eChurch Blog

Associated Baptist Press

Q&A with Baptist World Alliance  president-elect

EDE, Netherlands (ABP) — Members of the Baptist World Alliance General Council affirmed John Upton as the organization’s presidential nominee July 31. Assuming he is elected by the group’s quinquennial Baptist World Congress meeting next year in Honolulu, Upton will help lead 214 national and regional Baptist bodies representing the vast majority of the world’s Baptists until 2015.

Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, sat down with an Associated Baptist Press reporter shortly after the council voted unanimously to recommend him as president.

Q: You are president-elect of the Baptist World Alliance. What kind of honor is this for you?

A: The honor is being able to work with Baptists from all over the world. It’s been an honor to work with them in the capacities I have in the past — and now to serve as president.

And I hope during this next five years to have a real emphasis on building community in the world. I think we’ve had a transition of leadership and we’ve had transitions of structure, a transition of bylaws and constitution. I think, having accomplished that during this particular quinquennium, the next quinquennium I hope to focus on the building of community in even a broader sense.

With our general secretary, Neville Callam — from Jamaica, being from another part of the world, leading the BWA — I think we have a tremendous moment for the BWA to become a broader family and more inclusive in ways that we didn’t even know we could be in the past. So, I get really excited; it’s an honor to be a part of that process.

And also to deal with all the issues that churches are going to face all over the world as we enter the 21st century. It will be an honor to work with people who are bright people, who are committed people, who are courageous people, who will look for creative spiritual solutions.

Q: What do you think the biggest challenge that BWA will face over the next five years will be?

A: Probably the biggest one I think we’ll face — and it deals with the community piece, because I think BWA has been able in the past to build its future on loyalty and commitment to denominations and denominational structures. I think as we see that shift in the future, people are going to be committing less out of loyalty and more out of purpose. And it will be incumbent on us to demonstrate with clarity the purpose of the BWA while at the same time building passion for the mission. And I think that’s going to be a key challenge in the coming years — it’s a shift from a loyalty-based concept to a mission-purpose-based [concept]. So that we can articulate clearly, when people engage with the BWA, that we know what we’re about, that we know who they are and they understand the international component to that multicultural diversity and yet can find a unity in the midst of all of that.

Q: On that point, specifically, Dr. [Neville] Callam [BWA’s general secretary] referred to it earlier in this report, the fact that the leadership in the BWA really is starting to look like its member bodies more and more now, with an African-Caribbean general secretary, with a lot of leadership from the “two-thirds world,” women increasingly.

A: Right.

Q: How does that play in to both the challenges and the opportunities that BWA faces over the next few years?

A: Well, I think it’s going to have to listen with bigger ears than we have in the past, and a little more patience and with less assumptions. I think, with the General Council being made up of equal — a nominating committee being made up of equal people, representatives from around the world, from the different regions, they’re going to have a much more diverse General Council. And I think that’s going to cause us to just sit and listen in a way that we haven’t had to in the past. Not that we didn’t want to; we just didn’t have to.

And, personally, I think as we approach issues, we’re going to hear solutions we haven’t heard before. Because we’ll have perspective on issues we haven’t had before. And that’s one of the joys I have in coming here, is I don’t realize how provincial I am until I get here. And — out of kindness and in gentle ways — I get probed to think bigger.

And it’s larger than just seeing the world; I get probed in, I think, a Kingdom kind of way. And I think, when I get here, that my provincial way is the Kingdom way — only to discover how small that is.

That’s an interesting item to bring, element to bring to all the future discussions, whether it’s global warming, stem-cell research — or whatever those issues are that we’re going to have to face  in terms of ethics and make some statements on. Not to mention how we address powers in the world. We’re going to have to hear from each other so we speak with a, again, with a clearer voice so that people around the world hear their voice in that bigger voice.

