Growing up in the Roman Catholic Church, I learned that celibacy was both a charism (a particular spiritual gift) and an act of heroic self-sacrifice made by priests on behalf of God’s Church. Growing older in the Episcopal Church, I increasingly hear people argue that God calls homosexuals–every single one of them–to lives of celibacy. Are these positions compatible?
The three unhappy priests who couldn’t keep control of the domain name of their own Web site, who offered the Anglican Communion the writings of a veterinarian as an expert on human sexuality, and who mistakenly send their emails to all and sundry are once again drawing on their deep reservoirs of competence to tell the rest of the Anglican Communion how it must run its affairs.
The same secularism that forgot that Martin Luther King, Jr., was a preacher, forgets that Mother Jones was driven from Chicago to the mines in part by the encouragement of her brother, a priest. Although it is slightly anachronistic to put it this way, she stands at the head of the great Catholic Workers’ movement in this country. Nonethless Dorothy Day considered herself Mother Jones’ disciple.
The Friends of Jake are featuring a couple of interesting charts about levels of education among members of various religious groups, and how education influences the acceptance of gays and lesbians.
While some preachers may frown upon the use of cell phones and laptops in church on Sundays, one Katy, TX area pastor is encouraging people to keep their wireless devises on so they connect through the Internet and social networking sites during a new service.
Although Nazir-Ali is definitely anti-gay, and signed up completely to the Gafcon agenda, going so far as to boycott the Lambeth Conference last year, this was never his main cause, as it was, I think, for some of the other Gafcon participants, especially the African clergy. What he sees as the global challenge to Christianity is Islam, even more than liberalism.
Today the Standing Committee, the diocese’s current leaders, announced that it has chosen the Rt. Rev. Kenneth L. Price, Jr. and is recommending to the diocesan convention that the Southern Ohio bishop serve here as provisional bishop.
If Rowan Williams decides that the Anglican Communion should become a two-track enterprise and the Episcopal Church’s trains are running on track two, what difference does it make? To whom? Why?
Ted’s legacy as a consummate legislator, a champion for the poor and an advocate for those who found themselves on the margins of society will forever be missed and yet never forgotten. He used his position of power and privilege to empower others whose circumstances rendered them bereft of both power and privilege.
Just how big is the gay marriage age gap? Between the under-30 crowd and the over-65 crowd: 35 percentage points. Or, try this on for size, at the state level: If people over 65 in each state made the laws, 0 states would have gay marriage; if people under 30 made the laws, 38 states would have gay marriage.