Draft order calls for Bruno to be suspended from ministry for three years

From ENS-

The hearing panel considering disciplinary action against Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno has drafted an order calling for his suspension from ordained ministry for three years because of misconduct.

The five-member panel concluded in a 4-1 decision that “the scope and severity of Bishop Bruno’s misconduct … have unjustly and unnecessarily disturbed the ministry of a mission of the Church.”
The 91-page draft order specifically rejects calls for Bruno to be deposed, or removed, from ordained ministry. It says that during the three-year suspension Bruno could not exercise any authority over “the real or personal property or temporal affairs of the Church.” A three-year suspension would take Bruno beyond his mandatory retirement date in November 2018, when he turns 72.

The draft order, which is not final, also urges the diocese to let the members of St. James the Great return to their Newport Beach, California, building.

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2017/07/24/draft-order-calls-for-bruno-to-be-suspended-from-ministry-for-three-years/

EVANGELICALS: THE MISSING PIECE IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

From The Living Church-

Episcopal evangelicals are a species seldom seen these days. This isn’t new; on the American shore we’ve had a bit of a bumpy ride ever since the 18th century, beginning with the departure of Methodists, and then the independence of the American Colonies. Yet for much of the 19th century evangelicals were the force to be reckoned with, until Tractarians, Ritualists, and Rationalism became too much for them. One-third of all congregations opted in favor of the newly formed Reformed Episcopal Church.

While evangelical Anglicanism continued to flourish around the world, until the 1960s classic evangelicals were barely visible here. This was until the Fellowship of Witness came into being under the guidance of Anglo-Australian scholar Philip Edgcumbe Hughes and Peter Moore, then the Director of FOCUS (Fellowship of Christians in Universities and Schools). John Guest and John Howe, both then at St. Stephen’s, Sewickley, Pennsylvania, were cheerleaders and a lot more. This accelerated an evangelical renaissance: Trinity (Episcopal) School for Ministry was founded, SAMS (now the Society for Anglican Mission and Sending) came into being, and the Canterbury Trail was rapidly becoming a well-trodden path.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/07/25/evangelicals-the-missing-piece-in-the-episcopal-church/

Former Anglican bishop finds a home in the Catholic Church

From Catholic World Report-

Monsignor Keith Newton, 65, is the ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, headquartered in London, England. The ordinariate was established in 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI; its purpose is to reunite Anglicans with Rome while preserving elements of their distinctive Anglican patrimony.

Msgr. Newton was a bishop in the Church of England before being received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 2011. Shortly after, he was ordained a priest and appointed to lead the ordinariate. As he explained, “I have the authority of a bishop, but because I am married, I am not able to be ordained a bishop.” He and his wife Gill have three adult children.

The ordinariate has 90 priests, 11 transitional deacons, and five permanent deacons serving 35 congregations throughout England, Wales, and Scotland. Some of its clergy serve their congregations full-time, others also work in diocesan parishes or as chaplains in hospitals, prisons, and schools.


More here-


http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/07/23/former-anglican-bishop-finds-a-home-in-the-catholic-church/

Ex-altar boy files sex suit against Portland church

From Oregon-

 A former altar boy at a Portland church has filed a $3.1 million lawsuit against the church contending he was repeatedly sexually abused by a choir director in the early 1960s.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the Portland man now in his late 60s contends in the lawsuit that the abuse took place at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.

The lawsuit filed Thursday accuses former choir director Jay Shisler of sexually abusing the man when he was a boy of 11 and 12 years old. Shisler died in 2001 at age 60.

More here-

http://nbc4i.com/2017/07/23/ex-altar-boy-files-sex-suit-against-portland-church/

Activists Plan Pot-Burning Ceremony Inside D.C. Basilica During Eclipse

From The "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department. (D.C.)

A group that believes there is an ancient and little-known connection between Christianity and cannabis plans to burn oil full of psychoactive cannabinoids inside the nation's largest Roman Catholic church during the solar eclipse on August 21.

