Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls' grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville's quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are "Our Girls," the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Children • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

O Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who art thyself the bread of life, and hast promised that he who comes to thee shall never hunger: Grant us faith truly to partake of thee through Word and Sacrament, that we may find refreshment of spirit and be strengthened for thy service; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer

DR. PHILIP HAWLEY (Grant Medical Center). We have people who are terminal on aggressive life support measures. Clearly they are not going to survive. We are spending all this time and money taking care of them. They are suffering, and it’s completely inappropriate.

DR. GORDON: What people need to do is talk about this with their family, with their physician, in advance. If they get a life-threatening illness, a lot of times they won’t be able to. Maybe they won’t be coherent, or they’ll be on a life-support machine. They can’t express their wishes, then they put their family in a bind, so they feel guilty, they don’t know for sure, and then what often happens is the sort of default is, well, let’s do everything, as much as possible.

ROLLIN: And sometimes families disagree about what to do. It’s hard for some to let go, which complicates things further.

DR. HAWLEY: If we could get families to deal with this we would not have this problem. We feel we as physicians should be able to step in and say we’ve got to stop the madness.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Life Ethics

The Rev. Alistair Begg's theological interpretation of the Gospel of John, (Messages of faith, Saturday) has been sadly all too pervasive in Christianity for centuries. To continue to read this Gospel, or any of the Biblical canon, in such a superficial manner that it leads the reader to believe that "those who claim to know and honor God, but deny the truth of the deity of Christ, are deluded and dangerous" is to perpetuate a serious untruth about the essential nature of Jesus and his message. This untruth has resulted in a host of egregious behaviors by Christians toward others, including virulent anti-Semitism over the last two millennia.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Christology

When it comes to religion, people of faith are passionate about their beliefs, and at times, that passion can lead to conflicts with others of different religions.

However, sometimes with understanding can come peace.

With that idea in mind, the Solo Flight Singles Group of New Covenant United Methodist Church decided to host an event that would promote peace and understanding between faiths.

The group gathered together representatives from five different faiths — Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Christian — for an interfaith panel discussion at the church Tuesday evening.

“I think it’s important that we try to understand everyone,” said Bev Diaz, coordinator of the event. “We’re all coming to realize the world is getting smaller. We’re coming into contact with more faiths, and to have more peace, we need to understand and tolerate each other.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Methodist

How does your ministry work?

We have a healing service once a week on Tuesdays and a soaking prayer service on Wednesday where we pray over those who need healing. We also have a prayer team of 37 people who pray for those who need healing.

How did you come to the healing ministry?

My sister had dystonia, which is a very unusual disease. Her body was crippled and stuck in the fetal position, but eight times a day, all her muscles would spasm. She was expected to die, but a man prayed for her and she got better almost immediately. Witnessing that miracle changed my life.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

As accusations of clerical sexual abuse continue to emerge, most recently in Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, a conversation I had recently with a Vatican official offered a timely reminder not to forget what is often overlooked: the well-being of priests in all of this.

He pointed out that while each case must, of course, be treated with the utmost seriousness and justice be done, often innocent priests are the ones who have to bear most of the fallout. The perpetrators also receive precious little help or compassion from the Church.

“There has been such an overreaction that most priests are now warned not to even touch a child,” he said. “And I’ve not seen the slightest compassion shown by anybody to a priest caught up in this stuff.”

Stressing that while the crime is deplorable, he said a very small minority of priests are guilty of the crime. Furthermore, he reminded that the perpetrator is “a priest and a Christian and deserves some kind of help and respect – they’ve almost been treated like dogs and it’s horrible.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Psychology • Sexuality • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland • Europe • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

On Feb. 3, Ergun Caner, president of the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, in Lynchburg, Va., focused attention on a Southern Baptist controversy when he called Jerry Rankin, the president of the denomination’s International Mission Board, a liar. Dr. Caner has since apologized for his language, but he still maintains that the “Camel Method,” a strategy Dr. Rankin endorses for preaching Christianity to Muslims, is deceitful.

Instead of talking about the Jesus of the New Testament, missionaries using the Camel Method point Muslims to the Koran, where in the third chapter, or sura, an infant named Isa — Arabic for Jesus — is born. Missionaries have found that by starting with the Koran’s Jesus story, they can make inroads with Muslims who reject the Bible out of hand. But according to Dr. Caner, whose attack on Dr. Rankin came in a weekly Southern Baptist podcast, the idea that the Koran can contain the seeds of Christian faith is “an absolute, fundamental deception.”

