Amy Monsky had wrestled since high school with the God she had been raised to believe. She couldn’t understand how God would judge her for making her own decisions when he himself had equipped her with a brain to think and find her own way. Ultimately she concluded that she didn’t believe in a God. Besides, whether she believed or not, the existence of God, she pondered, could not be known. Those two things made her both an agnostic and an atheist, labels she grew comfortable embracing.

Yet, when she moved to Charleston ten years ago she was greeted by a sea of religious fervor and a resulting sense of alienation. Surrounded, at her young children’s school where she volunteered, by mothers who spoke constantly about the church they attended and whose communities were church-driven, Monsky felt lonely.

“I had no one to share my views with. I hemmed and hawed, but I never outed myself,” Monsky said, borrowing from gay civil rights terminology. “It felt very oppressive. Not only did everyone go to church, but they believed that belief in God was necessary to be a good person. … I got lonelier and lonelier.”

Read it all.

This Sunday we welcome The Right Rev. Jacob W. Kwashi, Bishop of the Diocese of Zonkwa, Abuja Province, Kaduna State, Nigeria and brother to Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi, who has visited CSP on many occasions. He is also the uncle of Archdeacon Mark Mukan who visited CSP back in October.

You can find the Christ St. Pauls parish website here and directions there.

You can read more about Jeff there and you can read about St Philip’s there.

The fraction found in both the Rite I and Rite II services in our 1979 Book of Common Prayer happens immediately following the Lord’s Prayer and before the invitation to and distribution of Communion. The Celebrant breaks the consecrated bread and then says, “[Alleluia.] Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” The congregation then replies, “Therefore let us keep the feast. [Alleluia.]” Now, this statement comes from Scripture, specifically 1 Corinthians 5:7. Well, actually it is a mistranslation of what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7, which is found only in the King James Version. The specific word that is mistranslated is the Greek word etuthe, which means a sacrifice that was completed in the past. Therefore, in most English translations, 1 Corinthians 5:7 is translated, “Christ, our Passover has been or was sacrificed.”

Now, why would this mistranslation make its way into the 1979 Book of Common Prayer when this form and placement of the fraction was never in any Anglican Prayer Book prior?

Read it all (if you need to know more about Peet Dickson see there).

The Anglican Leadership Institute is an outgrowth of the Mere Anglicanism Conference that has been held in Charleston, SC for several years.

Bishop Mark Lawrence, in his 2014 Convention Address, called for the creation of a leadership training initiative that would bring future leaders in the Anglican Communion to South Carolina for periods of study, teaching, reflection and nurture.

The South Carolina Session was created in response to this call, offering men and women with a proven track of ministry a chance to spend a month in community under the guidance of expert leaders who have exercised faithful and effective ministry in their own contexts.

(The Anglican Leadership Institute Meets at the “Castle” in Sullivan’s Island, SC.)
You can read more about the program here.

.@PCEditorials: Why we need #MartinLutherKingDay. https://t.co/AzGp7NplBn #chsnews pic.twitter.com/RJ0LfAK32C

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) January 18, 2016

The slaying of nine people as they studied the Bible at Mother Emanuel AME Church touched Charleston in profound ways: the horror of the hate-filled act, the fear that raw racism lurks where we least expect it, and the desire to see that nothing like that happens again here.

But most profound was the response of victims’ families, who didn’t speak in anger, as would have been justified. Instead they spoke of forgiveness ”” the message they learned in Bible studies and from church elders.

And the message of peace and love they also heard in the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King.

Read it all.

Standing in front of Madeleine’s church are more than a dozen people who all look different. A heart is between each person.

Madeleine’s currently working on another drawing, this one of a group of dogs sitting in a field of grass.

“Being colorblind is awesome. You should give it a try,” is written across the top of the page.

Melanie says her family is active in the community, adding that she and her husband try to teach their two children the importance of kindness.

“I was talking to them about love and forgiveness and hope,” Melanie said. “And Madeleine said ‘I love the world HOPE for our little project we are doing. What else could it stand for?'”

Read it all.

We would appreciate your prayers.

