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A free floating commentary on culture, politics, economics, and religion based on a passionate commitment to the truth and a desire graciously to refute that which is contrary to it….
"He must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it."
--Titus 1:9, Revised Standard Version
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How close we often run to disaster. The plan might easily have been implemented, leaving only four parishes in the whole City to administer the remaining dozen churches.
Worse things had already befallen City churches. Wren churches had been demolished in Victoria's reign to improve the traffic flow: St Benet Gracechurch in 1868, St Mary Somerset the year after, St Dionis Backchurch in 1878, St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street in 1887, St Olave Jewry in 1888.
As it happened, Bishop David Hope of London did not implement the Templeman report, and his successor, the present Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres, proved to be in favour of preserving all the City churches for active worship.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Church of England (CoE) * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry
But these soldiers are not studying anatomy to become medics. They are learning to care for the dead.
When these 11 students graduate from training at the U.S. Army's Mortuary Affairs Center, they will earn the title 92M — military code for mortuary affairs specialist. Some of those who have volunteered to work with the dead will serve at collection points in Iraq and Afghanistan; others will work in the port mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They will help recover, identify and prepare the remains of fallen soldiers.
The 92Ms have cared for the majority of the more than 4,500 military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They operate under a code of conduct that's part scientific and part symbolic....
I happened to catch this story this week during a run via NPR's story of the day podcast--very worthwhile I thought; see what you make of it.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry Death / Burial / Funerals * Culture-Watch Military / Armed Forces * Economics, Politics Iraq War
More than 80 percent of adults questioned in the poll by Knowledge Networks said the right to die should not be decided by the government, church or a third party, yet only 50 percent of Americans over 60 and less than 25 percent of younger people said they have a living will.
"People put that off. They're in denial and they have their heads in the sand," said Dave Bunnell, editor-in-chief of ELDR magazine, which commissioned the poll.
read the whole thing.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry Death / Burial / Funerals * Culture-Watch Life Ethics
Tony Merry was hoisted 3ft off the belfry floor when the rope caught his trousers. Stuck fast in the cramped upper reaches of St Mary's Church in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, he had to be rescued by firefighters and paramedics. They used a pulley to lower him through a trap door 15ft above ground and down on to a stretcher below.
Recovering at home yesterday, Mr Berry, 58, said: "Nothing like this has ever happened before – it gave me a real shock. I think a bunch of keys got caught in the rope and I was pulled about 3ft off the floor. The shock made me black out and I lost consciousness and fell to the ground and bashed my shoulder. The paramedics gave me morphine to help with the pain and then I was conscious throughout the rescue."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Church of England (CoE) * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry
"It was like watching a horror movie," she said. "Except it really happened to me."
Her pastor, Phil Munsey of Life Church of Mission Viejo, arrived the next morning and felt the urge to pray for her emotional health, worried that she would be plagued by flashbacks and nightmares.
"As a pastor," Munsey said. "I prayed for a miracle and received one."
Her pastor gave her a New Testament verse from 2 Timothy 4:17 to inspire her: "... the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength ... And I was delivered from the lion's mouth."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Culture-Watch Religion & Culture * Theology Pastoral Theology
In this regard it is necessary to add another aspect: that of the theological vision of the Acts of the Apostles in respect of the journey of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome. Luke notes that among the peoples represented in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost there are also "foreigners from Rome" (Acts 2:10). At that time Rome was still distant, "foreign" for the nascent Church: It was a symbol of the pagan world in general. But the power of the Holy Spirit will guide the steps of the witnesses "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8), to Rome. The Acts of the Apostles ends precisely when Paul, by providential design, arrives at the empire's capital and proclaims the Gospel there (cf. Acts 28:30-31). Thus the journey of God's Word, begun in Jerusalem, arrives at its goal, because Rome represents the whole world and thus incarnates the Lucan idea of catholicity. The universal Church is realized, the catholic Church, which is the continuation of the chosen people and makes its history and mission her own.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Church Year / Liturgical Seasons Pentecost * Religion News & Commentary Other Churches Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI
At the Miami Archdiocese, collection-plate revenues are steady, but assessments that individual parishes pay are slow in coming or are down, and needs are up sharply, resulting in the layoff of 49 of the 182 staff members at its Pastoral Center on Biscayne Boulevard, said spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.
In a letter to parishioners, Archbishop John C. Favalora said: ``Each year, a greater number of parishes and programs are seeking our financial help, and, therefore, we must prioritize. We can only work with what we have.''