David Garrison, a missionary who edited a book on the Camel Method by Kevin Greeson, the method’s developer, defends the use of the Koran as a path to Jesus. “You aren’t criticizing Muhammad or any other prophets,” Dr. Garrison said, “just raising Jesus up.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Malaysia • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Baptists • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment beyond the statement by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he said showed the “nonresponsibility” of the pope in the matter.

The expanding abuse inquiry had come ever closer to Benedict as new accusations in Germany surfaced almost daily since the first reports in January. On Friday the pope met with the chief bishop of Germany, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the head of the German Bishops Conference, to discuss the church investigations and media reports.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Children • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

In this city so crowded with religious symbols, where houses of worship vie with one another to render the religious past visible, no synagogue bears more symbolic weight than the one called the Hurva, in the heart of the Jewish Quarter.

Just days ahead of its March 15 rededication ceremony, finishing touches still were being applied to the synagogue, once Jerusalem's grandest, which had remained in ruins for six decades. The rebuilt Hurva, made of the white stone that is Jerusalem's vernacular material, had already assumed its former prominence in the city's crowded skyline. Only interior details remained to be done.

Early this month, as the Israeli architect Nahum Meltzer looked on, a whorled woodwork crown covered in gold leaf was hoisted to its perch atop a two-story holy ark. The ark, which stands beneath the building's gleaming 82-feet-high dome, is a nearly exact replica of the original that stood on the spot more than 150 years earlier, encapsulating the basic principle that guided Mr. Meltzer's reconstruction: not innovation, but historical accuracy.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Israel • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

...often the wicked so devote themselves to the practice of sin that they succeed in doing more wickedness than they would have been able to learn from the bad example of reprobate sinners. For this reason the torment of greater punishment is inflicted on them, in that they, by their own initiative, sought out greater ways of sinning, for which they are to be punished. Consequently it is well said: "According to the multitude of his devices, so shall he suffer [a citation from Job 20:18]. For he would not find out new ways of sinning unless he sought them out, and he would not seek out such things unless he were anxious to do them deliberately. Therefore, in his punishment, this excess in devising wickedness is taken into account, and he receives proportionate punishment and retribution. And even though the suffering of the damned is infinite, nevertheless they receive greater punishments who, by their own desires, sought out many new ways of sinning.

--Gregory the Great (540-604), Book of Morals 15.18.22

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Theology • Eschatology

Bishops in the nation's largest Lutheran denomination have approved preliminary steps to welcome a group of openly gay and lesbian ministers as official clergy with new liturgical rites.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Conference of Bishops approved a draft proposal on Monday (March 8) for the new rites, which include prayers and the laying on of hands by the local bishop, according to the denomination's news service.

The proposal only applies to 17 pastors who had followed normal ELCA procedures for education and ordination, but remained barred from the denomination's official clergy roster because of their sexuality. The clergy are all members of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a group devoted to gay rights in the ELCA.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

Almighty and merciful God, who didst raise up Gregory of Rome to be a servant of the servants of God, and didst inspire him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in thy Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that thy people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's figures, Rhode Island has grown in population from 1,048,319 in 2000 to 1,053,209 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 0.47%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Rhode Island went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 8,174 in 1998 to 6,078 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 26% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Rhode Island diocesan statistics, please go here and enter "Rhode Island" in the second line down under "Diocese" and then click on "View Diocese Chart" under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Rhode Island's website may be found here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Data • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

In support of Bishop Lawrence, members of the West Charleston Deanery have issued “A Call to Prayer,” inviting members of their Deanery to join in a time of fasting and prayer for Bishop Lawrence March 16-18 prior to the House of Bishop’s Meeting (March 19-24). The Deanery has scheduled a gathering of prayer and worship for Thursday, March 18 at 7:00 p.m. at Saint James, James Island. Following that gathering, churches from the deanery have signed up to pray for the Bishop every day of the House of Bishops’ meeting through and including our Diocesan Convention, March 26. As Craige Borrett, Dean of the West Charleston Deanery noted, “We need to remember that, ‘Prayer isn’t preparation for the battle. It is the battle.’” View the related Bulletin Insert.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * South Carolina

Churches have joined together to protest against plans for a mosque that would tower over the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, with one minister describing it as a “supremacist statement” for Islam.