Folks are still taking about how beautiful the service was at Christ Saint Paul’s Yonges Island, SC, as we gathered for a special and moving feast of lights in the darkened sanctuary, then from the Christ Candle, brought light to the church, people, and world as we burned our Christmas greenery. Many thanks to those who helped make the festivities afterward fun with the Kings cake, Oysters, and Chili.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Alabama saw the right look since the first quarter for a pooch kick opportunity. Alabama practiced the kick once a week all year. Alabama felt the game slipping away. And Alabama executed the play perfectly.

The Process worked. In the process, Saban brought his own guts and smiled at the result.

“I thought we had it in the game any time we wanted to do it,” Saban said. “I made the decision to do it because the score was (24-24) and we were tired on defense and weren’t doing a great job of getting them stopped, and I felt like if we didn’t do something or take a chance to change the momentum of the game that we wouldn’t have a chance to win.”

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

Gov. Nikki Haley wants to spend $19 million to hire 144 prosecutors so that police officers no longer are the ones prosecuting domestic violence cases in South Carolina.

Haley unveiled a number of requests and executive orders in a press conference Thursday aimed at reducing instances of domestic violence in South Carolina, which has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for the rate of women murdered by men.

South Carolina is one of three states in the country where police officers ”” not lawyers ”” prosecute domestic violence crimes in the courtroom.

Read it all from the local paper.

McIntosh shielded her three sons from much of the domestic violence in their home. She hoped to keep her marriage intact until her youngest son graduated from high school.

“I kept thinking it would get better because I knew the good person in there,” McIntosh said. “I knew I wanted to keep a home for my boys and wanted to keep us together.”

Finally, Tracy Swinney told his mother she had to leave his father. They divorced, and the family’s home was foreclosed. When Dabo learned his parents were divorcing, he cried in the field house at his high school.

Read it all and enjoy the video also.

I know, you forgot, or you are not sure. But here is a great (and amazingly timely) topic and a chance to visit one of America’s great cities for worship and spiritual nourishment at the start of the year–KSH.

One of the greatest challenges for Christians at the dawn of the 21st century is the power and influence of Islam. As the world’s two great missionary religions, Christianity and Islam are often at odds with one another, and the tension can at times feel palpable. How are we as Christians to respond to the threat and challenge of this growing and energetic religion? What should be the Church’s reaction in light of the Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all men? What does the Apostle Paul mean when he reminds believers that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds”? Join us this year at Mere Anglicanism as we explore “The Cross and the Crescent: The Gospel and the Challenge of Islam.”

Read it all and look through the list of speakers.

…there are three ways we can make Christmas Eve if not perfect then at least good. These come down to us from the pages of the Bible.

First, a good Christmas Eve is when God’s Savior is received. Hear the words of the Angelic messenger: “Do not be afraid.” Though sin, guilt and shame lurk in the closets and storage rooms of our lives, though insecurities and imperfections are at every turn, and debts and failures abound””“”¦unto you is born a Savior”¦.” The One born in Bethlehem, who lived a perfect life in obedience to his Father dying a shameful death bearing the sins of the world, and rose from the tomb in the power of the Spirit, is alive today. He speaks a word to each of us: “Behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.” When we open to him, accepting his forgiveness, his perfection is draped over us and our true dignity is restored. In the words of a famous carol, “When charity stands watching/and faith holds wide the door/the dark night wakes, the glory breaks/and Christmas comes once more.”….

Read it all.

A grandmother shot by a stranger while going out for lunch. A mother of three whose car was riddled with bullets fired by people who mistook her for someone else. Nine targeted by a gunman during a Bible study because of their race.

A steady wave of violence touched victims from many walks of life in the greater Charleston area, making 2015 one of the deadliest years in modern history.

In Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties, 77 people were slain, surpassing the 2014 total by 10 killings and matching the area’s 15-year high set in 2006, according to The Post and Courier’s homicide database. Dorchester County, typically the most peaceful, saw more than twice the slayings it recorded in 2014. There, a special law enforcement team formed because of the violence will soon hit the streets in hopes of suppressing crime.

