ACNS 4768 Weekly Review 15-21 January, 2011

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Posted On : January 22, 2011 9:45 PM | Posted By : Admin ACO
ACNS: http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2011/1/22/ACNS4768
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A weekly roundup of Anglican Communion news plus
opinion, reviews, photos, profiles and other
things of interest from across the Anglican/Episcopal world.

> This edition includes...

·       This week's Anglican Communion news

·       Anglican Life - Decades old Communion
clergy house-swap service soon open to lay ministers
·       Anglican Life - Daughters of the King group established in India
·       Anglican Life - Church of Ireland bishop
preaches in Roman Catholic church
·       Video - Flying Angel appeal for seafarers
·       Comment ? Some good news out of Egypt's bad news
·       Publication of the Week - Church &
Society in Asia today: The Christian Response to Islam
·       Bookshelf - The history of the Anglican Church in Ghana.
·       The coming week's Anglican Cycle of Prayer.

> ________________

> ANGLICAN NEWS

·       Australia - The echo of God's love in the
midst of tragedy - An address by the Australian Primate
·       Rwanda - Archbishop Kolini: "Steer Education, Health and Developm 
ent"
·       England - Bishop Pritchard concerned for Iranian exiles
·       Ireland - Church of Ireland ?dismayed? by
attempts to change Sunday trading regulations
·       New Zealand - NZ priests head to help in flood-ravaged Queensland
·       England - New Secretary for Inter
Religious Affairs for Church of England
·       England - Ideas needed for man-friendly churches
·       New Zealand - ANZP clergy prepared to help flood victims
·       Brazil - Church in solidarity with
vicitms of flooding disaster in SE Brazil
·       Brazil - IEAB em solidariedade com as
vítimas das enchentes e deslizamentos

> _______________

> ANGLICAN LIFE

[Global] Communion clergy holiday house-swap service to be extended to lait 
y.

> By ACNS staff

An online service that helps Anglican Communion
clergy take affordable holidays by house-swapping
is being opened up to Anglican Church lay
ministry employees on a trial basis this year.

EVEnetOnline is the online presence of the

Episcopal Vacation Exchange Network that has been
facilitating the exchange of homes among
Anglican/Episcopal clergy on a not-for-profit
basis since 1981 under the volunteer leadership
of several clergy.  The Rev. Ken Howard, rector
(and founding vicar) St. Nicholas Episcopal
Church in Germantown, Maryland, and author of a
new book (Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community
Beyond Us and Them), took the leadership of in
2003 and created the EVEnetOnline website early in 2004.

EVEnet is operated entirely online. Participants
submit an e-mail application form which describes
their family, their homes, and their vacation
plans. These descriptions are consolidated into a
single online newsletter, the link to which will
be e-mailed to all participants. Participants
then contact each other directly to negotiate vacation plans.

"EVEnet has been a God-send to many clergy people
whose salaries might not otherwise permit them to
take vacations involving significant travel," said the Rev. Howard.

He explained that the initiative is taking full
advantage of social media with a both a Twitter
account http://www.twitter.com/EVEnetTW and a
Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/EVEnetOnline. The hope is
that these channels will help counter the slight
drop in people offering their homes for exchange
this year and that, ultimately, more and more
members of the Communion will hear about the scheme and join in.

"The EVEnet Online Vacation Exchange Newsletter
is now open for viewing by those who have
submitted proposed Vacation Home Exchanges in
2011," he said. "The reason we are opening the
online listings a little later than usual is that
applications have been arriving more slowly this
year than in previous years (probably due to
continuing economic uncertainties.) It took until
January 1 to get a sufficient number of listings
to open the exchange. Still, we would all benefit
from additional listings, so please pass along
information on EVEnet to your colleagues around
the worldwide Anglican Communion.

For more information about EVEnet contact The
Rev. Ken Howard (coordinator)
at  EVEnetOnline@gmail.com, visit the website at http://bit.ly/EVEnetOnline.

[Ireland] Church of Ireland bishop preaches in RC
churches for Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2011

This week, the Most Revd Dr Richard Clarke,

Bishop of Meath & Kildare and President of the
Irish Council of Churches spoke at St Peter?s
Roman Catholic Cathedral, Belfast, and St
Patrick?s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Armagh. He
did so as part of the Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity, an annual event in which many
Christians become more aware of the great diversity of ways of adoring God.

Hearts are touched, and people realize that their
neighbours' ways are not so different.
Traditionally celebrated between 18-25 January
(in the northern hemisphere) or at Pentecost (in
the southern hemisphere), the Week of Prayer
affects congregations and parishes all over the
world. Pulpits are exchanged, and special
ecumenical worship services are arranged.

In his sermon, Bishop Clarke called for greater
ecumenical sharing in the celebration of Baptism,
studying the Word of God and in pastoral care, both ordained and lay.

> Extracts from Bishop Clarke?s address:

?It is not advanced psychology to say that people
will not willingly change - will not move ?
unless they are deeply and sincerely dissatisfied
with where they are and there seems to be no
alternative but to leave where they are. We have
to ask the question on an evening like this as to
whether we are satisfied with where we stand at
present, as splintered traditions within the Body
of Christ, whose witness to the country in which
we live is undoubtedly being compromised and even
demeaned by our disunity. If we are satisfied
with where we are, then the basic integrity of an
occasion such as this is most called into the most serious question.

??Virtually all the Christian traditions that
have a sacramental tradition recognise the
baptism of other traditions as being baptism into
the One Body of Christ, and hence something which
transcends the limitations of our own particular
tradition of the Church ? Would a statement of
the deepest of all unity not be made if at the
celebration of baptism in one particular
tradition (in other words even on occasions where
we were not speaking of parents belonging to
different traditions), members of other Christian
traditions were there by proper and official
invitation to celebrate the event, representing
the wider Church, so that the reality of the
entire Body of Christ was symbolised in the
celebration? It clearly could not be a feature of
every baptism in every church building, but if we
believe (as indeed we claim to believe in our
creeds) in One Baptism, here is an opportunity to
proclaim a unity that we already have in Christ.

?We [should] make it a principle, so far as we
can, that as Christians we will not study the
Word of God in denominational isolation from one
another, separate from members of other Christian
traditions. No Christian tradition owns the Word
of God, and no Christian tradition has a monopoly
on the right interpretation of the Word of God.
All of us are called to sit humbly under the
judgment of the Word. Surely we are called to sit
together under the Word of God. There are indeed
bible study groups that are ecumenical in scope,
but this should be the only type of group that
studies the Scriptures in fellowship.

??There is another step that we should be able to
take structurally as well as haphazardly ?
pastoral care of others in the name of Christ.
?There is, I am sure, no priest or pastor of any
tradition, who has not felt moved and humbled
when asked directly to give a blessing to a
Christian of another tradition, whether in a
hospital ward or in a place of bereavement or
even in a friend?s house. ?[Can we ] take the
simple step of committing pastoral care of some
people to those of different Christian tradition
that their own. It is not an anomaly when it
happens. It should be both common sense and good
ecumenism. The pastoral care of God?s people (and
by that I mean all God?s people, both inside and
outside the man-made walls of the institutional
Church) should never be restricted in any way. It
can certainly be made more effective.?

Bishop Clarke concluded, ??The only motivation,
the only dynamic for our moving out into an
ecumenical future that will be an adventure
rather than a duty, is love, the love of God for
each one of us and, in response to that perfect
love, our true love for one another.?

[USA & India] First ever Order of the Daughters
of the King group established in India.

By Grace Sears, President of The Order of the Daughters of the King

The first chapter of The Order of the Daughters
of the King in India was instituted in the
Diocese of Durgapur (Church of North India) at
the end of last year. The Order of the Daughters
of the King is an association of women founded in
the Episcopal Church in 1885. More than 20,000
Daughters in the US and more than 2,500 in other
countries have taken vows to pray daily, serve,
witness, and wear the cross of Christ their King.

Seven women took their vows at St. Michael?s, an
English-speaking church in the diocesan compound
of The Rt. Rev. Probal Kanto Dutta. Shawnee
Irwin, of the Episcopal Diocese of North
Carolina, had begun the 12-chapter study guide
with them in February, and St. Michael?s priest,
the Rev. Swagata Das, shepherded the women through the rest of their study.

