When a community needs to rebuild crumbling roads, should houses of worship pay fees for the number of times their congregants drive on them?
That’s the question behind a recent suit filed by churches in the small city of Mission, Kan., who argue the city’s new “transportation utility fee” is a tax they should not have to pay.
With cash-strapped states and cities facing a slew of tough choices, there’s a growing debate nationwide about whether religious congregations should help foot the bill.
Even before Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Chua’s proudly politically incorrect account of raising her children “the Chinese way,” arrived in bookstores Jan. 11, her parenting methods were the incredulous, indignant talk of every playground, supermarket and coffee shop. A prepublication excerpt in the Wall Street Journal (titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”) started the ferocious buzz; the online version has been read more than 1 million times and attracted more than 7,000 comments so far. When Chua appeared Jan. 11 on the Today show, the usually sunny host Meredith Vieira could hardly contain her contempt as she read aloud a sample of viewer comments: “She’s a monster”; “The way she raised her kids is outrageous”; “Where is the love, the acceptance?”
Chua, a petite 48-year-old who carries off a short-skirted wardrobe that could easily be worn by her daughters (now 15 and 18), gave as good as she got. “To be perfectly honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting,” including “how much time Westerners allow their kids to waste ”” hours on Facebook and computer games ”” and in some ways, how poorly they prepare them for the future,” she told Vieira with a toss of her long hair. “It’s a tough world out there.”
Despite a shaky economy and the specter of higher gas prices, tourism is expected to continue its solid improvement this year in the Carolinas, where it means almost $39 billion to the two states’ economies.
“We’re in the midst of a slow-motion recovery, but tourism remains a bright spot,” said Brad Dean, president and CEO of the chamber of commerce in Myrtle Beach, the oceanfront town that attracts about 14 million visitors a year.
South Carolina’s former parks and tourism director agreed.
Even now, the portable rental marquee sign sitting in the snow outside the Christ Church Parish House reads, in part, “Christmas joy continues.”
“We haven’t been able to change it because of the weather, the way it’s been,” chuckled Rev. Scott Gunn, the Episcopal church’s rector for over three years now.
Fact is, neither Gunn nor his parishioners have had much to celebrate lately. Due to serious financial hardships, he has asked his congregation to vote on Jan 30 to accept a merger with Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland Hill.
That faith heritage is one reason why [Stephen] Charleston has returned to his Oklahoma roots as the interim dean of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, 127 NW 7.
“Religion hooked me early,” Charleston said recently.
“My grandfather and great-grandfather were both ordained Presbyterian ministers. They founded churches in the Choctaw Nation. My grandfather baptized people in the lakes of southeast Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl.”
Bishop Jack Iker said he and other area Episcopalians who left the national church will appeal a judge’s decision ordering his group to give up all property of the 24-county Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
Q: You’re here, in part, to bless a home in Galveston that the church helped to repair after Hurricane Ike. What role does social outreach and activism play in the Episcopal Church?
A: We understand caring for our neighbor to be fundamentally who we are as Christians. Loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. Taking care of people in distress is a significant part of that.
Q: You were an oceanographer before becoming an Episcopal priest. Does your background as a scientist influence how you approach your role as bishop?
A: I think I’m trained and formed in such a way that I look at the world carefully. I come with a hypothesis, but I’m certainly willing to change it. I just came back from visiting the church in Mexico. I go to something like that ready to learn, to see what they’re doing, what the challenges are, and then to ask, where’s the intersection with our context, not just in the United States, but in the 15 countries we are in? How does this connect with the experience of Latino Christians here in the United States, which is a growing part of our context.
[In 1982]… Baker Book House reissued a 1969 book of daily Scripture readings in Hebrew and Greek called Light on the Path. The readings are quite short, and vocabulary helps are given with the Hebrew verses. The aim of the editor, who died in 1980, was to help pastors preserve and improve their ability to interpret the Bible from the original languages.
His name was Heinrich Bitzer, and he was a banker.
A banker! Brothers, must we be admonished by the sheep what our responsibility is as shepherds? Evidently so. For we are surely not admonishing and encouraging each other to press on in Greek and Hebrew. And most seminaries–evangelical as well as liberal–have communicated by their curriculum emphases that learning Greek and Hebrew well is merely optional for the pastoral ministry….
Lord Jesus, who in thy tender love didst stretch forth thy hand and touch the leper who came to thee for cleansing: Grant us a like compassion for all who claim our help, and a willingness to identify ourselves with them in their need; for thy sake who wast made sin for us, and who art our righteousness and our salvation, now and for ever.
