Read it all here. More here.
The Listening Process, also known as the "Continuing Indaba Project," was announced last month at the Kingston, Jamaica meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council after a briefing by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Anglican Communion Office (ACO). The staff of the ACO, under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that a $1.5 million gift was given to fund this project-a gift 2-3 times the size of any previous gift received by the Anglican Communion Office for its work, and at a time when financial reports concede diminishing giving and reserves for the troubled Communion. The delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council were told that the money was coming from a grant through the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
After subsequent questioning at press conferences, it turns out that the Satcher Institute is not the source of the $1.5 million dollars.
So where did the money come from? The Rev. Marta Weeks, a retired Episcopal priest from the diocese of Southeast Florida, has donated $1.5 million to fund the entire project through 2011. Weeks and her late husband have supported a wide variety of causes and educational institutions. As noteworthy as her gifts are, her beliefs on the issues the Anglican Communion is dealing with are even more significant. In January of 2000, she signed the Religious Declaration on Sexuality, Morality, Justice, and Healing which calls for a "sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure." This sexual ethic:
"applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation." It calls for "full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions" as well as "a faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to voluntary contraception, abortion, and HIV/STD prevention and treatment." [emphasis added]
After questions arose about the source of the funding, the ACO admitted the gift came from Weeks and issued a disclaimer from her that the funds were given without any strings attached. But subsequent contradictory and confusing statements by the ACO, Weeks and the Satcher Institute raise serious questions about the influence associated with this gift and the institution administering it.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Uh oh ...
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18 comments:
So an Episcopal 'priest' is spending 1.5 million to spread unbiblical filth and murder of innocent unborn babies.
Put her in the box with her sister in crime, Katherine Ragsdale.
Anyone remaining in TEC - OR THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION - lay, clergy at all levels from archbishop on down to deacon who does not speak out or sign a formal protest against the Continuing Indaba Project, is complicit with it.
Shame on priestess Weeks.
Not that many left in TEC who care, I'd think. Those that do remain and care have been fully marginalized.
These women have done great harm. They would have done it even without being ordained, and they were ordained because they already agreed with the direction ECUSA was going.
One of the marks of the true church is the male Priesthood, a sign which from from the dawn of humanity points to the Son of God.
You might find this interesting: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/06/gods-word-never-fails.html
Floridian has hit one of my hot buttons - the use of "murder" when writing about abortion. Tow close friends of mine chose, after much prayer, to have an abortion because carrying the pregnancy to term would have resulted in the death of both the mother and the child. To label what they did as "murder" is cruel.
I will take the ACC and the donor at their word that the donor's views will not taint the listening process. Of course, had the Bishops who voted for I.10 at 1998 Lambeth kept their commitment to listening to the experience of gay and leasbian Anglicans, the gift might not have been needed. There has been so much resistance in so many place to the listening process that it may well take a gift of this size to fulfill the promises made but our Bishops in 1998.
I am sorry that Alice Linsey continues to believe that women should not be ordained. I believe she is wrong, but I trust that God will show all of us where we are wrong in due course. There is a great joy in knowing that my being worng about so many things hasn't stopped God form loving me.
Fr. Weir, if you seriously want to listen to my viewpoint, you might read this: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/06/order-of-melchizedek.html
Alice,
Thank you fot the link.I read the essay. I will ignore the anti-Christ label you appled to the Episcopal Church. I will point out that in the New Testament, priest is used to describe Jesus and to describe the whole community of the Church. We are - male and female alike - a royal priesthhod.
I tend to use presbyter, rather than priest, to refer to the order to which I have been ordained. Priest is better as a designation for all of us as members of the Body of Christ.
While there are some small number of abortions that are truly done to protect the life of the mother, it can explain only a very small part of the millions of terminated lives.
Listening is a two way street. To imply that the homosexual viewpoint has not been heard since 1998 is nonsense. It has been measured and weighed, and now we are divided.
RalphM
The New Testament is consistent with the Old Testament as to the nature of the priest as an agent of the Blood that makes atonement. There is only one Priest, Jesus Christ, and there is therefore only one Priesthood. The Apostles knew this to be true and that's why the New Testament refers to the line of Melchizedek as the eternal line. Hebrews makes mention of this no less than 8 times.
Your generalization of the priesthood to all "believers" takes both Priest and Scripture out of context. Because of the strictly adhered to kinship pattern of priests among Abraham's people, Abraham's people were literally a nation of priests. The Apostles understood this and recognized the implications: to be in Christ is to become a member of the eternal kingdom.