The Daughters of Faith at St. Michael?s are
noteworthy not only because they are the first
known Daughters of the King chapter to form in
India in the Order?s 126-year history, but also
because the chapter originated in the companion
relationship between the Diocese of Durgapur and
the Diocese of Western North Carolina. At the Rt.
Rev. Porter Taylor?s request, the Rev. Clara
Berry had e-mailed bishops across the Anglican
Communion, looking for a diocese that did not
already have a companion and would be interested
in forming a relationship with Western North
Carolina. Bishop Prabol Dutta responded almost
immediately. The Rev. Ann Fritschner, who
accompanied Bishop Taylor and Deacon Clara on an
exploratory visit to Durgapur in 2005, was
especially impressed with the women there. She
suggested that her diocese could share the
ministry of the Daughters of the King with the women of Durgapur.

When Bishop Dutta visited North Carolina, Deacon
Annie introduced him to the chapter at St.
Phillips, Brevard, where she was serving. Bishop
Dutta then suggested forming a chapter at St.
Michael?s, Durgapur, and the Rev. Swagata Das,
St. Michael?s priest, brought a group together,
including Rita Dutta, the bishop?s wife. Shawnee
Irwin, a Daughter from the St. Monica Chapter in
Brevard, volunteered to travel to Durgapur in
January 2010 and begin the 12-chapter study with
the interested women at St. Michael?s. Another
Daughter, the Rev. Janet Echols, flew over from
Pune, India, to meet with them also.

This fall [Autumn] the women at St. Michael?s
completed their study, applied for a charter, and
took their vows. At the end of January Shawnee
Irwin will present the Daughters of Faith charter
to the Rev. Swagata Das and Bishop Dutta at the
annual thanksgiving service of the Durgapur
diocese, where attendance is expected to be three or four thousand.

Durgapur is an industrial city of approximately
500,000 known for steel production; the
population of the region is primarily Hindu, with
a significant number of tribal peoples, who are
typically animists. Bishop Dutta maintains an
active outreach ministry among the tribal groups.

Grace Sears, PhD, is the current president of The
Order of the Daughters of the King. The Order?s
business office is located in Woodstock, Georgia;
the website is http://www.doknational.com.

> _______________

> VIDEO

The Mission to Seafarer's Flying Angel a lifeline for sailors stuck out at  
sea

The Flying Angel is a vessel built and funded by
charitable gift. It?s purpose is to provide
seafarers at anchor off the coast of Fujairah,
UAE, with vital contact with family and friends.
The Flying Angel project was conceived by The
Rev?d. Stephen Miller Director of the Mission to
Seafarers (MTS) in Dubai, UAE  - an organisation
that cares for seafarers regardless of race or
religion in over 300 ports around the world.
Around 95% percent of all world trade is
transported by sea, which in turn depends on the
seafarers who crew the world?s fleet. In the UAE
however, over 99.3% of all goods arrive by ship

Launched 28th February 2007 by England's HRH
Prince Charles, Motor Vessel Flying Angel (M/V
Flying Angel) now gives comfort to thousands of
seafarers who often go through long periods of
isolation, loneliness and separation from their
families in order to bring us the goods we depend
upon in our daily lives at home and at work. We
depend upon seafarers in our daily lives, help us to support them

Watch a BBC video about the work of the Flying
Angel here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10751921

Visit the website of the Mission to Seafarers at
http://www.missiontoseafarers.org/  and the
Flying Angel project at http://www.angelappeal.com/index.php

> _______________

> COMMENT

> Some good news out of Egypt's bad news

By Rev. Canon Paul-Gordon Chandler on Episcopal News Service

Many Americans have heard of the recent terrorist
suicide bombing at a church here in Egypt. In the
midst of this tragedy and resulting tensions,
there are some hopeful signs that are often not
presented in the media's coverage. On New Year's
Day, just after midnight, a bomb exploded outside
a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, just as
worshipers were beginning to leave the church.
Twenty-one were instantly killed (four others
died later) and more than 90 were seriously wounded.

Since last October, al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq
have threatened to attack churches in Egypt.
Despite increased security by Egyptian police at
the more than 3,000 churches in Egypt, it is
humanly impossible to prevent ill-intentioned
incidents like that in Alexandria on New Year's Day.
Following the bombing, many frustrated Egyptian
Christians across the country took to the streets
in anger and significant violence.

