As the crises intensify, those who have will be tempted to hold on to what they have, become less generous and ignore even more the realities of the weak and vulnerable. So we pray that you do not lead them into that temptation but deliver them from their selfish tendencies and endow them with changed attitudes and new lenses through which to view the world.
The nation’s largest Lutheran denomination will consider allowing individual congregations to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, an attempt to avoid the sort of infighting that has threatened to tear other churches apart.
There have been incremental developments in the legal action in Virginia and Colorado, where the Episcopal Church is attempting to reclaim its property from people who think they are entitled to parting gifts when they leave a church.
Today on the Daily Episcopalian blog, we are featuring the full-length video of The Episcopal Moment, Brian McLaren’s keynote presentation on faith-sharing and evangelism to the annual convention of the Diocese of Washington. If you have any interest in helping our Church find a way forward in its effort to improve its evangelism, please make the time to watch.
My eyes follow my ears to a pew to my left and behind me, where a guy with slicked black hair and dark glasses is sitting. He’s wearing one of those Bluetooth cellphone attachments. Hey, man, I’m bored, too. But, c’mon, take that infernal thing out of your ear. Say a prayer. Collect your thoughts. Or just do what my 4-year-old is doing and stare at the ceiling. Did I mention it was Christmas Day Mass?
Jeff Sharlett: Among the dead of Continental Flight 3407 in Buffalo was a 66-year-old historian and activist named Alison Des Forges. In a short essay about the Rwandan genocide for The Revealer in 2004, I referred to Des Forges’ 1999 book on the subject, Leave None to Tell the Story, as “a painful masterwork.
At Religion Dispatches, Louis A. Reprecht asks, “How have we gone from a beheaded priest to a giddy worldwide day of romantic love? In a
Fred Barnes, a board member of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and perpetrator of smears against Bishop Gene Robinson continues to practice his unique brand of journalism. Check out his latest on global warming.
There are plenty of Christians who feel theologically and spiritually displaced. They feel lost in the middle between the noisy extremes of religion and politics and long to feel at home right where they are. They sense that it is possible to ignore the oversimplifications of left and right and, instead, move deeper into their faith. But they are not quite sure how to do that.
Episcopalians sometimes complain that all anybody ever learns about our Church is that it is conflicted over the issue of homosexuality. It is almost impossible, this line of argument goes, to get the mainstream media interested in other facets of our life. But every once in a while, a hometown newspaper simply shows up and offers some fairly straightforward coverage of Episcopalians being Episcopalian, and it is a welcome relief.