VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 21

[virtueonli...@listserv.virtueonline.org]

=================================
VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest
http://www.VirtueOnline.org
=================================

Welcome to the VOL Weekly News Digest, an electronic communique of news about The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion is brought to you by VirtueOnline (VOL), a non-profit news and information ministry to the Anglican Communion. Subscriptions are offered free of charge.

For questions about the digest, to subscribe or modify your subscription:
a. Visit: http://www.virtueonline.org/listserv.html, or
b. Email your request to: in...@virtueonline.org

VOL depends on its readers for financial support. Please consider a tax deductible donation. You can do so via check or credit card. http://www.virtueonline.org/support.html

VIRTUEONLINE
570 Twin Lakes Rd
P.O. Box 111
Shohola, PA 18458

http://www.virtueonline.org
http://www.facebook.com/virtueonline
http://twitter.com/VirtueOnline

THANK YOU FOR READING AND SUPPORTING VOL

--

P.S. Direct replies to this digest do NOT go to VOL staff. If you wish to comment on today's digest, please address your email to in...@virtueonline.org

Today's Topics:

1. Table of Contents (David Virtue)
2. VIEWPOINTS: June 9, 2017 (David Virtue)
3. Screwtape Proposes an Episcopal Toast (David Virtue)
4. CANADA: Diocese of Caledonia Capitulates to Revisionist
Canadian Bishops over Worley Election (David Virtue)
5. EDINBURGH: Rev. Canon Andy Lines Named GAFCON Missionary
Bishop to Europe (David Virtue)
6. Scottish Episcopal Church votes to allow same-sex marriage
(David Virtue)
7. The GAFCON Consecration -- Welby fiddles while the SEC burns
(David Virtue)
8. London attack: faiths cannot wash their hands of atrocities,
warns Archbishop of Canterbury (David Virtue)
9. Archbishop Ntahoturi takes up post in Rome (David Virtue)
10. Thomas Cranmer and the Lord's Supper (David Virtue)
11. American and Kenyan bishops drill Malawi Anglican leaders
over SOMA (David Virtue)
12. Pope and Archbishop abandon South Sudan visit over security
fears (David Virtue)
13. Church is 17th most trusted body in the UK, out of a list of
24 (David Virtue)
14. A Faithless UK and Resurgent Islam: The Perfect Storm
(David Virtue)
15. How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times
(David Virtue)
16. Debating transgender (David Virtue)
17. The Business of GAFCON (David Virtue)
18. What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On (David Virtue)
19. We need to talk more about Jesus and Mohammed and less about
Christianity and Islam (David Virtue)
20. EGYPT: "We can't keep up with the insatiable desire of Copts
to have a Bible" (David Virtue)
21. REFORMATION ANGLICANISM: Our Exotic Ancestry (3) (David Virtue)
22. Exploring "Male-Female" in the Bible and Society (David Virtue)
23. "That We May be One": John 17:1-11 (David Virtue)


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

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:40:48 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Table of Contents
Message-ID:
<1497008448.1767857....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest - Desktop & Mobile Edition
www.virtueonline.org
June 9, 2017

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

1. GAFCON Primates Will Consecrate Bishop for Europe * Scottish
Episcopal...
http://www.virtueonline.org/gafcon-primates-will-consecrate-bishop-europe-scottish-episcopal-church-votes-change-canon-approving


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

2. Screwtape Proposes an Episcopal Toast - 26
http://www.virtueonline.org/screwtape-proposes-episcopal-toast-26


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

3. CANADA: Diocese of Caledonia Capitulates to Revisionist Canadian
Bisho...
http://www.virtueonline.org/canada-diocese-caledonia-capitulates-revisionist-canadian-bishops-over-worley-election


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

4. EDINBURGH: Rev. Canon Andy Lines Named GAFCON Missionary Bishop to Eu
http://www.virtueonline.org/edinburgh-rev-canon-andy-lines-named-gafcon-missionary-bishop-europe

5. Scottish Episcopal Church votes to allow same-sex marriage
http://www.virtueonline.org/scottish-episcopal-church-votes-allow-same-sex-marriage

6. The GAFCON Consecration -- Welby fiddles while the SEC burns
http://www.virtueonline.org/gafcon-consecration-welby-fiddles-while-sec-burns

7. London attack: faiths cannot wash their hands of atrocities, warns
Arc...
http://www.virtueonline.org/london-attack-faiths-cannot-wash-their-hands-atrocities-warns-archbishop-canterbury

8. Archbishop Ntahoturi takes up post in Rome
http://www.virtueonline.org/archbishop-ntahoturi-takes-post-rome

9. Thomas Cranmer and the Lord's Supper
http://www.virtueonline.org/thomas-cranmer-and-lords-supper

10. American and Kenyan bishops drill Malawi Anglican leaders over SOMA
http://www.virtueonline.org/american-and-kenyan-bishops-drill-malawi-anglican-leaders-over-soma


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

11. Pope and Archbishop abandon South Sudan visit over security fears
http://www.virtueonline.org/pope-and-archbishop-abandon-south-sudan-visit-over-security-fears

12. Church is 17th most trusted body in the UK, out of a list of 24
http://www.virtueonline.org/church-17th-most-trusted-body-uk-out-list-24


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

13. A Faithless UK and Resurgent Islam: The Perfect Storm
http://www.virtueonline.org/faithless-uk-and-resurgent-islam-perfect-storm

14. How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times
http://www.virtueonline.org/how-god-sustained-two-faithful-churches-through-tough-times

15. Debating transgender
http://www.virtueonline.org/debating-transgender


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

16. The Business of GAFCON
http://www.virtueonline.org/business-gafcon


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

18. We need to talk more about Jesus and Mohammed and less about
Christianity and Islam
http://www.virtueonline.org/we-need-talk-more-about-jesus-and-mohammed-and-less-about-christianity-and-islam

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


*****************************************
THEOLOGY
*****************************************

20. REFORMATION ANGLICANISM: Our Exotic Ancestry (3)
http://www.virtueonline.org/reformation-anglicanism-our-exotic-ancestry-3

21. Exploring "Male-Female" in the Bible and Soci..
http://www.virtueonline.org/exploring-male-female-bible-and-society


*********************************
DEVOTIONALS
*********************************

22. "That We May Be One": John 17:1-11
http://www.virtueonline.org/we-may-be-one-john-171-11

END



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

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:46:17 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: VIEWPOINTS: June 9, 2017
Message-ID:
<1497008777.1769318....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

A unique witness. What we hold, therefore, is this. The witness of the
apostles to Christ was accurate (not corrupt), authorized by Christ (not
the church), and unique (not repeatable). The church needs to assert
today the uniqueness not only of the Christ-event, but of the apostolic
witness to the Christ-event. We know nothing of Christ but what the
apostles have given us. We cannot know Christ or reach Christ in any
other way, except through the apostles. It is through their witness that
we have come to believe in Christ, and so receive life in his name. ---
John R. W. Stott

We have the saved and the unsaved. The godly and the ungodly. The
righteous and the unrighteous. The redeemed and the lost. And this is
found in the earliest biblical accounts of man. Just as soon as Adam and
Eve fell, God told them about a divided humanity which would be
continuous, extending throughout the generations. --- Bill Muehlenberg

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
www.virtueonline.org
June 9, 2017

Slowly the ecclesiastical noose tightens around the neck of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Sources 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 has Sarah Snyder
as his new Advisor for Reconciliation, Bishop Graham Kings, his mission
theologian reconciler, his ACC consigliore, Josiah Fearon, along with a
host of moderate corporatist bishops pushing the cause of
reconciliation. However, the more he pushes this, the worse it becomes.

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 will have hands laid upon him by GAFCON primates from the
Global South including Africa, South America and Sydney, Australia.

They made the announcement in Edinburgh, Scotland this week, and who
should lead the charge but the Anglican Church in North America primate
the Most Rev. Foley Beach.

He held a press conference with Canon Andy Lines, the soon to be new
Bishop of Europe and the Rev. David McCarthy, Rector, St. Thomas Church,
Edinburgh and a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) right
after the SEC announced it was changing its marriage Canon 31 to
accommodate same-sex marriage.

It was all predictable of course, the SEC is following the Episcopal
church and the Church of Wales. Same sex marriages have been allowed by
law in England and Wales for more than a year but are not permitted in
the church. No matter, give it time and they will all roll over. It is
written. But where?

The Scottish Episcopal Church will become the first mainstream Christian
denomination in the UK to allow same-sex couples to marry.

Its general synod voted to allow clergy to marry gay couples in a move
that leaves the small church at odds with the majority of the worldwide
Anglican Communion.

The move, following a historic debate in Edinburgh, means same-sex
couples could be married in the church as early as this autumn.

It will also allow gay Christians from any Anglican church to ask to be
married in Scotland's Anglican church.

Clergy who want to officiate at gay marriages will have to "opt-in", and
the church said this meant that those who disagreed with the change
would not have to act against their conscience.

Here's how they voted:

The three "houses" of the Scottish Episcopal Church's General Synod -
Bishops, Clergy and Laity -- had to vote in favor with a two thirds
majority. The narrowest margin was in the House of Clergy. The results
were as follows:

For Against

Bishops (4) - 80% Bishops (1) -- 20%

Clergy (42) - 67.7% Clergy (20) -- 32.3%

Laity (50) - 80.6% Laity (12) -- 19.4%

For the record the Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) for the entire
province is 12,511 with Edinburgh having the largest share 4571, fully
one third of the province.

A statement from the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion,
Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, following Scottish Episcopal Church vote
was a statement of yet more fence-sitting.

"The churches of the Anglican Communion are autonomous and free to make
their own decisions on canon law. The Scottish Episcopal Church is one
of 38, soon to be 39, provinces covering more than 165 countries around
the world.

"Today's decision by the SEC to approve changes to canon law on marriage
is not a surprise, given the outcome of the vote at its Synod a year
ago. There are differing views about same-sex marriage within the
Anglican Communion but this puts the Scottish Episcopal Church at odds
with the majority stance that marriage is the lifelong union of a man
and a woman."

Then he said this: "This is a departure from the faith and teaching
upheld by the overwhelming majority of Anglican provinces on the
doctrine of marriage. The Anglican Communion's position on human
sexuality is set out very clearly in Resolution 1.10 agreed at the
Lambeth conference of 1998 and will remain so unless it is revoked.

"As Secretary General, I want the churches within the Anglican Communion
to remain committed to walking together in the love of Christ and to
working out how we can maintain our unity and uphold the value of every
individual in spite of deeply-held differences. It is important to
stress the Communion's strong opposition to the criminalization of
LGBTIQ+ people."

Of course that is not going to happen. GAFCON has dealt a fatal blow to
unity and so the polarization will continue.

"The primates of the Communion will be meeting in Canterbury in October.
I am sure today's decision will be among the topics which will be
prayerfully discussed. There will be no formal response to the SEC's
vote until the primates have met."

Of course not, but the GAFCON primates will plough on persuading more
and more primates to separate themselves spiritually from Canterbury.
The latest departure to GAFCON was the new primate of Bangladesh, Paul
Sarker, who found himself feted by Archbishop Foley Beach in company
with Bishop Bill Atwood in Atlanta recently. They produced a Joint
Statement on Communion which will no doubt irritate the occupant at
Lambeth Palace.

That Archbishop Foley Beach is playing such an international role in
GAFCON and among orthodox Anglican archbishops is a real slap in the
face at both TEC Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and ABC Justin Welby.
Who would have thought that things and events would have turned out this
way a few short years ago, but here we are?

The Global South is on the rise even as the liberal/revisionist West
declines. Pansexuality has not filled churches, it continues to empty
them along with aging Episcopalians and demographics that promise no
future Millennials or Gen Exers filling churches.

You can read a number of stories about all this here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/edinburgh-rev-canon-andy-lines-named-gafcon-missionary-bishop-europe
http://www.virtueonline.org/scottish-episcopal-church-votes-allow-same-sex-marriage
http://www.virtueonline.org/gafcon-consecration-welby-fiddles-while-sec-burns

*****

Among the stories you will read today will be the story of how two
churches survived the bitter ecclesiastical nightmare invoked by the
Episcopal Church and how they rose above it all, went on, despite losing
their church properties, to do greater things. You can read it here:
How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times

*****

As announced last week, we are slowly transitioning away from all the
bad news generated by The Episcopal Church to the good news about what
God is doing in the world today through our beloved Anglican Communion
by those who remain faithful to the gospel and Scripture. We will not
entirely ignore TEC, but they will no longer be the first order of
business. The recent actions by GAFCON primates in Edinburgh, Scotland
is a sign of the new thing God is doing and there will be more. Stay
tuned.

*****

Please consider supporting VOL. We are urgently in need of funds for
upcoming conferences I must attend across the globe. There is no First
Class flying. I travel as cheaply as I can with an excellent travel
agent who keeps costs down.

You can make a tax-deductible contribution through PAYPAL at the link
here: http://www.virtueonline.org/support-vol/

Or you can send a snail mail check to:

VIRTUEONLINE
570 Twin Lakes Rd
P.O. Box 111
Shohola, PA 18458

In Christ,

David



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

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:46:32 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Screwtape Proposes an Episcopal Toast
Message-ID:
<1497008792.1769314....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Screwtape Proposes an Episcopal Toast
(With apologies to C.S. Lewis)

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 3, 2017

My Dear Wormwood,

The antics of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby never ceases to
amaze us. He grows more belligerent against his orthodox wing while
giving a pass to sodomites in his own church. Some of his former friends
say he is becoming a thug in dealing with people who disagree with him.
His evangelicalism is clearly skin deep. He seems to be resembling that
Trump fellow who can't seem to stand any opposition either. Our Father
below is beginning to think that the Arian Rowan Williams and the
evangelical Welby are not as far apart as first thought. Both want unity
at any cost, including apparently, the truth.

Both men were and are driven by the need to keep the Anglican Communion
together in the name of a faux reconciliation, the Truth be damned. It's
not working of course and the harder they try the worse it all becomes
and the closer they come to us. Compromise is the rose-covered pathway
that leads straight to hell. The backlash, which is inevitable, comes
with emergent movements like Jesmond, the AMiE, the ACNA and GAFCON.
Institutionalism is one of the great lies that keeps the lid on the
hideous possibility of revival. Add a little royalty, ordain women
bishops, add a touch of pomposity and Anglican clubbiness and the church
continues its decline to perdition. It all works in our favor.

The endless desire to hold contradictory positions in tension in the
name of good disagreement always plays into our hands. The orthodox will
either be driven out or leave voluntarily, and revisionist leaders
scream and have hissy fits about their failure to exercise generous
orthodoxy and diversity. It's a game they play because they don't
believe in absolute truth.

Our Father below positively chortles when he hears about another diocese
selling off its assets in the name of its Mission to save the world when
the truth is they can't even save themselves. The churches are running
out of money, their parishioners are aging and dying with funerals
outpacing the number of new communicants, baptisms and weddings
combined. Nothing delights the heart of our Father more than to see a
handful of aging congregants hobbling their way to communion rails while
the young sit at home watching football, playing games on their phones
and i-pads oblivious to the future that awaits them.

