Seek peace with honor in the TEC wars: Anglican Ink, October 6, 2013 October 6, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Anglican Communion Institute, Christopher Seitz, ecclesiology, Wycliffe College Toronto
comments closed
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, 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 Tubingen, 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.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
NHS exec to lead Welsh parochial reform commission: The Church of England Newspaper, January 27, 2013 p 7. January 31, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church in Wales, Church of England Newspaper.Tags: ecclesiology, Helen Biggin, parochial reform, Richard Harries
comments closed
Helen Biggin
The Church in Wales has announced the formation of a committee tasked with reviewing proposals made by a commission chaired by Lord Harries, the former Bishop of Oxford, to reform the Welsh parochial system.
On 10 Jan 2013 the church announced that five mebers of the Governing Body, the church’s general synod, would “review the recommendations and the responses received to them, draw up a timetable of action, act as a liaison point and monitor progress.”
The director of the Welsh NHS Confederation, Helen Biggin, will chair the committee and will be joined by Bishop Andy John of Bangor, business consultant James Turner, market research professional Nigel King, and the Vicar of Haverfordwest the Rev. Paul Mackness on the committee.
On 14 Sept 2012 the Governing Body unanimously accepted a report for a commission chaired by Lord Harries that proposed an overhaul of the local organization of the church.
“The parish system is no longer sustainable,” Lord Harries said. “We have to radically rethink the way we look at our ministry, and begin with the concept of an area ministry.”
Amongst its 50 recommendations were the amalgamation of parishes into “ministry areas”; the employment of a full time youth worker in each archdeaconry; “creative use” of church buildings to generate income and serve the wider community; training lay people for church leadership responsibilities; investing financial resources in youth work; adopting new forms of outreach akin to the Church of England’s “Fresh Expressions”; promote the doctrine of tithing; create three administrative centres to serve the church’s six diocese; reform the process for electing bishops; and designate the Diocese of Llandaff as the permanent archiepiscopal see of the Church in Wales.
Mrs. Biggin’s committee is to issue its first report to the February meeting of the Governing Body’s standing committee with a full report to be given to the next meeting of the Governing Body.
“This is a really exciting time for the Church in Wales,” Mrs. Biggin said, as the “Review Group has made some radical and challenging recommendations, which offer great opportunities. Together with an enthusiastic team, I am looking forward to helping meet these challenges and deliver the changes that will enable the Church to thrive as it serves communities throughout Wales.”
Conger 