Episcopal Life Online Newslink December 19, 2007
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's ELO Newslink includes:
* TOP STORY - Climate change action a moral imperative for justice, Canterbury says * TOP STORY - Common Cause Leadership Council outlines plans for an 'Anglican union' * WORLD REPORT - AUSTRALIA, MIDDLE EAST: Church leaders visit Holy Land, call for lasting peace * WORLD REPORT - IRELAND: Christmas Message 2007 from Archbishop Alan Harper * PEOPLE - Church World Service appoints John McCullough to third term as executive director * PEOPLE - Author Bruce Feiler to keynote Kanuga conference on global conflict, reconciliation * SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year A [RCL]
_____________________
TOP STORIES
Climate change action a moral imperative for justice, Canterbury says
[Lambeth Palace] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has said that the case for action on climate change is a moral as well as a practical one, challenging the world's rich and powerful nations to act with justice toward future generations and to the world's poorest.
In a Youtube video message, delivered to religious leaders meeting in the margins of the December 3-14 United Nations Bali Climate Change conference, Williams said that a purely acquisitive approach to the physical world goes against Christian ethical principles.
"The more we see the created order simply in relation to our own wants, our own needs, let alone our own greed and acquisitiveness, the further away we are from God," he said, noting that justice needed to be addressed across the generations.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_92981_ENG_HTM.htm
- - - - -
Common Cause Leadership Council outlines plans for an 'Anglican union' Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan elected as moderator
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] A self-selecting group of clergy and lay people announced late on December 18 that they had "created the structure necessary for building a federation of orthodox Anglicans in North America."
Meeting in Orlando, Florida, the Common Cause Leadership Council said in a news release that the council, composed of three delegates from each of the Common Cause partners (http://www.united-anglicans.org), elected Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan as its "moderator."
Duncan is also the moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (http://www.acn-us.org) (NACDP), known as the Anglican Communion Network. Duncan and the NACDP have been major organizers of the Common Cause movement.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_92965_ENG_HTM.htm
More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife
_____________________
WORLD REPORT
AUSTRALIA, MIDDLE EAST: Church leaders visit Holy Land, call for lasting peace http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_92966_ENG_HTM.htm
IRELAND: Christmas Message 2007 from Archbishop Alan Harper http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_92964_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
_____________________
PEOPLE
Church World Service appoints John McCullough to third term as executive director http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_92969_ENG_HTM.htm
Author Bruce Feiler to keynote Kanuga conference on global conflict, reconciliation http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_92967_ENG_HTM.htm
More People: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_ENG_HTM.htm
_____________________
SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS
Fourth Sunday of Advent - Year A [RCL]
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
By Amy Richter
[Sermons That Work] Here we are, on the fourth Sunday of Advent. Christmas Eve is just around the corner. Ready or not, it's just about time for the Christmas story, told by carol, by pageant, by Sunday school children in bathrobes and tinsel halos. And when we say "the Christmas story," we usually mean Luke's version of the Christmas story. You know, the one with the shepherds kneeling at the manger, sheep illuminated by all the heavenly host. The spotlight shines on Mary and the baby. Joseph is there too, of course. Although Joseph usually doesn't get any speaking lines, unless he gets to ask for room at the inn, or to inquire "please, isn't there somewhere my very pregnant wife can lay down?" But that's a story for Christmas Eve.
Here on the fourth Sunday of Advent, we also hear the Christmas story, but it's the one told in Matthew's gospel. Here, in Matthew, we hear the Christmas story from the point of view of the father. Well, er, not the "father" exactly.
Joseph is decidedly not the father of Jesus. And when Joseph hears that the woman to whom he is engaged is pregnant, and he's not the father, he assumes what any normal person would: Mary has been unfaithful. And Joseph, being a righteous man, plans to dissolve in form the engagement commitment that apparently has already been dissolved in fact.
Full reflection: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_92971_ENG_HTM.htm
More Spiritual Reflections: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm