South Carolina Circuit Judge Diane S. Goodstein today ruled in favor of the Diocese of South Carolina’s position that her injunction, which prohibits the Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church in South Carolina ( from using the names and seal of the Diocese of South Carolina, should remain in place.
“Science, Faith and Apologetics” — Mere Anglicanism 2014
Mere Anglicanism to hold 9th Annual Conference in Charleston, SC
Science, Faith and Apologetics: An Answer for the Hope That Is Within Us
October 10, 2013, Beaufort, SC: Mere Anglicanism, an organization that aims to educate lay and clergy leaders, will hold its seventh annual conference January 23-25, 2014, at the Charleston Music Hall, 37 John Street, Charleston, SC.
Following on the success of last year’s conference, this year’s event includes an impressive list of internationally-known clergy and scholars who will speak on the most important intellectual discussion taking place in the word today–the interplay between science and faith. The speakers include:
John C. Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Fellow in Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science, and Pastoral Advisor at Green Templeton College, Oxford. Author of God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?
Alvin Carl Plantinga, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy at Calvin College. Author of Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism.
Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. Author of Signature in the Cell and his latest book, Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design.
Denis Alexander, Emeritus Director of the Faraday Institute for Sciences and Religion and Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Author of Rebuilding the Matrix: Science and Faith in the 21st Century.
Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, Allentown, Pennsylvania. Author of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution and The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism.
Peter John Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and King’s College in New York City. Author of Handbook of Christian Apologetics and Socrates Meets Jesus.
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, England, visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Greenwich, Senior Fellow at Whycliffe Hall, Oxford, faculty member at the London School of Theology, and President of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue. Author of Triple Jeopardy for the West: Aggressive Secularism.
“Our roster of outstanding speakers at this year’s conference will enable robust discussions on timely and controversial aspects of science and religion,” stated the Rev. Jeffrey Miller, Executive Director of Mere Anglicanism and Rector of the Parish Church of St. Helena, Beaufort, SC. “Since we were able to secure so many impressive speakers, we have moved the conference to a bigger venue which will accommodate both clergy and lay individuals.”
In addition to individual speaker presentations, Dr. Kenneth Boa, President of Reflection Ministries and Trinity House Publishers, will moderate a panel discussion with all speakers.
The cost of the conference is $100. For complete conference details, speaker biographies, and to register online, visit: www.MereAnglicanism.com.
The decline of the art of Anglican lying
It pains me to see the decline of lying. Our forefathers were unsurpassed in the gentle art of polite fiction, of the little white lie. The feeble attempts of our debased modern age are insults to a grand and glorious tradition of obfuscation. We are midgets standing on the shoulders of giants.
Pastoral Letter on Euthanasia from Australia
Physician assisted suicide is immoral and preys on the old and inform, Bishop John Harrower of Tasmania has told the members of his diocese, urging them to lobby the government to block the “Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2013”.
Pastoral Letter on Euthanasia from Australia
Physician assisted suicide is immoral and preys on the old and inform, Bishop John Harrower of Tasmania has told the members of his diocese, urging them to lobby the government to block the “Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2013”.
Anglican Unscripted 83
Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.
No ABC at GAFCON 00:00
Making a deal with the Devil 05:08
AS Haley on South Carolina 15:42
Not again? 22:01
Around the Anglican Globe 29:51
It is too late? 35:37
Closing and Bloopers 41:35
Anglican Unscripted 83
Anglican Unscripted is the only video newscast in the Anglican Church. Every Week Kevin, George, Allan and Peter bring you news and prospective from around the globe.
No ABC at GAFCON 00:00
Making a deal with the Devil 05:08
AS Haley on South Carolina 15:42
Not again? 22:01
Around the Anglican Globe 29:51
It is too late? 35:37
Closing and Bloopers 41:35
Canterbury arranges surprise meeting with Gafcon Primates
GAFCON and the Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit GAFCON primates just before the opening of GAFCON 2013 in Nairobi.
GAFCON Primates are holding a two day meeting, then 1200 leaders and lay people from the UK, Asia, Africa, the Pacific and South America will fly in to Nairobi for the Global Anglican Future Conference starting on Monday, October 21st.
GAFCON Chairman Eliud Wabukala invited Archbishop Justin Welby to send greetings to the conference and he indicated he was unable to do so in person because of commitments during the week. His office has since confirmed he will make a flying visit to speak with the Primates.