–Frank Colquhoun
….the bridegroom rejoices to revisit the heart’s chamber when He finds it adorned with fruits and decked with flowers””that is, meditating on the mystery of His Passion or on the glory of His Resurrection.
The tokens of the Passion we recognize as the fruitage of the ages of the past, appearing in the fullness of time during the reign of sin and death (Gal. 4.4). But it is the glory of the Resurrection, in the new springtime of regenerating grace, that the fresh flowers of the later age come forth, whose fruit shall be given without measure at the general resurrection, when time shall be no more. And so it is written, ”˜The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth’ (Cant. 2.11 f); signifying that summer has come back with Him who dissolves icy death into the spring of a new life and says, ”˜Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev. 21.5). His Body sown in the grave has blossomed in the Resurrection (I Cor. 15.42); and in like manner our valleys and fields which were barren or frozen, as if dead, glow with reviving life and warmth.
The Father of Christ who makes all things new, is well pleased with the freshness of those flowers and fruits, and the beauty of the field which breathes forth such heavenly fragrance; and He says in benediction, ”˜See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed’ (Gen. 27.27). Blessed to overflowing, indeed, since of His fullness have all we received (John 1.16). But the Bride may come when she pleases and gather flowers and fruits therewith to adorn the inmost recesses of her conscience; that the Bridegroom when He cometh may find the chamber of her heart redolent with perfume.
So it behoves us, if we would have Christ for a frequent guest, to fill our hearts with faithful meditations on the mercy He showed in dying for us, and on His mighty power in rising again from the dead. To this David testified when he sang, ”˜God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same; that power belongeth unto God; and that Thou, Lord, art merciful (Ps. 62.11f). And surely there is proof enough and to spare in that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, and ascended into heaven that He might protect us from on high, and sent the Holy Spirit for our comfort. Hereafter He will come again for the consummation of our bliss. In His Death He displayed His mercy, in His Resurrection His power; both combine to manifest His glory.
–Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), On Loving God, Chapter III
The judge did not issue a decision of his own, but simply signed the pro forma orders submitted by ECUSA and the local Gulick parties. He made a few deletions in the former, to make it clear that he was deciding the case by deference to the “hierarchy” of the Episcopal Church (USA), and not on neutral principles of law. Indeed, he staked his all on a bet that the Texas higher courts would not follow the latter approach, since he struck out the proposed paragraph that would have said he would reach the same result under “neutral principles” analysis. Thus if the Court of Appeal rules that he should have applied neutral principles, he will have to start all over again.
On Friday afternoon, Jan. 21, attorneys for the Diocese and Corporation received two orders from the Hon. John Chupp in the matter of the main suit against us, in which a minority of former members has been joined by The Episcopal Church in an effort to claim diocesan property. Judge Chupp signed an order drafted by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, from which he struck several points with which he did not apparently agree. The order does find that TEC is a hierarchical church, and on that basis the judge has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The judge’s order can be read here.
Friday’s ruling from the trial court is a disappointment but not a disaster. The plaintiffs have offered no evidence, either in the courtroom or in their voluminous filings, supporting their claim that the Diocese was not entitled to withdraw from The Episcopal Church, as it did in November 2008. Nor have they demonstrated a legal right to our property, which is protected by Texas statutes regulating trusts and non-profit corporations.
[Katharine] Jefferts Schori, president bishop of the Episcopal Church, preached to a packed house of clergy and lay delegates of the 168th annual convention of the Jacksonville-based Episcopal Diocese of Florida. The convention began with the 4 p.m. Eucharist service and continues today at the cathedral and at the Marriott Hotel.
The homily compared the diocese, the denomination, the nation, the world, other cultures and religions to the human body. The body is healthy when its different parts work in harmony, but breaks down when they don’t, Jefferts Schori said.
The miracle of the human body is that its different limbs and organs, together with digestive bacteria and other micro-organisms can work together to create a healthy life. But sometimes the body turns on itself, creating anti-bodies against needed organisms it perceives as outsiders and threats.
It can be a challenge for a person to uproot their entire family and move to a new country and culture, but for Anthony Pettit and his family, the newest vicar at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, the move has proved to be a blessing.
Dressed in a typical clerical collar, but with the addition of a cross earring, Rev Pettit, along with wife Ruth, and sons, Ben, 9, and Sam, 7, arrived in Bermuda in the early autumn of last year, and have settled in well within the church and the community.
“The warmth of their welcome they’re lovely people,” Mrs Pettit shared of their new church family at St. Paul’s.
“They are such faithful people,” Mr Pettit added.
