The nomination of Sarah Palin changed Southern Baptist fundamentalism quicker than Eve tempted Adam to eat the apple in the Garden of Eden, metaphorically speaking. The Republican Party’s first woman caused Republican Party’s first-line male clergy to revise their theology about women, while claiming they never meant what they said earlier.
September 11 is a good day to remember the late Father Mychal Judge, the Franciscan chaplain of the New York Fire Department who died when the twin towers fell. Judge was gay, a fact that writer Mike Kelly says aroused little concern–or even interest in the fire department. The Vatican, however, is not equally enlightened. Can the church accept a gay saint?
In his farewell Sightings column, distinguished scholar Martin Marty takes a look.
Snarky might play well in the convention hall, but seeing it on the small screen I wondered where love thy neighbor fitted in…. Exaggeration is certainly no stranger to politics, but hearing one untruth after another from Sarah Palin about her own record and Obama’s on everything from tax hikes to the Bridge to Nowhere I wondered what happened to thou shalt not bear false witness.
The spiritual or moral history of our species could be written as a struggle not to kill or run away from what is different—how we learn to treat those with whom we cannot identify. “Remember that you were strangers once,” Moses reminded Israel. Writing to the Christians of Ephesus, St. Paul begs that we lead a life worthy of our calling, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
We recommend that this Diocese affiliate with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone as a member diocese, on a temporary, pastoral basis, until such time as an orthodox Province of the Anglican Communion can be established in North Americsa (sic).
Anglican Journal: Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said he has requested Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to facilitate a meeting
Stephen Bates, The Guardian: “Every word Europeans (and many Americans) hear about Sarah Palin chills their blood – none more so than her religious beliefs,
We believe that continued access to civil marriage for all, regardless of sexual orientation, is consistent with the best principles of our constitutional rights. We believe that this continued access promotes Jesus’ ethic of love, giving, and hope.
With about 100 similar cases in courts around the country, diocese attorney Thomas P. Smith said this appeared to be the first to reach a state’s top court. At issue is whether the parishioners who built the church own it, or whether they simply held it in trust for the Episcopal Church and the diocese under the national church’s 1979 Dennis Canon.