Barbi Click explains that she had to leave Jack Iker’s diocese to follow her vocation: “Joy and sadness blend to a point that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. I know I feel joy that the Diocese of Fort Worth is about to ordain its first woman priest. Sadly, I will not be able to be a part of the celebration.”
In anticipation of All Saints Day, we present The All Saints Rap, written by the youth group at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, in Mill Valley, California, where Café contributor the Rev. Richard Helmer is rector. The vocal is by Willie Van Doren, Our Saviour’s youth minister. Music by Dow Brain.
Episcopal candidates on walkabout in Minnesota reflect on using pastoral sensibility at the end of the congregational life cycle.
Balmer: “Holy water is fine but let’s not drink the Kool-aid.” Colbert: “I think you are mixing your cults there but all right.”
The bill is a particular challenge for Christians because clergy have helped to whip up fear and hatred and undermine respect for human rights. Anglican leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury have avoided challenging their Ugandan associates’ complicity in anti-LGBT abuses while soundly condemning Anglican provinces moving towards equality for all.
Many, many commentators have said that they are insulted by this offer, and have written tens of thousands of words about how insulted they are. But what is more insulting to me is that while so many of us are focused on what is ultimately a non-issue, people are dying or being threatened with death every moment, and we are not all atwitter over that.
Scholars tell us that it is this aspect of Christianity, the infinite value of every person, that caused the church to grow so explosively in the early decades. Christianity flourished not because it fashioned attractive doctrinal alternatives to the worship of Greek gods or because its theology appealed to the movers and shakers of the ancient world, but because it made such a profound difference in the lives of the people who believed it.