The general secretary of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Dr Peter Jensen, says “The Archbishop’s decision to come to the Primates meeting is a recognition of the importance of such a large and significant gathering of Anglicans from around the world and he will be made very welcome.”
Canterbury arranges surprise meeting with Gafcon Primates
GAFCON and the Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury will visit GAFCON primates just before the opening of GAFCON 2013 in Nairobi.
GAFCON Primates are holding a two day meeting, then 1200 leaders and lay people from the UK, Asia, Africa, the Pacific and South America will fly in to Nairobi for the Global Anglican Future Conference starting on Monday, October 21st.
GAFCON Chairman Eliud Wabukala invited Archbishop Justin Welby to send greetings to the conference and he indicated he was unable to do so in person because of commitments during the week. His office has since confirmed he will make a flying visit to speak with the Primates.
The general secretary of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Dr Peter Jensen, says “The Archbishop’s decision to come to the Primates meeting is a recognition of the importance of such a large and significant gathering of Anglicans from around the world and he will be made very welcome.”
Seek peace with honor in TEC wars
Toronto: Conservatives should seek terms for a negotiated peace to the Anglican wars, the Rev. Canon Christopher Seitz, Old Testament Scholar and Senior Research Professor at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto and a leader of the Anglican Communion Institute told a conference marking the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Toronto Pan-Anglican Congress.
The battle had been lost leaving conservatives as “strangers in their own church,” he said on 18 Sept 2013, and “the question for conservatives [now] is about encouragement. Will we be allowed to walk the well-worn paths of the faith,” he asked “or must we follow the trailblazers?”
While engaged in the preparation of a commentary on the Book of Jeremiah while on a study leave at the University of Goettingen, Prof. Seitz stated it was his custom to tread the paths in the forests surrounding the town. Warming upon this theme, he told the conference participants gathered at St Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto that traditionalists are being told the “paths of our fathers are wrong paths” and our understanding of God’s plan for salvation has reached its “sell-by date.”
Conservatives are being told they “must rewrite the maps and follow you even if we don’t trust it.”
They are being told their reliance on the faith held by their fathers was unreasonable. “Are we Amish, then, seeking to keep our buggies,” he asked. Yet “many Christians who came to faith used a map similar to our own. The overseas church recognizes our map,” he added.
But the political battled had been fought, and the conservatives had lost. It was “no longer a matter of saying the new ways are wrong. That point has passed. “
“We are in a new time. It is now here. We can see a before or after” in the Episcopal Church since the consecration of Gene Robinson and in the rise to power of Katharine Jefferts Schori. One group has been defeated” and “traditional Anglicans have lost a battle.”
There is now “no single understanding” of the faith. New Prayer Books will emerge that will enshrine the majority faction’s dogmas. The question for conservatives is not whether they can stop this but if the majority will allow “two rites [to] exist side by side.”
Prof. Seitz noted the “intermediate steps” taken at the 2012 to allow each bishop to approve or reject local gay marriage rites had “no long term integrity.” The General Convention endorsed “diocesan autonomy here, but rejects it elsewhere.”
In the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada “we are in a genuinely new time. A time of accomplishment and tidying up,” Prof Seitz said, and this is “why encouragement matters” for conservatives remaining in these churches. “Others have left us and our blazing new trails,” but not all hear the call to depart.
Encouragement for the conservative remnant “would be allowing the status quo ante. Not a new church allowing traditional Anglicans” a home, but the existing churches giving conservatives “the moral space and right to exist.”
“Will dioceses and parishes be permitted to do what has been done before,” he asked. Will we be given the “moral space to conserve our traditions? Can bishops let go of parishes? Can dioceses choose to say no? Can we [as Episcopalians] remain a valued and trustworthy expression of the church catholic?”
To do this “it may be necessary to change the office of Presiding Bishop, reform the General Convention, rewrite the Book of Common Prayer” or enact other “constitutional reforms.”
But “if reforms are not enacted it would end the conservative presence” in the Episcopal Church, he said, adding that “both sides acknowledge the fact, at least in their political assemblies and are anxious to move on.”
A negotiated peace “would send a better signal to the world” than the picture painted of “legal battles” and vitriol. “If there is a parting of the ways it could be done in loving kindness.”
Prof. Seitz concluded his address with a quote from the Isaiah 8:16-17. “Bind up this testimony of warning and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob. I will put my trust in him.”
“Conservative parishes are waiting and trusting,” he said, as “God is hiding his face for a season for his own purposes.”