Anne Armstrong, a longtime cannabis activist and leader of Rhode Island’s Healing Church, says she will be shocked if the group’s request for a chapel is denied by the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

Armstrong believes that “the church will say, ‘Welcome, Deaconess Anne, and what room would you like?’” But if she cannot reserve space, Armstrong says she will simply walk in and use a vacant nook off the cavernous building's central nave.

“It’s a big place, it’s a Monday afternoon,” she says, predicting turnout of about 75 people. "We don't need the basilica's permission to have a prayer service in a chapel."

Armstrong says infused olive oil will be put at the bottom of a metal censer and topped with incense for use during a prayer service. "We're timing it to coincide with the eclipse, there's a lot of interesting astrological things going on," she says.

More here-

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-07-18/believers-plan-cannabis-burning-event-at-dc-basilica-during-eclipse?src=usn_fb

Facing Episcopal Church Decline

From The Living Church- (Best analysis I've seen)

New analysis by Dr. Jeremy Bonner, a Durham-based researcher, offers clarity on the numerical fortunes of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the USA in recent decades. Discussions of TEC’s numerical fortunes usually take place within the context of its divisions, with the result that clarity is often the first casualty. Using a range of measures, looking across a long period of time, and supplemented by the latest data from TEC, Bonner’s work offers an academically robust picture of what has been happening to the main Anglican church in the United States. This is highly significant for American Anglicans, but also for the wider Communion.

Numbers are not the be-all and end-all, but they do matter. If we believe Christian faith is good news, we should be seeking its proliferation, and be worried when it shrinks. Ignoring uncomfortable numbers does no good. Indeed, it only means the problems will have increased by the time we face the true state of affairs.

This article examines TEC using a range of measures, then explores how TEC compares with other denominations. Finally, it offers comments on the causes of these shifts and their wider significance.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/07/24/facing-episcopal-church-decline/

Anglican Church stops pastor’s wedding after lady allegedly accused him of dating and dumping her

From Nigeria-

Yesterday in Abakaliki, the wedding between Rev. Elvis Opune of All Saints Anglican Cathedral and Grace Chika Olunze of Umuchoke Mbaitolu, Imo State was aborted by the authorities of the church over alleged double dating.

Opune, his bride, and guests had seated inside the church ultra-modern building at 9.30am for the wedding when one of the priests, Ven. Kingsley Okoro, came in to announce that the wedding will no longer hold and asked everyone in the church to leave.

Okoro, who said that the directive to stop the wedding came from ‘above’, did not, however, disclose the reason for the cancellation of the wedding. The cancellation shocked the parishioners, guests and priests inside the church as they came out and started discussing the matter in groups.

One of the parishioners, who simply gave her name as Helen, however, told Sunday Vanguard that Opune had been accused of dating a girl. The girl was said to have lodged a complaint on Friday night that the priest was dating her and dumped her after promising her marriage.

More here-

http://www.lailasblog.com/2017/07/anglican-church-stops-pastors-wedding-alleged-double-dating.html

Episcopal bishop faces suspension over efforts to sell Newport Beach church

From The LA Times-

An Episcopal Church disciplinary panel has recommended a three-year suspension for the bishop who locked worshippers out of St. James the Great church in Newport Beach after a failed sale attempt two years ago.

The panel also recommended that the shuttered church be restored to its displaced members.

The tentative ruling, which came down late Friday afternoon, determined that the Right Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, was guilty of all allegations brought against him by the congregation during a hearing the panel conducted in March: that he attempted to sell consecrated property without consent of diocesan leadership, that he made several misrepresentations along the way and that he acted in a manner unbecoming of a clergyman.

The Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees, St. James the Great’s vicar, who has continued to minister to its members, could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

More here-

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-bishop-suspension-20170722-story.html

also here-

https://www.episcopalcafe.com/hearing-panel-to-recommend-suspension-of-ministry-for-bruno/

Disciples of Christ Elects First Black Female Leader of an American Protestant Denomination

From Christian Post-

The Disciples of Christ have elected an African-American woman to head their church, a first for any Mainline Protestant denomination.

