January 11, 2009 – Episcopal Cafe

Obama names minister for prayer service

January 11, 2009 2 Comments

President-elect Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins to deliver the sermon at the national prayer service that is held the day after the inauguration. Ms. Watkins, the first woman ever selected to lead the service, is the president and general minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a small, liberal-leaning Protestant denomination with 3,754 congregations and about 690,000 members in the United States and Canada.

Still more on the Obama church search

January 11, 2009 5 Comments

Barack Obama hinted in an interview on “This Week” on Sunday that he might choose a church outside the marble-monuments. The church may not be in the “company town” part of D.C. but instead in one of the District’s neighborhoods facing “enormous challenges,” he said.

Spirituality and chronic disease

January 11, 2009 No Comments

Two recent studies, led by Michael Yi, MD, associate professor of medicine, and Sian Cotton, PhD, research assistant professor in the department of family medicine, investigated how adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)—a condition characterized by chronic inflammation in the intestines—may use spirituality to cope with their illness.

Is the Narnia franchise dead?

January 11, 2009 4 Comments

Fans of the Narnia movies had the wind taken out of their sails over the holidays when it was announced that Disney has taken leave of the franchise, opting out of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Who would Jesus smack down?

January 11, 2009 2 Comments

Conservatives call Driscoll “the cussing pastor” and wish that he’d trade in his fashionably distressed jeans and taste for indie rock for a suit and tie and placid choral arrangements. Liberals wince at his hellfire theology and insistence that women submit to their husbands. But what is new about Driscoll is that he has resurrected a particular strain of fire and brimstone, one that most Americans assume died out with the Puritans: Calvinism, a theology that makes Pat Robertson seem warm and fuzzy.

Baptism of light

January 11, 2009 No Comments

Today the Source of all the graces of baptism comes himself to be baptized in the river Jordan, there to make himself known to the world. Seeing him approach, John stretches out his hand to hold him back, protesting:

The Archive

Day: January 11, 2009