Q: I guess finally — and this sort of relates to your idea of your own perceived provincialism — what does this mean for Virginia Baptists? The fact that you’re the president-elect now, and you’re the executive director of the BGAV. We also have Daniel Carro, another Virginia Baptist, as the first vice-president nominee for BWA. Will this create a new nexus between Virginia Baptist life and the BWA — and what does it mean for the way the BGAV works?

A: Two or three things I think I’d say on that item. No. 1, I think the fact I’ve had the opportunity to be the president-elect and that Daniel Carro is the first vice president-elect — I think that’s because of who Virginia Baptists have been. And when they have done their mission work, they have done it with respect of others, they have done it with dignity. I think I have this opportunity because of who Virginia Baptists are.

And my hope for Virginia Baptists in this is that maybe they will see themselves the way the rest of the world sees them. Because I would really like for them to know who they are through the eyes of the international family. Because they have just done missions in a good way, in a respectful way. And a mutual way, because they have been receiving into their churches and their homes mission groups from all over the world; we’ve not just gone. It’s been much more mutual than that; we’ve had teams come from all over the world to Virginia. And we’ve grown because of that. So, I think this opportunity comes out of that background…. There’s not a corner of Virginia you can go to that a team from somewhere in the world hasn’t been and done mission work for us.

Q: Or has come to live.

A: That’s right — and come to live, or studied, and now are even pastoring in Virginia. Out of our partnership with Hungary we have a pastor. And from France, we have a pastor. We have several who have come from around the world who are now pastoring in Virginia.

So, I think, No. 1, I hope Virginia Baptists are able to see themselves as they are known, in a way they wouldn’t know any other way. And through this office, they’ll begin to see that and even engage missions in a deeper way.

So, I hope that Virginia Baptists will have a much more expanded vision of their own mission and who they are in the global family — that we know our place in that bigger picture.

No. 2, it will mean some — the Virginia Baptist Mission Board approved me doing this; I did share this with them in executive session; I wanted our Virginia Baptist Mission Board to approve before I finalized my candidacy for this. And they voted unanimously, stood on their feet. And that was a special day for me — a highlight in my personal life. One, to feel their affirmation was a highlight, but also to see their affirmation of the Baptist World Alliance, that this was something that they saw as a good thing to do.

And so I feel almost commissioned by them to do this.

Q: As part of your job, not an addition to it?

A: As part of my job — I’ll still continue to be [BGAV] executive director. And the challenge in this — and I mean this as a good challenge, and the staff has been really supportive of this — don’t leave us and do this; in whatever way you can, take us with you, that we can be a part of this with you.

And not just staff, but all of Virginia Baptists, that we get to share this experience with you. And that one has meant a lot to me. I’ll need to go back and talk with staff about, you know, while I’m gone [traveling the globe on BWA business], how things will work; that things will run and they’ll know who to go to, with clarity, about that. But I have an excellent staff; I have absolute confidence.

We’ve been fortunate in Virginia. You know, we have a five-year strategy that we’re just now implementing, so we know our direction for the next five years — which I think is part of God’s design, that we’re not in the midst of determining what we’re going to do in the future. We have some real clarity about what our next-five-year objectives are, and we’ve even worked that down to action plans for the next five years. So, it will be a matter of carrying this out. It couldn’t have been better timing.

Andrew Brown Guardian

Rowan’s road to schism

Hispanic Lutherans Urge Opposition to Sexuality Proposals

A group of Hispanic pastors from Florida released an open letter to members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pleading against adopting changes to the denomination’s positions on homosexuality.

“When the Assembly votes on these matters, your vote will not simply decide on possible changes to ELCA policies but will also be a vote on whether or not Holy Scripture will be the final authority for our faith and life in the ELCA,” the pastors state in the letter, released Friday.

Already several groups of Lutheran scholars and church leaders have released similar open letters urging votes for and against changes. Their pleas come ahead of the denomination’s Churchwide Assembly, which convenes in Minneapolis starting Aug. 17.

The latest letter reveals that many pastors and members of Hispanic congregations in the ELCA are “extremely concerned” with the upcoming vote.

