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Backbench Labour MPs are vocalising their concerns in response to Leadbeater’s U-turn

World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay extended greetings to all Muslims across the world as they celebrate the month of Ramadan. 

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Grace Kim, a chaplain and licensed counselor serving in the U.S. Army, works 24/7, 365 days a year. She wakes up every day at 5:30 a.m. for physical training and keeps formal office hours from 9 to 5 p.m., but she’s always available for counseling whenever a fellow soldier needs it. Her weekends are spent preparing for and providing Sunday morning worship services for 20-60 service members and their families. “For me, number one is the needs of the Army. Number two, the needs of the Army. And number three, the needs of the Army,” Kim, one of two Episcopal chaplains stationed in South Korea, told Episcopal News Service. “Whatever and whenever soldiers need me, I will be there. If someone is hospitalized, I will sit in the emergency room with them. If they’re in prison, I will visit them every weekend. If someone asks me to train with them, I will join them on the field.” Kim serves as the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade chaplain for soldiers and airmen at the U.S. Air Force’s Osan Air Base near Pyeongtaek. She also provides chaplain training for the U.S. and South Korean armed forces. Her colleague, the Rev. Nick Earl, is stationed at the Army’s Camp Humphreys, also in Pyeongtaek. Military chaplains like Kim give service members and their families spiritual and moral support. They also provide religious services, including rites and sacraments, premarital counseling and religious formation, and they provide counseling and help soldiers keep calm during operations. The Rt. Rev. Ann Ritonia, The Episcopal Church’s bishop suffragan for armed forces and federal ministries, told ENS in an email that Kim “exemplifies the heart of a chaplain at its best.”` “[Kim] is a compassionate and caring leader who lives Jesus’ Way of Love daily. Grace is indeed the perfect name for Chaplain Kim. That is what she offers other chaplains and soldiers under her care as she lives out her mission to make God’s reconciling love known in all the world,” Ritonia said. “All chaplains serving in the Armed Forces and Federal Ministries take their charge seriously to ensure religious freedom for those they serve, and as missionaries of the gospel, they engage those who might never enter a local church if not for their witness.” As of 2023, about 3,000 active duty, reserve and National Guard chaplains of many faiths serve the U.S. military. This includes 105 Episcopal chaplains, 64 of whom, including Kim, are on active duty. Ritonia, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, oversees the chaplains and connects with them at least once a month through virtual prayer meetings. She is scheduled to visit chaplains stationed in South Korea, Guam and Japan during Lent. Kim’s journey to serving as an Episcopal Army chaplain was unconventional. Born in 1968 in Busan, South Korea, to a Presbyterian minister, as a child she wanted to serve God even though in those days only men served as clergy. She eventually saw women clergy in 1989 when she moved to the United States. She later became ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) after working as a counselor in schools and prisons. She also served as a youth minister for 17 years and earned a doctorate in practical theology from Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles, California. After much insistence by one of her best friends, repeated contacts by a recruiter and prayer, Kim entered active duty with the ranking of captain in 2013 at age 44 with a waiver; the Army’s standard age limit for active-duty enlistment is 35. “Soldiers who had just graduated from high school were in basic training with me at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. On the first day, I couldn’t do any sit-ups; three months later, I could do 56 sit-ups,” Kim, 57, said. “Knowing I was going out there to serve the Lord and serve soldiers and their families kept me motivated the whole time.” Kim joined The Episcopal Church in 2016, she said, after experiencing multiple microaggressions as a female Presbyterian pastor of color while enrolled in the Army’s chaplain candidate program. She was ordained a deacon in 2019 through the Diocese of the Rio Grande and ordained an Episcopal priest the following year. “When I joined the Army, the Army Chaplain Corps was mostly white, male, Baptist conservative captains, so I wasn’t very accepted among them. … I loved my ministries, but my first brigade captain wasn’t happy that I’m a colored woman, so he tried to get me out of the Army,” Kim said. “The only place I could go pray and cry out and just be with God without people looking at me was a church off base. … My supervisor in the chaplain program was an Episcopal priest, and we would do morning prayer together. From there, I slowly transitioned into becoming an Episcopalian.” Kim previously served as a chaplain school instructor at Fort Jackson before she was stationed in South Korea in June 2023. When she arrived at Osan Air Base, many service members were surprised to see both a female captain and a female chaplain for the first time. Kim is still the only female military captain and chaplain stationed in South Korea, and she said many women, especially mothers, prefer to seek her guidance over her male counterparts because she’s a grandmother. Kim frequently checks on mothers during pregnancy and after they’ve given birth. She also provides counseling for couples and helps fathers prepare for parenthood. “I teach new mothers how to take care of their baby during pregnancy and other preparations – what to eat, how to deal with negative thoughts and other things – which is especially helpful when they are so far away from their extended family. I also teach them how to encourage lactation and get their babies to latch while breastfeeding,” Kim said. “Chaplains already do a lot, but as a woman chaplain, I can provide an extra mile of duties that male chaplains […]

Wilberforce, OH – February 13, 2025 – Wilberforce University proudly commemorated the lives and legacies of the late Bishop E. Anne Henning-Byfield, the 135th elected and consecrated Bishop of the...

