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‘There is not going to be a great schism.” The Rev Lorna Hood is sitting on a sofa in the drawing room of an elegant town house in Rothesay Terrace, the official home of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh.

With one sharp sentence she has fired a tranquiliser dart into the pink elephant in the room.

Officially, there is still a moratorium on discussing whether the Church of Scotland should ordain practising gay ministers but next Monday’s debate and vote at the General Assembly is set to be the most divisive the Church has faced since the Disruption of 1843 when a predecessor as moderator, Dr David Welsh, walked out with 450 ministers and founded the Free Church of Scotland. There has been suggestions that, once again, ministers are strapping on their hiking boots.

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At Boston College's commencement ceremony on Monday, Cardinal Sean O'Malley won't be in attendance. The leader of the Boston archdiocese announced on May 10 that he would not deliver his traditional graduation benediction at the Catholic school because the college had invited Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny—a supporter of abortion rights in Ireland—to deliver the graduation address and receive an honorary degree.

The cardinal said the invitation has caused "confusion, disappointment and harm" by ignoring the U.S. bishops "who have asked that Catholic institutions not honor government officials or politicians who promote abortion with their laws and policies."

In April, Mr. Kenny's coalition government introduced legislation with the curious title "The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013." It will allow access to direct abortion for pregnant women if they claim to be so distraught about the pregnancy that they are in danger of committing suicide. Mr. Kenny has said that he "would like to see the legislation enacted before the Dail [parliament] rises for the summer."

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When Hungarian radical right-wingers rallied against a Jewish conference in Budapest in early May, a well-known Protestant pastor hid behind the stage while his wife stepped up to the podium to denounce Jews and Israel.

Lorant Hegedus could have preached the same anti-Semitism as his wife, a deputy for the populist Jobbik party in parliament. But his part in launching the rally may cost him his role as the far-right's favorite clergyman.

With anti-Semitism on the rise here, Christian churches are working with the Jewish community to counter the provocations against Jews and the Roma minority that have won Jobbik support among voters fed up with the country's economic crisis.

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The number of Catholic priests in Africa and Asia has shot up over the past decade while decreasing in Europe, mirroring trends in the numbers of Catholic faithful that helped lead to the election of Pope Francis as the first non-European pope in over a millennium.

The Vatican on Monday released statistics on the state of the Catholic Church in the world, showing a 39.5 percent increase in the number of priests in Africa and a 32 percent hike in Asia from 2001 to 2011. The number of priests in Europe fell by 9 percent, while remaining stable in the Americas. Worldwide, priest numbers were up 2.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of Catholics overall — or those who have been baptized — rose from 1.196 billion in 2010 to 1.214 billion in 2011. Given the world's population increase, though, the overall proportion of Catholics remained essentially unchanged at 17.5 percent.

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For five years I was a student under Dallas’s direction at USC. Having been so deeply impacted by his written work, I was pleasantly surprised to find that he, himself, was far more compelling than anything he had written. To be with him was to draw near to the Kingdom of God. He seemed effortlessly to communicate the peace, security, love and acceptance of God by his mere presence. I found it nearly impossible to remain anxious about anything while with him. And it was my repeated experience to witness the disarming of anger, contempt, fear, and countless other inner ailments with a simple look, a gentle word, a touch.

Dallas is the best teacher I’ve ever met. His work in philosophy always penetrates to the perennial problem – that issue of central importance to the human condition – in whatever discussion he’s a part of. During his time with us, he loved to think, write, and talk about a philosopher by the name of Edmund Husserl. He saw in Husserl a few crucial insights required to make sense of our ability to have knowledge of the world. But he didn’t allow the world of Husserl scholarship (and it is a real world unto itself) to define his research agenda. Rather, he brought the insights of Husserl to bear upon urgent questions about life, meaning, and the Kingdom of God.

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Catholics can't put their faith on a part-time schedule or rely on it just for the moments they choose; being Christian is a full-time occupation, Pope Francis said.

If people don't open their hearts to the Holy Spirit to let God purify and enlighten them, then "our being Christian will be superficial," the pope said May 15 at his weekly general audience.

Knowing and doing what God wants is not possible with mere human effort -- it takes the transformative action of the Holy Spirit, he said.

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Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak in February 2011, a growing number of Copts, including some of the most successful businessmen, have left Egypt or are preparing to do so, fearing persecution by an Islamist-controlled government as much as the stagnant economy that is smothering their industries.

Among the most prominent are the heads of the Sawiris family, who for several months have been running their enormous business empire from abroad.

“Every week I learn of 10 people who are leaving or who have already left,” Mr. [Wasfi Amin] Wassef said. “They know that what happened to the Sawiris’ can happen to them tomorrow.”

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As we prepare for the first Joint Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, we know that there are some who, like our ancestors in the faith, may be just a little dispirited as we face the challenges of our times. But just as surely as God's Spirit inspired the fi rst generation of believers, that same Spirit is working in us to give us the words to speak to one another and to those who are seeking something-dare we say, "Someone"-to believe in.

Our coming "Together for the Love of the World" will be a visible sign of the Spirit working in and among us. It will be time to take counsel together for the common good of both our churches and for the common good of our world. It will be a time to set our fears aside and arise with "bold new decisions."

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Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, who was himself widely tipped as a possible successor to Pope Benedict, said he had personally had two “strong signs” that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was “the chosen one” in the run up to vote.

He said only divine intervention could explain the speed with which the Argentine Cardinal - who did not feature on any of the main lists of likely candidates compiled by Vatican experts - was elected.

Speaking to an Anglican conference in London, he also said the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, had a “strange similarity” to the new Pope.

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Indeed, evangelical elites have a rosier view of immigrants than do the Republican rank and file. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 55 percent of Republicans view immigrants as a “burden because they take jobs, housing, and health care.”

“Leaders are usually ahead of the laity — that’s called leadership,” Richard Land said. “But the gap is closing.”

This debate is not just about immigration policy. For Latino evangelicals, making life better for immigrants requires investment in education and the social safety net as well as legal reform. If demographers are right, and America’s political future lies in the hands of Latinos and other minorities, conservative evangelicals cannot resurrect the Republican Party without following their political campaign to its theological conclusion.

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First, we need to recognize that some doctrines are more important than other doctrines. All Christians recognize this to some extent. For example, the doctrine of the return of Jesus Christ, the second coming, is much more important than the question of whether Christ will return before or after the tribulation. If you deny the second coming of Christ, it calls into question whether you are a Christian. But Christians have always disagreed about the exact timing of Christ’s return. So which doctrines are more important and which are less important?

One way to think about this issue is to distinguish between three levels of doctrines. First level doctrines include those a person has to believe in order to be a Christian. These include things like the inspiration of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the humanity of Christ, the sacrificial death of Christ for our sins, and his bodily resurrection. Now I am not saying that every Christian understands these doctrines fully. But if a person rejects these doctrines, can they really be a Christian in any historic sense?

Second level doctrines include those which are important because they promote the health of the church.

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Turkey is investigating an alleged plot to assassinate Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, and has stepped up security around the patriarchate in Istanbul, his spokesman said on Friday.

Spokesman Dositheos Anagnostopoulos said the patriarch had not received any direct threats but had learned of the alleged plot from Turkish media, which was later confirmed to the patriarchate by Turkish police.

"Later in the day, police informed the patriarchate of a possible threat and dispatched additional police officers," Anagnostopoulos said.

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On Jan. 22, 1899, Pope Leo XIII sent Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, leader of the American hierarchy, a document in the form of a letter whose opening words in Latin were Testem Benevolentiae (In Witness to Good Will). “It is clear, our beloved son,” Pope Leo wrote, “that those opinions that, taken as a whole, some designate as ‘Americanism’ cannot have our approval.”

