Episcopal Divinity School will present honorary doctor of divinity degrees to five individuals for their social justice work: The Rt. Rev. John Chane, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, Cynthia Shattuck, Katie Sherrod, and Hellen Wangusa. Wangusa, Anglican Observer to the United Nations, will deliver the commencement address.
The governing body of the Church in Wales meets next Wednesday to discuss a bill to enable women to be ordained as bishops. Backed by the six diocesan bishops of the Church in Wales, the bill states that henceforth men and women may be ordained as Bishops, but that pastoral care and support will be provided for those who in conscience object to the ordination of female Bishops.
The Chicago Tribune’s photo essay on the Keiskamma Altarpiece is worth a visit. Grace Cathedral offers a panel by panel view of this monumental artwork.
Café contributor Adrian Worsfold wonders whether Bishop N. T. Wright actually deserves his reputation as a scholar. It isn’t necessary to embrace his entire critique to believe that the bishop is so frequently lauded for his Biblical scholarship, that it obscures the hackneyed anti-modernism that mars much of his political and social commentary.
The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, will take part in a panel discussion about race, religion and politics on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer tonight. The program is broadcast at 6 pm EDT; the panel discussion is expected to air about 6:30 pm.
Students of the current Anglican controversy may recall that Richard Mellon Scaife, who spent millions on dollars to bring down Bill Clinton also spent hunderds of thousdans of dollars to bring down the Episcopal Church. How odd, then, to see him seated beside Hillary Clinton, as she criticized Barack Obama for his handling of the Jeremiah Wright affair.
Steven D. Martin’s film on the Institute on Religion and Democracy–Renewal or Ruin–is now available online at talk2.action.org. It’s an easy way to understand this organization, its donors and their campaign against mainline Protestantism.
Michael Gerson hasn’t learned that people who live in glass churches shouldn’t throw stones. In a recent column in The Washington Post, he took Barack Obama to task for his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while retaining his membership in the Anglican Church of Nigeria, which is led by the flamboyantly bigoted Archbishop Peter Akinola.
The Bible tells us one thing—only one—about the dead who have passed out of our sight. They are with God. How simple that is! How sufficient it becomes! How cheap and tawdry as we dwell on it, it makes the guesses and conceits with which people try to make real to themselves what the dead are doing!
But it was not just the music I loved when I played the cello in those days. I loved the sheer feel of the instrument in my hands. The shape of it, the sheen, the exquisite purfling, the absurdity of that scrollwork at the top, the flaming wood grain on the back, the miraculous way that inert slice of board could burst into the sound of a living voice. I didn’t play it so much as cling to it. That clinging almost undid me.