Episcopal Life Daily February 12, 2008
Episcopal Life Online is available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.
Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:
* TOP STORY - Ecuadorian Episcopalians welcome Executive Council * TOP STORY - Windsor Continuation Group appointed by Canterbury * TOP STORY - Black History Month book event highlights reconciliation, celebration, education * TOP STORY - Mission director search suspended * TOP STORY - Four bishops' renunciations of ministry accepted by Presiding Bishop * WORLD REPORT - KENYA: Archbishop of York says country's leaders must resolve dispute * WORLD REPORT - UNITED KINGDOM: Archbishop hosts China-U.K. seminar on religion and society * MISSION - Minneapolis Cathedral builds partnership with Cuba's Episcopal Church * MULTIMEDIA - Video Streams: Canon Robert Moore and Bonnie Anderson at Moving Forward, Welcoming All * OPINION - Giving the full history: Who owned Absalom Jones? * DAYBOOK - February 13, 2008: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History * CATALYST - Race, Racism and the Biblical Narratives
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TOP STORIES
Ecuadorian Episcopalians welcome Executive Council
By Mary Frances Schjonberg and staff
[Episcopal News Service, Quito, Ecuador] Members of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council, Church Center staff and their guests traveled to one of eight venues in and around Quito February 12 to learn about and briefly engage in the mission of the Diocese of Ecuador Central.
The five-hour activity took place during the morning of the second day of Council's four-day meeting in Quito. Council then heard from Ecuadorian church and government officials during a late afternoon plenary session. Episcopal News Service will file a separate story on that session.
Following are brief stories of some of the experiences, along with background on the diocese and the Episcopal Church's dioceses outside the United States.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94867_ENG_HTM.htm
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Windsor Continuation Group appointed by Canterbury
[ACNS] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has announced the formation of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), as proposed in his Advent Letter.
The WCG will address outstanding questions arising from the Windsor Report and the various formal responses from provinces and instruments of the Anglican Communion.
The members of the group are:
* The Most Rev. Clive Handford, former Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East (chair) * The Most Rev. John Chew, Primate of South East Asia * The Rt. Rev. Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas * The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews, former Bishop of Edmonton * The Very Rev. John Moses, former dean of St Paul's Cathedral, London * The Most Rev. Donald Mtetemela, Primate of Tanzania
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94854_ENG_HTM.htm
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Black History Month book event highlights reconciliation, celebration, education
By Daphne Mack
[Episcopal News Service, New York] Radically welcoming people, overcoming racial boundaries, celebrating American pilgrims of the faith, and inculturation (the intersection of church, culture, and ethnicity) were the subject matters of titles featured at the February 8 Black History Month book signing held at the Catalyst Café and Books in New York City.
The gathering, co-sponsored by Catalyst and the Episcopal Church's Office of Black Ministries, invited the authors to elaborate on the premise of their work and read excerpts from their books.
The authors were the Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and former staff officer for the Episcopal Church's Office of Black Ministries; the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, an Episcopal priest and the Cox Fellow and minister for Radical Welcome at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Massachusetts; the Rev. Craig D. Townsend, an Episcopal priest and associate rector for education at St. James' Church in New York City; the Rev. Christopher L. Webber, an Episcopal priest and author; and the Rev. G. Scott Cady, a Lutheran pastor and the ecumenical officer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94847_ENG_HTM.htm
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Mission director search suspended
[Episcopal News Service] The search for a new director of mission for the Episcopal Church has been suspended while the duties and responsibilities of the position are reviewed in light of the Church Center reorganization currently underway.
Chief Operating Officer Linda Watt informed Executive Council on February 11 that the search for a successor to the Rev. Dr. James Lemler as director of mission has been suspended. Lemler, who served since 2004 as the Episcopal Church's director of mission, resigned in early November after accepting a call from Christ Church, Greenwich, Connecticut, to serve as priest-in-charge of the historic parish.
Watt said that the four newly named directors of the Episcopal Church's Centers for Mission are working well together, and that she and the Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop, are taking up other parts of Lemler's job.
"We think we want to try to do without [the director of mission post] for a while and see how it works," Watt told Council.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94860_ENG_HTM.htm
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Four bishops' renunciations of ministry accepted by Presiding Bishop
By staff
[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has accepted four bishops' renunciation of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, a senior representative of her office has confirmed.
The Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop, said the Presiding Bishop --- in letters dated January 23 and sent to related General Convention, diocesan, pension and deployment offices --- has accepted the renunciation made by David J. Bena, resigned bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y.; Andrew H. Fairfield, resigned bishop of the Fargo-based Diocese of North Dakota; and Howard S. Meeks, resigned bishop of the Diocese of Western Michigan, based near Kalamazoo.
A similar letter was sent January 14 regarding the renunciation made by Jeffrey N. Steenson, resigned bishop of the Diocese of Rio Grande, an Albuquerque-based jurisdiction encompassing New Mexico and a portion of Southwest Texas including El Paso.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_94866_ENG_HTM.htm
More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife
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WORLD REPORT
KENYA: Archbishop of York says country's leaders must resolve dispute http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_94859_ENG_HTM.htm
UNITED KINGDOM: Archbishop hosts China-U.K. seminar on religion and society http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_94853_ENG_HTM.htm
More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm
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MISSION
Minneapolis Cathedral builds partnership with Cuba's Episcopal Church
By Joe Bjordal
[Episcopal News Service] "We need your friendship. We need your presence." These were the words spoken over and over again to the Very Rev. Spenser D. Simrill, dean of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Minneapolis, during a recent visit to Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba (IEC), the Episcopal Church of Cuba.
Eighteen members of the congregation embarked on a 10-day mission trip during Epiphany at the invitation of Bishop Miguel Tamayo of Uruguay and interim bishop of Cuba. It was the third trip by members of St. Mark's in almost as many years.
As part of a deepening relationship between IEC and the Minnesota cathedral, Tamayo also asked the congregation to enter into a formal, long-term relationship.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_94842_ENG_HTM.htm
More Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_ENG_HTM.htm
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MULTIMEDIA
Moving Forward, Welcoming All
[Episcopal Life] The Rev. Canon Robert Moore, the designated interim pastoral presence for the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, preached at a worship service as part of the Moving Forward, Welcoming All gathering January 26 in Hanford, California. House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson addressed more than 350 people at the gathering in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.
Video streams of Moore's sermon and Anderson's address, as well as welcoming remarks from Remain Episcopal President Cindy Smith, are available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80056_ENG_HTM.htm
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OPINION
Giving the full history: Who owned Absalom Jones?
By Timothy B. Safford
[Episcopal Life] Absalom Jones is one of the Episcopal Church's and our nation's most heroic founding fathers, and on February 13, we commemorate blessed Absalom, the first black priest and founder of the first black congregation in the Episcopal Church. Absalom Jones had been born into slavery in 1746 and achieved his own freedom in 1784. But, from whom?
I know it's awkward at this time of celebration to acknowledge the man who enslaved Absalom. But the 2006 General Convention mandated that the Episcopal Church give a "full, faithful and informed account of our history" with slavery. So, the time is right to remember that the man he called "master" for 38 years was Benjamin Wynkoop vestrymen, warden and benefactor of Christ Church and St. Peter's in Philadelphia, our Church's two historic congregations that helped give birth both to the nation and the Episcopal Church. May a fair accounting of Jones' and Wynkoop's history as slave and master provide Episcopalians today with the insight to overcome the legacies of a racist past infecting our society, and beloved Church, still.
Absalom was not given the last name of Jones when born on the plantation of Wynkoop's parents in Sussex, Delaware. At an early age, he was taken from the fields and came to work in the house. When Wynkoop chose to farm no longer, but to make his way as a merchant, he sold Absalom's mother and six siblings, and brought the 16-year-old Absalom as his slave to Philadelphia in 1762.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_94837_ENG_HTM.htm
More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm
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DAYBOOK
On February 13, 2008, the Church remembers Absalom Jones, priest (1746-1818).
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On February 13, 1689, William and Mary were proclaimed co-rulers of England.
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CATALYST
"Race, Racism and the Biblical Narratives" from Augsburg Fortress, by Cain Hope Felder, 54 pages, paperback, c. 2002, $6 [Source: Augsburg Fortress] Felder's important work clarifies the profound differences in racial attitudes in the biblical world and now. He shows processes at work in both testaments that reflect ancient ambiguity about what we call race. He also uncovers misuses of the biblical text (such as the so-called curse of Ham) in subsequent interpretation and shows how the Bible has been used to trivialize African contributions and demean and enslave black people. Felder challenges scholars and church people alike to deeper and more honest engagement with the biblical text.
To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit your local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org
More Catalyst: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/83842_ENG_HTM.htm
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