 |
|
|
And
he said, The person is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the
sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them
the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the
little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish. Anyone
here with two good ears had better listen!
Gospel of Thomas 8
Week
of 1 - 2 June, 2007
Week
of 3 - 9 June, 2007
Mon 4 June 07 Elders attend
"Faith Guiding Our Votes," hear candidates
Three elders attend "Faith
Guiding Our Votes," sponsored by Sojourners and CNN in Georgetown
(Washington D.C.) and listened to the leading candidates for the
Democratic nomination.
Wed 6 June 07 Bill to stop
Maine from implementing Real ID welcomed
The good Christians in Maine
woked within an ideologically diverse
coalition of groups spearheaded by the Maine Civil Liberties Union. The
coalition believes the program is not only unworkable, but also would
trample on privacy rights while creating a bonanza for identity
thieves.
Since
Maine passed the resolution opposing Real ID in late January, more than
a dozen states followed suit with resolutions or statutory
prohibitions. Legislation is pending in another 20 states. The AGC has
been active in all these efforts.
Real ID presents
serious problems for good Christians as they do not use government
issued indentity documents.
Thur 07 June 07 Legal win as RCC Cardinal must testify in sex case
A judge ordered Los Angeles RCC Cardinal Roger Mahony to
testify
in a lawsuit alleging he didn't protect parishioners from a pedophile
teacher, but the judge also granted Mahony's request for a trial delay.
The lawsuit had been scheduled for trial Monday; Los Angeles County
Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholtz agreed to a two-month delay. The
case involves Paul Kreutzer, a former teacher now in prison for
molestation.
Week
of 10 - 16 June, 2007
Sun 10 June 07 Good Friends
Society wants to act on Internet abuse
The Good Friends Society, an lay
group not directly tied to the AGC has petitioned the Council of
Elders for permission to raise funds to mount legal actions towards
individuals that defame the AGC on the internet. The GFS intends to
secure court orders against such persons and take the court orders to
Internet service providers and search engines, and ask them to put up a
link, so a search that turns specifc allegations will automatically
lead to the court order that found them to be false.
Specifically, they want to hire two high-powered libel lawyers James W.
Morris 3d of Richmond,
VA and Joan A. Lukey of Boston, MA who have been successful
in similar cases.
A representative of the GFS,
Stacey Lorens said in a statement:
"Baptised members of the AGC are
confirmed pacifists with few remedies against libelous attacks
originating on the Internet. It has taken them two years to develop
protection for their website and email systems in the face of five
years of unrelenting effort to hack and spam by people hostile to their
continued exisitence. Their response to sites like Wikipedia
, blogs and web sites where these remarks are found is woefully
inadequate. We hope to change that."
New AGC general
secretary Adam Barkman accepted receipt of the petition to the Council
of Elders from the GFS. He admitted the AGC has no control over the
actions of independent agents acting on its behalf saying "We review
each instance of internet libel on a case-by case basis. Our actions
are guided by GOD, not Google."
Mon 11 June 07 The Church of the Brethren meet in Cleveland, Ohio
The Church of the Brethren's
221st Annual Conference will take place in Cleveland, Ohio, at the
Cleveland Convention Center from June 30-July 4, Saturday evening
through Wednesday morning."Proclaim the Power of God" is the theme.
Some 3,000 people including approximately 800 congregational and
district delegates are expected. The conference also includes
international and ecumenical visitors including the AGC. The event,
which is held in a different US city each year, is marked by spirited
debate and decision-making and includes worship, spiritual growth,
church business, and Christian fellowship.
Moderator Belita Mitchell will serve as the first African-American
woman to preside over the annual meeting. She is pastor of First Church
of the Brethren in Harrisburg, Pa.
Mon 11 June 07 15,000 gather as Christian Reformed mark 150 years
Twelve thousand worshippers gathered in the Van Andel arena in Grand Rapids Michigan on Sunday afternoon, plus about 2,000 more in an overflow venue, in the largest worship service ever held by the Christian Reformed Church. The service celebrated the denomination's 150th anniversary and looked forward to what the Lord still has in store.
Tue 12 June 07 Quebec
Anti-war protesters appeal directly to soldiers
Anti-war protesters have launched
a letter-writing campaign to
discourage soldiers from Quebec's Valcartier military base from
participating in the next deployment to Afghanistan.
"We are
writing this letter to offer you a dissenting point-of-view about your
deployment that we hope will prompt you to reconsider your
participation," says the two-page letter sent to 3,000 people living
near the base.
"Your deployment in Afghanistan
means complicity with the civilian
deaths and other activities - like the transfer of prisoners to
potential torture and death - that are tantamount to war crimes," the
letter says.
