Goshen College will no longer play The Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events, school leaders announced, reversing last year’s decision to allow the use of the national anthem for the first time in the Mennonite college’s history.
Some Mennonites had criticized the anthem’s lyrics as glorifying war and offensive to the school’s pacifist traditions. Goshen’s Board of Directors said many felt the school’s “allegiance should be to Christ rather than to country.”
“I pray that in time these sad divisions may be healed,” the Anglican Bishop of New Westminster, Rev. Michael Ingham, said in a statement released… [this week]….
“Obviously, this decision is extremely disappointing and should be of great concern to all Christian denominations,” she said. “While these congregations have remained steadfast in their faith, and have not changed the traditional teaching of the Christian church, they have now been called to sacrifice all their assets, including their church properties, for the sake of their faith.”
[Special counsel to the ANiC Cheryl] Chang added: “We always said that given a choice, we would choose our faith over our properties, and we have been willing to make that sacrifice if called upon by the courts to do so.”
There might be a new argument to try when convincing your teen to wait to have sex. According to the a study conducted by the University of Iowa, women who lost their virginity in their young teens are more likely to divorce.
The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, surveyed the responses of 3,793 women and found that 31 percent who lost their virginity as teens divorced within five years, and 47 percent divorced within 10 years. On the flip side, the divorce rate for women who had waited to have sex was only 15 percent at the five year mark, and 27 percent by the time 10 years rolled around.
But the study also found that a first sexual experience before the age of 16 — wanted or not — was still strongly associated with divorce.
No doubt about it, a growing number of modern Americans are convinced that it’s time for government officials to do some cutting and snipping in the pages of the holy books that define some of the world’s major religions.
“What you have here is an assault, by a popular referendum, on a central ritual in a recognized ancient religion,” said Marc Stern, associate general counsel for legal advocacy at the American Jewish Committee. While the current initiative may seem brazen, “it’s really nothing new. It’s easy for historians to find sources showing how the Greeks and Romans mocked the Jews for practicing circumcision.”
Baptisms fell to their lowest number in 60 years among Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
The new numbers are a sign that the denomination is in trouble, Baptist leaders say.
“This is not a blip,” said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research. “This is a trend. And, the trend is one of decline.”
More than $470 million in new money poured into major-college athletics programs last year, boosting spending on sports even as many of the parent universities struggled with budget reductions during tough economic times, a USA TODAY analysis has found.
Much of the rise in athletics revenue came from an escalation in money generated through multimedia rights deals, donations and ticket receipts, but schools also continued increasing their subsidies from student fees and institutional funds.
Altogether in 2010, about $2 billion in subsidies went to athletics at the 218 public schools that have been in the NCAA’s Division I over the past five years. Those subsidies grew by an inflation-adjusted 3% in 2010. They have grown by 28% since 2006 and account for $1 of every $3 spent on athletics.
O Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost didst send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to abide in thy Church unto the end: Bestow upon us, and upon all thy faithful people, his manifold gifts of grace; that with minds enlightened by his truth and hearts purified by his presence, we may day by day be strengthened with power in the inward man; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with thee and the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth one God world without end.
–Scottish Prayer Book
The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family–from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.
–1 Samuel 3:8-13
In the Anglican tradition, the Holy Bible is revered as central to God’s self-revelation to the world. It is the divinely inspired, revealed Word of God, unchanged from the time of the first Apostles. It expresses the unchanging Gospel of the Lord Jesus for ever-changing times ”“ for, though times may change, the Truth does not. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings.” (Hebrews 13:8) Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”(John 14:6) When certain bishops deny these words, they are no longer true guardians and defenders of the faith, unity and discipline of the Church, as held by Anglicans around the world. Those who abandon the teachings of the Bible also abandon the Anglican way. Such innovators are free to start a new church, but do not call it Anglican if it does not abide by the clear standards and teachings revealed in Holy Writ.
While being clear that the Bible is basic and fundamental to all that Forward in Faith stands for, that it is the foundation upon which everything stands, we must hasten to add that our faith is not in the Bible, but in Jesus Christ. We believe the Bible, because it is the Written Word that bears witness to the Incarnate Word. We are saved by our faith in Jesus, not the Scriptures. So while we affirm that Anglicanism rests on a firm Biblical foundation, we confess that Jesus Christ Himself is that one foundation upon which the Church of God is built. As St. Paul reminded the Church in Corinth, “No other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (I Cor. 3:11) Historic, orthodox Anglicanism is built upon nothing less than the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, and everything else rests upon Him. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul states it in a slightly different way: “You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:20)
All Anglican and Episcopal priests who apply for Catholic ordination must undergo the same criminal background checks and psychological evaluations required of all other candidates for Catholic priesthood, Cardinal Wuerl said. He asked the bishops of dioceses where these priests are located to supply those checks and tests as they do for their own seminarians.