Next month, voting members will be considering adopting its first statement on human sexuality and proposals that conservatives say would allow non-celibate homosexuals to be ordained.

Earlier this year, the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality released a long-awaited report acknowledging that there is neither a consensus nor an emerging one in the denomination on homosexuality. The task force agreed that the denomination cannot responsibly consider any changes to its policies unless it is able and willing in some way to recognize lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships but it recommended that the ELCA commit itself to finding ways to recognize such relationships.

It also recommended that individual congregations be allowed to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to be ordained.

Opposed to the statement and the recommended policy changes, the Hispanic Lutherans stress in their letter, “[I]t is crystal clear that the Bible calls homosexual behavior contrary to the Word and Will of God.”

And while everyone should be and is welcomed to ELCA congregations, homosexual behavior and any other unbiblical sexual behavior should be regarded as behavior not in accordance with the Will of God, they add.

“All of humankind is equally and inherently alienated from God and are forgiven and saved by the Grace of God, and only by the Grace of God. However, this forgiveness calls for repentance.”

They warn that if the statement and policy changes are adopted, many will leave the ELCA and the denomination’s unity will be further undermined.

“Being deeply concerned about the future of our Church, we respectfully request that, for the sake of the Word of God and for the unity of the ELCA, your vote may honor the Biblical, historical, confessional, and traditional teachings of the Church regarding sexuality, marriage, family, and the rostering of our ministry leaders,” the pastors urge.

Associated Baptist Press

EDE, Netherlands (ABP) — John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, has been nominated as president of the Baptist World Alliance.

If elected at the BWA’s world congress in 2010, Upton will begin a five-year term to end in 2015. He will succeed David Coffee of Great Britain, who was elected at the BWA’s 2005 congress in Birmingham, England.

“I don’t think one could ever feel more humbled or more privileged at the same time than in a moment like this,” said Upton, who has been executive of the BGAV and its Virginia Baptist Mission Board since 2001. “One of the things I love about the BWA is the diversity we have.  In the midst of that diversity, there is this beautiful unity, this colorful unity that we have in Christ.”

Upton will be the 20th president of the global organization, which counts more than 37 million members in 214 national and regional unions and conventions with almost 160,000 congregations. The president works closely with General Secretary Neville Callam, the BWA’s top employed official.

Upton will be the eighth American to serve as president and the third with Virginia Baptist ties. The last American to hold the BWA’s top elected office was seminary president Duke K. McCall, from 1980 to 1985.

Raul Scialabba of Argentina, chair of the BWA’s officers search committee, recommended the slate of officers that included Upton and 12 vice presidents, two from each of the BWA’s six regions. The BWA General Council adopted the slate July 31 at its annual meeting and will present the nominees next year at the world congress, which convenes every five years.

“We need a president who can represent the BWA before governing authorities and world religious leaders with Christian demeanor and wisdom,” said Scialabba in presenting the nominations. “Changing realities require leaders who can command respect and represent the cause of Christ before the world.” The new president also must be visionary and able to unite the BWA’s diverse constituency, he said.

A constitutional change adopted by the General Council this year designates one of the vice presidents as first vice president, with authority to sit on the council’s executive committee. The search committee’s proposed designee is Daniel Carro, an Argentinian who teaches at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Falls Church, Va., and serves as Latino consultant for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.

The other nominees for vice president are Joel Alberto Sierra Cavazos of Mexico, Harry Gardner of Canada, William Epps of the United States, Olu Menjay of Liberia, Paul Msiza of South Africa, Victor Manual Gonzalez Grillo of Cuba, Burchell Taylor of Jamaica, Regina Claas of Germany, Nabil Costa of Lebanon, John Kok of Malaysia and Ross Clifford of Australia.

The elections of Upton and Carro will strengthen the already deep ties between the BWA and the Baptist General Association of Virginia, whose 1,400 congregations contribute among the largest financial gifts to the world organization.

