For those of us who are parents, and especially fathers, a great song. (Note carefully that although Josh Turner sings it, the song was written by Steven Dale Jones and Phillip White)–KSH.

For those who think country music has to be about longing and loss, Josh Turner has released an album that might change a few minds. Haywire contains one love song after another, delivered with a lot of energy through deep and rich vocals.

“A lot of times, when I try to describe this record to someone who hasn’t heard it yet … it would be energy,” Turner says.

Blender magazine has called Turner a “country Barry White,” and his song “Why Don’t We Just Dance” currently sits atop Billboard’s country singles chart. The album came out just five days before Valentine’s Day, though Turner says the timing wasn’t planned that way.

This is a wonderful interview–listen to it all.

It’s become common in secular society in the past decade for observers, like me, to highlight the strong link between sports and religion.
That connection is even more pronounced with the Olympics, which originated in ancient Greece as a decidedly sacred series of events.
Still, the argument connecting sports to a civil religion has been largely based on external similarities. Thinkers note that sports, like religion, has ritual, builds community, provides purpose, has codes of ethics and requires faith (in one’s favorite team or the potential for victory).
“Sports resemble narrative art, myth and religious ritual. That is, they require that one give oneself over to a story in which the elements of human experience are distilled, displayed and integrated into a pattern of meaning that stirs the heart and quickens the soul,” writes Andrew Cooper in Playing in the Zone.
But what happens in sports at an even more intimate and individual level? What is the inner link between sports and spirituality?

Read it all.

The Whistler track where Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili died Friday is being changed to lessen a dangerous curve.

Late on Friday night, just after the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, the International Luge Federation said training would resume this weekend after the wall where Kumaritashvili went out of control and slammed into an exposed metal pillar is raised and the track’s ice profile raised.

Vanoc released a statement saying both the BC Coroners Service and FIL officials had investigated the accident. The federation concluded Kumaritashvili failed to make a correction once he entered the final curve and slammed into the pillar.

Read it all and this is a nice photo.

[Peter Kennedy] doesn’t believe in the priesthood anymore, nor the virgin birth, nor the infallibility of the Pope. In fact, he doubts that Jesus ever existed and although he is the spiritual leader of a 500-strong Christian community, he says he no longer prays because there’s “no one to pray to.”

“We have made God in our own image. I can’t believe in a God that grants some people miracles but punishes others, but I do think there is something more, but what it is, I have no idea.”

The controversial and charismatic ex-priest, who made headlines last year when he refused to leave St Mary’s as instructed by his Bishop, will preach tomorrow at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Simpson Street, North Rockhampton.

Last night he launched his book ”“ Peter Kennedy. The Man Who Threatened Rome ”“ at the same venue, as part of a nationwide promotional tour which will include Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne later this month.

Read it all.

Gender and sexuality have caused divisions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Same-sex unions are upheld in some churches and not in others; the same is true for gay clergy. While there are more than 3,300 churches that affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender congregants, 57 percent of Protestant clergy hardly ever discuss issues specific to the gay and lesbian community.

But according to “Sexuality and Religion 2020,” a report released this week, they probably should.

The report was published by the Westport, Conn.-based Religious Institute, a national interfaith network of more than 5,000 clergy and religious leaders.

On Tuesday, the report’s authors described a “disconnect between religion and sexuality in America” and called for churches, synagogues and seminaries to work on narrowing the divide between faith and sex in the next decade.

Read it all.

[Brian] Prior says he is impressed with the diversity of Minnesota congregations.

“Part of the beauty of this diocese is that inclusive nature of it whether you are talking about the ethnic diversity, the sexual orientation diversity or age diversity,” he said.

He’s looking forward to hearing from congregations around the state about how they can work together to help the church grow.

Read it all.

As we sought to hear what the Scriptures are saying to us at this present moment, at the same time we listened to stories both from the Bishops and from civil society about what is happening in the nations within our Province. There are clear signs of spiritual growth and much that is happening for which we give thanks to God.

However, we have also been disturbed by some of the reports we have received, that suggest that there are common threads running through all the countries within our Province, threads that appear to be unravelling in worrying ways.

We believe that those in power are called by God to wise leadership and exemplary lifestyle, exercised on behalf of all God’s people and for their upliftment and betterment ”“ as St Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans. Of particular importance within God’s economy are the poor, and those who live on the margins of society. It is our observation that, though lip-service is widely paid to the notion of social upliftment, the reality is that most of the leaders of our respective nations seem more committed to self enrichment than poverty eradication.

We have listened to accounts of unbridled greed, a greed that is not simply limited to those in political power. Nevertheless, we are especially concerned at the levels of greed of those in power, and at the manner in which political processes are manipulated and co-opted in the pursuit of self enrichment. This has resulted in a serious undermining of democratic values to the point where, in some places, such values are non-existent. We were distressed to hear of people living below the poverty datum line in the oil rich country of Angola, and of the huge number of people struggling to exist on less than $2 a day in Swaziland, where the average per capita income is over $5,000 per annum. In some of the nations within our Province, this quest for self enrichment has given rise to blatant abuses of power to the point where, in Swaziland, for example, political leaders stifle all attempts at dialogue and silence opposition, preferring instead to rule by threats and intimidation.

Read it all.

Yours truly in a recent teaching.

But the true test of the Anglican Church in North America’s status and stature will come with time, said Peter Williams, a religious scholar who teaches at Miami University in Ohio.

“Technically, it’s a new denomination,” he said, citing its size and ties to other religious groups inside and outside of the Communion.

Whether it blossoms as one depends on full recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury – and if it can keep growing during the next couple of decades.

New religious movements usually rely on charismatic leadership. It’s when those leaders retire, like Duncan, that they often face deeper challenges.

“Whether they can keep the momentum going to rebuild and retain membership remains to be seen,” Williams said. “It depends if they develop leadership that is sustainable.”

Read it all.

High resolution–wow.

As many as 50,000 Lowcountry residents are without power this morning as a result of the snow.

An estimated 12,500 people are without power in Charleston and 14,000 more in the Summerville area, according to SCE&G.

Berkeley County Electric Co-op is reporting another 20,000 outages, down from more than 32,000 at its peak early this morning.

The Highway Patrol is urging motorists to stay off the icy and slushy roads unless absolutely necessary.

We lost power and have lots of downed limbs. The yard is a winter wonderland. Wow. Read it all.

Update: The local newspaper photogallery is here and local residents sent in photos there.

Check them out.

It is an amazing city–I lived there in graduate school from 1982-1984–KSH.

The Methodist Church is prepared to be absorbed by the Church of England if that is the price of unity, Britain’s most senior Methodist said yesterday.

The Rev David Gamble, president of the Methodist Conference, told the General Synod of the Church of England, meeting at Church House, Westminster: “We are prepared to go out of existence, not because we are declining or failing in mission, but for the sake of mission.” Methodists were “prepared to be changed and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church” if that served the needs of the Kingdom of God.

Read it all.

Wow.

General Synod heard that public figures such as Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, use a “crude caricature” of faith to depict worshippers as “blind” and “irrational”.

Clergy and lay members of the Church said it was perfectly possible to believe in God and Darwin’s theory of evolution, and said that religion can explain areas of existence that science cannot.

Read it all.