Appalled, Cardinal Gibbons held up the document’s release in the United States for a week, until the publication of excerpts originating overseas forced his hand and moved him to give it to The Baltimore Sun. In a letter to a friend, the cardinal called it “very discouraging … that the American Church is not understood abroad.”

But the bishops of the Milwaukee province, a center of German-American Catholicism, said the errors condemned by Pope Leo were real.

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Dallas Willard writes to say there's something missing in the...picture [too many have of the Christian life]. Extending a line of thought that runs through such Christian writers as Teresa of Avila, William Law, Jonathan Edwards, C. S. Lewis, and Richard Foster, Willard calls us to want and to plan for something much more ambitious, namely "thoroughgoing inner transformation through Christ" to "clean the inside of the cup." To rejoice in our forgiveness, teach right doctrine, and yearn for heaven are wonderful things. But, as Willard testifies in his classics The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines, and most recently in The Great Omission (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), God has much bigger things in mind for us.

He wants us to join his mighty project. That's a main reason we need thoroughgoing transformation. He wants people like us to become fit enough to follow Jesus inside "the infinite rule of God," becoming searchers for his kingdom, agents within it, witnesses to it, and models of it. We now have little kingdoms of our own, just as God intended. Depending on our age and level of responsibility, we have a small realm "where our choice determines what happens." God wants us "to mesh our kingdoms with the kingdoms of others," all inside his master kingdom, "which pervades and governs the whole of the physical universe."

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After 87 years, the University Baptist Church of Coral Gables, Fla., recently shed its name for something it felt was more forward looking - Christ Journey.

It was following the lede of First Baptist Church of Perrine, Fla., which dropped the name it had held for 89 years in favor of Christ Fellowship.

Coral Baptist Church of Coral Springs, Fla., relaunched itself in 2006 as Church By the Glades.

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True prayer brings us out of ourselves: it opens us to the Father and to the neediest of our brothers and sisters. This was a central part of Pope Francis’ message to the faithful gathered for Mass on Saturday morning in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae residence at the Vatican, with agents of the Vatican Gendarmerie and a group of Argentine journalists with their families in attendance.

The Pope's homily focused on the day's Gospel reading, in which Jesus says, “[I]f you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you.” Discussing Jesus’ words, Pope Francis said, “There's something new here, something that changes: it is a novelty in prayer. The Father will give us everything, but always in the name of Jesus.” The Lord ascends to the Father, enters “the heavenly Sanctuary,” opens doors and leaves them open because “He Himself is the door,” and “intercedes for us,” as priest, even, “until the end of the world....”

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Even as an annual review this week gave Catholic bishops high marks on sex abuse prevention policies, officials with the church’s oversight agencies expressed serious concerns about “recent high-profile failings” in several dioceses.

The latest scandal has shaken Newark, N.J., where Archbishop John Myers failed to stop a priest from ministering with children in several parishes even though he had assured prosecutors that he would enforce a lifetime ban on the priest’s access to children following a molestation case.

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The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark met with Pope Francis today in a historical meeting held in the Apostolic Palace today.

This is the first time in 40 years that a Coptic Pope has met with the Pope of Rome. On May 1973. Pope Shenouda III met with Pope Paul VI and signed an an important Christological Declaration in common and initiated bilateral ecumenical dialogue between the two Churches.

In his address to Pope Francis, Pope Tawadros II regarded the meeting as “an unforgettable occasion”, since it marks the anniversary of their respective predecessor’s meeting.

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The annual Mass and meeting of the Society of Mary/American Region welcomed Bishop Lindsay Urwin as guest speaker and marked a transition in the society’s leadership. The society met May 3 and 4 at St. Stephen’s Church in Providence, Rhode Island, attracting visitors from across the East Coast and as far away as Wisconsin.

The Rt. Rev. Lindsay Urwin, OGS, administrator of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England, spoke on “One Faith, Two Shrines: The Challenges and Joy of Life in Walsingham.” Bishop Urwin described the existence of two separate shrines at Walsingham — one for Anglicans and one for Roman Catholics — as a sign of the scandal of divisions within Christianity.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will address thousands of international Christian leaders in London on Monday next week.

Archbishop Justin will speak on the opening morning of the annual HTB leadership conference, which returns to the Royal Albert Hall for the second year running.

The two-day event, which will be live streamed, will bring together 5,500 Christian leaders from 89 countries.

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I would like to note two elements in the account [of Saint Luke]. First of all, during the Ascension Jesus made the priestly gesture of blessing, and the disciples certainly expressed their faith with prostration, they knelt with bowed heads, this is a first important point: Jesus is the one eternal High Priest who with his Passion passed through death and the tomb and ascended into heaven. He is with God the Father where he intercedes for ever in our favour (cf. Heb 9:24). As St John says in his First Letter, he is our Advocate: How beautiful it is to hear this! When someone is summoned by the judge or is involved in legal proceedings, the first thing he does is to seek a lawyer to defend him. We have One who always defends us, who defends us from the snares of devil, who defends us from ourselves and from our sins!

Dear brothers and sisters, we have this Advocate; let us not be afraid to turn to him to ask forgiveness, to ask for a blessing, to ask for mercy! He always pardons us, he is our Advocate: he always defends us! Don’t forget this! The Ascension of Jesus into heaven acquaints us with this deeply consoling reality on our journey : in Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. Christ opened the path to us. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to him and leads us to God. If we entrust our life to him, if we let ourselves be guided by him, we are certain to be in safe hands, in the hands of our Saviour, of our Advocate.

A second element: St Luke says that having seen Jesus ascending into heaven, the Apostles returned to Jerusalem “with great joy”.

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The digital age is changing not only the words we use but also their meanings. Have you noticed, for instance, that “Christ follower” is replacing “born again” and “evangelical”? Take a moment to peruse the list of who Rick Warren follows on Twitter:

A handful of individuals describe themselves as “born again.”
A couple dozen use “evangelical.”
Almost 800 use some form of “Christ follower” or “Jesus follower.”

It is not just “follower” that is on the rise. Thanks to Facebook, “friend” is, too. Subtly yet profoundly, these concepts are being transformed in ways that alter how Christianity is understood and lived.

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Here is one:

The test of character posed by the gentleness of God’s approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel — or one desperate for another life — therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.”

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Because Dallas wrote on spiritual formation and taught philosophy at the University of Southern California, one might think he came from a background associated with richness of education and culture and resources. In fact, he grew up in very poor circumstances in rural Missouri. His mother died when he was two; her last words to her husband were: "Keep eternity before the children."

Because of impoverished conditions, Dallas grew up in a circle of different families; electricity did not come until he was mostly grown up.

He read a book by Jack London once that contained a passage describing the world from an atheistic point of view. Dallas said that he'd never known books could contain such thoughts and ideas, and his mind was never quite the same after that awakening. He was nine years old at the time.

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In the Gospel we heard a passage from the farewell discourses of Jesus, as related by the evangelist John in the context of the Last Supper. Jesus entrusts his last thoughts, as a spiritual testament, to the apostles before he leaves them. Today’s text makes it clear that Christian faith is completely centred on the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Whoever loves the Lord Jesus welcomes him and his Father interiorly, and thanks to the Holy Spirit receives the Gospel in his or her heart and life. Here we are shown the centre from which everything must go forth and to which everything must lead: loving God and being Christ’s disciples by living the Gospel.

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A wide range of papers was prepared for the meeting and discussed, taking the Commission further towards its goal of producing an agreed statement. The mandate for this third phase of ARCIC is to explore: the Church as Communion, local and universal, and how in communion the local and universal Church come to discern right ethical teaching. In exploring this mandate, the members of the Commission engaged in theological analysis and shared reflection on the nature of the Church and those structures which contribute to discernment and decision-making. Time was spent considering some case studies of ethical issues which members had prepared, and analysing the ways in which the two Communions have come to their present teaching on these matters.

