Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan WIlliams, has told an audience of theological students that both intensely liberal and ultra conservative readings of the Bible are 'rootless' and are limited in what they can contribute to the life of the church. In the Larkin Stuart lecture, delivered today at an event hosted jointly by Wycliffe and Trinity theological colleges in Toronto, Dr Williams said that Christians need to reconnect with scripture as something to be listened to and heard in the context of Jesus's invitation to the Eucharist and to work for the Kingdom. 

‘…The Church's public use of the Bible represents the Church as defined in some important way by listening: the community when it comes together doesn't only break bread and reflect together and intercede, it silences itself to hear something. It represents itself in that moment as a community existing in response to a word of summons or invitation, to an act of communication that requires to be heard and answered.’

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Thought for the day, Good Friday

Good morning. As we've just been hearing, this week's news suggests that there is something about which we can literally take heart. A British research team has managed to grow part of a human heart from stem cells taken from bone marrow - a discovery that promises some serious progress in transplant surgery, given the shortage of actual human hearts for transplants at the moment.

It's a way of getting around the many problems that come up with the artificial heart valves that lots of people rely on at the moment.

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The transcript of the Archbishop of Canterbury's BBC World Service interview, first broadcast on Reporting Religion, Saturday 17th March 2007/Sunday 18th March 2007 can be found here:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/070319.htm

Item from: Lambeth Palace

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has spoken of his shock at the news of the death of Fr Paul Bennett in Trecynon, nr Aberdare in Wales yesterday, and has said that the family will be in his prayers.

‘The news of Fr Paul’s death has come as an appalling shock. I know something of his devoted and selfless ministry in testing conditions, and I can well understand the depth of grief felt by local people, both church members and others in the community. Fr Paul's family will be especially in our prayers here at Lambeth as they come to terms with this terrible tragedy.’

Item from: Lambeth Palace

The Church stands for the principle that no-one can be forgotten or left outside in God’s Kingdom, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. In a keynote speech delivered at the TEAM conference in South Africa, Dr Williams said that the Church had to resist global notions of isolation and security based on resources:

‘There are no ‘gated communities’ in the Kingdom. There are no communities that are protected from involvement in the loss or the trauma of others, much as we’d like to think so.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has told a Christian congregation in Angola that the International community can be too cautious in wanting change in struggling countries before stepping in to help. In a sermon preached to over 2000 Anglicans in a basketball stadium in Angola’s capital Luanda, he promised to speak out for them on his return.

‘ ... sometimes the International community can forget a country whose circumstances are too difficult. Sometimes it is as if wealthy countries say to poor countries, ‘When you are a success, then we will help you’. One of the things that the Church must say is that the help and the love must come first, not the success. And so I will promise you today that when I return to the UK these are things I will say there. In the name of God and his church, Christians must always say that love comes first. We cannot wait until all problems are solved until we engage and assist.’

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Church and Nation share 'common work'

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has heard from South African President Thabo Mbeki that church and nation share ‘common work’ in relation to the Millennium Development Goals. The two met this morning [Friday 9th March 2007] during the Archbishop’s visit to South Africa. They discussed a range of subjects related to the region including the Goals, which have been a key theme of the TEAM conference (Towards Effective Anglican Mission), attended by Dr Williams, in Boxburg this week.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that the Millennium Development Goals provide a key focus for the churches of the Anglican Communion. Speaking at the start of the TEAM Conference, (Towards Effective Anglican Mission) an international Anglican conference in Boksburg near Johannesburg in South Africa, he said that working towards these objectives raised fundamental and positive challenges for the church:

‘In the days ahead there will be questions like these; What are actually the resources that the Anglican Communion worldwide can bring to bear on these challenges; how do we better coordinate the provision of the help we can offer? How do we build effective relationships with government and voluntary organisations world wide, and how do we keep our motivation in combating scourges of disease sharp and focussed? These will be the aims of the meeting ahead of us this week. It will bring together an extraordinarily wide range of people from across our Anglican church and I hope that it can really pull us together, give us a shared vision and a shared energy for the tasks.’

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that generosity and patience will be required for the Anglican Communion in the days ahead. In a Pastoral Letter sent to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, Dr Williams say that the recent meeting in Tanzania had been difficult, but that the issues had been properly aired.

‘It was far from being an easy few days, but there was a great deal of honesty in our conversation, and a direct facing of the tensions that we still find in the life of the Communion.’

The Primates’ decision to address some questions to the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church shouldn’t be understood as bypassing the church’s structures:

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Thank you, Madam Chair.

