The Archive

Author: Jim Naughton

Immanence, transcendence, guitars

September 5, 2008 17 Comments

As the first major proponents of popular music styles in a vernacular idiom for Roman Catholic worship, the music of the St Louis Jesuits holds an appeal for some not based on its musical or theological properties. For people of a certain age (read: Baby-Boomers) it represents–the American Catholic Church getting to do things its way, a new generation literally getting its voice heard and overturning old ways of doing things.

Read More »

Stepping outside

September 5, 2008 No Comments

Monasticism tells us something important about the structure of our humanity. Almost every single one of the major world traditions has developed some form of coenobitic life. Just as some people—at all times and in all cultures—have felt impelled to become dancers, poets, or musicians, others are irresistibly drawn to a life of silence and prayer. . . .

Read More »

The Window looks in on Lambeth

September 4, 2008 No Comments

The Washington Window’s coverage of the Lambeth Conference is now online. The main story begins: “The bishops of the Lambeth Conference walked a novel route to a familiar destination.” While the sidebar commences: “The bishops at the Lambeth Conference didn’t talk exclusively or even primarily about sex. The rest of their conversations just didn’t receive as much attention.”

Read More »

A concerned voice from Canada

September 4, 2008 2 Comments

“The evangelical side of Anglicanism is leading us more and more toward a form of Christianity which is simply another variant of fundamentalist Islam. This is most evident in the insistence on treating the scriptures as the centre of faith rather than the living Lord Jesus Christ …. and on the inability to articulate Christian moral positions that may be distinctly different from the taboos of Islamic and animist culture.

Read More »

Fallacies of planning

September 4, 2008 No Comments

Remaining in a familiar building or continuing a cherished worship style does not feel risky even though there may be good reason to believe that doing so may limit our potential to attract new members. Moving to a new location or changing our worship style, by contrast, feels extremely risky because it involves the immediate loss of something we have now.

Read More »

“Household” and “mystery”:
thoughts on being a Church

September 4, 2008 2 Comments

What holds Anglicans together, I learned in confirmation class, is not set doctrine but common worship, though of course we are always in conversation about doctrine and tradition. That has been what I’ve understood about being Anglican, and that’s been my experience at worship. So some of what’s coming out of Lambeth about being “more like a church” seems so befuddling.

Read More »

A prayer for peace

September 4, 2008 No Comments

Christ, no one on earth really wants the pain and horror of war.

We do not want to kill or be killed, to hurt or be hurt.

But we all see injustice,

and sometimes it makes us angry

and we see no other way to right the wrong

except by war.

Read More »

IRS surfing church websites

September 3, 2008 No Comments

In one recent I.R.S. memo, the question is addressed with almost Talmudic intensity, urging enforcement agents to explore the issue of “electronic proximity — including the number of ‘clicks’ that separate the objectionable material from the 501(c)(3) organization’s Web site.”

Read More »
Archives
Categories
©2006-2025 | Episcopal Cafe