Over the forty years of its work, ARCIC has produced a number of Agreed Statements. The work of ARCIC I received official responses from the two Communions. The Commission continued its task of preparing the documents of ARCIC II for presentation to the respective Communions to assist with their reception. Members reviewed responses already given to each of the five Agreed Statements and will prepare introductions for them that place each of these documents within the current ecumenical situation.

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New data shows that some of the fastest growing dioceses in the country are deep in the U.S. South.

The third fastest developing diocese is Atlanta, which saw the number of registered parishioners explode from nearly 322,000 in 2002 to one million in 2012 — an increase of more than twofold, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Atlanta also has the largest Eucharistic Congress in the country, with an annual attendance of about 30,000, according to an archdiocesan official.

Atlanta is not alone. Charleston has seen a 50% increase in parishioners over the last decade. Charlotte grew by a third, as did Little Rock. The Diocese of Knoxville, established just 25 years ago, is now the 25th fastest growing in the nation — and would rank near the top if those official figures counted as many as 60,000 unregistered Hispanic congregants, according to a diocesan official.

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A United Methodist theologian and retired elder is facing formal charges under church law and a potential trial for officiating at the same-sex wedding of his son.

The Rev. Thomas Ogletree, a retired seminary dean noted for his work on Christian ethics, presided over the wedding of his son, Thomas Rimbey Ogletree, to Nicholas Haddad on Oct. 20. The service took place at the Yale Club in New York City.

Ogletree, 79, is a Yale Divinity School professor emeritus, veteran of the civil rights movement and lifelong member of the Methodist tradition. He told United Methodist News Service that as a professor, he rarely has been asked to perform weddings. When his son asked him to officiate, he said he felt “deeply moved.”

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The new bishop of Kildare and Leighlin has said these are “difficult days” for priests as they see their numbers dwindle but pledged to work to encourage vocations and develop “collaborative ministry”.

Fr Denis Nulty, who turns 50 next month, will become the country’s youngest Catholic bishop when he is ordained at a ceremony in Carlow Cathedral on a date yet to be confirmed but likely to be during the summer.

A native of Slane in Co Meath and currently the parish priest in Drogheda, Fr Nulty will fill a vacancy in the diocese which has existed since December of 2009 when Bishop James Moriarty offered his resignation following publication of the Murphy report.

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The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has urged evangelical congregations within the Church of Scotland not to “walk away” over the ordination of [noncelibate] gay ministers.

Speaking on the eve of a visit to Scotland as the new chairman of Christian Aid, Williams said he understood some congregations might threaten to break away if the Kirk’s ­General Assembly votes to allow the ordination of gay ministers later this month, but warned against such a divisive move.

“The impulse to walk away, while deeply understandable, is not a very constructive one,” he said. “The things which bind Christians together are almost always more profound and significant for themselves and the world than the things that divide them. When you do walk away from other Christians you are in effect saying well, either I can do without you or I’ve got nothing to learn from you. That can’t be good for us. You may disagree, you may think somebody else is tacitly perverse, but you might want to hang in there with them.”

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While the fight to preserve life is often centered on abortion and capital punishment, the future Pope Francis also warned against a more subtle form of disregard for human dignity: what he called "covert euthanasia."

"In this consumerist, hedonist and narcissistic society, we are accustomed to the idea that there are people that are disposable," among them, the elderly, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said in a recently published book.

Citing examples of intentional neglect, the future pope said: "I believe that today there is covert euthanasia: Our social security pays up until a certain amount of treatment and then says 'May God help you.'"

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Beloved New York Annual Conference:

Many of you may have read the recently published article in The New York Times that centered on same sex marriage and The United Methodist Church. The confidentiality requirements of the complaint process prevent me from discussing the case in detail. However, as is the case on many issues confronting the church today, there are multiple perspectives associated with human sexuality.

There is also a multiplicity of other concerns that we are confronted with as a body of Christian believers. Immigration reform, gun violence, poverty and the challenges within our criminal justice system are but a few of the significant issues on the local and national landscape.

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This month, I thought I would use this column to indulge in a little thought experiment. What, I wonder, if the conservative evangelical church world came to be dominated by a symbiotic network of high profile and charismatic leaders (think more Weber than Wimber), media organisations, and big conferences? What if leadership, doctrine, and policy were no longer rooted in the primacy of biblical polity and the local church? What if, in other words, all of this became a function of an Evangelical Industrial Complex?

It is an important question. It is probably a year or so since I raised the question of the impact of celebrity on evangelicalism. As I was told then, celebrity either does not exist in the evangelical subculture or is of no real importance there. Thus, I suspect the Evangelical Industrial Complex either does not exist or exerts no influence; but it is entertaining to imagine what would the signs be that it was a real issue (which, I am sure you will agree, it is not).

The aesthetics of success would subtly and imperceptibly supplant the principles of faithfulness or would indeed come to be identified with the same. The rhetoric of faithfulness would be retained, but the substance would be less and less important.

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In the teaching of Pope Francis, the devil has a more dastardly agenda than just convincing people to break one of the Ten Commandments; "the enemy" wants them to feel weak, worthless and always ready to complain or gossip.

In his first month in office, Pope Francis continually preached about God's love and mercy, but he also frequently mentioned the devil and that sly dog's glee when people take their eyes off of Jesus and focus only on what's going wrong around them.

In the book "On Heaven and Earth," originally published in Spanish in 2010, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, said, "I believe that the devil exists" and "his greatest achievement in these times has been to make us believe he doesn't exist."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

It started out as a deeply personal act, that of a father officiating at the wedding of his son.

But it was soon condemned as a public display of ecclesiastical disobedience, because the father, the Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree, is a minister in the United Methodist Church, which does not allow its clergy to perform same-sex weddings.

Dr. Ogletree, 79, is now facing a possible canonical trial for his action, accused by several New York United Methodist ministers of violating church rules. While he would not be the first United Methodist minister to face discipline for performing a same-sex wedding, he could well be the one with the highest profile. He is a retired dean of Yale Divinity School, a veteran of the nation’s civil rights struggles and a scholar of the very type of ethical issues he is now confronting.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

First, like many others, I am profoundly disappointed that Rhode Island has approved legislation that seeks to legitimize “same-sex marriage.” The Catholic Church has fought very hard to oppose this immoral and unnecessary proposition, and we are most grateful to all those who have courageously joined us in this effort. When all is said and done, however, we know that God will be the final judge of our actions.

As I have emphasized consistently in the past, the Catholic Church has respect, love and pastoral concern for our brothers and sisters who have same-sex attraction. I sincerely pray for God’s blessings upon them, that they will enjoy much health, happiness and peace. We also offer our prayerful support to families, especially parents, who often struggle with this issue when it occurs in their own homes.

Our respect and pastoral care, however, does not mean that we are free to endorse or ignore immoral or destructive behavior, whenever or however it occurs. Indeed, as St. Paul urges us, we are required to “speak the truth in love.” (Eph 4:15)

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Controversy sells. It sells newspapers, journals and movies. It may even sell conference registrations, to judge from the frequency with which I’m asked to speak at such events about “controversial issues” that confronted the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song (PCOCS) as it worked on the denomination’s new song collection Glory to God.

