of young people, a Christian festival this week. And we are
selling lots of Scriptures, we have a large event in a tent for youth,
Scripture competitions, 'talent shows' on biblical themes.

The activities happening in summer are incredible. The churches are
incredibly busy, because school vacations are very long (from May to
September). Parents work, and churches do not want their children on the
street. So, every day, churches have clubs. Young people go and spend
the whole day there. They play games, study Scripture, and attend
services. I am talking of thousands, one church in Egypt has 10,000
children in their Sunday school, we are talking about very large
numbers.

When you see this, it does not seem like a persecuted minority. When you
know that 30 per cent of wealth is owned by Christian entrepreneurs, and
that the richest family in Egypt is a Christian family, you realise that
the image of a persecuted minority is not completely right. Something
must be wrong with that image.

Question: This clubs for children and camps in the summer, are they open
for non-Christians?

Answer: It depends. All social services, or a large majority, are open
to all Christians and Muslims. But once you have a religious content,
these activities are not open, because then you would be accused of
proselytism. You cannot invite students, from instance, to a church.

Except for generic children's events, we do that in several places. We
promote values, it is based on Christian thinking, but it is not
proselytism. Muslim children can come and be relaxed. It is a minority
of the activities we do, but it can be done.

Question: What can Christians in other parts of the world learn from the
way Christians in Egypt relate to people of other religions and
worldviews?

Answer: Egypt was a Christian country, until Islam came in the 7th
century. So, all the Muslims in Egypt have a Christian background. Until
very recently, until the 60s, the Islam in Egypt was soaked in Christian
ethics, so though people worship differently, and believe differently,
their day to day habits did not look different. Even though a Muslim man
can marry four wives, I knew hardly anyone at school, when I was a
student, whose father had married more than one woman.

So, we live in a country in which Islam, until the 60s, was quiet
moderate. When thousands of Egyptians went to the Saudi Arabia, to the
Gulf, to work, they came back with a Wahhabi Islam, a fanatic Islam, the
Islam that created Al-Qaida. They came back with this form of Islam,
which has penetrated our education system, our religious institutions
and has changed the nature of Islam.

Within Egypt, today, a lot of the teaching is very fanatical. But the
people themselves are not that way. There is still the residue of good
relationships with Christians. So, we have a contradiction between a
teaching that could be called 'anti-Christian', and a practice which is
not.

The present President has called the religious leaders in the country to
remove from religious texts anything that encourages violence, and he
has been disappointed that this has not been done. It is very
complicated. We have government wanting Christians to be co-citizens in
Egypt with equal rights and they are working very hard towards it.

President Sisi is probably the most outspoken world leader today against
radical Islam. The reason is, some Muslim leaders do not want to speak
against radical Islam, while Western leaders cannot speak against
radical Islam, because they would be accused of Islamophobia -- they are
very careful. Trump, unlike Obama, is using the word "Islamic" and
"Islamist" talking about Islamic radicals. Obama would not use it, he
would talk about "terrorists" or "violence".

But Sisi has been very outspoken. Twice a year, when he gives major
speeches he goes one talking about these issues. In one of the recent
speeches, he said that he couldn't understand all these radicals going
around killing people, and that Muslims had to coexist with Christians
in Egypt, because, he said, Christians are brothers and sisters.

In another situation, the President said he could not understand people
who worship a God that wants them to kill innocent people. So, we have a
leader who is doing this, and many in the political realm support him.
Some leaders in the [Muslim] religious realm support him, others do not
know what to do about it.

So, we had a dichotomy between what Muslims are told, and what they feel
in real life. Muslims are much more peaceful, thoughtful, kind, and
supportive in daily life than some of the teaching they are getting.

Question: Do you think these policies of President Al-Sisi will have an
impact in the long term and in the countries surrounding Egypt?

Answer: If he lasts, it probably will have an impact in the long term.
We hope that he stays for a long time so he can implement these
policies. People accuse him of being a dictator, but I believe this is a
media campaign by right-wing Muslims to discredit a man who is the most
active leader against political Islam in the world.

Here is the dilemma. Western rulers are pushing for Sisi to protect
Christians more. How do you protect Muslims? Well, you increase the
presence of the army and the police. You make it much more into a police
state. Then, the same people are criticising for not having a high level
of Human Rights. This is difficult if you want to keep an eye for
everyone who could be a terrorist. The very things they are asking for,
are contradictory: protect the Christians more, and increase Human
Rights. One of the reasons that Egypt is safe, and no tourists have been
killed in several years is that we have a very strong police state.

Having by definition a police state means that walking down the street
you could be arrested unjustly, you could be put in prison longer than
you should be, because they are trying to scare people, to make sure
nobody wants to be a terrorist.

You cannot have your cake and eat it. Either you want Egypt to be a
completely free country, in which case you will have a lot of terrorism;
or you want to be safe, in which case you have to have a police state.

Question: We have heard much about the new law of Christians worship
places, which should make it much easier to build churches. How much
have Christians been involved in that law?