Many already sense they are discriminated against
as a minority in Egypt's majority Muslim country.
And due to the various incidents of attacks on
Christians in the past few years, and the general
economic crisis, all this frustration finally erupted with this recent atta 
ck.

Church leaders were greatly distressed by the
violence and anger expressed by mobs of
Christians around the country and worked hard to
calm this reaction, pointing out that it is
against the spirit of forgiveness and peace of
Christ. The majority of Muslims have expressed
deep sorrow about what happened in Alexandria.

Last Thursday, the night of Feast of the Epiphany
(January 6), when Coptic Christians across Egypt
celebrated Eastern Christmas, while many people
were afraid, church attendance this year was most
probably greater than ever before. Amazingly,
there is a considerable movement throughout Egypt
among Muslims to stand in solidarity with the
Christians at this time, and many Muslims
therefore attended the services with Christians,
to show unity with them and to send a message to
terrorists that if they attack churches they will
be harming Muslims as well as Christians. Also,
hundreds of Muslim government officials were at Coptic churches last Thursd 
ay.

To help give some context, the Christian minority
(up to 12 percent) in Egypt is unique in that it
represents a remnant of the original Egyptians
(descendents of the pharaohs) and traces their
heritage to the gospel writer St. Mark, the first
bishop of Alexandria. While many Christians in
Egypt are slum dwellers or poor villagers,
numerous Christian business persons have thrived
and it is estimated that they now control nearly 30 percent of Egypt's weal 
th.

In spite of the great difficulty in getting

permission to build new churches, dozens of new
church buildings are opened every year and
churches are flourishing with growing numbers of
weekly worshippers. While Christians in Egypt
experience hardship as a minority or often feel
that they are "second class" citizens, they are
nevertheless a thriving community. One of the
primary challenges at this time is the escalating
tension within the country between the vocal
advocates of an Islamic State and the majority
moderate Muslims and Christians who are working
peacefully within the present legal system for a
more balanced democracy which respects human
rights for all. In response to this tragedy,
coalitions are being formed between the faith
communities and actions are being planned to seek
ways to increase solidarity, to bring greater
peace to the nation and to ensure full citizenship be applied to all Egypti 
ans.

As a mission partner of the Episcopal Church,
serving here within the Episcopal Diocese of
Egypt & North Africa, we personally feel very
safe. This last weekend our church, St. John's
Church, had many machined-gunned security forces
in front of it that have been sent by the
government to protect our church, for which we are grateful.

Times such as these remind us of one of the main
reasons we are here in Cairo, to build bridges of
peace, understanding and friendship between
Muslims and Christians through our work at St.
John's and all its various interfaith projects.

In the wake of this suicide bombing, we will be
hosting in February 2011 our interfaith CARAVAN
Festival of the Arts, bringing together 45
premier Arab and Western artists -- with the goal
of building bridges between Muslims and
Christians, through the visual arts, literature,
film and music. It will be held our church, St.
John's, and officially opened by the Grand Imam
of Al Azhar in Cairo, Sheik Ahmed el Tayeb, the
intellectual and spiritual heart of Sunni Islam,
and Reza Aslan, the New York Times best-selling
author. For more information visit: www.oncaravan.org.

-- The Rev. Canon Paul-Gordon Chandler, mission
partner with the Episcopal Church, is an author,
Episcopal priest, and interfaith advocate serving
as the Rector of St. John's Church in Cairo
(www.maadichurch.org / www.paulgordonchandler.com).

> _______________

> PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

Church & Society in Asia Today ? Vol 13 No 2 ? August 2010

Christian Responses to Islam: A Struggle for the Soul of Christianity
By John Azumah