Links go back to 1895, when R.H. Pitt, editor of the Religious Herald, Virginia Baptists’ newsjournal, was one of the first to call for a worldwide Baptist body. Since its organization in London in 1905, the BWA’s headquarters have been in Virginia, currently in Falls Church just outside Washington, D.C.

As a result of his election, “I hope that that Virginia Baptists will have a much more expanded vision of their own mission and who they are in the global family — that we know our place in that bigger picture,” said Upton.

He added that Virginia Baptists have been very supportive of his BWA involvement. “The Virginia Baptist Mission Board approved me doing this,” said Upton. “I did share this with them in executive session. I wanted our Virginia Baptist Mission Board to approve before I finalized my candidacy for this. And they voted unanimously, stood on their feet. And that was a special day for me — a highlight in my personal life. One, to feel their affirmation was a highlight, but also to see their affirmation of the Baptist World Alliance, that this was something that they saw as a good thing to do.

“So I feel almost commissioned by them to do this.”

Upton has long been active in BWA life, serving on both its General Council and its executive committee. He currently chairs the congress program committee, which is planning next year’s world congress in Hawaii, scheduled to meet July 28-Aug. 1.

He also has served on the Baptist World Aid committee, the commission on Christian ethics and the executive committee of the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of the BWA’s six regional bodies.

Upton graduate from Averett College (now University) in Danville, Va., and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Before election as Virginia Baptists’ executive director, he had been head of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s mission mobilization group since 1995. Earlier he was pastor of Urbanna (Va.) Baptist Church and served in Taiwan as a missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. He and his wife, Deborah, have three grown children.

The Christian Institute

Law Lords order guidance on overseas assisted suicide.

The ruling does not alter the law on assisted suicide but has nevertheless been welcomed by pro-euthanasia supporters.

Debbie Purdy, a former journalist, has had the support of euthanasia lobby group Dignity in Dying in her campaign demanding the guidance.

Miss Purdy has multiple sclerosis and says she may want her husband Omar Puente to help her travel overseas to kill herself when her condition worsens.

She claims that the current law is not clear enough for her to know whether or not Mr Puente is likely to face prosecution if he assists her suicide in this way.

The five Law Lords yesterday upheld her claim, and have now ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to produce specific guidance on the circumstances in which he would bring charges for assisting suicide.

In their judgment the Law Lords emphasised that only Parliament can change the law. Earlier this month an attempt to weaken it was rejected by the House of Lords.

However, the Law Lords said Miss Purdy had a human right to the information she was seeking, and ordered the DPP to come up with a “custom-built policy statement” explaining the various factors he would take into account before deciding to prosecute.

The DPP, Keir Starmer QC, said he had organised a team to come up with an interim policy on the matter over the summer.

After that, he said there would be a public consultation before a final policy was published in Spring 2010.

“In the absence of a legislative framework, cases of this sensitive nature present a significant challenge for prosecutors”, said Mr Starmer.

Supporters of the current law have described it as having “a stern face and a kind heart”, allowing the DPP to exercise discretion but also preventing abuse.

Lord Alton, a leading opponent of assisted suicide, said: “I think it would be highly regrettable were we to sleepwalk into having laws made by stealth in the courts.

“Compassion for Debbie Purdy should not cloud our judgment on the legal, ethical and medical issues posed by the legalisation of euthanasia.”

The campaign group Care Not Killing pointed to the Law Lords’ observation that the new policy statement will not provide Miss Purdy’s husband “with a guarantee of non-prosecution” if he helps his wife travel overseas.

The group said: “The Court has also recognised that it is Parliament’s responsibility to make the law and that this Judgment is designed simply to improve clarity in the way the law is administered.

“Parliament has recognised only three weeks ago, in its substantial rejection of Lord Falconer’s amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill, that there are serious public safety implications involved in creating loopholes in the law to meet the wishes of a determined and strong-minded minority.”

