Archival Documents
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Presiding Bishop Mouneer Anis At The Toronto Congress: Click here to Listen To The Audio
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Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon at the Toronto Conference Click Here to Listen To The Audio
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The recent decision in Illinois upholding the property rights of dioceses who withdraw from General Convention may not stand up on appeal. But the opinion's reasoning, by Judge Thomas Ortbal, was perhaps the most careful and thorough on record in such cases, and will likely have to be taken into account in all future judgments. In any case, the decision offers a chance for sober consideration of our church's mission and its relation to ecclesiastical structure. I am someone who once assumed that TEC was a single entity, and that dioceses were an integral part of this entity, gears in a larger...
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An "Ecclesiology Committee" committee advising the House of Bishops has released a "Primer" on polity prepared with the assistance of various consultants identified at the end of the document. The identity of those preparing this document"”most have participated as counsel or witnesses or have been listed as potential witnesses in the various lawsuits"”makes obvious that the primary purpose of this document is its perceived usefulness in litigation. ACI principals have also appeared as witnesses in this litigation. This is our response to the claims asserted in this Primer. 1. Claim: "Final...
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The Church of England House of Bishops' Working Group on Human Sexuality, chaired by Sir Joseph Pilling, published its report ("the Pilling Report") on November 28, in advance of discussion by the House of Bishops in December and the whole College of Bishops in January (see this TLC report by John Martin). It is, as Lambeth Palace tweeted, a report to not of the Church of England but it will set the agenda for future discussions and so its content, rationale, and significance are important. They can be summed up by exploring nine areas (building on the analysis I offered earlier this year...
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Rightly Handling the Word of Truth: Scripture, Canon, and Creed A Theological Conference of the North American Lutheran Church, The Citadel, 21-22 July, Charleston, SC “The Ethics of Sex, Marriage, and the Family” C. Seitz Personal Remarks When Carl Braaten emailed me to participate in this conference, he likely knew Charleston would conjure up memories of past events and make the invitation all the more enticing. The Anglican Communion Institute hosted regular January conferences in Charleston for about ten years, beginning in 1996. We started a three-book series on the Nicene Creed, The Ten...
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In what follows I do not intend to respond to the Taskforce on Marriage's theological papers. The papers deserve such a response, but not here. Rather, I wish to respond to the Taskforce Report on basis of its canonical proposal and its implied approach to the Church's decision-making, both of which I believe are seriously deficient and potentially harmful to our church's common life and future witness. I will argue that the Taskforce not only avoids the deep disagreement within the church over the matter of marriage, but stokes that disagreement. And I will conclude that General Convention...
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This is a hard time in the life of our church. It's easy to spend most of our time obsessing about all that has gone wrong. However, the subject I have been asked to address, " Called to Serve", points in a different direction. It points away from our discontent and toward a vision of a reformed and renewed church"”a church identified by a commitment to service. " Called to Serve" has branding potential for a renewed and reformed church, but the potential will not be realized unless two words are added to the proposed brand name. Let's not talk about "called to serve". Let's talk about...
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Last week we published an analysis of proposals to have this General Convention authorize supplemental liturgies that would be neither part of the Book of Common Prayer nor a proposed revision of it. Based on the detailed text of Article X of TEC’s Constitution, we concluded that General Convention does not have this authority and that whatever authority does exist to authorize supplemental rites resides in the bishop of each diocese. We noted that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music appears to agree with us since it has proposed amending Article X to assign this authority to General...
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It is not with forms of government, as with other artificial contrivances; where an old engine may be rejected, if we can discover another more accurate and commodious, or where trials may safely be made, even though the success be doubtful. An established government has an infinite advantage, by that very circumstance of its being established ["¦]To tamper, therefore, in this affair, or try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy, can never be the part of a wise magistrate, who will bear a reverence to what carries the marks of age; and though he may attempt...
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