The World Council of Churches conference on Mission and Evangelism has wrapped up a gathering in Arusha, Tanzania by issuing a call (below) to Christians around the world to take up Christ’s mission for themselves and to invite others into this world-transforming work.
For me, taking up the cross is not one huge, single, life-altering event. It is thousands of little choices that I make or fail to make every single day.
“‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’” -Physicist Stephen Hawking, who studied the universe (1942-2018)
In biblical numerology, seventeen is the number of heads and horns of diabolical significance. It is the number of the day of the Flood. It also numbers the day on which the Ark came to rest, somewhere in the Ararat mountains.
Seventeen may choose its own significance.
“By failing to act in this case, the University remains silent in the face of a broader injustice. And to paraphrase Eli Wiesel, silence always benefits the oppressor.” The Bishop Trustees of the University of the South.
The bishops received reports on the issues of sexual harassment and abuse, and of gun violence. Duncan-Probe said both are matters of evangelism, as the church considers what Jesus and the gospel have to say within and around us that demand a response from the Episcopal church.
“God’s got the whole world in his hands.” I could see the congregation singing along with them. Smiling, too. Needing the reminder. Needing the children’s hope and joy. Their sense of innocence. Their future.
Reconciliation talk and aiming for integration have not proved to be enough. In particular, predominantly white evangelical congregations are losing black congregants because of a lack of awareness of the concerns of African Americans, or even an effort to learn those concerns. Clearly evident support for Mr. Trump in these congregation has accelerated the exodus.
In an op-ed in Forbes, Chris Ladd proposes that today’s southern white evangelicalism is cruel and that cruelty stems from our nation’s slavery and Jim Crow history.
Once a self-proclaimed atheist, Madeleine L’Engle later became a devout Christian, primarily attending Episcopal churches.