More than 100 Britons have now died in the Dignitas suicide facility in Switzerland. The DPP has not yet prosecuted anyone connected with the deaths.

Following the defeat of Lord Falconer’s amendment earlier this month, two individuals have made high profile challenges to the authorities on the matter.

Alan Rees, who helped cancer sufferer Raymond Cutkelvin travel to Switzerland to kill himself was recently arrested after describing what he had done in an article for the Daily Mail in the run up to the Lords vote.

Earlier this week a doctor who was struck of the medical register for helping a patient commit suicide also challenged the authorities to take action after he admitted to giving Mr Rees and Mr Cutkelvin £1,500 towards the trip.

Personally I couldn’t agree more….bring back Spurgeon I say….

by Anne Thomas – Christian Today

Church in need of good preachers, says Clarion Trust founder

Speaking at the Keswick Convention, the Rev Stephen Gaukroger said that preachers needed to be “thoroughly biblical” but also bear in mind that “they are not giving an Old Testament lecture in a theological college”.

“People’s souls have to be fed – it has to be applied,” he said. “On the other hand,
you don’t want someone to stand up with a bunch of jokes and a few applications.

“Why should we believe them, unless it is grounded in Scripture? So we have to have both attractive skills in communication but deep commitment to rigorous Bible teaching.”

He went on to say that there were very few people as gifted in preaching as they believed themselves to be.

“‘We have lots of people in our churches who desperately need help in their preaching – help to be attractive, to be biblical and to be good communicators.”

Rev Gaukroger said he believed there were less good preachers in churches today than 25 years ago.

“Finding someone who can hold the attention of three thousand people over an extended period of time is very difficult,” he said.

“But don’t let anyone tell you that a speaker can’t hold someone’s attention for more than ten or fifteen minutes.

“My kids have introduced me to an alternative comedian – this guy goes onto a platform for 50 minutes, talks about life, and has people weeping with laughter.

“If one person can do that, I don’t see why you can’t do that for Jesus’ sake and talk about the Gospel. But it really does depend on gifting.”

Independent.ie

This was a primal heresy, for churches should not be inspired by heathen citadels but by Calvary

After all the battering that the Catholic Church has received in recent years, and all the apologies it has uttered for everything from the Inquisition to Swine Flu, the ragwort infestation and this summer’s plague of horseflies, it was rather encouraging to hear the Bishop of Galway offer a defence of anything it believes in.

On this occasion, it was the right of the Catholic Church to have the final say over what goes on in its buildings — that is, whether open coffins should be allowed to overnight in churches. Bishop Drennan says that that practice should be confined to funeral homes. In the parish of Liscannor, they beg to differ.

But the parish of Liscannor is not an autonomous, free-thinking, independent church. It is part of the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church. To be sure, every single parishioner at Liscannor can decide to become a Methodist or a Presbyterian, and they can then go and open their own church. But the present church is owned by the diocese. That’s where the title deeds lie. And the rules of that particular church are not set by the parishioners, but by the hierarchy of the church to which as free men and women they have given their loyalty. They can put that loyalty in their pockets and walk away. But the church remains the property of the bishop, and it will be inherited by his successor, who — as it happens — will probably be a Zambian or an Ibo.

The issue here isn’t whether open coffins should be tolerated in a church (when did we in Ireland start using the word “casket”?). The issue is whether we have forgotten what the Catholic Church is. We apparently have. And the people who started that process were in the upper reaches of the Catholic Church itself, a generation and more ago, when it decided to “modernise” itself.

The abandonment of the old liturgy happened universally — and catastrophically, as a result of Vatican II. However, the construction of a plague of ugly buildings — which abandoned the ancient cruciform style of architecture, which you can see in Glendalough, Gougane Barra and the Skelligs — was almost uniquely Irish, and was far more deadly.

Traditional church-building embodied purpose. Form followed function. The cross-shape was not merely an architectural image of the gibbet of Calvary: it was a statement of authority. For at the top stood the priest, with the altar resting in the position where the head of Jesus lay on the original cross.