A collective comprising every church in Camberley, Surrey, has lambasted plans for the giant mosque, warning that will create only “division and discord” in the town.

The proposal has already caused security concerns in military circles as the mosque includes 30m (100ft) minarets that would overlook Sandhurst.

The planned mosque lies just 360m from the academy, where hundreds of newly commissioned Army officers take to the parade ground each year for their passing out ceremony. The event attracts senior members of the Royal Family as well as important military figures.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

Lord Christ, almighty Saviour, we cry to thee for aid against our strong enemy. O thou who art the Stronger than the strong, deliver us, we pray thee, from the evil one, and take sole possession of our hearts and minds; that filled with thy Spirit we may henceforth devote our lives to thy service, and therein find our perfect freedom; for the honour of thy great name.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer

Faced with declining enrolment and revenue that will force it to shutter churches on Vancouver Island, the Anglican Church is turning to the social medium where millions of followers already flock: Twitter.

The Anglican Diocese of British Columbia last weekend voted to close seven churches outright and move those congregations to "hub churches." The meeting, during which several members tweeted updates to followers, came on the heels of an ominous recent report that predicted that the once powerful church was headed for extinction unless dramatic changes occur.

In addition to recommending that churches close, the report described Canada as a post-Christian society and urged a change in attitude to attract new members, including embracing modern forms of evangelism.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the father of a fallen Marine can collect damages from a religious sect that picketed his son's funeral with vulgar placards celebrating the death of American soldiers.

The court also accepted two other cases on Monday, one testing whether vaccine makers are immune from lawsuits under state law and another that challenges government background checks on federal contractors as an invasion of privacy. The cases are likely to be heard in the fall.

The funeral case, Snyder v. Phelps, tests the limits of First Amendment protection for demonstrators who aim obnoxious and hurtful speech at the most sympathetic of victims. It centers on the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., founded in 1955. Most of the church's 70-odd members are children, grandchildren or in-laws of its founder and sole pastor, Fred W. Phelps Sr., according to a lower court opinion.

The Westboro Church searches the Internet for notices of military funerals it can picket to get attention for its message of hostility to homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church, and its claim that battlefield casualties represent divine retribution for what it views as America's sins.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture

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America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom. The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television you have had a “free choice.” The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

I try to help Americans see that the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story is their story by asking them this question — “Do they think they ought to be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing?” They do not think they should be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing. They do not believe they should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

I then point out the only difficulty with such an account of responsibility is it makes marriage unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity? I then observe that is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church: because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing. And if the story that you should have no story but the story you choose when you had no story makes marriage unintelligible, try having children. You never get the ones you want. Of course Americans try to get the ones they want by only having children when they are “ready” — a utopian desire that wreaks havoc on children so born, to the extent they come to believe they can only be loved if they fulfill their parents’ desires.

Of course the problem with the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story is that story is a story that you have not chosen. But Americans do not have the ability to acknowledge that they have not chosen the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • History • Psychology • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

As religion is the corner-stone on which alone we have attempted to rear the fabric of morality, the degree of attention which it has received in the instruction and discipline of the Institute, forms another topic in our report. And here while the retrospect affords cause for congratulation that much has been done, it still leaves room for regret that much also has been left undone. It would be an affectation of modesty, however, to disclaim the consciousness that in all our plans and operations, there has been a uniform and earnest endeavor to sustain our religious professions. Accordingly, pains have been taken to give interest to the services of the chapel, and the decorum with which these have been attended by the students has been peculiarly gratifying. The regular and private reading of the Holy Scriptures has been a prescribed, duty and provision made for it in the daily routine of business. Portions of the inspired volume have been explained, after having been committed to memory, weekly; as also the Catechism and Services of the Episcopal Church. The observance of the Lord's day has been enforced, on the one hand, with a moderation which perceives the danger of rendering its duties tedious and irksome; yet on the other, with a strictness which would guard against the opposite and more common error, of allowing it to relax into a mere holiday for indulgence and amusement. With this view, the tasks of a sacred character required on Sundays have been light, while alluring and persuasive methods have been varied and multiplied, to induce a profitable employment of the time not appropriated to devotional exercises. We thus have succeeded, to an encouraging extent, in preserving the appropriate quiet of the day, and in using it as a means of spiritual edification, without investing it with the gloom and repulsiveness which not unfrequently counteract the beneficent design of the institution; a point which every one practically acquainted with the government of the young, will acknowledge to be as difficult as any other within the sphere of Christian education. In like manner we have been careful to render all the associations of Religion agreeable. Aware, too, that in moral culture, it is the indirect influence which the young disciple is exposed, in the tone and manner of things and in the every day habits of those around him, that operates to the formation of his sentiments and character more powerfully than any repetition of precepts or formal exhibition of example, we have endeavored that religion should be viewed as the source of contentment and self-government to its possessors, and not at variance with the declaration that its ways are "ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace." Pious sensibility has been tenderly cherished whenever it has appeared, and in awakening it, much has been done in the way of private and familiar conversation.

