VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 17

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VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest
http://www.VirtueOnline.org
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Today's Topics:

1. Table of Contents (David Virtue)
2. VIEWPOINTS: April 29, 2017 (David Virtue)
3. Truro parish to form School of Peace and Reconciliation in
defiance of bishop and ACNA Archbishop (David Virtue)
4. TRURO, VA: Truro Anglican Church Announces Property
Reconciliation with TEC Diocese of Virginia (David Virtue)
5. Attorneys urge Bishop Bruno disciplinary panel to move in
opposite directions (David Virtue)
6. Diocese of Minnesota sells diocesan office to Native America
tribe (David Virtue)
7. AUSTIN, TX: Episcopal Church to Develop Downtown Block
(David Virtue)
8. Canon Lawrence D. Bausch to Lead Forward in Faith North
America (David Virtue)
9. The Untold Story of How the CDF Created the Anglican
Ordinariate (David Virtue)
10. Reformation Anglicanism: A Vision for Today's Global
Communion (David Virtue)
11. African and Asian church leaders threaten to 'plant' a bishop
in Britain to defy Welby on gay Christians (David Virtue)
12. Anglican Church names Nigerian bishop, the first African in 2
decades (David Virtue)
13. Elevation of the Blessed Asparagus: a Church of England
pantomime (David Virtue)
14. Bishop of Oxford's St Ebbe's Sermon Epitomizes Relational
Dilemma for Reformed Anglicans (David Virtue)
15. Former Queen's Chaplain Refutes British MPs liberal response
to Belief in the Resurrection (David Virtue)
16. Parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right
legislation" to pull students out of the classes (David Virtue)
17. Why Are So Many Lesbians Getting Pregnant? (David Virtue)
18. Church of Ireland set to vote on Pastoral Acceptance of
Same-Sex Unions (David Virtue)
19. The welfare state has a lot to answer for (David Virtue)
20. The Three-Dimensional Ministry of the Lord Jesus (David Virtue)
21. The Return of the Judaizers (David Virtue)
22. Making Christ-followers of all nations--it's the main thing
(David Virtue)
23. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 (David Virtue)


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

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:26:36 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Table of Contents
Message-ID:
<1493324796.1732552...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

VirtueOnline Weekly News Digest - Desktop & Mobile Edition
www.virtueonline.org
April 28, 2017


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

1.England faces possibility of GAFCON Bishop * Welby's stance on
Homosexuality ripped by Nigerian Primate...
http://www.virtueonline.org/england-faces-possibility-gafcon-bishop-welbys-stance-homosexuality-ripped-nigerian-primate-truro


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

2.Truro parish to form School of Peace and Reconciliation in defiance of
Bishop and ACNA Archbishop
http://www.virtueonline.org/truro-parish-form-school-peace-and-reconciliation-defiance-bishop-and-acna-archbishop

3.TRURO, VA: Truro Anglican Church Announces Property Reconciliation
with TEC Diocese of Virginia
http://www.virtueonline.org/truro-va-truro-anglican-church-announces-property-reconciliation-tec-diocese-virginia

4.Attorneys urge Bishop Bruno disciplinary panel to move in opposite
dirtions
http://www.virtueonline.org/attorneys-urge-bishop-bruno-disciplinary-panel-move-opposite-directions

5.Diocese of Minnesota sells diocesan office to Native America tribe
http://www.virtueonline.org/diocese-minnesota-sells-diocesan-office-native-america-tribe

6.AUSTIN, TX: Episcopal Church to Develop Downtown Block
http://www.virtueonline.org/austin-tx-episcopal-church-develop-downtown-block


*********************************************
NORTH AMERICAN ANGLICANISM
*********************************************

7.Canon Lawrence D. Bausch to Lead Forward in Faith North America
http://www.virtueonline.org/canon-lawrence-d-bausch-lead-forward-faith-north-america

8.The Untold Story of How the CDF Created the Anglican Ordinariate
http://www.virtueonline.org/untold-story-how-cdf-created-anglican-ordinariate


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

9.Reformation Anglicanism: A Vision for Today's Global Communion
http://www.virtueonline.org/reformation-anglicanism-vision-todays-global-communion

10.African and Asian church leaders threaten to 'plant' a bishop in
Britian...
http://www.virtueonline.org/african-and-asian-church-leaders-threaten-plant-bishop-britain-defy-welby-gay-christians


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

11. Anglican Church names Nigerian bishop, the first African in 2
decades
http://www.virtueonline.org/anglican-church-names-nigerian-bishop-first-african-2-decades

12. Elevation of the Blessed Asparagus: a Church of England pantomime
http://www.virtueonline.org/elevation-blessed-asparagus-church-england-pantomime

13.Bishop of Oxford's St Ebbe's Sermon Epitomizes Relational Di...
http://www.virtueonline.org/bishop-oxfords-st-ebbes-sermon-epitomizes-relational-dilemma-reformed-anglicans

14. Former Queen's Chaplain Refutes British MPs liberal response to B...
http://www.virtueonline.org/former-queens-chaplain-refutes-british-mps-liberal-response-belief-resurrection

15. Parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right legisl..
http://www.virtueonline.org/parents-are-using-dubious-interpretation-human-right-legislation-pull-students-out-classes


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

16. Why Are So Many Lesbians Getting Pregnant?
http://www.virtueonline.org/why-are-so-many-lesbians-getting-pregnant


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

17. Church of Ireland set to vote on Pastoral Acceptance of Same-Sex
Unions
http://www.virtueonline.org/church-ireland-set-vote-pastoral-acceptance-same-sex-unions

18. The welfare state has a lot to answer for
http://www.virtueonline.org/welfare-state-has-lot-answer


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

19.The Three-Dimensional Ministry of the Lord Jesus
http://www.virtueonline.org/three-dimensional-ministry-lord-jesus

20.The Return of the Judaizer
http://www.virtueonline.org/return-judaizers


************************************
REFORMATION & RENEWAL
************************************

21.Making Christ-Followers Of All Nations--It's The Main Thing
http://www.virtueonline.org/making-christ-followers-all-nations-its-main-thing


*********************************
DEVOTIONAL
*********************************

22. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
http://www.virtueonline.org/what-does-future-hold-1-corinthians-1520-28


END



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

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:42:50 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: VIEWPOINTS: April 29, 2017
Message-ID:
<1493336570.3994595...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

We are at another historic moment when the Church must articulate its
faith in the light of modern and postmodern developments both outside
itself and within. But, I would also argue because the rot of modernity
has eaten its way into the infrastructure of Anglicanism, especially in
the West, we cannot reconstruct authentic Anglican doctrine unless we go
back to the sources, namely to the Thirty-Nine Articles and Book of
Common Prayer. --- Stephen Noll

In two separate paragraphs of the Acts, Luke tells us that the early
Christians in Jerusalem sold many of their possessions, held the rest in
common, and distributed goods and money 'as any had need' (2:44, 45;
4:32-37). Are we to deduce from this that they set a pattern which all
Christians are meant to copy, and that private property is forbidden to
Christians? Some groups have thought so. Certainly the generosity and
mutual care of those early Christians are to be followed, for the New
Testament commands us many times to love and serve one another, and to
be generous (even sacrificial) in our giving. But to argue from the
practice of the early Jerusalem church that all private ownership is
abolished among Christians not only cannot be maintained from Scripture
but is plainly contradicted by the apostle Peter in the same context
(Acts 5:4) and by the apostle Paul elsewhere (e.g. 1 Tim. 6:17). This
example should put us on alert. We must derive our standards of belief
and behaviour from the teaching of the New Testament, wherever it is
given, rather than from the practices and experiences which it portrays.
--- John R. W. Stott

Only 20 percent of Americans have read the Bible in its entirety. A new
survey also found that most Americans have positive feelings toward it
and would describe it as a "good source of morals." LifeWay Research
revealed that 10 percent of respondents read none of the Bible, 13
percent said they read only a few sentences, 30 percent said they knew
of several passages or stories, 15 percent read at least half the Bible,
and 12 percent read almost all of it. Overall, only 20 percent of the
respondent said they read the entire Bible. -- Stoyan Zaimov in the
Christian Post

After Soumaya Khalifah's sermon, Atlanta Bishop Robert C. Wright invited
Khalifah to join clergy and others at the altar for the Eucharistic
prayers consecrating the bread and wine. As the worshippers stepped
forward to receive Holy Communion, the bishop said Khalifah took part.
"She held out her hand to receive the Host and it is not my practice to
refuse people," said Wright. He noted that "open Communion" is common
across his diocese, especially with visitors. Khalifah returned to her
seat without receiving the consecrated wine, the bishop said. -- Terry
Mattingly

EMBRACE YOUR FAITH. Attending religious services once a week has been
shown to add between four and 14 years to life expectancy, according to
researchers who study blue zones. Don't belong to a church? Ask to join
a friend at her services, or just drop in at a nearby house of worship,
most have an open-door policy. --- AARP Bulletin

Dear Brothers and Sisters
www.virtueonline.org
April 28, 2017

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, just doesn't
get it.

He thinks he can keep playing the game of reconciliation with "good
disagreement", "radical inclusion" and other notions of appeasement with
orthodox Anglicans in the Global South, while he attempts to soften the
acceptance of same sex marriage into the Church of England.

It is sheer delusion on his part to think he can; and he is going down
the same rocky road that his predecessor Rowan Williams trod which got
him into all kinds of trouble, finally forcing him prematurely out of
office into academe.

The fact that Welby claims to be an evangelical is not remotely
impressing the likes of Nigerian Archbishop Nicholas Okoh and his GAFCON
followers, who now believe that the CofE is lost and they are going to
plant a GAFCON flag (in the person of a bishop) on British soil. This is
more than a poke in the eye, it is a major smack down and an in your
face act that will have lasting consequences for English Anglicanism.

No more tea, crumpets and polite conversation with Her Majesty the
Queen.

Welby will have to tell the Queen: "Your majesty, our former colonials
have arrived on British soil to drop one of their bishops on us, what
should we do?"

Queen: "Well, whose fault is that? Didn't our people take the gospel to
them. You compromised over same-sex marriage and now they want to
reconvert England. One can hardly blame them, can we now. I don't
suggest that you fight them on the ramparts of Lambeth Palace and hurl
prayer books at them. You may have to live with the consequences of your
actions...or find another job. Your predecessor did."

In more polite terms, the Archbishop of Nigeria, and GAFCON chairman,
said the "distressing" move (by the CofE) had "downgraded the historic
and biblical mind of the Church". He was being polite...for now.

As the Church of England continues to soften its stance on
homosexuality, conservative Anglican leaders are preparing to unleash
their "nuclear option" by moving to elect their own bishop to depose
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over his embracing of same-sex
"marriage."

Because the Episcopal Church continues its pro-LGBT stance to support
same-sex marriage within the church, disciplinary measures are now being
taken by leaders within the CofE. Will Welby learn before it is too
late?

The long and short of it is the progressive stance on sexuality being
taken by Anglican churches in the West, orthodox Anglican leaders in the
South and East are not willing to cave in to the progressives. And now
these so-called rebel archbishops led by Okoh, are ready to give the
green light at a meeting of GAFCON primates this week in Nigeria. We
wait with bated breath for the outcome.

*****

The Scottish Episcopal Church is on the pathway to reject biblical truth
on same-sex marriage, and they are expected to finalize this rejection
of Anglican teaching and apostolic order in their upcoming June meeting
of their Synod.

A Theological Forum of the Church of Scotland has produced a report, An
Approach to the Theology of Same-Sex Marriage, in advance of next
month's General Assembly. The report examines three overlapping kinds of
argument in some detail:

* arguments based on understandings of human rights;
* analogical arguments which try to build outwards from traditional
understandings of marriage; and
* fully theological arguments for the admissibility of same-sex
marriage.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to know where all this is going.
Alternative structures and oversight will need to be in place should
that unfortunate reality come to pass.

The Most Rev. David Chillingworth has announced that he will retire as
Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane and as Primus of the Scottish
Episcopal Church at the end of July this year.

A source told VOL that Chillingworth was not quite as bad as his
predecessor, Richard Holloway -- but still not orthodox.

*****

In a move that delighted the heart of Justin Welby, but brought
heartburn to Bishop John Guernsey, Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic and ACNA
Archbishop, Foley Beach, an Anglican parish - Truro Anglican Church --
announced a property reconciliation with the TEC Diocese of Virginia and
its bishop, Shannon Johnston.

The Truro Church agreed to a long-term lease from the Episcopal Diocese
of Virginia based on a Peace and Reconciliation initiative that will
allow the congregation to stay on its property for 20, even 50 years,
with the full support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
representatives of Coventry Cathedral.

This did not sit well with Archbishop Beach, who fired back blasting the
idea, saying that the TEC diocese was not an "appropriate partner" for
such a project because their leadership continues to promote teaching
and practices contrary to Scripture --teaching that, if followed, would
keep people from an eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

Beach said the teaching by TEC has torn the fabric of the Anglican
Communion, and such teaching remains a scandal in the Anglican Communion
to this day. "Until there is repentance by the Episcopal Diocese of
Virginia, there can be no true Gospel partnership with them."

Guernsey echoed similar sentiments and, in a letter to the clergy and
wardens of his diocese, said, The Episcopal Church promotes "false
teaching" and therefore, the parish should "not enter into a joint
ministry with the Episcopal Diocese."

Now it has, and the Rev. Tory Baucum thinks he can straddle the fence
and have it both ways. He cannot. That strategy always leads to TEC
winning and those who oppose it, losing. If Guernsey does nothing, then
it will lead to Welby using it has a wedge into ACNA, supported by TEC
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. It will also weaken ACNA's position in
GAFCON at a critical time when GAFCON is about to plant a bishop on
English soil.

Guernsey has no option but to excommunicate Baucum or the gig is up for
ACNA. If he does nothing, it sends a signal to the Rev. John Yates over
at Falls Church, VA, that he should have compromised and kept his $40
million property. Tough talk and action is needed for sure, but what are
Guernsey's alternatives? Not to act is a clear victory for Bishop
Shannon Johnston and Archbishop Justin Welby and ultimately weakens
Archbishop Beach's standing in GAFCON. I cannot see how Archbishop
Nicholas Okoh will tolerate this kind of compromise, especially as he
has blasted the four Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion and
the Church of England for softening its stance on gay marriage.

*****

For those of us who have been engaged in battle on the frontline of
Anglicanism and watched with both horror and hope the spiritual warfare
that has raged across the globe, you may now find some comfort,
consolation indeed inspiration from a new volume on the history of
Anglicanism.

Reformation Anglicanism: A Vision for Today's Global Communion; A
Manifesto for Reformation Anglicanism, written by Cranmer scholar Ashley
Null and Anglican priest John W. Yates III, is a timely volume on
Anglicanism as it has been practiced in recent years. The Anglican
Communion has been fraught with 'heresies distressed' and the doctrinal
and moral wars fought have left the battlefield littered with corpses.
The wounded still walk amongst us.

The Anglican ship of state continues to roil, but it also continues to
move steadily forward, at times listing, but then righting itself and
growing as new Anglican beacons are lit to show us the way and reveal to
us that all is not lost.

This slim volume by five scholars, two of whom are practicing pastors,
is a lighthouse with its beam piercing the darkness, offering hope in
what many had come to believe to be a hopelessly divided situation. You
can read more about this book in today's digest.

Other contributors include bishops Michael Nazir-Ali, Michael Jensen and
Ben Kwashi. You can read my review and buy a copy of the book at this
link. We urge you to do so:

https://www.crossway.org/books/reformation-anglicanism-hcj/

*****

A disciplinary panel investigating charges that LA Bishop Jon Bruno
violated church law in attempting to sell St. James the Great Episcopal
Church is trying to find "creative ways" to deal with the bully Bishop
of LA. Attorneys are urging a disciplinary panel to move in opposite
directions, writes an ENS staffer.

Attorneys representing the Episcopal Church and Bruno are asking an
ecclesiastical disciplinary panel to come to opposite conclusions about
whether the bishop violated church law in attempting to sell St. James
the Great Episcopal Church.

Attorneys for Bruno argued for dismissal of the charges, while the
Episcopal Church's attorney asked the members to find the bishop guilty,
but craft a sentence aimed at reconciliation. Their arguments came in
briefs released close to a month after a rare bishop disciplinary
hearing.

The misconduct allegations, initially brought by the members of St.
James, stem from Bruno's unsuccessful 2015 attempt to sell the church in
Newport Beach to a condominium developer for $15 million in cash. You
can read the full story in today's digest.

*****

Recently, Forward in Faith North America elected the Rev. Canon Lawrence
D. Bausch of Ocean Beach, California, as its new president. Canon Bausch
succeeds the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, who had served as FiFNA's
president since 2005.

Canon Bausch resigned from the ministry of the Episcopal Church in
September 2006, and was received as a priest in good standing in the
Diocese of Argentina, in the Anglican Province of the Iglesia Anglicana
del Cono Sur de America.

VOL interviewed Canon Bausch as part of the ongoing realignment both in
North America and the wider Anglican Communion and we asked him how he
saw the future of FIFNA, its goals and aspirations within the Anglican
Communion.

VOL: Canon Bausch, how do you understand your mission in these post-TEC,
new ACNA days?

BAUSCH: Our primary mission is to teach, practice and proclaim the
fullness of our Catholic inheritance for Anglicans, regardless of
jurisdictional identity. Historically speaking, we see ourselves as a
part of a new "Oxford Movement". After my election, I said that our
mission was now responding to a different parable than when we began.
Originally, we were like those who had found the "pearl of great value',
and who were to protect and preserve it with all of our resources. Now,
we are within the parable of the talents, whose mission is to utilize
and witness to the value of this gift we have been entrusted with.

You can read the full interview in today's digest.

*****

A former TEC, then AMiA priest and then later an ACNA priest, was
elected bishop of the Diocese of Caledonia in the Anglican Church of
Canada!

The Rev. Jake Worley, rector of the Bulkley Valley Regional Parish,
which includes three (small) congregations in northern British Columbia,
was elected on the eighth ballot of an episcopal election held in Prince
Rupert, Saturday, April 22. He will be a conservative in a dying liberal
Anglican province.

Mr. Worley has had a checkered career ecclesiastically speaking. Born in
Alabama, Worley moved to New Mexico when he was five. He studied zoology
and botany at Western New Mexico University. He then did environmental
consulting work, which included studying the impact of U.S. Department
of Defense missile testing on wildlife. Worley eventually felt a call to
the priesthood, and graduated with an M.Div from Trinity School for
Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He was ordained a priest in The
Episcopal Church (TEC) in 2005.