Read it all from the local paper.

South Carolina’s population is now greater than Alabama’s, making the Palmetto State the nation’s 23rd largest, thanks to all the new residents pouring in.

Growth has both pros and cons, but if it’s a popularity contest between states, South Carolina is among the winners.

What do you think?
New Census Bureau data shows that just four states saw greater domestic migration ”” more people moving in from other states than moving out ”” during the 12 months ending July 1.

Read it all.

You can listen directly here or download the MP3 there. Note carefully the Richard Dawkins reference.

Please keep the family the Rev. Martha Horn in your prayers. Martha died today, December 28, 2015, due to complications from cardiac arrest after a long battle with cancer.

Read it all.

This Christmas Eve at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul in mid-town Charleston, as in other parishes across our diocese and nation, children and their families will gather for the annual Christmas Pageant. Scripts that have been more or less memorized and rehearsed will be played out before the admiring eyes of family and friends. Performances will lurch forward in the usual manner. Archangels with wings and halos will stand in pulpits or announce with trembling voices from the lectern microphones: “Be not afraid, Behold I bring you good news of a great joy that will come to all the people”¦.” Shepherds will arrive at makeshift stables where the Holy Family gathers ”˜round a manger. Perhaps Shepherd #1 will speak his lines boldly and clearly; Shepherd #2’s muttered words will hardly be heard past the second pew; and Shepherd #3 will too obviously read his part from a page taped to the back of the stuffed lamb he nervously clutches to his chest. Of course there will be the normal missed lines”¦as well as the directions uttered from off stage. But there will also be those electrifying and unscripted moments that bring surprised laughter and joyous tears that every mother and father and grandparent cherishes””the unscripted and electrifying moments when grace and candlelight abounds.

There were such moments of course two thousand years ago when the interplay between God’s script and the unscripted response of his people played itself out on the world’s stage occurring as it did in a minor country, among a seemingly unimportant tribe; and yet with electrifying purpose (as astonishing as it may seem to the eyes of the skeptical) God through the incarnation and atoning work of Jesus Christ brought salvation for all people (Titus 2:11).

One scripted and yet unrehearsed moment was after the Angel Gabriel sent from God proclaimed to Mary the God-scripted-lines, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore, the child to be born will be holy””the Son of God.” And then the entire unseen heavenly host and all the rest of the created order of the universe held their collective breath and waited for Mary’s unscripted and unrehearsed lines which her few but godly years had been preparing her to speak: “Behold, I am the bondservant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Read it all.

“We’ve been praying for this little guy since October when we were matched with him for adoption from China. Since that time, the adoption process has been steamrolling along and we are now all set to travel and pick him up”¦on December 23!

It has been a blur these past few week, but we are ready and excited to make the trip across the globe and pick up the newest member of our family. And, yes, we are all going ”“ Tyler, Lanier, and all the kids, along with Tyler’s parents ”“ for the two week trek to China!…”

You can read the rest here and there.

Six months have passed since Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed nine parishioners at an Emanuel AME Church Bible study.

The funerals are over. The flowers and tributes have thinned out on the Calhoun Street church’s sidewalk. President Barack Obama and his press corps have long since left town.

Charleston is trying to move toward normal again, but Deborah Stewart still misses Myra Thompson.

“She wasn’t just my sister-in-law,” Stewart said. “She was my friend.”

Read it all (and note the headline used above is from the print edition).

One of the greatest challenges for Christians at the dawn of the 21st century is the power and influence of Islam. As the world’s two great missionary religions, Christianity and Islam are often at odds with one another, and the tension can at times feel palpable. How are we as Christians to respond to the threat and challenge of this growing and energetic religion? What should be the Church’s reaction in light of the Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all men? What does the Apostle Paul mean when he reminds believers that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds”? Join us this year at Mere Anglicanism as we explore “The Cross and the Crescent: The Gospel and the Challenge of Islam.”

Read it all and look through the list of speakers.