The Catholic Church is not a democracy: and the churches it built reflected that hierarchical, hieratic truth: until the 1960s, that is, and the dawn of the ecclesiastical wigwam.

The inspiration for this tragedy was the finest Irish architect of the 20th century — Liam McCormick. He was a genius: but his talents were misplaced. He should have been designing secular buildings, and not corrupting ecclesiastical architectural traditions which are as old as Christianity. For McCormick’s churches deliberately echoed the pre-Christian era, which was what St Patrick and the early fathers had striven to banish. Thus his first great commission, St Aengus’ Church, Burt, in Donegal, was inspired by the Grianán of Aileach, a Bronze Age fort.

That was a primal heresy, for churches should not be inspired by heathen citadels, but by the cross of Calvary. Forget that and soon you will forget everything. His next famous commission, St Michael’s Church in Creeslough, was even worse; looking like a block of concrete set in a bog, it was intended to reflect Table Mountain nearby. Sorry, wrong hilltop: did Liam McCormick ever think about Golgotha as inspiration?

Not merely did McCormick become internationally acclaimed, but across Ireland a blight of copycat churches soon spread: a franchise of hideously tacky Little Macs, usually built to replace churches which had been raised after the Penal Days. Despite two centuries of oppression, our forefathers back then had known how to make churches. But by the 1960s and ’70s, the Catholic Church had completely forgotten. It also introduced mumbo-jumbo “folk-masses”, with spotty girls with guitars singing “Kumbaya” — and hello, an ecumenical dance troupe of Buddhists, Presbyterians and atheists will now entertain us during the Consecration with their interpretation of the birth of the Lord Krishna.

Is it surprising that once the official Catholic Church forgot its central purpose, its adherents grew a little woolly about that purpose also? When doctors forget the Hippocratic oath, the patients are unlikely then to remember it.

Then the bishops woke up one morning, and dumbfounded, they saw the President taking Anglican communion, as if it were exactly the same as that of the Roman Catholic Church. Worse, when they complained, almost no-one understood their gripe. Decades of moral equivalence had obliterated the core belief that the Eucharist, being literally the body and blood of Jesus Christ, was the defining element of Roman Catholicism.

It’s no wonder that some people today don’t know the difference between churches and funeral homes. Why, not so long ago, the Catholic Church didn’t know the inspirational difference between the Cross of Calvary and a Neolithic stockade.

Comment by Andrei Zolotov, Jr.
RIA Novosti

Will the New Patriarch of Moscow Succeed in His New Role in Ukraine?

It began in the capital of Kiev, where the Patriarch is to lead the celebrations dedicated to Saint Prince Vladimir, the Baptist of Rus’, on Tuesday. His 10-day-long pilgrimage will then take him to Donetsk and Gorlovka in Eastern Ukraine, which is traditionally pro-Russian. Then he will go to the Crimea, where on August 2 the Patriarch will worship in the ancient Chersonesus where Prince Vladimir himself had been baptized. The last – and likely most daring –days of the visit will be spent in the Western regions of Ukraine, where the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches epitomized by the Russian and Western civilizations had been the historic rivals and neighbors, and which is today dominated by the anti-Moscow political and church forces. Visits to Rivno, Luts’k, and Volodymyr-Volynsky are all on the agenda, and the trip will conclude on August 5 at the Pochayiv Monastery, the outpost of Orthodox Christianity in the West.