In 2007, Worley founded a new church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as a
missionary for the Anglican province of Rwanda- AMiA. The church would
later join the Anglican Church in North America, after a number of
conservative congregations left TEC in 2009. In the meantime, Worley had
left. After an interim term as rector at St. Martin's Anglican Church in
Fort St. John, B.C., in 2013, then a year priesting for the Church of
Ireland, he returned with his family to B.C., where he assumed his role
as rector of Bulkley Valley.

The electoral synod was held to find a successor for Bishop William
Anderson, who announced his plans to retire in December, 2015. Anderson
had served as bishop of the diocese for a decade and a half, having been
elected in October 2001 and consecrated as bishop in February 2002.

It's amazing what fire-walking some people will go through to get a
purple shirt, crozier and miter.

*****

The Diocese of Minnesota sold its diocesan office in a private sale to a
Native America tribe for an undisclosed sum of money this week.

At his blog, Bishop Brian N. Prior believes the sale will advance God's
mission in the diocese, though how that will happen is unclear.

"By now some of you are aware that the ECMN board of Trustees has sold
the 1730 Clifton Place property to the White Earth Nation. Serving the
Episcopal Church in Minnesota for over 20 years, this building, like
most of us, has had its good days and its bad. Many faithful people
through the years have had inspiring dreams of what the property could
be. And yet, through the years, there've been many challenging
experiences for those who have dared to dream of how the property could
be a greater asset for God's mission.

"I am truly sorry for all those inspiring dreams that we were not able
to accomplish together. In the midst of that, I am also truly grateful
for all those who have worked hard to be good stewards of 1730 Clifton
Place. And at the end of the day, as we are once again reminded in this
Easter season, we are resurrection people. Because of this, I believe
new life always finds a way to come forth."

This is the second diocese to sell its headquarter in as many weeks. The
Diocese of Rochester recently announced it had sold its headquarters
also to advance God's mission. Of course, it might have something to do
with the declining fortunes of these dioceses, whose parishes are
sinking beneath the waves of post-modernism and the promotion of sodomy.

Minnesota, like most dioceses, is sinking slowly into the sunset. In
2005, there were 25,179 baptized Episcopalians. By 2015 that figure had
dropped 21% to well under 19,871. Its ASA in 2005 was 8,742, by the end
of 2015 it had dropped 31.8% to near 6,000. It's plate and pledge held
steady at $13 million its 105 priests had an average age of 59, with 70%
aged between 55 to over 65. The number of full time women priests was a
mere 25% and full time male priests only 37%.

*****

The Diocese of Huron is on its last legs, but Bishop Linda Nicolls is
attempting to resuscitate it, mainly by doing what she is telling
parishes they should not do, writes David of Samizdat.

Some churches might look to draw on the principle of reserves and trusts
to pay for everyday expenses, even though such a strategy can't last,
said Nicolls.

At the same time, she is closing and selling churches on a scale that
makes Century 21 look like amateurs; all to stave off the financial
collapse of the diocese a little longer. Or, at least, until she
retires.

At Synod in May, she will call on each parish church to develop a
five-year plan -- with measurable benchmarks -- for financial stability
and building upkeep.

"At the same time," she says, "We have to be working at discipleship,
working on why we are the church, working within churches and on the
spiritual needs of the community around us."

"It's very daunting" to have to address both tracks simultaneously, she
admits, but adds, "We don't have time to wait; we don't have time for
people to wake up to this."

These two sides -- finances and discipleship -- are not disconnected in
Bishop Linda's view.

"When people are passionate about what the church is called to be, they
will support it... It's not just about the money; it's about being
realistic and hopeful. And that's where the discipleship piece comes in.
What is God calling you to do and be in this community?"

Financially, Bishop Linda says, there are four "non-negotiables" for
parish churches: having a balanced budget, not using reserves for
operating expenses, paying full apportionment, and paying the stipend
and housing of clergy.

One thing that no-one in the diocese seems to want to try is a return to
Biblical orthodoxy. Instead, we have a familiar attempt to appease the
zeitgeist by parading on a gay pride rainbow crosswalk waving crosses
and an umbrella. A photograph featured her and 10 other persons,
including Archbishop Fred Hiltz, crossing the road. Clearly not
generating much interest.

An ACoC watcher reported to VOL that he had been in three churches that
have closed, and each time the parishioners were all thrown to the wind
and have ended up here, there and everywhere. "We don't necessarily know
where our former parishioners and friends have gone. It is especially
bad in the rural areas where there is lack of public transit and lack of
other social sites to congregate. "Our schools and churches are closing,
and our hospitals are being downsized, especially in the rural areas
here in Ontario, Canada. Meanwhile the evangelical churches are moving
into small towns, almost every town has a non-denominational church
called a Community Church. Both Roman Catholics and evangelical churches
are expanding."

*****

The Church in Wales consecrated its first woman bishop. June Osborne,
who has served as Dean of Salisbury for the past 13 years, was chosen as
the 72nd Bishop of Llandaff, a diocese which serves most of Cardiff, the
South Wales Valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan. She was enthroned at St.
David's Cathedral on February 11.

Dr. Barry Morgan, who carried out the consecration, said the women
clergy in Wales had faced a "long struggle" to get to this point. "The
great thing about our women clergy is that they did not give up or
become cynical or bitter. What matters is not gender but suitability,
character, gifts and that was why Joanna was elected as bishop." The
homosexual Dean, Jeffrey John, wanted the job but got nixed. It was his
seventh attempt to get a bishopric.

Osborne was the author of a report for the House of Bishops, many years
ago, advocating a liberal stance on homosexuality, but it was not
published at the time, although its stance was widely leaked.
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005323.html has a copy for
download.

She was rewarded with a plum Deanery (women could not be bishops at that
time) although she had very little parish experience, and no obvious
academic track record, said a source.

*****

English cathedrals are not too big to fail, said the Archbishop of
Canterbury. More than half of them face acute financial challenges.
Cathedral deans are meeting in London at the end of this month to talk
of cash crises and out-of-control costs. A cathedral "could get into a
situation so desperate that there is no obvious solution," said the Rt.
Rev. Adrian Newman, Bishop of Stepney and former Dean of Rochester, in
The Guardian.

Another reality is greatly reduced government funding for cathedral
maintenance through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In recent months, stories have emerged of individual cathedrals in
trouble. Guilford Cathedral's plans for coping with its financial
difficulty include charging entry fees to non-worshipping visitors. The
cathedrals that charge entry fees to non-worshipping visitors do better
than those that request contributions, however only nine of the 44
charge entrance fees.

*****

An Iraqi refugee became an Anglican priest in Canada. New Westminster
Anglican Bishop Melissa Skelton introduced the Rev. Fr. Ayoob Shawkat
Adwar as a priest into the Anglican Church of Canada.

Adwar, a priest in the Chaldean Catholic Church, was received as an
Anglican priest at a ceremony in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, last
month.

"The event was a "small but significant piece of history," said
Archdeacon Stephen Rowe, rector of the Anglican Parish of the Church of
the Epiphany in Surrey, since Adwar is thought to be the first Chaldean
priest in history to have become a member of the Anglican clergy.

Originally from Mosul, Iraq--heartland of the Chaldean church--Adwar was
ordained as a Chaldean priest in 2008. His family began to arrive in
Canada about five years ago, and Adwar himself followed in 2014, when he
was granted refugee status.

At around the same time, a group of Chaldeans began worshipping at the
Church of the Epiphany. In Advent of 2014, Melissa Skelton, bishop of
New Westminster, gave her permission for a Chaldean Rite Mass to take
place at the church. Over time, Anglicans and Chaldeans at the church
started attending each other's services and learning more about each
other's traditions.

Meanwhile, Adwar had declared an interest in becoming an Anglican
priest, and began a discernment process. He was confirmed as an Anglican
in December, 2016; that ceremony, like his reception as an Anglican
priest, was presided over by Bishop Skelton.

Adwar, who is fluent in both Arabic and modern Aramaic--a Middle Eastern
language derived from the language of Jesus--will serve as a curate in
the diocese of New Westminster, working with an experienced Anglican
priest.

*****

Week after week we give you the unvarnished news you won't find anywhere
else. Please consider throwing a few bucks our way to keep it all
coming. Is it too much to ask the thousands of you who come weekly to
VOL's website or read these weekly digests to help keep it flowing? We
are not a charity but we do offer you a charitable deduction. We work
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Become a supporter. Please make a contribution. It is tax-deductible.
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We really could really use some financial support. Thank you.

David



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

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:43:14 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Truro parish to form School of Peace and Reconciliation in
defiance of bishop and ACNA Archbishop
Message-ID:
<1493336594.3994595...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Truro parish to form School of Peace and Reconciliation in defiance of
bishop and ACNA Archbishop
Rev. Tory Baucom's peripatetic wanderings gave hint of settlement with
liberal bishop of Virginia

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 26, 2017

Following a property settlement with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia
and its ultra-liberal bishop, Shannon Johnston, Truro Parish and its
Anglican priest, Tory Baucom, issued a statement which you can read in
full here. This action brought swift reaction by his Anglican Bishop,
John Guernsey, and ACNA Archbishop, Foley Beach, prompting this from
Primate Beach; "They have entered into a legal relationship with the
Episcopal Church that makes them unequally yoked. It requires the
permission of the Episcopal bishop for me to visit, and it creates an
Episcopal Diocese of Virginia center of ministry with a required
on-campus presence of one of their bishops. The decision to partner with
the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in this way is not in harmony with the
Bible's instruction in dealing with false teachers, and it denigrates
the costly sacrifice of the many congregations who had their buildings
and assets taken by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia."

That apparently did not bother Baucom and his parish, who wrote this:

Bishop Shannon Johnston "In this Easter season of rebirth and renewal,
Truro Anglican Church is pleased to announce a new ministry of peace
making and reconciliation called the Truro Institute: A School of Peace
and Reconciliation. The Institute represents the continued fulfillment
of God's work at Truro over many decades and is consistent with our
congregational history and DNA. It is also the culmination of our
outreach to and discussions with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, with
whom we are joining in this exciting initiative. Years after the costly
litigation and sometimes on-going animosity with the EDV, we have
arrived at a new era of community building and peacemaking.

"This new ministry, formed by Truro Anglican, will have equal
representation on its board from EDV and Truro, along with
representation from the Dean of Coventry Cathedral and the Archbishop of
Canterbury. The following is a quote from Archbishop Justin Welby,
regarding this ministry:

"I am deeply moved by the establishment of the Peace Centre at Truro,
not least because I have looked more closely at it in the days following
the terrorism in Westminster, merely 400 yards from Lambeth Palace. The
kingdom of God is proclaimed in practices that develop virtues. The
Peace Centre will proclaim that reconciliation is the gospel, with God
through Christ, but like the Temple in Ezekiel 47, releasing a flood of
water that as a mighty river becomes the place of fruitfulness and
healing for the nations. Thank you for your step of faith. We too will
work with you as best we can."

"The ministry will work with seminarians and other young people to seed
our respective denominations with a new generation of peace makers, by
teaching them and letting them live into the challenging work of
reconciliation. Just the fact of the joint involvement of EDV and Truro
Anglican is a living testament to the work the Institute hopes to
accomplish.

"Along with the founding of this ministry, EDV has signed a long-term
lease with Truro Anglican. The initial term is twenty years. There is an
initial test period of three years where both parties will discern and
evaluate the work of the Institute. This will allow us to determine if
the Holy Spirit is truly present in this ministry. If it is determined
by both parties that the ministry should continue, our twenty year lease
becomes a fifty year lease (for a total of fifty-three years). If it is
determined that the ministry should not continue, Truro has the
remaining seventeen years under its lease to determine its future home.

"There may be some who are not comfortable about engaging in ministry
with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, but Truro has a long history of
joint ministries involving EDV, including Five Talents and the Lamb
Center. While we recognize our deep differences on some issues, we have
chosen to focus on what unites us as people who believe in the
resurrected Lord, rather than on what divides us. With this ministry,
Truro is following a long heritage. We also take comfort in the
three-year test period which will let all parties determine if we are
truly following God's calling. We have discerned that this ministry is
indeed a calling from God, and events have lined up to reinforce that
discernment. But if it is not of God, not infused with the Holy Spirit,
then it will not produce Godly fruit. Both parties are happy to submit
to this testing/discernment period to be sure we are following God's
plan for us."

VOL readers will be interested to learn of the peripatetic wanderings of
the Rev. Dr. Tory Baucom, the rector of Truro Anglican Church.

Baucum was at one time licensed in the Diocese of Lexington. In 2005,
Bishop Stacy Sauls, then Bishop of Lexington, revoked his license;
Bishop William Love in the Diocese of Albany took him in. The next thing
anyone knew, Dr. Baucum transferred to the Diocese of London, England.

In a 2005 statement regarding these developments, Bishop Stacy Sauls,
former Chief Operating Officer of The Episcopal Church, stated that the
transfer to London was done without his consultation or consent. Bishop
Sauls added that he would not re-license Baucum, "unless he transfers
back to an American jurisdiction that will cooperate with me in keeping
Tory accountable to our church."

>From there, Baucum wound up in the Diocese of Virginia, following in the
footsteps of the Rev. Martin Minns at Truro Episcopal Church, a high
profile evangelical parish in the northern part of the liberal Virginia
diocese now under Bishop Shannon Johnston.

In 2014, I wrote this http://tinyurl.com/ltxk4un just prior to the
property wars that broke out that saw the end of niceness and the fall
of Falls Church, VA, and its $40 million property to the Diocese of
Virginia. This also saw the deposition of the Rev. John Yates and his
congregation forced out of the building and to a restart elsewhere.

Baucum played a different game. He decided to make nice with the liberal
bishop and agreed not to go to court to fight for the building. They cut
a deal and Baucum stayed for two more years, but with a view to getting
an extension if he continued to play ball with the diocese and not upset
the parish or diocesan applecart. He was later rewarded for his
ecumenical niceness and appointed to the position of preacher at
Canterbury Cathedral by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Now he and Bishop Johnston have come up with an idea that looks
remarkably like compromise that might work for Johnston, who would only
find himself with yet another empty church if he threw them out, and
keeps Baucum in the parish and paying money to the diocese while keeping
the property in trust for the diocese and his people who are too blind
to see what he has done.

END



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

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:43:37 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: TRURO, VA: Truro Anglican Church Announces Property
Reconciliation with TEC Diocese of Virginia
Message-ID:
<1493336617.3994630...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

TRURO, VA: Truro Anglican Church Announces Property Reconciliation with
TEC Diocese of Virginia
ACNA Archbishop & Diocese of Mid-Atlantic Bishop say Reconciliation not
based on Scripture
"Episcopal Diocese has not been reconciled with the revealed Word of
God"
"TEC leadership continues to promote teaching and practice that is
contrary to Scripture"
No dealings possible with false teachers, says Archbishop Foley Beach

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 25, 2017

Truro Anglican Church has agreed to a long-term lease from the Episcopal
Diocese of Virginia based on a Peace and Reconciliation initiative that
will allow the congregation to stay on its property for 20, even 50
years, with the full support of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
representatives of Coventry Cathedral.

However, ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach blasted the idea, saying that the
TEC diocese was not an "appropriate partner" for such a project because
their leadership continues to promote teaching and practices contrary to
Scripture --teaching that, if followed, would keep people from an
eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

Beach said the teaching by TEC has torn the fabric of the Anglican
Communion, and such teaching remains a scandal in the Anglican Communion
to this day. "Until there is repentance by the Episcopal Diocese of
Virginia, there can be no true Gospel partnership with them."

Mid-Atlantic Anglican bishop, John Guernsey, echoed similar sentiments,
and in a letter to the clergy and wardens of his diocese said, The
Episcopal Church promotes "false teaching" and therefore the parish
should "not enter into a joint ministry with the Episcopal Diocese."

"The issues that divide us are of first importance and to partner with
the Episcopal Church is to give the mistaken impression that these
concerns are merely secondary. If I thought that the issues that divide
us were secondary, I would never have left the Episcopal Church," he
said.

Guernsey said the Truro leadership has chosen to proceed in joint
ministry with the Episcopal Diocese in spite of my opposition. "I am
deeply grieved by this, and I hope Truro will reconsider."

The "Truro Institute: A School of Peace and Reconciliation" can be
viewed here
http://truroanglican.com/media/publications/the-truro-institute-a-school-of-peace-and-reconciliation/
. Its Fairfax City church and campus will have equal representation on
its board from Truro and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, as well as
representatives of Coventry Cathedral and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The lease is said to run for 20, even 50 years.

The ACNA archbishop said that while he welcomed the idea of a School of
Peace and Reconciliation with the opening of centers around the Anglican
Church in North America, he welcomed it only if it promoted Biblical
reconciliation. "Unfortunately, the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has
not been reconciled with the revealed Word of God, and is therefore not
an appropriate partner for such a project. Their leadership continues to
promote teaching and practice that is contrary to Scripture." Beach
praised the godly counsel, patience, and goodness of Bishop Guernsey and
expressed disappointment that they have not just been ignored, "but
defied our counsel."

"In doing so they have entered into a legal relationship with the
Episcopal Church that makes them unequally yoked. It requires the
permission of the Episcopal bishop for me to visit, and it creates an
Episcopal Diocese of Virginia center of ministry with a required
on-campus presence of one of their bishops. The decision to partner with
the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia in this way is not in harmony with the
Bible's instruction in dealing with false teachers, and it denigrates
the costly sacrifice of the many congregations who had their buildings
and assets taken by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia."

Beach said it was ironic to begin a "Peace and Reconciliation" center
when you are not at peace with your own bishop and archbishop. "Truro
has been a leader in the renewal of North American Anglicanism, giving a
robust defense of the Gospel, and refusing to peddle any counterfeit. It
is my hope that they will uphold that heritage, resist counterfeit
versions of "reconciliation," and fulfill their calling among the
leading congregations of the Anglican Church in North America."

END



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

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:44:44 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Attorneys urge Bishop Bruno disciplinary panel to move in
opposite directions
Message-ID:
<1493336684.3994698...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Attorneys urge Bishop Bruno disciplinary panel to move in opposite
directions
Closing briefs call for dismissal or 'creative way' to move forward in
Los Angeles

By Mary Frances Schjonberg
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com
April 26, 2017

Attorneys representing the Episcopal Church and Diocese of Los Angeles
Bishop J. Jon Bruno are asking an ecclesiastical disciplinary panel to
come to opposite conclusions about whether the bishop violated church
law in attempting to sell St. James the Great Episcopal Church.

