Katharine Babson is a priest of the Episcopal Church who’s been doing missionary work in Myanmar on and off since 1994. There’s an article published today that describes her ministry and her love for the people among whom she works.
A priest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh has posted a description and timeline of the process that was followed by a dozen or so conservative clergy in that diocese as they publicly announced that they would be staying within the Episcopal Church.
In the correspondence that was released last week which disclosed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s private opinion on morality of same-sex relationships, there was one small point made by the Archbishop that not many people have noticed.
DuBose urges that Jesus’ humanity was not merely the humanity of an individual man, but rather “the common and universal nature of us all.” Therefore Jesus’ human holiness, righteousness, and life possess a “universal” significance. Accordingly, Jesus “can be nothing less than God our holiness, our righteousness, our life.” Jesus was no mere sample or example of human salvation: “it was not one man but humanity that He was.”
Mandela was keenly aware that his party’s victory, secured by a landslide of black votes, lacked the endorsement of alienated whites, and that whites retained sufficient wealth and weaponry to endanger his new democracy if they felt threatened.
The four Diocese of Fort Worth priests who reportedly suggested that their Diocese become part of the Roman Catholic Church sent an email last night seemingly backtracking from this effort.
As many of my readers know, I used to be a screaming conservative street preaching ‘it’s not religion it’s a relationship’ ethical black and white liberal = evil Catholic bashing Christian pop music listening shine-Jesus-shine singing puritan paperbacks reading borderline-Fundie. While there is much about that background for which I am grateful, I’ll never forget the day I was sitting in a bus (prayerfully) listening to a Brueggemann lecture on the OT portrayal of God.
“Sometimes, we need to make accommodations so they can be part of the community,” he says. At a recent service, a woman walked to the front of the church and took the microphone. “She can’t talk well and she stumbles, but she thanked everyone for praying for her brother,” Beck says. Sometimes he must remind her not to put her fingers in the common Communion cup.
LaHaye and Jenkins take a literal interpretation of prophecies found in the Book of Revelation. They believe the antichrist will surface on the world stage at some point, but neither see Obama in that role. “I’ve gotten a lot of questions the last few weeks asking if Obama is the antichrist,” says novelist Jenkins. “I tell everyone that I don’t think the antichrist will come out of politics, especially American politics.”
This passage from Matthew describes one of those difficult moments in Jesus’ life that we might skip altogether if the lectionary did not direct us to deal with it. What makes it so difficult is how harsh Jesus sounds, how harsh and downright rude. . . .