Answer: Christians have been very much involved in drafting that law.
People who are idealistic feel it has not gone far enough, they wanted
to be like in the US. But even in the US today problems come up related
to places of worship at times.

One of the great things the law has done is that it has given a time for
all of churches to publicly declare the places they had for worship
which were undeclared. Many people had apartments, buildings, undercover
churches. So, the government said, instead of having these churches
underground, tell us about them, and we will try to get you licenses.
There are hundreds of these places and many places of worship have
become legal, that is the first step.

In addition, the government is offering a place of worship for every
Christians confession: Protestants, Orthodoxes and Catholics. The
problem is that there are seven Catholic denominations, eighteen
Protestant denominations and three Orthodox. The government is not
offering one place for every denomination but one for every confession.
So, the issue is, who is going to get it? Will the Baptists get it, or
the Pentecostals, or the Methodists? This is still a problem to work
through, but it is understandable: they do not want eighteen Protestant
churches in a small place.

There will be a Catholic, a Protestant and an Orthodox church in every
new settlement, every new city or town. How this will work out in
practice is an internal problem of Christians.

Question:. Finally, can you tell us bit about the evangelical Christians
in Egypt? How many are they and how do they relate to other Christian
denominations?

Answer: One of the differences between evangelical Christians in Egypt
and, let's say, evangelicals in Latin America, is that the majority of
evangelical Christians in Egypt have a positive relationship with the
Orthodox Church, because we have a very biblically based Orthodox
Church.

Many evangelicals admire Orthodox Christians, and listen to teachers of
preachers of that church. So, we do not have a situation in which there
is suspicion, as in other places with the Roman Catholic Church. There
are good relationships, which does not mean that everything is fine, but
there is a different atmosphere.

One of our strongest constituencies are a Presbyterian church and a
Brethren church, and many of our staff are of these churches. They are
very relaxed working with Orthodox people, and very supportive, whereas
in other countries, where the Bible Society works with Catholics, for
instance, they get criticised. We are in a completely different
situation. Because we are in a minority, every progress or success of
Christians is supported by the other denominations.

The three heads of the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox today, to which
the government relates, are good friends, and work well together. They
are trying to solve problems for Christians, in a good spirit. There is
a real sense of working together in the country. When Pope Francis
visited Egypt, all the denominations were very happy to be involved. It
was not just a Catholic event.

Evangelicals are more influential than their actual number, because they
have publishing houses, satellite television stations and very good
preachers. Many Orthodox Christians would go to evangelical events and
maybe attend evangelical churches but get baptised, married and buried
Orthodox. This is an accepted part of life.

Evangelicals have a great influence, through their ministries. The
Presbyterians have very good schools, as well as the Catholics, schools
who influence society. I think there is much mutual appreciation.

END



------------------------------

Message: 18
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:11:16 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On
Message-ID:
<1497582676.2428034....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On

By KEVIN HOLDSWORTH
http://thurible.net/2017/06/07/what-the-scottish-episcopal-church-is-voting-on/
June 7, /2017

As I write this, it is just over 24 hours until a debate and a vote in
the Scottish Episcopal Church's General Synod that lots of people are
going to be more interested in than most other General Synod happenings.
It is the debate and the motions relating to a change to the Canons (ie
the rulebook) of the church which could change who can get married in
church. If the proposals are accepted tomorrow then same-sex couples
would be able to get married in such churches that wanted to host such
marriages and by such clergy who wished to be nominated by such

Rather tellingly, there is an item on the agenda just before this called
"Strategic Direction" and this is scheduled to take half an hour. The
various motions around marriage have two hours scheduled for them. There
would be those who believe that the marriage motions say more about our
strategic direction than will be said in the debate with that title.

It is probably worth a quick outline of what the synod will be doing.

The big motion is Motion 6 on the agenda. This motion is simply this:

That the amended text for Canon 31 be read for the second time.

One could be forgiven for thinking that this is rather a lot of fuss
about a motion which is only about a dozen words long. However, what we
are talking about has been talked about more than anything else that I
remember whilst I've been on Synod -- far more, for example, than the
debate about whether to open nominations to Episcopate to clergy who
happen to be women.

There are various ways to think about the matter at hand. One of the key
things to remember is that outside just about every Scottish Episcopal
Church there is a sign which is proudly displayed which says, "The
Scottish Episcopal Church Welcomes You". That lies right at the heart of
what a lot of people will be thinking about when it comes to how to cast
their vote tomorrow afternoon.

For those people who think this way, inviting same-sex couples to marry
in church rather than being rejected by the church is simply a matter of
being true to who we are. The sign suggests that everyone is welcome, so
why should everyone be welcome on as equal a basis as possible?

Of course, for some others the debate is primarily cast in different
terms. For some people this is about what the bible says and here we
have some people who read the bible with great devotion and who come to
the conclusion that we can't open marriage to same-sex couples and
others who read the bible with great devotion and come to the conclusion
that we can. I think that one of the consequences of the years of debate
about this is that there has been an acceptance by most people that
no-one owns the bible and no-one can defiantly declare that the bible
says one or other thing about same-sex nuptials. Some will point to the
various clobber verses (men lying with men being an abomination in
Leviticus etc) and take their cue for there. Others see these as being
admonitions of their time and see the fact that we teach that everyone
is made in the image and likeness of God as being a defining argument.

