Therefore, my brethren, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

I entreat Eu-o′dia and I entreat Syn′tyche to agree in the Lord. And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

–Philippians 4:1-7

"September Morning on the River"#MonongahelaNationalForest #AlmostHeaven #WestVirginia #Highlands #StormHour #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/7TBSUl44ro

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) September 16, 2023

As we all know very well, the trend in post war philosophy, especially in Europe and to some extent in the USA, has been towards the individual as the sole actor in their own drama and the final arbiter of their fate. True, they are caught up in forces more powerful than themselves and find themselves vast desires, but they are always somehow alone.

In the way these trends have emerged into culture there is a great danger of the entirely false idea prevailing that for most of us we are essentially autonomous human actors, protected by markets, rational economic actors, who have the right to live without all but the most essential restraints on what we make of ourselves. That understanding of life is not by any means entirely new but has reached a certain level of predominant thinking in everything from culture wars, through economics to the politics of sexuality. We are more and more individualist.

At the same time, as The Times of London has commented so continually this week, Christian and all religious faith has declined dramatically.

I should be clear that this is not all bad, for Churches are ruined when wealth and power lead them to self-reliance. I rejoice in less of a bossy attitude, and of the church stepping back from telling everybody what to do, here and elsewhere. Except in the House of Lords! It is not the biblical pattern of Jesus who made himself a servant, washed His disciples’ feet, lived a holy life and by His death and resurrection lifted the weary, the outcast and the failure into hope.

Read it all.

"Churches are ruined when wealth and power lead them to self-reliance. I rejoice in less of a bossy attitude, and of the Church stepping back from telling everybody what to do, here and elsewhere. Except in the House of Lords!" – Archbishop of Canterbury https://t.co/3IMVMymLIg

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) September 12, 2023

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

–Philippians 3:7-11

Anticrepuscular rays over Baldoyle and Clongriffin from a misty sunrise earlier this month. #dublin #ireland pic.twitter.com/nPUeZSG7MW

— Sryan Bruen Photography (@sryanbruenphoto) September 15, 2023

As the UK sweltered under a ferocious autumn sun this week, Christians took part in 13 climate pilgrimages around the UK, from Glasgow to Brighton, to highlight public concern regarding the climate crisis, and to call on the Government to end new oil and gas expansion.

The Met Office announced that the heatwave in England and Wales this week was the first time since records began that temperatures have been higher than 30ºC for six days in a row in September.

The Revd Vanessa Elston, a pioneer priest in Southwark diocese, took part in a pilgrimage in Battersea. She said: “The public are really concerned about the climate issue. We don’t want to be paying sky-high energy bills to fossil-fuel companies in a cost-of-living crisis. Renewables are cheaper; so it’s high time our leaders made them a viable option on a large scale.”

As temperatures rose, leaders of the G20 group of nations met in Delhi, where they called for peace in Ukraine, agreed that the world needed $4 trillion to fund the energy transition away from fossil fuels, and called for accelerating efforts towards a “phasedown of unabated coal power”; they said that poorer nations needed financial support to ensure a “just transition”.

Before the summit, church leaders representing more than 600 million Christians, had called on the G20 leaders to implement progressive carbon taxes and to end subsidies for fossil fuels, which could raise $3.2 trillion for the needed energy transition.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Christians held a prayer vigil outside World Vision this week, calling on them to stop banking with @Barclays – the largest funder of fossil fuels in Europe.

My latest piece for the @ChurchTimes on growing pressure for charities to clean up their banking.https://t.co/EtrzeomRfm

— Joe Ware (@wareisjoe) September 14, 2023

Christianity is a very strange and a very difficult faith. It is difficult to believe, and it is even more difficult to do what we were asked to do last Sunday — take up the cross of Christ and follow. Yet, in spite of the gainsayers, I do rather wonder whether Britain is as secular as the sociologists of religion maintain. In churches that take the trouble to present a well-conducted liturgy, to preach the difficult and challenging faith of Christ, people still respond.

The evangelicals in the Church of England manage to fill churches. The splendid liturgy of the Western Rite attracts thousands every Sunday to the great oratory churches in Knightsbridge and Birmingham. Even the oft-repeated claim that there are no more vocations to religious orders is not completely true — the Blackfriars in Oxford have a flourishing novitiate.

