It was intriguing last November to note that a black man had succeeded
a white woman as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in the United
States. This had to be a very special individual. And so it proved, when the
Most Revd Michael Curry responded with such grace and confidence to
the humiliation of TEC at the Primates’ meeting in January. We offer two
views of the new PB, one by a TEC priest who is also black, one by a white
woman who worked with him closely in North Carolina.
1916 and the Rising has already been so thoroughly explored in
the media that the story of “A Protestant Family in the Citizen Army” by
the Late Valerie Jones comes as a remarkable “exclusive”. Warm thanks
to her daughter, Dr Heather Jones, for offering this excerpt from her
forthcoming publication of Valerie’s research.
With the Sexuality Committee’s “Guide to the Conversation” now
available, the C of I is called once again to “listen, learn and dialogue” about
same-sex relationships between Christians. An interview with the Select
Committee’s chairman, Dean John Mann, aims to show us the way ahead.
Do male-dominated church structures turn a blind eye to domestic
violence – or to put it more crudely to wife-beating? Even by clergy?
Some shocking facts have been unearthed by research in Scotland and
the USA and underlined by a recent court case. Julia Capps has been
relating these to the scene in Ireland.And how careful are we not to jump to predetermined conclusions
in our reading of Old Testament narratives? Brad Anderson challenges
us with the example of Jacob and Esau, the brother cheated of his
birthright. Could Esau be blessed after all, in his own way, not cursed?
With the Syrian migrant crisis and ISIS terrorism continuing
unabated in 2016, the challenge to learn about core Islamic teaching and
to relate to Muslims in our country increases daily. Our thanks to Shayk
Umar Al Qadri, one of Dublin’s leading imams, for his consideration
of the Prophet Mohammad’s respectful, if conditional, attitude to
Christians.Our spring issue closes with an In Retrospect on Archbishop John
Ward Armstrong by Dr Michael Kennedy, and with our usual section of
Book Reviews. Readers are kindly invited to renew their subscriptions
to SEARCH if they have not already done so. Our PAYPAL facility, after
some undesirable teething troubles, is now functioning successfully.
Please see last pages for relevant forms.
Contents
Bishop Michael Curry: Man with a Mission
The Episcopal Church in the United States
made a momentous decision at its last General
Convention held last year in Salt Lake City Utah,
when they elected the Right Reverend Michael
Curry as the 27th Presiding Bishop. Bishop Curry,
the former bishop of North Carolina, is the first
African American to be elected to this office.
The vote was by all indications a landslide, and
as a result there is much speculation about
what this means for the future of The Episcopal
Church.
If it's discussion about God and Church doctrine you want, then the
Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The
Episcopal Church is your man. In fact, this son of an Episcopal priest,
this graduate of Yale Divinity School who continued his studies at The
College of Preachers, Princeton Theological Seminary, Wake Forest
University, the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary, and the
Institute of Christian Jewish Studies, would most likely engage with
you for hours.
The case of the Norgroves: a Protestant Family in the Irish Citizen Army
An Example is offered in what follows of how kinship networks
were often fundamental to the radicalisation of Irish Protestants
involved in the Easter Rising of 1916. It concerns the Norgrove family
– five members of whom took part in the Rising as members of the
Irish Citizen Army. This case study provides a valuable insight into
how family ties could accelerate individual radicalisation and into the
nature of the 1916 revolutionary “generation” identified by Roy Foster,
as it developed in the years prior to the Rising.
The case of the Norgroves: a Protestant Family in the Irish Citizen Army
Emma Murphy's black eye has been viewed more than six million
times since she uploaded her video to Youtube last July. Although some
accused her of washing her dirty linen in public, Women’s Aid praised
her courage for speaking out about her former partner’s violence and
said it had seen a rise in calls to its domestic violence helpline. Francis Usanga, her former partner and the man who gave her the black eye,
was questioned by gardai (although not charged), and despite talk of
deportation, he remains in Ireland, and is attending anger management
classes. Following his trial by social media, the press announced that
his reputation was now ruined, but violent men don’t always lose their
reputations.
Reconsidering the Unchosen in the Old Testament: The Case of Esau
A pervasive yet difficult notion in the Old Testament is the idea that
the God of the Bible chooses some (Israel and its ancestors) as his
special people. The theological term for this idea is election, a concept
that is clearly set out in Deuteronomy 7:
Reconsidering the Unchosen in the Old Testament: The Case of Esau
The world has become a global village where happenings in one
area have a bearing on the all the rest. The need to foster positive
understanding and interaction among all religions has greatly
increased, especially in view of the peculiar nature of threats to global
order and peace posed by religiously motivated violence.
My first encounter with John Ward Armstrong was in the role of
the Wallace Lecturer in Trinity College where he was engaged in
exercises with Divinity Students in “Reading the Liturgy”. Looking
back, the setting (in a large lecture room in the Museum Building) was
far removed from the ambience of the churches in which most of us
would be spending our lives and one often wondered, subsequently,
why some of the Dublin churches including the College Chapel
could not have been used for the purpose. And there was a certain
artificiality in separating the spoken parts of the services from the
liturgical context in which they would actually occur. However, it was
a good thing in principle for future members of the clergy to learn
how to speak clearly and well in public and so, on balance, this was a
beneficial exercise, lightened by the genial manner of the Dean of St
Patrick’s (as he was then) and the occasional one-liner, of which the
most memorable, in relation to dealing with one’s mistakes was, “If
you drop a brick...don’t kick it around!”
