UPDATE: Tuesday evening The Living Church reports that The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, dean and president of Episcopal Divinity School, in Cambridge, MA will resign
First in a new series from the L.A. Times on sacred spaces is a profile on The Rev. Brad Karelius, rector of Santa Ana’s Episcopal Church of the Messiah. After experiencing an incredible sense of peace and holiness while exploring the mountain wilderness that lies north of L.A., Karelius went on to study how retreating to such raw places often acts as a portal to spirital awakening, according to the article. For him, that first visit evoked such “serenity” that he has made it a regular practice to return to the area whenever he needs to “detox” from the hustle and bustle of daily living.
We pray especially this night for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. We give thanks for their willingness to stand before us and offer themselves to serve as our nation’s president. We pray that as they debate, they will exhibit the courage of their convictions, hunger for the truth, a vision of compassion, justice for all people, and civility toward one another.
Former Cafe contributor Susan Daughtry Fawcett is featured in Sunday’s Washington Post. The subject is funerals. Yours.
“I agonize because in this land of milk and honey, one of every five children grows up beneath the poverty line — and our pulpits are silent. I agonize because in this land of the free, blacks and Hispanics are still shackled as second-class citizens . . . and we preachers have nothing to say to their hungers.
Perhaps you were unaware the neurology plays an essential role in congregational development, especially during times to transition. Peter Steinke will explain to you why individuals and communities resist change, no matter how obvious the need for such change might be. And he will make you laugh as he does so.
Paul O’Donnell writes in New York Magazine: Martha Ainsworth rides a bus into Port Authority from New Jersey at least three times a week, twice
Francis Schaeffer was a deep evangelical thinker whose mission was to save the West from itself one intellectual at a time. His son, Frank, took him mainstream bringing his father’s work together with the agenda and ambitions of American fundamentalism. Together they helped create what we now know as the religious right. That was then. Through a combination of what might be called religious and celebrity burn-out, raising a family and deep introspection, Frank Schaeffer says he has repented of nearly everything the American Religious Right stands for.
The leading advocate for gay and lesbian rights in the Anglican Church in Britain is stepping down after 30 years, according to the New Statesman, which profiles the Rev. Richard Kirker and provides some insights into his work at the helm of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.
Jack said he hopes his involvement encourages kids his age to help others. ”I can really believe in myself because I’m just a kid, and kids are usually not the ones who change the world,” Jack said. “I thought it would be a change.”