In AA, you always introduce yourself by name and say,“… and I am an alcoholic.” Amongst other things, the Twelve Steps requires you to admit your own powerlessness and to turn your life over to the care of God. I know I am still an alcoholic ”“ my sponsor in AA has been sober for thirty years, and he is still an alcoholic too”“but I’m a grateful alcoholic, because I found Jesus.

One Sunday last Fall I came to St. John’s Parish for the first time; they were asking for help with the Feeding of the Multitude, so I signed up. I’ve been part of St. John’s ever since. Sometimes I attend services in the church, and other times I go to Walton Hall ”“ I love to sing There Is Power In The Blood ”“ but it doesn’t matter where I go, He is with me. It is phenomenal what Christ has done for me, the joy He’s given me.I regret missing it for so long.I can’t start over,but I can make a new beginning. Now I’m trying to be sensitive to see what His purpose is for the rest of my life.

Read it all (page 3).

On Tuesday (Dec, 15), the Conference of National Black Churches, a decades-old black church organization, will host the latest such interracial religious gathering in the city where the shooting occurred in June.

More than 300 clergy and community leaders are expected to attend the three-day (Dec. 15-17) conference. It will include a worship service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the place where the Bible study was being held. Dylann Roof, the white suspect in the killings, who had hoped to “start a race war,” has been charged with federal hate crimes.

“We’re not going to be able to resolve the issues of racism alone, whether it is the black church alone or the white church alone,” said the Rev. Marvin McMickle, president of Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, who will speak at the meeting. “I think both hands have to be on the plow.”

Read it all.

The week after the shooting at Mother Emanuel, Bible study was so crowded every chair in the basement was taken. Black people. White people. Members of the national media. People had to stand in the back against the walls.

The world watched in awe as the nine victims’ family members publicly forgave the white supremacist accused of murdering their loved ones in the sanctuary of their beloved church. So moved, pilgrims flocked to Emanuel, leaving a parade of flowers, cards, rosaries and balloons behind. President Barack Obama broke into song during his eulogy for slain pastor the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, singing “Amazing Grace” before thousands of mourners in Charleston’s TD Arena.

Almost six months later, the crowds aren’t as big as they once were. For Sunday’s church service, fire marshals no longer have to block the doors. Nowadays, maybe 25 or 30 folks will attend Bible study. Last Wednesday, 22 showed up.

Read it all.

When Larry Biddle’s Bible study group talked about holding on to faith amid hardship Wednesday night, he wasn’t expecting a firsthand lesson on the subject the following morning.

But as he examined the blackened portico of the office at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, the longtime member recalled the previous night’s message.

“There’s strength in struggle,” said Biddle, who has attended the church since the 1980s. “And trials and tribulations is where you find the Lord’s blessings.”

The 200 members of St. Paul’s hope the blessings come soon.

Read it all.

More than four decades of territorial expansion ”” much of it hard-fought and controversial ”” transformed Charleston from an 8-square-mile urban enclave with a shrinking population into a 109-square-mile city with rural edges, bustling suburbs, and growing population that could soon overtake Columbia’s to become the state’s largest.

“I knew I had a responsibility to facilitate the city’s growth, in population and size,” said Riley, who was elected to the first of his 10 consecutive terms in City Hall in 1975. “A center city, to remain healthy, must be able to grow as the metropolitan area grows.”

His expansionist goals sometimes courted willing citizens happy to annex into the city, and at other times relied upon clever lawyers and secretive negotiations. Following a particularly large annexation ”” Daniel Island ”” opponents compared Riley to Saddam Hussein, the late Iraqi dictator whose attempt to annex oil-rich Kuwait sparked the first Gulf War.

Read it all.

Zohra Arastu migrated to the United States from India with her husband, a young surgeon, in 1976.

In addition to being an artist and a mother, she teaches American children how to read translations of the Quran properly. But recently, she has grown more concerned that U.S. presidential candidates are playing the race card against Muslims, preying on “Islamophobia” to gain votes.

“How do we make them stop?” she asked during a forum to promote cross-religious understanding at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia on Monday night. “They are undoing all that we are trying to do here.”

Read it all from The State newspaper in Columbia.