Does controversy also sell hymnals? I’m not sure. But the Presbyterian Hymnal of 1874 came out in the midst of a controversy so intense that pamphleteers took to writing about the War of the Hymn Books. The war they had in mind was a campaign launched by disaffected members of the official hymnal committee who seceded to create a rival publication. In response to this campaign, the board of publication for the denominational hymnal took pains to report (in the January 1875 edition of the Presbyterian Monthly Record): “It will be gratifying to our Presbyterian constituency to know that the persistent efforts to prevent the adoption by the churches of the new Hymnal . . . fail to arrest its sale.” Indeed, by June of 1875, the rate at which congregations were adopting the new hymnal was reported to be “without a parallel in the history of hymn and tune books.” So maybe controversy does boost sales, even where hymnals are concerned.

Still, I am relieved to note that the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song has experienced nothing as dramatic as a secession and threatened publication war. The most animated disagreements we experienced within our group were over matters of theology; our most animated disagreements with people outside our group have been over issues of musical accompaniments and (not surprisingly) of language.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian

A US government-appointed panel urged Washington Tuesday to step up pressure on Pakistan over religious freedom, warning that risks to its minorities have reached a crisis level.

In an annual report, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom also raised concerns about what it called a worsening situation in China, as well as problems in Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and other nations.

The commission, which advises the government but does not make decisions, called for the United States to designate Pakistan, among eight other countries, as a “country of particular concern,” meaning it could be subject to sanctions if it fails to improve.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Pakistan • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

In the context of a widespread prevailing medical and social praxis that endanger that value of life perennially defended by the Catholic Church, it can be useful to offer some reflections on end-of-life issues, specifically on the difference between refusing extraordinary measures and suicide (both doctor-assisted and ‘autonomous’).

A convention held recently at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome on bioethics and end-of-life issues highlighted a number of fields where the Catholic perspective is in sharp conflict with either current medical practice, and trends threatening to go beyond de facto practice silently occurring between doctor, patient, and relatives in hospitals across the world, to become legislated practices, endorsed by law. One such field merits perhaps special attention, due to the likelihood that a given individual is to come across such a situation in the course of his or her life: the moral question regarding the refusal of possibly life-extending treatment, and the ensuing questions of whether this constitutes suicide, or differs moreover from the refusal of food and water.

In the issue of end-of-life practices, Fr. Maurizio Faggioni, O.F.M., professor of moral theology and bioethics at the Pontifical University “Antonianum” in Rome, affirmed that currently there is a distinction that needs to be made between assisted suicide and a refusing life-extending therapeutic measures.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Life Ethics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Anglican-Catholic dialogue is back on the agenda this week as a team of ecumenical experts from both sides meet in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro from April 30th to May 6th.
This 3rd meeting of the current Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission will continue its work on the relationship between local and universal Church, as well as the way in which both communities respond to the most pressing ethical issues of our time.

To find out more about the meeting, Philippa Hitchen talked to Mgr Mark Langham from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity who serves as Catholic co-secretary of ARCIC III…..
She also spoke, during the recent enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, to an Anglican member of ARCIC III, Bishop Christopher Hill who chairs the Church of England's Council for Christian Unity. He told her that Pope Francis’ emphasis on his role as the Bishop of Rome is extremely encouraging for the whole ecumenical endeavor…

Listen to it all (about 8 1/2 minutes).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * International News & Commentary • South America • Brazil • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

The Latino evangelical Christian movement is ascending from a remote constituency to a force, while also striving to reshape culture and politics in our country.

Believers such as Rodriguez want to marry the righteousness of Billy Graham with the justice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Those two world views are not typically associated in a meaningful way but have found a nexus in Latino cultures, where people are comfortable with invoking God in everyday life while taking a less strident tone on immigration.

Given Latinos' strong influence on the last presidential election, the work of faith leaders such as Rodriguez hint at greater changes within our political culture – some of which could prove surprising.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Immigration • Politics in General • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people’s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Virginia • Global South Churches & Primates • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Evangelism and Church Growth • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Methodist • Presbyterian • * Theology • Anthropology • Christology • Soteriology • Theology: Salvation (Soteriology) • Theology: Scripture

No fair looking until you guess, then go and read it all.

Update: Since I know people are going to ask, you can find the Archbishop of Canterbury's tweets here.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • --Social Networking • Globalization • Religion & Culture • Science & Technology • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

A worldly Church is a weak Church. The only way to stop this from happening is to entrust the Church to the Lord through constant prayer. This was the message at the heart of Pope Francis’ homily during Mass Tuesday morning, celebrated with staff from the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, also known as APSA. Emer McCarthy reports:

"We can safeguard the Church, we can cure the Church, no? We do so with our work, but what’s most important is what the Lord does : He is the only One who can look into the face of evil and overcome it. The prince of the world comes but can do nothing against me: if we don’t want the prince of this world to take the Church into his hands, we must entrust it to the One who can defeat the prince of this world. Here the question arises: do we pray for the Church, for the entire Church? For our brothers and sisters whom we do not know, everywhere in the world? It is the Lord's Church and in our prayer we say to the Lord: Lord, look at your Church ... It' s yours. Your Church is [made up of ] our brothers and sisters. This is a prayer that must come from our heart".

Then, Pope Francis remarked that "it is easy to pray for the grace of the Lord", "to thank Him" or when "we need something." But it is fundamental that we also pray to the Lord for all, for those who have "received the same Baptism," saying "they are Yours, they are ours, watch over them".

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology • Christology • Ecclesiology • Theology: Scripture

For decades Kathy and I have profited immensely from the pastoral wisdom of the converted slave trader John Newton. As an 18th century Anglican minister, Newton was a good preacher, but it was as a pastor, counselor, and advisor that he excelled. His pastoral letters are a treasure chest. In one of his letters (entitled “Some Blemishes on Christian Character”) Newton points out that while most Christians succeed in avoiding more gross sins, many do not actually experience much in the way of actual spiritual growth.

Newton lays out a very convicting and specific example of the kinds of Christian people who coast on their strengths but do nothing about their weaknesses and so rob themselves and others of joy and God of his glory. These blemishes are often seen by their bearers as mere “foibles.” Newton says they “may not seem to violate any express command of Scripture” and yet, they are “properly sinful” because they are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit that believers are supposed to exhibit.

These “small faults” mean that large swaths of the Christian population have little influence on others for Christ....

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)

The nephew of bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, one of the two archbishops kidnapped in Syria a week ago, said he hopes Syrian Christians will not use the incident as an incentive to flee the country.

Bishop Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo, was kidnapped last Monday, alongside his counterpart from the Greek Orthodox Church, Bishop Boulos Yaziji, close to the Turkish border.The driver of the vehicle, Fathallah Kaboud, was killed.

Kaboud had been the personal chauffeur of bishop Ibrahim for a number of years. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church

An alleged romance between an Egyptian Muslim college student and a Coptic Christian man heightened sectarian tension on Friday in a small rural Egyptian town where police fired tear gas to disperse stone-throwing Muslims who surrounded a Coptic church in anger over the inter-faith relationship, a security official and priest said.

The Muslim protesters accuse Saint Girgis Church of helping 21-year-old Rana el-Shazli, who is believed to have converted to Christianity, flee to Turkey with a Coptic Christian man.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Egypt • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Coptic Church • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

Melrose resident Jurgen Liias’s spiritual journey has led him down an unusual path: Last weekend he became one of the first Episcopal priests in the country to be ordained as a Catholic priest.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, ordained Liias as a Catholic priest on Saturday, April 20, at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Beverly.

Citizens have likely seen Liias around the city, gardening at his Melrose Street home or on MMTV’s “Wellsprings of Faith” — a religious show that focuses on various people’s journeys in faith.

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

There is no way we humans can exit this life without experiencing a considerable share of grief and loss.

But Sister Ann Billard believes there are lessons that grief can teach people as they age, whether they grieve the loss of loved ones or mourn the passage of time and diminished dreams.

"Grief holds a richness of possibilities," she said. "Grief is not the end point, it is the bridge."