South Florida's Jewish, Methodist, Episcopal and other faithful face similar problems.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Culture-Watch Religion & Culture * Economics, Politics Economy * Religion News & Commentary Other Faiths Judaism
Sanneh writes that God exists "at the center of the universe of cultures, implying equality among cultures and the necessarily relative status of cultures vis-à-vis the truth of God." Translatability shows why "no culture is so advanced and so superior that it can claim exclusive access or advantage to the truth of God, and none so marginal and remote that it can be excluded." It takes flesh in "the ethical monotheism Christianity inherited from Judaism" in such a way that it "accords value to culture but rejects cultural idolatry." And it shows why "in any language the Bible is not literal; its message affirms all languages to be worthy, though not exclusive, of divine communication." If the faith embodied in Jesus Christ resounds in its essence "with the idioms and styles of new converts," it was then inevitable that Christianity would become "multilingual and multicultural." Sanneh has previously faced the question of whether one activity can bear all of this interpretive weight. This book provides his most convincing answer.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Missions * Culture-Watch Globalization * Theology Ecclesiology
Yesterday thousands of Christians relived that moment as they met for a Global Day of Prayer in Millwall football stadium joining half a billion people around the world - not just to pray for other Christians, but to celebrate and pray about the problems in our world. They prayed about war and famine and asked searching questions about their responsibility as UK citizens.
In the ecumenical service where I preached yesterday morning there was nothing incongruous about our intercession for teenager, Jimmy Mizen who became the 13th victim of knife crime in London on Saturday night. And it seemed natural to redirect our giving in response to disaster victims in Burma.
As the German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann put it: 'no corner of this world should remain without God's promise of a new creation through the power of the resurrection.'
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Church Year / Liturgical Seasons Pentecost
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being" (John 1:1-3).
Today we tend to think of lectio divina as an almost exclusively individual activity; but it's important to realise that such personal reading of the Scriptures grew out of, and reinforced, their public proclamation in the liturgy.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Church Year / Liturgical Seasons Pentecost
Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.
The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate.
It also comes as the IRS has increased its investigations of churches accused of engaging in politics.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Culture-Watch Law & Legal Issues Religion & Culture * Economics, Politics Politics in General US Presidential Election 2008
Faith doesn’t promise us that. Think back to the psalm: ‘When you travel through the valley of the shadow of death I’ll be with you’. Not ‘if’, ‘when’ is what the scripture says.
John Polkinghorne, priest, author and former Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University puts it like this: God does not bring about everything that happens in the world. Because God is a God of love, he allows creatures to be themselves. That sort of valuable, worthwhile, independent creation has a cost. We see that in the terrible cruel choices of humankind. We also see it in the physical history of the world. Exactly the same bio-chemical processes that enable some cells to mutate and produce new forms of life - the very engine that has driven the amazingly fruitful history of life on earth – will also allow other cells to mutate and to become malignant. You just cannot have one without the other. The tragic fact that there is cancer in the world is not because God did not bother – it is a necessity in a world allowed to make itself.
The freedom that enables me to choose to give generously at the moment to Myanmar, the freedom which enables someone to give their love to someone, to go the extra mile to care; is precisely the same freedom which those rulers in Myanmar are using to stop aid coming in. It is part of the way the world is set up. It’s both a wonderful freedom but a terrible responsibility.
The Christian gospel never says that there will not be suffering or evil. And it does not promise us that we will not go through it. And those of you being confirmed today, this isn’t some sort of talisman which will stop you ever experiencing evil. You and I will experience the same suffering that is the common lot of humanity.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Church of England (CoE) CoE Bishops * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry Preaching / Homiletics * International News & Commentary Asia
St Augustine knew that a fallen world was a world of disordered desire. He went so far as to say that all thefts, all murders and adulteries sprang from disordered love. “Shall we stop loving then?” he asks. “No, if you stop loving you will become a block of wood, a dead thing.”
Our calling is to “set love in order”, to be shaped and ordered, we might say, by the internet of the Spirit, the Lord and the Giver of life, who “alone can order the unruly wills and passions of sinful men”. And that grace and that life is at the heart of the Church’s being, and of what it is to be human, and so at Pentecost we pray: “Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire!” for “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world. Alleluia!”.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Church of England (CoE) CoE Bishops * Christian Life / Church Life Church Year / Liturgical Seasons Pentecost
But Kirk Bockman, 52, and Jim Lee, 59, are highly skilled artisans whose specialized craft is cloaked in grief.
