People who believe in God are happier than agnostics or atheists, researchers claimed yesterday.

A report found that religious people were better able to cope with disappointments such as unemployment or divorce than non-believers.

Moreover, they become even happier the more they pray and go to church, claims the study by Prof Andrew Clark and Dr Orsolya Lelkes.

The research, presented at the Royal Economic Society's annual conference, echoes academic studies that have found religion can improve people's sense of wellbeing.

Using data from Britain and Europe, the study found believers enjoyed higher levels of satisfaction and suffered less psychological damage from unemployment, divorce or the death of a partner.

However, it also found that religious people across Europe tended to be more socially conservative and opposed to Government intervention in areas such as employment.

Believers, for example, were less likely to look for a new job if they were out of work.

Countries with a more religious electorate had lower unemployment benefits.

The study, Deliver Us From Evil: Religion as Insurance, found that less than a sixth of churchgoers in Britain believe it is better to divorce than stay in an unhappy marriage.

The authors of the study said: "Religion tempers the impact of adverse life events."

The Rt Revd Victoria Matthews is currently bishop-in-residence at Wycliffe College in Toronto. She was Bishop of Edmonton for 10 years from 1997 to late last year, and Suffragan (Assistant) Bishop of Toronto from 1994-97.

She narrowly missed being elected Primate of Canada last year.

Announcing the appointment today, the Primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia, Archbishop Brown Turei, said he looked forward to welcoming Bishop Matthews into the church of these islands.
"I'm sure that, with all her experience, she will make a good contribution to our life and witness," he said.

Bishop Matthews, 54 and unmarried, is only the second woman to become a diocesan bishop in New Zealand. The first was the Rt Revd Dr Penny Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin from 1989-2004.

Bishop Matthews chairs the Canadian Primate's Theological Commission, and has just been appointed to the Windsor Continuation Group, which will look at crucial questions about the shape of Anglican common life around the world.

She is in high demand as a retreat leader and guest lecturer, enjoys leading youth pilgrimages to holy places such as Iona and Taize, and has served as a trustee of Yale University in the USA.

In 2004 Bishop Matthews underwent major surgery for breast cancer. She walked the 800km pilgrimage trail to Santiago De Compostela in northern Spain last year to celebrate a clean bill of health.

In her spare time she enjoys hiking and walking her Anatolian shepherd dog Jethro, swimming, and reading history and theology.

Her installation as the eighth Bishop of Christchurch will take place in ChristChurch Cathedral on August 30. The present Bishop, the Rt Revd Dr David Coles, takes up the position of Vicar of Wakatipu in Queenstown on April 12.

'To visit and to listen'

Bishop Matthews is no stranger to Christchurch. She hiked through New Zealand in the 1980s and was smitten. "Your country is so beautiful,"
she said from her home in Toronto this week.

"I've long admired your (Anglican) prayer book, your commitment to the stewardship of creation, and the leadership of Maori in the church. I'm excited about the move and look forward to forming relationships and making Christchurch my home."

Bishop Matthews' personal priorities on arrival here are "to visit and to listen." And then? "My priority for the diocese would be to call the people of God to excellence in all that they do," she says. "I hate mediocrity, and I despair of sloppiness."

She describes herself as "catholic evangelical" and is widely respected for her quiet authority and her ability to sit comfortably with all theological mindsets. However, she worries that in recent years the churches have moved away from "waiting on God," and believes that a call to prayer is "essential at all levels of our church."

She was educated at Bishop Strachan School in Toronto and has a Master of Divinity degree from Yale. She says she is a great fan of church schools, "especially if they are not only for the wealthy. I wish Canada had more of them."

Although only 44 at the time, Bishop Matthews was invited on to the communications committee for the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Bishops in England. She is involved again in the planning of the Lambeth Conference this July, and will attend as Christchurch's Bishop-elect.

Despite media speculation, Bishop Matthews is careful and moderate on controversial issues such as the blessing of same-sex relationships.
Indeed, she is known internationally for her theological orthodoxy and her resolve to maintain unity.

Last year, during the Canadian General Synod, she was reported as saying that same-sex blessings did not conflict with core doctrines of the Canadian church.

Her comment arose from a Canadian study called the St Michael Report, which identified core doctrines as those relating to the person and work of God.

"Speaking personally, I think a number of things stand in the way of blessing same-gender marriages or unions," Bishop Matthews says.

"First and very importantly, the church needs to decide whether same-gender marriage is a faithful development of the Christian doctrine of marriage. This work is well under way in Canada and, I hope, other provinces of the Anglican Communion.

"Secondly, our church needs to find a way forward whenever the cause of church unity meets the cry of personal and corporate conscience head-on.
Who and how will we decide? The Anglican Covenant Design Group is addressing this."

Bishop Matthews says it is essential, albeit difficult, for churches of the first world to be patient and to listen carefully to churches of the two-thirds world.

"We (in the first world) have been dominant and bossy and arrogant for far too long and the time is right for patience and humility.

"Secondly, by taking the time to do the theology thoroughly and well, we will ease the acceptance of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. To be impatient is to risk even further hate and violence against those we have ignored for too long."

Ends

ACNS - Anglican Communion News Service, London

Chch's controversial new bishop
Sunday, 16 March 2008

The Press

A controversial Canadian woman has been elected Christchurch's next Anglican bishop.

The Right Reverend Victoria Matthews, who is bishop-in-residence at Wycliffe College in Toronto, will become the eighth Bishop of Christchurch at a ceremony on August 30.

Bishop Matthews, a former bishop of Edmonton, Canada, has signalled support for blessing gay marriages, but is not expected to break with tradition.

She has twice been in the running to be Primate of the Anglican Church in Canada, the highest post in the country.

In 2004, Bishop Matthews chaired the Task Force on Alternate Episcopal Oversight which looked at the issue of same sex-marriage in Canada.

At the 2007 General Synod of the Canadian church Bishop Matthews voted in favour of a resolution stating "the blessing of same-sex unions is not in conflict with the core doctrine of the Anglican Church" but voted against permitting those blessings.

Christchurch MP Tim Barnett told The Press newspaper earlier this month he understood the appointment was "a very exciting choice".

Primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, NZ and Polynesia, Archbishop Brown Turei said he looked forward to welcoming Bishop Matthews into the church in New Zealand.

"I'm sure that, with all her experience, she will make a good contribution to our life and witness."

Bishop Matthews, 54 and unmarried, is only the second woman to become a diocesan bishop in New Zealand.

The first was the Rt Rev'd Dr Penny Jamieson, Bishop of Dunedin from 1989-2004.

Bishop Matthews chairs the Canadian Primate's Theological Commission, and has just been appointed to the Windsor Continuation Group, which will look at crucial questions about the shape of Anglican common life around the world.

In 2004 Bishop Matthews underwent major surgery for breast cancer.

She walked the 800km pilgrimage trail to Santiago De Compostela in northern Spain last year to celebrate a clean bill of health.

In her spare time she enjoys hiking and walking her Anatolian shepherd dog Jethro, swimming, and reading history and theology.

The present Bishop, the Rt Rev'd Dr David Coles, takes up the position of Vicar of Wakatipu in Queenstown on April 12.

- NZPA

The following article by Bishop Harold Miller was published in The church of Ireland Gazette on Friday 7 September 2007:

Pondering in my heart: Reflections on personal experiences of ECUSA, six years ago.

I should probably have said all of this six years ago, when I had just returned from being in the United States on Sabbatical, but it all seemed very subjective. What I noticed then were several trends in the Episcopal Church in the USA which have probably become more pronounced over the intervening years. Some, if not all, of these first-hand but subjective observations bring into focus key issues which are at the heart of the new ways of understanding the faith in The Episcopal Church today. These highlight the fact that the divisions we are experiencing in the Anglican Communion are not simply to do with sexuality. I write about these because it is important to note that there really is the beginning of a new kind of religion in parts of The Episcopal Church - a religion which not only re-interprets the traditional central tenets of the Christian faith, but which in fact has the potential to jettison many of them altogether.