--William Augustus Muhlenberg, Christian Education (1831)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Education

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nyssa, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest now and for ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer

O Thou who hast prepared a place for my soul, prepare my soul for that place. Prepare it with holiness; prepare it with desire; and even while it sojourneth upon earth, let it dwell in heaven with thee, beholding the beauty of thy countenance and the glory of thy saints, now and for evermore.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer

I agree with Richard Harries' defence of faith groups who want to conduct civil partnerships in places of worship. But I really dislike the way he poses as a defender of religious liberty. We Lords-spiritual have no right to oppose them holding civil ceremonies in places of worship, he loftily says: "it would harm no one, and it accords with their deepest religious convictions. Religious freedom is indivisible". This is laughable. For an Anglican bishop to say this is like a Thatcherite saying "compassion must always come first".

The Church of England has many things going for it: it has lovely buildings, lovely music, lovely liturgies, lovely literature, and a lovely habit of theological vagueness. But it does not have the moral high ground in terms of religious liberty. Indeed it is founded on the denial of religious liberty. This is too often obscured by its reputation for "liberalism", which is based in the fact that it is more liberal than certain other churches on certain issues, and manages to find a few nice people to say nice things on Thought for the Day.

According to the vague, lazy orthodoxy about our history, the C of E is deeply entwined in the story of British liberalism. From the time of the first Elizabeth, did this Church not nurture the distinctive English tradition of toleration, pluralism, fair play? Did it not reject the authoritarian ways of another church we won't name, and choose freedom? No, actually. It is truer to say that our tradition of liberty arose in opposition to the established Church.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

O Eternal God, who through thy Son our Lord hast promised a blessing upon those who hear thy Word and faithfully keep it: Open our ears, we humbly beseech thee, to hear what thou sayest, and enlighten our minds, that what we hear we may understand, and understanding may carry into good effect by thy bounteous prompting; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer

100 years after his death, the Diocese of Lincoln will be honoured by an extended visit from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams, who strongly believes that it is necessary to honour Edward King.

"Edward King reinvented two things in the 19th century," said the Archbishop.

"He reinvented pastoral theology − the whole science of training a clergy which was competent pastorally and humanly; clergy who had a sort of professionalism in care.

"And he reinvented what a diocesan bishop could be and do, I think, in terms of accessibility, concern for the poorest − not something that other 19th century bishops had ignored, but certainly something that he brought to the fore in a quite fresh way.

"I think that in both of the those ways he contributed enormously to what we now absolutely take for granted about the role of a priest and a bishop."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History

A Louisville congregation has quietly become the first in the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky to begin blessing same-sex relationships.

St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church conducted its first such blessing late last year, for two male members of the congregation, after voting last April to approve such ceremonies.

The move, while not reflecting diocesan policy, is a milestone in one of the state’s denominations that generally has been the most accepting of gay members and ministers. But it also has complicated efforts to maintain unity, given that some churches and members oppose homosexuality.

The Rev. Lucinda Laird of St. Matthew’s stressed that the ceremony was not presented as a civil or sacramental wedding — since neither Kentucky nor the Episcopal Church recognizes same-sex marriages.

Nor, she said, was it presented as any other type of official rite of the national church. The church adapted a same-sex liturgy used by an Anglican diocese in western Canada.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

[JUDY] VALENTE: Sexual mores have been changing. But how well are seminaries preparing future pastors and rabbis to address these changes? The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality is a nonprofit group that helps promote sexual health in faith communities. The Institute recently studied 36 seminaries across denominational lines. The study found an “overwhelming need” to better educate and prepare future religious leaders in the area of human sexuality.

Dr. KATE OTT (Associate Director, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing): We see these issues every day and the harm that can be done around sexuality issues — either a kid who’s questioning their orientation, a couple whose marriage is failing. I think when those folks are coming to us in faith communities for real information and for real help, we need to make sure we have the training to be able to address that.