The High Council was contemplating how many more schemes Episcopal
church leaders will employ to gin up their dying church. First there was
the notion to double the church by 2020, an idea that has clearly
failed. Then along came something called TREC that was designed to grow
the Church, and now we have something called the Jesus Movement by this
Curry fellow. The Council wonders how long the lunacy and lies will
continue before it all explodes in their faces as churches wither and
die and then sold off to Islamic groups and evangelical start up
churches. Tinge the blindness with false hope and high talk of baptismal
covenants, and they journey to us with even greater speed.

Curry almost had it right but just missed the mark. All his ranting and
raving about racism and white privilege, real church stampede starters,
will certainly fail. One can only imagine his embarrassment when he
discovers that Millennials and Gen-Exers really don't give a damn about
how he views gay marriage, trannie toilets and racism.

Liberals love to bleed and whine about the alleged hatred of homosexuals
while blithely ignoring the gaystapo tactics and fascist rage of
pansexualists when they cry homophobia against anyone who dares to say,
"the Bible says", or raise the health risks of a behavior that includes
higher than normal figures of alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide.
'Ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise', apparently. That they garner
so much misplaced compassion while Welby ignores the thousands of
Anglicans being slaughtered in countries like Nigeria by Boko Haram and
Fulani thugs is mind blowing even by our Father's standard of duplicity.

The Council especially likes all the talk of "mission" uttered by
liberals and revisionists. It is a word without any real meaning, but
they bandy it about as though by some miracle the world will sit up and
take notice. The world doesn't care of course, it's all a nightmarish
fantasy by Episcopal leaders wherein Hell awaits.

This Curry fellow has all the makings and markings of a circus barker,
full of sound and fury signifying nothing, but Episcopalians love it
because it is so different from the dry arid world of Sufi Griswold and
Jefferts Schori.

The bishops they have been picking like Heather Cook, in the name of
political correctness, staggers all belief and further plays into our
hands. The drunken cyclist killer bishop of Maryland who couldn't even
apologize or show an ounce of contrition or remorse, let alone
repentance, blew our Father's mind. What barrel do they find to scrape
to find these bishops, he asked? No one could give him an answer.

One of the most important things for our agents to exploit is money. The
Episcopal Church still has lots of it and they can use it to manipulate
African, Asian and Latino bishops and dioceses into accepting western
pluriform thinking. Trinity Wall Street is our biggest sponsor of spin
money. Make sure that no sliver of light enters the darkness of this
church, they are strategic to our planning of manipulation and mayhem,
and ultimately to our take-over of Africa.

Of course, it will impact pocket books when the Church Pension Fund
discovers they can't take from dying parishes all the money needed to
pay out the growing numbers of retirees. At least 3,000 priests will be
forced to retire over the next five years. We can't wait for the wails
and cries to be heard from those who poured out their lives to a
spiritually defunct institution that saved no one and nothing and now
expect fat pay checks in retirement.

Remember, Wormwood, the race is not to the swiftest. Think how long it
took Louie Crew to work his charm over the bishops in the name full
homosexual inclusion and how quickly the HOB rolled over. We are
winning, we will win, but never underestimate the other side. We have
seemingly won before but just in time to see defeat snatched from the
jaws of victory. Meanwhile, though their resistance remains strong, we
are pouring more agents into undermining the ACNA and GAFCON.

I remain,

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape



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

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:46:46 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: CANADA: Diocese of Caledonia Capitulates to Revisionist
Canadian Bishops over Worley Election
Message-ID:
<1497008806.1769346....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

CANADA: Diocese of Caledonia Capitulates to Revisionist Canadian Bishops
over Worley Election

PHOTO: Archbishop John Privett, Metropolitan of BC and Yukon

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 5, 2017

Accusing the House of Bishops of British Columbia and Yukon of fomenting
schism in the wider Anglican Communion, including bullying, hypocrisy,
incivility, intolerance and silencing the conservative voice, the
Diocese of Caledonia promptly rolled over and said they would accept
their decision not to invite the Rev. Jacob Worley to be the next
bishop. He can go pound sand.

Worley was unanimously elected as the next Bishop of Caledonia by the
diocese. Subsequently, he was turned down for the position by the
province's house of bishops because he held a view "contrary to the
Doctrine or Discipline of the Anglican Church of Canada", a church of
such loose doctrine, discipline and morality that very few before Worley
have accomplished this immensely difficult feat, wrote tongue-in-cheek
orthodox Canadian blogger, David of Samizdat. The diocese will now go
through the whole process again.

Worley did a brief stint as a priest in the Anglican Mission in America
(AMiA) a fatal theological and ecclesiastical "sin" apparently, which
just might have led him into becoming a "righteous" liberal/revisionist
bishop capable of emptying his own diocese by promoting homosexual
marriage.

The capitulation by the Diocese of Caledonia was weak and cowardly,
especially as the Anglican Church of Canada is virtually on its knees
with fast dying dioceses across the country. From Newfoundland to Quebec
and Toronto, they are all hemorrhaging parishes, parishioners and money
faster than a previously blocked sewer line. Every week VOL obtains a
list of the latest closures in Eastern Canada and it does not make for
pretty reading.

All the Diocese of Caledonia had to do was make a call to Bishop Charlie
Masters of the Anglican Network in Canada (joined at the hip with the
Anglican Church in North America) and let the chips fall where they may.
The ACoC has not got the money for a long drawn out legal fight.

Back in 2009, VOL reported that the ACoC was in financial trouble. They
slashed their budget by $1.3 million and laid off seven staff. The
treasurer also resigned, all to reduce to $800,000 and to try to put an
end to a pattern of incurring deficits. "With a church in numerical and
financial decline and many wealthy parishes leaving the denomination,
the ACofC will ultimately lose. Quite simply put: no gospel, no future."

It's as if Zhukov and the Russian army had begun to drive the Germans
off of Russian soil in 1945, (having said a lot of nasty things about
Nazism) only to raise the white flag of surrender and let the Germans
take Moscow. The Germans had their backs to the wall and so has the
Anglican Church of Canada. The Diocese of Caledonia gave up without a
fight, even though it ripped the two ACoC dioceses for being schismatic.

As David of Samizdat observed, "There are two sad aspects to this:
first, the fact that Worley was banned from being bishop on such a
flimsy pretext and second, that the diocese is going along with it.
Their accommodation to the liberal juggernaut reminds me of the rather
flawed advice that politician Clayton Williams gave to potential rape
victims: 'if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it'."

"The Anglican Church of Canada loves to have a few tame conservatives on
hand to be conveniently paraded whenever extra evidence of inclusion is
needed; Caledonia has been tamed. The diocese should be wary, though:
after rape comes pillage," he wrote.

Worley was elected bishop of the diocese on April 22, but on May 15, the
House of Bishops of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia and
Yukon announced it was objecting to his election, citing ministry he had
performed in the United States for the province of Rwanda. As specified
in provincial canons, the bishops said, their decision was final.

It should be noted that the Province of the Anglican Church of Rwanda is
a full partner in the Anglican Communion, so it is the actions of these
two dioceses that is schismatic, not the other way around. What these
two dioceses were in fact saying is that they did not approve of Worley
being a temporary member of the AMiA, an Anglican entity that saw the
wrath of U.S. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold when it first came into
existence back in 2000.

It is deeply ironic that the Rev. Gwen Andrews, who is in charge of the
diocese, said at the time that Worley's election had all the hallmarks
of "God being near them at the election," and it was a very "spiritual
election". She then went on to say, "I have never experienced an
election where the power of God seemed to be so present." Really! Then
why did she and the diocese cave in so quickly? "If God be for us who
can be against us," she might have argued. She didn't. She allowed the
revisionist steam roller to go right over the diocese.

Well, it seems those against her and Mr. Worley were greater than God
and got their way! Now, what if the diocese elects a run of the mill
candidate, a moderate, or worse, an outright liberal or revisionist,
will she say this is a "spiritual election" and go on to say that this
is the will of God? If she does, she will be called a hypocrite,
possibly worse. And no one will be fooled, least of all VOL.

"We need things in this diocese to return to some semblance of
normalcy," she said. "Our congregations need the stability of knowing
that there is a head pastor in place."

That is a cop out. It is not going to happen unless they elect an
evangelical like Worley, but the odds of that are slim to none. You only
get one crack of the whip, and the next "Chosen One" will be a moderate
man (or woman) of all shades of opinion.

END



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

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:47:00 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: EDINBURGH: Rev. Canon Andy Lines Named GAFCON Missionary
Bishop to Europe
Message-ID:
<1497008820.1769350....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

EDINBURGH: Rev. Canon Andy Lines Named GAFCON Missionary Bishop to
Europe
Scottish Episcopal Church's actions to change canons and redefine
marriage was deciding factor

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 8, 2017

The Rt. Rev Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North
America (ACNA) and a Primate of The Global Anglican Future Conference
(GAFCON), today announced that his fellow primates would consecrate the
Rev. Canon Andy Lines as a GAFCON bishop to Europe, following the
Scottish Episcopal Church's vote to finalize a change to their canons
that attempts to redefine marriage. This action further marginalizes
faithful Anglicans in Scotland who uphold Jesus' teaching on marriage,
said Beach.

"Recognizing the pastoral need that arose following the initial SEC vote
(in June 2016), in April of this year the GAFCON Primates authorized the
consecration of a Missionary Bishop to care for those who seek to remain
faithful to the scriptures and Jesus' teaching on marriage."

Canon Lines was introduced at a press conference in Edinburgh, Scotland,
by Archbishop Beach, who spoke on behalf of GAFCON's Primates' Council.

"We continue to have a crisis in the Anglican Communion as the virus of
revisionist theology and practice continues to spread to various
Provinces. Rather than correcting and disciplining those who have
departed from the biblical faith and practice which has been handed down
to us from the Apostles, some church leaders are embracing false
teaching, and then going even further by promoting it around the world.

"The Nairobi Communique from the GAFCON meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in
2013 clearly stated that the GAFCON leadership would not ignore the
pleas of the faithful who are trapped in places where false doctrine and
practice occur. We promised that we would provide pastoral care and
oversight for those who remain faithful to Jesus' teaching on marriage.

"At our April meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, the GAFCON Primates decided to
provide a missionary bishop for Europe with the initial focus on those
in Scotland and those faithful Anglicans in England outside the Church
of England. Today's decision by the Scottish Episcopal Church to change
the biblical and historic definition of marriage has highlighted the
need to respond to the cries and pleas of those Scots who today have
been marginalized by their leaders. The attempt to redefine marriage is
not one that a faithful Christian can support."

Beach said the GAFCON Primates had asked his Province, the (ACNA), to
take on the task of providing a missionary bishop for Scotland. "Our
Province was formed at the direction of GAFCON 2008 after many of the
Provinces of GAFCON had provided the same kind of oversight for clergy
and congregations in North America. They have asked us to consecrate
Canon Andy Lines."

Canon Lines is now canonically resident in the Diocese of the South as a
"priest in good standing" after having been transferred from the
Province of South America as a priest in good standing.

The Consecration will take place on the morning of 30 June in Wheaton,
Illinois. The service will include Primates, Archbishops, and bishops
from across the globe.

Citing Samuel Seabury, Beach said, "Error often becomes popular and
contagious, and then no one can tell how far it will spread, nor where
it ends. We must in such cases, recur to first principles, and there
take our stand. The Bible must be the ground of our faith."

REFORM, an evangelical movement within the Church of England and the
Church of Ireland welcomed the announcement. "The Rev. Canon Lines has
worked tirelessly for many years to offer biblically faithful pastoral
ministry to members of Reform through his work at Crosslinks and with
the Anglican Mission in England. We look forward to continuing to work
in close partnership with him and ACNA as he takes on this new role.

"The Church has great news to offer the world but sadly it is being
drowned out by those who have lost confidence in God's desire and
ability to speak to us through the Bible," said Susie Leafe, Director of
Reform*. "We need leaders with that confidence and our prayer is that
the appointment of Rev'd Canon Lines to this role will encourage
faithful Anglicans in Scotland and across Europe to know they are not
alone and give them confidence to proclaim the wonder of God's saving
and transforming grace through Jesus Christ alone."

MISLEADING THE WORLD

The Scottish Anglican Network, a movement of Christians - including
clergy and laity - within the Scottish Episcopal Church denounced the
actions of the SEC to approve an amendment to its canons to permit
same-sex weddings and called for the restoration of the Bible to the
heart of Anglican churches in Scotland.

"As Christians, we believe that it is through Jesus Christ - and only
through him - that we can truly know God, and truly know ourselves.
Jesus clearly taught that marriage is a good gift from God, and is a
faithful, lifelong union between one man and one woman. Though all of us
fall short of his standards, not least in the area of sexual morality,
we believe that following this teaching is essential to the flourishing
of his forgiven people.

"The SEC has rejected this. In doing so, it has failed to support those
in our churches who are same-sex attracted but who choose to live their
lives in obedience to Jesus' teaching, misleading the church and the
world, and acting in a schismatic way towards the worldwide Anglican
Communion and the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of which it
claims to be a part.

"Our fellowship with the Scottish Episcopal Church has therefore been
impaired by this action. We will continue to trust, uphold and contend
for the teaching of Jesus Christ in his church in Scotland. We are
thankful for support we have received from many in the Anglican
Communion and we now look forward to building stronger relationships
with the leaders and churches of the Global Anglican Communion who
remain faithful to Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible," said
the Rev David McCarthy (Edinburgh), Rector, St. Thomas Church.

There was no immediate response from Lambeth Palace, but a statement
from the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Josiah
Idowu-Fearon, revealed just how divided the communion and the danger of
fence-sitting.

"Today's decision by the SEC to approve changes to canon law on marriage
is not a surprise, given the outcome of the vote at its Synod a year
ago. There are differing views about same-sex marriage within the
Anglican Communion but this puts the Scottish Episcopal Church at odds
with the majority stance that marriage is the lifelong union of a man
and a woman."

Then he said this: "This is a departure from the faith and teaching
upheld by the overwhelming majority of Anglican provinces on the
doctrine of marriage. The Anglican Communion's position on human
sexuality is set out very clearly in Resolution 1.10 agreed at the
Lambeth conference of 1998 and will remain so unless it is revoked."

That is not going to happen and Fearon has made it clear what he thinks
of his African brethren in an Irish radio broadcast wherein he accused
them of being "un-Christlike", "despotic" and "corrupt." Hardly winning
themes.

END



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

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:47:14 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Scottish Episcopal Church votes to allow same-sex marriage
Message-ID:
<1497008834.1769413....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Scottish Episcopal Church votes to allow same-sex marriage

By Chris Green
THE SCOTSMAN
http://www.scotsman.com/
June 8, 2017

Gay couples could be married in Scottish churches within a year after
the Scottish Episcopal Church voted in favour of allowing its clergy to
preside over same-sex weddings.

The historic decision, reached after an impassioned debate at the
Church's General Synod in Edinburgh, makes it the first mainstream
Christian church in the UK to allow gay marriage.

It also means that gay Christians from any Anglican Church can now ask
to be married in Scotland, giving many their first opportunity for a
church wedding.

Members of the Church's houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity were asked
to vote on whether to replace Canon 31, the doctrinal clause stating
that marriage is between a man and a woman.

All three houses were required to approve the motion by a two-thirds
majority. It received the backing of 80 per cent of Bishops, 67 per cent
of Clergy and 80 per cent of Laity.

Under the new rules, clergy who want to preside over gay weddings will
have to put themselves forward for the role, allowing those who object
to the decision to opt out.