My first observation six years ago was the gradual replacement of the word ‘Lord’ in reference to Jesus Christ. There was a perceptible change as I travelled across from the east coast to the west, from the traditional: ‘The Lord be with you’ in the liturgy, to the revised version, ‘God be with you’, and eventually, on the west coast ‘God is in you….and also in you’! The reason for the change is relatively obvious: ‘Lord’ is not only male, it is also perceived as authoritarian. But there is a great seriousness about a simplistic removal of the word, which would eventually preclude rather than necessitating the basic early Christian declaration of faith ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ – the very declaration which all will make when every knee bows and every tongue confesses him.

Secondly, and aligned to the last point, is the removal or weakening of the title ‘Father’ in relation to the first person of the Trinity. This has led to an uncomfortableness for some with the basic baptismal formula: ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ and to replacement ‘blessings’ such as ‘The blessing of God - Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer’ where God is described by function rather than in personal names. Last year at the General Convention a series of prayers were introduced for every situation from a child coming out of nappies to a person passing a driving test, and including, of course, a ‘coming out’ prayer. When I asked myself why it was necessary to provide liturgical prayers for such occasions, the answer immediately stared me in the face: All the prayers were devoid of the words, ‘Father’, ‘Son’ and ‘Lord’, and clearly were enabling people to pray in this new way! But the removal of ‘Father’ (a revealed name of God) would be a disastrous move, since it is the name by which Jesus taught us to address God in the Lord’s Prayer, and it is also central to the first tenet of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty…’.

My third observation was an emerging new theology of baptism. This was clarified for me when I was taken with members of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation to a radical Episcopal church in San Francisco. When we entered into the liturgical space, I could see the table, which was unbounded by rails and clearly open to all. But I could not see the place of baptism. When I asked where it was, I was taken out the back, and told that it had been placed there so that baptism would not be a stumbling-block to newcomers. In other words, the idea goes, all people are welcome to the table no matter what their belief or lifestyle, as Jesus had table-fellowship with prostitutes and sinners. Baptism can be looked into later when there is time to think things through. This is, of course, a reversal of the biblical model, where baptism was the sacrament freely and always available for all who come to repentance and faith, and communion, the table fellowship of the baptized for which self-examination was necessary.

Aligned to that, I have also observed, and have seen particularly in the West Coast, an uncomfortableness with repentance and confession of sin. The theory, as I understand it goes something like this: The archetypal Eucharistic rite is focussed around the gathering, the word, the intercessions, the table and the going out. Confession is an optional extra. This was almost encouraged by the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation document on the eucharist, and by the pattern where the confession in the middle section was displaced when there was, for example a baptism, marriage, or an ordination. There has been a reclaiming of penitence in some of these rites recently, especially in the Church of England, by placing the penitential section at the beginning of the service. It is one thing to omit penitence in a church which has the expectation of personal auricular confession, but quite another to omit it in a church of the Reformation which enjoins General Confession. There is, in my view, behind this, a serious underplaying of personal sin and personal salvation.

The next element of the liturgy to be ‘downplayed’ was historic Creeds. Again, we are told that the Eucharistic prayer is creedal (a part-truth), or that Creeds are not a necessary part of worship (another part-truth), but the eventual reality which I observed was the omitting of the historic creeds altogether in the main Sunday liturgy. I was sensitized to expect something of this sort several years ago when I met a very radical Presbyterian minister from Albuquerque. I asked him did they have the historic creeds in the worship of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. His answer was this: ‘Yes. We have fourteen declarations of faith at the back of the book and they all interplay with each other’! There is a real reaction to and distancing from propositional statements of faith, even the historic ecumenical creeds - and in some cases from their central tenets and beliefs.

Sixth, and following on from the last point, there is an inclination to try to find ways of holding all faiths together as believing in a common god. This is seen, for example in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, where there is an interfaith labyrinth and an interfaith chapel, in which the symbols of all the major world faiths are displayed. This makes its way into the liturgy, where, when the Eucharistic bread is broken, I heard words similar to the following used: ‘We break this bread for our ancestors in the Jewish faith, our brothers and sisters in Islam, our friends who are Buddhists etc……’ – and this at a key Christocentic part of the liturgy.

And last, though in fact there are many other observations I could also make, there is, in my personal subjective view, a dawning realization that the heart of the central act of worship (the bread and wine of communion) is the doctrine of the atonement – a doctrine increasingly disliked in the new religion. I noticed an increasing emphasis on the eucharist as ‘community meal’, a reduced emphasis on the sacrificial death of Christ in some newer eucharistic prayers, and the preference in some places to distribute the elements with words such as ‘the bread’ and ‘the cup’ rather than ‘the body’ and ‘the blood’. Alongside this, the issue has been raised as to whether the Words of Institution (‘this is my body’… ‘this is my blood’) are required for a eucharistic prayer. Whatever disagreements on eucharistic doctrine there may have been between ‘catholics’ and ‘evangelicals’ in the past, there was always an agreement that the heart of the matter was the sacrificial, atoning death of Christ.

I write all this because we need to be aware that change is incremental. It is only noticed after a period of time. I do not say this to ‘damn’ the Episcopal Church. Indeed, my own diocese is in a very happy link relationship with a diocese of the Episcopal Church. But changes are happening, and changes which are not peripheral, but central to our identity as Anglicans and indeed as Christians. The issue which we face, as has so often been pointed out, is not essentially one of sexuality but one of authority and doctrine. In so many ways, parts of the Episcopal Church have been losing deep aspects of their identity. If God is not Father, Jesus is not Lord, the Son is not unique, baptism is not necessary, the creeds are optional, repentance and sin are dated concepts and the atonement is marginalized or even rejected, where do we go from here? The faith remaining will be a very different faith from the Christian faith once delivered to the saints – and I, for one, am not going there!

Harold Miller

August 2007

We met in England as the leadership team of the Global Anglican Future Conference and Jerusalem Pilgrimage from March 10-12, 2008 and were encouraged by the support and enthusiasm of bishops, clergy and lay leaders around the Anglican Communion who have welcomed GAFCON and expressed their desire to attend.

We affirmed that the goals of GAFCON are to:

1. Provide an opportunity for fellowship to continue to experience and proclaim the transforming love of Christ.
2. Develop a renewed understanding of our identity as Anglican Christians within our current context.
3. Prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission a top priority.

We received reports from our various task forces involved in logistics support and program development and are grateful for the remarkable progress already made. We are confident that our time together in the Holy Land will be one of great blessing for the wider Christian community, a positive witness of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and anticipation of our future as Anglican Christians.

Archbishop Peter J. Akinola
On behalf of the Leadership Team.
12th March, 2008

The Guardian

The gay bishop whose consecration threatened to destabilise the Anglican church has declined an official invitation to a once-a-decade gathering of the world's bishops and accused the Archbishop of Canterbury of cutting him "out of the herd".

Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire, said he would not be attending the Lambeth conference in a formal capacity because he felt he would be unable to play a meaningful or substantial role. Although he will still be present, he said the organisers had limited his participation so severely that their invitation constituted a "non-offer".

He told a spring gathering of the US Episcopal Church House of Bishops: "In my most difficult moments it feels as if, instead of leaving the 99 sheep in search of the one, my chief pastor and shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has cut me out of the herd."