Ultimately the inquirers will be sorted into three categories: Those who can he ordained as Catholic priests after a specially-developed nine-month intensive seminary course; those who require more intensive seminary education and “those whose formation histories would not recommend them for either of these options.”
Among those who will not be accepted as Catholic priests are those who were originally Catholic priests and left the Catholic priesthood for the Episcopal or Anglican churches, Cardinal Wuerl said.
St. Luke’s Church will make a pilgrimage from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism without leaving its historic location at 53rd Street and Annapolis Road in Bladensburg, Md.
The Rev. Mark Lewis, rector of St. Luke’s since 2006, praises the Rt. Rev. John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington, for the arrangement, in which St. Luke’s will lease the facilities from the Diocese of Washington and has an option to buy the property.
“We have a relationship that is mutually respectful,” Lewis said in an interview with The Living Church. He appreciates where I am theologically, and I know he appreciates the parish.”
Read it all.”>Read it all.
A Tanzanian court has issued an arrest warrant for Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT).
On June 13 the High Court in Arusha issued a bench warrant for Dr. Mokiwa for contempt of court, after prosecutors claimed the archbishop ignored a court order blocking the consecration of the Bishop of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Sources in Tanzania report that as of June 14 the archbishop had not yet been served by police with the warrant.
Concern is growing for prominent moderate Muslims in Russia’s Dagestan region after an imam was shot dead days after the killing of an academic.
Unidentified gunmen shot Ashurlav Kurbanov near his mosque in the northern village of Mikheyevka, investigators said.
Maksud Sadikov, rector of an Islamic college in the regional capital Makhachkala, was killed last week.
Bishop of Christchurch Victoria Matthews says Christchurch Cathedral has sustained significant new damage, with the famous rose window and most of the western wall lost.
She says it is now more likely that the cathedral won’t be restored to its original state, but built in a new modern form. However she says the cathedral will be at the heart of the city, wherever that is.
Read it all and I also recommend the accompanying audio link.
An unexpectedly huge $3 million budget shortfall for the Columbia area’s bus system is likely to cut the number of routes in half and cost as many as 40 jobs in the company that operates the buses, transit officials disclosed Wednesday.
The figures were released at a specially called meeting of the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority board attended by fewer than the required seven-member quorum. The board took no action but asked chairwoman Joyce Dickerson to make an appeal to Columbia City Council to offset $618,000 of the red ink.
That still would leave a $2.5 million shortage for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
…the contagion into core banks may be being underestimated by investors. Moody’s on Tuesday said it could downgrade France’s BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole due to their holdings of Greek debt, and the ratings firm is looking at whether other banks could face similar risks.
Disturbingly, the worries have now reached non-financial companies, which have been virtually bulletproof this year. Investment-grade bond issuance has come to a near-standstill. The yield premium on Portugal Telecom’s February 2016 euro bond over German Bunds has widened a stunning 2.3 percentage points in the last two weeks, data from Société Générale show. Italian and Spanish credits are under pressure too. The credit market now starts by pricing government risk and then works back to price debt from financials and companies, one investor says: Greece is a destabilizing influence at the center of the market’s deliberations.
(ENS) During their opening remarks, both Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson spoke about the calls for changes in the structure and governance of the church.
Jefferts Schori said she encounters many people who are “eager or at least willing to entertain those conversations.”
She said she sees “a really significant rise in readiness for mission and connections to the need and concerns of people beyond our immediate congregations,” adding that she sees that readiness “as a sign of enormous health ”¦ [and] renewed investment in the core work of the church.”
“People are not focused inward by large; they are focused outward which is where the church is supposed to be,” she said.
Anderson suggested that the church will not “find our way forward by debating questions whose answers are important primarily to people who live and breathe church governance — as lovely as we all are!” Instead, she said, “we need to devote our energy to enabling the church to realize the possibility of real change — courageous, life-giving and life-altering change — for Episcopalians, for seekers, and for the lost and hurting and hungry in our midst.”
Despite all the recent news about possible cancer risks from cellphones, coffee, styrene and formaldehyde in building materials, most of us probably face little if any danger from these things with ordinary use, health experts say. Inactivity and obesity may pose a greater cancer risk than chemicals for some people.
“We are being bombarded” with messages about the dangers posed by common things in our lives, yet most exposures “are not at a level that are going to cause cancer,” said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society’s deputy chief medical officer.
When it comes to health care, Pittsburghers take it for granted that they will have access to the hospitals of their choice.
But in the battle between the region’s largest insurer, Highmark, and its largest health care provider, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, it appears that access could come at a price.
UPMC said Highmark members will have to pay out-of-network provider rates to most UPMC physicians when the insurer’s contract with UPMC expires June 30, 2012.