{JUDY] VALENTE: Many pastors say issues such as teen sexual activity and marital infidelity are among the most common topics about which congregation members seek guidance. Yet few seminaries offer courses in sexuality, and fewer still require these courses.

Dr. ALICE HUNT (President, Chicago Theological Seminary): It’s a challenge. It’s controversial. It makes people feel uncomfortable. It makes people feel insecure. So it’s just taking time for schools to come on board with addressing these issues.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

What if Jesus were living in today's society, observing the teachings of churches?

The Rev. David Dingwall leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.

"I wonder if Jesus would recognize much of what is being said and done in his name," he said. "Some of it, he would say, 'Yes. You get it.' But certainly not everything."

Soft-spoken, with a depth of thought, an easy laugh and prone to toying with his moustache when formulating an idea, the pastor of St. Paul's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in downtown Ocean City said he believes Jesus was militant, a radical, intensely political, but not violent. Jesus issued an invitation -- experience a new way of life.

It can be summarized by reading The Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the fifth chapter of the Biblical book of Matthew, one of the gospels.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Theology

we cannot let it go unremarked that Bishop Harries is eager to claim Cardinal Newman as one of his own. Newman’s essay on the Development of Doctrine is a seminal, nuanced and powerful piece of theological writing. The essay’s essential point is that the Christian faith can develop in understanding, but not in a way that contradicts the core teaching of the Apostles. Instead of any intellectual argument, Bishop Harries grabs the title of Newman’s essay, and uses it, and Newman’s reputation as a propaganda piece to bolster innovations in the Church of England which would have astounded and scandalized Newman. Is it possible that a person of Bishop Harries learning and experience is blind to the fact that Newman’s whole spiritual journey was a repudiation of the kind of Oxford, hoity toity faux Catholicism that Bishop Harries represents?

Can Bishop Harries really have missed the entire point of Cardinal Newman’s pilgrimage to Rome? Does he not see that the great man stepped down from the heights of his career in Oxford and in the Church of England to take the very step into the Catholic Church that Bishop Harries sneers at?

Lord Pentregarth is honest in choosing not to become a Catholic, but if he does not want to be a Catholic why does he keep masquerading as one? Most of all he should resist the temptation to kidnap a figure as great and good as Cardinal Newman and hold him to ransom for his own progressivist agenda.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ecclesiology

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's figures, Arkansas has grown in population from 2,673,400 in 2000 to 2,889,450 in 2009. This represents a population growth of approximately 8.08%.

According to Episcopal Church statistics, the Diocese of Arkansas went from Average Sunday Attendance (or ASA) of 5,349 in 1998 to 4,684 in 2008. This represents an ASA decline of about 12% over this ten year period.

In order to generate a pictorial chart of some Arkansas diocesan statistics, please go here and enter "Arkansas" in the second line down under "Diocese" and then click on "View Diocese Chart" under the third line to the left.

The Diocese of Arkansas' website may be found here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Data • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

Thousands of growing churches are preparing to celebrate Cherishing Churchyards Week this June as part of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity.

The nationwide project is being run by conservation charity Caring for God’s Acre (CfGA) and is supported by the CofE’s national environmental campaign Shrinking the Footprint. There are an estimated 12,000 CofE churchyards. Around half of them already run biodiversity projects, in rural and urban areas, while remaining respectful to their users, particularly family and friends of those buried there.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources

At least 36 terminally ill people died last year after taking lethal medication prescribed by doctors under Washington State’s new physician-assisted suicide law, according to a state report released Thursday, the first since the law went into effect a year ago....

Most patients who died under the law in Washington last year had cancer. Prescribing doctors, who must submit forms to the State Department of Health about patients who received the medication, said all who died cited “loss of autonomy” as a reason for seeking it. Most also said they could no longer enjoy life and feared losing “dignity.”