At their biennial General Assembly meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, church representatives overwhelmingly approved on Sunday the election of the Rev. Teresa Hord Owens.

The installation service for Owens was held on Wednesday at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.

Cherilyn Williams, spokeswoman for the Disciples of Christ's Office of General Minister and President, told The Christian Post that the atmosphere for the General Assembly vote was "joyful and hopeful."

"There was no opposition stated in the business session where she was elected and the social media has been overwhelmingly positive," said Williams.

More here-

http://www.christianpost.com/news/disciples-christ-elects-first-black-female-leader-american-protestant-denomination-192009/

Vatican Journal Jousts Against Imaginary ‘Ecumenism of Hate’ in America

From National Catholic Register (Original article is at link below)-

I was surprised by a recent piece of extended commentary in La Civiltà Cattolica, the Jesuit newspaper that functions as a quasi-official mouthpiece for the Vatican.
Written by the editor in chief, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, and Argentinean edition editor Rev. Marcelo Figueroa, “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism” is a collection of uninformed assertions spiced with malice. It argues that Protestant and Catholic support for American conservatism amounts to an “ecumenism of hate.”

It’s hard to take this seriously. Father Spadaro and Figueroa seem to know very little about the history of religion and politics in the United States. For instance, they say “religion has had a more incisive role in the electoral process and government decisions over recent decades, especially in some U.S. governments.” This is wrong. The great reform movements in our history — abolition, prohibition and civil rights — have been motivated and articulated in explicitly Christian terms. Princes of the Church, such as Cardinals Mundelein and Spellman, were frequent guests at Franklin Roosevelt’s White House.


More here-

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/italian-journal-builds-a-classic-straw-man-against-us-catholicism

Original Article-

http://www.laciviltacattolica.it/articolo/evangelical-fundamentalism-and-catholic-integralism-in-the-usa-a-surprising-ecumenism/

Texas Bathroom Bill Has Emotions, and Stakes, Running High

From The New York Times-

And on Wednesday, the presiding officers of the Episcopal Church wrote to the speaker of the Texas House and suggested that if the bill passed, the church would cancel its nine-day General Convention in Austin scheduled for July 2018.

“In 1955, we were forced to move a General Convention from Houston to another state because Texas laws prohibited black and white Episcopalians from being treated equally,” read the letter from Bishop Michael B. Curry and another leader. “We would not stand then for Episcopalians to be discriminated against, and we cannot countenance it now.”

Jeff Moseley, chief executive of the Texas Association of Business, the state’s most influential business lobby, announced that the group was taking its opposition to the bill to the airwaves by making a “seven-figure media buy.” The group has long aligned itself with the state’s conservative causes and issues, and has rarely taken public stands on social issues.

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/us/texas-bathroom-bill-transgender.html

The death of reading is threatening the soul

From The Washington Post (Philip Yancey)-

I am going through a personal crisis. I used to love reading. I am writing this blog in my office, surrounded by 27 tall bookcases laden with 5,000 books. Over the years I have read them, marked them up, and recorded the annotations in a computer database for potential references in my writing. To a large degree, they have formed my professional and spiritual life.

Books help define who I am. They have ushered me on a journey of faith, have introduced me to the wonders of science and the natural world, have informed me about issues such as justice and race. More importantly, they have been a source of delight and adventure and beauty, opening windows to a reality I would not otherwise know.

My crisis consists in the fact that I am describing my past, not my present. I used to read three books a week. One year I devoted an evening each week to read all of Shakespeare’s plays (Okay, due to interruptions it actually took me two years). Another year I read the major works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But I am reading many fewer books these days, and even fewer of the kinds of books that require hard work.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/07/21/the-death-of-reading-is-threatening-the-soul/?utm_term=.eb49a9cfa077

Panel: Suspend Bruno, Save St. James

From The Living Church-

In a scathing repudiation of the Bishop of Los Angeles, a disciplinary hearing panel of the Episcopal Church has decided to suspend the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno from ministry for three years, effectively ending his career after more than 40 years of ordained ministry.

