Anglican Church

Court says conservatives can’t take historic property with them when they leave.

Second time’s a charm?

The blinding glare of whiteness, the slap of social conservatism hamstrings the GOP. Is the same true for the Anglican Communion? For global Christianity?

Fifty years ago, Howard Johnson, a priest at the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, visited the nascent Anglican Church in Nigeria. He was distressed at the the unnecessary “Britishness” of the Church…

The decision of Episcopal churches like St. Luke’s to convert en masse to Roman Catholicism while retaining a quasi-medieval Anglican liturgy is not, however, a decision to move into this ever-emerging ecclesial reality. It is a solemn retreat into an imagined past where a priest’s sacramental office itself, his back turned to the congregation, protects him from the conflicted desires and diverse stirrings of the wider church.

The crowd favorite at the DC screening I attended was the filmmaker’s interview with Bishop Barbara Harris, whose 1989 consecration as the first female bishop in the Anglican Communion also shook up the church. Harris is memorably direct. About the idea that Robinson is the first gay bishop, Harris snorts, “Give me a break.” In response to some of the rhetoric at the bishops’ gathering, she says, “if assholes could fly, this place would be an airport.”

The creation of the Ordinariate is about sex, and resoundingly so. It affirms, not questions or challenges, the Catholic teaching on priestly celibacy and procreative marital sexuality.

When evangelical activist Brad Phillips told senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa about what he had seen and heard during a recent trip to South Kordofan, Sudan, they called an emergency hearing.

“If we truly love our neighbor, we shall without doubt tell him the Good News of Jesus. But equally, if we truly love our neighbor, we shall not stop there.”

If Bishop Andudu of Kadugli, Sudan had not been in Denver in June, he might be in a mass grave right now. In an interview with RD the bishop calls for international intervention to prevent the government’s “final solution” while emphasizing that this is not a war between Muslims and Christians.