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * South Carolina • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

On Tuesday, “Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words,” a book of conversations with the man who was then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, will be published in English (Putnam; $24.95). These interviews from 2010 with two journalists in Argentina yield cute facts about the new boss of the church — a favorite movie? “Babette’s Feast” — but not much interesting theology.

But one passage in the book, at first glance rather slight, ends up insinuating a radical note into the proceedings. On a close read, it seems that Pope Francis believes that we must — indeed, that God is calling us to — relax.

Responding to the question, “Do we need to rediscover the meaning of leisure?” Pope Francis replies: “Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport. But this is being destroyed, in large part, by the elimination of the Sabbath rest day. More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.” In such cases, he concludes, “work ends up dehumanizing people.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

A Church of England minister will make history this weekend when he becomes the head of a Free Church of Scotland congregation in St Andrews.

The Rev Paul Clarke has been appointed to a three-year placement with St Andrews Free Church, whose congregation has been without a minister since 2012.

Mr Clarke, widely regarded in Anglican circles as one of its most promising preachers, previously served at one of the biggest congregations in England – St Helen’s Bishopsgate in inner city London.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Scotland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian

The Rev. John Wykes, director of the St. Francis Chapel at Boston's soaring Prudential Center, and the Rev. Tom Carzon, rector of Our Lady of Grace Seminary, were among the priests who were turned away right after the bombings. It was jarring for Father Wykes, who, as a hospital chaplain in Illinois a decade ago, was never denied access to crime or accident scenes.

"I was allowed to go anywhere. In Boston, I don't have that access," he says.

But Father Wykes says he has noticed a shift in the societal role of clergy over the past few decades: "In the Bing Crosby era—in the '40s, '50s, '60s—a priest with a collar could get in anywhere. That's changed. Priests are no longer considered to be emergency responders."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Sports • Urban/City Life and Issues • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Since the very first days of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, we have prayed as we watched in horror and sorrow the escalating violence that has rent this country apart. We have grieved with all Syrians - with the families of each and every human life lost and with all communities whose neighbourhoods and livelihoods have suffered from escalating and pervasive violence.

And today, our prayers also go with the ancient communities of our Christian brothers and sisters in Syria. The kidnapping this week of two Metropolitan bishops of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver while they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, is another telling sign of the terrible circumstances that continue to engulf all Syrians.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Justin Welby • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Like some of his previous books it is set around a dialogue between two characters. This time both characters are fully fictional and set in the year 1977. Libby Rawls is a young women that is a nominal Christian and a skeptic. The other is “Mother” an older mixed-race women who is willing to lead Libby along these steps of a Jacob’s Ladder. Each day they discuss a subject where the subjects build on each other leading to further truth. These two characters are also involved in his novel “An Ocean Full of Angels.”

This book takes a building block approach to understanding the faith and starts at what might seem to be an odd first step of “passion.” While common philosophical ideas are discussed it is also not standard apologetic fare and mostly deals with natural theology. The conversational dialogue mostly adds to the book and the back and forth between the two women helps to illustrate points. Some of the use of coincidences in the book are a bit heavy-handed at times. Also evident is Kreeft’s playful humor which was used at times and contributed to the banter between the two women.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Philosophy • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Apologetics

We’d been learning so much about how the Tsarnaev brothers became more interested in radical Islam. I was curious about the spouse’s religious background and was fascinated to learn she “grew up Christian.” I know that can mean about a million different things so I read the story looking forward to additional details.

But those three words in the lede are all we have. I’d love even to know how we know this. She “grew up Christian” according to whom? I’d read elsewhere on the internet that she in fact hadn’t grown up in a family that was religious. It had better sourcing than this story but came from a site that is outside mainstream media.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Media • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam

Sunday mornings at Wayman AME Church in Minneapolis brings a faithful crowd. But it’s quite likely no one there has said as many prayers as Noah Smith. It’s not just because he’s a preacher, it’s because he’s had more time to worship – over a century in fact.

At 105, Smith is still hard at work, preaching at Wayman.

“My life is so busy with church and things now. I don’t even get to read the paper sometimes,” said Smith.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Militants in a rebel-held area of northern Syria have abducted two bishops travelling from the Turkish border back to the city of Aleppo.

The kidnapping was reported by Syrian state media and confirmed by a member of the official opposition leadership.

Yohanna Ibrahim is head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo and Boulos Yaziji leads the Greek Orthodox Church in the city.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Middle East • Syria • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church

Check out this resource for your awareness and prayers.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Rural/Town Life • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

There are few better places in the world where Tim Keller could write a book about career and calling. "New York City is a place where people live in order to work," says the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and author most recently of Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work (Dutton). "They basically live more in their work than in their neighborhoods. That . . . means that if you start talking about work, you get right at their hearts."

In a recent sit-down conversation with This Is Our City executive producer Andy Crouch, Keller explained why he wanted to write a more comprehensive book about faith and work, how he learned to answer congregants' questions about their work, and what Redeemer has done to equip laypeople to live into their vocations outside the church.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

Pastor Rick Warren will join Ed Stetzer on his webshow, "The Exchange," Tuesday afternoon to talk about his 27-year-old son's suicide earlier this month.

Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, will host The Exchange live from the Exponential church planting conference in Orlando, Fla., where Warren had been scheduled to lead two Bible studies.

Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif., agreed to an interview with Stetzer about what pastors need to know about grief in their congregations, how his son's death has changed him and what church leaders can do to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • Ministry of the Ordained • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Marriage & Family • Psychology • Suicide • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

...some in Jerusalem, when they heard this, became 'nervous and sent Barnabas on an "apostolic visitation": perhaps, with a little sense of humor we could say that this was the theological beginning of the Doctrine of the Faith: this apostolic visit by Barnabas. He saw, and he saw that things were going well.

And so the Church was a Mother, the Mother of more children, of many children. It became more and more of a Mother. A Mother who gives us the faith, a Mother who gives us an identity. But the Christian identity is not an identity card: Christian identity is belonging to the Church, because all of these belonged to the Church, the Mother Church. Because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the Church. The great Paul VI said: "Wanting to live with Jesus without the Church, following Jesus outside of the Church, loving Jesus without the Church is an absurd dichotomy."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis

This is a very sobering time for ecclesiastically minded Americans. At a steadily growing rate, more and more Americans — especially the young — claim no religious affiliation. The figure has climbed from 15% to 20% of all Americans in the past five years. Pew researchers call the trend “nones on the rise.”

In reaction, Protestants and Roman Catholics are proving that the author of the Bible’s Book of Ecclesiastes had it right when he wrote that there is nothing new under the sun. In a classic attempt to turn adversity to advantage, Christian leaders who once assumed a cultural dominance (in the beginning of the baby-boom era, Christian identification among Americans was at least 91%; today it’s down to 77%) are now arguing for a double-down strategy. Rather than softening the Gospel message to make it more marketable to an America skeptical of institutions — a frequent reform point of view — what draws the real energy among the faithful is a renewed commitment to what Christians call the Great Commission, the words the resurrected Jesus spoke to his apostles at the end of Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

At the center of this strategy of unapologetic apologetics stands George Weigel, the papal biographer and prominent Catholic writer who has just published Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, a handbook for Catholics seeking to keep the church out of the catacombs. “It’s a recovery of the basic dynamic of New Testament Christianity, but that passionate impulse to live the Great Commission and convert the world cooled during centuries when the ambient public culture helped do the church’s job,” says Weigel.

Read it all from a recent issue.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • Evangelism and Church Growth • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Young Adults • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Anthropology • Soteriology • Theology: Scripture

Can you lose a home? Yes. Can you lose a career? Yes. Can you lose a marriage? Yes. Can you lose your health? Yes. Can you lose your youthful beauty? Yes. Can you lose your relationship with God? No.