Introducing the motion, the Bishop of Edinburgh Dr John Armes said the
new definition of marriage would "protect the consciences both of those
who believe that they must not -- and of those who believe that they
must -- offer God's blessing on a marriage of a same-sex couple".

He added: "No one is being asked to change their theology of marriage.
The change is that our church would officially recognise that it
contains a diversity of viewpoints.

"If, for example, a cleric does not believe they can officiate at the
marriage of a same-sex couple, they need do nothing."

The decision puts the Church at odds with most of the rest of the
worldwide Anglican Communion, and some members condemned the proposed
changes during the preceding debate.

Rev Canon Ian Ferguson, of the Aberdeen diocese, said that if the motion
was passed it would be "one of the saddest and most painful days" in the
history of the Church, describing it as a "broken" institution.

"I'm deeply concerned that in the passing of this Canon, the Scottish
Episcopal Church will be disagreeing with the teachings of our Lord
Jesus, who has made it clear that marriage is a union of one man and one
woman," he added. "Changing our definition of marriage...is a schismatic
move that will cause serious harm to our unity and future relationship
with our sisters and brothers throughout the Anglican Communion."

But other gay members of the Church spoke passionately about the
importance of changing the doctrine. Victoria Stock, a lay
representative from the diocese of Edinburgh, urged other members to
"stand up for what is right".

Speaking of her "deep hurt and pain" at being told that there was
"something wrong" with her when she came out as gay, she added: "If
Jesus was standing right here in this room today, he would be telling us
just to get on with it."

The Most Rev David Chillingworth, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal
Church, described the decision as "the end of a long journey" and called
for members to come together in reconciliation.

He added: "This is a momentous step. By removing gender from our
marriage canon, our church now affirms that a same sex couple are not
just married but are married in the sight of God."

WHERE OTHER CHURCHES STAND ON GAY MARRIAGE

Church of England: The Church's teaching remains that marriage is only
permitted between heterosexual couples, although gay clergy are
permitted to live celibate lives in civil partnerships. Earlier this
year a report by the House of Bishops recommended that the Church should
not change its opposition to same-sex marriage, but should adopt a
"fresh tone and culture of welcome and support" for gay people. However,
in February the report was rejected at the General Synod, in what gay
rights campaigners said was a victory for "love and equality". What will
happen next remains unclear.

Catholic Church: The Church strongly believes that marriage should only
be between a man and a woman. Last year Pope Francis released a report
on the importance of the family which affirmed the Church's opposition
to gay equality and same-sex marriage. Although past Synods have heard
proposals for the Church to water down its opposition, these have been
disregarded. The Pope's report argued that there were "absolutely no
grounds" for considering the recognition of "homosexual unions".

Church of Scotland: Despite opposing the legalisation of gay marriage in
Scotland in 2014, last month the Kirk's General Assembly backed a report
which could lead to same-sex weddings being performed in churches. The
Church's legal questions committee is now examining the practicalities
of the plan. The document, which also called for the church to apologise
for its past treatment of gay people, recommended that any decision on
whether or not to carry out gay marriages should be left up to
individual ministers.

*****

Scottish Episcopal Church approves gay marriage

BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-40190204
June 8, 2017

The Scottish Episcopal Church has voted to allow gay couples to marry in
church.

It makes it the first major Christian church in the UK to allow same-sex
marriages.

The vote to amend canon law on marriage, removing the stipulation that
it is between a man and a woman, was carried by the Synod in Edinburgh.

It means that gay Christians from any Anglican Church can now ask to be
married in a Scottish Episcopal Church.

Clergy who wish to officiate at gay marriages will have to "opt-in".

The church said this meant that those who disagreed with gay marriage
would be protected and not have to act against their conscience.

The Episcopal Church's Bishop of Edinburgh, The Right Reverend Dr John
Armes, said: "I am very pleased for the couples who can now have their
relationships recognised by the church and blessed by God.

"I'm also pleased for what this means about our church and the way we
have been able to do this. But obviously any change like this creates
pain and hurt in some as well, so as a bishop of the church I feel for
them."

Passionate debate

The vote to allow same-sex marriage - which required the backing of at
least two thirds of each house of Bishops, Clergy and Laity - has left
the church at odds with most of the rest of the worldwide Anglican
Communion.

A group of global Anglican traditionalists have now announced that they
will appoint a missionary bishop "to serve the needs of those who oppose
gay marriage".

A senior figure in the group, Archbishop Foley Beach, said: "Today's
decision by the Scottish Episcopal Church to change the biblical and
historic definition of marriage has highlighted the need to respond to
the cries and pleas of those Scots who today have been marginalised by
their leaders.

"The attempt to redefine marriage is not one that a faithful Christian
can support."

At last year's Synod, members of the Church agreed to send the issue for
discussion to its seven dioceses.

Six of them voted in favour of amending the law. Only Aberdeen and
Orkney voted against the proposal.

Same sex marriage became legal in Scotland at the end of 2014 but the
Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church opposed the move.

The issue has provoked passionate debate within the Anglican Communion.

In January last year, the communion sanctioned the US Episcopal Church
when it decided to allow gay marriage in church.

However, last month the Church of Scotland voted to approve a report
which could allow ministers to conduct same-sex weddings in the future.

And in February, a report opposing gay marriage was opposed by the
Church of England's Synod.

'Departure from faith'

The Secretary General of the Anglican Communion described the Episcopal
Church's decision as "a departure from the faith and teaching upheld by
the overwhelming majority of Anglican provinces on the doctrine of
marriage".

Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon said: "The churches of the Anglican
Communion are autonomous and free to make their own decisions on canon
law. The Scottish Episcopal Church is one of 38, soon to be 39,
provinces covering more than 165 countries around the world.

"As Secretary General, I want the churches within the Anglican Communion
to remain committed to walking together in the love of Christ and to
working out how we can maintain our unity and uphold the value of every
individual in spite of deeply-held differences. It is important to
stress the Communion's strong opposition to the criminalisation of
LGBTIQ+ people.

"The primates of the Communion will be meeting in Canterbury in October.
I am sure today's decision will be among the topics which will be
prayerfully discussed. There will be no formal response to the SEC's
vote until the primates have met."

'Really positive message'

The equality campaign group Stonewall Scotland said it was "delighted"
with the outcome of the vote.

The groups's director Colin Macfarlane said: "This step allows couples
to celebrate their love within their faith and sends a really positive
message to other LGBT people, both here and around the world.

"It signals that members of the church welcome, recognise and respect
LGBT people as part of the faith community."

END



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

Message: 7
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:47:33 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The GAFCON Consecration -- Welby fiddles while the SEC burns
Message-ID:
<1497008853.1769429....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The GAFCON Consecration -- Welby fiddles while the SEC burns

EXCLUSIVE

By DAVID OULD
http://davidould.net/exclusive-the-gafcon-consecration-and-welbys-choices/
June 5, 2017

As we reported a few days ago, GAFCON are about to announce a new
missionary bishop for the UK, precipitated by the imminent decision of
the Scottish Episcopal Church to change their doctrine of marriage to
include same-sex relationships.

What might not be so clear to readers is the part Justin Welby and other
senior leaders in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion
have had in bringing this crisis about. Or, more accurately, why failure
to act on their part has necessitated such a drastic intervention.

The first piece in the jigsaw is related by the Primus of the Scottish
Episcopal Church, the Most Rev David Chillingworth, in his address to
their General Synod in 2016 where he reflected upon the 2016 Primates
meeting in Canterbury.

You will have seen the Communique and the 'consequences' which that
meeting decided to impose on The Episcopal Church of the United States.
The primary question in your minds will be this, 'And will the same
consequences or sanctions apply to us if we approve the proposals for
canonical change in respect of marriage in 2016 and 2017?'

Two weeks ago, I went to London and met with Archbishop Justin
specifically to ask the question, 'Will this ["consequence" for TEC]
also apply to us if we complete the process of Canonical change in
2017?' The answer is that it will. Most directly, I will be removed from
the role of Anglican Co-Chair of the International Anglican-Reformed
Dialogue. But other effects are limited. Our bishops will be present and
fully involved in the Lambeth Conference planned for 2020. We shall
continue to be actively involved in our network of Diocesan
Companionships and in the Anglican Networks.

And there you have it; confirmation from Justin Welby himself. If the
SEC push ahead with a revision of the doctrine of marriage there will be
little if no real discipline. Welby, of course, has the power of
invitation (and therefore an option to withhold invitation) to the
Lambeth Conference. If he really wanted to sort this situation out he
could have made quite clear that an invitation would be withheld. But
he's chosen not to. No wonder the SEC under the leadership of
Chillingworth have pushed ahead. What is there to stop them?

So what will happen to orthodox parishes in the SEC? Sadly the story is
much the same as with the question over discipline. Welby is simply
unwilling to do anything.

For the rest of the story view here:
http://davidould.net/exclusive-the-gafcon-consecration-and-welbys-choices/



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

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:47:49 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: London attack: faiths cannot wash their hands of atrocities,
warns Archbishop of Canterbury
Message-ID:
<1497008869.1769455....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

London attack: faiths cannot wash their hands of atrocities, warns
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Most Rev Justin Welby cited the role of Christianity in the
Srebrenica massacre

By Fariha Karim
The Times
https://globalstore.thetimes.co.uk/
June 6, 2017

Religious leaders must face up to the justification their faiths provide
for atrocities committed in their names, the Archbishop of Canterbury
has said.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said that failing to acknowledge the role
played by Islam in such attacks was akin to failing to accept
Christianity's role in the Srebrenica massacre.

More than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed in the town in
July 1995 by a Bosnian Serb army during the Bosnian civil war after the
break up of Yugoslavia.

"We have got to say that if something happens within our faith tradition
we need to take responsibility for countering that," the archbishop told
BBC Radio 4.

Politicians should not just say "this is nothing to do with Islam", he
added, saying that the ideological basis should not be overlooked.

"I don't think it is getting us anywhere, just like saying Srebrenica
had nothing to do with Christianity," he said.

He also said that some of those dealing with the terrorism threat
suffered from "a lack of religious literacy" and were unable to put
themselves "in the shoes of religious believers".

He added that scriptures had "been twisted and misused" to justify
violence.

Archbishop Welby told the Today programme: "From an outside perspective,
one of the issues about dealing with Islam is that there is not much of
a structure. There isn't a pope or a bishop that you can go to and say,
'these are the leaders'."

"There will always be particular groups which take views that are
different from the mainstream but what is clear over the weekend is the
extraordinary level of condemnation by every significant Muslim leader
we know and every significant Muslim body we know."

Seven people were killed and nearly 50 injured when three terrorists
drove a white van along London Bridge, rammed it into pedestrians and
then leapt out and began indiscriminately stabbing people in and around
Borough Market.

The archbishop said that all faith groups suffered from violent attacks.
"We need to counter that within our own tradition and teach people why
that is unacceptable," he said.

He said that to do this, the authorities -- secular included -- had to
make greater efforts to understand "the basic tenets of the faith they
are dealing with".

He added: "They are often people who are unable to put themselves in the
shoes of religious believers and understand a way of looking at the
world that says that this defines your whole life, every single aspect
of who you are and what you are."

The archbishop said Christianity had a similar "dark side" which it is
also important to face up to.

END



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

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:48:03 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Archbishop Ntahoturi takes up post in Rome
Message-ID:
<1497008883.1769451....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Archbishop Ntahoturi takes up post in Rome

Vatican Radio
June 2, 2017

See, Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi, says his appointment will
help Anglicans and Catholics to work more closely together on key issues
of reconciliation, poverty and human trafficking.

The Archbishop, who will also serve as director of Rome's Anglican
Centre, says his experience in jail, following a military coup in
Burundi, taught him humility and other valuable lessons about the
responsibility of religious leaders.

Ntahoturi served as chief of staff to Burundi's former President
Jean-Baptiste Bagaza from 1979 to 1986. Following the overthrow of the
government in 1987, he spent almost four years in prison.

After being consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Matana, and later
serving as leader of the Anglican Church of Burundi for over a decade,
Ntahoturi has played a key role in local and regional peace building
efforts. He's also well-known on the international scene for his
ecumenical work, serving on the central committee of the World Council
of Churches.

Over the past 10 days, Archbishop Bernard has been in Rome, meeting Pope
Francis and top Vatican officials ahead of the start of his new job in
the autumn. Philippa Hitchen caught up with him to find out more about
his past experiences and how they may help him in the challenges that
lie ahead...

Archbishop Bernard pays tribute to the work of his predecessor, New
Zealand Archbishop David Moxon and says he was grateful to meet with
Pope Francis -- unexpectedly -- during the Wednesday general audience.
He says he found the Holy Father "very well informed" about his
appointment, adding that he looks forward to their next meeting in
October when he can "explain my mission and get his blessing".

The major mission of the Anglican Centre, he says, is the work of
"rapprochement" or bringing together Roman Catholics and Anglicans who
together count close to one and half billion followers. "That's a
population that can make a difference in the world," he says, adding
that the main objective is "to witness to a divided world" in response
to Jesus' prayer "that they may be one, so that the world may believe."

His appointment as the first African director of the Anglican Centre is
a recognition that the Churches in Africa are growing, as well as
sending a strong signal that the Church is universal. Secondly, he says,
it sends a message that "we'll be concentrating and focusing on some of
the problems and challenges we have in Africa," especially
reconciliation, conflict resolution, poverty and human trafficking,
where Catholics and Anglicans can come together to denounce these evils
of this century."

Discussing his previous work in peace and reconciliation, Archbishop
Bernard notes his role as chair of the council of all African provinces,
as well as his responsibilities as vice chair of Burundi's commission on
truth and reconciliation. Reconciliation is a word that all people of
faith have to take seriously, he says, as "it talks to the hearts of
people." Our responsibility, he says, is to "bring people together to
see the other not as an evil, a demon, because there's demonisation, but
as someone created by God."

The Anglican leader says his previous experience in Burundi doesn't
compromise his role, but instead contributes to a greater understanding
of human behaviour. Speaking of his time in the cabinet of former
president Bagaza, he says those surrounding the military leader advised
him that "conflict does not have a purpose" but he adds that Bagaza had
his own personal convictions and "struggle for power." He says those
years taught him "you can't ignore the role [...] and the presence of
the Church, especially in Africa where people are deeply religious," a
lesson which will help "in the work I'm doing here"

His time in jail, following the coup in his country, "taught me
humility" and that "one should be prepared for changes", he says.

Asked about the desire of Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby to
visit South Sudan together, he says if the two religious leaders can
travel there together, it "would be of great contribution to the process
of peace". But he adds they "should really do that visit when inclusive
negotiations have been started."

Commenting on diverging opinions within the Anglican world, Archbishop
Bernard says "what Jesus Christ prayed for was unity in the Church, not
uniformity". As we mark this year's 500th anniversary of the
Reformation, he says, we are not celebrating divisions but rather
remembering what happened, and we "should be aware of dividing" the
Church of Christ today. Just as the first century Christians dealt with
their differences through discussions, so "we should learn from what the
early Church did," he concludes, not dividing the Church but continuing
to "walk together".

