What happened when a 'holy experiment' was tried

From World Net Daily-

Admiral Sir William Penn of Britain fought the Dutch navy in the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1652-54. He captured Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655. He helped restore Charles II to the British throne.

Admiral Penn helped defeat the Dutch navy in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, 1665-67, resulting in Britain capturing New Amsterdam and renaming it New York.

When the restored British government began enforcing religious conformity at Oxford, Admiral Penn’s son, William Penn, was expelled for praying in his dorm room rather than attending mandatory daily Anglican chapel.

Admiral Penn had high hopes for his son, William Penn, who functioned as an emissary between himself and the King. When young Penn embraced Quaker beliefs, it so dishonored the admiral that he beat him with a cane, drove him out of the house, and had him live in France for several years.

William Penn associated with George Fox, the founder of the Quakers. In 1668, when the government tried to force William Penn to abandon his conscience and religious convictions, he refused and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for eight months. Upon being freed, Penn argued on behalf of the thousands of persecuted and jailed Quakers.

Read more at

http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/what-happened-when-a-holy-experiment-was-tried/#AuPFXRc7iqU4clIH.99

Much ado about bishops: time for a more humane dispensation?

From Ekklesia-


There has been much ado about bishops of late. First, the Church of England's House of Laity rejected the consecration of women, to the consternation of a majority in their own communion and the incredulity of wider society. Then the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster soured the Nativity season - perhaps the tenderest of all our celebrations of the myths of faith - with negativity about same sex love and marriage.

Now, with its statement that civil-partnered gay clergy may become bishops as long as they promise sexual abstinence and renounce their previous sexual activity, the Established Church shows itself to be in a deeply damaging state of confusion about the relationship between civil partnerships and marriage, about faithful and committed relationships, about love and trust, the imposition of impossible conditions and about the nature of a vocation to celibacy.

Ekklesia colleagues who have a far greater knowledge of the ways of the Church of England than I do, have written eloquently of the implications of the House of Bishops' statement. I find myself in sympathy with the child in the probably apocryphal story who, on seeing a bishop in full fig, turned to her mother and said, “Mummy, what is that man for?

More here-

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17764

Friends, Episcopal congregations to share place of worship

From Maine-

When we at Winthrop Center Friends Church first heard of the need for St. Andrew’s to move out of their Readfield church building, we had no idea we might become the place to which they would move.

But in retrospect, we see how we were becoming open to such a possibility. When the question came to us in June, it did not take long for us to offer to share our church home.


A small congregation in a large, beautiful building, we had been holding sessions to try to discern our direction for the past two years.


Our location is no longer the prosperous village it was in 1883. Friends have had a faith community in Winthrop since 1793, their first structure was a 16-foot-by-24-foot building opposite our present site.


We have deep roots here but had felt the need to at least consider relinquishing it in favor of a more populous area and a more energy-efficient building.

More here-

http://www.kjonline.com/Friends-Episcopal-congregations-to-share-place-of-worship.html

A bishop and his campaign for the poor

Dinners in the Johnson household have always been noisy affairs, full of debates about God or curfew time for the kids.

But they begin in silence. Complete silence.

"My wife is a Quaker," explains Toronto Anglican Bishop Colin Johnson of his spouse, Ellen.

"She was, and still is, an active member of the Society of Friends."

Like Anglicanism, the Society of Friends – as Quakers are officially known – is a product of the Reformation, but it took the message of developing a personal relationship with the faith many steps further. It stresses silence over ceremony, and inner reflection over pomp and circumstance.

Learning to accommodate his wife's beliefs goes back to when Johnson and Ellen Smith first met as students at the University of Western Ontario. For a young man newly committed to his Christianity but tempted from the United Church of his youth by the "beauty" he saw in Anglican tradition, it was a difficult time of reflection. Further complicating things was the love blooming with Ellen.

They met in their first week of classes while lining up to audition for the choir. After dating off and on for two years, the two got engaged. But then they called things off because of their religious differences.

"We like to say now that we had our divorce before we got married," laughs Johnson, who has three grown children with his wife. The couple will celebrate their 22nd wedding anniversary in July.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/598444

Now is a good time for Quakers to reassess their priorities and find their tongues, says Michael Wrigh

A commentary from the London Guardian by a former Anglican priest who became a Quaker. He reflects on what the priority of religion should be.

It is easy for faith organisations to get their priorities misplaced - to strain out gnats while swallowing camels, as Jesus vividly put it. When the preoccupation with certain doctrines, traditions and practices blocks the path to spiritual creativity, and turns the focus away from the foundation values of justice, compassion, integrity and peace, it is time to take stock.

I left the Anglican ministry eight years ago because I felt its priorities were awry. It seemed more preoccupied with issues of sexuality than with those highlighted for concern in the gospels: the widow giving her mite, the madman among the tombs, the halt, lame and blind, the victim of robbers, and the wastrel son who returns home a penitent. When a bishop would not ordain our curate because the curate's wife would be participating in the laying-on of hands, I thought the leaders of my part of the church had lost an important part of the plot.

Compassion had taken second place to dogma. I am heartened that the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers), which I then joined, has recently taken stock and identified a set of priorities for the next six years which I can feel committed to. In a new document, Together in Worship and Witness, new ideas are encouraged from anywhere within the society. This bottom-up attitude is a Quaker characteristic, coupled with an emphasis on evaluating ideas with discernment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/06/faith-quaker