Study after study has shown that American college students are fleeing from organized religion to mix-and-match spirituality. So what will happen to what one of my students referred to as the “religions of discipline” when this millennial generation (born in the late 1970s through the 1990s ) grows up?
Camp Quixote, a tent city for homeless residents that began illegally on city property but now is celebrated by city leaders, marked its first anniversary Friday. Churches in Olympia offered space for Tent City when the homeless were evicted from a vacant lot.
The Chicago Tribune reports Chicago’s new bishop, Jeffrey Lee, and the Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a clear message about where they stand on
Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Jeff E. Schapiro has some pointed observations about the intervention of the Virginia Attorney General’s office into the property dispute between the Diocese of Virginia and churches from CANA: “McDonnell’s entry in the church case, intentionally or not, may have a political dimension.”
Ruth Gledhill reports that Archbishop Drexel Gomez, chair of the Anglican Communion’s Covenant Design team says the group has found a new way forward, and adds: “[H]e indicated that the Episcopal Church of the United States was unlikely to face discipline or any form of exclusion from the Anglican Communion as a result of consecrating Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are backing a church Facebook group urging members to find time in their busy lives to complete 50 actions over the seven weeks of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday next week. The aim is “to help you become a better neighbour and transform your world for the better”. Actions include polishing someone’s shoes on Maundy Thursday, a reference to Jesus’s washing of the feet of His Disciples; making someone laugh; and leaving a thank-you note for the postman.
Robert Alter has published a new translation of the Book of Psalms that attempts to offer a translation that is truer to the original Hebrew. Why do we need a new translation? As Adam Kirch argues in a New Republic book review, most English translations of the Psalms take a distinctively Christian point of view that distorts the original meaning of the Psalms.
February 23, 2007 marked the 200th anniversary of the British Parliment’s vote to ban the slave trade. But the recognition of William Wilberforce, who lead an often lonely campaign to end the slave trade is not over. This month PBS stations will air The Better Hour: The Legacy of William Wilberforce.
In a paradoxical recent poll, 65 percent of respondents said that Christian right leaders “sometimes or almost always represent their views.” Yet 60 percent said “they favored a more progressive evangelical agenda focused more on protecting the environment, tackling HIV/AIDs, and alleviating poverty and less on abortion and homosexuality.”
How should liberals respond to the fact that key conservative priests are deserting their schismatic bishops? One can simultaneously delight in the fact that increasing numbers of conservative Episcopalians are choosing to remain in the Church, while worrying that this might mean a return to business as usual in dioceses that have long worked to marginalize gays and women.