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Former Episcopal Priest Explores Christianity and Druidry in New Novel http://www.bloggernews.net/112455 December 17th, 2007 by suzanne evans On March 22nd 2005, The Rev Walter William Melnyk was forced out of the priesthood of the US Episcopal Church after facing charges of “holding private opinions inconsistent with the teachings of the Church.” This allegation, effectively a heresy charge, ended his 23 year-strong vocation as a priest, even though his only transgression was to look into Celtic Christianity and its connection with pre-Christian Druidry. Now, Walter William Melnyk has delved further into those links in a new novel written with Druid priestess...

"The problem in our church [national] is about the lack of respect for the authority of scripture and the nature, character and work of Jesus Christ," said Curran, an Episcopal priest for 15 years. "It's about the failed leadership of The Episcopal Church and whether or not we will continue to be under the authority of a failed leadership. And for many of us, the answer is no."

US Episcopal report highlights concerns over church attendance drop http://www.christiantoday.com/article/us.episcopal.report.highlights.concerns.over.church.attendance.drop/15084.htm http://tinyurl.com/3d37yq by Lillian Kwon, Christian Today US Correspondent Posted: Saturday, December 1, 2007, 12:26 (GMT) An Episcopal Church committee has released an interim report that reveals positive trends as well as concerns in declining membership and church conflicts. In a brief assessment of facts and trends in the Episcopal Church, the 'State of the Church' report – issued by the House of Deputies Committee in November – indicated the need for a "plan for action" at all levels of the denomination in response to membership drops. In 2006, the number...

-snip...Much of the controversy surrounding the program has centered on a specific Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training document that featured definitions of a "racist" ("…The term applies to all white people…living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture of sexuality") and "non-racist" ("A non-term."). Newman said the material came from the director of the California-based World Trust Educational Services Dr. Shakti Butler. She presented the document at RA summer training as, what Newman describes, "tools" that "were by no means what we had to believe." -snip

Vedic Recitations in a Christian Church on Thanksgiving http://newsblaze.com/story/20071101085222tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.html http://tinyurl.com/2kmxfe Nov 1, 2007 Judyth Piazza, News Blaze Recitations from ancient Sanskrit scriptures will reverberate in a Christian church in Nevada on the occasion of coming Thanksgiving eve service. Rajan Zed, the prominent Hindu chaplain, will read from Rig-Veda (oldest existing scripture of the world dated from around 1,500 BCE), Upanishads (Hindu scriptures containing mystical teachings), and Bhagavad-Gita (famous philosophical and spiritual poem) in Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno (Nevada) during Twenty-second Annual Thanksgiving Service of Northwestern Nevada to be held on November 21 evening. Despite conflicts around the world, various...

You can call them gluttons for punishment. They've begun calling themselves that. After no children or parents showed for Planned Parenthood of West Texas' Real Life. Real Talk. sex education session in August, organization officials rescheduled the workshop for Tuesday night at the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest at South 6th and Meander streets. This time, after four teachers and a program director drove two hours from Midland, one girl attended. "She'll be one of the best educated young women in the community after tonight," said Carla Holeva, vice president of community affairs for Planned Parenthood of West Texas....

Jim McGreevey to begin Episcopal seminary classes http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2007/09/01/2007-09-01_jim_mcgreevey_to_begin_episcopal_seminar.html http://tinyurl.com/2p469w BY CHRISTINA BOYLE DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Saturday, September 1st 2007, 4:00 AM Jim McGreevey, the nation's first openly gay governor, is returning to the classroom Tuesday as a seminary student. The former New Jersey governor will begin full-time studies at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Chelsea, where he will pursue a three-year Master of Divinity program. McGreevey, 50, switched denominations from Roman Catholic to Episcopalian earlier this year and has expressed an interest in becoming a priest. "I hope that Jim McGreevey finds some contentment and...

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago included an openly lesbian priest among five nominees for bishop Tuesday, as fellow Anglicans demand that the church bar gay bishops. The Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, who has a female partner, will be on the November 10 ballot. If she wins, she would be the second bishop living with a same-sex partner in the Episcopal Church. New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who has a male partner, was consecrated in 2003, pushing the world Anglican Communion to the brink of schism.

Porn star now seeks priesthood instead http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/07/15/2003369673 http://tinyurl.com/2wv9qm NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE, OAK PARK, CALIFORNIA Sunday, Jul 15, 2007, Page 7 Some people have their midlife crisis in reverse, like Ronald Boyer, who for most of his professional life has been better known as a star of pornographic films, Rod Fontana. After 30 years of sowing the wildest of oats, Boyer, 54, has searched his soul and chosen, to the surprise of family and colleagues, to seek a priesthood in the Episcopal Church. From his work in the rented villas of the San Fernando Valley, where hard-core sex films...

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a local Episcopal priest who announced she is both Muslim and Christian, will not be able to serve as a priest for a year, according to her bishop. During that year, Redding is expected to "reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam," the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, wrote in an e-mail to Episcopal Church leaders. During the next year, Redding "is not to exercise any of the responsibilities...

