Episcopal Cafe – Page 437

What good can come from homonegativity?

August 9, 2008 No Comments

Dr. Bernard Ratigan, writing in Comment is Free over at the Guardian, is a member of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and observes that the “gay issue” is thorny for many reasons, not the least of which being a strong distaste for it coming up again and again to the detriment of, as some see it, more important work in the church. Dr. Ratigan comes at it from a more clinical point of view, noting that gays who remain in a church that is hostile toward their sexuality have a greater rate of mental illness.

And then there were bills

August 9, 2008 6 Comments

The Telegraph is today covering–as in writing about, not paying for–the shortfall faced by Lambeth organizers now that the £6 million price tag is coming due. The Archbishop’s Council of the Church of England is lending £600,000 of the £1 million that the Lambeth Company urgently needs to raise to cover expenses, including the three-week rental of the University of Kent campus as well as feeding and transporting hundreds of bishops and their spouses.

Whalon on 24

August 9, 2008 1 Comment

Bishop Pierre Whalon, as one of the blogging bishops, has written extensively about his impressions about Lambeth. But in this more mainstream media piece, a 12-minute Q&A interview with France 24, Whalon explains a brief history of the Anglican church and its status as the third-largest body of Christians in the world. And when he’s asked whether he felt the move toward schism at the meeting, Whalon states firmly, “No, actually, I thought we were moving away from it.”

Religion and disease

August 4, 2008 No Comments

Corey Fincher, of the University of New Mexico, has a different hypothesis for the origin of religious diversity. He thinks not that religions are like disease but that they are responses to disease—or, rather, to the threat of disease. If he is right, then people who believe that their religion protects them from harm may be correct, although the protection is of a different sort from the supernatural one they perceive.

Obama’s VP choices include two different Catholics

August 4, 2008 2 Comments

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius reportedly sit on top of Barack Obama’s vice presidential short list. What binds these two–aside from being effective Democratic governors of red (or reddish) states–is that they’re both Roman Catholic. But their similarities mask a surprising gulf: Sebelius and Kaine have had markedly different political relationships with the Church.

Blogging Bishops: August 3

August 3, 2008 1 Comment

The Blogging Bishops offer some thoughts onthe final day of the Lambeth Conference. Most emphaized the value of the conversations at Lambeth. Several expressed disappointment at the “Reflections” document issued earlier today.

When does pregnancy begin?

August 3, 2008 No Comments

Set aside the fraught question of when human life begins. The new debate: When does pregnancy begin? The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion.

Bishops Blogging, August 2

August 2, 2008 1 Comment

Today, much talking about the talk, so to speak: How language challenges us. How we hear things, how we say things, and how to truly listen–and speak–when there’s so much noise. The Bishops are coming to the end of indabas and bible study with colleagues from around the world, and are feeling pangs of sadness at it being time to go, wonder at what has been accomplished (even if it hasn’t seemed like much to those outside).

The divine rush of running

August 2, 2008 No Comments

Andrea Useem writes on Health.com’s Poked and Prodded blog about the condition known as runner’s high, and her own experience with it during her first marathon. The exultation she felt reminded her more of a religious experience than of any chemical rush, she says, and it piqued her interest enough to drill down into the phenomenon a bit more.

Vacation’s all I ever wanted

August 2, 2008 No Comments

The Roanoke Times points out that even pastors sometimes have to just get away. They interviewed about two dozen local clergy members from various denominations and came away reporting just how difficult it is for many of them to take that time off. The Rev. Barkley Thompson of St. John’s Episcopal in Roanoke, Va., was one of those priests—trying to get out the door for his vacation even as he was being interviewed, Book of Common Prayer in hand as his family loaded up for the trip.

The Archive

Author: Episcopal Cafe