We, the Bishops of British Columbia, write to you on a matter that concerns all Christians and citizens of this province. At the very core of our faith lies the concept of ‘radical equality’. When we come to the altar to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, we all come as the same, penitent sinners, and we all receive the same gift of grace. No one gets more; no one gets less. True Christian community is based not on common interests, social standing or life circumstances, but on making real among us this ‘radical equality’. The extent to which we do so is the extent to which we reflect the Realm of God. Further, as individual Christians and as communities of Christians, our purpose is to bring the Realm of God into being in our world. We do so by struggling to extend throughout society the ‘radical equality’ that is the nature of the Realm of God.
IF, FOR SOME reason, you found yourself in circumstances where you could only attend one church service a year, what would it be? For me, there’s no contest: the service that takes place in the night between Holy Saturday and Easter morning.
The human toll of recent events in India and Palestine have brought into sharp focus the role of religion in the world. Crusades and inquisitions of all sorts constitute a profound scar on history, an ugly and insistent reminder that religion and temporal power are a dangerous combination. All the same, we need to examine the assumption that freedom from such religious conflict requires us to remove religion entirely from public life in Canada. Such a course may seem reasonable and prudent. In reality, it is a dangerous folly.
The Churches in Manicaland, on March 5, 2002, issued a pre-election statement, “A Time to Choose”, to the people of Zimbabwe. In this post election period we wish to issue a further statement to the people of our country.
From work in the basement of St. James Anglican Church at 303 East Cordova Street, St. James Community Service Society has grown to become one of the largest social service agencies in Vancouver, with 250 employees who help about 2,000 people each month, with an annual budget of $10 million. May was honoured at the … Continued
The next meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches will be held in August and September, 2002, in Geneva, Switzerland. There will be a group of young people from all over the world participating in the meeting as stewards. You could be one of them!
Dr. Anand’s writings include: Magnificent Quest, a biography of her grandfather Isa Charan Sada, a preeminent Milton scholar who had translated Milton’s Paradise Lost & Regained and Samson Agonistes into Urdu poetry; A Potpourri of Thoughts on English Literature; and a treatise on Milton’s Paradise Lost and the Emblem Tradition titled Of Costliest Emblem.
Andrew Gant, Organist, Choirmaster and Composer to Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal Dear Friends Three hundred years ago the Chapel Royal Organist, Henry Purcell, and Poet Laureate, John Dryden, wrote odes and anthems to mark the various events in the lives of their royal patrons. This year the current holders of their posts, Andrew Motion and … Continued
THE WRITTEN word first appeared in Egypt and Samaria about 3200 BCE. English as we might recognize it was in use by about the 16 th century. The use of written language was a skill reserved to the elite for most of that time. The ability to read and write has only been truly widespread for about 100 years. Given all of this, it is perhaps no wonder that we seem to live in constant fear of its loss.
New Year in Canterbury, as in so many towns and cities, is a busy time for bargain hunters. Here too, the January sales started in December. As with so much of modern life, people are in a great rush to get ahead, to get things done. But New Year is also a chance to take stock, to look beyond the next shop window further into the future and deeper into ourselves. It’s a time to examine the forces shaping our lives. And the power we have – or lack – to shape them ourselves.
The following is a lengthy excerpt of the Primate’s sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa on Jan. 1, 2002. Because the original presentation was spoken, the text has been edited for clarity of reading, but not for content. Thanks to Brian Sarjeant, editor of Ottawa’s diocesan newspaper, Crosstalk, who provided a written transcript from which this version has been created.
