The Diocese of Washington’s fifth annual online Advent Calendar supports the Bokamoso Youth Program of Winterveld, South Africa. Each day from December 1 through Christmas, visitors can open one of the calendar’s windows to find links to a daily meditation, the daily office and a videotaped interview with one of the scores of young people who have benefited from Bokamoso’s work.
It does not seem unreasonable to think that the cathedral has not looked this good since it was first dedicated, on Nov. 30, 1941, after the nave was completed. As 10,000 people watched, immense gray curtains parted at the east end of the nave, permitting a view all the way to the apse.
Earlier this week I had occasion to debate – if the soundbite culture of radio news permits that description – with a member of Oxford University’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind the “findings” of its cognition, religion and theology project, to the effect that children are hardwired to believe in a “supreme being”. The research is funded by the Templeton Foundation, an organisation keen to find, or to insert, religion into science and to promote belief in their compatibility – which, note, comes down to spending money on “showing” in the end that the beliefs of ancient goatherds are as good as modern physics.
Idaho Public Television offers an extensive discussion with the Presiding Bishop that focused on the divisions within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
Hundreds of people are reported to have been killed in central Nigeria after Christians and Muslims clashed over the result of a local election. A Muslim charity in the town of Jos says it collected more than 300 bodies, and fatalities are also expected from other ethnic groups, mainly Christians.
Almighty Father
your Son came to us in humility as our saviour
and at the last day he will come again in glory as our judge:
give us grace to turn away from darkness to the light of Christ
that we may be ready to welcome him