The panel also recommended that the St. James the Great congregation be restored to its former church building in Newport Beach, which has been padlocked for more than two years.

In a 4-1 decision, the panel wrote that “the scope and severity of Bishop Bruno’s misconduct … have unjustly and unnecessarily disturbed the ministry of a mission of the Church. St. James the Great is a casualty of Bishop Bruno’s misconduct.”

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/2017/07/21/panel-suspend-bruno-save-st-james/

Anglican leader to seek Church apology to domestic violence victims

From Australia-

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia hopes the general synod in September will apologise to victims of domestic violence, and for any failure where the Church hasn't "listened to people, or understood the depth of their suffering".

The head of the Anglican Church in Australia says he hopes the general synod in September will apologise to victims of domestic violence, and for any failure from the Church.

On The Drum, Anglican Primate of Australia Archbishop Philip Freier read out an unequivocal apology written by an Aboriginal priest, Father Daryl McCullough, who heads a parish in western New South Wales.

More here-

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2017-07-21/anglican-leader-to-seek-church-apology-to-domestic-violence-victims/1687824

Trump threatens to change the course of American Christianity

From The Washington Post-

If you want to understand white evangelicalism in the age of Trump, you need to know Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas.

Jeffress is not a household name in the United States, known mainly in Southern Baptist circles. But he has recently gained national attention as a “court evangelical” — my term for a Christian who, like the attendants and advisers who frequented the courts of monarchs, seeks influence through regular visits to the White House.

The court evangelicals are changing the religious landscape in the United States. The Trump presidency is only six months old, but it is already beginning to alter long-standing spiritual alignments. It seems as though Christians are not changing Trump, but rather that Trump could be changing Christianity.

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/07/17/trump-threatens-to-change-the-course-of-american-christianity/

Conservative clergy attack Barber for saying prayers for Trump ‘border on heresy’

From North Carolina-

Conservative clergy are returning fire at the Rev. William Barber for his criticism of ministers who prayed over President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week.

At a Wednesday news conference in Charlotte, five faith-based leaders said that Barber, the liberal president of the North Carolina NACCP, was misguided and un-biblical when he called the White House prayer “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.”

“The scriptures are exceedingly clear that we are to pray specifically for our leaders,” said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, which organized the news conference. He also quoted Jesus’ command to pray for enemies. “It doesn’t matter which side of the political aisle you may be on, whether Republican or Democrat, conservative or progressive, Jesus’ words don’t leave any room for the kind of qualification in our prayers set forth by Dr. Barber.”

Read more here:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/religion/article162559693.html#storylink=cpy

National Episcopal Church urges defeat of Texas "bathroom bill"

From The Texas Tribune- (more links below)

In line with concerns that tourism officials have raised about the bathroom bill’s effect on the convention business, Curry and Jennings wrote that the bathroom bill could also keep the national church from holding its 2018 general convention in Austin. A bathroom bill would keep the church from ensuring that “all Episcopalians and visitors to our convention, including transgender people, are treated with respect, kept safe, and provided appropriate public accommodation consistent with their gender identities.

“Because we are currently scheduled to hold our triennial General Convention — a nine-day event that includes as many as 10,000 people — in Austin in July 2018, we are paying especially close attention to the news emerging from your special session,” Curry and Jennings wrote.

The church first raised the prospect of relocating its convention in February in its first letter to Straus. The church moved its convention out of Texas in 1955 because of the state’s segregation laws.

The divisions sowed by bathroom restrictions today ring similar to Jim Crow discrimination from that time, the church leaders wrote.

More here-

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/07/20/national-episcopal-church-urges-defeat-texas-bathroom-bill/

also here-

http://www.dallasvoice.com/episcopal-church-denounces-bathroom-bill-10239702.html 

and here-

http://kxan.com/2017/07/21/bathroom-bills-targeting-public-buildings-schools-get-hearing-today/

First cathedral offers gay weddings

From Premier UK-

A Scottish cathedral has become the first Anglican cathedral in the country to offer weddings for homosexual couples, after a historic ruling.

