The United Methodist Church’s public policy agency can advocate on causes beyond alcoholism and temperance without violating the terms of its endowment, a District of Columbia judge ruled on Wednesday (Oct. 6).

Superior Court Judge Rhonda Reid Winston’s decision is the latest twist in a long-running debate in the UMC about how its General Board of Church and Society is funded and the positions it takes on political issues.

“This matter has been an enormous, unnecessary distraction,” Jim Winkler, the board’s chief executive, said in a statement. The board has for decades fought “predatory enterprises” such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling, he said.

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Religion in America is on the defensive.

Atheist books such as The God Delusion and The End of Faith have, by exposing the dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham, become best-sellers. Science nibbles at religion from the other end, relentlessly consuming divine explanations and replacing them with material ones. Evolution took a huge bite a while back, and recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head. We now know that the universe did not require a creator. Science is even studying the origin of morality. So religious claims retreat into the ever-shrinking gaps not yet filled by science. And, although to be an atheist in America is still to be an outcast, America’s fastest-growing brand of belief is non-belief.

But faith will not go gentle. For each book by a “New Atheist,” there are many others attacking the “movement” and demonizing atheists as arrogant, theologically ignorant, and strident. The biggest area of religious push-back involves science. Rather than being enemies, or even competitors, the argument goes, science and religion are completely compatible friends, each devoted to finding its own species of truth while yearning for a mutually improving dialogue.

As a scientist and a former believer, I see this as bunk….

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More churches and religious groups are conducting background checks and taking other steps to protect children against mistreatment in the wake of the sex abuse scandal that has plagued the Catholic Church for years.

Children’s advocates say not all background checks are equal, and warn religious groups they must be especially vigilant in screening clergy, volunteers and staff because their trusting communities are often targets for abusers.

Background checks should look into criminal databases at the local, state and federal levels and religious groups need other safety mechanisms in place, according to insurance companies. That’s because many pedophiles don’t have criminal records, either because they haven’t been caught or haven’t been prosecuted.

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The 13 churches that have joined the DCEH run the gamut: Lutheran, Unitarian, Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian and non-denominational.

“We also have a Jewish temple and two mosques as members,” said McAllister. “It’s rewarding to learn about different people’s beliefs and perspectives. It’s challenging sometimes, too, to be on the same page.”

Despite their differences, the churches find common ground in monthly meetings for the senior clergy, and meetings for steering and interfaith committee members. During the meetings, members share ideas, discuss advocacy, and brainstorm ways to educate or raise funds.

“For the last two years, each fall, we’ve set aside time in our congregations to talk about homelessness,” said McAllister. “There have been discussions on affordable housing, mental health, photography exhibits, films and forums. Last year over 1,000 people attended the forums.”

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When Ada Brown went to her first Dallas Mensa meeting, she half expected it to be full of slightly awkward geniuses with pocket protectors.

Instead, the former judge found a “lively, articulate cross section of people” she meets for dinner, aspiring author workshops, parties and game nights, says Brown, now an attorney who joined Mensa as an undergrad at Spelman College.

“Honestly, it doesn’t look like a convention out of Revenge of the Nerds,” she says with a laugh. “We do have that, but that’s not all. There’s a little of everything.”

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It is a very important week for the Bishop and the diocese; we appreciate your prayers.

You can read the proposed resolutions here.

I want to try to gain a different kind of perspective on the three great theological virtues of faith, hope and charity by seeing how they are dealt with by one of the great mystics of Christian history, the sixteenth-century Spanish friar St John of the Cross.

St John – like everybody else in his generation of Catholic theologians – takes for granted a picture of the human mind which sees it as working in three basic ways: the human mind understands, it remembers and it wants. Or, in more abstract terms, the human mind is made up of the interaction of understanding, memory and will.

And the distinctive and fresh insight that St John of the Cross offers, is that if you put together understanding, memory and will with faith, hope and charity you have a perfect picture of where we start and where we finish.

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The Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. is pleased to announce a competition for a prize of 1000.00. for the best essay on the following topic:

Discuss the rationale for one, authoritative Book of Common Prayer in the Church of England. Please make reference to the historic editions of the Prayer Book, the Thirty-Nine Articles, Ordinal, and/or the classical Anglican divines of the 16th and 17th centuries (i.e.Thomas Cranmer or Richard Hooker) in the course of formulating your argument.