END



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

Message: 10
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:48:21 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Thomas Cranmer and the Lord's Supper
Message-ID:
<1497008901.1769467....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Thomas Cranmer and the Lord's Supper
The Influence of Reformation Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
Martyrs went to the flames over the Eucharist, says British Theologian

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 7, 2017

The Rev. Dr. Lee Gatiss (pronounced Gate-iss was guest preacher at
CANA's Missionary Diocesan Convention in Binghamton, NY, recently. Dr.
Gatiss is full time Director of Church Society and a trained theologian.
He obtained his Ph.D. from Cambridge University, edits an internet
journal called Theologian. He also serves as a member of the Editorial
Board of Themelios, a Review Editor of the journal Churchman, and on the
Councils of the Fellowship of Word and Spirit, Reform, the Church of
England Evangelical Council, and Affinity.

The following is the substance of his lecture on Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer and his theology of the Eucharist.
__________

Cranmer was primarily responsible for giving us The Book of Common
Prayer, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the doctrinal and
liturgical basis of Anglicanism. They remain today the gold standard of
Anglican doctrine, according to the laws and canons of the Church of
England. They are used and cherished by millions in worldwide
Anglicanism.

In England, our reformers were also martyrs. They were burned at the
stake for what they believed and taught.

Why were they burned at the stake? It would be a great mistake to think
that they were martyred because they refused to submit to the pope in
some vague way. The main reason that they were burned is that they
refused one of Rome's distinctive doctrines. On that doctrine hinged
their life or their death. If they admitted it, they might live. If they
refused it, they would die.

The doctrine in question was the Real Presence -- physical presence --
of the Body and Blood of Christ in the consecrated elements of bread and
wine in the Lord's Supper.

Did they or did they not believe that the Body and Blood of Christ were
really present in the bread and the wine when the words of consecration
were pronounced.

Was Jesus' Body literally, physically there? "Did they or did they not?"
they were asked, believe the real Body of Christ, born of the Virgin
Mary, was present on the altar as soon as the mystical words had left
the priest's mouth?

That was the simple question. If they did not believe and admit it, they
were burned.

Were they right to be so inflexible on the subject question...right
enough to die for their belief?

That is difficult for many people today to accept. Some people think
this was just a silly argument over words.

As instructed, Bible reading Protestants, we don't hesitate for a moment
in answering this question.

We can see at once that the Roman doctrine strikes at the very root of
the Gospel. It underpins many of the errors of superstitious religion.

This is a real controversy over which intelligent men and women went to
the stake. We must ask whether or not we believe it as strongly
ourselves as Reformation Christians did.

If we do, is this truth under attack in our present day and age, even as
we focus our attention on other issues.

CRANMER ON THE LORD'S SUPPER

His book: "A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament
of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ" first published in
1550, is the primary document.

Cranmer's Communion Liturgy put together in 1552, must be seen alongside
the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which he also drafted.

Cranmer's service is deliberately put together to be a source of comfort
and reassurance for Christians.

It was a divine instrument of assurance. Coming to a Communion Service
in 1552 was designed to be a joyous and comforting thing for a believer
to do.

The intention throughout the whole service is to reassure us of our
forgiveness and acceptance before God, not on the basis of our works,
but on the basis of God's grace in Christ. This; in turn, takes us in
the service from very real and profound repentance over our sin, to
overwhelming thankfulness and gratitude to God.

We start in Cranmer's Communion Liturgy, praying the Collect for Purity,
that God would cleanse our hearts and minds so that we can worthily
glorify Him. We need to be purified by God Himself, in order to be able
to approach Him. Then we read His Law, the Ten Commandments, slowly and
soberly, asking God, after each one, to have mercy upon us and to write
that Law in our hearts.

We then hear from God's Word again, in the readings and in the sermon.
Not every minister in those days could preach, and so Cranmer, and one
or two others, wrote some homilies -- or sample sermons -- which were to
be read by people at this point in the service instead.

It is all good Evangelical Protestant Reformed teaching designed to win
unbelievers in the congregation to Christ and to comfort and strengthen
believers in their faith.

We're then exhorted in Cranmer's service to sort out our lives and our
relationships with our neighbors and to confess our sins to Almighty
God, to confess them, to be open about them with God, and to repent.

Then we are lifted up by God's declaration of forgiveness, not just by
the words of a priest, but by the Comfortable Words -- the words of
comfort laid down in the prayer book. Cranmer said at this point we
should be reading out verses like John 3:16 -- "God so loved the world
that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have everlasting life," and I Timothy 1:15: "Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners."

We are comforted, not by an absolution pronounced by a priest, but by
God through His Word. It is God himself who forgives all who truly
repent and believe the Gospel.

Then we lift up our hearts, we praise God. We assure the Lord that we do
not come to the table trusting in our own righteousness -- which is
nothing before Him. We do not come because we are worthy or because we
live good enough lives to earn a place at that table. No, we come
trusting, not in our righteousness but in God's manifold and great
mercies. We come, with nothing in our hands to receive God's mercy. It
is all about God doing something for us in this service. The movement --
the action -- in the Liturgy is all about that direction (heaven to
earth). God, in His grace, reaching down to us in our sinfulness.

We take and eat and we drink. We pray the Lord's Prayer, which He,
Himself, taught us. Then this Oblation Prayer, a prayer of praise and
thanksgiving to God for what He's done for us. This prayer contains the
first mention in the whole service of a sacrifice to God, well after all
the elements of bread and wine have been eaten and drunk. Then we offer,
not those items of food to God as a sacrifice, but we offer ourselves,
our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice to God.

We conclude by singing a hymn. The whole service is put together as a
divine instrument of assurance. Its intension is to show that we are
more wicked than we ever thought, but also more loved by the merciful
God than we ever dreamed.

Cranmer's genius then was to take the Protestant doctrine of
Justification by Faith Alone, the idea of being made right with God
entirely on the basis of His mercy and write it into liturgical form.

Pastorally speaking, our consciences are assured of God's love towards
us even when we have been most searingly honest about our own failures
and shortcomings. We are left with absolutely no doubt, whatsoever,
about how God can be propitious and favorable towards us. It's not
because of anything we've done, or that we do in that service. It is
simply because of the Death of Christ on the Cross in our place,
graphically symbolized by that broken bread and poured out wine.

Post Communion Prayer. We thank and praise God in this Post Communion
Prayer: "That by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ and
through faith in His Blood, we, and all Thy whole Church may obtain
remission of our sins and all other benefits of His Passion."

We're saved by Jesus' Blood, by His merits, not by our own.

Firstly, Cranmer is concerned to make the whole service preach the
Gospel of grace alone from beginning to end as an instrument of
assurance.

Secondly, Cranmer's theology, as seen in the Communion Service, is also
an invitation to feed on Christ. Cranmer doesn't just see a Communion
service as a good opportunity to sit quietly and think about the Cross.
It is not just a visual aid, or a dramatic illustration to help us
understand. It is all those things, but it is also an invitation to take
part in something.

If it were just an illustration, or a mere memorial service, (as
fundamentalists and evangelicals think it is) then the priest -- the
minister-- could simply perform certain actions up front and the
congregation wouldn't need to be bothered at all. If it were merely a
memorial, an illustration, like in a kid's talk, the priest could do it
all on his own up front and the congregation would be entirely passive,
as an audience; but in Cranmer's service, we are invited to take part as
active participants.

In the Exhortation, Cranmer reminds us from I Corinthians Ch. 1...we are
exhorted diligently to try and examine themselves.

This is not like Yoda, who says, "I'm not trying too hard. I'm doing too
hard!" He's not saying that. He's not saying you must try and examine
yourself, he is saying you must try as if "on trial," put yourself on
trial, test yourself, examine yourself, before you presume to eat of
that Bread and drink of that Cup.

For us, the benefit is great if with a truly penitent heart and lively
faith we receive that Holy Sacrament. For then, if we do it with a
lively faith, we spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His
Blood. That we dwell in Christ and Christ in us. We are one with Christ
and Christ with us.

On the other hand, there is the danger if we receive the same
unworthily, for then we be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our
Saviour. We eat and drink our own damnation not considering the Lord's
Body, we kindle God's wrath against us. We provoke Him to plague us with
divers diseases and sundry kinds of death. Don't take this lightly or
you face sundry kinds of death.

What is happening, according to this prayer? As we take the bread and
drink the wine, we examine ourselves, our lives, our consciences and
then, if we eat and drink with faith, believing the Gospel, we're not
just then, physically eating a bit of bread and drinking some wine, but
something spiritual happens as well.

So, we feed on Christ. In the Prayer of Consecration, we eat it in
obedience to Christ, we feed on Christ.

Now it is important to notice we're not cannibals physically eating
Christ. The eating here is very clearly spiritual. We spiritually feed
on Him.

The words you say as we come and take the bread and wine, teaches people
what our doctrine of the Lord's Supper is.

If you just say, "The Body of Christ" ... "The Blood of Christ," that
may import all kinds of false understandings including
Transubstantiation.

Cranmer wants us to say this as we give the bread and wine to people:
"Take and eat this," don't be a passive spectator appropriate it for
yourself. "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee"
-- for you.

You are assured that Christ's Death on the Cross all those years ago was
to take a punishment for your sins. And it applies personally to you as
one who is repentant, and prayed that confession and heard God's word of
assurance.

"Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on
Him" ... in your mouth? No, "feed on Him in your heart, by faith."

Physically, you're feeding into your body some bread, but in your heart,
at the same time, if you believe in Him, you are feeding on Christ.

Christ is in your heart by faith - Ephesians 3:17 - not physically in
the bread. All of this is done with great thanksgiving.

"Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on
Him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving."

We're thankful for what Christ has done for us, to save us and to
reconcile the Father to us.

So, as the bread and the wine become part of us bodily, so by faith we
dwell in Christ and He in us. It's that close, union with Christ. It's
not just an edible visual aid.

Something happens when we eat the bread and drink the wine. Either we
feed on Christ in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving, or we eat and
drink our own damnation.

Remember, some in the Corinthian church were sick and some had died. And
the Apostle Paul linked that specifically with their abuse of the Lord's
Supper.

What was Cranmer was specifically saying "NO!" to. What was Cranmer
guarding against?

People were used to the Mass. The Medieval version of the Lord's Supper,
which was a very different way of going about doing these things.
Cranmer was guarding against certain theological errors which had misled
people since before the Reformation. What was at stake here was nothing
less than the Gospel.

The first thing that he guards against is any idea that the Atonement,
Christ's Death on the Cross, was insufficient for our salvation. He
guards against that in two ways. First, by his use of the language of
"sacrifice;" second, by the way in which he presents the minister.

Cranmer makes it very clear that what is going on at the table is not a
sacrifice on an altar made by a mediating priest on behalf of the
people, which action has to be repeated again and again to be effective.

That's the message he got from the Roman Catholic monks, from the
Medieval monks. In Catholic Mass, something is offered to God. Instead,
what Cranmer says is that Christ's once-and-for-all sacrifice on the
Cross was utterly, completely, totally sufficient to pay for our sins.
No additional sacrifices are necessary.

Listen to the repeated emphasis.

The person administering the Supper is to say: "Almighty God, our
heavenly Father, which of Thy tender mercy didst give Thy only Son,
Jesus Christ" -- God gave Something to us, we're not giving to God --
"to suffer Death upon the Cross for our redemption; Who made there" --
not here, nothing's happened here --"Who made there by His one oblation
of Himself, once offered" -- what's the offer? --"a full, perfect,
sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the
whole world and did institute and in His Holy Gospel command us to
continue a perpetual memory" -- not the re-enactment, or representation
-- "of His precious Death, until He comes again."

There is no sense at all that what is happening here at the table is a
sacrifice.

All the language of making a sacrifice is kept until way after all the
bread and is gone. It's been eaten, only then do we pray that God will
accept -- to use the language of Hebrews 13:15-- our sacrifice of praise
and thanksgiving. Only then, after all the bread and wine is gone, do we
offer to present ourselves to God as living sacrifices, holy to God, to
use the language of Romans 12:1.

All that is after, not as we come to the table, but after. So there is
nothing at all that needs to be added to the Atonement to make it
complete or to make it effective.

The sacrifice of the Cross doesn't need to be repeated or represented or
re-enacted or anything to be effective.

What does he do? He makes no sacrifice, he stands next to a table to
administer -- not preside -- to administer a meal rather than standing
behind an altar to perform a sacrifice. And he stands at the north end
of it, that is he stands at the side, rather than standing like a
mediator in between the people and God, like in the Mass, which is in an
eastward position.

Presenting the minister as ministering a meal is very different. The
minister also doesn't take private confessions from everybody before the
service so that they have to compulsory confess their sins to a priest
in a box over there. Instead, he leads the congregant Act of Confession
together. It's all in English, not in Latin.

The intention of the service is to keep the language of sacrifice, where
the Bible does. It is not happening here, at the table, it happened
there, at the Cross. The only thing we offer to God is ourselves as a
living sacrifice in gratitude for what Christ has done for us.

By a right view of sacrifice, the corrected view of the minister's role,
Cranmer sought to guard against alternative theologies which presented
the Atonement as somehow insufficient on its own for our salvation.

The second thing Cranmer wanted to guard against was any idea that the
Incarnation was not real. That is, God the Son really did take human
flesh and become a human being like you and like me. He had a real
physical human body with all its glories and its limitations, taking His
physical human nature from the Virgin Mary.

It was because He was a real human being that He could truly represent
us and be our substitute on the Cross. To the extent that our theology
makes His Body different from ours, he is unable to be our substitute
and representative. He has got to be a real physical human being like
you and like me, otherwise He can't represent me and He can't die in my
place.

There were two groups of people who deny this.

Firstly, the Roman Catholic Church taught and still teaches that as the
Words of Institution are said in the Prayer of Consecration in the Mass,
the substance of the bread and the wine is changed into the physical
Body and Blood of Christ. You can't see a difference, they say, but the
substance in the elements has changed. Christ is really there, in His
human nature, in the elements of bread and wine on the altar. The bread
and the wine have been "transubstantiated." Transubstantiated -- changed
in substance.

We know about transsexual -- changing sex, changing gender. This is the
same word "trans" -- to change. Change substance.

Christ's Body, changed in substance, bread and wine, changed in
substance, becomes His Body and Blood, which is then offered to God as a
propitiation for our sins. The Mass is a propitiating sacrifice which
turns away God's wrath.

Secondly, Martin Luther, who is such good news in so many ways, taught
that Christ, also in substance, was physically present in the Eucharist,
in the elements of bread and wine wherever the Lord's Supper is
celebrated.

Lutherans teach that Christ's Human Nature is ubiquitous. It is
everywhere and anywhere at the same time because it is joined to
Christ's Divine Nature as God.

So, Christ could be physically present here, at this altar, or your
church at your altar and He could be in all these different places all
at the same time.

Luther doesn't believe in transubstantiation like Roman Catholics, but
his view of Christ's human nature was equally wrong, according Cranmer.

Where is Christ? He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of the
Father, with a body like ours, which cannot be in two places at once,
unless anyone here has worked out how to bilocate.

Now he'll remain there. What does the (Nicene) Creed say, "He is seated
at the right hand of Father until He comes again in glory to judge the
living and the dead."

So, if Christ were physically here present with us, He would be here to
judge the living and the death. And this is made clear in Cranmer's 1552
Communion Service by the addition of the Black Rubric at the end.

A rubric, of course, is an instruction. This is what the Black Rubric
says.

"For as concerning the sacramental bread and wine, they remain still in
their very natural substance and therefore may not be adored. For that
were idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians. So concerning
the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, they're in heaven and
not here" -- He's in heaven, and not here -- "for it is against the
truth of Christ's true natural body to be in more places than in one at
one time."