Conservatives and liberals have accused Dr Rowan Williams of being indecisive on the issue of homosexuality and the church. He has also been under fire, from both sides, over the extent of Robinson's participation at Lambeth. Robinson acknowledged the predicament, saying he had "respect and sympathy" for Williams. He said that his attempt to attend Lambeth had started almost a year ago when the organisers rang him days before official invitations were sent out. Episcopal officials also pressed Chris Smith, chief of staff at Lambeth Palace, and Canon Kenneth Kearon, from the Communion office, to allow Robinson to take part in worship and study groups.

The London team rejected their proposals, however, responding with a counter-offer confining him to the Marketplace, a public area that will host fringe groups and commercial stalls, and one high profile event.

The Church of England has admitted that there is a shortage of bibles in the country's churches and has vowed to make the Good Book more easily available to worshippers.

Many churches have failed to make Bibles readily available
The Church's General Synod has voted to ensure that every visitor to a church should have "easy and unfettered" access to the Word of God.

Opening a debate on the issue at the Synod this week, Tim Cox, from Blackpool, said that many churches failed to make Bibles readily available.

Canon Marilyn McCord Adams, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, said she had grown up the American Bible Belt "on the choruses of Jesus Loves Me! This I Know, For The Bible Tells Me So and The Bible, Yes, That's The Book for Me."

She said Bibles should be in churches so that people in the pews could object to interpretations of it by the "higher ups".

The Archdeacon of Malmesbury, the Ven Alan Hawker, said that at the Reformation, the Bible had been chained to the lectern, but it was at least there.

It was "critically important" that the Bible was in church buildings and available for people to use.

Support also came from Brigadier Ian Dobbie, from Rochester, who said that if the Bible was read in church, it was more likely to be read at home.

In a Synod briefing paper, Mr Cox, an officer in the Boy's Brigade, complained that churches sometimes locked their bibles away in a cupboard.

"The saddest thing about this is that whilst our churches fail to make available the scriptures, hotels, prisons, schools, hospitals and even offices can often be found too have a Gideon's Bible available for each and every visitor," he said.

He added: "One church, whose parochial church council had previously provided Bibles, chose to remove them on the grounds that 'they were too difficult to dust'."

In 1536, Henry VIII made it a legal requirement for an English version of the Bible to be placed in every church, and they proved so popular with the public that they often had to be chained to the pulpit.

Gideons International placed nearly a million copies in this country last year, more than half of which had gone into schools.

In a separate paper, the House of Bishops recommended seven versions of the scriptures, including the Authorised Version or King James Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible and the Standard English Version.

Sydney Anglicans

Global Anglican Future Conference is planned for June 2008. I want those in the fellowship of our Diocese to know what this is about and why I am involved.

In 1998, the Lambeth Conference made it clear that the leaders of the overwhelming majority of Anglicans world-wide maintained the biblical view of sexual ethics – that sexual relationships are reserved for marriage between a man and a woman. Five years later, however, actions were taken in Anglican Churches both in Canada and the United States of America which officially transgressed these boundaries in defiance of the Bible’s authority.

The American actions impacted churches all around the world. In particular the churches of the Global South had to own the name ‘Anglican’ while living in societies where the actions of the Americans was condemned by all, especially Muslims. The action of some North Americans severely hurt the witness of these churches. It also hindered the good effect that membership of the Anglican Communion has for those who live in a situation where Christians are in a minority.

Since 2003, patient attempts have been made to call the offending North Americans back to biblical standards. Many American Anglicans are now more aware of the distress which their actions have caused others, and regret this impact. At the same time, however, others have condemned attempts by Global South Bishops to provide ministry for the orthodox Christians who still wish to be Anglican, but cannot continue to do so in the fellowship of the American churches. Individuals, parishes and even dioceses have left the original church, becoming associated with other dioceses in other parts of the world, and with new bishops being appointed from overseas to care for the disaffected.

Such has been the fall-out that it is now clear that we will never go back to being the Communion which we once were. There has been a permanent change. We live in a new world. Some American Anglicans are as committed to their new sexual ethics as to the gospel itself, and they intend to act as missionaries for this faith, wishing to persuade the rest of us. The problems posed by the American church are not going to remain in North America. This means that the rest of the Anglican world must be vigilant to guard the teaching and interpretation of scripture. How are we going to help each other remain true to the authority of God’s word? How are we going to help each other to preach the gospel of God’s transforming power and grace? These matters require urgent attention.

The next Lambeth Conference has been summoned for July-August 2008. The Archbishop of Canterbury is responsible for the guest list, and he has invited all except for the Bishop of New Hampshire on the one hand and some of the new bishops appointed to care for the dissidents on the other. Thus, for example the Bishop of New Westminster has been invited although his actions have caused the Reverend David Short and his congregation (which includes Dr Jim Packer) to withdraw as far as they can from the Diocese. An invitation to share the Conference under these circumstances has posed a real difficulty for many of us.

Several African Provinces have indicated that they will not be attending Lambeth, because to do so would be to acquiesce with the North American actions. They are not ending the Anglican Communion, or even dividing it. They are simply indicating that the nature of the Communion has now been altered by what has occurred. They see that since the American actions were taken in direct defiance of the previous Lambeth Conference, the Americans have irreparably damaged the standing of the Conference itself. They asked without success for the Conference to be postponed. They do not think that this Conference is what is needed now. To attend would be to overlook the importance of the issues at stake.

The Anglican Future Conference is not designed to take the place of Lambeth. Some people may well choose to go to both. Its aim is to draw Biblical Anglican Christians together for urgent consultation. It is not a consultation which can take place at Lambeth, because Lambeth has a different agenda and far wider guest list. Unlike Lambeth, the Future Conference is not for Bishops alone – the invitations will go to clergy and lay people also. It seeks to plan for a future in which Anglican Christians world-wide will increasingly be pressured to depart from the biblical norms of behaviour and belief. It gives an opportunity for many to draw together to strengthen each other over the issue of biblical authority and interpretation and gospel mission.

I am hoping that we will also see Sydney laypersons and clergy in attendance with our bishops. We must look to the future, and network with Anglican Christians from around the globe who share our fundamental trust in the authority of God’s word. We have much to learn from them and they can benefit from our fellowship also. I hope that you will pray for the Conference and support our decision to attend.

Priscilla Greear U/Miami News Service
December 4, 2007
Anglican Mainstream UK

Robinson spoke at a conference on sex, morality and the law at Nova Southeastern’s law school. (Source:Nova Southeastern Shepard Broad Law Center) The nation’s first openly gay Episcopal bishop told a crowd of about 200 that come June he’s marching down the aisle with his longtime male partner Mark Andrew.

“I always wanted to be a June bride,” said Bishop Gene Robinson at a talk on Nov. 27 at Nova Southeastern University.

“It may take many years for religious institutions to add their blessing for same-sex marriages and no church, mosque or synagogue should be forced to do so. But that should not slow down progress for the full civil right to marry,” Robinson said. “Because New Hampshire will have legal unions beginning in January, my partner of 20 years and I will enter into such a legal union next June.”

Wearing a raspberry clergy shirt with a cleric collar and pectoral cross, Robinson characterized the “religious right” as close-minded, taking a literal interpretation of Bible condemnation of homosexuality.

“The greatest single hindrance to achievement of full rights for gays and lesbians can be laid at the doorstep of the three Abrahamic faiths– Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It’s going to take people of faith to end discrimination,” said Robinson, who was invested as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire in 2004.

Read here

Hat-tip Virtueonline

At New Orleans, The TEC house of Bishops urged that Gene Robinson be invited to Lambeth; the Archbishop of Canterbury said he expressed a desire to explore a way for him to participate, but the TEC HoB stressed that they want him invited as a full participant.

By J. I. Packer, November 2007.
Anglican Essentials Canada

Aim of Talk
Do you remember Peter Sellers, creator of Dr. Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau, man of a thousand voices as they called him? He was once asked to record the whole Bible on disc, and he refused. “To do something like that,” he said, “you need to know exactly who you are. I don’t know who I am.”

