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So what do you do if you are an abortion advocate who lost two presidential elections in a row? For Hillary Clinton it is considering becoming a Methodist pastor. The news that Clinton would consider becoming a pastor in the United Methodist Church is not surprising given that the Methodist Church supported abortion for years until recently and still has a large contingent of pastors and other church leaders who strongly support abortion. Here’s more: According to The Atlantic, Clinton told her longtime pastor Bill Shillady, at a recent photo shoot for his new book, that she wants to preach...

A United Methodist minister is publishing a book of daily Bible devotionals inspired by the verses regularly sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was running for president. The Rev. Bill Shillady, executive director of the New York-based United Methodist City Society, will be releasing the book on Aug. 15. Titled Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the book will include 365 of the over 600 devotions as well as a forward by Clinton herself. "Over the course of those 20 months, Shillady — a pastoral friend of Clinton's — and a small...

LONDON (RNS) — The first gay marriage in an Anglican church in Britain took place this week, a day after Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby described the continuing squabbles over same-sex marriage in the worldwide Anglican Communion as “intractable.” The gay couple, known as “Mark and Rick,” had their order of service posted on Facebook, which told people that they were married on Tuesday (Aug. 1) at a service that included the Eucharist at St. John’s Episcopal Church in the center of Edinburgh. The Rev. Markus Dünzkofer, rector of St. John’s, a church of the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is...

July 31, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — This article is intended for anyone contemplating buckling under to the pressure of the radical homosexual agenda by either participating as a vendor (e.g. wedding cake baker, florist, photographer) or as an attendee at a same-sex "marriage" ceremony. From the vantage point of Holy Scripture, this is a no brainer. Multiple books in both the Old and New Testaments condemn homosexual behavior as gravely sinful. Even more to the point, the Bible is very clear that true marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman. This begins with Genesis in which man...

The head of the Lutheran World Federation has called on theologians to remove the obstacles that hinder unity with the Catholic Church. Rev. Dr. Martin Junge made his remarks in a letter commemorating the 50th anniversary of official Lutheran dialogue with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “Our task as theologians and as pastors should never be to provide explanations as to why unity is not yet possible; our task shall be to creatively and courageously remove the obstacles that still prevent us from the enjoyment of God’s gift of unity,” wrote Junge. He added, “Decades of ecumenical dialogue,...

Highly political synods shattered Anglicanism's fragile unity. Catholics should take noteA former Anglican Chaplain to the Queen, the Revd Gavin Ashenden, is spearheading a revolt in the Church of England Synod over the thorny issue of homosexuality. Anglicans are talking openly about schism. Catholics the world over should be watching very carefully.Anglicanism’s real problem has always been a theological schizophrenia – the result, perhaps, of it having formed to appease a lusty monarch rather than to preach a creed with clarity. Ask a hundred Anglicans what Anglicanism actually is and expect a hundred answers. The Church of England isn’t, really, one Church...

As an Anglican, I used to think theological liberalism was on the wane. Not any moreAnyone with a lick of sense can see that the Church of England is in serious trouble. Congregational decline, child abuse scandals, and financially desperate cathedrals are just the most obvious symptoms of a very broad disease. As an Anglican, I have been confident that the Church would manage to turn things around in a few decades. After the most recent meeting of General Synod, however, I am no longer so confident. On the face it, the Synod’s changes were all fairly minor. For all...

A queer thing happened to the Church of England. In the 500th year of the Reformation it crossed the thin red line from apostolic to apostate. Future seminary students will be grateful for this mnemonic device when mugging up important dates for a Church History exam. Easy peasy! How can one forget? In 1517, the Reformers decided to yank a recalcitrant Church of Rome back to the Bible. In 2017, the Reformers booed the Bible and booted it out of the Church of England. The flashpoint for the Reformation of 1517 was indulgences. The flashpoint for the Reformation of 2017...

In a world of change and flux, it is reassuring to know that some things remain the same. Take, for example, the motion passed by the Church of England General Synod, calling for a liturgy to help transgender people celebrate their transitions. This motion is consistent with liberal Protestantism’s age-old calling, that of baptizing the moral norms du jour of the respectable chattering classes, presumably in hopes of enhancing the appeal of religion to its cultured despisers. Transgenderism was bound for liturgical acceptance. By now, experience should have taught even the moderately self-aware that, where religion is concerned, cultural relevance...

I have a passing interest in the Church of England and its American variation, the Episcopal Church. An old friend is in the church so I get some first hand descriptions of what it is like to be in a dying institution. That’s the only way to describe the Episcopal Church. Attendance declines every year as old members die off and new members never materialize. Go into an Episcopal service and you can’t help but notice that most everyone is a senior. The actuarial tables are the church’s greatest enemy.Of course, church attendance has always skewed a little older. Young...