Ten patients said they were concerned about being a burden on their family and friends, 11 cited pain and one said finances were an issue. Critics of the law have said it could prompt disproportionate use by lower-income people. Almost all of those who died in Washington said they had private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or some combination. None said they had no insurance at all, though coverage was listed as unknown for five people. Most died within 90 minutes of taking the medicine, though at least one person lived for 28 hours. Two woke up after taking the medicine, then died later.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Law & Legal Issues • Life Ethics • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

O God, who through thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised help to man according to his faith: Grant us the freedom of the children to taste the food of eternal life, and to share with others what we ourselves receive; through the merits of the same thy Son, our Lord.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer

"Self-denial." wrote Cardinal John Henry Newman, "is a subject never out of place in Christian teaching." It is never out of place because it is a way of putting the cross, the pattern of Christ's sacrifice, at the very center of our daily lives. It is especially appropriate during the forty days of Lent. "If anyone would come after me," said Jesus, "let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Let him deny himself--this is not just refraining from sin; nor practicing what earlier Christians called mortification, that action through the Holy Spirit of putting to death sin in the Christian's life (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5): though certainly it includes this. Rather it is walking in the way of sacrificial obedience to Christ's call. This includes at times giving up what one might rightly and legitimately use. As St. Paul writes "'All things are lawful' but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful but I will not be enslaved by anything." (I Cor. 6:12-14; see also I Cor.10:23)

The Ash Wednesday liturgy includes self-denial, along with self-examination, prayer and fasting, as one of the disciplines for the observance of a holy Lent. Yet self-denial is rarely even mentioned these days within the Church. Is it any wonder in this increasingly indulgent society that it is not at the top of most lists or dimensions in Christian discipleship? To be sure this discipline, like the other spiritual disciplines can fall prey to a form of perfectionism which denies the grace and freedom we have in Christ; yet, nevertheless, when employed from grace and through God's grace there is godly freedom, even delight, in these disciplines, especially the discipline of self-denial.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

The Cathedral of St. James will host a Eucharist and reception to honor the Bishop for this special occasion tonight at 7 p.m. Congratulations to him and the diocese.

I found an invitation to the event here.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained

South Koreans exulted last week in Kim Yu-na's matchless performance in Vancouver. So, too, on Sunday, at Yoido Full Gospel Church, where the figure skater, a Roman Catholic, wasn't mentioned by name but everyone knew whom the pastor was talking about when he lifted up the country's Olympic athletes in prayer.

Yoido Full Gospel is the mega-est of megachurches. With a membership of more than 850,000, it bills itself as the world's largest Christian congregation, and that's probably right. At the 11 o'clock service last Sunday, there were more people in the 120-singer choir than in the entire congregation of the country church I attend in New England.

The church stands on an island in the Han River in central Seoul, not far from the National Legislature. The main sanctuary holds 10,000 people. Nearby are several church-owned buildings, including a high-rise filled with offices, meeting rooms and banquet halls. There are satellite churches elsewhere in Seoul and around the country.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * International News & Commentary • Asia • South Korea • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

What does it mean to be Anglican? I have not always been Anglican. I was Roman Catholic when my family visited Truro Church in 1974, but my wife and I sensed the Lord calling us to make our church home there. I find that my catholic heritage has been deepened as I have learned to understand the Scriptures through evangelical Anglican eyes and to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in making my faith real. One could give many answers to what is the essence of being Anglican, but to me the most important is that Anglicanism is situated solidly in the Great Story of the redemptive love of the Creator God Who we know as a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To be Anglican is to be in continuity with the ancient Church’s way of understanding the story of Jesus of Nazareth as told by the Apostles. Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord, the Messiah of Israel, fulfills the promises God made to Abraham to bless the whole world through his descendants, as we learn from both the old and new testaments of the Bible.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Anglican Identity • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Harry Wallace, of Harper's Choice, was what he called a "cradle Episcopalian," a person baptized and raised in the Episcopal Church. As a youth, he was an altar boy and later served as a Eucharist minister in the church.

But Wallace, 53, said he and his wife, Pam, became increasingly disturbed in recent years by the liberalization of the church. As the church hierarchy moved toward accepting gay unions and ordaining gay priests, Wallace began to feel more and more uncomfortable.

"The angst and the division was troubling," Wallace said. "In our tradition and our belief set, we were becoming more and more marginalized."

Last year, Wallace and his wife converted to the Roman Catholic Church.

Their decision was hardly unique. Such conversions are part of a trend encouraged and recognized by the Catholic Church -- a trend that also is a two-way street, as even Catholics concede.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

O Blessed Saviour, who art full of mercy and compassion, and wilt not cast out any that come to thee: Help us, we beseech thee, who are grievously vexed with the burden of our sins; and so increase in us the power of thy Holy Spirit that we may prevail against the enemy of our souls; for thy name’s sake.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Lent • Spirituality/Prayer