Christians get to approach tragedy differently than the rest of the world. We get to rely completely on Christ. We get to have hope. But how? By intentionally leaning on Christ for stability, listening to Christ for direction, and looking to Christ for salvation. He is our Rock, our Shelter, our Great Shepherd, our Hiding Place.

Suffering and tragedy are inevitable in a sinful world, but Jesus Christ makes all the difference. Decide that you will rely on Him even in the darkest of hours of your life.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Pastoral Care • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

M. had been in prison for about three years. He was normally a regular at morning Mass, skinny and skittish, with light eyes, and he had recently grown a scruffy beard. “You look like you belong on ‘Lost,’ ” [the Rev. Robert Coogan] said when he greeted him. Unlike other prisoners, M. actually had a family of some means, and in a prison system without uniforms, his style often seemed more appropriate for an indie rock club. His sneakers were clean and hip; his jeans had designer labels.

Inside maximum, M. shared space not just with hard-core Zetas but also with inmates too insane to be kept anywhere else — including one who refused to wear clothes and spoke to angels. He slept little, like any prey encircled by predators, and that morning he anxiously greeted Coogan’s arrival, signaling immediately with darting eyes that he needed to talk privately. Coogan followed him into the yard, where M. pulled out a Bible for cover and positioned himself near a faraway wall. There, he explained that the Zetas wanted him to pay them 2,000 pesos ($165), with the first half due at noon the next day. Coogan, brightening the dusty pen with his purple robes, nodded as M. spoke. He had paid small ransoms to keep M. safe from the Zetas twice already, but this latest demand was larger, more than a week’s pay. He wasn’t sure whether the Zetas were serious or if they were just toying with M. He also didn’t know if M. could be trusted. M. claimed to be locked up because a friend stole a television and he was taking the rap, but other inmates doubted his story and said he was a schemer. Coogan considered his options. Paying the Zetas would encourage extortion, but ignoring the threat, or confronting the Zetas directly, could get M. beaten or killed.

Read it all from the New York Times Magazine.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Drugs/Drug Addiction • Prison/Prison Ministry • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Mexico • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

One of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you. Religious attendance — at least, religiosity — boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life. The reason for this is not entirely clear.

Social support is no doubt part of the story. At the evangelical churches I’ve studied as an anthropologist, people really did seem to look out for one another. They showed up with dinner when friends were sick and sat to talk with them when they were unhappy. The help was sometimes surprisingly concrete. Perhaps a third of the church members belonged to small groups that met weekly to talk about the Bible and their lives. One evening, a young woman in a group I joined began to cry. Her dentist had told her that she needed a $1,500 procedure, and she didn’t have the money. To my amazement, our small group — most of them students — simply covered the cost, by anonymous donation. A study conducted in North Carolina found that frequent churchgoers had larger social networks, with more contact with, more affection for, and more kinds of social support from those people than their unchurched counterparts. And we know that social support is directly tied to better health.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Psychology • Religion & Culture • Sociology • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals • * Theology • Anthropology

Editor's Note: The gay marriage debate has reached an apex nationally as the U.S. Supreme Court considers two cases that could expand the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and extend a large set of rights, benefits and privileges to such couples. The court's decisions are expected this summer. In the meantime, The Post and Courier has invited two local clergy to share their views on the matter.

Read them both.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * South Carolina • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Theology: Scripture

President Paige Patterson made the recommendation to the board to end tenure at Southwestern, one of six seminaries affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Following Patterson's recommendation, Charles E. (Eddie) Miller, a trustee from Nevada and director of missions for the Sierra Baptist Association in Reno, made a motion stating, "Believing that the majority of trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary agree in principle with the cessation of tenure for this institution, I move that the Bylaws and Policies Committee bring revisions to cease future extension of tenure to the fall 2013 trustee meeting."

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George Beverly Shea, a noted gospel singer and close confidant to evangelical leader Billy Graham, died Tuesday evening after "a brief illness," according to the Billy Graham Evangelical Association. He was 104.

Shea had been hospitalized after a stroke, association spokesman Brent Rinehart said.

In honoring Shea's death, the evangelical organization noted that the singer had "carried the Gospel in song to every continent and every state in the Union."

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

The word on the Brooklyn streets in 1959 was that a crazy preacher from Pennsylvania was helping addicts find the power to kick heroin and gang members to trade their weapons for Bibles. — Reporter John McCandlish Phillips heard the talk in local churches and took the tip to his metro editors at The New York Times. This was more than a religion story, he argued. This was something truly new in urban ministry in a rough corner of the city.

The editors just didn't get it.

"The New York Times could not see ... validity of this approach to any issue as serious as addiction. Editors said, 'You can't put a few religious ideas up against something as real as addiction and expect any results,' " said Phillips, in a 2000 interview in Riverside Park.

The young preacher was David Wilkerson, whose story would eventually be told in the best seller "The Cross and the Switchblade."

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The familiar “Protestant-Catholic-Jew” mantra no longer defines American religion. Politicians, bloggers, statisticians, and demographers now conventionally add “Evangelical” to the classifying. When Will Herberg wrote the canonical book Protestant-Catholic-Jew in the mid-fifties, Evangelicals appeared to be marginal at best. In recent decades they make the news more often and they are more exploited by and influential among politicians and public life than are the many breeds of Protestants. Let’s look in on the Evangelicals..[and see] how thoughtful Evangelicals change and make changes on three key issues: climate change, immigration, and gay marriage.

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At first, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., could see itself as exempt from the economic forces shaking seminaries and theological schools nationwide. Luther is the biggest seminary for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. Among its peers, it had a reputation for being innovative. Individual donors continued to give, and its local area -- in one of the country’s most Lutheran states -- was supportive.

Last fall, though, it all came crashing down. Enrollments were dropping. The seminary found it was running multimillion-dollar deficits, spending down its endowment and relying on loans. In December, its president, the Rev. Dr. Richard Bliese, resigned, as the seminary’s board began to look at options to trim at least $4 million from the seminary’s $27 million annual budget.

The results were announced...[not long ago]: layoffs for 18 of its 125 staff members, many effective within a few weeks; the voluntary departure of 8 of 44 faculty members at the end of the academic year, who will not be replaced; the termination of a master’s program in sacred music; and the decision to no longer admit Ph.D students for at least three years.

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Pope Francis has sent his “sympathy and closeness in prayer” to the people of Boston in a telegram sent on his behalf.
The telegram reads “In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy, His Holiness invokes God’s peace upon the dead, his consolation upon the suffering and his strength upon all those engaged in the continuing work of relief and response. At this time of mourning the Holy Father prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), working together to build an ever more just, free and secure society for generations yet to come.”

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Schaeffer’s view of the Christian life was comprehensive, and this was an inspiration to so many of us. But this approach isn’t simple to summarize, for Schaeffer resisted formulas and mechanistic approaches to ministry. Schaeffer often spoke of the lordship of Christ over all of life (as in the beginning of Art and the Bible) and how the Christian system or worldview uniquely makes sense of the cosmos, history, culture, and humanity. Another point of my autobiography (if I may) makes this point. As a young Christian in 1976, I happened upon The God Who Is There in the University of Oregon bookstore. I devoured it, though I didn’t understand all of it. Nevertheless, that small book, given its breadth and depth of theology, apologetics, cultural analysis, and sense of ministry, summoned me to a courageous and intellectually active Christian life. As a believer, I need not fear the wide world of culture and ideas.

As I later read the entire Schaeffer corpus, his overall vision became part of my Christian life, however poorly practiced. Schaeffer integrated his thinking; one couldn’t separate, for example, True Spirituality from Escape from Reason. It was of a whole. Edgar has now done the church a marvelous service by summarizing Schaeffer’s thought under the category of “the Christian life.” This is exactly the right rubric.