Alice,
You are certainly free to maintain your convictions and I admire the way you defended them in your essay. I remain unconvinced and I suspect that there is no argument that I could make that you would not dismiss as taking Scripture out of context. I would, as an aside, point out that while Hebrews refers to Jesus as a priest and Peter as a bishop, Jesus was content to call himself a deacon.
You will have to soundly refute each of my points using Scripture and Holy Tradition before you can move me from my conviction that Jesus is the Son of God promised from the dawn of time and that there is but one Priesthood and one Atoning Blood.
If you are a TEC priest you probably can't refute these points. It may seem as if I were speaking a foreign language. You may not agree that Jesus is the Son of God and His Blood makes atonement. Where do you stand?
"Jesus was content to call himself a deacon."
Yes, the Son of God came to seek and to serve the lost.
The "devil" knows his time is short therefore he is putting all efforts to further corrupt the Church.
It is a test for the believers who will stand on the "Word of God" for their faith and lives.
The must recognize the "CAPTIVE CHURCH".
We need to put in more prayers and efforts to overcome.
Bishop Ijaz Inayat.
Fr. Weir,
How can you for an instant believe that dismembering a baby and sucking out it brains days before birth is anything but murder? Or that stopping a beating heart is anything less than the death of a human creation?
You, sir, are educated beyond your intelligence if you support the "right to choose" what Jesus would never have laid hands on and blessed. I weep for this Church as it is led by blind guides.
Fr. Weir said, "because carrying the pregnancy to term would have resulted in the death of both the mother and the child."
Only God knows what might have happened if people ha put their faith and trust in Him. It is He alone who sustains us and gives us life - it is He alone who should decide when that life ends - for mother and for child.
And, Alice, I'm with you. I never once have taken communion from a woman celebrant because I was so certain in my soul that it was wrong. If a woman celebrated, I did not receive.
Eventually, God led me to Holy Orthodoxy and I am so grateful that He put that hesitation in me so many years before.
Friends,
I realize that there is nothing that I can say that would have much of an effect on your thinking about abortion or the male priesthood and I find it hard to carry on any kind of a conversation with those who, on the basis of a few comments, appear to have judging me to be a heretic or worse. There being much better ways for me to use my time,I will not make further comments about this thread.
Wow, BB! It was all pretty exciting for a while there.
Obviously a great post that got a lot of people thinking and involved!
Sorry to see it end....
Because Alice asked me some questions that I neglected to answer, I do want to repond to them.
A short answer to what I believe about Jesus is that I pray the Nicene Creed each Sunday and don't cross my fingers. There is much about Jesus that is a mystery to me - how could it be otherwise? - but I give my heart to Jesus, the Son of God, the Incarnate Word. He is my Savior and Lord.
I believe that in the death and resurrection of Jesus I have salvation, new life, forgiveness, reconciliation with God. My understanding of the Atonement is closer to Christus Victor than to penal substitution, but I see the Atonement as a mystery which we can never fully understand. I do think the isolation of Good Friday from Easter, which seems to me to happen in some interpretations of the Atonement is as much a problem as it is when people want to avoid Good Friday altogether. I am in agreement with Luther's condemnation of the theology of glory and his embrace of the theology of the Cross.
I did find mildly offensive Alice's assertion that priests in the Episcopal Church couldn't refute the points she had made, but she has apologized and I only mention in passing because there is a temptation to rudeness in the blogosphere. People have written statements about me that they would, I hope, be unlikely to say to my face. If I have been personally offensive in what I have written, and not simply forthright, I am sorry. I make no apologies for my convictions, although I am well aware that they are imperfect responses to the Truth who is Jesus.
Thank you, Fr. Weir.
All of the Gospels agree that Jesus is the Son of God who came into the world to save sinners (of whom I am chief). They also agree that no one can believe that Jesus is the promised Son of God unless God has revealed that by the Holy Spirit. They further agree that it is by faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that we are saved.
I personally feel we all need to know more about our God the Father, His love, and the work of redemption through His Son Jesus Christ.
I would suggest that focus on Divine revelation, Wisdom from God, opening of the inner eyes and learning from the Lord Himself would help each Christian grow according to different measures. Yet to remain firm on the basics of faith as laid down in the Word of God is expected of all believers.
The greatest harmful element in the Church is to compromise with the ideas and requirements of the so-called members of the Church most of whom insist on their worldly intelligence and knowledge.
We must pray together for the "Captive Church" and keep on sharing the truths of the Word of God.
You are wise, dear Bishop Inayat. And I know that you speak from experience. Christians are suffering persecution around the world. We must learn to listen not to the world which entraps us, but to the Word which frees us.
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