wfn.org | [ELD] Conservative Anglicans due to announce new province / Make Israel-Palestinian peace a priority

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal Life Daily
>December 3, 2008

>Episcopal Life Online is available at
>http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife.

>Today's Episcopal Life Daily includes:

* TOP STORY - Conservative Anglicans due to announce new province
* TOP STORY - Make Israel-Palestinian peace a priority, Christian
leaders tell President-elect Obama
* TOP STORY - Compass Rose Society hears Archbishop of Canterbury review
Communion's work, Lambeth Conference
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - LOS ANGELES: Live webcast with Presiding Bishop to
feature economic issues
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: Diocese eases parish obligations
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - QUINCY: Diocese begins to reorganize after split
* WORLD REPORT - ENGLAND: Church leaders respond to Congo's humanitarian
catastrophe
* ARTS - Dramatic reading recalls church's Oregon roots
* CALENDAR - Upcoming special events and services
* SPIRITUAL REFLECTION - Second Sunday in Advent - Year B
* DAYBOOK - December 4, 2008: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* CATALYST - The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About
Jesus' Birth

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Conservative Anglicans due to announce new province

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] Members of several self-identified Anglican
organizations were due to announce on the evening of December 3 the
formation of what they are calling a new Anglican province in North
America.
Leaders of the Common Cause Partnership have said they will release the
draft constitution of what they called "an emerging Anglican Church in
North America" during a worship service at Wheaton Evangelical Free
Church in the suburban Chicago community of Wheaton, Illinois at 7:30
p.m. CST.

The release said that the leaders would also "formally subscribe" to the
Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)
and affirm GAFCON's Statement on the Global Anglican Future (both
available here) during the service. The release added that "all
Anglicans in attendance" will be able to "individually subscribe to the
Declaration and affirm the Statement."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_103344_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Make Israel-Palestinian peace a priority, Christian leaders tell
President-elect Obama

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has
joined 39 other U.S. Christian leaders in calling on President-elect
Barack Obama to make lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority during
his first year in office.

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), of which the Episcopal Church is
a member, is circulating the leaders' December 1 letter which is being
sent to Obama's transition team.

Signed by leaders from the Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical, Orthodox,
and Protestant traditions, the letter urges Obama's incoming
administration to "provide sustained, high-level diplomatic leadership
toward the clear goal" of establishing a viable Palestinian state
alongside a secure Israel. It also points out that delaying the
implementation of a peace accord between Palestinians and Israelis
places additional burdens on the lives of the Christians remaining in
the region.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_103365_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

Compass Rose Society hears Archbishop of Canterbury review Communion's
work, Lambeth Conference

[Compass Rose Society] Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told the
annual meeting of the Compass Rose Society (CRS) in November that the
tensions within the Anglican Communion are not going to be resolved any
time soon. "Deep wounds heal slowly," Williams told members of the CRS,
which supports the ministries of the Archbishop of Canterbury by
providing annual financial support and enhancing communication within
the communion. 

The Archbishop spoke at length about last summer's Lambeth Conference of
bishops and viewed a "photo cinema" presentation of Lambeth images from
the Anglican Communion Office's communications department. The Most Rev.
Clive Handford, former primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and
Bishop Victoria Matthews of Christchurch in the Anglican Church in
Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, offered an update of the work of
the Windsor Continuation Group and matters relating to the Anglican
covenant.

Holding its annual meeting in Canterbury, the society heard Williams
review the year's events and pledged continuing support for his ministry
throughout the communion. The group also attended a major fundraising
event for the Canterbury Cathedral restoration appeal and heard its
dean, the Very Rev. Robert Willis, speak about the cathedral's vision
for the next decade.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_103335_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/elife

>_____________________

>DIOCESAN DIGEST

LOS ANGELES: Live webcast with Presiding Bishop to feature economic
issues

Harvard's Richard Parker will introduce lecture

>By Janet Kawamoto

[Episcopal News Service, Los Angeles] In a live webcast on December 6,
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will deliver the first
Margaret Parker Memorial Lecture focusing on "Peace and Justice Through
the Empowerment of Women."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_103353_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA: Diocese eases parish obligations

>By Jim DeLa

[Episcopal News Service, Sarasota, Fla.] Anticipating that economic hard
times will persist in 2009, the Diocese of Southwest Florida is giving
congregations its own version of a one-year economic stimulus package by
lowering apportionment payments by 20 percent.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_103357_ENG_HTM.htm