There has never been a time when it was easy to believe that a loving creator allows the innocent to die in earthquakes or children to suffer from cancer. Since the feminist revolution, and the change in societal attitudes to sexuality, the churches undoubtedly face some problems. But I do not believe that either the sheer difficulty in believing at all, or the sexual revolution, is what keeps people away from church.

Christianity is not destroyed by rival ideologies, such as Darwinism. It is just slowly gnawed at by secularism, consumerism, the “strange disease of modern life”. To visit a church where they still offer business as usual is to be stimulated, as no secular equivalent can stimulate: disturbed as no drama or work of art could disturb.

Read it all.

Excellent article by A N Wilson in today's Times. Well deserved praise for #frgraemerowlands, and a mention for the choir (or Latin Chorus!) aswell. pic.twitter.com/yTShNu2jyA

— ssktmusic (@ssktmusic) September 14, 2023

“Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.”

– T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” IV

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is an ancient devotion that dates back to the earliest days of the Church. The Cross is the great sign of our hope as Christians. pic.twitter.com/p43OcWoPHE

— Abp. José H. Gomez (@ArchbishopGomez) September 14, 2023

O God, who by the passion of thy blessed Son didst make an instrument of shameful death to be unto us the means of life and peace: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Wishing everyone a joyful Holy Cross Day from St Saviour’s, Pimlico pic.twitter.com/oTbSYX7AFs

— Fr Matthew Catterick (@vicar_stsp) September 14, 2023

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured as a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

–Philippians 2:12-18

Délicieux moment au bord de l’eau, Les Îles, Sion 💙🧡💛🇨🇭#suisse #switzerland #schweiz #landscape #photography #paysage #nature #lake #mountains @MySwitzerland_e @valaiswallis pic.twitter.com/SCUYwJYgzL

— Délèze Dominique (@DelezeD) September 14, 2023

The Church of England has been “dealt a death knell” as parishes close at a record rate, a Telegraph investigation has revealed.

Almost 300 have disappeared in the past five years alone, analysis of church data reveals, the fastest rate since records began in 1960.

The startling figures come as a bombshell dossier accused bishops and senior clergy of “putting a gun to people’s heads” to drive through controversial plans to cut costs, merge parishes and cut vicars.

The claims come against the backdrop of declining congregation numbers, leaving many clergy afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs.

Read it all (one of many threads to catch up on).

Church of England parishes close at record rate https://t.co/G9xNCU2O1Q

— john milbank (@johnmilbank3) September 3, 2023

In What Makes Us Human, the artificial intelligence program GPT-3, along with Iain Thomas and Jasmine Wang, has written a fascinating book at the somewhat fluid intersection of self-help and wisdom literature. Given the capacity of computers today and the cleverness of their programmers, I don’t think we have to be surprised that such a book is possible; I will return to this point shortly. But I would also suggest that the book’s subtitle, An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life’s Biggest Questions, does not tell the whole story. It is not hard to answer the biggest questions. It is hard to provide good answers to the biggest questions. To evaluate the quality of the answers provided by GPT-3, it is useful to have a sense of where they came from.

GPT-3 is a large language model form of artificial intelligence, which means (more or less) that it consumes vast quantities of text data and derives from it multi-dimensional statistical associations among words. For instance, when asked to complete the phrase “Merry . . .” Gpt-3 replies “Merry Christmas,” not because it knows anything of Christmas or merriment, but simply because those words stand in a close statistical relationship in its database. When asked to complete the phrase without using the word Christmas, it comes up with “Merry holidays” and then “Merry festivities.” One of the key features of this kind of program is that its internal operations are almost entirely opaque; it is extremely difficult to determine how the program reaches the decisions that produce the outputs that it does.

What Makes Us Human was produced by a GPT-3 that had been “prompted” “with selected excerpts [elsewhere characterized as “a few select examples”] from major religious and philosophical texts that have formed the basis of human belief and philosophy, such as the Bible, the Torah [sic], the Tao Te Ching, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Koran, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, the poetry of Rumi, the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, and more.” (A bibliography would have been useful.) Then the two humans would ask some big question (“What is love?” “What is true power?”) and subsequently ask the model to “elaborate or build on” “the most profound responses.” The book is the result of “continuing to ask questions after first prompting GPT-3 with a pattern of questions and answers based on and inspired by existing historical texts” representing “the amalgamation of some of mankind’s greatest philosophical and spiritual works.”