@import url("chrome://global/skin/aboutReaderControls.css"); catholicworldreport.com Further thoughts on Luther, the Reformation—and G. K. Chesterton – Catholic World Report 6-8 minutes @import url("chrome://global/skin/aboutReaderContent.css"); Left: Martin Luther in 1532 portrait; right: G.K. Chesterton in his study, date unknown (Wikipedia) So, I took some heat from my previous article on the Reformation—“The Bible, the Reformation, and G.K. Chesterton”—because I implied that the Reformation was started by Protestants. Apparently I did not spend enough time attacking the Catholic Church, which, as everyone knows, was responsible for the creation of Martin Luther and company.But since we are still in the midst of our year long observance...

“The Message” author Eugene Peterson says he regrets telling me he would officiate a same-sex wedding if asked to do so today by a gay couple who were “Christians of good faith.” “On further reflection and prayer, I would like to retract that,” the evangelical author said in a statement. Since we published the interview at RNS on Wednesday (July 12), the internet has caught fire. The article was the last of a three-part interview series that addressed a range of topics: why Peterson was stepping away from public life, what he thinks of Donald Trump, his view of megachurches,...

A worldwide coalition of Reformed churches representing approximately 80 million Christians has signed onto an ecumenical statement with the Roman Catholic Church to "overcome divisions" from the time of the Protestant Reformation.The World Communion of Reformed Churches signed a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" with Catholic, Lutheran, and Methodist leaders last week at a church in Wittenberg, Germany. According to a WCRC press release, "The declaration stated that mutual condemnations pronounced by the two sides during the Reformation do not apply to their current teaching on justification." (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)Portrait of Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation,...

(Photo: Q via The Christian Post)Eugene Peterson concludes his discussions with Q Ideas Gabe Lyons today with a conversation on Being Immersed In Scripture.Eugene Peterson, the Presbyterian pastor who wrote the The Message, has come out in support of gay marriage, saying that he would officiate a same-sex wedding if asked.In an interview with Jonathan Merritt at Religion News Service Wednesday, the author of more than 30 books said that he knows many gays and lesbians who "seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do," noting that he would not have said that 20 years ago. He...

How to Think About Luther?James Kalb Traditionally, Catholics have viewed Luther as a heresiarch, and the Lutheran break from Rome as a religious and civilizational catastrophe. More recently, in line with current ecumenical and pastoral initiatives, that view has softened.The softening has been quite noticeable during the current pontificate. The pope recently took part in a joint liturgy with the Church of Sweden to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of Luther’s rebellion. He has also suggested informally that a Lutheran married to a Catholic might legitimately decide to receive communion from a Catholic priest, and that disputes between Catholics and...

Prominent bishops are pulling out. Convention-goers were told headquarters had spent $18 million suing local congregations. Members are leaving at a record rate. This is no longer George Washington’s church – once the largest denomination in the colonies.The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it. The American branch of the Church of England, founded when the Vatican balked at permitting King Henry VIII to continue annulling marriages to any wife who failed to bear him...

Clergy have been given the go-ahead to ditch their robes and dress down for services following a vote by the church's General Synod. Priests should be allowed flexibility to wear what they want to make the church more accessible and relevant to the modern world, members said. This means that clergy are now officially allowed to lead services in casual clothing such as jeans and trainers. The changes would help the church by "reflecting the way society has gone in the way of informality", said Leyland vicar Alistair McHaffie. He also pointed out that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby,...

The General Synod of the Church of England has officially passed a motion welcoming and affirming transgender people to the church. A top bishop also declared that being LGBT is "not a sin." "That this Synod, recognizing the need for transgender people to be welcomed and affirmed in their parish church, call on the House of Bishops to consider whether some nationally commended liturgical materials might be prepared to mark a person's gender transition," the motion that passed on Sunday reads. As the official CofE website points out, the vote went overwhelmingly in favor of welcoming transgender people, with 30 for the...

The legacy of Protestant missionaries a century later is higher literacy rates, better public health and stronger institutions than places where Catholic missionaries were or state sanctioned Protestants worked.

Synod calls for government to ban practice aiming to change sexual orientation after hearing experiences of ‘spiritual abuse’ in emotional debateThe Church of England has called on the government to ban conversion therapy and has condemned the practice, which aims to change sexual orientation, as unethical and potentially harmful. At the end of an emotional debate in which two members of the C of E synod described their experiences as spiritual abuse, the church’s governing body overwhelmingly backed a motion saying the practice had “no place in the modern world”. Conversion therapy is usually described as an attempt to change...