Attorneys for Bruno argued for dismissal of the charges while the
Episcopal Church's attorney asked the members to find the bishop guilty
but craft a sentence aimed at reconciliation. Their arguments came in
briefs released close to a month after a rare bishop disciplinary
hearing.

The misconduct allegations, initially brought by the members of St.
James, stem from Bruno's unsuccessful 2015 attempt to sell the church in
Newport Beach to a condominium developer for $15 million in cash.

St. James was one of four properties that the diocese spent close to $10
million in litigation to recover from disaffiliated Episcopalians who
broke with the Church over its policies on women's ordination and the
full inclusion of LGBTQI members in the life of the church, including
ordained ministry.

Church Attorney Raymond "Jerry" Coughlan, left, shows Diocese of Los
Angeles J. Jon Bruno documents during the bishop's testimony March 29.
Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Bruno is at least the 10th bishop of the nearly 1,100 bishops in
Episcopal Church history to have a disciplinary accusation against him
reach the level of a formal hearing under the Church's process for
handling complaints applicable at the time. His trial was the first of a
bishop since the Episcopal Church's extensively revised Title IV
disciplinary canons went into effect July 1, 2011.

The hearing on accusations that he violated church canons, including
engaging in conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy took place March
28-30 in Pasadena, California. The attorneys did not make oral closing
arguments at the end of the testimony, opting instead to file written
briefs. Those briefs could not be completed until after a transcript of
the testimony was finished.

The Hearing Panel has not acted on the attorneys' recommendation and it
is not known when the members will issue their decision. The panel has a
range of actions it can take, from dismissal of the allegations to
removing Bruno from his ordained ministry.

Diocese of Los Angeles Chancellor Richard Zevnik and Vice Chancellor
Julie Dean Larsen urged the panel in their brief to dismiss the entire
case against Bruno. They said in the conclusion to their brief that a
"civil lawsuit, political actions and social media campaign" mounted by
members of St. James the Great in Newport Beach were "wrongfully, but
successfully and strategically, designed to stop the sale of [the]
40,000-square foot church property" on what is known as Lido Island, a
prosperous housing development sporting a yacht club.

The Church's clergy disciplinary canon, the chancellors argue, is "not
intended to be used as a weapon to challenge a diocesan bishop's
decisions regarding the administration and stewardship of his or her
diocese."

Along with the brief, Bruno's chancellors also submitted a proposed
order dismissing the charges, as well as a 65-page list of exhibits in
the case. The Hearing Panel requested neither of the latter documents.

Episcopal Church Attorney Raymond "Jerry" Coughlan, on the other hand,
argued in his brief that Bruno is guilty of "serious misconduct" in
violating three sections of the Title IV canons: "failing to exercise
his ministry in accordance with applicable church canons," "conduct
involving dishonesty, deceit or misrepresentation" and "conduct
unbecoming a member of the clergy. He said the panel must conclude that
Bruno's conduct was "calculated, pervasive and long-running."

Because of those violations and because "today he shows no sign of
recognizing even the possibility of his misconduct," Coughlan
recommended that panel suspend Bruno from ministry for at least a year.

However, because he said such a sentence would only exacerbate the
conflict and not lead to reconciliation, Coughlan urged the panel to use
its "broad authority" to craft a remedy that "looks forward creatively
to heal the division now existing in the Los Angeles diocese." That
remedy would begin with staying any sentence of suspension if Bruno
agrees not to appeal the panel's finding.

Then, Coughlan suggested, a creative remedy could include:

Restricting Bruno's ministry from having any role in the future
administration of St. James unless asked to do so.

Requiring that St. James promptly be reopened for Episcopal worship
under the auspices of an independent member of the diocese, such as in
incoming Bishop Coadjutor John Taylor, with the advice of a committee he
chooses.

Maintaining the Rev. Cindy Evan Voorhees as the paid vicar of the
congregation for the rest of 2017 and 2018.

Finding that Bruno violated the two sections of Title IV but foregoing a
ministry suspension and instead admonishing Bruno "to work with the new
leader to effect reconciliation of all parties in the diocese, as and if
that person requests." The latter would recognize the bishop's "many
years of service, and the overarching need for everyone to move on to
promote healing, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation among all in
the community."

Coughlan also submitted an unsolicited 36-page "statement of proposed
facts" that presents his version of a timeline of the events leading up
to the hearing.

Following the Hearing Panel's decision, attorneys for both parties will
have 40 days to appeal its decision to the Court of Review for Bishops.

Bruno turns 72, the Church's mandatory retirement age, in late 2018.
Taylor, his successor, is scheduled to be ordained and consecrated on
July 8 of this year.

Because none of the previous steps of the Title IV disciplinary process
resolved the issue, when the complaints against Bruno got to the point
of seating a Hearing Panel, the Episcopal Church replaced St. James as
the complainant in the case. Coughlan, representing the Episcopal
Church, presented the case to the panel. The St. James members
originally filed a complaint against Bruno on July 6, 2015. According to
the Title IV process, the Church pays for the costs of the disciplinary
process for bishops.

Diocese of Southern Virginia Bishop Herman Hollerith IV is president of
the Hearing Panel. The panel, appointed by the Disciplinary Board for
Bishops from among its members, also includes Rhode Island Bishop
Nicholas Knisely, North Dakota Bishop Michael Smith, the Rev. Erik
Larsen of Rhode Island and Deborah Stokes of Southern Ohio.

The St. James the Great complainants alleged that Bruno violated church
canons because he
* failed to get the consent of the diocesan standing committee before
entering a contract to sell the property;
* misrepresented his intention for the property to the members, the
clergy and the local community at large;
* misrepresented that St. James the Great was not a sustainable
congregation;
* misrepresented that Voorhees had resigned as vicar;
* misrepresented to some St. James members that he would lease the
property back to them for many months and that the diocese would
financially aid the church; and engaged in conduct unbecoming a member
of the clergy by "misleading and deceiving" the clergy and people of St.
James, as well as the local community, about his plans for the property
and for taking possession of the property and locking out the
congregation.

It continues to worship in a rented room at city hall.

END



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

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:45:05 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Diocese of Minnesota sells diocesan office to Native America
tribe
Message-ID:
<1493336705.3994729...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Diocese of Minnesota sells diocesan office to Native America tribe
New Life Comes Forth

The Bishop's Blog
Episcopal Church in Minnesota
April 25, 2017

By now some of you are aware that the ECMN board of Trustees has sold
the 1730 Clifton Place property to the White Earth Nation. Serving the
Episcopal Church in Minnesota for over 20 years, this building, like
most of us, has had its good days and its bad. Many faithful people
through the years have had inspiring dreams of what the property could
be. And yet, through the years, there've been many challenging
experiences for those who have dared to dream of how the property could
be a greater asset for God's mission.

I am truly sorry for all those inspiring dreams that we were not able to
accomplish together. In the midst of that, I am also truly grateful for
all those who have worked hard to be good stewards of 1730 Clifton
Place. And at the end of the day, as we are once again reminded in this
Easter season, we are resurrection people. Because of this, I believe
new life always finds a way to come forth.

I'm excited for the new possibilities of the expanded work of White
Earth Nation. Long time tenants, and now owners of 1730 Clifton Place,
they have already begun to provide services for a much larger
population. And I'm very grateful to hear how the Dean of St. Mark's
Cathedral is also beginning to imagine and encourage a stronger
relationship with their new neighbors (see his note about it here.)

I'm excited about the next chapter for the people of ECMN, their
Missioners, and I as your Bishop, in finding a new space to gather, to
discern, to prepare and to go forth to engage God's mission across
Minnesota. A space that will not only be inviting, accessible, and
inspire innovation, but will itself be a place where God's mission is
being engaged right there in its new neighborhood.

Our work to realize this dream for the offices for ECMN are well under
way. As things move forward, be assured that you will be made aware of
all the details for this new space. Prayers, as always, would be
appreciated!
____________________

Here is the original note sent out on Thursday April 20th.

The Trustees of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota are pleased to
announce the sale of 1730 Clifton Place to the White Earth Nation.

Since 1995, Clifton Place has served as the office of the Bishop, along
with other community services such as the Sheltering Arms Foundation,
Episcopal House of Prayer, Indian Child Welfare Act legal offices,
Episcopal Community Services, White Earth tribal services, Ready for
Success, and as offices for several mental health professionals. Truly,
Clifton Place has been an asset to the Episcopal Church in Minnesota,
and we are proud that the White Earth Nation will be continuing the good
work begun here by offering services to tribal members in the Twin
Cities.

The Bishop and Missioners of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota will
remain at 1730 Clifton Place while new office locations are explored.
The Trustees continue to work to find a new home for ECMN that will be
both missional and sustainable. We look forward to announcing our next
steps soon.



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

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:45:24 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: AUSTIN, TX: Episcopal Church to Develop Downtown Block
Message-ID:
<1493336724.3994780...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

AUSTIN, TX: Episcopal Church to Develop Downtown Block
New Details Emerge on Project at 7th and Trinity, One of Downtown
Austin's Final Empty Blocks

Photo by James Rambin

By JAMES RAMBIN
http://austin.towers.net/new-details-emerge-on-project-at-711-trinity-austins-last-empty-block/
APRIL 19, 2017

The undeveloped space known as Block 87, which is currently being used
as a parking lot, at the northeast corner of Seventh and Trinity
Streets. The site is owned by the Episcopal Church.

Engineering firm KBGE has filed a site plan with the city for the
construction of a multi-use building at 711 Trinity Street, a 1.75 acre
space currently occupied by a parking lot. The surrounding site, at the
intersection of Seventh and Trinity Streets, is perhaps better known as
Block 87 -- one of Austin's last privately owned, undeveloped downtown
blocks.

The filing by KBGE is the first real news we've heard regarding the site
-- which was purchased by the Episcopal Church in 2009 -- since 2015,
and development has seemingly been in limbo for years beyond that. We're
still unsure of the project's developer, but details will inevitably
emerge as filings for the site continue.

The project name on yesterday's filing is simply "Episcopal Archives,"
which appears to reflect the church's original plans for the site: An
archive for its historical materials, along with meeting and event
space. But in 2015 the church stated its intent to partner with a
developer to build a mixed-use tower on the site, which along with the
original archive would include office and residential space, plus
possible commercial tenants, adding up to more than 600,000 square feet
of potential space.

"The block is made up of several components, intricately pieced together
to maximize the usability of the site. These components are: an Archives
building, two office buildings, underground parking, ground floor retail
and the Residential tower. A Capitol View corridor over most of the
site, and surrounding sites, allows only a small corner could extend
upwards beyond 5 floors. The project is planned to have 67,000 s.f.
archives, 210,000 s.f. office space, 42,000 s.f. retail and 317,000 s.f.
of residential."

In other words, real density could be headed to this currently underused
part of town, including possibly the first residential development this
close to Sixth Street in something like a decade.

As seen in the rendering below, much of the site is capped for
development no higher than 75 feet due to the Waller Creek Plaza Capitol
View Corridor. However, there's space on the southwest corner of the
site that's unencumbered by the corridors, allowing for a section of the
building to rise significantly higher.

Earlier this week, I spoke with the Rev. Canon Lang Lowrey III, an asset
manager handling the site for the Episcopal Church. He told me that the
church has been "very thoughtful and deliberate" about planning the
future of Block 87 -- and though he couldn't comment further, said that
it's possible we could hear a new announcement about the project in a
month or so.

Although we're probably all happy to see the parking lot go, the site of
the Block 87 development has lived some interesting past lives.

The earliest records of the block describe a livery stable and wagon
yard existing there in 1906, owned by prominent Austin businessman Scott
Wear. By 1921, the site also served as fairgrounds for the Travis County
Livestock and Poultry Exposition.

>From roughly the 1930s to the 1970s, the Austin Gospel Tabernacle church
sat on the northeast corner of Seventh and Trinity, with several
single-family homes sitting behind it on the north end of the block.

With all this history in the rearview, it's great to see a possible
future for the block that includes a little more than parking. We
certainly hope the Episcopal Church has found a developer with big plans
for the site -- it would be a shame if one of the city's final
undeveloped blocks didn't go at least partially vertical.

END



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

Message: 8
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:45:50 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Canon Lawrence D. Bausch to Lead Forward in Faith North
America
Message-ID:
<1493336750.3994788...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Canon Lawrence D. Bausch to Lead Forward in Faith North America

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 23, 2017

Recently, Forward in Faith North America elected the Rev. Canon Lawrence
D. Bausch of Ocean Beach, California, as its new president. Canon Bausch
succeeds the Rt. Rev. Keith L. Ackerman, who had served as FiFNA?s
president since 2005.

At their beginning in 1989 as the Episcopal Synod of America, their
mission as Catholic Anglicans centered on preserving catholicity within
existing church structures.

Canon Bausch resigned from the ministry of the Episcopal Church in
September 2006, and was received as a priest in good standing in the
Diocese of Argentina, in the Anglican Province of the Iglesia Anglicana
del Cono Sur de America.

VOL interviewed Canon Bausch as part of the ongoing realignment both in
North America and the wider Anglican Communion and we asked him how he
saw the future of FIFNA, its goals and aspirations within the Anglican
Communion.

VOL: Canon Bausch, how do you understand your mission in these post-TEC,
new ACNA days?

BAUSCH: Our primary mission is to teach, practice and proclaim the
fullness of our Catholic inheritance for Anglicans, regardless of
jurisdictional identity. Historically speaking, we see ourselves as a
part of a new "Oxford Movement". After my election, I said that our
mission was now responding to a different parable than when we began.
Originally, we were like those who had found the "pearl of great value',
and who were to protect and preserve it with all of our resources. Now,
we are within the parable of the talents, whose mission is to utilize
and witness to the value of this gift we have been entrusted with.

VOL: Where do your members come from today?

BAUSCH: We have members from the ACNA, TEC and Continuum. Our elected
Council also come from all three.

VOL: For the moment the ACNA allows for the Ordination of women to the
priesthood though the matter is far from settled How does the situation
of your members and leaders within it differ from the days in The
Episcopal Church?

BAUSCH: When the ACNA came into being under the authorization of the
GAFCON Primates, the participants, most of whom had been a part of the
Common Cause Round Table, agreed that we would allow each Diocese to
have its own policy on Women's Ordination (to) the Priesthood, while the
Episcopate would be male only. We also agreed that a Task Force would be
assigned to do an extensive study of Holy Orders, including the matter
of Women's Ordination. This had never been done in TEC. The assumption
going in was that we cannot exist as a Church permanently with "impaired
communion" in which not all clergy were universally recognized. This
entire good-faith enterprise has been a true blessing for all within the
ACNA.

VOL: The ACNA is completing its study of Holy Orders this year. What is
your hope or expectation for the outcome of this effort?

BAUSCH: Our expectation is that this thorough study, much of which is
already available on the ACNA website, will confirm our position as
Biblical, historical and theologically coherent. Our hope is that this
will be received by the College of Bishops favorably, and will be
commended for study in every Diocese. Then, we hope (and pray) for the
wisdom to see how best to alter our practice and come into conformity
with our historic position. We recognize that the implementation of such
a change will require time, with great pastoral sensitivity and care.

VOL: How does your message and appeal for the fullness of Catholic faith
and practice within Anglicanism, address or speak to the particulars of
people in TEC, the Continuing Churches, and the ACNA (and perhaps the
wider Anglican Communion)?

BAUSCH: By not taking a position on jurisdictional membership, we want
to be able to offer tools which can help any and all of our members to
fulfill our mission in their particular context. For example, at our
upcoming July Assembly, we will be giving the participants an
opportunity to attend one of two workshops, one on Anglo-Catholic Church
Planting and the other on Church Re-vitalization. Regarding the wider
Anglican Communion, our members have a variety of international
connections and shared ministries, in addition to our participation in
GAFCON. For example, I went by invitation of the bishop to do two weeks
of teaching for priests in Anglo-Catholic practice and teaching in the
Diocese of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

VOL: FIFNA operates across North America within a number of Anglican
churches, including the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church
in North America, the Diocese of the Holy Cross, the Anglican Mission in
the Americas, the Anglican Province of America, the Anglican Church in
America, and the Episcopal Church (United States). However, FIFNA is not
a diocese of the ACNA, which is predominantly evangelical in theology
and ethos. Clearly there are tensions there. How do you think you can
resolve them? Do you see a time when FIFNA would be a full partner
(diocese) in the ACNA?

BAUSCH: FIFNA is not itself an ecclesial entity, and is not in itself
within any jurisdiction. However, some of our members within the ACNA
are within the Missionary Diocese of All Saints, which is comprised of
FIFNA-member parishes and priests. The tensions you describe between
some of our perspective and the ACNA are real, but not necessarily
negative. At our Anglican best, we strive to see these as differences of
emphasis rather than substance, and then continue to promote the
understanding of our essential Catholic identity as particularly
expressed such things as the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. It is also
noteworthy that, in the production of the ACNA Catechism, there were
FIFNA members involved.

VOL: There are former TEC Anglo-Catholic dioceses like Ft. Worth, Quincy
and San Joaquin that are fully on board with the ACNA. Is that possible
for FIFNA?

BAUSCH: FIFNA is a Ministry Partner with the ACNA, as is the AAC. So,
unlike a Diocese, we are in, but not of it.

VOL: You have held an annual Assembly every year since your beginning.
How does your upcoming one embody your change of focus?

BAUSCH: I have already mentioned the workshops we will be offering.
Additionally, Bishop Ackerman and I will be monitoring a forum on the
future for Anglo-Catholics, and hope that a good number of young clergy
and members will participate. The theme of the Assembly itself,
"Celebrating Christian Marriage, Family and Single Life", should
certainly appeal to all participants, regardless of jurisdiction.

VOL: Who do you target in seeking new members to FIFNA?

BAUSCH: I serve in the ACNA Diocese of Western Anglicans, where I am one
of a very few Anglo-Catholic priests. However, I am very frequently
asked to offer either teaching or mentoring by persons, often those who
have come from an Evangelical background. They often are attracted to
our Anglican history and order, but often know little about the richness
of our Catholicity. This exemplifies the sort of person we see as our
potential new members.

VOL: How can you attract secular Millennials to a movement like FIFNA?
While there seems to be a groundswell by many evangelicals towards
liturgically driven churches like Rome and a number of Orthodox
Churches, how do you think you can get such persons interested. In short
where is your future flock coming from?

BAUSCH: This is indeed the great challenge for all traditional
Christians in our culture. Ultimately, our best hope will be in those
Millennials who are already among us or coming our way. We can equip
them for this work among their peers. I am quite taken with the teaching
and influence of Charles Taylor in understanding our culture and
challenges. Two books which have been inspired by his thought I have
found to be quite helpful: "How (Not) To Be Secular", by James K.A.
Smith, and "How To survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith &
Politics" by Robert Joustra and Alissa Wilkinson. The other thing we
need to be doing, in my opinion, is to get acquainted with young people,
believers or not, and ask them to teach us so that we may understand
them better. We won't know how to offer what we have until we know them.
Our Lord, and our ministry, are implicitly relational, and we ignore
relationships to our discredit.