Unless you are a complete newbie to this blog then you will not be
surprised to hear that I'm very strongly in favour of change and believe
that we have a divine mandate to make the change. It is because of my
faith and because of my reading of the bible that I believe that change
should come.

However, it is important to realise that the debate tomorrow is not
being conducted in terms of a motion that will allow the Scottish
Episcopal Church to vote either for or against the marriage of same-sex
couples. I kind of wish that it was, but it resolutely isn't.

The synod agreed a couple of years ago that the way that it wished to
debate this was to see whether there was enough of a majority to remove
the inherently heterosexual definition of marriage that had been placed
in the Canons thirty odd years ago and replace it with a statement that
acknowledged that Scottish Episcopalians believe different things about
marriage and make proposals for allowing those who wish to marry
same-sex couples to do so whilst protecting the conscience of those who
do not wish to marry same-sex couples.

This is fundamentally a vote about what kind of church we want to be.

If we want to be a church that tries to respect people's consciences on
this issue then the thing to do is to vote in favour of motion 6. If we
want to be a church which insists that everyone has to abide by the
rules of a minority position then the right thing to do is vote against
motion 6.

That's the thing, you see. We can be pretty sure that there will be a
majority in each of the houses of synod in favour of moving forward.
That means that there will be a majority in each house, including in the
house of Bishops voting against the current policy of the bishops.

Should this vote fail, we'll be in a strange place. No doubt some
reflection will be needed but what is certain is that the bishops can't
defend a position that they've just voted against.

Should the vote succeed then it is incumbent on all of us to abide by
what it says and work to protect the conscience of those who don't want
to solemnise the marriages of same-sex couples. Scots law means that
there's no way anyone can be forced to do so anyway, but there must be
no disparaging those who don't want to take part in any way at all.

Now what are the consequences of this?

I have absolutely no doubt that some churches will see a rise in their
membership if we pass this proposed change. I am also, perhaps
surprisingly, sure that the rise in numbers will affect those who are
most opposed to change as much as those who are in favour of it. I think
people looking to join churches tend to make their choices on the values
of the local community. A clear sense of ethos helps people to make up
their mind which church to join. And those churches which make a clear
declaration one way or another on this question will see people who are
looking for a church to join that suits them come inside and try them
out. A clear policy helps people join. It won't help those who say
nothing.

One this is certain -- if we pass this motion there will be clergy from
England who will want to come to Scotland. Not particularly gay clergy,
though I've no doubt that there might be a few of those. There will
simply be a number of clergy who would rather be in a church that
respects conscience on this issue and want to be part of a church like
this.

We've struggled to recruit and retain enough full-time clergy from
within Scotland in recent years and I have no doubt that this issue is
very real. We're a church in which refugees are welcome, in many
different ways.

"But what about the Anglican Communion?" I hear you cry.

Well, the Anglican Communion will be left unchanged by this vote one way
or the other. The Anglican Communion exists of churches, some of which
have made arrangements for same-sex couples to be married in church and
some of which have not. The Americans and the Canadians got there before
we did and they represent a larger slice of world Anglicanism than we
do.

This is not only a big issue within Anglicanism for a very, very small
proportion of Anglicans and a very, very large proportion of media
producers and journalists.

If the Scottish Episcopal Church does move forward and agree to this
vote then there will be headlines (thankfully bumped down the page by
the General Election on Friday) which proclaim loudly and confidently
"Church Splits over Gays". They will run the same tired story that they
have been running for a very long time indeed and which has the
advantage of being a great story and the disadvantage of not being
actually true. The Anglican Communion will still exist on Friday
morning, notwithstanding anything the Scottish Episcopal Church might do
on Thursday afternoon. Oh, and the Archbishop of Canterbury will still
have no jurisdiction in this realm of Scotland, notwithstanding the very
few calls that will be made that will be very loudly reported, that he
should Do Something About Scotland.

If the Scottish Episcopal Church moves forward and votes in favour of
Motion 6 to amend Canon 31 tomorrow it will not be the first Anglican
church in which the marriages of same-sex couples will be celebrated.
Nor will it be the first church in the UK nor in Scotland to allow such
marriages.

However, it will be a church which has something to offer others -- a
model for dealing with this issue that will allow the church to get on
with being the church and bringing God's kingdom in. The key to it all
is to make the question of whether or not clergy can marry same-sex
couples a matter of conscience.

Making this a matter of conscience is the mainstream Anglican answer to
the troubles that have beset us for so many years. What happens in
Scotland tomorrow could well inform other parts of the Anglican
communion in the future. Far from being outside the boundaries of
Anglicanism, what I hope we will do tomorrow is slap bang in the middle
of classic Anglicanism which seeks not to build windows into other men's
souls and to allow people to make decisions to the best of their ability
with their own consciences informed by scripture, reason and tradition.

END



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