Robert Rae Spears Jr., 89, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester from 1970 to 1984, died March 18. “Bishop Spears made the diocese a healthy and vibrant place, though somewhat divided because of his determination to stand for justice and on the side of those who need advocacy,” the current Bishop of Rochester, Jack McKelvey, said.
“[C]ommunicating Christianity well requires sensitive understanding of the particular missionary situations. Provinces are in better positions to attend to such tasks. Provinces should also make every effort to understand the social contexts of their mission. They should teach the Christian faith in creative ways…”
Sin, sorrow, and suffering, and death itself, were indeed taken away at the Cross, but we mortals must enter into the depths of this mystery in actual experience. The fact that the Savior bore all this for us does not mean that we bear nothing of it; rather, it means that we are invited in to that place (the Cross) where suffering is transfigured. We (the Church) are his Body, says St. Paul. As such, we share in his suffering for the life of the world.
“I discovered photography when I was a nine-year-old choir boy at St Mark Dalston in east London, and this project has given me the chance to give something back to both the Church and the community.”
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori offers an update from her visit to the Holy Land that has included the Palm Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem, meetings with religious leaders and Israeli and Palestinian human rights advocates; and a visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
The Easter offering from the BBC is on an epic scale: a brand-new dramatisation of the Passion, which begins on Palm Sunday and runs through the week like a “ticking clock” to its climax on Easter Day.
Updated: 12:14 p.m. Barack Obama is speaking today in Philadelphia and responds to critics of his former pastor and his church. Excerpts from his speech
As MSNBC, CNN, and FOX endlessly play the tape of Rev. Wright’s “radical” sermons today, I do not hear the words of a “dangerous” preacher (at least any more dangerous than any preacher who takes the Gospel seriously!) No, I hear the long tradition that Jeremiah Wright has inherited from his ancestors. I hear prophetic critique.
There is a price to be paid for sharing the good news in word and deed. Jesus’ words – “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” – are applicable institutionally to the church and to ourselves.’