In a yearly ritual that began in 1991 with the dedication of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, Bockman and Lee have carefully etched 18,274 names of fallen officers into marbleized limestone.
This year, the engravers' burden was heavy as they prepared for the annual vigil for slain officers on Tuesday.
The pair has recorded the names of the 181 officers killed in 2007, one of the deadliest years for police in two decades. They also added 177 officers whose deaths had not been previously recorded, some dating to the 19th century, says Berneta Spence, the memorial's director of research.
"When we do this, we really feel like we become part of their family history," Bockman says, his voice hushed in deference to a victim's mother.
Read it all and don't miss the great story at the end about their visit to the White House.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry Death / Burial / Funerals * Culture-Watch Military / Armed Forces
Pastor Dr. Rusty Newman says "we are beginning a revival, ah starting this Sunday. If you attend the service you are able to sign up for a drawing to place your name in at the end of the service stating you were there. Then on Wednesday evening at the conclusion of service we will be drawing for that ability to win the prize."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry Evangelism and Church Growth * Culture-Watch Religion & Culture * Economics, Politics Energy, Natural Resources
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Spirituality/Prayer * Culture-Watch Religion & Culture * International News & Commentary England / UK
That isn't how the Internet Evangelism Day team sees things. It notes that "over 1 billion people use the Web," the "Internet is changing the world" and "God is using the Web to transform lives."
"The Internet has become a 21st century Roman road, marketplace, theater, backyard fence and office drinks machine," proclaim the site's Web masters. "Web evangelism gives believers opportunities to reach people with the Gospel right where they are, just as Jesus and Paul did."
Tech guru George Gilder knows where the Web evangelists are coming from and offers a hearty "Amen." He remains convinced that cyberspace is territory that religious leaders have to explore and, hopefully, master.
"The Internet is very good for building communities and, obviously, churches are communities. It allows a particularly charismatic, or brilliant, church leader to reach potential followers not only in his community or in his immediate locality, but all across the country and the world," said Gilder, the author of two trailblazing books --"Microcosm" and "Telecosm."
Read the whole thing.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Culture-Watch Blogging & the Internet
Since 1998, the U.S. bishops' conference has been keeping tabs on men entering the priesthood through yearly surveys. This year's class, which includes 401 potential ordinands (335 responded to the survey), largely continues recent trends. Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate conducted the survey for the bishops.
Though the survey did not mention it, the 2008 class--particularly its size--also exhibits the church's steep decline in vocations. In 2000 the church ordained 442 priests.
Men, especially those joining religious orders, are entering the priesthood later in life. Half of the ordinands are 34 or older; the average age is 37; among men joining religious orders it's 39; priests ordained for dioceses on average are 36.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Religion News & Commentary Other Churches Roman Catholic
Raising $12 million for repairs has been a challenge -- seven years into the "Saving Grace" project, the church's approximately 1,600 parishioners have raised about $4 million, enough to set up scaffolding and get started. Now a new challenge has appeared in the form of a pair of red-tailed hawks and their chicks nesting in the steeple tower -- a challenge that will cost an estimated $60,000 in construction delays.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * South Carolina
That journey took an unusual twist in the road in 2004, a twist which eventually lead the couple to a new vocation and a new life in Gallup.
Recently ordained as Episcopal priests in November 2007, the Perkins are the new, part-time co-vicars of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Although the Episcopal Church has been ordaining women as priests for about three decades, the Perkins said it is unusual for both a wife and a husband to serve together as co-vicars. Their arrival in Gallup is a boon to their small congregation, which has been shepherded for the last decade by a series of interim pastors. The church will officially celebrate the couple’s arrival with a ceremony later this month.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Episcopal Church (TEC) TEC Parishes * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry
--John Calvin, commenting on Christ's Ascension in the Book of Acts
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Liturgy, Music, Worship
that we who believe
Thine only-begotten Son our Redeemer,
to have ascended this day into heaven,
may ourselves dwell in spirit amid heavenly things.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Liturgy, Music, Worship
All this in an online video to promote the 2008 Anglican-Lutheran worship conference, where the theme is (as you may have guessed) "Order and Chaos."
From June 25 to 28, 2008, Montreal, Que. will host the third biennial, national Anglican-Lutheran worship conference. Keynote speakers will be Gordon Lathrop, liturgical scholar from Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and Karen Ward, pastor of Seattle's Church of the Apostles.
