Even when the Good Shepherd Gospel is not read at a funeral, the liturgy itself evokes this powerful image: “Acknowledge we humbly beseech you,” we pray, “a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.” The bond between Christ and his own cannot be broken. Not by sin. Not by death.
Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.
The landscape of theological education in the Episcopal Church is changing. In the midst of that transition, we have the opportunity to emphasize the importance of educating lay people for ministry. With high-quality, flexible enrichment programs and continuing education, we can help the two million lay members of God’s Episcopal Church understand the promises we make at our baptism and why they are the most important promises we will make in our life.
Cathy Grossman of USA Today has written an excellent summary of the issues involved in the Supreme Court’s peculiar ruling yesterday that the cross is not exclusively a Christian symbol. One of the more compelling objections to the decision comes from an evangelical scholar who understands that in making the cross an icon of civil religion the Court has diminished it as a symbol of the Christian religion.
Civil rights leader Dr. Dorothy Height was buried today from Washington National Cathedral. In his eulogy (text) (video), President Barack Obama said she deserved a
The faith community is not a newcomer to this fight. Catholic social teaching, in particular, has long addressed the need for sound economic principles that serve the common good. Amid the global economic collapse of 1931, Pope Pius XI affirmed a positive role for government that tempers the vagaries of the market and stressed the social obligation to pay workers a living wage.
From Bishop Chad Gandiya of Zimbabwe via Anglican Information and New Zimbabwe. Police repression of the Anglican Church intensifies
We were enclosed,
O eternal Father,
within the garden of your breast.
You drew us out of your holy mind
like a flower
petaled with our soul’s three powers,
In much of the world, the weight of power or authority or influence in defining personhood is with the group – family, tribe, nation. However, in the industrialized West, the balance is with the individual. This is not to say that there is no response to the “Group” in the industrialized West, nor to the “Individual” elsewhere. However, once again, the weight – indeed, the greater influence as recognized by the society as a whole – is respectively as I have described it in both instances.
In the gospels, you rarely learn of the faithful commitment and action of one woman alone. There are the Mary’s and nameless “other women.” For better or for worse, this kind of relationality is a woman’s legacy and a part of her creative response to challenges of legitimacy and social change. It is no surprise that the last major study of women clergy found that women who left ministry did so because they lacked a peer group.