So when Thomas and Wang note that “We have done our best to edit everything as little as possible,” the disclaimer must be understood within this framework of iterative “engineering” of GPT-3 responses through their own sense of what is profound, a process that would only be undertaken by quite an intrusive . . . editor. In addition, they acknowledge two (more) significant editorial decisions. “In all instances, so as not to cause offense, we have replaced the various names for God with the words, ‘the Universe.’ Our goal is to unite around a common spiritual understanding of each other, and so while our decision may be divisive, we hope you understand the intention behind it.” As it turns out, Thomas and Wang do not entirely avoid mentioning God in their pursuit of unity through making a divisive decision.

Read it all.

What Makes Us Human? https://t.co/9O7HBSCaO3

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) September 13, 2023

In other words, we’re tempted to “worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator” (Rom. 1:25, GNT)—even more so because our newest creation isn’t just mute wood and stone that “cannot speak” but a conversationalist that can “give guidance” (Hab. 2:18–19). That conversationalist doesn’t deserve the reverence that’s reserved for God. But it does warrant respect.

“If we have an entity that looks like us, acts like us, seems to be a lot like us, and yet we dismiss it as something for which we shouldn’t have any concern at all, it just corrodes our own sense of humanity,” Brenner says. “If we anthropomorphize everything and then are cruel with the thing we anthropomorphize, it makes us less humane.”

We already know the potential for social media to turn us into crueler versions of ourselves. Christians find themselves at the whims of polarizing algorithms that push them to the extremes, and pastors find themselves struggling to disciple congregations about proper online behavior. On Instagram and Twitter (now X), however, a social component remains: We learn something from a scholar, share a meme that makes another user laugh, or see a picture of a friend’s baby. We are still interacting with people (though there are bots too).

But with ChatGPT, there’s no social component. That’s the danger. When you’re talking to a bot, you’re actually alone.

Read it all.

This CT cover story got me thinking of how much I instinctively "care" for robots—I say "poor thing" when my Roomba gets stuck, I feel bad that code generators never get a break … https://t.co/NHbctaKwWm

— kate shellnutt (@kateshellnutt) September 12, 2023

Moreover, they have put fetters on our feet and have bound your blessed limbs and the temples of God with disgraceful chains. . . . To men who are dedicated to God and attesting their faith with religious courage, such things are ornaments, not chains; nor do they bind the feet of the Christians for infamy but glorify them for a crown. . . .

Let cruelty, either ignorant or malignant, hold you here in its bonds and chains as long as it will, from this earth and from these sufferings you shall speedily come to the kingdom of heaven. The body is not cherished in the mines with couch and cushions, but it is cherished with the refreshment and solace of Christ. . . . Your limbs unbathed, are foul and disfigured with filth and dirt: but within they are spiritually cleansed. . . . There the bread is scarce; but man liveth not by bread alone, but by the word of God. Shivering, you want clothing; but he who puts on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned. . . .

—Read it all.

Now Eli′jah the Tishbite, of Tishbe[a] in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” And the word of the Lord came to him, “Depart from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, that is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord; he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

–1 Kings 17:1-7

Here, from Sebastian Milbank, in an essay making a counterintuitive but compelling case for Tolkien’s place among the literary modernists, is a useful summary of the argument over the portrayal of good and evil in “Lord of the Rings,” which has been ongoing since the saga first appeared:

The often ferocious response of many critics perhaps stemmed from the apparent anachronism of the book, combined with its massive popularity. It was published in 1954, at a time when literary modernism was dominant and pervading the academy. Modernist writers were obsessed with interiority, broke with prior literary convention, and traded in irony, ambiguity and convoluted psychology. Literary critics of the time were taking up the “New Criticism,” which dispensed not only with the previous generation’s fascination with historical context in favor of close reading, but also with the traditionalist concerns for beauty and moral improvement, which were regarded as subjective and emotionally driven. Spare, complex prose, focused on the darker side of society, was in vogue. Into this context dropped 1,200 pages of Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits in a grand battle of good and evil. They were greeted with the sort of enthusiasm one can imagine.

Edmund Wilson called the books “balderdash,” a battle between “Good people and Goblins.” The book’s morality was a sticking point even for the most sympathetic critics, with Edwin Muir lamenting that “his good people are consistently good, his evil figures immovably evil.”

