Archive for August, 2007
Written by: Craig Uffman
Sunday, August 19th, 2007
The ACI has long hoped to encourage the reflection and writing of developing scholars and theologians, much as SEAD, in a previous era, did through its conferences and occasional journal The Harvest. In an effort to renew such a path, we have begun to place on our website the work of some newer voices, and will continue to do so.
Craig David Uffman is a senior M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School. A former businessman, he has a passion for church-planting and recently toured and studied in some significant areas of the Global South where evangelism is being vigorously and faithfully pursued within difficult contexts.
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August 19 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendents be.” And He believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
It is hard to miss the fact that all the readings for this Sunday are about having faith. Abraham has faith in God and in his promises, and it is reckoned to him as righteousness. So reads Genesis. By faith Abraham leaves home to receive an inheritance and from one “as good as dead were born descendents as many as the stars of heaven, and as the innumerable grains of sand by the sea shore.” So reads the Epistle to the Hebrews. Then in the reading from St. Luke’s Gospel Jesus reminds his disciples of God’s promise to give them the Kingdom. By faith they are to invest their treasure in that promise, even to the point of selling their possessions.
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August 15 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Friday, August 10th, 2007
Editor’s note: In response to renewed interest on the blogosphere to the topics covered, I am re-posting the original response (from ’04) that Ephraim Radner wrote to an article about him written by the Rt. Rev Fitzsimmons Allison.
Bishop FitzSimons Allison has done me the honor and blessing of addressing serious questions to me about the church’s history and calling. It is an honor, because his own witness to the Christian faith and on behalf of our church’s faithfulness is one of such substance and informed care that any public disagreement on his part with me represents the offer to become a part of a conversation colored by evangelical integrity. It is a blessing, because the character of clarity his own questions to me advance and the grace with which they are raised can only elevate the quality of my reply and, I would guess, of the thinking of those listening in.
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August 10 2007 | Articles
Written by: Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
In August of 2007, we posted on the ACI site an essay by Dr. Jacqueline Jenkins Keenan. (The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. – Why Theology Should Precede Change ) In this essay, Dr. Keenan provided an overview of a number of recent scientific studies questioning the claims made by many that there is a biological basis to homosexuality that renders it an immutable condition. These claims have also been made by some leaders in the Episcopal Church as part of their defense of the church’s affirmation of homosexual unions. They were made quite formally by the official response of TEC to the Anglican Communion’s request for an explanation of the American church’s reasoning in pressing for such affirmation, a response contained in the report To Set Our Hope On Christ. Dr. Keenan’s essay, therefore, stood as a direct challenge to at least one important aspect of TEC’s argument offered to the rest of the Communion.
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August 07 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Monday, August 6th, 2007
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for your gracious reply to my response to your open letter calling for a “full and final separation” between those whom you term a “faithful remnant” and The Episcopal Church (TEC). Knowing you as I do I was certain there would be a reply, but I nonetheless hoped against hope that none would be forthcoming. I say this not because I am not open to theological exchange, but because the medium (blogs) now used for such exchanges encourages hasty and ill tempered response and counter response. I have no desire to be involved in such a back and forth and I presume you do not either.
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August 06 2007 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
My dear Brother Stephen,
I had finished a draft of this letter before the recent meeting at which Bishop Duncan expressed his view that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference are “lost” in so far as they can serve as instruments of communion. He has expressed to me in private views similar to these on several occasions; but now that they have been expressed in such a public manner I feel a response to your open letter is even more urgent than when I first sat down to write. In your Open Letter to Network Bishops and Common Cause Partners you advise these Bishops that the time has come for a “full and final separation between those in The Episcopal Church (TEC) who hold a false gospel and those who hold fast the truth revealed in Holy Scripture and the evangelical and catholic faith of the Church.” You write as a baptized and confirmed member of the TEC of 40 years standing and as a priest of some 35 years standing. You write also as one who for the past seven years has viewed TEC with the eyes of the church in Africa.
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August 02 2007 | Articles