Do we know who we are? I think we do, and I will state what I think straight away. We are sinners, miserable and hell-deserving, saved by the glorious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are orthodox biblical Christians, members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, who value the Anglican heritage of wisdom and faithful devotion, and who cannot in good conscience go along with the increasing slippage from Anglican standards of the Anglican Church of Canada. We are in fact increasingly isolated in our church, much as Jeremiah long ago was isolated in Jerusalem – and if we do not feel something of Jeremiah’s distress at being so placed, I would say there is something wrong with us.

But we are so placed, and action is called for, and my aim in this talk is to ensure that we move ahead with clarity in our minds as to who we are, where we come from, what we are doing and why, and how to explain our action when we are challenged and criticized for it, as surely we shall be.

May I say: I tackle this talk with both a sense of compulsions and a heavy heart. When God called me from England to Canada three decades ago, I thought I was leaving behind the world of intra-church conflict in which I had been involved for twenty years, but no. In England, when Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called on evangelicals ministering in doctrinally-mixed denominations to leave them, I resisted the idea. I did not expect that in Canada withdrawal from the diocese and province that had welcomed me would become an issue of conscience, but so it is. Like other Christians, I find peace in doing what I believe I have to do, but I cannot always find pleasure in it, and this for me is an instance of that. However, I move now to my argument.

The Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion is one expression of the church universal, militant here in earth, and this is where I start.

a. The Church of God
What is the church? I state what I believe to be the Bible’s teaching. In its visible aspect – that is, as we see it in this world – the church is the entire community of those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This church is gathered in local assemblies, each of which, in the words of Anglican Article 19, is “a congregation” (that is, an association) of faithful men (that is, believing people). In its spiritual aspect, that is, in terms of its relationship to God, the church as a whole is three things together, corresponding to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. It is the family of the Father’s adopted children; it is the body of the ascended, glorified and enthroned Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord; and it is the community, or fellowship of mutual love and service that is created and sustained by the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit draws us close to each other by drawing each of us close to Christ, and by so doing transforms God’s children in character, animates Christ’s body in ministry, and builds up each fellowship in love. Every congregation is called to live as an outcrop, microcosm, sample and specimen of the one holy universal fellowship.

b. The Church’s unity
Paul analyses the church’s given unity in terms of one body and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one family, and speaks of the resultant reality as “the unity of the Spirit,” which all Christians must work to preserve “in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4: 3-6). So the unity of God’s holy universal church is something to be recognized and expressed. Jesus’ prayer in John 17: 21-23 that all his disciples may be one as he and the Father are one shows us how this is to be done. The Father and the Son are one in thought, in love, in mutual honour and in disciple-making purpose (they were on mission together, we may truly say, at the time when Jesus prayed, just before his cross). So, too, the church, which is already one in Christ, must express its unity in all appropriate forms of communication, communion, and cooperation.

Togetherness with other congregations is integral to expressing Christian unity, and two principles of organized togetherness have emerged down the centuries: the geographical, which expresses the purpose of covering a particular area with functioning congregations, and the denominational, which expresses the sense that one is a trustee for some truth or practice that is not universally accepted, but that all need for biblical fullness of life together, so that as many churches as possible that have this distinctive feature should be founded. The two concerns, of course, regularly go together, distinct though they are. Thus, different patterns for connecting congregations have grown up, ranging from the pyramidal global structure of the Roman Catholic Church, with its Italian base, to the legally registered foundation deeds of each small addition to the 20,000 or so Protestant denominations that the statisticians tell us we can find if we look.

Now, it is in relation to these organizational structures, large or small, that the notion of schism should be defined. Schism means unwarrantable and unjustifiable dividing of organized church bodies, by the separating of one group within the structure from the rest of the membership. Schism, as such, is sin, for it is a needless and indefensible breach of visible unity. But withdrawal from a unitary set-up that has become unorthodox and distorts the gospel in a major way and will not put its house in order as for instance when the English church withdrew from the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century, should be called not schism but realignment, doubly so when the withdrawal leads to links with a set-up that is faithful to the truth, as in the sixteenth century the Church of England entered into fellowship with the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Europe, and as now we propose gratefully to accept the offer of full fellowship with the Province of the Southern Cone. Any who call such a move schism should be told that they do not know what schism is.

c. The Anglican Communion
Now, within this frame of reference, how are we to define the Anglican Communion? It is not, and never was, an integrated, pyramidal global organization with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its head. It is simply, as its name proclaims, a Communion – that is, a fellowship of independent provinces sharing ministry and sacraments on the basis of a shared faith, and bound together by a distinctive and very precious heritage – tradition, or style, as you might say – which all appreciate, and wish in some form to conserve. This heritage may be described as follows. (This is familiar ground, so I move over it quickly.)

First, Anglicanism is biblical. Anglicanism says to the world: “Show us anything in
Scripture that should be taught and that we are not teaching, and we will teach it. Show us anything we are teaching that is contrary to Scripture, and we will stop teaching it.” The Bible, straightforwardly interpreted as revelation from God through human writers, is the Anglican rule of faith.

Second, Anglicanism is creedal, embracing and building on the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, which highlight the Trinity, the incarnation, Christ’s saving ministry and the reality of salvation itself. The 39 Articles dot i’s and cross t’s and fill gaps in the Creeds, clarifying in particular the doctrines of faith, of grace, of justification and of the sacraments.

Third, Anglicanism is liturgical, in continuity with the church of patristic and pre-Reformation days. Through Archbishop Cranmer we inherited a superlative Reformed Prayer Book, in which the thematic sequence, sin – grace – faith runs through the set services, so that it is a truly evangelical book, and should be appreciated as such.

Fourth, Anglicanism is pastoral, centred upon the making of disciples both domestically and through outreach. Bishops are ordained to give pastoral leadership, caring for both clergy and congregations, and their jurisdiction is to be exercised for the furtherance of pastoral goals.

Fifth, Anglicanism is missional in the sense of being committed to transformation
through the gospel – transformation of individuals through teaching and nurture, transformation of congregations through preaching a renewal, transformation of culture through the wisdom and values of the gospel. The transformational purposes of the Reformers and Puritans, the eighteenth-century revival and later revivals, and the latter-day renewal movements, have permanently shaped authentic Anglicanism in a missional way.

Sixth, Anglicanism is not hierarchical nor maintenance-motivated, though it has sometimes appeared to be both; but in fact it is service-oriented. Dioceses exist to resource and help parishes, and provinces exist to coordinate both diocesan and local church ministry; Anglicanism is service-oriented at every level, and it is in loving practical service, shaped by the divine Word and empowered by the divine Spirit, that Anglican unity is finally expressed. Lambeth Conferences, Primates’ meetings, the Anglican Consultative Council, and other national and international gatherings at leadership level, can only be called instruments of unity in a significant sense as they seek to further Anglicanism’s service in the gospel to a lost humanity. For the fundamental unity is unity in truth and in mission based on truth; nothing can ever change that.

Such, then, is Anglicanism; and if I may speak personally for a moment, one reason why siren songs urging me to abandon Anglicanism strike no chord in my heart is that I value this heritage so highly, and am so sure that if I walked away from it under any circumstances I should lose far more than I gained. The present project, however, is precisely not to abandon Anglicanism but to realign within it, so as to be able to maintain it in its fullness and authenticity – and that, to me, is a horse of a very different colour. In this I recognize the calling of God.

Anglicans Adrift
For what should we think of global Anglicanism today?