You'll see that same truth expressed in Article 28 of our Thirty-Nine
Articles, part of which says: "Transubstantiation (the change of the
substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be
proved from Holy Scripture, but is repugnant (contradictory) to the
plain teaching of Scripture. In fact, it overthrows the nature of a
sacrament and has given rise to many superstitions. The Body of Christ
is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only in a heavenly and spiritual
manner."

I recommend The Five Solas as a way of summarizing the great Reformation
truths.

Here's another one that was equally important to Cranmer: The Body of
Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only in a heavenly and
spiritual manner. The means by which the Body of Christ is received and
eaten in the Supper is faith -- faith alone.

He's saying that transubstantiation is wrong because it overthrows the
truth of the Incarnation.

Finally, Cranmer wanted to guard against superstitious idolatry and his
understanding of Transubstantiation. The Roman Catholic system of
theology and practice also encouraged superstition and idolatry
according to Cranmer. The concern in 1552 was to protect English
church-goers against idolatry, that false worship was to be abhorred by
all faithful Christians. Cranmer made it clear that normal bread was
perfectly acceptable, it doesn't have to be wafers with a picture of
Christ on it. Normal bread. The minister could just eat any leftovers
himself later. There are some slight alterations to that in the 1662
Book of Common Prayer.

It is clear, that as Article 28 says: "The Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper was not instituted by Christ to be reserved" -- to be used later
-- "to be carried about" -- in a procession of some sort -- "to be
lifted up or to be worshipped."

That's not what It is for. Christ did not intend us to reserve bits of
bread in a special place after the service, as if they were His real
Body, His natural presence on earth to be guarded.

Guarding Jesus? Just think about that for a minute. Who needs to guard
Jesus? He doesn't need us to guard Him. This is the One, who in a word,
calmed the storm. Does He need us to guard Him in a little aumbry. No.

It is also not to be carried about in a procession like a talisman or a
magic charm, worshipped and adored as if It were actually, physically,
Jesus. It is just bread. Nothing magical has happened to it.

There is no "hocus-pocus" involved.

John Calvin, who agrees with Cranmer on all of these major points, says:
"In the Mass, the Roman Catholic Mass, consecration was virtually
equivalent magic incantation." Hocus-pocus! And he warns the liturgy is
not about magic, it is about preaching.

"Here we should not imagine some magic incantation, supposing it enough
to have mumbled the words, as if they were to be heard by the elements,
but let us understand that these words are living preaching which
edifies the hearers, it penetrates into their minds and it presses
itself on their hearts and settles there."

Cranmer suffered terribly when Queen Mary (1516-1558) came to the throne
in 1553 and reinstated Roman Catholicism. He was kept in prison for
three years, in solitary confinement for much of that in severe
conditions for an old man, now in his late 60s.

He was forced to recant what he believed about transubstantiation and
have a full retraction of all his, supposedly, heretical views published
throughout the land. Under pressure, he went along with it to save his
life. But still the Queen decided she was going to put him to death
anyway.

As he was led to the stake to be burned in the center of Oxford. As Paul
Ayris says, "He's a good Cambridge man." Cranmer, like all the best
theologians. And as you know, Cambridge makes all the great performers
and Oxford burns them.

Cranmer is allowed to give one final speech. With his very last words,
he confessed that he had indeed written a recantation of all his
Protestant views, and denied his previous teaching about Communion and
then he said: "I did it to save my life. But, all such papers I have
written or signed since my degradation, I now renounce as untrue and,
for as much my hand had offended (by signing his recantation), it shall
first be punished."

His very last words to the Crown defended his views of the Lord's
Supper.

He says: "As for the Sacrament, I believe as I taught in my book and the
doctrine my book teaches shall stand at the Last Day before the Judgment
of God, where the papistical doctrine (the doctrine of the pope) shall
be ashamed to show its face."

(John) Foxe reports in the glorious Book of Martyrs (1563) "... there
was an iron chain tied around Cranmer. The fire was set onto him. When
the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him, he stretched
forth his right hand, which had signed his recantation, into the flames
and there he held it so that people could see it burned to a coal before
his body was touched."

That is how passionately Cranmer believed what he had written with that
hand about the Lord's Supper. For him it was a Gospel issue, something
worth going to the stake for, because of the implications for people's
salvation should wrong views of Communion be accepted.

END



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

Message: 11
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:48:33 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: American and Kenyan bishops drill Malawi Anglican leaders
over SOMA
Message-ID:
<1497008913.1769520....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

American and Kenyan bishops drill Malawi Anglican leaders over SOMA

Nyasa Times
https://www.nyasatimes.com/american-kenyan-bishops-drill-malawi-anglican-leaders/
June 5 2017

An American Bishop Ronald Jackson and Bishop Joseph Kanuku from Kenya
were in Malawi to drill leaders in the Anglican diocese of Upper Shire
on a number of issues that would propel the diocese and the nation at
large.

The two came on a ticket of Sharing of Ministries Abroad (SOMA) which
was formed in the late 1970s as an international organisation for the
cultivation of charismatic renewal amongst leaderships within the global
Anglican Communion, and over 20 leaders including Bishop Brighton Malawi
attended the workshop.

Among the topics covered, the two Bishops looked at Self Examination and
forgiveness, Devotional life, integrity, Leadership, understanding Holy
Spirit to be filled for the work of ministry, Conflict and conflict
Resolution.

It was a conference attended by archdeacons, bishops and head of
institutions. It was like a retreat whereby people had time to refresh
themselves spiritually. Facilitators were from USA and Kenya.
Participants were 20, the conference was designed for the heads of
institutions plus Archdeacons.

SOMA was founded in the United Kingdom, but it has since spread to other
countries, including the United States, Canada, Singapore, South Africa,
Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Uganda, Kenya, Ireland, Nigeria and
South Korea and Malawi.

It began at a conference before the Lambeth Conference of bishops from
around the world, meeting at Canterbury, United Kingdom.

"It was believed that God was saying there was a need for an
organisation to be "caring for the nervous system of the Church."

END



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

Message: 12
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:48:45 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Pope and Archbishop abandon South Sudan visit over security
fears
Message-ID:
<1497008925.1769526....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Pope and Archbishop abandon South Sudan visit over security fears

by Hassan John
Global Christian News
May 30, 2017

Pope Francis' visit to South Sudan together with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Justin Welby, scheduled to take place in October this year,
has been cancelled because the region is considered "too dangerous"
according to a statement from the Vatican (Tuesday 30 May).

Greg Burke, Vatican's spokesman said the arrangements for the trip had
reviewed and said the visit could not take place this year.

The Catholic Archbishop of the South Sudan, Paulino Loro, had announced
that arrangements were being made to welcome Pope Francis and Archbishop
Welby on October 15 after a delegation of bishops from both Sudan and
South Sudan visited the Pontiff in Rome where they extended an
invitation to Francis.

An earlier news report by Il Messaggero said Pope Francis reluctantly
cancelled the trip "after the information coming to his desk" from a
delegation that went to South Sudan to assess the security situation
which eventually "left him with few alternatives."

South Sudan the world's youngest nation was plunged into chaos and
crisis shortly after independence in 2011. The ethnic conflict has
killed about 300,000 people and displaced over three million. The United
Nations report, in April, says government forces have been involved in
ethnic cleansing.

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Colombia on 6-10 September this year
and may also go to Bangladesh and India.



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

Message: 13
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:48:58 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Church is 17th most trusted body in the UK, out of a list of
24
Message-ID:
<1497008938.1769559....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Church is 17th most trusted body in the UK, out of a list of 24

By Andy Walton
Christian Today
https://www.christiantoday.com/
June 5, 2017

The Church is only the 17th most trusted public institution in the UK
according to a new survey.

A total of 24 different institutions were ranked by how much they are
trusted by the public.

Coming in at the top of the list were The NHS and the Armed Forces.
Charities have now risen to third in the rankings compiled by
nfpSynergy.

Political parties, multinational companies and newspapers comprise the
least trusted three.

Looking further into the data, the Church has 'a great deal' of trust
from nine per cent of the public, while 24 per cent of those answering
said they had 'quite a lot' of trust -- meaning that a third of the
public seen the Church as either very or quite trustworthy.

Nearly three in ten, 28 per cent say they have 'not much' trust in the
Church while 30 per cent say they have 'very little'.

The level of trust seems to have been consistent over the last few
years. In 2009 the combined total of people who said they had a great
deal or quite a lot of trust in the Church was 33 per cent and that
figure is exactly the same in the latest figures.

1,000 adults were asked to answer the question, 'Please indicate how
much trust you have in each of the bodies' in February this year.



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

Message: 14
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:53:06 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: A Faithless UK and Resurgent Islam: The Perfect Storm
Message-ID:
<1497009186.1771529....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

A Faithless UK and Resurgent Islam: The Perfect Storm

By BILL MUEHLENBERG
https://billmuehlenberg.com/
May 29, 2017

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so too in the spiritual, moral and political
realms. The Western world was largely the product of the Judeo-Christian
worldview and could not have developed as it did without it. But as the
West becomes increasingly secular and dismissive of its Christian roots,
it is becoming more and more unstable and likely to collapse.

We reject our moral and spiritual foundations at our own peril. It was
Jesus who talked about building a house on the solid rock and not
sifting sand. It is the same with nations and civilisations. And we are
seeing right now how a solid foundation can give way to something else.

While so much of the West can be described in such terms, the UK is a
clear example of this. Christianity is on the decline there big time,
and secularism, along with militant Islam, are rushing in to fill the
gap. And as I have said before, an anaemic, value-less secularism is no
match against a crusading Islam.

Consider some reports coming out of the UK. Things are looking very
bleak indeed. The opening paragraph of one article on this is a real
shocker: "A new study has found that the United Kingdom's nonreligious
population is now bigger than its combined Christian one, with 26
believers abandoning the faith for every atheist or agnostic who decides
to become a Christian."

The piece continues:

The Benedict XVI Center for Religion and Society, launched by St. Mary's
University in Twickenham, released its May study based on data from the
latest British Social Attitudes survey and European Social Survey, with
key findings revealing the nation's growing secularization.

The researchers noted that 24.3 million people, or 48.6 percent of the
British adult population, identified as "nones" in 2015 and they are
predominantly young, white and male.

The nones were found to have different faith backgrounds -- 38 percent
of people who now say they have no religion were brought up as nones,
while 25 percent were brought up as Anglicans, 25 percent as Other
Christians, and 11 percent as Catholics, before leaving the faith.

"For every one person brought up with No religion who has become a
Christian, twenty-six people brought up as Christians now identify as
Nones," the study noted as a key trend.

"It is no secret that a large proportion of the British population
consider themselves to have no religion," wrote Stephen Bullivant,
professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion and director of the
Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St. Mary's University.

"This has been a consistent finding of polls, social surveys, and
censuses over the past several decades. In fact, the rise of the
nonreligious is arguably the story of British religious history over the
past half-century."

Christians, including Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and members of other
denominations, made up 43 percent of the population in 2015, down from
67 percent in 1983.

And a recently released report from the Gatestone Institute is equally
sobering. It found this:

By 2020, estimates are that the number of Muslims attending prayers will
reach at least 683,000, while the number of Christians attending weekly
Mass will drop to 679,000. "The new cultural landscape of English cities
has arrived; the homogenised, Christian landscape of state religion is
in retreat", said Ceri Peach of Oxford University. While nearly half of
British Muslims are under the age of 25, a quarter of Christians are
over 65. "In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims
than there are churchgoers," said Keith Porteous Wood, director of the
National Secular Society.

Since 2001, 500 London churches of all denominations have been turned
into private homes. During the same period, British mosques have been
proliferating. Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons who
identify themselves as Anglicans fell from 21% to 17%, a decrease of 1.7
million people, while, according to a survey conducted by the respected
NatCen Social Research Institute, the number of Muslims has grown by
almost a million. Churchgoers are declining at a rate that within a
generation, their number will be three times lower than that of Muslims
who go regularly to mosque on Friday.

Demographically, Britain has been acquiring an increasingly Islamic
face, in places such as Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds,
Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, Waltham Forest and
Tower Hamlets. In 2015, an analysis of the most common name in England
showed it was Mohammed, including spelling variations such as Muhammad
and Mohammad.

Most important cities have huge Muslim populations: Manchester (15.8%),
Birmingham (21.8%) and Bradford (24.7%).

Wow. That helps to explain a lot of things, including last week's jihad
attack in Manchester which left 22 dead and 60 injured. Indeed, one of
the more shocking things we now know about this horrific Islamic attack
was that the bomber attended a mosque there that used to be a church.
The Didsbury mosque used to be a Methodist church:

The mosque attended by the Manchester suicide bomber has been described
as a "jihadist" institution, and it has previously been accused of
raising funds for an al-Qaeda affiliated terror group. The Didsbury
mosque was well known to Salman Abedi and his direct family. The
terrorist learnt the Quran there, his brother taught Islamic lessons
there, and his father, Abu Abedi, was a "well known" figure who
performed the Muslim call to prayer.

Not bad for a former church. John Wesley would be turning in his grave.
But so many churches there are now mosques, or discos, or homes, or
restaurants. The slow decline of Christianity is not without
consequence. As I said, the vacuum will get filled one way or another.

And the steady growth of Islam in the UK sure is not helping things on
the terror front. Consider this shocking fact:

Intelligence officers have identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living
in Britain as potential terrorist attackers, it has emerged....

Ben Wallace, the UK Security Minister, told The Times that the existence
of a database of 23,000 potential attackers was a stark illustration of
the magnitude of the terrorist threat.

"The figures reveal the scale of the challenge from terrorism in the
21st century," he said. "Never has it been more important to invest in
intelligence-led policing."

MI5's capacity to investigate is limited to about 3,000 individuals at
any one time. People are added to and removed from the group of "live"
suspects depending on assessments of who poses the greatest risk.

When an investigation is closed, the people identified drop into a
growing group whose risk is seen as reduced. Sources say that the pool
of "former subjects of interest" has swollen to 20,000 during the years
of Islamist threat since 2001.

There is concern that the intelligence agencies have been poor at
detecting former subjects of interest who return to extremism.

Wow again. No wonder the UK is in such a perilous state. At least one
military officer is talking tough here:

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former member of the COBRA committee, Joint
Intelligence Committee, and commander of the British Task Force in
Helmand, Afghanistan, has called on the Government to deport or intern
all foreign nationals on the terror watch list. "The problem is, there
are 3,000 known jihadis on the streets of the UK today," explained the
Royal Anglian Regiment veteran.

"Our intelligence services and police -- no matter how good they are --
they cannot monitor all of them; they can't control all of them, and
therefore people like the bomber in Manchester and also the attacker in
Westminster a couple of months before, these people were known to the
security, yet they slipped through the net.

That would certainly be a good start. But the problem is much bigger
than that as I have been trying to explain here. The hope of the West is
the faith that helped to bring it about. As long as the Christian church
keeps haemorrhaging on a massive scale, the secularists who rush in to
take its place will not in the least be able to withstand the Islamic
onslaught.

And we see this perfectly on display with how Europe responds to each
new jihad attack: more hashtags and candlelit vigils! As if that will
save us. As Giulio Meotti has just commented:

Madrid: 191. London: 58. Amsterdam: 1. Paris: 148. Brussels: 36.
Copenhagen: 2. Nice: 86. Stockholm: 4. Berlin: 12. Manchester: 22. And
it does not take into account the hundreds of Europeans butchered
abroad, in Bali, in Sousse, in Dakka, in Jerusalem, in Sharm el Sheikh,
in Istanbul.

