Andrew Brown: I have never been able to understand the attraction of Nigeria for English Anglicans: if this really is the future of religion, we can give up any attempt at defending Christianity on the basis that it promotes civilised values.
Macky Alston of Auburn Media led the discussion on preparing for media interviews and the principles of giving voice to faith concerns in the media. Leading a session on reconciliation, The Rev. Canon Brian Cox of the Diocese of Los Angeles charged the bishops to discuss the following question in small groups: To which groups do I feel hostility, and how have I given and received offense?
Washington National Cathedral is compiling an excellect collection of videotaped Lenten reflections. The Cathedral’s Sunday Forum collection is also worth a listen if you’ve got
The Wire bows out with an op-ed blast against the War on Drugs. Friday Night Lights is renewed for a third season.
Follow the adventures of Bosco Peters as he essays the brave new field of virtual sacraements: “[M]y own current position would be to shy away from, for example, having a virtual baptism of a second life avatar.Similarly, I would currently steer away from eucharist and other sacraments in the virtual world.” However…
Thinking Anglicans has a letter from the organizers of the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem this June. It is interesting to note how many of those
Abraham’s story has never been ours more than it is now. Naming the compulsion to take innocent life in the belief that sacrifice is noble goes beyond the incidents of any single crime, and takes us into the foundations of human culture and of how people understand the divine. The impulse to praise martyrdom, and therefore to encourage susceptible adolescents to become martyrs, is embedded in our cultural DNA.
The Café doesn’t endorse candidates, and we haven’t had much to say about the presidential election thus far. But as Episcopalians we know how painful it is to be told we aren’t real Christian. In our case, it is because we don’t exclude the proper people. In Barack Obama’s case the reason seems to be mere political expediency. In both cases the charges are not simply erroneous, they are sinful…
It is true that the solitary life must also be a life of prayer and meditation, if it is to be authentically Christian . . . But what prayer! What meditation! . . . Utter poverty. Often an incapacity to pray, to see, to hope . . . a bitter, arid struggle to press forward through a blinding sandstorm.
Our material comforts give us so much to be grateful for. Kings and queens, in days gone by, never knew the luxuries we take for granted. Most of us live and eat so well, our biggest threat is overdoing it. And yet our little empires, our cars, gadgets and homes, are built on something that threatens to bring it all to ruin – the production and use of energy.