Bishops says divided Church should turn to cricket, "here here!"

I am so glad that the bishops are at least considering some playtime or recess while they are at Lambeth! I still thin that football (soccer) would level the playing field, but, I guess cricket is a sport of the Empire (British, not Darth Vader's Galactic one), so it may make some sense to play cricket. I still think that the free-flowing TEAM aspect of football (soccer, that is) would offer a better context for building the body (as well as the bodies) of the Communion.

The Rev. Peter M. Carey

From Times Online

July 20, 2008

Bishops says divided Church should turn to cricket

(Gareth Fuller/PA)

Bishop de Chickera delivered the opening sermon at the Lambeth conference

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent of The Times

A liberal bishop from Sri Lanka suggested to his colleagues at the Lambeth Conference today that they should take the afternoon off to settle their theological differences over a game of cricket.

The sporting invitation from the Right Rev Duleep de Chickera, Bishop of Colombo, came in an otherwise hard-hitting sermon in which he reminded all 650 bishops attending that the Anglican Church was an "inclusive" community where everyone was equal, regardless of sexual orientation.

The sermon marked the official start of the conference in Canterbury and confirmed the Church's liberal direction. But Bishop de Chickera - who was preaching at the personal invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams - freely admitted the "reality" of the current divisions over gay consecrations and same-sex blessings.

"The reality is that we are a wounded Anglican Communion," he said. "Some of us are not here and that is an indication that all is not well."

Read the rest HERE.

Lambeth Thoughts from Bishop Epting...

There are a lot of reports about what is "happening" at Lambeth...and folks can find some good stuff on Episcopal Cafe, or just by google-ing "lambeth blog" or something...for me, I appreciated the Episcopal Church's Ecumenical Officer, Bishop Christopher Epting's thoughts on the "first day of the conference. You can read an excerpt below, or read it all HERE.


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Sunday At Lambeth

Well, this has been a roller coaster of a day, probably the first of many here at Lambeth 2008. A really moving Sunday morning Eucharist at Canterbury Cathedral featured bishops in procession in totally random order with no real preference given to Primates or others, a wonderful Gospel procession with Melanesian brothers and sisters dancing the Gospel book placed in a model boat to be read by a young Black deacon, and an English choir actually pulling off the Mass setting in Latin to Congolese music with drums and rattles! Anglicanism at its best perhaps.

But the highlight was a masterful sermon by Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo, Sri Lanka who daily faces down the barrel of a gun in persecution. He spoke of two over-riding issues – the need for the Church to confront issues of justice and peace in the wider world and the need for us to address the woundedness in our own Communion.

He said the first must be our priority but called for us to address the second by adopting the discipline of self examination and repentence (by heeding the Gospel imperative to be hard on ourselves and gentle with others — if we root up the unrighteous weeds in the field, none of us will survive, he said), by claiming the Anglican genius of unity in diversity, and by reclaiming or prophetic vision.

He concluded his sermon with a Buddhist chant, but one which offered the Archbishop and the Conference to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Spontaneous applause broke out at the conclusion of his sermon. It was deeply moving and came from deep in his soul.

Then, we returned to the University of Kent and got a briefing on the week. Reality returned. Anyone who thinks that we are “avoiding the hard issues” by our format did not hear Rowan, Ian Earnest of the Indian Ocean, and especially Clive Handford, chair of the Windsor Continuation Committee. We will spend hours and days dealing with our Communion-dividing issues, giving input into the draft Anglican Covenant, and sharing honestly in our “indaba” discussion groups. It will be excruciatingly painful work.

The difference is, we will not try to resolve these issues with a vote, but by continuing the discussion and being but one more step in the process. We are in for years of arduous work both our preacher today and the Archbishop have admitted.

The question is, do we have the will to engage the work…and the time left to complete it.

I pray that we do.

"fighting for peace"?

Can we fight for peace? Or is this part of the problem...?

from Thomas Merton:

Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or fight for. It is indeed fighting for peace that starts all the wars. Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Climbers Discover KJV on Mount Ararat

from Tominthebox News Network....

Climbers Discover KJV on Mount Ararat

TURKEY - In a discovery that has long been expected by some, but is inconceivable to most, a group of climbers recently discovered a copy of the King James Bible within remains of Noah's Ark.

Expedition leader Dr. Kyle Richardson, who is a part-time professor at Pensacola Christian College, told TBNN, "We had been planning this climb for over a year, hoping to come across wooden remains of Noah's Ark. When we found several very old planks on the north face of the mountain, near the summit, we thought we had found what we were looking for. After a closer inspection, we knew we were right. For example, several of the planks had pictures carved into them of various forms of animals that are now extinct. Also, there were eight names carved in the wood, presumably those of Noah, his wife, his sons, and his sons' wives."

Fellow climber Wendy Richardson, wife of Kyle, explained their greatest discovery. According to Wendy, "As we were carefully looking under a few of the wooden planks, we came across something that we did not expect. Inside a small wooden compartment, we found a near-perfect copy of the King James Bible. Based on where we found it, we have concluded that this bible was actually the one used by Noah during the flood so many years ago. The more we think about it now, the more sense it makes."

Although several Old and New Testament experts have raised serious questions about how a KJV could have possibly been on the ark, others are thrilled about the discovery. For example, Dr. Henry Beeth, professor of New Testament at Bob Jones University, said, "The discovery of the KJV among the remains of Noah's ark confirms what we have always known to be true. God actually first revealed himself in the KJV, long before either the Hebrew or Greek. The writers of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament actually translated into their languages from the KJV. In 1611, the translators of the KJV were just going back to the original. We know some folks can't figure out the KJV, but this discovery just proves that it still stands as the perfectly revealed Word of God."

Iphone Bible...more reading of Scripture

While I wait to download the Ipod update for Touch, I ran across this article that Nicholas Knisely over at "Entangled States" posted....

July 17, 2008

iPhone Bible

Saw this in one of my RSS feeds this afternoon:

"Since yesterday’s launch people have spent a total of 186,894 minutes reading the Bible on their iPhones using the YouVersion.com Bible App. It is now one of the top 50 applications on iTunes.

Our goal with YouVersion.com all along has been to increase people’s engagement with Scripture, and yesterday has proven to be a big milestone in this effort. I’m really excited to think about all that will happen as more people began to make the Bible a part of their everyday lives.

If you have an iPhone (and soon to include now the iPod touch) I encourage you to download it - it’s FREE. We are continuing to develop new features for YouVersion, so the website, mobile site, and iPhone app will continue to get better."

Read the full article here and follow the links to the application - or just hit the app store.

I've just installed it on my iPhone. Works a treat. And it allows you to choose different translations (and includes excellent ones like the ESV as well as great adaptions like "The Message".)

Hopefully I'll be able able to add to the total number of minutes of bible reading over the next few weeks. Now I don't feel like such a dork for celebrating last Friday's nerd holiday...