News Brief
Episcopal News Service. May 14, 1981 [81153]
Moorhead C. Kennedy, Jr., a former American hostage at the United States embassy in Iran, and his wife, Louisa Livingston Kennedy, will be voluntary co-chairmen of a $35 million campaign to raise capital funds for New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He has resigned from the foreign service and has been named director of the Cathedral Peace Institute at the Episcopal cathedral. The institute will be designed to analyze the correlation between religion and international relations.
Thousands of persons are expected to attend the ecumenical Festival of Evangelism here July 27-30. The Festival is an outgrowth of nearly three years of planning by 140 church bodies and agencies. Some 200 workshops and seminars have been planned to achieve the Festival's goal of assisting churches and individuals communicate more effectively the Gospel to those within their own communities. The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab, staff officer for evangelism/renewal at the Episcopal Church Center, is a member of the national planning committee and will be a speaker at the meeting. Registration and housing information may be obtained from American Festival of Evangelism, P.O. Box 1981, Kansas City, MO 64141.
The Rt. Rev. George T. Masuda, retired Bishop of North Dakota, has become interim rector of the Church of All Souls in Naha, Okinawa, Japan for a period of six months. The parish ministers primarily to a large American military community. "I want to go wherever the Church needs me," Masuda said. "I have been a missionary in the U.S.A. for almost all my ministry and I want to experience what it is to be a foreign missionary." He will be accompanied by Mrs. Masuda. Okinawa was a missionary jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church until 1972 when it was transferred to the Holy Catholic Church of Japan.
The Rev. Paul Clasper, long-time missionary of the Episcopal Church in Asia, has been awarded a Silver Angel award by Religion in Media here for his book, Eastern Paths and the Christian Way. Chosen for excellence in the category of religious books, the publication is concerned with the encounter of Buddhist, Hindu and Christian faiths. Clasper went to Burma in 1952 as a missionary assigned to train ministers for engagement in a Christian-Buddhist dialogue. He taught in several universities in the U. S. during the 1960s and early 1970s and returned to Asia in 1975 as teacher of theology and Asian religions in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) has added its voice to the growing opposition to the Air Force's MX missile program, a mobile nuclear system spanning thousands of acres in Utah and Nevada. The Rt. Rev. Otis Charles, Episcopal Bishop of Utah, and the Rt. Rev. Wesley Frensdorf, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, and mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders had previously objected to the proposed system, as had political leaders and conservationists in both Utah and Nevada. The Morman's three-member First Presidency, in a letter to President Reagan, called the proposed system "a denial of the very essence" of the gospel of peace the Church preached.
The fifth meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council will be held at St. Mary's College, Fenham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, Sept. 8-18. The Council, whose 61 members represent and are chosen by the 28 Churches of the worldwide Anglican Communion, meets every two or three years. Formal sessions will begin on Sept. 8 with an address by Bishop John Howe, secretary general, followed by a Eucharist in Durham Cathedral where the preacher will be the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie. For the first week the Council will meet in committee sections which are not open to the public or media. The press is invited to attend the opening session and the plenary sessions which begin Tuesday, Sept. 15. Full working papers will be available for Council members and accredited press. The four discussion sections are: The Gospel and People, Unity and Ecumenical Affairs, Christian Training, and Anglican Affairs. (Press representatives in the U.S.A. may secure an accreditation form from Walter H. Boyd, Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Ave., New York, N. Y. 10017. Media representatives from elsewhere may secure information and forms from Anglican Consultative Council, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ, England.)
Morehouse-Barlow Co. has recently signed a contract for the publication of a one-volume history of the Episcopal Church to be written by the Rev. John E. Booty, professor of Church history at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass. This will be the first full-scale history of the Episcopal Church since the late Raymond Albright's history was published in 1964. Booty received his B. D. degree from Virginia Theological Seminary and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. He will be devoting substantial time during the next three years to research and write this book.