….Christianity appears to be a spent force in Europe, with the exceptions of Poland and Ireland. But for Christians in Asia, Africa, Arabia and beyond, it is not the anemic religion that it has become here. These Third World Christians rightly feel deserted.

If they have any doubt about the importance of Christianity in contemporary Western life, these non-European Christians need only look to locales such as England’s Oxford. There, in a land with an established Christian church, the municipality has decided to replace Christmas with a “Winter Light Festival.” According to a spokesman, this ensures that equal attention is paid to all religions.

Europeans weren’t always so self-hating….

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Scot McKnight, blogger and professor of New Testament at North Park University in Chicago, isn’t surprised that the issue of failure has struck a nerve with ministers. He said that ministry can be especially difficult for pastors of nondenominational churches who don’t have the support structure or a network of peers that a denomination can provide.

He sees signs for hope, though. McKnight said that older church members expected their pastors to be perfect. That’s not always the case with younger church-goers.

“In the previous generation, there was a lot of emphasis that the pastor had to be distant, apart from the congregation, and holy,” he said. “Failure was seen as a sign of betrayal. For this generation, admitting failure is part of the pastoral task.”

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Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Basil of Caesarea, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

O God, who according to thy promise hast given thy Holy Spirit to us thy people, that we might know the freedom of thy children and taste on earth our heavenly inheritance: Grant that we may ever hold fast the unity which he gives, and, living in his power, may be thy witnesses to all men; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Church of South India

[Jesus]… said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him by what he said; but marveling at his answer they were silent.

–Luke 20:25-26

The real story is Dallas and its two veteran stars, Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki. Nowitzki and Kidd can finally exhale and remove their names from a list of infamy: longtime N.B.A. vets who never won a championship.

In Kidd’s 17th season and Nowitzki’s 13th, they are finally part of the championship club.

“If I would have won one early in my career, maybe I would have never put all the work and the time in that I have over the last 13 years,” Nowitzki said. “So this feels amazing.”

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Should the Marriage Act allow two people of the same sex to be married?

Over the years, I’ve said little about same-sex relationships. My opposition is known but I hope I put my views with respect. I have supported legislation to register relationships and to extend economic rights. I condemn violence against homosexual people. Like most Australians, I prefer to live and let live. Furthermore, I am all too aware how close to home this is for a number of us, either personally or through family members and I appreciate that this discussion can be painful. Nonetheless, since change is being actively advocated we need to be clear that what is at stake is not simply an extension of marriage ”˜rights’ but a change to the definition of marriage itself.

Think what marriage is. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, from different families, publicly joined through an exchange of promises committing them to life-long exclusive fidelity. That marriage involves a man and woman is by design.

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McGee grew up in Denton, and his father was a Methodist minister in the city. When his daughter enrolled at UNT, Denton felt like a much bigger place than it used to ”” like a small town with a growing metropolitan feel.

“Looking at Denton, going from 45,000 to over 100,000 in population, it seemed like it was time to consider doing something here,” McGee said.

That something became Holy Trinity Anglican Church, a local congregation that is organizing for a Sept. 11 launch.

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Much of the public focus is on the nation’s public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn’t include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes to close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.

The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.

Taken together, Gross puts the total at “nearly $100 trillion,” that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won’t find a solution overnight.

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Read it all and see what you think.

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The National Association of Evangelicals is siding with Jews and Muslims in opposition of a proposed ban on infant male circumcision in San Francisco.

“Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham,” NAE President Leith Anderson said in a statement. “No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake.”

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People tend describe themselves as either pro-life or pro-choice. But a new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows that the average American still holds conflicting views on abortion nearly 40 years after Roe v. Wade. Evangelicals remain much more opposed to abortion than other Americans, but they, too, often do not fit neatly into pro-life or pro-choice camps.

PRRI Research Director Daniel Cox said, “For some time now, Americans have held a stable tension between two views: majorities both say that abortion is morally wrong and say that it should be legal in all or most cases. The binary ”˜pro-life’ and ”˜pro-choice’ labels don’t reflect this complexity.”

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Read it all carefully.

Go here and his thoughts begin just past 1 hour and 45 minutes in and last a few minutes.

Please note that Dr. Wilkinson is particluarly well suited to speak to such a topic, since, as he says of himself:

Before working in Durham as a theologian, I was a scientist and then a Methodist minister in inner city Liverpool. My background is research in theoretical astrophysics, where my PhD was in the study of star formation, the chemical evolution of galaxies and terrestrial mass extinctions such as the event which wiped out the dinosaurs. I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and have published a wide range of papers on these subjects.

Jesus is not departing “up to” some higher but other floor in the universe, but to his God and Father upon whom the very existence of the universe depends, and in whom we all “live and move and have our being.” The Ascension is not an abandonment but the beginning of a new and more intimate nearness ”“ his continuing, ubiquitous, always-available presence with us and for us, not to a different and distant point within the universe, but transcending and filling all things. He is Ascended from one particular place to the heavenly, the divine places, far above all rule and dominion and power, as St. Paul says in our epistle, so that he now fills all in all ”“ not an abandonment, but a new and available nearness.

