Church Bodies

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams issued a lengthy response to the recent gay-affirming actions of The Episcopal Church.

In his statement on Monday, Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, acknowledged the real possibility of the global body adopting a "two-track" model in which there would be "two styles of being Anglican."

Rather than a full-on schism, Anglicans in the 77 million-member body would try to work together while holding different theological convictions over such issues as homosexuality. more >>

The Baptist World Alliance and the European Baptist Federation will be celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Baptist movement’s founding at the very spot where many believe it began.

Starting Friday, EBF will be hosting Amsterdam 400 in the Netherlands’ capital city, where a group of English believers had moved four centuries ago to escape the religious persecution they were experiencing in England.

“In July 2009, a group of Baptists representing the world family will stand outside 120 Amstel Street, Amsterdam, and remember with prayerful thanksgiving some notable events that took place 400 years ago,” wrote BWA President David Coffey ahead of the three-day event in Baptist World magazine, the BWA’s quarterly publication. more >>

The head of the Anglican Communion suggested Thursday that the tension between The Episcopal Church and Anglicans abroad stem from the love and need for one another in the worldwide church body.

“If we – if I – had felt that we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn't be a problem,” Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told The Episcopal Church’s 76th General Convention in Anaheim, Calif.

“But the bonds of relationship are deep, for me personally as for many others. And I'm tempted to adapt what St. Paul says to the Corinthians in the middle of a set of tensions no less bitter than what we have been living through and in the wake of challenges from St. Paul a good deal more savage than even the sharpest words from Primates or Councils: 'Why? Because we do not love you? God knows we do.'” more >>

As churches worldwide prepare to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Protestant Reformation leader John Calvin, leaders of a global movement of Reformed churches are calling on Christians to commemorate Calvin not as a saint but as a source of inspiration for responding to contemporary social and church-wide concerns.

“Calvin certainly was not perfect, and it is against the grain of Reformed Christians to foster personality cults,” noted the president and general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC).

“John Calvin himself would insist Soli Deo Gloria, Only to God be the Glory,” they added. more >>

Conservatives Anglicans in the United Kingdom aren't going anywhere despite their objections to the liberal direction some churches within their national church have taken.

And to help them continue to stay in the Church of England without compromising their orthodox views on Scripture, they launched a fellowship in London on Monday that is meant to serve as a spiritual movement grounded in Christian orthodoxy and Anglican tradition.

Called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, the new movement exists "to keep orthodox, biblical Anglicanism inside the fold at the highest level possible," said Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, according to VirtueOnline. more >>