Society – Page 2 – Episcopal Cafe

Worshiping false Gods: Joe Paterno and Penn State football

July 25, 2012 7 Comments

Lay preacher and writer-in-residence at SSW Greg Garrett writes of “Joe Paterno, Football, and False Gods” on Patheos.

Climbing the fence between fear and possibility

July 25, 2012 No Comments

The Rev. Susan Russell shared the content of her sermon with The Huffington Post. In it, she quotes the Presiding Bishop, whose words to the

An Olympic Snapshot: Flying into History with Jesse Owens

July 24, 2012 3 Comments

Margaret M. Treadwell With the seatbelt sign turned off, I approached seats 1A and 1C. “Mr. Owens, would you like a drink after take-off?” I

Guns

July 13, 2012 24 Comments

What would it take our society and nation to develop a will to limit access to weapons designed to kill human beings? What would it take us to make a real public conversation about violence? What would it take us to stand up to the NRA?

Presents are kind of the point

December 13, 2011 3 Comments

Christmas, a time of being patronisingly berated for your failure to grasp the real meaning of the season. If it hasn’t happened to you in some form by the 24th, you might as well knock down the tree and use the cinnamon-scented candle to set fire to your wreath: you’re just not having a proper Noël without a bit of sanctimony to spice the joyeux.

The Lululemon murder and the “bystander effect”

November 7, 2011 3 Comments

In case after case, witnesses to crimes have frozen in place. Their gut may signal that something is wrong, but they do nothing. Maybe they do not act because no one around them is doing so. Maybe they assume that someone else will respond. Maybe they’re stopped by a concern for their own safety.

You remember a little … I’ll add a piece

September 11, 2011 No Comments

My children are too young – they hadn’t yet come into the world – but one day they’ll ask about it: not just the facts, but the mood, the tenor. I have no problem talking about drugs, sex, any of the the many things you hear parents dreading. And I don’t really even dread this. But it will be singularly humbling to have to be the one who will explain just how dark men’s hearts can be.

Bowling together in Lagos

July 14, 2011 No Comments

Curious, I called up the Toastmasters headquarters to find out whether the United Arab Emirates was some kind of anomaly. It isn’t. The organization reports hotspots of growth throughout Asia and the Middle East. “Within India and Sri Lanka,” said Daniel Rex, the Toastmasters’ executive director, “we’re organizing about a chapter a week.”

Atlas shrugs. Jesus weeps.

April 27, 2011 11 Comments

Ayn Rand was an atheist of a sort that meant that the fiercely individualistic “I” was ultimately self-referential. The element of her conflicted popular philosophy that is mysteriously endearing to the American grassroots psyche is the rugged, no-holds-barred lack of accountability, an amoral construct that is truly all about me.

In a pluralistic society, mutual respect is a moral imperative

April 10, 2011 No Comments

As a person with dual loyalties to God and country, loyalties that sometimes but not always conflict, the two Florida pastors burning of the Koran and the violent rioting by Afghan Muslims in response left me both upset and concerned about the future of a civilized global community.

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