It has often been said during the past few years that the Anglican Communion is like a torn net, due to denials by some of things that the rest believe to be integral to the gospel and affirmation, mainly by the same people, of behaviour that the rest believe the gospel absolutely rules out. In certain cases communion with a small “c” – that is, full and free welcome and interchange of clergy and communicants at the Lord’s Table – has been suspended. How, we ask, has this come about? In brief, it is the bitter fruit of liberal theology, which has become increasingly dominant in seminaries and among leaders in what we may call the Anglican Old West – that is, North America in the lead, with Britain and Australasia coming along behind. This has been the story over the past two generations, since Anglo-Catholic leadership began to flag. Let me explain.

Liberal theology as such knows nothing about a God who uses written language to tell us things, or about the reality of sin in the human system, which makes redemption necessary and new birth urgent. Liberal theology posits, rather, a natural religiosity in man (reverance, that is, for a higher power) and a natural capacity for goodwill towards others, and sees Christianity as a force for cherishing and developing these qualities. They are to be fanned into flame and kept burning in the church, which in each generation must articulate itself by concessive dialogue with the cultural pressures, processes and prejudices that surround it. In other words, the church must ever play catch-up to the culture, taking on board whatever is the “in thing” at the moment; otherwise, so it is thought, Christianity will lose all relevance to life. The intrinsic goodness of each “in thing” is taken for granted. In following this agenda the church will inevitably leave the Bible behind at point after point, but since on this view the Bible is the word of fallible men rather than of the infallible God, leaving it behind is no great loss.

Well now; with liberal leaders thinking and teaching in these terms, a collision with conservatives – that is, with upholders of the historic biblical and Anglican faith – was bound to come. It came over gay unions, which liberals wish to bless as a form of holiness, a quasimarriage. As part of its current agenda of affirming minority rights (that is the “in thing” these days), western culture has for the past generation accepted gay partnerships as a feature of normal life. Despite the pronouncement of the 1998 Lambeth Conference in favour of the old paths, New Westminster diocese began in 2002 to bless gay couples, and others followed suit. The Windsor Report called for a moratorium on this, which was not forthcoming. The St. Michael’s report said that the issue, though theological, was not against Anglican core doctrine so was not a matter over which to divide the church. On a side wind and by a stopgap motion, the General Synod of 2004 declared gay unions to be marked by “integrity and sanctity”. The 2007 General Synod affirmed the St. Michael’s position. So here we are now, the Anglican Network in Canada, accepting the invitation to realign in order to uphold historic Anglican standards, not only regarding gay unions but across the board, as those standards were formulated in our church’s foundation documents and reformulated in the Montreal Declaration of 1994.

Anglicans Anchored
So, who are we today, and where do we stand at this moment in relation to all that is happening in the storm-tossed Anglican Communion? In light of what I have said so far, I put it to you that there are four things we can and must now say. They are as follows.

To start with, we are a community of conscience, - committed to the Anglican convictions – those defined, I mean, in our foundation documents and expressed in our Prayer Book. The historic Anglican conviction about the authority of the Bible matches that which Luther expressed at the Diet of Worms: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe” – that is, it imperils the soul. As for the historic Anglican conviction about homosexual behaviour, it contains three points:

First, it violates the order of creation. God made the two sexes to mate and procreate, with pleasure and bonding; but homosexual intercourse, apart from being, at least among men, awkward and unhealthy, is barren.

Second, it defies the gospel call to repent of it and abstain from it, as from sin. This call is most clearly perhaps expressed in 1Cor. 6: 9-11, where the power of the Holy Spirit to keep believers clear of this and other lapses is celebrated.

Third, the heart of true pastoral care for homosexual persons is helping them in friendship not to yield to their besetting temptation. We are to love the sinner, though we do not love the sin.

We must hold to these positions, whatever the culture around us may say and do. So a biblically educated conscience requires.

Second, we are a community of church people, committed to the Anglican Communion. We rejoice to know that the more than 90% of worshipping Anglicans worldwide outside the Old West are solidly loyal to the Christian heritage as Anglicanism has received it, and we see our realignment as among other things, an enhancing of our solidarity with them. As I said earlier, what we are doing is precisely not leaving Anglicanism behind.

Third, we are a community of consecration, committed to the Anglican calling of worship and mission, doxology and discipling. Right from the start church planting will be central to our vision of what we are being called to do.

Fourth, I think we may soberly say of ourselves that we are a community of courage, heading out into unknown waters but committed to the Anglican confidence that God is faithful to those who are faithful to him.

Close to the end of his own journey John Stott calls for “incarnational evangelism” as the way to turn the world upside down.

Walking slowly and clutching a sturdy wooden cane, 86 year old Rev. Dr. Stott looks every bit the statesman that, in 2005, Time magazine called “One of the 100 most influential people on the planet today”. Echoing that accolade he also received a CBE in 2006 shortly before completing his 50th, and possibly his last, book “The Living Church” launched in 2007.

Having successfully passed the baton of leadership for the international church growth ministry he founded, the LANGHAM PARTNERSHIP (John Stott Ministries in the U.S.) to the current International Director, the Rev. Dr. Chris Wright; John Stott is now enjoying a well earned retirement in leafy Sussex. However, the opportunity to speak again at the Keswick Convention 2007 was enough to draw out another one of those memorable sermons so many have come to expect from this grand orator.

Walking slowly to the podium, and assisted by his research assistant, Chris Jones, John Stott was met by a standing ovation from a Convention tent filled to overflowing, on this warm summer evening on the 17th of July 2007. He began by thanking those who had introduced him in such glowing terms and then, in typically self-deferential fashion, he smiled and added, “But actually I thought I might be listening to my own obituary”.

John Stott clearly explained that the essence of what God is doing in the church today is the work of transforming His people into the image of His Son. Leading his audience from the past reality of predestination (Romans 8:29) through to the present work of transformation (2 Cor 3:18) and culminating in a glorious future (1 John 3:2) when we will discover that ‘we will be like Christ’.

In vintage Stott style, John took the Keswick Convention along a clear and well crafted journey through the evidence for this central purpose of God – to turn the world upside down by transforming His people into the image of His Son. But, he added, it’s the church’s lack of cooperation with this central purpose of God for His people that has been so damaging to our world.

Incarnational evangelism or entering into other people’s worlds with Christ-likeness, Stott noted, is essential to the church’s walk in the 21st century. However, our evangelistic efforts often lead to failure simply because we fail to look like the Christ we are proclaiming. Quoting John Poulton, Stott noted that, “The most effective preaching comes from those who embody their message. What communicates now are people, not words or ideas but rather personal authenticity, that is, Christ-likeness”.

John Stott Address at Keswick
Dr. John Stott – ‘The model – becoming more like Christ.’
Sermon delivered at the Keswick Convention July 17th 2007.

I remember very vividly, some years ago, that the question which perplexed me as a younger Christian (and some of my friends as well) was this: what is God’s purpose for His people? Granted that we have been converted, granted that we have been saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next? Of course, we knew the famous statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever: we knew that, and we believed it. We also toyed with some briefer statements, like one of only five words – love God, love your neighbour. But somehow neither of these, nor some others that we could mention, seemed wholly satisfactory. So I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.

So if that is true, I am proposing the following: first to lay down the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness: secondly, to give some New Testament examples of this; thirdly, to draw some practical conclusions. And it all relates to becoming like Christ.

So first is the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness. This basis is not a single text: the basis is more substantial than can be encapsulated in a single text. The basis consists rather of three texts which we would do well to hold together in our Christian thinking and living: Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 1 John 3:2. Lets look at these three briefly.

Romans 8:29 reads that God has predestined His people to be conformed to the image of His Son: that is, to become like Jesus. We all know that when Adam fell he lost much – though not all – of the divine image in which he had been created. But God has restored it in Christ. Conformity to the image of God means to become like Jesus: Christlikeness is the eternal predestinating purpose of God.

