As the crises intensify, those who have will be tempted to hold on to what they have, become less generous and ignore even more the realities of the weak and vulnerable. So we pray that you do not lead them into that temptation but deliver them from their selfish tendencies and endow them with changed attitudes and new lenses through which to view the world.
The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination will consider allowing individual congregations to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, an attempt to avoid the sort of infighting that has threatened to tear other churches apart.
There have been incremental developments in the legal action in Virginia and Colorado, where the Episcopal Church is attempting to reclaim its property from people who think they are entitled to parting gifts when they leave a church.
Today on the Daily Episcopalian blog, we are featuring the full-length video of The Episcopal Moment, Brian McLaren’s keynote presentation on faith-sharing and evangelism to the annual convention of the Diocese of Washington. If you have any interest in helping our Church find a way forward in its effort to improve its evangelism, please make the time to watch.
My eyes follow my ears to a pew to my left and behind me, where a guy with slicked black hair and dark glasses is sitting. He’s wearing one of those Bluetooth cellphone attachments. Hey, man, I’m bored, too. But, c’mon, take that infernal thing out of your ear. Say a prayer. Collect your thoughts. Or just do what my 4-year-old is doing and stare at the ceiling. Did I mention it was Christmas Day Mass?
The original audience for Luther’s defense of his writings may have been the university context of Wittenberg or Leipzig, or the Imperial Parliament or Diet at Worms in 1521, where the Holy Roman emperor was flanked by the nobility, the clerical hierarchy, and the wealthy burgesses from the towns.