St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow is now taking bookings after the Scottish Episcopal Church's governing body, the General Synod, decided last month to let clergy conduct ceremonies for same-sex couples.

Provost of the Cathedral, the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth said: "It is hugely exciting to open up wedding services to all couples who want to get married.

"People at St Mary's were part of the campaign to allow gay and lesbian couples to get married in Scotland so it is not surprising that we would want to be able to offer such weddings in the cathedral itself."

More here-

https://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/First-cathedral-offers-gay-weddings

Liturgy for transgender transitions?

From Patheos-

There are liturgies that go with birth, coming of age, getting married, and dying.  Now it is being proposed to develop a liturgy to mark gender transitions.

The Church of England has voted to affirm transgendered individuals and to study developing a liturgy that would solemnize the decision or medical procedures whereby a man assumes a new identity as a woman, or a woman assumes a new identity as a man.

This would seem to stop short of re-baptism, as some transgender activists have called for.
This could go along with other liturgies for contemporary culture.  Some churches offer divorce ceremonies.  What other occasions might call for a liturgical blessing from liberal churches?

More here-

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2017/07/liturgy-for-transgender-transitions-draft/

Four arrested protesting health care policy outside GOP senators’ offices

From Kansas-

Before heading to the Capitol, organizers and participants met at nearby St. Mark's Episcopal Church for civil disobedience training. Leaders broadcast directions about getting arrested. Protesters scribbled phone numbers of legal counsel on their arms while hearing songs of solidarity and shared stories.

"What do we want?" the group chanted, practicing for the protests.

"Health care!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

"We're coming together, not just against something, but also for something else," Kerr said. "And that's universal health care."

Faflick, who grew up in Wichita, said traveling to Washington was crucial to show his support for universal health care and tell his senators why they need to say no to an Obamacare repeal.

"I want to be part of the political revolution, and I want to stand for all people and the basic human right that all people deserve access to affordable health care," he said. "Civil disobedience is a very visual step that gets a lot of recognition ... it makes our voices heard in a very loud and very strong way."

Read more here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article162535858.html#storylink=cpy

More U.S. Protestants Have No Specific Denominational Identity

From Gallup-

Americans have become less likely to identify with an official or formal religion in recent decades, and nowhere is this more evident than in the dwindling percentage who identify with a specific Protestant denomination. In 2000, 50% of Americans identified with a specific denomination; by 2016 that figure had dropped to 30%.

This shrinking proportion of Americans who identify with specific Protestant denominations is the result of two trends.

First, an increasing percentage of Americans are "nones," saying they don't have a specific religious identity of any kind. Since the percentages of Catholics, Mormons and those who identify with a non-Christian religion have stayed roughly the same over time, this "rise of the nones" -- from 10% in 2000 to 20% in 2016 -- has generally been accompanied by an associated decrease in the broad category of Protestants, whose numbers shrank from 57% to 47%. Therefore, there are fewer Protestants of any kind in the American population today, and the pool of those who identify with a specific Protestant denomination is smaller.

More here-

http://www.gallup.com/poll/214208/protestants-no-specific-denominational-identity.aspx?g_source=Religion&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles

Why Anglicans should pray the rosary

From The Living Church-

Every time I get on an airplane, I pray the rosary. Flying is nerve-racking for me, even after several years of routine air travel. Praying the rosary comforts me and keeps me calm: I feel protected and able to trust that the plane will be a safe place for me, no matter what happens.

I did not grow up praying the rosary. It was not until I became an Episcopalian in my early 20s that I took it up as a serious devotion.

Some people would probably find that surprising. The rosary is not a particularly common devotion for Episcopalians. In fact, the invention of the so-called Anglican rosary in the latter half of the last century was intended to give Episcopalians a way of praying with beads without being associated with anything that seemed too Roman Catholic.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2016/08/15/why-anglicans-should-pray-the-rosary/

Extinction is all around us

From The Washington Post- (Keillor's piece referenced below)

The big news last week was that giraffes and lions are approaching extinction because we humans are turning their habitat into farms and senior high-rises. I read the article and of course thought of the lion who killed a giraffe and brought the corpse back to the den and his wife said, “You can’t leave that lyin’ there,” and he said, “That’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe.”