Modern warfare is generally recognised as a morally shadowy business. Since the development especially of aerial warfare techniques, most of the traditional contents of just war theory have seemed rather out of date, in that indiscriminate slaughter has become so normal in the processes of modern warfare. And that's why most Christians in the modern period have at least felt some unease about warfare; and unease not wholly shared by many of their preceding generations. That unease has been allayed in various ways by appeals to lesser evils and so forth, but those appeals have stopped short of certain categories of technique in warfare.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for Churches to welcome and celebrate the forthcoming London 2012 Olympic Games. Dr Williams spoke today (Monday 26th February) at the launch of ‘More than Gold’, an interdenominational initiative for Christians seeking to provide a positive and affirming Christian contribution to the 2012 Olympics.

‘People sometimes say that one of the marks of a really healthy church is that it has open doors. It grows by welcoming, it grows by being the place of hospitality, it discovers what it's really about as it begins to draw other people in. Now part of what we're looking forward to in welcoming the Olympics here is of course opportunities for ourselves as Christians to show that welcome which demonstrates our own depth of commitment. But can't we also say that a healthy city, a growing city, is one that's capapble of exericising that kind of welcome? I think that's the challenge that we've been hearing about; this is not just about putting a few chaplaincy provisions in place for a few exotic visitors, this is about discovering the city itself afresh, discovering what this community in East London can be, and discovering it through the exercise of welcome. And because the churches are supposed to know something about that, that's why our presence in this process matters so much.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is lending his support to an Amnesty International appeal for Reverend Bienvenido Samba Momessori, a clergyman imprsioned in Equatorial Guinea for his peaceful political views.

In an article in this week's New Statesman, the Dr Williams attacks 'The ongoing scandal of imprisonment without trial as a sanction against peaceful dissidents or ethnic minorities,’ and adds: ‘To let this go unchallenged in any area is to sell the pass for universal justice. And that is not an option for any religious person, or indeed anyone who thinks human dignities and liberties are more than a local arrangement for the convenience of the prosperous.’

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said the scars of slavery are still with modern society and that Zanzibar’s slave trade history is crucial to the understanding not just of the history of East Africa, but of humanity. Dr Williams’ comments came during a visit he made to the main island of Zanzibar together with Primates of the Anglican Communion, who are holding a meeting in nearby Dar Es Salaam.

Speaking yesterday (Sunday 18th February) at a lunch attended by Zanzibar’s President, His Excellenecy Amani Abeid Karumi, Dr Williams said that the scars of the slave trade could still be seen:

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'Amazing Grace'

Once again may I thank you for your welcome and may I give you the assurance of the love and prayers of your brothers and sisters in the Church of England.

This morning I am going to speak about the three readings from the bible that we have heard and I’m going to discuss them backwards - I’m going to begin with the Gospel. The Gospel tells us the story of a blind man who came to see, and today it is very appropriate that we think about how God makes us see the truth. In the special prayer for this morning - in the collect - we remembered the transfiguration of Jesus when his disciples saw his glory and in that great hymn we sang at the beginning of the service, we sang ‘I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.’ God, through Jesus Christ, opens our eyes, he makes us see.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is calling for a commission of enquiry into the Penal Justice system which, he says is failing both offenders and victims because it can't cope with the primary need to change the behaviour of those convicted.

The call comes in a lecture to the Prison Reform Trust today (Thursday 1st February 2007). A Commission is needed to explore different models of penal justice, Dr Williams argues, because problems stem from an inadequate sense of responsibility; not simply on the part of offenders but also on the part of the society which imprisons them.

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Interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor in Jerusalem.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has reassured the people of Bethlehem that neither they, nor the pressures that they live under are forgotten in the West. During a pilgrimage to Bethlehem with other English church leaders, Dr Williams addressed the city’s civic representatives, stressing that problems had to be solved by people working together. One-sided solutions would not deliver justice,

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has pledged his support for the Christian Communities of the Middle East. Writing in The Times today (Saturday 23rd December 2006), Dr Williams says that factors such as reaction to the war in Iraq, mistrust from surrounding communities and security measures have combined to put intolerable pressure on Christians in countries across the region including Iraq, Iran, the Holy Land, Egypt and Turkey, to the point where many are migrating away from their homelands.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has outlined some of his personal hopes for the coming year in an article written for the Big Issue Magazine.

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Church leaders in England are asking parish churches and congregations throughout the country to pray for 'the little town of Bethlehem' as they approach the final week of Advent - the Church's season of preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child.

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