For an outsider who is not familiar with the intricacies of Ukrainian history, it is not easy to understand the complexity of the church situation in Ukraine. Over the centuries, the heirs to Prince Vladimir’s baptismal font have repeatedly found themselves in different states and different Churches, while the numerous wars that have rolled over this part of Europe inevitably turned out to be civil wars for the ancestors of those who make up the people of Ukraine today. It was only within the framework of the Soviet Union that Ukraine’s current borders were set. When the Soviet Union disintegrated and Ukraine became an independent state, a complicated and as of yet unfinished process of forming a united Ukrainian nation began. There are few other places in the world where the religion factor would play such an important role both in the day-to-day life of the people and in the identity of the nation. That is in Ukraine, the Church is an object of colossal political pressure, often directed at breaking the spiritual and historical ties. As a result, the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine are presently divided into at least three church groups and live next door to Greek Catholics, or Uniates, — Christians who abide by the Byzantine Rite while belonging to the jurisdiction of the Vatican.

Patriarch Kirill repeatedly emphasizes that he is coming to Ukraine with a pastoral visit, to worship on the holy sites of this land and pray for the unity of the Church, for the unity and well-being of the Ukrainian people, who are presently living through a difficult economic and political crisis, and for the unity of all nations tracing their history back to the Kievan Rus – and that is not only Ukrainians, but Russians and Belorussians as well. The Moscow Patriarchal See identifies itself as a successor to the ancient Kievan See. It is not a political visit, Church officials say. The Patriarch is coming to his flock.

However, there is another side to this statement. By coming to his Ukrainian flock and speaking to it not only in Russian or in our common Church Slavonic liturgical language, but also in Ukrainian, by emphasizing his respect for the Ukrainian statehood, Patriarch Kirill shows that he is not a patriarch of the Russian Federation and not just the head of the church of the Russian people, no matter how handy such an interpretation would be for both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists. He sees himself as the patriarch of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and all the Orthodox Christians throughout the world, who see in him as the earthly head of their Church.

In this he is somewhat different from his predecessor–the late Patriarch Alexy II who in 1990 granted a wide-ranging autonomy to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and, facing protests in Kiev when he came the same year to hand the Tomos of Self-Government to the then-Metropolitan and later a self-proclaimed schismatic Patriach Filaret, did not set foot on the Ukrainian soil for almost 18 years. A year ago, 80-year-old Patriarch Alexy came to Kiev when it became the site of a grand intra-Orthodox and international drama staged by President Victor Yushchenko. At the time, two Orthodox Patriarchs – one of Moscow, another of Constantinople – were simultaneously in Kiev, the latter being nudged by the presidential administration to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox under his jurisdiction, not under Moscow’s. Paradoxically, after the meeting in Kiev, which could result in a major schism of the Orthodox Church worldwide, a new phase in the relationship between the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates began. It developed further last month, when Russian participants described Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Turkey as an exceptional success. Among other things, the two most influential Orthodox Patriarchates appear to have reached some agreement on Ukraine, which has not been revealed to the public.

It would be wrong today to see the very Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate as simply a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. With all of its complex internal processes usually described as a rivalry between a pro-Moscow and a pro-independent party, with all of its organizational flaws, one can still decipher a formation of a separate Ukrainian Orthodox identity somewhere in between the East and the West. This identity is being promulgated today by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in no lesser (if not greater) way than the breakaway groups, which had until recently positioned themselves as the main standard-bearers of Ukrainian national consciousness.

The relatively young and energetic Patriarch Kirill, who has 20 years of top Russian Orthodox diplomat’s experience on his resume, is prepared to face the protest rallies, which predictably began when he first stepped on Ukrainian soil. He is prepared to address his Ukrainian flock in Ukrainian and lay flowers at the memorial to the victims of the Joseph Stalin-era famine. It is not a coincidence that to a large degree, he owes his victory in being elected as Patriarch of Moscow in January to the Ukrainian bishops and Ukrainian delegates of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, who voted overwhelmingly for Kirill. On Monday, he held a session of the Holy Synod of the entire Russian Orthodox Church in Kiev for the first time. He repeatedly calls this city not only by its traditional title “the Mother of all Russian Cities,” but also uses a newly coined term – “the Southern Capital of Russian Orthodoxy.” He sees himself as a spiritual leader of the entire “Eastern Slavic civilization” and  tries to bring the whole “Church of the historical Holy Rus” back to its roots in Kiev. He strives to find a way of maintaining the unity of this civilization while respecting the political and cultural boundaries and distinctions of the present-day states and nations.