"These conferences are wonderful learning experiences. They bring together really good people who talk both intelligently and critically about liturgy," said Dean Peter Wall, the conference's Anglican co-chair. "I think we have a lot to learn from each other, both Anglicans and Lutherans."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Anglican Church of Canada * Christian Life / Church Life Liturgy, Music, Worship * Religion News & Commentary Other Churches Lutheran
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Spirituality/Prayer
Her husband keeps telling her to go to the emergency room, but the mother of three reminds him that she is among the 1 million Michigan residents without health insurance.
"I refuse to go to the hospital because I cannot afford it," said Kreutzans, a Warren resident.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Culture-Watch Health & Medicine
Eighty feet above the center of downtown, he and Kirsten Chapman, head of the church's environmental ministry, gingerly stepped over loose wooden planks coated with dust and ducked under the four metal arms of the clock mechanism to get to the 16 incandescent bulbs that illuminate the clock. Chapman slipped in front of one of the four faces and carefully replaced the bulbs with compact fluorescent ones.
This is what it took, on Earth Day, to turn a 150-year-old landmark into a beacon for thinking green.
The new lights promise to keep an estimated 2.5 tons of carbon out of the atmosphere every year by using 75 percent less energy, and save energy and money by lasting 10 times longer. Wickizer hopes that the change will encourage the community to reduce its carbon footprint. Church officials say they believe this is part of God's will.
"Having dominion over [the Earth] doesn't mean trashing it," Wickizer said. "It may have taken the church a while to wake up to that."
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Church Year / Liturgical Seasons Epiphany Parish Ministry * Economics, Politics Energy, Natural Resources
Isaac's congregation cannot afford to pay him a full salary. He and his wife tithe much of what they do get back to the church. Despite eight years of higher education, including a degree from Duke Divinity School, he has always had to supplement his income with other work. He assists in teaching theology courses at Duke, including one of mine. Before that he combined ministry with carpentry (for which there is precedent in Christianity).
Mostly he works for his church. When he is not preparing Bible studies and sermons, he is in the jails and hospitals counseling the troubled or praying with the dying. Like the duties of most pastors, Isaac's touch every notch on the life cycle, from baptism to last rites. Some of his best pastoral care is delivered on park benches in verdant Chapel Hill. And since Isaac's congregation prefers renting space, he doesn't have an office. This is OK: The ministry itself is called an "office," giving the office-holder a privileged place in the lives of those who accept him as their shepherd. And all the shepherd has to do in return is model a life of service and apply the assorted symbols of God to every occasion or dilemma known to humankind.
Isaac's improvisational ministry reflects the realities of a shrinking Protestant church in America.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Religion News & Commentary Other Churches
The ancestry issue coupled with geographical/cultural impact is Oden's most important contribution. In sum, he argues that even if Augustine, for instance, had a father whose ancestry was Greco-Roman, would that mean that Augustine, living his entire life in Africa was not African? Additionally, given that his famous mother, Monica, was almost definitely of Berber (north African) descent, would that not make Augustine African? And just as important to Oden, can we wipe out the impact on Augustine's parents and on Augustine of living in the African geography and partaking of the African culture?
So, for Oden, "African Christianity" is the Christianity of any person who was born and/or lived on the African continent. Thus, for Europeans to claim Augustine, Origen, Tertullian, and others is a robbery of immense proportion in Oden's thinking.
Given this perspective, Oden's entire book is actually a call for others to build upon his small start. It is a call to take seriously the oral and written tradition of material spoken and penned on the African continent. It is then a call to explore the past, present, and future impact of that legacy.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life Church History * Culture-Watch Books * International News & Commentary Africa
That's right, says Rev. Robert Lemon of St. John-in-the-Wilderness church.
When he and his congregation in Bright's Grove decided it was time to "go green" they opted for two new furnaces so that portions of the church, hall and office can be separately heated.
In one year, the church has saved about $700 in natural gas consumption, making the investment economical as well as ecological. "That's very good and over time it means the furnaces will pay for themselves," Lemon said.
St. John-in-the-Wilderness Anglican church is 152 years old and has had numerous upgrades over the years. But in 2006, when an office was added, the congregation began to take energy efficiency seriously.
"We realized we could do better and we began to make changes," Lemon said.
Read it all.
Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal Anglican Provinces Anglican Church of Canada * Christian Life / Church Life Parish Ministry * Economics, Politics Energy, Natural Resources