When Kasey Sands and her family returned home last month a few days after a tornado flattened much of Joplin, Mo., a dozen strangers were removing trees toppled in their yard.
“I asked them who they were, and they said they were veterans,” says Sands, 27. “They said they like to help with peace and not just with war.”
They were Team Rubicon, a non-profit group of veterans formed after the 2010 Haiti earthquake to help in the immediate aftermaths of disasters. They also raced in after tornadoes struck Alabama in April and following earlier crises in Chile, Burma, Pakistan and Sudan. More than 500 people have volunteered; 25 were in Joplin for a week.
For a guy who is only 35 and lives in a walk-up apartment, Eboo Patel has already racked up some impressive accomplishments.
A Rhodes scholar with a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, he has four honorary degrees. His autobiography is required freshman reading on 11 college campuses. He runs a nonprofit organization ”” the Interfaith Youth Core ”” with 31 employees and a budget of $4 million. And he was tapped by the White House as a key architect of an initiative announced in April by President Obama.
Mr. Patel got there by identifying a sticky problem in American civic life and proposing a concrete solution. The problem? Increased religious diversity is causing increasing religious conflict. And too often, religious extremists are driving events
….when a U.N. political declaration on AIDS/HIV was accepted unanimously Friday, the Vatican delegation had points of contention.
To fight this infection — 30 years after it first appeared and 30 million deaths later — Jane Adolphe, associate professor of law at Ave Maria School of Law, spoke on behalf of Archbishop Francis Chullikatt and proposed a starting point: “the recognition that the human person can and should change irresponsible and dangerous behavior, rather than simply accept such behavior as if it were inevitable and unchangeable.”
The Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations was a voice that reminded that AIDS is about more than statistics, or ideologically tinged plans to fight it.
You probably missed the recent special issue of China Newsweek, so let me bring you up to date. Who do you think was on the cover ”” named the “most influential foreign figure” of the year in China? Barack Obama? No. Bill Gates? No. Warren Buffett? No. O.K., I’ll give you a hint: He’s a rock star in Asia, and people in China, Japan and South Korea scalp tickets to hear him. Give up?
It was Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard University political philosopher.
This news will not come as a surprise to Harvard students, some 15,000 of whom have taken Sandel’s legendary “Justice” class….
(It also will not come as a surprise to close readers of this blog, since we featured this amazing resource last September–KSH).
Ridgewood High School in New Jersey introduced a homework-free winter break in December. Schools in Tampa, Fla., and Bleckley County, Ga., have instituted “no homework nights” throughout the year. The two-year-old Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a program for gifted and talented elementary students, has made homework optional: it is neither graded nor counted toward progress reports.
“I think people confuse homework with rigor,” said Donna Taylor, the Brooklyn School’s principal, who views homework for children under 11 as primarily benefiting parents by helping them feel connected to the classroom.
The homework revolution has also spread north to Toronto, which in 2008 banned homework for kindergartners and for older children on school holidays, and to the Philippines, where the education department issued a memorandum in September calling on teachers to refrain from giving weekend assignments “for pupils to enjoy their childhood.”
While on his religious tour, Bishop [Michael] Kyomya recently called upon believers to support church leaders to live a better life. “It is so challenging that Anglican Church leaders have lived a miserable life and considered the poorest people who beg and move on foot throughout their lifetime,” he said at St James Church.
He said priests and religious leaders need to be empowered by Christians because they are messengers of God and giving them is worth giving to God. “For how long shall we be a laughing stock yet they give us blessings all the time?” the bishop said in a circular issued to all parishes.
Salvation: We can never make up for our sin by self-improvement or good works. To save us from our sinful nature, Christ suffered and died on the cross in our place. Only by trusting in Jesus Christ can anyone be saved from sin’s penalty. Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8,9; John 14:6, 1:12; Titus 3:5; Galatians 3:26; Romans 5:1
Eternity: People are immortal and will exist eternally either separated from God or with God through salvation. To be eternally in union with Him is eternal life. Heaven and Hell are real places of eternal existence. John 3:16; John 14:17; Romans 6:23; Romans 8:17-18;Revelation 20:15; 1 Cor. 2:7-9
O Holy Ghost, giver of light and life, impart to us thoughts higher than our own thoughts, and prayers better than our own prayers, and powers beyond our own powers, that we may spend and be spent in the ways of love and goodness, after the perfect image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know–this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it….”
–Acts 2:22-24
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, [where the Rev. Neil Struthers serves]… is 141 years old…[and] had been condemned after February’s quake;… it completely collapsed on Monday “with this tremendous noise”.
His vicarage next door will almost certainly have to be demolished because the land it is on has been left unstable by the most recent quakes.
Although he admits “I don’t know where we go from here,” Mr Struthers is confident the church will be rebuilt soon.