When I knelt before Bishop Porteus, I doubt that anyone in that congregation, myself included, could have imagined that:
1. There would be a woman Presiding Bishop (who will be in here Feb. 4-6, by the way),
2. There would be gay and lesbian bishops,
3. Any Episcopalian would ever dream of defecting to an African Anglican Church,
4. There would be such a movement as the “Emergent” Church,
“Some manner must be found for Anglicans to confess the faith together.”
–Bishop Michale Nazir-Ali, speaking at Mere Anglicanism a moment ago
A BBC Today audio report on this is described as follows:
A Church of England bishop has called on Anglican clergy to take the Church’s message to young people by trying to address the fundamental questions of life and death. Dr Graham Kings, the Bishop of Sherborne, in Dorset, says a lack of religious knowledge is one of the causes of religious doubt. Robert Pigott reports.
Listen to it all (about 3 1/2 minutes).
You may also find much more about this ministry here.
Unless and until there is unequivocal commitment to honour the agreed basis of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 and implement the decisions of previous Primates’ Meetings (2005, 2007, 2009) expressed in the respective Communiqués, especially that of Dar es Salem 2007, it will only lead to further erosion of the credibility of the Primates’ Meeting and accentuate our failure to honour the work already done by them.
What is most disturbing and difficult is that given the intractable miry situation the Communion is already in and being further driven into, there was hardly any timely and intentional prior consultation and collegial engagement of all concerned (or at least as many as reasonably possible) in preparing for the Meeting to ensure certain degree of significant and principally legitimate outcome to hold and move the Communion together. In light of the critical importance of the Meeting, the preparations are gravely inadequate. As it stands, the Meeting is almost pre-determined to end up as just another gathering that again cannot bring about effective ecclesial actions, despite the precious time, energy and monetary resources that Primates and Provinces have invested in attending the Meeting. This, most Provinces could scarcely afford. With the disappointingly lack of serious transparent planning and leadership beforehand to prepare the Primates for a genuine meeting of minds and hearts to face the very real and obvious issues before us, it will be strenuous to expect any significant, meaningful, credible and constructive outcome of the Dublin Meeting.
(By Cheri Wetzel).
The main day of presentations has concluded. This afternoon, we heard a brilliant piece by the Rev. Dr. Ashley Null on Recent findings in Cranmer Research. For the first time ever, the development of the Doctrine of Anglicanism made sense to me, from the early days of the beginning of the Church, through Cranmer’s time as Archbishop of Canterbury. The early Church Fathers, the writing, analysis and evaluation of competing texts in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, plus the Reformation writers, especially Luther, became a completed picture ”“ no longer a jig saw puzzle with lots of missing pieces. Rationale for Cranmer’s development of the Book of Common Prayer I and II finally make sense. Because major portions of this paper will be published this calendar year, this commentary ends here. Dr. Null has promised that when the publishing cycle is complete, we will do an in-depth interview. Trust me, it will be worth the wait for this excellent material.
This lecture was followed by the Rev. Dr. Steven Paulson, escapee from the frozen tundra of central Minnesota. His topic was “Preaching the Gospel of Grace.” A clerical member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Dr. Paulson spoke with clarity about the difference between the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of the Sadducees, both of which are warned against in Paul’s letters. “Cheap Grace” and the problems between works and grace that have inhabited the Church since the early days, received great discussion. How do you actually preach the Gospels when these differences in understanding still exist? Get to the core. Who is the person of the Christ? What was he sent to us to accomplish? How did he do that? Is this healing balm still vital and active and functioning today? Yes. Preach it!
(By Cheri Wetzel).
This year the bomb happened in the New Year’s Eve service 2011, as they were coming out of the church this bombing took place. It shook the nation, as well as the moderate Muslims as well. We are not used to this. We are a peaceful nation and this happening is upsetting many Christians. Something good may come out of this. Many moderate Muslims condemned this and speak of the right of the Christians to be there and worship. I want you to pray that the Church will continue to speak in love. The Church in Egypt was founded on the blood of the martyrs. Pray for us. We are not afraid and are ready to die for the sake of Jesus Christ in Egypt.
I want to talk to you about the Word of God for the Anglican Communion. There are four areas:
1) the importance of the Word of God as we see it in the Bible
2) The importance of the Word of God as affirmed by the early Anglican reformers, the Thirty Nine articles and Lambeth Resolutions
3) Where we have fallen
4) How we recover the importance of the Word of God for our Anglican Communion today.
(By Cheri Wetzel).
The Rev. Jeffrey Miller of St. Helena’s, Beaufort South Carolina delivered the homily. Here are my notes from this homily, which was excellent.
Tertullian, a Roman theologian, said, “We are but of yesterday, yet we have felled every spot you occupied. We have left nothing to you but empty broken tokens of your gods.”In the short span of 200 years, a formerly persecuted sect filled the whole earth and even invaded Caesar’s palace.
