New for Sunday Social Hour: We’ll post a question on Facebook (and Twitter, once we get the hang of this) to get your feedback, and then on Sunday we’ll round up the answers (as best we can when there are a lot). This week’s question: What have you seen this Advent and Christmas season that has moved you?
A pattern of violence initiated through Christmas Eve bomb attacks that killed 32 and injured more than 70 continues to resound in Jos, capital city of Nigeria’s Plateau State.
“I have a distaste for people who say to me if you come through these doors, walk down this aisle, sit on that wooden bench, and sing these hymns in this order, I have got God in a little bottle under my pulpit and I’ll let you have a look… I don’t think [that] was God’s intention.”
“If Americans are going to church at the rate they report, the churches would be full on Sunday mornings and denominations would be growing,” wrote C. Kirk Hadaway, now director of research at the Episcopal Church.
“When Jesus appears somewhere, that changes the whole society.” Father Samaan, priest of the St. Simon Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, Egypt, is not speaking theoretically. He’s describing what he’s seen.
What would Jesus and Buddha do if they were suddenly thrust into contemporary society, and how would they react to what they found? Japanese author-illustrator Nakamura Hikaru has sketched an answer to this provocative question in a very popular manga, or illustrated serial novel.
Bishop William Swing, the former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California reflects on, “Where are the wise men?” in Washington Post’s “On Faith” section.
Bishop John Bryson Chane and Ambassador Akbar Ahmed have co-written an article on persecution of Christians by extremists in the Muslim world.
In Salt Lake City, two teen members of St. James Episcopal Church in Midvale, Utah have raised an incredible $800,000 for the homeless!
“We want to honor those individuals, honor their worth and dignity as our neighbors and children of God. It’s also an opportunity for us to raise awareness to raise consciousness in our city,” said Rev. Wallace Adams-Riley.