Episcopal Life Online Newslink June 19, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* TOP STORY - Executive Council resolution on constitutions generates mixed reactions * WORLD REPORT - CANADA: Churches to renew covenant of solidarity with Indigenous people * WORLD REPORT - ENGLAND: Church gives cautious welcome to Government proposals on tackling global warming * WORLD REPORT - KENYA: Faith groups must lead AIDS fight, politician says * CALL FOR PAPERS - Liturgy and music standing commission contemplates rites of reconciliation * OPINION - An ironic tragedy: African-American rejection of gays and lesbians antithetical to black liberation theology
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TOP STORIES
Executive Council resolution on constitutions generates mixed reactions
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] The chancellors in four dissenting Episcopal Church dioceses and their opponents weighed in June 18 on an Executive Council resolution reminding all dioceses that they must accede to the Church's constitution and canons.
Groups representing Episcopalians who wish to remain within the wider church welcomed the Executive Council action, saying they feel vindicated in their protests of diocesan actions to change their constitutions. Chancellors for the four dioceses jointly called the action a "failed attempt to interfere in the internal constitutional processes of their dioceses."
Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the diocesan Standing Committee said June 19 that the action "is nothing more than an opinion expressed by those individuals who issued the statement" and claimed that resolutions of Executive Council and General Convention are "non-binding" on dioceses.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_87058_ENG_HTM.htm
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WORLD REPORT
CANADA: Churches to formally renew covenant of solidarity with Indigenous people http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_87031_ENG_HTM.htm
ENGLAND: Church gives cautious welcome to Government proposals on tackling global warming http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_87032_ENG_HTM.htm
KENYA: Faith groups must lead AIDS fight, politician says http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_87030_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Liturgy and music standing commission contemplates rites of reconciliation
[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) intends to publish a collection of essays in connection with its plan to revise the Book of Common Prayer's rites of confession and reconciliation.
The Rev. Dr. Jennifer M. Phillips, a SCLM member who will edit the collection, said that some of the questions potential essay writers might consider include how the needs for such rites have changed, what new sorts of rites might be needed, how theological foundations for such rites might need reworking, what sort of rites might serve the ethnic diversity of the church's congregations, and what shape any new rites might take for individuals, congregations, and larger church bodies.
The rite of the Reconciliation of a Penitent begins on page 447 of the Book of Common Prayer and can be found here. Various other forms of confession are found in most of the Church's liturgies.
More information is available from Phillips at Revjphillips@earthlink.net or St. Augustine's Church, 35 Lower College Rd., Kingston, RI 02881.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/78650_87046_ENG_HTM.htm
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OPINION
An ironic tragedy
African-American rejection of gays and lesbians antithetical to black liberation theology
By Horace Griffin
[Episcopal Life] The 21st Century world currently struggles with what may be the moral issue of this time -- homosexuality and the effort to affirm lesbian and gay people and their love relationships.
There may be no group with deeper passions about this discussion than people in the United States. And, like moral issues of the past -- slavery, segregation and women's equality -- the moral compass on homosexuality is being designed in houses of worship.
Those in the Christian church do not speak with a united voice. Gay and heterosexual alike, they stand with the same Bible proclaiming different gospels on homosexuality. Some claim that lesbians and gays are made in God's image and favor all loving sexual relationships. Others view gay relationships as abhorrent. Generally, African-American heterosexual Christians fall within the latter group.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_87028_ENG_HTM.htm
More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm
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