Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Chief Justice George H. Carley






Today I enjoyed one of the greatest privileges of my life: I was profoundly blessed to give the invocation at the investiture of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Honourable George H. Carley. Chief Justice Carley is a parishioner of Saint Barnabas Church, Dunwoody. Congratulations Chief Justice Carley and God bless you!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

On Puritanism and the Prayer Book




'The comprehensiveness of the Prayer Book therefore is distinguished not only by its large generosity in matters indifferent, but also by its clear limitations where matters of importance are called into question. The Church does not wish to overdrive the flock, but a clear distinction is maintained between the weak members who lag, and the wilful ones who stray.
It is too much to expect that a generous temper such as this will not be abused: of this abuse the Prayer Book history shows at least one long and continuous instance. The Puritan party from the days of Elizabeth to the present time has never honestly accepted the Prayer Book: its members have been too much of Churchmen to leave the Church, but too little of Churchmen to value its principles: they have thus remained in a false position, attempting to subvert the system to which they nominally conformed. It has been pointed out how openly the attempt was made in Elizabethan times; and, though it has in God's good Providence failed all along to win any substantial recognition, it has been able at times to establish an evasive and false tradition of Prayer Book interpretation which has practically popularised and sought even to justify a system of disloyalty to the Prayer Book. The party has had its conflicts with the more loyal and whole-hearted churchmanship, and the issues have hitherto not been finally decisive.
The failure of the Elizabethan attempt to puritanize the Church inaugurated the period of loyalty of the early Stuart times: the success of this recovery was too rapid and too injudicious, and so the revenge came speedily; for a while sectarianism and puritanism had their way, until a short experience of their results under the Commonwealth produced a fresh reaction. The failure of the Puritans at the Savoy inaugurated another period of loyalty under the later Stuarts, but, when Church life was systematically crushed in the 18th century by Whig politicians and Latitudinarian bishops, the reign of the false tradition and the evasive, disloyal or merely torpid attitude to the rules of Church worship again set in; and those who tried to be loyal to the Church system, whether early followers of Wesley, Clapham Evangelicals or Oxford Tractarians, were all alike in turn charged with innovation, disloyalty, and even with Popery.
The contest still survives: the Puritan party still works for a system, which is not the system of the Catholic Church or of the English Prayer Book, and defends its disregard of plain rubrics (e.g., as to fasting or daily services), and its want of sympathy with the system (e.g., as to the frequency and discipline of Communion) by appealing to the evasive tradition, which in the dark days of the history it has been able to form, and would like to fasten permanently upon the Church.  Thus there is no feature more marked in the history of the Prayer Book than this contest between the Church system of worship expressed in the Prayer Book and the false interpretation which has grown up through a continuous tradition of evasion and rebellion.'
-Bishop Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, 1901.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The 1662 English Book of Common Prayer



The English Prayer Book: Our Heritage and Mandate for Mission

On Saturday 19th May 2012, the Anglican world celebrates a dramatically important but not particularly well-known anniversary, at least in our corner of the Lord’s vineyard. That date marks the 350th anniversary of the promulgation of the Book of Common Prayer in the English edition of 1662. Why is this issuing of the English Prayer Book significant, one may rightly ask! The English 1662 Prayer Book is the mother Book of the Anglican Communion, the liturgy upon which every subsequent orthodox revision of the Common Prayer Book throughout the world is based, including that of the 1928 American revision. It was the Prayer Book used in the American Colonies until the Revolution. It was the Book borne by Anglican missionaries and evangelists who covered the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bringing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to many nations, kindreds, people and tongues. It was and is the historical foundation of Anglican unity, ecclesiological, theological, liturgical and sacramental.

