The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has today sent a letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion, setting out his personal reflections on the Lambeth Conference.
John of the Cross speaks to people who feel unable to change. We may have sensed in our lives a call to freedom, to wholeness, to more than what we are now. John felt this as a call to reach out for God. But within us, an unvoiced fear can make change impossible. It is the fear that when we reach, we may not find. It begs the question: If I give myself, will God fill me in my life?
Faith expression will have a high profile at this year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, with an emphasis on diversity and unity.
The Washington Post reports on a new trend. Home circumcisions. For Christians.
Dean Martha Deng Nhial is the first African women to serve as the dean of an African cathedral in the history of Christianity. She has been as the first dean of the Cathedral of St. Matthew, Diocese of Renk, Episcopal Church of Sudan.
The Alban Institute discusses the work of afterpastors, who are interim pastors specifically trained to deal with congregations who have experienced a betrayal of pastoral trust. The work is often very stressful for the afterpastors themselves as they absorb the unresolved and unnamed emotions of the congregants.
The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews begins her new ministry as Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand. She reflects on her ministry as Bishop in Canada and her new call as well as her experience at the recent Lambeth Conference.
For several weeks one Spring I joined a group that went birding in Central Park with an expert from the American Museum of Natural History. At the end of the time, I could tell a white-throated sparrow from a chipping sparrow. And when I saw the difference between a female pine warbler and a female ruby-crowned kinglet (the female isn’t ruby-crowned), I thought I might be getting somewhere.
The remarkable characteristic of Bartholomew is his low profile. We cannot even be sure who he was. Early sources suggest his full name was Nathanael bar (son of ) Tolmai—later, Bartholomew—the Nathanael who was the friend of Philip and who questioned, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).
He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium. “If I do this wrong,” Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, “I’ll lose him.”