VOL: Thank you, Fr. Bausch



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

Message: 9
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:46:12 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The Untold Story of How the CDF Created the Anglican
Ordinariate
Message-ID:
<1493336772.3994831...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The Untold Story of How the CDF Created the Anglican Ordinariate
Here's why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during
Benedict XVI's papacy realized that it had to take charge of the reunion
project

By Peter Jesserer Smith
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pjsmith/how-the-cdf-created-the-anglican-ordinariate
April 12, 2017

Benedict XVI gave a tremendous gift to the English-speaking world in
2009, when he finally realized a dream centuries in the making, and
established a permanent canonical home for groups from the Anglican
tradition seeking to enter the Catholic Church with the apostolic
constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

Today, the Catholic Church has three Personal Ordinariates -- informally
known as the "Anglican Ordinariates" -- that preserve the Anglican
patrimony in their Catholic parishes, communities, and religious orders.
These Personal Ordinariates have the only English form of the Roman
Missal, promulgated by Pope Francis, called Divine Worship -- an actual
English form, not an English translation of the Latin Mass -- written in
traditional, poetic "Prayer Book" English. Each Personal Ordinariate
covers a region of the globe (Oceania, the United Kingdom, and North
America) and is headed by a bishop or ordinary who falls directly under
the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But how did the Vatican determine the solution for corporate unification
with the Catholic Church had to be this structure called a "Personal
Ordinariate?"

The story behind that answer can be found in an illuminating theological
address on the CDF by Bishop Steven Lopes, who was tapped by Pope
Francis to lead the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter
(covering the U.S. and Canada) in 2016.

Bishop Lopes delivered his March 28 address "Unity of Faith in a
Diversity of Expression: The Work of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith" to a gathering of students and professors of the Institut
f?r Historische Theologie, Liturgiewissenschaft und Sakramententheologie
at the University of Vienna. The bishop is not a convert from
Anglicanism, but is a lifelong Catholic whose work with the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith over 10 years immersed him in the Anglican
patrimony and the project of corporate reunification between groups of
Anglicans and the Catholic Church.

Lessons Learned from Past Attempts

As the CDF searched for how to respond in 2007 to so many requests for
entire Anglican communities to join the Catholic Church, Bishop Lopes
said they tried to find out how the CDF had handled this in the past.
Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, the CDF undersecretary, found that from
1960 to 2005, there were at least "seven serious attempts to effect a
corporate reunion of an Anglican Ecclesial Community with the Catholic
Church."

Why did these attempts fail? Well, the bishop indicated that some of
these attempts failed because the CDF had trusted episcopal conferences
and dioceses to carry out Rome's proposals, and they found ways to kill
these efforts instead for whatever reason -- an age-old story in the
2,000 year history of the Church, but distressing none the less. Bishop
Lopes explained it in these general terms:

[L]et us say, for example, that if the Holy See worked with a group of
Anglicans to elaborate a proposal, and if that proposal was then
entrusted to an Episcopal Conference for implementation, and if that
Episcopal Conference then simply killed the proposal in committee, then
a new approach might involve consultation with local Episcopal
Conferences but reserve the actual oversight and direction of the
implementation to the Holy See itself.

Or if a previous proposal for corporate reunion incardinated the
converting clergy into local Dioceses, and if those priests were then
reassigned or assimilated into the local Diocese so that they could not
minister to their former communities and foster the particular identity
of those communities, then a new approach might involve creating a
juridical structure which would allow the incardination of priests and
the canonical membership of laity so that their distinctiveness was not
lost to assimilation into the much larger sea of Catholic life.

One tragic case is public knowledge enough that Bishop Lopes could speak
of it: the petition of the Anglican Diocese of Amritsar, India to enter
full communion with the Catholic Church over 1977 to 1982. The CDF's
decree authorized full communion also established a "robust liturgical
provision" for them, drawn from the Book of Common Prayer and Roman
sources. He added:

Sadly, this is one of the cases which really did not work, as the
implementation of this decision was left to the local Conference of
Bishops in India and someone at that local level decided that this
liturgical provision was not necessary and so it was never implemented.
Perhaps consequently, the clergy and faithful of that Anglican diocese
of Amritsar faded away and only two priests and maybe 200 lay faithful
were reconciled.

So, this is why the CDF during Benedict XVI's papacy realized that it
had to take full charge of the project of corporate reunion once groups
of Anglicans and other Protestant ecclesial communities petitioned for
full communion.

CDF Protects and Guarantees Catholicity

But rather importantly, as the bishop pointed out, the CDF stands as the
guarantee that the liturgical traditions of the Personal Ordinariates
are fully Catholic in every sense of the word. No one can say otherwise,
or tell lifelong Catholics that the spiritual patrimony of the Personal
Ordinariates is not for them, because the CDF stands behind it. Any
Catholic who wishes to adopt this spiritual patrimony knows its
Catholicity comes guaranteed by Rome.

The address makes clear that the CDF protects the meaning of Catholic --
as "unity in a diverse expression" -- from the forces that would
eliminate Catholic diversity for flattening uniformity, and cultural
assimilation. The CDF's guarantee means the faithful of the Church, from
now until Christ returns in glory, understand that the Anglican
patrimony (and what in the Ordinariate is a truly restored English
Catholic heritage that runs through the Anglican tradition all the way
back to St. Augustine at Kent) is not just a treasure for the Personal
Ordinariate, but is a treasure that belongs to "the whole Church."

"The doctrinal office in the Church is therefore inexorably linked to
the pastoral office, to the nurturing of real people in the faith and
its right expression in the sacramental life," Bishop Lopes said. "And
that unity of faith does permit a vibrant diversity in the expression of
that faith."



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

Message: 10
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:46:30 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Reformation Anglicanism: A Vision for Today's Global
Communion
Message-ID:
<1493336790.3994871...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Reformation Anglicanism: A Vision for Today's Global Communion
A Manifesto for Reformation Anglicanism

By Ashley Null & John W. Yates III
Contributors include: Michael Nazir-Ali, Michael Jensen, Ben Kwashi
https://www.crossway.org/books/reformation-anglicanism-hcj/
220 pp $35.00

Reviewed by David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 23, 2017

For those of us who have been engaged in battle on the frontline of
Anglicanism and watched with both horror and hope the spiritual warfare
that has raged across the globe, you may now find some comfort,
consolation indeed inspiration from this new volume on the history of
Anglicanism.

It could not be more timely. Anglicanism, as it has been practiced in
recent years, has been fraught with 'heresies distressed' and the
doctrinal and moral wars fought has left the battlefield littered with
corpses. The wounded still walk amongst us.

The Anglican ship of state continues to roil but it also continues to
move steadily forward, at times listing, but then righting itself and
growing as new Anglican beacons are lit to show us the way and reveal to
us that all is not lost.

This slim volume by five scholars, two of whom are practicing pastors,
is a lighthouse with its beam piercing the darkness, offering hope in
what many had come to believe to be a hopelessly divided situation.

Along with Anglicanism's early history, its later grapple with medieval
Catholicism and more recently with post modernism, the book lays out the
glory of the four Solas as guideposts for the Church's faith.

Nobody traces this history more brilliantly than the scholarly former
bishop of Rochester, the Rev. Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali. He traces the early
history of Christianity as it came ashore on the British Isles in the
second century. No, Anglicanism was not borne out of the marriages of
Henry the Eighth and his break with Rome. The history of Anglicanism is
longer than that and Anglicans need to know the rich history that has
allowed itself to be steered between the Scylla of Rome and the
Charybdis of Geneva, all the while retaining its historical relationship
with the Reformation.

At the heart of Anglicanism, as this book makes clear, is the authority
of Scripture. But Anglicans are not fundamentalists. They don't worship
the Bible. For Anglicans, the Bible is 'Gods word written' and Hooker's
three-legged stool, now much revisioned by liberals and pansexualists
who try to put scripture history and reason on a level playing field,
will quickly see that argument demolished. Scripture is always and has
ever been the church's primary source of revelation.

As Ashley Null observes; "The relation of scripture, reason and
tradition is more accurately described not as a three-legged stool, but
to see Scripture as a garden bed in which reason and tradition are tools
used to tend the soil, unlock its nutrients and bring forth the beauty
within it." The whole thrust of Anglican liturgy was to teach people the
scriptures. The Church of England would only succeed, Cranmer held, if
the English people regularly sat under the transforming power of
Scripture and its message expressed in Morning and Evening Prayer and
the Holy Communion." The chief responsibility of Bishops is to "proclaim
and defend the apostolic faith as taught by the Scriptures" since
Christian fellowship can only be based on a common understanding of
saving faith. They show their authentic apostolic succession by what
they teach and what they reject.

This book focuses on the continuing contribution that the biblical
insights of the English Reformation have made to contemporary
Anglicanism. Of course, Anglicanism has developed different strains
through the centuries, and certain elements near and dear to the heart
of Anglo-Catholics were rejected by Cranmer and Hooker, for example, the
role of the bishop in apostolic succession as essential for Anglican
ecclesiology.

Anglo-Catholics will not be entirely comfortable with this history,
seeing themselves perhaps marginalized and placed on the fringe of
Anglicanism but they should not despair. This book condemns only those
who have torn the fabric of the communion. Anglo-Catholics and
evangelicals have worked well together in the North America following
the split in The Episcopal Church. Only one TEC bishop has fled to Rome
via the Ordinariate; the rest have joined the ACNA resisting the siren
call of Rome and the Ordinariate.

This book advocates, instead, the centrality of the faithful
proclamation of the Gospel of grace and gratitude through word and
sacrament. Consequently, the editors argue that the office of bishop is
the most helpful way to ensure the well-being of the church through
promoting and protecting the true Gospel. Cranmer and Hooker would have
agreed.

Nevertheless, the book makes clear that the authors are not claiming to
represent the way to be a faithful Anglican in the twenty-first century.
Rather, they wish to promote Reformation Anglicanism as a faithful way
to be Anglican today, especially because its biblical insights into
human nature speak so clearly to the current cultural idolatry of
self-made identity and fulfillment. It is this winsome, missional tone,
first set by Bishop Nazir-Ali introductory essay, that will make it
attractive and useful, even to those parts of orthodox Anglicanism which
will find its ecclesiology somewhat lacking.

For those who might argue that the book's failure to recognize its own
white imperialism and patriarchal origins should think twice. Two of the
authors are non-European -- one is from Pakistan and the other from
Nigeria. They are not remotely interested in promoting a 'white gospel'
or feminist theology to satisfy post-modern Anglicans.

Nigerian Archbishop Ben Kwashi expounds the transforming power of the
gospel as we seek the kingdom of God, rather than our own power and
status. He argues that we do not rely on our own natural power, but on
God working through us by His Spirit. His theology is therefore trans
cultural and transnational.

Western Anglicans (as opposed to Global South Anglicans) argue for
change because they put the cart of works before the horse of faith.
They find that people cannot follow a biblical way of life with
attendant fear and shame, and so they reject certain parts of the Bible
and ask the church to settle instead for what people think they can do.
(p 192)

Much current preaching is 'nagging' congregations either to try harder
to protect the environment, fight racism, and work towards economic
equality, or to be godly, draw closer to God and serve their neighbors.
Both in effect put the cart of pleasing God before the horse of what God
has promised to do for us. "Telling people what to do does not empower
them to do it. That was Cranmer's fundamental Reformation insight. Only
love can overcome the power of sin, and such love comes from knowing the
unconditional love of God revealed in Jesus's death and resurrection for
us....Only the assurance that God will love us through good times and
bad...has the power to change who we are and how we live." (p 191f)

A MANIFESTO FOR REFORMATION ANGLICANISM

The last chapter of the book is perhaps the real reason why this book
was written and is so necessary. It climaxes the book's history with
true intent and purpose. It offers a much-needed reformation in the face
of so much that has gone wrong.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Anglican Communion has
been greatly shaken by a combination of both secularism in society and
the lack of transformation in Christian lives. Led by the Episcopal
Church in the U.S., some provinces of the Anglican Communion now openly
embrace nonbiblical ways of living, precisely because they argue that
people cannot change deep-seated desires. The result has been to tear
the fabric of our global fellowship as its deepest level. How should
members of the Anglican Communion respond?

Some provinces have departed from biblical truth as it has been
understood in all places and at all times. Christ's divinity, salvation
in his name alone, the authority of the Scriptures, and biblical
standards of morality have all been questioned by some in the Anglican
Communion. That's why we need a fresh movement of Reformation
Anglicanism today, say the writers. Only an Anglican Communion rooted in
the timeless divine wisdom of catholic apostolic Christianity can
effectively counter the false hope offered by the deceitful devices and
desires of the postmodern heart.

Justification was the result of trusting Christ's work on the cross, the
Reformers taught that it was sola fide, by faith alone... a free gift
solely because of God's love for humanity, not a meritorious reward for
human effect. The more believers are in the presence of Christ through
justification, the more Christ's love "rubs off on them," making them
more like him. That is why we need Reformation Anglicanism today.

To rail on about protecting the environment, fighting racism, and
working toward economic equality are important themes, however
conservative preachers will want their congregations to work harder at
being godly, including taking practical steps to draw closer to God and
serving their neighbors. Yet we must not put the cart before the horse.
They emphasize what we should do to please God, not what God has
promised to be pleased to do for us first. Telling people what to do
does not empower them to do it. Only encountering the gospel of God's
unconditional love at work in us can allure us to the doing of his will.
That was Cranmer's fundamental and original insight.

The writers go on to say that Reformation Anglicanism is
mission-focused, is Episcopal, liturgical, and transformative. Above all
Reformation Anglicanism is relevant.

For those in the twenty-first century searching for meaning and purpose
in life, Reformation Anglicanism's commitment to the timeless wisdom of
apostolic teaching provides a solid rock on which to stand. For those
searching for a sense of historical continuity, Reformation Anglicanism
affords a community with close ties to the ancient church as expressed
in its faithfulness to Scripture, the creeds, and the first four
counsels for those looking for assurance that God's love will not let
them go, Reformation Anglicanism's proclamation of salvation by faith
only through grace alone offers biblical hope. Reformation Anglicanism's
insight into the renewal of human affections provides the most authentic
means to experience human flourishing.

Reformation Anglicanism is a timely, readable, manageable volume that
captures the history and heart of Anglicanism in both scholarly yet
readable language that engages both the mind and heart, drawing together
the early history of Anglicanism and how it developed over time. It also
offers a way forward.

We believe this book should be in the hands of every ACNA bishop, priest
and concerned lay persons as well as those Episcopalians who still
believe the confessional formularies still matter because they have
characterized the Anglican Communion since the sixteenth-century. This
book has the power to put the Anglican Communion back on course and so
move it evangelistically into the twenty-first century.

You can purchase the book here:
https://www.crossway.org/books/reformation-anglicanism-hcj/



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

Message: 11
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:46:49 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: African and Asian church leaders threaten to 'plant' a bishop
in Britain to defy Welby on gay Christians
Message-ID:
<1493336809.3994889...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

African and Asian church leaders threaten to 'plant' a bishop in Britain
to defy Welby on gay Christians
The move comes after concerns Church of England is becoming too liberal
The 'nuclear option' by rebel archbishops was decided at a meeting in
Africa
It would represent a highly provocative intervention into the Church of
England
Archbishop Welby softened his stance on homosexuality in February

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent For The Mail On Sunday
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
22 April 2017

Conservative Anglican archbishops from Africa and Asia are plotting to
create a new 'missionary' bishop to lead traditionalists in the UK --
after warning that the Church of England is becoming too liberal on
homosexuality.

The rebel archbishops are set to give the green light to the
controversial plan at a crucial meeting in Africa this week in defiance
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Insiders said the move was the 'nuclear option' as it would represent a
highly provocative intervention into the Church of England by foreign
archbishops and a direct challenge to the authority of Archbishop Welby,
who is nominal head of Anglicans worldwide.

The move represents a highly provocative challenge for Archbishop Welby,
who softened his stance on homosexuality in February

Archbishop Welby alarmed conservatives in February by issuing a letter
softening his stance on homosexuality. In the letter, written with his
counterpart in York, John Sentamu, he called for a 'radical new
inclusion' for gays and a '21st Century understanding' of sexuality --
apparently paving the way for the first formal services to celebrate gay
couples.

The Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh, who chairs the Global Anglican
Futures Conference (GAFCON) group of conservative archbishops, said the
'distressing' letter had 'downgraded the historic and biblical mind of
the Church'.

Even more alarming for GAFCON leaders, however, is that the liberal
Scottish Episcopal Church is expected to become the first Anglican body
in the UK to approve full-scale gay marriage at its annual synod in
June.

At least seven GAFCON archbishops, who represent a vast swathe of the
world's Anglicans, will be at the five-day meeting starting tomorrow in
Lagos, together with UK clergy.

Although several options will be discussed, the most dramatic would
involve African archbishops consecrating a new bishop who could then be
'parachuted' into the UK to minister to traditional parishes.

Church of England leaders will see this as a highly unwelcome parallel
Anglican Church set up without the permission of Archbishop Welby.

It is thought the most likely candidate to become the first such bishop
is Canon Andrew Lines, who runs the mission organisation Crosslinks in
South London and who is already the chair of GAFCON UK.

One source said: 'I would say there is now a 75 per cent probability of
the GAFCON archbishops voting to consecrate a new bishop for the UK.
Andy Lines has a lot of credibility internationally.

'If it did happen, though, there is a serious risk that Archbishop Welby
would press the nuclear button. This would be very dangerous territory.'

END



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

Message: 12
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:48:13 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Anglican Church names Nigerian bishop, the first African in 2
decades
Message-ID:
<1493336893.3995443...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Anglican Church names Nigerian bishop, the first African in 2 decades

By Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban
http://www.africanews.com
April 25, 2017

The Church of England has appointed its first black bishop in over two
decades. Nigerian Woyin Karowi Dorgu is set to be the 13th bishop of
Woolwich.

The move by the Church is as part of efforts to significantly increase
its handful of minority ethnic clergy in senior leadership roles.

Dorgu joins Ugandan John Sentamu, currently the archbishop of York, who
is the only other black bishop. He is the second most powerful leader of
the church and was consecrated as bishop of Stephney 20 years ago.