I’ve read many variations on Muir’s claim over the years, especially once George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” became a dominant cultural influence, and it never ceases to be puzzling. There are various ways in which Tolkien refuses realism, and his books are in no way gritty or sexy in the contemporary style. But the idea that he wasn’t interested in the territory between good and evil is belied by even the most superficial reading of the story.

Yes, there is a mostly offstage villain, Sauron, whose evil seems fixed; yes, Sauron’s Orcish armies are fairly described as immovably depraved; yes, there is a set of characters who are unfailingly heroic despite various doubts and temptations. But between the “consistently good” and the “immovably evil” lies the zone in which most of the trilogy’s drama takes place — the corruption of the wizard Saruman, the fatal temptation of Boromir, the despair and subsequent redemption of Théoden, the curdled conservatism of Denethor and above all the complicated and tortured relationship between Frodo and Gollum, and within Gollum’s own divided consciousness. The Frodo-Gollum dynamic certainly features goodness and heroism, but not in any naïve way, and it ends with divine providence engineering the world’s salvation (though not its full redemption) through and despite their mutual corruption by the ring.

Read it all.

A while back I wrote some brief thoughts on Tolkien & his possible influence on English stasis. Here @DouthatNYT notes that I perhaps "[undersell] how much Tolkien subjected his own pastoral nostalgia to critique", which is a fair amendment, I think. https://t.co/yKApbFAJhp

— Niall Gooch 👍🇻🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🚅🏏✒ (@niall_gooch) September 11, 2023

I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment, and are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear.

–Philippians 1:12-14

Incredible. A vibrant double rainbow over New York City on the evening of 9/11. #NeverForget 🇺🇸 Amazing photo via Patrick McBride pic.twitter.com/sWcrB35t0G

— Ed Piotrowski (@EdPiotrowski) September 12, 2023

President and Mrs. Bush, I want to say a personal word on behalf of many people. Thank you, Mr. President, for calling this day of prayer and remembrance. We needed it at this time.

We come together today to affirm our conviction that God cares for us, whatever our ethnic, religious, or political background may be. The Bible says that He’s the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles. No matter how hard we try, words simply cannot express the horror, the shock, and the revulsion we all feel over what took place in this nation on Tuesday morning. September eleven will go down in our history as a day to remember.

Today we say to those who masterminded this cruel plot, and to those who carried it out, that the spirit of this nation will not be defeated by their twisted and diabolical schemes. Someday, those responsible will be brought to justice, as President Bush and our Congress have so forcefully stated. But today we especially come together in this service to confess our need of God. Today we say to those who masterminded this cruel plot, and to those who carried it out, that the spirit of this nation will not be defeated by their twisted and diabolical schemes. Someday, those responsible will be brought to justice, as President Bush and our Congress have so forcefully stated. But today we especially come together in this service to confess our need of God.

We’ve always needed God from the very beginning of this nation, but today we need Him especially. We’re facing a new kind of enemy. We’re involved in a new kind of warfare. And we need the help of the Spirit of God. The Bible words are our hope: God is our refuge and strength; an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

But how do we understand something like this? Why does God allow evil like this to take place? Perhaps that is what you are asking now. You may even be angry at God. I want to assure you that God understands these feelings that you may have. We’ve seen so much on our television, on our ”” heard on our radio, stories that bring tears to our eyes and make us all feel a sense of anger. But God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest.

But what are some of the lessons we can learn? First, we are reminded of the mystery and reality of evil. I’ve been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept by faith that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. The Bible says that God is not the author of evil. It speaks of evil as a mystery. In 1st Thessalonians 2:7 it talks about the mystery of iniquity. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Who can understand it?” He asked that question, ‘Who can understand it?’ And that’s one reason we each need God in our lives.

The lesson of this event is not only about the mystery of iniquity and evil, but secondly it’s a lesson about our need for each other. What an example New York and Washington have been to the world these past few days. None of us will ever forget the pictures of our courageous firefighters and police, many of whom have lost friends and colleagues; or the hundreds of people attending or standing patiently in line to donate blood. A tragedy like this could have torn our country apart. But instead it has united us, and we’ve become a family. So those perpetrators who took this on to tear us apart, it has worked the other way; it’s back lashed. It’s backfired. We are more united than ever before. I think this was exemplified in a very moving way when the members of our Congress stood shoulder to shoulder the other day and sang “God Bless America.”