My second text is 2 Corinthians 3:18: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ So it is by the indwelling Spirit Himself that we are being changed from glory to glory – it is a magnificent vision. In this second stage of becoming like Christ, you will notice that the perspective has changed from the past to the present, from God’s eternal predestination to His present transformation of us by the Holy Spirit. It has changed from God’s eternal purpose to make us like Christ, to His historical work by His Holy Spirit to transform us into the image of Jesus.

That brings me to my third text: 1 John 3:2. ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ We don’t know in any detail what we shall be in the last day, but we do know that we will be like Christ. There is really no need for us to know any more than this. We are content with the glorious truth that we will be with Christ, like Christ, for ever.

Here are three perspectives – past, present and future. All of them are pointing in the same direction: there is God’s eternal purpose, we have been predestined; there is God’s historical purpose, we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit; and there is God’s final or eschatalogical purpose, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All three, the eternal, the historical and the eschatalogical, combine towards the same end of Christlikeness. This, I suggest, is the purpose of God for the people of God. That is the biblical basis for becoming like Christ: it is the purpose of God for the people of God.

I want to move on to illustrate this truth with a number of New Testament examples. First, I think it is important for us to make a general statement, as the apostle John does in 1 John 2:6: ‘he who says he abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way as he walked.’ In other words, if we claim to be a Christian, we must be Christlike. Here is the first New Testament example: we are to be like Christ in his Incarnation.

Some of you may immediately recoil in horror from such an idea. Surely, you will say to me, the Incarnation was an altogether unique event and cannot possibly be imitated in any way? My answer to that question is yes and no. Yes, it was unique, in the sense that the Son of God took our humanity to himself in Jesus of Nazareth, once and for all and forever, never to be repeated. That is true. But there is another sense in which the Incarnation was not unique: the amazing grace of God in the Incarnation of Christ is to be followed by all of us. The Incarnation, in that sense, was not unique but universal. We are all called to follow the example of His great humility in coming down from heaven to earth. So Paul could write in Philippians 2:5-8: ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God some thing to be grasped for his own selfish enjoyment, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.’ We are to be like Christ in his Incarnation in the amazing self-humbling which lies behind the Incarnation.

Secondly, we are to be like Christ in His service. We move on now from his Incarnation to His life of service; from His birth to His life, from the beginning to the end. Let me invite you to come with me to the upper room where Jesus spent his last evening with His disciples, recorded in John’s gospel chapter 13: ‘He took off his outer garments, he tied a towel round him, he poured water into a basin and washed his disciples’ feet. When he had finished, he resumed his place and said, “If then I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet, for I have given you an example’ – notice the word – ‘ that you should do as I have done to you.’

Some Christians take Jesus’ command literally and have a foot-washing ceremony in their Lord’s Supper once a month or on Maundy Thursday – and they may be right to do it. But I think most of us transpose Jesus’ command culturally: that is just as Jesus performed what in His culture was the work of a slave, so we in our cultures must regard no task too menial or degrading to undertake for each other.

Thirdly, we are to be like Christ in His love. I think particularly now of Ephesians 5:2 – ‘walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.’ Notice that the text is in two parts. The first part is walk in love, an injunction that all our behaviour should be characterised by love, but the second part of the verse says that He gave Himself for us, which is not a continuous thing but an aorist, a past tense, a clear reference to the cross. Paul is urging us to be like Christ in his death, to love with self-giving Calvary love. Notice what is developing: Paul is urging us to be like the Christ of the Incarnation, to be like the Christ of the foot washing and to be like the Christ of the cross. These three events of the life of Christ indicate clearly what Christlikeness means in practice.

Fourthly, we are to be like Christ in His patient endurance. In this next example we consider not the teaching of Paul but of Peter. Every chapter of the first letter of Peter contains an allusion to our suffering like Christ, for the background to the letter is the beginnings of persecution. In chapter 2 of 1 Peter in particular, Peter urges Christian slaves, if punished unjustly, to bear it and not to repay evil for evil. For, Peter goes on, you and we have been called to this because Christ also suffered, leaving us an example – there is that word again – so that we may follow in His steps. This call to Christlikeness in suffering unjustly may well become increasingly relevant as persecution increases
in many cultures in the world today.

My fifth and last example from the New Testament is that we are to be like Christ in His mission. Having looked at the teaching of Paul and Peter, we come now to the teaching of Jesus recorded by John. In John 20:21, in prayer, Jesus said ‘As you, Father, have sent me into the world, so I send them into the world’ – that is us. And in his commissioning in John 17 he says ‘As the Father sent me into the world, so I send you.’ These words are immensely significant. This is not just the Johannine version of the Great Commission but it also an instruction that their mission in the world was to resemble Christ’s mission. In what respect? The key words in these texts are ’sent into the world’. As Christ had entered our world, so we are to enter other people’s worlds. It was eloquently explained by Archbishop Michael Ramsey some years ago: ‘We state and commend the faith only in so far as we go out and put ourselves with loving sympathy inside the doubts of the doubters, the questions of the questioners and the loneliness of those who have lost the way.’

This entering into other people’s worlds is exactly what we mean by incarnational evangelism. All authentic mission is incarnational mission. We are to be like Christ in his mission. These are the five main ways in which we are to be Christlike: in His Incarnation, in His service, in His love, in His endurance and in His mission.

Very briefly, I want to give you three practical consequences of Christlikeness.

Firstly, Christlikeness and the mystery of suffering. Suffering is a huge subject in itself and there are many ways in which Christians try to understand it. One way stands out: that suffering is part of God’s process of making us like Christ. Whether we suffer from a disappointment, a frustration or some other painful tragedy, we need to try to see this in the light of Romans 8:28-29. According to Romans 8:28, God is always working for the good of his people, and according to Romans 8:29, this good purpose is to make us like Christ.

Secondly, Christlikeness and the challenge of evangelism. Why is it, you must have asked, as I have, that in many situations our evangelistic efforts are often fraught with failure? Several reasons may be given and I do not want to over-simplify but one main reason is that we don’t look like the Christ we are proclaiming. John Poulton, who has written about this in a perceptive little book entitled A today sort of evangelism, wrote this:

‘The most effective preaching comes from those who embody the things they are saying. They are their message. Christians need to look like what they are talking about. It is people who communicate primarily, not words or ideas. Authenticity gets across. deep down in side people, what communicates now is basically personal authenticity.’

That is Christlikeness. Let me give you another example. There was a Hindu professor in India who once identified one of his students as a Christian and said to him: ‘If you Christians lived like Jesus Christ, India would be at your feet tomorrow.’ I think India would be at their feet today if we Christians lived like Christ. From the Islamic world, the Reverend Iskandar Jadeed, a former Arab Muslim, has said ‘If all Christians were Christians – that is, Christlike – there would be no more Islam today.’

That brings me to my third point – Christlikeness and the indwelling of the Spirit. I have spoken much tonight about Christlikeness but is it attainable? In our own strength it is clearly not attainable but God has given us his Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to change us from within. William Temple, Archbishop in the 1940s, used to illustrate this point from Shakespeare:

‘It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it – I can’t. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it – I can’t. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like this. And if the Spirit could come into me, then I could live a life like His.’

So I conclude, as a brief summary of what we have tried to say to one another: God’s purpose is to make us like Christ. God’s way to make us like Christ is to fill us with his Spirit. In other words, it is a Trinitarian conclusion, concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

(see also: Church of England Newspaper Online Daily Edition 23/11/07)

Bishop Malcolm Harding, retired Bishop of Brandon, has announced that he will minister under Archbishop Gregory Venables and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas, effective immediately.

Bishop Harding is the second Canadian bishop to make this announcement in the past week. It was announced on Friday that the Right Reverend Donald Harvey had been received under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Venables and would be free to offer episcopal oversight to biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans distressed by the seismic shift in the theology and practice of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Bishop Harding will assist Bishop Harvey in performing episcopal ministry in Western Canada.