>- - - - -

QUINCY: Diocese begins to reorganize after split

>By Joe Bjordal

[Episcopal News Service] Members of the Diocese of Quincy who want to
remain loyal to the Episcopal Church will meet on December 13 to take
the first formal steps to reorganize and reconstitute the diocese.
Attendees plan to organize a steering committee to guide the process and
lay the groundwork for a special synod meeting, likely to be held in
January, when a standing committee will be elected and preparations to
accept a provisional bishop will begin.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_103356_ENG_HTM.htm

More Diocesan news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

ENGLAND: Church leaders respond to Congo's humanitarian catastrophe

[Episcopal News Service] The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal
Archbishop of Westminster, Commissioner Betty Matear of the Salvation
Army and Bishop Nathan Hovhanissian of the Armenian Church have released
a statement in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in the eastern
part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Full statement: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_103321_ENG_HTM.htm

More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>ARTS

Dramatic reading recalls church's Oregon roots

>By Jerry Hames

[Episcopal Life] The spirit of Reuben Denton Nevius, a pioneer Episcopal
priest who traveled the Northwest during the 1870s, building churches
and establishing congregations wherever he went, revisited the Diocese
of Eastern Oregon's convention recently during the celebration of its
centenary.

The occasion was a "reader's theater," a dramatic reading staged in St.
Stephen's Episcopal Church in Baker City, one of the six churches in
this diocese that were built by Nevius more than 125 years ago. The role
he had in planting churches throughout Oregon, eastern Washington, Idaho
and eventually Alaska, is legendary among the people here.

A native of upstate New York, Nevis moved west from Alabama after his
wife and children died from Yellow Fever in 1870. After a brief,
unsuccessful time as dean of Trinity Cathedral in Portland, he was urged
by Oregon's Bishop Benjamin Wistar Morris to "go east." 

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_103351_ENG_HTM.htm

More Arts: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81827_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>CALENDAR

A round-up of upcoming special events, services, concerts and diocesan
conventions taking place throughout the Episcopal Church is available at
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/calendar.htm

>_____________________

>SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS

>Second Sunday in Advent - Year B

Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2,8-13;2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

>By Frank S. Logue

[Sermons That Work] We encounter two voices crying out from the
wilderness on this Second Sunday of Advent. The prophet Isaiah calls,
"Comfort, O Comfort My People," and John the Baptist shouts, "Prepare
the Way of the Lord." These stories are joined by more than the
prophetic voice. In both our gospel reading and the reading from Isaiah,
we take up a story after a significant gap of time.

The gospel reading for this morning was the opening eight verses of the
Gospel of Mark. And after a brief preamble, in which the evangelist
writes, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God," letting us know what sort of story we are going to hear, we get a
quote from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah foretold of one who would come to
make straight the paths before the coming of the Lord. Then, so there
will be no mistake about who this text refers to, Mark introduces the
wild and wooly prophet of the New Testament, whom he calls John the
Baptizer.

This is how Mark bridges the distance of roughly five centuries. Mark
reduces that time gap of half a millennium by following the words of the
prophet Isaiah with the words of John the Baptist. In doing so, Mark
reveals that the story of God's love, begun in the creation, is ongoing.
As it was foretold long ago, so now God's story takes up anew with the
Good News of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

Full reflection: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82478_103281_ENG_HTM.htm

More Spiritual Reflections:

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

On December 4, 2008, the church calendar remembers John of Damascus,
priest (c. 760).

* 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 December 4, 1930, in response to the Anglican
Lambeth Conference, which approved birth control, Pope Pius XI issued
the encyclical Casti connubii
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11CASTI.HTM)

>_____________________

>CATALYST

"The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus' Birth"
from HarperCollins Publishers, by Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan,
258 pages, hardcover, c. 2007, $22.95

[HarperCollins Publishers] In The First Christmas, two of today's top
Jesus scholars, Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, join forces to
show how history has biased our reading of the nativity story as it
appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. As they did for Easter in
their previous book, The Last Week, here they explore the beginning of
the life of Christ, peeling away the sentimentalism that has built up
over the last two thousand years around this most well known of all
stories to reveal the truth of what the gospels actually say. Borg and
Crossan help us to see this well-known narrative afresh by answering the
question, "What do these stories mean?" in the context of both the first
century and the 21st century. They successfully show that the Christmas
story, read in its original context, is far richer and more challenging
than people imagine.

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