After the nightmare of the English Civil War and the interregnum, with Cromwell’s violent persecution of the Anglican Church and puritanical prohibition of the Prayer Book liturgy, the restoration of the Monarchy allowed the restoration of the Church of England and the Common Prayer Book. Saint Charles the First (1649) and Blessed William Laud (1645) had already been martyred for the orthodoxy of the English Church and its liturgy, and many faithful Anglicans had gone into hiding, devoutly using the Prayer Book in secret or abroad during the brutal Commonwealth period. With the Savoy Conference of 1661 overriding puritan objections to the Anglican Rite, the Act of Uniformity restored the Prayer Book in 1662. Loyalty to Prayer Book doctrine birthed the Non-Juring ‘British Orthodox Church’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the face of Erastianism and protestant comprehension. The BCP of King Charles II animated with profound intensity the faith, witness and labours of the eminent priests John and Charles Wesley, and motivated the Evangelical revival of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The 1662 Book produced the astonishing Anglican musical, artistic, architectural and aesthetic advances of the Victorian age. It was the 1662 English Prayer Book that inspired the great nineteenth century Church Revival which recovered the vitality and catholicity of Anglicanism, the Oxford Movement, the principal leaders of which were persistently committed to the use and supremacy of that Book. ‘We are especially anxious to lay before you our deep-rooted attachment to that venerable liturgy, in which the Church has embodied, in the language of ancient piety, the orthodox and primitive faith,’ wrote William Palmer, an early Tractarian.

With a common Faith located in the universal Creeds and a common Apostolic Order preserved in the Ordinal, a Common Prayer Book liturgy based on the 1662 English Book has been the ‘glue’ that has, over centuries, bound and united Anglicans the world over in a faithful and organic communion and fellowship, a communion that has been impaired only recently by unilateral innovations on the part of a minority within world Anglicanism.  When other church traditions were in time past rent asunder by internal conflict and theological division, the Ecclesia Anglicana, for most of its post-reformation history until the modern era, remained steadfastly united in one consentient body because of the unifying influence and magisterial doctrinal and moral teaching of the Prayer Book.  We have a goodly heritage, and the English Prayer Book lies at the heart of our precious incomparable patrimony. The Book of Common Prayer, of which the English 1662 edition is emblematic, is essential to Anglican identity and worship, Anglican evangelisation, Anglican mission.

Lastly, what is the belief articulated in the Prayer Book tradition as a whole, so nobly represented by the English 1662 Book? Because Anglicanism has never had a doctrinal system or order of its own, only that shared by all Christians from the time of the first millennium, we can assert with confidence and humility that Prayer Book doctrine is that of the Great Church, the Undivided Church as it was when believers were one: 'The doctrine of the Great Church, as it stood on the eve of 1054, includes, first of all, the main fabric of Trinitarian and Christological dogma, including, of course, the beliefs in our Lord's virginal Birth, bodily Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven; the presuppositions of Christian soteriology known as the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin; belief in Christ's Atoning Death as objectively bringing within our reach that salvation which we could never have earned for ourselves; the doctrines of the Sacraments as the means of grace, of the Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice; of the grace of Orders and the necessity of the episcopal succession from the Apostles; of the Church's absolving power in Penance; of Confirmation and Unction; of the Communion of Saints; and of the last things, Heaven and Hell, and the intermediate state, and the Last Judgement.' This is the ancient and Apostolic Faith, and the teaching of the Prayer Book.

Please join us for a special Eucharist at Noon on Saturday 19th May as we commemorate our own history, our own identity, our inheritance, on the anniversary of the English Prayer Book, from which we have received our unparalleled expression of Christian worship and living.

God bless you!

+Chad

The Ascension Day



At Saint Barnabas Church, 4795 North Peachtree Road, Dunwoody, Georgia 30338, the Holy Eucharist will be celebrated on Thursday 17th May, The Ascension Day, at Noon (said) and 7pm (High). Please join us!

Monday, May 14, 2012

The Faith



A more succinct definition of the orthodox faith could not be found...


We do here solemnly record our conviction that unity will be most effectually promoted, by maintining the faith in its purity and integrity, as taught by Holy Scriptures, held by the primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed General Councils.


-Lambeth Conference, 1867

Friday, May 04, 2012

Following the Faith 2012



Following the Faith with Bishop Chandler Jones
following-faith
October 11 - 20, 2012
Hello Everyone!

We are very excited about your upcoming tour!  


VERY IMPORTANT - PLEASE READ
I know a number of people have expressed interest in going on this tour.  If you have family or friends who would also like to join you, now is the time for them to register.  Have your family/friends go to the 
Harmony Website and register now before it's too late!
Below, I have highlighted a few of the places you will be visiting while in the Holy Land.  I hope you find this helpful as you prepare for your trip.  I included a few facts about each to get you started in your knowledge.  I recommend Google to use in your research. 