We are thanking God that Bishop Don Harvey is now a part of this Province,” said Archbishop Venables. “We are equally delighted to receive Bishop Malcolm Harding as our co-worker. He too is a man whose very being is centred around the gospel and whom the Lord has used for the salvation of many… It is also good to be able to say that these steps we have taken are fully supported by a significant number of other orthodox Anglican provinces. There is no need for any to walk alone or step outside the Anglican family.”

"Bishop Malcolm is a highly respected and gifted man of God, whose gentle humility and passion for revival is deeply appreciated by biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans,” said Bishop Harvey. “I look forward to ministering together.”

Bishop Harding, who also has a master's degree in social work, ministered in the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) for 30 years, retiring in 2001. Since retirement, he has served with Anglican Renewal Ministries (ARM), traveling across Canada to promote renewal in the church that he loved and served.

“I am deeply grieved that the church I have loved and served for over 30 years, has left me no choice.” said Bishop Malcolm, “My heart yearns for revival in Canada and in Anglicanism but I have lost hope for reformation within the Anglican Church of Canada.
I now realize that we cannot have unity at the expense of truth. I cannot in conscience travel the path that the Anglican Church of Canada is traveling, away from historic Christian teaching and established Anglican practice.”

The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone (Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America) is one of 38 Provinces that make up the global Anglican Communion. It encompasses much of South America and includes Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay and Argentina.

The Anglican Network in Canada is currently holding its national conference in Burlington, Ontario to outline details of the new episcopal option now available to biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans who are in “serious theological dispute” with the Anglican Church of Canada and want to be recognized as “fully Anglican” and in the mainstream of global Anglicanism.

The Anglican Network in Canada is committed to remaining faithful to Holy Scripture and established Anglican doctrine and to ensuring that orthodox Canadian Anglicans are able to remain in full communion with their spiritual brothers and sisters around the world.

Contact:
Marilyn Jacobson, communications
Anglican Network in Canada
604 929-0369

Bishop Ingham says Church is now in ‘full-blown schism’

Daily Edition 21/11/07

THE ANGLICAN Church in Canada is in ‘full-blown schism’, the Bishop
of New Westminster, the Rt Rev Michael Ingham, has claimed.

His comments, reported in a Canadian newspaper, Anglican Journal Canada come as a retired bishop announced plans to ordain two men in conservative dioceses who are linking with the Province of the Southern Cone.

Bishop Ingham has declared that only he (or another bishop to whom he
has delegated authority) can ordain priests in the diocese. He warned that if the Rt Rev Don Harvey goes ahead with the service, the
ordinations will be ‘irregular’ and he will take steps to discipline
those concerned.

The former Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, the Rt Rev
Don Harvey, announced last weekend that he was coming out of retirement to look after conservative Canadian Anglicans who are
opposed to the national Church’s liberal direction.

Bishop Ingham told his Diocesan Council that he had issued a warning
about the service of ordination planned for December 2 ‘not to restrain freedom, but to preserve freedom’. He said that he believes the diocese is one in which people can hold differing theological positions in an atmosphere of “generosity and tolerance and a spirit of charity.”

He said that he had written to Bishop Harvey explicitly prohibiting the planned service, and if it goes ahead he will take disciplinary
action.

The row has erupted over divisions on homosexuality, and Bishop Ingham has been at the centre of the dispute. Although the American
Church is at the top of conservatives’ concerns, because of their consecration of an openly gay man, the conservatives are also unhappy at moves in the Diocese of New Westminster to authorise gay blessings, which they say are against Christian doctrine.

Last week it was reported that the conservative Archbishop of the Southern Cone, the Rt Rev Gregory Venables, was preparing to
offer pastoral care to other dioceses in north America who felt they could no longer remain within official Anglican structures.

But last weekend the Canadian Church’s Council ruled that it would
not recognise the actions by the Southern Cone ‘purporting to extend its jurisdiction beyond its own borders.’

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been asked that he ‘make clear that such actions are not a valid expression of Anglicanism.’

Telegraph.co.uk

The Anglican Church will be hit next week by a new row over its "obsession" with homosexuality.

Two of the Church's most respected figures are to deepen the growing rift over gays, which already threatens the biggest split in the Anglican movement since it began four centuries ago.

In attacks that will be seen as aimed at the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, both his predecessor, Lord Carey, and the South African archbishop Desmond Tutu take conflicting views on the issue.

advertisementThe South African Nobel Peace Prize winner accuses the Anglican movement of being "almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality". He says that under Dr Williams's leadership the church became "extraordinarily homophobic" during the debate over whether Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, should be allowed to be the Bishop of New Hampshire.

Lord Carey accuses liberals of being "unbiblical" and undermining marriage by supporting gay partnerships.

His outspoken defence of the right of Christians to say that homosexual behaviour is wrong is in marked contrast to the tone of his successor, who has adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Insisting that he will "stand firm" against the pro-gay agenda, Lord Carey says that traditionalists should not be considered homophobic for saying that same-sex relationships are not acceptable.

His remarks will be broadcast two days before a controversial service being held by Dr Williams for gay clergy and their partners. The archbishop is due to celebrate the eucharist with them despite traditionalists claiming that this would defy Church guidelines that say that homosexual priests should be celibate. Evangelicals wrote to Dr Williams last month urging him not to preside at the service. Liberals fear Lord Carey's comments will add to the pressure on Dr Williams to pull out.

Lord Carey says: "I don't think that homosexuality is a human rights issue and one of justice. For me and many, many people, the issue is deeply theological. It has a lot to do with our humanity and how we find it and express it, to do with marriage… faithfulness and friendship."

Lord Carey and Archbishop Tutu make their comments on a Radio 4 programme, From Calvary to Lambeth. Lord Carey says: "I've never discriminated against them [homosexuals]. Having said that, I believe that the Church should have the right to make its own rules and I stand very firmly with what the Bible has to say about practising homosexuality."

He argues that the Bible is "clearly unequivocal" in stating that it is wrong, and accuses liberals in the Church who support a homosexual lifestyle of undermining marriage.

"I respect homosexuals, their right to exist, their right to set up homes and have same-sex relationships, but it's quite a different thing to say that those things should be normative within the Christian community," he says. "The Christian community has every right to say that certain behaviour is right, certain behaviour is wrong, and to hold to that without being called homophobic."

Lord Carey's interview will be broadcast at 8pm on Tuesday, November 27. Two days later, Dr Williams is to give an address entitled "Present realities and future possibilities for lesbians and gay men in the Church" during the service at St Peter's, Eaton Square. The London parish contains some of the most liberal Anglicans.

Canon Giles Goddard, chairman of Inclusive Church – a pro-gay group - said Lord Carey's comments were "seriously unhelpful" to his successor's attempts to prevent the Church from splitting. But evangelicals will welcome Lord Carey's remarks.

Dr Williams says his attendance at the service is an attempt to listen to the concerns of different groups within the Church and to try to resolve the divisions.

Leader of evangelicals 'unChristian' say secularists
Ruth Gledhill Religion Correspondent of The Times

Times Online

Secularists have condemned the leader of Britain's evangelicals as "unChristian" after he accused them of exhibiting intolerance of his religious views.

The National Secular Society has attacked Dr Joel Edwards, leader of the Evangelical Alliance, for remarks made at the end of an address by Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks on the need for religious tolerance.

The row gives just one insight into the future difficulties of enforcing legislation against incitement to hatred against homosexuals and against incitement of religious hatred.

Dr Edwards, who has been appointed a commissioner on the newly-formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been accused of making a career out of "opposing equality for homosexuals". After news of his appointment emerged, secularists described his organisation as "one of the most homophobic in Britain, sheltering extreme anti-gay groups."

