In a unanimous voice vote, the 90-member Executive Council of the United Church of Christ passed a resolution April 14 supporting Trinity UCC in Chicago and its recently retired senior minister Jeremiah Wright, whose videotaped, politically charged comments stirred sustained criticism of the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama, a longtime member of the congregation.
It takes a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal- Anglican divisions that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, west of Chicago. Many assume that the key issue is homosexuality, but a closer look reveals that other factors are at work. For one thing, this story is about charismatic leaders coming and going, and about congregations growing in their presence or folding in their absence.
Every ten years bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion assemble in England for the Lambeth Conference. This summer’s meeting is much awaited in light of the 77-million-member communion’s highly public wrangling over the issue of homosexuality.
King Abdullah II of Jordan has given a plot of land to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem for construction of a church and retreat center at the much-visited Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan site, where, according to tradition, Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist took place.
In officially dedicating the two-and-a-half-acre site on March 28, Anglican bishop Suheil Dawani of Jerusalem called the gift a “privilege” that will enable the building “of a medium-sized Gothic church,” according to Episcopal News Service.