William Mims was a member of one of the breakaway Episcopal Churches when he introduced a bill in the Virginia legislature that would have made it easier for such churches to maintain their property when they left the church. The Washington Post suggested that Mims’ intervention was exactly the sort of thing that the separation of church and state was meant to prevent.
Anglican Information reports: there is a now distinct danger that Nolbert Kunonga could promote a candidate of his choice. His own election (overseen by Bernard Malango) was shrouded in mystery and intrigue.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was the featured homilist on the Day One radio broadcast yesterday. Read her sermon, and see if you don’t hear echoes of Bill Carroll’s recent essay on the Daily Episcopalian blog.
The Gazette from Colorado Springs brings us a preview of the six-week trial that begins tomorrow to determine ownership of Grace Church and St. Stephen’s. The clergy and most of the laity voted to leave the Episcopal Church and join Archbishop Peter Akinola’s Anglican Church of Nigeria. They also decided to take the property with them, which the canons of the Episcopal Church do not permit.
Today, the formal position of the Catholic church, incorporating this long train of thought, is that there is no conflict between evolution through natural selection and Catholic theology. So, in this example, we’re describing an orientation supported by those esoteric theologians Augustine and Aquinas, and promulgated today by that so-liberal-he’s-practically-an-atheist Pope Benedict in that weirdo minority Roman Catholic sect. You know, “unrecognizable as religion to most Americans.”
So anyway, I reckon it’s time to settle this dispute once and for all – and what better way to resolve age-old metaphysical questions than with a caption contest? I’ll send a free book to the person who invents the best bus sign. (You get bonus points if your sign persuades someone to change their deepest beliefs.)
Celebrations of the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of John Milton in December 1608 have been modest and largely academic. He was born, and for the most part lived, in the City of London, now the financial district. Nationalistic sentiment in those days was such that the idea of a great national poet was welcomed, and Milton had high hopes of filling that role; but although his gifts were acknowledged there were aspects of his career, especially his politics, that were far from pleasing to all parties.
Over 400 delegates and overflow visitors who filled the 116-year-old Trinity Church and its parish hall on Fort Worth’s south side for a February 7 special organizing convention celebrated being “called to life” anew and getting back to the business of being the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Delegates representing 31 congregations unanimously elected the Rt. Rev. Edwin “Ted” Gulick, bishop of Kentucky, as provisional bishop.
Beyond such purely intellectual theological debts, however, Updike was a churchman-no doubt an anomaly among his contemporary literary peers. David Lodge suggested that “If there was ever such a species as the Protestant novelist…Mr. Updike may be its last surviving example.”
The sin of racism distorts our biblical understanding of creation, wherein all human beings are made in the image of God. In our Christian tradition, racism blasphemes the ministry of Christ, who died for all people, not just a few.