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"He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end in himself... For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father" Ephesians 2:14-18
AGC
related news or commentary appears
under each item in red
Middle East Council of Churches website and 27 other sites hacked
Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. to be inaugurated Feb. 7
Mennonites document systematic violence against Colombian Protestants
Discrimination against gay people is like apartheid, says Tutu
Renewed Australian row about the boundaries of faith and politics
Widening the argument against tax-free status of Canadian churches
Official
Statements
26 Jan 07 Is Our
Future Evangelical?
An engaging article
by Dr. J. Nelson Kraybill.
What's New
30
Jan 07 Changed weekly news format
Responding to the consensus, as of 01 Feb each month will
be one page with the cumulative weekly news retained. The Weekly News Index has been
updated. Past weeks are here 1
2
3
4
29
Jan 07 adding Hack/Spam alert log to Mail Directory
Restoring calendars section. February will be here. We have had alot of
feedback on what people want to see and we will try to accomodate.
Worship section
26 Jan 07 Feedback ideas for revamping the News section have been
welcomed and are under active consideration.
- We intend to increase AGC specific news stories and reduce general
interest stories which you may find just as easily on secular newsites.
- The design of the page will be simplified.
26 Jan 07 GCCC Canada may move site
The GCCC (Canada) is considering moving its new website to
http://canada.cathar.net.
24 - 26 Jan 07 Moving emails from one mail server to another. No loss
of content, just delayed replies.
25 Jan 07 Hostile spamming continues against specific emails.
These have been de-activated and the originators are being tracked.
International
Renewed Australian row about the boundaries of faith and politics
30 Jan 07 In a further response to an article by the new leader of the Australia Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, on 'Faith and Politics', a senior Cabinet minister has accused him of using his Christian faith for political point scoring.
In the article on German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945, Kevin Rudd denied that God could be captured by
any political party and called on the church to be a voice for the voiceless whichever party was in power.
Australian
AGC bishop releases statement supporting Rudd and upholding separation
of church and state. Details to follow.
Discrimination against gay people is like apartheid, says Tutu
30 Jan 07
Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Anglican Archbishop
of Cape Town, has warned that an unhealthy obsession with homosexuality
means African churches risk ignoring real problems facing the
continentand has added that the mistreatment of lesbian gay people is
like apartheid.
"I am deeply, deeply distressed that in the face of the most horrendous
problems - we've got poverty, we've got conflict and war, we've got
HIV/AIDS - and what do we concentrate on? We concentrate on what you
are doing in bed," Tutu told journalists in Nairobi towards the end of
the World Social Forum (WSF) last week.
This is consistent
with long held AGC policy and public statements and we applaud Desmond
Tutu again for a courageous message. Links to follow.
Mennonites document systematic violence against Colombian Protestants
30
Jan 07 As a coordinator for a project documenting how a long-running
armed conflict continues to impact Colombia's Protestant churches,
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker Janna Hunter-Bowman spent
hours poring through horrific details of deaths and threats and
exploring how Christians are continuing to live out their faith in the
midst of pervasive violence - writes Marla Pierson Lester.
MCC is a relief and development organisation of several North American
Mennonite denominations, who number among the 'historic peace churches'
along with Quakers and Church of the Brethren.
Middle East
Council of Churches website and 27 other sites hacked
29 Jan 07 A Press Release was issued by the MECC General Secretary, Mr.
Guirgis I. Saleh on January 11, 2007 as the MECC website was subjected
to hacking along with other 27 sites.
In
the release, Mr. Saleh denounces this act by fundamentalists, whose
expressions have no correlation whatsoever with the history of Eastern
Christian-Muslim relations, but to the contrary, badly affect them. On
this
occasion, Mr. Saleh who contacted all Christian and Muslim religious
leaders in the region to probe their reaction to this unacceptable act
was assured of their strong condemnation.
The MECC Communication Department has dealt with all technical matters to re-establish the website.
The AGC does not
currently belong to MECC but will evaluate joining Churches for
Middle East Peace, an advocacy group of nearly two dozen denominations
seeking a non-violent solution in Israel and Palestine.
As faithful visitors to our websites know, we have been subject to
continued hacking for nearly 10 years, some massive and sustained in
the scope. MECC and other religious bodies have our empathy.
Uganda's mystic rebel leader dies
22 Jan 07
Alice Lakwena, the self-proclaimed prophetess founded the Holy
Spirit Movement in the 1980s. Her followers believed magic
potions protected them
in battle, but they were defeated by government forces. Many later
regrouped to form the Lord's Resistance Army
(LRA), led by her cousin Joseph Kony. The LRA is holding talks to end
its 20-year conflict.