For more information please visit http://www.pbsusa.org/index.php

In a letter dated October 6, 2010 the Rev. Canon David Roseberry, rector of Christ Church in Plano, TX, announced their intention to join the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh in order to affiliate with the Anglican Church in North America. Christ Church has actively supported the formation of the ACNA and continues to offer leadership and support for Anglican1000, a key initiative designed to encourage church planting in the ACNA. Since leaving the Episcopal Church in 2006, Christ Church has been canonically affiliated with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). When AMiA changed its status within the ACNA from fully integrated, diocesan member to ministry partner, which has less representation in the councils of the Church, Christ Church began to explore how it might stay within the North American provincial structure. The transfer has already received the green light from the Rt. Rev. Chuck Murphy, who currently provides episcopal oversight for Christ Church.

“We are looking forward to partnering more fully with Christ Church Plano in the coming months and years. We are especially delighted that the vestry and clergy of Christ Church consider the Diocese of Pittsburgh to be a fitting home for their mission and ministry in the season ahead,” commented the Most Rev. Robert Duncan, archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America and bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. He added, “Christ Church is a parish of immense talent and vision, and the administrative home of Anglican 1000. Dave Roseberry is one of North America’s great leaders and it will be a joy to welcome him and all the clergy of Christ Church into the leadership cadre of our diocese.”

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Gauguin first showed his mature style of solid, simplified shapes and bold, non-naturalistic colour in Vision of the Sermon. It was 1888, he was 40, and, unknown to himself, had under 15 years to live.

The painting is on show in London at the Tate Modern’s “Gauguin: Maker of Myth”. It belongs to the National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, where I usually look at it when I’m in the city.

It is a striking image, with its red ground and clumped white head-dresses in the foreground. But, stranger is its Christian religious theme. Gauguin drew up a scathing critique of the Catholic Church, summarised in L’esprit moderne et le catholicisme, written in 1898 in Tahiti. In it, he lambasted the blindness of Catholicism in the face of the rational claims of true science.

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… if, as appears to be the case, the overwhelming majority of homeowners facing foreclosure have fallen far behind on their payments, then it is a good deal harder to summon up the same moral outrage over reports that the banks and loan service companies cut corners, failed to keep the right documents and engaged in shoddy and even fraudulent practices. Just because the banks and servicers have screwed up doesn’t mean they and their investors are no longer entitled to get their money back.

Certainly banks and servicers should, at their own expense, be sent back to do things right. Those who engaged in fraud should be punished. And if there are legitimate questions about who owns a loan, those will need to be resolved before the proceeds of any foreclosure are distributed.

But none of that changes the basic reality that there are millions of Americans who took out mortgages they could not support on houses they could not afford. It may be necessary to postpone their day of reckoning for a few months to get the paperwork in order and ensure that all the proper procedures are followed, but the reckoning is inevitable.

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What is the biggest obstacle to the growth of the church in Britain today? Creeping secularisation? Richard Dawkins? Infighting over women bishops or gay clergy? Let me make another suggestion: how about the continued existence of pews?

For the first 1,500 years of the church’s life, pews were extremely rare. In most medieval churches people stood or sat on the floor, with only a narrow bench around the edge of the building for seating. Eastern Orthodox churches never got around to having pews ”“ still today in Russia and Greece, worshippers stand.

When they did gradually get introduced, pews were a mixed blessing. They were intimately connected with social division and hierarchy, with pews ranked according to social standing. The rich would have large grand stalls at the front and woe betide anyone who sat in the wrong one. They were exclusive then, and they are exclusive now. Pews today effectively exclude the 90 per cent of people who are not regular attenders of services.

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O God, who, calling Abraham to go forth to a country which thou wouldest show him, didst promise that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed: Fulfill thy promise in us, we pray thee, giving us such faith in thee as thou shalt count unto us for righteousness; that in us and through us thy purpose may be fulfilled; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–The Church of South India

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

The problem with [Michael] Gove’s plan to revive the literary canon in schools is that a generation entirely ignorant of the Christian faith is going to find it incredibly difficult ”” probably impossible ”” to get to grips with large chunks of our most famous literature.

How can you enjoy the wonderful poems of someone such as George Herbert without knowing the psalms on which they are based? How can you understand Milton if you know absolutely nothing of the Bible?

And that’s just the literature. When it comes to art, the iconography of our most famous paintings is even more suffused with Christianity. Listening to a few hymns on a CD and appearing in a nativity play are not going to imbue our children with the cultural tools they need to unlock Britain’s greatest writers and artists.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will embark on a 16 day visit to India from 9th to 24th October 2010 at the invitation of the Communion of Churches in India. The Archbishop will travel across several cities in India, including Kolkata, Ranchi, Nagpur, New Delhi, Chennai, Vellore, Bangalore and Thiruvananthapurum….

