Whilst Elizabeth imposed so rigorous a restraint upon her own senses, and treated herself with such unremitting severity, her heart overflowed with charity and mercy towards her unfortunate fellow beings. The tender charity which had always animated her, from her earliest childhood, grew deeper with each day of her life;
In 664 a meeting was held at Whitby to discuss the date upon which Easter should be celebrated. Why discuss this old debate now? Partly out of love of the northern kingdom where it happened and of the writer who tells about it; but more than that, because the debate about Easter at Whitby in 664 shows how easily a secular appeal to uniformity can be confused with a theological concern for unity
“The religions of man may fit together, but they do not do so easily,” Houston Smith once observed. The theology of such encounters will be awkward, incomplete, and messy, for it is exploratory and breaking new ground, not offering final resolution of the topic of interfaith encounters.
In November 1197 there came a demand from the king for three hundred knights, or money sufficient to hire as many mercenaries, to serve against Philip of France. The archbishop convened a council of bishops and barons at Oxford, where the Bishop of London, speaking as dean of the province, declared his willingness to comply with the demand. Not so the holy Bishop of Lincoln.
The first reference point for Christians in considering the place of other religions is the Bible. But here an immediate problem is that the Bible was written before Islam appeared in the Middle East and without an awareness of the content of the great Asian religions. Are its passages seemingly hostile to other religions aimed at the other great world religions?
Nor need we wonder that the queen governed herself and her household wisely when we know that she herself acted under the wisest of masters, the guidance of the Holy Scriptures. I myself have had frequent opportunities of admiring in her how, even amidst the distractions of lawsuits, amidst the countless cares of state, she devoted herself with wonderful assiduity to the word of God, about which she used to ask profound questions from the learned men who were sitting near her.
The loss of members, influence, and a sense of mission—the church’s misfortune of the moment—resembles the experience of Israel’s exile. The lesson of the present dislocation is clear, if still not learned. The era of Christendom is gone. No longer is culture subsidizing and supporting churches.
Frank Turner, University Librarian at Yale and author of a recently published biography of John Henry Newman, died suddenly last week. Turner, contributed the essay “The imagined community of the Anglican Communion” to the Cafe last September. His widow, the Rev. Ellen Tillotson, is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Torrington, Connecticut.
The American conservative movement treats the IRD like the bladder on a set of bagpipes, pumping air into it when certain notes must be hit, leaving it more or less empty the rest of the time. At the moment, it serves no real purpose,