He is much involved in the life of the Church Primary School in the
parish where he has been Chair of Governors and supports staff and
pupils. He is married to Mosun who is a Consultant Child Psychiatrist.

The trained medical doctor was born in Africa's most populous country
but was ordained in the UK. The church in a press release disclosed that
Dorgu will be consecrated in the Southwark Cathedral in March 2017.

Woolwich where he is to superintend over has a huge Nigerian population
but the Guardian reports that most of them worship in black-majority
Pentecostal churches rather than with the Church of England.

The church described him as a person who ''has a deep concern for
mission and regularly leads open-air evangelism in his parish and has
seen his church grow remarkably.

''He is much involved in the life of the Church Primary School in the
parish where he has been Chair of Governors and supports staff and
pupils. He is married to Mosun who is a Consultant Child Psychiatrist,''
they added.

Speaking on his appointment, Dorgu said his predecessor and himself have
been happy to work as part of the ''dynamic Diocese of clergy and laity
working hard for the Gospel of salvation for all through Jesus Christ.

''We are greatly honoured to be invited to share and contribute to this
dynamic ministry of bringing God's love to the people of Woolwich and
the Diocese. I look forward to getting to know the clergy, people and
churches of the Area in the coming months,'' he added.



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

Message: 13
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:48:38 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Elevation of the Blessed Asparagus: a Church of England
pantomime
Message-ID:
<1493336918.3995523...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Elevation of the Blessed Asparagus: a Church of England pantomime

http://archbishopcranmer.com/elevation-blessed-asparagus-church-england-pantomime/
April 25, 2017

Did the Dean of Worcester Cathedral not pause to think for just one
second how utterly, utterly absurd this would look? Really, words fail
(though some must necessarily follow). A sacred procession down the
Cathedral nave becomes an infantile pantomime as a block of asparagus is
elevated and adored like the Blessed Host, and two men dressed up like
Monty Python pay some sort of vacuous obsequious homage. What exactly do
we have there? Crusader? St George? And what in the name of all that's
holy is a grown man doing dressed up like a jolly green prick? This is
church, for God's sake. Really, for His sake, can the Church of England
not offer something clean and undefiled in the worship of God?

England might be a major producer of asparagus, and the Vale of Evesham
might be hosting the world famous Asparagus Festival, but where exactly
does this stop? Would the Church of England permit a man dressed up as a
baked bean to process behind a Heinz tin of the things, and sanctify the
mummery with a facade of thanksgiving? And why only adoration of
asparagus? Where's the sprout liturgy, or equality for mushrooms? Would
the Dean really permit a walking fungus to participate in an act of
divine worship?

And no, before you leap to defend this farce, it is not akin to the
Harvest Festival: 'We plough the fields and scatter' is about rejoicing
in industry and the serious stuff of life: it is never, ever turned into
a Telletubby-fest with a guest appearance by Worzel Gummidge prancing
behind the vicar. Surely Worcester Cathedral could have found a way of
thanking God for asparagus without bringing the Church of England into
disrepute. If this doesn't make 'Have I Got News For You', they'll have
missed the religious frolic of the week.

Gus the Asparagusman (for it is he) has no place at all in a worshipful
act of reverence: he doesn't direct our minds to heaven or toward God,
but points us to Dipsy and Tinky Winky somewhere in La La Land. Sanctity
should be free from all uncleanness, and that includes buffoonery, mumbo
jumbo and capers (both sorts).

Honestly, if the Church of England can bless increasingly bent sticks of
asparagus, it can surely offer a ceremonial rite for anything --
literally, anything. And that, of course, is exactly where we're
heading.



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

Message: 14
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:48:58 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Bishop of Oxford's St Ebbe's Sermon Epitomizes Relational
Dilemma for Reformed Anglicans
Message-ID:
<1493336938.3995534...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Bishop of Oxford's St Ebbe's Sermon Epitomizes Relational Dilemma for
Reformed Anglicans

By Julian Mann
www.virtueonline.org
April 22, 2017

On Palm Sunday in St Ebbe's Church, Oxford, their new diocesan Bishop,
the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, made a statement that epitomises the
relational dilemma facing Reformed Anglicans in the Church of England.

Introducing his excellent sermon on our Lord's triumphal entry into
Jerusalem as recorded in Matthew 21, Dr Croft said:

'It's my hope to come as a servant to this very large Diocese, to
respect and honour all traditions within it and cherish the life of the
Church in its many different forms and do my best to lead us in God's
mission.'

It would be quite wrong to impugn the Christian sincerity of Dr Croft's
desire to serve God's Church. His sermon was most edifying, biblically
faithful and Christ-honouring. Lord willing, he will do a lot of good in
Oxford Diocese.

But the difficulty for a Reformed Anglican church such as St Ebbe's
surely comes in their Bishop's apparently intentional commitment to
theological diversity within the Church of England. He went further than
saying that he wished to serve the churches of the Diocese in their
various traditions; he declared that he wished to respect and honour all
traditions within the Diocese.

Is it his expectation that St Ebbe's should do the same within the
theologically very diverse Diocese of Oxford?

St Ebbe's, in the 'What we believe' section of its website, is
unequivocal in its commitment to Reformed Anglicanism. It says: 'We
stand in the tradition of the Anglican Reformers of the 16th Century,
affirming with them the great truths which were rediscovered at the time
of the Reformation, such as the sovereignty of God in salvation,
justification by faith alone, and salvation in Christ alone'.

St Ebbe's then directs readers of its website to the Church of England's
39 Articles of Religion.

A selection of quotations from these shows clearly that a church like St
Ebbe's is by conviction opposed to some theological traditions that are
presently active within the Church of England:

'It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to
God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture,
that it be repugnant to another' (Article XX -- Of the authority of the
Church).

Surely that is precisely the approach to the Bible adopted by Anglican
revisionists who want the Church to bless active sexual relationships
outside heterosexual marriage? So how is a church like St Ebbe's going
to be even in 'good disagreement' with such people, let alone honour
their tradition?

'The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance
reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped' (Article XXVIII -- Of
the Lord's Supper).

So, where such practices have developed in some churches, how can this
tradition be honoured and respected by a church like St Ebbe's,
committed as it is to the 39 Articles?

'The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption,
propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the world, both
original and actual' (Article XXX1 -- Of the one Oblation of Christ
finished upon the Cross). So, how can a church like St Ebbe's honour and
respect Anglican expressions that deny penal substitutionary atonement?

Lord willing, Reformed Anglican churches in Oxford like St Ebbe's will
enjoy a positive relationship with their new Bishop. But is not the
relational dilemma facing these churches the fact that they would not
want this desirable thing to come at the expense of the great body of
biblical truth their Anglican Reformers died for?

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension,
Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, UK -
http://www.oughtibridgechurch.org.uk/our_prayers.html



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

Message: 15
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:49:24 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Former Queen's Chaplain Refutes British MPs liberal response
to Belief in the Resurrection
Message-ID:
<1493336964.3995565...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Former Queen's Chaplain Refutes British MPs liberal response to Belief
in the Resurrection
This is not Christianity that Gove describes. It is a form of
spiritually sugar-coated, 20th-century therapeutic truism

By David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
April 22, 2017

A letter by the Rev. Dr. Gavin Ashenden in the Times on the need for
Christians to believe in the Resurrection to be Christians, met with
pushback by British MP Michael Gove. He wrote a letter praising the
Church for being liberal which brought forth the following response by
Dr. Ashenden refuting it.

"One of the first rules for mental health is not to believe in
conspiracy theories. So perhaps there is no connection between the
letter that the Times published suggesting that a belief in the
Resurrection was a prerequisite for calling oneself Christian, and
Michael Gove's subsequent article defending Anglicanism against those
who "mock it as insipid".

"But the article nonetheless was unworthy of a clever man, an honourable
public servant and a kind Christian.

"It contained some poor arguments and poor analysis.

"Why does it matter in particular if Michael Gove got things wrong?

"We live in dangerous times. Democracy itself is under serious stress.
There are growing assaults on freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
The benign Christian undergirding of democracy is in some trouble. The
Church in much of the West is in free fall. The Church of England in
particular, burdened by falling numbers, old age and lack of money, is
unlikely to survive in the form we know it, even a further decade.

"On the one side, we have a new kind of cultural fascism imposing a
banal but dangerous form of egalitarianism on society -- a kind of
upgraded 'Marxism 2.0' -- or, as we have learnt to call it 'cultural
Marxism'. And on the other side we have Islam, moving inexorably through
Europe moulding cultural and political expectations as it beds in.

"Many orthodox Christians share my view that only Christianity had the
values, integrity and potency to defend our freedoms of action and
thought in the face of both these threats. But if it is to do so it has
to do so in its most vibrant form. Insipid is not enough. A diluted
homeopathic version won't be, and never has been, sufficient.

"The first slip that Gove made was to claim that it was 'Anglicanism'
which was being mocked as insipid. Anglicanism in its traditional form
is in robust and energetic health all around the world. The majority of
the 80 million or so Anglicans across the rest of the world evangelise,
challenge their surrounding cultures, convert their neighbours, and
respect the Gospels as authoritative in matters of lifestyle and morals.
It is the Church of England, not Anglicanism, that is less confident in
its biblical and historic integrity.

"Should we ask how the piece came to be written? One of the last
articles on this subject which Mr Gove authored was published in the
Spectator, when he interviewed the Most Rev'd Justin Welby. It was a
highly complimentary piece (if a little odd in its content). 'Follow the
money' often produces results; the figures who were the most highly
complimented were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Is it
conceivable that the well-qualified and sophisticated journalists
recently purchased from Fleet Street by the Lambeth PR professionals
asked Michael Gove to write something that bolstered the C of E?

"That falls somewhere short of the conspiracy theory and not too far
from just joining the dots, but if they did, they should have offered
him more theological support and background editing.

"Michael Gove begins his analysis by applauding the gentleness of the
Church of England -- "Because there is a gentleness and grace, a habit
of listening and an ethic of understanding to Anglicanism which makes
enthusiasm almost anathema."

"He generously credits it with having the confidence and capacity to
listen and understand. That may be true. It is certainly the case that
the C of E leans over backward to take into account the secular
preferences of the surrounding culture and not to offend them. That may
not quite be the same thing, but let's allow the compliment without
cavilling too much.

"He then steps straight into the contested arena of 'enthusiasm'. This
is a code word for students of Church History or theologians. The most
notorious time that 'enthusiasm' was used by a Church of England
spokesman was in the 18th century when it had lost most of its spiritual
raison d'?tre. A rather dry and ineffective rationalist bishop called
Joseph Butler attacked John Wesley, who was trying to bring the C of E
back to life. Butler condemned Wesley and his commitment to the
rejection of the insipid. He thundered that enthusiasm "was a very
horrid thing".

"This comment marks one of the low points in the whole of the history of
the Church of England. In fact history tells us that Wesley and
'enthusiasm' were both (to echo 1066 And All That) successful and right,
and Butler and the over-rational and 'insipid' failed and were all
wrong.

"When Gove compliments the Church of England on accommodating doctrinal
difference, his compliment should be taken seriously. The Church of
England, in its variety and spiritual and theological diversity, has had
the potential to be the very best of all churches. But conversely, if it
gets it wrong, the flip-side of this great potential is that it has the
capacity to be the worst of all churches.

"In its attempts and arguments over trying to both build a bridge across
to an increasingly impatient, aggressive and self-indulgent secularism,
while saying it wants to make space for those who have believe what
Christians everywhere have always believed, it might have ended up by
not building a bridge. It might have attempted the splits and fallen
over.

"The dominant force at present in the Church of England is an at
intolerant liberalism that does exactly the opposite of what Michael
Gove commends it for. It pretends at inclusion while practising
exclusion. It pretends at relativism while enforcing dogmatism.

"Over homosexuality, which is perhaps the central fault-line where the
seismic shock of competing forces troubles the Church of England, Gove
takes the liberal but under-informed critical stance. For him it
presents a challenge of accommodating difference.

"He doesn't grasp that the issue of sexuality in the Bible does not
represent an opportunity for 'managing difference'. The Bible contains a
vision and a call to purity that touches everything -- sex, power,
social relationships, family coherence, personal integrity, and even
ensuing spiritual potency.

"He has underestimated what the debate is all about, as so many do. It
is the place where the Spirit is wrestling with self-indulgence; where
integrity is being overcome by self-pleasing and decadent compromise.
This is the place where the two incompatible interpretations of
Christianity are set in such an opposition to each other that compromise
is not possible without either losing all meaning.

"The traditional view takes its understanding from the Bible; the
secular one takes its analysis from surrounding self-indulgent culture.
There are some areas in life, say, for example, in paedophilia or female
genital mutilation, where accommodation between two opposing views is
not possible. The pursuit of purity instead of pleasure is too closely
geared to the integrity of the spiritual struggle to be a place of
'managing difference'.

"When Gove writes about "all the dark energy unloosed in this world and
being driven by the absence of love" as a description of not giving way
to the zeitgeist, he gets the analysis entirely back to front.

"He rebukes the Church for "Agonising over the details of how people
choose to love each other when there is a crying need to confront pain,
loneliness, greed, addiction, despair and hatred -- all the dark energy
unloosed in this world and driven by the absence of love." But in the
Bible we find that it is exactly "how people choose to love each other"
that leads to the pain loneliness and despair. The constant choice of
the euphemism 'love' when what is really being described is comforting a
series of romantic partners with the soothing of sex, obscures the moral
choices that the euphemism hides.

"It is not enough in our practice of sex to mean well. We are warned in
the Judaeo-Christian tradition that sex is too powerful not to be
contained within marriage between men and women who use it to co-create
children. It is one of those areas where we either accept the teaching
of Jesus, or ditch it to please ourselves.

"And in fact the dark energies are not driven by the absence of romantic
and erotic love. They are driven by rather more serious energies who use
our misuse the romantic and erotic to cause the very pain and despair to
which Mr Gove refers so movingly (Eph 6.12). But when he writes about
the "painstaking way in which leaders of the Anglican Communion try to
respect different views and honour the sincerity with which they are
held", he enters the land of ill-informed make believe.

"Does he not know that the last Presiding Bishop of the leading liberal
church, The Episcopal Church in North America, spent over $10 million in
law suits to evict faithful congregations and priests who did not accept
the new revisionist liberal agenda? Does he really not know how clergy
gave up houses, pensions, stipends, and all they had worked for under
the most serious institutional persecution? Tragically, he is writing
the opposite of the truth. He enters into the realm of fake news. He
slides over the seriously difficult problem of our own age, which is the
illiberalism of the liberals, the intolerance of the tolerant. This is
under-informed and tragic.

"Gove's next step in his argument is to write well of some of the Church
of England's leaders. Bless him. Let us assume their representatives did
not commission the piece. He clearly means it. There is no need anyway
to talk about personalities or personal competence. The issues at stake
are so much more important than that. The bishops certainly mean well,
but their judgement is nonetheless in question.

"He sweetly moves on to complimenting the parish clergy. Bless him
again. But such compliments cannot mask the fact that in this struggle
between an aggressive secular culture and the Anglican Christian
witness, the clergy are sinking ever more deeply into institutional
decay and, for some, despair.

"The average age of congregations is about 66. There are too few people
and too little money to carry the Church of England past impending
functional bankruptcy. The Church Commissioners will fund the bishops
and the most prominent buildings with their ample funds for some time to
come, but parishes and parish clergy will be increasingly swept from
their unworried and unconcerned communities within the next decade.

"Gove may be right when he describes the ministry of the C of E as being
one where people occasionally and wistfully connect it with soothing
music, nostalgic poetry or echoes of childhood certainties. But when you
read the Gospels, it is hard not to notice that Jesus taught that his
death and sacrifice on the Cross was intended to achieve rather more
that the soothing of memories for the moneyed and educated middle
classes.

"And it is that willingness to reserve judgment on others, while still
holding fast to your own faith, that I admire so much in Anglicanism."
It is indeed a great virtue not to condemn others -- an even greater
one, perhaps, in a culture that resorts to ad hominem trolling at the
drop of a tweet. But this is a classic straw man argument that obscures
the heart of the issue.

"This is not Christianity that Gove describes. It is a form of
spiritually sugar-coated, 20th-century therapeutic truism. Why is it not
Christianity? Because it does not reflect the teaching or the actions of
Jesus.

"Jesus did judge -- all the time. He did not condemn, but he judged, he
assessed, he critiqued, and to devastating effect. He gave people the
opportunity to choose between the fake and the real, the illusory and
the concrete, the good and the bad. He rebuked the Samaritan woman at
the well for her serial 'loving' relationships. The moral, upstanding,
rich young ruler, he warned to move from self-regarding moral probity to
serious sacrifice. Nicodemus, a prestigious religious leader, was
robustly confronted with his lack of apprehension of the deeper things
of the Spirit. Peter was called 'Satan' when he adopted the strategy and
values of the 'other side' unwittingly.

"What kind of Jesus is Gove putting forward here? It's not the Jesus of
the Gospels.

"There is nothing irresolute or insipid about declining to join the
crowd, refusing to stigmatise, asking for empathy. It is, rather,
commendably brave and resolute and, in so far as I can know it, true to
Jesus's example."

"An interesting disclaimer. But since the question is raised, no it is
not "true to Jesus's example". So far from refusing to go along with the
crowd, this supine universal affirmation, which is the spiritual
equivalent of just the kind of bad education philosophy that Mr Gove
refused to put up with when he was Minister for Education, is exactly
going along with the secular crowd.

"And that is the difficulty which faces the whole of the Church of
England, because Michael Gove is speaking (by official request or
certainly unofficially and informally) for a sub-Christian spirituality
that is willing to sucks on the sweets in the Gospels and refuses the
piquancy of the prophetic.

"For those of us all too conscious of our errors, aware that we are weak
and selfish, who hesitate sometimes to call ourselves Christian for fear
that we appear to be making some sort of claim to superior virtue, the
Church of England offers a welcome this Easter. And I for one am glad."

"Again this is moving, but manages to describe only half of the picture.
Yes, we are all frail, fragile and flawed. Yes, we hesitate to claim a
superior virtue we have no right to lay claim to. But to be Christian we
have to find a little more courage, and remind our fellow travellers
that Jesus warns there are two roads; and one, the easier, the more
popular, God save us, perhaps the Church of England's, leads to
destruction.

"What if it were the vocation of the Church of England to warn the
people we live amongst that Jesus came to save us from hell and the
dangers of finding ourselves there? What if it were the vocation of the
Church of England to offer people a different route -- one to which they
had to turn and change direction to find? This is not to claim superior
virtue; it is to read the Gospels and be faithful to Jesus -- the real
one -- the one who had hard words as well as easy ones.