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Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, chief pastor of the world’s 2.4 million Episcopalians, downplayed the schism that has rocked the church over its liberal views on homosexuality and gay clergy, and emphasized the importance of mission and ministry both at home and abroad.

“We need to speak the good news where people can hear it,” said Jefferts Schori, who planned to visit some of the local diocese’s poverty ministries – The Gathering meal program, the Red Door clothing ministry and an indigent burial program – during her stay.

“One of my jobs is to tell the story of the good works being done here,” she said in brief remarks to local media at the diocese’s All Saints Cathedral downtown.

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You can read about it here where the introduction begins this way:

How has religious belief shaped American history? What role have religious ideas and spiritual experience played in shaping the social, political and cultural life of what has become the world’s most religiously diverse nation?

For the first time on television, God in America, a presentation of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and FRONTLINE, will explore the historical role of religion in the public life of the United States. The six-hour series, which interweaves documentary footage, historical dramatization and interviews with religious historians, will air over three consecutive nights on PBS beginning Oct. 11, 2010.

Read the whole thing at the link and you can watch a preview there also.

Let me confess that I am an Anglican, though not a terribly high one. Traditionalist clergy say their communion with the rest of the Church of England is impaired because most Church of England bishops are prepared to ordain women. Women’s ordination has become a central issue. But among the ranks of those who oppose women’s ordination are those who would turn a blind eye to issues other parts of the Church would rightly or wrongly say are deal-breakers ”“ gay civil partnerships for priests, for example. Devout women clergy argue that gay activity is prohibited in Scripture, whereas the case isn’t as clear regards women leaders. Traditionalist priests argue that female leadership is outlawed in scripture but these days the case isn’t clear as regards consenting long-term gay relationships. Either it’s not the end of the world (or the Church), or not everyone is one hundred per cent right, or God’s graciously holding it all together anyway.

Many of the traditionalist clerics who met in London last Friday are still pondering whether to join the Ordinariate, or the Society, or stay put in the Church of England, or become Catholic via the traditional route of instruction and reception. Some admit they are worried about loss of pensions and income. On the other hand, if a cleric believes the Anglican Communion is sick, how can he be salt and light to it by leaving it? On the other hand, as a man of God, are you not aspiring to be someone prepared to live out your convictions no matter what the cost? I’m not sure what the traditional Anglican bishops expected from a Church that, while pedestalising priests, puts them in shared houses, not vicarages, and pays them a fraction of the modest sum vicars earn in the Church of England.

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I rushed off to attend the press conference at Queen’s Park officially launching the campaign to ask the government to give a $100 healthy food supplement to each adult on Social Assistance. There was a small crowd but only a single reporter with a few camera people in the audience to hear the three panellists with me speak about the campaign and our experience. Breakfast had been instant oatmeal with milk ”” bland; and a small juice box. No coffee. I was tired and beginning to get cranky. …

The diet on offer is meagre. By noon I was hungry and tired. A photographer was going to snap pictures as I prepared lunch. It was more complicated than I thought. I had planned on soup with some milk and a tuna sandwich, eating half my allotted can. The milk had turned sour, so a package of microwavable noodles substituted. Just add boiling water, cover and wait. I added 1/4 of my one onion to the tuna but there would be no mayo or vinaigrette to moisten it, and no butter and lettuce for the bread. And what to do with the leftovers that I needed to save for Wednesday. If you can’t afford food, you won’t have plastic wrap. I took the groceries out of the bag and used that to cover the tuna and onion mix. I had planned to add cooked rice to stretch it out a bit and perhaps help moisten it. There was no way (or time) to cook the rice. I hadn’t planned it right. And there was no point in adding salt. The noodles alone contributed 58 per cent of the daily recommended sodium intake …

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Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Douglas Williams is hosting a dialogue with five Hindu swamis (ascetics) in Bangalore (India) on October 20. The aim is to “to engage in discussions for mutual understanding.”

The event is to be held at Whitefield Ecumenical Centre. The five Swamis are Tridandi Srimannarayana Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar (Hyderabad), Sugunendra Theertha (Udupi), Harshanand (Bangalore), Shivamurthy Shivachary, Paramananda Bharati (Sringeri Math), Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (United Kingdom).

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