How? Edward Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that Christians felt it was the sacred duty of each person to share their faith. Why is Christianity struggling and shrinking across the West and Islam growing? Because you and I have failed. We have become convinced that it is impolite, impolitic and rude to discuss in public our faith. We believe that our faith is a private matter and is best kept to the self. This is decidedly not how the disciples or the early Church felt.
Remember that first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem? Jesus was walking down the street and the people were ripping palm branches off the trees and shouting. It was pandemonium. The disciples ran to Jesus and begged him to make the people stop. He replied, “If they are silent, even the rocks will cry out.”
His last words to his disciples before his ascension into heaven were, “Go ye into all the world and make disciples”¦”
So let me ask you. Is it impolite, impolitic and rude to warn someone about a speed truck that is heading their way? Is it impolite, impolitic and rude to tell someone about a cure for cancer?
In fact, this story [raises questions about]…the oft-heard assertion that bishops are bound by… [Presiding Bishop Jefferts] Schori, Mr. Beers, 815 and “fiduciary duty” to eschew any negotiated settlements. As you will see,…[Presiding Bishop Jefferts] Schori and Mr. Beers were fully informed along the way as this negotiation proceeded.
Is this a precedent for negotiated settlements and a forbearance of arms? Is it an isolated case, or does it herald a new day? Raymond Dague himself draws the best conclusion:
“[This case] goes to prove that when the parties both desire to find an amicable way to sell a formerly Episcopal Church to an Anglican Church which has disaffiliated from TEC, that a way can be found. There is no legal bar to such a sale, nor is such a sale, even at a fraction of the assessed value of the property, in violation of the fiduciary duty of the diocese or TEC. Where there is the will to be gracious and settle without lawsuits, there is a way that it can be done, because it was done here. Perhaps the Helmetta experience might be repeated. It need not be an isolated incident if both parties in other cases have the good will to try it.”
Read it all and make sure to take the time to read the whole Raymond Dague memorandum also.
Once considered a standard religious rite, the practice of christening a child has steadily declined over the past 50 years to make way for naming ceremonies.But in the past two years there has been a resurgence in the number of babies being baptised.
St John’s Anglican Church at Cooks Hill, Newcastle’s oldest church building, reported a record two years of baptisms.
Last year the church had 86 baptisms, three more than in 2009. They were the best figures recorded by the church since the 1950s.
Could the yuan become a rival? China’s economy will probably surpass America’s in outright size within 20 years. It is already a bigger exporter. It is prodding firms to settle trade and even acquire foreign companies in its own currency. That is adding to a pool of “redbacks” outside its borders. These offshore yuan are, in turn, being tapped by borrowers, issuing “dim sum” bonds in Hong Kong.
But as the dollar’s history shows, economic clout is not enough without financial sophistication (see article). If foreigners are to store their wealth in yuan, they will need financial instruments that are safe, stable and easily sold. Dim sum makes for a tasty appetiser. But the main feast of China’s financial assets is onshore and off-limits, thanks to its strict capital controls. The government remains deeply reluctant to let foreigners hold, buy and sell these assets, except under tight limits. Indeed, it is barely ready to give its own people financial freedom: interest on bank deposits is capped; shares are largely owned by state entities; and bonds are chiefly held by the banks””which are, in turn, mostly owned by the state.
I’ve often wondered what happened to the high-profile 1990s church-led protest against expanded gambling in B.C. and the rest of Canada. It turns out some religious leaders,including Vancouver-area Anglican Bishop Michael Ingham, have joined with academics and others over the past several years to fight the fight, raising issues about problem gamblers. But with litte effect in B.C.
I received this letter today from one of those who has been pressing the B.C. Liberal government to address the issue of compulsive gamblers, who experts believe make up about six per cent of those using government-sponsored casinos….
Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst say to thine apostles, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another: Heal our divisions, and make us one in thee; that men may know us for thy true disciples, and through us may put their trust in thee; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may praise thee and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to thee for ever.
–Psalm 30:11-12
Once dismissed as mere hallucinations, NDE [near-death experiences]s are being taken more seriously than in the past. Studies published in The Lancet, a respected British medical journal, and the Journal of the American Medical Association have reframed NDEs as phenomena worthy of scientific research.
Last year, three medical doctors published books on new NDE research, including what it suggests about consciousness beyond the brain and even the possibility of afterlife.
Several mainstream films, including Clint Eastwood’s recent Hereafter, toyed with the possibility of an afterlife, and as NDEs garner increased attention, more people with NDEs are opening up and shedding light what happens as earthly life slips away.