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"Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church's credibility," the pontiff said in his homily.

"Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!"

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Pope Francis has appointed a Group of Eight cardinals to advise him in the governance of the Universal Church. In a communique issued Saturday the Secretariat of State announced that the Holy Father decided to set up the Council following on from discussions that emerged during the General Congregations in the lead up to the Conclave which elected him the 265th Successor to St Peter.

The group of Cardinals will be coordinated by Card. Oscar Andrés Maradiaga Rodríguez and is drawn from across the Universal Church. It will also help Pope Francis revise the Apostolic Consitution on the Roman Curia Pastor bonus.

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The Mass was celebrated as if from centuries past: A bearded priest veiled in incense chanted for grace in a church along the Nile, near the spot where Christians believe Jesus and his mother sought refuge in an earlier age of bloodshed and uncertainty.

Marianne Samir knelt and prayed for the Coptic Christians killed in a spasm of sectarian violence that has further shaken a nation engulfed in economic and political anxieties.

"I feel unsafe," said Samir, a high school philosophy teacher with a cross tattooed on her wrist. "The Islamists want war. They want strife. But this is our land too. It is a country blessed by God, and there's no way we'll leave it to them."

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(Please note the article to which this responds was posted here on the blog last week--KSH).

The ’60s secularizing and “modernizing” that orders went through, discarding habits, common prayer life and so on, were a strategic error for which many orders today have paid the price: drastically shrinking numbers and remaining members who are in their 70s and older.

But some traditional Dominican communities, male and female, are seeing a significant uptick in their applications from younger people. The same can be said for some branches of Franciscan friars and sisters. I don’t think that this is an accident.

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As late as the mid-20th Century, a marriage between an American Protestant and an American Catholic was considered inter-religious.

But the dynamic began to shift in the 1980s with the emergence of the Religious Right. Though the movement was spearheaded by evangelical leaders, they opened their arms to Catholics and even Mormons, who were seen as valuable allies in the fight against our nation’s “moral decline.” Animosity between the groups began giving way to cooperation. The election of Pope Francis may be the next step in bridging the divide between Catholics and Protestants. He has been called “a Pope for all Christians,” but could the growing popularity among non-Catholics make him “the first Protestant Pope?”

Francis has already met with Nikolaus Schneider, the head of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Dr. Schneider, who is ironically a Lutheran minister, said that Pope Benedict “offended” Protestants when he insisted in 2000 that Protestant communities were not “churches in the proper sense,” but he is hopeful for future Christian unity as a result of his meeting with Francis. This newfound common ground between the two groups, it seems, stems largely from the current Pope’s concern for the poor and marginalized....

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The leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church accused President Mohamed Morsi’s government on Tuesday of “delinquency” and “misjudgments” for failing to prevent sectarian street-fighting that escalated into an attack on the church’s main cathedral after a funeral mass over the weekend, leaving at least six Christians dead.

“This is the first time the main Coptic Orthodox Cathedral has been attacked in Egypt’s history,” the church leader, Pope Tawadros II, said in a television interview, faulting Mr. Morsi’s government for failing to act fast enough to control the violence.

Direct criticism of the government by an Egyptian church leader was all but unheard-of under former President Hosni Mubarak, whose ouster two years ago ended the fear of reprisals from the authorities that had helped silence church officials and others. But the pope’s comments also highlighted the growing anxieties among Christian leaders about the subsequent rise to power of Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his Islamist allies.

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An Army chaplain who saved the lives of fellow US soldiers before perishing in a North Korean prison camp has been awarded a posthumous US Medal of Honor.

On Thursday, President Obama presented the highest US military decoration to the nephew of Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest who died in the Korean War.

Kapaun, an Army captain, was renowned for his bravery and caring.

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It was sad to read the public comments of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington denying the importance, or need for the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, going so far as to imply this teaching was “outlandish. ” More on that in a moment, but first some background.

Some time ago I brought a former Episcopalian into the Catholic Church who, after the Rite of Reception gave a great sigh of relief and said, “I know the Catholic Church is not without problems, but at least I know the Bishops actually hold the Christian faith. It is such a relief to be in the harbor of truth.”

I remember at the time wondering with him if that wasn’t a bit of an exaggeration of how bad things were in the Episcopalian denomination (this was about 1990). But he showed me a scrapbook of article after article of dozens of Episcopal “Bishops” denying quite publicly the divinity of Christ, the Virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus, that there was any inherent conflict between Christianity and Unitarianism, etc., not to mention a plethora aberrant moral stances.

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More than 200 Presbyterian congregations nationwide - including nine in Sacramento - have been torn asunder over the Presbyterian Church USA's new rules and the ordination of its first [noncelibate] gay minister, who is a former Sacramento pastor. The rift has resulted in lawsuits, sold churches, broken friendships and scattered congregations.

In a historic vote in October 2011, 427 Fremont Presbyterian congregants voted to leave the national denomination while 164 voted to stay. At the time, the 128-year-old congregation had about 1,200 members.

The vote prompted a church investigation into the schism to determine which faction was entitled to the church property valued at $9 million.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Presbyterian • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology

We are in a constant battle with a “twisted serpent” whose sole aim is to sow discord and enmity. And words are its main weapon.

We all deal with lots and lots of words every day. Speaking, reports, and waves of emails. And we all know that our words can be misinterpreted, feelings hurt, conclusions jumped to in an instant, especially in fast-paced email exchanges.

Proverbs has a lot to say about words...

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Margaret Thatcher was forever the thrifty Methodist grocer’s daughter of Grantham. Her father was both lay preacher and Conservative Party stalwart. They attended the Methodist church several times every Sabbath and heeded many then Methodist strictures against theater-going and dancing. Her family’s social life was enmeshed in the church’s sewing meetings, youth guilds, and missions work, as she recalled to the Catholic Herald 35 years ago.

“Methodism is the most marvelous evangelical faith and there is the most marvelous love and feeling for music in the Methodist Church which I think is greater than in the Anglican Church,” she then remembered. “But you sometimes feel the need for a slightly more formal service and perhaps a little bit more formality in the underlying theology too.”

Although married in John Wesley’s London Chapel, Thatcher later converted to her husband’s Anglicanism.

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In Argentina, they say that if you want to understand the priestly soul of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then you have to know the villas miserias, literally "villas of misery," meaning the slums in Buenos Aires where the poorest of the poor are found.

According to Fr. Juan Isasmendi, who lives and works in one of the villas, this is where the future Pope Francis filled his lungs with the "oxygen" he needed to think about what the church ought to be.

There are roughly 20 of these slums in Buenos Aires, often just a block or so away from gleaming high-rise office towers and luxury apartment buildings. Bergoglio's pastoral revolution was to hand-pick a cadre of especially strong, dedicated priests not just to visit the villas but to live and work here, sharing the lives of the people down to the last detail.

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Senior pastor Kenton Beshore said the first sermons on the plight of illegal immigrants didn't go over well with many members of his evangelical church, which sits on a 50-acre campus in Orange County and has a 3,400-seat sanctuary, sports facilities, restaurant and a man-made lake.

"We took a hit on it," said Mr. Beshore. "We had people who walked out and whose giving went away." It was part of the reason the church ended 2012 with a $500,000 budget shortfall, he said.

But much has changed in the two years since—both at Mr. Beshore's 14,000-member Mariners Church and at conservative evangelical congregations around the U.S.

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In Togo, the Rev. Rodolphe Folly used to conduct exuberant Sunday services for a hundred believers of all ages, who sang local gospel music and went up to him to offer what they had.

