Can you say the word “breast” in a sermon? If so, how often? When trying to keep a congregation’s attention during a long homily, how much disrobing in the pulpit is too much?
People are more skeptical of glib claims on their generosity than they once were. Even donors for whom church support is an unquestioned obligation don’t assume they need to give to your church. Congregations need to make a case for themselves as worthy recipients of generosity. As global warming, resource depletion, and species extinction become pressing concerns, the people in the pews will expect clergy to address these moral issues, and the church to set a good example.
If there were urgent-care centers for people who’ve flipped their lids watching too much Fox News or MSNBC, the nurses there would strap these frantic citizens to gurneys and administer “God in America” via a nice, slow IV drip, like a powerful PBS antibiotic.
A prepared version of his remarks obtained by CNN from New York affiliate NY1 said that “There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual,” though Paladino did not wind up delivering that line. “That’s not how (God) created us,” the prepared remarks continued, though Paladino did not say those words.
“We as the church … we have fears that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the CPA, all the processes that were supposed to be done have not been completed … The fear in the country is that Sudan will go back to war.”
The mission of the church should follow naturally from God’s mission. The word church traces to the Old English cirice, derived from the Greek kuriakē, meaning “of (or belonging to) the Lord.” Church is that which belongs to God and exists as an extension of God’s purposes and identity.
This is the third of a three-part article. By Donald Schell Stuart Schwarz’s book, All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian
Why is it so difficult to acknowledge a gift as gift? Here is the reason. When I admit that something is a gift, I admit my dependence on the giver. This may not sound that difficult, but there is something within us that bristles at the idea of dependence. We want to get along by ourselves.
I remember the wild northern shores from which these stories come; gray rocks; dark little forests; restless, changeful seas. There is no introduction to that land, no guide book, no cicerone. Sailing over the sombre blue of waves that never quite forget the fierce cold of winter, you approach the sheer and silent coast, tranquil, reserved, impassive alike to roaring wind and caressing sunlight.
This is the second of a three-part article. By Donald Schell In Merchant of Venice, Shylock, Shakespeare’s imagined Jew, faces forced baptism on the terms