I am offering a word of humility for the Church: as we talk with those of other religions, and as we talk about those whom we think lack religious faith, let us remember that we might learn just as much from them as we can impart.
Bishop James Kelsey of the Diocese of Northern Michigan was killed in a road accident on Sunday. He was a dynamic bishop, and we will miss him. Please drop into the Café to read about his ministry, and leave a reminiscence.
The child-rearing world is profoundly ambivalent about male aggression. Should it be suppressed, cultivated, channeled? Which of these? Read Walter Kirn’s insightful essay. Then discuss.
Come Sunday, and one’s thoughts turn to sex, at least if one has been reading The New York Times. “Lately,” writes Randy Kennedy, “it seems that a slight virginal breeze has been blowing through the worlds of publishing, theater and Hollywood.”
When Hollingsworth was elected an Episcopal bishop in 2003, he, his wife and four children were offered housing by the diocese. Hollingsworth chose instead to buy a $1.66 million home with seven bedrooms, seven full and two partial bathrooms and five fireplaces across from a park in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The bishop bought the house with what he would only describe as his “personal resources.”
When Nicodemus comes to see Jesus, he comes at night, which is probably the writer’s way of saying that he was in the dark or didn’t get it. Nicodemus is interested in Jesus and what he’s teaching, but he can’t get past his usual way of seeing things. “How can I be born again?” he asks. “I’m already a grown-up.”