A Left-Wing Priestess for Allah http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070630/28250_A_Left-Wing_Priestess_for_Allah.htm http://tinyurl.com/33pmot By Mark D. Tooley Christian Post Contributor Sat, Jun. 30 2007 11:57 AM ET A Seattle priest has become a Muslim while also retaining her clergy status in the Episcopal Church. Her local bishop has described the development as “exciting.” "I look through Jesus and I see Allah,” explained the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding to the “Seattle Times”, which reported that Redding puts on her Islamic headscarf on Fridays and her clerical collar on Sundays. She has denounced Christianity as a "world religion of privilege.” But she still sees Jesus as her Savior,...

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6) On the other hand: "Jesus is not the only way to God . . ." Rev. Ann Holmes http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/reader_feedback.php?id=171 http://tinyurl.com/36ss36

Episcopal Panel 'Dodges' Response to Moratorium http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070615/27991_Episcopal_Panel_'Dodges'_Response_to_Moratorium.htm http://tinyurl.com/35qes6 By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Fri, Jun. 15 2007 07:13 AM ET An Episcopal panel of clergy and lay people indicated on Thursday they will not give a response to the moratorium Anglican leaders requested for by September, arguing that only the General Convention has the authority to respond. The next General Convention – The Episcopal Church's primary governing and legislative body – however, meets in the summer of 2009. After a four-day meeting that ended Thursday, the Executive Council said that no governing body other than General Convention can agree...

Executive Council prepares for communiqué response http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86791_ENG_HTM.htm Two committees hear experience of gay Nigerian activist By Mary Frances Schjonberg June 11, 2007 [Episcopal News Service] The Executive Council, the Episcopal Church's governing body between General Conventions, began its four-day meeting June 11 in New Jersey learning that a draft of a response to the Anglican Communion Primates' latest communiqué was ready for their consideration. In a public plenary session, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said that Executive Council members would discuss during private conversation later in the day a draft report of the EC008 Task Group, requested by the...

One day after Congress scuttled immigration reform, an Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles congregation welcomed into sanctuary a nursing mother facing deportation. On June 8, Liliana Sanctuario, 28, and her two-month-old son, Pablo, began living at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach, California, to avoid federal deportation to Mexico, and to help raise public awareness about the need for effective immigration reform, according to the Rev. Julie Wakelee-Lynch. "This is not hiding, this is public hospitality," said Wakelee-Lynch, St. Luke's associate rector. "Her three children and her husband are U.S. citizens, all are legal residents, which is why deportation...

Williams Not 'Absolutely Confident' Anglicans Can Get it Together http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070608/27856_Williams_Not_'Absolutely_Confident'_Anglicans_Can_Get_it_Together.htm http://tinyurl.com/2om7ed By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Fri, Jun. 08 2007 10:56 AM ET The spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion is hopeful, but not "absolutely confident" that the global church body, which many say is on the brink of division, can stay together. "Anglicans should remain Anglicans ... I don't think schism is inevitable," said Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in an interview with Time magazine. The Anglican head added, however, "If you're asking am I absolutely confident that we can get it together after the Lambeth Conference? No....

Breakaway Anglican Groups Invited to Form New Alliance http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070604/27766_Orthodox_Anglicans_to_Initiate_Talks_on_Forming_'Anglican_Union'.htm http://tinyurl.com/37dsm9 By Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter Mon, Jun. 04 2007 07:09 AM ET The head of a conservative Anglican network in the United States has invited major breakaway Anglican groups to up the level of their partnership for a united Anglicanism in North America as some predict a split in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, called for a Sept. 25-28 meeting to initiate discussion of creating an "Anglican Union" among the partners. The creation of the union would be a step...

Episcopal break up? http://www.catholic.org/views/views_news.php?id=24184 5/23/2007 Our Sunday Visitor One could argue that the Episcopal Church in the United States has been on the brink of disaster for years. Thomas Reeves, in his book The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity, quoted an observation made about the Episcopal Church in 1994 that seems no less true today: “The Episcopal Church is an institution in free fall. We have nothing to hold on to, no shared belief, no common assumptions, no agreed bottom line, no accepted definition of what an Episcopalian is or believes.” The Episcopal Church has been divided by...

No Lambeth Invitation for Bishop Robinson http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=3366 http://tinyurl.com/yoerxw 5/22/2007 The Bishop of New Hampshire will not be invited to participate in the 2008 Lambeth Conference, according to the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary of the Lambeth Conference. Invitations to the conference were mailed May 22 to more than 800 bishops of the Anglican Communion by the conference’s host, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) and the Rt. Rev. Charles Murphy and his suffragans, the bishops of the Anglican Mission in North America (AMiA) will not receive...

Katharine Jefferts Schori on the future of the Episcopal Church http://www.statesman.com/life/content/life/stories/faith/05/19/0519schori.html http://tinyurl.com/2vknks First woman to preside as bishop talks with Statesman religion reporter By Eileen Flynn American-Statesman Staff Saturday, May 19, 2007 The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, addressed the graduates of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest on Tuesday in Northwest Austin. After the commencement, Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the national church, sat down with an American-Statesman reporter to talk about her denomination's challenges, including tensions within the 2.4 million-member American province and with Anglicans worldwide and her recent...