"Is it worth considering, just on a purely functional pragmatic level,
that the easy going, multi-affirming, sexually inclusive,
non-disturbing, socialist-sympathetic,
there-for-you-on-whatever-terms-you-choose Church of England is not
actually working? The C of E itself sometimes reminds one of
Chesterton's aphorism: "It's not that Christianity has been tried and
found wanting, it has been found too difficult and not tried."

"Mr. Gove, 10 out of 10 for kindness. Those who asked you to write to
shore up the C of E in the public mind will be grateful to you. But you
may not have helped Anglicanism, or Christianity, or spoken for Christ,
or done anything to help the Church of England out of the secular
land-slip it has settled in.

"The practice of the 'insipid' will stand up neither to the remorseless
challenges of Islam, nor the anger of the atheists. Something a little
more courageous and faithful to the Jesus of the Gospels is required.
Jesus didn't do 'insipid', nor should the Church of England."

gavin ashendenThe Rev. Dr. Gavin Ashenden is a former Church of England
clergyman, scholar and a former chaplain to the Queen.

The C of E is a still, small voice of calm for all

By Michael Gove
British MP
April 19, 2017

Anglicanism is mocked by some as insipid but its refusal to join the
crowd is brave and its leaders are an inspiration.

The great Whig historian GM Trevelyan was once asked if he was a pillar
of the Church of England. "No," he replied, "I am more of a flying
buttress -- I support it from the outside."

I know how he felt. Brought up as a Presbyterian, confirmed in the
Church of Scotland and schooled every childhood Sunday in its doctrines
and practices, I am an outsider in the Anglican communion. And as a
wilful, wayward and far too often selfish human being I am in a poor
position to pass judgment on any religious issue.

But just as migrants can see virtues in their country of adoption that
natives have either taken for granted or forgotten, and new arrivals can
be enthusiastic about customs, ceremonies and habits that the born and
bred feel faintly embarrassed by, so I feel an admiration, a respect,
even a love for the Church of England that perhaps only a non-Anglican
can freely confess to. Because there is a gentleness and grace, a habit
of listening and an ethic of understanding to Anglicanism which makes
enthusiasm almost anathema. The C of E is the Church Moderate not
Militant and it is rare that anyone is fierce in defence of gentleness.

More than that, the spirit of Anglicanism, the attempt to accommodate
doctrinal difference, to keep open as many paths to grace as possible,
can easily be caricatured and mocked as insipidity mixed with
pusillanimity, an attempt to conjure up a vague aroma of goodness
without any strong meat of conviction to give the broth body.

And, to be sure, the Anglican communion has laid itself open to
criticism with the way in which some questions, most notably
homosexuality, have been handled in recent years. Neither biblical
literalists nor modern liberals can be at all happy with the church's
complex and convoluted attempts to accommodate difference. And very few
of us can consider it a good use of the church's time and its
leadership's energy to spend so many hours agonising over the details of
how people choose to love each other when there is a crying need to
confront pain, loneliness, greed, addiction, despair and hatred -- all
the dark energy unloosed in this world and driven by the absence of
love.

But it is precisely the painstaking way in which leaders of the Anglican
communion try to respect different views and honour the sincerity with
which they're held that makes me admire them. It's the willingness to
believe the best in others, and hope that through imagination and
empathy an agreement can be reached to serve the greater good, which is
the special joy and treasure of the Church of England.

Anglican clergy are not there simply to minister to the faithful but to
serve every soul in the parish.

Despite the criticism directed at it -- or perhaps worse, the
indifference that so many show towards it -- the church continues to
attract men and women of outstanding talent and humanity. Both our
present archbishops, Justin Welby and John Sentamu, are brave and
thoughtful leaders. Any institution would be blessed to have them at the
helm. Contemporary political debate is enriched by the church's range of
voices, public intellectuals such as Giles Fraser and Nigel Biggar and
bishops in the House of Lords such as Steven Croft and Christine
Hardman.

Perhaps the church's greatest gift to the nation is the commitment and
service of its parish priests and ministers. Because of its peculiar
history and nature as a national church, Anglican clergy are not there
simply to minister to the faithful. They are there to serve every soul
in the parish. That is why a knock on their door never goes unanswered.

And none of us knows when we will be the ones to knock. Reflecting on
the inexpressibly moving scenes this week when PC Keith Palmer was laid
to rest, I thought how fragile our sources of happiness are and how,
when evil erupts into our lives, we need somewhere to seek refuge and
solace. Which is what the church will always provide. In the stillness
of its precincts and the ceremonies that speak of first thoughts and
last things, we are given the chance to seek peace.

And at a time when religious faith is increasingly associated with
sectarianism or segregation, the insistence that the threshold of every
Anglican church is always open to anyone who wishes to cross it seems
particularly precious.

In one church very dear to me, the vicar makes a point of welcoming
agnostic visitors who happen to like the music, or who find in the
poetry of the Bible a comforting echo of childhood certainties, or who
attend as a family in the hope that their own children might embrace a
faith that has become faint to the point almost of invisibility in their
own lives. And it is that willingness to reserve judgment on others,
while still holding fast to your own faith, that I admire so much in
Anglicanism.

It stands in pleasing opposition to the temper of our times. Our
political conversations are increasingly dominated by ad hominem attacks
in which the motives of participants are impugned rather than their
arguments respectfully countered. On social media platforms such as
Twitter there is a willingness to find fault, condemn and excommunicate
which is positively medieval.

Against this tide, the Church of England, undemonstrative and kind,
inclusive and forgiving, offers a model of conviction that is altogether
more attractive. There is nothing irresolute or insipid about declining
to join the crowd, refusing to stigmatise, asking for empathy. It is,
rather, commendably brave and resolute and, in so far as I can know it,
true to Jesus's example.

For those of us all too conscious of our errors, aware that we are weak
and selfish, who hesitate sometimes to call ourselves Christian for fear
that we appear to be making some sort of claim to superior virtue, the
Church of England offers a welcome this Easter. And I for one am glad.

This response by Michael Gove appear in The Times. Gove is a British
Conservative politician, who was Secretary of State for Education from
2010-14 and Secretary of State for Justice from 2015-16. He has been the
Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath since 2005.

END



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

Message: 16
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:49:50 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right
legislation" to pull students out of the classes
Message-ID:
<1493336990.3995583...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right legislation"
to pull students out of the classes
Ban parents from pulling children out of religious education classes,
Church of England says
Parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right legislation"
to pull students out of the classes

By Camilla Turner
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
April 27, 2017

Parents should be banned from pulling their children out of religious
education classes because they are preventing students from learning
about Islam, the Church of England has warned.

Derek Holloway, the Church's lead on religious education (RE) policy,
said that those with "fundamentalist" religious beliefs are "exploiting"
laws which give them the right to withdraw children from the lessons, in
order to stop them from learning about the Muslim faith.

He said that parents are using a "dubious interpretation of human right
legislation" to pull students out of the classes, warning that such
actions create a "dangerous" precedent.

Mr Holloway, who taught at comprehensive schools in Essex and Wiltshire
before taking up his current post in the C of E's education office, said
that the right to withdraw children from RE lessons risks being hijacked
by those who want to "incite religious hatred".

Youngsters must learn about other religions and world views so that they
know how to get along with people from different backgrounds and
beliefs, Mr Holloway said.

RE lessons, along with other school subjects, can help efforts to combat
extremism and foster better community relations, he added.

Writing in a blog on the Church of England's Facebook page, he said:
"Sadly, and dangerously, the right of withdrawal from RE is now being
exploited by a range of 'interest groups' often using a dubious
interpretation of human rights legislation.

"The right of withdrawal form RE now gives comfort to those who are
breaking the law and seeking to incite religious hatred".

The Church believes the right for parents to withdraw children from RE
should be repealed and a national statement of a child's entitlement to
RE lessons should drawn up.

Mr Holloway said that the right to withdraw students from RE lessons
"perpetuates the myth" that the classes are in some way linked to
collective worship, when in fact they contribute to a "broad and
balanced curriculum" by teaching children about a range of faiths and
beliefs.

"Through RE teacher social media forums and feedback from our RE
advisers, I am aware that some parents have sought to exploit the right
to withdraw children from RE lessons," Mr Holloway told the Press
Association.

"This is seemingly because they do not want their children exposed to
other faiths and world views, in particular Islam.

"We are concerned that this is denying those pupils the opportunity to
develop the skills they need to 'live well together' as adults."

This also puts schools in an "impossible position" as they have to show
Ofsted inspectors they are preparing pupils for life in modern Britain,
Mr Holloway warned.

"Anecdotally, there have also been some cases in different parts of the
country of parents with fundamentalist religious beliefs also taking a
similar course," he said.

"This is not confined to any one particular religion or area of the
country. "

The Church of England is far from alone in this view and we support the
broad consensus across the sector - both from teachers and RE advisers -
that the right of withdrawal from RE is being exploited by a minority
and should now be reviewed."

Mr Holloway added that the Church does not want to see parents' rights
to withdraw pupils from assemblies reviewed or scrapped.



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

Message: 17
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:50:12 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Why Are So Many Lesbians Getting Pregnant?
Message-ID:
<1493337012.3997132...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Why Are So Many Lesbians Getting Pregnant?

By Glenn Stanton
WITHERSPOON INSTITUTE
http://tinyurl.com/ltybpnh
April 19, 2017

One's sexual orientation is supposed to be locked in and unchangeable,
like sex, race, or ethnicity. But high pregnancy rates among lesbians
confound that narrative.
It makes for an illogical syllogism.

Premise A: Lesbians are sexually attracted to women only.
Premise B: Women cannot impregnate women.
Conclusion: Lesbians have higher pregnancy rates than non-lesbian women.
It's contrary to all reason, but it's true. Lesbians have significantly
higher pregnancy rates than their heterosexual peers. It's also true for
teen gay males. They are substantially more likely to impregnate their
sexual partners than are heterosexual males.

Multiple studies with samples drawn from various nations find that
sexual-minority youth aged fourteen to nineteen have pregnancy rates two
to seven times greater than their heterosexual peers. Their pregnancy
rates continue to rise, even though the overall teen pregnancy rate is
declining in the United States.

Only one study to date has examined the pregnancy rates of adult
sexual-minority women who are eighteen to forty-four years old.
Published late last year, it reveals the same thing: unintended
pregnancies are higher among sexual-minority women than their
heterosexual peers. Their proportion for ending pregnancies by abortion
is double that of heterosexual women.

Clearly something's up here, and it is doubtful that the rules of human
reproduction have drastically evolved. Clearly these pregnancies cannot
all be assigned to bisexuals. Still, it is curious that those who go
both ways still have higher pregnancy rates than heterosexuals. The
numbers among those who identify as gay and lesbian remain unbelievably
high. Could it be possible that being lesbian or gay is not quite as
absolute or fixed as gender theorists want us to believe? One's sexual
orientation is supposed to be locked in and unchangeable, like sex,
race, or ethnicity. But this pregnancy phenomenon confounds that
narrative.

What's Going On Here?

It would be one thing if lesbians occasionally got pregnant and if gays
every now and then impregnated a woman. Some people tend toward
adventure, right? But think about what we have going on here. We know
that as a whole, heterosexual youth are more sexually active than nearly
every adult would wish. Their pregnancy rates are higher than any would
wish, as well. It's a national concern. But gays and lesbians have a two
to seven times greater rate of pregnancy and double the rate of
abortion. That's a great deal of pregnancy-possible sex going on among
teens who are supposedly not oriented or "born that way." This raises
two serious questions.

First, what's going on in the emotional lives of these particular youths
that has them behaving in such a hyper-sexualized manner? What emptiness
are they seeking to fill? Their own dignity demands honest
investigation, free of ideological assumptions. Insisting it's simply a
lack of good sex education or social affirmation is nothing short of
malpractice. Second, do these identities we call "gay" and "lesbian"
actually exist in the way we assume they do? They certainly exist as
political or social identities. But in functional reality, that seems
less clear.

This broad disparity in pregnancy and abortion rates indicates that
there is far more going on here than gay and lesbian folks simply coming
to terms with their sexuality. It seems to make a case for mutability.
This complexity is certainly not confined to adolescent sexuality.

Is Sexual Orientation Fluid and Changeable?

Erotic plasticity. Sexual fluidity. These are terms coined by scholars
to explain that the fixedness of orientation is often illusory in
adulthood as well. This fluidity is particularly true for women, making
the L of LGBT a dramatically different animal at its very core than the
G. Through his clinical research on the subject, Northwestern
University's J. Michael Bailey questions whether a female sexual
orientation exists at all. He contends that we cannot miss that male and
female sexual natures are markedly different things, so much so that the
singular, life-long lesbian is a rare creature. Female sexual interests
and behaviors are shaped more by social, cultural, emotional, and
situational developments.

In her important book, Sexual Fluidity, Professor Lisa Diamond laments
the mistaken assumption that lesbianism is fixed like male homosexuality
and argues that this belief is the result of gay-normativity and male
prejudice in gay research. She hopes that this has changed slightly in
the last decade, revealing a picture of male and female sexual
orientation as "distinct phenomena instead of two sides of the same
coin." It reveals that "one of the fundamental, defining features of
female sexual orientation is its fluidity," a "situation-dependent
flexibility in women's sexual responsiveness," making it possible for
women to desire either men or women under certain situations regardless
of their generally identified "sexual orientation." If this is true, it
means lesbianism is not an orientation as we popularly understand the
term today. Diamond concludes,

This is why a woman like Anne Heche can suddenly find herself falling
madly in love with Ellen DeGeneres after an exclusively heterosexual
past [and present], and why a longtime lesbian can experience her very
first other-sex attractions in her forties.

Not only is female sexuality itself fluid, but so are the personal
identifiers women choose for themselves. Remarkably, more than 50
percent of women who had both male and female partners in the last year
identify not as bisexual or lesbian, but heterosexual. Eleven percent of
women who have known only female sex partners identify as heterosexual,
and--remarkably--only 19 percent of women who've ever had sex with
another woman consider themselves either "lesbian" or "homosexual." A
young woman recently told me that she is a lesbian, but she is primarily
attracted to men. Apparently she's not an outlier.

Lesbianism and gayness are more different than they are similar in very
fundamental ways. The gay male is more likely to stay in one lane for
life, even while his sexual desire is generally more aggressive and he
seeks greater diversity in partners than do women. However, judging by
the pregnancy-risk data, younger men who identify as homosexual appear
to be much more fluid in their actions than has been previously assumed.
Does this mean that male same-sex attraction is more developmental than
it is fixed? We don't know.

But it's a question worth researching. This has important policy
implications for today. When we establish certain rights and
accessibilities based on one's sexual orientation and identity--and thus
the punishment and severe public shaming of those who violate them--we
are operating on ground that is more subjective than many would like us
to believe.

Glenn T. Stanton is Director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus
on the Family



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

Message: 18
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:50:35 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Church of Ireland set to vote on Pastoral Acceptance of
Same-Sex Unions
Message-ID:
<1493337035.3997149...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Church of Ireland set to vote on Pastoral Acceptance of Same-Sex Unions

OPINION

By Rev. Dr. Alan McCann
Special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org
April 24, 2017

At the General Synod of the Church of Ireland 2017 a motion to recognize
same-sex unions (see motion below) will be presented, debated and voted
upon. At this moment, it would be impossible to say what the outcome of
that vote would be. Back in 2012 the General Synod of the Church of
Ireland overwhelmingly passed a motion which clearly and unambiguously
stated that marriage was between one man and one woman and that this was
the normative relationship for sexual relations.

The synod could not have been any clearer on the teaching of the Church
of Ireland in relation to Human Sexuality and Marriage. Five years later
what has changed? We have had a 'listening process' in the intervening
period. However, in that period the Republic of Ireland has passed
legislation allowing same-sex marriage whereas the Northern Ireland
assembly, through motions of concern, blocked the same legislation being
passed. This leaves the Church of Ireland in an awkward situation
because it is an all Ireland church.

For the past three years, the Church of Ireland has had a Select
Committee looking at Human Sexuality in the context of Christian Faith.
The report of that committee is included in this years book of reports
to General Synod. The report is pretty bland and, as per its remit, did
not make any recommendations or proposals. Dr. Kilroy and Rev. O'Rourke
are both members of that committee and obviously, by their motion below,
feel the committee's report did not go far enough.

I have to say I admire their honesty and integrity in bringing such a
motion to the floor of synod to be debated. To be honest, it is, and has
been, the proverbial elephant in the room for many years now. We have
had clergy enter in to civil partnerships and leading clergy advocating,
at every opportunity, for not only the blessing of same-sex
relationships but also for same-sex marriages to be celebrated in the
Church of Ireland. Priests in the South of Ireland find themselves in
the position that what they are allowed to do by the state they are not
allowed to do by Church law. However, that has yet to be tested in a
court of law or in a court of the Church of Ireland.

This motion will bring the matter to a head at this years' synod. I have
no doubt Archbishop Richard Clarke wishes the motion had not appeared on
the synod agenda. However, it is here now and we must prepare for it and
seek to have it rejected by synod. This motion is subtly clever in that
it will bring, for the next three years, the issue of same-sex
relationships to the fore at each general synod. The potential, despite
the claim here to seek to maintain unity, is actually to bring disunity,
division and dare one say it a possible schism in the Church of Ireland.
The Human Sexuality report states on several occasions that there are
definite lines drawn in the Church of Ireland on this issue and that
neither side will give ground, and rightly so!

We can see the writing on the wall in this motion. Whilst it implies
that we are not changing the doctrine of marriage as stated in Canon 31,
we will in practice be doing just that, if this was passed. What is
spoken of here as an option will in future, if TEC etc. are anything to
go by, will be mandated and eventually those who will not succumb to the
revisionist agenda will be hounded out of their parishes etc. We have
watched our brothers and sisters in Christ go through this journey that
we are only at the beginning of and so we are well aware of what lies
ahead of us.

Personally, over the past few years I have listened and watched as more
and more clergy and laity within the Church of Ireland have embraced
society's sexual ethics as if they were Biblical. I have watched and
listened as the 'pastoral' argument has been put forward time and time
again as justification for departing from Biblical orthodoxy and the
historical Church (catholic) teaching on this matter. We are deluded as
a Church if we believe that by embracing this sinful way of life we are
going to fill our church pews each week. The very opposite is true. In
my own parish, I have already lost families who no longer wished to
belong to a denomination that could not be clear on the plain teaching
of the Bible on sexual matters, and I fear that may well become and
exodus in the future.

