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INSIDE A Place to Begin Welcome! Start here to learn about being Anglican. New This Week Linked in the last two weeks. Lambeth Conference Links, resources, sites. News and Issues Our News Centre links to coverage of major Anglican events. Hot Issues explores matters in greater depth. Dioceses and Parishes In UK and Europe, Canada, USA, and the world. Plus Anglican related churches not in communion with the See of Canterbury. Anglican Resources General resources, a page for youth ministers and young Anglicans, a section on music and religious orders. Discussion Join a mailing list, check out a web forum, or try a chat room. Details Our sponsors, awards and publicity, and the people behind this site. Add Your Site Tell Us What You Think This web site is maintained by volunteers. It is not official in any way, though does list links to official church sites and documents. © 1998 The Society of Archbishop Justus, Ltd |
Hallo again to all. I'm typing from a slightly unstable temporary
computer I'm using till mine is back from the shop. Our electronic connexions, strong
as they seem at times, are, as Brian noted, still fragile. If you sent
in a URL through our form, those were all received safely, but
personal posts and site submissions to me at cmcf@justus.anglican.org may have been
lost. Do please resend. Thanks for bearing with this. Brian here. The News Centre this week has the big story of the installation of a new Archbishop in Hong Kong, the first Archbishop in the history of Christianity in China. There is some more from the Sydney Synod, a new Bishop in the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, and some more squabbling about sexuality in the wake of the Lambeth conference. These are all duly reported in the News Centre, and you should go there and read them. Recently we linked a new parish site, and when I went to look it over I saw that it contained the boast that it was the largest episcopal site in the world. At first glance this seemed to be a statement like "contains more vitamin C than fried chicken and more iron than whole milk." But upon reflecting further, I find that instead I really like sites like the new Diocese of Alaska web site, which has what it needs to have, has links to a few places, and tells you that if you want more links, you can go to those places and look for more links. The Alaska site is exactly as big as it needs to be, and no bigger. Wasn't it Blaise Pascal who said "If I had had more time, I could have written you a shorter letter." If you are tempted to make your web site bigger, why don't you instead ask a neighboring parish if they'd like help making a web site. Or contact your bishop's office, and try to help with a diocesan page. The news of the installation of an Archbishop in Hong Kong is entrancing to me. China is not a country that is widely known as being nurturing to Christianity and Christian churches. While it is unlikely that the government or anybody else will persecute Christians in Hong Kong (that sort of thing seems to have died with Mao), it can't be easy to be a Christian in Hong Kong. At my own parish in California, we have a stalwart little group of a few dozen families who maintain a Mandarin-speaking congregation within my larger English-speaking parish. They meet in our chapel while we meet in the nave; they worship and congregate in Mandarin, in America. We just lost our only Mandarin-speaking priest to a much more important job in the Diocese of Lost Angels, so they are now struggling with a translator and an English-speaking priest. When I see how hard they have to work to maintain an Anglican community in the middle of a large parish that is trying hard to help them, I am amazed all over again at how congregations prosper and grow in poorer, more hostile places. I wish the very best to every Anglican in Hong Kong. See you next week.
Last updated: 25 October 1998 |