But after 567 victims of terror, Europe still does not understand. Just
the first half of 2017 has seen terror attacks attempted in Europe every
nine days on average. Yet, despite this Islamist offensive, Europe is
fighting back with teddy bears, candles, flowers, vigils, Twitter
hashtags and cartoons.

At the end of the day a pathetic and secularised West will not be able
to withstand this death cult. The only solid answer which is up to the
challenge is a return to the faith that made for Western civilisation in
the first place. Sure, we must fight Islamic jihad (actual and stealth),
we must stand up and defend social goods like democracy and free speech,
etc.

But unless the suicidal rush into secularism is checked, it looks like
the UK -- as well as all of Europe and so much of the West -- is a real
goner. Things are looking very grim indeed. And the real answer to our
troubles is ultimately a spiritual one.

Military or economic or political answers by themselves will not save
us. The sad truth is, while it takes centuries to build a civilisation,
they can be destroyed overnight. The job of rebuilding will take as much
time and effort as the original building process.

As T. S. Eliot put it way back in 1948, what is at stake is very serious
indeed:

It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in
Christianity that the laws of Europe have -- until recently -- been
rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our thought
has significance. An individual European may not believe that the
Christian Faith is true, and yet what he says, and makes, and does, will
all spring out of his heritage of Christian culture and depend upon that
culture for its meaning. Only a Christian culture could have produced a
Voltaire or a Nietzsche. I do not believe that the culture of Europe
could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian faith. And I
am convinced of that, not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as
a student of social biology. If Christianity goes, the whole of our
culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on
a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed
the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You
must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see
the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if
we did, not one of us would be happy in it.

END



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

Message: 15
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:53:19 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times
Message-ID:
<1497009199.1771573....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

How God sustained two faithful churches through tough times

By David Binder
https://www.gafcon.org/
May 30, 2017

Introduction

This article looks back 10 years and examines two churches in the USA
which faced ruin because they took a courageous stand for biblical
truth. We consider the severe trials they faced, how they responded, how
God acted and where they stand today.

The first story concerns the Anglican Church of The Good Shepherd,
Binghampton, New York.

"Good Shepherd is a congregation committed to following the Lord Jesus
Christ and sharing the Good News of his Life, Death, and Resurrection,
through the study, exposition, proclamation and application of His Word,
the Bible."

Praise God! And yet, in terms of its recent history this doesn't tell
half the story.

It all started back in 2007, when Reverends Matthew and Ann Kennedy made
the difficult decision, alongside dozens of other congregations, to
leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) due to the latter's departure from
orthodox biblical Christianity.

TEC did not take kindly to this defection. What followed has the marks
of systematic persecution, as they pursued an aggressive lawsuit to
repossess all the church's property despite Good Shepherd being willing
to purchase the church building and the rectory from the diocese for a
good price.

The building where the congregation of The Good Shepherd, Binghampton
used to worship.

Indeed, in an almost unbelievable twist, the diocese sold the property
for a third of the price Good Shepherd had offered to a local Muslim
Group! The building, now no longer a place of faithful gospel witness,
stands as an 'Islamic Awareness Centre.' Tragically, the diocese
preferred to sell to an organisation spreading the message of Islam than
to a church who had for years preached Jesus and the true biblical
gospel.

And so, the Kennedys (who lived in the rectory) were now homeless and
the congregation had nowhere to meet. Game over, right?

Wrong! Following their untimely eviction, the congregation was provided
with temporary space to worship by a local Baptist Church. And then, in
a stunning example of God's providence, they were later offered a
permanent building that had been vacated in a Catholic parish merger.
And so, it was settled; 360 Conklin Avenue would become the new home of
the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd.

God's providence -- a new building for the congregation of Binghampton
to worship

This is where the church continues to meet to this day; with a full
programme of faithful Bible teaching, worship, and community outreach
throughout the week. From an ostensibly bleak situation, God has
graciously brought Good Shepherd to where it is now, standing on the
truth of his perfect Word, having not succumbed to revisionist teaching.

The Falls Church Anglican, Virginia

If you thought The Good Shepherd was unique in its experience of
persecution, think again!

The year is 1979, and new rector of The Falls Church Anglican, John
Yates, arrives in town. It would be no exaggeration to say he shook
things up with his vision for gospel renewal in a place which had not
been used to focussed preaching about Jesus! Yet despite initial
discomfort, Yates continued to preach Christ as presented in the Bible,
and by God's grace the congregation doubled in size between 1979 and
1984.

Fast forward to 2006 and trouble was afoot. In the intervening decades,
TEC had moved away from orthodox doctrine, and so, like Good Shepherd,
The Falls Church Anglican decided to sever links with TEC.

Despite the split, Yates II and his bishop almost reached an agreement
in which The Falls Church Anglican could keep their property and
continue in gospel centred mission. However, disaster struck when newly
elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts
Schori directed TEC to adopt an aggressive stance with 'rebel'
congregations.

The deal was off, and as with The Good Shepherd, a long and costly legal
battle ensued. The outcome was seemingly disastrous. Everything was
lost, the prayer books, the sound equipment, and the $2.8 million in
cash that members had donated to church accounts specifically designated
not to go to the Episcopal Church. They were also forced to vacate their
colonial building and the Yates' lost their rectory. It was all gone.

What happened next? Well, their response can be summed up in two words
-- church planting. That is, amidst all the difficulties around their
court case with TEC -- before, during and after, The Falls Church
Anglican responded by planting numerous churches in various locations in
and around their local area, including one among the poor in Washington
D.C and further away in Richmond and Williamsburg.

The result has been incredible with The Falls Church Anglican growing by
over a third in nine years, and the combined average Sunday attendance
of the main church and six plants is more than double that in 2003.

Continuing in this vein, The Falls Church Anglican has purchased a new
property on a busy highway leading into Washington, with designs for a
new sanctuary aiming to be opened within the next two years.

The aforementioned church property heading into Washington D.C.

So, as opposition has struck The Falls Church Anglican, God has
graciously and sovereignly worked amidst the hardships faced by Yates
and his congregation to further his kingdom, as they have stood firm on
the truth of the Bible, come what may.

END



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

Message: 16
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:53:32 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Debating transgender
Message-ID:
<1497009212.1771598....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Debating transgender

By Ian Paul
PSEPHIZO
https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/debating-transgender/
June 7, 2017

One of the most difficult debates facing General Synod when it meets in
July arises not from the main business agenda, but from a diocesan
motion from Blackburn Diocese, which will be proposed by Revd Chris
Newlands:

That this Synod, recognising the need for transgender people to be
welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, calls on the House of
Bishops to consider whether some nationally commended liturgical
materials might be prepared to mark a person's gender transition.

I was approached to discuss this with Chris on last weekend's Sunday
programme on Radio 4, and if you want to see how complex and challenging
this debate is going to be, then you can listen to our discussion on
iPlayer starting at 30 minutes into the programme. The difficulties
start (as is often the case in such debates) with the language; the
question here is less about 'gender' (that is, socially constructed
roles of men and women) but 'sex identity' (that is, whether someone is
a biological man or woman) as is evident from Chris' own language. That
is why, in informed discussions, the situation we are faced with is
described as 'gender identity disorder' or more commonly 'gender
dysphoria'. Chris is right to emphasise the serious and distressing
nature of the pastoral issue--but unfortunately my agreement with him on
this, and my explaining my personal experience of that amongst friends
and family was edited out (the discussion was pre-recorded) in order to
create a sense of 'liberal pastoral care' versus 'traditionalist dogma'
on the programme. There is no doubt at all that this is how many will
seek to configure the Synod debate.

But very quickly quite serious theological issues arise as well. Chris
explains how this issue has arisen, because someone approached him who
had transitioned from female to male, and he wanted to be 'reintroduced,
because he didn't think God would now know who he was.' The assumption
of a fundamental change of identity also falls foul of basic science;
our biological sex is not determined merely by our external genitalia or
our social roles, but by our chromosomes, and no amount of medical
intervention will change that. Given that all this has been raised
within the first minute of the discussion, you can see why everyone else
approached by the BBC declined because they did not feel well enough
informed!

There are four very useful resources that I think members of Synod--and
anyone else concerned about this issue--needs to explore if we are to
have a debate of any value. The first is the BBC2 programme shown last
January, Transgender Kids: who knows best? which centred around the
views of Kenneth Zucker, a Canadian psychologist whose controversial
approach with transgender children led to his being sacked in 2015 from
a Toronto gender identity clinic--he claims because he challenged the
ideological consensus. It was fascinating in the way it presented the
cases sympathetically from both sides, but sadly is not available on
iPlayer at present. *Update* The programme can be viewed at this archive
website. (My references to the evidence presented in this programme were
also edited out of the Sunday discussion.)

The second is a web site which featured in the BBC2 programme,
Transgender Trend. The site does not post new material very often, but
there is a fascinating archive looking at practical implications of
current approaches, and critiquing them primarily from a research point
of view. The site describes itself in clear terms:

We are a group of parents based mainly in the UK, who are concerned
about the current trend to diagnose 'gender non-conforming' children as
transgender. We reject current conservative, reactionary,
religious-fundamentalist views about sexuality. We are also concerned
about legislation which places transgender rights above the right to
safety for girls and young women in public bathrooms and changing rooms.

We come from diverse backgrounds, some with expertise in child
development and psychology, some who were themselves extreme gender
non-conforming children and adolescents, some whose own children have
self-diagnosed as 'trans' and some who know supportive trans adults who
are also questioning recent theories of 'transgenderism.'

The third resource is the excellent discussion in Mark Yarhouse's book
Understanding Gender Dysphoria which I reviewed two years ago. Yarhouse
offers some clear thinking through the maze of complexity on this issue,
including being clear about the difference between gender dysphoria
(which is a psychiatric issues) and intersex conditions (which are a
medical issue), a difference that Chris Newlands did not appear to
understand. Yarhouse offers a considered proposal for Christian
engagement in this issue:

The Christian community has several ongoing responsibilities moving
forward. These have to do with thoughtful scholarship in this area,
which includes:
1. critical analysis and engagement with the work being done in the
area of sex and gender
2. thoughtful engagement with best practices in clinical service
provision to those who have been diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria
3. listening to the experiences of faithful believers who are
navigating gender identity conflicts in their own lives
4. identifying the best way to be a faithful witness to a broader
culture in which norms regarding sex and gender are eroding
5. engaging with "convicted civility" those who are actively
deconstructing norms related to both sex and gender
6. identifying and implementing best practices as the body of
Christ and, in particular, the local church in relation to unchurched
and dechurched transgender persons
7. providing sensitive pastoral care to those in the Body of Christ
who are navigating this terrain

What is striking in all this is the Yarhouse's profound sense of
awareness. He is acutely aware of the stories of those experiencing
transgender inclinations; he is aware of different theological
responses; he is aware of what is at stake within culture; and he is
even aware of the impact of his own responses to all the different
groups who have a stake in this. I think this is what makes early
readers see this book as so valuable in shaping our understanding of and
response to the issue. And it is this which shapes Yarhouse's own
response:

Certainly we can extend to a transgender person the grace and mercy we
so readily count on in our own lives. We can remind ourselves that the
book of redemption in a person's life has many chapters. You may be
witness to an early chapter of this person's life or a later chapter.
But Christians believe that God holds that person and each and every
chapter in his hands, until that person arrives at their true end--when
gender and soul are made well in the presence of God.

The fourth resource specifically relates to the Synod motion, and is a
detailed analysis of the issues by Martin Davie, published as a Latimer
Briefing paper. It is free to download, either as a full study or as its
concluding chapter. I suspect that some reading this might feel Davie
does not give sufficient attention to the practical, pastoral issue, but
his analysis of the debate is excellent, and has real pastoral
implications.

The claim that gender transition is the best way to help someone with
gender dysphoria is called into question by the available evidence which
fails to demonstrate that transition is successful in resolving the
mental and physical health issues experienced by transgender people.
Scepticism about gender transition is expressed both by well qualified
experts in the field of mental health and by a growing number of people
who are explaining the reasons why, having gone through gender
transition, they then decided to revert back to living in their birth
sex.

Whatever happens, this debate is not going to be an easy one. But unless
those in the discussion are well-informed, we are in danger of having
the kind of polarised, truncated and ill-tempered exchange that often
marks such debates.

END



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

Message: 17
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:53:45 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The Business of GAFCON
Message-ID:
<1497009225.1771598....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The Business of GAFCON

By Peter Jensen
https://www.gafcon.org/blog/
June 6, 2017

The business of GAFCON is truth and fellowship.

All large groups of Christians have disagreements between themselves,
sometimes very serious ones indeed. But they do not have to amount to
the disagreements which separate. We are, indeed, all one in Christ
Jesus and we are to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace. Fellowship is our calling.

>From its very inception, GAFCON has accepted this calling and striven to
bind Anglican Christians from all around the world together. In
particular, it has reached out the right hand of fellowship to Anglicans
who, through no fault of their own have had to leave their original
Diocese or Province over a matter of such grave theological importance
that the very nature of the gospel itself has been at stake. Truth is
our calling.

At the heart of the divisions which have beset the Anglican Communion
since 2002 is a profound disagreement over sexual ethics, in particular
whether same sex unions can be blessed by God in the light of the
teaching of the Bible. The teaching of GAFCON is that the Bible is clear
on three vital points.

First, that sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage is
forbidden by God and not in the best interests of humans.

Second, that persistent behaviour of this sort puts those who engage in
it outside the kingdom of God and therefore at risk of losing salvation.

Third, acceptance of this behaviour in the church means that the full
gospel cannot be preached, since the full gospel requires repentance
from sexual sin.

But there is more to it than that. The Bible tells us that in a society
in which the truth about God is supressed, the consequence is godless
sexual licence. This is a sign of an unhealthy community in deep
trouble.

We need to understand the nature of the times in which we live. The
Bible has given us a vivid forewarning of such times. It is astonishing
and dangerous to see the church compromising with such a view of the
world rather than teaching the truth and summoning our society back to a
better and happier way.

What should we do if our church, diocese or province endorses sexual
sin?

One option is that we can stay.

But fellowship in error corrupts witness. Look back. Realise that what
would have been unthinkable twenty years ago has now become acceptable.
Think that leaders who were telling us that the last line had been
crossed, and all is now as it should be, are now asking for the next
compromise. It means that it is very difficult indeed to stay in such a
fellowship and to continue to teach the truth which is denied. Even if
we do not teach it ourselves, we become involved and compromised with
the error. In the end, it is very, very difficult not to accept it
ourselves, and our successors almost certainly will do so. We will be
swamped.

A second option is that we can create a permanent protest which will
draw a clear line.

I remember being part of a meeting about fifteen years ago. One of the
people in the room said something simple but effective. He pointed out
that the two sides of the debate about sexuality had different
strategies. If you wanted change, the strategy was long term and
incremental. What you needed was courage to keep talking about the issue
and constantly, though slightly, breaking the boundary. You then needed
patience to wait for the institution to concede, inch by inch. It would
take twenty years, he said (!), but victory would be yours.

But what if you wanted to maintain the position which all Christians had
believed was the truth based on the word of God? For you, this was much
more difficult. Long term attrition was not for you. The subject was not
one which you saw as central to the gospel that you wanted to be talking
about endlessly. It was not your cause and to keep arguing was
wearisome. You had other matters to pursue.