I take no delight in seeing the Church of Ireland in such turmoil. I
foresee even more turmoil and pain ahead. I cannot see this motion doing
other than causing deep hurt and division, irrespective of how the vote
goes. I know that many orthodox Anglicans on this island are dismayed
that we are now facing this vote. However, I have to say many of them
have only themselves to blame because some of us have been lone voices
saying this is where we were headed and we were accused of
scaremongering etc. We have also lacked clear leadership at times and we
have had no conservative evangelical bishop to lead us and to take a
stand behind whom others could gather.

Maybe now those who have been 'sleep walking' in to this scenario will
awaken from their slumber and take a firm, but loving stand, on what the
Scriptures plainly teach and what the Church of Ireland has always held
to doctrinally on this matter.

The Rev. Dr. Alan McCann is an ordained clergyman in the Church of
Ireland. The views he expresses here are solely his

*****

12. PRIVATE MEMBER'S MOTION Proposer: Dr. Leo Kilroy
Seconder: Rev Brian O'Rourke

Notwithstanding the diversity of conviction regarding human sexuality,
and in order to maintain the unity of the Church of Ireland, the General
Synod

A. Acknowledges the injury felt by members of the Church who enter
into loving, committed and legally-recognised, same-sex relationships,
due to the absence of provision for them to mark that key moment in
their lives publicly and prayerfully in Church.

and

B. Respectfully requests the House of Bishops to investigate a means to
develop sensitive, local pastoral arrangements for public prayer and
thanksgiving with same-sex couples at these key moments in their lives,
and to present their ideas to General Synod 2018, with a view to making
proposals at General Synod 2019.

The development of any such pastoral arrangements should not infringe
Canon 31 and the facilitation of such arrangements would not impair the
communion between an individual bishop or diocese with any other bishop
or diocese of the Church of Ireland.

END



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

Message: 19
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:51:04 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The welfare state has a lot to answer for
Message-ID:
<1493337064.3997680...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The welfare state has a lot to answer for

By Rev Jules Gomes
http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/rebel-priest-rev-jules-gomes-welfare-state-lot-answer/
April 23, 2017

I met my first Westerner in Mumbai. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Aunt
Sonja, a white Canadian married to my uncle Alex, was visiting India for
the first time. From the moment she left the airport, packs of street
urchins hounded her, begging. Aunt Sonja was a devout Christian. She was
heartbroken when she saw children begging for bread or a few rupees; she
was repulsed by the culture of endemic beggary. I did not know how to
comfort her. I was five years old. I had not heard the two magic words:
welfare state.

Years later, I was preaching in London at a conference of one of India's
oldest churches, which traces its origin to St Thomas the Apostle. The
adults attending the conference were immigrants from Kerala--India's
first state to boast of one hundred per cent literacy. My congregation
was bursting with consultants, GPs, paramedics, nurses, engineers,
entrepreneurs and computer professionals--a highly educated bunch. I was
not surprised. Keralites are known to be achievers.

I was the youth speaker. I was asked to address the second generation.
The kids were Brits--born, bred, buttered and jammed in the UK. I was
preaching to a sea of young brown faces speaking in a Babel of British
accents. Some of them were even saying "innit" and "yoof!" Then, after
my first session at the coffee break, I heard the two magic words:
welfare state. The parents of these "yoof" mobbed me and began pleading
with me. 'Achan, (Father) in your talks, please tell our children to
work hard and study hard and get a good education. We came to this
country with nothing except a good education. Now we are prospering. Our
children don't understand hard work and the value of education.'

I was intrigued. Really? 'What's the problem? Racism?' I asked the
parents rather naively. In good Indian fashion, they nodded their heads
from left to right. 'No, no, no, no, Achan! No racism! Welfare state!'
they chorused in reply. 'Our children say they don't need to study
because the government will take care of them. We feel so ashamed. We
are not beggars. We can't imagine our children living off benefits.' The
memory of Aunt Sonja like a Pied Piper with begging children trailing
behind her in Mumbai suddenly dovetailed with the picture of begging
adults stretching out their hands to the welfare state in Britain. I
returned to my pulpit and gave the yoof a real blast from the Bible.

St Paul's slams the freeloaders in the church at Thessalonica. 'If
anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.' I quoted from Eugene
Peterson's paraphrased translation of the Bible known as The Message.
'Don't permit them to freeload on the rest.... If you don't work, you
don't eat. And now we're getting reports that a bunch of lazy
good-for-nothings are taking advantage of you. This must not be
tolerated. We command them to get to work immediately--no excuses, no
arguments--and earn their own keep.... Point out such a person and
refuse to subsidise his freeloading. Maybe then he'll think twice.'

So why are leftwing politicians and bishops bullying the hardworking
masses into subsidising freeloaders? I'm not talking about the
"deserving poor." (I will use that politically incorrect term). I'm not
referring to pensioners who have paid into the national piggybank or the
terminally ill or the disabled. I'm talking about Onslow from Keeping up
Appearances. Why should I sponsor his slouching in front of the idiot
box, swigging beer, crunching crisps and betting on horses? Onslow's
able bodied. He's no fool. He reads an Open University physics textbook
in bed. So why doesn't he get off his fat backside and get a job? It's
unfair, innit?

Earlier this month, the Guardian went into moaning mode when the
Treasury announced that households with a third baby would no longer be
able to claim child tax credits. The analysis predicted that the cuts
could push a quarter of a million children into poverty. If a couple
wants to have a brood of children, let them multiply and fill the earth.
But why should singles or couples who choose not to have children
subsidise the multipliers? The shining knights of the Guardian in social
justice armour keep dodging three fundamental questions.

First, how do they define poverty? Holidaying in Bognor Regis rather
than Benidorm? No Sky TV? Second, how do they arrive at their conclusion
that children in Britain are suddenly going to look like children in
Somalia? The wailing and gnashing of teeth by lefty politicians and
bishops is a regular feature every time the welfare state announces a
cutback on the dole. Third, who created this poverty? How did they
create this poverty? This is the most embarrassing question for lefties
because deep down they know that this is a poverty created by the Left's
morality-free and responsibility-free ideology. If a teenage girl gets
pregnant before she is married and ends up with four children from four
absentee fathers--who have all abdicated their responsibility for
fatherhood to the welfare state--are the children not far more likely to
be poor?

It is terrible to see what we have done to these single mothers who are
struggling to bring up and keep their children from being taken away.
But not once did the recent BBC Panorama programme on the benefits cap
ask how did they get into this lifestyle in the first place; where were
the fathers of their children; why were they not providing support; why
did these women think they had a right to have and bring up their
children by freeloading on the taxpayer; why have successive governments
encouraged this "structural poverty" of non-economically viable family
forms; and why has not the Church ever condemned the State for
encouraging and perpetuating this cruelty that has left these women and
their children so very vulnerable?

I wonder how my Aunt Sonja would respond. I'll tell you how I respond. I
am heartbroken with compassion and sickened with revulsion the more I
watch the welfare state deplete the souls and destroy the lives of
thousands of young people in this country. Aunt Sonja died of cancer a
few years ago. She never returned to India. Here's my tribute to her and
my epitaph to the dying and no longer economically sustainable welfare
state (with apologies to Psalm 23).

The welfare state is my shepherd; I shall always be in want.
It makes me lie down in pastures of entitlement.
It leads me besides the stagnant waters of perpetual handouts.
It depletes my soul.
It leads me in paths of dependency for the sake of patronising leftists.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of state
intervention,
I will fear no conservative preaching thrift and the work ethic, for Big
Government is with me; its redistribution of wealth comforts me.
You prepare a flat screen plasma TV for me in the presence of my
hardworking neighbours; you anoint my imagination with cable networks;
my cup runneth over with benefits.
Surely social workers and Labour politicians will follow me all the days
of my life, and I shall dwell in my four-bedroom taxpayer-funded house
forever.

The Rev'd Dr Jules Gomes is pastor of St Augustine's Church, Douglas, on
the Isle of Man.



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

Message: 20
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:51:30 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The Three-Dimensional Ministry of the Lord Jesus
Message-ID:
<1493337090.3997723...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The Three-Dimensional Ministry of the Lord Jesus

By Roger Salter
Special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org
April 23, 2017

The richness of Holy Scripture resides in all that is written about the
Lord Jesus Christ as our Redeemer. All of Scripture - the combination of
prophetic hope, apostolic witness, and apocalyptic portraiture -
provides us with pictures of the Saviour in the three phases of his
saving ministry to mankind. The Bible is comparable to a triptych
depicting His pre-incarnate activity in the Old Testament, His incarnate
mission among us on earth, and His glorified ministry from heaven.

The range of Jesus' salvific service to humanity is from eternity to
eternity. We gasp with awe at the extent of His mercy that commits Him
to our rescue from alienation from God to reclamation to God. The mind
of the Triune God apart from all else was fixated on restoring fallen
man to fellowship with Himself. In some hugely major way, this plan of
deliverance was a means of God's disclosure of His excellence to the
full assembly of creation, every citizen of earth of all time, every
denizen of heaven, every corner of the cosmos. The Lord is not in need
of our applause. He desires our delight in Him. His overflowing love
wills us to experience perfect bliss in His adorable perfection. He
reveals Himself for our enjoyment, exhilaration and wonder. The
qualities and attributes of His lovely Being display themselves in His
works as Maker, Redeemer and Governor. God's generosity is the origin
and genesis of our existence, the comfortable completeness of our
experience, the everlasting felicity of our eternity. His communication
of life to all entities dependent upon Him as the source of their being
is the effective declaration that God is good.

Sadly, sin and evil have originated in the creature - rebellious angels
now demons, and the human race they have recruited to the service of
disobedience and vice. Some angels and the sum of mankind are
participants in revolt against the authority, wisdom and beneficence of
heaven. In the conflict and chaos of hostility to the Lord, Jesus comes
to restore peace and purity to the combined project of creation and
divine preservation and rule. The Kingdom is coming.

The Promise

The promise comes in the era and economy of the Old Testament in its
various administrations of the Covenant manifesting the grace of God.
The Hope is intimated and expanded through the histories of Patriarchs
and their descendants - the people of Israel. The combined history of
these two chosen groups is selectively detailed and summarized in the
inspired record of divine activity directed to them and through them
over the generations. But it is not men or the events that occupied them
that are at the core of the Old Testament narrative. It is God in Jesus
Christ who occupies center stage. A survey of biblical writings will
prove that the Son of God was intensely active in the former
dispensation.

This is no bare or abstract claim concerning the pre-existence of Jesus
as if He were a mere spectator of the saga of ancient saints. This to
affirm that the pre-incarnate Messiah was involved in the very thick
(business) of day to day drama of actual life in all its aspects. Jesus
was not only forecast and pledged as Saviour of his chosen ones from
Israel and the world; He worked and wrought wonders in Israel's
multifarious situations of favor and ill fortune in Israel's own times,
BC. The Old Testament not only referred to Jesus prophetically and
prospectively, as Jesus so clearly intimated (Luke 24:44ff, etc,), but
it yielded abundant evidence to His constant presence with Israel before
His physical presence on earth through practically every department of
the Canon.

Briefly, and for example, Jesus was the Lord who led His people out of
the land of Egypt (Jude 4). Many authorities contend (some ancient, some
modern) that the preferred reading should be "Jesus who led His people
out of the land of Egypt". Noted New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce
comments, "The textual evidence strongly supports the view that the
original reading was "Jesus". It is much more probable that Jude's
language reflects an identification of Jesus (the pre-incarnate Son of
God) with the Rock which supplied Israel's need in the wilderness (so
Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:4b) or with the Angel of the Divine Presence
who guarded and guided them from Egypt to the promised land - the one of
whom God said, 'My name is in him (Ex 23:21) and who was commissioned
both to provide protection and mete out judgment ( The Epistle to the
Hebrews, Eerdmans, Grand rapids, Michigan, 1977, page 63. For other
discussions see commentaries on Jude by C.E.B Cranfield and J.N.D.
Kelly).

Paul's teaching as to the presence and activity of Jesus as the constant
contemporary of Israel is remarkably telling. Of Israel Paul writes,
"For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock
was Christ' - divine favor; and a little after he records the sinfulness
of Israel that brought Christ's judgment - "Nor let us tempt Christ, as
some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents . . ." (1
Corinthians 10: 4 & 9).

The Apostle Peter affirms the presence of Christ in, and His influence
over, the Old Testament. Speaking of the one salvation subscribed by the
ancient prophets of Israel Peter remarks, "Of this salvation the
prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the
grace that would come to you, searching in what manner of time, the
Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow"
(1 Peter 10-11).

In this sense, the Old Testament takes on the character of autobiography
as far as Jesus is concerned. It informs us as to what He knew, was
willing to do in obedience to the Father, and much of what He would
subjectively feel as He carried out His painful assignment. This
awareness makes His dedication to the cause of our rescue infinitely
precious. His role was foreknown and His deep comprehension of the
prophesies prepared Him for the ordering of His life and the enduring of
His ordeal.

The first etchings of Christ are available to us in the Old Testament
with His personal backing and ultimate authorship.

The Fulfillment

The apostolic memoirs and letters of the New Testament are replete with
information and explanation about the great salvation wrought by Jesus.
The gospels and epistles manifestly focus upon Jesus as the center of
divine revelation in this dispensation as the One whom the Father sent
for our "at-one-ment" with Him; the One whom the Spirit empowered and
infilled for the making of human amendment to God for our offenses, and
for the performance and procuring of a righteousness fit, infinite and
worthy enough to qualify all believers for approval with God. We are
justified by Jesus as perfect man on our behalf and He has provided us
with the righteousness of God. Our Savior, the Lord Jesus, is both true
man and true God in the holiest degree and through His virtue and
compassion we gain communion with God and access to heaven by trust in
His rectitude and competence.

St.Paul sums it up thus: Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which he promised before
through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the
flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the
Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. Through Him we
have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all
nations for His name, among whom you also are the called of Jesus
Christ" (Romans 1: 1-6).

Jesus Now - The One Who is Alive

The Apostle John leant his head upon the breast of the Lord at the Last
Supper. Such a posture was symbolic of John's intimacy with the mind of
Jesus, and accordingly in his gospel, John divulges so much of Jesus'
consciousness of spiritual reality and his infinitely worthy role in the
scheme of redemption. John was appointed to spell out the deepest
secrets concerning the Savior. He was informed through conversation and
companionship with Jesus and a keen perception caused by the Spirit of
Christ during and after the Lord's sojourn in the flesh. John was highly
reflective.

To John was granted the vision(s) related to us in the Apocalypse. The
seer saw at even greater depth in the book Revelation the truth
concerning the sublime natures and Person of Jesus and the vast compass
of the task assigned to Him in heaven's sovereign decree.

At the Spirit's impulse, John moved from memoir (I suppose that even the
world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John
21:25 cf 20:30) to mirroring for us the exalted status of Jesus and his
absolute sway over all things as He establishes His Kingdom. On Patmos,
the aged captive is taken captive by all the rich images that comprise
The Revelation of Jesus Christ. His account of his vision is a literary
companion to his gospel and the climax and completion of his witness to
the Lord Jesus Christ.

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his
servants- things which must shortly take place. And he sent and
signified it by his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the
word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ to all things that he
saw" (Revelation 1:1-2)

John's dual message has this objective: "These things are written that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31).

[How impoverished is the limited insight and excessive influence of
certain critics who fail to rejoice in the gospel and who minimize and
suppress its reliability, message, and eternal benefit (suppression of
truth is the state of fallen man). Shame on them and their arrogance.
"Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen
to my word... He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not
hear, because you are not of God" (John 8:43 & 47). "But you do not
believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" John 10: 26-27).

Having once been trapped and shackled for so long by skeptical critics
who do not follow Jesus, it is a relief and freedom, purely by grace, to
have escaped the grip of intellects untamed by the Spirit of God. How
wonderful and beautifully composed is the Word of God. It is intricately
(finely detailed) in all that apprises us of the wisdom and ways of God.
How wicked of men to mangle the Holy Scriptures. Jesus' words of rebuke
were addressed to admired and authorized scholars. Gaining a DD is
absolutely fine, admirable, a benefit to the church in effective defense
and advocacy of the gospel, but often it is indicative of a Doctor of
Damnation through the delusion that is promulgated by certain highly
regarded individuals, whose reputations stunt the spiritual growth of
many and contribute to the condemnation of others].

John conveys to us the words of "Jesus Now" - as He is at present and
forever in the glory of His majesty: "I am he who lives, and was dead,
and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades
and Death" (Revelation 1:18). We may endlessly ponder the supremacy of
Jesus in this lofty claim. His is an "Amen" that we can heartily
endorse, especially when we read John's description of the risen and
ascended Jesus (Ch 1 vv 12-17).

The features of John's encounter can only be briefly alluded to, subject
to space. Closer and contemplative inspection is necessary:

v12 Jesus is the voice of God, cf Jesus as the Word. He cannot be boxed
in by human discernment and opinion. His speech is divinely "free" and
sovereign and may only be heard when He deigns to give the hearing ear.
We can only attend, assent, and obey.

vv13- 15 One like the Son of Man, cf Daniel 7: 13-14. Jesus fulfills the
vocation intimated in his favorite self-designation, namely Son of Man,
a human title transformed into a divine and royal title. Daniel depicts
the Ancient of Days 7:9 to whom John likens Jesus (snow whiteness of
hair)- the recognition of His divinity and eternality and hence His
wisdom, power, and sovereignty. The long garment and gold band denote
the dignity of deity that the Lord Jesus bears inherently and manifests
in the splendor of His appearance. Fire, eyes like a flame, is
illustrative of the holiness of God and the soul -searching, penetrating
gaze of God exercised by Jesus as our eventual judge. The feet of brass
evidence the overall blazing righteousness of God and his lustrous
beauty that is still hidden from human eyes until the perfection of our
nature in paradise. The "voice of the sound of many waters" is clearly
an ascription of divinity to Jesus, and the power and irresistibility of
the authority of his word cf Ezekiel 43:2 "And behold, the glory of the
God of Israel came from the way of the east. His voice was like the
sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his glory." John
continues in his reverence and deference toward the word to which he
proffers characteristic humble and adoring acknowledgment both as
evangelist and seer.

vv16 - 17 It is plausibly suggested that the seven stars held in Jesus'
right hand are representative of the spirit and totality of the church
which is his to rule, guide, protect and correct. The sharp two-edged
sword protruding from His mouth is His word of mercy and judgment to
which the church is to be utterly loyal. His countenance shining like
the sun in its strength refers to the light, life, health, warmth,
innumerable blessings He bestows upon His people from the beauteous
smile of His innate and lustrous goodness. The imagery of the sun is
inexhaustible in its meaning.

