A group of young Mormons, out to counter their church’s stodgy image have hit upon the idea of a beefcake calendar. As they explain it: The 2008 Men on a Mission calendar features twelve handsome returned Mormon missionaries from across the United States who, for the first time ever, have dared to pose bare-chested in a steamy national calendar.
The publication of personal letters by Mother Teresa to Jesus, her spiritual director, a few clergy, and her bishop–letters that she specifically asked to be destroyed–raises ethical questions. The letters acknowledge God’s absence in her spiritual life for some fifty years and contrast her public persona to the private reality but this is immaterial. What right does Mother Teresa’s spiritual director have to release letters that Mother Teresa wrote either to or for him?
This hymn text is by John Greenleaf Whittier, a nineteenth-century Quaker who gave himself to the anti-slavery movement when he was twenty-five. In this hymn he extols the Quaker virtue of silence in the midst of the enthusiastic revivalism of the Great Awakening.
The bishops of the Church of Nigeria, in an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury posted on the Nigerian website, have asked for the Lambeth Conference to be canceled lest it cause scandal because of acrimony. They further call for an urgent meeting of all Primates to judge whether the Episcopal Church’s response is adequate and to quickly create an timetable for the formation of an Anglican Covenant which will in turn serve as a gate-keeper to the next Lambeth Conference.
Episcopal Relief and Development has had an important role in the distribution of hundreds of thousands of nets used to protect sleeping children and their
Episcopal Life Online is carrying a video by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church providing some background and her reflections on the coming House
Pat Ashworth, writing in the Church Times last week, points out how the repeated use of the language of crisis in the Anglican Communion is less than helpful. She uses the letter released under the name of Archbishop Akinola a few weeks ago and examines the way parts were edited and rewritten as a springboard for her argument that our language and rhetoric is not terribly helpful right now.
The Living Church has news that a number of American congregations formerly associated with Bishop Lyons of Bolivia are being transferred to the oversight of the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
Mwamba preached at the synod’s closing Eucharist. During the synod meeting, Harare Bishop Konunga asked that “Dissolution of the Province” be put on the synod’s agenda. Participants on the synod assumed that this item referred to an ongoing effort to create three new provinces from the dioceses of Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia respectively, not the issue of homosexuality.
As a person of faith, I can’t help but wonder what it is about James Taylor–this gawky, bald, 60 year-old–that draws 8,000 busy middle-aged Mainers to sit on folding chairs in a dusty ice hockey rink/monster truck arena…and to be able to hold that attraction for 40 years. As someone who thinks a lot about marketing the Church, I can’t help but wonder what we’re doing wrong.