Finally, difficult as it may be for us to see right now, this event can give a message of hope–hope for the present, and hope for the future. Yes, there is hope. There’s hope for the present, because I believe the stage has already been set for a new spirit in our nation. One of the things we desperately need is a spiritual renewal in this country. We need a spiritual revival in America. And God has told us in His word, time after time, that we are to repent of our sins and return to Him, and He will bless us in a new way. But there’s also hope for the future because of God’s promises. As a Christian, I hope not for just this life, but for heaven and the life to come. And many of those people who died this past week are in heaven right now. And they wouldn’t want to come back. It’s so glorious and so wonderful. And that’s the hope for all of us who put our faith in God. I pray that you will have this hope in your heart.

This event reminds us of the brevity and the uncertainty of life. We never know when we too will be called into eternity. I doubt if even one those people who got on those planes, or walked into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon last Tuesday morning thought it would be the last day of their lives. It didn’t occur to them. And that’s why each of us needs to face our own spiritual need and commit ourselves to God and His will now.

Here in this majestic National Cathedral we see all around us symbols of the cross. For the Christian–I’m speaking for the Christian now–the cross tells us that God understands our sin and our suffering. For He took upon himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, our sins and our suffering. And from the cross, God declares “I love you. I know the heart aches, and the sorrows, and the pains that you feel, but I love you.” The story does not end with the cross, for Easter points us beyond the tragedy of the cross to the empty tomb. It tells us that there is hope for eternal life, for Christ has conquered evil, and death, and hell. Yes, there’s hope.

I’ve become an old man now. And I’ve preached all over the world. And the older I get, the more I cling to that hope that I started with many years ago, and proclaimed it in many languages to many parts of the world. Several years ago at the National Prayer Breakfast here in Washington, Ambassador Andrew Young, who had just gone through the tragic death of his wife, closed his talk with a quote from the old hymn, “How Firm A Foundation.” We all watched in horror as planes crashed into the steel and glass of the World Trade Center. Those majestic towers, built on solid foundations, were examples of the prosperity and creativity of America. When damaged, those buildings eventually plummeted to the ground, imploding in upon themselves. Yet underneath the debris is a foundation that was not destroyed. Therein lies the truth of that old hymn that Andrew Young quoted: “How firm a foundation.”

Yes, our nation has been attacked. Buildings destroyed. Lives lost. But now we have a choice: Whether to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people, and a nation, or, whether we choose to become stronger through all of the struggle to rebuild on a solid foundation. And I believe that we’re in the process of starting to rebuild on that foundation. That foundation is our trust in God. That’s what this service is all about. And in that faith we have the strength to endure something as difficult and horrendous as what we’ve experienced this week.

This has been a terrible week with many tears. But also it’s been a week of great faith. Churches all across the country have called prayer meetings. And today is a day that they’re celebrating not only in this country, but in many parts of the world. And the words of that familiar hymn that Andrew Young quoted, it says, “Fear not, I am with thee. Oh be not dismayed for I am thy God and will give thee aid. I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand upon “thy righteous, omnipotent hand.”

My prayer today is that we will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around us and will know in our hearts that He will never forsake us as we trust in Him. We also know that God is going to give wisdom, and courage, and strength to the President, and those around him. And this is going to be a day that we will remember as a day of victory. May God bless you all.

🇺🇸 In Memoriam #September11 pic.twitter.com/0tnKjDTywR

— William Reymond (@WilliamReymond) September 11, 2023

And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jerobo′am was standing by the altar to burn incense. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josi′ah by name; and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and men’s bones shall be burned upon you.’” And he gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign that the Lord has spoken: ‘Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.’” And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jerobo′am stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Lay hold of him.” And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself. The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king said to the man of God, “Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.” And the man of God entreated the Lord; and the king’s hand was restored to him, and became as it was before. And the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me, and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.” And the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place; for so was it commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘You shall neither eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way that you came.’” So he went another way, and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.

–1 Kings 13:1-10

In a few days, we will mark 22 years since the 9/11 attacks. An entire generation has grown up in that time and it is our mission to share with them the stories of loss, bravery, compassion, and service we experienced in response.

Every 9/11 is a chance to fulfill our promise… pic.twitter.com/BSNntwVYPp

— 9/11 Memorial & Museum (@Sept11Memorial) September 9, 2023

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
So I have looked upon thee in the sanctuary, beholding thy power and glory.
Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee.