One of the crucial issues facing Christians today
is finding the right balance in our response to
Islam and engagement with Muslims. The quest for
an appropriate Christian response to Islam has
sadly polarized Christians along ?evangelical?
versus ?ecumenical?, ?truth? versus ?grace?,
?tough? versus ?soft? or ?confrontational? versus
?conciliatory? lines. Christians accuse each
other of spreading fear about Islam and
engendering hostility towards Muslims
(Islamophobia) on the one hand, and naïvely going
soft on and becoming apologists for Islam
(Islamophilia) on the other. In the wake of the
9/11 attacks, the Iraq war, the Madrid bombings,
7/7, etc, the division amongst Christians has
deepened. But this division regarding a Christian
approach to Islam is as old as Islam itself. Kate
Zebiri chronicles the different approaches down
the centuries and makes the point that In
contrast to the Muslim view of Christianity, in
the absence of any clear scriptural mandate there
has never been, and there in the nature of things
never could be, a unified or official Christian
attitude towards Islam? Paradoxically, the lack
of specific scriptural restraints accounts in
part for both the greater virulence of Christian
anti-Islamic polemic in the medieval period, and
the greater flexibility and openness in the contemporary period.

Reflecting on the post 9/11 and 7/7 situation of
Christian responses to Islam, Joseph Cumming
talks of a titanic struggle, a struggle not
between Muslims and Christians, Christian
Responses to Islam: A Struggle for the Soul of
Christianity a struggle not between Islam and the
West, but ?a struggle within Christianity itself,
a struggle for the soul of the Christian faith?.

> Cumming suggests that Islam per se is not
> necessarily the greatest challenge facing
> Christians today, but rather how Christians
> choose to respond to Islam. One of the biggest
> sources of the misunderstanding and mudslinging
> amongst Christians regarding an approach to Islam
> and engagement with Muslims is that Islam is
> often spoken about and presented as a monolithic
> entity. It is common to read or hear statements
> like, ?Islam says or teaches X, Y, Z?; ?Islam
> does not permit or teach X, Y, Z?. Such
> statements are rather misleading as they assume
> that there is one unified system of belief called ?Islam?.

To read the full article, visit the Anglican
Communion's Network for Interfaith Concerns page here to download the PDF

> _______________

> BOOKSHELF

The Anglican Story in Ghana - From Mission beginnings to province of Ghana

The Rev. Canon Professor Emeritus John Samuel Pobee

The Anglican Church, by virtue of being the

Christian communion most closely tied to the
colonial history of the West Africa sub
continent, could be said to be the oldest
historic mission ecclesial body within the
region. Emeritus Professor Canon John Samuel
Pobee's work The Anglican Story in Ghana is the
only published full length monograph of Ghanaian
Anglicanism since Church of England missionaries
first set foot on the soils of the then Gold
Coast in the middle of the 18th century. It is a
historical account that features insights into
the work and activities of the various dioceses
of the Anglican Church including their
contributions to education, social evangelism and
education in particular. Each chapter is
illustrated with pictures of key personnel dating back to the colonial era.

http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/the-anglican-story-in-ghana

> ________________

ANGLICAN CYCLE OF PRAYER Click here for the full ACP

> Friday 21-Jan-2011
> Psalm: 24: 1-6    Eph. 6: 10-24
> Long Island - (Province II, USA) The Rt Revd Lawrence Provenzano

> Saturday 22-Jan-2011
> Psalm: 98: 1-4    Isa. 45: 9-13
> Los Angeles - (Province VIII, USA) The Rt Revd Joseph Jon Bruno
> 1. Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles - (Province
> VIII, USA) The Rt Revd Mary D Glasspool
> 2. Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles - (Province
> VIII, USA) The Rt Revd Diane Jardine Bruce

> Sunday 23-Jan-2011     The Epiphany 3
> Psalm: 34: 4-10    I Cor. 1: 1-9
> Louisiana - (Province IV, USA) The Rt Revd Maurice Thompson

> Monday 24-Jan-2011
> Psalm: 34: 11-18    I Cor. 1: 10-25
> Luapula - (Central Africa) The Rt Revd Robert Mumbi

Tuesday 25-Jan-2011     The Conversion of St Paul Ecumenical
Psalm: 33: 12-14,19-end    I Cor. 1: 26-2:5
PRAY for the ordering of our life together, that
in all things we may show the glory of God.

> Wednesday 26-Jan-2011
> Psalm: 145: 10-17    I Cor. 2: 6-16
> Lucknow - (North India) The Rt Revd Anil R Stephen

> Thursday 27-Jan-2011
> Psalm: 62    I Cor. 3: 1-9
> Lui - (Sudan) The Rt Revd

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