Thus for the orthodox, the best way forward is not by endless debate and
concession. It is by clear statement, decisive stand and supportive
fellowship.

Of course, that is what GAFCON did by meeting in Jerusalem in 2008. It
issued a clear statement, it made a decisive stand and it created a
supportive fellowship. Most of the Bishops who attended chose not to go
to the Lambeth Conference that year. Let there be no mistake, this
strategy is costly.

>From that point on, however, the lines were clear and a choice could be
made. As the subject of human sexuality is endlessly talked about (and
it is really a debate about the authority of scripture), there is no
need for Provinces, Dioceses, Churches or individuals to be conceding
ground all the time. We know where we stand and we can call on others to
support us.

And that is the business of GAFCON. The truth is at stake and Christian
fellowship in the truth helps guard the truth.

Not surprisingly, the theme of next year's GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem,
the themes chosen by our leadership is not 'sex in the city', but
'Proclaiming Christ Faithfully to the Nations'.

That expresses the heart of our movement as we guard and proclaim the
truth standing shoulder to shoulder in the fellowship of the unchanging
gospel.

Archbishop Peter Jensen is the General Secretary of GAFCON. He is the
former archbishop of Syndey



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

Message: 18
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:53:58 -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:
<1497009238.1771609....@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



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

Message: 19
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:54:11 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: We need to talk more about Jesus and Mohammed and less about
Christianity and Islam
Message-ID:
<1497009251.1771628....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

We need to talk more about Jesus and Mohammed and less about
Christianity and Islam

By Galvin Ashenden
www.virtueonline.org
June 5, 2017

The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham claimed in public that
Salman Abedi, the man who slaughtered children in the Manchester
bombing, was not a real Muslim:

"The message that I would want to get over -- and this is how the vast
majority of people feel -- this man was a terrorist, not a Muslim."

But how does Mr Burnham know that? It appeared that it simply was not
true. Salman Abedi's friends, who obviously knew him well, say that the
truth was different. They describe him as a devout Muslim who had even
memorised the Koran.

At the memorial service held after Khalid Masood had killed bystanders
on Westminster Bridge, the Dean of Westminster Abbey Dr John Hall
offered this reflection in his sermon:

"What happened a fortnight ago leaves us bewildered. What could possibly
motivate a man to hire a car and take it from Birmingham to Brighton to
London, and then drive it fast at people he had never met, couldn't
possibly know, against whom he had no personal grudge, no reason to hate
them and then run at the gates of the Palace of Westminster to cause
another death? It seems likely that we shall never know."

But that wasn't true. We did come to know -- only days later. In fact,
in his last WhatsApp message, sent just before he died, he had declared
that he was waging jihad:

"..in revenge against Western military action in Muslim countries in the
Middle East."

Dr Hall never put the record straight.

The Prime Minister Theresa May spoke outside No.10 the day following the
slaughter of bystanders on London Bridge on 4th June. She talked about
the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism "that preaches hatred,
sows division and promotes sectarianism".

"It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy
and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam... It is an
ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth."

What is Mrs May's authority for making this far-reaching theological
statement?

If one consults the manuals of a variety of different schools of Islam
-- the Shafi'i school, the Hanafi school, the Maliki school, the Hanbali
school -- they all urge violence against non-Muslims. There is the
Koran, too, of course:

"And kill them wherever you come upon them, and expel them from where
they expelled you; persecution is worse than slaughter. But fight them
not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they
fight you, kill them -- such is the recompense of unbelievers, but if
they give over, surely Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. Fight
them, till there is no persecution and the religion is Allah's; then if
they give over, there shall be no enmity save for evildoers"
(2:191-193).

Perhaps Mr Burnham, Dr Hall and Mrs May claim to know more than the
infamous Ayatollah Khomeini, who insisted:

"Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not
disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of
(other) countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country
in the world... But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why
Islam wants to conquer the whole world.

"..Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against
war. Those (who say this) are witless. Islam says: Kill all the
unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims
should sit back until they are devoured by (the unbelievers)? Islam
says: Kill them (the non-Muslims), put them to the sword and scatter
(their armies).

"Does this mean sitting back until (non-Muslims) overcome us? Islam
says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does
this mean that we should surrender (to the enemy)? Islam says: Whatever
good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword!
People cannot be made obedient except with the sword!

"The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy
Warriors! There are hundreds of other (Qur'anic) psalms and Hadiths
(sayings of the Prophet) urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does
all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging
war?

"I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."

How is it possible that we can continue to keep up this pretence of
patronising, intolerant duplicity where we pretend we know Islam better
than those who live and practise it?

Why won't Andy Burnham, the Dean of Westminster and the Prime Minster
tell us the truth?

The answer is probably that if they did, they would be required to face
a problem to which there is either no solution, or one that tests what
is politically possible to the utmost limits.

The question they should really ask is the more interesting one which
relates to those Muslims in Western society who have not turned to
violence.

Why have so many Muslims who live amongst us not turned to violent
Jihad? The answer may be that they simply don't want to, or are not very
observant Muslims, or at least not as observant and pious as those who
do turn to violence.

Or it may be that they are kind and generous people who see much good in
the first half of the Koran where Mohammed says generous things about
Jews, Muslims and Christians being cousinly 'People of the Book'.

Perhaps they prefer to commit a lesser sin against the principle of
abrogation, which requires them to preference the violent and
inhospitable passages mainly near the end of the Koran over the benign
ones near the front.

It may also have something to do with expediency. When Muslims are a
small minority of a population they accommodate themselves quietly and
pragmatically to their host environment. To do anything else would be to
risk their expulsion. But when their numbers reach a kind of critical
mass, expulsion becomes unfeasible. The pragmatic accommodationism
begins to give way to the ambitions that the Koran dictates all good
Muslims should have, to pursue the conversion of their host society, by
persuasion or by terror:

"I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore
strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" (8:12).

If our politicians and religious leaders were to find the courage and
integrity to do their primary duty by us and tell the truth about Islam,
Islamists, Muslims, Jihad and accommodation, what would follow?

That is the very debate we have to have now in public.

It might involve a variety of draconian measures, proportionate to the
public slaughtering of citizens that Islam has perpetrated across
Europe.

The political authoritarians might incline toward internment, expulsion,
the public monitoring or closing down of mosques, the abolition of
Islamic faith schools and other measures the outcome of which would be
the restoration of the rule of law and the control of our public spaces.

The drastic measures might be considered proportionate to the civil
disaster Islam is wreaking upon us. The pragmatic measures will be for
experienced politicians to wrestle with. But before the pragmatism comes
the demands of theory and the integrity of ideas.

First of all, we have to be able to tell the truth in public.

The new Government must abolish the notorious and noxious crime of 'hate
speech'. It must break any link between the sane and sensible reaction
of Islamophobia and the criminal law. Islamophobia is a sane and
justified fear of those people and ideas that threaten murderous
violence on our citizens.

We must be free to tell and test the truth by speaking it in the public
space, and our politicians must commit themselves to becoming
theologically and philosophically literate so they can tell the truth in
public.

What might the Church contribute to this sudden need for theological
literacy and courage?

It might find the intellectual muscle and integrity wholly to repudiate
the heresy of relativism, and help the faithful and atheist public learn
to make comparisons between the good, the anodyne and the evil.

Without imposing absolutes upon people reluctant to adopt them, it might
nonetheless, within the broader context of universally-recognised
absolute categories of good and evil, make comparisons.

Let there be comparisons be between Jesus and Mohammed rather than
between Christianity and Islam. Let the facts and values that separate
these two representatives of worldviews, whose legacies and followers
define the struggle for sanity and sanctity in society, be compared
contrasted and chosen between.

We might begin with Mohammed's doctrine of Taqiyya, (un)holy deception.
The Qur'an in a variety of verses (eg 2:225, 3:28, 3:54, 9:3, 16:106,
40:28, 66:2) establishes the religious legitimacy of breaking oaths,
lying, unilaterally violating treaties, and generally scheming against
non-Muslims. Set this against Jesus claiming that he was the Truth, and
the Truth will set us free (John 8.32). It might begin there, but it
can't end there.

Only misery, murder and mayhem will wake us out of our numb and illusory
escapism. How much more of this escapism are we going to hide in? How
many more lives are we going to sacrifice to our sedated,
over-comfortable secularism, before we decide we can and we must start
dignifying our democracy with telling the truth?

And after we have re-learnt to tell the truth, we must face the
challenging consequences which the truth confronts us with, and upon
which both our integrity and, for some of us, our lives depend.



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

Message: 20
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:54:29 -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:
<1497009269.1771680....@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: 21
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:54:44 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: REFORMATION ANGLICANISM: Our Exotic Ancestry (3)
Message-ID:
<1497009284.1771717....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

REFORMATION ANGLICANISM: Our Exotic Ancestry (3)

By Roger Salter
www.virtueonline.org
June 6, 2017

Inspired Scripture and Augustinian interpretation are the underpinnings
of a wholesome Anglicanism. Scripture is the basis without doubt. But
Scripture must be deciphered. Accurate interpretation is a donation of
the Spirit of the Lord. God grants to his church individuals of various
measures of understanding. Spiritual giftedness opens the Word of God to
human understanding privately, and for public pastoral office. Some
plough deep that others may reap. They are folk scholarly and pious who
give a lead in insight and who are appointed to guide the faithful. Some
are enabled to excel in deriving the essential message from Scripture
(human salvation) with clarity and consistency that convey "the ring of
truth" to those inwardly attuned to and taught by the Lord, who brings
home to them the precious sense of authenticity. "They shall all be
taught by God" (John 6:45).

The Israel of God, under the new covenant, is enabled to identify its
genuine prophets and a consensus develops as to those who are worthy of
most attention. No human spokesman is perfect or exhaustive in the
knowledge of divine revelation. Each has their limitations and blind
spots. None grasp comprehension of the Word through their own effort or
acumen. What they perceive, they by grace receive. By divine ordination
some are groomed by God to the stature of eminently reliable witnesses.
The early Fathers each had a vision of aspects of the gospel and a
grounding of some kind in the theology of the Lord and and his apostles.
In those early days there was much ground to cover and a vast range of
truth to discover.

Only time could confer sufficient maturity to the Christian mind through
creeds and confessions and arduous scholarship carried forward by
humility before God and reliance upon him. In those first centuries many
bright lights shone in the illumination of the church east and west but
none matched the glow, the brightness of Augustine the pre-eminent
doctor of grace. The church is the hospital for those broken by sin.
Augustine prescribed so well the medicine of divine mercy, sovereign,
effectual, and free.

Our Reformation was founded in Scripture and found a great thinker and
instructor in Aurelius Augustine.

German/Swiss Augustinianism

The ministry of Martin Luther began in an Augustinian monastery. With
the general spiritual declension of his times monasteries were not
necessarily healthy environments for the good of the soul. But through
all the trouble and anxieties of his quest for a merciful God Luther
benefited from the oversight and pastoral care of his wise superior
Johann Staupitz who magnified the grace of Christ in his firm doctrine
of election, so central to his effective scholarship and pastoral skill.
Many other influences came to bear on Luther's stress on justification
by faith alone, elicited primarily from Scripture, but assisted from a
confluence of Augustinian streams of thought: Bernard ( the sweet
efficiency of grace), Tauler (the intimacy of union with God), Huss (the
immediacy of access to God).

Luther's legacy to the church universal is incalculable and his
contribution to the breakthrough of the gospel in England and the
reshaping of the Ecclesia Anglicana immense. His literature enlivened
the faith of multitudes, read or taught, and discipled principal patrons
of the liberated Word - that first phalanx of the soldiers of the cross
(including Anne Boleyn) who stood gallantly for grace versus merit in
the matter of acceptance with God, some of whom were fastened to the
fiery stake for their faithfulness (Robert Barnes, John Frith, Thomas
Bilney, William Tyndale, and more). Luther at the earliest stage of the
English Reformation molded the minds of its leaders (Cranmer especially)
with his teaching on grace and faith and his imprint remains in our BCP
version of the Litany, the Catechism, and our Articles X Free Will (The
bondage of the will - the title of the book he most wished to survive
him), XI The Justification of Man, XVII Of Predestination and Election
(the truth of the doctrine and the pastoral care in presenting it).

Phillip Melancthon succeeded Luther as the leader of the Lutheran cause
- the Preceptor of Germany. A great and good man Melancthon's theology
gradually slipped from the Augustinian orthodoxy of his master. Highly
respected by the movers of the Reformation it is apparent that he lacked
the ruggedness and resolve of Luther in times of controversy. William
Cunningham hints at a certain disdain for the Preceptor's timidity that
led to a flaccidity of attitude toward the doctrines of grace in
Lutheranism and to a droopiness in doctrine in some quarters of the
Church of England.

The spirit of Melancthon wafted across the channel. "There can be no
doubt that an unscriptural longing for peace and unity - for there is
such a thing, springing, of course, not from pure Christian love, but
from the infusion of some carnal and worldly motives and influences, or
from mere natural temperament - has, on a variety of occasions, led to
corruption and compromise of God's truth, on the part both of
individuals and churches" (William Cunningham, Melancthon and the
Theology of the Church of England, The Reformers and the Theology of the
Reformation, Banner of Truth, London, 1967, page 157) The entire essay
is virtually essential reading for any Anglican concerned for the
fortunes of Reformational Anglicanism in our time, and warns of the
Melancthonian tendency already among us and corrosive of a bold
confession. We need to abide by the principles of Richmond, Scott,
Newton, Whitefield, Romaine, and Toplady.

Legh Richmond, author of the popular tract, "The Dairyman's Daughter",
an account of conversion derived most likely from his pastorate at
Brading on the Isle of Wight (the church still displays stocks, used for
the public punishment of criminals, in its grounds on approach to the
entrance), also edited volumes of a historical set of works entitled The
Fathers of the English Church. Cunningham comments that this compilation
of the writings of Henrican Reformers, "gives us the works of Frith,
Barnes, Lancelot Ridley and others, who were confessors and martyrs
under Henry, who are on every account deserving of the highest respect
and esteem, and who have left behind the unequivocal evidence that they
had embraced the whole substance of the theological views of Augustine
and Calvin"(Cunningham page 151).

Melancthon is regarded as a synergist, as is John Tauler. But both men
appeal strongly to the divine initiative in the human reception of grace
and are responsible for statements that almost place them in the
Augustinian camp, or at least close to its edge. The lapsed Melancthon
is clearly nervous of the double decree and eager for its avoidance,
contending for the notion of a truly personal, non-robotic response to
the divine call, and Tauler with his emphasis on the indwelling Christ
almost ascribes the event of conversion entirely to the action and
virtue of the Christ within who can pervade and dominate the
inclinations of the personality, and who is indeed the ground of all
godly choices.

Effectual calling does not deny the personal freedom of the individual
wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, for it is an enabling call liberating
the will from servitude to evil and hostility to God. Regeneration makes
folk new in the adoption of holy affections and the love and adoration
of the Lord. Monergism is no slight on mercy but an apt description of
unwanted, undeserved divine favor that effects a new creation, not
simply a shift in disposition achieved by the co-operation of man. Grace
alone achieves the transformation from darkness to light, death to life.
Distinguishing grace creates a freed will. The unregenerate will is
rescued from bondage to sin and bent towards God by powerful divine
persuasion.