The gleaming glory of Jesus can only be acknowledged by our prostration
before Him. But with what tenderness and reassurance He receives us. "Do
not be afraid; I am the First and the Last (cf Ancient of Days).
Everything begins and ends in Him and in all things His will prevails
and the care of His chosen never fails.

v18 How stirring and amazing is the colossal affirmation of Jesus now
repeated: "I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for
evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death."

Here is stated the affectionate humility of Jesus who died in our stead
for our recovery to God and avoidance of the agonizing second death. How
powerful and beneficial is the glorious resurrection repeated in our
regeneration. How everlastingly enduring the inheritance willed to us
and won for us by the great Testator, Priest, and Victim in the
transaction of Calvary. The immensity of the lavish liberality of God is
guaranteed by the secure promise of Jesus Himself who says "Amen" to His
accomplishment and commitment to the cause of our eternal welfare.
Believers will never know death, for Jesus will never surrender his keys
to the pit nor permit any of his people to descend into the abyss.

The One who is alive will preserve our life with and in Him. The three
phases of Jesus' ministry are consummated in our arrival in Glory.

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: 21
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:51:54 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: The Return of the Judaizers
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The Return of the Judaizers

By Alice C. Linsley
aproe...@gmail.com/
April 17, 2017

The Judaizers came to Antioch claiming that Gentile converts were to
adhere to the Law and be circumcised. Paul and Barnabas went to
Jerusalem to discuss this matter with the apostles and elders. The wise
council of Jerusalem agreed that Gentiles were justified by faith
without keeping the Law, and a letter to this effect was sent to the
churches (Acts 15). However, this was not the end of the trouble caused
by the Judaizers. They went after Paul, denying his apostleship, seeking
to destroy his influence, and perverting the Gospel (1 Corinthians
9:1-4; 2 Corinthians 10:1-13:6; Galatians 1:6-2:21).

Today Judaizers have returned with their false gospel in Africa, Asia,
and the Americas. These insist that people must be circumcised as a sign
they have entered the New Covenant. Recently an Anglican priest from
Africa asked me to address this issue. Is circumcision necessary for
salvation?

Scripture speaks of the circumcision of the heart, an eternal
circumcision. In Colossians 2:8-9, 11-14, the Apostle Paul writes:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty
deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the
elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Messiah.

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.

And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without
hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of
Messiah.

Having been buried with Him in baptism (of the Spirit), in which you
were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who
raised Him from the dead.

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all
our transgressions.

Having cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees
against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the
way, having nailed it to the cross."

What this means becomes clearer when we understand the original context
of circumcision. Originally, circumcision pertained to a specific group
of people: kings and their queens, royal priests and their wives. It
originated among the Proto-Saharan and Nilotic rulers. Circumcision for
them meant recognizing the binary order fixed in Nature by the Creator.
Therefore, it was an act of obedience and reverence that signified a
heart for God. Is it necessary for salvation? No. One thing is necessary
for salvation: "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is
the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in
his name." (John 20:31) All are saved who believe that Jesus is the Son
of God who came into the world to save sinners and who receive Him;
recognizing our absolute dependence on His divine work at the Cross, the
empty Tomb, and at His coming again.

Circumcision, animal sacrifice, Messianic expectation, and the
priesthood originated among the Nilo-Saharans before 3,500 B.C.
Herodotus (B.C. 485-425) wrote concerning the Nilotic origins of
circumcision: "Egyptians and the Ethiopians have practiced circumcision
since time immemorial. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine
themselves admit that they learnt the practice from the Egyptians, while
the Syrians in the river Thermodon and the Pathenoise region and their
neighbors the Macrons say they learnt it recently from the Colchidians.
These are the only races which practice circumcision, and it is
observable that they do it in the same way with the Egyptians."

Concerning circumcision, it is necessary to understand the binary
worldview of Jesus' Horim, that is His Horite Hebrew ancestors in
Africa. Today what is called "female genital mutilation" should properly
be called "Pharaonic circumcision" and it shares the same point of
origin as male circumcision. Therefore it is irrational to argue against
the one and not the other.

In November 1982, Canadian Anthropologist Janice Boddy's research on
Pharaonic circumcision appeared in American Ethnologist. The essay was
titled "Womb as Oasis: The symbolic context of Pharaonic circumcision in
rural Northern Sudan" (Vol.9, pgs. 682-698). Boddy studied Pharaonic
circumcision among the Sudanese for whom female circumcision parallels
male circumcision and reflects the binary distinction between females
and males, one of the most important binary distinctions found
throughout the Bible.

Boddy explains: "In this society women do not achieve social recognition
by becoming like men, but by becoming less like men physically,
sexually, and socially. Male as well as female circumcision rites stress
this complementarity. Through their own operation, performed at roughly
the same age as when girls are circumcised (between five and ten years),
boys become less like women: while the female reproductive organs are
covered, that of the male is uncovered. Circumcision, then, accomplishes
the social definition of a child's sex by removing physical
characteristics deemed appropriate to his or her opposite: the clitoris
and other external genitalia, in the case of females, the prepuce of the
penis, in the case of males." (Boddy, pg. 688)

Boddy states, "while the female reproductive organs are covered, that of
the male is uncovered." This is why the Horite Hebrew erected stone
pillars at sacred sites, but never stone replicas of the female organ,
as is done in the Vedic/Tantra tradition with the lingam (phallus) and
yoni (vagina). The female in the tradition received from Jesus'
ruler-priest ancestors is to be covered and her covering is her
protection, both literally and figuratively. Consider how Ruth sought
the protection of marriage by covering herself with the hem of Boaz's
robe.

The Binary Worldview of the Bible

A binary set refers to a universally observed pattern in nature where
two entities are naturally linked and complementary. One of the entities
in the set is recognized as greater in some observable way than its
complement. Biblical theology hinges on this binary view of reality. The
binary view is expressed in the biblical assertions that God is greater
than man, and life is greater than death. Male-female and sun-moon are
binary sets in the Bible.

Among Abraham's people the sun was regarded as having masculine
attributes and was called Shemesh (masculine). The binary framework of
the Bible comes from them. However, it is older than the Hebrew
language. Abraham's Proto-Saharan ancestors regarded the Sun as the
symbol of the Creator. The Creator was said to be the "Father" who
inseminates the Earth.

The masculine terminology for the sun is apparent in Psalm 19:4-6:
"...the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it
rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end
of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them; and there is
nothing hidden from its heat."

Genesis 1:6 speaks of the sun as the greater light that rules the day.
The sun and the moon are not equals (dualism) because the sun is the
"greater light" and the Moon reflects the light of the greater body.
This is the main distinction between the binary logic of the Bible and
the dualism of Asian religions that developed later in the Axial Age.

Binary sets attest to the fact that there are fixed patterns in Nature.
The circumcised heart acknowledges these and honors them. The person of
faith believes these patterns to be fixed by the Creator. They stand as
a witness to the Creator's existence, divine nature, and eternal power.
The Apostle Paul speaks of this 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."

Alice C. Linsley researches and writes on topics in Philosophy, Bible,
and Anthropology. She lives in North Carolina where she teaches
technology, science and Latin.



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

Message: 22
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:52:19 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: Making Christ-followers of all nations--it's the main thing
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Making Christ-followers of all nations--it's the main thing

By Phil Ashey
https://americananglican.org/c
April 26, 2017

Several weeks ago, I was privileged to attend the annual residential
gathering of the Ecclesiastical Law Society (ELS) at Cambridge
University. The ELS is a gathering of bishops, clergy, theologians and
church lawyers (Chancellors and Canon lawyers) mostly from the UK but
from other Anglican Churches as well. The topic of the gathering was
"The nature of authority in the Anglican Communion." I could hardly
resist going!

In a workshop, I had an opportunity to share some thoughts about how the
Anglican Communion can structure itself to both fulfill Christ's Great
Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:16-20), and at
the same time reaffirm the Bible over and against false teaching by
Anglican leaders (mostly in the West) who are leading people away from
Christ. By looking at the way we come together as Anglican followers of
Jesus Christ, all over the world, in "council" or synods to make
decisions under the authority of God's word, we have the very model that
the Anglican Communion could use to deal with heresy and schism at the
global level. It's a model that goes all the way back to the Jerusalem
Council in Acts 15, and, like that council, is the very means by which
God leads his Church to reach out in fresh ways with the transforming
love of Jesus Christ.

I'll have much more to say about that in the coming weeks and months as
my book on Anglican Conciliarism is to be released.

While at the ELS I was asked to write an article for an Anglican
magazine in the Church of England, following the Church of England's
recognition of Anglican Church in North America's (ACNA) Holy Orders
(which means that clergy from ACNA can serve in the Church of England
without having to be re-ordained).

As I did some research into the life of our Province from 2009 to the
present, I found some very encouraging numbers from the last published
Congregational Reports (2015, with 90% of the congregations reporting).
Consider these "fast facts":

Number of congregations increased from 700 in 2009 to 966 in 2015; the
Diocese of South Carolina voted in March 2017 to join the ACNA, bringing
an additional 54 congregations;
Membership increased from 100,000 in 2009 to 111,853 in 2015; the
Diocese of South Carolina will add an additional 22,000 members;
Average Principal Service attendance has grown from 69,197 in 2009 to
78,679 in 2015; the Diocese of South Carolina will add an additional
9,085;

I have been pleased to work with the leadership of the Diocese of South
Carolina over the last year, and especially following their vote to join
the ACNA, in preparing their formal application for membership at our
Provincial Council in June.

But there's even more encouraging numbers:
3,324: the total number of baptisms reported in 2015 (2,333 children
aged 15 years and younger, 372 young adults aged 16-30, and 529 adults
aged 30+);
2,368: the total number of confirmations reported in 2015 (686 children,
584 young adults and 1138 adults);
2,705: the total number of known first-time commitments to Jesus Christ
through the ministry of the congregation and its members (not
necessarily resulting in the person joining the congregation);
8,405: the total number of people brought into ACNA congregations
through local outreach and evangelism;
1,706 people who went on 408 provincial (North American) mission trips;
1,317 people who went on 390 global mission trips;
362 congregations with overseas mission partnerships;
148 congregations made up of non-Caucasians;
72 congregations who are primarily first-generation immigrants;
64 congregations with services in a language other than English.

You can find the complete 2015 ACNA Congregational Report, which also
shows the increase in these numbers since 2011, here.

You see, there's Good news behind the numbers--quite literally! The
Anglican Church in North America has grown because its mission is "to
reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ." You can
also find this mission in Article III of the ACNA Constitution, which
states that 'The mission of the Province is to extend the Kingdom of God
by so presenting Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that
people everywhere will come to put their trust in God through Him, know
Him as Savior and serve Him as Lord in the fellowship of the Church.'

In 1996, when I was at the founding meetings of The American Anglican
Council, I remember one of our earliest statements of mission: To Build
a Society of Great Commission Churches. That restatement of Christ's
Great Commission continues to capture my heart, and continues to be the
heart of what we do in the AAC! It's no surprise that it continues to be
at the heart of the Church whose formularies we helped to draft, and the
Church we continue to serve.

The Anglican Church in North America pursues its mission in a variety of
ways. The ACNA planted a net of 200 new churches between 2009-2014 in
the "Anglican 1000" movement. It continues to plant churches and,
through the Matthew 25 initiative, to fund ministries reaching some of
the most vulnerable and under-resourced populations in North America,
fulfilling Jesus' call to love 'the least of these' (Matt. 25.40).

But what about the congregations who are small and mid-sized, in recline
(plateaued) or decline, some even struggling to survive? That's where
the American Anglican Council comes in. We help revitalize congregations
with fresh vision for how God wants to express himself through their
congregation, in their community at this time! We help congregations
renew their commitment to Christ's Great Commission by making disciples
in their local community, moving from maintenance to mission. We provide
coaches for clergy and lay leaders to help them discern what God wants
to do through their church, and then the ministry plans to stay in step
with God's leading.

In a few days, the American Anglican Council will be co-hosting with
LeaderWorks the second Rectors Summit for Vision and Planning (RSVP)-
this time in the Rockies. You can hear some of the results of our first
RSVP in the video testimonies here. This purpose of this gathering for
the Rectors of larger, multi-staff congregations (as well as younger,
rising leaders) is to build a learning community of leaders who can
share the joys and challenges of ministry together, and, like "iron
sharpening iron" (Proverbs 27:17), share how they are reaching people in
their communities with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. Please
pray for us that the LORD will pour his Holy Spirit to graciously
empower us together to fulfill his Great Commission!

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey is President & CEO of the American Anglican
Council.



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

Message: 23
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 19:52:49 -0400
From: David Virtue <da...@virtueonline.org>
To: "virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org"
<virtue...@listserv.virtueonline.org>
Subject: WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Message-ID:
<1493337169.3997879...@webmail.messagingengine.com>
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WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? - 1 Corinthians 15:20-28

By Ted Schroder,
www.tedschroder.com
April 30, 2017

St. Paul has been arguing that the main thing about the Gospel is that
Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. He cites as
evidence that Christ appeared to hundreds of his followers after his
resurrection. He notes that some people do not believe in a resurrection
from the dead for anyone let alone Christ. If this were so then it would
nullify the Christian faith and would leave no hope for those who had
died in Christ. But, and it is an emphatic 'but' that contradicts those
who would deny the resurrection, he goes on to say, Christ has indeed
been raised from the dead, and there are consequences to that fact of
history. Christ is fulfilling God's future purpose of salvation. His
resurrection inaugurates a sequence of events in history.

There is more for Christ to do that has consequences for each one of us
and the whole of creation. Christ is described as the "first fruits of
those who have fallen asleep." The first fruits were the first sheaf of
the harvest which was brought to the temple and offered to God. The
first fruits were a sign of the harvest to come. What was true for
Christ would be true for those who follow him. Jesus is the forerunner
of all those who have died in Christ and will die in the future. His
resurrection is the pledge, guarantee and proof of the resurrection of
all who die in the faith of Christ. Just as death came to all the human
race through Adam, so the resurrection from the dead come to all who are
in Christ. All human beings face the reality of death in their lives and
those of their loved ones, both physical mortality and spiritual
deadness. The problem of all humanity is that we live in a state of
separation from God, for the wages of sin is death. But through faith in
the risen Christ we are born again into a life which knows no enduring
death but instead eternal life. "In Christ all will be made alive."We
are given the abundant life that Christ brings to all who are in him.

Paul goes on to lay out a future scenario for each one of us. First of
all, Christ was raised as a forerunner of all those who belong to him.
We will be raised when he comes again. He comes for each one of us. "I
will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I
am" (John 14:3). "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a
loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call
of God and the dead in Christ will rise first" (1 Thess.4:16).

"Then the end will come." The "end" (Gk. telos) is the consummation of
all things, the climax of salvation, to which everything is destined to
lead up. Christ will hand over his kingdom to God the Father after he
has destroyed all other claims to power. He will reign and all those who
oppose him will be defeated. All forces of evil will surrender to his
authority

Who are these enemies whose powers and authorities he will destroy?
Revelation 6 describes them as the four deadly horsemen of war, crime,
famine and plague. They represent all that opposes the life of Christ.
Jesus warned us that there would be wars and rumors of wars and we see
civil and military conflict afflicting so many parts of the world from
Syria to Somalia. The devil makes men slay one another in gang warfare,
violence, anger and vendettas. When natural calamities occur on top of
social unrest there is hunger and malnutrition. Political systems can
cause markets to collapse and scarcity of food. Plagues, diseases,
cancers, drug dependency and viruses can attack the vulnerable and
ignorant. When one disease is conquered another arises to take its
place. During the fourteenth century bubonic plague wiped out a third of
Europe's population in a decade. Ten million were slaughtered in World
War I. Between 1918 and 1920 the influenza virus killed 50 to 100
million people.

These are outward enemies of which we can be victims. What about our
inward enemies which originate in ourselves? Jesus said, "For from
within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality,
theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander,
arrogance and folly" (Mark 7:21-22).

St. Paul is telling us that all this will one day come to an end. All
these will be destroyed. Their power to afflict God's people will be
finally be taken away. "For he must reign until he has put all his
enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death." "Death
and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:14). .
"Death will be robbed of all its power. At present no man can resist the
touch of death. Then death will be able to touch no man." (Leon Morris)

God the Father has given to the Son unlimited sovereignty over all
creation. Christ has died for all people, and he has risen from the
dead. He will return again and subdue all the enemies of God. The climax
of his work will come when he offers up the kingdom to the Father who is
the source of all things.

Christ became man so that he might accomplish this work of salvation. He
took upon himself the role of a servant Savior so that God may be all in
all. That is, that God may have the complete supremacy in all of
creation: celestial and terrestrial, visible and invisible, temporal and
eternal, physical and spiritual. In that way the order of universe will
be restored and renewed. "All things will be brought back to God."
(Calvin) All people will acknowledge the sovereignty of God. "For from
him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever!
Amen." (Romans 11:36) God will be all in all: "I shall be their
satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire -- life, health,
and nourishment, and plenty, and glory, and honor, and peace, and all
good things.... He shall be the end of our desires who shall be seen
without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness. This
outgoing of affection, this employment, shall certainly be, like eternal
life itself, common to all." (St. Augustine, The City of God)

"The Son has been entrusted with a mission on behalf of his Father,
whose sovereignty has been challenged and at least to some extent
usurped by rebellious powers. It is for him to reclaim this sovereignty
by overcoming the powers, overthrowing his enemies, and recovering the
submission of creation as a whole. This mission he will in due course
execute, death being the last adversary to hold out, and when it is
completed he will hand the government of the universe back to his
Father." (C.K. Barrett)

What view do you have of the future? How does it compare with this
scenario? Who are the enemies of your soul? What takes away your peace
and tranquility as you worry about tomorrow? Is it fear of failure,
poverty, disease, insecurity, grief at the loss of loved ones,
loneliness, helplessness, or abandonment? All our enemies will have
their power over us destroyed. We have been delivered, saved from their
influence by what Christ has done for us. Everything has been put under
the feet of Christ. He reigns over all. As Corrie ten Boom used to say,
"Jesus is Victor."

How can we live into this reality? We cannot in our own strength but God
has given us his Spirit to live in us. "Once the Spirit of him who
raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives within you he will, by that same
Spirit, bring your whole being new strength and vitality' (Rom. 8:11,
JBP). "If the Spirit of God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, lives in
you, he will make your dying bodies live again after you die, by means
of this same Holy Spirit living within you" (Rom.8:11, LB). Pray to be
filled with the Spirit. Pray that, in your life, God may be all in all,
that you will find in him all true happiness, all true goodness, all
true wholeness, all true peace.

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End of VirtueOnline Digest, Vol 17, Issue 17
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