In this quiet town in Burgundy, he preaches to a more somber audience of about 40 gray-haired retirees in an unadorned 19th-century church that can accommodate up to 600 people.

“In my country, we applaud, we acclaim, we shout,” said Father Folly, a Roman Catholic priest who spoke in the living room of his modern, modest house. “Here, even when I ask people to shake hands, they say no.”

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Almost a month on from the election of the first Latin American pontiff, the head of the Vatican’s Council for Social Communications says Pope Francis is pioneering new ways of sharing the faith with people in and outside the Christian Church.

Archbishop Claudio Celli travelled to Santiago del Chile at the weekend for a conference on the challenges and opportunities facing the Church in Latin America in our era of rapidly developing digital technologies. The conference, which opens on Monday at the Catholic University of Chile, brings together some 400 communications specialists from across the continent.

At the heart of the discussion, Archbishop Celli says, lies not just the question of how to use the new technologies, but rather of how to bring the Word of Christ to men and women living in an increasingly digitalized world. The new Pope, he says, is already showing us an innovative approach to communicating that Gospel message…

Read and listen to it all.

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I too have had a son die, so I have a sense of the pain Rick and Kay are facing. But their circumstances are different and my heart goes out to them.
At times like these, there really are no words, but there is the Word.
There is no manual, but there is Emmanuel.
God is with us.

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The possibility of dividing the United Methodist Church as a way out of persistent conflicts over homosexuality has been raised enough times in recent years to warrant serious reflection on what it would entail. The fact that Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Lutherans have all seen either formal divisions or significant withdrawals of congregations from their denominations over these issues does not bode well for the UMC.

But as tempting as the idea might be as a way out of our conflicts, we would have to think about realities like the following....

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You may find basic information about the conference here which includes this summary:

The Gospel Coalition's 2013 national conference will be a five-day event running April 6 to 10, including a weekend world missions conference and three-day main conference focused on the mission of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Both events will be held at Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Florida, and we encourage you to attend them together, but you may also register separately. Overall the event features 80 speakers from around the world aiming to stir your affections for Jesus Christ, equip you to live faithfully in this world, and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.

You may be also be interested in a schedule which can be found here.

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To my dear staff,

Over the past 33 years we’ve been together through every kind of crisis. Kay and I’ve been privileged to hold your hands as you faced a crisis or loss, stand with you at gravesides, and prayed for you when ill. Today, we need your prayer for us.

No words can express the anguished grief we feel right now. Our youngest son, Matthew, age 27, and a lifelong member of Saddleback, died today.

You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man. He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He’d then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them.

But only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.

Kay and I often marveled at his courage to keep moving in spite of relentless pain. I’ll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said “ Dad, I know I’m going to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?” but he kept going for another decade.

Thank you for your love and prayers. We love you back.

Pastor Rick

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Popular evangelical Pastor Rick Warren asked members of his Southern California church for prayers as he and his family coped with the apparent suicide of his 27-year-old son.

The church said on Saturday that Matthew Warren took his own life at his Mission Viejo home.

Matthew Warren struggled with mental illness, deep depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life, Saddleback Valley Community Church said in a statement, after his body was found Friday night.

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At first, the detail seemed like a compelling if random tidbit: The new pope takes the bus.

Then similar stories kept proliferating after Pope Francis’s election last month. His first words as pope were to ask for a blessing before offering one. Hours after becoming pope he called to cancel his newspaper subscription back in Buenos Aires. He chose to live in a guesthouse rather than the sprawling papal apartments. On Holy Thursday, Francis washed the feet of incarcerated women and non-Catholics.

These acts are deemed heroic. Young Catholics by the millions are sharing images of Francis’s good deeds. Many fallen-away Catholics are saying the pope’s gestures of humility might bring them back to the Church.

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Grinnell’s coaches, in other words, kept their star guard on the floor and shooting, and kept up their full-court defensive pressure, against an opposing team they were leading by 50, then 60, then 70 points. A college that prides itself on its values — rigorous academic standards, commitment to the common good, historical involvement in the abolition and Social Gospel movements — inflicted a defeat so absolute that it borders on public humiliation.

Sporting tradition has always made allowances so the vanquished can save face. Youth leagues have a “slaughter rule” to halt lopsided games. Football quarterbacks with a big lead hand off the ball rather than passing it. Basketball teams run down the clock instead of running up the score. Coaches pull the starters and send in the bench warmers. Very little mitigation of that sort happened last November at Grinnell.

And beyond the question of athletic ethics, the rout has taken on an overtly religious cast. Jack Taylor, an evangelical Christian, attributed his achievement to divine intervention.

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Stott: I believe that to preach or to expound the scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and His people obey Him. I gave that definition at the Congress on Biblical Exposition and I stand by it, but let me expand a moment.

My definition deliberately includes several implications concerning the scripture. First, it is a uniquely inspired text. Second, the scripture must be opened up. It comes to us partially closed, with problems which must be opened up.

Beyond this, we must expound it with faithfulness and sensitivity. Faithfulness relates to the scripture itself. Sensitivity relates to the modern world. The preacher must give careful attention to both.

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The friars are something of a hybrid between monks and diocesan priests. They live together in a priory, sharing prayers and meals. But unlike monks, they work in the broader community in preaching and teaching roles in churches, universities and secondary schools. It is a way of life that Pope Francis himself has chosen, shunning the papal palace for a guesthouse to “live in community” with bishops and priests at the Vatican.

In the United States, the largest northeastern branch is expecting 18 novices to enter its theology school in Washington, which was expanded three years ago. In the smaller southern region based in New Orleans, the Dominicans are scrambling to finance an influx of novices — six this year — with annual expenses of $30,000 for lodging and theology education over seven years.

“People see the habit in a much more positive light then clerical clothing, the black shirt, white collar and suit,” said Martin Ganeri, who is a Dominican vocations promoter for England, where five people entered the order this year. “The habit doesn’t have the negative image of the clergy, the child abuse issue.”

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In her autobiography, The Tapestry, Edith emerges as a woman overflowing with beauty, energy, creativity, and love, a woman whose every encounter seems to have been "charg'd with the grandeur of God." In a time when evangelicals were suspicious of all things worldly, Edith reveled in music and dance, in her neat little figure and in beautiful clothes: "I was 5-foot-2 and weighed 102 pounds and wore clothes that looked like they had come out of the best shops" she tells us, breathlessly, as an example of why she didn't measure up to the standards of Christian womanhood at that time, which, apparently, included dowdiness as well as a rejection of culture. She was intelligent and full of conviction. She had a lot to say.

Despite not measuring up in some ways, Edith epitomized, and perhaps helped to establish, standards of Christian womanhood: resourcefulness, self-denial, femininity. She worked tirelessly as a seamstress in their Philadelphia apartment while her husband Francis Schaeffer studied in seminary, thoughtfully packing identical lunches for them as a way of being "together when apart," so that they could taste the same flavors and feel the same "degree of hunger" by dinnertime.

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In Revelation, Jesus says that He stands at the door and knocks (Rev 3:20). Sometimes, as noted by our Pope Francis, he does not knock to enter, but knocks from within to go out. To reach out to the "existential suburbs of sin, suffering, injustice, religious ignorance and indifference, and of all forms of misery."

As happens with certain old buildings. Over the centuries, to adapt to the needs of the moment, they become filled with partitions, staircases, rooms and closets. The time comes when we realize that all these adjustments no longer meet the current needs, but rather are an obstacle, so we must have the courage to knock them down and return the building to the simplicity and linearity of its origins. This was the mission that was received one day by a man who prayed before the Crucifix of San Damiano: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church".

"Who could ever be up to this task?" wondered aghast the Apostle before the superhuman task of being in the world "the fragrance of Christ"; and here is his reply, that still applies today:...

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Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Francis