Ulrich Zwingli, from his base in Zurich, also exercised a beneficial
influence upon the program of reform in England by drawing Cranmer and
others away from a Lutheran comprehension of the Lord's Supper. He was
the first of the Reformed theologians and a firm Augustinian on the
primacy and sovereignty of grace. Alex Ryrie in his recent, much lauded
volume entitled Protestantism gives the impression of a slap-dash
scribbler in moments of erroneous appraisal and brusque, unfavorable
opinion. It is claimed in his book that Zwingli had no appetite for
predestinarian conviction whereas the great Swiss leader embraced divine
election heartily and thoroughly in his theological belief and writing.
Zwingli's successor Heinich Bullinger is also credited with distaste for
the doctrine of predestination whereas with due pastoral sensitivity he
crafted his genuinely Augustinian pronouncements with care and
moderation moving close to Calvin in clarity as time progressed. Calvin
noticed the caution of Bullinger but admitted his approval of the man
and opined that Bullinger "was with him".

Bullinger, Vermigli, and Martin Bucer each individually determined the
theology of Anglicanism as much as Calvin. Bucer was the senior figure
and mentor among the famous four. The former Dominican bestowed
confirmatory and cogent Augustinian sentiments upon his friends, and as
Professor of Theology at Cambridge and as a colleague of Cranmer,
Anglicanism theologically and liturgically inherited much of his
doctrinal conviction and mildness of character. Bucer was an untiring
advocate of biblical orthodoxy, Augustinian understanding, reverential
worship, and Christian unity wherever possible in integrity of mind and
heart. He felt himself sparingly used in England but wrote his greatest
work, The Kingdom of Christ, while in residence in that country.

Anglicanism is a composite entity, truly the possessor of Jewel's
reasserted genuine Catholicism as opposed to Romanism (An Apology of the
Church of England), and Anglicanism is fully and worthily an expression
of the core convictions of the Reformed faith. Many eminent handprints
are deserving of inclusion in its "Cloister of Christian Repute". In the
firmament of Christian obedience and endeavor Anglicanism has greatly
added to the cloud of witnesses to the gospel of Christ. When the bishop
hands the Bible to a newly ordained servant of Christ it is inscribed
with the reminder that that person is ordained "to the office and work
of a Priest in the Church of God".

Ideally perceived, for our times raise grave issues of orthodoxy and
integrity, Anglicanism is a section of the Church of God and never the
sum or summit of Christian believing and behavior. It is a partner with
other traditions in the cause of God. It is a sharer in the doctrinal
and devotional inheritance of the saints. It is a beauteous and
satisfyingly edifying pathway to the knowledge of the Lord, life in his
service, and guidance to the goal of heaven.

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he
had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to
Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church



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

Message: 22
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:54:57 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Exploring "Male-Female" in the Bible and Society
Message-ID:
<1497009297.1771751....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Exploring "Male-Female" in the Bible and Society

By Alice C. Linsley
Special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org
June 3, 2017

It is extremely difficult to have a reasonable and intelligent
conversation these days about gender. The distinction between male and
female is no longer clear and we must talk over the loud and intrusive
noise of transgenderism. Nevertheless, in the context of Biblical
Anthropology, scientific observations touching on maleness and
femaleness can and should be made. These observations focus on two
related topics: the male-female relationship and the greater reality to
which it points, and the binary logic of the male-female set as it is
presented in Scripture.

Clearly, this discussion is not for readers whose ground for determining
morality and relevance is social norms and personal experience. This is
an in-house conversation among people who adhere to the Messianic Faith
and regard the Old and New Testaments as a primary authority.

Neither is this discussion one that Feminists will appreciate. Their
assertions and rhetoric represent a gender narrative that is so skewed
as to be unrealistic and useless. Feminists cite patriarchy as a cause
of oppression of women, and fail to recognize the ways in the
patriarchal structure benefits and protects women. Consider how Boaz, a
ruler of Bethlehem, offered protection to Ruth. Consider these highly
regarded women: the prophetess Huldah, to whom the King sent his
advisors for wisdom; the warrior prophet Deborah; the wise woman of Abel
Beth Maacah, and the aged widow Ana, who rejoiced to see Messiah's
appearing in the Temple. Additionally, about 70% of the named women in
the Bible are the wives and daughters of high-ranking priests, and as
such they exercised considerable influence in their circles. Then there
is Mary, the Mother of Christ our God. Could any greater honor be
bestowed upon the female sex?

The Supplementarity of Male-Female

Cultural anthropologists have long observed that traditional cultures
have distinct roles for males and females. Their roles are mutually
supportive. The men hunt and the women cook what the men bring back from
the hunt. The women tend the village and the men leave the village for
trade. Both men and women go outside the village for rites of
initiation, especially those that involve blood. Some activities are
performed by both male and female villagers. These include carrying
water, harvesting the crops, caring for the elderly, and teaching the
children.

The mutuality of male and female is often termed "complementarity" by
Christian thinkers. Complementarianism is the view that men and women
have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage,
family life, and church leadership. It is a modern idea, based on the
desire to pose male and females are equal, though different. It is not
the Biblical view of male and female, however. Complementarity falls
short of the greater reality to which the man and his wife point,
naturally and sacramentally. Complementarity speaks of things that
belong together and moves back and forth between the paired entities.
The emphasis is on mutuality.

For Anglicans, the complementarity of the sexes is used by both those
who support the catholic position on the all-male priesthood and those
who support the ordination of women as priests. That indicates that this
notion is not helpful. One must question where complementarity sets
forth any objective truth.

A better term for the Biblical understanding of male-female is
"supplementarity" because this implies that the sum of the complementary
entities is greater than either entity and greater than the relationship
of the entities. Supplementarity breaks out of the binary enclosure. It
admits the Divine Presence.

The sacramentality of marriage takes its pattern from the emptying of
the Godhead (kenosis) and the receptivity of the Church. The greater
stoops to elevate the weaker, the lesser. This "divine condescension" is
expressed in terms of the Sun-Moon binary sets in the Bible. In Genesis
1:16 we read, "God made two great lights--the greater light to govern
the day and the lesser light to govern the night."

The Sun and the Moon are not equals in the Biblical worldview. The Sun
was the emblem of the Creator. The Sun sheds light as insemination and
the pale Moon merely reflects the light. Likewise, the Church is the
refulgence of the divine light of Christ.

Supplementarity of male and female is an essential mark of sacred
Tradition and is expressed in the binary logic of Scripture. It is
affirmed also by empirical observation of the natural world. There is
male and female. There is life and death. There is night and day. There
is good and evil. Even the shades of gray have a binary feature: there
is dawn and dusk.

Biblical theology hinges on a binary view of reality. The binary view is
expressed in the assertion that God is greater than Man. The difference
between the binary logic of the Bible and dualism is significant. In
dualism the entities in the set are regarded as equal. Think Ying-Yang.
In contrast, the Biblical writers observed (empirically) that the sun is
greater than the moon, males are larger and stronger than females, and
humans are more intelligent and skilled than other creatures. In other
words, there is a hierarchy in the order of creation and it has a binary
aspect.

The Binary Logic of the Bible

Bishop Paul Hewett (Diocese of the Holy Cross) has observed,
"Supplementarity gets at the reality of God?s plan for the sexes,
whereas complementarity seems to gloss over or bypass important things,
viz, the profound depth of the sacramentality of what is masculine and
feminine. So it seems to me that complementarity has to be a subset or
secondary aspect of supplementarity."

This brings us to the logic of sets. St. Augustine wrote: "Numbers are
the universal language offered by the Deity to humans as confirmation of
the truth."

A binary set refers to a universally observed pattern in nature where
two entities are naturally linked, yet distinct in nature. One of the
entities in the set is recognized as greater in some observable way to
its complement. The binary logic of the Bible confronts the erroneous
idea that paired entities are co-equal. We may speak of God and Man, but
the most arrogant must accept that God, by definition, is superior to
humans. We may speak of humans as animals, but the evidence of science
indicates that we are a unique creation. The best science is undermined
by the attitude expressed in Richard Dawkins's famous tweet: "With
respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality
of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig."

Binary sets attest to the fact that there are fixed patterns in Nature.
The east-west axis of the solar arc is an example. The reality of humans
as male and female. Christians believe that the fixed patterns in nature
stand as a witness to the Creator's existence. According to the Apostle
Paul, they also testify to the Creator's divine nature and eternal
power. We read in Romans 1:19, 20: "For what may be known about God is
plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the
creation of the world God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and
divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His
workmanship, so that men are without excuse."

Binary Sets in the Bible

Awareness of the binary pattern of the Bible helps us recognize paired
narratives such as the hot and cool encounters with God. Abraham was
visited "in the heat of the day" by the Three-Person God (Gen. 18:1).
The binary opposite is the time of God's visitation to Adam and Eve "in
the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). In the first encounter, the Creator
comes to enjoy fellowship with the humans. In the second encounter, God
comes to judge a population that has accepted homosex as normal, an act
of rebellion against the divinely fixed boundaries.

Consider also these narrative pairs: the trees of male and female
prophets (Gen. 12 and Judges 4). The pillar-like oak where Abraham
visited the Moreh was associated with masculine virtues. The tamar (date
nut palm) under which Deborah sat was associated with feminine virtues
because the open nut looks like the vagina.

The Oak of the Moreh was between Bethel and Ai, on an east-west axis, as
with the solar arc. Deborah's Palm was between Ramah and Bethel, on a
north-south axis. The east-west axis is the superior because it
represents the Sun's path. For the ancient Hebrew, the Sun was the
emblem or symbol of the Creator. Jews still observe the blessing of the
Sun (Birka Hachama) every 28 years.

Other paired sets of narratives include the abuse of sons and daughters
by drunken fathers (Gen. 9 and Gen. 19), and the passing over of death
associated with the blood of the lamb (Ex. 12) and the scarlet cord hung
from the window of Rahab's house so that she and her family would be
saved from destruction. St. Ambrose wrote that Rahab "uplifted a sign of
her faith and the banner of the Lord's Passion; so that the likeness of
the mystic blood, which should redeem the world, might be in memory. So,
outside, the name of Joshua was a sign of victory to those who fought;
and inside, the likeness of the Lord's passion was a sign of salvation
to those in danger." (On the Christian Faith, Book V, no. 127)

The command against onanism upholds the distinction between humans and
plants. The seed that should fall to the earth is the seed of plants,
which spring forth from the earth. The seed of a man should fall on his
own type, the womb, from which man comes forth. In A.D. 191, Clement of
Alexandria wrote, "Because of its divine institution for the propagation
of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be
damaged, nor is it to be wasted" (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2)

Understanding the binary worldview of the Bible helps us to see the
logic of the Law. We must pay attention to the binary distinction
presented in the repeated command not of boil a baby goat in its
mother's milk (Ex. 23:19; Deut. 14:21). Boiling a baby goat in its
mother's milk blurs the distinction between life and death. The baby is
to be sustained by the mother's milk.

Christians oppose abortion because it is the divine order for birth to
follow conception and maturation to follow birth. A society that accepts
the killing of the unborn is a society in rebellion against God.

Alice C. Linsley has been pioneering the scientific field of Biblical
Anthropology for 30 years. Her research on the primitive understanding
of blood is reflected in this article. She lives in North Carolina where
she continues to teach Philosophy.



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

Message: 23
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2017 07:55:10 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: "That We May be One": John 17:1-11
Message-ID:
<1497009310.1771788....@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

"That We May be One": John 17:1-11

By David F. Sellery
www.virtueonline.org
June 9, 2017

Some call this Sunday: "Waiting Sunday." That's because... sandwiched as
it is between The Ascension and Pentecost... it might easily be
overlooked as a sleepy intermission between two awesome acts. But that
would be a sad loss. We would miss one of the truly great gospels. We
would lose the opportunity to hear Christ's final report to the
Father... and hear him explain how all the pieces of the divine plan fit
together. So, let's pause and give this gospel the reverent attention it
deserves. It's worth the "Waiting."

On the rare chance that you missed the message in the other twenty
chapters of his gospel, once again John is making the case for Christ's
divinity. The text opens with Jesus calling on the Father... revealing
himself as the manifestation of God's love made flesh for our
redemption. Clearly, he's more than a heavenly goodwill ambassador. He's
more than the prince of the prophets. Jesus speaks reverently to the
Father. But he speaks as God the Son to God the Father.

John's gospel began by establishing the fact that: In the beginning was
the Word. Lest we miss or forget the point, Jesus repeats that he was
with the Father before the world began and not as an honored guest. He
was, is and always will be one with the Father.

While Jesus makes his report, his Passion and Resurrection still lie
ahead. But he is confident his mission will be fulfilled and he shares
that confidence with us: In human form, Jesus has made God more
accessible to his people. By example, he has established love of God and
neighbor as the paradigm of the New Covenant. For our redemption, he is
ready to take our sins to the cross.

In giving Christ his mission and sharing his power, the Father has
glorified Jesus. In his humble obedience, Jesus has glorified the
Father. In the gift of eternal life, God has glorified his people. And
we in turn worship God with a new fervor born of this revelation. All
the loose ends are tied up. God's plan is a closed-loop of love...
Father-to-Son-to-people... all flowing reciprocally with the ease of
alternating current. And as St. Augustine has explained, that current is
the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

Buried deep in the cosmic sweep of this gospel is another message that
should not be overlooked. Jesus asks the Father: That they be made one,
as you and I are one. As I considered this unifying message, I looked up
from my keyboard to see the latest news of the massacre in Manchester
flash across my muted TV screen... among the victims: a five-year-old,
an eight-year-old, a fourteen-year-old... innocent little girls out for
a night of giggling and squealing at the latest teen idol... torn to
pieces by hatred. And in an instant, across the globe, people of good-
will were being figuratively torn to pieces by revulsion, by anger, by
crushing sorrow and stunning disbelief. How do we put the pieces
together again? How do we move forward in the face of rampant evil?

While I tried to focus on Christ's call for unity, I listened to my own
boys jumping around in the next room and another image from the evening
news came to mind. A traumatized Nigerian boy was recounting how his
father was murdered by terrorists. This back-country subsistence farmer
was confronted by gunmen. They made one demand: Renounce Jesus. Fighting
back his fear, the man explained that he could never do that... because
if he renounced Jesus, then Jesus could not commend him to the Father.
His declaration of faith was cut short by gunfire.

Watching the boy's moving, matter-of-fact presentation I was overcome by
a too familiar spectrum of emotions... horror, sorrow, pity... but then
inspiration and humble exaltation. There I was, TV-remote in hand,
sitting comfortably in my American suburban security. This boy and his
martyred father were a world away. We had neither nationality, nor race,
language, culture or circumstances in common. And yet I felt profoundly
that their loss was my loss. I prayed that their declaration would be my
declaration.

In the glory that these humble people gave to God, in the witness that
they gave to me, I rejoiced that Christ's prayer for unity is being
answered. In that moment, I knew that we are one Body in Christ. Today,
I pray... that by the grace of God... the faith of our Nigerian brothers
and sisters... the courage of the Coptic Christians... the strength of
the Syrian and Iraqi martyrs... the youthful innocence of Manchester...
will all be ours: That we may be one.

Alleluia. He is risen.



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

Subject: Digest Footer

VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest
http://www.virtueonline.org/listserv.html


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

End of VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 21
********************************************