The truth is that people who love jokes like that — joke jokes, not mere sarcasm, but the How Many Talking Dogs Walking Into a Bar Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb sort of joke — are facing extinction. Women wince at those jokes, men edge away, afraid the joker is an aluminum siding salesman. If you like jokes, you find yourself sitting at the children’s table at Sunday dinner. (What did the fish say when it hit the wall? Dam.)

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/extinction-is-all-around-us/2017/07/18/d2b54e72-6bc1-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.7cb5322aead0

We faithful few?

From Episcopal Cafe-

The second voice is that of noted humorist and poetry fan, Garrison Keillor, who writes in his unique wistful style of  a world that is passing away.  Titled “From Giraffes to Episcopalians, World Going Extinct,”Keillor laments its passing.

“Giraffes are dying out because they are a joke, an ungainly mythological-looking amalgamation of a horse and a stepladder. God is not proud of the giraffe. In Scripture, He refers to horses, sheep, cattle, swine, snakes, camels, but nothing about this oddity. Isaiah did not write, “All we like giraffes have gone astray” – their problem isn’t a willful nature, it’s bad design.

As for lions, they used to roam Europe, but do you want to get off your tour bus in Rome and walk into the Colosseum and suddenly hear low raspy sounds and turn and there is the MGM lion 15 feet away with a napkin around his neck? You, a good Episcopalian, about to be martyred by a circus act?

Episcopalians are also facing extinction, along with the rest of the orthodox wing of Christianity that takes the Bible at its word. The Church of the Beautiful Hair is taking over the habitat, humunga-churches where magenta spotlights sway and peroxided men in spangly jumpsuits play Metallica with spiritual lyrics and ponytailed preachers tell the multitude that we are the Chosen and the Lord is going to maximize and monetize us.

More here-

https://www.episcopalcafe.com/we-faithful-few/

Fuller Theological Seminary closing campuses after decline in admissions

From Christian Today-

The influential US evangelical institution Fuller Theological Seminary has suffered a significant decline in admisisons to its regional campuses, forcing it to close several of its locations. The seminary said it was grieving the loss, but 'retooling for a different world'.

The news of the closure was released in an email to Fuller students on July 17. The largely California-based seminary says it has seen an expansion of its 'global footprint', with enrollments reaching 6,500 a year across 260 courses due to the widened capacity of online and distance-learning teaching.

Fuller's provost Joel Green wrote: 'However, the significant increase in online enrollment has been matched by a decrease in enrollment on our geophysical campuses. To offer one snapshot, while winter quarter online enrollment has increased by almost 50 per cent from 2013-17, enrollment on our regional campuses has decreased by about 30 per cent during the same period.'

He added: 'This shift from our geophysical classes to online brings with it certain challenges. Primary among those is the increasing difficulty of attracting enough students to foster a genuine learning community in some of our regional campus classrooms – a difficulty that has had a negative impact on the financial sustainability of some of our regional campus efforts.

More here-

St. John's Episcopal in Kingsville celebrates its 325th anniversary

From Maryland-

St. John's Episcopal Church in Kingsville, one of the oldest parishes in Maryland, celebrated its 325th anniversary with a day of activities Sunday that included the installation of a new pastor.

The church, which serves residents of Harford and Baltimore counties, began in 1692, before there was a state or even a nation here, according ot Karen Smith Manar, a member of the 325th anniversary committee.

Manar provided the following history of the church:

Beginnings

In 1608, Captain John Smith first explored the land that would become St. John's Parish. In 1692, with the formation of its first Vestry by the Maryland General Assembly, St. John's began as a parish of the Church of England. The parish probably had its beginnings as a "church of logs" built in a clearing at Elk Neck along the Gunpowder River.