Major power outages continue in
South Africa
22 Jan 07 Large parts of South Africa, including Cape
Town
and Johannesburg, have been experiencing power cuts, due largely to an
unexpected demand for electricity.
There
has also been a partial shutdown at the Koeberg
nuclear plant near Cape Town, where a turbine tripped.
The national
supplier of power, Eskom, has warned
that the situation will remain critical for the next week.
North America
No good
Christian will comply with mandatory national identity cards
CANADA
See
also: GCCC
(Canada) website |Québec
No
good
Christian will comply with mandatory national identity cards
Active websites
appear as a graphic
Please note: GCCC (Canada)) site
returns by mid- February
USA
See also: GCCC (USA) website |
American
democracy in crisis (not available)
No good
Christian will comply with mandatory national identity cards
Active websites appear as a graphic
Please
note: GCCC (USA) site returns by mid- February
Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. to be inaugurated Feb. 7
29
Jan 07 The CCT will be formally launched at Pasadena Presbyterian
Church, Pasadena, Calif. CCT will bring together families of Christian
churches and organizations from across the United States. Another 18
churches and national Christian organizations are involved or are
present as observers in the CCT decision-making process.
On its Web site, the new ecumenical organization claims to do something the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and National Association of Evangelicals have not been able to do -- bring together Christians from five traditions: evangelical and Pentecostal, Orthodox, Protestant, racial and ethnic, and Roman Catholic. "Christian Churches Together is unique in providing the only venue where churches from all the
major groupings of churches, representing over 100 million Christians, come together for prayer, dialogue, fellowship and witness," it said.
The AGC is
considering the merits of membership in the CCT and will observe
closely its initial stages of development. We do note with interest and
appreciation that they have agreed to the consensus model of
decision-making.
Anti-smoking movement hits
historical moment
22
Jan 07 Thirty years after it began as just
another quirky movement in Berkeley, Calif., the push to ban smoking in
restaurants, bars and other public places has reached a national
milestone.
For the first time in the
nation's history, more than half of
Americans live in a city or state with laws mandating that workplaces,
restaurants or bars be smoke-free, according to Americans for
Nonsmokers' Rights.
"The movement for smoke-free air has gone from being a California
oddity to the nationwide norm," said Bronson Frick, the group's
associate director. "We think 100 percent of Americans will live in
smoke-free jurisdictions within a few years."
Plant-based fat substitute used in
Pittsburgh school
22 Jan 07 The secret ingredient
is a plant-based fat substitute called Z Trim.
It's been in the school's popular ranch dressing for months, quietly
reducing the fat and calories students are getting when they load up
their salads and chicken with it.
Z Trim, which has no fat, is
made from the hulls of corn, oats, soy,
rice and barley. It was developed by a scientists at a U.S. Department
of Agriculture lab in Illinois in the mid-1990s.
The Center for Science in the
Public Interest, a consumer advocacy
group that often speaks out on unhealthy food, said it has no safety
concerns about Z Trim.
It's taken several years to get
the product into production and on
the market. In 1998, FiberGel Technologies of Mundelein, Ill., acquired
the license for Z Trim and built a manufacturing plant with plans to
market and sell it to both food manufacturers and consumers.
Sold as a gel or powder, it can
be used in dressings, dips, sauces,
baked goods, processed meats, snack foods, cookies, pies and other
foods. Unfortunately, it cannot be fried.
Québec
See also: Église de Cathar au Québec website
| GCCC Canada
website
Please note: Both websites return
by mid- February
17 Jan 07 The good Christians in Québec suspend $10m in
funds
The
AGC has suspended a $10 million dollar investment in Québec
pending the decision by Quebec's Toponymy Commission on a
proposal to re-name Parc Avenue after
former premier Robert Bourassa, who died of skin cancer in 1996. The
proposal was made after the Roman Catholic Church opposed a move to
rename a major street with closer ties to Bourassa on the grounds there
was a Vaticanist cathedral on site.
"The Roman Catholic
Church, which pays no taxes and receives generous tax subsidies, grants
and other special considerations from the Montreal and Québec
governments has no moral authority in this matter. It is time to
examine the privileges this church enjoys in Québec, from its
protection against investigation of the sexual abuse of children to tax
exemption."
said a spokesperson
for the AGC in Canada. An addition $30 million dollars in facilitated
investment money targeted for electric hybrid cars is also uncertain.
Upcoming News
February,
2007
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