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A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of hosting here at St. Michael’s two very hungry men for God: Onesphore Manirakiza and the Rev. Richard Jones. Onesphore, a native of Burundi, Africa, trained as a lawyer before laying it all down in pursuit of his dream to be part of the transformation of Burundi. He is one of the brightest and most influential leaders there, having founded Harvest for Christ ministries. He is fearless, bold, anointed and fruitful. In addition to pioneering evangelism, he is reaching out to the poorest of the poor, the pygmy Batwa, and seeing phenomenal results. Onesphore was here for a conference and much needed rest.

The Rev. Richard Jones was here earlier this month for some rest from his role as Rector of St. John’s Anglican Church near Liverpool, England. Richard is doing some amazing beyond the box ministry in Liverpool and I am convinced we will be reading some of his future works at a later date!

Having spent a good amount of time with both of them while they were here. I was completely inspired to see such hungry entrepreneurs for the Gospel!…

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Parishioners from local churches set out Sunday for a mission trip to Alabama.

Four of the eight churches in the Piedmont Convocation of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina were represented by 26 people. They will help assist areas ravaged by tornadoes that claimed lives and destroyed structures in April.

Parishioners will clear debris and do construction work during the week-long mission trip, said the Rev. Fergie Horvath. She coordinates outreach in the Convocation and is a deacon at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church.

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…the comparisons between Greece and Lehman grew more frequent last week as global markets reeled, spurred in part by the view that Germany’s insistence that private investors participate in a second rescue package for Athens would overcome the objections of the European Central Bank.

“It is a valid concern,” said David Riley, head of sovereign ratings at Fitch. “The Rubicon would be crossed ”” we would have a sovereign default event and that can be quite a shock, not just for the peripheral countries but for Spain and beyond.”

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It was last Saturday, and we were sitting with about 300 other Mormons, including dozens of children, at the annual picnic of the Genesis Group, a social organization for black Mormons and their friends. Some were Latino or American Indian, and nearly half were white, the parents and siblings of adopted black children. It was the most racially integrated church event I had ever attended.

Having been introduced to Mormonism by kindly white neighbors in his hometown of Colorado Springs, the teenage Darius [Gray] read his way through much of the scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He had no idea about the racist church policy. His newfound faith was badly shaken.

“I went home and prayed,” Mr. Gray said. “And I received a personal revelation, an inspiration from God: ”˜This is the restored Gospel, and you are to join.’ So the next day, I entered into the waters of baptism. Then the next day I went to church as a member for the first time.” And a little girl addressed him using a certain racial epithet. That was a first, too.

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A coalition of faith-based social justice advocates representing more than 1 million Ontarians wants to make poverty a key issue in next fall’s provincial election.

“In previous elections we have waited in vain for the public debate around poverty and social policy issues,” said United Church Minister Susan Eagle, chair of the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition.

“This time we decided to hold our own all-candidates’ debate for the parties to come forward and give us some information on where they stand on these issues,” she said.

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Yet Dante was the greatest poet of the Middle Ages. It could be argued that he was the greatest of all European poets, of any time or place. But while most non-Italian readers are prepared to take this on trust, they sidestep his work, making him one of the great unreads. In so doing, they leave unsavoured one of the greatest aesthetic, imaginative, emotional and intellectual experiences on offer.

They are like those who have never attended a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or of Shakespeare’s Lear; who have never heard a symphony by Beethoven or visited Paris. Quite simply, they are missing out.

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O God of earth and altar, who didst give G. K. Chesterton a ready tongue and pen, and inspired him to use them in thy service: Mercifully grant that we may be inspired to witness cheerfully to the hope that is in us; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty God, who fillest all things with thy boundless presence, yet makest thy chosen dwelling-place in the soul of man: Come thou, a gracious and willing Guest, and take thine abode in our hearts; that all unholy thoughts and desires within us be cast out, and thy holy presence be to us comfort, light and love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–James Ferguson

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama’ria and to the end of the earth.”

Acts 1:7-8

We do not renounce things, then, except for love”¦ Joy is an expression of love. One who loves nothing and nobody cannot possibly rejoice, no matter how desperately he craves joy. Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves”¦

The inner structure of real festivity has been stated in the clearest and tersest possible fashion by Chrysostom; ubi caritas gaudet, ibi est festivitas, “where love rejoices, there is festivity”….

Man cannot have the experience of receiving what is loved, unless the world and existence as a whole represent something good and therefore beloved to him….

–Josef Pieper (1904-1997) as found in Josef Pieper: An Anthology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989; E.T. of the German original), pp. 153, 155

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer
forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with
the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim””the rocks””the motion of the waves””
the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

–Walt Whitman (1819-1892)