Polish theologian, cosmologist, and philosopher Michael Heller, who lived through both Nazi and communist rule and has long sought to reconcile science and religion, has won the 2008 Templeton Prize. The £820,000 prize (more than $1.6 million) is awarded “for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities.”
Ebo Patel: Whenever I’m on the radio or on television or giving a public talk about Islam and peace, I always get a bunch of questions from people who only associate two things with Islam – violence, and the absence of Muslims protesting violence. It’s like they were intentionally tuning out everything I said, even though they came to hear me speak.
A task force drafting a statement on sexuality for the nation’s largest Lutheran group said Thursday that the church should continue defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. However, the panel did not condemn same-gender relationships … and acknowledged that some congregations already accept same-sex couples.
A study by Ellison Research says more Americans consider adultery (81 percent) and racism (74 percent) sin, than homosexual activity (52 percent–the same as cheating on your taxes) or getting drunk (41 percent.) Evangelical Christians are far more likely than almost any other group to include numerous behaviors under the definition of sin.
It has a new Web site! Including a Church finder. Hat tip: Father Jake.
Christopher at Thanksgiving in All Things has this sensible bit of advice: Bishop Robinson should jolly well go to merry England. But let him be joined by Archbishop emeritus Tutu and others not at Lambeth, but in the gay districts and the economically depressed districts of major English cities. Let’s finally get on with God’s Mission, shall we?
A Christian archbishop kidnapped in northern Iraq last month has been found dead, according to a Nineveh province official. Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paul Faraj Rahho’s body was found Thursday near the town of Mosul, where he and three companions were ambushed by gunmen on February 29.
…Rebecca Trounson’s article in The Los Angeles Times is probably the one to read. She notes that while an overwhelming majority of delegates to San Joaquin’s convention in December approved the break with the Episcopal Church, at least 2,300 of an estimated 8,800 parishioners in the diocese have chosen to remain with the national church.
Listening to Ed, I heard how three themes important to our Anglican heritage had shaped his faith journey. These themes – the pastoral, liturgical, and incarnational – led him to the Episcopal Church and kept him there.
Who gives how much to whom? Why? And to what end? The New York Times Magazine published an in-depth exploration of the world of philanthropy on Sunday and still somehow managed to get a beautiful young actress on the cover.