Met die begin van die nuwe skooljaar op 18 Januarie 2006 het die Kerk van St. Luke’s op Brandwag die voortou geneem om te wys die betrokkenheid wat daar is tussen kerk en skool.

Die opening is waargeneem deur Vader Frans, die Rektor van die gemeente. By hierdie geleentheid het hy ook die nuwe klaskamers wat opgerig is ingesëen. Met ‘n getal van 365 kinders was die klaskamers ‘n groot verligting vir die skool en gemeenskap. Vader Frans het dan ook aan die einde van die byeenkoms ‘n tjek van R 20 000, 00 aan die skool oorhandig. Hierdie was deel van ‘n besluit wat geneem was saam met ander rolspelers binne die gemeenskap en Onderwys Departement.

The Anglican Communion is at a crossroad.
The idea of a crossroad – a meeting and parting of two ways – is woven into the fabric of Scripture. The people of Israel is confronted with the choice of ways – the way of the Covenant or the way of idolatry – and more often than not choose the latter (Jeremiah 6:16). So too Jesus describes a narrow road that leads to life and a broad avenue to perdition (Matthew 7:13). Hence the church must choose to walk in the light and turn from the darkness of sin and error (1 John 1:6-7).

The Church in Africa and the Anglican Communion
We are the voice of the Anglican churches in Africa. We are grateful for our Anglican heritage, brought to us by missionaries committed to the Scriptures and inspired by our Lord’s Great Commission to evangelize the nations. We are equally grateful to be sons and daughters of Africa, whose ancient cultures prepared a rich spiritual soil for the Gospel to blossom. We hope these two inheritances can be kept together, but events of the past decade have called this hope into question.

Although the Anglican Communion came into being at a time of theological and ecclesiastical crisis – the so-called Colenso case – the Lambeth Conference of bishops has by and large managed to avoid doctrinal disputes and disciplinary cases that might have led to controversy and even disunity. Instead the Communion has functioned under the broad umbrella of biblical faith, historic order and Anglican worship, as summarized in the Lambeth Quadrilateral. Although there have been tensions from time to time, e.g., over the ordination of women, most Anglican churches have been content to live with what seemed to be secondary differences. Until now.

This Statement was authorized by the Council of African Provinces in Africa (CAPA). Its drafters are the Most Rev. Nicholas Dike Okoh, Bishop of Asaba and Archbishop of the ecclesiastical Province of Bendel; the Rt. Rev. D. Zac Niringiye, Assistant Bishop of Kampala in Uganda and former Africa Director of the Church Mission Society; and the Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll, Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University in Mukono.

The Anglican Communion: a Church in Crisis?

What is the current tension in the Anglican Communion actually about? Plenty of people are confident that they know the answer. It’s about gay bishops, or possibly women bishops. The American Church is in favour and others are against – and the Church of England is not sure (as usual).
 
It’s true that the election of a practising gay person as a bishop in the US in 2003 was the trigger for much of the present conflict. It is doubtless also true that a lot of extra heat is generated in the conflict by ingrained and ignorant prejudice in some quarters; and that for many others, in and out of the Church, the issue seems to be a clear one about human rights and dignity. But the debate in the Anglican Communion is not essentially a debate about the human rights of homosexual people. It is possible – indeed, it is imperative – to give the strongest support to the defence of homo-sexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation, and still to believe that this doesn’t settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of God’s will.

That is disputed among Christians, and, as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question.  Unless you think that social and legal considerations should be allowed to resolve religious disputes – which is a highly risky assumption if you also believe in real freedom of opinion in a diverse society – there has to be a recognition that religious bodies have to deal with the question in their own terms. Arguments have to be drawn up on the common basis of Bible and historic teaching. And, to make clear something that can get very much obscured in the rhetoric about ‘inclusion’, this is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people.