News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. May 16, 1985 [85111]
(DPS, May 16) -- Canon Bryan Green, 83, an English evangelist who has been preaching on both sides of the Atlantic for nearly 40 years, will receive the personal Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity from the Archbishop of Canterbury this summer, in recognition of his ministry as "parish priest, teacher and worldwide evangelist". Green, who has made 92 round trips across the Atlantic, first preached to Episcopalians when he was invited to do a ten-day mission at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York in 1948. Despite little advance publicity, 6,000 people attended on the first night alone. Most recently, he has visited Southern California and New York. Six others will also be honored with degrees from the Archbishop in a private ceremony at his Lambeth Palace residence June 20. The Archbishop of Canterbury has had the authority to grant degrees since the passing of the Peter's Pence Act in 1533, during the reign of King Henry VIII.
(DPS, May 16) -- The human rights unit of the Anglican Church of Canada has recently begun developing a draft "policy for self-examination in the area of human rights" for that Church. Among possible agenda items are discrimination by parish selection committees against candidates over who are 50 years old, black or female; the rights of clergy spouses who divorce; and the "conscience clause" on the ordination of women to the priesthood.
(DPS, May 16) -- St. Francis in-the-Fields Episcopal Church here came up with an inventive way to celebrate Rogation Sunday this year. The Service Commission bought seeds and tomato starts. At the service on Rogation Sunday, May 5, the earth's future produce was blessed, and, as the members of the congregation returned from Communion, they were invited to pick up as many seeds and/or starts as they liked. These were to be planted in home gardens. At harvest time, church members will bring the produce to St. Francis', from whence they will be taken to the Episcopal Urban Center, for distribution to the hungry.
(DPS, May 16) -- At each stop on his "Born in the U.S.A." concert tour, rock star Bruce Springsteen has been making appeals for donations to local hunger projects. When he appeared at the Greensboro Coliseum here, the beneficiary was the Food Bank of Northwestern North Carolina, whose director, Nan Holbrook, is a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem. The appeal here raised $4,000 from the audience -- the largest of any date to that point on the tour -- in addition to a check for $10,000 quietly slipped to Holbrook by one of Springsteen's tour people. Holbrook, who had briefed the singer/songwriter about her organization prior to the concert, said "He was so laid-back when I talked to him before the show... I knew he was going to say something about our food bank, but I had no idea he would go into that long spiel." The attendant publicity has resulted in a continuing increase in donations to the food bank.
(DPS, May 16) -- The vicar of the church in this Buckinghamshire town found himself with an unusual visual aid on Good Shepherd Sunday. Three children from his "Tiny Tots Service" were being baptized, and the Rev. John Eastgate was speaking on the Gospel, "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine," when word came from the churchyard that one of the two sheep the church had borrowed from a local farmer to keep the grass down had just produced a lamb.
(DPS, May 16) -- On April 26, the Board of Trustees of Nashotah House Seminary here elected the Rev. Canon Jack C. Knight as its 16th dean and president. Knight, 43, has been canon for Mission in the Diocese of Louisiana since 1983. A graduate of Colorado State University and Nashotah House, he was ordained deacon in 1969 and priest in 1970. He has served as curate of St. Timothy's, Littleton, Colo. and rector of St. Gregory's, also in Littleton. He has served as one of the alumni members of the Nashotah Board of Trustees. Knight was a delegate to the 1973, 76, 79, and 82 General Conventions and has served as Province VI representative on Executive Council. While in the Diocese of Colorado, Knight acted as canon missioner, as a member of the Diocesan Council and of the bishop's administrative cabinet, and chaired both Venture in Mission and the Committee on Mission and Strategy for the diocese. Knight, who is married and has three children, will assume the position of dean at the beginning of next September's academic year.
(DPS, May 16) -- The Rt. Rev. Charles Judson Child, Jr., Bishop of Atlanta, has been elected chancellor of the University of the South by the trustees at the annual meeting here. He was installed shortly after his election in a simple ceremony in the University's All Saints' Chapel. He replaces the Rt. Rev. Furman C. Stough, Bishop of Alabama, who was elected in 1979. The Chancellor will serve a six-year term and serves as chairman of the University's Board of Trustees. Child is a native of New Jersey and attended the University of the South, both the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Theology, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1944, M.Div. in 1947, and an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1978. He has served as a member of the University's Board of Trustees since July 1, 1972. Child served as rector of St. Bartholomew's Church, Hohokus, N.J., and canon pastor at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta prior to being elected first suffragan and later diocesan bishop of Atlanta.
(DPS, May 16) -- Church World Service, relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches, announced here May 3 that it will seek a total of $16.5 million in an extension of its global food crisis special appeal, which was originally launched in August 1983. Although response to this largest single appeal in the agency's 39-year history has been described as "overwhelming" -- over $12 million has been raised to date -- the continuing severity of the world's food crisis, especially in Africa, has prompted the extension.