On Speaking of Faith (whose site won the Religion and Spirituality Webby award, it should be noted) this week, Krista Tippett has repurposed some interviews from 2003, before the program was syndicated nationally through Public Radio International, and used them to create a program that examines prayer as a global phenomenon that takes place in many religious and even nonreligious traditions.
The Washington Post covers a story we’ve discussed earlier. The hearing on the constitutionality of the law in question will be held on Wednesday in Fairfax County.
Jason Byassee, writing for the Christian Century, makes a wry observation about the complexity of Anglican fragmentation. Even at the local level, he writes, “it takes a long memory or a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal-Anglican divisions and acronyms that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, just west of Chicago.” Part of the problem is that most people tuning into the situation are under the impression that homosexuality is the most important issue, but Byassee notes other factors.
There’s news today in the Jacksonville Sun of a priest who has been reinstated to the ministry by his Ugandan Anglican bishop. The reinstatement is due to the priest’s “modeling true repentance for a real failure”. The priest was removed for having an inappropriate relationship with a parishioner in his former parish.
All Saint’s Church in Pasadena, one of the largest congregations in the Episcopal Church has announced that, in response to the recent California Supreme Court ruling, they have decided to “treat equally all couple presenting themselves” to be married at the church.
Andrew Gerns is thinking that he sees evidence that there’s a plan unfolding for this summer’s Lambeth conference. But he’s thinking it’s not going to be business as usual, since doing things the “normal” way is what has gotten us to the loggerheads we’re at today.
Writer Doug LeBlanc has wondered about the future of conservatives who remain in the Episcopal Church. He says the audio of a two-hour meeting that included Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and leaders of the Diocese of South Carolina offers encouraging signs.
Getting help for cyclone victims in Myanmar has been difficult, but one church in Utah has been in the country since the cyclone hit and has a very good relationship with the people there. Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah has been to Myanmar twice. The church has a sister diocese there, and this past February she took a group to distribute aid.
Perhaps the most interesting element of this story about next February’s meeting of the Anglican Churches of the Americas is that Archbisop Drexel Gomez, who would have us believe he is working to unite the Anglican Communion has thus far refused to participate.
For 14 years, Ian Frazier of The New Yorker has taught a writing workshop at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in the Chelsea section of New York City. In this issue of the magazine, he writes about the church, its wonderful soup kitchen and the many people he has met through the workshop.