“Clearer and more cohesive”: new CMS leader’s wishes for 2013; LGB&T Anglican Coalition comments; Happy, clappy and out of the closet Evangelicals; Church attacks plan to change laws of succession; AN Wilson comments; Care pathway professional concerns; Bishop Nazer – Ali in planning dispute
“Clearer and more cohesive”: new CMS leader’s wishes for 2013
From CMS – In France, where I lived for the last six years, there’s a tradition of the formal sharing of New Year’s greetings – everyone does it, from the president down to the humblest local mayor.
So in that same spirit I thought I’d share my New Year wishes with you.
So what do I wish – and indeed pray – for us in 2013?
A year is a long time, and one year ago I had no idea I’d be writing this message as CMS executive leader. So who knows what the Lord has in store for us?
But what I do hope is that in a year’s time CMS’s mission will be clearer and more cohesive, better understood in the wider Church, better supported and celebrated – for there is so much to celebrate. My resolution for this year is to lead us on in that direction, the Lord being my helper.
But I don’t think we should stop there. We all know that the mission we are engaged in is not ours but the Lord’s. It is he who reaches out with such passionate love to the world he has created and redeemed – and he calls us to be co-workers in that passionate outreach.
So my more fundamental wish – and prayer – for us in 2013 is that we will we walk very closely with our God as we share his passion and love for the world.
And as we see people and communities respond to that love in this year to come may we rejoice as the glory goes to him.
LGB&T Anglican Coalition comments on Civil Partnerships decision
The LGB&T Anglican Coalition welcomes the House of Bishops decision, confirmed on the 4th January 2013, to lift its moratorium of July 2011 on clergy in civil partnerships being nominated as episcopal candidates, even when living in conformity with the House of Bishops guidelines Issues in Human Sexuality.
The Bishops have decided that the requirements in its 2005 statement concerning the eligibility for ordination of those in civil partnerships, whose relationships are consistent with the teaching of the Church of England, will apply equally in relation to the episcopate.
We had been shocked and saddened by the imposition of the moratorium, pending the outcome of the review of civil partnerships by the House of Bishops working party chaired by the Bishop of Sodor and Man. Although the lifting of the ban is only a small step it removes a glaring injustice, and was one of many recommendations in the LGB&T Anglican Coalition’s submission to the Church of England working party on civil partnerships. More at –
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005858.html
Happy, clappy and out of the closet
Independent – Born-again Christianity has become synonymous with social conservatism, but a growing number of adherents don’t see it that way according to an item in The Independent:
Jeremy Marks used to believe you could make a gay man straight through prayer. Despite knowing he was himself gay, as a committed evangelical Christian he was utterly convinced that homosexuality was wrong in all circumstances.
In the late 1980s he set up a group which he hoped would “heal” homosexual men and women on their way to becoming straight. Then something remarkable happened. He began to change his mind.
“However much support we gave people it didn’t result in a change in their orientation at all,” the 60-year-old explains. “Once support was withdrawn they just felt high and dry, worse than before. Many lost their faith altogether. The only ones that did well accepted they were gay, found a partner and accepted it was right. It made me begin to realise that what I was doing was wrong, not them.” …..
Evangelicalism, the fastest growing form of Christianity in Britain today, is often seen as a byword for social conservatism. Yet evangelicals are by no means a unified group. And there are even signs that a small number are finally beginning to shift of the crucial question of same sex relationships.
Now Church attacks plan to change laws of succession
Steve Doughty, Mailonline — The Church of England yesterday expressed deep concerns over David Cameron’s plans to overturn centuries-old laws that govern succession to the throne.
Senior bishops share the worries of the Prince of Wales that legislation to give princesses equal rights to princes in line of succession is rushed, risky, and could lead to unintended constitutional crises.
Concern in the Church centres on the Prime Minister’s plan to remove the 312-year-old ban on members of the Royal Family from marrying Roman Catholics. Even though the Coalition’s Bill stipulates that the monarch must be Anglican, a Roman Catholic married to the monarch or an heir to the throne must, if they follow the doctrines of their church, bring his or her children up as Catholics.
That raises the prospect that an heir to the throne would be raised as a Catholic.
Leading clergy believe the planned changes will bring confusion and complication to the historic rule that the King or Queen must be a member of the Church of England in order to become its Supreme Governor on taking the throne.
AN Wilson comments
Evening Standard – AN Wilson reflects on recent news relating to clergy in a Civil Partnership as candidates for the Episcopate
Care pathway professional concerns
Telegraph , Independent – Various items on the “Liverpool Care Pathway”, the Independent reporting that specialists have “hit back at critics”, and the Telegraph reporting the opinion that “hospitals are placing patients on the controversial ‘death pathway’ without proper training for staff”.
Bishop Nazir – Ali in planning dispute
Express – Article stating that “the former Bishop of Rochester has forced his neighbours to pull down a balcony because he claims it ‘invades his privacy'”.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/369527/Ex-bishop-in-row-over-next-door-neighbour-s-5-000-balcony