Protesters say they are seek to
convince soldiers and hope to recruit
conscientious objectors. "If there are any we'll support them,"
Marie-Noelle Beland of the Quebec Coalition for Peace
said. "We have a legal committee for that reason." The group also plans
to stage a demonstration to "denounce Canadian military involvement in
Afghanistan and the deployment of additional troops to Kandahar"
in Quebec City on June 22, the day some 2,000 soldiers about to be
deployed, will be parading.
Technical problems have delayed
updates for this week
Week
of 17 - 23 June, 2007
Technical problems are creating
delays in updates. Repairs underway.
Mon 18 June 07 New South Wales places RCC prelates under watch
New South Wales' Parliament has
ratcheted up the heat on Sydney RCC Archbishop George Pell, placing him
under parliamentary investigation for "meddling" in the lower house's
vote on embryonic stem-cell research.
Greens MP
Lee Rhiannon requested that the Cardinal's "outburst
of muscular Catholicism" be referred to the privileges committee
for allegedly intimidating Catholic parliamentarians by saying there
would be "consequences" for their spiritual lives.
"The
archbishop has refused to cease his special brand of
meddling," said Ms. Rhiannon, urging the committee to move since
Pell was attempting "to exert influence over the democratic process
in NSW."
"Hopefully
this referral will act as a warning to Cardinal Pell
that he should refrain from launching a fresh assault on upper house
MPs
who are yet to cast a vote on this important bill."
Pell now
joins RCC Archbishop Hickey of Perth in facing a parliamentary
investigation for admonishing Catholics voting for the
cloning/embryonic
stem-cell bill to re-examine their consciences before lining up for
Communion.
Pell stated
that his role in Australia's pluralist society "is
to state what is the Catholic position and to explain the rational
basis
for that position so that people of no religion, or a lot of religion,
or a little religion can at least understand what I'm saying and
potentially agree with me."
"I set out
the classic Catholic position, which is that if you
violate Catholic moral principles, it has consequences for your
relationship with God and the church," stated Pell, who pointed out
that his statements made no definite threats to Catholic
parliamentarians about denying Communion except that it remains a
"hypothetical possibility." What he did do was remind them to
"think twice" before receiving Communion and make sure they
were right with God.
The AGC in Australia issued the following comment:
"The
remarks by Pell and Hickey were not inappropriate as a guidance to
members of the Roman faith holding elective office. Had
admonishments been directed in public to specific politicians by name,
it would be unacceptable conduct. A good pastor or shepherd knows he is
bound by Scripture to deliver such pronouncements in private. When
contrary conduct continues the elder or bishop may then announce to the
faithful - in a religious, not secular setting - his or her pentalty
within the community.
The AGCAUS differs in some degree on the subject of cloning/embryonic
stem-cell research and the specifics of the bill itself. It does
believe a parliamentary investigation is warranted into possible
violations of taxation law for public charities as it relates to those
two bodies."
Week
of 24 - 30 June, 2007
We continue
to have a technical
problem creating
delays in updates.
Until
the Letters section is restored under the new design, we will answer
random questions sent each week
June, 2007
01 Jun 07
Dr. Jack Kevorkian was released from
prison. Does it associate with or support Dr. Kevorkian in any
way?
No. The
position of the AGC to Dr. Kevorkian is best expressed by Derek Humphry
in his off-site statement found here.
(This link will take you to assistedsuicide.org) The AGC has been
and remains actively involved in the assisted-suicide and right-to-die
movement.
 01/06/07 Letters page to be restored
27/05/07
27/05/7 An abnormally
higher than average volume of emails has slowed response time and
webite updates. Since mid April the volume has been steadily increasing
and reached a three year record high with a daily average of 214
messages.
With a volunteer staff of three people responsible for the site, there
are problems inserting fresh web content and we apologise for extended
email replies.
In the
summer of 2007 we are migrating the public site to a Content
Management System (CMS) which
means that content will
now increasingly be entered by users locally. The site will be built
using
Drupal, an open source program. In the event of future hack
attacks it means a faster re-post time.
Upcoming News
June
2007
Can you believe...a Cathar car? See the automobile that good
Christians have waited 900 years for...now we need to find a driving
school!
Cathar condoms! Help a soul by not imprisoning it in a moral body. The
birth control devices good Christians endorse.
As the AGC
and affiliates continue to show sizable growth in parts of Europe and
the America's so too is an attempt to revise the history of the French
Inquisition and the Albigensian crusade in an effort to undercut
sympathy for the medieval Cathar movements and modern day successors.
We will examine this in depth with a commentary on what this means for
good Christians today, the dismal future of the Roman Church and an
official AGC statement on the Inquisition.
In the
summer of 2007 we are migrating the public site to a Content
Management System (CMS) which
means that content will
now increasingly be entered by users locally. The site will be using
Drupal, an open source program. In the event of future hack
attacks it means a faster re-post time.
Archived materials:
Available
to paid subscribers or bona fide scholars only.
|