He is attempting to emphasize the universal, supra-national character of his Church and build a new relationship with the Western Christianity, and primarily with the Roman Catholic Church, in the face of the challenges of the secular world. In the meantime, Ukraine is the land where historically both the rivalry and the mutual enrichment of the two great Christian civilizations had been taking place.

Will he succeed in this grandiose project? Will Patriarch Kirill manage to eventually become not another outside force tearing the Ukrainian people apart, but a unifier of Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity and a builder of a new relationship with the Christian West? Time will tell. But the visit to Ukraine that began on Monday will foreshadow.

OH no has church got THAT bad for our little ones

Telegraph:-

A seven-year-old joyrider was stopped by police officers after a car chase in Utah.

The pursuit began because the boy was reportedly attempting to avoid going to church.

Telephone operators received reports of a child driving recklessly on Sunday morning.

Weber County Sheriff’s Capt. Klint Anderson says one witness said the boy drove through a stop sign.

Anderson says two deputies caught up with the boy and tried unsuccessfully to stop the Dodge Intrepid in an area about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Salt Lake City. The car reached 40 mph (64 kph) before the boy stopped in a driveway and ran inside a home.

Anderson says when the boy’s father later confronted him, the boy said he didn’t want to go to church. The boy is too young to prosecute and no citations were issued, although police did urge the father to make his car keys more inaccessible to children.

In April, another seven-year-old boy was charged with grand theft auto after stealing his grandmother’s SUV so he could “take it on a high speed chase”.

Latarian Milton grabbed his grandmother’s car keys while she was not looking, before backing the truck out of her driveway and taking it on an eight-minute joyride.

The boy hit four cars – two in a supermarket car park and two moving vehicles on a busy street in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida – as well as post boxes and signposts before crashing into a ditch.

Just made me smile that’s all:-

A Christmas chart topping number 1 perchance? Maybe even knock Mr Simon Cowell’s Xfactor dreams sideways?

BBC

Pope’s voice to be heard on album

Pope Benedict XVI will be heard singing and speaking on an album to be released on the record label that was home to Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses.

The pontiff is to release Alma Mater, an album of Lauretan litanies and prayers with musical accompaniment, through Geffen Records.

The label said listeners would be “shocked” by his “incredible voice”.

The album, which features the Pope using five different languages, will be released on 30 November.

The project came about after the label learned earlier this year that Benedict XVI had been working on an album with the Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome.

‘Very happy’

Colin Barlow, president of Geffen UK, explained: “We travelled to Rome, heard some of the music and realised it was a beautiful piece of music and something that actually could be an incredible record for us to work on.

“It’s very much about delivering a really brilliant piece of music and making sure we treat it with the respect it deserves.”

The album will contain eight pieces of music, one featuring Pope Benedict singing and the others providing accompaniment to his recitals of passages and prayers.

But Pope Benedict did not go into the studio – the Vatican supplied recordings of his vocals made at official services and also from speeches he made on his foreign trips.

The choir recorded their parts in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, while the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recorded the classical backing track in London’s Abbey Road Studios.

Barlow said the Pope was pleased with the progress of the recording.

“We’ve had a letter from the Vatican saying that he’s heard the music so far and he’s very happy with what he’s heard,” he added.

Proceeds will help to to providing music education for underprivileged children around the world.

Geffen Records was founded in 1980 and had its first number one album with John Lennon’s Double Fantasy.

By the end of the decade it started to specialise in rock music, signing the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith and Nirvana.

Geffen also recently signed Dame Shirley Bassey.

The albums of Dame Shirley and the Pope will both be out in time for Christmas.

It is not the first time a Pope has released an album.

In 1982, John Paul II reached number 71 in the charts with The Pilgrim Pope, and, in 1994, his recording of The Rosary peaked at number 50.