After the Chief Rabbi finished his address on the need for religious tolerance, Dr Edwards said: "These groups have perceived that I am so intolerant that they will not tolerate my place on a body negotiating the choppy waters of 21st century tolerance.

"The timing could not have been more perfect. These comments go right to the heart of the debate that we are launching with Dr Sacks’ address: where does religious conviction fit in to society’s balance of rights, responsibilities, diversity, equality and multi-culturalism? The secularist would of course answer 'it doesn’t', but this would be to betray history. As Dr Sacks has so brilliantly said, the roots of liberalism and the new found tolerance that went with it were in fact religiously inspired."

Only a few weeks ago the Evangelical Alliance was among the organisations that celebrated 360 years since the Putney Debates, which pioneered the liberal democratic settlement, where the Levellers called for equal rights irrespective of status or property, although not gender. Dr Edwards said: "It was to Genesis and the Gospels that they turned to justify their demands. "

And some of the Levellers' prayer meetings lasted for five hours, which in the Jamaican Pentecostalism from which Dr Edwards has emerged would be referred to as The Preamble.

Dr Edwards said: "To remove religious conviction from the public square is as sensible as removing the engines from an aircraft in flight. For a while the plane may glide and to all extent seem fine, but before long the altimeter will only be headed in one direction, by which time it is too late to start remembering how it was you got airborne in the first place.

"A tolerance which calls for the removal of conviction is no tolerance at all. If modern day politics seeks to silence or exclude voices, be they religious, gay or atheist, then a key pillar of an open society will have been destroyed and we will be the poorer for it. It is our task in this debate to persuade society that tolerance is not the absence of conviction, or even of conversion. It is the absence of coercion. In a liberal democracy it is more intolerant to disallow religious views based on secular prejudice: after all, secularism is just another religious position."

Keith Porteus-Wood, of the National Secular Society, told The Times that Dr Edwards' remarks were not an accurate reflection of what is going on and accused him of being "unChristian" in his attack on secularism.

He pointed out that the Evangelical Alliance website has a report on it entitled Faith, Hope and Homosexuality which reads: “We opposed moves within certain churches to accept and/or endorse sexually active homosexual partnerships as legitimate form of Christian relationship.” The report also says: “We do not accept that to reject homoerotic sexual practice on biblical grounds is itself homophobic.” And it encourages evangelical congregations to welcome gay people – only on the understanding that they are seeking to “renounce same-sex sexual relationships.”

Mr Porteus-Wood said his objection was not to Mr Edwards’ religious convictions, but to his seeking to impose them on to a commission that is there to serve everyone – not just Christians.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “Joel Edwards’ definition of tolerance, rights and homophobia are very different to those of the body on which he serves. He seems to think religious freedom means the freedom to take rights away from other people. He must not be permitted to remain on this commission in a role that will allow him to compromise its aims.”

In his address, Dr Sacks warned that society was in danger of losing its great traditions of tolerance.

He said: "We are witnessing the death of respect and you see it everywhere from road rage itself, to football hooliganism, to street crime, to the fact - I find almost unbelievable - the number of teachers who get assaulted by pupils or nurses by patients. This is an age in which people speak without listening, condemn without understanding and even the media sometimes seem unable to understand anything more complicated than a sound bite.

"This new intolerance is threatening Christian societies on campus, people who wear crucifixes and happen to work at airports, there are bans on public displays of Christian symbols and sometimes even Christmas itself is the festival that dare not speak its name.

"How did this happen? We were supposed to be so tolerant so open minded, so accepting of diversity. How come we are measurably a less tolerant society than we were 20 years ago?"

He suggested it was because of the loss of a shared moral code. "What then happens when two views clash? The answer is the loudest or the angriest voice wins. If I can’t refute you then I can ridicule you, I can intimidate you and even, if need be, ban you. That is how the old tolerance which made Britain so special and so beloved to all of us has mutated into the new intolerance, or as I called it in my book in one of the chapters, ‘the death of freedom in the name of freedom’."

Dr Sacks said: "That is why I believe that all of us Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Christians and Sikhs must work together to recreate a tolerant society on the religious base that tolerance was born in this country three and a half centuries ago."

Episcopal Life Online

November 12, 2007

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Dear Katharine,

I have received your letter of November 8th and am rather surprised by your suggestion that I have somehow abandoned the communion of the church and may be subject to ecclesiastical discipline. Such a charge is baseless. I have abandoned nothing, and I have violated no canons. Every year at our Chrism Mass, I very happily reaffirm my ordination vows, along with all our clergy, that I will be “loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” (BCP, pages 526 and 538)

It is highly inappropriate for you to attempt to interfere in the internal life of this diocese as we prayerfully prepare to gather in Convention. The threatening tone of your open letter makes no attempt to promote reconciliation, mediation, or even dialogue about our profound theological differences. Instead, it appears designed to intimidate our delegates and me, in an attempt to deter us from taking any action that opposes the direction in which you are leading our Church. It is deeply troubling that you would have me prevent the clergy and laity of this diocese from openly discussing our future place in the life of the wider Anglican Communion, as we debate a variety of proposals. As you well know, the polity of this Church requires the full participation of the clergy and lay orders, not just bishops, in the decision making process. It grieves me that as the Presiding Bishop you would misuse your office in an attempt to intimidate and manipulate this diocese.

While I do not wish to meet antagonism with antagonism, I must remind you that 25 years ago this month, the newly formed Diocese of Fort Worth voluntarily voted to enter into union with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. If circumstances warrant it, we can likewise, by voluntary vote, terminate that relationship. Your aggressive, dictatorial posturing has no place in that decision. Sadly, however, your missive will now be one of the factors that our Convention will consider as we determine the future course of this diocese for the next 25 years and beyond, under God’s grace and guidance.

In closing, let me be very clear. While your threats deeply sadden us, they do not frighten us. We will continue to stand firm for the unchanging truth of the Holy Scriptures and the redeeming Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whatever the costs. I shall continue to pray for you, as I trust you will pray for me, in the difficult days ahead.

Faithfully in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth

The Presiding Bishop’s letter

8 November 2007

The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker
The Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth
2900 Alemeda Street
Fort Worth, TX 76108

Dear Jack,

As you are undoubtedly aware, it is my view that recent amendments to your Diocese's constitution violate the Constitutional requirement that the Diocese maintain an "unqualified accession" to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. I have now reviewed several proposed constitutional amendments that will be considered at your forthcoming diocesan convention. It is evident to me that several of these proposed changes would further violate the Church's Constitution, while some other proposed changes would undo the problems created by the earlier amendments. It is clear from your public statements and from what I understand your position to be regarding these matters that you endorse the first set of changes. Your statements and actions in recent months demonstrate an intention to lead your diocese into a position that would purportedly permit it to depart from the Episcopal Church. All these efforts, in my view, display a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between The Episcopal Church and its dioceses.

I call upon you to recede from this direction and to lead your diocese on a new course that recognizes the interdependent and hierarchical relationship between the national Church and its dioceses and parishes. That relationship is at the heart of our mission, as expressed in our polity. Specifically, I sincerely hope that you will change your position and urge your diocese at its forthcoming convention to adopt the proposed amendments that will bring the Diocese's constitution into agreement with the Church's Constitution and Canons.

If your course does not change, I shall regrettably be compelled to see that appropriate canonical steps are promptly taken to consider whether you have abandoned the Communion of this Church -- by actions and substantive statements, however, they may be phrased -- and whether you have committed canonical offences that warrant disciplinary action.

It grieves me that any bishop of this Church would seek to lead any of its members out of it. I would remind you of my open offer of an Episcopal Visitor if you wish to receive pastoral care from another bishop. I continue to pray for reconciliation of this situation, and I remain

Your servant in Christ,
Katharine Jefferts Schori