–Psalm 63:1-3

A touch of morning drama on the farm – have a wonderful Sunday, friends #ScotlandisNow #StormHour #photography #photooftheday #landscape #OutAndAboutScotland #landscapephotography @VisitScotland @ScotsMagazine #friends #ThePhotoHour #stvsnaps #beautiful pic.twitter.com/Tl8Yh3cwsk

— Mike Wood (@MikeMikwd) September 10, 2023

Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives the early and the late rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble, brethren, against one another, that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the doors. As an example of suffering and patience, brethren, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we call those happy who were steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.

–James 5:7-12

This mornings sunrise was something else! This was the view in Murrells Inlet. 📷 @MurrellsInletPh #SCwx @wmbfnews pic.twitter.com/W5me1GyrLh

— Jamie Arnold WMBF (@jamiearnoldWMBF) September 9, 2023

The US House of Representatives China committee plans to hold a Taiwan war game with financial and business executives in New York on Monday, in an effort to raise awareness about the risks attached to Americans investing in China.

Mike Gallagher, the Republican head of the panel, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, its top Democrat, will lead the delegation, according to a person close to the committee.

The war-game participants include representatives from investment banks, in addition to current and former executives from pharmaceutical companies and retired four-star US military officers. The committee declined to name the financial executives who will participate.

The bipartisan delegation will also meet other financial executives in New York, as the committee steps up its scrutiny of how American investment in China could undermine US national security. On Tuesday they have scheduled a hearing that will include testimony from former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Jay Clayton and Jim Chanos, the hedge fund short seller.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

US House panel plans Taiwan war game with Wall Street executives https://t.co/6majRMqQAH

— Financial Times (@FT) September 8, 2023

Nyamut Gai lost everything four years ago when armed militias stormed through her village in South Sudan, a landlocked African country tormented by civil war, famine and flooding.

Desperate, she and her family fled almost 600 miles north across the border to Sudan, where she worked as a cleaner in the capital, Khartoum, and began to settle in. But then, a fierce war broke out in Sudan in mid-April between rival factions of the military, sending her packing yet again.

As she and her family made the weekslong journey by foot and bus from Khartoum, her 1-month-old son began coughing and withering away from hunger, and soon died. When she finally crossed the border into South Sudan, any sense of relief she felt was shattered when her 3-year-old son succumbed to measles.

“We are not safe anywhere,” Ms. Gai, 28, said on a recent morning at a muddy and congested aid center in Renk, a town in South Sudan.

Read it all.

Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese fled a grisly civil war years ago to settle in Sudan. With war now raging in Sudan, they are streaming home to a country ill-prepared to take them back. https://t.co/0u0yV1Hu22

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) September 7, 2023

Two years ago, Bishop Richard Frith started visiting the diocese of Winchester, shortly before his appointment as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Episcopal Commissary. The term that he uses to describe the people he met is “shell-shocked”.

In September 2021, the month of the first visits, just two months had passed since the resignation of the Bishop of Winchester, Dr Tim Dakin (News, 23 July 2021). He had “stepped back” in the previous May (News, 20 May 2021), after the threat of a vote of no confidence in the diocesan synod. The motion referred to “allegations of poor behaviour and mistreatment on his part of a number of individuals”, and described the governance and financial management of the diocese as “unfit for purpose”.

“It was pretty unknown for such a thing to have happened,” Bishop Frith recalls. “What on earth was going to happen next? There was a lot of uncertainty.”

These were, indeed, unprecedented events. More than 40 members of the diocesan synod had supported the motion, while one of Dr Dakin’s appointed suffragans, the Bishop of Basingstoke, the Rt Revd David Williams, had presented concerns to Lambeth Palace and the Bishop of London.

Read it all.

Two years on from Bishop Tim Dakin’s resignation & with a new Bishop appointed I’ve got a long read in todays paper about the diocese of Winchester. As one person put it, there are many stories to be told https://t.co/ZSspWN8XGh

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) September 8, 2023

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain”; whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

–James 4:13-17

Windermere wander 💕🥾#LakeDistrict pic.twitter.com/r0IEzktzRZ

— Claudine (@BreenClaudine1) September 8, 2023

The founder of Soul Survivor, Canon Mike Pilavachi, exhibited “coercive and controlling behaviour” that led to inappropriate relationships, the physical wrestling of youths, and the massaging of young male interns, the Church of England’s safeguarding investigation has concluded.