Sincerely,
Jane Buchanan, Director of Operations
Harmony International
Impacting Lives Through Extraordinary Experiences!
mt_of_beatitudes
Mount of Beatitudes
A TIME OF PRAYER AND MEDITATION.  According to the tradition, the Mount of Beatitudes is the place where Jesus gave His sermon on the mountain (Matthew 5, Luke 6:20) to the multitude that assembled to see and hear Him.  The sermon has 9 verses, each starting with "Blessed the..." or in Latin "Beati ...". The Latin word gave this hill its name - Beati-tudes. In this place is a Roman Catholic Franciscan church, monastery, hostel, gardens, farm and a visitors center.
wailing-wallThe Western (Wailing) Wall
A PLACE FOR PRAYER.  This is the most holy place in the world accessible to Jewish people.  Prayers are offered up at this wall built by King Herod in the first century B.C.
The men's prayer area continues from the outdoor section through a passageway to the north.  Within this area is a massive arch.  Though only 25 feet high now, the arch originally was 75 feet high when the Central Valley was much deeper.
basilica-annunciation
Basilica of the Annunciation
The church was established at the site where, according to tradition, the Annunciation took place. The current church is a two-story building constructed in 1969 over the site of an earlier Byzantine-era and then Crusader-era church. Inside, the lower level contains the Grotto of the Annunciation, believed by many Christians to be the remains of the original childhood home of Mary.

sepulchreChurch of the Holy Sepulchre
This church is one of the most Holy sites in the Christian world, the site of the burial place of Jesus.  The site is venerated as Golgotha (the Hill of Calvary), where Jesus was crucified, and is said  also to contain the place where Jesus was buried (the Sepulchre).






Payment schedule
**Please keep in mind that this is a blanket email sent to all those participating in this tour.  If you have already made payment arrangements or if your church/organization is making payments on your behalf, disregard this reminder.**
Your payment schedule between now and your departure date is as follows:
$300 per person due by July 1, 2012
Total balance due by August 1, 2012


Passport
Please double check that your passport is valid for 6 months after your departure date.  You are leaving October 11, 2012 so your passport cannot expire until after April 11, 2013.
If you have not obtained your passport, please begin the process, as it can take up to 8 weeks or more.  For more information, 
click here.

Recent Questions from Participants
Are we going to be safe in Israel?  While in the Holy Land, Harmony International, along with our friends at Holy Land Trust, have your safety as our number 1 priority at all times.  To put your mind at ease, this has never been an issue in the Holy Land on any of our tours.  Tourism is one of the main sources of income in the Holy Land so they take the safety of their tourists very seriously.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll be sure to add them to this section in our next email update!


Many Blessings,

Jane Buchanan
Director of Operations, Harmony International
Toll Free: 888.935.5551 - Phone: 678.398.7007 - Fax: 770.635.8585
HILogo 2




APA Appeal Update


Dear Family in Christ,

Praise be to God we have made our Lenten Appeal goal of $40, 000 and have now far exceeded it!!! Our total to date is just over $51,000!! Thank you all for your very generous response! Please continue to send in any funds that you might yet receive to our Provincial Treasurer, D. J. Fulton. I have had several people call and ask if they can still contribute towards this effort and the answer is a resounding Yes! The funds will be carefully used and this wonderful work in Haiti will become permanent and placed on a sound financial footing. The work of building God’s kingdom and changing lives in the local community in Balan (near Cap Haitian) will move forward thanks to all of your wonderful efforts.

Please continue to pray that we may be able to complete the purchase of the land without complications and that the plan to start construction of the broiler house in July will remain on schedule.

God bless you all for taking up this endeavor so enthusiastically. I think it is a great testimony to the health and spiritual maturity of the APA when we can reach out to support our foreign church partners in such a meaningful way. Clearly the Holy Spirit is alive and well in our churches and people!!! Please do continue to pray for all our foreign churches and global partners.

Remembering that in all things, He is able. I remain faithfully yours,

Fr. David Haines
Vicar General for Global Partnerships, APA  

Why Can’t Women be Priests?