More here-

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/aegis/entertainment/ph-ag-xcomm-st-johns-kingsville-20170718-story.html

METHODISTS AND ANGLICANS: LINGERING DIFFERENCES

From The Living Church-

After decades of ecumenical dialogue, leaders of the Episcopal and United Methodist Churches recently issued a proposal for full communion between our two churches (see the documents, reporting from Jeff MacDonald, and an editorial on the proposal from The Living Church: “Slightly Less Than Full Communion“). The proposal seeks to heal a division that dates to 1784, when two groups of Anglicans sought contradictory solutions to the crisis posed by the collapse of their church in this land during the Revolutionary War. (A related scheme for reunion is on the table in England as well.)

My earlier essay focused on the key decisions made by the zealous John Wesley and the patient Samuel Seabury, whose actions set significant trajectories for the churches they founded.  The initial break was not inevitable, nor its persistence necessary, but these trajectories toward Methodist zeal and Episcopalian patience factor significantly in the work that remains unfinished before full reconciliation can come.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/07/19/methodists-and-anglicans-lingering-differences/

Catholic priest is married with 8 children; here’s how that’s possible

From Wisconsin-

 Food has a way of bringing people together -- in nourishment, in service and in just plain ‘ole good company. The fish fry at Holy Family Catholic Church in Whitefish Bay is one of the best around, according to those who have devoured the golden, fried cod. At the fish fry, there is a sense of community.  Some would even argue it is an extension of family that comes together for the meal and fellowship.

There is one thing that is for sure: It is Father David Zampino’s happy place.

You might not be able to tell just by looking at him, but Father Dave Zampino is unlike most Catholic priests.  He is married, and he has kids -- eight of them!

“My oldest child is David,” explained Father Dave. “My next child is Maria.  Then comes Thomas. Then Elizabeth. Then John Paul. Then Theresa. Then Philip. Then Gianna.”

More here-

http://fox6now.com/2017/07/17/im-one-of-those-exceptions-catholic-priest-is-married-with-8-children-heres-how-thats-possible/

Every Day Is Casual Friday

From The Living Church-

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, broke with tradition in late June to allow Members of Parliament to skip wearing jackets and ties in the chamber. Now the Church of England’s General Synod has decided it is in keeping with the modern world for clergy to have the choice of leading worship while wearing casual clothes.

In a similar vein. the Queen wore a dress and hat rather than the traditional robes and crown while presenting the traditional monarch’s speech spelling out the government’s program for the next Parliament. And on a hot day in June, men in the membership enclosure at the Royal Ascot races were allowed to dispense with jackets.

The synod decision needs an Amending Canon, after which it will go to the Monarch for Royal Assent. Many clergy, particularly evangelicals, ignore existing canon law that says “the presiding minister shall wear either a surplice or alb with scarf or stole” at Holy Communion, baptisms, and funerals.
More here-

http://htl.li/OEEz30dH5vF

The other Eastern churches

From Christian Century- (Philip Jenkins)


Most Americans know the basic Christian division between Prot­es­tants and Catholics, and they are at least aware of the Orthodox tradition of the faith, even if they might not be too clear about the exact differences separating them. But besides these three great Christian families there is the distinct (and numerous) group of Orien­tal Orthodox churches, which will be an increasingly visible part of the Western religious spectrum in years to come.

The Orthodox divisions date to fierce conflicts that raged when the Roman Empire was a superpower faced with the clear and present danger posed by Goths and Huns. Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all accept the authority of a series of four church councils that met between 325 and 451 to define Christian doctrine and belief, and in each case the decision was enforced by imperial authority. That sequence of councils culminated in 451 with the Council of Chalcedon, which proclaimed that Christ is both fully divine and fully human. The pro-Chalcedonian churches based in Rome and Constantinople evolved into what we would later call the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. The 16th-century Reformers accepted the Chalcedonian settlement, which was fundamental for Protestants, Catholic and Orthodox alike.

More here-

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/other-eastern-churches