First announced in April (News, 6 April), the investigation was conducted by the National Safeguarding Team (NST) and the diocese of St Albans. It has concluded that the safeguarding concerns reported to it are “substantiated”. They relate to Canon Pilavachi’s conduct in leadership and ministry, both before and after his ordination in 2012, and span 40 years, from his time as a youth leader at St Andrew’s, Chorleywood, to the current day.

The NST has been granted permission to bring a complaint under the Clergy Discipline Measure against Canon Pilavachi, “relating to a safeguarding concern post ordination”.

Read it all.

Our report up now: https://t.co/Akznr00GUB

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) September 7, 2023

Yet French Muslims often feel that such rules unfairly target Islam. The new abaya ban, says Muslim Rights Action, a French anti-discrimination group that is trying to overturn the decision, risks stigmatising Muslim pupils and introducing ethnic profiling. The new rule has won approval on the right and far-right, although it has divided the left, parts of which also remain firmly attached to the defence of laïcité.

The government argues that it is trying to minimise discrimination in the classroom by keeping religious faith out. It is not a question of casual clothing choices, it says, but a response to an attempt to spread hardline political Islamism in France. Gilles Kepel, a scholar of Islamism, says the wearing of the abaya in schools is part of an Islamist strategy “to test the limits” in France. In the face of new pressures, the government says, headteachers need to have more powers to enforce secular rules. Liberals outside France will, as ever, find the rule a baffling distraction. The French consider that their country’s secular character is at stake.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

To liberal multiculturalists, France's ban on the abaya in state schools looks like an infringement of the right to religious expression. To its defenders, the safeguarding of France's secular tradition is at stake@TheEconomisthttps://t.co/Kywo2RO0LV

— Sophie Pedder (@PedderSophie) September 7, 2023

Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over him who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

–Psalm 37:7-8

Who doesn’t love a misty sunrise? @theroyalparks #BushyPark #sunrisephotography #sunrise #mistymorning #mist #thursdaythrowback pic.twitter.com/cjylxzXL97

— Ruth Wadey (@ruths_gallery) September 7, 2023

Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

–Psalm 38:21-22

The most incredible sky this morning. Taken from Glastonbury Tor about 20 minutes after sunrise. Glastonbury is a very special place and today was a reminder of that. pic.twitter.com/4Akfo1nnTx

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) September 6, 2023

And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the maids of the high priest came; and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him, and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway.[a] And the maid saw him, and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” But again he denied it. And after a little while again the bystanders said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.” But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” And immediately the cock crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

–Mark 14:66-72

Who's been enjoying the sunshine in the #YorkshireDales? ✋ It looks like it's going to be another scorcher today! 😎

This photograph was taken previously on a similar morning – #Buttertubs Pass looking towards #Swaledale.

Enjoy your day!

📸 Alex William Helin pic.twitter.com/SkZXO5FImi

— Yorkshire Dales National Park (@yorkshire_dales) September 5, 2023

When all the children of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the earth on the pavement, and worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying,
“For he is good,⁰ for his steadfast love endures for ever.” 2… pic.twitter.com/B2jWJ7E51a

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) September 4, 2023

Worshippers at one of the churches united with Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB), have expressed “extreme disquiet” to the Vicar, the Revd Archie Coates, about his stance on blessings for same-sex couples.

At the start of July, Mr Coates was among 27 signatories to a letter, shown to the Church Times, which argued that it was “unlawful, unconstitutional, and illegitimate” for the Bishops to commend the Prayers of Love and Faith. The letter said that they should instead be subject to a process of formal synodical authorisation (News, 7 July).

The signatories included three other prominent figures in the HTB network of churches, including Mr Coates’s predecessor, the Revd Nicky Gumbel. A footnote stated that individuals were “signing in their personal capacities, recognising they cannot claim to speak for everyone that they lead”.

Notwithstanding this caveat, their contribution marked the first public statement on the prayers by members of HTB’s leadership. The Prayers of Love and Faith work was approved in outline by the General Synod in February (Synod, 17 February) and the business is due to return to the Synod in November (News, 22 June).

Read it all.

“As a group of worshippers within the parish we must strongly disassociate ourselves from this letter and we would like you to know that it is causing us extreme disquiet.” https://t.co/eeJK1QqF4J

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 30, 2023