The church stands unprepared to deal with economic hard times; it spends unconscionable amounts of money and human resources on propping up failing congregations that have no sense of mission; it eschews any prophetic stance against a corrupt government and a moribund Congress; and it seems to have no sensitivity to the plight of its own members.
Andrewes declares that on the mystery of the incarnatio Dei, the incarnation of God, there follows a corresponding mystery, the inspiration hominis, the in-spiration of man. The once for all event of the birth of Christ finds its fulfillment in the ever-renewed process of the coming of the Spirit.
Mark Silk writes: The news is beginning to sink in that Obama has not managed to change the voting preferences of the most religious white voters, evangelicals especially. Pastor Dan has details.
The Interfaith Alliance is calling on clergy to stand up for religious freedom by signing a pledge to uphold certain standards during the election season. We ask clergy to pledge: to educate members of our congregation about how our faith relates to issues of the day; to refrain from endorsing any candidate, either explicitly or implicitly, in or on behalf of our house of worship; to…
The guys at the Dallas Morning News’ religion blog aren’t saying whether the Kenyan preacher with an interest in witchcraft who prayed over Sarah Palin is a “problem or not a problem.” But they have reproduced the evidence so viewers can decide for themselves.
Rowan Williams has written a searching moral examination of the free market financial system which has been badly caricatured in initial news reports. It contains
Let us examine one particular aspect of asceticism in the Christian Orthodox spiritual practice, namely fasting. We Orthodox fast from all dairy and meat products for half of the entire year, almost as if in an effort to reconcile one half of the year with the other, secular time with the time of the kingdom.
A Guttmacher Institute report finds that the abortion rate is currently at its lowest since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Most of the change is due to declining abortion rates among women aged 20 to 24 since 1989. Experts disagree on the cause of this shift. Some cite state laws requiring parental notification for minors’ abortions. But minors account for only 7 percent of abortions.
Suddenly the world’s media, which has been studiously ignoring the Millennium Development Goals to this point, has caught MDG fever, just in time for today’s activities in New York City, in which the Episcopal Church will play a major role.
My students weren’t buying it. They thought that Weil was overly optimistic about the spiritual value of seemingly endless equations and Latin exercises. They thought that her notion that no concern should be given to the result of all this work, or to grades, was great in the ideal, but they were juniors and seniors, and are anxious about their grades and college, after all.