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Worldwide Zoom sessions hosted by the International Rural Churches Association (IRCA) are an opportunity to learn what is happening in rural communities around the world and to support rural… continue reading

The Rev. Michael Adam Beck knows all about being lonely, and he thinks he can help a lot of other people like him get to a better place.

A new book by the director of Fresh Expressions for The United Methodist Church diagnoses humanity as suffering from deep loneliness. The Rev. Michael Adam Beck believes he has the cure.

[Anglican Taonga] The Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia’s Tonga Episcopal Unit climate resilience mapping project (CIVA-QGIS) has gone global in a report that’s headed to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2025. A community resilience mapping system designed by the Diocese of Polynesia and operated by young Anglicans in Tonga (known as CIVA or QGIS) is being featured in a U.N. report as a case study of Pacific communities’ successful responses to climate risks such as sea level rise and extreme weather events. The Tonga case study sets out how the Anglican Church’s CIVA/QGIS project maps each household in a community to ensure all are resilient to climate disasters. It also mobilizes church youth to support people at risk in a disaster scenario. It is now featured in a key report from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the “human right to a healthy environment.” The Anglican case studies join the many governmental, Indigenous peoples’ and NGO submissions that will make up the special report on “Human Rights and Ocean Health” to the 58th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva this year. Elisiva (Siva) Sunia, a CIVA/QGIS practitioner from Tonga, prepared the Tongan QGIS portion of the  Anglican Communion’s submission – with help from Fe’iloakitau Kaho Tevi, advisor to the bishop of Polynesia – as part of her follow-up from her work in Colombia last October, where she was an Anglican Communion delegate to the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16). Sunia reports that positive aspects of this church’s contribution at COP16 were: – Playing our part within the unified Pacific regional approach, “One Pacific – One people, One Ocean.” – Highlighting the value of traditional ecological knowledge in biodiversity conservation. – Advocating the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in finding nature-based solutions in fisheries, forestry and tourism. While Indigenous and local communities have knowledge and commitment to building resilience, Sunia said the COP16 outcome was disappointing in terms of financing to support their biodiversity efforts. “These issues underscored the urgency of securing sustainable solutions tailored to Pacific realities, ensuring that our communities remain resilient in the face of growing environmental threats,” she said. Overall, Siva reports that the Anglican Communion delegation ensured one key message came through clearly from our region – “Pacific churches play a crucial role in climate resilience – leveraging their strong community presence to promote awareness, disaster response and policy advocacy.” She added, “By innovating strategies such as sustainable farming and renewable energy adoption, and empowering youth and grassroots movements, churches can strengthen our communities’ climate resilience efforts.” The Anglican Communion submission also includes a case study from an Anglican Church of Melanesia project, which mobilizes scores of church volunteers in Malaita (in the Solomon Islands) to monitor ocean level changes that can affect community housing and food sources. The two Anglican Communion case studies are part of a wider submission jointly produced by the Anglican Communion, Franciscans International and the Philippines-based Centre for Energy, Ecology and Development (CEED). Fe’iloakitau Kaho Tevi says these contributions to the U.N.’s climate work demonstrate the Anglican Communion’s serious concern about climate change and its actions to support local initiatives. He says the case studies’ emphasis on solutions is a crucial part of the Diocese of Polynesia’s mission to build safe and resilient churches. “For our Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia it demonstrates a shift from our climate change work that looked at our Pacific communities’ vulnerability, to a focus on building our communities’ resilience,” he said. “That shift is undergirded by Archbishop Sione Ului’lakepa’s 2024 General Synod charge calling on our whole Church to move “From Lamentation to Hope.” The full report from the Anglican Communion, Franciscans International and the Centre for Energy, Ecology and Development is downloadable here during 2025.

[World Council of Churches] As Feb. 24 marks the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay noted with sadness that the war continues without any immediate signs of an end. “The futility of this war is written in the enormous cost of lives among civilians and many children, and the vast toll of destruction and displacement,” he said. “Essential civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and water supplies, have been damaged or destroyed, often in targeted attacks.” The invasion, its attendant war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the mounting toll in lives, communities and future hopes destroyed, has continued, Pillay reflected. Read the entire article here.