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The Anglican Relief & Development Fund (ARDF), the outreach arm of the Anglican Communion Network, has disbursed over $1.5 million in grants in its first year of operation for aid projects for Anglican brothers and sisters in many countries of the Global South.
ARDF provides effective and efficient relief and development assistance for high-impact projects with measurable results. ARDF exists to change lives in some of the most challenging parts of the world in partnership with the spiritually-vibrant, but resource-poor Anglican churches in the Global South. ARDF-funded projects in
2004-05 have resulted in:
•34,500 people receiving medical care
•13,000 people receiving clean water and sanitation improvements
•39,400 people counseled concerning disaster trauma
•13,000 people educated on improved sustainable farming techniques
•32,600 people hearing the Gospel
•8,500 people tested for HIV/AIDS and counseledMuch more on the ACN Website.
posted by PSA+ at 07:36
7 Comments:
I know a lot of conservative people are ticked at the ECUSA, but I cannot understand not contributing to ERD. Contributing to ARDF only creates more overhead for the money to push through. It weakens the power of the ERD to do the good works it does. The ERD doesn't encourage homosexuality or anything that even smells like the problems that the ACN has with 815. Is a gay bishop worth not giving to the ERD?
This to me is the worst example of the schismatic problems that the ACN/AAC are encouraging.
(Don't take this as a troll post, I really want to hear the rationale that goes with the ACN response)
No troll thou, Thunder. This is a perfunctory response as I need to run do actual work. Plus I looked at your Blogger profile, and we have the same tastes in music and movies; we should probably be taliking about those things. In a general sense I agree. But as far as I know, at least under the "Fair Share"/Diocesan budget rubric, there is no provision for giving to ERD and not the general ECUSA budget. (That idea never came up from our designated giving committee, by the way.)
AS for ARDF, just a couple things. First, following GC 2003, there was a perceived need to provide for folks a complete segregation of funds from the ECUSA budget - and from the people controlling that budget (there is a sense in which this is all quote personal - people feel they've been deceived and that a trust has been broken). In other words, a great many people were not going to entrust a cent to anything with "Episcopal" in the name, and so the ACN needed to provide a way to facilitate relief & development-type giving, and especially such giving to those large swaths of the Anglican world (though not exclusively so) who would no longer accept money from ECUSA. In other words, on the donor side, it was necessary to provide an alternative to ERD in order to keep folks on the reservation (to be patronizing toward conservatives and, I guess, politically incorrect). The redundancy of funds - especially as to overhead - is to be regretted, but the blame there goes to GC2003 & ECUSA. Those who sow the wind...
Secondly, it has been demonstrated to me that ARDF is remarkably efficient in its operations. If I have a chance to find the facts and figures, I'll post them.
And finally, I have to stand up and shout every time someone claims the ACN is schismatic. Please consider that I am now shouting. As I said above, the ACN has actually been keeping people in ECUSA (my parish would shut down were it not for the ACN). But it is ECUSA that has chosen to ignore - well, not just ignore, but actually flout - nay, give the finger to - the rest of the Communion, not to mention the Christian moral-theological tradition more generally. I have done my best to make clear to my parish that ECUSA's refusal to live into a common life of mutual submission (call it willfulness; call it schismatic) is a much bigger deal than the sexuality issue - though that is important, as well. It is ECUSA that has - in our now common parlance - "torn the fabric" of communion and is choosing to "walk apart."
Thanks for posting. Back to important things, I have a question I feel like you may be able to help me with re Son Volt, All Songs Considered, and CD burning. Maybe I'll flip by your blog later and ask - well, I'll do it now. From the All Songs Considered site, one can download an .mp3 file of a Son Volt show. Excellent. Problem is, how to burn it to a CD - it's one "track" a couple hours long, and my free Real Player won't burn it because it's too long for a CD - how can I divide the file into multiple tracks so I can brn it onto a couple CD's? Again, your profile made me think you would care about this music and take pity on me and my problem - if not please ignore.
"quote personal" above shour be "quite personal."
I'd get iTunes and import it into iTunes and then burn from there. I'm a Mac guy, so I've left a lot of the PC problems of my past ;)
As far as whether or not ACN is schismatic, I do understand your argument that it keeps some people in that would otherwise leave, but its a little bit of an unsatisfying answer fro two reasons. The first is that I think the idea of leaving a bishop reveals the free church mentality that has sunk into a lot of more evangelical churches. Evangelical interpretations of scripture are fine, but Baptist-ish polity is definitely not welcome in Anglicanism. The second answer has to do with the cheering for churches leaving the ECUSA that I often hear ACNish people (see the comments section of T19). That cheering is the epitome of that schismatic impulse. While that impulse may not be shared by many in those ranks, I don't see leadership used to disuade such cheering or the ideology behind that cheer.
