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February 14, 2014
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them. Luke 6:32
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 The Encouraging Anglican Reformation and Realignment in North America
by Canon Phil Ashey
Over the last two weeks I've had the privilege of meeting with fellow Anglicans in Philadelphia, Houston and Arkansas around the challenges of church revitalization and growth, coaching leaders, and developing canons and structures that will enable the Anglican Church in North America to better reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the news we share here at the American Anglican Council is more about what isn't right in the Church, and what isn't working. So today I'd like to share some encouraging words and stories from the field.
In Philadelphia I spent a weekend working with 9 congregations, their clergy and lay leaders on how to revitalize their local churches, enable them to cast new vision, enter into a new period of growth in mission, and even to consider planting new churches. First, let me say how wonderful it is to hear clergy and lay leaders speak with affection and gratitude for their Bishop as a servant leader- in this case, the Right Rev. David Hicks of the Reformed Episcopal Church Diocese of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. I believe this diocese may be the oldest in the REC, and like so many churches in the "rust belt," it's churches have experienced seasons of "recline" (plateau) and even decline in urban neighborhoods in transition... Read more. |
Should a seashell adorn Boston's Episcopal cathedral?
G. Jeffrey MacDonald February 13, 2014 BOSTON (RNS) Forget crosses, saints and scenes from the Bible. The prominent face of a cathedral should be adorned these days with something more welcoming to all people: a seashell. That logic has given rise to a bold new look for the front of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Paul, which overlooks Boston Common. Since May, a giant aluminum sculpture depicting a cross-sectioned chambered nautilus has been lighting up the pediment in a brilliant blue and turning heads at one of Boston's busiest corners. It's also igniting debate about what's lost and gained when a church uses its high-profile facade to display an ambiguous symbol, rather than recognizable religious imagery... Read more.
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 | | Article 5: The Holy Spirit isn't Yoda |
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FORTY MILLION on Lawsuits: Will There Be No Reckoning?
February 14, 2013
A.S. Haley
...Now add in the amounts spent by individual dioceses (Los Angeles, San Diego, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, etc.) and you can easily see how, just by the end of 2015, the total spent on litigation-related items within ECUSA will easily be WELL OVER FORTY MILLION DOLLARS.
In other words, the total estimated amount has nearly doubled since I first estimated it three years ago. That is an unconscionable waste of non-profit resources. The puny amounts recovered in property values to date pale into insignificance compared to the amounts being squandered in seeking to recover them.
And the administration at 815 is becoming less and less transparent in disclosing the waste on this huge scale. No longer do they break out "legal aid to dioceses" or "Title IV expenses" as separate line items in their monthly statements. Will no one in the Church-House of Bishops, House of Deputies, clergy, or laity-hold them to account?... Read more.
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What Next for Justin? February 13, 2014
Last Friday the story broke of a rather egregious press statement that the Archbishop authorised, praising Katherine Jefferts Schori to the hilt on the news she had been awarded an honourary doctorate from Oxford University. As Phil Ashey of the American Anglican Council rightly pointed out, the use of the word "Compassion" was particularly offensive...Read more. |
Hobby Lobby Files Supreme Court Brief
Juicy Ecumenism
February 12, 2014
By Alexander Griswold
Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts business owned by the evangelical Green family, has filed a brief to the Supreme Court requesting an exemption from the Obamacare HHS mandate requiring them to provide health care plans that include contraceptive coverage. In the brief, the company argues that forcing them to pay for four forms of contraception the Green family believes ends human life would violate their religious beliefs and violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby on March 25. Previously, Hobby Lobby's request for an injunction had been denied by a district court, only to be overturned in a 4-3 ruling by the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Late last month, a remarkable coalition of religious and secular interests filed amicus curiae briefs in support of Hobby Lobby, with the number of supportive briefs outnumbering the opposition 2 to 1...Read more.
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