by George Clifford Many, perhaps most, Christian congregations in the United States are approaching an ecclesial fiscal cliff. Unlike the expiring tax cuts and growing
… the honoring of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist might most appropriately be expressed as a remembering not of that man, that person, but of the fact of God alive in our midst, a God who forms relationships with each one of us, not just with his first disciples.
by Eric Holloway I have this personal rule that I’ve set for myself: never read the comments section below online articles. If you’ve ever done
Wishing you a happy and holy Christmas Eve.
A Christmas wish from “a heathen and a pagan.”
An oldy-but-a-goody from St. Paul’s in Auckland, New Zealand: The Christmas Story as told by kids.
I hate that poem. It’s the kind of thing a middlebrow Episcopal Hebrew professor writes to indulge his sentimental idea of what a Knickerbocker Ward Christmas should look like. No rats stirring; windows with shutters and sashes; St. Nick down the chimney; smug Protestant children snug in their beds; all those silly reindeer; that lousy rhyme scheme.
We know that not everyone is comfortable tweeting during church, in which case you shouldn’t do it. And we’ve been made aware that some people consider it rude. But we think the Episcopal Church could do with a little more of Paul of Tarsus, and a little less of Emily of Post in this regard.
As we mentioned yesterday, bishops, clergy and lay leaders from around the Episcopal Church have been attempting to make sense of and otherwise respond to the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday. Here are a few links to some of the sermons and statements that have come to our attention.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man