Thanks for the conversation.
There’s no doubt that a “free church mentality” is often to be found among Episcopalians – the result of poor catechesis – but that mentality is by no means limited to conservatives. Example #1: GC 2003, which turned ECUSA into a sect. Those actions have, predictably, led to reactions – some more thoughtful, some less; some reflecting a free church mentality, some not. But it is disingenuous at best for supporters of GC 2003 to start arguing for strict fidelity to bishops on ecclesiological/polity grounds – and if you follow that line on out, you will have to call the Reformation a great mistake and say how it ought to be undone (I think it was mostly misbegotten and long to see it undone). In any case, the tradition is that only catholic (as in “holding/teaching the catholic faith”) bishops are owed fidelity and obedience. This is Irenaeus 101: apostolic succession consists of both historical and doctrinal continuity. In fact, bishops have a duty to extend their ministries into regions where the local bishop has abandoned catholic faith (the Windsor Report was just wrong on the facts in citing the canons of the Council of Nicea here). Also, your implied dismissal of “evangelical interpretations of scripture” is a bit too facile, as if those interpretations were hermeneutically naïve, as if they were not completely at one with the Church’s long tradition of natural law reasoning (I find most attempts to “Christianize” homosexual behavior to be Gnostic), and as if they had not been vindicated by universal (as in catholic) acceptance.
And I suppose you mean “evangelical interpretations of scripture are fine” – as long as they don’t become normative.
I have been constantly defending to various of my parishioners for the last 2 ½ years that abandoning the Diocese and ECUSA is not at this point is not an option. Were I in Los Angeles or Connecticut, I might well argue otherwise. But, where is one to go? I intend, God being my helper, to die in the communion of the Catholic Church, I hope as an Episcopalian and Anglican – but I won’t be part of a local/regional sect, whether conservative or liberal.
In any case, nearly every day brings news of another priest, or another whole congregation, leaving the Episcopal Church. It is not yet a flood, but it is certainly more than a trickle – a steady and growing stream. I would think this would give the honest and responsible among ECUSA’s regnant liberals some pause, and cause them in humility to ask, “what are we doing that has caused to people to feel they’ve been pushed into a corner, so that they feel they must leave or compromise their faith?
I wouldn’t put too much stock in the comments section of titusonenine – and I say that as one who often comments there. First of all, it’s the internet (enough said). Second of all, it’s the internet. I’ve been arguing that the leadership of ECUSA in now intentionally trying to drive out conservatives and evangelicals (I really believe that, by the way); I can copy in some comments from EVN or Father Jake or the House of Deputies listserve and prove my point – it’s the internet, and to be taken with a grain of salt. And again, schism is the “fact on the ground.” ECUSA is in a schismatic-ish relationship with the Anglican Communion, a schism which it seems intent on hardening. Those abandoning ECUSA are doing so believing they fleeing schism – not abandoning the Church, but escaping the sect and faction to be part of the Church. You may thing they are wrong, but there is no doubt that that is their intent.
I have to go get a tooth pulled (seriously). Thanks for the dialogue and the iTunes advice.
Cheers.
I meant "catholics & evangelicals", not "conservatives & evangelicals" above. For Windsor's misuse of Nicea, see http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-03-036-f.
BTW, my statement about evangelicalism withing Anglicanism being "fine" is a bit open to interpretation. What I wanted to communicate is that Anglicanism is big tent in which we can hold evangelicalism, traditional Anglo-Catholicism, progressive Anglo-Catholicism, liberalism, and just about any other mainstream interpretation of Christianity.
As far as GC '03 goes, I think we can't dismiss the election of +Robinson by the diocese of NH out of hand. I do think that much more peacemaking could have been done if he had respectfully refused ordination as a bishop as a display of affection for parts of Anglicanism that cannot accept an openly and practicing homosexual as bishop.
That said, we cannot dismiss the pleas of our gblt brothers and sisters for full recognition within the Church. I believe that gblt practice is something we as a Church must continue to discuss. Part of Lambeth 1.10 claims that "We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ." That's crucial to a full expression of Christian love towards our gblt brothers and sisters.
I think both sides of this discussion (argument) would be best served by remembering our heritage of via media.
Tough stuff.
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